The Enigma machine was used by the Germans to encrypt low level secret communications, such as battlefield communications or communications to U-Boats. It was a mechanical device which operated on letters. An operator encrypted a message using a typewriter like interface and then the encoded message was sent using Morse Code.
The Lorenz machine was the machine used by the Germans for more strategic co
mmunication. It took as input a message encoded using what is called a Baudot code. Baudot code had been used for years for teleprinter communications, and is essentially a conversion of the message into binary (a "binary encoding"): 1s and 0s. The Lorenz cipher would then encrypt the message to produce another binary encoding of the message (but now a binary encoding of the encrypted message).
