| THE ENIGMA |
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In 1919, a commercial ciphering device was invented by a Dutchman, Hugo Koch. He envisaged only civilian application for his machine so that large companies could preserve their trade secrets in code. Seeing the commercial value of such a contraption, Dr. Arthur Scherbius, a Berlin engineer started a company to manufacture and sell this invention that he called the Enigma. By 1926, every German army division, ship, and submarine had an Enigma, and through the next twenty years it's design was improved many times, and made that much more complex. By the end of World War II, there was estimated to have been up to 120,000 Enigma machines in use by the German Wermacht. |
| In 1930, the German military introduced innovations to it's design - a commutator or plugboard "comprised of 26 connections and the addition of three spinning wheels. It gave the Enigma an enormous range of cipher combinations. The new total was a number expressed by 34 digits followed by 51 zeros, making it virtually impossible for an enemy to even chance upon the right setting. Despite efforts by other nations, Polish cryptologists had made rapid progress in the prewar years, already being able to read German transmissions. The Poznan University Mathematics Institute was the site of the astounding breakthrough in cracking the Enigma Code. There, twenty Polish students were handpicked by Professor Zdzislaw Krygowski, to participate in a course in cryptology and they were obliged to pledge secrecy concerning the plans of the course, and their involvement in it. Overseeing all activities were two officers from the Polish General Staff in Warsaw, Major Pokorny and Lt. Maksymilian Ciezki. Among the students selected for the mission were Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki, and Henryk Zygalski. |
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| Marian Rejewski |
| Henryk Zygalski |
| Jerzy Rozycki |
By mid 1928, the Poles had been able to purchase a commercial model of the Enigma and began studying its' components. By 1930, there were only eight students remaining, working under the auspices of Rejewski. He devised a set of mathematical equations that was able to produce a rapid, although partial solution to the Enigma puzzle. Despite this success, it had only applications on the commercial model. The Enigma was an extremely complicated electro-mechanical system based on drums or rotors for encoding. The machine very much resembles a typewriter with the addition of a panel built into its lid in which were inserted 26 small glass windows indicating each letter of the alphabet and on the underside of the panel was an equal number of tiny lamps. Inside the machine, mounted on one axle were 3 rotating drums and a reflector connected by an elaborate system of wiring which was powered by either electricity or battery. At the stroke of a key, two things occurred: one or more of the rotors would revolve, and the glow lamps would simultaneously lilght up next to the letter above it. So by typing a plain text in ordinary language, the keys made the appropriate windows illuminate. But for the purpose of conducting a secret communication, sender and receiver had to possess a cipher, or " key ", a device which encrypted each letter through the manipulation of numerous levers and knobs. In his mathematical analysis, Rejewski was able to obtain positive results using group theory. The first break came from the French secret service which possessed some documents on machine ciphers. It didn't contribute to cracking the Enigma code but helped in the process of achieving it. The documents dated in 1932 provided real coded messages sent at specific times in that year. When the Poles compared the old messages that they had intercepted, to the key settings, and combined it to mathematical analysis - they hit the jackpot. The Poles easily figured out its inner wiring. It was not difficult for them to discover that the wiring ot the ring was in the same alphabetical order as they appeared on the German typewriter, so precise were the Germans for ordung (order). By 1934 the Poles were able to reproduce 15 Enigmas, at the AVA Radio Manufacturing Company at 34 Nowy Swiat Street in Warsaw, its engineer, the brilliant Antoni Palluth. There was a continuing challenge to overcome. The Germans made frequent changes to the Enigma, but the Poles kept up every step of the way, deciphering every message-sometimes succeeding with only luck and imagination. In July 1939, the Polish team met with their French and British counterparts in Warsaw. War was imminent. With the authorization of Polish General Waclaw Stachiewicz, the French and British teams were each presented with a perfect working copy of the Polish-made Enigma machine. That the Allies knew about Germany's position and strength along Polands borders was entirely attributed to the Polish success in decryptment of German Enigma messages. |