Enigma History |

What is an Enigma |

According to the dictionary, Enigma means Riddle, which is a perfect name for one of the most well known and mysterious devices. Enigma was also used as the name for a coding machine, invented and sold by the German Arthur Scherbius as early as 1918. The German army used the Enigma coding machine to encipher most of their radio messages before and during WWII (1926 - 1945). Thousands of messages were sent each day to and from the many departments of the German Army all over the world and the device was considered unbreakable. The Enigma is an electro-mechanical device using a system of wired wheels, a keyboard and lamps to encode and decode textual messages. The device contained 26 keys; one for each letter in the alphabet. Numbers and special characters, such as comma, space and question mark, were missing, so numbers had to be spelled in full. Whenever a German officer wanted to send a message to his superiors, he would first have to write the message in plain text. The message whas then enciphered by a cipher clerk. Any spaces were replaced by the letter X (as it is hardly used in the German language) and the end of line (i.e. a full stop) was sometimes replaced by XX. The cipher clerk would then take the encoded message to the radio operator, who would use telegraphy (i.e. morse code) to broadcast his message.

The Enigma was a portable device, contained in a wooden box, with a built-in battery, so that it could be used in the field. This picture shows General Guderian standing in the rear of his command vehicle. In the front are the cipher clerk, the Enigma operator and the telegraphist. The Enigma can be seen in the bottom left of the image. The frontmost soldier is the Enigma operator. Sitting next to him is the cipher clerk who writes down the enciphered text. He then hands over his paper to the man sitting next to him: the radio operator. When receiving messages, the information would flow, of course, in the opposite direction. Click the image to enlarge. |  |

Bletchley Park |

As stated before, the Germans considered their Enigma machine to be unbreakable. This was laregely due to the fact that it was such a complex device with an immense number of possible combinations. Each day, a different setting of the Enigma was used and even if the enemy would capture an Enigma, it would take years to try all possible combinations, by which time the message would have lost its value.

However, history has proved them wrong. In the years before WWII, a few brilliant Polish mathematicians, managed to break into the Enigma traffic, without having seen an Enigma ever. As the war was imminent, the Poles knew that the Germans would soon invade Poland. The then gave away all of their knowlege, inlcuding some Enigma replicas, to the French and Britisch intelligence departments. The British, already interested in the Enigma radio traffic, setup a truely secret service in a quiet part of the country, just outside Milton Keynes: Bletchley Park. It is here where most of the German Enigma messages were broken throughout the war. In the years after the war, Bletchley Park was used by the GCCS (the Government Code and Cipher School) and subsequently GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) until it was abandoned in 1991, facing demolition... Bletchley Park is now a museum where the full history of the Enigma and many other interesing WWII aspects can be seen and touched. It is here, where my interest in the Enigma was born, which has led to the developement of the Enigma Simulator for RISC OS and later the Enigma-E DIY building kit. |  |
The mansion at Bletchley Park

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Read the full history of the Enigma Enigma variations In the trail of an Enigma message

© Copyright Paul Reuvers. Last changed: Thu,16 Oct 2003.17:33:35