Enigma

10.5 cm Field Gun

The Enigma was a coding machine which was used extensively by the Germans during World War Two. It was originally developed as a means for business people to transmit sensitive information without fear of rivals being able to intercept and make capital from it.

The machine was the brainchild of a German engineer named Arthur Scherbius , who patented the machine in 1918 via the company he co-founded, Scherbius & Ritter. Marketing of the product was initially towards the commercial market, with the brand name of Enigma being introduced from 1923. It has been suggested that this was inspired by Elgar's composition of the same name.

There were several versions of the Enigma, depending on intended end user, with the German military adopting the system from 1926 onwards (beginning with the Navy). They opted for the plug board; which was the most complex but most secure version. It was the new German doctrine of Blitzkrieg which demanded an instant means of encryption as communication was key to this means of warfare, and while radio communication was an essential part, it did potentially lay open the plans to anyone within range of receiving the signals. The Enigma machine was ideally suited for this purpose as it was portable and could create a secure coded message in a very short time.

In late 1932, a Polish mathematician named Marian Rejewski successfully broke the Enigma code by applying the theory of permutations and exploiting the poor discipline of the German operators . Additionally, a French spy named Hans-Thilo Schmidt obtained the German cipher materials which included the daily rotor settings. This allowed Rejewski to completely solve the coding, enabling the Poles to reverse-engineer an Enigma machine, permitting real-time reading of all German coded traffic.

Enigma, at its most basic, works by typing in an unencrypted message letter by letter. The internal wiring, combined with the rotor wheels, will select an alternative letter for each one typed. Each time a letter is entered, the rotor settings are moved on one place, re-setting the electrical pathway. By using multiple rotors, the operator will never duplicate the same substituted letter as the original, nor use the same substituted letter more than once. The use of the plug board, at the front of the machine, adds an extra layer of encryption, as it further distorts the electrical pathway within the machine; this was set manually by the operator at time of use. Provided the encrypted message was typed into a second, receiving Enigma machine with identical settings, the message could be decoded and read as initially intended. The upper display lit up when a key was pressed, indicating the substitute letter to be used.

A three rotor Enigma offers 158,962,555,217,826,360,000 possible combinations.

Our Enigma is a museum-quality replica which simulates the basic operation of an actual machine.

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