The Enigma 'typewriter'
In 2001, the release of the feature film Enigma sparked great interest in the tweedy world of the boffins who broke Nazi Germany's secret wartime communications codes. But not all who watched Dougray Scott in the film's lead role realised that the title referred to a machine like a typewriter, which encrypted secret messages.
Fewer people still knew that this piece of spook hardware was invented by a German (based on an idea by a Dutchman), that information about it was leaked to the French, and that it was first reconstructed by a Pole, before it was offered to Britain's codebreakers as a way of deciphering German signals traffic during World War Two. As a result of the information gained through this device, it has been claimed, hostilities between Germany and the Allied forces were curtailed by two years.
'The importance of signals intelligence became evident during World War One ...'
The importance of signals intelligence became evident during World War One, as staff in the British Admiralty's Room 40, under Captain Reginald 'Blinker' Hall, worked at intercepting German communications.
Among these, famously, was the Zimmermann telegram - a message from the German foreign minister to his ambassador in Mexico City informing him of plans to invade the United States. On being notified of these plans, officials in Washington were understandably perturbed, and hastened to effect the entry of the US into the war.
Published: 2001-08-01
Bookmark with:
What are these?