Enigma

Description

"In 1933, three Polish mathematicians led by Marian Rejewski succeeded in breaking the German Enigma machine cipher, which the Germans considered unbreakable; a belief they firmly held throughout World War II. In July 1939, on the eve of the German invasion of Poland, the Poles shared their knowledge with the French and British intelligence services. They presented their two allies with Enigma machines and methods of decoding messages. From this unprecedented act of generosity sprang the powerful British decoding operation at Bletchley Park, near London, which supplied vital intelligence known as Ultra to the top commanders of the Allied forces. This information proved decisive in many battles, and played an important role in the Allies' ultimate victory." "The secret of the Bletchley Park operation and the Allies' debt to the Polish mathematicians was kept for decades. In 1967, historian Wladyslaw Kozaczuk first mentioned this achievement in his book Bitwa o tajemnice (Battle for the Secrets), published in Polish. In 1973 a French-language book by General Gustave Bertrand, the wartime head of the French Bureau of Ciphers, first divulged the Enigma secret in the West. Group Captain F.W. Winterbotham, who directed the Special Liaison Unit at Bletchley Park, published The Ultra Secret in 1974. This book revealed the vast establishment that existed there during the war, with 9,000 cryptanalysts, but failed to credit the Polish code breakers for their essential contribution." "Only recently have the Poles begun to receive international recognition for their accomplishments. President George H.W. Bush spoke at the Solidarity Workers Monument in Gdansk, Poland in 1989. He said, "Before Poland fell, you gave the Allies Enigma, the Nazis' secret coding machine. Breaking the unbreakable Axis code saved tens of thousands of Allied lives, of American lives; and for this, you have the enduring gratitude of the American people. And ultimately, Enigma and freedom fighters played a major role in winning the Second World War.""--Jacket.

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