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[[File:EnigmaMachineLabeled.jpg|thumb|Military Enigma machine]]
[[File:Enigma rotor set.png|thumb|right|200px|Three rotors of an enigma machine]]
The '''Enigma machine''' was created for [[Germany]] by [[Arthur Scherbius]] in [[World War I]]. It is a [[cypher]] machine: a way of changing the letters of a message so that it appears to be scrambled letters (or, random letters).
Each time a letter is typed, it appears as another letter in the alphabet. The choices are ''not'' [[random]]. They are decided by a series of rotors which are set each day to a different starting set-up. Every press of a key turns the rotors to a new position.
German military messages done on the Enigma machine were first broken by the [[Polish Cipher Bureau]], beginning in December 1932. Later, they designed mechanical devices for breaking Enigma cyphers. From 1938 more complexity was added to the Enigma machines, making [[decryption]] more difficult.
On 25 July 1939, in [[Warsaw]], the Poles showed French and British [[intelligence agency|intelligence agents]] their [[cryptanalysis]] of the Enigma, and promised each delegation a Polish-built Enigma. The demonstration was a vital start for the later British work at [[Bletchley Park]].
: "Hut 6 [[Ultra]] would never have got off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details both of the German military version of the commercial Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use". Gordon Welchman, ''The Hut Six Story'', 1982, p. 289.
During the [[invasion of Poland (1939)]] the Polish codebreakers were sent to France for safety. Later, they fled to Britain. Making technical improvements, British codebreakers solved a vast number of messages from Enigma, and gave the [[plaintext]] to military staff. The information got from this, called "[[Ultra]]" by the British, was a great help to the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] war effort. Ultra also included decrypts of other German, Italian and Japanese cyphers and codes, including the cypher of the German High Command.
Mistakes by German operators helped the [[cryptanalysis]] of [[Luftwaffe]] Enigmas, and the British capture of key tables and a machine from a German [[submarine]] helped in cracking Navy ones.<ref>Kahn, David 1991. ''Seizing the Enigma: the race to break the German U-Boats codes, 1939-1943''. {{ISBN|0-395-42739-8}}</ref><ref>Welchman, Gordon 1997. ''The Hut Six story: breaking the Enigma codes''. Cleobury Mortimer, England: Baldwin. New edition updated with an addendum consisting of a 1986 paper written by Welchman which corrects aspects of his 1982 edition. {{ISBN|978-0-947712-34-1}}</ref>
On 15th July 2011, Queen [[Elizabeth II]] visited [[Bletchley Park]], where the machine is kept in the Museum, to pay tribute to those who worked there, since they cut short the [[World War II|war]] by breaking the cyphers of [[Nazi Germany]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015254/Queen-salutes-heroes-Bletchley-Park-70-years-cracked-code-helped-win-World-War-Two.html |title=Queen salutes heroes of Bletchley Park 70 years after they cracked code that helped win World War Two | Mail Online |publisher=Dailymail.co.uk |date=2011-07-15 |accessdate=2011-10-28}}</ref>
== References ==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]