Enigma (machine) facts for kids

Military Enigma machine

Three rotors of an Enigma machine

The Enigma machine was a special device used to send secret messages. It was created in Germany by Arthur Scherbius before World War II. Think of it like a super-smart typewriter that scrambled your words so only certain people could read them. It was a type of cipher machine, which means it changed letters in a message to make them look like random letters.

When you typed a letter on the Enigma, a different letter would light up. These choices weren't random at all! They were decided by a set of spinning wheels inside the machine called rotors. Every day, these rotors were set up in a different way. Each time you pressed a key, the rotors would turn, changing how the next letter would be scrambled. This made the codes very hard to break.

Breaking the Secret Code

The secret messages sent using the Enigma machine were first cracked by the Polish Cipher Bureau. They started working on it in December 1932. The Polish experts even designed special machines to help them break the Enigma codes. As time went on, the Germans made their Enigma machines more complex, making it harder to unscramble the messages.

In July 1939, the Polish code-breakers shared their amazing work with French and British spy agents in Warsaw. They even gave each country a Polish-built Enigma machine. This meeting was super important! It gave the British a vital head start for their own code-breaking efforts at Bletchley Park.

Gordon Welchman, who worked at Bletchley Park, later said that their team, called "Hut 6 Ultra," wouldn't have succeeded without what they learned from the Poles. They learned about the German military Enigma machine and how it was used.

The Ultra Team and Alan Turing

As the war continued, the Germans made their codes even stronger. So, a new secret code-breaking team called "Ultra" was formed in Britain. This team was led by a brilliant English mathematician named Alan Turing. He developed an even more advanced machine that could decipher the secret naval Enigma messages by 1940.

The British code-breakers at Bletchley Park solved a huge number of Enigma messages. They turned the scrambled messages back into plain, readable text and gave this vital information to military leaders.

The information gained from breaking these codes was a massive help to the Allied forces during the war. The Ultra team also broke other German, Italian, and Japanese codes, including those used by the German High Command.

Sometimes, mistakes made by German operators helped the code-breakers. For example, some mistakes helped crack the codes used by the Luftwaffe (the German air force). Also, when the British captured important code tables and even an Enigma machine from a German submarine, it helped them break the Navy's codes.

Enigma Today

On July 15, 2011, Queen Elizabeth II visited Bletchley Park. The original Enigma machine is kept there in a museum. She paid tribute to all the people who worked there, as their secret work helped to shorten World War II by breaking the codes of Nazi Germany.

Images for kids

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  Military Enigma machine, model "Enigma I", used during the late 1930s and during the war; displayed at Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, Italy

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  A memorial to Marian Rejewski, the mathematician who first broke Enigma and educated the British and French about Polish methods of cryptanalysis

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  Enigma in use, 1943

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  Enigma rotor assembly. In the Wehrmacht Enigma, the three installed movable rotors are sandwiched between two fixed wheels: the entry wheel, on the right, and the reflector on the left.

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  Three Enigma rotors and the shaft, on which they are placed when in use.

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  Two Enigma rotors showing electrical contacts, stepping ratchet (on the left) and notch (on the right-hand rotor opposite D).

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  The Enigma stepping motion seen from the side away from the operator. All three ratchet pawls (green) push in unison as a key is depressed. For the first rotor (1), which to the operator is the right-hand rotor, the ratchet (red) is always engaged, and steps with each keypress. Here, the middle rotor (2) is engaged, because the notch in the first rotor is aligned with the pawl; it will step (turn over) with the first rotor. The third rotor (3) is not engaged, because the notch in the second rotor is not aligned to the pawl, so it will not engage with the rachet.

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  Internal mechanism of an Enigma machine showing the type B reflector and rotor stack.

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  The plugboard (Steckerbrett) was positioned at the front of the machine, below the keys. When in use during World War II, there were ten connections. In this photograph, just two pairs of letters have been swapped (A↔J and S↔O).

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  The Schreibmax was a printing unit which could be attached to the Enigma, removing the need for laboriously writing down the letters indicated on the light panel.

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  The Enigma Uhr attachment

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  German Kenngruppenheft (a U-boat codebook with grouped key codes).

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  Monthly key list number 649 for the German Air Force Enigma, including settings for the reconfigurable reflector (which only change once every eight days).

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  Figure 2. With the inner lid down, the Enigma was ready for use. The finger wheels of the rotors protruded through the lid, allowing the operator to set the rotors, and their current position, here RDKP, was visible to the operator through a set of windows.

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  Scherbius Enigma patent, U.S. Patent 1,657,411 , granted in 1928.

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  Typical glowlamps (with flat tops), as used for Enigma.

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  A rare 8-rotor printing Enigma model H (1929).

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  Heinz Guderian in the Battle of France, with an Enigma machine. Note one soldier is keying in text while another writes down the results.

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  Enigma in use on the Russian front

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  A three-rotor Enigma machine on display at Computer Museum of America and its two additional rotors.

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  Surviving three-rotor Enigma on display at Discovery Park of America in Union City, Tennessee, U.S.

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  A four-rotor Kriegsmarine (German Navy, 1. February 1942 to 1945) Enigma machine on display at the U.S. National Cryptologic Museum

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  A four-rotor Kriegsmarine Enigma machine on display at the Museum of the Second World War, Gdańsk, Poland

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  Enigma G, used by the Abwehr, had four rotors, no plugboard, and multiple notches on the rotors.

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  The German-made Enigma-K used by the Swiss Army had three rotors and a reflector, but no plugboard. It had locally re-wired rotors and an additional lamp panel.

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  An Enigma model T (Tirpitz), a modified commercial Enigma K manufactured for use by the Japanese.

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  An Enigma machine in the UK's Imperial War Museum

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  Enigma in use in Russia

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  Enigma in radio car of the 7th Panzer Div. staff, August 1941

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  A Japanese Enigma clone, codenamed GREEN by American cryptographers.

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  Tatjana van Vark's Enigma-inspired rotor machine.

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  Electronic implementation of an Enigma machine, sold at the Bletchley Park souvenir shop

See also

In Spanish: Enigma (máquina) para niños