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The B-21 was the first cipher machine developed by Boris Hagelin.
He designed the machine in 1921 when he was working for the
Damm brothers in Sweden. At the request of the Nobel
brothers, he developed a secure communication system for the oil
brance.
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When the Swedish Army suggested to buy Enigma machines in 1922,
Hagelin proposed his own machine: the B-21, an electro-mechanical
device. It uses a different principle than the Enigma,
as it scrambles the wires of a 5 x 5 matrix. Internally, it has
2 x 2 pin-wheels that are, contrary to the Enigma, stepped irregularly.
The method of permutation of the B-21 is based on scrambling
rather than substitution and because of the irregular stepping
the machine was said te be more secure than the Enigma.
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All images on this page were taken during the presentation of
the book Mythos Enigma by Dominik Landwehr, where
former Hagelin employee Oskar Stürzinger demonstrated some
historical Hagelin machines. As becomes clear from the images,
the exterior of the machine closely resembles
the Enigma.
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Like the Enigma, it has a keyboard for the input, and uses
a lamp panel for the output. Because of the 5 x 5 matrix, it
supports only 25 characters. The letters W, X
and Z were dropped in favour of the Sk and
Me combinations.
The interior of the machine can be viewed in the pictures at the
bottom of this page and is, however, quite different from the Enigma.
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A later variant of this machine is the B-211, which had a built-in
printer and was motor-driven. This machine became very popular in
France where it was used extensively during the Algerian war.
The French built the B-21 under licence from the Swedish company.
The popularity of the machine within the French Army later led to
the development of the C-35.
The Russians copied the design of the B-211 and adapated it to
contain a 5 x 6 matrix, as to allow all character of the larger
Cyrillic alphabet.
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