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Rotor Enigma AVA
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Polish replica of the German Army Enigma I
- wanted item
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Polish Enigma double, also known as Polish Enigma replica, was a
cipher machine
developed in 1932/1933 by the Polish Cipher Bureau – Biuro Szyfrów –
in Warsaw (Poland), that replicated the Enigma I — the main cipher
machine that was used by the German Army from 1930 onwards.
After the first prototype in early 1933, 70 further machines were built
in Poland and 4 in France.
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The Poles learned that the Germans used an Enigma cipher machine,
after the Germans tried to recover an Enigma that had mistakenly been sent to
Poland. This prompted the Poles to purchase a
commercial Enigma machine, which they subsequently used
to attack the cipher.
The attempt failed, as the German Army had differently wired rotors and had
added a plugboard (Steckerbrett) to the design.
In December 1932, Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski joined the
Cipher Bureau and was given the task to break the German Army's
military Enigma machine [1].
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By early 1933, Rejewski had managed to recover the
wiring of the military machine and its rotors mathematically.
The commercial Enigma that the Cipher Bureau had purchased earlier,
was rewired so that it replicated the military Enigma (Enigma I).
The Steckerbrett was simulated by relabelling the keyboard
and the lamp panel. This was the first Polish double of the Enigma I.
In February 1933, the Polish Cipher Bureau ordered 15 additional Enigma doubles
from the AVA Radio Manufacturing Company in Warsaw [3 p. 25]
— the same company that later also made Rejewski's Cyklometr.
These machines resembled a commercial Enigma to which a
Steckerbrett had been added at the rear.
Eventually, a total of ~ 70 Polish Enigma doubles were built by AVA. 1
On 25 and 26 July 1939, just before the outbreak of
World War II (WWII),
the Poles invited French and British codebreakers to Pyry (near Warsaw),
where they shared their knowledge of the military Enigma with their
Allies. Until then, the Allies had beeen unable to break military
Enigma traffic. In the following month, the Poles shipped two
Enigma doubles: one to Paris and one to London.
After the German invasion of Poland, on 1 September 1939 [4], the personnel
of the Polish Cipher Bureau was evacuated – via Romania – to France, where
they continued their work on breaking the Enigma at PC Bruno,
a Polish-French-Spanish signals intelligence unit located in the Château
de Vignolles in Gretz-Armainvilliers, about 40 km southeast of Paris (France) [5].
From its foundation on 20 October 1939, PC Bruno worked closely together with
Bletchley Park (BP) in the UK.
As the Poles had only taken 3 Enigma doubles when
they fled Poland, 40 additional doubles were ordered from a French
precision-mechanics firm. Work on the additional machines progressed
slowly however, and it was only after the fall of France in June 1940
and relocation of the codebreakers to the Zone Libre in southern
France, that 4 machines were finally completed [3 p. 84].
One of these 4 machines that were made in France, is shown in the image above [6].
At the time, this machine was located at the Sikorsky Institute in London,
but in 2020 it was donated to the Museum of Polish History in Warsaw (Poland) [2].
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1 Designed by Rejewski in early 1933, based on a commercial Enigma 15 Complete machines, ordered in February 1933 and built at AVA 55 ~ Additional machines, built at AVA 4 Built in France in 1940 (from the 40 units there were ordered)
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Sunday 11 February 2024. Last changed: Monday, 12 February 2024 - 10:40 CET.
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![Polish Enigma double made in France around 1940. Photograph by David Hamer ~ 2000 [6].](img/polish_enigma_1.jpg)