The Enigma machine was a typewriter-sized electromechanical cipher device invented by Dr. Arthur Scherbius, a German electrical engineer and inventor. He patented the design in 1918, at the very end of the First World War. Originally intended for commercial and banking use, the device was marketed in the early 1920s by Scherbius’s company, Chiffriermaschinen AG.
Scherbius’s Enigma used rotating wheels, or rotors, to scramble letters into ciphertext through an electrical circuit. Each keypress would advance the rotors, changing the cipher pattern continuously. Despite its clever design, commercial adoption was limited—until the German military took an interest.
During the 1920s and early 1930s, the German Army recognised the potential of the Enigma machine for secure military communications. In collaboration with the German Navy and Air Force, the Wehrmacht modified the original commercial model extensively to meet military security standards.
Key enhancements included:
The military models became known collectively as the “Wehrmacht Enigma.” By the time World War II began, the Enigma was deeply embedded in German command communications across all branches of the armed forces.
The Enigma’s perceived invulnerability gave the German military a false sense of security. Unbeknownst to them, Allied codebreakers—especially at Bletchley Park in the UK—had broken the Enigma’s encryption, turning one of Germany’s greatest strengths into a massive strategic liability.
The Polish Cipher Bureau’s Vital Role (not in the invention, but in breaking Enigma) is not well publicised but, the first real breakthroughs in cracking military Enigma came from Polish cryptanalysts in the 1930s, years before Bletchley Park got involved.
Who Were These Polish Heroes?
Three brilliant mathematicians from the Polish Cipher Bureau cracked the early German Army version of the Enigma:
They mathematically deduced how the machine worked without even seeing the internals — thanks in part to:
In 1938, the Poles even built their own Enigma-cracking machine, known as the Bomba Kryptologiczna — the predecessor to the British Bombe developed by Turing and Welchman.
Just before WWII erupted, in July 1939, the Poles shared everything — their knowledge, diagrams, and replicas — with French and British intelligence. Without that handover, Bletchley Park would have started years behind.