"Entry into history" | Enigma encryption machine, found on Sobieszewska Island, presented at the Museum of the Second World War

In connection with the "Weekend with cryptology", as part of our regular series "Entering History", we present an extraordinary exhibit - fragments of the Enigma encryption machine recently discovered by members of the Latebra Foundation on Sobieszewska Island.

In November 2024, on Sobieszewska Island in Gdańsk, members of the Latebra Foundation came across fragments of the destroyed German Enigma encryption machine. They were located among other numerous elements of radio stations, field telephones and batteries in the place where the command post or communications unit was located.

In the spring of 1945, Sobieszewska Island was the point where the civilian population and German troops, surrounded by the Red Army, waited for evacuation by sea. Fire positions, shelters and other earthen fortifications were built there. The troops of the Third Reich on the Island capitulated on May 9, 1945.

Enigma is an electromechanical portable encryption machine introduced into service in the interwar period. During World War II, it was widely used by the German armed forces and other services of the Third Reich. Although its design was very technically advanced and the machine was widely considered impossible to decipher, Polish mathematicians managed to recreate its settings and read messages as early as 1932.

Just before the outbreak of the war, Polish intelligence shared its knowledge and skills with British and French cryptologists, thanks to which they were able to read German messages during the conflict. This contributed significantly to the Allied victory in World War II.

Fot. Agnieszka Stawrosiejko