The mystery of breaking the Enigma code raises emotions to this day. To defeat the German cryptologists, the British, French and Poles worked together. When it turned out that there was a breakthrough on the Vistula River, one of the British started accusing us of cheating!
In the face of the war, the cooperation of the intelligence services on the Warsaw-Paris-London line clearly deepened. It was in the interest of the allies to learn about Germany's innermost secrets before they gave the order to attack in Berlin. The pressing problem was especially breaking the Enigma.
The first joint conference of cryptologists from Poland, France and Great Britain was held in Paris in January 1939. Poles, who had been working on the code of the German machine for a long time, received an order from their superiors not to reveal anything important. Only at the end of June of the same year, specialists from the West received an invitation to a new meeting - this time in Warsaw.
It is safe to say that some of the people delegated to consultations had the worst opinion of Poles. They were convinced that our specialists were wandering in the fog and did not quite see the point in teleporting to the other end of Europe to confirm this. Meanwhile, at a conference held on July 25-26, 1939, the most unlikely was announced.
We have to confess something to you ...
On July 26, at 7 a.m., a car sent by the Polish government arrived at the Bristol hotel in Warsaw, and three representatives of the British delegation boarded it:the cryptologists Alfred Knox and Alastair Denniston, and the radio intelligence officer Humphrey Sandwith. The driver took the passengers to the secret Polish intelligence center in Pyry (now the southern part of Ursynów). The French were also there.
Polish cryptologists, who in the meantime received the green light from the management factors, revealed to the guests that ... they had broken the Enigma years earlier! As Dermot Turing emphasizes in his new book "XYZ. The real story of breaking the Enigma code ” , they had long been able to break the daily keys, reconstructed the operation of the machine, had devices that worked out its daily changing settings. In short, they had everything.
Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski, Polish slayers of Enigma (photo:public domain)
Dermot Turing he quoted one of the meeting participants. British cryptologist Denniston reported:
I admit that I was not able to fully understand the line of reasoning, but when, as part of a conference, we were taken to an underground room full of electrical appliances and we were shown "bombs", I understood the results of their inquiries and their methods of finding the daily key [of the Enigma settings]. [Alfred] Knox was with us all the time, however he remained silent and was clearly very angry for some reason.
It turned out that some time ago one of Knox's subordinates proposed a solution similar to the one on which Polish mathematicians who broke the Enigma relied. The problem was, her superior just laughed at her then. Moreover, Knox was well acquainted with English mathematicians working on the same problem. For him, the matter was clear:if the best of his Majesty's experts had failed, the Poles could not have succeeded any more!
As the guests left the meeting, Knox burst open. As Denniston later wrote:
Suddenly he lost his temper and, assuming no one knows English, he started to hell that they lied to us, just like in Paris. He kept saying it was a fraud. They didn't break the Enigma. They stole the solution years ago and based it like everyone else, but they had to buy it or sneak it.
The British delegation must have eaten a lot of shame because of their colleague. Even without understanding his native language, the accompanying French and the Polish driver were well aware that the upset Englishman was insulting his hosts. The same ones who just gave him one of the best kept secrets in the world of intelligence.
Back at the hotel, Knox spilled his rage on paper as he wrote a letter to… Denniston, who was in the same building. Most importantly, it allowed him to cool down. Interestingly, the letter has been preserved in the British archives to this day and one can read from it the enormous frustration of the Englishman.
When the delegations went to their countries, the little British went to his head. Soon after, he sent a silk scarf with the horse racing scene to Warsaw, making it clear that he considered Poles to be the undisputed winners.
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Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on the book:
- Dermot Turing, XYZ. The real story of breaking the Enigma code , Rebis 2019.