The mindset for the Allies had changed between the First World War and the Second World War. After their success in cracking Germany’s ciphers in the First World War, the Allies felt like that could crack anything Germany tries to encipher. However, once the Germans started using the Enigma machines, the Allies were stumped. This change in attitude might be attributed to the fact that they were not in direct threat at that time so they didn’t have the motivation to try to decipher the messages. That along with the hopelessness that might come with failed attempts would make them lose motivation. Poland, however, was threatened so they had to do everything they could to decipher those messages. Therefore, with the help of Schmidt and Rejewski, they reached a breakthrough in cracking the enigma. If it wasn’t for their breakthroughs, the Allies may not have been able to crack it. Gaining that knowledge may have been the motivation they needed to fully uncover how the Enigma machine works. The Allies were also able to pick up on some keys that Germany’s operators would send. The operators would sometimes pick three consecutive letters from the keyboard which the Allies started picking up on.
Photo credit: “Enigma Machine (Bletchley Park)” by Tim Gage via Flickr CC
Sometimes they would repeat the same keys and therefore the cryptanalysts would be able to predict them. Overall, cracking the Enigma took the efforts and collaboration of many individuals working as a team.
Leave a Reply