Enigma machines
Wartime cipher devices
Enigma machines were electromechanical cipher devices used by Nazi Germany to encrypt military communications during World War II.
The machines used rotating wheels and plugboards to scramble messages, producing codes the Germans believed unbreakable.
British cryptographers at Bletchley Park, building on earlier Polish work, cracked Enigma—an intelligence breakthrough that significantly shortened the war.
- rotorsSpinning airfoil assemblies
- codebookDocument listing codes' meanings
- substitutionsReplacements for originals
- cipherHidden writing system
- secret codesEncrypted information systems
Alan Turing · encrypted messages · codings · decryption · cryptography · reflector · Operation Overlord · submarine warfare · U-boats · Nazi occupation · codebreaking · early computers · military intelligence · wartime secrets · German Navy · Allies · World War II · wiring
Enigma machinesplaintext
Unencoded readable information
cleartext · clear text · open communication · public broadcast
enigma, machine, enigmas, enigmatic, enigmatical, enigmatically, machines, machined, machining