Code Cracking for Kids by Jean Daigneau

Author:Jean Daigneau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2020-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

POLAND TAKES THE LEAD

Prior to World War II, Germany had some of the best encryption in the world. But perhaps no country was more obsessed with breaking Germany’s codes than Poland. The people of Poland understood that Germany wanted to regain some of the land lost to Poland after World War I. That concern forced Poland to tackle the threats head-on. For that, the country created a new cryptanalytic department, the Biuro Szyfrów—the Polish Cipher Bureau. But luck played a part too, when a frustrated German named Hans-Thilo Schmidt turned traitor. To add to the drama, it was Schmidt’s older brother Rudolph who gave the official OK to use the Enigma in Germany in the first place.

After World War I, Schmidt planned to pursue a career in the army. His older brother Rudolph had been kept on and promoted, working in secret communications. The younger Schmidt expected the same, but that didn’t happen. When Hans-Thilo failed as a businessman, his only choice was to ask his brother for help. That help came in the way of a position in the top-secret German department where codes and ciphers were made and broken. But living alone with his family back in their hometown, Hans-Thilo Schmidt’s feelings of frustration and anger only grew. One way to get even with both his country and his brother? Sell secrets to the enemy!

When Schmidt met with an agent from France in 1931, he shared information about the Enigma machine, including instructions on how to operate it. But he did not explain how the rotors were wired inside, so that piece of the puzzle still needed to be figured out. The French weren’t particularly interested in the Enigma, but they had an agreement with the Polish government to share military information, so they gave Schmidt’s photographs to the Poles.

With a small group of mathematicians organized specifically to work on cracking the Enigma, the Biuro Szyfrów took on the challenge. The newly recruited cryptanalysts were from a part of Poland that had once been in German hands. With brilliant minds and the ability to speak German, they tackled the problem.

To accomplish this task took about a year of painstaking work, along with the help of Schmidt, known by his code name Asche. A machine called the bombe was created, after yet another change to the Enigma machine. The bombe was capable of finding the German key by checking all the settings in about two hours.

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