Polish Enigma codebreaker dies 37 years ago today
Marian Rejewski, ingenious Polish mathematician and cryptologist and reconstructor of the Nazi German Enigma cypher machine, died in Warsaw on 13. Feb, 1980 after a life marked by many outstanding achievements in his field.
Along with associates Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski from the renowned Polish Cipher Bureau, Rejewski (Aug. 16 1905-Feb. 13 1980) made the decoding of Enigma possible. Their achievements would later be used by England's Bletchley Park centre to read encrypted messages during World War Two.
The intelligence the British gained through Polish Enigma decoders enabled what was known as Ultra and greatly contributed to defeating Germany in WWII.
While studying mathematics in Poznan in 1929, Rejewski underwent secret cryptology training at the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau, whose staff he joined in September 1932. The Bureau had been unsuccessful in decoding Enigma messages and delegated Rejewski to deal with the matter late that year; it took Rejewski no more than a few weeks to find the machine's secret internal wiring, subsequently he and his two colleagues developed a number of techniques for the decryption of Enigma. The same year Rejewski constructed sight-unseen first replica of Enigma and until 1939 a few dozens of such devices were home-produced by Polish team, mostly in at their base in Warsaw-Pyry.
Among Marian Rejewski's contributions are a cryptological catalogue derived from a cyclometer which also he had invented, and the so-called cryptologic bomb to later significantly influence Alan Turing in constructing his BOMBe.
Five weeks before Germany's September 1939 invasion of Poland, due to looming war and construction adversities caused by financial shortages, Rejewski and his team passed a decade-worth of work to French and British intelligence on a meeting in Warsaw, knowing it would come in handy for the Allies. In the history of military co-operation this unconditional and selfless act of sharing of top secret data and know-how with other country's intelligence was unprecedented.
However, for the lack of success at Bletchley Park, further meetings with Rejewski and his team were necessary for the British to learn how to effectively apply Polish methods of decoding Enigma which rendez-vous happened in Paris in Jan, 1940, around the same time when Rejewski team decrypted first war-time (Luftwaffe) Enigma message at Polish-French Bruno station by means of so-called Zygalski-sheets punched at Bletchley Park basing on Polish intel.
Shortly after the outbreak of the war Polish cryptologists were evacuated to France, where they continued decoding messages. Rejewski and his staff had to evacuate again after the June 1940 fall of France, in 1942 Rejewski and Zygalski fled to Britain through Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar. There they enlisted in the Polish Armed Forces and were set to solving low-grade German ciphers.
After the war Rejewski worked as an accountant in Poland. Fearing retortions from Poland's communist government, he remained silent about his wartime work for 20 years, breaking the silence in 1967, when he gave his memoirs to the Polish Military Historical Institute.
Rejewski's cryptological work earned him numerous honours and distinctions. In 2000 Poland's then President Aleksander Kwasniewski posthumously awarded him and Zygalski with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Poland's highest civilian order. In 2005 Rejewski received the War Medal 1939–1945 from the British Chief of the Defence Staff, and in 2012 the U.S. Military Intelligence Corps Association awarded him with its Knowlton Award.
On 11 July 2012 a plaque dedicated to the work of Polish cryptologists was unveiled in Bletchley Park. It reads:
"This plaque commemorates the work of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski, mathematicians of the Polish intelligence service, in first breaking the Enigma code. Their work greatly assisted the Bletchley Park code breakers and contributed to the Allied victory in World War II".
The same year two other identical commemorative plaques were placed. One in London in the entrance hall of the Polish Embassy (November 2002), and one in Warsaw at the Piludski square building where the three Polish mathematicians would work (18 September 2002).
On August 5 2014 the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) distinguished Rejewski, Rozycki and Zygalski with its coveted Milestone award in recognition of world-changing achievement.
A bronze monument was dedicated to the three Polish mathematicians in 2007 in front of Poznan Castle in west Poland. Each of its three sides bears the name of one of the Enigma decrypters.
Rejewski and his colleagues were the heroes of the thriller movie Sekret Enigmy (The Enigma Secret), which recounted their wartime exploits. In late 1980 Polish TV also launched a series on the same theme called Tajemnice Enigmy (The Secrets of Enigma).
Despite all due commemoration acts the Polish mathematitians' unquestionable input into solving Enigma and, through this, defeating Hitler has been oftentimes ommitted on big screen productions, in books, press publications or even misrepresented therein as in 2001's flick "Enigma" where the only Polish-born character works at Bletchley Park to leak intel to Germans. The release of the film triggered an immediate protest from Polish embassy in London demanding a disclaimer to be aired before movie screenings.
A more historical approach was presented In the 2014's Oscar-winning "Imitation game" telling the story of Alan Turing. Although the film indeed mentions the Polish trace in Enigma feat, it limits itself to quick references of an "old Polish machine" and "Polish intelligence", giving almost the whole credit of breaking Enigma solely to Turing and his Bletchley Park team.
In response to decades-long discussion on who had contributed most to Enigma decryption Marian Rejewski himself would call the British input in the process as rather "quantitative, not qualitative" referring to a British vast financial and personnel capacity that Poland had lacked at that time.
Also Alan Turing's fellow-cryptologist Irving John Good in his 1993's book "Codebreakers", in regard to Bletchley Park team's works and achievements, writes about "elaborations" of Polish methods (among others, the Rozycki's "clock method").
Marian Rejewski died of a heart attack in his Warsaw home on February 13, 1980. (PAP)
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