Alastair Denniston

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Alexander Guthrie "Alastair" Denniston, CBE (* 1. December 1881 in Greenock , † 1. January 1961 in on Milford Sea , Hampshire ) was a British cryptanalyst (ger .: Codebreaker ), who during the First World War in Room 40 German ( : "Room 40") worked and at the beginning of the Second World War he headed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), in which the secret communications of the German Wehrmacht were deciphered .

Life

The mansion (Engl .: The mansion ) of Bletchley Park (2002) was the headquarters of the British code breaker and is now a museum

Denniston was born in Greenock, the son of a doctor. He studied at the University of Bonn and in Paris . At the Olympic Games in 1908 he did not reach the final with his hockey team, the Cartha Athletic Club from Glasgow.

From 1914 he was involved in the construction of Room 40 , a secret service of the British Admiralty , which dealt with the deciphering of encrypted enemy messages. In 1917 he married his colleague, Dorothy Mary Gilliat, who was also employed in Room 40 .

After the First World War, Room 40 of the Admiralty was merged with its counterpart in the British Army, the MI1b department , to form the newly founded Government Code and Cypher School (German: "Staatliche Code- und Chiffrenschule"). Denniston headed GC&CS from its founding on October 24, 1919 to spring 1942.

On July 26 and 27, 1939, just five weeks before the outbreak of World War II, Denniston was one of three British people who, besides Dilly Knox and Humphrey Sandwith, met with French and Polish cryptanalysts at the legendary secret meeting in the Kabaty Forest of Pyry , at which the Polish code breaker from Biuro Szyfrów (German: “Chiffrenbüro”) led by Marian Rejewski revealed all their knowledge of the German Enigma rotor key machine to their allies.

With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, which was GC & CS , still under the direction of Denniston, in which about 70 km north-west of London located Bletchley Park laid. In February 1942 there was a reorganization and Denniston was transferred to a less influential diplomatic post in the British capital. His successor at Bletchley Park was Edward Travis .

Denniston retired in 1945 and continued to teach French and Latin for a period in the English town of Leatherhead .

For his services he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1933 and the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1941 .

literature

  • Friedrich L. Bauer : Deciphered Secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, ISBN 3-540-67931-6 .
  • Francis Harry Hinsley , Alan Stripp: Codebreakers - The inside story of Bletchley Park . Oxford University Press, Reading, Berkshire 1993. ISBN 0-19-280132-5
  • Władysław Kozaczuk : Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War II , edited and translated (in English) by Christopher Kasparek, Frederick, MD, University Publications of America, 1984, ISBN 0 -89093-547-5 , pp. 59-60.
  • Stuart Milner-Barry: A Tribute to Hugh Alexander (PDF; 13 kB) , in Harry Golombek and William Hartston: The Best Games of CH O'D Alexander . 1976, pp. 1-9.
  • Heinz Ulbricht: The Enigma cipher machine - deceptive security . A contribution to the history of the intelligence services. Dissertation Braunschweig 2005, p. 117. PDF; 4.7 MB
  • Gordon Welchman : The Hut Six Story - Breaking the Enigma Codes . Allen Lane, London 1982; Cleobury Mortimer M&M, Baldwin Shropshire 2000. ISBN 0-947712-34-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alastair Denniston. Retrieved October 2, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Ralph Erskine: The Poles Reveal their Secrets - Alastair Dennistons's Account of the July 1939 Meeting at Pyry . Cryptologia. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 30.2006,4, p. 294
personal data
SURNAME Denniston, Alastair
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Denniston, Alexander Guthrie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British cryptanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Greenock
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1961
Place of death Milford on Sea , Hampshire