Enigma - The Secret

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Movie
German title Enigma - The Secret
Original title Enigma
Country of production United Kingdom
United States
Germany
Netherlands
original language English
Publishing year 2001
length 119 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Michael Apted
script Tom Stoppard
production Mick Jagger
Lorne Michaels
music John Barry
camera Seamus McGarvey
cut Rick Shaine
occupation

Enigma - The Secret is a film from 2001. It is based on the novel Enigma by the British author Robert Harris from 1995. The main subject of the film is the deciphering of the German submarine carried out by the British in Bletchley Park during World War II - Radio messages that have been encrypted using the Enigma key machine.

Historical environment

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

Against the backdrop of the submarine war raging in the North Atlantic, the book and film describe the arduous work of the secret British agency Bletchley Park in deciphering the radio messages encrypted with the German Enigma machine, which were sent between the submarine commander (BdU) and to be exchanged for the German submarines. The decipherment succeeds with the help of a special electromechanical machine, called the Turing bomb , which was invented by the English code breaker (codebreaker) Alan Turing , and German secret documents, such as " Kurzsignalheft " and " Wetterkurzkey ", which are known to the English. In this way, the Allied convoy trains (convoys) can avoid the German submarines and the vital supplies of war-essential supplies to Great Britain can be ensured.

action

The mathematician Tom Jericho returns to Bletchley Park at the beginning of the film after he was released months ago due to exhaustion, although he played a major role in the first deciphering of the Shark (German: "Hai") encryption method used by the German submarines . He explains to the officers present how the Enigma I works and says: "The problem is that the machine has 150 million million million possibilities." The plot is now divided into two strands:

Completely surprising for the English and also for inexplicable reasons, the Germans suddenly changed their weather code (weather code) to the keyword " Akelei ". The consequence for them is that they can no longer " crack " the important radio messages from the submarines and therefore no longer know their plans and positions in the Atlantic. Fatally, this happens just at the moment when three important convoys ( convoy trains ) with goods deliveries from America that are vital for Great Britain are on their way to England on the Atlantic. Without knowing the position of the German submarines, the Allies can no longer safely guide their ships past them and run the risk of being sunk.

The situation for the British is critical since the weather shortcut is now suddenly missing as a way to break into the encrypted German radio messages. However, Tom Jericho has the saving idea of ​​using the location reports that the German submarines that are "in touch" with a convoy regularly drop off as a new way of deciphering. As part of their pack tactics , the first submarine to discover a convoy regularly reports its position, direction and speed to the BdU , who can then bring more submarines to the front before the “pack” begins the attack. However, since the British know the positions, directions and speeds of their own ships, there is a new way of breaking into the encryption by comparing this data with the intercepted encrypted radio messages.

The second storyline revolves around Claire Romilly, Tom Jericho's ex-girlfriend. She had left him for no reason shortly before he left Bletchley Park. In flashbacks, parts of the relationship between the two are told over and over again. It turns out that she has since disappeared without a trace and is suspected of being a spy. In fact, Jericho finds a hiding place in her house, in which there are several radio messages, which, however, have not yet been deciphered. Together with Hester Wallace, her friend, roommate and colleague, Jericho tries to uncover her disappearance.

Later in the film, Jericho and Hester decipher a German radio message from the Eastern Front. The Polish name "KACZOR" appears, followed by an "X" as a separator, without being recognized by the two as German plain text. “That's not right, is it? That doesn't make sense, ”says Hester disappointed. Only later does she discover the secret.

In the process, the two encounter a Wehrmacht unit in Eastern Europe whose radio messages, according to orders from the British secret service, should no longer be noted and deciphered. When it succeeds Jericho and Wallace, Claire's radio messages to decipher derived from said unit, they find out that the German Wehrmacht just the traces of the Soviet secret service NKVD perpetrated the Katyn massacre has found. Since the alliance of the Western allies with the Soviet Union must not be endangered under any circumstances, this information must be kept secret and must not be made public under any circumstances. As it turns out, Jozef "Puck" Pukowski (a Polish colleague of Jericho), whose brother was murdered in the massacre, had learned of it through Claire, with whom he was also involved, and therefore tried to overflow to the German side. Everyone assumes that he murdered Claire.

The end of the film deviates from the novel in some points:
Puck manages to escape by train. However, it is sunk on the Scottish coast together with the German submarine that was supposed to take it up. Jericho fell in love with Hester and he had a child a few years later. He sees Claire on the street, but goes to Hester anyway. This incorporated into the plot that Kate Winslet was actually pregnant while filming.

Reviews

Video Week writes: "The tricky film adaptation of Robert Harris' novel is aimed at a discerning audience for whom intelligent entertainment is more important than mere action."

Blickpunkt: Film writes: “… In Alfred Hitchcock's early films, such as 'A Lady Disappears' or 'The 39 Steps', 'Enigma' gets by with a minimum of physical action. The (actually superfluous) short torpedo sequence on the high seas is rather annoying and superficial, while it is really exciting to watch the well-harmonized hero duo Winslet / Scott sniffing dangerous ... "

The Polish side in particular has criticized the fact that in the novel and film, of all things, a Polish code breaker becomes a traitor. In reality, there were no traitors in Bletchley Park who would have betrayed secrets to the Germans, especially no Polish ones. On the contrary, Polish cryptanalysts such as Marian Rejewski , Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski laid the decisive foundations for breaking into the enigma of the Enigma even before the war, without which the British code breakers would probably not have been able to decipher German radio messages and the second World War would have taken a different course.

Awards

Kate Winslet received an Empire Award for Best British Actress and the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress . At the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) 2001 the film received the award in the category Feature Film Prize in Science and Technology .

Trivia

The film uses numerous props, which are original showpieces from the Bletchley Park Museum. The various radio messages have been realistically generated and encrypted especially for the film according to the original rules and procedures under the guidance of Tony Sale . The Enigma-M4 that can be seen (after 77 min.) Comes from the private collection of producer Mick Jagger, who can be seen himself (after 34 min. And 50 seconds) during a brief cameo . In addition to authentic Enigma and (after 45 minutes) Typex machines, realistic replicas of the Turing bomb can also be seen in action in the film (after 16 minutes and after 83 minutes) . In particular, the work of the code breakers in creating the “menus” required for the bomb is shown (after 79 minutes).

In the film, Cave mentions (after 13 min.) The names "Fasson and Grazier" in connection with the "Kurzsignalheft 1941" captured from a German submarine and the "Weather short key" (which can be seen again after 56 minutes). These are authentic names of two British war heroes, namely Lieutenant Tony Fasson (1913–1942) and Able Seaman Colin Grazier (1920–1942), who lost their lives in this action and were posthumously awarded the St. George's Cross .

The film was not shot on the original location, but in Chicheley Hall , also in the English borough of Milton Keynes , as is Bletchley Park.

Further details are the name of the Polish mathematician and code breaker Zygalski in one of the radio messages and the fact that Jericho taps on the table with a pencil seemingly at random during the film, but actually writes the name Claire as Morse code .

literature

Web links

Other films about Alan Turing

  • Enigma (1982). Director: Jeannot Szwarc; with Martin Sheen, Brigitte Fossey, Sam Neill, Derek Jacobi
  • Breaking the Code (1996). Director: Herbert Wise . BBC TV film; with Derek Jacobi.
  • The Code Breaker (2011). ServusTV; Documentation about Alan Turing.
  • How a math genius cracked Hitler (2014). Arte, The Alan Turing Case.
  • The Imitation Game - A Top Secret Life (2014). Director: Morten Tyldum; with Benedict Cumberbatch (Alan Turing), Keira Knightley, Charles Dance based on the biography of Andrew Hodges.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Polish contributions to the break of the Enigma. Retrieved March 26, 2008.
  2. ^ Gordon Welchman: The Hut Six Story - Breaking the Enigma Codes . Allen Lane, London 1982; Cleobury Mortimer M&M, Baldwin Shropshire 2000, p. 204. ISBN 0-947712-34-8
  3. ^ Francis Harry Hinsley, Alan Stripp: Codebreakers - The inside story of Bletchley Park . Oxford University Press, Reading, Berkshire 1993, pp. 11ff. ISBN 0-19-280132-5
  4. ^ Tony Sale : Making the Enigma ciphers for the film "Enigma" . Retrieved March 26, 2008.
  5. ↑ Weblink: Filming of the novel "Enigma" . Retrieved July 1, 2008.
  6. ^ Chicheley Hall WWII secret intelligence activities around Milton Keynes . Retrieved March 26, 2008.