Franciszek Pokorny

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Franciszek Pokorny (born June 15, 1891 in Mosty , †  November 22, 1966 in Edinburgh ) was an officer of the Polish General Staff with the rank of major . In the period after the First World War he headed the “cipher department” (Polish: Sekcja Szyfrów ) of the Polish army , the forerunner of the later “cipher office” BS (Polish: Biuro Szyfrów ), before taking over the management in 1931 to his successor Gwido Long passed.

Live and act

In 1928, the German army began using the Enigma rotor key machine on a trial basis to encrypt its military radio messages . The then most modern commercial version of this machine, the Enigma D , was supplemented in the same year by a secret additional device, the plug board , and thus cryptographically strengthened (see also: cryptographic strengths of the Enigma ). Polish eavesdropping stations located near the Polish western border simultaneously intercepted these strange new encrypted German radio messages for the first time. However, they did not (yet) succeed in deciphering it .

The following year, 1929, a cryptology training course was held at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan . Young mathematics students from the university were invited to this, from whom later employees of the BS such as Marian Rejewski , Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski were recruited . Franciszek Pokorny was one of the three lecturers on this course. The other two were Maksymilian Ciężki and Antoni Palluth .

Three years later, in 1932, Rejewski, Różycki and Zygalski, trained by Franciszek Pokorny, succeeded in breaking into German Enigma radio communications for the first time. The BS's cryptanalytic successes could, despite the cryptographic complications repeatedly introduced by the German side, be continued continuously until 1939, while at the same time French and British authorities tried in vain to decipher the Enigma.

Franciszek Pokorny was a cousin of the Austro-Hungarian cryptanalyst Hermann Pokorny .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dariusz Faszcza, Franciszek Pokorny: Działania Grupy 'Kowel' we wrześniu 1939 roku w relacji ppkł. dypl. Franciszka Pokornego . Ed .: Muzeum Historii Polski (=  Przegląd Historyczno-Wojskowy ). 2011, p. 168–169 ( PDF; 900 kB , Polish).
  2. ^ Rudolf Kippenhahn: Encrypted messages, secret writing, Enigma and chip card . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1999, p. 211. ISBN 3-499-60807-3
  3. ^ Marian Rejewski: How Polish Mathematicians Broke the Enigma Cipher . IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 03, No. 3, July 1981, pp. 213-234.
  4. ^ Friedrich L. Bauer: Historical Notes on Computer Science . Springer, Berlin 2009, p. 172. ISBN 3-540-85789-3
  5. ↑ Chris Christensen: Review of Marian Rejewski: The Man Who Defeated Enigma by Zdzisław J. Kapera . Cryptologia . Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 39.2015,2 (April), pp. 194-197. ISSN  0161-1194 .
  6. ^ Marian Rejewski: An Application of the Theory of Permutations in Breaking the Enigma Cipher . Applicationes Mathematicae, 16 (4), 1980, pp. 543-559.
personal data
SURNAME Pokorny, Franciszek
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish cryptanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Mosty
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1966
Place of death Edinburgh