Gwido Langer

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Gwido Langer
(around 1930)

Karol Gwido Langer (born September 2, 1894 in Sillein , Austria-Hungary ; † March 30, 1948 in Kinross , Scotland ) ( code name : "Luc") was head of the Polish Biuro Szyfrów (BS) before and at the beginning of World War II ( German: "Chiffrenbüro"). This and its role in the legendary secret meeting of French, British and Polish code breakers in late July 1939 at the Kabaty Woods of Pyry he contributed significantly to the fact that as a consequence the British code breaker in the English Bletchley Park to by the German Wehrmacht of using rotor cipher machine Enigma could decipher encrypted communications .

Life

Gwido Langer worked in the Saxon Palace (Pol. Pałac Saski ) in Warsaw, the seat of the Biuro Szyfrów was
In the Polish Enigma replica, of which at least 15 were made in the mid-1930s, buttons (1), lamps (2) and sockets (7), like the German Enigma-C , were simply arranged alphabetically.

Gwido was born in the town of Sillein (today: Žilina ), which then belonged to Austria-Hungary and is now in northern Slovakia . He spent his childhood in the town of Teschen , 60 km north of it, where his family came from. Teschen (today: Cieszyn in the south of Poland) was located directly on the Austro-Hungarian border with the Kingdom of Poland , which at that time belonged to the Russian Empire , and not far from the border triangle of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany .

Having just turned 17, he attended the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt from September 17, 1911 until the First World War broke out. He became an officer in the Austro-Hungarian 16th Landwehr Infantry Regiment "Krakau" and was taken prisoner by Russia on June 4, 1916. After his release he joined the newly formed Polish army and was arrested again shortly afterwards, during the October Revolution , by the Soviets . After escaping from a Soviet prison camp, he escaped to Poland, which has now re-established and become independent.

After successful employment in various military departments, most recently as head of radio reconnaissance in the General Staff, and parallel training, including at the Military Academy in Warsaw , Gwido Langer went through a steep military career and was promoted to Podpułkownik ( Lieutenant Colonel ) on January 1, 1931 . In the same year he succeeded Franciszek Pokorny as head of the Colonel i. G. Jan Kowalewski (1892–1965) founded Biuro Szyfrów (BS) .

Subsequently, he ensured that young and talented mathematicians strengthened the BS, such as Marian Rejewski , Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski , who joined in 1932 and who in the same year had their first break- in into the Enigma used by the German Reichswehr to encrypt their secret communications -Machine succeeded. 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. In addition to Enigma replicas (see picture), the Polish specialists also constructed two machines specifically for deciphering, called cyclometers and bombs , which embodied two or three times two Enigma machines connected in series and each shifted by three rotary positions.

Shortly before the German attack on their country and in view of the acute threat, they decided to pass on all their knowledge about the identified weaknesses of the machine and the German procedures as well as their tried and tested methods for their deciphering and deciphering results to their allies. On July 26 and 27, 1939, there was a legendary meeting of French, British and Polish code breakers in the forest of Pyry about 20 km south of Warsaw, at which Gwido Langer and his colleagues exposed the Polish methodologies to the astonished British and French.

Just a few weeks later, in September 1939, after the German invasion of Poland , Lieutenant Colonel Langer, like all BS employees , had to leave his country, fled via Romania and initially found asylum in France, where he, together with many of his employees in the PC Bruno ”, a secret Allied intelligence agency near Paris, was able to continue its successful cryptanalytic work against the Enigma. With the German offensive against France in June 1940, they had to flee again from the advancing Wehrmacht and found a new location (camouflage name: "Cadix" ) near Uzès in the free southern zone of France . In March 1943, while trying to flee from France, which was now completely occupied by German troops, to neighboring Spain , he was captured and interned by the SS in Eisenberg Castle (in the Ore Mountains ). Despite intensive interrogation, he managed to keep his knowledge of the Enigma and its breach a secret. After the war, which he luckily survived, he shared the fate of many Polish heroes who did not return to their country after 1945. He was denied any recognition for his services during his lifetime. Langer settled in Scotland disappointed, bitter and lonely . He died at the age of 53 and was buried in a soldier's grave for former members of the Polish armed forces in Wellshill Cemetery in Perth, Scotland .

Posthumous honor

Portal of the Cieszyn cemetery where he found his final resting place

On December 1, 2010, the remains of Colonel Karol Gwido Langer were exhumed and transferred to his native Cieszyn with military honors. He was posthumously awarded the highest class, the Grand Cross of the Order Polonia Restituta . On December 10th of the same year he found his final resting place in the city cemetery of Cieszyn in his homeland.

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 .
  • Friedrich L. Bauer: Historical Notes on Computer Science . Springer, Berlin 2009. ISBN 3-540-85789-3
  • Gustave Bertrand : Énigma ou la plus grande enigme de la guerre 1939–1945 . Librairie Plon, Paris 1973.
  • 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, pp. 294-395. ISSN  0161-1194 .
  • John Gallehawk: Third Person Singular (Warsaw, 1939) . Cryptologia. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 3.2006,3, pp. 193-198. ISSN  0161-1194 .
  • Francis Harry Hinsley , Alan Stripp: Codebreakers - The inside story of Bletchley Park . Oxford University Press, Reading, Berkshire 1993, ISBN 0-19-280132-5 .
  • David Kahn : Seizing the Enigma - The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939-1943 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, USA, 2012, pp. 92f. ISBN 978-1-59114-807-4
  • Dermot Turing : X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press , Stroud 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 .
  • 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. ^ Friedrich L. Bauer: Historical Notes on Computer Science . Springer, Berlin 2009, p. 172. ISBN 3-540-85789-3
  2. ^ Krzysztof Gaj: Polish Cipher Machine -Lacida . Cryptologia . Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 16.1992,1, ISSN  0161-1194 , p. 74.
  3. ^ Marian Rejewski: An Application of the Theory of Permutations in Breaking the Enigma Cipher . Applicationes Mathematicae, 16 (4), 1980, pp. 543-559.
  4. ↑ a b 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 Langer, Gwido
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Langer, Karol Gwido (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish cryptanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Sillein , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1948
Place of death Kinross , Scotland