Jan Graliński

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Jan Józef Graliński alias Jean Ralewski (born  February 8, 1895 in Wrzeszczewice near Łask ; †  January 9, 1942 in the Mediterranean near the Balearic Islands ) was a Polish cryptanalyst and officer , most recently with the rank of major .

Life

The zone libre , which was unoccupied until November 1942, temporarily offered the code breakers of Biuro Szyfrów a new location.
Map of the Mediterranean. The red arrow indicates the starting port of Algiers and the sinking point of the Lamoricière near Menorca . The port of destination was Marseille .

Born as the son of Franciszek Graliński and his wife Maria, b. Wicherkiewicz, he graduated from school in Łódź, 30 kilometers north-east of his hometown, with an average grade of around 3.5, which did not reveal his outstanding talent as a later code breaker . He entered the Second Kiev Military School of the Imperial Russian Army and was promoted to lieutenant on February 1, 1916 after successful completion . At the end of his service , on December 20, 1917, he received the Order of St. Stanislaus in the Commander's class with swords. On November 1, 1918, he joined the newly formed Polish Army . He took part in the Polish-Soviet War (1919–1921) in the 6th Army under Wacław Iwaszkiewicz and received the Cross of Bravery . On December 1, 1920 he was promoted to first lieutenant ( Polish Porucznik ) and in May 1925 to Kapitan ( captain ).

In the 1930s he moved to Section BS3 , the department responsible for Russian ciphers within the Polish cipher office Biuro Szyfrów (BS) , and became its head in 1937 . The BS had its headquarters in the Saxon Palace (Polish: Pałac Saski ) in Warsaw . In September 1939, after the German invasion of Poland , Graliński had to leave his country and, like most of his colleagues from the BS , fled via Romania and found asylum in France. There the Poles were initially able to continue their cryptanalytic work in the " PC Bruno ", a secret Allied intelligence facility near Paris, before they had to flee again from the advancing Wehrmacht in June 1940 after the German offensive against France . Together with his colleagues, he found a new location (code name: “Cadix” ) near Uzès in the zone libre (picture) , the free (unoccupied) southern zone of France.  

Even before the Wehrmacht carried out Anton in November 1942 and occupied the whole of France, the BS, together with the French allies from the Deuxième Bureau, under the direction of Louis Rivet, built a branch as a safe retreat in Algiers on the African side of the Mediterranean opposite France who from time to time translated the Poles and French by ship. In the Algerian representation, Graliński and his friend and colleague Piotr Smoleński were the only code experts for Russian ciphers.

On January 6, 1942, Jan Graliński boarded the French steamship Lamoricière together with some of his colleagues from the BS , including Piotr Smoleński and Jerzy Różycki , who was responsible for German ciphers ( Enigma ) . This got into a severe storm near the Balearic Islands and sank .

Jan Graliński jumped over the bow of the sinking ship in dire straits and tried to swim to another ship to save himself. He probably drowned shortly after noon on January 9, 1942 at the age of 46.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 , p. 10.
  2. ^ CV (Polish), accessed on April 23, 2019.
  3. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 , p. 199.
  4. ^ CV (Polish), accessed on April 23, 2019.
  5. ↑ Studia nad wywiadem i kontrwywiadem PDF 4.2 MB (Polish), p. 271 "Russian ciphers, Captain Jan Józef Graliński", accessed on April 18, 2019.
  6. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 , p. 199.
personal data
SURNAME Graliński, Jan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Graliński, Jan Józef (full name); Ralewski, Jean (alias)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish officer and cryptanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Wrzeszczewice
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1942
Place of death Mediterranean Sea in the Balearic Islands