Cryptologist Memorial

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The cryptologist memorial in front of the entrance to the west wing of the Poznan Residential Palace (2014)

The cryptologist monument (in the Polish original: Pomnik kryptologów ) was created in honor of the three Polish cryptanalysts Marian Rejewski (1905–1980), Jerzy Różycki (1909–1942) and Henryk Zygalski (1908–1978) as well as their performance in breaking the German rotor -Key machine Enigma built. It stands in front of the residential palace in Poznan and was unveiled in 2007 to mark the 75th anniversary of the first decipherment of the Enigma .

layout

One side of the monument in close-up (2014)
Another side of the monument (2012)
The cryptologist memorial (bottom right in the picture) in front of the castle (2010)

The monument stands in the Poznan Ulica Święty Marcin ( German  St. Martin -Straße ) immediately (Pol. Outside the main entrance of the west wing of the Royal Palace Zamek Cesarski , literally: " Emperor's Castle " to differentiate it from the much older Royal Castle, Poznań ). It is a stele in the form of a straight three-sided prism with an equilateral triangular base . The side surfaces are 1.20 m wide and 3.10 m high and are made of bronze . They are labeled with randomly appearing sequences of digits . Each side shows 21 lines of twelve digits each, apparently without any meaning. In the middle of each side, however, there are letters that clearly stand out from the sea of ​​numbers. They catch the viewer's eye, so to speak.

These are the names of the three Polish cryptanalysts, written in capital letters, who succeeded in breaking the German key machine Enigma as early as 1932: 

 MARIAN    JERZY    HENRYK

REJEWSKI  RÓŻYCKI  ZYGALSKI

The monument was created on the initiative of the Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk ( German  Poznan Society of Friends of Science ), PTPN for short, a renowned association of scientists from all over Poland, but above all of employees of the Poznan universities . After the initiators had received the patronage of the Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski for the planned project, the PTPN announced an open competition for the design of the planned monument in 2003. From the 24 proposals submitted, the jury unanimously selected the design by Grażyna Bielska-Kozakiewicz and Mariusz Krzysztof Kozakiewicz.

The place in front of the residential palace was quickly decided upon . As one of the last major palace buildings in Europe, it was built in the neo-Romanesque style between 1905 and 1913 by order of the German Emperor Wilhelm II . After the First World War and the re-establishment of Poland , the Poznan University used part of the premises. In 1929 a secret and now legendary course on cryptology organized by the Polish Biuro Szyfrów (BS) ( German cipher office ) took place in the rooms of the mathematics faculty, in which the three young students Rejewski, Różycki and Zygalski participated particularly successfully. This place symbolizes in a special way the spatial proximity of the three to be honored and their early workplace in Posen.  

The solemn ceremony for the unveiling of the monument took place on November 10, 2007 in the presence of the daughter of Marian Rejewski, Mrs. Janina Sylwestrzak, the son of Jerzy Różycki, Mr. Jan Janusz Różycki, and two relatives of Henryk Zygalski, Mrs. Maria Bryschak and Mrs. Anna Zygalska -Cannon, instead. Also present were other relatives of the three code breakers , as well as former superiors and colleagues from their places of work, the BS in Warsaw and the “ PC Bruno ” and “Cadix” in later French exile.

background

→ Main article: Deciphering the Enigma

The three young Polish cryptanalysts
Rejewski, Różycki and Zygalski (approx. 1928–1932)

After the invention of the Enigma in 1918 by the German Arthur Scherbius , this innovative type of machine encryption was used by the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic from the mid-1920s, initially on an experimental basis and increasingly regularly from 1930. Germany's neighbors, above all France, Great Britain and Poland, followed this with suspicion, especially when the National Socialist rule began in 1933 and this key machine established itself as a standard procedure in the course of the armament of the Wehrmacht . While it failed French and the British, in the encryption break and they classified the Enigma as "unbreakable", the then 27-year Rejewski succeeded in his work in the charge of Germany Unit of the Polish BS4 BS , already in 1932 the first burglary . To do this, he and his colleagues Różycki and Zygalski exploited a serious procedural error that the Germans had made.

To secure transmission to ensure was, at the time of the authorized recipient of a message to the decryption needed message key (also see: Enigma radio message ) asked twice in a row and encrypted to the beginning of a message written ( " message key duplication "). Thus the first and fourth, the second and fifth as well as the third and sixth ciphertext letters were each assigned to the same plain text letter. With the help of two specially built machines, called Zyklometer and Bomba , which embodied two or three times two Enigma machines connected in series and each offset by three rotational positions, the Polish cryptanalysts were able to determine for each of the six possible roller positions at which roller positions the observed assignment the letter pairs was possible and so narrow the search space considerably. After analyzing several radio messages, the correct message key was found.

Shortly before the start of the Second World War , on July 26 and 27, 1939, the entire knowledge about the Enigma was passed on to the British and French by the Polish code breakers at the secret meeting of Pyry , about 20 km southeast of Warsaw in the Kabaty forest of Pyry Secret service handed over.

For the British Codebreakers , the wide range of assistance and the boost they received from their Polish allies were undoubtedly extremely valuable, possibly even decisive, in order to “get off the starting blocks” in the first place. In particular, the knowledge of the wiring of the Enigma rollers and the functionality and structure of the Bomba was extremely important and helpful for the British. The English mathematician and cryptanalyst Gordon Welchman , who was one of the leading minds of the British code breakers in Bletchley Park , expressly praised the Polish contributions and assistance by writing: “... had they not done so, British breaking of the Enigma might well have failed to get off the ground. " (German:" ... had they [the Poles] not acted like this, the British break of the Enigma might not have gotten off the starting blocks at all. ")

literature

Web links

Commons : Cryptologists Monument  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Video
photos
Reports

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marek Grajek: Monument in Memoriam of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski Unveiled in Poznań , Cryptologia, 32: 2, 2008, p 102, doi : 10.1080 / 01611190801916634 . In contrast to the height indicated in the “Monument's Design” drawing, which is based on only 19 lines, two more lines were obviously added at the top during the actual realization, so that the height grew from 2.80 m to 3.10 m.
  2. ↑ a b Marek Grajek: Monument in Memoriam of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski Unveiled in Poznań , Cryptologia, 32: 2, 2008, p 101, doi : 10.1080 / 01611190801916634
  3. ↑ Marek Grajek: Monument in Memoriam of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski Unveiled in Poznań , Cryptologia, 32: 2, 2008, p 102, doi : 10.1080 / 01611190801916634
  4. ↑ Simon Singh: Secret Messages . Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2000, p. 199. ISBN 3-446-19873-3 .
  5. ^ Marian Rejewski: An Application of the Theory of Permutations in Breaking the Enigma Cipher . Applicationes Mathematicae, 16 (4), 1980, pp. 543-559. Accessed: February 23, 2016. PDF; 1.6 MB
  6. ↑ 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 , p. 412.
  7. ↑ 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
  8. ^ Gordon Welchman: The Hut Six Story - Breaking the Enigma Codes . Allen Lane, London 1982; Cleobury Mortimer M&M, Baldwin Shropshire 2000, p. 219. ISBN 0-947712-34-8 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 24 ′ 27 ″  N , 16 ° 55 ′ 9 ″  E