Marian Rejewski

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Marian Rejewski 1932
Marian Rejewski 1943/44
Rejewski's workplace at the Polish cipher bureau BS was in the right wing of the Saxon Palace in Warsaw in the 1930s .

Audio file / audio sample Marian Adam Rejewski ? / i (bornAugust 16, 1905inBromberg,German Reich; †February 13, 1980inWarsaw,People's Republic of Poland) was aPolish mathematicianandcryptologist. In 1932 he laid the foundations for thecryptanalysis ofthe GermanEnigmakeymachineand thus fordecipheringtheradio messagesthat the German military usedtoencryptduringWorld War II.

students life

After finishing school, Rejewski began to study mathematics and statistics at the University of Poznan . In the summer of 1929 he moved to Göttingen , where he stayed for a year. During Rejewski's absence, the Biuro Szyfrów (German: "Chiffren-Büro") of the Polish General Staff held a course for twenty selected students. The secret service had chosen Posen for this special course because the city had belonged to Germany from 1793 to 1918 and was therefore home to many German-speaking students. It was hoped that this would attract new cryptologists. A short time later Rejewski was offered an assistant position at his home university, whereupon he returned from Göttingen . After the secret service course, a cipher office was set up at Poznan University, where the two younger students Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki worked. Now Rejewski also began to deal with the art of encryption.

Work in the cipher office

The cyclometer (1934)
Memorial to Marian Rejewski in his hometown Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), which was unveiled there in 2005 on the occasion of his 100th birthday. To the left of him is the sculpture of an Enigma.
Cenotaph for Marian Rejewski in Poznan .

In 1932 he was recruited by the Biuro Szyfrów (German: "Chiffrenbüro") in Warsaw, and assigned to Section BS4 , the department responsible for Germany. There he succeeded already in 1932, together with his two colleagues Różycki and Zygalski, the cryptanalysis and the first break into the German Enigma radio messages. To do this, he used specially designed electromechanical machines called cyclometers or bombas . This enabled the daily key that was used to encrypt the messages to be found within a few hours . Before 1936, the Germans only changed it every quarter, then daily. With his knowledge of the Enigma, Rejewski was many years ahead of all other cryptanalysts who considered the Enigma "unbreakable" .

In 1939, the Cipher Bureau decided, in view of the increasing threat for Poland danger since 1932 successfully developed methodologies and tools with which it had succeeded by the German Reichswehr and later by the army using the Enigma encrypted to news decipher , to to pass on the French and British allies. On July 26 and 27, 1939, the legendary secret meeting of French, British and Polish code breakers took place in the Kabaty Forest of Pyry , just under 20 km south of Warsaw, where they presented their Enigma replicas and their cryptanalytic machines to the astonished British and French and revealed their methodologies.

The Polish allies obtained elementary important information after the British codebreaker "Dilly" Knox Rejewski had asked the question (probably in French): "Quel est le QWERTZU ?" (German: "What is the QWERTZU?" "What is the wiring order of the entry roller?"). Rejewski's answer was ingeniously simple: "ABCDEFG ..."

With this boost, the British were able to launch another attack on the German machine in Bletchley Park (BP) in England when the war broke out, which subsequently enabled them to decipher the encrypted German radio messages almost continuously throughout the entire Second World War there are over two and a half million "cracked" slogans.

Rejewski himself took up his work in France with parts of the Biuro Szyfrów in October 1939 and was assigned to the " PC Bruno " there. When the German Wehrmacht invaded there in June 1940 , he and other BS colleagues were evacuated via Algeria to southern France to the new location "Cadix" . On August 30, 1943, they were brought to Great Britain, where they did their research in Boxmoor. The findings of Biuro Szyfrów were used and improved by the Allies, especially in England. The successes of the English cryptanalysts in Bletchley Park in breaking the Enigma are based on the work of Rejewski and Biuro Szyfrów .

After the war, Rejewski returned to Poland, where he found his wife and two children. He wrote a book about his work, but it was never published. The Polish Mathematical Society honored him with a medal specially created for him. Rejewski died in Warsaw in 1980 and is buried there in the Powązki cemetery .

Posthumous honors

In 2000 he was posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta . In 2001, in an official ceremony in the presence of Polish generals, Rejewski's daughter and the President of the Polish Mathematical Society, a commemorative plaque to Rejewski was inaugurated on his grave.

In 2007, on the 75th anniversary of the first deciphering of the Enigma , the cryptologist memorial (Polish: Pomnik kryptologów ) dedicated to him and his two colleagues was unveiled in front of the Residential Palace in Poznan .

Memorial plaque for Rejewski and his colleagues on Piłsudski Square in Warsaw

In his honor, a memorial plaque was placed on Pilsudski Square in Warsaw .

In 2014 he was inducted into the Hall of Honor of the NSA ( National Security Agency ).

Works (selection)

  • An Application of the Theory of Permutations in Breaking the Enigma Cipher . Applicationes Mathematicae, 16 (4), 1980, pp. 543-559. PDF; 1.6 MB .
  • How Polish Mathematicians Deciphered the Enigma . Annals of the History of Computing, 3 (3), July 1981, pp. 213-234.

literature

Web links

Commons : Marian Rejewski  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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.
  2. ^ Mavis Batey: Dilly Knox - A Reminiscence of this Pioneer Enigma Cryptanalyst. Cryptologia, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 32.2008,2, pp. 104-130.
  3. ↑ Peter Twinn: The Abwehr Enigma in Francis Harry Hinsley, Alan Stripp: Codebreakers - The inside story of Bletchley Park . Oxford University Press, Reading, Berkshire 1993, p. 126. ISBN 0-19-280132-5 .
  4. ^ Hugh Sebag-Montefiore: Enigma - The battle for the code . Cassell Military Paperbacks, London 2004, p. 42. ISBN 0-304-36662-5 .
  5. ^ Gordon Welchman: The Hut Six Story - Breaking the Enigma Codes . Allen Lane, London 1982; Cleobury Mortimer M&M, Baldwin Shropshire 2000, p. 11. ISBN 0-947712-34-8 .
  6. ↑ Stephen Pincock and Mark Frary: Secret Codes - The Most Famous Encryption Techniques and Their History . Bastei Lübbe, 2007, p. 109. ISBN 3-431-03734-8 .
  7. ^ Photo in Booss-Bavnbek, Jens Hoyrup Mathematics and War: An invitation to revisit , Mathematical Intelligencer, 2003, No. 3, p. 20.
  8. ↑ Marek Grajek : Monument in Memoriam of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski Unveiled in Poznań , Cryptologia , 32: 2, 2008, pp. 101-103, doi : 10.1080 / 01611190801916634
  9. ↑ Chris Christensen: Review of IEEE Milestone Award to the Polish Cipher Bureau for `` The First Breaking of Enigma Code '' . Cryptologia . Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 39.2015,2, p. 192. ISSN  0161-1194 .
personal data
SURNAME Rejewski, Marian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rejewski, Marian Adam (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish mathematician and cryptologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Bromberg , Poland
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1980
Place of death Warsaw , Poland