Stefan Mayer (intelligence officer)

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Stefan Mayer

Stefan A. Mayer (born September 25, 1895 in Rawa-Ruska ; † March 23, 1981 in London ) was a Polish intelligence officer and head of intelligence section  II (Polish: Oddział II ) of the Polish General Staff before and at the beginning of the Second World War , last as Pułkownik (German: Colonel ). In this function he was also responsible for the Biuro Szyfrów (BS) (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 to that as a consequence the British code breaker in the English Bletchley Park to by the German Wehrmacht using the rotor cipher machine Enigma could decipher encrypted message traffic .

Life

Colonel Stefan Mayer was responsible for Biuro Szyfrów, which was housed in the Saxon Palace (Polish: Pałac Saski ) in Warsaw

Shortly before the German attack on Poland and in view of the acute threat of danger, he was commissioned by the Chief of the Polish General Staff, Generał brygady (German: Brigadier General ) Wacław Stachiewicz, to acquire all of the knowledge about the identified weaknesses of the machine and the German procedures as well as the tried and tested methods to decipher them (see also: Cyclometer and Bomba ) and to pass on deciphering results to the Polish allies. On July 26 and 27, 1939, Pyry, French, British and Polish code breakers met in the forest of Pyry about 20 km south of Warsaw, at which Stefan Mayer had the staff of the BS reveal the Polish methodologies to the astonished British and French .

After the outbreak of war, Mayer had to leave his country. He went to England and from 1941 headed the news school of the Polish government-in-exile , whose headquarters were initially in Bayswater , a district of London , and from 1942, after its relocation, until 1945 in Glasgow .

Fonts

SA Mayer: The breaking up of the German cipher machine 'ENIGMA' by the cryptological section in the 2nd Department of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces. PRO HW 25/16, May 31, 1974.

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 .
  • 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
  • Władysław Kozaczuk , Jerzy Straszak, Enigma - How the Poles Broke the Nazi Code . Hippocrene Books, 2004, ISBN 0-7818-0941-X .
  • Władysław Kozaczuk: Secret Operation Wicher . Bernard et al. Graefe, Koblenz 1989, Karl Müller, Erlangen 1999, ISBN 3-7637-5868-2 , ISBN 3-86070-803-1 .
  • Władysław Kozaczuk: Under the spell of Enigma . Military publishing house, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-327-00423-4 .
  • 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 .

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. ↑ Friedrich L. Bauer: Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, p. 421.
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Stefan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mayer, Stefan A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish intelligence officer
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Rawa-ruska
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1981
Place of death London