Wiktor Michałowski

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Wiktor Michałowski alias Victor Michel (*  1895 , †  1967 ) was a Polish cryptanalyst and officer before and during the Second World War , most recently with the rank of major , who was one of the first to attack the Enigma rotor key machine , used by the German Reichswehr and later the Wehrmacht encrypted their radio messages .

Life

The province of Posen (red) in the German Empire
Wiktor Michałowski worked in the Saxon Palace (Pol. Pałac Saski ) in Warsaw , the seat of the Biuro Szyfrów (BS) was
The zone libre , which was unoccupied until November 1942, temporarily offered Biuro Szyfrów a new location.

The young Wiktor Michałowski grew up in the time of the German Empire belonging to the Prussian province of Posen  (picture) on. He spoke fluent German and Polish . During the First World War he served in the German army . Immediately after the end of the war, he fought during the Poznan uprising (December 27, 1918 to February 16, 1919) for the integration of the province into the Polish state , which was re-established after the Compiègne armistice , which finally took place in January 1920.

In the early inter-war period he first worked as a piano player in silent film cinemas, a little later he also tried his hand as an entrepreneur and ran a pencil factory with little success . In 1928 he moved to the Polish General Staff in the department B.S.-4 of the Biuro Szyfrów ( German  "Chiffrenbüro" ) responsible for Germany . His boss there was Maksymilian Ciężki (1898–1951), who, like him, grew up bilingually in Poznan . After Ciężki and Antoni Palluth (1900–1944) had initially tried in vain to break into the Enigma , Wiktor Michałowski was called in.

The decisive break-in was finally achieved in 1932, primarily through the newly arrived young colleagues Marian Rejewski (1905–1980), Jerzy Różycki (1909–1942) and Henryk Zygalski (1908–1978). From 1936 Michałowski , who had meanwhile been promoted to Kapitan ( captain ), served as a liaison officer to Major Jan Leśniak . After the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, he had to leave his country , like all BS employees , fled and initially found asylum in France, where he and many of his colleagues worked in the " PC Bruno ", a secret intelligence agency of Allies near Paris who could continue the cryptanalytic work. With the German offensive against France in June 1940, he and his colleagues had to flee again from the advancing Wehrmacht. They found a new location (camouflage name: "Cadix" ) near Uzès in the free southern zone of France .

In June 1943 he fled France, which was now completely occupied by German troops, to neighboring Spain . He was arrested just across the border and spent some time in Las Misiones prison in Barcelona . In late July 1943, he was introduced by Madrid to Portugal , and from there by trawlers Scottish to Gibraltar . On the night of August 2nd to 3rd, he and his colleagues Rejewski, Zygalski, Szachno and Sylwester Palluth, the cousin of Antoni Palluth (1900-1944 ), went to the English language via Hendon Airport (near London ) Felden (today a district of Hemel Hempstead about 40 kilometers northwest of London). There he worked together with the Polish group in particular on the deciphering of radio messages from the German police . He passed on the knowledge gained from the plaintexts via the British intelligence service Wilfred Dunderdale (1899–1990) to John Tiltman (1894–1982), Head of the Army section of the central military service Bletchley Park (BP) , where, together with all other war-relevant information, under the code name Ultra, they helped the Western Allies with their strategic planning against the Wehrmacht.

literature

Web links

  • Enigma at versus Poland , accessed March 6, 2019.

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. 42.
  2. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 , p. 278.
  3. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 , p. 43.
  4. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 .
  5. ^ Marian Rejewski: An Application of the Theory of Permutations in Breaking the Enigma Cipher . Applicationes Mathematicae, 16 (4), 1980, pp. 543–559, cryptocellar.org (PDF; 1.6 MB), accessed on May 27, 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. 206.
  7. ^ Gordon Welchman: The Hut Six Story - Breaking the Enigma Codes . Allen Lane, London 1982; Cleobury Mortimer M&M, Baldwin Shropshire 2000, p. 77. ISBN 0-947712-34-8
  8. ^ 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
  9. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 , p. 193.
personal data
SURNAME Michałowski, Wiktor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Michel, Victor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish cryptanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH 1895
DATE OF DEATH 1967