Enigma Shadows by bmac62
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Description
During World War II, NAZI German diplomats and all branches of the German military employed Enigma Code Machines to encode all their classified communications world-wide.
Enigma could use four of seven rotors reset daily in accordance with Top Secret Code Books. Possible combinations were 92,579,782,159,863,838,064,000 (92 septillion). The Germans believed their codes were unbreakable. The allies read these codes from early in WWII!!!
ZOOM to read the details and match with the numbers on the top photo.
These two Enigma Code machines and their red, lead covered code book were recovered from the German Submarine, U-505, on June 4, 1944.
All of this is on display in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry right next to U-505.
Here are links for U-505 from earlier postings of mine:
Boobie Trapped
U-505 in Chicago
Bill:)
Comments (34)
debbielove
You got Enigma shot up, Bill! Excellent work... Great history to this machine and of U505... Just wish Hollywood would stop messing with real history! But, there we go.... Super stuff.. Nearly missed this. And great work through the case. Rob.
Chipka
WOW! This is astonishing. I've been on board the U-505 and have fond memories of it...I also remember seeing pictures of the thing being moved to its current museum residence. But anyway, enough of that! This is a great photo and I love the way that you've captured the almost "steam-punk" quality of the Enigma machine thingies. (Yes, "thingies" is actually a technical word, utilized extensively in the field of cryptography!) What I particularly like about this is the almost Victorian elegance of old machinery that you've captured. There's just something strangely sensual about it, despite what these devices were used for. Ah, but that's humanity for you...we find all sorts of inventive (and sometimes even pretty) ways to do nasty stuff to each other, and that's what strikes me about this photo. There's nothing "glorious" or even "beautiful" about WWII, and yet it was such a human thing and I guess as something of a humanist in all sorts of ways that amaze and amuse me, I find myself drawn to the lives of the actual humans (not enemy combattants) that might once have used these, and well...as a writer, I was drawn to the code book, just because it's a book...lead lined at that! Great work.
danapommet
Checked out the other links above. That is some history lesson. Awesome narrative in all three postings and great photography. Thanks for sharing this Bill. Dana
mermaid
yep I think the enigma and the ever lasting race to decipher the changing machines and codes for different military parts of the germans was one of the fascinating details in modern history. The success in deciphering came due to a massive amout of people (up to 40000) working on the chaning codes and a special machine based on the idea of a polish kryptographer and of course the capture of some machines and codebooks.