WhereIsAtlas · Tech

Enigma

The cipher machine Germany trusted with its military secrets — reconstructed by Polish mathematicians, then broken at Bletchley Park

Defunct — Enigma was a family of rotor cipher machines, not one machine. Arthur Scherbius was named as inventor on the 1918 patent, the company that made it was founded in 1923, and German armed forces adopted it from the mid-1920s. The maker went out of business in 1935 and its successor stopped trading in 1945; the machine outlived both. Enigma was broken — first by Polish mathematicians in the early 1930s, then continuously at Bletchley Park — and surviving machines are now museum objects with catalogue numbers and serial numbers.

Try the Enigma I model — Rotors I–V, both reflectors, the ring settings, the plugboard and the real middle-rotor double-step — a working model you can operate in the browser.

Enigma is the general name for a family of cipher machines that scrambled messages by passing electric current through a set of rotating wired wheels. The design was patented in Germany in 1918 by the engineer Arthur Scherbius, and manufactured from 1923 by Chiffriermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft — a company founded in Berlin to sell the machine to businesses and governments.

The commercial models did not sell in large numbers, and most of the machines that were sold ended up with German government departments. The German armed forces adopted the machine from the mid-1920s, and the version they used — Enigma I, fitted with a plugboard across the front — became the standard military machine of the Second World War. A naval four-rotor version, the M4, entered service on 1 February 1942 and blacked out Bletchley Park's reading of U-boat traffic for nine months.

The company did not survive the decade in which the machine became famous. Chiffriermaschinen AG was liquidated and its business taken over by Heimsoeth & Rinke in 1935, and that successor firm ceased trading in May 1945. Production continued under licence from four other German companies, whose manufacturer codes appear stamped on surviving machines.

The machine's historical importance is not that it kept secrets but that breaking it drove the development of machines to break it. Polish mathematicians in the Cipher Bureau reconstructed its internal wiring in the early 1930s and built the first electromechanical device to search its keys. They handed their work to Britain and France in July 1939. Bletchley Park then industrialised the attack, and the electromechanical Bombes and the electronic Colossus that followed are part of the lineage of modern computing.

Timeline

  1. 23 Feb 1918 — The patent is filed: Arthur Scherbius files the cipher-machine patent in Germany; it is granted in 1925 to Gewerkschaft Securitas, the Berlin body he traded under, not to him personally. (Berlin)
  2. 9 Jul 1923 — The company is founded: Chiffriermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft is established in Berlin to build and sell the machine commercially. (Berlin)
  3. Apr 1925 — The first machines are sold: Two Enigma B machines are delivered to the Swedish General Staff, the best-documented early commercial sale. (Stockholm)
  4. Mid-1920s — The military adopts it: German armed forces take up a lamp-based Enigma; sources date the adoption to 1926, to a first batch of about 600 machines on 10 December 1927, or to 1930. (Germany)
  5. 1927-1928 — The plugboard: A single-ended patch panel appears in 1927 and the final double-ended Steckerbrett in 1928 — the feature that defined the military machine. (Germany)
  6. 31 Jul 1935 — The maker disappears: Chiffriermaschinen AG is liquidated and its business taken over by Heimsoeth & Rinke, which continues production and licenses it to four other German firms. (Berlin)
  7. Early 1930s — The Poles reconstruct it: Marian Rejewski, working in the Polish Cipher Bureau's German section, works out the machine's internal wiring from intercepted traffic. (Warsaw)
  8. 1938 — The first cryptologic bomb: The Poles build the bomba kryptologiczna, the first electromechanical device used to search Enigma keys — a different machine from the later British Bombe. (Warsaw)
  9. 25-26 Jul 1939 — The handoff: Polish, French and British cryptanalysts meet near Warsaw; the Poles disclose their reconstruction and their methods to Britain and France. (Pyry, Poland)
  10. Mar 1940 — The British Bombe runs: The first Turing-Welchman Bombe, incorporating Gordon Welchman's diagonal board, becomes operational at Bletchley Park. (Bletchley Park)
  11. 1 Feb 1942 — The four-rotor machine: The Kriegsmarine switches to the four-rotor Enigma M4 without warning; it takes nine months for Bletchley Park to read the traffic again. (Germany)
  12. 1943 — Colossus: The electronic Colossus is built — to attack the Lorenz cipher, not Enigma, a distinction that is routinely lost. (Bletchley Park)
  13. May 1945 — The successor closes: Heimsoeth & Rinke ceases trading; no company has made Enigma machines since. (Berlin)
  14. 2021-2025 — The machines surface as objects: Christie's sells an M4 for €482,600 in Paris in November 2025; Bonhams sells a 1944 Olympia-built M4 for £305,200 in September 2025. (Paris, London)

Quick facts

Patented
1918, filed 23 February; granted to Gewerkschaft Securitas, Berlin, on 8 July 1925
Named as inventor
Arthur Scherbius
Manufacturer
Chiffriermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft, founded 9 July 1923, Berlin W35
Maker's fate
liquidated 31 July 1935; succeeded by Heimsoeth & Rinke, which ceased trading May 1945
Licensed production
Olympia (Erfurt), Ertel-Werk (Munich), Konski & Krüger (Berlin) and Atlas Werke (Bremen), under Heimsoeth & Rinke
Military adoption
German armed forces from the mid-1920s — sources give 1926, 1927 and 1930
Plugboard
added from 1927; the final double-ended design dates to 1928
Standard wartime machine
Enigma I, three rotors chosen from five
Naval four-rotor machine
Enigma M4, in service 1 February 1942
Reconstructed by
Marian Rejewski at the Polish Cipher Bureau, working from intercepted traffic
Handed to the Allies
Pyry, near Warsaw, 25–26 July 1939
Broken at
Bletchley Park, continuously from 1940
Where they are now
museum objects — Bletchley Park, the Deutsches Museum, the Polish Army Museum and others
What they sell for
£305,200 for a 1944 Olympia M4 at Bonhams in September 2025

Lineage — where the name went

Two strands, and they never meet in the graph because they never met in ownership. One runs from an engineer's 1918 patent through the company that built the machine to the four German firms that built it under licence. The other runs from the Polish mathematicians who reconstructed it to the British machines built to attack it. The codebreaking strand is drawn as a separate column for that reason.

  1. 1918 — Arthur Scherbius created Enigma (named as the inventor on the patent application)
  2. 1918 — Arthur Scherbius created Gewerkschaft Securitas (the patent-holding body he traded under)
  3. 1923 — Gewerkschaft Securitas created Chiffriermaschinen AG (founded 9 July 1923 to build and sell the machine)
  4. 1927 — Chiffriermaschinen AG created Enigma I (the military machine, with the plugboard added)
  5. 1935 — Chiffriermaschinen AG was succeeded by Heimsoeth & Rinke (liquidated 31 July 1935; Heimsoeth & Rinke took over the business)
  6. 1940 — Heimsoeth & Rinke licensed the brand to Olympia Büromaschinenwerke (manufacture under licence; Heereswaffenamt code aye)
  7. 1941 — Heimsoeth & Rinke licensed the brand to Ertel-Werk (manufacture under licence; code bac)
  8. 1941 — Heimsoeth & Rinke licensed the brand to Konski & Krüger (manufacture under licence; code gvx)
  9. 1941 — Heimsoeth & Rinke licensed the brand to Atlas Werke (manufacture under licence; code jmz)
  10. 1942 — Heimsoeth & Rinke created Enigma M4 (the four-rotor naval machine)
  11. 1932 — Polish Cipher Bureau, BS-4 appointed Marian Rejewski (mathematician in the German-ciphers section)
  12. 1932 — Polish Cipher Bureau, BS-4 appointed Henryk Zygalski (mathematician in the German-ciphers section)
  13. 1938 — Polish Cipher Bureau, BS-4 created The bomba kryptologiczna (the cryptologic bomb, the first such device)
  14. 1939 — Polish Cipher Bureau, BS-4 created The Pyry meeting (the disclosure to Britain and France)
  15. 1940 — The bomba kryptologiczna was succeeded by The Bombe (the British machine built on the Polish approach)
  16. 1939 — Bletchley Park appointed Alan Turing (worked at GC&CS throughout the war)
  17. 1940 — Bletchley Park created The Bombe (first Bombe operational in March 1940)
  18. 1940 — Bletchley Park created Enigma I (reading Enigma I traffic continuously from 1940)

Entities in this tree: Arthur Scherbius (person, 1878); Gewerkschaft Securitas (company, 1918); Chiffriermaschinen AG (company, 1923); Enigma (product, 1918); Enigma I (product, 1927); Enigma M4 (product, 1942); Heimsoeth & Rinke (company, 1935); Olympia Büromaschinenwerke (company, 1940); Ertel-Werk (company, 1941); Konski & Krüger (company, 1941); Atlas Werke (company, 1941); Polish Cipher Bureau, BS-4 (organization); Marian Rejewski (person, 1905); Henryk Zygalski (person, 1908); The bomba kryptologiczna (product); The Pyry meeting (event, 1939); Bletchley Park (organization, 1939); Alan Turing (person, 1912); The Bombe (product, 1940)

Sources

  1. DE 416 219 C — Chiffrierapparat, filed 23 February 1918, granted 8 July 1925; applicant Gewerkschaft Securitas — Google Patents (2026-09-21)
  2. Chiffriermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft — Crypto Museum (2026-09-21)
  3. Enigma development and production history — Crypto Cellar Research (Frode Weierud) (2026-09-21)
  4. Enigmas of Bletchley Park — models and serial numbers of the machines held — Bletchley Park Trust (2026-09-21)
  5. Enigma I — Crypto Museum (2026-09-21)
  6. Enigma history — the plugboard's development — Crypto Museum (2026-09-21)
  7. Enigma M4 — Crypto Museum (2026-09-21)
  8. Enigma K in Switzerland — Crypto Museum (2026-09-21)
  9. Enigma A — the early commercial models — Crypto Museum (2026-09-21)
  10. Enigma manufacturing codes (Fertigungskennzeichen) — Crypto Cellar Research (Frode Weierud) (2026-09-21)
  11. Henryk Zygalski (1908-1978) — the Poznań cryptology course and Referat BS-4 — Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Polish Institute of National Remembrance) (2026-09-21)
  12. The Pyry Forest meeting — GCHQ (2026-09-21)
  13. An application of the theory of permutations in breaking the Enigma cipher — Rejewski, Applicationes Mathematicae 16 (1980), 543-559 — Instytut Matematyczny PAN (IMPAN) (2026-09-21)
  14. The Polish connection — The National Museum of Computing (2026-09-21)
  15. Enter Turing and Welchman — The National Museum of Computing (2026-09-21)
  16. Colossus — The National Museum of Computing (2026-09-21)
  17. HW 25/3 — "Mathematical theory of ENIGMA machine by Alan Mathison Turing", covering dates 1939-1942 — The National Archives (UK) (2026-09-21)
  18. HW 25/29 — the Bombe — The National Archives (UK) (2026-09-21)
  19. HW 25/34 — Colossus and Tunny — The National Archives (UK) (2026-09-21)
  20. HW 25/12 — pre-war meetings between French, Polish and British cryptanalysts — The National Archives (UK) (2026-09-21)
  21. Crown copyright and the Open Government Licence — The National Archives (UK) (2026-09-21)
  22. The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes — Gordon Welchman — Open Library (2026-09-21)
  23. Chiffriermaschine Enigma M4, Inventarnr. 2017-398 — Deutsches Museum (2026-09-21)
  24. Enigma M4, Inventarnr. 4.0.23036, serial M 18311 / aye / 44 — Museumsstiftung Post und Telekommunikation (2026-09-21)
  25. Niemiecka maszyna szyfrująca Enigma w Muzeum Wojska Polskiego — Muzeum Wojska Polskiego (2026-09-21)
  26. Enigma — Australian War Memorial (2026-09-21)
  27. Enigma cipher machine, object 94/90/1 — Powerhouse (Sydney) (2026-09-21)
  28. The Exceptional Sale, Christie's Paris, 19 November 2025 — Enigma M4 serial M5426 — Christie's (2026-09-21)
  29. Science, Technology & Natural History, Bonhams, September 2025 — an Olympia-built M4 at £305,200 — Bonhams (2026-09-21)
  30. Scherbius and the Enigma: political, economic and military conditions — Claus Taaks, HistoCrypt 2023 — Linköping University Electronic Press (2026-09-21)
  31. The first classical Enigmas: Swedish views on Enigma development 1924-1930 — Anders Wik, HistoCrypt 2018 — Linköping University Electronic Press (2026-09-21)
  32. Cipher Machine TG-356 (Enigma) — the machine bought by the IDF in the 1950s — Israeli Signal Corps Museum (2026-09-21)
  33. Enigma in Spain — Crypto Cellar Research (Frode Weierud) (2026-09-21)
  34. Máquina de cifrar alemana marca Enigma, tipo comercial, modelo K, 1931, inv. MUE-202663 — Museo del Ejército (Spanish Ministry of Defence) (2026-09-21)

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