The First Enigma Codebreaker: Marian Rejewski Who Passed the Baton to Alan Turing

by Robert Gawlowski

The history of Enigma is of interest to many researchers and authors on an international scale. The capture and unraveling of the most hidden secret of the army of the Third Reich that was decisive for the fate of one of the greatest armed conflicts in the history of the world appeals to everyone from the avid historian to Hollywood. So far, other authors' attention has focused on the technical and cryptological issues of Enigma functioning, the fate of the Bletchley Park facility, or Alan Turing's story. Most of the attention was devoted to the events during the Second World War and it is the time frame of this conflict that usually begins and ends the story of Enigma. The First Enigma Codebreaker raises an issue that has never been discussed in greater detail in both international and Polish literature, the story of Marian Rejewski. This biography answers the in what conditions was the ““Enigma conqueror““ brought up, in what circumstances did he manage to decode the machine, what happened to him during the Second World War and why he never ended up in Bletchley Park, what price he had to pay for his discovery in the communist Poland and what he did to make the world know the true history of Enigma. This is the story of a man who made a revolution in cryptology, about the rivalry between man and machine, about powerful history affecting individual lives, and about the life of Marian Rejewski whose story is still waiting to be presented to the public.

Genres: History

224 pages, Hardcover

Published April 15, 2023

Reviews

[Mark Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because I wanted to know more about the breaking of Enigma and its effect on the war. There is some of that, and I'm glad that I read the book. It's also part biography, part exposition on the political changes Poland has gone through in the 20th century, part love letter to the city of Bydgoszcz, part summary of the controversy over just who did what in solving Enigma and using the products of that solution. A lot of this story has not been available in English until recently.

If you've read Winterbotham's The ULTRA Secret you are in for a few eye-openers. Those who are interested in this particular chapter of WWII history should read as many sources as you can find.

I borrowed this from the library (on loan from another library -- it's hard to find). I may need to add a copy to my collection.