Didn't they ever try to have their own code breakers break the Enigma code to see if it really is as safe as they thought it was? I mean the Brits broke the code fairly quickly and then had the advantage of knowing what the Germans were doing for most of the war.
On the contrary, the Brits did not quickly break Enigma, it was the Poles who were the first to slowly pry their way into Enigma. They had a small taskforce of math geniuses work for months and got a little into the system. When they were forced to flee, they offered their services to England but were turned away, and went instead to France. And when France fell they were welcomed into England along with a flood of refugees. By this time Churchill was desperate for some form of advantage and authorized the expenditure of comparative small sums to establish the Ultra project. As the BOFFINS started the massive task of picking up where the Poles started the effort and expeditures snowballed. It was no easy task. What few decrypts they manages were always to late to be of any operation use; they needed help so someone invented the first primitive electronic computer. And the Germans did improve and change the machine. For instance, the first machine had three switchable roters that could be premutated. Eventually they provided each machine with something like six roters that could be exchanged in the three slots. They also introduced Enigma Mk2, and Mk3 (my terms) which had four and five slots. So you see they did improve their machine. And each improvement gave the Brits new grief. And there were multiple sub-codes for Army, Navy, Airforce, Submarine, Diplomats, et cetera, et cetera. They even had a special weather-reporting code. And that, along with a curious administrative flaw, lead to the British breakthrough. The flaw was that ALL Enigma machine, of all types, were told to switch their roters the same way each day. It was Standard Operating Procedure. When the Brits realized this, and knowing the Germans stationed a Weather Reporting Ship at a known location north of Iceland (for long range weather forecasting), the Brits would raid this ship every three months, capture ship, crew, and codes which forced the Germans to have to replace it (thinking it sunk). But the brits timed their raids so they would get the list of settings for ALL Enigma for the next three months. It took a lot of work to make the breaking of Enigma seem simple. By the way, I don't think the Germans even concieved an electronic computer.
I think the Poles first broke Enigma, and their work was sent to England for further study before Poland went under. The Germans simply didn't believe Enigma could be cracked. I think this is known as hubris. http://www.amazon.com/Great-Liars-T...y carroll&pebp=1421420909501&peasin=989826902
Thank you for the epic response. Take a look at this video please: That guy claims the issue was that no letter could be itself in the code, a.k.a. "t" would never be "t" in the code, "f" would never be "f" in the code.
The safety of the Enigma machine was in the HUGE number of permutations and combinations the machine theorically produced. Each depression of a key on the keyboard created something like 26! x 26! x 26! possible combination just to begin, but the Germans also had other little tricks which made things even tougher. By the way, do you know the math term 26! ? It is used primarily in Statistics for of math. It does not mean a very good or even a great 26, but it is shorthand for 26 x 25 x 24 x 23....x 3 x 2 x 1. A very large number of possible combinations indeed. And each keystroke brings 26! x 26! x 26! new combinations. No wonder the Germans felt safe in pre-computer dates. As I alluded to earlier, the hope of the British was that somehow, someway the German operators of Enigma would violate the simple and finite rules of CYPHER-SECURITY. They occasionally did, or should I say, a small fraction of the several thousand operators regularly did. Most were small infractions, a few were major. It was enough to occasionally allow the Boffins to open a door or window into Enigma. By the way, one reason why Rommel, the desert fox, was so formidable is that the Germans were breaking the British code traffic. And the commanders of the 8th Army before Montey were clueless.
'' Between '39 - '45, the most advanced and creative forms of mathematical and technological knowledge were combined to master German communications. '' Enigma Message Procedures for the Heer and Luftwaffe : http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/enigmaproc.htm The codebook tool to ' do yourself ' http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/codebook.htm Tony Sale : Bletchley Park Heritage Society : ''Enigma Offizer and Staff Procedure 1940'' http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/index.htm I've noted that the Germans did their best, inbetween those years!
