Enigma is the best-known encryption and decryption machine in history. The first Enigma cypher machine was invented by Arthur Scherbius, a German engineer, just after the First World War. German industries used it to exchange secret messages, about new models of their products, etc. It was a revolution in the means to share ideas without the risk of leaks. It was also used by armies and governments of the whole world.
When Germany was under Nazi power, the German secret service and army commissioned a more powerful model of Enigma. The Wehrmacht model was created just before the start of the war. It gave Germany a big advantage because no other country knew the workings of this new model. During the war, to encrypt a message using Enigma became a habit for the German soldiers.
For two years the Allied forces were unable to understand the Nazi messages; it was a terrible disadvantage. But in 1943, British scientists, namely Alan Turing with his Colossus machine, discovered how to decrypt Enigma messages at last.
Article by Thibault Prat
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