Enigma machines in Spanish civil war

[West-Front]

Franco used Nazi Enigma machines in Spanish civil war

Online: http://www.thelocal.de/14881/20081014/

General Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces reportedly used Enigma machines, the device Germany's Nazis used to encrypt top-secret messages during World War II, in their battle against Republicans during Spain's civil war.

The Spanish daily newspaper El Pais reported this week that it had found 16 of the machines, which resemble clunky typewriters, at an army headquarters in Madrid. It said they were a "secret weapon" which contributed to the right-wing Nationalist victory.

Franco, who ruled Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975, bought about 50 of the commercial version of the machines, which were less sophisticated than the military version, from Germany, the newspaper said. The use of the machines during Spain's 1936-39 civil war has until now been a secret.

The civil war was sparked by Franco's insurgency against the democratically elected left-wing Republican government.

Nazi Germany and fascist Italy stepped in to help Franco, while the Soviet Union aided the Republican government along with volunteers from around the world who joined the "Brigadas Internacionales" to fight fascism.

An estimated 500,000 died in Spain's civil war, which preceded World War II in the rest of Europe.

AFP (news@thelocal.de)



http://www.thelocal.de/14881/20081014/

[mario33]

I wonder if Germans would let those into Spanish hands. Might be risky as not controlled and might fall into other countries' intelligence much easier...

[von bock]

I wonder if Germans would let those into Spanish hands. Might be risky as not controlled and might fall into other countries' intelligence much easier...

good point the same could be said regarding other military grade equipment i.e rifles ,planes ,tanks a bit risky sending over enigma machines alright they could have fallen into the Russians hands

[mario33]

von bock, I think that intelligence material is of much higher profile than 'normal' rifles or tanks. Especially Enigma was very tightly controlled by the Germans.

[les hearn]

enigmas where even in 1939 sent by post yes post
yes they where secret ..but one was captured by the poles just prior to the war breaking out

so it is more than possible to have seen em used outside germany

[mario33]

one was captured by the poles just prior to the war breaking out

Good someone knows it, apart from us, Poles

You're only partially right though... Enigma was not only captured but also deciphered by the Poles

The machine has gained notoriety because Allied cryptologists were able to decrypt a large number of messages that had been enciphered on the machine. Decryption was made possible in 1932 by Polish cryptographers Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski from Cipher Bureau. In mid-1939 reconstruction and decryption methods were delivered from Poland to Britain and France. The intelligence gained through this source, codenamed ULTRA, was a significant aid to the Allied war effort. The exact influence of ULTRA is debated, but a typical assessment is that the end of the European war was hastened by two years because of the decryption of German ciphers.

However, I mean military version of the machine. The article above tells the story of the so called 'commercial Enigma', which was somewhat different to military version:

The Enigma C quickly became extinct, giving way to the Enigma D (1927). This version was widely used, with examples going to Sweden, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, Spain, United States, and Poland.

See complete article at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

[les hearn]

mario i actually know about the deciphering work carried out by the poles prior and during the war
i also know how the machine was interupted in the post and sent for detailed coppying
and the transition of all the related documents to bletchley park for the excellent work of the poles in decoding some of the many messages sent through the german intel.
its not a secret now that i own an origional 3 wheel machine.
i did a bit of volunteer work at blecthley see my add at the bottom of all my posts

shame tho that when i teach some of what i know to the public they are surprised about the polish work that was carried out during the war and think it was the americans that did all the work