The Enigma War

by Józef Garliński and Tiffany Clarke Harrison

Book Overview

Black cloth, 219 pages including Appendix, Select Bibliography, and Index. ISBN 0684158663. Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980. First U.S. Edition. Hardcover. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684158663
• ISBN13: 9780684158662
• Release Date: August 1983
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 219 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Polish ENIGMA-Breaking Achievement in Perspective

The cracking of the "invincible" German code ENIGMA was surely one of the greatest intelligence achievements of all time. In his Foreword to this book, Professor R. V. Jones, a participant at Bletchley, gave unstinting credit to the Poles: "The Poles were said to have somehow stolen the wheel; this would have been a marvelous cloak-and-dagger exploit, but the truth as told in this book is even more remarkable...By 1937 the Polish cryptographers had succeeded first in working out the connections and then in deciphering German messages; they even designed a machine for this purpose. Some measure of their feat is provided by the fact that their British counterparts were still, two years later, some way from success." (p. ix; my review based on 1979 edition). Garlinski places the ENIGMA-code breaking process in the context of developments before and during WWII. The reader learns that German-speaking Poles were already working on German codes not long after WWI. (pp. 18-19). This book contains many photos and diagrams of the relevant persons and code machines. For instance, the alphabetical sheet-overlays are included (p. 37). An appendix contains much technical information on ENIGMA.