Did the British sell Enigmas to third world countries?
British Enigma expert Mark Baldwin is currently trying to clarify a long-standing question: Did the British sell insecure encryption machines to unsuspecting customers after World War II?
After World War II, the British sold or gave away Enigmas to former colonies and other countries that were interested in them. This story has probably been heard by everyone who has dealt with the Enigma in more detail. The perfidious thing about it: Since the British had long since cracked the Enigma, they were able to decipher the radio transmissions of their customers.
Quelle/Source: Pixabay
Unsafe machines on offer?
As far as I know, about 170 Enigmas fell into the hands of the British during the war, and probably more were added after the end of the war. Since a total of about 30,000 Enigmas were built, this high number is not surprising. In any case, the British government had enough machines available to flog off to Africa or the Middle East.
Some things have always puzzled me about this story, however:
- In museums, with collectors, and in auction offers, I have almost never noticed an Enigma that originated in Africa, the Middle East, or South America (I will discuss two exceptions below). Today, Enigmas are sold for ridiculous prices. Did they dispose of all the Enigmas in those countries before they became valuable?
- I know of no literature source that goes into more detail on this subject. To which countries did the British sell Enigmas? Which Enigma variants were they? Where exactly and until when were the machines used. None of these questions can be answered so far.
- It is not clear to me how the British managed to crack an Enigma message after the war. After all, Winston Churchill had all the cracking machines (Turing bombs) dismantled and all records destroyed at the end of the war – or so it is reported. Without these machines and the written know-how it must have been difficult for the British to decode Enigma messages. Might the British have kept some Turing bombs after all?
Mark Baldwin’s blog article
Last Sunday I gave an online talk with Elonka Dunin on the experiments of Robert Thouless. The Enigma did not play a role, but after the presentation there was, as always, an open discussion on any topic. During this discussion the British Enigma expert Mark Baldwin pointed to an article he recently published on his blog “Dr. Enigma”.
The first thing I found particularly interesting in this article is that the Enigma was apparently still being offered commercially in the 1950s. Here is an advertisement from the USA:
Quelle/Source: Baldwin
The following excerpt is from a German catalog of the supplier Steeg:
Quelle/Source: Steeg
Unfortunately, I could not find out what the “Steeg catalog” is all about. Was there a mail order company of this name? Maybe a reader knows more about it.
Just a legend?
The real subject of Mark’s article, however, was the said claim that the British sold the Enigma to unsuspecting customers in third world and other countries. Mark lists several literature sources that report this. However, he also has doubts, because there is no evidence for it anywhere.
Mark therefore asked in the round on Sunday if anyone knows more about this topic. I replied that 30 Enigmas ended up in Israel after the war. I blogged about this in 2015 after a tip from blog reader George Lasry. Mark already knew this story. Somebody else told that US collector Glen Miranker has an Enigma from Argentina. However, these are the only two cases he knows of in this regard. Also in the audience of the lecture, in which there were many Enigma experts, nobody could contribute further information.
So is the matter of the Enigmas that the British are supposed to have sold after World War II just a legend? Or is there evidence of other cases after all? If any reader knows more, I would appreciate a comment.
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Further reading: „Enigma“ zählt erstmals zu den zehn beliebtesten Mädchennamen in Deutschland
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