Until 22 March 2023, the ‘Enigma’ cipher machines from the collection of the Polish History Museum are on display on level -1 of the Second World War Museum in Gdańsk. 

“We should praise people who are talented, active and successful in many fields” said Dr Grzegorz Berendt, Director of the Second World War Museum in Gdańsk. In general, military history is linked to activities on battlefields, but in the past, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, wars were referred to as industrial conflicts. Without technological advances, there would have been no new solutions”, stressed Berendt. 

The Museum of the Second World War houses objects that are known to probably every person in Poland. In the opinion of the Museum director, this is in a sense a museum celebration and the result of very good cooperation between museums in Poland. 

Robert Kostro, Director of the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, pointed out that usually when we think of a copy of some device, we think of something less valuable than the original. 

„In this case, it is exactly the opposite. The original Enigma is popular, thousands of copies were produced in Germany and were used en masse by the German army. What is absolutely unusual and unique is a copy of such a machine, created in a very specific way, because it was produced by the AVA factory in Warsaw without any knowledge of the original, recalled director Robert Kostro. 

It was possible to create almost exactly the same machine. The “Enigma” seen in Gdansk originates from the Cadiz centre in France. No copy of those machines made in Poland has survived, so it is an absolute rarity. This machine documents the achievements of Polish cryptologists and Polish intelligence in breaking German codes.

Adrian Andrzejewski