World War II: The German Enigma Machine

The necessities of World War II placed significant demands on Allied and Axis powers to increase war production and make advances in technology. Successes in these advances resulted in the conquest of other territories at various times throughout the war. For example, the investment placed by the Nazis on a mechanized infantry enabled the success of their “blitzkrieg” strategy and allowed German forces to quickly capture much of Western Europe. Nazi investments were also placed on the production of u-boats, advances in aircraft, and the encoding of wartime communications. On the Pacific front, the Japanese occupied many strategic islands with their powerful navy and determined troops, making it difficult for the Allied powers to advance.

The technology of World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945, was a big part of the determination of the outcome of the war. Much of the technology was developed during the interwar years. Some of it was developed because of failure and hindrance in war progression, obviously because of inefficient technology. Still some was in the beginning stages of development as the war ended. Though earlier war greatly utilized science, mathematics, and innovation, World War II had the largest impact on the innovation in technology of the current lives of Americans. Furthermore, no war, preceeding or succeeding, was as profoundly affected by science, mathematics, and technology as World War II. Science and technology have always made

Technology played a key role in determining the outcome of World War II. The high military demand for more advanced technology acted as a catalyst for the development of technology in the interwar years of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Scientists and Engineers alike poured massive amounts of research and development time into supporting the war effort, and more advanced technology was developed at an alarmingly rapid rate. One notable fact about technology in World War II is that World War II is the first war in which many military attacks were designed

What role did Allied codebreakers have in the outcome of World War II? Though cryptography did not decide the outcome of World War II, it was very successful in shortening the war. In the Pacific theatre, the Americans broke several codes, including the PURPLE and JN25 codes. Though they were unable to anticipate the Pearl Harbor attack, codebreaking did benefit the Americans at the Battle of Midway and with the assassination of Yamamoto. In Europe, the Allies worked together against Germany to break the ENIGMA naval code, allowing the Allies to maintain superiority in the Battle of the Atlantic. Breaking the Japanese and German codes allowed the Allies to gain an advantage in both theatres, bringing about a resolution to the war. From World

During World War II, the Germans used a type of code that is almost impossible to break. They used this code to communicate between each other and would get directions of where to go and also state where their locations are through that code. What made that code unique was the way that they used it. The way their code worked would be that someone would write a letter in a machine, and then the machine would print a coded version of the message. But that was not the worst part of it. At the end of every day, they would change the key to the messages, all at the same time in a synchronized manner. The way that the Enigma machine was built made it even more complicated to understand. “There are approximately 150,000,000,000,000 - that is, 150 million million - possible combination” (Claire Ellis “Exploring the Enigma”). Alan Turing started working in a

5 remarkable British scientists had gotten their hands on an actual Enigma machine smuggled out of Berlin. They had put tremendous effort into decoding the Nazi's messages by using their cryptanalytic abilities but had failed because of the lack of information on the machine's

Technologies based on ideas from the First World War have changed the way countries defend and attack during wartime through the mechanization of warfare, chemical warfare, and war transportation.

Although the effect of Turing’s contribution cannot be quantifiable in the Battle of the Atlantic or even the war in general, it is agreeable that with Ultra, the Allies had an upper hand in winning the war. The Allies essentially knew what the Germans were thinking, their ways, actions, and habits. This provided tremendous amounts of information for the Allies, which then benefited their strategies of approaching the

In the start of WWII that nations came up with many ways to communicate to each other without being intercepted by the enemy.Some ideas/inventions used during World War II included foot, mounted, motorcycle, automobile, airplane, homing pigeons, and the messenger dog. Along with physically going to deliver a message they also had made visual messages. Which included flags, panels for airplanes, lights, and pyrotechnics. But when they didn't want to use those ways to signal messages they would send the message electronically. Which included telephone, telegraph service, and the printing telegraph.

In an article by Jonathan Tracy entitled, “Why Study World War II?” he characterizes the war as the defining tragedy and pivotal period of the 20th century. He points out that the war saw the introduction of radar and electronic warfare, sonar, hand-held antitank weapons, the jet engine, the cruise missile, and the smart bomb. The war also saw the first wide-spread use of antibiotics, blood plasma, synthetic insecticides, and two-way radios. In addition, World War II saw the creating of the V-2 rocket, the first vehicle capable of reading outer space, and when coupled with nuclear weapons, can have a decisive impact on the human race.

The new technoligies introdused into wourld war one affected the way that wars were fought because the technoligies have mutured and were very deadly. this made it hard for enemies to make new battle plans because they never delt with this type of war. thene they would make new wepons to counter your wepons and the cycal

Deutsch reveals that both sides suffered failures and had successes and each had to face difficulties with cryptanalysis. He explains that the German navy’s Heimisch or Hydra, codenamed Dolphin by Bletchley Park, broken from 1942 onwards, and Triton, codenamed Shark, broken periodically and sometimes for protracted periods of time, were both harder to crack in comparison to the Enigma cipher, and therefore were only as useful as the frequency to which they were broken. I will use this source to further correlate cryptanalysis during the Battle of the Atlantic and the success the allies encountered due to this. This source gives a great explanation as to what the capture of German code accessories from the German weather ship, Muenchen, as well as the German U-110. It also explains how solving the fourth rotor problem in March of 1943 meant the end

Espionage is the practice of using spies to collect information for political or military reasons and has been around since wars have been fought. Sun Tzu talks about speaks a lot of gathering intelligence and deception in The Art of War. The Egyptians had a large espionage service that have been recorded in books such as the Bible and the liliad. Espionage is still being used to collect information today. The tools for spies and their missions have been extremely dangerous and creative ; World War Two is a great example of this.

Before the major advances in encryption in the 1970s, it was primarily used by governments and their militaries. It allowed governments to have protected communication with their allies. One government could send encrypted message concerning a common enemy to their ally and if the message was intercepted by that enemy, the message would remain secret and unreadable to the enemy. Militaries used encryption to communicate plans and troop movements and location. The Nazi Army of Germany during World War II developed an encryption that at the time was impossible to decode without the cipher. The Germans could keep track of their extensive submarine fleet in the North Atlantic without fear of the Allies discovering the locations of the submarines.

When you think or stumble across the Holocaust, you may think of devastation and death around every corner, but there is more that just that. You have to look further and deeper, just to uncover hidden secrets of World War II. Just like the Lebensborn program, or in other words ‘Spring to life’, was a top secret operation that had somewhat of a positive effect, but like they, “With light comes darkness”. Although the Lebensborn had truly been a way to bring life into this world, or too help create the new Hitler’s new superrace, it had really only brought devastation with it. (Source 3 - Jewish Gen)