Bomba kryptologiczna

The bomba kryptologiczna emerged because Poland sat between Germany and the Soviet Union, and survival required knowing what both were planning. In October 1938, Marian Rejewski, a civilian mathematician at the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau in Warsaw, designed the first machine capable of breaking Enigma ciphers—automating a process that would have taken human cryptanalysts weeks.

The adjacent possible aligned through an unlikely convergence: Polish mathematical tradition, French intelligence connections, and German procedural carelessness. In December 1932, Rejewski had first broken Enigma using mathematical permutation group theory combined with French-supplied intelligence from Hans-Thilo Schmidt, a German spy who had photographed key documents. By 1934, Rejewski exploited patterns in six-letter indicators at message beginnings. His cyclometer cataloged the characteristics of all 105,456 rotor settings.

Then in September 1938, the Germans changed their indicator procedure, rendering the cyclometer useless. Rejewski found new patterns and worked with engineers at AVA Radio Manufacturing Company in Warsaw to build the bomba—an electrically powered aggregate of six interconnected Enigma replicas lacking plugboards. The machine automatically cycled through 17,576 possible combinations of three rotors, exploiting weaknesses in message key repetition. Six bombas were built and operational by mid-November 1938, each solving daily keys within about two hours.

But the bomba's window was closing. On December 15, 1938, the German Army increased Enigma complexity by introducing two additional rotors. This expanded possible wheel orders from 6 to 60. The Poles could read only the minority of messages using neither new rotor. They lacked resources to commission 54 additional bombas.

Five weeks before Germany invaded Poland, the Polish Cipher Bureau made a decision that may have shortened World War II by two years. At a conference in Pyry, south of Warsaw, on July 26-27, 1939, they revealed everything to astonished French and British representatives: mathematical methods, decryption techniques, working Enigma replicas, and blueprints for the bombas. In August, two Enigma doubles traveled to Paris; Gustave Bertrand delivered one to Stewart Menzies at London's Victoria Station.

Alan Turing received the Polish materials weeks before Hitler invaded Poland on September 1. The British bombe—named after the Polish bomba though embodying different cryptologic methods—was designed by Turing in 1939 with Gordon Welchman's improvements added in 1940. The first bombe, Victory, arrived at Bletchley Park on March 14, 1940.

Rejewski, Różycki, and Zygalski escaped through Romania and France, continuing cryptanalysis work until 1942. Różycki died when a passenger ship sank in the Mediterranean in January 1942. The Polish contribution remained classified for decades. The word 'bomba' itself remains unexplained—Rejewski stated it was dubbed 'bomb' for lack of a better idea, though one theory claims Różycki named it after an ice cream dessert.