ENIGMA MACHINE

Battlefield-Found Relic – Enigma Rotor A10760

Own this important piece of WWII history!

This is an original Enigma rotor dug from the ground in a WWII battlefield. This is Enigma rotor number IV with Serial Number A10760. This original Enigma Rotor, in not a working rotor.

This rotor was likely discarded from an Enigma machine before the Enigma machine was destroyed at the end of WWII. The Germans did not know that the Allies had broken the Enigma codes. Therefore, there were standing orders not to let these top secret cipher machines be captured by the Allies. As a German position was being overrun or preparing to surrender, any Enigma machines would be intentionally destroyed. The German soldiers would shoot, kick, run over with a vehicle, or even blow up with a hand grenade any Enigma machines at risk of capture. Some Enigma machines and their rotors would then be thrown into lakes, rivers, or the ocean to further hide the machines from advancing Allied forces.

Patented by Arthur Scherbius in 1918, the Enigma machine utilizes three interchangeable rotors which scramble plain-text messages and produce a cipher text message which is then sent, generally via Morse code, to a receiving party with an Enigma set up in the same configuration as the sending Enigma. All of the machines could use the interchangeable wheels from any enigma, so to find a matching set of wheels with the same serial number as the Enigma is quite rare. Though the German military was familiar with the Enigma, it was not adopted as their primary cipher device until 1926, when they discovered that all German naval coded messages had been intercepted and read by the British during the latter half of WWI.

It is unknown exactly how many enigma machines were made, but we know that few survived the war. Rather than have the machines fall into enemy hands, they were destroyed by the Germans upon retreat and documents pertaining to their manufacture were burned or in many cases simply lost. On top of this, Churchill ordered all Enigma machines to be destroyed at the end of the war, so few machines remain intact. 

The breakthrough eventually came after the creation of the famous British codebreaking center Bletchley Park. Using the technology transferred to them from the brilliant Polish codebreaking team, as well as documents supplied by the French Intelligence from a German spy, the great Alan Turing, along with Knox, Foss and many others were able to break the Enigma code, shortening the war by en estimated two years, and saving countless lives.

Le nostre aste sono esclusivamente vendite private di articoli nuovi o usati senza garanzia (significa esclusione della legge sulla garanzia UE del 01.01.2002, alla quale anche i venditori privati sono obbligati ad una garanzia di 2 anni sulla merce offerta, ma a differenza dei commercianti di comune accordo con l'acquirente possono escluderli). Con un'offerta/acquisto l'offerente/acquirente accetta queste condizioni.

Our auctions are exclusively private sales of new or used items without warranty and without guarantee (means exclusion of the EU Warranty Act of 01.01.2002, to which private sellers are also obliged to provide a 2-year warranty on the goods offered, but unlike traders in agreement with the buyer can exclude them). With an offer/purchase the offerer/purchaser accepts these conditions.