Enigma Machine - Surviving Machines

Surviving Machines

The effort to break the Enigma was not disclosed until the 1970s. Since then, interest in the Enigma machine has grown considerably and a number of Enigmas are on public display in museums around the world.

The Deutsches Museum in Munich has both the three- and four-rotor German military variants, as well as several older civilian versions. Several Enigma machines are exhibited at National Codes Centre in Bletchley Park, the Science Museum in London, Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, at the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, the Armémuseum (Swedish Army Museum) in Stockholm, the National Signals Museum in Finland, and at the Australian War Memorial and in the foyer of the Defence Signals Directorate, both in Canberra, Australia.

In the United States, Enigma machines can be seen at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, at the National Security Agency's National Cryptologic Museum at Fort Meade, Maryland, where visitors can try their hand at encrypting messages and deciphering code, and two machines that were acquired after the capture of U-505 during World War II, are on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. The now-defunct San Diego "Computer Museum of America" had an Enigma in its collection, which has since been given to the San Diego State University Library.

In Canada, a Swiss Army issue Enigma-K, is in Calgary, Alberta. It is on permanent display at The Naval Museum Of Alberta inside the Military Museums Of Calgary. There is also a 3-rotor Enigma machine on display at the Communications and Electronics Engineering (CELE) Museum in Kingston, Ontario at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Kingston.

A number of machines are also in private hands. Occasionally, Enigma machines are sold at auction; prices have risen in recent years from US$40,000 to US$203,000 in Sept 2011. Replicas of the machine are available in various forms, including an exact reconstructed copy of the Naval M4 model, an Enigma implemented in electronics (Enigma-E), various computer software simulators and paper-and-scissors analogues.

A rare Abwehr Enigma machine, designated G312, was stolen from the Bletchley Park museum on 1 April 2000. In September, a man identifying himself as "The Master" sent a note demanding £25,000 and threatened to destroy the machine if the ransom was not paid. In early October 2000, Bletchley Park officials announced that they would pay the ransom but the stated deadline passed with no word from the blackmailer. Shortly afterwards, the machine was sent anonymously to BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman, but three rotors were missing.

In November 2000, an antiques dealer named Dennis Yates was arrested after telephoning The Sunday Times to arrange the return of the missing parts. The Enigma machine was returned to Bletchley Park after the incident. In October 2001, Yates was sentenced to 10 months in prison after admitting handling the stolen machine and demanding ransom for its return, although he maintained that he was acting as an intermediary for a third party. Yates was released from prison after serving three months.

In October 2008, the Spanish daily newspaper El País reported that 28 Enigma machines had been discovered by chance in an attic of the Army headquarters in Madrid during inventory taking. These 4-rotor commercial machines had helped Franco's Nationalists win the Spanish Civil War because, although the British code breaker Alfred Dilwyn Knox broke the code generated by Franco's Enigma machines in 1937, this was not disclosed to the Republicans and they could not break the code. The Nationalist government continued to use Enigma machines into the 1950s, eventually having a total of 50. Some of the 28 machines are now on display in Spanish military museums.

The military forces of Bulgaria used Enigma machines with Cyrillic keyboard; one such machine is on display in the National Museum of Military History in Sofia.