Following the release of The Cypher Bureau, which is based on Marian Rejewski’s career, author Eilidh McGinness shares the top 10 things that you should know about Marian Rejewski:
Eilidh McGinness
Marian was born in Bydgoszcz, then called Bromberg, Poland on 25th August 1905. At that time Poland had been incorporated into the German Empire and Polish citizens were obliged to speak German. As a result, Marian became a fluent German speaker.
Marian attended Poznan University, Poland. Following World War 1, Poland had won independence but remained fearful of invasion by Germany and Russia. Because of his brilliance in mathematics, Marian was recruited by the Polish Secret Service –The Cypher Bureau – who were experimenting with different approaches to code breaking because they had been unable to solve a code being used by Germany Military services.
Marian’s ambition was to have a safe, secure and predicable career as a statistician with an insurance company.
As a result of his aptitude in solving codes Marian was recruited as a permanent employee of the Polish Secret Service –The Cypher Bureau – and was stationed in Warsaw, the Polish capital. He was the sole person given access to the commercial Enigma Machine which had been purchased by The Cypher Bureau. It was believed that the machine being used by the German military services was an adaption of this commercial Enigma machine. Marian was given certain key manuals obtained by the French by espionage and with these he, alone cracked the Enigma code in 1932.
The Enigma code has trillions of permutations. Cracking the code was an extraordinary achievement securing Marian Rejewski the position as the greatest cryptologist of all time.
Marian Rejewski and his colleagues at The Cypher Bureau exhibited extraordinary bravery in agreeing to return to Occupied France during the Second World War. There, they operated undercover until forced to flee. Marian and those he worked with knew they risked being subjected to the most horrific torture if they were discovered.
Before returning to Occupied France, The Cypher Bureau asked if they could operate from Britain. Permission was not forthcoming. When Marian Rejewski finally reached Britain after fleeing France over the Pyrenees and spending time imprisoned in an internment camp in Spain, he was considered too much of a security risk to be assigned to Bletchley Park.
At the end of the Second World War Marian Rejewski could have remained in Britain to pursue an academic career. Choosing to put the love for his family and his native Poland first, he returned to his homeland. Poland fell under the control of USSR after the war and Marian and his family were spied on by security services and lived in fear for many years after the war.
Marian son’s Andrzej died from polio in 1947. Although he was offered academic positions in Poland, Marian could not bear to leave his family, especially after the lengthy separation imposed by the Second World War. He obtained mundane book keeping positions, far beneath his ability, in order to support his family.
In 2014 Marian Rejewski and his colleagues Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozjcki were awarded posthumously the IEEE Milestone award. The award was granted for solving Enigma, in recognition that solving the code was an achievement which has changed the world. The Milestone plaque reads as follows:
“Polish Cypher Bureau mathematicians Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski broke the German Enigma cypher machine codes. Working with engineers from the AVA Radio Manufacturing Company, they built the ‘bomba’—the first cryptanalytic machine to break Enigma codes. Their work was a foundation of British code breaking efforts, which, with later American assistance, helped end World War II.”
The Cypher Bureau is a fast-paced historical thriller, which follows the secret hero of World War Two. It’s available to buy from Amazon, The Book Guild and all good bookshops.