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Enigma Cipher Centre
The Enigma Cipher Centre (Polish: Centrum Szyfrów Enigma) is an interactive multimedia exhibition in Poznan dedicated to the Enigma cipher machine and the three Polish cryptologists -- Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki—who played a key role in its early cryptanalysis. It is located in the former Collegium Historicum building. The Enigma Cipher Centre is a brand of the Poznan Heritage Center. Description The center is a joint venture of the city of Poznań and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. The idea to create such a place, originally referred to as the Enigma Museum, was introduced by radio journalist Szymon Mazur. The construction of the center was implemented as part of the "Preservation, protection, promotion and development of natural and cultural heritage of the Wielkopolska Regional Operational Program between 2014—2020, in cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz University. The facility was open on September 2021. The general manager is Pio ...
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Święty Marcin
Święty Marcin ("Saint Martin"), in full ''ulica Święty Marcin'' ("Saint Martin Street"), is a main central street in the city of Poznań in western Poland. It runs from south of the old town district, westwards past the church of St. Martin of Tours from which it takes its name, past the " Zamek" (former German imperial palace), to Adam Mickiewicz Square, and finally to University Bridge ''(Most Uniwersytecki)'', by which it crosses the railway line and leads to the roundabout called ''Rondo Kaponiera''. On Adam Mickiewicz square is a statue of Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, as well as a monument to the victims of the Poznań popular protests of 1956 (erected in 1981). On the left of the square are the central buildings of Adam Mickiewicz University. Trams run along most of the length of the street, from Rondo Kaponiera to Aleje Karola Marcinkowskiego, in both directions at the western end, and eastwards only east of Gwarna. The area around St. Martin's church was origina ...
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14th Infantry Division (Poland)
14 Greater Poland Infantry Division (Polish: ''14 Wielkopolska Dywizja Piechoty'') was a unit of the Polish Army in the interbellum period, which took part in the Polish September Campaign. It was created in January 1919 in Poznań, as part of Polish forces fighting in the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919). Its organizer and first commandant was General Filip Dubiski. In the following months, several regiments created in the Greater Poland towns joined the unit, and in the summer of 1919, the Division was sent to the east, to fight the Red Army south of Polotsk. On December 19, 1919, its name was changed from 1st Division of Greater Poland rifles into 14 Greater Poland Infantry Division. The unit fought in the Polish-Soviet war, and in December 1920, after the truce, it returned to its homeland, to Poznań. According to the Plan Wschod, the Division was supposed to serve as a rear unit, but as in late 1930s German threat became real, on March 23, 1939, the Division became pa ...
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Zygalski Sheets
The method of Zygalski sheets was a cryptologic technique used by the Polish Cipher Bureau before and during World War II, and during the war also by British cryptologists at Bletchley Park, to decrypt messages enciphered on German Enigma machines. The Zygalski-sheet apparatus takes its name from Polish Cipher Bureau mathematician–cryptologist Henryk Zygalski, who invented it about October 1938. Method Zygalski's device comprised a set of 26 perforated sheets for each of the, initially, six possible sequences for inserting the three rotors into the Enigma machine's scrambler. Each sheet related to the starting position of the left (slowest-moving) rotor. The 26 × 26 matrix represented the 676 possible starting positions of the middle and right rotors and was duplicated horizontally and vertically: ''a–z, a–y''. The sheets were punched with holes in the positions that would allow a "female" to occur. Polish mathematician–cryptologist Marian Rejewski writes about ...
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Alberti Cipher
The Alberti Cipher, created in 1467 by Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti, was one of the first polyalphabetic ciphers. In the opening pages of his treatise ' he explained how his conversation with the papal secretary Leonardo Dati about a recently developed movable type printing press led to the development of his cipher wheel. Cipher disk Alberti's cipher disk embodies the first example of polyalphabetic substitution with mixed alphabets and variable period. This device, called ''Formula'', was made up of two concentric disks, attached by a common pin, which could rotate one with respect to the other. The larger one is called ''Stabilis'' tationary or fixed the smaller one is called ''Mobilis'' ovable The circumference of each disk is divided into 24 equal cells. The outer ring contains one uppercase alphabet for plaintext and the inner ring has a lowercase mixed alphabet for ciphertext. The outer ring also includes the numbers 1 to 4 for the superencipherment of a cod ...
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Bomba (cryptography)
The ''bomba'', or ''bomba kryptologiczna'' (Polish for "bomb" or "cryptologic bomb"), was a special-purpose machine designed around October 1938 by Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologist Marian Rejewski to break German Enigma-machine ciphers. Etymology How the machine came to be called a "bomb" has been an object of fascination and speculation. One theory, most likely apocryphal, originated with Polish engineer and army officer Tadeusz Lisicki (who knew Rejewski and his colleague Henryk Zygalski in wartime Britain but was never associated with the Cipher Bureau). He claimed that Jerzy Różycki (the youngest of the three Enigma cryptologists, and who had died in a Mediterranean passenger-ship sinking in January 1942) named the "bomb" after an ice-cream dessert of that name. This story seems implausible, since Lisicki had not known Różycki. Rejewski himself stated that the device had been dubbed a "bomb" "for lack of a better idea". Perhaps the most credible explanation is give ...
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Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other legally permitted subordinate minor parties together as the Front of National Unity and later Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth. Ideologically, it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism, with a strong emphasis on left-wing nationalism. The Polish United Workers' Party had total control over public institutions in the country as well as the Polish People's Army, the UB-SB security agencies, the Citizens' Militia (MO) police force and the media. The falsified 1947 Polish legislative election granted the far-left complete political authority in post- war Poland. The PZPR was founded forthwith in December 1948 through the unification of two previous political entities, the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) and the Polish Socialist ...
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Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previously used term and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted. After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler's most overt and audacious moves was to establish the ''Wehrmacht'', a modern offensively-capable armed force, fulfilling the Nazi régime's long-term goals of regaining lost territory as well as gaining new territory and dominating its neighbours. This required the reinstatement of conscription and massive investment and defense spending on the arms industry. The ''Wehrmacht'' formed the heart of Germany's politico-military power. In the early part of the Second World War, the ''Wehrmacht'' employed combined arms tactics (close- ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million Military personnel, personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Air warfare of World War II, Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in hu ...
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Jerzy Różycki
Jerzy Witold Różycki (; Vilshana, Ukraine, 24 July 1909 – 9 January 1942, Mediterranean Sea, near the Balearic Islands) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who worked at breaking German Enigma-machine ciphers before and during World War II. Life Różycki was born in what is now Ukraine, the fourth and youngest child of Zygmunt Różycki, a pharmacist and graduate of Saint Petersburg University, and Wanda, née Benita. He attended a Polish school in Kyiv before moving with his family to Poland in 1918. In 1926 he completed secondary school at Wyszków on eastern Poland's Bug River. Różycki studied mathematics from 1927 to 1932 in western Poland, at Poznań University's Mathematics Institute, graduating with a master's degree on February 19, 1932. He would later earn a second master's degree from Poznań University, in geography, on December 13, 1937. In 1929, while still a student, Różycki, proficient in German, was one of twenty-odd Poznań University mat ...
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Polish General Staff
Polish General Staff, formally known as the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces ( Polish: ''Sztab Generalny Wojska Polskiego'') is the highest professional body within the Polish Armed Forces. Organizationally, it is an integral part of the Ministry of National Defence and the Chief of the General Staff is the highest ranking military officer at the Ministry. It was created in 1918, and for a time bore the name Main Staff (''Sztab Główny''). Currently the position of Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces (''Szef Sztabu Generalnego Wojska Polskiego'') is General Rajmund Andrzejczak, since 2 July 2018. History and structure On 25 October 1918, a decision was made to establish the directorate of the chief of staff of the Polish Army. In 1928 the General Headquarters of the Polish Army was established, known commonly at the time as the Main Staff (''Sztab Główny''). In September 1939, during the Invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht and the Red Army, all the insti ...
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Cipher Bureau (Poland)
The Cipher Bureau, in Polish: ''Biuro Szyfrów'' (), was the interwar Polish General Staff's Second Department's unit charged with SIGINT and both cryptography (the ''use'' of ciphers and codes) and cryptanalysis (the ''study'' of ciphers and codes, for the purpose of "breaking" them). The precursor of the agency that would become the Cipher Bureau was created in May 1919, during the Polish-Soviet War (1919–21), and played a vital role in securing Poland's survival and victory in that war. In mid-1931, the Cipher Bureau was formed by the merger of pre-existing agencies. In December 1932, the Bureau began breaking Germany's Enigma ciphers. Over the next seven years, Polish cryptologists overcame the growing structural and operating complexities of the plugboard-equipped Enigma. The Bureau also broke Soviet cryptography. Five weeks before the outbreak of World War II, on 25 July 1939, in Warsaw, the Polish Cipher Bureau revealed its Enigma-decryption techniques and equipmen ...
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World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific Ocean, Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in Genocides in history (World War I through World War II), genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the Spanish flu, 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising French Third Republic, France, Russia, and British Empire, Britain) and the Triple A ...
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