Antoni Palluth (11 May 1900,

Pobiedziska Pobiedziska () () is a town in Poznań County, Poland, with 8,209 inhabitants as of the year 2004. It is also the seat of the administrative district (gmina) called Gmina Pobiedziska. The town's name comes from the word ''pobieda'' meaning victor ...

Province of Posen The Province of Posen (; ) was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1848 to 1920, occupying most of the historical Greater Poland. The province was established following the Greater Poland Uprising (1848), Poznań Uprisi ...

– 18 April 1944) was a founder of the AVA Radio Company. The company built communications equipment for the Polish military; the work included not only radios but also cryptographic equipment. Palluth was involved with the German section (''BS-4'') of the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

General Staff A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, Enlisted rank, enlisted, and civilian staff who serve the commanding officer, commander of a ...

interbellum In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

Cipher Bureau. He helped teach courses on cryptanalysis, and was involved with building equipment to break the German

Enigma machine The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the W ...

Life

Palluth was a civil-engineer graduate of the

Warsaw Polytechnic The Warsaw University of Technology () is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professors (including 145 titular professors). The student body ...

. In January 1929, he was one of the instructors in a

cryptology Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More gener ...

course organized by the Cipher Bureau, at

Poznań University Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

, which was attended by selected

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

students. The students included future Cipher Bureau civilian employees

Marian Rejewski Marian Adam Rejewski (; 16 August 1905 – 13 February 1980) was a Polish people, Polish mathematician and Cryptography, cryptologist who in late 1932 reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma machine, Enigma cipher machine, aided ...

Jerzy Różycki Jerzy Witold Różycki (; 24 July 1909 – 9 January 1942) 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 fou ...

and

Henryk Zygalski Henryk Zygalski (; 15 July 1908 – 30 August 1978) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who worked at breaking German Enigma-machine ciphers before and during World War II. Life Zygalski was born on 15 July 1908 in Posen, German Empi ...

. In the 1930s, Palluth was one of the four directors of the AVA Radio Company in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, which produced cryptologic equipment designed by the Cipher Bureau. In March 1943, while attempting to cross the border from German-occupied

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

into

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, Palluth was captured by the Germans along with the Cipher Bureau's chief, Lt. Col.

Gwido Langer Lt. Col. Karol Gwido Langer ( Zsolna, Austria-Hungary, 2 September 1894 – 30 March 1948, Kinross, Scotland) was, from at least mid-1931, chief of the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau, which from December 1932 decrypted Germany's milita ...

, its German section's chief, Major

Maksymilian Ciężki Maksymilian Ciężki (; Samter, Province of Posen (now Szamotuły, Poland), 24 November 1898 – 9 November 1951 in London, England) was the head of the Polish Cipher Bureau's German section (''BS–4'') in the 1930s, during which time— ...

, and civilians

Edward Fokczyński Edward Fokczyński was one of the four directors of the AVA Radio Company, an electronics firm established in Warsaw, Poland, in 1929. AVA produced radio equipment for the Polish General Staff's Biuro Szyfrów, Cipher Bureau, which was responsib ...

and

Kazimierz Gaca Kazimierz Gaca alias Jean Jacquin (1920-1997) was a Polish cryptanalyst and officer. Before World War II, he worked at the Cipher Bureau (), decoding radio messages encrypted by the German military using their Enigma machine. After WWII, he wor ...

. Palluth died during an Allied air raid at the German Sachsenhausen

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

Notes

References

* Beata Majchrowska, ''Więcej niż enigma. Historia Antoniego Pallutha'', biography, Warsaw, 2020 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Palluth, Antoni 1900 births 1944 deaths People from Pobiedziska 20th-century Polish engineers People from the Province of Posen Cipher Bureau (Poland) People who died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp Polish civilians killed in World War II Deaths by airstrike during World War II Polish people who died in Nazi concentration camps

Life

See also

Notes

References