It was the Lorenz machine not the Enigma that gave rise to the “Heath Robinson” machine at Bletchly, that Tommy flowers alone and out of his own pocket developed the first thermionic valve (tube) circuits that gave rise to the first working fully electronic computer. What was special about the Lorenz was that it was broken by just two men at Bletchly neither of whom –like the rest of British Intel– had ever seen one, nore pictures or even diagrams or sketches. ![]() Likewise the British Typex which worked in very much the same way as the Enigma and was used at Bletchly with it’s rotors wired the same way as the Enigma. Which is one of the reasons that the fast rotor on the military Enigma is at the other end when compared to the Enigmas used during the Spanish Civil War. What ever the reason, the Germans did know from the Spanish Civil War that the commercial design of the Enigma had been broken by amongst others the French. Others believe Hitler had been told about the short message length issue of the Enigma and thus discounted it’s use for high level traffic. ![]() Some believe that unlike Admiral Karl Donitz Hitler did not trust the Enigma design and suspected it was to simple for high level links. ![]() Something else that is also not commonly known about the Lorenz machines, is that they were unlike the Enigma designed specifically at Hitler’s request.
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