An Enigma Machine Goes Up for Auction A version of the three rotor Enigma machine — used by the German military to encrypt messages, the code of which was subsequently cracked by a team at the legendary Bletchley Park complex — will be auctioned at Christie’s on September 29. During the wartime period, the Enigma machine was the most advanced device of its kind, a forerunner of the first modern computer systems. Originally produced by a Dutch company for commercial use in the aftermath of the First World War, the technology was snapped up for sole use by the German military in 1929. Employing a complex series of interchangeable rotors, the machine would encode messages before sending them via Morse code to an identical device in another location. If the receiving Enigma was attuned to the same settings — one of a possible 158 million million million combinations — the encrypted message would then be automatically decoded.

An Enigma Machine Goes Up for Auction

A version of the three rotor Enigma machine — used by the German military to encrypt messages, the code of which was subsequently cracked by a team at the legendary Bletchley Park complex — will be auctioned at Christie’s on September 29.

During the wartime period, the Enigma machine was the most advanced device of its kind, a forerunner of the first modern computer systems.

Originally produced by a Dutch company for commercial use in the aftermath of the First World War, the technology was snapped up for sole use by the German military in 1929.

Employing a complex series of interchangeable rotors, the machine would encode messages before sending them via Morse code to an identical device in another location. If the receiving Enigma was attuned to the same settings — one of a possible 158 million million million combinations — the encrypted message would then be automatically decoded.