Raise your coat collar, hide behind your shades and fix a trilby on your head. Dr Mark Baldwin is exposing the secret world of smuggled intelligence and espionage in an intriguing talk: Codebreakers, The Story of Enigma.
Break the code, unlock the mystery and win the day – it’s the stuff of thriller novels! The ingenuity of the Allies deciphering Germany’s secret communications enciphered on the Enigma machine has to be one of the biggest triumphs in military history.
And Harrogate will have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hold history in their hands and interact with a genuine Enigma machine. One of the UK’s leading authorities on World War II intelligence, Dr Baldwin, will give an illustrated talk about the legendary Enigma machine and the code-breaking work at Bletchley Park followed by a hands-on demonstration.
“There are comparatively few Enigma machines, and there isn’t another working machine on public display in the north of England. This is probably Harrogate’s only opportunity to experience the machine hands-on. Also it’s an experience on not just how it works but why it was such a challenge for the best of Britain’s brains.”
Dr Baldwin has delivered hundreds of lectures on the subject across Poland and the UK and is the only person to be invited to Germany to speak on the subject.
“Most people are delighted and astounded to handle such an iconic device – it’s the most famous cipher machine in history. It’s old technology but it played a very important role and it amazes people. The Enigma machine is something they value – lots of people gather around and have a go – it’s a direct contact with history. However much you read or watch films about it, touching the object brings it home, brings the history to life.”
Dr Mark Baldwin first became fascinated by the Enigma machines during his time as a bookseller and publisher. “I had to catalogue a book from 20 years ago it was called Very Special Intelligence – about WW2 code breaking – it was something I hadn’t known anything about so I thought I’d read it before I sold it and it was such an interesting book I decided to hang on to it. More books came in and I got more involved and I’d talk to customers about it …one thing led to another, I got so involved I decided to acquire an original Enigma machine.”
Dr Baldwin flew to Copenhagen to buy his first Enigma machine from a collector of WW2 radio equipment. He sold that and bought an even rarer machine from a Norwegian. Dare we ask for how much? “Prices are flexible shall we say, the last two that we sold were around $100,000. If you want one you could get one in six months or a year, there’s a small market but if you’re prepared to pay, you can find one.”
It isn’t the mechanics of this 100-year-old machine as such that fascinate Dr Baldwin, but the work of the people who managed to cipher the messages that ultimately helped the Allies win the war. “Perhaps the most important thing to say is that the Poles broke these codes first when nobody thought it was possible,” Dr Baldwin said. “It’s the size of a portable type writer but this small machine has a tremendous amount of possibilities. There are more cipher patterns from the Enigma machine then there are atoms in the observable universe. People think of grains of sand on the beach, but we’re talking millions of millions of beaches. And yet these Polish mathematicians tackled this enormous job – something that was thought impossible – they battled on and took two or three years and succeeded.”
The British then began to crack the codes at the now famous Bletchley Park.
“When they started there were two or three dozen people. By the end of the war there were 10,000 people there. They all gave what their country needed – many doing admin tasks – there was no computerisation – it was all done on index cards, yet all these men and women there kept it secret not just during the war but for 30 years after – it’s a very interesting achievement, it’s extraordinary.”
The team were cracking a million messages a year by end of the war. It’s thought their work shortened the war by two years, saving countless lives. What fascinates Dr Baldwin is the tension between cracking the codes and using the knowledge of enemy movements while ensuring this knowledge remained secret from the Germans. During the Battle of the Atlantic, the British struggled to read messages sent to the German U-boats.
“It was crucial because this country has not been self sufficient in food and raw materials for centuries – the Germans were going to try and starve us into submission like they tried in WW1. And they did this efficiently in the first 18 months of the war. Then the Royal Navy acquired codebooks and paperwork in May 1941, well into the war, but that enabled them to break the code very quickly and we got the losses down for a few months. At the beginning of 1942, the German U-boats up-graded the Enigma machine and we couldn’t read the messages for nearly a year; in that period we were losing the war – over 1,000 merchant ships were lost in the Atlantic alone.”
The Navy managed to gather more intelligence in October 1942 which effectively ended the battle of the Atlantic as it helped locate the U-boats, enabling the British to attack before they were attacked. “Everything in the theatre of war was connected to the ability to read those messages.”
There are, of course, tales or heroism from sailors who lost their lives retrieving the crucial intelligence to help crack the codes.
Colin Grazier was one such hero. After defeating a German U-boat using depth charges, and with the crew captured, volunteers were requested to go on board the sinking ship to retrieve valuable intelligence. Colin helped retrieve the boat’s Engima codebook before going back in for a second search. It sank with Colin trapped inside. “If you go to war you know you might lose your life,” Dr Baldwin said, “but the sad thing is he contributed to winning the war but had no idea how valuable his contribution was.”
Colin had got married just three days before he went to sea. A statue was unveiled in his memory in his hometown of Tamworth 60 years after his death.
The story of the Enigma machine is a fascinating one, with tales of intrigue and espionage. Its role in shaping the world we now live in is extraordinary. You can pay homage to this icon of history on Saturday 17 July 2.30pm at Harrogate Theatre and join Dr Mark Baldwin for his lecture: Codebreakers, The Story of Enigma. Tickets: £12 Unreserved.
