Marian Rejewski

Marian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist, born in Bromberg in the Prussian Province of Posen, now Bydgoszcz, on 16 August 1905 and died on 13 February 1980, who in late 1932 reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma cipher machine. He studied mathematics at Poznań University and in 1929 joined a secret cryptology course organized by the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau. With fellow mathematician-cryptologists Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski he developed techniques and equipment for decrypting Enigma ciphers, including the cryptologic card catalog and the cryptologic bomb, and five weeks before the outbreak of World War II the Poles shared their achievements with French and British counterparts, enabling Britain to begin reading Enigma ciphers. After escaping occupied France he worked in Britain, returned to Poland after the war and in 1967 broke his silence about his wartime work.