Nazi era Enigma coding machine used to send messages during World War found in Baltic Sea

In a remarkable discovery, divers in Germany have fished out a historic encryption machine out of the Baltic Sea. Called ‘Enigma encryption machine,’ the secret encoder was used by the Nazis to send coded messages during the Second World War. The machine was handed over to a museum for restoration on December 4.

How was it discovered?

The discovery was made last month by divers who were searching for abandoned fishing nets. While the divers belonging to WWF were searching for artificial nets harming the marine life, they stumbled across historical ‘typewriter like device’.Talking about the discovery to DPA,  Florian Huber, the lead diver said during their dive, his colleague swam up found a “net with an old typewriter in it."It was then that they alerted the authorities. 

Describing the device to DPA news agency, naval historian Jann Witt from the German Naval Association said he believes the machine, which has three rotors, was thrown overboard from a German warship in the final days of the war. He added that the less likely possibility was that it came from a “scuttled submarine” because Adolf Hitler’s submarines used more complex enigma machines.

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Restoration 

Ulf Ickerodt, head of the state archaeological office in Germany's Schleswig-Holstein region, said the machine would be restored by experts at the state's archaeology museum. Explaining its restoration, he added that the process would require “a thorough desalination“ of the historic equipment removing weeds and other stuff that had grown on it. After the process is completed, it would go on display at the museum.

(Image cred: phys.org)

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