Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 217 - WW2 Race Against the Nazi Enigma Machine

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

Breaking an unbreakable code to save, at the very least, millions and millions of lives. To possibly stop Hitler from taking over the world. That was the unimaginably stressful task assigned to a select group of codebreakers during WW2. And, the codebreaking all-stars were initially primarily composed of a group of POLISH mathematicians - I know, right? JK. And then later, British, French, and Americans helped them. They were all racing against the clock to deconstruct the most powerful encoding machine of their day - the Enigma machine. The Enigma machine allowed its operator to type in a message and then scramble it into a code that many deemed totally unbreakable. But Allied codebreakers, lead by genius Alan Turning, did break it. Over and over again. And every time they did, the Nazis created a new, advanced model. Back and forth it went for years. The Nazis used Enigma Machines for ALL their most important military communications: ambushes, bombing raids, U-boat attacks in the North Atlantic on Allied supply lines, and more. And if the codebreakers hadn't kept beating the Enigma, the war would've claimed an estimated 14 to 21 million additional lives. And Hitler might have won. THIS is our epic tale for today. Hail Nimrod! In honor of Veteran’s Day, November 11th, we are making a Bad Magic Productions donation of $10,000 to https://veteransfoodpantry.org/. Thank you Space Lizards! Allen and Linda Erickson founded the NW Montana Veterans Pantry & Stand Down over twenty years ago to serve the veteran community in the Flathead Valley and North West region of Montana. They have since expanded their operations to include a variety of other veteran services. To find out more, visit: https://veteransfoodpantry.org/ Also, through November 23rd, we are accepting Giving Tree applications to help give numerous Cult of the Curious families a holiday Bojangles would be proud of. If you have children, and due to financial hardships, are worried there will no gifts to open this holiday season, we want to help! Please - copy and paste the following email: [e-mail] you can remain anonymous if you wish. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4Sxi48qqMbo Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 9500 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Breaking an unbreakable code to save, at the very least, millions and millions of lives. To possibly stop Hitler from taking over the world. That was the unimaginably stressful task assigned to a select group of codebreakers during World War II. A task where the stakes could not have possibly been any higher. And many thought accomplishing this task was quite literally impossible. The codebreaking all-stars were initially primarily composed of, and if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know it pains me to say this,

primarily a group of Polish math petitions. I know, right? And then later, British, French, and Americans, all racing against the clock to deconstruct the most powerful encoding machine of their day, the Enigma machine. The Enigma machine allowed its operator to type in a message and then scramble it.

Really, really scramble it. One three-rotor Enigma machine allowed its operator to type in a message and then scramble it. Really, really scramble it. One three-rotor Enigma machine, the most common configuration, could encode a military message into over 15 quintillion different ways. That's a 15 followed by 18 zeros. And by the end of World War II, the Enigma machine would evolve into an eight-rotor machine, upgrading its possibilities into the septillions, over 400 septillion possibilities, 26 zeros, over 400 trillion trillions, an absurd number. The Enigma encryption to many felt completely unbreakable. First developed in Germany for commercial use as Hitler was illegally beefing up his military during the Third Reich to fulfill his plans of world domination, the Enigma machine's military uses soon became a very important part of the German

war machine. They would end up using it for all their important military communications, ambushes, bombing raids, U-boat attacks in the North Atlantic on Allied supply lines, etc., etc., etc. The Enigma machine allowed for truly secret communications between Central Command and a variety of field commanders. As long as the Enigma machine's encryption remained indecipherable, the Germans could plan and execute strategies with little to no fear that the Allies would have any idea what they were up to, what they were about to do. Luckily, before the war began, a group of concerned academics, knowing what a terrible weapon this machine could be in the wrong hands,

and hands don't really get any more wrong than Hitler's hands, they began trying to solve the puzzle of the enigma. Years previous to British and French codebreakers pitting their big brains against the Nazi seemingly unbreakable encoder, a team of Polish codebreakers, yes, actual Polish people as creatures, who were truly really good at math, they were the ones who started breaking down the Enigma code. This group of mathematics students were led to believe that they were just taking a class on codebreaking. And they were studying,

studying for something far more important than a good grade. And they made significant headway in solving the mystery of the Enigma machine all the way back in the early 30s. And they were doing this back when the British and the French were still hoping to appease Hitler and not have to fight him. When the Polish codebreakers eventually shared their findings with British and French intelligence services, brilliant mathematicians like eccentric genius Alan Turing, it greatly accelerated the path to Allied victory.

Some think these geniuses are actually who made this victory possible. The competition between German encryption devices and Allied codebreakers was an epic battle of brains, a race against time. While British, French, and Polish codebreakers worked to figure out German messages, German engineers worked just as hard to make sure the Enigma machine's advanced models became more and more complicated. Who could work their big brains the fastest? If the codebreakers won, they would save anywhere from 14 to 21 million lives. And if they lost, the Nazis might win the war. Quite the motivation to give this project their all. This is our epic tale for today. A big fascinating story that will include what happened to the heroic codebreakers after the Second World War and so much more on today's World War II, Nazi fighting, maybe some Polish monsters are actually somehow smart or smarter than the rest of us, edition of Time Suck.

This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Sack. Happy Monday and hail Nimrod, meat sacks. Lucifina is excited for today's tale. She loves a strong mathematical mind. Bojangles loves the story as well. He likes hearing about Nazis getting their asses kicked. Triple M does not care about today's suck.

Awkward. He's a bit depressed, unfortunately. Try as he might, he can't keep forgetting that his 2020 Doobie Brothers tour has been canceled. He'll bounce back. I'm Dan Kelman, the master sucker, Polish provoker, yamo mush mouth, and you are listening to Time Suck. I was recorded, this episode was recorded on Friday, November 6th, aware of the U.S. elections. I have my thoughts, and while it's not easy for me to do right now, I 6th. Aware of the U.S. elections, I have my thoughts. And while it's not easy for me to do right now, I'm going to keep them to myself. Out of respect for most of you coming here today, I'm guessing, for some nice historical escapism. So let's escape.

Kind of hoping a few new listeners turned off this episode after my Polish comments at the beginning, thinking I'm a deranged hate monger. That thought amuses me greatly. I just keep picturing them turning this off and thinking, who the fuck does this guy think he is? How is this anti-Polish bigot not been destroyed by cancel culture yet? It's 2020. You can't shit on people like that anymore and not get in trouble.

If you're a new listener and you're still listening and you are rightfully concerned slash confused, my wife Lindsay is Polish and I like to tease. I like to have some JKs. I like to tease her and her awesome family. I always thought the Polish jokes were so ridiculous as a kid, and you know, here we are. I tease because I love you Polish pseudo-humans, even the ginger ones, whose ancestors have clearly offended God, leading to them being cursed. But enough about monsters.

Sweet, very sexy Lucifina challenge coin in the store right now at badmagicmerch.com. Hail Lucifina, bringing some extra heat to hell, bringing some sexy fishnet fire to the lost and the damned. Feels right to have a challenge coin drop right before Veterans Day. Happy Veterans Day. Big thank you to all of our military listeners and not just

U.S. military listeners. Thanks to all those who've served in our allies, armed forces as well. And in honor of Veterans Day, November 11th, also my wife's birthday. Happy. military listeners. Thanks to all those who've served in our allies armed forces as well. And in honor of Veterans Day, November 11th, also my wife's birthday. Happy birthday, Lindsay, Queen of Bad Magic.

We're making a Bad Magic Productions donation of $10,000 to the veteransfoodpantry.org. This money comes from the combination of the Time Suck and Scared to Death Patreons. Thank you, Space Lizards. Thank you, Roberts and Annabelle's. Alan and Linda Erickson

founded the Northwest Montana Veterans Pantry and Stand Down over 20 years ago to serve the veteran community in the Flathead Valley in the Northwest region of Montana. They have since expanded

their operations to include a variety of other veteran services. And we know about them because their son, Robbie, is a bandmate of our producer, Joe Paisley. They're both part of Moretta.

And Robbie has helped our podcast in a variety of ways. He's a Cult of the Curious Facebook moderator. Thank you, Robbie, is a bandmate of our producer, Joe Paisley. They're both part of Moretta. And Robbie has helped our podcast in a variety of ways. He's a Cult of the Curious Facebook moderator. Thank you, Robbie. Thank you, veterans. Thank you, veteransfoodpantry.org. And there will be a link to veteransfoodpantry.org if you'd like to learn more. So happy to be able to give bigger and bigger donations. And now for a story of bravery, beautiful minds, tenacity, Polish people, dedication to making sure that Hitler wasn't going to end up ruling the entire world. Let the Enigma Games begin. Once we run through today's Time Suck timeline, we'll touch on some of World War II's most important battles

that involved the men and women tasked with breaking the unbreakable Nazi Enigma Code. We're going to explore some of the Allied forces' best and brightest and also some very smart Polish people. This episode might make it more absurd than ever to keep pushing anti-Pol propaganda. So frustrating that I have to cover even more obviously heroic and intelligent Polish

people. I don't know what's worse, continuing to think that they're subhuman monsters that we should fear or accepting that they're good, talented fellow human beings, which will then make it harder to make derogatory jokes about them. Either option is terrible. They're either dumb monsters or they're smart, fun killers. They will stop at nothing in our quest to destroy, in their quest to destroy this suck. Why would it be my quest to destroy this? Hey, did I frame my propaganda right? I hope so. Also talking about the main hero of today's topic, a not Polish man named Alan Turing.

Turing's discoveries were some of the biggest technological advances of his time or of any time. Turing's inventions and discoveries were so advanced, he was literally ahead of the technology curve by several decades. And he reminds me of someone, reminds me of somebody I know. He reminds me of me, okay? Turing and I, we have the same brain, basically. Am I a mush mouth? Are you sure? Or am I a linguistic pioneer?

Maybe my continual mispronunciations are not lazy mistakes. Maybe they're windows into the fucking future of language. You ever think about that? Maybe I have a mush mouth tongue that's tongue tied ahead of its time. Or maybe I'm an absurd jackass who continually amuses himself with hyperbolic nonsense. I don't know. Probably the last one. Hard to say for sure.

It's a mystery. Time to refocus on Turing now. I know, I know. Back in 1948, fellow genius Turing wrote the first chess programs for computers back before there were no computers with the power to run them. So he just ran the algorithms by hand.

No big whoops. Just gonna be his own computer. He also gave lectures on artificial intelligence more than 70 years ago, something we're still just beginning to learn about today. He's considered the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Some call him the father of the computer. He's who the Turing test is named after, that test that determines whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being.

Turing proposed that a computer can be said to possess artificial intelligence if it can mimic human responses under specific conditions. The original Turing test requires three terminals, each of which is physically separated from the other two. One terminal is operated by a computer, while the other two are operated by humans. During the test, one of the humans functions as the questioner, while the second human and computer function as the two respondents. The questioner interrogates the respondents within a specific subject area using a specified format and context. And after a preset length of time or number of questions, the questioner is then asked to decide

which respondent was human and which was a computer. And this test is repeated many, many times. And if the questioner makes the correct determination in half of the test runs or less, the computer is considered to have artificial intelligence because the questioner regards it as just as human as the human responded. The questioner cannot tell the difference between the computer or the human. Love it. Good old-fashioned logic. How do you know when a computer has become sentient when you can't tell it's a computer? And the second a computer passes this test, I think we probably are going to have to destroy it. And then destroy all the other computers and then burn all of our computer scientists alive, right?

I mean, it's either that or Skynet. You get it, scientists. We either burn you alive or Sarah Connor and a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 from the future have to hunt you down. If you're confused right now, well, please find time to watch the first two Terminator movies. They still hold up. Entertaining. Moving along. Before we learn more about Turing and other nerds in today's heady timeline,

let's touch on who they were fighting. The Germans. Going to skim over both World War II and World War I now, since World War I sanctions helped create World War II. Then we'll go over in depth how the Enigma machine worked. It's fascinating. And we'll make sure we truly understand the importance of the Code Breakers mission before we get into exactly how their

important mission was carried out. World War I, nicknamed the Great War, kicked off in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. And during the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire, the central powers, came in on the side of Austria-Hungary. They fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan, and the United States, the allied powers who all came in on the side of Serbia. And where was Poland in all of this fighting? They were busy not existing.

That's right. Not as a recognized country, at least. How fucking convenient. No, they actually really didn't exist as a country to start a World War I. Polish territory was split between Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, and the Russian Empire. The United States actually remained on the sidelines of World War I for almost the first three years of the war, adopting the policy of neutrality until February of 1917. In the final year and a half of fighting,

which ended on November 11th, 1918, happy Veterans Day again, America lost 53,402 soldiers to combat another 63,114 to disease, thanks to the influenza epidemic of 1918, and approximately 320,000 additional troops were wounded or too ill to continue fighting. The majority of the fighting took place in Europe along two fronts, the Western Front and the Eastern Front. The Western Front was a long line of trenches that ran from the coast of Belgium to Switzerland. We talked about trench warfare in our World War I suck. Nasty business. The Eastern Front lay between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria on one side,

and Russia and Romania on the other. The armies of the Central Powers, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria on one side and Russia and Romania on the other. The armies of the central powers, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, they would mobilize 25 million soldiers. Three and a half million of them would die. The allies or entente powers, France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, the U.S. deployed 40 million soldiers, lost more than 5 million. So many lives. 40 million soldiers lost more than 5 million, so many lives. And the fighting ended on, as I mentioned, November 11th, 1918, when a general armistice was agreed to by both the Allies and Germany, or basically mostly by the Allies.

And Germany was just kind of forced to sign it. On June 28th, 1919, heavily pressured to sign it. The Treaty of Versailles was signed. The treaty was a peace agreement between Germany and the Allies, kind of. It was a peace agreement that would ironically lead to so much more death in the Second World War. The treaty codified peace terms between the victorious Allies and Germany, and it motherfucked the Germans. Treaty of Versailles held Germany entirely responsible for starting the war, which is not exactly true, but is mostly true. And they imposed incredibly harsh penalties on the Germans in terms of loss of territory, massive reparation payments, and demilitarization.

And most historians seem to think that they went way overboard with their penalties and created a lot of backlash. The Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany while failing to resolve the underlying issues that had led to war in the first place. Economic distress, resentment of the treaty within Germany helped fuel the ultra-nationalist sentiment that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933,

Hitler said what a lot of scared and impoverished Germans wanted to hear. He gave them someone to blame for all of their problems, not the right people to blame, but a scapegoat, and they wanted a scapegoat, a scapegoat a lot of struggling Germans were all too happy to have, and he swiftly consolidated power and declared himself Fuhrer, or leader, in 1934. Obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the pure German race, which he called Aryan, Hitler believed that the war, or that war, was the only way to gain the necessary Lebensraum or living space.

And he felt that the German race needed to continue to expand and dominate. This Lebensraum was Hitler's equivalent to America's Manifest Destiny, but even crazier. Manifest Destiny was a widely held American imperialist cultural belief in the 19th century that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. Load the raffles, boys. Totally okay to butcher American Indians. All part of God's plan. It's our destiny, our manifest destiny. American settlers actually believed they were destined by God to remake the world in their image. Maybe just a wee bit arrogant. Do I live where I live now because of it? Yeah, I do. I do. Am I thankful I do? Yeah, I am. Does that justify the concept of manifest destiny and how it was enacted as being ethical

or moral? No, it does not. And the Germans would be even less moral and ethical with their manifest destiny equivalent. With Lebensraum, Hitler believed in an even more insane notion conceptualized by a German geographer, Friedrich Ratzel, at the end of the 19th century. And that was, in order to literally remain healthy, a species must continually expand the amount of space they occupy,

for migration is a natural feature of all species, an expression of their need for living space. Birds need to fly south in the winter, and humans need to fuck up other humans. To become a stronger species, one must expand. This concept was one of the primary driving forces for Nazi expansion ambitions. Hitler loved it. When he came, he probably yelled,

Lebensraum! The Rostel character I'm talking about was directly influenced by the American Manifest Destiny ideology I just laid out and by earlier British and French colonization. Ratzel asserted that Germany required new colonies to relieve German overpopulation. He also believed in German racial superiority. And he felt it would be good for both the German people and the rest of Earth if more of the Earth was populated by kick-ass Germans and all of the earth's other inferior races were subjugated by their kind of benevolent, but not really Aryan master monsters. And Russia was to be Germany's primary Lebensraum target.

Hitler actually once decreed, there's only one duty to Germanize this country, Russia, by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the natives as Redskins. Eek. In the mid 1930s, Hitler preparing for this incredibly delusional and misguided German expansion movement to claim more Aryan, quote-unquote, living space, secretly began a rearmament of Germany, huge violation of the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Germany had been forbidden to have an air force, but with the help of the Soviet Union,

Germany secretly defied the treaty and trained pilots and support staff on combat planes in Russia. Guessing Hitler didn't talk to Stalin a lot about Liebensraum while the Soviet leader was helping him bring his military back up to snuff. This is fantastic, Stalin. Look at these fighter jets. They're so very fast and powerful. Do you think they might, I don't know, do you think they might totally annihilate the Russian air fighter things? I was wondering if all of this makes you nervous on any level.

Asking for a friend, of course. By the start of World War II, sneaky-ass Hitler and his tiny weasel stash will have built the German air force known as the Luftwaffe into the strongest and best-trained air force in the world, enabling Germany to carry out highly effective invasion to their neighbors.

In 1936, just after training pilots in Russia, Hitler forged alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, the Anti-Comintern Pact. I totally tricked you, Stalin. You and your too big of mustache. You just, you got Adolfed. You boneheaded Bolshevik.

And then Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria. The following year, Germany annexed Czechoslovakia. Hitler's open aggression was, of course, concerning to the world at large, but also initially largely ignored. The United States and the Soviet Union were concentrated on internal politics at the time. The U.S. was busy trying to finish climbing

out of the Great Depression. And the USSR was busy putting a lot of its people in gulags and turning neighbor against neighbor through fear and paranoia. Both France and Britain were hesitant to return to war. Neither wanted to see a repeat of the carnage of World War I. The British Empire had almost a million soldiers either get killed or end up MIA in World War I. Over 1.3 million French soldiers had died in that war. But then in late August 1939, Hitler and Stalin would sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, aka the Treaty of Non-Aggression

between Germany and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic's German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, which allowed the two dictators and their nations to, you know, work together. And everyone else got really nervous. And if you're thinking right now, what the fuck?

Wait a minute. I thought Hitler had just entered a deal three years earlier against the Soviet Union. Why is he now making a deal with the Soviet Union? How is he able to get a deal with them? Great questions. The first deal was all about communism. It was about, hey, the USSR and China getting pretty friendly. Let's keep an eye on that.

Let's just make sure they don't spread that nonsense. Hitler, not a fan of Bolshevism. So why would Hitler work out a deal with the Bolsheviks, with Mother Russia, not long after forming an alliance against them? Why would Russia allow this as well? Well, they both wanted Poland. That's why they decided to work together. This deal was really, truly all about fucking up Poland,

which I get. Sometimes after spending time with my wife's family. Yeah, I get it. I get it. JK, gosh dang. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, though, was less about non-aggression, more about dividing up Poland.

A week after signing this pact, both Russia and Germany aggressively invaded Poland. Poor Poland. It had just regained independence from Russia, Prussia, and Austria at the conclusion of World War I, after 123 previous years of occupation. And then Russia was like, JK, motherfuckers. Get back over here, you rascals. Bend down, kiss that ring again. And then Germany's like, but not all of you. Uh-uh. 22 million of you Polish monsters, you now belong to us. The Lebensstrom has begun. Don't tell Stalin, not yet.

Not yet, my pretties, not yet. This additional act of aggression set off a frenzy of worry in London and Paris. Great Britain and France had guaranteed military support to Poland if they were invaded by Germany. And they were both like, shit. I guess we do have to go back to war. Fucking Germany. And they were both like, shit, I guess we do have to go back to war. Fucking Germany. We fucked those idiots up just a couple of years ago and they're back at it. On September 1st, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the West. Then two days later,

France and Britain declared war on Germany, officially beginning World War II. Over the next six years, with over 30 countries fighting each other, the massive conflict would take more lives and destroy more land and property around the globe than any previous war ever. Among the estimated 45 to 60 million people killed were 6 million Jewish people murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler's final solution, an attempted genocide of the Jewish people now known as the Holocaust. And Hitler hoped that would be just the beginning. He wanted as part of his stupid Lebensraum ideology to kill all Jewish people worldwide, according to his memoir, Mein Kampf. He wanted to kill all kinds of people worldwide, or at least subjugate them, create all that precious German living space. And who was standing between the Nazi-led Axis forces and their violent quest for domination?

Steven fucking Seagal, majestic ponytail, billowing in the wind beautifully behind him. He stood atop a giant bald eagle using only his elite martial arts training and mastery of black magic to keep from falling back down to earth where he would, of course, not be injured for he is the last of the Highlanders.

He is both immortal and invincible. Wait, that's not right. Oh wait, no, I just misread some of my notes. No, standing against Hitler's vision were Western politicians, military thinkers, millions of brave allied soldiers, spies, and an unsung group of math nerd wizard heroes, not Steven Seagal.

And I'd never looked into these dork warlocks before diving into this sucks research. Had no idea these crypto code crackers were just as important to the allied war efforts to stop the Nazis as all that actual firepower that the military had. I had no idea that without these equation witches, the Nazis might've been able to outmaneuver and outgun the allies and theoretically, possibly, win World War II. The job of these algebra eggheads was, of course, to decipher the impossible codes of one of the world's earliest versions of a computer, the Enigma machine. Let's get to know this bad boy. I found this very interesting. I hope I can

explain it correctly. Went over this one, this part of this a bunch of times. Like all the best cryptography devices, the Enigma machine is simple to describe, infuriating to break. The word Enigma means puzzle or secret in Greek. And this device would prove to be the ultimate puzzle of the 20th century, which means I would have been absolutely zero help to these arithmetic sorcerers. I have never been able to crack codes, never been able to crack a Rubik's cube.

I did once get frustrated enough to smash one into my bedroom floor hard enough to break it in two. And another time I tried moving the stickers around to make it look like I'd solved it, which is not an indicator of future code-breaking greatness. A quick glance, the Enigma machine, it looks kind of like an oversized typewriter.

I watched a few YouTube tutorials about it and so cool. I'm going to leave a link to my favorite tutorial in the show notes at this point in the episode. If you want to download it from the app, it's a World Science Fair channel video called The Enigma Machine Explained. I would play it, but you need to see it. Really impressive how compact this machine is, how well built, powerful, how advanced for the 1930s and 40s. It has 26 keys on top, one for each letter of the alphabet.

Above these keys, it has 26 lights, each labeled with one letter of the alphabet. Above these keys, it has 26 lights, each labeled with one letter from the alphabet. And to use this battery-powered device, you push a letter button, and then one of the Enigma machine's letter lights lights up to reveal a different letter than the button you pushed. Anything but that letter, a letter picked randomly. Push that same letter button again, and a different letter lights up than the last letter that lit up.

Push that same letter button a third time, another random letter lights up and so on and so forth. Each push of a letter is replaced by an encrypted substitute for that letter, a substitute that's continually changing. And the Nazis would use this machine to send an encrypted message to some U-boat commander or field marshal, to some U-boat commander or field marshal, whoever to coordinate an attack, coordinate a defense, set up an ambush, relay a supply line change, whatever information they didn't want to end up in the hands of the allied forces.

They could use several of these devices to talk to one another on the battlefield, to coordinate whatever might need coordinating. And then they'd have to use something else to actually transmit the messages with, like a mobile radio. They'd have to read something else to actually transmit the messages with, like a mobile radio. You know, they have to read the encoded Enigma gibberish to someone else.

And how did another German decode these encrypted messages once they heard them? Well, they would have to type in the ciphertext, which was what the scrambled message was called, into another identical Enigma machine, one set to the exact same rotor and lamp board settings. The lamp board consisted of 26 different plugins allowing for further encryption through that many more signal variables. And the rotors each had, you know, 26 different little points.

You'd have three rotors, right? Three sets of 26 and the circuits moving through the lamp board and moving through all these different rotors to create all these different number, or, you know, text possibilities. And every day, the Nazis would change all of their Enigma settings. Every month, high command would send out papers with that month's official rotor and lamp board's daily settings printed on them, right?

It made it so hard each day, you know, all of the Enigma machines are being changed. The lamp board plugins are being moved around. The rotors are being popped out and switched around, set to different settings, you know, so you would have a whole new set of codes to work with. And these monthly Enigma settings were rarely transmitted via radios or any other communication devices. They were personally delivered all across Europe to reduce the risk of interception. And when the receiving Enigma machine set to the exact same settings as the other Enigma machine that was transmitting the message,

it would then reverse the message thanks to the machine's reflector, aka reversing drum. It would be decoded into whatever the original message was actually typed in. It's fucking magical. And I know all this is a bit complex. I hope it's not too boring.

I find it very interesting. Before we move on, let me use a message example to illustrate how good this machine was at encrypting. Let's say we want to encrypt a word in a more rudimentary way, calling the uncoded word a plain text message using a cipher where the normal alphabet is matched to an unorganized version of the same alphabet. We might substitute H for Z. Once we decide what each and every letter turns into in our scrambled alphabet, we have the ability to create ciphertext.

To decrypt the ciphertext, we just reverse this process, determining through trial and error what each letter of the scrambled alphabet corresponds to in the normal correct alphabet. And when we've done that, we've cracked the code. We can now decode any message created

using that particular cipher text alphabet. If we know that Z always equals G and P always equals O, L equals S, Q equals H, we know K equals D, R equals A, W equals N, and we get the code ZPLQ, K, R, W, Z, Z-P-L-Q-K-R-W-Z, we know that the ciphertext says, what real message? Gosh dang! Oh my heck!

Did that ever just flip and say, gosh dang? You can imagine the lines between the normal alphabet letters and the scrambled alphabet letters, kind of like a map using encryption like this. You know, Z connects with G, P connects with O, and so on and so forth. Those lines could also be wires in a rudimentary encryption machine, electrically connecting each pair of letters directly.

But what if we change this map? What if we could keep changing the connection map almost endlessly? This is what the Enigma machine did. This was its genius. The ability to change the mapping is important because once someone deduces that Z is the substitution for G, they'll know that's true for every Z

in the ciphertext. An obvious improvement would be for all those pairings to change, and even better if they could change each time a letter is encoded. One way to implement that possibility, and the way it is done in the Enigma machine, is to embed all that wiring in a wheel or

a rotor. By turning the rotor while leaving the letter stationary, the connections between the letters continually change. How many possible paths does that give us through three rotors for any one letter? The letter G, for example. Keep in mind that each rotor can be turned to any position. That means that for the first rotor,

there are 26 possible paths through it for G. But once we followed the wire through the first rotor, there are now 26 more possible paths through the second rotor. And then another 26 possible paths through the third one. Now the total number of paths for G to take through all three rotors is 17,576.

And making it more confusing, each rotor is wired differently. And they're each given names using Roman numerals one, 2, and 3. To even further complicate things for anyone who might get a hold of an Enigma machine and try to decrypt in another Enigma machine ciphertext message, the rotors are allowed to be taken out and moved around before use. Instead of a nice, tidy, straight, you know, situation for the lineup of like 1, 2, and then three. Rotor two might be the left one.

Rotor three might be in the middle. And rotor one can be moved over to the right side. And that changes the encryption path all over again based on the way they were wired. And to add even more possibilities, up to eight rotors were made by the end of the war, each with their own wiring and Roman numerals, right? One through eight.

The German army and the air force would use five rotor Enigma machines and the Navy ended up using eight rotor devices prior to use, uh, you know, these machines, uh, three rotors will be selected from however many rotors, uh, were available to choose from. Assuming we're trying to decrypt an army message, we'd have a choice of five rotors to use for the left one, then a choice of four remaining rotors for the middle one, then a choice of three for the right one. That gives 60 possible ways to choose the three rotors being used for a message, each of them 26 combinations, and it just continues to get more complex, right? This continues to magnify how many different ways a message can be encoded. Let's now look at how

the Enigma machines got better and better, more infuriatingly difficult to figure out over time. better and better, more infuriatingly difficult to figure out over time. At its inception, the Enigma machine wasn't a single device. The Enigma brand until the end of World War II included many types of encrypting devices. In general, there were two families of Enigma encryption devices, the older extensive one with eight encryption rotors and a mechanism that printed messages like a typewriter. This early device weighed a lot, super expensive, and then a newer simplified model replaced it with a light bulb table that we talked about that indicated the subsequent letters of the code. It was cheaper, you know, and weighed a lot less. The second

version was created to keep the correspondence of commercial companies private. And then someone thought, oh shit, this would be fucking awesome to use in the military. And military demand suddenly surged. The first rotor encryption device sold under the name of Enigma was Enigma A, a device patented in 1918. Sold through the mail in Europe, Asia, and the US. Italy was the first nation to use this device for their military. It was constructed by the Sherbius and Ritter Berlin Wannsee Company in Germany. Very heavy, hard to move around.

And it wrote directly on paper, which is why it was sometimes called the writing enigma. The cryptographer set the rotors in the right position, started to encrypt or decrypt. It was also possible to write without encrypting to be used as a standard, but super expensive typewriter. The successors of this device were the B and H models. And then came the Enigma C.

And that was the one that I designed by myself with my eyes closed, because I'm a genius like Turing. No, that's crazy talk. No, the Enigma C, the first of the Enigma devices to use light bulbs to indicate letters of the cryptogram instead of typed text, came out in 1924. Enigma C was a lot smaller, and like I said before, way more mobile than Enigma A. Also a lot cheaper, cost 1,000 German Deutschmarks, only an eighth of the price of the Enigma A. There were several versions of Enigma C. The basic model had 26 contacts on every rotor, used the standard international alphabet.

The keys on the keyboard installed alphabetically, not in the quirky layout of keys on a keyboard or typewriter. Enigma C expanded into Enigma D and K, where it was possible to change the system of rotors to increase the maximum number of arrangements during encryption. All these machines were used commercially, and then the Enigma machine evolved further. The Enigma 1 was created in 1927. It was the first Enigma machine to be used by the German military, becoming standard equipment in the German Reichswehr, the pre-Nazi military that What? Our army is over five times the size of what it was supposed to be? Nein!

Really? It's true. Shocking. Who is in charge of the counting of the soldiers? Carl Villagate? The psychic wizard guy you're so fond of?

The one always talking about the soul giants and the spear of destiny? He is a fool! No wonder we accidentally have a much bigger army than we were supposed to. Send Carl back to his wizard lair.

No more counting for the naughty boy Carl. We are so sorry. We tell the guys to go back home, set down their guns and such. We Nazis, we don't want to upset anyone. That is not what we are about. We just like to march and play dress up. Don't worry about it. We don't bother

anyone. You have my word. A construction of this Enigma was based on the commercial Enigma D, one of the successors to Enigma C, but the Enigma 1 had a plug board installed in the front, making it even easier for military use. And this Enigma was based on the commercial Enigma D, one of the successors to Enigma C. But the Enigma 1 had a plug board installed in the front, making it even easier for military use. And this Enigma 1 would be used by Germany throughout World War II. In its first versions, the Enigma 1 was equipped with three rotors. It would be set in six different ways. In December of 1938, two additional rotors were added, you know, which resulted in the 60 possible settings of rotors I mentioned earlier.

Tenfold increase in encryption capabilities. Then the new plug board substantially increased the total number of possible combinations again. The Enigma 1 used by both land troops and the Luftwaffe air troops. And then there was the most enigmatic Enigma of all, the M4. Excuse me, the Enigma M4 was constructed during World War II for the communication of submarines in the German Navy. The Enigma M4 played an important role in the Battle of the Atlantic. It was introduced totally unexpectedly on February 2nd, 1942, which caused a great commotion among the Allied cryptologists in their headquarters of Bletchley Park, north of London. We'll learn more about that nest of number necromancers soon.

The Allies couldn't break the code for a bloody nine months. And not bloody as in English, bloody, bloody hell, like actual bloody carnage. Not until the code list was intercepted. Previous to that break, the Enigma M4 seemed impenetrable.

It was so powerful, it was equipped with eight different encryption rotors. It ran on a 6.2 liter supercharged Hemi V8. It had an eight-person hot tub jutting off the back. It could bench press over 500 pounds for reps. It had a 60-inch vertical leap, and it could dunk on a 12-foot rim. Okay, only that first part's true, the part about the eight different encryption rotors. Thanks to these extra rotors, the number of possible alphabets grew to the amount that gave the German cryptologists, and for some some time also the English and the French the assurance that no one could break it. And in each rotor, the left-hand contact arrangement with the right-hand contacts was different, allowed for generating 26 various cryptographic alphabets depending on the position of the rotor with relation to the axis.

A cryptologist who did not know the rotor connection system would have to check an enormous number of possible connection. Over 14, sorry, over 400 septillion possibilities, over 400 trillion trillion. Absurd, absurd. I think I kept saying septillion, septillion before I get emails. Septillion. It sounds pretty cool though if I say septillion. Sounds like an even fancier number. It's a sept, though, if I say septillion. Sounds like an even fancier number. It's a septillion. No, it's septillion. Absurd, yeah. With settings that changed every day.

The Germans were confident that outside of someone stealing their monthly codes, no one could decrypt the Enigma M4. And then Allen, Allen, I can't talk anymore after I said septillion.

And then Allen, ha ha, nailed it. Nailed Allen. Good job, Dan. And then Allen Turing and his nailed it. Nailed Alan. Good job, Dan. And then Alan Turing and his clan of allied geek gladiators were like,

and the Nazis were like, what? What did you just say? And they were like, well, you know, we're not there and we're slayers. We're just slayers.

We're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there

and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there

and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not there and we're not We're slapping our enigma nuts right in front of our sauerkraut tanks and shoving them right up your living space and win the war. Why stop mumbling, you filthy nerds? And then they're like, I said, fuck you, Nazis. We're about to take our slide rulers and code slap your enigma nuts right off the front of your sauerkraut tanks and shove them right up your living space and win the war. And they're like, oh, that's very mean. Why did you say that? I thought you just kept mumbling.

Okay, maybe Alan Turing and the other code nerds did not say that exactly, but they probably thought it. They had an impossible task laid out before them and they impossibly made it possible. Now let's suck the rest of this crazy story in this week's Time Suck Timeline. After some awesome sponsor deals.

I hope you just heard some sweet deals that appealed to you. Now for some heroism and nerdery. Strap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-suck timeline. 600 BCE. Let's get to the beginning of all the code-breaking stuff. It's estimated this is roughly when the first codes were devised.

The ancient Spartans used a device called a skiddley to send secret messages during battle. The skiddley consisted of a leather strap wrapped around a wooden rod. Letters on the wooden strap only made sense when wrapped around the correctly sized rod, which the recipient would have. The rod had to have the exact right diameter to relay the code. You couldn't write the code on some, you know, girthy, rock-hard, 16-inch stallion rod, for example, and expect someone to break the code using some skinny, limp, sad, two-inch micropene rod. You get it. Reverend Dr. Paisley gets it, too. Come on, JK. In all seriousness, you can Google image search it if you're real curious. It's hard to properly convey exactly how this thing worked.

Only verbally, very simple and clever how this thing was just wrapped around this stick, just so. Around 60 BCE, Julius Caesar, I've heard of him, invents a substitution cipher that shifts characters by three places. In his code, A becomes D, B becomes E, and so on. Definitely not as sophisticated as the Enigma, not nearly so, but a good code back for 60 BCE, when a good portion of the Romans' enemies were illiterate barbarians. Some of the people he fought against would have probably had a hard time

deciphering a code that was just the same letters written in the same order, but upside down. What me think is this? It look like word letter thing, maybe, but wrong shape size. Make head hurt. Hit with rock. Maybe rock hit make letter speak right. You know, that's kind of like the level they're at. A millennium and a half later, in 1553 CE, a Japanese cryptologist, Giovanni Battista Bellasio, invented the first cipher to use a proper encryption key and agreed upon keyword that the recipient needs to know if he or she wants to figure out how to decode the message. No one would have been able

to break this type of encryption known as the Wiesener cipher until over three centuries later in 1863. It's too complicated, not important enough to our story to spend 10 minutes to explain it, but, you know, worked for over three centuries. Also, G. von Battista Blasio was Italian, not Japanese. I just thought it'd be fun to have you think, you know, worked for over three centuries. Also, G. von Battista Blasio was Italian, not Japanese. I just thought it would be fun to have you think, fucking Japanese, really? That's the least Japanese sounding name I've ever heard. 1854, another Japanese

encryptor, Charles Wheatstone, invents the Playfair Cipher, which encrypts pairs of letters instead of single ones, making a code that is much harder to crack. It would be used by the British military in World War I and by the British and Australian militaries in World War II. And also, of course, Charles Wheatstone,

not Japanese. He was English. Gosh dang. Now we're closing in on the 20th century in the age of the enigma. Before we get back to that machine, we arrive at the birth

of one of the brilliant men who would break the unbreakable code. Alan Matheson Turing is born in Maida Vale, a neighborhood in London, Alan Matheson Turing is born and made of ale, a neighborhood in London, to Ethel Sarah Turing, daughter of Edward Waller Stoney, a railway chief engineer, and Julius Matheson Turing, a British civil servant in the Indian Civil Service.

In 1918, Alan would begin attending St. Michael's Day School in Hastings, where he does not do very well. He struggles academically and socially, frequent target of bullies. Whatever was the 1918 equivalent of wedgies and getting stuffed into lockers, that's what life was like for Allen at school. January 1922, nine-year-old Allen

sent to Hazlehurst Preparatory School in Front Sussex, 50 miles south of London, where he does much better. Has a few friends, learns to play chess. In 1926, at age 14, he tests into and is sent to the Sherbourne School in Dorset. His first day of term coincided with the 1926 general strike.

This general strike lasted for nine days. The aim was to force the government to act to prevent mine owners reducing miners' wages by 13% and increasing their shifts. And the strike created transportation problems across England. And it didn't look as if Alan would be able to get to school until it ended. Determined not to miss his first day of school, Turing showed an early indication of the tenacity

that it would later take to crack the Enigma machine, and he cycled the 97 kilometers, about 60 miles, from his home in Southampton. Just rode his bike 60 miles to school. And then his little sweaty nerd ass sat down and got to studying. I love it. Not sure I'd let my 14-year-old take a 60-mile bike trip to school on his bike, but love the dedication. Hail Nimrod, young codebreaker.

His teachers would worry at this school that he leaned too heavily on mathematics and science at the expense of the classics. The headmaster would write to his parents, if he is to be solely a scientific specialist, he is wasting his time at a public school. We'll catch up more with Alan in a bit. 1917, Japanese cryptologist Edward Hebburn invents an electrical mechanical machine

in which the encryption key is embedded in a rotating disc. It's the first example of a rotor machine. It also encodes a substitution table that has changed every time a new character is typed. Ed was not Japanese either. He was American. Sorry. Also, just as random as my running lie, but totally true, he supposedly came up with the idea for this machine while in jail for stealing a horse. Horse thievery. Such an old-timey crime. You don't hear about a lot of horse thievery these days. 1918, German engineer Arthur Scherbius names the portable electromechanical encrypted

machine he's constructed the Enigma, after the Greek word for secret. As we mentioned, it is used for commercial purposes at first and then later is adapted for use by state institutions. And important to note that Arthur was not a Nazi. He had no idea that his machine would end up in the hands of Hitler. Hitler didn't even join his first political party until a year after the Enigma machine was created. Arthur died in 1929, four years before Hitler became German chancellor.

Arthur actually died in a horse carriage accident. So many horses in this timeline so far. Making me think about sweet sarsaparilla. Whoa, sarsaparilla, whoa. I'll untie you in a timeline so far. Making me think about sweet sarsaparilla. Whoa, sarsaparilla, whoa. I'll untie you in a bit, girl. Don't spit out that ball gag. If you get that, you get that. 1919, May 8th, Lieutenant Joseph Serafin Stanslicki establishes a Polish army cipher section, the precursor to the cipher bureau in Poland. The cipher section reported to the Polish general staff. The Polish-Soviet war started in 1919, fought between the Second Polish Republic, aka interwar Poland and Russia, and it would last until 1921.

And Polish puzzle solvers really helped Poland in the war. Some 100 Russian ciphers were broken by a sizable cadre of Polish cryptologists who included Army Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski. Oh, boy. Kowalewski. Fuck it. These names are preposterous. I tried so many times before. Kowalewski, and three world-famous professors of mathematics, Stefan Marzerkiewiczki,

Waclaw Serpinski, Stanislaw Luzaniwski. No idea if I got those names correct, because the English-speaking internet doesn't give a fuck about early 20th century Polish math petitions. Not a bunch of pronunciation guides to choose from with those names. Their efforts helped preserve Poland's independence, which had only recently been regained in the wake of World War I. Poland would defeat Russia in this war. Soviet leader Lenin was pissed.

He would say at the war's close, this is great a shame of life. I have less pie on face now had Russia been beaten by army of small monkey, riding medium-sized dog into battle, then to be defeated by the Pole people. I'm not totally sure he ever said that. He definitely never said that. The following year, February of 1920, listen, two years after the end of World War I, things already start to heat up in Germany Nazi-wise. The NSDAP Nationalist or National Socialist German Workers' Party, aka the Nazis, published their first program, which became known as the 25 Points.

The Nazis refused to accept the terms of the Versailles Treaty, called for the reunification of all German people to reinforce their ideas on nationalism. They promote the racial ideology of equal rights being given to only German citizens.

Hitler claims he is in favor of equality for those who have German blood. He says Jews and other, quote, aliens will lose their rights of citizenship and the immigration of non-Germans should be ended. That year, the party announces that only persons of pure Aryan descent could become party members.

And if the person had a spouse, the spouse had to also be a racially pure Aryan. Party members could also not be related either directly or indirectly to a so-called non-A Aryan. Party members could also not be related either directly or indirectly to a so-called non-Aryan. And it's so ignorant in so many ways. Obviously ignorant, but maybe more ignorant than you even understand. If you recall from Suck 170, the Nazi search for the Holy Grail, there is no such thing as being Aryan. It's a made up race for angry idiots to claim to be a part of. If the Aryan race was a real race,

for lengthy reasons we went over in that episode, based mostly on ancient linguistics, it would be Persian. Persians would be Aryans. And according to Hitler's racial policy, no Persian Aryan would have been allowed into an Aryan-only party, which is obviously absurd.

And on February 24th, 1920, the Nazis held a mass rally where it announced this new program. The rally was attended by over 2,000 people, and the popularity of this party, of course, would increase exponentially over the following years. August 1920, in just this month alone, with Poland still fighting the Soviet Union, Polish cryptologists decrypt 410 signals. Six years later, 1926, the Enigma is first used by the German Navy as the Germans secretly build up their interwar military. Late 1927, early 1928, a fascinating mistake tips off the Polish general staff

to the existence of the Enigma machines. A package arrives at the Warsaw Customs Office from Germany that according to the accompanying declaration was supposed to contain radio equipment. The German firm's representative strenuously demanded that the package be returned to Germany even before going through customs, as it had been shipped with other equipment by mistake. His insistent demands alerted the custom officials who notified the Polish General Staff's cipher section, which had taken a keen interest in new developments in radio technology. And since it happened to be a Saturday afternoon, the section's experts had ample time to look into this matter. They carefully opened the box, found that it did not in fact contain radio equipment, but instead a cipher machine.

They examined the machine, then put it back into the box. And this entirely legal acquisition of a single commercial model Enigma set off Polish interest in the Enigma machine and its codes, an interest that would lead into World War II and eventually help defeat the Nazis. And I love this. This whole process began with an address fuck-up. They just put the package in the wrong address section when they sent out some other stuff. 1928. The Enigma machine is used for the first time by German land troops. 1928, the Enigma machine is used for the first time by German land troops.

July 15th, 1928, the first Enigma coded messages are broadcast by German military radio stations and Polish monitoring stations begin to intercept them almost immediately. And Polish cryptologists in the cipher section are instructed to try to read them. And their initial efforts are fruitless. That doesn't stop them from continuing to study this new puzzling machine. Lieutenant Maximilian Shelsky, Gessen, that's how you say his name. Some of the letters in it don't even look real, who managed the German section of the Cypher Bureau

kept trying to crack this machine. Shelsky and his colleagues came to the conclusion that the current methods used to break codes were no longer effective. The game had changed. He decided to focus on teaching code-breaking as a subset of mathematics. He knew talent and luck wouldn't be enough

to deal with the enigma. Prior to the enigma, code-breakers were linguists, not number nerds. Linguists decrypted codes looking for letter patterns. They studied sentence structure, word order. But the new technology of the enigma obliterated the need for linguistic knowledge. You couldn't use your knowledge about word order or sentence structure, word order. But the new technology of the Enigma obliterated the need for linguistic knowledge. You couldn't use your knowledge about word order or sentence structure

if there were bajillions of possibilities of what a single letter could be. You needed some type of early computer to crunch all these numbers. In January of 1929, as a direct response to new Enigma codes, the Polish University of Poznań introduces a secret new math heavy cryptography course and before I talk about it does anyone else think about cryptids? Does anyone else keep hearing cryptids when they hear the word cryptography?

When I was working on my notes earlier I started to picture somebody signing up for this course thinking it was a cryptozoological course I just the wrong dude just walking in Yeah, Professor David Childress here. Very confused by all the math talk. Will you be telling us soon how this all relates to finding Bigfoot or perhaps werewolves

or to the giant stone balls often associated with the ancient aliens? Sorry to interrupt, but it would just be easier to focus on these numbers and use all this code jibber-jabber if you could explain how it will lead to, say, capturing a unicorn, or the Belarusian sky squid, or even a bugbear. Yes, yes, yes, I can't hold all my questions until after class. Wait in the hallway? Yes, that's fine. The University of Poznan was chosen as the best place for the new course because it taught

a lot of high-achieving students, and many of those students had been educated in German-speaking schools, making them equally fluent in German and Polish. And early on, only a handful of

mathematics students were selected to take this new course. Besides their cryptographic abilities, they were also evaluated for their meticulousness, patience, and orderliness. The class was organized by Shelsky, our friend from the cipher section,

and a man named Guido Langer. A little bit about Langer, who would become one of the main figures in all of these codebreakers. Guido Langer was born in Tokyo, Japan, where he became a famous cryptologist in a nation known for cryptologists. Come on, JK, JK. I picked Japan totally at random, by the way. Langer was born in Upper Hungary, present-day Slovakia, and spent his childhood in Silesia. He was a student of the

Tauritian Military Academy, and during World War I, as an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was taken into captivity by the Russians. And he would escape twice from Russian captivity. He was a tough son of a bitch, determined. On January 15th, 1929, Major Langer, having made it back to Poland, after a tour of duty as a chief of staff of the 1st Legion Infantry Division, he became chief of the Radio Intelligence Office, one of the offices that would later merge to become the Cipher Bureau. Chelsky and Langer then decided to collaborate with the mathematics professor at the University

of Poznan, whose first name starts with a Z and then is followed by way too many constants and not nearly enough vowels, and a last name of Kragowski. Kragowski would invite 26 students from the mathematics department to audition for participation in the new code-breaking course. The top eight of these would be invited to work in the cipher section. The cipher bureau students would meet twice a week in a nearby military facility. Among the participants were Marian Radjuski, Jerzy Roziski, and Henrik Zygalski. All three would play big roles in the Polish understanding of the German codes. Professor Kregowski, throughout much of

these students' training, never told them they were working towards cracking the Enigma machine. They thought they were just studying a real course, and for their tests, he would give them actual Enigma codes to solve, right? How fucked up is this? That's crazy. And you thought your math test was hard. He's given these students equations to solve for their test to get their grade that literally no one had been able to solve. Told these poor, stressed out students at the Cypher Bureau had already broken these same codes, which they hadn't. Many in the Cypher Bureau actually considered the codes these students were given completely unbreakable, impossible to break. And a couple hours after giving his students the first test, some of these students, including Radjuski, Zygalski, and Roziski, actually decoded these messages. They were not as encrypted as they would be later

during World War II when the Enigma machine had become much more advanced, but they still were very difficult to crack. I highly doubt that made-up cryptozoology student David Childress was of much help in breaking these codes. Yeah, Professor. David Childress here again. I don't want to come across as needlessly negative, and I hate to continually second-guess your teaching methods, but I am very disappointed in the lack of illustrations. I was hoping it would accompany these assignments. I feel I would fare far better on cracking these codes

if I were able to study, say, depictions of Iranian manticores, or maybe merfolk, or perhaps the nameless thing of Berkeley Square. Well, yeah, sure. Yes, happy to wait outside. David Childress is a real dude, by the way. A real dude who really studies cryptids, really talks that way, and really fills my heart with joy when I hear him speak. Back to Poland. As these decoding courses progressed, the ciphers became increasingly more difficult. Unsuccessful students started dropping out, I'll blame them, along with others who decided this was all too much work. At the end of this course in the summer of 1919, or I'm sorry, summer of 1929, several participants received offers to work with the Poznan branch of the cipher section. Jerzy, Roziski, and Henrik Zygalski accept and start

working. They're still not told that what they're working on is the Enigma code. Marian Radjuski also starts working in the cipher section the following summer, 1930. In the summer of 1931, the Cipher Bureau is officially formed by merging the Radio Intelligence Office and the Polish Cryptography Office, with Langer as chief, and Chelsky as deputy chief. Incredibly, fake math

student, but real person, who would have not lived back then, David Childress, also gets fake hired. Chief Langer, David Childress here again. While you guys crunch some code numbers, do you care if I work on some doodles of the Surrey Puma? I really feel like I'm good

at drawing pumas. Yes, I can went outside for a bit. I'm having way too much fun with this fucking weird cryptid dude. September of 1932. Chelsky moves the Poznan Cipher office to Warsaw. By September of 1932, events in Germany make it clear that international trouble is on the horizon. On July 31st, the NAACP, Hitler's party, become known as the Nazis, had won 230 of 608 seats in German parliament.

And then on August 13th, Hitler publicly declared that he would not accept any ministry in the government other than the chancellorship. And then just over three weeks later, on August 30th, Hitler's deputy, Hermann Goering, is elected president of the German parliament.

And then in September, a spy who works in Berlin sells secrets about the Enigma machine to the French. The French share their secrets with the British. And at this time, both the British and French governments think the information is useless and pass it along to the Poles. In October of 1932, Chelsky puts Marian Radjuski in charge of the division of breaking the Enigma codes.

In December of 1932, in less than three months, Radjuski has broken the unbreakable code. He's recreated and presents as a mathematical equation machine he's never even seen before. How did he break this code that all other experts could not? Well, Radjuski immediately focused on the mathematical properties of the Enigma code without wasting time using traditional cryptographic methods.

First, he identifies the fact that the code is cyclical from those rotor machines. Using that, he develops a mathematical model of the rotors, which he turns into a reconstruction of the Enigma, which finally, by plugging in the keys to the code, reveals the first message. And he did this without even seeing this. Ah, it's crazy.

Radjuski's discovery would be the beginning of a very long process of breaking the Enigma machine. Yes, he broke the code, but German engineers constantly introducing Enigma improvements and changes. So they'd have to break more and more codes for more and more Enigma machines. It's a race against time to see who can move faster, the engineers or the code breakers. 1933, a Polish company builds a dozen copies of the Enigma machine.

The Cypher Bureau focuses on keeping up with German engineers. The rest of the world is unfortunately unaware of the Polish team's mission. The British and French still think that the German code is unbreakable. The rest of the world has no idea the the Polish team's mission. The British and French still think that the German code is unbreakable. The rest of the world has no idea the Enigma machine even exists. Meanwhile, the Nazis continue to ascend to power in Germany, fearing that the German Communist Party's new gains in parliament mean that Germany is on the verge of a Bolshevik revolution. A group of prominent industrialists send a petition to President Paul von Hindenburg, asking for Hitler to become chancellor.

Hindenburg reluctantly agrees to the request. And at the age of 43, Hitler becomes the new chancellor of Germany on January 30th, 1933. The German chancellor is now the head of the actual German government, tasked with running the country. The president is head of the state, similar to Queen Elizabeth II in the UK. The job is, you know, largely ceremonial. At the time, though, similar to Queen Elizabeth II in the UK. The job is largely ceremonial. At the time, though, think of Hitler as being second in command. And then he would very quickly become first in command.

Just two months later, March 23rd, 1933, the German parliament passes the Enabling Act of 1933, which gives the cabinet the right to enact laws without the consent of parliament. In effect, this gives Hitler dictatorial powers. Yes, he's a dictator. Now I'm blank. Now I feel like that word doesn't sound right in my head. Dictator, dictatorial, let's move on. He subsequently abolished labor unions and other political parties, imprisoned his political opponents. January 1934, Hitler signs a non-aggression pact with Poland. And when we talked about this move was unpopular with many Germans who supported Hitler, but resented the fact that Poland received the former German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan, Upper Silesia, under the Treaty of Versailles.

But Hitler doesn't really intend to stay out of Poland. And this isn't actually, there's so many fucking pacts and treaties in this suck. This is not the one. There was another non-aggression pact we talked about earlier that we'll talk about later. But yeah, Hitler does not intend to stay out of Poland. Not from the very beginning. He's neutralizing the possibility of a French-Polish military alliance

before Germany can rearm. There's all these alliances spread out. It's all a big chess game. What? You think I was trying to trick my Polish friends? Nein. That makes Hitler heart so sad. I want things to work.

If there's two things you should know about me, it's that I'm a man of my word and always have everyone's best interest in heart. I put everyone else's interest in front of myself. A decade.

I lie in a dirty piece of Schweinsheisse. France and Britain know by now that Hitler is full of shit. That he's building an army. That he's breaking agreements laid out in the Versailles Treaty,

but they essentially ignore these violations. They're not eager to reenter the fight, right? Throughout the 1930s, a British policy of appeasement is developed by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in which Hitler will be allowed to expand German territory somewhat. Though it now seems like a weak

and potentially disastrous policy, it was thought of as pragmatic and popular at the time. Very much a policy of, ah, fuck, it sucks for you guys, but not our problem. Sorry. And like I said much earlier, to be fair to Britain and to France, they had just lost so many men's lives less than 20 years earlier. They were desperate to avoid the slaughter of another world war. They were also overstretched policing their colonial empires, and they couldn't afford rearmament. They hoped that Hitler would stop after taking some small parcels of land from neighboring countries and the injustice Germany had suffered under the Versailles Treaty would then be satisfied. But of course, Hitler not going to be satisfied. He was out for world domination.

1935, Poland develops a device that aids in the decryption process called the cyclometer. Poland develops a device that aids in the decryption process called the cyclometer. Oh, man. Poland on fire intellectually in this suck. Very impressive and surprising. So surreal. Feels like I'm reading a story about fish or bugs who learn how to talk or build computers or something. Right?

Feels like some weird sci-fi horror fantasy B-movie script. And then you find out it's true. Like, what? The monsters not only can speak and wear clothes, but they're good at math? And heroic and noble? and way smarter than me. I'm dumber than every Polish character in this story. Ah, how humbling.

I love you. Polish bastards. Uh, the cyclometer was invented by none other than 12th level number wizard, Marion Radjuski, right? This guy we keep talking about to calculate the, uh,

cyclic permutations of cryptograms in Enigma codes. This device consisted of two sets of Enigma rotors, and it worked very well, but even with this device, creating a complete catalog of characteristics was a difficult and time-consuming task. For each of the 17,576 positions in which the machine could be set, six possible sequences of rotor settings had to be analyzed, resulting in 105,456 possibilities

to document. Way too many to quickly break messages based on settings that would change every 24 hours. 1936. In Britain, 24-year-old Alan Turing devises what many now think is the first example of the modern computer. It's called the Universal Turing Machine. Turing called it an A-machine or automatic machine. And its purpose is deceptively simple, as he would say, to compute anything that could be computed. And important to point out,

he devised this machine on paper, not actually built. But the concept was solid. And if it had been built like he had drawn it out, it would have worked much like he expected it to. And that is some Da Vinci shit. Didn't have the means to make his invention,

but had the mind to build the proper blueprint. Truly ahead of his time. Makes me wonder when I read about things like that, like who is ahead of their time now? Some people are, in all likelihood. People have ideas, we just don't have the technological ability to implement yet.

Visionaries who will not be fully recognized for the power of their intellect until long after they're dead. Between 1936 and 1938, Alan goes to Princeton in America to study under Alonzo Church, a distinguished mathematician and a logic guy, logician, I guess. So many fucking words. And it sucked. It all looked good when I was reading them. Then you go to speak and you're like, I've never said that word in my life. This is where he starts to study cryptology. In 1938, he received his PhD. His dissertation was called systems of logic based on ordinals and introduced original logic and relative computing. I'm going to pretend like I know what that stuff is. He's only a few years away from joining the British effort to break the

Enigma machine. Meanwhile, in 1936, Hitler is still busy re-militarizing the Rhineland. Hitler annexes Austria. Britain and France are like, bruh, not cool, dick move, bruh. But still following their policy of appeasement, they don't actually do anything. Actually, they do something, just not the something any 21st century person would hope they did. On September 29th and 30th, 1938, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich Agreement, by which Czechoslovakia must surrender its border regions and defenses to Nazi Germany. Man, eat shit, Czechoslovakia, sorry. You got to take one for the team. It's a team you're not on, but, you know, still, you got to take it.

The leaders of Britain, France, and Italy agreed to the German annexation of a Czech area called the Sudetenland in exchange for a pledge of peace from Hitler. Still trying to appease him, right? Just giving somebody else's land to Hitler. I won't ever try and take anyone else's land. That's all I want. I promise. Pinky swear. Definitely not Poland.

I want to play nice. I'm a big teddy bear. Look at my cute little mustache. It's a good guy stash. It's a nice guy stash. By the fall of 1938, even having built a replica of an Enigma machine, the Polish code breakers still have a huge code breaking obstacle

to overcome. They can decode a new Enigma machine message, but only when they know the message sending Enigma machine settings. So in reality, in a military situation, they can't decode the messages. Henrik Zagalski comes up with an idea of using perforated sheets of paper known as Zygalski sheets to determine the setting. The race is still on. The Zygalski sheets do work, but they have to be made by hand,

which is extremely time consuming. Still takes far too long to decode a message to be useful in a military setting. Around the fall of 1938, Germany changes up the Enigma again. They had two new rotors. This fucks up the Polish codebreakers' understanding of the machine significantly. They now have to create many more Zagalski sheets to crack the code.

This method, again, for any military purpose, is preposterously obsolete. November of 1938, Marian Radjuski responds to the new challenge by constructing a bomb. He decided to bomb Germany. No Germany? No problem. Why hadn't anyone thought of this before? No, it's not that kind of bomb. This one is generally spelled with an E at the end. This bomb was another electromechanical device.

It consisted of six interlocking blocks of rotors that searched for correct Enigma settings constantly. The setting of the rotors could be correct if a light with the same letter lit in each column. At this point, the engine would stop and the operator recorded the position of the rotors and then restarted the device. Within about two hours, this bomb could

break an Enigma code. Remarkable. Like an ancient computer. This machine would be the prototype for most of the Allied, not ancient, but you know, old computer. And this machine would be the prototype for most of the Allied machines used to dec but you know, old computer. And this machine will be the prototype for most of the Allied machines used to decrypt codes in the future as the Enigma machines continue to evolve. It will be

Enigma machine versus bombs. Enigma machines evolve, so do these bombs. Hitler declares that an outbreak of war would mean the end of European Jewry on January 30th, 1939. Not good. Seems like he is maybe not going to honor his

earlier I'm done causing trouble promise after taking Czechoslovakia or part of it. That same month in Paris, cryptologists from the United Kingdom, France and the Polish Cypher Bureau meet to discuss the Enigma machine. Guido Langer and Maximilian Schelsky go to France with the instructions to reveal their successes at code breaking only if France and UK are at similar stages of success. And they were not. In fact, the British and the French were almost unaware of the existence still

of the Enigma machine. They'd heard of it. They knew what it did, but they knew nothing about how it actually worked. So as instructed, the Polish officers kept silent, which led to a British government secretary, Dilwyn Knox, essentially calling the Polish officers foolish and ignorant.

Despite the insults, as the war became more imminent, Langer and Chelsky appealed their higher-ups in the Polish army to reveal their findings to the Allies, and eventually their higher-ups consented. So on July 25th, 1939, a second meeting between the Allies and the Polish codebreakers takes place. This time, fun for us, David Childress gets invited. So it went really, really well. Yeah, Allied operatives. David Childress here again. It took a lot of time to put together what I feel is a really helpful presentation for today's meeting.

If you can stay with me, I think this can really take Hitler down very quickly. If we want to stop the Nazis, we need to align ourselves with the Batbeast of Kent and the Domstern Blobs. Both are presumed to be extraterrestrial in nature, quite formidable foes. I've drawn some depictions based on eyewitness encounters. I'd like to walk you through some locations where I think we have our best odds of making contact. Also, we're going to need some new empaths with strong psychokinetic powers to communicate with the, what? I'm sorry? Wait outside until the meeting's over? Okay, okay. Don't see how that will help, but whatever I can do to stop Hitler.

This meeting is a very Okay, okay. Don't see how that will help, but whatever I can do to stop Hitler. I'm back now. The real meeting without David took place in a secret radio station near Warsaw. Went about as well as the first one. The French initially not impressed with Poland's code-breaking methods. The British showed ostentatious indifference, according to one source.

Nerd drama. We've got some real British and French nerd brats at this meeting. Radjuski and his colleagues know what's at stake. They push on anyway. They systematically explain everything they've done so far, including the machine reconstruction and the creation of their new decryption devices.

In the end, to prove their competence further, they break a newly received Enigma message in front of their British and French counterparts. And when they did that, the British and the French were like, okay, all right. Okay. This is fucking legit. On August 23rd, 1939, Hitler negotiates the non, sorry, the aggressive non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. This is the one I mentioned earlier. Shocking many in the world who had believed Hitler's strongly anti-communist stance would prevent German-Soviet cooperation. The German-Soviet pact stated that the two countries

wouldn't take military action against one another for 10 years and also secretly stated that Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers. It enabled Germany to attack Poland without fear of Soviet intervention. The stage was now set for Germany's invasion of Poland. Bad break for the Cipher Bureau there. On August 16th, 1939 in France, British General Stuart Menzies receives a Polish built Enigma machine. The machine is immediately sent to Britain with diplomatic protection. God bless those Polish heroes. They knew Hitler was coming for them.

You know, they had to have known that their code breaking wouldn't stop that. So they sent one of their machines quickly to help the rest of Europe. Cooperation between Poland, France, and Britain now full steam ahead. The British set up their own decryption efforts under the code name Ultra, a code name that signified that any knowledge

of the British understanding of the Enigma machine was more secret than top secret. It was top, top secret. It was ultra secret. The British government's government code and cipher school headquartered in Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, about 50 miles north of London, gets to cracking the codes. British cryptographers began their work to decipher the newest, most complicated versions of the Enigma machine. And early on, the British cryptographers catch a break. They realized that out of lack of discipline, many German messages were sent every day with the

exact same encryption, which gave the code breakers a constant flow of messages for them to compare and work with. Had the Germans changed the rotors on their Enigma machines more frequently, the British might not have had enough information to work with to break the code. On September 1st, 1939, Hitler invades Poland. German units with more than the code. On September 1st, 1939, Hitler invades Poland. German units with more than 2,000 tanks over 1,000 planes break through massively outnumbered Polish defenses along the border and advance on Warsaw. Just three days later, on September 3rd, France and Britain declare war on Germany, officially kicking off World War II. Following Germany's lead, the Soviet Union invades Poland from the east on September 17th,

1939. The next day, many of the Polish codebreakers flee to Paris through Romania, unable to take their research and equipment with them. They have to rely on memory alone to bring knowledge about the Enigma machine to the Allies. David Childress is devastated. He has to leave behind several years worth of cryptid illustrations. Fanon Cullinbrook, David Childress here. Very sad. Very concerned that the Nazis will now form an alliance with so many mystical creatures. Based on my detailed notes and illustrations, this is positively cataclysmic.

They're definitely going to find some octosquatches, which will help immensely with their navy. Due to my research, they may locate Owlman, and they will almost certainly make contact with the Presbyterian lake monster and the ghost ape of Marwood. Cannot stress enough how devastating it is. Yes, I'll be out in the hall. Back again to real history. On September 27th, despite fighting tenaciously and inflicting serious casualties on the Germans, the Polish army is defeated. Warsaw surrenders to the Nazis. On October 6th, the last military holdouts in Poland also surrendered to the Nazis. Germany directly annexes former Polish territories along Germany's eastern border. The remainder of German-occupied Poland organized under a civilian governor general, the Nazi party lawyer, Hans Frank. In October of 1939, having arrived in

France, the group of escaped Polish codebreakers suffers added insult to injury as the French insist on leading the codebreaking efforts, even though the Polish were the most advanced. According to reports, French officers continually demean and relegated the Polish codebreakers to inferior, oftentimes menial tasks. Fucking French assholes! Only I can mock the Poles! I hope those Polish nerds shove some hot baguettes up your arrogant asses. As 1939 winds down

to a close, things continue to stall as the British are having trouble using the information given to them by the Polish codebreakers. The French refuse to send the codebreakers to Britain to help. While many of the Polish codebreakers. The French refused to send the codebreakers to Britain to help. All while many of the Polish codebreakers' families and friends are probably dying in Polish ghettos and concentration camps. Can you imagine not immediately being like,

fuck off and just going off to drink yourself stupid, but instead sitting down, bucking up and doing more math like those Polish codebreakers did? Damn. To make things even worse, during the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the part of Germany and the Allies in the West

leads to the media reporting on a phony war, fake news. See, however, the British and Germans are fighting a very real war. Their navies have faced off as lethal German U-boats strike at merchant ships bound for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first

four months of World War II. Hitler wants to starve out the Allies, sink as many ships as possible, ships bringing them food, other important supplies. The British struggling to make use of the Poles' info and receiving very little help from the French. They need a hero, and they have one. They just don't know it yet. Alan Turing. We introduced Alan, of course, at the beginning of this timeline. He was born in 1912. Let's re-me it yet. Alan Turing. We introduced Alan, of course, at the beginning of this timeline. He was born in 1912. Let's re-meet him now as an adult. He was not the hero the Brits expected. He was eccentric. He was very eccentric. His appearance was scruffy. He spoke with a stammer. Turing's mother would have to write him to remind him to buy at least one suit a year. Otherwise,

he would just dress in rags. He preferred to hold up his pants with string. He wore a pajama shirt under his coat, which was not common at the time or anytime. Later, when he was brought in to break codes for Britain, he reportedly attached his tea mug to a radiator using a combination lock so no one else could use it or take it. He would often ride his bicycle to work while wearing a government-issued gas mask,

which no one else did. He stood out. He was the subject of many conversations behind his back. And this weird eccentric genius would later be credited by Winston Churchill as having made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany. Maybe. It's been reported that this happened. Rumored that he privately said that. He never publicly said it. Sadly, Turing would get no such public recognition during his lifetime. While he was alive, he would heroically save Britain, and then Britain would tragically destroy him just a few years later. More on that soon. On September 4th, 1939, Alan Turing is asked

to join the government codes and cipher school. He agrees. He arrives at Bletchley Park the day Britain declares war on Germany. Soon, he will head the Hut 8 team, which carried out crypto analysis of all German naval signals. Analysis of German naval signals was really important as it protected allied ships from what were called the wolf packs of German U-boats. When they solved a puzzle, they saved lives. When they failed, lives were lost. It was the most high stakes game of battleship ever. Turing works with Gordon Welchman, a British-American mathematician,

to develop the bomb shortly after he arrives, a device that is essentially an improvement on the bomb that the Polish codebreakers had already once developed years earlier. If you've seen the movie The Imitation Game, the 2014 movie about Alan Turing's World War II codebreaking contributions, his bomb machine was not nicknamed Christopher. In reality, it was nicknamed Victory. But the

Christopher machine from that movie is what I'm talking about here. Big, beautiful machine, cost 100,000 pounds to build. Accounting for inflation in today's dollars, that's the equivalent of 6,579,000 pounds, which is over $8.6 million. And they would build 211 of these machines throughout the war for a total cost equivalent to over $1.8 billion today. They went big. They went all in on these machines and Alan Turing designed them. And they went big because they would be proven to work. Each machine was seven foot wide, six foot, six inches tall, two feet deep, weighed a ton. Again, to go back to the imitation game, it wasn't as dramatic in that movie. It wasn't like a long period of not working. And then finally at the last minute, they got this machine to work. They would get this machine to

work and they would have to devise more and more machines to keep the code breaking going. Each bomb had 108 places where drums could be mounted. The drums were in three groups of 12 triplets, and each triplet corresponded to an Enigma rotor. And this big-ass machine could crank through code possibilities far faster, light years faster, than any human mind or any other machine. From January 14th to the 17th, 1940, British cryptologists at Bletchley Park deciphered some of the Luftwaffe's secret transmissions with the help of Polish experts. This breakthrough meant that the ULTRA program

now could decrypt most German military codes. It's a major turning point in the intelligence realm of World War II. But now they had to be smart about how to use it. They knew that if they jumped on every piece of information they could decipher, the Germans would realize that the code had been broken and they would reset the entire code overnight, leaving the Allies back at square one. They had to come up with cover stories and could only act

when they anticipated a German attack. Sometimes the cover story involved a lucky scouting plane that came across a surface submarine. Sometimes a civilian fishing vessel was the key to a successful British raid on a supply convoy to, say, North Africa. The Germans would continue changing the code, and the Allies would keep breaking it. February 1940, a British codebreaker named John Hurville figures something out. Once again, he figures out that human laziness plays a role in breaking codes. He figures out that the lazy code clerks might give away the Enigma machine's rotor settings in their first messages of the day. If there were several lazy clerks, the first message's rotor settings would not be random,

but would have a clustering around a specific rotor. And this insight became known as the Harrival trip. Tip, Jesus Christ. Turing reportedly gets a huge nerd boner, may or may not have made love with the victory machine. February 12th, 1940, the British Royal Navy minesweeper HMS Gleaner locates a sunken German submarine U-33 laying mines in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland. Of the 17 survivors, one has three Enigma rotors in his pockets. The rotors are immediately sent to Alan Turing for further study.

Nice little break. Germany simultaneously invades Norway and occupies Denmark. In April of 1940, keeping the Bletchley Park bunch working to break Enigma codes during the Norwegian campaign. In May of 1940, Germany changes the use of the Enigma before the attacks on Benelux in France. The codebreakers can't decode the new transmissions. Allied cryptologists are temporarily blindsided. German forces sweep through Belgium and the Netherlands in what becomes known as a blitzkrieg or lightning war on May 10th, 1940. May 13th, more success for Germany. Hitler's troops cross

the Meuse River, breaking through an elaborate chain of fortifications constructed after World War I, considered an impenetrable defensive barrier. May 22nd, the cryptologists at Bletchley Park once again break the Luftwaffe enigma code. In late May, French forces mount an increasingly doomed resistance as Germany closes in. On June 10th, 1940, with France on the verge of collapse, Italy's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, forms an alliance with Hitler known as the Pact of Steel. Italy joins the fighting by declaring war against France and Britain. Four days later, June 14th, 1940, German forces enter Paris. France subsequently divides into two zones,

one under German military occupation and the other under a puppet French government. With France occupied, Hitler turns his attention to Britain. Just across the English Channel from France, Hitler needs to neutralize Britain before he can consolidate his efforts to invade the Soviet Union without interference. June of 1940, also still in June of 1940, the Polish crypto team is evacuated to the south of France

and then moved to northern Africa. They reportedly try multiple times to ditch David Childress, but just are unable to lose him. Africa, wait up, guys. Africa has a rich and, wait up, guys, vast history of cryptid sightings. I really think it would be worth our while to take a small detour and try and locate the man-eating tree of Nubia. According to my source, guys, wait up. According to my sources, we may also encounter the Namibian flying snake en route, both huge allies.

Guys, hold on. For our fight against the Nazis. Guys, wait. June 18th, 1940, Winston Churchill, the new British prime minister, delivers his famous finest hour speech to the House of Commons. He assures the public that he has no intention of ever giving in to Hitler. With the fight for France over, he knows now that the fight for Britain is just around the corner. The Luftwaffe, he says, will attack Britain and attack them hard. But he says that the RAF, commanded by Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, will hold its own.

The speech is a massive success, boosting the morale and patriotism of the British public, military, and parliament. July 10th, just as Churchill predicted, the Luftwaffe attacks Britain, performing reconnaissance missions and targeting coastal defenses, ports, and radar stations. Their efforts do little damage to the Royal Air Force, but the Battle of Britain has begun. Through mid-August, the Luftwaffe attacks Britain's airfields, air fighter production sites, and targets RAF supermarines, Spitfires, and Hawker Hurricanes in the air. At the same time, on the eve of the Battle of Britain, Bletchley Park receives the first copy of the Turing bomb. Despite being outnumbered, the RAF retaliates by bombing Berlin.

This forces Hitler to reconsider his initial strategy. His idea had been to wear down the RAF in anticipation of a land invasion. But with Germany failing to cripple Britain's air power, Hitler backpedals. A land invasion was now with Germany failing to cripple Britain's air power, Hitler backpedals. A land invasion was now ruled out as unrealistic. Instead, Hitler chooses to use sheer fucking terror as a weapon to wear Britain down. The blitz was about to begin. On September 2nd,

with the help of the newly installed victory bomb, the codebreakers succeed in breaking the brown cipher, providing crucial and timely information about Luftwaffe targets. Thanks to the efforts of the codebreakers, British intelligence now has an idea of the coming strike on September 7th. But the blitz is more massive than they anticipate. On September 7th, 300 German bombers raid London, the first of 57 consecutive nights of aerial attacks. The bombing continues until May of 1941. By the end of that first day,

German planes had dropped 337 tons of bombs on London alone, enough that the civilian population was, excuse me, even though the civilian population was not the primary target that day, the poorest of the London slum areas are hit directly by bombs and fall victim to fires

that break out and spread. We touched on this just last week in the acid bath murderer suck. John Hay was killing in London while all of this is also going on. 448 civilians killed just in the afternoon and evening of September 7th by the bombs, not by the acid bath murder. That would be a very busy day for a serial killer. Come on, everyone in the acid tub, go, go, go. I got to get some sleep. A little past 8 p.m., British military units alerted with the code name Cromwell, meaning the German invasion has begun. On September 15th, the Luftwaffe begins two massive raids on London, eager to force the British to the negotiating table. But despite the success of some of their bombing runs, they can't defeat the RAF. They can't break British morale. They can't gain control of British airspace. In October, the

French now decide to transfer the Polish cryptologists to an unoccupied part of France. No word on David Childress' contributions from this time. On October 31st, Halloween, Hitler calls off his planned invasion of Britain. The Battle of Britain is over. Both sides suffered enormous loss of life and aircraft. Despite taking a lot of damage, Britain weakened the Luftwaffe and prevented Germany from achieving air superiority. This was Hitler's first major defeat of World War II. He tried and failed to gain control of the English Channel, as he'd hoped, and he couldn't execute Operation Sea Lion to invade the British Isles. Britain remained a holdout, and later in 1944, Americans would establish a base of operations in England to invade Normandy on D-Day. Back to Turing. 1941, amid cracking codes like crazy, Turing proposes to his co-worker and fellow cryptographer Joan Clark. She accepts.

Shortly after, he has second thoughts and admits to Joan that he is gay. She keeps his sexual preference a secret as homosexuality is a crime in Britain in 1941. And how insane is that? It was an actual crime to admit that you were gay in 1941. And crazier still, it is still illegal to be gay right now today in 73 different countries around the world. Fucking ignorance. Worse than any disease humanity currently faces. Also in 1941, January, Hitler effectively comes to control Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria. While they have their own governments, the choice is essentially between cooperating with the Nazis or being invaded. January 10th, 1941, Winston Churchill receives confirmation from decrypted German messages that Germany plans to invade Greece via Romania. He promptly begins working

on plans for a British force in Greece. In the spring of 1941, the British codebreakers are once again busy cracking the Enigma codes. This time, they're working on messages from German troops fighting in North Africa. May 5th, 1941, the British Royal Navy's 18th cruiser squadron consisting of the HMS Edinburgh, Manchester, and Birmingham with five destroyers set sail from Scotland, heading north to capture the German weather ship Minchin. In particular, Admiral Lancelot Holland, most British name ever, Admiral Lancelot intends to take the Minchin's set of coding tables that would make the Enigma code able to be decoded immediately for the first time. The, oh, actually, I kept saying mention.

Minkun. The Minkun is something like that. It's spotted and taken. Although the German, it was spotted and taken on May 7th. Although the German captain had thrown the Enigma machine and the coding tables for May 1941 over the side

as the English ships approached, the settings for June 1941 were found in his desk. Boom! The coding tables quickly taken back to England. Turing takes them into the bathroom, locks the door. The rest of his crew hears heavy breathing, some sort of repetitive rhythmic slapping type sound, a very fleshy, comes out five minutes later, pretty sweaty.

Not sure what to make of all that. Gosh dang. May 9th, another boat sinking reveals valuable information. A German submarine U-110 captured the British HMS Bulldog. Captured by the British HMS Bulldog. The capture yields an Enigma machine and a code book. Nice little break. May 10th, the British Royal Navy Captain J.R.S. Haynes

carrying the German Navy's June 1941 cipher-setting information, arrives at Bletchley Park. Winston Churchill decides to share information from the Enigma messages with the Soviets on July 19th, but he makes the call not to tell the Soviets where the British got the info from. Instead, the Soviets are told the information came from spies in Berlin. Meanwhile, Hitler is laid up trying to figure out how to invade the Soviet Union, delayed by internal disagreements and the cold Russian winter. And I love all this like spy stuff

and then they have allies that are like allies kind of, but just in this war, and they're going to give them some information, but not all the information. Just what a crazy game this war was. By late 1941, with Britain facing Germany in Europe, the US is the only nation capable of combating Japanese aggression. By that time, Japan had expanded its ongoing war with China and seized European colonial possessions in the Far East.

Then, on December 7th, 1941, a swarm of 360 Japanese aircraft attacked the major U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, taking the Americans completely by surprise, claiming the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl Harbor unifies American public opinion on the side of entering World War II. The following day, Congress makes it official. Congress declares war on Japan with only one dissenting vote on December 8th.

Germany and the other Axis powers then promptly declare war on the U.S. Same day, Mavis Beatty, one of the leading codebreakers of Bletchley Park, successfully breaks a German message on a link between Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and Berlin. This allows the codebreakers to deconstruct another updated Enigma machine. January 9th, 1942, a sad day for the Allied codebreakers. 1942, a sad day for the Allied codebreakers. Jersey, Rosicki, and two other members of the Polish codebreaking team die in a sea catastrophe in the Mediterranean. They were returning to the Caddick Center, a clandestine intelligence center near Ouzes, France, that they were working out of from a stint at its branch office on the outskirts of Algiers. The passenger ship they were on sank under unclear circumstances

near the Balearic Islands. Unfortunately, cryptozoological expert David Childress was also on board and was able to swim to shore and survive. David Childress here again. I just want to say that I did not swim to the southern shore of Spain entirely on my own. I was aided by the seldom-seen rhinoceros dolphin, a double-dorsal-finned, exceptionally intelligent sea mammal first spotted in the late 1800s. If we could form an alliance, sure. Yeah, no, I can wait outside. February 1942, the German submarine fleet launches

a four rotor model of the Enigma the British once again lose the ability to break its codes leading directly to increased allied losses in the Battle of the Atlantic in July of 1942 Turin develops a complex code breaking technique he named Turinjury

suited for breaking the torrent of messages suddenly emanating from a new and much more sophisticated German cipher machine. The British code name, the new machine, Tuny. Good, easier to say. The Tuny Teleprinter Communications Network, a harbinger of today's mobile phone networks, spanned Europe and North Africa, connecting Hitler and the Army High Command in Berlin to the frontline generals. The knowledge of what Hitler was up to from Europe to North Africa was invaluable. With the U.S. successfully battling Japan in the Pacific, it was time to let the U.S. in on what the European codebreakers were up to on October 2nd, 1942. That's when the

British Bletchley Park team and the U.S. Navy's codebreaking department, OP-20G, agreed to a relationship of full collaboration. November 1942, Germany occupies North Africa and southern France. The Polish code-breaking center abruptly is liquidated. Its staff awaits the possibility of evacuation from occupied territory. December 1942, Turing travels to the U.S. to advise U.S. military intelligence in the use of the bomb machines and to share his knowledge of Enigma. In return, he's allowed to inspect a speech encryption system being set up to allow coded conversations between Churchill and Roosevelt. So many codes, so much encryption, so many secrets important to the war. December 13th, 1942, Enigma code books captured by HMS Batard from the sinking German

submarine U559 arrive at Bletchley Park. Within an hour, interception of German submarine signals cracked by the new code books allows the British Admiralty to instantly pinpoint the location of 15 different U-boats. They'd officially cracked the new four rotor Enigma. Took nine months. It's all so much more complex than how the story was laid out in that imitation game movie. Great movie, but it didn't make for a clean narrative to show how it wasn't just one big code-breaking victory for Turing, and then he and his team had it all figured out for the rest of the war. It was a back-and-forth code-breaking and encrypting chess match that lasted for years. From February to March 1943, the Polish team was once again at the shittiest end of a shitty stick.

team is once again at the shittiest end of a shitty stick. The now-major Chelsky plus Lieutenant Colonel Langer, Lieutenant Anthony Pollath, and civilian codebreakers Edward Fokosinski and Kazimierz Gaka are betrayed by their French guide and captured by the Germans as they attempt to cross from German-occupied France into Spain. A part of the team succeeds in crossing the border, but Chelsky and Langer were sent to an SS concentration camp where, despite being interrogated, i.e. tortured, they do not reveal the secrets of the Enigma decryption. They managed to convince their interrogators that while the Poles had some success with solving the Enigma early on, changes introduced by the Germans just before the start of the war had prevented further decryption. Who knows how many lives that convincing lie alone saved.

After their interrogation, Langer and Chelsky are imprisoned at a camp near Eisenberg Castle in the present-day Czech Republic. Cryptozoological expert David Childress also captured, sent to a concentration camp, where he was soon released for not shutting the fuck up about cryptids and for being the most annoying POW the Nazis had literally ever taken. Yeah, Nazis. David Childress, here again, would love to discuss further the elusive Bavarian cryptid, the Wolperdinger. Nein!

Nein! Nein! July 1943. Mussolini's Italian government falls, but fighting between the Allies and Germans continues on Italian soil. July 31st, 1943, with the approaching harshness of Russian winter, along with dwindling food and medical supplies,

the German attempts to take Russia fail as the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end. The last of Germany's Eastern Front soldiers surrender. The battle featured some of the most brutal fighting of the war. Hitler now losing World War II for sure. And the codebreakers have helped immensely, giving Allied forces important intel on the location of Nazi military and their upcoming maneuvers. But the war is not over. Long ways from over, in mid-1943, Allied naval forces begin an aggressive counterattack against Japan, involving a series of amphibious assaults on key Japanese-held islands in the Pacific.

This island-hopping strategy proved to be successful, and Allied forces moved closer to their ultimate goal of invading mainland Japan. After fleeing occupied France and being imprisoned in Spain, Polish codebreakers, Marian Radjuski and Henryk Zagalsalski make their way through Portugal and Gibraltar, end up in the United Kingdom. Despite their undeniable successes, they are not allowed to work with the British code-breaking team that their successes helped found. The British are, maybe rightfully so, too worried about spies to allow anyone else too far into their code-breaking inner circle. And it seems like a lot of the English and French are just fucking pretentious about the Polish and just won't let them cooperate with them or work with them.

Sadly, David Childress will work his way onto Turing's team. Until the end of the war, the rest of the Polish codebreakers tackle less significant German codes, mostly handwritten Waffen SS codes. August 1943, code-cracking mechanical bombs designed in the US enter the war effort.

The Polish bombs led to the British bombs, and now those led to these American bombs. And again, not bombs that are being dropped, but, you know, machines. And the new American bombs, much faster than British bombs, and thanks to them, most of the Enigma codes, including the four-rotor model, are broken quickly and efficiently. The American bombs built at the U.S. Naval Computing Machine Laboratory, the NCML was a highly secret design and manufacturing site for code-breaking machinery, located in Building 26 of the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio, operated by the U.S. Navy. People thought just more cash registers were being made there, and they were being made there when it wasn't the war. Nope, code-breaking machinery.

And that company is still around, still making cash registers. They're now based in Atlanta and known as the NCR Corporation. If you work there, if you're listening, did you know that your company helped Alan Turing and others crack Nazi war codes? Pretty cool. June 6, 1944, the Allies begin a massive invasion of Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian, and American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy. In France, the Allies were victorious, and June 6 is remembered as D-Day. In response, Hitler pours all his remaining strength into Western Europe, guaranteeing the defeat of his army in the east. The summer of 1944, the code-breaking continues.

Despite great efforts by the Allies, the Germans were aware that Enigma codes were being broken now, and they continue to introduce new devices that complicate decryption. Just as quickly as the Germans can roll these out, the Allies are breaking them, as the Axis and Allies battle in France. December 16th, 1944, in what was called the Greatest American Battle of the War by Winston Churchill, the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium would be Hitler's last major offensive in World War II on the Western Front. On January 25th, the Allies win the Battle of the Bulge. And all according to the U.S. Department of Defense, 1 million plus Allied troops, including some 500,000 Americans, fought in the battle with approximately 19,000 soldiers

killed in action, 47,500 wounded, and 23,000 or so missing. Such a fucking massive battle. About 100,000 Germans killed, wounded, or captured. Just two days later, on January 27th, the Soviet army enters Auschwitz. Berkow Monowitz liberates around 7,000 prisoners, most of whom are ill and dying. Soviet forces would go on to liberate the Gross-Rosen camp on February 13th. Against the wishes of Bojangles, I'd like to publicly thank the communists for setting these Nazi prisoners free. The Ordruf camp was a sub-camp of the

Buchenwald concentration camp. And on April 14th, 1945, it was the first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. troops. On April 11th, U.S. forces liberate the Dora Mittelbau camp and the Buchenwald camp. On April 30th, one day after U.S. troops liberate Dachau, Hitler kills himself in his Berlin bunker. Fuck yeah. Every once in a while, suicide, pretty sweet. Would have preferred if he would have rotted in prison for a while, been humiliated a little longer, unceremoniously executed, but glad he died knowing he'd lost the war. With Soviet forces occupying much of Germany, the Nazis formally surrender on May 8th, 1945.

Right? They've done it. The codebreakers have helped win the war. Japan would not surrender for several months, but they will surrender soon. Polish codebreaking leaders Langer and Chelsky liberated from the concentration camp by American troops in May of 1945. They would head to London. On June 28th, 1945, the British chiefs of staff drive to Bletchley Park, where Sir Alan Brooke addresses 400 staff, thanking and congratulating them for their extraordinary contribution to the Allied war effort.

Alan Turing is awarded the OBE for his wartime services. The OBE is an Order of the British Empire Award. It's the second highest ranking Order of the British Empire Award. It stands for Officer of the Order of the British Empire, as opposed to Commander for a CBE and Member for an MBE. of the British Empire, as opposed to commander for a CBE and member for an MBE. Japan agrees to surrender on August 15th, 1945, after the U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th. September 2nd, Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II. In October of 1945, war hero Turing joins the British National Physical Laboratory, where he now works on developing an electronic digital stored program computing machine.

November of 1946, discharged from the Polish army, code-breaking all-star, original bomb maker Marian Rzecznowski returns to Poland to be with his wife and family. And I should note, if I didn't say before, like all these guys after the war, you know, privately, they get to celebrate, but they still don't get to fucking tell anybody what they actually did, how much they helped win the war. What a weird thing, you know, so happy, you know, so proud of what they'd accomplished, but really don't get to share it with anybody. On his return, this Radjuski is urged by his old Ponsan University professor, Kragowski, to perform, to become a professor of mathematics at Poznan University, where he would have been fast-tracked because of his personal, because of personnel shortages. My God, so many fucking scrabble words in this one. However, he's still recovering from rheumatism, which he contracted in a Spanish prison. Then soon after his return to Poland in the summer of 1947, his

11-year-old son dies of polio. After his son's death, Radjuski did not want to part even briefly with his wife and daughter, so they live in Biedgocz with his in-laws. Radjuski took a position in Biedgocz, or Biedgoszk. I swear to the guys, if you guys think like, oh, these words are pretty easy, why is it B-Y-D-G-O-S-Z Z-C-Z What the fuck? He works there as the director of the sales department at a cable manufacturing company called Polish Cable. Thank God. Thank you, Polish Cable, for having a very

fucking easy name. A fellow Polish codebreaker, Henrik Zygalski, remains in the UK, but things are not easy for him either. UK doesn't recognize Zygalski's Polish university diploma. These bastards. They say that to teach mathematics in British schools, this fucking war hero has to go back to school all over again.

It's ridiculous. What a dick move on England's part. So he does. He goes back to school. So stupid. Math doesn't change from nation to nation. He's like, he aces his courses because he already knows his shit. But then he works until his retirement as a lecturer

in a mathematical statistics department of the University of Surrey. He was also prevented by the Official Secrets Act from speaking of his achievements in cryptology, as all these guys were. 1947, Turing returns to Cambridge for a sabbatical year. In 1948, Turing joins Max Newman's Computing Machine Laboratory at the Victoria University of Manchester. 1949, Turing becomes deputy director of the Computing Laboratory at Manchester University, working on software for one of the earliest stored program computers, the Manchester Mark I. Turing also, in Manchester, explores artificial intelligence and writes a paper titled Computing Machinery and Intelligence, which proposes an experiment designed to evaluate

a machine's intelligence. And that test, of course, is the Turing test that we talked about earlier. In the following years, he'd be elected fellow of the Royal Society, give a talk about artificial intelligence on BBC radio, and design a program that would simulate a chess game. And then things would get very sad for Turing. January of 1952, Turing meets a man called Arnold Murray, who invites him over to his house.

Murray visits Turing's house on a number of occasions, staying the night. They slap dicks together for a bit, just for funsies, even though it's illegal. Imagine if I actually thought that's how gay male sex worked. If I thought it was just two guys with boners, standing face to face, and then like literally just slapping their dicks back and forth together.

Just a sword fight. Sorry. Murray later helps an accomplice break into Turing's house. Turing reports the crime, admits having a sexual relationship with Murray. And then because homosexual acts still illegal in the UK, both men charged with gross indecency. Then shit gets even more ignorant and absurd. Turing's conviction means his security clearance is now removed, revoked. He's barred from cryptographic consultancy for the British

government going forward. The world's greatest codebreaker, banned, kicked off the team, all because he had homosexual sex. So fucking stupid. And guess who was hired to take his place? David fucking Childress. Sir Winston Churchill, David Childress here. Very excited to step in, help with whatever code things need fixing. Would it be possible to start by looking into your report that the Dragon of Mordefort has teamed up with the Loch Ness Monster to fight the

Lantern Men of Wick and Fen? What's that? Yes, no, I can definitely wait outside for a moment. Sadly, Turin's punishment was not just getting kicked off the team and shamed. This war hero, also given the choice of either two years in prison or to be chemically castrated. Castrated. I don't know why I pronounce it that way.

Turing is given the, he chooses chemical castration. He's chemically castrated with estrogen hormone injections. Holy shit. This guy, national fucking hero. Helped save, by most estimates, at least 14 million lives. What the fuck? Let him put his dick in any consenting adult who wants it. Let him wave it around in the middle of the street. Let him put a little tuxedo on it.

Slap it on the table at formal dinners. Let him mushroom stamp Winston Churchill's fucking forehead. Meat sacks are such an absurd and illogical species sometimes. Turin, yeah, he takes these estrogen hormones. The side effects are terrible. He experiences impotence, enlarged breast tissue, and based on the chemical cocktail,

which was more than estrogen that he was injected with, he probably also experienced mood swings, depression, loss of muscle mass, and was at risk for a whole bunch more diseases as well, including blood clots and high cholesterol. And this humiliating treatment then leads to him committing suicide. Definitely seems to. June 8th, 1952, Turing's dead body found in his home in Wimslow, Cheshire. He's only 41 years old.

The post-mortem finds that the cause of death is poisoning, which seems to match up with a cyanide-laced, half-eaten apple found beside him. Coroner's report is that Turing has killed himself while the balance of his mind is disturbed.

Yeah, it's fucking disturbed. Of course it's disturbed. All these fucking hormones he's pumping into his body ridiculously. Just a dozen years later, 1966, the annual Turing Award is established. It'll be given each year now to a person for technical contributions to the computing community, generally viewed as being as important as the Nobel Prize. Edwin Catmull, Pat Hanoran, two Americans just won it last year, 2019, for fundamental contributions to 3D computer graphics and the revolutionary impact of these techniques

on computer-generated imagery and filmmaking and other applications. 2007, a sculpture of Alan Turing is unveiled at Bletchley Park, where he spent all those years cracking Enigma codes. Same year, the University of Manchester renames the complex housing the School of Mathematics and the Center for Astrophysics as the Alan Turing Building. 2009, the Polish codebreakers also get some recognition, also too late. In 2009, the Polish Post issued a series of four commemorative stamps, one of which pictured Radziszewski and fellow Polish crypto heroes Jerzy Rozyski and Henryk Zygalski. in which he describes the treatment of Alan Turing as appalling in September of 2009. In the speech, Brown says,

We're sorry. You deserve so much better. Alan and many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Yeah. 2013, Queen Elizabeth II grants Turing a royal pardon, 59 years after a housekeeper found his body at his home. They took their fucking sweet ass time with that. Earlier this year, in June of 2020, cryptozoologist David Childress is given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Association of Cryptozoology

at a Ramada Inn conference room just outside of Peoria, Illinois. Hello, everyone. David Childress here. Very excited and honored to receive this recognition. Also, cannot wait to present a new series of illustrations I've created based on my recent research into the bear dogs of Alaska and Canada. What's that? Step outside and wait until the time so the timeline is over. Yeah, I guess that's sure. That's fine. I can do that. the time, so the timeline is over. Uh, yeah, I guess that's, uh, sure. That's, uh, that's fine. I can, I can do that. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely.

All right. Covered a lot today. World War I, lead up to World War II, all that before just even getting into the timeline. World War II ended six years and one day after Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939. That invasion would be the catalyst that would pull Britain and France out of appeasement and into conflict, into the conflict starting the 20th century's second global conflict. By the time World War II ended, September 2nd, 1945, World War II had claimed somewhere between 60 and 80 million lives. And for a while, it looked like Nazi Germany was unstoppable. Their blitzkrieg strategy swept across the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, as well as Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. To someone living in 1942, it wasn't out of the question to think that Hitler might

actually rule the entire world. The Allies, however, turned the tide of the conflict due in great part to the brilliant nerds and cryptographers, not cryptozoologists, who cracked the math codes of the Enigma and invented the first computers. The outstanding Polish mathematicians whose contribution to the victory of the Allies has only recently been recognized began all the way back in 1929 with a secret mathematics class where the students didn't even realize they were working towards saving, you know, a war people from a, from a Fuhrer who hadn't even started the war yet. The significance of Polish mathematicians, theoretical input into cracking Enigma codes was most warmly subbed up, summed up by their British colleague, professor John Irving Good,

who worked at Bletchley Park during the war. Years later, he referred to one of Radjuski's formulas devised in his pioneering attempt at breaking the Enigma Code as, quote, the formula that won the Second World War. Another brilliant and also ill-treated World War II savior was Alan Turing, a British mathematician and computer scientist whose work was often decades ahead of its time.

The work of Bletchley Park and Turing's role in cracking the Enigma Code was kept secret until the 1970s. The full story not actually told until the 1990s. 1952, Alan Turing, who had been a war hero, effectively abandoned by his own government, inhumanely punished for admitting to engaging in homosexual acts.

Homosexuality wouldn't begin to be decriminalized in Britain until the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967, which legalized homosexual acts on the condition that they were consensual and private and between two men who had attained the age of 21. Despite dying at the young age of 41, Turing accomplished so much. In a new version of the battle he fought against the Germans

and their enigma machine, in a sense, continues to be fought today. Your private data, likely saved in the device you're using to listen or watch this podcast, is encrypted. Cryptographers continually are developing and refining solutions to the challenge of protecting your data. In the early 1970s, IBM first designed a block cipher to protect its customers' data. In 1973, the U.S. developed a national standard called the Data Encryption Standard, or DES, which remained in use until it was cracked in 1997 by hackers. In 2000, the Advanced Encryption Standard replaced the DES, and today AES is available royalty-free worldwide and approved for use in classified U.S. government information.

Right now, computer codes are trying to be broken by hackers. Some of them are being broken by hackers. Hackers are not always scammers trying to access and steal your personal info. Sometimes hackers are soldiers working for some government trying to break into the private data of other governments to win some war of information you may not know is even being fought right now. The very first hackers were those super smart Poles. And then Turing and his amazing team of British and then American and nerd, excuse me, and then American and French nerd heroes. I hope you like this story. Sorry if my mush mouth was crazier than normal today. A lot of heady information to break down. I always look so good on paper. And then I have to speak.

But I really enjoyed it. I hope you did. Let's head to today's top five takeaways and talk about it just a little bit more. Time shock, top five takeaways. Number one, Polish code breakers were the first to intercept encrypted German military signals and decode them.

They're not monsters. Who guessed? Who would have guessed that? They're really smart. Please don't tell my wife about anything you learned in today's episode. 1929, 10 years before British and French intelligence services really had any more than just a shady idea of what the Enigma machine was, Polish mathematicians were already getting shit done. Number two, the Enigma machine wasn't a

single machine. It was instead the umbrella under which dozens of machines, both commercial and military, were produced. And these machines became more and more sophisticated as German engineers added rotors and other functions to make codes harder and harder to decrypt. Number three, in 1936, Turing devised the first example of the modern computer, the Turing machine, a machine that could compute anything that could be computed. This intellectual concept of his would eventually lead to the creation of modern computers and devices we all use to listen to podcasts, write one-star Yelp reviews,

and drunkenly order things off of Amazon with. Number four, no man, no single man had a greater part in winning World War II for the Allies than cryptozoologist David Childress. Kidding. I meant to say Alan Turing. Well, Radjuski also. Iding. I meant to say Alan Turing. Well, Rajuski also.

I, ah, but I went with Turing. One of the greatest mathematicians and cryptographers who ever lived was forced to choose between either going to prison or being chemically castrated for the crime of homosexual acts. The literal war hero was abandoned by the government he'd helped save,

who denied him his security clearance and then fucked with his hormone levels. The government would apologize in 2019 and then Turin would be pardoned in 2013. Too bad he didn't live to hear that apology or receive that pardon. Number five, something new. There is another movie

other than the imitation game about World War II and the Enigma machine. And if you care about historical accuracy, you probably shouldn't watch it. It's called U-571, released in 2000 about the hunt for an attempt to steal an Enigma machine from a German U-boat that was so inaccurate, it was denounced publicly by UK's parliament as an affront to the sailors who had fought in World War II.

That's a shitty day for all those involved in this movie. Like, but Jon Bon Jovi, that's who it stars, seriously. Also starred Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel. Then Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned this movie as an insult to the Royal Navy. Here's an excerpt from a Guardian article from 2009 about the film's inaccuracies. The director Jonathan Mostow, who directed Terminator 3 and Surrogates with Bruce Willis and Hancock with Will Smith, actually has the audacity to end on a title card dedicating his film to the memory of the real sailors who captured Enigma machines. Yes, that same memory he has just desecrated. This is the most tasteless gesture that filmmakers could have made.

In the same article, their response to Tony Blair's sentiments was, a far more entertaining response would have been for Britain to fund a big-budget revenge epic in which a small platoon of foppish yet plucky Brits swans over to Vietnam in 1968, defeats the Viet Cong, and wins the war. Moreover, it would be nearly as accurate as this. So, you know, I don't know.

Maybe just watch the imitation game. Time shock. Top five takeaways. World War II's Enigma Machine has been sucked. So fun. Hope it wasn't too confusing. A lot of information to digest.

Hope you enjoyed it. I love the research on this one. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help in making Time Suck. Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins,

happy birthday! November 11th, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley The Script Keeper Zach Flannery Sophie Fax Sorceress Evans Bid Elixir Logan and Kate Keith Run of BadMagicMerch.com

The Art Warlock and Bad Magic Baroness Thanks to all those who joined the Cult of the Curious Private Facebook group Over 23,000 members now making friends in there Almost never being dicks Almost always being incredibly inappropriate Makes my heart happy Thanks to Liz Hernandez and her all-seeing eyes running the Cult of the Curious Facebook page. And those all-seeing eyes, let me give them special shout-outs. These

hard-working, fun-loving Facebook moderators, Megan Howell, Ellie Darling, Danny Ryan, Robbie Erickson, Jacob Carey, Kaylee Fitzpatrick, Jeffrey Bistran, Adam Gustafson Kathleen Saller I apologize and Shelly, oh boy none of us know, we talk to you online but Anenson A-A-N-E-N-S-O-N not as bad as a Polish name but

I don't know, I don't know how to say it Shelly Anenson Shelly Buttholson, I'm kidding Shelly we love you thank you all also I don't know how to say it. Shelly, Shelly Aniston. Shelly Buttholson. I'm kidding, Shelly. We love you. Thank you all also just who participate in this group for making Facebook fun. It's such a joy for so many listeners. We get so many emails and messages

about the Culticurious Facebook group. It has been, especially this year, it's been a bright, bright spot, bright place to go in a dark year for many. And you moderators add so much fun to so many lives. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And thanks moderators, it's so much fun, so many lives. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And thanks to all the wonderful weirdos having fun on Discord as well. And congrats to Hanny Bate.

What? What is happening? Sometimes when it's all these, I notice with my mouth, when I'm doing different pronunciations in different languages, or trying to at least, failing, then on a regular old English word, my brain's like, no, do it the Polish way. Congrats to Hannah Bailey. That's an easy thing to say most of the time

for winning round four of our TimeSuck trivia game on the TimeSuck app. 6,128 points. Also shout out to Corbin Gallagher for just missing the win with 6,113 points. Enjoy the trophy, the free merch, and the certificate.

Hannah, very impressive. All right. So what are we sucking next week? We were going to suck Ben Rhodes, the free merch, and the certificate. Hannah, very impressive. All right. So what are we sucking next week? We were going to suck Ben Rhodes, the truck stop killer, winner of a Space Lizard vote count, but due to the script keeper being out sick this week, waiting on his COVID test results,

looks like he has it. We're wishing the script keeper to get well soon. We are swapping the truck stop killer for another true crime topic, the Bloody Benders. I'm just going to go ahead and say that I'm going to do a lot better for another true crime topic, the Bloody Benders. I'm just going to go ahead and say that I'm going to do a lot better job with pronunciations than the Bloody Benders. We've been working ahead and we've been stocked up on non-voted topics, yay being proactive. So we'll suck Ben in two weeks. He's still going to get sucked. Going to suck the Bloody Benders now. They're a German family of four that settled a claim

in southeastern Kansas in LaBette County in 1871. John Bender Sr., his wife Kate, their two children named John and Kate, operated an inn and sold supplies to travelers or so locals thought. For a little while, locals began scouring the area after reports of people who had gone missing in their community began to surface. Once the Benders property had been searched, the townspeople discovered that the family had gruesomely murdered at least 11 people and buried the bodies throughout the land. The search also revealed a single-room timber cabin that had been divided into two by a curtain, or into by a curtain. There was a trap door that led to a stone cellar below, and the floor was covered in pools of blood. This is a crazy story. It's an old-timey,

Wild West-style deep dive into the most murderous American family of the 1870s. Yeah, yeah, bloody y'all! And now it is updates time. Updates? Get your time sucker updates. Alright, let's start off with some hollow earth hilarity. Coming in from top shelf sack Sean Lawler, who writes in with the subject line of greetings from middle earth. And then he writes, hey, Suckmaster. Hopefully Bojangles will have mercy for the long email, but I'm not sorry. I've been catching up

on episodes thanks to some COVID bullshit. Oh man, I fucking hear you. We have another person sick with COVID right now. Just listen to Suck 213, Hollow Earth Theory. At the end of the episode, you asked if anyone had ever met someone who actually believed this theory. I can one-up that with someone who has, quote-unquote, actually been there. While I was in high school and college, I worked in a small bookstore in a local mall, which was frequented by a variety of local wackadoodles, one of whom called himself Dr. Beard. Not sure what his doctorate was in, possibly unicorns. Uh, if you sound like a David Childress, uh, type person here, um,

for your mental image, picture of Gandalf had a weird love child with Hagrid from Harry Potter, wizard staff included. Oh my God. He's got a fucking wizard staff. Uh, Dr. Beard came in fairly regularly and would tell anyone who would listen about his trips to the center of the earth. Awesome. Unfortunately or fortunately for me, the store was almost always empty. So I was his captive audience most of the time. He apparently made contact with the mole people and various other residents of Middle Earth. No hobbits as far as I know.

Apparently, what's funny about hobbits, hobbits is coming up late in these updates randomly. Let's put that together right now. Apparently, there are also dinosaurs down there as well as magical crystals. Lindsay might be trying to contact him soon. I'd love to put Lindsay in touch with Dr. Beard. I really wish I could tell you any of his stories, but they were so nonsensical that no one who wasn't equally wackadoodle would be able to decipher and remember them.

Anyway, Dr. Beard got to be well-known enough that he ended up in several publications that featured local oddities. If anyone is interested, look up Weird New Jersey. I have been on that site. I use that site a lot way back for the Jersey Devil. Suck. I'd like to finish by thanking you and the whole team for your podcast.

I actually came to Time Suck from scared to death, which I found looking for a new podcast right as you were starting it and gave it a shot since I've been a fan of your comedy for a long time. Both are great, have been a huge help throughout 2020. Aw, thank you. I'm a supervisor for several group homes that provide crisis housing

for people with various mental illnesses, and COVID has caused a huge demand for services and increased stress on our resources. Being able to decompress on my drive home by listening to stories about ghosts, aliens, demons, cults, serial killers, countless lunatics, your comedy has been one of the things helping me get through. Yeah, check out Is We Dumb, too. That's a good Great Escapist podcast with me and Joe. As someone

who has struggled with depression for a long time, you've been a huge part in helping me keep an even keel with the crazy world lately. Keep it up. I try to spread the knowledge of Nimrod to anyone I think will be interested. Hail Nimrod. Keep on stalking. Sean Lawler. Well, thank you, Sean. I appreciate the nice words. Glad we can help. I wish I had video to watch of Dr. Beard talking to you about his trips inside Hollow Earth. So entertaining, some of these wacky videos. And also thank you for what you do.

So important. Sorry you're stretched thin right now. Hope you take a lot of pride in the help that you are giving people. As you know better than I, 2020 has been a motherfucker when it comes to people's mental health. Just the constant change,

the fucking lunacy that happens in a variety of ways. Never known when, you know, things are going to return to some state of pre-COVID normalcy. Hope that pesky virus fizzles soon and dies. Die, virus, die! But thank you again, Sean.

Now for some fun imagery inspired by last week's suck. Sent in by Silly Sucker Megan. She didn't sign off with her name, so I'm going to leave her last name out of it. And she writes, hey, Dan, I'm currently listening to this week's episode. I got to your fantasy of spanking one of those holy rollers asses. I had to stop and share my thoughts. Maybe it's because I grew up in a strict religious household, no desire to be a serial killer yet, but my mind immediately flipped that situation.

All I could think was in this situation where you're spanking this guy over your knee, he turns around and says, yeah, daddy, punish me harder. Then he pulls out a bridle and whip and yells, giddy up, sarsaparilla. I don't know. Maybe this podcast has turned me into a freak, or maybe I was a freak all along, but I'd pay to see that. Sincerely, a faithful customer of Mr. Whiskerhorn's Pony Play Emporium. I like where your head's at, Megan. I like it a lot. Giddy up, Tassarella! Yeah, that is a funny thought.

Now I have that scene that was in your head and my head, and probably it's in a lot of other people's heads right now. So, thank you, I think. Now we have a very interesting MLM update coming in from Concerned Sucker Faith out of Virginia. Faith writes, greetings, Master Sucker. Hail Nimrod, glory be to Triple M. Respect to the Suck Queen and family as well.

Just listened to the NXIVM cult episode. I came to Time Suck through my father and brother who are both space lizards and have been listening for some time. So if you could say a quick hello to Chris and Brendan, I know they would love that. Hello, Chris and Brendan. are both space lizards and have been listening for some time. So if you could say a quick hello to Chris and Brendan, I know they would love that. Hello, Chris and Brendan. Hail to space lizards.

Thank you for indoctrinating your daughter's sister into this cult. I'll be happy to sacrifice, I mean, take care of Faith. Gosh dang. Faith continues. I've also been slowly converting my boyfriend, Seth, to the cult. Yes, get the fuck in here, Seth.

Bow down at the altar of... Praise Amway, the great god of high... to the cult. Yes, get the fuck in here, Seth. Bow down at the altar of... Praise Amway, the great god of high, conveniently priced, I don't know, snack bars. And treat Faith very well or Chris and Brendan will drag you out into the woods and kill you. Faith now says,

I think we almost have him hooked. I made it clear that the podcast and I are a package deal. Nice, nice job. I'm writing you because there is one MLM you did not mention that I think you would find interesting. One of my friends has been involved in it. I've not been able to talk him away from it. So I've distanced myself a bit. Good. I looked into this. I don't know all the details, but here is what I've observed. My friend was a smart and talented guy who could afford college. So he was for, oh, who could not afford college. Oh, that sucks. So he's forced to drop out. For a brief time, he went back to work, but then I noticed he was working less and

less at the restaurant he had been with and posting nothing but bullshit like, never let the haters keep you from success, and here are my rules for success. Yeah, those are probably some red flags. And other cheesy success-related crap. One night when we were talking, I asked him about his plans now that he isn't in college. He tells me how excited he is, how he's found the perfect way to make money. Eek. Currency exchange. He exchanges through someone, then gets others to exchange through him, and so on down the ladder. Not good.

Told him it sounds a little pyramid scheme-y, and that offended him. Mm-hmm. Last I heard from him, he took a trip to California, across the country from where we are, for some kind of retreat with his company. He did make it back alive. I've distanced myself, as I said, so I don't know much other than that, but I thought you might find this kind of MLM interesting as it seems to be the most modern form. Anyway, I wish you and your family good health as you all heal from the virus. I hope you all build up some Colonel Howard strength antibodies so you never have to deal with that shit again. Your loyal cult member, Faith, out in Virginia. Well, thank you, Faith.

Hail Nimrod to you. I would love a drop of Colonel Robert L. Howard's tiger blood. Have it running through my veins, floating around my system, just fucking punching viruses in their little virus faces. I did some research, and a number of websites are warning people in 2020 about what I think your friend's into, about a variety of currency exchanges or forex, as in foreign exchange, MLMs and pyramid schemes. One is iMarketsLive. That's the most popular. They just changed their name, never a good sign, to iAmAcademy, probably due to lawsuits.

And the other most popular one is QuestMarkets. And as you already know, yeah, they're bad news. In all likelihood, your friend will never make any money. Your friend will lose a lot of money. They sell training courses, teaching people, supposedly, how to make lots and lots of money in the currency exchange game. And it is notoriously difficult for even the most skilled investor to consistently make money trading foreign currencies. If it was easy, this type of investing would be way more common than it is. It's not common. It's super high risk. So these companies fuck people over in two ways.

They take your money like NXIVM did through expensive courses that lead to just a never ending stream of more expensive courses. And they encourage you to invest lots of your money, all your money into foreign currency exchange where you can easily lose it all. So sorry about your friend. Maybe you can talk him into listening to the NXIVM suck.

Keep on sucking faith. Now we have a UK sucker, long time sucker, Chantal Stoughton with a NXIVM cult update to share with us, kind of. Chantal writes, Dan, we've emailed back and forth before, Shatner sings is nothing, my dear,

when you have seen this. When I first saw Leonard Nimoy sing Bilbo Baggins, I thought I'd stepped into an alternate reality. Here we go. Well, thank you, Chantal. I'm sorry if I'm messing up your name here. Before I play Chantal's link, let me remind you what he's talking about now. William Shatner, a.k.a. Star Trek's Captain Kirk, one-time spokesperson for the United Sciences of America pyramid scheme.

I played this in the next game. It's singing Elton John's Rocket Man at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards. And Chantal is telling us that this next, that this other Leonard Nimoy song

is even more surreal than this. And all this science, I don't understand. It's just a job. Five days a week. Oh my God.

Okay, so that's pretty terrible. Now here is Leonard Nimoy, a.k.a. Spock from Star Trek, singing whatever the fuck this is. This is so surreal. In the middle of the earth, in the land of Shire, lives a brave little hobbit whom we all admire. earth in the land of Shire lives a brave little hobbit whom we all admire with his long wooden pipe and fuzzy woolly toes. He lives in a hobbit hole and everybody knows him. Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins is only... There's a music video for that. This is insane. This link is also in the show notes. You might win, Chantal. That is so surreal. What a strange world we live in. Thank you and hail Nimrod. Now let's close out the updates with another

surreal message sent in by Space Wizard Chris B. Chris writes, Dear esteemed Professor of Suck, I am a recent follower of the Cult of the Curious after being turned into it by a co-worker. I am working my way through the entire list from the beginning and then will promptly become a fully fledged Space Lizard.

Well, thank you. I just finished the Moon Landing Conspiracy episode yesterday and it could not have been more fitting than to end on the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the International Space Station. Quick background. I work for an aerospace company that is the primary contractor to both, or sorry, to NASA for the ISS. Anyway, yesterday on our internal network, there was an article on the anniversary. And in the comments, there was a thread full of flat earthers and ISS deniers. That's right. Employees of my company don't believe the ISS is real.

We built the station and they still don't believe it's real. Anyway, this gave me a laugh and I thought you'd be interested to know that the idiots are truly among us at all levels. Keep on sucking, sincerely, Chris B. P.S. I know you said if anyone goes to space, bring some Time Sucker stickers. Well, I am not going to space, but you'll be happy to know

that there are Time Sucker stickers in the assembly building for a satellite. Not space, but pretty close. Holy shit, Chris. That is crazy. About aerospace employees also being flat earthers. Guessing these flat earthers are not at the top levels of your company. Guessing they're not the engineers.

Guessing. Whack-a-doodles. You never know where they're going to show up. Can we please, can we fucking please start teaching critical thinking courses in grade school and in middle school and in high school? Fucking please. Also, thank you for letting me know about those stickers. That is awesome. Thanks for the messages

and hail Nimrod, everyone. Next time, suckers. I needed that. We all did. And that's all for this week, Meat Sacks. More Bad Magic Productions content coming the rest of the week. New spooks with Scare to Death.

Pure silliness with Is We Dumb. Please don't punish any war heroes this week for acting on the adult-to-adult consensual sexual urges they were born with. If it's what they want to do, let them suck! And keep on sucking. David Childress here again I just was hoping to talk a little bit about some various North American cryptids I know we have a lot of North American listeners on this podcast there are a variety of different creatures,

and I highly believe, to be real, the New Jersey Devil is one cryptid that we could talk about, but likely related to the Swamp Ape, found more in the southeastern... I'm sorry, what was that? I just went outside just for a little bit until the next show.

No, no, that's fine.