Marian Adam Rejewski (16 August 1905 – 13 February 1980) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist. In late 1932 he reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma cipher machine. His work enabled Britain to begin reading German Enigma-encrypted messages. He remained silent about his prewar and wartime cryptologic work to avoid adverse attention from the country’s Soviet-dominated government.
About Marian Rejewski in brief
Marian Adam Rejewski (16 August 1905 – 13 February 1980) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist. In late 1932 he reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma cipher machine. His work enabled Britain to begin reading German Enigma-encrypted messages, seven years after his original reconstruction of the machine. The intelligence that was gained by the British from Enigma decrypts formed part of what was code-named Ultra and contributed—perhaps decisively—to the defeat of Germany. He died at age 74 of a heart attack and was interred with military honors at Warsaw’s Powązki Military Cemetery. He remained silent about his prewar and wartime cryptologic work to avoid adverse attention from the country’s Soviet-dominated government. After the war, he reunited with his family in Poland and worked as an accountant. His contributions included the cryptologic card catalog, derived using the cyclometer that he had invented, and a cryptologic bomb. He was a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also served in the Polish Armed Forces and was put to work solving low-grade German ciphers. In 1929, while studying mathematics at Poznań University, he attended a secret cryptology course conducted by the Polish General Staff’s Cipher Bureau, which he joined in September 1932. He deduced the machine’s secret internal wiring after only a few weeks.
Shortly after the outbreak of war, the Polish cryptologists were evacuated to France, where they continued breaking Enigma enciphered messages. They and their support staff were again compelled to evacuate after the fall of France in June 1940, and they resumed work undercover a few months later in Vichy France. In November 1942, he and fellow cryptologist Henryk Zygalski fled via Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar to Britain. In the summer of that year, he accepted an offer, from Professor Krygowski, of a mathematics teaching assistantship at Poznaż University. In September 1932, he joined the Cipher Bureau in Warsaw, which then had set up an underground outpost referred to puckishly as the “Black Chamber” He died in 1980 at the age of 74. He is survived by his wife, three children, and two step-granddaughters, all of whom are now living in the U.S. and Canada. He leaves behind a wife and a son, a son and a daughter-in-law, both of whom live in New York City and a step-son who lives in New Jersey. He had no children of his own; he was buried in a Polish suburb of New York, New Jersey, with the rest of his family. His last will and testament was published in 1987. He left a note to his wife saying that he was proud of her and that he would never forget her. He never married or had any children of whom he had been involved in any way.
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