A rare M4 encryption machine Enigma considered a 1944 cipher, considered one of the most difficult challenges in deciphering the Allies, it sold at Christie.'s auction for .347.250 437.955 (US $ XNUMX).
The offer for the electricityengineering crypto machine was just over the £300.000 top estimate expected at auction.
As Christie House reports, the M4 Enigma has a special place in the history of computers, as the Allies' attempts to crack their encryption led to the development of the first programmable computer, developed in Bletchley Park and used to break the M4, allowing the Allies to track every German navy. planning from the Battle of the Atlantic to their delivery in mid-1945.
M4 Enigma (with 4 rotors) are considered rare because they were made in smaller numbers by three-rotor machines.
After capitulating Germany, the country ordered the troops to destroy the remaining Enigma so that the allied forces could not acquire them. After the war, Winston Churchill also ordered that all remaining Enigmas be destroyed to help preserve the secret of the Allied decoding successes at Bletchley.
The M4 Enigma (with 4 rotors) was built on the orders of Admiral Karl Dönitz, the commander of the German U-boat fleet, who was concerned about the Allies' repeated successes against his submarines.
The M4 became available to the submarine fleet in May 1941, preventing the Allies from knowing their position for almost a year until Turing and Joe Desch in Dayton, Ohio. developed the computer that broke the M4 encryption.
By mid-1943, the majority of messages encrypted by the M4 Enigma was read by the Allies, but it was not until the 1970s that it became public knowledge that the Allies could read the Germans' encrypted messages.
