Arthur Scherbius
Encyclopedia
Enigma machine
An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
.
Scherbius was born in Frankfurt am Main and his father was a small businessman. He studied electricity at the Technical College in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, and then went on to study at the Technical College in Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
, finishing in March 1903. The next year, he completed a dissertation titled "Proposal for the Construction of an Indirect Water Turbine Governor", and was awarded a doctorate in engineering (Dr.-Ing.).
Scherbius subsequently worked for a number of electrical firms in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. In 1918, he founded the firm of Scherbius & Ritter. He made a number of inventions, e.g. asynchronous motors, electric pillows and ceramic heating parts; his research contributions led to his name being associated with the Scherbius principle for asynchrous motors.
Scherbius applied for a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
(filed 23 February 1918) for a cipher machine based on rotating wired wheels, what is now known as a rotor machine
Rotor machine
In cryptography, a rotor machine is an electro-mechanical device used for encrypting and decrypting secret messages. Rotor machines were the cryptographic state-of-the-art for a prominent period of history; they were in widespread use in the 1920s–1970s...
. Scherbius' company also purchased the rights to another patent for a rotor machine from Hugo Koch
Hugo Koch
Hugo Alexander Koch was a Dutch inventor who conceived of and patented an idea for machine encryption — the rotor machine, although he was not the first to do so...
— patented in 1919. Business was slow enough that the firm was reorganized at least twice in the 1920s.
The firm's cipher machine, marketed under the name "Enigma", was initially pitched at the commercial market. There were several commercial models, and one of them was adopted by the German Navy (in a modified version) in 1926. The German Army adopted the same machine (also in a modified version somewhat different from the Navy's) a few years later.
Scherbius saw none of this as he was killed in a horse carriage
Carriage
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...
accident in 1929.