Like a presage of today’s era of cyber warfare, a fierce battle raged during the Second World War to break the first mechanical cipher in history: the Enigma machine. Everyone has heard of Enigma, and of the brilliant British mathematician Alan Turing, who changed the course of history by cracking Nazi radio communications.
But few realise that to crack the impenetrable code system used by the Nazis, a veritable army of shortwave specialists – French, Polish and British intelligence agents, mathematicians, and cryptographers – coordinated their capabilities in an unprecedented and largely unsung pan-European effort.
This ambitious miniseries sets out to cast new light on a history that is resolutely pan-European – one that has long been obscured by excessively nationalistic accounts of the Second World War. Only now are the achievements of these unsung heroes beginning to receive the recognition they deserve. Today, historians and experts from Poland, Great Britain, France and Germany, are joining forces to recover and celebrate the bonds that once united the protagonists of this extraordinary story.
Direction: Rafael Lewandowski
Production: FACTSTORY DOCS, Zadig Productions, Manufactura Pictures & Vertigo for ARTE G.E.I.E.
Delivery: Summer 2027