Origins
On 15 January 1930 the Radio Intelligence Section of the Second Department was taken over by Gwido Langer, who had previously served in the Austro-Hungarian army. In mid-1931 the Radio Intelligence Section and the Own Ciphers Section were merged to form the Cipher Bureau. Langer headed it until the September Campaign.1
Structure and people
German ciphers were the responsibility of section BS-4, headed by Maksymilian Ciężki, who during the Greater Poland Uprising had been a signals officer at the radio station of the Poznań Citadel. From September 1932 BS-4 employed Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski.1,2,4
In Poznań, on Święty Marcin Street, the Cipher Bureau ran an experimental and training branch that employed graduates of a cryptology course. It was closed on 1 September 1932.1,5
September 1939 and after
Much of the Cipher Bureau's archive was destroyed during the evacuation in September 1939. The cryptologists made their way through Romania to France and continued working at the “P.C. Bruno” and “P.C. Cadix” centres. Ciężki later headed the Cadix outpost in Algiers.1,2,4
Sources
- Grzegorz Łukomski, The Poznań beginnings of ‘Enigma’, ‘Mars. Problematyka i Historia Wojskowości’ vol. 10, Warsaw–London 2001 (reprint: Adam Mickiewicz University) (in Polish)
- Foreign Intelligence Agency, They broke Enigma (in Polish, with English versions of the biographies)
- Imperial War Museums, War Memorials Register, Bletchley Park Polish Memorial (no. 66362)
- Internal Security Agency, Marian Rejewski: in the service of Polish cryptology (ABW Publishing House, Wiązowna 2022, ISBN 978-83-964225-4-5) (in Polish)
- dzieje.pl (Polish Press Agency and Polish History Museum), P. Bojarski, head of the Enigma Cipher Centre: here, where we are now, the cryptologists Różycki, Zygalski and Rejewski worked (in Polish)
Checked: 4 November 2026