15/08/2021

Polish Codebreaking as part of UNESCO Memory of the World

I learned that documents including Polish codebreaking activities was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 2018 in Marek Grajek, "Documents of Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920 Codebreaking" in HistoCrypt 2021 (pdf) (p.64). The official title is "Documents of Polish radio intelligence from the period of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920." The official recommendation explains "The documents of Polish radio intelligence of the Battle of Warsaw are one of the first testimonies to the use of radio monitoring and of new methods of deciphering e enemies' codes. lt was also the Battle of Warsaw here the radio monitoring and those new deciphering techniques played a role that determined the outcome of the battle."
I wonder whether there are other examples where codebreaking is registered as Memory of the World.

The above article interests me for another reason. The codebreaking activities were led by Jan Kowalewski, who taught cryptology to Japanese military officers (in 1923). I didn't know the episode of his first codebreaking in 1919:
"One of the officers of the emerging cipher service of the Polish Army wished to dance at his sister's wedding and asked a colleague for replacement at the night duty. Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski had no previous experience with the ciphers or the codebreaking, but his perfect knowledge of Russian language plus common sense permitted him to break the cipher before the morning. Kowalewski was immediately transferred to the cipher section of the General Staff, where during the following months he managed to organize an effective and efficient codebreaking service." (p.63)

By the way, Kowalewski's job was facilitated by a key the Soviet lost to the enemy, which revealed common features of the Soviet cipher used at the time (p.68). I think it was the one provided by the Japanese military to Poland (see David Kahn, The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail, p.86).

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