Discarded Nazi Enigma Machine Found in Baltic Sea

From espionage tool to marine habitat

Enigma machine
An Enigma machine that has not spent the last few decades underwater.
Bob Lord/Creative Commons

To look at photos of it when it was recovered, you might not even know it was a machine. An object sits in deep water, teeming with marine life, so overgrown it seems like part of the landscape rather than a decades-old addition to it. But that’s precisely what it is: one of the most infamous devices of spycraft used in the 20th century.

The Enigma machine was used by Nazi Germany during World War II to send coded information. One of the most prominent figures on the Allied side endeavoring to crack the code was genius mathematician Alan Turing — and the work of Turing and his colleagues proved vital to the Allied war effort.

As the war drew to a close, many Enigma machines were thrown overboard to prevent them from falling into Allied hands. It’s likely that that is the explanation for how one such machine ended up at the bottom of the Bay of Gelting, in the Baltic Sea.

At Atlas Obscura, Isaac Schultz has more details on the unexpected history of this particular machine. In November of 2020, marine biologist Michael ßwat was diving in the bay when he saw something out of the ordinary; it turned out to be the Enigma machine in question.

This was a significant find for multiple reasons — Enigma machines, Schultz writes, often sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Given the state in which this one was found, it’s not surprising to learn that the process of refurbishing it will be a long one, including spending almost a year in demineralized water. It’s an unlikely piece of history found in an even more unlikely place.

The InsideHook Newsletter.

News, advice and insights for the most interesting person in the room.