Good morning, we are working through documentaries on World War I and World War II for November. This one just popped up on my screen and I recall reading books about code-breaking during both World War I and World War II and how important it was. So this documentary looks at the people who worked behind the scenes to make sure the Allied powers won World War II. The run time for this documentary is 1:53:15 and is called Station X.
Bletchley Park was Britain’s super secret headquarters for cracking German codes during World War II. Germany employed the Enigma machine and this was a machine that produced unbreakable codes. Against all the odds school boys, academics, and crossword fanatics worked to crack those codes. Once those codes were cracked Germany’s greatest weapon was turned into Germany’s greatest liability. This documentary is a first-hand account of what went on in Bletchley Park. The Enigma Machine was Germany’s foolproof plan to protect its secrets. Even before the start of World War II Germany was flooding the airways with coded messages. World War II would become a wireless war. The Germans would completely rely on the Enigma Machine throughout the war. The British needed to learn German secrets. The government purchased Bletchley Park, a mansion in the countryside, stuck a radio receiver on its roof, and set up Station X. Station X was where the code breakers would be housed. The government recruited the young to try to break the Enigma code. People from a variety of backgrounds lived and worked at Bletchley. If Hitler found out what was happening at Bletchley the whole operation could fail. The people recruited to work at Bletchley were not told what they were doing, secrecy was of the utmost importance. The enigma machine was a machine that could be configured in a variety of ways. When you pressed on key on the machine, you could get a variety of letters. The German military thought it would be the perfect machine for war. Every day, the soldiers received instructions on how to set up the machine for the day. They would set up the machine differently every day. These changes and wires in the machine gave the enigma machine a layer of complexity. The recruits at Bletchley Park had never seen an enigma machine. They were unable to crack the code produced by the enigma. They could not get anywhere. However, a German army clerk would help break the code. He sold documents for the enigma machine to the French. The French machine never really pursued it because the war was a long way away. The British had the documents but turned them down. The Poles bought the document and they started working on those documents. A group of Polish mathematicians had to figure out how the wires would go into the rotors. Once the wiring was figured out, then the enigma codes could be broken. However, the Germans introduced an even more complicated message. The Polish mathematicians reached out to the British for a secret meeting. They revealed to the British how they cracked the Enigma machine. War broke out, and even with the information the Poles provided Bletchley was still confused over the messages. However, as time went by and more and more messages were put out, they slowly started to figure out the codes. The British were listening to everyone writing down groups of letters that did not make any sense. It was finally in 1940 that Bletchley had its first breakthrough. The recruits at Bletchley realized that the Germans were encoding the letters twice in a message. There was also a strange quirk in the enigma machine too. The enigma machine was encoding the same letter twice. Repeating letters should never have happened. The enigma machine had a flaw in the system. This flaw broke the code and slowly the codebreakers worked to crack the code. Huge sheets were produced to help determine the enigma machines that were set up for the day. So with these steps were the recruits at Bletchley Park able to break the German codes? Tune into the rest of the episode to find out. I found it interesting that the participants did not have their names listed in the documentary. I suppose they still wanted to keep their identities a secret. Overall, it was a cool documentary to view and something to consider for a history class. However, if you have an independent study student, then I would add this to their list.
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The purpose of this blog is to share information on what can be used in a classroom, private school, or home school setting as well as serve as a portfolio of my personal and professional work. The reviews are my opinions and should be treated as such. I just want to provide a tool for teachers to select documentaries for their classrooms. |