Experts Bid To Restore Seven Nazi Enigma Machines From World War II Recovered From Bottom Of The Sea

An expert in Germany is working hard to restore seven Nazi enigma machines from World War II that were recovered by chance in the bottom of the sea, but it could take four years before they go on display.

Corinna Mayer, 42, is an expert restorer and she has prescribed a special bath for the Enigma machines to remove the various sediments and salts that have accumulated on the machines over the last 75 years.

Seven Enigma Machines recovered from Baltic Sea in 2020, to be exhibited In Museum Of Archaeology after restoration.
(Newsflash)

The ‘bathwater’ has to be changed every month and Mayer has said that it will take “at least four years” to clean the machines, which were built as cipher devices and which were used extensively by the Nazi regime to encode sensitive communications.

The seven devices were salvaged from the bottom of the Baltic Sea in 2020 and they will eventually be put on display at the Museum of Archaeology at Gottorf Castle, which is located in the city of Schleswig, in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

The discovery and subsequent salvage of the Enigma machines in the port of the town of Kappeln and in the Baltic Sea made international headlines, because it is such a rare discovery to find even one Enigma machine, let alone seven.

Seven Enigma Machines recovered from Baltic Sea in 2020, to be exhibited In Museum Of Archaeology after restoration.
(Newsflash)

The Enigma machines were employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the German military. It enabled the Nazis to communicate securely and gained them a huge advantage during the war, before Alan Turing broke the Enigma code.

Two of the machines are said to be in relatively good condition, considering they have spent the best part of the last century on the seabed. The other machines are said to be quite fragile and require careful handling.

It is still currently unclear why there were so many Enigma machines in the same place and how they got there, with experts believing that there may be more devices to be found in the Baltic Sea.


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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: William McGee, Agency: Newsflash

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