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[Stephen Bond]

Hi, my name is Stephen Bond.
Over the last few years I have become interested in wartime German enigma coding machines.
To put this into a more personal context my dad was involved in the removal of two m4's from the U81 at Pula. This story wasn't related until my family watched a BBC documentary series called "The secret war", in 1977. Part 6 covered Enigma and I believe Lorenz, though a great deal of information was still described as secret. As part of the programme an enigma machine was shown (and demonstrated) on camera for the first time on British television.
The night we watched the programme, my father stated that he had been involved in a visit to U81 "at the end of the war", however in 2012 I finally found out that this visit had actually taken place in November 1944 when the place was still crawling with Germans.
Unlike the machine shown, neither of the ones he had seen, had either the metal plate on the inside of the lid or the “Enigma” ink stamps on the inside of the wooden cases. It is therefore likely that as neither machine bore the H & R “Enigma” brand that they were produced by Olympia in Erfurt.
I have a number of surviving souvenirs' from this escapade and am now working on the long term assembly of a composite m4 to include these parts.

...and I thought tracking down engineering drawings to support the restoration of spitfires was bad enough. That's part of another hobby.

All the best

Steve B

[TabsTabs1964]

Welcome Steve.
Fascinating family history.
We are already eager to know more information and details. I hope this is the right place for you to expand your knowledge on the subject and we all, ours about Enigma.

Santi

[Enigma Machine Collector]

Hello Steve,

Welcome. I'm a little late to this, but a very interesting post! I'm also on a similar mission. I am working to build an Enigma machine from original parts, though the slightly more common Wehrmacht Enigma. A couple highlights of my crypto collection are a working Enigma keyboard that was found in an attic a few years ago and a fragment of an Enigma Schreibmax (the exceptionally rare printer for the Enigma which replaced the operator taking down the message by hand). To my knowledge, I think that there are only 3 or 4 Enigma schreibmaxes in the world.

I also have a box for the Enigma Uhr, the very rare re-wirable D reflector, an original battery for the Wehrmacht Enigma, plugboard cables and also some other Enigma-related items. Feel free to contact me (enigmacollector@fastmail.com) if you'd like any advice for assembling your display or are looking for specific Enigma parts. I broker private sales of Enigma machines and Enigma machine parts so know where to find some original M4 Enigma parts to add to your display if you'd like, such as a wooden transport case, rotor box, or a set of rotors. I would have sent this to you directly, but I am pretty dormant on this forum so don't have access to your profile.

There's also a forum for cipher machine collectors/enthusiasts if you are interested. "Crypto Collectors" is on Groups.io and I would highly recommend joining if you haven't done so already.

Wishing you the best for your project.

Best Regards,

Patrick