The Ultra achievement owed much to three Polish mathematicians, led by Marian Rejewski, who conducted critical early work on the German Enigma code machine between 1932 and 1939, after acquiring a commercial example of the ciphering device. The French assisted, providing the Poles with a list of 1931 Wehrmacht keys, acquired from a German source. Ironically, through Rejewski served with the Polish army in Britain between 1943 and 1945, he was never told of the rich fruits of his own pioneering achievements. In 1939 the Poles presented both the British and the French with reconstructed Enigma
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