The device was the successor to the famous Enigma. Worldwide, only a handful of functioning machines exist.
A rare encryption device from world war II will be auctioned at the end of may in Munich. The so-called key device 41 can encrypt secret messages much more secure than the previous device, the famous Enigma, said the auction house Hermann Historica in Munich on Tuesday.
the World existed from the key 41 of the device today, only a handful of functioning machines. They had been used by the defence, the military intelligence service and the weather service. Since August of 2017, the German Museum in Munich owns a key device 41, which has been called because of a crank on the side of the "Hitler mill". Amateur treasure hunter had tracked it down a few months earlier in a forest in the South-East of Munich.
According to the Museum information had been produced the machines since the end of 1944 in Chemnitz. The high command of the Wehrmacht had not feared that the Enigma was secure enough. Especially the German secret service have used the new technology. At the end of the war, the cipher were destroyed devices, often violently or in waters has been sunk.