Franciszek Pokorny

Major Franciszek Pokorny (Mosty, Austria-Hungary, 15 June 1891 – 22 November 1966, Edinburgh, Scotland[1]) was a Polish Army officer who, after World War I, headed the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau before Major (eventually, Lt. Col.) Gwido Langer.

Franciszek Pokorny
Polish Cipher Bureau
Biuro Szyfrów
Methods and technology
Locations
Personnel
Deputy Chief
Chief of Radio Intelligence
Chief of German Section
Maksymilian Ciężki
Chief of Russian Section
Jan Graliński
Russian Section cryptologist
Piotr Smoleński

Life

When the first German military Enigma-enciphered messages were broadcast by radio on 15 July 1928, the Cipher Bureau's German section attempted unsuccessfully to decrypt them. Likely due to the successes of leading Polish mathematicians in breaking Russian ciphers during the Polish-Soviet War (1919–21), a secret cryptology course was conducted in 1929 at Poznań University for selected mathematics students with a knowledge of the German language. Three participants in the course — Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski — were, three years later, hired by the Cipher Bureau.[2]

Pokorny was the third man to lecture in the course, after engineer Antoni Palluth and then-Capt. Maksymilian Ciężki.[3]

Franciszek Pokorny was a cousin of the outstanding Austro-Hungarian Army cryptologist during World War I, Hermann Pokorny.[4]

See also

Notes
  1. Dariusz Faszcza; Franciszek Pokorny (2011). Działania Grupy 'Kowel' we wrześniu 1939 roku w relacji ppkł. dypl. Franciszka Pokornego (PDF). Przegląd Historyczno-Wojskowy. Muzeum Historii Polski. p. 168.
  2. Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allied in World War Two, pp. 246–47.
  3. Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allied in World War Two, p. 230.
  4. Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allied in World War Two, p. 247.

References
  • Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allied in World War Two, edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek, Frederick, MD, University Publications of America, 1984, pp. 1, 230, 246-47.
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