Our visit to Blechley Park is one of the highlights of our journey for sure! On the one hand, Alan Turing, father of computers and IT, has developped a machine to decipher the Nazi’s enigma code during World War II, which used an incredibly difficult endocing that changed daily. In achieving this, he shortened the war by an estimated two years and saved millions of lives. The whole area is a museum today. On the other hand, an exhibition around “The Imitation Game” opens today, a film that comes to cinemas next Friday. (In case you’ve missed it: We’ve already seen the film in October and walked by behind leading actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley on the red carpet.)

The Nazi’s enigma machine. There are instructions in German how to maintain the device. On the left: wheels to set the encryption. On the right: Code pattern produced.

The manor at Bletchley Park. We’re using a multimedia guide – the largest collection of iPods in Britain, as they say.

Omnom! Bangers and mash at the museum café.

The Imitation Game exhibition: Alan Turing’s workplace and the machine as recreated for the film.

Upgrading the machine by putting us in front of it. 🙂

There are a lot of items from the film on display, costumes and documents for example.

Many parts of the film were recorded elsewhere. At least the bar scenes were taken here at the manor’s bar.

This is now the actual workplace of Alan Turing in one of the many baracks that have been built on the grounds for the employees needed for all the steps of the deciphering process. After deciphering the enigma code, the Brits had to remain silent and let the war go on while they systematically deciphered each and every message of the Germans (they were in morse code and available by radio. The Nazis were sure no-one would be able to decipher them). Hitler must not find out that they cracked his code, otherwise he would have ceised transmissions and set up a new code system. They were limited to manipulating single combats to their advantage until the right moment had come. The Normandy landing was a success after all as the Allies knew the Nazi’s locations thanks to Alan Turing’s machine.

Turing used to chain his tea mug to the heating so that none of his colleagues would take it.

More than a hundred of his machines were built to decipher all the messages. This one is still in use and visitors are given demonstrations. Each wheel corresponds to one letter… I think. In spite of all the great explanations, I’m still not really aware of how it works. All wheels turn until they find the ciphering used. They succeeded in the end thanks to a weather forecast that was sent each morning, ending with “hail Hitler”, therefore knowing at least some letters.

The back of the machine with lots of cords and cables.

We could have spent many more hours in the incredibly impressive exhibition. But they close at 4pm. We then continued to London where we spend the rest of our holidays. Our hotel is situated in the Hampstead resp. Belsize Park area. After bringing all of our belongings in and setting up, we have dinner at the hotel’s restaurant.

Wow. The burger is even larger than it looked on the menu. I couldn’t finish it.