Eli5 how did the allies in ww2 decipher German enigma if there were millions of possibilities for letters and it was being changed every day?
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Something else to add to the story. The Poles , with some help from the French, had managed to crack early versions of Enigma and then reverse engineer their own versions of the machine for further analysis. In July 1939 when it became apparent that things were going downhill the Poles invited French and British spooks to come to Warsaw and get briefed on the work to date, they also got given copies of the Engima machine as the Poles then understood it.
A lot of other work was required but the work by the Polish in the 1930’s was a significant part of what followed.
> Gordon Welchman, who became head of Hut 6 at Bletchley Park, has written: “Hut 6 Ultra would never have gotten off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details both of the German military version of the commercial Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use.” The Polish transfer of theory and technology at Pyry formed the crucial basis for the subsequent World War II British Enigma-decryption effort at Bletchley Park, where Welchman worked
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine#Breaking_Enigma
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