War Museum Overloon unveils Enigma G in new exhibition
3 min readThe War Museum Overloon in the Netherlands unveiled its new permanent basement exhibition: Turning point Europe. In this exposition, they have brought back the Fallschirmjäger collection, as well as a wide selection of other German and Allied uniforms, weapons and equipment. All exhibitions need a central piece that attracts the attention of the viewing public and this exhibition is no different. The museum is pleased to unveil that they have been able to add an impressive and unique Enigma G coding machine to its collection.
Erik van den Dungen director War Museum Overloon / Militracks
Since his arrival, the museum director Erik van den Dungen has placed an Enigma at the top of his wish list. Enigmas, certainly of this type, are very rare and are rarely offered. As far as is known, only ten to twenty copies of this type have been preserved; only three of them are open to the public. Number four takes its permanent place at War Museum Overloon.
The exposition will showcase the euphoric advance of the German armies through Europe in the early days of World War II, as well as the eventual road towards defeat. In short: Turning point Europe is an exposition showing the military rise and downfall of the Third Reich.
The project was made possible thanks to the province of Noord-Brabant and the vfonds. We hope to provide those interested in militaria of WW2 with something extra during a visit to our museum.
Enigma G
The G series Enigmas is a rare series. A few hundred were manufactured in the 1930s. Many of the coders were confiscated and destroyed by the Allies after the war. All machines are provided with a number, and a register is kept of this. The number of this specific Enigma is not in the register but is very close to a number of devices that were deployed in the Dutch Navy in the 1930s.
Mystery
There is always some mystery about the Enigma. Encrypted messages were sent before and during the Second World War. Before the war, the Enigma was used in the banking system, among other things, to send important information. During the Second World War, these codes were used by, among others, the German Wehrmacht to exchange tactical information. The codes were changed every day so that the Allies would not be able to crack them.
Although it was a very time-consuming, arduous and very mathematical task, the British managed to decipher a good number of the codes and were thus able to respond to the strategies and tactics of the Germans. The war is said to have been shortened by two years due to the cracking of these codes by the British.
The museum is actively researching into the background of this Enigma with number G219. The War Museum is trying to get the story out of who used this device during the Second World War.
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