Breaking the Code Breaking the Code Breaking the Code is a 1986 play by Hugh Whitemore about British mathematician Alan Turing, who was a key player in the breaking of the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park during World War II and a pioneer of computer science. The play thematically links Turing's cryptographic activities with his attempts to grapple with his homosexuality. It was adapted as a 1996 television film directed by Herbert Wise, with Derek Jacobi reprising his stage role as Turing. Following an eight-month run at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London's West End beginning on 21 October 1986, the play
Enigma machine adapted the design for their own cipher machines. An estimated 100,000 Enigma machines were constructed. After the end of World War II, the Allies sold captured Enigma machines, still widely considered secure, to developing countries. On 23 February 1918, Arthur Scherbius applied for a patent for a ciphering machine that used rotors. Scherbius and E. Richard Ritter founded the firm of Scherbius & Ritter. They approached the German Navy and Foreign Office with their design, but neither agency was interested. Scherbius & Ritter then assigned the patent rights to Gewerkschaft Securitas, who founded the "Chiffriermaschinen Aktien-Gesellschaft" (Cipher Machines Stock Corporation)