Rare Nazi Enigma machine sells for 482,600 euros

An Enigma machine is displayed at Bletchley Park museum in the town of Bletchley in Buckinghamshire, England, on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015. (AP / Matt Dunham)

An extremely rare and operational Nazi Enigma encryption machine, famously cracked by Allied codebreakers during World War II, has sold for nearly half a million euros in Paris, double its expected price, auction house Christie’s said Wednesday.

Based on keys and complex rotor systems, Enigma machines were used by the Germans for encrypted communication during the war, initially beyond the decoding capabilities of Allied intelligence services.

The Enigma M4 sold in Paris was a new, even more sophisticated version ordered by German Admiral Karl Doenitz in 1941 for communication with his submarine fleet as the Nazis attempted to blockade Britain.

Enveloped in a wooden case and featuring a keyboard and four rotors, it sold for 482,600 euros (US$556,900) to an unidentified buyer on Tuesday in Paris, Christie’s said in a statement sent to AFP.

It was previously owned by a French collector.

Another M4 machine, the rarest type of the surviving Enigma machines, sold for US$365,000 in New York in 2015 which was said by auction house Bonhams to be a record at the time.

Enigma was cracked by British mathematician Alan Turing and his team under a top-secret programme whose vital contribution to the Allied victory in the war only came to light in the 1990s.

It was the subject of a book by British author Robert Harris and an Oscar-nominated 2014 film, “The Imitation Game”, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.