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Drei Soldaten werfen etwas in die Salzach. Ein Soldat geht mit einem Kasten im Arm weg.

Photo: Cosimo Miorelli

Fritz Menzer – A secret Life. Film premiere on the web.

Meet an extraordinary cryptologist and his cipher device 41. Our film is now being shown on our website - in German and English.

A museum display case is simply too small for some stories. That's why filmmaker Robert Jahn has teamed up with the Deutsches Museum to present the exciting search for Fritz Menzer, the inventor of the legendary cipher device 41, in a documentary film series that can now also be seen on the Deutsches Museum's website and YouTube channel.

A simple toolmaker from the Erzgebirge becomes a central figure in the Wehrmacht's cipher department - but what happened to Fritz Menzer after the war? With animated images by the Italian artist Cosimo Miorelli and previously unseen photos and documents, the secret life of Fritz Menzer is revealed clip by clip. The result is an entire film package about the cipher device 41 and its inventor.

“Like the biography of its inventor Fritz Menzer, the creation of cipher device 41 is a wonderful opportunity to shed light on the German history of the 20th century with all its facets, including all its dark sides.”
Robert Jahn, filmmaker

Trailer for Fritz Menzer – A secret life

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A thrilling search for clues over the course of seven episodes – Trailer

Who was the man who invented the legendary cipher device 41? With animated images and never-before-seen photos and documents, the secret life of Fritz Menzer is revealed clip by clip.

Fritz Menzer – A secret life

An extraordinary cryptologist and his cipher device 41

A documentary film series in seven episodes

„Researching this project resembled in many ways a criminalistic search for clues." (Robert Jahn, filmmaker). This web documentary presents the cipher device 41, which was far ahead of its time. The adventurous life of its inventor, Fritz Menzer (1908 - 2005) - marked by the Nazi dictatorship, the liberation era and the onset of the Cold War, but also by a lifetime of silence - is unfolded episode by episode.

To film site
Das Schlüsselgerät 41 mit deutliche Spuren vom Auffindeort im Waldboden.

Now the Enigma must die

Cipher device 41

The cipher device 41 was deployed towards the end of the war. Fritz Menzer, the inventor, had identified vulnerabilities in the Enigma cipher machine.

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Deutsches Museum