Lt-Col Gwido Langer (Polish Enigma Code Breaker) - Body Returns Home to Poland

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Lt-Col Gwido Langer's grave at Perth, Scotland

On Wednesday 1 December 2010 the body of Lt-Col Gwido Langer was exhumed from the Polish War Graves cemetery in Perth, Scotland. At the request of his daughter Hanna Kublicka-Piottuch and with the support of Polish authorities his body is being returned to Poland after lying for over 60 years in the Scottish town.

Gwido Langer, head of the Polish Cipher Bureau, led a team which in 1932 broke the code of the German Enigma cipher machine . Shortly before the outbreak of war in July 1939 Polish Intelligence shared their breakthrough with the British and French secret services. The Poles code breaking work on Enigma was continued by the British at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.

Lt-Col Gwido Langer died in Kinross, Scotland, aged 53 in 1948. The Polish Consul General in Edinburgh Tomasz Trafas attended the exhumation. TVP.info reports that Gwido Langer will be reburied in his home town of Cieszyn (Poland) with full military honours on 10 December 2010.

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Update: The funeral of Gwido Langer took place with full military honours in Cieszyn (Poland) on 10 December 2010.

Added on 05 December 2010. Updated on 01 June 2014.