During World War II Nazi Germany primarily encoded its messages through the use of what was known as the "Enigma" machine. Enigma’s use by the Wehrmacht stretched back to the early 1930s and originated from a design created by Hugo Alexander Koch in the Netherlands.

Although heavily modified prior to the Second World War’s onset, the Enigma machines used in 1939-1945 remained similar to Koch’s prototypes from two decades prior. For a variety of reasons the Enigma machine was extraordinarily difficult to crack.

Part II of our series on the human cost of the Second World War in Europe detailed Eastern Europe and Poland’s immense suffering. Part III now turns to the country that bore perhaps the worst of Nazi Germany's aggression; the Soviet Union and its Red Army.

Beginning with military losses, the Red Army suffered 29 million casualties during the Second World War; including 11,444,100 killed, missing, or captured with 8,668,400 killed in action.  These figures utterly dwarf those of any other of the war’s major military establishments. Even capture meant death for much of the War.