Breaking World War II's Enigma Code

Name: Tour an Enchanting Holiday Magic Flower Show
Start: 2025-12-10T17:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-12-10T18:00:00-05:00
Location: Brandlive

Friday, Nov 7, 2025

1:30 p.m. ET • 12:30 p.m. CT • 11:30 a.m. MT • 10:30 a.m. PT

Duration: 90 Minutes

Zoom - Free Online Event

For questions, contact AARP Virginia at aarpva@aarp.org

This event is full.

Explore how Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine encrypted messages and how Allied codebreakers exposed its flaws in this WWII-themed webinar on encryption and codebreaking.

About the Event

The now legendary Enigma machine was used by all branches of Nazi Germany’s military to encode messages by scrambling letters that could only be read by another machine with proper keys to decode the message.

This webinar explores the fundamental principles of encryption, how the Enigma machine operated, and how the Allies exploited a critical design weakness to read the Nazis’ messages. It will blend a discussion of code breaking within the WWII historical context and cover how the long secret effort to break the Enigma code eventually came to light.

This offering is held in collaboration with the Lifelong Learning Institute at Virginia Tech. Leading the discussion is AARP Community Ambassador Dan Sherman, a retired economist who has taught many courses to adult learning groups, and a favorite instructor at the Lifelong Learning Institute.

How to Join

Sign in to your aarp.org account or create a free account to register for events. AARP membership is not required. You will receive an email with the Zoom link before the session. 

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