Arvid Gerhard Damm

Who was Arvid Gerhard Damm?

Arvid Gerhard Damm was a Swedish engineer and inventor. He designed a number of cipher machines, and was one of the early inventors of the wired rotor principle for machine encipherment. His company, AB Cryptograph, was a predecessor of Crypto AG.

Damm was originally a textile engineer, and worked as an engineering manager in a textile factory in Finland. At this time, he faked a marriage to a Hungarian woman in a sham ceremony conducted by one of Damm's friends posing as a clergyman. Later, after having found a new romantic interest, Damm attempted to "divorce" her, accompanied by false allegations that she was a spy, and was greatly embarrassed when his duplicity emerged during the case, revealed by business partner Olof Gyldén.

Damm filed for a patent on a rotor machine on 10 October 1919, three days after Hugo Koch filed a patent for a similar invention in the Netherlands. A company, Aktiebolaget Cryptograph, was founded around 1915¹ to sell and develop Damm's inventions.

In 1925, engineer Boris Hagelin was placed in charge of the management of the company and the development of its products, having joined AB Cryptograph in 1922. Damm died in early 1927.