Inhaltsverzeichnis
Crypto AG
Steinhausen - Zug
Company history
In 1915, the Swedish cryptologist and inventor Arvid Damm founded A.B. Cryptograph in Stockholm. The Swedish entrepreneurs Emanuel Nobel and Karl Wilhelm Hagelin supported the young company financially. In 1922, Boris Hagelin (1892-1983), Karl Hagelin's son, joined the company and developed the prototype of the B-21, the first cipher machine. After the emigration and death of A. Damm, Boris Hagelin reorganised the company, but it still had to be liquidated in 1932.
In the same year, A.B. Cryptoteknik was re-established with Boris Hagelin as managing director. The C-32 cipher machine had already been exported to various countries before the Second World War; in the USA, this machine was manufactured under licence as the M-209 and was widely used. After several developments during the war years, Sweden banned the export of cipher machines as war material in 1948. Boris Hagelin then emigrated to Switzerland and, after a brief period of collaboration with Dr E. Gretener of Gretag, founded his own company, Crypto AG, in Zug / Steinhausen in 1952.
In the following decades, various cryptographic machines were manufactured, some with the characteristic double printing of strips with the plain text and encrypted content, but with the transition to electronic encryption, Boris Hagelin withdrew from the business.
Together with its sister company Info Guard AG, Crypto AG was based in Steinhausen under the umbrella of „Crypto Group AG“. In February 2018, the international business was transferred to the Crypto International Group; the Swiss business was continued by „Crypto Schweiz AG“ as part of a management buyout.
The fact that Crypto AG had been financed for decades by the American CIA and the German BND via a cover company in the Principality of Liechtenstein and that the sets exported to numerous countries around the world were equipped with a backdoor through which the American NSA had access to secret communications transmitted via Crypto AG's encryption technology caused a sensation when it was uncovered in February 2020. See Here for more information on Operation Rubicon.