Oskar Ritter (born 1913, date of death unknown) was a German physicist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club.
Ritter studied at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and the Universität Leipzig . In 1943, he received his doctorate in physics under Robert Döpel at Leipzig. [1]
Ritter worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranverein.
In the latter years of World War II, Berlin scientific organizations moved equipment and personnel out of the city to escape effects of Allied air raids. The Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, today, the Max-Planck Institut für Physik ) had partly evacuated to Hechingen and Haigerloch in southern Germany. The Uranmaschine (nuclear reactor) B 8 (B-VIII) was constructed in Haigerloch. The construction of the reactor utilized 1.5 tons of heavy water, 1.5 tons of uranium, and 10 tons of graphite. The configuration was uranium in the form of cubes (40 chains of 9 cubes each and 38 chains of 8 cubes each) in heavy water surrounded by graphite. The report on the B 8 experiment was written by Fritz Bopp, Erich Fischer, Werner Heisenberg, and Karl Wirtz from the KWIP and Walther Bothe, Peter Herbert Jensen, and Oskar Ritter from the Institut für Physik (Institute for Physics) of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für medizinische Forschung (KWImF, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research), in Heidelberg. [2] [3] [4]
The following report was published in Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte (Research Reports in Nuclear Physics), an internal publication of the German Uranverein . The reports were classified Top Secret, they had very limited distribution, and the authors were not allowed to keep copies. The reports were confiscated under the Allied Operation Alsos and sent to the United States Atomic Energy Commission for evaluation. In 1971, the reports were declassified and returned to Germany. The reports are available at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and the American Institute of Physics. [5] [6]
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Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe was a German nuclear physicist, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 with Max Born.
The names Uranverein or Uranprojekt came to be applied in Nazi Germany to the undertakings of research in nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, before and during World War II. The first effort started in April 1939, just months after the discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin in December 1938, but ended only few months later, shortly ahead of the September 1939 German invasion of Poland, for which many notable German physicists were drafted into the Wehrmacht. A second effort under the administrative purview of the Wehrmacht's Heereswaffenamt began on September 1, 1939, the day of the invasion of Poland. The program eventually expanded into three main efforts: Uranmaschine, production of uranium and heavy water, and uranium isotope separation. Eventually, the German military assessed that nuclear fission would not contribute significantly to the war, and in January 1942 the Heereswaffenamt turned the program over to the Reich Research Council while still continuing to fund the activity.
Kurt Diebner was a German nuclear physicist who is well known for directing and administering the German nuclear energy project, a secretive program aiming to build nuclear weapons for Nazi Germany during World War II. He was appointed the project's administrative director after Adolf Hitler authorized it.
Karl Eugen Julius Wirtz was a German nuclear physicist, born in Cologne. He was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months in 1945 under Operation Epsilon.
Horst Korsching was a German physicist. He was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months in 1945 under Operation Epsilon.
Georg Robert Döpel was a German experimental nuclear physicist. He was a participant in a group known as the "first Uranverein", which was spawned by a meeting conducted by the Reichserziehungsministerium, in April 1939, to discuss the potential of a sustained nuclear reaction. He worked under Werner Heisenberg at the University of Leipzig, and he conducted experiments on spherical layers of uranium oxide surrounded by heavy water. He was a contributor to the German nuclear weapon project (Uranprojekt). In 1945, he was sent to Russia to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project. He returned to Germany in 1957, and he became professor of applied physics and director of the Institut für Angewandte Physik at the Hochschule für Elektrotechnik, now Technische Universität, in Ilmenau (Thuringia).
Karl-Heinz Höcker was a German theoretical nuclear physicist who worked in the German Uranverein. After World War II, he worked at the university of Stuttgart and was the founder of the Institut für Kernenergetik und Energiesysteme.
Friedrich Arnold "Fritz" Bopp was a German theoretical physicist who contributed to nuclear physics and quantum field theory. He worked at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik and with the Uranverein. He was a professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and a President of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. He signed the Göttingen Manifesto.
Paul O. Müller was an Austrian theoretical nuclear physicist who worked in the German Uranverein. He was drafted into the German armed forces and died on the Russian Front in World War II.
Walter Herrmann was a German nuclear physicist and mechanical engineer who worked on the German nuclear energy project during World War II. After the war, he headed a laboratory for special issues of nuclear disintegration at Laboratory V in the Soviet Union.
Ernst Rexer was a German nuclear physicist. He worked on the German nuclear energy program during World War II. After the war, he was sent to Laboratory V, in Obninsk, to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project. In 1956, he was sent to East Germany, where he was a professor and director of the Institute for the Application of Radioactive Isotopes at the Technische Hochschule Dresden.
Peter Herbert Jensen was a German experimental nuclear physicist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, known as the Uranverein. After the war, he was a department director in the high-voltage section of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, in Mainz, and a supernumerary professor at the University of Mainz.
Wolfgang Gentner was a German experimental nuclear physicist.
Georg Carl Stetter was an Austrian-German nuclear physicist. Stetter was Director of the Second Physics Institute of the University of Vienna. He was a principal member of the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club. In the latter years of World War II, he was also the Director of the Institute for Neutron Research. After the war, he was dismissed from his university positions, and he then became involved in dust protection research. After his dismissal was overturned, he became Director of the First Physics Institute of the University of Vienna, and he began research on aerosols. In 1962, Stetter became a full Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In that same year, the Academy established their Commission for Clean Air, and Stetter served as its chairman until 1985.
Wilhelm Hanle was a German experimental physicist. He is known for the Hanle effect. During World War II, he made contributions to the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club. From 1941 until emeritus status in 1969, he was an ordinarius professor of experimental physics and held the chair of physics at the University of Giessen.
Gerhard Hoffmann was a German nuclear physicist. During World War II, he contributed to the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club.
Klaus Paul Alfred Clusius was a German physical chemist from Breslau (Wrocław), Silesia. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club; he worked on isotope separation techniques and heavy water production. After the war, he was a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Zurich. He died in Zurich.
Gottfried Freiherr von Droste (1908–1992), a.k.a. Gottfried Freiherr von Droste zu Vischering-Padberg, was a German physical chemist. He worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry (KWIC). He independently predicted that nuclear fission would release a large amount of energy. During World War II, he participated in the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranverein. In the latter years of the war, he worked at the Reich's University of Strassburg. After the war, he worked at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Federal Physical and Technical Institute and also held a position at the Technical University of Braunschweig.
Erich Horst Fischer was a German experimental physicist. He worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics (KWIP) and contributed to the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club. After World War II, he helped rebuild the KWIP branch at Hechingen, was a professor at the University of Tübingen and Ankara University, and then a research scientist for the German firm GKSS.
Wilhelm Groth was a German physical chemist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club; his main activity was the development of centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium. After the war, he was a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Hamburg. In 1950, he became director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Bonn. He was a principal in the 1956 shipment of three centrifuges for uranium enrichment to Brazil.
