Rainer Karlsch

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Rainer Karlsch
Born3 April 1957
Stendal
NationalityGerman
Awards Stinnes Foundation prize (1996)
Academic background
Alma mater Humboldt University of Berlin
Thesis Probleme der Neuererbewegung in der Industrie der DDR in den fünfziger und sechziger Jahren – dargestellt am Beispiel der Einführung sowjetischer Neuerermethoden [1]  (1986)
Notable works Hitlers Bombe (2005)

Rainer Karlsch (born 3 April 1957) is a German economic historian and author. [2]

Contents

Biography

Karlsch was born in Stendal. He studied economic history at the Humboldt University of Berlin and graduated in 1986 with a doctorate in Economics. [3]

Until 1991, he taught economic and social history at his alma mater. [3] From 1992 to 1994, he was an assistant at the Historical Commission for Berlin  [ de ]. [4] During the 1990s, he helped the Max Planck Society reclaim the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics documentation relating to the Nazi German nuclear programme that had been removed to the Soviet Union after World War II. [5] From 1995 to 1998, he was an assistant to a key DFG program.[ citation needed ] He was affiliated with the Humboldt University of Berlin again between 1995 and 2000. [4] From 2000 to 2001 he was employed by the Institute for Economic Policy and Economic History (Institut für Wirtschaftspolitik und Wirtschaftsgeschichte) of the Free University of Berlin. [6] He then worked for the Institute for Applied Demography (Institut für Angewandte Demographie) in Berlin until 2004. [4]

Since 2004, he has been an independent researcher working in the area of economic and business history, based in Berlin. From 2017 to 2021, he held a position at the Berlin branch of the Institute of Contemporary History (Munich). [6]

Research

Karlsch investigated the four-year history of Nazi German atomic research through a collaboration with the TV journalist Heiko Petermann. They were supported by international historians, physicists and radiochemists.

In 2005, he published his controversial book Hitlers Bombe , in which he presented evidence that Nazi scientists working under Kurt Diebner experimented inconclusively with a large atomic reactor during the final stages of World War II and may have tested a crude nuclear weapon in Thuringia on 3 March 1945, killing several hundred prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates. [7] The results of the research, along with an additional unpublished document from the Russian state archives, were then summarised by Karlsch and a US historian of Nazi science, Mark Walker, in Physics World . [8] As Walker explained in 2024, the documentary and oral evidence had led Karlsch to conclude that the nuclear weapon tested was not an atomic bomb, but "a hybrid fission/fusion device using hollow-point technology". The Nazi German attempts to provoke nuclear fusion through hollow-point explosions (thus bypassing nuclear reaction based on enriched uranium) are known to have been unsuccessful. [9]

The characterisation of the weapon developed by the Nazis towards the end of the war was contested. A number of other historians active in the field – Dieter Hoffmann, Paul Lawrence Rose, Bernhard Fulda, and Michael Schaaf – have played down the significance of the details uncovered by Karlsch and disputed that it was possible to speak of a Nazi nuclear test or a Nazi atom bomb. [10] [11] [12] [13] While accusing Karlsch of "a catastrophic lack of understanding of physics", Schaaf nonetheless conceded that Karlsch had shown "German research into uranium went further than we'd thought". [12] Karlsch himself admitted that the developed weapons might better be characterised as atomic "grenades", [13] and Walker wrote that it was not clear whether the tested device could be called a "nuclear weapon", [14] but they insisted that the matter was not settled and more research was required. [8] Karlsch's argumentation was pursued further by the historian Günter Nagel, whose 2002 work Atomversuche in Deutschland. Geheime Uranarbeiten in Gottow, Oranienburg und Stadtilm had been based on an exchange of results with Karlsch, [15] in his book Das geheime deutsche Uranprojekt 1939–1945 (2016), and by the physicist Heinz Dieter Haupt in his book Deutschlands Weg zur Bombe (2022). [16]

Awards

In 1996, Karlsch won the first prize from the Stinnes Foundation for his 1993 book Allein bezahlt? on the handling of war reparations in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. [17]

Scientific works

Authored

Edited

References

  1. ↑ Probleme der Neuererbewegung in der Industrie der DDR in den fünfziger und sechziger Jahren - dargestellt am Beispiel der Einführung sowjetischer Neuerermethoden / Rainer Karlsch, Humboldt University of Berlin Library , retrieved 12 February 2025
  2. ↑ Bessel, Richard (2010-08-03). Germany 1945: From War to Peace. HarperCollins. pp. 379–. ISBN   978-0-06-054037-1 . Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  3. 1 2 "Rainer Karlsch", Die Geschichte der Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, archived from the original on 12 February 2025, retrieved 12 February 2025
  4. 1 2 3 Karlsch, Rainer, German National Library, archived from the original on 17 November 2024, retrieved 12 February 2025
  5. ↑ Walker, Mark (2024), "The Historiography of "Hitler's Atomic Bomb"" (PDF), Physics in Perspective , 26 (1): 26–27, Bibcode:2024PhP....26...18W, doi:10.1007/s00016-024-00309-6
  6. 1 2 Rainer Karlsch, Aufbau Verlage, archived from the original on 28 November 2023, retrieved 12 February 2025
  7. ↑ Grunden, Walter E.; Walker, Mark; Yamazaki, Masakatsu (2005), "Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan", Osiris , ser. II, 20: 114, JSTOR   3655253
  8. 1 2 Karlsch, Rainer; Walker, Mark (June 2005), "New light on Hitler's bomb", Physics World , 18 (6): 15–18, doi:10.1088/2058-7058/18/6/23 . Unpaginated online version.
  9. ↑ Walker, Mark (2024), "The Historiography of "Hitler's Atomic Bomb"" (PDF), Physics in Perspective , 26: 27–28, Bibcode:2024PhP....26...18W, doi:10.1007/s00016-024-00309-6
  10. ↑ Haines, Lester (3 June 2005), 'Nazi nuke' sketch unearthed: Proof of Hitler's nuclear capability?, The Register, archived from the original on 3 August 2020
  11. ↑ Vincent, Michael (15 March 2005), Historian's claims of a Nazi atomic bomb causes controversy, The World Today, archived from the original on 14 February 2006
  12. 1 2 Furlong, Ray (14 March 2005), Hitler 'tested small atom bomb', BBC, archived from the original on 8 November 2006
  13. 1 2 Did Hitler Have the Bomb?, Deutsche Welle, 14 March 2005, archived from the original on 24 January 2016
  14. ↑ Grunden, Walter E.; Walker, Mark; Yamazaki, Masakatsu (2005), "Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan", Osiris , ser. II, 20: 130, JSTOR   3655253
  15. ↑ Hentschel, Klaus (2013), "Review of Günter Nagel, Wissenschaft für den Krieg: Die geheimen Arbeiten der Abteilung Forschung des Heereswaffenamtes, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012", Isis , 104 (4): 859, doi:10.1086/676375
  16. ↑ Walker, Mark (2024), "The Historiography of "Hitler's Atomic Bomb"" (PDF), Physics in Perspective , 26: 28, 39, Bibcode:2024PhP....26...18W, doi:10.1007/s00016-024-00309-6
  17. ↑ Dr. Rainer Karlsch, Societäts-Verlag, 2 December 2019, archived from the original on 2 November 2024, retrieved 12 February 2025
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