Creation
On the initiative of Erich Schumann, the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) was inaugurated on 16 March 1937 by Reich Minister Bernhard Rust of the Reichserziehungsministerium (REM, Reich Education Ministry). [1] The RFR was set up to centralize planning for all basic and applied research in Germany, with the exception of aeronautical research, which was under the supervision of Reich Marshal Hermann Göring. General Karl Heinrich Emil Becker, [2] head of the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) and dean and professor in the faculty of defense technology [3] at the Technische Hochschule Berlin, was its president (1937 to 1940). [4] [5] After Becker's death in 1940, Rust took over as president of the RFR. [6] The vice-president was O. Wacker of the REM. In actuality, the direction of the RFR was carried out by Rudolf Mentzel, the president of the Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft (DFG, German Scientific Research Association), which, as of 1937, was the new name of the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (NG, Emergency Association of German Science). Support for research was decided by the heads of 13 special sections of the RFR (Fachspartenleiter). [7]
Other members of the Council included: [8]
- Kurt Diebner – Head of the RFR nuclear physics experimental site at Stadtilm in Thuringia and director of the Versuchsstelle (testing station) of the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) in Gottow.
- Abraham Esau – Head of the physics division from 1937 to the end of 1943. Plenipotentiary for nuclear physics from December 1942 to 1943, then plenipotentiary for high-frequency physics. [9]
- Walther Gerlach – Replaced Abraham Esau as head of the physics division and plenipotentiary for nuclear physics on 1 January 1944.
- Werner Osenberg – Head of the planning board in the RFR 29 June 1943 to 1945. He also initiated the recall of approximately 5000 scientists and engineers from active military duty on the front so they could devote their talents to research and development. By the end of the war, the number recalled reached 15,000. [10]
- Otto Scherzer – Head of radar finding (1944–1945).
- Erich Schumann – Plenipotentiary for the physics of explosives (1942–1945).
- Peter Adolf Thiessen – Head of the division of chemistry and organic materials.
Nazi Germany undertook several research programs relating to nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, before and during World War II. These were variously called Uranverein or Uranprojekt. 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 development, uranium and heavy water production, and uranium isotope separation. Eventually, the German military determined 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 continuing to fund the activity.
Kurt Diebner was a German nuclear physicist who is well known for directing and administering parts of the German nuclear weapons program, 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.
Erich Schumann was a German physicist who specialized in acoustics and explosives, and had a penchant for music. He was a general officer in the army and a professor at the University of Berlin and the Technical University of Berlin. When Adolf Hitler came to power he joined the Nazi Party. During World War II, his positions in the Army Ordnance Office and the Army High Command made him one of the most powerful and influential physicists in Germany. He ran the German nuclear energy program from 1939 to 1942, when the army relinquished control to the Reich Research Council. His role in the project was obfuscated after the war by the German physics community's defense of its conduct during the war. The publication of his book on the military's role in the project was not allowed by the British occupation authorities. He was director of the Helmholtz Institute of Sound Psychology and Medical Acoustics.
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.
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.
Robert Abraham Esau was a German physicist.
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.
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.
Rudolf Mentzel PhD was a German chemist and a Nazi policy-maker. An influential figure and one of the leading science administrators in Germany's nuclear energy project, Mentzel served as the scientific and technical adviser on the development of atomic bombs to the German government, and on some part, as the director of this program. Originally a Nazi by political orientation, Mentzel served as one of the top leading science policy-makers to Adolf Hitler and his cabinet in his role as an undersecretary of the Reich Ministry of Education (REM) in the Office for Science. In the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, he was on the advisory board and, during World War II, Second Vice President of the Kaiser Wilhelm, supervising the clandestine research critical to develop the atomic bombs. During this period, his sphere of responsibility also momentarily grew and he soon was appointed as the president of the German Association for the Support and Advancement of Scientific Research, acting as the director of the nuclear program.
Karl Heinrich Emil Becker was a German weapons engineer and artillery general. He advocated and implemented close ties of the military to science for purposes of advanced weapons development. He was the head of the Army Ordnance Office, Senator of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, first president of the Reich Research Council, the first general officer to be a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, as well as being a professor at both the University of Berlin and the Berlin Technical University. He was an early and key supporter of the development of ballistic rockets as weapons. The military-scientific infrastructure he helped implement supported the German nuclear energy program, known as the Uranium Club. Being depressed over heavy criticism from Hitler for shortfalls in munitions production, he committed suicide in 1940. He was given a State funeral.
Carl Krauch was a German chemist, industrialist and Nazi war criminal. He was an executive at BASF ; during World War II, he was chairman of the supervisory board. He was a key implementer of the Reich's Four-Year Plan to achieve national economic self-sufficiency and promote industrial production. He was Plenipotentiary of Special Issues in Chemical Production, a senator of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, and an honorary professor at the University of Berlin. He was convicted in the IG Farben trial after World War II and sentenced to six years in prison.
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.
Friedrich Gustav Adolf Eduard Ludwig Schmidt-Ott was a German lawyer, scientific organizer, and science policymaker. He was the Prussian Minister of Culture, president of the Emergency Association of German Science, on the advisory boards of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its institutes, and chairman of the Donor Federation of the Emergency Association of German Science.
Kurt Starke was a German radiochemist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club. He independently discovered the transuranic element neptunium. From 1947 to 1959, he taught and did research in Canada and the United States. From 1959 until he achieved emeritus status, he was at the German University of Marburg, where he established and became director of the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry. He was also the first dean of the Department of Physical Chemistry of the University of Marburg, which opened in 1971.
Reinhold Mannkopff was a German experimental physicist who specialized in spectroscopy. In 1939, he was a member of the first Uranium Club, the German nuclear energy project. After World War II, he was the secretary of the Northwest German branch of the German Physical Society for over 20 years.
