German Nuclear Energy Project - Second Uranverein

Second Uranverein

The second Uranverein began after the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) squeezed out the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) of the Reichserziehungsministerium (REM, Reich Ministry of Education) and started the formal German nuclear energy project under military auspices. The second Uranverein was formed on 1 September 1939, the day World War II began, and it had its first meeting on 16 September 1939. The meeting was organized by Kurt Diebner, advisor to the HWA, and held in Berlin. The invitees included Walther Bothe, Siegfried Flügge, Hans Geiger, Otto Hahn, Paul Harteck, Gerhard Hoffmann, Josef Mattauch, and Georg Stetter. A second meeting was held soon thereafter and included Klaus Clusius, Robert Döpel, Werner Heisenberg, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. Also at this time, the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, after World War II the Max Planck Institute for Physics), in Berlin-Dahlem, was placed under HWA authority, with Diebner as the administrative director, and the military control of the nuclear research commenced.

When it was apparent that the nuclear energy project would not make a decisive contribution to ending the war in the near term, control of the KWIP was returned in January 1942 to its umbrella organization, the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society, after World War II the Max-Planck Gesellschaft), and HWA control of the project was relinquished to the RFR in July 1942. The nuclear energy project thereafter maintained its kriegswichtig (important for the war) designation and funding continued from the military. However, the German nuclear power project was then broken down into the following main areas: uranium and heavy water production, uranium isotope separation, and the Uranmaschine (uranium machine, i.e., nuclear reactor). Also, the project was then essentially split up between a number of institutes, where the directors dominated the research and set their own research agendas. The dominant personnel, facilities, and areas of research were:

• Walther Bothe — Director of the Institut für Physik (Institute for Physics) at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für medizinische Forschung (KWImF, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, after 1948 the Max-Planck-Institut für medizinische Forschung), in Heidelberg.
  • Measurement of nuclear constants. (6 physicists)
• Klaus Clusius — Director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
  • Isotope separation and heavy water production. (ca. 4 physical chemists and physicists)
• Kurt Diebner — Director of the HWA Versuchsstelle (testing station) in Gottow; Diebner, was also director the RFR experimental station in Stadtilm, Thuringia. He was also an advisor to the HWA on nuclear physics.
  • Measurement of nuclear constants. (ca. 6 physicists)
• Otto Hahn — Director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie (KWIC, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, after World War II the Max Planck Institut für Chemie — Otto Hahn Institut), in Berlin-Dahlem.
  • Transuranic elements, fission products, isotope separation, and measurement of nuclear constants. (ca. 6 chemists and physicists)
• Paul Harteck — Director of the Physical Chemistry Department of the University of Hamburg.
  • Heavy water production and isotope production. (5 physical chemists, physicists, and chemists)
• Werner Heisenberg — Director of the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Leipzig until summer 1942. Thereafter acting director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics), in Berlin-Dahlem.
  • Uranmaschine, isotope separation, and measurement of nuclear constants. (ca. 7 physicists and physical chemists).
• Hans Kopfermann — Director of the Second Experimental Physics Institute at the Georg-August University of Göttingen.
  • Isotope separation. (2 physicists)
• Nikolaus Riehl — Scientific Director of the Auergesellschaft.
  • Uranium production. (ca. 3 physicists and physical chemists)
• Georg Stetter — Director of the II. Physikalisches Institut (Second Physics Institute) at the University of Vienna.
  • Transuranic elements and measurement of nuclear constants. (ca. 6 physicists and physical chemists)

The point in 1942, when the army relinquished its control of the German nuclear energy project, was the zenith of the project relative to the number of personnel devoted to the effort. There were only about seventy scientists working on the project, with about forty devoting more than half their time to nuclear fission research. After this, the number of scientists working on applied nuclear fission diminished dramatically. Many of the scientists not working with the main institutes stopped working on nuclear fission and devoted their efforts to more pressing war related work.

On 4 June 1942, a conference initiated by the "Reich Minister for Armament and Ammunition" Albert Speer regarding the nuclear energy project, had decided its continuation merely for the aim of energy production. On 9 June 1942, Adolf Hitler issued a decree for the reorganization of the RFR as a separate legal entity under the Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition (RMBM, Reich Ministry for Armament and Ammunition, after autumn 1943 the Reich Ministry for Armament and War Production); the decree appointed Reich Marshal Hermann Göring as the president. The reorganization was done under the initiative of Minister Albert Speer of the RMBM; it was necessary as the RFR under Minister Bernhard Rust was ineffective and not achieving its purpose. It was the hope that Göring would manage the RFR with the same discipline and efficiency as he had in the aviation sector. A meeting was held on 6 July 1942 to discuss the function of the RFR and set its agenda. The meeting was a turning point in National Socialism's attitude towards science, as well as recognition that its policies which drove Jewish scientists out of Germany were a mistake, as the Reich needed their expertise. Abraham Esau was appointed on 8 December 1942 as Hermann Göring's Bevollmächtigter (plenipotentiary) for nuclear physics research under the RFR; in December 1943, Esau was replaced by Walther Gerlach. In the final analysis, placing the RFR under Göring's administrative control had little effect on the German nuclear energy project.

Over time, the HWA and then the RFR controlled the German nuclear energy project. The most influential people were Kurt Diebner, Abraham Esau, Walther Gerlach, and Erich Schumann. Schumann was one of the most powerful and influential physicists in Germany. Schumann was director of the Physics Department II at the Frederick William University (later, University of Berlin), which was commissioned and funded by the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, Army High Command) to conduct physics research projects. He was also head of the research department of the HWA, assistant secretary of the Science Department of the OKW, and Bevollmächtigter (plenipotentiary) for high explosives. Diebner, throughout the life of the nuclear energy project, had more control over nuclear fission research than did Walther Bothe, Klaus Clusius, Otto Hahn, Paul Harteck, or Werner Heisenberg.