Engelbert Broda (natural scientist)

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Engelbert Broda (born August 29, 1910 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; † October 26, 1983 in Hainburg an der Donau ) was an Austrian chemist who was particularly concerned with physical chemistry .

Life

Grave of Engelbert Broda's grandfather Engelbert Broda (1844–1905) in the Vienna Central Cemetery

Engelbert Broda was born in 1910 as the first son of Viola and Ernst Broda, a Viennese lawyer. He grew up with his brother Christian , later Austria's Minister of Justice, in a social democratic and liberal environment.

His uncle Georg Wilhelm Pabst , later a well-known film director, and Egon Schönhof, who had returned from Soviet captivity as a staunch communist, had a formative influence on him . During his student days he joined the communists in the resistance against Austrofascism . A series of imprisonments for his political activities followed.

After the annexation of Austria , Broda fled to the United Kingdom in 1938 .

Scientific career

Engelbert Broda received his doctorate in 1934 at the University of Vienna to Dr. phil. (Dissertation: About the X-ray decay of ammonium sulphate solutions. 2 studies on the viscometric and osmotic behavior of high polymers in solution ) From 1940 he worked in the Medical Research Council at University College London on the conversion of light into chemical energy. From 1941 he worked in the Cavendish Laboratory on radioactivity and nuclear fission. During this time he began to deal intensively with the work of Ludwig Boltzmann .

In 1947 he returned to the University of Vienna. There he was professor for physical chemistry from 1955 to 1980 . In 1975 his main scientific work on the "evolution of bioenergetic processes" was published.

From 1970 to 1972 he was chairman of the Austrian Society for Pure and Applied Biophysics (later the Austrian Biophysical Society, ÖBG).

Espionage charge

In 2009, a book was published entitled Spies, the Rise and Fall of the KGB in America , accusing Engelbert Broda of espionage against the United States and Great Britain and for the USSR. Co-author is the former KGB employee Alexander Vassiliev, who was commissioned at the time to write a history of the Soviet secret service. In return, he was given access to previously unpublished documents, which he later smuggled into the West and published there.

According to KGB records, which were drawn up in August 1943, Engelbert Broda (code name "Eric") was the main source of information for the Soviet Union on American and British atomic bomb research.

In a report by the British secret service MI5 , the suspicion was expressed that Engelbert Broda was a spy, but that MI5 had no evidence against Broda at the time.

Political Initiatives

Broda joined the Pugwash movement , in which scientists campaign for arms control and disarmament. Research into possible uses of solar energy was repeatedly propagated by him. Another concern for him was nature conservation . So he took initiatives to prevent the construction of the Dürnstein power plant in the Wachau . For this he received the Austrian Nature Conservation Award in 1979.

Awards

He rests in a grave of honor in Vienna's central cemetery (group 33 G, number 70).

Publications

  • Ludwig Boltzmann. Human being, physicist, philosopher , 1955
  • Nuclear Power - Fear and Hope , 1956
  • The Evolution of the Bioenergetic Processes , 1975
  • Science, Responsibility, Peace , 1985

literature

  • Broda, Engelbert , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 157
  • John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, Alexander Vassiliev: Spies, the Rise and Fall of the KGB in America , ISBN 978-0-300-12390-6 .
  • Charmian Brinson , Richard Dove : A Matter of Intelligence: MI5 and the Surveillance of Anti-Nazi Refugees 1933-1950 . Manchester University Press, 2014
  • Gerhard Oberkofler and Peter Goller (Innsbruck): Engelbert Broda. Contours from his life (with attached documents and facsimiles). In: Engelbert Broda (1910-1983). Science and Society ed. from the Central Library for Physics in Vienna. Vienna 1993, p. 7- p. 76.
  • Paul Broda: Scientist Spies. A memoir of my three parents and the Atom Bomb . Leicester 2011.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Catalog slip at the University Library Vienna
  2. ↑ Martin Hohenegger: 50 Years of Biophysics Austria . In: Biophysics News . No. 2 , 2011, p. 1 ( biophysics-austria.at [PDF; accessed on July 4, 2014] English, newsletter of the Austrian Biophysical Society). 50 Years of Biophysics Austria ( Memento of the original from July 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.biophysics-austria.at
  3. ^ John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliew: Spies, the Rise and Fall of the KGB in America . Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2009, ISBN 978-0-300-12390-6
  4. ^ Leonard Doyle: New spy book names Engelbert Broda as KGB atomic spy in Britain . In: The Telegraph , May 10, 2009. Retrieved July 18, 2012. 
  5. ↑ Engelbert Broda . mi5.gov.uk. Archived from the original on July 16, 2012. Retrieved July 18, 2012.
  6. ↑ Catalog slip at the University Library Vienna
personal data
SURNAME Broda, Engelbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian chemist, physicist
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1983
Place of death Hainburg on the Danube