Karl Heinz Beckurts

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Karl Heinz Beckurts (born May 16, 1930 in Rheydt ; † July 9, 1986 in Straßlach ) was a German physicist and manager . He was one of the founders of neutron physics in Germany after the Second World War and head of research at Siemens AG . In 1986 he was murdered by terrorists from the Red Army Faction .

biography

Memorial stele to Karl Heinz Beckurts and Eckhard Groppler on the Siemens site in Neuperlach

Beckurts was the son of the industrial clerk and general director of the Gustloff works Karl Beckurts and of Gisela Beckurts, née Countess Brockdorff . Beckurts studied physics from 1949 at the University of Göttingen , where he received his physics diploma in 1954 and his doctorate in 1956 with the thesis non-stationary neutron fields. He then worked as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Physics there , where Karl Wirtz , who had already supervised his diploma and doctoral theses, was his teacher. When Wirtz was appointed director of the Institute for Neutron Physics and Reactor Technology (INR) at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center , Beckurts accompanied him as head of its experimental department from 1958. At the same time, from 1959 he was a lecturer at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , where he completed his habilitation in 1961. From 1963 to 1970 he was director of the Institute for Applied Nuclear Physics at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and from 1964 an adjunct professor at the TH Karlsruhe. From 1967 to 1969 he was visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg . In 1969 he was given a full professorship in Heidelberg , which he resigned when he became scientific and technical director of the Jülich nuclear research facility in 1970, where he was chairman of the board from 1975 to 1980. In 1971 he became honorary professor at the University of Bonn and in 1974 at the University of Heidelberg. From 1980 until his assassination in 1986 he was a member of the Executive Board and head of the central research and technology department at Siemens AG .

From 1963 to 1966 Beckurts represented the Federal Republic of Germany in the International Nuclear Data Scientific Working Group (INDSWG) of the IAEA in Vienna. He was also on the Euratom Committee on Nuclear Data and Reactor Physics . From 1973 to 1975 he acted as chairman of the Kerntechnischen Gesellschaft (KTG) and vice-president of the German Atomic Forum . From 1973 to 1976 he was chairman of the nuclear engineering society in the German Atomic Forum and also chairman of the working group of large research institutions .

From 1971 to 1975 he was a member of the German Science Council . He was accepted as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering in 1977.

Beckurts was married twice. From his first marriage he had a son and two daughters.

plant

With Karl Wirtz he wrote a standard work on neutron physics. He was one of the developers of Research Reactor 2 in Karlsruhe, set up modern data processing technology in the nuclear research center there and, as director of the Institute for Applied Nuclear Physics, expanded nuclear solid-state physics . He was significantly involved in the instrumentation of the super-flux reactor at the Laue-Langevin Institute in Grenoble.

Attack and murder

Eckhard Groppler memorial path on the Siemens site in Neuperlach

Karl Heinz Beckurts and his chauffeur Eckhard Groppler were murdered in a bomb attack on July 9, 1986 at 7:32 a.m. in Straßlach near Munich. The perpetrators used an electronic booby trap . A " Mara Cagol Command " of the RAF confessed to the attack . The perpetrators are still unknown today. The Federal Criminal Police Office named Horst Ludwig Meyer, who was shot by police officers in Vienna in 1999, as the only suspect . In a renewed analysis in 2009, the confessional letter found “a very rich and meaningful DNA trace” that could not previously be assigned to any person.

Since the attack fell in the middle of a heated discussion about nuclear energy in West Germany (after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986), it has been speculated that the RAF wanted to win sympathy with the West German anti-nuclear movement . In her letter of confession, she points to Beckurts' involvement in military electronics research as well as his leading role as a representative of nuclear energy.

Commemoration

Memorial next to the site of the bomb attack on Karl Heinz Beckurts and Eckhard Groppler in Straßlach

At the site of the attack ( 48 ° 0 ′ 43.8 ″  N , 11 ° 30 ′ 55.5 ″  E ) there is a planted memorial on the roadside. The Karl Heinz Beckurts Foundation was founded in 1987 by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Großforschungseinrichtungen (AGF), today's Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers , in honor and in memory of Beckurts . It "promotes scientific work that is suitable to act as a bridge between the natural and technical sciences on the one hand and the humanities on the other". The foundation awards the Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize every year . Siemens named the Karl-Heinz-Beckurts-Haus after him at the Munich location in Neuperlach -Süd. A neighboring path is named after Eckhard Groppler. Beckurts and Gropplers are honored with a memorial stele on the company premises . A street in Jülich bears the name of Beckurts.

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual references and sources

  1. ↑ a b Terror: There were super professionals at work. In: Der Spiegel , July 14, 1986.
  2. ↑ Ulrike Schulz: Simson: From the improbable survival of a company 1856-1993. Wallstein, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-1256-2 , p. 136.
  3. ↑ Made at the Max Planck Institute for Physics : Obituary for Beckurts, in: Physikalische Blätter . Volume 42, 1986 (see literature).
  4. ^ Walter Hof, Eva Paur, Gebhard Schramm (ed.): The forest city in Karlsruhe. Info, 2007, p. 314.
  5. ↑ How do you discover good researchers? Interview with Ina Beckurts. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 6, 2007.
  6. ↑ Lisa Wreschniok, Stefanie Waske: Hunt for a phantom: The last generation of the RAF. In: Bayerischer Rundfunk , June 29, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Beckurts, Karl Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and manager, RAF murder victim
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheydt
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 1986
PLACE OF DEATH Straßlach