Kurt Diebner

Kurt Diebner.

Kurt Diebner (born May 13, 1905 in Obernessa , Weißenfels district , † July 13, 1964 in Oberhausen ) was a German nuclear physicist .

Early years and studies

Diebner studied physics at the Universities of Innsbruck and Halle / Saale . During his studies he became a member of the Fridericiana Halle in 1925 . In 1931 he received his doctorate ( on column ionization of individual α-rays ). The work showed that his strengths lay in the field of experimental physics.

Shortly after receiving his doctorate, he moved to the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (PTR) and in 1934 to the research department of the Army Weapons Office (HWA). There he worked under the direction of Erich Schumann on the initial ignition of explosives with the help of radiation. From the summer of 1939 Diebner took over the management of the newly established department for atomic physics at the Wa FI (physics) group of the HWA in Kummersdorf near Berlin.

After the beginning of the Second World War , the HWA sought to control all research on nuclear fission for armaments purposes. The most important step in this direction was the takeover of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin-Dahlem. The Dutchman Peter Debye , head of the KWI for Physics since 1935, declined the offer to continue running the institute, as this was linked to the condition of accepting German citizenship . In his place, Diebner took up the position of managing director of the KWI for Physics and filled this position from January 1940 to September 1942. With the support of Erich Bagge , Diebner succeeded in persuading Werner Heisenberg to work on the German uranium project led by the HWA. When responsibility for the uranium project passed to the Reich Research Council and Heisenberg took over the management of the KWI for Physics, Diebner had to vacate his position as managing director.

At the same time as he was working at the KWI for Physics, Diebner began to set up his own atomic research group at the HWA's Gottow experimental site at the end of 1939 . The work of the uranium project was largely shaped by the tense relationship between Kurt Diebner and Werner Heisenberg. Today it is undisputed that Diebner had a more qualified reactor concept with the cube concept than Heisenberg with his plate concept.

After several documented reactor tests, in the spring of 1944, the exact date is not known, test G III b with 564 kilograms of uranium cubes and almost six hundred liters of heavy water took place in Gottow . The evaluation of the tests showed a 106 percent increase in neutrons for G III b. These values ​​were well above all previously achieved results. Diebner's reactor concept had proven its suitability. In autumn 1944 Diebner began a new reactor test in Gottow, the circumstances of which have not yet been clearly clarified. Obviously, there must have been an accident as a result of which employees were contaminated.

In January 1944, Diebner returned to the Harnack House as the deputy of the Reich Research Council's representative for nuclear physics research, Walther Gerlach . In the meantime, there was another research focus in addition to the reactor tests. There is evidence of Diebner's attempts in 1943/44 to initiate thermonuclear reactions using shaped charges . According to him, these attempts were unsuccessful. His participation in tests of nuclear experimental arrangements in March 1945 at the Ohrdruf military training area is likely. Werner Grothmann , chief adjutant of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , names him as the person responsible for carrying out these experiments.

Known workplaces of Diebner were the Heereswaffenamt Berlin, Hardenbergstrasse, the Army Research Center Kummersdorf south of Berlin and, from autumn 1944, an experimental laboratory in the premises of the secondary school in Stadtilm / Thuringia. During this time Diebner lived in nearby Griesheim Castle . In front of the preserved vaulted cellar of the middle school, which was destroyed at the end of the war, a fountain designed as a stainless steel cube today reminds of the uranium cubes that Diebner successfully used.

After the adventurous transfer of the Stadtilm laboratory to Bavaria, Diebner was arrested by US soldiers in May 1945 and spent six months in Farm Hall together with Nobel Prize winners Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn as well as Walther Gerlach, Erich Bagge and others as part of Operation Epsilon (England) interned.

After the Second World War

In 1947 Diebner founded the DURAG company in Hamburg . With the invention of a patented twilight switch, the family's economic situation improved.

From May 1955, Diebner and Erich Bagge applied for numerous reactor patents. These include patents on fast breeders and on plutonium extraction and separation. Two patent applications were made in 1955 together with Friedwardt Winterberg for thermonuclear bombs ( Mininuke , boosted weapon ), but he withdrew their ignition and use. He was not involved in the patent applications of his former boss Erich Schumann for the construction and detonation of thermonuclear bombs.

The publication of his compilation of nuclear research work from the war period, which was often cited as the “Tautorus List”, was published in 1956 in the magazine “Atomkernenergie” published by Erich Bagge under the name of a commercial employee “Tautorus”, as, according to a later statement by Bagge, he did “Was afraid of being sent to prison because of this list”. In the context of the nuclear tests mentioned in the previous section and those who died in the process, such fears are understandable.

On March 4, 1957, Diebner's name appeared in the German press with the announcement that he had unraveled the “secret of the nuclear fusion”. On March 20, 1957, he received another large article in the news magazine Der Spiegel , but he was unable to meet scientific expectations. However, research into the fusion remained his topic and led to further patent applications.

From 1955 Diebner acted as the initiator and editor of various magazines such as Kerntechnik . He was one of the founders of the Study Society for Nuclear Energy Utilization in Shipbuilding and Shipping , which ultimately led to the establishment of the GKSS in Geesthacht .

Working on Diebner's role

Diebner's role in the Heereswaffenamt and in the development of a nuclear weapon in the Third Reich is the subject of a publication by Rainer Karlsch : Hitler's bomb , which led to heated controversy in the German press. In autumn 2005, the US historian Mark Walker published a scientific work on behalf of the Max Planck Society in which Karlsch's thesis is supported. However, no radioactivity could be found as evidence for tests of nuclear fission weapons.

literature

• Richard von Schirach: The night of the physicists. Heisenberg, Hahn, Weizsäcker and the German bomb . Berenberg, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-937834-54-2 .
• Rainer Karlsch : Hitler's bomb. DVA, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-421-05809-1 .
• Rainer Karlsch, Heiko Petermann (ed.): For and against Hitler's bomb. Waxmann Verlag, Münster / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-8309-1893-6 .
• Mark Walker: German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939-49. Cambridge UP, 1989, ISBN 0-521-36413-2 .

Movies

In the television film End of Innocence , the character of Kurt Diebner is portrayed by Udo Samel . Andreas Döhler Diebner plays in the Norwegian series The Battle for Heavy Water ( Kampen om tungtvannet) .

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt Diebner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Scientific principles of nuclear weapons
• Materials and documents on thieves, hollow charges, thermonuclear bombs, etc. a.
• Video of the remains of the nuclear reactor in Gottow

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Paul Meißner (Ed.): Alt-Herren-Directory of the German Singers. Leipzig 1934, p. 202.
2. ↑ Annals d. Physics. F. 5, Volume 10.
3. ↑ Kurt Diebner, Erich Bagge, Kenneth Jay: From the fission of uranium to Calder Hall. Hamburg, 1957, p. 21.
4. ↑ Both belonged to the NSDAP: M. Frayn: Copenhagen. Background information. 2003. (PDF; 111 kB) p. 5.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Mark Walker: An armory? Nuclear weapons and reactor research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. Download (PDF file) .
6. ^ ^{A b} H. Arnold: On an autobiographical letter from Robert Döpel to Fritz Straßmann. (2012) . Section 3.3 on Bagge, Diebner and Tautorus with the subsection Diebner and the bomb .
7. ↑ Wolf Krotzky: Conversations with Werner Grothmann. unpublished manuscript of the interviews 2000–2001.
8. ^ Günter Nagel: Atomic tests in Germany. Heinrich-Jung-Verlag, Zella-Mehlis 2002, ISBN 3-930588-59-5 .
9. ↑ Construction of the well in 2004
10. ↑ Patent 1414759: Process for utilizing the fusion energy of deuterium and tritium with the help of convergent, periodic shock waves .
11. ^ Rainer Karlsch: Hitler's bomb. DVA, Munich, 2005, ISBN 3-421-05809-1 .
12. ↑ Michael Schaaf: There was no German atomic bomb , Berliner Zeitung March 14, 2005 [1]
13. ↑ Strahlentelex, Article 4: Zeit -fragen No. 13 of March 29, 2005: ElectrosmogReport
14. ↑ neueachricht.de - Ansgar Lange: "Hitler's bomb" as a lesson for journalistic loss of standard - reviewers retrospectively combat the Nazis' nuclear weapons program ( memo of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) of March 16, 2005.
15. ↑ No trace of "Hitler's bomb" in soil samples. (No longer available online.) Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt , February 15, 2006, archived from the original on December 21, 2015 ; Retrieved December 9, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.