Nikolaus Riehl

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Nikolaus Riehl (born May 24, 1901 in Saint Petersburg , † August 2, 1990 in Munich ) was a Russian-German physicist and radio chemist .

Life

His father Wilhelm Riehl was an engineer in the Russian electrotechnical works of Siemens & Halske in Saint Petersburg until 1917 . His mother, Helene Kagan, came from a Jewish-Russian family of doctors. Nikolaus Riehl spoke fluent Russian and German. He graduated from the German St. Petri School in Saint Petersburg and moved with his parents to Berlin after the Peace of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 . Riehl studied physics and physical chemistry at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin from 1920 to 1927 . Here he made the acquaintance of Lise Meitner's research team in the radiochemical department of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem , which Otto Hahn was head of. In 1927 he did his doctorate under Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner on a Geiger counter for beta-ray spectroscopy .

Auergesellschaft

After completing his dissertation, Nikolaus Riehl found a job as a research assistant at the Auergesellschaft , which was part of the Phoebus cartel . Later he became deputy head of the radiological department of this company and with the acquisition of the diverse products such as incandescent lamps (with filaments made of tungsten), X-ray items and radioactive substances. In 1937 he became head of the lighting technology department at Auergesellschaft, and in 1938 he completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg . As part of these tasks, Riehl had contact with Hans-Joachim Born , Alexander Catsch and Karl Günther Zimmer , who were doing research under Nikolai Timofejew-Ressowski at the Institute for Experimental Genetics of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in Berlin-Buch . With Paul Max Wolf , an employee of the scientific laboratories of the Auergesellschaft, and Karl Zimmer (1911–1988) research with X-ray irradiation in genetics was carried out. As a result, Nikolai Timofejew-Ressowski, Max Delbrück , Zimmer and Riehl published the interdisciplinary study on the nature of gene mutation and gene structure in 1935 . In this study, the hit theory of biological radiation effects was postulated. During the time he worked for Auer, Riehl gained a reputation as a specialist in luminescence and played a key role in developing the fluorescent lamp that the Auergesellschaft brought onto the market in 1935.

On September 9, 1939, Riehl became head of uranium production at Auergesellschaft. Paul Max Wolf became head of the company's radiological department. Hans-Joachim Born from the Philipp Hoernes Chemical Laboratory was the factory manager of the rare earths plant in Oranienburg of the Auergesellschaft. Until shortly before the end of the Second World War , the researchers under Riehl and in collaboration with Degussa succeeded in melting pure uranium metal, which was to become the starting product for nuclear fission. Because of the approaching fronts, laboratories were relocated to the Brandenburg area and finished uranium metal cubes were stored in secret locations. Although all the work was kept strictly confidential, rumors about the work had reached the USA and the Soviet Union . Both sides started a feverish hunt for the materials and the German specialists because they were working on their own nuclear programs. Riehl and his family had retired to his summer home near Kagar , where he continued to carry out his casting tests in a barn under primitive conditions.

Riehl in the Soviet Union

On April 21, 1945, Soviet experts examined the Auergesellschaft operations in Oranienburg, which had been almost completely destroyed by targeted American bombing. Like other senior staff, Riehl was taken there and interviewed by the physicists Georgi Fljorow and Lev Arzimowitsch . Patents, documents, laboratory equipment and heavy metals were seized, including 900 tons of monazite sand , 125 tons of thorium compounds, about 100 tons of zirconium . About 40 of the almost 100 Russian scientists involved in the Soviet atomic bomb project in Laboratory 2 were looking for more scientists and uranium in the areas occupied by the Red Army. The German researchers who had already been registered by the Soviet Army were asked, under slight pressure, to make their knowledge available to the victorious power. So it happened that after talks with the Russian physicist Juli Borissowitsch Chariton in Berlin on July 9, 1945, a number of German scientists and their families were flown to the USSR, including Nikolaus Riehl. In addition, "recruited" the NKVD , among others, Manfred von Ardenne , Gustav Hertz , Peter Adolf Thiessen and Max Volmer for research tasks in the Soviet Union. The Red Army finally seized almost 100 tons of uranium oxide in Neustadt-Glewe , which corresponded to about 25-40 percent of the uranium from the entire area of ​​the German Empire and Czechoslovakia . It was there possibly intended for transport by submarine via Penang to Arakatsu Bunsaku in today's Korean Hŭngnam . These transports from Kiel had been in existence since December 1943 - they ended with the U 234 journey shortly before the end of the war. Chariton estimated the time gained through the uranium found and transported to the Soviet Union in the extraction and enrichment of uranium to create the first Soviet bomb at about a year.

From 1945 to 1950, Nikolaus Riehl was in charge of the production of physically pure uranium metal in Plant No. 12 in the Russian Elektrostal . The following German scientists worked here under his direction: A. Baroni, Hans-Joachim Born , Alexander Catsch, Werner Kirst, H. E. Ortmann, Przybilla, Herbert Schmitz, Walter Sommerfeldt, Herbert Thieme, Tobein, Günter Wirths and Karl Günter Zimmer. From the last quarter of 1946, Plant 12 in Elektrostal supplied about three tons of metallic uranium per week to Laboratory No. 2 . The first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated on August 29, 1949. From 1950 the production of uranium metal was increased to about one ton per day, although the plant was not the only uranium enrichment site.

After the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb in 1949, Riehl was no longer required in Plant 12. From 1950 he was given the management of the Institute Laboratory B in Sungul (object 0211). Hans-Joachim Born, Alexander Catsch and Karl Zimmer had already been transferred here in 1947. Ortmann, Baroni and Schmitz followed with Riehl. There were never more than 26 Germans in Sungul, with a total of 95 employees in 1946 and 451 in 1955. Reactors at the Sungul Institute produced radioactive substances and the employees processed them and carried out research in the fields of radiobiology, radiochemistry, dosimetry and non-military applications of radioactive substances and antidotes Radiation damage. The following Germans worked in this institute: Renata von Ardenne ( Manfred von Ardenne's sister ), Wilhelm Menke, Willi Lange, Joachim Pani, Kurt Rintelen, Werner Czulius , Hans Jürgen von Oertzen, Ernst Rexer and Carl Friedrich Weiss. The institute was overseen by the 9th Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior (MWD) .

For his work on the Soviet nuclear research project, Riehl received the Stalin Prize 1st Class, the Order of Lenin and the title Hero of Socialist Labor in 1949 (these awards were awarded together). The prices also included a dacha west of Moscow, which Riehl did not use.

Nonetheless, from 1952 onwards, Riehl urged Beria and Sawenjagin to release his family and his scientific colleagues to Germany. Thereupon he was ordered to spend another three years (1952-1954) for the Soviet Union in a nuclear research institute in which other German scientists were also active in Agudzera in the Gulripsch district near Sukhumi / Abkhazia ( Georgia ). A commemorative photo of Riehl is published on the website of the institute, which has now been relocated to Tbilisi . ( see web links )

Riehl in the Federal Republic of Germany

On April 4, 1955, Riehl and his family were flown to the GDR ; At the beginning of July 1955 he came to the Federal Republic of Germany leaving behind almost all of his assets .

He went to the Institute for Technical Physics at the Technical University of Munich , where he worked for Heinz Maier-Leibnitz and was involved in setting up the research reactor in Garching in 1957 . In 1961 he received a full professorship in physics and became director of the laboratory for technical physics at the Technical University of Munich. He worked on questions of solid state physics, such as the effect of high-energy radiation on solids, proton mobility in ice and in organic structures as well as luminescence and had numerous students. 1962–1963 Riehl was chairman of the Bavarian Physical Society . In 1970 Riehl retired; In 1973 he received the Bavarian Order of Merit .

Riehl and his wife Ilse had two daughters Ingeborg, Irene and a son who died as a toddler.

Publications

  • Nikolaus Riehl: Ten Years in a Golden Cage: Experiences during the establishment of the Soviet uranium industry . Riederer, Stuttgart 1988.
  • With Heinrich Ortmann: About the structure of the zinc sulfide luminophore . Verl. Chemie, 1957.
  • With Bernhard Bullemer and Hermann Engelhardt (eds.): Physics of Ice. Proceedings of the International Symposium . Munich, 1968 (plenum, 1969)
  • With Fred Fischer: Introduction to Luminescence . Thiemig, 1971.
  • Stalin's captive. Nikolaus Riehl and the soviet race for the bomb . American Chemical Society 1996 (translation and preface by Frederick Seitz ).
  • Physics and technical applications of luminescence . Jumper; Edition: Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1941 (October 4, 2013). ISBN 978-3662017586

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Short biography of Nikolaus Riehl on rbb-online.de , accessed on December 23, 2013
  2. ^ A b Thomas Claus, Maren Schibilski: Secret thing Nazi uranium. Atomic hunt in Brandenburg ; Film documentation of the rbb from November 26, 2013
  3. ^ Nikolaus Riehl, Frederick Seitz: Stalin's captive; Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet race for the bomb , American Chemical Society, 1996.
  4. ↑ According to HJ Born, he did his doctorate with Lise Meitner (see HJ Born, H. Oberst, A. Seeger: NIKOLAUS RIEHL 60 years / HANS OTTO KNESER 60 years / ULRICH DEHLINGER 60 years. In: Physik Journal. 17, 1961, p . 328, doi : 10.1002 / phbl.19610170705 , free full text), according to the obituary in the Physikalische Blätter (see L. Becker, L. Mader: In memoriam Nikolaus Riehl. In: Physik Journal. 46, 1990, p. 450, doi : 10.1002 / phbl.19900461114 , free full text) from Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner
  5. ↑ On the nature of gene mutation and gene structure , news from the Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft zu Göttingen (PDF file; 8.43 MB)
  6. ↑ Florian Schmaltz: Warfare agent research in National Socialism: On the cooperation of Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, the military and industry. History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism , Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005. 676S. P. 252
  7. ^ Rainer Karlsch, Zbynek Zeman, Urangeheimnisse: the Erzgebirge in the focus of world politics 1933-1960 p. 32
  8. ^ Zhores A. Medvedev, Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev, Ellen Dahrendorf, The unknown Stalin , p. 120
  9. ↑ ZEIT ONLINE: A Perfect Copy , August 26, 1999.
  10. ^ Department V for atomic physics and physical chemistry of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt under the direction of Dr. Due to a lack of space in Weida, Carl-Friedrich Weiss was moved to the Clad company premises in Ronneburg. ( Memento from February 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Paul Maddrell: Gateway to the Soviet Union. The occupation of Germany and the spying of the USSR by the British intelligence service. (PDF; 2.0 MB) April 1, 2003, accessed on July 9, 2020 (activities of the British intelligence service as part of the Dragon Returnee campaign to research returned specialists).
  12. ↑ History - Gerhard Abstreiter ( Memento from December 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Riehl, Nikolaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian-German nuclear chemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 24, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH 2nd August 1990
Place of death Munich