Soviet atomic bomb project

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Model of the first Soviet atomic bomb in the Moscow Polytechnic Museum

The Soviet atomic bomb project was the Soviet Union's response to the German uranium project and the US Manhattan project of the 1930s and 1940s. It began in the mid-1930s, initially under the direction of Abram Joffe and from 1941 by Igor Kurchatov . The project ended with the first successful detonation of a Soviet atomic bomb on August 29, 1949, and resumed in 1950 to develop a hydrogen bomb.

Nuclear research in the Soviet Union

Start of nuclear research

Systematic research on radioactivity and nuclear physics began in Soviet Russia in 1917 . For this purpose in 1920 a physical-technical institute was founded in Petrograd at the Academy of Sciences ( Russian Ленинградский физико-технический институт Leningradski fisхх-technitscheski institut ; abbr. ЛФТoffiz .: PTFTI Ф; abbr. Under the leadership of Abram Joffe, the institute attracted the first generation of scientists trained after the 1917 revolution - Igor Kurchatov among them. Kurchatov was born in 1903, graduated in 1923 and came to the PTI in 1925 at the invitation of Joffes. By the end of the 1920s, the institute grew considerably and employed over 100 scientists. The University in Moscow and the Radium Institute in Leningrad did research on the basis of modern physics , but Fistech in particular was in exchange with other countries. Joffe had contacts in Western Europe, including in Copenhagen with Niels Bohr and in Cambridge with Ernest Rutherford .

Import of western know-how

Due to the backwardness of the Soviet Union, founded at the end of 1922, compared to the Western countries, the government imported Western European and American technology during the first five-year plan . The fact that Joffe sent more than 30 researchers abroad and invited numerous guest scientists made a decisive contribution to the rapid progress of nuclear physics in the Soviet Union. Shortly after the revolutionary discoveries in Western Europe in 1932, Joffe hosted the first all-union conference on the atomic nucleus in 1933 , at which many scientists from home and abroad met. Kurchatov had already switched to nuclear physicists in 1932. In the mid-1930s, the group around Kurchatov was already one of the leading schools of nuclear physics internationally. When the essays on successful nuclear fission arrived in 1938 , the repetition of the experiments began immediately. Physics was lucky enough to survive the waves of cleansing in 1934 and 1938 almost unmolested. In 1940 a uranium commission was set up to end the latent lack of uranium-235 and to supply the institutes. More than 200 physicists met at the 5th All-Union Conference from November 20 to 26, 1940. One topic was the construction of an atomic bomb, which had been discussed since 1939, but which even the optimists did not expect to be realized until 50 years later.

The bomb project

Nuclear research during the war

After the German attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, the Soviet nuclear physicists were initially not released from military service by the government, which reflects their low status to date. However, the progression of the United States bombing project and rumors of a German nuclear project resulted in Stalin agreeing to resume the nuclear program in 1942. Kurchatov was appointed head of research and took a clear position on the project. The three-year break and the publication stop had set the Soviet researchers far back. Since no free exchange with foreign researchers could take place in times of war, the secret service NKVD obtained the necessary information and thus provided, in the words of one researcher, “exactly what the physicists lacked.” Parts of the secret service worked exclusively for the nuclear project.

Nevertheless, it was Kurchatov who organized the path to the first Soviet bomb. The State Defense Committee decided on September 28, 1942 with Directive No. 2352 to start a bomb project. For this purpose, Laboratory Number 2 was founded on March 10, 1943 and Kurchatov was appointed director. However, the laboratory only had a few kilograms of uranium available, as the Soviet Union did not acquire uranium sources until 1945 with the conquest of East Germany, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia .

Although the Soviet researchers had developed their own method of separating isotopes , they copied a different, ultimately probably less efficient, concept from the USA. Failures in the Soviet Union were often referred to as sabotage and were usually punished with the death penalty. The physicists therefore shied away from putting the results of their own basic research into practical application.

Building a nuclear industry after the end of the war

At the end of the war, the nuclear project had reached an intermediate phase: The theoretical research was at the American level and could be verified experimentally. In contrast, there was no possibility of production; so in the next phase you created a whole new industry, the nuclear industry . The initial shortage of their own uranium deposits was finally overcome. The Soviet government concluded a treaty with Czechoslovakia for the exploitation of its uranium deposits. In Germany, the NKVD sent around 30 physicists on a special mission to track down remaining experts - the so-called "specialists" - and to discover uranium deposits. In Neustadt-Glewe , a group of Soviet scientists found around 100 tons of uranium oxide that Germany had captured in Belgium. This fully covered the need for the first Russian research reactor and, according to Kurchatov, made it possible to commission the first reactor for plutonium production a year earlier. Furthermore, a start was made to mine uranium for the Soviet nuclear program in the Soviet occupation zone and other states (including Poland) under Soviet influence. The SAG / SDAG Wismut , founded in the Soviet occupation zone, developed into the most important uranium supplier for the Soviet Union. Between 1945 and 1950, the uranium deliveries for the Soviet nuclear weapons program were made up as follows (figures in tons):

year USSR SBZ / GDR ČSR Bulgaria Poland
1945 14.6
1946 50.0 15.0 18.0 26.6
1947 129.3 150.0 49.1 7.6 2.3
1948 182.5 321.2 103.2 18.2 9.3
1949 278.6 767.8 147.3 30.3 43.3
1950 416.9 1224.0 281.4 70.9 63.6

However, the project was not yet given the highest priority because the Soviet leadership doubted its success. Above all, however, the Soviet leadership lacked a vision of the strategic importance of an atomic bomb in the future. It was not until the American United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 that Stalin made clear the close connection between bombs and foreign policy. On August 20, 1945, a special committee and the first main department were set up. The first main department was supposed to lead the atomic project, the special committee the whole work on the use of atomic energy. All major decisions required Stalin's approval. The shift in weight away from the military continued in the Special Committee: almost all members came from the administration, none from the armed forces and only two from science. In addition, the NKVD and some People's Commissariats brought their employees, technicians and engineers into the nuclear project.

The laboratory project now had to be transformed into an industry, because Stalin demanded the atomic bomb as soon as possible. It was therefore decided to build a bomb based on the principle of the American plutonium bomb ignited via Nagasaki . In 1945 the government of the Soviet Union made the following important decisions:

  • the establishment of two special experimental design offices in Leningrad ( Kirov plant ) for the development of devices for the enrichment of the isotope uranium-235 through gas diffusion
  • the beginning of the construction of a diffusion plant for the enrichment of uranium-235 in the Middle Urals (near the village of Verkh-Neivinsky (Верх-Нейвинский), later Sverdlovsk-44, today Novouralsk )
  • the initiation of work to develop a reactor using heavy water and natural uranium
  • the choice of a location and the construction of a plant for the production of plutonium

Share of German "nuclear specialists"

As was the case with the USA, after the Second World War a large number (approx. 300) of German “nuclear specialists” were brought from the Soviet occupation zone with their families to the Soviet Union. In addition, technical systems of the German uranium project were dismantled at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics , the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry , the Siemens electrical laboratories and the Physics Institute of the Reich Ministry of Post . A total of three of the four German cyclotrons as well as strong magnets, electron microscopes, oscilloscopes, transformers and ultra-precise instruments were brought to the USSR. From July 1945 onwards, methods for separating uranium isotopes as well as the development of measuring methods for determining the degree of separation were further developed by German technicians and scientists at the Physical-Mathematical Institute in Sukhumi on the Black Sea . There, under the director of the institute Manfred von Ardenne , Gustav Hertz , Peter Adolf Thiessen , Gernot Zippe and Max Steenbeck developed various isotope separation processes.

Max Steenbeck led a group on uranium enrichment. After unsuccessful attempts with various separation processes, from the end of 1947 he developed the idea of ​​a gas centrifuge for isotope separation. This outstanding work brought the Soviet Union into possession of the most modern isotope separation technology of the time.

In addition, the German chemist Max Volmer in Norilsk, together with Victor Bayerl and Gustav Richter, took on the task of building a plant for the production of heavy water , a prerequisite for the production of plutonium by natural uranium reactors, as part of the Russian nuclear project .

Detonation of the bomb

From June 1946 the Soviet project made rapid progress: metallic uranium was produced, the first reactor for the production of plutonium , a separation plant and a weapons laboratory were planned. On December 25, 1946, the first experimental F1 nuclear reactor on the outskirts of Moscow became critical for the first time . Most of it was loaded with uranium from Belgium, which was captured in Germany and which in turn came from the former colony of Belgian Congo. The Soviet government rejected the United States' plan to set up a nuclear agency in an attempt to secure its monopoly.

The first reactor for industrial production of plutonium was put into operation in June 1948 in Chelyabinsk-40 ( Mayak Chemical Combine ).

Kurchatov declared the first Soviet atomic bomb ready for use sooner than the report had estimated. During the Berlin blockade in 1948, the deterrent effect of the atomic bomb could be seen for the first time. This was the starting signal for the nuclear arms race of the coming decades. The first Soviet nuclear weapon, the RDS-1 , was detonated on August 29, 1949 at 7 a.m. local time at the Semipalatinsk test site in the Kazakh SSR . The weapon largely corresponded to the American Fat Man design. In the following years, both states began to wage the Cold War with their scientists in the International Atomic Energy Commission .

Forced Labor and Secret Cities

Since Stalin wanted the bomb as soon as possible, no one paid any attention to the disproportionately high cost of materials, money and resources. These could only be obtained in the required amount with the help of forced labor .

With the nuclear industry , the project, and with it the connection between science and forced labor, quickly spread over large parts of the Soviet Union: reactors, laboratories, workshops, mines . Since the development of the bomb was a very sensitive project over the whole time, entire secret cities emerged, in addition to Arsamas-16 (today Sarov ) also Chelyabinsk-40 (today Osyorsk or chemical combine Mayak) and a dozen others. The cities lay deep in the interior of the Soviet Union to protect them against attack and espionage.

Arsamas-16 was established not far from a labor camp and declared a "closed zone" on February 17, 1947 . With the help of forced laborers, the entire infrastructure was set up in a short time, for example, on April 9, 1946, the construction office-11 (KB-11) was founded, in which the experimental physicists were gathered. In Arsamas-16, the researchers lived on 250 km² - even fenced in by barbed wire and with an exit ban. They were guarded and monitored: " Beria's people were everywhere." The nuclear project used an immense mass of slave labor, men and women. 70,000 prisoners worked in Chelyabinsk-40 alone. It is estimated that the nuclear industry employed between 300,000 and 460,000 people, around three-quarters of them in the mines, but also in construction, production and research.

environmental pollution

The Gulag prisoners received high doses of radiation in the uranium mines, the environment was polluted to an unimaginable extent with radioactive substances and the population was polluted via the rivers, the air and the food. The irresponsible handling of radioactive substances can lead to increased health risks for humans, including fatal radiation doses . As early as 1941, the MAUD commission in Great Britain had determined the danger of radioactivity to human life and the Soviet scientists were familiar with the report. Nevertheless, the population was only evacuated immediately before the first test of the hydrogen bomb , because Kurchatov had simply forgotten it.

In 1957, the largest nuclear accident to date occurred at the Mayak nuclear power plant alongside the Chernobyl disaster (1986) and the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011).

The development of a hydrogen bomb

Igor Tamm, 1958

In response to the US decision to research all forms of nuclear weapons, the USSR also decided to work on hydrogen bombs . This new project was given formal expression by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on February 26, 1950 on "Work to build RMS-6". Kurchatov asked Igor Tamm to help develop the hydrogen bomb. Due to the renewed American lead in the field, this project was given priority after the successful atomic bomb project. With Tamm, Kurchatov tied the Moscow School to the project and thus won outstanding theorists, including Andrei Sakharov . Tamm's group moved to Arsamas-16 in the spring of 1950. She quickly worked out alternative proposals for building the hydrogen bomb. Unlike the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb was a separate development of Soviet science. After successful tests of an improved nuclear fission weapon using plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the USSR detonated an RMS-6 with 400 kT explosive force on August 12, 1953 at 7:30 a.m. This bomb was designed to be transportable, while the American test that had already taken place was an experimental, non-transportable fusion device. However, the Soviet design ( Sloika design ; "Sakharov's 1st and 2nd idea") only allowed limited explosive power.

The Council of Ministers ordered the development of an improved fusion weapon with more than 1 MT explosive force by the end of 1954. Sakharov realized that this could not be done while the USA detonated a weapon with 15 MT explosive power on March 1, 1954 at the Castle Bravo test .

In the spring of 1954, Sakharov and colleagues developed his “third idea”, which corresponded to the American Teller-Ulam design. On November 22, 1955, this design was tested for the first time. The weapon called RMS-37 was dropped by a Tu-16 at 9:47 a.m. over the Semipalatinsker test site and detonated at an altitude of 1550 meters with 1.6 MT explosive force. The test director was Kurchatov himself. The bomb was supposed to be dropped on November 20, but shortly before the target point, the plane turned around due to technical and weather problems and landed with the bomb near Semipalatinsk. The warhead of the first Soviet ICBM R-7 is based on the tested model. Kurchatov, who subsequently advocated the exclusively peaceful use of nuclear power, is quoted as saying that he would resign from his post if there were another test like 1953 and 1955.

people

Kurchatov in the 1930s
Russian special stamp, issued on the occasion of Fljorov's 100th birthday
Yakov Seldovich

Soviet employees:

  • Igor Wassiljewitsch Kurtschatow , Russian physicist and head of the Soviet atomic bomb project
  • Georgi Nikolajewitsch Fljorow , Russian physicist, member of Kurchatov's group at the Leningrad Physics-Technical Institute
  • Lev Andrejewitsch Arzimowitsch , Russian physicist, under his direction an electromagnetic method for isotope separation was developed in the USSR.
  • July Borissowitsch Chariton , Russian physicist, first scientific director of the secret nuclear weapons research center in Sarov (Russia) with the code name Arzamas-16, which was founded in 1946.
  • Andrei Dmitrijewitsch Sakharov , Russian physicist
  • Jakow Borissowitsch Seldowitsch , Russian physicist, from 1939 to 1940 he and Juli Chariton developed the fundamental work on the theory of nuclear chain reactions for the Soviet Union.
  • George Abramowitsch Koval , Soviet intelligence officer, according to the Russian government, Koval obtained information on processes and production volumes of US production facilities for the production of polonium, plutonium and uranium for US nuclear weapons. Based on the knowledge provided by Koval, the development time of the Soviet atomic bomb could be significantly reduced.
  • Pawel Anatoljewitsch Sudoplatow , high-ranking employee of the Soviet secret service NKVD, leading position in the Soviet atomic bomb project, where he primarily performed coordination tasks.

German and other foreign employees:

See also

literature

  • Dietrich Beyrau (ed.): In the jungle of power. Intellectual professions under Hitler and Stalin. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000.
  • Andreas Heinemann-Grüder: The first Soviet atomic bomb. Westfälisches Dampfboot Verlag, Münster 1992.
  • David Holloway: Stalin and the Bomb. The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956. Yale University Press, New Haven / London 1994.
  • Paul R. Josephson: Red Atom: Russia's Nuclear Power Program From Stalin to Today. Freeman, New York 2000.

Movie

  • Film agency Dialog: Arsamas-16 , Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (1996).

Web links

Commons : Soviet atomic bomb project  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roy Medvedev: The Unknown Stalin . London 2003, p. 117.
  2. Medvedev, p. 120.
  3. "[...] the Soviet nuclear weapons were first built on the basis of uranium from East Germany and Czechoslovakia [...]" ( Valentin Falin in conversation with Viktor Litovkin ( Memento from September 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) at RIA Novosti ).
  4. ^ A b H. Rotter: The Mission of Soviet Nuclear Physicists in May / June 1945 in Germany. In: RADIZ-Information 16/98. 1998, pp. 32-45.
  5. Chronicle of Bismuth. Wismut GmbH 1999.
  6. Max Steenbeck: Impulses and Effects. Steps on my life path. 2nd edition, Berlin 1978, from p. 180.
  7. Pawel W. Olejnikow: German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project (=  The Nonproliferation Review . Volume 7 , no. 2 ). 2000, p. 12 ( cns.miis.edu [PDF; 144 kB ; accessed on April 3, 2015]).
  8. a b c V.N. Mikhailov, GA Goncharov: IV Kurchatov and the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR. In: Atomic Energy. Volume 86, No. 4. 1999, pp. 266-282.
  9. Rainer Göpfert: “Maria” and “Tatjana” - The testing of nuclear weapons by the air forces of the USSR. In: Flieger Revue Extra. No. 36, PPVMedien, Bergkirchen 2012, ISSN  2194-2641 . P. 10.
  10. ^ The Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program at nuclearweaponarchive.org (English).
  11. Pawel W. Olejnikow: German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project (=  The Nonproliferation Review . Volume 7, no. 2 ). 2000, p. 1–30 ( cns.miis.edu [PDF; 144 kB ; accessed on April 3, 2015]).