Experimental site Gottow
| Experimental site Gottow | ||
|---|---|---|
|
||
| Coordinates | 52 ° 5 '30 " N , 13 ° 18' 36" E | |
| country | Germany | |
| Data | ||
| start of building | 1936 | |
| Installation | January 31, 1942 | |
| Shutdown | April 20, 1945 | |
| Shutdown | April 20, 1945 | |
| Reactor type | Heavy water reactor | |
| was standing | January 15, 2015 | |
As part of the German uranium project which was west Heeresversuchsanstalt Kummersdorf the Chemical-PHYSICAL and nuclear-testing site Gottow the Wehrmacht established. It belonged to the Army Research Institute in Kummersdorf, named as "Wa Prüf 11 - special equipment department", in Kummersdorf-Gut , today a part of the municipality of Am Mellensee ( Teltow-Fläming district , Brandenburg ).
introduction
In the west of Kummersdorf-Gut, next to the two imperial shooting ranges, the Gottow research center of the Research Department of the Heereswaffenamt (HWA) was set up around 1926. General Karl Becker founded the superordinate central office for army physics and chemistry in 1926 . For this reason, the Reichswehr recruited doctoral students on the test site and deployed them for the most part in Kummersdorf-Gut. In 1929 the Central Office for Army Physics and Army Chemistry was run as a Reichswehr service. In 1933 new priorities were set in military research. The practical implementation, however, involved insufficient funding, material, equipment and skilled labor to achieve the desired goals. Only a fraction of the planned 1,000 jobs was created. From 1943 until shortly before the Wehrmacht surrendered, around 120 orders were awarded to military research, mostly with urgency and secrecy. The presence of the Reichsführer-SS security service showed the high priority of the facility.
The following research institutions exchanged their knowledge with the Gottow research center:
- Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin-Dahlem,
- Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem,
- the 2nd Physics Institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität ,
- the Defense Technology Faculty V of the Technical University of Berlin ,
- the Chemisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (CTR) in Berlin,
- Manfred von Ardenne's research laboratory for electron physics in Berlin-Lichterfelde,
- the Institute for Physical Chemistry at the University of Hamburg ,
- the University of Heidelberg ,
- the University of Göttingen ,
- the theoretical and experimental physics institutes of the University of Leipzig ,
- private research institutions in the arms industry.
In 1943, the researchers at the Berlin facilities moved to Gottow, as the increased air raids by the Allies on the city no longer enabled trouble-free research.
When the Red Army marched into Brandenburg in 1945 and the foreseeable defeat in World War II, the scientists fled to the Hillersleben military training area near Magdeburg. For this reason, many documents were destroyed. After it became known that the armed forces of the United States were close to Magdeburg, the researchers fled back to Gottow. On April 20, 1945 an order was given to leave the test site. The Soviet Army brought the remaining documents and the equipment from the test site to the Soviet Union.
Projects
Rocket technology
Wernher von Braun became an employee of Hermann Oberth from 1929 and from 1937 the technical director of the development program for military missiles in Gottow and later at the Peenemünde Army Research Center . In 1933 von Braun completed the rocket unit 1 (A1) in Gottow , which was not airworthy due to a faulty design. The successor model, the A2 , got off to a successful start and has already reached a height of several kilometers. The A3 , developed in 1936, was already so big that it was absolutely necessary to move to Peenemünde to this HVA to test it, but the test failed.
Nuclear technology
As part of the uranium project , the nuclear fission discovered by Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann in 1938 should be made technically usable. Kurt Diebner 's goal was to develop an operational nuclear reactor . To do this, he and his team carried out three test series (tests GI to G III). The experimental set-ups consisted of a neutron source , cubes made of natural uranium and paraffin or heavy water as moderator . The group was in competition for the scarce materials with corresponding research projects under the direction of Werner Heisenberg .
1942: In the GI experiment, the researchers filled 25 t of uranium oxide, divided into 6,800 cubes, into 4 t of cube-shaped paraffin. The aim of the arrangement, a higher neutron yield, could not be achieved.
1943: The G-II experiment was not carried out in Gottow at the beginning of 1943, but in the Chemisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin. As a modification of GI, the housing material was dispensed with; Instead of uranium powder, uranium metal cast in cube form was used for the first time. The symmetrical lattice of 108 uranium cubes (metal weight: 232 kg) was frozen in 189 liters of heavy water as a moderator. The neutron yield was significantly higher than in Heisenberg's previous experiments in Leipzig.
1943: In experiment G-III a, the cube arrangement was improved. About 240 uranium cubes were hung on wires in such a way that the distance between the cubes remained 14.5 cm, as in G-II; however, the circular arrangement of the cubes was replaced by the cubic closest cubic pack. The centers of the cube thus form a square grid in each layer. Although G-III was relatively small (250 cm × 230 cm), there was an extraordinarily high increase in neutrons.
1944: In the spring, after several documented reactor tests in Gottow, test G III b with 564 kg uranium cubes and almost six hundred liters of heavy water took place. 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 was an accident in the nuclear facility, which according to today's criteria would be considered to be reportable and as a result of which employees were exposed to radiation.
The group did not succeed in starting a stable chain reaction until the end of the war in 1945.
Chemical warfare agents
The Falkenhagen bunker was built in 1939 as an underground factory with 14,000 m², where the chemical warfare agent sarin should also be produced for the production-ready development of the chemical warfare agent chlorotrifluoride , "N-Stoff" .
Structure of the plant
The facility at the test site consisted of two parallel building blocks over 500 m long, an ammunition bunker and an experimental shooting range. Both building blocks were divided into a total of five building groups. They each consisted of eight test halls, which were accessed centrally via a massive underground passage protected from splinters. Other smaller buildings with laboratories and test stands , separated by high splinter protection walls , were connected to the northern block. The connection was also made via a further partially underground passage.
The two main building blocks were connected to one another via a total of three underground media tunnels, the southern block had a complete basement. The shooting range was to the northwest of the northern block, with a massive reinforced concrete bullet trap at the end of the range. There were originally several administrative buildings in the southeast, but these were demolished after the war and new buildings were erected. On the west side of the blocks there was a small ammunition bunker, consisting of three rooms and a total of three entrances. The Diebner research group used the last two buildings at the western end of the southern block, further to the southwest was the experimental reactor. Many of the buildings had a field railway connection with 750 mm of tracks, a field station protected from splinters was located in the southern building block, and there was a connection to Kummersdorf-Gut.
After the end of the war
After the end of the war in 1945, the entire facility was initially dismantled and the laboratory equipment was transported to the Soviet Union as reparations . Then the residents of the surrounding villages looted the complex. In 1945 soldiers of the Soviet occupation forces in Germany blew up large parts of the facility. The Group of the Soviet Armed Forces in Germany (GSSD) declared the site a restricted military area , and an ammunition depot was built on the ruins of the former test site. The corridor system between the buildings was blown up or bricked up, many walls were torn down and new walls were bricked up on the existing structures.
The foundations and the containment of the experimental reactor made of reinforced concrete were retained, the wooden test building with the experimental reactor arranged above was demolished. Some warehouses were built near the former reactor by the Soviet armed forces .
Development since the withdrawal of the Russian armed forces in 1994
In 1994 the Russian armed forces withdrew and the property was transferred to the general property of the Federal Property Administration . Initially, the Bundeswehr administered the site, which was becoming increasingly neglected and remained a restricted area due to the experiments with radioactive substances that had taken place half a century ago .
The Heimatverein has been organizing guided tours in Kummersdorf-Gut since 1994 and looks after the entire site. The buildings are empty, the corridor system of the south block is largely accessible - with rubber boots. The underground media tunnels are under water up to the top.
All documents of the facility were removed, there are only a few credible, incomplete documentation and publications on this site.
The measurements by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection on February 16 and March 21, 2000 showed only minimally increased activity on an area of 15 m × 15 m around the former test reactor, triggered by an increased natural uranium content in the soil. According to the report of the Federal Office, there is no health-endangering contamination of the site by radioactive isotopes.
The site of the Army Weapons Research Institute has been a listed building since June 2007 . Today the Kummersdorf Historical-Technical Museum is located here .
On March 1, 2012, the transfer to the general property of the state of Brandenburg took place .
literature
- Wolfgang Fleischer : The Army Research Center in Kummersdorf - mice, tigers, panthers, lynx, rockets and other weapons of the Wehrmacht during testing . Verlag Dörfler Zeitgeschichte, ISBN 978-3-89555-408-7
- Gerd Kaiser , Bernd Herrmann : From the restricted area to the forest town - the history of the secret command centers in Wünsdorf and the surrounding area . Ch. Links Verlag , Berlin 1993, ISBN 978-3-86153-434-1
- Günter Nagel , Atomic Tests in Germany, Heinrich-Jung-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH , Zella-Mehlis 2002, ISBN 978-3-930588-59-6
- Dietrich Beyrau (ed.): In the jungle of power. Intellectual professions under Hitler and Stalin , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2000, ISBN 978-3-525-36244-0
- Robert Jungk : Brighter than a thousand suns. The fate of atomic researchers. Scherz & Goverts , Stuttgart 1956, Rowohlt Verlag , Reinbek 1986, ISBN 3-499-16629-1
- Rainer Karlsch : Hitler's bomb: The secret history of the German nuclear weapon tests Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , 2005, ISBN 978-3-421-05809-6
Web links
- Kummersdorf-Gut Brandenburg - a village between forest, heath and history ( Memento from February 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Deutsches Museum, original documentation of the experimental setup
- Kummersdorf in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
- Army Research Center at Kummersdorf-Gut, Research Center at Gottow
- Historical-Technical Museum
- large picture documentation atomic research in Gottow
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gottow Research Center. In: Secret documents on the German nuclear program 1938–1945. Deutsches Museum , accessed on September 19, 2009 .
- ^ Experiment GI - Friedrich Berkei / Kurt Diebner u. a .: Report on a cube experiment with uranium oxide and paraffin, November 1942 (texts). Website of the Deutsches Museum. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
- ↑ attempt GII -Kurt Diebner u. a .: Report on an experiment with cubes made of uranium metal and heavy water, April 1943 (texts). Website of the Deutsches Museum. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
- ↑ Experiment GIII - Friedrich Berkei / Diebner u. a .: About the Gottower experiment G-III, 1943. Website of the Deutsches Museum. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
- ↑ GND 120408902