Walter Schnurr

Walter Schnurr , sometimes also written Walther Schnurr, (born November 3, 1904 in Berlin-Steglitz , † after 1982) was a German chemist and manager of the chemical industry. He was a specialist in the production of explosives and played an important role in the establishment of the German nuclear industry after the war.

Explosives expert in the "Third Reich"

Schnurr received his doctorate in chemistry in Kiel in 1927 (on acyl migrations on phenols) . In 1924 and 1925 he was German runner-up in the decathlon (ATOS Steglitz club). In 1936 he became a chemist at Dynamit AG (DAG) in Troisdorf, a cartel of explosives manufacturers that was formed in 1931 and included the former Alfred Nobel & Co in Troisdorf (major shareholders were IG Farben ). Even before the war he was involved in the development of explosives, especially new explosives at the time such as Hexogen and Nigu . From 1942 to October 1944 he was the deputy director of the largest explosives plant in the Third Reich in Christianstadt (a large part of the plant is also known as the elm ). It was officially headed by Paul Müller, the director of Dynamit AG, who was not on site (but in Troisdorf), so that Schnurr effectively managed the factories on site. The factory was built from 1939 and started production in 1943. Everything was subject to the strictest secrecy there. At the end of 1944, Schnurr was replaced as deputy plant manager by Ernst Thönert. According to the commercial manager of the factory Kurt Jooss, he was dismissed, but was still employed by DAG shortly after the end of the war in Troisdorf. Hexogen production in Christianstadt was under the responsibility of the chemist Heinz Ratz, who was Schnurr's brother-in-law and, after the war, director of the DAG in Troisdorf. In Christianstadt up to 1,600 tons of explosives in the form of hexogen and nigu were produced per month, but nitrocellulose was also produced and TNT was processed. Fuel components for the V1 and V2 were also part of the production range. Thousands of forced laborers were employed there, including Jewish women, because Christianstadt served as a satellite camp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp , and later Italian military internees.

He joined the NSDAP relatively late (1937).

Emigration to Argentina and nuclear manager

Schnurr was questioned as a witness in the IG Farben trial after the war. He went to Argentina around 1947, where he was a partner in a small explosives factory. There he also played a role in the handling and transformation of the planned nuclear energy research of the dictator Juan Peron , who initially fell for the impostor Ronald Richter , a former student of Manfred von Ardenne , and founded a modern laboratory in Bariloche (Richter disappeared before handover with the gold and platinum parts in the laboratory).

In 1956, together with the IG Farben chemist Gerhard Ritter and the lawyers Rudolf Greifeld and Josef Brandl, he founded the nuclear reactor, construction and operating company, the forerunner of the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center (KfK). The atomic minister (1955/56) Franz Josef Strauss had brought him from Argentina in 1955. Schnurr became ministerial director in Bonn and as head of department in the atomic ministry responsible for the atomic program. In a 1982 BBC film, Strauss was asked why he had hired Schnurr of all people for this important post. He replied that this was a combination of an expert and a manager . Strauss bundled civil nuclear technology research in Karlsruhe and in Jülich (and despite his efforts, not with Werner Heisenberg at the Max Planck Institute in Munich). From 1960 until his retirement in 1970, Schnurr was managing director and co-director of the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center. During this time he also promoted further cooperation with Argentina (heavy water reactor Atucha 1 of Kraftwerk Union ). Previously in Karlsruhe experience had been gained with the multi-purpose research reactor Karlsruhe (built 1961 to 1965) and Schnurr was also significantly involved in reaching an agreement in Karlsruhe on the first FR 2 reactor developed there . The Hoechst manager Karl Winnacker , who worked in the background, was tired of constantly intervening because of the dispute about the heavy water research reactor concept, which was constantly increasing in price and delay, and for this reason also replaced Gerhard Ritter with Schnurr as scientific director at KfK. Schnurr flew regularly to Argentina, which he considered his second home, and had good relations with the heads of the Atomic Commission in Argentina.

He held over fifty patents. Even after 1970 he continued his research in Karlsruhe, for example in 1974 he was involved in a report on the production of hydrogen from water using reactor heat .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martina Löbner, Geheime Reichssache Christianstadt, The end of a small town between Oder and Neisse and the explosives factory "Ulme" , dissertation, University of Hanover, 2002 (PDF), p. 82. There are also further details on his biography and the factory in Christianstadt .
2. ↑ Löbner, loc. cit., p. 84
3. ^ The Karlsruhe Connection , Die Zeit, April 30, 1982
4. ^ The Karlsruhe Connection, Die Zeit, April 30, 1982
5. ↑ The physicist Otto Haxel , who was scientific director of the KfK from 1970 , also played a role . According to the newspaper Die Karlsruhe Connection from 1982, he was a close friend of Strauss and scientific director when the KfK was founded. He was also a member of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1956 .
6. ↑ This was advised by the Hoechst manager Karl Winnacker
7. ↑ Alles Quatsch , Der Spiegel, April 26, 1982. Schnurr was interviewed by Robin Denselow for a BBC film about the alleged involvement of German experts who emigrated after the war in an Argentine atomic bomb project. The film believed it had found one of the main actors in Schnurr. This is denied in the Spiegel article as well as a prominent role played by German experts.
8. ↑ Alles nonsense, Der Spiegel, April 26, 1982
9. ↑ That was the first export success of the German nuclear energy industry. They prevailed against an American light water reactor, especially since it relied on the Americans' enriched uranium. Karlsruhe Connection , Die Zeit, April 30, 1982
10. ↑ Willy Marth, My experiences on German nuclear reactors and reprocessing plants, Book on Demand, 2014, p. 37
11. ^ The Karlsruhe Connection, Die Zeit, April 30, 1982