Central office for scientific and technical investigations

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The central office for scientific and technical investigations was an industry-financed research institution based in Neubabelsberg near Berlin . It was founded in May 1898 and financed by a number of companies in the German arms, ammunition and explosives industries. The director of the institute, whose activities ceased in early 1920, was the chemist Wilhelm Will . The research included primarily military aspects of the development and manufacture of explosives , but also topics from vehicle construction , metallurgy and safety in chemical production processes , in the civil use of explosives and in mining .

history

The central office for scientific-technical investigations was founded in May 1898 at the suggestion of the industrialist Max Duttenhofer . To assist in financing companies in the German Marketing and sales who scored United Köln-Rottweiler powder factories AG , the German weapons and munitions factories , the arms factory Mauser in Oberndorf am Neckar , the dynamite AG and the German explosives AG in Hamburg , the Rhine -Westfälische Sprengstoff AG in Cologne , the powder and gunwool factory Wolff & Co. in Bomlitz , the powder factory Cramer & Buchholz in Rönsahl and Rübeland , the Rheinische Dynamitfabrik in Opladen , the Dresden dynamite factory and temporarily also the Friedrich Krupp company . The share capital of the central office was 2.1 million Reichsmarks , the current expenses for the work were borne by the companies involved.

The founding director of the central office, which was organized as a GmbH , was the chemist Wilhelm Will , who headed it until his death in December 1919. It was located on an estate near Neubabelsberg , which was supplemented by the leasing of around 30 hectares of surrounding land. On the approximately 70 hectare site of a former powder factory near Königs Wusterhausen , there were also facilities for tests on a production scale , storage facilities for explosives and a firing range . The number of employees was around 70 in 1914, including twelve chemists and engineers . The main task of the institute was scientific and technical investigations in the field of weapons, ammunition, explosives and powder production; the corresponding activities resulted from specific orders from the companies involved as well as from our own initiative. The results of the activities of the central office, which could be used for military and industrial purposes, were largely subject to confidentiality or patent protection .

In addition to the military-oriented research, the work also included topics from automobile, railroad and airship construction , metallurgical issues such as the development of various alloys and safety aspects in the civil use of explosives, in the manufacture and storage of intermediate products in the paint industry and fireworks, and in mining to avoid firedamp explosions . The publication of research results took place in the self-published reports from the Central Office for Scientific and Technical Investigations as well as in other chemical, metallurgical and technical journals such as the journal for applied chemistry , the reports of the German Chemical Society , the journal for the entire gunnery and explosives industry , the journal for mining, metallurgy and saltworks and the journal of the Association of German Engineers .

After the end of the First World War , due to the provisions of the Peace Treaty of Versailles and the resulting restrictions for the German armaments industry, the work of the Central Office for Scientific and Technical Investigations was discontinued. Its premises were leased to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in early 1920 for use by the newly founded Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Metal Research. Some of the facilities were made available to the Chemisch-Technische Reichsanstalt , which had also emerged from the Military Research Office in 1920 .

literature

  • Heinrich Brunswig: The central office for scientific and technical investigations in Neubabelsberg. On the 25th anniversary of its founding. In: Journal of Applied Chemistry. 36th year. Issue 37/38 of May 9, 1923, pp. 255-257.
  • Bernhard Lepsius: Wilhelm Will: A memorial sheet. In: Reports of the German Chemical Society. Edition of October 15, 1921, pp. 204–268 (therein statements on the central office: pp. 234–247).