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Justus Mühlenpfordt (22 April 1911 – 2 October 2000) was a German nuclear physicist and an authority on isotope separation of uranium.
Justus Mühlenpfordt | |
|---|---|
| Born | 22 April 1911 |
| Died | 2 October 2000 (aged 89) |
| Nationality | German |
| Citizenship |  Germany |
| Alma mater | University of Braunschweig |
| Known for | Soviet program of nuclear weapons |
| Awards |  National Prize (1961) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Nuclear physics |
| Institutions | German Academy of Sciences at Berlin University of Berlin Leibniz Society of Sciences Institute G in Russia Siemens AG |
| Thesis | Untersuchung über die Möglichkeit, auf photoelektrischem Wege die Messempfindlichkeit des Interferentialrefraltors nach Jamin zu Erhöhen (1937) |
Until the fall of Berlin, Mühlenpfordt held an employment with the Siemens AG and was taken into the Soviet custody where he was held in Russia to work as one of many German nuclear physicists in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons in 1945. After his reparation in 1955, Mühlenpfordt settled in Germany and found work with the German Academy of Sciences until retiring in retirement in 1974. Mühlenpfordt died in Leipzig on 2 October 2000, aged 89.
Biography
Justus Mühlenpfordt was born in Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, on April 22, 1911.[1] According to the German-language Wikipedia, his father, Carl Mühlenpfordt, an architect and a university professor of architecture at the University of Braunschweig.[2] His mother, Anna Dräger-Mühlenpfordt, was a painter and graphic designer.[3] Anna was the daughter of Henry Dräger who was a founder of Drägerwerk AG.[4]
In 1930, Mühlenpfordt attended the University of Braunschweig to study physics and earned his doctorate in 1937 with his doctoral thesis contained the work on the subject of investigations into the possibility of increasing the measuring sensitivity of the Jamin interferential refractor by photoelectric means.[5][6]
Career
Summarize
Perspective
In 1935, Mühlenpfordt found an employment in Siemens AG where he worked under directly Gustav Hertz on the applications of the x-rays; an x-ray tube with a cross-shaped anode was named after him.[7] Hertz conducted research activities in isotope separation, which effected Mühlenpfordt's career interests.[1]
In Russia
At the close of the World War II, Manfred von Ardenne, director of his self-funded "Research Laboratory for Election Physic,[8] Gustav Hertz, Nobel laureate and director of Research Laboratory II at Siemens, Peter Adolf Thiessen, ordinarius professor at the University of Berlin, and Max Volmer, ordinarius professor of chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin, had made a pact. The pact was a pledge that whoever first made contact with the Soviets would speak for the rest. The objectives of their pact were threefold: (1) Prevent plunder of their institutes, (2) Continue their work with minimal interruption, and (3) Protect themselves from prosecution for any political acts of the past.[9] Before the end of World War II, Thiessen, a member of the Nazi Party, had Communist contacts.[10] On 27 April 1945, Thiessen arrived at von Ardenne's institute in an armored vehicle with a major of the Soviet Army, who was also a leading Soviet chemist.[11] All four of the pact members were taken to the Soviet Union along with colleagues from their institutes. Hertz was made head of Institute G, in Agudseri (Agudzery),[12][13] about 10 km southeast of Sukhumi and a suburb of Gul’rips (Gulrip’shi). Topics assigned to Gustav Hertz's Institute G included: (1) Separation of isotopes by diffusion in a flow of inert gases, for which Gustav Hertz was the leader, (2) Development of a condensation pump, for which Justus Mühlenpfordt was the leader, (3) Design and build a mass spectrometer for determining the isotopic composition of uranium, for which Werner Schütze was the leader, (4) Development of frameless (ceramic) diffusion partitions for filters, for which Reinhold Reichmann was the leader, and (5) Development of a theory of stability and control of a diffusion cascade, for which Heinz Barwich was the leader;[14][15] Barwich had been deputy to Hertz at Siemens.[16] Other members of Institute G were Werner Hartmann, Werner Schütze[17] and Karl-Franz Zühlke.[18] Von Ardenne was made head of Institute A,[19][20] in Sinop,[12][13] a suburb of Sukhumi. Volmer went to the Nauchno-Issledovatel’skij Institut-9 (NII-9, Scientific Research Institute No. 9),[21] in Moscow; he was given a design bureau to work on the production of heavy water.[22] In Institute A, Thiessen became leader for developing techniques for manufacturing porous barriers for isotope separation, primarily using the gaseous diffusion.[23]
After Mühlenpfordt's successful work for developing the diffusion pump at Institute G, he became chief of a design bureau of vacuum pumps in Leningrad, no earlier than 1950.[22]
In preparation for release from the Soviet Union, it was standard practice to put personnel into quarantine for a few years if they worked on projects related to the Soviet nuclear program. Mühlenpfordt spent his quarantine at a facility in Agudzery (Agudseri), as did other German scientists. Additionally, in 1954, in preparation sending the German scientists to Germany, the German government and the Soviet authorities prepared a list of scientists they wished to keep in the East Germany, due to their having worked on projects related to the Soviet nuclear program; this list was known as the "A-list".
On this A-list were the names of 18 scientists; nine, possibly 10, of the names were associated with the Nikolaus Riehl group which worked at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal' (Электросталь[24]). Mühlenpfordt was on the list.[18][25][26]
Back in Germany
Mühlenpfordt arrived in the Eastern part of the Germany in 1955 and was appointed director of the " Institute for Physical Separation" of the German Academy of Sciences, in Leipzig in 1957; in 1964, the institute was renamed the "Institute for Stable Isotopes".[1] In 1968, he was additionally appointed Representative of the Academy of Sciences.[6][27]
From 1969 until his retirement in 1974, Mühlenpfordt was director of the Research Division for Nuclear and Isotope Technology of the German Academy of Sciences.[6][7]
In 1993, Mühlenpfordt joined the Leibniz Society of Sciences where devoted his research interest in improvement of television and investigating methods of earthquake prediction.[7] Mühlenpfordt died in Leipzig on 2 October 2000, aged 89.[7]
Professional Honors & Memberships
Literature
- Justus Mühlenpfordt The Importance of Stable Isotopes [In German], Kernenergie Volume 3, 816-822 (1960). Institutional affiliation: Institut für physikalische Stofftrennung, Leipzig.
- Justus Mühlenpfordt Obtention, Application, and Analysis of Stable Isotopes in the German Democratic Republic [In German], Kernenergie Volume 5, 208-211 (1962). Institutional affiliation: Institut für Physikalische Stofftrennung, Leipzig.
- Justus Mühlenpfordt The Institute of Stable Isotopes at Leipzig [In German], Isotopenpraxis Volume 2, 113-116 (1966)
- Justus Mühlenpfordt Refinement of Industrial Products by Substituting Hydrogen by Deuterium. Part I. [In German], Isotopenpraxis Volume 2, 119-121 (1966). Institutional affiliation: Institut für Stabile Isotope, Leipzig Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin.
Books
- Justus Mühlenpfordt Untersuchung über die Möglichkeit, auf photoelektrischem Wege die Messempfindlichkeit des Interferentialrefraltors nach Jamin zu Erhöhen, Doctoral Dissertation Thesis (Technische Hochschule Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig, 1937)
- Aleksandr I. Brodskij and Justus Mühlenpfordt Isotopenchemie (Akademie-Verl., 1961)
Bibliography
- Hartkopf, Werner, editor Die Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften: Ihre Mitglieder und Preisträger 1700-1990 (Akademi Verlag, 1992)
- Hentschel, Klaus (editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (editorial assistant and translator) Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Birkhäuser, 1996) ISBN 0-8176-5312-0
- Heinemann-Grüder, Andreas Keinerlei Untergang: German Armaments Engineers during the Second World War and in the Service of the Victorious Powers in Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker (editors) Science, Technology and National Socialism 30-50 (Cambridge, 2002 paperback edition) ISBN 0-521-52860-7
- Kruglov, Arkadii The History of the Soviet Atomic Industry (CRC, 2002)
- Maddrell, Paul "Spying on Science: Western Intelligence in Divided Germany 1945–1961" (Oxford, 2006) ISBN 0-19-926750-2
- Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949 (Belknap, 1995)
- Obituary: Professor Dr.-Ing. Justus Mühlenpfordt, Isotopes in Environmental and Health Studies, Volume 36, Issue 4, 319-322 (2000)
- Oleynikov, Pavel V. German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project, The Nonproliferation Review Volume 7, Number 2, 1 – 30 (2000). The author has been a group leader at the Institute of Technical Physics of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center in Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk-70).
External links
- Leibniz Society – Obituary Justus Mühlenpfordt
Notes
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