Karl Heinrich Emil Becker
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
weapons engineer and artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
general. He advocated and implemented close ties of the military to science for purposes of advanced weapons development. He was the head of the Army Ordnance Office, Senator of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, first president of the Reich Research Council, the first general officer to be a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, as well as being a professor at both the University of Berlin and the Berlin Technical University. He was an early and key supporter of the development of ballistic rockets as weapons. The military-scientific infrastructure he helped implement supported the German nuclear energy program, known as the Uranium Club. Being depressed over heavy criticism from Hitler for shortfalls in munitions production, he committed suicide in 1940. He was given a State funeral.
Career
From 1898, Becker was a military engineer.From 1901 to 1903, Becker studied at the Munich Artillery and Engineering School. From 1906 to 1911, he studied at the Berlin Military Engineering Academy, specializing in ballistics
Ballistics
Ballistics is the science of mechanics that deals with the flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.A ballistic body is a body which is...
under Carl Julius Cranz; from 1908 to 1911, he was a teaching assistant at the Ballistics Laboratory there. From 1911 to 1914, he was a member of the Artillery Examining Board. In 1913, Becker co-authored a revision of Cranz' classic text, Lehrbuch der Ballistik.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Becker held two positions. From 1914 to 1916, he commanded a 42-cm mortar battery. From 1917 to 1919, he was an advisor on artillery ballistics at the Weapons and Equipment Inspection (Inspektion für Waffen und Gerät), which later became the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office).
From 1919 to 1923, Becker studied chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
. He was awarded a doctorate of engineering in 1922, with a thesis on cathodic
Cathode
A cathode is an electrode through which electric current flows out of a polarized electrical device. Mnemonic: CCD .Cathode polarity is not always negative...
change of phenol
Phenol
Phenol, also known as carbolic acid, phenic acid, is an organic compound with the chemical formula C6H5OH. It is a white crystalline solid. The molecule consists of a phenyl , bonded to a hydroxyl group. It is produced on a large scale as a precursor to many materials and useful compounds...
.
From 1922, Major Becker was an advisor to the HWA inspections office.
Becker was aware of the advantages of a close relationship between the military and science in the development of future weapons technology. As early as 1924, he recommended the establishment of a central laboratory of chemistry and physics. But only when he was director of the Ballistics and Ammunition Department of the Weapons and Equipment Inspection (Inspektion für Waffen und Gerät) was he able to implement his recommendation. The Central Office of Army Physics and Army Chemistry (Zentralstelle für Heeresphysik und Heereschemie) was formed in 1926 and recognized as an Armed Forces department in 1929. When Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
came to power in 1933, this department took on greater importance and received generous funding from the Reich. Its Research Department established top-quality facilities, one of them was the Heeresversuchsanstalt (Armed Forces testing station) in Gottow; it was under the direction Kurt Diebner
Kurt Diebner
Kurt Diebner was a German nuclear physicist who is well known for directing and administrating the German nuclear energy project, a secretive program aiming to built weapon of mass destruction for the Nazi Germany during the course of World War II...
and played a central role in the German nuclear energy project
German nuclear energy project
The German nuclear energy project, , was an attempted clandestine scientific effort led by Germany to develop and produce the atomic weapons during the events involving the World War II...
, also known as the Uranverein (Uranium Club).
Lt. Col. Dr. Ing. Karl Becker, head of the ballistics and munitions section of the HWA Weapons Testing Division, was a key early supporter of Germany’s development of the rocket as a weapon. In 1929, Becker got permission of the Reichswehrministerium (RWM, Reich Ministry of Defense) to do so. He was interested in the development of both solid-fuel and liquid-fuel rockets. Later, one of his subordinates, Walter Dornberger
Walter Dornberger
Major-General Dr Walter Robert Dornberger was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World Wars I and II. He was a leader of Germany's V-2 rocket program and other projects at the Peenemünde Army Research Center....
became important as leader of the V-2 rocket
V-2 rocket
The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...
program. Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
was hired in 1932.
From 1932, Becker was an Honorary Professor of military sciences at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (later, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
, i.e. University of Berlin). From autumn 1933, he was an ordentlicher Professor (ordinarius professor) of technical physics at the Technische Hochschule Berlin in Berlin Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...
(later, the Technical University of Berlin
Technical University of Berlin
The Technische Universität Berlin is a research university located in Berlin, Germany. Translating the name into English is discouraged by the university, however paraphrasing as Berlin Institute of Technology is recommended by the university if necessary .The TU Berlin was founded...
). From 1935, he was ordentlicher Professor of defense technology, physics, and ballistics, as well as dean of the military engineering department (Wehrtechnische Fakultät), which had been newly created in 1933, at the Technische Hochschule Berlin. He was on the supervisory board of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science was a German scientific institution established in 1911. It was implicated in Nazi science, and after the Second World War was wound up and its functions replaced by the Max Planck Society...
, the umbrella organization for numerous technical institutes. From 1935, he was the first general officer to be a member of the Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Prussian Academy of Sciences
The Prussian Academy of Sciences was an academy established in Berlin on 11 July 1700, four years after the Akademie der Künste or "Arts Academy", to which "Berlin Academy" may also refer.-Origins:...
(PAW, Prussian Academy of Sciences). In 1937, Becker significantly expanded the Wehrtechnische Fakultät.
From November 1933, General of the Artillery Becker was head of the research department and the Weapons Testing Office, and from February 4, 1938 head of the HWA, in addition to his positions at the Technische Hochschule Berlin and the University of Berlin. From 1937, he was also first president of the Reichsforschungsrat
Reichsforschungsrat
The Reichsforschungsrat was created in Germany in 1937 under the Education Ministry for the purpose of centralized planning of all basic and applied research, with the exception of aeronautical research...
(RFR, Reich Research Council), appointed by Bernhard Rust
Bernhard Rust
Dr. Bernhard Rust was Minister of Science, Education and National Culture in Nazi Germany. A combination of school administrator and zealous Nazi, he issued decrees, often bizarre, at every level of the German educational system to immerse German youth in the National Socialist philosophy...
, Minister of the Reichserziehungsministerium
Reichserziehungsministerium
The Reichserziehungsministerium was officially known as the Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung .-Background:...
(REM, Reich Ministry of Education).
On 8 April 1940, just one day before the invasion of Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
( Operation Weserübung
Operation Weserübung
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign...
), Becker, in the presence of the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, committed suicide. Becker had been depressed for months, as he had been heavily criticized by Hitler and others for shortfalls in munitions production. Becker’s suicide was covered up by a State funeral on 12 April 1940.