Laboratory B in Sungul’
Encyclopedia
Laboratory B in Sungul’ was one of the laboratories under the 9th Chief Directorate of the NKVD
(MVD after 1946) that contributed to the Soviet atomic bomb project. It was created in 1946 and closed in 1955, when some of its personnel were merged with the second Soviet nuclear design and assembly facility. It was run as a sharashka
– a secret scientific facility run as a prison. Laboratory B employed German scientists from 1947 to 1953. It had two scientific divisions, radiochemistry
and radiobiophysics; the latter was headed by the world-renowned geneticist N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij. For two years, the renowned German chemist, Nikolaus Riehl
was the scientific director.
(MVD after 1946), was deputy to NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria
. From early in 1945, Zavenyagin was responsible for the acquisition of German scientists, equipment, materiel, and intellectual property, under the Russian Alsos
, to help Russia with the Soviet atomic bomb project
. His authority and responsibilities only increased after the USSR State Defense Committee
(GKO, Gosudarstvennyj Komitet Oborony), on 20 August 1945, issued Decree No. 9877, thereby creating and investing the Special Committee with special and extraordinary powers for solving problems related to the atomic bomb project.
Members of the Special Committee were:
Zavenyagin, as head of the 9th Chief Directorate, then had responsibilities for establishing, building, managing, and providing security for the facilities in the atomic bomb project. Zavenyagin’s purview also included the resources of the Gulag
; some of the facilities to which the German scientists were assigned were run as a sharashka
. German scientists were available for recruitment from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. Also, immediately after World War II
and extending into 1949, the Russians also had a large pool of German PoW
scientists and highly skilled specialists from which to recruit; the main camp was at Krasnogorsk
.
Facilities to which the German scientists were assigned were under the under authority of the 9th Chief Directorate and included the following (with annotations of prominent Germans at the facilities):
Laboratory B was responsible for the handling, treatment, and use of radioactive products generated in reactors, as well as radiation biology, dosimetry, and radiochemistry. Owing to its proximity to the radiochemical plutonium facility Combine No. 817, the scientists at the institute had access to high-dose radioactive materials.
The scientific staff at Laboratory B – a Sharashka
– was both Soviet and German, the former being mostly political prisoners or exiles, although some of the service staff were criminals – one had been convicted of murder. In 1955, the institute had 451 staff members; in 1946 there had been 95. The institute had a maximum of 26 German scientists, and more than 10 of them initially were classified as PoWs. The German contingent left the institute in 1953. The institute had two departments: radiobiophysics (No. 1) and radiochemistry (No. 2). In 1955, the institute was merged into the newly created second nuclear weapons design institute Nauchno-Issledovatel’skij Institut-1011 (NII-1011). During the merger, the radiopathology section of the radiochemistry department was transferred to Combine No. 817 (Ozersk) and a section of the radiobiophysics department was transferred to the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences
.
Accomplishments of Laboratory B include the development of technology for the isolation of fission by-products such as strontium-90, caesium-137, zirconium-65, and the technology to remove these isotopes from chemical compounds.
Prior to Uralets becoming director of Laboratory B in 1946, he had been the Deputy Chief Corrective Labor Camp Volgostroya (Rybinsk
), Tagilstorya, the Office of the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant in the camp. After serving as director of Laboratory B, he became deputy director of the Nauchno-Issledovatel’skij Institut-9 (NII-9, Scientific Research Institute No. 9) for economic and administrative issues; NII-9 was under the 9th Chief Directorate of the MVD and worked on the Soviet atomic bomb project. He received the Order of Lenin
for his management of Laboratory B.
After Laboratory B was merged with NII-1011, Sereda went on to be the chief of the nearby TsZL Khimkombinata Mayak (Central Plant Laboratory of the Chemical Combine Mayak) in Ozersk.
was the scientific director of Laboratory B from September 1950 to early autumn in 1952.
Riehl, scientific director of the Auergesellschaft
, was sent by the Russians, in 1945, to head a group at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal'
to develop an industrial process for production of reactor-grade uranium. Other Germans sent to work there included A. Baroni (PoW), Werner Kirst, Henry E. Ortmann (chemist from Auergesellschaft), Przybilla, Herbert Schmitz (PoW), Herbert Thieme, Tobein, and Günter Wirths
(chemist from Auergesellschaft). When Riehl learned that professional colleagues from the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Hirnforschung (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research) in Berlin, Hans-Joachim Born
and Karl Zimmer
, were being held in Krasnogorsk
, in the main PoW camp for Germans with scientific degrees, Riehl arranged though Zavenyagin to have them sent to Ehlektrostal’. Alexander Catsch
was also sent there. At Ehlektrostal’, Riehl had a hard time incorporating Born, Catsch, and Zimmer into his tasking on uranium production, as Born was a radiochemist, Catsch was a physician and radiation biologist, and Zimmer was a physicist and radiation biologist; in December 1947, Riehl sent all three to Laboratory B to work with Timofeev-Resovskij.
After the detonation of the Russian uranium bomb, uranium production was going smoothly and Riehl’s oversight was no longer necessary at Plant No. 12. Riehl then went, in 1950, to be the scientific director of Laboratory B, where he stayed until 1952. Essentially the remaining personnel in his Ehlektrostal’ group were assigned elsewhere, with the exception of Henry E. Ortmann, A. Baroni (PoW), and Herbert Schmitz (PoW), who went with Riehl to Sungul’.
Besides those already mentioned, other Germans at Laboratory were Rinatia von Ardenne (sister of Manfred von Ardenne, director of Institute A, in Sukhumi) Wilhelm Menke (botanist), Willi Lange (who married the widow of Karl-Heinrich Riewe
, who had been at Heinz Pose’s
Laboratory V, in Obninsk
), Joachim Pani, and K. K. Rintelen. Until Riehl’s return to Germany in June 1955, which Riehl had to request and negotiate, he was quarantined in Agudzery (Agudseri) starting in 1952; Augudzery, was the location of Institute G.
, director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research), to establish the Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik (Department of Experimental Genetics) and Timofeev-Resovskij became its director. Timofeev-Resovskij stayed in Germany through World War II, and built his department to world-renowned status. On the basis of false denunciations, Timofeev-Resovskij and Tsarapkin were arrested by the NKVD in September 1945, returned to Russia, and both sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag
. They ended up in the Karaganda
prison camp in northern Kazakhstan
, one of the most terrible camps in the Gulag; the harsh conditions of Timofeev-Resovskij’s transportation and incarceration in the labor camp contributed to a significant decline in his health, including the degradation of his vision brought on by malnutrition. Colonel General Zavenyagin, who had intended to utilize Timofeev-Resovskij’s talents in the Soviet atomic bomb project, had Timofeev-Resovskij and Tsarapkin sent to Laboratory B in 1947. Timofeev-Resovskij’s wife Elena Aleksandrovna, after receipt of a letter in his handwriting, left Berlin in 1948, with their son Andrew, to join him in Sungul'. The house occupied by the three Timofeev-Resovskijs was every bit as nice as that planned for the German scientists working at the Sungul' institute. (In 1992, Timofeev-Resovskij was rehabilitated, 11 years after his death!)
Born, Catsch, and Zimmer, who had worked for Timofeev-Resovskij in Berlin and who were sent to Laboratory B by Riehl in December 1947, were able to conduct work similar to that which they had done in Germany, and all three became section heads in Timofeev-Resovskij’s department. Born examined fission products, developed methods of separating plutonium from fission products created in a nuclear reactor, and investigated and developed radiation health and safety measures. Catsch began his work on developing methods to extract radionucleotides from various organs, which he would continue when he left Russia.
The radiobiophysics division under Timofeev-Resovskij had four sections which conducted experimental studies in four basic directions:
The agrobiological and hydrobiological experiments were united on the general basis of the biogeochemical analysis of the experimentally created elementary biogeocenosis and the introduction of special factor radioactive materials into it.
The radiochemistry division had four sections and conducted research and development in the following areas:
Ya. M. Fishman (chemist, prisoner), B. V. Kir’yan (prisoner), V. L. Anokhin (physicist/chemist, prisoner), Lev Aleksandrovich Buldakov (surgeon), I. Ya. Bashilov (prisoner), A. A. Goryunov (prisoner), N. S. Khoreshko, Yurij Klimov, L. A. Kuzovkina, N. V. Luchnik (biophysicist/geneticist, prisoner), Yu. I. Moskalev, I. F. Popov (prisoner), N. A. Poryadkova, E. I. Preobrazhenskaya (agronomist), D. I. Semenov (biologist/medical doctor, prisoner), V. N. Strel’tsova, E. I. Sokurova (biologist), M. Yu. Tissen, A. S. Tkachev (prisoner), and V. G. Zhukova.
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
(MVD after 1946) that contributed to the Soviet atomic bomb project. It was created in 1946 and closed in 1955, when some of its personnel were merged with the second Soviet nuclear design and assembly facility. It was run as a sharashka
Sharashka
Sharashka was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system...
– a secret scientific facility run as a prison. Laboratory B employed German scientists from 1947 to 1953. It had two scientific divisions, radiochemistry
Radiochemistry
Radiochemistry is the chemistry of radioactive materials, where radioactive isotopes of elements are used to study the properties and chemical reactions of non-radioactive isotopes...
and radiobiophysics; the latter was headed by the world-renowned geneticist N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij. For two years, the renowned German chemist, Nikolaus Riehl
Nikolaus Riehl
Nikolaus Riehl was a German industrial nuclear chemist. He was head of the scientific headquarters of Auergesellschaft. When the Russians entered Berlin near the end of World War II, he was invited to the Soviet Union, where he stayed for 10 years...
was the scientific director.
Background
Colonel General A. P. Zavenyagin, as head of the 9th Chief Directorate of the NKVDNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
(MVD after 1946), was deputy to NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
. From early in 1945, Zavenyagin was responsible for the acquisition of German scientists, equipment, materiel, and intellectual property, under the Russian Alsos
Russian Alsos
The Russian Alsos was an operation which took place in early 1945 in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, and whose objectives were the exploitation of German atomic related facilities, intellectual materials, materiel resources, and scientific personnel for the benefit of the Soviet atomic bomb...
, to help Russia with the Soviet atomic bomb project
Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb , was a clandestine research and development program began during and post-World War II, in the wake of the Soviet Union's discovery of the United States' nuclear project...
. His authority and responsibilities only increased after the USSR State Defense Committee
USSR State Defense Committee
The State Defense Committee was an extraordinary organ of state power in the USSR during the German-Soviet War which held complete state power in the country.-General scope:...
(GKO, Gosudarstvennyj Komitet Oborony), on 20 August 1945, issued Decree No. 9877, thereby creating and investing the Special Committee with special and extraordinary powers for solving problems related to the atomic bomb project.
Members of the Special Committee were:
- Lavrentiy BeriaLavrentiy BeriaLavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
, Chairman of the Special Committee - Mikhail PervukhinMikhail PervukhinMikhail Gyeorgievich Pervukhin was a Soviet official during the Stalin Era, Khrushchev Era and the early Brezhnev Era. He served as a First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, literally First Vice-Premier of the Soviet Union, from 1955 to 1957....
, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom, Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov) after 1946, the Council of Ministers (Sovmin, Sovet Ministrov) - Nikolai VoznesenskyNikolai VoznesenskyNikolai Alekseevich Voznesensky was the Soviet economic planner who oversaw the running of Gosplan during the German-Soviet War. A protégé of Andrei Zhdanov, Voznesensky was appointed Deputy Premier in May 1940 at the age of thirty-eight. He was directly involved in the recovery of production...
, Chairman of the State Committee for Planning (GosplanGosplanGosplan or State Planning Committee was the committee responsible for economic planning in the Soviet Union. The word "Gosplan" is an abbreviation for Gosudarstvenniy Komitet po Planirovaniyu...
, Gosudarstvennyj Komitet po Planirovaniyu) - Georgy MalenkovGeorgy MalenkovGeorgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
, Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet UnionCommunist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world... - B. L. Makhnev, Secretary of the Special Committee
- Pyotr KapitsaPyotr KapitsaPyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was a prominent Soviet/Russian physicist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Kapitsa was born in the city of Kronstadt and graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918. He worked for over ten years with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge...
, Director of the Institute for Physical Problems of the Academy of SciencesInstitute for Physical ProblemsP.L. Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Institute was founded in 1934. The founder of the Institute, Prof. Kapitsa served as its head for many years. The head of the theoretical division of the Institute was Prof. Landau. The primary direction of...
. Kapitsa requested to be taken off of the Special Committee due to disagreements with Beria. Kapitsa’s first request was denied, but the second was approved. - Avraami ZavenyaginAvraami ZavenyaginLieutenant-General Avraami Pavlovich Zavenyagin was a leading figure in the Soviet nuclear projects of the 1940s and 1950s...
, head of the 9th Chief Directorate of the NKVD (a deputy of the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs) - Igor KurchatovIgor KurchatovIgor Vasilyevich Kurchatov , was a Soviet nuclear physicist who is widely known as the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project. Along with Georgy Flyorov and Andrei Sakharov, Kurchatov is widely remembered and dubbed as the "father of the Soviet atomic bomb" for his directorial role in the...
, head of Laboratory No. 2 and the scientific supervisor for the Soviet atomic bomb project.
Zavenyagin, as head of the 9th Chief Directorate, then had responsibilities for establishing, building, managing, and providing security for the facilities in the atomic bomb project. Zavenyagin’s purview also included the resources of the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
; some of the facilities to which the German scientists were assigned were run as a sharashka
Sharashka
Sharashka was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system...
. German scientists were available for recruitment from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. Also, immediately after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and extending into 1949, the Russians also had a large pool of German PoW
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
scientists and highly skilled specialists from which to recruit; the main camp was at Krasnogorsk
Krasnogorsk
Krasnogorsk may refer to one of the following:*Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia*Krasnogorsk, Uzbekistan, a town in Uzbekistan...
.
Facilities to which the German scientists were assigned were under the under authority of the 9th Chief Directorate and included the following (with annotations of prominent Germans at the facilities):
- Laboratory 2 (later known as the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic EnergyKurchatov InstituteThe Kurchatov Institute is Russia's leading research and development institution in the field of nuclear energy. In the Soviet Union it was known as I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy , abbreviated KIAE . It is named after Igor Kurchatov....
and today as the Russian Scientific Center “Kurchatov Institute”) in Moscow. – Josef SchintlmeisterJosef SchintlmeisterJosef Schintlmeister was an Austrian-German nuclear physicist and alpinist from Radstadt. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club. After World War II, he was sent Russia to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project. After he returned to...
.
- Scientific Research Institute No. 9 (NII-9; today the Bochvar All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Inorganic Materials, Bochvar VNIINM) in Moscow – Max VolmerMax VolmerMax Volmer was a German physical chemist, who made important contributions in electrochemistry, in particular on electrode kinetics. He co-developed the Butler–Volmer equation. Volmer held the chair and directorship of the Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry Institute of the Technische...
and Robert DöpelRobert DöpelGeorg Robert Döpel was a German experimental nuclear physicist. He was a participant in a group known as the “first Uranverein,” which was spawned by a meeting conducted by the Reichserziehungsministerium, in April 1939, to discuss the potential of a sustained nuclear reaction...
.
- Elektrostal'ElektrostalElektrostal , known as Zatishye until 1938, is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, located east of Moscow. Population: 135,000 ; 123,000 ; 97,000 ; 43,000 . Town status was granted to it in 1938.-Industry:...
Plant No. 12 – A. Baroni (PoW), Hans-Joachim BornHans-Joachim BornHans-Joachim Born was a German radiochemist trained and educated at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie. Up to the end of World War II, he worked in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovskij’s Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik, at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung. He was taken...
(PoW), Alexander CatschAlexander CatschAlexander Catsch was a German-Russian medical doctor and radiation biologist. Up to the end of World War II, he worked in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timefeev-Resovskij’s Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung...
(PoW), Werner Kirst, H. E. Ortmann, Przybilla, Nikolaus RiehlNikolaus RiehlNikolaus Riehl was a German industrial nuclear chemist. He was head of the scientific headquarters of Auergesellschaft. When the Russians entered Berlin near the end of World War II, he was invited to the Soviet Union, where he stayed for 10 years...
, Herbert Schmitz (PoW), Herbert Thieme, Tobein, Günter WirthsGünter WirthsGünter Wirths was a German chemist who was an authority on uranium production, especially reactor-grade. He worked at Auergesellschaft in the production of uranium for the Heereswaffenamt and its Uranverein project. In 1945, he was sent the Soviet Union to work on the Russian atomic bomb project...
, and Karl ZimmerKarl ZimmerKarl Günter Zimmer was a German physicist and radiation biologist, known for his work on the effects of ionizing radiation on DNA. In 1935, he published the major work, Über die Natur der Genmutation und der Genstruktur, with N. V...
(PoW).
- Institutes A (in Sinop, a suburb of SukhumiSukhumiSukhumi is the capital of Abkhazia, a disputed region on the Black Sea coast. The city suffered heavily during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict in the early 1990s.-Naming:...
) and G (in Agudzery) created for Manfred von ArdenneManfred von ArdenneManfred von Ardenne was a German research and applied physicist and inventor. He took out approximately 600 patents in fields including electron microscopy, medical technology, nuclear technology, plasma physics, and radio and television technology...
and Gustav Hertz, respectively. Institutes A and G were later used as the basis for the Sukhumi Physico-Technical Institute (SFTI); today it is the State Scientific Production Association “SFTI”. Institute A – Ingrid Schilling, Fritz Schimohr, Fritz Schmidt, Gerhard Siewert, Max SteenbeckMax SteenbeckMax Christian Theodor Steenbeck was a German physicist who worked at the Siemens-Schuckertwerke in his early career, during which time he invented the betatron in 1934. He was taken to the Soviet Union after World War II , and he contributed to the Soviet atomic bomb project...
(PoW), Peter Adolf ThiessenPeter Adolf ThiessenPeter Adolf Thiessen was a German physical chemist. He voluntarily went to the Soviet Union at the close of World War II, and he received high Soviet decorations and the Stalin Prize for contributions to the Soviet atomic bomb project.-Education:Thiessen was born in Schweidnitz .From 1919 to...
, and Karl-Franz Zühlke. Institute G – Heinz BarwichHeinz BarwichHeinz Barwich was a German nuclear physicist. He was deputy director of the Siemens Research Laboratory II in Berlin. At the close of World War II, he went to the Soviet Union for ten years to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project, for which he received a Stalin Prize...
, Werner HartmannWerner Hartmann (physicist)Werner Hartmann was a German physicist who introduced microelectronics into East Germany. He studied physics at the Technische Hochschule Berlin and worked at Siemens before joining Fernseh GmbH...
, and Justus MühlenpfordtJustus MühlenpfordtJustus Mühlenpfordt was a German nuclear physicist. He received his doctorate from the Technische Hochschule Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig, in 1936. He then worked in Gustav Hertz’s laboratory at Siemens. In 1945, he was sent to Institute G, near Sukhumi and under the directorship of Hertz, to...
.
- Laboratory V was created for Heinz PoseHeinz PoseRudolf Heinz Pose was a German nuclear physicist.He did pioneering work which contributed to the understanding nuclear energy levels. He worked on the German nuclear energy project Uranverein. After World War II, the Soviet Union sent him to establish and head Laboratory V in Obninsk...
in ObninskObninskObninsk is a city in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located southwest of Moscow. Population: Obninsk is one of the major Russian science cities. The first nuclear power plant in the world for the large-scale production of electricity opened here on June 27, 1954, and it also doubled as a training...
, and it was run as a sharashka. Laboratory V was later renamed the Physics and Power Engineering Institute (FEhI); today it is the State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation “FEhI”. – Werner Czulius, Walter Hermann, Hans Jürgen von Oertzen, Ernst RexerErnst RexerErnst Rexer was a German nuclear physicist. He worked on the German nuclear energy program during World War II. After the war, he was sent to Laboratory V, in Obninsk, to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project...
, Karl-Heinrich RieweKarl-Heinrich RieweKarl-Heinrich Riewe was a German physicist. After World War II, he was sent to Russia to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project. After going on strike at a defense related facility in 1948, he was accused of sabotage...
, and Carl Friedrich Weiss.
- Laboratory B in Sungul’ was established by a decree of the Council of Ministers in 1946, and it was run as a SharashkaSharashkaSharashka was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system...
. In 1955, it was assimilated into a new, second nuclear weapons institute, Scientific Research Institute-1011 (NII-1011), today known as the Russian Federal Nuclear Center All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics (RFYaTs–VNIITF). – Hans-Joachim BornHans-Joachim BornHans-Joachim Born was a German radiochemist trained and educated at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie. Up to the end of World War II, he worked in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovskij’s Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik, at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung. He was taken...
(PoW), Alexander CatschAlexander CatschAlexander Catsch was a German-Russian medical doctor and radiation biologist. Up to the end of World War II, he worked in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timefeev-Resovskij’s Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung...
(PoW), Willi Lange, Nikolaus RiehlNikolaus RiehlNikolaus Riehl was a German industrial nuclear chemist. He was head of the scientific headquarters of Auergesellschaft. When the Russians entered Berlin near the end of World War II, he was invited to the Soviet Union, where he stayed for 10 years...
, and Karl ZimmerKarl ZimmerKarl Günter Zimmer was a German physicist and radiation biologist, known for his work on the effects of ionizing radiation on DNA. In 1935, he published the major work, Über die Natur der Genmutation und der Genstruktur, with N. V...
(PoW).
Overview
Laboratory B was established under the 9th Chief Directorate in 1946 by Decree No. 1996 of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It was known under another cover name as Объект 0211 (Ob’ekt 0211, Object 0211), as well as Object B. (For historical reasons, it was also known as Object 0215.)Laboratory B was responsible for the handling, treatment, and use of radioactive products generated in reactors, as well as radiation biology, dosimetry, and radiochemistry. Owing to its proximity to the radiochemical plutonium facility Combine No. 817, the scientists at the institute had access to high-dose radioactive materials.
The scientific staff at Laboratory B – a Sharashka
Sharashka
Sharashka was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system...
– was both Soviet and German, the former being mostly political prisoners or exiles, although some of the service staff were criminals – one had been convicted of murder. In 1955, the institute had 451 staff members; in 1946 there had been 95. The institute had a maximum of 26 German scientists, and more than 10 of them initially were classified as PoWs. The German contingent left the institute in 1953. The institute had two departments: radiobiophysics (No. 1) and radiochemistry (No. 2). In 1955, the institute was merged into the newly created second nuclear weapons design institute Nauchno-Issledovatel’skij Institut-1011 (NII-1011). During the merger, the radiopathology section of the radiochemistry department was transferred to Combine No. 817 (Ozersk) and a section of the radiobiophysics department was transferred to the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
.
Accomplishments of Laboratory B include the development of technology for the isolation of fission by-products such as strontium-90, caesium-137, zirconium-65, and the technology to remove these isotopes from chemical compounds.
Directors
The first director of Laboratory B, starting in 1946, was MVD Colonel Alexander Konstantinovich Uralets. From 26 December 1952 to 14 June 1955, the director was the chemist Gleb Arkad’evich Sereda.Prior to Uralets becoming director of Laboratory B in 1946, he had been the Deputy Chief Corrective Labor Camp Volgostroya (Rybinsk
Rybinsk
Rybinsk is the second largest city of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, which lies at the confluence of the Volga and Sheksna Rivers. Population: It is served by Rybinsk Staroselye airport.-Early history:...
), Tagilstorya, the Office of the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant in the camp. After serving as director of Laboratory B, he became deputy director of the Nauchno-Issledovatel’skij Institut-9 (NII-9, Scientific Research Institute No. 9) for economic and administrative issues; NII-9 was under the 9th Chief Directorate of the MVD and worked on the Soviet atomic bomb project. He received the Order of Lenin
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
for his management of Laboratory B.
After Laboratory B was merged with NII-1011, Sereda went on to be the chief of the nearby TsZL Khimkombinata Mayak (Central Plant Laboratory of the Chemical Combine Mayak) in Ozersk.
Scientific Director
Nikolaus RiehlNikolaus Riehl
Nikolaus Riehl was a German industrial nuclear chemist. He was head of the scientific headquarters of Auergesellschaft. When the Russians entered Berlin near the end of World War II, he was invited to the Soviet Union, where he stayed for 10 years...
was the scientific director of Laboratory B from September 1950 to early autumn in 1952.
Riehl, scientific director of the Auergesellschaft
Auergesellschaft
The industrial firm Auergesellschaft was founded in 1892 with headquarters in Berlin. Up to the end of World War II, Auergesellschaft had research activities in the areas of gas mantles, luminescence, rare earths, radioactivity, and uranium and thorium compounds. In 1934, the corporation was...
, was sent by the Russians, in 1945, to head a group at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal'
Elektrostal
Elektrostal , known as Zatishye until 1938, is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, located east of Moscow. Population: 135,000 ; 123,000 ; 97,000 ; 43,000 . Town status was granted to it in 1938.-Industry:...
to develop an industrial process for production of reactor-grade uranium. Other Germans sent to work there included A. Baroni (PoW), Werner Kirst, Henry E. Ortmann (chemist from Auergesellschaft), Przybilla, Herbert Schmitz (PoW), Herbert Thieme, Tobein, and Günter Wirths
Günter Wirths
Günter Wirths was a German chemist who was an authority on uranium production, especially reactor-grade. He worked at Auergesellschaft in the production of uranium for the Heereswaffenamt and its Uranverein project. In 1945, he was sent the Soviet Union to work on the Russian atomic bomb project...
(chemist from Auergesellschaft). When Riehl learned that professional colleagues from the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Hirnforschung (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research) in Berlin, Hans-Joachim Born
Hans-Joachim Born
Hans-Joachim Born was a German radiochemist trained and educated at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie. Up to the end of World War II, he worked in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovskij’s Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik, at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung. He was taken...
and Karl Zimmer
Karl Zimmer
Karl Günter Zimmer was a German physicist and radiation biologist, known for his work on the effects of ionizing radiation on DNA. In 1935, he published the major work, Über die Natur der Genmutation und der Genstruktur, with N. V...
, were being held in Krasnogorsk
Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast
Krasnogorsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnogorsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, adjacent to the northwestern boundary of Moscow, on the Moskva River...
, in the main PoW camp for Germans with scientific degrees, Riehl arranged though Zavenyagin to have them sent to Ehlektrostal’. Alexander Catsch
Alexander Catsch
Alexander Catsch was a German-Russian medical doctor and radiation biologist. Up to the end of World War II, he worked in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timefeev-Resovskij’s Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung...
was also sent there. At Ehlektrostal’, Riehl had a hard time incorporating Born, Catsch, and Zimmer into his tasking on uranium production, as Born was a radiochemist, Catsch was a physician and radiation biologist, and Zimmer was a physicist and radiation biologist; in December 1947, Riehl sent all three to Laboratory B to work with Timofeev-Resovskij.
After the detonation of the Russian uranium bomb, uranium production was going smoothly and Riehl’s oversight was no longer necessary at Plant No. 12. Riehl then went, in 1950, to be the scientific director of Laboratory B, where he stayed until 1952. Essentially the remaining personnel in his Ehlektrostal’ group were assigned elsewhere, with the exception of Henry E. Ortmann, A. Baroni (PoW), and Herbert Schmitz (PoW), who went with Riehl to Sungul’.
Besides those already mentioned, other Germans at Laboratory were Rinatia von Ardenne (sister of Manfred von Ardenne, director of Institute A, in Sukhumi) Wilhelm Menke (botanist), Willi Lange (who married the widow of Karl-Heinrich Riewe
Karl-Heinrich Riewe
Karl-Heinrich Riewe was a German physicist. After World War II, he was sent to Russia to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project. After going on strike at a defense related facility in 1948, he was accused of sabotage...
, who had been at Heinz Pose’s
Heinz Pose
Rudolf Heinz Pose was a German nuclear physicist.He did pioneering work which contributed to the understanding nuclear energy levels. He worked on the German nuclear energy project Uranverein. After World War II, the Soviet Union sent him to establish and head Laboratory V in Obninsk...
Laboratory V, in Obninsk
Obninsk
Obninsk is a city in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located southwest of Moscow. Population: Obninsk is one of the major Russian science cities. The first nuclear power plant in the world for the large-scale production of electricity opened here on June 27, 1954, and it also doubled as a training...
), Joachim Pani, and K. K. Rintelen. Until Riehl’s return to Germany in June 1955, which Riehl had to request and negotiate, he was quarantined in Agudzery (Agudseri) starting in 1952; Augudzery, was the location of Institute G.
Scientific Divisions
Laboratory B had two scientific divisions, a radiobiophysics division headed by the geneticist N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij (prisoner), and a radiochemistry division headed by Sergej Aleksandrovich Voznesenskij (prisoner).Radiobiophysics
In 1925, as the Russian part of a collaborative effort between Russia and Germany, the Russians sent Timofeev-Resovskij, and his colleague Sergei Romanovich Tsarapkin, to Germany. There, they worked with Oskar VogtOskar Vogt
Oskar Vogt was a German physician and neurologist. He was born in Husum - Schleswig-Holstein...
, director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research), to establish the Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik (Department of Experimental Genetics) and Timofeev-Resovskij became its director. Timofeev-Resovskij stayed in Germany through World War II, and built his department to world-renowned status. On the basis of false denunciations, Timofeev-Resovskij and Tsarapkin were arrested by the NKVD in September 1945, returned to Russia, and both sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
. They ended up in the Karaganda
Karaganda
Karagandy , more commonly known by its Russian name Karaganda, , is the capital of Karagandy Province in Kazakhstan. It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind Almaty , Astana and Shymkent, with a population of 471,800 . In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic...
prison camp in northern Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, one of the most terrible camps in the Gulag; the harsh conditions of Timofeev-Resovskij’s transportation and incarceration in the labor camp contributed to a significant decline in his health, including the degradation of his vision brought on by malnutrition. Colonel General Zavenyagin, who had intended to utilize Timofeev-Resovskij’s talents in the Soviet atomic bomb project, had Timofeev-Resovskij and Tsarapkin sent to Laboratory B in 1947. Timofeev-Resovskij’s wife Elena Aleksandrovna, after receipt of a letter in his handwriting, left Berlin in 1948, with their son Andrew, to join him in Sungul'. The house occupied by the three Timofeev-Resovskijs was every bit as nice as that planned for the German scientists working at the Sungul' institute. (In 1992, Timofeev-Resovskij was rehabilitated, 11 years after his death!)
Born, Catsch, and Zimmer, who had worked for Timofeev-Resovskij in Berlin and who were sent to Laboratory B by Riehl in December 1947, were able to conduct work similar to that which they had done in Germany, and all three became section heads in Timofeev-Resovskij’s department. Born examined fission products, developed methods of separating plutonium from fission products created in a nuclear reactor, and investigated and developed radiation health and safety measures. Catsch began his work on developing methods to extract radionucleotides from various organs, which he would continue when he left Russia.
The radiobiophysics division under Timofeev-Resovskij had four sections which conducted experimental studies in four basic directions:
- Effects of radioactive isotopes on animals.
- CytologicalCell biologyCell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...
effects of radiation on plants and animals. - Effects of weak concentrations of radioactive materials and low doses of ionizing radiation, mainly on crop cultivated plants.
- Effects of the distribution and accumulation of different radioactive materials introduced into the soil, ground water, and freshwater bodies.
The agrobiological and hydrobiological experiments were united on the general basis of the biogeochemical analysis of the experimentally created elementary biogeocenosis and the introduction of special factor radioactive materials into it.
Radiochemistry
On the basis of a false denunciation, Sergej Aleksandrovich Voznesenskij was arrested in June 1941; in April 1942, he was sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag. From March 1943 to 1947, he led a research group in the 4th Special Department of the NKVD in Moscow; the 4th Special Department provided military research and development by utilizing specialist prisoners, i.e., scientists. In December 1947, he was transferred to Laboratory B to head up the radiochemistry division. With the liquidation of Laboratory B and its merger into NII-1011 in 1955, Voznesenskij was transferred to the Ural Polytechnical Institute to head up the Department of Radiochemistry, and was simultaneously appointed as a scientific consultant at Combine No. 817 on problems of radioactive waste cleanup. (Voznesenskij had been fully rehabilitate in May 1953.)The radiochemistry division had four sections and conducted research and development in the following areas:
- Development of methods of cleaning radioactive waste water.
- Development of the most appropriate structures for the storage of radioactive waste.
- Study of radioactive isotope ion exchange.
- Development of spectroscopic methods for the analysis of complex mixtures of radioactive components.
- Study of the precipitation of radioactive fragments.
- Development of methods to obtain clean (chistykh) isotopic preparations from the solutions of fission fragments of uranium, supplied by Combine No. 817 in nearby Ozersk.
Other Personnel
Laboratory B employed a wide variety of scientists on its staff at various times during its existence, including physicists, chemists, biologists, medical doctors, agronomists, and soil scientists. (Germans, PoWs, Russian prisoners, etc.). Other than those already mentioned above, other personnel at Laboratory B included the following:Ya. M. Fishman (chemist, prisoner), B. V. Kir’yan (prisoner), V. L. Anokhin (physicist/chemist, prisoner), Lev Aleksandrovich Buldakov (surgeon), I. Ya. Bashilov (prisoner), A. A. Goryunov (prisoner), N. S. Khoreshko, Yurij Klimov, L. A. Kuzovkina, N. V. Luchnik (biophysicist/geneticist, prisoner), Yu. I. Moskalev, I. F. Popov (prisoner), N. A. Poryadkova, E. I. Preobrazhenskaya (agronomist), D. I. Semenov (biologist/medical doctor, prisoner), V. N. Strel’tsova, E. I. Sokurova (biologist), M. Yu. Tissen, A. S. Tkachev (prisoner), and V. G. Zhukova.
External links
- Arzama-16
- A. V. Buldakov - Joint International Biographical Center [In Russian]
- Chelyabinsk-70 - All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics (Chelyabinsk-70) [In Russian]
- Demidov, A. A. On the tracks of one “Anniversary” [In Russian] 11.08.2005
- Fonotov, Mikhail Undercover People [In Russian], Ural’skaya Nov’ Number 13 (2002)
- GlobalSecurity.org Chelyabinsk-65 / Ozersk Combine 817 / Production Association Mayak
- GlobalSecurity.org Chelyabinsk-70 / Snezhinsk. Russian Federal Nuclear Center All-Russian Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF)
- Kovaleva, Svetlana Lev and the Atom [In Russian] 2003-02-26
- Kozubov, G. Sungul’ Conference, August 2000, Vestnik Instituta Biologii Komi NTs UrO RAN Issue 36, 2000
- (ОНИС) – Opytnaya Nauchno-Issledovatel’skaya Stantsiya (ONIS, Pilot Scientific Research Station).
- Polunin, V. V. and V. A. Staroverov Personnel of Special Services in the Soviet Atomic Project 1945 – 1953 [In Russian] (FSB, 2004)
- RFYaTs-VNIITF - Key Dates in the History of the RFYaTs-VNIITF [In Russian]
- RFYaTS-VNIITF Creators – See entry for ТИМОФЕЕВ-РЕСОВСКИЙ Николай Владимирович (TIMOFEEV-RESOVSKIJ Nikolaj Vladimorovich) [In Russian]
- RFYaTS-VNIITF Creators – See entry for УРАЛЕЦ Александр Константинович (URALETs Aleksandr Konctantinovich) [In Russian]
- RFYaTS-VNIITF Creators – See entry for ВОЗНЕСЕНСКИЙ Сергей Александрович (VOZNESENSKIJ Sergej Aleksandrovich) [In Russian]
- Sulakshin, S. S. (Scientific Editor) Social and Political Process of Economic Status of Russia [In Russian] 2005
- Sungul’ Conference – Anniversary International Conference [In Russian] UNESCO
- “Я ПРОЖИЛ СЧАСТЛИВУЮ ЖИЗНЬ” К 90-летию со дня рождения Н. В. Тимофеева-Ресовского (“I Lived a Happy Life” – In Honor of the 90th Anniversary of the Birth of Timofeev-Resovskij, ИСТОРИЯ НАУКИ. БИОЛОГИЯ (History of Science – Biology), 1990, № 9, 68-104 (1990). This commemorative has many photographs of Timofeev-Resovskij.