Wilhelm Groth
Encyclopedia
Wilhelm Groth was a German
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...

 physical chemist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club; his main activity was the development of centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium. After the war, he was a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Hamburg
University of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by Wilhelm Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium. There are around 38,000 students as of the start of...

. In 1950, he became director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Bonn
University of Bonn
The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...

. He was a principal in the 1956 shipment of three centrifuges for uranium enrichment to Brazil.

Education

From 1922 to 1927, Groth studied at the Technische Hochschule München (today, the Technical University of Munich
Technical University of Munich
The Technische Universität München is a research university with campuses in Munich, Garching, and Weihenstephan...

 (Technische Universität München), the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), and the University of Tübingen (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen). He received his doctorate in 1927 under Walther Gerlach at Tübingen. His thesis was on the determination of electromechanical equivalents.

Career

In 1927, Groth became a teaching assistant at the Technische Hochschule Hannover, today the University of Hanover (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover).

In 1932, Groth became an assistant to Otto Stern
Otto Stern
Otto Stern was a German physicist and Nobel laureate in physics.-Biography:Stern was born in Sohrau, now Żory in the German Empire's Kingdom of Prussia and studied at Breslau, now Wrocław in Lower Silesia....

 and Paul Harteck
Paul Harteck
Paul Karl Maria Harteck was a German physical chemist. He was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months in 1945 under Operation Epsilon.-Education:Harteck studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and the Humboldt University of Berlin...

 at the Institut für Physikalische Chemie (Institute for Physical Chemistry) at the University of Hamburg. He completed his Habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...

 at Hamburg at the end of 1938, following complicated negotiations with Hamburg district leadership of the Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund (NSDDB, National Socialist German University Lecturers League).

Shortly after the discovery of nuclear fission
Nuclear fission
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...

 in December 1938/January 1939, the Uranverein, i.e., 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...

, had an initial start in April before being formed a second time under the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) in September.

Paul Harteck
Paul Harteck
Paul Karl Maria Harteck was a German physical chemist. He was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months in 1945 under Operation Epsilon.-Education:Harteck studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and the Humboldt University of Berlin...

 was director of the physical chemistry department at the University of Hamburg
University of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by Wilhelm Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium. There are around 38,000 students as of the start of...

 and an advisor to the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office). On 24 April 1939, along with his teaching assistant Wilhelm Groth, Harteck made contact with the Reichskriegsministerium (RKM, Reich Ministry of War) to alert them to the potential of military applications of nuclear chain reactions and point out its political significance. Two days earlier, on 22 April 1939, after hearing a colloquium paper by Wilhelm Hanle
Wilhelm Hanle
Wilhelm Hanle was a German experimental physicist. He is known for the Hanle effect. During World War II, he made contributions to the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club...

 on the use of uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

 fission
Nuclear fission
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...

 in a Uranmaschine (uranium machine, i.e., nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...

), Georg Joos
Georg Joos
Georg Jakob Christof Joos was a German theoretical physicist. He wrote Lehrbuch der theoretischen Physik, first published in 1932 and one of the most influential theoretical physics textbooks of the 20th Century.-Education:Joos began his higher education in 1912 at the Technische Hochschule...

, along with Hanle, notified Wilhelm Dames, at the Reichserziehungsministerium
Reichserziehungsministerium
The Reichserziehungsministerium was officially known as the Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung .-Background:...

(REM, Reich Ministry of Education), of potential military applications of nuclear energy. The communication was given to Abraham Esau, head of the physics section 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) at the REM. On 29 April, a group, organized by Esau, met at the REM to discuss the potential of a sustained nuclear chain reaction
Nuclear chain reaction
A nuclear chain reaction occurs when one nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more nuclear reactions, thus leading to a self-propagating number of these reactions. The specific nuclear reaction may be the fission of heavy isotopes or the fusion of light isotopes...

. The group included the physicists Walther Bothe
Walther Bothe
Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe was a German nuclear physicist, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 with Max Born....

, Robert Döpel
Robert Döpel
Georg 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...

, Hans Geiger, Wolfgang Gentner
Wolfgang Gentner
Wolfgang Gentner was a German experimental nuclear physicist.Gentner received his doctorate in 1930 from the University of Frankfurt. From 1932 to 1935 he had a fellowship which allowed him to do postdoctoral research and study at Curie's Radium Institute at the University of Paris...

 (probably sent by Walther Bothe
Walther Bothe
Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe was a German nuclear physicist, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 with Max Born....

), Wilhelm Hanle
Wilhelm Hanle
Wilhelm Hanle was a German experimental physicist. He is known for the Hanle effect. During World War II, he made contributions to the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club...

, Gerhard Hoffmann
Gerhard Hoffmann
Gerhard Hoffmann was a German nuclear physicist. During World War II, he contributed to the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club.-Education:...

, and Georg Joos; Peter Debye
Peter Debye
Peter Joseph William Debye FRS was a Dutch physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry.-Early life:...

 was invited, but he did not attend. After this, informal work began at the Georg-August University of Göttingen by Joos, Hanle, and their colleague Reinhold Mannfopff; the group of physicists was known informally as the first Uranverein (Uranium Club) and formally as Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Kernphysik. The group’s work was discontinued in August 1939, when the three were called to military training.

The second Uranverein began after the Heereswaffenamt squeezed out 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...

of the Reichserziehungsministerium
Reichserziehungsministerium
The Reichserziehungsministerium was officially known as the Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung .-Background:...

and started the formal German nuclear energy project under military auspices. The second Uranverein was formed on 1 September 1939, the day World War II began, and it had its first meeting on 16 September 1939. The meeting was organized by 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...

, advisor to the HWA, and held in Berlin. The invitees included Walther Bothe
Walther Bothe
Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe was a German nuclear physicist, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 with Max Born....

, Siegfried Flügge
Siegfried Flügge
Siegfried Flügge was a German theoretical physicist and made contributions to nuclear physics. He worked at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Chemie and worked in the German Uranverein...

, Hans Geiger, Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn FRS was a German chemist and Nobel laureate, a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner...

, Paul Harteck
Paul Harteck
Paul Karl Maria Harteck was a German physical chemist. He was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months in 1945 under Operation Epsilon.-Education:Harteck studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and the Humboldt University of Berlin...

, Gerhard Hoffmann
Gerhard Hoffmann
Gerhard Hoffmann was a German nuclear physicist. During World War II, he contributed to the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club.-Education:...

, Josef Mattauch
Josef Mattauch
Josef Mattauch was a German physicist known for his work in the investigation of the isotopic abundances by mass spectrometry. He developed the Mattauch isobar rule in 1934.-Mattauch-Herzog geometry mass spectrometer:...

, and Georg Stetter
Georg Stetter
Georg Stetter was an Austrian-German nuclear physicist. Stetter was Director of the Second Physics Institute of the University of Vienna. He was a principal member of the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club. In the latter years of World War II, he was also the Director...

. A second meeting was held soon thereafter and included Klaus Clusius
Klaus Clusius
Klaus Clusius was a German physical chemist from Breslau , Silesia. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club; he worked on isotope separation techniques and heavy water production...

, Robert Döpel
Robert Döpel
Georg 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...

, Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...

, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the research team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg's leadership...

. Also at this time, the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, after World War II the Max Planck Institute for Physics
Max Planck Institute for Physics
Max Planck Institute for Physics is a physics institute in Munich, Germany that specializes in High Energy Physics and Astroparticle physics. It is part of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and is also known as the Werner Heisenberg Institute, after its first director.It was founded as the Kaiser Wilhelm...

), in Berlin-Dahlem
Dahlem (Berlin)
Dahlem is a locality of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough in southwestern Berlin. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a part of the former borough of Zehlendorf. Dahlem is one of the most affluent parts of the city and home to the main campus of the Free University of Berlin with the...

, was placed under HWA authority, with Diebner as the administrative director, and the military control of the nuclear research commenced.

As a principal in the Uranverein, Harteck brought many of his colleagues at Hamburg into the project’s activities; this included Groth. At the end of 1939, Groth tested simultaneously with Rudolf Fleischmann
Rudolf Fleischmann
Rudolf Fleischmann was a German experimental nuclear physicist from Erlangen, Bavaria. He worked for Walther Bothe at the Physics Institute of the University of Heidelberg and then at the Institute for Physics of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research...

 the Clusius
Klaus Clusius
Klaus Clusius was a German physical chemist from Breslau , Silesia. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club; he worked on isotope separation techniques and heavy water production...

-Dickel isotope separation process on uranium hexafluoride
Uranium hexafluoride
Uranium hexafluoride , referred to as "hex" in the nuclear industry, is a compound used in the uranium enrichment process that produces fuel for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. It forms solid grey crystals at standard temperature and pressure , is highly toxic, reacts violently with water...

, with negative results. In the autumn of 1941, Groth, Harteck, and Albert Suhr began the construction of an ultracentrifuge
Ultracentrifuge
The ultracentrifuge is a centrifuge optimized for spinning a rotor at very high speeds, capable of generating acceleration as high as 2,000,000 g . There are two kinds of ultracentrifuges, the preparative and the analytical ultracentrifuge...

 for the enrichment of uranium-235. The construction was done under the auspices of an Heereswaffenamt contract let by 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...

. The Anschütz & Co. G.m.b.H., a gyroscope firm in Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

, was a participant in the project; at Anschütz, Konrad Beyerle
Konrad Beyerle
Konrad Beyerle was a German physicist. During World War II, he was in charge of centrifuge research and development at Anschütz & Co. G.m.b.H. He participated in the development of ultracentrifuges for the enrichment of uranium done under the auspices of the German nuclear energy project, also...

 was in charge of centrifuge research and development. In 1943, enrichment
Enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Natural uranium is 99.284% 238U isotope, with 235U only constituting about 0.711% of its weight...

 to 5% was achieved, however, technical difficulties hindered large-scale production. The Anschütz corporation told Groth that for mass production they would require many more mechanics and engineers. In 1945 Groth was captured by T-Force
T-Force
T-Force was an elite British Army force which operated during the final stages of World War II. Originally used to secure and exploit targets that could provide valuable intelligence of scientific and military value, they were later tasked with seizing Nazi German scientists and businessmen in the...

, a British Army unit established to locate German scientists. The officer who captured Groth was Brian Urquhart
Brian Urquhart
Sir Brian Urquhart, KCMG, MBE is a former Undersecretary-General of the United Nations. He is also a World War II veteran and an author.-Early life:...

.

After 1945, Groth was appointed nichtplanmäßiger Professor (supernumerary professor) of physical chemistry at Hamburg University, with permission of the British occupation government; from 1948, he was an ausserordentlicher Professor (extraordinarius professor) there. From 1950, occupying the new created Lehrstuhl für physikalische Chemie (chair of physical chemistry), he was head of the Department of Physical Chemistry and an ordentlicher Professor (ordinarius professor) at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. He was a motivating force behind the building and the design of the Institut für Physikalische Chemie (Institute for Physical Chemistry), and when it was completed at the end of 1954 he became its director. He was Rektor (Rector) of the University from 1956 to 1966.

Founded in 1956, Groth was one of the founding fathers of the Kernforschungsanlage Jülich (today, the Jülich Research Centre
Jülich Research Centre
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres and is one of the largest interdisciplinary research centres in Europe...

 (Forschungszentrum Jülich), and he was the first chairman (Vorsitzender) of its Scientific Council. Between 1961 and 1969, he established the Institut für Physikalische Chemie (Institute for Physical Chemistry) there.

In 1953, Admiral Alvaro Alberto, the first president of Brazil’s
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 National Research Council, met with Wilhelm Groth, Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn FRS was a German chemist and Nobel laureate, a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner...

, and Paul Harteck
Paul Harteck
Paul Karl Maria Harteck was a German physical chemist. He was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months in 1945 under Operation Epsilon.-Education:Harteck studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and the Humboldt University of Berlin...

, at the Institute of Physics in Hamburg. An agreement was made to ship three centrifuges for uranium enrichment, along with supporting equipment, to Brazil. The shipment was to include components from 14 German companies. Initially, the shipment was thwarted by orders of James Conant
James Conant
James Conant may refer to:* James Bryant Conant , American chemist and educational administrator* James F. Conant , American philosopher...

, U.S. High Commissioner to Germany. The shipment, however, was finally made to in 1956, under the auspices of the University of São Paulo
University of São Paulo
Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious...

 in Brazil.

Honors

  • 1970 – Großes Verdienstkreuz (Great Cross of Merit) of the Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany)

Internal Reports

The following reports were published in Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte
Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte
Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte was an internal publication of the German Uranverein, which was initiated under the Heereswaffenamt in 1939; in 1942, supervision of the Uranverein was turned over to the Reichsforschungsrat under the Reichserziehungsministerium...

(Research Reports in Nuclear Physics), an internal publication of the German Uranverein
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...

. The reports were classified Top Secret, they had very limited distribution, and the authors were not allowed to keep copies. The reports were confiscated under the Allied Operation Alsos
Operation Alsos
Operation Alsos was an effort at the end of World War II by the Allies , branched off from the Manhattan Project, to investigate the German nuclear energy project, seize German nuclear resources, materials and personnel to further American research and to prevent their capture by the Soviets, and...

 and sent to the United States Atomic Energy Commission
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...

 for evaluation. In 1971, the reports were declassified and returned to Germany. The reports are available at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and the American Institute of Physics
American Institute of Physics
The American Institute of Physics promotes science, the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies...

.
  • Wilhelm Groth Stand der Arbeiten zur Trennung der Isotope 235U und 238U G-33 (5 June 1940)

  • Wilhelm Groth Stand der Arbeiten zur Herstellung einer Ultrazentrifuge G-82 (14 December 1941)

  • Wilhelm Groth Stand der Arbeiten zur Trennung der Isotope des Präparats 38 G-83 (December 1941)

  • Wilhelm Groth Trennung der Uranisotope nach dem Ultrazentrifugenverfahren. I. Anreichereung der Xenonisotope in einer einstufigen Ultrazentrifuge G-146 (27 June 1942)

  • Wilhelm Groth Die Trennung der Uranisotope nach dem Trennohr- und dem Ultrazentrifugenverfahren G-147 (23 March 1942)

  • Wilhelm Groth and Albert Suhr Trennung der Uranisotope nach dem Ultrazentrifugenverfahren G-149 (17 August 1942)

Books by Groth

  • Konrad Beyerle
    Konrad Beyerle
    Konrad Beyerle was a German physicist. During World War II, he was in charge of centrifuge research and development at Anschütz & Co. G.m.b.H. He participated in the development of ultracentrifuges for the enrichment of uranium done under the auspices of the German nuclear energy project, also...

    , Wilhelm Groth, Paul Harteck
    Paul Harteck
    Paul Karl Maria Harteck was a German physical chemist. He was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months in 1945 under Operation Epsilon.-Education:Harteck studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and the Humboldt University of Berlin...

    , and Johannes Jensen
    J. Hans D. Jensen
    Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen was a German nuclear physicist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, known as the Uranium Club, in which he made contributions to the separation of uranium isotopes. After the war Jensen was a professor at the University of Heidelberg...

    Über Gaszentrifugen: Anreicherung der Xenon-, Krypton- und der Selen-Isotope nach dem Zentrifugenverfahren (Chemie, 1950); cited in Walker, 1993, 278.
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