Kurt Diebner (13 May 1905 – 13 July 1964) was a German nuclear physicist who is well known for directing and administering parts of the German nuclear weapons program, a secretive program aiming to build nuclear weapons for Nazi Germany during World War II. He was appointed the project's administrative director after Adolf Hitler authorized it.

Diebner was also the director of the Nuclear Research Council and a Reich Planning Officer for the German Army until its surrender to Allied Powers in 1945. After the war, he was incarcerated in the United Kingdom and repatriated back to West Germany in early 1946. Shortly after his return, he became director and joint owner of DURAG-Apparatebau GmbH, and was a member of the supervisory board of the Gesellschaft zur Kernenergieverwertung in Schiffbau und Schiffahrt m.b.H

Education

Diebner was born in 1905 in Obernessa, Weißenfels in German Empire. From 1925, Diebner went on to study Physics at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg where he gained B.S. in 1928, and M.S. in Physics from Leopold Franzens University of Innsbruck in 1930. He completed his doctorate in 1932 under Gerhard Hoffmann in Halle. His thesis was on column ionization of alpha particles.

Academic career

From 1931 to 1934, Diebner was Gerhard Hoffmann's teaching assistant at Halle University.

It was at the Gottow facility that nuclear fission experiments designated G-I and G-III were conducted. The G-1 experiment had lattices of 6,800 uranium oxide cubes (about 25 tons) in the nuclear moderator paraffin. The work verified Karl Heinz Höcker's calculations that cubes were better than rods, and rods were better than plates. The G-III experiment was a small-scale design, but it generated an exceptionally high rate of neutron production. The G-III model was superior to nuclear fission chain reaction experiments that had been conducted at the KWIP in Berlin-Dahem, the University of Heidelberg, or the University of Leipzig.

In the latter part of World War II, in addition to his other responsibilities, Diebner was a Reich Planning Officer.

Program collapsed

Diebner was rounded up on 2 May 1945 as part of the Allied Operation Alsos, taken to Godmanchester, England and interned at Farm Hall, with nine other scientists thought to be involved in nuclear research and development. The nine others incarcerated were Erich Bagge, Walther Gerlach, Otto Hahn, Paul Harteck, Werner Heisenberg, Horst Korsching, Max von Laue, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, and Karl Wirtz. All were involved with nuclear research except for von Laue. They were repatriated to Germany in early 1946.

From 1947/1948, Diebner was director and joint owner of DURAG-Apparatebau GmbH in Hamburg.

Internal reports

The following reports were published in Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte (Research Reports in Nuclear Physics), an internal publication of the German Uranverein. 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 and sent to the United States Atomic Energy Commission 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.

  • F. Berkei, W. Borrmann, W. Czulius, Kurt Diebner, Georg Hartwig, K. H. Höcker, W. Herrmann, H. Pose, and Ernst Rexer Bericht über einen Würfelversuch mit Uranoxyd und Paraffin G-125 (dated before 26 November 1942)
  • Kurt Diebner, Werner Czulius, W. Herrmann, Georg Hartwig, F. Berkei and E. Kamin Über die Neutronenvermehrung einer Anordnung aus Uranwürfeln und schwerem Wasser (G III) G-210
  • Kurt Diebner, Georg Hartwig, W. Herrmann, H. Westmeyer, Werner Czulius, F. Berkei, and Karl-Heinz Höcker Vorläufige Mitteilung über einen Versuch mit Uranwüfeln und schwerem Eis als Bremssubstanz G-211 (April 1943)
  • Kurt Diebner, Georg Hartwig, W. Herrmann, H. Westmeyer, Werner Czulius, F. Gerkei, and Karl-Heinz Höcker Bericht über einen Versuch mit Würfeln aus Uran-Metall und schwerem Eis G-212 (July 1943)

Selected literature

  • Kurt Diebner Der deutsche Forscheranteil, Die Zeit (18 August 1955) as cited in Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, References, LX.
  • Kurt Diebner (alias Werner Tautorus) Die Deutschen Geheimarbeiten zur Kernenergieverwertung während des zweiten Weldkrieges 1939-1945, Atomkernenergie Volume 1, 368–370 and 423–425 (1956) as cited in Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, References, LX.

Books

  • Kurt Diebner and Eberhard Grassmann, Künstliche Radioaktivität (Hirzel, 1939)
  • Dieter Bagge, Kurt Diebner, and Kenneth Jay Von der Uranspaltung bis Calder Hall (Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1957)
  • Erich Bagge and Kurt Diebner 10 Jahre Kernenergie-Studiengesellschaft 1955-1965 (Thiemig, 1965)

Notes

References

  • Bernstein, Jeremy, Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall (Copernicus, 2001)
  • Hentschel, Klaus (editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (editorial assistant and translator), Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Birkhäuser, 1996)
  • Walker, Mark, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939–1949 (Cambridge, 1993)
  • Walker, Mark, Eine Waffenschmiede? Kernwaffen- und Reaktorforschung am Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik, Forschungsprogramm "Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus" Ergebnisse 26 (2005)
  • Annotated Bibliography for Kurt Diebner from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues