''Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte'' (''Research Reports in Nuclear Physics'') was an internal publication of the German ''

Uranverein Nazi Germany undertook several research programs relating to nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, before and during World War II. These were variously called () or (). The first effort started in April 1939, ju ...

'', which was initiated under the ''

Heereswaffenamt (WaA) was the German Army Weapons Agency. It was the centre for research and development of the Weimar Republic and later the Third Reich for weapons, ammunition and army equipment to the German Reichswehr and then Wehrmacht The ''Wehr ...

'' (Army Ordnance Office) in 1939; in 1942, supervision of the ''Uranverein'' was turned over to the

Reichsforschungsrat The Reichsforschungsrat ("Imperial Research Council") was created in Germany in 1936 under the Education Ministry for the purpose of centralized planning of all basic and applied research, with the exception of aeronautical research. It was reorgani ...

under the Reichserziehungsministerium. Reports in this publication 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 The Alsos Mission was an organized effort by a team of British and United States military, scientific, and intelligence personnel to discover enemy scientific developments during World War II. Its chief focus was to investigate the progress that ...

and sent to the

United States Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by the U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry ...

for evaluation. In 1971, the reports were declassified and returned to Germany. Many of the reports are available at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and the

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (, ; ; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and old quantum theory, quantum theory, for which he received the No ...

Library of the

American Institute of Physics The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corpora ...

. Many of them are reprinted and transcribed in the book "''Collected Works / Gesammelte Werke''" listed below which is available in most libraries. There are reports numbered G-1 to G-395. Prominent German scientists who published reports in ''Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte'' as members of the ''Uranverein''Walker, 1993, 268-274 and Reference #40 on p. 262. can be grouped as follows: *Nine of the ten German nuclear physicists, except for

Max von Laue Max Theodor Felix von Laue (; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 "for his discovery of the X-ray diffraction, diffraction of X-rays by crystals". In addition to his scientifi ...

, incarcerated in England at the close of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

under

Operation Epsilon Operation Epsilon was the codename of a program in which Allies of World War II, Allied forces near the end of World War II detained ten Germany, German scientists who were thought to have worked on German nuclear energy project, Nazi Germany's n ...

: Erich Bagge,

Kurt Diebner 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 ...

Walther Gerlach Walther Gerlach (1 August 1889 – 10 August 1979) was a German physicist who co-discovered, through laboratory experiment, spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern–Gerlach effect. The experiment was conceived by Otto Stern in 1921 an ...

Otto Hahn Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the field of radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and discoverer of nuclear fission, the science behind nuclear reactors and ...

Paul Harteck Paul Karl Maria Harteck (20 July 190222 January 1985) was an Austrian physical chemist. In 1945 under Operation Epsilon in "the big sweep" throughout Germany, Harteck was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces for suspicion of ...

Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (; ; 5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist, one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics and a principal scientist in the German nuclear program during World War II. He pub ...

, Horst Korsching,

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, un ...

, and Karl Wirtz. *German physicists sent to

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

to work on the

Soviet atomic bomb project The Soviet atomic bomb project was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II. Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov suspected that the Allied powers were secretly developing a " superwea ...

: Robert Döpel,

Walter Herrmann Walter Herrmann Heinrich (born 26 June 1979) is an Argentine former professional basketball player. He is listed at 6'9" and 225 lbs. He was a key member of the senior men's Argentine national basketball team that won the gold medal durin ...

, Heinz Pose,

Nikolaus Riehl Nikolaus Vasilyevich Riehl (; 1901 — 2 August 1990) was a German nuclear chemist of Russian-Jewish descent. Before the fall of Berlin, he was director of the scientific headquarters of the Auergesellschaft AG, and was taken to the Sovie ...

, and Karl Zimmer. *Others: Fritz Bopp,

Walther Bothe Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe (; 8 January 1891 – 8 February 1957) was a German physicist who shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics with Max Born "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith". He served in the military durin ...

, Wolfgang Finkelnburg, Siegfried Flügge,

Hans Geiger Johannes Wilhelm Geiger ( , ; ; 30 September 1882 – 24 September 1945) was a German nuclear physicist. He is known as the inventor of the Geiger counter, a device used to detect ionizing radiation, and for carrying out the Rutherford scatt ...

, Karl-Heinz Höcker,

Fritz Houtermans Friedrich Georg "Fritz" Houtermans (January 22, 1903 – March 1, 1966) was a Dutch-Austrian-German atomic and nuclear physicist and Communist born in Zoppot (now Sopot) near Danzig (now Gdańsk), West Prussia to a Dutch father, who was a wealt ...

Georg Joos Georg Jakob Christof Joos (25 May 1894 in Bad Urach, German Empire – 20 May 1959 in Munich, West Germany) was a German experimental physicist. He wrote ''Lehrbuch der theoretischen Physik'', first published in 1932 and one of the most influ ...

, Horst Korsching, Carl Ramsauer, Fritz Sauter, and

Fritz Strassmann Friedrich Wilhelm Strassmann (; 22 February 1902 – 22 April 1980) was a German chemist who, with Otto Hahn in December 1938, identified the element barium as a product of the bombardment of uranium with neutrons. Their observation was the key ...

Notes

Bibliography

*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) *Werner Heisenberg, W. Blum, H. P. Durr, H. Rechenberg "Collected Works / Gesammelte Werke" (Springer, 1985) {{ISBN, 0-387-13400-X 1939 establishments in Germany 1945 disestablishments in Germany Defunct magazines published in Germany Magazines established in 1939 Magazines disestablished in 1945 Nuclear program of Nazi Germany Defunct science and technology magazines Defunct German-language magazines Physics magazines

See also

Notes

Bibliography