Helmut Gröttrup
Helmut Gröttrup (12 February 1916 – 4 July 1981) was a German engineer, rocket scientist and inventor of the smart card. During World War II, he worked in the German V-2 rocket program under Wernher von Braun. From 1946 to 1950 he headed a group of 170 German scientists who were forced to work for the Soviet rocketry program under Sergei Korolev. After returning to West Germany in December 1953, he developed data processing systems and contributed to early commercial applications of computer science. In 1967 Gröttrup invented the basic principles of the smart card as a forgery-proof "key" for secure identification and access control. Education Helmut Gröttrup's father Johann Gröttrup (1881 – 1940) was a mechanical engineer. He worked full-time at the Bund der technischen Angestellten und Beamten (Butab), a federation for technical staff and officials of the social democratic trade union in Berlin. His mother Thérèse Gröttrup (1894 – 1981), born Elsen, was active in t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cologne, Germany
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 million people in the urban region. Centered on the left (west) bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about southeast of NRW's state capital Düsseldorf and northwest of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. The city's medieval Catholic Cologne Cathedral (), the third-tallest church and tallest cathedral in the world, constructed to house the Shrine of the Three Kings, is a globally recognized landmark and one of the most visited sights and pilgrimage destinations in Europe. The cityscape is further shaped by the Twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne, and Cologne is famous for Eau de Cologne, that has been produced in the city since 1709, and "cologne" has since come to be a generic term. Cologne was founded and established in Germanic Ubii te ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Geiger Counter
A Geiger counter (also known as a Geiger–Müller counter) is an electronic instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It is widely used in applications such as radiation dosimetry, radiological protection, experimental physics, nuclear industry and the Manumouthry. It detects ionizing radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays using the ionization effect produced in a Geiger–Müller tube, which gives its name to the instrument. In wide and prominent use as a hand-held radiation survey instrument, it is perhaps one of the world's best-known radiation detection instruments. The original detection principle was realized in 1908 at the University of Manchester, but it was not until the development of the Geiger–Müller tube in 1928 that the Geiger counter could be produced as a practical instrument. Since then, it has been very popular due to its robust sensing element and relatively low cost. However, there are limitations in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soviet Occupation Zone
The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a communist area, established as a result of the Potsdam Agreement on 1 August 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic (GDR), commonly referred to in English as East Germany, was established in the Soviet Occupation Zone. The SBZ was one of the four Allied occupation zones of Germany created at the end of World War II with the Allied victory. According to the Potsdam Agreement, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (German initials: SMAD) was assigned responsibility for the middle portion of Germany. Eastern Germany beyond the Oder-Neisse line, equal in territory to the SBZ, was to be annexed by Poland and its population expelled, pending a final peace conference with Germany. By the time forces of the United St ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bleicherode
Bleicherode () is a town in the district of Nordhausen, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated on the river Wipper, 17 km southwest of Nordhausen. On 1 December 2007, the former municipality Obergebra was incorporated by Bleicherode. The former municipalities Etzelsrode, Friedrichsthal, Kleinbodungen, Kraja, Hainrode, Nohra, Wipperdorf and Wolkramshausen were merged into Bleicherode in January 2019. Every Thursday, there is a market held in the town. Historically, Bleicherode belonged to the Prussian province of Saxony between 1700 and 1945. One of Bleicherode's most famous natives is the cartographer August Heinrich Petermann. File:August Petermann Geburtshaus Bleicherode.jpg, The house where Petermann was born: Neue Straße 3, Bleicherode File:Südharzreise 26 – August Petermann in Bleicherode.jpg, Memorial for August Petermann in Bleicherode Notable persons * August Heinrich Petermann (1822–1878), German cartographer * Adalbert Merx (1838–1909), German theo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Institute Rabe
Institut RABE (Missile Construction and Development in Bleicherode, Raketenbau und Entwicklung) was a group of German engineers founded by the Soviets to recreate the A-4 flight control system. It was created in July 1945 in Bleicherode when the Red Army took over Thuringia as part of the Soviet occupation zone. It originally consisted of 12 Germans under Major Boris Chertok and Lieutenant Colonel Aleksey Mikhaylovich Isayev. The ''Institute RABE'' was created with the purpose of recruiting German rocket specialists to aid in current and future Soviet rocket development. This mission had to be kept secret, as the American-occupied territory of Hesse and Bavaria was not far away from Lehesten, the testing site for rocket engines. By the end of August 1945, the institute had settled into their headquarters (the former mansion of Wernher von Braun) but it lacked deeper knowledge of the Peenemünde developments because the US Army had seized a group of 450 specialists in Garmisch-Parte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hans Georg Klamroth
Johannes "Hans" Georg Klamroth (12 October 1898, Halberstadt – 26 August 1944) was, by his knowledge of the plans through distant relatives and his son-in-law Lieutenant-Colonel , involved in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. After the bombing at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia on 20 July 1944 failed to kill Hitler, Klamroth was arrested and, after a show trial at the '' Volksgerichtshof'' on 15 August, sentenced to death for keeping his knowledge of the plot to himself. He was hanged at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin on 26 August. Reportedly he was also stripped nude from the waist down several hours after his hanging. The Halberstadt-born businessman was originally a follower of National Socialism and an NSDAP and SS member; he also served as a major in the reserve as an intelligence officer in the Wehrmacht. His daughter, television journalist Wibke Bruhns, published her father's biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Szczecin
Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major seaport and Poland's seventh-largest city. As of December 2021, the population was 395,513. Szczecin is located on the river Oder, south of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Bay of Pomerania. The city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river. Szczecin is adjacent to the town of Police and is the urban centre of the Szczecin agglomeration, an extended metropolitan area that includes communities in the German states of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Szczecin is the administrative and industrial centre of West Pomeranian Voivodeship and is the site of the University of Szczecin, Pomeranian Medical Universi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the (SD; Security Service). During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials. History After Adol ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of the Holocaust. As a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active service, and did not fight. He studied agriculture in university, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and the SS in 1925. In 1929, he was appointed by Adolf Hitler. Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a 290-man battalion into a million-strong paramilitary group, and set up and controlled the Nazi concentration camps. He was known for good organisational skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich in 1931. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). H ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Klaus Riedel
Klaus Riedel (2 August 1907 – 4 August 1944) was a German rocket pioneer. He was involved in many early liquid-fuelled rocket experiments, and eventually worked on the V-2 missile programme at Peenemünde Army Research Center. History Riedel was born in Wilhelmshaven, the son of a naval officer. His mother died when he was twelve years old, and his father two years later. The orphaned Riedel was raised by his grandmother in Bernstadt. He went on to study mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin and to work at Löwe. While in Berlin, he attended a public lecture on rocketry by Rudolf Nebel on behalf of Germany's amateur rocket group, the ''Verein für Raumschiffahrt'' (VfR - "Spaceflight Society") and joined the group which included others such as Rolf Engel, Rudolf Nebel, Hermann Oberth or Paul Ehmayr, straight away, becoming very active in its efforts to build a working rocket that resulted in the Mirak and Repulsor rockets, providing his family's f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sicherheitsdienst
' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the ''Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo (formed in 1933) was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office (''Reichssicherheitshauptamt''; RSHA), as one of its seven departments. Its first director, Reinhard Heydrich, intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich's reach under "continuous supervision". Following Germany's defeat in World War II, the tribunal at the Nuremberg trials officially declared that the SD was a criminal organisation, along with the rest of Heydrich's RSHA (including the Gestapo) both individually and as branch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ernst Steinhoff
Ernst August Wilhelm Steinhoff (February 11, 1908 – December 2, 1987) was a rocket scientist and member of the " von Braun rocket group", at the Peenemünde Army Research Center (1939–1945). Ernst Steinhoff saw National Socialist (Nazi) doctrines as "ideals" and became a member of the NSDAP in May 1937. He was a glider pilot, holding distance records, and had the honorary Luftwaffe rank of "Flight Captain". Ernst Steinhoff earned his PhD at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt (today Technische Universität Darmstadt) in 1940 with a dissertation on aviation instruments. His younger brother Friedrich Steinhoff assisted rocket experiments while commanding in 1942. Ernst was among the scientists to surrender and travel to the United States to provide rocketry expertise via Operation Paperclip. Friedrich was captured aboard and committed suicide in a Boston jail before Ernst came to the United States on the first boat, November 16, 1945. with Operation Paperclip and Fort ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |