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Operation Epsilon
Operation Epsilon was the codename of a program in which Allied forces near the end of World War II detained ten German scientists who were thought to have worked on Nazi Germany's nuclear program. The scientists were captured between May 1 and June 30, 1945, as part of the Allied Alsos Mission, mainly as part of its Operation Big sweep through southwestern Germany. They were interned at Farm Hall, a bugged house in Godmanchester, near Cambridge, England, from July 3, 1945, to January 3, 1946. The primary goal of the program was to determine how close Nazi Germany had been to constructing an atomic bomb by listening to their conversations. List of scientists The following German scientists were captured and detained during Operation Epsilon: * Erich Bagge * Kurt Diebner * Walther Gerlach * Otto Hahn * Paul Harteck * Werner Heisenberg * Horst Korsching * Max von Laue * Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker * Karl Wirtz Transfer to England The scientists captured in Germany by the Al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner discovered radioactive isotopes of radium, thorium, protactinium and uranium. He also discovered the phenomena of atomic recoil and nuclear isomerism, and pioneered rubidium–strontium dating. In 1938, Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission, for which Hahn received the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Nuclear fission was the basis for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. A graduate of the University of Marburg, Hahn studied under Sir William Ramsay at University College London and at McGill University in Montreal under Ernest Rutherford, where he discovered several new radioactive isotopes. He returned to Germany in 1906; Emil Fischer placed a former woodworking shop in the basement of the Chemical Institute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Urfeld
Urfeld am Walchensee is a village in the municipality of Kochel am See in the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen in Bavaria, Germany. It lies on the northwest shore of Lake Walchensee.Gudelius, Jost: ''Die Jachenau''. Jachenau 2008, , S. 139 Famous people in Urfeld (Source:) Wimmer, Otto, ''Ahnentafel der Nefenhauser in Urfeld'' auf CD, Pullach (2009) *† Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — September 1786 *Ferdinand Graf von Spork — in the period 1875–1902 * Hans Freiherr von Wolzogen — in the period 1883–1898 *Hermann Rietschel — in the period 1886–1914 *Berthold Kellermann — 1884 *Georg von Vollmar — in the period 1889–1922 *Wolfgang Heine — in the period 1905–1944 *Otto Borngräber — in the period 1905–1928 *Franz Seraph von Pfistermeister — in the period 1909–1912 *Peter Emil Recher — in the period 1913–1948 *Lovis Corinth — in the period 1918–1925 *Paul Kalbeck — 1920 *Arnold Zweig — in August 1923 *Werner Heisenberg — in the period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Nuclear Weapons Program
The Uranverein ( en, "Uranium Club") or Uranprojekt ( en, "Uranium Project") was the name given to the project in Germany to research nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, during World War II. It went through several phases of work, but in the words of historian Mark Walker, it was ultimately "frozen at the laboratory level" with the "modest goal" to "build a nuclear reactor which could sustain a nuclear fission chain reaction for a significant amount of time and to achieve the complete separation of at least tiny amount of the uranium isotopes." The scholarly consensus is that it failed to achieve these goals, and that despite fears at the time, the Germans had never been close to producing nuclear weapons. The first effort started in April 1939, just months after the discovery of nuclear fission in December 1938, but ended only months later shortly ahead of the German invasion of Poland, when many notable physicists were drafted into the ''Wehrma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stewart Menzies
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, (; 30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War. Early life, family Stewart Graham Menzies was born in England in 1890 into a wealthy family as the second son of John Graham Menzies and Susannah West Wilson, daughter of ship-owner Arthur Wilson of Tranby Croft. His grandfather, Graham Menzies, was a whisky distiller who helped establish a cartel and made huge profits. His parents became friends of King Edward VII. Menzies was a nephew of Robert Stewart Menzies. But Menzies' father was dissolute, never established a worthwhile career, and wasted his share of the family fortune; he died of tuberculosis in 1911 in his early 50s, leaving only a minimal estate. Menzies was educated at Eton College, becoming president of the student society Pop, and left in 1909. He excelled in sports, hunting and cross-country running. He won prizes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
R V Jones
Reginald Victor Jones , FRSE, LLD (29 September 1911 – 17 December 1997) was a British physicist and scientific military intelligence expert who played an important role in the defence of Britain in by solving scientific and technical problems, and by the extensive use of deception throughout the war to confuse the Germans. Early life Reginald Jones was born in Herne Hill, south London, on 29 September 1911. He was educated at Alleyn's School, Dulwich, and Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied Natural Sciences. In 1932 he graduated with First Class honours in physics and then, working in the Clarendon Laboratory, completed his DPhil in 1934. Subsequently, he took up a Skynner Senior Studentship in Astronomy at Balliol College, Oxford. Assistant Director of Intelligence (Science) In 1936 Jones took up the post at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, a part of the Air Ministry. Here he worked on the problems associated with defending Britain from an air attack ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tempsford is a former Royal Air Force station located north east of Sandy, Bedfordshire, Sandy, Bedfordshire, England and south of St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, England. As part of the Royal Air Force Special Duty Service, the airfield was perhaps the most secret airfield of the World War II, Second World War. It was home to No. 138 Squadron RAF, 138 (Special Duty) Squadron and No. 161 Squadron RAF, 161 (Special Duty) Squadron, which dropped supplies and agents into occupied Europe for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). 138 (SD) Squadron did the bulk of the supply and agent drops, while 161 (SD) Squadron had the Lysander flight, and did the insertion and pick-up operations in occupied Europe. RAF Tempsford is very close to Little Gransden Airfield and can be clearly seen from flights climbing out from the westerly runway 28. Other active airfields nearby include the former RAF bases at RAF Gransden Lodge, Gransden Lodge and RAF Bourn, Bourn. Units Tempsford now By ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huntingdon
Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there in 1599 and became one of its Members of Parliament (MP) in 1628. The former Conservative Prime Minister (1990–1997) John Major served as its MP from 1979 until his retirement in 2001. History Huntingdon was founded by the Anglo-Saxons and Danes. It is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 921, where it appears as ''Huntandun''. It appears as ''Huntedun'' in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name means "The huntsman's hill" or possibly "Hunta's hill". Huntingdon seems to have been a staging post for Danish raids outside East Anglia until 917, when the Danes moved to Tempsford, now in Bedfordshire, before they were crushed by Edward the Elder. It prospered successively as a bridging point of the River Great Ouse, a market tow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karl Wirtz
Karl Eugen Julius Wirtz (24 April 1910 – 12 February 1994) was a German nuclear physicist, born in Cologne. 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 From 1929 to 1934, Wirtz studied physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Bonn, the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, and the University of Breslau. He received his doctorate in 1934 under C. Schäfer. From 1935 to 1937, he was a teaching assistant to Carl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer at the University of Leipzig. During this period, he became a member of the Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund (''NSLB'', ''National Socialist Teachers League''), but not the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (''NSDAP, National Socialist German Workers Party''). Some of the more established scientists, such as Max von Laue, could demonstrate more autonomy than the younger and less established scientists. This ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg's leadership. There is ongoing debate as to whether or not he and the other members of the team actively and willingly pursued the development of a nuclear bomb for Germany during this time. A member of the prominent Weizsäcker family, he was son of the diplomat Ernst von Weizsäcker, elder brother of the former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, father of the physicist and environmental researcher Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and father-in-law of the former General Secretary of the World Council of Churches Konrad Raiser. Weizsäcker made important theoretical discoveries regarding energy production in stars from nuclear fusion processes. He also did influential theoretical work on planetary formation in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 diffraction of X-rays by crystals. In addition to his scientific endeavors with contributions in optics, crystallography, quantum theory, superconductivity, and the theory of relativity, Laue had a number of administrative positions which advanced and guided German scientific research and development during four decades. A strong objector to Nazism, he was instrumental in re-establishing and organizing German science after World War II. Biography Early years Laue was born in Pfaffendorf, now part of Koblenz, Germany, to Julius Laue and Minna Zerrenner. In 1898, after passing his ''Abitur'' in Strassburg, he began his compulsory year of military service, after which in 1899 he started to study mathematics, physics, and chemistry at the University of Strassburg, the University of Göttingen, and the Ludwig Maximilian Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
