Berlin lay in rubble and ashes. Hitler's thousand year Reich had ended. A portion of my colleagues, as well as my family and I, were housed in numerous villages in the vicinity of Rheinsberg in the Brandenburg Mark. We had brought some of our equipment with us but work languished.
We did not know which national troops would enter and occupy our region. We learned from British radio that Berlin would be occupied by all four victorious powers. Common sense led one to expect that the four zones of occupation would form wedges abutting one another. In our naive, politically unsophisticated manner, however, we considered it doubtful whether the Americans, British or Russians actually would occupy our local area of Rheinsberg northwest of Berlin. It required the marvelous, long-range viewpoint of the politically sophisticated Western statesmen to decide to create an island of Berlin and, in the process, transform it into a continuous source of conflict between the West and the East. In any event, the Russians actually did come to our area.
In the middle of May of 1945 two colonels of the NKVD suddenly appeared from Berlin along with my friend K.G. Zimmer, who was at that time actively linked partly to my scientific organization and partly to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Buch. The colonels requested me to join them for a 'few days' of discussion in Berlin. The few days lasted for ten years.
Thus opened Nikolaus Riehl's account of ten years as a captive scientist in the Soviet Union helping Stalin achieve parity with the United States in nuclear weapons. Riehl, a radio chemist with a broad knowledge of physics, was born in St. Petersburg in 1901. His German father had been sent there in the 1890s by the Siemens Company to take charge of its business in Russia. He married the daughter of a prominent Jewish physician in the community. The Riehls remained in St. Petersburg unmolested through World War I even though Riehl was a German citizen. They returned to Berlin in 1918 as revolutionary turmoil enveloped St. Petersburg. By that time Nikolaus was bilingual, had many Russian friends, and felt himself to be half Russian. The warmth of his feeling for the Russian people appears again and again in his biography.
Nikolaus decided to become a radio-chemist and applied for admission to the institute of Otto Hahn who later gained fame for the discovery of nuclear fission in uranium. Riehl was placed under the wing of Lise Meitner, who guided his doctoral research. The relationship was somewhat strained since Meitner was exceedingly exacting and Nikolaus had to learn to accept criticism from a woman. However, his work went well and he emerged with all the blessings of a higher degree.
Riehl's inclination was to enter the academic world, which required that he pass another examination. Preparation would require time during which he would need to support himself. He accepted a position with a chemical firm, the Auer Company, which produced Welsbach mantles coated with rare earth compounds that enhanced the visible light emitted from gas lamps. Auer also separated radium from uranium for use in medical therapy. Riehl passed the teaching examinations but was so successful in industrial research that he advanced rapidly and was soon in charge of research for innovative products.
One of his most important inventions was the fluorescent lamp. He had become interested in fluorescent crystals such as zinc sulfide, which can be used to convert ultraviolet into visible light, and realized that such conversion was very efficient. He patented the concept of coating the inside of a glass tube containing a mercury discharge with fluorescent materials, producing a lamp 10 or 15 times more efficient than the ordinary filament lamp. By the end of the 1930s, Riehl's fluorescent lamp was widely used. Improved versions are now found almost everywhere.
In the meantime, Hitler had usurped power in Germany, ending the Weimar Republic. Soon, anyone with as much as a quarter of Jewish ancestry faced great personal hazard. Riehl decided to remain with the Auer Company where he would not only be shielded from the ever-questioning Gestapo which was inclined to leave productive industrial organizations alone, but he also could protect others whom he knew to have significant Jewish blood. Nevertheless, Mr. Koppel, owner of the Auer Company and a patriotic and philanthropic citizen, had to give up ownership and flee to Switzerland-a matter which Riehl resented deeply.
Lise Meitner, an Austrian citizen, remained in Germany working with Hahn until 1938 when Hitler annexed Austria and she had to flee. In great secrecy, she escaped to Sweden where Riehl visited her during World War II on his one trip outside of wartime Germany. She was exceedingly bitter but realized that in visiting her Riehl was paying respect to an individual whom he admired and to whom he owed much.
In the mid-1930s, Enrico Fermi, working in Rome, had studied the products generated when a variety of chemical elements absorb neutrons, a newly discovered particle. Most of Fermi's results were easy to interpret since they led to the production of radioactive isotopes of nearby elements. The results with uranium, however, were fairly complex and led a former colleague, Aristide von Grosse, who was at Columbia University, to write to Otto Hahn that one of the uranium isotopes was probably being fragmented when it captured neutrons. Hahn in trying to settle the issue discovered that uranium isotope of atomic weight 235 splits in two on absorbing a neutron and releases an enormous amount of energy. By early 1939, knowledge of this remarkable discovery had permeated the scientific world.
It was soon noted that neutrons were emitted during the fission process, opening up the possibility of developing a chain reaction which could produce a million times more energy than that generated in ordinary chemical reactions. Since World War II was getting underway just as these issues were beginning to be understood, the significance of Hahn's discovery took on a meaning much more complex and sinister than might ordinarily been the case. Two German groups, one under Werner Heisenberg, who had gained great fame for his research in the development of quantum mechanics, and another under the German defense organization, tried to create a chain reaction. Neither group quite succeeded, mainly because they were given a low priority for the acquisition of equipment. The leaders in the government were almost devoid of the intellectual understanding needed to appreciate the significance of nuclear fission.
Riehl, now a close personal friend of Hahn, had followed the research on nuclear fission during frequent visits to Hahn's laboratory and understood the enormous importance of the discovery. Since he had large quantities of uranium from which the radium had been extracted, it would be relatively easy to provide the experimenters with a high grade of metallic uranium or uranium oxide. He discussed this as an ethical issue with Hahn, who, after some thought, agreed that Riehl should proceed. Hahn made it clear that he was only interested in understanding the chemistry and physics of fission. Riehl, working within the Auer Company, obtained an army contract to purify uranium and supply the two groups. Soon thereafter, his company built a factory in the outskirts of Berlin for processing uranium. Riehl's initiative and experience would have been crucial to helping the Germans produce experimental-level nuclear reactors during World War II if the political leadership had understood what was at stake. The Soviets were to be the beneficiaries of the mistake.
As the war progressed, the bombing of Berlin forced the groups carrying out research on the chain reaction to move their equipment westward. It was eventually retrieved by the special American intelligence team carrying the code name ALSOS created by Major General R. Leslie Groves, the head of the Manhattan District.
When the European war ended in early May of 1945, Riehl and his family were living in the outskirts of Berlin. The Soviet visitors mentioned in the opening paragraphs escorted Riehl to the headquarters of the occupying Soviet army. It was soon clear that their espionage network had been highly effective in following the work of Riehl and those engaged in nuclear research. They questioned him and then, a day or two later, took him to the site of the factory for refining uranium. For reasons which were unfathomable to Riehl at that time, shortly before the end of the war the American Air Force had bombed the factory very heavily. It was only later that he realized that tensions had developed between the allies and that the bombing was to prevent the Soviets from obtaining the intact plant. Russian soldiers were going through the debris and carrying away whatever equipment could be saved. They were also shoveling up the unrefined uranium ore.
Shortly after the factory visit, Riehl and his family were flown to Moscow for what would be 10 years of captivity in the Soviet Union. They, along with a few other Germans, were housed in a mansion that had been occupied by Nazi General Friedrich von Paulus and his staff, who had been captured at Stalingrad. Several colleagues of Riehl's from the Auer Company had decided to join him in the Soviet Union, most important, a versatile engineer named G. Wirths. Also in the German group: Gustav Hertz, the nephew of Heinrich Hertz, who had been the first person to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic waves, Max Volmer and Peter Thiessen, distinguished chemists, and Manfred von Ardenne, an innovative electronics expert who had owned a laboratory in Berlin. The five were not captives in the same sense as Riehl but had volunteered to provide services to the Soviet Union under special agreements which were reasonably well honored.
There were two interesting incidents in the days immediately following Riehl's arrival in Moscow. First, the Germans were invited to a victory performance at the Bolshoi Theater. The audience included visitors from many allied nations. Some of the guests noticed the German group and concluded they were German Communists. Riehl felt it strange to have made such a rapid transition from the dismal atmosphere of Berlin to the joyous roar that permeated the Bolshoi Theater.
The second incident was more dramatic. Riehl was summoned by the head of the secret police, Lavrenty Beria, where he met Beria, his staff, and a group of Soviet scientists. Conspicuous in the latter group was J.V. Kurchatov, who was in charge of the Soviet program to develop a nuclear bomb. Kurchatov gave him a friendly nod. Beria stated that Riehl would be working within the branch of his organization headed by General B. L. Vannikov and would report directly to General Avram Zavenyagin. He would be setting up a plant for producing pure uranium. It was expected that Riehl, as a well-disciplined German, would follow orders. The discussion was in Russian. Riehl found himself quite at home in the language of his youth, his mother tongue.
In subsequent meetings with General Zavenyagin, they agreed that the next step was to find a suitable place to produce the experimental quantities of pure uranium while deciding where a larger production unit would go. Zavenyagin preferred a site far removed from everyday industrial traffic. In contrast, Riehl hoped for something near Moscow because of the problems of obtaining supplies. A decision was made fairly hastily when the Soviet leaders learned that the Americans had used their nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They put the group in an industrial area called Elektrostal, about forty miles east of Moscow. The site was grim and dreary, but power and other facilities were available. Moreover, it was comparatively close to Zavenyagin's headquarters in Moscow.
Then began the long, uphill struggle to reassemble the battered equipment from the bombed factory in Berlin and to set up the procedures for purification that they had used there. Since the German investigators trying to produce a chain reaction had been primarily interested in experimental quantities, Riehl's team at the Auer Company had not been concerned with achieving production at the multi-ton level. Soon, however, some of Zavenyagin's colleagues were proposing "possible" improvements in the German procedures. Riehl was irked by these suggestions at first but then realized that they represented the result of information which Soviet agents had obtained in the United States through espionage or from the so-called Smyth Report which was released by General Groves's office just before the end of the war and gave a sketch of the work of the Manhattan District with some important details.
In spite of the slow start, the uranium program at Elektrostal moved forward until the Soviet engineers were finally prepared to develop a number of production units. There was one quasi-mysterious setback during which the uranium produced at Elektrostal was found to contain relatively high quantities of boron, a poison for the operation of a nuclear reactor. Riehl and his group feared that they might be accused of sabotage. Fortunately, the problem went away when they used new sources of uranium ore in place of that brought from Berlin. Later, Riehl remembered that the troops scooping up the ore in Berlin had been somewhat too conscientious in shoveling the storage bin and had probably picked up the contaminant.
Proof that some of the suggestions for procedures that came from Soviet colleagues had originated in espionage occurred when a member of the Soviet team told Wirths, who was in charge of production: "Your uranium is purer than that of the Americans." This incident makes it clear that the Soviet espionage network included individuals close to production units as well as those at Los Alamos.
Riehl had a second meeting with Beria after production was going well, and all involved at Elektrostal were somewhat relaxed. He was home in bed with a bad cold when he received a call from the plant manager saying that it was imperative that he come to his office at once since they expected a very important visitor. Beria soon arrived in a fleet of limousines with an entourage from his office as well as people involved in various aspects of production. When they entered his office, Riehl noted that everyone present was meek and apprehensive in Beria's presence. Beria started the session by asking if there were serious remaining problems that Riehl faced. At first, the latter mentioned problems of supply of routine equipment, but Beria pressed him and said, "What about your personal problems?" Riehl, conscious of his own position of strength and feeling rather nasty because of the cold, looked squarely at Beria and said, "My greatest problem is you. You keep me and my family here behind barbed wire which causes us great burdens." Beria chuckled while his entourage looked fearful of what might happen next. Beria said, "I will see what can be done." Riehl quickly responded, "Do not bother, we ask no favors." Then Beria sent him back to bed while the group toured the plant.
Riehl's last association with Beria was indirect and occurred soon after Stalin's death in 1953. Riehl and his family were living informally at a villa at Sukumi on the Black Sea in semi-tropical surroundings. A meeting of members of the Communist Party was hastily called at which newly discovered crimes of Beria would be aired. The group would be asked to propose adequate punishment. Riehl found a place behind a fence where he could watch and listen to the proceedings. A list of Beria's crimes was read. The worst charge was that he had become a secret agent of the German general staff immediately after World War I, helping with plans to overthrow the Soviet government. Actually, Beria would have been only nineteen years old at the end of World War I. When asked to offer an appropriate sentence, the group shouted "Death!" All there understood that Beria had already been assassinated. Riehl felt ashamed at witnessing this farce and slunk away.
The Riehl family regularly listened to British radio broadcasts. One day in 1949, they heard that the Soviet Union had tested a fission bomb. Riehl reported what he had heard to the Soviet army officer in charge of production who left immediately for Moscow to obtain additional information.
Once it was clear that the Soviet Union had the technology to develop an arsenal of bombs comparable with that in the west, honors were distributed with those involved in the program. Riehl was richly rewarded with medals, a large amount of gold, and a dacha in the outskirts of Moscow. He never used the latter since he preferred the view that he and his family were homeless, which could be remedied only if they returned to Germany. Although his work at Elektrostal was now completed, the authorities felt it was much too early to return him to Germany.
Riehl, perhaps too modestly, suggests that his German team gained the Soviets no more than two years in their program to produce fission bombs. Whatever the truth, Beria was fortunate to have grabbed the highly experienced Berlin group in 1945.
Riehl was soon appointed head of a research institute east of the Urals, near the town of Sungul. He and his colleagues were permitted to work on any fundamental problem related to fission. Moreover, a distinguished group of geneticists, including Nikolai Timofeev-Ressovski, was selected to join the laboratory. The latter had been in Berlin doing research during World War II while retaining his Soviet citizenship. He was charged with being a traitor when Soviet troops overran Berlin and was sent to a concentration camp. Fortunately, Beria decided that he was too valuable to lose and had him transferred to the laboratory in Sungul. Unfortunately, Trofim Lysenko was rising to power and succeeded in outlawing any research that was remotely connected with modern genetics. This made it impossible to publish or carry out research on any aspect of modern biology, putting a great constraint on the research in Sungul.
In 1952 Riehl decided to seek his freedom since he felt that his time was being wasted, particularly after a book he had written was condemned through Lysenko's actions. Taking leave of his family, he went to Moscow to arrange a meeting with Zavenyagin. He was not put up in a fancy villa but in an essentially empty clinic. He realized that he was at considerable personal hazard. He could only hope that there was some spirit of fairness on the part of the Soviet colleagues with whom he had developed good relations.
Eventually, Zavenyagin arranged a meeting. Unfortunately, tensions had built up so high on both sides that the discussion ended up as a shouting match. Fortunately, Zavenyagin was distracted by an important phone call. By the time it ended, both individuals had cooled, and they agreed to meet again when convenient. On that occasion, Zavenyagin was conciliatory: "We will do what we can for you, but this would be a very bad time for you to leave the Soviet Union. I will discuss the matter with Beria and give you a decision as rapidly as I can." The decision was that Riehl and his family would be transferred to a compound near Sukumi where they would have a great deal of freedom to travel locally. Life should be pleasant in spite of the remaining restrictions. Riehl was assured that he and his family would be allowed to return to East Germany by 1955. Riehl had no way of knowing that the Soviets were working very hard to develop a fusion-or hydrogen-bomb in close competition with the United States.
In 1955, Riehl and his family were on their way to East Germany after taking leave of many good Soviet friends. The East German government preferred that Riehl settle in Dresden. Drawing upon his prestige, Riehl insisted that they go to East Berlin where they had previously lived. Once there, he took some of the money which he had been able to transfer from the Soviet Union to purchase a home and furniture as though he were going to settle permanently in the area. However, he arranged to have the furniture shipped to West Berlin. Then one day, he and his family, carrying what they could with them, took the subway to West Berlin and freedom.
Fortunately, the Atoms for Peace program initiated by President Eisenhower was gaining momentum at that time, with the consequence that the Germans were permitted to build an experimental nuclear reactor at the University of Munich. Soon after Riehl emerged from East Germany, he received an appointment as a technical associate at the university and was soon raised to full faculty rank. Released from the continuous tension of his life in the Soviet Union, he was soon living as a typical university professor. He lectured mainly in the areas of his greatest experience; radiochemistry, crystal and bioluminescence, the extraction and purification of rare earths and heavy elements, and photosynthesis. He enjoyed talking with young Soviet scientists at international meetings, enchanting them with tales of his ten year's captivity.
Riehl started his memoirs of ten years in the Soviet Union soon after settling in Munich. He kept them private since he did not want to embarrass his Soviet friends. Once the liberal Gorbachev became premier, Riehl had them published. Unfortunately, only a few copies had been printed before the Stuttgart press was acquired by another owner, uninterested in retaining the book in its inventory. Fortunately, I obtained a photocopy of a copy from Riehl's daughter. The result was the book's publication in this country six years after Riehl's death in 1990.
As the original book was going to the printer, he had added the following:
Enough of futurology, criticism, and of rationalistic considerations. I am at the end of my story. A quiet sense of sadness overcomes me, as if I had relived a part of my life for a second time. Once again my vision wanders over the wide Russian land and the people there. In their behalf I would like to express my feelings and close with the words, 'May you be spared further sorrow, dear Mother Russia.'
This article is a brief digest of the well-illustrated book, Stalin's Captive; Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet Race for the Bomb, by N. Riehl and F. Seitz, American Chemical Society and Chemical Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, 1996
Frederick
Seitz ('54), President of Rockefeller University, has served as advisor to NATO,
the President's Science Committee, the Office of Naval Research, the Smithsonian,
and other groups. The physicist was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
and served as part-time president for three years and four more as full-time
president. He has received dozens of awards and honorary degrees worldwide.
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