Abraham Esau

Robert Abraham Esau (June 7, 1884 – May 12, 1955) was a German physicist.

After receipt of his doctorate from the University of Berlin, Esau worked at Telefunken, where he pioneered very high frequency (VHF) waves used in radar, radio, and television, and he was president of the "Deutscher Telefunken Verband". During World War I, he was a prisoner of war of the French; he was repatriated to Germany in 1918. In 1925, he was appointed professor at the University of Jena, where he also served as rector. From 1933, Esau was the State Councilor in Thuringia.

From 1937, Esau was head of the physics section of the newly created Reich Research Council (RFR). From 1939, he was a professor at the University of Berlin and president of the Reich Physical and Technical Institute. From his position in the RFR, he initiated the first meeting of the Uranium Club in early 1939, the precursor to the Army Ordnance Office (HWA) German nuclear energy project, which began in September of that year. When the HWA gave control of the project to the RFR in 1942, Esau became the plenipotentiary of nuclear physics and was in control of the project. In 1944, Esau became the plenipotentiary of the high-frequency engineering and radar working group.

During World War II, Esau was one of the most powerful physicists in Germany. After WWII until 1948, Esau was a prisoner of war of the Dutch. From 1949, Esau was a visiting professor of short-wave technology at the RWTH Aachen. From 1953, he was also head of the Institute of High-Frequency Engineering of the German Aeronautical Research Institute.

Education

Esau was born in Tiegenhagen (Tujec) in Landkreis Marienburg (Westpr.), West Prussia. From 1902 to 1907, Esau studied at the "Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität" (today, the Humboldt University of Berlin) and the "Königliche Technische Hochschule zu Danzig" (today, Gdańsk University of Technology). From 1906 to 1909, he was a teaching assistant to Max Wien at Danzig. He received his doctorate at the University of Berlin in 1908. [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Esau.]

Career

Early years

From 1909 to 1910, Esau was a volunteer at the radio transmission division of the Berlin telegraph battalion. From 1910 to 1912, he was teaching assistant at the " Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg". From 1914, he was on active duty with the German military in Togo; he became a prisoner of war of the French and did not return to Germany until 1918. [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Esau.]

From 1912 to 1925, Esau served as laboratory chairman of the "Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie" (Wireless Telegraph Society) in Berlin. During this time, at "Telefunken", he pioneered very high frequency (VHF) waves used in radar, radio, and television. In 1921 and 1922, he had stays in Argentina and Brazil. From 1925, Esau was president of the "Deutscher Telefunken Verband". [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Esau.]

In 1925, Esau began his association with the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. From 1925 to 1927, he was an extraordinarius professor of technical physics, and from 1927 to 1939, he was an ordinarius professor of technical physics and director of the department of technical physics. He was rector there from 1932 to 1935 and in 1937. [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Esau.]

In October 1933, Esau became a "Staatsrat" (State Councilor) in Thuringia, a position he held until the end of World War II. This role gave him direct access to Adolf Hitler. [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Esau.] [ Kurt Diebner "Listing of Nuclear Research Commissions Enclosed with a Letter to the President of the Reich Research Council [April 18. 1944] " in Document #104 in Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 322-324.]

On the initiative of Erich Schumann, the "Reichsforschungsrat" (RFR, Reich Research Council) was inaugurated on 16 March 1937 by Reich Minister Bernhard Rust of the "Reichserziehungsministerium" (REM, Reich Education Ministry). [ Document 52: "Creation of a Research Council", 16 March 1937 in Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 145-145.] The RFR was set up to centralize planning for all basic and applied research in Germany, with the exception of aeronautical research, which was under the under the supervision of Reich Marshal Hermann Göring. Support for research was decided by the heads of 13 special sections of the RFR (Fachspatenleiter). Esau was a member of the RFR from its inception, and he was head of the physics section (Fachspatenleiter für Physik), which included mathematics, astronomy, and meteorology. From this position in the RFR, he would play major roles in the German nuclear energy project, sometimes also referred to as the "Uranverein" (Uranium Club). [ Hoffmann, 2005, 305-306.] [ Hentschel, 1996, Appendix B; see the entry for RFR. Also see the entry for Esau in Appendix F.]

In 1938, Esau was appointed Professor of Military Telecommunications Technology in the Faculty of Military Engineering, which had recently been founded at the Technische Hochschule Berlin (today, the " Technische Universität Berlin"), in Berlin-Charlottenburg. [ Hoffmann, 2005, 305-306.]

From 1939 to 1945, Esau was ordinarius professor at the University of Berlin and president of the "Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt" (PTR, Reich Physical and Technical Institute; today, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt). At the same time he was a visiting lecturer at the "Technische Akademie Bergisch-Land" (Technical Academy of Bergisches Land). Additionally, for this same period, Esau was president of the "Deutsche Gemeinschaft zur Erhaltung und Förderrung der Forschung" (German Association for the Support and Advancement of Scientific Research), also known for short as the " Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft" (DFG), which had before 1937 been known as the "Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft" (NG; Emergency Association of German Science). [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix A; see the entry for DFG.] [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Esau.]

World War II and the "Uranverein"

Shortly after the discovery of nuclear fission in December 1938/January 1939, the "Uranverein", i.e., the German nuclear energy project, had an initial start in April before being formed a second time under the "Heereswaffenamt" (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) in September.

First "Uranverein"

Paul Harteck was director of the physical chemistry department at the University of Hamburg and an advisor to the "Heereswaffenamt" (HWA, Army Ordnance Office). On 24 April 1939, along with his teaching assistant Wilhelm Groth, Harteck made contact with the "Reichskriegsministerium" (RKM, Reich Ministry of War) to alert them to the potential of military applications of nuclear chain reactions. Two days earlier, on 22 April 1939, after hearing a colloquium paper by Wilhelm Hanle on the use of uranium fission in a "Uranmaschine" (uranium machine, i.e., nuclear reactor), Georg Joos, along with Hanle, notified Wilhelm Dames, at the "Reichserziehungsministerium" (REM, Reich Ministry of Education), of potential military applications of nuclear energy. The communication was given to Abraham Esau, head of the physics section of the "Reichsforschungsrat" (RFR, Reich Research Council) at the REM. On 29 April, a group, organized by Esau, met at the REM to discuss the potential of a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The group included the physicists Walther Bothe, Robert Döpel, Hans Geiger, Wolfgang Gentner (probably sent by Walther Bothe), Wilhelm Hanle, Gerhard Hoffmann, and Georg Joos; Peter Debye was invited, but he did not attend. After this, informal work began at the Georg-August University of Göttingen by Joos, Hanle, and their colleague Reinhold Mannfopff; the group of physicists was known informally as the first "Uranverein" (Uranium Club) and formally as "Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Kernphysik". The group’s work was discontinued in August 1939, when the three were called to military training. [ Kant, 2002, footnote #8 on p. 3.] [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 363-364 and Appendix F; see the entries for Esau, Harteck and Joos. See also the entry fro the KWIP in Appendix A and the entry for the HWA in Appendix B.] [ Macrakis, 1993, 164-169.] [ Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg "The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 6. The Completion of Quantum Mechanics 1926-1941. Part 2. The Conceptual Completion and Extension of Quantum Mechanics 1932-1941. Epilogue: Aspects of the Further Development of Quantum Theory 1942-1999." (Springer, 2001), pp. 1011-1011.]

Second "Uranverein"

The second "Uranverein" began after the "Heereswaffenamt" squeezed out the "Reichsforschungsrat" of the "Reichserziehungsministerium" and started the formal German nuclear energy project under military auspices. The second "Uranverein" was formed on 1 September 1939, the day World War II began, and it had its first meeting on 16 September 1939. The meeting was organized by Kurt Diebner, advisor to the HWA, and held in Berlin. The invitees included Walther Bothe, Siegfried Flügge, Hans Geiger, Otto Hahn, Paul Harteck, Gerhard Hoffmann, Josef Mattauch, and Georg Stetter. A second meeting was held soon thereafter and included Klaus Clusius, Robert Döpel, Werner Heisenberg, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. Also at this time, the "Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik" (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, after WW II the Max Planck Institute for Physics), in Berlin-Dahlem, was placed under HWA authority, with Diebner as the administrative director, and the military control of the nuclear research commenced. [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 363-364 and Appendix F; see the entries for Diebner and Döpel. See also the entry fro the KWIP in Appendix A and the entry for the HWA in Appendix B.] [ Macrakis, 1993, 164-169.] [ Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg "The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 6. The Completion of Quantum Mechanics 1926-1941. Part 2. The Conceptual Completion and Extension of Quantum Mechanics 1932-1941. Epilogue: Aspects of the Further Development of Quantum Theory 1942-1999." (Springer, 2001), pp. 1011-1011.]

When it was apparent that the nuclear energy project would not make a decisive contribution to ending the war effort in the near term, control of the KWIP was returned in January 1942 to its umbrella organization, the "Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft" (KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society, after WW II the Max-Planck Gesellschaft), and HWA control of the project was relinquished to the RFR in July 1942. The nuclear energy project thereafter maintained its "kriegswichtig" (important for the war) designation and funding continued from the military. [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996; see the entry for the KWIP in Appendix A and the entries for the HWA and the RFR in Appendix B. Also see p. 372 and footnote #50 on p. 372.] [ Macrakis, 1993, 164-169.] [ Walker, 1993, 49-53.]

On 9 June 1942, Adolf Hitler issued a decree for the reorganization of the RFR as a separate legal entity under the "Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition" (RMBM, Reich Ministry for Armament and Ammunition, after autumn 1943 the Reich Ministry for Armament and War Production); the decree appointed Reich Marshal Hermann Göring’s as the president. [ Document 98: "The Führer’s Decree on the Reich Research Council", 9 June 1942, in Hentschel an Hentschel, 1996, 303.] The reorganization was done under the initiative of Reich Minister for Armament and Ammunition Albert Speer; it was necessary as the RFR under Minister Bernhard Rust was ineffective and not achieving it purpose. [ Read Samuel Goudsmit’s account and interpretation of the role of the RFR in Document 111: "War Physics in Germany", January 1946, in Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 345-352. The reader should keep in mind the political agenda of Goudsmit, as discussed in the section on the Goudsmit/Heisenberg controversy in Walker, 1993, 204-221.] It was the hope that Göring would manage the RFR with the same discipline and efficiency as he had in the aviation sector. On 8 December 1942, Abraham Esau was appointed as Hermann Göring’s "Bevollmächtiger" (plenipotentiary) for nuclear physics research under the RFR – at this point, Esau was in charge of the German nuclear energy project. At the end of 1943, Esau resigned as plenipotentiary of nuclear physics; in December, Walther Gerlach replaced him as plenipotentiary for nuclear physics and as head of the physics section of the RFR. As of 1 January 1944, Esau became the plenipotentiary of the high-frequency engineering and radar working group ("A. G. Hochsfrequenzphysik"). In the final analysis, placing the RFR under Göring’s administrative control had little effect on the German nuclear energy project. [ Document 99: "Record of Conference Regarding the Reich Research Council", 6 July 1942, in Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 304-308. Also see Appendix F for the entries for Esau and Gerlach, as well as Appendix B for the entry for the RFR.] [ Macrakis, 1993, 91-94.] [ Walker, 1993, 86.]

Over time, the HWA and then the RFR controlled the German nuclear energy project. The most influential people were Erich Schumann, Abraham Esau, Walther Gerlach, and Kurt Diebner. During World War II, Esau was one of the most powerful and influential physicists in Germany. Even after Esau left his position as plenipotentiary for nuclear physics and head of the physics section at the RFR at the end of 1942, he continued to have significant authority and influence as president of the "Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt", as is attested to by the fact that he was able to continue research efforts for the "Urainverein" under the highest priority level for urgent development projects ("Dringlichkeitsentwicklung, DE"). [ Walker, 1993, 208.] [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Schumann. Also see footnote #1 on p. 207.] [ Kurt Diebner "Listing of Nuclear Research Commissions Enclosed with a Letter to the President of the Reich Research Council [April 18. 1944] " in Document #104 in Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 322-324.]

Post-World War II

After the war until 1948, Esau was a prisoner of war of the Dutch.

From 1949, Esau was a visiting professor of short-wave technology at the RWTH Aachen University. From 1953, he was also head of the Institute of High-Frequency Engineering of the German Aeronautical Research Institute in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

Esau died in Düsseldorf.

Honors

In 1954, Esau received an honorary doctorate from the " Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg" for his work on diathermy.

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. [ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix E; see the entry for "Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte".] [ Walker, 1993, 268-274.]

*Abraham Esau "Herstellung von Leuchtfarben ohne Anwendung von Radium" G-213 (5 May 1943)

*Abraham Esau "Einleitung" G-214 (5 May 1943)

Books

*Abraham Esau "Weltnachrichtenverkehr und Weltnachrichtenmonopole" (Fischer, 1932)

*Abraham Esau "375 Jahre Universität Jena" (Fischer, 1933)

*Abraham Esau "Die Entwicklung der deutschen drahtlosen Nachrichtentechnik" (Fischer, 1934)

*Abraham Esau "Einführung zu den Berichten der Herren Frhr von Handel und Plendl" (Oldenbourg, 1939)

*Abraham Esau "Elektrische Wellen im Zentimetergebiet" (Oldenbourg, 1940)

*Abraham Esau "Werner von Siemens" (de Gruyter, 1943)

*Abraham Esau "Ortung mit elektrischen und Ultraschallwellen in Technik und Natur" (Westdt. Verl., 1953)

*Abraham Esau "Der Ultraschall und seine technischen Anwendungen" (Westdt. Verl., 1955)

Bibliography

* "A. Esau", "Das Reich Deutsche Wochenzeitung" Berlin, No. 29, 16 July 1944, p. 1. The English translation and reprint of this tribute to Abraham Esau for his 61^st is Document #105, "A [braham] . Esau [July 16, 1944] " in Hentschel, Klaus (editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (editorial assistant and translator) "Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources" (Birkhäuser, 1996) 324-327.

*Beyerchen, Alan D. "Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich" (Yale, 1977) ISBN 0-300-01830-4

* Diebner, Kurt "Listing of Nuclear Research Commissions Enclosed with a Letter to the President of the Reich Research Council [April 18. 1944] " in Document #104 in Hentschel, Klaus (editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (editorial assistant and translator) "Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources" (Birkhäuser, 1996) 322-324. The document was issued by direction of Kurt Diebner as a Reich Planning Officer.

*Esau, Abraham "Technische Physic", in "Deutsche Wissenschaft. Arbeit und Aufgabe" (Hirzel, 1939) pp. 171-172. The English translation and reprint of this article is Document #72 in Hentschel, Klaus (editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (editorial assistant and translator) "Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources" (Birkhäuser, 1996) 193-194.

*Esau, Abraham "Memorandum on the Budget of the Plenipotentiary of Nuclear Physics Research [November 19, 1943] ", Document #103 in Hentschel, Klaus (editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (editorial assistant and translator) "Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources" (Birkhäuser, 1996) 321-322.

*Hentschel, Klaus, editor and Ann M. Hentschel, editorial assistant and Translator "Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources" (Birkhäuser, 1996) ISBN 0-8176-5312-0

*Hoffmann, Dieter "Between Autonomy and Accommodation: The German Physical Society during the Third Reich", "Physics in Perspective" 7(3) 293-329 (2005)

*Macrakis, Kristie "Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany" (Oxford, 1993)

*Walker, Mark "German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939–1949" (Cambridge, 1993) ISBN 0-521-43804-7

Notes