01.07.2007 - 1907 - 2007 | Manfred von Ardenne | Episode 7: Nocturnal meeting at the "Kremlin"

Lawrentij P. Berija, notorious head of Stalin's secret service and of the special committee for the Soviet nuclear program, later executed, intended to confide to the German scientists the development of the first Soviet nuclear bomb.

Manfred von Ardenne was invited to a nocturnal Kremlin meeting called for this purpose.   He immediately perceived the danger for himself and his family and quick-wittedly made the following proposal: The German specialists should rather be deployed for research on industrial isotope separation. The "honorable pledge" to develop the weapon should be placed into the hands of the Soviet scientists. Berija followed this idea. On the occasion of a state reception in Berlin 10 years later, von Ardenne was introduced to the Soviet head of state Chrustchov.  The latter welcomed him with the words: "So you are the guy who slipped his head out of the noose so elegantly then?"

From: G. Barkleit: "Manfred von Ardenne - Selbstverwirklichung im Jahrhundert der Diktaturen" (Manfred von Ardenne - Self-fulfilment in the Century of the Dictatorships), Publisher: Duncker & Humblot, Berlin (2006)

Photo: Research Institure in Sinop near Suchumi at the Black Sea from 1945 to 1955