Death-Rays as Life-Savers in the Third Reich - Pedro Waloschek ...

technology”. This probably was related to radar technique and
antennas, a subject on which Gans remained interested for the rest of
his life. At that time GEMA, AEG, Telefunken and Siemens
collaborated in the development and mass production of German
radar devices.
Schmellenmeier remarks that Gans was afterwards employed in the
private laboratory run by the famous scientist Manfred von Ardenne
(1907-1997). However, by early 1943 also von Ardenne had to drop
Gans, who then was sent by the ‘Department for the Deployment of
Jews’ to work clearing bombsites. And, as already mentioned above,
on 28 th May 1943 Gans was assigned to Dr, Schmellenmeier’s
developmental laboratory.
According to Klaus Gottstein who worked for Schmellemeier from
1943 until 1945, Gans was at that time simply described as ‘Non-
Aryan’ (not ‘priviledged’), because his wife had already died in 1932.
Gottstein also remembers that this brought in its wake numerous
attempts to have him deported to a concentration camp [Go02],
although Schmellenmeier succeeded in preventing this. However,
Gottstein can not remember Gans wearing the yellow Star of David
obligatory for Jews after 1941, which means that Gans had some kind
of special status. The regulations regarding the treatment of Jews were
changed several times during the Nazi regime and some exceptions
were possible.
Heinz Paul Schmellenmeier (1909-1994) was born into a family of lower
middle class civil servants whose traditional political views tended to the
left of centre. After leaving school in 1927 he studied German and
history, and then physics and chemistry. In 1932 he was given a student
placement at one of Osram’s production plants, and during his year
there he took part in various conferences and discussions during which
he forged a friendship with the physicist Dr. Friedrich Georg
Houtermans (1903-1966), at the time one of Gustav Hertz’ (1887-1975)
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