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(3) The Bagge-Korsching-von Ardenne-Houtermanns circle,
developing an array of advanced separation technologies, and
apparently, via von Ardenne, tied somehow to, of all things,
the German postal service!
Why the Reichspost For one thing, it afforded an effective cover
for the program, which, like its American counterpart, appears to
have been compartmentalized under a number of government
agencies, many having no plausible connection with a large secret
weapons research effort. Secondly, and more significantly, the
Reichspost was awash with money, and could therefore have
provided some of the massive funding necessary to the project, a
true "black budget" operation in every sense. And finally, the head
of the Reichspost was, perhaps not coincidentally, an engineer: Dr.
Ing. Ohnesorge. It is, from the German point of view, a logical
choice. Even his last name, "Ohnesorge", meaning "without sorrow
or regret", is an ironic twist to the story.
What was the method of separation and enrichment developed
by von Ardenne and Houtermanns Very simply, it was the
cyclotron itself. Von Ardenne had invented a modification of the
cyclotron - electromagnetic separation tanks - very similar to Ernst
O. Lawrence's "beta calutrons" in the United States. It is to be
noted, however, that von Ardenne had completed his modifications
in April of 1942, whereas General Groves in the Manhattan Project
would not have Lawrence's beta calutron at Oak Ridge for fully a
year and a half after that! 23 "In addition, the ion plasma source
Ardenne had designed for his isotope separator to sublime the
uranium compound was far superior to that provided for the
calutrons." So efficient, in fact, was Von Ardenne's version as a
source for emitting particle rays, that to this day it is known as "the
Ardenne source." 24
Von Ardenne himself is a mysterious figure, for after the war he
was one of the few German scientists to deliberately opt to
cooperate with the Soviet Union rather than the Western Allies. His
contribution to the Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb in 1949
23
Hydrick, op. cit, p. 26.
24
Hydrick, op. cit., p. 27.
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