Alexander Catsch

Alexander Catsch (also Katsch; 1913–1976) was a German-Russian medical doctor and radiation biologist. Up to the end of World War II, he worked in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timefeev-Resovskij’s Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research). He was taken prisoner by the Russians at the close of World War II. Initially, he worked in Nikolaus Riehl’s group at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal’, but at the end of 1947 was sent to work in Sungul' at a sharshka known under the cover name Ob’ekt 0211. At the Sungul' facility, he again worked in biological research department under the direction of Timofeev-Resovskij. When Catsch returned to Germany in the mid-1950s, he fled to the West. He worked at the Biophysikalische Abteilung des Heiligenberg-Instituts and then at the Institut für Strahlenbiologie am Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe. While in Karlsruhe, he was also appointed, in 1962, to the newly created Lehrstuhl für Strahlenbiologie, at the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe. In West Germany, he developed methods to extract radionucleotides from various organs.

Early life

Catsch was half-German and half-Russian.[1]

Education

Catsch was trained as a medical doctor.[2]

Career

In Germany

As early as 1938, Catsch cited his affiliation with the I. Medizinischen Universitätsklinik der Charité; Charité was a teaching and research hospital in Berlin.[3] No later than 1942, he was at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research)[4] of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft, in Berlin-Buch. At the KWIH, he was in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovskij’s Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik (Department for Experimental Genetics),[5] a world-renowned department with the status of an institute. There, Catsch conducted research on the effects of radiation on genetic mutations.

What happened to Catsch after the Russians entered Berlin at the close of World War II is best understood in the context of his colleagues Karl Zimmer and Hans-Joachim Born at the KWIH, who had a close professional relationship with Nikolaus Riehl, the scientific director of the Auergesellschaft, in Berlin.

At the close of World War II, Russia had special search teams operating in Austria and Germany, especially in Berlin, to identify and “requisition” equipment, materiel, intellectual property, and personnel useful to the Soviet atomic bomb project. The exploitation teams were under the Russian Alsos, and they were headed by Lavrenij Beria’s deputy, Colonel General A. P. Zavenyagin. These teams were composed of scientific staff members, in NKVD officer’s uniforms, from the bomb project’s only laboratory, Laboratory No. 2, in Moscow. In mid-May 1945, the Russian nuclear physicists Georgy Flerov and Lev Artsimovich, in NKVD colonel’s uniforms, compelled Zimmer to take them to the location of Riehl and his staff, who had evacuated their Auergesellschaft facilities and were west of Berlin, hoping to be in an area occupied by the American or British military forces. Riehl was detained at the search team’s facility in Berlin-Friedrichshagen for a week. This sojourn in Berlin turned into 10 years in the Soviet Union! Riehl and his staff, including their families, were flown to Moscow on 9 July 1945. Riehl was to head up a uranium production group at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal’ (Электросталь[6]).[7][8]

In Russia

From 1945 to 1950, Riehl was in charge of uranium production at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal'. When Riehl learned that H. J. Born and Karl Zimmer were being held in Krasnogorsk, in the main PoW camp for Germans with scientific degrees, Riehl arranged though Zavenyagin to have them sent to Ehlektrostal’. Catsch, who had been taken prisoner with Zimmer, was also sent to the Ehlektrostal’ Plant No. 12.[9] At Ehlektrostal’, Riehl had a hard time incorporating Born, Catsch, and Zimmer into his tasking on uranium production, as Born was a radiochemist, Catsch was a physician and radiation biologist, and Zimmer was a physicist and radiation biologist.[10][11][12]

After the detonation of the Russian uranium bomb, uranium production was going smoothly and Riehl’s oversight was no longer necessary at Plant No. 12. Riehl then went, in 1950, to head an institute in Sungul', where he stayed until 1952. Essentially the remaining personnel in his group were assigned elsewhere, with the exception of H. E. Ortmann, A. Baroni (PoW), and Herbert Schmitz (PoW), who went with Riehl. However, Riehl had already sent Born, Catsch, and Zimmer to the institute in December 1947. The institute in Sungul’ was responsible for the handling, treatment, and use of radioactive products generated in reactors, as well as radiation biology, dosimetry, and radiochemistry. The institute was known as Laboratory B, and it was overseen by the 9th Chief Directorate of the NKVD (MVD after 1946), the same organization which oversaw the Russian Alsos operation. The scientific staff of Laboratory B – a ShARAShKA – was both Soviet and German, the former being mostly political prisoners or exiles, although some of the service staff were criminals.[13][14] (Laboratory V, in Obninsk, headed by Heinz Pose, was also a sharashka and working on the Soviet atomic bomb project. Other notable Germans at the facility were Werner Czulius, Hans Jürgen von Oertzen, Ernst Rexer, and Carl Friedrich Weiss.[15])

Laboratory B was known under another cover name[16] as Объект 0211 (Ob’ekt 0211, Object 0211), as well as Object B.[17][18][19][20] (In 1955, Laboratory B was closed. Some of its personnel were transferred elsewhere, but most of them were assimilated into a new, second nuclear weapons institute, Scientific Research Institute-1011, NII-1011, today known as the Russian Federal Nuclear Center All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics, RFYaTs–VNIITF. NII-1011 had the designation предприятие п/я 0215, i.e., enterprise post office box 0215 and Объект 0215; the latter designation has also been used in reference to Laboratory B after its closure and assimilation into NII-1011.[21][22][23][24])

One of the political prisoners in Laboratory B was Riehls’ colleague from the KWIH, N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij, who, as a Soviet citizen, was arrested by the Soviet forces in Berlin at the conclusion of the war, and he was sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag. In 1947, Timofeev-Resovskij was rescued out of a harsh Gulag prison camp, nursed back to health, and sent to Sungul' to complete his sentence, but still make a contribution to the Soviet atomic bomb project. At Laboratory B, Timofeev-Resovskij headed a biophysics research department, in which Born, Catsch, and Zimmer were able to conduct work similar to that which they had done in Germany, and all three became section heads in Timofeev-Resovskij’s department. In fact, in Sungul', Catsch began his work on developing methods to extract radionucleotides from various organs, which he would continue when he left Russia.[13][14][24]

In preparation for release from the Soviet Union, it was standard practice to put personnel into quarantine for a few years if they worked on projects related to the Soviet atomic bomb project, as was the case for Catsch. Additionally, in 1954, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR, German Democratic Republic) and the Soviet Union prepared a list of scientists they wished to keep in the DDR, due to their having worked on projects related to the Soviet atomic bomb project; this list was known as the “A-list”. On this A-list were the names of 18 scientists. Nine, possibly 10, of the names were associated with the Riehl group which worked at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal'. Born, Catsch, Riehl, and Zimmer were on the list.[25][26][27]

In Russia, Catsch was given a patronymic and his last name was transliterated from German into Russian; transliterated into English his name became Aleksandr Sergeevich Katsch.[1][28]

In Germany again

Catsch returned to the DDR in the mid-1950s and fled West. Riehl arrived in the DDR on 4 April 1955, and by early June he was in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Other colleagues of Riehl who worked with him in Russia also went West; Günter Wirths fled to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and Karl Zimmer went legally.[27]

As early as 1956, Catsch was at the Biophysikalische Abteilung des Heiligenberg-Instituts, in Heiligenberg, Baden, Germany.[29]

No later than 1958, he was at the Institut für Strahlenbiologie of the Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe (KFK, Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center), which was founded in 1956 and today is known as the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK, Karlsruhe Research Centere). It was allied with the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe; today, it is known as the Universität Karlsruhe (TH), after its reorganization and renaming in the academic year 1967/1968. In 1962, while still at the KFK, Catsch was appointed to the newly created Lehrstuhl für Strahlenbiologie at the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe.[30][31]

Personal

Catsch was married to a Jewish woman.[1]

Karl Zimmer and Catsch were lifelong friends, as well as professional colleagues.[32][33]

Catsch died in Karlsruhe.

Books

Publications of the KFK

Articles

The majority of these literature citations have been garnered by searching on variations of the author’s name on Google, Google Scholar, and the Energy Citations Database.

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Albrecht, Heinemann-Grüder, and Wellmann, 2001, Reference #27 on p. 60.
  2. ↑ Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 121.
  3. ↑ Alexander Catsch Korrelationspathologische Untersuchungen 1. Die Korrelationen von Erbleiden und Anlagestörungen des Auges, Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology Volume 138, Number 6, 866-892 (1938). The author was identified as being at the I. Medizinischen Universitätsklinik der Charité, Berlin.
  4. ↑ Today, the KWIH is known as the Max-Planck Institut für Hirnforschung, MPIH. After World War II, all of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes were named after the physicist Max Planck.
  5. ↑ I. Sell-Beleites and A. Catsch Mutationsauslösung durch Ultraviolettes Licht bei Drosophila I. Dosisversuche mit filtriertem Ultraviolett, Molecular and General Genetics Volume 80, Number 1, 551-557 (1942). The authors were identified as being at the Genetischen Abteilung des Kaiser Wilhelm-Instituts, Berlin-Buch, Germany. The article was received on 5 August 1942.
  6. ↑ ”Электросталь” is sometimes transliterated as “Elektrostal”. A one-to-one transliteration scheme transliterates the Cyrillic letter “Э” as “Eh”, which distinguishes it from that for the Cyrillic letter “Е” given as “E”. Transliterations often also drop the soft sign “ь”.
  7. ↑ Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 71-72.
  8. ↑ Oleynikov, 2000, 7.
  9. ↑ Karl G. Zimmer Papers – University of Tennessee.
  10. ↑ Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 2, 31, 71, 83, 89-104, 121-128, and 202.
  11. ↑ Maddrell, 2006, 179-180, 186, 189, and 210-221.
  12. ↑ Oleynikov, 2000, 11, and 15-16.
  13. 1 2 Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 121-128, and 202.
  14. 1 2 Oleynikov, 2000, 15-17.
  15. ↑ Polunin, V. V. and V. A. Staroverov Personnel of Special Services in the Soviet Atomic Project 1945 – 1953 [In Russian] (FSB, 2004).
  16. ↑ The Russians used various types of cover names for facilities to obfuscate both the location and function of a facility; in fact, the same facility could have multiple and changing designations. The nuclear design bureau and assembly plant Arzamas-16, for example, had more than one designation – see Yuli Khariton and Yuri Smirnov The Khariton Version, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, 20-31 (May 1993). Some facilities were known by post office box numbers, почтовом ящике (pochtovom yashike), abbreviated as п/я. See Maddrell, 2006, 182-183. Also see Demidov, A. A. On the tracks of one “Anniversary” [In Russian] 11.08.2005, which relates the history changing post office box designations for Arzamas-16.
  17. ↑ Timofeev-Resovskij, N. V. Kratkaya Avtobiograficheskaya Zapiska (Brief Autobiographical Note) (14 October 1977).
  18. ↑ “Я ПРОЖИЛ СЧАСТЛИВУЮ ЖИЗНЬ” К 90-летию со дня рождения Н. В. Тимофеева-Ресовского (“I Lived a Happy Life” – In Honor of the 90th Anniversary of the Birth of Timofeev-Resovskij, ИСТОРИЯ НАУКИ. БИОЛОГИЯ (History of Science – Biology), 1990, № 9, 68-104 (1990). This commemorative has many photographs of Timofeev-Resovskij.
  19. ↑ Ratner, V. A. Session in Memory of N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij in the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences [In Russian], Vestnik VOGis Article 4, No. 15 (2000).
  20. ↑ Izvarina, E. Nuclear project in the Urals: History in Photographs [In Russian] Nauka Urala Numbers 12-13, June 2000.
  21. ↑ Sulakshin, S. S. (Scientific Editor) Social and Political Process of Economic Status of Russia [In Russian] 2005.
  22. ↑ RFYaTS-VNIITF Creators – See the entry for УРАЛЕЦ Александр Константинович (URALETs Aleksandr Konctantinovich) [In Russian].
  23. ↑ RFYaTS-VNIITF Creators – See the entry for ТИМОФЕЕВ-РЕСОВСКИЙ Николай Владимирович (TIMOFEEV-RESOVSKIJ Nikolaj Vladimorovich) [In Russian].
  24. 1 2 Penzina, V. V. Archive of the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics, named after E. I. Zababakhin. Resource No. 1 – Laboratory "B". [In Russian] (VNIITF Archived November 11, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.). Penzina is cited as head of the VNIITF Archive in Snezhinsk.
  25. ↑ The A-list prepared by East Germany and the Soviet Union in 1954 had 18 names on it. These Germans were to be encouraged to stay in East Germany, as they had done work on the Soviet atomic bomb project. At least nine members worked in Riehl’s group at Ehlektrostal’:
    • Hans-Joachim Born, Alexander Catsch, Werner Kirst, Przybilla, Nikolaus Riehl, Herbert Thieme, Tobein, Günter Wirths, and Karl Zimmer.
    • Schmidt may be a tenth Riehl group member Herbert Schmitz, or the name may refer to Fritz Schmidt, another nuclear scientist who was returned to Germany.
    Others on the list were:
    • Heinz Barwich, Justus Mühlenpfordt, and Karl-Franz Zühlke, who all worked at Institute G headed by Gustav Hertz,
    • Ingrid Schilling and Alfred Schimohr, who both worked at Institute A headed by Manfred von Ardenne,
    • Willi Lange, Gerhard Siewert, and Ludwig Ziehl.
    See Maddrell, 2006, 179-180.
  26. ↑ Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 137-139.
  27. 1 2 Maddrell, 2006, 179-180.
  28. ↑ Oleynikov, 2000, Reference #154, p. 29.
  29. ↑ A. Catsch Die Wirkung von Calcium- und Cer-diaminozyklohexantetraessigsaurem Natrium auf die Verteilung von Radiocer im Organismus der Ratte, Naturwissenschaften Volume 43, Number 22, 520-521 (1956). The author was identified as being at the Biophysikalische Abteilung des Heiligenberg-Instituts, Heiligenberg, Baden, Germany. The article was received on 21 September 1956.
  30. ↑ A. Catsch A Simple Analytical Method for the Determination of the Ratio of the Mother and Daughter Substances in Radioactive Preparations [In Geman], Experientia (Switzerland) Volume 14, 345-346 (1958). Institutional affiliation: Institut für Strahlenbiologie an der Reaktor-Station, Karlsruhe, Germany.
  31. ↑ Catsch - History of Biology, Fakultät für Chemie und Biowissenschaften, Universität Karlsruhe (TH).
  32. ↑ A. Catsch 60th anniversary of K.G. Zimmer [In German], Strahlentherapie Volume 142, Number 1, 124-5 (1971)
  33. ↑ Zimmer, K. G. Alexander Catsch's 60th anniversary [In German], Strahlentherapie Volume 145, Number 2, 238-239 (1973)

References

External links

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