Hans-Joachim Born (8 May 1909 – 15 April 1987), was a German radiochemist and a professor of chemistry at the Technical University of Munich who was one of the senior German nuclear scientists in the Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and later his research was used in the Soviet program of biological weapons. Until the end of the World War II, Born was a professional colleague of Soviet biologist, Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky, where he investigated the genome and genetic structures. After taken into the Soviet custody and held in Russia where he first worked at the Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal’, but later posted at the Laboratory B in Singul' to work on radiation biochemistry under Timofeev-Ressovsky in 1947. After accepting a teaching position in 1955, Born was returned to Germany and settled in Dresden (later Munich) where he pioneered studies in advancing the field of radiochemistry.
Biography Born was born in Berlin on 8 May 1909, and attended the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and University of Tübingen where he graduated with degrees in chemistry. He went on to attend the doctoral program in chemistry at the University of Jena under radiochemist Otto Hahn and did his fundamental research at the Kaiser Wilhelm for Chemistry. In 1935, he was awarded his doctorate in radiochemistry on the topics of the lead content of the North German salt deposits and its relationship to radioactive questions. During his university years, Born was a supporter of the Nazi Party and member of its paramilitary wing, the Storm Troopers, and also held membership of the German Labour Front.
Career
In Germany Born worked at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research) 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), a world-renowned department with the status of an institute. At the KWIH, Born examined the distribution of Radionuclides in the organs of rodents, and he also worked with fission products from research programs conducted under Nikolaus Riehl, scientific director of the Auergesellschaft, who was a participant in the German nuclear energy project Uranverein. What happened to Born after the Russians entered Berlin, at the close of World War II, is best understood in the context of his colleague Karl Zimmer at the KWIH, who also had a professional relationship with Nikolaus Riehl at the Auergesellschaft. 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 group at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal’ (Электросталь).
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