Paul Karl Maria Harteck (20 July 1902 – 22 January 1985) was an Austrian physical chemist. In 1945 under Operation Epsilon in "the big sweep" throughout Germany, Harteck was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces for suspicion of aiding the Nazis in their nuclear weapons program and he was incarcerated at Farm Hall, an English house fitted with covert electronic listening devices, for six months.
Education Harteck studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and the Humboldt University of Berlin from 1921 to 1924. He received his doctorate at the latter under Max Bodenstein in 1926. From 1926 to 1928 he was Arnold Eucken’s teaching assistant at the University of Breslau.
Career From 1928 to 1933, Harteck was a staff scientist at the KWI für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (KWIPC) (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Elektrochemistry) located in Dahlem-Berlin, where he worked with Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer on experiments on parahydrogen and orthohydrogen. While at the KWIPC, he completed his habilitation in 1931 at the Humboldt University of Berlin where he also supervised the dissertation of Karl-Hermann Geib who later developed the Girdler sulfide process. In 1933, Harteck went to do research with Ernest Rutherford at the University of Cambridge. During this time, Rutherford was working on accelerator-driven nuclear fusion, and Harteck was credited in the 1934 paper on the topic. Upon his return from England in 1934, he became an ordinarius professor and director of the physical chemistry department at the University of Hamburg. From 1937, he was an advisor to the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office). In April 1939, along with his teaching assistant Wilhelm Groth, Harteck made contact with the Reichskriegsministerium (RKM, Reich Ministry of War) to alert them to the potential of military applications of nuclear chain reactions. From that year, his department as a whole did research for the HWA, with emphasis on uranium isotope separation. From 1940, with Hans Suess, his focus was on the use of heavy water as a neutron moderator. In 1941, his department constructed a conversion unit for, then I.G. Farben controlled, Norsk Hydro in German-occupied Norway for the catalytic production of heavy water. The Norwegians were forced to install the plant at their own cost, as their contribution to German war effort. In 1942, with the help of Werner Heisenberg, Harteck circumvented an appointment in Russia. In February 1943, Harteck and his colleague Johannes Jensen suggested a new type of centrifugal isotope separation, which was adopted by the Anschütz Company. Under his supervision Wilhelm Groth conducted the last enrichment experiments with the ultracentrifuge in Celle, a small town 120 km south of Hamburg. In late spring 1945, Harteck was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months under Operation Epsilon. In 1946, upon his return from incarceration, he became director of the chemistry department at the University, a position he held until 1950. In 1951, Harteck emigrated to the United States to become the Distinguished Research Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. In 1937, 1952 and 1972, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. At the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute he provided leadership in chemical kinetics, and especially in atom and radiation chemistry. He continued research in nitrogen reactions and the fixation of nitrogen and the new field of research in the investigation of the chemistry and photochemistry of the upper atmosphere, including planetary atmospheres. He retired from Rensselaer in 1982 and died at his home in Santa Barbara, California in 1985.
Honors and awards Harteck was the recipient of numerous awards during his career and was awarded several honors due to his pioneering work in the study of parahydrogen, production and reactions of oxygen atoms, xenon (photochemical) lamp, gas centrifuge enrichment of isotopes, and photochemical isotope separation. He was the recipient of the Jean Servais Stas Medal (1957) and the Wilhelm Exner Medal (1961). He received an honorary doctoral degree in 1966 from the University of Bonn. In 1977 he was a co-recipient of the Krupp Award (1977) by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation for his efforts on isotope separation. He was elected as an honorary member of the Société Royale de Chimie Belgique and was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honor of Austria in 1978.
Paul Harteck Lecture Series After his retirement in 1982, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute established the prestigious Paul Harteck Lecture Series, which recognizes internationally exceptional contributions to the advancement of Physical Chemistry. There have been 19 recipients of the lectureship in the period 1982-2026, including five Nobel Laureates.
Lecturers
Internal reports The following reports were published in Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte (Research Reports in Nuclear Physics), an internal publication of the German Uranverein. The reports were classified Top Secret, they had very limited distribution, and the authors were not allowed to keep copies. The reports were confiscated under the Allied Operation Alsos and sent to the United States Atomic Energy Commission for evaluation. In 1971, the reports were declassified and returned to Germany. The reports are available at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and the American Institute of Physics.
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