astronomy

Rudolf Mentzel

Rudolf Mentzel is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rudolf Mentzel rather than just read about it. In short: Rudolf Mentzel PhD (28 April 1900 – 5 December 1987) was a German chemist and a Nazi policy-maker. An influential figure and one of the leading science administrators in Germany's nuclear energy project, Mentzel served as the scientific and technical adviser on the development of atomic bombs to the German government, and on some part, as the director of this program.

Key takeaways

Rudolf Mentzel belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rudolf Mentzel to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rudolf Mentzel from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rudolf Mentzel PhD (28 April 1900 – 5 December 1987) was a German chemist and a Nazi policy-maker. An influential figure and one of the leading science administrators in Germany's nuclear energy project, Mentzel served as the scientific and technical adviser on the development of atomic bombs to the German government, and on some part, as the director of this program. Originally a Nazi by political orientation, Mentzel served as one of the top leading science policy-makers to Adolf Hitler and his cabinet in his role as an undersecretary of the Reich Ministry of Education (REM) in the Office for Science. In the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, he was on the advisory board and, during World War II, Second Vice President of the Kaiser Wilhelm, supervising the clandestine research critical to develop the atomic bombs. During this period, his sphere of responsibility also momentarily grew and he soon was appointed as the president of the German Association for the Support and Advancement of Scientific Research, acting as the director of the nuclear program. After World War II, he was interned for three years by the American military government in post-1945 Germany, but was soon released after evidence proved no affiliation with the Nazi Party.

Education Mentzel studied and gained B.Sc. in Mathematics and B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Göttingen, and he received his doctorate in 1925 with a thesis on Stereoisomerism and transformation of b-substituted decahydro-naphthalenes. At Göttingen, he was a Kreisleiter (circuit leader) of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP, National Socialist Workers Party), of which he had been a member since 1922. Due to his participation in the Kapp putsch in 1920, he held a golden party badge. Mentzel completed his Habilitation in 1933 at the Justus Liebig-Universität Gießen with a top-secret Habilitationsschrift (thesis) on Wehrchemie (military chemistry - the military use of poison gases).

Career From 1934, Mentzel was an adviser on science to the Reichserziehungsministerium (REM, Reich Ministry of Education). From 1939, he stepped up to the position of Ministerialdirektor (Undersecretary) of the Amt für Wissenschaft (Office for Science) of the REM; as such he headed W-II, the Science Office for military research.

Ministry of Education Also in 1934, Mentzel began a role in academia, parallel to his role in the REM, when he was appointed nichtplanmäßiger Professor (supernumerary professor) at the Technische Hochschule Berlin (today, Technische Universität Berlin). In 1935, on the instigation of the Reich Minister of the REM Bernhard Rust, Mentzel became an ordentlicher Professor (ordinarius professor) of chemistry in the defense technology department of the Technische Hochschule Berlin.

Atomic bomb program In 1935, Peter Adolf Thiessen became director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (KWIPC, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry; today, the Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft), in Berlin-Dahlem; the KWIPC was in institute under the umbrella organization the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society, today the Max-Planck Gesellschaft, which was under the Amt für Wissenschaft of the REM. That same year, Rust, with the support of Thiessen, had Mentzel appointed commissioner in the managing committee of the KWG. Thiessen, as director of the KWIPC, had a flat on Faradayweg in Berlin-Dahlem that the former director Fritz Haber used for business purposes; Mentzel shared this flat with Thiessen. Mentzel was a rival to Johannes Stark, and in 1936, Mentzel succeeded Stark as president of the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (NG, Emergency Association of German Science). In 1937, the NG was renamed the Deutsche Gemeinschaft zur Erhaltung und Förderrung der Forschung (German Association for the Support and Advancement of Scientific Research); in short, known as the Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). As president of the DFG, Mentzel outlined his science policy in the article Zwanzig Jahre deutsche Forschung. Mentzel was succeeded in 1939 by Abraham Esau. From 1937, Mentzel was on the Senat (Senate) of the KWG, and from 1940 to 1944, he was Second Vice President of the KWG.

Military service In 1937, the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) was inaugurated under Bernhard Rust on the initiative of Erich Schumann. It was a coordinating agency of the REM for the purpose of centralizing the planning of basic and applied research, and expanding the influence of the military, with the exception of aeronautical research, which was kept under the purview of Hermann Göring. Early in 1939, the RFR started the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranverein. In September 1939, the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) squeezed out the RFR and took control of the project. When it was apparent that the nuclear energy project would not make a decisive contribution to ending the war effort in the near term, control of the project was turned over to the RFR in 1942. However, on 9 June 1942, Adolf Hitler issued a decree for the reorganization of the RFR as a separate legal entity under the Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition (RMBM, Reich Ministry for Armament and Ammunition, after autumn 1943 the Reich Ministry for Armament and War Production); the decree appointed Reich Marshall Hermann Göring as the president. Over the life of the Uranverein, even with the transfer of the RFR to Göring’s purview, Mentzel, as Ministerialdirektor of the REM, was able to make inputs to and exert some influence on the project. In the Schutzstaffel (SS), Mentzel attained the rank of Oberführer (Senior Colonel).

After war After World War II, Mentzel was interned by the American occupation forces for three years. His release was, in part, brought about by the affidavit provided by Walther Gerlach, at Mentzel’s request in a letter dated December 6, 1948. These exoneration attestations were accepted only from those who had been through the denazification process in Germany and had had no affiliation with the NSDAP. Mentzel, as a science policy maker, had sided with the pragmatists in promoting scientific efficiency, rather than with the politically motivate party ideologues.

Legacy Mount Mentzel in Antarctica was named after him in 1939.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rudolf Mentzel

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rudolf Mentzel claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rudolf Mentzel before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rudolf Mentzel ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rudolf Mentzel

In research: Rudolf Mentzel appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rudolf Mentzel in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rudolf Mentzel is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1900 births, 1987 deaths, 20th-century Freikorps personnel, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rudolf Mentzel outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rudolf Mentzel in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rudolf Mentzel means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Rudolf Mentzel in simple terms?

Why does Rudolf Mentzel matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rudolf Mentzel?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rudolf Mentzel.