ATOMIC AGE: German Brains

Ever since the Big Four’s armies invaded Germany, Russia and the western Allies have waged a desperate undercover battle for Germany’s most valuable scientific workers and technical secrets. By last week that struggle was nearing its end— for each victor nation had corralled about all the German brains it could get hold of.

Life at Sukhum. When the Reds punched into Berlin, they threw a cordon of troops around the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute, whence the news of uranium fission had first startled the scientific world in 1939. They went down into the cellar, dismantled the big cyclotron, packed it carefully off to Stalinland. Among the men they carried off was Baron Manfred von Ardenne, 39, a brilliant physicist.

Last week the baron and about 130 of his brainy countrymen were at Sukhum, on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. Well-fed, well-paid and well-treated, they live in a comfortable manor house, surrounded by palm trees and fragrant eucalyptus gardens. A mile away is their laboratory, where they work with a roughly equal number of Russian colleagues on an intensive program of atomic research.

Rival Hunters. When the Americans and British entered Germany, they had special teams ready to pounce on any likely-looking technician, piece of apparatus, scrap of paper. These teams, mostly directed by FIAT (Field Information Agency, Technical), were considerably better organized than the Russian brain-hunters. The U.S. had no immediate need of atomic help, since it was already pointing for Hiroshima, but it wanted to keep German atom workers away from the Reds. The U.S. did want help with rockets and guided missiles.

In both nuclear physics and guided missiles, the Russians probably got the greatest number of workers, but the U.S. got some of the top men. On the whole the U.S. (abetted by Britain and France, which got smaller shares) did rather well. The U.S. disdained reparations in money and goods—but not in brains.