Reichspostministerium

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The Reichspostministerium, during the reign of National Socialism, had authority over research and development departments in the areas of television engineering, high-frequency technology, cable (wide-band) transmission, metrology, and acoustics (microphone technology).

Contents 1 Formation 2 Activities 3 Bibliography 4 Notes

[edit] Formation

On 1 January 1937, Department VIII of the former Reichspostzentralamt formed the core of the Forschungsanstalt der Deutschen Reichspost, or in short, the Reichspostministerium (RPM, Reich Postal Ministry). From that date, the RPM subsumed all research and development departments in the areas of television engineering, high-frequency technology, cable (wide-band) transmission, metrology, and acoustics (microphone technology). The engineer Wilhelm Ohnesorge became the Postal Minister from February of that year. The RPM had its own 500,000-square meter research site in Miersdorf outside of Berlin. Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Banneitz, a television authority, was head of research. Dr. Friedrich Vilbig, an authority on high-frequency engineering,^[1] was his deputy.^[2]

In 1942, the armed postal security service was subsumed into the Schutzstaffel (SS); this was just one more step in the national socialization of the Deutsche Reichspost. ^[3]

[edit] Activities

The RPM supported independent research, such as nuclear physics, high-frequency technology, isotope separation, electron microscopy, and communications technology at the private research laboratory Forschungslaboratoriums für Elektronenphysik of Manfred von Ardenne, in Berlin-Lichterfelde. In 1940, the RPM began construction of a cyclotron for von Ardenne; it was completed in 1945.^{[4] [5]}

[edit] Bibliography

• Klaus Hentschel, editor and Ann M. Hentschel, editorial assistant and Translator Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Birkhäuser, 1996)

• Oleynikov, Pavel V. German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project, The Nonproliferation Review Volume 7, Number 2, 1 – 30 (2000). The author has been a group leader at the Institute of Technical Physics of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center in Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk-70).

[edit] Notes