| The Viscount Cherwell | |
|---|---|
| Born | 5 April 1886 Baden-Baden, Germany |
| Died | 3 July 1957 (aged 71) |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | 1915–1919: Royal Aircraft Factory 1919–1940, 1945–?: Oxford University 1940[1] |
| Doctoral advisor | Walther Nernst, University of Berlin |
| Doctoral students | Reginald Victor Jones[2] |
| Known for | "Dehousing paper" Lindemann mechanism Lindemann index Lindemann melting criterion |
Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell FRS PC CH (5 April 1886 – 3 July 1957) was an English physicist who was an influential scientific adviser to the British government, particularly Winston Churchill. He advocated the wartime "area" bombing of German cities, and was a strong doubter of the existence of the Nazi "V" weapons programme.
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Lindemann was the second of three sons of Adolphus Frederick Lindemann, who had emigrated to the United Kingdom circa 1871[3] and become naturalised.[4] Frederick was born in Baden-Baden in Germany where his American mother Olga Noble, the widow of a wealthy banker, was taking "the cure".
After schooling in Scotland and Darmstadt, he attended the University of Berlin. He did research in physics at the Sorbonne that confirmed theories, first put forward by Albert Einstein, on specific heats at very low temperatures.[2] For this and other scientific work, Lindemann was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920.[5]
In 1911 he was invited to the Solvay Conference on "Radiation and the Quanta" where he was the youngest attendee.
Lindemann was a teetotaler, non-smoker, and a vegetarian, although Churchill would sometimes induce him to take a glass of brandy. He was an excellent pianist, and sufficiently able as a tennis player to compete at Wimbledon.[6]
At the outbreak of World War I, Lindemann was playing tennis in Germany and had to leave in haste to avoid internment. In 1915, he joined the staff of the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough. He developed a mathematical theory of aircraft spin recovery, and later learned to fly so that he could test his ideas himself.[1] Prior to Lindemann's work, a spinning aircraft was almost invariably fatal.
In 1919 Lindemann was appointed professor of experimental philosophy at Oxford University and director of the Clarendon Laboratory, largely on the recommendation of Henry Tizard who had been a colleague in Berlin.[2] In 1919, Lindemann was one of the first people to suggest that in the solar wind particles of both polarities, protons as well as electrons, come from the Sun.[7] He was probably not aware that Kristian Birkeland had made the same prediction three years earlier in 1916.
Lindemann opposed the UK General Strike of 1926 and mobilised the reluctant staff of the Clarendon to produce copies of Churchill's anti-strike newspaper, the British Gazette. He was also alarmed and fearful of political developments in Germany.[2] In the 1930s, Lindemann advised Winston Churchill when the latter was not in Government and leading a campaign for rearmament. Lindemann also helped a number of German Jewish physicists, primarily at the University of Göttingen, emigrate to England to work in the Clarendon Laboratory.[1]
Churchill got Lindemann onto the "Committee for the Study of Aerial Defence" which under Sir Henry Tizard was putting its resources behind the development of radar. Lindemann's presence was disruptive, insisting instead that his own ideas of aerial mines and infra-red beams be given priority over radar. To resolve the situation the committee dissolved itself and reformed as a new body without Lindemann.[8]
When Churchill became Prime Minister, he appointed Lindemann as the British government's leading scientific adviser, with David Bensusan-Butt as his private secretary.[9] He would hold this office again in Churchill's peacetime administration (1951-3[10]). At this point Lindemann was known to many simply as "the Prof".[2]
Lindemann established a special statistical branch, known as 'S-Branch', within the government, constituted from subject specialists, and reporting directly to Churchill. This branch distilled thousands of sources of data into succinct charts and figures, so that the status of the nation's food supplies (for example) could be instantly evaluated. Lindemann's statistical branch often caused tensions between government departments, but because it allowed Churchill to make quick decisions based on accurate data which directly affected the war effort, its importance should not be underestimated.[2]
In 1940, Lindemann supported the experimental department MD1.[1][11] He worked on hollow charge weapons, the sticky bomb and other new weapons. General Ismay, who supervised MD1, recalled:
Churchill used to say that the Prof's brain was a beautiful piece of mechanism, and the Prof did not dissent from that judgement. He seemed to have a poor opinion of the intellect of everyone with the exception of Lord Birkenhead, Mr Churchill and Professor Lindemann; and he had a special contempt for the bureaucrat and all his ways. The Ministry of Supply and the Ordnance Board were two of his pet aversions, and he derived a great deal of pleasure from forestalling them with new inventions. In his appointment as Personal Assistant to the Prime Minister no field of activity was closed to him. He was as obstinate as a mule, and unwilling to admit that there was any problem under the sun which he was not qualified to solve. He would write a memorandum on high strategy one day, and a thesis on egg production on the next. He seemed to try to give the impression of wanting to quarrel with everybody, and of preferring everyone’s room to their company; but once he had accepted a man as a friend, he never failed him, and there are many of his war-time colleagues who will ever remember him with deep personal affection. He hated Hitler and all his works, and his contribution to Hitler’s downfall in all sorts of odd ways was considerable.[12]
With power, Cherwell was able to sideline Tizard; especially after Tizard did not acknowledge that the Germans were using radio navigation to bomb Britain.
Lindemann wished to limit Germany's ability to re-arm, and was an enthusiastic backer of the Morgenthau Plan, under which Germany would be partitioned and de-industrialised. In wartime Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels presented the plan as Jewish manipulation of Allied policy, and so was able to use the plan to bolster the German resistance on the Western front.[13]
Lindemann has been described as having "an almost pathological hatred for Nazi Germany, and an almost medieval desire for revenge was a part of his character".[14]
Following the Air Ministry Area bombing directive on 12 February 1942, Lindemann presented in a paper on "Dehousing" to Churchill on 30 March 1942, which calculated the effects of area bombardment by a massive bomber force of German cities to break the spirit of the people.[15]
His proposal that "bombing must be directed to working class houses. Middle class houses have to much space round them, so are bound to waste bombs" changed accepted conventions of limiting civilian casualties in wartime. "It should be emphasized that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."
His dehousing paper was criticised by many other scientific minds in government service who felt such a force would be a waste of resources.[16] Cherwell's paper was based on the false premise that bombing could cause a breakdown in society[17] but was used in support of Bomber Command's claim for resources.
Lindemann also played a key part in the battle of the beams, championing countermeasures to the Germans use of radio navigation to increase the precision of their bombing campaigns.[2]
Lindemann also repeatedly made arguments against V-2 rocket evidence, such as inaccurately claiming "to put a four-thousand horsepower turbine in a twenty-inch space is lunacy: it couldn't be done, Mr. Lubbock" and that at the end of the war, the committee would find that the rocket was "a mare's nest".[18] Cherwell took the view that long-range military rockets were feasible only if they were propelled by solid fuels and would accordingly need to be of enormous size. He repeatedly rejected arguments that relatively compact liquid fuels could be used to propel such weapons.[19] In fairness, "Cherwell had strong scientific grounds for doubting the forecasts that were being made of a 70-80 ton rocket with a 10 ton warhead."[20] A pivotal exchange where Churchill rebuffed Lindemann occurred at the Cabinet Defence Committee (Operations) meeting on 29 June 1943 and was dramatized in the film Operation Crossbow.
In July 1941 Lindemann was raised to the peerage as Baron Cherwell, of Oxford in the County of Oxford.[21] The following year he was made Paymaster-General by Churchill, an office he retained until 1945. In 1943 he was also sworn of the Privy Council.[22] He enthusiastically supported the controversial Morgenthau Plan, which Churchill subsequently endorsed on 15 September 1944.[23] Following his 1945 return to Clarendon Laboratory, Lindemann created the Atomic Energy Authority.[2] When Churchill returned as Prime Minister in 1951, Lord Cherwell was once again appointed Paymaster-General, this time with a seat in the cabinet. He continued in this post until 1953.[22] In 1956 he was made Viscount Cherwell, of Oxford in the County of Oxford.[24]
Lord Cherwell never married. He died in July 1957, aged 71, at which point the barony and viscountcy became extinct.[22]
Churchill's secret war by Madhusree Mukerjee ISBN 978-0-465-00201 (Lord Cherwell's role in the Indian Famine of 1943)
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir William Jowitt |
Paymaster-General 1942–1945 |
Succeeded by Vacant |
| Preceded by The Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor |
Paymaster-General 1951–1953 |
Succeeded by The Earl of Selkirk |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Viscount Cherwell 1956–1957 |
Extinct |
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