Overview From 1922, Schumann was a physicist at the
Reichswehrministerium (RWM, Reich Ministry of Defense), which became the
Reichskriegsministerium (RKM, Reich Ministry of War) in 1939. He passed the
Referendar (civil service exam) in 1926. From 1929, he was head of the RWM Central Science Office and from 1932 ministerial councilor there. In 1929, when he completed his Habilitation at the University of Berlin, he was appointed lecturer of systematic musicology (acoustics). In 1931, he became an extraordinarius professor of experimental and theoretical physics there, and in 1933 he became an ordinarius professor of
applied physics and systematic musicology. Schumann taught courses on acoustics and explosives, his areas of research. Schumann was the
doctoral advisor to
Wernher von Braun, who was awarded his doctorate in 1934. In 1933, the year
Adolf Hitler came to power, Schumann became a member of the
Nazi Party. Schumann, a general officer in the army and an ordinarius professor in academia, skillfully projected his power as a science policymaker for Germany. He enjoyed both roles, as remembered by the nuclear physicist Georg Hartwig, and dressed appropriately to gain advantage. For example, when he met with academia representatives, he wore his military uniform and saluted. When meeting with military officials, he dressed
in mufti and was introduced as
Herr Professor Doktor.
Uranverein From September 1939 to 1942 the HWA controlled the
German nuclear energy project, also known at the
Uranverein (Uranium Club); in 1942 control was turned over to the RFR. The most influential people in the project were Schumann,
Abraham Esau,
Walther Gerlach, and
Kurt Diebner, Schumann, during this period, was one of the most powerful and influential physicists in Germany. When it was apparent that the nuclear energy project would not make a decisive contribution to ending the war effort in the near term by producing a nuclear weapon, the HWA had decided by January 1942 to relinquish its control of the nuclear energy project and leave it in the realm of research through the RFR. Even then, Schumann helped the project dodge what would have been a major blow to the project. Many scientists in the
Uranverein working on the
Uranmaschine (uranium machine, i.e., nuclear reactor) had the classification of
unabkömmlich (
uk, indispensable) and were exempt from being drafted into armed service. Both
Paul Harteck and
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker had the classification
uk. However, as the war raged on, the demand for men to provide armed service caused both to be called up in January 1942 for service at the
Russian front.
Paul O. Müller and
Karl-Heinz Höcker, colleagues of von Weizsäcker within the
Uranverein had already been called up; Müller was killed on the Russian front.
Werner Heisenberg, with the help of Schuman and
Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer, whose brother-in-law
Hans von Dohnanyi held an influential position in the German army, managed to maintain the
uk status for Harteck and von Weizsäcker and keep them working on the nuclear energy project.
Biological Warfare Although Hitler had ordered that biological warfare should be studied only for the purpose of defending against it, Schumann lobbied for him to be persuaded otherwise: "America must be attacked simultaneously with various human and animal epidemic pathogens, as well as plant pests." The plans were never adopted due to opposition by Hitler.
Post World War II In the German scientific community's defense of its conduct during the war, the military's Schumann- and Diebner-led aspects of the
Uranverein were minimized, ridiculed, and ascribed to
Nichtskönner (incompetent scientists) and leadership that owed its positions to politics. Additionally, the Heisenberg component of the project was made to appear as the leading and dominant element of the project. The motivations of the German scientists were to distance themselves from the military aspects of the
Uranverein and, in the
denazification environment, also distance themselves from those who had visible positions under
National Socialism. Regarding Schumann's scientific abilities, they are, however, attested to by the fact that members of his Habilitation committee for experimental and theoretical physics at the University of Berlin included the eminent scientists
Max von Laue,
Walther Nernst, and
Max Planck, and the Habilitation was well before Hitler came to power. After the war, Schumann wrote a book to get out his view of the German nuclear energy project, but publication was blocked by the British occupation authorities. Telling of some of the story from this perspective would have to wait until his right-hand man in the HWA, Kurt Diebner, published his book in 1957. Again from 1951, Schumann was director of the Helmholtz Institute of Sound Psychology and Medical Acoustics in Berlin. He died in
Homberg-Hülsa in 1985. ==Notes==