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Manfred Popp (* 5. September 1941 in Munich) is a German physicist and research manager. In recent years he has published several articles on the German Uranium Project during World War II.

Academic Career

He began studying physics at the university of Bonn in 1960, received his diploma in 1967, and earned his doctorate in 1970 in nuclear physics. He was a lecturer of physics at Bonn University and worked in basic nuclear physics for almost two years as a guest scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science at Rehovot/Israel. Since 1990 he was lecturer and since 1997 professor at Darmstadt Technical University.

Research Management

When he joined the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology in 1972, he was editor of the Fourth German Nuclear Technology Program 1974-1978. In 1976, he became head of the department of energy research, comprising advanced reactor development (fast breeders, high temperature reactors), Light Water Reactor safety, uranium supply and enrichment, reprocessing and waste management as well as nuclear fusion. In the field of conventional energies, he funded projects of advanced coal mining, gasification and liquefaction. In addition, he built up a new program on renewable energies and rational use of energy.

His activities included a manifold international cooperation. He was a member of several committees of EURATOM,OECD, EAES, IEA and IAEA and was involved in various bilateral co-operations with France, Israel, Japan, and many other countries. In the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE), he was Co-Chairman of the working group on uranium enrichment and the German representative on the coordinating committee. He was founding member and for 20 years chairman of the German-Japanese Meetings on Nuclear Energy (1980-2010). During the 1980ies he took part in bilateral consultations with the German Democratic Republic on nuclear safety and waste management.

He was member of supervisory boards of the nuclear research centers Jülich, Karlsruhe and Neuherberg/Munich, of the Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE) and Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS). In 1993 and 1994 he was Chairman of the German Nuclear Society.

From 1987 to 1991, he was State Secretary of the Land Hesse, in charge of reactor safety and various facilities of the nuclear fuel cycle, management of communal and industrial wastes and the licensing of industrial plants. He coordinated the licensing procedures for the modernization of the nuclear fuel facilities at Hanau, restructured the industrial waste company HIM and avoided the use of the Messel-pit as a urban waste land-fill, thus paving the way for preserving the abundant fossils and the acknowledgement as UNESCO world heritage.

In 1991, he became chairman of the board of directors of Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center, which he converted into a modern science-center, using special abilities from the nuclear work in emerging areas like microstructures, nanotechnology, astro-particle physics and climatology, in close cooperation with Universities. Before retiring in 2006, he proposed the merger of the center with the university into Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). This concept was essential for winning the first excellence competition of German universities.

From 2000 until 2018 he was chairman or member or member of the management board of Karl-Heinz-Beckurts foundation. Since 2001 he is chairman of the advisory board of the Center of Art and Media, Karlsruhe, and since 2005 chairman of Fördergemeinschaft Kunst. From 2006 until 2018 he was chairman of the association of friends of the Research center Karlsruhe and is now vice-chaiman of the association of friends of the KIT.

After retirement, he continued working for the KIT, in particular preparing a multidisciplinary project of the Helmholtz Society at the Dead Sea, comprising German, Israeli, Jordanese and Palestinian scientists. This led to the DESERVE-project.

Research in History of Science

In the recent years, he became interested in the Uranium Project conducted in Germany during World War II, as kind of the prehistory of the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research center and published several articles, which correct of the established historiography.

Awards

·      Hörlein-Prize of Bonn University for the best thesis in natural sience in 1972.

·      First Class Federal Cross of Honor (2000)

·      Honorary Member of the German Nuclear Society (2007)

·      Honrary Citizen of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (2012)

Publications


 * Deutschlands Energiezukunft, Wiley VCH, Weinheim (2013)
 * Wie kommt das Neue in Technik und Medizin, Beckurts-Stiftung, Munich (2014)
 * Misinterpreted documents and ignored physical facts, Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch.39 (2016) 265-282
 * Werner Heisenberg und das deutsche Uranprojekt im 2. Weltkrieg, in K. Kleinknecht (ed.) Quanten 6, Hirzel, Stuttgart (2018)
 * Why Hitler did not have Atomic Bombs, J. Nucl. Eng. 2 (2021), in preparation

Further publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Manfred_Popp

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