Alexander Catsch

Alexander Siegfried Catsch (also Katsch; 13 March [O.S. 28 February] 1913–16 February 1976) was a German-Russian medical doctor and radiation biologist. Up to the end of World War II, he worked in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timefeev-Resovskij's Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research). He was taken prisoner by the Russians at the close of World War II. Initially, he worked in Nikolaus Riehl's group at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal’, but at the end of 1947 was sent to work in Sungul' at a sharashka known under the cover name Ob’ekt 0211. At the Sungul' facility, he again worked in biological research department under the direction of Timofeev-Resovskij. When Catsch returned to Germany in the mid-1950s, he fled to the West. He worked at the Biophysikalische Abteilung des Heiligenberg-Instituts and then at the Institut für Strahlenbiologie am Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe. While in Karlsruhe, he was also appointed, in 1962, to the newly created Lehrstuhl für Strahlenbiologie, at the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe. In West Germany, he developed methods to extract radionucleotides from various organs.

No later than 1958, he was at the Institut für Strahlenbiologie of the Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe (KFK, Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center), which was founded in 1956 and today is known as the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK, Karlsruhe Research Center). It was allied with the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe; today, it is known as the Universität Karlsruhe (TH), after its reorganization and renaming in the academic year 1967/1968. In 1962, while still at the KFK, Catsch was appointed to the newly created Lehrstuhl für Strahlenbiologie at the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe.

As early as 1956, Catsch was at the Biophysikalische Abteilung des Heiligenberg-Instituts, in Heiligenberg, Baden, Germany.

Catsch returned to the DDR in the mid-1950s and fled West. Riehl arrived in the DDR on 4 April 1955, and by early June he was in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Other colleagues of Riehl who worked with him in Russia also went West; Günter Wirths fled to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and Karl Zimmer went legally.

In preparation for release from the Soviet Union, it was standard practice to put personnel into quarantine for a few years if they worked on projects related to the Soviet atomic bomb project, as was the case for Catsch. Additionally, in 1954, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR, German Democratic Republic) and the Soviet Union prepared a list of scientists they wished to keep in the DDR, due to their having worked on projects related to the Soviet atomic bomb project; this list was known as the “A-list”. On this A-list were the names of 18 scientists. Nine, possibly 10, of the names were associated with the Riehl group which worked at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal'. Born, Catsch, Riehl, and Zimmer were on the list.

After the detonation of the Russian uranium bomb, uranium production was going smoothly and Riehl's oversight was no longer necessary at Plant No. 12. Riehl then went, in 1950, to head an institute in Sungul', where he stayed until 1952. Essentially the remaining personnel in his group were assigned elsewhere, with the exception of H. E. Ortmann, A. Baroni (PoW), and Herbert Schmitz (PoW), who went with Riehl. However, Riehl had already sent Born, Catsch, and Zimmer to the institute in December 1947. The institute in Sungul’ was responsible for the handling, treatment, and use of radioactive products generated in reactors, as well as radiation biology, dosimetry, and radiochemistry. The institute was known as Laboratory B, and it was overseen by the 9th Chief Directorate of the NKVD (MVD after 1946), the same organization which oversaw the Russian Alsos operation. The scientific staff of Laboratory B – a ShARAShKA – was both Soviet and German, the former being mostly political prisoners or exiles, although some of the service staff were criminals. (Laboratory V, in Obninsk, headed by Heinz Pose, was also a sharashka and working on the Soviet atomic bomb project. Other notable Germans at the facility were Werner Czulius, Hans Jürgen von Oertzen, Ernst Rexer, and Carl Friedrich Weiss.)

One of the political prisoners in Laboratory B was Riehls’ colleague from the KWIH, N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij, who, as a Soviet citizen, was arrested by the Soviet forces in Berlin at the conclusion of the war, and he was sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag. In 1947, Timofeev-Resovskij was rescued out of a harsh Gulag prison camp, nursed back to health, and sent to Sungul' to complete his sentence, but still make a contribution to the Soviet atomic bomb project. At Laboratory B, Timofeev-Resovskij headed a biophysics research department, in which Born, Catsch, and Zimmer were able to conduct work similar to that which they had done in Germany, and all three became section heads in Timofeev-Resovskij's department. In fact, in Sungul', Catsch began his work on developing methods to extract radionucleotides from various organs, which he would continue when he left Russia.

At the close of World War II, Russia had special search teams operating in Austria and Germany, especially in Berlin, to identify and “requisition” equipment, materiel, intellectual property, and personnel useful to the Soviet atomic bomb project. The exploitation teams were under the Russian Alsos, and they were headed by Lavrenij Beria's deputy, Colonel General A. P. Zavenyagin. These teams were composed of scientific staff members, in NKVD officer's uniforms, from the bomb project's only laboratory, Laboratory No. 2, in Moscow. In mid-May 1945, the Russian nuclear physicists Georgy Flerov and Lev Artsimovich, in NKVD colonel's uniforms, compelled Zimmer to take them to the location of Riehl and his staff, who had evacuated their Auergesellschaft facilities and were west of Berlin, hoping to be in an area occupied by the American or British military forces. Riehl was detained at the search team's facility in Berlin-Friedrichshagen for a week. This sojourn in Berlin turned into 10 years in the Soviet Union! Riehl and his staff, including their families, were flown to Moscow on 9 July 1945. Riehl was to head up a uranium production group at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal’ (Электросталь).

From 1945 to 1950, Riehl was in charge of uranium production at Plant No. 12 in Ehlektrostal'. When Riehl learned that H. J. Born and Karl Zimmer were being held in Krasnogorsk, in the main PoW camp for Germans with scientific degrees, Riehl arranged though Zavenyagin to have them sent to Ehlektrostal’. Catsch, who had been taken prisoner with Zimmer, was also sent to the Ehlektrostal’ Plant No. 12. At Ehlektrostal’, Riehl had a hard time incorporating Born, Catsch, and Zimmer into his tasking on uranium production, as Born was a radiochemist, Catsch was a physician and radiation biologist, and Zimmer was a physicist and radiation biologist.

As early as 1938, Catsch cited his affiliation with the I. Medizinischen Universitätsklinik der Charité; Charité was a teaching and research hospital in Berlin. No later than 1942, he was at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research) of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft, in Berlin-Buch. At the KWIH, he was in Nikolaj Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovskij's Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik (Department for Experimental Genetics), a world-renowned department with the status of an institute. There, Catsch conducted research on the effects of radiation on genetic mutations.