---
title: "Manfred von Ardenne"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_von_Ardenne"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:05:49.289092+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== In the Soviet Union ===
Von Ardenne, Gustav Hertz, Nobel laureate and director of Research Laboratory II at Siemens,  Peter Adolf Thiessen, ordinarius professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin and director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (KWIPC) in Berlin-Dahlem, and Max Volmer, ordinarius professor and director of the Physical Chemistry Institute at the Berlin Technische Hochschule, had made a pact.  The pact was a pledge that whoever first made contact with the Soviets would speak for the rest.  The objectives of their pact were threefold: (1) Prevent plunder of their institutes, (2) Continue their work with minimal interruption, and (3) Protect themselves from prosecution for any political acts of the past. Before the end of World War II, Thiessen, a member of the NSDAP, had Communist contacts.  On 27 April 1945, Thiessen arrived at von Ardenne's institute in an armored vehicle with a major of the Soviet Army, who was also a leading Soviet chemist, and they issued Ardenne a protective letter (Schutzbrief).
All four of the pact members were taken to the Soviet Union.  Von Ardenne was made head of Institute A, in Sinop, a suburb of Sukhumi. In his first meeting with Lavrentiy Beria, von Ardenne was asked to participate in the Soviet atomic bomb project, but von Ardenne quickly realized that participation would prohibit his repatriation to Germany, so he suggested isotope enrichment as an objective, which was agreed to.
Goals of Ardenne's Institute A included: (1) Electromagnetic separation of isotopes, for which von Ardenne was the leader, (2) Techniques for manufacturing porous barriers for isotope separation, for which Peter Adolf Thiessen was the leader, and (3) Molecular techniques for separation of uranium isotopes, for which Max Steenbeck was the leader; Steenbeck was a colleague of Hertz at Siemens.
Others at Institute A included Ingrid Schilling, Alfred Schimohr, Gerhard Siewert, and Ludwig Ziehl. By the end of the 1940s, nearly 300 Germans were working at the institute, and they were not the total work force.
Hertz was made head of Institute G, in Agudseri (Agudzery), about 10 km southeast of Sukhumi and a suburb of Gul’rips (Gulrip'shi); after 1950, Hertz moved to Moscow. Volmer went to the Nauchno-Issledovatel'skiy Institut-9 (NII-9, Scientific Research Institute No. 9), in Moscow; he was given a design bureau to work on the production of heavy water.  In Institute A, Thiessen became leader for developing techniques for manufacturing porous barriers for isotope separation.
At the suggestion of authorities, Ardenne eventually shifted his research from isotope separation to plasma research directed towards controlled nuclear fusion.
In 1947, Ardenne was awarded a Stalin Prize for his development of a table-top electron microscope.  In 1953, before his return to Germany, he was awarded a Stalin Prize, first class, for contributions to the atomic bomb project; the money from this prize, 100,000 Rubles, was used to buy the land for his private institute in East Germany.  According to an agreement that Ardenne made with authorities in the Soviet Union soon after his arrival, the equipment which he brought to the Soviet Union from his laboratory in Berlin-Lichterfelde was not to be considered as "reparations" to the Soviet Union.  Ardenne took the equipment with him in December 1954 when he returned to the then East Germany.

=== Return to (East) Germany ===

After Ardenne's arrival in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), he became "Professor für elektrotechnische Sonderprobleme der Kerntechnik" (Professor of electrotechnical special problems of Nuclear Technology) at the Technische Hochschule Dresden.  He also founded his research institute, "Forschungsinstitut Manfred von Ardenne", in Dresden, which with over 500 employees became a unique institution in East Germany as a leading research institute that was privately run. However it collapsed with substantial debts after German reunification in 1991 and re-emerged as Von Ardenne Anlagentechnik GmbH. Ardenne twice won the GDR's National Prize.
In 1957, Ardenne became a member of the "Forschungsrat" of the DDR.  In that year, he developed an endoradiosonde for medical diagnostics.  In 1958, he was awarded the "Nationalpreis" of the DDR; the same year he became a member of the "Friedensrat".  In 1959, he received a patent for the electron-beam furnace he developed.  In 1961, he was selected a chairman of the "Internationale Gesellschaft für medizinische Elektronik und biomedizinische Technik".  From the 1960s, he expanded his medical research and became well known for his oxygen multi-step therapy and cancer multi-step therapy.
In 1963, Ardenne became president of the "Kulturbund" of the DDR.  During the period 1963 to 1989, he was a delegate to the "Volkskammer" of the DDR, as well as a member of the "Kulturbund-Fraktion".
After the creation of the Dresden-Hamburg city partnership (1987), Ardenne became an honorary citizen of Dresden in September 1989.
At the time of his death on 26 May 1997, Ardenne held around 600 patents.
In 2002 the German "Europäische Forschungsgesellschaft Dünne Schichten" ("European Thin-Film Research Society") named an annual prize in von Ardenne's honor.

== Personal life ==
In 1937, Ardenne married Bettina Bergengruen; they had four children.

== Honors ==
Von Ardenne received many honors:

== Books ==

== See also ==

Technische Hochschule Dresden
Environmental scanning electron microscope
Raster scan
Russian Alsos
German inventors and discoverers

== References ==

== Bibliography ==

== External links ==
aerzteblatt.de Archived 2011-10-27 at the Wayback Machine - Krebsforschung: Scheitern eines innovativen Ansatzes
Experimental Oncology – To the 100 Birthday of M. von Ardenne
Frontal21 Interview - Der Historiker Dr. Rainer Karlsch über den Atomphysiker Ardenne
Literatur von und über Manfred von Ardenne im Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
MDR Figaro - Zum 100. Geburtstag von Manfred von Ardenne
Oleynikov, Pavel V. German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project, The Nonproliferation Review Volume 7, Number 2, 1 – 30  (2000).
sachen.de - Zur Ehrung von Manfred von Ardenne
Von Ardenne – Deutsches Historisches Museum
Von Ardenne - Dieter Wunderlich
Von Ardenne – Journal of Microscopy
von Ardenne – Sächsische Biografie
Biography Archived 2012-03-26 at the Wayback Machine – Von Ardenne biography on official VON ARDENNE Corporate Website.