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Konrad Beyerle (1900 in Freiburg im Breisgau – 1979) was a German engineer. During World War II, he was in charge of centrifuge research and development at Anschütz & Co. G.m.b.H. He participated in the development of ultracentrifuges for the enrichment of uranium done under the auspices of the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club. After the war, he was head of the Institute for Instrumentation of the Max Planck Society.
Shortly after the discovery of nuclear fission in December 1938/January 1939, the Uranverein, i.e., the German nuclear energy project, had an initial start in April before being formed a second time under the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) in September 1939. Beyerle soon brought his industrial expertise to the project for the development of an ultracentrifuge for the enrichment of uranium-235, in collaboration with Paul Harteck, director of the Physical Chemistry Department at the University of Hamburg, and his colleague Wilhelm Groth. Construction began in the autumn of 1941, and it was done under the auspices of an Heereswaffenamt contract let by Kurt Diebner, director of the Kernforschungsrat (Nuclear Research Council), under General Carl Heinrich Becker of the HWA. Konrad Beyerle was in charge of centrifuge development at Anschütz in Kiel. In 1943, enriched uranium to 5% was achieved, however, technical difficulties and the war hindered large-scale production. In July 1944, the Anschütz company was struck during an Allied air raid, and the exact part of the plant that was working on centrifuges was destroyed. Beyerle moved his effort south and merged with Hartick’s group in Freiburg and Kandern, the locations to which the Institute of Physical Chemistry had moved in hopes of avoiding Allied air raids. Avoiding the air raids only lasted until September 1944.Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Groth.Wilhelm Groth Stand der Arbeiten zur Herstellung einer Ultrazentrifuge G-82 (14 December 1941)Walker, 1993, 33, 82, 148, and 177.
After World War II, Beyerle was head of the Institut für Instrumentenkunde (Institute for Instrumentation) of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG, Max Planck Society, successor organization to the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft), in Göttingen, where he continued research and development of centrifuges. Two of his colleagues at the institute were H. Freise and H. Billing. Tätigkeitsbericht Der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 1946–1951, Institut für Instrumentenkunde in der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Göttingen, Die Naturwissenschaften, Volume 38, Number 18, 409 ( 1951).Thomas Berez, 'A Foreign Element in the Max Planck Society': Konrad Beyerle's Institute for Instrumentation and the Dynamics of Post-War German Science, 1946-57, The JHU Gazette (Weekly Calendar, Colloquia announcement for April 24), Volume 37, Number 31 ( April 21, 2008).Konrad Beyerle (Göttingen) Rotating System for Observation Centrifuges for the Determination of Molecular Weight, U.S. Patent 2,617,585, Filing date: March 31, 1950.
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