Paul Rosbaud

Paul Rosbaud (18 November 1896 – 28 January 1963), was a metallurgist and scientific adviser for Springer Verlag in Germany before and during World War II. He continued in science publishing after the war with Pergamon Press in Oxford, England. In 1986 Arnold Kramish revealed the undercover work of Paul Rosbaud for England during the war in the book The Griffin. It was Rosbaud that dispelled anxiety over a "German atom bomb".

Paul Rosbaud was born in Graz, Austria. His mother taught piano lessons, and Paul's brother Hans Rosbaud became a famous conductor. Rosbaud served in the Austrian army during World War I from 1915 to 1918. After the war ended his unit was taken as prisoner of war by British forces; this experience ended up giving him a liking of the British. He studied chemistry at Darmstadt Technische Hochschule beginning in 1920. He continued his studies at Kaiser Wilhelm Institut in Berlin. For his doctorate, Rosbaud studied metallurgy with Erich Schmid at Berlin-Charlottenburg Technische Hochschule and in 1925 wrote "On strain hardening of crystals in alloys and cold working", a frequently cited article. Rosbaud then became a "roving scientific talent scout" for the scientific periodical Metallwirtschaft.

Through his work at Springer Verlag, Rosbaud knew much of the scientific community in Germany, and as a presumed Nazi, he had sources of vital intelligence relating to weaponry.

In 1938 he had his Jewish wife Hilde and their only daughter Angela sent to the UK to keep them safe from Nazi harassment. Rosbaud was also invited to stay in the UK, but he decided to keep working in Germany to undermine the Nazi regime. In addition to his own, Rosbaud helped a number of other families flee the Nazis, including that of the well known Jewish physicist Lise Meitner. He was assisted in his work saving Jews by the fact that he was run as a British agent by Frank Foley, the MI6 station chief in Berlin.

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