Sir

Nikolai Timoféeff-Ressovsky (1900–81), one of the most striking personalities in twentieth-century science, did ground-breaking research in the fields of population genetics, radiation biology and evolutionary biology while working in Germany and the Soviet Union (see, for example, D. Paul and C. Krimbas, Scientific American 266, 86–92; 1992). Until now, studies of his life, which began in Tsarist Russia, have been hindered by language barriers, the cold war and inaccessible archives. We have recently unearthed material for the first time from the archives of the Stasi (East German security service) which illuminates some, although not all, of the questions surrounding his life.

The material includes Third Reich material from Timoféeff-Ressovsky and his family; records of interrogations by Soviet officials after the Second World War of him and his German colleagues Karl Zimmer and Hans Born; an official 1988 Soviet investigation into whether he should be rehabilitated; and an East German investigation provoked by a biography.

Soviet officials had accused Timoféeff-Ressovsky of treason on three grounds: failure to return from Germany after going to do research there in 1925; providing Germany with information on Soviet scientific institutes; and contributing to the German war effort. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, who had been running an independent research institute in Berlin since 1937, denied working for the German war effort, although other scientists in his institute had done so.

Zimmer told the Soviet officials that wartime research at the institute had included the biological effect of neutron radiation; the manufacture of radioactive elements, including radium; the effect of X-rays on humans; paints to illuminate instruments in aircraft; X-ray weapons against enemy planes; the effect of cosmic radiation on pilots at high altitudes; and protection from radiation. Zimmer also testified that, beginning in 1939 for the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research, and in 1942 for Timoféeff-Ressovsky's genetics department, war work was carried out, including research on “weapons of mass destruction”: X-rays and neutron radiation.

Born described radiation experiments on animals, on volunteers (including Born himself) and on human corpses. The transcripts of these interrogations make clear that the Soviet security service was mainly interested in military research and experiments with radium and uranium. Afterwards, Timoféeff-Ressovsky spent nearly a year in a prison camp.

During the period of glasnost, Daniel Granin's book Zubr (Novyj Mir, Moscow, 1987) portrayed Timoféeff-Ressovsky as a scientific genius victimized by stalinism and as an anti-fascist who fought against Hitler: one of his sons had died in a Nazi concentration camp. Perhaps encouraged by this, Timoféeff-Ressovsky's surviving son Alexei sought his father's rehabilitation. Soviet justice officials rejected this request in 1988, on the grounds that his father was a traitor who had worked on weapons of mass destruction for Germany.

In 1989, by contrast, East German officials from the Stasi, the ruling Socialist Unity party and the Academy of Sciences noted that Timoféeff-Ressovsky had only given information to Germany on Soviet institutes during the German–Soviet non-aggression pact, when scientists had been encouraged to cooperate, and that he had stayed away from the Soviet Union to avoid persecution for opposing the then state-approved theory of lysenkoism. They concluded that the war work done at his institute came to nothing. This report by the East German Academy of Sciences may explain why Soviet officials rehabilitated Timoféeff-Ressovsky soon afterwards.

These sources suggest that Timoféeff-Ressovsky did not collaborate with the Third Reich for the war effort. But, as the East German report noted, neither could he be described as an anti-fascist.