Hello Andrey, EXCELLENT, THANK YOU KINDLY !
Yes, according to the Internet he was an able physicist.
But there is much more to the story of this loss:
On the night of 23.02.1942 a unit of the Russian 56th Army under Major Maloletko with the help of the Russian Azov Sea Flottila made landfall for a surprise attack onto the Germans between Mariupol and Taganrog near Obryv/Kholodne. If I understand correctly they killed many german soldiers and then found in a german Opel-Admiral (chauffeur given as Hans Vandervelde) vehicle a briefcase with a large notebook. On further analysis of this notebook they saw that there were calculations and graphics for uranium nuclear chain reactions and also a list of the materials hypothesized needed for constructing an atomic bomb !
The famous soviet officer Ilya Grigoryevich Starinov was involved and the notebook was sent to Moscow where experts were alerted to the german research for nuclear weapons. This incident was the final push for Stalin to immediately also set up a soviet atomic bomb project.
On the first of the websites mentioned below there is speculation, that the notebook belonged to Hans Euler (name given wrongly as "Echler") who is stated to have been lost/killed in action. But this could be wrong given the fact that Hans Euler was already lost in 1941 ? Euler supposedly was also sympathized with the communists so it seems a bit improbable that he should help the Nazis to develop the bomb.
Would be nice to know:
#1 What happened to Euler as russian prisoner of war ?
#2 Speculation: Was the "story" of Taganrog maybe faked and Euler voluntarily went over to the russians with his notebook ?
#3 Did the notebook belong to a completely different german officer ?
You can read more on this very interesting subject here:
http://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/94-9...agin/01-02.htm
http://www.taganrog.su/node/10133/print
http://www.my-sedovo.narod.ru/VOJNA2.html
bye, thanks again, Andrey,
FrankieS