Mentzel studied and gained B.Sc. in Mathematics and B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Göttingen, and he received his doctorate in 1925 with a thesis on Stereoisomerism and transformation of b-substituted decahydro-naphthalenes. At Göttingen, he was a Kreisleiter of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, of which he had been a member since 1922. Due to his participation in the Kapp putsch in 1920, he held a golden party badge. Mentzel completed his Habilitation in 1933 at the Justus Liebig-Universität Gießen with a top-secret Habilitationsschrift on Wehrchemie.
Career
From 1934, Mentzel was an adviser on science to the Reichserziehungsministerium. From 1939, he stepped up to the position of Ministerialdirektor of the Amt für Wissenschaft of the REM; as such he headed W-II, the Science Office for military research.
Also in 1934, Mentzel began a role in academia, parallel to his role in the REM, when he was appointed nichtplanmäßiger Professor at the Technische Hochschule Berlin. In 1935, on the instigation of the Reich Minister of the REM Bernhard Rust, Mentzel became an ordentlicher Professor of chemistry in the defense technology department of the Technische Hochschule Berlin.
Atomic bomb program
In 1935, Peter Adolf Thiessen became director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie, in Berlin-Dahlem; the KWIPC was in institute under the umbrella organization the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft. In 1937, the NG was renamed the Deutsche Gemeinschaft zur Erhaltung und Förderrung der Forschung ; in short, known as the Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft. As president of the DFG, Mentzel outlined his science policy in the article Zwanzig Jahre deutsche Forschung. Mentzel was succeeded in 1939 by Abraham Esau. From 1937, Mentzel was on the Senat'' of the KWG, and from 1940 to 1944, he was Second Vice President of the KWG.
Military service
In 1937, the Reichsforschungsrat was inaugurated under Bernhard Rust on the initiative of Erich Schumann. It was a coordinating agency of the REM for the purpose of centralizing the planning of basic and applied research, and expanding the influence of the military, with the exception of aeronautical research, which was kept under the purview of Hermann Göring. Early in 1939, the RFR started the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranverein. In September 1939, the Heereswaffenamt squeezed out the RFR and took control of the project. When it was apparent that the nuclear energy project would not make a decisive contribution to ending the war effort in the near term, control of the project was turned over to the RFR in 1942. However, on 9 June 1942, Adolf Hitler issued a decree for the reorganization of the RFR as a separate legal entity under the Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition ; the decree appointed Reich Marshall Hermann Göring as the president. Over the life of the Uranverein, even with the transfer of the RFR to Göring’s purview, Mentzel, as Ministerialdirektor of the REM, was able to make inputs to and exert some influence on the project. In the Schutzstaffel, Mentzel attained the rank of Oberführer.
After war
After World War II, Mentzel was interned by the American occupation forces for three years. His release was, in part, brought about by the affidavit provided by Walther Gerlach, at Mentzel’s request in a letter dated December 6, 1948. These exoneration attestations were accepted only from those who had been through the denazification process in Germany and had had no affiliation with the NSDAP. Mentzel, as a science policy maker, had sided with the pragmatists in promoting scientific efficiency, rather than with the politically motivate party ideologues.
Selected literature of Mentzel
Rudolf Mentzel Zwanzig Jahre deutsche Forschung, in: Aus der Arbeit des Stifterverbandes der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft. Zur 20. Wiederkehr des Geburtstages des Stiftverbandes 14 December 1940, pp. 1-15.
