Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell
Professor
Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell CH (
April 5,
1886–
July 3,
1957) was an
English physicist who became an influential scientific adviser to the British government and a close associate of
Winston Churchill. He advocated the wartime
carpet bombing of German cities.
Early life, family and personality
Frederick was the second of three sons of Adolphus Frederick Lindemann (
1846â€"
1927) a
Frenchman from
Alsace who had emigrated to Britain in his 20s and become naturalised. Frederick was born in
Baden-Baden in
Germany where his mother, Olga Noble the widow of a wealthy banker, was taking "
the cure". Lindemann always regretted his German birth. After schooling in
Scotland and
Darmstadt, he attended the
University of Berlin as a
Ph.D. student of
Walther Nernst. As a physicist at the
Sorbonne he carried out research that confirmed theories first put forward by
Albert Einstein, on
specific heats at very low
temperatures.
Lindemann was a precise, austere, teetotal, vegetarian, non-smoker, though Churchill would sometimes induce him to take a glass of
brandy. An excellent
pianist and keen
tennis player, he was later to compete at
Wimbledon.
World War I
At the outbreak of
World War I, Lindemann was playing tennis in Germany and had to leave in haste to avoid
internment. However, he had no success in securing a
commission in the British armed forces and so, in
1915, he joined the staff of the
Royal Aircraft Factory at
Farnborough. He learned to fly and developed the mathematical theory of
aircraft spin, devising, and testing on himself, the spin-recovery method that is,
as of 2006, still used. Prior to his development of this method spinning an aircraft was almost invariably fatal.
Oxford
In
1919 Lindermann was appointed professor of experimental philosophy at
Oxford University and director of the
Clarendon Laboratory, largely on the recommendataion of
Henry Tizard who had been a colleague in Berlin. In 1919, Lindemann was one of the first people to suggest that in the
Solar Wind particles of both polarities,
protons as well as
electrons, come from the
Sun[Lindemann (1919) "On the Solar Wind", Philosophical Magazine, Series 6, Vol. 38, No. 228, December, 674]. He was probably not aware that
Kristian Birkeland had made the same prediction three years earlier in
1916.
Lindemann's policital views were, in modern terms, conservative and he was active in the opposition to the
UK General Strike of 1926 mobilising the reluctant staff of the Clarendon to produce copies of Churchill's anti-strike newspaper, the
British Gazette. However, unlike many contemporary conservatives he was alarmed and fearful of political developments in Germany (see
Events preceding World War II in Europe).
He began pressing for a more determined national action on air defence. He became one of a number of experts who gave advice to Winston Churchill in the
1930s when the latter was out of office and leading a campaign for rearmament.
World War II
When Churchill became
Prime Minister, he appointed him the British government's leading scientific adviser, and later to the ministerial post
Paymaster-General. He would hold this office again in Churchill's peacetime administration. At this point Lindemann was known to many simply as
the Prof. Churchill described him as 'the scientific lobe of my brain', and trusted him absolutely.
Lindemann established a special
statistical branch within the government, constituted from subject specialists, and reporting directly to
Churchill. This branch distilled thousands of sources of data into succinct charts and figures, so that the status of the nation's food supplies (for example) could be instantly evaluated. Lindemann's statistical branch often caused tensions between government departments, but because it allowed
Churchill to make quick decisions based on accurate data which directly affected the
war effort, its importance should not be underestimated.
In
1942 he presented the
War Cabinet with a paper advocating the
area bombing of Geman cities in a
strategic bombing campaign. The paper became known as the 'dehousing paper' and was based on studies of German bombing on
Birmingham,
Kingston upon Hull and elsewhere. It estimated the expected damage the RAF could do if it concentrated all its efforts into area bombing. His estimates of its effectiveness were opposed by Sir
Henry Tizard and
Professor Blackett among others. (An account of the disagreement - and some lessons to be drawn from it - can be found in
C.P.Snow's book 'Science and Government'.)
This paper became the genesis of the assault on German civilian morale by area bombardment. The strategy, agreed to by the
Cabinet and became Government policy, and was an important part of the
total war waged against Germany. It was implemented with great vigour by Air Chief Marshal
Arthur "Bomber" Harris as officer commanding
RAF Bomber Command. Throughout the war Lindemann played a key part in the
battle of the beams, providing insight on how the Germans were using
radio navigation to increase the precision of their bombing campaigns.
He has been described as having "an almost pathological hatred for Nazi Germany, and an almost medieval desire for revenge was a part of his character".
[, p.179]Back at Oxford
In
1945 he returned to his post at Oxford University and the Clarendon laboratory. He continued to advise the government on nuclear research and created the
Atomic Energy Authority.
On 4 June 1941 he was raised to the peerage as
Baron Cherwell. In 1943 he was appointed a
Privy Counsellor and in
1953 he was appointed a
Companion of Honour. In
1956 he was created
Viscount Cherwell, which became extinct upon his death without a male heir.
*
Dr. R. V. Jones*
*
Blitzed by guidebook*
Annotated bibliography for Lord Cherwell from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
