17. Blamed for manufacturing problems, Germany’s engineering prodigy Karl Heinrich Emil Becker was pressured into suicide near the outset of World War Two
Karl Heinrich Emil Becker (b. 1879) was a military engineer, serving as the first President of the Reich Research Council, Chief of the Heereswaffenam (Army Weapons Agency), and as Commanding General of German Artillery. Beginning his military career in 1898, Becker studied at Munich Artillery and Engineering School from 1901-03 and at Berlin Military Engineering Academy from 1906-11 wherein he specialized in ballistics. Seeing action during the First World War, Becker served first as commander of an artillery battery and from 1917 as an advisor on artillery ballistics at the Weapons and Equipment Inspectorate. Returning to education after the war, Becker received a doctorate in engineering in 1922 and secured a position as an advisor to the Heereswaffenam’s inspection office.
Always advocating a closer link between science and the military, Becker’s Central Office of Army Physics and Army Chemistry was buoyed by the rise of Hitler and the re-militarization of Germany. Among the programs enabled by the generous increases in funding, Becker staunchly encouraged the German nuclear energy project in addition to the development of early rocketry. From appointments as Honorary Professor of military sciences at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität and Professor of technical physics at the Technische Hochschule Berlin, to serving on the supervisory board of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft, and being the first general officer to be a member of the Prussian Academy of Science, Becker established himself as one of Germany’s leading military scientific minds of his generation.
Attracting the disfavor of the Führer and being blamed for shortfalls in munitions productions, Becker committed suicide under Gestapo supervision on April 8 1940, just one day before the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. His suicide, believed to be via cyanide but unconfirmed, was covered up to conceal disunity within the Reich and Becker was granted a State funeral on April 12 1940.