Helmut Gröttrup was born on February 12, 1916, and died on July 4, 1981. He was a German engineer, rocket scientist, and the inventor of the smart card. During World War II, he worked on the German V-2 rocket program under Wernher von Braun. From 1946 to 1950, he led a group of 170 German scientists who were required to work on the Soviet rocket program under Sergei Korolev. After returning to West Germany in December 1953, he helped create data processing systems, contributed to early uses of computer science in business, and created the German word "Informatik." In 1967, Gröttrup invented the smart card as a "forgery-proof key" for secure identification and access control (ID card) or to store a secure key. He also included inductive coupling for near-field communication (NFC). From 1970, he led a new division of Giesecke+Devrient to develop systems for processing banknotes and creating machine-readable security features.

Education

Helmut Gröttrup's father, Johann Gröttrup (1881–1940), was a mechanical engineer. He worked as a full-time employee at the Bund der technischen Angestellten und Beamten (Butab), an organization for technical workers and officials in the social democratic trade union in Berlin. His mother, Thérèse Gröttrup (1894–1981), born Elsen, was involved in the peace movement. Johann Gröttrup lost his job in 1933 after the Nazi Party gained power.

From 1935 to 1939, Helmut Gröttrup studied applied physics at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin) and completed his thesis under the guidance of Professor Hans Geiger, the co-inventor of the Geiger counter. He also worked at Manfred von Ardenne's research laboratory, Forschungslaboratorium für Elektronenphysik.

German rocketry program

From December 1939, Helmut Gröttrup worked on the German V-2 rocket program at the Peenemünde Army Research Center with Walter Dornberger and Wernher von Braun. In December 1940, he became the head of a department under Ernst Steinhoff, responsible for creating systems that control rockets from a distance.

Starting in October 1943, Gröttrup was being watched by the SD, a secret police group. A report claimed that Gröttrup, his wife Irmgard, Wernher von Braun, and a colleague named Klaus Riedel expressed sadness at an engineer’s home one evening. They said they wished they were working on a spaceship and believed the war was not going well. This was considered a "defeatist" attitude. A young female dentist, who was an SS spy, reported their comments. Along with false accusations by Himmler that they were communist sympathizers and had tried to harm the V-2 program, the Gestapo arrested them on March 21, 1944. They were taken to a Gestapo cell in Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) and held for two weeks without being told the reasons for their arrest. Walter Dornberger and Major Hans Georg Klamroth, a counterintelligence officer at Peenemünde, arranged for their release so the V-2 program could continue.

Soviet rocketry program

After World War II, Gröttrup chose not to join Wernher von Braun, who worked with 120 top scientists from Peenemünde on US missile projects. This decision was made because his family had to remain in Germany. In September 1945, Gröttrup instead began working in the Soviet Occupation Zone as head of Büro Gröttrup in Bleicherode, Thuringia. His task was to rebuild and produce V-2 rockets. Although many rocket experts stayed in West Germany with the US, Gröttrup gathered talented scientists, including Kurt Magnus, Werner Albring, Johannes Hoch, Waldemar Wolff, to rebuild V-2 plans and improve the rocket’s control system using a gyroscope for navigation. In March 1946, he became the German leader of Institut Nordhausen. In May 1946, he was named General Manager of Zentralwerke, a large factory with over 5,000 workers that produced V-2 rockets. This factory included parts from earlier rocket sites and suppliers. Gröttrup worked under Sergei Korolev and Boris Chertok, who reported to Soviet officials Maj. Gen. Lev Gaidukov and Dmitry Ustinov, the Minister of Armaments.

On the night of October 22, 1946, about 200 German scientists and engineers, along with equipment, were forced to leave Zentralwerke and sent to the USSR as part of Operation Osoaviakhim. This move involved 92 trains carrying over 2,300 German specialists in various fields. From 1946 until September 1950, Gröttrup led more than 170 German scientists in Podlipki, near Moscow, and on Gorodomlya Island in Lake Seliger as part of Korolev’s NII-88 and its Branch 1. The German team was guided by Korolev, the leader of the Soviet rocket program. In September 1950, Gröttrup left his leadership role because he refused to work on other Soviet projects. Johannes Hoch and later Waldemar Wolff took over his position.

Between 1947 and 1948, Gröttrup and his team helped Korolev with the R-1 project, which recreated the V-2 missile using Russian materials. At Kapustin Yar, Gröttrup assisted in launching 20 rebuilt V-2 rockets and studied why some failed. In October 1947, the first successful launch occurred. In 1947, Soviet official Dmitriy Ustinov asked Gröttrup’s team to design improved missile systems, including the R-10 (G-1), R-12 (G-2), R-14 (G-4), and R-15 (G-5). These designs were similar to the A9/A10 long-range missile von Braun developed during the war. None of these projects were built, but the German team’s ideas helped improve Soviet missile technology. Some ideas were used in later systems like the R-2 and R-5. The launcher for Sputnik 1’s 1957 orbital flight was based on the R-7 Semyorka rocket, which used a design proposed by German scientists in 1949. However, because of political reasons, the contributions of German scientists to Soviet rocket development were often ignored by people in both East and West.

Return to Germany

For security reasons, German experts were not allowed to work on important missile technology after 1951. However, they remained in the USSR for a 1.5-year waiting period to prevent them from sharing information with British or American intelligence. Most members of the Gorodomlya group were released in June 1952. Fritz Karl Preikschat, who led the high-frequency lab under Gröttrup from 1946 to 1952 on Gorodomlya Island, and several other specialists traveled to West Germany. They were questioned by the CIA and MI6 as "defectors" as part of an operation called "Dragon Return" related to the Soviet rocket program.

Gröttrup and 20 other German scientists, including Kurt Magnus and Karl-Joachim Umpfenbach, remained in the USSR until November 1953 because of their knowledge and concerns that they might move to West Germany. Gröttrup and his family returned to East Germany on November 22, 1953, as part of the last group from Gorodomlya Island. Within two weeks, they escaped to Cologne, West Germany, with help from British and American intelligence. During interrogations, Gröttrup shared details about German research and designs for long-range missiles, including the R-12 (G-2) and R-14 (G-4). MI6 considered him the most knowledgeable of the German returnees from Gorodomlya and noted that he provided useful information about similar developments in the Soviet Union. This information helped Korolev successfully launch the Sputnik 1 satellite into orbit in November 1957.

Gröttrup again refused to work for the U.S. missile program. He and his family were immediately placed on the street without support.

Invention of the smart card

From 1954 to 1958, Gröttrup worked for Standard Elektrik Lorenz in Pforzheim. He helped create the ER56, the first fully transistorized data processing system in Germany. Using this system, he installed one of the first commercial uses of data processing to manage the logistics of Quelle's mail-order business. In 1956, he and German informatician Karl Steinbuch created the word "Informatik" when they developed the Informatik-Anlage for Quelle's mail-order management, one of the earliest commercial uses of data processing. In 1959, he joined the Produktograph company of Joseph Mayr, which was later taken over by Siemens & Halske, for production data acquisition and monitoring. In 1965, he started a company called DATEGE in the data processing industry. In February 1966, he filed a patent application called "Identification Switch" for releasing a tapping process at a petrol station.

In February 1967, Gröttrup introduced the idea of placing an integrated circuit chip on a plastic carrier and filed the patent DE1574074 in West Germany for a tamper-proof identification switch based on a semiconductor device. A related patent, DE1574075, described contactless communication using inductive coupling, which became the basis for near-field communication (NFC) and radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. The German Patent and Trade Mark Office has recognized these patents as the invention of the smart card. The main purpose of the invention was to provide identification using individual, copy-protected keys to release the tapping process at unmanned gas stations or for ID card applications. In September 1968, Gröttrup, along with Jürgen Dethloff as an investor, filed additional patents for this identification switch first in Austria and later in 1969 in West Germany (DE1945777), the United States (US3678250), Great Britain (GB1317915 and GB1318850), and other countries.

Banknote processing

In 1970, Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) acquired DATEGE and created the Gesellschaft für Automation und Organisation (GAO). Helmut Gröttrup was the leader responsible for designing machine-readable security features to stop fake money and developing half- and fully automated banknote processing systems, such as ISS 300 and ISS/BPS 3000. The Banknote Processing division (now called G+D Currency Technology since April 2018) became the top global provider of banknote processing equipment starting in the mid-1990s. It also created single-note inspection systems for companies that print banknotes. In 1979, G&D introduced the first smart card, which later became the main product of G+D Mobile Security. Gröttrup left his position in 1980.

• Helmut Gröttrup explaining rocket basics (1958)
• Working model of Giesecke & Devrient's first banknote processing system ISS 300 (1974)
• Part of the ISS 300 prototype used to detect features on banknotes (1974)
• Banknote Processing System ISS 300PS displayed at Deutsches Museum, Munich (1986)
• First smart card made by Giesecke & Devrient in 1979

Publications

• Gröttrup, Helmut. "Work of the German Rocket Group in the Soviet Union" (PDF). Rocket Technology and Space Research (in German). 1958 (2). Deutsche Gesellschaft für Raketentechnik und Raumfahrt (DGRR): 58–62. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
• Gröttrup, Helmut (1959). About Rockets: A Simple Introduction to Rocket Physics and Technology (in German). Berlin: Ullstein. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
• Gröttrup, Irmgard (1959). The Possessed and the Powerful: In the Shadow of the Red Rocket (translated by Susi Hughes). London: André Deutsch. ASIN B0000CKD8Y.
• Gröttrup, Helmut (1968). The Automated Decision: Aspects of Automating Administrative Processes (in German). Studium Generale (in German). Vol. 21. Berlin: Springer. pp. 1107–1129.