Engelbert Broda

Engelbert Egon August Ernst Broda (29 August 1910 – 26 October 1983) was an Austrian chemist and a suspected atomic spy for the Soviet Union.

Early life Broda was born in Vienna as the first son of Ernst Broda, a lawyer and civil servant, and Viola Broda (née Pabst), a stage actress and the sister of film director G. W. Pabst. he was employed as a staff scientist at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, in 1941, where he investigated on radioactivity and nuclear fission.

In 1946 Broda worked as a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, before returning to Vienna the following year. After completing his habilitation in 1948, he joined the faculty of the University of Vienna. Broda was made an associate professor of applied physical chemistry and radiochemistry there in 1954, and was a full professor in 1968–1980. :65 Based on files from the Mitrokhin Archive accessed by Vassiliev, Broda – under the codename "Eric" – provided classified information to the KGB, greatly aiding the Soviet nuclear program. In a KGB cable from August 1943, "Eric" was described as "at pres[ent], the main source of info[rmation]" on the Manhattan Project in both the UK and the USA.

Personal life Broda married Hilde Gerwing, a medical student and anti-Nazi refugee from Berlin, in 1935; they had one son, Paul, born in 1939. The marriage ended in divorce in 1946. Hilde later married Alan Nunn May after his release from prison in 1953. Paul Broda would write a book about his parents and stepfather, Scientist Spies (2011).

From early 1942, Broda had an affair with the Austrian-born photographer and Soviet agent Edith Tudor-Hart. The two knew each other from Vienna; it has been alleged that it was Tudor-Hart who recruited Broda as a spy. :65–66

Broda died from a heart attack during a walk in Hainburg an der Donau in October 1983. He is buried at Vienna Central Cemetery.

Works Kräfte des Weltalls (Vienna: Globus, 1954) Ludwig Boltzmann. Mensch, Physiker, Philosoph (Vienna: Deuticke, 1955) Atomkraft – Furcht und Hoffnung (Vienna: Globus, 1956) The Evolution of the Bioenergetic Processes (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1975) Wissenschaft, Verantwortung, Frieden. Ausgewählte Schriften (Vienna: Deuticke, 1985)