Lord Cherwell

Born Frederick Lindemann in Baden-Baden, Germany in 1886, and later created Lord Cherwell, 1st Viscount of Cherwell, he was the principal scientific adviser to Winston Churchill during the Second World War. He died in 1957.

Lord Cherwell was rather formal in manner, but Churchill felt extremely comfortable with him, and spoke warmly of his ability to simplify technical matters. He organized a statistical branch of the U.K. government, to collect and evaluate data for Churchill.

Trained as a physicist, in 1919 he became a professsor at Oxford. He qualified as a pilot, to investigate aerodynamics at first hand, deliberately putting his aircraft into a spin so he could learn from it.

During the 1930s, he became concerned with German rearmament, and, in the process of speaking for British military research, met Churchill, and the two became friends. The teetotaling vegetarian and Churchill were a classic "odd couple", but Churchill described him as the "scientific lobe of my mind".

His hatred for Hitler and the Nazis was sometimes considered pathological; he authored the strategic bombing policy of "dehousing" aimed at German factory workers, and carried out by RAF Bomber Command under Sir Arthur Harris. He supported the Morgenthau Plan for postwar Germany, which would have reduced it to an agricultural society.

Lord Cherwell's technical insight varied. He was a significant contributor to the electronic warfare in the Battle of the Beams, and developed a number of techniques used to improve warheads. On the other hand, he was skeptical of German guided missile research and argued against the existence of the V-2 until that missile was used against Britain.