Kruger, P. Gerald (Peter Gerald), 1902-

P. Gerald Kruger (1902-1978),

From the guide to the P. Gerald Kruger Papers, 1902-2000, (University of Illinois Archives)

Peter Gerald Kruger, born in Deer Creek, Minnesota, married German national Erika Wackenroder, whom he met while doing a fellowship in Germany, in 1931. That same year he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Physics. Kruger spent time at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in 1936 and 1939 studying and assisting on the cyclotron in order to build one at Illinois. While Kruger was in Berkeley, in 1939, his wife went to visit family in Germany just as war broke out in Europe. Erika Wackenroder returned to the U.S. in Jan. 1940.

From the description of P. Gerald Kruger letters : to Erika Wackenroder Kruger, Germany : ALS, 1939-1940. (University of California, Berkeley). WorldCat record id: 84655622

Physicist.

Cornell University Ph.D. 1929. From 1926-1927, he received a German-American Exchange Fellowship to the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute in Berlin, where he studied with Max Planck and others. In 1929-1930, a second fellowship, from the National Research Council provided him with the opportunity to study at the Physikalische Technische Reichsanstalt. In 1931 he returned to Cornell as a Heckscher Research Fellow. He then went to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne, where he taught for the rest of his career and supervised the construction of their cyclotron. While in Germany, he met Erika Wackenroder whom he married on August 27, 1931. Dr. Kruger died on November 4, 1978.

From the description of P. Gerald Kruger letters, 1926-1931, 2002. (Cornell University Library). WorldCat record id: 64054061