auergesellschaft had a substantial amount of “waste” uranium from which it had extracted radium. after reading a paper in 1939 by siegfried flügge, on the technical use of nuclear energy from uranium, riehl recognized a business opportunity for the company, and, in july of that year, he went to the "heereswaffenamt" (hwa, army ordnance office) to discuss the production of uranium. the hwa was interested.