Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project, 1939-1945 SYNOPSIS
No one better represents the plight and the conduct of German intellectuals under Hitler than Werner Heisenberg, whose task it was to build an atomic bomb for Nazi Germany. The controversy surrounding Heisenberg still rages, because of the nature of his work and the regime for which it was undertaken. What precisely did Heisenberg know about the physics of the atomic bomb? How deep was his loyalty to the German government during the Third Reich? Assuming that he had been able to build a bomb, would he have been willing? These questions, the moral and the scientific, are answered by Paul Lawrence Rose with greater accuracy and breadth of documentation than any other historian has yet achieved.
Digging deep into the archival record among formerly secret technical reports, Rose establishes that Heisenberg never overcame certain misconceptions about nuclear fission, and as a result the German leaders never pushed for atomic weapons. In fact, Heisenberg never had to face the moral problem of whether he should design a bomb for the Nazi regime. Only when he and his colleagues were interned in England and heard about Hiroshima did Heisenberg realize that his calculations were wrong. He began at once to construct an image of himself as a "pure" scientist who could have built a bomb but chose to work on reactor design instead. This was fiction, as Rose demonstrates: in reality, Heisenberg blindly supported and justified the cause of German victory. The question of why he did, and why he misrepresented himself afterwards, is answered through Rose's subtle analysis of German mentality and the scientists' problems of delusion and self-delusion. This fascinating study is a profound effort to understand one of the twentieth century's great enigmas.
Author Biography: Paul Lawrence Rose is Mitrani Professor of Jewish Studies and European History at Pennsylvania State University. His recent books include Wagner: Race and Revolution (1992) and German Question/Jewish Question (1990).
FROM THE CRITICS
Richard Bessel
Heisenberg, Rose argues convincingly, made a 'fundamental scientific error in 1940 that precluded him from recommending an all-out attack on the atomic bomb problem.'É In order to substantiate his claims, Rose carefully reconstructs Heisenberg's role in wartime planning for a German bomb, and offers a 'close contextual reading' of the transcribed conversations recorded secretly at Farm Hall.
J. Samuel Walker
Rose makes a good case for his view of the Nazi bomb project. He marshals strong evidence, including a careful reading of the recently opened Farm Hall transcripts, to show that Heisenberg failed to grasp what was needed for an atomic explosive until after HiroshimaÉ. It is an important contribution to the literature that any scholar with an interest in the Nazi atomic bomb project or the history of nuclear energy should consult.
Dennis H. Rouvray
Rose exposes the hollowness of Heisenberg's arguments as well as his apparent lack of moral conscience. This book is a very revealing one and is absolutely engrossing to read. I can warmly recommend it to any chemist who has an interest in the science that was going on behind the scenes during World War II.
J. L. Heilbron
Rose shows convincingly that Heisenberg made a serious but simple conceptual mistake about the limiting condition of an explosive chain reaction and that the strength of Heisenberg's confidence in his analysis kept him from undertaking the more detailed calculations that might have corrected it.
Robert H. March
By restoring the original context of uncertainty, Rose makes it possible to penetrate the mystique of Heisenberg as an infallible icon and to understand how even a physicist of his genius could have made the gross mistakes Goudsmit attributed to him. The wealth of archival detail Rose has newly brought to light also exposes some of the misreadings and distortions that have confused this history.
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