Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb

334 Pages·1995·31.97 MB·English

by  Mark Walker

NAZI SCIENCE
MYTH, TRUTH, AND THE
GERMAN ATOMIC BOMB
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NAZI SCIENCE
MYTH, TRUTH, AND THE
GERMAN ATOMIC BOMB
MARK WALKER
PERSEUS PUBLISHING
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to the many people who helped me with this
project. Preliminary versions of Chapters 8,9, and 10 appeared in
Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte (volumes 38 (1990), 45-74 and 41
(1993), 519-42), and Chapters 6 and 7, in Historical Studies in the
Physical and Biological Sciences (volume 22 (1992), 339-89). I am
indebted to John L. Heilbron and the editorial board of the
Vierteljahrshefte for their support and editorial advice. Many of my
colleagues read all or part of this book and gave me their helpful
criticism: Philippe Burrinh, David DeVorkin, Michael Eckert, Paul
Forman, Dieter Hoffmann, Ian Kershaw, Andreas Kleinert,
Michael Neufeld, Ray Stokes, Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker,
Andreas Wirsching, and my Union College colleagues Steve Berk,
Faye Dudden, Erik Hansen, and Teresa Meade. Finally, Linda
Greenspan Regan, my editor at Plenum Press, greatly improved
the manuscript through her insightful comments and suggestions.
This book could not have been written without the generous
help of many archives and archivists: the Academy Archives of the
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Berlin Document
v)
tn Acknowledgments
Center, the Archives of the Humboldt University, the Archives of
the Max Planck Society, and the State Prussian Library in Berlin;
the State Archives in Hamburg; the Federal Archives in Koblenz
and Potsdam; the German Museum, the Institute for Contempo-
rary History, and the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astro-
physics in Munich; and the National Archives and Records
Services in Washington, D.C, Special thanks go to Helmut Drubba
for sending me a great deal of valuable information.
I received financial support for my research from the Alex-
ander Humboldt Foundation, the Berlin Program of the Social
Science Research Council, and Union College. Ulrich Albrecht,
Andreas Heinemann-Gruder, and the Free University welcomed
me as a guest in Berlin, as did Baudouin Jurdant, Josiane Olff-
Nathan, and the rest of GERSULP at the University of Strasbourg.
Perhaps most important is the support I have always received from
the History Department at Union College.
My colleague Monika Renneberg and I have recently edited
a collection of essays on science, technology, and National Social-
ism.1 I cannot improve on the dedication we used in that book, so
I would like to repeat it here.
This book is dedicated to all those critical voices who ham
tried to illuminate this ambivalent chapter of history, but
were unappreciated, ignored, and discouraged.
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 The Rise and Fall of an "Aryan" Physicist 5
Chapter 3 The Alienation of an Old Fighter 41
Chapter 4 The Surrender of the Prussian Academy of
Sciences 65
Chapter 5 A "Nazi" in the Academy 95
Chapter 6 Physics and Propaganda 323
Chapter 7 Goodwill Ambassadors 153
oti
Dtit Contents
Chapter 8 Hitler's Bomb 183
Chapter 9 The Crucible of Farm Hall 207
Chapter 10 The Myth of Hitler's Bomb 243
Chapter 11 Conclusion 269
Abbreviations 273
Endnotes 277
Bibliography 307
Index 317
1
Introduction
Was there & peculiarly "Nazi science"? Were there uniquely "Nazi
scientists"? These questions are deceptively simple. Even the term
"Nazi" is frustratingly difficult to define. A minority of Germans,
including National Socialist leaders like Adolf Hitler, Heinrich
Himmler, and Josef Goebbels, were certainly "Nazis." An even
smaller group, including the small circle of Army officers,
churchmen, and aristocrats who tried and failed to assassinate
Hitler in 1944, certainly resisted National Socialism. But the
conduct and conviction of tens of millions of other Germans were
not so clear cut. There is no simple definition for the term "Nazi."
Mere membership in the National Socialist German Workers Party
does not suffice: there are many examples of party members who
opposed Hitler's murderous policies and of non-members who
actively supported them. Instead, individual Germans have to be
examined and judged on a case-by-case basis, and different
observers may come to different conclusions.
It is important to distinguish between the minority of scien-
tists who happened to be followers of Adolf Hitler and supporters
1