Heisenberg and the Nazi atomic bomb project, 1939-1945 : a study in German culture / Paul Lawrence Rose.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rose, Paul Lawrence, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Heisenberg, Werner, 1901-1976.

Heisenberg, Werner.

Atomic bomb--Germany--History.

Atomic bomb.

Physicists--Political activity.

Physicists.

Germany--Politics and government--1933-1945.

Germany.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (376 p.) : 1 frontisp.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, [1998]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

A Note on Three New Sources

Preface: Why Heisenberg?

A Note on Historical Terminology of the First Nuclear Age, 1939-45

PROLOGUE The Heisenberg Problem

PART I. History: The Heisenberg Version and Its Critics

CHAPTER 1. The Heisenberg Version and Its First Critic, 1945-49

CHAPTER 2. Elaborating the Heisenberg Version, 1945-76

CHAPTER 3. Criticizing the Version, 1948-94

PART II. Science: Conceptions and Misconceptions of Physics

CHAPTER 4. The Atomic Bomb Problem, 1939

CHAPTER 5. Frisch-Peierls Solution, 1940

CHAPTER 6. Heisenberg's False Foundations, 1939

CHAPTER 7. The Bomb as Reactor

CHAPTER 8. The Reactor as Bomb

CHAPTER 9. The Reactor and the Bomb

CHAPTER 10. The Reactor-Bomb Patent and the Heisenberg/Bohr Drawing, 1941

CHAPTER 11. The Weapons Research Office Report of 1942

CHAPTER 12. The Two Conferences of 1942

CHAPTER 13. Reactor-Bombs, Plutonium Bombs, and the SS

CHAPTER 14. The Truth

PART III. Culture: German Patriotism, German Morality, and the Truth of Physics

CHAPTER 15. The German Context

CHAPTER 16. The Unpolitical Heisenberg

CHAPTER 17. Collusion and Compromise under Hitler, 1933-37

CHAPTER 18. The Himmler Connection

CHAPTER 19. Justifying Nazi Victory, 1941-45

CHAPTER 20. Decency and Indecency at Farm Hall, 1945

CHAPTER 21. Heisenberg's Peculiar Way, 1945-48

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Nov 2020)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520927162

0520927168

9780585321905

0585321906

OCLC:

1224278016