Book contents
- Hitler’s Atomic Bomb
- Hitler’s Atomic Bomb
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Bomb
- Part II Living with the Bomb
- 7 Oversimplifications
- 8 Compromising with Hitler
- 9 Rehabilitation
- 10 Copenhagen
- Conclusion
- Epilogue
- Glossary
- Notes
- Archives
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Compromising with Hitler
from Part II - Living with the Bomb
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2024
- Hitler’s Atomic Bomb
- Hitler’s Atomic Bomb
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Bomb
- Part II Living with the Bomb
- 7 Oversimplifications
- 8 Compromising with Hitler
- 9 Rehabilitation
- 10 Copenhagen
- Conclusion
- Epilogue
- Glossary
- Notes
- Archives
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Did Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker compromise with the Nazis? The story begins with Albert Einstein, who became a target for conservative physicists like Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark who could not follow Einstein’s physics, and the early Nazi Party that rejected Einstein as a Jew as well as his pacifism and internationalism. When Hitler came to power, Lenard and Stark gained great influence. Stark in particular tried to accumulate power but steadily lost influence through conflicts with other Nazis. When Stark’s nemesis, the theoretical physicist Arnold Sommerfeld, was going to retire and be succeeded by Werner Heisenberg, Stark launched a vicious attack on Heisenberg in the SS newspaper. Heisenberg appealed to SS Leader Heinrich Himmler and thanks to support from the aeronautical engineer Ludwig Prandtl was eventually rehabilitated by the SS. The established physics community then launched a counterattack against the “Aryan Physics” of Lenard and Stark, which included writing Einstein out of the history of relativity theory. This was arguably Heisenberg’s greatest compromise with Nazism.
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- Hitler's Atomic BombHistory, Legend, and the Twin Legacies of Auschwitz and Hiroshima, pp. 179 - 214Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024