Description: Who were the German scientists who worked on atomic bombs during World War II for Hitler's regime? How did they justify themselves afterwards? Examining the global influence of the German uranium project and postwar reactions to the scientists involved, Mark Walker explores the narratives surrounding 'Hitler's bomb'. The global impacts of this project were cataclysmic. Credible reports of German developments spurred the American Manhattan Project, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in turn the Soviet efforts. After the war these scientists' work was overshadowed by the twin shocks of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Hitler's Atomic Bomb sheds light on the postwar criticism and subsequent rehabilitation of the German scientists, including the controversial legend of Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's visit to occupied Copenhagen in 1941. This scientifically accurate but non-technical history examines the impact of German efforts to harness nuclear fission, and the surrounding debates and legends.
Brief description: Mark Walker is the John Bigelow Professor of History at Union College, Schenectady, New York. His research interests include twentieth-century science, particularly science and technology under National Socialism. Previous publications include The Kaiser Wilhelm Society during National Socialism (Cambridge, 2009), and The German Physical Society in the Third Reich: Physicists between Autonomy and Accomodation (Cambridge, 2012).
Review Quotes: 'Hitler's Atomic Bomb is a masterful account of the German nuclear program in history and mythology. Based on the latest research, Walker demonstrates that Nazi Germany never had the resources to build a bomb, but that possibility haunted and divided physicists long after the war.' Michael J. Neufeld, author of Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War