As noted, the book is a collection of letters between a husband and wife in Germany over the years of 1937-1946. The book is excellent on many levels, but perhaps its greatest value is as an example of two married people working together successfully to raise a family under incredibly difficult conditions (to underscore reviewer Christian Schlect’s observations). The thoughts and mutual supportiveness expressed in their letters are wonderful examples for married couples both young and old alike.
Also, of course, both Werner Heisenberg and Elisabeth Heisenberg were extraordinary people. Werner Heisenberg was a creative genius on the level of Einstein who was one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, but who, controversially, stayed in Germany during WWII and worked on the German atomic energy project, which seemed clearly to be a precursor to an atomic bomb project. Werner Heisenberg was a complex man who faced a challenging moral problem at that time, which pitted his love of Germany and physics against being forced to make accommodations with the Nazi regime. His decision to remain in Germany has been the subject of lively debate and speculation ever since. The collection of letters does not shed a great deal of light on this matter; but it does give you good insight into some aspects of Heisenberg’s personality and his personal life, and as noted below, there are comments that would lead one to believe that Heisenberg was certainly not on a “mission of God” to push the energy project forward. For an exploration of these other aspects of Werner Heisenberg’s life and work, the biography by Cassidy, “Beyond Uncertainty,” is highly recommended, along with the brilliant review of several Heisenberg biographies by the Dutch mathematician, N.P. Landsman, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 33 (2002) 297-325 (accessible on the internet), which also gives an excellent summary of Heisenberg’s scientific accomplishments. Also worth reading is the obituary for Heisenberg written by S.A. Goudsmit, a Dutch physicist and Jew, who was a long term acquaintance and friend of Heisenberg, and who headed the Allied ALSOS project to investigate the German A-bomb work after the war. Goudsmit had a falling out with Heisenberg for a time, one suspects because he believed Heisenberg did not do enough to save his parents from deportation to a concentration camp, where they perished, after Goudsmit pleaded to him for help. This poignant episode is recounted in Cassidy. Whatever demons Goudsmit may have been shouldering in his falling out with Heisenberg, he conquered them with his fine memorial to him written for the American Philosophical Society, accessible on the internet.
Anyone who has raised kids can relate to Elisabeth’s thoughts, uncertainties, complaints and fears expressed in the letters, as well as her accomplishments, despite shortages, cramped living conditions, lively children and the normal ups and downs of family life with kids, like illnesses, injuries and annoying behaviors, and occasional triumphs, like progress in reading or music or play. Unexpected were her occasional descriptions of ordinary events with an artistry that could have come from the hand of a great author, such as Sigrid Undset or the like (and since I read these in English, I must acknowledge the excellence of her translator here). Two of my favorites are Elisabeth’s borderline sensual description of a walk in the rain [April 4, 1937]:
“Werner, when I took your letter to the mailbox just now, it was so beautiful outside that I recovered all my joy. It was raining, but it was an exquisite rain, so beneficial, warm, and bountiful. It was a misty spray that soaked deep into all my clothes and surely just as much into the soil, and it filled the air so that it hung like a fog under the street lamps. And it had a fragrance of damp soil and decayed leaves—You, I would have liked to go with you through this rain! The first spring rain of the year! When I came back to the house, I sat down at the piano and sang. Now everything is well again, everything back to life. My love!”
and an exciting ride to town on a sled [January 10, 1945]:
“… I was on an extraordinary sledding trip down to Kochel today. The sky was of a clear blue, the sun golden, and it was so bitterly cold that the snow spewed about behind me. Down the mountain I went, at break-neck speed, so that I got almost scared to death sometimes. I arrived, nevertheless, safely down at the road, looking like a snowman: five to ten minutes for the whole trip. Down at the road there was a thick, dark fog; but during the long way into Kochel, the sun and the fog were battling, so that the sun and I arrived in Kochel at the same time. You know, there is nothing more beautiful in nature than this battle between fog and sun. And when the sun breaks forth victorious, it has a glow, so splendidly golden and inspiring, that one becomes practically a bit turned inside out, ready to feel the joy of the world again, as one did earlier, when life first opened up to you … “
Werner’s comments are primarily descriptive and analytical, and only occasionally poetic; as, for example, his reminiscence of home and the appreciation of his surroundings while being in charge of the campfire during an outing while visiting the U.S. They are very charming, in a home-sick sort of way [July 4, 1939]. One does not normally think about a scientist applying his powers of analytical thought characteristic of his profession to attempt to understand the motivations of his fellow man. But they do, in spite of the popular notion that they are likely to be socially inept. Heisenberg’s explanation to Elisabeth of the annoying behavior of her friend Edeltrud [October 10, 1939] shows remarkable insight into the psychology behind the behavior of another, and is a strong refutation of the popular notion that scientists are social klutzes.
Elisabeth and Werner discuss many books and authors in the course of their correspondence and analyzed them to varying levels, usually by Werner. Examples include Ernst Wiechert, Adalbert Stifter, David Copperfield by Dickens, Life of an Eccentric by Stendhal, Stefan Zweig, and others. Perhaps most relevant to the moral issue mentioned above are Werner’s comments [July 10, 1941] on Jan Huizinga’s, In the Shadow of the Future:
“Since I wrote you yesterday, I have read the book by Huizinga, In the Shadow of Tomorrow. Actually, I have not enjoyed it much. It is the lament about a cultured world that is severely diseased, and with whose salvation the author is so deeply preoccupied. We know meanwhile that this world is dead and that, at least in Europe, a perhaps younger one but at any rate a more barbarian one is in ascendance. The thoughts of Huizinga are, most likely, not new to anyone in Germany who can think. But we do not share the hopes and fears, because we already know the next chapter. For us, the problem is much rather how in this cruder world one can preserve and pass on those values that make life worth living.—“
It does not sound like Heisenberg was particularly enthusiastic about the barbarians who were already running Germany, or what their tenure boded for the future of the country.
Music is another constant in the Heisenbergs’ lives, which is a common subject of the letters, particularly Werner’s. It seemed that even in the most horrid periods of the war near the end when bombing and strafing and destruction were common even in small towns, Werner seemed to find time for music, often with no lack of friends and co-workers. Some smart person once said that there is salvation in art, in science, and in religion. Heisenberg seems to have had at least two of the three covered, along with a wonderful marriage to an extraordinary woman.
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