Heisenberg's War

By Thomas Powers,

Book cover of Heisenberg's War: The Secret History Of The German Bomb

Book description

One of the last secrets of World War II is why the Germans failed to build an atomic bomb. Germany was the birthplace of modern physics it possessed the raw materials and the industrial base and it commanded key intellectual resources. What happened?In Heisenberg's War , Thomas Powers tells of…

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As it turns out, the Germans never got close to building an atomic bomb—largely because of some major mistakes at the outset (one of them made by their top nuclear chemist because of a crisis in his love life). Powers, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, created some controversy because of his portrayal of the man who didn’t build the German bomb. That controversy continues. 

I once had to physically separate the author from his critics and threaten to remove disruptive protesters from the audience when I moderated a session on the history of the German bomb at the Smithsonian.  

As the world slid into WWII, the German Werner Heisenberg was considered by other scientists to be the world’s greatest practicing physicist.

He was, in fact, a major reason that those at Los Alamos who knew him, believed that with Heisenberg leading an effort to produce an atom bomb, Germany might already be ahead in the race. And if they got there first, Hitler could very well win the war. As it turned out, there was no race, Germany’s effort was pathetic.

If Power’s attempt to acquit Heisenberg by suggesting he had deliberately held back is not quite successful, he…

From Shirley's list on the race to build the first atomic bomb.

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