Nazi Science; Myth, truth, and the German Atomic Bomb

New York: Plenum Press, 1995. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. viii, 325, [3] pages. Illustrations. Abbreviations. Endnotes. Bibliography. Index. Chapters include: Introduction, The Rise and Fall of an "Aryan" Physicist, The Alienation of an Old Fighter, The Surrender of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, A "Nazi" in the Academy, Physics and Propaganda, Goodwill Ambassadors, Hitler's Bomb, The Crucible of Farm Hall, The Myth of Hitler's Bomb, and Conclusion. The author is the John Bigelow Professor of History at Union College. He has published extensively on Twentieth Century science, with a particular emphasis on science under National Socialism. In this book, Mark Walker - a historical scholar of Nazi science - brings to light the overwhelming impact of Hitler's regime on science and, ultimately, on the pursuit of the German atomic bomb. Walker meticulously draws on hundreds of original documents to examine the role of German scientists in the rise and fall of the Third Reich. He investigates whether most German scientists during Hitler's regime enthusiastically embraced the tenets of National Socialism or cooperated in a Faustian pact for financial support, which contributed to National Socialism's running rampant and culminated in the rape of Europe and the genocide of millions of Jews. This work unravels the myths and controversies surrounding Hitler's atomic bomb project. It provides a look at what surprisingly turned out to be an Achilles' heel for Hitler - the misuse of science and scientists in the service of the Third Reich. Derived from a Kirkus review: The author address several themes having to do with Nazism and science. The book's opening essays deal with Nazi physicist and Nobel laureate Johannes Stark, who tried to banish Einsteinian physics from Germany; with Werner Heisenberg, the brilliant young theorist who had to defend himself against Nazi charges of being a ``White Jew''; and with the Nazis' political subordination of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In the concluding chapters, Walker analyzes the ``Farm Hall reports,'' secretly recorded and transcribed conversations among leading German scientists held captive at a British estate right after the war. The author's observations are sensitive and penetrating, and for the most part he defends himself ably against critics who have accused him of overstating the competence of nuclear physicists who did bomb-related work for Hitler and of being too forgiving of their moral failures. He understates the gravity of the errors Heisenberg made at Farm Hall in his first critical-mass calculations, and he is much too easy on Heisenberg's friend and collaborator Carl Friedrich von Weizsencker, who argued that the German scientists had ``withheld'' from Hitler a bomb they could have built. As the author himself points out, the debates over the Nazi atomic bomb have persisted, despite the fact that they came nowhere near building one. But for the true nuclear-physics enthusiasts, this latest work will provide a high-octane delight.