Heisenberg, Goudsmit and the German Atomic Bomb

JAN 01, 1990

Contrary to accounts based on Heisenberg’s claims, the German fission research effort in World War II was indeed a nuclear weapons program, and contrary to Goudsmit’s interpretations, the German team knew what it was doing.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881237

Mark Walker

The question of whether German scientists would have been willing to make atomic bombs for Adolf Hitler has excited persistent interest. Just why this is so is a topic I have explored elsewhere. Here, I contend that the roots of the controversy about the role of the German scientists are to be found mainly in the period immediately after the war, not in the war itself.

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References

1. M. Walker, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 38, 1 (1990).
2. A. Beyerchen, Scientists under Hitler, Yale U.P., New Haven, Conn. (1977).
R. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, (Simon and Schuster, New York (1988).
3. J. Radkau, Aufstieg und Krise der deutschen Atomwirtschaft, 1945–75, Rowohlt, Reinbeck (1983).
4. S. Goudsmit, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 17, 49 (1946); https://doi.org/RSINAK
S. Goudsmit, Bull. At. Sci. 1, 4 (1946);
S. Goudsmit, Sci. Illustrated 1, 97 (1946).
5. W. Heisenberg, Naturwissenschaften 33, 325 (1946).https://doi.org/NATWAY

More about the authors

Mark Walker, Union College, Schenectady, New York.