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The end of the Second World War opened a new era for science in public life. Heisenberg in the Atomic Age explores the transformations of science's public presence in the postwar Federal Republic of Germany. It shows how Heisenberg's philosophical commentaries, circulating in the mass media, secured his role as science's public philosopher, and it reflects on his policy engagements and public political stands, which helped redefine the relationship between science and the state. With deep archival grounding, the book tracks Heisenberg's interactions with intellectuals from Heidegger to Habermas and political leaders from Adenauer to Brandt. It also traces his evolving statements about his wartime research on nuclear fission for the National Socialist regime. Working between the history of science and German history, the book's central theme is the place of scientific rationality in public life - after the atomic bomb, in the wake of the Third Reich. ... Read more

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Nuclear Physics
This book was based originally on a series of lectures, and is intended for readers who, while interested in natural sciences, have no previous training in theoretical physics and yet are familiar to a certain extent with physical ideas. In conformity with the express wish of the Verband deutscher Elektrotechniker, under whose auspices the lectures were given, a short history of atomic physics, as well as a general review of contemporary knowledge of atomic and nuclear structure, are included here as an introduction...In my treatment of nuclear physics, I have departed somewhat from the method followed by other popular books on the subject, inasmuch as I have attempted to begin my discourse with the theory of the processes and reactions within the atom, and to discuss practical applications in conclusion only. At the same time, it was essential to make the theory intelligible without resort to mathematics, with the aid of illustrative models and by citing as analogies certain more widely known related phenomena...In the present volume, the technical apparatus of nuclear physics is discussed in the seventh chapter only; the eighth, and last, chapter presents a survey of the practical applications acchieved up to the present time.
--- excerpt from book's Preface ... Read more

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No one better represents the plight and the conduct of German intellectuals under Hitler than Werner Heisenberg, whose task it was to build an atomic bomb for Nazi Germany. The controversy surrounding Heisenberg still rages, because of the nature of his work and the regime for which it was undertaken. What precisely did Heisenberg know about the physics of the atomic bomb? How deep was his loyalty to the German government during the Third Reich? Assuming that he had been able to build a bomb, would he have been willing? These questions, the moral and the scientific, are answered by Paul Lawrence Rose with greater accuracy and breadth of documentation than any other historian has yet achieved.

Digging deep into the archival record among formerly secret technical reports, Rose establishes that Heisenberg never overcame certain misconceptions about nuclear fission, and as a result the German leaders never pushed for atomic weapons. In fact, Heisenberg never had to face the moral problem of whether he should design a bomb for the Nazi regime. Only when he and his colleagues were interned in England and heard about Hiroshima did Heisenberg realize that his calculations were wrong. He began at once to construct an image of himself as a "pure" scientist who could have built a bomb but chose to work on reactor design instead. This was fiction, as Rose demonstrates: in reality, Heisenberg blindly supported and justified the cause of German victory. The question of why he did, and why he misrepresented himself afterwards, is answered through Rose's subtle analysis of German mentality and the scientists' problems of delusion and self-delusion. This fascinating study is a profound effort to understand one of the twentieth century's great enigmas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

oh puhleeze...don't waste your $$$
R. Rose has a personal axe to grind and it distorts this entire book.His attempt to be a "historian" is undermined by any serious attempt to look at the evidence and to use objective facts to guide his interpretation. No serious historian would ever endorse this book and it is fatally flawed by Rose's bias.

Flawed
Supposedly the author is a historian, however, nothing in terms of research method has been applied; this is a work of journalism, and very much on the simplistic side.
The book contains some very selective use of sources, to prove the objective stated at the onset (in preface): That Heisenberg was morally corrupt, and at that a representative for German culture.
It does not get more advanced than that in the rest of the book, so one can basically stop reading after the preface.

Will the Real Werner Heisenberg Please Stand Up?
In the immortal words of Gene Autry: How can anyone be right, when everybody's wrong?Mr. Garea's (Amazon's Spotlight review) thoughtful, well written critique on the Heisenberg portrayed in Mr. Rose's book is "compleat" (yuck yuck), and there is nothing I need to add.Mr. Rose's slashing attack on Mr. Heisenberg is too simplistic, fails to take into account the impact of the political, economic and moral collapse of Weimar Germany on the German people, and plays too heavily on what Mr. Rose sees as 400 unchanging years of Germanic totalitatian culture.Heisenberg's harshest critics, the Nobel Laureates Lenard and Stark with their Newtonian cause & effect "German Physics" (as opposed to "Jewish Physics" ie relativity & disputes about quantum mechanics a la Einstein and Niels Bohr), they were the ones falsely tied to a vision of Germanic Culture.Not Heisenberg.

Where I part ways with Mr. Garea is in Mr. Garea's tounge in cheek portrayal of a Werner Heisenberg qua James Bond (maybe not Sean Connery or Roger Moore--more like a Timothy Dalton or George Lazenby) from Thomas Powers "Heisenberg's War: the Secret History of the German Bomb."Whatever else he was, Mr. Heisenberg was no smoothie--a common denominator for Bondness.However, I am convinced by Mr. Powers's thesis that Mr. Heisenberg did retard Germany's development of the atomic bomb.No, Heisenberg did not "fake" math calculations or create false evidence, but as Mr. Powers carefully documents, Heisenberg did work hard to create a false impression of the feasibility of creating an atom bomb.Of the different opportunities that Heisenberg had for pushing development of a German A-bomb, none could have been as fortuitous as the June 1942 meeting with Albert Speer.Speer had just been appointed Hitler's honcho to get the economy on a war footing, and develop some answer to the allies increasingly relentless and unanswerable bombing missions.Additionally, the Nazi regime needed to do something about the military reverses at Moscow.If Heisenberg wanted to build an atom bomb, Speer was ready to fund one.Instead, Heisenberg gave a deliberately obtuse presentation about the atom bomb.Heisenberg was well aware that a reactor would create the fissonable element 94 (plutonium), but instead spoke generally of "transuranics."This conscious fogging of the science intentionally left a false impression on Speer's science advisor, a physical chemist named Lieb.After the meeting, Lieb (incorrectly) believed that only U-235 could be used for a bomb, and that there was no viable way to separate U-235 from U-238.Heisenberg knew better--plutonium could replace U-235--and how much fissonable material was needed for a critical mass: about the size of a pineapple.Finally, Heisenberg told Speer that perhaps a working reactor could be built in 1942, but a bomb could not be built before 1945.These dates are key for two reasons.First, the dates are outside the parameters that Speer needed, and second: they were also damn good guesses.Mr. Fermi created the world's first sustained chain reactor in Chicago in December, 1942 and the US blew up the first bomb in July 1945.Finally, if Heisenberg really wanted to go all out on a German bomb, there was Speer ready to write the big checks.Instead, Heisenberg & his people asked for piddling amounts of funding to continue basic research--so small that Speer promptly lost interest in atom bombs.The importance of this June 1942 Meeting, and the difference between what Heisenberg knew and what he told Speer is lost on Mr. Rose.

Heisenberg did consciously retard German developments of an A-bomb, if only by deliberately creating several key false impressions--not exactly the stuff that wins hearts of Ursula Andress, Jill St. John or even Sophie Marceau, but it still counts.

Nevertheless, how should we account for Heisenberg's inconsistent actions both during and especially after the war?Mr. Powers suggests several reasons, but I do not believe he gives enough creedence to Heisenberg's (and most Germans) fear & distrust of Soviet Russia.Many individuals in the West initially excused Nazi excesses in the name of restoration of the economy (if only taming rampent inflation), and creating a bulwark against Stalinism.One of Heisenberg's key co-workers was a (now former) communist sympathizer who returned to Nazi Germany after two & a half years in a Soviet prison, with a forced bogus confession of being a Gestapo-Trotsky-Bukharin spy.Something needed to be done about Stalin.Moreover, post WWI Germany featured seemingly endless rises and collapses of Governments.At the time, it was not unreasonable to believe that Hitler's thousand year reich would be replaced in next year's coup by the Christian Democrats, or the Weirmarcht would throw out the Nazis, and continue a secular (as opposed to Nazi racist paganism) military dictatorship.The post WWII alibi of the "good germans" was not only that they "didn't know," but that "someone" needed to stop Stalin (not to mention the crap about building the autobahn, but we digress).

Finally, Heisenberg's seemingly inconsistent statements after the war are probably a combination of his foolish pride (OF COURSE he could have built a bomb--if he REALLY wanted to), and his awkward speaking style.This last point is more of an impression--but Heisenberg was a physicist, not a politician or a public speaker.He could talk about science with exactness--but outside of that realm, he left much to be desired.

In short, I am convinced by Mr. Powers's arguments and the breath of his documentation.Mr. Rose needed to pay closer attention to Powers's book, and the documentation used by Powers.

As a final note on both this book and Mr. Powers's book--indeed, since Heisenberg's death in 1976, any book about Heisenberg--an important source as to Heisenberg's postwar views is the 1967 book "The German Atomic Bomb," and a battery of extensive personal interviews, all by David Irving.Mr. Powers merely cites this source--an undisputedly important source--without comment.Still, as a historian, there is no question that Mr. Irving's reputation has taken a beating.See, for example, "Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial" by Richard J. Evans.Mr. Irving has recently been sentenced to three years imprisonment in Austria as a "holocaust denier."What all Mr. Irving's personal beliefs, credentials, and current legal woes add to the discussion of Heisenberg's activities from 1939 to 1945, I do not know.I have no idea what Mr. Irving's views were in 1965-1967, when Mr. Irving extensively interviewed Heisenberg and wrote his book--and if Heisenberg was aware of those views in giving such time and access to Mr. Irving.I only mention this as an additional piece of the Heisenberg puzzle that may (or may not) mean anything.

Be that as it may, the bottom line is: Read Powers's book, and not this one.And Amazon is damn lucky to have thorough reviewers like Mr. Garea.

a waste of time and money
this book is so deeply biased and prejudiced against its main subject (Werner Heisenberg) that it cannot be taken seriously even for the few relevant things it has to say. Moreover the author is so aggressive (almost violent)against what he calls "german culture" (this label already suggests a lot) that his criticism borders on cultural racism. I deeply regret the time and money I spent in reading and buying this book.

Mixed feelings
After having read this book, I am left with very mixed feelings. First the good stuff: This book gives a thorough account of the german A-bomb project during WW2. Lots of original documents are provided, so that one can form an own oppinion. Also the technical aspects are quite well captured for a non-physicist.

For the bad stuff: This book is thoroughly racist. I am flabbergasted, that a major publisher is willing to print a book that, in its foreword, already contains a statement about the deep hatred of the author not against Heissenberg or the Nazi regime, but against German culture and Germans as a whole.Also the treatment of Heissenberg as a physicist is certainly not adequate. It may very well be true, that he was morally corrupt or overly proud and arrogant, but statements like that he did not understand the concept of critical mass just because he never explicitly wrote down the exponential growth of neutrons in a bomb are at best uninformed and childish.Especially disgusting however is the authors revelation of 'the truth about the german mind', which traces a line of evil from Hitler back to Martin Luther.

For all its qualities as a source of information, this is the worst kind of a historical book: One that was written to judge. And this it does not only based on facts, but largeley on the authors all too apparent prejudices against a whole culture, which are labeled as 'the truth'. ... Read more

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Chapters: Wilhelm Wundt, Werner Heisenberg, Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, Wilhelm Ostwald, Peter Debye, Felix Klein, Felix Hausdorff, August Ferdinand Möbius, John James Richard Macleod, Theodor Mommsen, Constantin Von Tischendorf, Bartel Leendert Van Der Waerden, Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, Conrad Bursian, Gustav Ludwig Hertz, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Gustav Fechner, Henryk Grossman, Max Volmer, Robert Döpel, Christian Wolff, Ernst Rexer, Gerhard Von Rad, Gerhard Hoffmann, Hans Mayer, Wilhelm Eduard Weber, Werner Krauss, Christian Thomasius, Ernst Bloch, Rudolf Von Jhering, Klara Döpel, Ferdinand Von Richthofen, Karl Bücher, Boris Podolsky, Alexander Ales, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Rudolf Leuckart, Matija Murko, Paul Drude, Hans Freyer, Ernst Heinrich Weber, Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, Abraham Gotthelf Kästner, Augustus Quirinus Rivinus, Hermann Abert, Karl Brugmann, Paul Flechsig, August Leskien, Max Bodenstein, Heinrich Louis D'arrest, Johann Christoph Gottsched, Lujo Brentano, Carl Neumann, Otto Reche, Georg Voigt, Christian Garve, Karl Gotthard Lamprecht, Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher, Wilhelm Heinrich Erb, Johannes Overbeck, Gustav Schwalbe, Georg Von Der Gabelentz, Wilhelm Traugott Krug, Nathan Söderblom, Hermann Kretzschmar, Heinrich Zöllner, Franz Delitzsch, Arthur Von Oettingen, Alfred Bielschowsky, Kurt Rudolph, Johann Christian August Heinroth, Wilhelm Eduard Albrecht, Richard Avenarius, Paul Zweifel, Johann Hülsemann, Paul Clemens Von Baumgarten, Friedrich Trendelenburg, Carl Von Noorden, Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann, Heinrich Gottlieb Tzschirner, Wilhelm Maurenbrecher, Karl Thiersch, Hermann Von Ihering, Johann Matthias Schröckh, Siegfried Gottwald, Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller, Erwin Payr, Otto Heubner, Hermann Brockhaus, Felix Jacob Marchand, Friedrich Engel, Christian Georg Theodor Ruete, Christian Wilhelm Braune, Paul Koebe, Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann, Heinrich Braun, Richard Altmann, Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert, Fr...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=33130 ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from American Decades: Primary Sources, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1036 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.American Decades Primary Sources provides fresh insight into the decade's most important events, people, and issues. Entries representing a diversity of views that provide insight into the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from the decade. Also included are concise contextual information, notes about the author and further resources. American Decades Primary Sources includes chapters on the arts, medicine and health, media, education, world events, religion, government and politics, lifestyles and social trends, law and justice, religion, business and the economy, and sports. Included to provide unique perspectives and a wealth of understanding are first hand accounts that include oral histories, songs, speeches, advertisements, TV, play and movie scripts, letters, laws, legal decisions, newspaper articles, cartoonsand recipes. ... Read more