Controversy: Werner Heisenberg And The Nazi Reich

Werner Heisenberg and the Nazi Reich

In 1945, the first atomic bombs landed on the islands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As part of the biggest worries now, nuclear power is banned from further utilization. But the idea of nuclear weapon was not initiated from an American scientist, instead, from a name that is seldom related to nuclear power--Heisenberg. He is most well-known for the founder of quantum mechanics and had been awarded the Nobel prize when he was 23 for this finding. Though he took a leading role of the German atomic bomb plan, controversies about his report on the quantity of uranium has never ended.

Now the question arises: Is Heisenberg an anti-Nazi hero? To put this historical controversy in short: Did he intentionally suspend

Though after Hitler came to power, the Jews were dismissed from all civil positions, which includes the academia at all levels. One famous Nobel prize winner, also a Nazi physicist, Johannes Stark, began to attack studies on quantum physics, calling it “Jewish physics” and said “The concentration camp is obviously the most suitable place for Herr Heisenberg”. More over, by 1937, the SS (Schutzstaffel) newspaper attack on Heisenberg himself, putting him under investigation for a year. However, despite all these ordeals Heisenberg had to face in Nazi German, Heisenberg chose to

At the same time, a scientist discovered nuclear fission in Berlin. Nuclear fission, which owed so much to the “Jewish Physics”, proved its worth in an opportunity to provide a powerful new weapon and possible energy provider. After the outbreak of the war and findings about nuclear fission in Berlin in 1939, physicists like Heisenberg were invited to constitute research on practical utilization of the nuclear fission. The German Nuclear Energy project, also known as the Uranverein or Uranium Club, had begun. Physicists regained power for practical utilization of the nuclear