Hitler's Atomic Bomb

Author: Mark Walker

Germany | c 1939 to c 1945 (including WW2) | European history | 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 | Second World War | Nuclear weapons | History of science

Published on 18^th July 2024 by Cambridge University Press in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 380 pages, Worked examples or Exercises
161mm x 236mm x 27mm | 668g

Who were the German scientists who worked on atomic bombs during World War II for Hitler's regime? How did they justify themselves afterwards? Examining the global influence of the German uranium project and postwar reactions to the scientists involved, Mark Walker explores the narratives surrounding 'Hitler's bomb'.  The global impacts of this project were cataclysmic. Credible reports of German developments spurred the American Manhattan Project, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in turn the Soviet efforts. After the war these scientists' work was overshadowed by the twin shocks of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Hitler's Atomic Bomb sheds light on the postwar criticism and subsequent rehabilitation of the German scientists, including the controversial legend of Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's visit to occupied Copenhagen in 1941. This scientifically accurate but non-technical history examines the impact of German efforts to harness nuclear fission, and the surrounding debates and legends.