Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall / Edition 2

by Jeremy Bernstein, D. Cassidy

Overview

From April through December of 1945, ten of Nazi Germany's greatest nuclear physicists were detained by Allied military and intelligence services in a kind of gilded cage at Farm Hall, an English country manor near Cambridge. The physicists knew the Reich had failed to develop an atomic bomb, and they soon learned, from a BBC radio report on August 6, that the Allies had succeeded in their own efforts to create such a weapon. But what they did not know was that many of their meetings and private conversations were being monitored and recorded by British agents. This book contains the complete collection of transcripts that were made from these secret recordings, providing an unprecedented view of how the German scientists, including two Nobel Laureates, thought and spoke about their roles during the war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780387950891
Publisher:	Springer New York
Publication date:	12/21/2000
Edition description:	2nd ed. 2001
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	716,040
Product dimensions:	7.01(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.39(d)

Read an Excerpt

Expertly annotated by Jeremy Bernstein and put into context by Bernstein (and with an informative introduction by David Cassidy) this startling and sobering set of documents provide an insight into the thoughts and feelings of these ten scientists as they considered the destruction of the Third Reich, the failure of their beloved "German Physics," and the roles they played in the Nazi war effort. The book is a unique, informative, invaluable, and at times unsettling contribution to World War II studies.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Uranium Club.- I: Settling in.- II: The Bomb Drops.- III: Putting the Pieces Together.- IV: Looking to the Future.- V: Looking toward Home.- VI: A Nobel for Otto Hahn.- Epilogue: Aftermaths.- Appendix A: Heisenberg’s Lecture, February 26, 1942.- Translation by William Sweet.- Original German Text.- Appendix B: Von Laue’s Letters to Paul Rosbaud, 1959.- Appendix C: BBC Report, August 6, 1945.- Appendix D: Biographical Sketches of the Ten Detainees.- Selected Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

The cataloging information allocates this book to the history of physics, but it is also a valuable part of the history of the modern world -- and indeed, well worthwhile reading for sheer human interest!

Rapport Magazine

Expertly annotated by Jeremy Bernstein and put into context by Bernstein (and with an informative introduction by David Cassidy) this startling and sobering set of documents provide an insight into the thoughts and feelings of these ten scientists as they considered the destruction of the Third Reich, the failure of their beloved "German Physics," and the roles they played in the Nazi war effort. [The book] is a unique, informative, invaluable, and at times unsettling contribution to World War II studies.

Midwest Book Review

Hitler's Uranium Club is an excellent source for understanding the ambitions of Heisenberg's team and the reason for its ultimate lack of success.

Los Angeles Times Book Review