The German Atomic Bomb Project A Timeline January

The German Atomic Bomb Project

A Timeline • January 1993: Hitler came to power • December 1938: Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann discovered fission • September 1939: WWII started and German military started uranium project with subsequent active participation by Heisenberg and other physicists • 1941: German physicists discussed plutonium bomb, speculated critical mass (10 -100 kg); Heisenberg visited Bohr in Copenhagen • 1945: War in Europe ended without Germans succeeding in building a bomb

Key Debates • Why did the Germans fail to make the bomb? • Did Heisenberg and his colleagues deliberately sabotage the German bomb project? • What was Heisenberg trying to tell Bohr in their meeting in Sept. 1941?

Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen • Key point: both historical and epistemological • What did happen in Copenhagen? • Can we ever know what actually happened? • Release of Bohr letters: http: //www. nba. nbi. dk/release. html

Most Recent Developments • Farm Hall Transcript of conversations of Heisenberg and other German physicists upon hearing the news of Hiroshima: – http: //germanhistorydocs. ghidc. org/sub_document. cfm? document_id=2320 • Claim of Germans testing a crude nuclear device during WWII: – http: //germanhistorydocs. ghidc. org/sub_document. cfm? document_id=2320