Serving the Reich : The Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitler

Three lives caught between the idealistic goals of science and a tyrannical ideology. Serving the Reich follows three renowned physicists working under Hitler as Nazi scientists attempted to create 'German Physics' - an Aryan science that excluded any 'Jewish ideas', in particular Einstein's Theory of Relativity: Max Planck, pioneer of quantum theory, regarded it as his moral duty to carry on under the regime. Peter Debye, a Dutch physicist, rose to run the Reich's most important research institute before leaving for the United States in 1940. Werner Heisenberg, the discoverer of the Uncertainty Principle, became the leading figure in Germany's race for the atomic bomb. Yet after the war most German scientists maintained they had been apolitical or even resisted the regime: Debye claimed that he had gone to America to warn the world about Germany's nuclear research; Heisenberg and others argued that they had deliberately delayed production of the atomic bomb. Mixing history, science and biography, Serving the Reich is a gripping exploration of moral choices under a totalitarian regime. Here are human dilemmas, failures to take responsibility, three lives caught between the idealistic goals of science and a tyrannical ideology. The compelling story of leading physicists in Germany—including Peter Debye, Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg—and how they accommodated themselves to working within the Nazi state in the 1930s and'40s. After World War II, most scientists in Germany maintained that they had been apolitical or actively resisted the Nazi regime, but the true story is much more complicated. In Serving the Reich, Philip Ball takes a fresh look at that controversial history, contrasting the career of Peter Debye, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, with those of two other leading physicists in Germany during the Third Reich: Max Planck, the elder statesman of physics after whom Germany's premier scientific society is now named, and Werner Heisenberg, who succeeded Debye as director of the institute when it became focused on the development of nuclear power and weapons. Mixing history, science, and biography, Ball's gripping exploration of the lives of scientists under Nazism offers a powerful portrait of moral choice and personal responsibility, as scientists navigated “the grey zone between complicity and resistance.” Ball's account of the different choices these three men and their colleagues made shows how there can be no clear-cut answers or judgment of their conduct. Yet, despite these ambiguities, Ball makes it undeniable that the German scientific establishment as a whole mounted no serious resistance to the Nazis, and in many ways acted as a willing instrument of the state. Serving the Reich considers what this problematic history can tell us about the relationship between science and politics today. Ultimately, Ball argues, a determination to present science as an abstract inquiry into nature that is “above politics” can leave science and scientists dangerously compromised and vulnerable to political manipulation. This historical analysis of Heisenberg, Planck, Debye, and other German physicists during WWII “is a stunning cautionary tale, well researched and told” (Choice). After World War II, most scientists in Germany maintained that they had been apolitical or actively resisted the Nazi regime, but the true story is much more complicated. In Serving the Reich, Philip Ball takes a fresh look at that controversial history, contrasting the career of Peter Debye, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, with those of two other leading physicists in Germany during the Third Reich: Max Planck, the elder statesman of physics, and Werner Heisenberg, who succeeded Debye as director of the institute when it became focused on the development of nuclear power and weapons. Mixing history, science, and biography, Ball offers a powerful portrait of moral choice and personal responsibility, as scientists navigated “the grey zone between complicity and resistance.” Ball’s account of the different choices these men made shows how there can be no clear-cut answers or judgement of their conduct. Yet he also demonstrates that the German scientific establishment as a whole mounted no serious resistance to the Nazis, and in many ways acted as a willing instrument of the state. Serving the Reich considers what this problematic history can tell us about the relationship between science and politics today. Ultimately, Ball argues, a determination to present science as an abstract inquiry into nature that is “above politics” can leave science and scientists dangerously compromised and vulnerable to political manipulation. A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award winner "After World War II, most scientists in Germany maintained that they had been apolitical or actively resisted the Nazi regime, but the true story is much more complicated. In Serving the Reich, Philip Ball takes a fresh look at that controversial history, contrasting the career of Peter Debye, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, with those of two other leading physicists in Germany during the Third Reich: Max Planck, the elder statesman of physics after whom Germany's premier scientific society is now named, and Werner Heisenberg, who succeeded Debye as director of the institute when it became focused on the development of nuclear power and weapons. Mixing history, science, and biography, Ball's gripping exploration of the lives of scientists under Nazism offers a powerful portrait of moral choice and personal responsibility, as scientists navigated 'the grey zone between complicity and resistance.' Ball's account of the different choices these three men and their colleagues made shows how there can be no clear-cut answers or judgement of their conduct. Yet, despite these ambiguities, Ball makes it undeniable that the German scientific establishment as a whole mounted no serious resistance to the Nazis, and in many ways acted as a willing instrument of the state"-- Publisher's Web site Contents......Page 6 Preface......Page 8 Introduction: ‘Nobel Prize-winner with dirty hands’......Page 12 1. ‘As conservatively as possible’......Page 18 2. ‘Physics must be rebuilt’......Page 33 3. ‘The beginning of something new’......Page 45 4. ‘Intellectual freedom is a thing of the past’......Page 54 5. ‘Service to science must be service to the nation’......Page 76 6. ‘There is very likely a Nordic science’......Page 93 7. ‘You obviously cannot swim against the tide’......Page 118 8. ‘I have seen my death!’......Page 153 9. ‘As a scientist or as a man’......Page 176 10. ‘Hitherto unknown destructive power’......Page 198 11. ‘Heisenberg was mostly silent’......Page 208 12. ‘We are what we pretend to be’......Page 243 Epilogue: ‘We did not speak the same language’......Page 262 Notes......Page 279 Bibliography......Page 299 Image Credits......Page 306 Index......Page 308 "[This book] .. tells the story of physics under Hitler. While some scientists tried to create an Aryan physics that excluded any "Jewish ideas", many others made compromises and concessions as they continued to work under the Nazi regime. Among them were three world-renowned physicists : Max Planck ... Peter Debye ... Werner Heisenberg ..."--Jacket