The Night of the Physicists: Operation Epsilon: Heisenberg, Hahn, Weizsäcker and the German Bomb [= Die Nacht der Physiker (2012)]

In the spring of 1945 the Allies arrested the physicists they believed had worked on the German nuclear programme. Interned in an English country house owned by MI6, their conversations were secretly recorded. Operation Epsilon sought to determine how close Nazi Germany had come to building an atomic bomb. It was in this quiet setting – Farm Hall, near Cambridge – that the interned physicists first heard of the attack on Hiroshima. Aside from changing the course of history, that night was also one of great shock and personal defeat for the physicists – they were under the assumption that they alone had discovered nuclear fission. This is the story of Nazi Germany’s hunt for a nuclear bomb. It is a tale of the genius and guilt of lauded, respected scientists. In the spring of 1945 the Allies arrested the physicists believed to have worked on the German nuclear programme during the Second World War, among them the renowned scientists Werner Heisenberg, Otto Hahn and Carl Friedrich von Weizscker. They were interned in a country house near Cambridge where their conversations were secretly recorded. MI6's Operation Epsilon sought to determine how close Nazi Germany had come to building an atomic bomb, and it was in this remote setting that the German physicists first heard of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. 6 August 1945 was a day that changed the course of history. The terrible weapon unleashed on Japan caused unprecedented destruction and loss of life. Having worked under the assumption that nuclear fission was known only to them, the Germans were shocked that the Allies had such a bomb at their disposal. This is the story of the wartime race to develop an atomic bomb, and the genius, guilt, complicity and hubris of the Nobel Prize-winning scientists working to create a weapon that would undoubtedly have won the war for the Germans This is the story of the wartime race to develop an atomic bomb, and the genius, guilt, complicity and hubris of Nobel Prize-winning scientists working to create a weapon that would undoubtedly have won the war for the Germans. Originaltitel: Die Nacht der Physiker. Translated by Simon Pare. Emne: atombomber, fysik, fysikere, videnskabsmænd, atomvåben, masseødelæggelsesvåben Interned in a remote country house by MI6 after the war, the German physicists who worked to make a Nazi atomic bomb were secretly recorded. This book shows just how close they came and their disbelief as the Allies attack Hiroshima.