Hitler's Terror Weapons by Brooks, Geoffrey (life books to read .txt) 📗

theory, most physicists accepted a universe that was totally causal. The success of Newton’s physics was due to the apparent laws of causality seeming to exist for virtually every system. Even when prediction was impractical, classical physics still assumed that the system was causal. This mechanistic view was based on the notion that reality is composed of solid objects and empty space, and in the realm of everyday life this is still valid. The refutation of quantum and relativity theories meant the resurrection of Newtonian Physics in Nazi Germany. Inevitably this had its repercussions in the nuclear field, for as Speer explained,29 Hitler “set his face against nuclear physics for doctrinal reasons,” and evidently showed little interest in having his scientists build a nuclear reactor as a power source. The evidence also suggests that he did not want to use the atom bomb. If one can accept the idea that, far from being merely a mob-orator with a limited intellect, Hitler was literate philosophically, even if the results of his beliefs were horrendous, then the assertion of many of his contemporary scientists and military leaders may be true, that decisions in the scientific field were based on his obscure scientific doctrine or communicated to him from another level.

Professor Heisenberg Acts Unwisely

A notable personality to fall foul of Aryan Physics early on was Professor Werner Heisenberg himself. His role as the leading atom physicist in the Third Reich was an equivocal one and this book will not do much to resolve the controversy. Born in Würzburg on 5 December 1901, he was the second son of a University lecturer. During the First World War he volunteered for land service. When a soviet republic was imposed on Bavaria in April 1919 Heisenberg joined many fellow students in supporting the moderate socialists. He served with a cavalry brigade as despatch carrier and lookout.

At Munich in 1923 he obtained a doctorate cum laude in theoretical physics, his aversion to the experimental side of the discipline having let him down. He was still aged 22 when he qualified as a university lecturer. From May 1926 he lectured in the Danish language at Niels Bohr’s Institute in Copenhagen and was called to the Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Leipzig in October 1927. He transformed Leipzig into a leading research centre. One of his pupils there was Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker who would later assist him in his campaign to deflect attention away from a major atom bomb project.

When Einstein’s theories were attacked in an article published by the Völkischer Beobachter in its edition of 26 February 1936, Heisenberg prepared a paper signed by seventy-seven professors of physics, including a number of Party members, expressing his concern to the Reichsminister for Education, Bernhard Rust, at the official policy of discrediting theoretical physics.

The nomination of Heisenberg as the leading candidate to succeed to the vacant Chair at the Faculty of the University of Munich the following year brought the matter to a head and the vehemence of the opposition to him from supporters of Aryan Physics rallying around its founders, Lenard and Stark, became almost hysterical. The swell of protest culminated in an anonymous article entitled White Jews in Science attributed to Johannes Stark which appeared in the SS-journal Das Schwarze Korps in its edition of 15 July 1937.

“Just how secure the White Jews feel themselves to be is demonstrated by the behaviour of the Professor of Theoretical Physics at Leipzig, Professor Werner Heisenberg, who in 1936 managed to smuggle an article into an official party newspaper describing Einstein’s relativity theory as ‘the obvious basis for further research’.”

After a catalogue of complaints alleging a pro-Jewish bias in making appointments the article continued:

“In 1933 Heisenberg received the Nobel Prize at the same time as the Einstein boys, Schroedinger and Dirac – proof of the ways Jews influence the Nobel Committee against National Socialist Germany. Heisenberg paid his own tribute in August 1934 by refusing to sign the Declaration of German Nobel Prize Winners For the Führer and Reichskanzler. His answer was: ‘Although I am personally in favour, political affirmations by scientists seem wrong, since it was never the practice in the past. Therefore I won’t sign.’ This answer identifies the Jewish spirit of its author, who considers the unity of the people and national responsibility of scientists to be improper. Heisenberg is only one example of many. They are all vessels of Jewishness in German intellectual life and must disappear as must the Jews themselves.”

Johannes Stark contributed his opinion in a footnote to the article warning that:

“whilst the influence of the Jewish spirit has been removed from the German Press, literature and art as well as from German jurisprudence, it still has its defenders and protagonists among Aryan associates of Jews and those who have been pupils of Jews. In this situation, the Schwarze Korps renders great service if by virtue of its courageous and important utterances it directs public awareness to the amage to which German intellectual life and the education of its academic youth is being exposed by White Jews.”

Realizing now that he was in serious danger, on 21 July 1937 Heisenberg responded with a letter to SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler requesting a decision on the principle and offering to resign if the view of Herr Stark corresponded with that of the Government,

“But if that is not the case, as I have already been expressly assured by Reich Education Minister Rust, then I request you as SS-Reichsführer to defend me effectively against such attacks in this newspaper.”

During the next twelve months Heisenberg was frequently summoned to hearings in Berlin. These were under the personal direction of Gestapo Chief Reinhard Heydrich. Many interrogations were conducted in the notorious Gestapo prison on the Prinz Albrecht Strasse, from where Heisenberg would return exhausted and distressed. One of the problems confronting the SS inquisition was their uncertainty of the political implications of a science they did not understand. The frightening interviews were attended by an SS physicist,