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The Politics of Forgetting: Otto Hahn and the German Nuclear-Fission Project in World War II

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Abstract

As the co-discoverer of nuclear fission and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, Otto Hahn (1879–1968) took part in Germany‘s nuclear-fission project throughout the Second World War. I outline Hahn’s efforts to mobilize his institute for military-related research; his inclusion in high-level scientific structures of the military and the state; and his institute’s research programs in neutron physics, isotope separation, transuranium elements, and fission products, all of potential military importance for a bomb or a reactor and almost all of it secret. These activities are contrasted with Hahn’s deliberate misrepresentations after the war, when he claimed that his wartime work had been nothing but “purely scientific” fundamental research that was openly published and of no military relevance.

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Notes

  1. In 1933 Strassmann resigned from the Verein Deutscher Chemiker when it became part of the NS-controlled Arbeitsfront, and he refused industrial positions that required membership in NS-organizations; he was not permitted to teach in a university. He and his wife Maria helped save a Jewish friend by hiding her in their apartment in 1943; see Krafft, Im Schatten (ref. 18), pp. 40–41.

  2. Alfred O. Nier of the University of Minnesota separated a minute amount of 235U and mailed it to Columbia University, where its fissibility was confirmed in February 1940 by Eugene Booth, John Dunning, and Aristide von Grosse. The publication of this report in Physical Review in May 1940, followed by McMillan and Abelson’s report of element 93 in June, prompted an outcry from British scientists; Americans stopped open publication by the end of 1940.

  3. In 1934 Leo Szilard and Thomas A. Chalmers, working in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, discovered that a slow neutron can be captured by a nucleus, inducing it to emit a gamma ray, which causes the radiating nucleus to recoil with sufficient energy to break its bond to the molecule to which it was bound.

  4. Erich Schumann was Research Plenipotentiary for Explosives of the German Research Community (Forschungsbevollmächtiger für Sprengstoff der Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft); see Klee, Personenlexikon (ref. 48), p. 570.

References

  1. For a critical treatment see Michael Eckert, “Theoretische Physiker in Kriegsprojeckten: Zur Problematik einer internationalen vergleichenden Analyse,” in Doris Kaufmann, ed., Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Band 1 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2000), pp. 296-308.

  2. Mark Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), chapter 7; Walker, “Legenden um die deutsche Atombombe,” Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 38 (1990), 45-74.

  3. David C. Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg (New York: Freeman, 1992), p. 517.

  4. Paul Lawrence Rose, Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project: A Study in German Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

  5. Michael Frayn, Copenhagen (London: Methuen, 1998). See also Matthias Dörries, ed., Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen in Debate: Historical Essays and Documents on the 1941 Meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg (Berkeley: Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California, 2005).

  6. Horst Kant, “Vom KWI für Chemie zum KWI für Radioactivität: Die Abteilung(en) Hahn/Meitner am Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie,” in Eckart Henning, ed., Dahlemer Archivgespräche. Band 8 (Berlin: Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 2002), pp. 57-92; Otto Hahn, “Erinnerungen 1901-1945,” in Dietrich Hahn, ed., Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse (München: Econ, 1975), pp. 15-73, here pp. 38-45. See also Joachim Mähnert, “Wie Anwendungsnah war die Grundlagenforschung am KWI für Chemie unter Otto Hahn 1938 bis 1945,” unpublished Master’s thesis, Berlin, 2000. For Meitner’s work in the 1920s, see Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), chapters 4-5.

  7. Hahn was provisionally appointed director in 1926, officially in 1928; see Eckart Henning and Marion Kazemi, Chronik der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften. Band 1 (Berlin: Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 1988), pp. 43, 51, 57.

  8. Mähnert, “Anwendungsnah” (ref. 6), pp. 33-34; KWI für Chemie Personnel List, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (hereafter MPG Archive), Abt. IX, Rep. 2.

  9. Lawrence Badash, “Otto Hahn, Science, and Social Responsibility,” in William Shea, ed., Otto Hahn and the Rise of Nuclear Physics (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983), pp. 167-180; Otto Hahn, My Life: The Autobiography of a Scientist, transl. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), chapter 7.

  10. Sime, Meitner (ref. 6), pp. 100-101; Sabine Ernst, ed., Lise Meitner an Otto Hahn: Briefe aus den Jahren 1912 bis 1924 (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1992), pp. 143, 152.

  11. Ruth Lewin Sime, “The Politics of Memory: Otto Hahn and the Third Reich,” Physics in Perspective 8 (2006) 3-51, here p. 6ff.

  12. Hahn, “Erinnerungen” (ref. 6), pp. 54. Hahn, “Stellungsnahme über die politische Tätigkeit von Professor Dr. Kurt Philipp,” MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 3298: 9.

  13. Hahn to Otto Erbacher, March 23, 1946, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 832: 28.

  14. Otto Erbacher, “Meine Tätigkeit als Vertrauensmann des Kaiser Wilhelm-Instituts für Chemie von 1934 bis April 1945,” March 8, 1946, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 832: 23-27.

  15. Sime, Meitner (ref. 6), pp. 144, 350-351.

  16. Ibid., chapters 7-9.

  17. Hahn, “Erinnerungen” (ref. 6), pp. 52-55.

  18. Fritz Krafft, Im Schatten der Sensation: Leben und Wirken von Fritz Strassmann (Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1981), pp. 43, 172, 173-174 n. 29. Hess came to the KWIC in 1921 as a section head for organic chemistry, but in 1930 he formally separated from the institute and the KWG when his section was fully funded by IG Farben. He physically remained as a “Scientific Guest” at (not of) the KWIC until early 1944. See Henning and Kazemi, Chronik (ref. 7), pp. 34, 65; Hess to Albert Vögler, May 24, 1944, MPG-Archiv, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 1145: 50-52. Ute Deichmann, Flüchten, Mitmachen, Vergessen: Chemiker und Biochemiker in der NS-Zeit (Weinheim: Wiley VCH, 2001), pp. 293-296, 403-404, 438, 443, documents Hess’s contentious personality, anti-Semitism and NS associations: he joined the SA in 1933, the Nazi Party in 1940, and the SS at an undetermined date, reaching the rank of Untersturmführer in 1944. Susanne Heim, Kalorien, Kautschuk, Karrieren: Pflanzenzüchtung und landwirtschaftliche Forschung in Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten 1933-1945 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), pp. 139-140, 145, 149-152, 156, 164, describes Hess’s participation in Himmler’s Natural Rubber research program, which used slave labor, including Auschwitz inmates, in occupied Europe.

  19. KWI für Chemie Hauptakten, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr: 1144: 179f, 182; Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr: 1145: 50-52; Hahn’s Emil-Fischer-Gesellschaft correspondence, MPG Archive Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 348-350.

  20. Hahn to Heinrich Hörlein, October 26 and November 18, 1938, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 349: 123-129. Meitner’s salary ended on October 1, 1938. See Hahn to Dekan der Math.-Nat.-Fakultät der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, July 11 and 15, 1939; notices of Erbacher’s appointment, November 8, 1940, MPG Archive Abt. III, Rep, 14, Nr. 832: 7-13.

  21. Hahn to Georg von Hevesy, June 27, 1946, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 1623: 10-12.

  22. Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 176, cites Krauch as “always a single-minded and remote workhorse, who began to behave … ‘like a little Nazi dictator’,” and notes, p. 373, that in 1944 Baur was spying on Krauch for Himmler. For Baur, see Ernst Telschow to Carl Bosch, June 9, 1939, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 83, Nr. 31; Florian Schmaltz, Kampfstoff-Forschung im Nationalsozialismus: Zur Kooperation von Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten, Militär und Industrie (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2005), p. 78.

  23. Ulrike Kohl, Die Präsidenten der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus: Max Planck, Carl Bosch und Albert Vögler zwischen Wissenschaft und Macht (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002), pp. 141ff., 161, 206ff.; Kristie Macrakis, Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 78.

  24. Hörlein was co-chair of IG Farben’s Pharmaceuticals Committee and one of three members of Degesch, the IG Farben subsidiary best known for controlling the manufacture and distribution of Zyklon B used in extermination-camp gas chambers. See Hayes, Industry and Ideology (ref. 22), pp. 100-103, 361-362, 370, 388, 391; Joseph Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben (New York: Free Press, 1978), pp. 72, 122; Deichmann, Flüchten (ref. 18), p. 489ff.

  25. Hayes, Industry and Ideology (ref. 22), pp. 103, 377-378.

  26. Hahn, “Erinnerungen” (ref. 6), pp. 63-65; Hahn, My Life (ref. 9), pp. 148-149, 155-156.

  27. Telschow, Notizen für die Emil-Fischer-Gesellschaft, October 18, 1938; Telschow to Fritz ter Meer, October 21, 1938; Krauch to Telschow, January 24, 1939; MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr: 1144: 184-184a, 186, 191; Hahn to Hörlein, December 13, 1938; Hahn to ter Meer, December 20, 1938; MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 349: 133-138; ter Meer to Hahn, January 17, 1939, March 1, 1939; Hahn to Hörlein, January 12 and 31, March 1 and 20, 1939, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 350: 141, 142, 154-155, 158, 159.

  28. Roger H. Stuewer, “The Origin of the Liquid-Drop Model and the Interpretation of Nuclear Fission,” Perspectives on Science 2 (1994) 76-119; Sime, Meitner (ref. 6), chapter 9.

  29. Roger H. Stuewer, “Bringing the news of fission to America,” Physics Today 38 (October 1985), 48-56.

  30. The New York Times (January 28 and 31, 1939).

  31. Hahn to Hörlein, January 12, 1939, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 350: 141; Hahn, 1939 pocket calendar, January 26, 27, 28, February 2; MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 1.

  32. Hahn to Meitner, February 7, 1939, Churchill Archives Centre, Meitner Collection (hereafter MC).

  33. Ruth Lewin Sime, “The Search for Transuranium Elements and the Discovery of Nuclear Fission,” Phys. in Perspec. 2 (2000), 48-62; Sime, “From Fermi to Fission. Meitner, Hahn and Strassmann in Berlin,” in Proceedings of the International Conference “Enrico Fermi and the Universe of Physics” (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2003), pp. 133-144.

  34. Hahn, “Erinnerungen” (ref. 6), p. 60. Hahn expressed this concern repeatedly in letters to Meitner on January 2, 10, February 7, March 3, 1939, August 31, 1940 (MC); excerpts in Krafft, Im Schatten (ref. 18), pp. 105-106, 125-126.

  35. Hahn to Meitner, February 7, 1939 (MC); see also Sime, Meitner (ref. 6), p. 255ff.

  36. Hahn, Erinnerungen (ref. 6), p. 54.

  37. Dieter Hoffmann und Rüdiger Stutz, “Grenzgänger der Wissenschaft: Abraham Esau als Industriephysiker, Universitätsrektor und Forschungsmanager,” in Uwe Hossfeld, Jürgen John, Oliver Lemuth, and Rüdiger Stutz, ed., “Kämpferische Wissenschaft”: Studien zur Universität Jena im Nationalsozialismus (Wien: Böhlau, 2003), pp. 136-179, here pp. 144, 147-151, 154-155, 161ff; Dieter Hoffmann, “Carl Ramsauer, die Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft und die Selbstmobilisierung der Physikerschaft im ‘Dritten Reich’,” in Helmut Maier, ed., Rüstungsforschung im Nationalsozialismus: Organisation, Mobilisierung und Entgrenzung der Technikwissenschaften (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2002), pp. 272-304, here pp. 276-277.

  38. Abraham Esau to General [Becker?], November 13, 1939; American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library, Samuel Goudsmit Papers, Box 25, Folder 15.

  39. Hahn, pocket calendar, April 26 to May 9, 1939 (“Nordische Reise”), MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 1.

  40. Hahn was convinced that Mentzel had influenced Esau against him; see Hahn, “Erinnerungen” (ref. 6) pp. 62-63, 65-66.

  41. Nikolaus Riehl and Frederick Seitz, ed., Stalin’s Captive: Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet Race for the Bomb (Washington DC: American Chemical Society and Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1996), pp. 68, 69; Nikolaus Riehl, Oral History Project (OHP) interview by Mark Walker 1984/1985, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library, pp. 14-15.

  42. Erich Bagge, Kurt Diebner, and Kenneth Jay, Von der Uranspaltung bis Calder Hall (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1957), pp. 19-22.

  43. Siegfried Flügge, “Kann der Energieinhalt der Atomkerne technisch nutzbar gemacht werden?” Naturwissenschaften 27 (1939), 402-410; Flügge, “Die Ausnutzung der Atomenergie,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (August 15, 1939).

  44. Meitner to Hahn, July 12, 1939 (MC), in Sime, Meitner (ref. 6), pp. 276-277.

  45. The originality of Flügge’s article has been overstated by German scientists including Bagge, Diebner, and Jay, Uranspaltung (ref. 42), p. 21; Erich R. Bagge, “Keine Atombombe für Hitler,” in Michael Salewski, ed., Das Zeitalter der Bombe: Die Geschichte der atomaren Bedrohung von Hiroschima bis heute (München: C.H. Beck, 1995), p. 30; “An eine Bombe wurde in Deutschland überhaupt nicht gedacht,” Ein Gespräch mit Rudolf Fleischmann, in Michael Schaaf, ed., Heisenberg, Hitler und die Bombe: Gespräche mit Zeitzeugen (Berlin-Diepholtz: Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, 2001), pp. 44-80, here p. 56; and by Walker, Quest (ref. 2), p. 16. For a more balanced treatment; see Louis A. Turner, “Nuclear Fission,” Reviews of Modern Physics 12 (1940) 1-29, on 20-21.

  46. Hahn pocket calendar, March 28, 1939; Telschow to Carl Bosch, June 9 and July 5, 1939, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 83, Nr. 31.

  47. Hahn pocket calendar, July 12, 1939. The KWG was prepared to contribute 50,000M; Telschow to Bosch, June 6, 1939, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 83, Nr. 31. Burghard Weiss, “‘Lise Meitners Maschine’: Der erste Neutronengenerator am Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie,” Kultur & Technik 16 (March 1992), 22-27.

  48. Ernst Klee, Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945? (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2003), p. 475; Hahn pocket calendar, August 10 and 11, 1939; Hahn-Quasebart correspondence, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 2796.

  49. For the intertwined association of Auer and IG Farben in Orgacid’s poison-gas production, see Olaf Groehler, Lautlose Tod (Berlin: Heyne Verlag, 1984), p. 111; for Auer and gas protection, ibid. p. 271ff; for Auer’s radionuclide division, see Florian Schmaltz, Kampfstoff-Forschung im Nationalsozialismus: Zur Kooperation von Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten, Militär und Industrie (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005), pp. 259-261.

  50. Telschow to Bosch, September 12, 1939, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 83, Nr. 31.

  51. Hahn pocket calendar, September 1-4, 1939. [?] indicates illegible passage.

  52. Hahn-Erbacher correspondence, July 15 and November 8, 1940, MPG Archive, Abt. III. Rep. 14, Nr. 832: 10-13.

  53. Schmidt headed the Gas Protection Section known as Wa Prüf 9 from 1938-1942 and was commander of the Army Gas Protection School from 1944-1945; Klee, Personenlexikon (ref. 48), p. 546; Hahn pocket calendar, September 5, 1939.

  54. Schmaltz, Kampfstoff-Forschung (ref. 49), pp. 449-451; Groehler, Lautlose Tod (ref. 49), p. 185ff.

  55. Hahn pocket calendar, September 5, 12, 13, 22, and 29, 1939. Incomplete citations of calendar entries have given the impression that Hahn was less involved with military programs; see David Irving, The Virus House (London: Kimber, 1967), pp. 40-41; Klaus Hoffmann, Schuld und Verantwortung: Otto Hahn Konflikte eines Wissenschaftlers (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993), p. 162; idem, Otto Hahn: Achievement and Responsibility, transl. J. Michael Cole (New York, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2001), p. 159.

  56. Hahn re: Erbacher, July 15, 1940, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 832: 10ff. In the secret fission-project reports, Erbacher has one 1939 publication and Philipp has none, indicating that their research was outside the fission project.

  57. Reichsforschungsrat (Fischer) to Erbacher, March 15, June 17, 1944, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 123: 3, 4, 6; Gerhardt folder, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 246.

  58. Wa Prüf 9’s only direct contribution to the KWIC budget was in 1944. A 1944 (n.d.) Wa Prüf 9 research list includes Hahn and the KWI für Chemie for “Poison gas testing using radioactive methods” g.Kdos [geheime Kommandosache?] DE; Bundesarchiv Berlin, R 26 III/4, Bl. 13. I thank Florian Schmaltz for bringing this document to my attention. Hahn took part in a 1944 conference on isotopic methods for research in chemical warfare materials: see Schmaltz, Kampfstoff-Forschung (ref. 49), p. 537. For Hahn’s friendly postwar relationship with Jung, see Hahn-Jung correspondence, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 1891.

  59. Hahn to Hörlein, September 14, 1939, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 350: 161-162.

  60. Hahn pocket calendar, September 14-16, 1939. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker later claimed he had convinced a reluctant Hahn to participate, but Hahn’s September 14 letter to Hörlein indicates that his decision was made by that date and there is no record of Weizsäcker talking to Hahn prior to September 15.

  61. It may not be possible to assemble a completely reliable list of attendees. In Bagge, Diebner, and Jay, Uranspaltung (ref. 42), p. 22, the meeting is on September 26, Hahn is incorrectly omitted, Flügge appears, and Stetter is not listed. In Bagge, “Keine Atombombe” (ref. 45), p. 31, Hahn and Flügge are listed and E. Schopper is substituted for Stetter. Both of Bagge’s accounts indicate that theoretical physicists were not invited, making Flügge’s presence questionable.

  62. Esau to General [Becker?] November 13, 1939 (ref. 38). Esau telephoned Hahn’s institute, “about uranium. He wants to talk to me!” (original punctuation); there is no indication that Hahn returned the call; Hahn pocket calendar, September 16, 1939.

  63. Bagge, Diebner, and Jay, Uranspaltung (ref. 42), p. 23; Bagge, “Keine Atombombe” (ref. 45), p. 32; Hahn pocket calendar, September 16, 1939.

  64. By October 1939 Hahn’s institute was listed among those that “at this time are extensively occupied with work for the military.” Telschow to Hatzfeld, October 3, 1939, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 1144: 203.

  65. Hahn, “Erinnerungen” (ref. 6), p. 63.

  66. Hahn to David J. Irving, April 22, 1966, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 1812: 22. Hahn or his secretary Marie-Luise Rehder deciphered some of Hahn’s calendar entries for Irving, often incorrectly or incompletely, but Irving had other sources and is quite accurate here. See Irving, Virus House (ref. 55), pp. 40-41.

  67. Otto Hahn, A Scientific Autobiography, transl. and ed. Willy Ley (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966; London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1967), p. 161; Otto Hahn, Von Radiothor zur Uranspaltung: Eine wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie (Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, 1962), p. 135.

  68. For example, Bagge, “Keine Atombombe” (ref. 45), p. 33; Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, “Vorwort,” in Dietrich Hahn, ed., Otto Hahn: Leben und Werk in Texten und Bildern (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1988), pp. 13-17, here p. 15.

  69. Hahn pocket calendar, September 7, 1939 (original punctuation). Hahn refers to “uranium” with quotation marks; the material was undoubtedly not uranium metal but a uranium salt, probably sodium uranate.

  70. Hahn pocket calendar, September 9, 12, October 20, 23; November 15, 1939; Riehl, Oral History Project interview (ref. 41), p. 15.

  71. Schmaltz, Kampfstoff-Forschung (ref. 49), pp. 246-291. Born conducted ethically questionable radiation experiments on human tissues and organs, possibly in collaboration with the KWI für Biophysik; see Rainer Karlsch, “Boris Rajewsky und das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Biophysik in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus,” in Helmut Maier, ed., Gemeinschaftsforschung, Bevollmächtige und der Wissenstransfer: Die Rolle der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im System kriegsrelevanter Forschung des Nationalsozialismus (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007), pp. 395-452, here pp. 432, 437. For the collaboration of Riehl, Timoféef-Ressovsky, and Zimmer on radiation-induced mutations, see Ute Deichmann, Biologists under Hitler, transl. Thomas Dunlap (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 225.

  72. Bagge, Diebner, and Jay, Uranspaltung (ref. 42), p. 24, gives the date as early October but in Bagge, “Keine Atombombe” (ref. 45), p. 34, it is September 26. Hahn’s pocket calendar for September 26, is blank, perhaps because of secrecy.

  73. Walker, Quest (ref. 2), pp. 19-21; Bagge, Diebner, and Jay, Uranspaltung (ref. 42), pp. 24-25; Bagge, “Keine Atombombe” (ref. 45), pp. 34-35.

  74. Debye had not been averse to working in Germany and it was later recognized that forcing him out, especially to the United States, was a mistake. See Adolf Baeumker, Aktenvermerk (“Generalfeldmarschall Milch vorzulegen”), 24.4.42, BA-MA, Freiburg, Nr. 20, RL 1. I thank Florian Schmaltz and Helmut Maier for a copy of this document. See also Horst Kant, “Albert Einstein, Max von Laue, Peter Debye und das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik in Berlin (1917-1939),” in Bernhard vom Brocke and Hubert Laitko, ed., Die Kaiser-Wilhelm-/Max-Planck-Gesellschaft und ihre Institute: Studien zu ihrer Geschichte: Das Harnack-Prinzip (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), pp. 227-243, here p. 242ff; Dieter Hoffmann, “Peter Debye (1884-1966): Ein Dossier,” Preprint 314 (2006), MPI für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, p. 21; Dieter Hoffmann and Mark Walker, “Peter Debye, die Debye-Affäre und andere ‘fremde’ Wissenschaftler im Dritten Reich,” in Dieter Hoffmann and Mark Walker, ed., ‘Fremde’ Wissenschaftler im Dritten Reich: Die Debye-Affäre im Kontext (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011), pp. 11-50.

  75. Hahn pocket calendar, September 27, 1939.

  76. Lore R. David and I.A. Wahrheit, ed., “German Reports on Atomic Energy: A Bibliography of Unclassified Literature, 1952,” Archiv der Deutsches Museum (ADM).

  77. German Reports G-6, G-29, G-30, G-34.

  78. Burghard Weiss, “The ‘Minerva’ project: The accelerator laboratory at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute/Max Planck Institute of Chemistry: continuity in fundamental research,” in Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker, ed., Science, Technology and National Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 271-290.

  79. Hahn pocket calendar, July 21, 1943; Günther Herrmann, “Laborjournale zur Kernspaltung,” in Peter Brommer, ed., Fritz Strassmann (1902-1980), Mitentdecker der Kernspaltung; Inventar des Nachlasses und Kommentierung der Versuch zur Kernspaltung (Koblenz: Landesarchivverwaltung Rhenia, 2001), Band 95, pp. 197-254, on p. 239.

  80. David and Wahrheit, “German Reports“(ref. 76).

  81. Otto Erbacher, “Chemistry of Protactinium and Isotopes,” 1940, German Reports G-1.

  82. Charles Frank, Operation Epsilon: The Farm Hall Transcripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 118-121; Jeremy Bernstein, Hitler’s Uranium Club. The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall (Woodbury, NY: American Institute of Physics, 1996), pp. 178-182, 185-186.

  83. Turner, “Nuclear Fission” (ref. 45), pp. 18-19.

  84. C.F. von Weizsäcker, “Eine Möglichkeit der Energiegewinnung aus 238U,” July 17, 1940, German Report G-59. Here Weizsäcker cites element 93 as “EkaRe.” It is possible that he had not yet read McMillan and Abelson’s publication of June 1940, which showed that the chemical properties of 93 were not (as previously thought) similar to Re, but to the rare earths. Surprisingly, this confusion is still evident for Weizsäcker in 1945; see Frank, Operation Epsilon (ref. 82), p. 74; Bernstein, Uranium Club (ref. 82), pp. 120-122. In 1941 Fritz Houtermans submitted a report on the fissile possibilities of element 94, German Report G-94.

  85. Otto Hahn, “Bericht über die Arbeiten des Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituts für Chemie über ‘Präparat 38’,” December 10, 1940, German Report G-34, p. 3.

  86. Kurt Starke, “Anreicherung des künstlich radioaktiven Uran-Isotops 239U und seines Folgeproduktes 23993 (Element 93),” May 20, 1941, German report G-113. In a later article, Kurt Starke, “The Detours Leading to the Discovery of Nuclear Fission,” Journal of Chemical Education 56 (1979), 771-775, mentions his own work on element 93 but does not cite McMillan and Abelson.

  87. Kurt Starke, “Abtrennung des elements 93,” Naturwissenschaften 30 (1942), 107. During the war Hahn and Strassmann published further studies of the chemical properties of element 93; see Herrmann, “Laborjournale” (ref. 79), pp. 237-239.

  88. Hahn, Autobiography (ref. 67), pp. 176-177; Hahn, Radiothor (ref. 67), pp. 149-150. The independent discovery of 93 is also attributed to Starke by Walker, Quest (ref. 2), p. 23.

  89. Hahn to Meitner, August 31,1940, MPG Archive, Rehder Nachlass ZA 70, Kiste 4. Hahn’s report of December 19, 1940, does not indicate that Starke has found element 93, and Starke himself cites McMillan and Abelson extensively in his unpublished report in May 1941.

  90. For comprehensive lists of KWIC publications: MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 29: 1-34 and Nr. 30: 1-14, and Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6626-6635.

  91. In 1944 Hahn complained to Meitner: “In Naturwissenschaften in the last several years one would have read quite a number of scientific articles, e.g. about atomic physics; in Nature, none.” Hahn to Meitner, October 20, 1944, MPG Archive, Abt. Va, Rep. 9, Nr. 11.

  92. Hahn, “Erinnerungen” (ref. 6), p. 67.

  93. Hahn, “Erinnerungen” (ref. 6), p. 67. See Hahn, “Zur Arbeitstagung vom 13. bis 14. März 1941 im Kaiser Wilhelm-Institut für Physik,” German report G-84, p. 2. “These fission products will be of particular importance later in operating sensitive machines [reactors], because they will accumulate and could eventually disturb the working process.”

  94. Burghard Weiss, “Das Beschleuniger-laboratorium am KWI/MPI für Chemie. Kontinuität deutscher Groβforschung,” in Christoph Meinel and Peter Voswinckel, ed., Medizin, Naturwissenschaft, Technik und Nationalsozialismus: Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten (Stuttgart: Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft, 1994), pp. 111-119; pp. 111-113 for Hahn’s “experimental modesty” as a “self stylization.”

  95. Herbert Mehrtens, “Irresponsible Purity: The Political and Moral Structure of Mathematical Sciences in the National Socialist State,” in Renneberg and Walker, Science (ref. 78), pp. 324-338, on p. 336; Mehrtens, “Kollaborationsverhältnisse: Natur- und Technikwissenschaften im NS-Staat und ihre Historie,” in Meinel and Voswinckel, Medizin (ref. 94), pp. 13-31.

  96. Bagge, Diebner, and Jay, Uranspaltung (ref. 42), p. 29. See also Karl Wirtz, “Der Uranbrenner,” Göttinger Universitäts-Zeitung, Nr. 19 (September 5, 1947).

  97. For discussion, see Walker, Quest (ref. 2), pp. 47-49.

  98. Hahn pocket calendar, February 26, 1942.

  99. “Physik und Landesverteidigung,” Newspaper [?], February 27, 1942, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 203.

  100. Irving, Virus House (ref. 55), pp. 97-99; Walker, Quest (ref. 2), pp. 51-56. Hahn’s talk, “Die Spaltung des Urankerns,” is German report G-150; Heisenberg’s talk, “Die theoretischen Grundlagen für die Energiewinnung aus der Uranspaltung,” is G-323. See also Cassidy, Heisenberg (ref. 3), pp. 443-445.

  101. German reports G-309, G-310.

  102. Frank, Operation Epsilon (ref. 82), p. 76; Bernstein, Uranium Club (ref. 82), p. 128.

  103. Cassidy, Heisenberg (ref. 3), pp. 455-457.

  104. Hahn pocket calendar, June 4, 1942.

  105. “Erlass des Führers zum Reichsforschungsrat,” June 9, 1942, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 203.

  106. Hahn pocket calendar, March 4, 1942.

  107. Hahn to Hörlein, May 11, 1942, Bayer-Archiv, Box 8 (046/010-001), KWI für Chemie 1911-1945. I thank Florian Schmaltz for calling this material to my attention, and Hans-Hermann Pogarell of the Bayer-Archiv for permission to cite this document. See Hahn to Vögler, May 12 1942; Deutsche Industriebank to Telschow, June 6, 1942; MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 1154; Hahn pocket calendar, May 11, 20, and 29, 1942.

  108. Burghard Weiss, “Die Megavolt-Röntgenanlage des Allgemeinen Krankenhauses Hamburg-Barmbek (1938-1945): Vom Therapiegerät zur Strahlenwaffe,” Medizin Historisches Journal 35 (2000), 55-84, on 68-69; Weiss, ‘Minerva’ (ref. 78); pp. 275-283; Hahn to Vögler, May 4, 1943, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 203.

  109. Ruth Lewin Sime, “‘Die Uranspaltung hat da die ganze Situation gerettet’: Otto Hahn und das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie während des Zweiten Weltkrieges,” in Maier, Gemeinschaftsforschung (ref. 71), pp. 268-304, on p. 294; Weiss, “Beschleuniger-Laboratorium” (ref. 94).

  110. Hahn to N.S.V. Ortsgruppe Nikolassee, August 1, 1943, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 11, Nr. 246: 4. See Rüdiger Hachtmann, Wissenschaftsmanagement im “Dritten Reich”: Geschichte der Generalverwaltung der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft. Band 2 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007), pp. 817-819.

  111. Later in 1943 Esau was replaced by Walther Gerlach. See Cassidy, Heisenberg (ref. 3), p. 481.

  112. Hahn pocket calendar, March 18 and 20, 1943.

  113. Hahn pocket calendar, March 31, 1943; April 18, 1943.

  114. Abraham Esau, “Einleitung, Probleme der Kernphysik,” May 6, 1943, pp. 5-13, German reports G-214.

  115. Hahn, “Künstliche Atomumwandlungen und die Spaltung des Urans,” in “Probleme der Kernphysik” (ref. 114), pp. 19-27, German reports G-216.

  116. Heisenberg, “Die Energiegewinnung aus der Atomkernspaltung,” in “Probleme der Kernphysik” (ref. 114), pp. 29-36, German reports G-217.

  117. Telschow to Reichsforschungsrat, May 25, 1943, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 1154.

  118. Hahn pocket calendar, June 5, 1943; October 28, 1943.

  119. Hahn, pocket calendar, January 12 and 26, May 8, 1942. For Bauemker, see Klee, Personenlexikon (ref. 48), p. 24.

  120. Baeumker to Hahn, December 9, 1944; January 3, 1945, April 13, 1945; MPG Archiv, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 124.

  121. P.A. Thiessen to Hahn, July 27, 1944, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 5603: 1, 2.

  122. Ute Deichmann, “Kriegsbezogene biologische, biochemische und chemische Forschung an den Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten für Züchtungsforschung, für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie und für Medizinische Forschung,” in Kaufmann, Geschichte der KWG (ref. 1), pp. 231-257, here pp. 239-245.

  123. Stuckart, January 12, 1934, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 1050.

  124. Hahn, Reisen, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6545: 3; Deutsches Wissenschaftliches Institut in Bukarest to REM, February 22, 1941, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6411: 1.

  125. Hahn pocket calendar, October 5-18, 1943; MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6391: 2, 3 and Nr. 6417: 3, 4.

  126. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York: Octagon Books, 1978), p. 525ff.

  127. Travel request, MPG Archive Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6393: 1, 2. Bericht über unsere Vortragsreise nach Budapest im November 1943, December 15, 1943; MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6396; Butenandt-Hahn Correspondence, MPG Archive Abt. III, Rep. 84/1, Nr. 596.

  128. Bauemker to Hahn, 13 May 1944; Hahn to Baeumker, 9 June 1944; MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 5070: 1, 2.

  129. Hahn, pocket calendar, July 2, 1943; Personalbestand, Hahn to Boje, November 10, 1943, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6399: 2; Telschow to Hahn, November 26, 1943, MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 5604. Neither award is on the list of medals and awards in Hahn’s vita: MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 70, Kiste 2.

  130. Hahn pocket calendar, November 29, 1943 (original punctuation).

  131. Bericht über den Angriff vom 15.2.44, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, Nr. 1145: 29-34.

  132. Weiss, ‘Minerva’ (ref. 78), pp. 283-284.

  133. Diebner to Erbacher, March 15, 1945; Erbacher to Diebner, April 10, 1945, MPG Archive, Abt. I, Rep. 1, Nr. 123.

  134. Frank, Operation Epsilon (ref. 82), pp. 102-106; Bernstein, Uranium Club (ref. 82), pp. 156-163.

  135. Hahn, “Die deutschen Arbeiten über Atomkernenergie,” February 2, 1946; MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6783: 5-8.

  136. Hahn, 1947, “To the Editor of ‘Washington Post’,” MPG Archive, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 6200:1.

  137. Sime, “Politics of Memory” (ref. 11), pp. 48-49.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the Max Planck Society research program “History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism” for a fellowship, and I owe special thanks to Helmut Maier for his interest and encouragement for this research. I thank the archivists and staff of the Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and the archive of the Deutsches Museum, and I am grateful to Susanne Heim, Rainer Karlsch, Florian Schmaltz, and Michael Schüring for valuable criticism and discussion of this work. I also thank John S. Rigden for his encouragement and Roger H. Stuewer for his careful editorial work on my paper.

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    Ruth Lewin Sime

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An earlier version of this paper, “‘Die Uranspaltung hat da die ganze Situation gerettet’: Otto Hahn und das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie während des Zweiten Weltkriegs,” appeared in Helmut Maier, ed., Gemeinschaftsforschung, Bevollmächtige und der Wissenstransfer: Die Rolle der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im System kriegsrelevanter Forschung des Nationalsozialismus (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007), pp. 267–304.

Ruth Lewin Sime, the author of Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, is currently writing a biographical study of Otto Hahn.

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Sime, R.L. The Politics of Forgetting: Otto Hahn and the German Nuclear-Fission Project in World War II. Phys. Perspect. 14, 59–94 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-011-0065-6

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