Synopses & Reviews
When Hitler came to power in the 1930s, Germany had led the world in science, mathematics, and technology for nearly four decades. But while the fact that Hitler swiftly pressed Germany's scientific prowess into the service of a brutal, racist, xenophobic ideology is well known, few realize that German scientists had knowingly broken international agreements and basic codes of morality to fashion deadly weapons even before World War I. In Hitler's Scientists, British historian John Cornwell explores German scientific genius in the first half of the twentieth century and shows how Germany's early lead in the new physics led to the discovery of atomic fission, which in turn led the way to the atom bomb, and how the ideas of Darwinism were hijacked to create the lethal doctrine of racial cleansing.
By the war's end, almost every aspect of Germany's scientific culture had been tainted by the exploitation of slave labor, human experimentation, and mass killings. Ultimately, it was Hitler's profound scientific ignorance that caused the Fatherland to lose the race for atomic weapons, which Hitler would surely have used. Cornwell argues that German scientists should be held accountable for the uses to which their knowledge was put-an issue with wide-ranging implications for the continuing unregulated pursuit of scientific progress.
Review
Wide ranging and accessible . . . [A] disturbing and important account. (
The Economist)
Synopsis
- Hitler's Pope, which sold nearly 100,000 hardcover copies, was featured on 60 Minutes, was excerpted in Vanity Fair, and was a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the History Book Club, and the Quality Paperback Book Club
- Hitler's Pope was a 5-week New York Times bestseller in hardcover and was a Newsday, Boston Globe, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Los Angeles Times, USA Today, bestseller
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [501]-512) and index.
Synopsis
An eye-opening account of the rise of science in Germany through to Hitler’s regime, and the frightening Nazi experiments that occurred during the Reich
A shocking account of Nazi science, and a compelling look at the the dramatic rise of German science in the nineteenth century, its preeminence in the early twentieth, and the frightening developments that led to its collapse in 1945, this is the compelling story of German scientists under Hitler’s regime. Weaving the history of science and technology with the fortunes of war and the stories of men and women whose discoveries brought both benefits and destruction to the world, Hitler's Scientists raises questions that are still urgent today. As science becomes embroiled in new generations of weapons of mass destruction and the war against terrorism, as advances in biotechnology outstrip traditional ethics, this powerful account of Nazi science forms a crucial commentary on the ethical role of science.
About the Author
John Cornwell is in the department of history and philosophy of science at Cambridge University. He is a regular feature writer at the Sunday Times (London) and the author and editor of four books on science, including Power to Harm, on the Louisville Prozac trial, as well as Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII and Breaking Faith: Can the Catholic Church Save Itself?
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Understanding the Germans
Part One: Hitler's Scientific Inheritance
1. Hitler the Scientist
2. Germany the Science Mecca
3. Fritz Haber
4. The Poison Gas Scientists
5. The "Science" of Racial Hygiene
6. Eugenics and Psychiatry
Part Two: The New Physics 1918-1933
7. Physics after the First War
8. German Science Survives
Part Three: Nazi Enthusiasm, Compliance and Oppression 1933-1939
9. The Dismissals
10. Engineers and Rocketeers
11. Medicine Under Hitler
12. The Cancer Campaign
13. Geopolitik and Lebensraum
14. Nazi Physics
15. Himmler's Pseudo-science
16. Deutsche Mathematik
Part Four: The Science of Destruction and Defence 1933-1943
17. Fission Mania
18. World War II
19. Machines of War
20. Radar
21. Codes
Part Five: The Nazi Atomic Bomb 1941-1945
22. Copenhagen
23. Speer and Heisenberg
24. Haigerloch and Los Alamos
Part Six: Science in Hell 1942-1945
25. Slave Labour at Dora
26. The "Science" of Extermination and Human Experiment
27. The Devil's Chemists
28. Wonder Weapons
Part Seven: In Hitler's Shadow
29. Farm Hall
30. Heroes, Villains, and Fellow Travellers
31. Scientific Plunder
Part Eight: Science from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism
32. Nuclear Postures
33. Uniquely Nazi?
34. Science at War Again
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index