On May 1, 1945, near the end of the European part of World War II, an advance American detachment was marching through the snow-capped mountains of Bavaria under German control . This is a special team organized by the United States, named Arthos. This troop often advances with the leading troop, sometimes even rushing to the front of the attacking troop. Their task is to collect the military scientific materials of Nazi Germany, especially the research and development materials of atomic weapons, and to search for the relevant major scientific researchers.
On May 4, 1945, this special unit arrived in Ulfeld, Germany, and captured the first target of the German atomic bomb program - Heisenberg. In Ulfield, Heisenberg bought a summer house. At this time, Heisenberg was sitting quietly on the front porch of the cottage watching the lake in the distance. When this special force appeared in his home, The scientist acted quite graceful. He politely introduced his wife and children, and asked the GIs who captured him, what did they think of the German landscape? At this time, his wife and children were stunned. They apparently did not expect their husbands and fathers to be arrested.
Heisenberg was taken captive, and he was taken to England, where he was detained for eight months before being allowed to return to Germany to be reunited with his family.
The "No. 1 target" Heisenberg captured by the Alsos team was a German physicist who won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics alone for proposing the matrix equation and uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. In the history of the development of physics, together with Einstein and Bohr, he can be regarded as the greatest theoretical physicist and thinker of the 20th century. For Einstein and Bohr, no one seems to object to such a statement, but people are quite critical of Werner Karl Heisenberg, the protagonist of this article. The problem is that the three greatest theoretical physicists differed greatly in their attitude towards the Nazis.
The emergence of new quantum mechanics around 1925 was the most amazing event in the frontier development of physics at that time. The development of quantum mechanics cannot be entirely attributed to a single person, but if one were to choose one of the most important representatives of the great men who contributed most to it, Heisenberg should be one of them.
Einstein has a frank and strong temperament, he is right and wrong, he likes to use strong words, and he confronts the Nazis in various ways. After the war, he adopted a largely severing attitude (with some exceptions) towards Germany and German academia. During the war, he asked about atomic energy, but he did not participate in the Manhattan Project, but he felt guilty all his life for the innocent civilians killed by the atomic bomb in Japan.
Bohr was calm, gentle, principled and modest. He was largely uncooperative when Denmark was occupied by the Nazis. After escaping from surveillance and Denmark, he participated in the Manhattan Project, but what he was trying to solve was the political, military, diplomatic and other international problems that the atomic bomb would bring. After the war, with grief over the devastation caused by the atomic bomb to Japanese civilians, he actively participated in the international movement to maintain world peace.
Compared with Einstein and Bohr, Heisenberg is quite different!
Two
Heisenberg was born in Würzburg, Germany on December 5, 1901, and moved to Munich when his father was a professor of Greek grammar at the University of Munich when he was 9 years old. Heisenberg's high school years were spent in the most turbulent period in German history. The first youth organization Heisenberg participated in, "Pathfinders", was a youth movement similar to the British "Boy Scouts" organization. Heisenberg served as the leader of this group and led the group to carry out various activities. These activities focus on cultural gatherings and camps such as music, singing and poetry. This organization is a very sophisticated, semi-military organization. It has very strict rules and regulations. During the First World War, the organization was incorporated into the "War Preparation Council" and became a source of troops for Germany. After Hitler came to power, most of the members of the group volunteered to join the "SS" of the Nazi Party, while Heisenberg was already overage, but he maintained close kinship with the members of the group. It is believed that Heisenberg's days in the youth movement had an important influence on Heisenberg's later behavior under the Nazis and was the germ of his Nazi-era behavior.
When Nazi leader Hitler appeared on the political stage, many German intellectuals had fantasies about Hitler's words and actions such as "reviving Germany." When Nazism began a massive purge of all Jews, resulting in the attack and dismissal of Jewish scientists, those in the upper echelons such as Heisenberg and Planck believed that the most important thing was to preserve "German academic culture." He and Planck set out to find pure-blooded, politically competent scientists to fill their ranks.
Unfortunately, Heisenberg was quickly drawn into the movement as well. The reason is that his teacher Sommerfeld is going to retire. Who will take up the professorship at the University of Munich that Sommerfeld resigned from? Sommerfeld suggested that Heisenberg would be best to take his place as professor. This suggestion was immediately attacked by physicists represented by Stark. Stark was a German scientist who made great contributions, and he won the Nobel Prize in Physics as early as 1919. But his endless ambitions made him a Nazi. After all Jewish scientists were expelled from Germany, Stark and other "Deutsche Physicists" advocates still attacked the "Jewish Physicists" and the quantum mechanics and relativity they created in modern physics. In July 1937, Stark said in the German SS organization "Black Legion": "Heisenberg is actually a white Jew in science, and the reason why Heisenberg can win the Nobel Prize is that he Coaxed out by a bunch of Jewish friends."
In order to defend German physics, especially theoretical physics, also under pressure, Heisenberg began a struggle with the Nazi physicist Stark. The method he adopted was to win the support of high-level Nazi authorities. He contacted a physicist to write to the German Ministry of Education, and wrote a letter directly to the Nazi police chief Himmler through personal connections. It just so happened that a man named Ludwig pushed Heisenberg hard in front of the Nazis. Ludwig, an expert in aerodynamics and applied mathematics, was Himmler's staff. He advised Himmler: "Modern physics will have a huge impact on the development of German industry, and Heisenberg is a crucial figure who can train a new generation of scientists and serve Germany." Himmler listened to the advice. , thwarted the attack on Heisenberg. Heisenberg also reached an agreement with Himmler to teach modern physics at German universities, but Himmler warned Heisenberg to distinguish between "Einstein" and "Einsteinian science" on the premise , Einstein's theory of relativity was taught at universities in Nazi Germany. Heisenberg said in a journal of modern physics that the scientific community is not concerned with who discovered it, but whether the theory discovered is correct.
Heisenberg's efforts won the right to teach modern physics in Nazi Germany, and he was not fighting against the Nazi regime, but some absurd Nazi experimental physicists. Of course, this is not meaningless, and can be understood as a preservation of German academic culture.
3
On September 1, 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, Germany launched the research on the atomic bomb program. On September 26, seven experimental scientists were ordered to be transferred to the Ordnance Office in Berlin for a conference on the possibility of nuclear fission in Germany. The experimentalists at the meeting proposed that Heisenberg be invited to join their newly formed "uranium club" in order to provide a theoretical basis for their work.
We know that atomic fission was discovered by two Germans, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, neither of whom left Germany. Although Hitler's Jewish policies drove away almost half of the scientific elite, Germany still had plenty of power. They had Nobel Prize winners Laue, Potter, Geiger, Weizak, Barger, Woz, and Heisenberg, all of whom were involved in Hitler's atomic bomb program and became the "Uranium Club" ”, Heisenberg is the general director of the program.
Heisenberg's attitude toward the nuclear program was evident, and he immediately got to work, writing within three months a theoretical comprehensive report on the fission process, which, throughout the war, took a toll on the German nuclear program. to the basic guiding role.
Heisenberg not only conducted theoretical explorations of nuclear fission, but also personally participated in the design and experimentation, construction and testing of various reactors. In the spring of 1941, the uranium reactor at Leipzig first accreted neutrons, an important step in atomic fission. In the spring of 1942, they concluded with considerable certainty that it was practical to build a nuclear reactor fueled by natural uranium and buffered by heavy water. In July 1942, Heisenberg was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics and professor at the University of Berlin. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics is one of Germany's main reactor laboratories, where the development and large-scale testing of nuclear weapons are carried out. In the summer of 1943, as the Allied bombing intensified, Heisenberg evacuated most of his institute's equipment and personnel to the more remote Black Forest areas, while Heisenberg was still in Berlin and the remaining personnel assembled them on schedule. the largest reactor.
In January 1945, as soon as they had assembled the experimental set-up of the reactor, they were ordered to disassemble the set-up and transport it to the south. The Nazi regime would rather delay the experiment than allow personnel and materials to fall into the hands of the Russians. In February 1945, Heisenberg's equipment and materials were shipped to Hetzingen, only two months before the end of the war, Heisenberg and his crew were working feverishly to get a critical reactor. . In March of the same year, they conducted their last experiment. During the experiment, when Heisenberg saw that the reactor seemed to finally enter a critical state, they were extremely happy. At this time, they also suddenly realized their extreme danger. What if the reaction could not be controlled? At this point they only had a piece of cadmium that could absorb neutrons, but they wondered if throwing the cadmium into the reactor would be enough to stop the reaction in time. They risked their lives for a self-sustaining chain reaction. However, the experiment was unsuccessful.
It is interesting to note that, in the face of an imminent defeat, Heisenberg and his team still threw themselves into experimental research. Analysis of the reasons, in addition to scientific curiosity and a little exhilaration that success may have caused in defeat, there is also the conceit of German scientists, who believe that German research has progressed much further than that of the Allies. It is no wonder that at the time of the defeat, the Nazi leaders wanted to use the secret of nuclear fission as a bargaining chip with the Allies, who expressed no interest in their proposal. They were embarrassed and shocked.
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and ten of Germany's most famous scientists, who were imprisoned in a building called "Farm Hall" near Cambridge, were astonished. Heisenberg's reaction can be seen in his words. He said: "I don't believe the news of this atomic bomb at all, of course, I could be wrong. I thought they (the allies) might have 10 tons of enriched uranium, but I didn't think they had 10 tons of pure uranium 235." Hessian Bo's research experiments believe that a nuclear bomb requires several tons of uranium-235.
4.
After the war, Heisenberg and other scientists were detained by the Allies for eight months and released. But both experts and the public were interested in why Germany failed to build the atomic bomb, and there was a heated debate over the incident. The party represented by Robert Jung's book "Brighter than a Thousand Suns" praised Heisenberg's noble morality, not forgetting the merits of human beings in wartime. Although he had insight into the mystery of the atomic bomb, he treated the atomic bomb plan negatively. Some even describe Heisenberg as the hero who sabotaged the success of the plan.
The other side believes that Heisenberg has no subjective desire to "destroy" an atomic bomb program. With the support of the Nazis, Heisenberg and other scientists did their best to continuously support and improve Hitler's weapons and equipment. During the "World War II", in addition to participating in the atomic bomb development program, Heisenberg was also invited to give lectures in Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland and other places occupied by Germany, and preached German culture. Heisenberg revealed the same idea when he met his teacher Bohr in Copenhagen in 1941, that the German occupation of Europe was not a bad thing, at least better than the Soviet occupation of Europe. Therefore, Heisenberg was Hitler's "lack".
Heisenberg's inconsistent words and deeds also made his image more uncertain. During Heisenberg's imprisonment, three days after Hiroshima, he drafted a memorandum describing their atomic bomb research. After returning to Germany, he drafted a more detailed statement, roughly saying (subtext) two points: First, German scientists and Allied scientists have the same theoretical and technical advantages. But because Germany lacked the corresponding environment and resources, Germany abandoned this plan. The second is that German scientists were aware of the moral issues raised by the atomic bomb from the very beginning, and such a weapon of such destructive power made them aware of their responsibility towards humanity. But obligations to the state (not to the Nazis) forced them to put themselves to work. Contradiction, sabotage, and exaggeration of the difficulty of manufacturing made the top management believe that the atomic bomb was of no practical significance. All this claimed by Heisenberg, the first thing we can feel very clearly is his extreme conceit about German physics. With the usual pride of German scientists, it is absolutely unacceptable to admit that they are inferior to others. When the news of Hiroshima came and everyone was shocked, Hahn said to Heisenberg: "You are just a second-rate person, why don't you just pack your bags and go home." Heisenberg would not tolerate this "second-rate". Furthermore, Heisenberg's statement seemed to convey that he did not approve of Hitler's development of nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and even deliberately concealed their progress.
There was a general hatred of Heisenberg among Western scientists after the war. When he visited abroad, some scientists refused to shake his hand because he was "the man who built the atomic bomb for Hitler". Heisenberg was deeply aggrieved that those "people who actually built the atomic bomb" refused to shake his hand. The devastation caused by the atomic bomb deeply shocked the Allied scientists, who suffered enormous moral and emotional pain as a result, but the Allied scientists consoled themselves with a reflection that they developed the atomic bomb to defend against Hitler.
Human society is a huge complex system. Apart from the inherent self factors, a person's life trajectory is often inextricably linked to the major events that occurred in the era in which he lived.
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