John Cornwell. Hitler's Scientists: Science, War and the Devil's Pact. New York: Viking, 2003. xvi + 535 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-670-03075-0.

Reviewed by Katja Guenther

Published on H-German (October, 2006)

John Cornwell makes the unusual choice of moralistic, posing questions such as "Is science introducing his book with a quote from Rabelais: morally and culturally neutral?" or "Does a scien‐ "Science without conscience is the ruin of the tist have to be politically conscientious?" The book soul" (n.p.). By doing so he underlines his major approaches these topics by dealing with a wide concern: how the relationship between science range of scientifc disciplines--the only volume so and morality can be distorted under a totalitarian far with such an ambitious scope. Cornwell in‐ regime. This is not Cornwell's frst venture into cludes all of medicine, psychology and psycho‐ answering moral questions via historical narra‐ analysis, geography, geopolitics, mathematics and tives. His earlier bestseller, Hitler's Pope (1999), the physical sciences in his book. Previous histo‐ deals with Pius XII's role in the Holocaust.[1] ries of Nazi science have been mostly limited to Cornwell held that Vatican diplomat and later one scientifc discipline.[2] Many have an even pope Eugenio Pacelli defended antisemitism and narrower focus, like those concerned with certain anti-Bolshevism to increase the power of the areas of medicine.[3] However, the book's chrono‐ Catholic Church. In Hitler's Scientists, Cornwell is logical structure fragments the narrative, and the once again concerned with the relationship be‐ constant jumping from one science to another can tween systems of belief and the (fascist) state, this be tiring and confusing. time turning to science rather than religion. Moreover, while Cornwell touches on inter‐ While Hitler's Pope was mainly based on original esting aspects of single scientifc disciplines (such research and aimed to revise the celebratory view as mathematicians' attempts to portray their feld of Pius XII, Hitler's Scientists draws together re‐ as relevant to National Socialist aims by empha‐ cent scholarship on the topic and presents it to a sizing notions of Deutsche Mathematik argued to general audience. be in alignment with Nazi ideology), many of his Still, Hitler's Scientists is more than an over‐ accounts are too brief to be valuable. This criti‐ view of the existing literature. Its real concern is cism is especially true of his sections on psycholo‐ H-Net Reviews gy and psychoanalysis (chapter 11) and the chap‐ meeting with Niels Bohr in occupied Copenhagen ters on racial hygiene and eugenics (5 and 6), in 1941, during which Heisenberg gave a suspi‐ which lack a coherent narrative. It is hard to un‐ ciously vague report on the progress of German derstand why Cornwell, who is otherwise success‐ nuclear research. Bohr interpreted the conversa‐ ful in processing existing literature into a highly tion as an attempt at exploitation, but Power readable story, fails to do so in the case of eugen‐ reads it as a hidden cry for help. British play‐ ics, given the impressive body of scholarship on wright Michael Frayn, who acknowledges basing the topic.[4] his work on Powers, has similarly focused on the This odd neglect may have a logic behind it; a meeting: in the beginning of his play Copenhagen closer look reveals that Cornwell's real focus is (1998), Bohr's wife Margrethe asks: "Why did the physical sciences--three-quarters of the book [Heisenberg] come to Copenhagen?"[5] Frayn sug‐ deals with physics and technology: engineering, gests Heisenberg's moral status is subject to un‐ rocketry, radar, cryptology and, above all, nuclear certainty--much like his physics. fssion. Within the physical sciences, the much- An alternative explanation, held mostly by contested fgure of Werner Heisenberg receives historians and scientists, suggests that by staying by far the most attention. in Germany, Heisenberg sacrifced moral and po‐ The Heisenberg debate seems an ideal test litical scruples for the beneft of science--or for his case for Cornwell's questions about the moral scientifc career. His loss of the race for the bomb neutrality of science. Two typical positions char‐ is a sign of intellectual failure, not moral superior‐ acterize the debate, which surrounds the problem ity. Scholars who espouse this position follow of why Heisenberg remained in Germany. The Samuel Goudsmit, who attributed the failure to frst--espoused by some journalists and play‐ "certain stupidities on the part of German scien‐ wright Michael Frayn--points to Heisenberg's fail‐ tists and their government."[6] Paul Lawrence ure to join the NSDAP and the dislike for his "non- Rose is convinced that Heisenberg miscalculated Aryan" physics among National Socialists as evi‐ the required amount of U-235 for the reaction. His dence that Heisenberg was practicing a form of conclusion that the necessary quantity could not passive resistance. This interpretation follows be procured during wartime caused him to at‐ Austrian journalist Robert Jungk, who argued in tempt to tease scientifc advice from and thus an early account of Heisenberg's behavior in alienate Bohr, his former mentor and close friend. Heller als tausend Sonnen (1956) that German nu‐ [7] David Cassidy suggests Heisenberg acted for clear physicists chose not to build the bomb. Only the German government when visiting Bohr, ar‐ later did Jungk discover that their failure to devel‐ guing that Heisenberg hoped to use Bohr's con‐ op the bomb was due to ignorance. Jungk drew on nections to Allied nuclear physicists to make them evidence from interviews he conducted with the believe that Germany was still a long way from physicists themselves (notably Carl von Weizsäck‐ building the bomb.[8] Cassidy and Rose base their er), and retroactively accused them, in a revised argument on a postwar letter by Heisenberg to his edition of the book (1990), of whitewashing them‐ colleague B. L. van der Waerden and on the newly selves. Journalist Thomas Powers confrmed released Farm Hall transcripts--secret recordings Jungk's original thesis in Heisenberg's War (1994), of conversations of ten German nuclear scientists arguing that Heisenberg fought his own personal interned near Cambridge, England, made in order war against the Nazis by consciously delaying the to discover whether they collaborated with the construction of a bomb. Powers's view is heavily Soviets after the war. Rose criticizes Powers's fail‐ based on his interpretation of Heisenberg's fateful ure to take into account this "damning evidence," released in 1992 and recently published in an an‐

2 H-Net Reviews notated edition (p. 70).[9] Among the most coher‐ mass extermination seems problematic in the ab‐ ent and successful chapters in Cornwell's book sence of any discussion of the "limits of represen‐ are those treating these transcripts (chapter 29) tation" of the Holocaust with regard to its science and the subsequent chapter-long evaluation of the and technology. In his chapter, "The 'Science' of fgure of Heisenberg ("Heroes, Villains and Fellow Extermination and Human Experiment," Travelers"). Cromwell writes: "Together they designed a cre‐ Within this debate, Cornwell adopts historian matorium which boasted fve furnaces, with three Mark Walker's view, which demystifes the tradi‐ crucibles to each furnace; that is ffteen crucibles tional story of heroes and villains. In Nazi Science, in all, capable of dispatching sixty bodies an hour, a more popular version of an earlier work, Walk‐ or 1,440 bodies every twenty-four hours. Later in er proposes a "spectrum of 'shades of gray'" for 1941 a confdent Prüfer assured the SS that a four- studying science under Hitler (p. 2).[10] Cases like crucible furnace confguration would also be pos‐ Heisenberg's are less clear than that of Nazi physi‐ sible--indicating, in a confguration of fve fur‐ cist Johannes Stark or the regime-critical Albert naces, twenty corpses burning simultaneously Einstein--a broad gray zone is found between the and thus incinerating 1,920 bodies every twenty- black and white of "Nazi" and "anti-Nazi." In this four hours" (p. 354). Such detailed statements sug‐ light, Cornwell's use of Heisenberg is intended to gest that the technical aspects of Nazi science can‐ be symbolic of the larger problem of the scien‐ not be represented without trivialization, and that tist's moral dilemma, the central theme of his any account of Nazi science "normalizes" matters book. However, a deeper discussion of this point that should instead be treated as singular. Corn‐ is lacking. Why is the Heisenberg myth so persis‐ well's recognition of these important problems is tent? Why are historians, scientists and journal‐ limited to his occasional quotes around scientifc ists all still so concerned with Heisenberg? And terms exploited by the Nazis. why do certain people--like Heisenberg--become It is not clear why Cornwell avoids this issue. visible in the frst place, while others do not? Perhaps he wished to avoid siding with any of the Cornwell does not address these important parties in the Historikerstreit , or perhaps the questions. (It should be noted that the point of the "popular" genre of this work made him try to book is not to condemn or acquit Heisenberg.) avoid getting into more academic debates.[12] In Rather, he connects the Heisenberg debate to the any case, the underlying assumption that science larger question of the alleged uniqueness of Nazi under Hitler was not anomalous explains the ab‐ science. Nazi science was not unique, Cornwell ar‐ sence of Hitler in his book. Apart from one chap‐ gues, and "experimentation on groups and indi‐ ter ("Hitler the Scientist"), which portrays Hitler viduals without their consent has occurred be‐ as a poorly educated, superstitious believer in fore" (p. 445). Human experimentation, whether pseudo-science, the "Führer" is strangely absent out of simple curiosity or the desire for fame, is a from a book with his name in the title. "temptation" without which "there would have What are the consequences, then, of Corn‐ been no progress in medicine" (p. 445). But this well's belief that Nazi science is continuous with argument about the continuity between Nazi and other science? It implies that misuse of science is non-Nazi science runs aground on the impossibili‐ not limited to the Third Reich--which supports ty of providing an unproblematic representation Cornwell's major goal: to illustrate how science of the Holocaust, an issue raised most notably by can go wrong and how it can lead to dangerous Saul Friedländer.[11] To give just one example, aberrations by scientists who, without necessarily the provision of the horrible technical details of being malevolent themselves, place the burden of

3 H-Net Reviews responsibility for their science and its purposes [6]. Samuel Goudsmit, Alsos (New York: H. on political regimes. Cornwell instead appeals to Schuman, 1947), p. 232. all scientists to be politically conscious, to rely on [7]. Paul Lawrence Rose, Heisenberg and the their own moral judgments. Nazi Atomic Bomb Project: A Study in German Notes Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, [1]. John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope: The Secret 1998). History of Pius XII (London: Viking, 1999). [8]. David C. Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life [2]. As, for example, Ute Deichmann, Biolo‐ and Science of Werner Heisenberg (New York: gists under Hitler (Cambridge: Harvard Universi‐ W.H. Freeman, 1992). ty Press, 1996) or her more recent Flüchten, Mit‐ [9]. Bernstein, Hitler's Uranium Club. machen, Vergessen (Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2001) [10]. Mark Walker, Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, on biochemists in the Third Reich. and the German Atomic Bomb (New York, Plenum [3]. Naomi Baumslag, Murderous Medicine Press, 1995). The older work is Mark Walker, Ger‐ (Westport: Praeger, 2005), on the role of epidemic man National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear typhus in the program of mass extermination of Power, 1939-1949_ (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni‐ Jews, or Robert Proctor, The Nazi War on Cancer versity Press, 1989). (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), a [11]. Saul Friedländer, ed., Probing the Limits classic study of "progressive" aspects of Nazi of Representation: Nazism and the Final Solution medicine and public health policy and its empha‐ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). sis on diet, anti-smoking campaigns and elimina‐ [12]. For a detailed discussion of the represen‐ tion of occupational carcinogens. tation of Nazi scientifc practices in the history of [4]. Some excellent works on eugenics include science, see Mario Biagioli, "Science, Modernity, Peter Weingart, Jürgen Kroll and Kurt Bayertz, and the 'Final Solution'", in Friedländer, Probing eds., Rasse, Blut und Gene (Frankfurt am Main: the Limits, pp. 185-205. Suhrkamp, 1992); Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Götz Aly, Cleansing the Fatherland, tr. Belinda Cooper (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni‐ versity Press, 1994); and Benno Müller-Hill, Mur‐ derous Science (Plainview: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1998). Three examples of solid general works on Nazi medicine are Robert Lifton, Nazi Doctors (New York: Basic Books, 1986); Michael Kater, Doctors under Hitler (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); and Paul Weindling, Health, Race, and Ger‐ man Politics Between National Unifcation and Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni‐ versity Press, 1989). [5]. Michael Frayn, Copenhagen (New York: Anchor Books, 2000), p. 3.

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Citation: Katja Guenther. Review of Cornwell, John. Hitler's Scientists: Science, War and the Devil's Pact. H-German, H-Net Reviews. October, 2006.

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