Negative Charge

8 | The Berlin Journal | Number Twenty-Five | Fall 2013 N EGATIVE CHARGE What strained the relationship between two of Germany’s most respected scientific thinkers? By Wolf Schäfer fter World War II, the great Urfeld at Lake Walchen, in Bavaria. (It is usual habits, into vehement opposition, physicist Werner Heisenberg and there where her husband would later be so much so that in the end I can only A his colleague Carl Friedrich von captured, in early May 1945, by Colonel advocate the most boring philistinism Weizsäcker often spoke, as has been said, Boris Pash, the military leader of the (Spießertum). “with one voice.” This impression is rooted Manhattan Project’s Alsos Mission, charged in the fact that both scientists rarely, if ever, with discovering all it could about the The militancy of von Weizsäcker’s reported contradicted one another in their public German nuclear project.) As Elisabeth fled, outburst is astonishing, and it calls for accounts of the Uranverein, the clandes- Heisenberg was working for the Uranverein explanation. But first, let me review tine project that had attempted to develop in the embattled German capital. And Heisenberg’s almost immediate account of atomic weapons for Germany. Their expla- in one exceptionally candid letter, dated the “long conversation” with his former stu- nations evolved in lockstep over the years, October 14, 1943, he told her how deeply at dent, trusted colleague, and good friend. all the way until Heisenberg’s death, in odds with von Weizsäcker he found himself: We do not know the questions that were February 1976. But this harmonious per- raised in Elisabeth’s exchange “back then” formance in postwar West Germany cannot These days, there are constant meetings with her best friend, Maria Westphal, but be taken as an indicator of the true nature about the war efforts. Carl Friedrich we do know that Heisenberg talked about of their relationship in Nazi Germany. That v. Weizsäcker is here, and yesterday “the same questions” with his friend. The relationship, it turns out, had at one point evening I had a long conversation with obliqueness of the reference indicates that been far more explosive. him about the same questions that you both conversations must have entered the For the first two-and-a-half years of had discussed with Frau Westphal back taboo zone of Nazi politics, a zone that “apo- World War II, the two men were closely then. I basically do not get along with litical” people such as Elisabeth and Werner aligned in their institutional politics, cultur- him at all; this way of approaching all Heisenberg normally shunned. Two things al hubris, and overall zeal. Yet this apparent things on principle and always forc- are extremely untypical and thus notewor- congruity dissolved when the “easy” phase ing “the last decision” is so completely thy: the animus of the Heisenberg/von of the war ended and the hard part began, alien to me. Weizs. says sentences like Weizsäcker discussion, for one, and, second, this: He would be quite content in a Heisenberg’s profound admission – as totally destroyed city because then one much to himself as to his wife – that he real- “I FIND THIS ETERNAL would know for sure that it would not ly is not getting along with von Weizsäcker. CIrcle OF BELIEF IN THE come back, and that the people, based This is an extraordinary confession. Both HOLIest goods that Must on the experience of guilt and punish- men took oppositional positions on some BE DEFENDED WITH FIRE ment, would be ripe for another way of highly charged issues. What could have AND sword COMpletely thinking – by which he means the new been that divisive and unsettling? unbearable . .” faith, to which he himself professes Based on the quoted topic of “a totally allegiance. Then he further says that destroyed city” (likely a reference to the total this faith is, of course, irreconcilably decimation of Hamburg in the last week of during the winter of 1941/42 when the hostile to the faith of the old world – that July 1943 – Britain’s Operation Gomorrah) battle for Moscow got underway. Lightning is, the world of the Anglo-Saxons – and and the related “experience of guilt and war morphed into a war of attrition, and the that indeed Christ had also said he had punishment,” one might assume that the security of a German victory started to wob- not come to bring peace, but rather the impending destruction of Germany was ble. It was in the wake of this development sword – whereupon one is back at the at issue, as was the question of who was that a sharp contrast between Heisenberg beginning, i.e. whoever does not believe finally to blame for this looming national and von Weizsäcker began to emerge. the same as I do must be exterminated. obliteration. The cities of central Germany were I find this eternal circle of belief in the But what do we know about von no longer safe from aerial assaults. holiest goods that must be defended Weizsäcker’s professed “new faith” and Heisenberg’s wife, Elisabeth, fled Leipzig. with fire and sword completely unbear- its main tenets? According to Heisenberg, In April 1943, she moved with the six able; obviously, I am in this respect this militant new faith was approaching Heisenberg children (seven, eventually) utterly un-German, and in such a everything with the understanding that to the family’s summer home, in rural discussion I am driven, contrary to my one has to seek a “last decision” with “fire Fall 2013 | Number Twenty-Five | The Berlin Journal | 9 and sword;” totally uncompromising in in 1943. It is difficult to imagine that either Black Forest. Von Weizsäcker, Heisenberg’s demanding the annihilation of everybody man could ever forget this enormous differ- assistant at the time, was brought along. holding a different opinion; and “irrec- ence of opinion. This is what makes their Later, von Weizsäcker recounted what he oncilably hostile” to the faith of the “old cordial postwar performance on behalf had witnessed: Heidegger listened until world” represented by the “Anglo-Saxons.” of the Uranverein’s wartime history even the two discussants had reached a point of Hitler’s frequent invocation of a “struggle more curious and impressive. mutual incomprehension, then he summa- for the last decision” seems to resonate in rized Viktor von Weizsäcker’s arguments these amazing pronouncements. Deeply hilosophy was von Weizsäcker’s in “three perfectly clear sentences,” after disturbed, Heisenberg was impelled to tell original intellectual passion, and which von Weizsäcker’s uncle admitted that Elisabeth, “It is good that I can unburden P learning physics was how he they captured exactly what he wanted to say. my heart to you.” approached it, thanks to Heisenberg. To Then Heidegger turned to Heisenberg and The chasm between Werner Heisenberg find the source of von Weizsäcker’s apparent captured his points in “three completely and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker was radicalism, we must follow his engagement precise sentences,” and von Weizsäcker’s apparently deep and wide. Heisenberg with philosophy, particularly German phi- teacher affirmed that they expressed what found himself on the “un-German” side, losophy of the early twentieth century – and he meant to say. Then the philosopher elu- and all he could muster was “the most more particularly, that of Martin Heidegger. cidated “in four or five sentences” what the MAGES. I ETTY G EIDEGGER © EIDEGGER H LLSTEIN BILD; LLSTEIN U ERG © ERG B EISEN H ER AND CK WEIZSÄ CARL FRIEDRICH voN WEIZSÄCKER (1949), MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1950), WERNER HEISENBERG (1955) boring philistinism.” Since Heisenberg Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker met link between the two positions could be, does not provide concrete hints about his Heidegger for the first time in 1935 under and both speakers agreed with Heidegger’s counterarguments, we should not specu- circumstances of a major Vorbild (role interpretation. In 1970, von Weizsäcker con- late about them. We may, however, surmise model) constellation. Someone – “irgend cluded this anecdote with what he gleaned that they were not irreconcilable but rather jemand,” von Weizsäcker is clearly vague from the encounter: capable of reconciliation; compromising, about this person – had asked Heidegger not uncompromising. We may also assume to pair the Nobel Laureate Heisenberg This, my first meeting with Heidegger, that they concerned German versus Anglo- with Professor Viktor von Weizsäcker, Carl has made me see that Heidegger . is Saxon guilt and punishment. This fact Friedrich’s uncle and a noted physician and capable of hearing and understanding remains: as close as these two members of physiologist, for a conversation about phys- what is thought, and to understand the Uranverein may have been before the ics and medicine. Heidegger invited the two it better than those have understood war, in the Blitzkrieg years, and again after men, and they visited him in his famous cot- it who have thought it themselves. the war, their union ruptured dramatically tage in Todtnauberg, near Freiburg, in the I would say: That is a Thinker. ﬁ 10 | The Berlin Journal | Number Twenty-Five | Fall 2013 Later, Heidegger is designated “the commencement” (das Anfängliche), and Weizsäcker, the diplomat father’s son, who most important philosopher” in von “American historylessness” was the “renun- is not recognizable in Heisenberg’s tanta- Weizsäcker’s reminiscence and “the phi- ciation of commencement.” (To translate lizing letter. losopher” of the twentieth century. Since Anfang des Abendländischen, by the way, as The eminent role Heidegger played this first encounter in 1935, von Weizsäcker “commencement of the Western world” is for von Weizsäcker can be deduced from met Heidegger regularly, “at least every inaccurate. For Heidegger, the Occidental the many visits, awed conversations, and two years” for the next 37 years.

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