1. The German Atomic Bomb Project

2. A Timeline January 1993: Hitler came to power December 1938: Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann discovered fission September 1939: WWII started and German military started uranium project with subsequent active participation by Heisenberg and other physicists 1941: German physicists discussed plutonium bomb, speculated critical mass (10-100kg); Heisenberg visited Bohr in Copenhagen 1945: War in Europe ended without Germans succeeding in building a bomb

3. Key Debates Why did the Germans fail to make the bomb? Did Heisenberg and his colleagues deliberately sabotage the German bomb project? What was Heisenberg trying to tell Bohr in their meeting in Sept. 1941?

4. Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen Key point: both historical and epistemological What did happen in Copenhagen? Can we ever know what actually happened? Release of Bohr letters: http://www.nba.nbi.dk/release.html http://www.nba.nbi.dk/release.html

5. Most Recent Developments Farm Hall Transcript of conversations of Heisenberg and other German physicists upon hearing the news of Hiroshima: –http://germanhistorydocs.ghi- dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=2320http://germanhistorydocs.ghi- dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=2320 Claim of Germans testing a crude nuclear device during WWII: –http://germanhistorydocs.ghi- dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=2320http://germanhistorydocs.ghi- dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=2320