Introduction by Jürgen Renn

After the war, the German scientists who had researched the military potential of nuclear fission, including uranium isotope separation, nuclear reactors, and transuranic elements, faced uncomfortable questions from both inside and outside of Germany:

•  Did you work on atomic bombs?
•  Why did you fail, while the Americans succeeded?
•  Why did you collaborate with the Nazis?

Colleagues who had emigrated to America because of Nazism were especially critical. This talk examines how two scientists, Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, were criticized and defended, how they responded, and how they eventually were rehabilitated and could “live with the bomb.”