The Politics of Forgetting: Otto Hahn and the German Nuclear-Fission Project in World War II

As the co-discoverer of nuclear fission and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, Otto Hahn (1879–1968) took part in Germany‘s nuclear-fission project throughout the Second World War. I outline Hahn’s efforts to mobilize his institute for military-related research; his inclusion in high-level scientific structures of the military and the state; and his institute’s research programs in neutron physics, isotope separation, transuranium elements, and fission products, all of potential military importance for a bomb or a reactor and almost all of it secret. These activities are contrasted with Hahn’s deliberate misrepresentations after the war, when he claimed that his wartime work had been nothing but “purely scientific” fundamental research that was openly published and of no military relevance.