The quantum exodus : Jewish fugitives, the atomic bomb, and the Holocaust / by Gordon Fraser.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

It was no accident that the Holocaust and the Atomic Bomb happened at the same time. When the Nazis came into power in 1933, their initial objective was not to get rid of Jews. Rather, their aim was to refine German culture: Jewish professors and teachers at fine universities were sacked. Atomic science had attracted a lot of Jewish talent, and as Albert Einstein and other quantum exiles scattered, they realized that they held the key to a weapon of unimaginable power. Convinced that their gentile counterparts in Germany had come to the same conclusion, and having witnessed what the Nazis were prepared to do, the exiles were afraid. They had to get to the Atomic Bomb first. The Nazis meanwhile had acquired a more pressing objective: their persecution of the Jews had evolved into extermination. Two dreadful projects - the Bomb and the Holocaust - became locked a grisly race.

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CHOICE Review

Why did Nazi Germany fail to produce a working atomic bomb? This question has been raised since the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. The prevailing view is that physics research in Germany was decimated by the exodus of Jewish scientists in the 1930s and that Hitler did not sufficiently prioritize the building of a bomb. Physicist/writer Fraser expands upon these two themes in The Quantum Exodus. In this well-researched book, Fraser shows that the Nazis' preeminent goal was the extermination of the Jewish people. Meanwhile scientists in the West, including many Jewish emigres, worked feverishly on the atomic bomb with industrial-scale support from the US government. So began parallel projects: the building of an atomic bomb in the US, and the execution of the Jews by the Nazis. Fraser focuses on the science and scientists behind the bomb in a way that is understandable to the general reader. While some passages provide only a somewhat monotonous inventory of the lives of Jewish scientists in Nazi-controlled territories, this is still a generally well-written account of one of the most important eras in modern history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. P. Oxley The College of the Holy Cross