Hitler''s Gift

If the dismissal of Jewish scientists means the annihilation of contemporary German science, then we shall do without science for a few years! With these words Hitler closed the door on Germany's 50-year record of world supremecy in science. The exodus of German and Austrian scientists that followed caused critical damage to Germany's scientific output and brought invaluable gains to the West. The Third Reich's losses included the physicists who became the driving force behind the atomic bomb project. Drawing on interviews with more than 20 surviving refugee scholars, Hitler's gift creates a moving and impressive account of the scientific Diaspora which resulted from Hitler's policy, as well as the wartime internment and deportation of many refugee scientists who were classed as enemy aliens although implacably opposed to the Nazi regime. As one refugee scholar wrote, Far from destroying the spirit of German scholarship, the Nazis had spread it all over the world. Only Germany was to be the loser. This book tells how Britain played the major role in rescuing the scientists and how, within weeks of dismissals, leading British academics had set up an agency to support the exiles and help them to find jobs. Of the 1,500 refugees they rescued, 15 went on to win Nobel Prizes. See more