What historical lesson, if any, does the German quest for nuclear power teach us? This book has used the German efforts to harness nuclear fission as a vehicle for investigating how science, technology, and society can interact, and has emphasized four topics towards this end: ideology, “resistance,” apologia, and science policy. A brief summary of these points, as well as how they interact, forms the conclusion of this history.

The relationship between the German physics community and the National Socialist German state was one of collaboration and compromise, in simpler terms, of give and take. The ideological, political, and economic policies of the state forced scientists to embrace applied science, especially the inherent industrial and military utility of scientific research. The scientists, with the powerful backing of industrialists and military leaders, in turn forced the state to make significant ideological concessions, including a rehabilitation of modern physics, in order to enlist the wholehearted support of physicists for the war effort and to ensure the availability of the general scientific training of engineers, scientists, and technicians for the armaments industry.