Hitler's Scientists; Science, War and the Devil's Pact

New York: Viking, 2003. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xci. [4], 535, [5] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Select Bibliography. Index. DJ has some wear and soiling. John Cornwell (born 1940) is a British journalist, author, and academic. Since 1990 he has directed the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he is also, since 2009, Founder and Director of the Rustat Conferences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was nominated for the PEN/Ackerley Prize for best UK memoir 2007 (Seminary Boy) and shortlisted Specialist Journalist of the Year (Sunday Times Magazine), British Press Awards 2006. He won the Scientific and Medical Network Book of the Year Award for Hitler's Scientists, 2005; and received the Independent Television Authority-Tablet Award for contributions to religious journalism (1994). In 1982 he won the Gold Dagger Award Non-Fiction (1982) for Earth to Earth. He is best known for his investigative journalism; memoir; and his work in public understanding of science. A timely study of the world's first great scientific-military-industrial complex. Even before the rise of the Nazi regime, German scientists were busy developing theories to prove the supposed superiority of their people-and, of course, perfecting plenty of death-dealing technologies. When Hitler came to power and pressed science and industry into the service of the state, many of those scientists obliged. Many other scientists fled, including some of the nation's best physicists and chemists. Germany's loss was the Allies' gain in such critical areas as cryptography and, of course, the development of nuclear weaponry. Anti-modern in most other aspects of science, Hitler nonetheless kept legions of scientists busy, forging strong links among the Reich's death and labor camps and Germany's universities, research facilities, and hospitals. Cornwell's account rightly points out how pseudo-science came to dominate pure science as the Third Reich evolved.