Science and the Swastika - The Good German

In 1933, with the rise of the Nazi Party to power, Germany began a period of isolation in the field of science. Many Jewish physicists and scientists left Germany. Students and lecturers had to undergo military training and as a result, their studies and research dealt more in the field of the military. At the time, Heisenberg, a German Nobel Prize winning physicist, taught physics at the university. He used to refer to Einstein and this aroused suspicion. In 1937 he was accused of teaching Jewish physics (as opposed to Aryan physics) and also homosexuality. After a lengthy and humiliating investigation, as a result of his family’s connection to Himmler, it was decided that he could continue to teach but that he mustn’t mention Einstein’s name. At the end of 1938, a scientist in Berlin, Auto Hahn, succeeded in an atomic fission experiment. Heisenberg, who at the time was in the US, chose to return to Germany and to take part in the German uranium project. The film tries to answer the question whether Heisenberg worked on the development of the atomic bomb for the Nazis or actually sabotaged the project which was not completed. Includes experts commentary, simulation of the atomic fission laboratory, archival documentation of Heisenberg, Einstein, and other physicists, imagined British radio broadcast following an atomic attack of Nazi Germany.