Nazi nuclear scientist Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker, 94
Posted: Saturday, April 28th, 2007 5:31 pmBERLIN (AP) — Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker, a physicist who researched atomic weapons for the Nazis and became a philosophy professor who espoused pacifism after the Second World War, died Saturday, his family said. He was 94.
Born June 28, 1912, into a prominent family of jurists and theologians, Weizsaecker studied physics and mathematics in Leipzig, Berlin and Goettingen, and became a professor of physics. His brother Richard was president of Germany from 1984 to 1994.
Weizsaecker said he worked on the atomic bomb to avoid being conscripted into the Nazi army. He also insisted in postwar interviews that he was grateful the nuclear technology was never used by the Nazis.
But a secret recording of German scientists captured by the Allies caught Weizsaecker saying, after hearing of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Japan, that, “If they were able to finish it by summer ‘45, then with a bit of luck, we could have been ready in winter ‘44-45.” … Read full obituary
