The author begins this book by positing a close connection between two of the most important developments in the twentieth century: the atomic bomb and the Holocaust, with Jewish émigrés presumably making the link. This would be an interesting and important thesis, if a convincing argument based on the best available primary and secondary sources were presented. Unfortunately, this connection is never made. When the author compares the Holocaust with the German uranium project, he notes only that both would have needed logistics and resources on a massive scale, but the “Nazis could not have engineered both of them simultaneously” (6). This comparison begs the questions of how and why genocide and nuclear weapons programs began and developed over time. Historians have demonstrated that the path to Auschwitz, or for that matter to Haigerloch, where the last German nuclear reactor experiment was held, is as important as the end itself. When the Holocaust is juxtaposed with the American Manhattan Project, the author's text is opaque:

This book contains several examples of problematic claims, both large and small. For example, the political rehabilitation of the physicist Werner Heisenberg by the SS, a very important chapter in the history of physics under National Socialism, is portrayed as Heisenberg avoiding official channels and contacting Heinrich Himmler through family connections. In fact Heisenberg very carefully went through official channels, and was rehabilitated not because of Himmler's personal whim, but because of his perceived value to the National Socialist state. In a subsequent small matter, the account is again skewed. Whereas the author writes that Heisenberg sent an envoy to Columbia University asking about a position, in fact Columbia and other prestigious American universities contacted Heisenberg first when it appeared that he might be willing to leave Germany (82). This book is full of such errors and misinterpretations. According to the author, Mussolini was “humiliated” when Germany invaded Austria, but in fact Hitler had first persuaded the Italian leader to abandon his Austrian allies and cleared the invasion with him before proceeding (114). When the author writes that the climatologist Erwin Biel lost his position “despite his certificate of baptism,” (126) he demonstrates that he does not understand how the racial policy and classifications worked. The Nazis conceived of “Aryan” and “Non-Aryan” as racial categories, and required individuals to demonstrate several generations of “Aryan” ancestors. Similarly the author oversimplifies when he writes with regard to the April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish professionals and businesses, that late in March Hitler “demanded his ministers to take direct action against the Jews” (42).

Perhaps the best example of the author's problematic use of sources is his description of a ceremony honoring the anniversary of the physical chemist Fritz Haber's death, an important milestone in the history of science under Hitler:

Here the author cites an eyewitness account from Bernhard Landau. But there is so much wrong with this passage. University professors, not “Nazis” were instructed not to attend—“Nazis” probably did not need to be given such instructions. There were no “SS troopers” in Nazi Germany, rather “SA troopers” or “Storm troopers,” and there was no need to tell reporters not to write about the event, since the press was controlled by the Nazi state. It is extremely unlikely that Planck would have mentioned anything about “race” in his remarks, and Haber was not fired because he was Jewish, rather he resigned in protest. The fact that Planck's tenure as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society—not Institute—ran out in 1936 had nothing to so with this ceremony. Indeed the Nazi Reich Minister of Education Bernhard Rust explicitly gave Planck permission to proceed with the event.

At times, the prose comes close to trivializing historical actors, such as when the author writes that Georges Charpak survived Dachau concentration camp because he “did not look Jewish” (237). Inexplicably, there is a very long passage devoted to the sex life of the physicist Erwin Schrödinger that has nothing to do with either the Holocaust, or the persecution of Jewish scientists, or the atomic bomb (85–91)! It is also difficult to understand why the author, in a passage on the scientific achievements of the mathematician John von Neumann, first writes that his friends were “embarrassed by his habit of staring at every woman in sight,” and then concludes with a description of how he died: “…as the disease [cancer] spread… the drugs administered to dull the pain also clouded his mind. Instead of reeling off literature, he mumbled gibberish. His hospital room was guarded in case he blurted out nuclear secrets. On his deathbed in 1957, at the age of 53, a priest formally converted him to Catholicism, in case there had been any misunderstanding” (206).

The bulk of this book consists of a string of anecdotes drawn from diverse and sometimes questionable sources, sometimes embellished even further. The author appears to have been looking for good stories, rather than the most reliable information. If the books and articles listed in the bibliography had been consulted carefully, then the author would have been able to present a much more accurate account. The scholarship is also sloppy. Names are incorrect, “Bagger” instead of “Bagge” (155 n. 45), along with bibliographic citations, “2002” instead of “2009” (251). (This is from my own book; I may have missed other such errors.) A scholar may be surprised to see a footnote merely referring to a “German TV programme, 2009” (135 n. 35). But the author himself provides an explanation for the quality of this book in his acknowledgments: