The Race for German Scientists After WWII

The most valuable human assets Germany had left after the war

Left to right: Hertha Sponer, Albert Einstein, Hugo Grotrian, Ingrid Franck, Wilhelm Westphal, James Franck, Otto von Bayer, Lise Meitner, Peter Pringsheim, Fritz Haber, Gustav Hertz, and Otto Hahn gather at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin

After the end of the Second World War and before the beginning of the Cold War, another kind of war took place, a fierce race between the three great victorious powers in which they competed to put their hands on the enlightened minds of the former. Reich, the great German scientists in all fields of science that would prove crucial to the upcoming technology within the 20th century as well as to the Cold War.

First come, first served

On the evening of November 1945, in the war-torn Berlin, three German scientists met with a few British Royal Navy officers. One of the British commanders asked them if they had been contacted by the Russians, and one of the three men reported that they had been approached by Russian intelligence agents who proposed to leave the Soviet Union to work for the Communists. He stated that he knew if he were to refuse he would be taken by force, therefore, lose his freedom, however, he wanted to let the British know of what was happening.

The German scientist said that the Russians offered huge sums of money, houses and luxury food to any German scholar who agreed to work for them. The Soviet Union wanted to achieve the same industrial efficiency as…