Birmingham and the Atomic Bomb

Rudolf Peierls

In 1937 Rudolf Peierls took up a position at the University of Birmingham as Head of Applied Mathematics. Two years later he was joined by Otto Robert Frisch. Out walking the blacked-out streets of the city in early 1940, the pair realised how the theoretical possibility of an atomic bomb could be a practical reality. Previously it had been believed that the amount of uranium needed for its construction far exceeded the means of transporting such a device and the time needed for its construction. After calculation they concluded that only one kilogram of isotope uranium 235 would be enough to create temperature equivalent of the interior of the sun and pressure that of the Earth's core.

The Nuffield building at the University of Birmingham

The possibility of the allies constructing a bomb meant that there was also a possibility of Nazi Germany constructing one too. Although many of Germany's nuclear scientists had fled the country, Heisenberg had remained and was leading the research there. It was uncertain how far his programme had reached, and it was not known that Heisenberg was deliberately working on a go-slow basis to forestall the Nazis getting there first.

In March 1940, they typed the Frisch-Peierls Memorandum in the Nuffield building of the university. The 3-page document outlining their findings, has to be the most important text to have been written in Birmingham. The above opening extract reads:

Strictly Confidential

Memorandum on the properties of a radioactive “super-bomb”

The attached detailed report concerns the possibility of constructing a “super-bomb” which utilizes the energy stored in atomic nuclei as a source of energy. The energy liberated in the explosion of such a super-bomb is about the same as that produced by the explosion of 1000 tons of dynamite. This energy is liberated in a small volume, in which it will, for an instant, produce a temperature comparable to that in the interior of the sun. The blast from such an explosion would destroy life in a wide area. The size of this area is difficult to estimate, but it will probably cover the centre of a big city.

In addition, some part of the energy set free by the bomb goes to produce radioactive substances, and these will emit very powerful and dangerous radiations. The effect of these radiations is greatest immediately after the explosion, but it decays only gradually and even for days after the explosion any person entering the affected area will be killed.

Some of this radioactivity will be carried along with the wind and will spread the contamination; several miles downwind this may kill people.

The memorandum was taken by Mark Oliphant, a pioneer in radar and the Poynting Professor of Physics to Henry Tizard who headed the government committee overseeing the military applications of scientific work. This led to the setting up of the MAUD Committee, and later, the Tube Alloys project - the codename of the British atomic programme.

By this time Frisch had moved on to Liverpool, while Peierls continued to work in Birmingham. In 1941, to help him with his Tube Alloys research into isotope separation, Peierls was seeking a suitable assistant, and so in May a politically-motivated German exile came to Birmingham from Edinburgh. His name was Klaus Fuchs and he was a Soviet agent.

Fuchs had been interned at the outbreak of war and, as he was not Jewish, was held with hardened Nazis which, as a Communist, he deeply resented. Embittered by his treatment, and convinced that the Soviet Union was the only real chance of defeating Germany, he contacted Jurgen Kuczynski, a member of the German Communist Party exiled in London, who put him in touch with a fellow GRU agent known as Alexander (a.k.a Simon Davidovitch Kremer) to whom Fuchs passed technical information of his work in Birmingham.

"Fuchs became a lodger in our house, and he was a pleasant person to have around. He was courteous and even-tempered. He was rather silent, unless one asked him a question, when he would give a full and articulate answer; for this Genia called him "Penny-in-the-slot". There were a few brief periods when he felt unwell. He did not go to work, stayed in bed or on a deck chair in the garden, and showed no interest in food. But this passed in a day or so. We realised the significance of these attacks only much later."

Rudolf Peierls,'Bird of Passage'

38 Calthorpe Road (above) was rented by Peierls for five years from 1937. Fuchs lodged there in Otto Frisch's old room from May 1941 until the end of 1942 when Rudolf and Genia moved to a flat at 19 York Road, around the corner from his old friend Fania Pascal [see my earlier blog post Wittgenstein in Birmingham] whom he had known since his Berlin student days. It took a lot of explaining by Genia that Fuchs could not move with them into the smaller residence. Instead he took a room in a nearby boarding house.

In the autumn of 1942 Kremer had passed Fuchs on to a new controller Sonya, a.k.a. Ruth Kucynski (Jurgen's sister), Ruth Werner, Ruth Ursula Hamburger, Ruth Beurton, Ursula Beurton or Mrs Brewer. She lived in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, and the pair would meet in Banbury, half way between London and Birmingham.

On 3rd December 1943, Rudolf and Genia Peierls, Klaus Fuchs and other scientists from Britain landed in New York to take up their positions with the Manhattan Project. Fuchs continued to pass information to the Soviets throughout the war and into the start of the Cold War when he worked at Harwell, Britain's nuclear research facility. He was finally confronted at the end of 1949 and confessed his spying career to William 'Jim' Skardon of MI5 in January 1950. He was sentenced to the maximum 14 years imprisonment. After 9 years as a model prisoner, Klaus Fuchs was released from HMP Wakefield and settled in East Germany where he obtained the position of Deputy Director of the Institute for Nuclear Research at Rossendorf.