A Scientific Giant Who Saw the Threat Early
Niels Bohr was a scientific giant. His work formed the foundation for much of the physics and chemistry of the 20th century. He also clearly saw the threat Hitler posed long before much of the rest of the world.
While the US embassy in Denmark offered the Bohr family safe passage to the United States when Germany invaded Denmark in 1940, Bohr could not accept it right away. He had documents that had to be destroyed before Germany found them. That included the records of all the scientists, many of them Jewish, that he had helped find positions in Europe and America after they fled Germany.
I recently had the opportunity to write about Bohr’s quiet resistance to Nazi Germany for Heroes, Heroines and History. You can find that article here.
Escape Across the Sound
In early September of 1943, Bohr learned from the Swedish ambassador that many of his émigré colleagues were slated for arrest. He and the underground helped them escape across the Sound, a narrow strait between Denmark and Sweden. Later, while having tea with the ambassador, Bohr learned his own time was up.
“Even professors are leaving Denmark,” the ambassador said.
The news was confirmed by an underground worker who had access to Gestapo offices. Niels Bohr and his brother Harold had arrest and deportation orders.
Niels and his wife had to leave immediately, with their sons following soon after. A motorboat took them to a fishing boat, which then worked its way between German mines and landed in Sweden.
Saving the Danish Jews
Up until this time, the Jews in Denmark had been protected. Germany needed the agricultural output of Denmark, and in exchange they left the Danish Jews alone. But just before he left Denmark, Bohr learned that an order to round up the Danish Jews would go into effect the very next day. Fortunately, the citizens of Denmark also knew of the order and hid their neighbors.
Over several days, Bohr talked to many Swedish bureaucrats, finally managing an audience with the King of Sweden. Sweden publicized the agreement it had already made, announcing on the radio that it would take in Danish Jews. Over the next two months, almost all of these endangered citizens were smuggled into safety.A Dangerous Flight to England
Sweden was not safe for Niels Bohr. Too many German agents lived there. He was smuggled into England via the same type of plane used for diplomatic dispatches. This plane flew at high altitude in order to avoid anti-aircraft guns. It was a two-seater, and Bohr had to ride in the bomb bay, with communication via radios attached to helmets.
Unfortunately, Bohr had a large head and the helmet did not fit. He did not hear the order to begin oxygen and passed out. The pilot got suspicious and descended to a lower altitude, saving Bohr’s life.
When Oppenheimer, the leader of the atomic bomb project, heard this story, he quipped, “The Royal Air Force is not used to such great heads as Bohr’s.”
Nicholas Baker Arrives at His Hotel
When Niels Bohr traveled to America to talk with the physicists in Los Alamos, he traveled under a pseudonym, Nicholas Baker. His name was “changed” before he left England. In one of the best examples of the problems with a whole new world of scientific secrecy, “Nicholas Baker” arrived at his American hotel only to find that his luggage was all labeled “Niels Bohr.”
Uncle Nick at Los Alamos
Many of the scientists at Los Alamos were students of Bohr, and almost all of them knew him. Eleanor Jette, who wrote Inside Box 1663, a memoir of her time in Los Alamos, spoke of Bohr several times. She wrote of how happy her husband was when he learned that Bohr was safely out of Denmark. She also wrote of her first meeting with Niels Bohr and his son Aage. She described him as a “genial-looking, white-haired man.”
Her husband said to Aage, who was traveling as James, that “the last time I saw you, you were a baby.” Eleanor wrote, “I assumed Jimmy was traveling with his absent-minded parent to take care of him,” and Jimmy confirmed her guess. Later, Aage Bohr would earn his own Nobel Prize.
Bohr did not live in Los Alamos during the war, but he did spend several long visits there. He shared technical expertise and may have also given a first-hand account of life under the Third Reich. Granted, there were many other scientists who were refugees as well. But the most telling thing about Bohr’s role in Los Alamos was that he was known to one and all as “Uncle Nick.”
Turning a Country Into a Factory
In the 1930s, scientists realized that the common isotope of uranium could not be used in making a bomb. At that point, Bohr said something like, “An atomic bomb can only be built by turning an entire country into a factory.” When he saw the extent of the Manhattan Project, he commented that the Americans had done exactly that. We have lost the concept of exactly how large that effort was, but close to 10% of the entire electrical output of the United States at the time went to the Manhattan Project.
The Absent-Minded Professor
While Bohr was truly one of the greatest scientific minds of history, he was also notoriously absent-minded. Eleanor’s husband, Eric, spent several months studying at the Bohr Institute and once almost ran over the great man when he “popped up unexpectedly in front of my bicycle.”
Eleanor told a similar story. She was riding her horse through town to get him checked by the vet when she approached the gate to the Tech Area.The brakes of an oncoming truck screamed and Smokey almost sat down on his rump to avoid trampling Uncle Nick. Uncle Nick was deep in the throes of some complex problem and looked neither right nor left when he charged out of the Tech Area. The MPs on the Tech Area gate gasped with relief when all traffic, equine and vehicular, ground to a halt. His son, Jimmy, was no place in sight.
“’Uncle Nick!’ I shrieked. ‘Look where you’re going!’
He emerged from his intellectual mists with a start and beamed at me. “What a beautiful animal!”
We were right smack in the middle of the road. Smokey arched his neck and pranced while he was admired. I chided our absent-minded friend.
“’You mustn’t do things like this. You must stop at the gate and count to ten before you look both ways and cross the street. There’s a wild turkey that struts around in Los Alamos Canyon below Omega. I’m trying to teach Smokey it’s a dangerous bird and that he should step on its neck in self-defense. I don’t want him to practice on you.’”
From Inside Box 1663, Eleanor Jette
Bohr was one of the greatest scientists in history and a man who had stood against Hitler. He still had not learned to cross a street safely, even at 59 years old. Which goes to show he was still only human.
