e of this research allowed the German research project to continue at the same rate and escape feeling pressure from other countries2. Without pressure from other countries Germany had a false sense of security, which allowed the urgent need to begin research to be ignored.For many years the best physicists and scientists studied and trained in Germany, because of its unrivalled reputation as the best location for scientific education and training available3. After completing their education many scientists chose to remain in Germany doing research or teaching. Prior to 1933 this would have provided Germany with an invaluable resource of information and ideas, but the increasing anti-Semitic attitude in Germany forced many scientists to flee the country. Among the refugees escaping Hitlers anti-Semitism were some of the most crucial contributors to the development of the atomic bomb, such as Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard4. Leo Slizard fled from Germany on March 31, 19335, at which time he went to Britain where he conceived his neuron chain reaction. Slizard continued his research at Oxford in Britain until 1938 at which time he moved to New York City in anticipation and fear of the outbreak of World War II6. Upon moving to New York Slizard and Eugene Wigner began work on plans to avert attainment of an atomic bomb by Germany. In 1939 Slizard and Wigner approached Einstein to help warn the US of the threat posed by Germany. Slizard drafted Einsteins letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt expressing their fear and knowledge of the German Uranium project7. The letter to Roosevelt was powerful enough to convince the US to organize their research on the atomic bomb. While the research in the US was making constant progress, including Rudolf Peierls calculation of the critical mass in Dec. 1940, and Alfred Niers successful separations of natural uranium into U238 and U235 8, the Germans were facing a great deal of frustration. In...
