Why did Albert Einstein want the United States to develop the atomic bomb?
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was a German-born pacifist (one who opposes war) and physicist (a scientist specializing in the interaction between matter and energy) who had been persecuted by the Nazis in Germany because he was Jewish. (Nazis were members of the National Socialist Workers’ Party who rose to power in the German government and implemented anti-Jewish policies.) These three factors influenced Einstein’s decision to urge the United States to develop an atomic bomb. He was visiting England in 1933 when the Nazis confiscated his property in Berlin, Germany, and stripped him of his German citizenship. This was common procedure under the rule of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), who eventually persecuted and killed more than 6,000,000 Jews during World War II (1939–45). Einstein escaped this fate by moving…
