Norman Moss - Klaus Fuchs - The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb

Fuchs enjoyed an active retirement in his last years. He spent some time at the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Dresden, working on its archives. Visiting scientists would occasionally see him there.

A French scientist visiting an East German university made a detour to call in at the Akademie, travelling by car. He met a number of scientists there, including Fuchs. Chatting with Fuchs about his trip, he said the detour had delayed him, so that the one-week permit he was given for his car would expire before he returned. However, he said, it would be a lot of trouble to renew it for two days more, and he did not think he would bother; probably, nobody would notice.

Fuchs took a firm, disapproving line. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that if you are in another country, you should obey its laws.’

War Office, 27 January 1950

Statement of Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs, of 17 Hillside, Harwell, Berkshire, who said:

I am Deputy Chief Scientific Officer (acting rank) at Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell.

I was born in Rüsselsheim on 29 December 1911. My father was a parson and I had a very happy childhood. I think that the one thing that mostly stands out is that my father always did what he believed to be the right thing to do and he always told us that we had to go our own way, even if he disagreed. He himself had many fights because he did what his conscience decreed, even if these were at variance with accepted convention. For example, he was the first parson to join the Social Democratic Party. I didn’t take much interest in politics during my school days except in so far as I was forced into it by the fact that of course all the other pupils knew who my father was, and I think the only political act at school which I ever made was at the celebration of the Weimar Constitution when there was a celebration at school and all the flags of the Weimar Republic had been put up outside, whereas inside large numbers of the pupils appeared with the imperial badge. At that point I took out the badge showing the colours of the Republic, and put it on, and of course it was immediately torn down.

When I got to the University of Leipzig I joined the SPD and took part in the organization of the students’ group of the SPD. I found myself soon in opposition to the official policies of the SPD, for example on the question of naval re-armament, when the SPD supported the building programme of the Panzercreuzer. I did have some discussion with Communists, but I always found that I despised them because it was apparent that they accepted the official policy of their own party even if they did not agree with it. The main point at issue was always the Communist policy proclaiming the united front and at the same time attacking the leaders of the SPD. Later I went to Kiel University. It has just occurred to me, though it may not be important, that at Leipzig I was in the Reichsbanner which was a semi-military organization composed of members of the SPD and the Democratic Party. That is a point at which I broke away from my father’s philosophy because he is a pacifist. In Kiel I was first still a member of the SPD, but the break came when the SPD decided to support Hindenburg as Reich President. Their argument was that if they put up their own candidate it would split the vote and Hitler would be elected. In particular, this would mean that the position of the SPD in Prussia would be lost when they controlled the whole of the police organization. The election was, I think, in 1932. My argument was that we could not stop Hitler by co-operating with other bourgeois parties but that only a united working class could stop him. At this point I decided to oppose the official policies openly, and I offered myself as a speaker in support of the Communist candidate. Shortly after the election of Hindenburg, Papen was made Reich Chancellor, and he dismissed the elected Prussian Government and put in a Reichstathalter. That evening we all collected spontaneously. I went to the headquarters of the Communist Party because I had in the meantime been expelled from the SPD, but I had seen many of my previous friends in the Reichsbanner, and I knew that they were gathering together ready to fight for the Prussian Government, but the Prussian Government yielded. All they did was to appeal to the central Reich Court. At this point the morale of the rank and file of the SPD and the Reichsbanner broke completely and it was evident that there was no force left in those organizations to resist Hitler. I accepted that the Communist Party had been right in fighting against the leaders of the SPD and that I had been wrong in blaming them for it. I had already joined the Communist Party because I felt I had to be in some organization.

Some time before this I had also joined a student organization which contained members of the SPD, as well as members of the Communist Party. This organization was frowned upon by the SPD, but they did not take steps against me until I came out openly against the official policy. I was made the Chairman of this organization and we carried on propaganda aimed at those members of the Nazi Party whom we believed to be sincere. The Nazis had decided to start propaganda against the high fees which students had to pay, and we decided to take them by their word, convinced that we would show them up. I carried on the negotiations with the leaders of the Nazi group at the University, proposing that we should organize a strike of the students. They hedged and after several weeks I decided that the time had come to show that they did not intend to do it. We issued a leaflet, explained that the negotiations had been going on but that the leaders of the Nazis were not in earnest. Our policy did have success because some members of our organization succeeded in making personal contact with some of the sincere Nazis. The Nazi leaders apparently noticed that, because some time later they organized a strike against the Rector of the University. That was after Hitler had been made Reich Chancellor. During that strike they called in the support of the SA from the town, who demonstrated in front of the University. In spite of that I went there every day to show that I was not afraid of them. On one of these occasions they tried to kill me and I escaped. The fact that Hindenburg made Hitler Reich Chancellor of course proved to me again that I had been right in opposing the official policy of the SPD. After the burning of the Reichstag I had to go underground. I was lucky because on the morning after the burning of the Reichstag I left my home very early to catch a train to Berlin for a conference of our student organization, and that is the only reason why I escaped arrest. I remember clearly when I opened the newspaper in the train I immediately realized the significance and I knew that the underground struggle had started. I took the badge of the hammer and sickle from my lapel which I had carried until that time.

I was ready to accept the philosophy that the Party is right and that in the coming struggle you could not permit yourself any doubts after the Party had made a decision. At this point I omitted from resolve in my mind a very small difficulty about my conduct of the policy against the Nazis. I received, of course, a great deal of praise at the conference in Berlin which was held illegally, but there rankled in my mind the fact that I had sprung our leaflets on the leaders of the Nazis without warning, without giving them an ultimatum that I would call to the student body lest they made a decision by a certain date. If it had been necessary to do that I would not have worried about it, but there was no need for it. I had violated some standards of decent behaviour, but I did not resolve this difficulty and very often this incident did come back to my mind, but I came to accept that in such a struggle of things of this kind are prejudices which are weakness and which you must fight against.