Mr Klaus Fuchs

Following Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Klaus Fuchs fled his native Germany for the United Kingdom, where he received a doctorate in physics and eventually became a citizen. During World War II he was invited to join Britain’s clandestine atomic bomb development program, despite his known communist leanings, and from there was sent to the United States to take part in the Manhattan Project. Upon returning to the U.K., Fuchs secured a prestigious post at a nuclear energy research center. In 1950, however, he was apprehended after U.S. agents discovered that for years he had been handing nuclear secrets to the Soviets, who by now had their own atomic bomb. Fuchs confessed, telling the authorities that he “had complete confidence in Russian policy” and that “the Western Allies deliberately allowed Russia and Germany to fight each other to the death.” Though Fuchs claimed not to know his American contact’s true name, the FBI quickly traced a trail back to the Rosenberg spy ring, resulting in the arrest of the Rosenbergs and several co-conspirators. Compared to the Rosenbergs, Fuchs got off easy. After nine years in British prison, he immigrated to East Germany, where he continued working as a nuclear physicist until his retirement in 1979. A winner of the Karl Marx Medal, East Germany’s highest civilian honor, Fuchs died in 1988 at age 76.