Klaus Fuchs helped three countries develop a nuclear bomb (Picture: Joe Raedle)
The arrest of Klaus Fuchs for espionage in 1950 was a news sensation.
The renowned physicist had spent years at the very heart of Britain and the United States’ nuclear programmes.
But unbeknown to his colleagues or the security services in either country, Fuchs was passing every secret that fell into his hands on to the Soviet Union.
It was largely down to his double-crossing that Soviets were able to test their own atomic bomb months earlier – to the West’s astonishment and alarm.
Here, Metro looks back at the life of one of Britain’s most brilliant atomic scientists and how he was unmasked as ‘the most dangerous spy in history’.
EARLY YEARS
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was born in 1911 near Frankfurt to a deeply religious family.
He studied maths and physics at the University of Leipzig and although initially a member of the socialist party, he joined the communists believing only they could defeat the rising Nazis.
But he was forced to flee his homeland after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, making his way first to France and then on to Britain just hours before he was due to be arrested by the Gestapo.
Los Alamos National Laboratory worker identification photo of theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs (Picture: Corbis via Getty Images)
After graduating from Bristol University he began work at the University of Edinburgh, but was rounded up with other German refugees suspected of being Nazi spies and interned in Canada.
TUBE ALLOYS
When he was released in January 1941, Fuchs was head-hunted to work on Britain’s clandestine atomic bomb project – codenamed ‘Tube Alloys’.
Fuchs became a British citizen the following August and signed the Official Secrets Act, promising not to pass state secrets to foreign governments.
But within months he was handing over classified information on the progress of Britain’s atomic bomb research to Soviet agents.
Similarly terrified at the prospect of the Nazis getting their hands on a nuclear weapon first, the US was also pursuing its own top secret atomic bomb programme.
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Late in 1943, Fuchs was part of a delegation of British scientists sent to New York to work on the Manhattan Project.
He was transferred to Los Alamos, New Mexico, in August 1944, where he was involved in the construction of the first atomic bomb.
Fuchs was present at the Trinity Test – the first detonation of a nuclear bomb to which he had made a significant contribution – and was considered one of the best theoretical physicists on the project.
As well as passing on the programme’s secrets, he also leaked detailed information about bomb’s design – saving them around two years’ worth of research.
THE NET CLOSES IN
When he returned to the UK in 1946, Fuchs was offered a prestigious post at the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Oxfordshire, where he worked on developing nuclear energy.
Its importance and secrecy led to it being nicknamed ‘the holy of holies’.
MI5 investigated him but found nothing incriminating.
The German-born physicist worked on developing the atomic …read more
Source:: Metro
