Werner Heisenberg It is not possible to fully appreciate Werner Heisenberg's work without examining his contributions in the context of the time in which he lived. WernerKarl Heisenberg was born in Würzburg, Germany, on December 5, 1901, and grew up in an academic environment, in a family dedicated to the humanities. His father was a professor at the University of Munich and undoubtedly greatly influenced the young Werner, who was a student at the Maximilian Gymnasium. Heisenberg had the opportunity to work with many of the world's best physicists, including Niels Bohr and Max Born. Like many of the best physicists of the time, Heisenberg earned his doctorate at an early age. In Heisenberg's case, he received it at the young age of twenty-three. Heisenberg was not just a researcher. He was also a professor and author. During his career he taught at many prestigious universities, including the Universities of Leipzig, Goettingen and Berlin. He also wrote many important books including Physical Principles of Quantum Theory, Cosmic Radiation, Physics and Philosophy, and Introduction to the Unified Theory of Elementary Particles. In 1932 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum mechanics. With the Nazis in power and the Second World War on the horizon it was inevitable that his German origins would play a crucial role in his career. Before the German blitzkrieg on Poland, Heisenberg decided to pay one last visit to his friends in the West. Many tried to convince him to stay and accept a professorship at Columbia, but Heisenberg refused. He felt it was his duty to preserve the foundations of science in Germany during the war. He also believed that by remaining in Germany during the war he could help individual German scientists. In fact, he offered jobs to Jewish scientists when they were fired from their positions at other universities. As time passed, Heisenberg found that he had no power to protect his friends. Heisenberg himself was personally attacked and his appointment to the University of Munich was blocked. For more than a year Heisenberg was attacked by the SS newspaper, which called him a "white Jew". The attack became so threatening that Heisenberg's mother, who had a slight connection to Himmler's family, wrote to Himmler's mother asking Himmler to intercede. Himmler personally cleared Heisenberg of the charges brought against him a year later, but he was told to study science and avoid discussing scientists. The tension of the investigation certainly influenced Heisenberg's creativity. During the war Heisenberg worked on the German atomic bomb project along with a number of other German scientists..