Open Editions: Gone Fission

Albert Einstein’s Role in the Atomic Bomb Was the “One Great Mistake in My Life” Einstein never worked on the Manhattan Project and had no prior knowledge of plans to use the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. A pacifist who despised war, Einstein came to deeply regret his role in the development of the bomb, later saying: “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.”