World War II Russian Spy Klaus Fuchs

About the World War II spy Klaus Fuchs, a German who spied for the Russians, his history and biography.

Klaus Fuchs. German. Worked for: Russia, W.W. II.

Although Russia fought with the Allies in W.W. II, the atomic bomb project was shared by only the U.S. and Great Britam. Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist, was Russia's key informant on the development of the bomb. In 1941, Fuchs, known to be a communist, was hired by the British to do nuclear research. He promptly contacted Moscow and offered his services as a spy. In 1943, he left England to become a member of the combined American-British team working on the bomb in the U.S. While working with Dr. Oppenheimer in Los Alamos, N. Mex., Fuchs was privy to all vital aspects of the bomb--design, construction, components, detonating devices. Secrets were passed by Fuchs to a Russian contact and relayed to Moscow. Defection of a cipher clerk in the Soviet embassy in Ottawa caused the disclosure of incriminating evidence against the nuclear spy ring operating in the U.S. and Canada. Eventually, this information led to the capture of Fuchs and other Russian spies--Alfred Nunn May, David Greenglass, Harry Gold, and, questionably, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Fuchs spent 10 years in prison, after which he continued his nuclear research in East Germany.