In September 1942, Heisenberg submitted his first paper of a three-part series on the scattering

matrix, or S-matrix, in elementary particle physics. The first two papers were published in 1943[94][95]
and the third in 1944.[96] The S-matrix described only the states of incident particles in a collision
process, the states of those emerging from the collision, and stable bound states; there would be no
reference to the intervening states. This was the same precedent as he followed in 1925 in what turned
out to be the foundation of the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics through only the use of
observables.[31][75]

In February 1943, Heisenberg was appointed to the Chair for Theoretical Physics at the Friedrich-
Wilhelms-Universität (today, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). In April, his election to the
Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Prussian Academy of Sciences) was approved. That same
month, he moved his family to their retreat in Urfeld as Allied bombing increased in Berlin. In the
summer, he dispatched the first of his staff at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik to Hechingen
and its neighboring town of Haigerloch, on the edge of the Black Forest, for the same reasons. From
18–26 October, he travelled to German-occupied Netherlands. In December 1943, Heisenberg visited
German-occupied Poland.[31][97]

From 24 January to 4 February 1944, Heisenberg travelled to occupied Copenhagen, after the German
army confiscated Bohr's Institute of Theoretical Physics. He made a short return trip in April. In
December, Heisenberg lectured in neutral Switzerland.[31] The United States Office of Strategic
Services sent agent Moe Berg to attend the lecture carrying a pistol, with orders to shoot Heisenberg if
his lecture indicated that Germany was close to completing an atomic bomb.[98]

In January 1945, Heisenberg, with most of the rest of his staff, moved from the Kaiser-Wilhelm
Institut für Physik to the facilities in the Black Forest.[31]

Post-Second World War

1945: Alsos Mission

The Alsos Mission was an Allied effort to determine if the

Germans had an atomic bomb program and to exploit German
atomic-related facilities, research, material resources, and
scientific personnel for the benefit of the US. Personnel on this
operation generally swept into areas which had just come
under control of the Allied military forces, but sometimes they
operated in areas still under control by German
forces.[99][100][101] Berlin had been a location of many German
scientific research facilities. To limit casualties and loss of
equipment, many of these facilities were dispersed to other
locations in the latter years of the war. The Kaiser-Wilhelm- Replica of the German experimental
Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for nuclear reactor captured and dismantled
at Haigerloch
Physics) had been bombed so it had mostly been moved in
1943 and 1944 to Hechingen and its neighbouring town of
Haigerloch, on the edge of the Black Forest, which eventually
became included in the French occupation zone. This allowed the American task force of the Alsos
Mission to take into custody a large number of German scientists associated with nuclear
research.[102][103]