If Albert was a pacifist then why did he want to build an atomic bomb?

Answer 1

You are talking about one of the most brilliant minds ever to grace the earth... He realized that the only way to stop the possible loss of hundreds of thousands of lives was to create the Atomic bomb, before the Nazi's had a chance to. Who knows what they could have done with a weapon like that...

In all, Albert made a very difficult decision, he set aside his personal beliefs to do what he knew was right, and although the results were incredibly gruesome, the world was saved from an even darker fate...

"I was fully aware of the terrible danger to mankind in case these attempts succeeded. But the likelihood that the Germans were working on the same problem with a chance of succeeding forced me to this step. I could do nothing else although I have always been a convinced pacifist. To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder." (Albert Einstein, 1952)