Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ISSN: 0096-3402 (Print) 1938-3282 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbul20 Declassified Files Reopen “Nazi Bomb” Debate Stanley Goldberg & Thomas Powers To cite this article: Stanley Goldberg & Thomas Powers (1992) Declassified Files Reopen “Nazi Bomb” Debate, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 48:7, 32-40, DOI: 10.1080/00963402.1992.11460100 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00963402.1992.11460100 Published online: 15 Sep 2015. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 3 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rbul20 Download by: [Purdue University Libraries] Date: 08 November 2017, At: 05:53 Professor Otto Hahn (left) as he was taken into custody by "Aisos," an Allied mission to collect German physicists and their research. DECLASSIFIED FILES REOPEN "NAZI BOMB" DEBATE Downloaded by [Purdue University Libraries] at 05:53 08 November 2017 By STANLEY GOLDBERG and THOMAS POWERS Did leading n the race to build an atomic bomb, Ger­ actor vessel. By July 1945, with the war in many had some strong advantages-a Europe over, ten German scientists (see German year's head start, some of the world's pages 36-37) had been incarcerated by the physicists I leading scientists, and access to critical Allies in Farm Hall, a stately British home. materials. But when World War II ended, They were captured and interned as part of choose not the Germans had come up empty. All that re­ "Alsos," a special mission to uncover the mained of their efforts were a five-foot shelf state of German uranium research. to "know" of basic research materials and an empty re- On the evening of August 6, 1945, the Ger­ man scientists were astounded by a short re­ how to build Stanley Goldberg, a historian of science in port on the news. The United States had oblit­ anA-bomb? Washington, D.C., is writing a biography of erated the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an Gen. Leslie R. Groves. Thomas Powers is the atomic bomb. For a time that night, Werner author of Heisenberg's War: The Secret Histo­ Heisenberg, the chief theoretician of the Ger­ ry of the German Bomb (forthcoming). man bomb program, believed that reports of a 32 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists bomb were a hoax. But as further details con­ ports-the American copy still bearing vinced the imprisoned Germans that the news Goudsmit's marginal notes in pencil-provide "If the was true, they began to speak of how their a vivid, intimate portrait of the German scien­ Americans own program had gone wrong. Even now, tists who failed to build a bomb for Hitler.3 after nearly 50 years of acrimony and muddled Whatever triggered Goudsmit's angry charges have a debate, there is still no answer to the funda­ against Heisenberg is there on paper-in the uramum• mental question: Why was there no German conversations reflecting deep ambivalence by bomb? Heisenberg and three friends regarding build­ bomb, you're The post-bomb arguments of Samuel Goud­ ing a bomb. The reports are not the whispers smit and Heisenberg represent the heart of of conspirators who figuratively poured sugar all second­ this debate. Goudsmit, a Dutch-born physicist, into gas tanks while colleagues slept; but nei­ raters." was scientific director of the Alsos mission ther do they reflect second thoughts or special that seized the German scientists and research pleadings from men who tried but failed to reports near the end of the war. Allied scien­ build a bomb. The Farm Hall reports expand tists and intelligence authorities considered and illuminate the history of the German Heisenberg "the most dangerous possible bomb program, and no future attempt to ex­ German in the field because of his brain plain that history can ignore them. power." 1 The two most significant reports, numbers Goudsmit had known and respected Heisen­ four and five, cover the period bracketing Hi­ berg before the war, but later his judgment roshima, from the first terse BBC announce­ turned harsh. He said he had seen secret re­ ment at 6 p.m. on August 6, through Heisen­ ports proving that Heisenberg had bungled berg's full-scale bomb physics lecture deliv­ important scientific questions and had lied ered to the assembled company on August 14. about his wartime role in the project. Indeed, The information from those reports illumi­ in books, articles, and private correspondence, nates what Heisenberg knew or quickly man­ Goudsmit insisted that Heisenberg had con­ aged to deduce about bomb design. From a cocted phony claims of moral compunction as historical viewpoint, the information is impor­ an explanation for the humiliating German tant because it confronts Goudsmit's charge failure to produce the bomb.2 that Heisenberg failed to build a bomb be­ The dispute centers on Heisenberg. The cause he simply didn't know how. But for the Germans thought of Heisenberg as first general reader, most striking is the attitude of among equals, though he never commanded the German scientists-their instinctive emo­ anything like the line authority that J. Robert tional response at hearing the news of the U.S. Oppenheimer had at Los Alamos. Albert success. (This response helps to explain Speer, Germany's economic czar, remembered Heisenberg's pessimistic report in 1942 to Heisenberg's technical pessimism as decisive Speer and other German officials on the at a June 1942 meeting in Berlin that more or prospects-or lack of them-for a successful less ended serious German hope of a bomb. If German bomb. Was Heisenberg giving his Heisenberg said it couldn't be done in a war­ honest opinion in 1942-or deliberately prick­ torn economy, that was the end of it. ing the official balloon?) There can be little question that the record­ ed responses are authentic. The Farm Hall "guests" believed that they were talking only Historians have long sought one particular to each other, not for the benefit of some un­ batch of classified files-the 270-odd pages of seen eavesdropper. On July 6, hidden micro­ Downloaded by [Purdue University Libraries] at 05:53 08 November 2017 reports from Farm Hall, the British home phones picked up the following conversation: where Heisenberg and nine other German sci­ Kurt Diebner: "I wonder whether there are entists were held from July 3, 1945, through microphones installed here?" the end of the year. The weekly reports, com­ Heisenberg: "Microphones installed? (laugh­ piled by British intelligence officers, were ing) Oh no, they're not as cute as all that. I based on transcripts of the scientists' secretly don't think they know the real Gestapo meth­ recorded conversations via microphones con­ ods; they're a bit old-fashioned in that respect." cealed in every room. Goudsmit hinted at the On the evening of August 6, the first ques­ files' existence in his 1947 book, Alsos, and tion in the minds of all ten scientists was, is it Gen. Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan true? Have the Americans really built a Project, dipped into them freely for his own bomb? "If the Americans have a uranium 1962 memoir, Now It Can Be Told. But British bomb then you're all second-raters," said Otto authorities sealed the files for the next 30 Hahn. "Poor old Heisenberg." years. Last fall the physicist Nicholas Kurti The question of morality arose. Carl Fried­ orchestrated a noisy public campaign for their rich von Weizsacker, Heisenberg's close friend release. and protege, said in the first few minutes, "I Declassified in February, the Farm Hall re- think its dreadful of the Americans to have September 1992 33 he could not get away from the fact that he was working for Germany. Hahn replied that he too loved his country and that, strange as it might appear, it was for this reason that he had hoped for her defeat.... They continued to discuss the same theme as before, that they had never wanted to work on a bomb and had been pleased when it was decided to concen­ trate everything on the engine [reactor]. Heisenberg . feels himself that had they been in the same moral position as the Ameri­ cans and had said to themselves that nothing mattered except that Hitler should win the war, they might have succeeded, whereas in fact they did not want him to win .... They then went on to discuss the feelings of the British and American scientists who had per­ fected the bomb and Heisenberg said he felt it was a different matter in their case as they considered Hitler a criminal." In later years, sometimes in nearly identical words, Heisenberg often repeated these re­ The Gennan done it. I think it is madness on their part." marks-save one. So far as we know, he never physicists were Heisenberg did not let the remark go un­ again said, "they might have succeeded" if detained at Fann Hall, challenged. "One can't say that," he respond­ they had wanted Hitler to win the war. a country house near ed. "One could equally well say, 'That's the '1\vo others discussed the moral issues as Cambridge, England, quickest way of ending the war.' " well-Weizsacker and Karl Wirtz, who had that was seeded with "That's what consoles me," said Hahn. been a student of Heisenberg's at Leipzig. microphones. Hahn needed consoling. He had contemplat­ Heisenberg, Weizsacker, and Wirtz, in fact, NATIONAL AACHWES ed suicide in 1939 when he first realized that had been in charge of the principal German ef­ his December 1938 discovery of fission might fort to build a working reactor.