The Farm Hall Scientists: the United States, Britain, and Germany in the New Atomic Age, 1945-46

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The Farm Hall Scientists: the United States, Britain, and Germany in the New Atomic Age, 1945-46 The Farm Hall Scientists: The United States, Britain, and Germany in the New Atomic Age, 1945-46 by Mary A. McPartland B.A. in History and Spanish, May 2003, Regis University A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 31, 2013 Dissertation directed by Hope M. Harrison Associate Professor of History and International Affairs The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Mary Ann McPartland has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of July 23, 2013. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. The Farm Hall Scientists: The United States, Britain, and Germany in the New Atomic Age, 1945-46 Mary A. McPartland Dissertation Research Committee: Hope M. Harrison, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, Dissertation Director James Hershberg, Professor of History and International Affairs, Committee Member Andrew Zimmerman, Professor of History and International Affairs, Committee Member ii ©Copyright 2013 by Mary A. McPartland All rights reserved iii Acknowledgments Thank you to the many people who have been generous with their knowledge, time, and friendship during the process of researching and writing this dissertation. First and foremost, I thank my adviser, Hope Harrison, for the time she has spent reading, commenting on, and discussing my work, always encouraging me onward. I am very grateful to have had you as my guide on this journey. Feedback from my dissertation committee has also shaped my dissertation for the better. Jim Hershberg has been a great source of research suggestions, critiques, and more research suggestions. Thank you for your enthusiasm and your ability to remember sources. Andrew Zimmerman, Kathy Olesko, and Michael Dennis have challenged me to think about my dissertation in a bigger picture context. I thank all of my committee members for a spirited discussion at my dissertation defense. It was a great experience. My experience as a participant in the Nuclear Boot Camp sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Nuclear Proliferation International History Project and Roma Tre University has connected me to a wonderful group of scholars who work on nuclear issues and history. Thank you to my “class” of 2011 – Mara Drogan, Sasha Hoffman, Sitara Noor, Anna Weichselbraun, Christine Leah, Kristine Bergan, Lodovica Clavarino, Miles Link, Lucky Asuelime, Rodrigo Mallea, Frédéric Gloriant, Kapil Patil, Oleg Zhuravlev, and honorary member Carlo Patti – and to those of you who I’ve met from the 2012 and 2012 cohorts for your inspiration, passion, and curiosity about nuclear history. I hasten to add Flavia Gasbarri, Giordana Pulcini, and Tim McDonnell to that group, of course! And a very big thank you to all of the instructors who taught at the Nuclear Boot Camp. The example of your scholarship and the generosity of your time shines bright. iv Thank you in particular to Leopoldo Nuti, Marty Sherwin, and David Holloway for finding time to discuss parts of my research. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to present and discuss my research at a handful of conferences during the writing process. I appreciate how comments from Peter Westwick, Michael Gordin, and William Glenn Gray have encouraged me to think about my research in new ways. My fellow panelists at the past two Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations meetings, Mara Drogan, Carlo Patti, and Alex Wellerstein, set great examples for scholarship and fun. Thank you to everyone who has helped with my research, especially all of the archivists, librarians, and library and archives staff who have pointed me in the right direction along the way. I am especially grateful to Adam Ganz for discussing his own research about his father’s role at Farm Hall and for putting me in touch with other individuals with connections to Farm Hall. Fritz and Susan Lustig shared afternoon tea and their memories of working for the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre. Marcial Echenique gave me a tour of his home of many years, Farm Hall, and we discussed the history of the house. Thank you to George Washington University’s History Department for many years of financial and intellectual support. Thank you in particular to Michael Weeks, who keeps the whole ship sailing in the right direction. My work has been shaped for the better by comments from my History Department’s writing group. Thank you all for your feedback. Outside of the writing group, Elizabeth Charles, Sara Berndt, Bell Clement, and Julia Sittmann have provided critiques, suggestions, and encouragement as necessary. I thank them, as well as Andrea v O’Brien, Janet Kilian, Natalie Deibel, and Tamar Rabinowitz, for their friendship throughout grad school. You make my world (academic and otherwise) a better place. Finally, thank you to my family for their love and support. vi Abstract The Farm Hall Scientists: The United States, Britain, and Germany in the New Atomic Age, 1945-46 In late April and early May 1945, members of the Manhattan Project’s foreign intelligence group, the Alsos Mission, captured ten German nuclear scientists. The group, which included luminaries such as Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, and Max von Laue, spent their first two months in captivity in France and Belgium, where they were held at American-controlled locations but overseen by a British intelligence officer. In July 1945, the scientists were brought to Farm Hall, a country house near Cambridge, England, where their conversations were monitored for the next six months. Farm Hall has previously been written about in relation to debates about German nuclear scientists’ wartime research or as the result of the Alsos Mission. This dissertation examines the Farm Hall detention in a broader political context. Using sources from British and American archives, this dissertation demonstrates Farm Hall’s connection to three key issues to which American and British officials devoted considerable attention: domestic and international control of nuclear science; the occupation of Germany; and the shifting geopolitics of the immediate postwar period, which soon became the Cold War. Farm Hall was important because these officials – especially in the Manhattan Project – treated it that way. When they selected which scientists to detain, American and British suspicions and fears about French nuclear research and socialist leanings were at least as important as their interest in investigating German research. After the bombing of Japan, British officials advocated repatriating the group but ongoing objections from Manhattan Project officials delayed the scientists’ vii return to Germany until January 1946. Fears about the Soviet Union and France affected decisions about the scientists’ repatriation, as did concerns about how nuclear science could be controlled in occupied Germany. The US and Britain aimed to prevent the scientists from working for other countries, especially Germany, France, and the Soviet Union. viii Table of Contents Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Abstract ............................................................................................................................. vii List of Figures ......................................................................................................................x List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... xi Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Alsos Investigations in France and Germany, and Operation Harborage, August 1944-May 1945 ...........................................................26 Chapter 2: The German Scientists’ Detention in France and Belgium, May-June 1945.............................................................................................................58 Chapter 3: Detention at Farm Hall, July-September 1945 .................................................99 Chapter 4: Decisions to End the Farm Hall Detention, October-December 1945 ............................................................................................147 Chapter 5: The Farm Hall Scientists’ Return to Germany, 1946 .....................................189 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................240 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................256 ix List of Figures Figure 1. House at Le Vésinet…………………………………..…………..............…....69 Figure 2. Farm Hall…………………………………..…………..............……………..103 x List of Abbreviations ACAE: Advisory Committee on Atomic Energy BAOR: British Army of the Rhine CFM: Council of Foreign Ministers CSDIC: Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre FIAT: Field Information Agency, Technical JCS: Joint Chiefs of Staff NDRC: National Defense Research Committee OSRD: Office of Scientific Research and Development TA: Tube Alloys SHAEF: Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces USFET: United States Forces, European Theater Abbreviations in Footnotes CAC: Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College,
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