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Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

147 points by trymas 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
martin_a 8y ago
As a German I would love to have read it in German or hear the audio files. Nevertheless an interesting piece of history.
- jkovacs 8y ago
  Same here. I tracked down the German version on their website here: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/deu/German101ed.pdf http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/deu/German101ed.pdf (PDF)
  - martin_a 8y ago
    Thank you very much for that!
  - SiempreViernes 8y ago
    These are possibly a re-translation, supposedly the german originals were lost, at least that was the situation in 2013: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/09/13/what-did-the-nazis-know-about-the-manhattan-project/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/09/13/what-did-the-nazis... (third paragraph)
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Me too!
andrew_ 8y ago
Fascinating stuff, really interesting characters. I for one never knew the Germans were pursuing fission for the production of "engines". Do yourselves a favor and read the entire transcript. The comments about how they see history being written, specifically about the German contributions, comes across as particularly naive but evident of men who were clearly distraught and disoriented. And their predictions about Stalin and Russia were ominous but nearly correct several times over.
- matt4077 8y ago
  The terminology was obviously not settled at this point. I’m almost certain ‚engine‘ refers to a reactor.
- marksweston 8y ago
  > Fascinating stuff, really interesting characters. I for one never knew the Germans were pursuing fission for the production of "engines". Do yourselves a favor and read the entire transcript. I'm fairly sure that by "engines" they meant reactors.
  - mgoetzke 8y ago
    They talk about a 'Maschine' in the German version 'a machine' and clearly mean a machine to produce energy i.e a reactor.
sanqui 8y ago
Highlight for me: >WEIZSÄCKER: I don't think we ought to make excuses now because we did not succeed, but we must admit that we didn't want to succeed. If we had put the same energy into it as the Americans and had wanted it as they did, it is quite certain that we would not have succeeded as they would have smashed up the factories. >WEIZSÄCKER: One can say it might have been a much greater tragedy for the world if Germany had had the uranium bomb. Just imagine, if we had destroyed LONDON with uranium bombs it would not have ended the war, and when the war did end, it is still doubtful whether it would have been a good thing.
- matt4077 8y ago
  Von Weizsäcker, and his family, are extremely interesting. The father was a somewhat reluctant ambassador to Britain. The four brothers all were highly successful, as a physicist, a politician (President of Germany in the 90s), an economist, and a political scientist. I had the honor to study with the economist. I rarely get the explicit idea that someone is smarter or dumber than me. But with him, it was so obvious I skipped right over jealousy straight to awe and enjoyment. There is also a play, “Copenhagen”, featuring three or four possible versions of a meeting of WeizsÄcker. Heisenberg, and Bohr.
  - mgoetzke 8y ago
    Richard von Weizsäcker (President of Germany) was fabulous. Every interview worth reading, every word well chosen. Nobody since has lived up to that high standard yet in my opinion.
    - olaf 8y ago
      No coin without flipside: "... Er war - für die Bundesrepublik in dieser Form bis heute einmalig - der intellektuelle Gegenentwurf zum Kanzler, und er hat diese Rolle auch gerne angenommen. Im privaten Leben war er zwar oft unbeherrscht, hochfahrend und anmaßend. Untergebene schurigelte er zuweilen aus nichtigem Anlass. Doch seine öffentlichen Auftritte inszenierte Weizsäcker untadelig. ..." Source [german]: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/richard-von-weizsaecker-im-alter-von-94-jahren-gestorben-a-1016056.html http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/richard-von-weizsa...
porpoisely 8y ago
What an interesting read. Also, is it just me or are there a surprising number of german related topics on the frontpage right now? "We only had one man working on it and they may have had ten thousand" This is why I always chuckle at the ww2 "documentaries" positing the possibility of german or japanese bomb. Nevermind that both parties were preoccupied fighting far stronger and larger opponents ( US, British Empire, Soviet Union, China ), they lacked the resources, economic power and infrastructure to construct one before the US. We had a much larger economy and resource potential than germany and japan. Just like we do today. It was a race neither had a chance of winning. Another interesting read is the military's view on hiroshima and nagasaki. Most military leaders saw it as serving no military purpose. So ultimately, hiroshima and nagasaki were the largest human experimentation in ww2. It was a predominately a radiation test on civilian populations and cities. Something we'd continue doing on unsuspecting pacific islanders decades after ww2.
- skh 8y ago
  After the Germans surrendered my dad's division was scheduled to be transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. At least that is what they were told. He was happy to hear of the bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima since from his perspective it caused the Japanese to surrender. Of course it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan. Politically the U.S. has not been a nation to stomach large numbers of its soldiers being killed. The actions on Iwo Jima and Okinawa were far more bloody than the public cared for. How many more such battles would a war weary public have endured? Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets but they were political targets. I don't know if the bombings were morally right or wrong and can see the argument both ways. But from at least one drafted soldier's perspective they were a good thing.
  - gandhium 8y ago
    > it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan They were specifically mentioned in emperor's address. Yes, they caused the surrender. > Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets They were military targets. There was army HQ, troops stationed there, factories which were producing military goods.
remon 8y ago
Such an amazing read. What positively surprised me, but perhaps shouldn't have, is that they seem almost relieved they didn't get there first. It's reassuring in a way I have trouble verbalising.
- lqet 8y ago
  If you happen to be in the Stuttgart / Tübingen area of Germany, you should visit the experimental reactor in Haigerloch, now a museum [1]. You really get the impression that the team around Heisenberg was trying to build a reactor to generate energy, but you have to be careful: I am not sure that if they would've gotten to a state where a bomb was also feasible, they would've been openly (or even secretly) against building it. This quote by Heisenberg makes it seem like he thought about this quite a bit during his time at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut, and maybe came to a personal conclusion: HEISENBERG: One can't say that. One could equally well say "That's the quickest way of ending the war.” [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forschungsreaktor_Haigerloch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forschungsreaktor_Haigerloch
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  Some of them were relieved but some of them weren't. There was Gerlach's reaction described later in the document. "7. HAHN and HEISENBERG discussed the matter alone together. HAHN explained to HEISENBERG that he was himself very upset about the whole thing. He said he could not really understand why GERLACH had taken it so badly. HEISENBERG said he could understand it because GERLACH was the only one of them who had really wanted a German victory, because although he realized the crimes of the Nazis and disapproved of them, 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. ..." Then there was also this bit: "... BAGGE: That's not true. You were there yourself at that conference in Berlin. I think it was on 8 September that everyone was asked – GEIGER, BOTHE and you, HARTECK, were there too– and everyone said that it must be done at once. Someone said 'Of course it is an open question whether one ought to do a thing like that.' Thereupon BOTHE got up and said 'Gentlemen, it must be done.' Then GEIGER got up and said 'If there is the slightest chance that it is possible – it must be done.' That was on 8 September '39. WEIZSÄCKER: I don't know how you can say that. 50% of the people were against it. HARTECK: All the scientists who understood nothing about it, all spoke against it, and of those who did understand it, one third spoke against it. ..."
ghaff 8y ago
Operation Epsilon is a pretty good (if probably overly literal) play about Farm Hall. Worth going to see if you get a chance.
mikeash 8y ago
> WEIZSÄCKER: I think it's dreadful of the Americans to have done it. I think it is madness on their part. > HEISENBERG: One can't say that. One could equally well say "That's the quickest way of ending the war.” And there’s seven decades’ worth of debate summed up in an instant on the day of the first bombing. Something to keep in mind next time I feel tempted to argue about it.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  Capitulation could have ended the war even quicker, at the speed of a telegram. Clearly, that cannot be the only criterion. (not seeking to argue with you, I'm replying to Heisenberg so to speak)
  - mikeash 8y ago
    I imagine there’s an implied “with them as the winners” on the end.
erentz 8y ago
Plugged it in a previous thread but will plug it as relevant again, since I see debate in this thread about Japanese surrender and wheather the Germans were really developing the bomb. Have a read of Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg, he was involved and saw a lot of the nuclear planning during the Cold War. It’s pretty clear from his retelling that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were not essential to end the war. Japan was days away from surrender, and we killed more people in a firebomb raid than with the A-Bomb anyway, so it’s not like they weren’t already suffering citywide destructions. In fact Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two cities kept off of the firebombing list simply to still have test targets for the A-Bomb. On the German front Hitler apparently discontinued the nazi program when he found out it was going to take too long for his timeline to win the war. In Cold War terms there’s almost too much disturbing in the book to list. But one thing it brought home to me was that we should have a “no first use” policy like other countries, but we don’t because we like to threaten their use. And we have absolutely no need for land based ICBMs anymore given we have SLBMs more than capable of destroying the world, the ICBMs are a strategic liability (targets) and yet instead of getting rid of them we are planning to spend over $100b to replace them.
- iguy 8y ago
  An under-emphasised point: If defeating Japanese fascism was a valid war aim, then the bomb was a really efficient weapon. Even if mining the harbors was much cheaper & had more military effect. The lesson from Versailles is that surrender wasn't enough to defeat German militarism, just a few years later they could spin stories about the army being stabbed in the back... but such stories didn't sell so well in 1950, 1960, with Soviet & US tanks facing each other in Berlin. The US ability to fly over in 1 plane, 1 bomb, 1 city was another really hard-to-deny reality. And: It's not clear that "no first use" policies are anything more than PR tools. IIRC it emerged that not one of the USSR war plans for Germany was nuclear-free.
dash2 8y ago
Dürrenmatt's famous play The Physicists has a very similar setting, I wonder if he was inspired by this at all.
newsgremlin 8y ago
>HEISENBERG: I am still convinced that our objective was really the right one and that the fact that we concentrated on uranium may give us the chance of collaboration. I believe this uranium business will give the Anglo–Saxons such tremendous power that EUROPE will become a bloc under Anglo–Saxon domination. If that is the case it will be a very good thing. I wonder whether STALIN will be able to stand up to the others as he has done in the past. Another timeline that most can be glad we didn't go down. America would be even more dominant over the western world. Russia even more on edge.
- lqet 8y ago
  Not sure if you are being sarcastic - but isn't he in 1945 correctly predicting the development of the western world over the next 30-40 years, in which the US were clearly the dominating NATO power? I don't think Heisenberg meant that the US will threaten European nations with annihilation.
  - dekhn 8y ago
    I'm having trouble parsing the quote, I think by 'Anglo-Saxon' he really means 'England and the US', and it's not really clear that England the US have true "power and control" over Europe. Instead what we see is a Europe dominated by England and Germany with large military influence by US.
    - iguy 8y ago
      It sounds like Heisenberg is predicting that the USSR would not be a major power in postwar Europe. And this didn't turn out to be the case. Whether this was a good thing or not, I think newsgremlin should ask some Poles.
      - biesnecker 8y ago
        Nobody thought the USSR would develop nuclear weapons as quickly as they did. Had it taken them an extra decade or so I think there's a very possible future where the United States strikes, with nuclear weapons if necessary, any site where another state was developing their own nukes, in order to maintain sole possession of the weapons.
tachang 8y ago
How did we end up purifying the amount of U235 needed? I saw on another page "General Leslie Groves consulted with lead scientists of the project and agreed to investigate simultaneously four separate methods of separating and purifying the uranium-235: gaseous diffusion, centrifuge, electromagnetic separation and liquid thermal diffusion." Seems like a ton of work.
Animats 8y ago
Previously on HN.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568250
fefe23 8y ago
Note how quickly they feel the need to defend themselves, why they couldn't get the bomb done in time. Considering their situation (prisoners of war in the UK), I find that instinct patently absurd. Over half of the transcript is them coming up with excuses why the Americans succeeded where they did not. Let it be a lesson about the human condition that the excuses all but eclipse the guilt over having attempted to build such a bomb themselves. Both the guild and envy are powerful emotions. Envy wins.
- macintux 8y ago
  I think the defensiveness only looks absurd in hindsight. They were wondering whether they’d go back, and how they’d be perceived/treated by their fellow Germans. Would they be perceived as traitors for failing to create the bomb?
qqn 8y ago
Overall a neat piece of history to read, to sit in that disbelief as fragments of the world start being lifted back up from the ground where they've shattered. Neat quotes: Heisenberg: I believe this uranium business will give the Anglo–Saxons such tremendous power that EUROPE will become a bloc under Anglo–Saxon domination. If that is the case it will be a very good thing. Heisenberg: [T]he days of small countries are over. Weizsäcker: Our strength is now the fact that we are 'un–Nazi'. Heisenberg: I believe that we are now far more bound up with the Anglo–Saxons than we were before as we have no possibility of switching over to the Russians even if we wanted to. On the other hand we can do it with a good conscience because we can see that in the immediate future Germany will be under Anglo–Saxon influence. Weizsäcker: If I ask myself for which side I would prefer to work of course I would say for neither of them. Weizsäcker: History will record that the Americans and the English made a bomb, and that at the same time the Germans, under the HITLER regime, produced a workable engine. In other words, the peaceful development of the uranium engine was made in Germany under the Hitler regime, whereas the Americans and the English developed this ghastly weapon of war.

147 points by trymas 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

As a German I would love to have read it in German or hear the audio files. Nevertheless an interesting piece of history.

jkovacs 8y ago
Same here. I tracked down the German version on their website here: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/deu/German101ed.pdf http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/deu/German101ed.pdf (PDF)
- martin_a 8y ago
  Thank you very much for that!
- SiempreViernes 8y ago
  These are possibly a re-translation, supposedly the german originals were lost, at least that was the situation in 2013: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/09/13/what-did-the-nazis-know-about-the-manhattan-project/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/09/13/what-did-the-nazis... (third paragraph)
maxxxxx 8y ago
Me too!

andrew_ 8y ago

Fascinating stuff, really interesting characters. I for one never knew the Germans were pursuing fission for the production of "engines". Do yourselves a favor and read the entire transcript. The comments about how they see history being written, specifically about the German contributions, comes across as particularly naive but evident of men who were clearly distraught and disoriented. And their predictions about Stalin and Russia were ominous but nearly correct several times over.

matt4077 8y ago
The terminology was obviously not settled at this point. I’m almost certain ‚engine‘ refers to a reactor.
marksweston 8y ago
> Fascinating stuff, really interesting characters. I for one never knew the Germans were pursuing fission for the production of "engines". Do yourselves a favor and read the entire transcript. I'm fairly sure that by "engines" they meant reactors.
- mgoetzke 8y ago
  They talk about a 'Maschine' in the German version 'a machine' and clearly mean a machine to produce energy i.e a reactor.

sanqui 8y ago

Highlight for me: >WEIZSÄCKER: I don't think we ought to make excuses now because we did not succeed, but we must admit that we didn't want to succeed. If we had put the same energy into it as the Americans and had wanted it as they did, it is quite certain that we would not have succeeded as they would have smashed up the factories. >WEIZSÄCKER: One can say it might have been a much greater tragedy for the world if Germany had had the uranium bomb. Just imagine, if we had destroyed LONDON with uranium bombs it would not have ended the war, and when the war did end, it is still doubtful whether it would have been a good thing.

matt4077 8y ago
Von Weizsäcker, and his family, are extremely interesting. The father was a somewhat reluctant ambassador to Britain. The four brothers all were highly successful, as a physicist, a politician (President of Germany in the 90s), an economist, and a political scientist. I had the honor to study with the economist. I rarely get the explicit idea that someone is smarter or dumber than me. But with him, it was so obvious I skipped right over jealousy straight to awe and enjoyment. There is also a play, “Copenhagen”, featuring three or four possible versions of a meeting of WeizsÄcker. Heisenberg, and Bohr.
- mgoetzke 8y ago
  Richard von Weizsäcker (President of Germany) was fabulous. Every interview worth reading, every word well chosen. Nobody since has lived up to that high standard yet in my opinion.
  - olaf 8y ago
    No coin without flipside: "... Er war - für die Bundesrepublik in dieser Form bis heute einmalig - der intellektuelle Gegenentwurf zum Kanzler, und er hat diese Rolle auch gerne angenommen. Im privaten Leben war er zwar oft unbeherrscht, hochfahrend und anmaßend. Untergebene schurigelte er zuweilen aus nichtigem Anlass. Doch seine öffentlichen Auftritte inszenierte Weizsäcker untadelig. ..." Source [german]: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/richard-von-weizsaecker-im-alter-von-94-jahren-gestorben-a-1016056.html http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/richard-von-weizsa...

porpoisely 8y ago

What an interesting read. Also, is it just me or are there a surprising number of german related topics on the frontpage right now? "We only had one man working on it and they may have had ten thousand" This is why I always chuckle at the ww2 "documentaries" positing the possibility of german or japanese bomb. Nevermind that both parties were preoccupied fighting far stronger and larger opponents ( US, British Empire, Soviet Union, China ), they lacked the resources, economic power and infrastructure to construct one before the US. We had a much larger economy and resource potential than germany and japan. Just like we do today. It was a race neither had a chance of winning. Another interesting read is the military's view on hiroshima and nagasaki. Most military leaders saw it as serving no military purpose. So ultimately, hiroshima and nagasaki were the largest human experimentation in ww2. It was a predominately a radiation test on civilian populations and cities. Something we'd continue doing on unsuspecting pacific islanders decades after ww2.

skh 8y ago
After the Germans surrendered my dad's division was scheduled to be transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. At least that is what they were told. He was happy to hear of the bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima since from his perspective it caused the Japanese to surrender. Of course it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan. Politically the U.S. has not been a nation to stomach large numbers of its soldiers being killed. The actions on Iwo Jima and Okinawa were far more bloody than the public cared for. How many more such battles would a war weary public have endured? Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets but they were political targets. I don't know if the bombings were morally right or wrong and can see the argument both ways. But from at least one drafted soldier's perspective they were a good thing.
- gandhium 8y ago
  > it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan They were specifically mentioned in emperor's address. Yes, they caused the surrender. > Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets They were military targets. There was army HQ, troops stationed there, factories which were producing military goods.

remon 8y ago

Such an amazing read. What positively surprised me, but perhaps shouldn't have, is that they seem almost relieved they didn't get there first. It's reassuring in a way I have trouble verbalising.

lqet 8y ago
If you happen to be in the Stuttgart / Tübingen area of Germany, you should visit the experimental reactor in Haigerloch, now a museum [1]. You really get the impression that the team around Heisenberg was trying to build a reactor to generate energy, but you have to be careful: I am not sure that if they would've gotten to a state where a bomb was also feasible, they would've been openly (or even secretly) against building it. This quote by Heisenberg makes it seem like he thought about this quite a bit during his time at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut, and maybe came to a personal conclusion: HEISENBERG: One can't say that. One could equally well say "That's the quickest way of ending the war.” [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forschungsreaktor_Haigerloch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forschungsreaktor_Haigerloch
ThrowawayR2 8y ago
Some of them were relieved but some of them weren't. There was Gerlach's reaction described later in the document. "7. HAHN and HEISENBERG discussed the matter alone together. HAHN explained to HEISENBERG that he was himself very upset about the whole thing. He said he could not really understand why GERLACH had taken it so badly. HEISENBERG said he could understand it because GERLACH was the only one of them who had really wanted a German victory, because although he realized the crimes of the Nazis and disapproved of them, 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. ..." Then there was also this bit: "... BAGGE: That's not true. You were there yourself at that conference in Berlin. I think it was on 8 September that everyone was asked – GEIGER, BOTHE and you, HARTECK, were there too– and everyone said that it must be done at once. Someone said 'Of course it is an open question whether one ought to do a thing like that.' Thereupon BOTHE got up and said 'Gentlemen, it must be done.' Then GEIGER got up and said 'If there is the slightest chance that it is possible – it must be done.' That was on 8 September '39. WEIZSÄCKER: I don't know how you can say that. 50% of the people were against it. HARTECK: All the scientists who understood nothing about it, all spoke against it, and of those who did understand it, one third spoke against it. ..."

ghaff 8y ago

Operation Epsilon is a pretty good (if probably overly literal) play about Farm Hall. Worth going to see if you get a chance.

mikeash 8y ago

> WEIZSÄCKER: I think it's dreadful of the Americans to have done it. I think it is madness on their part. > HEISENBERG: One can't say that. One could equally well say "That's the quickest way of ending the war.” And there’s seven decades’ worth of debate summed up in an instant on the day of the first bombing. Something to keep in mind next time I feel tempted to argue about it.

PavlovsCat 8y ago
Capitulation could have ended the war even quicker, at the speed of a telegram. Clearly, that cannot be the only criterion. (not seeking to argue with you, I'm replying to Heisenberg so to speak)
- mikeash 8y ago
  I imagine there’s an implied “with them as the winners” on the end.

erentz 8y ago

Plugged it in a previous thread but will plug it as relevant again, since I see debate in this thread about Japanese surrender and wheather the Germans were really developing the bomb. Have a read of Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg, he was involved and saw a lot of the nuclear planning during the Cold War. It’s pretty clear from his retelling that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were not essential to end the war. Japan was days away from surrender, and we killed more people in a firebomb raid than with the A-Bomb anyway, so it’s not like they weren’t already suffering citywide destructions. In fact Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two cities kept off of the firebombing list simply to still have test targets for the A-Bomb. On the German front Hitler apparently discontinued the nazi program when he found out it was going to take too long for his timeline to win the war. In Cold War terms there’s almost too much disturbing in the book to list. But one thing it brought home to me was that we should have a “no first use” policy like other countries, but we don’t because we like to threaten their use. And we have absolutely no need for land based ICBMs anymore given we have SLBMs more than capable of destroying the world, the ICBMs are a strategic liability (targets) and yet instead of getting rid of them we are planning to spend over $100b to replace them.

iguy 8y ago
An under-emphasised point: If defeating Japanese fascism was a valid war aim, then the bomb was a really efficient weapon. Even if mining the harbors was much cheaper & had more military effect. The lesson from Versailles is that surrender wasn't enough to defeat German militarism, just a few years later they could spin stories about the army being stabbed in the back... but such stories didn't sell so well in 1950, 1960, with Soviet & US tanks facing each other in Berlin. The US ability to fly over in 1 plane, 1 bomb, 1 city was another really hard-to-deny reality. And: It's not clear that "no first use" policies are anything more than PR tools. IIRC it emerged that not one of the USSR war plans for Germany was nuclear-free.

dash2 8y ago

Dürrenmatt's famous play The Physicists has a very similar setting, I wonder if he was inspired by this at all.

newsgremlin 8y ago

>HEISENBERG: I am still convinced that our objective was really the right one and that the fact that we concentrated on uranium may give us the chance of collaboration. I believe this uranium business will give the Anglo–Saxons such tremendous power that EUROPE will become a bloc under Anglo–Saxon domination. If that is the case it will be a very good thing. I wonder whether STALIN will be able to stand up to the others as he has done in the past. Another timeline that most can be glad we didn't go down. America would be even more dominant over the western world. Russia even more on edge.

lqet 8y ago
Not sure if you are being sarcastic - but isn't he in 1945 correctly predicting the development of the western world over the next 30-40 years, in which the US were clearly the dominating NATO power? I don't think Heisenberg meant that the US will threaten European nations with annihilation.
- dekhn 8y ago
  I'm having trouble parsing the quote, I think by 'Anglo-Saxon' he really means 'England and the US', and it's not really clear that England the US have true "power and control" over Europe. Instead what we see is a Europe dominated by England and Germany with large military influence by US.
  - iguy 8y ago
    It sounds like Heisenberg is predicting that the USSR would not be a major power in postwar Europe. And this didn't turn out to be the case. Whether this was a good thing or not, I think newsgremlin should ask some Poles.
    - biesnecker 8y ago
      Nobody thought the USSR would develop nuclear weapons as quickly as they did. Had it taken them an extra decade or so I think there's a very possible future where the United States strikes, with nuclear weapons if necessary, any site where another state was developing their own nukes, in order to maintain sole possession of the weapons.

tachang 8y ago

How did we end up purifying the amount of U235 needed? I saw on another page "General Leslie Groves consulted with lead scientists of the project and agreed to investigate simultaneously four separate methods of separating and purifying the uranium-235: gaseous diffusion, centrifuge, electromagnetic separation and liquid thermal diffusion." Seems like a ton of work.

Animats 8y ago

Previously on HN.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568250

fefe23 8y ago

Note how quickly they feel the need to defend themselves, why they couldn't get the bomb done in time. Considering their situation (prisoners of war in the UK), I find that instinct patently absurd. Over half of the transcript is them coming up with excuses why the Americans succeeded where they did not. Let it be a lesson about the human condition that the excuses all but eclipse the guilt over having attempted to build such a bomb themselves. Both the guild and envy are powerful emotions. Envy wins.

macintux 8y ago
I think the defensiveness only looks absurd in hindsight. They were wondering whether they’d go back, and how they’d be perceived/treated by their fellow Germans. Would they be perceived as traitors for failing to create the bomb?

qqn 8y ago

Overall a neat piece of history to read, to sit in that disbelief as fragments of the world start being lifted back up from the ground where they've shattered. Neat quotes: Heisenberg: I believe this uranium business will give the Anglo–Saxons such tremendous power that EUROPE will become a bloc under Anglo–Saxon domination. If that is the case it will be a very good thing. Heisenberg: [T]he days of small countries are over. Weizsäcker: Our strength is now the fact that we are 'un–Nazi'. Heisenberg: I believe that we are now far more bound up with the Anglo–Saxons than we were before as we have no possibility of switching over to the Russians even if we wanted to. On the other hand we can do it with a good conscience because we can see that in the immediate future Germany will be under Anglo–Saxon influence. Weizsäcker: If I ask myself for which side I would prefer to work of course I would say for neither of them. Weizsäcker: History will record that the Americans and the English made a bomb, and that at the same time the Germans, under the HITLER regime, produced a workable engine. In other words, the peaceful development of the uranium engine was made in Germany under the Hitler regime, whereas the Americans and the English developed this ghastly weapon of war.