An unprocessed draft manuscript being reconstructed ... - WNLibrary

Eavesdropping on Hitler’s Reich
equivalent of 20,000 tons of high explosive is terrific. . .
HAHN: At any rate, Heisenberg, you’re just second-raters and you
may as well pack up.
HEISENBERG: I quite agree.
HAHN: They are fifty years further advanced than we.
HEISENBERG: . . . They must have spent the whole of their £500
million in separating isotopes; and then it’s possible. . .
HAHN: I didn’t think it would be possible for another twenty
years.
WEIZSÄCKER: I don’t think it has anything to do with
uranium. . .
HEISENBERG: I don’t believe that it has anything to do with
uranium. . .
GERLACH: They have got “93” and have been separating it for two
years – somehow stabilised it at low temperature and separated “93”
continuously.
HAHN: But you need the Maschine [atomic pile] for that.
DIEBNER: We always thought we would need two years for one
bomb. . .
WIRTZ: I’m glad we didn’t have it.
WEIZSÄCKER: That’s another matter. . .
HAHN: Döpel was the first to discover the increase in neutrons
[essential for the chain reaction].
HARTECK: Who is to blame?
[A VOICE]: Hahn is to blame.
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.”
HAHN: That’s what consoles me.
Their subsequent discussion showed that Heisenberg had not grasped
the essential design of the atomic bomb, whereby sub-critical
components were imploded by conventional explosives to produce
a super-critical mass. According to his primitive calculations on the
mean free paths the bomb would have such a diameter that one
or two tons of pure uranium-235 would be needed – impossible
amounts to obtain.