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Eavesdropping on Hitler’s Reich
“ON THE WHOLE,” said Heisenberg to his crony Weizsäcker afterwards,
“I find the situation satisfying.”
“I should say,” Weizsäcker agreed, “Blackett is a sensible man
with whom one can get down to brass tacks.”
Since it was likely that the British would detain Heisenberg and
Hahn longer than the rest, the two men plotted how to avoid Wirtz
getting too much power at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute. They both
liked Professor Blackett. “Yesterday,” said Weizsäcker, “I overheard
him saying something which prejudiced me enormously in his favour.
I do not know exactly what question he was asked, but he
replied that in his experience when physicists start meddling in
politics then they become just like other politicians.”
AS THE WEEKS passed, Heisenberg and Weizsäcker debated more
frequently the merits of working in Russia. For Diebner, Bagge,
Korsching and the others there could be no alternative to Germany.
Weizsäcker was almost pathologically preoccupied with the fear
that, if they resumed nuclear research under Allied supervision, the
“Werewolves” – the Nazi underground which Dr. Ley and Dr. Goebbels
had called into existence in the last hours of the Third Reich
– would assassinate them as collaborators.
Heisenberg proposed that they reactivate the Deutsche Physikalische
Gesellschaft, a relatively non-political body transcending the
various zones. Gerlach reminded him of the Gauvereine. Finance
already existed. “We still had money from the Reichsforschungsrat
left in Hechingen,” said Heisenberg, “100,000 marks. I put it in my
Institute’s account for safety.” Gerlach admitted, “Officially, I have
half a million marks in a special account in Munich. . . It was transferred
to my bank, the Hypotheken- und Wechselbank.” “If we can
save that money somehow,” agreed Heisenberg, “we should do so at
all costs and use it for research in some form.”
Clutching at straws, they saw their best hope of release in Professor
Blackett. On September 15 Heisenberg drafted a letter to the
professor, after much discussion with the others. They agreed there
would have to be some kind of Allied control of their future research,
otherwise, said Heisenberg, “All that will really be left to us
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