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Eavesdropping on Hitler’s Reich
“Too forceful, you think, “ agreed Heisenberg, with perhaps illconcealed
relief. “It is a very risky game and there is a very good
chance that, if we do make such a daring coup, the opposition will
bring forth all its hatred of the Germans and they will say: ’Well,
on the whole, they have, after all, all tried to help the Nazis; they
may not have achieved an atomic bomb, but had they done so, they
would naturally have given it to Hitler.’”
Currying favour with the British, on November 13 Heisenberg
compiled for Commander Welsh of M.I.6 a list of prominent young
German physicists. Wirtz was horrified: “It’s wrong. I wouldn’t give
any names. . . I do not mind dealing with the Commander, but I
don’t trust him. I have another reason for not doing it: After the coming
war with the Russians, if Germany is occupied by Russia, they
will say: ’Who gave lists to the English?’ (They will find the lists somewhere
in Germany.) And then one would be in a fearful hole.”
Diebner asked if he had discussed this with Heisenberg.
“No,” said Wirtz. “It makes me uncomfortable when our fellows
give them such lists.”
THE DESPERATE MOOD dissolved on November 16, 1945: in a
move reminiscent of the award of the Nobel Prize to Carl Ossietzky
in 1935, although he was languishing in a Nazi concentration
camp, the Swedish Government announced that it had awarded the
Nobel Prize for chemistry to Otto Hahn. He would have to go to
Stockholm to receive it.
HARTECK: They cannot make you give your word not to say where
you have been and with whom.
HAHN: Out of the question!
HARTECK: They won’t make you give your word, but they will say:
“Of course . . . please don’t say with whom you are.”
HAHN: I should tell them, “I have friends in Sweden, such as
Professor Günzel (?), who has a very good wine cellar. I cannot guarantee
– you know what old German students are – not to get a bit tight
in a friendly way. I obviously can’t give you my word for what might