Volume 39, Number 14 · August 13, 1992
The Farm Hall Transcripts: The German Scientists and the Bomb
By Jeremy Bernstein
One of the great puzzles of the Second World War is that the Germans failed to make the atomic bomb. While much has been written about this there has always been a missing piece: the explanation of the Germans themselves. Such German testimony that we have had was written well after the fact and could have been self-serving. But it has been known for nearly fifty years that ten of the leading German nuclear scientists were interned in England in the summer and fall of 1945 and their conversations were recorded. The transcripts of these recordings were classified by the British government as 'TOP SECRET' and were not available to the public until January of this year. They make up an extremely dramatic and revealing historical document. What follows is an edited version of part of the transcripts, which deals with the reaction of the Germans when they learned about Hiroshima, to which I have added my own commentary. To make the significance of the transcripts clear, some historical introduction is needed.
Feature, 8683 words
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