Operation Epsilon
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Operation Epsilon was the codename of a program in which Allied forces at the end of World War II detained ten German scientists who were thought to have worked on Nazi Germany's nuclear weapon/power program, at Farm Hall, a wiretapped house in Godmanchester, England (near Cambridge), from May 1 to December, 1945. The goal was to determine how close the Germans had been to constructing an atomic bomb, by listening to their conversations.
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[edit] Farm Hall transcripts
The results of the transcripts were inconclusive; there were indications that many of the scientists were aware they were probably being listened in on and were not always being frank. On July 6, the microphones picked up the following conversation between Werner Heisenberg and Kurt Diebner, both of whom had worked on the German nuclear project:
- Diebner: "I wonder whether there are microphones installed here?"
- Heisenberg: "Microphones installed? (laughing) Oh no, they're not as cute as all that. I don't think they know the real Gestapo methods; they're a bit old-fashioned in that respect."
Most historians suspect that Heisenberg's response was not genuine.
All of the scientists expressed shock when informed of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The transcripts seem to indicate that the physicists, in particular Heisenberg, had overestimated the amount of enriched uranium that an atomic bomb would require, and that the German project was at best in a very early, theoretical stage of thinking about how atomic bombs would work. After first puzzling over whether or not the report was genuine, the scientists then contemplated how the bomb was made and why Germany was not able to produce one. Some of the scientists indicated that they were happy that they had not been able to build a nuclear bomb for Adolf Hitler, while some of the others, more sympathetic to the Nazi party, were dismayed at having failed. Otto Hahn, one of those who were grateful that Germany had not built a bomb, chided those who had worked on the German project, saying "If the Americans have a uranium bomb then you're all second-raters."
Some of the scientists had almost nothing to do with the nuclear project. Hahn, for example, had discovered nuclear fission in December 1938, but otherwise had no participation. Max von Laue was, like Hahn, an ardent anti-Nazi and had not done any work relating to wartime physics. In the transcripts, Hahn contemplates suicide after learning of the bombing of Hiroshima, believing himself personally responsible.
The transcripts were originally sent as reports to British military officers, and were then forwarded to the U.S. War Department, where they eventually made it to General Leslie Groves of the Manhattan Project, as part of Project Alsos. In February 1992 they were declassified and published.
[edit] German scientists kept at Farm Hall
- Erich Bagge
- Kurt Diebner
- Walther Gerlach
- Otto Hahn
- Paul Harteck
- Werner Heisenberg
- Horst Korsching
- Max von Laue
- Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
- Karl Wirtz
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Operation Epsilon: The Farm Hall Transcripts. Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing; Los Angeles: University of California Press (November 1993), 313. ISBN 0-520-08499-3., with an introduction by Sir Charles Frank
- Bernstein, Jeremy, David Cassidy (November 1995). Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall. New York: Springer-Verlag, 457. ISBN 1-56396-258-6.
- Goldberg, Stanley, and Thomas Powers. "Declassified files reopen "Nazi bomb" debate", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 48:7 (September 1992): pp. 32-40.
