Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pee Kenyanas show. Thomas,
Speaker 1: we got a new series that you wanted to start here.
Speaker 1: You mentioned it, and I was like, we need to
Speaker 1: jump all over it, especially since you mentioned the Oppenheimer
Speaker 1: movie that's out and that this would be, uh, this
Speaker 1: would be a good supplement or side by side to it.
Speaker 1: So tell everybody a little bit about what's your what's
Speaker 1: you're thinking.
Speaker 2: I want to discuss the German atomic bomb, but like
Speaker 2: everything about it, like if such a program existed, you know,
Speaker 2: conceptually what you know, what what was the cattos for it?
Speaker 2: You know what what was the state of of science
Speaker 2: at the time. And also in in kind of more
Speaker 2: apocal terms, you know, I want to talk about nuclear
Speaker 2: weapons generally, or atomic weapons in that era. You know,
Speaker 2: people people I misunderstanding about about about the bomb and
Speaker 2: about nuclear weapons generally. They uh, people like Thomas Schilling
Speaker 2: and like Herman Khan. They made the point that nuclear
Speaker 2: weapons are like any other weapons, they're just far far
Speaker 2: more muscle bound. The uh, the ability to impose you know,
Speaker 2: devastating attrition in an instant the system, you know, marks
Speaker 2: them apart, as does you know, very like strategic variables
Speaker 2: relating to their destructive power and creates peculiar paradigms. I mean,
Speaker 2: oh that is true, okay, but they don't have they
Speaker 2: don't have great utility in any kind of like general
Speaker 2: applied sense, and there's there's actually very few paradigms where
Speaker 2: they really are are a game changer or that they
Speaker 2: really advance, you know, the the themiliar rangers of the state,
Speaker 2: you know, instantaneously, you know, like it there's this kind
Speaker 2: of like there's this kind of like mythical belief and
Speaker 2: super weapons just I mean, it's like an ongoing thing
Speaker 2: that it just seems to have people assign a kind
Speaker 2: of mystique, you know, to wartech and I guess like
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons could be viewed it's kind of like the
Speaker 2: zenus of that. So I mean there's just that, But
Speaker 2: beyond that, there's deliberately cultivated narratives around around the issue. Historically,
Speaker 2: like the development of the first atomic bomb. A lot
Speaker 2: of this has to do with anti fascism, you know,
Speaker 2: like ideologically anti fascism. A lot of this has to
Speaker 2: do with rationalizations for you know, America's development of the
Speaker 2: bomb and attempt to defend its monopoly on such capabilities,
Speaker 2: you know, the there so there's this idea that was
Speaker 2: presented by the War Department in the aftermath of you know,
Speaker 2: the the nuclear assault in Japan that well, we developed
Speaker 2: this thing because you know, the Third Reich was was
Speaker 2: feverously developing an atomic capability, and you know that would
Speaker 2: have that would have that would have changed everything, you know,
Speaker 2: and and this this evil tyrannical regime set benting world domination.
Speaker 2: Could I hold hold the planet hostage with atomic weapons?
Speaker 2: That's and that's preprocess for a lot of reasons, but
Speaker 2: it does beg the question as to was was the
Speaker 2: German Reich developing an atomic bomb actively? Uh? That's a
Speaker 2: complicated question for a lot of reasons, not the least
Speaker 2: of which not not uh not, the least of which
Speaker 2: not for reasons, not the least of which is the
Speaker 2: fact that Oppenheimer was not the quote father of the
Speaker 2: atomic bomb. Now there was Einstein. A man named Otto
Speaker 2: Hahn was and this didn't used to be controversial. Okay,
Speaker 2: Who is Ato Haanohan was born in eighteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: He died when he was quite elderly, in July nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight. Han is the father of nuclear chemistry and
Speaker 2: specifically nuclear fission. Okay, Hahn and his assistant, a lady
Speaker 2: named let's say Miitner, they discovered the radioactive isotopes of radium, thorium,
Speaker 2: protecting them, and most importantly, uranium. In the second episode,
Speaker 2: I'm no physics guy, but I do know something as
Speaker 2: much as a layman can kind of understand these things.
Speaker 2: We'll get into why uranium is so important and like
Speaker 2: what uranium actually is. I'm gonna like bore everybody to death,
Speaker 2: but it's important to understand and applied capacities. You know,
Speaker 2: how atomic research developed into a a a discreetly military endeavor. Okay,
Speaker 2: but Han also through his experience, through his experiments, which
Speaker 2: were myriad, he discovered the phenomena what's called atomic recoil
Speaker 2: in nuclear nuclear isomerism and UH he pioneered UH a
Speaker 2: lot of the techniques that ultimately gave rise to carbon dating. Okay,
Speaker 2: So the guy was a The guy was a was
Speaker 2: was was an intellectual giant. But quite literally everybody subsequent,
Speaker 2: every every researcher engaged in nuclear science and specifically UH
Speaker 2: weapons based nuclear research. There they were literally they were
Speaker 2: literally borrowing from Han's research Okay, that's indisputable. And like
Speaker 2: I said, at in the epoch he was credited as such,
Speaker 2: it's this idea that you know, like, oh, that the
Speaker 2: Germans were just like these crazy fools and they didn't
Speaker 2: understand physics or something or I mean, that's as nine
Speaker 2: to be unbelief. Also like this idea that like, oh,
Speaker 2: like you know, because of anti Semitism, you know, the
Speaker 2: Germans didn't have a coterie of of top signific minds
Speaker 2: like that, that's preposterous. Like not only is that preposterous,
Speaker 2: but quite literally, you know, the technology that facilitated the
Speaker 2: development of nuclear weapons was literally invented by the Germans. Okay,
Speaker 2: now for background too, Han he received in ninety forty
Speaker 2: four the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. And and just we'll
Speaker 2: get into this again in a second and third episodes.
Speaker 2: I think we I think it should probably be a
Speaker 2: three part series. But the but but just nuclear fission
Speaker 2: was that wasn't is the basis for nuclear reactors as
Speaker 2: well as nuclear weapons. Okay, it makes all those things
Speaker 2: pot not just possible, but concealable. Okay. Interestingly, interestingly, during
Speaker 2: World War One, because uh Hans a little bit older,
Speaker 2: he served with love Landvan Regiment, which you know in
Speaker 2: the Kaisers in the kaiser Reich was like a reserve regiment,
Speaker 2: generally consistent, like it was kind of like the Home
Speaker 2: Guard or like what the British is called the Territorial Army.
Speaker 2: But uh, he actually was mobilized and deployed and uh
Speaker 2: he was Uh he was attached to a chemical weapons unit,
Speaker 2: chemical warfare unit headed by Fritz Hobert on the Western Front,
Speaker 2: Eastern Front, and Italian Front. He was in heavy action
Speaker 2: and yet he was awarded the Iron Crossed second Class.
Speaker 2: So I mean, he why do I raise this specifically?
Speaker 2: It's not just because it's it's not just because it's
Speaker 2: interesting trivia, but it to I am, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: demonstrate the aspect of Hans' character. Hans was not averse
Speaker 2: to the you know, applying science in in in military endeavors, okay,
Speaker 2: in including the somewhat horrible endeavor of chemical warfare. All right,
Speaker 2: This becomes an issue later on as to what Hans's
Speaker 2: view was of, you know, applying nuclear fission to to
Speaker 2: weapons development. Okay. And plus it's just interesting background and
Speaker 2: there's I I I believe this is very much I
Speaker 2: believe there's very much a natural progression conceptually, okay, from
Speaker 2: chemical warfare to nuclear warfare, and I that it's arguable,
Speaker 2: but I think it's important. And I think people people
Speaker 2: understand people who understand institutional thinking and the men who
Speaker 2: populated was institutions and the way they kind of paradigms
Speaker 2: that they play with, as it were. I think that
Speaker 2: it's somewhat inarguable. But this kind of thing was very
Speaker 2: much on on on the minds of of uh of
Speaker 2: European physicists. Okay, the concrete engineering of what became the
Speaker 2: atomic bomb wasn't and we'll get into why that was.
Speaker 2: But uh, it's like I said, there's this like mythology,
Speaker 2: there's this punative mythology that it's that both somehow simultaneously.
Speaker 2: The Germans were idiots who had no idea how to
Speaker 2: apply uh, what was called the new physics to war
Speaker 2: fighting and the engineering of weapons. But in the other hand,
Speaker 2: they were like these maniacs hell bent on and developing
Speaker 2: an atomic bomb, and you know, only the only only these,
Speaker 2: like only the only these, like you know, genius askenasm
Speaker 2: like you know, we're able to save the day. And
Speaker 2: of course, like Einstein is the father of nuclear physics,
Speaker 2: and and Oppenheimer is the fire of the atomic bomb.
Speaker 2: That's total nonsense, okay, And that's not a partisan take
Speaker 2: and arguable for those I'm sure are gonna send me
Speaker 2: hate messages about it. That's just not true. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I can you know, I can source all of these claims.
Speaker 2: The let's jump to the end of the war, because
Speaker 2: I think Irving's book The Virus House as well as
Speaker 2: which is a source I rely on tremendously. It's the
Speaker 2: best book in the German talkic bomb. There's also a
Speaker 2: book by not By It's about It's about Edmund Teller,
Speaker 2: And the narrative kind of begins on the date that
Speaker 2: the of the Hiroshima attack, because that's really people don't
Speaker 2: realizing the degree to or some Mahatant project truly was
Speaker 2: secret and at uh the attack that shocked the world.
Speaker 2: It's rather amazing the degree to which the Manhattan Project
Speaker 2: was able to maintain operational security. But I say let's
Speaker 2: start there for a few reasons, as will become evident.
Speaker 2: It's the point at which the world was quite literally
Speaker 2: introduced to the atomic bomb, including a coterie of German
Speaker 2: scientists who had been taken prisoner by six and squirrelled
Speaker 2: off to the United Kingdom. So August sixth ninety forty five,
Speaker 2: the BBC Home Service they broadcast the first news that
Speaker 2: an atomic bomb had been dropped in Hiroshima. The boat
Speaker 2: announced that the bomb in question contained as much explosive
Speaker 2: power as two thousand of the rif ten Ton bombs.
Speaker 2: President Truman had declared that the Germans had worked feverishly
Speaker 2: to find a way to use atomic energy but had failed.
Speaker 2: Now at a premise it's called farm Hall. This is
Speaker 2: a country house near Huntington in UH. The in in England,
Speaker 2: a coterie of German physicists were being held prisoner there
Speaker 2: incident what was called Operation Epsilon. Operating Epsilon was the
Speaker 2: code name for this endeavor that took place in May
Speaker 2: one in June thirtieth, nineteen forty five, whereby the Allies
Speaker 2: identified ten German scientists who were believed of worked on
Speaker 2: the German atomic bomb program. And UH these men were
Speaker 2: they were captured, and they were again they were squirrelled
Speaker 2: away to UH to England and detained. And this in
Speaker 2: this kind of mansion house near Cambridge called farm Hall. Okay,
Speaker 2: the proximity to the university is not an accident either,
Speaker 2: because it was it was a weird kind of incarceration
Speaker 2: that these guys endured, because on the one hand, it
Speaker 2: was very punitive. On the other hand, you know, if
Speaker 2: they if you wanted these men to speak, you know,
Speaker 2: London wanted these men to speak to the you know,
Speaker 2: their own academics about the you know, about the bomb
Speaker 2: and things and if you're and if you're just you know,
Speaker 2: kind of like treating people like for for them to live,
Speaker 2: you know, like like you know, like abject and squalor
Speaker 2: or whatever, or you know, or abject prisoners in the
Speaker 2: traditional sense that wouldn't have happened. So, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it kind of reminds me of the early days of
Speaker 2: like spears attention Okay, although obviously he ultimately endured true horrors,
Speaker 2: as we got into in an earlier series. But the uh,
Speaker 2: the goal nominally, and I think this is basically true.
Speaker 2: What what m I six and the US War Department
Speaker 2: both claimed independently was that the goal was to determine
Speaker 2: how close the German roy had come of the development
Speaker 2: of a viable atomic bomb. First among the detainees with
Speaker 2: Ata Han okay it uh. And this was attested to
Speaker 2: not just by not not just by his fellow attainees,
Speaker 2: but but by his interrogators and and and the you know,
Speaker 2: in the m I six men who were guarding him
Speaker 2: and debriefing him. There there was concern that Han would
Speaker 2: commit suicide because he was so beside himself that this
Speaker 2: bomb had been created, and he blamed himself. You know,
Speaker 2: it's not uh like you know that this was this
Speaker 2: is very poignant, okay, and I don't. This is on
Speaker 2: my mind, like as I watched the open Hiram movie
Speaker 2: the other day, Like this idea that like Oppenheimer's single
Speaker 2: like single humanly created the atomic bomb and lived with
Speaker 2: this terrible guilt, that's ridiculous, Like that's not you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's as if they like extrapolated like Hans's
Speaker 2: life and mind and memories and you know, transposed it
Speaker 2: out to this kind of character of Oppenheimer, who has
Speaker 2: has some relation to the historical man was become kind
Speaker 2: of like this, you know, it's almost like mythical figure.
Speaker 2: But the uh A major thh Writtener. He was the
Speaker 2: British officer in charge at farm Hall. He he he,
Speaker 2: he asked for Han, and he brought to his office
Speaker 2: immediately to make sure that his he was stable of mind,
Speaker 2: and also just wanted to speak to him about, you know,
Speaker 2: what had just happened. According to Rittner, Han was horrified
Speaker 2: and again he felt personally responsible for the that's one
Speaker 2: hundred thousands of people, he told written er Han, Han
Speaker 2: told Writtener, And apparently according to in the and witnesses
Speaker 2: not just written her himself, Rittner developed something of a
Speaker 2: rapport okay during his time there, and uh Han had
Speaker 2: told Writtener, you know, on on multiple occasions that he
Speaker 2: he'd had forebodings about the potentialities of of his discovery
Speaker 2: of of nuclear fission, but he never thought that, you know,
Speaker 2: a weapon would be rapidly engineered and deployed with that
Speaker 2: kind of destructive power, like not because it was impossible.
Speaker 2: But we'll get into what what you know, he thought
Speaker 2: would give a wo would would give the scientific community
Speaker 2: pause and other things. Now, who are the other detainees
Speaker 2: of farm Hall. There were doctor Eric Baggi or Bog,
Speaker 2: doctor Kurt Diener, a professor named Walter Garreluck, odo Han,
Speaker 2: of course, Paul Hartek, the famous Werner Heisenberg, a man
Speaker 2: named Horst Coursing, a professor named Max von Lau, another
Speaker 2: professor named Carl Frederick von Weisker, and the doctor Carl Wurtz.
Speaker 2: Now the the the premises at Farmer Hall were bugged. Okay,
Speaker 2: everywhere was from you know, the kind of common recreation
Speaker 2: area to the private court of the men. And this
Speaker 2: wasn't just this wasn't just incidental. One of the key
Speaker 2: purposes of detaining the German atomic scientists was the eavesdrop
Speaker 2: on the conversations between that, you know, the men themselves.
Speaker 2: Now as the what the myrophones picked up as the
Speaker 2: as the news was was h relaid, was that Heisenberg.
Speaker 2: Heisenberg disputed the possibility that the Americans even had a
Speaker 2: bomb and dropped it, Like he didn't dispute that Hiroshimos destroyed.
Speaker 2: But uh he he. He believed it was some kind
Speaker 2: of conventional like some kind of muscle bound conventional weapon
Speaker 2: or series of firebomb raids like had been conducted over Tokyo.
Speaker 2: Over one hundred thousand people died in twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: Like he thought this was He thought this was propaganda, Okay,
Speaker 2: not because it would be impossible to create a bomb,
Speaker 2: but he you know, the scientific community was it was
Speaker 2: a peculiar thing. And the even even you know, even
Speaker 2: on the EVA hostilities, the number of men who truly understood,
Speaker 2: you know, the new physics and were insinuated into, you know,
Speaker 2: the applied research of these things, it was incredibly small fraternity, Okay,
Speaker 2: And men like that then kind of looked at themselves,
Speaker 2: with the exception of a certain coterie they ended up
Speaker 2: in America, they looked at themselves as being part of
Speaker 2: a community that kind of transcended politics. Okay. Heisenberg he
Speaker 2: was personally, uh friendly with a doctor Goudsmith, who was
Speaker 2: the head of the American Intelligence Mission, which had debriefed
Speaker 2: when he was initially taken prisoner, and gout Schmidt, uh
Speaker 2: was a fellow physicist, and they Heisenberg Gousmit knew of
Speaker 2: each other, and uh, Heisenberger developed like a pretty good
Speaker 2: rapport with him, and uh he'd asked gods Goutschmidt whether, uh,
Speaker 2: whether atomic weapons research was something that the Allies were
Speaker 2: endeavoring to uh, you know, take on or if I
Speaker 2: or if there was any you know, background of such
Speaker 2: apply experiments, you know, the end goal of uh of
Speaker 2: weaponizing atomic energy. And Goutsman assured him that was not
Speaker 2: the case. And I Goutsmant I guarantee had no idea
Speaker 2: about the mainhadan project. He was speaking totally honestly. Okay,
Speaker 2: so maybe it was naivete some people might say in
Speaker 2: the part of Heisenberg thinking like that, you know, the
Speaker 2: kind of the kind of the kind of fraternity of
Speaker 2: pure science would mean that you know, no one would know,
Speaker 2: no colleague would a lie to another, and such an
Speaker 2: important and like literally earthshaking matter. But that again it
Speaker 2: was different times, it was different. You know, it was uh,
Speaker 2: these guys weren't ordinary academics or scientists, you know, they
Speaker 2: they were like the elite of the elite of the elite.
Speaker 2: And also again like Goutsmith I believe was telling the truth,
Speaker 2: like he didn't know about the Manhaddan project, you know.
Speaker 2: And plus two, I mean, like the it shocked everybody,
Speaker 2: was like the war in Europe was done, Like Japan
Speaker 2: was utterly destroyed and couldn't even defend itself. You know,
Speaker 2: that's why was like that, like there's there's this lame
Speaker 2: like defense, like oh, Japan had to be invaded because
Speaker 2: they were just crazy and like a million Americans would
Speaker 2: have died like that, that's ridiculous. The bomb was deployed.
Speaker 2: These things developed their own momentum. The bomb was gonna
Speaker 2: be deployed somewhere. It had been developed to destroy Europe,
Speaker 2: which is totally insane if you think about that, you know,
Speaker 2: like genociding your own race with with nuclear weapons. But
Speaker 2: it but aside from that, it's I don't think the
Speaker 2: Soviets would have stopped, you know, and they you know,
Speaker 2: they they were, they were, they were actively the Soviets
Speaker 2: had had gone to war against Japan in the final days,
Speaker 2: you know, like who's to say, who's to say they
Speaker 2: would have abided, you know, Truman's demands had UH had
Speaker 2: the bombs plural not been deployed. But in any event,
Speaker 2: that's the rapidity to which too, that's something they keep
Speaker 2: in mind, like the kind of the core concepts of
Speaker 2: UH weaponizing nuclear energy. This is really only six years old, okay,
Speaker 2: So I believe there was something of this idea that
Speaker 2: America could just rapidly, you know, kind of develop a
Speaker 2: competency in the new physics, you know, and and within
Speaker 2: basically half a decade, you know, develop a weaponized capability
Speaker 2: like it seemed unlikely. You know, it's it was extraordinary
Speaker 2: and putting oneself in the shoes of Heisenberg, I mean,
Speaker 2: think about the disorientation of of what he had just
Speaker 2: endured and and kind of like what of the German
Speaker 2: like experience generally like in you know, ninety six. And
Speaker 2: finally too, the uh, the Americans in the British came
Speaker 2: who you know, in operational terms, they worked fairly closely
Speaker 2: in the immediate aftermath of the German defeat for for
Speaker 2: practical reason that those are political ones. The UH. The
Speaker 2: last German uranium pile laboratory to be seized, that was
Speaker 2: the library staffed by Issacar and verts. It was actually
Speaker 2: located in the French occupation zone. And UH, the US Army,
Speaker 2: with the sentence of the British at all costs, aimed
Speaker 2: to prevent radio active material and the research data from
Speaker 2: this pile laborate uranian pile laboratory from falling into French hands.
Speaker 2: Like they they were singularly fixated on this, okay, and
Speaker 2: the Germans knew this, and that's and that's how UH
Speaker 2: and that's why Wicker and Verts ended up in the
Speaker 2: hands of of the British and not the first. But
Speaker 2: the reasoning too, in Heisenberg's mind was like, okay, like
Speaker 2: if you, if you guys have the bomb, like why
Speaker 2: why why you fixated on you know, grabbing all the
Speaker 2: uranium you can and preventing it from falling into you know,
Speaker 2: rival hands or whatever like it just but again too nobody,
Speaker 2: nobody knew about the Manhattan Project other than those involved,
Speaker 2: and you know, the uh, the the the five stars
Speaker 2: around Truman himself, but uh. Overall the feelings of the Germans,
Speaker 2: Irving characterized it as a sense of recrimination. They were
Speaker 2: shocked by the fanaticism of people who are not under
Speaker 2: direct like physical threat, who just developed, like rapidly develop
Speaker 2: an atomic bomb at uh. Like in their mind, it's
Speaker 2: like the kind of fanaticism that had been like a
Speaker 2: sterically attreated to them in the Japanese by the New Dealers.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like you guys, haven't you guys have
Speaker 2: you guys have an ocean between the people you claim
Speaker 2: your enemy and you're like feverishly developing atomic bombs like
Speaker 2: that's there's something frankly insane about that. It.
Speaker 1: Uh, well, let me ask Han, could they could they
Speaker 1: really have been shocked?
Speaker 3: I mean it, how would Han and Eisenberg? How how
Speaker 3: up would they have been on new deal? What the
Speaker 3: new Deal was bringing in?
Speaker 1: What what was basically going to happen where Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course this group of people once once uh control of
Speaker 1: the bomb, they're megal and moniacal.
Speaker 2: Because these guys are scientists, not politicians. And again too
Speaker 2: it we're speaking of things that happened eighty years ago
Speaker 2: and that we take for granted like it didn't you know,
Speaker 2: and and and also I believe they thought that you know,
Speaker 2: the degree to which the degree to I mean, listen
Speaker 2: to listen to the Hitler's December eleventh, ninety forty one speech.
Speaker 2: You know, it's some people were people were somewhat flabberg
Speaker 2: acid that America was literally talking about making total war
Speaker 2: on Europe for frankly ambiguous reasons, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Then people didn't even there's a question as to whether
Speaker 2: you know, an atomic bomb would even work as intended.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a fact, there's a fact that we
Speaker 2: addressed at the beginning of you know what, military utility
Speaker 2: doesn't really have outside of very narrow kind of strategic paradigms,
Speaker 2: other than the fact that you can like kill a
Speaker 2: whole lot of people immediately, you know, and America had,
Speaker 2: Germany was in ruins, the Red Army was in Berlin.
Speaker 2: The Japanese, uh, Japan's literally a pile of rubble that
Speaker 2: was getting bombed the Stone Age every day. Like deploying
Speaker 2: uh like, like launching a nuclear attack on like a
Speaker 2: ruined country under those conditions, that's somewhat shocking, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, even even if one understands the character of
Speaker 2: the men in control of the enterprise. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't think I don't I don't think he was like feigning,
Speaker 2: putting on errors or something. And uh, like I said, too,
Speaker 2: these are the guys who actually made this possible. It
Speaker 2: wasn't Oppenheimer, it wasn't Einstein, you know, it wasn't in
Speaker 2: Rico Fermi. You know, it was these guys, you know,
Speaker 2: And it's I mean, there's something you know. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a trope that scientists are naive, but it's also kind
Speaker 2: of true. It was certainly true here. I mean, like
Speaker 2: I said, who are these guys faking it to? Like
Speaker 2: they you know, they had, they weren't. Uh and like
Speaker 2: none of these none of these guys were national socialist.
Speaker 2: It's not like they were going out like it's not
Speaker 2: like they were playing a gearing and saying like I
Speaker 2: got to protect the historical record and you know, wrong
Speaker 2: foot my enemies like that didn't even feature in the equation,
Speaker 2: you know, like Heisenberg was a national socialist. Hahn actually
Speaker 2: like was at odds at the regime not to do
Speaker 2: something liberal, but he just he just didn't like national
Speaker 2: socialism and he didn't you know, he was he wasn't
Speaker 2: a guy who was willing to unlike von Braun and
Speaker 2: it was, you know, willing to go along and be pragmatic.
Speaker 2: You know, these guys were, you know, but von Braun
Speaker 2: was a was a was basically like a you know,
Speaker 2: a mechanical engineer and like an aviation prodigy, you know,
Speaker 2: like he wasn't. That's a different Like the theoretical physics
Speaker 2: is a weird thing, and it's like it's it's it's
Speaker 2: it's very it's it's like both concrete and abstract, and
Speaker 2: it tends to it tends to with it tends to
Speaker 2: with a track kind of you know, dreamy hyper intellectual
Speaker 2: personalities and stuff. So no, I don't I don't think
Speaker 2: there's anything fake about it. But the uh Han Hanna
Speaker 2: described and people and and independent witnesses a tested to this,
Speaker 2: like people had been with him when he was first uh,
Speaker 2: when he had his first breakthroughs in his you know,
Speaker 2: fish and research. When Han first learned the potentiality or
Speaker 2: the implications. Rather, it wasn't clear what the concrete potential
Speaker 2: was of uranum uranium fishing discovery. He said that, considering
Speaker 2: that war was obviously imminent, he contemplated uh, seizing as
Speaker 2: much uranium as possible, the majority of which in Europe
Speaker 2: was in Belgium, and literally throwing it into throwing it
Speaker 2: into the sea, or otherwise hiding it to ward off
Speaker 2: some kind of catastrophe, you know, resulting from a one
Speaker 2: of the combat and states attempting to weaponize it. And
Speaker 2: then he realized that's not practicable, and also, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I get, but I mean, I you know, that's that's
Speaker 2: that's that's that's the core, because the core of your question,
Speaker 2: like Han had those kinds of thoughts because that in
Speaker 2: his mind, that's what any remotely kind of like morally,
Speaker 2: anybody was remotely normal, normal like moral constitution would have
Speaker 2: those kinds of thoughts like he wouldn't just like, you know,
Speaker 2: there's something wrong here with the Americans and British. It's
Speaker 2: like putting up huge factories and like feverishly like you know,
Speaker 2: producing pure uranium like without without question because like you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like why like was was was the Red
Speaker 2: Army storming across America? Was like no, I mean was
Speaker 2: with a JIP and he's threatening America Like no, I mean,
Speaker 2: like there's something there's something unseemly about it, you know,
Speaker 2: and like it's not I I I totally understand what
Speaker 2: he's getting at or what's getting at. And I'm not
Speaker 2: at all some peacenick. In fact, like it's scale on
Speaker 2: these questions. I think I'm pretty callous, Okay, at least
Speaker 2: That's what I'm told. The interestingly coursing what he stated
Speaker 2: in the course of this conversation with his fellow detainees
Speaker 2: after the broadcast that you know, Hiroshima had been destroyed.
Speaker 2: What he said and what he what he and what
Speaker 2: he reiterated later was that the level of cooperation, you know,
Speaker 2: under military auspices obviously that facilitated the Manhattan Project, that
Speaker 2: would have been impossible in Germany. You know, he made
Speaker 2: the point. He's like, he's like, you know, if the
Speaker 2: men in the room, he's like, some of us didn't
Speaker 2: wouldn't have wanted to do it on principle. But uh
Speaker 2: he's like, even if we had, you know, there would
Speaker 2: have there would have been different ideas on how to
Speaker 2: proceed with this, and there would have been different ideas
Speaker 2: on you know, managing outcomes potentially you know, and like
Speaker 2: and trying to like build in you know, safeguards into
Speaker 2: the into the structure itself, or you know, there would
Speaker 2: have been there would have been resentments from you know,
Speaker 2: taking orders from party men, you know. And that's your point. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the subtext of what he said. Of what Coursing
Speaker 2: said is that these men who worked on that man
Speaker 2: Handing project they were they were like absolute fanatics, like
Speaker 2: they were you know, they they were they were frankly crazy.
Speaker 2: And that uh yeah, that that goes without saying, especially
Speaker 2: if you consider the confessional background and motives and things
Speaker 2: of these men in America. I mean, but it the uh, now,
Speaker 2: what what was the background here of just gonna introduce
Speaker 2: the background of what if any understanding of the weapons
Speaker 2: potential of Hans experiments existed. On April twenty ninth, nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine, this was, uh, this was kind of when
Speaker 2: the world became aware of the potential of some kind
Speaker 2: of potential potentially you know, game changing of the new physics.
Speaker 2: Hans experiments and widely publicized obviously throughout Europe. And there's
Speaker 2: a French professor named Frederick jeelo or Jeloit. He was
Speaker 2: the son in law of Madame Curry. He reproduced Hans
Speaker 2: experiments meticulously and he and his team they were confirmed,
Speaker 2: uh like like it it was confirmed that like Han
Speaker 2: was you know what what what he what he had
Speaker 2: stated to have proven as regards, among other things, the
Speaker 2: existence in neutrons during the press of uranium fision and
Speaker 2: their situation like that that it was it was signed
Speaker 2: off on is yes, this is legitimate. Not a letter
Speaker 2: to Nature magazine, which in those days was was like
Speaker 2: a leading kind of like it was a combination that
Speaker 2: kind of like pop science stuff but also like major
Speaker 2: scientific discoveries that's where they would be featured in which
Speaker 2: it metally sounds weird today about it. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: the way things work. You know. It's this French team
Speaker 2: led by Joeloid. Their letter was titled quote Liberation of
Speaker 2: Neutrons and the nuclear explosion of uranium and uh essentially
Speaker 2: that was sort of like the first kind of like
Speaker 2: public declaration of uh, you know, nuclear fish and having
Speaker 2: like tremendous weapons potential. But I emphasized potential. You know,
Speaker 2: there was nothing there. There's nothing demonishably proven here. But uh,
Speaker 2: the uh what this led to was in the next
Speaker 2: few days and UH Gottingen, which is a renowned university town,
Speaker 2: or at least it was then in Germany at uh
Speaker 2: the Physics Colloquium. Uh, a guy named wil Helm hanld Hanley,
Speaker 2: who was Ah, he didn't know Han, but he was
Speaker 2: like a protege of him, because, like, you know, he
Speaker 2: was an up and coming physicist, you know, everybody you know,
Speaker 2: he was kind of the he was kind of like
Speaker 2: the grand old man everybody looked to. He read a
Speaker 2: short paper on, uh, what do you call the uranium
Speaker 2: burning engine? I mean we was talking about a nuclear reactor, okay,
Speaker 2: and that like little paper by this guy. The trajectory
Speaker 2: of German atomic research was basically going towards nuclear reactors.
Speaker 2: You know, the idea of like or like a uranium
Speaker 2: burning engine, okay, you know, like an endless energy source,
Speaker 2: and that frankly that would have solved what became Germany's
Speaker 2: quagmire militarily in part more so than an atomic bomb would.
Speaker 2: And that's a really interesting counterfactual. But that and amidst
Speaker 2: all of this kind of excitement, you know, it's got
Speaker 2: to be said, despite the impression people have, I mean
Speaker 2: not just court historians, even people who you know are
Speaker 2: are more kind of critical and they're thinking about historical topics.
Speaker 2: There's this idea that the so that that that the
Speaker 2: German Reich was some kind was almost some kind of
Speaker 2: like rightest mirror of the Soviet Union. It's not true
Speaker 2: at all. You know, like the National Socialist Party it was,
Speaker 2: it was it was literally elected Hitler himself by the
Speaker 2: Enabling Act and by various referendums. He had tremendous power.
Speaker 2: But even that wasn't really unprecedented, you know, like the
Speaker 2: Reich president had had literally like extra constitutional authority as
Speaker 2: he saw fit. But you know, the German state and
Speaker 2: the National Socialist Party were discreete entities and it it
Speaker 2: there were there were, there was tension there, like structurally,
Speaker 2: you know, and there was even beyond that, even uh,
Speaker 2: it wasn't it wasn't. It wasn't simply because there's plenty
Speaker 2: of professors who weren't National Socialists, even the guys who
Speaker 2: were basically sympathetic, like they didn't want the government messing
Speaker 2: in their affairs, you know, like these were not just
Speaker 2: guys who you know owed their oh their careers and prestige,
Speaker 2: you know, something the Berlin government had done for them,
Speaker 2: you know. And they also they didn't want to be
Speaker 2: ordered to work with other people, you know, like they
Speaker 2: that they didn't feel comfortable with or didn't you know,
Speaker 2: respect or whatever. It was like very provincial, kind of
Speaker 2: like very ego driven, but also just very you know.
Speaker 2: I mean that that's the nature of academ you know,
Speaker 2: and that's that's especially you know, especially the especially the
Speaker 2: hard sciences and especially what was then called the New physics,
Speaker 2: which was literally like the cutting edge of of a
Speaker 2: scientific endeavor, you know. So I mean it's some it
Speaker 2: was like trying to herd cats, you know. This this
Speaker 2: idea that you know, this is this idea that the
Speaker 2: Reich was like just some party state is nonsense, has
Speaker 2: this idea that like Germans like you know, some Prussian
Speaker 2: some Prussian officer types just like snapped his fingers and
Speaker 2: then like the crowd saw like, you know, do what
Speaker 2: they're told. Like that's that's nonsense too. Like it was uh,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's uh, it's it was. It was, uh,
Speaker 2: it was. It was highly chaotic, you know this Uh.
Speaker 2: The subsequent conference that was a that that was arranged
Speaker 2: based on all these based on all these you know
Speaker 2: kind of findings, and confirmed them, confirmed them, and and
Speaker 2: confirmed the research. It ultimately was uh held in secrecy
Speaker 2: at uh at in in Berlin at a building on
Speaker 2: uh Winter then Linden the U, and this was when
Speaker 2: the War Department U got very interested in what was
Speaker 2: going on the UH the War Office as well as
Speaker 2: Reich ministries attached to it actually or or just kind
Speaker 2: of like practically because they were in the same orbit
Speaker 2: or had overlapping series of authority. In a very short
Speaker 2: space of time. In nineteen thirty nine, had begun their
Speaker 2: own uranium research program. It was low key. It was
Speaker 2: basically uh, you know, corralling data that had already been produced,
Speaker 2: you know, in France and in the German Reich, you know,
Speaker 2: and kind of running a comparative analysis and trying and
Speaker 2: again like duplicating some of these experiments to make sure
Speaker 2: that you know, this was in fact the results were
Speaker 2: what they purported to be. And this led to UH.
Speaker 2: This led to a Hamburg professor, Hamburg professor named Paul
Speaker 2: Hartzek and his assistant, a guy named doctor Wilhelm Groth.
Speaker 2: They'd written a letter to the War Office just before UH,
Speaker 2: just before the Berlin conference and about ten days after
Speaker 2: the publication of the of the of the Paris of
Speaker 2: the French physicist letter Nature magazine. And this letter was
Speaker 2: cited again and again and again by American new dealer
Speaker 2: media as well as like oss types all in Sundry.
Speaker 2: The letter stated, quote, and this is the letter of
Speaker 2: the War Office, okay, by these by this Hamburg professor.
Speaker 2: It said, quote, we take the liberty of calling your
Speaker 2: attention to the newest development in nuclear physics, which, in
Speaker 2: our opinion, will probably make it pass to produce an
Speaker 2: explosive many orders of magnitude more powerful than the conventional ones.
Speaker 2: That wasn't really a groundbreaking statement. I mean, yeah, people
Speaker 2: speculated that that was true, and UH, Obviously, what was
Speaker 2: right into this statement was that, uh, this is some
Speaker 2: sort of a this is some sort of like uh
Speaker 2: you know, low key almost kind of hidden communication between
Speaker 2: German Scientific academ and the War Office saying like, look
Speaker 2: like this is not only possible, this is you know, essential.
Speaker 2: We've got to beat the allies the punch and you know,
Speaker 2: pursue this course of research. Essentially, like take this letter
Speaker 2: of the Fear and the Arments Ministry and like let's
Speaker 2: make it happen. There's no evidence that that's what this
Speaker 2: letter indicated, Okay, And frankly, like if that's what it was, like,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't open a letter be written, you know, like
Speaker 2: it's not really other things are done. But you know
Speaker 2: so I think some of what is argued around these
Speaker 2: these these surviving kind of statements my sort of say
Speaker 2: surviving I mean, you know, like a literal letter forum.
Speaker 2: I think some of is in bad faith. The uh
Speaker 2: you know, and again the uh something uh. The letter
Speaker 2: concluded with quote the country that makes first use of
Speaker 2: unsurpassable advantage over the others. I believe what he meant
Speaker 2: by it is just nuclear fission generally. And again, the
Speaker 2: trajectory of this kind of research was towards nuclear reactors, okay,
Speaker 2: or a uranium burning engine. I believe that's what they
Speaker 2: were getting at, and which is true, okay. I mean,
Speaker 2: any anybody who found a way to you know, utilize
Speaker 2: atomic energy for uh an inductil military purpose like yeah,
Speaker 2: obviously like first use compares confers a massive advantage. But
Speaker 2: I don't read it as being like again, some kind
Speaker 2: of secret agreement, you know, to pursue atomic weapons research
Speaker 2: in concert. And I don't read that final sentences a
Speaker 2: statement to the effect of, you know, we have got
Speaker 2: to develop and deploy atomic bombs as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: That's not in context, That's not what it means. And
Speaker 2: I'm not playing lawyer ball at all. And frankly too,
Speaker 2: it's a bit outside the scope. But the course of
Speaker 2: German scientific research, not just relating to the new physics,
Speaker 2: but even in conventional engineering and other things, it makes
Speaker 2: sense that a nuclear reactor would kind of be the
Speaker 2: would kind of be the holy grail of German research,
Speaker 2: if that makes any sense, you know, And again that
Speaker 2: would have alleviated not just emergent exigencies in the Second
Speaker 2: World War, but you know, problems that had compromised Germany's
Speaker 2: operational effectiveness and its ability to survive protracted wars as generally, Okay,
Speaker 2: I mean in the preceding you know, millennia or what
Speaker 2: have you, But that the reaction in London was especially
Speaker 2: kind of severe to the French physicist letter, you know,
Speaker 2: the Nature magazine letter. The British press when they you know,
Speaker 2: just like as they did subsequently when in sei wating
Speaker 2: mister Churchill into office, they undertook us like full court
Speaker 2: press full of lowered accounts of a new quote superbomb
Speaker 2: based on uranium fishing and that was being developed in Germany.
Speaker 2: You know, like they just presented this as a foremon conclusion,
Speaker 2: as a fact. You know. The four days after the
Speaker 2: letter appeared, both the British Treasury and the Foreign Office
Speaker 2: were approached uh by Sir Henry Tizzard. He was chairman
Speaker 2: of this commit chairman of the Committee on the Scientific
Speaker 2: Survey of Air Defense, which had outsized power, as did
Speaker 2: pretty much every everything related to the Air Ministry. I
Speaker 2: think we talked about that in our tertial series. He
Speaker 2: said that in uncertain terms Britain should take preemptive action
Speaker 2: to deny large sources of uranium to the Germans. And
Speaker 2: as I stated, the largest stockpile of uranium in Europe
Speaker 2: was in Belgium, and the the sizeable industry for extracting
Speaker 2: urate for extracting radium from uranium from uranium oars imported
Speaker 2: from the Belgian congo as well. So like get in Belgium,
Speaker 2: you didn't just have you know, like the raw stores
Speaker 2: of uranium. It was like the infrastruct sure to you know,
Speaker 2: process it in basic ways to make it utah. So
Speaker 2: essentially with Tizzard was suggesting or demanding perhaps was uh,
Speaker 2: you know that Britain find a way to you know,
Speaker 2: wage war on the continent and capture whatever uranium Belgium had,
Speaker 2: you know, with hostility, which operationally obviously there was that
Speaker 2: was not going to happen. But the fact that this
Speaker 2: was well within their contemplation, and I don't think this
Speaker 2: was just propaganda. In the case of the UK, I
Speaker 2: think they probably actually believed this. I mean, obviously their
Speaker 2: conceptual horizon was totally corrupted by this kind of hysterical
Speaker 2: idea of you know, Germany as our enemy, but within
Speaker 2: the bound irrationality of that that paradigm, I think they
Speaker 2: actually did believe that, uh, a fishion bomb was was
Speaker 2: was at that moment possible. And that's kind of a
Speaker 2: fascinating uh that that's kind of a there's a that's
Speaker 2: that's that's like it's like Frederic foresight stuff but in
Speaker 2: real life. And I think that's kind of fascinating. And
Speaker 2: there's many many intrigues, uh really you know, like espionage
Speaker 2: and stuff and and what have you that like around that.
Speaker 2: But I uh, I'm a I'm gonna stop here and uh,
Speaker 2: second episode, Uh, I think we'll have to go a
Speaker 2: little bit longer, and I want to get into the
Speaker 2: uh I want to get into with the actual Virus House,
Speaker 2: which is the title of the book, which was the
Speaker 2: dedicated research facility for the German atomic bomb, such that
Speaker 2: it could be said to have existed as a dedicated,
Speaker 2: dedicated program. And then in the third episode we'll deal
Speaker 2: with uh kind of like the aftermath and uh things
Speaker 2: of that nature. That sounds good.
Speaker 1: Are you going to address the popular conception that the
Speaker 1: Fear was adamant about getting a bomb and that the
Speaker 1: scientists were working against him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's basically like Heisenberg said and
Speaker 2: some of his colleagues said, when when he said that,
Speaker 2: you know, we didn't really want to develop a bomb.
Speaker 2: He was talking in terms of like personal conscience, not
Speaker 2: like the hell with Hitler unless sabotage the war efforts.
Speaker 2: It was that if you know, if they'd been ordered
Speaker 2: in it in a formal capacity, or if the or
Speaker 2: if the or if the atomic program had been like
Speaker 2: the rocket program and underdirect military authority, you know that
Speaker 2: they would have resisted that because you know, the unpredictability
Speaker 2: of outcomes and just kind of like the in their mind,
Speaker 2: like the naked immorality of of just unleashing that much
Speaker 2: power U when not you know, necessary for you know,
Speaker 2: in a matter of existential survival. I think that's uh,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the way to understand it. But people
Speaker 2: want people want to rehabilitate Heisenberg, and I mean they should, like,
Speaker 2: no German needs to be rehabilitated, but in their mind
Speaker 2: they want to think of Heisenberg and and Hans, you know,
Speaker 2: good guys. So they like exaggerate the degree to which
Speaker 2: you know, these men had some kind of ideological objection
Speaker 2: to finishism. But yeah, we'll get into that. We'll start
Speaker 2: with just like a brief understanding of what uranium is
Speaker 2: very much a layman. Okay, So I mean, like I,
Speaker 2: I'm not suggesting, I'm not being panantic like I when
Speaker 2: I started reading about this topic, like I had to
Speaker 2: read up on uranium. So I will take like ten
Speaker 2: million minutes next episode and like learn about our friend uranium,
Speaker 2: and then we'll get into you know, uh, we'll get
Speaker 2: into the uh the views of the of the warm
Speaker 2: and is re you know, contra the New Dealer War Department,
Speaker 2: you know, and and the kind of lack of a
Speaker 2: convergence respectively of uh of a common understanding of uh
Speaker 2: the military potential of atomic weapons. And you know, like
Speaker 2: I said, I I want to get into like the
Speaker 2: motivations of why America developed a bomb and uh, you
Speaker 2: know that's a complicated topic. But yeah, we'll try to
Speaker 2: wrap it up in three episodes.
Speaker 3: All right, do plugs and we'll end this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh. You can still find me on Twitter, which
Speaker 2: I guess that was X or whatever like formerly burb
Speaker 2: app capital R E A L underscore number seven hm
Speaker 2: A S seven seven seven. You can always find me
Speaker 2: on substack, which is my primary platform. It's real R
Speaker 2: e A E L Underscore Thomas seven seven dot subsec
Speaker 2: dot com. You know, it's find me on my website
Speaker 2: number seven H seven seven seven dot com. I'm a
Speaker 2: I'm preparing season two of the Mind Phaser podcast and
Speaker 2: as well as uh I'm going to Utah in a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks to film the first dedicated episode of
Speaker 2: Thomas TV on the channel. My YouTube channel is Thomas
Speaker 2: TV number seven him as TV. So exciting things are afoot.
Speaker 2: In addition, h to like this, you know, Pete and
Speaker 2: Keith Woods and other fellows are nice enough to host
Speaker 2: me and you know, like be looking out for that
Speaker 2: stuff too. But yeah, that's all I got.
Speaker 3: Thank you until the next time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you man.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pecana Show,
Speaker 1: Part two on what I'm calling the German Bomb series
Speaker 1: little mini series with Thomas. How are you doing, Thomas
Speaker 1: and where are we going today?
Speaker 2: I wanted to continue kind of with you know, the
Speaker 2: background of you know what the state of what was
Speaker 2: called the new physics was in the lead up to
Speaker 2: the Second World War, especially because as we touched on
Speaker 2: were than touchdown as we as we got into but
Speaker 2: not completely last time. There's this idea very much reinforced
Speaker 2: by the Oppenheimer's film, which in some ways I thought
Speaker 2: was a good film. In other ways I thought it
Speaker 2: was not a good film at all. I mean, well,
Speaker 2: we can get into that maybe when it's more apropos.
Speaker 2: But there's this narrative that there was this kind of
Speaker 2: mad race. There's two one or two narratives. It's either
Speaker 2: that there was this race by all major powers to
Speaker 2: weaponize atomic energy and feverishly you know, at Cambridge versus
Speaker 2: of Chicago, versus Berlin, you know, presumably somewhere in the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union. You know, this was all going on, and
Speaker 2: you know this, this desperate race was proverbially speaking, was
Speaker 2: one you know, by the Manhattan Project team. That's not
Speaker 2: true at all, Nothing like that was afoot. The other,
Speaker 2: the other, the other kind of narrative is that, you know,
Speaker 2: the Einstein Memo was born of some kind of secret
Speaker 2: knowledge Einstein presumably had, or that he had gleaned, you know,
Speaker 2: from the kind of German fraternity, as it were, of
Speaker 2: of you know, researchers in the new physics that you know,
Speaker 2: Heisenberg presumably was, you know, had come to in the
Speaker 2: knowledge presumably, you know, borrowing from Fermi's concrete experiments, that
Speaker 2: you know, uranium could be weaponized into a into a
Speaker 2: super bomb. So Einstein desperately, you know, contacted you know,
Speaker 2: people he knew and and then close to the New
Speaker 2: Deal regime. You know they you know, including people he
Speaker 2: talked about in another series, you know, on the Board
Speaker 2: of Jewish Deputies, the American Jewish Committee. They put him
Speaker 2: in touch with Sacks. You know, Uh Einstein, I said
Speaker 2: Rolys wall street Man, who then said, oh my god,
Speaker 2: you know this is you know, there's like like some
Speaker 2: corny movie plot, like you know that this evil Nazi
Speaker 2: regime is you know, months away from from this super weapon.
Speaker 2: You know, we've we've got to alert mister Roosevelt immediately.
Speaker 2: Like that. That's ridiculous. I mean, aside from the aside
Speaker 2: many like value judgments they were in about the combatant regimes,
Speaker 2: like this was not underway at all, like we talked
Speaker 2: about last time, literally on the Evil War in ninety
Speaker 2: thirty nine, the best minds in Germany. First of all,
Speaker 2: there was no there was no organization here, like the
Speaker 2: War Office, which itself was kind of a hodgepodge of
Speaker 2: of academics, you know, like bureaucratic administrators, you know, like
Speaker 2: party men, like guys, you know, like military men, at
Speaker 2: least in a liaison capacity, you know, who had some
Speaker 2: idea that you know, what's there that you know that
Speaker 2: there's a you know that there's some kind of applied
Speaker 2: potential you know, to atomic physics. But the direction they
Speaker 2: were going was what we consider to be, you know,
Speaker 2: conceptualizing what am I to a crude nuclear reactor. Okay,
Speaker 2: that did change somewhat as time went on, but there
Speaker 2: was never not only was there never uh a Third
Speaker 2: Reich version of the Manhattan Project underway, but that wasn't
Speaker 2: even within anybody's contemplation, and nor nor was the kind
Speaker 2: of organization in place to do that, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: anybody will tell you when you're talking about academics, especially
Speaker 2: men a top of their field and in some kind
Speaker 2: of experimental science, trying to organize these people in a
Speaker 2: dedicated capacity is like hurrying cats number one number two.
Speaker 2: You know. The Third Reich was really, uh, the Third
Speaker 2: Reich unlike the Soviet Union and frankly unlike the New
Speaker 2: Dealer United States. It was uh, it was just kind
Speaker 2: of like competing off in hostile like fiefdoms of authority,
Speaker 2: and these factions who really didn't like each other, who
Speaker 2: were kind of only bound by like faith in the fure.
Speaker 2: You know, like it's just kind of like messianic personage.
Speaker 2: I don't mean that in crude terms. They're on overly
Speaker 2: praising terms. It's just the reality. Okay. So like people
Speaker 2: have this kind of mistaken idea, you know, like we
Speaker 2: talked about before the Third Reich is kind of like
Speaker 2: this like fascistoid like version of the Soviet Union, where
Speaker 2: like from the top down just everything was you know,
Speaker 2: corralled into the service of the state and its military needs.
Speaker 2: Like that wasn't the case at all, and that that's
Speaker 2: one of the things that you know, the catalyst for
Speaker 2: Gerbal was total wascond be known as the as the
Speaker 2: Total warst speech. The catalyst for that was he was
Speaker 2: making the case like basically like begging a lot of
Speaker 2: some of the patrons of the party, like, look like,
Speaker 2: put us out your differences, that we have to mobilize completely,
Speaker 2: you know, if we're going to survive. And by that point,
Speaker 2: I mean the die was cast, you know, so it
Speaker 2: but be that as it may. I'll also say, finally,
Speaker 2: and then we'll get into the meat of this there's
Speaker 2: this idea in America, and I think, I mean even
Speaker 2: among historians with a critical eye, and even with some
Speaker 2: people who have military knowledge, I think the direct experience
Speaker 2: or based on their theoretical you know, endeavors, there's this
Speaker 2: idea that nuclear weapons there's kind of like this trump card,
Speaker 2: you know, or that you know, like Thomas Schelling said,
Speaker 2: and in the conducts he said it was correct that
Speaker 2: they're just like any other weapons, except owing to command
Speaker 2: and control nuances, you know, in the computerization and decision
Speaker 2: making a key junctures, and the destructive power of them.
Speaker 2: You know, they they're just capable of implementing far far
Speaker 2: more attrition, far far quicker than you know, conventional weapons.
Speaker 2: And that is the correct way to think about them
Speaker 2: in conditions of bipolarity as regards to the political map
Speaker 2: in general, parody in terms of strategic forces, and being
Speaker 2: in a military situation such as the world of nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine or even of nineteen forty three forty four,
Speaker 2: it's not clear how an atomic bomb would have helped Germany.
Speaker 2: I mean, Germany could have annihilated the UK, and I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: that would have helped. I mean in terms of obviously
Speaker 2: it could no longer be utilized as you know, US
Speaker 2: Army Air Corps and Royal Air Forces on singable aircraft
Speaker 2: carrier from which to you know, strategically bomb Germany with
Speaker 2: and conventional loads. But you know, the path of victory
Speaker 2: in World War Two for Germany is the conquest of
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. You know, Moscow has to fall in
Speaker 2: ninety forty one, and thereby, you know, Germany becomes a superpower.
Speaker 2: You know, it captures the Central Asian world island. If
Speaker 2: you want to use mckinder's language, okay, just you know,
Speaker 2: atomic bombing Moscow and killing you know, ten million Russians. Well,
Speaker 2: I mean the third right killed ten million Russians. I
Speaker 2: mean that did that win the war? You know, like
Speaker 2: I I think it was uh Ac mcdeinahjadd It was
Speaker 2: an interesting guy at least more I mean, he was
Speaker 2: at least the most interesting Iranian ahead of state since Komani.
Speaker 2: You know, he made the point when kind of Ntnya,
Speaker 2: who was at his most kind of historyonic. You know,
Speaker 2: it is freaking that everybody's developing a bomb. You know,
Speaker 2: all Israel's enemies are developing the bomb. You know, it's like,
Speaker 2: did the did nuclear weapons helped the Soviet Union? You know,
Speaker 2: like when the Soviet Union went down not with a bang,
Speaker 2: with a whimper. I think it had uh. I think
Speaker 2: it had something like twelve thousand warheads you know that
Speaker 2: could be married uh launch vehicles and deployed you know,
Speaker 2: as like strategically you know, like intercontinentally you know, or
Speaker 2: at least like within theater, you know, over intermediate distance.
Speaker 2: I mean it's that there's like this idea like nuclear
Speaker 2: weapons just you know, you like own you own your enemy,
Speaker 2: like in and for verbial or actual terms, you just
Speaker 2: own the battle space like that. That that that doesn't
Speaker 2: make any sense, you know, in the case of America obviously,
Speaker 2: I mean America just had to devastate Germany and Japan,
Speaker 2: you know, and it could and then and then America
Speaker 2: gets the planet, you know, but I mean no nobody
Speaker 2: else was in that situation, you know, ironically, in a
Speaker 2: totally counterfactual scenario there like a nuclear armed Japan like
Speaker 2: that actually, like Japan could have extorted a lot of
Speaker 2: concessions if they had nuclear atomic bombs or something comparable.
Speaker 2: I've thought about that and not I think not incidentally,
Speaker 2: that's why they were so fixated on a biological weapons program,
Speaker 2: you know, and like the father of modern bio warfare
Speaker 2: is shiro Ishi. And he got poached immediately by US
Speaker 2: occupation forces and delivered the the War Department, soon to
Speaker 2: be the Defense Department. They ended up actually teaching at
Speaker 2: Berkeley of all places, you know, as as like in
Speaker 2: this kind of role of civilian roles like this in
Speaker 2: old age is like this unassuming like biologists. But he
Speaker 2: he was a he was a he was he was
Speaker 2: a war master of bioweapons. Okay, that's something of a tangent.
Speaker 2: But another event. All these things are important. They're not
Speaker 2: They're not just speculative, you know, uh, sort of counterfactuals
Speaker 2: that are fun to play with as we uh. I
Speaker 2: think we finished last time with the letter the letter
Speaker 2: by the French physicists to Nature magazine, you know, was
Speaker 2: discussed the potential of of of you know, some kind
Speaker 2: some kind of military application of of uranium, you know,
Speaker 2: and reactions from uranium if you know, the the isotope
Speaker 2: needed could be you know, cultivated. Okay, and this this
Speaker 2: really this caused it say it caused a stir in
Speaker 2: the scientific community would be a gross understatement. But the
Speaker 2: response essentially by the Germans was, uh, a guy named
Speaker 2: Abraham Isau. He was chairman of the quote Reich Bureau
Speaker 2: of Standards. What translates the right grous the right grou
Speaker 2: of standards in education, specifically the physical sciences. Was it's,
Speaker 2: you know, a domain of authority and kind of keeping
Speaker 2: you know, such that the universities could be corralled into
Speaker 2: a directly military role. It was, you know this this
Speaker 2: was this was kind of like this, this is kind
Speaker 2: of like the party's way of uh of, uh of
Speaker 2: not just keeping tabs on these things, but trying but
Speaker 2: you know, if we're trying to direct such potential as
Speaker 2: it he emerged in a constructive capacity. But of course,
Speaker 2: again we're talking about you know, literally cutting edge theoretical
Speaker 2: physics here. Like you can't pick and choose like who
Speaker 2: you want to stay aff these things. You need people
Speaker 2: actually understand the damn thing in question. You need and
Speaker 2: beyond the people are competent. It's like he wasn't any
Speaker 2: kind of like national socialist or party man, but he
Speaker 2: was basically patriotic. He uh, he'd been, uh, he've been
Speaker 2: a leading a already on high frequency electronics. He'd been
Speaker 2: an academic physicist for most of his career, but he
Speaker 2: was politically active. Again, he wasn't he wasn't any kind
Speaker 2: of like party loyalist, but he had followed kind of
Speaker 2: the sentence of nationalism in Germany and he was like
Speaker 2: definitely behind it, you at least in like a but
Speaker 2: but frankly, I mean like patriarch Germany's generally were you know,
Speaker 2: but he uh, he was excited at you know, kind
Speaker 2: of nuclear physics being brought within his you know, kind
Speaker 2: of a number of authority tron lay that way, and
Speaker 2: he convened a conference I think we mentioned the GENA conference,
Speaker 2: which was directly convened in response, you know, to the
Speaker 2: UH announcement by the by the French researchers UH on
Speaker 2: their applied UH experiments on a short lasted course was
Speaker 2: you know, ada Han Hahn was unable to attend because
Speaker 2: he was engaged otherwise in Sweden. Professor a guy named
Speaker 2: Professor Joseph Mattok from Vienna UH was uh was was
Speaker 2: deputized in favor of his you know, regular assistant Lisa Meitner,
Speaker 2: who is also in Sweden, you know, with the man
Speaker 2: himself to like to speak for him, mber like sit
Speaker 2: in for him. The conference took place in you know,
Speaker 2: relative se Recey April twenty ninth, nineteen thirty nine, at
Speaker 2: the Ministry of Education building. As we talked about the
Speaker 2: UH doctor uh doctor doms who's the head of the
Speaker 2: Ministry's research department, he vocally attagged Hahn in absentia for publishing,
Speaker 2: you know, his vital discovery. What he perceived is like
Speaker 2: his vital discovery, you know, to the scientific to the
Speaker 2: wider sign offic community. And that's not the way science works, okay,
Speaker 2: unless you're I mean, if head had just been two
Speaker 2: years later, you know, and had Germany been UH actively
Speaker 2: at war, I think that case could be made. But
Speaker 2: even then, again, this was not the main Hadant project. Nobody,
Speaker 2: nobody had, nobody among this coterie of new physicists in UH,
Speaker 2: in Germany or Austria, you know, had an idea that
Speaker 2: you know, this is a military technology. I mean beyond
Speaker 2: the fact that excuse me, I'm sorry, beyond the fact
Speaker 2: that you know any kind of any kind of apply
Speaker 2: technology where you're talking about a truly renewable energy source
Speaker 2: that theoretically, at least you know is is essentially inexhaustible.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, obviously the military implications of that, just say,
Speaker 2: the military implications and everything else. But that's but that
Speaker 2: was that that that would have been like saying you
Speaker 2: know that you know that would that would have been
Speaker 2: like saying that, you know, aviation something should have been
Speaker 2: kept secret, you know, as it was under as you know,
Speaker 2: as as trials underway in America to you know, perfect
Speaker 2: the truly viable aircraft, but American elsewhere. But the uh
Speaker 2: but uh, Matt talk took up. Uh he went to
Speaker 2: bed very much on Hans's behalf, and he uh he
Speaker 2: basically cowed the committee into silence. You know things, we're
Speaker 2: not We're not a military, this is not a military.
Speaker 2: This is not neither a party nor a military you
Speaker 2: know conference, you know, we're not We're not under your
Speaker 2: authority or anybody else's. You know, basically like, how dare
Speaker 2: you insult the man who's you know, basically changed the
Speaker 2: world by his research and discoveries. And that honestly set
Speaker 2: the tenor man like not not just in the Genda conference,
Speaker 2: but moving onward again like it something like it described
Speaker 2: never could have happened in the Soviet Union, Like no
Speaker 2: matter what no matter what the technology under discussion was,
Speaker 2: even if it was a purely speculative technology at that
Speaker 2: at that juncture, you know, so it's there is there
Speaker 2: is more of a you know, I say this is important,
Speaker 2: not just because I've got you know, peculiar fixations as
Speaker 2: a as a researcher, but you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: important to you know, developing a a properly characteristic view
Speaker 2: of the German Reich and and its internal situation. You know,
Speaker 2: this is not a place where scientists or cowed by
Speaker 2: the party or by the regime. You know, there certainly
Speaker 2: were as always representative official doom. We try to throw
Speaker 2: their weight around, but they were not in the driver's
Speaker 2: se here at all for a lot of reasons. The
Speaker 2: uh basically the long story short, in addition to a
Speaker 2: lot of theoretical postulates unrelated directly, you know, to the
Speaker 2: subject at hand, which I'm no understanding of because I'm
Speaker 2: not physicists at all. I'm not even like an educated
Speaker 2: leaman in physics. Okay, and first admit that, but to uh,
Speaker 2: they kind of highlight of the event if you want
Speaker 2: to look at those terms. To Gottingen professors, uh, got injuiced,
Speaker 2: and it got even Honley. They they they outlined once again,
Speaker 2: I mean not them once again, but they'd outlined again
Speaker 2: as was on the mind of every man present, you know, ah,
Speaker 2: the practicability of of of a quote uranium burner. Okay,
Speaker 2: I mean this was again, this was such that there
Speaker 2: could be said to be uh a sort of priority
Speaker 2: afforded any conceptual model. I mean this, this was it okay,
Speaker 2: And again that that obviously has tremendous military application. But
Speaker 2: it but not in the way that was being bandied
Speaker 2: by you know, uh people, uh, people like Einstein later on,
Speaker 2: and and also by some uh some uh some people,
Speaker 2: particularly in m I six and uh later on oss
Speaker 2: in the case the former I it's interesting and we'll
Speaker 2: get into that the uh, the I don't want to
Speaker 2: jump people ahead. We'll get into the kind of the
Speaker 2: take from London or the view from London and the
Speaker 2: potentiality of an atomic bomb. But and in the event,
Speaker 2: the h there's been a general band placed uh on
Speaker 2: the export of uranium compounds from Germany, and uh the
Speaker 2: right Ministry of Economics was uh they were adjusting, uh well,
Speaker 2: they they were They're trying to determine like there was
Speaker 2: a recently capture minds in Czechoslovakia. I cannot pronounce uh
Speaker 2: yakima jakumal if anybody on deck, like in the comments,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry if I'm butchering that, I first admit I
Speaker 2: I'm terrible with these pronunciations. But Central Europe is uh
Speaker 2: is rich in in uh in uranium war, okay, like
Speaker 2: natural uranium war. The uh this this hadn't been mined yet,
Speaker 2: but it, you know, had been accessed in some basic capacity.
Speaker 2: But you know, uh who basically who is going to
Speaker 2: get get it first? Like hadn't been decided? You know,
Speaker 2: was it just gonna be spirreled away and given to
Speaker 2: the you know, given to the O k W to
Speaker 2: basically sit on so nobody else could have it? You know?
Speaker 2: Was it was it gonna be given to you know
Speaker 2: this uh to what what? What would was basically gonna
Speaker 2: be given it? Like you know the the Burgening kind
Speaker 2: of committee, that uh Burgning kind of quorum that attended
Speaker 2: the conference at Jenna, Like what what would become of it?
Speaker 2: But it uh what they had allowed was a uranium
Speaker 2: sample had had been dispatched to Gotha gen for special
Speaker 2: analysis and the special analyst, uh who was uh dispatched
Speaker 2: you know to essentially to to report his findings. Was
Speaker 2: was was a guy from the War Office? Okay, and
Speaker 2: what was not known to the attendees of the GENA
Speaker 2: conference and was not probably known to really anybody the
Speaker 2: right chancery. I'm sure that there was some line of
Speaker 2: communication there and Hitler himself, I speculate, and again this
Speaker 2: is pure speculation, probably knew just because he was so
Speaker 2: hands on in terms of UH weapons development and things
Speaker 2: like that. The War Office had begun its own uranium
Speaker 2: research program. But again, you know, it's if they were
Speaker 2: developing a bomb, and if this was like the Raizon
Speaker 2: deetra Avid, you know, like why why why why why
Speaker 2: why were they appealing to civilians at all? You know,
Speaker 2: I mean it because that would presume the knowledge that
Speaker 2: that would presume not just the the conceptual basis for
Speaker 2: such a program, but the knowledge in order to implement it,
Speaker 2: as well as the political will. And it's just not
Speaker 2: you know, it depics. What develops here is I think
Speaker 2: an dis futal picture of you know, basically everybody, uh,
Speaker 2: everybody within the party administration who had understanding, you know,
Speaker 2: who's realistic about you know, the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: inevitably like a war is going to emerge between you know,
Speaker 2: the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Anybody in the
Speaker 2: scientemic community you know, who was at all engaged you
Speaker 2: know with the reality in national politics at the time,
Speaker 2: and anybody who uh you know had uh had been
Speaker 2: paying attention, you know to to the new physics with
Speaker 2: any with any sort of understanding of it beyond that
Speaker 2: of a layman, like understood that there was some kind
Speaker 2: of like great applied potential for this, but that might
Speaker 2: not be emergent for twenty years. You know, it might
Speaker 2: you know, it might never be fully realized. But again
Speaker 2: too like it wasn't clear what that was, and such
Speaker 2: that there was any kind of like agreement in these
Speaker 2: like very kind of crude conceptual terms. In Germany it
Speaker 2: was as you know, it was basically as like this
Speaker 2: is an energy source. That's one who changed the world,
Speaker 2: you know, it was not like this is this is
Speaker 2: how we built super bombs, you know. And interestingly, but uh,
Speaker 2: such that the United Kingdom had a view of this.
Speaker 2: After the chairman of a Belgian mining concern he uh
Speaker 2: he got wind of the situation in Czechoslovakia with respect
Speaker 2: to uranium. A a guy named m Edgar c Ga.
Speaker 2: He was president of the Belgian Mining consider and a
Speaker 2: union miniere. Okay, I think that's how you pronounced it.
Speaker 2: He contacted, uh, a guy named Tizard who was chairman
Speaker 2: of the Committee and the Scientific Survey of Air Defense
Speaker 2: in London, Okay. And when he did, uh, the outcome
Speaker 2: of their meeting was basically, Tizard he was unwilling to
Speaker 2: he was willing to provide the funds or the authority
Speaker 2: for Sindiire or Cindiata to to purchase all available uranium stocks,
Speaker 2: which there were several thousand tons in Belgium and far
Speaker 2: more available in the open market that it had been
Speaker 2: extricated from Czechoslovakia or extracted you know, before the before
Speaker 2: the before the country fell apart and uh, you know
Speaker 2: what have you when and became came under the dominion
Speaker 2: of the Reich. But you know it, Uh, the fact was,
Speaker 2: I mean it this was not it was the UK
Speaker 2: was very much by this point, this was May of
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, you know, they were shifting to a
Speaker 2: war footing, you know, I mean, it can't be argued
Speaker 2: that this was you know, oh, you know, the climate
Speaker 2: of appeasement was ruling and nobody you know realized you know,
Speaker 2: the danger that lay ahead. If you want to take
Speaker 2: that kind of court historian's view, I mean that that
Speaker 2: they can't be argued. Okay, the the uh what Tizard
Speaker 2: did say is that, uh, if some kind of mass
Speaker 2: of UH uranium reserves or at least that which was
Speaker 2: then available in the open market, if the bulk of
Speaker 2: that ED should fall into enemy hands, he said that
Speaker 2: maybe something that you know, that that could be catastrophic
Speaker 2: and strategic terms. But I mean it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 2: clear what they was. You know. It's like it was
Speaker 2: basically that, you know, we hear that, you know, the
Speaker 2: crowds want it, so we don't want you know, because
Speaker 2: they wanted We want them to not have it, you know,
Speaker 2: but we don't want it either because it may be nothing.
Speaker 2: You know. The uh, the Admiral basically just are like
Speaker 2: took this to the annualty which you know in in
Speaker 2: the UK. Then as I assume now even I always
Speaker 2: said always had outsized clout in terms of like war
Speaker 2: and peace questions, they said that, you know, they said that, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, not only to went out of the funds
Speaker 2: they gamble with on this like literally but they said
Speaker 2: the possibility of developing a quote explosive of unprecedented power
Speaker 2: from uranium was so remote as to be negligible. So
Speaker 2: again this was like science fiction. Okay, it kind of
Speaker 2: reminds me of if you keep up with I don't
Speaker 2: know if anybody does, but I and maybe they've moved
Speaker 2: on from this kind of fixation. But like some years back,
Speaker 2: you know, if you picked up parameters, you know, like
Speaker 2: the USM ME War College magazine or read these uh
Speaker 2: speaking of the bridge, right, some of these like Royal
Speaker 2: Navy publications they was talking about like rail guns and
Speaker 2: these kind of like super guns that we're gonna that
Speaker 2: were were primarily gonna be based on you know, Uh,
Speaker 2: there's basically gonna be like there's some kind of new
Speaker 2: like quasi surface warfare platform that's just going to like
Speaker 2: change everything. You know. It was a lot of uh,
Speaker 2: I mean that is now like I mean now it's
Speaker 2: more you know, guys kind of trying to rationalize already
Speaker 2: bloated budgets and stuff. But there's there's always there's always
Speaker 2: there's always uh, there's always generals and admirables, as well
Speaker 2: as civilian analysts and intelligence men, you know, like like
Speaker 2: sounding alarm bells about about some future you know, like
Speaker 2: super weapon. You know, this was not like this was
Speaker 2: not something new, Okay, yeah, I mean they the twentieth
Speaker 2: century is remarkable in terms of the punctuated the punctuated
Speaker 2: equilibrium as so to speak of you know, scientific advancement
Speaker 2: by by leaps and bounds. But this this idea that
Speaker 2: you know, there was there was a firm understanding of
Speaker 2: the potential of uranium that and that you know this
Speaker 2: somehow would you know as we make you know, Germany
Speaker 2: it's strategic situation as it was in thirty nine, you know,
Speaker 2: the master of the world. Like that's that's ridiculous. G. P.
Speaker 2: Thompson had an interesting take. Uh he was, he was.
Speaker 2: He was a leading British physicist, perhaps perhaps the leading
Speaker 2: physicist who was close to uh you know, the like
Speaker 2: not just the War Party as it were, but to uh,
Speaker 2: you know, military circles and uh both intelligence and the admiralty.
Speaker 2: He said, uh, you know, it's highly he said, he said,
Speaker 2: the Germans are probably more afraid of US developing some
Speaker 2: uranian based technology. You know is is than than we
Speaker 2: are of them. And uh he suggested, he suggested a
Speaker 2: dis info campaign indicating that the British had in fact
Speaker 2: tested uranium bombs of unprecedented force, you know, so potent
Speaker 2: that the authorities in you know stopped uh stopped testing
Speaker 2: of them for fear of of compromising the uh compromising
Speaker 2: the uh the program completely, you know it. Uh. Churchill
Speaker 2: himself he said that, and he talked of am I
Speaker 2: do like church was like something of a technology. I mean,
Speaker 2: on the one hand, he's like pans a lighte, which
Speaker 2: he was and he and he he he he was
Speaker 2: a disaster as a as as a commander in chief,
Speaker 2: but he did have like a fetish for like wartech,
Speaker 2: you know, I albeit not in an informed way, but
Speaker 2: his view was the same. He said that, like any
Speaker 2: any German, talk of a quote superbomb is pure bluff,
Speaker 2: you know. Uh. He's like, you know this is ridiculous,
Speaker 2: Like nothing like this. There's there's no indicators, there's no
Speaker 2: kind of reindicators that something like this is going to
Speaker 2: be deployed, you know. And he said, even if it was,
Speaker 2: you know, the the uh you know that both the
Speaker 2: Admiralty and the Air Ministry as well as the army.
Speaker 2: You know, their their view is that, you know, even
Speaker 2: if such an application have been cultivated, it would you know,
Speaker 2: anything that would lead to results on a large scale
Speaker 2: would not be emergent for years, you know. And this
Speaker 2: was Churchill talking. You know, this is like arts Wormont
Speaker 2: or ChIL you know. So, I mean it's uh the
Speaker 2: uh he asked a question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, could that the line of, you know, we've
Speaker 1: been testing these plutonium based weapons and it's remarkable what
Speaker 1: the kind of power they have. Could that be a
Speaker 1: way of propagandizing and saying, we know what these things
Speaker 1: can do, we can't allow the enemy to have them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that that's where I think that. I
Speaker 2: think that I think the people who were agitating for
Speaker 2: that disinvo campaign, I think that was the subtext of
Speaker 2: it too. You know, it wasn't just to you know,
Speaker 2: kind of like bluff the Germans, because frankly, the UK
Speaker 2: did not really have the forces and being to to
Speaker 2: bluff in other ways other than Ledgard Maine. But yeah,
Speaker 2: also I think it could have it could have served yeah,
Speaker 2: exactly what you said. It could have served as you know,
Speaker 2: an ongoing pretext as well, you know, like these kinds
Speaker 2: of things are being developed in and enemy hands. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, like basically became you know, kind of like
Speaker 2: the the Lbit. It was, it was, it was, it
Speaker 2: was top secret. But what became, you know, like the
Speaker 2: the New Dealer rationale for the Manhattan Project. But it's
Speaker 2: but again, I mean the reason it didn't is because
Speaker 2: it's seeming, it like, just so outlandish. And again, these weren't.
Speaker 2: These weren't a bunch of you know, these weren't a
Speaker 2: bunch of World War One generals. I go, and I
Speaker 2: don't know about this. You know, this this this high
Speaker 2: fluting science like you know, these were like these were
Speaker 2: guys at the top of the field, you know in
Speaker 2: the UK, you know, in the nineteen thirties. I mean
Speaker 2: to say that like they they didn't you know, have
Speaker 2: an indigenous you know, uh, academic community that was very
Speaker 2: much on the cusp of new physics research. I mean
Speaker 2: that it is preposterous. It just didn't seem it just
Speaker 2: it just wasn't. It wasn't what people were thinking. Okay,
Speaker 2: And I mean, yeah, okay, anytime you're talking about anytime
Speaker 2: you're talking about anytime you're talking about a rare element. Okay,
Speaker 2: obviously like explosives, whthing comes to mind, this is like
Speaker 2: the nature of it. But that wasn't This was not
Speaker 2: something that was just a universe. Like the way it's
Speaker 2: presented is that there's just something that was like universally
Speaker 2: understood to be like you know, the potential of a
Speaker 2: you know, of a of uranium, and it was only
Speaker 2: a matter of time before you know, the the correct
Speaker 2: formula as it were, was calculated in order to like
Speaker 2: bring it into reality, you know, And that's uh, you know,
Speaker 2: all we can the closest we can get to literally
Speaker 2: peeking inside the minds of people in the epoch is
Speaker 2: you know there you know, their their declarations, either their
Speaker 2: either you know there were there there's you know there
Speaker 2: either their private diaries and their correspondences or you know,
Speaker 2: their their public declarations or their statements. The presence of witnesses,
Speaker 2: and there's not any there's not any indication that you know,
Speaker 2: anybody within the scientific or military community in Europe as
Speaker 2: of nineteen thirty nine, you know, had this in within
Speaker 2: their contemplation. And again part of this was part of
Speaker 2: this was uh, you know, part of this was a
Speaker 2: conceptual bias because again, like it if you're if you're
Speaker 2: if you're a Felt marshal in the Wehrmacht, or you know,
Speaker 2: if you're a British admiral of the Royal Navy, Like
Speaker 2: why what what's what's an atomic bomb gonna do for you? You know,
Speaker 2: like what like honestly, like how how is that gonna solve?
Speaker 2: You know, the the exigencies that you're charged with resolving?
Speaker 2: You know, I mean it's Germany, Germany becomes a superpower
Speaker 2: and and and and resolves. Uh, it's uh and and
Speaker 2: resolves like the long emergency. It's it's faced with if
Speaker 2: it if it, if it can drop atomic bombs on people.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not you know again it it's there's
Speaker 2: a very there's very there's a very peculiar strategic configuration
Speaker 2: where where nuclear weapons have real utility and that basically
Speaker 2: never emerges. And you know it certainly it certainly wasn't
Speaker 2: emergent in the case of Germany in nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 2: you know, And people can argue that point. I ate want,
Speaker 2: but I don't I get to come across a convincing
Speaker 2: case otherwise, even in even in uh, even in the
Speaker 2: abstract and more concrete terms relying on UH. Relying on
Speaker 2: the direct UH advice and claims of a professor F. A.
Speaker 2: Lindemann and later Lord Cherwell. Churchill wrote to the Secretary
Speaker 2: of State for UH for Air Defense, for air and
Speaker 2: Air Defense saying that you know, any suggestion of of UH,
Speaker 2: of quoting Nazi super weapons were without foundation. He said,
Speaker 2: only UH, you know, as is expert, namely Lindham and
Speaker 2: had told him, UH, only a minor constituent of uranium
Speaker 2: was effective, which which which you know was took which
Speaker 2: took quote many years to extract. You know, the chain
Speaker 2: process can take place only I've concentrated in a large mass.
Speaker 2: You know, the as soon as the energy develops, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: it's you know likely that you know, it would acquire
Speaker 2: a mild detonation instead of a chain reaction which presumably
Speaker 2: you know, would would would would incerate you know, like
Speaker 2: the uranium core that was needed in the first place.
Speaker 2: And you know or you know, based on this based
Speaker 2: on the nature of these things and you know, unknown variables.
Speaker 2: You know, if an adequate mass were cultivated, you know,
Speaker 2: the chain reaction could ensue that you know, it was
Speaker 2: just massively destructive, you know, and uh in ways we
Speaker 2: can't even conceptualize, you know, all the basic uh not
Speaker 2: that bassic in terms of uninformed because this was a
Speaker 2: new science, but all the kind of all all the
Speaker 2: kind of you know, usual objections of the time to
Speaker 2: you know, why you know we don't this is you know,
Speaker 2: we don't want to We don't want to tickle the
Speaker 2: dragon's tail as it were, you know. And this was
Speaker 2: Churchill himself, like relying on his experts, you know. And
Speaker 2: it's again like what if anything he had he had
Speaker 2: an incentive to you know, confabulate you know, some kind
Speaker 2: of threat where there wasn't one, not not diminish a
Speaker 2: threat where you know where it was. I mean obviously
Speaker 2: it's but that uh and just uh for those who
Speaker 2: don't know a lot about this, and I mean I'm
Speaker 2: one of them, so I'm not being pedantic, Like what
Speaker 2: is uranium and why uranium? Again, uranium is what was
Speaker 2: available central Europe is uh one of the uh natural
Speaker 2: you know deposits of uranium that can be uh harvested
Speaker 2: and or extracted mind and you know utilized in weapons development. Obviously,
Speaker 2: uranium is a chemical element. Uh, what is a chemical element.
Speaker 2: It's an irreducible substance that cannot be broken down into
Speaker 2: other substances. It's symbols you. It's atomic number is ninety
Speaker 2: two UH. In solid form, it's a silvery gray metal.
Speaker 2: It UH. Uranium atoms ninety two protons and ninety two electrons,
Speaker 2: of which six are valanced electrons. UH. Uranium radioactively decays
Speaker 2: by emitting alpha radiation. And the halflight of this is
Speaker 2: it's between something like two hundred thousand and like four
Speaker 2: point five billion years sort of isotopes, so like uranium
Speaker 2: like this is this was like revolutionary medium like date
Speaker 2: the Earth like quite literally I did not know that
Speaker 2: until recently. But the most common isotopes in natural uranium
Speaker 2: is uranium two thirty eight and uranium two thirty five. Okay,
Speaker 2: and uranium incidentally is the highest atomic weight of the
Speaker 2: primordially occurring element primordially occurring elements. Now why uranium two
Speaker 2: thirty five urinum two thirty five is uh, it's uh.
Speaker 2: It's in every in every every thousand parts about in
Speaker 2: every thousand parts of natural uranium, there's about seven parts
Speaker 2: called lighter isotope, which is the mass number two thirty
Speaker 2: five the chemical properties are the same obviously, but the
Speaker 2: physical properties differ. Uranium thre thirty five. Essentially, it's gotta
Speaker 2: be the uh, the atomic structure of it's got to
Speaker 2: be manipulated in a way so that, in very crude terms,
Speaker 2: it does not absorb, uh, what it is being bombarded with,
Speaker 2: you know, like the the reaction has to actually be cultivated. Okay,
Speaker 2: and this can only be achieved with the uranium twe
Speaker 2: thirty five isotope. Okay. The uh. Such that Professor Esau
Speaker 2: had any idea the urnium two thirty five was like
Speaker 2: something was like special that it, you know, it was
Speaker 2: distinguishable in terms of its potential for you know, applied
Speaker 2: applied utility, you know, like military or otherwise. He if
Speaker 2: he knew, if he had a deeper understanding than his
Speaker 2: colleagues of why, he didn't disclose that, but he did
Speaker 2: say that at once, we should secure all of the
Speaker 2: able uranium stocks in Germany and we should cultivate uranium
Speaker 2: two thirty five where we find it. He said that
Speaker 2: it joints research group over his administration, but representing you know,
Speaker 2: like all interested factions you know, party, state, military, you know. Uh,
Speaker 2: And this was you know, people kind of like shrug
Speaker 2: this off, like well, that's other asyl like trying to
Speaker 2: you know, insinuate himself into some kind of you know,
Speaker 2: hancho role, I mean, which within with under under the
Speaker 2: under the German Reich, especially you know in the pre
Speaker 2: war years that was not uncommon, but or they kind
Speaker 2: of viewed him as just you know, another scientists kind
Speaker 2: of you know, being hysterical. And for most of the
Speaker 2: people present at the at the GENA conference and these
Speaker 2: subsequent sin of meetings of this coterie that had you know,
Speaker 2: that was involved in the uh you know, or that
Speaker 2: there that was know within this kind of core of
Speaker 2: people from the Department of Educational Standards as well as
Speaker 2: the War Office. You know that nobody had heard about
Speaker 2: uranium or uranium research until until the war broke out.
Speaker 2: You know, as it happened. When the war did break out,
Speaker 2: there was ah, you know, there was the there was
Speaker 2: there was the there was the nominally civilian research team
Speaker 2: that we just mentioned that the War Office had kind
Speaker 2: of secretly you know organized and like I said, like
Speaker 2: I I believe there's a direct line from them to
Speaker 2: the chance for Adolf Hitler, although I can't prove that.
Speaker 2: But uh, there were actually two teams in total working
Speaker 2: on relatedly small scale uranium research like on the day
Speaker 2: World War two broke out. Okay, at doctor Kurt Diebner,
Speaker 2: who's the who's the here the armies expert on nuclear
Speaker 2: physics of these uh? The uh the the the Deepners
Speaker 2: was sam honestly dismantled the very day after Brendan, France
Speaker 2: declared one in Germany PROSESL somehow to hear an interview
Speaker 2: with General Becker, who's the chief of Army Ordnance. He
Speaker 2: obtained a promise of full War Office support and full
Speaker 2: and exclusive support for his uh, for his you know,
Speaker 2: for his team's research endeavors that the expensed that Deepeners. Now,
Speaker 2: some people will speculate it's kind of like the dog
Speaker 2: that didn't bark in evidentiary terms, like, well, how do
Speaker 2: you pull this off? Especially considering he was a civilian
Speaker 2: and Deepner was insinuated into the army establishment. He must
Speaker 2: have he must have promised some kind of results. I
Speaker 2: don't think that. I don't I don't see that as
Speaker 2: possible because I mean, you know, Becker, among other things,
Speaker 2: you know, he get to that position without under having
Speaker 2: a basic understanding of of of of you know, of
Speaker 2: chemistry at least, you know, I mean it was You're
Speaker 2: not talking about some man in the street as relates
Speaker 2: to applied science, you know, even something that was then
Speaker 2: as kind of theoretically uh abstract or you know, unknown,
Speaker 2: as as as atomic physics. But I I don't, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't see what Ese could have produced
Speaker 2: either in order to kind of like in consider or
Speaker 2: in consideration of that guarantee that supposedly would have been
Speaker 2: made that Deebner couldn't have. I speculated just comes down
Speaker 2: to Becker having more confidence in one man over the other.
Speaker 2: But again, who knows. I think all of this is
Speaker 2: kind of much ado about nothing, because the point I
Speaker 2: think the key takeaway is that this was not viewed
Speaker 2: as a priority, you know, not that it was uh
Speaker 2: you know, I I think probably improved terms. Becker didn't
Speaker 2: really give a shit, you know. I mean he Germany
Speaker 2: was now at war with Britain and France, you know,
Speaker 2: and his priority was, you know, doing what he had
Speaker 2: to win that war. You know, like what one agghead
Speaker 2: is bringing to the table versus another one. Well, he
Speaker 2: makes the better argument. He gets the you know, he
Speaker 2: gets the he gets the shudder, you know. I mean
Speaker 2: that's these things so often are. And like I said,
Speaker 2: I mean the speculation is basically people filling in the
Speaker 2: gaps with what they want to to substantiate a narrative
Speaker 2: that's you know, not this not uh substantiated by the record,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, so that's species. Anyway, what Becker
Speaker 2: did agree to, what Esau did come away with, aside
Speaker 2: from like a promise of you know, kind of funding
Speaker 2: and support, uh was an official voucher certifying the military
Speaker 2: importance of the project for the war efforts. But I mean,
Speaker 2: like all kinds of all kinds of things we're kind
Speaker 2: of given that proverbial stand, especially later on and kind
Speaker 2: of more liberally by the s s believe or not,
Speaker 2: I mean anything and against the sas basically whatever you've
Speaker 2: givens him or like any kind of signific merit, you know,
Speaker 2: whether it was you know, like uh, you know if
Speaker 2: id you know, transforming like you know, corny to jet
Speaker 2: fu wooler and I mean silly, but you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, like it, I don't like the fact that
Speaker 2: the fact that I was able to the that he
Speaker 2: was able to get you know, like the Chief Army ordinance,
Speaker 2: you know, to to sign off on his research. I
Speaker 2: mean that basically means he was competent then like whatever
Speaker 2: he came up with, like probably would you know, be utile,
Speaker 2: and whether it was or not, you know, like whatever
Speaker 2: he came up with belong to the army, you know,
Speaker 2: not not to not to not to any you know,
Speaker 2: private sector or university patron. So that's oh, that's that's
Speaker 2: kind of the foundation of uh, that's kind of the
Speaker 2: foundation of you know, like leading into the war, like
Speaker 2: what what the state of uh, you know, atomic research was.
Speaker 2: Of course, ultimately like during the war the title uh,
Speaker 2: mister Irvings book the Virus House, I mean that was
Speaker 2: the heavy water facility that was dedicated to you know,
Speaker 2: that was dedicated to you know, cultivating uranium two thirty five.
Speaker 2: So I mean there's something there. Yeah, and uh, I
Speaker 2: hope not boring everybody to death. I'll try to wrap
Speaker 2: this up in the next episode, but it but yeah,
Speaker 2: that's I don't want to I don't want to get
Speaker 2: into that now because then we'd be talking for the
Speaker 2: next hour. But yeah, that's uh, that's uh, basically the
Speaker 2: the foundation and you know, like I said, I think
Speaker 2: it's the reason why I wanted to cover this now
Speaker 2: was I think it's timely gonna ground to the ab
Speaker 2: and Iron movie, which in a lot of ways is
Speaker 2: not a bad film. I suppose you were Hollywood, and
Speaker 2: like some people, I believe chrits reh Nolan was kind
Speaker 2: of surreptigially signaling the political things. I mean, that's a
Speaker 2: subject for another stream. But I thought it was timely.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I hope people are. I mean, it's it's essential understanding
Speaker 2: the total picture of the conflict. So I hope people
Speaker 2: are getting something out of it. The Feedbackcine's good so far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the very first time we ever talked,
Speaker 1: we talked about the spelling and changing narratives, and you.
Speaker 3: Know, the narrative of this is.
Speaker 1: Wrong. The narrative that people believe of the German bomb
Speaker 1: program is wrong. So I don't see how anybody can
Speaker 1: if one of the goals, if one of the goals
Speaker 1: is to open people's eyes to World War two and
Speaker 1: exactly what it was, I think there's no more important
Speaker 1: there's no more important, uh subject, than a potential you
Speaker 1: know bomb that you know, they oh, he would.
Speaker 2: Have just dropped everywhere. No, I mean and and people too,
Speaker 2: like I said, the important you know, I spent a
Speaker 2: lot of time with game theory and like formal logic.
Speaker 2: I mean it's like my background like educationally, but also
Speaker 2: it uh, you know, the Cold War was so I
Speaker 2: mean nuclear weapon Like the Cold War can only understood
Speaker 2: within the context of the nuclear paradigm, you know, like
Speaker 2: it was just it literally defined every aspect of it,
Speaker 2: like military, political, philosophical, Like people can't get their minds
Speaker 2: around really the idea that you know, in a different
Speaker 2: strategic paradigm, let alone one in the twentieth century that
Speaker 2: you know, nuclear weapons could have not been you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of trump card the or like the key
Speaker 2: to victory that oviated you know, all like lesser killing
Speaker 2: technologies you know, and like I cannonize that enough. It's
Speaker 2: like again like even people, I'm not any people have
Speaker 2: got their own conceptual prejudices one or the other about
Speaker 2: the Third Reich, Like it's not put that out of
Speaker 2: your mind totally. Think it's really strategic terms about irrationality
Speaker 2: of what Berlin had to accomplish in order to realize
Speaker 2: it's war aims. And win the war. Like again, how
Speaker 2: would an atomic bomb facilitate that? I mean, on the
Speaker 2: one hand, like, yeah, it's better always to have like
Speaker 2: potential firepower on hand. That's devastating, But it's not okay,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's you know, it's not. Uh, it's
Speaker 2: it's not like like the utility of these weapons is
Speaker 2: not there's not a spectrum, a wide spectrum utility to them,
Speaker 2: you know it. And I think people forget that, you know,
Speaker 2: even people who are basically informed about things and you know,
Speaker 2: conceptually literate. But yeah, all right, I'm rambling. Man. I won't,
Speaker 2: I won't. I won't keep you any longer. But thanks
Speaker 2: so much for hosting me. Man, I owe you a
Speaker 2: lot with friends, and I appreciate being able to cover
Speaker 2: these things. But I really really appreciate the chance to
Speaker 2: appear on your program. Like believe that.
Speaker 3: I'm very always You're always welcome.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is contact me with the subject.
Speaker 3: Then you know, we'll do it.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, hit up some plugs and
Speaker 1: uh we'll get out of here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, legit. I'm always on substack and in September, I'll
Speaker 2: be dropping season two of the podcast in the interim.
Speaker 2: I'll keep dropping like one off content that you can
Speaker 2: listen to, like the Nego Cloud interview and other stuff.
Speaker 2: I promise. But in September, season two will drop, and
Speaker 2: when it does, all all all other content, all other
Speaker 2: podcas As content will be free. It's real Thomas seven
Speaker 2: seven seven dot subsect dot com. Uh. You can find
Speaker 2: me on the app formally known as Twitter. It's real
Speaker 2: R capital R E A L underscore number seven h
Speaker 2: O M A S seven seven seven. I'm on Telegram.
Speaker 2: It's at Thomas Graham number seven h O M A
Speaker 2: S seven seven seven Graham. Or no, it's Thomas. Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: it's that's right. That's right. I'm not going c isle.
Speaker 2: I'm just tired. And that's uh. The YouTube channel, there's
Speaker 2: nothing there yet except a couple one off things, you know,
Speaker 2: like an intro and you know, some stuff that I've
Speaker 2: recorded with friends, like my dear friend Carrie. On my
Speaker 2: YouTube channel, it's Thomas t V. That's uh. When I
Speaker 2: go to Utah in a couple of weeks, it's to
Speaker 2: begin shooting dedicated content for Thomas TV. So I'm excited
Speaker 2: about that. You know, we're doing a lot more with
Speaker 2: the brand, not just like sexing up the production values,
Speaker 2: which I owe to my dear friend Rake and his team,
Speaker 2: like literally, like I could not do any of this
Speaker 2: stuff without them. They're the guys who do all like
Speaker 2: the editing and stuff and make things like presentable, like
Speaker 2: legit I'd be if it was just me, Like i'd
Speaker 2: be like some like a hobo, like looking like he
Speaker 2: was on Public Access and like nineteen eighty or something like,
Speaker 2: I'd be like something from like yeah, it'd be like
Speaker 2: something from like Public Access and like some alternate dimension
Speaker 2: of shit. But uh, some keep that in mind that
Speaker 2: they're the guys who really are owed props for anything
Speaker 2: I'd do in this regard. But yeah, that's about where
Speaker 2: we're at. I uh, I'm hoping to be able to
Speaker 2: drop steel Storm three my early spring Nuremberg by summer,
Speaker 2: and that's all I got for right.
Speaker 3: Now until part three. Thank you, Thomas, Yeah, thank you for.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekanana Show.
Speaker 1: I'm here with Thomas. How are you doing, Thomas, I'm
Speaker 1: doing very well.
Speaker 2: Thanks for hosting me again. I hope, I hope people
Speaker 2: have been getting something out of this series. You know.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm a I'm a historical writer, and I know
Speaker 2: something about political theory, in the law and in formal logic,
Speaker 2: but I'm not I'm not a scientist at all. I'm
Speaker 2: not even like a layman who you know is is
Speaker 2: just highly competent in science or something. So I I
Speaker 2: hope I'm not embarrassing myself in the way I explain
Speaker 2: some of these things. But I've gotten feedback. Like a
Speaker 2: friend of ours who's a German dude who also has
Speaker 2: a degree in physics, like told me that, like He's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: if I'm proud of you for like not totally fucking
Speaker 2: this up. That made me feel kind of good. Like
Speaker 2: our German friends as well as like our physicist friends
Speaker 2: generally don't pull any punches in that regard. So but today,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's just a lot here. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 2: but I think we'll maybe go one more episode just
Speaker 2: as a you know, after this one. It's kind of
Speaker 2: a bookend, and maybe field questions. But I'll explain what
Speaker 2: I mean with the statement I'm about to issue forth
Speaker 2: as we get into the meat of today's episode. But
Speaker 2: you know, the German the German atomic bomb program such
Speaker 2: that it such that there could even be said to
Speaker 2: be one that existed. It was basically strangling Utero when
Speaker 2: when the Vermacht was like stopping his tracks at the
Speaker 2: gates of Moscow. Okay, I'll get into what I mean
Speaker 2: by that as we move along. Okay, if nothing else,
Speaker 2: you know, military exigencies and and and the long emergency
Speaker 2: of of a of a long war, a prolonged war
Speaker 2: which Germany cannot afford to wage, may rendered any any
Speaker 2: kind of German version of Manhattan Project, you know, not feasible,
Speaker 2: even if it was strategically sound as regards you know,
Speaker 2: its impetus, you know what, it would it even resolve
Speaker 2: Germany's military quagmire emergent military quagmire. But there's a lot
Speaker 2: in between, you know, nineteen thirty nine and December nineteen
Speaker 2: forty one. They still needs to be addressed. And the
Speaker 2: person at Heisenberg features very prominently here. Okay, for those
Speaker 2: who know, Heisenberg was not an experimental physicist. He was
Speaker 2: a very much a theoretical physicist and frankly something of
Speaker 2: a philosopher with theological interests. You know, he was not
Speaker 2: he was not really the counterpart to Oppenheimer or something
Speaker 2: you know, and I say that like in the most
Speaker 2: praising terms. I think a guy like both Gang Smith
Speaker 2: is kind of very much a descendant, the spiritual descendant
Speaker 2: of Heisenberg. So the fact that Heisenberg came to be
Speaker 2: you know what kind of helm the virus house research
Speaker 2: and all attendant projects. I mean that tells you something too,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean it's some and I'll expand upon
Speaker 2: that with discrete facts and testimony, but that's something you
Speaker 2: need to keep in mind. You know. It's just there's
Speaker 2: a lot of connecting the peribial dots and the absence
Speaker 2: of direct testimony or concrete evidence to point to in
Speaker 2: order to you know, paint a picture of what this
Speaker 2: of what this endeavor was, and you know what gave
Speaker 2: rise to it and how it was not what was claimed,
Speaker 2: but you know to what degree? To what? To what
Speaker 2: degree it was? Uh, the people who claimed the German
Speaker 2: atomic bond program was was was well underway and a
Speaker 2: dedicated capacity. The degree to which that was propaganda deliberately
Speaker 2: cultivated by interested parties contra. You know, people actually believing
Speaker 2: this was the case owing to the not just the
Speaker 2: fog of war, but you know, the kind of opaque
Speaker 2: nature of of what was then you know, the new science,
Speaker 2: you know, and and everything else. It's hard to say.
Speaker 2: I think it depends on who we were talking about,
Speaker 2: but we'll get into that too, particularly the views of
Speaker 2: people like Stimson versus you know, those in you know,
Speaker 2: I mean Stimpson was an outlier in the New Deal
Speaker 2: administration anyway, but you know, he the view of him
Speaker 2: versus you know people, uh who who people in the
Speaker 2: administration who are most receptive to Einstein and Sax's claim.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a there was a there's a difference
Speaker 2: in inconceptual horizon there. But I want to get into
Speaker 2: we left off last time with the April twenty ninth,
Speaker 2: I mean thirty nine conference, and as as we as
Speaker 2: we got into, uh the focus of that discussion really
Speaker 2: was the feasibility of a of a quote uranium engine,
Speaker 2: you know, like we said such that these such such
Speaker 2: that these discussions among this coterie that the War Office
Speaker 2: had corralled had had it had a focus, and later
Speaker 2: like such that there such that their experimental activities, you know,
Speaker 2: had a discrete focus. It It was it was really
Speaker 2: towards well we conceptually what we'd consider a nuclear reactor
Speaker 2: and that becomes relevant, that becomes independently relevant as a
Speaker 2: as time went on. We really relating to the weaponization
Speaker 2: of of of of uranium two thirty five as we'll see,
Speaker 2: but a few days prior, a guy named Neils Borr,
Speaker 2: who was a Dane, but he was in some way
Speaker 2: he had like an outsized impact on German physics, okay,
Speaker 2: and he was very much like a mentor of Heisenberg
Speaker 2: among other among other luminaries. He and uh a guy
Speaker 2: named J. E. Wheeler, they published the American Physical Review,
Speaker 2: which was read pretty much by everybody in the Western
Speaker 2: world who's it all involved in physics even throughout the war,
Speaker 2: you know, this endured it uh it uh it reiterated
Speaker 2: the idea that uranium two thirty five had weapons potential.
Speaker 2: You know, so this was even independent of any New
Speaker 2: Deal propaganda, independent of any you know kind of anxieties
Speaker 2: uh well founded or not within the British intelligence establishment,
Speaker 2: like there were just like worldwide, there were people who
Speaker 2: were arguably you know, like explendidly disinterested in the political
Speaker 2: climate and the burgaining you know, battle lines who were
Speaker 2: playing with this idea. You know, it was at least
Speaker 2: on their radar. Okay, So the climate, the intellectual climate
Speaker 2: into which everybody was sort of thrust who was taking
Speaker 2: on a role in experimental physics and in any combatant
Speaker 2: nation actual or potential you know, there was there was
Speaker 2: there was this kind of subtext of you know, military
Speaker 2: potentially a direct military potential here. Okay, So I mean
Speaker 2: to be fair, like that's got to uh, that's got
Speaker 2: to be accounted for Ada Han, who you know, who
Speaker 2: was an experimental physicist and who did have trumendous clout,
Speaker 2: uh just just just across the board, like not just
Speaker 2: but it's particularly within the uh, within the committee in
Speaker 2: uh Berlin. Uh. He said that any project essentially, you know,
Speaker 2: try and cultivate uranium two thirty five, it it'd be
Speaker 2: it'd be astronomically expensive anyway to present you know, just
Speaker 2: insoluble difficulties. Professor Bagey, who was uh a pre eminent
Speaker 2: researcher and he was kind of the top researcher who
Speaker 2: was attached to Heisenberg in a direct capacity, like he
Speaker 2: was literally his protege. He said, well, let's call it
Speaker 2: Heisenberg himself. And you know, if if this is possible
Speaker 2: or if this is just you know, a pipe dream,
Speaker 2: not even the development of a bomb. Isn't that It's
Speaker 2: not that's not the question on the table, just you know, uh,
Speaker 2: the uh the you know, the but the the extraction
Speaker 2: of light uranium isotope in appreciable quantities, you know, like
Speaker 2: he if if this is possible and if it's feasible,
Speaker 2: you know, uh within you know our present means you know,
Speaker 2: he'd be the man who could uh who could you know,
Speaker 2: sort of shed light on this. Now, heisenbergola universally respected.
Speaker 2: Like again, there was a basic element of disdain for
Speaker 2: theoretical physics among uh many of these experimental physicists, and
Speaker 2: that very much that that verific of a parent when
Speaker 2: Heisenberg kind of joined this, join this this this this
Speaker 2: quorum not a qual I mean, it was anything but
Speaker 2: a quorum as a coterie, you know. In that Uh,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of there's there's a lot of
Speaker 2: there's a lot of contrarianism for his own sake, uh,
Speaker 2: kind of thrown up in these discussions, which I think
Speaker 2: David Irving in his book makes that point. And he
Speaker 2: had opportunity to you know, speak to some of the
Speaker 2: men who actually were in attendance at these meetings, at
Speaker 2: least in like a more than oblique capacity. The UH,
Speaker 2: well was finally agreed upon, was basically that if there
Speaker 2: was any if there was if there's any slight the
Speaker 2: official statement what was decided, like the minutes of of
Speaker 2: these kinds of like the collected minutes of these these
Speaker 2: debates discussions was UH what Professor Geiger said, if there
Speaker 2: was any if there was even the slightest chance of
Speaker 2: liberating energy from the atomic nucleus, it was, you know,
Speaker 2: in any of these experiments, that it had to be
Speaker 2: followed up. Okay, the UH it was recommended that General Becker,
Speaker 2: you know, the the Ornaments Department chief, UH, that that
Speaker 2: dedicated to quote Nuclear Physics Research Group. The organized under
Speaker 2: these auspices, and you know, like we talked about last time,
Speaker 2: like ESA had an amicable relationship already with Becker and
Speaker 2: UH so so it was it was it was. It
Speaker 2: was made so for security reasons, and this too, I
Speaker 2: think clouded perception of the Allies, at least in those
Speaker 2: who were within military intelligence. For security reasons. The project
Speaker 2: UH the language employed UH in documents relating to it,
Speaker 2: it was all characterized as as research for the creation
Speaker 2: of potential fuel sources for rocket propulsion. Okay, Like the
Speaker 2: actual Reich rocket program was, it became, it came into
Speaker 2: the auspices of of the s S eventually, you know.
Speaker 2: That's why von Braun like actually was in was in
Speaker 2: was in uniform in the s S, you know, like
Speaker 2: he was, you know, you like, it was formally incorporated
Speaker 2: into the organization and in a very top down way.
Speaker 2: You know, the rocket program is an example of how
Speaker 2: of everything that you know, the that that that the
Speaker 2: virus house program wasn't you know. And I also believe
Speaker 2: owing to the intrinsically uh military language of uh you know,
Speaker 2: this kind of deliberate mischaracterization of the program as a
Speaker 2: rocket program, I think that may have convinced people who
Speaker 2: came across kind of scraps and and statements out of
Speaker 2: the ear, you know, who were spying on the Third Reich.
Speaker 2: I I think they just made they they axiomatically determined, like,
Speaker 2: you know, well, this is this is a direct this
Speaker 2: is a this is a direct military endeavor, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh that that's not unreasonable, It's not unreasonable conclusion
Speaker 2: to draw, especially if one understood how the German General
Speaker 2: staff system work and kind of what the interplay was
Speaker 2: between you know, technological research within what was nominally the
Speaker 2: private sector, and you know, it's it's the ability of uh,
Speaker 2: the military to capitalize on on these on these developments,
Speaker 2: you know. But it's I think that's uh, I think
Speaker 2: that's interesting. And it's also, uh it goes too like
Speaker 2: we're priorities were you know, like kind of the people,
Speaker 2: uh people in the Wehrmacht kind of like they viewed
Speaker 2: as like the zenith kind of of of of vartech,
Speaker 2: you know, was uh what was aerospace stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like with with with with rocketry obviously kind of
Speaker 2: being the the absolute diseenth of of that. But the
Speaker 2: uh it uh. What also happened was on a on
Speaker 2: on September sixteenth, for the the Kurt Diebner, who he
Speaker 2: talked about last time. He was appointed to lead at
Speaker 2: least nominally in the Nuclear Physics Research Group under Ordnance
Speaker 2: Department auspices. Doctor Bagge, who began keeping a diary for
Speaker 2: the first time in his life, because I mean, I
Speaker 2: think he realized, I'm sure he realized that whatever the
Speaker 2: outcome of these endeavors, it was something you know, he
Speaker 2: was participating in scientific history. You know as he was
Speaker 2: being made. But on the UH he notes that on
Speaker 2: September sixteenth, nineteen thirty nine, Diebner summoned him personally UH
Speaker 2: to report the Army Ordnance Department. He writes, participating the
Speaker 2: quote conference about an important matter, then returned to Leipzig.
Speaker 2: This was the last from this point on the reason
Speaker 2: why he uses that UH, that deliberately minimalist language. Any
Speaker 2: reference to the possibilities of uranium for any any of
Speaker 2: any application, reactors, UH, super bombs, anything was considered was
Speaker 2: classified as a state secret, okay, And all all references
Speaker 2: the possibilities of uranium and energy derived from uranium was
Speaker 2: was actively suppressed, okay the first instance. And again this
Speaker 2: goes to show you the kind of frosty relationship between
Speaker 2: the private sector and the army in this regard, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of splendidly contrary the situation is existed between the
Speaker 2: aviation industry and UH, the military establishment, which was positively incestuous.
Speaker 2: A Semens research chemist, you know, a Semen research physicists.
Speaker 2: You know. Semens was a huge conglomerate, you know, like
Speaker 2: they uh, they're basically insinuated everything on the cutting edge
Speaker 2: of of UH of applied sciences, you know, as related
Speaker 2: to industry and everything else. The UH he submitted in
Speaker 2: an article UH to the main like German news agency.
Speaker 2: It contained a detailed description of UH, you know, like
Speaker 2: a kind of like the atomic science of the day,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's it's supposed, you know, like marvelous
Speaker 2: potential for purposes civilian and military. And it refers specifically
Speaker 2: of the power contained in the uranium nucleus. And it said, quote,
Speaker 2: it potentially contained enough to blast the ruins of a
Speaker 2: giant city up into the stratosphere. What terrific powers of
Speaker 2: annihilation and erfs were have It could fight an enemy
Speaker 2: with bombs like these end quote. And the writer called
Speaker 2: UH and knowing certain terms or increased experiments UH with
Speaker 2: masses of uranium, which again the Reich had access to
Speaker 2: in Czechoslovakia. There were uranium reserves in Portugal too, and
Speaker 2: later on late late, very late in the war, even
Speaker 2: the British work convinced that this played into some of
Speaker 2: the kind of you know, the reasons why like in
Speaker 2: their view, UH, the fear sort of treated UH Franco
Speaker 2: with kid gloves. The majority of these the majority of
Speaker 2: these resources were in Portugal. But obviously you know it
Speaker 2: it uh that that the key to the uh to
Speaker 2: the peninsula was Ibran peninsula, Spain. But that's something of
Speaker 2: a tangent. But the uh, the this this, this article
Speaker 2: was totally suppressed, and UH the author was warned like
Speaker 2: nothing of this nature can appear in print. When uh
Speaker 2: there was a papers on general atomic research were allowed,
Speaker 2: including uh directly related to you know, experience involving uranium
Speaker 2: and uh including the light isotope, but uh, no direct
Speaker 2: mention of their context was to be made, and certainly
Speaker 2: not any even speculative suggestion about you know, their employment
Speaker 2: and weapons programs. Now we can look at that in
Speaker 2: a number of ways, you know, like it's like we
Speaker 2: talked about before, and I think you raised when you're
Speaker 2: looking ahead. I mean, the Germans were actively at war
Speaker 2: by this point. This was the you know, the two
Speaker 2: weeks prior the United Kingdom in France and declared law
Speaker 2: in Germany. But even at even at nominal peace, you know,
Speaker 2: in a strategic landscape such that Germany was situated. You know,
Speaker 2: the way, you've got to be careful with what you
Speaker 2: introduced into the stream of information. You gotta be careful
Speaker 2: about the disinformation you insinuate, and probably it was in
Speaker 2: the minds of plenty of people that the last thing
Speaker 2: that the right and needed was uh, you know, the
Speaker 2: new dealers in the British being able to seize upon
Speaker 2: statements by top scientists that Germany is working on super weapons.
Speaker 2: You know, Hitler especially was very consent of this, like
Speaker 2: so is Gerbels and that uh that there's there's there's
Speaker 2: a very interesting give and take around both men's respective
Speaker 2: ideas on the role of you know, media at war
Speaker 2: and as a political apparatus. But my point is that
Speaker 2: it's not it's not just like prema fashion evidence that
Speaker 2: oh Berlin demanded this be suppressed. They obviously were, you know,
Speaker 2: this was their goal was to you know, do exactly
Speaker 2: that what was suggested in the article by the Siemens physicists.
Speaker 2: You know, it's quite a bit more nuanced because I've
Speaker 2: run across we're a very basic treatments of that anecdote
Speaker 2: that you know, profit precisely that sine conclusion the uh. Now,
Speaker 2: one of the problems faced whatever the state of applied
Speaker 2: research utilizing uranium two thirty five by the German scientists
Speaker 2: was you know, whether whether as a dedicated weapons program
Speaker 2: or just as you know, I'm trying to identify what
Speaker 2: potentiality existed utilizing these you know, these these this element
Speaker 2: specifically uranium thre thirty five is an energy source like whatever,
Speaker 2: whatever the whatever the ultimate goal was, there was a
Speaker 2: there there's a problem with, uh, there's a problem with
Speaker 2: isolating uranium two thirty five and cultivating it. Okay, and uh,
Speaker 2: this is such was the you know they're from there
Speaker 2: from whence emerges the concern about you know, it just
Speaker 2: being a cost prohibitive affair, which makes it, you know,
Speaker 2: functionally useless, particularly as a a military a military endeavor.
Speaker 2: The UH September nine, the second Conference of the Nuclear
Speaker 2: Physicists at the Ordnance Department was held. The subject of
Speaker 2: that conference was specifically means of extracting energy from the
Speaker 2: uranium nucleus, either in either controlled amounts you know, as
Speaker 2: would facilitate a reactor or uranium furnace, or or in
Speaker 2: the uncontrolled chain reaction reactive violence of an explosion. Okay,
Speaker 2: the first, the first accounlisting the first would would involve
Speaker 2: mixing the uranium with some substance caple of literally slowing
Speaker 2: down the high energy fast neutron is admitted during the
Speaker 2: fission process without absorbing them. For technical reasons I don't
Speaker 2: quite understand. Neutrons of a certain energy band are particularly
Speaker 2: prone to capture by uranium. So for them not to
Speaker 2: be lost, uh, they these these these fishing neutrons had
Speaker 2: to be had to be rapidly slowed down by some
Speaker 2: kind of breaking substance or in science scientific language like
Speaker 2: moderating elements or moderator. Okay, the uh The second uh
Speaker 2: them possibility was that if if, if, if, that's gonna
Speaker 2: be made to utilize this as an explosive, you know,
Speaker 2: if a super bomb was in fact possible. You know.
Speaker 2: The uh it was the rare I hope that was
Speaker 2: needed to fish in with thermal neutrons. Okay, so how
Speaker 2: do you how do you how do you get the
Speaker 2: how do you get the uranium two three, five that
Speaker 2: you need? You know? In the case of the first question,
Speaker 2: a professor Harvik he discussed the design of the uranium
Speaker 2: reactor to solve both problems. Okay. He had a colleague
Speaker 2: named doctor Hans Seuss, not doctor Seuss, the guy who
Speaker 2: wrote like the cat in the head, Like this guy
Speaker 2: is like an actual like doctor named Seuss like take
Speaker 2: from that way you will. I know, some dick is
Speaker 2: gonna mention starability, sneeches or something like. It's not about that,
Speaker 2: Sue said, proposed that heavy water was uh, it was
Speaker 2: was to be used in the in the UH as
Speaker 2: as as as as the moderating element. Okay, what is
Speaker 2: heavy water. It's a form of water. Obviously, we whose
Speaker 2: hydrogen atoms are all dueterium, also known as heavy hydrogen,
Speaker 2: rather than the common hydrogen isotope that makes it most
Speaker 2: of the hydrogen and normal water. The presence of heavy
Speaker 2: of heavier hydrogen, the heavier hydrogen isotope, it gives the
Speaker 2: water different nuclear properties, and the increase in mass alters
Speaker 2: the uh the physical and chemical properties as relates to
Speaker 2: normal water. Okay. Now, so as this research went on,
Speaker 2: in other words, you know, kind of like the challenges
Speaker 2: like stacked up and up and up, and as I'm
Speaker 2: sure you've gleaned, basically, uh, what became clear according to
Speaker 2: the path the course of German research, and America was
Speaker 2: able to avoid this entirely owing to plutonium. And we'll
Speaker 2: get into that briefly if there's time or if people
Speaker 2: are interested. But basically, like when it came clear of
Speaker 2: the second conference, what was being floated is that, well,
Speaker 2: it's not a question of do we build a bomb
Speaker 2: or do we build a reactor or not not even
Speaker 2: dew we but like what what's the potential here? Is
Speaker 2: that if you want, if you want to do anything
Speaker 2: like the latter, you you have to develop the former anyway, Okay,
Speaker 2: something this is just becoming like who's going to pay
Speaker 2: for all this when this may not even be possible
Speaker 2: and we may not even have access to the uranium
Speaker 2: uranium pile reserves that we need in order to accomplish it.
Speaker 2: The Heisenberg Enter Heisenberg he was commissioned specifically to investigate
Speaker 2: theoretically whether a chain reaction in uranium was possible given
Speaker 2: the known UH properties of of of neutron fusion and
Speaker 2: uranium fission and the characteristics there. And over time, this
Speaker 2: is pre nineteen forty one. After ninety forty one, things changed.
Speaker 2: Reasons we'll get into that kind of became the focus
Speaker 2: of such that they're gonna be said to be like
Speaker 2: a dedicated focus towards a uh A directly military application. Okay.
Speaker 2: I think this is when discussions corral discreetly around the
Speaker 2: potential of an atomic bomb, okay, within German physics quarters
Speaker 2: generally and specifically within this Ordnance department coterie of great
Speaker 2: physics minds. Okay. And partly yeah, obviously because partly like
Speaker 2: that's something that you know, the Wehrmacht needed to know
Speaker 2: about if this was possible, you know, owing to the
Speaker 2: fact that Germany was now at war. But also I mean,
Speaker 2: if that's possible, if you know, basically like it's you know,
Speaker 2: if if there's potential for you know, energy release at all,
Speaker 2: you know, like the most kind of the most kind
Speaker 2: of concrete way you know, to understand that in experimental
Speaker 2: terms is to determine if you know, like an explosive
Speaker 2: chain reaction can be cultivated. Okay. I think that must
Speaker 2: be accounted for and based upon Heisenberg's own notes, like
Speaker 2: I'm talking about like his personal like opinion work product
Speaker 2: that was you know, not for anybody else's eyes. This
Speaker 2: seems to be the case because he never once talks
Speaker 2: about you know, I mean, first of all, there was
Speaker 2: his reactions when he was in captivity to the you know,
Speaker 2: to the hero seem in Nagasaki texts, but also like
Speaker 2: in his own I say, opinion work products. It wasn't
Speaker 2: a proper diary. You know, he never wants to write,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the effect of you know, like
Speaker 2: this we're we're working towards development of a bomb. I mean,
Speaker 2: he writes a lot and he and he raised issues,
Speaker 2: uh with with colleagues about you know, the reality of
Speaker 2: of of this research for various you know, in various capacities.
Speaker 2: But number once does want to get the idea that
Speaker 2: you know, he saw himself as insinuated into some sort
Speaker 2: of like German Manhattan project. The uh around the same time, uh,
Speaker 2: the War Office somewhat abruptly, uh, they took over the
Speaker 2: they took over the building on the camps of the
Speaker 2: Kaiservillehelm Institute of Physics. Okay, because it had it had
Speaker 2: the best equipment for for for applied atomic research, probably
Speaker 2: probably in Europe, definitely within Germany. All uh, all scientists
Speaker 2: participating in you know, the uh, the War Office project,
Speaker 2: uh were they they were they were asked to transfer
Speaker 2: this one central institute, you know, so that like they
Speaker 2: basically like all hands to be on deck under one roof.
Speaker 2: This is this is absolutely necessary, Okay, especially we're talking
Speaker 2: about this kind of advanced research. The problem is these
Speaker 2: men all had uh you know, these weren't military men
Speaker 2: to a man, they were ah, you know, civilian researchers.
Speaker 2: They had egos. Uh. They they were all, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of the kingfish of the pond. They were situated
Speaker 2: at in their respective institutions. But it's also you know,
Speaker 2: some of these guys were young, but a lot of
Speaker 2: them weren't. You know, It's like they people become very
Speaker 2: attached their research, particularly men I'd have to imagine a
Speaker 2: brilliant intellect. You know, they didn't want to They didn't
Speaker 2: want to be part of a team. I mean, who
Speaker 2: the hell does you know, like in that capacity. So
Speaker 2: uh most almost most of them, uh like almost all
Speaker 2: of them objected, and many of them just declined. They
Speaker 2: just declined, what amount of do a direct order? Okay?
Speaker 2: But it's like the cachet that these men had was,
Speaker 2: you know, you cannot you can't, you can't replace nuclear physicists, okay.
Speaker 2: And like it's the uh who was corralled there uh
Speaker 2: at the Berlin Dalum Uh the kinds of Vellam institute
Speaker 2: like Weisiker, Vitz, Bob Borman, Fisher and Heisenberg was often present.
Speaker 2: So I mean there was like a core uh, there
Speaker 2: there was, there was there there was a core like
Speaker 2: working group that did exactly what was what was directed.
Speaker 2: But it indicated a real you know, it indicated a
Speaker 2: real lack of of concrete focus and kind of top
Speaker 2: down discipline towards a directed goal, you know. And that's uh,
Speaker 2: that's I think that's more symptomatic than causitive. I mean
Speaker 2: it's not you know, it's it's not it's That's important
Speaker 2: to understand too, is that, you know, when we're not
Speaker 2: talking about you know, a true German atomic bomb project,
Speaker 2: but that was sabotaged by outside egos and eccentricities. It's uh.
Speaker 2: And I want the second key takeaway too, is that
Speaker 2: there's this there's this idea that you know, there was
Speaker 2: some like brain drain in Germany because like you know,
Speaker 2: all the brilliant physicists were Jewish like and got chased out.
Speaker 2: That's not true at all. Heisenberg probably was like the
Speaker 2: leading physics mind like on this planet, you know, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know Weisigerwitz, Bob is Borman. I mean, all these
Speaker 2: guys like they were boggy dee neer like they they're
Speaker 2: at the top of their game. And frankly, you know,
Speaker 2: they weren't. None of these guys were like party men
Speaker 2: and were dedicated national socialists, but they weren't about to
Speaker 2: reject their father land. Whige frankly had done tremendous things
Speaker 2: for them in terms of facilitating their research in all
Speaker 2: kinds of ways, and you know, providing them with you know,
Speaker 2: not just the material means, but the kind of social
Speaker 2: capital and and and structural resources to you know, to
Speaker 2: practice there there you know, there their uh, their experiments
Speaker 2: and everything else. Or or in Heisenberger's case, you know,
Speaker 2: like there was really probably in uh probably in France
Speaker 2: and probably in in in like the Nordic countries. I mean,
Speaker 2: he would have been like a luminary, but it you know,
Speaker 2: he I mean Germany was Germany was uh what was
Speaker 2: was was was was the center man, it was the
Speaker 2: it was the actual pivot of h of scientific research
Speaker 2: and endeavor in Europe. That can't be denied, you know,
Speaker 2: and like the that's also uh, there was a disadvantage
Speaker 2: here because uh Maut talk uh but his uh one
Speaker 2: one of the you know, one of the one of
Speaker 2: the researchers. He said I know in certain terms that
Speaker 2: you know, he was delighted to be assigned this project
Speaker 2: because you know, he could continue with atomic research and
Speaker 2: his young colleagues, who we thought had great potential. He said,
Speaker 2: we could protect them from getting called up to the draft.
Speaker 2: You know, we could continue our scientific research in a
Speaker 2: matter which we were accustomed like whether other people had
Speaker 2: to tighten their belts, you know, other other young guys,
Speaker 2: you know, who had a bright future and whatever career field.
Speaker 2: You know, we're having to go fight, you know, for
Speaker 2: the fatherland. You know. He's like, we were basically unmolested,
Speaker 2: you know, So, I mean that's that's totally different, totally
Speaker 2: of an idea or sensibility. That was the case with
Speaker 2: the Manhattan product scientists and in the UK man like
Speaker 2: there was uh the uh you know, there was like
Speaker 2: we talked about, you know, Churchill had very uh he
Speaker 2: in his in the and his sponsors. I mean they
Speaker 2: re effectively you know, kind of kind of drown out
Speaker 2: dissident voices as respect to the war effort, you know,
Speaker 2: and it had becomes something of a career killer, and
Speaker 2: especially in university life, which frankly, you know, was there
Speaker 2: was a lot of Jewish influence there. You know, these
Speaker 2: these uh, these guys in the UK or the counterparts
Speaker 2: you know, to the UH to the Virus House UH
Speaker 2: team as well as the Manhattan Project team. You know,
Speaker 2: they they were very much, uh, they were very much
Speaker 2: working in a dedicated capacity after nineteen forty one to
Speaker 2: weaponize atomic energy to be turned against Germany. And they
Speaker 2: had no qualms with this at all, you know. I
Speaker 2: mean it wasn't even a question of qualms with the Germans.
Speaker 2: This wasn't even on the radar, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can't eemhacize that enough. And if this was in
Speaker 2: the military's mind, which I don't think it could have been,
Speaker 2: because I mean they that the men who could conceptualize
Speaker 2: these things, we're all you know in in academ i.
Speaker 2: You know, if you if you're if the men who
Speaker 2: can actually perform the experiments as required to facilitate the
Speaker 2: engineering of such devices as will be coveted by the
Speaker 2: arn't forces. I mean, if you can't, you can't make
Speaker 2: them do that. I mean you're you're pissing into the wind. Uh. No,
Speaker 2: what changed in nineteen forty one the Germans. Everything changed
Speaker 2: in December, but before that, in July nineteen forty one.
Speaker 2: The Ministry of Aircraft Production, which has something of an
Speaker 2: outsized role in the UH. In what we can think
Speaker 2: of is kind of like the Churchill Defense Establishment or
Speaker 2: like you know, arms establishment, I mean for obvious reasons,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean and UH, I mean the UK
Speaker 2: realized early on and it hit a transition to UH,
Speaker 2: a major make transition to a major air power. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: you know, like the Royal Navy would only be as
Speaker 2: dominant as a as A as the Royal Air Force
Speaker 2: could be to defendant. So they so they so the
Speaker 2: air mindustry and all of its attendant kind of appendages
Speaker 2: UH developed a lot of clout. There was a special
Speaker 2: committee appointed UH to research UH the UH the potential
Speaker 2: of atomic energy. Okay, it can alluted that and effective
Speaker 2: uranium bomb and again uranium out until UH, until American
Speaker 2: research became kind of known to the world, like after
Speaker 2: forty five in a complete capacity. Everybody's you know, uranium
Speaker 2: was what everybody thought of when they thought of weapons potential.
Speaker 2: The UH. This UH, the Aircraft Production Committee's report was
Speaker 2: that about twenty five pounds of uranium two thirty five
Speaker 2: the yield could be equivalent to about each inndred tons
Speaker 2: of TNT and UH the committee. The committee's conclusion was
Speaker 2: that Germany, having a taken steps to cultivate heavy water,
Speaker 2: coupled with uh, you know, their uh, their increase in
Speaker 2: my ding of uranium war within uh you know, they
Speaker 2: newly that they newly gained access to in what was Czechoslovakia,
Speaker 2: that it's obvious that you know, uh, even you know
Speaker 2: they they're the state of Germany is and that they're
Speaker 2: not they're not looking to utilize this for peaceful purposes.
Speaker 2: You know. The only immediate benefit to the German Reich
Speaker 2: of finding ways to release the energy contained there in
Speaker 2: would be you know, in a weaponized capacity. I think
Speaker 2: by this point, I think the British probably believed this.
Speaker 2: I mean, who the hell knows. I mean, like we
Speaker 2: talked about these guys were zealous anyway, but considering that,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, there was far less known. I mean,
Speaker 2: bring that some top signed is, but there's far less
Speaker 2: known there than it was known in America, you know,
Speaker 2: about what the kind of real world application of these
Speaker 2: things would look like. I think that they probably believe,
Speaker 2: like you know, anything, that the Germans were willing to
Speaker 2: dedicate this kind of effort too, is UH is going
Speaker 2: to be explicitly military and probably you know, some kind
Speaker 2: of massive force multiplier that's misguided for a lot of reasons,
Speaker 2: not ethically, if actually, but in a fog of war
Speaker 2: kind of scenario with the state of science at the time,
Speaker 2: that was UH, you know, available even to an expert.
Speaker 2: I I I think they probably believed what they conveyed
Speaker 2: the Churchill the UH. They further said that the material
Speaker 2: for an atomic weapon UH at the earliest, at the
Speaker 2: very earliest, could be available to Britain by the end
Speaker 2: of nineteen forty three, you know. But that also, you know,
Speaker 2: begs the question as to like, what would we do
Speaker 2: with it and would it even work? But the UH
Speaker 2: this of course led the British to UH try and
Speaker 2: see if they could find out about the Uranian research
Speaker 2: program through their contexts in Norway, the UH the primary
Speaker 2: German heavy water facility was at Razuken, Norway. If I'm
Speaker 2: butchering that, forgive me Juken, I think r j U
Speaker 2: k A N. The problem is, as I think the
Speaker 2: subscribers know, because we got into it in our Churchill episodes,
Speaker 2: the Norwegians are not a particularly warm feelings about the British,
Speaker 2: particularly when the British had intended to assault and invade
Speaker 2: and occupy Norway preemptively. So throughout the summer nine forty one,
Speaker 2: as UH intelligence came in from UH Trondheim to London,
Speaker 2: you know from their intelligence operatives that uh, you know,
Speaker 2: heavy water production that Rajukan you know, was steadily increasing.
Speaker 2: The uh. The UH, the priority of UH, the priority
Speaker 2: of the Prime Minister, you know, as well as everybody
Speaker 2: in the intelligence into military establishment was to uh you know,
Speaker 2: bring the Norwegian UH intelligence service on board and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, essentially get somebody to you know, kind of
Speaker 2: penetrate there was Jukan facility, or or at least uh,
Speaker 2: you know, develop a a way of conveying information back
Speaker 2: to London that might be usable in terms of how
Speaker 2: you know, the facility could be could be compromised and
Speaker 2: uh derailed from its purpose. They UH Norwegian essentially told
Speaker 2: him to go to hell, you know, they they UH.
Speaker 2: The official response from UH there was a guy named Welsh.
Speaker 2: He was a lieutenant commander in UH British in u
Speaker 2: in in UH in the British Army went on to
Speaker 2: serve in the intelligence service. He'd married a Norwegian woman
Speaker 2: and he was chief the Norwegian section of UH the
Speaker 2: intelligence service. He UH he contacted UH when he when
Speaker 2: he contacted his counterparts in Norwegian intelligence, apparently they literally
Speaker 2: said to him a telegram, blood is thicker than heavy water,
Speaker 2: you know, like basically go fund yourself, you know, like
Speaker 2: we're not. We're not. We do. We want to be
Speaker 2: thrilled that they that that, you know, the the bare
Speaker 2: amount is here and we don't know what the hell
Speaker 2: they're doing, you know, at this facility, but you know,
Speaker 2: we're not. We're not gonna help you in Piggy Churchill
Speaker 2: will find other ways to attack our country, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think that's really interesting, especially considering how in UH,
Speaker 2: particularly in in in English history books and like Quizzling
Speaker 2: is held out it's just this like it's just this buffoon,
Speaker 2: when in reality he was a great man. But also
Speaker 2: they it's pretended that like Norway was a either fully
Speaker 2: on board with the Allies with this like victim state,
Speaker 2: you know, like a lot like you know, there was
Speaker 2: a about five sweet five and ten thousand Norwegians like
Speaker 2: joining vafen SS and for a populationized in Norway. That's substantial.
Speaker 2: Like Nude Hampson, it was kind of like the National
Speaker 2: Scribe in Norway. You know, he literally wrote a eulogy
Speaker 2: to add off Hitler like they I mean there Rwegians
Speaker 2: are great people, but I and it's just an interesting
Speaker 2: kind of wrinkle that you know, they refuse to participate
Speaker 2: in kind of these UH, these designs of of London,
Speaker 2: even at the height of the of the of the
Speaker 2: early phase of the war. At the UH same time
Speaker 2: the UH, the British approached, at least as we know
Speaker 2: from the record, the British approached the senior British scientific
Speaker 2: representative and UH in the in in in the air
Speaker 2: Mistry Committee. He wrote, he wrote to the chairman of UH,
Speaker 2: Roosevelt's Scientific Advisory Committee, like when he was in Washington,
Speaker 2: I believe like if I read that right, you know,
Speaker 2: basically like you know, kind of feeling out, you know,
Speaker 2: the the Yanks about you know, what the state of
Speaker 2: their research was. And of course like they nobody else
Speaker 2: had the Manhattan Project, you know, like knew anything. Like
Speaker 2: even if they had, I it's I mean, it's debatable
Speaker 2: if they would have just closed that or not. But
Speaker 2: you know, there was a it was a security was
Speaker 2: very very tight, to say the least. But he voted
Speaker 2: the question, you know, this is it proves possible to
Speaker 2: manufacture a uranium bomb, you know, should in fact be used?
Speaker 2: You know, like should we should should it should? You
Speaker 2: know one of our respective general staffs are both like
Speaker 2: are they willing and should they sanction the total destruction
Speaker 2: of Berlin and the entire you know, or or like
Speaker 2: the entire country in Germany, you know, with with a
Speaker 2: weapons such as this, you know, And it's uh, that's
Speaker 2: really the only the kind of the kind of lame
Speaker 2: indirect reply was from Stimson, who in Stimpson, like I
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier tonight, but also like in the past I've
Speaker 2: mentioned that Stimpson was a you know, an outlier in
Speaker 2: the new New Dealer regime. But you know, he said
Speaker 2: years after the fact that you know, in ninety three
Speaker 2: we believed, based on you know, intelligence derived that we
Speaker 2: consider reliable, that you know, the Germans were far ahead
Speaker 2: of us and weaponized atomic research. I think Stimpson probably
Speaker 2: believed that. But it's interesting I raised the issue of
Speaker 2: the UK scientific representative like not only raising this moral quagmire,
Speaker 2: but you know, kind of putting it to paper literally
Speaker 2: in the documentary record. That's the only that's the only
Speaker 2: such moral qualm I've ever heard from a British source
Speaker 2: about about the about the atomic bomb from you know,
Speaker 2: from the era before it was it even you know,
Speaker 2: had been devised into existence. Bomber Harris, uh spoke very
Speaker 2: candidly and intelligently and the morality of strategic bombing you
Speaker 2: know later on, but that not of the out of
Speaker 2: the nuclear question. But it's uh, I think the stuff's
Speaker 2: useful to kind of it paints a picture of what
Speaker 2: was in the minds of the relevant players, you know,
Speaker 2: like I said by them, I in reality, America was
Speaker 2: far ahead of everybody in terms of you know, applied
Speaker 2: atomic weapons research. Plutonium was first synthesized, synthetically produced, and
Speaker 2: isolated in late nineteen forty by deuteron bombardment of uranium
Speaker 2: two thirty eight in a cyclotron at Unity of California, Berkeley, Okay,
Speaker 2: and the ultimately plutonium plutonium proved to be a game changer.
Speaker 2: The Nagasaki bomb was a was a plutonium bomb, okay.
Speaker 2: But even like, aside from that, just uh at separating
Speaker 2: uh plutonium from a chain you're acting uranium pile and
Speaker 2: then using that as an atomic explosive. Just the fact
Speaker 2: that possibility had been recognized, that meant that you know,
Speaker 2: from you know, basically from inception of the Manhattan Project
Speaker 2: was like on the path like developing an atomic bomb,
Speaker 2: like in concrete terms, which is pretty remarkable. I mean
Speaker 2: in all kinds of ways, I mean, like good and bad.
Speaker 2: But the the uh, yeah, I was gonna say, Oh,
Speaker 2: the UH summer of nineteen forty one in Germany, the UH,
Speaker 2: the Army of Research Department had formally contracted Norwegian Hydro
Speaker 2: for a supply of fifteen hundred kilograms of heavy water
Speaker 2: between October and the end of the year or but
Speaker 2: from October nineteen end of the year only three to
Speaker 2: sixty one kilgrams have been delivered. It was slow going.
Speaker 2: In other words, like if if this was in a
Speaker 2: like even if even the process which was outlined at
Speaker 2: the second Berlin Conference, which essentially amount of, do you know,
Speaker 2: the creation of a reactor and subsequently you know, the
Speaker 2: utilization of that reactor and the heavy water cooling to uh,
Speaker 2: you know, to cultivate uranium two thirty five, Like even
Speaker 2: if that, even if that was the objective and it
Speaker 2: was on track. Arguably in terms of you know, both
Speaker 2: intent and capability. This seems far too slow a process
Speaker 2: to make any kind of difference on the battlefeel. We'll
Speaker 2: get into exactly what I mean in a minute. But
Speaker 2: what's important is that once, once, this, once this heavy
Speaker 2: water cultivation got underway, Heisenberg attested. He said it was
Speaker 2: from September forty one. He's like, we saw an open
Speaker 2: a road ahead of us leading to an atomic bomb. Okay,
Speaker 2: It's like, this is when I became convinced it was
Speaker 2: at least possible. And that's when, uh, you know, just
Speaker 2: kind of a what was what was gleaned from you know,
Speaker 2: just these processes that were actively underway. Things came into
Speaker 2: focus and a kind of conceptual capacity. Ethemics like, I'm
Speaker 2: not a scientist, so I take these guys words for
Speaker 2: it in their testimony when they suggest that this is
Speaker 2: this is a you know, a real process. Whatever the
Speaker 2: endeavor is, Neil's borr uh, and this is important. The
Speaker 2: end of October ninety forty one, heis Montreil the Denmark
Speaker 2: to seek out Neils Borr, who was one of the
Speaker 2: pre eminent physics minds on this planet, and heisen he
Speaker 2: was something of a mentor tot Heisenberg. Heisenberg asked him
Speaker 2: in at Boor's home, he said, you know, and I
Speaker 2: was Heisenberg wasn't being loose lipped and telling him like
Speaker 2: what he was working on. He asked for just you know,
Speaker 2: basically like, you know, what, what do you think of
Speaker 2: the like is there a moral obligation and not cultivate,
Speaker 2: you know, a weapon from atomic energy? Like basically, like,
Speaker 2: what's the moral implications of working on an atomic bomb
Speaker 2: in wartime if such a thing were possible? You know?
Speaker 2: Orr said that you know it, you know, well, you
Speaker 2: know the responsibility once fatherland versus you know, his duty
Speaker 2: to you know, the scientific community as well as you know,
Speaker 2: like human progress, all these things only need to be weighed.
Speaker 2: Borr afterwards came away believing that this was like Heisenberg's
Speaker 2: kind of like it was either Heisenberg sort of like
Speaker 2: thinly veiled confession, or it was him trying to convey
Speaker 2: to him and sort of like a culted language that
Speaker 2: he was building an atomic bomb quite literally, and he
Speaker 2: he see He later said Bored that he was deeply
Speaker 2: shocked this. I believe Borr basically told all of his
Speaker 2: intimates within kind of the small fraternity of European physicists
Speaker 2: that you know, Heisenberg came to see me, and the
Speaker 2: Reich is building a bomb, okay. And I think that's
Speaker 2: when the kind of myth of the German atomic bomb
Speaker 2: program really kind of took off in earnest, not in
Speaker 2: a propaganic capacity. I think people actually believe this, and
Speaker 2: I think Bora actually believed this too. But even if
Speaker 2: that were true, and I'm gonna wrap up here in
Speaker 2: a moment, but as fall became winter in nineteen forty one,
Speaker 2: the Wehrmacht was stopped dead its tracks at the gates
Speaker 2: of Moscow, you know, and as we talked about many
Speaker 2: times in our series, you know, the right the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union had to fall in December, you know, the the
Speaker 2: entire German state, it's national economics, everything about it was
Speaker 2: configured towards quote short wars with long respites, you know.
Speaker 2: Like That's why I always emphasized that the Third Reich
Speaker 2: was not some like mirror the Soviet Union. It was
Speaker 2: not mobilized for war from the top down. It did
Speaker 2: not even have a wartime mobilization scheme on play you
Speaker 2: know until Lany forty three. You know, this was uh
Speaker 2: the fact that, uh, the assault on Moscow failed. I mean,
Speaker 2: this was a disaster, like ultimately this cost the war.
Speaker 2: But immediately, uh, in December forty one, Hitler issued the
Speaker 2: edicts that the need to the German national economy or
Speaker 2: to give way to the necessities the arment's economy, and
Speaker 2: that meant that, you know, uh, Fritz Toad on December third,
Speaker 2: and for those who don't know, Fritz Toad was the
Speaker 2: Albert Spear succeeded Fritz Toad as Armaments and Munitions Minister
Speaker 2: after Toad was killed. Toads informed Hitler that the economy
Speaker 2: was literally at the breaking point, and from then on,
Speaker 2: any expansion in one sector to meet military necessities had
Speaker 2: to be balanced by you know, reduction in another. You know,
Speaker 2: Hitler drafted a decree essentially with like Toast's uh input
Speaker 2: as to a you know what what this would entail,
Speaker 2: you know, and essentially like shedding all like non essential
Speaker 2: projects from like any firms or institutions like engaged in
Speaker 2: applied research of a non military nature. Like essentially like
Speaker 2: that was over. You know, it's uh. Professor Schumann, one
Speaker 2: of the Genda conference attendees, he drafted an open letter
Speaker 2: to all institutes working in the arene In project and
Speaker 2: he said, he said to no one certain terms that
Speaker 2: the quote, the work and the project undertaken by the
Speaker 2: research group is making demands which can be justified in
Speaker 2: the current recruiting and raw materials crisis only if there's
Speaker 2: a certainty of getting some benefit from it in the
Speaker 2: near few. Sure, you know, and that uh and that
Speaker 2: uh and that that was that man, it's we can
Speaker 2: there's more to the story of the virus house. As
Speaker 2: the war went on, and particularly as you know the
Speaker 2: tide truly turned, I mean and seek was no longer
Speaker 2: a possibility after December forty one, but after Stalingrad, you know,
Speaker 2: it can there's obviously like an opening a new questions
Speaker 2: like why did the Iranian project continue? But that oh
Speaker 2: do uh? That oh do I that old kind of
Speaker 2: the nature of of modern modern bureaucracy, particularly in a
Speaker 2: state of total war, you know, like these things that
Speaker 2: are earmarked for funding of a way even an emergency
Speaker 2: was kind of continuing to go on, you know, were
Speaker 2: there were there's some people too, like within Dutch just
Speaker 2: the research group, but within the military establishment, who had
Speaker 2: who did understand the implications of this uranium research and
Speaker 2: did think that there was potential for a real viable
Speaker 2: device to be cultivated from it, you know, in a
Speaker 2: way that could like help Germany. Yeah, I think there were.
Speaker 2: David Ermi certainly seemed to think there were. We get
Speaker 2: into some of that next episode, and I promise, I
Speaker 2: I'll wrap it up. But there's just a lot here, man,
Speaker 2: you know, and like, uh, I think, uh, I think
Speaker 2: the entire story needs to be told. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: a I'm getting uncomfortable with form, like sitting for this
Speaker 2: hour rightly, and I don't want to bore people at death.
Speaker 2: But yeah, well we'll take this up in for a
Speaker 2: part four and I'll I'll wrap it up then, I promise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it's boring. I think people are
Speaker 1: getting a lot out of this, So yeah, we'll do
Speaker 1: we'll do wrap it up.
Speaker 2: With part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but do plugs real quick and we'll get it.
Speaker 3: We'll get out of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. You can find me on Twitter still or
Speaker 2: X rather. I hate all like porny that scenes like
Speaker 2: I don't like, I don't like I was like I
Speaker 2: was on my phone like on the fucking train. It
Speaker 2: was like some chick next to me and like you
Speaker 2: only over the abs gonna be X. It's like, man,
Speaker 2: I don't that just looks fucking I just don't like it.
Speaker 2: But it's a real capital R E A L underscore
Speaker 2: number seven h one e S seven seven seven on
Speaker 2: on bird app or x app or whatever. The whole
Speaker 2: of my podcast and some of my like longer form
Speaker 2: stuff is on substack. That's the prime primary place to
Speaker 2: hit me up. And it's a real Thomas seven seven
Speaker 2: seven dot substick dot com. You can find my website
Speaker 2: which is still under construction, but there's stuff there. It's uh,
Speaker 2: just Thomas seven seven seven dot com number seven H
Speaker 2: one E S seven seven seven dot com. My YouTube
Speaker 2: channel is Thomas TV. I'm leaving for Utah on a
Speaker 2: few days. Issue dedicated content for it, which I'm excited about.
Speaker 2: As time goes on, we're gonna do more with that.
Speaker 2: But I got a lot going on right now. I'll
Speaker 2: be dropping more long form like books like in the spring.
Speaker 2: You know, Season two of the pod is coming up
Speaker 2: in September. Yeah, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3: Man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Safe travels until the next time,