The Heisenbergs and the Goudsmits

Abstract

Like my father, Werner Heisenberg, I have been the recipient of many questions regarding his role during World War II. After recently rereading Mark Walker’s review (Physics Today, March 2018, page 55) of David Cassidy’s book Farm Hall and the German Atomic Project of World War II: A Dramatic History, I would like to reiterate what I personally know about Sam Goudsmit.He approached me at an American Physical Society meeting around 1978, shortly before his death, and expressed to me how sorry he was about his immediate and strong rebuke of my father at war’s end. He felt that our whole family must have been harmed by it. That friendly outreach at the time caught me unaware about the detailed circumstances he referred to. My father’s letter on Goudsmit’s behalf is a most welcome addition to the factual record. I thank Walker for highlighting it and sharing it with the larger physics community. There was actually such slim hope for Goudsmit’s parents, once they were in the horrendous machinery of the Nazi genocide.My father was an unassuming man with a mind schooled in antiquity (his father was a professor of classics), and he carried the tragedy of the Third Reich within him. He probably accepted that he had tried his best, against great odds, to save Goudsmit’s parents. By the same token, he also believed he had done his utmost to prevent Adolf Hitler from having access to a weapon of mass destruction.The Farm Hall tapes, secretly recorded conversations among 10 captured German scientists including my father, essentially reflect the dense moment of a truth that was irreversible in its consequences for mankind. Great minds are observed as they stumble through that complexity, each from a unique vantage point. No wonder the events at Farm Hall remain a subject of deep inquiry. Section:ChooseTop of page <<CITING ARTICLES© 2019 American Institute of Physics.