Draft.
Never completed.
NB decided not to write.
26.3.1962
Dear Heisenberg.
I have long been meaning to write to you on a matter
about which I am constantly being asked from many different quarters. It
concerns the visit by you and Weizsäcker to Copenhagen in the autumn of 1941.
As you know from our conversations in the first years after the war, we here
got quite a different impression of what happened during this visit than the
one you expressed in Jungk’s book. The particular reason that I write to you is
that the whole question of the atomic energy projects during the war has been
made the subject of thorough studies in England based on access to government
archives, including material held by the intelligence service. In this connection,
I have had detailed conversations about my affiliation with the whole project,
during which questions about your visit in 1941 were also brought up. I have
therefore thought it most proper to try to give you as accurate an impression
as possible of how we perceived the visit here.
Although we realized that behind the visit there was a wish to see
how we were faring in Copenhagen <and to try to help us> in <our>
dangerous situation during the German occupation, <for us,> who lived
only on the hope of defeat for German Nazism, <it was nevertheless> a
<very> difficult situation to meet and talk to someone who expressed as
strongly as you and Weizsäcker your certain conviction of a German victory and
confidence in what it would bring <and who therefore so earnestly advised us
against maintaining our dismissive attitude towards cooperation with the German
authorities>. Naturally, we <all> understand that it may be difficult
for you to keep track of how you thought and expressed yourselves at the various
stages of the war, the course of which changed as time passed so that the con-
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viction of
German victory gradually had to weaken and finally end with the certainty of
defeat.
However, what I am thinking of in particular is the conversation we
had in my office at the Institute, during which, because of the subject you
raised, I carefully fixed in my mind every word that was uttered. It had to
make a very strong impression on me that at the very outset you stated that you
felt certain that the war, if it lasted sufficiently long, would be decided
with atomic weapons. At that time <I had> no knowledge at all of the
preparations that were under way in England and America, <and> when I
<did not reply and> perhaps looked doubtful, <you told me> that I
had to understand that in recent years you had occupied yourself almost
exclusively with this question and <were certain> that it could be done.
<On the other hand, there was no hint on your part that efforts were being
made by German physicists to> prevent such an application of atomic science.
During the conversation, which <because of my cautious attitude was only
brief,> [I] nevertheless thought a lot about its content, and my alarm was
not lessened by hearing from the others at the Institute that Weizsäcker had
stated how fortunate it would be for the position of science in Germany after
the victory that you could help so significantly towards this end.
In your letter to Jungk you also mention Jensen’s visits to
Copenhagen in 1943 during his journeys to Norway to participate in the efforts
to increase the production of heavy water. It is true that Jensen emphasized to
us that this work was only aimed at the production of energy for industrial
purposes, but although we were inclined to trust his sincerity, we felt in no
way certain regarding how much he himself knew about the whole effort in
Germany.
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In those
years there were often announcements from Germany of new and decisive weapons.
At the meetings with Jensen, I was likewise extremely cautious as a result of
the constantly growing surveillance on the part of the German police.
When I had to escape to Sweden in the autumn of 1943 in order to
avoid imminent arrest and from there went to England, I learned for the first
time about the already then well-advanced American–English atomic project. The
question of how far Germany had come occupied not only the physicists but also
the governments and the intelligence service, and I became involved in the
discussions about this. I recounted all our experiences in Copenhagen, and in
this connection the question was raised about what authorization might have
been given to you by the German government to touch upon such a dangerous
<matter>, with such great political consequences, with someone in an
occupied and hostile country. However, the discussions had no decisive
influence one way or the other, since it was quite clear already then, on the
basis of intelligence reports, that there was no possibility of carrying out
such a large undertaking in Germany before the end of the war.
I have written at such length to make the case as clear as I can for you and hope that we can talk in greater detail about this when the opportunity arises.