17. Farm Hall revealed very little additional information on German atomic bomb research
The Germans found themselves comfortably ensconced at Farm Hall. They enjoyed considerable freedom around the house and grounds, unaware of their being continuously monitored and recorded. The recordings were on gold plated disks, which were analyzed, with transcripts prepared of conversations deemed useful. Others, mostly of a private or personal nature, were not transcribed and the disks erased. The disks were then reused. In one conversation, between Kurt Diebner and Karl Heisenberg, the subject of surreptitious listening devices arose. “I wonder whether there are microphones installed here”, said Diebner, who had administered the German atomic bomb effort. Heisenberg laughed it off, replying the British and Americans were not, “…as cute as all that”. The British kept the recording for their own amusement.
In August 1945, the Americans used the world’s first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, followed a few days later with another, of a different design, over Nagasaki. The Germans at Farm Hall learned of the news, most of them displaying disbelief. None of the German scientists could accept the fact the Americans had been so far ahead of them in nuclear research. Otto Hahn expressed his relief that his program had failed to deliver such a weapon to Hitler in time to use it in the war. Others expressed shame at their failure, while they could not comprehend the success of the Americans, attributing it to defected Germans and in some cases to Jewish refugee physicists in the United States and Great Britain. The internment of the German physicists and chemists at Farm Hall ended on January 3, 1946, having produced about 250 pages of transcripts of information.