(One of the other physicists there actually asked Heisenberg if he thought the house was bugged. "Microphones installed?" Heisenberg laughed. "Oh no, they're not as cute as all that. I don't think they know the real Gestapo methods, they're a bit old fashioned in that respect.")

When the transcripts were finally declassified in the 90s, the whole thing came out. Heisenberg and his buddies hadn’t even known how to build a bomb. They weren’t innocent—they were just incompetent.

They’d clearly tried hard to build a bomb, and then a reactor, but had made crucial miscalculations. Heisenberg was a great theoretical physicist, but he was a notoriously awful experimenter. Heisenberg didn't have any great moral clarity; he'd just (fortunately!) screwed up.

And when they had finally realized that they were beaten to the punch, Heisenberg and co. immediately put together a lie, the one they’d repeat for decades: we were secretly working against Hitler the whole time!

The Farm Hall transcripts also revealed Heisenberg’s phenomenally over-inflated sense of his own importance. Before they heard about Hiroshima, Heisenberg and the others at Farm Hall thought that Truman, Stalin, and Churchill were specifically negotiating over their fate!

In short, Heisenberg was a willing fascist collaborator, he failed solely through his own incompetence, and after the fact he lied that he’d been resisting all along. Can’t imagine any reason why this story would be particularly relevant these days...

If you liked this, and want to read more about the seamy underbelly of quantum physics, you might want to check out my book. You can still get it before Hanukkah ends: https://www.amazon.com/What-Real-Unfinished-Meaning-Quantum/dp/1541698975