What follows is the transcript of a half‐hour videotape, recorded on 25 February 2003, in which I interview my Cornell University colleague Hans Bethe about the early days of solid‐state physics and the role he played in its development. The tape was shown about a week later as part of a standing‐room‐only session of the American Physical Society's forum on the history of physics, organized by historian Lillian Hoddeson, at the 2003 APS March meeting in Austin, Texas. Hans and I were not there.