NAZIS TESTED A NUCLEAR DEVICE
Discussion
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/03/14/germany.nuclear.ap/index.html
BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- Nazi Germany tested a crude nuclear device in March 1945, killing hundreds of people in a massive explosion south of Berlin, a German researcher claims in a new book.
That the Nazis conducted nuclear experiments has been known for decades, but "Hitler's Bomb" by Berlin academic Rainer Karlsch, published Monday, suggests they may have been closer to building a bomb for military use than previously thought.
No independent corroboration of the claims was available.
"German physicians did not lag behind their colleagues in the United States and Britain in their understanding of theory," Karlsch told a news conference. "They knew what a plutonium bomb was and what a uranium-235 bomb was."
What Nazi Germany lacked was enough fissile material -- such as enriched uranium -- to make a full-size, functioning nuclear bomb, he said.
The book cites postwar witness accounts and Soviet military intelligence reports to back up its theory of a March 3, 1945, experimental nuclear test blast at the Nazis' Ohrdruf military testing area, but offers no direct documentary proof.
Karlsch acknowledged that he has no positive proof the Nazis conducted a nuclear test blast, but hopes that his book will provoke more research.
Witnesses reported a bright flash of light and a column of smoke over the area that day, and residents said they had nausea and nosebleeds for days afterward, Karlsch says.
One witness said he helped burn heaps of corpses inside the military area the next day. They were hairless and some had blisters and "raw, red flesh."
Karlsch concludes that the blast killed several hundred prisoners of war and Nazi inmates forced to work at the site. Two months later, on May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered after the Soviets captured Berlin.
Ohrdruf, located in the southeastern state of Thuringia, was a Soviet military base after World War II.
Soil samples that Karlsch had analyzed for his book found the presence of radioactive isotopes, he said.
BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- Nazi Germany tested a crude nuclear device in March 1945, killing hundreds of people in a massive explosion south of Berlin, a German researcher claims in a new book.
That the Nazis conducted nuclear experiments has been known for decades, but "Hitler's Bomb" by Berlin academic Rainer Karlsch, published Monday, suggests they may have been closer to building a bomb for military use than previously thought.
No independent corroboration of the claims was available.
"German physicians did not lag behind their colleagues in the United States and Britain in their understanding of theory," Karlsch told a news conference. "They knew what a plutonium bomb was and what a uranium-235 bomb was."
What Nazi Germany lacked was enough fissile material -- such as enriched uranium -- to make a full-size, functioning nuclear bomb, he said.
The book cites postwar witness accounts and Soviet military intelligence reports to back up its theory of a March 3, 1945, experimental nuclear test blast at the Nazis' Ohrdruf military testing area, but offers no direct documentary proof.
Karlsch acknowledged that he has no positive proof the Nazis conducted a nuclear test blast, but hopes that his book will provoke more research.
Witnesses reported a bright flash of light and a column of smoke over the area that day, and residents said they had nausea and nosebleeds for days afterward, Karlsch says.
One witness said he helped burn heaps of corpses inside the military area the next day. They were hairless and some had blisters and "raw, red flesh."
Karlsch concludes that the blast killed several hundred prisoners of war and Nazi inmates forced to work at the site. Two months later, on May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered after the Soviets captured Berlin.
Ohrdruf, located in the southeastern state of Thuringia, was a Soviet military base after World War II.
Soil samples that Karlsch had analyzed for his book found the presence of radioactive isotopes, he said.
It's an interesting theory, however if it were true I would be very suprised that there hasn't been much stronger corroborating evidence and claims before now.
It is quite possible though that the Nazi's detonated a "Dirty" bomb containing fissionable material as a test.
However, given that it was 1945, I would have thought that they would have used it immediately on the advancing allies rather than waste very valuable material on a test.
It is quite possible though that the Nazi's detonated a "Dirty" bomb containing fissionable material as a test.
However, given that it was 1945, I would have thought that they would have used it immediately on the advancing allies rather than waste very valuable material on a test.
I seem to remeber reading somewhere that an SOE operation in Norway in 1943 ended the Nazi programme. It has also been suggested that some in the german scientific community activley worked to slow work on an atomic bomb for the Nazi regime during World War II. After all German physicists, who were among the best in the world, made so little progress on an atomic weapon compared with their counterparts in the United States.
The idea that German scientists worried about the morality of atomic war and tried to head off the development of a bomb was given wide currency in "Copenhagen," Michael Frayn's award-winning play, which focuses on a pivotal meeting in September 1941 between Werner Heisenberg, the scientific head of the German nuclear project, and Niels Bohr, his Danish mentor. Both were Nobel laureates and towering figures in 20th-century physics.
The play is built around the differing recollections of the two men and the ultimate uncertainty of exactly what happened. In it, the Heisenberg character explains that he visited Bohr to warn him, in highly guarded language, that atomic bombs could be built and to feel him out on whether physicists on both sides could agree to stop the work. The Frayn play was greatly influenced by a book that argued that Heisenberg and his colleagues actually sabotaged the German bomb program from within, a view that is accepted by few historians who have looked into the question.
The puzzle as to why the German atomic bomb program stalled has several overlapping explanations. Some of the best German physicists were Jewish and had been driven into exile, where many worked on the American or British atomic bomb programs. Nazi ideology had only scorn for "Jewish physics" and thus undervalued what theoretical physicists could contribute to the war effort. And as saturation bombing ravaged German cities, the Nazi industrial machine increasingly lacked the ability to mount a vast bomb development project to compete with the American Manhattan Project.
Still, it is clear that German physicists, for whatever reason, did fail to push hard enough to reach the goal. Some attribute that to surprising technical errors, like a grotesque overestimate of the amount of fissile material that was needed and a failure to realize that readily available graphite, if highly purified, could be used to moderate the atomic reaction instead of scarce, hard-to-get heavy water. Others blame arrogance and complacency on the part of German physicists who felt that if the job was hard for them, it would be impossible for the Allies. And some believe that there was a genuine reluctance to work on such an awesome weapon, either for moral reasons or for fear of failing and being blamed for a national defeat.
Recordings made surreptitiously of Heisenberg and other German scientists held in captivity after the German surrender show that they were stunned by news that the United States had exploded an atomic bomb over Hiroshima and refused to believe that it had actually been done. Even in these early recordings, one can discern the beginnings of a search for the moral high ground, as one German physicist contrasts the American development of "this ghastly weapon of war" with more peaceful nuclear reactor research under Hitler.
Heisenberg's own version of his meeting with Bohr was set out years after the war in a letter that was excerpted in a book on the atomic bomb projects. He recalled starting his conversation with Bohr by raising a question about whether it was "right" for physicists to work on uranium during the war, given that it could lead to "grave consequences." He also said he had told Bohr that developing atomic weapons would require such a terrific technical effort that one could hope they would not be ready in time. He felt the situation gave physicists leverage to dissuade government officials from even trying to build the bomb.
That letter so angered Bohr that he drafted a number of responses between 1957 and 1962 that were never sent but were released last week by the Bohr family. As Bohr recalled it, Heisenberg left "the firm impression that, under your leadership, everything was being done in Germany to develop atomic weapons." Bohr said that Heisenberg "gave no hint about efforts on the part of German scientists to prevent such a development."
Even with this evidence, we are still left with conflicting versions from the two participants. Most historians seem inclined to accept Bohr's version as more probable and Heisenberg's as revisionist history, a view that gains credence by looking at Heisenberg in a broader context than just that single meeting.
>> Edited by The Wiz on Monday 14th March 20:42
The idea that German scientists worried about the morality of atomic war and tried to head off the development of a bomb was given wide currency in "Copenhagen," Michael Frayn's award-winning play, which focuses on a pivotal meeting in September 1941 between Werner Heisenberg, the scientific head of the German nuclear project, and Niels Bohr, his Danish mentor. Both were Nobel laureates and towering figures in 20th-century physics.
The play is built around the differing recollections of the two men and the ultimate uncertainty of exactly what happened. In it, the Heisenberg character explains that he visited Bohr to warn him, in highly guarded language, that atomic bombs could be built and to feel him out on whether physicists on both sides could agree to stop the work. The Frayn play was greatly influenced by a book that argued that Heisenberg and his colleagues actually sabotaged the German bomb program from within, a view that is accepted by few historians who have looked into the question.
The puzzle as to why the German atomic bomb program stalled has several overlapping explanations. Some of the best German physicists were Jewish and had been driven into exile, where many worked on the American or British atomic bomb programs. Nazi ideology had only scorn for "Jewish physics" and thus undervalued what theoretical physicists could contribute to the war effort. And as saturation bombing ravaged German cities, the Nazi industrial machine increasingly lacked the ability to mount a vast bomb development project to compete with the American Manhattan Project.
Still, it is clear that German physicists, for whatever reason, did fail to push hard enough to reach the goal. Some attribute that to surprising technical errors, like a grotesque overestimate of the amount of fissile material that was needed and a failure to realize that readily available graphite, if highly purified, could be used to moderate the atomic reaction instead of scarce, hard-to-get heavy water. Others blame arrogance and complacency on the part of German physicists who felt that if the job was hard for them, it would be impossible for the Allies. And some believe that there was a genuine reluctance to work on such an awesome weapon, either for moral reasons or for fear of failing and being blamed for a national defeat.
Recordings made surreptitiously of Heisenberg and other German scientists held in captivity after the German surrender show that they were stunned by news that the United States had exploded an atomic bomb over Hiroshima and refused to believe that it had actually been done. Even in these early recordings, one can discern the beginnings of a search for the moral high ground, as one German physicist contrasts the American development of "this ghastly weapon of war" with more peaceful nuclear reactor research under Hitler.
Heisenberg's own version of his meeting with Bohr was set out years after the war in a letter that was excerpted in a book on the atomic bomb projects. He recalled starting his conversation with Bohr by raising a question about whether it was "right" for physicists to work on uranium during the war, given that it could lead to "grave consequences." He also said he had told Bohr that developing atomic weapons would require such a terrific technical effort that one could hope they would not be ready in time. He felt the situation gave physicists leverage to dissuade government officials from even trying to build the bomb.
That letter so angered Bohr that he drafted a number of responses between 1957 and 1962 that were never sent but were released last week by the Bohr family. As Bohr recalled it, Heisenberg left "the firm impression that, under your leadership, everything was being done in Germany to develop atomic weapons." Bohr said that Heisenberg "gave no hint about efforts on the part of German scientists to prevent such a development."
Even with this evidence, we are still left with conflicting versions from the two participants. Most historians seem inclined to accept Bohr's version as more probable and Heisenberg's as revisionist history, a view that gains credence by looking at Heisenberg in a broader context than just that single meeting.
>> Edited by The Wiz on Monday 14th March 20:42
Surely there would be a lot of radioactivity?
Had Nazi Germany not expelled its Jewish scientists, the war might have ended differently. In short, the first side to perfect the atom bomb would win. There are many things that one can put forward as war-changing factors, but the determination to get rid of top scientists on grounds of race was, in this instance I think, a war-losing starategy by Herr Hitler.
Had Nazi Germany not expelled its Jewish scientists, the war might have ended differently. In short, the first side to perfect the atom bomb would win. There are many things that one can put forward as war-changing factors, but the determination to get rid of top scientists on grounds of race was, in this instance I think, a war-losing starategy by Herr Hitler.
The Wiz said:
I seem to remember reading somewhere that an SOE operation in Norway in 1943 ended the Nazi programme.
Correct - an epic story of norwegian escapees parachuting in, skiing many miles over a few weeks, fully laden with gear to guide in the attack that took out a heavy water plant. There was a program about it on the Beeb last year.
nel said:
I seem to remember reading somewhere that an SOE operation in Norway in 1943 ended the Nazi programme.
Correct - an epic story of norwegian escapees parachuting in, skiing many miles over a few weeks, fully laden with gear to guide in the attack that took out a heavy water plant. There was a program about it on the Beeb last year.
Also a film - "The Heroes of Telemark". According to the above documentary, very close to the truth.
nel said:
Correct - an epic story of norwegian escapees parachuting in, skiing many miles over a few weeks, fully laden with gear to guide in the attack that took out a heavy water plant. There was a program about it on the Beeb last year.
The Ray Mears one - excellent. The film 'Heroes of Telemark' was based on it.
nel said:
I seem to remember reading somewhere that an SOE operation in Norway in 1943 ended the Nazi programme.
Correct - an epic story of Norwegian escapees parachuting in, skiing many miles over a few weeks, fully laden with gear to guide in the attack that took out a heavy water plant. There was a program about it on the Beeb last year.
It's on UKTVHistory (available on freeview) a lot too.
Best line has to be - 'Smith's group found a gap near some pipes just wide enough to crawl through, they crawled through and gently lowered themselves down into the factory. Jones' group used the less subtle method of smashing a window.'
Anyway, the physicist in charge of the Nazi's nuclear programme made a major error (something to do with assuming fissionable material could only once in the reaction so he calculated they needed 000's of kgs of plutonium to start fission). When the allies found the lab the nuclear guys were working in, they found a small reactor that would not work.
Whether that was a deliberate error or a mistake remains a mystery.
^ i watched something similar.
the calculation of how much material needed was grossly overstated, so the Nazis were trying to acquire huge amounts to build the bomb.
i think the correct amount was calculated by a limey and the figure then sent to the yanks. this, if memory of the programme is correct, kinda spurred the yanks on - eg they were closer to the winning line than first thought.
>> Edited by tinman0 on Tuesday 15th March 01:24
the calculation of how much material needed was grossly overstated, so the Nazis were trying to acquire huge amounts to build the bomb.
i think the correct amount was calculated by a limey and the figure then sent to the yanks. this, if memory of the programme is correct, kinda spurred the yanks on - eg they were closer to the winning line than first thought.
>> Edited by tinman0 on Tuesday 15th March 01:24
Been quite a while since Iast did any reading on the subject (er… A-Level) but the Nazi's had numerous programmes running, so it was always believed that this may have been the case… look into their underground labs (the name currently escapes me) where the V1 and V2 were developed and produced….
Underground labs? The V1 and V2 weapons systems were developed very much "overground" - at the massive Peenemunde test facility on the northern Baltic coast.
When V1s and V2s were put into production. one of the main assembly plants was indeed underground, at the infamous Mittelwerke buried deep in the Harz mountains. But that was a production line, not a lab.
When V1s and V2s were put into production. one of the main assembly plants was indeed underground, at the infamous Mittelwerke buried deep in the Harz mountains. But that was a production line, not a lab.
I watched a programme on the History Channel recently that claimed the Americans were only able to get enough fissile material to build the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs because they intercepted a German submarine in the last days of the war carrying fissile material and plans to Japan to help them build a nuclear device to protect them from the allies.
Somewhat ironic, really.
Somewhat ironic, really.
JonRB said:
I watched a programme on the History Channel recently that claimed the Americans were only able to get enough fissile material to build the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs because they intercepted a German submarine in the last days of the war carrying fissile material and plans to Japan to help them build a nuclear device to protect them from the allies.
Somewhat ironic, really.
Sounds dodgy. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs used totally different fuels. The Hiroshima bomb was enriched Uranium, the Nagasaki bomb was Plutonium reprocessed from reactor fuel. There was enough Plutonium to build two Nagasaki-type bombs, one of which was tested in Nevada before the second was used in anger.
The V1 wasn't a rocket and had almost no influence on American space technology. The German teams working on the V1 (or Fieseler Fi-103 to be more accurate) and the V2 (correct name - A4) were very different. The V1 was a cruise missile design developed by the Luftwaffe. The V2 was a ballistic missile developed by the German Army (the Wermacht). Although both projects used the test facility at Peenemunde, the site was split into two areas, one run by the Luftwaffe and one by the Wermacht. In fact, the Luftwaffe were very annoyed one day when one of Von Braun's V2 rockets scored a direct hit on their airfield, wiping out a few aircraft and making a rather large hole in the ground.
After the war, neither the US Army Air Force (USAAF) or the US Army itself were that interested in the V1 - they had acquired the big prize which was the V2 team and enough V2 components to make over 100 missiles. The US Navy were more interested in the V1 as they envisaged using it as a ship borne missile. They even had the Ford Motor Company build a replica called the "Loon". In the end, the Navy abandoned the Loon in favour of more capable and advanced American designs.
>> Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 15th March 10:22
After the war, neither the US Army Air Force (USAAF) or the US Army itself were that interested in the V1 - they had acquired the big prize which was the V2 team and enough V2 components to make over 100 missiles. The US Navy were more interested in the V1 as they envisaged using it as a ship borne missile. They even had the Ford Motor Company build a replica called the "Loon". In the end, the Navy abandoned the Loon in favour of more capable and advanced American designs.
>> Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 15th March 10:22
Eric Mc said:
Underground labs?
Read something somewhere… will have to dig through some books tonight, but as you say Mittelwerke was a production line, not a lab… with what were by all accounts appalling conditions.
Eric Mc said:
the V2 (correct name - A4)
The A-4 missile was it's intenral project name; it was designatied V-2 (V = Vergeltungswaffe = Vengeance Weapon) for propaganda reasons.
Eric Mc said:
After the war, neither the US Army Air Force (USAAF) or the US Army itself were that interested in the V1 - they had acquired the big prize which was the V2 team and enough V2 components to make over 100 missiles.
And Wernher von Braun and a few others IIRC..
Yes, Von Braun, Walther Dornberger, Kurt Debus, Kraft Ehrlicke and a few more I can't remember off hand. What is sometimes forgotten is that the US had a very active rocket and missile programme BEFORE acquiring the German technology and personnel. The research establishment already in existence since the 1930s was the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. American rocket technology was more focussed on short range artillery, rocket assisted take off for heavily laden aircraft and unguided air to ground anti-armour rockets.
When the Germans arrived, they opened the American's eyes to the vast potential of rockets, way beyond the limited uses envisaged by American research.
What is interesting is that, following the arrival of Von Braun and his team, the JPL gradually pulled out of rocket research and has since become the leading design and control centre for unmanned space missions to the planets of the Solar System.
>> Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 15th March 10:42
When the Germans arrived, they opened the American's eyes to the vast potential of rockets, way beyond the limited uses envisaged by American research.
What is interesting is that, following the arrival of Von Braun and his team, the JPL gradually pulled out of rocket research and has since become the leading design and control centre for unmanned space missions to the planets of the Solar System.
>> Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 15th March 10:42
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