Talk:German nuclear program during World War II

How far was Nazi Germany from creating "the Bomb"?

If events were held reasonably constant from say 41, when would the first nuclear weapon be expected... 46? -G

This is something I wondered myself, and I couldn't even come close to answering it from reading the current iteration of this article. All I could really glean was that the Army washed its hands of nuclear power in 1942 and left it to the civillians... but even that doesn't tell me how much of the preceeding and subsequent work was weapon-related. I'm requesting that someone more knowledgable than myself expand a bit on the weaponry aspect of Nazi atomic research.

I've made an offer on the Reward Board. bahamut0013♠♣ 19:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree that the article completely fails to address this point. From what I've read (albeit a few years ago, though I might be able to dig out my old sources), the German atomic program was never remotely near building a bomb and always viewed it as about five years off. The main problem that the Germans faced (other than the emigration/elimination of many of Germany's brightest physicists) was that until about 1943, Germany always believed it was several months away from winning the war decisively. In that context, an atomic weapon that would take five years to build was a poor investment and they instead funnelled resources into things like the V2 rockets. Chronically understaffed and underfunded, the program did some important work during the war, but in 1945 was at maybe the same stage the US was in 1941 or 1942.

Also of note (and definitely worth mentioning in the article - I will try to locate the sources later if I remember) is that the German scientists were absolutely shocked to learn about the bombing of Hiroshima. The US had captured most of the important atomic scientists and was holding them in a (bugged) farmhouse in Britain, so all of the conversations about Hiroshima and Nagasaki were recorded (although I believe they were only released about ten years ago). Heisenberg et al had thought that the US was *behind* the Germans, who had not yet worked out most of the important details. --Cphoffman (talk) 17:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

This New York Times book review of The First War of Physics by Jim Baggott mentions the shock felt by the bugged prisoners after hearing of the Hiroshima bombing. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Plutonium step may be skipped

Article (... for creating plutonium, needed for nuclear weapons) Removed by Fastfission "However plutonium step was not necessary, as it is only a cost saving measure, since an nuclear weapon can be made from highly enrichted uranium, as in U.S. "Little Boy". Why was this reverted, is this false, A-Bomb, can't be made from uranium only ? AlV 11:31, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

While it is true that atomic weapons can be made from enriched uranium, in the context of where it was put in article, it was misleading. Putting it after the ALSOS assessment makes it sound like you are trying to say that the line implies their assessment was not correct, but it is unrelated to that particular assessment. The Germans did not have any infrastructure for enriching uranium, but they did have the very beginnings of an infrastructure to develop plutonium. Additionally, the line implies that plutonium is just a "cost saving measure" which is not true. In the context of the German program, the development of plutonium was a "necessary step". --Fastfission 11:54, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Can Anyone?

Can anyone confirm the veracity of these links?: Luft-46 Article on German A-bomb Luft-46 Article on German Nuclear Reactor I have never heard any mention of what is on these pages, and was a little surprised to read about it. I know that there are many loony-bin websites when it comes to the Nazis and WWII, but Luft-46 is in general a reputable source. If the information does indeed hold some merit, it would certainly be candidate for inclusion in the article. mhunter 01:28, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In short: looks like a lot of nonsense mixed in with a poor understanding of a few secondhand facts. The Germans did have a reactor, a "Uranium Machine" even, and at least one of the groups produced a patent for a bomb design. However the author of that article seems to reach far beyond any facts, has a poor set of sources (the fact that he uses a Reader's Digest article as one of his primary insights is troubling enough), and a poor sense of the science involved. However to his credit he makes it pretty clear that he is just making things up for the most part. I would be loathe to use it as a source when there are so many reliable ones out there (i.e. the Walker book). --Fastfission 01:34, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Page name

I thought for awhile before naming this page. I wanted it to be "nuclear energy project" primarily because there is some debate over the purpose of the project (i.e. I didn't want it to be "atomic bomb project" any more than "nuclear reactor project"). As for the pick between "German" and "Nazi".. I just picked the geographical one (in part because many of those on it were not members of the Party) in an attempt to avoid too much sensationalism. If anyone has any objections or arguments for something else (there is no easy name for it that I know of, unlike Manhattan Project or Force de frappe), I'm game for discussing it. --Fastfission 01:34, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• But it implies that the goal of the project wasn't a bomb, or wasn't exclusively a bomb - they weren't trying to build power plants...

99.132.129.58 (talk) 18:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• The page name is confusing; the modern Federal Republic of Germany does utilize nuclear power for electricity production and other ends. Whether "Nazi" or not, the name should clarify that the article is about the Third Reich efforts. 84.2.221.228 (talk) 20:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
  • The title is so mealy-mouthed as to be misleading and the article has nothing to do with Nuclear power in Germany - it would be bang-on to call it something like "Hitler's A-bomb" or "Nazi nuclear weapons research" instead. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Agree that the title should be changed. As it stands, it could be talking about the post-war nuclear power program, current nuclear projects, etc. It should be clarified that this is specifically the Nazi atomic program (in fact, "Nazi atomic program" might work as a name), but I have not done enough cross-referencing of contemporaneous articles to see how similar subjects are handled (i.e., is there a preference for the adjective "Nazi" rather than "German" when discussing the Third Reich?). --Cphoffman (talk) 18:08, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
      • How about German nuclear weapon program (as per the page Japanese nuclear weapon program)? QuipQuotch (talk) 12:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Removed image

I removed the putative "German atomic bomb" image (Image:Bomgermnzi454.jpg) from the article for three reasons:

1. I don't think it is likely "free" and I'm not sure it counts as fair use at all (no criteria was given).
2. I don't think it adds anything to the article. The article does not discuss it.
3. The research is a bit too new to be realiable. I have it on pretty good authority that it is going to be discovered to be historically worthless eventually anyway.

--Fastfission 03:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Needs work!

This article tells NOTHING about the actual project. 80% of the text is on why it failed and the discussion on the extent of their success. Nothing about what they did, where the project was based, that sort of thing. I came here looking for where the project was based, and couldn't find a THING about the most basic things people would want to know about this.
-- Миборовский ^U|T|C|E 00:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Effectiveness and implications

I think the paragraph with this heading has several instances of incorrect information.

1) The Manhattan project was not under Oppenheimer, but Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves. Openheimer was important because he was head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the place were the final phase of the project was completed (and the first plutonium bomb tested).

2) Hahn and Strassman discovered barium products in Uranium bombarded by neutrons, but did not realize fully the implications, until the work of Meitner and Frisch. Hahn received a well deserved Nobel Prize for this. Meitner was nominated, but the Nobel Comitee did not give her a prize (in a decision that is seen as controversial by some).

3)The german effort under Heissenberg, did not have a critical (i.e. fully functional) reactor (as Fermi did in 1942 in Chicago) when they were captured in 1945 by the Alsos mission.

I would like to correct this, but would like feedback from other contributors before doing it.

Luzu 15:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I have now made the proposed changes Luzu 14:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Walker and Karlsch

Can you give the reference to Walker's article in Physics Today? I only found a Walker-Karlsh article in Physics World. Jclerman 13:26, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

• Hmm. Maybe it was Physics World, and not Physics Today. --Fastfission 14:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Joseph Farrell

His book is now available online.

• Joseph P. Farrell. Reich of the Black Sun : Nazi Secret Weapons and The Cold War Allied Legend

Octopus-Hands 00:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• It's the work of a raving conspiracy nut—Nazis, atomic bombs, Majestic-12, aliens, the whole bit. I don't think it has any value for this topic and certainly doesn't count as a reliable source. Why do you think it should be included in this article amongst respectable, academic sources? --Fastfission 01:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello FF, wiki civility applies to third-parties as well as wiki-editors, no personal attacks, please be cordial. If someone believes the Bible is full of untruths should a link to it be deleted? The author has obviously put a lot of time and effort into his book including the use of citations qualifying it as a reliable source. The book will stand or fall on its own merits, we should let each reader decide. In addition, I note that you have deleted a portion of my post to the discussion page without consulting me first, in future please do not do that. My best regards. Octopus-Hands 22:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

It depends on what the page is for. In a page about the Big Bang Theory, for example, a link to the Bible explaining its theory about God making the Earth will clearly be inappropriate. However, the Bible may be put in for example the page for Creationism or the Evolution-Creationism controversy page. Furthermore, citations by themselves do not make a book reliable. A citation is but a line of text. You can make a citation that cites a non-existent source. From what I can skim, Farrell cites extensively from similarly fringe sources (such as Stevens, underground newspapers ... etc) and thus it does not increase the reliability of his statements. A better place for citing him might be in the "etheric physics" page (do we have one?) Kazuaki Shimazaki 05:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Fastfission, it has not any value? Joseph Farrell's book (Reich of the Black Sun) contains more than 110 pages just about the Nazi atomic research, focused on the atomic improvements of Nazis, most of the pages contain reliable sources, what makes you think these 10 samples are not respectable sources:

• Page 104: The June 29, 1945 Washington post Article on the Luftwaffe Airfield in Oslo and its Forty Long Range Bombers.
• Page 96: Tom Agoston, Blunder! How the U.S. Gave Away Nazi Supersecrets to Russia (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1985), p. 65.
• Page 94: Q.v. Friedrich Georg, Hitlers Siegeswaffen band 1: Luftwaffe und Marine: Geheime Nuklearwaffen des Dritten Reiches und ihre Tragersysteme pp. 131, 133.
• Page 93: The Messerschmitt 264 Long Range "Amerikabomber ", Note the Curious Resemblance to the Boeing B-29 Superfortress
• Page 92: The Junkers 390 features
• Page 91: The OKL 's "Feasibility Study" of an Atom Bomb Blast of Hiroshima Size over Manhattan Island in New York City
• Page 82: Meyer and Mehner, das Geheimnis., p. 242.
• Page 79: Luigi Romersa, private telephone interview with Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner, Hitler und die ,,Bombe", pp. 62-66, my translation from the German.
• Page 76: The October 1944 Daily Mail Article about Berlin Telephone Service Disruption
• Page 72: "Nazis Atom Bomb Plans," London Daily Telegraph, Saturday, August 11, 1945, cited in Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner, Hitler und die ,,Bombe", p. 37.

These random selected sources are indeed some of the main sources for Farrell's book. Based on which rule it shouldn't be mentioned in Wikipedia? Shaahin (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

IEEE Magazine Letter

IEEE in the late 90's (around 1998-1999 I think) ran an article peripherally related to this topic in the IEEE magazine (or it might have been the computer science organization magazine - I had a subscription to both at the time). They received a letter (and published it in a later issue) from a German scientist who was an associate involved in this research in Nazi Germany in this time frame. He gave specific reasons and examples why and how they intentionally failed certain experiments. If this issue of the magazine could be found by someone, this might add some meat to this article. 139.169.218.182 00:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It is definitely worth including a reference to claims by Germans (esp. Heisenberg) that they intentionally failed to develop a nuclear weapon for the Nazi regime. That said, I think the vast majority of these claims have been debunked as post hoc justifications for (a) why the German scientists were so far behind the Americans and (b) why the scientists were "good" Germans and should not be punished for their part in the war effort. Notably, at the end of the European war, the Americans captured the majority of major scientists involved in the German atomic program and held them in a (bugged) farmhouse in Britain. When the scientists were told of the bombing at Hiroshima, they were all (including Heisenberg) amazed that the Americans could have been able to develop an atomic bomb when their own program had never approached that level of success. If I recall correctly, many even doubted that the story was true, as they were convinced the US was using a trick to get their superior knowledge out of them. I will look for the sources and try to include something in the article, but I don't think I have most of the books anymore, sadly. --Cphoffman (talk) 17:55, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Some references

I believe Irving was discredited as a historian during his Holocaust Denial trial. Should he be referenced from this article? -- Heptor _talk 01:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No

Not one of [Irving's] books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about. ... (Professor Richard J. Evans General Conclusion)

--Philip Baird Shearer 12:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Further reading format

What do folks think about listing the authors last-name first? The first entery, for example, would read "Bernstein, Jeremy and Cassidy, David. Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall. (2001)." I ask because this seems to be the format of the reference given, but more because I *think* that this is the more common format (as the books will be indexed in a library by author's last name, so their last name is listed first). I've also put the book title in italics, which is another change I propose. --Badger151 19:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC) Oops - I see that the book titles are already in italics, which of course didn't carry over in my cut-and-paste. --Badger151 19:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Missing a very important fact

A very important fact seems to be missing. I believe Walter Bothe determined whether a chain reaction using natural uranium and graphite as moderator would work or not, and he came to the conclusion that it would not. But the graphite that he was using was crucially impure and the Germans did not realise this. But because of this result, they decided to switch to heavy water as moderator which had extremely significant consequences for the German atomic bomb project. Needless to say, if they had realised the problem and obtained pure graphite (as Leo Szilard did in the US), the German program could perhaps have progressed substantially. --Ashujo 22.27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Strasbourg Hotel Moulin Rouge conference?

Wasn't there a major conference of German nuclear scientists at the Hotel Moulin Rouge in Strasbourg, France in 1942 or 1943? I don't see any reference to the event in this article. There are several references to a meeting on 6 July 1942, but not to its location or not a very complete explanation. Could sombody expand on the meeting and if -- it was the major conference with major decisions made -- that I seem to remember reading about, could it be more emphasized and included in the article. --TGC55 (talk) 16:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Why Didn't the Germans believe an A-bomb was Feasible?

Please answer the following questions.

A. Why did the German scientific community left NOT believe an atomic bomb was feasible?

B. Did any of them believe it was feasible and keep working?

C. What progress did such groups make?

D. To what degree were the Germans working on atomic power reactors instead of a bomb, to reduce their dependency on oil/petrol?

E. If the Germans did accept an atomic bomb as feasible, are there any estimates to how soon they might have developed and succesfully tested one?

F. We're not here to sell someone else's books, so why don't you mention what were the findings/results of the recent experts/authors books/research mentioned investigating rumours of some sort of atomic tests?

TheBalderdasher (talk) 04:49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear fusion

Why was the fact removed that Karlsch asserts the device tested in Ohrdruf probably was a thermo-nuclear fusion (not fission!) hybrid bomb based upon the shaped charge experiments performed for the sake of fusion by the Heereswaffenamt for years prior to that (which is very different from a primitive "dirty bomb" being Karlsch's second guess), that this device, though its design was more advanced, was not comparable to a large-scale Hiroshima-style (fission!) bomb, that Albert Speer was questioned at the Nuremberg trials about the Ohrdruf blast that had killed hundreds, maybe thousands of slave workers, that Soviet secret service measured a highly increased radiation level in the area immediately following the blast, and that Soviet archives still contain the classified film that the Germans made of the Ohrdruf blast? What about the number of 1940-1942 publications and (12!) patents on plutonium bombs by Weizsäcker and Fritz Houtermans classified after their publications by the Nazi government and that didn't surface until after the war, and the various fusion and hydrogen bomb publications by German scientists such as Prof. Schumann during the 1940s and 1950s as soon as the Allied military government regulations regarding military publications were lifted, yh were those deleted as well? Also, Karlsch called the modern soil sample taking a farce afterwards because what had taken place was only a preliminary test to determine whether the area had been contaminated by Chernobyl or post-war nuclear tests, but when the official report on this preliminary test read in one single sentence, "We didn't find proof of the 1945 contamination or proof of no such contamination yet, the question remains open for now until further tests will be made", the press widely publicized this finding even though it had been clear in advance that this test couldn't find it even in theory, and all the funding was cut so the actual soil samples weren't even taken or tested. --77.185.54.249 (talk) 05:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

This is indeed called controversy, which currently this page lacks, or perhaps because it is connected to Nazis, not needed? Shaahin (talk) 20:39, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Controversy

Joseph P. Farrell's story about the German atomic bomb is in fact based on some declassified documents and known sources, nothing strange. What seems strange, is the efforts to avoid any links to his book or even mentioning his research. What's wrong with that? Is this a free encyclopedia or another front? A section called controversy is absolutely needed, like many other wikipedia pages, because there is "Controversy" about the fact, that Nazis had some atomic test somewhere in the Baltic sea. Shaahin (talk) 20:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

"Comparison of the Manhattan Project and the Uranverein" entry is incorrect

Saying that nazi germany did not have brilliant scientists is a POV that is incorrect and is also prejudice. If those scientist had the conditions of "unconditional government support from a certain point in time" and "unlimited manpower and industrial resources" they would have built nuclear weapons if they had not already. This entry reeks of jewish ethnocentric POV(the jewish view that white gentile males are incompetent) so I am going to delete this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.204.110 (talk) 03:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Issue 4

The objection to item four in the list ("A phenomenal concentration of brilliant scientists devoted to the project") is noted ... and the section will be carefully analyzed for bias (especially with regard to issue 4). Proofreader77 (talk) 04:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

This sentence below appears to be the point of issue:

“ As to condition four, the high concentration of quality physicists, chemists, and mathematicians in the Manhattan Project, such as Hans Bethe, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, James Franck, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Victor Weisskopf, Eugene Wigner, and John von Neumann, had no parallel in Germany. ”

Is the above the primary concern? Proofreader77 (talk) 04:42, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the text of the section

Changes have been made which captures the sense of and reflects the differences between the Manhattan Project and Germany’s nuclear energy effort in the last years of the war. I believe these changes warrant removal of the tag on the section.

Bfiene (talk) 17:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

(Removed POV tag) COMMENT: In addressing the complaint by 70.106.204.110, the names mentioned were removed (by the creator of the section) -- which in the context of of the historic horror of this era, is perhaps more "adjustment" than is warranted. THE WIKIPEDIA PROCESS is "complex" -- my own "equations" re how it should work are evolving. BOTTOM LINE: If responding to a complaint "with due process" has resulted in erasures of names (in this context), hmmm ... the coefficients in the equations should perhaps be adjusted. Proofreader77 (talk) 20:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear pile at Haigerloch

The nuclear reactor at Haigerloch museum

The article is getting far too long with too much politics and too little physics. I propose some kind of split. We could start by creating an article on the Haigerloch nuclear pile. Or is there a better name for this? I found some interesting details here (in Finnish), including an isotope analysis of the last surviving uranium cube, but found no place to add them to. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 11:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Emigrations subsection

It seems odd to me that this subsection does not mention the word "Jew" or "Jewish" until the very end of its penultimate paragraph.

How many of those mentioned earlier in the paragraph were not Jewish? The Law that is referred to at the start of the section could be summarised in a few words, without leaving the reader to need to click through. --Dweller (talk) 11:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, not all of the physicists who emigrated were Jewish. Something that could be expanded on here is that the Nazi government basically took a hostile view of all modern physics, as they associated it with Jewish physicists (nevermind the actual origins of major German physicists like Heisenberg). This basically encouraged *anyone* working in modern physics to leave Germany so that they could continue their research elsewhere, though a few like Heisenberg soldiered on in Germany (though he faced severe problems, as laid out in the article). --Cphoffman (talk) 18:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

National Geographic documentary on the Horten 229 and Horten 18

In this NatGeo documentary it is alleged that Germany needed a long range bomber to deliver a nuclear bomb to the US. That Goering specifically asked the Horton Brothers to create this plane to deliver that bomb.

It is alleged in the documentary by xxx who interviewed the Horten Brothers in the 1990's that Goering was planning to have nuclear bomb ready by 1946/47 and the Horten brothers were tasked with designing a long rather bomber to deliver this to the US; this was the Horten 18. "Ho 18 intercontinental bomber, a larger version of their Ho 229 flying wing, powered by six turbojet engines and designed to race across the Atlantic at supersonic speeds." (http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/hitler-s-stealth-fighter-3942/Overview26#tab-nazi-secret-weapons-2)

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/hitler-s-stealth-fighter-3942/Overview26#tab-nazi-secret-weapons-2#ixzz0fZtftzzm

In is worth noting that by the end of the War Germany has a working stealth fighter, jet engines and rockets.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/hitler-s-stealth-fighter-3942/Overview26 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hhawk (talk • contribs) 05:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

New works on the German atomic programme

Why are there no references to books by authors such as

Friedrich Georg or Igor Witowski or Edgar Mayer & Thomas Mehner Most of which have been published since 2004/2006

Which might shed some new light on this discussion and the extent of German Nuclear research and associated technology? Most of these books are laboriously referenced, and include archive photos and other.