Drawing for Hitler's nuclear bomb found

[2RHPZ]

Drawing for Hitler's nuclear bomb found

June 2, 2005

PARIS: A pair of German and US historians said today they had found the only known diagram for the nuclear bomb that Nazi scientists strived to build during World War II.

The rough schematic does not imply that the Nazis built or even were close to building a nuclear bomb, but it shows they had progressed fuarther toward that goal than is conventionally thought, they said.

The article appears in the June issue of the British monthly Physics World, and can be seen on its website http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/6/3/1).

The 60-year-old document is part of a report that appears to have been produced just after the end of the war in Europe in May 1945 and describes the work on nuclear weapons that had been carried out during the conflict.

The report is undated and in addition lacks a title page, which means its author or authors cannot be identified. It came from a "private archive", the historians said.

http://www.adolfhitler.ws/modules/My_eGallery/gallery/mis/unclass/nuke.jpg



http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/images/dt_smallLogo.gif (http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1268&storyid=3222122)

[JoaMei]

Well, it was to late. The industrial base was completely destroyed. The couldnt produce enough plutonium or enriched uranium. Some of the material was sent to Japan via Submarine but the end of war let the crew surrender to the allies.
Ironically the material arrived in Japan some time later.... it was a few Kilograms of "Little Boy".... :|

[Kitsune]

You are referring to U-234, JoaMei?

[von_Moo142]

That's an interesting article, thanks for the link!


It's worth noting that the diagram shows a type of gun assembly bomb. The critical mass is described as being plutonium, this seems important as gun assembly bombs can't really be made to work using Pu. This implies that the author either lacked data on the spontaneous fission rate of Pu (which is understandable) or was not interested in a diagram of a potentially functional nuclear weapon. Gun bombs can be made to work with U235, however this design doesn't seem to me to be the easiest way of making such a weapon.


This is all moot anyway because Germany had absolutly no means of enriching Uranium or making Plutonium in anything greater that trace quantities. As far as isotope seperation went, they couln't even obtian enough heavy water for making the large scale non-critical experiments needed before they could make their intended heavy water moderated reactor. Since seperating heavy water is orders of magnitude easier than enriching U, it's hard to imagine a what if German U235 programme.



Tangentally, I'm pretty sure that if the US did capture natrual Uranium from a German submarine, there would not have been time to seperate any U235 from it for inclusion in the little boy bomb. And since Germany did not possess any methods of seperating this isotope they wouldn't have captured any enriched uranium in anything greater than nanogram or microgram amounts.

[Amethystfretchen]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/sci_nat_enl_1117632780/img/1.jpg
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=74543

[Thor]

Have in mind that we, Sweden, could have had the bomb already in the 1950's. Could Germany have it ready during the war? Sure, but Hitler did two things. 1. did not realize the importance of it 2. regarded it as an ungerman kind of weapon and more or less opted it out.

[CountZero]

Have in mind that we, Sweden, could have had the bomb already in the 1950's. Could Germany have it ready during the war? Sure, but Hitler did two things. 1. did not realize the importance of it 2. regarded it as an ungerman kind of weapon and more or less opted it out.

How come ? are you reffering to the heavy water plants used by the germans or are you reffering to something else?

[Thor]

Oh, I read this long report on this a few years ago. Can't recall it exactly though.

It's seems like this war never ends.

[JoaMei]

You are referring to U-234, JoaMei?

Have seen something about that in TV some time ago, but can not remember the Number of the boat.
And Im to lazy to google p-)

[Kilgor]

I think this is massive "what if"...

Germany did not have the scientists and almost unlimited resources of the united states. Of course they had some very tallented men and women, but the numbers and resources wasnt there.

Even the soviet bomb was copied from the US, even when stalin gave a order for top priority on obtaining nuclear weapons. It was not a easy thing to achieve even with germany's history of "uber" weapons.

[JoaMei]

First controlled Nuclear fission took place in Germany, it was leading in nuclear science. But most of the Physicist in that field were Jews(Einstein for example), they left germany when the nazis came to power. Nuclear science was called "jewish" and ignored after that.
Germany had the ressources before the war, remember even North Korea can build them today...

[Thor]

Didn't take that much really. Don't know why the manhattan project took on so monstreus dimensions.

[Kilgor]

Germany had the ressources before the war, remember even North Korea can build them today...

Yes but back then it was a massive undertaking to build a bomb.

just because its easier today, doesnt draw any comparision back then.

[von_Moo142]

First controlled Nuclear fission took place in Germany, it was leading in nuclear science. But most of the Physicist in that field were Jews(Einstein for example), they left germany when the nazis came to power. Nuclear science was called "jewish" and ignored after that.
Germany had the ressources before the war, remember even North Korea can build them today...

No, Germany did not have the resources before the war. No country did. Look at the massive undertaking that was the Manhatten project. Even the US had only taken one route to an atomic bomb, the scale would still have been vast.

Look at the Oak Ridge and/or Hanford sites, which were absolutly required just to obtain the fissile material.

And this ignores the massive amount of R&D needed to develop a practical isotope seperation system or nuclear reactor and waste processing/Pu extration system system. These are not trivial technologies to invent and then get working. Futhermore, the modern assumption that it is somehow easy to make a nuclear weapon now is simplistic at best.

[Minardiau]

Even IF Germany had of developed the bomb it is doubtfull that they would of used the dam thing. Maybe tested a weapon for the world to see on some evacuated Russian city of it's destructive power. To sue for peace.

Despite all of it's atrocities the one thing the Germans dident do was use weapons of destruction, even though they had a ****load of it. And as a country had a history of using chemical weapons.

[Kilgor]

Thats a good point.

Any used of a atomic weapon would have resulted in a chemical weapons bombing on major german for which they would have no answer to.

[von_Moo142]

Chemical weapons aren't really WMD, unless they are used on an unprepared and dense population.

The Germans didn't use chemical weapons because of sentimental reasons and because they are not very useful* in mobile attacking warfare anyway.


Even in 1944, chemical weapons would have only been potentially useful** in Normandy and against the Soviets. Generally, the western allies broad front approach made them a poor target for chemical weapons. The bolder Soviet attacks could have been slowed the employment of chemical weapons at breakthrough points, perhaps even significantly in some cases.


* They can be counter productive here, of course.

** Not that dubious usefulness stopped Hitler in other areas of course, the Ardennes offensive is a shining example of this...

[JoaMei]

Thats a good point.

Any used of a atomic weapon would have resulted in a chemical weapons bombing on major german for which they would have no answer to.

Not true, the allies had some advanced bioweapon technology(Anthrax) but no modern nervegas. Tabun, Soman, Sarin are all german developments the Allies discovered after the war, they were shocked.
Allies only had the old stuff from WW1 like mustard gas.

[Kitsune]

On top of this, Anthrax is not really an effective weapon. It first gows into the ground and then it enters human beings over ingestion. It takes quite some time to effect a population, its even possible to evacuate people safely...Anthrax does not go from human to human.
Of course it contaminates the area for decades. But that would have troubled those who were about to conquer Germany by conventional means as well.

Its contrary to what Kilgor said: the Germans were far more advanced in chemical weapons (and had lots of it, too) and the Allies would have had no answer to that. It's still a mystery to me why Hitler did not use them.
Probably in phase one of WWII he was winning and so thought he would not need them. (It should have been quite possible for the Germans in 1940 to completely sterilize the London area. Sarin is WAY more deadly than Mustard gas...and even Churchill later wanted to use that on German cities. Possibly if he had, Hitler would have changed his opinion.)
Later he seemed to have hoped for peace with the Western Allies...probably that made him forego the use of Sarin and Tabun. But why didn't he use it in the end, in 1945? It can't be fear of retribution, since he decided that the German people should go down with him. So, he would not have cared if there were any acts of vengeance on the Allied side. So why? I never found the all convincing answer to that one.

[Sayeret]

Even IF Germany had of developed the bomb it is doubtfull that they would of used the dam thing. Maybe tested a weapon for the world to see on some evacuated Russian city of it's destructive power. To sue for peace.

Despite all of it's atrocities the one thing the Germans dident do was use weapons of destruction, even though they had a ****load of it. And as a country had a history of using chemical weapons.

Near the very end of the war for Germany, Hitler ordered chemical weapons to be launched at London but by that time, the logistics were in such bad shape that the orders could never be carried out.

[JoaMei]

@Kitsune

Inhalation of the Anthrax spores will lead to the outbreak of too. It is a fine dust that moves in the wind very much like chemical weaopons.

[Kitsune]

True, but inhaled Anthrax is far less potent than chemical weapons.

[Sayeret]

True, but inhaled Anthrax is far less potent than chemical weapons.

Overall, Anthrax is a more lethal weapon. Chemical weapons would probably be effective against a military in the field but against an unprotected target Anthrax would be a more potent weapon. If you were to dropped a powdered form of Anthrax over a city, a lot more people would become infected and die as compared to releasing some kind of chemical weapon like VX or Sarin.

[Minardiau]

Even IF Germany had of developed the bomb it is doubtfull that they would of used the dam thing. Maybe tested a weapon for the world to see on some evacuated Russian city of it's destructive power. To sue for peace.

Despite all of it's atrocities the one thing the Germans dident do was use weapons of destruction, even though they had a ****load of it. And as a country had a history of using chemical weapons.

Near the very end of the war for Germany, Hitler ordered chemical weapons to be launched at London but by that time, the logistics were in such bad shape that the orders could never be carried out.

I've never read anything on this. Could you point me to a site?

[Sayeret]

Even IF Germany had of developed the bomb it is doubtfull that they would of used the dam thing. Maybe tested a weapon for the world to see on some evacuated Russian city of it's destructive power. To sue for peace.

Despite all of it's atrocities the one thing the Germans dident do was use weapons of destruction, even though they had a ****load of it. And as a country had a history of using chemical weapons.

Near the very end of the war for Germany, Hitler ordered chemical weapons to be launched at London but by that time, the logistics were in such bad shape that the orders could never be carried out.

I've never read anything on this. Could you point me to a site?

I read it in a book:

Secret Weapons of World War II by William B. Breuer