The German Atomic Device - The Evidence

[phylo_roadking]

1950s nuke could not be built in 1945.

IIRC when Heisenberg visited Nils Bohr, he was STILL of the opinion that an "atomic bomb" would be nothing more than a reactor let run critical! He even roughly sketched this out to Bohr. Whatever the intentions of German atomic scientists - it CERTAINLY wasn't going to fit in an A4...and going by Heisenberg's diagram they had "known" that for some considerable time.

Mind you...

Just like 1945 fighter aircraft was not present in sky over western front in 1918.

...when the Fokker D VII appeared, this is IIRC exactly what the Allies thought!

[stellung]

Although Heisenberg was the head of the official German atomic project, there were two others and many names attached to these projects who are not well known. In November, 1945, General Henry Arnold published an article in Life Magazine. In it is an illustration showing intercontinental rockets coming from Western Europe and striking points deep in the United States. The Main caption reads: Atom Bombs Descend on U.S. Who had these atom bombs at that time besides the U.S.?

From the book, Spying on the Bomb by Jeffrey T. Richelson: "In August 1941, Houtermans completed The Question of Starting a Nuclear Chain Reaction, reporting that a reactor using natural uranium as a fuel could produce plutonium, which could then be removed by chemical means and used as an explosive." page 24

"Oppenheimer also noted that a large chemical company , such as I.G. Farben, could carry out a bomb program." pages 33-34

"An April 3, 1944, Azusa cable reported... that Frederic Joliot-Curie 'has just been given 300,000 French francs by the Nazis toward his research in the reduction of heat formation during the atom-splitting reaction.'" page 39

"Gustav Ludwig Hertz... winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925... chief of the Siemens-Halske Laboratories during the war, he had developed a gaseous diffusion process for isotope separation..." page 67

Why was the order given for the destruction of the Auer plant? Even the Russians knew why it was destroyed.


After difficulties with obtaining heavy water due to attacks against Norsk Hydro and related sabotage, the I.G. Farben Leuna Weke ammonia production plant was given the task to make more. page 321 of Physics and National Socialism. Apparently, according to a thread elsewhere on this forum, the Italians were also making heavy water for the Germans.

[phylo_roadking]

In November, 1945, General Henry Arnold published an article in Life Magazine. In it is an illustration showing intercontinental rockets coming from Western Europe and striking points deep in the United States. The Main caption reads: Atom Bombs Descend on U.S. Who had these atom bombs at that time besides the U.S.?

Answer - noone...but I'm sure it was GREAT for freeing up the minds of Congress towards continued military spending in the poast-war era The XB-36 wasn't to fly for ANOTHER ten months, on the 8th of August, 1946...and could still have been strangled at birth.

[stellung]

This is not at all convincing, especially considering estimates of when the Soviets might construct their own atomic bomb. I don't think Life magazine, shortly after the end of the Second World War, would want its readers to experience further anxiety, especially since all the war dead were still in the process of being recovered.

[phylo_roadking]

I don't think Life magazine, shortly after the end of the Second World War, would want its readers to experience further anxiety, especially since all the war dead were still in the process of being recovered

it's not really a mattter of what you "think", it's a matter of history; the U.S. attitude to the USSR was hardening fast towards the end of 1945, and into 1946. There had already been a major falling-out over Japan, with the Americans changing the occupation plan for the Home Islands and closing Stalin out. The Russians had plans in hand for occupying Hokkaido when Truman changed the original SCAP occupation plan, and left the Russans with only Sakhalin, the Kurils and a part of North Korea. Stalin had officialy protested over this.

Domestically, America's military-industrial complex that was created during the Second World War was NOT scaled back. Pressures to "get back to normal" were intense, with Congress wanting low, balanced budgets. Truman's administration worried first about a postwar slump, then about the inflationary consequences of pent-up consumer demand. The G.I. Bill, adopted in 1944, was one answer: subsidizing veterans to complete their education rather than flood the job market and boost the unemployment figures immediately. In the end, the postwar U.S. government strongly resembled the wartime government, with the military establishment — along with defence industries — heavily funded by Washington.

As for global relations with the Soviets - look at George Kennan's "Long Telegram" of February 1946 for how American governmental opinion and policy vs. the USSR was changING...

[stellung]

To return to the subject, the Germans had the technical capability to produce an atomic device. The search for German atomic experts continued well after the end of the war. How could these men have been 'experts' in anything?

Based on the other posts here, some are led to believe one thing while it is clear that something entirely different was going on. Just as the American atomic project was dispersed (including in Canada), so was the German project.

Leipzig II

Chem. technische Reichsanstalt

Gottow II

Gottow III

Berlin Versuch

Not to mention Siemens-Halske and various I.G. Farben operations.

[phylo_roadking]

To return to the subject, the Germans had the technical capability to produce an atomic device.

Less than proved. The fact that SO many dispersed scentists and engineers were working in SO many locations but no viable device ever produced proves more that they DIDN'T have the capability by the end of april 1945. Many of these were working with NO interaction between them; in typical Nazi Era fashion, several teams working towards the SAME end but dividing resources of money, time, research capability etc., driven by separate Army offices. The smae difficultes paralysed various tank designs, aircraft designs, infantry weapon development....

As for "searching" for them is supposed to prove they were a threat - quite the reverse; the Allies and in particular the Amercians carried out a LARGE number of intelligence missions to Europe after D-Day, I've recently been perusing for example the records of the O.S.S. mission sent in late 1944 to recover Me262 information and examples of technology. ALL intelligence bodies "closed the ring" of their investigations, they didn't just lock their desks and close their officer doors on the 8th of May 1945, they "clean closed" ongoing areas of investigation - and in the case of the atom scientists and rocket scientists they did so not ONLY to pad out American development efforts if necesssary - look at the Prinz Eugen's radar for example; they demanded the PE be sent to the U.S. and stripped out her radar and spent months testing it...only to find it didn't compare with USN types...then literally threw it AND the PE away! - but to keep certain classes out scientists out of the hands of the Russians. After Potsdam, when Truman was careful to CONFIRM (not that he realised) everything that Stalin ALREADY knew) the existence of the American Bomb, the Russians were trawling their parts of Occupied Germany for scientists. From the Peenemunde neigbourhood for example they shipped over NINE HUNDRED scientists and family members to Russia for the next 11 years or so...whereas exactly HOW many rocket scientists did von Braun persuade to come with him to America...IIRC 72???

Don't neglect the role that Paperclip and the Air Force version (can't remember its name at the minute) were playing in garnering skills and technology for the on-going war, the one that for MANY months still looked as it would require an INVASION of the Japanese Home Islands to resolve...hence for example the separate USAAF and USN work on V1 clones, for instance, the USN project running at Point Mugu.

It's quite clear from Keenan's "Long Telegram" that the U.S. government was entirely skeptical of Soviet Russia's expressed desires for peace and cooperation, and FULLY expected a conflict between them of SOME form. Given that - UNTIL they became aware of Klaus Fuchs, it was entirely normal to want to keep the German knowledge of atomic physics out of Soviet hands; which by a direct inference means putting it into AMERICAN hands

[stellung]

You are simply employing a rhetorical diversion. I am very aware of PAPERCLIP and the other American efforts (LUSTY for the Air Force), not to mention similar efforts by the French, British and Russians. PAPERCLIP continued, in various forms, into the 1970s. The Russians allowed their Germans to return in the 1950s. Odd, to say the least. You should look up the Australian program. It went by the acronym ESTEA.

[phylo_roadking]

Not a rhetorical exercise - merely applying Occam's Razor. We KNOW about PAPERCLIP and LUSTY and why they took place; we know that relations were thawing fast betwwen the US and the USSR; we know that the U.S. STILL at that moment in time thought they were the only ones with the secret of Atomic fission, etc. etc. We know therefore that there were several sets of reasons why the U.S. wanted German scientists in the USA, both proactively (for Operation Downfall) and preemptively - to remove them from Europe. There's no mysterious "X" at work in the process, nor is one required.

The Russians allowed their Germans to return in the 1950s. Odd, to say the least

Odd? Not at all. What you SHOULD do is do some reading on the history of Soviet rocketry... Never restrict yourself to one area of speciality...

Start here - http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/earsiles.htm Let's just say that Russian "domestic" rocketry was neither as far advanced or as good as the Korolev legend would have us believe in the first decade after the war... When theynwere done with them - they sent them home. Otherwise they'd have been a security headache KEEPING them there after their usefulness was done and Russian designers had caught up.

[LWD]

From what I've read the Soviets ended up with lower tier people for the most part as well. Many might have been more accuratly described as technicians rather than scientist. The impact of the Germans on the US missile programs has also often been significantly overstated.

[phylo_roadking]

What they did end up with was the engineers from Peenemunde; the guys that actually built the rockets, which is what the Russians needed while they laboured to build and test-launch captured A4s and piles of components; remember, they didn't have access to the large pile of unused V2s from the Mittelwerk And of course these were the experimental engineers, the guys that actually made the drawings and blueprints of von Braun's designers come to life, and who manufactured and tested the solutions to the problems the Peenemunde team came up with to the A4's many and various problems. When you're back-engineering, better to have the fabricators

[Simon K]

You fools!
Read Reich of The Black Sun by Joseph.P. Farrell

If you are unconvinced even after this, research the Nazi Area 51 at Ohrdruf in Thuringia, where even today special Nazi machinery deep in the ground (that cannot be turned off or errr..found) keeps sandwiches fresh for up to 9 years due to "Arayan Physics".

The truth is out there Muttly.

[phylo_roadking]

keeps sandwiches fresh for up to 9 years due to "Arayan Physics".

...which the nasty Americans pirated after the war as...clingfilm

[Simon K]

They should send Time Team there.
Phil Harding speaking from small hole "Ohh Arhh that looks like an anti-gravity device Tony or a bucket".
"Well I will let you get on with it. And now Victor will draw us a picture of what the canteen looked like".

[Urmel]

Geophys indicates a giant saucer-shape structure at low depth.

Which then turns out to be a dog-food bowl with "Adolf" written on it.