| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Hitler had atomic bomb first |
| 2005-03-07 |
| Interesting. Adolf Hitler had the atom bomb first but it was too primitive and ungainly for aerial deployment, according to a new book that indicates the race to split the atom was much closer than previously believed. Nazi scientists carried out tests of what would now be called a "dirty" nuclear device in the waning days of World War II, writes German historian Rainer Karlsch in the book, entitled Hitler's Bomb, which hits booksellers across Germany later this month. Concentration camp inmates were used as human guinea pigs and "several hundred" died horribly in the tests, which were conducted on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen and at an inland test in wooded hill country about 100 km south of Berlin in 1944 and early 1945. Karlsch, 47, author of a number of books on Cold War espionage and the nuclear arms race, supports his findings on what his publishers call hitherto unpublished documents, scientific reports and blueprints. American historian Mark Walker, an internationally recognised expert on the Third Reich's atomic weapons program, lent his support to Karlsch's claims today. "I consider the arguments very convincing," Walker told Deutsche Presse-Agentur. However, Hitler's atomic weapon did not approach the devastating potential of the US bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said Walker, a history professor at Union College in Schenectady, New York. Walker said the weapon secretly developed and tested by Nazi scientists was more comparable to a "dirty bomb" - nuclear material encased in explosives. Such a weapon, which causes little actual destruction but which disperses large amounts of deadly radiation, could only have been used on the front to throw back enemy troops, he added. Walker is the author of the 1990 book Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb. The US historian praised Karlsch for writing "a whole new chapter" on Hitler's search for the "wonder weapon". In the final days of the war, Hitler insisted that his scientists were developing a "wonder weapon" that would allow him to wrest last- minute victory from the jaws of impending defeat. Hitler's claims have been dismissed as the rantings of a desperate and deranged man. But Karlsch's book lends credence to the possibility that Hitler may have been closer to getting his hands on his coveted "wonder weapon" than anyone has previously believed. Hitherto, it was known that German scientists had carried out heavy-water experiments in an attempt to split the atom, using research facilities in Norway and elsewhere. But it was widely believed that Nazi scientists had been hampered by a lack of pure-grade uranium, which was almost non-existent outside North America and Africa. It was also surmised that Hitler had favoured conventional weapons over nuclear arms because his limited grasp of strategic warfare prevented him from seeing the ramifications of nuclear capability. It was believed that Hitler had discouraged development of the atom bomb. But Karlsch claims to have been able to find documented proof of the existence of a nuclear reactor and nuclear weapons testing sites. His publishers, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt (DVA), say his work is based on four years of painstaking research and interviews with independent historians. Among the most compelling pieces of evidence is a 1941 patent draft for a plutonium bomb, according to DVA spokesman Markus Desaga. "He also based his research on contemporary research reports, construction blueprints, aerial surveillance photos, notebooks of some of the scientists involved as well as espionage reports by US and Soviet agents," Desaga said. "He also based his findings on radiation measurements and soil analysis," the spokesman added. Karlsch, born in 1957, is a trained economics historian with a degree from Berlin's Humboldt University, where he holds a chair in economic history. He is also a member of the Berlin Historical Commission and teaches at Berlin's Free University. He has written numerous articles, essays and books, including Uranian Secrets in 2002 and The Oil Factor in 2003 about the history of German oil production. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #13 So what? The media tries to always play a "dirty bomb" ohhhh thats a joke I beieve they had a dirty bomb all that is a regular explosive surrounded by Radiated material say old X-Ray machine guts and whala you have a OHHH dirty bomb. The catch radiation is a lot of hype and scare tactic after all Hiroshema and Nagasaki right after and still to this day are thriving cities full of people and no they dont have 4arms maybe a little higher cancer rate but no serious show stopper problems. And a Real Fission blast Nuclear reaction puts out a world of more radiation than any dirty bomb since it actually radiates everything and blows it all around were one just spreads some low level radiation around. Dirty bomb yeah maybe but full Nuclear city killer like the US version No they had a couple of years to go. Although I did see a article the other day about a guy who said that we did capture a small amount of enriched uranium from the Nazis at the end of the war on one submarine bound for Japan that went awol and that helped us feel confident enough to drop a Nuke on Japan twice with some reserve in the rear. Nukes need enriched uranium a slow long expensive technical process. Once the fuel is thier the hard part the rest is just technical work. |
| Posted by: C-Low 2005-03-07 8:48:46 PM |
| #12 The story I heard was that German Scientists were ahead of everybody else before WW2 but it lost key Jewish scientists (like the guy who just died) and Hitler didn't believe an atomic bomb would work. He thought it was a Jewish conspiracy. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-03-07 6:47:22 PM |
| #11 Here he says (of the latter issue) that the German government stopped development on projects that were estimated to take longer than a couple of years to develop, so the scientists didn't really put a lot of effort into a bomb. And this was because either Heisenberg got the math wrong on how much uranium was needed, or he told them some story to stop the funding, thereby intentionally delaying the project. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-03-07 6:13:20 PM |
| #10 Ima wait for USSR! How the Soviets kicked our ass and built the triple_larry transistor multiplexer. |
| Posted by: Francis 2005-03-07 5:30:14 PM |
| #9 Wow--if they'd had both that bomb *and* the Ark of the Convenant, we'd all be toast. Thank you, Indy! |
| Posted by: Dar 2005-03-07 2:59:43 PM |
| #8 No way. The problem is getting enough enriched uranium/plutonium (plutonium doesn't exist in natural state it is a by product of uranium's nuclear reaction). Be it through centrifugation or through gasseous diffusion, it was very difficult, time-costly and immensely expensive (expensive as in tying a lot of resources who would have been no longer available for making planes, tanks and subs). For instance the centrifugation plant set by the US had two large power plants just for providing it with electricity and still needed to tap on the civilian grid causing brown outs. And the US were free of ennemy bombings. The Germans weren't and would have had to build a subterranean plant making still more expensive and creating an engineering challenge for cooling it. My info is that the blowing of Germany's heavy water plant by the Norvegian resistance was unecessary since the Germamns had already dropped from the nuclear race: it was that or having the Russians take Berlin in 1943. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-03-07 2:52:40 PM |
| #7 Angie, Great post. Note a couple things: 1. If that reactor had been critical, there wouldn't be any soldiers crawling around in that vessel. 2. Without the reactor going critical, and the article points out that it did not go critical, there are no fission products, which means... 3. There is no material to make a dirty bomb. QED This article is a subcritical pile of crap. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2005-03-07 2:48:17 PM |
| #6 Here's the website of the Atomkeller Museum in Haigerloch, Germany, where the Germans were performing their experiments. There are photos and drawings of the reactor here, an account of what the Alsos group found here, and a 1967 interview with Heisenberg here. Heisenberg apparently gave different people different accounts of why he worked on the bomb, and why he failed to make one. Here he says (of the latter issue) that the German government stopped development on projects that were estimated to take longer than a couple of years to develop, so the scientists didn't really put a lot of effort into a bomb. He also says that they didn't want to make bombs, and that they "knew" that the war would be lost by the time they got built, anyway. But supposedly, Heisenberg told Niels Bohr a different story. I can't see how a dirty bomb could be the "wonder weapon" Hitler spoke of. One of the main components of a wonder weapon, surely, is wonder -- or, as we'd say today, "shock and awe". I don't see how a dirty bomb would fit the bill in those days before people saw what an A-bomb could do. The randomness of exposure, and the time lag between exposure and onset of symptoms, would tend to decrease the shock and awe value of a dirty bomb (again, at the time). |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2005-03-07 2:35:57 PM |
| #5 However, Hitler’s atomic weapon did not approach the devastating potential of the US bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said Walker, a history professor at Union College in Schenectady, New York. Walker said the weapon secretly developed and tested by Nazi scientists was more comparable to a "dirty bomb" - nuclear material encased in explosives. Such a weapon, which causes little actual destruction but which disperses large amounts of deadly radiation Heinlein had a short story about the use of radiation weapons. I believe it was published in 1941. So this isn't that far-fetched of an idea. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-03-07 1:49:16 PM |
| #4 find documented proof of the existence of a nuclear reactor It right by the Krupp built Essen Mark IV digital computer. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-03-07 1:06:34 PM |
| #3 I won't believe this story until I see it on the Discovery Channel. Scary nevertheless. |
| Posted by: Chris W. 2005-03-07 12:33:52 PM |
| #2 Among the most compelling pieces of evidence is a 1941 patent draft for a plutonium bomb, according to DVA spokesman Markus Desaga. This article is so loaded with inaccuracies that I don't know if I'm critiquing the book or the news reporter. A patent draft of a plutonium bomb is meaningless. Anyone familiar with nuclear physics can draw you a design for a plutonium bomb. However, before you go adding them to the Axis of Evil, they're probably a little short on plutonium, high explosives, metallurgy skills, neutron trigger, etc. I also notice in the write up that his proof is based on conversations with other historians vice discussions with nuclear physicists. Color me very skeptical. Perhaps he found all his material next to Hitler's secret diary. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2005-03-07 12:28:03 PM |
| #1 Is this new? I have heard about this since I was small. There was talk about this after Hiroshima and Nagasaki that my folks heard at the time (late 1940s) and told me about (1960s & 1970s)... |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-03-07 12:05:58 PM |