The German Atomic Bomb
By June 1942, the German scientists working on the atomic bomb had solved the problem of making one- in principle, but nothing might be completed within the short time period due to an absence of plutonium. Germany feared that the USA would have one by 1944. If developed, Germany may be able to drop on New York Metropolis from a flying boat, a BV 238. By 1944, the Germans had a really complete nuclear facility at Eulenberg producing heavy water and the development of a strange excessive-power weapon by the SS. One of many companies closely concerned is around right now, Siemens AG and Farben.
After the struggle, in 1946, the USN produced a report by Capt. Hickey concerning the German Atomic Bomb after extensive investigation, it was reviewed and signed off by a leading German scientist. It’s the solely known eyewitness report confirming one of many few atomic bomb tests the Germans conducted.
The report states that a German, ZInsser, a rocket skilled, was flying in a small plane round in the first week of October, 1944, within the vincinity from Ludwiglust and south of Lubeck. This was 12-15 km from the German atomic bomb take a look at facility. Zinsser, abruptly witnessed a strong, bright illumination of all of the ambiance and noticed the clearly visible strain wave approaching with a diameter of 1 km. The cloud changed colours rapidly largely blue to red. It lasted for 2-3 seconds. He described that there was a short interval of darkness and then quite a few blue light spots. After 10 seconds, the cloud appeared to vanish but reappear in a lighter coloration. He observed that the stress wave, which was still visible, was a minimum of 9000 m in diameter and continued for 15 seconds. His aircraft felt the wave which jostled the small remark plane, however he remained in command of it.
Zinsser landed his plane and was flying once more in a He 111 within an hour of the thriller. His plane flew to the spot where the explosion had been spotted. That is where he encountered and odd shaped mushroom cloud at 3-4000 m, which continued to supply turbulence. he observed robust electrical communication interference. Zinsser, within the report, noted he could not perceive why such explosions can be performed near giant inhabitants centers.
The USN acknowledged that the report is extremely credible and has all the signatures of an atomic bomb test and determined the Germans had examined a 1,000 ton TNT bomb, or one thing else with as much drive. They concluded that the Germans had by this date produced enough fissile material for not less than two atomic bombs, possibly more. Zinsser or different investigation yielded nothing about radioactive fallout, which is odd.
Extra exams did, in truth happen, another occurred on March four, 1945 at Ohrdruf utilizing a 100 gram nuclear explosive. This test really seriously wounded or killed over seven-hundred POWs, as they were too shut. These killed were burned, those who survived suffered from severe nosebleeds and untreatable burns. Another A-bomb test occurred on March 12, this time with no casualties.
Hitler was informed and on March twenty seventh, he wanted to use it by some means. Oddly enough, Speer and Himmler vehemently against using this new weapon in a protracted vary rocket! By this date, Germany did have a number of atomic bombs to make use of however lacked the means to deliver them because the Allies ruled the sky and far of Germany was now part of the entrance line.
No matter secrets and techniques found at the German atomic bomb facility at Ohrdruf in Might, 1945, remains classified from the public until 2045. Zinsser’s report is the only doc not classified as such and is a window into the other still classified documents on the National Archives.
Comments
Robert Sacchi on April 13, 2015:
I discover the declare a report is closed to the general public for one hundred years dubious. Claiming something is classified is a solution to give credibility to one thing that deserves no credibility.
perrya (author) on April 13, 2015:
Effectively, the truth shall be identified in 2045, when the data are made public. I feel making these data closed to the public one hundred years after the fact, speaks volumes to the reality. If this were not true, why do so?
Robert Sacchi on April 12, 2015:
This flies within the face of the recognized information. The German atomic program did not get very far. An atomic explosion as described would have had more than 1 eye witness. It also stretches the imagination to assume Albert Speer would not have said one thing.
CHRIS57 from Northern Germany on December 28, 2012:
Simon – who is Christopher (Perrien)? At least that isn’t me.
There are 3 purpose why i am very sceptical about any sort of intelligence stories, and reports on nuclear weapon exams in paricular.
1. I have family ties with intelligence individuals. I assume i understand how they tick.
2. Similar subject with nuclear scientists.
three. My private skilled background. I am fairly high up in the technology meals chain and that allows me to do and confirm many scientific calculations for myself.
Whereas 1. goes back to WWII and there are bookshelves of literature revealed on the persons in query, 2. are folks nonetheless in active science function (instructing on universities and reseaching in science labs) 3. my interest in hubpages and articles like this one is simply enjoying to rub my intellect on fellow hub community individuals such as you. Thanks.
By the way, i browsed for the names you mentioned in your remark. It is vitally telling how different the returns have been in English, German and Russian. The farther away, the extra magnified the matter.
Simon Gunson on December 27, 2012:
Chris (Perrien) I presume?
Firstly I doubt anybody might educate you as you say as a result of apparently you have got a completely closed mind. Secondly you have not argued with me at all, simply thrown just a little mud and then run away from a real debate… I take into account that childish.
Thirdly I base my claims not on theories however all upon rigorously researched information. Information which you’ll not confront or debate.
The Iraq challenge is entirely different. Iraq had acquired Zippe centrifuges within the Nineteen Eighties from Germany which had no moral scruples the place it bought such expertise in contravention of the Non Proliferation Treaty and Hussein did have a objective of creating nuclear weapons, but deserted those goals before 1993. IAEA inspectors carried out thorough investigations and reported precisely before the invasion that there have been no longer any WMD in Iraq nor any means to provide them.
Even the CIA confirmed this, however for Political reasons President Bush refused to accept the Intelligence and began trying to manufacture Intelligence by bribing defectors from the Iraqi regime to current that manufactured proof to the United Nations.
It was not a failure of intelligence, however interference by politics. A different difficulty from WW2 Intelligence.
WW2 Intelligence was primarily based on highly accurate investigation from multiple sources. If the claims about Nazi Atomic testsing at Rugen was flawed or false there wouldn’t be so many a number of corroborations from multiple independent sources.
Typical of the wartime intelligence about exams on Rugen is that usually it was gathered from captured German navy personnel, for example TIME magazine dated 27 November 1944 the Manhattan Undertaking scientist Philip Morrison cited seize of three German officers from Penemunde who confirmed tests at Rugen.
In 2004 the wartime Rugen resident Elisabeth Mestlin got here forward to recount how she had witnessed a blast and seen a purplish mushroom cloud handing over Bug isthmus.
After the War a letter got here to light from Prof Walter Gerlach to Himmler’s adjutant Grothmann describing these Atomic exams. Gerlach was the leader of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in 1944 and successor to Heisenberg.
One of many hardest to refute confirmations got here from intercepted and decrypted indicators from Japanese diplomatic missions again to Tokyo reporting on the German challenge. These alerts referred to as ULTRA to the british or as MAGIC to the Americans have been probably the most correct and reliable supply of intelligence by way of the conflict on a complete range of issues. You aren’t worthy to sneer at such sources.
Romania’s Marshal Antonescu whom Hitler had briefed in regards to the German atomic bomb on 5 August 1944. When his rule was overthrown in September 1944 he pleaded for his life and revealed all he knew about Hitler’s atomic weapons.
Mussolini also sent Luigi Romersa to witness the atomic tests at Rugen and on the day he was captured, 27 April 1944, Mussolini tried to save himself by revealing secrets and techniques about the German atomic bomb.
Another OSS source in WW2 was Reichstag Treasury official Erwin Respondek. The German treasury funded all Nazi nuclear projects except those run by the SS which were funded by a national trust fund. Respondek was probably the most correct and dependable supply of Allied intelligence in WW2. He spied not for monetary reward however out of moral convictions and risked his life many occasions to smuggle jews from Germany. He was arrested by the Gestapo and confronted hanging until after the 1944 bomb plot against hitler when himmler freed him and sent him to negotiate a separate peace deal for the SS with the People in Switzerland.
The OSS also interviewed Dr Ing Ernst Nagglestein in Zurich in November 1944 about his work on Atomic waepons at Tubingen, with Dr Otto Hahn. The OSS report A-forty four 136/5985 of 7 November 1944 comes instantly from Nagglestein. It also warned of Tabun B nerve fuel manufacture at Dyhrenfurth of which the Allies had beforehand been totally unaware and this proved one hundred% correct.
Then one can not refute the postwar memoirs of Common Dr Erich Schumann and Dr Walter Trinks who described their growth of the atomic bomb. The Schumann Trinks bomb utilizing plasma pinch technology right this moment is referred to as a Third Era nuclear weapon design.
The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are at present known as First era because they were so crude and primative. USA didn’t acquire the know-how for third technology weapons until 1952 when they recruited former Nazi scientist Dr Kurt Diebner.
Few persons are conscious that both Switzerland and Sweden had their very own atomic weapons projects in 1946 and were growing third technology atomic bombs with German experience and experience. These nations have been later discreetly persuaded by NATO to desert their nuclear applications in return for safety assurances.
Another thing you must explain Christopher is how the Soviets were in a position in 1946 to publish the rules of third era nuclear weapons in 1946 based mostly on principles developed by Schumann and Trinks.
I think you wont argue the details I cite because you possibly can’t so you resort to sneering at them, however that is not an answer.
So Christopher if you say to me use common sense, I say again to you open your eyes.
Jimmy on November 23, 2012:
The German navy surrounded the U.S. with 24 U-boats, armed with (V-6?) I.C.B.M.s, having celestial guidance methods, and armed with neutron bomb warheads, educated on key American cities and centers, in a 1945 stalemate; German Admiral Karl Doenitz negotiated a secret truce and amnesty agreement with American authorities, beneath which he was required to order all 24 U-boats “…scuttled, with all arms on board…”, underneath the settlement, pursuant to which Nazi skippers opened the hatches and the subs and all men on board went to the bottom. Under Operation Paperclip, all Nazi scientific research materials, most of their important scientists, and the “KT-p2 Projekt” technology, had been transferred to the U.S. and to the Trilateral Commission firms, thus making an attempt to insure that the Illuminati would retain management of the supplies. Certain uncommon safety procedures had been initiated to insure this, together with the “sacrificing” of some major German scientists to the Soviets, to plant misinformation, and to insure that the hoax was profitable.
During the struggle, German scientists bypassed growth of the “atom bomb”, and built and tested the neutron bomb. German field marshall Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps were initially sent to North Africa to check the neutron bomb, in addition to Tesla’s “dying ray” (which freezes whole armies); this know-how was acquired by American corporations, held chiefly by David Rockefeller, and was later bought in part back to the U.S. authorities and tested in the ’60s, and the identical know-how was again sold to the U.S. government again within the ’70s and ’80s, as “star wars” expertise.
Over 15,000 German army, technical, intelligence, and help personnel have been dropped at America (mostly New Mexico-Manzano Base, Sandia Base, White Sands Missile Vary, Alamogordo, Holloman A.F.B., Los Alamos, and so forth.) with the “KT-p2” mission, in Sept., 1945, at which era, below Operation Paper Clip, Wernher von Braun grew to become Director of Analysis, U.S. Army Ordnance, Ft. Bliss, Texas; he and his 116 high rocket scientists commenced rocket (and flying saucer) R.& D. at close by White Sands Missile Range, and Alamogordo.
Howard Hughes “Glomar Explorer” was built to retrieve the 24 scuttled German U-Boats, earlier than terrorists or unfriendly governments discovered and retrieved the subs, missiles, bombs, and associated technology, and because the WW II German U-boats had been powered by a kind of magnetic-electrical generator (invented by an American named Dort of Virginia) which was superior to nuclear energy. Additional details about the German ‘ship’, the Graf Zeppelin are included on this e book; Adolf and Eva (Braun) Hitler had been daringly rescued from the Berlin Bunker by flying saucer, piloted by take a look at pilot Hanna Reitsch and lengthy distance flight expert Hans Ultich Rudel. The couple have been later protected by the key amnesty agreement, live their remaining lives below protection of the N.A.T.. alliance, in Kassel, Germany, mockingly the home of a world monument to the Holocaust. The “Hitlers” even visited America on the invitation of L.B.J. to go to “Hemisfair”, the World’s fair at San Antonio, Texas, in 1967.
perrya (creator) on November 23, 2012:
Nicely, iraq had chemical weapons, which may very well be “mass destruction”
CHRIS57 from Northern Germany on November 22, 2012:
Simon, thanks for educating me on this subject. But please permit me to place this into the world of fairy tales, of invented tales.
What do you suppose intelligence people do if they don´t have anything to report? They create one thing and since they are good, they line up bits and pieces to create a chain of evidence.
Nearly jogs my memory of a discussion with a couple of Individuals and Isreali on a abandoned flight to Israel in 2003 in the course of the first weeks of warfare. They insisted on intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction in Irak. Effectively – we all know, there were no such weapons. So why is all people a lot in believing what the James Bond kiddies are arising with? Switch by yourself frequent sense. It will get you additional than any expertise conspiracy.
It’s a pleasure arguing with you, Simon. 🙂
Simon Gunson on November 22, 2012:
Firstly Chris if it were only one remoted report about nuclear assessments at Rugen in October 1944, then you definately could be entitled to dismiss it as such but the OSS had a key informant in the Reichstag (Erwin Respondek) who proved appropriate in everything he ever predicted to OSS station agent Sam Woods from earlier than America’s involvement with the warfare, plus an engineer from the Atomic weapons growth faculty at Tubingen (Ernst Nagglestein).
The blast in October 1944 was witnessed by two individuals who were not acquainted with one another and gave remarkably equivalent accounts (pilot Hans Zinsser and Italian war correspondent Luigi Romersa -died 2007). The British Press reported from Stockholm throughout the War a series of black-outs in communication between Stockholm and Berlin accompanied by atmospheric electrical interference. It was additionally reported by the Japanese military attache in Stockholm to Tokyo by encyphered radio signals, decrypted by the Individuals as “MAGIC” decrypts. A sign despatched on 12 December 1944 experiences German use of “Uranium atom splitting weapons” of “devastating impact.” The signal was not declassified till 1978. These usually are not light-weight sources nevertheless your dismissal of them is.
Test blasts at Ohrdruf were the subject of wartime Soviet intelligence reviews declassified in 2005. The very fact these experiences occurred 70 years ago has nothing to do with their veracity, but may have one thing to do along with your disapproval as they’re more durable to disprove 70 years later. The Ohrdruf checks in March 1945 had been witnessed by individuals who testified in 1961 to an East German Court of Inquiry, One among whom Clare Werner was still alive in 2005 and repeated her testimony which might now be seen on Youtube as can also the 2005 testimony on Youtube by Luigi Romersa who additionally witnessed the Rugen take a look at in October 1944. Their testimony is just not 70 years old.
You are talking nonsense about lack of noise and radioactivity in Germany. Ohrdruf has been a closed navy reserve since WW2 and there are indeed elevated ranges of Cobolt 60 and Caesium 137 there. What’s lacking at Ohrdruf are any radioactive decay products like Xenon which would clearly indicate the supply was fall out from Chernobyl.
Likewise at Bug Isthmus on Rugen where the October 1944 checks occurred the area is a distant and unpopulated spit of sand which has been a closed military reserve with elevated levels of radiation just like those at Ohrdruf. On the heel of the isthmus in WW2 was a Luftwaffe base for a prime secret unit IV/KG200. The city of Dranske subsequent to the isthmus was evacuated of regular civilians and turned by the Nazis right into a protected haven resort for the households of Nazi occasion faithful. All civilians there were evacuated before the Russians arrived and displaced by Poles.
There were not just some technological achievements by Germany during the Struggle. There have been 173 prepare boxcar a great deal of patents shipped to USA through Cherbourg at the finish of WW2 and turned over to US industry as War booty. Germany developed swept wing know-how and axial flow jet engines far superior of Allied efforts. They developed infra pink guided air to air missiles, numerous alloys and synthetics which seem common everyday objects now. Your dismissiveness of Germany’s talents borders on dishonest.
In 1942 Enrico Fermi proposed to the Manhattan venture committee a way for detonating a nuclear blast called a “Plasma Pinch.” The same technique was set out in wartime patent applications by German Army ordnance scientists Schumann and Trinks for the weapon they detonated at Rugen in October 1944. It used a “Plasma Pinch” brought on by the implosion of two formed Hollow Expenses with Lithium-6 liners onto a goal of Uranium 233 coated with Lithium Deuteride.
After the war USA recruited Prof Kurt Diebner head of the German Ordnance venture to teach the US navy the best way to build sensible atomic warheads which did not have to weigh four.eight tonnes.
It was Diebner who taught USA tricks like Tritium and Hohlraum cavities. Teller commented many years latter that with out such German technology USA would have taken many years extra to develop the H-bomb. Diebner’s real key contribution however was not the H-bomb however the minaturisation of nuclear weapons.
US data of nuclear physics may have been restricted within the 1940s however from the 1900 to the Forties German science actually invented Quantum Physics which defined the very strategies used, found the fission of Uranium and have been aware of and even experimented with nuclear fusion of Lithium and deuterium as early as October 1935 (Ronald Richter).
I absolutely count on you’ll respond dismissively again, but ignoring the facts or downplaying them won’t make them go away. There is a mounting pile of evidence emerging from dusty archives to show that Germany the truth is did have tactical nuclear weapons in late 1944.
The reason why they weren’t employed is the actual debate and that opens a can of worms about secret US wartime diplomacy with the Nazis behind the backs of it’s Allies which frankly embarrasses USA as we speak. That’s the actual reason why a postwar fable was allowed to evolve denying German nuclear achievements.
CHRIS57 from Northern Germany on November 22, 2012:
Simon, please don´t believe each info rubbish that some intelligence organizations had collected 70 years ago. Once more, there have been no A-bomb tests, not north of Ludwigslust and never on one of many narrow islands of Rügen.
In addition to the numerous fairy story stories, there appears to be a misinterpretation of physical models. Close to Rügen some sort of “Zerlegungsbombe” with 1000 kg TNT was examined. That’s not to be confused with one thousand tons TNT of a “small” A-bomb. If you know in regards to the technical obstacles of building an A-bomb, particularly with the restricted data of the 1940ties, you’ll know that there was no “small” A-bomb, not in Germany, not in the USA and not within the Soviet Union throughout WWII.
I’ve and had the opportunity to visit or get close to the websites of action that are refered to within the hub and comments. I assure you, if there would be the slightest idea actual evidence, it might trigger very much noise in the German society of immediately and yesterday. Radioactivity of any non natural supply was and is investigated thoroughy instantly. Simply imagine: Right here in G. they’re shutting down nuclear power stations that routinely sealed their gate locks during Chernobyl fall out, because it was cleaner contained in the core building than outdoors.
There have been fairly just a few technological achievements accomplished by German science and enginering throughout desparate instances of WWII. The V3 rail gun or the Horten IX that made as we speak’s stealth fighter planes look like copy watches, simply to mention a number of, but no A-bomb.
Simon Gunson on November 21, 2012:
You’re on the incorrect side of history Chris. The Fairy Tale as you place it comes from the following sources:
Declassified USN Intelligence file Investigations, Research, Developments and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb†dated 19 August 1945, NARA/RG 38, Field 9-13 Entry 98c issued by COMNAVEU London on 25 January 1946 affidavit of Captain RF Hickey USN recounting testimony given to him during investigations by Penemunde observer pilot Hans Zinsser regarding atomic bomb assessments at Rugen October 1945. The report was given a score of B-1†USN Intelligence on a scale defines B-1 to imply: B= often reliable and 1= Report confirmed by different sourcesâ€
also Press studies from Stockholm about communication blackouts accompanied by electromagnetic interference in October 1944
also Declassified MAGIC decrypts “Stockholm to Tokyo, No. 232.9 December 1944 (Warfare Department), National Archives, RG 457, declassified October 1, 1978 referring to German Uranium atom splitting weapon.
additionally OSS Report of two November 1944, in G-343B. (The original interrogation report (of Naggelstein) is in NA, RG seventy seven, MED Foreign Intelligence Unit, entry 22, field 169, folder 32.7002-1.)
First-hand account of Luigi Romersa 2005 of witnessing Atomic take a look at blast on Baltic coast in October 1944.
also OSS report from Switzerland A-44 316, report 5985 of seven November 1944 disclosing German possession of nuclear weapons.
also Disclosure by Manhattan Undertaking scientist Philip Morrison to Time magazine in November 1944 that Germany already had the bomb…and the situation of the A-bomb take a look at was the isolated Bug isthmus on the Island of Rugen close to Dranske. home to an air base occupied by Luftwaffe unit IV/KG200. The blast itself had a 1000 metre radius because the warhead was intended for the V-2 rocket (in line with British transcripts of secretly recorded conversations by Maj Gen. Dornberger 2-7 August 1945)… thus a very underpopulated area.
CHRIS57 from Northern Germany on November 20, 2012:
Where are all those fairy tales coming from?
The territory between Lübeck and Ludwigslust is quite densely populated. This not Kazakhstan or New Mexico or Nevada. Even a “small” a thousand kiloton overground check would have effected sufficient fallout to be detected for years. But guess what, nothing detected, no unaccounted craters in the rolling meadows of “Mecklenburgische Schweiz”, nothing.
kschang from San Francisco, CA, USA on November 19, 2012:
Do not forget German’s try and receive heavy water, the ingredient wanted for hydrogen bomb from Norway, and the Norwegian resistance had to blow up the ferry carrying it within the local lake, in addition to multiple operations to blow up the production plant itself.
Simon Gunson on November 19, 2012:
Lack of plutonium was not a problem for the germans. Schumann and Trinks issued a wartime patent for a tactical nuclear weapon using plasma pinch ignition specifying Uranium 233. This was harvested from the 6.four MeV van der graff generator installed at the Berlin Dahlem analysis bunker complex. This was a concrete bunker hardened to withstand bombing raids. The particle accelerator there bombarded Thorium 232 with X-rays to transmute it into Protactinium 232, which then merely decayed over 27 days into pure bomb grade Uranium 233. KGB file declassified in 2005 reveal that heisenberg advocated this methodology in a speech to a convention of nazi scientists in July 1942. There may be ample cross corroborated witness proof of a number of profitable Atomic weapons tests at rugen in October 1944 to verify the Germans had lightweight tactical nuclear weapons. An OSS report of seven November 1944 from switzerland also confirms these checks.
perrya (creator) on Might 02, 2012:
Very interesting.
I found the story of the U-boat U-234.
Henrik on Might 02, 2012:
For those who read the story of the submarine there were sent towards Japan in March/April 1945 collectively whit some japanese officeres and a dismanteled ME 262 and blueprints for it, there may be also eyewitnesses there instructed tales of products loaded in the steadiness tanks. The tales indicating it was the German plutonium..
Sorry for the Japanese officers the German Captain chosen to surender when the warfare ended for Germany and the japanese officers commitede suicide.
The Plutonium on the uboat was actual the plutonium used for the second abomb US droped over Hiroshima!!
That’s the reason for that the 2 boms was not an identical.
Why creates two different factories (with all these issues and cash issues and engineering scarcity this is able to had resultet in, when it was just a matter of redoing the process twice for crating a sedond atomic bomb? It will had executed much more sence..
So In reality there the German atomic bomb was used within read the full info here the conflict..Againt Japan their allied!! 🙂
Rod Martin Jr from Cebu, Philippines on June 30, 2011:
Fascinating learn! I really like uncovering the secrets of historical past and prehistory. Certain glad the Germans did not have the entire package (the bomb plus supply plus alternative).
Simon Gunson, New Zealand on November 14, 2010:
Should you read the Cordell Hull Papers; Woods memorandum pp.18-19, refers to a collection of earthquakes in Schwabian alps 4th 14th and 22 July 1943 at 09 degrees east, 48.2 degrees North, near Bisingen the place German atomic scientists had relocated, raised the priority that these have been nuclear take a look at blasts.
Sam Woods was the OSS spymaster in Switzerland controlling Reichstag informer Erwin Respondek. Respondek informed Woods that Germany was creating nuclear weapons at a laboratory close to Bisingen.