New evidence of a german nuclear weapon project?

[delcyros]

The historican R. Karlsch has recently published a new book (R. Karlsch, Hitlers Bombe. Die geheime Geschichte der deutschen Kernwaffenversuch, (Hrsg.) DVA (Munich 2005). It is not yet avaiable in english. He prove in his book that the german research was more than the Uranverein led by Heisenberg (who´s nuclear project at Haigerloch did not became critical). There are three points of highest interest in his book, which justify to discuss it here:
A) He tries to prove that a group led by Diebner sucesfully build a nucler reactor at Gottow, which became critical (an analysis of the Bundesprüfamt confirmed that) at a proir unknown experiment.
B) He found evidence that a group of scientist worked on a fission bomb (a pure fissionbomb without a nuke for ignition). They come close to a solution. (debatable)
And, I think the following is most important:
C) He found out, that the germans did suceed in testing at least two nuclear weapons (one at 12th of october ´44 at Bug/Baltic Sea and another at 21:20, 3rd of march ´45 at Ohrdruf/central Germany). Both nukes were undercritical but they did suceed in a nuclear chainreaction (with the freeing of huge amounts of energy, comparable with a tactical nuclear weapon but much smaller than the US nukes). He found physical and chemical evidence for both tests (especially at Ohrdruf).
I suggest to read the book and discuss it here. Opinions by german critics and historicans are splitted and official investigations are running.

 

[evangilder]

I read an article about it this morning as well. It sounds interesting, but I will have to wait for the English version.

 

[delcyros]

I am not sure. There is not that much evidence in his argumentation. But he digged deep, no question. I´m looking forward to read the reports of the official investigations.

 

[Anonymous]

I assume in part B you mean "fusion", since "fission" makes no sense. ???

I don't believe even today we have found a way to make a fussion bomb w/o a fission trigger. There is the rumor of "red mercury", now over a decade old, but it seems this is pure fiction as the science does not back it up and none has ever been proven to exist.

Dirty bombs do not generate the kind of yeilds to classify them as anything close to a actual fission bomb. It is known the Germans did some experiments with such dirty bombs, mostly involving relatively unenriched uranium oxide powder and TNT (or RDX). These would certainly have been nasty if they'd have been used, killing thousands of people. But they would have virtually ensured the utter anihilation of the German people - by 1945 Britain had enough anthrax to wipe out almost every German city, and anthrax cakes which would have spread futher infection througout the rural areas - not to mention mustard gas and other nasty concoctions in huge supply, along with the means to deliver it.

Any idiot can make a dirty bomb - all you need is the mildly enriched Uranium and an explosive to do it. While nasty, it is not a "devastating" weapon. Only within a small area of the blast are people sufficiently exposed to cause short term fatalities, mostly it causes long term health problems. Not very good as a weapon of war (but for terrorism - that's a different story).

=S=

Lunatic

 

[delcyros]

As far as I understood, it was no dirty bomb. There is pretty much evidence for a nuclear chainreaction (they found traces of Plutonium 239, Uranium 235, Uranium 238, Cäsium 137 and Kobalt 60). And a blast effect of around 300 meters in diameter (area of total destruction by heat and blast effects). That is the interesting point. There is no Plutonium at an explosion of an low enriched Uranium 235/238 bomb as long as it stays a dirty bomb (without chainreaction). However, investigations are running. B) is fusion, right. (technicly they wanted to use Li-3 D-reactions in a high compressed procedure by means of (Hohlladungstechnik)). I agree that there was no mitlitary use for these bombs as long as missile technique was as unreliable as it was in 1945. Anthrax is interesting, but more dangerous was Botulinum, sure.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, all the other evidence contradicts this info. The evidence I've seen indicates the Germans had no means of enriching enough U235, and no concept of Plutonium's existance at all.

It will be interesting find out what this "historian's" evidence is. Do you have a link or a name I can search on?

=S=

Lunatic

 

[Anonymous]

Having done a little searching, it appears this is w.r.t. a simple dirty bomb, no chain reaction being involved at all.

http://www.recorder.ca/cp/World/050314/w031463A.html

As far as I know, the Germans had succeeded in estabishing a very short lived Atomic pile sometime in 1945, just before the war ended. Other than that they had no reactors, and no enrichment facilities, so the idea of a Nazi bomb other than a dirty bomb seems just silly.

=S=

Lunatic

 

[evangilder]

I read the following article on Tampa Bay online:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GERMANY_HITLERS_BOMB?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Alot of circumstantial evidence. Not sure where this will lead, but I am sure that it will be debated for a long time.

 

[delcyros]

As long as official investigations at Ohrdruf are not completed, I don´t want to take a position. But a few things are interesting.
1.) They had quite good knowledge of Plutonium.
The first to discover Plutonium were two US physician, Mc Millian and Abelson in spring of 1940. They published their discovering! (it was not until june, 15th. that the US kept it secret)
Beside this v. Weizsäcker made in early 1940 a 5 paged report of the energysource Uranium 238. He (theoreticly) proofed that U-238 would change in a reactor to a new element, which he called "Eka Rhe 239" (Neptunium). Mc Millian and Abelson proofed (theoreticly) that Neptunium would change to Plutonium (published in second june edition of "Physical Review"). v. Weizsäcker read this review in mid 1940! He confirmed that Plutonium was the best element to be used (he wrote reports to Heisenberg, Wirtz and Diebner (!)). Heisenberg was the only one who don´t believed. (and that´s why everyone thinks that the germans had no knowledge of Plutonium, you can trace it back to the Farm Hall protokolls, where Heisenberg refused the possibility of Plutonium in the US bomb)
2.) The germans had a Betatron (enrichment facility).
The company C.H.F. Müller finished the first european Betatron (15 MeV) at Hamburg under Dr. Rolf Wderöe. Other Betatrons were completed by v. Ardenne (the author found remains of one at Bad Saarow, will check it out this weekend). The capabilities of these facilities were not very impressive, but Ardenne believed, that he could enrichen 1,5 g Uranium 235 up to 15% in an hour with his Betatron.
3.) the germans had one working nuclear reactor (and thus they theoreticly had the possibility to get Plutonium).
Heisenberg and Diebner had two independent reactor projects. Diebner was technicly much ahead of his time (global shape of Uranium cubes and multistage reactor) but Heisenberg had more fame as well as more sources. The previoulsy unknown project Gottow IV of Diebner at 1944/45? worked for at least 8 hours and became critical. After finishing the test it was taken out of the cooling water and the reactor got out of controll. (thats why we know about this project, the site was investigated and they found enough Plutonium and other traces to reconstruct a critical working condition for at least 8 hours. A Xenon 135 poisoning ended the reactor. After all Diebner did probably not succeed in getting the Plutonium he wanted. What about the construction of the bomb? R. Karlsch does not give a clear statement. It was surely no nuclear weapon like Hiroshima. But the physical institutes of both, TH Braunschweig and Bundeswehr confirmed that a "limited nuclear chainreaction with massive energyoutput" (quote Prof. Reinhardt Brandt) did happen at Ohrdruf. Prof. Keyser confirmed the mesurements. I think we have to wait for the official investigation...

 

[Anonymous]

If there is no critical mass, there is no "tremendous explosion". A similar weight of TNT (which is of course much larger in volume) will generate a significantly larger blast.

As far as production goes, 15% enriched (i.e. "pure U235") is not nearly enough. To make a bomb capable of a critical reaction takes about 70% enrichment, minimum, and that requires a physically huge amount of material. The lower the level of enrichment, the more difficult it is to establish the necessary cascade reaction, and the more material required to do so. The reactor you describe might create 1.5 grams of U235 at 80% enrichment every week, probably every several weeks or even months if it coud do it at all (the higher you enrich the harder it is to enrich more). A reasonable bomb in WWII required about 40kg of over 75% enriched U235, meaning that even if the facility you describe had been able to produce 1.5 grams of enriched uranium per day it would still take 73 years to produce enough material for a single bomb!

The above image shows the Okridge refinery. This plant, called Y-12, was producing 90 grams of ~80% enriched uranium per day by the end of 1944. When it was built, there was no way of knowing if the plant would even work - and it didn't! It had to be completely redesigned in mid 1944.

Even at that rate it takes about 15 months to produce enough uranium for a single bomb. So a second enrichment plant, called K-25, shown below, was brought online.

Try to grasp the size of these plants and the fact that it was all a gamble to a produce a weapon which might not even be possible.

As for plutonium, even if they knew it was theoretically possible, they had failed to produce even one gram of testable plutonium. Without this, they had no way of knowing that the spontanous fission rate of plutonium was so much higher than that of U235, far too high for a gun-type design (it is impossible to drive the bullet into the donut fast enough to avoid a pre-critical mass explosion). Until this knolwege was gained, no work on an implosion bomb would have even been dreamed of, since the gun-type weapon is so much more obvious.

So, in the end, I find it silly to consider that the Germans might have produced more than a few minor sub-critical dirty bomb type weapons.

=S=

Lunatic

 

[delcyros]

You are completely right, Lunatic, there was nothing in the world to compare with Oak Ridge, hands down. But enrichment via betatrons was not the only way to get Plutonium (known as "Element 94" by the germans since 1940). They wanted to get it via nuclear rector. That was no silly idea, they had enough uranium to run a reactor (they actually did, even with it´s failure in mind). But Karlsch has to prove it. He found and published in the archives of Jörg Diebner (the son of Dr. Diebner) a very interesting document (R. Karlsch, Hitlers Bombe, (Hrsg.) DVA (Munich 2005), page 325ff.) ( another one found in the newly opened Moscow archives). It dates back to february 1942. Its topic is the comprehensive analysis of nuclear research by Diebner for the HWA (144 pages). He underlines, that the construction of a heavy water reactor in the next years is technically possible and this would give acces to Plutonium for weapon use (he calculates the critical mass for a nuke quite corrctly to 10-100 Kg Plutonium). Further information are given for the dimension and use of nuclear powerplants (at this time he had no idea of his later multistage reactor, so he is close to Heisenbergs opinion) And back to the nuclear (?) test at Ohrdruf:
It seems possible that it was:
A) A dirty bomb, as you say.
B) A reactor bomb
C) A fission bomb
D) A fusion bomb
E) A mixture of C) and D)
The most important point is the critical mass. So I regard (B), (C) and (D) unprobable. It definitly had not the critical mass, agreed (otherwise the destruction would have been bigger). Against (A) speaks a very important point: A normal dirty bomb would have no chainreaction and therefor you would not find any Plutonium (if the bomb was of low enriched Uranium). You would also expect to find Strontium or Radium or other highly radiated materials (it lies in the nature of dirty bombs). No Radium and Strontium was found, but there is evidence of Plutonium! Kobalt 60 indicates a heavy neutron output (most likely at a chain reaction), it needs a heavy neutron output and steel or nickel to "make" Kobalt 60. That together with Cäsium 130 speaks for a nuclear event with chain reaktion. The group of Diebner cooperated with Strinks and Schuhmann, a Kriegsmarine research group which tried to build a fusion bomb. While Schuhmann and Trinks did not succed (they found out that they could increase pressure and heat to Lithium to about 2.000.000 atm. and a few million degrees C. but even that was far away for a fusion) they shared their results with Diebner. Diebner found it interesting to build an implosionbomb for undercritical masses of low enriched Uranium. So there is the possibility (if we follow R. Karlsch and the physiscian of the university of Braunschweig) that this construction could provide enough temperature and pressure for a limited nuclear chain reaction. It would make sense with the mesurements. This chainreaction would stop closely after its begin -time is relative for these procedures- (because it could only temporarly provide the needed circumstances for fission and chainreaction, we would say it temporarly "lifted" the Uranium up to the critical point) and therefor would not result in a Hiroshima scale explosion. It is very close to the soviet nuclear tactical shells for heavy guns in the early 80´s. They also have undercritical plutonium masses (and they are not regarded as "dirty" bombs or aren´t they?). But I miss the last proof in Karlsch´s argumentation: That´s only a "what if" (-all techniques could be put together)!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

hmmm very very interesting. I am looking foward to hearing what comes out of this. I too doubt that too much would have come out of this. There just was simply not eneogh time to build a real nuke by Germany.

Here is some things I have found on the subject:

This is an actual artical on this from a German magazine called the Spiegel, they have an international online webpage.

How Close Was Hitler to the A-Bomb?

By Klaus Wiegrefe

Berlin historian Rainer Karlsch claims that the Nazis conducted three nuclear weapons tests in 1944 and 1945. But he has no proof to back up his theories.
The United States needed 125,000 people, including six future Nobel Prize winners, to develop the atomic bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The uranium enrichment facility alone, including its security zone, was the size of the western German city of Frankfurt. Dubbed the Manhattan project, the quest ultimately cost the equivalent of about $30 billion.

In his new book, "Hitler's Bomb," Berlin historian Rainer Karlsch claims Nazi Germany almost achieved similar results with only a handful of physicists and a fraction of the budget. The author writes that German physicists and members of the military conducted three nuclear weapons tests shortly before the end of World War II, one on the German island of Ruegen in the fall of 1944 and two in the eastern German state of Thuringia in March 1945. The tests, writes Karlsch, claimed up to 700 lives.

If these theories were accurate, history would have to be rewritten. Ever since the Allies occupied the Third Reich's laboratories and interrogated Germany's top physicists working with wunderkind physicist Werner Heisenberg and his colleague Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, it's been considered certain that Hitler's scientists were a long way from completing a nuclear weapon.

Karlsch's publisher, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, is already issuing brazen claims about the "sensational results of the latest historic research." The Third Reich, says the publishing house, was "on the verge of winning the race to acquire the first functioning nuclear weapon." Even before the book was published, the generally reserved publishing house sent press kits to the media, in which it claimed that the author had solved "one of the great mysteries of the Third Reich."

The book is being presented Monday at an elaborately staged press conference. Karlsch, an unaffiliated academic, plans an extensive author's tour.

The only problem with all the hype is that the historian has no real proof to back up his spectacular theories.

His witnesses either lack credibility or have no first-hand knowledge of the events described in the book. What Karlsch insists are key documents can, in truth, be interpreted in various ways, some of which contradict his theory. Finally, the soil sample readings taken thus far at the detonation sites provide "no indication of the explosion of an atomic bomb," says Gerald Kirchner of Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection.

Karlsch spent several years in archives researching his subject, discovering many unknown documents on the history of science in the Third Reich. That includes a manuscript of one of Heisenberg's speeches which historians had previoulsy assumed had been lost. The manuscript alone would have been a significant find, but it wasn't enough to satisfy Karlsch or fully support his offbeat theory. As a result, in order to give his theory wings, he had to make some speculative leaps.

The bazooka effect

For one thing, he focuses on Erich Schumann, who served as chief of research for Germany's weapons division until 1944. At Schumann's estate, Karlsch discovered records from the post-war period. Schumann was a former physics professor and wrote that in 1944 he discovered a method of generating the high temperatures (several million degrees Celsius) and extreme pressure necessary to trigger nuclear fusion using conventional explosives. The hydrogen bomb is based on this principle.

During World War II, explosives experts experimented with hollow charges -- essentially hollowed-out explosive devices -- which possess extremely high penetration force. The success of the bazooka is based on this effect and Schumann believed he could apply it to a nuclear weapon. He assumed that enough energy for nuclear fusion would be released if two hollow charges were aimed at each other.

It's a theory that deserves serious consideration. However, Schumann never claimed to have tested his theory in practice. Karlsch, however, believes it was applied. He claims Schumann presented his ideas at a conference in the fall of 1944. He then speculates that, under instruction from the SS, a team of physicists working with Kurt Diebner, a rival of Heisenberg, made use of the discovery.

Karlsch bases his theory in part on statements made by Gerhard Rundnagel, a plumber, to the East German state security service, the Stasi. In the 1960s, the Stasi became aware of rumors circulating in the former East German state of Thuringia that there had been a nuclear detonation in 1945. Rundnagel told the security service that he had been in contact with the research team working with Diebner. He said one of the physicists in the group had told him that there were "two atomic bombs in a safe." Rundnagel later said the two bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite that inconsistency, Karlsch believes the man should be taken seriously.

An argument full of holes

The biggest hole in Karlsch's argument stems from his inablility to prove how the Diebner group managed to implement Schumann's ideas. According to Karlsch, Diebner and his colleagues used a special device that combined nuclear fission and fusion to initiate a chain reaction. With the help of physicists, Karlsch came up with a design for such a weapon and presents it in his book. Joachim Schulze, a nuclear weapons expert at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, took a look at Karlsch's model and said it would be "incapable of functioning."

Another theory Karlsch presents in his book -- that the Germany navy tested a nuclear weapon on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen -- is nothing short of fantastic. His key witness is Luigi Romersa, a former war reporter for a Milan newspaper, Corriere della Sera. For years Romersa, a Roman who is now 87, has been telling the story of how he visited Hitler in October 1944 and then was flown to an island in the Baltic Sea. Romersa says that he was taken to a dugout where he witnessed an explosion that produced a bright light, and that men wearing protective suits then drove him away from the site, telling him that what he had witnessed was a "fission bomb."

Unfortunately, Romersa doesn't recall the name of the island he claims to have visited or who was in charge of the bizarre event. Karlsch believes it was Ruegen. He dismisses the fact that soil analysis shows no evidence of a nuclear explosion by pointing to erosion.

A more credible witness is the recently deceased Thuringian resident Clare Werner. On March 4, 1945, Werner, who was standing on a nearby hillside, witnessed an explosion in a military training area near the town of Ohrdruf.

"It was about 9:30 when I suddenly saw something ... it was as bright as hundreds of bolts of lightning, red on the inside and yellow on the outside, so bright you could've read the newspaper. It all happened so quickly, and then we couldn't see anything at all. We just noticed there was a powerful wind..." The woman complained of "nose bleeds, headaches and pressure in the ears."

The next day Heinz Wachsmut, a man who worked for a local excavating company, was ordered to help the SS build wooden platforms on which the corpses of prisoners were cremated. The bodies, according to Wachsmut, were covered with horrific burn wounds. Like Werner, Wachsmut reports that local residents complained of headaches, some even spitting up blood.

In Wachsmut's account, higher-ranking SS officers told people that something new had been tested, something the entire world would soon be talking about. Of course, there was no mention of nuclear weapons.

Did Stalin hear reports about the weapon?

And what about the 700 victims, supposedly concentration camp inmates, Karlsch claims died in the tests? This impressive figure is nothing but an estimate based on the number of cremation sites Wachsmut recalls. However, on the reputed detonation date, the Ohrdruf concentration camp, part of the larger Buchenwald complex, recorded ony 35 dead.

Another piece of evidence Karlsch cites is a March 1945 Soviet military espionage report. According to the report, which cites a "reliable source," the Germans "detonated two large explosions in Thuringia." The bombs, the Soviet spies wrote, presumably contained uranium 235, a material used in nuclear weapons, and produced a "highly radioactive effect." Prisoners of war housed at the center of the detonation were killed, "and in many cases their bodies were completely destroyed."

The Red Army's spies noted with concern that the Germany army could "slow down our offensive" with its new weapon. The fact that dictator Josef Stalin received one of the four copies of the report shows just how seriously the Kremlin took the news.

Unfortunately, the document Karlsch presents is of such poor quality that it cannot be clearly determined whether the report describing the explosions was written before or after the detonation Clare Werner claims to have witnessed.

More importantly, however, what Clare Werner claims to have seen could not have a detonation of the type of bomb the German informer sketched for the Red Army. That type of device would have required several kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which all experts, including Karlsch, believe Nazi Germany did not possess.

There is one expert who the author, and his boastful publisher, hopes will support his theories. Uwe Keyser, a nuclear physicist who works for Germany's Federal Institute of Physics and Technology in Braunschweig, is currently testing soil samples from Ohrdruf. Keyser believes that the readings for radioactive substances he has obtained so far are sufficiently abnormal so as not to rule out the explosion of a simple nuclear device. Of course, Keyser's readings could also be caused by naturally occurring processes, material left behind by Soviet forces stationed in Ohrdruf until 1994 or fallout from the Chernobyl disaster or nuclear weapons tests conducted by the superpowers.

Keyser says he needs "about a year" to conduct a more precise analysis. He also needs someone to continue footing the bill.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,346293,00.html

The German researchers came to the conclusion that building an atomic bomb, while possible, would be extremely costly, and time consuming - and it didn't look like Germany had the time or resources for the program.... but suddenly, in late 1944, a number of odd events occurred.

German aircraft designers were told to tender designs for a bomber capable of flying to New York and back, without refueling. The bomb load was to be 4000 Kilograms; surprisingly light for an attack that could have any real effect. The Horton firm was given the assignment, with the beautiful Ho XVIII flying wing bomber being the only design that could achieve the required specifications. They were told to begin construction as soon as possible.
Work was restarted on a submarine towed pod, code named 'Test stand XII", to transport and launch the V-2 (A-4) missile. Up to three of these could be towed by a Type XXI submarine. The work was given high priority, and one of the pods, minus its internal equipment, was finished by the war's end.
The German rocket team at Peenemunde were told to dust off the plans for the A-9/A-10 project, a two stage ICBM capable of reaching New York. This seemed an awfully big project to start this late in the war.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/599452/posts

This here below would pretty much just suggest a dirty bomb.

Dr. Samuel Goudsmit was the head of the US intelligence mission to Europe codenamed ALSOS, whos objective was to discover to what extent the Nazis had been working on an atomic weapon. In his book "ALSOS - The Failure in German Science" (New York, 1947), there appears a sketch of the zenith of German scientists' achievement in the field. The same diagram appears in the book authoured by Lt. Leslie Groves, military chief of the Manhattan Project. Both Goudsmit and Groves stated that the diagram and photos represent "the German atom bomb".

The bomb was an aluminium sphere, about the size of a medicine ball, and had a tall chimney. The latter enabled the radium-beryllium radio-active source to be introduced into the core of the reaction. Within the sphere was layered alternately natural uranium powder (551 kilos) and paraffin wax.



The Nobel Prize winner Professor Heisenberg was looked to as the pioneering genius of Germany's atomic project. This was outwardly aimed at building a working atomic pile, a target which had not been reached by the end of hostilities five years later. The excuse offered was that there was not enough heavy water available for the final successful experiment. Since Heisenberg's assistant Dr Karl Wirtz stated in his 1987 book "Im Umkreis der Physik" that there was easily enough heavy water in aggregate to moderate a nuclear pile in 1944, and he could not understand the reluctance to go ahead and do so, our attentions are drawn to the possibility that the heavy water was needed in another area.

As he admitted, Heisenberg's experiments B-III and L-IV at Leipzig made calculations regarding the effectiveness of paraffin wax as a barrier and measured the capture of neutrons by U-238 uranium material after they had been emitted by the radioactive source and been slowed by passage through heavy water. Dr. Flannen, a US physicist, explained in an internet article that these two experiments could only be explained if the aim was to design not a reactor, but a bomb.

By 1941 the Germans knew that isotopes of U-238 in capturing neutrons became transformed into isotopes of plutonium, and Heisenberg was measuring where most such transformations took place. This would not be of much interest for reactor technology, but would be vital if building a bomb. The paraffin wax would have a function as a bomb part in connection with a technical problem associated with plutonium isotopes.

In June 1942 at Leipzig, Heisenberg placed within an aluminium sphere about 750 kilos of natural uranium, placed a concentric sphere of heavy water at its centre, dropped the radioactive source down the chimney and sat back. Five weeks later there was a disastrous fire and the experiment was terminated. But - what was this experiment intended to prove?

The United States invested hundreds of millions of dollars into uranium enrichment plants and plutonium breeder reactors. Germany, under heavy aerial bombardment and on a tight budget, could never have competed. What was needed was a nuclear device of small magnitude which could be mass-produced at small cost.

When an aluminium sphere of natural uranium powder is left to breed in the manner of Heisenberg's device, within about two years the plutonium bred by U-238 capturing neutrons exceeds the figure of 7%. This is the magic figure for a nuclear explosion of some sort.

If several hundred such spheres were left to breed for two years in mid-1942, by late 1944 Germany would have had a small arsenal of little nuclear devices. All that was needed would be some means of setting them off.

The target was London. If Britain could be forced out of the war, even in late 1944 there was still a slim chance of success for Germany. The obvious means of delivering the weapons on London was the V-2 rocket. The little bombs weighed less than a ton, and could fit easily into the space for the V-2 warhead. There was no need for tonnes of conventional explosive to explode the device - the rocket hit the ground at 3,500 per second. This speed was fast enough to assemble the plutonium-enriched uranium material into a critical mass. In the split-second before the reaction collapsed, the resulting blast would be in the region of 20 tonnes TNT with nuclear fallout. The paraffin wax prevented the unstable plutonium isotope Pu 240 from reacting too smartly and so ruin the nuclear reaction.

How long could London have withstood two or three such rockets fired on London every day? Each crater region would be unapproachable for years, maybe decades. The effect of the fallout need not be mentioned. No surprise then, that Lt. Gen Putt, Deputy Head of United States Air Force Intelligence, should state shortly after the war that if the invasion of Europe had been delayed by six months, the course of the war would have been changed, for Germany had "rocket surprises in store for the whole world in general and England in particular".

The range of a V-2 was 200 miles. In June 1944, London was in range from anywhere along the French and Belgian coasts. Six months after the invasion - December 1944 - the German front line was far back from this 200 mile point. The Germans had no intermediate rocket to hit London from Germany - the critical failure of German science. Hence the need for the Ardennes Campaign to recapture Antwerp which is 200 miles from London.
http://www.robsacc.nl/ottens/mysteries_reich.html

This sort of shows that something was up.

"...I have seen enough of their designs and production plans to realize that if they had managed to prolong the war some months longer, we would have been confronted with a set of entirely new and deadly developments in air warface." - Sir Roy Feddon, chief of the technical mission to Germany for the Ministry for Aircraft Production in 1945 from "The Daily Telegraph", October 1, 1945.

"The Germans were preparing rocket surprises for the whole world in general and England in particular which would have, it is believed, changed the course of the war if the invasion had been postponed for so short a time as half a year." - Lt. Col. Donald Leander Putt, Dep. Cmmd. Gen., AAF Intelligence, Air Technical Services Command.

"To the German scientists, the V-2 was just a toy. The V-1, V-2 and Me 262 certainly high technology for the British and Americans, but compared with the Saenger bomber, the A9/A10 rocket (both ready or almost ready in 1945) or the flying disks, they were only toys." - Lt. Col. John A. Keck, June 28, 1945.
http://www.robsacc.nl/ottens/mysteries_reich-mittelwerke.html

This may confirm that something was up in Ordruf but what?

Next we have to consider the form such a base might have taken. At the end of the war the United States gave anything concerning Ohrdruf a top secret classification for 100 years upwards. The fact that there had been substantial underground workings there, and that Ohrdruf was the location of the last Redoubt, was concealed absolutely. Fortunately for researchers, in 1962 the DDR had taken sworn depositions from all local residents during an investigation into wartime Ohrdruf, and upon the reunification of the two Germanys in 1989, these documents became available to all and sundry at Arnstadt municipal archive.

From the Arnstadt documents it is clear that the charite anlage unit operated in a three-story underground bunker with floors 70 by 20 metres. When working, the device emitted some kind of energy field which shut down all electrical equipment and non-diesel engines within a range of about eight miles. For this reason, even though Ohrdruf was crawling with SS, it was never photographed from the air nor bombed. Declassified USAF documents dated early 1945 admit the existence of an unknown energy field over Frankfurt/Main "and other locations" which "fantastic though it may appear" were able to "interfere with our aircraft engines at 30,000 feet."
http://www.robsacc.nl/ottens/mysteries_reich-antarctica.html

 

[delcyros]

Thanks for helping with the translation, Adler! Highly intersting. Just discuss the book. I have not read yet the staements of other physiscian but I´ll keep on to inform. As I indicated, there is much missing in R. Karlsch´s book, he opens a possibility (but he has to proof). The russian document is not of that bad quality (readable even with my basic language knowledge of russian), but he quotes very well, it should be possible to verify (L.D. Rjabev (Hrsg.), Atomnij projekti CCCP (Das sowjetische Atomprojekt 1938-1945), vol. 2 (Moscow 2002), page 260f.). Official investigation will have to verify the samples of Ohrdruf. That is the keypoint.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Is the Bundeswehr or the government investigating it now. I might have to make a trip up to Ohrdruf. I think it would be interesting to see the area. Where I live is not to far from Eastern Germany and I might be able to check it out.

 

[Anonymous]

Delcros,

From what I've been able to find, at about the time you reference, the Germans did establish a critical pile - it exploded about 6-8 hours after being established. This would create some plutonium and other such elements.

In the one other nuclear site (location not specifically given but it was in the balkins or south west russia I think) there were no fission byproducts.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this. I suspect it will be de-bunked.

As for plutonium creation, sure realtively small amounts can be created by putting U-238 in a reactor. But Germany didn't have a working reactor until the very last month or so of the war. A reactor that explodes does not really count do you think?

=S=

Lunatic

 

[delcyros]

I agree with you, Lunatic, this briefly working reactor cannot be credited with Plutonium production, in general. I was just underlining its (theoretically) importance.
I did not found any hints in the book for a south west russian nuclear reactor. It sounds interesting. The other test, which could have became critical would have been Heisenbergs try at Haigerloch. A large "what if". His construction could work if he could acces more Uranium cubes (he used some 3,5 to. of it but he needed 5 to. (additional 5 to. were storaged at Stadtilm, but Heisenberg had no acces to it, thanks to the SS) So his reactor did not became critical (Heisenberg had none of the two possibilities: 1.) take more Uranium (not accesable) 2.) change the geometry from cylindrical shape to Diebners global shape (no time left)). I think this was his luck, he had no emergancy solutions if the reactor get out of controll. Dieners briefly working reactor was found by soviet ground forces and transferred to laboratory No. 2/Moscow. I was searching in the news for statements.
I tried to find the source of the NKVD statment, but I found a book (see above) which is -surprise- translated by R. Karlsch, himself. It´s suspect. I will try to get the russian original via national library in Berlin. In the news,
G. Kirchner found himself to be misunderstood: He said "Im Augenblick liegen uns keine Informationen über eine Nuklearexplosion bei Ohrdruf vor" and later "Untersuchungen werden in den nächsten Wochen beginnen". The translation should be "We do not have any informations regarding a nuclear explosion at Ohrdrud, in the moment." and "Investigations will start in within the next weeks." And Spiegel translated him with a clear statement: "No atomic explosion at Ohrdruf." As it looks, opinions are divided. In general, I agree with Lunatic. There was simply a lack of Plutonium to build a Hiroshima-scale nuke. But if he is correct (and that is not proofed in the moment!), some scientists were on the right way to build one. And that is indeed something new.
I do not know if Bundeswehr is still invetigating, they have been present at Ohrdruf for evaluation and they coworked with physiscian of Braunschweig, Darmstadt. I will have to ask a friend.
And if you have access to this site, Adler, than I suggest you should visit it , of course! I will go for Bad Saarow this weekend (I do know the area since my childhood).

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, Lunatic, this briefly working reactor cannot be credited with Plutonium production, in general. I was just underlining its (theoretically) importance.
I did not found any hints in the book for a south west russian nuclear reactor. It sounds interesting. The other test, which could have became critical would have been Heisenbergs try at Haigerloch. A large "what if". His construction could work if he could acces more Uranium cubes (he used some 3,5 to. of it but he needed 5 to. (additional 5 to. were storaged at Stadtilm, but Heisenberg had no acces to it, thanks to the SS) So his reactor did not became critical (Heisenberg had none of the two possibilities: 1.) take more Uranium (not accesable) 2.) change the geometry from cylindrical shape to Diebners global shape (no time left)). I think this was his luck, he had no emergancy solutions if the reactor get out of controll. Dieners briefly working reactor was found by soviet ground forces and transferred to laboratory No. 2/Moscow. I was searching in the news for statements.
I tried to find the source of the NKVD statment, but I found a book (see above) which is -surprise- translated by R. Karlsch, himself. It´s suspect. I will try to get the russian original via national library in Berlin. In the news,
G. Kirchner found himself to be misunderstood: He said "Im Augenblick liegen uns keine Informationen über eine Nuklearexplosion bei Ohrdruf vor" and later "Untersuchungen werden in den nächsten Wochen beginnen". The translation should be "We do not have any informations regarding a nuclear explosion at Ohrdrud, in the moment." and "Investigations will start in within the next weeks." And Spiegel translated him with a clear statement: "No atomic explosion at Ohrdruf." As it looks, opinions are divided. In general, I agree with Lunatic. There was simply a lack of Plutonium to build a Hiroshima-scale nuke. But if he is correct (and that is not proofed in the moment!), some scientists were on the right way to build one. And that is indeed something new.
I do not know if Bundeswehr is still invetigating, they have been present at Ohrdruf for evaluation and they coworked with physiscian of Braunschweig, Darmstadt. I will have to ask a friend.
And if you have access to this site, Adler, than I suggest you should visit it , of course! I will go for Bad Saarow this weekend (I do know the area since my childhood).

I don't think it was a reactor test in SW russia (or maybe eastern Rumania?) - I think it was a small dirty bomb test.

In general, I'd say the Germans never got as far as the Manhatten project by the end of 1942. Yes they had some research that was headed in the right general direction, but they also had research headed in the wrong direction. And it is questionable even with what was headed in the right direction wether they would not have taken a wrong turn or two. The Manhatten project took several wrong turns, but had the depth and resources to overcome this, the German effort clearly lacked such depth and certainly resources. The way they were going, a nuclear bomb by the end of 1949 would have been quite phenominal.

=S=

Lunatic

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I will agree with all of that. It is deffinatly going to be interesting to see what comes of this.

 

[westminster]

Evidently, The Germans did build an atomic bomb, likely more than one. Those in the U.S. may wish to contact the National Archives for this document:

A.P.W./U (Ninth Air Force) 96/1945, 373.2 of 19 August 1945, Investigation, Research, Developments and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb, Pkts Nos 47 to 53, published by COMNAVEU, 1946.

Also see the book, Critical Mass by Carter Plymton Hydrick. The author shows that the Manhatten Project would not have had enough uranium for the planned drop date of the bombing of Japan, or a working fuze. It contains many supporting documents and indicates the needed uranium came from U-234 which surrendered to the U.S. There is also a reproduction of an article from the New York Times, dated August 26, 1945, which states, in part, "Besides an atomic bomb, on which, as has been made known, the Germans had made considerable progress..." I don't think I need to place any emphasis here. The source of the information was the Office of War Information, based on CIOS (Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee) reports as Intelligence teams swept into Germany and German held territory.

 

[Anonymous]

I am extremely skeptical of this for the following reasons:

1) If such a document existed, it would be publically available under the FIA. I cannot find even a hint of this document anywhere on the web - including the USN site which would be obliged to make it available. Certainly if this had been true, authors and news organizations would have presented this info in detail over a decade ago. There is no way such info could be considered relevant to national security, and to get something that old protected requires senate review.

2) How much U235 was produced where is well documented. There was enough for the test bomb, the Hiroshima bomb, and at least one more U235 bomb available by the end of July 1945, out of Oakridge, with enough for one more bomb comming out of the Y-12 and K-25 facilities every 10-12 weeks or so. Supplies of high grade uranium Ore were available, so there was no need for raw ore from Germany.

3) There is absolutely no evidence that Germany had any facilities capable of refining U235 sufficiently to make a bomb. It would be impossible to cover up the existance of such a facility, espeically one that would be as badly polluted as it would have to be.

I think most likely, any report in the NYT was simply propoganda to smooth over the horror that we'd droped this terrible weapon on Japan. The report you refer to is, most likely, mythical. I don't suppose you can locate it somehow? Where did you hear about this?

=S=

Lunatic