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Since February I have conducted a survey (for an author)
of literature related to atomic research and practice in
the first generation (1937-1957). This integrated a good
deal of newly declassified or discovered documentation,
new scholarly research and older materials (some of which
have been largely un-noticed). My report - not easy to read -
is documented (with 575 citations - repeated ones do not
increase the count) - about 140 books and the rest documents,
reports and articles. It is really quotes from source - not
a thesis written by me - and some of the materials contradict
others - while many more show how later things built on earlier
ones. The impact of wartime research on early Cold War era
research is clear - and includes astonishing projects - including
the atomic bomb powered space ship Orion - which everyone
agrees is feasible (and not a very good idea). If you want a
copy, send me a PM.

Surprisingly there was a lot more to wartime Axis research than
was long admitted by "official history" - and now there is at least
a consensus (at Los Alamos, Hanford and Oak Ridge anyway) that
captured enriched uranium from Germany was vital to the Little
Boy bomb used over Hiroshima. [The main US separation program
did not get going until mid August - too late for Little Boy]
As well, it appears that captured German fuses may have solved
a very late problem with Fat Man. I found evidence (from Soviet
archives) of two German atomic bomb tests, and (from US archives)
of two Japanese bomb tests - all in 1945 - with a likelihood of
one failure in each pair. For various reasons, these weapons were
all to late for operational use. It appears the Japanese had only
about 5 kg of bomb fuel left when it was turned over to the US
Army - not enough for a uranium 235 bomb - even had there been
time to complete the engineering of other elements of the weapon.

Because of this research, the number of atomic bombs available to
both sides will increase in RHS scenarios. RHS uses its own
atomic bombs - which are more destructive than stock ones - which
have no political effects - and which in fact are not as destructive
as real atom bombs are. They are modeled by some 24 sub bomb devices -
one dud bomb device which almost certainly works - 1 33% of yield
device which works a minority of the time - and 22 3% of yield devices
which usually work - yielding typically 55 - 65% of yield most of the
time - 85 - 95 % of yield most of the rest of the time, 1% of yield
(a dud) or 99% (if lightning strikes) very rarely. Usually 22 targets
in the hex will be destroyed or damaged.
in extreme cases.

This is an incredibly interesting post El Cid. On the German/Japanese tests, I am assuming they were above ground (as no one thought of doing subterranean test until atmospheric test became too dangerous). Do the documents say where the tests were done and what of residual radiation. This would certainly indicate that the Japanese government knew exactly what befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is there evidence that the Hirohito was "in the know"?

Very interesting stuff. Who were the scientific leads on the German project? Do you know? Heisenberg misled Hitler into believing that an atomic bomb was not feasible, at least early on, so I am curious as to whether he eventually helped in the project or not.

Since 1945, stories of "Hitler's A-bomb" resurface with sad regularity in German media. All those stories have in common that they cannot produce hard evidence, only "witnesses" of questionable credibility, third- and fourth-hand information of dubious origin and "recently discovered new documents" which under closer examination turn out to be old, well-known documents which are often selectively misquoted out of context and/or (mis-)interpreted with a rather strong bias and agenda.

The most recent "revelation" was in 2005 when the German historian Rainer Karlsch claimed in a book released with great fanfare - but rather shoddy documentation of sources - to have found evidence that German scientists lead by Kurt Diebner and Walther Gerlach have successfully tested nuclear weapons of "tactical" size on the Bug peninsular of the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea in October 1944 and near the village of Ohrdruf in Thüringen in March 1945. His claims are being regarded by most professional historians and journalists as pure nonsense, the alleged "facts" and "evidence" presented by Karlsch have been proven wrong. Several different organisations and agencies have conducted radiation measurements of soil samples in these areas and have found nothing that would support Karlsch's claims.

Of course, the people who want to believe are shouting "government denial and cover-up" and take the lack of hard evidence as proof of a giant conspiracy to hide the "truth". The same folks also believe in Nazi flying saucers, a secret Nazi base in the Arctic / Antarctic and/or the backside of the moon and that Hitler escaped by submarine to South America...

The "truth" behind all this is purely economical - Nazi stories sell well and if you want to earn money as a historian, write a controversial book about a key event like Pearl Harbor or about Nazi wonder weapons.

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Since 1945, stories of "Hitler's A-bomb" resurface with sad regularity in German media. All those stories have in common that they cannot produce hard evidence, only "witnesses" of questionable credibility, third- and fourth-hand information of dubious origin and "recently discovered new documents" which under closer examination turn out to be old, well-known documents which are often selectively misquoted out of context and/or (mis-)interpreted with a rather strong bias and agenda.

The most recent "revelation" was in 2005 when the German historian Rainer Karlsch claimed in a book released with great fanfare - but rather shoddy documentation of sources - to have found evidence that German scientists lead by Kurt Diebner and Walther Gerlach have successfully tested nuclear weapons of "tactical" size on the Bug peninsular of the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea in October 1944 and near the village of Ohrdruf in Thüringen in March 1945. His claims are being regarded by most professional historians and journalists as pure nonsense, the alleged "facts" and "evidence" presented by Karlsch have been proven wrong. Several different organisations and agencies have conducted radiation measurements of soil samples in these areas and have found nothing that would support Karlsch's claims.

Of course, the people who want to believe are shouting "government denial and cover-up" and take the lack of hard evidence as proof of a giant conspiracy to hide the "truth". The same folks also believe in Nazi flying saucers, a secret Nazi base in the Arctic / Antarctic and/or the backside of the moon and that Hitler escaped by submarine to South America...

The "truth" behind all this is purely economical - Nazi stories sell well and if you want to earn money as a historian, write a controversial book about a key event like Pearl Harbor or about Nazi wonder weapons.

Very much the same regarding Japan's A-bomb efforts, and there was even a TV show recounting many of the claims within the last decade or so on that. While I do understand that many things in history, even WWII history, remain either unknown or obscure to us I have real trouble regarding the claims cited above as likely historical. They make fine 'what-if' material for a mod, but not historical material.

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Since 1945, stories of "Hitler's A-bomb" resurface with sad regularity in German media. All those stories have in common that they cannot produce hard evidence, only "witnesses" of questionable credibility, third- and fourth-hand information of dubious origin and "recently discovered new documents" which under closer examination turn out to be old, well-known documents which are often selectively misquoted out of context and/or (mis-)interpreted with a rather strong bias and agenda.

The most recent "revelation" was in 2005 when the German historian Rainer Karlsch claimed in a book released with great fanfare - but rather shoddy documentation of sources - to have found evidence that German scientists lead by Kurt Diebner and Walther Gerlach have successfully tested nuclear weapons of "tactical" size on the Bug peninsular of the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea in October 1944 and near the village of Ohrdruf in Thüringen in March 1945. His claims are being regarded by most professional historians and journalists as pure nonsense, the alleged "facts" and "evidence" presented by Karlsch have been proven wrong. Several different organisations and agencies have conducted radiation measurements of soil samples in these areas and have found nothing that would support Karlsch's claims.

Of course, the people who want to believe are shouting "government denial and cover-up" and take the lack of hard evidence as proof of a giant conspiracy to hide the "truth". The same folks also believe in Nazi flying saucers, a secret Nazi base in the Arctic / Antarctic and/or the backside of the moon and that Hitler escaped by submarine to South America...

The "truth" behind all this is purely economical - Nazi stories sell well and if you want to earn money as a historian, write a controversial book about a key event like Pearl Harbor or about Nazi wonder weapons.

This is my impression as well. All one really needs to know is the economics of the Manhattan project. The United States had 130,000 people working on the Atomic bomb project and invested nearly 2 billion dollars (23 billion dollars in today's currency) on developing an atomic bomb. The US employed some of the best scientists in the world, and gave them carte blanche with very little interference.

This dwarfed the combined efforts of both Axis countries, which also suffered from direct attack by Allied forces. Given this, and given that the United States managed three workable devices by August of 1945, any claim that either Germany or Japan conducted bomb tests is a claim that is extraordinarily unlikely. And as Bayes so rightly points out, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

No offense to you, El Cid, but none of the evidence I have seen so far meets this criteria. In fact, as LargeSlowTarget points out, the scientific analysis all but does the opposite and proves the current claims about Axis (German at least) atomic bomb tests wrong.

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

The same folks also believe in Nazi flying saucers, a secret Nazi base in the Arctic / Antarctic and/or the backside of the moon and that Hitler escaped by submarine to South America...

The "truth" behind all this is purely economical - Nazi stories sell well and if you want to earn money as a historian, write a controversial book about a key event like Pearl Harbor or about Nazi wonder weapons.

Everyone in Argentina knows that Hitler did not escape by submarine to South America. Many top lieutenants... well... that is a different story. A dear friend of mine is the son of one them. I will say no more.

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

The same folks also believe in Nazi flying saucers, a secret Nazi base in the Arctic / Antarctic and/or the backside of the moon and that Hitler escaped by submarine to South America...

The "truth" behind all this is purely economical - Nazi stories sell well and if you want to earn money as a historian, write a controversial book about a key event like Pearl Harbor or about Nazi wonder weapons.

Everyone in Argentina knows that Hitler did not escape by submarine to South America. Many top lieutenants... well... that is a different story. A dear friend of mine is the son of one them. I will say no more.

Now that's a tease! [:D] You could share that bit of history with us... [8D]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

The main US separation program did not get going until mid August - too late for Little Boy

Uranium enrichment began December 1944 and by 16 June 1945, they had produced 71.49 kg of R Pocket U-235; of which LITTLE BOY consumed about 64~ kg.

To adopt Rev's disclaimer ...No offense to you, El Cid, but ...

When ever I see this stuff trotted out on the history channel I start looking for this guy:

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Very much the same regarding Japan's A-bomb efforts, and there was even a TV show recounting many of the claims within the last decade or so on that. While I do understand that many things in history, even WWII history, remain either unknown or obscure to us I have real trouble regarding the claims cited above as likely historical. They make fine 'what-if' material for a mod, but not historical material.

The German one gets trotted out for a run about once a decade.

1992 BBC horizon documentary go to 7:20 and then 42:24

Der Speigel deconstruction of Karlsch's claims from 2005

2015 ZDF documentary unable to identify where the weaponised uranium the Nazi scientists would have needed for the bomb came from

Out of interest, if it were true (which it's not) why would it be kept hushed up? Surely this news simply strengthens (as if it were needed) the Allied moral argument for fighting the war? It would help silence those who believe that the atomic bombs being dropped were wrong?

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Out of interest, if it were true (which it's not) why would it be kept hushed up? Surely this news simply strengthens (as if it were needed) the Allied moral argument for fighting the war? It would help silence those who believe that the atomic bombs being dropped were wrong?

The proponents of this theory suggest that the Americans stole it out from under the Soviet's noses and it all had to be kept secret.

What I get from the 1992 BBC documentary is that a petty nazi bureaucrat from the accounting office refused funding for any proper bomb research, and they were left working on a controlled heavy water or graphite moderated reaction that might have eventually produced a rudimentary power plant for an SSN.

The concept that something that could not be done by the leading physicists in Germany, was somehow achieved by some unknown second rate flunkies in a secret underground lab who got the funding instead of them...[&:]

I mean, seriously?

ORIGINAL: Ian R

To adopt Rev's disclaimer ...No offense to you, El Cid, but ...

When ever I see this stuff trotted out on the history channel I start looking for this guy:

I think of this guy:
http://www.dddietrich.com/TotalDisclosure.html

I have a book titled "Blood and Water" written by Dan Kurzman in 1993, ISBN 0-8050-3206-1, which claims German scientists Otto Hahn and Friedrich Strassman had unlocked the secrets of Nuclear Fission in December 1938 and that they were aware this would allow an atomic bomb which would destroy entire cities and "win a war".
In the spring of 1940, British intelligence discovered that a Norwegian company, Norsk Hydro which had been captured by Germany was turning out vast quantities of deuterium oxide (heavy water), which was an important ingredient for a nuclear reactor.
The author identifies this as an apparatus which causes a chain reaction of fissionable material to be initiated which when controlled causes an atomic explosion.
This was the first evidence the Allies had that Hitler was building the bomb.
Further in the book, the author claims that in 1942, the German were in a dead heat with the Allies in building the bomb, and would have been far more ahead and that in June of 1942, the Germans had "gotten a chain reaction going".


The book is a good read and actually details the work done by Brit intelligence to sabotage the German efforts, and the mistakes made by the Germans which hampered the delivery of the weapon to Hitler by YEARS!