Drawing uncovered of 'Nazi Nuke'

ninjee writes "Historians working in Germany and the US claim to have found a 60-year-old diagram showing a Nazi nuclear bomb. It is the only known drawing of a "nuke" made by Nazi experts and appears in a report held by a private archive. The researchers who brought it to light say the drawing is a rough schematic and does not imply the Nazis built, or were close to building, an atomic bomb. But a detail in the report hints some Nazi scientists may have been closer to that goal than was previously believed. The report containing the diagram is undated, but the researchers claim the evidence points to it being produced immediately after the end of the war in Europe. It deals with the work of German nuclear scientists during the war and lacks a title page, so there is no evidence of who composed it. One historian behind the discovery, Rainer Karlsch, caused a storm of controversy earlier this year when he claimed to have uncovered evidence the Nazis successfully tested a primitive nuclear device in the last days of WWII. A number of historians rejected the claim. The drawing is published in an article written for Physics World magazine by Karlsch and Mark Walker, professor of history at Union College in Schenectady, US."

Comments

Forget it.

[FTL]

First, if you look at the diagram, you'll see that it plainly shows a plutonium core. Problem, Nazi Germany did not have an operational nuclear reactor. Thus they had no ability to create kilograms of plutonium. This makes the diagram a pipe-dream at best.

Second, if you look at the diagram you'll see that it is initiated a gun-type trigger, something that is impossible for Pu. This makes the diagram look like the work of someone that doesn't know what they are doing. Maybe this was deliberate (though rather obvious) misinformation by a scientist who didn't want Hitler to get the bomb.

Third, it is undated, and unnamed, from an unknown source. Not worth even reading.

In any event, Germany had no means of effectively delivering such a weapon. They lacked the heavy aircraft which the USA used. The V2 rocket only had a fraction of the payload capacity needed. The best they could have done is load it on a cargo vessel and attempt to sail into someone's harbour. Or leave it behind in a city like Paris after retreating. Neither of which would have been terribly impressive, since they would be ground-bursts and not much different from a few tons of dynamite.

Re:Forget it.

[RDW]

The original Physics World article contains a lot more information, including a (modern) schematic of 'some sort of a nuclear device' (not the same as the drawing reproduced by the BBC, and not a full scale atomic bomb) that one of the authors claims was actually tested by the Germans in 1945, supposedly killing 'several hundred prisoners of war and concentration-camp inmates'.

Heisenberg

[Underholdning]

It's no secret that Heisenberg worked on a nuclear weapon during the WWII. However, some claim that he deliberately didn't make any real progress. There's plenty of more information here.

Re:Heisenberg

[gowen]

Trying or not (and some certainly were) there's little doubt that Nazi scientists were a long way from the bomb. Indeed, due to a widely circulated (and accepted) mistake in a calculation about the mass of Uranium required for a chain reaction, many believed it impossible.

There are transcripts and tapes of British debriefings at Farm Hall after captured German scientists were informed about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and most express complete incredulity that the US scientists had succeeded.

Nuclear Armaments

[Hodge]

I am currently reading Gitta Sereny's biography of Albert Speer (Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth), who was Hitler's architect, then armaments minister during WW2.

He claims to have stopped the scientists from developing the bomb any further - not because he was opposed to the concept if such a weapon (he certainly wasn't). The reason was that it was clear it would need much more time than was available in order to complete the work.

What was considered feasible was the idea of an "energy producing Uranium motor" for use in vehicles, and research was switched in that direction around 1944.

Antony Beevor's excellent book on the fall of Berlin also makes it clear that the Germans' nuclear research facilities were well known to the Russian's and were a major influence on Stalin's tactical decisions regarding Berlin. He was determined to obtain the fruits of this research.

The book also makes clear that Heisenburg did not try to sabotage the programme but was eager to succeed. This view is also backed up by the famous meeting between Heisenburg and Nils Bohr in Copenhagen in 1941 and Hesinburg's views at that time.

Of course even though one new where Heisenburg was in 1941 you could never tell what direction he was taking at that time.

Re: Dirty bomb

[Cat_Byte]

They had a very informative special on Discovery about Germany and the nuclear research during WW2. The story about the uranium on a sub and the other story about the entire shipment of heavy water being sunk in a lake set them so far back they couldn't catch up again. Things like this in history are probably why it was unanimous to decide to do something about Iraq when they thought they were building WMDs. If Germany had waited a few short years they would have been quite a bit more lethal.