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Lost Nazi Uranium Found In a Dutch Scrapyard
colin_faber writes "Lewis Page of the Register is reporting that forensic nuclear scientists at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre traced the two pieces of metal found in a Dutch scrapyard — described as a cube and a plate — back to their exact origins and dates. Apparently both came from ores extracted at the 'Joachimsthal' mine in what is now the Czech Republic from the former Nazi nuclear-weapons programme of the 1940s." The article runs through the roadblocks that, unknown to the Allies, the Nazi regime erected against their possible success in any nuclear bomb development during the war.
There's been a lot of controversy over whether Heisenberg deliberately sabotaged the Nazi bomb-making or whether he tried to help but was incompetent or whether the failure was due to factors beyond Heisenberg. Although I have not read the book, I've been told that Paul Rose's book "Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project" presents a strong case that Heisenberg tried his hardest to assist the Nazi regime in the building of the atom bomb.
In fact, Einstein and his theories were outcast in the "German Physics" the nazi were building. Einstein was jewish and traitor in their eyes. The nazis really lacked science buffs in their government. They had some success in rewriting history, in creating a non-jewish litterature, they did not understand why it could not be possible to make a non-jewish physics. They did not understand that Einstein was not an author of his laws, but a mere discoverer.
It is very interesting to look into the "Uranium Verein", the nazi nuclear program. Considering all the very good scientists they had, and the good infrastructure that existed at this time, they should have succeed way before US. But they had Bohr leave, they had Pauli leave, they had Einstein leave. More than Einstein, they put Heisenberg as a leading person, despite him being a poor experimenter (but a very good theorician) the good experimenter at the time was too suspicious because he kept having jewish assistant and protesting about their disappearance. It also didn't help that many of the scientific team had to serve some time on the front (and one or two died). The whole program is an example of bright people hindered by poor management, it is fascinationg to read.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The fact this can be traced to production batches at Joachimstal during the war is interesting for the following reason: it was a mine incapable of supporting a nuclear weapon program.
Joachimstal (Jachymov today) is an ancient and famous mining district (others have noted here that Thaler == Dollar originated from its name) and due to radon gas in its mine is also the earliest recorded incidences of death from occupational radiation exposure - - - lung cancer was a common cause of death of underground miners from the 16th century onward. It was also a prominent source of material for the discovery of radiation and radioactive elements.
But it could only produce a few tens of tons of uranium annually! Something like a 1000 tons of uranium was needed to support an effective nuclear weapons program.
Germany had however a couple of thousand tons of already mined and processed ore from the Belgian Congo, captured at the outset of the war. This material was perfect for a nuclear weapons program - if it had one. This material was captured by the U.S. at the end of the war unused. A couple of thousand tons of ore from this same mine and shipped to the U.S. before the war in fact powered the Manhattan Project through most of its wartime operations.
That Germany was still relying on old pre-war supply arrangements through Joamchimstal to obtain research uranium is very interesting. It is another manifestation of the failure to create a real weapons program.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Well, I'd put it this way. The Nazis, intellectually speaking, weren't anything.
Tyrannies of that type use ideology, but aren't about ideology. Trying to take their "ideologies" seriously as ideologies only leads to confusion, because they weren't interested in consistency, much less truth. They used language purely for its utility.
Take their idea of "Jewish science". You can't take that notion seriously, because it's all a fantasy they cooked up to target people they were afraid of. So they just lump them in together. It's telling that Himmler wanted to label Heisenberg as a "White Jew". "Jew" doesn't mean "person of historically Jewish descent" or "person who adheres to the Jewish law". It's just the verbal equivalent of a punch in the face.
The same goes for Hitler's views about atheists. Atheists tend to be free thinkers, and therefore likely to oppose the regime. So you take two despised groups and you manufacture a bigger "threat" by glomming them together.
Scapegoating is so critical to tyranny that where there aren't ready made hatreds, the tyrant invents groups to be hated. Stalin invented the "kulik", or rich peasant, as the scapegoat for his failed agricultural policies. They kuliks weren't rich by any means, but if your family were starving and your neighbor's had food, that gave you a satisfying, concrete target for your rage right within reach.
As far as the "Christianity" is concerned, it's about as meaningful as their notion of "Jew". If they'd been living in a predominantly Buddhist society, they'd be filling their propaganda with Buddhist trappings. If they'd been living in a Jewish society, then they'd avail themselves of Jewish symbols and scapegoat Christians and Muslims.
You can connect what the tyrant wants to what he says in this way: The tyrant wants power. To obtain and hold onto it, he needs a compliant people. To make the people compliant, he arouses fear, anger and hatred in them. To arouse those emotions he uses words, not to tell people anything, but to goad them.
Hatred and fear are for the politician like the nose ring a farmer puts on a bull. It allows him to safely lead a big, dumb dangerous animal where he wants it to go. This works for both right wing tyrants and left wing tyrants like Stalin. Remember that next time you are tempted to latch on to some popular political hatred.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Germany simply didn't have the spare industrial capacity to build installations of this magnitude without serious reprecussions on their war effort. As well the design of these facilities are pretty obvious (and large) making them perfect targets for the 8th Airforce
These exact same arguments can be made about the V-2 project, that consumed 2 billion Reichsmarks (1.2 billion US $ at the time, about 70% of the budget of the Manhattan Project during the war) late in the war for negligible real contribution to the war effort.
The Mittlewerk V-2 plant was bombed many times, but being built underground of reinformed concrete, it was never put out of operation.
These same resources could have provided a robust nuclear weapons program (but no bomb by the end of the war).
Most surprising is Germany's failure to have a vigorous R&D effort early in the war on uranium. The cost of such a project would have been small (compared to the huge costs of industrial production) a few tens of million of RM over 2-3 years. They had two strong motivations to do this, even if they thought no atomic bomb was possible during the war.
1. If Germany had "won the war" (defeat of the USSR, undisputed control over continental Europe, and the Anglo-American world suing for peace) they still would face a hostile Britain and U.S. even after an armistice. Given the precedent of WWI and WWII another round 10-20 years down the road seemed likely. Staying ahead of the Anglo-Americans in atomic technology would have been essential even in a victorious scenario.
2. Using uranium as a source of power seemed much easier, and the French were actively pursuing this in 1940 before defeat. The US Navy started its own independent uranium program to build reactors to power submarines around this time. To Germany - outclassed in Naval power and needing to sever the sea supply line of the UK and USSR - the possibility of a uranium powered U-boat should have given the German Navy and Hitler thrills of a well-nigh sexual nature. Yet no serious effort was devoted to exploring this.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Carrol Quigley disagrees with you. But then, you probably accuse him of being the Jesuit historian who "re-wrote" history.
This is the usual way with "debunkers" who seek to tear down a mass movement in order to supplant it with another. Hitler desperately needed a Jewish devil, so he accused the Jews of rewriting their history. Actually, it was Hitler who invented a new history in which the Jew became a sub-human perpetrator of evil. In the same way, as you have demonstrated, the anti-Christian demands a Christian devil and will commonly accuse Christians of rewriting their own history (the same accusation is frequently leveled against any of the numerous denominations: Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, etc). Typically this is accompanied by a certain "guilt by association" argument. In your case, not only is Christianity associated with Nazism according to your own flavor of revisionist history, but it becomes the driving force behind it. Christian zealots are now to be blamed for every major ill the world has ever seen, including the holocaust. Christians are sub-human genocidal maniacs. Where do we go from there?
Make no mistake: the Nazi movement was not a Christian movement, nor were it's principal roots found in Christianity. While plenty of Christians were sucked into the movement itself (mass movements are interchangeable, as Eric Hoffer pointed out; it is the quality of the belief rather than the thing believed in that is important to the True Believer), Hitler viewed all religion as competition to his own power. Hitler had no god but power. Nazism was merely one possible reification of Nietzsche's philosophy combined with any other power doctrines that could be extracted from social Darwinism, paganism, Christianity, and so forth.