German WWII Atomic Bombs

[Jemiba]

"There's no problem to get metallic uranium."
Maybe that's the only truth in the whole story, which speaks of a nuclear test
in Thuringia ! In Thuringia uranium ore was found and after WWII around 11%
of the worldwide uranium production came from this area, so it probably was
already there during the war ...    .
All the other stories ... 99% rubbish, I think ! "Proof of concept" by the americans,
the principles were known to german scientists, the raw material was there and
maybe a blown-up ammo depot ... and the story was born.

[boxkite]

Some time ago there were some stories about "A-bomb tests during WW II
in Thuringia/Germany", but AFAIK the best description of it is the one given
by Orionblamblam !   
But I think, boxkite can give more first-hand details about this affair .

Probably I’m the one of us, who is living nearest Ohrdruf and also the ‘location’ of the alleged bomb explosion (20 … 25 minutes by car from here). I was born with five fingers on every hand, and my head has two eyes and two ears  (Jemiba is my witness).

But let’s be seriously. Many books on this topic have been published since the mid-1990s. Most of them were written by a man named Thomas Mehner, e. g. he put three(!) books regarding the ‘German A-bomb’ on the book market within a year at the same publishing company! (Do I hear you say the word ‘rip-off’?) He earns more money by guiding busses full of people to the Jonastal, a valley between Ohrdruf and Arnstadt, where an alleged HQ of the Nazis was (particularly) built in the last months of WWII. On the other hand there is a small association in Wölfis near Ohrdruf, putting up a museum with interesting artifacts. The people there try to shed light on these ‘mysteries’. One of their best ideas was to put the pros & cons together on a table. Mr Mehner was never there (I believe he is too much of a coward to expose to a seriously discussion). But Rainer Karlsch (the author mentioned above) came to the meeting. At the end he had to admit that many of his claims/assertions are very vague (or even wrong). The answers and arguments of invited scientists from the university in Jena and of eye-witnesses changed his mind in several points. The very interesting and informative discussion was printed in the club/association magazine. I would like to give you the questions and answers of this article, but my English is too bad to translate the whole thing (btw, it would be necessary to know the background of region’s history including the ‘Olga’ HQ(?), the old military training area and the concentration camp S III).

To sum up – As Jens and Scott (and others) noticed, there is a big amount of Nazi bullshit for all who want to believe in the existence of a produced and tested German A-bomb. Please read all these articles and books with the utmost caution! Use your brain!

PS.: To give you a nice example how ‘authors’ like Friedrich Georg ‘create’ aviation history, the attached picture is one from his Siegeswaffen volumes. It shows one of Georg’s models – a Mistel formed by a 'Junkers intercontinental bomber proposal' with a Me 262 on its back. Guess what it is!

[Justo Miranda]

The Belgian uranium was extracted from the Congo mines by the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga.
On 10 May 1939 Edgar Senier, chairman of Union Minière, travelled to London for an interview with Henry Tizard, scientific adviser of the British Government. On 13 May he went to Paris to discuss with the CNRS scientists on the French patents for the uranium chain reaction.

In June 1939 five tons of Belgiam of uranium oxide were sent to Paris and another three were sent in April 1940, prior to the German invasion.
The official history says that the eight tons were translated to the French Morocco and hidden during the years of German occupation. The Congo mineral contained a 65% of uranium oxide while the one from Canada, extracted by Eldorado Gold Mining, contained a 40% only. The atomic program of the Columbia University was delayed for this cause and scientists Fermi and Szilard could not have enough amount of uranium oxide until the second half of 1941.

The heavy water was sinthetized in Norway only, in the Norsk Hydro installations, as electricity costs in that country were very low. They have obtained 200 kg in 1940, 185 out of which were sent to Paris on 9 March 1940 (a month before the invasion of Norway) because the IG Farben was interested in acquiring the whole stock.

German had other problems with the supplying of heavy water due to British sabotage to the production at Norsk Hydro and to the bad luck (just from the top of my head) one of their factories was destroyed (by the purest chance) by one of the British bombs that 'missed' the target.

[Orionblamblam]

there is a big amount of Nazi bullshit for all who want to believe in the existence of a produced and tested German A-bomb.

I may be wrong or seeing a skewed sample size, but a lot of the fanciful "Nazi Wunderwaffen" fiction seems to come from *east* of Germany, from the former Warsaw Pact areas. I have my own hare-brained hypothesis on why this is: during WWII, Germany managed to overrun vast regions and kill, directly or indirectly, *vast* numbers of people.  A death toll that, while not as big as that produced by Communists, had the "advantage" of being blatantly obvious and un-arguable, and advertised at leangth for decades. Often when confronted by an enormity of evil, people will begin to imagine that something more than mundane forces are at work. Hense a storm, plague or earthquake helps prop up superstitious beliefs regarding spiritis and gods and such. In the case of WWII, how could just average Germans wreak so much death? Why... they had MAGIC! SUPER-SCIENCE! Fantasmagorical weapons from beyond imagining!!

This is, in a way, something beyond the imagination of many Americans, since we've not experienced anything like that (instead of death camps and industrial scal murder of hundreds of millions, all we have to put up with is a slight increase in gun crime). But come 9-11, 19 idjits managed to completely much up our economy and sense of place and safety in the world. And as a result, a great many American have bought into our own version of Nazi A-Bombs and Nazi Flying Saucers... they've bought into "9-11 was a conspiracy by our own government!!!"

Many people simply can't accept that incredible evil can be perpetrated by average people with rifles or boxcutters, and thus need to invent the fantastical. And once it's ingrained that The Enemy has superpowers (the Nazis had super-science, the US government coudl actually keep a secret), it becomes trivially easy to just keep attributing even *more* nonsense to them (the Nazis had functional A-Bombs, the US Government controls the world).

To give you a nice example how ‘authors’ like Friedrich Georg ‘create’ aviation history, the attached picture is one from his Siegeswaffen volumes. It shows one of Georg’s models ...

A show of hands: who else here besides me is sick to the gills with books illustrated with photos of indifferently assembled and painted commercial model kits? LAME!!!

[Jemiba]

"..of the fanciful "Nazi Wunderwaffen" fiction seems to come from *east* of Germany, from the former Warsaw Pact areas"

Quite understandable, I think. Until 1989 , claiming that your sources could only be found behind
the iron curtain, was the easiest way to prevent undue discussions ....   
But, perhaps we should be gracious even with such authors, they just try to earn their daily bread,
and writing such books still is better, than using a gun for raiding and robbing innocent people !   
And,  is there anybody here, who believes in photos like that ?   

[Justo Miranda]

I believe the origin of the problem is that someone has published some  drawings of the submunitions container "Abwurfbehälter" AB-1000 and of the SA-4000 bomb (the German equivalent to the RAF cookies) as illustrations on the German A-bomb.
Please see attached drawings

[Michel Van]

I check my data
and found the TV doku
"ZDF History "Was ist dran an Hitlers Bombe ?" (Wat about Hitler Bomb ?)
Re-runs also on the History Channel
ZDF = Zweites Deutsche Fernsehn (second German TV channel)

Reporter of ZDF check Rainer Karlsch claims of Nazi Atombomb and Test.

they had the chance to Interview last Witnesses of Ohrdruf explosion (Thuringia)
Cläre Werner work in Wachsenburg 1945 (near to on Military training ground in Ohrdruf)

on march 1945, the SS came to Wachsenburg [hans Kammler and his theam]
she ask why so many high rang SS came here, she got this answer:
"Wir werden  Weltgeschichte schreiben" = We gonna make World history"
they build a tower from wood with something out metall on the top, on the training ground
at in night of march 4, she saw the Explosion

It was a big flash of light, so bright you can read the newspaper,
then we heard sound of explosion, the Light rise higher became a big Tree like Thing.
and than was a second explosion, but smaller as the first
I don't know Wat it was, but after i saw picture of Hiroshima, I know now it was Atombomb explosion...

her account was taken by Soviet in 1945 and SED in 1962 and ZDF in 2005

after 1945 March 4 (so the Reporter of ZDF find out) Report a German Spy to Sovjetunion

" they [german] had 2 major explosion in Thuringia
  the weapon destroy tree even in 5 km away
  the prisoners used in test were kill or burnt horribly"

the Report was filed "ad ac-ta" and forgotten until ZDF used there connection.

question to "enriched uranium"
Physicist Kurt Diebner work for Uranverein
want to build Small nuclear reactor to "breed" weapon Uran
called "Uranmaschine"

in 2003 Scientists of Margburg take soilsampel out remains of "Uranmaschine"
and check them for Isotopes 
after Dr Reinhard Brandt :

the soil is contaminated with enriched Uran with trace of Plutonium!
  more that Natural, less as by Atomic test or Chernobyl
  the Uranmaschine has only run for minute to Hour, not days

Rainer Karlsch claims that they build a Hybrid Fission-Fussion Nuke 
(The guy is good Historian, NOT a Nuclear Physicist  )

the Reporter check the peninsula Rügener explosion story
(with interview of Luigi Romersa ! )
The German called this weapon "Zerlegung Bombe" (Factorization bomb, they never talk of Atomic bomb to Italian)

in 2005 ZDF let take soilsampel at "Ground Zero" and check them for radioactivity and Isotopes, NOTHING
also in on Military training ground in Ohrdruf and find, NOTHING
there were no Nuclear explosion there.

Wat Ever is this "Zerlegung Bombe" must be chemical 

But why came Commader Eisenhower to Ohrdruf 1945 ?
and why was Albert Speer questioned by prosecutors about the Ohrdruf blast.(in Nuremberg Trials)

[boxkite]

Reporter of ZDF check Rainer Karlsch claims of Nazi Atombomb and Test.

they had the chance to Interview last Witnesses of Ohrdruf explosion (Thuringia)
Cläre Werner work in Wachsenburg 1945 (near to on Military training ground in Ohrdruf)

on march 1945, the SS came to Wachsenburg [hans Kammler and his theam]
she ask why so many high rang SS came here, she got this answer:
"Wir werden  Weltgeschichte schreiben" = We gonna make World history"
they build a tower from wood with something out metall on the top, on the training ground
at in night of march 4, she saw the Explosion

It was a big flash of light, so bright you can read the newspaper,
then we heard sound of explosion, the Light rise higher became a big Tree like Thing.
and than was a second explosion, but smaller as the first
I don't know Wat it was, but after i saw picture of Hiroshima, I know now it was Atombomb explosion...

her account was taken by Soviet in 1945 and SED in 1962 and ZDF in 2005

Michel,

Cläre Werner is very disputed! The minutes of the discussion ('Ohrdrufer Gespräch') is published at http://www.gtgj.de/script/news/index.php?shownews=400 (it's the same as in the GTGJ association magazine I mentioned in my earlier post).

Regards,
Thomas

[rickshaw]

4.   The supposed ‘error’ of Heisenberg regarding the required amount of uranium for the bomb, was undoubtedly intentional.

Since Heisenberg never made it plain, it's impossible to say. However, given that Heisenberg went from "a small bomb is impossible" to "here's how you design a small bomb" in very short order after the announcement of Hiroshime, it's a good possibility. A discussion of this:
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/nuclear/mg13518370.300

The crucial period in the Farm Hall documents covers the days just after the bombing of Hiroshima. Walther Gerlach, a physicist from Munich who was officially in charge of German research on uranium, acted like 'a defeated general', according to another interned scientist, Max von Laue. Later that night, Heisenberg and Otto Hahn of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin discussed Gerlach's reaction. Heisenberg told Hahn that 'Gerlach was the only one of them who had really wanted a German victory'.

The conversation then took a remarkable turn as Heisenberg told Hahn how one might build an atomic bomb. He described how a sphere of uranium-235 with a diameter of 54 centimetres, weighing about a tonne, could sustain a chain reaction of 80 collisions, using 'very fast neutrons', generating 1024 neutrons. But only a quarter of a tonne would be necessary, he said, if the uranium were covered with a 'reflector'. The bombs could be made to explode at the right moment by bringing together two halves which were too small to generate a chain reaction when separated.

Also, regarding actual Nazi-nuke designs, here's about the best I've seen:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/03/nazi_nuke_sketch/

A German historian who controversially claims that the Nazis tested a nuclear device in 1945 has now unearthed a sketch of a "Nazi nuke", as the BBC puts it.

Rainer Karlsch's book Hitlers Bombe (Hitler's Bomb) rather sensationally suggests that German scientists detonated several nuclear bombs, the last in Thuringia on 3 March 1945. According to Karlsch, this destroyed around 500 square miles and killed several hundred POWs and concentration camp inmates.
....
The new sketch - discovered in an undated report on German wartime nuclear research believed to have been compiled shortly after the end of the war in Europe - appears to show a plutonium device. Karlsch admits that the drawing is a simple schematic and does not prove the Nazis were building, or close to building a similar device.

It must be noted that this is a *post* *war* sketch, which means US/UK nuke knowledge could be a part of it... and I'm not sure if the provenance of the sketch in question ahs ever really been confirmed.

If I'm not mistaken, that is in fact a "gun-type" bomb, not an implosion device.  Plutonium bombs only function as implosion devices.   Uranium bombs can be a "gun-type".  Therefore to suggest that this is a credible sketch of a Plotonium bomb would be impossible.  You can see the "barrel" down which one sub-critical Uranium mass is blown into the other.

[foofighter]

The end of the third reich era is a vast field of missinformation, largely attributable to the victors who were about to initiate their own cold war, as a consequence of which they were tripping over themselves to sort and assimilate german technology as fast as they could get hold of it. The fact that the allies diverted their efforts southwards to the NATIONAL REDOUBT in the Harz mountains instead of making it to Berlin instead of Russia is very suspicious. I remember seeing a photograph of an Heinkel Greif He 177, in a Putnam book, that had been converted in the bomb bay to carry the german A bomb. This was discovered near the Harz mountains in 1945. Remember Germany only had a small window of opportunity in 1945 before the US weapon was ready, and they possibly knew this. Something may have been prepared as a last resort, possibly without enriched Uranium.

[Rosdivan]

The fact that the allies diverted their efforts southwards to the NATIONAL REDOUBT in the Harz mountains instead of making it to Berlin instead of Russia is very suspicious.

No it's not. Making it to Berlin first would be nothing more than a propaganda victory at the cost of thousands of Allied lives. The post-war division of Germany had already been agreed upon at Yalta, with a final setting of the lines at Potsdam shortly after the war ended.

I remember seeing a photograph of an Heinkel Greif He 177, in a Putnam book, that had been converted in the bomb bay to carry the german A bomb. This was discovered near the Harz mountains in 1945.

According to Peter Evan's quoted here (the link provided no longer working), that particular He 177 was a testbed for the Ju 287's bomb bay. Additionally, work on that particular He 177 was halted in August 1944.

Remember Germany only had a small window of opportunity in 1945 before the US weapon was ready, and they possibly knew this.

If memory serves, funding for the German atom bomb was only 300,000 Reichsmarks per year. That's not enough to fund an atom bomb project.

Something may have been prepared as a last resort, possibly without enriched Uranium.

That would be a radiological weapon, not an atom bomb.

There's also the additional trouble that the Germans were quite aware that any such sortie to drop an atom bomb would have resulted in the attacking aircraft being shot down long before it could reach the drop point. Any atom bomb would have been used as a mine as a result.

[Justo Miranda]

A big size bomb does not have to be an A-bomb. The Germans had the "Luftmine" SA 4000 which had a diameter of 1.6 m and was four meters long. The SC 5000 "Minenbombe" was 5.25 m long and had a diameter of 0.92 m. The SHL-6000 "Hohlladungsbombe" (hollow charge) had 3.9 m. long and had a diameter of 2.4 m. And they were working on another 11.2 m. long and with a diameter of 1.4 for the Sangerprojekt.

The SHL-6000 was developed to be used with the He 177 ,possibly in a Mistel configuration.
There are no known illustrations on the fuel-air bomb but it possibly had a big size.

http://mnweekly.rian.ru/national/20070913/55275780.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6990815.stm
http://groups.google.co.th/group/rec.aviation.military/
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5303653-description.html

I do not believe in the "dirty bomb" theory.
 Let's assume that a Blohm und Voss Bv 222 flying boat crosses the Atlantic Ocean using U-Boats for refuelling ,and launches (by night) an AB-1000 container with radioactive dust over a city in the eastern coast of USA. During the next twenty years a given number of clerks and housewives will die or be seriously ill.... Which strategic or propagandistic advantage may that situation offer? How can anyone sell such an stupid idea to the 'Oberkommando der Luftwaffe'? We must remember that the moral conventionalisms of the time were very different and that in the WWII died hundred of people per minute!.
If there is no terrible explosion with flames and massive instant destruction, the idea does not sell well. Hollywood knows it since some time ago....
Besides, Germans had several types of nerve-gas that could have achieved a big destruction of lives and they did not use them (with good sense) fearing the Allies answer to that.

[Wingknut]

Sorry to chip in but a couple of things spring to mind:

1)  I think (although the source currently escapes me) someone set out to Thuringia (Geiger counters at the ready) and found exactly nothing to support the idea that even a modest radiological weapon, still less Karlsch's fission device, had been tested there.

2)  The real debate among historians is not over whether or not there was a German A-bomb or where it might have been tested, but over why a German A-bomb didn't happen.  The best defence of the claim that Heisenberg actively worked to derail the German A-bomb project is Thomas Powers's 'Heisenberg's War'.  But even Powers has had to admit that not a single historian has been convinced by his view.  Almost diametrically opposed to powers is historian Paul Lawrence Rose, who claims that Heisenberg worked to deliver an atomic bomb, failed and then thought up a false story of moral qualms to cover this failure.  However, the idea that an entire parallel bomb programme could have issued in a successful test without Heisenberg (or any of the other German physicists interned at Farm Hall) hearing about it, is very far-fetched indeed.

3)  A good source for the nonstarter that was the Japanese atomic bomb project is Richard Rhodes's 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb'.

4)  Finally, many experimental flights by German aviators 1944-45 (e.g. testing the Ta-152H or RK-344) turned into impromptu combats when  they were jumped by flights of P-51's.  Given the sheer density of Allied air-cover over Europe 1944-45, I doubt anyone could have tested anything bigger than a matchbox without someone photographing it.  So no German A-bomb, no flying saucers, no foo-fighters.  (NB  The only photo I know that purports to show a foo-fighter buzzing Allied planes clearly shows a lens-flare in conjunction with a Japanese aircraft.)  So, I too think a German A-bomb is the purest bull-produce and belongs in the Nazi drivel file, (along with Miethe discs, Hollow Earths and Atlantean wunder-pants).
Cheers,

'Wingknut'

[Justo Miranda]

[quote author=Wingknut link=topic= no foo-fighters.  (NB  The only photo I know that purports to show a foo-fighter buzzing Allied planes clearly shows a lens-flare in conjunction with a Japanese aircraft.) 
'Wingknut'
[/quote]

Possibly two Tachikawa Ki-55 from Kumagaya Army Flying School

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/vinaIJ__LvQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/vinaIJ__LvQ&rel=1</a>

[Wingknut]

That's exactly the shot I had in mind, Justo.
  I have seen that very photograph (I think in an issue of an early 1980's magazine called 'The Unexplained') captioned something like: "Foo-fighters in formation with Allied aircraft".
  Cheers,

'Wingknut'.