German Atomic Bombs in WW2

[Zoo Tycoon]

[
Just so I understand you: you are saying that the Davy Crockett weapon utilized a core composed of 10kg of P-239 when the Fat Man bomb used against Nagasaki had 6.2. Is that correct? What is your source for this statement? Although I don't own a copy of Chuck Hansen's definitive Swords of Armageddon (because I don't have $2000 just now to purchase it) and therefore must rely on open sources, it is likely that the Davy Crockett W54 variant utilized about 4 kg of material in a mix of P-239 and uranium (it is not clear whether this was a blended core or a plutonium "pit" with a small uranium "tamper"). The low yields have to do with necessary tradeoffs between ignition - detonation methods and the internal arrangements of the warhead and so on. Meaning that sometimes it is necessary to have larger than expected amounts of fissile and/or tamper material in order to achieve the desired effect in an otherwise smaller weapon.

But, alright. Technically you're correct inasmuch as the Davy Crockett is not an example of a weapon which detonated a very small amount of fissile material via a prompt fusion reaction. So, I must concede on that point, fair enough.

There were several small nuclear weapons refereed to, all in the range of 10kg, one of which was the W54 at 4kg of Pu239.

100g of HEU has never been the functional mass of a device and that’s because it just won’t work. It might represent the fraction of fissioned material from a much larger device but then have loads of unfissioned and easily detectable material, not to mention produced radionuclides with varying half-lives, for instance, strontium-89 and strontium-90, extremely easy to detect, even today……… which have not been detected at your claimed sites…….hence the explosions didn’t happen….end of story.

 

[kaiserd]

To me this coming across as a form of Gish Galloping undertaken by a convinced true believer trying to spread his bible of nonsense.
Nazi Germany may potentially have made some more technical nuclear advancements than has generally been understood.
But ideas that it carried out multiple mysteriously trace-less nuclear tests and had stockpiles of ready to use super-advanced light weight tactical nuclear weapons with the bombardier nosed Me262s as the purpose designed deliver is unrelated to reality and what any reasonable interpretation of the facts can remotely sustain.
Ironically beyond the almost impenetrable regurgitation of apparent documentation once the relevant contributors start elaborating on what they really think the more absurd the proposition clearly becomes.

 

[Orionblamblam]

This is correct, and this kind of "could it be?" argument is all through Rider's book and undermines any valid arguments it might present. If this is the level of thinking in the rest of it, I can safely ignore it. It is typical conspiracy material.

Indeed. There is a script.

And it's being followed here. We get the "they're out to get us/hide the REAL TRUTH" paranoia. There's the "ramp up the claims" nonsense... it's not enough that the Nazis knew how to make a nuke. It's not enough that that actually made one. It's not enough that they actually set one off. Hell, now it's not enough that they set off *SIX* of the friggen' things... now we're being told that they had nukes more advanced that what Ted Taylor and Los Alamos were able to produce after a decade and a half of effort.

Soon: the Nazis had anti-matter bombs, phasers, photon torpedos, quantum torpedos, temporal negation weapons, vacuum collapse initiators, uru-based hammers...

 

[williamjpellas]

There are too many holes in the story, as Arjen points out - Rider's table has no less than seven 'sources' that state the tests took place at Rugen or somewhere in Pomerania in October 1944. Then we have these Russian intelligence documents that claim the tests were in Thüringen - one of the most central and populated areas of Germany - in 1945. Plus earlier in this thread we had the Ludwigslust explosion (also Oct 1944) which is in another completely different location. So who do we believe? These claimed eyewitness reports or the GRU? The big smoking gun is the lack of any German scientists who fell into Western Allied hands holding their hands up saying "I was part of the team that tested a working bomb" and ensuring a cushy job in the USA for life, similarly nobody ended up boosting Soviet efforts to build a bomb by presenting plans of a workable bomb to them in 1945 to ease any terrors they might of what the Gulag might have in store for them.

Von Ardenne or, really, any of the other prominent German nuclear scientists who went over to the Soviets might have. If Werner Grothmann's information is correct, there was still one (1) prototype German nuclear weapon which had not been expended in testing and whose whereabouts at war's end are unknown.

Romersa's testimony in 1947 is rather after the fact, when conveniently nobody in the Italian fascist and Nazi hierarchies was around to corroborate his supposed letters of introduction to allow him to view a top secret project.

Romersa's book first appeared in 1955. As for corroboration, there is the following paper from Italian national archives which confirms Romersa's return from his trip to Germany and his then-pending personal report to Mussolini:

29 October 1944 memo for Luigi Romersa to meet with Mussolini [Archivo Centrale dello Stato Rom, SPD CO RSI B 65, Akte 5680]

Lieutenant Romersa called to report that he has returned from his trip to Germany and to ask to be received by the DUCE, possibly within the day. 29 Oct. 1944.

Zissner only tells his story regarding Ludwigslust on 19th August 1945 - after everybody knows exactly what an atomic mushroom cloud looks like. Why hadn't he spilled his momentous story in the three preceding months of his imprisonment?

He might have done so during that time. The report is dated 19 August, which means it is almost a certainty that he was interrogated, perhaps repeatedly, prior to that date.

Karlsch claims a Soviet spy who witnessed an A-bomb detonated at Orhdruf, in south-central Thuringia on 4th March 1945. Allegedly the report was radioed to Moscow and Stalin got a copy of their report within an hour. Other accounts state the 4th March Orhdruf test as being a single device using 100g of material with a second test on March 12th. The second memo posted above from Rider via Karlsch via Raibev seems to cover the rough outline of the Orhdruf trials (PoWs used as guinea pigs etc.) but of course the date of the 25th is weeks after the event, does not refer to the site by name nor any test on the 12th.

Orhdruf was a concentration camp - one liberated by the US Army on 4th April - exactly one month later so its odd they never found out about the results of the nearby test or found the location themselves. No lesser Generals than Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, and Eddy inspected the camp to see what had gone on there. There seems little doubt had some of the inmates been carted off and an atomic fireball had nearby had incinerated them only a few weeks earlier, that they would have mentioned it to the US troops.

Interestingly this second GRU memo, if dated 25th March, comes two days after Beria suggested sending teams to Germany to search for nuclear technology, and one day after he instructed Kurchatov to start organising these teams. By rights these SMERSH-led teams should have headed straight to Orhdruf as soon as they were able in July 1945, and Rugen too. Instead they went hunting down the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik in the Black Forest and uranium stocks to requisition across Eastern Europe.

Are the two memos fake or not?
Dilandu has posted a colour digital image of a similar document for comparison. It is from 1942 though, so I wouldn't want to make any assumptions regarding the different style of letterhead and stamps because these may have changed during 1942-44 and we have nothing else to compare too.

At least one historian who wrote prior to the widespread archival declassifications enacted since 1995 described Russian forces making a beeline for Gottow in the closing hours of the war. This was Anthony Beevor in one of his books, sorry, I don't know which one just now. But the point is that Gottow was the site of a German Army Weapons Bureau proving ground and was also one of the major facilities involved in nuclear weapons R&D, particularly reactor work closely associated with Kurt Diebner.

Agreed re: the apparent differences in document style, letterhead, etc. Particularly in what appears to have been more properly a highly secret internal memo circulated among the very uppermost reaches of the Soviet high command. Other than Stalin, only Molotov, Antonov, and Kurchatov (evidently a few days later) received copies.

But I find a few points interesting:
- the pages are photocopies and not of great quality, so we cannot see the colour and patina of the paper to know whether its an original document showing signs of age or a fresh sheet of A4. (of course Raibev may or may not have had access to/permission to use a digital camera).
- the date stamps seem rather faint, is it [2]5 or 15 or just 5 March?
- the document does have some signs of underlining etc. (would be interesting to know which bits of the text are underlined), so they are not pristine
- but also there is a lack of further stamps and handwritten identification numbers that tend to clutter the first page of any memo that has been filed
- does Ilyichev's signature match other files?
- would a GRU report state "our trustworthy source in Germany" or would it refer to the source by a codename? It seems a very vague statement even allowing for the the fact this is a secondary report for onward transmission up the command chain.

I'm not saying its a fake, but as an historian I'd check all these points to satisfy myself it was genuine without being presented with the actual hardcopy.

For his book, Dr. Rider consulted the work of various documentary experts including Matthias Uhl. https://www.dhi-moskau.org/institut/mitarbeiter-innen/wissenschaft/dr-matthias-uhl.html. According to Rider,

"....he (Uhl) and other scholars who have examined those two documents believe they are genuine. Documents that were created, handled, and seen by so very few people at the time would not fully look like documents that were mass-produced by the Soviet bureaucracy of the time. And as I already mentioned, the documents agree with the published documents by Kurchatov and Flerov and the other primary sources for the bomb design and the March tests."

 

[dannydale]

Gish Galloping

That's what that horrible dreadful feeling this thread is giving me is called! Thank you!

 

[edwest4]

William,

The expected remarks. I've seen them before. A lot of files exist at various locations. The only conclusion that can be drawn here is that even though the files exist, they are all fake. Even though they were issued during or shortly after the war, and were produced by different agencies like the OSS, ONI, Also Mission, SHAEF or even if they reside in the Oak Ridge Files, they are still fake.

 

[williamjpellas]

100g of HEU has never been the functional mass of a device and that’s because it just won’t work. It might represent the fraction of fissioned material from a much larger device but then have loads of unfissioned and easily detectable material, not to mention produced radionuclides with varying half-lives, for instance, strontium-89 and strontium-90, extremely easy to detect, even today……… which have not been detected at your claimed sites…….hence the explosions didn’t happen….end of story.

100 grams was the minimum load required for achieving brief supercriticality (and a relatively small resulting explosion) and thereby testing the implosion detonators used in the bombs, a detail that had greatly vexed Diebner and other weapons scientists during the development of these weapons. Otherwise there is considerable detail given in Forgotten Creators about both the soil analysis done in Germany since this story began appearing in public sources and also Rider's analysis of the likelihood that radioactive traces from this event would still be readily detectable in the present day. Since that section is very lengthy---probably too long for this format---and since you give zero indication of being willing to consider it, I'm not going to bother with a copy and paste here. For anyone interested, please see pp. 3618ff, "Expected Radioisotopes After 75+ Years".

 

[williamjpellas]

William,

The expected remarks. I've seen them before. A lot of files exist at various locations. The only conclusion that can be drawn here is that even though the files exist, they are all fake. Even though they were issued during or shortly after the war, and were produced by different agencies like the OSS, ONI, Also Mission, SHAEF or even if they reside in the Oak Ridge Files, they are still fake.

You're entirely correct. I would ask the chorus here what proof they can offer that 1) all of the papers cited here, along with the hundreds in Rider's book, are fakes, and 2) what more reasonable explanation than Rider's narrative they can offer which adequately explains the primary source evidence he has collected. But I'm just here to put the information out to the public and let any interested parties know where to learn more.

 

[williamjpellas]

To me this coming across as a form of Gish Galloping undertaken by a convinced true believer trying to spread his bible of nonsense.
Nazi Germany may potentially have made some more technical nuclear advancements than has generally been understood.
But ideas that it carried out multiple mysteriously trace-less nuclear tests and had stockpiles of ready to use super-advanced light weight tactical nuclear weapons with the bombardier nosed Me262s as the purpose designed deliver is unrelated to reality and what any reasonable interpretation of the facts can remotely sustain.
Ironically beyond the almost impenetrable regurgitation of apparent documentation once the relevant contributors start elaborating on what they really think the more absurd the proposition clearly becomes.

Not "stockpiles". Perhaps three (3), all told.

What other explanation do you have for Hitler's order for a Jabo variant of the Me-262 to be produced? Other than the usual chorus of "he was a meth head and syphilis was rotting his brain so that's that", I mean. Please note that my suggestion that the fighter-bomber version may have been intended as a delivery system for smaller battlefield type nuclear weapons is just that: a suggestion. What is known is that the V-2 was definitely built for the purpose of carrying German nuclear weapons to their targets. There is ample documentation which corroborates this.

Did you read any of Rider's book before you commented, or examine any of his documentary and other sources? Yes or no?

 

[edwest4]

William,

That is all you can do. Present the information.

 

[williamjpellas]

@williamjpellas you are so convinced of the rightness of your hypothesis that it is impossible to have a meaningful discussion about any aspect of it. All evidence that supports your hypothesis, no matter how second hand or flimsy, is instantly to be trusted. Anything that doesn't fit, isn't.

The Manhattan Project was an astronomical expenditure of money, manpower and engineering. In 1996 dollars it was costed at $20 Billion or so. Germany had no way to match this. I'm sure various people claimed to be building atom bombs at various times, they may even have had an idea how to. Doesn't meant they did.

A bit of clarification here.

Let me state for the record that Rider's overall narrative is necessarily somewhat tentative and speculative. This is unavoidable because of 1) the nature of large national "black projects" for as long as that has been a thing in this world, and 2) the fragmentary nature of the documentary and other evidence which has emerged over the years and particularly since 1995.

However: his book is generally consistent with, and far more detailed than, the various archival investigations which were conducted by a number of writer-researchers who preceded him, and in some cases Rider provides correctives to those works. And yes, his personal integrity and curriculum vitae do count in any honest analysis of his research and conclusions, as far as I am concerned.

I am not saying, nor is Rider himself, that there is no way he could be wrong or mistaken about this or that aspect or detail. Of course he could. I have made mistakes in my own writing on the subject and have taken pains to publicly describe them in order that future readers (if there are any) know where I went wrong, and why. I can do so here, if you like. At the same time, to my knowledge there simply is no other resource currently available in the public realm that is so exhaustively documented and which provides anything close to the amount of detail that is found in Forgotten Creators. I have stated elsewhere that in my opinion, the only work to which it can rightly be compared is the late Chuck Hansen's extraordinary reference, The Swords of Armageddon. Hansen's estate charges a mere $2000 per copy, which is about what I would expect Rider's book to fetch on the open market.

As for trusting the evidence, as you know, in the historian's trade (whether amateur or professional), it is primary sources which talk the loudest and carry the most weight. It is because Rider's book is rooted as thoroughly as it is in original archival material that I endorse it to the extent that I do.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I would ask the chorus here what proof they can offer that 1) all of the papers cited here, along with the hundreds in Rider's book, are fakes,

Not up to us to present "proof." That's your job. present proof that these are real.

2) what more reasonable explanation than Rider's narrative they can offer which adequately explains the primary source evidence he has collected. But I'm just here to put the information out to the public and let any interested parties know where to learn more.

1: Spies can be wrong
2: Spies can exaggerate
3: Spies can lie

All of these are more reasonable than your mythical magical dirt-cheap self-cleaning super-nukes. Any of these would be an adequate explanation. All of them together are more than sufficient.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

You seem to be a fan of Chuck Hansen for the US Nuclear history. Let me quote from Swords of Armageddon:

To prepare this series of volumes, I have drawn upon newly-released material whenever possible. The watchword of my work has been the credibility of my sources. Perhaps the best counsel I ever received concerning sources came to me in March 1971, at the very beginning of my research, when R. B. Jewell, then Vice President and Chief Engineer of the Mason & Hanger - Silas Mason Company, an AEC contractor, advised me "that any unclassified information with regard to (nuclear devices) which may have occurred in the press or in periodicals is highly unreliable and sometimes conjectural." As the years went by, I came to appreciate the truth in his words: there is very little about nuclear weapons and testing in most publications that is accurate. For this reason more than any other, I have used official U.S. government documents as primary references. These include many documents declassified for me since 1981 following Freedom of Information requests to several branches and subcontractors of the U.S. Department of Energy; divisions of the U.S. Air Force including Aerospace Defense Command, Systems Command, Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command, Logistics Command, and the Office of USAF History; the U.S. Navy's Naval Air Historian at Naval Air Systems Command; and the Defense Nuclear Agency. More than 500 official USDOE, USAF, USN and DNA reports — never before made available in unclassified form to a historian — were sources for this book. This history relies almost exclusively on contemporary primary source documents. In very few instances have later personal comments from participants or principal characters been included. After-the-fact recollections, especially those remembered 40 to 50 years later, are generally not very reliable. Time alters memories and tends to warp them to conform to current beliefs. Subsequent knowledge and experience mix with and become inseparable from remembrances of earlier events. In addition, in some cases, those who participated in the episodes described in this book cannot recall them at all or are deceased. Mainly for these reasons, this history is primarily documentary rather than anecdotal. For these reasons, I have chosen to use reports, letters, and memoranda written during the time that events were occurring, unless the source bears an unmistakable or pronounced bias to a particular point of view that distorts its accuracy. Since there were many controversies associated with the postwar development of U.S. nuclear weaponry, ranging in significance from national policy issues (such as whether or not to build thermonuclear weapons) down to military debate over optimal weapon sizes and mixes in the national stockpile, advocatory documents are unavoidable. In the very few places where such material was a sole source, the prejudicial nature of the commentary has been noted.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Would anybody else here be surprised if it turns out that *someone* here turns out to be a sock puppet, congratulating himself for his being the lone renegade who gets the history right in the face of nasty skeptics?

In any event, everyone should bone up on Baez's Crackpot Index:

https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

It's specifically about crackpots in physics, but it seems to work with history as well. Some elements that seem relevant:

• A -5 point starting credit.
  
  
• 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
• 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
• 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
• 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
• 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.
• 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.
• 20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
• 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
• 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
• 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.

And an earlier paper on the subject by the RAND Corporation:
"A Measure for Crackpots"
That is less in the form of a scoresheet and more in the form of a set of questions about whether or not the subject at hand is good science or crackpottery. Here, it boils down to:
1: public verifiability
2: predictability
3: controlled experiments
4: Occam's Razor
5: Fruitfulness
6: Authority
7: ability to communicate
8: Humility
9: Open mindedness
10: The Fulton non Sequitur
11: Paranoia
12: The Dollar Complex
13: Statistics Compulsion

In the matter of Nazi nukes, "predictability" would seem very, very important. "History" is often seen as non-scientific because it can't make predictions; this is in part wrong. If your hypothesis is "Nazis set off half a dozen nukes," then you *can* make predictions. How would a stretch of terrain be different in a world where it had been nuked 70 years ago, and a world where it hadn't been nuked? Figure out the differences, make a prediction about what would be found on that stretch of property today if an examination was made.

 

[williamjpellas]

You seem to be a fan of Chuck Hansen for the US Nuclear history. Let me quote from Swords of Armageddon:

To prepare this series of volumes, I have drawn upon newly-released material whenever possible. The watchword of my work has been the credibility of my sources. Perhaps the best counsel I ever received concerning sources came to me in March 1971, at the very beginning of my research, when R. B. Jewell, then Vice President and Chief Engineer of the Mason & Hanger - Silas Mason Company, an AEC contractor, advised me "that any unclassified information with regard to (nuclear devices) which may have occurred in the press or in periodicals is highly unreliable and sometimes conjectural." As the years went by, I came to appreciate the truth in his words: there is very little about nuclear weapons and testing in most publications that is accurate. For this reason more than any other, I have used official U.S. government documents as primary references. These include many documents declassified for me since 1981 following Freedom of Information requests to several branches and subcontractors of the U.S. Department of Energy; divisions of the U.S. Air Force including Aerospace Defense Command, Systems Command, Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command, Logistics Command, and the Office of USAF History; the U.S. Navy's Naval Air Historian at Naval Air Systems Command; and the Defense Nuclear Agency. More than 500 official USDOE, USAF, USN and DNA reports — never before made available in unclassified form to a historian — were sources for this book. This history relies almost exclusively on contemporary primary source documents. In very few instances have later personal comments from participants or principal characters been included. After-the-fact recollections, especially those remembered 40 to 50 years later, are generally not very reliable. Time alters memories and tends to warp them to conform to current beliefs. Subsequent knowledge and experience mix with and become inseparable from remembrances of earlier events. In addition, in some cases, those who participated in the episodes described in this book cannot recall them at all or are deceased. Mainly for these reasons, this history is primarily documentary rather than anecdotal. For these reasons, I have chosen to use reports, letters, and memoranda written during the time that events were occurring, unless the source bears an unmistakable or pronounced bias to a particular point of view that distorts its accuracy. Since there were many controversies associated with the postwar development of U.S. nuclear weaponry, ranging in significance from national policy issues (such as whether or not to build thermonuclear weapons) down to military debate over optimal weapon sizes and mixes in the national stockpile, advocatory documents are unavoidable. In the very few places where such material was a sole source, the prejudicial nature of the commentary has been noted.

Rider also notes "the prejudicial nature of the commentary" where this is the case.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Renamed and moved topic as it has moved far from a discussion of Popp's book.

 

[williamjpellas]

I know my undergrad history lecturers said not to read every book in the library cover-to-cover but look up the index and read the relevant bits, but wow, just reading the title is taking that a few steps too far!

Too much mythical wishful thinking and reliance on dodgy eyewitnesses.
We might as well claim the He 113 was mass produced because it featured in so many Allied pilots' combat reports;
Or that the Tiger I tank weighed 65 tons, had a 20mm cannon in the rear hull and concrete armour over the front and side from initial Soviet army combat reports in 1943;
Or that the Bulgarians mass produced the Samohodna Batarya tank destroyer armed with a 320mm calibre gun based on spy reports which found their way to CIA;
Or that the Soviets actually mass produced hundreds of Myasischev M-50 Bounders because Western attaches saw dozens of them flying over the May Day parade with their own eyes;
Or that the world is flat because someone on a website says so.

The truth is most people are unreliable witnesses and some are just plain downright liars who are confidence tricksters who desire some form of fame. In a PoW camp, you might want to improve your comfort by telling a few tall tales. As von Braun et al showed, those who had the most talent and potential use got cushy treatment.
The trick is keeping your sense of scepticism well honed and keep a balanced approach and check the facts.


As regards to Ludwigslust event in October 1944; Hans Zissner states the explosion happened after dusk so the flash should have been seen over a large area. Why didn't the locals see it? The Germans had opened the Reiherhorst PoW camp nearby in September 1944 to house US PoWs. One of them might have noticed something...
He would have had a logbook, so why no exact date, only "early October"?
Zissner then states he took off an hour later in a He 111 from Ludwigslust to look at the cloud. Being at least two hours after dusk in October that must be some feat to find a cloud in the dark. He then states P-38s were nearby so he had to fly north. P-38s on nocturnal fighter sweeps that far East? Sounds suspicious too.
We haven't even asked yet why Zissner flying around a nuclear test site and why the Luftwaffe had not declared a NOTAM over the area?
Until 15th October the only units at the airfield at Ludwigslust were nightfighter training units equipped with Bf 109s and Fw 190s, although I. Ergänzungs-Jagdgeschwader 2 formed on 2nd November did have some Bf 110s. So where did his borrowed He 111 come from? A station hack?
Why didn't the airfield send up its own aircraft to investigate? Surely they would have seen this monstrous cloud too and being a nightfighter training unit would probably have had training sorties planned that night.
Sadly Zissner only tells his story on 19 August 1945 after everybody knows exactly what an atomic mushroom cloud looks like. Why hadn't he spilled his momentous story in the three preceding months of his imprisonment?

Luigi Romersa witnessed a test at Rugen on 12 October 1944. A war correspondent supposedly sent by Mussolini and of course with a pocketful of letters of introduction to all the high-ranking Nazis, which obviously works a treat because the Germans have no qualms about letting a foreign pressman watch their test. It would be like de Gaulle sending a newspaper man to the Trinity test site and the guards letting him in because he has a letter saying "Hey Truman its ok, I know this guy".
Apparently an entire village was constructed to flatten with the bomb. A lot of effort if you don't know if it will work or not. Anyhow Rugen is not near Ludwigslust so either the Germans have two bombs or Zissner is lost in his Heinkel.
Curiously, Romersa waits even longer than Zissner before he tells his tale, 1947 to be exact when Mussolini and all those top Nazis on those letters of introduction are dead so no one can corroborate his story.

But that's not all folks.
Soviet spies witness two A-bombs detonated at the barracks at Orhdruf, in south-central Thuringia on 4th March 1945. They also state captured Red Army commissars from nearby Buchenwald had been used as human guinea pigs in the trials. They radio their reports to Moscow and Stalin gets a copy of their report within an hour. Now Uncle Joe was the most sceptical man alive in 1945, one can only imagine him stroking his moustache with mirth while next to him his a stash of detailed technical data from Los Alamos on his desk.
Other reports put the 4th March Orhdruf test as being a single device using 100g of material with a second test on March 12th. It seems strange with so many operational nuclear weapons that seem to be successful that no-one thought to use of them on the advancing Soviet hordes not that far away.

So here we have no less than four bombs witnessed on four separate dates with no hard evidence of any of the claims.
So either Germany had a lot of fissile material laying around and were producing bombs faster than the Manhattan Project could or these claims are bogus. I know which side I'm coming down on.

1) There is no indication that Zinsser's He-111 was "borrowed". The pilot is named Hans Zinsser in some documents, but this may have been a middle name or a nickname. His given name was apparently Rudolf Zinsser, and he was a technician and inventor who received two US patents after the war. During the conflict he was involved in developing surface to air missiles, and in later years was known for his work in "electrogravitics and electrokinetics", including the "Zinsser Effect". This seems to my layman's eyes to be related to certain types of "unconventional energy" research and development, in the same general vein as zero point energy.

In other words this was a pretty accomplished guy to have been flying around just as an observer or accidental witness. With a background like that, I'd think it more likely he was a participant in the nuclear weapons program in some form or fashion.

https://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org/pdf/ElectrograviticsElectrokineticsValone.pdf

Rudolf Gustav Friedrich Zinsser

Genealogy profile for Rudolf Gustav Friedrich Zinsser

www.geni.com

2) There is one (1) known local resident who spoke for the record regarding the Rugen Island test detonation, though this was many years later.

3) The Germans certainly did "...(think) to use them on the advancing Soviet hordes not that far away". This was described in some detail by Werner Grothmann as follows:

From page 3392 in Forgotten Creators. Heinrich Himmler’s chief adjutant Werner Grothmann on why nuclear weapons were not used in combat [Krotzky 2002]. For a discussion of the background and reliability of this source, see p. 2849. See also Grothmann’s testimony on pp. 2849, 3171, and 3255.

Himmler had in any case come up with a report, and a consultation took place regarding what we could make now. The one problem was the small quantity [of fuel] and always still the uncertainty of how it would work in action. The other was the question of the real political effect. [p. 13] Some said that a direct hit on Moscow must be the first goal. But this has been countered by the argument that this would not change anything on the eastern front. [p. 14] If we were now to use such a weapon on Hitler’s order, for example to employ it on London, a completely new situation would arise, but not in our favor. If the weapon’s impact corresponds to the calculations, important parts of the political and military leadership will fall, but many other levels that have been relocated outside will be preserved. There are heavy casualties among the civilian population, and when the horror has subsided, it is clear that the supply of potential British troops in the Reich is still possible via their ports and is still under their control. Besides, the British are also on our territory. And the most important argument: with us, no one really believed that they would then withdraw. Quite the contrary! We could picture their reactions to our population. The other side, which must also be considered, is the Americans. [p. 15] At the meetings I attended, or about which I learned in hints, no one was so crazy to use a weapon which could no longer help us, but would only make things even much worse.

So, the first point was that the decisionmakers had to know how they personally fared, if a completely new, terrible mass-destruction weapon were deployed by our side and achieved its effect, but the war were nevertheless lost by us. What the victors would then read out of the Geneva Convention was clear. The second point was that: At that time, the demand for unconditional surrender had long been on the table. And that was the result of the normal war situation. What would have happened after the use of our atomic bomb? You are certainly familiar with the ideas of Morgenthau. Everything would be much worse.

Rider comments:

"Grothmann made several points:

• By the end of the war, there was only enough fission fuel for a very small number of bombs.

• With the possibilities of rockets malfunctioning, aircraft getting shot down, or the bombs themselves malfunctioning, there was no guarantee that those bombs could be successfully delivered to Allied targets.

• Even if the bombs were successfully delivered and destroyed a very small number of Allied cities, they would not stop the large Allied military forces that were invading Germany, and in fact they would only inspire the Allied forces to defeat Germany more quickly before it could deliver more bombs.

• If Germany had used nuclear bombs against Allied targets, the Allies would have retaliated with even greater destruction (such as firebombing or mustard gas) against German targets than what the Allies were already doing.

• If Germany had used nuclear bombs against Allied targets, those individuals who were responsible would have been prosecuted for war crimes after the war.

• If Germany had used nuclear bombs against Allied targets, the Allies would have imposed much harsher terms on Germany after the war. Grothmann mentioned the Allied Morgenthau plan that was actually considered but not implemented, which would have eliminated all industry in postwar Germany. Grothmann’s arguments are the same reasons why Germany did not use its stockpile of very advanced nerve gas [Tucker 2006], which was far larger than its stockpile of nuclear weapons as estimated by Grothmann."

There's also this:

Allen Dulles. 1 April 1945. Cable IN 9061 from Bern, Switzerland to Office of Strategic Services. [NARA RG 226, Entry UD-90, Box 6, Folder 64 SUNRISE] [...] 8.

In his conversation with Emperor [Kesselring], latter said to Critic [Wolff] our situation is desperate, nobody dares tell truth to Fuehrer who surrounded by small group of advisers who still believe in a last specific secret weapon which they call “Verzweiflunge” weapon [die Verzweiflungswaffe or the “desperation weapon”]. Emperor believed this weapon can prolong war but not decide it, but might cause terrible blood bath on both sides. Emperor said if Fuehrer gave him order to use weapon he would surrender his command (end of document).

"Emperor" and "Critic" were OSS code names given to Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring and SS Obergruppenfuhrer Karl Wolff. Both were involved in negotiations with OSS agents (Operation Sunrise) for the surrender of German forces in northern Italy. In this conversation with Wolff, Kesselring was obviously discussing German atomic and/or chemical weapons and the implications should they be used. Like Grothmann, Kesselring did not believe they were numerous or effective enough to reverse the course of the war, and feared the consequences if they were used and Germany still lost, as he apparently believed would be the case. His statement that he would resign rather than use them indicates that this was more than a mere thought exercise.

4) I would imagine there would be some kind of unit operational history regarding the night fighters you state were stationed near Rugen in October, 1944. It would be interesting to see if such a document exists, and if so, what it says regarding the Rugen event, whatever it was.

 

[drejr]

1) There is no indication that Zinsser's He-111 was "borrowed". The pilot is named Hans Zinsser in some documents, but this may have been a middle name or a nickname. His given name was apparently Rudolf Zinsser, and he was a technician and inventor who received two US patents after the war. During the conflict he was involved in developing surface to air missiles, and in later years was known for his work in "electrogravitics and electrokinetics", including the "Zinsser Effect". This seems to my layman's eyes to be related to certain types of "unconventional energy" research and development, in the same general vein as zero point energy.

In other words this was a pretty accomplished guy to have been flying around just as an observer or accidental witness. With a background like that, I'd think it more likely he was a participant in the nuclear weapons program in some form or fashion.

https://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org/pdf/ElectrograviticsElectrokineticsValone.pdf

lol

How is Hans a middle name or nickname for someone named Rudolf Gustav Friedrich Zinsser (Also Known As: "Ru; Rudi") according to your source? (The genealogy source, not the Tesla/zero point energy one.)

 

[williamjpellas]

Given that this forum is based in the UK, I thought it might be of interest to some on the other side of The Pond if I posted some of the WWII British primary sources which speak of the German nuclear weapons program. Here they are in plain English, draw your own conclusions.

1) FC pp. 3117-3118:

BIOS 142. Information Obtained from Targets of Opportunity in the Sonthofen Area. 1945.

Ernst stated that he had been imprisoned at a concentration camp for politically unreliable scientists called “Camp Mecklenburg” in the Lüneburger Heide. This place was not known to Kreutzfeld, who was however acquainted with the Oranienburg camp. The possibility of bringing Ernst over to Oranienburg was also mentioned in Ernst’s personal file, which had been given to him by Kreutzfeld for identification purposes. There was no mention of Camp Mecklenburg in this file. Ernst also stated that there was a similar camp at Maudhausen, near Vienna, but this was also unknown to Kreutzfeld. [...]

(f) Other work at Camp Mecklenburg
Ernst also stated that work was carried out at this camp on a new liquid air bomb, and liquid air gun (?), while trials on some kind of atomic bomb were made at or near the camp.


2) FC p. 3119:

Memo to Lt. Col. P. M. Wilson. Atom-Bomb Specialist. 4 April 1946 [TNA FO 1031/112].

2. Karl Heinz BOSECK, former Ustuf in the Waffen SS, alleges that he is an Atom-Bomb expert. He is now interned in No. 2 CIC, SANDBOSTEL and his P.O.W. No. is 204526.

Rider comments:

[Karl-Heinz Boseck, born in 1915, was a mathematician who studied under Erich Schumann (lead scientist in the heereswaffenamt) and became a member of the SS [Nagel 2011; Nagel 2012a, pp. 550, 560; Segal 2003, pp. 321–333].

“Atom-Bomb expert” implies much more than just early research. Boseck apparently worked in the SS’s nuclear weapons development groups, which remain even more mysterious than other branches of the German nuclear program. Specifically, he helped run the “Mathematical Institute” at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg [Nagel 2012a, p. 550; Segal 2003, pp. 321–333], an extremely interesting intersection of mathematical calculations, uranium from Auer Gesellschaft in Oranienburg, and slave labor from the concentration camp (perhaps for uranium enrichment?). That also supports Josef Ernst’s assertion that the camp at Oranienburg did work related to the nuclear bomb development work at Lüneburger Heide (pp. 3117–3118).

Can other documents from Allied interrogations of Boseck be located, declassified, and released? What other information can be found about Boseck?]

3) Some kind of industrial nuclear site in Oranienburg was specifically mentioned by USAAF commanding General Carl Spaatz shortly after the war as having been a counterproliferation target. This was printed in a British newspaper in August, 1945.

Unconditional Bombs for More Jap War Bases Soon: How We Dropped It: By Atomic Raiders. The Daily Express (U.K.) 8 August 1945 p. 1, column 1.

“General Spaatz, who commanded the U.S. strategic air forces in Europe, said that one of his major worries then was the fear that the Germans had perfected some secret weapon comparable with the atomic bomb…“They were experimenting in this direction in a huge factory at Oranienburg, on the northern edge of Berlin, but we wiped out the factory in a big raid in the spring of this year,” he added. (Gordon Young, cabling from Paris last night, said that the Germans planned to have atomic V2s in use by this month.)

Replying to a question whether the atomic bomb would have speeded the end of the European war, General Spaatz said: “If we had had it, it might have shortened the war by six or eight months. We might not even have had a D Day.” … Brigadier-General Thomas F. Farrell, aide to Major-General Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the bomb development programme, disclosed that the date for dropping the first atomic bomb—August 6, 1945—was set well over a year ago.”

4) FC p. 3395:

C.S.D.I.C. (U.K.) S.R.G.G. 1163(C). [Recorded conversation of two German prisoners of war held in the United Kingdom. AFHRA A5415 electronic pp. 84–85]

CS/1948—Generalleutnant BOINEBURG (Comd., BERGEN (HANNOVER)) Captd ALLSTADT 13 Apr 45

CS/1963—Generalmajor FRANZ (Comd., 256 V.G. Div.) Captured BIRNFELD 8 Apr

45 CS/1965—Generalmajor GOERBIG (Comd., SENNE, Captured BAD GRUND 10 Apr 45

Information received: 29 Apr 1945

TRANSLATION

(?) FRANZ: I hope HIMMLER doesn’t fire V-6 or V-7.

(?) GOERBIG: Do you really think we still have something up our sleeves?

(?) FRANZ: Yes, I believe so most definitely. I mean to say it wasn’t ready; they hadn’t advanced far enough to be brought into use. But I’m certain that a lot of experiments were in progress; it is a fact that some of those projectiles could be fired as far as NEW YORK or elsewhere.

(?) GOERBIG: Did you get that from a reliable source?

(?) FRANZ: I know that for certain.

(?) GOERBIG: With what effect?

(?) FRANZ: With a colossal explosive effect, a strong detonation which really would wipe out everything within a radius of 2 or 3 km.

 

[williamjpellas]

lol

How is Hans a middle name or nickname for someone named Rudolf Gustav Friedrich Zinsser (Also Known As: "Ru; Rudi") according to your source? (The genealogy source, not the Tesla/zero point energy one.)

That's just a guess on my part. I stated, rather clearly I thought, that some sources name the He-111 bomber pilot as "Hans". Rider states that his name was Rudolf. So, either a clerical, archival or typographic error, or maybe he gave a false name to his interrogators, or maybe something else. Or maybe he was just known as "Hans" to his friends. I don't know.

 

[drejr]

Maybe Zinsser is a relatively common surname? It's unclear if Rudolf Zinsser is the "man named Zinsser" in the report.

Mathematicians under the Nazis has a good account of Boseck's "mathematical institute" at Sachsenhausen. Not only was it the useless mess you'd expect from a shack next to a concentration camp's tuberculosis isolation ward, he had a reputation for personal aggrandizement.

If the Nazis were doing important nuclear work there instead of the tedious airfoil calculations and the like mentioned in its official reports they were pretty hard up.

 

[Dilandu]

Just so I understand you: you are saying that the Davy Crockett weapon utilized a core composed of 10kg of P-239 when the Fat Man bomb used against Nagasaki had 6.2. Is that correct? What is your source for this statement?

Sigh. You do not understand. The small-yield bombs are inefficient. They needed a lot of fuel, of which only a tiny fraction actually allowed to react. It is simpler and more efficient to make a big, powerful bomb than a small one.

 

[drejr]

Just a few of the dubious claims he makes, most being one-liners at best:
Gustav Weisskopf first flew a powered aircraft in 1901, he says its hotly debated then goes into how there is legal safeguards to purpurate the Wright's claims.
The Hs 129 with a 75mm gun was the world's most powerful tank-killing aircraft
Edgar Schmud developed the P-51 from Bf 109 data and the F-86 Sabre based directly on the Me P.1101 and Ta 183 jet fighters.
Whittle's jet engine was very heavy, complex, inefficient and impractical and was a technological dead end, unlike German jets of course, and the US made no attempts to improve them.
Germany designed intercontinental jet bombers.
The Fa 269 mock-up that was destroyed by bombing is a porotype the way Rider tells it, the Lerche was not completed (it wasn't even begun!).
Sikorsky relied on German helicopter research and development to get his VS-300 working.
German helicopters were mass produced and deployed 4-5 years before US helicopters.
German designed rockets got to the moon (who knew Apollo was a German programme?).
UK rockets designed by German-speaking scientists, including Black Knight, Blue Streak, Europa, and Black Arrow.
The DFS 228 influenced the design of the U-2.
The DFS 346 influenced the design of the X-1 series.
German-speaking engineers designed Skylab.

I could go on and on but you get the picture. Given these cases above there doesn't seem much point in critically evaluating anything else in the book.
For me the big give away is the fact its a rambling 4,000 pages that he is giving away free online...

You missed the Firefox-style mind-reading controls for all this stuff if you skipped the medical chapters.

Really the thesis of of Forgotten Creators is that Germans invented everything in the modern world decades before someone else took credit for it.

It's not about atomic bombs or whatever, though, it's about Todd Rider. He's a really smart guy who can't get money for ideas like DRACO, in contrast to these German scientists he thinks were guaranteed stable jobs and funding for revolutionary advances by "enlightened despots." (Himmler?)

 

[Orionblamblam]

Really the thesis of of Forgotten Creators is that Germans invented everything in the modern world decades before someone else took credit for it.

Well, of course they did. That's why Germany handily won World War II. They certainly didn't lose it to a bunch of poorly provisioned potato-sack-wearing Russians and drunked-up American yokels. Any nation that could make football-sized nukes on a budget that any other nation would expend on a USO show could not possibly lose to a bunch of dimwits.

 

[kaiserd]

To me this coming across as a form of Gish Galloping undertaken by a convinced true believer trying to spread his bible of nonsense.
Nazi Germany may potentially have made some more technical nuclear advancements than has generally been understood.
But ideas that it carried out multiple mysteriously trace-less nuclear tests and had stockpiles of ready to use super-advanced light weight tactical nuclear weapons with the bombardier nosed Me262s as the purpose designed deliver is unrelated to reality and what any reasonable interpretation of the facts can remotely sustain.
Ironically beyond the almost impenetrable regurgitation of apparent documentation once the relevant contributors start elaborating on what they really think the more absurd the proposition clearly becomes.

Not "stockpiles". Perhaps three (3), all told.

What other explanation do you have for Hitler's order for a Jabo variant of the Me-262 to be produced? Other than the usual chorus of "he was a meth head and syphilis was rotting his brain so that's that", I mean. Please note that my suggestion that the fighter-bomber version may have been intended as a delivery system for smaller battlefield type nuclear weapons is just that: a suggestion. What is known is that the V-2 was definitely built for the purpose of carrying German nuclear weapons to their targets. There is ample documentation which corroborates this.

Did you read any of Rider's book before you commented, or examine any of his documentary and other sources? Yes or no?

The lack of critical thinking/ judgment in your statements above are illuminating.

There are literally dozens of better / far more likely explanations for the bombardier noised Me262 than to deliver tactical nuclear weapons that almost certainly didn’t exist. Unless you are so fixated and certain of the latter that you warp logic and history to deliver everything supporting the highly flawed proposition that they did.
Which appears typical of what is serially going on above and in your reasoning on this topic in general.

The statement about the V-2 is just manifestly untrue. And given the V-2s unreliability and extremely imprecise wonky aim then it would have been a truly frighteningly terrible delivery system for a relatively very small nuclear weapon well beyond the state of the possible at the time for anyone, yet alone Nazi Germany which never got especially close to building any type of nuclear fission or fusion bomb at all.

The more your actual proposition (and I presume you are echoing Rider and his book) is fleshed out (rather than the ongoing deluge of quote after quote from sources of highly unclear provenance) the more it is clearly nonsensical and absurd.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I think it might be time to offer some thanks for this thread. How else to bring together people who so often *vehemently* disagree to the point that threads get taken down due to "politics," than to give everyone something objectively looney to point and laugh at?

"Your views on American/Russian/Whatever politics and policy are wrong... but holy crap, take a look at this BS!!!"

So, bravo.

 

[Hood]

Karlsch didn't particularly know what he was looking at. Although he is a very good researcher and a legitimate historian, he is not very knowledgeable about the mechanics and engineering of nuclear weapons.

Rider has gone to the Deutsches Museum and a number of other archives in Germany. Also many libraries and archives in the US, UK, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Holland, and Australia. It's all in his book.

So you admit that Karlsch himself admitted that he had no solid evidence and then you state he didn't know what he was looking at but then rattle off the number of countries he visited. Karlsch is an economic historian, not a technical military historian. We can agree on this. But it opens up criticism that he may have been making uninformed leaps and conjecture. If we can't trust his knowledge then we can't trust his hypothesis.

Speer later discussed the nuclear effort in a little known book that appeared the same year he died, 1981.

Do you mean his book Infiltration? By all accounts a rather technocratic account of the industrial history that seemed to outline his personal battle against Himmler.

Historians have long puzzled over why Hitler ordered that some Me-262's be completed as fighter-bombers.

What other explanation do you have for Hitler's order for a Jabo variant of the Me-262 to be produced?

I don't recall this being a puzzle. Hitler favoured offense over defence and actually thought that jet fighters would be useless in fighter combat because of their high speed - Speer shares this insight into Hitler's mind in Infiltration.
To him the 'Blitz' bomber relying on high-speed was one way to negate Western allied air superiority.

Again, no need to fret over the V-2, it was designed to lob a 1-tonne HE warhead over a reasonable distance with reasonable accuracy to hit a big sprawling target like a city for the purposes of strategic intimidation and sapping of morale. It wasn't a super-weapon, it wasn't an ICBM, it was just a highly technical and highly expensive way of lobbing some HE around given German bombers (and V-1 cruise missiles) were getting hacked out of the sky.

available for the last gasp attack against US and/or UK forces in the field to the west of Berlin.

Why the obsession with nuking the Western allies? Conventional wisdom has it that the Germans still clung to some hope of a negotiated peace with the West, indeed many German soilders felt surrender there to be preferable to being on the Eastern Front. Plus the Allies were nowhere near Berlin, Eisenhower didn't even want Berlin. But the Soviets were at the gates of Berlin and any nuclear weapon would have strengthened its hand against the overwhelming numbers the Soviets had. There is no logic in this argument.

also required a suicide attack to have any chance of getting through Allied defenses, it is easy to see why an apparent Luftwaffe mutiny may be the explanation for why this mission was never carried out.

Another big maybe. What mutiny? I've never heard of a Luftwaffe mutiny.
Maybe it was lack of fuel to actually fly? Maybe it was too cloudy that day? Maybe it was lack of any such plans? Maybe it was because the bombs didn't exist? Anyone could make a dozen suppositions for an event that didn't happen. History isn't built on speculations on events that didn't happen - that's called Alternate History.

The man was a dumbass who got lucky early on, and listened too much to liars and crackpots who promised wunderwaffen that they had no chance of producing. Wunderwaffen, like, say, nuclear bombs.

Agreed. I always find it remarkable that people attribute him with any military genius. This was a guy who spent most of 1944 and early 1945 pushing counters around battlefield maps of imaginary divisions that didn't exist!

Romersa's book first appeared in 1955.

Wrong, he actually first put his experience to paper for a news paper article two years after the war ended, before he wrote his book. https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2020/11/28/the-italian-atomic-bomb-i/
The link also points out the obvious ludicrous notion a foreign press correspondent would be invited to a top secret German project that even most of the other German nuclear scientists never knew about.
Why is there no testimony from any German engineers who were present?

Lieutenant Romersa called to report that he has returned from his trip to Germany and to ask to be received by the DUCE, possibly within the day. 29 Oct. 1944.

And? Have you read the document yourself?
The fact he had a meeting with Mussolini tells us nothing. They could have discussed anything.

He might have done so during that time. The report is dated 19 August, which means it is almost a certainty that he was interrogated, perhaps repeatedly, prior to that date.

Yeah he might have told have told them all about a A-bomb before he had a chance to read newspaper or hear radio accounts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki too, but he didn't. I don't think a rather mundane pilot PoW would be heavily interrogated for four months, more likely he heard the news and had a bright idea to approach his guards with 'information' on German A-bomb tests in the hope they might let him out or give him better treatment.

At least one historian who wrote prior to the widespread archival declassifications enacted since 1995 described Russian forces making a beeline for Gottow in the closing hours of the war. This was Anthony Beevor in one of his books, sorry, I don't know which one just now.

That's nice but Orhdruf isn't in Brandenberg.
Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall 1945?

There is no indication that Zinsser's He-111 was "borrowed". The pilot is named Hans Zinsser in some documents, but this may have been a middle name or a nickname. His given name was apparently Rudolf Zinsser, and he was a technician and inventor who received two US patents after the war.

That's just a guess on my part. I stated, rather clearly I thought, that some sources name the He-111 bomber pilot as "Hans". Rider states that his name was Rudolf. So, either a clerical, archival or typographic error, or maybe he gave a false name to his interrogators, or maybe something else. Or maybe he was just known as "Hans" to his friends. I don't know.

The American intelligence report often cited gives only the name as "a man named ZINSSER" and describes him as a "flak rocket expert". Many online sources, mostly newspaper articles on the story, describe him as "Hans" and as a "test pilot".
Is it Hans? Is it Rudolf? We could make guesses all day. Who says Rider guessed correctly? Who says the unknown guy who guessed Hans was right?
History is not based on guesses.

I would imagine there would be some kind of unit operational history regarding the night fighters you state were stationed near Rugen in October, 1944. It would be interesting to see if such a document exists, and if so, what it says regarding the Rugen event, whatever it was.

Ludwigslust is in southwest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, some 163km inland from Rugen. So I somehow doubt they could tell us much and if the explosion and mushroom cloud was seen from 163km away then it blows apart all this low-yield low-impact test nonsense apart and potentially thousands of people would have witnessed such an event.

But yes, such a unit history if it still exists might have noted such atmospheric phenomena had it occurred or any relevant closure of airspace over Rugen that day.
Sadly nobody else recorded seeing anything, Allied aircraft were in the area that day too and again no further record of witnessing anything.

You missed the Firefox-style mind-reading controls for all this stuff if you skipped the medical chapters.

Yeah I just the read the chapter I was most able to peer review, not being an expert in mind-reading, plate tectonics or deep-pile carpets. Sounds like I had a lucky escape to be honest.

 

[Sherman Tank]

Good Lord this Rider person's book is one of the most poorly laid out things I've ever read and the list of alarming mistakes I've noticed in a few pages of one chapter is amazing. Did you know the very Hungarian inventors of the ballpoint pen count as German inventors because they were born in Austria-Hungary? He uses the same logic to include Chopin in a list of notable Germanic composers. I haven't even gotten to the naval architecture stuff I was trying to find.

 

[Deleted member 2278]

Am I reading that right? Positing nuke-toting Bf-109s? Seriously, with a straight face? While the best US effort wasn't within a Bf-109's MTOW?

Was somebody drinking their MW 50?!

 

[drejr]

He does some serious reading between the lines to wonder if the Germans were capable of things like laser isotope separation, pure fusion mini-nukes, etc, etc.

I think we tend to forget how common the concept of atomic weapons was by the 30s. A lot of the rumors reported in the book are straight out of contemporary science fiction - atomic disintegration ray guns, incredibly destructive bombs the size of matchboxes, etc. Others are clearly playing telephone and wildly exaggerating. He takes any and all claims seriously to a point that seems like willful misinterpretation.

Could this isolated sentence be evidence there's an archive somewhere that proves Germans were within 30 minutes of deploying miniature thermonuclear weapons on intercontinental hypersonic bombers? Just asking questions!

 

[Justo Miranda]

In my opinion we are overestimating the destruction capacity of these first nuclear weapons, perhaps the apocalyptic sight of the razed Japanese cities has led us to forget that these were houses built of wood and paper for the most part.

If German scientists had been able to build a prototype A-Bomb in 1945... what could Hitler have done with his new toy?

-Could not have stopped the advance of the Red Army, just scare it a little.

-Could have destroyed Moscow, but that would have angered the Red Army quite a bit.

- He couldn't have destroyed London... can you imagine a Heinkel He 177 trying to get through the British defenses in 1945?

-He could have been lucky to launch all the bombers that remained to the Luftwaffe and that the one carrying the bomb had managed to destroy part of London, but that would not have affected the determination of the British to end the war ... and they had enough anthrax to make central Europe uninhabitable for a hundred years!

-He could have transported the bomb in a submarine to the east coast of the USA, but he would not have been able to get close enough to destroy New York because the bomb would be too large to install on a Test Stand XII project of the Kriegsmarine (basically a version of the V-2 with non-cryogenic propellants to be launched from U-Boats) or in one Reichenberg (suicide variant of the V-1 cruise missile).

These questions create fertile ground for the lovers of conspiracies and Nazi esoterism, who have described apocalyptic weapons able to change the course of the war. How much death may be within a green cylinder of 1,000 kg?

A comfortable majority of historians agree that the Germans did not have either the uranium or the money or required quantum faith to manufacture a SINGLE nuclear bomb. They also lacked the courage to suggest to the Führer that the resources being used to manufacture the V-weapons were assigned to an artefact that, in spite of the theory, might not work as expected.

What about a dirty bomb?

Let’s assume that several Ju 390 equipped with the new in-flight refuelling devices, developed by DFS, or the gigantic BV 222 flying boats, capable of sea landing to obtain fuel carried by the U-Boats stationed along its route crosses the Atlantic Ocean 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 a stupid idea to the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe? We must remember that the moral conventionalisms of the time were very different and that hundred of people per minute died in the WWII! 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....

And what about non-conventional explosives? As for the tests performed in Rügener, they might have well been on a fuel-air bomb designed to disable the Allies ‘boxes’ of bombers. The spray was formed by different combinations of coal powder, hydrogen, ethylene, petrol, Butan-Propane 50/50 and the “Myrol” compound based on vinylic ethers and aluminum powder. As per some authors, the gases derived from the combustion were toxic and violated the Geneva Convention agreements, something that the Germans of 1945 could not afford, having their own cities exposed to hundred of Allied bombers.

The same reasons are valid for the 50 tons of N-Stoff, the inextinguishable fire of the SS, which had been manufactured by the end of the war in Europe. And for the nerve-gases (15,000 tons of ‘Tabun’ and over 100,000 aircraft bombs of ‘Soman’) that were never used against the Allies. If they would, the HE bombs that the Lancasters dropped every night over German towns would have changed its contents by anthrax spores!

 

[Dilandu]

What about a dirty bomb?

Problem is, that danger of radiation was not exactly well-understood yet. So nobody could actually say in 1945 would the effect from "dirty bomb" being even noticeable.

The same reasons are valid for the 50 tons of N-Stoff

N-stoff have one BIG problem that precluded Germans from even using it. They couldn't figure out how exactly transport & deploy this thing. It could eat through just about anything. Putting it into a bomb or warhead would require a very careful procedure, possible in laboratory, but not on battlefield.

 

[Jemiba]

Must admit, that actually it was me, who has started this thread about five years ago. Should have known,
that one day it would get out of control ...
Freedom of opinion is an important privilege here, too. So, those still believing, that there hasn't only been
German research in nuclear weapons, but even workable examples, of course has the right to express this
opinion. But the arguments, that are said to support such an opinion, seems to me to have drifted off more
and more into improbability. And sometimes, just a look into Wikipedia (just as a first clue, of course!) could
have told the poster about this improbability, e.g. the size, population and other details of Rügen.
So, please, such a discussion principally is ok, but argumnets should be checked before posting !
Or the whole theme is something like a religious believe for some participants here. Ok then, too, but then
it probably cannot be discussed !

 

[dannydale]

Must admit, that actually it was me, who has started this thread about five years ago. Should have known,
that one day it would get out of control

Nah you're fine. If anything we should strive to keep suckerbait threads like this around in case they attract some entertainingly innovative crackpottery!

 

[Justo Miranda]

Must admit, that actually it was me, who has started this thread about five years ago. Should have known,
that one day it would get out of control ...
Freedom of opinion is an important privilege here, too. So, those still believing, that there hasn't only been
German research in nuclear weapons, but even workable examples, of course has the right to express this
opinion. But the arguments, that are said to support such an opinion, seems to me to have drifted off more
and more into improbability. And sometimes, just a look into Wikipedia (just as a first clue, of course!) could
have told the poster about this improbability, e.g. the size, population and other details of Rügen.
So, please, such a discussion principally is ok, but argumnets should be checked before posting !
Or the whole theme is something like a religious believe for some participants here. Ok then, too, but then
it probably cannot be discussed !

It's the tradition: in July the flying saucers, in August Hitler's bomb

 

[edwest4]

William,

You see here the responses of people with the unshakeable belief that German atomic bombs are not real. You could show them 1,000 documents and that belief would remain. Since the majority of the documents in question were produced between 1944 and 1947, they were not created by persons obsessed by wonder weapons. Somehow, that is ignored. At best, the documents are wrong. But it would be even better to call them fakes. This is not reasonable.
From the site of the Deutsches Museum - who could not possibly have written the following:

"ALSOS Mission

"At the beginning of 1945, the US military and American researchers knew practically nothing about the state of nuclear research in Germany. With America itself working intensively to create an atomic bomb, the same was thought to be true of Germany. The aim of the military officers and scientists who made up the ALSOS task force was to gather information on the German nuclear programme, capture top research scientists and seize important equipment, thus ultimately preventing the deployment of an atomic weapon. By the end of 1945, the task force had essentially fulfilled its mission."

Or published the following CD-Rom in 2001:

Füßl, Wilhelm/Knopp, Matthias (Bearb.): Geheimdokumente zum deutschen Atomprogramm 1938-1945. CD. München 2001

The associated, specially selected documents put on display at that time were returned by the Americans after decades of negotiation. The rest were retained in their archives.

After completing the development of the A-4/V-2, what else did the German rocket technicians do? According to CIOS Report XXXII-125, rockets with intercontinental range were built. These were designated A-12 to A-14. According to this document, a further development, the A-15, was never constructed. "Only the A-15 was never constructed." For those interested, CIOS stands for Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee. Prior to this, reports were issued by the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee or BIOS. The term CIOS indicates a combined intelligence operation involving the British and Americans.

Regarding something referred to as the Zinsser Report, here is the full title and designation:

Top Secret

BID Index Guide No.2302.0405 1004.

Serial: A42-TS-46

COMNAVEU at London, England 24 January 1946.

Subject: Investigations, Research, Developments and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb.

Enclosures: One (1) copy of A.P./W.I.U. (9th Air Force) Report No. 96/1945.

---

COMNAVEU is an abbreviation for Commander, US Naval Forces in Europe. The United States needed a secure and safe means to ship related equipment that some say did not exist. The location of this document is NARA, RG 38 Intelligence Division. Top Secret Reports of Naval Attaches 1944-1947 [Formerly Entry 98C], Box 1.

The flak expert, Zinsser observed a 5 kiloton detonation as an observer aboard an He 111. He also stated, "It does not seem very clear to me why these experiments took place in such crowded areas." He gives a description of the detonation cloud as it forms which is consistent with the detonation of an atomic bomb.

An Allied intelligence group, the Joint Intelligence Committee, published the following warning:

"Unless the migration of important German scientists and technicians into the Soviet zone is immediately stopped, we believe that the Soviet Union within a relatively short time may equal United States developments in the fields of atomic research and guided missiles and may be ahead of U.S. development in other fields of great military importance, including infra red, television and jet propulsion. In the field of atomic research for example, we estimate that German assistance already has cut substantially, probably by several years, the time needed for the USSR to achieve practical results." Location: Joint Intelligence Committee 317/10 RG 218. JCS CCS 471-9 (1/5/45), Section 3 1/5/45.

The July 1946 issue of AAF Review -- The official Service Journal of the U.S. Army Air Forces, published an article titled: "German Rocketeers. German rockets and guided missiles almost won the war for the Nazis."

 

[Orionblamblam]

William,

You see here the responses of people with the unshakeable belief that German atomic bombs are not real. You could show them 1,000 documents and that belief would remain. Since the majority of the documents in question were produced between 1944 and 1947, they were not created by persons obsessed by wonder weapons. Somehow, that is ignored. At best, the documents are wrong. But it would be even better to call them fakes. This is not reasonable.
From the site of the Deutsches Museum - who could not possibly have written the following:

"ALSOS Mission

"At the beginning of 1945, the US military and American researchers knew practically nothing about the state of nuclear research in Germany. With America itself working intensively to create an atomic bomb, the same was thought to be true of Germany. The aim of the military officers and scientists who made up the ALSOS task force was to gather information on the German nuclear programme, capture top research scientists and seize important equipment, thus ultimately preventing the deployment of an atomic weapon. By the end of 1945, the task force had essentially fulfilled its mission."

Or published the following CD-Rom in 2001:

Füßl, Wilhelm/Knopp, Matthias (Bearb.): Geheimdokumente zum deutschen Atomprogramm 1938-1945. CD. München 2001

The associated, specially selected documents put on display at that time were returned by the Americans after decades of negotiation. The rest were retained in their archives.

After completing the development of the A-4/V-2, what else did the German rocket technicians do? According to CIOS Report XXXII-125, rockets with intercontinental range were built. These were designated A-12 to A-14. According to this document, a further development, the A-15, was never constructed. "Only the A-15 was never constructed." For those interested, CIOS stands for Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee. Prior to this, reports were issued by the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee or BIOS. The term CIOS indicates a combined intelligence operation involving the British and Americans.

Regarding something referred to as the Zinsser Report, here is the full title and designation:

Top Secret

BID Index Guide No.2302.0405 1004.

Serial: A42-TS-46

COMNAVEU at London, England 24 January 1946.

Subject: Investigations, Research, Developments and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb.

Enclosures: One (1) copy of A.P./W.I.U. (9th Air Force) Report No. 96/1945.

---

COMNAVEU is an abbreviation for Commander, US Naval Forces in Europe. The United States needed a secure and safe means to ship related equipment that some say did not exist. The location of this document is NARA, RG 38 Intelligence Division. Top Secret Reports of Naval Attaches 1944-1947 [Formerly Entry 98C], Box 1.

The flak expert, Zinsser observed a 5 kiloton detonation as an observer aboard an He 111. He also stated, "It does not seem very clear to me why these experiments took place in such crowded areas." He gives a description of the detonation cloud as it forms which is consistent with the detonation of an atomic bomb.

An Allied intelligence group, the Joint Intelligence Committee, published the following warning:

"Unless the migration of important German scientists and technicians into the Soviet zone is immediately stopped, we believe that the Soviet Union within a relatively short time may equal United States developments in the fields of atomic research and guided missiles and may be ahead of U.S. development in other fields of great military importance, including infra red, television and jet propulsion. In the field of atomic research for example, we estimate that German assistance already has cut substantially, probably by several years, the time needed for the USSR to achieve practical results." Location: Joint Intelligence Committee 317/10 RG 218. JCS CCS 471-9 (1/5/45), Section 3 1/5/45.

The July 1946 issue of AAF Review -- The official Service Journal of the U.S. Army Air Forces, published an article titled: "German Rocketeers. German rockets and guided missiles almost won the war for the Nazis."

None of these quoted reports give evidence that the Nazis built a nuke. hell, one of them is manifestly untrue: The Germans did not build an intercontinental missile. The A-12 was not built, nor the A-13, nor the A-15. Hell, not even the A-11 or the A-10.

You are seeing the fog of war as a solid block of marble.

 

[kaiserd]

Classic case of 2 plus 2 equals 222222 because the individual in question believes in 222222 and wants and needs to believe everything equals 222222.

Genuine mistaken reports mixed in with those made for less honourable reasons, with added layers of fakery, contrarianism, dubious politics/agendas and general nonsense, don’t appear to add up to anything that appears remotely credible on this topic.

 

[edwest4]

William,

You see here further evidence of what I wrote. But it is not evidence. Denial is easy. Producing over 4,000 pages of documented information is hard. For example, the CIOS report I mention was never written or better still, those named investigators mentioned in the report never existed or weren't experts in their field or both. This is not reasonable.

 

[Dilandu]

. Producing over 4,000 pages of documented information is hard.

Are you kidding? Flat-earth believers and creationists produce over 400.000 pages of documented "information" per year.