You see here further evidence of what I wrote. But it is not evidence.
Huh.
You see here further evidence of what I wrote. But it is not evidence.
Are you kidding? Flat-earth believers and creationists produce over 400.000 pages of documented "information" per year.. Producing over 4,000 pages of documented information is hard.
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."
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."
You cannot draw the conclusion "the Nazis had working atomic bombs" from that paragraph.
And how your argument about -Not relevant to the topic at hand.
- is relevant?Producing over 4,000 pages of documented information is hard.
And how your argument about -Not relevant to the topic at hand.
- is relevant?Producing over 4,000 pages of documented information is hard.
They obviously include fakery, because you still failed to give any even remotely plausible explanation how geniune document might be blatantly addressed to the wrong person.- and included -
Fakery
They obviously include fakery, because you still failed to give any even remotely plausible explanation how geniune document might be blatantly addressed to the wrong person.- and included -
Fakery
His explanation did not stand to Okkam's razor. It boiled down to "maybe Antonov was kinda informally called completely other title in formal documents", which, frankly, made not even zero, but negative sense.William Pellas replied to that.
The British T-Force (T for Target) located certain installations related to atomic research. They operated under the cover name: 30 Assault Unit.
His explanation did not stand to Okkam's razor. It boiled down to "maybe Antonov was kinda informally called completely other title in formal documents", which, frankly, made not even zero, but negative sense.William Pellas replied to that.
No, this is how historical analysis works. You have to interrogate primary source documents and not just take them at face value. Otherwise you have to take, say, antebellum Southern medicos seriously when they claimed drapetomania was a real condition and not just people not wanting to be slaves.And how your argument about -Not relevant to the topic at hand.
- is relevant?Producing over 4,000 pages of documented information is hard.
Insisting reports were:
Mistaken
Less (than) honourable
- and included -
Fakery
Contrarianism
Dubious politics
Agendas
General nonsense
(Not) remotely credible
This proves my point. Denial, not the documents, is what's important here.
The British T-Force (T for Target) located certain installations related to atomic research. They operated under the cover name: 30 Assault Unit.
30 AU was not a cover name, they'd been operational since at least September 1942 and participated in the Torch landings. Ian Fleming (yes, that Fleming), pitched the need for an intelligence gathering unit to his boss the Director of Naval Intelligence, and was pivotal in their creation. They were specifically focused on technical, particularly naval, intelligence and operations ranged from North Africa, to the Balkans, to France, and to Norway, which is rather a perplexing range for a unit you are claiming was focused on the German nuclear programme.
No, this is how historical analysis works. You have to interrogate primary source documents and not just take them at face value.
Come on, isn't it obvious that super-duper-secret ultra-advanced Nazi 100-gram noiseless atomic bomb, described by edwest2 and williamjpellas emit only pure Aryan radiation, that could be detected only by super-duper Annenerbe flying disc detectors?Isn’t Germans test in 1996 potential place near Ohrdrug for radiation and they found nothing?
Re: Karlsch and Rider. I did not "rattle off" a list of places Karlsch visited. I listed the places and the archives that Rider visited. The reconstruction of events I am describing in this thread is rooted much more in Rider's research than in that of Karlsch. I did not "admit" anything about Karlsch other than that he didn't fully understand exactly what he was looking at in the Soviet-GRU reports which he dug out of Kremlin archives. Speaking of which, as edwest2 notes, the near uniform response in this thread from most who have commented is that they stuff fingers in their ears and shout that the documents are fake. Has anyone stopped to ask, even for a moment, whether they might be authentic? Mathias Uhl and other experts say that they are. Rider believes they are genuine, as did Karlsch and Mark Walker. I do, too. I guess we are all cranks, then?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.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.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.
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.Speer later discussed the nuclear effort in a little known book that appeared the same year he died, 1981.
Historians have long puzzled over why Hitler ordered that some Me-262's be completed as fighter-bombers.
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.What other explanation do you have for Hitler's order for a Jabo variant of the Me-262 to be produced?
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.
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.available for the last gasp attack against US and/or UK forces in the field to the west of Berlin.
Another big maybe. What mutiny? I've never heard of a Luftwaffe mutiny.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.
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.
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!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.
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/Romersa's book first appeared in 1955.
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?
And? Have you read the document yourself?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.
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.
That's nice but Orhdruf isn't in Brandenberg.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.
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.
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.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.
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.
Eisegesis? It's flummery, as Nero Wolfe would say.It's a remarkable act of eisegesis to turn Speer flatly stating the Germans had no nuclear weapons into evidence they did.
The fact that Zinsser was described as a flak rocket expert is significant. Although some U.S. newspaper accounts were censored during the war by the Office of War Information, and by newspaper editors, flak rockets were seen by U.S. bomber crews on more than one occasion.
From the captured results—some in production lines, some in stages of near-completion, and others on paper
What is so weird about a skilled technician in missile guidance systems also serving as an observer of a nuclear test? Any chance Zinsser might have been asked to view the explosion because 1) he was working on the means of delivering a warhead accurately, and 2) he was a pretty good scientist, himself, as his postwar career clearly demonstrates? In other words, the logical inference is that he was part of the overall German nuclear weapons effort.The fact that Zinsser was described as a flak rocket expert is significant. Although some U.S. newspaper accounts were censored during the war by the Office of War Information, and by newspaper editors, flak rockets were seen by U.S. bomber crews on more than one occasion.
It is significant! Significantly weird. According to Rider, "although Rudolf Zinsser did not admit it, he had presumably been ordered to make multiple flights over the test area in order to make visual observations of the atomic bomb test, and quite possibly to carry cameras or measuring equipment."
Presumably is one of Rider's favorite words.
But according to the interrogation of Zinsser Rider also quotes, he opened his own laboratory in Czechoslovakia (hundreds of miles away from Rugen) to work on guidance systems in September 1944.
This makes the account even more bizarre. A doctor of engineering "presumably" with his own vital work in Jivka just happens to be employed taking pictures of an atom bomb site in Rugen that's also 12 to 15 km away from Ludwigslust instead of ~200. I hope his guidance systems were better with direction.
What is so weird about a skilled technician in missile guidance systems also serving as an observer of a nuclear test? Any chance Zinsser might have been asked to view the explosion because 1) he was working on the means of delivering a warhead accurately, and 2) he was a pretty good scientist, himself, as his postwar career clearly demonstrates? In other words, the logical inference is that he was part of the overall German nuclear weapons effort.The fact that Zinsser was described as a flak rocket expert is significant. Although some U.S. newspaper accounts were censored during the war by the Office of War Information, and by newspaper editors, flak rockets were seen by U.S. bomber crews on more than one occasion.
It is significant! Significantly weird. According to Rider, "although Rudolf Zinsser did not admit it, he had presumably been ordered to make multiple flights over the test area in order to make visual observations of the atomic bomb test, and quite possibly to carry cameras or measuring equipment."
Presumably is one of Rider's favorite words.
But according to the interrogation of Zinsser Rider also quotes, he opened his own laboratory in Czechoslovakia (hundreds of miles away from Rugen) to work on guidance systems in September 1944.
This makes the account even more bizarre. A doctor of engineering "presumably" with his own vital work in Jivka just happens to be employed taking pictures of an atom bomb site in Rugen that's also 12 to 15 km away from Ludwigslust instead of ~200. I hope his guidance systems were better with direction.
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.
Yeah, except it states specifically in the Soviet-GRU papers that everyone here shrieks are fakes that it was intended for use in delivering German nuclear weapons. Did this part somehow escape your notice, or did you just ignore it without reading?
Quote:
"Fairing.
A fairing made of a light alloy can be installed on top of the armored casing for future installation on a rocket of the V-type."
Unquote.
This means the armored casing for the atomic bomb described in the same Soviet intelligence report, quite clearly. American intelligence reports said the same thing. For example:
Air Intelligence Report No. 100-13/1-100, Significant Developments and Trends in Aircraft and Aircraft Engines, Antiaircraft Guided Missiles (15 June 1946). pp. 3, 90–93. [NARA RG 38, Entry 98C, Box 11, Folder TSC # 3001–3100]
[...] b. Russia is known to have acquired German technicians and V-weapon production and experimental sites. [...] In addition, German developments in the atomic energy field and the possibilities for use of this energy as a guided missile warhead are known to the Russians. (3) Step rockets. This type of rocket had been considered by the Germans who anticipated ranges of 3,000 miles or more with successors of the V-2. Such a rocket would consist of a main body containing the demolition charge and control units and two or more detachable sections containing propulsion units. These sections would be dropped from the missile as they were exhausted in flight. Such a rocket in the hands of the Russians would make the transpolar routes probable tactical approaches. [...] e. Russian Atomic Energy. The development of atomic weapons and guided rocket projectiles go hand in hand. It was the Germans who realized that the rocket was “the ideal vehicle for atomic warhead” and it has been established that they intended the A-4 (V-2) rocket to be such a vehicle. In the construction of a long-range rocket, space allotted to payload is of necessity reduced to a minimum by the increase in space allotted to fuel. Adaptability of the atomic warhead to such a missile can be fully appreciated because the ratio of destructive power to unit weight is far in excess of conventional explosives and a radical increase in the destructive power is not accompanied by a similar increase in volume of the warhead.
Then there's this, from the same document:
g. Heavy Hydrogen Bomb. In Germany a letter was picked up by the American censors. It had been written by a German desirous of exchanging information for an opportunity to go to the United States. The writer professed knowledge of “heavy water” research in Germany and of an “even more deadly weapon than the atomic bomb”. h. German Heavy Hydrogen Bomb. During 1943 the Germans were experimenting with the production of “heavy water” in Norway. Their installation at Rjukan, Norway was deemed important enough at that time to warrant a visit from the heavy bombers of the Eighth Air Force. It was evident that the Germans recognized the potentialities of “heavy water” as a source of Heavy Hydrogen and were taking advantage of the abundance of electric power available in Norway for the production of this substance. The war brought the German activity in connection with “heavy water” to a close but the question can now be posed, “Have the Russians obtained German personnel formerly employed in the project and if so will they exploit them in an effort to devise an atomic weapon which requires none of the radio active minerals so closely guarded throughout the world?” If the Russians are successful in this attempt, they will have within their grasp the new atomic weapon which is reported to have made the Uranium bomb obsolete. Research in the United States confirms the comparison of the Heavy Hydrogen bomb to the Uranium bomb.
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Here is an OSS report which also talks about V-2s armed with nuclear warheads:
OSS Report No. B-624. 20 November 1944. Secret Weapons. [NARA RG 77, Entry UD-22A, Box 171, Folder 32.7003-3 GERMANY: US Wartime Positive Int. (Nov. 44–June 45)]
The source, a highly placed and sober-minded neutral industrialist, reports the following conversation with a prominent German in mid-October 1944. According to the testimony of this German, well-informed circles in Germany say that the employment of secret weapons V-2 and V-3 was set back as a result of the invasion of the Continent which came before the moment anticipated by the Germans. Still according to this German, the final development of the new weapons is supposed to have been interrupted by the invasion and at the time of the conversation this work had still not been completed. However, work and tests are being pushed very hard and the new arms are expected to come into play before mid-winter. On the new arms themselves the sub-source gave the following details: V-2 is supposed to be an anti-aircraft weapon containing an explosive so powerful that by its mere deflagration everything within a radius of one kilometer would be literally pulverized. (The subsource used the term: “Destruction of atoms.”) The Germans pin great hopes on this new device; they hope that with the help of this arm they will be able to destroy or at least completely handicap all the Allied air forces in a short time. The new weapon V-3 is said to be identical with V-2 with the sole difference that it is supposed to be destined for use against ground troops and that its power of destruction would cover a radius of about two kilometers. V-3 would be launched against hostile troops on a flat trajectory (en trajectoire tendus). The German informant declared that Nazi leaders are said to be convinced that V-2 and V-3 will assure final victory for the Germans. He himself, however, seemed rather skeptical on this point, particularly because of the fact that in certain German technical circles it is known that the question of the production and use of these new devices is not in a very advanced stage and that trials have not yet given really positive results.
The last sentence obviously runs counter to the evidence describing a successful German nuclear weapon test in October 1944, and possibly another in November---the same month in which the report above was written---but the German nuclear program was also obsessively secretive.
Here is another period piece, in this case a newspaper article which quotes USAAF General William Richardson. This officer was a Major General who in 1947 was Chief of the Guided Missiles Division & Air Defense Division, Office of the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff for Operations, Headquarters US Army Air Forces. In other words, he was in a position to know what was what. He is speaking here about the A-10 missile rather than the A-4 (V-2), but note the last two lines.
View attachment 663223
Biography of Major-General William Lloyd Richardson (1901 – 1973), USA
This is a brief biographical sketch of the military career of Major-General William Lloyd Richardson. He was a general during World War Two.generals.dk
Nazis Planned Rocket to Blast N.Y. at 6000 MPH. Indianapolis Times. 2 August 1947, p. 4. A-9 Was Designed to Employ Booster Weighing 190,000 Pounds for Acceleration By Science Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2—The Germans planned a bomb to cross the Atlantic and blast New York. It was a rocket to be started on its long journey by another rocket which detached itself when its job was done. This was revealed today by Brig. Gen. William L. Richardson of the U.S. Army Air Forces. Gen. Richardson, chief of the A.A.F. Guided Missiles and Air Defense Division, spoke as a guest of Watson Davis, director of Science Service, on “Adventures in Science,” heard over the Columbia network. The Germans, he said, developed several rockets known as the “A” series. The V-2, used against London, was one of these.
Although it was the only one of this series to be used operationally in the last war, it is not hard to visualize what might have been in store for the Allies had the Germans been given sufficient time to complete developments. Acid Used in Fuel Each of the “A” series was developed primarily for research, with the exception of the A-4, later known as the V-2. The A-10 was the end result toward which this whole program was directed. This is the weapon which the Germans expected to use in bombing New York. The A-10 was described by him as a booster rocket placed behind the A-9, giving it two-step cooperation to secure ranges of 3000 miles. The A-9 was much like the A-4, more familiarly called the V-2, with wings added to give increased range and using acid as an oxidizer in its fuel. The A-10 was never actually constructed. However, all design studies and computations had been completed. It appears that it could have been built and used if the Germans had been given another year of development and production. Speed Put at 6000 M. P. H. The total weight of the A-10 was to have been 190,000 pounds. The weapon was nearly 12 feet in diameter and 25 feet long. The 29,000-pound A-9 was to have been accelerated to a speed of 2500 miles per hour by the use of the A-10 as a launching rocket, which detached itself and would drop free after serving its purpose. It was the A-9 that would reach the target. Its rocket motor would be turned on when the A10 dropped. This would increase its speed to about 6000 miles an hour. It would have carried a warhead of about 2000 pounds. This is a payload of only 1 per cent of the starting weight of the weapon, but there is evidence to believe, he stated, that the Germans intended to utilize an atomic warhead which would have made this weapon extremely deadly.
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BTW, there is a page in Dr. Rider's book which serves as an internal index of around 40 direct and indirect references made by wartime figures to V-2 and other German missiles being intended to deliver nuclear warheads. You can see all of this and more evidence for yourself. It's on page 4137.
No it isn't.At this time, it is stated the U.S. had such rockets as part of "present equipment."
No it isn't.At this time, it is stated the U.S. had such rockets as part of "present equipment."
Hap Arnold quoted in "36 Hour War:" "We can run a large air operation for the sole purpose of delivering one or two atomic bombs....When improved antiaircraft defenses make this impracticable, we should be ready with a weapon of the general type of the German V-2 rocket, having greatly improved range and precision...."
"The start of another war, said General Arnold, might come with shattering speed: "With present equipment an enemy air power can, without warning, pass over all formerly visualized barriers and can deliver devastating blows at our population centers and our industrial, economic or governmental heart even before surface forces can be deployed.""
Nothing about ICBMs being "present equipment." The dueling ICBMs and ABMs in the article are a depiction of future war.
Like all conspiracy theories, trying to counter any of the arguments logically doesn't work, as logical thought wasn't what led them to the conspiracy.
If you don't accept the conspiracy theory either you are naive/deluded in believing the "cover story", or part of a shadowy group actively covering up the truth because reasons. The more strident the opposition, the more certain they are that their theory was correct. Being 'one of the few to see the truth' makes you feel special.
No it isn't.At this time, it is stated the U.S. had such rockets as part of "present equipment."
Hap Arnold quoted in "36 Hour War:" "We can run a large air operation for the sole purpose of delivering one or two atomic bombs....When improved antiaircraft defenses make this impracticable, we should be ready with a weapon of the general type of the German V-2 rocket, having greatly improved range and precision...."
"The start of another war, said General Arnold, might come with shattering speed: "With present equipment an enemy air power can, without warning, pass over all formerly visualized barriers and can deliver devastating blows at our population centers and our industrial, economic or governmental heart even before surface forces can be deployed.""
Nothing about ICBMs being "present equipment." The dueling ICBMs and ABMs in the article are a depiction of future war.
The point here is that even if Life magazine had stated that the US had ICBMs in this article, THAT STILL WOULDN'T MAKE IT TRUE.
The definitive source for that would be some kind of document from the Air Force archives.
This is the hallmark of conspiracy. If Life magazine said that Germany had no workable atomic bomb program, it would be disinformation propaganda and ignored. If it said that they did have a workable atomic bomb program, it would be vital evidence of a coverup.