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Joining this topic for the first time, I'd like to suggest that like many of these contentious historical issues there is a grain of truth on both sides and a great cloud of heat in the middle. There certainly was a German nuclear effort that ran on through WWII, what can we say about it?
For the prosecution: The German programme descended into chaos. Most of its leading lights bunked off and the Chief Remainer claimed to have methodically derailed it. The chaotic Nazi leadership of all technology programs (witness the constant aero engine and jet aircraft infighting), combined with the Anglg-Norwegian sabotage of heavy water production, ensured that it stayed that way. All since has been fantasy-fuelled conspiracy nonsense.
For the defence: Such strategically critical tech naturally remained top secret for decades. Many German scientists did stay behind and would have been far more than mere acolytes worshipping at their departed forebears' altar. From the 1990s onwards, documents have been progressively declassified and are revealing hitherto unsuspected factoids about the programme; it was far bigger and more expensive than we all thought.
Firstly, the prosecution have a point about the lack of leadership and general chaos. It became pervasive across Nazi technology programmes as the war progressed. Nothing ever came of the nuclear work. You can recognise the conspiracy nonsense by the thin disguise of "only asking questions".
But what of the defence case? The Nazis also had a track record of throwing megabucks at speculative technologies (it was an enabler for the scale of the chaos); the ongoing costs of the heavy water project in Noway would not have come cheap and thus suggest that the nuclear game got the same treatment, so what else did they throw money at? There is certainly a case that those left behind destroyed documents and kept their mouths shut, with the secrets-sequestered-and-only-now-tricking-out scenario amply duplicated in the aircraft and aero engine sectors. Again, the surprise would be if this did not apply to the nuclear sector.
Now, about that thin disguise. I will take the Blohm & Voss aircraft programme as a parallel example, because I know about it. The MGRP piggy-back missile and Ae 607 have long been held up as "only asking questions" projects. You can find static replicas of their MGRP two-stage jet interceptor in museums, I have a very nice plastic kit of the Ae 607 delta flying-wing jet with a cute little forward-swept moustache. Which would you put your money on? Dan Sharp found the original documentation, now we know that the MGRP was a distortion of somebody else's work entirely, while the Ae 607 was a genuine design study.
Rider has sought to do the same for both the aviation and nuclear programmes among others. On the aviation side, which I can judge well, he is reasonably neutral. For example he takes seriously the claims of Gustave Whitehead to have beaten the Wright brothers, without declaring for either side. But he is somewhat ill-informed in his German advocacy. For example he includes Bernoulli, who was Swiss, and credits the P-51 Mustang's excellence to its German-born designer Edgar Schmüd, when we now believe it was down to the British-developed Merlin engine and second-generation Meredith-effect radiator. Indeed, in aircraft and engine work generally he happily ignores the international nature of the design community and their technologies - one could write similarly impressive nationally-oriented chapters on British, American, French and Italian innovations.
On directed energy, you may recall that I spent some years as a professional electromagnetics and EMP test engineer. So I hope you will trust me when I note that the particle-beam section is a similar curate's egg (good in parts) to the above, but the electromagnetic section is facile and gullible in its ignorance. Rider is reflecting an ignorance found in a contemporary official document and few historians would be able to recognise it for what it is; a long-range radar beam would be more on the mark than a weaponised EMP, and this misdiagnosis has led him astray.
How does that reflect on his treatment of the documents and anecdotes now surfacing? Plenty of truth in the detail, but also plenty of mistakes. A certain selectivity of evidence leading to over-egging of the German case. But this is more in the line of a serious historian with a point to prove than a wacky super-waffen nut "only asking questions"; even the ignorant superstitions on electromagnetic technologies are typical of the average academic historian. Of course he asks questions, but seriously - what historian doesn't? Would Sharp have exposed the truth about B&V if he had not been asking questions and going through archives to find answers? Rider is absolutely correct when he reserves judgement on many issues and cries out for better access to the archives. He is less correct when he dons his German-tinted glasses or strays into technology folklore. I know an awful lot of British and American historians whose glasses are far stronger and whose electromagnetic gullibility is as profound; Rider's study stands as a significant work in the field and a signal for the 21st century sceptic to pull together some better refutation than mere name-calling.
Strip away the heat here and what do we have? A really great thread with some excellent points being made on both sides. The truth is buried somewhere, for us to find, but it isn't to be found in the heat of name-calling. I have long argued that too much rudeness is allowed in this forum, and here we see yet another example: the anger and rudeness should be locked down, not the subject matter.
For the prosecution: The German programme descended into chaos. Most of its leading lights bunked off and the Chief Remainer claimed to have methodically derailed it. The chaotic Nazi leadership of all technology programs (witness the constant aero engine and jet aircraft infighting), combined with the Anglg-Norwegian sabotage of heavy water production, ensured that it stayed that way. All since has been fantasy-fuelled conspiracy nonsense.
For the defence: Such strategically critical tech naturally remained top secret for decades. Many German scientists did stay behind and would have been far more than mere acolytes worshipping at their departed forebears' altar. From the 1990s onwards, documents have been progressively declassified and are revealing hitherto unsuspected factoids about the programme; it was far bigger and more expensive than we all thought.
Firstly, the prosecution have a point about the lack of leadership and general chaos. It became pervasive across Nazi technology programmes as the war progressed. Nothing ever came of the nuclear work. You can recognise the conspiracy nonsense by the thin disguise of "only asking questions".
But what of the defence case? The Nazis also had a track record of throwing megabucks at speculative technologies (it was an enabler for the scale of the chaos); the ongoing costs of the heavy water project in Noway would not have come cheap and thus suggest that the nuclear game got the same treatment, so what else did they throw money at? There is certainly a case that those left behind destroyed documents and kept their mouths shut, with the secrets-sequestered-and-only-now-tricking-out scenario amply duplicated in the aircraft and aero engine sectors. Again, the surprise would be if this did not apply to the nuclear sector.
Now, about that thin disguise. I will take the Blohm & Voss aircraft programme as a parallel example, because I know about it. The MGRP piggy-back missile and Ae 607 have long been held up as "only asking questions" projects. You can find static replicas of their MGRP two-stage jet interceptor in museums, I have a very nice plastic kit of the Ae 607 delta flying-wing jet with a cute little forward-swept moustache. Which would you put your money on? Dan Sharp found the original documentation, now we know that the MGRP was a distortion of somebody else's work entirely, while the Ae 607 was a genuine design study.
Rider has sought to do the same for both the aviation and nuclear programmes among others. On the aviation side, which I can judge well, he is reasonably neutral. For example he takes seriously the claims of Gustave Whitehead to have beaten the Wright brothers, without declaring for either side. But he is somewhat ill-informed in his German advocacy. For example he includes Bernoulli, who was Swiss, and credits the P-51 Mustang's excellence to its German-born designer Edgar Schmüd, when we now believe it was down to the British-developed Merlin engine and second-generation Meredith-effect radiator. Indeed, in aircraft and engine work generally he happily ignores the international nature of the design community and their technologies - one could write similarly impressive nationally-oriented chapters on British, American, French and Italian innovations.
On directed energy, you may recall that I spent some years as a professional electromagnetics and EMP test engineer. So I hope you will trust me when I note that the particle-beam section is a similar curate's egg (good in parts) to the above, but the electromagnetic section is facile and gullible in its ignorance. Rider is reflecting an ignorance found in a contemporary official document and few historians would be able to recognise it for what it is; a long-range radar beam would be more on the mark than a weaponised EMP, and this misdiagnosis has led him astray.
How does that reflect on his treatment of the documents and anecdotes now surfacing? Plenty of truth in the detail, but also plenty of mistakes. A certain selectivity of evidence leading to over-egging of the German case. But this is more in the line of a serious historian with a point to prove than a wacky super-waffen nut "only asking questions"; even the ignorant superstitions on electromagnetic technologies are typical of the average academic historian. Of course he asks questions, but seriously - what historian doesn't? Would Sharp have exposed the truth about B&V if he had not been asking questions and going through archives to find answers? Rider is absolutely correct when he reserves judgement on many issues and cries out for better access to the archives. He is less correct when he dons his German-tinted glasses or strays into technology folklore. I know an awful lot of British and American historians whose glasses are far stronger and whose electromagnetic gullibility is as profound; Rider's study stands as a significant work in the field and a signal for the 21st century sceptic to pull together some better refutation than mere name-calling.
Strip away the heat here and what do we have? A really great thread with some excellent points being made on both sides. The truth is buried somewhere, for us to find, but it isn't to be found in the heat of name-calling. I have long argued that too much rudeness is allowed in this forum, and here we see yet another example: the anger and rudeness should be locked down, not the subject matter.
)
