German Atomic Bombs in WW2

[Justo Miranda]

Wiki

Effects​

Minor EMP events, and especially pulse trains, cause low levels of electrical noise or interference which can affect the operation of susceptible devices. For example, a common problem in the mid-twentieth century was interference emitted by the ignition systems of gasoline engines, which caused radio sets to crackle and TV sets to show stripes on the screen. Laws were introduced to make vehicle manufacturers fit interference suppressors.

At a high voltage level an EMP can induce a spark, for example from an electrostatic discharge when fuelling a gasoline-engined vehicle. Such sparks have been known to cause fuel-air explosions and precautions must be taken to prevent them.[12]

A large and energetic EMP can induce high currents and voltages in the victim unit, temporarily disrupting its function or even permanently damaging it.

A powerful EMP can also directly affect magnetic materials and corrupt the data stored on media such as magnetic tape and computer hard drives. Hard drives are usually shielded by heavy metal casings. Some IT asset disposition service providers and computer recyclers use a controlled EMP to wipe such magnetic media.[13]

A very large EMP event such as a lightning strike is also capable of damaging objects such as trees, buildings and aircraft directly, either through heating effects or the disruptive effects of the very large magnetic field generated by the current. An indirect effect can be electrical fires caused by heating. Most engineered structures and systems require some form of protection against lightning to be designed in.

The damaging effects of high-energy EMP have led to the introduction of EMP weapons, from tactical missiles with a small radius of effect to nuclear bombs designed for maximum EMP effect over a wide area.

 

[Hobbes]

According to the report by Hans Zinster, the pilot of a Heinkel He 111 observing the effects of the test, the explosion caused severe electrical disturbances that made radio communication impossible. It has been suggested that this could be an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that completely disabled Berlin's telephone network for 60 hours by affecting even communications with Sweden.

Have the usual causes of electrical disturbances been ruled out? i.e. RF jamming affecting the He 111, bombing on or around Berlin causing phone network issues?

 

[edwest4]

D....y, research is difficult. A captured German scientist who was taken to the United States told his interrogator: "We are enriching uranium." His interrogator did not understand but submitted his report.

Indeed they were, but what does that mean?

May I suggest you research the statement’s meaning ?

Please allow me to give you a little help.

It’s massive step to think that this means they had a viable nuke.

Enriched Uranium comes in all grades between 0.5-0.8% to 100% and quantities from nano grams to multi tonnes. As proven by Little Boy, for a viable weapon you needed about 64Kg at about 80% U235. Reactor fuel is generally in the range of 3-5%.

For Uranium enrichment the metal must be converted into a gas by a reaction with fluorine. The resulting Uranium hexafluoride which is highly corrosive. In order to use this within the separation plant, all parts in contact need to be either made from Nickel (Ni) or Ni clad (plating doesn’t work). This requires vast quantities of Ni, which is widely recorded as being in desperately short supply in 43-45 Germany. After the Fins supply was cut off, they were bringing Ni in via submarine from Manchuria <ref ASpeer “Inside the Third Riech”>. There was no shortage of Ni in the US (supply from Canada, then the largest producer in the world) and Manhattan still consumed about a fifth of the US’s entire Ni consumption during 1943-4 for just 65Kg of HEU in 45. <ref R Rhodes The making of the A bomb & J Coster-Mullen Atom Bombs:The top secret inside story of little Boy and Fat Man >

As you’re keen to undertake difficult research please find answers to the following;- If Germany really produced ten times the amount of the US, where did the Ni come from? How many submarine trips ? How do you account for Germany not having a Ni cladding capability in 1945? If they came up with a Ni free method why is it not today’s go to method?

To me, the lack of any enriched uranium in the Haigerloch B8 criticality experiment is comprehensive evidence that they didn’t have kg quantities, even in the 3-5% range. It would have been instrumental in this experiment being rapidly and successfully completed. An interesting linked article about the B8 fuel ;-

Have You Seen Any Nazi Uranium? These Researchers Want To Know

When a small cube of uranium metal turned up in Tim Koeth's life, it launched an epic search for a lost piece of nuclear history.

www.npr.org

As mentioned before, the only smoking gun evidence is the sample that turned up in Italy in the early 80’s, tens of grams and an unknown %. I distinctly remember it’s reporting but can find no reference anywhere on line. Also, again mentioned before, the Zippe centrifuge, now the industry standard for enrichment, had its development roots in 1940’s Germany although it wasn’t perfected at industry scale until the mid to late 50’s.

Zippe-type centrifuge - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Everything is not online. The Haigerloch experimental reactor was designed to investigate neutron activity. Apparently, the fact that the Deutsches Museum has a large collection of documents which were returned by the Americans does not seem to interest anyone. Most of the metallic uranium cubes that were suspended in the Haigerloch reactor were found buried nearby. In the often published photo of the top of the reactor vessel, only the top support assembly is visible. Since no uranium was there when American intelligence arrived, it would explain the lack of protective clothing.

The Germans used ultracentrifuges and these were coated with an alloy called Bondur. (Page 57 of Critical Mass by Carter Hydrick.) In May 1943, James F. Byrnes (a former Supreme Court justice) was appointed the director of the Office of War Mobilization and he oversaw the Manhattan Project. In March 1945, he sent a letter to President Roosevelt reminding him of the expenditure of money to date on the Manhattan Project and that there was still no guarantee of production. He even suggested a review of the project in that letter. (FDR Library) What was the hold up?

Anyway, here is a recent study about the Haigerloch reactor: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00016-008-0396-0

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Thanks for the internet link;- very interesting indeed.

With ref to claims within your posts, have you read it?

Although you claim B8 was “ designed to investigate neutron activity” the linked report’s first line of the second paragraph (page 318 Introduction) advises it was a criticality experiment with the intention of achieving a self sustaining (critical) multiplication. It had tubes to allow the introduction of a cadmium solution to stop the reaction. The report concluded that by design it was unable to achieve its design intent. No reaction = no significant radioactive products = no need for protection.

Furthermore , Page 319, third paragraph down also advises that uranium enrichment was beyond the capability of Germany at the time.

And it details how learning from across Germany went into B8’s design in particularly G2, G3, G3a and G3b experiments. L1 was next. B=Berlin G=Gatow and L=Leipzig. B8 itself was the eighth design iteration and reused components from B6 and B7. Given the difficulties the B8 team encountered in obtaining the key materials, requiring representation at a very high level, either this all you need as proof there wasn’t a separate group that had already demo criticality/a weapon or the higher authority was so grossly incompetent as to not be threat.

As for James F. Byrnes role in the Manhattan project, I recommend (again) you read R Rhodes definite work and pulziter prize winner “The making of the atomic bomb”. All will become clear.

Bondur = 2000 series Aluminium Alloy which suffers from stress/inter granular corrosion in the presents of UF6. Not fit for purpose.

 

[greenmartian2017]

"Subject: Investigations, Research, Developments, and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb." Practical use means practical use.

"Issued by the Intelligence Division
Office of Chief of Naval Operations
Navy Department
Intelligence Report

"From COMNAVEU at London, England. Date 24 January 1946.

"Source: Official - British/U.S."

Stamped Top Secret

Would it be possible for someone to provide a URL link (if there is one) for this particular paper/document? I would like to read it. Thanks very much.

 

[Temistocle]

The uranium in the cubes was not enriched, as stated in this 2015 paper that anlysed three samples coming form three different sources:

Error - Cookies Turned Off

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

In short, the conclusions here:
"Samples of uranium metals were analyzed and their authenticity as “Heisenberg cubes” and a “Wirtz plate” from German nuclear power projects of the early 1940s was confirmed. The samples are among the oldest manmade uranium items produced for the purpose of studying neutron multiplication up to a self‐sustained chain reaction. The authenticity was confirmed by 1) comparison of macroscopic sample properties with literature information and 2) determining the production date (called “age”) of the uranium as 1940 for the plate and 1943/44 for the cubes. The uranium was mined in the Joachimsthal region rather than in the former Belgian Congo, as shown by the abundance pattern of rare‐earth elements. The isotopes 236U and 239Pu were used as neutron fluence monitors. The measured abundances are consistent with natural values [i.e. not enriched urainum, my note] and do not indicate a major contribution due to a neutron fluence during reactor experiments."

Another interesting 2019 paper here, stating the uranium in just retrivied cube was not enriched and that the cube "was never part of a critical chain reactor".

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4202

A couple of comments:
1) I know that these are only a very small number of orginal samples we have now (most of the cubes went to USA and processed in their uranium facilities) and someone can say "other cubes/materials contained enriched uranium", but someone have still to find them/prove it. Until someone scientifically proved otherwise, the uranium in the cubes was natural, not enriched. (BTW, I an not an expert, but in my opinion mixing cubes with natural uranium and cubes with enriched uranium is a mess to calculate the criticallity of a reactor).
2) Enriching uranium means nothing until you state the level of enrichment and the quantity produced. From scientific literature (almost?) all of the uranium retrivied from Germany in 1945 was natural uranium, not enriched. Surely there were some EXPERIMENTS (i.e. not industrial production in terms of kilos) to enriche it, but at which grade and quantity? Please, only scientific references or military reports with numbers, not memories of a unknow scientist or spies reports.
3) A "funny" thing. From the second paper there was an uranium cube black market after the end of WW2, so a lot of people kept these cubes in the cellar, hoping for a reward: "...every few months, US officials received sinister letters [...] presenting opportunities to purchase a quantity of cubes for hundreds of thousands of dollars each, lest they be sold to entities “not considered over-friendly to the United States.” As the US was in no short supply of uranium ore by that time because of the work of the CDT, the US countered those offers with the going price of raw uranium metal, which was about six dollars per pound". Again "...in a 1953 communication that every so often as “an offer is made to us of a kilogram or two of U-235 for a million dollars or so, a threat is delivered that the materials will be sold to the USSR unless the US purchases it. It seems that at last such a threat has materialized.” What happened to the cubes on their arrival in the Soviet Union is unknown."

 

[Pierre TIAN]

Two topics about the theme of the “German A-Bomb” were locked for good reasons, and I don’t want to start
another one. But those, who were left unsatisfied with those discussions perhaps should read the results of the
research by Manfred Popp.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bewi.201601794/abstract

Unfortunately, the detailed version is in German, so, if someone find it in English, please give us a clue.

http://www.spektrum.de/news/hitlers-atombombe-warum-es-sie-nicht-gab/1423529

For short:
Until the end of the war, German nuclear scientists had no realistic idea about the way a nuclear bomb had to be built
and they weren't able to calculate the critical mass needed for a bomb, an indispensable detail. And research for a bomb
was much less intensive, than represented in several publications.

The theme of the German nuclear bomb was explored by several other scientists, but Manfred Popp had a big advantage:
He is nuclear scientist by himself, the others were historians, without deeper insight into the field of nuclear sciences.
So the probability for the alleged nuclear explosions in Thuringia at the end of WW II, or the fitting out of a special version
of the He 177 as an atom bomber has dropped considerably, I think !
Popps results may shatter several embosomed assumptions. For example, that the bomb was “around the corner” and
would just have needed more money and resources. Or that the German scientists acted as covered resistance fighters,
not wanting to give that weapon to the Nazi regime.
But it clearly shows, that for historical research a deeper insight into the field of interest is absolutely important.
What other assumptions may still be taken for granted, although they are based on similar misinterpretations ?

Pierre TIAN reply briefly:
I agree Herr Popp interpretation, but only if he meaned GERMAN A Bomb.
Few have been recorded about SKODA Konzern and Hermann Goerings Werke, that mostly involved Austrian, Suden, Bohmen und Märe Protektorat. Don t forget the most important Uranium source on Behalf the Nazis where coming from Mine of Jachymow, Eisedrner Gebirge, Sudetenlamd.
I recorded that Tchnische Hoheschule Wien, and Prof Stettert, were part of the third and most few known nuclear research team in Germany after the Kaiser Wilhelnm Institut and ReichsPost von Ardenne Franz Houtermans. That was reknown from the time of the mail between Joliot Curie and Otto Hahn
There seems to have been a sort of challenge between the high praized Berlin Inbstituut and the former Wien Academy. Many prominent ingeneers in Nazi Deutschland and outside where coming from former Austro Hugarn Empire.
Rugen and Ohrdruf were weak A Bombs, mostly because their Bomb preparation didnt rely on proper Atomic Pile isotopes ans was quite "bâcle"
but still the Rugen fotograf show blatant quantic light absorbing that only a real , yet weak, nuclear explosion can produce.
Was london or Paris really theeated ? Their very center 3 kilometer range, yes, the rest most unlikely to be arased. It was a dirt A Bomb a sort of last end "bricolage" but not operationnal at tactic or strategic level, because a trustable vector was missing

Pierre TIAN

 

[edwest4]

When the Germans invaded Belgium they captured uranium from the Belgian Congo. They also confiscated French uranium supplies. There is little clear information about events in the Bohemia-Moravia Protectorate and the University of Brno. Some years ago, I wrote a message to a research group in Austria who were preparing a report about the Austrian conrtribution to the German atomic program. The report never appeared.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Two topics about the theme of the “German A-Bomb” were locked for good reasons, and I don’t want to start
another one. But those, who were left unsatisfied with those discussions perhaps should read the results of the
research by Manfred Popp.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bewi.201601794/abstract

Unfortunately, the detailed version is in German, so, if someone find it in English, please give us a clue.

http://www.spektrum.de/news/hitlers-atombombe-warum-es-sie-nicht-gab/1423529

For short:
Until the end of the war, German nuclear scientists had no realistic idea about the way a nuclear bomb had to be built
and they weren't able to calculate the critical mass needed for a bomb, an indispensable detail. And research for a bomb
was much less intensive, than represented in several publications.

The theme of the German nuclear bomb was explored by several other scientists, but Manfred Popp had a big advantage:
He is nuclear scientist by himself, the others were historians, without deeper insight into the field of nuclear sciences.
So the probability for the alleged nuclear explosions in Thuringia at the end of WW II, or the fitting out of a special version
of the He 177 as an atom bomber has dropped considerably, I think !
Popps results may shatter several embosomed assumptions. For example, that the bomb was “around the corner” and
would just have needed more money and resources. Or that the German scientists acted as covered resistance fighters,
not wanting to give that weapon to the Nazi regime.
But it clearly shows, that for historical research a deeper insight into the field of interest is absolutely important.
What other assumptions may still be taken for granted, although they are based on similar misinterpretations ?

Pierre TIAN reply briefly:
I agree Herr Popp interpretation, but only if he meaned GERMAN A Bomb.
Few have been recorded about SKODA Konzern and Hermann Goerings Werke, that mostly involved Austrian, Suden, Bohmen und Märe Protektorat. Don t forget the most important Uranium source on Behalf the Nazis where coming from Mine of Jachymow, Eisedrner Gebirge, Sudetenlamd.
I recorded that Tchnische Hoheschule Wien, and Prof Stettert, were part of the third and most few known nuclear research team in Germany after the Kaiser Wilhelnm Institut and ReichsPost von Ardenne Franz Houtermans. That was reknown from the time of the mail between Joliot Curie and Otto Hahn
There seems to have been a sort of challenge between the high praized Berlin Inbstituut and the former Wien Academy. Many prominent ingeneers in Nazi Deutschland and outside where coming from former Austro Hugarn Empire.
Rugen and Ohrdruf were weak A Bombs, mostly because their Bomb preparation didnt rely on proper Atomic Pile isotopes ans was quite "bâcle"
but still the Rugen fotograf show blatant quantic light absorbing that only a real , yet weak, nuclear explosion can produce.
Was london or Paris really theeated ? Their very center 3 kilometer range, yes, the rest most unlikely to be arased. It was a dirt A Bomb a sort of last end "bricolage" but not operationnal at tactic or strategic level, because a trustable vector was missing

Pierre TIAN

All highly dubious claims as listed above,

 

[Justo Miranda]

When the Germans invaded Belgium they captured uranium from the Belgian Congo. They also confiscated French uranium supplies. There is little clear information about events in the Bohemia-Moravia Protectorate and the University of Brno. Some years ago, I wrote a message to a research group in Austria who were preparing a report about the Austrian conrtribution to the German atomic program. The report never appeared.

France also bought 400 kilos (880 pounds) of uranium metal from the United States in 1939. Deliveries of the Belgian uranium were made in June 1939 and March 1940. In June, due to the advance of the German army, part of that uranium was secretly sent to French Morocco and hidden in a mine.

Governing Uranium in France - The Web site cannot be found​

www.files.ethz.ch › isn

PDF

 

[Justo Miranda]

Slightly off-topic but, some years back, I noticed a colleague with notorious book by English researcher about the Nazties' nuclear program, anti-gravity etc etc.

The infamous glowing 'Bell' report caught my eye. IMHO, it had nothing to do with claimed anti-gravity and/or nuclear piles, but was a small calutron, barely evolved beyond its ancestral cyclotron...

 

[edwest4]

What ever the the 'Bell' was, it story was told by a man with no technical knowledge, trying to talk his way out from a Execution...

I have no reason to believe that. Interrogators with the requisite technical knowledge needed a way to verify the information given to them. So, if physical artifacts and documents were missing, the person being interrogated had to demonstrate his knowledge. The British, for example, were highly skeptical of claims made during interrogations but would add positive comments regarding the device being described. If the person being interrogated could demonstrate no technical skill, he could be dismissed.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Yea, this is like the Germans having built and tested a nuclear bomb stuff when they didn't even have a working reactor, and the one they were about to test was an utter and complete death trap.

 

[edwest4]

Yea, this is like the Germans having built and tested a nuclear bomb stuff when they didn't even have a working reactor, and the one they were about to test was an utter and complete death trap.

View attachment 659985

That is totally inaccurate. The specialized reactor found at Haigerloch was designed for a specific purpose. It used natural metallic uranium cubes arranged in a precise way. Two photographs of the Americans on site at the time showed them wearing no protective clothing. These cubes were produced by the Auer company which the Americans bombed.

To those who have never seen an intelligence report, the wording of the title and contents were precise. In the case of a German atomic bomb, it existed and a man who had witnessed a test had been located and interrogated.

A response from the U.S. National Archives:

"... the cover sheet was signed by U.S. Navy Captain R. F. Hickey on January 24, 1946. The subject of the report is listed as “Investigations, Research, Developments and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb,” and the enclosure is labeled “A.P./W.I.U. (9th Air Force) Report No. 96/1945.” We searched the National Archives Catalog and located the series Top Secret Reports of Naval Attaches, 2/1944-8/1947 in the Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (Record Group 38) that includes the file Document 2644 (Enclosure) - German Atomic Bomb, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, London, 24 January 1946."

And:


"Plus, we located the series Sources and Methods Files, 1941-2002 in the Records of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) (Record Group 226) that contains the file Volume 2 - "War Report: Office of Strategic Services: Operations in the Field", which includes discussions of German atomic research and mentions Rugen Island. This file has been digitized and may be viewed online via the Catalog. Please contact RDT2 for additional assistance with these records."

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Yea, this is like the Germans having built and tested a nuclear bomb stuff when they didn't even have a working reactor, and the one they were about to test was an utter and complete death trap.

View attachment 659985

That is totally inaccurate. The specialized reactor found at Haigerloch was designed for a specific purpose. It used natural metallic uranium cubes arranged in a precise way. Two photographs of the Americans on site at the time showed them wearing no protective clothing. These cubes were produced by the Auer company which the Americans bombed.

To those who have never seen an intelligence report, the wording of the title and contents were precise. In the case of a German atomic bomb, it existed and a man who had witnessed a test had been located and interrogated.

A response from the U.S. National Archives:

"... the cover sheet was signed by U.S. Navy Captain R. F. Hickey on January 24, 1946. The subject of the report is listed as “Investigations, Research, Developments and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb,” and the enclosure is labeled “A.P./W.I.U. (9th Air Force) Report No. 96/1945.” We searched the National Archives Catalog and located the series Top Secret Reports of Naval Attaches, 2/1944-8/1947 in the Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (Record Group 38) that includes the file Document 2644 (Enclosure) - German Atomic Bomb, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, London, 24 January 1946."

And:


"Plus, we located the series Sources and Methods Files, 1941-2002 in the Records of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) (Record Group 226) that contains the file Volume 2 - "War Report: Office of Strategic Services: Operations in the Field", which includes discussions of German atomic research and mentions Rugen Island. This file has been digitized and may be viewed online via the Catalog. Please contact RDT2 for additional assistance with these records."

The cubes were not the danger. It was how the reactor was to operate. The cubes in those necklaces were to be manually lowered into the tank below them containing heavy water. As the cubes entered that heavy water they would have started to undergo fission and release neutrons and gamma rays. The water would begin to heat up releasing some portion as steam.
The more of the blocks entering the water, the more fissions you have.
Anyone standing nearby would have gotten a massive dose of radiation and probably ingested some of the steam (gaseous water) released that was no radioactive.
Operation of that reactor would have killed everyone near it and contaminated the location with very high levels of radiation.

You might use the US Army's SL-1 accident as a guide to what would have happened.

The SL-1 Nuclear Incident

As for a Nazi nuclear bomb, I would suggest reading this thread as it pretty much definitively crushes that theory completely

First atomic bomb was German !?! - Axis History Forum

 

[edwest4]

Various groups in Germany had begun negotiations with the Americans shortly after the war for the return of captured documents. Eventually, documents related to German atomic research and developments were shown in a special exhibit at the Deutsches Museum in 2001 and a CD-Rom was produced. These documents were a small percentage of those held in their archive. The Deutsches Museum tells us on their own website that the Alsos Mission only managed to stop the deployment of an atomic weapon.

"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."

 

[iverson]

I have never read any plausible accounts of a Nazi nuclear bomb. Nor can I see how Nazi Germany could have managed one, given the resources that the US had to commit to the task. As I have noted before in other contexts, Germany simply did not have the natural and industrial resources needed for the war they were actually fighting, much less for the high-tech fantasies that charlatans attributed to them after the war. Even if it had been otherwise, the Nazis had systematically driven the required scientific talent out of Europe and to the United States: Einstein, Fermi, and Bohr are only the most prominent. Anti-Jewish racism trumped everything else. The Nazis only had Heisenberg and Hahn left.

From the first, Heisenberg himself concluded that a bomb, if it were possible at all, was not possible given the lack of resources in wartime Germany. And by 1942 or so, the Nazis abandoned nuclear weapons research altogether in favor of more practical, near-term work. So, in 1945, when Heisenberg and his confederates heard about Hiroshima while imprisoned in the UK, recordings of their private conversations showed their astonishment and disbelief.

>>That is totally inaccurate. The specialized reactor found at Haigerloch was designed for a specific purpose. It used natural metallic uranium cubes arranged in a precise way. Two photographs of the Americans on site at the time showed them wearing no protective clothing.<<

The Nazi's uranium-cube contraption was not a reactor at all--useless even for the nuclear power research they were doing at that time. But it was a pretty clear indication that they did not understand the practicalities involved. I don't know what degree of radiation hazard the thing caused. But lack of protective clothing is hardly evidence: the extreme hazards posed by nuclear radiation were closely guarded secrets in the US military until years after Hiroshima. So, while the Americans at the site might have known about Mme. Curie, they would not have known anything about how they could protect themselves or why.

>>To those who have never seen an intelligence report, the wording of the title and contents were precise. In the case of a German atomic bomb, it existed and a man who had witnessed a test had been located and interrogated.<<

"Had witnessed" or said he had witnessed? Intelligence reports are not facts. They are stories at best, commonly no more than rumors, and at worst deliberate disinformation spread by hostile agents. At the end of WW2, Europe was crawling with war criminals, common criminals, black marketeers, and spies peddling stories. If it were 1946 and you were an SS death-camp functionary on a Russian wanted list, a story about a Nazi bomb might seem just the ticket for avoiding a one-way rip to the Russian Zone--until it fell apart under the rigorous interrogation and cross-checking that wartime intelligence officers were known for. Mention of a bomb may well be found in one or two old reports. But the fact that everyone now discounts any possibility of a Nazi nuclear bomb is a pretty clear indication that their claims did not stand up to close inspection.

 

[edwest4]

Regarding the cubes used in the reactor at Haigerloch. Most of the cubes were found buried nearby by the Americans. Those operating the reactor were aware of its operational aspects and function. The original cubes were removed to deny them to the Americans. As I wrote, American personnal were shown without protective gear as they dismantled the reactor. Two photos exist. One is the censored version which shows a black circle. The other shows what is actually there - the upper support assembly.

 

[edwest4]

I have presented document names and their location.

Heisenberg is mentioned often but he was not the only researcher involved in the German atomic project. When a document title includes the phrase "Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb," it means what it says. Practical use means practical use. Intelligence reports with supporting documents are facts. Otherwise, they would have thrown them in the dustbin. The people writing these reports were not present-day nutters but trained personnel who understood the technology.

The German atomic research program was widely spread out. There was uranium in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

From the Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000.

"The Russians seized a 60 ton cyclotron and a plasma-ionic isotope separation installation at the workshop of Manfred von Ardenne. In Austria, the Russians acquired nearly 340 kg of metallic uranium."

The German atomic program was under the Army Weapons Office (HWA), the Reichspost and the SS Technical branch. From the book, Atomversuche in Deutschland by Günter Nagel, a long list of important German atomic scientists is given, along with locations:

Phy. Inst. d. Univ. Köln - Doz. Prof. Riezler
Phys. Inst. d. TH. Darmstadt - Doz. Dr. Marer
Phys. chem. Inst. d. Univ. München - Doz. Dr. Starke
Phys. Techn. Reichanst. Staatsrat - Prof. Dr. A. Esau
KWI f.medizin. Forschung, Heidelberg - Prof. Dr. Bothe
1 bis 3, Phys. Inst. d. Univ. Wien - Prof. Dr. Stetter
Inst. f. Theoret. Pys. d. Univ. Strassburg - Prof. v. Weizsäcker

There are many more.

 

[iverson]

Regarding the cubes used in the reactor at Haigerloch. Most of the cubes were found buried nearby by the Americans. Those operating the reactor were aware of its operational aspects and function. The original cubes were removed to deny them to the Americans. As I wrote, American personnal were shown without protective gear as they dismantled the reactor. Two photos exist. One is the censored version which shows a black circle. The other shows what is actually there - the upper support assembly.

The Haigerloch uranium cubes were all unenriched, natural uranium, not the highly enriched uranium used in bombs. The Germans never figured out to do the enrichment, even though they tried several methods. Without enrichment, no chain reaction, and no explosion.

Again, they simply lacked the development resources. One of the Alsos team scientists that looked at the Nazi research facilities, including the Haigrloch lab, estimated that the Nazis spent less on their entire nuclear program than the US spent on Alsos missions alone.

A couple of photos exist of the same US Army Engineers from the Alsos team digging up those uranium cubes in the fields. The soldiers are again not wearing protective gear of any kind. The material was probably not all that radioactive, even if some of the Alsos team members were aware of radiation hazards. Besides, I can't see what sort of protection you could have, except, perhaps, a gas mask to protect against breathing too many alpha particles, followed by a long shower and a change of clothes. Nothing will protect you against gamma radiation.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

While this takes this thread kind of far afield, the following is pertinent at this point:

Refined uranium metal is a low grade alpha radiation emitter. It is only a danger to someone if you eat it. A chunk sitting on your desk is not particularly dangerous to anyone. Anyone who knows how radiation works would agree. Recently, a bucket of uranium ore was found at a museum near the Grand Canyon in AZ. It was adjudged the same, not a serious health hazard.

The reactor shown works as I outlined. Unenriched uranium will fast fission in heavy water just as in a graphite moderated reactor (Fermi's original "pile" at the university of Chicago or the Chernobyl reactor for that matter). How evenly and well the rather poorly configured German one would have worked is speculative, but it likely would have had some degree of fission going on.

Once it stated fission the radiation from neutrons and gamma released would have quickly jumped to thousands or REM at a minimum. That would have pretty much killed everyone nearby within days, if not hours, or even immediately. There was no way to moderate the reaction rate like with control rods or a carefully set geometry of the fuel in position to other blocks. So, the rate of reaction would be uneven and you would get some steam from the water PDQ. The only way to stop the reaction would have been to withdraw the core (uranium) or for the heavy water to boil off.

So, that reactor would have killed off the German nuclear research personnel watching and likely set their program back years.

 

[iverson]

I have presented document names and their location.

Heisenberg is mentioned often but he was not the only researcher involved in the German atomic project.

No, but, he, Hahn, and Weisaeker were the only widely recognized ones. Fifteen Nobel winning physicists and chemists left Germany as a result of the racial laws, along with many of their best students. The lesser lights that remained often faced suspicion over Jewish ancestry or spouses. The conservative "Aryan Physics" movement denounced modern theories like relativity and quantum physics as "Jewish Physics", and persecuted even Heisenberg. University postions when to those with good connections in the Nazi Party hierarchy, rather than to academics. Moreover, all of the lesser figures connected with physics research were constantly being drafted into the army by a bureaucracy that did not understand what they were doing.

When a document title includes the phrase "Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb," it means what it says. Practical use means practical use. Intelligence reports with supporting documents are facts.

You are being far too credulous. The report itself is the fact, not the story it tells. The existence of a report proves nothing except that someone said something that someone else felt it necessary to write down. If the subsequent record shows no extensive followup--no independent corroboration, no subsequent records, etc.--the report was almost certainly judged worthless.

Wartime intelligence reports record rumors, stories, jokes--anything that just might possibly contain some scrap of truth. Those reports then go to intelligence analysts who cross check them against other intelligence sources, known capabilities, scientific plausibility, and plain common sense. When they can, intelligence professionals get the supposed witnesses and interrogate them, testing them to see if they have sufficient knowledge to be plausible, have ulterior motives that might confirm or undermine their claims, etc. The interrogators often put witnesses together in bugged rooms to see what they said to each other when supposedly out of the hearing of their interrogators--as Alsos did with the captured Nazi physicists. Then the analysts decide whether the claims are credible enough to be followed up or incredible enough to be filed.

Otherwise, they would have thrown them in the dustbin. The people writing these reports were not present-day nutters but trained personnel who understood the technology.

Note that I said "filed" above. I only know the US, but I assume that military and government bureaucracy is the same everywhere: nothing ever, ever, gets "thrown ... in the dustbin." It gets typed in triplicate and filed in three different registries. So the presence of a few reports does not prove that they were considered valuable, much less true. Instead, the scarcity of such reports suggests the very opposite,

The German atomic research program was widely spread out. There was uranium in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

From the Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000.

"The Russians seized a 60 ton cyclotron and a plasma-ionic isotope separation installation at the workshop of Manfred von Ardenne. In Austria, the Russians acquired nearly 340 kg of metallic uranium."

No one doubts that the Nazis had uranium (or cyclotron particle accelerators) or that the project was spread out. The US Army's Alsos teams seized hundreds of tons of Nazi uranium from the Union Miniere processing plants in Belgium and from depots in France, as well as smaller amounts from other German research facilities. USAAF B-17s destroyed the Auergesellschaft uranium refinery in Oranienburg on the express orders of Gen. Grove.

 

[Orionblamblam]

When a document title includes the phrase "Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb," it means what it says. Practical use means practical use

Just as a document titled "practical use of a wormhole" or "practical use of an antimatter bomb" or practical use of a warp drive" means what is says... the practical use of a theoretical device or object.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

The cubes were not the danger. It was how the reactor was to operate. The cubes in those necklaces were to be manually lowered into the tank below them containing heavy water. As the cubes entered that heavy water they would have started to undergo fission and release neutrons and gamma rays. The water would begin to heat up releasing some portion as steam.
The more of the blocks entering the water, the more fissions you have.
Anyone standing nearby would have gotten a massive dose of radiation and probably ingested some of the steam (gaseous water) released that was no radioactive.
Operation of that reactor would have killed everyone near it and contaminated the location with very high levels of radiation.

Not quite that bad.

The Haigerloch B8 pile was a critically experiment, very similar to the Canadian Zero Energy Experimental Pile (ZEEP)*;-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZEEP

These early piles were intended to validate theoretical calculations and by intent, produced virtually no excess energy (note the name). The reaction being studied is detectable before it becomes particularly hazardous**. Conversely they couldn’t produce more than a few pico grams of reaction product. Hence B8 could not produce Plutonium for a bomb, as some have claimed. Sure there was a bit of radiation but not enough to prevent the ZEEP and CP1 from being manually disassemble with minimal protective gear at the end of their usefulness.

Don’t get me wrong, the Haigerloch B8, or any other German WW2 never achieved criticality.

(*A great example of entirely independent co invention;- although the Canadian one worked, as I’m sure the next B8 evolution would have;- CP1 was built, torn down, rebuilt in a slightly different geometry multiple times before it achieved criticality)

** when CP1 first achieved criticality there was no shielding to protect those in the squash court with it and there were two people standing on top of the pile.

 

[Aubi]

I highly doubt any significant amount of Uranium was mined in Austria, altough I found one mine mentioned there. Most came from Jáchymov, which is almost in my backyard.

 

[edwest4]

The usual nonsense. The Deutsches Museum now has the documents the Americans found. Argue with them. And their 2001 exhibit of select documents was an exhibit of nothing? https://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/archives/archive-online/secret-documents/

The chemical reactions involved in atomic research were known at the time. The Germans had the world's largest chemical cartel at the time, IG Farben.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

The usual nonsense. The Deutsches Museum now has the documents the Americans found. Argue with them. And their 2001 exhibit of select documents was an exhibit of nothing? https://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/archives/archive-online/secret-documents/

The chemical reactions involved in atomic research were known at the time. The Germans had the world's largest chemical cartel at the time, IG Farben.

Chemical reactions don't get you to fissionable product research. Knowing the chemical and metallurgical properties of uranium gets you to refined uranium. Enrichment is a whole 'nother animal. Getting it to fission and knowing how that process works is taking things into a completely different area of science, and one that the Nazi government frowned on to begin with.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The usual nonsense. The Deutsches Museum now has the documents the Americans found. Argue with them.

Great! Please point us to the documents that say "we set of an atom bomb at this place, that time, with this yield." A followup with American documents from researchers saying something to the effect of "we went there, and, yup, there's a radioactive crater."

I'm sure you have them book marked.

 

[iverson]

The usual nonsense. The Deutsches Museum now has the documents the Americans found. Argue with them. And their 2001 exhibit of select documents was an exhibit of nothing? https://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/archives/archive-online/secret-documents/

The chemical reactions involved in atomic research were known at the time. The Germans had the world's largest chemical cartel at the time, IG Farben.

Chemical reactions don't get you to fissionable product research. Knowing the chemical and metallurgical properties of uranium gets you to refined uranium. Enrichment is a whole 'nother animal. Getting it to fission and knowing how that process works is taking things into a completely different area of science, and one that the Nazi government frowned on to begin with.

Perhaps Mr. Gardner's point is the key to a basic misunderstanding underlying the above argument. So I'll try to clarify it before I exceed the limits of my knowledge and succumb to boredom with this topic.

Enrichment is not a chemical process like refining or purifying. Chemical processes work by separating the uranium metal, which has one set of chemical properties, from impurities, which have different chemical properties. Typically, you dissolve an amalgam of differing substances--like an ore--using reagents that can dissolve or otherwise react with elements that have certain chemical properties while leaving other elements alone. You repeat the process under varying conditions until you have separated the pure, refined element--uranium metal in this case--from the other substances in the original rock.

But isotopes of an element are chemically identical. Naturally occurring uranium consists of uranium 238 (>99.2%), uranium 235 (~0.7%), and uranium 233 (<0.1%). All have the same chemical properties. So you cannot separate them using chemical means: they have the same number of electrons orbiting the atomic nucleus (which determines chemical properties) and differ only in the number of neutrons in the nucleus. Yet only the uranium 235 atoms in uranium metal (0.7% of the whole) are useful for initiating a practical fission reaction.

To enrich uranium metal to the point where it contains enough uranium 235 to support a fission chain reaction is thus extremely difficult. One has to exploit the very slight difference in mass between the isotopes. To do this, one can convert the metal to uranium hexaflouride gas and either diffuse the gas through filters or use a centrifuge to separate the heavier uranium 238 from the lighter uranium 235. Alternatively, one can vaporize and ionize the metal and then project it through magnetic fields that deflect the less massive U-235 more than the U-238 (reportedly a more expensive and less efficient method). In either case, one has to deal with tiny differences between product and waste, tiny outputs, and huge volumes of waste material. Worst of all, for a practical bomb, one needs to enrich the material to 85% or more while attaining a yield of at least 50 pounds (~24 kg) per 1940s-era bomb.

Germany pioneered isotope separation in the lab during the 1930s (before most of the most talented physicists left). But Nazi Germany was never able to productionize the process. Doing so in the 1940s required a huge, dedicated, highly specialized industrial base and a lot of tolerance for waste, errors, and experimentation. Nazi Germany simply did not have the means available. It was never able to increase the percentage of the U-235 isotope in uranium metal above the natural, much less to the 85% or more needed for a bomb.

The British were just able to productionize the enrichment process on a small scale, and even then decided to hand off the work to the United states. The US was very ood at mass production and had enormous resources available, compared to the overstretched Europeans. As a result the US was able to both produce U-235 on a massive industrial scale and breed plutonium 239 from the left-over uranium 238. It produced and deployed both uranium and plutonium weapons before the end of the war. But even then, despite having all the resources of the US and Britain combined, plus most of the world's most capable nuclear scientists, the US only just managed the task, late in 1945, and had made only a handful of devices even then.

 

[windswords]

You are being far too credulous. The report itself is the fact, not the story it tells. The existence of a report proves nothing except that someone said something that someone else felt it necessary to write down. If the subsequent record shows no extensive followup--no independent corroboration, no subsequent records, etc.--the report was almost certainly judged worthless.

Wartime intelligence reports record rumors, stories, jokes--anything that just might possibly contain some scrap of truth. Those reports then go to intelligence analysts who cross check them against other intelligence sources, known capabilities, scientific plausibility, and plain common sense. When they can, intelligence professionals get the supposed witnesses and interrogate them, testing them to see if they have sufficient knowledge to be plausible, have ulterior motives that might confirm or undermine their claims, etc. The interrogators often put witnesses together in bugged rooms to see what they said to each other when supposedly out of the hearing of their interrogators--as Alsos did with the captured Nazi physicists. Then the analysts decide whether the claims are credible enough to be followed up or incredible enough to be filed.

This is absolutely correct. Intel reports record ANYTHING that might be a of value. If it turns out to be of value there will be extensive followups. In the same way UFO believers use early Air Force and FBI reports made during the Flying Saucer Wave of the late 40's and early 50's as proof that ET visitation is real just because there were official government documents talking about it. With what we now know about the German atomic program is that they could not produce weapons grade uranium or plutonium. No BOOM! there. They might have been able to make a radialogical device, a "dirty bomb" with radioactive material and a conventional explosive to spread it.

If we are to believe these intel reports, then we have to believe the Japanese set off an atomic bomb of their own just days before the attack on Hiroshima at a test site in present day North Korea. After all it was also in an intel report based off testimony of a captured Japanese who was interrogated by military intelligence. Although the Japanese were researching atomic weapons like the Germans they never even got as far as they did due to lack of resources and materials.

 

[Nik]

A very small clarification: isotopes do have small physical / chemical differences, usually with small reaction rate differences. Hence Oxygen isotope ratios may be used for ice-core archeo-thermometry, as warmer seas allow more of the heavier H2O^ to evaporate. Such subtle O^ depletion also alters its proportion in eg fossilised sea-shells from that era...

IIRC, the only isotopes with significant phys/chem differences are those of hydrogen. Hence electrolysis of water tends to remove lighter hydrogen, concentrating deuterium in what's left. Still appallingly inefficient. By the time you get to Uranium, you need a Calutron, serial counter-flow membranes or a cascade of centrifuges.

Um, IMHO, there's possibility of efficient selection using miniscule photo-ionisation differences and a very precisely tuned laser, but...

Given the hazards of radioactivity were not well known nor understood 1930s~~1950s, even a 'dirty bomb', with toxic salts explosively dispersed, seems unlikely...

As always, YMMV...

 

[edwest4]

You are being far too credulous. The report itself is the fact, not the story it tells. The existence of a report proves nothing except that someone said something that someone else felt it necessary to write down. If the subsequent record shows no extensive followup--no independent corroboration, no subsequent records, etc.--the report was almost certainly judged worthless.

Wartime intelligence reports record rumors, stories, jokes--anything that just might possibly contain some scrap of truth. Those reports then go to intelligence analysts who cross check them against other intelligence sources, known capabilities, scientific plausibility, and plain common sense. When they can, intelligence professionals get the supposed witnesses and interrogate them, testing them to see if they have sufficient knowledge to be plausible, have ulterior motives that might confirm or undermine their claims, etc. The interrogators often put witnesses together in bugged rooms to see what they said to each other when supposedly out of the hearing of their interrogators--as Alsos did with the captured Nazi physicists. Then the analysts decide whether the claims are credible enough to be followed up or incredible enough to be filed.

This is absolutely correct. Intel reports record ANYTHING that might be a of value. If it turns out to be of value there will be extensive followups. In the same way UFO believers use early Air Force and FBI reports made during the Flying Saucer Wave of the late 40's and early 50's as proof that ET visitation is real just because there were official government documents talking about it. With what we now know about the German atomic program is that they could not produce weapons grade uranium or plutonium. No BOOM! there. They might have been able to make a radialogical device, a "dirty bomb" with radioactive material and a conventional explosive to spread it.

If we are to believe these intel reports, then we have to believe the Japanese set off an atomic bomb of their own just days before the attack on Hiroshima at a test site in present day North Korea. After all it was also in an intel report based off testimony of a captured Japanese who was interrogated by military intelligence. Although the Japanese were researching atomic weapons like the Germans they never even got as far as they did due to lack of resources and materials.

Your comment about the Japanese atomic bomb is false. See Japan's Secret War, Third Edition, by Robert Wilcox.

 

[Dilandu]

This is absolutely correct. Intel reports record ANYTHING that might be a of value. If it turns out to be of value there will be extensive followups. In the same way UFO believers use early Air Force and FBI reports made during the Flying Saucer Wave of the late 40's and early 50's as proof that ET visitation is real just because there were official government documents talking about it. With what we now know about the German atomic program is that they could not produce weapons grade uranium or plutonium. No BOOM! there. They might have been able to make a radialogical device, a "dirty bomb" with radioactive material and a conventional explosive to spread it.

If we are to believe these intel reports, then we have to believe the Japanese set off an atomic bomb of their own just days before the attack on Hiroshima at a test site in present day North Korea. After all it was also in an intel report based off testimony of a captured Japanese who was interrogated by military intelligence. Although the Japanese were researching atomic weapons like the Germans they never even got as far as they did due to lack of resources and materials.

Both those "theories" essentially based on extremely strange assumption that USSR somehow did not notice nuclear detonations on Rugen or in North Korea. Not to mention that Rugen was a particularly bad place for nuclear testing ground; it was quite populated, there were tens of thousands peoples living here in 1940s. It's kinda hard to imagine that nuclear bomb could be detonated here without anyone noticing.

 

[edwest4]

The Atlanta Constitution
October 3, 1946

"Japan Developed Atom Bomb; Russians Grabbed Scientists"

Article title: "Actual Test Was Success"

It occurred off the coast of Hungnam (Japanese name: Konan).

 

[windswords]

The Atlanta Constitution
October 3, 1946

"Japan Developed Atom Bomb; Russians Grabbed Scientists"

Article title: "Actual Test Was Success"

It occurred off the coast of Hungnam (Japanese name: Konan).

This is the test a few days before Hiroshima that I mentioned. The newspaper story was from an intel report based off testimony of a captured Japanese who was interrogated by military intelligence. There never was any kind of of corroborating evidence, least of all any radiation detected. I have read Wilcox's book. He doesn't believe it happened either but only related the story of the report in the newspaper. He does give a good recounting of the Japanese effort to research and develop a weapon, but his conclusion was that they were not even as far along as the Germans. I will not comment any further on this as a mod has warned us to stay on topic.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The Atlanta Constitution
October 3, 1946

"Japan Developed Atom Bomb; Russians Grabbed Scientists"

Article title: "Actual Test Was Success"

It occurred off the coast of Hungnam (Japanese name: Konan).

Good thing newspapers never print anything inaccurate.

Had the Japanese actually set off a nuke and one newspaper broke the story, all the other newspapers would have fallen all over themselves to report more on it.

 

[williamjpellas]

And what about non-conventional explosives? As for the tests performed in Rügener Island in October 1944, 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 aluminium powder.

According to the report by Hans Zinster, the pilot of a Heinkel He 111 observing the effects of the test, the explosion caused severe electrical disturbances that made radio communication impossible. It has been suggested that this could be an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that completely disabled Berlin's telephone network for 60 hours by affecting even communications with Sweden.

Justo,

do you have nearer infos about these tests in Rügen. Dimensions of this bomb?

There is in fact some information available regarding the October 1944 Rugen Island test detonation. There are at least ten (10) primary sources which describe it, and there is considerable consistency in these sources.

From Appendix D in Dr. Todd Rider's recently completed (2020) multinational archival investigation and subsequent book, Forgotten Creators:


"Morrison" was Philip Morrison, one of the best American nuclear scientists of that era and a key figure in the Manhattan Project. Original NARA papers describe his direct involvement in Manhattan Project intelligence, where he worked hand in hand with Major Robert Furman. Both Furman and Morrison were among the first to land in Japan as part of the subsequent so-called "Asian ALSOS". Morrison's report concerning his interview / interrogation of the Japanese nuclear physicist Yoshio Nishina (lead scientist in the Japanese Army's WWII atomic bomb program) is eye opening, as are several reports and other documents which describe his work regarding the German nuclear effort. Furman and his successor, a certain Major Fisher, continued to press wartime Japanese officials, scientists, and military personnel regarding the Japanese atomic bomb effort, which was certainly connected with the German version.

The author of Forgotten Creators is a former senior staff scientist at MIT, so I presume that removes him from the tinfoil hat - crank - lunatic fringe before we get down to brass tacks regarding the details.

There is much, much more to learn, and I am of the opinion that Dr. Rider's work will ultimately produce a revolution in both Second World War historiography in general, and in the historiography of the development of nuclear weapons in particular.

As for Manfred Popp, he is simply restating the standard cover story that was written primarily by Samuel Goudsmit, who was ostensibly the lead scientist in the earlier, European version of ALSOS. Leslie Groves and Boris Pash also had considerable input into the tale that Goudsmit ultimately put into print. Various Germans in then-emergent West Germany were eager to play along, as well, and the oncoming Cold War served to push legitimate historical questions far into the background for many years. But there are numerous documented primary sources which date from the war years through the appearance of Goudsmit's book, Alsos, in 1947 which tell a very different story from the conventional narrative. The standard history emerged during the Cold War and is derived primarily from Goudsmit. though most don't recognize this---and it is still faithfully and unquestioningly parroted by many in the present day. The vast majority of the most relevant documents concerning WWII Axis nuclear weapons development, that is, the ones that weren't outright destroyed at war's end, were buried in top secret and above top secret archives for decades, and many papers (including some of Goudsmit's own files) remain completely off limits to the public and almost totally unknown to anyone to this day. But enough have emerged, particularly since 1995, to demonstrate, conclusively as far as I am concerned, that the standard historical narrative is at least badly lacking in some important particulars, and otherwise lying about a number of extremely significant and well documented events, developments, and personnel.

I have written extensively and in considerable detail about this, with specific archival citations, on other websites, one in particular. But because I don't yet have a good idea whether this particular site frowns on authors linking to their own work on other sites, I have not included them here just yet. They are easy enough to find, as is Dr. Rider's enormous 4,600 page book, for anyone who cares to look.

 

[williamjpellas]

Thanks for the internet link;- very interesting indeed.

With ref to claims within your posts, have you read it?

Although you claim B8 was “ designed to investigate neutron activity” the linked report’s first line of the second paragraph (page 318 Introduction) advises it was a criticality experiment with the intention of achieving a self sustaining (critical) multiplication. It had tubes to allow the introduction of a cadmium solution to stop the reaction. The report concluded that by design it was unable to achieve its design intent. No reaction = no significant radioactive products = no need for protection.

Furthermore , Page 319, third paragraph down also advises that uranium enrichment was beyond the capability of Germany at the time.

And it details how learning from across Germany went into B8’s design in particularly G2, G3, G3a and G3b experiments. L1 was next. B=Berlin G=Gatow and L=Leipzig. B8 itself was the eighth design iteration and reused components from B6 and B7. Given the difficulties the B8 team encountered in obtaining the key materials, requiring representation at a very high level, either this all you need as proof there wasn’t a separate group that had already demo criticality/a weapon or the higher authority was so grossly incompetent as to not be threat.

As for James F. Byrnes role in the Manhattan project, I recommend (again) you read R Rhodes definite work and pulziter prize winner “The making of the atomic bomb”. All will become clear.

Bondur = 2000 series Aluminium Alloy which suffers from stress/inter granular corrosion in the presents of UF6. Not fit for purpose.

The Haigerloch reactor was never given a full load of uranium. Really, it is typical of the entire WWII German nuclear weapons program. Everybody looks at Heisenberg and the KWI (which build the Haigerloch machine after fleeing from Berlin) and says, that's that. Meanwhile specific G Papers describe the real German nuclear effort, which was a joint venture of the heereswaffenamt (German Army Weapons Bureau), marinewaffenamt (German Navy Weapons Bureau), luftwaffe, Manfred von Ardenne's superlab under the patronage of the Reichspost, and especially the SS.

Diebner's reactor at Stadtilm achieved far better results than anything Heisenberg was associated with, as did at least one of the previous "piles" he built during the war. There are at least a dozen sites in various sites throughout the old Third Reich where advanced work on reactors---if not actual construction of them---was performed.

 

[williamjpellas]

When the Germans invaded Belgium they captured uranium from the Belgian Congo. They also confiscated French uranium supplies. There is little clear information about events in the Bohemia-Moravia Protectorate and the University of Brno. Some years ago, I wrote a message to a research group in Austria who were preparing a report about the Austrian conrtribution to the German atomic program. The report never appeared.

Edwest2, there are good reasons why the report never appeared. They have to do with a "six ton bomb" which was described by British, American, German, and Austrian sources. There were a number of newspaper articles regarding this weapon that appeared at or just after war's end in Europe. According to Werner von Braun among a number of others who were quoted for the record, this bomb would have had a blast radius of 6 miles. The major scientists working on it were mostly SS and included George Stetter, Ulrich Jetter, and Alfred Klemm.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I was in two minds to approve these posts @williamjpellas as this treads close to the borders of breaking forum rules.

The giant book (almost 1GB) Forgotten Creators book can be downloaded for free here:

Revolutionary Innovation | RIDER Institute | Forgotten Creators

Forgotten Creators is an online reference book released in February 2020. It covers revolutionary scientific innovations during 1800-1945.

riderinstitute.org

It's certainly an immense piece of work. I can't comment on the entire book, but the pages I did read so far from the section on German nuclear weapons read like typical conspiratorial "join-the-dots" arguments drawn from - new and valid research, dubious post-war 'personal recollections', contemporary news articles, coincidences of timing, selective quoting, and a big slice of questions like "can it be a coincidence that x occurred after y?" Well, yes, it might be, that's actually what coincidence means.

I may only have studied history in the medieval period, but this smacks of the ahistorical approach employed by amateur historian Gavin Menzies in 1421 and subsequent books where he developed a thesis and then twisted the evidence to fit, searching for anything that aligned in his mind with his theories and discarding anything that didn't. It had a lot of sensible looking footnotes but most of the academics cited virulently disagreed with his 'interpretation' of their work.

The author of Forgotten Creators is a former senior staff scientist at MIT, so I presume that removes him from the tinfoil hat - crank - lunatic fringe before we get down to brass tacks regarding the details.

No, it really doesn't. Plenty of scientists are crackpots especially in areas outside their specialism. Equally, even if you are perfectly sensible, being good at science doesn't make you good at researching and writing history. I've had engineers tell me things from their memories which are provably wrong. Even archive documents only tell you what was recorded, not what happened, as is clear if you ever see two different records of the same event.