Did The Nazis Develop The A Bomb First?

The conventional wisdom is that the Nazis weren’t even close to having a working atom bomb by war’s end but Dr. Joseph Farrell has written a number of books on Nazi secret weapons research which strongly suggests that they did in fact test a fission bomb in either late 1944 or early 1945.

The evidence is, entirely circumstantial but taken as a whole, compelling. It includes:

1) three eye witness accounts of what appears to be a fission bomb test, one by a German pilot flying over Germany and claiming to see a huge explosion followed by a mushroom-shaped cloud, another by an Italian military officer who reported back to his superiors on a test explosion of tremendous force on an island off the German coast and the third is a report by a Japanese military officer who also witnessed a test explosion which he was told was a fission weapon.
2) Two separate british newspaper articles, one warning the public to be prepared for an atom bomb attack and the other describing the fact that ALL telephone service for Berlin was non-operational for 72 hours with no explanation for the cause. The sudden collapse of the phone system could have been the inadvertent result of an EMP pulse caused by an atom bomb test.
3) The construction of an enormous building, supposedly for the production of synthetic rubber, under very strict security and supervision of the SS, which consumed enough electricity to power a small city and yet did not produce one single ounce of synthetic rubber. A similar building built for the Manhatten Project, enriched uranium. More on this below.
4) Reports that the Germans used some kind of weapon of mass destruction against the Russian army, whereby a large area and everything in it was incinerated. The Russians sent a message via the Swiss that if the Germans used it again, the Russians would retaliate with chemical weapons.
5) The surrender of a German cargo submarine(converted minelayer) at the war’s end to the US navy. It had been on it’s way to Japan and contained among other interesting things and people, 600 kilograms of uranium in gold-lined caskets. What kind of uranium is the question. The submarine was the U-234. It’s crew were reported to be amused by what they thought was Japanese incompetence when they saw two Japanese army officers, who were also on their way back home, write U-235 on the outside of the caskets. The german sailors thought the Japanese were writing the sub’s number and had gotten it wrong. U-238 is ordinary uranium that can not be used for atom bombs. Enriched uranium needs as high a concentration of u-235 isotope as possible. U-235 is highly corrosive and easily contaminated. One way of protecting it from contamination would be to carry it in a container lined with gold, which does not react with other elements. There is no reason to carry U-238 in gold. 600 kilograms of uranium is enough to build 33 atom bombs of the type used on Japan. If the Germans had that much enriched uranium to spare to send to Japan, they must have had a lot more for their own use.
6) There are several methods for enriching uranium. The Manhatten Project used gas centrifuges, which was a slow process. So slow in fact that a March 1945 report to the Congressional committee overseeing the Manhatten Project said that total production of enriched uranium up to that point was only 20 lbs, which was half of what was needed for a single uranium bomb. The report also said that they would not reach the 40 lb level until November 1945. Three months later, the US dropped a uranium bomb on the Japanese(the other one was plutonium). If the 600 kg of uranium aboard the uboat was enriched uranium, it would have solved all of the US’s uranium problems.

7) Captured German physicists were being interrogated in Britain when the US atom bombed Japan, Their conversations amongst themselves were being recorded and when they heard about the Japan bombings, one of them was heard to mention the photo-electric method of enriching uranium. After the war the US developed laser isotope separation for rapidly enriching uranium. There is circumstantial evidence that the Nazis were also researching laser technology. Any facility to enrich uranium on a large scale using lasers would have had to be large and would have consumed a lot of electricity. Sound familiar?

One of the arguments against a Nazi A bomb is that if they had them, whey didn’t they use them against Britain/US? There are several good reasons why they didn’t.

a) Using A bombs as a tactical weapon against British and American armies would not have changed the overall military situation on the western front and the resulting radioactive fallout would very likely have fallen back on Germany. By late 1944, Allied armies had overrun the launching sites for V2 rockets so using them to A bomb Britain was no longer an option. The Nazis were very close to having a much longer ranged rocket capable of hitting North America.
b) Contrary to popular belief the Nazis did have a few long range bombers. One of them, conducted a test flight from Norway all the way to New York City and back. A major airfield was nearing completion in Norway at war’s end and it reportedly contained a squadron of large bombers.
c) There is also evidence suggesting that the Nazis were hoping to use their fission bombs as a trigger for much more powerful fusion bombs (which the Americans accomplished later). Fission bomb blast radius is measured in hundreds of yards. Fusion (hydrogen) bomb blast radius is measured in tens of miles.

Why would the Allies propagate the story that the Nazis weren’t even close to realizing A bombs? Well a US newspaper article shortly after the war quoted a military source as saying that the Germans were very close to having a working bomb and that if the war had lasted just a few months longer, the outcome would have been far less certain. It also would have been embarrassing for the US government to acknowledge that after spending $2 billion $ on the Manhatten Project, they hadn’t gotten as far as the Nazis had even though they(the Nazis) had spent a lot less money and done it much faster. Ass covering could explain a lot.

Farrell’s books are well researched with numerous copies of actual US, British and German documents to back up his conclusions. They are well worth the money in my humble opinion. You can find their titles by googling Joseph Farrell.

What I’ve learned from reading his (and others’) books is that Germany could have won the war if things had been just a little bit different. Image how the rest of the 20th century would have changed if that had happened.

Nope they didnt.

Proof: They would have used it.

Honestly anyone claiming otherwise for whatever reason is a fool. The Nazi's bombed Britain every night for years. If they had one bomb that could have wiped out all of London in one hit, they would have used it. Whether or not it won them the war, the second it was ready to use they would have used it.

They where waiting for when they had an even bigger bomb ? Please.... even the basic bomb was far beyond anything anyone had ever seen in terms of raw destructive power.

Well, in a roundabout way, yes they did. Project Paperclip and the like made sure of that. They made it for the other side, however.

Also, I dont think just because they didnt use it is dead proof that they didnt have it. Perhaps the means of delivery werent there. Perhaps there was a strategic aspect that we are unaware of.

War isnt always about using the newest, latest tech.

reply to post by gYvMessanger


That's exactly the point. By the time they had it, they couldn't bomb Britain. Their short range bombers couldn't carry anything that heavy and no longer had the range to reach London. The Luftwaffe stopped bombing London when the allied armies overran their airfields in France.

They couldnt blanket bomb like they had been doing, but I'm sure they could have found someone willing to take a one way trip to destroy london if they knew 100% it would be successful.

I find it unlikely they where waiting until they could surprise America by doing it to them. Using it in Europe would have acted as a useful warning to their more distant enemies, hell they would have used them on Russia if they had them.

Originally posted by Beancounter72
reply to post by gYvMessanger

 

That's exactly the point. By the time they had it, they couldn't bomb Britain. Their short range bombers couldn't carry anything that heavy and no longer had the range to reach London. The Luftwaffe stopped bombing London when the allied armies overran their airfields in France.

This is true. And it explains why they did not use it on Britain.

I believe this information posted above is mostly accurate, and that the Nazi's indeed were far ahead of allied efforts in creation of the bomb.

The reports of it being used in Russia is entirely plausible. I see no reason to doubt it.

This information you present could very well be the truth. Starred and flagged.

I had a relative who was responsible for a lot of top secret stuff during world war II. Though we're not sure of what exactly, he died at the age of 25 due to radiation poisoning. I think it's likely they had atomic weapons, and much more in the test pipeline.

Originally posted by gYvMessanger


I find it unlikely they where waiting until they could surprise America by doing it to them. Using it in Europe would have acted as a useful warning to their more distant enemies, hell they would have used them on Russia if they had them.

The reports are that they used 1 on Russia right before it was over.

Also, the Nazi's were NOT waiting.

They were desperately trying to keep things together.

You must have no idea what it is like to be carpet bombed for months on end.

Your stuff gets blown up and you cannot really do much about it.

The Nazi's were in disarray, they were losing all their lines of communication and their resources were running out.

They simply fell apart at the same time they had gained these advanced military capabilities.

They just were too late in the game to use it to any real effect.

reply to post by gYvMessanger


A-bombing London could have been done theorectically using one of the few long range bombers they did have but you have to remember that the British would have seen that bomber coming via radar and would have been highly likely to shoot it down before it even got to London whereas New York was thought to be safe from Nazi attack and could have been hit by surprise.

The US dropped two different bombs on Japan, but only one of them (the Nagasaki bomb) were tested. Why drop the first bomb on Hiroshima without testing it first? Maybe because the Germans had already tested it?



Little Boy

Fat Man

Just for clarification, it's not entirely clear what the Germans used against the Russians. A large circular area was scorched and everything inside that circle was burnt to a crisp. Farrell admits the possibility that the weapon used could also have been some type of fuel/air bomb which the Nazis were also working on. Still, if you've got lots of enriched uranium and you want to experiment on using a fission bomb tactically, the eastern front would be an ideal place to do it. Whatever it was, it scared the Russians silly.