How close was Germany to nuking the US?

[Sticks]

On another forum, they were discussing what would have happened if Germany had won WWII, mainly because of the 90th Anniversary of the Armistice.

It was pointed out that towards the end of the war, Germany was close to developing rockets that could have hit the US. They also speculated if Hitler had the atomic bomb as well, then with these rockets and improved aircraft, Germany could have defeated the US, which at that time was not as technologically advanced as Europe.

My understanding of history is that Germany never developed the atomic bomb as they did not think they would need it, plus Adolf Hitler was not a fan of this branch of physics due to anti-semitic dogma.

So how close did Germany get to marrying nuclear weapons to rockets or planes capable of hitting the US?

Please no references to Godwins law here

[Ivan Viehoff]

I don't think so. The German military was certainly trying to make a nuclear bomb. But most people think that the Germans inadvertently sabotaged their own effort because many of the best physicists were Jews. Obviously sensible people must have realised at the time that this was self-defeating, but mostly they had to save their own skins. Heisenberg got into hot water for trying to defend his Jewish colleagues.

In 1939, at the start of World War II, the German military took control of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_...energy_project. In Jan 1942, Heisenberg's advice on progress was sought, and he advised that it would take until at least 1945 to get a viable military device. At this point, the military relinquished control and returned it to academia, because they knew that this was too slow. Some leading nuclear physicists were drafted into the army at this point. So, essentially, they gave up any serious effort, because they were too far behind.

It was claimed after the war that Heisenberg and others deliberately sabotaged the German effort by slowing research, or concealing useful results. But in fact it seems that some of them merely conspired that they would say this to foreign intelligence. See this biography of Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker (not to be confused with Carl Christian) which discusses the point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Fr...eizs%C3%A4cker

[captain swoop]

Germany was losing the war from the moment they attacked Russia. After D-Day it was all over bar the shouting.

As for the USA not being as technicaly advance as Europe? What does that mean? They had immense industrial power and resourcec. When they joined the war the British shared all their technology and the USA were producing some very 'hitec' stuff very quickly.

[Sticks]

Germany was losing the war from the moment they attacked Russia. After D-Day it was all over bar the shouting.

As for the USA not being as technicaly advance as Europe? What does that mean? They had immense industrial power and resourcec. When they joined the war the British shared all their technology and the USA were producing some very 'hitec' stuff very quickly.

I can not get access to that other forum at the moment, but the person was going on about the capabilities of the Mustang aircraft, IIRC, at the moment I can not recall any further details as to their claim.

[KaiYeves]

Please no references to Godwins law here

I forget, is Godwins Law for any mention of Nazis or only when you compare somebody you don't like to them?

[Salty]

I thank all of you, for laying to rest my wondering about the alleged torpedo missles the Kriegsmarine had in their latest U-boats being coupled to some atomic device, at the end of the war.

My two cents worth on American entry into WWII. To my knowledge, we had only one hi-tech goodie when we were bombed, and that was Adm. Yamato's prime target, during the Pearl Harbor raid; but they were all out to sea: our aircraft carriers were as good as anybody's. It's just they aircraft they carried were at first no match for the Zero.

But, we made up for that, at Midway. Meanwhile, in the Atlantic... all of us suffered from Wolf Packs, at first. I think most of our early WWII subs were coastal, only a few deep sea. I may be mistaken.

OK, that's two cents' worth.

[mahesh]

I forget, is Godwins Law for any mention of Nazis or only when you compare somebody you don't like to them?

Neither.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law
i too learn something new everyday...

[farmerjumperdon]

Germany was losing the war from the moment they attacked Russia. After D-Day it was all over bar the shouting.

Exactly. Hitler was too into all his wierd paranoid super-race claptrap propoganda to actually pay attention to the fact that he could not logistically support the level of war he wanted to wage. It was a suicide gambit from the opening Blitzkreig; as it was just a matter of time and attrition. He barely made it out of Europe and was already stretched too thin.

Rule-the-world megalomaniacs never seem to be very good with numbers. (Except for that Plankton guy, he seems pretty sharp to me. He's got numbers on his side, but he has his own wierd fixation what with always after that Crabby Patty formula).

[Argos]

Germany was losing the war from the moment they attacked Russia.

He had no choice but to conquer the Heartland, the then so-called World Island, in order to giving sense to his visions of world domination. Blame Sir Halford Mackinder for giving him ideas.

[jfribrg]

My answer to the original question is that Germany never came close to nuclear capability. They tried. They banned exports of Uranium in the late 1930's. They built a heavy water factory somwhere in Scandanavia. They would have used it against Russia, England, the US (IMO, in that order), and anywhere else there were people opposed to the Reich. However, they had enormous trouble keeping the heavy water safe from Allied attack, and I believe they concluded that while theoretically possible, it was not possible to engineer a bomb, at least not time of war, when they didn't have the luxury to divert resources from other military needs.

The Germans did however have plans to occupy North America. The ultimate goal of course was world domination (Hitler was not the first nor the last person with these ambitions). The plan was Island hopping. After the British Isles, they would invade Iceland, then Greenland. After that, Canada and the East Coast of the US. The plan was to complete this by 1960. Along the way, they would use people of German descent to control the population. Others would be treated as in occupied Europe: enslave the population and kill anyone who they deem to be worthless. This all seems so far-fetched now, but when you are convinced that all other peoples are inferior ( and in the case of Slavs and Jews, non-human), then lofty plans like these apparently seem to be very attainable.

[BigDon]

Actually the reverse was a lot closer, with the Hiroshima bomb originally slated for Berlin.

[Celestial Mechanic]

One of the reasons the Germans never came close to building a bomb was that they never came close to controlling a critical reaction in a nuclear reactor. The reason they never achieved this was that they moderated their experimental nuclear reactor with heavy water instead of graphite. The reason they rejected graphite was that when Walther Bothe was measuring the neutron absorption coefficient he used graphite that was contaminated with boron. (Technical grade instead of reagent grade.)

For want of a good measurement the wrong moderator was chosen.

For want of a good moderator a critical reaction was not achieved and measured.

For want of good measurements of reaction parameters the atomic bomb was not built.

For want of an atomic bomb Germany lost World War II. (Of course that's not the only reason, I know, I know.)

BTW, Walther Bothe was no dummy; he shared a Nobel Prize with Max Born after the war.

[captain swoop]

Hitler had a very low opinion of the USA it was a 'Mongrel Nation'. He considered US troops to be the 'Italians' of the Western allies. Part of the reason for the attack in the Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge) as it is now known was to drive apart the allies, he though the US troops would collapse and a rift would develope between Britain and the USA. Even as late as 1944 he thought he could turn Britain against America.

[PraedSt]

One of the reasons the Germans never came close to building a bomb....

Good analysis. I think 'for want of a nail' tends to happen more often than most people believe. A small mistake sets off a chain of events that leads to disaster months or years later.

I blame Walmart.

[ngc3314]

They built a heavy water factory somwhere in Scandanavia.

This seems a good place to recognize with honor the Norwegian commando teams who sat out part of the winter eating practically nothing, biding their time to carry out multiple spectacular acts of sabotage against the Telemark heavy-water plant and its products...

[slang]

They built a heavy water factory somwhere in Scandanavia. They would have used it against Russia, England, the US (IMO, in that order), and anywhere else there were people opposed to the Reich. However, they had enormous trouble keeping the heavy water safe from Allied attack, [...]

That would be Norway. The BBC documentary "The Real Heroes of the Telemark" tells a lot about the great efforts of the allies to sabotage heavy water production. And what ngc3314 said.

[Sam5]

So how close did Germany get to marrying nuclear weapons to rockets or planes capable of hitting the US?

We were lucky to get some of the best atomic scientists as refugees from Germany and Europe in the 1930s:

See this article from 1939:

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/...ting-the-atom/

And see this quote in the third column on page 2 of the article:

But our imaginations are immediately seized by the terrific amount of energy liberated when a single uranium nucleus explodes. The two fragments fly apart activated by some 200,000,000 electron volts — a total far greater than that associated with any other atomic phenomenon except cosmic rays.

The tabloids love to write of blowing up the world with a gram of matter, and it’s not such a sensational idea as one might think. Even a tiny mass has an enormous potential of energy if it could but be freed. It is just such a conversion of mass into energy that speeds the fission fragments on their way.”

Here’s another atomic article from 1932. It contains a couple of mentions of German scientists and their experiments:

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/...ower-and-gold/

[Sam5]

It was a British scientist who first wrote about the possibility of an “atomic bomb”, as early as 1909, and this prompted H.G. Wells to write “The World Set Free”, which was about unlimited atomic energy and an atomic World War, which, ironically, Germany started. In the book Germany dropped “atomic bombs” on London and Paris, completely destroying those cities. Much of the damage in Well’s book was due to continuous radiation poisoning over a long period of time. The book was published, amazingly, in 1914, and the bombs were dropped by hand from bi-planes!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Set_Free

http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/worldsetfree/

Quote from the book, after the war:

'No one goes into Paris,' said Barnet.

'But, Monsieur, that is very unenterprising,' the man by the wayside submitted.

'The danger is too great. The radiations eat into people's skins.'

The eyebrows protested. 'But is nothing to be done?'

'Nothing can be done.'

'But, Monsieur, it is extraordinarily inconvenient, this living in exile and waiting. My wife and my little boy suffer extremely. There is a lack of amenity. And the season advances. I say nothing of the expense and difficulty in obtaining provisions. . . . When does Monsieur think that something will be done to render Paris--possible?'

Barnet considered his interlocutor.

'I'm told,' said Barnet, 'that Paris is not likely to be possible again for several generations.'

'Oh! but this is preposterous! Consider, Monsieur! What are people like ourselves to do in the meanwhile? I am a costumier. All my connections and interests, above all my style, demand Paris. . . .'

Barnet considered the sky, from which a light rain was beginning to fall, the wide fields about them from which the harvest had been taken, the trimmed poplars by the wayside.

'Naturally,' he agreed, 'you want to go to Paris. But Paris is over.'

'Over!'

'Finished.'

That was published in 1914.

[TrAI]

Hmmm... The heavy water plant was built before the war by Norsk Hydro, not by the germans, if I recall correctly.

As for the sinking of the M/F hydro, well, they probably felt justified in doing it, and that it was an important thing to do, but 18 people died in that attack, most of them probably innocent civillians. And.. It would probably have had little effect on the war even if the barrels had made it to Germany.

To bad that the deaths of the innocent civillians murdered during conflicts are not as temporary as some of the goals that justified them in the eyes of the people involved in bringing it about.

[mugaliens]

BTW, Walther Bothe was no dummy; he shared a Nobel Prize with Max Born after the war.

ergo, sabotage - is that what you're intimating, CM?

By the way, half the scientist defections to the US were arranged from within the German ranks. They wanted out.

[Celestial Mechanic]

Ergo, sabotage -- is that what you're intimating, CM? [Snip!]

No, I don't believe it was sabotage. I think it was an honest mistake, no one realized just how heavily contaminated technical grade graphite was with boron.

[Trebuchet]

Hmmm... The heavy water plant was built before the war by Norsk Hydro, not by the germans, if I recall correctly.

As for the sinking of the M/F hydro, well, they probably felt justified in doing it, and that it was an important thing to do, but 18 people died in that attack, most of them probably innocent civillians. And.. It would probably have had little effect on the war even if the barrels had made it to Germany.

To bad that the deaths of the innocent civillians murdered during conflicts are not as temporary as some of the goals that justified them in the eyes of the people involved in bringing it about.

The very interesting PBS Nova episode about this incident was repeated a couple of weeks ago. Although the allies had no way of knowing it, the Germans had apparently already abandoned the bomb project, and there wasn't really that much heavy water available anyhow. The barrel that was recovered was of a very low concentration. The barrels that had higher concentrations were only partly full, floated, and were recovered by the Germans anyhow.

[BigDon]

To bad that the deaths of the innocent civillians murdered during conflicts are not as temporary as some of the goals that justified them in the eyes of the people involved in bringing it about.

Sorry ma'am, murder is something else, even during wartime.

[Fledermaus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegi...water_sabotage


This site shows that Germany's commitment to the production of nuclear weapons followed the use of heavy water, which was halted by the raids against the production plants in Norway.

[mike alexander]

You might also find a copy of 'Alsos' by Samuel Goudsmit, about the team sent in with Allied troops to learn about/capture participants in the German program. Originally published in 1947, newer reprints available.

[SpecialEd]

I'll start by apologising-can't remember the title of the book I saw this in. Maybe someone else saw it & can help?
It was a memoir from some ground-pounder in the European Theater, & he told about interogating a German prisoner late in the war, after the Rhine crossing. In the process of the interogation it came out that the American was from a specific area of New Jersey. And the German exclaimed "Oh yes! I know that place. It was going to be my district." And proceeded to give details about the area- not just major cities & rivers but right down to the names of the little creeks & such. He apparently had gone to a school where they were training the future administrators of their captured territory- the USA. I mention it because more than anything else it gave me a look at the mindset the Nazis were operating with. With our hindsight it sounds silly, but they really thought they were going to take us down.

[timb]

On another forum, they were discussing what would have happened if Germany had won WWII, mainly because of the 90th Anniversary of the Armistice.

It was pointed out that towards the end of the war, Germany was close to developing rockets that could have hit the US.

No they weren't.

They also speculated if Hitler had the atomic bomb as well, then with these rockets and improved aircraft, Germany could have defeated the US, which at that time was not as technologically advanced as Europe.

My understanding of history is that Germany never developed the atomic bomb as they did not think they would need it, plus Adolf Hitler was not a fan of this branch of physics due to anti-semitic dogma.

So how close did Germany get to marrying nuclear weapons to rockets or planes capable of hitting the US?

Not remotely close.

[BigDon]

No they weren't.

Those might be the same people who got their history of world war II by playing Axis and Allies. If you spent enough production credits and roll the right numbers, you can!

Jeez Tim! Where did you learn your history? School or something?

[timb]

Big Don, mostly from reading books. They don't teach history in school in Australia.

AFAIK the closest the Germans came to a rocket that could hit the US was an idea for launching rockets from subs¹. It never got off the drawing board. Note that all the first generation nuclear weapons were way too heavy for the rockets of that generation to carry anyway.

A more plausible threat was that they could have used nerve gas (which they were the first to produce) against civilian populations that were within their reach, such as the UK. They also had a lead in jet aircraft, which they squandered. Hitler wasn't very interested in new technologies until it became obvious Germany was losing badly, and he was obsessed with dive bombers. They had some good scientists on their nuclear effort but it was resourced like a minor experimental program.

1. Actually from a submersible platform that a sub could tow.

[BigDon]

Big Don, mostly from reading books. They don't teach history in school in Australia.

Excuse me Tim, I seem to be having difficulties with reading all of a sudden. Is this correct or a cynical observation?