Hitler had the Atom Bomb

[cyberia]

You might also want to consider this.

Many of the physicists Hitler needed to get such a project off the ground that early, or at all for the matter, the nazis ran out of the country in the 1930s.

[TRDG]

Paul, it was just a "for instance" here that I talked about, I do think one might have an impact, but what? Spurr the Allies on to get Hiltler "put down" faster if possible, the U.S. gets into the war the day after he uses it.....?

Cheers, many "options" here for us to ponder and post on, again thank god this is just a what if one!!!!!!!!!!

Tom

[Kiwiguy]

Jim your comments are almost hitting the nail on the head.

Germany had large reserves of uranium at what is now Jac-y-mov in Western Czechoslovakia (then called Jochimsthal)

Germans also knew how to enrich Uranium with the Harteck process invented by Dr Erich Bagge at Keil Unavernin in 1942.

The British however planted a Jewish German spy Paul Rosebaud in the Nazi scientific establishment and also milked Lise Meitner for information under what was known as Project Epsilon run from Stockholm.

The real reason behind Hamburg's massive bombing raids in July 1943 was destruction of the first Nazi nuclear enrichment plant at Hamburg.

The plant was shifted to Freiburg with the codename Volmer's Furniture Factory where British spies again called in air raids.

Finally with the code name Angora Farm it was shifted to Kandern in Austria.

Had Nazi Germany succeeded it would have been wasted against targets in the West. the only way one A-bomb would have made any impression was to bomb Moscow.

In October 1944 however, SS Lt Gen Dr Hans Kammler allowed Gen Walther Dornberger and Werner von Braun to fly to Lisbon for secret surrender talks with OSS officials. The price of that secret surrender was for Kammler to apply the brakes to nuclear weapons development in Germany.

Germany was taken of the Manhatten Project's list of priority bombing targets in october 1944 after this meeting.

Reference to post war Camp 11 transcripts of bugged conversations.

[Kiwiguy]

Cyberia Germany had two quite brilliant nuclear scientists whom most people have never heard of. These were Paul Harteck and Kurt Deibner. Harteck knew precisely how to enrich uranium to bomb grade whilst Diebner knew exactly how to build an atomic weapon.

Unlike Heisenberg who was a clown, Deibner knew quite accurately the fission path length of uranium and what was needed to create a critical mass.

To say germany lacked nuclear physicists with the talent to build a bomb ignores the likes of Houtermanns, Bagge and Schintlemeister.

[TRDG]

What happened to them by the end of the war, did they go to Russia or maybe killed somewhere?

Cheers, thanks.

Tom

[PanzerBob]

In the realm of alternate history, suspending real history is a must. Mentioning all the things that would have prevented it is actually a good place to start. So in my warped mind here's just one scenario online.

Hitler takes power, but the Nazis do not have a racial agenda. There are enough political and economic issues to spur them into the forefront.

Hitler has a better understanding of what's required to pull off his dreams of world domination. As a result, technical and military innovation is given priority. This allows many developments including Long-range aviation, rockets and jets. The brain drain doesn't happen.

This Hitler listens to the Wehrmacht and doesn't go to war until they believe they are ready.

Of course many other details can be postulated from the above, and may allow earlier suggestions to occur.

Most of this of course assumes a more rational Hitler in this timeline. Thankfully I'll add it wasn't the case.

Let the can o worms be opened!!! Bob out

[tallyhooldboy]

Hi all,

I don’t think any of us really know how close Germany was to having “The A Bomb. “ They certainly had 2 effective means of delivery, V1 & 2. The atom bomb in the hands of the German's could have turned the course of the war in Hitler's favour, and history might have taken a completely different path; Germany could have become the master of the world.

However, this new weapon was not completed before the Nazis were defeated, and we owe great thanks to those men who risked their lives to carry out sabotage missions who were more daring and audacious than anything ever undertaken before. One major raid that comes to mind was Operation Freshman.

At the beginning of 1942 the allied intelligence services received reports indicating that the German's had ordered a three-fold increase in the production of heavy water. Heavy water was an important ingredient in the production of the atom bomb, and the German's main production site was the Norsk Hydro Plant, at Vemork, Rjukan in Norway.

From what I understand it became extremely important for the Allies to destroy the Germans heavy water production capacity thus, Operation Freshman or the raid on Telemark, 19/20 November 1942 took place. I personally believe this one raid went a long way toward slowing down, if not completely halting altogether, Germany’s hope of a 1944 A bomb.

PS. most of you would know of this raid from the 1965 movie “The Heroes of Telemark” with Kirk Douglas.

[Kiwiguy]

I have a PDF article somewhere on their fates. A few actually willingly went over to the Russians and were offered genuinely favourable terms to help Stalin's nuclear weapons project. Houtermanns from memory was one.

He had persuaded Hitler to attempt to build a Plutonium A-bomb which led to an awful; lot of wasted effort and resources. To get Plutonium one must first build a working (slow neutron) heavy water reactor, run it for two years and then cool the spent fuel for 3 years, then spend a few months chemically seperating Plutonium from Uranium 238 and other metals, before making a bomb.

My hunch is that Houtermanns who had spent time in Russia pre-war was probably a spy for Stalin and latched on to the elderly Prof Schintlemeister to persuade Hitler to waste resources to slow down Germany's nuclear ambitions. At the end of the war he voluntarily went across to the Soviets.

The attack on Norway's Voermark heavy water plant sabotaged the Plutonium A-bomb. Germany had other sources of Heavy water from another plant known as the Beck Plant, but Hiesenberg failed miserably in sustaining a nuclear reaction.

Hitler issued a nero decree in March 1945 for all 450 Penemunde engineers and the Heereswaffenamt (HWA) scientists under Kurt Diebner to be executed to prevent their capture by the Soviets.

Kammler organised a special train to get the whole Penemunde team to Bavaria and risked arrest by the Gestapo to do this. Kammler also organised for the HWA team to be secretly evacuated from Liepzig and taken to Bavaria. It is no co-incidence that US forces abandoned their drive north to Berlin and instead turned south to occupy southern Germany which was designated for French control. ALSOS drove clear across Germany in a bunch of jeeps to take the surrender of these scientists at Garmisch Partikirchen. Kammler planned to save these scientists for ALSOS.

Kammler disappeared near Prague about 28 April 1945, but Hitler ordered his arrest and execution on 27 April 45. There is said to have been a Ju-290 evacuation of SS men from Prague to Barcelona on the night of 27 April.

Diebner and Harteck were taken into custody and interrogated by the British at Farm Hall where their conversations were evesdroped with electronic listening devices.

It became apparent from Diebner's remarks to others that he guessed they were being bugged and warned other scientists to divulge nothing. That is why I call Heisenberg a clown because he hammed it up and quite obviously exploited the listening devices to disinform those listening to him that he knew nothing and to spread the false idea that he was secretly anti Nazi.

The British concluded that Heisenberg was harmless and allowed him to return to nuclear physics. Deibner and Harteck however were seen as too dangerous and were banned from working in any of the nuclear sciences post war.

He took menial work and ended up dying in the 70s without divulging his memoirs. I am not sure of Harteck's fate, however South Africa adopted the Harteck process post war for it's own nuclear project so my guess is he helped them.

Those who co-operated were taken in 1945 to an island in Boston harbour as part of Operation Overcast to assist USA to defeat the Japanese. There was undoubtedly knowledge amongst Nazi scientists about Nishina's nuclear project in North Korea and I would say there was an extensive debrief at Boston.

All this is just from memory and some stage I shall pull out the PDF I referred to. Have to find it first.

PS General Peron also aquired the Nazi Bell project which harnessed the ionising of mercury compounds in a spinning bell shaped centrifuge to produce a kind of mini neutron bomb device. The ionising radiation killed people within a quarter mile radius and is known to have disrupted the engines of overflying B-17s on one occasion. Peron believed this device would give him a nuclear weapon, but in fact it was overenthusiastic salesmanship by exiled Nazis.

[Roddoss72]

Salutations All

So just suppose that the Germans did infact have the bomb or more, would Hitler having the bomb way before the allies say in late 1944 or early 1945 have a dramatic change in the war.

I was interested in Tallyhooldboy's delivery system in the V1 and V2, the V1 could not be used as the critical mass needed to explode the atomic warhead would be way to heavy, the level of technology to reduce this was not around. Then we have the V2 this is a possiblity but to launch the heavier warhead would need more volitile fuel mixtures to gain takeoff.

I have read that 3 Heinkel He-177 had been modified to deliver the atomics and also the three Messerscmitt Me-264 Prototypes would also be used, so in that Germany had 6 aircraft already allocated for the task.

Regards

Roddoss72

[Kiwiguy]

Just an additional comment.

Germany had at least two nuclear weapons projects.

One under Werner Heisenberg for Kaiser Gesselschaft (KWA) ultimately leading to Houtermann's Plutonium A-bomb. The attack on Norway's heavy water frustrated but did not stop that project. This project even with enough heavy water would not have produced a Plutonium weapon before 1951 at the earliest.

The other Heereswaffenamt project (HWA) under Kurt Diebner could easily have produced a Uranium A-bomb by 1945 but was sabotaged by British spies and bombing of the Uranium enrichment plants. Hateck had a huge sum of money granted in early 1944 to build massive banks of centrifuges.

With the bomb plot against Hitler on 20 July 1944, the SS took over both the V-2 project and the Heereswaffenamt project, but Himmler and Kammler were trying to use it from October 1944 to negotiate a secret surrender to USA.

It was this which saved the west from Hitler's A-bomb. It was questionable whether Nazi germany had a viable aircraft to deliver the weapon over London or New York or London by late 44.

There was also a nuclear project by the Kreigsmarine to produce a nuclear powered type XX1 U-boat at Stettin plus the Lafferentz V-2 capsules for U-boats to tow a V-2 accross the Atlantic to fire a V-2 at New York.

Quite chillingly the test protype capsule was never accounted for after the war and Enigma intercepts suggest U-873 did in fact tow it across the Atlantic before VE day.