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A German nuclear weapon?
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Message 1.聽
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Friday, 24th July 2009
Were the Nazis close to acquiring to an A-bomb by May 1945?
Germany seems to have been a long way behind the Allies in its quest for an atomic bomb.
But was this due to allied bombing and sabotage, technical incompetence and theoretical weakness on the part of German physicists, or, as the German scientists said of their own work, after the war; repugnance about building a weapon of such devastating power? -
Message 2
Posted by LairigGhru (U5452625) on Friday, 24th July 2009
Isn't there speculation that Heisenberg, following his visit to Niels Bohr in Denmark during the war, returned to Germany and made an inexplicable 'error' in his calculations, such that it made it look as though an atomic bomb was not feasible after all? The implication is that Heisenberg may have deliberately thrown the Nazis off the scent and is therefore be a world hero.
It was the basis of the play 'Copenhagen' more than a decade ago. -
Message 3
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Friday, 24th July 2009
A mixture of a lot of factors...
Simple lack of resources was probably one of the biggest. The USA managed to complete the A-bomb just in time to have use for it during the war, by giving the project the highest priority and pouring lots of resources into it. But Germany did not have that kind of spare industrial capacity, and it was correctly judged by the Reich's industrial and economic managers that an A-bomb project could not be completed in time to have an effect on the outcome of the war. So they did not make a big effort.
An additional handicap was that German physicists traditionally excelled in theoretical physics, but there was relatively little experience in experimental and applied nuclear physics. Therefore some of the necessary skills and equipment to start a practical nuclear research programme were absent. They had to start small and learn slowly, while the USA already possessed much more of the essential research equipment and experience.
And the nazification of the universities not only removed a lot of Jewish scientists (a significant number of whom ended up in the USA working on the Manhattan project) but did damage to the careers of other German scientists as well, and affected the practice of science itself. The "Aryan Physics" movement rejected concepts such as quantum physics and relatively theory -- rather essential of you are trying to do nuclear physics -- as "Jewish Physics". In the end these ideas were rejected by the regime, but only after a lot of harm was done.
Those who remained in German research institutes can have had few illusions about the nature of the regime, and certainly most of them lacked motivation. Whether they actively sabotaged it is very dubious, but given the rate of progress of the project, there really was no need to. For those who were involved in nuclear research, it seems primarily to have been an opportunity to stay busy and out of harm's way. -
Message 4
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Saturday, 25th July 2009
I agree. The amount of energy required to produce the uranium core for an atomic bomb is quite staggering and America was in an ideal position for production of the weapon. In fact to produce two as the USA did would surely have been completely beyond their capability. German science was advanced but as the war progressed they were they not forced to concentrate their efforts to produce synthetic products.
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Message 5
Posted by Scarboro (U2806863) on Saturday, 25th July 2009
I agree as well. I would note that the Manhattan Project pooled the scientific minds of the British Commonwealth, the USA and the expatriate Europeans, and used the economic resources of Canada as well as the US. Much of the uranium was from Canada. It was a joint program, and vast resources were applied.
German reources were more limited. From what I recall the German projections were that they could produce a bomb, but that it would take a number of years, and that by then Germany planned to have defeated France, the UK and the USSR by conventional means. Accordingly the project was shelved at the outset, and the resources were not allocated.
Had Hitler prevailed (i.e. had the UK caved and the USSR fallen), Germany would have then had a period of consolidation of power in Europe, when they could have worked on their version of the "Manhattan project". As the world's premier rocket scientists were German, they would have been in a position to develop nuclear-tipped intercontinetal missiles before either the Russians or Americans. The fear of a German nuclear program was quite real and quite justified at the time. -
Message 6
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Saturday, 25th July 2009
Many thanks for the wise contributions, L-G, M.M., Scar. and Sprugs.
I鈥檒l try to respond to Lairig Ghru tonight and get back to later posts next week.
LG says that:
Isn't there speculation that Heisenberg, following his visit to Niels Bohr in Denmark during the war, returned to Germany and made an inexplicable 'error' in his calculations, such that it made it look as though an atomic bomb was not feasible after all? The implication is that Heisenberg may have deliberately thrown the Nazis off the scent and is therefore be a world hero.
It was the basis of the play 'Copenhagen' more than a decade ago.聽
Although Michael Frayn鈥檚 play seems to have been excellent drama (I鈥檝e not seen it, alas, I鈥檓 going by the reviews), I believe that Frayn admits that it is not based on any direct historical record, other than the simple fact that the meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg, in Copenhagen, in September 1941, seems to have been decisive for both their friendship (it spoilt it) and the development of a nuclear weapon. The ex-student (Heisenberg) came to visit his old research boss, Niels Bohr. Heisenberg now represented the victorious and up-beat young Reich to the older Bohr, who represented an occupied Denmark. Two years later Bohr was escaping from Copenhagen (via Sweden) to England in the bomb-bay of a Mosquito.
Whatever Bohr told the British and Americans about the Bohr/Heisenberg meeting in Copenhagen in the autumn of 1941, it is clear that the allies took the view that there was now a race with Germany to utilise nuclear fission for the purposes of war.
After the German surrender, when a dozen of Germany鈥檚, now captured, top nuclear researchers were secretly taped in the Farm Hall centre at Godmanchester, Cambridge, in July/August 1945, it seems that Heisenberg was by then trying to project himself as a highly moral person who could have made an A-bomb but didn鈥檛 want to. Having earlier argued (1941) that a lump of U235 鈥 only the size of a pineapple鈥 would be needed to make an atomic weapon (not a bad guess, in fact) he had back-tracked and by 1945 was saying that 100 tons would be needed and that neither side had the capacity to make this much.
This fits well with your 鈥渋nexplicable error鈥 idea. Whether that change of view about the critical mass of U-235 was the result of deliberate deception or just poor science, is not clear to me. But something that Heisenberg said to Bohr in Sept 1941, clearly impressed upon Bohr that Germany was well on the way to pursuing the feasibility of an atomic weapon.
What do we know about the timeline?
December 1938. Otto Hahn confirms nuclear fission in uranium
Bohr travels to Princeton and announces the discovery in Jan 1939.
Within 12 weeks Germany has set up its own 鈥淯ranium Club鈥 (Uranverein). Heisenberg joins in Sept 1939.
Feb 1942. The 鈥楿ranium club鈥 reports that a uranium bomb is 鈥榯echnically feasible鈥.
This implies to me ( a pure guess, based only on the timeline, above) that Heisenberg鈥檚 lack of certainty about the possibility of making a German bomb might have been less a deliberate miscalculation than a growing doubt about the capacity of Germany to get its act together within the likely time frame of a European war (as MM and others have noted).
And two factors which could have been decisive in coming to that view were:-
1) The explosion of Germany鈥檚 experimental L4 atomic pile in June 1942.
2) The Allies control of (by sabotage or capture) the bulk of the heavy water needed as a fission moderator (Given that German graphite seems not to have been pure enough to work effectively in this role). -
Message 7
Posted by LairigGhru (U5452625) on Sunday, 26th July 2009
Many thanks for that; all sorts of memory bells rang as I read through it and there is nothing I would take issue with.
I understand that Heisenberg's trip may have had the objective of winning over his old teacher so that he would, in effect, agree to work for the Reich. Bohr held out, however. This situation does not square with the "Heisenberg world hero" thesis, I must admit. -
Message 8
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Tuesday, 28th July 2009
Whats this about the L4 pile explosion? Never heard of it before - or is this the one at Haegerloch that had the cubes on chains in heavy water??
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Message 9
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Wednesday, 29th July 2009
L4 was at Leipzig. It was compleed in May 1942.
It weighed about a ton and consisted of powdered uranium metal and 140 kg of heavy water.
It showed that a German pile could at last produce more neutrons than it absorbed.
L4 exploded in June 1942.
Reactor research was moved to Haigerloch much later in July 1944.
The B VIII reactor was reassembled in Feb 1945, just before the war ended.
B8 was captured by ALSOS in April '45.
The short-lived B8 experimental project failed -
Message 10
Posted by Andrew Host (U1683626) on Wednesday, 29th July 2009
How much is known about the 'Wenceslas Mine' - did it have any role in furthering Nazi nuclear ambitions? I saw a doc that explored claims that it was the site of research into other radical forms of propulsion. I think the mine was deliberately flooded toward the end of the war. I don't know if any serious archaeology has taken place since.
Cheers
Andrew -
Message 11
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Wednesday, 29th July 2009
How much is known about the 'Wenceslas Mine' 聽
Might that also be known as the Jachymov/Joachimsthal mine?
That is the name of the mine once (1940) controlled by Berlin-based Auer Metals.
We know that the Germans struck lucky by being able to control a major source of uranium and radium production there, early in the war. The mine also produced polonium which, with berylium, is the 'initiator' for many types of atomic weapons.
At the start of WW2 the director of the Auer Radiological Laboratory was a Russian, Nikolaus Riehl, who had been a student of Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner. Riehl was able to supply Heisenberg's research group with their first ton of uranium in the Spring of 1940.
Late in the war the Russians took control of the mine, realising its strategic significance.
Wiki says that the Russians used slave labour to exploit the ore. Life expectancy for such slaves was 42 years. Whether this early death was caused by poor working conditions or excessive exposure to radioactivity is not discussed.
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