Drawing uncovered of 'Nazi Nuke' 639
ninjee writes "Historians working in Germany and the US claim to have found a 60-year-old diagram showing a Nazi nuclear bomb.
It is the only known drawing of a "nuke" made by Nazi experts and appears in a report held by a private archive.
The researchers who brought it to light say the drawing is a rough schematic and does not imply the Nazis built, or were close to building, an atomic bomb.
But a detail in the report hints some Nazi scientists may have been closer to that goal than was previously believed.
The report containing the diagram is undated, but the researchers claim the evidence points to it being produced immediately after the end of the war in Europe. It deals with the work of German nuclear scientists during the war and lacks a title page, so there is no evidence of who composed it.
One historian behind the discovery, Rainer Karlsch, caused a storm of controversy earlier this year when he claimed to have uncovered evidence the Nazis successfully tested a primitive nuclear device in the last days of WWII. A number of historians rejected the claim.
The drawing is published in an article written for Physics World magazine by Karlsch and Mark Walker, professor of history at Union College in Schenectady, US."
Forget it. (Score:5, Informative)
Second, if you look at the diagram you'll see that it is initiated a gun-type trigger, something that is impossible for Pu. This makes the diagram look like the work of someone that doesn't know what they are doing. Maybe this was deliberate (though rather obvious) misinformation by a scientist who didn't want Hitler to get the bomb.
Third, it is undated, and unnamed, from an unknown source. Not worth even reading.
In any event, Germany had no means of effectively delivering such a weapon. They lacked the heavy aircraft which the USA used. The V2 rocket only had a fraction of the payload capacity needed. The best they could have done is load it on a cargo vessel and attempt to sail into someone's harbour. Or leave it behind in a city like Paris after retreating. Neither of which would have been terribly impressive, since they would be ground-bursts and not much different from a few tons of dynamite.
Heisenberg (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Heisenberg (Score:4, Informative)
There are transcripts and tapes of British debriefings at Farm Hall [nybooks.com] after captured German scientists were informed about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and most express complete incredulity that the US scientists had succeeded.
RE: What about the Schlechter Wolf bombs? (Score:3, Informative)
Like land mines in Vietnam and Cambodia?
Re:What about the Schlechter Wolf bombs? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Forget it. (Score:1, Informative)
Why? A dirty bomb is simply conventional explosives used to scatter radioactive material.
Knowledge about the harmful effects of radiation was not nearly as ubiquitous back then as it is today.
If the dirty bomb used a standard amount of explosives ( 1000 kg) then as far as any soldiers witnessing it were concerend it would simply be an ordinary bomb. Not like they were marching across Europe carrying Geiger counters and wearing dosimeters back then.
Germans or Japans didn't know a-bomb concept? (Score:1, Informative)
Also obvious, not secret that the cargo of u234 was used in Manhattan project.
(page picked random as text only it is)
http://www.ww2pacific.com/u-234.html [ww2pacific.com]
Nuclear Armaments (Score:5, Informative)
He claims to have stopped the scientists from developing the bomb any further - not because he was opposed to the concept if such a weapon (he certainly wasn't). The reason was that it was clear it would need much more time than was available in order to complete the work.
What was considered feasible was the idea of an "energy producing Uranium motor" for use in vehicles, and research was switched in that direction around 1944.
Antony Beevor's excellent book on the fall of Berlin also makes it clear that the Germans' nuclear research facilities were well known to the Russian's and were a major influence on Stalin's tactical decisions regarding Berlin. He was determined to obtain the fruits of this research.
The book also makes clear that Heisenburg did not try to sabotage the programme but was eager to succeed. This view is also backed up by the famous meeting between Heisenburg and Nils Bohr in Copenhagen in 1941 and Hesinburg's views at that time.
Of course even though one new where Heisenburg was in 1941 you could never tell what direction he was taking at that time.
Re:does anyone else wonder (Score:2, Informative)
Excellent book
Re:Translation of labels? (Score:1, Informative)
Uranbomb type II (the text to the right of it is not readable by me)
then on the left side:
closure and time fuse
then on the right side, top to bottom:
ripcord
some word with lead in the beginning, unreadable
parachuterope (actually rope holding parachute)
peg for AE/17/44
special brace part to harden brace (stuetzversteifung)
brace (stuetzstrebe)
special brace part
pipe as sheath
bomb envelope
again special brace part
brace
special brace part
covering cloak
plutonium
brace
and i could decipher some more text
Re:Translation of labels? (Score:1, Informative)
> Uranbom type II (the text to the right of it is not readable by me)
> then on the left side:
> close and time fuse
> then on the right side, top to bottom:
> ripcord
> some word with lead in the beginning, unreadable
looks like "Bleiwolframfenster", Lead Tungsten Window. Any sense in that?
> parachuterope (actually rope holding parachute)
> something unreadable for AE/17/44
"Halteoese", ehm... eye for holding? loop for holding?
> special brace part
To me it looks like "Stuetzversteifung" - How would you translate that? Supporting brace?
> brace
> special brace part
same again...
> pipe as (unreadable)
"Rohr als Mantel", pipe as
> something unreadable
Really unreadable.
> again special brace part
> brace
> special brace part
> cloak
> plutonium
> brace
All in all it doesn't seem to contain a lot of useful information...
Re:Forget it. (Score:4, Informative)
Rainer Karlsch (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You forget (Score:1, Informative)
True.
Gas attacks of various kinds, of example, were used.
Not true. WWI had many instances of gas attacks on the battlefield. WWII did not.
Re:Forget it. (Score:3, Informative)
Even more interesting, it seems to be hooked up to a wire ("Reißleine"), probably connecting plane and bomb with each other. After the bomb travelled enough distance from the plane, the rope would trigger the parachute mechanism.
The part labels from top to bottom:
Not true (Score:3, Informative)
There is a well recorded event during the nuclear research in Germany during WWII where an accident happened and many researchers died of radiation poisoning. And while I don't know for sure, I assume that the western researchers also knew of the dangers of radiation, since even Marie Curie had suffered from radiation poisoning. Most probably no one expected there to be so much from a bomb, however.
Also you have to remember this was a very, very dirty war. It was pretty much no holds barred. Gas attacks of various kinds, of example, were used.
Poison gas was NOT used by any side in WWII. It was in WWI where poison gasses were used by both sides.
Re:Good Point and Chemical Weapons (Score:2, Informative)
From my reading, it seems like Hitler was against chemical weapons used on the battlefield. He was a soldier durring WWI and he spent quite a while recovering from a gas attack.
It is quite a contradiction that a person like him would not gas enemy troops( even as times got desperate) but was willing to do everything else that came to mind.
Re: Dirty bomb (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You forget (Score:3, Informative)
another link here [mainichi.co.jp]
Germany used gas to kill thousands of Jews.
It didn't happen nearly as often but it did happen.
Re:You underestimate German rocketry (Score:1, Informative)
Re:You forget (Score:2, Informative)
The bombs were dropped largely to intimiadte the USSR, not to force Japan to surrender:
The U.S. knew, on the basis of intercepted communications, that Japan was ready to sue for peace. The Japanese were done for and knew it. With German defeated, Russia was about to focus on them - and after the war, one U.S. study concluded that Soviet entry into the Pacific theater had more on an influence on Japan's surrender than the atomic bomb did.
But we had a shiny new death-toy to show off. And besides, it not like it was white people we were incinerating, it was those sub-human Japs.
Re:Forget it. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You forget (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wartime, the best time for scientific progress? (Score:1, Informative)
> war-time inventions.
The first Jet aircraft flight was the Heinkel 178 on August 24 and 27, 1939, which happens to be prior to the outbreak of WWII.
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/HEINHE-178.htm [fiu.edu]
RADAR was developed from the mid 30s and by the start of the war was already installed in several CHAIN HOME sites.
"""1937 May
The first air defence radio location (radar) station at Bawdsey Manor is handed over to the Royal Air Force (RAF)."""
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/milestones-of-flight/
Even airborne radar was pre-war:
"""1937 March
The first airborne radar is fitted to a Handley Page Heyford based at Martlesham Heath."""
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/milestones-of-flight/
"""1939 August
The first airborne interception (AI) radar sets are fitted into 30 Royal Air Force Bristol Blenheim aircraft."""
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/milestones-of-flight/
Re:Forget it. (Score:3, Informative)