Talk:German nuclear program during World War II

How far was Nazi Germany from creating "the Bomb"?
If events were held reasonably constant from say 41, when would the first nuclear weapon be expected... 46? -G


 * This is something I wondered myself, and I couldn't even come close to answering it from reading the current iteration of this article. All I could really glean was that the Army washed its hands of nuclear power in 1942 and left it to the civillians... but even that doesn't tell me how much of the preceeding and subsequent work was weapon-related. I'm requesting that someone more knowledgable than myself expand a bit on the weaponry aspect of Nazi atomic research.
 * I've made an offer on the Reward Board.  bahamut0013 ♠  ♣   19:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree that the article completely fails to address this point. From what I've read (albeit a few years ago, though I might be able to dig out my old sources), the German atomic program was never remotely near building a bomb and always viewed it as about five years off.  The main problem that the Germans faced (other than the emigration/elimination of many of Germany's brightest physicists) was that until about 1943, Germany always believed it was several months away from winning the war decisively.  In that context, an atomic weapon that would take five years to build was a poor investment and they instead funnelled resources into things like the V2 rockets.  Chronically understaffed and underfunded, the program did some important work during the war, but in 1945 was at maybe the same stage the US was in 1941 or 1942.


 * Also of note (and definitely worth mentioning in the article - I will try to locate the sources later if I remember) is that the German scientists were absolutely shocked to learn about the bombing of Hiroshima. The US had captured most of the important atomic scientists and was holding them in a (bugged) farmhouse in Britain, so all of the conversations about Hiroshima and Nagasaki were recorded (although I believe they were only released about ten years ago).  Heisenberg et al had thought that the US was *behind* the Germans, who had not yet worked out most of the important details.  --Cphoffman (talk) 17:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This New York Times book review of The First War of Physics by Jim Baggott mentions the shock felt by the bugged prisoners after hearing of the Hiroshima bombing. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Plutonium step may be skipped
Article (... for creating plutonium, needed for nuclear weapons) Removed by Fastfission "However plutonium step was not necessary, as it is only a cost saving measure, since an nuclear weapon can be made from highly enrichted uranium, as in U.S. "Little Boy". Why was this reverted, is this false, A-Bomb, can't be made from uranium only ? AlV 11:31, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * While it is true that atomic weapons can be made from enriched uranium, in the context of where it was put in article, it was misleading. Putting it after the ALSOS assessment makes it sound like you are trying to say that the line implies their assessment was not correct, but it is unrelated to that particular assessment. The Germans did not have any infrastructure for enriching uranium, but they did have the very beginnings of an infrastructure to develop plutonium. Additionally, the line implies that plutonium is just a "cost saving measure" which is not true. In the context of the German program, the development of plutonium was a "necessary step". --Fastfission 11:54, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

The Manhattan project only made one uranium bomb (Little Boy) and would not have enough uranium for a second bomb until December 1945 (see Nichol), so it was a lengthly as well as an expensive way of making a bomb. Hugo999 (talk) 04:30, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Can Anyone?
Can anyone confirm the veracity of these links?: Luft-46 Article on German A-bomb Luft-46 Article on German Nuclear Reactor I have never heard any mention of what is on these pages, and was a little surprised to read about it. I know that there are many loony-bin websites when it comes to the Nazis and WWII, but Luft-46 is in general a reputable source. If the information does indeed hold some merit, it would certainly be candidate for inclusion in the article. mhunter 01:28, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * In short: looks like a lot of nonsense mixed in with a poor understanding of a few secondhand facts. The Germans did have a reactor, a "Uranium Machine" even, and at least one of the groups produced a patent for a bomb design. However the author of that article seems to reach far beyond any facts, has a poor set of sources (the fact that he uses a Reader's Digest article as one of his primary insights is troubling enough), and a poor sense of the science involved. However to his credit he makes it pretty clear that he is just making things up for the most part. I would be loathe to use it as a source when there are so many reliable ones out there (i.e. the Walker book). --Fastfission 01:34, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Page name
I thought for awhile before naming this page. I wanted it to be "nuclear energy project" primarily because there is some debate over the purpose of the project (i.e. I didn't want it to be "atomic bomb project" any more than "nuclear reactor project"). As for the pick between "German" and "Nazi".. I just picked the geographical one (in part because many of those on it were not members of the Party) in an attempt to avoid too much sensationalism. If anyone has any objections or arguments for something else (there is no easy name for it that I know of, unlike Manhattan Project or Force de frappe), I'm game for discussing it. --Fastfission 01:34, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC) 99.132.129.58 (talk) 18:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * But it implies that the goal of the project wasn't a bomb, or wasn't exclusively a bomb - they weren't trying to build power plants...
 * The page name is confusing; the modern Federal Republic of Germany does utilize nuclear power for electricity production and other ends. Whether "Nazi" or not, the name should clarify that the article is about the Third Reich efforts. 84.2.221.228 (talk) 20:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The title is so mealy-mouthed as to be misleading and the article has nothing to do with Nuclear power in Germany - it would be bang-on to call it something like "Hitler's A-bomb" or "Nazi nuclear weapons research" instead. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree that the title should be changed. As it stands, it could be talking about the post-war nuclear power program, current nuclear projects, etc.  It should be clarified that this is specifically the Nazi atomic program (in fact, "Nazi atomic program" might work as a name), but I have not done enough cross-referencing of contemporaneous articles to see how similar subjects are handled (i.e., is there a preference for the adjective "Nazi" rather than "German" when discussing the Third Reich?). --Cphoffman (talk) 18:08, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * How about German nuclear weapon program (as per the page Japanese nuclear weapon program)? QuipQuotch (talk) 12:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Removed image
I removed the putative "German atomic bomb" image (Image:Bomgermnzi454.jpg) from the article for three reasons: --Fastfission 03:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) I don't think it is likely "free" and I'm not sure it counts as fair use at all (no criteria was given).
 * 2) I don't think it adds anything to the article. The article does not discuss it.
 * 3) The research is a bit too new to be realiable. I have it on pretty good authority that it is going to be discovered to be historically worthless eventually anyway.

Needs work!
This article tells NOTHING about the actual project. 80% of the text is on why it failed and the discussion on the extent of their success. Nothing about what they did, where the project was based, that sort of thing. I came here looking for where the project was based, and couldn't find a THING about the most basic things people would want to know about this. -- Миборовский U 00:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The go to source for the most recent---and by far the most revealing---archival research on the WWII German nuclear weapons program is Forgotten Creators, an online book first released in 2019. The author is Dr. Todd Rider, a longtime senior staff scientist at MIT who also worked on fusion energy for the US Navy.  Forgotten Creators contains many hundreds of original, primary source documents (many of them OSS and British intelligence reports) that have never before been seen in any public source since the end of the conflict. Williamjpellas (talk) 21:24, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Effectiveness and implications
I think the paragraph with this heading has several instances of incorrect information.

1) The Manhattan project was not under Oppenheimer, but Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves. Openheimer was important because he was head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the place were the final phase of the project was completed (and the first plutonium bomb tested).

2) Hahn and Strassman discovered barium products in Uranium bombarded by neutrons, but did not realize fully the implications, until the work of Meitner and Frisch. Hahn received a well deserved Nobel Prize for this. Meitner was nominated, but the Nobel Comitee did not give her a prize (in a decision that is seen as controversial by some).

3)The german effort under Heissenberg, did not have a critical (i.e. fully functional) reactor (as Fermi did in 1942 in Chicago) when they were captured in 1945 by the Alsos mission.

I would like to correct this, but would like feedback from other contributors before doing it.

Luzu 15:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I have now made the proposed changes Luzu 14:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Walker and Karlsch
Can you give the reference to Walker's article in Physics Today? I only found a Walker-Karlsh article in Physics World. Jclerman 13:26, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm. Maybe it was Physics World, and not Physics Today. --Fastfission 14:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Joseph Farrell
His book is now available online.


 * Joseph P. Farrell. Reich of the Black Sun : Nazi Secret Weapons and The Cold War Allied Legend

Octopus-Hands 00:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's the work of a raving conspiracy nut—Nazis, atomic bombs, Majestic-12, aliens, the whole bit. I don't think it has any value for this topic and certainly doesn't count as a reliable source. Why do you think it should be included in this article amongst respectable, academic sources? --Fastfission 01:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello FF, wiki civility applies to third-parties as well as wiki-editors, no personal attacks, please be cordial. If someone believes the Bible is full of untruths should a link to it be deleted?  The author has obviously put a lot of time and effort into his book including the use of citations qualifying it as a reliable source.  The book will stand or fall on its own merits, we should let each reader decide.  In addition, I note that you have deleted a portion of my post to the discussion page without consulting me first, in future please do not do that. My best regards.  Octopus-Hands 22:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It depends on what the page is for. In a page about the Big Bang Theory, for example, a link to the Bible explaining its theory about God making the Earth will clearly be inappropriate. However, the Bible may be put in for example the page for Creationism or the Evolution-Creationism controversy page. Furthermore, citations by themselves do not make a book reliable. A citation is but a line of text. You can make a citation that cites a non-existent source. From what I can skim, Farrell cites extensively from similarly fringe sources (such as Stevens, underground newspapers ... etc) and thus it does not increase the reliability of his statements. A better place for citing him might be in the "etheric physics" page (do we have one?) Kazuaki Shimazaki 05:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Fastfission, it has not any value? Joseph Farrell's book (Reich of the Black Sun) contains more than 110 pages just about the Nazi atomic research, focused on the atomic improvements of Nazis, most of the pages contain reliable sources, what makes you think these 10 samples are not respectable sources:


 * Page 104: The June 29, 1945 Washington post Article on the Luftwaffe Airfield in Oslo and its Forty Long Range Bombers.
 * Page 96: Tom Agoston, Blunder! How the U.S. Gave Away Nazi Supersecrets to Russia (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1985), p. 65.
 * Page 94: Q.v. Friedrich Georg, Hitlers Siegeswaffen band 1: Luftwaffe und Marine: Geheime Nuklearwaffen des Dritten Reiches und ihre Tragersysteme pp. 131, 133.
 * Page 93: The Messerschmitt 264 Long Range "Amerikabomber ", Note the Curious Resemblance to the Boeing B-29 Superfortress
 * Page 92: The Junkers 390 features
 * Page 91: The OKL 's "Feasibility Study" of an Atom Bomb Blast of Hiroshima Size over Manhattan Island in New York City
 * Page 82: Meyer and Mehner, das Geheimnis., p. 242.
 * Page 79: Luigi Romersa, private telephone interview with Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner, Hitler und die ,,Bombe", pp. 62-66, my translation from the German.
 * Page 76: The October 1944 Daily Mail Article about Berlin Telephone Service Disruption
 * Page 72: "Nazis Atom Bomb Plans," London Daily Telegraph, Saturday, August 11, 1945, cited in Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner, Hitler und die ,,Bombe", p. 37.

These random selected sources are indeed some of the main sources for Farrell's book. Based on which rule it shouldn't be mentioned in Wikipedia? Shaahin (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

So what exactly is wrong with the above sources/references, and why has there been no mention of these and other books, even in the recent research or controversy section -- which apparently doesn't exist!142.162.15.253 (talk) 05:37, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

1.129.104.110 (talk)'Raving conspiracy nut'? The official story is that the Germans killed 20,000 Jews in Poland with an atomic bomb, remember? The conspiracy nuts are those who created the 'official story', as war propaganda, when they were in charge of the WW2 military tribunals.

Regarding UFO aliens, the area 52 aliens were two men who rode a stratospheric balloon to take measurements on near space during the 1950's. Their stratospheric balloon depressurized and when they returned to earth after experiencing almost complete vaccuum and minus 50 degrees, witnesses saw their blue, goggle-eyed, corpses and assumed they were from another planet. UFOs are now a Hollywood industry so nobody wants to know the reality. It's a billion dollar business. I wrote an academic paper on this issue as part of a submission that was accepted by a government department, but rationally solving a UFO mystery is not helpful for one's prestige. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.129.104.110 (talk) 04:19, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

IEEE Magazine Letter
IEEE in the late 90's (around 1998-1999 I think) ran an article peripherally related to this topic in the IEEE magazine (or it might have been the computer science organization magazine - I had a subscription to both at the time). They received a letter (and published it in a later issue) from a German scientist who was an associate involved in this research in Nazi Germany in this time frame. He gave specific reasons and examples why and how they intentionally failed certain experiments. If this issue of the magazine could be found by someone, this might add some meat to this article. 139.169.218.182 00:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It is definitely worth including a reference to claims by Germans (esp. Heisenberg) that they intentionally failed to develop a nuclear weapon for the Nazi regime. That said, I think the vast majority of these claims have been debunked as post hoc justifications for (a) why the German scientists were so far behind the Americans and (b) why the scientists were "good" Germans and should not be punished for their part in the war effort.  Notably, at the end of the European war, the Americans captured the majority of major scientists involved in the German atomic program and held them in a (bugged) farmhouse in Britain.  When the scientists were told of the bombing at Hiroshima, they were all (including Heisenberg) amazed that the Americans could have been able to develop an atomic bomb when their own program had never approached that level of success.  If I recall correctly, many even doubted that the story was true, as they were convinced the US was using a trick to get their superior knowledge out of them.  I will look for the sources and try to include something in the article, but I don't think I have most of the books anymore, sadly.  --Cphoffman (talk) 17:55, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

1.129.104.110 (talk) 04:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC) Hitler advocated the banning of the bombing of civilians before WW2 and certainly did not want Europe destroyed.

Some references
I believe Irving was discredited as a historian during his Holocaust Denial trial. Should he be referenced from this article? -- H eptor  talk 01:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * No
 * Not one of [Irving's] books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about. ... (Professor Richard J. Evans General Conclusion)
 * --Philip Baird Shearer 12:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Further reading format
What do folks think about listing the authors last-name first? The first entery, for example, would read "Bernstein, Jeremy and Cassidy, David.  Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall. (2001)." I ask because this seems to be the format of the reference given, but more because I *think* that this is the more common format (as the books will be indexed in a library by author's last name, so their last name is listed first). I've also put the book title in italics, which is another change I propose. --Badger151 19:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC) Oops - I see that the book titles are already in italics, which of course didn't carry over in my cut-and-paste. --Badger151 19:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Missing a very important fact
A very important fact seems to be missing. I believe Walter Bothe determined whether a chain reaction using natural uranium and graphite as moderator would work or not, and he came to the conclusion that it would not. But the graphite that he was using was crucially impure and the Germans did not realise this. But because of this result, they decided to switch to heavy water as moderator which had extremely significant consequences for the German atomic bomb project. Needless to say, if they had realised the problem and obtained pure graphite (as Leo Szilard did in the US), the German program could perhaps have progressed substantially. --Ashujo 22.27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

So heavy water was, in effect, a detriment to nuclear arms production? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:346:580:1FD0:F16D:2A77:4116:6231 (talk) 15:30, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Strasbourg Hotel Moulin Rouge conference?
Wasn't there a major conference of German nuclear scientists at the Hotel Moulin Rouge in Strasbourg, France in 1942 or 1943? I don't see any reference to the event in this article. There are several references to a meeting on 6 July 1942, but not to its location or not a very complete explanation. Could sombody expand on the meeting and if -- it was the major conference with major decisions made -- that I seem to remember reading about, could it be more emphasized and included in the article. --TGC55 (talk) 16:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Why Didn't the Germans believe an A-bomb was Feasible?
Please answer the following questions.

A. Why did the German scientific community left NOT believe an atomic bomb was feasible?

B. Did any of them believe it was feasible and keep working?

C. What progress did such groups make?

D. To what degree were the Germans working on atomic power reactors instead of a bomb, to reduce their dependency on oil/petrol?

E. If the Germans did accept an atomic bomb as feasible, are there any estimates to how soon they might have developed and succesfully tested one?

F. We're not here to sell someone else's books, so why don't you mention what were the findings/results of the recent experts/authors books/research mentioned investigating rumours of some sort of atomic tests? TheBalderdasher (talk) 04:49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

A 1977 quote from Albert Speer taken from the BBC TV programme The Secret War is as follows: "'It is one of the ironies of history that the whole chances of Germany to have an atomic bomb were spoiled by the fact that Hitler considered the Einstein's theories and the atomic research 'Jewish Physik' as he called it, he was a good friend of him and a Nobel Prize winner, was Professor Lenard, he was an old Party member and he was claiming that all those things are Jewish in their influence, and the consequence that Hitler considering this Jewish was that nobody would have dared to give support to those people who were working under 'Jewish influence' as Heisenberg and Hahn, and this was one of the reasons that we haven't any cyclotron or anything else, and it was one of the reasons that the advance we had in the atomic research before war, in the beginning of the war, was absolutely neglected, and was not used.'"

1.129.104.110 (talk) 1.129.104.110 (talk) Before WW2 Hitler, who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize because of his many attempts at peace, protested against the use of fragmentary, incendiary and gas bombs against civilians, and he never deliberately targeted civilians during the war. An atomic bomb would have contravened his principles. However, we are all expected to believe that he used an atomic bomb to kill and vaporise into oblivion 20,000 Jews in a village near Auschwitz, as is an accusation by prosecutor Jackson during the Nuremberg trials. Those who do not believe this are obviously 'deniers'. The first atomic bomb was used by the Germans during WW2 if the mainstream media is to be believed - actually the MSM merely ignores this lie.

No mainstream media presentations anywhere have mentioned that the world council of Jewry declared war against Germany in 1933 and therefore the mainstream media cannot be trusted to provide a true perspective on this issue.

Note that Nobel Prize recipient Philip von Lenard accused Einstein (pronounced Einstein, not Inesteen) of plagiarizing his work. Note also that Olinto del Pretto published his theory of relativity two times in Italian scientific journals three years before Einstein published a similar article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.129.104.110 (talk) 03:13, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Nuclear fusion
Why was the fact removed that Karlsch asserts the device tested in Ohrdruf probably was a thermo-nuclear fusion (not fission!) hybrid bomb based upon the shaped charge experiments performed for the sake of fusion by the Heereswaffenamt for years prior to that (which is very different from a primitive "dirty bomb" being Karlsch's second guess), that this device, though its design was more advanced, was not comparable to a large-scale Hiroshima-style (fission!) bomb, that Albert Speer was questioned at the Nuremberg trials about the Ohrdruf blast that had killed hundreds, maybe thousands of slave workers, that Soviet secret service measured a highly increased radiation level in the area immediately following the blast, and that Soviet archives still contain the classified film that the Germans made of the Ohrdruf blast? What about the number of 1940-1942 publications and (12!) patents on plutonium bombs by Weizsäcker and Fritz Houtermans classified after their publications by the Nazi government and that didn't surface until after the war, and the various fusion and hydrogen bomb publications by German scientists such as Prof. Schumann during the 1940s and 1950s as soon as the Allied military government regulations regarding military publications were lifted, yh were those deleted as well? Also, Karlsch called the modern soil sample taking a farce afterwards because what had taken place was only a preliminary test to determine whether the area had been contaminated by Chernobyl or post-war nuclear tests, but when the official report on this preliminary test read in one single sentence, "We didn't find proof of the 1945 contamination or proof of no such contamination yet, the question remains open for now until further tests will be made", the press widely publicized this finding even though it had been clear in advance that this test couldn't find it even in theory, and all the funding was cut so the actual soil samples weren't even taken or tested. --77.185.54.249 (talk) 05:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This is indeed called controversy, which currently this page lacks, or perhaps because it is connected to Nazis, not needed? Shaahin (talk) 20:39, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Controversy
Joseph P. Farrell's story about the German atomic bomb is in fact based on some declassified documents and known sources, nothing strange. What seems strange, is the efforts to avoid any links to his book or even mentioning his research. What's wrong with that? Is this a free encyclopedia or another front? A section called controversy is absolutely needed, like many other wikipedia pages, because there is "Controversy" about the fact, that Nazis had some atomic test somewhere in the Baltic sea. Shaahin (talk) 20:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Farrell is a fantasist and UFO nut, just one of many such who've leaped aboard the "Super-Sekrit Nazi Superweapons" bandwagon. His so-called "sources" include Nick Cook of all people, which should tell anyone all they need to know about his reliability. And as for the supposed Baltic A-bomb test, check out the article Hitlers Bombe. 213.123.11.75 (talk) 13:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

"Comparison of the Manhattan Project and the Uranverein" entry is incorrect
Saying that nazi germany did not have brilliant scientists is a POV that is incorrect and is also prejudice. If those scientist had the conditions of "unconditional government support from a certain point in time" and "unlimited manpower and industrial resources" they would have built nuclear weapons if they had not already. This entry reeks of jewish ethnocentric POV(the jewish view that white gentile males are incompetent) so I am going to delete this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.204.110 (talk) 03:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow- I take your comments as racist. And painting ridiculous stereotypes. Who are you to paint pictures of "Jewish ethnocentric POV"?. The sad truth is, the Germans entered 1933 with an elite group of physicists, but their politics and conscription served to reduce the talent available, while the Americans were out avidly collecting all the help they could get. You seem to be taking this personally, as some kind of "Germans versus Americans" contest. Better to stick to the facts, and leave the names in. For better or worse, the Manhattan Project saw an incredible collection of talent focussed with unlimited resources, almost never before seen in human history. Too bad they were working on weapons of mass destruction, but you can't deny the facts, and shouldn't, in a Wiki. Billyshiverstick (talk) 16:43, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Issue 4
The objection to item four in the list ("A phenomenal concentration of brilliant scientists devoted to the project") is noted ... and the section will be carefully analyzed for bias (especially with regard to issue 4). Proofreader77 (talk) 04:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


 * This sentence below appears to be the point of issue:

As to condition four, the high concentration of quality physicists, chemists, and mathematicians in the Manhattan Project, such as Hans Bethe, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, James Franck, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Victor Weisskopf, Eugene Wigner, and John von Neumann, had no parallel in Germany.
 * Is the above the primary concern? Proofreader77 (talk) 04:42, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the text of the section

Changes have been made which captures the sense of and reflects the differences between the Manhattan Project and Germany’s nuclear energy effort in the last years of the war. I believe these changes warrant removal of the tag on the section.

Bfiene (talk) 17:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


 * (Removed POV tag) COMMENT: In addressing the complaint by 70.106.204.110, the names mentioned were removed (by the creator of the section) -- which in the context of of the historic horror of this era, is perhaps more "adjustment" than is warranted. THE WIKIPEDIA PROCESS is "complex" -- my own "equations" re how it should work are evolving. BOTTOM LINE: If responding to a complaint "with due process" has resulted in erasures of names (in this context), hmmm ... the coefficients in the equations should perhaps be adjusted.  Proofreader77 (talk) 20:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The World Jewish Council declared war against Germany in 1933. How could Germany trust its 'Elite group of physicists' who learned their physics in Germany? Does the present US trust or use any physics geniuses associated with Iran or North Korea? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.129.104.110 (talk) 03:28, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Nuclear pile at Haigerloch
The article is getting far too long with too much politics and too little physics. I propose some kind of split. We could start by creating an article on the Haigerloch nuclear pile. Or is there a better name for this? I found some interesting details here (in Finnish), including an isotope analysis of the last surviving uranium cube, but found no place to add them to. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 11:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Great Comment! The article is being derailed by Nationalism! I suggest editing rather than splitting the article. Splitting might cause an uncontrollable chain reaction. :) Billyshiverstick (talk) 16:46, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

An important topic concerns the reason why the evil Nazis did not develop and use an atomic bomb. Answer: They did not want to bomb civilians and did not want to destroy Europe. They supported European nationalism and the nationalism of other countries. They believed that respecting other nations' nationalism would lead to peace. Physics is phun but it's not all about the physics and the mathematics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.129.104.110 (talk) 03:54, 14 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Well that might just be the most room temperature IQ take I've seen on wikipedia. Guess you missed that time when they bombed Rotterdam into rubble while it was neutral, if anything they pioneered the ruinous civilian bombing of WW2. Can't believe I am even responding to this. 2600:8805:3E00:9620:C38:A49D:A06D:8BD4 (talk) 12:06, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Emigrations subsection
It seems odd to me that this subsection does not mention the word "Jew" or "Jewish" until the very end of its penultimate paragraph.

How many of those mentioned earlier in the paragraph were not Jewish? The Law that is referred to at the start of the section could be summarised in a few words, without leaving the reader to need to click through. --Dweller (talk) 11:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * If I remember correctly, not all of the physicists who emigrated were Jewish. Something that could be expanded on here is that the Nazi government basically took a hostile view of all modern physics, as they associated it with Jewish physicists (nevermind the actual origins of major German physicists like Heisenberg).  This basically encouraged *anyone* working in modern physics to leave Germany so that they could continue their research elsewhere, though a few like Heisenberg soldiered on in Germany (though he faced severe problems, as laid out in the article). --Cphoffman (talk) 18:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

~ The Nazi government were hostile against Jewish physicists because the World Council of Jewry declared war against Germany in 1933. Similarly, after WW2, the USA discovered that its Jewish scientists handed its secrets to the USSR. I sympathize with those who wish to discuss physics but someone needs to prevent histortions.

National Geographic documentary on the Horten 229 and Horten 18
In this NatGeo documentary it is alleged that Germany needed a long range bomber to deliver a nuclear bomb to the US. That Goering specifically asked the Horten Brothers to create this plane to deliver that bomb.

It is alleged in the documentary by xxx who interviewed the Horten Brothers in the 1990's that Goering was planning to have nuclear bomb ready by 1946/47 and the Horten brothers were tasked with designing a long rather bomber to deliver this to the US; this was the Horten 18. "Ho 18 intercontinental bomber, a larger version of their Ho 229 flying wing, powered by six turbojet engines and designed to race across the Atlantic at supersonic speeds." (http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/hitler-s-stealth-fighter-3942/Overview26#tab-nazi-secret-weapons-2)

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/hitler-s-stealth-fighter-3942/Overview26#tab-nazi-secret-weapons-2#ixzz0fZtftzzm

In is worth noting that by the end of the War Germany has a working stealth fighter, jet engines and rockets.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/hitler-s-stealth-fighter-3942/Overview26 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hhawk (talk • contribs) 05:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC) ~ The Germans had no intention to attack either Britain or USA except to have them stop the war. The Germans fought defensively throughout the war. If the glorious allies had halted the war the Germans would have immediately returned to Germany to produce more music. They had no wish to incorporate people of other countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.129.104.110 (talk) 03:37, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

See the Amerikabomber proposal. Hugo999 (talk) 05:40, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

New works on the German atomic programme
Why are there no references to books by authors such as

Friedrich Georg or Igor Witkowski & Marek Kosmala or Edgar Mayer & Thomas Mehner Most of which have been published since 2004/2006

Which might shed some new light on this discussion and the extent of German Nuclear research and associated technology? Most of these books are laboriously referenced, and include archive photos and other.


 * WP:RS is why. QuipQuotch (talk) 13:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

And how are they not reliable public sources? Most of those authors and their books are full of references and publicly accessible archival material. Much of what they are documenting is new evidence and until now unpublished archival material. Why not include their contributions in the section on recent work?142.162.15.253 (talk) 04:54, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

German Nuclear Energy Project.
There is an error in the "Emigrations" section of this article. Robert Oppenheimer is listed as one of eight emigres from Germany who worked on the Manhattan project. However, he was born in New York. (See article in Wikipedia on Oppenheimer.) We can remove his name, but that leaves seven emigres. Was the total eight, in which case someone was left out, or were there only seven? If eight, who was the eighth?

PeterVMason (talk) 23:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

sources of Uranium
Perhaps this whole argument can be resolved by some simple basic details.

At the beginning of WW2 the German invasion of Belgium did produce a windfall of Uranium ore, orginally from their colony of the Congo. This was a low grade ore and vast quantities would have been needed to produce some good quality Uranium. I don't think that refining the captured Belgian ore would have produced much Uranium, probably not enough for a weapon.

The only other source of Uranium ore was a small mine in Bohemia and access to that only after the invasion of Russia.

The low availability of the necessary ores must have been recognised at the time and the whole field of German nuclear research remained very much a "paper" and laboratory project.

Heiseburg certainly seems to have been very surprised by the Americans using nuclear weapons on Japan but a minor mystery is just how little Heisenburg ever said about nuclear physics after WW2.AT Kunene (talk) 09:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * IIRC, at the time there were only two known uranium ore deposits worldwide.


 * The only source of available ore for Germany after 1939 was in Brux, Czechoslovakia.


 * The control of the deposits in the Belgian Congo were transferred to Britain by the Belgian Government-in-Exile in around 1940.


 * IIRC, the Germans never recognised the value of a nuclear bomb project because they were using the original calculations that showed it would need a large quantity of U.235 to make a bomb. This had been proved not to be so for the Allies with the Frisch–Peierls memorandum in 1940. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.100.255 (talk) 16:37, 19 April 2016 (UTC)


 * BTW, in 1940 uranium ore had almost no commercial value and it's importance, together with that of heavy water, was only recognised with the discovery of nuclear energy and its potential use in a weapon, and the knowledge of this was confined to a handful of scientists and government ministers on either side.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.10.189 (talk) 08:50, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Bombing New York
If my suggestion about the lack of Uranium available in WW2 Germany seems tenable, then it would make the plan to 'dirty bomb" New York highly unlikely.

As nobody else seems to have even heard of a "dirty bomb" in WW2 perhaps this is one fantasy more worthy of Indiana Jones.AT Kunene (talk) 10:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If any German A-Bomb had existed it was likely to have been used against London, not New York, for the same reason that the V-1 and V2 were. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.221.26 (talk) 09:32, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

1.129.104.110 (talk) Hitler always wanted peace with Britain. He personally ordered that the British troops at Dunkirk should be allowed to leave, otherwise peace with Britain could not be achieved. Rudolf Hess was jailed for life because Britain did not wish it known that he offered peace with Hitler's approval. Otherwise, why would any country jail someone who offered peace? It was Churchill who promoted war with Germany and sabotaged any attempts at peace. When Britain carpet-bombed seven German cities, Hitler responded by carpet-bombing London with peace pamphlets. Londoners laughed at him. The Blitz then commenced three months after Britain deliberately bombed German civilians.

Read Hitler's declaration of war against the USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.129.104.110 (talk) 03:47, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Hitler wanted peace with Britain because he knew they had the resources to fuck up his plans and they weren't going to go along with them. You're really bending over backwards to defend nazis for no reason here. 2601:401:180:E1E0:84B2:3FC1:4A4E:9BD7 (talk) 06:38, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

RE bombing of cities, the Nazis bombed Warsaw and other Polish cities (Wielun) in 1939 and Rotterdam in 1940. Initially the RAF dropped pamphlets on Germany, then bombed combat zones only. British policy changed from 15 May 1940 after the bombing of Rotterdam, see Strategic bombing during World War II. Prewar when Chamberlains’ Air Minister (Kingsley Wood) was shown RAF war plans he said of one of them "You can’t bomb the Black Forest, it’s private property!" Hugo999 (talk) 05:28, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Article Needs a Re-Write
Hi - this is an important topic, and I appreciate the "non-Western" perspective. Sadly, I find it reads in English like a shoe-box full of short clippings spliced together in a hurry. I will try and take a run at this, but it would be helpful if someone could unify the style and get these sentences coherent. Is this a translated article? Sorry if I'm laying the poetic licence on a bit thick cheers Billyshiverstick (talk) 16:32, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

U.S. Science good; German Science bad
Very dismissive POV in this article = Bias. Enrico Fermi made his nuclear pile with documented impure UO2 (unenriched) using commercial grade graphite bricks (not uncommon). Although Oxygen can absorb neutrons, so does the Carbon in Graphite and Oxygen in Water, and don't forget about Nitrogen in the Air. Fermi's experimental reactor using unenriched Uranium used only a few 1000 pounds of UO2 but yes several tons of Graphite Bricks. Depending on design, 10-25% of a reactor's power comes from other than U-235. At a few pounds a pop, the Plutonium from that one ton of Uranium yields a few bombs. Note Chernobyl: a graphite reactor can go supercritical. And it isn't that unenriched Uranium can't be made to explode; but the critical mass makes it too big for a missile or plane, but it could be delivered by submarine or disguised "merchant ship" (something we could see from today's terrorists). Note that the U238 "tamper" used in some bombs has been responsible for a large part of the energy generated. Although U-235 has a high cross-section to slow neutrons, a bomb doesn't carry a large efficient moderator: 99.9% of fissions in a bomb are by fast neutrons and U-238 fissions as well as U-235 does (its neutron cross section shrinks rapidly with increasing neutron energy) with fast neutrons. Uranium with "light metals" was the quote from the documentary/book; Deuterium and Lithium can multiply neutrons in a nuclear reaction overcoming a lower enrichment. I sincerely doubt that the Germans were so stupid as to believe that conventional explosives would initiate a nuclear reaction. Yeah, another way to overcome critical mass. A subcritical Plutonium sphere is hot to the touch because of high rate of Spontaneous fission (and subsequent chain reaction. You mention they have lots of Radium, which mixed with Deuterium or Lithium or Beryllium (Light elements) becomes a neutron emitter. A high activity neutron generator would require even unenriched Uranium to require being separated and assemled by implosion or other technique using explosives. Witnesses? Von Braun killed countless concentration camp persons in some of his "experiments" at Penemunde. Atrocities? What atrocities? Kurt Diebner set off a nuclear explosion next to a concetration camp for Russian ("inferior non-aryan people) soldiers testing radiation effects. He's not going to admit to that. No detectable (over normal background) radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nat Geo show about people skin diving at Bikini Atoll. How would you prove that we dropped a bomb in Japan; consider that witnesses to the first one didn't believe what they saw. Links: http://www.456fis.org/HITLERS_BOMB.htm http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?79919-Eyewitness-Germans-Tested-A-Bomb-In-October-1944 https://sites.google.com/site/naziabomb/ Shjacks45 (talk) 12:00, 23 June 2013 (UTC) 1.129.104.110 (talk) 03:21, 14 January 2018 (UTC) If german science is bad then the US should repudiate the use of the hundreds of thousands of German patents it stole during WW2.

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German atomic bomb exploded in Poland
According to accusations made by prosecutor Jackson during the Nuremberg military tribunals, the evil Germans exploded an atomic bomb that vaporised 20,000 people herded into a village in Poland. You must believe everything mentioned in the Nuremberg trials, everything. Those who claim that the first nuclear weapons were used in Japan are deniers and face 5 years detention in many European countries.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.129.96.218 (talk) 00:47, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Have you more information about that?.--Bolzanobozen (talk) 11:52, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

1.129.104.110 (talk) Yes. The accusation that the Germans exploded an atomic bomb in Poland was a lie, but because it was mentioned as an accusation against the Germans during the military tribunals we must accept this legal fiction. Telling lies about the WW1 and WW2 Germans should be an Olympic event. —Preceding undated comment added 03:20, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Jackson apparently put this bizarre claim to Speer during cross-examination. He said it happened 'near Auschwitz' and that the 'new weapon' left no trace of the specially built village, the 20,000 prisoners or even the explosion itself (whereas a nuclear explosion would leave a rather considerable trace). Speer said he had never heard of any such thing and considered it completely improbable. That was the end of the matter. No one seems to know what Jackson was talking about, and he himself clearly didn't know either. He may have been paying too much attention to unfounded rumours. His performance on cross at Nuremberg is not generally reckoned to have been very good. Khamba Tendal (talk) 14:36, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

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Quote from Heisenberg
Will add quote from Heisenberg after checking it, he (and Paul Hartek, Groves etc) were interviewed by Eremenc in 1967 or so:
 * Already in the summer of 1942 the "leading people" in Germany knew that they had to win the war in the next half year if they were to won it at all. Their most serious mistake is that they didn’t give in after that time. ..... At a meeting in the summer of 1942 we hesitated to ask for too much money as we would have received orders to build factories but we knew it could not been done in the next two or three years and the war would be lost by that time anyway. And "the group" thought that the Americans would take three or four years to build a bomb, but optimistically "by the summer of 1944". So apart from resources the Allies had a longer timeframe. And if the Nazis were desperate the German scientists could have been shot if they didn’t do it in a shorter time. Hugo999 (talk) 04:59, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

German A-Bomb Test?
This article (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/590825/Nazi-Nuclear-Weapons-Adolf-Hitler-Third-Reich-Test-Bomb-Drop-V2-Ludwigslust-Britain-Rocket), and others like it are suggesting that the Third Reich successfully tested a nuclear weapon. Can the claim be confirmed? If it is correct this article will need a serious rewrite! 人族 (talk) 10:21, 23 September 2017 (UTC) ```` It would be simple to prove or disprove. What are the present radioactivity levels where this atomic bomb was tested? We can assume it is mere fantasy until it can be proven by reproducible independent measurements. Where did it happen? I assume that someone with a $30 scintillation counter could check the site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.129.104.110 (talk) 04:02, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

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Renaming article
The projects listed here are not a "German nuclear weapons program." The work was primarily on reactors, as the article describes in detail.

I understand why "German nuclear program" is ambiguous about the time period, but it's more accurate. I get that a very time-specific title is probably overly lengthy ("German nuclear program during World War II").

Suggestion: why not rename it to something that is more akin to what it was actually called? E.g. a translation of Uranprojekt, Uranverein, etc. "Uranium Society" or "Uranium Club" is much more historically specific (akin to "Manhattan Project" — imagine if that was renamed to "American nuclear weapons program.") Just an idea.

Calling it a "nuclear weapons program" presupposes its goals, which as the text explains is exactly the issue of historical contention.

Looking at how other languages on Wikipedia do it, just as a survey:


 * Uranium Project/Uranprojekt: German, Spanish
 * Nazi Germany atomic project: French, Hebrew
 * German nuclear project/program: Indonesian, Russian, Norwegian
 * German military nuclear program: Italian
 * German nuclear weapons program: Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Japanese

--98.109.149.123 (talk) 04:13, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:22, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * German Experimental Pile - Haigerloch - April 1945.jpg

Thuringia and on the Baltic Sea atomic bomb testing
Nazi Germany had a small atomic dirty bomb, though couldn't mass produce it, one test carried out in Thuringia in March 3, 1945, killing several concentration camp prisoners. This should be in the article. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4348497.stm AHC300 (talk) 14:57, 22 September 2020 (UTC)


 * No serious historians believe this. No evidence in favor of this has turned up to support Karlsch's book, and plenty has turned up that further casts doubt on it. A section on the Karlsch book and its claims could definitely be part of the article but it should not just be an uncritical repeating of the claims or the sensational reporting made about them in the wake of its publication +15 years ago. --NuclearSecrets (talk) 21:42, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Deutsche Physik section
There was a not-bad section on Deutsche Physik and also on the Nazi laws that caused Jewish scientists to emigrate, but I cut it. Why? 1) The argument that Deutsche Physik was the cause of the failure of the bomb effort is a very strained one. In part because the Deutsche Physik movement was not actually that powerful in the years that it had power, which was well before fission. (And conflating Deutsche Physik with the emigrations and so on is entirely wrong, those were due to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service and had nothing specific to do with physics at all.) None of the people working on the Uranverein were Deutsche Physik people (obviously). The Nazis were never that enthusiastic about Deutsche Physik in any event, as Walker outlines very well. 2) As the article explains, the project was never trying to make nukes in the first place. So it's a wrong answer to a misconceived question. 3) It was just too long in any event, given how peripheral it was to the article itself.

I think the content that was there could easily have homes on the articles for Werner Heisenberg and Deutsche Physik, but it doesn't belong here. I am aware that very old scholarship (Bayerachen, for example) relies heavily on the Deutsche Physik movement as an explanation of the failure of their science, but modern scholarship has long since come up with better explanations for why the German program ended up with the results it did. The failure of the Uranverein was not because the Nazis were ideologically opposed to physics.

Similarly, the "emigration" bit doesn't fit right here, either. The Germans certainly didn't have the talent on hand that they might have had if the Nazis hadn't taken over the country... but the Nazis did, so that's a very huge counterfactual to imagine. "What if Jewish scientists had stuck around to make nukes for Hitler?" is what this ends up implying the question is, which is entirely ahistorical.

The article already does a pretty OK job of talking about what kinds of factors led to its failure, though more could be said on that. These particular sections though just muddy the waters. --NuclearSecrets (talk) 22:09, 19 December 2021 (UTC)