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Went to the link to read the story, a pop-up appeared urging me to subscribe, and when I made it go away the story went away too. Perhaps it was just bait to gain subscribers.
Anyone who is the least bit familiar with what it took to build the first atomic bombs with state of the art 1940's technology would know that Germany simply lacked the industrial capacity and resources to do it.
Not necessarily nuclear technology, but what if Hitler hadn't bitten off more than he could have chewed, and what if Japan and America had not gotten into it and America been drawn into WWII? So many things could have gone differently, we just won't know, but there are plenty of alternative history books where one can read about it.
The Nazis were extracting the "heavy water" in Norway, had sufficient materials but the facilities were destroyed by resistance fighters, crippling their research. We're they close? Yes. If the Nazis hasn't started a second front in Russia, which sapped their resources, possibly could have succeeded.
I'm not sure they were close, or that it would have made a difference. The Americans were working on their own program, of course, and would have been in a position to retaliate much more frequently. Many of the Jews working for the Americans were doing so under the impression that it would only be used against the Germans.
I think more significant than this was the decision not to develop long-range bombing capabilities which would have completely changed the dynamic of the war. It would be interesting to know how long Britain could have endured 500 to 1000 "heavies" almost every day/night.
How close were they? And of course how would the world have changed if they had developed nukes first ..... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/secret-nazi-nuclear-bunker-discovered-in-austria-9948647.html
Not even remotely close, in part because of various problems - the critical loss of many psersecuted physicists to the West, the Allied destruction of the German source of heavy water in Norway - but also because Germany never really tried. Germany continued laboratory work on a bomb, but that work never went industrial. The Manhatttan Project was massive - $30 billion in 2014 dollars was poured into a project run by the largest economy on the planet, with the not-insignificant assistance of the UK and Canada. For much of its duration over 100,000 personnel participated. Work occurred at over two dozen sites. And these sites were in North America, safe from the rain of destruction that was being poured down on Germany - even if they'd really tried in earnest, it's a highly dubious proposition that they could have made significant progress amidst intensive Allied targetting. And any program that expansive would have been discovered by Allied intelligence.
Finally, Germay lacked a heavy bomber big enough to carry the first nuclear devices. And, no, the V-2 could not have done so - Little Boy and Fat Man reach weighed about 5 tons, over 4x the payload of the V-2.
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Originally Posted by Restrain
The Nazis were extracting the "heavy water" in Norway, had sufficient materials but the facilities were destroyed by resistance fighters, crippling their research. We're they close? Yes. If the Nazis hasn't started a second front in Russia, which sapped their resources, possibly could have succeeded.
Again, no, they were not close.
And as for the Eastern Front, the entire raison d'etre of the Third Reich was lebensraum - seizing more land for Germany in the East. The Western Front was merely a means to that end, securing their flank so they could proceed East. And aside from that, had Hitler not launched Barbarossa in 1941, Stalin almost certainly would have attacked within a year or two. This was in large part why Germany attacked when it did - it was never going to have a better time to do so, and if it did not it would cede the initiative to the Bolsheviks, who would open a front anyway.
So not only does the idea of Nazi Germany not going to war in the East make no sense given what Naziism was, even as a hypothetical that wouldn't have kept Germany from war against Soviet Russia.
Anyone who is the least bit familiar with what it took to build the first atomic bombs with state of the art 1940's technology would know that Germany simply lacked the industrial capacity and resources to do it.
And since many of the best German nuclear physicists were Jews, Germany lost most of it's best when they fled Germany and moved to the U.S. The Germans had some of the best theorists, and the Americans had the best engineers.
When they all left, German nuclear theoretics stopped. The real problem was making enough enriched uranium to make enough plutonium a bomb. Enrichment was mostly still theoretical, and separating plutonium was incredibly difficult. The Germans knew most of the theories pertaining to plutonium, but the never got to first base in producing it. The U.S. had raw uranium ore, and the conversion rate from ore to metal was 500:1.
The 1 part that was extracted to metal is 99% U-238, an isotope nearly useless in making a weapon. U-235 the isotope that worked, was 1%. Separating 238 and 235 required the creation of a gas centrifuge for separation, and converting U-235 to plutonium, an isotope that does not exist in nature, required huge numbers of gas centrifuges. Nuclear capable gas centrifuges are still one of the most restricted machinery in the world and are incredibly expensive.
And all of this was brand new. Simply creating the mechanics to do it all had to be developed from theory into industrial production to get the job done. It cost $2 billion dollars in 1940 dollars.
The 2 nuclear bombs we dropped used up all the nuclear material available in the world to make them. 1/3 of the world's supply was used up in the single test that was done first.
The Nazis were extracting the "heavy water" in Norway, ...
You can't make a nuclear bomb with heavy water. The hard part is the diffusion of U-235 from U-238. It's enormously difficult and the gas diffusion method used originally by the USA and later the Soviet Union with stolen plans required the building of cities, vast numbers of workers and huge amounts of electrical power. The USA built the TVA project mainly to supply power to Oakridge to do it.
All that and several years to produce a few pounds of U-235.
These conspiracy theories about the Nazi nuclear bomb completely ignore the practicalities such of this.
Based on what I've read, it would have been extremely tough for Nazi Germany to build even just one nuclear bomb, let alone the several more it would have needed to actually end the war.
Even the United States, with all its resources, would have been in a tough spot if Japan hadn't surrendered after the second atomic bomb was dropped.
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