German nuclear energy project

the nuclear research effort most quoted was the civilian Kaiser Wilhem Gesellschaft (KWG) team led by the physicist Werner Heisenberg. The second millitary team was under scientific leadership of Prof Kurt Diebner. This millitary team was also associated with Dr Paul Harteck who helped to develop the gaseous uranium centrifuge invented by Dr Erich Bagge in 1942. Their team was part of the (German Army) Heerswaffenamt Forschungs-stelle E. The German navy in WW2, or Kreigsmarine had a subsidiary team looking at nuclear propulsion for U-boats under Dr Otto Haxel. Konteradmiral Karl Witzell and Konteradmiral Wilhelm Rein were millitary leaders of the Kreigsmarine nuclear project.

The intentions of Heisenberg's team are a matter of historical controversy, centering on whether or not the scientists involved were attempting to build an atomic bomb for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. The project was not a success by any measure.

The threat of a Nazi atomic bomb was one of the main reasons the Allied nuclear weapons effort—the Manhattan Project—began in the first place, as much of the original work on nuclear fission had been completed by German scientists. However, the Nazi government did not finance a full crash program to develop weapons, as they estimated it could not be completed in time for use in the war. In 1945, a U.S. investigation—Project ALSOS—determined that German scientists had only almost reached the point that Allied scientists had reached in 1942, the creation of a sustained nuclear chain reaction, a crucial step for creating a nuclear reactor (which in turn could be used for either peaceful purposes, or for creating plutonium, needed for nuclear weapons). There has been a historical debate, however, as to whether the German scientists purposefully sabotaged the project by under-representing their chances at success, or whether their estimates were based in either error or inadequacy.

After the war, a number of German scientists including Heisenberg, Otto Hahn (who had co-discovered nuclear fission), and Max von Laue (an ardent anti-Nazi), were taken captive by Allied forces and put under secret watch at Farm Hall, England, as part of Operation Epsilon. Their conversations were recorded as Allied analysts attempted to discover the extent of German knowledge about nuclear weapons. The results were inconclusive, but they allowed them to hear the results of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, which sent Hahn into a near-suicidal despair. By the next morning, Heisenberg claimed to have worked out exactly how the American atomic bomb must have worked, judging from reports of the damage and explosive size, and gave a lecture to the rest of the captive scientists on the effort.

There have been numerous other cited factors for the failure of the German program. One is that the repressive policies under Hitler encouraged many top scientists to flee Europe, including many who worked on the Allied project (Heisenberg himself was a target of party propaganda for some time during the Deutsche Physik movement). Another, put forth by ALSOS scientific head Samuel Goudsmit, was that the stifling, utilitarian political atmosphere adversely affected the quality of the science done. Another is that the German homeland was nowhere as secure from air attack as was the USA, whose own bomb project resulted in the construction of many massive centralized factories and production facilities which would have been prime targets for Allied bombing raids.

In a 2005 book, Berlin historian Rainer Karlsch published a book, Hitlers Bombe (in German), which was reported in the press as claiming to provide evidence that Nazi Germany had tested crude nuclear weapons on Rügen island and near Ohrdruf, Thuringia, killing many war prisoners under the supervision of the SS. Some press reports, however, have reported the book as only having claimed to provide evidence that the Nazis have been successful with a radiological weapon (a "dirty bomb"), not a "true" nuclear weapon powered by nuclear fission. Karlsch's primary evidence, according to his publisher's reports, are "vouchers" for the "tests" and a patent for a plutonium weapon from 1941. Karlsch cites a witness to the Ohrdruf blast and another to the scorched bodies of victims afterwards. He also claims to have radioactive samples of soil from the sites. At Nuremburg trials in 1946 Nazi munitions minister Albert Speer was questioned by prosecutors about the Ordruf blast, in an attempt to hold Speer accountable for it's victims.

Mainstream American historians have expressed skepticism towards any claims that Nazi Germany was in any way close to success at producing a true nuclear weapon, citing the copious amounts of evidence which seem to indicate the contrary. Others counter that Prof Kurt Diebner had a project which was far more advanced than that of Dr Werner Heisenberg

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