Nazi nuclear research

[Pages:74]Nazi nuclear research:

Why didn't Hitler get the Bomb?

Jim Thomson



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Nazi nuclear research

1. The German project and a brief comparison with the Manhattan and V-weapons projects

2. German project technical achievements and failures

3. Political and organisational factors 4. Motives, ethics, competence and honesty 5. Postscript: The lunatic fringes

2 Jim Thomson

1. The German project and a

brief comparison with the

Manhattan and V-weapons

projects

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Arnold Kramish

1985 The Griffin

1947:

April 1943: "Los Dec 1942: Alamos Primer" Chicago pile lecture notes give

critical complete overview of

ALSOS ? Samuel Goudsmit

(republished 1996)

Frisch-Peierls

b1o9m4b4/p1r9o4je5c:tALSOS

1956:

Mark Walker UK Government David Cassidy Thomas Powers

1989 1992

German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939?1949

Farm Hall transcripts declassified

1992 1993

Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg

Heisenberg's War

memorandum March 1940 Einstein letter

mission to capture Brighter Than a German researchers , Thousand Suns ? equipmJuelyn/tAaungd1d9a4ta5: Robert Jungk

Mark Walker Paul Lawrence

1995 1998

Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb

Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb

to Roosevelt

Trinity, Little Boy and

Rose

Project: A Study in German Culture

August 1939

Fat Man. The Smyth

1968:

Hans Bethe

Report outlines the The Virus House - Jeremy Bernstein

2000 2001

`The German Uranium Project', Article in Physics Today

Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret

Manhattan project

David Irving

and David Cassidy

Recordings at Farm Hall

1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

March 1945:

Discovery

B-VIII pile at Haigerloch

of fission FGiresrtmGaenryman

fails to go critical

g1o9v3e8r/n3m9ent interest April

1939 First subcritical pile, Autumn 1940

1943: Vemork

1947:

heavy water plant Heisenberg

May/June 194d2e: stroyed

publishes his

netuhLter-oInVndpmeilsuetlrtsoipOhyaloeinctwdgaesotininoirnincg,hemffeonrtts

account in Nature

February 1942: Prehsyednrotagteionnetxopsloesniioonr GoMvearyn-mDenct1o9ff4ic5i:aTlse.nDespite suggesting

"bombs the size of pineapples", the nuclearmperomjebcetrissojuf dtegaemd not to help war effort

on the necessary timescale and is therienftoerreneddowant gFraardmed in importance.

Responsibility moved from Army OrdnaHnaclle, CtoaRmebircidhgReesearch Council

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Jim Thomson

Why were the Allies so worried about the Germans?

For example: ? Heisenberg: Nobel prize 1932 for quantum mechanics and

the `Uncertainty Principle'. Refused offer to move to USA in summer 1939 (when he visited Goudsmit in USA). ? von Weizs?cker: Physicist with extremely good political connections; pupil of Heisenberg. ? Hahn: Discoverer of fission 1938. Worked with Fritz Haber on poison gas during WW1. Discovered Protoactinium 1921. ? Clusius: First person (1939) to separate the two naturallyoccurring isotopes of chlorine Cl-35 and Cl-36.

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Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt, 2 August 1939 (drafted by Leo Szilard)

"I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsacker, is attached to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated."

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Extracts from the Frisch-Peierls

memorandum, Birmingham UK, March 1940

(written before anyone really knew the scale of the effort needed)

"............it is quite conceivable that Germany is, in fact, developing this weapon. Whether this is the case is difficult to find out, since the plant for the separation of isotopes need not be of such a size as to attract attention. Information that could be helpful in this respect would be data about the exploitation of the uranium mines under German control (mainly in Czechoslovakia) and about any recent German purchases of uranium abroad. It is likely that the plant would be controlled by Dr. K. Clusius (Professor of Physical Chemistry in Munich University), the inventor of the best method for separating isotopes, and therefore information as to his whereabouts and status might also give an important clue.........

"Since the separation of the necessary amount of uranium is, in the most favourable circumstances, a matter of several months, it would obviously be too late to start production when such a bomb is known to be in the hands of Germany, and the matter seems, therefore, very urgent.......

"For the separation of the uranium 235, the method of thermal diffusion, developed by Clusius and others, seems to be the only one which can cope with the large amounts required."

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The view from Soviet Russia in 1940

Georgi Flerov (Soviet physicist who worked on the Soviet weapons programme and who also discovered in 1940 the spontaneous fission of uranium):

"It seemed to us that if someone could make a nuclear bomb, it would be neither the Americans, English or French but Germans. The Germans had brilliant chemistry; they had technology for the production of metallic uranium; they were involved in experiments on the centrifugal separation of uranium isotopes. And, finally, the Germans possessed heavy water and reserves of uranium. Our first impression was that Germans were capable of making the thing. It was obvious what the consequences would be if they succeeded."

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