Nazi nuclear research
[Pages:74]Nazi nuclear research:
Why didn't Hitler get the Bomb?
Jim Thomson
1
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
3 Jim Thomson
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
4
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.
5 Jim Thomson
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."
6 Jim Thomson
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."
7 Jim Thomson
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."
8 Jim Thomson
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