Can the Nazis develop nukes by 1943?

So I guess you're saying the scores of Nazi documents captured by ALSOS at Strasbourg University in 1944 were just a mere work of fiction. Why then were all these documents diligently filed and classified for decades after the war at NARA?

TDML: pg 55-56
Dr Samuel Goudsmit and Fred Wardenburg, members of Alsos, entered von Weizsackers office at the university and
'found a great treasure trove of documents, including letters exchanged between the various physicists reporting on their progress along with the addresses of the various institutes throughout Germany that had been working on the nuclear project. This latter discovery was, of course, of extreme importance. When ...Goudsmit and Wardenburg cried out with excitement. "What happened?" asked one of the guards...[win the lottery?] "I think so," Goudsmit replied, for it appeared from the documents that there was no longer any possibility Germany might suddenly produce an atomic bomb. "We've won the war!" "Sure we have," said the guard. "You can't beat GIs."

...in Gordsmits words, the documents "gave an authentic picture of the uranium research project as of the summer of 1944." Hitler, convinced of German invincibility and blindly disinterested in long range projects, had been informed as far back as 1942 that an atomic bomb was within the realm of possibility, but he had persisted in giving the project low priority. As a result, two years later, when the Strasbourg papers fell into allied hands, it became clear that, though the Germans had continued nuclear research, they had "given up altogether the idea of making a bomb."

And that's direct from the scientist who read the Strasburg papers.

Reichminister Speer essentially canned the atomic bomb project in early 1943 after the successful raid on the Norsk-Hydro heavy water plant.

In Japan, the primary place of nuclear research was in building No 49 in the Tokyo research institute at Koishikawa. On Friday the 13th, April 1945, a B29 raid devastated the area with incendiary and HE bombs. Heroic efforts overnight saved building No 49. While the researchers were eating their meagre wartime breakfast nearby in building No 43, suddenly No49 burst into flames and burned to the ground taking with it Japan's sole atomic separator and the heart of it's N-Research program.
 
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And that's direct from the scientist who read the Strasburg papers.


How dare you post cited facts pertinent to the topic under discussion! :rolleyes:

It being the first week in September I would have thought schools would be back in session nearly worldwide and the board would see less bleating about Nazi napkinwaffe. Sadly, boobery knows no season... :(
 
It being the first week in September I would have thought schools would be back in session nearly worldwide and the board would see less bleating about Nazi napkinwaffe. Sadly, boobery knows no season... :(

Ah, but once you read the man's thread in Chat, you realize that he's not actually a youthfully missguided nazi-fanboy, but an outright conspiracy theorist, and the demands of fighting "The Man" know no season.
 
Ah, but once you read the man's thread in Chat...


Ahhh... the scales fall from my bleary eyes...

I hadn't checked Chat because... well... that's where loony conspiracy theorists tend to make most of their posts and I hadn't checked out the rest of his posts because... well... what few I've seen suggest they're not worth the effort to dredge up.

... and conspiracies know no season.

Sadly true. :(

I followed that recent link to one of Eleven11's threads at another forum and left with a profound appreciation for those arguing for lowering the requirements for involuntary psychiatric commitments. :eek:
 

Kharn

Banned
You all underestimating Hitler's ass. Hitler's ass was actually a gateway to hammerspace containing things like UFOs, and all the resources needed for Sealion or an invasion of the US to succeed. The only reason he didn't make use of this in OTL was because he was feeling kind and it was a bit painful. If Hitler really wanted the A-bomb, all he needed was to pull it out of his ass.
Yeah...ooohhh yeah... Any POD would make this have to be a POD where the Nazi aren't after the extermination of the Jews, but the simple disenfranchisement of their right to own certain amounts of wealth or something else closer to reason. Keep Einstein and a few others there and Germany could very well be the first to have the bomb. The POD would have to be something were Hitler takes power earlier. Sadly, if war comes about and Hitler holds the nukes for a while to give Britain a chance and Churchill still pulls his schtick, then London and a few other cities could get glassed.
 
Keep Einstein....


For the 178,987th time on this forum alone, Einstein had nothing to do with the Manhattan Project beyond signing his name to a letter two other men wrote.

This topic is one of the Done To Deathtm topics on this site and even a cursory search of previous threads will provide you with facts you may not be aware of currently. Hell, even a Wiki search will provide you with facts you may not be aware of currently.
 
The only way Nazi Germany could develop an atomic bomb by 1943
would be victory over England in 1940 and the Russians in 1941 or
basically the end of a hot war in Europe.
 

loughery111

Banned
I'm sure this question has been asked ad nauseum here. In fact, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I am 100% certain this has been asked too many times here. That said, I just have one question that is bugging me right now. I know of technological and scientific limitations the Nazis had that prevented a successful program from arising. As this is an alt history board, let's handwave a few things away. #1: Let us assume the Nazis had the technological know-how; in fact let's assume that they were the furthest along the research in the world, far more advanced in technological know-how. #2: Let us assume that the Nazis were also the most advanced in the world in the sciece, the theory of atomic bomb, than anyone else. With these two givens, I ask you all: What MATERIEL (uranium, some other rare metals/substances, economic capacity, etc) limitations would have prevented the Nazis from completing their program? In addition, were these materiel limitations overcomable?

If I can recall they confiscated something like 3000 kg of mid-range enriched Uranium from Belgium after they occupied it. Assuming they have all the science right there would be little stopping them from building a single bomb. Probably not enough for more than two though. That said... in OTL... no way in hell. God Himself couldn't get their nuclear program fully functional.
 
Even given the right raw materials, the biggest hurdle would have been purification of enough fissionable uranium to make it feasible. That, in turn, was solved only by bringing to bear the resources of DuPont at / near its pinnacle: DuPont made possible production of industrial quantities of elemental fluorine and thus the production of uranium hexafluoride in industrial quantities. Before then, both were little more than laboratory curiosities. And the Germans had nothing approaching DuPont. End of story.
 

Kharn

Banned
What about delivery systems? What would Hitler do, have a giant artillery cannon built or a huge catapult or something?
 
I simply cannot understand why many people think that certain technologies or inventions can only be developed by certain nations/persons.

It is always possible that any kind of inventions can be developed by any nations/persons. :cool:

All those inventors are the same humans who happen to find that particular invention due to certain circumstances/coincidence.

They are not some kind of superhuman or demigod or whatever
 

Rubicon

Banned
I simply cannot understand why many people think that certain technologies or inventions can only be developed by certain nations/persons.

It is always possible that any kind of inventions can be developed by any nations/persons. :cool:

All those inventors are the same humans who happen to find that particular invention due to certain circumstances/coincidence.

They are not some kind of superhuman or demigod or whatever

No? Well technologies aren't invented like it is in proffessor Balthazar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDL3NPPDR2Q either.
 

Cook

Banned
I simply cannot understand why many people think that certain technologies or inventions can only be developed by certain nations/persons.

It is always possible that any kind of inventions can be developed by any nations/persons. :cool:

All those inventors are the same humans who happen to find that particular invention due to certain circumstances/coincidence.

They are not some kind of superhuman or demigod or whatever

The Manhattan Project employed not some but most of the greatest Physicists of the World at that time. Many of whom had been forced to flee Fascist Europe.
 

loughery111

Banned
I simply cannot understand why many people think that certain technologies or inventions can only be developed by certain nations/persons.

It is always possible that any kind of inventions can be developed by any nations/persons. :cool:

All those inventors are the same humans who happen to find that particular invention due to certain circumstances/coincidence.

They are not some kind of superhuman or demigod or whatever

You make the same damned argument in every thread, ignoring all facts and reason in the name of equal opportunity IDIOCY. We debunk it in every thread, using aforementioned facts and reason... and you make it again in another thread.

Are you, for instance, suggesting that it would have been possible for Siam to independently develop and deploy a nuclear weapon in 1945? Clearly, the answer is no, because it lacked the knowledge, resources, and trained personnel to even begin to look at the idea. Germany and Japan suffered from lesser degrees of the same problems... neither had access to large-scale uranium producing regions, neither had the industrial (particularly electrical) capacity to support a project without crippling their conventional war effort, and, most importantly, neither was truly sure that it could be done (Germany after '43 was quite sure that a nuclear weapon would require several hundred kilos of uranium to achieve critical mass).

While the US and UK were not sure either, they had the money and talent to be able to afford such a huge risk while still funding their conventional war machines. Germany and Japan could not, and therefore did not spend the sheer effort put forth by the Western Allies. In the absence of the technological handwavium supplied by the OP, there was less than a snowball's chance in hell of their detonating a weapon.
 

Cook

Banned
Germany after '43 was quite sure that a nuclear weapon would require several hundred kilos of uranium to achieve critical mass.



Perhaps if they’d payed more attention to those Jewish Sciences they would have got further.
;)
 
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