Wasn't the German Post Office at one point overseeing an aspect of the project?
Fact Check Article: Prototype Nazi Nuclear Bombers Were Within a Few Months of Hitting New York
- Thread starter Geon
- Start date
I like telling my students that one, "imagine Czech Post in charge of a nuclear program."
At least they had a delivery system.
*dingdong*
"I've got a package for mr. Churchill, please sign here."
It would actually have been a pretty clever cover if a project had actually existed. You expect mail trucks to be traveling all the time.
Or the British Post Office playing a leading role in cryptanalysis of German codes... Oh wait that one happened.
It seems to be like they're trying to combine two things into one here:
a.) Were the Nazis close to building an airplane that could reach New York with the payload capacity to drop an atomic bomb; and
b.) Were the Nazis close to building an atomic bomb?
It also hints around the possibilities of the Nazis using a rocket to deploy a nuclear bomb against the United States.
If you play fast and loose with all of these, you can make it SOUND like something was imminent, though it really wasn't. The Nazis did have a program to build a plane which could reach New York and return without needing to refuel. It's probably fair to say that the Nazis could have built something like that eventually, or even by the end of the war if they had made it their top priority.
But they didn't, because by the time the prototypes were available, they were running low on the necessary supplies, and the tactical needs of the war had shifted to defense rather than offense. There was no nuclear bomb to drop then anyway, but the German designs would have been insufficient to carry Little Boy, so they wouldn't have been usable for nuclear bombs until designs had advanced quite a bit more.
Also, even if the bomber that didn't exist could carry the bomb that didn't exist, Germany would have struggled to actually execute the mission: the Allies could have learned of the mission and intercepted it, or could have detected the flight and shot it down or forced it off course.
The article also proposes submarine-launched missiles, which the US had been preparing for, and the German ability to use U-boats freely in the Atlantic had declined quite a bit by 1944-45. The Germans were not close to an ICBM that could hit the US from a European launch site, despite a few preliminary designs, and the tech wouldn't exist anywhere until the late 1950s.
a.) Were the Nazis close to building an airplane that could reach New York with the payload capacity to drop an atomic bomb; and
b.) Were the Nazis close to building an atomic bomb?
It also hints around the possibilities of the Nazis using a rocket to deploy a nuclear bomb against the United States.
If you play fast and loose with all of these, you can make it SOUND like something was imminent, though it really wasn't. The Nazis did have a program to build a plane which could reach New York and return without needing to refuel. It's probably fair to say that the Nazis could have built something like that eventually, or even by the end of the war if they had made it their top priority.
But they didn't, because by the time the prototypes were available, they were running low on the necessary supplies, and the tactical needs of the war had shifted to defense rather than offense. There was no nuclear bomb to drop then anyway, but the German designs would have been insufficient to carry Little Boy, so they wouldn't have been usable for nuclear bombs until designs had advanced quite a bit more.
Also, even if the bomber that didn't exist could carry the bomb that didn't exist, Germany would have struggled to actually execute the mission: the Allies could have learned of the mission and intercepted it, or could have detected the flight and shot it down or forced it off course.
The article also proposes submarine-launched missiles, which the US had been preparing for, and the German ability to use U-boats freely in the Atlantic had declined quite a bit by 1944-45. The Germans were not close to an ICBM that could hit the US from a European launch site, despite a few preliminary designs, and the tech wouldn't exist anywhere until the late 1950s.
That one has solid reasoning. No German code could possibly be as hard to read as people's handwriting.
They travel so much here they don't actually deliver your mail and make you come get it...
It's only a short walk from my flat to the post office so it's more my annoyance they won't do their job than anything else.But you know EXACTLY where to go.
Very efficient.
They probably don't like the foreigner building a giant Nazi battleship by partworks.
Geon
Donor
The general consensus seems to be that the Germans couldn't have developed a working nuclear weapon by 1945 as the article suggests. And unless we buy into some spurious reports about nuclear tests by the Nazis on Thuringa Island and elsewhere, (Check the Internet for further info on these rumors) then the next logical question is could the Germans have built a "dirty bomb?" Not nuclear, but still very dangerous had they dropped one on a major city.
Getting us back on the rails...
I might be. I remember not being impressed and very doubtful of the source. And considering the very real threat to New York from submarines, I think any whiff of an attack on the city would have been countered - swiftly.
I might be. I remember not being impressed and very doubtful of the source. And considering the very real threat to New York from submarines, I think any whiff of an attack on the city would have been countered - swiftly.
Thank you I've been trying to remember the details of who was involved in that incident for ages. As to Heisenberg its still a toss up as to whether he simply made a mistake or whether he was genuinely trying to keep Hitler from developing the bomb.
Geon
Donor
With regard to Moe Berg being a spy. His bio clearly shows he was at least regarding Japan. But, I have to wonder how would a baseball player know if Heisenberg was close to perfecting nuclear fission? After all he was a baseball player and not a nuclear physicist.
There were plans for an Amerika bomber:
en.wikipedia.org
But plans is as far as it got. Of course this design was the inspiration for the plane in the aforementioned Captain America film and in another fun fact bears a remarkable resemblance to the actual description of the 'flying saucers' Kenneth Arnold reported seeing in 1947. Mentioned in case anyone wants to go full ASB.
Horten H.XVIII - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
But plans is as far as it got. Of course this design was the inspiration for the plane in the aforementioned Captain America film and in another fun fact bears a remarkable resemblance to the actual description of the 'flying saucers' Kenneth Arnold reported seeing in 1947. Mentioned in case anyone wants to go full ASB.
The source for that information is, apparently, the book Heisenberg's War by Thomas Powers, a Pulitzer-winning journalist and acclaimed author. Quoted here:
It would be interesting to know what sources Powers was using on that, though.