Fact Check Article: Prototype Nazi Nuclear Bombers Were Within a Few Months of Hitting New York

[Riain]

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.

I think both, as in he didn't want Hitler to chase the 1 ton HEU bomb, not because he was a good bloke but because it wasn't practical in wartime. I think that if he had figured out the real amount of HEU needed he wouldn't have been so reticent.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

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.

Poison gas would probably be nasty and couldn't they actually mass produce that?...

 

[Deleted member 94680]

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.

By all accounts Mr Berg was very smart. Regardless of the fact he was a baseball player. He spoke at least 7 languages and was very intelligent in other areas too. He was a graduate of Princeton and Columbia Law, he also gave a very impressive performance on Information Please. He’d been briefed on the nuclear process by those that knew what they were on about and was deemed a suitable candidate for the mission. The baseball player bit is irrelevant.

 

[fockewulf]

It could be a confusion between a nuke and an actually thermobaric bomb. Let's say for the sake of argument they managed to develop and fly a Me 264 over to New York with a one tone thermobaric bomb. What damage could it have been expected?

 

[Geon]

It could be a confusion between a nuke and an actually thermobaric bomb. Let's say for the sake of argument they managed to develop and fly a Me 264 over to New York with a one tone thermobaric bomb. What damage could it have been expected?

I don't think the article was confusing the two.

It's pretty well established that one of Hitler's dreams after World War II started was to see New York City flattened by the Luftwaffe. The atomic bomb was perfect for what Hitler had in mind.

As to the thermobaric weapon - according to Wikipedia the Germans did develop such a weapon, but the question is could it be delivered and what would be the effects. Given the weapon's complexity the plane can't have carried more then a few of them. How many they could carry and what the effects would be are best to others here who would know better then I do.

 

[Riain]

The baseball player bit is irrelevant.

I think it says that this highly accomplished dude wasn't some bookish nerd, he was an all rounder capable of virtually anything.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

I think it says that this highly accomplished dude wasn't some bookish nerd, he was an all rounder capable of virtually anything.

That’s a fair point. He was a professional athlete, after all.

I did mean more in regards to his intelligence, as the other poster had implied that a “mere baseball player” wouldn’t be smart enough to understand about nuclear physics.

 

[Geon]

Forgive me if my earlier statement of Moe Berg sounded condescending. I did not mean to imply he was unintelligent. Far from it. All that I meant was would he be able to determine how much progress Dr. Heisenberg had made by a single lecture and not being versed in nuclear physics?

 

[Questerr]

There were plans for an Amerika bomber:

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.

God love the Horton brothers, but their flying wings would have killed more of their own crews than they ever could kill enemies.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Forgive me if my earlier statement of Moe Berg sounded condescending. I did not mean to imply he was unintelligent. Far from it. All that I meant was would he be able to determine how much progress Dr. Heisenberg had made by a single lecture and not being versed in nuclear physics?

The OSS didn't just chuck him into a lecture theatre and let him guess, he was briefed on the basics (and more, given his intelligence) and told what to watch out for. He'd spent quite a while working with the OSS pursuing Italian nuclear scientists, I imagine he picked up quite a bit of knowledge from them and from the team he worked with.

From May to mid-December 1944, Berg hopped around Europe, interviewing physicists and trying to convince several to leave Europe and work in the United States. (wiki)

It was a planned operation, not just some accidental meeting.

 

[Yatta]

Poison gas would probably be nasty and couldn't they actually mass produce that?...

Hitler would never have approved it due to his experience in the Great War. Also the fact that the british also had gas that would almost definitely be dropped on Germany if the Germans used gas.

 

[Barry Bull]

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.

Internet is not a good place to look for such info unless you are using academic/ oriented sites.

If you do not have access to a research library, I recommend the Askhistorian subreddit, which is moderated to a very strict standard.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/

 

[nbcman]

Hitler would never have approved it due to his experience in the Great War. Also the fact that the british also had gas that would almost definitely be dropped on Germany if the Germans used gas.

Again this lie comes up. Hitler had no compunctions on using chemical agents in the death camps where the prisoners couldn't retaliate. He didn't give permission to use chemical agents because he was afraid of the consequences since the Western Allies would surely counter with their own chemical agents. There’s no truth to the Hitler poison gas PTSD crap.

 

[Lascaris]

Since the Reich had effectively NO nuclear weapons programs. They had given up, largely because of a couple basic math errors that they never did discover. Since it too the Soviets, who had been given both tons of basic research from spies AND had the knowledge that the damned thing could be done took four years (in a country that was NOT have the pougies blown out of it by the CBO and with resources that the Reich could only weep to imagine). it is fair to say the author is... over optimistic.

My courses in nuclear reactor basics are nearly a quarter century old, but by the description of their "reactor" had that thing actually managed to go critical it was going straight for a meltdown. Throw chunks of cadmium in a bathtub of heavy water? Seriously now?

 

[CalBear]

My courses in nuclear reactor basics are nearly a quarter century old, but by the description of their "reactor" had that thing actually managed to go critical it was going straight for a meltdown. Throw chunks of cadmium in a bathtub of heavy water? Seriously now?

That's what you get when you chase an entire continent's best physicists across the ocean.

 

[Notsure]

I've read the Japanese where actually ahead of the Germans on the theory behind the bomb. They also had access to heavy water in Korea.

 

[Aghasverov]

From everything I've read, the Germans (and the Japanese) were miles behind the US and UK in their nuclear programme (contributions of the UK are often sadly overlooked...).
Could the Germans have sent a bomber over NYC or elsewhere on the US east coast? Probably. It would no doubt have been a one-way mission. Short of a working nuclear device (provided they could drag the war out for ten more years or so ) , an attack with anything less destructive would be, well, moronic...
Deploying a large thermobaric explosive (or a string of small ones) in a densely-populated urban area would be horrific, no doubt... but the most powerful thermobaric yet detonated has a yield about 1/500 that of Little Boy... the results wouldn't be any worse than Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo - but the consequences would be FAR worse... same with any deployment of chemical weapons.

 

[JudgeKing]

I've read the Japanese where actually ahead of the Germans on the theory behind the bomb. They also had access to heavy water in Korea.

The Japanese were realistic enough in their assessments that they focused most of their nuclear program on the development of large scale civilian power generation and marine nuclear propulsion (like the US nuclear program before the Tizard Mission).

 

[sonofpegasus]

Melitta von Stauffenberg, is another great German female test pilot, by the way she was a jew as well,
Melitta von Stauffenberg was character wise the polar opposite of Hanna Riesch but combine the two for a mythical german uber pilot and there you have bases for Anna Kreisling.

 

[Geon]

Let's make a few assumptions here.

1. The Norsk-Hydro plant in Norway is not destroyed but heavy water production continues.
2. Heisenberg is able to make a through breakthroughs and the nuclear program gets more financial support from the Nazis - say at the cost of some of the other wonder weapons.
3. The Germans are able to perfect the Ju 390 v2 where it can make a probably one-way trip across the Atlantic to New York.

Now assuming the Nazis are able to manufacture one - and only one - fission device by 1944 (never mind 1945 as it would have been flat out impossible with German industry being blown to pieces by then) where would the device be best used? New York is a tempting target to be sure. But there are other places the bomb could have been used. I am wondering if Hitler might not have aimed his one atomic bolt eastward instead of westward.

Thoughts?