Oh no, your understatement was fine. I just felt the need to expand.
German Nuclear Program (Bomb/Reactor)
old joke that
An archeologist digging down to 30’ in New York discovered an old copper cable and announced that New York had internet 50 years ago.
Two days later, Not to be out done by New York, An archeologist digging down to 40 in California found piece of plastic and Announced that California had High Speed fiberoptic internet 75 years ago.
Not to be left behind, the next day, Bubba digging a new hole for an outhouse found absolutely NOTHING and announced that that Hazard countya hundred years ago had gone wireless…
The point being that you A) have to have a dependable trustworthy unbiased source to trully have evidence and B) some tgings just cant be proved but are still pretty obvious.
You cant really prove a negative with evidence.
An archeologist digging down to 30’ in New York discovered an old copper cable and announced that New York had internet 50 years ago.
Two days later, Not to be out done by New York, An archeologist digging down to 40 in California found piece of plastic and Announced that California had High Speed fiberoptic internet 75 years ago.
Not to be left behind, the next day, Bubba digging a new hole for an outhouse found absolutely NOTHING and announced that that Hazard countya hundred years ago had gone wireless…
The point being that you A) have to have a dependable trustworthy unbiased source to trully have evidence and B) some tgings just cant be proved but are still pretty obvious.
You cant really prove a negative with evidence.
marathag
Banned
By time that was done in the US, much research and much live testing was done with superior implosion methods(core material and geometry, number of lenses detonation speed ofnthe lenses, tamper material and geometry, and replacement of Polonium initiators with Neutron tubes)
Getting usable amounts of Tritium without a reactor is neither cheap or quick.
And doing it all, right out of the gate?
Forget about it.
Look at the North Korean program problems.
Garrison
Donor
And that's with the North Korean's knowing a bomb was definitely possible and a general idea of what was required for a working weapon, two items that 1941 Nazi Germany didn't have.
Lol. Safety Cadmium Bucket Pour Man is just not as interesting as SCRAM.
I very much doubt that. But, for the sake of it, let's say you are right, the 1941 Nazi Germany did not know what was needed for a nuclear weapon, the 1942 Nazi Germany did.
Even though isotope separation research already started in 1940 and ultracentrifuge work in 1941, so they knew what was needed.
Did you even check Heisenberg's 1942 lecture? Or the other document about his Critical Mass Paradox?
Garrison
Donor
Nobody in 1941 knew what was needed to make a bomb work, or indeed if one would work at all. It took four years of work at Los Alamos and elsewhere to confirm the basics and come up with a design for a weapon that would actually work. The practicalities of a working bomb are far removed from the items you are describing. And by 1942 the Germans had correctly concluded that building a bomb would take years, if it was possible at all, which was not on the cards for Nazi Germany where they had concluded, again correctly, that they would lose such a war of attrition. And if you want on invoke Heisenberg you also need to allow for the fact he made a mess of critical calculations.
ETA: Just to ask are you still using Irving as a reference or have you found someone credible and not a holocaust denier?
You mean the materials and engineering needed? Or the physics? Because the physics were known. (And if nobody knew in 1941 why does it matter if Nazi Germany also did not know?) And, they were experimenting with nuclear reactors (or testing the theory), the Leipzig L-I,II,III, IV. Berlin-VII,VIII (This was Heisenberg's team), Gottow-I,II,III,IV (Diebner team)
In the document about Heisenberg's criticality mass it is explained better than I can. But don't forget his famous quote "as large as a pineapple" for a bomb to destroy a city in 1942 talking to Speer. (So his calculations were not that bad, and even if they were, he was not the only one who made calculations on the critical mass, after all, the project was very fragmented with different teams working at different universities/facilities)
And if not, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker calculated in 1942 that for a Plutonium bomb it would be required between 10-100 kgs of said material. (I think the Los Alamos team got 2-100?)
Irving was never my principal source, just the one that had a lot on the ultracentrifuge, which, from what I gather, used the German G reports from 1941 to 1945 reports on the development of the centrifuges. (Which I think I made obvious in my previous posts, I also used other sources if you were to check them.)
Garrison
Donor
It matters because the Allies had the resources to spend on a speculative program that would take years even if it did succeed, Nazi Germany didn't. Its not like they didn't consider a program, they just correctly concluded that it was too speculative and would take too long even if it did work. People with more detailed knowledge than myself have explained the myriad reasons why a Nazi bomb isn't going to happen, from engineering to the expulsion of Jewish scientists.
Your joke is so old, NY will have had internet for 50 years, pretty soon!
Yeah, by Leipzig L-IV they were still unclear that (A) powdered uranium metal will burn like thermite if exposed to atmospheric oxygen ; (B) that D2O steam explosions are just as destructive as H2O steam explosions but way more expensive; and (C) the Reich is rather stingy with research funds and won't allocate more after you accidentally destroy the reactor.
It's the Third Reich, it'd be sent back because they couldn't afford enough postage.
Citation Required.
Curiously no such paper exists in any academic database. I wonder why....
I assume you've read it and will have no problem proving a link.
So you're heading off into conspiracy theory land then? Or will you be producing some evidence for a German heavy water production facility?
Do you have the slightest understanding of the effort required to separate hydrogen isotopes? The amount of energy for large scale electrolysis? I refer you to the costings from the Manhattan Project.
And where was the electricity to come from?
Sigh. Did you actually read those papers? Leunawerke was attempting to develop the sulphide exchange method of separation deuterium but the plant never went into production beyond pilot scale (a few grammes) due to corrosion problems and lack of suitable alloys.
Then there's the issue of tritium, which you have ignored for some reason. Where is that to come from?
You've glossed over the fact that the Nazi regime was incapable of producing sufficient fissile material for a critical mass and attempted to divert into (unsupported) claims of fusion initiated fission.
I assume you'll be citing the source for that amount of fissile material? Certainly my sources suggest around four kilogrammes in the core. And that's for a weapon designed in the late 1950s, using over a decade of additional research. The wartime MK3 plutonium bomb, unboosted, used 6.4kg.
None of which alters the fact that Germany never got close to producing a single kilogramme of fissile material.
Then stop citing him.
Sweet Jeebus. You're actually continuing to cite a source you admit is unreliable because you can't find a better one..........
Have you considered there is a reason for that?
A possibility. Certainly an 'atomic engine' was one of the reasons for US Navy research into nuclear energy, before the Manhattan Project started and I believe the 'Uranium Club' used the concept when there wee looking for funds. However food imports by submarine is utterly impractical.
A lot of people took extended holidays in saner climes. I have fairly detailed notes sopmewhere on Einstein's time in England, his meetings with Churchill, and his time in Locker-Lampson's holiday hut in Norfolk when there was a price on his head.You can trace the impact of Nazi anti-semitism on nuclear research right back to one of the original discoverers of Uranium fission Lise Metiner
Lise Meitner - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Not to mention the likes of Leo Szilard who fled the Nazi occupation of their homelands.
Strange times.
It's also important to remember that even before his Holocaust denial became explicit he was a terrible historian, hence the libel action over his book on PQ17 which he lost.He has been barred from Austria, Germany, Italy, Australia and Canada for Holocaust denial. We actually arrested and deported him from Canada in 1992. At which time he outright lied to the court about the circumstances of his entry to Canada, which probably did not help his case. He was later called to present before a French Court, but as extradition was not included, refrained from appearing.
During his libel suite against the author and publishers of Denying the Holocaust the publishers called as witness, among others, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge Richard Evans, who said:
David Irving - Wikipedia
He is about as discredited as you can get as a historian. Now most of this centred on his Holocaust denial, but it still speaks to his general credibility when discussing the third reich in general.
TDM
Kicked
if the only positive source for your idea you have is unreliable/Irving than that suggests your idea may not be that reliable. Especially as there is a surfeit of sources pointing in the opposite direction regarding a successful Nazi atomic bomb program during WW2
And because I only learned this recently I'll mention it here, Irving pretty much started off in a bad place. When he was 23 he seconded none other than Oswald Mosley in a debate @ UCL about Commonwealth immigration
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I'm going to stray a little off-topic but the mentions of cadmium reminds me of the early heavy water saga.
Now in 1940 Norsk Hydro were the only significant source of heavy water (due to the availability of electricity for electrolysis and their repurposed fertiliser factory). But the French, or rather the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, effectively owned Norsk Hydro and had pressurised the Norwegians into restricting sales of heavy water to the Nazis (a few litres) without telling the Norwegians (who weren't paying much attention to atomic research it seems). The French wanted to get their hands on the heavy water stockpile (around 180kg, most of teh stuff on the planet at the time) for use by von Halban, the Joliots and Kowarski.
Enter Lieutenant Jacques Allier of the Deuxieme Bureau. Who travelled to Stockholm on a false passport equipped with specially built 'suitcases' that were really aluminium canisters (naturally free from potential contaminants like barium, boron, cadmium et cetera). There his diplomatic skills, plus financial pressure [ersuaded NH to pass the heavy water on to France.
The Nazis knew Allier was there and were hunting for him but on 09MAR1940 he and a few colleagues started back to France, pausing in Oslo where, curiously enough, the French 'safe house' was next door to a Abwehr front. The next day they headed to Amsterdam but the plane was forced down by the Luftwaffe in Hamburg.
Luckily Allier has switched the cases and the heavy water was still in Oslo; hiring a plane to fly to Scotland they left later that day (possibly assisted by either MI6 or an agent named Frank Foley acting on his own; certainly he was around the airport and seems to have helped load the 'suitcases') but were followed by another aircraft. telling teh pilot some of the truth, that they were spies on a vital mission, Allier persuaded him to lose their tail in high cloud. There the lack of cabin pressurisation caused the French to pass out.
In Edinburgh there were a surprising lack of customs and other formalities (which supports the MI6 suggestions). BTW the shipment was split Allier carried around 130 litres and a second flight on 11MAR carried the remainder.
The French party spent the night at a hotel and caught the express to London the following day (11MAR), followed by the boat train to France.
In the end all the heavy water made it safely.
There's a book, film, or RPG scenario in there.
But wait! That's not the end of the journey of the Norwegian heavy water.
On 16MAY1940 the remaining stock was removed from the College de France in Paris and taken to a bank in Clermont Ferrand where they were secured, under armed guard, in the vaults. A week or so later they were transferred, oddly, to a women’s prison in Monts Dore. A few days after that the canisters were moved to the Central Prison in Riom.
Enter, stage right, Lieutenant (I think) Allier again!
He was instructed to transport the "l'eau lourde" to London. Unfortunately the prison governor was reluctant to release the canisters but Allier persuaded him (at gunpoint). With the aid of a group of prisoners the canisters were loaded onto a military truck and headed to Bordeaux. Arriving at their accommodations around misnight, a requisitioned school, they waited for instructions.
The next day they were told to trandport the heavy water to the docks to be loaded on a collier named Broompark for the trip to Britain.
At the docks another interesting character enters the story: described as "moustached, short sleeved, arms covered with tattoos, two revolvers in shoulder-holsters and swinging a riding crop". This was, of course, the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire. Also known as Mad Jack Howard (with good reason, he later was justifiably famed for his bomb disposal work).
The heavy water was loaded (the canisters were tied to a life raft, just in case) and the ship waited for a shipment of diamonds, that had been taken from Antwerp by Paul Timbal. While waiting Mad Jack had a poke around and stole some six hundred tonnes of machine tools that were waiting for collection.
The ship sailed on 18JUN1940 with about thirty scientists and a few other refugees (against orders but the Earl was persuasive).
There is a dubious story that some of the heavy water was cached near the shoreline and collected later but this is utterly unverified.
The Broompark docked in Falmouth on 21JUN. It had been spotted by German aircraft but probably wasn't considered important enough to attack.
A special train, under heavy guard, transported teh canisters and diamonds to London. Mad Jack sat on it personally until they reached Paddington.
On 22JUN the shipment was broken up; the diamonds were locked in the vaults of the Diamond Corporation (and may have been used industrially). The heavy water was stored (for no reason I can find) in a condemned cell in Wormwood Scrubs prison, until it was taken to Windsor Castle and placed in the care of Owen Morshead (the King’s Librarian) who arranged for it to be stored with the Crown jewels.
I think we're into sequel territory here. Or perhaps a mini-series.
The heavy water was used during the war, some at Cambridge and more was shipped to Chalk River in Ottawa where the experimental heavy water plant was being built.
An odd story. But I forgot the importance of the cadmium. Before Allier left for Norway Hans Halban had given him a metal tube containing cadmium salts with instruction sot contaminate the heavy water in the event of an enemy threat to it.
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Citations? They had no idea of the critical mass, how to obtain it, how to construct a neutron reflector or an initiator, how to build the implosion lenses and a vast amount more.