Still very poorly, to sum it up. German science was bleeding dry owing to the number of scientists fleeing or killed due to their political affiliation and Jewish ethnicity, and the pseudo-science crazies trying to come up with alternative theories solely on the basis of replacing those made by Jewish scientists.
Which Jewish scientists?
You mean which Jewish scientists could the German government have benefited from had it not pushed them out of the country or interned them?Which Jewish scientists?
I forget who did the study, but it was proven that the loss of scientists wasn't much of a hindrance to German R&D. It hurt their nuclear program, but they weren't funding it anyway. The MUCH greater damage was very poorly organized R&D which the US Army Corps of Engineers studied and said only produced 1/2-1/10th of what it could have:Still very poorly, to sum it up. German science was bleeding dry owing to the number of scientists fleeing or killed due to their political affiliation and Jewish ethnicity, and the pseudo-science crazies trying to come up with alternative theories solely on the basis of replacing those made by Jewish scientists.
Einstein left German before 1933 and just never came back after Hitler came to power, but he largely had already made his contributions to science long before WW2.Albert Einstein among others. Werner Heisenberg was harassed too, but mostly due to his use of theories created by them. It's part of a campaign by Nazi-aligned scientists and the party to create a so-called 'German Physics' to replace 'Jewish Physics'.
For that matter, Oppenheimer was himself Jewish, and although he came back to the U.S. before the rise of Hitler, I assume there are any number of people in his position who might have stayed in Germany, or at least stayed longer, had the atmosphere been a little less toxic to them.You could also add Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, if you don't understand what Jewish science was in Nazi Germany.
Max Born.
I had to add Max Born because Robert Oppenheimer was a student of Born's at Gottingen.
Oppenheimer was American born, there is no American that would have stayed in Germany, Hitler or not, if there was any sort of militarist regime coming to power and probably even if not they would only go study there and go home. America was too wealthy and had too many positions needing to be filled for Americans to want to stay in Europe after getting their degrees.For that matter, Oppenheimer was himself Jewish, and although he came back to the U.S. before the rise of Hitler, I assume there are any number of people in his position who might have stayed in Germany, or at least stayed longer, had the atmosphere been a little less toxic to them.
Yes, this is my point.Oppenheimer was American born, there is no American that would have stayed in Germany, Hitler or not, if there was any sort of militarist regime coming to power and probably even if not they would only go study there and go home. America was too wealthy and had too many positions needing to be filled for Americans to want to stay in Europe after getting their degrees.
Apologies for double-posting but to correct the misdirection of this thread that I'm partly guilty of, let's return to the original question.If German research were better coordinated via an ARPA-like agency starting in early 1937 how much farther could the some of the experimental technology seen at mid or late war go before it's end?
Apologies for double-posting but to correct the misdirection of this thread that I'm partly guilty of, let's return to the original question.
I have not read the book Wiking cites but it seems like a place to start. I would also add, admittedly as a less reputable source, but an interesting read that one doesn't have to pay for,
https://coffeecuphistory.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/the-myth-of-nazi-efficiency/
There's also a new book by James Holland which I haven't read. Anyways, the point is that in general Nazism was horrendously inefficient as a governing ideology in practice, which is unsurprising, because totalitarian regimes almost alway are horrendously inefficient in practice.
You've raised an interesting point and it would be interesting to see how you think it would get fleshed out. I don't know whether more bureaucratic coordination was really the problem, and for that matter, it's not as if at any point Nazi Germany was horrendously backwards technologically. They weren't beaten by being overmatched technologically. If anything, they were repeatedly overconfident in their technical position but overcome by sheer industrial and military numbers and superior logistics on the Allied side. (There are some notable exceptions, like Bletchley Park.)
To that end I do have a couple of things that make me hesitate, but perhaps other posters can correct me here. First, I'm not sure whether it's really possible to "front-load" some of the game-changing technological developments and get them into service far earlier than they were, at least not without bearing some staggering development costs. Things like the jet engine and the rocket program didn't begin in the middle of the war, they already preceded it.
Second, I don't know how confident people are in the ability of a pre-war Nazi bureaucracy to efficiently "pick the winners" in a tech competition, as opposed to invest in what turn out to be some horrible white elephants. It would be interesting to know how many battle-ready applications emerge from DARPA research projects inside any given five to ten year timespan. Not many, I assume.
Unfortunately I don't because I just by chance caught part of an interview and looking at Google now, I see it must have been part of one of his recent books on the war, which are more general than just this specific topic.Back in 1928 defence minister Groner penned a document "Tasks for the Wehrmacht" . One of the most important things he stressed was the appointment of military C-in-C to coordinate all military strategy and industry towards a common strategic goal. Hitler of course saw this as a threat to his power base and appointed Blomberg who immediately order mass production of most munitions to meet Hitler's first wave of rearmament orders. Hitler ignored these orders and proceeded to pit the various service branches against each other to keep them in check, so only he could control everything. From that point on there was never going to be any efficiency, as long as Hitler was in the driving seat.
BTW like the link
https://coffeecuphistory.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/the-myth-of-nazi-efficiency/
Any idea of James Holland's book title?
Einstein, Meitner, Frisch, and Born have been mentioned but there were also Bohr, Fermi, Franck, Fuchs, Kistiakowsky (a Ukranian), Peierls, Segre, Szilard, Teller, von Karman, Von Neumann, Wigner and more.Which Jewish scientists?
In fairness, research policies in peacetime might have faced less time pressures.There was also Hitler's 12 month research rule, which apparently killed a number of projects:
https://books.google.com/books?id=TMqHDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT12&lpg=PT12&dq=fuhrer+directive+research&source=bl&ots=8_3G-omiol&sig=1VPzts6OL2ru3mKaR9FIP5HBJPM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWwpC05JjYAhXGzIMKHXY8D-MQ6AEIUTAG#v=onepage&q=fuhrer directive research&f=false
DARPA was created after WW2 as a result of the experiences of mobilizing research for defense/war and as a direct result of Sputnik and realizing how far behind the US was letting itself get. Its not really a fair comparison because it was largely born out of accumulated knowledge in institutional organization up to the late 1950s and the pressure of the space race.In fairness, research policies in peacetime might have faced less time pressures.
However, this well illustrates the contradiction between the sort of research preferred by totalitarian regimes and the more speculative, ambiguous stuff sometimes taken on by a group in the mold of DARPA. As I pointed out earlier, I don't know if that agency has ever funded many projects that promised a clear return on investment in a very short timespan. If anything, my understanding is that the point of DARPA is to fund projects that CAN'T give guarantees like that, on the assumption that if the payoff is more obvious and immediate, some other agency can probably be recruited as a funder.
Theo Von Karman comes to mindYou mean which Jewish scientists could the German government have benefited from had it not pushed them out of the country or interned them?
You could start with Einstein, I suppose.
Theo Von Karman comes to mind