You Got it right this time. As I said, you got the last bit wrong. If we waive many many many hands and assume a working, realistic project is in the works, it would begin as energy production so should have a chance. Its too fantastic ti be seen as a military issue at first.
Reichsmarine goes nuclear
- Thread starter J VonAxel
- Start date
Garrison
Donor
And you apparently got it wrong in identifying who you were replying to.
You can't indulge in massive handwaving and the call it realistic. Again handwaving in this case means completely rewriting decades of history.
And yet that is exactly what happened ITTL.
Yes, a wartime project aimed at building a bomb was seen as a project to build a bomb. Thats not exactly the same as a peacetime project to build a powerplant.
Actually you do. Thorium 232 is only fertile not fissile, it will not chain react. You have to bombard it with neutrons , this produces U-233 that then is fissile. Hence all Thorium reactors are hybrids, mainly using Thorium but needing a start from Uranium.
Utterly irrelevant as I said - no one is creating nuclear powered ships (or nuclear powered anything for that matter) in the 20s - it took until the late 50s before it was practical.
And Germany was not the leader in theoretical and experimental physics in the 20s - it was one of them certainly.
And none of the other leaders - UK, USA and France would have been remotely capable of this feat of advancing this technology by 30 odd years either.
The Five Power Treaty had a specific clause that any revolution in technology or shipbuilding would cause the signatories to meet to update the agreement. If Germany have this breakthrough in 1926/27, the 35,000 ton limit and the 10 year moratorium are both going to be ditched. Look out for Royal Naval G3 and USN Lexington battlecruisers in answer to your super-Panzerschiffe.
It’s not a nuclear program, nuclear weapon and nuclear engine are two very different things.
Still "Jewish " science according to Adolf though.Once he takes power he scraps the whole lot 
Garrison
Donor
And they would both constitute a nuclear program as the two are inextricably linked. Just look at how often the line has been blurred between civilian nuclear program and nuclear weapons development IOTL. The Entente would look at any Weimar program and draw the logical conclusion.
Just to recap the key issues with this idea. It requires rewriting decades of physics research, requires major engineering breakthroughs, Weimar doesn't have the money or resources even all the others elements were possible and either the British, the French, or the Americans would beat them to the punch.
This is an interesting idea but it would require a much more extensive POD to accelerate nuclear development, or, if you want to make the TL as butterfly-proof as possible till the 1930s, an ASB.
Well from the first one in 1901 until the outbreak of ww2 Germany had 10 nobel prizes just as UK. 12 if we count Austria which you might in this context. US is third with 7. Add the specific names Einstein, Heisenberg, Hahn…
You might even add Oppenheimer who did his PhD in Gottingen from 1925-27. Maybe ITTL he gets to work on the project.
The timeframe. It takes 4 years from the theoretical Foundation in 1938 and less that two years from the first 6000 USD donation in 1940 to the first sustained chain reaction. Then and after 1945 the focus is 100% on making bombs, but the first electricity producing reactor came in 1951 and nautilus in 1954.
If electricity producing nuclear power is the overarching goal, I think 30 years from fission Discovery in the 1920’s is very pessimistic.
Garrison
Donor
Which would doubtless be British, French or US patents. Though its a silly argument, there are enough variations in possible reactor designs to evade such things, or the parties involved would simply ignore such niceties.
We dont know the pod. A patent claim could be filed with the first Discovery and read “a device producing energy from nuclear fission”.
Why do you say they would be anything than German patents ? Didnt you read the OP?
And patent claims are a thing. Thats what protect your inventors from being abused
Garrison
Donor
And such a patent would be rejected as being far too broad, really you need to read up on how these things work. And what protects patent rights is the willingness of governments to enforce them. Heck Edison couldn't even enforce his patents on moving pictures in the same country. Also as soon as a patent is filed that will set off the alarm bells in London. Really this idea was a non-starter when it proposed having a nuclear reactor being designed in the 1920s, none of the suggestions since have made it any less fantastical.
Nor have the reactions of the world's two largest economies of the day to the German manufacturing and shipbuilding activities been considered. Each of them can comfortably out-produce the Reich if they feel threatened.
I do know about patents. A patent has to be new and the results meet the requirements of an inventive step. The broadest claims dont tend to meet these requirements, as some suggestions typically preceeds practicality. “Fission” did meet these requirements, and surely a handfull of effectively blocking claims below this order would meet them. Edison didnt control all aspects of moviemaking via his patents. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/edison-patents-the-kinetograph
Ittl, peacetime Germany, depending on the POD, could attain a strong position on all access to nuclear power. Breaking this advantage would be technically difficult and undermine the foundations of capitalism. This However also depending on how the patent is worked. To make money yes, to sit on it, not so popular.
The Manhattan project used 130,000 people (very few of which had a nobel prize) and cost then $2 billion - just to get a handful of bombs in 5 years
That used the combined 'top brains' of the Western Allies - Mostly UK, USA and Canada plus elements of the German brain drain of the 30s in a fashion never before seen and Apollo moon shot aside never seen since.
There was a great deal of converging technology getting to SSN and CGN and then CVN and even more expense
Germany is not getting this in the late 20 or early 30s or even the early 50s
Time is money, or in your example manpower. 130000 was what it took to build the bomb in a few years. Less people and it takes a bit longer. ASAP can be very inefficient .