WI: Would An Atomic Powered Nazi Germany Use Nuclear Weapons in the Holocaust?

Greenville

Banned
What if a victorious Greater German Reich had had access to nuclear weapons or at least a fission reaction needed to make radiation? Would they use them as a means of massively acceleration General Plan Ost and the Holocaust in a systematic way without radiating the newly conquered lands?
 

Ryan

Donor
Outside of using them as live test subjects to see the effect of nuclear explosions and radiation, I can't see them doing so. Gas chambers and death through labour are much easier, simpler and controllable methods of killing them than messing around with nukes and radioactive material would be.
 

Greenville

Banned
Outside of using them as live test subjects to see the effect of nuclear explosions and radiation, I can't see them doing so. Gas chambers and death through labour are much easier, simpler and controllable methods of killing them than messing around with nukes and radioactive material would be.

I could imagine them relocating the camps to nuclear test grounds and clearing the area of tens or hundreds of thousands of prisoners in single large tests or by simply living them there to die from the radiation left behind.
 
I could imagine them relocating the camps to nuclear test grounds and clearing the area of tens or hundreds of thousands of prisoners in single large tests or by simply living them there to die from the radiation left behind.
Except from a (thermonuclear) ground burst, the fallout radiation is only going to cause increased cancer rates rather than lethal radiation sickness. That comes from the prompt gamma rays and neutrons given off when the bomb explodes.
 
Except from a (thermonuclear) ground burst, the fallout radiation is only going to cause increased cancer rates rather than lethal radiation sickness. That comes from the prompt gamma rays and neutrons given off when the bomb explodes.
Indeed, but its sickening to imagine doctor Mengele and his proof of the degeneracy of slavic people. With data stemning from the numerous reports of malformed (and malnourished) children getting born in the Fall-out ghetto.
 

Greenville

Banned
I imagine if the Nazis gathered up tens or hundreds of thousands of people into one massive camp and then dropped one or several atomic devices on it as part of a test area this would rapidly increase the Holocaust. They could also simply expose them to a facility with open nuclear material like plutonium and kill thousands instantaneously and much faster than any gas chamber.
 
What about the disturbing possibility of the Reich testing the effects of nukes on cities by dropping a nuke on a major Slavic city?
 

Greenville

Banned
I can see a large domed building with thick protection to prevent radiation leaks where nuclear fuel is stored for Germany. The Germans walk people through it in mass a few at a time and kill thousands of people an hour. Bodies can be destroyed in a large nuclear-powered flame based incinerator which doesn't have to be replaced with coal or shoveled by servants.
 
So strangely it sound the Nazi look into Nuclear option in a different way
They study was to use X-ray to sterilizes jews
The HBO movie "the Conspiracy" feature debate between High rang Nazi about that Issue during Wannsee conference...

So use of Nukes ?
Depends if a SSer become Fürher of Thousand Year Reich like Himmler or worst Reinhard Heydrich (if he survives WW2)
Heydrich would be pitiless roughshod to use Nukes to mass murder jews, but not inside "Thousand Year Reich" but worldwide !
with A9/a10 MRBM The NAZI could drop a nuke in range of of 5,000 km on ever city, town, area, were they suspect a jewish settlement or diaspora
Also used as menace to other Nations "exterminate you Jewish population, otherwise we do it nuclear to all of you"

But it would not come so far !
The USA or other Nation would build also Nuklear weapons als Strategy to defend them against the Nazi Menace
And protect other Nations who threatened by the NAZI and Thousand Year Reich end up in a Cold War
Were every Nuclear strike let to full scale Nuclear War that destroy participant totally
or even worst if one of the Nation build a Doomsday device.

Doomsday device ?
A full automatic weapon system that in case it's owner is Nuclear Attack.
Use Atomic, Biological or Chemical means to exterminate the ENTIRE Population of Earth.
During Cold War, USA and USSR studies several model of Doomsday devices, but Politic stop the building them.
but with Nazis like Reinhard Heydrich around, Some despair politician would take Doomsday device as final option.
 
The Holocaust specifically? It wouldn't really be useful, except as a couple of people have pointed out, almost certainly prisoners would be used as test subjects to measure bomb's effects at different ranges. If you're a Nazi, why use animals for this purpose when you can use human prisoners?

In terms of manufacturing, prisoner/slave labour was used in several settings in Nazi Germany so it would make sense here, too.

The real question is when and where the bombs would be used. I'm not sure they would be thrilled about contaminating their future lebensraum with radiation, but maybe once it became clear they couldn't take Moscow, and probably against Britain once it became clear they weren't going to be able to invade or force Britain out of the war.

Staying within our timeline, though, if I remember right research continued under military guidance from 1939 to 1942, at which point it was decided there was a future for nuclear energy but not a military weapon in time to contribute to the war. So I suppose the most plausible timeline you're left with is one where they keep their research going and have a usable weapon by 1944 or 1945. I'm not sure how exactly you get there, because it's not as if they were just a single step away when they shifted the program in 1942, but I think it's unlikely there would be a weapon available before close to the end of the war, at which time the options for using it are more limited. For instance, I doubt that the V-2 could carry whatever first-generation nuclear weapon the Nazis might have been able to develop.
 
So strangely it sound the Nazi look into Nuclear option in a different way
They study was to use X-ray to sterilizes jews
The HBO movie "the Conspiracy" feature debate between High rang Nazi about that Issue during Wannsee conference...

So use of Nukes ?
Depends if a SSer become Fürher of Thousand Year Reich like Himmler or worst Reinhard Heydrich (if he survives WW2)
Heydrich would be pitiless roughshod to use Nukes to mass murder jews, but not inside "Thousand Year Reich" but worldwide !
with A9/a10 MRBM The NAZI could drop a nuke in range of of 5,000 km on ever city, town, area, were they suspect a jewish settlement or diaspora
Also used as menace to other Nations "exterminate you Jewish population, otherwise we do it nuclear to all of you"

Historically, even in the initial projections, the A9/A10 program would not have been ready until after, in our timeline, the war was over anyways.

I assume it wouldn't have been capable of carrying whatever first-generation nuclear device the Germans might have devised.

Then they're expensive and hard to make originally. In 1945, America had three bombs and used two. If you're the Germans, you wouldn't have enough to nuke large numbers of cities. (Although you also might not need to.)
 
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