Posted on 03/14/2005 8:55:54 AM PST by NormsRevenge
BERLIN (AP) - Nazi Germany tested a crude nuclear device in March 1945, killing hundreds of people in a massive explosion south of Berlin, a German researcher claims in a new book published Monday.
That the Nazis conducted nuclear experiments has been known for decades, but "Hitler's Bomb," by Berlin academic Rainer Karlsch, suggests they may have been closer to building an atomic weapon for military use than previously believed. No independent corroboration of the claims was immediately available.
"German physicians did not lag behind their colleagues in the United States and Britain in their understanding of theory," Karlsch told a news conference. "They knew what a plutonium bomb was and what a uranium-235 bomb was."
What Nazi Germany lacked was enough fissile material - such as enriched uranium - to make a full-size, functioning nuclear bomb, he said.
Other researchers already have theorized that the Nazis conducted crude nuclear experiments, but Karlsch said he has discovered additional evidence, notably in the archives of the former Soviet Union.
The book cites postwar witness accounts and Soviet military intelligence reports to back up its theory of a March 3, 1945, experimental nuclear test blast at the Nazis' Ohrdruf military testing area, but it offers no direct documentary proof.
Karlsch acknowledged he had no positive proof the Nazis conducted a nuclear test blast, but he hoped his book would provoke more research. Soil samples that Karlsch had analyzed for his book found the presence of radioactive isotopes, he said.
Witnesses reported a bright flash of light and a column of smoke over the area that day, and residents said they had nausea and nosebleeds for days afterward, Karlsch says.
One witness said he helped burn heaps of corpses inside the military area the next day. They were hairless and some had blisters and "raw, red flesh."
Karlsch concludes that the blast killed several hundred prisoners of war and Nazi inmates forced to work at the site. Two months later, on May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered after the Soviets captured Berlin.
Ohrdruf, located in the southeastern state of Thuringia, was a Soviet military base after World War II.
Uggh. Not another article on this crap.
They're never very clear that the author is only claiming a "dirty bomb" test, which is just slapping some radioactive stuff around a regular high explosive. Not a very effective weapon, and it is to a true nuclear bomb what a BB Gun is to an M-16.
I dunno, I read Richard Rhodes' The Making of The Atom Bomb and he said nothing like this.
If this is true the Nazis had the beginnings of an implosion device, and they tried an open air test near Berlin?
Or had a serious criticality accident, also near Berlin?
A crude nuclear device, meaning, when they tested it, the bomd replied the chief researcher was a pooftah, questioned his legitimate heritage, and things of that sort (only, in gutteral German).
BS
How 'bout Physicists?
Didn't think of a dirty bomb. Rhodes mentioned that and stated that both sides considered using synthetic radioisotopes but both concluded that the concept was not practical.
Actually the Germans developed the theory that the US exploited. It's just that by the time of WW2, the NAZI's had chased the researchers to the US.
I do not buy this. The isotopes would still be there and easily detected ever after all these years, even it were a "dirty bomb" or a true nuke.
Rhodes was right. This crude device was a dirty bomb, and would not initiate a fission reaction. Calling it a 'nuclear device' is ignorant or deceitful.
They understood how to make and fire a handgun, what they lacked was steel and gunpowder and lead and brass.
"German physicians" designed a nuclear bomb?
Good thing the silly Krauts didn't have their physicists working on it or the world would've been in deep trouble.
hogwash!
Sounds like typical second finishing Euro "Us too, us too." BS.
If they'd a had it, they'd a used it.
We were closer to losing WWII war than anyone even knows.
What they lagged on was the engineering expertise to put the theories into practice. The US spent billions to develop this expertise in a short period. The Nazis simply did not have the resources to spend on this development. What little they put aside for new weapons development was spent on jet fighters and the V1/V2 missiles.
They were not even close to developing an A bomb. They had no equipment for seperating U235 on an industrial scale, no reactors for plutonium production, no research facilities for determining the critical masses necessary (interesting stories from Los Alamos on "tickling the tiger" from a physics prof I had), etc.
See # 15
See #9, an excellent point- if it was a "dirty bomb" or fizzled attempt at fission, the debris would be detectable today.
A Japanese dirt bomb attack would have guaranteed total destruction of the Japanese homeland.
Well, I discount the reports that anything went off at all. That would make perfect sense.
The idea that this went undetected for sixty years is ludicrous.
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