Hitler's Terror Weapons by Brooks, Geoffrey (life books to read .txt) 📗

the plutonium-enriched uranium sub-critical masses, so that fast assembly could be assured. No more than a couple of inches.

C. – The highest assembly speed possible, more than Mach 3.5.

If imploded at the speed of light, the cutaway sketch meets all of these criteria.”

An English scientist who delivered a written opinion about the feasibility of the German test stated that the fallout would still be detectable today if the device had been tested “and large parts of Europe would still be uninhabitable”. This question of fallout is commonly misunderstood by non-nuclear scientists. When an atom bomb is detonated, neutrons react against a surrounding jacket of material such as U-238 or beryllium to enhance the blast, which has the secondary effect of increasing fallout. If the purpose of the German test was only to prove the reaction and the correctness of the theory, and the blast effect was not required, the structural parts of the bomb would have been layered with zirconium or bismuth within a tamper of lead. Fallout in this case would have been negligible.

The Atomic Bomb Testing Station

In June 1945, before the first American atomic test in New Mexico, former inmates of Buchenwald concentration camp, which supplied labour for Ohrdruf, reported that the Russians had discovered two German ‘atom bombs’ on a Baltic island. 101 This would probably have been Bornholm, which was occupied in a surprise move by Russian forces at the end of the war. The London Evening Standard and the Danish Politiken published communiques from Washington that there had been a secret atomic laboratory on the island and this had been the reason for its sudden liberation’ by the Soviets. The team of German scientists on Bornholm, which included a Yugoslav, were all said to have been taken off to Moscow with their equipment and documentation.

Peenemünde, on the Usedom Peninsula, was a development and test centre for various V-weapons. Allen W. Dulles, who eventually became head of the US Secret Service, was attached to OSS Zürich during the war and on 19 June 1943 sent a cable to his superior in Washington, William Donovan, stating that heavy water was being shipped from Norway to Peenemünde where a German atomic laboratory had been identified. 102 The report was passed to David Bruce, head of British Military Intelligence, in London and resulted in the devastating air raid on Peenemünde on 17 August 1943. Thus the most serious reports indicated activities in the Baltic, and in particular Bornholm and Peenemünde. Following Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two English newspapers, the Daily Telegraph and Daily Express reported on 9 August 1945 that a senior “Nazi atom scientist” had been killed at Peenemünde during the raid although his identity was not revealed. What use such a report has for the newspaper-reader is difficult to fathom. Two days later, on 11 August, the Daily Telegraph at page five under a heading Nazis’ Atom Bomb Plans referred to defensive measures being taken in Britain in August the previous year on the basis of a “highly secret memorandum which was sent that summer to the chiefs of Scotland Yard”. The article went on:

“Reports received from our agents on the Continent early last year indicated that German scientists were experimenting with an atomic bomb in Norway. According to these reports, the bomb had an explosive radius of more than two miles and was launched by catapult.”

Disappointingly the Daily Telegraph supplied no further details either of bomb or its unique means of delivery and later:

“reliable agents in Germany reported that the bomb had been tested and proved a failure.”

A one kiloton device within a lead tamper sprays lethal neutrons over an area two kilometres in diameter. When testing such a device, it might have been interpreted by agents as a failure if a mammoth explosion had been expected. The German observer Zinsser (whose report is reproduced in full below) mentioned having observed several ‘atom bomb’ tests, and this may have been one of them.

In the train of the two nuclear attacks on Japan on 6 and 9 August 1945, the US Intelligence services began questioning all Germans in captivity who might possess information respecting possible German nuclear tests. An official paper was forwarded by COMNAVEU London on 24 January 1946 respecting the interrogation of a German prisoner on 19 August 1945. 103 The layout of the first page is as follows:

INTELLIGENCE REPORT

Subject: Germany Aviation.

Evaluation, Scale A1 to E0: B1.

Subject: Investigations, Research, Developments and Practical Use of German Atomic Bomb.

(1) Enclosure will be of interest to BuAer (E-32) and BuOrd (Re8).

(2) Enclosure is a discussion of the developments of the German atomic bomb. (Only one page declassifed)

Prepared by:

R.F.Hickey, Captain, US Navy.

Tulley Shelley, Commodore, US Navy, Intelligence Officer.

The accompanying page reads as follows:

“47. A man named ZINSSER, a Flak rocket expert, mentioned what he noticed one day: In the beginning of October 1944 I flew from Ludwigslust (south of Lübeck), about 12 to 15 km from an atomic bomb test station, when I noticed a strong, bright illumination of the whole atmosphere, lasting about 2 seconds.

48. The clearly visible pressure wave escaped the approaching and following cloud formed by the explosion. This wave had a diameter of about 1 km when it became visible and the colour of the cloud changed frequently. It became dotted after a short period of darkness with all sorts of light spots, which were, in contrast to normal explosions, of a pale blue colour.

49. After about 10 seconds the sharp outlines of the explosion cloud disappeared, then the cloud began to take on a lighter colour against the sky covered with a grey overcast. The diameter of the still visible pressure wave was at least 9000 meters while remaining visible for at least 15 seconds.

50. Personal observations of the colours of the explosion cloud found an almost blue-violet shade. During this manifestation reddish-coloured rims were to be seen, changing to a dirty-like shade in very rapid succession.

51. The combustion was lightly felt from my observation plane in the form of pulling and pushing.