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Could Germany have built an atomic bomb during World War II? The short
answer is, no. Before the war Germany had started and taken the lead in nuclear research when Otto Hahn and Friedrich Strassman demonstrated the fission of uranium U.235 in December 1938. The military potentials of such a vast amount of evergy was immediately recognized, and further research was begun. Werner Heisenberg, who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933, became the unofficial, self-appointed leader of Germany's nuclear research. Despite this early lead, there were still many problems to be solved. No one knew whether the fission of uranium could be developed into a chain reaction. How the vast energy could be controlled was another problem. Several teams of scientists were formed to research further, and in one design a heavy water reactor was envisioned. Germany produced some heavy water, and the Norsk Hydro plant in Norway produced a lot more. The plant, however, was destroyed by Allied and Norwegian commandos in 1942, and then annihilated for good by American bombers in 1943. It is noteworthy, though, that Germany had already had a significant amount of heavy water and could have built a small reactor with it. The problem of the supply of uranium was solved in 1940 when over 1,000 tons of mixed uranium products were captured at Oolen in Belgium. Germany had everything ready, but just seemed unable to do anything with it. For one thing, there were heated arguments within the German scientific community over the direction of nuclear research. Heisenberg's group preferred a reactor using uranium and heavy water as moderator. Its research, however, had been going on at a snail's pace. Heisenberg just seemed unable to grasp some fundamental principles of making an atomic bomb. This group seemed to believe that a whole reactor would have to be dropped as a nuclear bomb. Even the scientists involved admitted that no atomic bomb could be built before the end of the war. Another group, led by Paul Harteck and backed by Dr. Wilhelm Ohnesorge, head of the Reich Post Office, opted for the low-temperature (-80oC) reactor. A low-temperature reactor would produce neither heat nor power, but would leave radioactive material behind in the forms of spent fuel, radioactive isotopes and plutonium. These by-products, except plutonium, of course, did not amount to an atomic bomb, but there was another possibility. Fine sand and dust could be mixed with the radioactive material to make themselves radioactive (such a device is now known as "dirty bomb"). Packed around the high explosive warheads of the V-1 and V-2, the radioactive dust could spread far and wide, and knock out large cities like London. Harteck, however, met oppositions from Heisenberg, who disagreed with Harteck and withheld crucial materials. As a result, Harteck and others' work did not amount to much. Fortunately for all, the long answer is also no. |