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A now little remembered must read for anyone interested in sci research during ww2, it was actually depicted in the film Day One with Brian Denehy, on the Manhattan Project....
Alsos. The Failure of German Science
Posted from goodreads.com
Science
Physics
Theoretical Physics
Military History
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
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The problem with Germany was never drive, ambition or brains. Germany was made up of states and each state had a governor. These governors were naturally friends of Hitler. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with picking your friends for key leadership roles. JUST MAKE SURE ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS LIKE EACH OTHER AND WILL PLAY WELL WITH ONE ANOTHER. If the governor in one area made rifles and he didn't like the governor in the area that made bullets, guess what? There's going to be weapon shortages. And the fact that Germany is losing while these two fight it out was irrelevant to both. And then secretary Bormann was notorious for pitting them against each other. Bormann was the true German hero of WW2 as he saw (early on) that Germany was nowhere near being able to win WW2, so in 1942 he started sending staff (and CASH!) to South American countries to hide out until the war ended.
A lot of Einstein's information was already in the scientific community when WW2 started. So the Germans (as well as the Japanese!) were not starting from scratch. Germany proved that heavy water would not work out well. The Allied sinking of the sources (movie "Heroes Of Tellmark") makes it look like Allies saved the day. In actuality the sinking of the ship with the heavy water caused Hitler to do the one thing he was not good at: consolodate. He took all of the loose programs and their funding and gave them to the one department (the post office, funny enough!) that had made the most progress. With now unlimited funding, the post office travelled full speed ahead with more trials and successes. In fact, they were so successful that had Germany started the war in 1940 instead of 1939, they would have had a low yield nuclear device by early 1944.
And as racially motivated as Hitler was, the prominent recipient of it would have been Moscow. The Lucy Ring (successful as they were) had no concept of how far along Germany was coming. They correctly spotted the chemical plumes from the early uranium enrichment labs but they had no tactical idea how close Germany physically was. The real target at the time was the Japanese who had lost the last Russia-vs-Japan clash and it was believed by Stalin that they would use their nuclear device on him instead of the Americans. So the majority of spy efforts were headed towards Tokyo. Once heavy water proved unworkable via loss of materials and data, the head of that state did something uncharacteristic and requested all of their study and research and funding go to the post office unit. Once the post office unit had extra staff and unlimited funding, they made progress rivaling the Manhattan Project.
The German "unit" even had two ME-262's "earmarked" for delivery of the weapons which naturally would have been Moscow and London.
A lot of Einstein's information was already in the scientific community when WW2 started. So the Germans (as well as the Japanese!) were not starting from scratch. Germany proved that heavy water would not work out well. The Allied sinking of the sources (movie "Heroes Of Tellmark") makes it look like Allies saved the day. In actuality the sinking of the ship with the heavy water caused Hitler to do the one thing he was not good at: consolodate. He took all of the loose programs and their funding and gave them to the one department (the post office, funny enough!) that had made the most progress. With now unlimited funding, the post office travelled full speed ahead with more trials and successes. In fact, they were so successful that had Germany started the war in 1940 instead of 1939, they would have had a low yield nuclear device by early 1944.
And as racially motivated as Hitler was, the prominent recipient of it would have been Moscow. The Lucy Ring (successful as they were) had no concept of how far along Germany was coming. They correctly spotted the chemical plumes from the early uranium enrichment labs but they had no tactical idea how close Germany physically was. The real target at the time was the Japanese who had lost the last Russia-vs-Japan clash and it was believed by Stalin that they would use their nuclear device on him instead of the Americans. So the majority of spy efforts were headed towards Tokyo. Once heavy water proved unworkable via loss of materials and data, the head of that state did something uncharacteristic and requested all of their study and research and funding go to the post office unit. Once the post office unit had extra staff and unlimited funding, they made progress rivaling the Manhattan Project.
The German "unit" even had two ME-262's "earmarked" for delivery of the weapons which naturally would have been Moscow and London.
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PO3 Donald Murphy
Capt Daniel Goodman - The submarine missions were few and varied. A type VII U-Boat isn't the greatest vehicle for carrying tons of stuff so the missions were mainly technical in nature, ie; trading people. The first German boat brought scientists which helped the Japanese with their uranium enrichment. Plans and schematics for the ME-163 Komet and ME-262 Schwalbe were also traded as well as the Dornier push-pull fighter. Having failed to take Russian oil and barely holding on to Ploesti, and have no navy other than nuisance forces, Germany was keen to get naval-rich Japan to open some doors to Java and get some different oil sources. The larger Japanese Navy would be better/more safe to get fuel to Germany. At this point in time, the tide had not fully turned against Japan (1943).
The un-finished Graf Zeppelin was to be towed to Kure where it was hoped the Japanese naval juggernaut could finish it in half the time. The submarine returned to Germany with Japanese technicians who would examine Graf (and the Italian unbuilt carrier) and decide on the best way to get it back to Japan. Mock ups of German jet tech were shown off to the Japanese who took down results and filmed the tests. The fall of Italy happened as the U-Boat returned to Japan. It would be sunk enroute by the British. The next two U-Boats and a Japanese I-Boat coming from Japan un-announced, would also be nailed by the British. Edwin P. Hoyt's "U-Boats" and Peter Wright's "Spycatcher" go into possible cargos that British intelligence knew to be on the succeeding U-Boats. I'll look in to the Mussolini documentary.
The un-finished Graf Zeppelin was to be towed to Kure where it was hoped the Japanese naval juggernaut could finish it in half the time. The submarine returned to Germany with Japanese technicians who would examine Graf (and the Italian unbuilt carrier) and decide on the best way to get it back to Japan. Mock ups of German jet tech were shown off to the Japanese who took down results and filmed the tests. The fall of Italy happened as the U-Boat returned to Japan. It would be sunk enroute by the British. The next two U-Boats and a Japanese I-Boat coming from Japan un-announced, would also be nailed by the British. Edwin P. Hoyt's "U-Boats" and Peter Wright's "Spycatcher" go into possible cargos that British intelligence knew to be on the succeeding U-Boats. I'll look in to the Mussolini documentary.
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Capt Daniel Goodman
I follow, I'd heard much of all that, before, incl the Italian carrier story, I'll find those books you'd mentioned also, I'll look for the documentary site also, many thanks.
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Capt Daniel Goodman
http://www.456fis.org/HITLERS_BOMB.htm
This also basically tells the whole story as well, for the most part...
This also basically tells the whole story as well, for the most part...
The history books say the United States and Britain comfortably won the race against Nazi Germany to build the world's first nuclear bomb.
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