BERLIN, Germany (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.
That the Nazis conducted nuclear experiments has been known for decades, but "Hitler's Bomb" by Berlin academic Rainer Karlsch, published Monday, suggests they may have been closer to building a bomb for military use than previously thought.
No independent corroboration of the claims was 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.
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 offers no direct documentary proof.
Karlsch acknowledged that he has no positive proof the Nazis conducted a nuclear test blast, but hopes that his book will provoke more research.
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.
Soil samples that Karlsch had analyzed for his book found the presence of radioactive isotopes, he said.
Sounds pretty shady, but interesting. His lack of documentary proof is quite damning but he offers a few fleeting clues to support himself so it's not completely out there.
That NOS Guy wrote:Sounds pretty shady, but interesting. His lack of documentary proof is quite damning but he offers a few fleeting clues to support himself so it's not completely out there.
-NOS
It's beyond "damning". It completely discredits his entire hypothesis. There's a tremendous weight of evidence that shows the Nazis were nowhere near an atomic bomb, and he offers nothing to counter that. His best evidence is apparently radioactive soil samples--on the site of a former Soviet military base!
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Superman wrote:I once remember hearing a physician say that disoveries are not published in books, they're published in academic journals.
I don't buy it either... I would have to see some real proof.
And that guy would be correct. Something like this you have peer reviewed. Sadly, history is as much interpretation as fact and this guy's interpretations are flat out wrong.
Its kinda funny though: the Nazis had a nuclear weapon program, in the same way they had thousands of other programs. The Soviets were quite intent on nicking their uranium when they assaulted Berlin, for instance: but they had no capability to build a nuclear weapon.
