On August 6, 1945, the world entered a new nuclear age when an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during World War I. Japan dropped another bomb three days later on Nagasaki, Japan. These two bombings are the pinnacle of a covert effort in United in United meant the peak. nuclear devices suitable for use in war. Although over 200,000 people died in the bombings, the attack also saved lives by bringing the war to a premature end. Could the war be ended before then? What would have happened if Germany had developed nuclear weapons before the United weapons?
Although Germany had a nuclear weapons program in World War II, it was not as advanced as the US and was not a national priority. When United States $23 billion of current dollars are invested in the project, German funding for nuclear research has been sporadic and The Germans, like the Americans, failed to organize a single, large task. In fact, the Germans were wrong because they had at least two competing teams of poorly trained scientists working together. This was followed by factional strife within the Nazi government, a great waste of manpower, planning, and money.
Research into nuclear weapons in Germany began with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute led by Werner Heisenberg and later a separate program led by Professor Kurt Diebner. For some time these two programs worked together and separately from each other. After Reich armaments minister Albert Speer cut off funding for Heisenberg in 1942, several scientists persuaded Hermann Goering to develop an alternative plan. Research done by other projects without benefit of any work, this third group began to work on nuclear propelled U-rats. When the project headquarters was launched by the Allies, however, they moved locations and began gathering more and more uranium to produce enough uranium to produce the bomb. That effort did not begin until mid-1944, however, and by then it was too late.
The Nazis could have developed the nuclear bomb if they had planned their plans better, because they initially had the lead in nuclear technology. They produced the fission reaction necessary for uranium to make Americans richer. Unfortunately for them, authoritarian and anti-Semitic policies had driven many of the best scientists out of Germany. Those who remained, the Americans did not cooperate and managed to find a way to control the fission. Heisenberg believed that heavy water was the key to the get rich process, but Germany had no source of heavy water. It had to be shipped from Norway. After they had destroyed their station, the Germans, however, had no way of getting any more heavy water to feed them.
Some German scientists may have even sabotaged their intentions. There is some debate as to whether the scientists working on the project actually wanted to produce the bomb, because some of the evidence was subject to its development. When he did this, they considered his works to be preliminary, which would not be enjoyed until after the war. Whether or not the scholars deliberately sabotaged their work, we can be grateful that they were not more successful. If they had been, Hitler would not have been stuck dropping nuclear weapons on London or New York. If he had obtained a weapon from him, the war could have ended very differently.
