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Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal

137 points · 121 comments · xqcgrek2

  1. expedition32 · · focus · HN ↗
    This was already known. The British put the German scientists into a big country house after the war and bugged all the rooms. After the US dropped the atomic bombs the German scientists spent weeks discussing with eachother how the Americans could have done it. They never got it right.
    1. amsully · · focus · HN ↗
      It’s a great read from beginning to end <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;germanhistorydocs.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;nazi-germany-1933-1945&#x2F;transcript-of-surreptitiously-taped-conversations-among-german-nuclear-physicists-at-farm-hall-august-6-7-1945" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;germanhistorydocs.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;nazi-germany-1933-1945&#x2F;tran...
      1. constantius · · focus · HN ↗
        &gt; HAHN [discovered nuclear fission] was completely shattered by the news and said that he felt personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, as it was his original discovery which had made the bomb possible. He told me that he had originally contemplated suicide when he realized the terrible potentialities of his discovery and he felt that now these had been realized and he was to blame.

        &gt; HAHN: I must honestly say that I would have sabotaged the war if I had been in a position to do so.

        &gt; VON WEIZSÄCKER again expressed horror at the use of the weapon and HEISENBERG replied that had they produced and dropped such a bomb they would certainly have been executed as War Criminals having made the “most devilish thing imaginable”.

        &gt; WEIZSÄCKER: History will record that the Americans and the English made a bomb, and that at the same time the Germans, under the HITLER regime, produced a workable engine. In other words, the peaceful development of the uranium engine was made in GERMANY under the HITLER regime, whereas the Americans and the English developed this ghastly weapon of war.

        Fascinating. You definitely must post it, I&#x27;d enjoy reading a discussion about this, as would others in this thread.

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