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

137 points · 121 comments · xqcgrek2

  1. rurban · · focus · HN ↗
    What they didn't mention is that German had the worlds largest Uranium reserves those times, even larger than the famous Belgian-Kongo mines. They didn't knew it then. But the Nazis promised the miners to close the unhealthy mines, the avg. age of a miner was 45. They didn't, but later the Russians used this German and Czech uranium to produce their nuclear arsenal. What Germany missed was to enrich the uranium. Siemens could have done it, but Speer/Heisenberg probably missed that opportunity.
    1. Lumich · · focus · HN ↗
      « later the Russians used this German and Czech uranium to produce their nuclear arsenal. What Germany missed was to enrich the uranium. »

      Which would be all the more curious, if true, as we were probably on the right track, i.e. judging by the 1950s Soviet development of GUZ enrichment (Gas-Ultra-Zentrifugen), “with a little help from their German friends”, such as Gernot Zippe and Manfred von Ardenne, while “the West” was far behind in this domain.

      <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gernot_Zippe" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gernot_Zippe

        Zippe kehrte 1957 nach Österreich zurück. Als er 1957 in
        Amsterdam eine Konferenz zur Zentrifugen-Forschung besuchte,
        stellte er fest, dass die Forschung im Westen weit zurücklag.
      
      The Soviets had the first nuclear power station (Obninsk, 1954 – атом мирный, “peaceful atom”), whereas the USA was focussed on “exterminating enemies”.

      During the Manhattan Project, Usanians didn&#x27;t get centrifugation to work properly, and their other enrichment processes were inefficient. Curious, curious.

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