Did the Nazis have an atomic bomb by 1945?
Did they use it?
Where?

What are your thoughts?

No.
No.
Not applicable.
Irrelavent to the questions.

The U.S. had better German scientists than Germany did.

They where not even close to it. Mostly working on using it for power generation. There they where close but lacked heavy water.

The germans where relatively close to a Fuel Air Explosive (some hints say they tested one). Quite naturally since CH4 (Methane) explosions are a constant problem in german mines and the FAE is based on that (and meal dust explosions). From their "Nebelwerfers" the germans although knew the effects of overpressure on humans

I think I read somewhere that the Japanese were also working on an atomic bomb. Isn't that interesting?

About a year ago I watched on the History channel about the advances in jet propelled planes, there was one that was a flying wing. It was a prototype for a larger version that was to fly to New York and drop a small atomic warhead on Manhattan on Hitlers birthday, if the war continued into the year 1946.

It stated that a smaller version of the bomb was tested near Russia.
I guess the History channel is not that reliable.

@MBR: I heard that the generator worked for about twenty five days, is this also false?
@ jphillips: That is interesting, and peculiar!

A few year back I read a book called Blood and Water, Sabotaging Hitlers Bomb, by Dan Kurzman. It was a very informative book on this topic and I recommend it

germany and japan both had atomic programs. germany didnt start using their atomic prgram untill 44, which was way to late. they were using it more for power sources than anything else. japan, on the other hand, was further ahead. germany was actually supplying japan with uranium for use. after germany surrendered, one of the final uboats that had surrendered itself had a cargo load of uranium heading to japan, which the united states had obviously used for its own atomic weapons against japan.

even though all three parties had an atomic program, the US had already perfected the use in atomic weapons. the other 2, they werent nearly as close to using it yet.
the united states had alot more scientists working on the project. a good amount of them were jewish germans.

The "small test bomb" description is a lot closer to an FAE in effects and all (Read/watched that too). And unlike nukes the germans did a lot of tests with that (often using coal dust) so FAE tests are more likely, Given the scarcity of Uranium (The germans never had plutonium while most US bombs used that(1)) that even slowed down Heisenbergs work (The biggest) a test bomb is even less likely

The germans never got the chain reaction going. They where still working on the uranium configuration and the amount of heavy water to use. They had not enough high grade heavy water to get the reaction sustained. Look for "Haigerloch nuclear reactor". So the 25 days are wrong. Current research in germany says that the Haigerloch plant also lacked Uranium to get it to work (As always germany had more than one team competing and thereby thankfully hampering the work - see Panther vs Tiger, ME109 vs FW190...)

Actually a nuke power plant (That works with lower concentrations of U235) makes more sense for Nazi Germany. They have rather large subs "in the making" (Type XXI) and those would benefit from a nuclear plant (A XXI based nuke boat would be bigger, see USS Nautilus)

(1) Devils Egg/Alamo Gordo and Fat Man/Nagasaki, only Little Boy/Hiroshima was an Uranium bomb, IIRC the only ever

I would recommend reading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. This is a very well researched and documented book published in 1986. He also wrote a followup about the hydrogen bomb.
In essence, neither Germany or Japan were close to having a bomb. It would have taken about 1/3 of all of the electrical power that Japan could produce at that time to process the uranium or plutonium required for a bomb. As noted by others, the German scientists were concentrating more on power production and really didn't have the material or facilities required due to other production having much higher priorities, and they didn't think that a bomb was possible.
Regarding the German submarine having uranium on board that was later used in the US weapon against the Japanese; an urban myth.
A very important thing to be aware of is the tremendous amount of resources that were required for this project. This was the largest project in the United States during the war. The second largest was B-29 production (the delivery system for the bomb). At the time, no other nation in the world could afford the production personnel, space (Oak Ridge, where the fissile material was processed, was the largest plant of any type in the world), electrical power, or science required.
Norm Samuelson

read up on U-234. also, there was a special about this sub on history channel. unless facts are completely wrong and history channel airs stuff that is completely incorrect, im going to go with documentation whether its references online or history channel.

history channel aired "U234:hitlers last submarine"

The German submarine was captuerd at such a late date, the material captured (whatever the amount was) would not have had time to have been processed for the weapons used against Japan. I stand by my comment. (And who am I to argue with Wikipedia or the History Channel).

The German historian Rainer Karlsch wrote a book, “Hitler’s Bombe”, states that another team was more successful and managed to make a bomb that combines nuclear fission and fusion principles to release energy. He further suggests that this type of device was tested three times shortly before the end of war. He states that one test occurred on the German island of Ruegen in the fall of 1944 and two more in the eastern state of Thuringia in March of 1945.

Karlsch also mentions a report written by Russian spies. In this report they state that two large bombs were detonated in Thuringia. They mention that traces of radiation were found in the area. It also stated that the bomb was tested on POW’s. He also mentions that the test might not have been very successful, but they were still very powerful. And that it might have been a “dirty bomb”.

So could this be the FAE bomb that MBR was talking about or is this another type of bomb?

For those of you citing the History Channel as reference, click the link above to see a listing of their programming. Do you really want your information coming from the same source as "Ancient Aliens," "Pawn Stars," "Monster Quest," "UFO Hunters," "Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy," and "How Bruce Lee Changed the World?"

A dirty bomb is nonsense for the germans. These bombs use nuclear wastes (Little availabel at that time) to poison an area. If the germans want to do that, they could have used mass-produced nerve gas (Tabun/Sarin, Soman was late pre-production). Nothing in the allied arsenal would protect against that.

And Dr. Kalsch is a Wirtschaftshistoriker - a specialist on the economic part of history. Not a good source to start with. He fabulates about a "nuclear shaped charge" that would work without the otherwise needed amount of enriched Uranium. The PTB (Federal Laboratory for Physical and Technical Science) tested the soil in the "test range" and said "NONSENSE" (All radioactivity is either post WWII nuke tests or Tschernobyl). Real Scientists also say the technical concept is NONSENSE

Besides you don't test explosive devices "way outa there" when you have special test ranges for that. FAE tests would be done in Hillersleben (Artillery range) or Munster (Chemical tests since 1916)

Thanks for clearing this up guys! I guess it’s just a rumor!

Japan was actually thought to have been alot further along than Germany. In fact it was thought for years that Japan actually successfully tested a nuke in Korea shortly before the end of the war. This never happened. To be honest, the Axis powers never were able to afford the resorces required to study, develope then manufacture a "bomb", with one of the biggest problem being where to do it with out being harrased by constant raids and bombings. The U.S.A. on the other hand was well equiped to handle the task.

Roy

OTOH the germans wouldn't have used the bomb anyway. After all they didn't use the nerve gas either. They had it, they had it filled in bombs and they had more than one choice of carrier to attack Normandy and deal a heavy blow (The allies where still preparing against Mustard Gas and similar low tech stuff)

If I didn't know better I would suspect Hitler, Porsche, Messerschmidt and a few others to be allied saboteurs for all the problems they caused the german armed forces.

From World War 2 Forum

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/34245-german-bomb.html

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"For the present I believe that the war will be over long before the first atom bomb is built." (Heisenberg, statement to Hitler in 1939). Then as the head of German research (Heisenberg) could honestly report to Hitler later, in July of 1943 that; "though our work will not lead in a short time towards the production of practical useful engines or explosives, it gives on the other hand the certainty that in this field the enemy powers cannot have any surprise in store for us." He of course had no clue that the Fermi team had succeeded a full seven months before his claim, and had created the world’s first controlled nuclear reactor in Chicago.

Nor could Heisenberg know that three months after his "prediction" to Hitler, the DuPont company would begin construction of the Fermi (graphite) pile "plutonium" production facility at Hanford WA. It began full operation in late 1944, and delivered its first weapons grade plutonium in mid 1945. Fast forward to 1945 when Heisenberg and his team are under arrest in Great Britain. If one reads the 200-odd pages of the 1992 declassified Farm Hall transcripts, there is the moment when Werner Heisenberg and the nine other German nuclear scientists being held at a country house in England hear that an Allied Atomic bomb has devastated the city of Hiroshima. The Allies' atomic weapon, according to the BBC Home Service announcer; has delivered "as much explosive power as 2,000 of our great ten-toners." Hidden microphones were clandestinely transmitting the voices of the German "guests" to a nearby listening room at Farm Hall, and so we have in the reports a record of their astonished reaction. Heisenberg is heard to "snort" and then responds by flatly rejecting the possibility that the bomb could have been a fission weapon. "Some dilettante in America who knows very little about it has bluffed them," he says. "I don't believe that it has anything to do with uranium."

Even more informative, from any historian’s point of view, are the intense technical discussions that consumed the subsequent hours and days as the captive scientists tried to puzzle out how their Allied counterparts could have managed to do what they had concluded was beyond reach. Of particular interest, is Heisenberg's informal estimate of the amount of uranium required for a bomb, the critical mass. Throughout the war Heisenberg continued to believe that many tons of the rare isotope uranium-235, or of plutonium (an impossible quantity for any country to obtain in his estimate) would be needed for a bomb, rather than the tens of kilograms actually required.

the germans were unable to complete their work on the atomic bomb due to the damage caused by Norwegian resistance at the heavy water plant at Telemark

there have only ever been two atomic bombs used in anger they were dropped on japan

The reason Hitler never used chemical weapons is because the other side had them too and he remembered the horrors of gas in the first World War very well (funny considering). If he had the bomb and knew he was the only one to have it, I doubt he would have had much reservations against using it. Especially against the Soviets.

And yes the Americans are the only ones to have used the "Bomb" and most likely saved millions of Allied and Japanese lifes in doing so.

Roy

I'd like to address a slight misconception that keeps popping up in this thread.

Of the top scientists that developed the A-bomb, Robert Oppenheimer was an American, Enrico Fermi was Italian, Leo Szilard and Edward Teller (father of the H-bomb) were Hungarian.

The "German scientists" were not at Los Alamos because the war was still on. They didn't come to the US until after the war and their efforts were largely directed toward the development of rockets.

Actually, it was Norwegian SOE agents flown over from England, cooperating with contacts in the Norwegian Resistance. Most of which also were SOE agents. BBC made a very good documentary some time back about the operation following the footsteps of the originals. There was also a Norwegian B/W movie made just after war - "Tungtvannsaksjonen" (The Heavy Water Operation). Quite authentic. There was also "Heroes of Telemark", featuring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris. Not that authentic but not too bad considering it was a Hollywood production.

Regds

Fred

There are quite a few researchers that are of the opinion that Japan had given clear signs that they were willing to surrender, sparing the "millions of Allied and Japanese lifes". And that the nukes against Japan therefore never were needed.

As it were, the fact that they were used could have generated a genuine break on Soviet post-war ambitions in Europe.

Regds

Fred

Yes well there are lots of researchers with lots of opinions leavened with 70years of hindsight.

It is simple:

In April 45, at the invasion of Okinawa, there were 80k+ Allied casualties and 250k+ Japanese casualties, soldiers and civilians.

Prime Minister Suzuki July 28 1945 in response to being given an ultimatum requiring an unconditional surrender: "We will do nothing but press on to the bitter end to bring about a successful completion of the war."

Clear evidence for sure but not of surrender.

250k+ people perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then the war ended.