20. Just How Close Was Germany to an Atomic Bomb in WWII?
Another WWII dramatic myth revolves around what would have happened if Hitler had ever gotten his hands on an atomic bomb. An untrue narrative developed after the war to the effect that German physicists were on the verge of unlocking the secret of fission and giving Hitler a nuke. It was not born in a vacuum. During the war, the Manhattan Project had operated on the assumption that Hitler had an advanced nuclear program that might bear fruit at any time.
Those in the know thus viewed the US as being in a race against Germany over which country would first produce nuclear weapons. However, it was discovered after the war that the German nuclear program was not as advanced as had been assumed. Early in their research, German physicists took a wrong turn and followed it away from the path that leads to nuclear weapons. The war could have lasted another decade, and Germany would have been no closer to an atomic bomb in 1955 than in 1945.