19. Germany’s Nuclear Weapons Program Never Came Close to Giving Hitler an A-Bomb
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901 -1976) was the key scientist in the Third Reich’s nuclear weapons program. Although widely – and rightly – lauded as a genius, it is untrue that he ever came close to a nuclear bomb. Heisenberg had nebulous ideas that splitting the atom could produce a powerful weapon, but he never understood how to put in practice nuclear fission. In Germany’s last test in the spring of 1945, scientists failed to achieve the preliminary first step of criticality – a self-sustaining chain reaction that the Manhattan Project achieved in 1942.
Criticality was the crucial foundation without an atomic weapon program could not have succeeded. The failure of German scientists to achieve that fundamental step meant that their atomic weapons program was nowhere close to success. Additionally, Germany’s nuclear program lacked the necessary support for success. After Manhattan Project scientists achieved criticality, it took America almost three years, with a massive investment of resources and the personal support and attention of the head of state, to successfully test the first atomic bomb. The Germans had not accomplished the criticality breakthrough by the time the war ended, and their nuclear program had never received anything close to the support enjoyed by the Manhattan Project.
Read More: World War II Myths That Still Persist Today.