[ RadSafe ] [Fwd: [srp] Hitler 'tested small atom bomb']

[Marcel Schouwenburg]

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/4348497.stm

Hitler 'tested small atom bomb'

A German historian has claimed in a new book presented on Monday
that Nazi scientists successfully tested a tactical nuclear weapon  in the
last months of World War II.

Rainer Karlsch said that new research in Soviet and also Western
archives, along with measurements carried out at one of the test
sites, provided evidence for the existence of the weapon.

"The important thing in my book is the finding that the Germans had  an
atomic reactor near Berlin which was running for a short while,  perhaps
some days or weeks," he told the BBC.

"The second important finding was the atomic tests carried out in 
Thuringia and on the Baltic Sea."

Mr Karlsch describes what the Germans had as a "hybrid tactical
nuclear weapon" much smaller than those dropped on Hiroshima or
Nagasaki.

'Bright light'

He said the last test, carried out in Thuringia on 3 March 1945,
destroyed an area of about 500 sq m - killing several hundred
prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates.

The weapons were never used because they were not yet ready for mass 
production. There were also problems with delivery and detonation 
systems.


 Karlsch has done us a service in showing that German research into
uranium went further than we'd thought... but there was not a German  atom
bomb
Michael Schaaf, German physicist


"We haven't heard about this before because only small groups of
scientists were involved, and a lot of the documents were classified 
after they were captured by the Allies," said Karlsch.

"I found documents in Russian and Western archives, as well as in  private
German ones."

One of these is a memo from a Russian spy, brought to the attention  of
Stalin just days after the last test. It cites "reliable sources"  as
reporting "two huge explosions" on the night of 3 March.

Karlsch also cites German eyewitnesses as reporting light so bright  that
for a second it was possible to read a newspaper, accompanied  by a sudden
blast of wind.

The eyewitnesses, who were interviewed on the subject by the East  German
authorities in the early 1960s, also said they suffered nose- bleeds,
headaches, and nausea for days afterwards.

Karlsch also pointed to measurements carried out recently at the
test site that found radioactive isotopes.

Scepticism

His book has provoked huge interest in Germany, but also scepticism.

It has been common knowledge for decades that the Nazis carried out 
atomic experiments, but it has been widely believed they were far  from
developing an atomic bomb.

"The eyewitnesses he puts forward are either unreliable or they are  not
reporting first-hand information; allegedly key documents can be 
interpreted in various ways," said the influential news weekly Der 
Spiegel.

"Karlsch displays a catastrophic lack of understanding of physics,"  wrote
physicist Michael Schaaf, author of a previous book about Nazi  atomic
experiments, in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

"Karlsch has done us a service in showing that German research into 
uranium went further than we'd thought up till now. But there was  not a
German atom bomb," he added.

It has also been pointed out that the United States employed
thousands of scientists and invested billions of dollars in the
Manhattan Project, while Germany's "dirty bomb" was allegedly the  work of
a few dozen top scientists who wanted to change the course  of the war.

Karlsch himself acknowledged that he lacked absolute proof for his 
claims, and said he hoped his book would provoke further research.

But in a press statement for the book launch, he is defiant.

"It's clear there was no master plan for developing atom bombs. But  it's
also clear the Germans were the first to make atomic energy
useable, and that at the end of this development was a successful  test of
a tactical nuclear weapon."
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Marcel Schouwenburg
RadSafe moderator & list owner