WW II Historical Thread, Discussion, Pics, Videos

[Sinnavuuty]

WWII: The Stakes Part 2
4. The Einstein-Szilard Letter According to Marxist principle, 'history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.' The first tragic precedent is known as the most infamous Einstein-Szilard Letter. Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! The announcement in early 1939 that German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann had discovered fission prompted unfounded paranoid fears among the Jewish migrants in the U.S. that Germany might develop an atomic bomb. The Jewish physicists Leo Szilard, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, all Hungarian-born, and dubbed the 'Hungarian conspiracy', convinced Einstein to join in writing the 2nd August 1939 letter urging U.S. President Roosevelt to push the U.S. government into atomic weapons research. As a result President Roosevelt quickly established an advisory Uranium Committee, and the establishment of the S-1 Committee in 1941 marked an official shift from the research to the development phase of the project. Being unable to walk by himself, always faking his potency when posing for the media, and known as the Sick Man of the Americas, Roosevelt was indeed a crippled man that never recovered from paralytic poliomyelitis (autoimmune polyneuritis, Guillain-Barré syndrome from other posterior diagnosis), and it was only a matter of time before his incompetence in grand strategy would lead to a major national or even worse a world catastrophe. Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! The bare truth was that the German nuclear program, which had little governmental support, never came remotely close to developing one.

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Hitler planned to use the atomic bomb against the USSR in June 1945

The Russian FSB declassified and made public archival documents from that time. German scientists discovered the nuclear fission of uranium atoms in the late 1930s and made an important contribution to the creation of the foundations of atomic physics.

Hitler's Germany was the first state to launch its own atomic bomb project. The Nazis wanted to use long-range V-2 ballistic missiles to launch nuclear strikes against the USSR's industrial centers in the Urals and Central Asia.

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Nazis hoped to launch nuclear strike against Soviet Union in summer 1945 — FSB archive​

According to Gruppenfuehrer Werner Waechter, he learned about Germany’s plans to use the atomic bomb during a private conversation he had in 1943 with a man he identified only as Dominik

MOSCOW, August 7. /TASS/. Nazi Germany nurtured plans to use an atomic bomb against the Soviet Union in the summer of 1945, as follows from declassified transcripts of interrogations of Gruppenfuehrer Werner Waechter, a close associate of the Third Reich’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

As it turned out during the interrogations, alongside the position of the Chief of Staff of the NSDAP Propaganda Directorate, Waechter led the Ministry of Propaganda’s general office for armaments and construction and closely communicated with secret weapons specialists of the German Ministry of Armaments. The importance of this witness and his testimony was so great that on October 10, 1945, the interrogation of Waechter concerning the existence of Germany's atomic bomb and the latest V-2 missiles was handled by none other than the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union Colonel-General Ivan Serov.

According to Waechter, he learned about Germany’s plans to use the atomic bomb during a private conversation he had in 1943 with a man he identified only as Dominik. "He told me that German scientists had succeeded in achieving the splitting of the atomic nucleus and specialized engineers were engaged in the development of methods and ways of practical application of nuclear energy as a means of warfare," Waechter testified. He stated that the British and Americans were pushing ahead with their own research along the same lines, but Germany was allegedly 18 months ahead of them.

Hopes to change tide of war​

By 1945, the German Ministry of Armaments was carrying out practical preparations to use the atomic bomb. According to Waechter's testimony, as Hans Hertel, the editor of a secret government bulletin, told him after a trip to Celle in February 1945, Colonel Hermann Hajo, the chief of the Special Air Force School, broke the news that the school had operational airplanes of the latest design "which had a long range and will be armed with the atom bomb."


"The new planes were to drop atom bombs on the industrial centers of the Soviet Union in the Urals and Central Asia," Waechter reported. The airfield in Celle accommodated both the new bombers themselves and fighter planes that would guard them en route to their targets. According to Hertel, some new bombers were also deployed at other airfields.

"The conversations with Dominik and Hertel led me to believe that the German Ministry of Armaments was preparing to use atom bombs in 1945. I can also derive this conclusion from other facts that I was aware of as a senior official in the German propaganda ministry," Waechter said. He confessed he had no precise data regarding when the atomic bombs might be used against the Soviet Union, but certain indications, he said, "give me reason to believe that the atom bomb could be used in the war against the Soviet Union in the summer of 1945."

In a conversation with Waechter, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Propaganda Werner, "while speaking about the military and political situation of Germany in the last stage of the war, said that soon everything would change for the better, and referred to Hitler’s remark dropped in a narrow circle of confidants: 'May God forgive me the last 14 days of the war'." In addition, according to Waechter, in early 1945, captain of German industry and actually Deputy Minister of Armaments Karl-Otto Saur secretly informed him that "work is being stepped up to manufacture the latest weapons, which will soon be used at the frontline." A staffer of the German Research Council, Professor Schumann, said in the spring of 1945 that he was working on a secret weapon "capable of turning the tide of the war in Germany's favor."

Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels also said at a ministry meeting in April 1945 that "a new weapon to be used soon will change the entire course of the war."

Waechter speculated that the Third Reich could use the atomic bomb as early as June 1945, for that month was considered particularly favorable for Hitler. In April 1945 Goebbels commissioned the preparation of Hitler’s special horoscope for June for release to the public at large.

"I suspect that this instruction concealed intense preparations for the use of secret weapons scheduled for June 1945," Waechter said.

 

[Sinnavuuty]

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Hitler’s Germany made preparations for missile strike on US, FSB archives reveal​

According to Werner Waechter, "the V-2 weapon was capable of striking targets in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean whereas the V-1 had a very limited operating range"
MOSCOW, August 7. /TASS/. Hitler’s Germany had been making preparations since 1943 to deliver a missile strike on the United States and nurtured plans to use an atomic bomb for striking US industrial sites from long-range bombers, according to declassified documents released by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Wednesday.

The FSB’s declassified documents are based on the interrogation of Gruppenfuhrer Werner Waechter, one of the closest associates of Third Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who was taken prisoner. Along with the post of the chief of staff of the NSDAP Main Propaganda Department, Waechter headed the General Office of Armaments and Construction in the Propaganda Ministry and closely communicated with specialists in the field of Nazi Germany’s secret weapons.

During the interrogation on October 10, 1945 in Potsdam, Waechter said that Paul Heylandt, an engineer and inventor of V-rockets whom he had been familiar with since 1925 told him in 1943 about the development of the V-2 missile of "huge destructive power" outfitted with a ton of explosive and characterized by high velocity. In 1930, Heylandt invented a new rocket engine for a car but in 1935 the Reich Ministry of War confiscated his patent while Heylandt continued working on his invention under the ministry’s control, having become the owner of the rocket engine factory in Berlin.

According to Waechter, "the V-2 weapon was capable of striking targets in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean whereas the V-1 had a very limited operating range." By 1943, the V-2 missile could climb to an altitude of up to 80 km and Heylandt "worked on increasing the flight altitude to 120 km for a possibility to bombard the United States from the territory of Germany," he said.

"Upon climbing to an altitude of 120 km, a missile fired from Germany could have reached New York," Waechter said during the interrogation.

"Heylandt told me that underground facilities had been built in the Luttich area in Belgium in 1943-1944 to fire V-2 missiles. Later, these facilities were destroyed by Anglo-American aircraft while the remaining equipment was taken to Saalfeld and Harz in Thuringia where V-2 tactical tests were conducted," he said.

According to Heylandt, one testing station for the V-2 missile was located in Peenemunde in northern Germany and another testing facility was situated near Lake Bodensee at the Swiss border. The munitions were produced at the Rax factory in the outskirts of Vienna, at the test factory near Bodensee at the border with Switzerland and in Peenemunde.

"Heylandt told me that he had been present at the V-2 test at the testing station near Lake Bodensee. He said that residents of the border area were very surprised by a bright light and a strong sound produced during the testing," Waechter said.

Atomic strike on US​

The FSB also made public a special report of September 1945 by Chief of the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) Operations Sector Berlin, Deputy Chief of the Smersh Counter-Intelligence Section of the Soviet Troops in Germany Major General Alexey Sidnev to Deputy Interior Minister Ivan Serov, which says citing Waechter’s testimony that already in 1944 Germany "developed designs of very long-range bombers capable of bombing military-construction centers of the Soviet Union in the Urals and industrial facilities of North America."

"These bombers were intended to be used to transport atomic bombs," the special report said, citing Waechter’s testimony.

According to him, German scientists had managed to achieve nuclear fission already by 1943 and worked on the practical use of nuclear energy for military purposes.

 

[gelgoog]

The Germans definitively had a nuclear weapons program. But it was severely delayed due to several well known reasons.
When they tried to use graphite as a neutron moderator to make a nuclear fission reactor, it failed to produce the expected results. They were using contaminated graphite, which is why it did not work. So they went into heavy water as a neutron moderator instead which was way more expensive. You also had the issue that the main team, the one led by Heisenberg, made an error in calculating the critical mass needed for an explosive device. They thought a nuclear bomb would require way more uranium material than it did.

None of those problems were insurmountable however. So it was a question of time until they also had nukes.

 

[Ringsword]

The Germans definitively had a nuclear weapons program. But it was severely delayed due to several well known reasons.
When they tried to use graphite as a neutron moderator to make a nuclear fission reactor, it failed to produce the expected results. They were using contaminated graphite, which is why it did not work. So they went into heavy water as a neutron moderator instead which was way more expensive. You also had the issue that the main team, the one led by Heisenberg, made an error in calculating the critical mass needed for an explosive device. They thought a nuclear bomb would require way more uranium material than it did.

None of those problems were insurmountable however. So it was a question of time until they also had nukes.

Any credence to the Japanese atomic bomb?-was a book several years ago where it was claimed that IJN had actually detonated a test device in what is now NK.

 

[canniBUS]

The military museum in Beijing has a one-of-a-kind prototype semi-automatic conversion of the Japanese Type-38 rifle developed by the 8th Route Army. It is called the Xiangying (向应式). Research began in 1944. The project was canceled after the war and only one example exists today.

The rifle had a gas port drilled onto the right side of the barrel about 1/3 of the way down its length. A long-stroke gas piston and recoil spring were attached to the gas port and bolt to cycle the action. The locking mechanism was converted from a rotating bolt to a wedge lock. The result is a straight-pull bolt-action rifle with a gas piston to cycle the action.

Here's a video about the rifle from the Military Museum's channel:

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