Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcinzm | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious why the Germans spent so much effort building a complex prototype nuclear reactor, which isn't of much use in a war, versus focusing on a nuclear bomb exclusively, which is of use in the war. Did they simply not have the right type of fissile material for a bomb? Or was a reactor needed to better understand the physics involved?

View on HN

German Scientist didn't believe that a nuclear bomb could be completed in time to make a difference in the war. They estimated that America would complete their bomb first, only after 1944 and that if Germany hadn't won the war by 1944, victory would be impossible.

And they were right, America didn't complete their bomb until 1945, and by that point it was too late to make any impact in the outcome of the war (other than forcing Japan to surrender).

So they decided to focus resources elsewhere. The amount of resources spent on the German Nuclear reactor program was actually quite small.

In addition to Phireʼs comment: “HEISENBERG: I would say that I was absolutely convinced of the possibility of our making a uranium engine but I never thought that we would make a bomb and at the bottom of my heart I was really glad that it was to be an engine and not a bomb. I must admit that.” (Transcript of Surreptitiously Taped Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall. August 6-7, 1945. <http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf>)

They were going at it completely wrong, partially due to the whole Deutsche Physik movement.

OTOH Heisenberg, particularly, was hated by the “Deutsche Physik” agitators and had certainly reason to strongly dislike them; cp. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#SS_investiga...>.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com