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The German Atomic Bomb: The History of Nuclear Research in Nazi Germany
In April of 1939, four months before the beginning of the Second World War, two German physicists sent a letter to the German War office curiously resembling Einstein’s famous letter to President Roosevelt, written in the same year. They wrote, “We take the liberty of calling to your attention the newest development in nuclear physics, which, in our opinion, will probably make it possible to produce an explosive many orders of magnitude more powerful than conventional ones.” In America, Einstein’s letter set in motion a series of decisions that led, six years later, to the explosion of the atomic bomb. In Germany, the physicists’ letter led to the creation of a similar project…that failed. The German Atomic Bomb is the story of the project—and of the reasons for its failure.
Paperback
Published August 21, 1983
About the author
David Irving
50 books446 followersDavid John Cawdell Irving is an English author who has written on the military and political history of World War II, especially Nazi Germany. He was found to be a Holocaust denier in a UK court in 2000 as a result of a failed libel case.
Irving's works include The Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitler's War (1977), Churchill's War (1987) and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich (1996). In his works, he argued that Adolf Hitler did not know of the extermination of Jews, or, if he did, he opposed it. Though Irving's negationist claims and views of German war crimes in World War II (and Hitler's responsibility for them) were never taken seriously by mainstream historians, he was once recognised for his knowledge of Nazi Germany and his ability to unearth new historical documents, which he held closely but stated were fully supportive of his conclusions. His 1964 book The Mare's Nest about Germany's V-weapons campaign of 1944-45 was praised for its deep research but criticised for minimising Nazi slave labour programmes.
By the late 1980s, Irving had placed himself outside the mainstream of the study of history, and had begun to turn from "'soft-core' to 'hard-core' Holocaust denial", possibly influenced by the 1988 trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. That trial, and his reading of the pseudoscientific Leuchter report, led him to openly espouse Holocaust denial, specifically denying that Jews were murdered by gassing at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Irving's reputation as a historian was further discredited in 2000, when, in the course of an unsuccessful libel case he filed against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, High Court Judge Charles Gray determined in his ruling that Irving willfully misrepresented historical evidence to promote Holocaust denial and whitewash the Nazis, a view shared by many prominent historians. The English court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". In addition, the court found that Irving's books had distorted the history of Hitler's role in the Holocaust to depict Hitler in a favourable light.
Irving's works include The Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitler's War (1977), Churchill's War (1987) and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich (1996). In his works, he argued that Adolf Hitler did not know of the extermination of Jews, or, if he did, he opposed it. Though Irving's negationist claims and views of German war crimes in World War II (and Hitler's responsibility for them) were never taken seriously by mainstream historians, he was once recognised for his knowledge of Nazi Germany and his ability to unearth new historical documents, which he held closely but stated were fully supportive of his conclusions. His 1964 book The Mare's Nest about Germany's V-weapons campaign of 1944-45 was praised for its deep research but criticised for minimising Nazi slave labour programmes.
By the late 1980s, Irving had placed himself outside the mainstream of the study of history, and had begun to turn from "'soft-core' to 'hard-core' Holocaust denial", possibly influenced by the 1988 trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. That trial, and his reading of the pseudoscientific Leuchter report, led him to openly espouse Holocaust denial, specifically denying that Jews were murdered by gassing at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Irving's reputation as a historian was further discredited in 2000, when, in the course of an unsuccessful libel case he filed against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, High Court Judge Charles Gray determined in his ruling that Irving willfully misrepresented historical evidence to promote Holocaust denial and whitewash the Nazis, a view shared by many prominent historians. The English court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". In addition, the court found that Irving's books had distorted the history of Hitler's role in the Holocaust to depict Hitler in a favourable light.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 3, 2014
Irving may have been labeled as a nazi apologist by todays dimwits, but his works are based on records and real research. His books are written professionally and his later (off-research) fancy to conspiracy theories doesn't really matter. He is the only historian who has based his works of nazi history mostly on nazi German archives. Of course, those WHL know nothing of the subject over school history etc., should gather basic knowledge before reading anything by Irving.
August 18, 2019
While reading Neil Bascomb’s book The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb, I learned that, having ruled out graphite as a moderator, German scientists performing atomic research were limited to heavy water. A nuclear engineer, I am well aware that graphite is an effective moderator and was used in the reactors used to plutonium for American atomic bombs. So, I wanted to know why the Germans made such a colossal blunder as to rule out graphite and turned to this book, which describes the activities of the German atomic bomb program, for answers.
As described by Richard Rhodes in The Making of the Atomic Bomb, the American investment in the Manhattan Project was modest until Enrico Fermi was able to take the Chicago Pile critical and demonstrate the feasibility of maintaining a self-sustaining fission chain reaction. It was only after this even in December, 1942 that the U.S. government made the massive resource commitments for which the Manhattan Project is known. In contrast, Germany’s scientists never managed to achieve criticality and were therefore unable to provide a proof of concept to justify such resource expenditures. With this in mind, there were several additional factors influencing the resources availability for the German atomic bomb effort:
• After 1941, in which the Germans failed to defeat the U.S.S.R., and the U.S. entered the war against Germany, Hitler placed Germany on a full war footing and cut funding and resources to projects without direct military application within a one-year time frame.
• In February, 1942,, two parallel conferences were scheduled to discuss the atomic bomb program. The first, technical in nature, was geared for scientists and scheduled for the daytime. In the second, scientists were to brief high-level officials on applications of the technology and consequent policy implications. It was scheduled for the evening, after the other conference dismissed for the day. Because of a clerical error, the high-level officials who could assign a higher priority to the project received the agenda for the technical conference, and most decided not to attend.
• Unsure of just how long it would take to design and build an atomic bomb, the scientists running the project feared having a one-year deadline and declined to push the issue of priority. This was not an unfounded concern. It took the massively funded Manhattan Project more than two and a half years to build an atomic bomb after the Chicago Pile achieved initial criticality.
While Germany had a two-year head start on the U.S. and two Nobel Prize winning physicists, Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn, who had discovered fission, Germany’s atomic bomb program failed in large part because of a technical error. Physicist Walther Bothe, who in the 1950s would win the Nobel Prize, mis-calculated the neutron diffusion length in graphite, causing graphite to be erroneously ruled out as a moderator. As a result, the German scientists were dependent on heavy water manufactured in Norway. Because of allied efforts to disrupt this supply, there was insufficient heavy water for a critical pile.
The surprise star of the German program was actually a physical chemist, Paul Harteck, who might have been able to catch Dr. Bothe’s error early on if not for issues beyond his control when he built a pile moderated by dry ice. He had arranged for a supply of dry ice before summer, when the entirety of the dry ice production would be needed for the food industry. However, he needed more uranium than he had, and other scientists were unwilling to part with theirs when he needed it. As a result, he was unable to build a critical or near-critical pile that might have forced the German physicists to revisit the feasibility of graphite (carbon) as a moderator. Because the Germans were also considering the use of enriched uranium to reduce their heavy water requirements, he also designed a centrifuge for this purpose, but it was too late to produce sufficient enriched uranium before Germany’s surrender.
While the Germans had some brilliant scientists, they suffered from ballistic podiatry (shooting themselves in the foot) on account of Dr. Bothe’s error and professional rivalries that undermined mission success. I find this highly ironic. The individualistic Americans were able to set their differences aside and work together toward a common goal, but the authoritarian Germans failed to do so. Furthermore, they placed scientists in charge of the project rather than someone who could more forcefully set and enforce priorities and schedules. In contrast, General Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers had been placed in charge of the Manhattan Project.
A final reason for the failure of the German atomic bomb program was enemy action. Not only were there successful efforts to sabotage and/or destroy the Norsk Hydro heavy water facility, whenever German facilities were identified as potentially supporting the atomic bomb program, they were bombed. Furthermore, late in the war, when the Americans and British were closing in from the west and the Soviets from the east, facilities had to be moved to safer locations, completely disrupting the efforts of the German scientists. For example, one physicist had developed an isotopic separation process that was significantly more efficient than the gaseous diffusion facility at Oak Ridge, but repeated bombing raids disrupted the construction of a prototype such that it was tested only as the war in Europe was winding down.
In the end, Germany failed in its effort to build an atomic bomb, and the world is a better place for it. That said, I found this book highly educational. While it is always a good idea to learn from one’s own mistakes, it is even better to learn from those made by others. So, as a nuclear engineer, I am glad that David Irving researched and wrote this book, giving us the opportunity to learn from the mistakes that caused brilliant German scientists to fail in their mission. One final point. David Irving earned himself a reputation as a holocaust denier, and I don’t doubt that his books are widely ignored on account of this. I was unaware of this before I chose to read this book and learned about it only when I did an internet search on him while writing this review. I like to do this to learn whether I should refer to the author as Mr., Mrs. or Dr. When the author has earned a PhD, I try to refer to him or her as Dr. or Professor as a sign of respect regardless of whether I agree with the author. Not only was I unaware of this, I didn’t see any signs of holocaust denial in this book. For example, Mr. Irving acknowledged that the policy removing Jewish professionals such as university professors from their positions actually hampered the war effort. But I digress. I read this book to learn about Germany’s atomic bomb project during World War II, and it helped me to accomplish that objective. If David Irving’s goal was to document the failure of the German atomic bomb project, I give him a hearty “Mission Accomplished,” which is better than what the German scientists achieved.
As described by Richard Rhodes in The Making of the Atomic Bomb, the American investment in the Manhattan Project was modest until Enrico Fermi was able to take the Chicago Pile critical and demonstrate the feasibility of maintaining a self-sustaining fission chain reaction. It was only after this even in December, 1942 that the U.S. government made the massive resource commitments for which the Manhattan Project is known. In contrast, Germany’s scientists never managed to achieve criticality and were therefore unable to provide a proof of concept to justify such resource expenditures. With this in mind, there were several additional factors influencing the resources availability for the German atomic bomb effort:
• After 1941, in which the Germans failed to defeat the U.S.S.R., and the U.S. entered the war against Germany, Hitler placed Germany on a full war footing and cut funding and resources to projects without direct military application within a one-year time frame.
• In February, 1942,, two parallel conferences were scheduled to discuss the atomic bomb program. The first, technical in nature, was geared for scientists and scheduled for the daytime. In the second, scientists were to brief high-level officials on applications of the technology and consequent policy implications. It was scheduled for the evening, after the other conference dismissed for the day. Because of a clerical error, the high-level officials who could assign a higher priority to the project received the agenda for the technical conference, and most decided not to attend.
• Unsure of just how long it would take to design and build an atomic bomb, the scientists running the project feared having a one-year deadline and declined to push the issue of priority. This was not an unfounded concern. It took the massively funded Manhattan Project more than two and a half years to build an atomic bomb after the Chicago Pile achieved initial criticality.
While Germany had a two-year head start on the U.S. and two Nobel Prize winning physicists, Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn, who had discovered fission, Germany’s atomic bomb program failed in large part because of a technical error. Physicist Walther Bothe, who in the 1950s would win the Nobel Prize, mis-calculated the neutron diffusion length in graphite, causing graphite to be erroneously ruled out as a moderator. As a result, the German scientists were dependent on heavy water manufactured in Norway. Because of allied efforts to disrupt this supply, there was insufficient heavy water for a critical pile.
The surprise star of the German program was actually a physical chemist, Paul Harteck, who might have been able to catch Dr. Bothe’s error early on if not for issues beyond his control when he built a pile moderated by dry ice. He had arranged for a supply of dry ice before summer, when the entirety of the dry ice production would be needed for the food industry. However, he needed more uranium than he had, and other scientists were unwilling to part with theirs when he needed it. As a result, he was unable to build a critical or near-critical pile that might have forced the German physicists to revisit the feasibility of graphite (carbon) as a moderator. Because the Germans were also considering the use of enriched uranium to reduce their heavy water requirements, he also designed a centrifuge for this purpose, but it was too late to produce sufficient enriched uranium before Germany’s surrender.
While the Germans had some brilliant scientists, they suffered from ballistic podiatry (shooting themselves in the foot) on account of Dr. Bothe’s error and professional rivalries that undermined mission success. I find this highly ironic. The individualistic Americans were able to set their differences aside and work together toward a common goal, but the authoritarian Germans failed to do so. Furthermore, they placed scientists in charge of the project rather than someone who could more forcefully set and enforce priorities and schedules. In contrast, General Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers had been placed in charge of the Manhattan Project.
A final reason for the failure of the German atomic bomb program was enemy action. Not only were there successful efforts to sabotage and/or destroy the Norsk Hydro heavy water facility, whenever German facilities were identified as potentially supporting the atomic bomb program, they were bombed. Furthermore, late in the war, when the Americans and British were closing in from the west and the Soviets from the east, facilities had to be moved to safer locations, completely disrupting the efforts of the German scientists. For example, one physicist had developed an isotopic separation process that was significantly more efficient than the gaseous diffusion facility at Oak Ridge, but repeated bombing raids disrupted the construction of a prototype such that it was tested only as the war in Europe was winding down.
In the end, Germany failed in its effort to build an atomic bomb, and the world is a better place for it. That said, I found this book highly educational. While it is always a good idea to learn from one’s own mistakes, it is even better to learn from those made by others. So, as a nuclear engineer, I am glad that David Irving researched and wrote this book, giving us the opportunity to learn from the mistakes that caused brilliant German scientists to fail in their mission. One final point. David Irving earned himself a reputation as a holocaust denier, and I don’t doubt that his books are widely ignored on account of this. I was unaware of this before I chose to read this book and learned about it only when I did an internet search on him while writing this review. I like to do this to learn whether I should refer to the author as Mr., Mrs. or Dr. When the author has earned a PhD, I try to refer to him or her as Dr. or Professor as a sign of respect regardless of whether I agree with the author. Not only was I unaware of this, I didn’t see any signs of holocaust denial in this book. For example, Mr. Irving acknowledged that the policy removing Jewish professionals such as university professors from their positions actually hampered the war effort. But I digress. I read this book to learn about Germany’s atomic bomb project during World War II, and it helped me to accomplish that objective. If David Irving’s goal was to document the failure of the German atomic bomb project, I give him a hearty “Mission Accomplished,” which is better than what the German scientists achieved.
Currently Reading
July 13, 2017Paradoxically, this was my favourite book when I was 5 years old. I want to reread it, because except the vague feeling of danger, intrigue and radiation-related things, I cannot remember anything about it.
August 25, 2025
Czytałem polskie wydanie, z 1975 roku - to duża szkoda, że nie jest wznawiane. Rozumiem, że autor jest kontrowersyjny, ale ta książka nie zawiera kontrowersji. To bardzo dokładne, a jednocześnie ciekawe omówienie historii niemieckiego programu atomowego. To bardzo ciekawe, jak jednocześnie blisko i daleko od bomby atomowej byli Niemcy.
Książka zaczyna się mniej więcej wtedy, kiedy Lisa Meitner (Żydówka, wyrzucona z roboty w Niemczech, która uciekła do Szwecji) pomogła koledze, prof. Hehnowi zrozumieć doświadczenie, w którym rozszczepiono jądra uranu (koniec 1938), a kończy się polowaniem alianckiego wywiadu na naukowców i dokumenty hitlerowskich programów jądrowych w połowie 1945.
To wielce pouczająca historia - jeden błąd rachunkowy (złe obliczenie przekroju czynnego grafitu), jeden błąd PRowy (za skomplikowane zaproszenie na konferencji, na której wyjaśniano kierownictwu państwa możliwości związane z rozszczepieniem atomów) i ogólny bałagan organizacyjny (niemiecki) zadecydowały o porażce programu.
To historia zarówno poszukiwania wiedzy, jak i pyszałkowatości. Napisana ciekawie i nie pomijając istotnych szczegółów fizycznych, co z racji swego wykształcenia doceniam. Świetna pozycja, niestety trudna do zdobycia.
Książka zaczyna się mniej więcej wtedy, kiedy Lisa Meitner (Żydówka, wyrzucona z roboty w Niemczech, która uciekła do Szwecji) pomogła koledze, prof. Hehnowi zrozumieć doświadczenie, w którym rozszczepiono jądra uranu (koniec 1938), a kończy się polowaniem alianckiego wywiadu na naukowców i dokumenty hitlerowskich programów jądrowych w połowie 1945.
To wielce pouczająca historia - jeden błąd rachunkowy (złe obliczenie przekroju czynnego grafitu), jeden błąd PRowy (za skomplikowane zaproszenie na konferencji, na której wyjaśniano kierownictwu państwa możliwości związane z rozszczepieniem atomów) i ogólny bałagan organizacyjny (niemiecki) zadecydowały o porażce programu.
To historia zarówno poszukiwania wiedzy, jak i pyszałkowatości. Napisana ciekawie i nie pomijając istotnych szczegółów fizycznych, co z racji swego wykształcenia doceniam. Świetna pozycja, niestety trudna do zdobycia.
April 17, 2015
The stories of runners-up, also-rans, and historical footnotes fascinate me. Maybe I'm a wannabe time-traveler, but I think it's fun to look at the people who possessed equal genius, motivation, materials, or drive, but were missing something, even if that thing was merely God's lightning bolt of timing.
The scientists who ran Germany's atomic program were much the same as America's; in fact, many of the tenets of nuclear theory were developed in Germany prior to 1939, when censorship prevented free sharing of sensitive scientific information due to the war. But the Americans had superior resources, space, leadership, and their land wasn't pulverized with falling bombs. Germany never managed to sustain a nuclear chain reaction - though they were darn close by 1945 - much less weaponize the fruit of their physics.
Again, it was a series of small mistakes that pushed this narrative: an experimental impurity led to Germany using heavy water as a neutron moderator, which was damn hard to produce. Also, when top Nazi leaders were invited to a presentation of nuclear physics research, the secretary in charge forwarded dense technical papers to the military command instead of a short summary saying "hey, if you invest in this maybe we can build a super-weapon".
The book tells a linear story, with enough small details to make it human, and at least hint at an alternate reality in which the guillotine is held in the other hand.
The scientists who ran Germany's atomic program were much the same as America's; in fact, many of the tenets of nuclear theory were developed in Germany prior to 1939, when censorship prevented free sharing of sensitive scientific information due to the war. But the Americans had superior resources, space, leadership, and their land wasn't pulverized with falling bombs. Germany never managed to sustain a nuclear chain reaction - though they were darn close by 1945 - much less weaponize the fruit of their physics.
Again, it was a series of small mistakes that pushed this narrative: an experimental impurity led to Germany using heavy water as a neutron moderator, which was damn hard to produce. Also, when top Nazi leaders were invited to a presentation of nuclear physics research, the secretary in charge forwarded dense technical papers to the military command instead of a short summary saying "hey, if you invest in this maybe we can build a super-weapon".
The book tells a linear story, with enough small details to make it human, and at least hint at an alternate reality in which the guillotine is held in the other hand.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews