The end of World War II in Europe, at least in the form in which it is usually presented, seems absolutely meaningless, because what is written in history books resembles nothing more than a poorly written ending to one of Wagner's melodramatic operas.
In October 1944, a German pilot and rocket scientist named Hans Zinsser flew in the deepening twilight in a twin-engined Heinkel 111 bomber over the province of Mecklenburg, in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea. He flew out in the evening to avoid meeting the Allied fighters, who by this time had seized complete supremacy in the skies of Germany. Zinsser had no way of knowing that what he saw that night would be hidden for decades after the war in the top secret government archives of the United States. And he certainly could not have imagined that his testimony, ultimately declassified at the very turn of the millennium, would become an excuse to rewrite or at least meticulously revise the history of World War II. Zinsser's account of what he saw on that night flight solves one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the end of the war in one fell swoop.
At the same time, he poses new mysteries, raises new questions, allowing for a moment a glimpse into the frightening tangled world of the secret weapons that were developed by the Nazis. Zinsser's testimony opens a real Pandora's box with information about the work carried out in the Third Reich to create terrible weapons, in terms of scope and possible horrific consequences of the use of much superior to conventional atomic bombs. More importantly, his testimony also raises a very uncomfortable question: why did the governments of the Allies and America in particular keep all this secret for so long? What did we actually get from the Nazis at the end of the war?
However, what is this poorly written ending of the world war?
In order to fully appreciate how poorly written this ending is, it is best to start with the most logical place: Berlin, a bunker hidden deep underground, the last weeks of the war. It is there, in a bizarre surreal world, cut off from the outside world, a megalomaniac Nazi dictator takes refuge with his generals, ignoring the hail of American and Soviet bombs that turn the beautiful city of Berlin into a heap of ruins Adolf Hitler, chancellor and Fuhrer, who shrinks every day The Great German Reich is holding a meeting. His left hand twitches involuntarily, from time to time he has to interrupt to get wet saliva flowing from his mouth. His face is deathly pale, his health is undermined by the drugs that doctors constantly inject him. Placing his glasses on his nose, the Fuhrer squints at the map spread out on the table.
Colonel-General Gotthard Heinrici, commander of Army Group Vistula, which has to confront the many times outnumbered armies of Marshal Zhukov, who have come closer than sixty kilometers to Berlin, begs the Fuehrer to provide him with reinforcements. Heinrici is perplexed about the disposition of the German troops, which he sees on the map, the most selective and efficient units are located far to the south, reflecting the onslaught of the forces of Marshal Konev in Silesia. Thus, these troops, which are completely inexplicable, are defending Breslau and Prague, not Berlin. The general begs Hitler to transfer some of these troops to the north, but in vain.
- the Fuhrer answers with mystical stubbornness, -
It can also be assumed that Heinrici and the other generals present looked longingly at the map of Norway, where tens of thousands of German soldiers still remained, although this country had long since lost all strategic and operational importance for the defense of the Reich. Indeed, why did Hitler keep so many German troops in Norway until the very end of the war?
Some historians offer another addition to the legend of the last days of the war, explaining Hitler's manic madness: supposedly doctors, having diagnosed the Nazi dictator with Parkinson's disease, complicated by heart failure, but the request of Messrs. Bormann, Goebbels, Himmler and others stuffed the Fuhrer with drugs, desperately trying to support him …
This paradoxical deployment of German troops is the first mystery of the poorly written end of the war in the European theater. Both the German generals and the Allied generals pondered this enigma much after the war; in the end, both of them blamed everything on Hitler's madness - this conclusion became part of the "legend of the allies", which tells about the end of the war. This interpretation really makes sense, because if we assume that Hitler gave orders to deploy troops in Norway and Silesia in one of the rare periods of clarification of reason, what considerations could he be guided by? Prague? Norway? There was no military basis for such a deployment. In other words, the very sending of troops to Norway and Czechoslovakia testifies to the fact that Hitler has completely lost touch with reality. Hence, he really was crazy.
However, apparently, this "manic madness" of the Fuhrer does not end there. At meetings of the highest military command in the last weeks of the war, Hitler repeatedly reiterated his boastful assertions that Germany would soon possess the kind of weapon that would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat "at five minutes to midnight." The Wehrmacht only needs to hold out a little more. And first of all, you need to keep Prague and Lower Silesia.
Of course, the standard interpretation of history explains (or rather, tries to get away with a superficial explanation) these and other similar statements of Nazi leaders in the last days of the war in one of two ways.
Of course, the widespread explanation is that he wanted to keep the route of transporting iron ore from Sweden to Germany, and also tried to continue to use Norway as a base for opposing the supply of military goods to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. However, from the end of 1944, due to the huge losses of the German navy, these tasks ceased to be feasible and, therefore, lost their military meaning. Here it is necessary to look for other reasons, unless, of course, trying to blame everything on the delusional illusions of Adolf Hitler.
One school perceives them as references to more advanced modifications of the V-1 and V-2, or to the A-9 and A-10 intercontinental ballistic missiles, jet fighters, anti-aircraft missiles with thermal guidance and more. weapons developed by the Germans. The conclusion of Sir Roy Fedden, one of the British specialists sent after the end of the war to study the secret weapons of the Nazis, leaves no doubt about the deadly potential of such research:
In this relationship, they (the Nazis) were partly telling the truth. During my two recent visits to Germany as the head of the technical commission of the Ministry of Aviation Industry, I saw quite a lot of development and production plans and came to the conclusion that if Germany could drag out the war for a few more months, we would have to deal with a whole arsenal of completely new and lethal weapons of war in the air.
Another school of historians calls such statements of Nazi leaders the ravings of madmen who desperately seek to prolong the war and thereby prolong their lives, raising the morale of armies exhausted in battle. So, for example, to complete the picture of the general madness that gripped the leadership of the Third Reich, the words of Hitler's faithful henchman, the propaganda minister, Dr. . Well, the ravings of another crazy Nazi.
However, no less mysterious and inexplicable events take place on the other side of the “legend of the allies”. In March and April 1945, the US 3rd Army, commanded by General George S. Patton, sweeps through southern Bavaria as operationally as possible, taking the shortest route to:
1) the huge military factories "Skoda" near Pilsen, by that time literally wiped off the face of the earth by allied aviation;
2) Prague;
3) the Harz mountains in Thuringia, known in Germany as "Dreiecks" or "Three Corners", the area between the ancient medieval cities of Arnstadt, Jonaschtal, Weimar and Ohrdruf.
Countless historical works stubbornly insist that the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces (VSHSES) insisted on this maneuver. The headquarters considered this maneuver necessary following reports that the Nazis intended to fight a final battle at the Alpine National Citadel, a network of mountain fortifications that stretched from the Alps to the Harz Mountains. Therefore, as the official history says, the actions of the 3rd Army were aimed at cutting off the retreat path of Hitler's troops fleeing from the meat grinder near Berlin. Maps are given, which in some cases are accompanied by declassified German plans - sometimes dating back to the era of the Weimar Republic! - confirming the existence of such a citadel. The issue has been resolved.
However, there is a catch in this explanation. Allied air reconnaissance was obliged to report to Eisenhower and the Higher School of Economic Cooperation that there was one or two in the notorious "national citadel" of fortified strongholds. Moreover, intelligence would report that this "citadel" is not really any citadel. Undoubtedly, General Patton and the divisional commanders of his army had at least partial access to this information. In this case, why was this incredibly rapid and generally reckless offensive, which, as the post-war "legend of the allies" tries to convince us, was intended to cut off the escape routes of the Nazis fleeing from Berlin, who actually did not flee anywhere, to a fortified area that didn't really exist? The puzzle is becoming more and more confusing.
Then, remarkably, by a strange whim of fate, General Patton, the most prominent American military leader of World War II, dies suddenly - some believe, under highly suspicious circumstances, from the complications of injuries sustained in a minor car accident shortly after the end of the war, at the very beginning military occupation of Germany by the victorious powers. For many, there is no doubt that Patton's death was highly suspicious.
But what are the explanations offered by those who do not consider it accidental? Some believe that the general was eliminated for his statements about the need to "turn the German armies around" and move them into the first echelon of the Allied invasion of the Soviet Union. Others argue that Patton was eliminated because he knew that the Allies knew about the Soviet massacre of British, American and French prisoners of war, and he threatened to make this information public. In any event, while Patton's sharp tongue and outbursts are well known, the general's sense of military duty was too important for the general to really seriously cherish such thoughts. Versions like these are good for online discussion and movie plots, and none of them provide sufficient motivation for the assassination of America's most illustrious general. On the other hand, if Patton was indeed killed, what was motive enough?
And here the lone German pilot Hans Zinsser and his observations offer a clue to the mystery why it was necessary to silence General Patton. Let's turn to another, less widespread, explanation for the Third Army's lightning rush into southern Germany and Bohemia at the very end of the war.
In his book Top Secret, Ralph Ingersoll, an American liaison officer who worked at the Higher School of Economics, offers the following version of events, which is much more in line with the actual intentions of the Germans:
“(General Omar) Bradley was in full control of the situation … he had three armies at his disposal, breaking through the defenses on the Rhine and ready to reap the rewards of his victory. After analyzing the situation as a whole, Bradley came to the conclusion that the capture of destroyed Berlin from a military point of view does not make any sense … The German War Office has long left the capital, leaving only the rearguard. The main part of the War Office, including the priceless archives, was transferred to the Thuringian Forest …"
But what exactly did Patton's divisions find near Pilsen and in the forests of Thuringia? Only after the recent reunification of Germany and the declassification of East German, British and American documents has sufficient information emerged to outline this fantastic story, provide answers to questions - and explain the origins of the post-war Allied Legend.
Finally, we come to the main theme of the post-war Allied Legend. As the Allied forces deepened deeper into German territory, more and more teams of scientists and experts and their intelligence coordinators scoured the Reich, looking for German patents and secret developments in the field of weapons, primarily trying to determine the state of work on the creation of the German nuclear bombs. The allies sucked from Germany all scientific and technological achievements of any significance. This operation was the most significant movement of new technology in history. Even at the very last stage of the war, when the Allied armies were moving through Western Europe, there were fears on the part of the Allies that Germany was dangerously close to creating an atomic bomb and could use one or more nuclear devices to strike London or other targets. And Dr. Goebbels, in his speeches about a frightening weapon, from which the heart sinks, only strengthened these fears.
And this is where the "legend of the allies" becomes even more confusing. It is here that a poorly written ending would become truly comic if it were not for so much human suffering associated with it. For the facts are obvious enough if you study them in isolation from the usual explanations. In fact, the question arises: weren't we forced to think about these facts in a certain way? As the Allied armies penetrated deeper into the territory of the Reich, more and more famous German scientists and engineers were captured by the Allies or surrendered themselves. And among them were top-notch physicists, including several Nobel laureates. And most of them, in one form or another, were related to various Nazi projects to create an atomic bomb.
These searches were carried out under the code name "Alsos". In Greek, "alsos" means "grove" - an undeniable play on words, an attack on General Leslie Groves, the head of the "Manhattan Project" (in English "grove" grove). The book on the "Manhattan Project" written by the Dutch physicist Samuel Goodsmith has the same title.
Among these scientists were Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, Kurt Diebner, a nuclear physicist, and Paul Harteck, a nuclear chemist, as well as Otto Hahn, a chemist who discovered the phenomenon of nuclear fission, and, oddly enough, Walter Gerlach. whose specialty was not nuclear, but gravitational physics. Before the war, Gerlach wrote several works that only a select few could understand on such obscure topics as spin polarization and the physics of vortices, which can hardly be considered the basis of nuclear physics. And certainly one could not expect to find such a scientist among those who worked on the creation of the atomic bomb.
Cook notes that these areas of research have nothing to do with nuclear physics, much less the creation of an atomic bomb, but “are associated with the mysterious properties of gravity. A certain O. K. Gilgenberg, who studied with Gerlach at the University of Munich, published in 1931 a work entitled "On gravity, vortices and waves in a rotating medium" … However, after the war, Gerlach, who died in 1979, apparently never returned to these topics and never mentioned them; it feels as if it was strictly forbidden to him. Or what he saw … shocked him so much that he didn't even want to think about it anymore."
Much to the surprise of the Allies, the research teams found nothing but Heisenberg's crude attempts to create a working nuclear reactor, completely unsatisfactory, unsuccessful and strikingly inept attempts. And this "Germanic inability" in basic questions of the physics of a nuclear bomb became the main element of the "legend of the allies" and remains so to this day. However, this raises another cryptic question regarding the poorly written ending.
Leading German scientists - Werner Heisenberg, Paul Harteck, Kurt Diebner, Erich Bagge, Otto Hahn, Karl-Friedrich von Weizsacker, Karl Wirtz, Horst Korsching and Walter Gerlach - were transported to the English town of Farm Hall, where they were kept in complete isolation, and all their conversations were tapped and recorded.
The transcripts of these conversations, the famous Farm Hall transcripts, were only declassified by the UK government in 1992! If the Germans were so incompetent and so far behind the Allies, why did it take so long to keep these documents classified? Is it all the fault of bureaucratic oversight and inertia? Or did these documents contain something that the Allies did not want to disclose until very recently?
A superficial acquaintance with the transcripts of conversations only further confuses the mystery. In them, Heisenberg and company, having learned about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, are endlessly arguing about the moral aspects of their own participation in the atomic bomb work carried out in Nazi Germany.
The fact that the conversations of German scientists were recorded by the British was first revealed by the head of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, in his 1962 book "Now You Can Tell About It", which was devoted to the creation of the atomic bomb. However, to all appearances, in 1962, far from everything could be told.
But that is not all.
Judging by these transcripts, Heisenberg and company, who during the six years of the war suffered from inexplicable scientific illiteracy, and failed to develop and build an operating nuclear reactor to produce the plutonium needed to create a bomb, after the end of the war, suddenly again become first-class physicists and Nobel laureates. Indeed, none other than Heisenberg himself, a few days after the bombing of Hiroshima, delivered a lecture to the assembled German scientists on the basic principles of atomic bomb design. In this lecture, he defends his initial assessment that the bomb should be about the size of a pineapple and not be a huge monster weighing a ton or even two, as he insisted on throughout most of the war. And, as we learn from these transcripts, nuclear chemist Paul Harteck came close - alarmingly close - to assessing the correct critical mass of uranium in the Hiroshima bomb.
Thomas Power notes, referring to Heisenberg's lecture, that "it was a bit of a scientific trick to deliver a theory of a workable bomb in such a short time, after years of futile labors based on fundamental fallacies."
Such scientific prowess raises another question, which directly refutes the "legend of the allies", for some versions of this legend claim that the Germans never seriously dealt with the issue of creating an atomic bomb, because they - in the person of Heisenberg - were mistaken in assessing the critical mass by several orders of magnitude, thereby depriving the project of practical feasibility. However, there is no doubt that Harteck made his calculations much earlier, so that Heisenberg's estimates were not the only ones from which the Germans started. And from a small critical mass follows the practical feasibility of creating an atomic bomb.
Of course, Samuel Goodsmith used these transcripts to create his own version of the "legend of the allies": to explain his failures … The sources of Goodsmith's conclusions are obvious, but now the attentive reader will not hide from the numerous statements that Goodsmith did not notice, forgot or deliberately omitted."
In his lecture delivered on August 14, 1945 to German scientists gathered at Farm Hall, Heisenberg, according to Paul Lawrence Rose, used a tone and expression that indicated that he had “just understood the right decision” of a relatively small critical mass, necessary to create an atomic bomb, 2 since others have estimated the critical mass in the region of four kilograms. It also only thickens the mystery. For Rose, a supporter of the "Allied Legend" - but only now this version, substantially revised in the light of the "Farm Hall transcripts" - the "others" are most likely the Allied journalists themselves.
In the early post-war years, the Dutch physicist Samuel Gudsmith, a Jew by nationality, a participant in the "Manhattan Project", explains this riddle, as well as many others, by the fact that the scientists and engineers of the Allies were simply better than the very Germans who created the new discipline of quantum mechanics and nuclear physics. … And this explanation, combined with the apparently clumsy attempts of Heisenberg himself to create a working nuclear reactor, served its purpose well until the conversations of the German scientists were deciphered.
After the decryption was removed from the transcripts with their startling revelations that Heisenberg actually correctly imagined the design of the atomic bomb, and some of the scientists perfectly understood the possibility of obtaining enriched uranium in quantities sufficient to create a bomb without the need to have a working nuclear reactor, “the legend of the allies”had to be slightly corrected. The book "Heisenberg's War" by Thomas Powers appeared, proving quite convincingly that Heisenberg actually sabotaged the German atomic program. However, as soon as this book was published, Lawrence Rose responded to it with his work "Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project", proving even more convincingly that Heisenberg remained loyal to his homeland to the very end, but all his activities were based on a fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of nuclear fission, as a result of which he overestimated the critical mass required to create an atomic bomb by several orders of magnitude. The Germans were never able to obtain the bomb, the new version of the legend claims, because they did not have an operating reactor to turn the enriched uranium into the plutonium needed to make the bomb. Moreover, having grossly misjudged the critical mass, they had no incentive to continue working. Everything is simple enough, and the question is closed again.
However, neither Power nor Rose in their books actually come close to the heart of the riddle, for legend still requires believing that “talented nuclear physicists who shone in the pre-war years, including the Nobel laureates … during the war, it was as if they were struck by some mysterious disease that turned them into stupid fools 1, suddenly and completely inexplicably recovered in a matter of days after the bombing of Hiroshima! Moreover, the two so widely divergent modern interpretations of the same material proposed by Rose and Paers only underline its ambiguity in general and doubts about whether Heisenberg knew the truth in particular.
The situation is not in the least improved by events in the opposite end of the world, in the Pacific theater of operations, for there American researchers after the end of the war were to discover equally strange facts.
So, after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito, overcoming the resistance of the ministers who demanded to continue the war, decided to unconditionally surrender Japan. But why did the Japanese ministers insist on the continuation of the war, despite the overwhelming superiority of the Allies in conventional weapons and, in addition, the potential downpour of atomic bombs? After all, two bombs could easily have stopped at twenty. Of course, the ministers' objections to the emperor's intentions can be attributed to “proud samurai traditions,” “the Japanese concept of honor,” and so on. And such an explanation would be quite acceptable.
However, another explanation is that the members of the Japanese cabinet were aware of something secret.
And they probably knew what the American intelligence was about to find out: the Japanese “shortly before surrender had created and successfully tested an atomic bomb. The work was carried out in the Korean city of Konan (the Japanese name for the city of Hinnam) in the north of the peninsula”1. This bomb was detonated, according to the author, a day after the American plutonium bomb "Fat Man" exploded over Nagasaki, that is, on August 10, 1945. In other words, the war, depending on Hirohito's decision, could become nuclear. Of course, by this time, further dragging out of the war did not bode well for Japan, since it did not have effective means of delivering nuclear weapons to any significant American goal. The emperor cooled the ardor of his ministers.
These unverified claims deal another blow to the Allied Legend, for where did the Japanese manage to get the uranium they needed to create the atomic bomb (which they allegedly had)? And, what is much more important, technologies for its enrichment? Where did they manufacture and assemble such a device? Who was in charge of the work? The answers to these questions, as will be seen later, may also explain other events that took place many years after the end of the war, perhaps up to the present day.
In fact, the Japanese were developing large transport submarines that could deliver the bomb to port cities on the West Coast of the United States, as Einstein warned about in his famous letter to President Roosevelt, which triggered the start of the Manhattan Project. Of course, Einstein was much more worried that this method of delivery would be used not by the Japanese, but by the Germans.
However, even now we are just beginning to get to the heart of this "poorly written ending." There are still many strange little-known details that should be paid attention to.
Why, for example, in 1944 the lone Junkers-390 bomber, a huge six-engine heavy ultra-long-range transport aircraft capable of non-stop intercontinental flight from Europe to North America and back, flew less than twenty miles from New York, photographed the silhouettes of Manhattan skyscrapers and returned to Europe? During the course of the war, German aviation made several such ultra-long-range flights in the strictest secrecy, using such other heavy ultra-long-range aircraft. But for what purpose and, most importantly, what was the purpose of this unprecedented flight? The fact that such a flight was extremely dangerous is backtracked without words. Why did the Germans need to create this huge aircraft and why did they take such huge risks just to take photographs, although only two such giant six-engine miracle food were built?
To finish with the "legend of the allies", let us recall some strange details of Germany's surrender. Why did Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, a mass murderer and one of the bloodiest criminals in human history, try to negotiate a separate peace with the Western powers? Of course, all this can be considered the delirium of a madman, and Himmler definitely suffered from a mental disorder. But what could he offer the allies in return for a separate peace and saving his miserable life?
But what about the strangeness of the Nuremberg Tribunal itself? The legend is well known: such undoubted war criminals as Reichsmarschall Goering, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and the chief of the operational staff, Colonel General Jodl, were hanged on the gallows (Goering, however, deceived the executioner, having swallowed potassium cyanide even before the execution). Other big Nazi bigwigs like Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, godfather of the devastating submarine war against Allied shipping, Armaments Minister Albert Speer or Finance Minister and Reichsbank President Helmar Schacht went to jail.
Of course, there were no rocket experts from Peenemünde in the dock, led by Dr. Werner von Braun and General Walter Dornberger, who had already been sent to America along with other scientists, engineers and technicians in the top-secret project "Paperclip" creation of ballistic and space missiles. All these specialists, like their colleagues, the German nuclear physicists, seem to have suffered from the same "disease of a fool", because having created successful prototypes of "V-1" and "V-2" at the beginning of the war, they then were by dulling ingenuity and inspiration, and (as the legend says) they produced only "paper rockets" and theoretical works.
But perhaps the most notable is the fact that at the Nuremberg Trials, by mutual consent of the prosecutors from both the Western powers and the Soviet Union, an abundance of documents was excluded from the materials that testify to the close attention of the Nazi regime to occult beliefs and sciences3; this circumstance gave rise to a whole mythology, since these documents did not deserve careful study for their possible influence on the development of secret types of weapons in Nazi Germany during the war years.
And finally, a very curious fact, one of those obvious things that is usually overlooked if you do not draw attention to it: an American nuclear device based on the principle of compression of plutonium by the energy of an implosive explosion. This test was required in order to verify the correctness of the concept. The result exceeded all expectations. But what is extremely important is that this circumstance is bypassed in almost all post-war official works devoted to this topic: a uranium bomb based on the principle of reaching a critical mass by "firing", the same bomb that was first used in a combat situation, a bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, has never been tested. As German author Friedrich Georg observes, this punches a gaping hole in the Allied Legend:
Another extremely important question: why the American uranium bomb, unlike the plutonium bomb, was not tested before it was dropped on Hiroshima? From a military point of view, this looks extremely dangerous … Did the Americans just forget to test the bomb, or did someone already do it for them?
The Legend of the Allies explains this differently; Some versions are more ingenious, others are more straightforward, but basically it all boils down to the assertion that the uranium bomb was never tested because it was not necessary: its creators were so sure that everything would go as it should. Thus, we are being asked to believe that the American military dropped an atomic bomb, which has never been used before, based on completely new and not yet tested physical principles, on an enemy city, and this enemy was also known to be working on creating a similar bombs!
This is really badly written, just an incredible ending of the worst war in the history of mankind.
So what did the German pilot Hans Zinsser see on that October night in 1944, flying in a Henkel bomber towards the deepening twilight over the northern regions of Germany? Something (Zinsser himself had no idea about this) that requires an almost complete revision of the poorly written Wagnerian libretto.
A transcript of his testimony is included in the August 19, 1945 Military Intelligence Report, roll number A-1007, re-filmed in 1973 at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. Zinsser's testimony is given on the last page of the report:
47. A man named Zinsser, a specialist in anti-aircraft missiles, told about what he witnessed: “In early October 1944, I flew from Ludwigslust (south of Lübeck), located 12 to 15 kilometers from the nuclear test site, and suddenly saw a strong bright glow that illuminated the entire atmosphere, which lasted for about two seconds.
48. A clearly visible shock wave escaped from the cloud formed during the explosion. By the time it became visible, it had a diameter of about one kilometer, and the color of the cloud changed frequently. After a short period of darkness, it was covered with many bright spots, which, in contrast to the usual explosion, had a pale blue color.
49. Approximately ten seconds after the explosion, the clear outlines of the explosive cloud disappeared, then the cloud itself began to brighten against the background of a dark gray sky covered with solid clouds. The diameter of the shock wave still visible to the naked eye was at least 9000 meters; it remained visible for at least 15 seconds
50. My personal feeling from observing the color of the explosive cloud: it took on a blue-violet honeydew. During this whole phenomenon, reddish-colored rings were visible, very quickly changing color to dirty shades.
51. From my observation plane, I felt a weak impact in the form of light jerks and jerks.
52. About an hour later I took off in a Xe-111 from the Ludwigslust airfield and headed east. Soon after take-off, I flew through an overcast area (at an altitude of three to four thousand meters). Above the place where the explosion occurred, there was a mushroom cloud with turbulent, vortex layers (at an altitude of approximately 7000 meters), without any visible connections. Strong electromagnetic disturbance manifested itself in the inability to continue radio communication.
53- Since American P-38 fighters operated in the Wittenberg-Bersburg area, I had to turn north, but the lower part of the cloud above the explosion site became better visible to me. The remark is not very clear to me why these tests were carried out in such a densely populated area."
This report is entitled: "Research, Investigation, Development and Practical Use of the German Atomic Bomb, Reconnaissance Division of the Ninth Air Force, 96/1945 APO 696, US Armed Forces, August 19, 1945." This report was classified. Let's pay attention to the fact that at the very beginning of the report all uncertainties are excluded: “The following information was obtained from four German scientists: one chemist, two specialists in physical chemistry and one specialist in missiles. All four of them spoke briefly about what they knew about the creation of the atomic bomb."
In other words, a certain German pilot witnessed the testing of a weapon with all the hallmarks of a nuclear bomb: an electromagnetic pulse that disabled the radio, a mushroom cloud, prolonged burning of nuclear matter in the cloud, and so on. And all this happened in the territory, which was undoubtedly under the control of Germany, in October 1944, a full eight months before the test of the first American atomic bomb in the state of New Mexico! Note the curious fact that, according to Zinsser, the test was carried out in a densely populated area.
In Zinsser's testimony, one can find another curious fact that the American investigators did not pay attention to, and if they did, the data on a more detailed investigation remain secret to this day - how did Zinsser know that this was a test? The answer is obvious: he knew because he had something to do with it, for undoubtedly the Allies could not control the test site, located deep in the territory of Nazi Germany.
Above in this same report, there are some clues that can reveal the secret:
14. When Germany was at this stage of the game, war broke out in Europe. At first, studies of fission were not given due attention, because the practical implementation of this seemed too remote. However, later these studies continued, especially in terms of finding ways to separate isotopes. One need not add that the center of gravity of Germany's military efforts by this time was already in other areas.
15. Nevertheless, the atomic bomb was expected to be ready by the end of 1944. And this would have happened if it were not for the effective strikes of the allied aviation on the laboratories occupied. the study of uranium, especially in Rjukan, Norway, where heavy water was produced. It is mainly for this reason that Germany was never able to use the atomic bomb in this war.
These two paragraphs reveal a lot of interesting things.
First, what sources are used to assert that Germany expected to receive an atomic bomb at the end of 1944, well ahead of the Manhattan Project (this statement openly contradicts the post-war legend that the Germans were far behind in the development of nuclear weapons)? Indeed, during the war, according to experts at the Manhattan
General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project.
project”, the Germans were always ahead of the allies, and the head of the project, General Leslie Groves, was of the same opinion. However, after the war, everything suddenly changed. America was not only ahead, but, according to legend, she was ahead of the war.
Zinsser's account, in addition to completely refuting the "Allied legend," raises the daunting question of whether the Allies knew before the end of the war that Germany had tested an atomic bomb? If so, one can look for confirmation of this, for the rest of the testimony contained in that post-war report, along with Zinsser's account, indicates that the legend was beginning to take shape even then. So, for example, the report only mentions laboratories in which research was carried out on the issue of uranium enrichment and isotope separation. However, laboratories alone are not enough to create a truly workable nuclear device. Therefore, already in this early report, one component of the legend is visible: the efforts of the Germans were sluggish, since they were limited only to laboratory research.
Second, notice the transparent assertion that Germany was never able to "use the bomb in this war." The language of the report is extremely clear. However, it seems that the words were chosen deliberately in order to fog and help the legend that was already nascent then, since tie's report says that the Germans did not test the atomic bomb, it only claims that they did not use it. The language of the report is strikingly accurate, verified, and this cannot but lead to reflections.
Third, notice how much information is disclosed - apparently unintentionally - regarding German research into the atomic bomb, as the document clearly shows that Germany was engaged in a uranium bomb.
The plutonium bomb is never mentioned. At the same time, the theoretical principles of obtaining plutonium and the possibility of creating an atomic bomb based on plutonium were undoubtedly known to the Germans, as eloquently evidenced by the top secret memorandum of the Department of Armaments and Ammunition, prepared in early 1942.
This memorandum undoubtedly breaks another hole in the "Allied legend" that appeared after the war, namely, it disputes the assertion that the Germans could not calculate the exact value of the critical mass of uranium for the start of the chain fission reaction, overestimating the estimate by several orders of magnitude and hence making the project “not feasible in practice” for the foreseeable future. The problem is that this memorandum unconditionally testifies that back in January-February 1942 the Germans already had fairly accurate estimates. And if they knew that the bomb could be made small, the decision of the top leadership of Germany about the inexpediency of continuing the work becomes very problematic. On the contrary, the memorandum - most likely prepared by Dr. Kurt Diebner and Dr. Fritz Hautermans - suggests that the Germans considered this task not only practical, but also feasible over the next few years.
Thus, it is the absence of any mention of plutonium in this report that provides us with the first significant piece of evidence in understanding the true nature of nuclear research in Nazi Germany. It explains why the Germans never focused on the creation of a working reactor to obtain plutonium from uranium, which is necessary for the production of an atomic bomb: they did not need this, since there were other methods of enriching uranium and separating a pure isotope // 2 * 5, suitable for use in a nuclear device, in an amount sufficient to obtain a critical mass. In other words, the "legend of the allies" about Germany's inability to create an atomic bomb due to the lack of a workable nuclear reactor is scientifically complete nonsense, because the reactor is only needed to produce plutonium. When it comes to building a uranium bomb, the reactor becomes an expensive and unnecessary overkill. Thus, the scientific principles underlying the creation of the atomic bomb, as well as the political and military reality that developed after the United States entered the war, allow us to assume with a high degree of certainty that Germany decided to create only a uranium bomb, since this opened the shortest, most direct and the least technically difficult path to possessing nuclear weapons.
Let's pause for a while to compare the German efforts to create the atomic bomb with the "Manhattan Project", which was carried out in the United States of America, having a significantly larger production capacity and an industrial base that was not constantly bombed by enemy aircraft, decided to focus on the development of all available methods of creating a working nuclear device, that is, both uranium and plutonium bombs. However, the creation of a plutonium bomb could only be completed with a working reactor. No reactor - no plutonium bomb.
But it should also be noted that the Manhattan Project also erected the giant Oak Ridge complex in Tennessee to enrich weapons-grade uranium by gas diffusion and the Lawrence mass spectrometer process; and this complex at no stage of work did not require an operating nuclear reactor to obtain enriched uranium.
Thus, if the Germans used the same approach that was used in Oak Ridge, there must be circumstantial evidence to support this. First, in order to enrich uranium with the same or similar methods used in Tennessee, the Third Reich had to build the same huge complex or several smaller complexes scattered throughout Germany, and transport uranium isotopes representing different the degree of radiation hazard until the required degree of purity and enrichment is achieved. Then the material will need to be collected in a bomb and tested. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to search for a complex or a group of complexes. And, given the size of Oak Ridge and the nature of its activities, we know exactly what to look for: enormous size, proximity to water, developed transport infrastructure, unusually high energy consumption and, finally, two more very significant factors: a constant source of labor and a huge price.
Second, in order to corroborate or verify Zinsser's startling testimony, evidence must be sought. It is necessary to look for evidence that the Germans managed to accumulate weapons-grade uranium in an amount sufficient to obtain the critical mass of an atomic bomb. And then you need to look for a landfill or landfills and find out if there are signs of a nuclear explosion on it (on them).
Fortunately, more and more documents have been declassified by Britain, the United States and the former Soviet Union, and the German government is opening the archives of the former East Germany, providing a slow but steady flow of information. As a result, it became possible to study in detail all aspects of this problem, which could only be dreamed of just a few years ago. The answers, as we will see in the rest of the chapters of the first part, are disturbing and frightening.
Literature:
F. Lee Benns, Europe Since 1914 In Its World Setting (New York: F. S. Crofts and co., 1946), p. 630
Sir Roy Fedden, The Nazis' V Weapons Matured Too Late (London: 1945), cited in Renato Vesco and David Hatcher Cliildress, Man-Made UFOs: 1944-1994, p. 98
Vesco and Childress, op. cit., p. 97
Nick Cook. The Hunt for Zero Point, p. 194
Paul Lawrence Rose, Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project: A Study in German Culture. Berkeley: 1998, pp. 217-221
Thomas Powers, Heisenbergs War; The Secret History of the German Bomb (1993), pp. 439-440
Philip Henshall, The Nuclear Axis: Germany, Japan, and the Atom Bomb Race 1939-45, "Introduction".
Robert Wilcoxjapan's Secret War, p. I 5.
Henshall, op. cit, "Introduction".
Friedrich Georg, Hitlers Siegeswaffen: Band 1: Luftwaffe und Marine: Gebeime Nuklearwaffen des Dritten Reiches und ihre Tragersysteme (Schleusingen: Amun Verlag, 200), p. 150
