[crow_of_darkness]

    The construction of the nuclear reactor of Dr. Heisenberg, started in 1942 and finished in 1944. The big advantage of this reactor was that operated with U-238(99,3 of natural U.). Each kernel of the atom of the isotope, absorbs one slow neutron (they lose speed because of the heavy water) and becomes P-239. It was separated from U and collected for the creation of the bomb.
    The heat in the centre of the reactor used for the production of steam. The last one, moved steamwhirls for the production of electricity.Sixty years after the 4,2% of all the reactors of the world are heavy water nuclear reactors just like Dr. Heisenbergs.(At least they follow the same principle in opperation-not the same technology.)
    If we keep in mind that: 1)soldiers of French colonial army (Maroco), said after years that they found in 1945(Before the fall of Berlin.) two A-bombs near in  Stutgard into a big tank of water,2)the bomb that hit Nagasaki was from Plu and that was after the insident of Stutgard (and the American worked only with U in Los Alamos). 3)The plan of U Hirosima bomb was familiar in scientists in L.Alamos but never the plan of the Nagasaki bomb and 4) Oppenheimer after 1945 in one of his speeches said indirectly that the Nag. bomb was not created from Americans, mayby its time to start thinking that the Nazi machine had created a-bombs but didnt used them because of the time?(or for other unknown reasons?)
    I really would like to here some opinions here. Thanks

[crow_of_darkness]

    Correction: i really would like to see some opinions here. Thanks

[crow_of_darkness]

    Also there are rumors during WW2, a small accident happened in Lipsia of Germany. I dont know if thats true or not, i just write these that i have read in a book about secret weapons of the Nazi Germany.
    A spherical device with 75 cm diameter made from aluminium, used for production of Plutonium-239. In the kernel of the sphere, was plased and secured a small material that transmited fast neutrons. The device was filled with heavy water for slow down the neutrons and transform them into thermic. Inside the partition, trite U-238 was placed in a special position. The sphere was put into a tank of water and after days when bubbles appeared in the surface it was pulled out and Plu collected. The kernal absorbed the thermic neutrons and first becomes Np and finaly Pu-239. It was like Dr.Heisenbergs reactor but very smaller.
   The incident happened in 1942 in the University of Lipsia. The experiment took place under the oversee of Dr. Heisenberg himself. A burning jet of steam and U cast when the sphere pulled out of the tank after 20 days, when bubbles appeared in surface of the tank, but no one injured. The scientists saw it insibe from a special opening with fat glass and all around them, were walls for protection from rays. They put again the sphere in the tank of water for cold. After two hours the water in tank became very hot. They pulled up the sphere and a big explosion took place, again without casualties.
    If the story is true and not just a rumor and even if the experiment was not succeed that moment, its obvious that the Nazi machine did huge efforts for the creation of the Nuclear device. Now if succeeded or not thats the big question

[Mitch]

Plutonium was discovered by the Americans and separated by a famous American chemist Glenn T. Seaborg in 1940. http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1951/seaborg-lecture.pdf

[crow_of_darkness]

    You are right. He discovered it with Kennedy and Wahl in 1940. I just touch the capability of the Nazi scientists to create first the Plutonium bomb not to discover the element first. Its a different thing to discover Plu first from create a Plu-bomb also first.
   

[Dude]

There seems to be a well documented history of plutonium production in Hanford, WA.  That is, unless the Manhattan Project was really a total failure.  Oppenheimer and company decided at the last minute to bring a plane and mega-forklift over to Germany, steal a bomb, and then drop it in Japan to save face.  I don't buy it.  Although, there were many reports of Germany having advanced nuclear capability in the 40's.  It all comes down to balls.  Use it or lose it.

[Borek]

While I don't doubt Germans put a lot of effort into research of the nuclear weapons, I doubt they have made them - Hitler was a nut, so it was not a problem of balls in his case He will use any Wunderwaffe at hand to prevent or delay allies victory.

I suppose they have not enough time and resources to finish the job. Manhattan project was done in luxurious conditions - no bombs falling on the heads and incomparable (to Germans) resources. At the same time Germans were not only bombed, but as it was known they are working on nuclear energy/bomb there were specific actions to prevent it - AFAIR there was special forces attack that destroyed (or rather sinked barge with tanks with) large amounts of D₂O somewhere in Norway, just to hinder Germans ability to do large scale research.

Added later - found this link: D₂O sabotage.

[Borek]

soldiers of French colonial army (Maroco), said after years that they found in 1945(Before the fall of Berlin.) two A-bombs near in  Stutgard into a big tank of water

Sure. Peasants from Morocco, fightning in French army, were aware in 1945 of the fact atomic bomb exists. More, they were able to recognize it.

I don't buy it.

[pantone159]

There seems to be a well documented history of plutonium production in Hanford, WA.

And also purification and other processes with Pu at Los Alamos.  For example,

The Plutonium Story: The Journals of Professor Glenn T. Seaborg 1939-1946, Battelle Press, and
Plutonium Metallurgy at Los Alamos 1943-1945

both document these investigations in considerable detail.

[crow_of_darkness]

    First of all i want to make clear that i just write the facts that i have read and i just put the question. I am not saying that the German made for sure the Bomb that hit Nagasaki. Now lets put things one by one:
    1) Borek, Until 1956 Marocco was a French colony. After the liberation of France in 1944, Maroc soldiers(Members of the colonial army NOT peacants) fight in Europe, in the side of the allies. When they found in an abandoned, as they say, camp in 1945, south of Stoutgard the two A-bombs in a tank of water, they fought under the commands of officers that are from the allies. At the time that they found them they dont know what they saw. Of course at this time they ignore what an A-bomb is. Their words for what they found come AFTER YEARS, at the time that they had realise what they have found so many time ago. They say these things to historicals and we are not talking about one soldiers story here.
    2) Borek, Hitler was not a nut. He was a BIG FOOL. He took disastrus desicions, ignored his military advisers.(War with Russia is just one example).Of course the humanity won many from these desicions :). Why i mention that? Because if he was a nut and ready for everything, why he didnt use chemicals weapons that he had for sure?(German invented Sarin and Soman in 1938.) After the war captive scientists said that they put these gases into missles. ALSO Soviet units FOUND them and TOOK them buck in Russia. So it dosnt prove here that if Hitler had Nucks he also used them for sure. Why not? I dont know.
    3) Mark Kness, in aprevius post of mine i said that in Los Alamos scientists worked only with U. I meant that the occupation with Plu was so small that becames only for academic reasons.he creation of the bomb Americans orientated ONLY in U. I dnt say this from my brain. In 1949 Dr. Oppencheimer said THAT THE BOMB THAT HIT NAGASAKI WAS NOT CREATED IN LOS ALAMOS. IT WASNT MADE INAMERICA AT ALL.(See: J. McGroven: CROSSBOW AND OVERCAST, William Morrow, New York.1964.) Of course you can belive these that some people say that Oppencheimer was a communist and said inaccuracies in purpose :D      
    4) Mark Kness, Dude, The hit in Nagasaki was in Augast 45. The production of Pu in Hamfold started in June 45 in small quantities. ALSO keep in mind that there are differences between a Pu and a U-235 bomb in the creation. SO how they made it in tho months if we believe that the bomb was American?Thats a hot question.
    Thanks :)

[pantone159]

Your timelines on availability of Pu are off...

Microgram amounts of Pu (from cyclotron production) became available in Jan 1944.

Gram amounts became available in Feb 1944.  Hanford wasn't the only Pu reactor - a pilot scale reactor was first built at Clinton (Tennessee, I think), and this provided the gram sized amounts of material.

According to a letter from Oppenheimer to General Groves, as of 31 Aug 1944, 51 g of Pu had been delivered to Los Alamos.

Studies of this metal, and bomb design, had to be completed with these gram scale amounts of material.   This was not at all easy, as the metal had some very strange physical properties that had to be dealt with.  This was indeed quite a remarkable feat, and understandably perhaps hard to believe, but it is part of the interesting history of this element.

Quantity amounts of Pu from Hanford became available in May 1945.  (This date is delivery date, not the start of production).  The physical hemispheres of Pu metal for the Trinity test were fabricated at Los Alamos, and completed by 1 July 1945.  The physical hemispheres for the Nagasaki bomb were likewise completed by 1 Aug 1945, and then rushed to the Pacific so that they were available for the mass-murder of civilians on 9 August.

Again, this timeline is very short, but remember that this occurred under emergency wartime conditions with the maximum possible contribution from the largest economy in the world.

I got the above dates from the Pu Metallurgy book.  I will note that this book has a timeline summary that says the Nagasaki drop happened on 6 Aug, which is incorrect.  The Seaborg book describes the same general course of events, I didn't reference it just now to double-check my dates, however.

Another point:  Much of the early research on Pu chemistry (on the ultra-microscale) actually happened at the 'Metallurgical Laboratory' in Illinois (I think) where Seaborg was, therefore not at Los Alamos.  However, all the work with larger quantities of this element occurred at Los Alamos.

[Borek]

Borek, Until 1956 Marocco was a French colony. After the liberation of France in 1944, Maroc soldiers(Members of the colonial army NOT peacants) fight in Europe, in the side of the allies. When they found in an abandoned, as they say, camp in 1945, south of Stoutgard the two A-bombs in a tank of water, they fought under the commands of officers that are from the allies. At the time that they found them they dont know what they saw. Of course at this time they ignore what an A-bomb is. Their words for what they found come AFTER YEARS, at the time that they had realise what they have found so many time ago. They say these things to historicals and we are not talking about one soldiers story here.

I still don't buy it.

Colonial army during 2nd WW was drafted. Have you been in drafted army? I was during my military service twenty years ago in Poland. As in Poland 8 years of education was at the time compulsory (more now), most of my barrack mates were able to read and write, but in general they were mostly more dense then uranium. I have serious doubts about the level of education of north African Moroccans in 1945, seems very likely to me that many of them were not even able to read and write. And most of them were peasants, Morocco was not an industrial power with lots of blue collars at hand.

Take also into account fact, that at the time - 1945 - before Hiroshima and Nagasaki - a-bomb was not an icon of mass destruction as it is now; most highly ranking officers were not aware of its existence, even most of the physics didn't know it can exist, not to mention drafted peasants.

Now, Moroccan peasant drafted to army, French or Arabian speaking, lands in Germany, finds there atomic bomb (note he understands only his superiors and his mates, as he almost for sure doesn't speak German), doesn't recognize it, but many years later reports "now I know, we have found atomic bomb"? Sorry, it just don't hold water.

As for the rest of the facts you are referring to - I believe there are several books on the Manthattan project, I think you should look for the information there. All I have at home is Feynmann biography, where it is explicite stated that during Manhattan project they were working on both uranium canon type bomb, and plutonium bomb with spherical squeezing detonation (however it is correctly named in English).

[Mitch]

This is a silly discussion.

Dr. Seaborg was given a leave of absence from the University of California from 1942-1946, during which period he headed the plutonium work of the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory.

http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1951/seaborg-bio.html

On April 19, 1942, Seaborg reached Chicago, and joined up with the chemistry group at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, where Fermi and his group had already learned how to convert U238 to plutonium using a chain-reacting pile. Seaborg's role was to figure out how to extract the tiny bit of plutonium from the mass of uranium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Seaborg

This is all well documented there is no mystery except from dillusional conspiracy theorists.

[constant thinker]

The Pu bomb was just a core of Pu surrounded by high explosives to put it simply. The high explosives went off causeing enormous compression of the Pu. The Pu then would implode. This seams fairly simple to make and probably could be cranked out in 1-2 months. Simple is being used really loosely hear too.

"Little Boy" The U bomb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy

"Fat Man" The Pu bomb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man

Keep in mind that they didn't devolp just 1 bomb at a time. The were devoloping these simultaneously. Don't qoute me on this but I think in the beggining of the Manhattan Project there were 3 designs. At the end only 2 of them worked out. Also the imploding Pu bomb idea was the one tested at the Trinity Test Site. As far as I'm aware of they never tested the U bomb they just rushed it out, which could explain why it was the first one dropped.

I don't think the Germans ever had a fully working bomb do to resource and time contraints. It's obvious the Americans had devoloped the bombs and used the ones they devoloped because there is footage the the bomb's being loaded into an airplane some in the desert presumably outside of Los Alamos.

If your curious:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_site

[Elgon]

I hate to spoil some of the wonderful theories here, but let’s stick with the facts for a minute:

1.) Germany did not have a working nuclear reactor that would have been necessary for the production of plutonium. As far as I know Germany did not even get close to sustaining a controlled chain reaction. But even if they would have had a small working test reactor, they did not have the materials necessary to construct the large scale reactors necessary to produce the amount of plutonium necessary for a weapon. Contrary to their American counterparts, German scientist did not believe that graphite could be used to moderate the fission neutrons. That is why they were trying to use heavy water as a moderator. And the struggle to prevent Germans from obtaining heavy water is well documented in the literature.
Also remember, that the Manhattan project started out working with microgram amounts of plutonium until the reactors at Hanford had reached full production capacity.

2.) German nuclear chemists did not know about the existence of plutonium, nor did they devise any procedures to separate it from irradiated uranium. A German chemist, Kurt Starke, claimed that he discovered Neptunium at about the same time as McMillan & Abelson, but he was not able to publish his results. There is no real proof to his claim and he was later reassigned to work on a different project. This claim is about as far as the Germans ever got to the production of elements heavier than uranium during the 1940’s.

3.) At the time the first nuclear weapon detonated, all of the German scientists involved in German uranium project were interned at Farm Hall in England. Upon hearing the news, they were able to devise the theoretical principles of a working weapon in just a few weeks. If I remember correctly, their design was based on the fission of enriched uranium.

4.) The first weapon tested by the US at the Trinity site was based on a plutonium load. At that point the reactors at Hanford had produced enough material for 2 devices.

For a realistic assessment of the German nuclear research during World War II I recommend “German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939-49” by Mark Walker.