What if Hitler Developed Nuclear Weapons During World War II?
In the early years
of World War II, it looked as if Germany might have the luxury to spend
its time developing a new generation of super-weapons. The Nazis
haphazardly pursued the idea of building an atomic bomb, with an eye
toward eventual conflict with the United States. However, the immediate
demands of war, combined with Western Allied sabotage, undercut the
program, leaving it at the basic research stage by war’s end.
But what if the Germans had devoted more attention to the
program, or had lucked into more substantial breakthroughs? What could
the Nazis have done with an atomic weapon?
Context for Construction:
The American atomic weapons program cost an enormous amount
of money, and took human capital away from other important projects. But
the United States, unique among the great powers of World War II,
believed that the war would last long enough to justify complex
projects.
Germany did not have this luxury, especially after it became
apparent that the Soviet Union would not collapse in 1941. For Germany
to seriously consider taking the atomic plunge, it needed favorable war
conditions that would allow the development of long-term research
projects. In the event, jets, submarines, and rockets took up a greater
portion of the Reich’s scarce engineering resources.
The German program faced other obstacles. Western Allied
attacks on the German industrial economy took their toll, even if they
could not push Germany out of the war. Sabotage, like the attacks on
heavy water processing plants in Norway, also curtailed German progress.
The nature of the Nazi regime also made scientific progress difficult.
Many of the best nuclear scientists disliked the Nazis, and took steps
to escape Europe. The Germans could not draw on Europe’s scientific
expertise to the same extent as the Americans. Nevertheless, the Nazi
regime did make substantial progress on a number of engineering
frontiers, and could have developed a weapon in time.
Solving the basic theoretical and engineering problems
wouldn’t have suddenly turned Germany into a major nuclear power,
however. The German program concentrated on enriched uranium, a simpler
project that eliminated some of the more tricky problems faced by the
United States. However, the need for stocks of uranium (some of which
had been seized from Belgium), and the extensive industrial complex
needed to enrich, would have made it difficult for the Germans to
produce a large number of devices.
Delivery:
Even if the Germans had managed to develop an atomic weapon,
delivery would have been a problem. For tactical use against ground
targets, the Wehrmacht could have engineered a way to deliver the
devices, but anything at longer range would have been a struggle.
The Luftwaffe lacked an advanced heavy bomber capable of
hitting targets in England or Russia, much less the United States.
Designed to fight in support of the Wehrmacht, the German air force had
toyed with the idea of heavy bombers in the 1930s, but concentrated on
lighter, smaller planes as war approached. Surely, the German could have
developed a strategic bomber given enough time; Junkers, Heinkel, and
Focke Wulf all worked on large bomber projects during the war. But such
aircraft were enormously complex and expensive, with long lead times.
The B-29 program reputedly cost more than the atomic bomb itself, and
even B-29s required modification in order to carry atomic weapons. The
best candidate available to the Luftwaffe would have been the He 177,
capable of carrying a device considerably smaller than the “Little Boy”
bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Could submarines have delivered the devices? Conceivably. A
nuclear torpedo was probably beyond the means of the Kriegsmarine, but a
submarine sufficiently close to its target could probably deliver the
warhead in a small boat. But getting into position was no mean task; by
1943, Allied anti-submarine warfare was devastating Germany’s submarine
fleet. Only the Type XXI submarines could have approached useful targets
with any degree of certainty, and these boats did not appear until late
in the war.
The V-2 ballistic missiles represented the most obvious
potential delivery vehicles. They could deliver payloads at range, with
little chance of interception, and with enough accuracy for an atomic
warhead. However, V-2s had a startling launch failure rate, making them a
sketchy option for an atomic payload. They also lacked the ability to
carry heavy payloads; reducing a warhead to sufficiently small size, and
reinforcing it such that it could handle the rigors of launch, flight,
and separation, were tasks likely beyond Nazi Germany in any useful
timeframe.
Use of the Weapon:
How would the Germans have used the atomic bomb, if they had
managed to construct it? It depends, naturally, on Germany’s tactical
situation when it developed the weapon, and on the delivery systems it
had available.
Obvious strategic targets include London and Moscow, and the
Luftwaffe could probably have delivered them successfully with a fair
degree of confidence. An attack on either would have proved devastating.
In the case of Moscow, a surprise strike that decapitated the Soviet
leadership might have caused very serious problems, although the Red
Army would undoubtedly have continued to fight. In the West, the V-2
campaign had a serious impact on British morale, and an atomic device
would have had an even more devastating impact. It’s worth keeping in
mind, however, that the Combined Bomber Offensive was delivering atomic
levels of destruction to the Reich from 1943 on, and that this effort
failed to force a German surrender. In any case, the center of gravity
of the Western Allied war effort had passed to the other side of the
Atlantic, and the United States was likely out of reach.
