Yet, if that was supposed to have the effect of spurring him on, it did not work.
Heisenberg had discovered something infinitely worse than his own torture and death. It was living with causing the suffering and death of innocent humanity. If he gave Hitler the next series of bombs before the Allies could finish their own, millions more would die and the evil that was Hitler and the whole Third Reich would win. Interestingly, it was Hitler who gave him the best rationale for delay: orders came through Himmler to build the next atomic weapons lighter. The new V-2 rocket had a useful payload of only 1,000 kilograms and Hitler wanted the atomic weapon adapted for use on it. That kind of engineering took time.
“Never give in—never, never, never. In nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in, except to convictions of honor and good reason. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
—Winston Churchill
By September 1944 the 393rd Bomber Squadron, 509th Composite Group, had arrived in Britain and begun conducting training operations far out of the reach of German “snoopers”—the high-flying reconnaissance aircraft. Despite the propaganda coming out of Germany, no sign of another Nazi atomic attack was apparent. Intensive bombing at any and all potential atomic plants or assets had some effect, and for the time being the Allies could concentrate on resuming the invasion. The weather on the Channel coast was terrible, but any window that could be taken for the landing was considered. The Germans were apparently so confident that the Allies had been dissuaded from attempting an invasion by the threat of an atomic bomb attack, they were moving several top divisions to the Eastern Front to try to stem the latest Soviet offensive. To General Eisenhower, the door was open again, as soon as the Allies’ own atomic weapons were ready.
By mid-October the 393rd Bomber Squadron was operationally ready and the first American atomic weapons were aboard the cruiser USS
Augusta
on its way across the Atlantic. Through a miracle of concentrated effort, the Manhattan Project team had assembled two uranium devices they believed had a high probability of working as well as or better than the German weapons. They had wanted to try one out first at their test range in New Mexico, but the orders from Washington were clear: get the bombs to England to be used against Germany at the earliest possible date. Even as the weapons were secured belowdecks on the
Augusta
, Los Alamos scientists were making the last connections, the last adjustments, despite bouts of seasickness.
On November 7, 1944, General Eisenhower directed the invasion force to sea as a break in the weather was predicted for the morning of November 9. As the force approached its debarkation points at 0410, Eisenhower directed that a single preformatted message with one code word be transmitted to his air chief: “Oblivion.” At that word, three B-29s lifted off, joining the streams of a thousand or so B-17s and B-24s taking part in bombing attacks all over Germany that day. One of those B-29s carried one of the Manhattan weapons, code-named “Little Boy,” while the other two B-29s carried navigation and recording equipment and had the secondary mission of close defense of the bombing aircraft if any German fighters made it through the escorting fighters. Instead of the usual custom of a picture of a scantily clad lady on the plane’s nose with some ribald saying, the lead B-29 carrying the atomic bomb had just the name of the pilot’s mother painted on.
As dawn on November 9 arrived, the German defenders were stunned to see thousands of ships off the coast of Normandy. Paratroopers and glider forces had landed in France ahead of the main force during the preceding night but the German communications were so disrupted by the rampaging aircraft and the increase in French resistance activity that they were unaware of the scope of that night’s actions. Hitler was awakened. He was incredulous. How could they do this? He called Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s headquarters for an on-scene report and ordered the reserve Panzer divisions thrown into action. General Rommel kept silent. His reserves had been committed to the Russian Front over his strenuous objections months before.
Heisenberg heard the news broadcasts about the Allied landings in France and was as surprised as everyone else in Germany. Then he understood. It was all over now. He packed a single leather briefcase, approached his SS “escort” officer and said he had essential business in Berlin with Himmler himself concerning the atomic bomb project. Though surprised, the officer agreed and put in a call to the Reichsführer personally, saying that Heisenberg needed to see him and that it was urgent. Himmler was pleased that he would have Heisenberg there—he had a number of important items to discuss with him and this would be the best opportunity. The message seemed to carry some promising news, and he thought it would be a good time to tell Hitler if they had the new bombs ready. Himmler put aside his morning meetings to take his staff car to Berlin.
The Allies streamed ashore against heavy resistance the whole morning, and the casualties were heavy. U.S. and British fighter-bombers were crushing attempts by the Germans to reinforce their defenses, and the toehold of Allied forces grew to a true defensible lodgment, an irresistible grip on the continent. The Allies were back!
In emergency meetings in the Führerbunker in Berlin, Hitler and his general staff developed plans for the counterattack in Normandy. Hitler was furious at Rommel for not following his orders and blamed him for the successful landing of the Allies, but a little of the edge was taken off his anger when he received a message from Himmler, who said he wished to update him on the atomic project. Good, Hitler thought. It was about time! His next bomb would fall on the Allies’ beachhead! This would finish the British and the Americans once and for all.
Heisenberg stepped from the train station and looked at his watch. It was nearly noon. The SS officer with him said something, and as he looked across the street, Himmler’s car arrived. The SS officer saluted with a stiff arm upraised, and Himmler got out of his car to greet Heisenberg, a slight smile on his face. As they crossed the street, air raid sirens began howling and antiaircraft batteries began firing some distance away. The escort officer wanted to head the group toward a shelter but Himmler waved him to silence.
“What is your important news, Herr Professor?” Himmler asked.
“Herr Reichsführer, I believe the Allies have their own atomic bombs now,” Heisenberg said.
This was not what Himmler had been expecting to hear at all. He wanted to hear about the status of their next series of weapons, not the Allies’ weapons. He frowned. His sources had told him that the soonest the Americans could hope to have their own atomic weapons would be at least a year away. Plenty of time. What was Heisenberg talking about?
Himmler was about to ask that question when he saw Heisenberg staring upward. He and the SS officers looked too, and saw a small speck—or was that more than one plane? It was very high up and bright silver in the rare November sunshine. He looked back at Heisenberg and saw the physicist smiling an odd smile, and that there were tears streaming down his face. He started to say something but an enormous flash of light erased everything.
The ground heaved around the Führerbunker and the interior filled with dust. Hitler and his staff were knocked to the floor and file cabinets fell over as the floor heaved in one direction and the walls in another. The Führer’s first thoughts were that an assassin had bombed the next room, trying to kill him. The whole bunker complex was completely dark and filled with the smell of dust. As his senses began to return, he saw that some emergency lights had been turned on and that the entire bunker had been damaged by something and every room and all of the halls were filled with debris. Had the Americans made a direct hit on his bunker? An officer reported that the entrances were sealed, blocked by something. The smell of smoke was now stronger, and the bunker itself, normally cold and damp, stiflingly hot and getting hotter. Suddenly Hitler understood. The Americans had caught up and repaid the favor for London and Moscow. He knew what was outside the bunker on the surface, and also knew that none of them would live much longer. There was no communication with anyone outside and no escape from this concrete tomb. His only choices were slowly to cook or to suffocate, or if there was enough air, die of radiation poisoning. Hitler took his pistol from his pocket and climbed over the rubble into an adjoining room to take a different option.
After the message from the lead B-29 was received indicating that the attack had been successful, the Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower released a message to the German people. He said that the Allied forces had returned to the European continent and that the Allies had destroyed Berlin with a single atomic bomb, like the ones used on London and Moscow. He said that they had not wanted to resort to using the horrific weapon but that the first use by the Nazis without warning called for similar measures to end the war. He said that the long terror of Nazi domination of Europe was over and that whatever it took to erase Nazism from the face of the Earth would be accomplished. He called on the representatives of the German people to surrender and to end this terrible war. If they did not, the Allies had more horrific weapons and would use them if necessary. Eisenhower finished his message with the hope that the German people would take the steps they needed to end the dark era and restore freedom and honor and peace to the world.
On November 25, 1944, representatives from Field Marshal Rommel’s headquarters met with representatives of the Allied High Command to discuss the surrender of all German forces in the West. Hitler was dead and the world had to be returned to sanity again.
Shortly afterward, the German forces in the East surrendered to the Soviets and the war in Europe was over. Now it was time for recovery, rebuilding, and decontamination.
Turning his attention to the Far East, a tired and ill President Roosevelt sent a message to the Emperor of Japan containing similar points and informing him that atomic weapons were available for use against Japan immediately. Would more bloodshed and loss be necessary? The world’s first nuclear exchange was over, and history would never be the same.
The Nazis never got the bomb, perhaps because Professor Heisenberg did not have the inspiration to make the necessary breakthroughs the Allied scientists did or because he dragged his feet and implied to Speer and the others that it was “impossible” because he was against giving Hitler such a terrible weapon. No one will ever know for sure, but it is a safe bet that the Nazis would have used the atomic bomb if they’d had it. I have made a reasonable guess that Hitler would have attacked London and Moscow, and considering the vicious and criminal use of thousands of randomly “guided” V-1s and V-2s against the civilians of London, Antwerp, and Brussels, I cannot imagine Hitler missing a chance for even more evil. Interestingly, the Nazis must have thought they were closer to having the atomic bomb than most historians: a specially prepared Heinkel He-177 bomber was discovered in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war, modified to carry an outsized nuclear weapon underneath it.
The idea of Himmler taking over the atomic weapons project is based on the actual takeover by Himmler of the rocket development project at Peenemünde.
5
As with this story, Himmler and his SS boosted the funding and material priorities for the A-4 Project (V-2) and, as in this story, used slave labor liberally to build the missiles under inhuman conditions, despite determined Allied bombing attacks aimed at halting the program.
It was theoretically possible to build a bomb in twenty-two months if Heisenberg and his team had been given full priority and support. They had a lot of the most critical material—uranium—thanks to captured Belgian stocks from the Congo and the Czech mines. The advancement of the American atomic development effort from the actual first test shot at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July 1945 to an attack on Berlin in November 1944 was also theoretically possible: there were several delays from errors in the processing of U-235 from the more common U-238 isotope and an amount of it was lost due to an error at the Oak Ridge calutron facilities. Had this not occurred, the bombs might have been ready months earlier. The scientists under Oppenheimer’s leadership also had a tendency to “admire the problem” at times. The time used for elaborate preparations for the first test at Alamogordo (with additions like the immense—and eventually unused—steel containment vessel known as “Jumbo,” for example) could have been used for preparations for an atomic attack on Berlin instead. Last, but not least, if intelligence did confirm that the Germans were indeed moving ahead in 1942 in the effort to build an atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project would have started earlier and moved more surely to get there as quickly as humanly possible.
An interesting thought: if Hitler had not been a rabid anti-Semite and murdered or driven out all of the Jews within his reach, he could have had the services of many more of the finest physicists in the world—the same ones who made the Manhattan Project successful.
Bernstein, Jeremy,
Hitler’s Uranium Club
, (American Institute of Physics Press, Woodbury, New York, 1996).
Dornberger, Walther,
V-2
(Viking Press, New York, 1954).