How Close Were the Nazis to a Nuclear Bomb?

The discovery of nuclear fission in late 1938 and early 1939 immediately raised the prospect of a world filled with dangerous new weapons. Within months, Nazi Germany had banned the export of uranium to other countries and begun looking into the potential military applications of nuclear technology. That effort ramped up following the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. The fear of a Nazi atomic bomb would permeate Allied war plans and prompt much speculation thereafter.

Although it’s unclear how much interest Adolf Hitler took in nuclear matters, several leading Nazis, including Albert Speer, Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, strongly supported uranium research, says Mark Walker, a professor of history at Union College in New York and author of Hitler’s Atomic Bomb: History, Legend, and the Twin Legacies of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. “They hoped there would be a breakthrough.”

Some who had fled Nazi persecution were particularly alarmed. Jewish refugee scientists, in particular, thought that Hitler “was on his way to getting a weapon of mass destruction,” says Tim Koeth, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Maryland.