by Unknown
Heisenberg’s Special Weapons team—the “Uranium Club”—grew geometrically as more physicists, engineers, and workers were brought in to the new facilities dedicated to the nuclear weapon project. Thanks to Albert Speer, materials and supplies poured in and the funding was literally limitless. Branches were established throughout Germany and occupied Europe to assure that the facilities and capabilities were under one leader, one focus. Naturally, the security at each of these facilities was immeasurably tightened as the responsibilities transitioned to the SS. The cyclotron near Paris, the heavy water plant in Norway, the uranium mines in Czechoslovakia, and much more all became part of Himmler’s direct sphere, and therefore Heisenberg’s as well.
The work on a functioning reactor, various methods of isotope separation, and research on the many mathematical models for chain reactions in fissionable material were conducted simultaneously. The unspeakable became more possible every day the research went on, and under the SS, that was every day of the week.
Bits of information, hints, and clues trickled out of Germany to the Allies despite the best efforts of the SS, the Gestapo, and the Abwehr. The Allies devoted an ever greater portion of their intelligence collection effort to the discovery of where the Germans were in atomic design,2 and the various commando entities and resistance movements increased reconnaissance and planning. Yet from all external signs, the German effort was unusually quiet. Unknown to the Allied code breakers at Bletchley Park, Himmler had prevailed on his communications sections to adopt a whole new code system, over and above the existing Enigma method, to deal with the heightened communications security requirements for the Special Weapons Project. Communications concerning the project would be kept on this network and sent on landlines whenever possible. One could not be too careful.
By September 1943 the Special Weapons Project had made significant breakthroughs; the first functioning atomic pile had been used to conduct controlled fission experiments, and the role of slow neutrons was proven for the initiation of chain reactions within fissionable material. The concept of enriching uranium to form a new, more fissionable element was successfully demonstrated, and the breeder reactor was born in Germany. For the first time, a working atomic weapon would be a certainty, and with the experience of the last two years of warfare, it was clear that the war would last long enough for it to be built—and used.
Hitler was kept advised of the progress of the atomic team nearly weekly. References crept into his speeches that hinted at a new “superweapon that no power on Earth can resist.” As the Allies came closer to the Reich, as the bombing by the British and Americans intensified, Hitler became more involved in the development process, and for the first time targeting this new monster bomb became the primary issue.
The combined efforts of several of Heisenberg’s U-235 and uranium enrichment plants had produced several kilograms of fissionable material by January 1944, and the Führer was notified that within two to four months, two weapons would be available for testing. As was typical of Hitler, he directed that the tests be carried out on actual targets. Within the highest echelons of command, Hitler’s senior staff were briefed on the expected capabilities of these first atomic weapons, and they recommended using them against Red Army concentrations opposite Army Group Center in Byelorussia and against the expected Allied landings in France. Hitler would have none of that. These new weapons would be used against his enemies’ cities to break their wills and to exact revenge for the destruction of Germany’s cities. With Hitler’s final word on the subject, planning for the employment of the first two weapons began.
The first element of the plans was to determine the specific targets. Next, the bomber crews would have to be trained in the special characteristics of atomic weapon preparation, arming, and employment. Bombers were modified for the nearly 4,500-kilogram weight and the increased bulk of these bombs, and preparations made to allow the crews the capability for in-flight arming and, if necessary, disarming of the bombs.
The crews and the planners learned that atomic weapons work best if detonated at medium altitude above a target: the primary destructive capability of the atomic explosion is a massive spherical shock wave that expands until it touches the surface of the Earth. There, it reflects back against itself to form a compounded wave that travels rapidly away from the center of the burst, smashing everything in its path. The scientists also mentioned the enormous heat and ionizing radiation that would come from the explosion, but it was not known just how much of a factor these destructive effects would have on a target.
Since the last major Allied conference in Tehran in December 1943, the Allied focus had been the destruction from the air of German industry and the German will to fight as Allied ground forces advanced in the East and slowly up the length of Italy. The Allies would open a second front on continental Europe as soon as possible to relieve some of the pressure on the Red Army. In the Pacific, the Japanese faced an inexorable tide of naval advances since their defeats at Midway, then Guadalcanal, then the Gilberts and the Marshalls, and now the Allies were on the doorstep of their key bases in Saipan, Formosa, and the Philippines.
In March 1944 alone over 2,000 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs rained on Berlin, and it was clear that the American and British air forces were only beginning to reach their stride. It was also clear that the German air defenses were incapable of stopping them.
In carefully protected communications with Roosevelt, Churchill sought to discuss the analysis of Hitler’s progress toward an atomic bomb. While the Germans were communicating about everything but nuclear matters, the silence itself was telling. Most of the identified laboratories and facilities had been targeted for bombing or commando attacks but it was clear that feverish activity was still present. Churchill was sure it was only a matter of time, and not much time at that. Roosevelt described as fully as he felt he could the status of the Manhattan project and his estimate that working weapons would be available sometime late in 1944. Neither man was sure they could beat the Germans to the punch, and with the invasion of Europe approaching quickly, the possibility of a German atomic attack strongly affected planning. All of England was one big military staging area for the largest amphibious attack in history, and everything depended on surprise, good weather, air superiority, and luck.
Hell’s Arrival
“But what I want is annihilation—annihilation effect.”3
—Adolf Hitler
Even as the Allied leaders were preparing for their next phase of offensives, events had already moved inexorably to a new and terrible future: specially prepared and heavily escorted Heinkel 177 bombers took off from French and Polish airfields into the dark night sky. Late in the morning of April 15, 1944, just before the first glimmer of dawn in Moscow and at 0322 in London, intense, blinding light and searing heat erupted, followed within one or two heartbeats by irresistible waves of moving earth and walls of titanic pressure. For the two cities and millions of sleeping people, it was the end of the world.
Hitler’s revenge had arrived.
The first few hours after the attacks, when the last echoes of the loudest man-made blasts ever heard on Earth faded, it was eerily still around the world as the news began to travel. In the two bombings, the leadership and nerve centers of two of the major Allied powers had been instantly silenced. For the British and to a degree the American leadership in England, communications with the capital were completely gone and confusion reigned. Fires throughout central London, from the East End to Westminster, burned out of control, and the entire center of the city, from the Tower of London to Whitehall, was gray and burning rubble without signs of life. The surprise attack had been particularly cruel for the victims near windows or just aboveground: the atomic flash ignited any exposed flammable material out to a radius of three miles from the weapon’s hypocenter. Human beings are flammable material at those temperatures.
Photoreconnaissance Spitfires were sent to get the first pictures of the damage to
London and then back to get the film developed. Army units were trucked in from bases all over Britain to try to rescue survivors, and these first soldiers to enter the outskirts found themselves encountering clumps of terribly burned people and saw for themselves the first signs of a new terror, radiation sickness. In a world war in which every possible atrocity had been tried, the Nazis had introduced the most monstrous of them all.
In Moscow, tens of thousands of survivors were slowly finding their way away from the ruins of the city. The German bomb had exploded above the exact center of the Kremlin, crushing the ancient walls into rubble and evaporating centuries of history. Those traveling on Moscow’s metro were mostly lucky enough to survive but were now facing the sealing of the entrances at the city center and were in the dark, stumbling in for an open way to the surface. For those who made it, fires and poisoning awaited, and no leaders were left to tell them what had hit Moscow and what dangers they faced now. In a single, cataclysmic stroke the Soviet political leadership, the central hub of rail transportation, and the top level government communications systems were completely gone.
Hitler was the happiest anyone remembered seeing him. The new atomic weapons had done even better than he’d been assured they would. His enemies had been dealt crushing blows, unrecoverable blows! Photos taken at first light over London and Moscow were already on the table in front of him and his staff. They were confirmation of the devastation the superbombs had caused. Little remained in the way of recognizable landmarks, except for the layout of the rivers, and it was obvious that the points Hitler had specified had been obliterated. The Kremlin and Buckingham Palace did not exist anymore, and in their places were huge, shallow debris-filled craters. Now, he was sure, the Allies would have to end their war against him. With these weapons, the world would be his again.
In London and Moscow, the silence began to give way to the cries of the victims and then the sounds of rescue personnel digging through the rubble. Tens of thousands had died in a single moment, and many more tens of thousands were yet to die of their injuries. A wave of horror and disbelief swept through Britain, the Soviet Union, and then all of the Allied and the occupied countries. Then, as the full scope of the atrocity became apparent, bitter resolve replaced fear.
In Britain, Winston Churchill and most of the political and military leadership and command and control facilities survived. The Royal Family did not. They were in Buckingham Palace directly under the fireball, and their country grieved for them as they tried to account for their own loved ones in London. The American forces in Britain assisted the British authorities in every way they could, providing troops, facilities, equipment, food, and power generators for the recovery efforts. For a while the war came to a stop. The bombing of Germany continued but at a reduced pace while leadership and coordination were reestablished.
In the Soviet Union, the situation was even worse: Stalin had ordered that Moscow’s citizens stay in the city, to the point that the NKVD shot people who tried to leave. When the bomb exploded, the tall concrete apartment buildings built quickly for housing the maximum number of people had crumbled onto them when the shock waves had hit. The casualties were enormous, and there were no significant supplies of food, clean water, or medicines to help them. Even with the catastrophes that had occurred throughout this war for the Soviet people, this was a monstrous blow.
Stalin and much of the Politburo had disappeared since the explosion, as had the NKVD headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square. For the many political organs of the Soviet government there was no leadership, no direction, no help. The help there was, feeble as it was, came from individuals and small groups and, soon after, from the Red Army. Where the all-present Communist party had been, a vacuum replaced it and the Soviet nation reeled. Moscow was also the hub of the state rail system, and its destruction crippled deliveries of weapons, ammunition and supplies to the front. The Soviet people needed a hero, and they got one: Marshal Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov gathered his military leaders and the surviving members of the party leadership and began rebuilding the essential mechanisms of control lost in the atomic bombing of Moscow.
Heisenberg had feared success almost as much as he’d feared the consequences of failure. He and the other members of the “Uranium Club” knew how horrific an atomic weapon would be and did not want Hitler to have one. But at his back at all times was the cool insistence of Himmler and his SS. Everywhere Heisenberg went, every conversation, every moment, he was attended. They were supportive, coolly friendly and ran to get whatever he wanted them to get, yet in fact were waiting in the wings, like killer animals, for the chance to torture and kill whomever they were told to torture or kill. As the scientific barriers to the working atomic bomb were overcome one by one, Himmler was congratulatory and additional honors and awards flowed. When there were difficulties, Himmler would appear unannounced to inspect the work with startling attention to detail. Hitler himself visited once, and Heisenberg felt a surprising spurt of pride, replaced quickly by shame as he once again realized that he and his physicists would be parties to the mass extinction of thousands. He and his family had lost many friends and relatives to the Allied bombing campaign, which came close to getting him several times. Sometimes the anger at these near misses and personal losses spurred him on, but most of the time the rapid pace of progress toward an unthinkable weapon filled him with desperate anguish.
Now that day had come. The propaganda mills were churning out radio announcements and newspaper articles and newsreels trumpeting a “magnificent victory.” Pictures of the stark landscapes that had been ancient and beautiful cities were posted everywhere, and from what he could see, people on the streets of Germany were cheerful. They believed the announcements that the war was almost over and that the Reich had won. Heisenberg hoped that the next bomb from the next Allied bomber would get him. Looking at the pictures of the horrors he and his team had created, he wished that they had gotten him a lot earlier. He looked upward reflexively when the evening air raid sirens and the booming of distant flak batteries announced the arrival of British bombers again. Maybe now, he thought, it would be his time.
At Southwick, the British emergency government and the Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, met to discuss the immediate requirements caused by the German attacks. The most pressing concern was if there would be another atomic attack. The most critical potential targets were the industrial cities of England and the bases with massed troops assembled for the invasion of Europe. The first priority was to reduce the vulnerable populations of the likes of Birmingham, Manchester, Southampton, and Coventry and disperse the large military camps and staging areas into smaller, less lucrative targets. The invasion initially planned for May/June as Operation Overlord had to be suspended indefinitely until this powerful German threat was overcome or eliminated. The struggling landing at Anzio in Italy was the only hopeful operation in progress for the western Allies, but it was also vulnerable: no matter how carefully planned, an amphibious operation must necessarily concentrate its forces into relatively small areas of beach, supported by closely clustered vessels. This concentration of forces was perfectly suited for an effective atomic attack. For now at least, Europe would stay in Nazi hands. The big question on Allied planner’s minds was, how many of those things did the Nazis have—and where would they strike again?
For the Soviets under Zhukov, there were the same questions, with the added burden of many more casualties than they could help. To the east and south of Moscow, radioactive fallout had spread for tens of thousands of hectares downwind and sickness had spread. Refugees from all of the areas around Moscow had crowded the available trains, trucks, and roads as they sought some relief, somewhere. It was a wet and cold April, with shelter hard to find, and many families struggled to survive in the fields and forests of central Russia. Zhukov still had a war to fight and his forces were massed and coiled to hit the Germans in Byelorussia. He could either wait for the Germans to use another atomic bomb on the Re
d Army or could order them into the attack. An attack had another advantage—his troops would be in close proximity with the fascists, and if they wanted to use the atomic bomb on them, they would kill Germans too. His forces were ready and fueled by an unquenchable hatred for the German enemy. At his command, the Red Army drove straight into the Germans.
In Washington and throughout the United States, the German atomic attacks filled Americans with astonishment and fear. Could the Nazis hit our cities yet? Congress met to discuss emergency measures for the evacuation of New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and other major potential targets, and called on the military leadership to increase the air defenses of East Coast cities. President Roosevelt, though visibly more ill, met with Gen. George Marshall and Gen. Hap Arnold to plan for the one thing that would stop Germany—an atomic counterstrike against Berlin. The director of the Manhattan Project, Brig. Gen. Leslie Groves, assured the planners that they would have at least one, maybe two, working weapons of roughly the same power and characteristics as the German weapons by late October or early November, with more available shortly thereafter. The B-29s capable of carrying the atomic bomb could be sent to England immediately, and the crews, already in training, would accompany them there. Communications with Churchill confirmed the British leader’s desire to annihilate. Berlin, with Hitler in it, as soon as possible. Roosevelt ordered the preparations to move the bombing team to England and then sent Churchill the message, “Operation Counterstroke has begun.”