2005 Task Cynler survivor of Auschwitz
Recently, a News.com feature highlighted how radio-active material was found in Germany from a war-time site which is the first hard-evidence apart from hear-say that Nazi scientists were much closer than previously thought.
The BBC have produced a number of television documentaries on how close the Nazi's were, with taped conversations from German officers imprisoned in Britain in the last years of the WWII.
Everything pointed to a failure of getting the radio-active material necessary for a nuclear reaction and although the Allies found a rudimentary set-up, every tid-bit discovered led the Allies to believe the Nazi's were no where near getting a nuclear device.
2005 Warsaw Memorial
New evidence
Over the years, only once previously have I read about a mushroom type cloud being seen by German military personnel which simulated the American nuclear bomb tested in the American desert and dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There was so much chatter amongst German high ranking personnel about a new wonder weapon that it seemed improbable that there was some truth in this even if one might have suggested all these years it was all talk.
But now eye witnesses have come to the fore of such a mushroom shaped cloud from some form of an explosion quite apart from the discovered radio active material. The article picks up the story.
A pensioner in Brandenberg, Germany, was casting about around Oranienburg with his metal detector last week when it gave an unusual ‘bleep’. He did a few tests, notified authorities where-upon a huge emergency operation took place. Men in hazmat suits moved into his house, and carefully packed his find into a special lead-lined container, which was itself put in a protective suitcase.
Oranienburg was, during World War II, the location of a secret research facility. It was working on enriching uranium oxide sourced from South America.. Its objective was to create weapons-grade plutonium. This was to be the core a Nazi atomic bomb. The research facility is long gone.
16,000 bombs were dropped on the Oranienburg facility during the war. It was completely destroyed. Despite the fact the Soviets carefully scoured the site after steamrollering through Germany in 1945, it’s highly likely more radioactive material remains among the scattered rubble.
2005 Schindlers' Statue Krachow
Files opened
Documents released earlier this year by the US National Archives reveal how close Nazi scientists came to developing the war-winning atomic bomb. The APO 696 file is a survey of Nazi research concluded Hitler came close to assembling a basic warhead in 1944.
It includes testimony that such a weapon may even have been tested. The file reports of German test pilot Hans Zinsser believed he saw a ‘mushroom cloud’ near a nuclear research facility at Ludwgslust in 1944.
His log book — submitted as evidence to Allied investigators — reads; “In early October 1944 I flew away 12-15 km from a nuclear test station near Ludwigslust (South of Lübeck).
“A cloud shaped like a mushroom with turbulent, billowing sections (at about 7000 metres) stood, without any seeming connections over the spot where the explosion took place. Strong electrical disturbances and the impossibility to continue radio communication as by lighting turned up.”
The article concludes - a second pilot reportedly observed the same thing an hour later, and an Italian correspondent who saw the blast reported his observations to Mussolini.
How close
It would have been a very different world had the Nazi's mass produced such nuclear weapons before the Allies and the Russians had defeated the Hitler's regimen.
There was much dissident activity within Germany quiet apart from the 20 July bomb plot to assassinate Hitler at the Wolf's Lair – people like Christian leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer who lost his life for righteousness.
The sacrifice of many Allies (army, navy, air force, intelligence, logistics, home front) illustrated that there is a place for defensive righteousness. Today we might be faced with decisions of similar note.
2005 Dr Mark Tronson laying a plaque at the gates of Berkanau
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children. Dr Tronson writes a daily article for Christian Today Australia (since 2008) and in November 2016 established Christian Today New Zealand.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at