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176-568: Nazi Germany undertook several research programs relating to nuclear technology , including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors , before and during World War II . These were variously called Uranverein ( Uranium Society ) or Uranprojekt ( Uranium Project ). The first effort started in April 1939, just months after the discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin in December 1938, but ended only

352-628: A body-centered cubic structure, with a barium–barium distance of 503 picometers , expanding with heating at a rate of approximately 1.8 × 10 /°C. It is a soft metal with a Mohs hardness of 1.25. Its melting temperature of 1,000 K (730 °C; 1,340 °F) is intermediate between those of the lighter strontium (1,050 K or 780 °C or 1,430 °F) and heavier radium (973 K or 700 °C or 1,292 °F); however, its boiling point of 2,170 K (1,900 °C; 3,450 °F) exceeds that of strontium (1,655 K or 1,382 °C or 2,519 °F). The density (3.62 g/cm )

528-493: A bursting and correctly interpreted the results as " nuclear fission " – a term coined by Frisch. Frisch confirmed this experimentally on 13 January 1939. On 22 April 1939, after hearing a colloquium paper by his colleague Wilhelm Hanle at the University of Göttingen proposing the use of uranium fission in an Uranmaschine (uranium machine, i.e., nuclear reactor ), Georg Joos , along with Hanle, notified Wilhelm Dames, at

704-471: A pervasive cult of personality around Adolf Hitler to influence public opinion. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Genocide , mass murder , and large-scale forced labour became hallmarks of the regime; the implementation of the regime's racial policies culminated in the Holocaust . After the initial success of German invasion of

880-617: A radiocontrast agent in X-ray imaging of the digestive system in 1908. The abundance of barium is 0.0425% in the Earth's crust and 13 μg/L in sea water. The primary commercial source of barium is baryte (also called barytes or heavy spar), a barium sulfate mineral. with deposits in many parts of the world. Another commercial source, far less important than baryte, is witherite , barium carbonate. The main deposits are located in Britain, Romania, and

1056-558: A bomb in wartime Germany was unfeasible on technical and economic grounds. It was simply too big and too costly. Morality had nothing to do with it. The Lesart has been perpetuated in many popular accounts of the German atomic program, notably in Michael Frayn 's 1998 play Copenhagen , which itself was based heavily on the Lesart -endorsing work of popular history, Heisenberg's War (1993), by

1232-586: A business opportunity for the company, and July 1939 contacted the Army Ordnance Office on the matter. Army Ordnance eventually provided an order for the production of uranium oxide, which took place in the Auer plant in Oranienburg , north of Berlin. These three efforts, as noted, were independent and lasted until the fall of 1939, when the outbreak of World War II disrupted the work at Göttingen, and also prompted

1408-485: A communist uprising. The Reichstag Fire Decree , imposed on 28 February 1933, rescinded most civil liberties, including rights of assembly and freedom of the press. The decree also allowed the police to detain people indefinitely without charges. The legislation was accompanied by a propaganda campaign that led to public support for the measure. Violent suppression of communists by the SA was undertaken nationwide and 4,000 members of

1584-669: A company in Paris that handled rare earths and had been taken over by the Auergesellschaft . This, combined with information gathered in the same month through an Alsos team in Strasbourg , confirmed that the Oranienburg plant was involved in the production of uranium and thorium metals. Since the plant was to be in the future Soviet zone of occupation and the Red Army's troops would get there before

1760-684: A cube of uranium attained from this mission from March 2020. A major goal of the Operation Alsos effort in Germany was the location, capture, and interrogation of German atomic scientists. This involved some significant effort as many of them had become scattered during the chaotic last weeks of the war in Europe. Ultimately, nine of the prominent German scientists who published reports in Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte as members of

1936-665: A few months later, shortly ahead of the September 1939 German invasion of Poland , for which many notable German physicists were drafted into the Wehrmacht . A second effort under the administrative purview of the Wehrmacht 's Heereswaffenamt began on September 1, 1939, the day of the invasion of Poland. The program eventually expanded into three main efforts: Uranmaschine ( nuclear reactor ) development, uranium and heavy water production, and uranium isotope separation . Eventually,

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2112-516: A green to pale green flame , which is an efficient test to detect a barium compound. The color results from spectral lines at 455.4, 493.4, 553.6, and 611.1 nm. Organobarium compounds are a growing field of knowledge: recently discovered are dialkylbariums and alkylhalobariums. Barium found in the Earth's crust is a mixture of seven primordial nuclides , barium-130, 132, and 134 through 138. Barium-130 undergoes very slow radioactive decay to xenon -130 by double beta plus decay , with

2288-582: A half-life of (0.5–2.7)×10 years (about 10 times the age of the universe). Its abundance is ≈0.1% that of natural barium. Theoretically, barium-132 can similarly undergo double beta decay to xenon-132; this decay has not been detected. The radioactivity of these isotopes is so weak that they pose no danger to life. Of the stable isotopes, barium-138 composes 71.7% of all barium; other isotopes have decreasing abundance with decreasing mass number . In total, barium has 40 known isotopes, ranging in mass between 114 and 153. The most stable artificial radioisotope

2464-591: A host of historical information on processes in different oceanic settings (water column, sediments, and hydrothermal sites). In each setting there are differences in isotopic and elemental composition of the barite particulate. Barite in the water column, known as marine or pelagic barite, reveals information on seawater chemistry variation over time. Barite in sediments, known as diagenetic or cold seeps barite, gives information about sedimentary redox processes. Barite formed via hydrothermal activity at hydrothermal vents, known as hydrothermal barite, reveals alterations in

2640-531: A major of the Soviet Army, who was also a leading Soviet chemist, and they issued Ardenne a protective letter ( Schutzbrief ). The United States, British, and Canadian governments worked together to create the Manhattan Project that developed the uranium and plutonium atomic bombs. Its success has been attributed to meeting all four of the following conditions: Even with all four of these conditions in place

2816-404: A metal or when alloyed with aluminium, is used to remove unwanted gases ( gettering ) from vacuum tubes, such as TV picture tubes. Barium is suitable for this purpose because of its low vapor pressure and reactivity towards oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water; it can even partly remove noble gases by dissolving them in the crystal lattice. This application is gradually disappearing due to

2992-513: A new element in 1772, but could not isolate barium, only barium oxide . Johan Gottlieb Gahn also isolated barium oxide two years later in similar studies. Oxidized barium was at first called "barote" by Guyton de Morveau , a name that was changed by Antoine Lavoisier to baryte (in French) or baryta (in Latin). Also in the 18th century, English mineralogist William Withering noted a heavy mineral in

3168-640: A non-aggression pact with Poland. In March 1939, Hitler demanded the return of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor , a strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. The British announced they would come to the aid of Poland if it was attacked. Hitler, believing the British would not take action, ordered an invasion plan should be readied for September 1939. On 23 May, Hitler described to his generals his overall plan of not only seizing

3344-469: A protectorate of France under the condition that its residents would later decide by referendum which country to join, and Poland became a separate nation and was given access to the sea by the creation of the Polish Corridor , which separated Prussia from the rest of Germany, while Danzig was made a free city . Germany regained control of the Saarland through a referendum held in 1935 and annexed Austria in

3520-459: A second national anthem. Germany was still in a dire economic situation, as six million people were unemployed and the balance of trade deficit was daunting. Using deficit spending , public works projects were undertaken beginning in 1934, creating 1.7 million new jobs by the end of that year alone. Average wages began to rise. The SA leadership continued to apply pressure for greater political and military power. In response, Hitler used

3696-425: A strong correlation with particulate organic carbon or POC. Barium is becoming more popular to be used a base for palaeoceanographic proxies. With both dissolved and particulate barium's links with silicic acid and POC, it can be used to determine historical variations in the biological pump, carbon cycle, and global climate. The barium particulate barite (BaSO 4 ), as one of many proxies, can be used to provide

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3872-741: A substantial minority of Germans, who lived mostly in the Sudetenland . Under pressure from separatist groups within the Sudeten German Party , the Czechoslovak government offered economic concessions to the region. Hitler decided not just to incorporate the Sudetenland into the Reich, but to destroy the country of Czechoslovakia entirely. The Nazis undertook a propaganda campaign to try to generate support for an invasion. Top German military leaders opposed

4048-617: A thousand people (out of a population of around 16,000) committed suicide in Demmin around 1 May 1945 as the 65th Army of 2nd Belorussian Front first broke into a distillery and then rampaged through the town, committing mass rapes, arbitrarily executing civilians, and setting fire to buildings. High numbers of suicides took place in many other locations, including Neubrandenburg (600 dead), Stolp in Pommern (1,000 dead), and Berlin, where at least 7,057 people committed suicide in 1945. Estimates of

4224-763: A vanguard group. Targets on the top of their list were the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics ), the Frederick William University (today, the University of Berlin ), and the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin ). German physicists who worked on the Uranverein and were sent to the Soviet Union to work on

4400-769: A war fought on two fronts. The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus , and west Ukraine . After the successful Battle of Smolensk in September 1941, Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to halt its advance to Moscow and temporarily divert its Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kyiv . This pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilise fresh reserves. The Moscow offensive, which resumed in October 1941, ended disastrously in December . On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor , Hawaii. Four days later, Germany declared war on

4576-504: A war of conquest to obtain more territory. The Saarland , which had been placed under League of Nations supervision for 15 years at the end of World War I, voted in January 1935 to become part of Germany. In March 1935, Hitler announced the creation of an air force, and that the Reichswehr would be increased to 550,000 men. Britain agreed to Germany building a naval fleet with the signing of

4752-437: Is a soft, silvery-white metal, with a slight golden shade when ultrapure. The silvery-white color of barium metal rapidly vanishes upon oxidation in air yielding a dark gray layer containing the oxide . Barium has a medium specific weight and high electrical conductivity. Because barium is difficult to purify, many of its properties have not been accurately determined. At room temperature and pressure, barium metal adopts

4928-438: Is added to steel and cast iron to reduce the size of carbon grains within the microstructure. Barium compounds are added to fireworks to impart a green color. Barium sulfate is used as an insoluble additive to oil well drilling fluid . In a purer form it is used as X-ray radiocontrast agents for imaging the human gastrointestinal tract. Water-soluble barium compounds are poisonous and have been used as rodenticides . Barium

5104-480: Is again intermediate between those of strontium (2.36 g/cm ) and radium (≈5 g/cm ). Barium is chemically similar to magnesium, calcium, and strontium, but more reactive. Its compounds are almost invariably found in the +2 oxidation state. As expected for a highly electropositive metal, barium's reaction with chalcogens is highly exothermic (release energy). Barium reacts with atmospheric oxygen in air at room temperature. For this reason, metallic barium

5280-687: Is barium-133 with a half-life of approximately 10.51 years. Five other isotopes have half-lives longer than a day. Barium also has 10 meta states , of which barium-133m1 is the most stable with a half-life of about 39 hours. Alchemists in the early Middle Ages knew about some barium minerals. Smooth pebble-like stones of mineral baryte were found in volcanic rock near Bologna , Italy , and so were called "Bologna stones". Alchemists were attracted to them because after exposure to light they would glow for years. The phosphorescent properties of baryte heated with organics were described by V. Casciorolus in 1602. Carl Scheele determined that baryte contained

5456-422: Is caused by water mass mixing and ocean circulation. Global ocean circulation reveals a strong correlation between dissolved barium and silicic acid. The large-scale ocean circulation combined with remineralization of barium show a similar correlation between dissolved barium and ocean alkalinity. Dissolved barium's correlation with silicic acid can be seen both vertically and spatially. Particulate barium shows

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5632-444: Is not used because barium readily dissolves in molten halides and the product is rather impure. The barium mineral, benitoite (barium titanium silicate), occurs as a very rare blue fluorescent gemstone, and is the official state gem of California . Barium in seawater Barium exists in seawater as the Ba ion with an average oceanic concentration of 109 nmol/kg. Barium also exists in

5808-412: Is often stored under oil or in an inert atmosphere. Reactions with other nonmetals , such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon, and hydrogen, proceed upon heating. Reactions with water and alcohols are also exothermic and release hydrogen gas: Barium reacts with ammonia to form the electride [Ba(NH 3 ) 6 ](e ) 2 , which near room temperature gives the amide Ba(NH 2 ) 2 . The metal

5984-492: Is preserved as a typed manuscript and it appeared after the War in 1948 virtually unchanged (with just a few additions on the US atomic bomb released in 1945). In October 1944, Hugo Watzlawek wrote an article on the potential usage of nuclear energy and its many potential applications. In his view, to follow up this route of research and development was the "new pathway" to becoming the "Master of

6160-403: Is readily attacked by acids. Sulfuric acid is a notable exception because passivation stops the reaction by forming the insoluble barium sulfate on the surface. Barium combines with several other metals, including aluminium , zinc , lead , and tin , forming intermetallic phases and alloys. Barium salts are typically white when solid and colorless when dissolved. They are denser than

6336-420: Is the adjectival form of barium. Barium was identified as a new element in 1772, but not reduced to a metal until 1808 with the advent of electrolysis . Barium has few industrial applications. Historically, it was used as a getter for vacuum tubes and in oxide form as the emissive coating on indirectly heated cathodes . It is a component of YBCO ( high-temperature superconductors ) and electroceramics, and

6512-454: Is the starting point for other compounds: treating BaS with oxygen produces the sulfate, with nitric acid the nitrate, with aqueous carbon dioxide the carbonate, and so on. The nitrate can be thermally decomposed to yield the oxide. Barium metal is produced by reduction with aluminium at 1,100 °C (2,010 °F). The intermetallic compound BaAl 4 is produced first: BaAl 4 is an intermediate reacted with barium oxide to produce

6688-421: Is washed, crushed, classified, and separated from quartz. If the quartz penetrates too deeply into the ore, or the iron, zinc, or lead content is abnormally high, then froth flotation is used. The product is a 98% pure baryte (by mass); the purity should be no less than 95%, with a minimal content of iron and silicon dioxide . It is then reduced by carbon to barium sulfide : The water-soluble barium sulfide

6864-679: The Reichserziehungsministerium (REM, Reich Ministry of Education), of potential military and economic applications of nuclear energy. Abraham Esau , a physicist at the Reich Research Council of the REM, organized a meeting for what become informally known as a Uranverein (Uranium Club). The group included the physicists Walther Bothe , Robert Döpel , Hans Geiger , Wolfgang Gentner (probably sent by Walther Bothe ), Wilhelm Hanle , Gerhard Hoffmann , and Georg Joos ; Peter Debye

7040-459: The Schutzstaffel (SS) and Gestapo to purge the entire SA leadership. Hitler targeted SA Stabschef (Chief of Staff) Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders who—along with a number of Hitler's political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher )—were arrested and shot. Up to 200 people were killed from 30 June to 2 July 1934 in an event that became known as

7216-569: The Völkisch movement . The party, especially its paramilitary organisation Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), or Brownshirts, used physical violence to advance their political position, disrupting the meetings of rival organisations and attacking their members as well as Jewish people on the streets. Such far-right armed groups were common in Bavaria , and were tolerated by the sympathetic far-right state government of Gustav Ritter von Kahr . When

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7392-535: The 6th Army could be supplied by air, but this turned out to be infeasible. Hitler's refusal to allow a retreat led to the deaths of 200,000 German and Romanian soldiers; of the 91,000 men who surrendered in the city on 31 January 1943, only 6,000 survivors returned to Germany after the war. Losses continued to mount after Stalingrad, leading to a sharp reduction in the popularity of the Nazi Party and deteriorating morale. Soviet forces continued to push westward after

7568-706: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement on 18 June 1935. When the Italian invasion of Ethiopia led to only mild protests by the British and French governments, on 7 March 1936 Hitler used the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance as a pretext to order the army to march 3,000 troops into the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in violation of the Versailles Treaty. As the territory was part of Germany,

7744-615: The Anschluss of 1938. The Munich Agreement of 1938 gave Germany control of the Sudetenland, and they seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia six months later. Under threat of invasion by sea, Lithuania surrendered the Memel district in March 1939. Between 1939 and 1941, German forces invaded Poland , Denmark , Norway , France , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Belgium , Yugoslavia , Greece , and

7920-507: The Battle of Berlin (16 April – 2 May 1945), Hitler and his staff lived in the underground Führerbunker while the Red Army approached. On 30 April, when Soviet troops were within two blocks of the Reich Chancellery , Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide . On 2 May, General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov . Hitler

8096-454: The Brin process was a large-scale application of barium peroxide in the 1880s, before it was replaced by electrolysis and fractional distillation of liquefied air in the early 1900s. In this process barium oxide reacts at 500–600 °C (932–1,112 °F) with air to form barium peroxide, which decomposes above 700 °C (1,292 °F) by releasing oxygen: Barium sulfate was first applied as

8272-707: The Communist Party of Germany were arrested. On 23 March 1933, the Enabling Act , an amendment to the Weimar Constitution , passed in the Reichstag by a vote of 444 to 94. This amendment allowed Hitler and his cabinet to pass laws—even laws that violated the constitution—without the consent of the president or the Reichstag. As the bill required a two-thirds majority to pass, the Nazis used intimidation tactics as well as

8448-720: The Forschungslaboratorium für Elektronenphysik , in Berlin-Lichterfelde, to conduct his own research on radio and television technology and electron microscopy . He financed the laboratory with income he received from his inventions and from contracts with other concerns. For example, his research on nuclear physics and high-frequency technology was financed by the Reichspostministerium (RPM, Reich Postal Ministry), headed by Wilhelm Ohnesorge . Von Ardenne attracted top-notch personnel to work in his facility, such as

8624-787: The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max-Planck Society ), and Max Volmer , director of the Physical Chemistry Institute at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin ), who all had made a pact that whoever first made contact with the Soviets would speak for the rest. Before the end of World War II, Thiessen, a member of the Nazi Party , had Communist contacts. On 27 April 1945, Thiessen arrived at von Ardenne's institute in an armored vehicle with

8800-573: The German Empire (1871–1918) as the second. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended, partly because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles . The government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices, economic chaos, and food riots. When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along

8976-662: The German Reich and later the Greater German Reich , was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship . The Third Reich , meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800/962–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which

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9152-553: The Hague Convention , industrial firms in the Netherlands, France, and Belgium were put to work producing war materiel for Germany. The Nazis seized from the French thousands of locomotives and rolling stock, stockpiles of weapons, and raw materials such as copper, tin, oil, and nickel. Payments for occupation costs were levied upon France, Belgium, and Norway. Barriers to trade led to hoarding, black markets , and uncertainty about

9328-502: The League of Nations in October, claiming its disarmament clauses were unfair if they applied only to Germany. In a referendum held in November , 95 per cent of voters supported Germany's withdrawal. In 1934, Hitler told his military leaders that rearmament needed to be complete by 1942, as by then the German people would require more living space and resources, so Germany would have to start

9504-531: The Lesart is true. As the historian and physicist Jeremy Bernstein put it in an annotated edition of the Farm Hall transcripts: What the Farm Hall reports make transparently clear is that, while they knew a few general principles — the use of fast fission from separated U and the possibility of plutonium — they had not seriously investigated any of the details. All of the really hard problems were left untackled and unsolved. ... They had decided that making

9680-706: The Low Countries . They quickly conquered Luxembourg and the Netherlands and outmanoeuvred the Allies in Belgium , forcing the evacuation of many British and French troops at Dunkirk . France fell as well, surrendering to Germany on 22 June . The victory in France resulted in an upswing in Hitler's popularity and an upsurge in war fever in Germany. In violation of the provisions of

9856-420: The Nazi euthanasia program . Political courts called Sondergerichte sentenced some 12,000 members of the German resistance to death, and civil courts sentenced an additional 40,000 Germans. Mass rapes of German women also took place. As a result of their defeat in World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine , Northern Schleswig , and Memel . The Saarland became

10032-499: The Night of the Long Knives . On 2 August 1934, Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the " Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich ", which stated that upon Hindenburg's death the office of Reich President would be abolished and its powers merged with those of Reich Chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Chancellor"), although eventually Reichskanzler

10208-409: The Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. The National Socialist German Workers' Party ( Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ), commonly known as the Nazi Party, was founded in 1920. It was the renamed successor of the German Workers' Party (DAP) formed one year earlier, and one of several far-right political parties then active. The Nazi Party platform included destruction of

10384-418: The Soviet atomic bomb project included: Werner Czulius  [ de ] , Robert Döpel , Walter Herrmann , Heinz Pose , Ernst Rexer , Nikolaus Riehl , and Karl Zimmer . Günter Wirths , while not a member of the Uranverein , worked for Riehl at the Auergesellschaft on reactor-grade uranium production and was also sent to the Soviet Union. Zimmer's path to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project

10560-518: The Soviet atomic bomb project . The exploitation teams were under the Soviet Alsos and they were headed by Lavrentij Beria's deputy, Colonel General A. P. Zavenyagin . These teams were composed of scientific staff members, in NKVD officer's uniforms, from the bomb project's only laboratory, Laboratory No. 2, in Moscow, and included Yulij Borisovich Khariton , Isaak Konstantinovich Kikoin , and Lev Andreevich Artsimovich . Georgij Nikolaevich Flerov had arrived earlier, although Kikoin did not recall

10736-417: The Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe . In alliance with Italy and other Axis powers , Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940 and threatened Great Britain. Racism , Nazi eugenics , anti-Slavism , and especially antisemitism were central ideological features of

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10912-408: The Uranverein were picked up by the Alsos team and incarcerated in England as part of what was called Operation Epsilon : Erich Bagge , Kurt Diebner , Walther Gerlach , Otto Hahn , Paul Harteck , Werner Heisenberg , Horst Korsching , Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker , and Karl Wirtz . Also incarcerated was Max von Laue , although he had nothing to do with the nuclear weapon project. Goudsmit ,

11088-414: The federal election of 1932 , the party was the largest in the Reichstag , holding 230 seats with 37.4 per cent of the popular vote. Although the Nazis won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority. Hitler refused to participate in a coalition government unless he was its leader. Under pressure from politicians, industrialists, and

11264-425: The strontium or calcium analogs, except for the halides (see table; zinc is given for comparison). Barium hydroxide ("baryta") was known to alchemists, who produced it by heating barium carbonate. Unlike calcium hydroxide, it absorbs very little CO 2 in aqueous solutions and is therefore insensitive to atmospheric fluctuations. This property is used in calibrating pH equipment. Barium compounds burn with

11440-463: The 20th century, the successes at Leipzig until 1942 resulted from the cooperation between the theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg and the experimentalist Robert Döpel . Most important was their experimental proof of an effective neutron increase in April 1942. At the end of July of the same year, the group around Fermi also succeeded in the neutron increase within a reactor-like arrangement. Nazi Germany Nazi Germany , officially known as

11616-407: The Allied bombing campaign became even more devastating. By targeting oil refineries and factories, they crippled the German war effort by late 1944. On 6 June 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces established a front in France with the D-Day landings in Normandy . On 20 July 1944 , Hitler survived an assassination attempt. He ordered brutal reprisals, resulting in 7,000 arrests and

11792-491: The Allied scientists, despite the fact that they worked for the Nazis. In the postwar, several scientists, notably von Weizsäcker and Heisenberg, gave this version of the story to journalists and historians, notably Robert Jungk , who reprinted and amplified it uncritically in the 1950s. At that time, accuracy of the Lesart was challenged forcefully by von Laue (who coined the term Lesart ). Most professional historians of science who have worked on this subject do not believe that

11968-419: The American and Soviet occupation forces, it was just carried out on a smaller scale. In order to put pressure on Bopp to evacuate the KWIP to France, the French Naval Commission imprisoned him for five days and threatened him with further imprisonment if he did not cooperate in the evacuation. During his imprisonment, the spectroscopist Hermann Schüler  [ de ] , who had a better relationship with

12144-574: The Aviation Ministry (RLM) to found and fund an Institute for Nuclear Technology and Nuclear Chemistry ( Reichsinstituts für Kerntechnik und Kernchemie ) failed, but Watzlawek continued to explore potential applications of nuclear energy and wrote a detailed textbook on technical nuclear physics. It includes one of the most detailed presentations of contemporary German knowledge about the various processes of isotope separation, and recommends their combined usage to get to sufficient amounts of enriched uranium. Walther Gerlach refused to print this textbook, but it

12320-405: The British and French governments did not feel that attempting to enforce the treaty was worth the risk of war. In the one-party election held on 29 March, the Nazis received 98.9 per cent support. In 1936, Hitler signed an Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan and a non-aggression agreement with Mussolini, who was soon referring to a "Rome-Berlin Axis". Hitler sent military supplies and assistance to

12496-401: The Frederick William University (later, University of Berlin), which was commissioned and funded by the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, Army High Command) to conduct physics research projects. He was also head of the research department of the HWA, assistant secretary of the Science Department of the OKW, and Bevollmächtigter (plenipotentiary) for high explosives. Diebner, throughout the life of

12672-431: The French for "permanent white") is used in paints and varnishes; as a filler in ringing ink , plastics, and rubbers; as a paper coating pigment; and in nanoparticles , to improve physical properties of some polymers, such as epoxies. Barium sulfate has a low toxicity and relatively high density of ca. 4.5 g/cm (and thus opacity to X-rays). For this reason it is used as a radiocontrast agent in X-ray imaging of

12848-703: The French, persuaded the French to appoint him as Deputy Director of the KWIP. This incident caused tension between the physicists and spectroscopists at the KWIP and within its umbrella organization the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft (Kaiser Wilhelm Society). At the close of World War II, the Soviet Union had special search teams operating in Austria and Germany, especially in Berlin, to identify and obtain equipment, material, intellectual property, and personnel useful to

13024-743: The German National People's Party – their former coalition partners – which then disbanded on 29 June. The remaining major political parties followed suit. On 14 July 1933 Germany became a one-party state with the passage of the Law Against the Formation of Parties , decreeing the Nazi Party to be the sole legal party in Germany. The founding of new parties was also made illegal, and all remaining political parties which had not already been dissolved were banned. Further elections in November 1933 , 1936 , and 1938 were Nazi-controlled, with only members of

13200-458: The German military determined that nuclear fission would not contribute significantly to the war, and in January 1942 the Heereswaffenamt turned the program over to the Reich Research Council ( Reichsforschungsrat ) while continuing to fund the activity. The program was split up among nine major institutes where the directors dominated research and set their own objectives. Subsequently,

13376-605: The German nuclear weapon project would not make a decisive contribution to ending the German war effort in the near term, and control of the project was relinquished by the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) to the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) in July 1942. As to condition four, the high priority allocated to the Manhattan Project allowed for the recruitment and concentration of capable scientists on

13552-425: The German nuclear weapon project. Speer states that the project to develop the atom bomb was scuttled in the autumn of 1942. Though the scientific solution was there, it would have taken all of Germany's production resources to produce a bomb, and then no sooner than 1947. Development did continue with a "uranium motor" for the navy and development of a German cyclotron . However, by the summer of 1943, Speer released

13728-581: The German scientists discussed why Germany did not create an atomic bomb, and the United States and United Kingdom did. The transcripts reveal them developing what has been called the Lesart ("version"). The basic version the Lesart argued that the German scientists chose not to build a bomb for Hitler, either by dragging their feet, being insufficiently enthusiastic, or, in some versions, active sabotage. The Lesart both offers up an explanation for their "failure" and also elevates their moral authority above

13904-527: The German state in the Nazi era are "Nazi Germany" and the "Third Reich", which Hitler and the Nazis also referred to as the "Thousand-Year Reich" ( Tausendjähriges Reich ). The latter, a translation of the Nazi propaganda term Drittes Reich , was first used in Das Dritte Reich , a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck . The book counted the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the first Reich and

14080-503: The HWA (Army Ordnance) to take over the work from the Reich Research Council. After the fact, this early work was designated as the first Uranverein , with the HWA's reorganized project being designated the second Uranverein . In August 1939, just before the German invasion of Poland precipitated the formal start of World War II, the Army Ordnance Office (HWA) moved to take over the work of the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) of

14256-551: The Institute's Deputy Director. When the American Alsos Mission evacuated Hechingen and Haigerloch , near the end of World War II, French armed forces occupied Hechingen. Bopp did not get along with them and described the initial French policy objectives towards the KWIP as exploitation, forced evacuation to France, and seizure of documents and equipment. The French occupation policy was not qualitatively different from that of

14432-460: The Manhattan Project succeeded only after the war in Europe had been brought to a conclusion. For the Manhattan Project, the second condition was met on 9 October 1941 or shortly thereafter. Germany for a long time was thought to have fallen short of what was required to make an atomic bomb. Mutual distrust existed between the German government and some scientists. By the end of 1941, it was already apparent among German science and military elites that

14608-607: The Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War , which began in July 1936. The German Condor Legion included a range of aircraft and their crews, as well as a tank contingent. The aircraft of the Legion destroyed the city of Guernica in 1937. The Nationalists were victorious in 1939 and became an informal ally of Nazi Germany. In February 1938, Hitler emphasised to Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg

14784-751: The Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich , ended in May 1945, after only 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin , ending World War II in Europe . After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator by merging

14960-469: The Party and a small number of independents elected. All civilian organisations had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathisers or party members, and either merged with the Nazi Party or faced dissolution. The Nazi government declared a "Day of National Labor" for May Day 1933, and invited many trade union delegates to Berlin for celebrations. The day after, SA stormtroopers demolished union offices around

15136-461: The Polish Corridor but greatly expanding German territory eastward at the expense of Poland. He expected this time they would be met by force. The Germans reaffirmed their alliance with Italy and signed non-aggression pacts with Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia whilst trade links were formalised with Romania, Norway, and Sweden. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop arranged in negotiations with

15312-448: The RAF in what became known as the Battle of Britain , and by the end of October, Hitler realised that air superiority would not be achieved. He permanently postponed the invasion, a plan which the commanders of the German army had never taken entirely seriously. Several historians, including Andrew Gordon , believe the primary reason for the failure of the invasion plan was the superiority of

15488-744: The Reich Education Ministry (REM), and ordered the RFR to halt all experiments and work on nuclear energy. Esau protested that the discovery of nuclear fission was too recent to warrant such an action, but was ignored. These actions were initiated by the physicist Kurt Diebner , an advisor to the HWA, in association with Erich Bagge . In September 1939, Diebner organized a meeting in Berlin on 16 September. The invitees to this meeting included Walther Bothe , Siegfried Flügge , Hans Geiger , Otto Hahn , Paul Harteck , Gerhard Hoffmann , Josef Mattauch , and Georg Stetter . Its purpose, as Bagge later recalled,

15664-511: The Reich Ministry for Armament and War Production), decided on its continuation merely for the aim of energy production. On 9 June 1942, Adolf Hitler issued a decree for the reorganization of the RFR as a separate legal entity under the RMBM; the decree appointed Reich Marshal Hermann Göring as its president. The reorganization was done under the initiative of Minister Albert Speer of the RMBM; it

15840-799: The Royal Navy, not the actions of the RAF. In February 1941, the German Afrika Korps arrived in Libya to aid the Italians in the North African Campaign . On 6 April, Germany launched an invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece . All of Yugoslavia and parts of Greece were subsequently divided between Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Bulgaria. On 22 June 1941, contravening the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, about 3.8 million Axis troops attacked

16016-440: The Soviet Union . Germany annexed parts of northern Yugoslavia in April 1941, while Mussolini ceded Trieste , South Tyrol , and Istria to Germany in 1943. Barium The most common minerals of barium are barite ( barium sulfate , BaSO 4 ) and witherite ( barium carbonate , BaCO 3 ). The name barium originates from the alchemical derivative "baryta", from Greek βαρὺς ( barys ), meaning 'heavy'. Baric

16192-656: The Soviet Union a non-aggression pact, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , signed in August 1939. The treaty also contained secret protocols dividing Poland and the Baltic states into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Germany's wartime foreign policy involved the creation of allied governments controlled directly or indirectly from Berlin. They intended to obtain soldiers from allies such as Italy and Hungary and workers and food supplies from allies such as Vichy France . Hungary

16368-559: The Soviet Union at Laboratory B in Sungul' . Von Ardenne , who had worked on isotope separation for the Reichspostministerium (Reich Postal Ministry), was also sent to the Soviet Union to work on their atomic bomb project, along with Gustav Hertz , Nobel laureate and director of Research Laboratory II at Siemens , Peter Adolf Thiessen , director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (KWIPC, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry and Electrochemistry, today

16544-565: The Soviet Union attacked from the east on 17 September. Reinhard Heydrich , chief of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), ordered on 21 September that Polish Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links. Initially the intention was to deport them further east, or possibly to Madagascar . Using lists prepared in advance , some 65,000 Polish intelligentsia, noblemen, clergy, and teachers were murdered by

16720-651: The Soviet Union in 1941, Nazi Germany attempted to implement the Generalplan Ost and Hunger Plan , as part of its war of extermination in Eastern Europe. The Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant Germany lost the initiative in 1943 and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the 1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. Germany

16896-493: The Soviet Union. In addition to Hitler's stated purpose of acquiring Lebensraum , this large-scale offensive—codenamed Operation Barbarossa —was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers. The reaction among Germans was one of surprise and trepidation as many were concerned about how much longer the war would continue or suspected that Germany could not win

17072-475: The United States. Food was in short supply in the conquered areas of the Soviet Union and Poland, as the retreating armies had burned the crops in some areas, and much of the remainder was sent back to the Reich. In Germany, rations were cut in 1942. In his role as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan , Hermann Göring demanded increased shipments of grain from France and fish from Norway. The 1942 harvest

17248-551: The Weimar Republic, rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism , and anti- Bolshevism . They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews , who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. The Nazis proposed national and cultural renewal based upon

17424-591: The Western Allies, General Leslie Groves , commander of the Manhattan Project , recommended to General George Marshall that the plant be destroyed by aerial bombardment, in order to deny its uranium production equipment to the Soviets. On 15 March 1945, 612 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the Eighth Air Force dropped 1,506 tons of high-explosive and 178 tons of incendiary bombs on the plant. Riehl visited

17600-577: The World". The production of heavy water was already under way in Norway when the Germans invaded on 9 April 1940. The Norwegian production facilities for heavy water were quickly secured (though some heavy water had already been removed) and improved by the Germans. The Allies and Norwegians had sabotaged Norwegian heavy water production and destroyed stocks of heavy water by 1943. Graphite (carbon) as an alternative

17776-546: The administrative director, and the military control of the nuclear research commenced. Heisenberg said in 1939 that the physicists at the (second) meeting said that "in principle atomic bombs could be made.... it would take years.... not before five." He said, "I didn't report it to the Führer until two weeks later and very casually because I did not want the Führer to get so interested that he would order great efforts immediately to make

17952-538: The announcement of Hiroshima, the German scientists, though worried about the future, expressed confidence in their value to the Allies on the basis of their advanced knowledge of nuclear matters. The British then told the scientists that the BBC had announced the use of the atomic bomb after the attack on Hiroshima. Reactions from the Germans varied; Hahn expressed guilt for his role in the discovery of nuclear fission, while many others, including Heisenberg, expressed incredulity at

18128-517: The atomic bomb. Speer felt it was better that the whole thing should be dropped and the Führer also reacted that way." He said they presented the matter in this way for their personal safety as the probability (of success) was nearly zero, but if many thousands (of) people developed nothing, that could have "extremely disagreeable consequences for us." So we turned the slogan around to make use of warfare for physics not "make use of physics for warfare." Erhard Milch asked how long America would take and

18304-451: The blockade, imports into Germany declined by 80 per cent. To safeguard Swedish iron ore shipments to Germany, Hitler ordered the invasion of Denmark and Norway , which began on 9 April. Denmark fell after less than a day , while most of Norway followed by the end of the month. By early June, Germany occupied all of Norway . Against the advice of many of his senior military officers, in May 1940 Hitler ordered an attack on France and

18480-456: The bombing, Heisenberg had given a more formal lecture to his colleagues on the physics of the atomic bomb, which corrected many of his early mistakes and indicated a much smaller critical mass. Historians have cited Heisenberg's error as evidence of the degree to which his role in the project had been confined almost entirely to reactors, as the original equation is much more similar to how a reactor would work than to an atomic bomb. At Farm Hall,

18656-508: The business community, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. This event is known as the Machtergreifung ("seizure of power"). On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set afire . Marinus van der Lubbe , a Dutch communist, was found guilty of starting the blaze. Hitler proclaimed that the arson marked the start of

18832-555: The chief scientific advisor to Operation Alsos, thought von Laue might be beneficial to the postwar rebuilding of Germany and would benefit from the high level contacts he would have in England. The ten scientists were secretly relocated and kept confined and incommunicado with the broader world in Farm Hall , a manor house in Godmanchester . The legal authority for this, the legal status of

19008-513: The churches. The Nazi regime abolished the symbols of the Weimar Republic—including the black, red, and gold tricolour flag —and adopted reworked symbolism. The previous imperial black, white, and red tricolour was restored as one of Germany's two official flags; the second was the swastika flag of the Nazi Party, which became the sole national flag in September 1935. The Party anthem " Horst-Wessel-Lied " ("Horst Wessel Song") became

19184-699: The codename for the Soviet operation, it is referred to by the historian Oleynikov as the Russian "Alsos" . Berlin had been a location of many German scientific research facilities. To limit casualties and loss of equipment, many of these facilities were dispersed to other locations in the later years of the war. Unfortunately for the Soviets, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics) had mostly been moved in 1943 and 1944 to Hechingen and its neighboring town of Haigerloch , on

19360-478: The condition of the earth's crust around those vents. Soluble barium compounds have LD50 near 10 mg/kg (oral rats). Symptoms include "convulsions... paralysis of the peripheral nerve system ... severe inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract". The insoluble sulfate is nontoxic and is not classified as a dangerous goods in transport regulations. Little is known about the long term effects of barium exposure. The US EPA considers it unlikely that barium

19536-534: The country; all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , passed in April, removed from their jobs all teachers, professors, judges, magistrates, and government officials who were Jewish or whose commitment to the party was suspect. This meant the only non-political institutions not under control of the Nazis were

19712-571: The critical mass for an atomic bomb which contained serious errors. The transcripts were declassified in 1992, and this particular section of discussion was subjected to expert scrutiny. Two scientists on the Manhattan Project, Edward Teller and Hans Bethe , concluded after reading the transcripts that Heisenberg had never done the calculation before. Heisenberg himself, in the transcript, said that, "quite honestly I have never worked it [the critical mass calculation for an atomic bomb] out as I never believed one could get pure [uranium-]235." A week after

19888-434: The different directors dominated the research and set their own research agendas. The dominant personnel, facilities, and areas of research were: The point in 1942 when the army relinquished control of the project was its zenith in terms of the number of personnel devoted to the effort, and this was no more than about seventy scientists, with about forty devoting more than half their time to nuclear fission research. After this

20064-469: The digestive system (" barium meals " and " barium enemas "). Lithopone , a pigment that contains barium sulfate and zinc sulfide , is a permanent white with good covering power that does not darken when exposed to sulfides. Other compounds of barium find only niche applications, limited by the toxicity of Ba ions (barium carbonate is a rat poison ), which is not a problem for the insoluble BaSO 4 . Palaeoceanography The lateral mixing of barium

20240-603: The edge of the Black Forest , which eventually became the French occupation zone. This move allowed the Americans to take into custody a large number of German scientists associated with nuclear research. The only section of the institute which remained in Berlin was the low-temperature physics section, headed by Ludwig Bewilogua  [ de ] , who was in charge of the experimental uranium pile. American Alsos teams carrying out Operation BIG raced through Baden-Württemberg near

20416-559: The electorate in a plebiscite . Most Germans were relieved that the conflicts and street fighting of the Weimar era had ended. They were deluged with propaganda orchestrated by Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels , who promised peace and plenty for all in a united, Marxist-free country without the constraints of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi Party obtained and legitimised power through its initial revolutionary activities, then through manipulation of legal mechanisms,

20592-464: The element barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons . Their article was published on 6 January 1939. On 19 December 1938, eighteen days before the publication, Otto Hahn communicated these results and his conclusion of a bursting of the uranium nucleus in a letter to his colleague and friend Lise Meitner , who had fled Germany in July to the Netherlands and then to Sweden. Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch confirmed Hahn's conclusion of

20768-523: The end of 1939 in an attempt to destroy Poland's identity as a nation. Soviet forces advanced into Finland in the Winter War , and German forces saw action at sea. But little other activity occurred until May, so the period became known as the " Phoney War ". From the start of the war, a British blockade on shipments to Germany affected its economy. Germany was particularly dependent on foreign supplies of oil, coal, and grain. Thanks to trade embargoes and

20944-591: The establishment of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which stripped them of their basic rights. The Nazis would take from the Jews their wealth, their right to intermarry with non-Jews, and their right to occupy many fields of labour (such as law, medicine, or education). Eventually the Nazis declared the Jews as undesirable to remain among German citizens and society. As early as February 1933, Hitler announced that rearmament must begin, albeit clandestinely at first, as to do so

21120-473: The execution of more than 4,900 people. The failed Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive on the western front, and Soviet forces entered Germany on 27 January. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat and his insistence that the war be fought to the last man led to unnecessary death and destruction in the war's closing months. Through his Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack , Hitler ordered that anyone who

21296-957: The failed German offensive at the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. By the end of 1943, the Germans had lost most of their eastern territorial gains. In Egypt, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel 's Afrika Korps were defeated by British forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in October 1942. The Allies landed in Sicily in July 1943 and were on the Italian peninsula by September. Meanwhile, American and British bomber fleets based in Britain began operations against Germany . Many sorties were intentionally given civilian targets in an effort to destroy German morale. The bombing of aircraft factories as well as Peenemünde Army Research Center , where V-1 and V-2 rockets were being developed and produced, were also deemed particularly important. German aircraft production could not keep pace with losses, and without air cover

21472-434: The first Uranverein , Nikolaus Riehl , the head of the scientific headquarters at Auergesellschaft (usually known as just "Auer"), a German industrial firm, read a June 1939 paper by Siegfried Flügge , on the technical use of nuclear energy from uranium. As Auer had a substantial amount of uranium on hand as a waste product from the process of extracting radium , Riehl recognized the possibility of uranium production as

21648-513: The former USSR. The baryte reserves are estimated between 0.7 and 2 billion tonnes . The maximum production, 8.3 million tonnes, was produced in 1981, but only 7–8% was used for barium metal or compounds. Baryte production has risen since the second half of the 1990s from 5.6 million tonnes in 1996 to 7.6 in 2005 and 7.8 in 2011. China accounts for more than 50% of this output, followed by India (14% in 2011), Morocco (8.3%), US (8.2%), Turkey (2.5%), Iran and Kazakhstan (2.6% each). The mined ore

21824-664: The future. Food supplies were precarious; production dropped in most of Europe. Famine was experienced in many occupied countries. Hitler's peace overtures to the new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were rejected in July 1940. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder had advised Hitler in June that air superiority was a pre-condition for a successful invasion of Britain , so Hitler ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal Air Force (RAF) airbases and radar stations, as well as nightly air raids on British cities, including London , Plymouth , and Coventry . The German Luftwaffe failed to defeat

22000-578: The journalist Thomas Powers . With the interest of the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office), Nikolaus Riehl , and his colleague Günter Wirths , set up an industrial-scale production of high-purity uranium oxide at the Auergesellschaft plant in Oranienburg . Adding to the capabilities in the final stages of metallic uranium production were the strengths of the Degussa corporation's capabilities in metals production. The Oranienburg plant provided

22176-420: The laboratory level" with the "modest goal" to "build a nuclear reactor which could sustain a nuclear fission chain reaction for a significant amount of time and to achieve the complete separation of at least tiny amounts of the uranium isotopes". The scholarly consensus is that it failed to achieve these goals, and that despite fears at the time, the Germans had never been close to producing nuclear weapons. With

22352-519: The lead mines of Cumberland , now known to be witherite . Barium was first isolated by electrolysis of molten barium salts in 1808 by Sir Humphry Davy in England . Davy, by analogy with calcium , named "barium" after baryta, with the "-ium" ending signifying a metallic element. Robert Bunsen and Augustus Matthiessen obtained pure barium by electrolysis of a molten mixture of barium chloride and ammonium chloride . The production of pure oxygen in

22528-583: The metal. Note that not all barium is reduced. The remaining barium oxide reacts with the formed aluminium oxide: and the overall reaction is Barium vapor is condensed and packed into molds in an atmosphere of argon. This method is used commercially, yielding ultrapure barium. Commonly sold barium is about 99% pure, with main impurities being strontium and calcium (up to 0.8% and 0.25%) and other contaminants contributing less than 0.1%. A similar reaction with silicon at 1,200 °C (2,190 °F) yields barium and barium metasilicate . Electrolysis

22704-469: The need for Germany to secure its frontiers. Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite regarding Austrian independence for 13 March, but Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg on 11 March demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian Nazi Party or face an invasion. German troops entered Austria the next day, to be greeted with enthusiasm by the populace. The Republic of Czechoslovakia was home to

22880-511: The nuclear physicist Fritz Houtermans , in 1940. Von Ardenne had also conducted research on isotope separation. Taking Ewald's suggestion he began building a prototype for the RPM. The work was hampered by war shortages and ultimately ended by the war. Aside from the Uranverein and von Ardenne's team in Berlin-Lichterfelde, there was also a small research team in the Henschel Flugzeugwerke :

23056-570: The nuclear weapon project, had more control over nuclear fission research than did Walther Bothe , Klaus Clusius , Otto Hahn, Paul Harteck , or Werner Heisenberg. Paul Peter Ewald , a member of the Uranverein , had proposed an electromagnetic isotope separator , which was thought applicable to U production and enrichment. This was picked up by Manfred von Ardenne , who ran a private research establishment. In 1928, von Ardenne had come into his inheritance with full control as to how it could be spent, and he established his private research laboratory

23232-403: The number diminished dramatically, and many of those not working with the main institutes stopped working on nuclear fission and devoted their efforts to more pressing war related work. On 4 June 1942, a conference regarding the project, initiated by Albert Speer as head of the " Reich Ministry for Armament and Ammunition " (RMBM: Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition ; after late 1943

23408-621: The number of scientists working on applied nuclear fission began to diminish as many researchers applied their talents to more pressing wartime demands. The most influential people in the Uranverein included Kurt Diebner , Abraham Esau , Walther Gerlach , and Erich Schumann . Schumann was one of the most powerful and influential physicists in Germany. Diebner, throughout the life of the nuclear weapon project, had more control over nuclear-fission research than did Walther Bothe , Klaus Clusius , Otto Hahn , Paul Harteck , or Werner Heisenberg . Esau

23584-516: The ocean as BaSO 4 , or barite. Barium has a nutrient-like profile with a residence time of 10,000 years. Barium shows a relatively consistent concentration in upper ocean seawater, excepting regions of high river inputs and regions with strong upwelling. There is little depletion of barium concentrations in the upper ocean for an ion with a nutrient-like profile, thus lateral mixing is important. Barium isotopic values show basin-scale balances instead of local or short-term processes. Barium, as

23760-563: The one before it, referred to itself informally as a Uranverein . A second meeting was held soon thereafter and included Klaus Clusius , Robert Döpel , Werner Heisenberg , and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker . Also at this time, the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (KWIP, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, after World War II the Max Planck Institute for Physics ), in Berlin-Dahlem , was placed under HWA authority, with Diebner as

23936-479: The physical chemistry department at the University of Hamburg and an advisor to the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office), and his teaching assistant Wilhelm Groth wrote a letter on 24 April 1939 to Army Ordnance which also mentioned the military application of nuclear chain reactions. Harteck would not receive a reply until August 1939, however, as part of the second Uranverein . Also independently of

24112-489: The plan, as Germany was not yet ready for war. The crisis led to war preparations by Britain, Czechoslovakia, and France (Czechoslovakia's ally). Attempting to avoid war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arranged a series of meetings, the result of which was the Munich Agreement , signed on 29 September 1938. The Czechoslovak government was forced to accept the Sudetenland's annexation into Germany. Chamberlain

24288-417: The policies which drove Jewish scientists out of Germany were a mistake, as the Reich needed their expertise. Abraham Esau was appointed on 8 December 1942 as Hermann Göring's Bevollmächtigter (plenipotentiary) for nuclear physics research under the RFR; in December 1943, Esau was replaced by Walther Gerlach . In the final analysis, placing the RFR under Göring's administrative control had little effect on

24464-543: The powers of the chancellery and presidency. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader). Power was centralised in Hitler's person, and his word became the highest law. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power. In the midst of the Great Depression , the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending. Financed by deficit spending ,

24640-400: The prisoners, and the ultimate intentions of the British were unclear to all involved, to the great discomfort of the scientists. The manor house was wired with covert listening devices , and conversations between the German scientists were monitored and translated into English. It is unclear whether the scientists were aware, or whether they suspected, that they were being monitored. Prior to

24816-479: The project was subsequently passed to the RFR in July 1942. The nuclear weapon project thereafter maintained its kriegswichtig (war importance) designation, and funding continued from the military, but it was then split into the areas of uranium and heavy water production, uranium isotope separation, and the Uranmaschine (uranium machine, i.e., nuclear reactor). It was in effect broken up between institutes where

24992-420: The project. In Germany, on the other hand, a great many young scientists and technicians who would have been of great use to such a project were conscripted into the German armed forces, while others had fled the country before the war due to antisemitism and political persecution. Whereas Enrico Fermi , a scientific Manhattan Project leader, had a "unique double aptitude for theoretical and experimental work" in

25168-583: The provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to keep several Social Democratic deputies from attending, and the Communists had already been banned. The Enabling Act would subsequently serve as the legal foundation for the dictatorship the Nazis established. On 10 May, the government seized the assets of the Social Democrats, and they were banned on 22 June. On 21 June, the SA raided the offices of

25344-418: The ranks of researchers. The politicization of the universities, along with German armed forces demands for more manpower (many scientists and technical personnel were conscripted, despite possessing technical and engineering skills), substantially reduced the number of able German physicists. Developments took place in several phases, but in the words of historian Mark Walker, it ultimately became "frozen at

25520-573: The regime undertook extensive public works projects, including the Autobahnen (motorways) and a massive secret rearmament program , forming the Wehrmacht (armed forces). The return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity. Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Germany seized Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, and demanded and received

25696-789: The regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the " master race ", the purest branch of the Aryan race. Jews , Romani people , Slavs , homosexuals , liberals , socialists , communists , other political opponents, Jehovah's Witnesses , Freemasons , those who refused to work , and other "undesirables" were imprisoned, deported , or murdered. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed and leaders imprisoned. Education focused on racial biology , population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed . Nazi Propaganda Ministry disseminated films, antisemitic canards , and organized mass rallies; fostering

25872-409: The remaining 1200 metric tons of uranium stock for the production of solid-core ammunition. Over time, the HWA and then the RFR controlled the German nuclear weapon project. The most influential people were Kurt Diebner , Abraham Esau , Walther Gerlach , and Erich Schumann . Schumann was one of the most powerful and influential physicists in Germany. He was director of the Physics Department II at

26048-406: The report ("I don’t believe a word of the whole thing"). Later that evening, the scientists were allowed to listen to a longer BBC announcement, which invited further debate. Throughout all of this, Heisenberg made arguments that it would take very large amounts of enriched uranium ("about a ton") to make such a weapon. In justifying his reasoning, he gave a brief explanation of how one would calculate

26224-413: The rising popularity of the tubeless LCD, LED, and plasma sets. Other uses of elemental barium are minor and include an additive to silumin (aluminium–silicon alloys) that refines their structure, as well as Barium sulfate (the mineral baryte, BaSO 4 ) is important to the petroleum industry as a drilling fluid in oil and gas wells . The precipitate of the compound (called "blanc fixe", from

26400-496: The site with the Soviets and said that the facility was mostly destroyed. Riehl also recalled long after the war that the Soviets knew precisely why the Americans had bombed the facility—the attack had been directed at them rather than the Germans. From 1941 to 1947, Fritz Bopp was a staff scientist at the KWIP, and worked with the Uranverein . In 1944, he went with most of the KWIP staff when they were evacuated to Hechingen in Southern Germany due to air raids on Berlin, and became

26576-460: The stock market in the United States crashed in 1929 , the effect in Germany was dire. Millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the Nazis prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to strengthen the economy and provide jobs. Many voters decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and improving Germany's international reputation. After

26752-590: The study group under the direction of Prof. Dr. Ing. Herbert Wagner (1900–1982) searched for alternative sources of energy for airplanes and became interested in nuclear energy in 1940. In August 1941, they finished a detailed internal survey of the history and potential of technical nuclear physics and its applications ( Übersicht und Darstellung der historischen Entwicklung der modernen technischen Kernphysik und deren Anwendungsmöglichkeit sowie Zusammenfassung eigener Arbeitsziele und Pläne , signed by Herbert Wagner and Hugo Watzlawek (1912–1995) in Berlin. Their application to

26928-529: The total German war dead range from 5.5 to 6.9 million persons. A study by German historian Rüdiger Overmans puts the number of German military dead and missing at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders. Richard Overy estimated in 2014 that about 353,000 civilians were killed in Allied air raids. Other civilian deaths include 300,000 Germans (including Jews) who were victims of Nazi political, racial, and religious persecution and 200,000 who were murdered in

27104-476: The uranium sheets and cubes for the Uranmaschine experiments conducted at the KWIP and the Versuchsstelle (testing station) of the Heereswaffenamt (Army Ordnance Office) in Gottow. The G-1 experiment performed at the HWA testing station, under the direction of Kurt Diebner , had lattices of 6,800 uranium oxide cubes (about 25 tons), in the nuclear moderator paraffin. Work of the American Operation Alsos teams, in November 1944, uncovered leads which took them to

27280-421: The use of police powers, and by taking control of the state and federal institutions. The first major Nazi concentration camp , initially for political prisoners, was opened at Dachau in 1933. Hundreds of camps of varying size and function were created by the end of the war. Beginning in April 1933, scores of measures defining the status of Jews and their rights were instituted. These measures culminated in

27456-431: The war drew to a close. Suicide rates in Germany increased, particularly in areas where the Red Army was advancing. Among soldiers and party personnel, suicide was often deemed an honourable and heroic alternative to surrender. First-hand accounts and propaganda about the uncivilised behaviour of the advancing Soviet troops caused panic among civilians on the Eastern Front, especially women, who feared being raped. More than

27632-478: The war in Europe ending in the spring of 1945, various Allied powers competed with each other to obtain surviving components of the German nuclear industry (personnel, facilities, and materiel ), as they did with the pioneering V-2 SRBM program. In December 1938, German chemist Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann sent a manuscript to the German science journal Naturwissenschaften ("Natural Sciences") reporting that they had detected and identified

27808-419: The war's end in 1945, uncovering, collecting, and selectively destroying Uranverein elements, including capturing a prototype reactor at Haigerloch and records, heavy water, and uranium ingots at Tailfingen . These were all shipped to the US for study and utilization in the US atomic program. Although many of these materials remain unaccounted for, the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History displayed

27984-413: Was to make all preparations to be able to answer beyond doubt the question of whether generating nuclear energy was feasible. It would certainly be very nice if it were possible to acquire a new source of energy, it would also very probably have military importance; a negative answer would be just as important, since we could be sure that the enemy would also not be able to make use of it. This group, like

28160-405: Was Operation Paperclip , a broad dragnet that encompassed a wide range of advanced fields, including jet and rocket propulsion, nuclear physics, and other developments with military applications such as infrared technology. Operations directed specifically towards German nuclear fission were Operation Alsos and Operation Epsilon , the latter being done in collaboration with the British. In lieu of

28336-436: Was a driving force of their efforts. This typically meant getting to these resources first, which to some extent put the Soviets at a disadvantage in some geographic locations easily reached by the Western Allies, even if the area was allotted to the Soviet zone of occupation at the Potsdam Conference . At times, all parties were heavy-handed in their pursuit and denial to others. The best known US denial and exploitation effort

28512-437: Was a powerful ally, the relationship was distant, with little co-ordination or co-operation. For example, Germany refused to share their formula for synthetic oil from coal until late in the war. Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. Honouring their treaty obligations, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Poland fell quickly, as

28688-447: Was appointed as Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring 's plenipotentiary for nuclear-physics research in December 1942, and was succeeded by Walther Gerlach after he resigned in December 1943. Politicization of German academia under the Nazi régime of 1933–1945 had driven many physicists, engineers, and mathematicians out of Germany as early as 1933. Those of Jewish heritage who did not leave were quickly purged, further thinning

28864-445: Was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, and capitulated on 8 May 1945. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure and additional war-related deaths in the closing months of the war. The Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials . Common English terms for

29040-417: Was dropped. Germany was now a totalitarian state with Hitler at its head. As head of state, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The new law provided an altered loyalty oath for servicemen so that they affirmed loyalty to Hitler personally rather than the office of supreme commander or the state. On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 90 per cent of

29216-462: Was good, and food supplies remained adequate in Western Europe. Germany and Europe as a whole were almost totally dependent on foreign oil imports. In an attempt to resolve the shortage, in June 1942 Germany launched Fall Blau ("Case Blue"), an offensive against the Caucasian oilfields. The Red Army launched a counter-offensive on 19 November and encircled the Axis forces, who were trapped in Stalingrad on 23 November. Göring assured Hitler that

29392-473: Was greeted with cheers when he landed in London, saying the agreement brought "peace for our time". Austrian and Czech foreign exchange reserves were seized by the Nazis, as were stockpiles of raw materials such as metals and completed goods such as weaponry and aircraft, which were shipped to Germany. The Reichswerke Hermann Göring industrial conglomerate took control of steel and coal production facilities in both countries. In January 1934, Germany signed

29568-415: Was in violation of the Versailles Treaty. On 17 May 1933, Hitler gave a speech before the Reichstag outlining his desire for world peace and accepted an offer from American President Franklin D. Roosevelt for military disarmament, provided the other nations of Europe did the same. When the other European powers failed to accept this offer, Hitler pulled Germany out of the World Disarmament Conference and

29744-474: Was invited, but he did not attend. After this, informal work began at the Georg-August University of Göttingen by Joos, Hanle, and their colleague Reinhold Mannkopff . Formally the group of physicists was known as the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Kernphysik (Nuclear Physics Association). This initial work at Göttingen lasted until the fall of 1939, when Joos and Hanle were drafted into other military research. Independently of this effort, Paul Harteck , director of

29920-454: Was necessary as the RFR under Bernhard Rust the Minister of Science, Education and National Culture was ineffective and was not achieving its purpose. The hope was that Göring would manage the RFR with the same discipline and efficiency as he had the aviation sector. A meeting was held on 6 July 1942 to discuss the function of the RFR and set its agenda. The meeting was a turning point in Nazi attitudes towards science, as well as recognition that

30096-571: Was not considered, because the neutron absorption coefficient value for carbon calculated by Walther Bothe was too high, probably due to the boron in the graphite pieces having high neutron absorption. Near the end of World War II, the principal Allied war powers each made plans for exploitation of German science. In light of the implications of nuclear weapons, German nuclear fission and related technologies were singled out for special attention. In addition to exploitation, denial of these technologies, their personnel, and related materials to rival allies

30272-432: Was not prepared to fight should be court-martialed, and thousands of people were executed. In many areas, people surrendered to the approaching Allies in spite of exhortations of local leaders to continue to fight. Hitler ordered the destruction of transport, bridges, industries, and other infrastructure—a scorched earth decree—but Armaments Minister Albert Speer prevented this order from being fully carried out. During

30448-489: Was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide the next day after murdering their six children . Between 4 and 8 May 1945, most of the remaining German armed forces unconditionally surrendered. The German Instrument of Surrender was signed 8 May, marking the end of the Nazi regime and the end of World War II in Europe . Popular support for Hitler almost completely disappeared as

30624-502: Was the fourth nation to join the Axis, signing the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940. Bulgaria signed the pact on 17 November. German efforts to secure oil included negotiating a supply from their new ally, Romania , who signed the Pact on 23 November, alongside the Slovak Republic. By late 1942, there were 24 divisions from Romania on the Eastern Front, 10 from Italy, and 10 from Hungary. Germany assumed full control in France in 1942, Italy in 1943, and Hungary in 1944. Although Japan

30800-469: Was through a prisoner of war camp in Krasnogorsk , as was that of his colleagues Hans-Joachim Born and Alexander Catsch from the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Hirnforschung (KWIH, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research , today the Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung ), who worked there for N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij , director of the Abteilung für Experimentelle Genetik (Department of Experimental Genetics). All four eventually worked for Riehl in

30976-442: Was told 1944 though the group between ourselves thought it would take longer, three or four years. When it was apparent that the nuclear weapon project would not make a decisive contribution to ending the war in the near term, control of the KWIP was returned in January 1942 to its umbrella organization, the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society, after World War II the Max-Planck Gesellschaft ). HWA control of

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