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40 Historical Facts Accepted as Real For Many Years

Khalid Elhassan February 14, 2020 34 min

Albrecht Gessler - William Tell — William Tell. Learn Swiss-German

13. The German A-Bomb

The world’s first atomic bomb. Business Insider

Many believe that if WWII had lasted just a little longer, the Germans would have won or at least secured a draw, because they had been on the verge of developing an atomic bomb when the Third Reich crumbled. The Germans were actually never close to developing a nuke. During the war, American and British scientists assumed that Germany had an advanced nuclear program that might bear fruit at any time. They thus saw themselves as being in a race to produce nuclear weapons.

After the war, however, it turned out that the German nuclear program was nowhere near as advanced as previously thought. Early in their research, German physicists took a wrong turn, and followed it down a path that led away from atomic fission. The war could have lasted another decade, and Germany would have been no closer to having an atomic bomb in 1955 than she had been in 1945.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.