How Realistic Was the Threat of “Hitler’s Atomic Bomb”?

Using factual information on background knowledge, costs, personnel numbers, resources, and facilities from the Manhattan Project, we examine the feasibility of the development of nuclear weapons in Germany in World War II. We conclude that, while for various reasons, a uranium bomb would have been technically and economically out of reach in Germany, a few plutonium bombs might have been possible had a coordinated aggressive project been initiated no later than about mid-1940. However, the German scientists involved never established an understanding of the functioning of an atomic bomb as contained in the Frisch–Peierls memorandum and were never asked to provide such a basis on which a decision on an atomic bomb program could be based. This means that a German atomic bomb program did not fail as is often assumed; rather, it was never started. The German uranium project was never more than a scientific mission to study the possibilities offered by the newly discovered source of nuclear power.