The results of a simple chemical experiment showed for the first time that the atom could be split, unleashing immense power. In the following months as Europe braced itself for war the Wehrmacht started a research programme to develop nuclear weapons. The Germans were the first to start work on the atom bomb. Why wasn’t Hitler the first to use it? Horizon: Hitler’s Bomb, 1992
Beneath the church in a cliff there was a disused beer cellar. In it the Americans had found a nuclear reactor. An experiment on the brink of criticality. When these cubes of Uranium were immersed in heavy water a chain reaction would begin. A storm of neutrons would sweep through the reactor. Slowly the uranium would be transformed into Plutonium, the raw material of atomic bombs. ibid.
What made fission so dangerous was that as each uranium atom splits it releases not only a huge amount of energy but it also liberates more neutrons. These can collide with further nuclei creating a hugely energetic chain reaction. ibid.
It is one of the great ironies of the war that just as the Wehrmacht was rejecting atomic weapons, fear of a Nazi bomb was pushing America into is own massive nuclear project. ibid.
In the 1930s a German soldier, Helmuth Cords, bought a film camera. His home movies recorded an intimate view of Germany during the war. Around that time he met Jutta. Together they would risk their lives in a plot to kill Hitler. Surviving Hitler: A Love Story, BBC 2012
Every father [Amon Goeth] who is in a war should think about his children [Monika Hertwig nee Goeth]. When they’ve grown up, when they’ve seen what their fathers did, they will be in the same situation as I am. And they will never live a normal life. My Father Was a Nazi Commandant, BBC 2012
My father was the commander of the Plaszow Concentration Camp [Krakow, Poland]. ibid.
He was responsible for the death of thousands of people. ibid.
Even a peaceful landscape, even a meadow in harvest, with crows circling overhead and grass fires ... can lead to a concentration camp. Alain Resnais, Night and Fog 1955
A strange grass covers the paths once trod by inmates. No current runs through the wires. ibid.
Trains sealed and bolted. A hundred people crammed into a car. No night, no day. Hunger, thirst, suffocation, madness. ibid.
Shaved. Tattooed. Numbered. ibid.
What hope do we have of truly capturing this reality? ibid.
Each camp has its surprises: a symphony orchestra. ibid.
The building gave the illusion of a real hospital. ibid.
The big chemical companies send samples of toxic products to the camps. ibid.
Nothing distinguished the gas chamber from an ordinary block. ibid.
But the ovens can handle thousands of bodies a day. ibid.
From the bodies they make soap. ibid.
It was one of the largest projects in the history of mankind. The Third Reich’s bomb-proof factory ... Gigantic underground plants would have kept the supply chain running for the Wehrmacht. Armaments minister Albert Speer had devised the monstrous plan for his Fuhrer. Today only a few may set foot in the remnants of the mammoth project. Hundreds of thousands of slave-labourers hollowed out entire mountains essential to the war effort. The Reich Underground I: Terror From Below
Everywhere in the Third Reich the underground construction work was given the highest priority. ibid.
It was mostly slave labourers who had to do the dirty work in the tunnels under inhuman conditions. ibid.
Inside the mountain the Nazis planned to build a total of thirty kilometres of passageways. By the end of the war almost half this distance had been blasted through the rock. ibid.
The production seldom ran smoothly. ibid.
The prime target of the destructive weapon was London. On September 7th 1944 the first V2 struck at the heart of the British capital. ibid.
Did Churchill know more about Hitler’s plans for the V3 than is known today? ibid.
At the end of World War II the victors found gigantic unfinished systems of tunnels all over Nazi Germany. Hitler ordered the construction of some 800 underground complexes in an effort to keep the Nazi war machine alive. 60 years ago British and American bomber squadrons tried to destroy these subterranean shelters including Hitler’s very own Alpine bunker. The Reich Underground II: The Last Stand