In Search Of History: The Nazi Bomb

WWII ended not with a whimper but with a bang, as the Allied forces' famous Manhattan Project succeeded in developing the first operational atomic bombs, dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with devastating effect. The crucial scientific breakthrough made by the scientists involved resulted in a decisive strike that swiftly ended the war, but few know how close the Axis powers came to developing a nuclear capability of their own. The Nobel Prize-winning German physicist Werner Heisenberg, author of the famous uncertainty principle, led the scientific research team that aimed to develop atomic weapons for the Nazis. Along with numerous high-profile colleagues, Heisenberg was captured by the Allies in May 1945 and the Nazi nuclear program never came to fruition. Yet it may be that Heisenberg, with the aid of a U.S. spy, sabotaged his own work to ensure it would fail. Could these rumours be true, and if so, who was the spy?