Declassified documents and surviving uranium cubes show that Germany’s WWII nuclear project failed due to material shortages and poor coordination. Researchers found that the B8 reactor would have needed 1,292 to 1,775 uranium cubes and twice the heavy water produced by Norway’s Norsk Hydro plant. German physicists used impure graphite from the Ruhr due to British naval blockades, preventing criticality.
The study concludes that Werner Heisenberg significantly underestimated the required materials. The findings, published in PNAS Nexus, highlight how isolationism and resource limitations doomed the German effort.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing