The Army Ordnance Office had decided that we first have to demonstrate the chain reaction. It is also obvious, before you get no money for all these purposes. Here it must first of all be shown that it works at all, from the principle. For so long, no one has believed the incredible stories that the scientists have told. So it was quite logically said: "We don’t care about power reactors, nor about bombs in the first phase, but try to demonstrate the principle. Work on the bomb was simply postponed. The report also clearly does not have a guilty conscience (the authors of the report) that there is so little in it about the bomb, because they did not expect that anything about the bomb would be researched. So this is a point that must not be overlooked.
And then there is the famous question … (the cover pictures, fast and slow neutrons. Here are the processes that were known and studied at that time for nuclear technology. And there is the fission of [U] 235 by slow neutrons and the fission of [U] 238 by fast neutrons, which contributed to the reactor). A chain reaction with 238 is therefore not possible and the fission of 235 by fast neutrons, which is important for the bomb, is missing. So, this is really a statement. Both, the postponement of the bomb to a later phase, which never happened and the statement [and this]. Mr. Walker never took note of these two very clear statements, never quoted them.
Although he interpreted this report in detail, he even described himself as an attentive reader of the report in his book. But these two parts have escaped his notice, and so basically of course all that he has written is wastepaper. Then there is a formulation - I don’t want to go into too much detail about it now - there is again such a coincidence. So here it is again a matter of enrichment. And it all always sounds as if it is the same as with the real bomb. But it just happens to mean something completely different. You can see [that] very clearly in this report: there is only this general text by Heisenberg, the little that is written about the bomb, times 20 Zeil and this one publication by Mr. Müller, which is from the beginning of 1940 and after?
We are now in February 1942, obviously nothing else has been published about the bomb for two years. That too can be seen in the report. Nobody has yet wanted to admit that either. Then the astonishing thing is that the report mentions the right scale for a critical mass. 10 to 100 kilograms is super, about 50 is correct. At the same time, the value in the USA was 1 to 100 - that alone is enough … the Americans had all the data, the Germans none and how they should have calculated it more precisely. Nor did they have a theory - nobody knows - but it always convinced historians that they knew the right thing to do. But that can’t be, because the paragraph starts again with the destructive effect of uranium 238, but there is none in the bomb. So that can’t be right either. Again, they didn’t look closely at it and you can’t find a source.
Karl Wirtz once made an attempt to get a patent not only for the reactor, but also for the bomb. The Reichst Patent Office could not be convinced of their wrong idea of the bomb. And here he calculates how big such a device and even a plate would have to be, which could then either permanently generate heat or explode. And if you take the data, the square meter a few millimeters, then with the raw density of uranium you get 10 to 100 kilograms, so that’s more likely to be the case.
As a result of the review by the German Army Ordnance Office, the project was returned to the civilian management of the Reich Research Council. The Army Weapons Office, however, has continued with the project itself. Then came another key scene when the Minister of Armaments Speer came into office and asked himself how he should turn this war around, which had got stuck in the meantime. In the beginning they had said that they didn’t need a great miracle weapon. They can do it in such a short time. Now they would have wanted one urgently. And now, unfortunately or thank God, the scientists stood there empty-handed. If they had started right away and built an apparatus like Fermi’s, which would have been possible with this academic style - Fermi also built his apparatus with working students, then they could have pressed a piece of plutonium into his hand long ago, then there would have been no stopping them.