Atomic Irony: How German Uranium Helped Defeat Japan

It may be called the most macabre joke of history: several hundred kilograms of enriched Uranium intended by Nazi Germany for Japanese atom bombs, instead it wound up as part of a US atomic bomb dropped in Hiroshima on 6 August of 1945. There can be no doubt that the mysterious cargo coming by submarine from Nazi Germany was "weapons grade" metalized U 235 enriched Uranium, also called Uranium Oxide UO2 which was emitting very dangerous gamma rays. During World War II, Germany had the motive, the means and the opportunity to produce enriched U238. Germany had available thousands of tons of Uranium ore and access to the rich Uranium mines in Czechoslovakia. Their scientists invented the high-speed centrifugal enrichment process, the only efficient means to relocate isotopes and enrich uranium at that time. H. D. Baumann is a prolific writer. His Ph. D. degree in engineering has helped him analyze facts and find the truth in recent historical happenings. Being a survivor himself, the era around World War II is his specialty. He considers himself a "sleuth," looking for previously disregarded facts; a number of which, when combined like a mosaic, reveal a previously secret story; typically a history's first. He is the author of several books, including Building Lean Companies, The Vanished Life of Eva Braun, History's Secrets, and Hitler's Escape, which became the subject of a History Channel show also entitled Hitler's Escape.