Nazi Secret Weapons and the Cold War Allied Legend
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Nazi Secret Weapons and the Cold War Allied Legend http://myth.greyfalcon.us/sun.htm by Joseph P. Farrell GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG "A comprehensive February 1942 (German) Army Ordnance report on the German uranium enrichment program includes the statement that the critical mass of a nuclear weapon lay between 10 and 100 kilograms of either uranium 235 or element 94.... In fact the German estimate of critical mass of 10 to 100 kilograms was comparable to the contemporary Allied estimate of 2 to 100.... The German scientists working on uranium neither withheld their figure for critical mass because of moral scruples nor did they provide an inaccurate estimate as the result of gross scientific error." --Mark Walker, "Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb" A Badly Written Finale "In southern Germany, meanwhile, the American Third and Seventh and the French First Armies had been driving steadily eastward into the so-called 'National Redoubt'.... The American Third Army drove on into Czechoslovakia and by May 6 had captured Pilsen and Karlsbad and was approaching Prague." --F. Lee Benns, "Europe Since 1914 In Its World Setting" (New York: F.S. Crofts and Co., 1946) On a night in October 1944, a German pilot and rocket expert by the same of Hans Zinsser was flying his Heinkel 111 twin-engine bomber in twilight over northern Germany, close to the Baltic coast in the province of Mecklenburg. He was flying at twilight to avoid the Allied fighter aircraft that at that time had all but undisputed mastery of the skies over Germany. Little did he know that what he saw that night would be locked in the vaults of the highest classification of the United States government for several decades after the war. And he certainly could not have been aware of the fact when his testimony finally was declassified near the end of the millennium, that what he saw would require the history of the Second World War to be rewritten, or at the very minimum, severely scrutinized. His observations on that one night on that one flight resolve at a stroke some of the most pressing questions and mysteries concerning the end of the war. By the same token, what he saw raises many more mysteries and questions, affording a brief and frightening glimpse into the labyrinthine world of Nazi secret weapons development. His observations open a veritable Pandora's box of horrifying research the Third Reich was conducting, research far more horrendous in its scope and terrible promise than mere atomic bombs. More importantly, his observations also raise the disturbing question of why the Allied governments - America in particular - kept so much classified for so long. What, really, did we recover from the Nazis at the end of the war? But what precisely is that badly written finale? To appreciate how badly written a finale it truly is, it is best to begin at the logical place: in Berlin, far below ground, in the last weeks of the war. There, in the bizarre and surreal world of the Führerbunker, the megalomaniac German dictator huddles with his generals, impervious to the rain of Allied and Soviet bombs that are reducing the once beautiful city of Berlin to piles of rubble. Adolf Hitler, Chancellor and Führer of the ever-diminishing Greater German Reich is in conference. His left arm shakes uncontrollably and from time to time he must pause to daub the drool that occasionally oozes from his mouth. His complexion is gray and pallid; his health, a shambles from the drugs his doctors inject in him. His glasses are perched on his nose as he squints at the map before him. Contributing yet another nuance to the end of the war Legend of Hitler's delusional insanity, some have proposed that the German dictator's doctors had diagnosed him with heart disease and/or Parkinson's disease, and were keeping him drugged at the behest of Bormann, Göbbels, Himmler et al. in a desperate attempt to keep him functioning. On 7 May 1945, the "Baltimore Sun" stated that according to Major Erwin Giesing (Hitler's brain, ear, nose and throat specialist, who had seen him on 15 February 1945), Hitler had been "in unusually good physical condition for a man of his age" and had certainly not died of a brain haemorrhage, as claimed by Walter Schellenberg. Reports pouring cold water on the theory that Hitler had been ill and had probably died a natural death or had been euthanized continued to be published whenever the opportunity arose. [For example, Field Marshal Kesselring, who had last seen Hitler in mid-April when "he appeared in excellent health"; Howard Cowan, 'Kesselring Most Surprised Hitler Remained In Berlin' - "Hamilton Spectator"', 10 May 1945 In 1985 Ernst Günther Schenk, a physician in charge of nutrition for the German Army who was present at Hitler's last medical consultation in April 1945 and later wrote a book ("Patient A") about Hitler's relationship with his personal physician, was quoted in "American Medical News" to the effect that Hitler was neither clinically insane nor chemically dependent on drugs. Schenk says that Hitler's regular injections consisted of vitamins mixed with glucose and caffeine. Hitler was not a regular user of any stronger drug, but was given them on occasion: codeine and cocaine for colds, strong painkillers and barbiturates for cramps and colitis (an intermittent condition in most people that suffer it). By the end of his life, Hitler showed obvious symptoms of Parkinson's disease, and also had a heart problem that was treated with nitroglycerin and digitalis. Schenk says that medically there was nothing unusual about Hitler. (AP, 10 October 1985) In 2010 the book "War Hitler Krank?" by Henrik Eberle and Hans-Joachim Neumann (published in English in 2012 as "'Was Hitler Ill?"), offered generally the same assessment as Schenk. They write that "at no time did Hitler suffer from pathological delusions," ["Eine Besessenheit im Sinne eines krankheitsbedingten Wahns gab es bei Hitler zu keinem Zeitpunkt".] and they find no indication that Dr. Theodor Morell was anything other than a competent and ethical physician. There is some controversy about Hitler's alleged use of methamphetamine (also known as methyl-amphetamine), which had been available in Germany as an over-the-counter drug under the brand-name Pervitin since 1938. The quantity of methamphetamine in the pills seems not to have been very great, because novelist Heinrich Böll, who used Pervitin during the war, has described the stimulation as equivalent to several cups of coffee. It is clear that Pervitin was not perceived as excessively dangerous at the time, 3 and even for several decades after the war, since it was only taken off the market in the 1970s. The appeal of such drugs was not limited to Axis nations. In the United States, the use of Pervitin by German military men stimulated the U.S. Government's Office of Scientific Research and Development to work on an American equivalent (Alexander George, "Wide World Features", 22 August 1942). The U.S. Army has contemplated the benefits of amphetamines at least as recently as 1988 (AP, 7 September 1988). As of 2014 methamphetamine in the United States is a prescription-drug, used for treatment of ADHD and for weight-loss. In any case, Morell records administering that over-the-counter stimulant on only one occasion. (C. Gunkel, 'Hitlers Krankheiten: Therapie mit Rattengift' - "Der Spiegel" January 2010; there is also an abridged English translation) To summarize, Hitler's physician gave him various strong drugs on occasion, but not on a regular basis, and there is no reason to believe that drugs adversely affected Hitler's judgment. The strongest drug that Hitler received on a regular basis was caffeine, taken with vitamins. Generaloberst [Colonel General, the equivalent of a four-star American general] Heinrici, commander of the vastly outnumbered Army Group Vistula that faces the massed armies of Marshal Zhukov poised less than sixty miles from Berlin, is pleading with his leader for more troops. The general is questioning the disposition of the forces he sees displayed on the battle map, for it is clear to him that some of Germany's finest and few remaining battle worthy formations are far south, facing Marshal Koniev's forces in Silesia. These forces were thus, incomprehensibly, poised to make a stiff defense of Breslau and Prague, not Berlin. The general pleads for Hitler to release some of these forces and transfer them north, but to no avail. "Prague," the Führer responds stubbornly, almost mystically, "is the key to winning the war." Generaloberst Heinrici's hard-pressed troops must "do without." [They did in fact "do without" and yet managed to put up a fierce resistance against overwhelming odds in the initial stages of Zhukov's final offensive on Berlin]. One may also perhaps imagine Heinrici and the other assembled generals perhaps casting a doleful glance at Norway on the situation map, where thousands of German troops are still stationed, occupying a country that had long since ceased to be of any strategic or operational value to the defense of the Reich. Why indeed did Hitler maintain so many German troops in Norway up to the very end of the war? [The standard versions, of course, are that he wished to maintain the supply line of iron ore from Sweden to Germany, and that he wished to continue to use the country as a base to interdict the lend-lease supply route to Russia. But by late 1944, with the huge losses of the German Kriegsmarine, these explanations no longer were militarily feasible, and hence do not make military sense.