Thank you Paul. It took three years of research to piece together what I know and I kick myself now that I did not keep a detailed bibliography of sources, though I could retrace much of my steps if necessary.

This topic has spun of from a private message you sent me Paul and I thought it valuable enough to share what I know with a wider audience. Many people know little pieces of the puzzle, but few have tried to put the whole jig-saw puzzle together.

Another little known fact is Roosevelt was shipping Canadian uranium to Stalin, via Persia against the wishes of Churchill under lend lease following the Tehran conference, fully aware that Stalin wanted the A-bomb too. Both Stalin and Roosevelt had agreed at Tehran to work together to dismantle European colonialism after the war.

It is part cojecture of mine, but I believe Churchill leaked information to Hitler about such shipments and this was behind some of the Monsun operations. At one point the Americans accused the British of doing so.

U-234's voyage and her cargo are just a tiny such jig-saw piece.

Wow where do I start with your questions ?

I had not heard of the French reactor project myself. What I am aware of is that a scientific publishing firm in Paris called cellastic (or cellastique ?) was raided upon the liberation of Paris where transcripts of telephone calls between General Leslie Groves (Manhatten Project) and Roosevelt were found. Makes one think doesn't it ?

I had heard that large amounts of French radium were diverted to Germany's nuclear program. This was Radium from French colonies in Africa. Maybe this is a lead to follow ?

Heisenberg's calculations about critical mass were way out but Japanese scientists figured it out accurately. Uranium gun type bombs are infinitely easier to construct than Plutonium bombs. The advantage of Plutonium bombs however is that their difficulty in detonating makes it easier to build safguards in against accidental detonations.

Only Pakistan and perhaps North Korea, plus Isreal have uranium A-bombs. Not since tall boy in 1945 has the US used uranium bombs. The flipside is the ease of making uranium bombs has enticed countries like Pakistan.

It is my conjecture that Heisenberg's project was maintained like a tethered goat to feed disinformation to the Allies whilst, Harteck's more secret project had the real support.

This is reflected by the disparity of funding for the two nuclear projects (KWG v HWA).

Also after the war Heisenberg was permitted to return to his scientific work, whilst after the war the brilliant scientists Harteck and Deibner faded into obscurity.

Yes there was a large quantity of uranium buried in the hills above Garminsch Partikirchen, Home of the German Army's mountain infantry training school. I do not know if this was enriched uranium, but some was recovered by US forces, as were a large quantity of radium cubes from a nearby river. For many years after the war there was a thriving black market for radium and uranium exported from Bavaria. Some must have been enriched simply because it often ended up used in hospital x-ray machines. Some found it's way to a Nazi revivalist nuclear project in peron's Argentina.

The block of uranium which you describe inside a plexiglass block could not be enriched, or those in contact would develop radiation poisoning. The only way to know for sure is with a geiger counter.

Germany mined huge quantities of uranium from what was then called Joachimsthal in Czech Sudetenland. Now it is called Jay-c-amore. The uranium ore was refined into yellow cake uranium oxide at Oranienberg north of Berlin on an industrial scale. When it was clear the Soviets would get there first and it would fall into Soviet territory, the US Army Air force mounted the last large scale bombing raid of the war and practically pulverised Oranienberg.

This raid was even more senseless than the Dresden raid unless one considers that the uranium stocks there must have been of huge significance. Thus a quantity of 2 tons perhaps just scratched the surface. Remember too that the Nazis used slave labour and there was no concern about slaves dying from radiation poisoning. 0.7 Percent of 2 tons is more than enough to build a bomb and even as raw material is potentially dangerous.

A recent book published in Germany suggested a nuclear test explosion did occur in mid March 1945 at a concentration camp in Thuringia where camp victims were found to have died from horrific burns where the soil is still contaminated by radioactive uranium.

No Paul... a gaseous centrifuge does not produce Pu-239. That is a by-product of nuclear reactors. Forget Plutonium, as it was a dead end project.

Uranium centrifuges just separated U-238 from the 0.7 percent of radioactive U-235 naturally occuring in uranium ores. Large numbers of centrifuges were required to slave for months producing enough material for one uranium A-bomb, but that indeed was what the SS were attempting with Harteck in 1944. Three He-177 Greif bombers were prepared in Czechoslovakia with especially enlarged bomb bays for an A-bomb to be dropped on London. The Ju-287 bomber with four jet engines was also prepared with an identical bomb bay.

Another element of the confusion was that Albert Speer was actively sabotaging the KWG project under Heisenberg and trying to re-direct KWG to nuclear power research.

The SS/HWA project under Harteck came under the patronage of Bormann, Himmler and Kammler. Of these, Himmler tried to negotiate a favourable personal survival with the Allies using the nuclear project. Allen Dulles of the OSS in Switzerland (operation Sunrise) however would not deal with Himmler and it seems he chose to negotiate either with Kammler, or Bormann. This is partly my conjecture but based upon several observed facts.

Kammler certainly did some odd things to disobey Hitler near the end of the war such as refusing to execute the 450 engineers and scientists at Peenemunde and arranging to have them transported to Garminsch Patikirchen as Germany was crumbling. This effort of disobedience put Dr Hans Kammler at huge personal risk and he must have had a guardian angel at the Reichs chancellery. I suspect that was Martin Bormann.

Kammler also had Deibner's team transported south and ensured that Borris Pash of the ALSOS mission met almost no SS oposition driving at breakneck pace across Bavaria, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Remember the SS fought on bitterly in Czechoslovakia against the red Army. Why was Boris Pash unopposed ?

Thus I think the SS used the nuclear project as it's bargaining chip with USA at the end of the war. The SS betrayed Hitler who was also trying to negotiate with the Soviets for his personal escape to Japan in return for offers to capitulate northern Germany and Denmark to the communists.

Himmler's adjutant SS Lt Gen Hans Feiglein was executed on Hitler's orders after he discovered from a BBC broadcast that Himmler was negotiating a separate surrender, about 27 April 1945.

Heisenberg's Leipzig IV sphere reactor, which came close to a fission reaction used radium cubes suspended by chains in heavy water from memory. I suspect that it did work but caused a steam explosion because the reaction was uncontrolled.

I do know that the OSS called off plans to assasinate Hitler from July 1944 because they were able to negotiate directly with the SS. The OSS suddenly lost it's fear that Germany would win the nuclear race from this time forwards.

In summaries* of the post war Farm Hall inmates, it was recorded that General Dornberger of the V-2 project disclosed in a bugged conversation that he and von Braun had gone to Lisbon to negotiate a secret surrender of all Nazi Germany's scientists with General Electric Corporation representatives. This was an outstanding revelation when i read it. It suggests that Kammler played a part in Operation Sunrise as a trip to Lisbon was impossible without patronage from the RHSA (Gestapo).

(*Farm Hall summaries as opposed to transcripts as these were summaries from captive conversation transcripts)

Thus I think I have largely pieced together the secret end of WW2.

The Italian subs involved with OSS missions were a vital part of the OSS secret surrender talks.

I hope all this helps you Paul and any others remotely interested in the role u-boats played in Germany's nuclear program.

Thanks for your enthusiasm. I am tempted to put all this into a book one day, though it is far easier to write it into a novel. cheers Simon

PS Any feedback, or information (jig saw pieces) are welcomed. My address is 75 Monorgan Rd, Wellington, New Zealand, or just reply by email.