Was Hitler against the use of nuclear weapons? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

So this is one of those claims that is of course impossible to verify and even if you believed that everything Skorzeny wrote was true, is necessarily affected by post-facto understandings of atomic bombs and essentially ahistorical. Let me explain.

Skorzeny claims that Hitler was very interested in the possibility of atomic weapons. This is not implausible. Any leader who was interested in aerial bombardment as a technique and technology, and believed that technology and science had a major role to play in wars, would have heard "buzz" about atomic energy as a weapon in the 1920s and 1930s, even before fission. Churchill certainly had, and had written in reference to it in the 1920s, and given Hitler's particular belief in Wunderwaffen it is not at all implausible he would have been aware of the possibility of nuclear weapons, especially after the discovery of fission (in Berlin) in late 1938/early 1939. So we can put that in the "sure, it's plausible" category.

Skorzeny then claims that Hitler had a conversation about this with Todt, the (aptly-named) Reich Minister for Armaments in fall of 1940. This is the conversation in which Hitler supposedly said that atomic weapons would create the end of humanity.

It is important to keep in mind that in 1940, almost nobody really knew what an atomic bomb would look like, would do, or even actually operate. In the UK and Germany, basically all scientists were at this point were focused on how nuclear chain reactions would work in reactors, and were applying that understanding to thinking about bombs. This is not the right way to think about how to make an atomic bomb — you actually need to go about it in a somewhat different way that reactors (reactors use moderated reactions, a bomb needs fast reactions, and this changes the technical issues and the possible outcomes quite dramatically; only the British were starting to work along these lines in 1940). So whatever Hitler might have said or thought about atomic bombs was entirely in ignorance about their actual potential as a weapon. It is, at best, an engagement with some kind of latent science fiction version of them, like one had with H.G. Wells. Now, could Hitler have said such an ignorant thing? Possibly, sure. But one should not read this as being a careful decision after being exposed to relevant facts — this would have been a very "loose" sort of view, like me saying that I thought faster-than-light travel might be bad for people since it would allow them to go back in time and kill Hitler, which would alter human history.

Skorzeny then says that Hitler read a report by Heisenberg in 1942, and that Speer claimed (another big reach) that Hitler was "not delighted" by the idea of a planet being destroyed by atomic bombs. Heisenberg did do work on this topic, of course. It is not clear what report Skorzeny is saying he read (Skorzeny gives a title, but it doesn't correspond with any known report), but presumably it has to do with the February 1942 presentation that Heisenberg as part of a conference at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, which included several Reich Ministers, and which we know a written version of made it to the highest levels (Goebbels' notes it in his diary). Heisenberg's talk was mostly about reactors — not bombs. When he did touch on bombs, he emphasized the difficulty in making them. There has been a lot of debate by historians over the years about whether Heisenberg was trying to sabotage the program or not (probably not), but the overall effect on the audience of both impressing them with the possibilities of new weapons (Goebbel's wrote of the "tremendous destruction" that seemed possible, and that if it was possible, the Germans would want to be first to have it), but also, ultimately, with the difficult nature of their production.

The consequence is that the relevant German ministries, in 1942, decided not to pursue any kind of "crash" nuclear weapons program. Rather, they pursued a very modest reactor program that was meant to keep them on the forefront of research, with a belief that this would be important after German won the war. This is all very well-documented and has nothing to do with Hitler. The reason Germany didn't make an atomic bomb is because it didn't have an atomic bomb production program (it had a small reactor program, and it didn't even make a working reactor). The reason it didn't have an atomic bomb production program is because it didn't think it would be a good use of scarce resources because it seemed unlikely to be successful in the timeframe for which they imagined the war to be taking, and they didn't believe any other countries would be able to do it either. That's not as "wrong" as an idea as it seems in retrospect — it was very hard to do, and there were no other countries doing it... except the United States, which had its own very odd route to the bomb that was not at all fated to be successful.

But various German apologists have tended to try and turn their "failure" into a positive thing by implying that they didn't build it on purpose, because they were such good humanitarians. This is absolutely nonsense and no contemporary sources back it up. Historians call a version of this story (developed postwar, post-Hitler) the Lesart (the story), because it is so formalized and specific: Germany didn't build atomic bombs because it didn't want to; the scientists in particular dragged their feet; ultimately the Germans have a moral authority that the Americans and British do not have, because they used the atomic bombs and the Germans did not. Skorzeny is presenting an even more insidious variant of this: the Germans didn't make the atomic bomb because Hitler was too much of a humanitarian to do so! This is patently ridiculous. Skorzeny, for his part, ends the section on the atomic bomb question by saying that the atomic bombs used on Japan were unnecessary — one can agree or disagree with the sentiment, but it also makes quite explicit the kind of moral argument he is trying to make here. People who try to make arguments that Hitler and the Nazis were actually the "good guys" are not, by definition, reliable narrators.

Skorzeny also says that he had some kind of sickbed conversation with Hitler about atomic bombs in October 1944, in which Hitler seemed to be caught up in fantastical ideas about the possibility of atomic weapons (far beyond what the realistic possibilities were). Even these remembered "conversations" (which we simply must take with a grain of salt even if we thought Skorzeny was a reliable narrator) don't actually have Hitler saying he wouldn't want an atomic bomb. They just have Hitler saying that such a weapon would be incredibly powerful, etc. etc. Which is of course exactly the same language that is used by people who actually do want nuclear weapons — because you wouldn't want an enemy to have exclusive use of such a power!

So. Anyway. Did Hitler say these things and have these beliefs? It is far from established that this is so. But it is not entirely implausible — lots of people thought such things at the time. If Hitler did say them, does it imply that he wouldn't have wanted nuclear weapons? No — stating how horrible nuclear weapons use would be doesn't imply that you are a nuclear abolitionist. In fact, it is a core part of nuclear deterrence to talk about how awful they are; it is part of their justification to be awful, because it prevents their use. Are whatever opinions Hitler had important for why Germany did not pursue nuclear weapons during World War II? Not in the sense that Hitler's negative opinions were responsible for their policy choices. The policy choices are very well-documented and had nothing to do with Hitler; these things were handled at a lower level than the Führer. Now, one could argue that if Hitler was particularly interested in atomic weapons, it might have generated more official interest from those lower levels — that's totally plausible, if counter-factual (Churchill's personal interest played a role in the UK effort, for example, and Roosevelt took personal interest in the Manhattan Project, which both encouraged it in many ways and insulated it from challenges). But it isn't like Hitler vetoed it. The Germans didn't even totally veto it — they just didn't make it a priority during World War II.

So anyway. That's sort of where we are with this. Not impossible, though not well-documented by reliable sources, and not representative of a deep understanding of the issues, and not representative of why the Germans didn't pursue nuclear weapons.

The best overall book on the German nuclear program (and the February 1942 conference and its consequences) is Mark Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939-1949 (Cambridge University Press, 1989).