All language subtitles for Hitlers.Secret.0000.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

[narrator]
On the eve of World War II,

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a scientific discovery

would change the stakes of war

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and the world forever.

Splitting the uranium atom,

the US, Germany, and Japan

each race to harness
the power of the atom

before the enemy does.

What if Germany had gotten
to the atomic bomb

before the United States did?

The race was a very real one.

[narrator] To succeed,
each country would need

the brightest minds,

new technology,

and new science
on a scale never seen before.

Secret shipments,

secret science,
modern forensics.

Taken from Germany,

from nuclear reactor
Hitler tried to build.

[narrator]
And newly uncovered history.

Tell an epic World War II story

of Hitler's Secret Bomb.

[suspenseful music playing]

[suspenseful music playing]

Sit down, Herr Wohlthat.

[typewriter clacking]

When did you come to Japan?

[Helmuth speaking]

And why were you sent here?

[Helmuth speaking]

And what kind of goods?

[Helmuth speaking]

And you said trade,

what did Japanese want
from Germany?

[Helmuth speaking]

Yes, go on.

[Helmuth speaking]

Uranium?

Germany was really the center
of the physics community.

Everything was happening

at the Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute for Physics.

Germany had some of the best
scientific minds

for nuclear physics
in the world.

It included of course
Werner Heisenberg,

Otto Hahn.

Other physicists like
Carl F. von Weiszacker.

And Germany was ready
for an intense investigation

into nuclear fission.

In 1939, German scientists
announced that

they had split the Uranium atom.

Unlike other atoms,
this released tremendous

amounts of energy
raising tantalizing possiblities

of a new fuel source.

The fact that you could
split uranium came as, uh,

sort of a total surprise
to the scientific community.

Never before as a single
scientific discovery,

something you could do
in a laboratory on a table.

Uh, it changed the course
of nations,

it changed
the course of history.

No longer any doubt about it.

That Uranium is splitting
into at least two big parts.

Prior to 1939,

physicists thought that atoms

were sort of, like, a fortress,

that they were large,
and strong, and powerful.

All it took to break apart
a uranium atom

was one small neutron,

a very tiny, subatomic particle.

And in doing so,
you would release

a huge amount of energy.

The actual discovery
was done by scientists,

one working in Berlin,
Otto Hahn, a chemist,

and he found
very unusual results.

He sent it to his collaborator,

Lise Meitner.

[Dr. Hiebert] Lise Meitner
had left Germany.

She was in Sweden.

She got a letter from Otto Hahn

who was her colleague
over in Berlin.

They were bombarding uranium

and they were seeing
this bizarre response

that they really couldn't
figure out what was happening.

And since she talked it over
with her nephew

who was also a physicist

and they were on a walk one day,

when all of a sudden,
in the middle of the woods,

it just came to her
what was happening.

And she sat down in the snow
and wrote out

what we now understand
to be fission.

[Dr. Wellerstein]
And the consequences of this

would reverberate across
not only World War II,

but throughout
our modern world today.

The year was 1939,

and the world
would never be the same.

[tense music playing]

The news of nuclear fission
spread throughout

the global scientific
community like wildfire.

This was something
completely unexpected

and extremely exciting,

not just for its scientific
properties,

but for its potential industrial

and maybe even
military potential.

[narrator] By 1939,

the Nazis were making
life difficult,

even dangerous for some
of Germany's scientists.

[broadcaster]
When Adolf Hitler became

absolute ruler of Germany,

his calculated
and well-organized

oppression of racial
and political minorities

has been steadily growing.

[Dr. Hiebert] As the Nazis
began to take over,

it became increasingly apparent

that anyone
with any Jewish background

is going to have to leave.

[broadcaster]
Fleeing from Nazi Germany,

6,000 to America,

23,000 to Palestine.

There were a substantial
number of refugee scientists

in the United States
who had fled

the growing hostilities
and racism in Europe,

including Albert Einstein,

Eugene Wigner,

Leo Szilard.

A cornucopia of talent

who had firsthand experience

with Germany and a fear of it.

[suspenseful music playing]

Many of the scientists
who were interested in fission

originally were just
interested in it

for its scientific
possibilities.

The possibility of it
being turned into a weapon

seemed like something
very far on the horizon.

But there were a few
who started to worry

about this very seriously,
very early on.

At the most important of which

was probably Leo Szilard,

Hungarian refugee,

who had been thinking about
the possibility

of releasing nuclear energy
for many years.

Szilard had studied in Germany

and he was a good friend
of Albert Einstein's.

He started thinking about
how you could use,

uh, the new science
of radioactivity

to release nuclear energy.

He concluded
that if you could find

a reaction

that you could use
in a chain reaction,

so that one reaction created
multiple other reactions,

that you could release
tremendous amounts of energy.

But he didn't have a reaction
that worked for that

until the discovery
of nuclear fission.

In 1939, when Szilard and Wigner

learned about nuclear fission,

they were both
in the United States.

Szilard in particular
was extremely agitated

about the possibility
that the Germans might use,

uh, nuclear fission,
uh, to create a wonder weapon.

So when Szilard heard
about this,

he immediately understood

that you could use this
for weapons.

And they wouldn't just be
regular sorts of weapons

that had been used
in war before,

they would be weapons
that completely dwarfed

the entire output
of all previous wars.

Wigner and Szilard decided
that what they needed to do

is contact people,

that they needed
to start things in motion

that might hinder Germany

or at least help beat them
towards getting a bomb.

The first idea they had

was writing
to the Queen of Belgium.

The Belgians had control
over the Congo and Africa,

which was the richest source
of uranium

on the entire planet.

And Szilard and Wigner
wanted to make sure

that Belgian uranium

didn't end up in German hands.

Uh, in order
to be taken seriously,

they decided
that they would need to go

to someone they knew
who had a lot

more scientific
and public standing,

Albert Einstein.

They drove out to Einstein's

vacation house on Long Island,

and sat with him on the porch,

and talked with him
about the issue.

Einstein immediately recognized

that this was important

once they laid it out
in front of him.

They had several strategies
for thinking about

how to make this happen,

whether it was writing
to the Queen of Belgium,

uh, or to the Belgian
Ambassador.

Ultimately, a few weeks later,

uh, Szilard went back
to Einstein

and decided
that the only real way

to get this taken
to a higher level

was for Einstein
to write a letter

to the President
of the United States,

Franklin Roosevelt.

They worked on several
drafts of the letter,

but the next question is,
how do you get somebody

like Roosevelt
to actually read this letter?

Because they feared
that a man like Roosevelt

is just drowning
in paperwork every day.

They decided to tap the services

of a friend of theirs,
Alexander Sachs, an economist.

And they would use Sachs
to personally present

Einstein's letter
to the president,

but the earliest appointment

that Sachs could get
with Roosevelt

was in October 1939.

In between, everything changed.

[broadcaster]
War has struck again.

Poland was invaded
September 1st, 1939,

which was the first
in a series of successes

with the German blitzkrieg.

Blitzkrieg means lightning war,

and it's a strategy you pursue

when you have limited resources,

limited manpower.

You focus your troops,

you make them mobile,

in the hope
that by concentrating

your forces in a few areas,

you can quickly break
through the enemy lines,

encircle them,
force them to surrender

before essentially
you run out of materials.

Germany knocked off
one country after the other.

After each victory,
they then stripped

whatever they could
from that country

to use in the next attack.

[tense music playing]

[narrator]
Through the fall of 1939

and the summer of 1940,

the Nazi blitzkrieg
rained terror across Europe,

taking one country
after another.

The US had not yet
entered the war,

and Hitler was confident

that he would not meet
resistance from the USSR.

[Dr. Walker]
Austria, Czechoslovakia,

Poland fell
after about six weeks,

Denmark, and Norway,

Holland, Belgium and France,

by which time
Hitler had reversed

the Treaty of Versailles,

and probably reached the peak
of his popularity in Germany.

This was all planned
in the sense

that Germany had been
setting up alliances.

First with the Italy,
in what came

to be called Axis Pact.

Then the Anti-Comintern
with the Empire of Japan

that is aimed against
the Soviet Union.

But most surprisingly,
uh, just a few weeks

before the invasion of Poland...

[broadcaster]
The war was set on its heels

by the announcement of a treaty

between the Russians
and the Germans,

in which they agreed
not to fight each other.

[Dr. Walker]
These two ideological enemies

agreed not only not
to attack each other,

but to very generous
trade terms.

Germany was free

to invade Poland,
because they had

an understanding
with the Soviet Union.

They only invaded halfway,

the Soviet Union
would then invade Poland

from the east
and divide the country up.

[narrator] In the United States,

a policy of isolationism
in place

since World War I was eroding.

While Japan's
recent conquest in Asia

had been largely ignored,

the Nazi threat
blazing across Europe

could not be.

[Dr. Wellerstein]
Einstein's letter now

had a very real urgency to it.

In his conversation
with Roosevelt,

Sachs laid out a future

in which nuclear energy
could be used

for great peril
or for great good.

You could use this potentially

for making machines

that would generate
tremendous amount of power,

but you could also use it
for making weapons

that would be on a scale
hitherto uncontemplated.

And the letter laid out

a pretty unpleasant situation.

It explained that this research

had been taking place
in Germany,

and that the Germans
appeared to have been

seizing Czechoslovakia

areas that contained
uranium ores.

And that they had extremely
high-quality researchers

potentially working
on this issue,

nuclear fission having been
discovered in their country.

And it essentially pointed out

that in the United States,

they had very limited
and poor uranium ores,

and they had
no coordination whatsoever

between their scientists.

The letter suggested
the government

ought to be
paying attention to this.

Because if the Germans
are working on it,

they might have
a significant advantage

compared to the United States.

Roosevelt agreed

that something needed
to be done.

He created a committee
called the Uranium Committee.

Roosevelt wrote an immediate
reply to Einstein,

thanking him for bringing
this to his attention.

And from that moment onward,

the world was on a path
towards the bomb.

[speaking in Japanese]

Even before World War II began,

Germany and Japan
had united in a treaty,

the Anti-Comintern Pact

against international communism.

[speaking foreign language]

To hold the Soviets down
in Asia.

[Dr. Grunden]
Germany has one of the most

advanced militaries
in the world.

Japan also has
an advance military.

The Japanese army defeated
the Russians in 1905,

and they had taken
much of China.

Japan has a long tradition

of borrowing technology
from abroad,

they're looking to modernize.

And when it came
to the air forces

of the army and navy,

they went to Germany,

they went to the United States,

and they borrowed
the most advance designs

that they could find.

[speaking Japanese]

In 1939,

the Japanese delegation
returned to Japan

with some 250 German engineers

to help them build
the aeronautics industry.

By 1941,

Japan has one of the most
sophisticated airplanes

in the entire world.

The famous Zero.

The Zero was faster,
more nimble,

and had a tighter turn ratio

than almost any other plane
in the world.

[narrator] For the Japanese,
the alliance with Germany

had helped improve
their military.

For the Nazis,
the alliance with Japan

had new importance,

resources needed
to continue the war.

Japan including its large

expanding economic empire,

Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea, China,

now had a lot to offer Germany.

There were materials for
the weapons of war themselves,

things like tin, tungsten,

tea, caffeine,

even opium as a painkiller.

Hermann Goring, the second man

in the Nazi State

and in charge
of acquiring resources,

now began taking steps

to ensure the necessary
materials for war.

[tense music playing]

[narrator]
And it's Hermann Goring

who sends Helmuth Wohlthat
to Japan.

[Dr. Walker] Wohlthat
had fought in World War I

as a cavalry officer.

He had an American connection

studying in Columbia University.

When he returned to Germany

and began working
for the Third Reich,

uh, in their foreign
trade office.

[tense music playing]

[Dr. Walker]
In the spring of 1941,

Wohlthat and his small team
arrived in Japan

with 200 million Yen

and a list of vital supplies
that Germany needed.

In return,

Germany sent Japan
its materials needed

to fabricate weapons,

steel, glass,

lead, mercury.

Trade with Japan appeared vital.

Germany would need everything
they could get a hold of

in order to fight the war.

[Helmuth speaking]

[narrator]
And it was Wohlthat's job

to ship these vital goods
back to Nazi war effort,

but one huge obstacle
stood in his way.

[tense music playing]

[Dr. Grunden]
December 7th, 1941,

the Japanese launched
an attack on Pearl Harbor

from six aircraft carriers.

A total of three hundred
and forty planes

launched in two waves
of a hundred and seventy each.

Their goal,
disable America's ability

to fight Japan's expansion
in the South Pacific.

Of eight US battleships in port,

four were sunk

and the others heavily damaged,

also destroyed.

Three cruisers,
three destroyers,

a minelayer,
and a training ship.

Over 2,400 Americans dead.

Since the unprovoked

and dastardly attack by Japan,

a state of war has existed

between the United States

and the Japanese empire.

[crowd applauding]

Immediately,

all of the engines
of American industry

and American government

pivoted towards
the production for war.

Tanks, ships,

airplanes, rockets, you name it.

Anything that could be produce

to help the war effort,

and one of these
was nuclear fission,

because the potential
consequences

of losing a race
for nuclear fission,

if it was possible,
we're far too high to risk.

The United States had
no specific knowledge

of what was going on
in Germany or in Japan.

They didn't know

that they were working
on nuclear fission,

but they felt that they had
to assume that they were.

Despite Hitler,

German science
was still considered

among the best in the world.

President Roosevelt
and his scientific

and military advisors
were afraid

that the Germans had
a two-year ahead start

and would build the bomb first.

[broadcaster] To the scientists,

this dramatic news brought
a great sense of urgency.

[dramatic music playing]

Japanese scientists
were definitely keeping pace

with their colleagues
in the West.

Just 10 months after
the discovery of fission,

two Japanese scientists,
Arakatsu Bunsaku

and Hagiwara Tokutaro

published their own paper

on the number of neutrons
released in fission.

They predicted that a chain
reaction was possible.

And by harnessing
the power of the atom,

this could bring
huge innovations

in motive power for ships,

for submarines,
possibly even for bombers.

Both the army and navy
became very interested

in harnessing the power
of the atom

for military purposes.

But the question remained,

did they have enough resources?

Did they have enough uranium?

Did they have the ability
to create a nuclear reactor

and more importantly,
to create a super weapon?

The army project
really gets started

when, by chance, Nishina Yoshio,

the premier physicist of Japan

meets General Yasuda
on a commuter train in Tokyo.

And the two of them
begin to have a conversation

about the war.

And Nishina mentions

that there are great
developments

in physics, in nuclear physics,

and perhaps the army
could do something

for the military.

Yasuda is excited
about this prospect,

and thus, is born
the army's foray

into nuclear research.

In the spring of 1941,

Nishina returns
to the Riken Institute,

the most prestigious
nuclear research facility

in all of Japan.

There, he employs 110 scientists

all engaged in various aspects
of nuclear physics.

At the Riken,
Nishina worked to complete

a new 60-inch cyclotron

for separating isotopes.

Hagiwara published yet
another essay

titled "Super weapon U-235,"

indicating that they
fully understood

the promise and potential
of the U-235 isotope

for developing nuclear weapons.

But to have enough U-235

would require massive amounts
of uranium ore.

[dramatic music playing]

For President Roosevelt
and the United States,

the imperative was clear,
they needed to build a bomb

before Germany
and before Japan did.

They were convinced
that they were in a race

to build the most powerful
weapon ever created.

[broadcaster] Yellow ore shows
good uranium,

while black ore
is extremely rich

in fissionable material.

At $7 a pound,
the uranium search rivals

the Old West's gold rush.

The biggest difficulty
in making an atomic bomb

is getting the fuel.

You can't just use
any type of uranium.

You need to use a specific
type of uranium,

Uranium-235,

it makes up less than
one percent

of all of the uranium

that you would find in nature.

They had to know how much
of the Uranium 235 you needed to

make a bomb in the first place.

Then they had to separate out
atom by atom,

physically ripping them apart,

the Uranium-235

from the predominant uranium
that you find in the ground.

It was unknown
how to even do that.

[narrator]
One process they tried

was electromagnetic separation

with a device called
a cyclotron.

It relies on gas containing
uranium isotopes

235 and 238,

chemically indistinguishable,

but with a slight difference
in atomic weight.

Electric current accelerates
the particles of the gas

through a magnet.

[Dr. Koeth]
You needed a large magnet

that was probably about
10 ft in diameter.

[broadcaster] The most
powerful magnet in the world,

which will separate
potent protons from the atom.

By the time they come out
at the back end

of this magnet,
they would have just

a few inches of separation

and you would collect them
atom by atom.

The other methods included
gaseous diffusion,

and that the lighter element,
Uranium-235 would permeate

through, uh, a membrane
easier than Uranium-238.

And, uh... But it's such
a minuscule difference

that this would have
to be done over, and over,

and over again through
many thousands of stages.

[narrator] A third method use
a massive centrifuge,

spinning uranium gas
at extreme speed.

The U-235 and U-238 isotopes

collect at slightly
different bands

alone the centrifuge wall.

For each method,

the equipment needed to be
very large

to process as much material
as possible,

even so generating
only tiny amounts

of the prized U-235 each day.

There was another avenue

potentially for making
this fuel,

which was to build
nuclear reactors,

which had never been done before

and certainly not
on an industrial scale.

And if you can get
a nuclear reactor working,

then you can use it to generate

a man-made element, plutonium,

which you could also use
in a bomb.

[broadcaster]
The University of Chicago

in a secret laboratory,
set up within the walls

of the stadium's squash courts,

a dangerous and partly
unpredictable experiment

was undertaken.

In 1942,
the physicist Enrico Fermi

and his team
at the University of Chicago

created the world's first
experimental nuclear reactor.

And this validated the idea

that you could build
larger nuclear reactors

and use those to make
a new element, plutonium,

which you could use
as bomb fuel.

So, in the United States,

they decided
they were gonna pursue

both enriched uranium
and plutonium production,

even though they didn't know
if either of them

could be feasible
at an industrial scale.

They were betting on two horses.

[dramatic music playing]

[broadcaster] The entire USA
program of uranium research

had been placed under the
supervision of Dr. Vannevar Bush,

abled director of the Office of
Scientific Research and Development.

The Office of Scientific
Research and Development

was putting a lot of resources

into determining whether or not

they could build an atomic bomb.

Vannevar Bush, the head of the Office
of Scientific Research and Development,

went to Roosevelt and said
that if they brought in

the Army Corps of Engineers

who knew how to
build large things,

that they could potentially have

an atomic bomb
within two and half years.

And Roosevelt gave the go-ahead.

[whimsical music playing]

[car engine revving]

This work was assigned to the
Manhattan Engineering District

located in New York City.

This would not just be
a research enterprise.

This was going to be a project

to make actual atomic bombs

that could be used in war.

And to do this,
they were going to construct

some of the largest factories
on the entire planet

to strip uranium atoms
from each other,

and to construct the first
full industrial-sized

nuclear reactors ever created.

In order to do this,

you'd have to create an empire,

a new industry from scratch

that would span
the entire country

and involved a labor of

hundreds of thousands of people.

And you need somebody
who could command authority

over the military,
over the government,

and over thousands of scientists

who are not accustomed
to doing military research.

And the person they got for that

was Leslie Richard Groves.

Groves was an army engineer

who had graduated
from West Point.

He knew how to
build large things.

The most recent project he had
worked on was the Pentagon.

And by his own admission,

he was the right man
for this job.

[Gen. Groves]
My natural characteristics,

what you can call dominant,

or brash or self-confidence,

or anything else you want,

but there were certain
characteristics there,

that led to, uh,
a very vigorous control.

For Groves, control
and decisiveness were key.

[Gen. Groves] Make the decisions
when they had to be made.

In other words, anything...

Any decision, a failure to make,

which would cause a delay

in the completion
of the project,

uh, was made, uh, irrespective

of how much data was available.

[Dr. Wellerstein] And Groves, he
immediately started scouting out

for sites to build
these massive facilities.

He ended up selecting
Oak Ridge in Tennessee

for uranium enrichment.

Um, Hanford
in Washington State to build,

uh, industrial-sized
nuclear reactors.

And finally, Los Alamos
in Rural New Mexico

to have a secret laboratory
for the scientists

working on the most sensitive
design considerations

of the bomb itself.

[broadcaster] The war's
most sensational secret.

It's a part of $2 billion spent

to beat our enemies to the punch

on the atomic bomb.

[Dr. Wellerstein] This whole
operation, this whole new empire

was being called
the Manhattan Project.

Groves is the type of person

who wanted to have
the whole plan out

in front of him ideally.

He wanted to know exactly
where he was trying to get to.

But when it came
to this research,

he had to take
a different approach.

[Gen. Groves] You know, it was
different on the, uh,

our choice of, um,
of three different approaches

to the separation
of fissionable material.

The reason that was different

was that we had no idea
as to, uh...

Whether we could do
a particular one or not.

We had the feeling that, uh,

if we, uh, put everything
on one plan,

that that thing might develop
into a scientific roadblock

where you'd find that something
is absolutely impossible.

[dramatic music playing]

At Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, Groves created

an entirely new city
from scratch.

The largest factories
under one roof

in the entire world at the time

to separate out the uranium.

At Hanford, Washington,
beside the Columbia River,

they built three industrial-
sized nuclear reactors,

and all of the facilities
necessary to convert

their output into plutonium.

Groves was in charge
of recruiting

thousands of scientists
and hundreds of thousands

of laborers from around
the country to work on this,

all under a strict
shroud of secrecy.

And yet,
almost nobody working on it

knew what they were doing.

This was because Groves believed

that secrecy was paramount,

and the way he did
this was through a policy

he called compartmentalization,

which was
the need-to-know principle.

Everyone working on
the project only knew

the bare minimum
that they needed

to know to do their job.

But Groves knew
what everybody was doing.

He was the one person
who knew it all.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] What Groves,
the US military,

and scientists didn't know

was how far the Japanese

and Nazi nuclear programs
had advanced.

[broadcaster] The shadow of
the conquering German armies

covered Western Europe.

The self-styled
master race was riding high.

In the spring
and early summer of 1940,

Germany appeared unstoppable.

One country after another
fell to the German advance.

Major cities were invaded,

Rotterdam, Bordeaux, Paris fell.

The next in line would
be London in Britain,

not through an invasion,
but through an air war,

to be bombed into submission.

Now, Britain believes that
the whole of Hitler's army

is turned towards
their small island nation.

[Dr. Walker]
The German Luftwaffe

was attacking British air bases,

military installations,

but then civilians were hit.

In response to British bombed
German cities,

this enraged Hitler
and he demanded retribution.

[speaking German]

[narrator] While the war
was raging across Europe,

nuclear research
in Germany continued.

Scientists from different
universities in Germany

were summoned to Berlin
for meetings

with army ordinance
about the possible

military applications
of nuclear fission.

An army physicist Kurt Diebner,

took over at the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute for Physics

as the army's
personal representative

overseeing what came to be
called the Uranium Club.

By late 1941,

it was clear
to Diebner, Heisenberg,

and others that they had
made great progress.

Experiments suggested
that they could build

a large scale nuclear reactor.

They now understood that
that would produce plutonium,

just like Uranium-235
a nuclear explosive.

In centrifuges appeared
very promising

to produce that Uranium-235.

The theoretical physicist,
Carl von Weizsacker,

in a patent application in 1941,

laid out how you could use

a nuclear reactor
to produce plutonium,

which could be used
in an atomic bomb.

This all begs the question,

why didn't Germany
make atomic bombs?

The answer is,

as long as the blitzkrieg
was going well,

Germany didn't need

what they called
"Wonder Weapons."

That doesn't mean that
they didn't support the work.

Albert Speer, the powerful
Minister of Armaments,

over and over again
personally intervened

to help the scientists
working on uranium.

It's clear, even if he didn't
count on nuclear weapons,

he had not given up hope
for nuclear weapons.

[narrator] But the Nazi's
success was about to change.

In June of 1941,

despite a non-aggression pact
signed two years earlier,

German armies invaded
the Soviet Union.

At first successful,
the Nazi offensive

began to bog down
in the harsh Russian winter.

[tense music playing]

[narrator] Russian troops
had held the Nazis at bay,

but Hitler was determined.

In August of 1942,

he made a fateful decision.

[broadcaster] Despite the advice
of his high command to the contrary,

the German leader
ordered his sixth army

to open up the gateway to Asia

by taking the historic
Russian city of Stalingrad.

Germany launched
an offensive to capture

the City of Stalingrad,

to seize the oil fields there

and to protect
the oil fields in Romania.

Hitler saw it
as a prestige matter,

to capture the city
named after Stalin.

[narrator] But the plan
was ill-conceived.

At first, the Germans
were very successful,

they occupied the city
although at a great cost.

The Soviets encircled
the Germans,

starved them out.

It's by far the biggest military

and propaganda failure
of the Third Reich.

[dramatic music playing]

[plane engine revving]

[Dr. Walker] The German Home Front
was becoming more and more desperate.

Widespread shortages
were making life miserable.

Allied bombs were raining
down on German cities.

It did not look
good for Germany.

[plane engine whirring]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] In Japan,
Nazi Helmuth Wohlthat

continued trade for Germany.

But he was feeling the pinch
of the Allied blockade.

[Helmuth speaking]

[broadcaster] These pictures
definitely show the end

of one of Adolf Hitler's cargos,

as a torpedo
makes the final kill.

Britain controlled the seas.

Germany had to expect
a blockade.

They had to expect
that it would become

ever more difficult to
get the materials

they needed to continue
fighting the war.

Just like in World War I,

the Germans had one strategy

for breaking
the British blockade.

Unrestricted submarine warfare,

that is attacks without warning

on shipping
by the German U-boats.

[explosion]

[speaking in foreign language]

[narrator] In December 1941,

the attack on Pearl Harbor
changed everything.

The US entered the war.

When the US entered the war,
the blockade of German

and Japanese shipping increased.

Combine the British
and the American Navies

and the British
and the American Air Forces,

the result will be an immediate

and complete cleanup
of the Atlantic.

He will then know...

[applause]

Hitler will then know
what a blockade really means.

[applause]

Now, it's hunt and kill.

[dramatic music playing]

So by mid-1942,
the Allies were convinced

they had a stranglehold
on the Axis shipping.

[broadcaster] Official navy
pictures of the smashing of a U-boat

surprised on the surface
by carrier-based planes.

[explosion]

That's what
we've always believed.

But it turns out the truth
is a lot more complicated.

After the war,
after the US captured

and interrogated
Helmuth Wohlthat,

an important German
economic advisor,

they discovered
that this was wrong.

[dramatic music playing]

[Helmuth speaking]

What do you mean?
What are you talking about?

[Helmuth speaking]

[dramatic music playing]

What is so surprising,
if not shocking,

is that so much got through.

Wohlthat could send
so much to Germany

without the Allies
having any idea.

[narrator]
Wohlthat's records change

our entire understanding
of the Allied blockade

against German
and Japanese trade.

Was Nazi uranium
part of his cargo?

December 1942 back in Europe,

the Nazi's were losing ground.

[Dr. Walker] By late 1942 the
German advance had stopped.

It was clear that the war
had turned against Germany.

It's pretty simple,
it's the same thing

Napoleon found out, you know,

fighting in Russia is great

until you hit November.

The Allied attack
on German cities

had become so fierce.

[narrator] The Nazis
needed a wonder weapon.

But their nuclear scientists

were facing huge obstacles

and constant fear.

[Dr. Walker] Factories that
were making the centrifuges

were bombed flat.

The metal uranium
for the nuclear reactors

could not be cast.

And the scientists themselves

were in perpetual fear

that they would be called up

to fight on the front
as common soldiers.

[narrator] Relentless air
attack made their labs unsafe.

The German scientists were
repeatedly forced to move

to more obscure locations.

The uranium project scientists

found it increasingly difficult

to do experiments,
to get materials.

[narrator]
And experiments often failed.

No one had ever harnessed
nuclear energy,

much less made a bomb.

Heisenberg and Dopel
the German nuclear scientists

were working on a version
of reactor

called the L-IV
and it was in Leipzig.

It was starting
to show positive results.

They were starting
to see neutron multiplication.

But the L-IV reactor
was a spherical configuration

where uranium powder
was being poured

into the metal sphere.

Uranium metal when
it's a fine enough dust,

just when it comes
into contact with water

or even moisture and air
will catch on fire.

Uranium caught fire,

jettisoned hot gasses
right out the fill tube

and the uranium burned for days.

They were unable to put it out

because it was such a hot,
intense fire.

The Germans
had also experimented

with the early versions
of centrifuges

and of course
that failed catastrophically

when the high speed
caused the material

to just break under
the extreme forces

and disassemble itself.

[machine whirring]

But again and again,

just when it appeared that

the research would grind
to a complete halt,

Armaments Minister Albert
Speer intervened.

He gave them
the highest priority

for their experiments,

for acquiring materials,

for getting the labor
they needed to continue.

It's clear
that he was infatuated

with the prospects
of nuclear weapons.

[explosion]

[narrator] By 1943,
Japan's nuclear effort

was also struggling
with limited resources

and scientists,
and Allied bombing raids.

In America,
despite safer conditions,

scientists had no idea yet
how to make a bomb.

[Dr. Wellerstein] In the United
States, the biggest hurdle

was still to make
enough fuel for the bomb.

General Leslie Richard Groves

constructed massive facilities

for the enrichment of uranium

and for the production
of plutonium.

[narrator]
After millions of dollars

and thousands of man hours,

they were still only
able to produce

tiny amounts of bomb fuel.

Here it is General Groves,
plutonium.

Well, that's, uh,
the first time I've seen it.

But if you don't mind,
I wish you'd hold that under

because after all, there's
over $50 million

in that tube.

But it still wasn't clear

whether any of these methods
were going to work.

[broadcaster] After
six weeks of heavy combat,

men of the US First Army

broke out
at a place called Saint-Lo

and began pursuing the
fleeing Nazis across France.

[Dr. Wellerstein] So the Allies
were making significant gains

against Germany.

They were pushing
through France,

they were liberating Paris.

[crowd cheering]

But the Japanese war
was still going on.

[narrator] In 1942

before the tide of war
changed in Europe,

battles raged across
the Pacific theater.

The Battle of Midway in 1942

was devastating
for the Japanese Navy

and really called into question

the Japanese strategy.

[broadcaster] American
carrier-based aircraft assisted

by land-based planes
turned the tide of war

in the Pacific
off the island of Midway.

[bomber plane whirring]

[narrator] The Japanese
were losing the war.

[plane explodes]

[narrator] But they were
not going to give up.

[Dr. Grunden] The Japanese
Army ordered Nishina Yoshio,

their premier physicist
of Japan, to build a bomb.

Nishina of course knew
that massive amounts of U-235

were going to be needed
to reach a critical mass.

But just how much uranium
they would need,

no one was certain.

In Japan, the storage
of uranium were very limited,

but they scrounged
around to find

what they could just
to begin experimentation.

The army dispatched
investigation units

far and wide.

They went to Mongolia,
they went to Burma,

they went all over
Southeast Asia

looking for possible stores
of uranium.

Japan faced the same
problem as Germany,

how were they going to enrich

enough Uranium-235
to build a bomb?

With its limited
natural resources,

its limited industrial capacity,

it didn't have a lot of options

to pursue for enrichment.

The Navy tried to
construct a centrifuge,

but they didn't get very far

because they lacked the
important necessary materials.

Nishina thought perhaps

the best route
would be the cyclotron.

They were working on
the large 60-inch cyclotron.

But it did not have
the electrical capacity

to produce the enriched uranium

that they would need.

One scientist calculated
with what they had on hand,

it would take at least 15 years

for Japan to develop
enough enriched uranium

to make a bomb.

After months of research
and months of trying,

all they'd come up with
is a small crystal

of a kind of enriched material

that's only about the size
of a grain of rice.

They're under enormous
pressure to produce,

especially for the Army.

Nishina realizes he doesn't
have enough uranium

to make any sort of reactor.

He gives up on
the reactor idea altogether.

They're really just
thinking towards a bomb.

But if they're going to
build a bomb,

how are they going to get there?

What is the process?

What is the means
they're going to use

to enrich enough uranium?

They don't have
enough uranium ore.

This is the problem
that keeps plaguing

the Japanese project

from the start to the finish.

This is why they need
Germany's help.

But they were both suspicious
of each other.

[dramatic music playing]

[radio static]

[narrator] Winning World War II

would hinge on
who built the bomb first.

Intercepted
communications hinted

that both Germany
and Japan knew this.

Their nuclear research

depended on the supply
of uranium.

[Dr. Wellerstein] Japan asked
Germany to send them uranium,

specifically uranium oxide
and pitchblende

which is a uranium-bearing ore.

September 1st,
Berlin agreed to acquire

the pitchblende for Japan,

but they wanted to know what
it was gonna be used for.

[suspense music playing]

[Dr. Wellerstein] And Japan
responded that it was gonna be used

as a catalyst for
fuel production,

probably a lie.

On November 2nd, 1943,

the Nazis informed Tokyo

that while they couldn't
send pitchblende,

they could supply
one ton of uranium oxide.

[narrator] Uranium oxide is
a processed form of uranium

that could be
safely transported.

[Dr. Wellerstein] But as far
as we know, nothing happened,

not until the two allies agreed

to a technical
exchange agreement

in March of 1944
did the Nazis begin

sending their latest
technology, weapons,

and technical expertise
to Japan.

[narrator] Did this include
nuclear materials?

In the United States,

nobody had any hard information

about whether or not

the Germans were getting close
to an atomic bomb.

And there was a growing fear,
maybe even a panic

that they were getting
very close to a weapon.

And if Hitler
had a nuclear weapon

and the United States
had no means

to threaten them back
or even retaliate,

there was a fear that that
could be the end of the war

despite so many allied
advances against the Germans.

But the Manhattan
Project scientists

almost unable to focus

because they were so worried
about the Germans.

General Groves brought in
2nd Lieutenant Robert Furman.

[Gen. Groves] I went
into the Manhattan District,

very quiet, very secretive.

General Groves brought me in

to try to calm down
the scientists

who he had working on this
project to develop the bomb.

The scientist wouldn't
concentrate on their work.

They were scared that

the Germans were
years ahead of us

and would bomb us
almost immediately.

My job was to work with them

and try to calm them down

and get them back at their...

In their laboratories
and at their desks.

Groves put together
a secret mission

to go into Europe

and discover what the Germans

were actually doing,

how far along
they actually were.

And they called this Alsos
which is Greek for Groves.

Now a major, Robert Furman

assists Groves
in managing Alsos.

[Gen. Groves] The scientific
mission built on fear.

Fear that the enemy had the bomb

or would have it
before we could develop it.

And this they knew
to be the case,

the scientists did, because they
were refugees from Germany,

a large number of them,
and they had studied

under the German
before the war broke out.

I knew of 48 different
German scientists

that could be involved
in a project

that could develop a bomb.

[suspense music playing]

[Dr. Wellerstein] In December
of 1943, the first Alsos Mission

was arriving in Italy

and interrogating
Italian scientists

to learn about German work.

Back in the United States,
the Manhattan Project

was struggling
to put together the systems

that would generate
enough fuel to make a bomb,

both the enriched uranium
and the plutonium.

There were many, many trials,
many pilot plants,

and they were
failing repeatedly.

Things that had seemed
like pretty sure bets

were proving to be
extraordinarily difficult.

In May of 1994, Joseph Slepian,

headed Westinghouse's
Research Division,

feverishly building
a massive ionic centrifuge

to separate Uranium-235.

Slepian wrote to J.B. Conant

of the Office of Scientific
Research and Development,

"Tests with the smaller
model centrifuge"

is showing enhancement
of uranium by one percent.

Construction of the larger unit

"is a bit behind
the expected schedule."

Over a month later on July 5th,

Slepian reports on trials

with the finally completed
ionic centrifuge.

All three runs
failed completely.

[broadcaster]
With this potent machine

and others that will
be even more powerful,

US atomic scientists
are determined

to maintain their nation's lead

in their struggle to unlock

the innermost secrets
of the universe.

[Dr. Wellerstein]
And at Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

the world's largest
electromagnetic separators

were still struggling.

Ernest Lawrence wrote to Groves

that the electromagnetic process

was in a fluid state
of development.

They were beginning
to produce Uranium-235

but not in the process
and quantity

that they would need
to get a bomb.

And at Hanford, Washington,
the production of plutonium

was also going slowly.

Lawrence even suggested
that efforts should be made

to develop brand new equipment

for the enrichment of Uranium.

And Groves was desperate
enough to do it.

[ominous music playing]

[Dr. Wellerstein] So in Germany,

the Alsos Mission
was immensely successful.

They were following directly
behind American advances,

sometimes even
a little ahead of them,

in order
to capture German scientists,

documents and laboratories.

They were beginning
to piece together bit

by bit exactly what the Germans

had been working on.

[narrator] Alsos found
that the German atomic bomb

program was further behind
than the US thought.

[Dr. Wellerstein] America
had felt that it was

in a race with Germany.

But in reality,
it was racing against itself.

Interestingly,
the pace and direction

of the American program
really didn't change

at that point.

Even when they found
that the Germans

were no longer a threat.

Instead, it became a race
against time

to make all of this effort
worthwhile.

And in this case,
that meant to make a bomb.

[reporter] Scientists
of many nations working

feverishly to harness cosmic
power for a war and peace,

working on the atomic bomb,
most astounding news

of this century.

[Dr. Wellerstein]
By late December 1944,

many of the problems
of producing Uranium-235

were starting to be solved.

But they're gonna need
to increase their output

quite a lot
if you're going to be able

to make enough nuclear
material to use in a bomb.

A now declassified
communique showed

that the production of T,
uranium-235 would still have

to increase by a factor
of nearly two

and a half times.

And in late February 1945,
Slepian at Westinghouse

finally admitted to Conant
that their approach

was not going to work.

We are finally driven
to the conclusion

that we were not able
to predict the motion

of the ions
as well as we had thought.

I am much less certain
of my ability to pre-design

a practical apparatus.

[narrator] Problems played
every aspect

of the Manhattan Project.

But there was a glimmer of hope.

[Dr. Wellerstein] Some of their
methods were showing some promise.

The electromagnetic method,
gaseous diffusion,

and even thermal diffusion
were showing some promise.

But no one of them seem like
they were gonna work.

And this is around
when they had the idea

to chain them together.

With promising methods
on the horizon but the end

not yet fully in sight,
Groves really felt

that he needed everybody
focused on the task at hand.

At this point,
Groves overrode attempts

to introduce new equipment
and change methods,

understanding
that the costs and time

on the project
would be too high.

Groves believed
that at this point,

they were committed
to the ones that seemed

the most promising.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] In Germany,
the scientists knew

the war was coming to an end.

But fighting in the Pacific
had intensified.

Pressure mounted
on Japanese scientists

to create a wonder weapon.

Would Germany help?

[crowd cheering]

[narrator] Victory in Europe,
V-E Day,

all Nazi military operations
were to cease.

In the middle of the Atlantic,

a German submarine, the
U-234 received the message.

It was on its way to Japan
with special cargo.

This was the Nazis
last-ditch attempt

to get high technology
to their allies in Japan.

And on board,
the submarine U-234,

were two Japanese officers,
a German general,

engineers, and scientists.

And in her hold,
the submarine carried

the latest German weapon
technology,

including a crated Messerschmitt

Me 262 jet fighter

and the newest
electric torpedoes.

[suspense music playing]

[Dr. Walker]
The German submarine surfaces

is taken by American forces
and brought

into Portsmouth Harbor.

[narrator] As it's unloaded,
the US is surprised to find

nearly a ton of uranium oxide.

The Japanese Ambassador Oshima
had requested

tons of pitchblende and, uh,
uranium-bearing ores

from Germany.

Two U-boats
were dispatched to Japan

that were carrying
these uranium compounds.

[machine gun firing]

One of those U-boats
was sunk en route

probably somewhere
around Singapore.

But the other one was U-234.

Some ten gold lined
cylinders of uranium ore

were discovered on board.

And these went off
to Indian Head, Maryland.

But there, the trail goes cold,

we don't know what happened
to that uranium thereafter.

These are the only two shipments

that had been recorded
that historians

even know about.

[narrator] But newly
discovered documents reveal

that the Nazis attempted
other shipments of uranium.

We found these records
in your office.

This is your inventory.

[man speaks]

They cover a period
from the 15th of December 1944

to the 30th of April '45,
is that right?

[man speaking]

I see.

Tin, palm oil, rubber?

[man speaking]

Wolframerz or tungsten ore,

opiumn, jod, and iodine.

And on page one, the fifth item.

[man speaking]

2.2 tn in December and 3.2 tn

by the end of April.

So here is the Nazi uranium
in a warehouse in Kobe.

So this is new information.

This changes our understanding
of the story.

Wohlthat's records record
show us that the Germans

got uranium to Japan
and they did it

by ship despite the blockade.

The discovery
of so much uranium in Kobe

is a big surprise
because the United States

had sent scientific
intelligence investigation

teams all throughout Japan
after the war.

And they accounted for all
the uranium-bearing ores

that were there
or so they thought.

How did it get there?

What was the chain of custody?

These are all things
that we need to know.

So it opens up
a new chapter in history.

[suspense music playing]

[narrator] In early 1945
in Germany,

the Nazi nuclear program
was struggling

under the weight
of allied bombing.

[Dr. Walker] Heisenberg's
last experiment

had been moved Berlin
to the sleepy little village

of Haigerloch.

They're in a rock cellar.

They set up
the last B8 experiment.

Uranium cubes immersed
in heavy water.

Six hundred
and sixty-four Uranium cubes

roughly two in on a side,
weighing about five lb.

In strings of either eight
or nine cubes per strand.

The whole sample
would be lowered

into a pool of heavy water.

[narrator] Heavy water
contains deuterium

which increases the chance
of a nuclear chain reaction.

[Dr. Koeth] And this is
where the Germans had their

last-ditch effort to make
a working nuclear reactor.

How close did they actually get?

The Alsos Mission discovered

the remains of the B8 reactor
that have been

scattered around Haigerloch.

They dug up 659 of the 664 cubes

that had been part
of the reactor.

They also discovered
the heavy water,

which have been stored in jugs
in a nearby mill.

And all of the pertinent
documentation

had been dropped down a latrine.

They shipped it back
to the United States.

The last mention we have of this

is from General Groves
where he says it was shipped

in the United States
under the purview

of the Combined
Development Trust.

An agreement
between the United States

and the United Kingdom
to try and corner the market

on uranium globally.

What if Germany
had gotten to the atomic bomb

before the United States did?

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] Tim Koeth
is a physicist fascinated

with nuclear history.

What the Alsos Mission
showed is that

they were far away
from an atomic bomb.

And they were not
so far away from making

a working nuclear reactor.

[narrator] But Tim
never expected to have

a direct connection
to the Nazi reactor

in Haigerloch.

I was out for a jog
on August afternoon

and I got a phone call
from a friend who said,

"I think I have something
you would really like to see.

Meet me in this parking lot."

Fifteen minutes later,
I come running out

of the woods,
popped open the trunk,

and we looked in,
there's a little brown bag.

I could just see a corner
of this cube

with a telltale notch
peeking out,

and I immediately knew
what it was.

The cube of Uranium
from Haigerloch.

With my curiosity piqued,
I started investigating.

But then I came across a link
to the National Archives

and one of their finding aids
referred to a box

that was labeled
German Uranium cubes.

And I thought that had
to have been

the answer to my question,
what happened

to the 664 cubes?

But, no,
that was not what I found.

First, I was initially
disappointed

and about 15 seconds later,
I was, uh,

just dumbfounded by what
I had discovered.

And that there was another
400 cubes

they were referring to.

So this was first
definitive proof

that there was an addition
to the 664 cubes,

another 400 cubes.

This should have been enough
for Germany to have built

a working nuclear reactor.

This is history-changing.

So this is the cube
from Ninninger.

It was wrapped
with a note that reads,

"Taken from Germany
from nuclear reactor

Hitler tried to build.

Gift of Ninninger."

So who exactly was Ninninger?

So we look at the org chart
for the Murray Hill area

of the Manhattan
Engineer District,

we can see Ninninger's name
listed here

under the executive branch.

So he was a member
of this group of people

to whom we think the 659 cubes

that were discovered
at Haigerloch

were shipped, too.

So the other 400 cubes
are described

in another set of documents
at the National Archives

and this is the first document
in that series

that describes the black market

that formed in Europe paddling
these cubes around.

This is pretty funny.

It reads, "It appears
that the members

of a ghostly gang
are gradually taking shape."

Who writes...
communiques like that today.

So the last document
in this series talks about

what they think happened.

Um, so it notes
that every time the cubes

came up for sale,
they would, um,

be accompanied by a threat
that if the US

didn't purchase them,
they would be shipped

to the USSR.

Um, so the last line here
says, it seems that at last

that this threat
has materialized.

So it looks like that's what
happened to the cubes.

The final disposition
of the 400 is the USSR?

Looks like it.

There... There was a few cubes
that exist in the world.

And a few of them
have been examined

in a number different ways.

Gamma-ray spectroscopy tells us

that there's absolutely
no way that the B8 reactor

ever went critical.

It was acknowledged
by Heisenberg and the other

scientists at the Haigerloch
site that approximately 50%

more cubes were necessary
and equivalent

amount of heavy water.

And they thought
that at that point

they would have
a self-sustaining

chain reaction.

[narrator] Tim and researcher
Patrick Park

are using a computer model
to find out

what would have made
the Haigerloch reactor work.

So you can see my recreation
on your screen now.

Patrick, your model
of the B8 reactor

is quite exquisite.

I'm curious
what the new program,

uh, results are.

[narrator] Analyzing
key variables,

the program predicts if the
reactor would go critical,

a self-sustaining reaction

with a K-effective value of one.

Uh, we're gonna ask it
to compute

the K-effective, 0.934.

So that's almost critical.

[narrator]
Heisenberg's Haigerloch

reactor was close to success.

To find out what would have
made it go critical,

the first change is to increase

the number of cubes.

So we'll be putting
in a total of 897 cubes.

[narrator] Two hundred
and thirty-three more

than the original
Haigerloch core in Germany.

The computer recalculates
the model.

0.95, we're approaching
criticality.

- Uh, we're not there yet.
- [Patrick] All right.

Uh, but we're definitely
going in the right direction.

[narrator] They tried
increasing the space

between the cubes.

[Patrick] 12.5 cm.

[Tim] Oh, the K-effective
comes back at 0.924.

[narrator] And the diameter
of the core.

Nothing works.

They have one
final variable to try,

the purity of the heavy water,

the moderator
that slows neutrons down

and increases
the chance of fission.

Patrick estimates
a purity of 98.3%.

The model confirms
your calculation.

Uh, K-effective
is exactly 1.000.

So had there have been
a sufficiently

high purity plus
the full inventory

that was available
to the German scientists,

they could have made
a working nuclear reactor.

[Patrick] Fantastic.

Excellent.

[narrator] If Heisenberg's
reactor experiment

at Haigerloch succeeded,
would it have put

the Nazis closer to a bomb?

[dramatic music playing]

[reporter] The Nazi Swastika
is blotted out

by the Stars and Stripes.

[Dr. Grunden] Germany
surrenders in May of 1945.

The war in the Pacific becomes

exceedingly desperate
for the Japanese.

[canon firing]

The Japanese
have to realize it's over.

They're the only Axis power
remaining to fight The Allies.

The Allies had taken
a two-pronged approach.

General McArthur
leading the army

and the marines toward
the Philippines

and Admiral Nimitz
for the navy driving

toward the heartland of Japan.

So they were taking islands
across the Pacific,

getting closer and closer.

So the writing
is really on the wall

for the Japanese at this point.

They turned to suicide tactics,

Banzai charges, Kamikaze planes.

The United States also realizes

that the war is coming
to a conclusion.

But there is another problem,

the Soviet Union.

[explosions]

[narrator] The Soviets
had defeated

the German offensive
and anticipated

that Japan would fall.

They were aggressively
expanding their territory.

[Dr. Walter] If the Soviets
get a foothold in Japan,

Japan will be divided
like Germany.

And the United States does
not wanna see

a divided Japan.

In fact, it wants to keep
the Soviet Union out

of East Asia
as much as possible.

In the United States,
there was tremendous pressure

from the people at the top

of the Manhattan Project,
to get these bombs built

and have them used.

[narrator]
The war in the Pacific

was continuing to have
a high cost in human lives.

[Dr. Wellerstein]
Groves believed the bomb

might help end the war.

He felt that it would help
against the Soviet Union

in the post-war.

But they still didn't quite
have enough fuel

and they weren't still sure
of the bombs would work.

On July 16th, 1945,
the United States

tested the world's first
atomic bomb in the deserts

of New Mexico.

And they called it Trinity.

[suspense music playing]

[explosion]

[reporter] Army cameras
six miles away...

[Dr. Wellerstein] And
it exploded with a violence

of over 20,000 tn
of TNT that could be seen

for 80 mi and heard for 50 mi.

It turned that desert sand

into a green radioactive glass

and made a column
of smoke that went up

over 30,000 ft in the air.

Everyone who saw the test
was awestruck by it.

We tend to think
of the Manhattan Project

as a project to just build
an atomic bomb

or the atomic bomb,
but it's really building

a system for building
lots of atomic bombs.

But at this point,
they were just trying to get

the minimum amount
of material you needed

to build the very first bombs
to use in the war.

And they still had to not
only make that material

and make it into the right
shapes to be used

in the bombs,
but to also ship it out

to the front and then
assemble it into weapons

that could be dropped out
of airplanes

over a Japanese city.

So there was still a mad push
after Trinity

to get the bombs used in combat.

[narrator] J. Robert Oppenheimer

was the head
of the Los Alamos project.

Orchestrating all
of the facilities

and people needed
to build a weapon.

[Gen. Groves] In other words,

everything was scheduled
on the basis

Oppenheimer's
whole time schedule,

you must be ready to ship
the bomb to have

all the thing connected
with the gun-type bomb

as soon as you get
the material from Oak Ridge.

At long last,

their facilities
were actually producing

the uranium and the plutonium
they needed for these weapons.

They were actually getting
to the point now right

at the finish line
that they could start

using them.

On July 30, as Groves wrote
to General Marshall

with the news
that the production

of bombs was increasing,
they were gonna have

three nuclear bombs
ready in August,

maybe four in September,
and again in October.

But there were still
uncertainties

and they weren't completely sure

that they would actually work
as intended

over real world targets.

[reporter] A feverish
scientific labors to harness

atomic power ahead of the enemy.

[narrator] General Groves
sends his assistant,

Robert Furman, to Los Alamos
to take the bomb

to the Pacific theater.

[Robert] General Groves
sent me out to pick it up.

And I remember that
the authorities at Los Alamos

wanted a receipt
that I had received it.

So I signed a receipt
for an atomic bomb

and I traveled with the bomb
first by air to California,

and then the cruiser
Indianapolis to Tinian.

And Tinian s the island

from which the Enola Gay
the B-29 that flew

the atomic bomb
to Hiroshima was launched.

Dropping the bomb
was a massive gamble.

[Gen. Groves] We didn't know

whether that thing would
go off or not.

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] At 8:15 AM
on August 6th, 1945,

the devastating power
of an atomic bomb

was dropped on the Japanese
city of Hiroshima.

[explosion]

[Dr. Wellerstein] Days later,
Al Zelver,

a Japanese language
translator flew directly

over the ruin city.

[Al] The pilot flew very low

and he circled
in both directions,

and he tipped wings
so each of us get a good

look on both sides of the plane.

And I thought, well,
if you've seen

one bombed out city,
you've seen them all.

But that's not true.

The Blitz in London,
it took about six months

with hundreds of raids
and 40,000 people

were killed.

But not a lot of London
was destroyed.

Forty thousand people
is a lot of people

but it's only half a percent
of the population

of eight million.

In Hiroshima, it's a second,

with one bomb and one plane,

it obliterated two thirds
of the buildings

and it killed
a third of the population.

So that's a
very different order.

[Dr. Wellerstein]
So Hiroshima was terrible,

but would it actually
end the war?

Would it cause
the Japanese High Command

to surrender?

And the Japanese High Command
learned that Hiroshima

had been bombed shortly
after it had been attacked,

but they didn't know
it was an atomic bomb.

[Dr. Grunden] The devastation
was so great.

No one is really certain
what happened.

So, Nishina Yoshio,
their premier physicist

of Japan was dispatched
to Hiroshima.

On the evening
of August 8th 1945,

Nishina cabled back

that it was an atomic bomb
and that Hiroshima

had been totally destroyed.

And it was... It was shocking

because no one thought
that a bomb

was going to be ready
for this war.

[suspenseful music playing]

The Japanese High Command

agreed to meet the next day
to discuss this,

but over that same night,
the Soviet Union

renounced its neutrality,
declared war on Japan

and invaded Manchuria.

Both of these events

had a strong impact
on the Japanese High Command

and seemed to dash any hopes
that there could be

a diplomatic or military
resolution to the war

that would be in Japan's favor.

And while
they were at this meeting,

they got news
of the Nagasaki attack.

[explosion]

On August 10th 1945,

General Groves wrote
to General Marshall

that a third atomic bomb
would be ready to use

on Japan in about a week.

And Marshall conveyed
this information to Truman,

who personally rejected this.

Marshall conveyed this back
to Groves immediately

that it is not to be released
over Japan

without express authority
from the president.

The world had witnessed
the devastating power

of the atomic bomb twice.

[reporter]
The Battleship Missouri

anchored in Tokyo Bay,
the historic moment

that the world
had anxiously awaited

for almost four
bloodstained years

was about to take place.

[people chattering]

Finally, on August 151945,
the United States accepted

Japan's unconditional surrender.

[reporter] Mamoru Shigemitsu,
the foreign minister

of the Japanese
Surrender Government

removed his white gloves
for the historic signing.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] The bomb
ended the war.

But Japan's nuclear ambitions
had collapsed months earlier.

[Dr. Grunden]
An American B-29 bombing

raid leveled Tokyo.

Building 49 of the Riken
was severely damaged.

The two cyclotrons
remained intact,

but the rest
of the building collapsed,

taking with it the rest
of Japan's nuclear project.

[ominous music playing]

The Germans could not have made

an atomic bomb
during World War II.

Could they have built
an operating nuclear reactor?

The answer is certainly, yes.

[Dr. Koeth]
If the Germans did have

sufficient heavy water,
having this additional

400 cubes in their inventory,

had they been at the same
location at the same time,

this could have enabled them
to have built a working

nuclear reactor bringing
their program further along

than they're given
acknowledgement for.

At most, the Japanese

had a few hundred people
on their atomic bomb project

and the Germans might
have had a bit more than that,

maybe a thousand or more.

The United States employed
500,000 people over the course

of World War II to build
its atomic bombs.

And that's why
the Manhattan Project

was the only atomic program
of World War II

to truly succeed.

[dramatic music playing]

[suspenseful music playing]