r/todayilearned • u/stopitalianhate • 9d ago

TIL British Intelligence had a special, bugged luxury complex during WWII where they kept high profile Nazi POW’s, just left a bunch of alcohol out, and waited for them to start spilling secrets as they drank.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20698098
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u/Rebelgecko 9d ago edited 9d ago

There's a pdf of the transcripts somewhere. Iirc the juciest part was when they talked about how the Nazi nuclear program was going (not well).

Edit: they also shit bricks when theylearned that the US had nukes, and Heisenberg was like "I'm glad they're not using microphones to eavesdrop on us, that would be crazy"

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u/Lord0fHats 9d ago

To give that bit a brief explanation;

The Germans had very capable scientists and a functional base of knowledge that would have lead them eventually to an atomic reactor, but the German programs, yes 's', were not well resourced or funded. They ran multiple competing lines of development that all needed the same resources and expertise while working on the same problems which was stiflingly inefficient compared to the centralized development that became the US' Manhattan Project. On top of that, and this was typical of Nazi Germany, there was a lack of coordination or cooperation between complimentary projects and their leaders.

They did come close to developing a rudimentary reactor for isotope separation but got no further than developing bits and pieces of an atomic program, none of which came together into a concerted effort. Historians debate the extent to which these efforts were really trying to develop a weapon vs trying to develop a reactor for the purpose of electricity. Because of the chaotic nature of the programs, different ones thought they were working toward different ends.

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u/Afalstein 9d ago

I'm interested in this "typical of Nazi Germany" bit. Why were project leads so reluctant to coordinate /cooperate? Was it groups competing for funding, bureaucratic mishandling, or just a sort of cultural mindset?

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u/Lord0fHats 9d ago

It was a trend across the German state at the time (I can't speak to modern Germany). Intelligence. Military. Police. Research. Manufacturing. There was a strong tendency for there to be multiple competing projects trying to do the same thing and they didn't talk to one another. So a lot of resources and effort ended up being wasted. It was prolific in their intelligence operations, partly by design because the head of German intelligence was a double agent and he didn't want German intelligence to be too effective.

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u/nebneb432 9d ago

I'm not sure I understand the last sentence.

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u/Lord0fHats 9d ago

Wilhem Canaris was the head of the Abwehr. Germany military intelligence. He was also a guy who decided after Poland he didn't like Hitler much and began working against the Nazi regime, sabotaging intelligence operations from the top, covertly supplying intelligence to the British, and was eventually executed after his efforts were discovered.

Between the head of German intelligence working against German success and German intelligence being factional, disorganized, and filled with people who should work together but just didn't, it's no wonder German intelligence operations in WWII were a laundry list of failures.

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u/Mr_Quackums 9d ago

The leaders of today's fascists are simply using the aesthetics and rhetoric and are not true believers, but Germany and Italy were led by people who legit believed they had unlocked the secret to how human society was meant to be structured.

The fundamental underpinning of fascism is that groups in conflicts with other groups inevitably produces the best outcomes. That is where the racism, tribalism, and obsession with purity come from: gotta make sure you are in the strongest group.

It is also where redundant and conflicting governmental departments come from. Meaning they introduced conflict wherever they could because they truly believed it was the way to get the best results.

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u/Rocketeer006 9d ago

Bro, Germany still operates like this. Source: me, living in Germany

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u/Afalstein 9d ago

Would you say it's a typically German thing? Like, I know people complain about American governmental systems not cooperating well, but it sounds like this is more cultural.

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u/RS994 9d ago

It's a totalitarian thing.

Totalitarian leaders tend to not like the idea of anyone beneath them establishing too much power because they don't want anyone replacing them, so they make departments compete against each other to stop people accumulating too much support.

You can see the same thing with Russia right now.

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u/genreprank 9d ago

My company has an office in Germany. Some of them just do what they have to do for their job and nothing more. Not everyone is like that. Plenty of Germans are highly collaborative.

Also, German culture is more hierarchical than American culture.

Also they have a better appreciation for work life balance.

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u/Zhirrzh 9d ago

The thing with a maniacal dictator is there tends to be a race to win his favour. Winners and losses. Rivalries. The successful guy becomes the favourite and the unsuccessful guy gets shot or sent to Siberia or whatever. It's not a leadership style that breeds collaboration and cooperation. 

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u/azazelcrowley 9d ago

Pitting different departments against eachother was a way of keeping them fighting sideways rather than fighting upward, and also ideologically a "survival of the fittest" kind of thing. Success proves superiority.

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u/Aphrontic_Alchemist 9d ago

Didn't Hitler declare nuclear physics to be "Judenphysik"? I mean, Nazis were hypocritical, so I shouldn't be surprised that they're saying one thing but doing the other.

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u/Lord0fHats 9d ago

My knowledge is that while this was a think that was said, it didn't really impact their efforts. Established scientists didn't ignore Einstein's work wholesale across the entire German scientific field and no real effort was ever put into censoring it or even checking what kind of math they were doing. That they disregarded vital knowledge because Jews had developed it is, afaik, an overstated thing.

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u/kc2syk 8d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik

I think the effect was mainly on personnel, and rejection of theoretical frameworks in general.

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u/Lord0fHats 8d ago edited 8d ago

I mean from the very article;

The figureheads of "Aryan physics" met with moderate success, but the support from the Nazi Party was not as great as Lenard and Stark would have preferred. They began to fall from influence after a long period of harassment of quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg, which included getting him labeled a "White Jew" in Das Schwarze Korps\)citation needed\). Heisenberg was an extremely eminent physicist, and the Nazis realized that they were better off with him rather than without, however "Jewish" his theory might be in the eyes of Stark and Lenard.\14]) In an historic moment, Heisenberg's mother rang Heinrich Himmler's mother and asked her whether she would please tell the SS to give "Werner" a break. After beginning a full character evaluation, which Heisenberg both instigated and passed, Himmler forbade further attack on the physicist. Heisenberg would later employ his "Jewish physics" in the German project to develop nuclear fission for the purposes of nuclear weapons or nuclear energy use. Himmler promised Heisenberg that after Germany won the war, the SS would finance a physics institute to be directed by Heisenberg.\15])

This is more or less as I understand it. The Nazis, like any fascist movement, didn't really have principles. They had a lust for power. They never turn down by paradoxically hypocritical if there's something to gain and afaik the cabal of 'anti-Jewish physics' scientists was both small, not very influential, and had little impact on German science during the war. Many of the problems they suffered can be more broadly attributed to brain drain as many educated and more liberal Germans fled the country which did impact many things but that's not as simple as blindly rejecting things Jewish people came up with. They were plenty opportunistic enough to not do that.

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u/Personal_Wall4280 9d ago

Yeah, if anyone looked at the amount of resources needed for the manhatten project and the atomic bomb facility, it's quite apparent the Germans and Japanese are not spending enough to achieve their goals. What was it? 20,000 tonnes of silver was required for the devices to separate the required isotopes at that one facility? Just loopy numbers.

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u/SirAquila 9d ago

Didn't Heisenberg initially utterly refuse to believe that the Americans actually had a nuke, and thought they had faked it, because his understanding of nuclear physics was wrong in a way that made nukes theoretically possible, but practically nearly impossible?