It was a small metallic cube, 2 inches per side, wrapped in a piece of paper.
It read: Taken from Germany, from the nuclear reactor Hitler tried to build.
Their physicists were toying with atoms even before the war started.
Within four months, German scientists were discussing nuclear reactors.
They called themUranmaschine, or uranium machine, and themselves theUranvereinor Uranium Club.
Work began shortly at the Georg-August University of Gottingen.
The German Army had already heard about nuclear energy and its potential system.
Speer felt it was better that the whole thing should be dropped and the Fuehrer also reacted that way.
Nevertheless, it was Heisenbergs work that laid the theoretical foundations for all subsequent research on that topic.
For some reason, they chose the later.
Reconstructed research reactor in the Atomkeller-Museum, Haigerloch.
Then, they submerged the cubes in a tank of heavy water shielded by graphite to prevent radiation exposure.
Heisenberg himself escaped by bicycle, carrying a few cubes in a backpack.
Members of the US Alsos mission to Germany digging up the uranium cubes from a field.
The global market price for the metal at that time was only about 6 dollars per pound.
The majority of the cubes eventually ended up in the Soviet Union.
The entrance to the laboratory of the B-VIII reactor experiment, underneath a castle in Haigerloch, Germany.
The site is now home to the Atomkeller Museum.
The Smithsonian Institution has one, and so does Harvard University.
The cubes and the science they represent still shape modern life decades later, he added.
Close-up of Haigerlochs replica reactor showing the hanging uranium cubes.
Photo:Felix King/Wikimedia Commons
References:# Geoff Brumfiel,Have You Seen Any Nazi Uranium?
Landsman,Getting even with Heisenberg,https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/148349619.pdf
