The Secret World War II Mission
During World War II the Allies' great fear was that the Germans would produce and detonate an atomic bomb. In 1938, German scientists discovered nuclear fission. They also organized a special scientific unit, led by quantum physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg, and worked hard on nuclear research. As a result, at the outset of the war, scientists in other countries were far behind them with developing nuclear weapon.
To learn the truth about the German atomic research, in 1943, the Americans organized a special-ops unit. Its mission, named the Alsos Mission, was to discover Nazi nuclear secrets and capture their top scientists. The unit consisted of a small force of scientists and troops and was headed by Colonel Boris T. Pash. A year earlier that experienced officer had run security for the Manhattan Project, America’s own nuclear weapons programme.
First, Colonel Pash and his team followed the war front in Italy. Once they reached Rome in 1944, they talked to Italian scientists and examined different documents. These efforts led the Americans to conclude that probably Germany was not able to develop nuclear weapon. But Pash needed more concrete proof of that than just unconfirmed information, so he continued the mission.
On March 30, 1945, Colonel Pash’s team reached the countryside around Heidelberg. There, in a cave, they accidentally found a complete Nazi nuclear laboratory with a test reactor. The Americans dismantled it and destroyed the site. To their disappointment they found no German scientists there.
Later on April 24, Pash’s team made another major find: a textile mill that had been converted into another secret laboratory for German nuclear experiments. There the Americans surrounded and jailed 25 German scientists. During their interrogations, they learned that the German research files had not been destroyed, but were sunk in the nearby pond. The Americans managed to recover them and they also found the Nazi uranium pile buried in a nearby field. They even located Heisenberg’s office, which was empty. A week earlier, the scientist had escaped and hid in the Bavarian Alps, almost 200 miles away.
The Alsos Mission almost ended, but Pash wanted Heisenberg, so his team headed into the Bavarian mountains. When they came to the town of Urfeld near the lake of Walchen, they found 700 SS troops who quickly surrendered. But Pash was not interested in them – he was there for Heisenberg. He talked to local people and one of them mentioned a little house high in the mountains. Immediately Pash sent his troops who finally found the scientist and his family hiding there.
All the arrested German scientists were transported to England. During the interrogations all of them said that they were anti-Nazi and were actually forced to take part in nuclear research. Yet British intelligence bugged the prison and found out something opposite. Only one of them, Otto Hahn, the discoverer of nuclear fission, was anti-Nazi and avoided working on nuclear weapons. The scientists’ overheard conversations also gave Americans the long-awaited proof. It became clear that Nazi Germany had not been able to develop a working atomic bomb.