The other thing to bear in mind is that there is a difference between desire and action. The knowledgeable German scientists may not have thought they could build a bomb, and indeed the transatlantic jet bombers weren't getting beyond the paper stage, but I'm sure Hitler in his deranged scheming still expected them to deliver his "wonder weapons". Good thing for everybody that his Reich didn't have the necessary resources...

Tom

I understand that the principal German scientists were 'dragging their feet' when it came to the A-bomb, however the H-bomb had been theorized by Germany first. They did have the delivery system, but not the package.

Actually the whole concept of nuclear fission as Einstein theorised was conclusively proven in German laboratories but the discoverer was clever, Jewish and female which is that complete opposite of the Nazi ideal, so she was "run out of town". National Socialism does not encourage intelligent free though, in fact it condemns it.

Don't forget tho' that while they theorised on the H bomb they had yet to work out that to make an H bomb go boom you first need a A bomb. They could make all the Deuterium they liked but they had no way to set it off, you need a fission bomb first.

As for delivery system, dropping a nuke on Britain or the USSR wouldn't end the war, dropping one on the US might. the Germans had nothing that could attack the US, even if the Allies didn't have air supremacy.

But what ever the target they could carry it in anything. "Fatman" and "Little Boy" weighed over 4000kg, a V2 could only carry a 1000 odd kg warhead. The HE117 is the only thing that MIGHT have been able to carry an A Bomb but it was hardly a successful combat aircraft, not even in the same universe as the B29.

Consider too that the Manhattan project involved 1000's of people and 10's of thousands of acres of land upon which where built massive Nuclear reactors to produce Plutonium. All of which was in distant, unassailable USA. Even a hint of a Nuclear plant being built in Germany would have been bombed instantly by the Allies.

They had neither the knowledge, resources, industrial capacity or the delivery system to even consider a war winning Atomic Bomb.