To what extent was USA alone in developing weapons of mass destruction in the WW2 period?

The World War II period brought new technologies and weapons of mass destruction that created tensions between countries and competition for a nuclear arms race well into the 20th century. While many countries, notably Germany, the Soviet Union, and USA attempted to develop technology leading to weapons of mass destruction in the World War II period, the US was the only country that successfully built an atomic bomb before the end of the war. There was significant research conducted by scientists in a number of countries leading up to and throughout the war, but the Americans success at creating nuclear bombs, as well as the German and Soviet failures, were due to funding, organization, and counter-intelligence.
In the period leading up to and including World War II, there were a number of nations that were working on cutting edge research in nuclear physics in an attempt to develop weapons of mass destruction. In 1934, the Admiralty, a patent organization of the British Royal Navy, granted the first patent on the idea of chain reaction based on neutron bombardment to Leo Szilard, an Austro-Hungarian physicist who worked in the US (Sublette). Later that same year, French physicists Irene and Frederic Joilot-Curie and Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, also working in the US, independently confirmed that radioactivity could be produced in elements when they are bombarded by neutrons and alpha particles (Sublette). In 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, two German physicists, found the same results, and in 1939, Austrian/ British physicist Otto Robert Frisch confirmed these findings. A few short weeks later, on January 25, 1939, a team of American and European scientists, including Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr, began experimenting with nuclear fission at Columbia University (Sublette). Within a few months of the American experiments, the Germans assembled their own small team of scientists, Georg Joos, Wilhelm Hanle, and Reinhold Mannkopff, to begin research into the applicability of nuclear fusion technology to create a bomb for military purposes (Sublette). These scientists, who formed the Uranverein (Uranium Club), began work at Georg-August University of Gottingen in May 1939 (Sublette). The Soviets also had scientists, such as Yakov Frenkel, Georgii Flerov, and Lev Rusinov, who were conducting theoretical research on fission at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, but they were not organized into research teams to explore the applicability of this theory (Sublette). While the scientists working on fission/ fusion research during this period consisted of a mix of Americans and Europeans, the US had a team composed of scientists of various nationalities, including Canadian, British, French, Italian, Austro-Hungarian, and even German (who fled before the war began), the Germans had only a small group of their own people. The Soviets were not as active in research in this period.
By the time World War II began, the American team of international scientists was becoming organized into a powerful research group that eventually became known as the “Manhattan Project”. Robert Oppeneheimer, a physicist from UC Berkeley, was appointed to lead the research development of an atomic bomb. The research and production of these weapons were conducted at dozens of sites across the US, Canada and the UK, and two kinds of bombs were developed: uranium and plutonium, later named Little Boy and Fat Man. These bombs were dropped in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 to end World War II (Richard). The Americans were alone in their success of developing the first nuclear bombs, which can be attributed to a number of factors. First, the Manhattan project was a centralized research initiative conducted by an abundance of scientists from many countries who were devoted to the work. Secondly, the project was allocated large sums of money, along with unlimited manpower and resources, and unconditional government support. While the project began in 1939 with limited resources, by the time it was in full production in the early 1940s, it employed over 130,000 people and cost over $2 billion USD (approximately $25.8 billion USD today) (Richard). Finally, the US ran a parallel military operation called the “Alsos Mission”, in which American military personnel were charged with collecting intelligence relating to enemy nuclear activity. This meant that the Americans had inside information on the German nuclear research, seized their records on the front lines, and even brought German scientists who worked for the Nazis back to the US to work on the Manhattan Project after they were captured (Vincent). On the other hand, the German and Soviet nuclear bomb development projects were not successful for a number of related reasons. In Germany, though there were many scientists who were pursuing fission/ fusion research, many of them were working as academics in the United States before the war, or fled when war was imminent. Furthermore, many scientists were apprehended by the Allied forces and brought back to the US to work for the other side. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to the success of the German project came in January 1942, when it was decided that nuclear fission technology was not a feasible option to the end the war, and the Reich Research Council assumed responsibility of the project from the Heereswaffenamt (German Army Weapons Agency) (Mark). The project was then divided into 9 agencies and fragmented in terms of manpower and resources (Mark). The Soviets did not conduct their own intensive research on nuclear weapons development during this period, relying instead on spying carried out by the GRU (Soviet Military intelligence) who determined that the Americans were in fact working on a bomb. These spies infiltrated the Manhattan Project, and learned the extent of the US progress. While Stalin was aware of the Americans’ work, he was occupied with the military campaigns on the Eastern Front in the war, and unable to allocate resources to developing the nuclear capability to build a bomb. It was not until after the Americans dropped Little Boy and Fat Man in August 1945 that the Soviets aggressively expanded their nuclear program. They largely relied on research gathered by spying on the Americans (who knew to some extent that the Soviets had this information because of their own Alsos Mission), as well as information that the Soviet forces “requisitioned” of German research and scientists at the end of the war (Kojevnikov). The Americans were not alone in their pursuit of technology to create weapons of mass destruction, but they were alone in their success. While the Germans and the Soviets had scientists working on their own research in nuclear fission and fusion, the lack of resources and organization limited their chances of success. The Americans, on the other hand, were well-organized, well-funded, and had a large pool of talent from which to draw, as well as solid intelligence and counter-intelligence into their enemy’s progress. This information and collaboration with other nations allowed them to successfully complete and use two atomic bombs to end the war. These events, however, were not limited to the World War II period, as the Soviets began a quick expansion of their nuclear program, and developed their own weapons of mass destruction that would initiate a nuclear arms race between the US and USSR for decades to come. This arms race provided the foundation for the Cold War, which dominated global power and relations until close to the end of the 20th century.

Works Cited

Sublette, Carey. "The Nuclear Weapon Archive." - A Guide to Nuclear Weapons. 3 Jan. 2005. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. .

Kozhevnikov, A. B. Stalin 's Great Science: The times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists. London: Imperial College, 2004. Print.

Jones, Vincent C. Manhattan, the Army and the Atomic Bomb. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1985. Print.

Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Print.

Walker, Mark. German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power: 1939-1949. Cambridge U.a.: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1989. Print.

Cited: Sublette, Carey. "The Nuclear Weapon Archive." - A Guide to Nuclear Weapons. 3 Jan. 2005. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. . Kozhevnikov, A. B. Stalin 's Great Science: The times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists. London: Imperial College, 2004. Print. Jones, Vincent C. Manhattan, the Army and the Atomic Bomb. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1985. Print. Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Print. Walker, Mark. German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power: 1939-1949. Cambridge U.a.: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1989. Print.