Nazis Were Developing The Bomb...

It appears what I learned in college history on the Nazi efforts to build the atomic bomb was incorrect. I remember the lecture wherein the professor told the class that Hitler didn't want to pursue it because it was based on "Jewish physics." It appears they went ahead anyway:
http://www.jpost.com/International/Austrian-filmmaker-uncovers-apparent-secret-Nazi-nuclear-complex-386006

A good book on this subject is "Time Bomb: Fermi, Heisenberg, and the Race for the Atomic Bomb" (http://www.amazon.com/Time-Bomb-Fermi-Heisenberg-Atomic/dp/0525244093). I have read it three times over the years, including just last month. Heisenberg was working towards a self-sustaining pile, but hit some roadblocks along the way, including Nazi politics and disdain for "Jewish physics", early physical and financial dispersal of their efforts, a fire in a test pile, a fellow scientist's mistaken calculation about the efficacy of using graphite as a moderator (which is why Heisenberg stuck with heavy water), etc. An Alsos team found his last pile in in a town in the French army's zone of operations (but before the French arrived) and determined that it was too small to be self-sustaining. However, I don't recall anything in the book about St. Georgen an der Gusen.

Some have speculated that Heisenberg deliberately slowed or even sabotaged Germany's atomic bomb program because of pressure from other physicists before the war to leave Nazi Germany so that the Nazis could not use his genius for the war. However, Heisenberg was also a strong nationalist and his ego was big enough to see that creating a self-sustaining reactor pile and a bomb would add to his fame. I would like to think that Heisenberg had the humanity to keep the Nazis from getting the bomb, but that may just be wishful thinking.

I could be wrong of course, but think Hitler and advisors decided it was too much of a technical stretch to blow limited funds on a project that they felt could not succeed in time affect the War. Our scientific advisors also had their misgivings, but the MASSIVE effort was commissioned and the rest is history. My wife is Japanese and was a toddler (on Okinawa!) when Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped. Interestingly, she (and history) agree that the shock and awe ultimately saved hundreds of thousands...more likely millions of lives on both sides. The Japanese otherwise would have continued fighting indefinitely. War ain't pretty.