Nazi Atomic weapons in 1943

originally posted by: sy.gunson
reply to post by mad scientist

 

No it is not completely backward at all...your understanding is.

You are trying to compare yourr flawed understanding of postwar H-bomb methodology with the Schumann Trinks concept. Another name for the Schumann Trinks weapon is Plasma Pinch ignition which is a concept the Manhattan Project was also aware of in 1942.

Fusion is created by causing a deuteron beam (X-rays) external to the fissile target (Uranium).

To create a Deuteron beam (X-rays) you have to collide a stream of molten Lithium-6 with Deuterium. The collision strips electrons from the Lithium and creates a powerful electrical charge called a Plasma. This Plasma then excites the discharge of neutrons from the Deuterium through collision of Protons with other Protons.

The condition requires Lithium above temperatures of 800 degrees Celsius to collide with Deuterium at pressures of at least 100,000 atmospheres.

The Nazis figured in a series of experiments from 1941 by Dr Otto Haxel and then from 1942-43 by Schumann & Trinks how to focus a supersonic jet of molten Lithium onto a Uranium 233 target, coated with Lithium Deuteride.

They did this with two opposed Hollow Charge (shaped charge) explosives with conical Lithium-6 liners. When detonated the molten lithium was heated in an instant to 24,000 degrees C and the Uranium target was compressed by 100,000 atmospheres. The Lithium atoms collided with Deuterium atoms at 11 kilometres per second causing a flash of X-rays. These excited the emission of neutrons from the Deuterium. The highly localised neutron flux exceeded the neutron flux required in a critical mass of uranium to caused detonation.

Furthermore returning to your original point modern H-bombs begin as you say with small atomic weapons, but just how do you think they trigger those small A-bombs?

They are not 64 kilograms of Uranium (critical mass) or 4.5kg-9kg of Plutonium either being carted around in Trident missiles. They are miniature pellets of Plutonium coated with Scandium-Trittide ignited in a Plasma pinch by an X-ray laser to cause exactly the same kind of fusion ignited fissile weapon as developed by the Nazis in 1943...only difference is instead of hollow charge explosives, now they just fire X-rays from a charged klystron tube at the target (ie X-ray machine)

Duh - modern nuclear weapons are today ignited by the same process only the method has altered due to technological improvement.

There is in fact mention of "a high voltage discharge tube" in an eyes only Soviet GRU intelligence report from just after the March, 1945 German nuclear weapon tests near Ohrdurf, in Thuringia. This is very likely the same basic idea as the "charged klystron tube" mentioned here by Simon, and was described in a letter written by Fritz Houtermanns during the war years. Specfically:

Fritz Houtermans. Letter to Werner Czulius. 28 November 1944. AMPG, I. Abt. Rep.
34, Nr. 53, Bl. 1–2 [Nagel 2012a, pp. 639–640].

"The best is undoubtedly to measure as far as possible and to extrapolate it with 0.105 or 0.106. Bakker’s value I think is too low. I also talked with Bothe about the question of how far the decay of Acr2 can be approximated by an exponential function at great distances, and he told me that for a complex spectrum he had calculated a value of B, which is probably due to the free path of the fastest neutrons, but only very slowly, i. e. at very great distances. It is just as always with several exponential functions, e.g. in the radioactive decay of two bodies with short and long half lives, he just meant, it was slower. I do not know which value you should take for the source of fluoride, because I have not worked with such a source. If you cannot measure it yourself, I have chosen one from the Tuve-Hafsad values of artificial sources
which extrapolating corresponds to a primary neutron spectrum with a similar upper limit (I believe D+D, forward, approximately). For Li + D, we have found 1/B = 10.8 cm, also forward, which is quite the same as for Ra+Be, which shows that the energy dependence does not matter very much. Thus, CaF2 may also be expected to have a suitable interpolated value."

Dr. Todd H. Rider, in his book Forgotten Creators comments:

This document appears to demonstrate that scientists in Germany had been routinely using deuterium + deuterium and lithium + deuterium fusion reactions (presumably in high-voltage tubes) as neutron sources for experiments during the war; they are casually mentioned alongside a much more conventional radium+beryllium neutron source. For producing neutrons, the lithium reaction would have been lithium-7 + deuterium → neutron + 2 helium-4 (alpha) particles.
A high-voltage tube containing such fusion fuel would make a good neutron initiator in a fission bomb and is apparently described in Ilyichev’s March 1945 intelligence report on a German fission implosion bomb design; see pp. 3284 and 3625. From unclassified references on nuclear weapons designs, lithium deuteride makes excellent fusion fuel in H bombs or can be used at the center of a fission bomb to provide a fusion neutron boost to greatly increase the fission efficiency and explosive yield.

hellobruce wrote: So why dont you list those 47 patents?

Here is one of them. You will have to visit another site to view it because try as I might, I haven't yet figured out how to get images from my computer to upload to this site. Please note that there are many more diagrams and documents in Dr. Todd Rider's book, Forgotten Creators which describe wartime and early post-WWII nuclear weapons patents filed by Dr. Erich Schumann and his shaped charge explosives expert, Walter Trinks. Both were key figures in the German Army Weapons Bureau, the heereswaffenamt.

www.quora.com...

originally posted by: Aleister
I haven't read the whole thread. Does anyone know if Otto Hahn was involved in this. Hahn was credited with much of the research into nuclear fission, and was in Germany during the war. Thanks.

The answer to your question is, Yes. Please see the mention of Hahn in the following discussion thread in connection with an attempt at creating fissile material for WWII German nuclear weapons using electronuclear breeding:

history.stackexchange.com...

originally posted by: HattoriHanzou
reply to post by hellobruce

 

How would you even know what ignorance is? Clearly you are averse to any investigation of the historical record.

The fact is that, since the early 1950s there have been reports of Japanese and German nuclear bomb tests. Eyewitnesses have come forward, the materials and scientists were requisitioned, etc. Whether or not the bombs were actually tested is of course up in the air, but it is not beyond plausibility.

Revision of history is necessary if ou want to treat the subject more like a science and less like a loose packet of fairy tales. Of course, admitting to yourself that you swallowed the pack of lies disguised as history involves swallowing your pride, first. Many, seemingly including you, don't have the balls to do this, but let me ask again - why are you here? You are prolific and your entire overarching theme seems to be "trust the man and go back to sleep." A very strange message for this place. As I suggested, maybe you are lost and ou think this is MSNBC or Huffington Post or Jezebel? HBGary in the house.

This is absolutely 100% spot on.

I, too, have the distinct impression that hellobruce's m.o. on this site is to advocate entirely for the conventional history of pretty much any topic, while simultaneously completely denigrating not only any reasonable question one might ask concerning the conventional narrative but also any competing hypotheses or contrarian histories.

originally posted by: hellobruce


Very true, like some people claiming Germany and Japan had the capability to develop a nuclear bomb..... very silly indeed!

Nope. Not silly at all.

www.newscientist.com...

news.bbc.co.uk...

news.yahoo.com...

encyclopediaofarkansas.net...

www.quora.com...

physicsworld.com...

www.theguardian.com...

riderinstitute.org...

originally posted by: deessell
I think it's definitely possible that the US claimed much of the Nazi' research at the end of the war, just as it is believed that General MacArthur claimed all the medical research that the Japanese has conducted on the Chinese in Unit 731. This was in exchange for impunity from war crimes.

This is absolutely correct. Shiro Ishii, the head of Japan's hideous bioweapons superlab Unit 731, did in fact trade his knowledge of biological warfare in exchange for his life. Both the US and UK wanted what Ishii had. Kurt Blome, Ishii's counterpart in the heereswaffenamt's germ warfare establishment, also escaped with his life though he was never able to emigrate to the US.

en.wikipedia.org...

By far the most prominent known figure to cut a deal with the Allies was SS General-Engineer Hans Kammler. The very good recent book, The Hidden Nazi, America's Deal With the Devil is very well documented and goes into considerable detail. Kammler personally supervised the transfer of the cream of Nazi Germany's guided missile scientists, including Werner von Braun, into US hands near the end of the war. He then proceeded to trade still more German secret weapons research and development for his life. He was not killed at war's end despite at least four versions of his "death", nor did he commit suicide.

originally posted by: buddhasystem


Fissile materials are of course necessary for being able to build a nuke. However, they are completely useless unless you create a vast infrastructure to convert them into weapon-grade fuel. As you know, there are two primary ways to go about that:

a) Uranium enrichment to separate U-235
b) Making plutonium-239

Either of this requires vast infrastructure and build-up, and it's pretty impossible that any of the facilities needed would have just disappeared after WWII. The former usually requires tremendous bank of centrifuges, the latter a decent nuclear reactor and sophisticated refinement facilities.

Ironically, Germans used a lot of uranium for armor-piercing shells in WWII.

Whether they managed to build one will probably never be known

It may never be known whether your liver is receiving signals from a distant neutron star, on a subspace frequency, and dictates to you what to write on ATS. However, my opinion is that it's pretty freaking impossible.

You claim to be a nuclear physicist and yet you make a statement like this:

Fissile materials are of course necessary for being able to build a nuke. However, they are completely useless unless you create a vast infrastructure to convert them into weapon-grade fuel. As you know, there are two primary ways to go about that:

a) Uranium enrichment to separate U-235
b) Making plutonium-239

I guess you never heard of uranium-233? How about deuterium? Lithium-6? Lithium-6 deuteride? Tritium? How about Neptunium or Californium (yes I know, a Californium bomb is possible in theory but practically impossible in terms of cost).

What I see from you is a typical postwar American hard sciences - engineer type who is fairly well educated in terms of the US approach to things, and completely unwilling to ask the simple question of whether there might be other ways to do them. You call that "critical thinking"?

originally posted by: AngryCymraeg
reply to post by HattoriHanzou

 

Progress that left no footprint at all??? No paper chain at all, no evidence, no eyewitness and no physical proof. This is getting ridiculous. The V-weapons used up a fraction of the resources that a fully-funded and successful Nazi nuclear programme would have used. The former was detected via Enigma decrypts and other intelligence years before the first V-1 or V-2 was launched. No sign at all of the latter. I wonder why?

They left plenty of papers, particularly the Germans. You just have to be willing to read them, which you plainly are not.

As the digitization of national archives is an ongoing project, many remain available only in paper form in libraries. Now, did you contact the appropriate archivists? How can we be sure you did?

I'd be interested in hearing about your attempt to locate this record. What telephone numbers did you call? Did you use e-mail, and if so, can you provide copies and headers?

No?


I found it quite easily when I visited the US National Archives (NARA) in Suitland, MD, in 2012. I held it in my own hands and took photographs for good measure. Most of the photos that now appear in various places on the worldwide web are in fact duplicates of my originals. You can see them here, for example: historum.com... 457.183962/

a reply to: williamjpellas

So you want to use a more compliicated procedure as alternatives? Yeah that makes sense Germany was incapable of developing an atomic bomb during World War II. They did not have the people. They did not have the cooperation among the people they did have. They did not have the money. They did not have the laboratory or factory space.

They were also heading down the wrong track trying to use heavy water as a regulator. Beyond the tangible reasons that the German effort never succeeded, the personalities of the German scientists inhibited their efforts. They did not work together its scientist had their projects and would not share their work with others. If you believe Heisenberg german physists were directly working against creating a bomb. And there is some evidence to support this. As documents were found with incorrect math. And other documents showed plans that any pLike the one they showed of the german nuclear bomb it would not have created an atomic blast. Creating the pressures involved is not an easy task you just cant slam radioactive material together and get a blast.

With the bombing of the heavy water facility in Norway that effectively ended any possibility of Germany producing a bomb.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: williamjpellas

So you want to use a more compliicated procedure as alternatives? Yeah that makes sense Germany was incapable of developing an atomic bomb during World War II. They did not have the people. They did not have the cooperation among the people they did have. They did not have the money. They did not have the laboratory or factory space.

They were also heading down the wrong track trying to use heavy water as a regulator. Beyond the tangible reasons that the German effort never succeeded, the personalities of the German scientists inhibited their efforts. They did not work together its scientist had their projects and would not share their work with others. If you believe Heisenberg german physists were directly working against creating a bomb. And there is some evidence to support this. As documents were found with incorrect math. And other documents showed plans that any pLike the one they showed of the german nuclear bomb it would not have created an atomic blast. Creating the pressures involved is not an easy task you just cant slam radioactive material together and get a blast.

With the bombing of the heavy water facility in Norway that effectively ended any possibility of Germany producing a bomb.

I do not believe Heisenberg, for a whole host of reasons.

The German bomb designs would certainly have "created a nuclear blast", and in fact they did so, several times, in prototype form.

WWII Germany had a number of sources of heavy water besides the Norsk Hydro plant in Norway. There were several locations in Germany along with at least one additional site in Norway.

originally posted by: hellobruce


No, there is not - just claims that there is "evidence" but when that "evidence" is examined it turns out is is just silly claims not based on any fact. - Just look at some reviews of that "evidence"

A close examination by myself and other historians of the Manhattan Project have found many of the claims in Mr. Hydrick's book to be without foundation. The main argument that captured German uranium taken from U-Boat 134 in May of 1945 ended up in the Little Boy bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima never happened. The best evidence to prove the case comes from General Leslie R. Groves' Appointment Book of August 13, 1945 (a week after Hiroshima) where in a telephone call a Navy admiral asks if the material from the German submarine was of any use to the program. General Groves "advised it wasn't as yet but it will be utilized." This would seem to undermine the major claim of the book.

and

The linchpin of Hydrick's convoluted theories about the bombs involves his claim that the infra-red detonators that came from the U-234 German submarine were used in the implosion device. He describes the "detonator chimneys" that Russ mentioned in his book along with the use of "hypodermics" to vent radiation from the plutonium core and that somehow these were used to "allow the free flow of light waves throughout the device." He continues, "...the new system allowed waves-including infrared waves-to race at the speed of light through the "detonator chimneys" and "hypodermics" to the other infrared fuses to "simultaneously" ignite them all" and these all "...were used to compress the plutonium core at the speed of light and thus creating a very powerful explosion." This is absolute nonsense and shows a complete lack of even the most basic knowledge of how these weapons functioned, or for that matter, even a rudimentary knowledge of physics itself!
The "detonator chimneys" as Russ described them, were actually nothing other than small lengths of brass tubing that were glued to the outer surface of each explosive lens in the implosion device. Each of the 32 Model 1773 Exploding Bridge Wire (EBW) detonators was then inserted into a chimney since the sole purpose of these were simply to properly align each EBW in the exact center of the outer surface of each lens. The "hypodermics" mentioned by Hydrick had a completely different, and equally benign, purpose. The stainless steel hypodermic tube was carefully inserted through a hole in the outer Dural shell that housed the implosion components and then pushed down far enough in between the lenses and the inner explosive charges so that it touched the so-called "nuclear pit" at the very center of the implosion device. A 0.040 inch diameter manganese wire was then inserted into this hypodermic tube and withdrawn every six hours to check to see if it had acquired any induced radioactivity. If it had acquired any, this meant that the delicate and tiny Polonium-Beryllium initiator ("Urchin") inside the center of the plutonium core had somehow ruptured due to rough handling during the assembly process and was emitting neutrons which would cause the plutonium to pre-detonate resulting in a fizzle, or failure of the implosion process.

www.amazon.com...=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R390K0OZ3WLJS2

The quote given here is from John Coster-Mullen's review of Carter Hydrick's book, Critical Mass. Coster-Mullen is a well-regarded expert in the history of the Manhattan Project and so his considered opinion here is not to be dismissed lightly. That said, there does appear to have been some kind of fusing on board the German submarine U-234 which was, or could have been, applicable in building atomic / nuclear implosion bombs. Further, Heinz Schlicke, a German engineer-scientist with a special competency in dielectromagnetic engineering, was on board the u-boat and was quickly separated from the rest of the prisoners and interrogated. It is my understanding at this time that the "EBW" (explosive bridge wiring) detonators which Coster-Mullen states were the product of US engineering, were probably not capable of the incredibly precise timing necessary to successfully cause a uniform implosion capable of provoking a prompt supercritical reaction (the detonation of an atomic bomb). The German fusing said to have been part of the cargo of the submarine was capable of this, and was said by Himmler's adjutant, Werner Grothmann, to have been used in late war testing of at least two German nuclear weapon prototypes. Grothmann stated that it was developed under the direction of Dr. Kurt Diebner in the black project run by the German Army Weapons Bureau with input from the SS. If anyone with a sufficient technical background can weigh in on this crucial point, I am all ears.

a reply to: mbkennel

It's doubtful Churchill even knew of the concept of a nuclear weapon until 1945.

This is completely false. Churchill was well aware of developments in atomic energy from its earliest days, and was kept up to speed on much of the cutting edge research by his friend, Frederick Lindemann, a professor of physics at Oxford.

www.ias.edu...

originally posted by: HattoriHanzou
reply to post by sy.gunson

 

I haven't heard about activities at Konan, I was under the impression that the Japanese nuclear program was centered around the Riken facilities.

Could you please provide some further information about Konan so that I could read more about it?

The best resources available in the public realm about the WWII Japanese nuclear weapons program that I know of are the following:

1) Former CIA and DIA researcher Dwight Rider's research papers. These are extremely detailed and very professionally done. You can find them at the bottom of the page at the following link: www.mansell.com...

2) The definitive Third Edition of Robert K. Wilcox's book, Japan's Secret War. www.robertkwilcox.com...

Wilcox cites more than 400 original primary source period documents in the text, and there is a massive index to the book which is available on his website. You can find the index here: www.robertkwilcox.com...

3) Dr. Stephen Bryen's adroit summary, which also correctly includes information about Axis interest in, and pursuit of, the production of U-233 from thorium for use in weapons: asiatimes.com...

4) The following Quora post, which contains information from both Rider and Wilcox, along with my own research: www.quora.com...

originally posted by: AngryCymraeg
I'm sorry, but if you think that the nation that committed mass-murder on an industrial scale was afraid of world opinion you have another think coming.If Germany had had the bomb Hitler would have used it, especially at the end of the war when Hitler no longer gave a damn about anything at all.
Anyway, this is besides the point. There is still no evidence, at all - other than in conspiracy theories and books based on speculation and hearsay - that the Germans built the Bomb.

Hitler would have, yes.

But there is considerable evidence that other top Nazis had decided some time ago (relative to the spring of 1945) that any nuclear strike they might be able to mount using their emergent weapons would be neither numerous nor powerful enough to reverse the course of the war, and would only serve to seal their fate at the wrong end of a hangman's noose once the Allies won, anyway. Even if we concede for the sake of argument that the issue of operational wartime German nuclear weapons is more speculative, the existence of enormous numbers of poison gas munitions is well established. Why weren't these used? Care to speak to that particular riddle?

As for "no evidence at all", how about a 4,000-plus page multi-nation, archival investigation conducted personally by a former senior staff scientist at MIT? Does that count?

riderinstitute.org...

originally posted by: alldaylong

Originally posted by babybunnies


Almost the entire AMERICAN nuclear and rocket programs were headed by German scientists, who were decades ahead of their time both in terms of nuclear technology and rocket science.

Many of the principle doctrines of physics that we still use today come from physicists who were trained in German Universities in the first couple of decades of the 20th century.

"But our Germans are better than their (the Russians) Germans" - The Right Stuff.

If you had bothered to read my post earlier in this topic you would have seen that The Germans where not "Decades Ahead" in nuclear technology. The lead country during that time was Great Britain. The Americans could not have built the bomb without the aid of Britain (and also Canada)
I will post the information again so you can read it this time:-

en.wikipedia.org...

Anti-American British revisionism is so tiresome.

The British contributions to the Manhattan Project were certainly welcome and obviously helpful, but they were definitely not decisive. If you must split hairs, the "American" weapon was the Little Boy U-235 gun-type fission bomb. The "Euro-Anglo-American" weapon was the Fat Man P-239 implosion fission bomb. The US was well able to build an atomic bomb entirely on its own---but it would have been the crude, inefficient, and incredibly wasteful and expensive Little Boy. However, the lower tech, natural critical mass approach to bombmaking was something the US could sort-of afford, given the strength of its industrial base and the wartime emergency.

That said, it would probably not have been until October or November of 1945 that enough HEU would have been produced for there to have been a second Little Boy, meaning that Japan may have chosen to stay the course with its end of war strategy of holding out long enough to force an invasion, in which it was hoped to bleed the Allies white. Japanese planners hoped that the hideous carnage which would certainly have resulted from that operation (OLYMPIC) would gain them political leverage in surrender negotiations.

a reply to: williamjpellas

It would not have worked the detonators were one of 3 problems they had to solve. The three main challenges of the implosion design were: generating enough pressure to compress the plutonium, perfecting the timing of the detonators, and achieving a symmetrical implosion.

So will start with the detonators special spark-free detonators called Exploding Bridgewire Detonators (EBWs) were used. EBWs used electrical discharge from a connected powerful capacitator to vaporize their bridge wire. This vaporization produced a small shock wave that detonated the explosive lenses around the detonators. In early 1944, the South Mesa detonator group led by physicist Luis Alvarez began a trial and error process of developing the detonators. The proper combination of bridge wire lengths, diameters, and materials for the detonators was not determined until just a few weeks before the Trinity Test. In order to ignite the detonators in a precise manner, a high-voltage electrical system was required. A main feature of the fireset apparatus was the Spark Gap Switch. Physicist Donald Hornig invented the Spark Gap Switch used for the implosion bombs.

You can see them here

www.lanl.gov...

The greatest challenge for the Los Alamos scientists and engineers was developing and refining the explosive lenses for the implosion bomb. The lenses had to be identical yet cover the sphere. In order to achieve the spherical implosion shockwave, all the explosive lenses needed to ignite at the same time, which is why the detonators needed to fire simultaneously.

Considering that little was known about using high explosives to produce imploding shock waves and even less about shaping and arranging explosives for controlled, predictable waves, the lenses developed by Kistiakowsky and the X (Explosives) Division was a major innovation this is the soccer ball design you see in pictures. They basically invented RDX for this project as the explosive had to react quickly.

So no German anything was used to design the bomb any one that makes that claim is trying to mislead you.

a reply to: williamjpellas

Anti-American British revisionism is so tiresome.

Believe what ever you wish. I will stick with facts.

The British Empire was the first nation to seriously investigate nuclear explosives.
The Bomb was not an American invention; use of the new weapon required approval from Britain, its co-inventor.

nationalinterest.org...

And to show no British bias, that article was written by an American.

Re: the archival papers cited by the OP in this thread. I just double checked the link I provided upthread, and for some reason ATS did not include the entire hyperlink address in the text. I tried again to post a complete hyperlink in this particular post, and again ATS cut off the web address. I don't know why this is happening, it could be any number of things.

So, for anyone curious, the complete MAGIC intercept on which this discussion thread is based is found in several posts I have written on Quora and on Historum. The Historum thread in which the complete document is located was also started by Simon Gunson and is titled, "German "atom-splitting bomb" referred to in WW2 Japanese Diplomatic signal from Stockholm Embassy to Tokyo NARA archives RG457".

Here is one of the Quora posts that countains the same photographs:

www.quora.com...

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: williamjpellas

It would not have worked the detonators were one of 3 problems they had to solve. The three main challenges of the implosion design were: generating enough pressure to compress the plutonium, perfecting the timing of the detonators, and achieving a symmetrical implosion.

So will start with the detonators special spark-free detonators called Exploding Bridgewire Detonators (EBWs) were used. EBWs used electrical discharge from a connected powerful capacitator to vaporize their bridge wire. This vaporization produced a small shock wave that detonated the explosive lenses around the detonators. In early 1944, the South Mesa detonator group led by physicist Luis Alvarez began a trial and error process of developing the detonators. The proper combination of bridge wire lengths, diameters, and materials for the detonators was not determined until just a few weeks before the Trinity Test. In order to ignite the detonators in a precise manner, a high-voltage electrical system was required. A main feature of the fireset apparatus was the Spark Gap Switch. Physicist Donald Hornig invented the Spark Gap Switch used for the implosion bombs.

You can see them here

www.lanl.gov...

The greatest challenge for the Los Alamos scientists and engineers was developing and refining the explosive lenses for the implosion bomb. The lenses had to be identical yet cover the sphere. In order to achieve the spherical implosion shockwave, all the explosive lenses needed to ignite at the same time, which is why the detonators needed to fire simultaneously.

Considering that little was known about using high explosives to produce imploding shock waves and even less about shaping and arranging explosives for controlled, predictable waves, the lenses developed by Kistiakowsky and the X (Explosives) Division was a major innovation this is the soccer ball design you see in pictures. They basically invented RDX for this project as the explosive had to react quickly.

So no German anything was used to design the bomb any one that makes that claim is trying to mislead you.

No.

RDX was a German invention. From pg. 501 in Forgotten Creators:

"Georg Friedrich Henning (German, 1863–1945) first synthesized hexogen in 1898, and Edmund von Herz patented hexogen as an explosive in 1919. Hexogen was named for its six-sided central ring, surrounded by three symmetrical nitro groups. Later it became much more widely known as “Research Department Explosive” or RDX in the United Kingdom and United States. During the Third Reich, German chemists extended the approach of hexogen to create octogen, an eight-sided central ring with four symmetrical nitro groups. Octogen later became better known as HMX."

Germans were also at the forefront of the development it not also the invention of shaped charges. From pg. 523 in the same book:

"Similarly, German-speaking scientists led the development of shaped (or hollow) explosive charges, which concentrate the force of an explosion in a particular direction—for example in the forward direction to penetrate tank armor upon impact (Fig. 3.80), or radially inward in an implosion bomb to compress nuclear fuel (Sections D.2.3–D.2.4).

Franz von Baader (German states, 1765–1841, Fig. 3.81) designed and utilized shaped charges for
mining.

Gustav Bloem (German?, 18??–19??, Fig. 3.81) invented metal-lined shaped charges as detonator
caps.

Carl Julius Cranz (German, 1858–1945, Fig. 3.81) worked on many aspects of ballistics and supported Franz Rudolf Thomanek and others in developing militarily useful shaped charges.

Rolf Engel (German, 1912–1993, Fig. 3.81) was an expert on rockets, explosives, shaped charges, and implosion designs. He worked on secretive weapons projects for the German military during World War II and for the French military after the war.

Ernst Richard Escales (German, 1863–1924, Fig. 3.81) published handbooks and journals about a wide variety of explosives and explosive techniques, including shaped charges.

Max von Forster (German, 1845–1905, Fig. 3.81) designed, tested, and published descriptions of shaped explosive charges.

Hellmuth von Huttern (German?, 19??–19??, Fig. 3.82) worked with Franz Rudolf Thomanek in developing the first prototypes for military shaped charge weapons.

Heinrich Langweiler (German?, 19??–19??, Fig. 3.82) led the team that developed the Faustpatrone and Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons [BIOS 99; BIOS 100].

Hans Mohaupt (Swiss, 1915–2001, Fig. 3.82) brought the concept of shaped explosive charges to the United States, leading to the design of the bazooka.

Egon Neumann (German, 18??–19??, Fig. 3.82) developed sophisticated shaped charge explosives in 1910 and helped to publicize the general concept [George Brown 1998, p. 166; Walters and Zukas 1989, pp. 12–13].

Hubert Schardin (German, 1902–1965, Fig. 3.82) worked for the Luftwaffe as an expert on the design and experimental measurement of shaped explosive charges and implosion bombs [Krehl 2009, pp. 1160–1162; Nagel 2012a, p. 149 ff.]. After the war, he worked for the French military."

Germans certainly developed curved explosive lenses, as well. See for example a 1943 paper written by Erich Schumann (who was the head of the German Army Weapons Bureau for most of the war years and a noted nuclear weapons designer) and Gerhard Hinrichs titled, "Preliminary Information Report About The Enhanced Performance of Hollowcharge Bodies By Directed Initiation (Lenses)". This is cited on pg. 3131 in Dr. Rider's immense compendium.

Schumann would go on to file a number of patents in the early postwar years. All or nearly all of these were based on fundamentally unaltered work which Schumann had done, usually in concert with his explosives expert Walter Trinks, during WWII, when both were major figures (with Schumann the director) in the heereswaffenamt, the German Army Weapons Bureau. For example:

Erich Schumann and Walter Trinks. Patent DE977825.

Vorrichtung, um ein Material zur Einleitung von mechanischen, thermischen oder nuklearen Prozessen auf extrem hohe Drucke und Temperaturen zu bringen. [Device for the introduction of a material for the introduction of mechanical, thermal or nuclear processes to extremely high pressures and temperatures.] Filed 13 August 1952.

Schumann wrote:

"A smoothing of the desired spherical detonation front leading to the center is possible according to principles similar to those in optics through the use of “explosive lenses.” Similar to the light beams, a divergent bundle of detonation beams can be transformed into a convergent one by inserting either the convex or concave lenses of an explosive with a greater detonation velocity than D between the detonators and the hollow spherical surface to be accelerated. For example, convex lenses made of trinitrotoluene can be used within a main body made of hexogen, or concave lenses made of hexogen or nitropentaerythrite within a main body made of trinitrotoluene.

Explosives with even lower detonation velocities, for example mining explosives, are not suitable for such applications. Although they would give a larger “index of refraction,” their inadequate homogeneity will be considered to be of no use for the present purpose."