On August 29, 1949, at exactly 7 o'clock, a dazzling light illuminated the area near the city of Semipalatinsk. An event of extreme importance took place: the USSR tested the first atomic bomb.

This event was preceded by a long and difficult work of physicists of the KB-11 design bureau under the scientific supervision of the first director of the Institute of Atomic Energy, the chief scientific leader of the atomic problem in the USSR, Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, and one of the founders of nuclear physics in the USSR, Yuli Borisovich Khariton.

nuclear project

Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov

The Soviet nuclear project started on September 28, 1942. It was on this day that the order of the State Defense Committee No. 2352 “On the organization of work on uranium” appeared. And already on February 11, 1943, a decision was made to create Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was supposed to be engaged in the study of atomic energy. Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov is appointed as the head of the atomic project. And in April 1943, a special design bureau KB-11 was created at Laboratory No. 2, which was engaged in the development of nuclear weapons. Julius Borisovich Khariton becomes its leader.

The creation of materials and technologies for the first atomic bomb took place in a very intense mode, in difficult post-war conditions. Many devices, tools, equipment had to be invented and created in the process of work by the team itself.

By that time, scientists had already imagined what an atomic bomb should look like. A certain amount of fissile material under the action of neutrons had to be concentrated very quickly in one place. As a result of fission, new neutrons were formed, the process of decay of atoms grew like an avalanche. There was a chain reaction with the release of a huge amount of energy. The result was an explosion.

Creation of the atomic bomb

Atomic bomb explosion

The scientists faced very important tasks.

First of all, it was necessary to explore deposits of uranium ores, organize their extraction and processing. It must be said that work on the search for new deposits of uranium ores was accelerated as early as 1940. But in natural uranium, the amount of the uranium-235 isotope suitable for a chain reaction is very small. It is only 0.71%. And the uranium itself in the ore contains only 1%. Therefore, it was necessary to solve the problem of uranium enrichment.

In addition, it was necessary to substantiate, calculate and build the first physical reactor in the USSR, to create the first industrial nuclear reactor that would produce enough plutonium to manufacture a nuclear charge. The next step was to isolate the plutonium, convert it into a metallic form, and make a plutonium charge. And this is by no means a complete list of what needed to be done.

And all these complex works were completed. New industrial technologies and productions were created. Pure metallic uranium, graphite and other special materials have been obtained.

As a result, the first prototype of the Soviet atomic bomb was ready in August 1949. It was named RDS-1. It meant "The Motherland does it herself."

On August 5, 1949, a commission headed by Yu.B. Khariton. The charge arrived at KB-11 by letter train. On the night of August 10-11, a control collection of a nuclear charge was carried out.

After that, everything was dismantled, inspected, packed and prepared for shipment to the landfill near Semipalatinsk, the construction of which began in 1947 and was completed in July 1949. In just 2 years, a colossal amount of work was completed at the landfill, and with the highest quality.

So, the USSR created its atomic bomb only 4 years later than the United States, which could not believe that such a complex weapon could be created by someone else besides them.

Started almost from scratch, in the complete absence of the necessary knowledge and experience, the most difficult work ended in success. From now on, the USSR possessed powerful weapons capable of deterring the use of the atomic bomb by other countries with destructive purposes. And who knows, if not for this, the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could well have been repeated elsewhere in the world.

On August days 68 years ago, namely, on August 6, 1945 at 08:15 local time, the American B-29 "Enola Gay" bomber, piloted by Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Fereby, dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima called "Baby" . On August 9, the bombing was repeated - the second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki.

According to official history, the Americans were the first in the world to make an atomic bomb and hastened to use it against Japan., so that the Japanese capitulate faster and America could avoid colossal losses during the landing of soldiers on the islands, for which the admirals were already preparing closely. At the same time, the bomb was a demonstration of its new capabilities to the USSR, because in May 1945 Comrade Dzhugashvili was already thinking of extending the construction of communism to the English Channel.

Seeing the example of Hiroshima, what will happen to Moscow, the Soviet party leaders reduced their ardor and made the right decision to build socialism no further than East Berlin. At the same time, they threw all their efforts into the Soviet atomic project, dug up the talented academician Kurchatov somewhere, and he quickly made an atomic bomb for Dzhugashvili, which the general secretaries then rattled on the UN rostrum, and Soviet propagandists rattled it in front of the audience - they say, yes, our pants are sewn bad, but« we made the atomic bomb». This argument is almost the main one for many fans of the Soviet of Deputies. However, the time has come to refute these arguments.

Somehow, the creation of the atomic bomb did not fit with the level of Soviet science and technology. It is unbelievable that a slave-owning system could produce such a complex scientific and technological product on its own. Over time somehow not even denied, that people from Lubyanka also helped Kurchatov, bringing ready-made drawings in their beaks, but academicians completely deny this, minimizing the merit of technological intelligence. In America, the Rosenbergs were executed for transferring atomic secrets to the USSR. The dispute between official historians and citizens who want to revise history has been going on for a long time, almost openly, however, the true state of affairs is far from both the official version and the views of its critics. And things are such that the first atomic bomb, likeand many things in the world were done by the Germans by 1945. And they even tested it at the end of 1944.The Americans were preparing the nuclear project themselves, as it were, but they received the main components as a trophy or under an agreement with the top of the Reich, and therefore they did everything much faster. But when the Americans detonated the bomb, the USSR began to look for German scientists, whichand made their contribution. That is why they created a bomb so quickly in the USSR, although according to the calculation of the Americans, he could not make a bomb before1952- 55 years old.

The Americans knew what they were talking about, because if von Braun helped them make rocket technology, then their first atomic bomb was completely German. For a long time it was possible to hide the truth, but in the decades after 1945, then someone resigning unleashed his tongue, then accidentally declassified a couple of sheets from secret archives, then journalists sniffed something out. The earth was filled with rumors and rumors that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was actually Germanhave been going since 1945. People whispered in the smoking rooms and scratched their foreheads over the logicaleskiminconsistencies and puzzling questions until one day in the early 2000s, Mr. Joseph Farrell, a well-known theologian and specialist in an alternative view of modern "science" combined all the known facts in one book - Black sun of the Third Reich. The battle for the "weapon of vengeance".

The facts were repeatedly checked by him and much that the author had doubts was not included in the book, nevertheless, these facts are more than enough to reduce the debit to the credit. One can argue about each of them (which the official men of the United States do), try to refute, but all together the facts are super convincing. Some of them, for example, the Decrees of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, are completely irrefutable, neither by the pundits of the USSR, nor even by the pundits of the United States. Since Dzhugashvili decided to give "enemies of the people"Stalinistprizes(more on that below), so it was for what.

We will not retell the entire book of Mr. Farrell, we simply recommend it for mandatory reading. Here are just a few quoteskifor example, some quotesabouttalking about the fact that the Germans tested the atomic bomb and people saw it:

A man named Zinsser, an anti-aircraft missile specialist, recounted what he witnessed: “In early October 1944, I took off from Ludwigslust. (south of Lübeck), located 12 to 15 kilometers from the nuclear test site, and suddenly saw a strong bright glow that illuminated the entire atmosphere, which lasted about two seconds.

A clearly visible shock wave erupted from the cloud formed by the explosion. By the time it became visible, it had a diameter of about one kilometer, and the color of the cloud changed frequently. After a short period of darkness, it was covered with many bright spots, which, unlike the usual explosion, had a pale blue color.

Approximately ten seconds after the explosion, the distinct outlines of the explosive cloud disappeared, then the cloud itself began to brighten against a dark gray sky covered with solid clouds. The diameter of the shock wave still visible to the naked eye was at least 9000 meters; it remained visible for at least 15 seconds. My personal feeling from observing the color of the explosive cloud: it took on a blue-violet color. Throughout this phenomenon, reddish-colored rings were visible, very quickly changing color to dirty shades. From my observation plane, I felt a slight impact in the form of light jolts and jerks.

About an hour later I took off in a Xe-111 from the Ludwigslust airfield and headed east. Shortly after takeoff, I flew through a zone of continuous cloud cover (at an altitude of three to four thousand meters). Above the place where the explosion occurred, there was a mushroom cloud with turbulent, eddy layers (at an altitude of approximately 7000 meters), without any visible connections. A strong electromagnetic disturbance manifested itself in the inability to continue radio communication. Since American P-38 fighters were operating in the Wittenberg-Bersburg area, I had to turn north, but I got a better view of the lower part of the cloud above the explosion site. Side note: I don't really understand why these tests were conducted in such a densely populated area."

ARI:Thus, a certain German pilot observed the testing of a device that, by all indications, is suitable for the characteristics of an atomic bomb. There are dozens of such testimonies, but Mr. Farrell cites only officialdocumentation. And not only the Germans, but also the Japanese, whom the Germans, according to his version, also helped to make a bomb, and they tested it at their training ground.

Shortly after the end of World War II, American intelligence in the Pacific received a startling report: the Japanese had built and successfully tested an atomic bomb just before their surrender. The work was carried out in the city of Konan or its environs (Japanese name for the city of Heungnam) in the north of the Korean Peninsula.

The war ended before these weapons saw combat use, and the production where they were made is now in the hands of the Russians.

In the summer of 1946, this information was widely publicized. David Snell of Korea's 24th Investigation Division... wrote about it in the Atlanta Constitution after he was fired.

Snell's statement was based on the allegations of a Japanese officer returning to Japan. This officer informed Snell that he was tasked with securing the facility. Snell, recounting in his own words in a newspaper article the testimony of a Japanese officer, argued:

In a cave in the mountains near Konan, people worked, racing against time to complete the assembly of the "genzai bakudan" - the Japanese name for an atomic bomb. It was August 10, 1945 (Japanese time), just four days after the atomic explosion tore the sky apart.

ARI: Among the arguments of those who do not believe in the creation of the atomic bomb by the Germans, such an argument that it is not known about the significant industrial capacity in the Hitlerite district, which was directed to the German atomic project, as was done in the United States. However, this argument is refuted byextremely curious fact connected with the concern "I. G. Farben", which, according to the official legend, produced syntheticesskyrubber and therefore consumed more electricity than Berlin at that time. But in reality, in five years of work, EVEN A KILOGRAM of official products was not produced there, and most likely it was the main center for uranium enrichment:

Concern "I. G. Farben took an active part in the atrocities of Nazism, creating during the war years a huge plant for the production of Buna synthetic rubber in Auschwitz (the German name for the Polish town of Auschwitz) in the Polish part of Silesia.

The prisoners of the concentration camp, who first worked on the construction of the complex, and then served it, were subjected to unheard of cruelties. However, at the hearings of the Nuremberg Tribunal for war criminals, it turned out that the Auschwitz buna complex was one of the great mysteries of the war, for despite the personal blessing of Hitler, Himmler, Goering and Keitel, despite the endless source of both qualified civilian personnel and slave labor from Auschwitz, “work was constantly hampered by failures, delays and sabotage ... However, in spite of everything, the construction of a huge complex for the production of synthetic rubber and gasoline was completed. More than three hundred thousand concentration camp prisoners passed through the construction site; of these, twenty-five thousand died of exhaustion, unable to bear the exhausting labor.

The complex is gigantic. So huge that "it consumed more electricity than all of Berlin." However, during the war criminals tribunal, it was not this long list of macabre details that puzzled the investigators of the victorious powers. They were perplexed by the fact that, despite such a huge investment of money, materials and human lives, "never a single kilogram of synthetic rubber was produced."

On this, as if obsessed, the directors and managers of Farben, who found themselves in the dock, insisted. Consume more electricity than all of Berlin - at the time the eighth largest city in the world - to produce absolutely nothing? If this is true, then the unprecedented expenditure of money and labor and the huge consumption of electricity did not make any significant contribution to the German war effort. Surely something is wrong here.

ARI: Electrical energy in insane amounts is one of the main components of any nuclear project. It is needed for the production of heavy water - it is obtained by evaporating tons of natural water, after which the same water that nuclear scientists need remains at the bottom. Electricity is needed for the electrochemical separation of metals; uranium cannot be obtained in any other way. And it also needs a lot. Based on this, historians argued that since the Germans did not have such energy-intensive plants for the enrichment of uranium and the production of heavy water, it means that there was no atomic bomb. But as you can see, everything was there. Only it was called differently - like in the USSR then there was a secret "sanatorium" for German physicists.

An even more surprising fact is the use by the Germans of an unfinished atomic bomb on ... the Kursk Bulge.

The final chord of this chapter, and a breathtaking indication of other mysteries that will be explored later in this book, is a report declassified by the National Security Agency only in 1978. This report appears to be the transcript of an intercepted message transmitted from the Japanese embassy in Stockholm to Tokyo. It is entitled "Report on the bomb based on the splitting of the atom". It is best to quote this astounding document in its entirety, with the omissions resulting from the decipherment of the original message.

This bomb, revolutionary in its effects, will completely overturn all established concepts of conventional warfare. I am sending you all the reports collected together about what is called the bomb based on the splitting of the atom:

It is authentically known that in June 1943 the German army at a point 150 kilometers southeast of Kursk tested a completely new type of weapon against the Russians. Although the entire 19th Russian Rifle Regiment was hit, just a few bombs (each with a live charge of less than 5 kilograms) were enough to destroy it completely, down to the last man. The following material is given according to the testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Ue (?) Kendzi, an adviser to the attache in Hungary and in the past (worked?) in this country, who accidentally saw the consequences of what happened immediately after it happened: “All the people and horses (? in the area? ) shell explosions were charred to blackness, and even detonated all the ammunition.

ARI:However, even withhowlofficial documents official US pundits are tryingrefute - they say, all these reports, reports and protocols are fakedew.But the balance still does not converge because by August 1945, the United States did not have enough uranium to produce asminimmindtwo, and possibly four atomic bombs. There will be no bomb without uranium, and it has been mined for years. By 1944, the United States had no more than a quarter of the required uranium, and it took at least another five years to extract the rest. And suddenly uranium seemed to fall on their heads from the sky:

In December 1944, a very unpleasant report was prepared, which greatly upset those who read it: by May 1 - 15 kilograms. This was indeed very unfortunate news, for according to initial estimates made in 1942, between 10 and 100 kilograms of uranium was required to make a uranium-based bomb, and by the time this memorandum was written, more accurate calculations had given the critical mass needed to produce uranium an atomic bomb, equal to approximately 50 kilograms.

However, it was not only the Manhattan Project that had problems with the missing uranium. Germany also seems to have suffered from "missing uranium syndrome" in the days immediately preceding and immediately after the end of the war. But in this case, the volumes of missing uranium were calculated not in tens of kilograms, but in hundreds of tons. At this point, it makes sense to quote a lengthy excerpt from the brilliant work of Carter Hydrick in order to comprehensively explore this issue:

Starting in June 1940 and until the end of the war, Germany removed from Belgium three and a half thousand tons of uranium-containing substances - almost three times more than what Groves had at his disposal ... and placed them in salt mines near Strassfurt in Germany.

ARI: Leslie Richard Groves (eng. Leslie Richard Groves; August 17, 1896 - July 13, 1970) - lieutenant general of the US Army, in 1942-1947 - military head of the nuclear weapons program (Manhattan Project).

Groves states that on April 17, 1945, when the war was already drawing to a close, the Allies managed to seize about 1,100 tons of uranium ore in Strassfurt and another 31 tons in the French port of Toulouse ... And he claims that Germany never had more uranium ore, so thus showing that Germany never had enough material either to process uranium into feedstock for a plutonium reactor, or to enrich it by electromagnetic separation.

Obviously, if at one time 3,500 tons were stored in Strassfurt, and only 1,130 were captured, there are still approximately 2,730 tons left - and this is still twice as much as the Manhattan Project had throughout the war ... The fate of this missing ore unknown to this day...

According to historian Margaret Gowing, by the summer of 1941, Germany had enriched 600 tons of uranium to the oxide form needed to ionize the raw material into a gaseous form in which uranium isotopes can be separated magnetically or thermally. (Italics mine. - D. F.) Also, the oxide can be converted into a metal for use as a raw material in a nuclear reactor. In fact, Professor Reichl, who during the war was in charge of all the uranium at the disposal of Germany, claims that the true figure was much higher ...

ARI: So it's clear that without getting enriched uranium from somewhere else, and some detonation technology, the Americans would not have been able to test or detonate their bombs over Japan in August 1945. And they got, as it turns out,missing components from the Germans.

In order to create a uranium or plutonium bomb, uranium-containing raw materials must be converted into metal at a certain stage. For a plutonium bomb, you get metallic U238; for a uranium bomb, you need U235. However, due to the insidious characteristics of uranium, this metallurgical process is extremely complex. The United States tackled this problem early, but did not succeed in converting uranium into a metallic form in large quantities until late in 1942. German specialists ... by the end of 1940 had already converted 280.6 kilograms into metal, more than a quarter of a ton ......

In any case, these figures unequivocally indicate that in 1940-1942 the Germans were significantly ahead of the Allies in one very important component of the atomic bomb production process - in uranium enrichment, and, therefore, this also allows us to conclude that they were at that time pulled far ahead in the race for possession of a working atomic bomb. However, these numbers also raise one troubling question: where did all that uranium go?

The answer to this question is given by the mysterious incident with the German submarine U-234, captured by the Americans in 1945.

The history of U-234 is well known to all researchers involved in the history of the Nazi atomic bomb, and, of course, the "Allied legend" says that the materials that were on board the captured submarine were in no way used in the "Manhattan Project".

All this is absolutely not true. The U-234 was a very large underwater minelayer capable of carrying a large load underwater. Consider what a most bizarre cargo was on board U-234 on that last flight:

Two Japanese officers.

80 gold-plated cylindrical containers containing 560 kilograms of uranium oxide.

Several wooden barrels filled with "heavy water".

Infrared proximity fuses.

Dr. Heinz Schlicke, inventor of these fuses.

When U-234 was loading in a German port before leaving for her last voyage, the submarine's radio operator Wolfgang Hirschfeld noticed that Japanese officers wrote "U235" on the paper in which the containers were wrapped before loading them into the hold of the boat. Needless to say, this remark provoked all the barrage of debunking criticism with which skeptics usually meet UFO eyewitness accounts: the low position of the sun above the horizon, poor lighting, a large distance that did not allow to see everything clearly, and the like. And this is not surprising, because if Hirschfeld really saw what he saw, the frightening consequences of this are obvious.

The use of containers coated with gold on the inside is explained by the fact that uranium, a highly corrosive metal, quickly becomes contaminated when it comes into contact with other unstable elements. Gold, which is not inferior to lead in terms of protection against radioactive radiation, unlike lead, is a very pure and extremely stable element; therefore, its choice for the storage and long-term transportation of highly enriched and pure uranium is obvious. Thus, the uranium oxide on board U-234 was highly enriched uranium, and most likely U235, the last stage of raw material before turning it into weapon-grade or bomb-usable uranium (if it was not already weapons-grade uranium) . And indeed, if the inscriptions made by Japanese officers on the containers were true, it is very likely that this was the last stage of purification of raw materials before turning into metal.

The cargo aboard U-234 was so sensitive that when the U.S. Navy officials compiled an inventory on June 16, 1945, the uranium oxide disappeared from the list without a trace.....

Yes, it would have been the easiest if not for an unexpected confirmation from a certain Pyotr Ivanovich Titarenko, a former military translator from the headquarters of Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, who at the end of the war accepted the surrender of Japan from the Soviet Union. As the German magazine Der Spiegel wrote in 1992, Titarenko wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In it, he reported that in reality three atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, one of which, dropped on Nagasaki before the Fat Man exploded over the city, did not explode. Subsequently, this bomb was transferred by Japan to the Soviet Union.

Mussolini and the Soviet marshal's interpreter are not the only ones who confirm the strange number of bombs dropped on Japan; it is possible that at some point a fourth bomb was also involved in the game, which was transported to the Far East aboard the US Navy heavy cruiser Indianapolis (tail number CA 35) when it sank in 1945.

This strange evidence again raises questions about the "Allied legend", for, as has already been shown, in late 1944 and early 1945, the "Manhattan Project" faced a critical shortage of weapons-grade uranium, and by that time the problem of plutonium fuses had not been solved. bombs. So the question is: if these reports were true, where did the extra bomb (or even more bombs) come from? It is hard to believe that three or even four bombs ready for use in Japan were made in such a short time - unless they were war booty taken from Europe.

ARI: Actually a storyU-234begins in 1944, when, after the opening of the 2nd front and failures on the Eastern Front, possibly on behalf of Hitler, it was decided to start trading with the allies - an atomic bomb in exchange for guarantees of immunity for the party elite:

Be that as it may, we are primarily interested in the role that Bormann played in the development and implementation of the plan for the secret strategic evacuation of the Nazis after their military defeat. After the Stalingrad disaster in early 1943, it became obvious to Bormann, like other high-ranking Nazis, that the military collapse of the Third Reich was inevitable if their secret weapons projects did not bear fruit in time. Bormann and representatives of various armaments departments, industries and, of course, the SS gathered for a secret meeting at which plans were developed for the export of material assets, qualified personnel, scientific materials and technologies from Germany ......

First of all, JIOA director Grun, appointed as project leader, compiled a list of the most qualified German and Austrian scientists that the Americans and British had used for decades. Although journalists and historians repeatedly mentioned this list, none of them said that Werner Ozenberg, who during the war served as head of the scientific department of the Gestapo, took part in its compilation. The decision to involve Ozenbsrg in this work was made by US Navy Captain Ransom Davis after consultations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff......

Finally, the Ozenberg list and the interest shown by the Americans in it seems to support another hypothesis, namely that the Americans' knowledge of the nature of the Nazi projects, as evidenced by General Patton's unerring actions in finding Kammler's secret research centers, could come only from Nazi Germany itself. Since Carter Heidrick proved quite convincingly that Bormann personally supervised the transfer of the secrets of the German atomic bomb to the Americans, it can be safely argued that he ultimately coordinated the flow of other important information regarding the "Kammler headquarters" to the American intelligence services, since no one knew better than he the nature, content and personnel of the German black projects. Thus, Carter Heidrick's thesis that Bormann helped organize the transportation to the United States on the submarine "U-234" of not only enriched uranium, but also a ready-to-use atomic bomb, looks very plausible.

ARI: In addition to uranium itself, a lot more things are needed for an atomic bomb, in particular, fuses based on red mercury. Unlike a conventional detonator, these devices must detonate supersynchronously, gathering the uranium mass into a single whole and starting a nuclear reaction. This technology is extremely complex, the United States did not have it, and therefore the fuses were included. And since the question did not end with the fuses, the Americans dragged German nuclear scientists to their consultations before loading the atomic bomb on board the aircraft flying to Japan:

There is another fact that does not fit into the post-war legend of the Allies regarding the impossibility of the Germans creating an atomic bomb: the German physicist Rudolf Fleischmann was brought to the United States by plane for interrogation even before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why was there such an urgent need to consult with a German physicist before the atomic bombing of Japan? After all, according to the legend of the Allies, we had nothing to learn from the Germans in the field of atomic physics ......

ARI:Thus, there is no doubt that Germany had a bomb in May 1945. WhyHitlerdidn't apply it? Because one atomic bomb is not a bomb. For a bomb to become a weapon, there must be a sufficient number of them.identitymultiplied by means of delivery. Hitler could destroy New York and London, could choose to wipe out a couple of divisions moving towards Berlin. But the outcome of the war would not have been decided in his favor. But the Allies would have come to Germany in a very bad mood. The Germans already got it in 1945, but if Germany used nuclear weapons, its population would have got much more. Germany could be wiped off the face of the earth, like, for example, Dresden. Therefore, although Mr. Hitler is considered by somewithathe was not a masshed, nevertheless insane politician, and soberly weigh everythinginquietly leaked World War II: we give you a bomb - and you do not allow the USSR to reach the English Channel and guarantee a quiet old age for the Nazi elite.

So separate negotiationsaboutry in April 1945, described in the movie pRabout 17 moments of spring, really took place. But only at such a level that no pastor Schlag ever dreamed of negotiatingaboutry was led by Hitler himself. And physicsRthere was no unge because while Stirlitz was chasing him Manfred von Ardenne

already tested itweapons - as a minimum in 1943on theTothe Ur arc, as a maximum - in Norway, no later than 1944.

By ByintelligiblemoreoverandTo us, Mr. Farrell's book is not promoted either in the West or in Russia, not everyone has caught the eye of it. But the information makes its way and one day even the dumb will know about how the nuclear weapon was made. And there will be a veryicantthe situation because it will have to be radically reconsideredall officialhistorythe last 70 years.

However, official pundits in Russia will be worst of all.Insk federation, who for many years repeated the old mantr: maour tires may be bad, but we createdwhetheratomic bombby.But as it turns out, even American engineers were too tough for a nuclear device, at least in 1945. The USSR is not involved at all here - today the Russian federation would compete with Iran on the subject of who will make the bomb faster,if not for one BUT. BUT - these are captured German engineers who made nuclear weapons for Dzhugashvili.

It is authentically known and academicians of the USSR do not deny that 3,000 captured Germans worked on the USSR missile project. That is, they essentially launched Gagarin into space. But as many as 7,000 specialists worked on the Soviet nuclear projectfrom Germany,so it is not surprising that the Soviets made the atomic bomb before they flew into space. If the United States still had its own way in the atomic race, then in the USSR they simply stupidly reproduced German technology.

In 1945, a group of colonels, who in fact were not colonels, but secret physicists, were looking for specialists in Germany - the future academicians Artsimovich, Kikoin, Khariton, Shchelkin ... The operation was led by First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Ivan Serov.

More than two hundred of the most prominent German physicists (about half of them were doctors of science), radio engineers and craftsmen were brought to Moscow. In addition to the equipment of the Ardenne laboratory, later equipment from the Berlin Kaiser Institute and other German scientific organizations, documentation and reagents, stocks of film and paper for recorders, photo recorders, wire tape recorders for telemetry, optics, powerful electromagnets and even German transformers were delivered to Moscow. And then the Germans, under pain of death, began to build an atomic bomb for the USSR. They built from scratch, because by 1945 the United States had some of its own developments, the Germans were simply far ahead of them, but in the USSR, in the realm of "science" of academicians like Lysenko, there was nothing on the nuclear program. Here is what the researchers of this topic managed to dig up:

In 1945, the sanatoriums "Sinop" and "Agudzery", located in Abkhazia, were transferred to the disposal of German physicists. Thus, the foundation was laid for the Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology, which was then part of the system of top-secret objects of the USSR. "Sinop" was referred to in the documents as Object "A", headed by Baron Manfred von Ardenne (1907-1997). This person is legendary in world science: one of the founders of television, the developer of electron microscopes and many other devices. During one meeting, Beria wanted to entrust the leadership of the atomic project to von Ardenne. Ardenne himself recalls: “I had no more than ten seconds to think. My answer is verbatim: I consider such an important proposal as a great honor for me, because. it is an expression of exceptionally great confidence in my abilities. The solution to this problem has two different directions: 1. The development of the atomic bomb itself and 2. The development of methods for obtaining the fissile isotope of uranium 235U on an industrial scale. The separation of isotopes is a separate and very difficult problem. Therefore, I propose that the separation of isotopes be the main problem of our institute and German specialists, and that the leading nuclear scientists of the Soviet Union sitting here would do a great job of creating an atomic bomb for their homeland.

Beria accepted this offer. Many years later, at a government reception, when Manfred von Ardenne was introduced to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Khrushchev, he reacted like this: “Ah, you are the same Ardenne who so skillfully pulled his neck out of the noose.”

Von Ardenne later assessed his contribution to the development of the atomic problem as "the most important thing to which post-war circumstances led me." In 1955, the scientist was allowed to travel to the GDR, where he headed a research institute in Dresden.

Sanatorium "Agudzery" received the code name Object "G". It was led by Gustav Hertz (1887–1975), nephew of the famous Heinrich Hertz, known to us from school. Gustav Hertz received the Nobel Prize in 1925 for the discovery of the laws of the collision of an electron with an atom - the well-known experience of Frank and Hertz. In 1945, Gustav Hertz became one of the first German physicists brought to the USSR. He was the only foreign Nobel laureate who worked in the USSR. Like other German scientists, he lived, knowing no refusal, in his house on the seashore. In 1955 Hertz left for the GDR. There he worked as a professor at the University of Leipzig, and then as director of the Physics Institute at the university.

The main task of von Ardenne and Gustav Hertz was to find different methods for separating uranium isotopes. Thanks to von Ardenne, one of the first mass spectrometers appeared in the USSR. Hertz successfully improved his method of isotope separation, which made it possible to establish this process on an industrial scale.

Other prominent German scientists were also brought to the facility in Sukhumi, including the physicist and radiochemist Nikolaus Riehl (1901–1991). They called him Nikolai Vasilyevich. He was born in St. Petersburg, in the family of a German - the chief engineer of Siemens and Halske. Nikolaus' mother was Russian, so he spoke German and Russian from childhood. He received an excellent technical education: first in St. Petersburg, and after the family moved to Germany, at the Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin (later Humboldt University). In 1927 he defended his doctoral dissertation in radiochemistry. His supervisors were future scientific luminaries - nuclear physicist Lisa Meitner and radiochemist Otto Hahn. Before the outbreak of World War II, Riehl was in charge of the central radiological laboratory of the Auergesellschaft company, where he proved to be an energetic and very capable experimenter. At the beginning of the war, Riel was summoned to the War Ministry, where he was offered to start producing uranium. In May 1945, Riehl voluntarily came to the Soviet emissaries sent to Berlin. The scientist, who was considered the Reich's chief expert on the production of enriched uranium for reactors, pointed out where the equipment needed for this was located. Its fragments (a plant near Berlin was destroyed by bombing) were dismantled and sent to the USSR. 300 tons of uranium compounds found there were also taken there. It is believed that this saved the Soviet Union a year and a half to create an atomic bomb - until 1945, Igor Kurchatov had only 7 tons of uranium oxide at his disposal. Under the leadership of Riel, the Elektrostal plant in Noginsk near Moscow was reequipped to produce cast uranium metal.

Echelons with equipment were going from Germany to Sukhumi. Three of the four German cyclotrons were brought to the USSR, as well as powerful magnets, electron microscopes, oscilloscopes, high-voltage transformers, ultra-precise instruments, etc. Equipment was delivered to the USSR from the Institute of Chemistry and Metallurgy, the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute, Siemens electrical laboratories, Physical Institute of the German Post Office.

Igor Kurchatov was appointed scientific director of the project, who was undoubtedly an outstanding scientist, but he always surprised his employees with extraordinary "scientific insight" - as it turned out later, he knew most of the secrets from intelligence, but had no right to talk about it. The following episode, which was told by academician Isaac Kikoin, speaks about leadership methods. At one meeting, Beria asked Soviet physicists how long it would take to solve one problem. They answered him: six months. The answer was: "Either you will solve it in one month, or you will deal with this problem in places much more remote." Of course, the task was completed in one month. But the authorities spared no expense and rewards. Very many, including German scientists, received Stalin Prizes, dachas, cars and other rewards. Nikolaus Riehl, however, the only foreign scientist, even received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. German scientists played a big role in raising the qualifications of the Georgian physicists who worked with them.

ARI: So the Germans didn't just help the USSR a lot with the creation of the atomic bomb - they did everything. Moreover, this story was like with the "Kalashnikov assault rifle" because even German gunsmiths could not have made such a perfect weapon in a couple of years - while working in captivity in the USSR, they simply completed what was already almost ready. Similarly, with the atomic bomb, work on which the Germans began as early as a year in 1933, and possibly much earlier. Official history holds that Hitler annexed the Sudetenland because there were many Germans living there. It may be so, but the Sudetenland is the richest uranium deposit in Europe. There is a suspicion that Hitler knew where to start in the first place, because the German legacy since the time of Peter was in Russia, and in Australia, and even in Africa. But Hitler started with the Sudetenland. Apparently, some people knowledgeable in alchemy immediately explained to him what to do and which way to go, so it is not surprising that the Germans were far ahead of everyone and the American intelligence services in Europe in the forties of the last century were only picking up leftovers for the Germans, hunting for medieval alchemical manuscripts.

But the USSR did not even have leftovers. There was only the "academician" Lysenko, according to whose theories the weeds growing on a collective farm field, and not on a private farm, had every reason to be imbued with the spirit of socialism and turn into wheat. In medicine, there was a similar "scientific school" that tried to speed up the duration of pregnancy from 9 months to nine weeks - so that the wives of the proletarians would not be distracted from work. There were similar theories in nuclear physics, therefore, for the USSR, the creation of an atomic bomb was just as impossible as the creation of its own computer, because cybernetics in the USSR was officially considered a prostitute of the bourgeoisie. By the way, important scientific decisions in the same physics (for example, in which direction to go and which theories to consider working) in the USSR were made at best by "academicians" from agriculture. Although more often this was done by a party functionary with an education in the "evening working faculty". What kind of atomic bomb could there be on this base? Only a stranger. In the USSR, they could not even assemble it from ready-made components with ready-made drawings. The Germans did everything, and on this score there is even an official recognition of their merits - the Stalin Prizes and orders that were awarded to engineers:

German specialists are laureates of the Stalin Prize for their work in the field of the use of atomic energy. Excerpts from the resolutions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "on rewarding and bonuses ...".

[From the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 5070-1944ss / op "On awarding and bonuses for outstanding scientific discoveries and technical achievements in the use of atomic energy", October 29, 1949]

[From Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 4964-2148ss / op "On awarding and bonuses for outstanding scientific work in the field of the use of atomic energy, for the creation of new types of RDS products, achievements in the production of plutonium and uranium-235 and the development of a raw material base for the nuclear industry" , December 6, 1951]

[From the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 3044-1304ss "On the award of Stalin Prizes to scientific and engineering workers of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building and other departments for the creation of a hydrogen bomb and new designs of atomic bombs", December 31, 1953]

Manfred von Ardenne

1947 - Stalin Prize (electron microscope - "In January 1947, the Chief of the Site presented von Ardenne with the State Prize (a purse full of money) for his microscope work.") "German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project", p . eighteen)

1953 - Stalin Prize, 2nd class (electromagnetic isotope separation, lithium-6).

Heinz Barwich

Günther Wirtz

Gustav Hertz

1951 - Stalin Prize of the 2nd degree (the theory of the stability of gas diffusion in cascades).

Gerard Jaeger

1953 - Stalin Prize of the 3rd degree (electromagnetic separation of isotopes, lithium-6).

Reinhold Reichmann (Reichmann)

1951 - Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (posthumously) (development of technology

production of ceramic tubular filters for diffusion machines).

Nikolaus Riehl

1949 - Hero of Socialist Labor, Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (development and implementation of industrial technology for the production of pure metallic uranium).

Herbert Thieme

1949 - Stalin Prize of the 2nd degree (development and implementation of industrial technology for the production of pure metallic uranium).

1951 - Stalin Prize of the 2nd degree (development of industrial technology for the production of high purity uranium and the manufacture of products from it).

Peter Thiessen

1956 - Thyssen State Prize,_Peter

Heinz Freulich

1953 - Stalin Prize 3rd degree (electromagnetic isotope separation, lithium-6).

Ziel Ludwig

1951 - Stalin Prize 1st degree (development of technology for the production of ceramic tubular filters for diffusion machines).

Werner Schütze

1949 - Stalin Prize of the 2nd degree (mass spectrometer).

ARI: This is how the story turns out - there is no trace of the myth that the Volga is a bad car, but we made an atomic bomb. All that remains is the bad Volga car. And it would not have been if it had not been bought drawings from Ford. There would be nothing because the Bolshevik state is not capable of creating anything by definition. For the same reason, nothing can create a Russian state, only to sell natural resources.

Mikhail Saltan, Gleb Shcherbatov

For the stupid, just in case, we explain that we are not talking about the intellectual potential of the Russian people, it is just quite high, we are talking about the creative possibilities of the Soviet bureaucratic system, which, in principle, cannot allow scientific talents to be revealed.

The appearance of such a powerful weapon as a nuclear bomb was the result of the interaction of global factors of an objective and subjective nature. Objectively, its creation was caused by the rapid development of science, which began with the fundamental discoveries of physics in the first half of the 20th century. The strongest subjective factor was the military-political situation of the 40s, when the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition - the USA, Great Britain, the USSR - tried to get ahead of each other in the development of nuclear weapons.

Prerequisites for the creation of a nuclear bomb

The starting point of the scientific path to the creation of atomic weapons was 1896, when the French chemist A. Becquerel discovered the radioactivity of uranium. It was the chain reaction of this element that formed the basis for the development of terrible weapons.

At the end of the 19th and in the first decades of the 20th century, scientists discovered alpha, beta, gamma rays, discovered many radioactive isotopes of chemical elements, the law of radioactive decay, and laid the foundation for the study of nuclear isometry. In the 1930s, the neutron and positron became known, and the nucleus of the uranium atom with the absorption of neutrons was first split. This was the impetus for the creation of nuclear weapons. The French physicist Frédéric Joliot-Curie was the first to invent and patent the design of the nuclear bomb in 1939.

As a result of further development, nuclear weapons have become a historically unprecedented military-political and strategic phenomenon capable of ensuring the national security of the possessor state and minimizing the capabilities of all other weapons systems.

The design of an atomic bomb consists of a number of different components, among which there are two main ones:

• frame,
• automation system.

Automation, together with a nuclear charge, is located in a case that protects them from various influences (mechanical, thermal, etc.). The automation system controls that the explosion occurs at a strictly set time. It consists of the following elements:

• emergency detonation;
• safety and cocking device;
• source of power;
• charge detonation sensors.

Delivery of atomic charges is carried out with the help of aviation, ballistic and cruise missiles. At the same time, nuclear munitions can be an element of a land mine, torpedo, aerial bombs, etc.

Nuclear bomb detonation systems are different. The simplest is the injection device, in which the impetus for the explosion is hitting the target and the subsequent formation of a supercritical mass.

Another characteristic of atomic weapons is the size of the caliber: small, medium, large. Most often, the power of the explosion is characterized in TNT equivalent. A small caliber nuclear weapon implies a charge capacity of several thousand tons of TNT. The average caliber is already equal to tens of thousands of tons of TNT, large - measured in millions.

Operating principle

The scheme of the atomic bomb is based on the principle of using nuclear energy released during a nuclear chain reaction. This is the process of fission of heavy or synthesis of light nuclei. Due to the release of a huge amount of intra-nuclear energy in the shortest period of time, a nuclear bomb is classified as a weapon of mass destruction.

There are two key points in this process:

• the center of a nuclear explosion, in which the process directly takes place;
• the epicenter, which is the projection of this process onto the surface (land or water).

A nuclear explosion releases an amount of energy that, when projected onto the ground, causes seismic tremors. The range of their distribution is very large, but significant environmental damage is caused at a distance of only a few hundred meters.

Nuclear weapons have several types of destruction:

• light emission,
• radioactive contamination,
• shockwave,
• penetrating radiation,
• electromagnetic impulse.

A nuclear explosion is accompanied by a bright flash, which is formed due to the release of a large amount of light and thermal energy. The strength of this flash is many times greater than the power of the sun's rays, so the danger of light and heat damage extends for several kilometers.

Another very dangerous factor in the impact of a nuclear bomb is the radiation generated during the explosion. It works only for the first 60 seconds, but has a maximum penetrating power.

The shock wave has a high power and a significant destructive effect, therefore, in a matter of seconds, it causes great harm to people, equipment, and buildings.

Penetrating radiation is dangerous for living organisms and is the cause of radiation sickness in humans. The electromagnetic pulse affects only the technique.

All these types of damage combined make the atomic bomb a very dangerous weapon.

First nuclear bomb tests

The United States was the first to show the greatest interest in atomic weapons. At the end of 1941, huge funds and resources were allocated in the country for the creation of nuclear weapons. The work resulted in the first tests of an atomic bomb with an explosive device "Gadget", which took place on July 16, 1945 in the US state of New Mexico.

It is time for the US to act. For the victorious end of the Second World War, it was decided to defeat the ally of Nazi Germany - Japan. At the Pentagon, targets were chosen for the first nuclear strikes, in which the United States wanted to demonstrate how powerful weapons they possess.

On August 6 of the same year, the first atomic bomb under the name "Kid" was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and on August 9, a bomb with the name "Fat Man" fell on Nagasaki.

The hit in Hiroshima was considered ideal: a nuclear device exploded at an altitude of 200 meters. The blast wave overturned the stoves in the houses of the Japanese, heated by coal. This has led to numerous fires even in urban areas far from the epicenter.

The initial flash was followed by a heat wave impact that lasted seconds, but its power, covering a radius of 4 km, melted tiles and quartz in granite slabs, incinerated telegraph poles. After the heat wave came the shock wave. The wind speed was 800 km / h, and its gust demolished almost everything in the city. Of the 76,000 buildings, 70,000 were completely destroyed.

A few minutes later, a strange rain of large black drops began to fall. It was caused by condensation formed in the colder layers of the atmosphere from steam and ash.

People hit by a fireball at a distance of 800 meters were burned and turned into dust. Some had their burnt skin torn off by the shock wave. Drops of black radioactive rain left incurable burns.

The survivors fell ill with a previously unknown disease. They began to experience nausea, vomiting, fever, bouts of weakness. The level of white cells in the blood dropped sharply. These were the first signs of radiation sickness.

3 days after the bombing of Hiroshima, a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It had the same power and caused similar effects.

Two atomic bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people in seconds. The first city was practically wiped off the face of the earth by the shock wave. More than half of the civilians (about 240 thousand people) died immediately from their wounds. Many people were exposed to radiation, which led to radiation sickness, cancer, infertility. In Nagasaki, 73 thousand people were killed in the first days, and after a while another 35 thousand inhabitants died in great agony.

Video: nuclear bomb tests

RDS-37 tests

Creation of the atomic bomb in Russia

The consequences of the bombing and the history of the inhabitants of Japanese cities shocked I. Stalin. It became clear that the creation of their own nuclear weapons is a matter of national security. On August 20, 1945, the Atomic Energy Committee began its work in Russia, headed by L. Beria.

Nuclear physics research has been carried out in the USSR since 1918. In 1938, a commission on the atomic nucleus was established at the Academy of Sciences. But with the outbreak of war, almost all work in this direction was suspended.

In 1943, Soviet intelligence officers handed over from England closed scientific papers on atomic energy, from which it followed that the creation of the atomic bomb in the West had advanced far ahead. At the same time, in the United States, reliable agents were introduced into several American nuclear research centers. They passed information on the atomic bomb to Soviet scientists.

The terms of reference for the development of two variants of the atomic bomb were compiled by their creator and one of the scientific leaders Yu. Khariton. In accordance with it, it was planned to create an RDS (“special jet engine”) with an index of 1 and 2:

1. RDS-1 - a bomb with a charge of plutonium, which was supposed to undermine by spherical compression. His device was handed over by Russian intelligence.
2. RDS-2 is a cannon bomb with two parts of a uranium charge, which must approach each other in the cannon barrel until a critical mass is created.

In the history of the famous RDS, the most common decoding - "Russia does it itself" - was invented by Yu. Khariton's deputy for scientific work K. Shchelkin. These words very accurately conveyed the essence of the work.

Information that the USSR had mastered the secrets of nuclear weapons caused an impulse in the USA to start a pre-emptive war as soon as possible. In July 1949, the Trojan plan appeared, according to which it was planned to start hostilities on January 1, 1950. Then the date of the attack was moved to January 1, 1957, with the condition that all NATO countries enter the war.

Information received through intelligence channels accelerated the work of Soviet scientists. According to Western experts, Soviet nuclear weapons could not have been created before 1954-1955. However, the test of the first atomic bomb took place in the USSR at the end of August 1949.

On August 29, 1949, the RDS-1 nuclear device was blown up at the Semipalatinsk test site - the first Soviet atomic bomb, which was invented by a team of scientists headed by I. Kurchatov and Yu. Khariton. The explosion had a power of 22 kt. The design of the charge imitated the American "Fat Man", and the electronic filling was created by Soviet scientists.

The Trojan plan, according to which the Americans were going to drop atomic bombs on 70 cities in the USSR, was thwarted due to the likelihood of a retaliatory strike. The event at the Semipalatinsk test site informed the world that the Soviet atomic bomb ended the American monopoly on the possession of new weapons. This invention completely destroyed the militaristic plan of the USA and NATO and prevented the development of the Third World War. A new history has begun - an era of world peace, existing under the threat of total destruction.

"Nuclear club" of the world

The nuclear club is a symbol for several states that own nuclear weapons. Today there are such weapons:

• in the USA (since 1945)
• in Russia (originally USSR, since 1949)
• in the UK (since 1952)
• in France (since 1960)
• in China (since 1964)
• in India (since 1974)
• in Pakistan (since 1998)
• in North Korea (since 2006)

Israel is also considered to have nuclear weapons, although the country's leadership does not comment on its presence. In addition, on the territory of NATO member states (Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada) and allies (Japan, South Korea, despite the official refusal), US nuclear weapons are located.

Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, which owned part of the nuclear weapons after the collapse of the USSR, in the 90s handed it over to Russia, which became the sole heir to the Soviet nuclear arsenal.

Atomic (nuclear) weapons are the most powerful tool of global politics, which has firmly entered the arsenal of relations between states. On the one hand, it is an effective deterrent, on the other hand, it is a weighty argument for preventing military conflict and strengthening peace between the powers that own these weapons. This is a symbol of an entire era in the history of mankind and international relations, which must be handled very wisely.

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Video about the Russian Tsar Bomba

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Almost seven decades ago, on October 29, 1949, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued four top-secret decrees on awarding 845 people with the titles of Heroes of Socialist Labor, the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner of Labor and the Badge of Honor. In none of them, in relation to any of the awardees, was it said what exactly he was awarded for: everywhere the standard wording “for exceptional services to the state in the performance of a special task” appeared. Even for the Soviet Union, accustomed to secrecy, this was a rare occurrence. Meanwhile, the recipients themselves knew perfectly well, of course, what kind of "exceptional merits" they meant. All 845 people were, to a greater or lesser extent, directly connected with the creation of the first Soviet nuclear bomb.

For the awardees, it was not strange that both the project itself and its success were shrouded in a thick veil of secrecy. After all, they all knew very well that they owed their success to a large extent to the courage and professionalism of Soviet intelligence officers, who for eight years had been supplying scientists and engineers with top-secret information from abroad. And such a high assessment, which the creators of the Soviet atomic bomb deserved, was not exaggerated. As one of the creators of the bomb, Academician Yuli Khariton, recalled, at the presentation ceremony, Stalin suddenly said: “If we were late for one to a year and a half, then we would probably try this charge on ourselves.” And this is not an exaggeration...

Atomic bomb sample ... 1940

The idea of ​​creating a bomb that uses the energy of a nuclear chain reaction came to the Soviet Union almost simultaneously with Germany and the United States. The first officially considered project of this type of weapons was presented in 1940 by a group of scientists from the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology led by Friedrich Lange. It was in this project that, for the first time in the USSR, a scheme, which later became classic for all nuclear weapons, was proposed for detonating conventional explosives, due to which two subcritical masses of uranium almost instantly form a supercritical one.

The project received negative reviews and was not considered further. But the work on which it was based continued, and not only in Kharkov. Nuclear issues in the pre-war USSR were dealt with by at least four large institutes - in Leningrad, Kharkov and Moscow, and the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Vyacheslav Molotov supervised the work. Shortly after the presentation of the Lange project, in January 1941, the Soviet government made a logical decision to classify domestic atomic research. It was clear that they could indeed lead to the creation of a new type of powerful weapon, and such information should not be scattered, all the more so since it was at that time that the first intelligence on the American atomic project was received - and Moscow did not want to risk their own.

The natural course of events was interrupted by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. But, despite the fact that the entire Soviet industry and science were very quickly transferred to a military footing and began to provide the army with the most vital developments and inventions, forces and means were also found to continue the atomic project. Although not immediately. The resumption of research should be counted from the decision of the State Defense Committee of February 11, 1943, which stipulated the start of practical work on the creation of an atomic bomb.

Enormous project

By this time, Soviet foreign intelligence was already hard at work on extracting information on the Enormoz project - this is how the American atomic project was called in operational documents. The first meaningful data indicating that the West was seriously engaged in the creation of uranium weapons came from the London station in September 1941. And at the end of the same year, from the same source, a message comes that America and Great Britain agreed to coordinate the efforts of their scientists in the field of atomic energy research. Under war conditions, this could be interpreted in only one way: the allies are working on the creation of atomic weapons. And in February 1942, intelligence received documentary evidence that Germany was actively doing the same.

As the efforts of Soviet scientists, working according to their own plans, advanced, intelligence work to obtain information about the American and British atomic projects also intensified. In December 1942, it became finally clear that the United States was clearly ahead of Britain in this area, and the main efforts were focused on extracting data from across the ocean. In fact, every step of the participants in the "Manhattan Project", as the work on creating an atomic bomb in the United States was called, was tightly controlled by Soviet intelligence. Suffice it to say that the most detailed information about the construction of the first real atomic bomb in Moscow was received less than two weeks after it was assembled in America.

That is why the boastful message of the new US President Harry Truman, who decided to stun Stalin at the Potsdam Conference by declaring that America had a new weapon of unprecedented destructive power, did not cause the reaction that the American was counting on. The Soviet leader calmly listened to him, nodded - and did not answer. Foreigners were sure that Stalin simply did not understand anything. In reality, the leader of the USSR sensibly assessed Truman's words and on the evening of the same day demanded that Soviet specialists speed up the work on creating their own atomic bomb as much as possible. But it was no longer possible to overtake America. In less than a month, the first atomic mushroom grew over Hiroshima, three days later - over Nagasaki. And the shadow of a new, atomic war hung over the Soviet Union, and not with anyone, but with former allies.

Time forward!

Now, seventy years later, no one is surprised that the Soviet Union got the much-needed margin of time to create its own super-bomb, despite the sharply deteriorating relations with ex-partners in the anti-Hitler coalition. After all, already on March 5, 1946, six months after the first atomic bombings, Winston Churchill's famous Fulton speech was delivered, which marked the beginning of the Cold War. But according to the plan of Washington and its allies, it should have developed into a hot one later - at the end of 1949. After all, as they calculated overseas, the USSR was not supposed to receive its own atomic weapons before the mid-1950s, which means that there was nowhere to rush.

Atomic bomb tests. Photo: U.S. Air Force / AR

From the height of today, it seems surprising that the date of the start of a new world war - more precisely, one of the dates of one of the main plans, Fleetwood - and the date of the test of the first Soviet nuclear bomb: 1949, seems surprising. But in reality, everything is natural. The foreign political situation was heating up quickly, the former allies were talking to each other more and more sharply. And in 1948, it became quite clear that Moscow and Washington, apparently, would not be able to come to an agreement between themselves. Hence, it is necessary to count the time until the start of a new war: a year is the deadline for which countries that have recently emerged from a colossal war can fully prepare for a new one, moreover, with the state that bore the brunt of the Victory on its shoulders. Even the atomic monopoly did not give the United States the opportunity to shorten the period of preparation for war.

Foreign "accents" of the Soviet atomic bomb

All this was perfectly understood by us. Since 1945, all work related to the atomic project has sharply intensified. During the first two post-war years, the USSR, tormented by the war and having lost a considerable part of its industrial potential, managed to create a colossal nuclear industry from scratch. Future nuclear centers emerged, such as Chelyabinsk-40, Arzamas-16, Obninsk, large scientific institutes and production facilities were formed.

Not so long ago, a common point of view on the history of the Soviet atomic project was as follows: they say, if it were not for intelligence, scientists of the USSR would not have been able to create any atomic bomb. In fact, everything was far from being as unambiguous as the revisionists of Russian history tried to show. In fact, the data obtained by Soviet intelligence about the American atomic project allowed our scientists to avoid many mistakes that inevitably had to be made by their American colleagues who had gone ahead (who, we recall, the war did not interfere with their work in earnest: the enemy did not several months half of the industry). In addition, intelligence data undoubtedly helped Soviet specialists evaluate the most advantageous designs and technical solutions that made it possible to assemble their own, more advanced atomic bomb.

And if we talk about the degree of foreign influence on the Soviet atomic project, then, rather, we need to remember several hundred German nuclear specialists who worked at two secret facilities near Sukhumi - in the prototype of the future Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology. So they really helped a lot to move forward work on the “product” - the first atomic bomb of the USSR, and so much so that many of them were awarded Soviet orders by the same secret decrees of October 29, 1949. Most of these specialists went back to Germany five years later, mostly settling in the GDR (although there were some who went to the West).

Objectively speaking, the first Soviet atomic bomb had, so to speak, more than one "accent". After all, it was born as a result of the colossal cooperation of the efforts of many people - both those who were involved in the project of their own free will, and those who were recruited to work as prisoners of war or interned specialists. But the country, which at all costs needed to get weapons as soon as possible, equalizing its chances with ex-allies, who quickly turned into mortal enemies, had no time for sentimentality.

When the Second World War ended, the Soviet Union faced two serious problems: destroyed cities, towns, national economy facilities, the restoration of which required enormous efforts and costs, as well as the presence of unprecedented weapons of destructive power from the United States, which had already dropped nuclear weapons on the peaceful cities of Japan. . The first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR changed the balance of power, possibly preventing a new war.

background

The initial lag of the Soviet Union in the atomic race had objective reasons:

• Although the development of nuclear physics in the country, starting from the 20s of the last century, was successful, and in 1940 scientists proposed to start developing weapons based on atomic energy, even the initial bomb project developed by F.F. Lange, but the outbreak of war crossed out these plans.
• Intelligence about the start of large-scale work in Germany and the United States in this area spurred the country's leadership to respond. In 1942, a secret GKO decree was signed, which gave rise to practical steps to create Soviet atomic weapons.
• The USSR, waging a full-scale war, unlike the United States, which earned more financially from it than fascist Germany lost, could not invest huge funds in its nuclear project, which were so necessary for victory.

The turning point was the militarily senseless bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After that, at the end of August 1945, L.P. became the curator of the atomic project. Beria, who did a lot to make the tests of the first atomic bomb in the USSR a reality.

Possessing brilliant organizational skills and enormous powers, he not only created the conditions for the fruitful work of Soviet scientists, but also attracted those German specialists who were captured at the end of the war and did not get to the Americans, who participated in the creation of the atomic "wunderwaffe". A good help was the technical data on the American "Manhattan Project", successfully "borrowed" by Soviet intelligence officers.

The first atomic munition RDS - 1 was mounted in the body of an aerial bomb (length 3.3 m, diameter 1.5 m) weighing 4.7 tons. Such characteristics were due to the size of the bomb bay of a heavy bomber TU - 4 long-range aviation, capable of delivering "gifts" to the military bases of a former ally in Europe.

Product No. 1 used plutonium obtained at an industrial reactor, enriched at a chemical plant in the secret Chelyabinsk - 40. All work was carried out in the shortest possible time - it took only a year from the summer of 1948, when the reactor was launched, to obtain the required amount of plutonium atomic bomb charge . Time was a critical factor, because against the backdrop of the US threatening the USSR, brandishing, by its own definition, an atomic "club", it was impossible to hesitate.

A testing ground for new weapons was created in a deserted area 170 km from Semipalatinsk. The choice is due to the presence of a plain with a diameter of about 20 km, surrounded on three sides by low mountains. The construction of the nuclear test site was completed in the summer of 1949.

In the center, a tower of metal structures with a height of about 40 m was mounted, intended for RDS - 1. Underground shelters were built for personnel, scientists, and military equipment was installed on the territory of the test site to study the impact of the explosion, buildings of various designs, industrial facilities were erected, recording equipment.

Tests with a power corresponding to the explosion of 22 thousand tons of TNT took place on August 29, 1949 and were successful. A deep crater at the location of the overground charge, destroyed by the shock wave, exposure to the high temperature of the explosion of equipment, demolished or badly damaged buildings, structures confirmed the new weapon.

The consequences of the first test were significant:

• The Soviet Union received an effective weapon to deter any aggressor and deprived the United States of its atomic monopoly.
• During the creation of weapons, reactors were built, a scientific base for a new industry was created, and previously unknown technologies were developed.
• The military part of the atomic project, although at that time was the main one, but not the only one. Peaceful use of nuclear energy, the foundations of which were laid by a team of scientists led by I.V. Kurchatov, served the future creation of nuclear power plants, the synthesis of new elements of the periodic table.

The tests of the atomic bomb in the USSR once again showed the whole world that our country is capable of solving problems of any complexity. It should be remembered that the thermonuclear charges installed in the warheads of modern missile delivery vehicles and other nuclear weapons, which are a reliable shield for Russia, are the “great-grandchildren” of that first bomb.