Uranprojekt

The Uranprojekt (English: Uranium Society or Uranium Club) was the name of the scientific effort led by Germany, with help from Italian and Hungarian scientists, to develop and produce nuclear weapons during the Second World War. First starting in April 1939, just months after the discovery of nuclear fission in December 1938, but ended only months later shortly ahead of the German invasion of Poland, when many notable physicists were drafted into the Wehrmacht.

A second attempt began under the administrative purview of the Wehrmacht's Heereswaffenamt on June 6th 1942. The program would soon into three main efforts: the Uranmaschine (nuclear reactor), uranium and heavy water production, and uranium isotope separation. Eventually, the Heereswaffenamt turned the program over to the Reich Research Council (Reichsforschungsrat), deciding that it wasn't directly important to the war effort, while continuing to fund the program. As the war entered its final phases, the number of scientists working on applied nuclear fission began to grow, after many serving on the front lines began to return home with the Soviet surrender in 1945.

After this manpower rise the Heereswaffenamt again picked up the project, this time attaining increased funding from the German government. Two years later in September 1947, a functional nuclear bomb was built, and a week later was tested on the island of Corsica