SVR told about the mistake of German nuclear scientists found by Kurchatov

In the summer of 1945, Academician Igor Kurchatov, having studied the materials extracted by Moscow on the work of Nazi Germany in the field of atomic energy, discovered an important mistake by German scientists, which may have greatly slowed down the creation of nuclear weapons by the Third Reich. This is described on February 11 in a declassified archival document of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, which

"The main focus was on uranium and heavy water, and the work was carried out almost before the boiler was built," Kurchatov wrote in documents published by RIA Novosti.

Kurchatov was appointed scientific director of the Soviet atomic project by the State Defense Committee in 1943. In early June 1945, a Soviet physicist sent a request to the deputy head of Soviet foreign intelligence, Gaik Hovakimyan. In the letter, Kurchatov analyzed the work on Germany's atomic program during the war.

Kurchatov studied intelligence information about Germany's experiments with uranium and heavy water. He noted that the republic had almost succeeded in creating a nuclear reactor. At the same time, work on a reactor based on uranium and graphite developed poorly due to a mistake by German physicist Walter Bothe. In his experiments, he incorrectly estimated the characteristics of neutron absorption by graphite. The researcher concluded that it is inefficient to use pure graphite in a nuclear reactor. Therefore, in the Third Reich, the emphasis was on creating a reactor based on heavy water.

"Judging by the materials, work on the uranium-graphite boiler developed poorly, and Professor Bothe's 1941-1942 work contains a significant error in estimating the absorption of slow neutrons in pure graphite, which may have influenced the entire development of this area," Kurchatov pointed out in the document.

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