‘Critical Mass ; How Nazi Germany surrendered enriched uranium for the United States Atomic Bomb’
By Carter Plymton Hydrick
Published by Trine Day 3^rd^ edition 2016
Horray, finally a reprint of what has to be one of the more stunning books to merge in the last 20 years on the topic of the Nazi Germany weapons development program, the survival of the elite of the Third Reich and the suppressed story of the US atomic bomb development programme.
This author slaved away for over ten years accessing archives that had not been opened since they were boxed up in the closing days of the Second World War which, with much cross checking, led him to conclude that the coup for the atomic bomb program came in the shape of a lone U-Boat that was escorted into Portsmouth Naval yard on May 19^th^ 1954, eleven days after the surrender of Nazi Germany. On board the U-Boat and buried in the nose inside cylinders lined with gold were 1,120 pounds of enriched uranium oxide, originally bound for Japan but redirected to the US seemingly at the last minute. The press that day were kept at a distance but were close enough to see the passengers as they disembarked , two Japanese officers and a contingent of suits.
For decades the official version of the atomic bomb programme was tightly controlled by US authorities and this theory of Hydrick’s, as possible as it appeared to be based on archived documents lacked a smoking gun. It was not until 2011 that this was delivered up and Hydrick’s book prices on the used market went stratospheric. It was in 2011 that the Daily Mail reported that 126,000 barrels of radioactive uranium waste left over from the Nazi atomic bomb program was discovered 2,000 feet underground in salt mines outside of Hamburg. Hydrick’s theory also explained the vast electrical consumption of the Buna Plant next door to Auschwitz, the synthetic rubber plant that never made one single tyre or mat and yet sucked up 70% of the available electricity supply of Europe.
This is a galloping read that is also peppered with magnificent insights into the escape of Bormann and Co along with most of the Nazi Party wealth estimated in the billions at the time. Carter Hydrick however, did not the recognition he deserved for this epic work until after the discovery in 2011 of the uranium waste outside Hanburg and the publication of the books of Dr Joseph P Farrell who leaned heavily on the impeccable research of ‘Critical Mass'.