[morse1001]

As Dr. Goudsmit wrote in his final report:

The evaluation of the intelligence indicated that
the Germans believed that they were far ahead of
American developments in this field. In reality
the Germans, though they started sooner, were
far behind. They had given up altogether the idea
of making a bomb and were concentrating their
efforts on constructing an energy-producing machine,
which they called a “Uranium Burner”
[Uranbrenner]. At the end of the war, they had
not even succeeded in constructing a selfsustaining
chain reaction or “pile.”
Nevertheless, they believed their progress to
be so important that they offered to assist United
States scientists in their efforts to harness atomic energy.

They were convinced that their work
would help Germany to dominate the world of
science, even though the military struggle had
been lost.

Irving David, The Virus house, FPP, London, Pp344-5

During the last few days of the war, wild rumors began to circulate
in southern Germany: Party officers went from house to
house in Munich spreading the word that the German atomic
bomb was about to be used. It was a rumor that many people
believed. Colonel Geist, Speer’s chief of technical research, met
his wife as both were fleeing before the enemy. She begged him
to tell her whether Hitler had any more “miracle weapons” with
which to snatch victory from defeat, even at this hour. Geist
told her that there were none. For a time, he said, there had
been some hope of manufacturing an atomic bomb; but Germany’s
scientists had let her down.

irving ibid P347