ScienceDirect - Technol Rep Tohoku Univ ... - Garryck Osborne

NICK COOK 183
gravitational effect, Witkowski said. He wasn't in a hurry to agree with
this assessment, he added, but he was sufficiently intrigued by the data to
alert me to the possibilities.
Like Witkowski, I was skeptical, a feeling that grew when he told me
who had presided over the work: Walther Gerlach, Professor of Physics
at the University of Munich and head of nuclear research at the Reich
Research Council in 1944-45.
Wilhelm Voss, joint head of the SS special projects groups inside the
Skoda Works, had made it clear to Tom Agoston that German nuclear
work had absorbed a large part of the group's research activities. By early
May, Kammler should have had adequate intelligence that Pash, the
FBI-trained former teacher and head of the U.S. Alsos Mission, had
located most, if not all Germany's nuclear research centers in the western
zone of influence along with the scientists that went with them. Kammler
might also have known that the U-234 had sailed with its cargo of
uranium ore for Japan; maybe he'd been responsible for the order
himself.
While he could not have known that the Americans were close to
perfecting their own nuclear weapon, or that the U-234 would fall into
U.S. hands, he didn't seem like a man who would gamble his life on
providing America with a technology it had already acquired via diligent
detective work. It didn't tally with his profile.
My feeling was that Kammler would offer them something so
spectacular they'd have no choice but to enter into negotiations with him;
and, intriguing as it was, this experiment down the mine didn't seem to
fit the bill. The sickness suffered by the scientists appeared to be the
result of radiation poisoning. As for the device itself, I said, by now
thinking out loud, since it fell within the Soviet zone of influence, it
hardly conformed to the plan that Kammler had outlined to Speer in
Berlin.
It was then that Witkowski, who had listened for several minutes
patiently enough, interrupted me. His research had uncovered the
existence of an SS-run "Special Evacuation Kommando (command, team
or unit)" that had evacuated the "Bell" and its supporting documentation
prior to the Russians' overrunning the facility. The evidence said it had
been shipped out, destination God only knew where; except it wasn't
there when the Russians arrived.
Despite the warmth of my hotel room, I felt a sudden chill. For all the
months I had been following Kammler, he had been a remote figure, even
at his closest in the wet, freezing-cold underground galleries at
Nordhausen. Now, fleetingly, I felt him in the same room as me.