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ombers on the Oslo field to Kammler as well. Moreover, Mayer
and Mehner speculate that at least two atom bombs were built and
possibly transported on the mission of the U-234. In their view, the
surrender of the U-boat to the American authorities thus not only
provided the Manhattan Project with much-needed stocks of
enriched uranium, but quite possibly also with two fully functional
atom bombs as well.
Professor Friedrich Lachner was assistant for twenty years to
professor Mache at the Department for Technical Physics at the
Technical University of Vienna. Familiar with aspects of the
German bomb project, Lachner unburdened himself of his
knowledge to researchers Mayer and Mehner. Among his
allegations were that at least one completed bomb of German
construction was transported from Thuringia to Salzburg by the SS
near the end of the war. 3
Lachner's letter is intriguing for two reasons. First, because it
corroborates the existence of a large atom bomb program in the
Three Corners region, and corroborates Freier's allegations of a
successful test in March 1945. By mentioning the transportation of
such weapons out of the region, he gives some credence to the idea
that the U-234 might have been used to transport at least one such
weapon to Norway. 4
But a more curious allegation is made in Lachner's letter to
Mayer and Mehner, and with it, we begin to approach the even
more horrendous potentialities of Nazi wartime secret weapons
research. Citing the letter of a British espionage agent who was
well-aware of the multi-tiered nature of the German atom bomb
program, and who was aware of a "third team that sought another
3
Mayer and Mehner, das Geheimnis, p. 81. Lachner also asserts
unequivocally in his letter to Mayer and Mehner that the bomb dropped on
Hiroshima was German (p. 82). Lachner also states that there were no less than
fifteen atom bombs in German hands by the war's end. Again, on first glance,
this seems a sheer fantasy, unless they had already mastered the techniques of
boosted fission. The Salzburg bomb story may not be fantasy, as American tank
units were operating in the area late in the war (q.v. pp. 84-85) in conjunction
with Patton's drive on Pilsen and Prague.
4 Italian officer Luigi Romersa mentions as well that the Russians captured
two such bombs (Das Geheimnis, p. 105).
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