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credulity, unless these bombs were war booty, brought from
Europe.
But the strangest evidence of all comes from the German island
of Rugen, and the testimony of Italian officer Luigi Romersa, an
eyewitness to the test of a German atom bomb on the island on the
night of 11-12 October, 1944, approximately the same time frame
as indicated in Zinsser's affidavit, and it is also the same
approximate area as Zinsser indicated.
In this context it is also extremely curious that this time frame in
1944 was, for the Allies, a banner year for atomic bomb scares. On
Saturday, August 11, 1945, an article in the London Daily
Telegraph reported British preparations for German atom bomb
attack on London the previous year.
NAZIS' ATOM BOMB PLANS
BRITAIN READY A YEAR AGO
Britain prepared for the possibility of an atomic attack on this
country by Germany in August, 1944.
It can now be disclosed that details of the expected effect of such a
bomb were revealed in a highly secret memorandum which was sent
that summer to the chiefs of Scotland Yard, chief constables of
provincial forces and senior officials of the defence services.
An elaborate scheme was drawn up by the Ministry of Home
Security for prompt and adequate measures to cope with the
widespread devastation and heavy casualties if the Germans succeeded
in launching atomic bombs on this country.
Reports received from our agents on the Continent early last year
indicated that German scientists were experimenting with an atomic
bomb in Norway. According to these reports the bomb was launched
by catapult, and had an explosive radius of more than two miles.
In view of our own progress in devising an 'atomic' bomb the
Government gave the reports serious consideration. Thousands of men
and women of the police and defence services were held in readiness
for several months until reliable agents in Germany reported that the
bomb had been tested and proved a failure. 5
5 "Nazis Atom Bomb Plans," London Daily Telegraph, Saturday, August
11, 1945, cited in Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner, Hitler und die ,,Bombe",
p. 37.
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