“This is a glorious day that will always have a special place in German history!” In a grandiose announcement, the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda revealed that Germany had successfully completed its “uranium project” and detonated the first uranium bomb.

Indeed, seismologists registered unusually strong tremors on April 18, 1947, with an epicenter approximately 1,000km south of Tunis.

US intelligence services dismissed the news on the development of such a “miracle weapon” as propaganda. They argued that the detonation had been caused by the methodical blasting of old explosives stocks from the African campaign. International experts, however, conceded that Germany might well have the technical capacities to build an atomic bomb. Ever since Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission at Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in 1938, scientists and technicians have worked on putting it to military use. As early as 1939, Albert Einstein and other renowned physicists warned Roosevelt, then US President, about the potential development of an atomic bomb in Germany.

The League of Nations is worried, for the international community of states cannot for long tolerate a weapon of such indescribable destructive force in the hands of the overtly aggressive German dictator. Behind closed doors, people are wondering: “What are the maniac’s plans for the bomb?”