Nazis tested nuclear device - book

Nazi Germany tested a crude nuclear device in March 1945, killing hundreds of people in a massive explosion south of Berlin, a German researcher claims in a new book.

That the Nazis conducted nuclear experiments has been known for decades, but "Hitler's Bomb" by Berlin academic Rainer Karlsch, published Monday, suggests they may have been closer to building a bomb for military use than previously thought.

No independent corroboration of the claims was available.

"German physicists did not lag behind their colleagues in the United States and Britain in their understanding of theory," Karlsch told a news conference. "They knew what a plutonium bomb was and what a uranium-235 bomb was."

What Nazi Germany lacked was enough fissile material -- such as enriched uranium -- to make a full-size, functioning nuclear bomb, he said.

The book cites postwar witness accounts and Soviet military intelligence reports to back up its theory of a March 3, 1945, experimental nuclear test blast at the Nazis' Ohrdruf military testing area, but offers no direct documentary proof.