The German nuclear programme is not a subject which has received widespread attention, and it remains unclear how close Hitler came to the appalling prospect of being able to deploy this potentially war-winning "miracle" weapon. Geoffrey Brooks makes a bold attempt to find answers, digging deep into the origins and evolution of German atomic research, as well as the personalities who developed it. The majority of the book is dedicated to the nuclear question, but it also considers the experiments carried out with the more conventional yet no less devastating pressure bomb, before delving into some truly ambiguous areas of Nazi research. Much of this remains either as rumour or classified information, but it includes the electro-magnetic tests which were apparently aimed at developing gravity-defying aircraft, and this introduces the wartime Foo Fighter phenomenon and post-war UFO sightings of craft which seemed to flout several laws of physics.

Pegasus Archive, Mark Hickman