Random Secret Technologies Invented by the Nazis (16 items)

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  (#1) Nuclear Weapons

  German nuclear weapons research was competitive with American research, as German physicists made important discoveries in nuclear reactor construction, isotope separation, and heavy water production.

  A variety of factors kept Nazi Germany from the breakthroughs needed for a nuclear bomb, including interference from the government, the expulsion of Jewish physicists, and other doctors being drafted and sent into combat and limited resources. But their findings later became key to Allied nuclear weapons research in the Cold War.
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  (#2) The World's First Mass-Produced Helicopter

  Both the Axis and Allies were developing helicopter technology, but Germany got there first in terms of actual production. The Flettner Fl 282 became the world's first large-scale produced helicopter, with a handful of prototypes, and a full order for 1,000 machines placed in 1944. Allied bombing affected the Flettner factory production and 24 had come off the line by May 1945. Three survived the war.
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  (#3) Space Planes

  The German project codenamed "Silbervogel" was a theoretical design for a sub-orbital bomber aircraft that would have been able to attain 90 miles in height and bomb New York when launched from Germany. The aircraft got as far as a wind-tunnel mockup, and work done on the design continues to influence rocket and ramjet technology today.
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  (#4) Sophisticated Jet Fighters and Bombers

  While the ME-262 became famous as the first operational jet fighter, Germany had a wide range of other jet fighters and bombers in various developmental stages. Some saw limited action, and others never made it off of the drawing board. The most effective was the Arado Ar-234 jet bomber, used in very limited numbers at the end of the war. The first Ar-234 combat mission, a reconnaissance flight over the Allied beachhead in Normandy, happened on August 2, 1944. Other designs were the Messerschmitt Me P.1101 swept-wing fighter, the Ta-400 long range bomber, and the Fa-269 VTOL fighter.

   
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  (#5) Giant Super Cannons

  Known by a variety of nicknames, including the V3 and the "London Gun," the German super-powered cannon was a gigantic artillery piece that could shell the British capital from tunnels dug into fields near the coast of France. When complete, the cannon was 130 meters long and could fire a shell at 1,500 meters per second at a target over 100 kilometers away. It fired through a series of charges igniting down the barrel, increasing the speed of the shell as it went.

  The cannon was immobile and impractical, and became an inviting target for Allied bombers, but did manage to fire a few shells.
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  (#6) Stealth Bombers

  The Arado E.555 and Horton HO 229 jet bombers were Germany's prime candidates to fly from Europe to the U.S. for the purposes of dropping a bomb. They used the same flying wing designs that the B-2 bomber would later adapt.
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  (#7) Guided Point-Defense Rockets

  Decades before the Patriot Missile was knocking Scuds out of the sky, German aircraft engineers developed the Bachem Ba 349 guided point-defense rocket. The manned rocket would be flown by an inexperienced pilot, launched from a vertical stand, and flown by auto-pilot to attack Allied bombers. The pilot would then fire a load of rockets, and parachute out of the vehicle, which would also fall back to earth via parachute.

  Three dozen rockets and a launch site were built, with plans to fire the first squadron. But the program was canceled on March 1, when the first manned launch ended with the rocket spinning out and exploding, killing the test pilot.
   
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  (#8) Man-Portable Anti-Aircraft Rockets

  Long before such weapons became commonly issued, Nazi Germany developed a man-portable air defense weapon - the Fliegerfaust (literally "plane fist" in German). The multi-barreled air-to-ground rocket launcher was designed to fire several 20 millimeter unguided rockets up to 500 meters, though this range was never achieved. The rockets tended to disperse poorly and showed little stopping power against a moving plane, so of the 10,000 launchers ordered, only about 80 were made. Their eventual usage history is unknown, though one photograph of the ruins of Berlin clearly shows fired and discarded Fliegerfaust launchers.
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  (#9) Gigantic Mega Tanks

  German tank technology was second to none in World War II. But beyond the already superior machines they were fielding, Germany was working on a variety of heavy, super heavy, and gigantic tanks. Most infamous of these were the P.1000 Ratte and P.1500 Monster tanks, which would have weighed, respectively, 1,000 and 1,500 tons. These two massive tanks would have been more comparable to battleships with treads, armed with naval guns and crewed by dozens of men. Neither design was the least bit practical, and the tanks never got past the mockup stage. But if built, they would have been almost indestructible by any means other than heavy bombing.
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  (#10) Guided Missiles

  Beyond using guided V1 and V2 rockets to terrorize civilians, the Germans made use of guided anti-ship glide bombs (the "Fritz X") and guided air-dropped anti-ship missiles. They also had prototypes for man-portable guided missiles, television-guided surface to air missiles, and wire-guided air to air missiles.

  None of these weapons had any appreciable impact on the war effort, and most never advanced beyond the testing stages. But they pioneered technology that would form the core of modern armies for decades to come.
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  (#11) Spherical Tanks

  Virtually nothing is known about the small, one man spherical tank the Germans built, except that it somehow ended up in Manchuria in 1945 and was captured by the Russians. The "Kugelpanzer" still sits in a museum in Moscow. What is it for? Were there more of them? Was it even a real vehicle, or a dummy mocked up by someone for unknown reasons? It's likely that nobody will ever know.
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  (#12) UFOs

  The Sun Gun is a good place to take this list from the theoretical to the realm of conspiracy theories. None of what follows actually was developed by the Nazis, but instead is attached to them through Internet chatter, rumor, and urban legend. Chief among these is the "Nazi UFO" conspiracy. This holds that the Germans recovered crashed alien craft or discovered alien technology in Antarctica to reverse engineer flying saucers. These craft were used to ferry high-ranking Nazis to safety in the final days of the war, and then retreated to space or the Moon to prepare for the coming Fourth Reich. No evidence exists to support these theories.
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  (#13) Anti-Gravity Technology

  How does a Nazi UFO fly, anyway? Possibly through anti-gravity technology, developed by SS scientists working on an ultra secret project known only as "Die Glocke" - The Bell.

  According to Polish writer Igor Witkowski, who claimed to have access to stolen transcripts of an SS officer's interrogation, the Nazis built a massive rig to hold up a bell-shaped craft. This craft was able to launch itself off the ground using the power of "red mercury" and achieve propulsion without an engine. As the war was coming to an end, all of the scientists involved supposedly passed away and the Bell itself was taken away by the US. Witkowski's evidence is conjecture, as is all of the follow-up "research" done on The Bell. But it makes for one of the most compelling Nazi "wonder weapon" stories out there.
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  (#14) Time Travel

  Another feature of "Die Glocke" that has been theorized is an ability to see through time. This would be done through the use of a convex mirror on the top of a device, speculated by author Henry Stevens. Others have suggested that The Bell itself is a time machine, giving the person inside it the capability to move into the past. 
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  (#15) Aspartame

  We move from science fiction to pure conspiracy theory here, with accusations that the Nazis are somehow linked to the creation of aspartame. This is the artificial sweetener thought by some to cause brain damage, though no reputable research backs this up. However, aspartame wasn’t synthesized until 1965, when James M. Schlatter developed it by accident while working at Searle, the company that later became Pfizer.
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  (#16) Microwave Ovens

  Finally, an urban legend has existed for decades that says the Nazis were responsible for inventing the microwave oven, and that microwaving food is actually harmful to humans, killing all its nutrients and causing cancer.

  No credible science supports the cancer causing accusation. As to the claim that the Nazis developed the microwave oven, it usually presents itself as a rumor that German troops invading the Soviet Union carried a primitive portable microwave called a "radiomissor" that could heat their food in the field.

  The problem with this theory is that not only is there no proof, but the power of microwaves to cook food wasn't documented until 1946. Additionally, microwave ovens run on electricity, and Russia's electrical grid in the '40s was too primitive to power any such machine.

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