Many explanations have been offered why the Nazis never built an atomic bomb but the man who was at the center of Germany's atomic research did answer the question.
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War under the leadership of Werner Heisenberg.
Von Weizsäcker was present at the meeting in Berlin on Sept. 17, 1939, when the atomic bomb program was begun, and he led the way in finding how to convert uranium into energy, and how to produce and use plutonium for the same purpose.
He was interviewed at his home in the late 1990's for the documentary film "Stealing the Fire: The Nuclear Weapons Underground" (Filmakers Library) when the producers of the film asked: "Why didn't Germany build the bomb?"
He answered: "Hitler didn't give us the resources."
Von Weizsäcker was then asked: "If the funds had been committed and a bomb was built would Hitler have used it?"
"Yes," he said.
Ironically both Heisenberg and Von Weizsäcker became leaders of Germany’s anti-nuclear movement in 1957, when they were among 18 scientists who signed a manifesto protesting nuclear weapons on German soil.