Did Hitler ever push for the creation of atomic bomb?
Beatnik almost has it right. Hitler was intrigued with the idea of atomic weapons. He did some exploratory research and determined Germany would not be able to build a working bomb in enough time to be used during that war. Some hardware (research reactors and such) were built, but the idea was put way on the back burner. There were several world-class physicists chased out of Europe during the buildup to war and during the early days of the war. These settled in Britain and the US. They knew about the early phases of atomic research going on in Germany, but didn’t know whether an actual weapons program had been started. We built our bomb out of fear Germany would build one first. It was only after the war we learned the truth.
