As the Second World War began so did the race to build the bomb. All major powers set out to make new discoveries in the field of nuclear technologies. The Allies only knew one thing - if they lost the race the results would be catastrophic. Driven by fear, the Allies began the Manhattan Project led by theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer. Germany began with an overwhelming head start, but in 1945 the Allies beat them to it. So why couldn’t Germany keep up?
This is the story of the world’s first Nuclear Arms Race.
The archive footage used in this video is from IWM’s collections. View and licence broadcast quality clips via iwm.org.uk/film
World Map courtesy of vemaps.com
