While the Nazis never shied away from creating truly massive machines, some were well outside the realm of possibility, despite the idealized effectiveness of such devices. The Sonnengewehr is a weapon system that was designed, but never realized. Also called the Heliobeam or Sun Gun, the Sonnengewehr was a theoretical space station developed from a concept created by German physicist Hermann Oberth in 1929.
During World War II, the proposal for the Sun Gun was dusted off, and plans were made to create the device. If realized, the Sun Gun would have manifested as part of an orbital space station 5,100 miles above the surface of the Earth. Using a huge mirror made of metallic sodium, measuring 3.5 square miles, the Sun Gun could concentrate solar energy and direct it through a focusing mechanism at a target.
Theoretically, the Sun Gun could have boiled oceans or destroyed whole cities, so it was something the Nazis hoped to build. Despite this, they were well aware of their limitations and believed they could create the Sun Gun within a century. That may sound like a long time, but the Third Reich had lofty goals of global domination, so in the grand scheme of their plans, the Sun Gun was a challenging future possibility.
[Featured image by Tabitan via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]
