Germany itself never actually came that close to developing a nuclear weapon. This is not, however, due to "superior American science" or any such nonsense. It is because Hitler failed to maintain the loyalty of his scientists, most importantly Einstein some would argue. The great majority of nuclear scientists at the time were from Axis powers originally, but either defected or were "liberated" by allied forces.
As far as I know Germans were concentrated in production of rockets and jet engines. They succided rather much in this field and later those achievements as well as German engineers were used by Soviet Union in production of their own.
I actually saw a NOVA show on this topic recently...apparently the Germans were trying to import heavy water into their country through Norway on a ferry boat; some couragous civilians took it upon themselves to try and stop the water from getting to its destination. They have recently found that although there was indeed heavy water on the boat, it was not nearly enough to create a nuclear weapon of any true danger; in fact, the only nuclear program running at the time in Germany was an experimental one, and they discovered a small setup in a cave in some mountain in Germany that would have made a little bomb, but not anything substantial, and that's where the heavy water was headed. That's my long-winded way of saying that Hitler was not close to posing a threat to the world with nuclear weapons. Fortunately. Our world would be very different today indeed had the Nazis been manufacturing weapons of that magnitude.
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