The German Sun Gun, also known as the “Sonnengewehr,” was an experimental and scientific weapon conceptualized by German physician Hermann Oberth that could concentrate enough sunlight onto Earth with a devastating effect.

Looking like a real-life orbital space weapon seen in a particular sci-fi movie, the idea of the sun gun originated in 1929 when Hermann Oberth proposed a massive space station with a 328-foot-wide concave mirror to focus the sun’s light. Initially, the proposal was intended for scientific purposes, like power generation and aiding crop growth. However, the Nazis took the concept and militarized the station into an ultimate superweapon that could burn and level cities 5100 miles above the earth.

During the Second World War, German scientists began working on the Sun Gun, drawing inspiration from Archimedes’ death ray mirrors allegedly used against the Roman fleet during the battle of Syracuse in 212 BCE. The gun would be made of a massive metallic sodium mirror measuring 3.5 square miles in area, capable of concentrating enough sunlight to boil opposing armies and burn cities into ashes. However, despite early test runs and several prototypes, the idea of an apocalyptic orbital doom beam never saw the light of day.

Nazi Germany did not have the payload, resources, and capacity to develop a weapon that could reach a 5100-mile orbit. Moreover, there is the problem of maintaining, assembling, and controlling the weapon in orbit, since it was still theoretical in concept during the 1940s, unlike today’s scientific breakthroughs in space travel. Even if the sun gun was successfully developed, concentrating a sufficient amount of rays to burn down earth-based targets with accuracy and precision is another challenge. At best, the result, according to some German physicists, would be just a very bright sunny day instead of the catastrophic and apocalyptic impact dealt by the weapon. Furthermore, many Nazi scientists behind the concept admitted that it would take 50-100 years for the project to reach its full potential.

Nevertheless, the idea of the Sonnengewehr represents the growing desire and desperation among the Nazi hierarchy to create weapons that are deemed fantastical to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, rather than focusing on systems that do work.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/nazi-germanys-sun-gun-weapon-might-have-destroyed-the-world

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/impractical-german-inventions.html

https://www.nevingtonwarmuseum.com/sun-cannon.html