Nazi Germany had plans to launch a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union in the summer of 1945, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has stated.

According to declassified transcripts of interrogations with Gruppenführer Werner Wächter, published on August 7 by the FSB’s Centre for Public Relations, Berlin had hoped to drop an atomic bomb on the Soviet Union. However, Soviet troops had already stormed and captured Berlin before those plans could come to fruition.

Wächter, a high-ranking official in the Third Reich's Propaganda Ministry and close ally of Joseph Goebbels, was interrogated by intelligence officers following the fall of Nazi Germany. One of those interrogators was Ivan Serov, who a decade later became the Chairman of the KGB. The transcripts state that Wächter, who was closely involved with the Ministry of Armaments, claimed to have learned about the atomic bomb plans during a private conversation in 1943 with a man identified only as Chief Communications Engineer Dominik.

"Dominik talked to me about the atomic bomb in 1943 during one of our private conversations. He told me that German scientists had managed to achieve nuclear fission, and specialist engineers were working on methods and practical applications of atomic energy as a means of warfare," Wächter said, according to transcripts.

By 1944, preparations were underway to use atomic bombs. According to the released transcripts, Colonel Herrmann Hajo of the Special Air Force School announced that they had operational aeroplanes designed to carry nuclear weapons.

"The new planes were intended for hitting industrial centres of the Soviet Union located in the Urals and Central Asia with atomic bombs," Wächter reported, according to the FSB. Wächter also stated that this aircraft was capable of bombing industrial facilities in North America.

The conversations with Dominik and other officials – including Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Werner Naumann – led Wächter to believe that the German Ministry of Armaments was preparing to deploy atomic bombs in 1945.

"Comparing it with other data, I believe that this indicated intensive preparation for the use of secret weapons planned for June 1945," Wächter said.

According to Moscow, Wächter was sentenced to death by firing squad as a high-ranking Nazi official and was likely executed in August 1946.

The latest documents published by the FSB come on the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.