Resubmitted due to previous author error. Repost history: Prior to the Third Reich, it was actually the Weimar Govt that started planning rearmament with convert programs already started for strategic bombers posing as civil aircraft. As far as strategic bombers were concerned, they had decided on a Ural Bomber starting with the Do-19. But when the Nazis got elected and took over, both the RLM (German Air Ministry) and Goering decided to cancel those plans in favor of 2-engine medium range bombers for a short 2 year Euro conflict. Heinkel begged to continue work on 4-engine bombers like the He-277, but was forbidden to develop them. Heinkel worked on the 4 engine version of the He-177 secretly under false designation He-177B and also had a design for the larger He-274 that was worked on in occupied France. The approved Messerschmiit Me-264 Amerika bomber was delayed and eventually the 2 prototypes were lost to bombing raids. By Oct 1944 all German bomber projects came to a halt and production began on emergency fighters instead, leading to the He-162 jet fighter in 1945. Still, Heinkel had more work done on the 277 and 274 and even started the He-343 jet bomber which lost out to the Ju-287 program. If the He-277 with 4 engines had been produced vs the He-177 with coupled engines, then it could have reached beyond the Urals and attacked Soviet industry. The He-274 also could have attacked the US not with a conventional bombload, but single superbombs like a radiolgical, mini- nuke, Liquid-air bomb, or FAEs (even nerve gas bombs). But by 1944 all the bomber programs were shelved to concentrate on emergency fighter production, Heinkel finally winning the second jet competition with the He-162. Jet bombers were also continued as company projects with the RLM leaning towards the Ju-287. Heinkel's 343 was in component construction and was put into storage. Goering, obsessed with a new Amerika Bomber, ordered the Horten brothers to build a stealth flying wing bomber in March 1945- the Ho XVIII. They were working on the center section at the time of the surrender. More advanced space bombers on the boards were the Sanger Silbervogel and a range of Peenemunde EMW manned V-2s, the A-6 with aux. ramjet propulsion (this became the X-15 in the US).

He-277: http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/attachment.php?s=82b2c286ba86071344187a6e1b11b5a5&attachmentid=59651&stc=1&d=1230573314
He-274: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRemdEapUi3ulRC4oTkjJ5gqcMVDfzOx3IQNQDNIpQ1zieaWSjjLw