Huh, so both the US and Germany claim they were first. So now I don't know who to believe, it's not like Wikipedia is any sort of a quotable source and this wouldn't be the first thing the US has claimed to have invented which existed elsewhere earlier. Like the electric light bulb.

Whilst I don't wish to be argumentative it is in my nature, as an engineer, to question things that seem unlikely or ill documented.

That is the only page I have seen so far that says the Germans invented the microwave. The page also contains some statements which show a gross lack of technical knowledge and others which are just bollocks. They say the Russians used 100 killowatts per cubic centimeter per second to test irradiation of food. A Watt is a Joule per second, so Watts per second would be a rate of change of power. 100 killowatts per cubic centimeter would flash water to steam. Since that's a gram of water, which requires 205 Joules to raise its temperature 100C and a further 2206 Joules to vaporize it. So other 97,000 Joules... well I am laboring the point. And there isn't radiation floating around in the atmosphere that can magically be bonded to something that was heated with a microwave oven.

Other web pages discuss the claim, but they also point out that the Klystron couldn't produce useful power at the necessary frequencies and the Krauts hadn't managed to make a cavity magnetron work until they captured an H2S RADAR.

Well, all I found was that I got the frequency wrong. It's 2.45GHz which the captured magnetrons that the Germans could copy could produce. But by the time they had them it was way after they invaded Russia. This mentions the claim that Russia or Germany had them first. But that's all I found so far. It also straightened out the frequency thing for me.

http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/oven_history.cfm

So now that I know that I don't know I am going to go and sulk.