Yes, I once thought that it should have been surprising that Germany didn't get the bomb first. Upon more reading, the effort that the US threw at the project was simply staggering - nobody knew which was the best technique for how to do a bunch of different things, so the Americans tried all of them at the same time. No other participant in the war could have duplicated that level of effort. And despite all of that effort, the bomb was only ready to be dropped after Germany had already been defeated by conventional arms.

I have also read that the German scientists' point of view is that a nuclear bomb as a practical military weapon was an interesting idea, but that nobody would be able to build one in time for the current war. And they were right - for themselves.