American History Tellers - The Bastard Brigade - The Accidental A-Bomb | 1

Episode Date: July 17, 2019

The Second World War ended with two black mushroom clouds rising over the scorched remains of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But most people don’t realize how easily the war could have ended not with an American atomic bomb but a German one, obliterating not a Japanese city but Paris, London, or even New York. As the war began, all the pieces were in place for the Germans to develop an atomic weapon. They had scientific visionaries like Werner Heisenberg, a manufacturing base committed to total war—and a big head start. The Allies were willing to go to desperate lengths to stop Adolph Hitler from getting his hands on an atomic bomb. They assembled a team of men and women to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of the Nazi bomb project. They would become known as The Bastard Brigade.But in the years leading up to the war, the scientific community couldn’t yet anticipate that artificial radioactivity was possible, let alone that it could lead to a weapon on the scale of an atomic bomb. That initial discovery would fall to a husband and wife team in Paris with a famous surname, a string of failures behind them, and a lot to prove: Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie. Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's January 1939. You're an American scientist visiting Washington, D.C. for a conference. The formal dinner just finished, and you're filing into an auditorium for the keynote lecture. Niels Bohr, one of the most famous scientists in the world. When he speaks, people listen. And tonight he's supposed to talk about low-temperature physics, which is your specialty. But suddenly he announces that he's ditching that topic. Instead, he wants to talk about grave new developments in nuclear research. A murmur runs through the crowd. You turn to the man to your left, an old colleague of yours named Bob, who works at the Carnegie lab down the street. Well, this is strange. Yeah, especially because I've

never seen Bohr look so worried before. Bob's a nuclear physicist, so this topic has him leaning in and intrigued. Bohr starts describing some sort of experiments with uranium. It's a bit technical, but it sounds like the uranium atoms end up splitting. But that doesn't sound right. You're not a specialist, but you know that atoms don't just split. Bohr then says he didn't run the experiments himself. They came from Germany. And he doesn't have to say what's on everyone's mind. That's where the Nazis are running some of the most powerful labs in the world. Bob turns to you, eyes wide. If what he's saying is true, that, that would... His voice trails off. Bohr continues talking,

describing the massive amount of energy that gets released when uranium atoms split. Suddenly, someone rises a few rows ahead of you and slips out a side door. Then someone else leaves, a woman this time. Pretty soon a third pops up and the crowd's murmurs are growing. You lean over to ask Bob what's going on and are surprised to see him stand up, ready to push past you. Bob, where are you going? To my lab. At 8 o'clock? You're still wearing your tux. I'm not the only one. He points at three more people pushing out of their rows. They're all going to their labs? Why? They've split uranium atoms. So? All that energy. Jesus, man, he's talking about a bomb. A bomb? A massive one. That sounds like the Nazis have a big head start.

Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Kill List is a true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger. Follow Kill List wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C True Crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History the events, the times, and the people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. We'll put you in the shoes of everyday

citizens as history was being made, and we'll show you in the shoes of everyday citizens as history was being made, and we'll show you how the events of the times affected them, their families, and affects you now. We all know how the Second World War ended, with two mushroom clouds rising over the scorched remains of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But most people don't realize how easily things could have gone another way, how easily the war could have ended not with an American atomic bomb, but a German one, obliterating not a Japanese city, but perhaps London, or Paris, or even New York. In fact, the leaders of the U.S. bomb program, the Manhattan Project, were convinced that Germany had the inside track. Given how high

the stakes were, the Allies were willing to go to desperate lengths to stop the German program. They hurled themselves into enemy fire and raced undercover into hostile territory. They also spied on, sabotaged, and even tried to assassinate members of the Nazi bomb project. These secret warriors would become known as the Bastard Brigade. In this six-episode series based on Sam Kean's new book of the same title, we explore the groundbreaking scientific discoveries that paved the way for the atomic bomb, the heroic missions to stop the Nazis from developing it, and the men and women who risked everything. This is Episode 1, The Accidental A-bomb. Imagine it's January 1934, a chilly night in Paris. You're a technician at a scientific lab.

Your bosses, a husband and wife team named Irene and Frederique, made a discovery today, and now Irene has come to you with a request. A ridiculous request to your mind, and you don't care if she knows it. You want me to dismantle the whole detector? Yes. Every wire and relay. We need to check it. We need to make sure the results are correct. But that'll take hours. We need to make sure the results are correct. She doesn't need to say what you're both thinking. Twice in the past year, she and Frederic have bungled important discoveries, earning them ridicule in the scientific world. She's determined not to let that happen again. But there's no reason their mistake should ruin your night. I have plans with Claire tonight.

It's her birthday. I'm sorry, but we can't stay. Frederique insists we go to this gala. She takes her hands. I have to go. Please don't let us down. And with that, they leave. From the window, you see them hail a cab and zoom off.

And now you're alone in this lab after dark with this damn detector. The day had started so well. Just that afternoon, Iren and Frederic made their discovery. A new type of radioactivity. A potential Nobel Prize winning discovery that is, of course, if it's not another mistake. So you grab your tools

and throw them down on the workbench and stare at the monster in front of you. Their work is tedious in the extreme. There are dozens of electronic parts to check, hundreds of wires, and over the next several hours, you examine every one of them. Iran and Frederic finally return in the early morning. They look nervous, like students terrified to get an exam back.

Iran approaches you. How is the detector? You're ready to drop, having worked all night, but you can't resist building some suspense. Well, there were several parts that did look suspicious. Just tell us, does it work or not? Finally, you can't keep the grin off your face. It works fine. Everything checked out.

Irene closes her eyes in relief, but Frederic whoops in joy. He runs around the lab, waving his arms in circles. With the neutron, we were too late. With the positron, we were too late. But now we're on time. You're still exhausted from your all-nighter, but this wakes you right up. You've never seen him so excited. And in spite of yourself, you feel a tiny thrill too. You've been working at the lab long enough to know this is big, and you're a part of it. Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie's discovery of artificial radioactivity was groundbreaking, but they were right to be cautious. Irène was the daughter of the legendary scientist Marie Curie,

who had been studying radioactivity since about 1900, work that enabled her to become the first person in history to win two Nobel Prizes. But Irene and Marie Curie had a rocky relationship. When Irene was still a girl, Marie had co-founded a school in Paris where the pupils learned Chinese and sculpture and did trapeze. But math class was always demanding, since Marie taught it herself. One afternoon in 1910, she caught her daughter daydreaming instead of doing her math homework. Marie pointed to a problem and asked Iren if she knew the answer. Iren didn't, and Marie snapped. How could you be so stupid, she screamed.

Then she grabbed her daughter's notebook and flung it out the window. Iren was mortified, but Marie was unmoved. She sent her daughter outside to retrieve the window. Irène was mortified, but Marie was unmoved. She sent her daughter outside to retrieve the notebook. Irène returned in tears, but she'd also solved the problem in her head on the way back to the classroom. After World War I, Irène had angered her mother again by marrying Frédéric Joliot, a brilliant but ambitious scientist. Marie suspected that Frédéric was simply using Iren to get ahead in his career. Marie even made Frederic sign a prenuptial agreement that barred him from

inheriting her scientific equipment if Iren died. And when introducing Frederic to others, Marie never called him her son-in-law. He was always the man who married my daughter. Iren and Frederic both worked for Marie, and their previous mistakes had embarrassed her. Twice they had bungled major discoveries, failing to identify new subatomic particles, even though they had all the evidence right in front of them. They were getting a reputation in the scientific community as sloppy. By the time they finally stumbled on artificial radioactivity,

they both had something to prove. But because of the complexities of radioactive particles, it would take them a while to figure out what they just uncovered. Certain elements on the periodic table, like radium, have unstable atoms. Over time, these atoms disintegrate, usually by shooting out a particle and bringing them to a more stable state. This disintegration process fascinated Iran and Frederick. Since it often changed an element's identity from one substance to another, it was like alchemy.

But radium and other elements are naturally radioactive. They disintegrate on their own. In contrast, most elements on the periodic table are stable. They don't undergo radioactive decay. At least, they didn't until the Joliot-Curie came along. Iran and Frederic would figure out a way to make stable atoms become radioactive by shooting a stream of subatomic particles at a thin sheet of aluminum foil. They first ran the experiment in the fall of 1933 for entirely different purposes. They were shooting one type

of particle at the foil with the hopes were shooting one type of particle at the foil with the hopes of knocking another type of particle loose. A radioactivity detector on the far side would then tell them what type of particle they'd liberated. By doing this, they obtained results unlike any other before, and they were so pleased that they announced the findings during a conference in Belgium in October. But to their shock, no one believed them. In fact, an icy chill descended on the room. After their talk, an Austrian physicist named Lisa Meitner stood up and told them that their supposed discovery was nonsense. The Joliot-Curie's were humiliated.

They returned to Paris in disgrace, but they kept thinking about the experiment. In fact, they grew obsessed with it, discussing it day and night during meals and in bed. They decided to give it another shot. So in January 1934, they resumed shooting subatomic particles at sheets of aluminum foil. And finally, their persistence paid off.

One day, Frederic was fiddling with the setup of the experiment. He decided to pull the source of incoming particles back a few inches from the foil. Then he pulled it back a few more inches. Finally, he removed the machine that was shooting the particles altogether. With no source of particles to knock anything loose from the foil, the radioactivity detector on the other side of the foil should have gone quiet. But to Frederic's bafflement, it didn't. It kept clicking away, registering hits.

This made no sense. Frederic called Irene in to show her the anomaly. They started discussing possibilities and soon forgot all about the original results. They were on the trail of something bigger. After a few hours of bouncing ideas around, they realized what must be happening. The aluminum atoms were absorbing the incoming particles, swallowing them right up.

This was already unexpected. But somehow, the atoms were also changing identities. They were switching from aluminum to phosphorus, and then from phosphorus to silicon. This was shocking. Aluminum was supposed to be a stable element, but with a simple experiment, they turned this stable element radioactive. It was artificial radioactivity, a completely new phenomenon. Still, as they talked things over, doubts began to creep in their minds. They'd already blown two major discoveries, and Lisa Meitner's harsh

dismissal a few months earlier was still ringing in their ears. What if their detector was acting up? What if they were misinterpreting things? Unfortunately, the Joliot-Curies had a gala to attend the night of their discovery and couldn't stay to check their detector. That's when they summoned their German assistant and told him to get to work. They returned early the next morning to see his results. When Frederic heard that the detector was working properly, he whooped in delight. Irène was cooler, more level-headed. She insisted on running further experiments to confirm the discovery. Only then did she accept what they'd found. And even then, not everyone believed her.

She still had to convince her mother. Irène and Frederic's mistakes over the previous year had embarrassed Marie. So when Marie heard rumors that her daughter and son-in-law were claiming to have discovered artificial radioactivity, she marched to their lab, barged in, and insisted they prove it. Irène stayed cool. She and Frédéric re-ran the experiment with the aluminum foil, and Irene then re-ran the confirmation experiment. Both went perfectly, and their newly checked radioactivity detector kept clicking along. By that point in her life, after working with

radioactive material for three decades, Marie Curie was quite sick. Her skin was cracked with radioactivity burns, and her eyes had clouded over with cataracts. But when she heard the detector clicking, for once in her life she beamed with pride of her daughter. As Frederique later said, it was without a doubt the last great satisfaction of her life. A few months later, Marie Curie died. But in the fall of 1935, the Joliot-Curies won the Nobel Prize for their discovery. It was a moment of vindication, and it made Irene and Marie the only mother-daughter team to ever win the Nobel. Unfortunately, that Nobel Prize would quickly be eclipsed by the state of world politics

in 1935, especially the rise of Nazism. And to the Joliot-Curie's dismay, the discovery of artificial radioactivity would give Germany a big leg up in the pursuit of the most destructive bomb in history. I'm Tristan Redman, and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up, I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened in my childhood bedroom. When I tried to find out more, I discovered that someone who slept in my room after me, someone I'd never met, was visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. So I started digging into the murder in my wife's family,

and I unearthed family secrets nobody could have imagined. Ghost Story won Best Documentary Podcast at the 2024 Ambies, and is a Best True Crime nominee at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Ghost Story is now the first ever Apple Podcast series essential. Each month, Apple Podcast editors spotlight one series that has captivated listeners with masterful storytelling, creative excellence, and a unique creative voice and vision. To recognize Ghost Story being chosen as the first series essential, Wondery has made it ad-free for a limited time, only on Apple Podcasts. If you haven't listened yet, head over to Apple Podcasts to hear for yourself.

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Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's December 1935. You're a young physicist, and like most American scientists, you're doing graduate work in Europe. Lately, you've been so buried in research that you've barely had time to read for pleasure, go out, or even open a newspaper.

But tonight, you've got a special treat. You've secured an invitation to the biggest event in science, the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm. As you find your seat, you realize you've never seen so many tuxedos and gowns before. A Jewish fellow from your lab named Isaac is sitting next to you and you lean over. Isaac, this is, this is exciting. Uh, they're all the same. If you're awake after the first hour, I'll give you a prize. The first speaker is Frédéric Joliot-Curie, who explains how he and his wife, Irène, discovered artificial radioactivity. Despite Isaac's cynicism, you're captivated.

What a discovery! But near the end of the talk, when Frédéric Joliot-Curie talks about the future, things get strange. If we cast a glance at the progress achieved by science, we are entitled to think that scientists, building up or shattering elements at will, will be able to bring about transmutations of an explosive type. He called these explosions chain reactions and claims they'll be every bit as powerful as the reactions that power stars.

Everyone is bewildered. Could experiments with microscopic atoms really lead to such big explosions? He leaned toward Isaac. Do you think he could be right? Could you make a bomb like that? In theory, yes. What do you mean? Well, he's just stirring the pot, provoking us.

Very French of him. You're not worried? I mean, explosions? No, it's just stirring the pot, provoking us. Very French of him. You're not worried? I mean, explosions? No, it's a theoretical worry. Only in theory could we make such explosions. That's typical Isaac. So cynical and dismissive. You sure?

I'm positive. As Joliot wraps up, you decide to drop the matter of explosives and watch the next speaker ascend the stage. It's a German scientist named Hans Spieman, the Nobel laureate in biology. He's mustached with a low, brooding forehead. He straightens his lecture notes and looks up. But instead of speaking, he does something unexpected. It's a sort of salute.

He throws his arm out straight with palm extended. But then he barks something. See Kyle? That Nobel Prize ceremony in 1935 was the first time that nuclear theory and Nazi politics collided, but it wouldn't be the last. By the later 1930s, every physicist in the world knew that nuclear chain reactions were possible.

They also knew that by harnessing a chain reaction, you could potentially make an atomic bomb. But the danger was only theoretical until a discovery in 1938 by Lisa Meitner and a Berlin chemist named Otto Hahn. In the spring of 1938, Hahn picked up a scientific paper by Irene Joliot-Curie, and what he saw made him grind his teeth. As a German, Hahn had a natural animosity toward the French, and he'd been one of Joliot-Curie's fiercest critics. Sure, they'd gotten lucky and won a Nobel Prize, he thought, but he still didn't trust their work. And Irene's recent paper looked flat-out wrong to him. So when Hahn ran into Frédéric at a conference a few weeks later, he challenged him. Tell Iren to retract the paper, he said, or I'll expose her.

Frederic wouldn't let this insult stand and dared Hahn to try, and a gauntlet was thrown. Before Hahn could start working, however, politics intervened. Hahn worked closely with Lisa Meitner, the Austrian physicist who'd embarrassed the Joliot-Curies a few years earlier. Meitner also happened to be Jewish. During the rise of Nazism in Germany, Meitner escaped persecution only because she was Austrian. But when the Third Reich annexed Austria in 1938, Meitner was suddenly at risk. Not long afterward, a colleague stood up at a meeting, pointed at her, and sne afterward, a colleague stood up at a meeting,

pointed at her and sneered, this Jewess endangers the Institute, and he demanded she be arrested. Meitner tried to lay low and wait things out, but by mid-1938, she'd given up hope. Several colleagues, including Hahn, helped smuggle her out of the country on a train. Before they parted, Hahn gave her his mother's wedding ring

to bribe someone if she ever found herself in danger. Meitner ended up in Stockholm, and she and Hahn kept in touch via letters. But when he tried to mail her belongings to her, Nazi officials opened the boxes and smashed everything inside just to send a message. Hahn, worried about his colleague, didn't get much science done for most of 1938. But when Iren published a follow-up paper in the fall detailing even more experiments, Han again got annoyed and resolved to expose her. Iren's experiments involved shooting subatomic particles called neutrons at a sample of uranium.

This was another example of artificial radioactivity. In short, Yiren believed that the uranium atoms absorbed the neutrons, underwent radioactive decay, and changed into another element. But what element had they changed to? That was the sticking point. Sometimes Yiren claimed to have created the element actinium. Other times, she claimed it was the element lanthanum or barium. To Han, one of the most gifted chemists in the world, this imprecision was intolerable. He mocked Irene in a letter by suggesting a new name for her magically changeable element, Curiosum.

Then he decided to redo her experiments and sort everything out. Except that he couldn't. Han redid the work, but found himself just as muddled as he ran. In particular, he'd also found barium and lanthanum, which didn't make much sense. Scientists knew of several cases where one element changed into another. Aluminum could become phosphorus, or phosphorus could become silicon. These changes happened when the first element shot out a particle, lost a little weight, and became a different element. But aluminum and phosphorus and silicon all sat next to each other on the periodic table.

They were each one box apart and had very similar weights. Moving from one element to another was therefore a modest shift. In fact, all known changes of one element to another at that time involved these small shifts. The core of an atom, the nucleus, would release a particle or two, then jump over one or two boxes on the periodic table. But Iren's shift wasn't a move of one or two boxes. Uranium and lanthanum sat 35 boxes apart. Uranium and barium sat even further apart, 36 boxes.

Elements just didn't change so drastically like that. And Hahn was baffled. So Hahn did what he always did when he was stumped. He consulted Lisa Meitner. He sat down and wrote her just before Christmas in 1938. Meitner was still stuck in Stockholm, and she was miserable. She had no friends there and hated being away from her lab. Hahn's letter was a godsend, and she threw herself. She had no friends there and hated being away from her lab. Han's letter was a godsend, and she threw herself into the work. A nephew happened to be visiting her for the holiday, and because he was also a scientist, they took long walks together in the snow discussing what the results could mean. The answer came to her in a flash on one of those walks. She knew atoms can change from one element to another when the nucleus at their core

releases some particles. But Meitner realized that perhaps there was another way. What if the atomic nucleus, instead of shooting out a particle, split in half? This would be a radically different process, one no one had considered.

But it would explain the big jump from uranium to barium or lanthanum. Meitner published her theory in the journal Nature in early 1939, becoming the first scientist to detail the process that would soon become known as uranium fission. In this way, two women, first Irene with her experiments, then Lisa Meitner with her explanation, laid the foundation for the development of the deadliest weapon in modern history. Yiren and Han had split uranium atoms by bombarding them with a common particle called a neutron.

Uranium, for instance, has over 140 neutrons in its nucleus. When a uranium nucleus splits, a few of those neutrons get dislodged and go flying off in random directions. Because atoms are so closely packed, these stray neutrons are likely to hit other uranium atoms nearby. These uranium atoms, smacked by the neutron, then split themselves and release more neutrons. And these neutrons fly off and split even more atoms, and so on. The amount of energy released at each step increases exponentially. The effect is exactly what Frédéric Joliot-Curie had predicted, a nuclear chain reaction, a theoretical worry that was suddenly all too real,

the first big step toward an atomic bomb. Richard Bandler revolutionized the world of self-help all thanks to an approach he developed called neuro-linguistic programming. Even though NLP worked for some, its methods have been criticized for being dangerous in the wrong hands. Throw in Richard's dark past as a cocaine addict and murder suspect, and you can't help but wonder what his true intentions were. I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the hosts of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away. We recently dove into the story of the godfather of modern mental manipulation, Richard Bandler, whose methods inspired some of the most toxic and criminal self-help movements of the last two decades. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Scamfluencers and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid and Kill List early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities.

From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast, The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker raided ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science, and religion, and how even today we remain enthralled to his strange creatures of the night. You can binge all episodes of The Real History of Dracula exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus and The Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Atomic fission was a monumental discovery, and news of it proved almost impossible to contain. Word arrived on American shores in 1939, as Hitler was planning his conquest of Europe.

In January, Lisa Meitner's nephew, the one who had walked through the snow with her in Sweden, happened to run into the famous physicist Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. The nephew wasn't supposed to say anything about his aunt's discovery, but he couldn't help telling Bohr, who was dumbfounded by the results. When he heard, he actually slapped his forehead. The nephew made Bohr swear to keep the discovery secret. Meitner was about to write a paper about fission, he explained,

and Bohr leaking the news could undermine her. So Bohr vowed to remain silent. But he promptly broke his promise. A few days later, he sailed off for a sabbatical in the United States. As soon as the ship was underway, he told a colleague on board, who was equally stunned at the developments. Bohr and the colleague then scrounged up a blackboard from somewhere on the ship, and despite feeling seasick, they spent the entire nine-day voyage working out the implications of uranium fission. Unfortunately, in his excitement, Bohr forgot to direct his colleague to keep quiet.

The colleague wasn't therefore bound by any promises of secrecy, and the moment he landed in New York, he started spreading the word. Pretty soon, much of the U.S. physics community knew. Bohr realized he'd screwed up. So to ensure Meitner got proper credit for her discovery, he made a formal announcement at a conference in Washington, D.C. At Bohr's landmark talk in D.C., he never mentioned chain reactions or bombs. But he didn't have to. Every nuclear scientist there could make the leap, and several of them did jump up in the middle of his lecture and run to their labs in their tuxedos and gowns to start experimenting. And the excitement spread across the nation. A physicist in Northern California, after reading an account of Bohr's

talk in the newspaper the next day, leapt up in the middle of a haircut and raced to his lab. What was especially frightening from the American point of view was Bohr's announcement that the discoveries had taken place by Hahn and Meitner, scientists from Adolf Hitler's Germany. At the time, Germany had the best industrial firms in the world, which are crucial for enriching uranium. Germany had also numerous Nobel Prize winners, including the fearsomely are crucial for enriching uranium. Germany had also numerous Nobel Prize winners, including the fearsomely smart Werner Heisenberg, a pioneer in nuclear

and atomic physics. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, a famous theorem in quantum mechanics, is named in his honor. But Heisenberg was also an ardent German patriot. He even had family connections to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS. Heisenberg had in fact angered many of his friends when he toured the United States in the summer of 1939. The U.S. had taken in several Jewish scientists who'd been run out of Germany, and Heisenberg met with some of them. But to their shame and horror, he refused to denounce the Nazi government and their atrocities. Chief among those hurt was Enrico Fermi, a Nobel Prize winner himself who'd been hounded out of Italy by fascists

because his wife was Jewish. While watching Heisenberg and Fermi argue at a party, one scientist whispered to a colleague, everyone in this room expects a big war and the two of them to lead to fission work on opposite sides, but nobody says so. A big war did finally erupt on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Before the month was through, several prominent Nazi chemists and physicists met in secret and founded what became known as the Uranium Club.

The Uranium Club members dedicated themselves to doing research on atomic fission with the goal of eventually building an atomic bomb. It included several military scientists with good connections to the Wehrmacht, but its most prominent members were Otto Hahn, who helped discover fission, and Werner Heisenberg. All the pieces were in place for Germany to develop an atomic weapon. They had geniuses and visionaries like Heisenberg, a manufacturing base committed to total war and a big head start. This terrified American scientists. They immediately tried to alert the U.S. government and spur them to do something about the threat of atomic weapons. Albert Einstein himself begged President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to act, writing in 1939,

certain aspects of the situation which have arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the administration. Then he predicted ominously that in a nuclear reaction, vast amounts of power would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future. This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs. But that letter wasn't delivered to FDR until two months later. And even though FDR called for action after reading it, no real progress took place. There were only meetings and studies by government bureaucrats,

the main outcome of which was further meetings and studies. They were simply too distracted by other impending war issues and didn't fully grasp the frightening implications of atomic weapons. In the end, the German Uranium Club would have a two-year head start on the US's own efforts, the Manhattan Project, and Allied scientists realized that if they wanted to disrupt the Nazi atomic bomb, they'd have to get creative. Imagine you're a Jewish refugee in New York. It's 2 a.m. and early October morning in 1942. You and a friend, a fellow physicist, are getting drunk.

Stinking drunk. More drunk than you've ever been in your life. Both of you have been in New York for a few years now, and because you're working on defense projects in your lab, you feel you're doing your part to fight Hitler. Or at least you felt that way. Because today, you saw the letter. Well, here's to the end of the world. It was a good ride. Let me see that letter again. The letter is from a mutual friend in Zurich, Switzerland. Normally, you love hearing from him, but today his message sent you into a panic. Squinting with one drunken eye, you read the crucial passage aloud. By the way, Heisenberg ended up taking that job at KWI Berlin.

They're setting up a whole institute for him there, the rascal. I suspect he'll talk my ear off about it when he comes for his lecture here in December. Give me that. Hey, I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's too depressing. For most, that passage probably sounds like harmless academic gossip. But you know that KWI stands for Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, the Nazi-run state scientific group. Heisenberg is joining forces with the government. Even worse, the Berlin branch of KWI focuses on atomic physics research, bomb research.

As the fog of booze descends, you get more and more morose. But at the same time, something about the letter is tickling your brain. Wait, wait. Look at this last part. He's going to Zurich. Who cares? Well, Switzerland is a neutral country. What, I mean, what if we sent someone there to talk to Heisenberg? Oh, sure. Great idea. Hey, Berger, how you doing? Please don't give Hitler a bomb. Wow, what the hell do you suggest? We need to do something. Like what? What if, what if we just didn't talk to him? What if we delayed his trip back to Germany? Well, how? I don't know. What if, what if he ran into some trouble? His train got delayed.

So he put off the apocalypse for a day waiting on a train. Okay, so no trains. What if he never got back? Well, kidnap him. Oh my God, you're drunker than I thought. Wait, you're serious. No, I guess not. We can't just kidnap Heisenberg. Yeah, but what if we did? Well, he is working on an atomic bomb.

But that's crazy, is it? Two refugee scientists in New York really did cook up that plot in 1942. And the next morning, one of them shook off a hangover and wrote a letter to his friend, Robert Oppenheimer, who'd recently been named head of the Manhattan Project's weapons lab at Los Alamos in New Mexico. Oppenheimer responded with bland, bureaucratic talk about how the proper authorities would give the matter due consideration. It sounded like Oppenheimer was shutting them down, a dead end. So with Heisenberg's lecture in Switzerland fast approaching, the two drunk scientists took matters into their own hands. But it did not go well. They showed the letter to another colleague,

a Dutch immigrant named Samuel Goudschmidt, who was working at MIT. Goudschmidt had once been good friends with Heisenberg in Europe, until the war destroyed their friendship. Goudschmidt had once been good friends with Heisenberg in Europe, until the war destroyed their friendship. Goudschmidt thought kidnapping his old friend sounded like a grand idea, so he talked to some British scientists working at MIT with him. He figured that Great Britain had the most to lose from an atomic Nazi Germany and would act faster than the United States. Goudschmidt asked his colleagues for a contact in the British government, which the scientists supplied.

They also advised him to slip a certain phrase into the letter, tube alloys. That was the British code for an atomic bomb, and the scientists knew using it would grab people's attention. And they were right. Goud Schmidt wrote a letter mentioning tube alloys, and sure enough, it got people moving. Seeing the phrase sent British officials into a panic. How had some Dutch scientists in America learned their top-secret code? American officials wanted to know, too. They immediately launched an investigation into the source of the leak,

and Goudsmit very nearly got arrested. Only begrudgingly did security officers let him go. Meanwhile, Heisenberg's lecture in Switzerland came and went. He returned to Germany and resumed working for the Uranium Club. It seemed a huge wasted opportunity. But what Goudschmidt and the drunk scientists didn't know was that Oppenheimer hadn't ignored their idea, not entirely. Secretly, he liked the thought of kidnapping Heisenberg and had passed it up the chain of command to some military people. The military had in turn put Oppenheimer off with more blandishments, but secretly they too approved of the idea. It was bold and would seriously disrupt the German bomb project.

Ultimately, the military decided not to act then, but the idea never quite went away. For years, military leadership and top scientists like Oppenheimer kept mulling it over. If we could just stop Heisenberg, they reasoned, the whole Nazi bomb project would fall apart. For now, though, the Allies came up with a different plan. Nazi scientists had a big head start, and they were working at a furious pace. But Allies were plotting a secret mission that would cross enemy lines. The odds were long, but the goal was clear, to deal the Nazi atomic bomb project a crippling blow. Next week on American History Tellers,

a team of commandos invades Norway on a dangerous mission to wipe out a key node of the Nazi atomic bomb project, risking many soldiers' lives. But given the fast progress the Germans are making, the Allies feel they have no other choice. From Wondery, this is American History Tellers. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship.

Sound design by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Sam Keen and based on his book, The Bastard Brigade. Edited by Dorian Marina. Edited and produced by Jenny Lauer-Beckman. Our executive producer is Marshall Louis. Created by Hernán Ló Lopez for Wondery. In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker.

Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names, photos, addresses, and specific instructions for people's murders. This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. And it turns out convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C True Crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening.