by Donald Hunt
Enrico Fermi – Chapter 10
b. 1901 Italy, one of the few physicists who excelled in both the theoretical and experimental arenas. He left Italy because his wife was Jewish. He created the first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. The reactor went ‘critical’ on December 2, 1942, demonstrating the first human-created, self-sustaining chain reaction.
Neville Chamberlain – Chapter 10
b. 1869. Prime Minister of England 1937- May 1940. In 1938, he signed the Munich Agreement conceding the German-speaking portion of Czechoslovakia to Germany. Trusting Hitler was fatal as Germany invaded Poland Sept. 1st 1939 and two days later England declared war but were woefully unprepared. Eight months later he was replaced by Churchill.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt – Chapter 11 b. 1882, known as ‘FDR’ served as the 32nd President of the U.S. from 1933 – 1945 (death). He took office in what is known as the Great Depression (economic). His reforms began an upturn in the economy. But entering WWII after the Japanese attack on Perl Harbor was an even greater boost economically. His death in April 1945 elevated Harry S. Truman as the 33rd President of the U.S.
Chaim Weizmann – Chapter 11
b. 1874 in Russia the third of 15 children to Jewish parents. At 18 he went to Germany then Switzerland and earned a PhD. in organic chemistry. Eventually moving to England, he became a lecturer at the University of Manchester. He was an ardent Zionist (one who believes the Jews had a homeland in Palestine) In 1948 he moved to his new country of Israel and became her first President.
Joseph Stalin – Chapter 11
b. 1878 in Russia, he became a communist revolutionist and was active in the 1917 Civil War. He soon rose to political power under his mentor Vladimir Lenin. When Lenin died, Stalin took control of the country and began a brutal program of ethnic cleansing having millions of his countrymen killed or starved. His armed forces drove the invading German army out of Russia and back to Germany.
Gen. Erwin Rommel – Chapter 12
b. 1891, German Field Marshall known as ‘the Desert Fox.’ As a highly regarded tank Commander, he became a legendary war hero to the German people. He began to believe the war could not be won and joined the plot to assassinate Hitler. When caught he was given the choice of a cyanide pill rather than the humiliation a public execution. He was given a ‘hero’s funeral’ for the people.
Leona Woods – Chapter 14 b.1919, an American physicist who was the only female working on the team that built the first nuclear reactor (Chicago Pile-1). With her mentor, Enrico Fermi, she also worked on the Manhattan Project. Eventually in 1962 she became a professor of physics at New York University, NYU.
Albert Speer – Chapter 14
b. 1905, German architect who joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He was Hitler’s chief architect and became the Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. He was tried at Nuremberg for war crimes and accepted moral responsibility, but insisted he was ignorant of the Holocaust. He served his full 20-year sentence in a West Berlin prison.
Dwight Eisenhower – Chapter 14
b. 1890. American five-star general who served as the Allied Commander of all forces in Europe. His leadership was considered critical for the defeat of Germany. In 1952 he was elected the 34th President of the United States. One of his many accomplishments was the building of the Interstate Highway System.
Dr. Karl Goerdeler – Chapter 14
b. 1884, German politician who was elected Mayor of Leipzig in 1930. As a devout Christian he strongly opposed the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi Reich, and worked tirelessly to bring about the downfall of the regime. He joined the plot to overthrow Hitler (he favored a forced resignation rather than execution). After many months on death row, he was executed by hanging 2 February 1945.
Sophie Scholl & Hans Scholl - Chapter 14
All students at the University of Munich, Sophie studying biology, the men, medical students. They were members of The White Rose Society, a non-violent resistance group opposing the Policies of the Third Reich and violence against Jews caught at the University distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, February 1943, they were given a mock trial and executed that afternoon. Sophie, who read and studied Augustine, said on the way to her death, “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine sunny day, I have to go, but what my death matter, if though us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”
General B. Montgomery – Chapter 15
b.1887, British General who commanded the British Eighth Army in two major campaigns in North Africa. He commanded all Allied Forces at the Invasion of Normandy (Operation Overlord). On 4 May 1945 he took the German surrender at Luneburg Northern Germany.
Claus von Stauffenberg – Chapter 15
b. 1907, a German military officer who saw action in the Invasion of Poland (1939) and the Soviet Union (1941). In North Africa, April ’43, his vehicle was strafed by an Australian fighter-bomber and he lost his left eye and right hand. By 1944 he was fully committed to a plot to remove the Fuhrer, and by mid-July he decided to personally kill Hitler. In a meeting of almost all high-ranking officers, he placed a very powerful bomb which exploded after he left to take a telephone call. Four in the room were killed but Hitler survived. The following day four conspirators including Stauffenberg were executed by firing squad.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Chapter 16
b. 1906, German Christian theologian who was a key founding member of the Confession Church, a movement that rose in opposition to government sponsored efforts to unify all protestants into a pro-Nazi Reich Church. Through contacts in the Abwer (German Military Intelligence) he worked to oppose the Nazi anti-Semitism. By1941 he was forbidden to either speak publically or publish, although taught in and ran an underground seminary. He was arrested in April 1943 spending 18 mo. in a military prison, then moved to a high security Gestapo unit. In April 1945, just two months before the war’s end, and after a final Sunday worship, he was executed. His last statement, “This is the end – for me the beginning of life.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn – Chapter 18
b.1918, Russian novelist & historian who called attention to the atrocities of communist Russia, both in their government and penal system. He was arrested in 1945 for his criticisms and given an 8 yr. prison sentence. In and out of prison he wrote multiple novels and in 1970 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974 and immigrated to the U.S. where he lived for 20 years. In the U.S. he implored the West not to “lose sight of its own values.” After the fall of Communism he returned to Russia to live out his life.
Robert Oppenheimer – Chapter 20
b. 1904, American theoretical physicist who served as Director of the Manhattan Project (development of the A-bomb). He was considered a genius among many. He made many important contributions especially in the fields of astrophysics and quantum theory. He was an eccentric “left-wing intellectual”, a brilliant researcher, and the founder of modern theoretical physics in the U.S.A chain smoker; he died of throat cancer at age 62.
Martin Bormann – Chapter 22
b. 1900, German who joined the Nazi Party in 1927. In a short few years, he gained acceptance into Hitler’s inner circle, becoming his personal secretary who approved legislation, and controlled all domestic matters. He strongly supported the persecution of Christian Churches and favored harsh treatment of Jews. After attempting escape from the Soviet military, on May 2, he committed suicide.
Harry Truman – Chapter 23
b. 1884, the 33rd President of the United States, he was catapulted to lead the free world after the death of FDR. Amazingly, he knew almost nothing of the Manhattan Project. Germany had surrendered, Japan had not. Truman was to meet with Churchill and Stalin at Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin, to draw up surrender terms for the Japanese. The actual test
explosion of the bomb was scheduled for the following day. The explosion was a “spectacular success”, if foreboding. The Japanese refused the surrender terms, and the President decided to use the bomb. Two were dropped on the Japanese homeland, days apart. In the days following, the war in the Pacific ended….called V-J Day.