Novels with Historical, Scientific and Political Themes

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Historical Context

U-398

On 17 April 1945, German submarine U398, a Type VIIC U-boat known as the workhorse of the German U-boat force, vanished without a trace after just four days at sea.  All 43 hands lost.  The cause of its disappearance remains unknown.

Type VIIC U-Boat

First Atom Bomb Test

Trinity Test, 16 July 1945, at Alamogordo, New Mexico
Trinity crater, after the explosion
Trinity site monument

The Manhattan project

Los Alamos, New Mexico, 1945
General Leslie Groves, Head of the Manhattan Project
Professor Robert Oppenheimer, Scientific Director of the Manhattan Project
Groves with Robert Oppenheimer
Colonel Boris Pash, Head of Alsos
The Gadget in Trinity Test Tower
Oppenheimer and other nuclear scientists
Oppenheimer, Groves and colleagues at Trinity test site

AMERICAN LEADERS

General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander in the European Theatre of Operations
General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff
President Harry S. Truman

SOVIET LEADERS

Joseph Stalin, Soviet Premier
Lavrentiy Beria, Head of Soviet Atom Bomb Project and the NKVD
Stalin (left) pictured with Beria (right) in 1936

Berlin and dahlem in spring 1945

Red Army entering Berlin
Berlin destroyed
Brandenburg Gate and Unter den Linden
Red Army soldier in Berlin during capture of the city
The Russian flag is hoisted over Berlin from the Reichstag, May 1945, marking the defeat of Germany
Kaiser Wilhelm Institut, Dahlem
Virus house (round white building)

The German Atomic Programme

Dr. Samuel Goudsmit
Dr. Werner Heisenberg
Dr. Paul Harteck, co-inventor of the ultracentrifuge
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