The Last Request: 1

Summary

The Man Who Calculated Death: Episode 1 - "The Last Request"

Host: Suzanne Rico
Release Date: November 6, 2024
Podcast: The Man Who Calculated Death by PodcastOne

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Introduction: A Mother's Final Request

In the premiere episode of The Man Who Calculated Death, journalist Suzanne Rico sets the stage for a deeply personal and historically intricate journey. The story begins in 2013 when Suzanne receives a life-altering call: her mother, Gabrielle Rico, is dying. Before her passing, Gabrielle entrusts Suzanne and her sister Stephanie with an unfinished memoir detailing her harrowing childhood during World War II. Gabrielle's final plea resonates deeply, "Finish what I started" (25:43), compelling the sisters to delve into their family's concealed past.

Unearthing the Past: Discovering the Memoir

Suzanne and Stephanie find themselves in their mother's cluttered office, surrounded by decades-old documents and photographs that hint at hidden war secrets. Among the treasures is a photograph of their grandfather, Robert Lesser, dressed in a loincloth with a "big grin" (01:33). This seemingly innocuous image starkly contrasts with another photo revealing him adorned with the Nazi's Knight's Cross (01:50), immediately suggesting a complex and possibly sinister family legacy.

As they sift through the memorabilia, the sisters encounter a DVD labeled "Robert Lesser," which contains footage of their grandfather discussing top-secret Nazi weaponry. In his own words, Robert states, "Well, I should say here that I'm basically an aircraft designer. In the old film flickering on screen, a man in a brown suit and horn-rimmed glasses spins a story about flying bombs when in actual warfare we are firing a missile. Frightening consequences" (05:10). This revelation propels Suzanne and Stephanie into a quest to uncover the true nature of Robert's involvement with the Third Reich.

Gabrielle's Story: From War-Torn Germany to American Success

Gabrielle Rico's memoir paints a vivid picture of survival and resilience. On October 22, 1943, she recounts her escape from a firebombed Kassel by hiding in an air raid cellar—a traumatic event that shaped her early years (13:00). At age 11, Gabrielle immigrates to California, determined to leave her painful past behind. She rapidly assimilates, excelling academically and pursuing a career that defies traditional expectations. By night, she earns her PhD at Stanford, focusing on split-brain research, and publishes influential books on creativity and whole-brain thinking (12:04).

Despite her professional achievements, Gabrielle's relentless drive masks underlying traumas. Suzanne reflects, "Because she didn't heed her own advice, never slowing down long enough for her past in Nazi Germany to catch her" (13:29). This internal conflict surfaces as Gabrielle battles multiple bouts of cancer, illustrating the profound personal cost of her survival and transformation.

The Call to Investigation: Siblings Unite

Following their mother's passing, Suzanne and Stephanie embark on the formidable task of completing Gabrielle's memoir. The memoir's incomplete narratives and cryptic hints about their grandfather's role in the Nazi regime beckon them to seek answers. Stephanie's linguistic expertise and academic background prove invaluable as they translate German letters and military reports, piecing together the fragmented history of their ancestors.

A pivotal moment occurs when Gabrielle's handwritten note instructs them to "find David Johnson," a name shrouded in mystery and seemingly linked to Hitler's vengeance against London (29:30). This directive propels the sisters into a labyrinth of dead ends and historical enigmas, highlighting the challenges of uncovering truths buried by time and trauma.

Family Dynamics and German Tantas: Bridging the Past

The investigation deepens with the involvement of their spirited German aunts, Heidi and Trouty. Contrary to their advanced ages, Heidi and Trouty demonstrate remarkable vitality and resourcefulness, agreeing to assist Suzanne and Stephanie in their quest. Through shared stories and the excavation of long-forgotten memorabilia, the aunts provide crucial insights into Robert Lesser's professional and personal life during the war.

Heidi reflects on Robert's complex character: "He admired everybody who was successful, and they were successful at first" (35:07), suggesting a man whose ambitions may have aligned with the Nazi agenda, at least initially. These interactions reveal the intricate tapestry of family relationships and the enduring impact of past actions on subsequent generations.

Journey to Germany: Following the Ancestral Trail

With translated documents and newfound familial support, Suzanne and Stephanie prepare to journey to Germany, tracing the footsteps of their grandfather and uncovering the dark legacy he left behind. Their itinerary includes visiting the Black Forest, exploring ruined military bases where Robert tested his formidable weapons, and the site of a mysterious Bavarian farmhouse bombed in 1945 (36:03).

As they navigate the snowy landscapes, memories of childhood tales and the serene yet ominous presence of their grandfather come to life. Suzanne muses on the duality of her heritage: "Years later, my grandfather would die alone, not one of his nine children by his side" (32:28), emphasizing the profound personal cost of his wartime actions.

Conclusion: A Quest for Truth and Healing

Episode 1 culminates with Suzanne and Stephanie resolving to honor their mother's last wish by completing the memoir and uncovering the full truth about their family's past. Gabrielle's voice echoes as an enduring presence, guiding them through the emotional and investigative odyssey that lies ahead: "If we dig deeply enough, maybe we can finally answer the two questions she never could. Who killed her mother and why?" (36:42).

As the sisters prepare for the challenges of uncovering deeply buried secrets, they confront not only historical mysteries but also the personal legacy of trauma and resilience passed down through generations. The episode sets the stage for a gripping exploration of family, history, and the quest for redemption.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Suzanne Rico (00:00): "Hey, everyone, it's Suzanne Rico..."
• Stephanie (00:32): "She had some secrets. Mom had some secrets."
• Simone (05:12): "Well, I should say here that I'm basically an aircraft designer..."
• Gabrielle Rico (25:36): "One thing I would like you to do, and any one of you can do it, is if you want."
• Gabrielle Rico (24:32): "One must wait until evening to know how splendid the day has been."
• Simone (34:06): "I don't think so..."

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Explore More: For additional family photos, videos, and archival materials, visit themanwhocalculateddeath.com.

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Transcript

[Suzanne Rico]

Hey, everyone, it's Suzanne Rico. And I'm really excited that the man who calculated death is resonating with so many people. But for those of you listening for the first time, I have great news. The podcast will now be available for free, with episodes releasing every Tuesday. This is the first time it's been available without a paywall. So thanks for listening and joining me on this journey. And don't forget, tune in every Tuesday for new episodes. And now onto the show.

[Stephanie]

She had some secrets. Mom had some secrets.

[Suzanne Rico]

She did. My sister Stephanie and I are sitting in our mom's messy office surrounded by a sea of paperwork. There's just a treasure trove of information here. The room is narrow, lined with books, and at one end, a picture window looks down into California's Silicon Valley.

[Stephanie]

Here's Harper Magazine, October 1946.

[Suzanne Rico]

But we're not paying attention to the view search for war secrets. We're focused on piecing together the war story our mom spent most of her life trying to forget. Those are so old, they almost feel like they're going to crumble if I touch them. Dog eared photographs add to the mystery. People staring out at us who've been dead for decades. And one has eyes just like our moms.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Suzanne Rico]

Who is that? I don't know. Somebody in a loincloth.

[Stephanie]

Yeah, that's our grandfather, I believe.

[Suzanne Rico]

Our grandfather, Robert Lesser. He looks young and handsome. A big grin on his face as he flexes for the camera in that silly loincloth. It's funny, but the next picture stops us cold.

[Stephanie]

Ooh, here's the Nazis.

[Suzanne Rico]

Wow.

[Stephanie]

Yeah, look at them. They all have the Knight's Cross.

[Suzanne Rico]

The Knight's Cross was a Nazi medal. So it's pretty clear our grandfather wasn't just some grinning joker in a Tarzan costume.

[Stephanie]

I think mom often felt like she suffered. You know, that's what she deserved.

[Suzanne Rico]

Because her dad was.

[Stephanie]

Because her dad was a. Was a Nazi scientist. And see what happened to the family?

[Suzanne Rico]

What happened? Our mom kept that trauma locked away. And her father seemed an off limits subject too. The only thing I remember hearing as a kid was that he was a genius. I thought he looked more like a boring math professor in the one photo that hung on our wall. But all these years later, staring into those familiar blue eyes in that very same photograph, I notice his cryptic half smile. As if he knew things nobody else did.

[Stephanie]

The Germans were preparing rocket surprises for the whole world in general and England in particular. Hitler was going to use the rockets to take over the instead of tanks he was going to do it with rockets. And Robert Lesser was part of that.

[Suzanne Rico]

I'm Suzanne Rico and I'm a journalist. Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to CBS 2 News. It's 6am For 20 years I anchored and reported television news that up to 10,000 residents in one neighborhood alone were displaced by the World Trade center attacks. My job revolved around shrinking complicated events into easily digestible packages. Reporting from the USS John C. Stennis, Suzanne Ren, NBC News. Moving on to the next assignment now our big story on CBS 2 News at 6:00am while the desperate. But I couldn't just move on from my own family history because just before she died, my mom asked me to dig deep. I just never expected what I would find. Dark stories of a city on and a mysterious bombing that killed my grandmother and buried her children in rubble. The truth about who did it was buried too. There was only the dusty family legend that it was a revenge strike by the British for my grandfather's work on behalf of an evil regime. If I wanted to get to the bottom of it, I had to start with a question I'd never been willing to ask, but always wondered. Was Robert Lesser a true Nazi believer or just a brilliant engineer born in the wrong time and place? What's that? That's handwritten.

[Stephanie]

This is his handwriting.

[Suzanne Rico]

Our mom's office holds some answers. And in her desk drawer we find a mind blowing clue. Where did she get this? It's a single DVD labeled Robert Lesser. And when we pop it into her computer.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Come on.

[Simone]

Okay.

[Suzanne Rico]

We get a glimpse of our grandfather.

[Stephanie]

Oh, there it says.

[Suzanne Rico]

And hear his voice for the very first time.

[Simone]

Well, I should say here that I'm basically an aircraft designer.

[Suzanne Rico]

In the old film flickering on screen, a man in a brown suit and horn rimmed glasses spins a story about flying bombs when in actual warfare we.

[Simone]

Are firing a missile.

[Suzanne Rico]

Frightening consequences.

[Simone]

There might be thousands and even millions of people at stake.

[Suzanne Rico]

And the top secret Nazi weapons program he led.

[Simone]

All of a sudden we all grasp the truth.

[Stephanie]

Jeez, who is he?

[Suzanne Rico]

The odyssey to answer that question will take Stephanie and me around the world. We are far, far north. And that is the Baltic Sea. And into dark places where we reckoned with being descendants of a guy so clearly on the wrong side.

[Stephanie]

10,000 people they have working down here, stuck in these little tunnels.

[Suzanne Rico]

And this story won't fit into any neatly wrapped package for the evening news. Uncovering the secrets and legends carved into my family tree and understanding the shadow they cast over my mother's life took years.

[Stephanie]

Secret intelligence Service from the British. Right. So she's trying to figure out what's going on here.

[Suzanne Rico]

And it all revolves around the engineer husband and father at the center of a storm called World War II. A man whose work would revolutionize warfare, terrorize nations and rip his family apart.

[Simone]

A new chapter opens. The Battle of the Flying Bombs.

[Suzanne Rico]

The man who Calculated Death Episode one the Last Request.

[Simone]

The birds are about to fly.

[Stephanie]

I see black in the future.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Come in, come in. This is an invitation.

[Suzanne Rico]

This is gonna blow your mind. Because it blew my mind.

[Gabrielle Rico]

So you listen really well.

[Suzanne Rico]

This is the only.

[Stephanie]

This is the original of the man who Calculated Death.

[Simone]

The man who Calculated Death. Der man der den Tod er reghnete.

[Gabrielle Rico]

If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreame, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic bean buyer.

[Suzanne Rico]

That's my mom, Gabrielle. And she recorded that Shel Silverstein poem for my kids back in 2010.

[Gabrielle Rico]

If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire. For we have some flax golden tales to spin.

[Suzanne Rico]

Sending these tapes was her way of shrinking the 300 miles between her house and Cupertino and mine in Los Angeles.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Come in.

[Suzanne Rico]

To the point where it felt like she was right there.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Isn't that lovely? We can be dreamers and tell stories.

[Suzanne Rico]

Hearing her voice always zaps me right back to my own childhood in the 1970s when my mom read my sisters and me these same stories about American dreamers and English kings.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Above all, it's the story of Arthur, King Arthur of Camelot.

[Suzanne Rico]

She also threw in a few tales from her native Germany. And there was one I remember vividly about these two kids named Max and Moritz. This is an old film adaptation of the book. These two German bad boys put bugs in their Uncle Fritz's bed and stuff gunpowder into their teacher's pipe. Their punishment is getting ground up by the local miller and fed to his ducks. Very un Disney like for sure. My sisters and I loved the exploits of Max and Moritz. But my mom told another German story that held us even more spellbound. It was a classic war drama. Bombs tumble from the sky to crash through a farmhouse. At the edge of the woods, a stained glass window explodes into a million colorful shards. My mom's voice always dropped to a whisper at the end. A horse drawn wagon pulls away from the farm to reveal a long wool skirt lying in a heap of the snow beneath it, slowly turning crimson. But this was no hardcore fairy tale. That bloody skirt in the snow was her mother's. All that Cinderella style storytelling. I Realize now it wasn't just for our benefit. It was part of a survival plan our mom put in place the day she boarded a military hospital ship bound for the United States. In the photos, Stephanie and I find from that time, she looks young and shell shocked.

[Stephanie]

She cut her hair, she cut her braids off, and she cut bangs.

[Suzanne Rico]

Bye bye Germany. Gabi, as she was called, arrived in California at age 11, determined to leave her pain and sorrow behind in the land of Max and Molitz. You know, she was just determined to be an American woman with American kids living the American life.

[Stephanie]

Yeah, yeah. She wanted to disavow all her Germanness.

[Suzanne Rico]

She got to work, losing her accent and Learned English in 3 months. After earning straight A's in high school, she went off to college, majoring in her adopted language. She completed her transformation by marrying my dad, the quintessential California boy next door. But instead of settling down as a 1960s housewife, she focused her formidable drive on a career.

[Gabrielle Rico]

When I can get my students to a point where they come to grips with something by day.

[Suzanne Rico]

She taught at San Jose State University.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Very exciting thing for me to see. Maybe that's why I'm a teacher.

[Suzanne Rico]

And by night, she went to Stanford to earn her PhD. By the 1970s, with three little girls at home, she was deep into split brain research, studying with famous brain surgeons.

[Gabrielle Rico]

The right brain stores these very emotion laden events that have happened to us. The left brain tends to be a sensor. It says, no, this isn't permissible.

[Suzanne Rico]

It makes both sides of my brain hurt just thinking about all she did. But my mom was just getting started. She took her knowledge of how the brain works, mixed it with her English language skills and wrote not one, but two books.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Our guest is Gabrielle Rico, author of the best selling classic, Writing the Natural Way and Pain and Writing youg Way Through Personal Crisis.

[Suzanne Rico]

This was the 80s.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Through her pioneering work in creativity, creativity and whole brain thinking, thousands of people have been able to tap their inner capacity to be creative and more fully expressed.

[Suzanne Rico]

And Dr. Gabrielle Rico rode the self help wave sweeping America right to the top.

[Gabrielle Rico]

We all move in and out of grief and suffering and pain.

[Suzanne Rico]

All these speeches and radio interviews.

[Gabrielle Rico]

When emotions are blocked, they're blind.

[Suzanne Rico]

Hearing her talk so eloquently about the importance of processing pain makes me sad.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Then we can begin to learn from them and from what pain is trying to tell us.

[Suzanne Rico]

Because she didn't heed her own advice, never slowing down long enough for her past in Nazi Germany to catch her. She was 70 years old before she finally sat down and wrote her way through her own decades old trauma. Eventually, the rough draft of a memoir emerged, and I've asked my sister Simone to read a passage. On the night of October 22, 1943, the city of Kassel was firebombed. My mom was six years old and she survived by hiding in an air raid cellar, crawling out to find the apartment building where she lived in flames. I recall only frozen fascination with the alien landscape, watching the tongues of fire licking the darkness, coming together overhead in an eerily beautiful bridge of red, yellow and orange, under which we picked our way gingerly, stiffly. The pages contain detail and emotion we've never heard.

[Stephanie]

So she was a storyteller, but she didn't tell us everything. And the more I look at this memoir, the more I recognize how much we didn't understand, really, about what happened to her.

[Suzanne Rico]

She picked and chose, right?

[Stephanie]

I'm super sad that we didn't talk with her about it.

[Suzanne Rico]

Other than those fairytale type stories, my mom never seemed to want to talk about it. But by the time Stephanie and I were in junior high school, with her career soaring to new heights, we began to notice that she was falling apart. Do you remember her being like in Kmart? And we'd have like a cart full of back to school stuff and she'd freak out and she'd run out to the car and put her head on the steering wheel and be like, yeah.

[Stephanie]

She would have to just leave it. And we were like, we would just have to go.

[Suzanne Rico]

What? PTSD wasn't on our radar back then, so her anxiety attacks just seemed weird. She and my father divorced, and I remember how thin she got going, running in the middle of the night as if something were chasing her. And now all this makes me wonder. Did my mom's survival plan, her long ago decision to ignore her German past and build a new life, take its toll on not only psychologically, but physically too?

[Stephanie]

She always called it pre cancer.

[Suzanne Rico]

Yes. Was it not?

[Stephanie]

Which it turns out it was not.

[Suzanne Rico]

Yeah, it was actually stage three colon cancer. She was in her late 30s at the time. And I remember this massive surgery that saved her life. A decade later, it was breast cancer. She survived that also. And then two decades of clean scans made everybody relax. We thought the threat was past. It was a beautiful day. I was in the kitchen with my kids. They were little and we were making cookies. And when I bring that memory back, I can see the woman that I was then, this soccer mom, having a good time, kitchen smelling like chocolate and sunshine. And the phone rings. And I pick it up, and it's my mom. And she says that she has cancer again. And I just sink to the floor. My knees just buckled. And she's telling me that it's gonna be okay, but somehow I know, like, with this frightening certainty that it's not. The only thing missing is you. Say, hi, Mom.

[Stephanie]

Hello.

[Suzanne Rico]

Once I picked myself up and sort of dusted myself off, my mom's diagnosis actually brought our family together. Not surprised by that, are you? Say hi. We went into emergency response mode. We were warriors, man. Hi, Nancy.

[Stephanie]

Mum.

[Suzanne Rico]

And since my mom had decided to start treatment in Los Angeles, headquarters was my house. Stephanie and Simone, my two sisters, put their lives on hold and moved right in celebration of this lady right here.

[Stephanie]

We love you. We love you.

[Suzanne Rico]

And even though we hadn't lived together in, like, 30 years, the bonds we'd always had grew stronger. Donna, when you grow up, what do you want to be getting ready for this epic battle? You can hear how optimistic and silly we were. Okay, here we go.

[Stephanie]

When I grow up, I want to.

[Suzanne Rico]

Be an Oscar Mayer wiener. I loved her. And our kids adored their Nana because she was funny and kind and kooky and hopeful, even after that first round of chemotherapy nearly killed her.

[Gabrielle Rico]

I want to live. I have things to do, and I love the world so much.

[Suzanne Rico]

But my mom had metastatic duodenal cancer. And if your 8th grade biology lessons fail you, which mine did, the duodenum is right next to the pancreas. Not a good place to get cancer. And it was stage four, so no chance of a cure. But she was determined to fight. And as she did, I was just as determined to document everything about her. Hi, Mom.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Hi.

[Suzanne Rico]

I started rolling voice memos, snapping photos, shooting videos. Everything was fair game. From the mundane. How's your oat bran?

[Gabrielle Rico]

It's delicious.

[Suzanne Rico]

To the existential, I mean. You don't seem afraid to me.

[Gabrielle Rico]

No, I. I made up my mind long before I got sick that whenever it happened to me, I wanted to die with as much awareness as I could muster.

[Suzanne Rico]

How she managed to be such a Zen master while staring death right in the face.

[Gabrielle Rico]

There's an end to everything.

[Suzanne Rico]

Maybe writing about her World War II childhood finally brought her peace with who she was and where she came from.

[Gabrielle Rico]

And every ending also has a new beginning.

[Suzanne Rico]

My mom is sitting in bed as she says this, propped up on pillows, her face pale and luminous with her white hair super short, courtesy of the chemo. She's rocking a Jamie Lee Curtis vibe.

[Gabrielle Rico]

I'm calm, serene, unafraid.

[Suzanne Rico]

And all these video and audio clips have captured what to me is now pure gold. Because they're proof that even as my mom was in the process of dying, she managed to live. You guys playing soccer?

[Simone]

Yeah.

[Suzanne Rico]

Are you beating Nana? Here she is, three months before the end, running around on stick figure legs with my 7 year old son, Griffin. Nice, Nana. Then two months out, we all sing karaoke. Really bad karaoke.

[Stephanie]

Mommy, Mommy. How could you leave and not take me Powder, Mom.

[Suzanne Rico]

But the song she chose, I thought it was about romantic love. But later I realized the lyrics could be a metaphor for my own overwhelming loss.

[Stephanie]

Monday morning couldn't guarantee by my name and you would still be here with me.

[Suzanne Rico]

Just two weeks after we recorded that, my mom goes into the hospital.

[Gabrielle Rico]

I think all those vials took most of my blood out of me.

[Suzanne Rico]

Yeah, they've taken a lot of blood. Stephanie, Simone and I stand by our mom's bed, our hands all intertwined with hers. Like, maybe if we hold onto her tightly enough, we might actually keep her in this world.

[Gabrielle Rico]

And this means the most to me.

[Suzanne Rico]

What's that, Mom?

[Gabrielle Rico]

That I'm here with all three of you.

[Stephanie]

We're here with you.

[Gabrielle Rico]

All three of us.

[Stephanie]

All of us.

[Gabrielle Rico]

I boggles my mind.

[Suzanne Rico]

She's groggy because she's just come out of anesthesia. Didn't you always know that we loved you this much?

[Gabrielle Rico]

No.

[Suzanne Rico]

She went under to have this radiation therapy called Cyberknife. But when the doctor went in with his scope, he did what's known in the medical business as a peek and shriek, describing to her three tearful daughters that what he saw was like little snowflakes of cancer falling all over her abdomen. No more Cyberknife. No more chemo. No more fighting. It's game over. And my mom, she greets the news by quoting Sophocles.

[Gabrielle Rico]

One must wait until evening to know how splendid the day has been.

[Suzanne Rico]

And then hitting Simone up for a foot rub.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Oh, Simi, that feels so good. Just. Gentlemen, it's calming me.

[Suzanne Rico]

She's peaceful. I'm terrified. So I crawl into her hospital bed and snuggle in close.

[Stephanie]

I just want you to come home, Mom.

[Gabrielle Rico]

I know. Me, too.

[Suzanne Rico]

Please. Family's being home.

[Gabrielle Rico]

If I last through tomorrow, I want to. And I will.

[Suzanne Rico]

And she does. But before leaving the hospital to experience what she calls the adventure of dying, our mom has a last request.

[Gabrielle Rico]

One thing I would like you to do, and any one of you can do it, is if you want.

[Suzanne Rico]

Our favorite storyteller asks us, her daughters, to finish the Biggest story of all, her memoir.

[Gabrielle Rico]

It took me five years to write, and I would love to.

[Suzanne Rico]

She's on so much morphing there that it's hard to focus. But then she pulls it together long enough to make her dying wish.

[Gabrielle Rico]

I'd love to. I'd love to see it published. Look at it. Dumb mom.

[Suzanne Rico]

And just like that, I make a promise. And my mom's story, which started 75 years ago in a country 6,000 miles away, becomes mine. I love you guys.

[Simone]

Love you too.

[Suzanne Rico]

We buried our mother's ashes at the base of an oak tree behind the house where our childhood memories had been made. See you later, alligator. Don't get poison oak. And once the hospital bed and oxygen tank were removed, the mountain of meds disposed of, we were expected to return to our old life. But how do you do that when a main pillar of that life is just gone? The memoir was a lifeline, a final, unbreakable connection to our mom. Reading through it, the scenes are vivid. Some beautiful, some sad, shining light on a dark time. But because her health deteriorated so quickly, our mom never had time to tell us which of her several prologues she wanted to use. She hadn't decided on an ending either. Nor was there a true reckoning of the most shattering event of her life. The sudden, violent and mysterious death of her mother. So we got down to work.

[Stephanie]

Look at this. Who knew about this?

[Suzanne Rico]

You've heard from my sister Stephanie before, but I'd like to properly introduce her. She's just 18 months older and growing up. We were pretty typical Gen Xers, you.

[Stephanie]

Know, it was the age of Dr. Spock. Don't get involved in your kids quarrels. Don't sides.

[Suzanne Rico]

Our mom bought into the whole benign neglect philosophy.

[Stephanie]

How do you let an 8 and a 10 year old figure out how to resolve their conflicts? We resolved them. You mouthed off and teased me and then I socked you.

[Suzanne Rico]

My sister is methodical, mathematical. While I run off intuition fly by the seat of my pants. But I remember so many good times too. Like riding our stick horses through the foothills and not coming home until dark. It was wonderful. We had that connection. It was like a love hate. But despite our differences, there's no one I'd rather have riding shotgun on this investigation.

[Stephanie]

That's all the stuff that we need to follow up. We need to do that research.

[Suzanne Rico]

It's partly because she's super smart, with degrees from Harvard and Stanford, but also thanks to a long ago Fulbright scholarship to Germany. Stephanie speaks the language fluently. Oh, here we go. And that means a question mark.

[Stephanie]

Or are they guarantors of peace?

[Suzanne Rico]

So while my sister translates old letters, military reports and articles, I start following the trail of our mom's scribbled notes. Like, quote, find David Johnson. David Johnson? Who the hell is David Johnson and why is he important? Hitler's vengeance on London.

[Stephanie]

Oh, here he is.

[Suzanne Rico]

You think he's still alive? Come on, David. It's like being in a maze. Everyone's dead. Yeah, in the dark. 20 years too late. Dead end after dead end. But maybe on another day we could talk about Robert Lussa.

[Simone]

I don't think so. It is too much for me. I'm 99 years old now.

[Stephanie]

I'm sorry.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Bye.

[Suzanne Rico]

Bye. But even worse than the feeling that I'm banging my head against the wall is the lurch in my heart every time I see my mom's familiar looping cursive. Even though she asked us to finish her memoir, it feels like we're snooping.

[Stephanie]

And this is her writing to her father.

[Suzanne Rico]

I have always loved you, and I love you still.

[Stephanie]

Even though I've criticized you, I am very like you.

[Suzanne Rico]

In the memoir, my grandfather is a main character, but my mom sticks pretty closely to her childhood memories of him, while the reporter in me wants hard facts about who he was and the role he played in a world war. Hitler's last weapons, the underground war against the V1. Time lapse record of German V1 bombs flying over the south coast of England.

[Simone]

London.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Battered, bloody, but unbowed after four.

[Simone]

Years of bombing, looks to the skies, bewildered. The German lust for conquest is not dead.

[Suzanne Rico]

But all the documentaries and research papers begin to seem more like a history lesson than any real window into our mother's past. So I dig out the old home movies our grandfather made starting in the early 1930s. Boy, he was ahead of his time.

[Stephanie]

Way ahead.

[Suzanne Rico]

Not only did Robert Lesser have a film camera almost a century ago, he knew how to use it.

[Stephanie]

Hey, is that Mom?

[Simone]

That's Mom.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Go back.

[Suzanne Rico]

Our mom's at the beach, digging a hole in the the sand, blonde curls shining in the sun. She and her sisters in matching dresses roll around on the beautiful green lawn of a stately white house. Our grandmother walks out, gorgeous in a long dress and smiling like there's not one storm cloud on Germany's whole horizon. I've never seen that. Then the scene changes, and it's my grandfather.

[Stephanie]

There he is.

[Suzanne Rico]

There he is, the image of the young, happy family man. How do you say handsome in German? But I know these are just the before scenes in A life that's about to get knocked sideways. By the end of World War II, Robert Lesser will be widowed, unemployed, and on the run. And when I zoom in on the handsome man playing with his brood of kids, there's another sad fact that just does not compute. Years later, my grandfather would die alone, not one of his nine children by his side.

[Stephanie]

Oh, it's not what happened?

[Suzanne Rico]

I don't know why they didn't go back, but I feel like it's an important piece of the puzzle. After spending months helping our mother die, I wonder what could have happened to estrange her family so completely. And since she's not around to go deeper on the subject, I take my questions to my next best source.

[Simone]

You realize that any minute I can have a stroke.

[Suzanne Rico]

Don't you dare. My mom's older sisters, my German aunts, or tantes.

[Simone]

You have a little wine?

[Suzanne Rico]

The one asking for wine. That's Tanta Trouty. She's 90.

[Simone]

Have a little wine for his dinner. The only time I have it.

[Suzanne Rico]

And the one threatening to have a stroke.

[Simone]

My name is Heidi Auguste Lusa Kingsbury, and I'm 88 years old.

[Suzanne Rico]

Don't let their ages fool you.

[Simone]

Heck, I got lost on an uninhabitable island in the Galapagos. I hiked to Machu Picchu via the Inca Trail. And I went to Burning man in Nevada at the age of 78 and had my boobs painted.

[Suzanne Rico]

It's true, she did. And these two German tantas have agreed to guide my sister and me back through history to the start of the story I'm trying to tell. Oh, my gosh, Heidi, you have all of this. They'll haul out boxes of long forgotten memorabilia.

[Simone]

If I hadn't hung on to all of that stuff, you know, it would be gone.

[Suzanne Rico]

But I did hang on and share never forgotten memories.

[Simone]

My brother Hans thinks he was burdened that he created a weapon of mass destruction. But I don't think so.

[Suzanne Rico]

There are no easy answers because there are no easy questions. And what about his relationship with the Nazi Party?

[Simone]

He admired everybody who was successful, and they were successful at first.

[Suzanne Rico]

But as Heidi and Trouty shade in the Missing Details, the life of my family during World War II begins to seem less like some big, frustrating puzzle and more like an intricately detailed map tracing the winding path of my ancestry. I can feel the memoir come alive underneath my fingertip. Faded characters bursting into color. But in order to fulfill the promise to our moms, there are landmarks we need to see for ourselves. And so my smart German speaking sister and I head for the country where it all happened. We're in the Black Forest and it's snowing. Oh, my God. Don't you expect Hansel and Gretel to jump out?

[Stephanie]

Whoa.

[Suzanne Rico]

With a detailed itinerary from the Tantas in hand, the Odyssey will take us from the ruined military base where our grandfather tested his wonder weapon to the underground concentration camp where those weapons were made.

[Gabrielle Rico]

20,000 perished here, worked to death.

[Suzanne Rico]

To the Bavarian farmhouse that was mysteriously bombed on a cold March afternoon in 1945. And our mom, Gabrielle, she'll be with us in spirit.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Come.

[Suzanne Rico]

In her memoir leading us down that winding path toward the truth.

[Gabrielle Rico]

This is an invitation.

[Suzanne Rico]

And if we dig deeply enough, maybe we can finally answer the two questions she never could. Who killed her mother and why? Coming up on the man who Calculated Death. Did you ever try to find out if the Stuttenhoff bombing was targeted at Robert Lesser or not?

[Gabrielle Rico]

It cannot be any other way.

[Stephanie]

It was brutal. It was pure power and terror.

[Gabrielle Rico]

How did it go? How did it go?

[Simone]

And it's at Dashenzi. There they stand, those nasty Jews. A British intelligence officer discovers a tiny shadow of a launching ramp and a V1 upon it. Irreputable confirmation of fantastic weapons.

[Suzanne Rico]

You know, my experience, even with secret.

[Stephanie]

Projects is nothing stays secret forever.

[Gabrielle Rico]

Here's one last story for tonight.

[Suzanne Rico]

It wasn't a fairy tale.

[Stephanie]

No, it was pain.

[Suzanne Rico]

That's next time on the man who Calculated Death, an original series from Discount Sushi and Novel. The show is written, reported and produced by me, Suzanne Rico. And if you're enjoying it, please rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, including family photos, videos, and archival material, go to the manwhocalculateddeath. Com. Thanks so much for listening.