← The Rest Is Classified
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- [00:01]
David McCloskey
Oh sheet.
- [00:02]
Gordon Carrera
Honey, chill. It's just laundry.
- [00:04]
David McCloskey
Not that I'm talking about these Arm and Hammer Power sheets. All the power of Arm Hammer laundry detergent in a convenient tossable sheet. Oh sheet. That's what I'm saying.
- [00:15]
Gordon Carrera
And Arm and Hammer Power sheets deliver an effective clean at a great price. Think of all the laundry we'll do.
- [00:20]
David McCloskey
And all the money we'll save.
- [00:23]
Gordon Carrera
Oh sheet, Arm and Hammer. More power to you.
- [00:29]
Unknown
Now you can get Disney plus and.
- [00:31]
David McCloskey
Hulu together for just 2.99amonth for four months. We sure would love that.
- [00:35]
Unknown
Get both and watch Marvel's Daredevil, Born Again and Moana 2 on Disney Plus.
- [00:40]
David McCloskey
Can I get a Chihu on Hulu?
- [00:42]
Unknown
Check out Good American Family and Paradise.
- [00:44]
Gordon Carrera
Call it in now.
- [00:46]
David McCloskey
Disney plus and Hulu together for just 2.99amonth. All of these and more streaming soon. New and returning subscribers 18 plus only after 4 months plan auto renews at 10.99amonth until canceled offer ends. 33025 this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliate. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [01:35]
Gordon Carrera
Ten minutes before the scheduled detonation, a green signal rocket was fired into the air and a siren sounded at base camp, heard by the men on the mountain some seconds later. They'd been told not to look directly at the blast for fear of being blinded. They were to turn their backs and welders goggles had been offered to protect their eyesight. Now though, as the test shot became imminent, the urge to see was overwhelming and people made sudden last minute decisions not to wear their goggles or to get out of their cars and brave the ultraviolet radiation. A second rocket fired and then another blast of the siren, lonely and mournful. Five minutes to go and men who were used to calculating in nanoseconds were gripped by a stomach churning combination of anxiety and excitement. Would it work? Five minutes seemed endless. Then a final rocket to mark a minute's countdown. One physicist started to cover his face with thick suntan lotion and put on heavy gloves to protect his hands from the flash. A shortwave radio squawked into life and they heard the last seconds of the countdown. Almost 20 miles away. A bright flash appeared and grew, filling the dark pre dawn with a penetrating daylight. Like the sun at high noon, a strange globe rose in the sky. Klaus Fuchs later remembered that it seemed alien and magnificent, with weird flashes of blue and green pulsating on its surface. Then it expanded and was eclipsed by a huge shock wave. Then they heard the blast, like the crack of a gun. Then duller thunder. As echoes crossed the desert and rebounded from the hills to the east. Everyone was shocked into silence by the sight. It had worked. As they looked up at the giant cloud that rose into the sky, it dawned on them that it was over 20,000ft high. They'd been almost blinded by an explosion that was 20 miles away. The results of their work had exceeded their imagination. Someone asked Fuchs as they walked away now, what will happen? How will we use this? And Fuchs replied, it's too late to ask that. Welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm Gordon Carrera.
- [03:43]
David McCloskey
And I'm David McCloskey.
- [03:45]
Gordon Carrera
And that is a description of the first test of an atom bomb, the Trinity test. And it's recounted in Frank Close's book of the same name, Trinity as seen through the eyes of Klaus Fuchs, a young German theoretical physicist who, even as he helped create the bomb, was betraying its deepest secrets to the Russians.
- [04:06]
David McCloskey
Russians, Gordon. It always leads back to the Russians. We are very excitingly going to start a little series here on this theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs, whose name is probably not very well known. Gordon. But who was, I think, probably fair to say, one of the most influential spies of the 20th century because he was responsible for passing the actual plans of the atom bomb to the Soviets. And in that wonderful theatrical reading you just gave Gordon, Klaus Fuchs is actually there at Los Alamos for the Trinity test, as seen in the movie Oppenheimer. And he all the while is working to build this bomb, and he's also giving the secrets of the science to the Russians. And so I think it's probably fair to say, I mean, we could have a long debate about this, Gordon, but the creation of the atom bomb, probably one of the most momentous events of the 20th century. And there's a real espionage undercurrent to this whole story as well, which is what I think makes Klaus Fuchs and the story we're going to tell so interesting.
- [05:20]
Gordon Carrera
That's right. I mean, in the film Oppenheimer, the focus is on whether Oppenheimer is a security risk and, you know, whether he's somehow secretly a communist. But the real story behind it, which you just get glimpses of in the film, that actually the real source of the leak of the information getting to the Soviet Union is Klaus Fuchs. And he plays a kind of bit part in that film, but actually he's a central part in the story of whatever happens. And I mean, there's this fascinating quote from the historian of the British bomb which says the parentage of the British, Russian and American hydrogen bombs has long been debated, but I suspect Klaus Fuchs was grandfather to them all. So what you get there is a sense of the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, one type of bomb. In that case, Klaus Fuchs actually plays a pivotal role in three countries. Three countries getting the nuclear bomb. One man.
- [06:11]
David McCloskey
It's a real atomic hat trick, isn't it, for Klaus Fuchs? And nobody knows his name. I think the reason I actually just rewatched Oppenheimer last night, and I think one of the reasons why his story, and I think really the story of Klaus Fuchs is so fascinating and why we're so interested in it is because there is this fascination, I think, with people who make or are involved in making really earth shattering technology and how they think about their responsibilities to the world, how they think about the morality of what they're doing and why they make the choices that they do. And you see throughout the movie Oppenheimer this deep sense of, I think, moral confusion or being conflicted about creating this superweapon to defeat the Nazis, potentially win the second World War. And then what happens afterward? What happens when this thing is unleashed on the world? And of course, the great biography of Oppenheimer on which the Christopher Nolan movie is based is called American Prometheus. You know, it's sort of taking this idea of fire being stolen from the gods, brought to humans. What do we do with that responsibility once we have it? And I think we see this today with characters like Elon Musk in space exploration or Sam Altman. And artificial intelligence is kind of what role do these people have or what choices do they make as they develop, you know, and sort of commercialize this kind of tech? And what we'll see in this story is that Klaus Fuchs, this theoretical physicist, very interesting background in Germany, he's wrestling throughout with these very important decisions about who gets what information. And really I think why should just the US and Great Britain have a bomb? Why not the Russians as well? And we'll see through his sort of morality tale why he makes the decisions that he does. But he's kind of one of these characters who's just deeply embedded in probably the most profound or one of the most profound tech advances of the entire 20th century.
- [08:17]
Gordon Carrera
That's right. You feel like we should write to Christopher Nolan and say, make a film, Fuchs, rather than as a follow up to Oppenheimer. It doesn't sound as good, though, does it sound.
- [08:24]
David McCloskey
Now you admit Fuchs with an exclamation point on the end. That could be the movie.
- [08:28]
Gordon Carrera
He is this great character, though. And I mean, there's a quote from the US Congress in 1951, Fuchs alone has influenced the safety of more people and accomplish greater damage than any other spy, not only in the history of the United States, but in the history of nations. So that gives a sense of his consequence. But also, I mean, I don't like heroes and villains and simple heroes and villains, but it would be very easy to go villain. And that quote from the US Congress goes villain. But actually, one of the things I found, the more I looked at his story was I don't think he fits into that category of hero or villain. I think he's a much more complicated and interesting character because of the kind of inner turmoil and the reasons for why he does what he does when it comes to spying. So I'm not saying I'm entirely sympathetic to this communist spy, but I.
- [09:18]
David McCloskey
Well, I mean. Listeners to our podcast will of course be completely unsurprised to find Gordon Carrera voicing sympathies for traitors to the crown, traitors to the United States. We've yet found another pasty nerd for you to be. To be, you know, to treat very well during the course of our series.
- [09:39]
Gordon Carrera
It's a theme here.
- [09:40]
David McCloskey
There's a theme.
- [09:41]
Gordon Carrera
It's my. It's what I want to be. I'm projecting. What I'd like to be, one of those pasty nerds. The nerds shall inherit the earth. Anyway, let's get to the story. Yes, let's talk about Fuchs himself, where he comes from, how he ends up working on the atomic program. And it goes back to Germany, doesn't it? That's where his story starts.
- [09:57]
David McCloskey
Yes, it starts in Germany. The young Fuchs. And I think what we should say that neither of us. Is it fair to say, Gordon, neither of us speak German very well. Now you might be laying a trap for me, Ein B. You told me so. Gordon. Gordon lied to me before we started recording this podcast and said that he didn't speak German. And now, anyway, I've been led into a trap.
- [10:18]
Gordon Carrera
I'm going to let you do the pronunciation.
- [10:19]
David McCloskey
Yeah, go on. I entered a lot of German names yesterday in the Google program that allows you to then hear what they sound like and I've repeated them so you can be the judge. So Klaus Fuchs is born in 1911 in Russellsheim, which I believe it's south of Frankfurt, but he grows up in Eisenach. Is it Eisenach? Eisenach which is northeast of Frankfurt. It is in what will eventually become East Germany. Eisenach is the home of Bach. Luther went to school there. So class of, you know, 15, 12 or whatever, very, very strong class in, in Eisenach. And Klaus, he's an animal lover. He becomes a vegetarian at an early age because he's sort of horrified by the killing of animals. And in kind of a theme throughout his life he suffers from a variety of ailments. He becomes anemic, he's sent to Switzerland for treatments. And you see in kind of his very early life this kind of frequent illness and frankly the kind of dip into left wing pacifism themes throughout his, his life. Now he is a quiet and pale kid. Hence your sympathy for him, Gordon. He for those wondering what he looks like, he is a nerd out of central casting. He has wire rimmed glasses, a five head, big cheeks. He looks like a less well fed, more somber and Germanic version in my opinion of, and this is a somewhat obscure reference, I don't know how this movie did in the UK of Rick Moranis from Honey I Shrunk the Kids Down. Did that movie do well over there?
- [11:54]
Gordon Carrera
It did okay, but Rick Moranis I'm vaguely aware but I think a lot of people won't know. But I think, you know, glasses and serious looking.
- [12:01]
David McCloskey
Very serious looking, yes. Big glasses, big forehead. His father is a Lutheran pastor and he's got two sisters and an older brother. Now I think there are three things to note about the young Fuchs that really set up his life and his personality and the decisions that he is going to make down the line. The first one is that he comes of age in a post war and by that I mean Post World War I Germany of shortages, economic anxiety, hyperinflation. And a lot of this pain in this period is seen as imposed on Germany from abroad. Right in the settlement after the First World War. It is an extremely unstable time in Germany. When Klaus is 11, a loaf of bread will cost 160 marks. By the end of 1923, when he's 12, it'll cost 200 million marks. So you get a sense of sort of the roiling anxiety of much of his childhood. So that's one, two. He is a mathematics prodigy and he is Known and famous, according to one of his biographers, by the time he's maybe 10. And he is seen in Eisenach as probably the best student in mathematics. And three, he grows up in a highly political household in a highly political era in Germany, one in which, you know, you think about politics as being something that's maybe done over the news or, you know, in arguments and debates. It's a really kind of violent time in Germany and there's a lot of clashing and kind of street brawling, frankly, in German political life in this era between the far right, the Nazis and a bunch of parties on the left.
- [13:43]
Gordon Carrera
His family, though, is particularly interesting and important, isn't it? Because his father, you know, is a Lutheran pastor, but I think he then moves to kind of Quakerism and pacifism. His father spent some time in Manchester, working amongst the kind of slums of Manchester which, interesting enough, is also where kind of Karl Marx years before had got his socialism from. And you feel like, you know, this is also something which feeds into Fuchs's father, this kind of both the religion and the empathy with the downtrodden. And so that side of things definitely feeds into Fuchs. And I think also this idea that his father seems to instill in him of following your conscience, wherever that takes you, even if it's in conflict to what his family or others might think around him. And I think that idea seems to come quite strongly from his father. But it is a. It's quite strange and quite a difficult family, isn't it? I mean, he later says, I had a very happy childhood. And yet it does sound like a pretty dark or strange childhood in some ways.
- [14:39]
David McCloskey
That's right. And his father is just. He's sort of a political animal. And they're nicknamed the. The Red Foxes. Fuchs means fox in German and just sort of describing the politics in the home. They are part of the Social Democrat Party in Germany at the time, which I think is kind of a social equality and justice platform. But it's happening in the context of a democratic process, right? Unlike perhaps the Communists and certainly the Nazis on the right. And that is, I think, really the critical bit of the politics of his childhood is that the household, his father, the sort of dinner table conversations, it's vehemently anti Nazi from a very early age.
- [15:25]
Gordon Carrera
But we should say a word about his mother. Tragically, she kills herself when Klaus Fuchs is 19. And supposedly when his father comes and finds her, she's died from drinking acid. And her dying words are, mother, I am coming which is a reference to her own mother, who's also committed suicide. And so there is a kind of dark undercurrent, I think, to his family, and quite a sad undercurrent which seems to be there, including around mental health. And that's part of the story. And yet again, kind of Fuchsia almost kind of doesn't want to talk about it. He kind of doesn't cover it up, but he. He doesn't want to refer to it in any way.
- [16:03]
David McCloskey
His biographer, Nancy Thorndike Greenspan, who's written a wonderful book on Klaus Fuchs, notes that he'll only acknowledge it when he has to fill it out on. On administrative forms, you know, that his mother is deceased, and he'll write the cause as political reasons.
- [16:18]
Gordon Carrera
That's fascinating, isn't it, to say she killed herself for political reasons? I mean, it almost implies he might associate it with the kind of politics of the time rather than what was going on in her head. But it's. I don't know, it's just a really interesting thing to have noted down. So he's there in this really kind of complicated family, I guess, and at a time when politics in Germany is getting pretty intense as the 1930s move on. And he's growing up in this really kind of adversarial period.
- [16:46]
David McCloskey
So he goes to university in Leipzig, which is a Nazi bastion of support in Leipzig. So Klaus is a total fish out of water there. Now, interestingly enough, you sort of know your politics are messed up when all of the parties have paramilitary groups. And he joins the Social Democrats paramilitary group, the Reichsbanner joins it with his brother. He is involved in a lot of actually street fighting. You would not think, given the way this guy looks, that he would be very physical, but he is. He's involved in a lot of street fighting and kind of street action against the Nazis. When he's at Leipzig. His physics professor is Werner Heisenberg, who is also in the movie Oppenheimer and who is going to win the Nobel Prize very soon. Klaus is apparently bored there because Heisenberg doesn't lecture on any of the interesting stuff. This is a theme again throughout his life, and I think it links back to Gordon, what you were talking about with his father, I think, instilling in these kids that you should. How would we even describe it? It's almost the sense of moral certitude and the need to follow up what you believe with action. Like you can't just believe it in your head. So he's going to join these kind of social Democrat student groups and organize for them. He's really at the forefront of this anti Nazi activism. And you know, I think you can kind of see in this period you've got the activism, the struggle with the Nazis, the reaction to his mother's death, which by the way, that is the seventh suicide in the family line. So you have this deeply unsettled family environment, this deeply unsettled political environment. But in the midst of all this, Klaus is very tough. He's single minded. He's looking at the world through the lens of a place lacking justice and fairness, of sort of capitalism riding on the backs of workers. And his father in this period is going to write that Klaus, like all his siblings, has this kind of unbending character, very one sided. And if he believes that something is right, that's the way it is and you need to take action to do something about it. So in this period though, we should say he's decidedly, I think, not a communist. Right. He's, he's not involved with the German Communist Party at this point. His family, while certainly maybe flirting with the edges of it, they're not actually part of that political movement. But in 1932, the Social Democrats back Hindenburg, who's sort of this old school conservative, you know, military man, and they promote him and sort of support his candidacy to be president of the Weimar Republic. And this is a deeply agitating moment for Klaus. He kind of sees this as a betrayal of the working class. And what this moment kind of comes to for him is, is that there's a rift between Klaus Fuchs and these kind of social democratic groups on campus. And Klaus in this rift is taken in by the German Communist Party. Now there's an election in that year, again, a lot of street action. Klaus apparently loses three teeth in a street brawl and he takes up leadership of this communist group called the Red Spark. It is a kind of roving political theater and agit prompt brigade, great excuse to say that word. They roam the countryside kind of doing skits, singing, dancing, promoting anti Nazi political ideology. He probably believes a lot of the same things that he did when he was part of this kind of social democratic group. But now he is actually in the kind of communist firmament.
- [20:24]
Gordon Carrera
He's a kind of activist, to some extent a brawler. I mean, he gets into fights, doesn't he? So he's really involved in that and moving in that. And just as the Nazis now are coming to power and in which they're going to go after the communists, that's right.
- [20:39]
David McCloskey
So In January of 1933, Hitler becomes Chancellor. Nazi power is kind of growing throughout Germany and that trickles down, I think, to these student groups where they try to shut down the kind of communist student clubs. There's more brawling class. Fuchs, anti Nazi throughout, but he, in early 1933, gets into another brawl with Nazi students. They throw him into a fjord and leave him for dead. Right. So you have, at this point, I think, a family that has is starting to be deeply persecuted by the Nazis. And if you think about the way he described his mother's suicide, in his mind, there's probably a straight line from her psychological distress to the rise of the Nazi party. Now, he survives this, he goes into hiding, but the Nazis have put him on kind of a kill list. In February of 1933, there's a fire. The Reichstag. Reichstag.
- [21:33]
Gordon Carrera
Reichstag. The German Parliament.
- [21:35]
David McCloskey
Yeah, the German parliament, where it's essentially blamed on the Communists, this fire. There are raids and roundups that begin across the country. Klaus is on his way to a meeting of socialist students in Berlin when he hears about this fire. And this is a, I think, a pivotal sort of moment for him in his life. He's on the train and he's got a pin on his shirt. It's the hammer and sickle sort of lapel pin to signify that he's a communist. The police are searching for him. He's kind of thinking that he's going to have to go on the run. He takes the pin off the communist pin and hides it. And at this point in 1933, Klaus Fuchs political activism starts to go underground and he is becoming part of the communist underground in Germany.
- [22:21]
Gordon Carrera
So with that moment, Klaus Fuchs on the run from the Nazis, going underground. We'll take a break and afterwards we'll find out how he ends up in Britain.
- [22:34]
David McCloskey
This episode is brought to you by our friends at NordVPN. Now, Gordon, what do you find most useful about Nord?
- [22:41]
Gordon Carrera
David One incredibly useful feature I find is the ad blocking software that stops you being targeted. We all know about that by intrusive ads whenever you're browsing the Internet. Along with the fact Nord blocks unwanted parties tracking me, it makes me feel much safer and confident that my privacy or my privacy is protected online.
- [23:01]
David McCloskey
And you know how much I care about your privacy, Gordon. And you know that one feature from Nord that I really appreciate is that it also has offline protection, which works even when it is not connected, meaning you can be consistently secure.
- [23:14]
Gordon Carrera
So to stay secure online, you should take advantage of our exclusive NORDVPN discount. All you need to do is go to nordvpn.com restisclassified when you sign up, you can receive a bonus. Four months on top of your plan and there's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. The link's also in the episode description box. Welcome back. We're looking at the story of Klaus Fuchs and he is now on the run from the Nazis, from the Gestapo hunting for him because they know he's a communist activist.
- [23:49]
David McCloskey
Well, that's right. And now after the reag fire, the whole Communist Party in Germany is having to go underground, Claus Fuchs with it. He starts to get actually in this period, I think his first education in kind of basic tradecraft. Right. Because the whole party now has to exist out of sight of the Nazi security services. And so they're sort of establishing these points of connection on oral messages. Only code names. We sadly don't actually know what Fuchs's code name was in this period. Has not survived. You know, don't keep names on a list. Don't sleep at home, don't look backward in a very obvious way to see if you're being followed. Wear disguises. Now he's In Berlin, it's 1933. He has an aunt there, she's conservative and the Gestapo pays her a visit to try to understand where, where Fuchs is. And she dutifully hands over the address where she thinks Klaus is staying. So he's sort of betrayed in this period by his own aunt, but he has given her a fake address. And we should note that the persecution in this period by the Nazis of communists is absolutely brutal. You know, there are raids, hangings, torture. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of communists are sort of arrested or forced to flee. The former Communist presidential candidate is arrested, tortured and thrown into a camp, later dies there. The party headquarters in Berlin is overrun and the leadership starts to flee to get out of Germany, go to places like Denmark and France. And Klaus in this period is working as a recruiter for the Red Student Group in Berlin. The combat in this period is primarily writing up pamphlets and flyers and printing newsletters. And in his spare time going back to this sort of math prodigy. He's registered to study math and physics at the University, University of Berlin. His father is arrested, eventually found guilty of pro communist sympathies, but serves only a month in prison. His brother Gerhard is arrested, spends two years in prison. But he's got all these you know, health problems. And after his release, he ends up at a sanatorium in Switzerland. His wife and son end up being trapped outside Prague. It's very sad. They sort of vanish into a concentration camp. His two sisters are forced to flee Germany. And we say all this to note that it is in this period in the early 1930s, when the Nazis have taken power, that Klaus Fuchs family life, which I think was always unsettled. I think it would be easy, or would be easy to imagine the sort of person who would give up the activism and just sort of try to survive, you know, through this.
- [26:25]
Gordon Carrera
You get a picture of a guy who is anti Nazism is absolutely at the core of what he believes in. That's his driving force and. And activism, doing things, not remaining silent, but actually taking action. Those are the two defining things. And I guess that becomes the core of understanding who Klaus Fuchs is, you know, in later years. It's formed here in that kind of just that year or two, isn't it, around 1932, 1933, which is critical because eventually he realizes, I think, that he's got to get out of Germany, he's got to run.
- [26:56]
David McCloskey
He's a true believer, and at this stage, I'm not sure he's a true believer in sort of Soviet Communism, but he's a true believer in social justice. This kind of redistributive politics around promoting the working class at the expense of the rich. And it's just. It's maybe summed up negatively as kind of he's anti Nazi.
- [27:18]
Gordon Carrera
But it's a very interesting parallel, isn't it? Because around this, almost exactly the same time, Kim Philby is getting recruited to the communist cause as well in the UK, kind of 33, 34, you know, the kind of years around then when he's come out of Cambridge. And it is quite similar where at that point, people who were anti Nazi also thought the only people standing up to the Nazis were the Communists. So, you know, there is an element of kind of being pro communist, but there's also an element of being fundamentally anti Nazi first and that being the kind of driving motivation. It does feel like that for kind of Fuchs and Philby, where it's ideology which is driving them, but the future is either kind of Nazism or communism, in a way.
- [27:58]
David McCloskey
And Fuchs has seen that in a very real way with the compromises that the Social Democrats, the sort of party of his family, have made with these kind of conservative parties in Germany. I think the only party that's really held fast has been the Communists, right. And so he's attracted to that, I think, quite naturally. So mid July of 1933, Klaus, like so many German Communists, flees from Berlin. He crosses into Belgium on foot and heads to Paris. He is 21 years old, he speaks absolutely no French, and he's there in kind of this pretty interesting swirl of communist sympathizers and actual members of the Comintern who are in Paris for this kind of youth congress in the summer of that year. Now Paris is kind of going to be a way station for him. His father, as we had mentioned earlier in the episode, had spent some time in Britain and he'd actually worked for a Quaker family in Bristol. And his father puts in word with relatives to try to get Klaus sent from France to England.
- [28:59]
Gordon Carrera
This is one of the interesting bits of the story, is because he gets the opportunity to go and stay with this family in Bristol, the gun family, and they're quite left wing, I think. And so there is a kind of network of people who are all sympathetic. They're not activists in the sense of being spies, though, but they are sympathetic. And there is also this idea of kind of hospitality you get from people and that Fuchs is one of a lot of people at this time who is actually kind of welcomed as a refugee into the uk fleeing Nazism and also into the scientific community, I think, at this time, because he's kind of recognized as being kind of a prodigy in this way. And so it is interesting that he is given refuge literally by both the country, but also by families and individuals who kind of take him in and look after him initially here in Bristol, I think.
- [29:48]
David McCloskey
And Bristol is a sort of bastion of left wing politics even to this day. Is that right, Gordon? I don't know. I've been told by my British sources that it's a big lefty university. Even.
- [30:00]
Gordon Carrera
Even now it's pretty lefty. I think it's known for a degree of left wing activism, bit of tearing down statues and the like. That's. That's the Bristol way. So, yeah, I think it was in those days, maybe as well, judging by Fuchs's circumstances and time there.
- [30:14]
David McCloskey
Well, that's right. And Fuchs is the real Bristol man. He joins the university's Socialist society, he's distributing pamphlets, and by the fall of 1934, he needs identity documents to stay in Britain because he's a refugee, essentially. He manages to get these by registering with the police. And then in something that's going to be absolutely critical for the later parts of our story. In the process of getting these documents, information comes from Germany to the constable in Bristol that eventually gets sent to MI5 with a note summarizing Klaus as a, quote, notorious communist.
- [30:53]
Gordon Carrera
This is a really important theme that we're going to be looking at throughout this series, which is how did they miss him? How did MI5, the security service, miss the fact that first he'd come to the UK and then, you know, that he gets access to some of the UK and the US's most closely guarded secrets? And this is the first time really, in 1934. And it's really interesting because they're asking whether there's any evidence of anything untoward about him. And they have got this report that's come out of Germany saying, as you said, that he's a communist activist. But the issue is, at MI5, Guy Liddell, who's one of the kind of Chief Investigators at MI5, we should say MI5 at this point is tiny, it's just a kind of few dozen officers. But he's just been to Germany in 1933 and he knows that the Germans are obsessed with communists and are seeing communists everywhere and are determined to go after them, to purge them. And so he basically discounts anything that they get from the German police. He just assumes that this is the kind of Germans ranting about communists and to some extent puts it to one side because of the source, because it's come from, you know, effectively the Gestapo. So you can kind of see why he might do that. But it's certainly the first of many misses, I think.
- [32:07]
David McCloskey
And we should also say in this period that this is prior to any of the kind of public knowledge about Stalin's purges. And it would be very common to have sort of these left wing sympathies for the Soviet Union or for communism in general. And so I'd have to think that's also being factored into MI5 calculation here. You know, the accusation that he's a communist is not hitting as hard in 1934 as it would in 1954.
- [32:37]
Gordon Carrera
So effectively he gets allowed to stay, he gets a clean bit of health at this point.
- [32:40]
David McCloskey
That's right. And so by 1936, he finishes his degree, he receives approval to do a PhD, and now there's competition over seats for German refugees in the physics department. And so Fuchs is sent to Edinburgh to work under Max Bourne. Edinburgh, but sorry, I said Edinburgh, didn't I?
- [33:00]
Gordon Carrera
Edinburgh. I think Edinburgh.
- [33:02]
David McCloskey
Edinburgh.
- [33:04]
Gordon Carrera
Let's, let's move on, let's move on.
- [33:06]
David McCloskey
Are you pronouncing it in your German, Gordon?
- [33:08]
Gordon Carrera
No, I'm pronouncing it in my British. I'm not going to say English.
- [33:12]
David McCloskey
Anyway, Edinburgh.
- [33:14]
Gordon Carrera
Edinburgh.
- [33:14]
David McCloskey
Okay. So he goes to Edinburgh and he studies under Max Born, who's also a German physicist. And there are just Germans everywhere outside of Germany in this period. I think in our story today, basically every name we mention will be a future Nobel Prize winner. He's also going to win a Nobel. And I think the equivalent of studying atomic physics under Max Born is sort of like a student studying gravity under Newton. He's the man. And this is a period where also he's actually. Now he seems to actually be doing. Studying. Right. And contributing at the university. He's described by Bourne as the best of his age group. He's also involved in the German Communist underground in Edinburgh. And it does seem like Born probably knew that Klaus Fuchs was a communist. But again, he's kind of just another leftist intellectual. He probably supports the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, like Philby would have nothing particularly strange about that. And then In August of 1939, disaster strikes the family again. His sister kills herself by jumping from a train into a ravine. And again, Fuchs is going to describe the reasons for that as political.
- [34:32]
Gordon Carrera
Amazing, isn't it, this idea of political reasons. The way to describe both your mother and your sister's death by having killed themselves. I mean, it's just a really kind of odd insight. But August 1939, of course, is also the moment where the Second World War is literally about to break out and Britain's going to be going to war with Germany.
- [34:50]
David McCloskey
Well, and at first there's really, I think, no effort to kind of separate the actual Nazi sympathizers and in some cases POWs from the very anti Nazi Germans who'd fled to Great Britain, Klaus Fuchs among them. And so Klaus, he's working at this point in Edinburgh on a grant from the Carnegie Trust. He's a refugee. He's a category C refugee, which means he has very few restrictions on his travel and movement. But he's lumped in with this group of, quote, enemy aliens. And in spring of 1940, he's detained and put into this kind of miserable military transit camp. First he goes to Liverpool and then he's kind of blending in with these groups of people who are communist emigres from the German resistance, veterans of the Spanish Civil War. The camp conditions are atrocious. One man hangs himself. There's very little food, no access to outside mail or radio, and Unsurprisingly, I think internment really deepens Fuchs's suspicions of his potentially, you know, adoptive country. And in turning basically all of these anti fascists to, in Fuchs mind, sort of appease the kind of nativist camp in Britain. And Fuchs will say, you know, the goal here was not to establish freedom and democracy, but to continue to attempt shameful compromises with the Nazis. Now he's eventually moved to an internment facility on the Isle of Man, which I only associate as a money laundering destination.
- [36:28]
Gordon Carrera
Look away, listeners from the Isle of Man right now. Yeah, it's a kind of island between the mainland. An island. I was trying to kind of work out a kind of parallel. I guess it's the equivalent of sending people to Guantanamo Bay. It's a kind of offshore island, not quite under the main jurisdiction of the country. So they're packed off there first, all these Germans again, pretty, pretty bad conditions. And then they're sent even further away by boat to Canada. I mean, they really are trying to kind of move them out, you know, as far as they can. And I think the first boat that goes gets sunk by the Germans. And then he's on the second boat which makes it out to Canada.
- [37:06]
David McCloskey
So he goes from Britain's Gitmo to someplace even worse. He's sent to Canada.
- [37:12]
Gordon Carrera
Soon to be the 51st state anyway.
- [37:14]
David McCloskey
Soon to be the 51st state.
- [37:16]
Gordon Carrera
Let's not get into that.
- [37:18]
David McCloskey
So the conditions on this boat are also horrific. There's a refugee memoir that said the pissoirs were filled with vomit and shit and the waist became ankle deep. Klaus is going to later claim that the communists were the ones who took the lead in the cleanup. They were doing this without rubber gloves. So just wading into these pools of feces to clean up the ship. The crossing again, they have to take a very kind of northerly route to avoid U boats, German U boats. The crossing takes 10 days instead of four. So it's just an absolutely disastrous experience. They go to go back at a place called Camp Link, their strip searched. All their valuables are taken. Fuchs is 5 foot 10 inches. I don't know how to convert that into your metric system, Gordon. And he weighs a measly, I mean, 126 pounds. And so he is not healthy. Let's say everyone is so thirsty that in some of these refugee accounts they'll write years later that they could still remember the first glass of water they got when they got to the camp. They're eating bread and something called bully beef, which is A kind of gelatinous.
- [38:25]
Gordon Carrera
Meat and I'm sure tinned corned beef for those who remember it, jelly gelatinous, glatinous stuff around it. It's not very appetizing, but nutritious.
- [38:32]
David McCloskey
I think we feed our dog, they.
- [38:34]
Gordon Carrera
Have these like bullets look like dog food.
- [38:36]
David McCloskey
It's kind of what I had imagined. So in the camp, Fuchs is. He's quiet, but he's remembered as a Marxist whose, whose views were often aggravating to other people in the camp. And he becomes very close pals with a communist named Hans Kalle. And Hans Kalle is probably a talent spotter, I think we might say, for Soviet intelligence. And so we have here this sort of budding friendship between Klaus Fuchs and somebody who's at least friendly with the Soviet Union.
- [39:08]
Gordon Carrera
It's a friendship maybe a bit more than that from Carlo's point of view. But Klaus Fuchs at this point doesn't have any secrets or anything like that. So it is just a kind of friendship, if you like, rather than a recruitment. But within this camp, I'm sure Carla would have seen that Fuchs is a kind of remarkable individual. I mean, he's one of lots of kind of incredibly brainy people who are at that camp. You know, I mean, it's kind of bizarre thing where you've got all these anti Nazi refugees, you know, who are all locked in together in this intense surroundings. And it kind of sounds almost like a kind of intellectual camp that they're running there. But also there are people who realize that Klaus Fuchs is a kind of valuable mathematician and theoretical physicist and, and who want him back. And I think that's what's interesting about it, is because you get, I think all the way through this sense of Klaus Fuchs has reasons why he could be a bit resentful about Britain. You know, he's been packed off to this pretty grim series of camps. But at the same time there are people, particularly individuals and other scientists, who are doing their best for him as he found hospitality at the start. Now Max Bourne and others are saying we need him back. You know, this is a kind of valuable man.
- [40:13]
David McCloskey
Well, and they actually. Max Born reaches out to Einstein and tries to get Einstein to send Klaus Fuchs reading material to the camp. The camp population is, I think, absolutely fascinating because in that camp, at the same time as Fuchs, there's a future Nobel Prize winner in biochemistry, several creators or developers of the steady state theory of the universe, engineers, few industrialists, journalists, painters, architects and professors, and many of Them will later be called sir, this is the prison population. And the camp warden actually wrote later some of the brainiest people in Canada were in the camp. It's like if you went to a university and like interned all of the professors and put them on a boat and sent them somewhere. And eventually though, the Brits, Gordon, will come to their senses and realize that we probably shouldn't be interning all of these anti Nazis with Nazi POWs. And so round about August of 1940, the government issues a white paper that starts to break these refugees down into more detailed categories, including finding some that would be eligible for release and that would include scientists who might be able to help in the war effort. And of course, Klaus Fuchs is one of those. So eventually Fuchs is going to be released. He'll be sent back to Britain. He'll reach Liverpool harbor in January of 1941. He's been interned for about eight months. And again, really critically, he has been joined at the hip with his close friend Hans Kalle, who is this communist emigre and also has these connections to Soviet intelligence.
- [41:51]
Gordon Carrera
That's right. And it's interesting that in about April 1941, Fuchs comes down to London for what seems to be a party held in North London, partly, I think a. Partly to welcome him back. And it's at a very interesting place. So it's in Hampstead. I don't know how well you know Hampstead.
- [42:10]
David McCloskey
I'm a Hampstead man.
- [42:11]
Gordon Carrera
You're a Hampstead man is Hampstead. It's fair to say it has a reputation as the kind of home of the liberal left intelligentsia in London. It still does today.
- [42:21]
David McCloskey
That's me to a teague, or it's.
- [42:22]
Gordon Carrera
You to a Teague. Although these days I think it's lost that slightly because I think those people have been priced out by all the other people who since arrived in London. But in those days particularly it had a kind of slightly radical edge. And particularly he's taken to a party at this place called Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead. Now this is really a fascinating place because this isn't just a normal block of flats. It's a very kind of Bauhaus modern, stylish block of flats, kind of white and modern. And it's filled with interesting people. Agatha Christie, by the way, at one point lives in this block of flats. But at this point in the kind of early 30s, at number seven, you had living at one point, Arnold Deutch, who is the man who recruits Kim Filby and the Cambridge Spies, and a man called Jurgen Kaczynski. Who is also friends with Hans Kahler. And this is a kind of group of people who seem to be congregating here who are communists, activists and more. And it's a kind of fascinating place, which I think MI5 was only, you know, had some hints that something might have been going on there. But if they'd have known that this was actually the kind of epicenter, really this one block of flats of what would become communist recruitment in Britain. And I think that they've been a lot more interested in it. But Fuchs seems to spend a lot of time there, you know, not just that party, but later. And it becomes the place where he's introduced to some interesting people.
- [43:45]
David McCloskey
And also in this exact period, young Fuchs is just now back from the camps and he's trying to figure out where he's going to work next. Right. What will he actually do? And he's not in it yet by the time he goes to this party. But he is being sort of wooed by Max Born to work on a particularly secretive program that I believe is worked under a contract for the Air Ministry. Because the British atomic bomb project is underway at this point, and it's in spring of 41 or by the spring of 41, that Churchill has authorized work to begin on an atomic bomb. It's probably the case that you guys were even ahead of us at this point in sort of the science of how an atomic bomb would work. And so Fuchs, again, when he goes, and I think this, this April party is really a critical kind of point in his life. Right. At this point, he's not in yet. Right. He doesn't have access to the British atomic program. Right. Because again, he's just come out of the camps. He's kind of technically categorized as an enemy alien. He can't have access to all of these secretive science, but he's starting to kind of, you know, be considered for that. And so when he goes to this party in April, his friend Hans Gala introduces Fuchs to a man named Mr. Johnson, who speaks near perfect English, maybe with a little bit of an accent, and who's very interested in science, particularly in atomic energy. Now, again, MI5 believes that Hans Kahli is a talent spotter for Soviet intelligence. And this Mr. Johnson is actually Simon Kramer, and he is an officer of Soviet military intelligence, the gru.
- [45:30]
Gordon Carrera
So, yes, I think at that point we got Klaus Fuchs back in Britain and being courted by British scientists to work on this very secret program which he's about to learn is the nuclear program. And at the same time being introduced by his friends to officers of Soviet military intelligence. Those two things both happening around this same time in spring 1941. Let's leave it there and next time we can come back and look at how he begins his career in espionage and stealing some of the most sensitive secrets that the country holds.
- [46:06]
David McCloskey
See you next time.
- [46:13]
Al Murray
Hi there, I'm Al Murray, co host of we have ways of making you talk the world's premier Second World War history podcast from Golhan.
- [46:20]
Unknown
And I'm James Holland, best selling World War II historian. And together we tell the best stories from the war. This time we're doing a deep dive into the last major attack by the Nazis on the west, the Battle of the Bulge.
- [46:34]
Al Murray
And what's so fascinating about this story is we've been able to show how quite a lot of the popular history about this battle is kind of the wrong way around, isn't it, Jim? The whole thing is a disaster from the start. Even Hitler's plans for the attack are insane and divorced from reality.
- [46:46]
Unknown
Well, you're so right. But what we can do is celebrate this as an American success story for the ages. From their generals at the top to the gis on the front line. Full of gumption and grit, the bold should be remembered as a great victory for the usa.
- [47:01]
Al Murray
And if this sounds good to you, we've got a short taste for you here. Search we have ways wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks.
- [47:13]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah.
- [47:13]
Unknown
Anyway, so who is Overstuff Van Fuhrer? Joachim Piper.
- [47:17]
Al Murray
What I see is jaunty hat and I just think skull and crossbones. Well, I see his reputation and I think, you know, you might be a handsome devil, but the emphasis is on the devil bit rather than the handsome.
- [47:27]
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, be that is May. He's 29 years old and he's got, he's got a very interesting career really because he comes from a, you know, a pretty right wing family. Let's face it. He's joined the SS at a pretty early, early stage. He's very. International socialism. He's also been Himmler's adjutant. Yeah, he took a little bit of time off in the summer of 1940 to go and fight with, with the 1st Waffen SS Panzer Division. Yep, did pretty well. Went back to being Himmler's adjutant, then went off and commanded troops in, in the Eastern Front. Rose up to be a pretty young regimental commander. I mean it's not many people that age are no Besturm Banfuhrer, which is sort of. Colonel.
- [48:02]
Al Murray
Yes, I You see, what must it have been like if you're in. If, if Himmler's adjutant turns up and he's been posted to you as an officer, do you think? Well, he only got that job because of, because of his connections. For Piper, it must have been always. He's always having to prove himself, surely, because he has turned up, he's not worked his way through the ranks of the Waffen ss. He's dolloped in, having come from head office, as it were. It must be a peculiar position to be in. Right. He's got lots to prove. Right, that's what I'm saying.
- [48:30]
Unknown
Yeah. And he's from a sort of middle class background as well.
- [48:34]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [48:34]
Unknown
But he's got an older brother who's had mental illness and attempted suicide and never, never really recovers and actually has died of t eventually in 1942. He's got a younger brother called Horst who's also joined the SS&TOTEN cop Verbanda and died in a never really properly explained accident in Poland in 1941. Right. Piper gains a sort of growing reputation on the Eastern Front for being kind of very inspiring, fearless, you know, obviously courageous, you know, all the guys love him, all that kind of stuff. But he's also orders the entire. The destruction of entire village of Krasnaya Polyana in a kind of revenge killing by Russian partisans. Yeah. And his unit becomes known as the Blowtorch Battalion because of his penchant for touching Russian villages. So he's got all the gongs. He's got. Iron Cross, second class, first Class Cross of Gold, Knight's Cross. Did very well at Kursk briefly in Northern Italy actually, then in Ukraine, then in Normandy. He suffers a nervous breakdown.
- [49:30]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [49:31]
Unknown
And he's relieved of his command on the 2nd of August, and he's hospitalized from September to October. So he's not in command during Operation Lutetch. And then he rejoins 1st SS Panzer Regiment as its commander again in October 1944. It's really, really odd.
- [49:45]
Al Murray
I mean, but isn't that interesting though, because if you're a lancer, if you're an ordinary soldier, you're not allowed to have a nervous breakdown. You don't get hospitalized, you don't get time off. How you could interpret this is. This is a sort of Nazi princeling, isn't? He is Himmler's adjutant. He's demonstrated the necessary Nazi zeal on the Eastern front and all this sort of stuff. It comes to Normandy where they, where they're losing. Why else would he have a nervous breakdown. He's shown all the zeal and application in the Nazi manner up to this point, and they're losing, you know, and because he's a knob, you know, because he's well connected, he gets to be hospitalized. If he has a nervous breakdown, he isn't told like an ordinary German soldier. There's no such thing as combat fatigue, mate. Go back to work.
- [50:22]
Unknown
Yes. And it's a nervous breakdown, not combat fatigue.
- [50:24]
Al Murray
Well, yes, of course, but.
- [50:25]
Unknown
But you know what SS soldier said of him? Piper was the most dynamic man I ever met. He just got things done.
- [50:32]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [50:32]
Unknown
You get this image I have of him of having this kind of sort of slightly manic energy. Yeah, kind of. He's virulently National Socialist. He's got this great reputation. He's damned if anyone's going to tarnish it. You know, he's a. He's a driver, you know, all those things.
- [50:47]
Al Murray
He's trying to make the will triumph, isn't he? He's working towards the Fuhrer. He's imbued with. He knows what's expected of him. Extreme violence and cruelty and pushing his men on. I mean, he's sort of. He's the Fuhrer Princip writ large, isn't he, as a. As an SS officer.
- [51:01]
Unknown
Yeah.
- [51:02]
Al Murray
Which is why cruelty and extreme violence are bundled in to wherever he goes, basically.
- [51:07]
Gordon Carrera
It.