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Author, film researcher and member of the Swedish Military History Commission.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

The Manhattan Project´s Swedish Connections

Unofficial emblem of the Manhattan Project, circa 1946.

Seldom has a TV series about WWII begun with the same slow pace as "Manhattan". After having seen also the second episode I was not that keen to continue watching it, in spite of the terrific acting, look, atmosphere and the subject itself - the people who made the first atomic bomb. But then something happened.

From lukewarm feelings for the series I developed a real attachment, and after the introduction of the Dane Niels Bohr into the story I keep asking myself how it is possible that both Swedish historians, writers and film directors have been able to pay so little attention to the Swedish connections to the Manhattan Project. I mean, first we have the most crucial trip of Niels Bohr via Sweden, and then we have Arthur Adams, the Sweden-born Soviet spy (and former osnaz soldier) who was focused on the Manhattan project. For more about Adams - see my latest book.

Incidentally, Netflix right now show both "Manhattan" and "The Heavy Water War". So, the same media now has both the Allied and the German atomic bomb stories.

Well, Swedish film directors, read up on Niels Bohr and Arthur Adams...

1 comment:

  1. It should also be noted that the Soviet NKVD was very active in Sweden, trying to get close to both Niels Bohr and others involved in the outskirts of the Manhattan Project. Colonel Zoja Rybkina, deputy resident of the NKVD in Stockholm, recruited a person very close to Bohr, and also had many contacts with important Swedish industrialists with intimate relations with the US Government.

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