Watched in one breath today. Seven episodes, over four hours.
The story of three nuclear programs: German, American, and Soviet. Despite being a viewpoint from “Channel One”, I don’t want to argue with 99% of what was heard. Strangely, they only briefly mentioned the Rosenbergs, who were executed on the electric chair in the USA, and since then, questions about the fairness of their execution crop up occasionally. A lot of attention was given to the Soviet nuclear program (Kurchatov, Khariton, Kapitsa, Joffe, Flerov), the Manhattan Project (Oppenheimer, Groves), the role of Niels Bohr, the German nuclear program (Heisenberg, but oddly not Otto Hahn), espionage scientists infiltrated into the heart of the Manhattan project (Fuchs, Hall, and others like Harry Gold – not a scientist, but a spy), supplying developments to the USSR “to prevent war”. Strangely, there was nothing about Landau and Sakharov.
It was interesting to learn about George Gamow, who tried everything to escape the USSR: skiing to Finland or kayaking from Crimea to Turkey, but nothing worked out. Eventually, due to an oversight, he was allowed to go on a business trip and he defected to the USA, where he further helped the Americans make the hydrogen bomb. In contrast, the USSR did not allow Petr Kapitsa to return to Cambridge where he lived and worked.
Another thing I liked: “After returning from Munich, Chamberlain said on the airplane stairway, ‘I have brought back peace.’ It meant – it’s time to urgently prepare for war.” Seems like everyone understood it already 🙂
In general, an interesting series, highly recommend. It can generally be watched at 2x speed.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 