Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim O
quoted from Karlsch:"It's clear there was no master plan for developing atom bombs. But it's also clear the Germans were the first to make atomic energy useable, and that at the end of this development was a successful test of a tactical nuclear weapon"
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In 1972 I went with my father for a great holiday exploring Klodzko area in southern Poland. There was hard to find motel or hotel, so we had to find private "Bed and breakfast".
Once we had luck and stayed overnight in nice old house owned by German "autochtone", as they were called during communist era.
He was very nice old bloke. My father bought a bottle of VAT69 which this time in Poland costed $2.85 and they were talking.
Grandpa Helmut told us about frantic soviet investigations right after the war in 1946.
Soviets were trying to find German reactor hidden somewhere underground in this area. Some officers were billeted in Helmut's house and they were drinking every night talking loudly. They did not know that Helmut was Russian POW in WWI and he learned russian quite well.
Thanks to this linguistic ability he was somewhat allowed to stay in his house and survive deportations of Germans. He said: "Anytime they come I just started to yell at them in russian...and they left me alone.
I will try to find more about this interesting area and post it later.
I heard that nearby were uranium mines exploited by soviets - prisoner were employed and many of them died.
Cheers,
Lancer44