Nazis Beat Oppenheimer in Race for First Atomic Bomb, Unearthed Book Claims

MILWAUKEE, July 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Director Christopher Nolan's biopic on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer promises to generate a flood of interest in the history of the atomic bomb, yet a new book published by Ezra Company, LLC threatens to resurrect old doubts about that very history.

 I'm Afraid! (available on Amazon.com) is the first authorized English translation of a very obscure book published in Paris in 1955. Purportedly authored by a German-turned-American atomic scientist named Erwin K. Oppenheimer, I'm Afraid! tells the gripping story of the high-stakes battles that unfolded behind the scenes in atomic laboratories at the dawn of the Cold War. The book paints surprising and contentious portraits of a gallery of historic personalities such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Gustav Hertz, Edward Teller, Albert Einstein, Hermann Göring, and Adolf Hitler.

With uncommon prescience, I'm Afraid! tackles weighty themes like the weaponization of science and scientists, the fragility of human understanding, the harrowing dangers of geopolitical conflicts in an era dominated by advanced technologies, and the prospects of a global government to prevent another catastrophic world war.

What mostly sets I'm Afraid! apart, however, are its shocking historical claims, ranging from Hitler's secret fears about the end of the world, to America's military plans to drop atomic bombs on Vietnam in 1954, to early attempts to manipulate the globe's climate with nuclear technologies. The most startling allegation, however, is that German Nazi atomic scientists were successful in producing their own atomic bombs, a contention which brazenly contradicts official history.

"The whole world believes that the two atomic bombs that crushed Japan in August 1945 were American made," states the narrator in I'm Afraid! "In reality, as I would later learn, those bombs were Hitler's secret weapon."

I'm Afraid! is certain to raise eyebrows among WWII students and historians. Raul Vasquez, a journalist who dedicated four years researching the book's themes and translating the text, also wrote a new preface for this first authorized English edition.

"I'm Afraid! is a literary time capsule containing the hopes and fears of the world at the advent of the atomic age," says Vasquez. "This book shows us that the daunting global crises of 1955 bear striking resemblance to the ones we face today."

I'm Afraid! features a preface, an index, and reproductions of all the historic photographs in the original French edition.

SOURCE Ezra Company, LLC