A Whirlwind in Occupied Holland
Penicillin was transformed from a laboratory curiosity to the first massproduced antibacterial chemotherapeutic agent during the Second World War. Popular accounts of this process, particularly those that appeared immediately after the war, have tended to cast events as a continuous series of related breakthroughs. However, there were several independent attempts in Europe to produce penicillin during World War II, but none except the Anglo-American effort proved successful. Despite attention focusing on that successful venture, those other wartime efforts reveal something of the human capacity for resourcefulness in straightened circumstances and during a period of censorship.
Auntibiotics: the BBC, penicillin, and the second world war
Gilbert Shama considers the BBC’s dissemination of the news about penicillin during the second world war
German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power: 1939–1949
Introduction Part I. Lightning War: Nuclear fission The German nuclear power project Moderators, isotope separation, and uranium machines Nuclear power and lightning war Part II. The War Slows Down: The end of the lightning war Nuclear power conferences National Socialism and German physics Progress and infighting Part III. The War Comes Home: Wonder weapons Uranium machines in Berlin-gottow Greater Germany and cultural imperialism Death from above and betrayal from within Part IV. The War is Lost: Evacuation and self-preservation The heavy water dries up Harteck's circle, centrifuges, and special experiments Uranium machines and rock cellars Part V. The German Achievement in the American Shadow: The Alsos MIssion Farm Hall The Smyth Report Part VI. The Legacy of German National Socialism: The occupation of Germany Nazification and denazification The Goudsmit/Heisenberg controversy Part VII. The Myth of the German Atomic Bomb: Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index.