Despite converting to Protestantism and enjoying the protection of her head of department, the Jewish-born German physicist, Lise Meitner was, by late 1937, feeling the enormous pressure of the Nazi regime bearing down on her. Taking a nervous, overnight train to Copenhagen, Meitner then began a frantic correspondence with her former colleagues back at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, in which she decoded results and, vicariously, discovered the first ever fusion experiment. This is the story of the woman American journalists would say ‘smuggled the A Bomb out of Germany in her handbag.’ A short story by the celebrated author Zoe Lambert, with an afterword from Dr James Sumner.
Despite converting to Protestantism and enjoying the protection of her head of department, the Jewish-born German physicist, Lise Meitner was, by late 1937, feeling the enormous pressure of the Nazi regime bearing down on her. Taking a nervous, overnight train to Copenhagen, Meitner then began a frantic correspondence with her former colleagues back at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, in which she decoded results and, vicariously, discovered the first ever fusion experiment. This is the story of the woman American journalists would say ‘smuggled the A Bomb out of Germany in her handbag.’ A short story by the celebrated author Zoe Lambert, with an afterword from Dr James Sumner.