As hundreds of scientists from around the world were conscripted in the Manhattan Project during the thick of Word War II, the best and brightest were passed along to the top-secret research site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the secrets of the world’s first atom bomb would soon be unlocked.
After the project disbanded in 1946, however, Fuchs switched sides and spent the next two years passing secrets to Soviets that included a method for refining uranium and diagrams for the construction of a hydrogen bomb. At the same time, the Central Intelligence Agency was projecting that the Soviets would be incapable of going nuclear until the mid-1950s. When the USSR conducted their first successful atomic test in 1949, a stunned President Truman initially declared that the explosion must have been an “accident.”
Many historians have often asked the question of whether or not World War II could have been avoided. Some scholars of military history point to the British led policy of appeasement that existed just before the war and culminated with the Munich Agreement on September 29, 1938, as one way in which the allies failed to realize the threat of Hitler’s regime.
Europe in the aftermath of the First World War was a place full of debt, indignation and upset. Many felt Germany had unfairly taken the blame for a global war; other countries were bankrupt having put everything into the four year war that had killed millions and millions of soldiers and civilians. Many countries, their leaders and their people were sick and tired of violence and death and wanted anything but more war.
Germany for its part was living under the economic pressures of paying for a war they did not start and frustrated at the outcome of the Versailles Treaty which included the payment of reparations, the demilitarization of the Rhineland and the clause that Germany could not build up her army for the foreseeable future.
Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and immediately set about reversing all the conditions of the Versailles Treaty. Neighboring nations complained but did not take military action against Hitler when he began to build the new German, remilitarize the Rhineland or even annex Austria (Anschluss) in March of 1938.
Every time the powers in Europe drew the line and told Hitler not to cross he ignored them and they ended up drawing a new line. This police became known as “appeasement” and was a way a continent financially weak and morally exhausted could avoid war. And anyway, Hitler promised he would not attack, invade or occupy any other countries. He wrote a friendly note to then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain assuring him of his good intentions.
On September 29, 1938, Hitler met with British leader Neville Chamberlain and French leader Edouard Daladier. The meeting was mediated by Italian leader Benito Mussolini and ended in an agreement which Hitler drafted and the other leaders simply agreed to. The treaty stated that the German people of Czechoslovakia in an area known as the Sudetenland would be annexed to Germany in stages during October of the same year. This was in line with Hitler’s policy of Lebensraum and uniting all German peoples every where.
The treaty stated that Czechoslovakia would hand the land over to Hitler despite the fact that the Czech leader was not invited to the discussion and treaty signing but was told of their responsibilities by their allies. The land exchange would occur with Czechoslovakia’s help or they alone would be left to fight Hitler. They had little choice.
| Six months after the signing of the Munich Agreement, Hitler had taken the Sudetenland and divided Czechoslovakia between Germany, Poland and Hungary. The country had no strength to fight and within a year, Europe was at war once again. The Munich Agreement was the last stance in a failed appeasement policy and the nations of Europe would take six years to get Hitler’s Germany under control. |
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There are few dates in recent human history that cause more of an emotional stir in historians than that of September 1, 1939. On this day, Adolph Hitler, then chancellor of Germany declared to his parliament (Reichstag) that enough was enough that Danzig in Poland was a German city full of German people and should be taken back. The culmination of the Nazi ideology of “Lebensraum,” in which all lands currently or formerly belonging to Germany should be returned to Germany and inhabited by German people, would soon signal the death of millions of Jews, Russians, homosexuals, gypsies, agitators, allies and non combatants.
Adolph Hitler fought in World War I and like many Germans felt that the treaty of Versailles was a slap in the face to the German nation making them wholly responsible for a war that involved many nations that came into conflict because of the multitudinous pacts that punctuated European politics.
German troops marched into Danzig to reclaim the city and the Danzig Corridor on September 1 by force. It was not the first act by Germany in regards to nullifying the Versailles Treaty but it would become the most significant. The invasion of Poland was a direct result with Hitler’s Non Aggression Pact with Russia and the secret plan for the two nations to invade Poland and divide her up between the to powers. Because of a pact Britain and France had with Poland, they were forced to declare war on Germany on September 3 and just like the First World War, nation after nation followed suit until the disastrous global conflict was played out once again, only this time religion and ethnic persecution would play a large and deadly role. 
In 880 BC, the Buddha is reputed to have relayed the Kalachakra Tantra – a complex system of philosophy and meditation for attaining enlightenment - to sect of followers in Andhra, India. This document, later adopted by Tibetan Buddhists and elaborated upon in a series of subsequent manuscripts, speaks in depth of a kingdom called Shambhala – an paradise where only most spiritually resplendent of beings can reside.
It is the goal of all Tibetan lamas to one day, after years of intense study and reflection, to perceive the awesome grandness of this ethereal oasis through the achievement of enlightenment and the cycle of rebirth. 
Drawing from these conclusions, Heinrich Himmler deployed as an SS unit to Tibet in May 1938 to not only collect data and artifacts that supported those views on Aryan lineage, but also substantiate rumors of Shambhalah’s existence. Within six months, the squad completed the arduous task of reaching the Tibetan capital of Lhasa - but would eventually fail to locate their mythical conquest before returning to Germany.
Born May 26, 1895 in New Jersey, Dorothea Lange became a pioneer of Depression era photography, giving a real face to the plight of thousands of displaced Americans. Her photos still hang on the walls of America’s greatest museums, a testament to her skill as a photographer and the life she chose to live.
In her time, Lange married a painter and an economist exemplifying her fascination with both art and the realities of the world. A depiction of a homeless mother with her two small children wondering if the husband would ever return, her pictures of broken down cars discarded on the trail west, picket lines and bread lines, migrant workers, ruined homesteaders, immigrants, farmers, and every kind of human condition was the subject of her photography. Lange was a part of the documentary film movement that was taken place in America during the 30s when the dreams of the 20s had fallen flat and the nation became a land of realists.
One of my favorite Americans will always be Dorothea Lange. She used the camera lens to document real American life on a large scale during a time when the country suffered greatly. Her pictures continue to grace the pages of school books that discuss the depression as her blunt earthy portrayals of life during that era remain unsurpassed by government statistics or even newspaper headlines. Rockwell has his place in depicting the different aspects of American culture but Lange will always remain for me a pioneer of documentary art and a great example as photography as advocate for the people.
