A real pynchonesque story

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

Guido Knopp is a historian who runs in the Second (public) German television 
a programme which is called "History" "History" is mostly about the "secrets" 
of WW II, unknown events during the war and such stuff. But the story Mr. 
Knopp told today was really pynchonesque.

Shortly before the end of the war, a German Uboot left a German harbour to 
travel to Japan. There were also two Japanese guys on board with top secret  
containers. Only the two Japanese knew what was in it: uranium, German 
uranium for a Japanese atomic bomb. On May, 8th, 1945 the uboot got the 
message of the unconditional surrender of Germany. The German crew decided 
"democratically" - so a member of the crew said to Mr. Knopp - to surrender 
to the US Marines because they hoped to get the best treatment there. So they 
did. They informed also their two Japanese fellow-travellers that they would 
surrender. The Japanese decided to kill themselves with sleeping pills. . 
As they were captured by the US Marines, the Marines seemed to be 
well-informed. One of the German POW's was forced to take part at the opening 
of the containers. As the first container was opened - so the German 
eyewitness also said to Mr. Knopp - suddenly a thin and pale civilian came in 
and also took part at the opening. The German said: "I didn't know the man, 
but later I heard it was Mr. Robert Oppenheimer." 
So what happened with the German uranium for Japan? The Americans themselves 
hadn't enough uranium for A-bombs at that time. So the German uranium maybe 
was very welcome. So maybe German uranium for Japan was used for the bomb for 
Hiroshima.
Ask Mr. Knopp not me if it's true or not. But it sounds very pynchonesque, 
doesn't it?

kwp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20030427/206c12f9/attachment.html>