I was getting tired of talking about Paperclip, but it was great to speak with Shelly Lesher, a physics professor and host of "My Nuclear Life." The episode is live wherever you get your podcasts, or right here! Project Paperclip | Brian Crim mynuclearlife.com/episode/proj...

Project Paperclip | Brian Crim | My Nuclear Life

Project Paperclip; or how the US gave citizenship to Nazi scientists so we could build rockets to get to the moon and defeat the Soviets. This episode will...

mynuclearlife.com

True!

Mohammed Atta and Abdul Omari could have enjoyed a lovely trip to Los Angeles. But in less than an hour after takeoff their lives would change drastically.....

Jacqueline Sweet@jsweetli.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Why...did CNN do this

John le Carré wrote this note as part of a 2006 speech in Hamburg publicizing the German translation of A Most Wanted Man. It is near a section on the US "War on Terror," but I think it applies to who we are in the 21st century:

John le Carré sent historian Timothy Garton Ash a draft of A Most Wanted Man in 2008 to get advice, something he did often with the Oxford scholar.

I spent the last week researching in the John le Carré archive at the Bodleian Library for my book "A Most Angry Man: John le Carré and the War on Terror." This draft foreword for A Most Wanted Man certainly seems relevant today. I wish his infamous anti-Americanism wasn't so prescient.

As many are already pointing out, Fiona Hill testified in 2019 that Russia communicated to Trump via different channels that it wanted to trade Ukraine for Venezuela. See pages 58-9, 362-4 of the actual doc's page numbers d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2019/...

David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, from April 2001: “The new American realism, which is nothing other than gross corporate power cloaked in demagogy, means one thing only: that America will put America first in everything. . . I think the sooner Britain and Europe wake up to that fact, the better.”

I'm beginning to think the FIFA Peace Prize is fraudulent.

For all my intelligence studies and "war on terror" friends, I hope you like this take on Homeland. “All I See Is Damage” Homeland, the Covert Sphere, and the End of the War on Terror - Crim - The Journal of Popular Culture - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

“All I See Is Damage” Homeland, the Covert Sphere, and the End of the War on Terror

Homeland is a chronicle of a nation traumatized by the war on terror at a time when it has grown weary of fighting it. Airing shortly after the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the raid on Osama bin Lad...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I'm attending my first SHAFR conference in DC this week. Whatever will they talk about to fill the time? Our roundtable reunites some of us who met at the USHMM last summer to workshop projects on the US military and the Holocaust. Hope to see some of you there.

I'm excited to announce my new position as the Cohen Chair for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College. I've admired the unique HGS program at Keene and the affiliate Cohen Institute for a long time. Let's collaborate!

I'm excited to participate in this event about Ft. Hunt's WWII history, specifically the role German and Austrian Jewish refugees played in interrogating prominent POWs and Project Paperclip scientists. librarycalendar.fairfaxcounty.gov/event/14294542

Science and Espionage: Fort Hunt and Prince William Forest During the Second World War

The state of Virginia has played an important role in the history of the United States. It was the location of the first permanent English settlement in North America, the...

librarycalendar.fairfaxcounty.gov

Dude, read a book . . .

New addition Book: Spies, Culture, and Society: Coming in from the Cold by Simon Willmetts, Constant Hijzen (published 01-02-2026) http://press.georgetown.edu/Book/Spies-Culture-and-Society

Cover reveal for People without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust, forthcoming in four months with @uoftpress.bsky.social Beautiful design by Filip Kraus; the faces correspond with six of the chapters told in the book.

I'm glad I helped with this piece written by a fellow historian. www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

The true story of the secret program that brought Nazi scientists to the U.S.

After World War II, Operation Paperclip quietly recruited German scientists to work on its most advanced weapons and space programs—including some who had been active in the Third Reich.

nationalgeographic.com

This amazing resource is now digital and searchable. Great work by some dedicated historians. muse.jhu.edu/encyclopedia...

McBride was my professor at JMU early in his career. He was why I wanted to be a historian. Good to know he's the same cantankerous, quality character guy I remember as an undergraduate.

southpaw@nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · last yr.

“No matter what you have done before,” Professor William McBride wrote to Annapolis’s Superintendent Adm. Yvette Davids, “your legacy will be that of a careerist who banned Maya Angelou but retained Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf.’” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/u...

Ok German Studies folks, I hope I'll see many of you in DC in the Crystal City Palace this Fall after some years away. I got my acceptance today for: "Hamburg is a guilty city." John le Carré, A Most Wanted Man, and Germany’s War on Terror

Next week I'm speaking on the special role emigres played as interrogators and war crimes investigators during the occupation period. Many emigres returned to their hometowns, knew their captives, and learned about the fate of their families while "on the job." www.lynchburg.edu/history-prof...

History professor presents ‘Return to the Reich: German Jewish Emigres and the Holocaust, 1945-1949’ at local library

Dr. Brian Crim, history department chair and John Franklin East Distinguished Chair in the Humanities at the University of Lynchburg, will present a lecture on Wednesday, April 23, at Jones Memorial L...

lynchburg.edu

Umm....what?

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last yr.

Trump: "I said to [the former hostages], was there any sign of love? Did Hamas show any signs of, like, help or liking you? Did they give you a piece of bread extra? Did they give you a meal on the side? Like what happened in Germany."

🤣🤣🤣

My feed is a torrent of these horrific letters gutting a generation of Humanities scholarship. And the personal toll on people whose livelihoods depend on this funding often gets overlooked. What do you do with schedules made, hiring freezes everywhere? The cruelty was always the point.

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela@nataliapetrzela.bsky.social · last yr.

“The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for this administration” My NEH grant has been terminated Incredible when the funding for your book about the educational culture wars is cut as a result of the educational culture wars You can’t say history isn’t relevant

This is just so profoundly depressing.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last yr.

Carney: "The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over."

Won't someone please think of the poor spies operating against the US? They're being made redundant by gross incompetence.

Wesley Morgan@wesleymorgan.bsky.social · last yr.

Signal chat “Houthi PC [Principals Committee] small group” to which Mike Waltz mistakenly added Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg “included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing” ahead of strikes that began March 15 www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

19 books, articles, chapters, even book reviews. I made $5,000 in royalties over two decades to become fodder for Skynet.

Michael Livingston@michaellivingston.com · last yr.

Meta used at least 16 of my books, and numerous articles, to help train the AI it will use to make billions. Authors, search your name here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"We protected the strong against the weak, and we perfected the art of the public lie . . . And we scarcely paused to ask ourselves how much longer we could defend our society by these means and remain a society worth defending." - George Smiley, The Secret Pilgrim (1990)

These are amazing.

All The Right Movies@alltherightmovies.com · last yr.

AFRICAN GAZE was an exhibition showcasing the weird and wonderful art form that is the Ghanaian movie poster. On Ghana’s Independence Day, here are some of the best... 1/25 - Mrs Doubtfire