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Directed by John Friedman & Eric Nadler
STEALING THE FIRE reveals how the most closely
guarded secrets of our time are now for sale in a dangerous atomic
underground. The filmmakers obtained exclusive, behind-the-scenes
access to Karl-Heinz Schaab, a German technician, and his defense
team during his recent trial for treason in Munich. Schaab is
the first person in the world convicted of atomic espionage in
an open trial in the last fifty years. He sold top secret documents
stolen from Germany to Saddam Hussein and traveled to Baghdad
numerous times to help Iraq in its nuclear bomb quest.
Stealing the Fire links Schaab to a German multinational
corporation and a main supplier of nuclear technology to developing
nations. This film is one of the first to investigate the postwar
activities of German corporations which directly profited from
the Holocaust. Not only did this firm have an exclusive contract
with the SS to smelt all the gold and silver from concentration
camp victims but it also manufactured Zyklon-B, and supplied uranium
for the Nazi atomic bomb project. In the last few decades, this
company has become a leading atomic trader with Iraq and Pakistan.
Schaab sold to Iraq classified blueprints for a real-life doomsday
machine, the ultracentrifuge.
Stealing the Fire follows an unbroken chain of
events and personalities connecting Hitler's atomic bomb program,
Nazi gold, and today's nuclear weapons black market. Combining
interviews, location shots, and historical footage, the film,
which took five years to complete and was shot on four continents,
journeys from the boardrooms of Europe to the cafés of
Brazil to the desert laboratories of the Middle East. Among the
almost one hundred people interviewed are Dr. Carl von Weizsacker,
the last living scientist who worked on the German atomic bomb
project; A.Q. Khan, a suspected nuclear spy known as the "Father
of the Pakistani A-bomb"; and Karl-Heinz Schaab and his cronies.
The film tells a story of international intrigue
that reveals how leading black market suppliers of nuclear weapons
technology had their roots in the Third Reich.
Stealing the Fire is a true story. It has never
been told.
STEALING THE FIRE has played
at the following venues:
For more information, visit www.stealingthefirefilm.com
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