The Bomb Hunters

As an American who has lived in the land of the ‘conquered enemy’ for the past twenty-four years, it is still difficult for me to imagine how my grandfather’s generation could be responsible for each new nail-biting bomb find in 21st century Germany. The bombs seems like a grotesque and delayed act of revenge against the Nazis by my fellow Americans. It is almost as though the Germans may never be released from their ghastly past, which suddenly becomes tangible every time the discovery of a new bomb is announced on the morning news, and tens of thousands of people are forced to leave their homes.
Such news items often come from Oranienburg. During one of these controlled detonations one-and-a-half years ago, I interviewed Mayor Hans-Joachim Laesicke for the first time. He struck me as a feisty underdog who was doing battle against the federal government’s bureaucratic defence mechanisms with lots of humor and gusto. His fight to free Oranienburg’s soil of bombs is a kind of David and Goliath story I cannot resist. When Mayor Laesicke told me about a letter he once received from an American bomber pilot, I knew immediately that I had to make a film about Laesicke and his battle against the bombs. In the letter, the pilot apologized for the countless bombs he dropped on Oranienburg during World War II. Wrapped inside the letter was a $100 bill – a touching gesture of reconciliation from the former enemy. Mayor Laesicke gave the money to the heroes of today – the bomb disposal experts, who risk their lives day in and day out in their struggle to free their city of the increasingly dangerous bombs. The mayor thanked the pilot, but also wrote that there is no need to apologize. After all, his bombing raids helped liberate the Germans from the Nazi terror.
What an anachronistic scenario: a German mayor in 2014 has the ‘liberating bombs’ from 1945 dug up and neutralized in order to finally free the residents of his city from the fateful Nazi terror silently looming beneath the surface. Mayor Laesicke, the three bomb disposal experts and the bomb victim Paule Dietrich will embody these historical embroilments. By placing them and their tireless battle to free their city of its bombs at the center of the film, I aim to make a thrilling piece about the Germans and their past, to which I have a unique approach as a long-time resident of Germany and ‘heir to the victors’.