Preface

Summary

On 1 June 2010, at 9:30 p.m., a huge blast ripped through the quiet university town of Göttingen. The explosion was caused by an aerial bomb that had lain buried in the ground for sixty-five years. It was discovered the week before during earthworks on a piece of little-used ground. Finds such as this were not unusual in early twenty-first-century Germany. Duds from World War II were still unearthed regularly whenever long-neglected plots of land were subjected to redevelopment measures in any larger town. Discovery was usually accompanied by minor scares among the local public, some reporting in the local press and quick removal by technical experts. But this time, the defusing exercise went horribly wrong, triggering an explosion that could be heard for miles around. Three people were killed and two more seriously injured in the incident.