The Armorer

I look around with an excess of caution before I ease the door open. Nope, nobody around, and I check a few different ways to be sure. I open the door just enough to slip inside, trying to disturb the vegetation as little as possible.

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't this. This is a small antechamber with a spiral staircase. Going down, of course. I shake the metal staircase, gently at first, then with vigor, to see if it's rusted, but it seems to be intact. It's steel, which seems a little weird that it hasn't rusted, but there's a whiff of brine and I remember there's a lot of salt in the area. Salt is a desiccant. Carefully I take the winding staircase down.

It's pitch black; I'm having to use the flashlight app on my phone. It's not illuminating a lot; all I've got right now is a shaft bored through the solid rock. Finally, my foot touches a different surface and I look down to find not the cast steel plates with pierced hexagons but a solid surface; I dial back down and see that it's heavy aluminum. It's dry, cold, and dusty. I look to my left, shining the light on the wall and find a big-ass electrical switch, the kind you find in the movie lairs of mad scientists who are working with electricity. You know the kind; a coated metal handle that has two wide-set legs and a contact point. I go ahead and throw it, because why not? I am completely unprepared for light.

High above, lighting fixtures start to glow; some of the bulbs pop, but that's not surprising. I snort; everything about this place is one big surprise. I wait for the bulbs to warm up, then switch off the flashlight and start to look around.

Be damned if it isn't actually a laboratory of some kind. It's creepy; there are papers and notebooks all over the place, as if the people just left. The circular chamber itself is fairly small, maybe a hundred meters, with a high ceiling of maybe twenty meters. In the rock are pale streaks; I investigate and see that they're deposits of salt that must not be big enough to mine but are large enough to keep things dry down here. Against the wall to my right is what must be the generator, but it doesn't look like anything I've ever seen. Looking it over, there's a hemispherical metal shield that I can push up that's surrounded by dials. There's something in there that emits a strong blue-white light. I go back to the switch and shut it off; the light doesn't go out. All the dials except for one hit zero again; the sole exception is reading at one hundred percent. I turn the lights back on and the other dials spin up again, reading at considerably less than their maximums. Huh.

I turn to the benches, which are reassuringly familiar; wooden cabinets with black-enameled tops, lines for gas, air, and vacuum and water taps. I cautiously pick up a lab book and look at the cover: black with a white circle and red swastika. My lip curls. If this was a Nazi lab, as looks likely, then the testing could literally involve anything. The paper is dry and brittle, and I don't want to take it out of the lab for fear of what the change in conditions would do to it. There are two names mentioned on a randomly-chosen page: Abraham Erskine and Johann Schmidt. There's the word for radiation, and a list of organic compounds and elements, including potassium, divided into two sections. I can't read the notes. The penmanship in the lab books is very good, the ink unfaded, but once again I'm cursed by my difficulty with language. I'd taken German in college because for a long time, the best science was done in Germany. French is traditionally the language of diplomacy, but if you want to read original historical scientific work, your best bet's German. But because I ended up specializing in materials science rather than chemistry, I never really used it. I was going to have to study before I came back. There was no reason to touch anything else until I knew what was being worked on here. There were cabinets to explore, but caution was definitely advised. A coat was also advised; it was pretty cool down here. And probably gloves, maybe those fingerless ones or mitts. I took another glance around, lingering over that generator. I knew without even looking that I wasn't going to find out anything about it in existing literature. Finally I flipped the switch and went up. There wasn't a way to check outside before exiting, so I left the entrance quickly. I didn't expect to find anybody outside--it was pretty well marked as private property, but trespassers were a possibility. And now that I knew there was something to hide I was paranoid. I sealed the door behind me carefully when I left.

I reviewed my history as I walked back to the house. Under Frederick II, German universities began to promote the study of the sciences, inasmuch as they were in the beginning of really developing the disciplines and the scientific method. The University of Gottingen in particular was liberal and emphasized research and publication. It also abandoned Latin and encouraged the use of vernacular German instead. There were academies and societies where mathematics were featured. There were public lectures where exciting new discoveries were demonstrated, especially with electricity, and these helped to popularize science. Of course, this was all designed for men. Even Rousseau, one of the leaders of the Enlightenment held to the opinion that "a woman's education must... be planned in relation to man." Pig. That is, if she was educated at all. Most women weren't, although there were notable exceptions, such as Ykaterina Dashkova. Most women were able to work because of their relationships to husbands, fathers, or brothers, such as Marie-Anne Paulze, who was the wife of Antoine Lavoisier. As industry grew, you had world-famous companies like Bayer in Germany, and they performed extensive research in addition to manufacturing products, dominating the chemical industry by the turn of the twentieth century. Then there was WWI, the "chemists' war." Wartime shortages meant that sources of raw materials and products had to be changed which led to innovation, both in ways to get the materials to make critical things like nitric acid, but also the creation of new products. But the darkest side was the research, creation and use of chemical weapons. Chlorine gas was first used at Ypres and was followed by phosgene and mustard. The gases didn't need to kill to have a huge impact; soldiers were also casualties from lung irritation and damage to eyes and skin. And there was a huge negative psychological impact.

After WWI, Belgian, British, French, and American scientists stopped using German in their works and switched to English and French. The German scientists were boycotted, they weren't allowed to attend conferences or publish internationally. Then WWII came, and they were at the disadvantage. They still had fine minds to use, even after Jewish scientists left or were imprisoned. WWII was the physicists' war due to the atomic weapons the US had, but there were other crucial avenues of research, including rocketry, and other countries, including Germany, had worked on atomic bombs. Research and development went into high gear. Other sciences weren't neglected during this war. The most horrible research was done by the Germans and Japanese on prisoners, who gave no consent and did not volunteer; the were often left with permanent disfigurement or disability--if they didn't die. At Auschwitz, the genetics of twins were researched. In Ravensbruck, bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration experiments were conducted, without anesthesia. Head trauma; hypothermia, hyperthermia and malaria at Dachau, immunization; mustard gas at Sachsenhausen, sulfonamide at Ravensbruck, salt water; poison; sterilization; incendiary bombs at Buchenwald; high altitude and blood coagulants were also tested at other camps and data recorded and studied. The Japanese did extensive testing in their Unit 731, biological weapons. Upping the revulsion engendered by the mere existence of the experiments themselves, some of the Axis research into hypothermia and biological weapons was used by Allied powers after the war. Waste not, apparently; the research was valuable although it would be illegal to replicate. There had been a specific trial in Nuremburg after the war, the so-called Doctors' Trial.

All in all, the discovery of a secret Nazi lab was not an awesome thing.