I'm Afraid!

I'm Afraid! by Erwin K. Oppenheimer was first published in Paris, France in 1955 by the publishing house Editions Jean Froissart under the original title J'ai Peur! It is the purported autobiographical account of a scientist who worked on the atomic bomb project in Nazi Germany, and who after the war joined the team at Los Alamos Laboratory to continue working on nuclear weapons - but this time for the Americans.

While the original French edition of the book was mostly ignored and sold just a few copies, it was remarkable because it was the first published account to claim that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 were, in fact, "Hitler's secret weapon."

I'm Afraid! tells a gripping story of the high-stakes battles that unfolded behind the scenes in atomic laboratories at the dawn of the Cold War, painting surprising and contentious portraits of a gallery of historic personalities such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Gustav Hertz, Edward Teller, Albert Einstein, Hermann Göring, and Adolf Hitler.

In addition, the book tackles weighty themes like the weaponization of science and scientists, the fragility of human understanding, the harrowing dangers of geopolitical conflicts in an era dominated by advanced technologies, and the prospects of a global government to prevent another catastrophic world war.

As the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine once again threaten to pull the world's superpowers into a new cold war - and possibly even a hot one - I'm Afraid! reemerges from the ashes to issue its remarkably prescient warnings to the world.

This edition contains all the images featured in the original, a new index, and a new preface by Raul Vasquez that sheds light on this unique historic and literary contribution from the Cold War, while revealing the identities of the extraordinary European authors behind it.