The Man Who Calculated Death

Latest Episodes:

The Soul of the Story: 13 Jun 03, 2025

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Suzanne sits down with friend and Executive Producer, Lisa Joyner, to discuss the beating heart of the Man Who Calculated Death: the women integral to the story.

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Behind the Scenes with Jon Cryer: 12 May 27, 2025

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Suzanne sits down with Executive Producer Jon Cryer to discuss the origin of the podcast, how the experience of producing the series has changed their view of World War II, and what's to come in Season 2.

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Doodlebug Summer: 11 May 20, 2025

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Suzanne investigates the three-month stretch in 1944 when Germany launched the most V1 flying bombs at England. How did the British defend themselves, and what was it like for people on the ground?

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The Sound of Silence: 10 May 13, 2025

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Suzanne and Stephanie view footage and documents from a 1944 press conference in London hosted by the English War Minister, explaining the design and engineering needed for V1 bombs to fly; including Robert Lusser's simple invention of a Rube Goldberg-like device that made the flying bombs so deadly.

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Unintended Consequences: 9 May 06, 2025

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Suzanne visits Tante Heide, who is now seriously ill, and Tante Traute, to tell them of this unexpected turn in the family story. Using former top-secret documents, Suzanne begins an investigation that will turn everything she believed about the farmhouse bombing and her grandmother’s death upsidedown. Following a twisted path that leads to a blockbuster story of danger and heroism, Suzanne feels that she understands the truth of her own ancestry for the first time, and can finish her mother’s story.

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Lost Souls: 8 Apr 29, 2025

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Suzanne and Stephanie walk the halls of a children’s home where their mom described her mother’s ghost haunting her every night. The sisters begin to wonder: can they ever truly finish the memoir without knowing who was responsible for their grandmother’s death? Suzanne decides to try to solve the mystery once and for all. After initial frustration, she finds an ally in Colonel Matt Dietz, a fighter-pilot-turned-WWII-historian, and together, they uncover the incredible truth.

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The Dark Road of the Future: 7 Apr 22, 2025

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In the wake of investigating their grandmother’s death, the sister revisit the day their own mother died and we hear Gabriele’s last words. Focus turns to the aftermath of the bombing and Tante Heide tells of how a black binder found among the rubble would come to haunt her family. Meanwhile, Robert Lusser is trying to get home from Berlin, as Germany crumbles. When the family is finally reunited, they struggle to survive as the their own countrymen turn on them.

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Broken Glass: 6 Apr 15, 2025

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Suzanne and Stephanie stumble around a small cemetery in Bavaria, searching for their grandmother’s grave. The next day, the owner of the farmhouse where she died tells the sisters about the devastation that rained down from the sky on a cold March afternoon in 1945 and the sisters revisit the moment Gabriele learned her mother was gone. Then, as the farmer takes the sisters on a tour, showing them bomb craters and shrapnel, they stumble upon a clue that points in a new, and unexpected, direction.

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Chamber 44: 5 Apr 08, 2025

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Suzanne and Stephanie visit Tante Heide in Sacramento, California, where the sisters’ beloved aunt has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Realizing that time is running out to get the family story straight, the sisters ask difficult questions - with answers that are not black and white. Back on their odyssey through Germany, the whispers of the dead swirl around them as they walk the dark, dank tunnels of a concentration camp where the V1s were made. When Suzanne tracks down a Holocaust survivor who assembled her grandfather's flying bombs, she finds a surprising moment of grace.

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V Is For Vengeance: 4 Apr 01, 2025

Show notes

In the aftermath of the fire bombing, Robert Lusser’s family finds shelter in an abandoned mansion while he heads to a remote island in the Baltic Sea. This is where he must perfect his "wonder weapon" - a never before seen flying bomb that will become the world's first cruise missile. In their search for how their grandfather managed this achievement, Stephanie and Suzanne go behind the locked gates of a ruined military base with an engineer-turned-historian who knows exactly who their grandfather was - and what he did.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp: Your well-being is worth it. Visit www.BetterHelp.com/THEMAN to get 10% off your first month

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