Filmed over five years on four continents, Stealing the Fire focuses on Karl-Heinz Schaab, a German technician convicted of treason in 1999 for selling top secret nuclear weapons plans to Iraq. The film unflinchingly exposes a web of government and corporate intrigue and lays bare an unbroken chain of events and people that connects today's nuclear weapons underground with the atomic bomb program of Nazi Germany. Stealing the Fire investigates the 60-year history of a German multi-national corporation that directly profited from the Holocaust and in recent decades became a leading supplier of nuclear weapons technology to developing nations, including Iraq and Pakistan

Eric Nadler is an investigative journalist who works in both print and film; he has contributed articles to The Nation and The New Republic, and his documentary work has appeared on PBS’ Frontline. Journalist and filmmaker John S. Friedman is the founder of the Documentary Center at Columbia University.

Nadler: I’ve been covering international issues for a number of years. I was intrigued by the intricacy of the underground weapons pipeline that worked in Iraq, how Iraq was putting together its nuclear weapons. John and I both took notice when UN inspectors went in and in an unprecedented investigation were able to detail how Iraqis put together their weapons of mass destruction. It was in following the UN investigators’ lead that we came across the Schaab story. Right away John and I realized that this could be a compelling entry point to a larger story about how countries go about getting nuclear weapons and also tracing some of the history of some of the individuals and firms that do this kind of work.

Nadler: Here you have Schaab, the first man to be convicted in an open court in the West for nuclear espionage in over 50 years. He admitted giving a dangerous regime some of the most sophisticated technology, which his gang stole from Western Europe, and went to Baghdad to put them into practice for them. Who knows where those plans are now? And the German court finds him guilty of espionage, fines him $32,000 and gives him time served, which was 15 months. Not only did he virtually go free, but the trial received little coverage. That’s a stinging indictment not only of the political establishment but also the journalistic establishment. Journalists really dropped the ball on this one.

Friedman: I think I was impressed by the relative ease with which the nuclear underground has functioned. Also, the fact that organizations and individuals that were part of the Nazi war machine are still at it, wreaking havoc.

Nadler: We focused a lot on Degussa, a firm that has a paper trail of profit from the Holocaust, from [concentration camp gas] Zyklon B to uranium to the looting of Jews. Not only were they not prosecuted after the war, but they were able to use their profits from the war to recapitalize and begin an overt and covert nuclear program.

Nadler: Well, he had a story and he stuck to it. The story he tells involves two other men, both of whom are dead. But it’s quite clear that all this activity had to monitored and known by the German government. We can safely say that the case was woefully underinvestigated, and as one person says in our film, the German government just wanted it to go away.

Friedman: We spent days interviewing him. Schaab is a very mysterious man. We were at his home with him, in restaurants, in cars; we were at the trial. But he remains a complete cipher to me. What others have said I think is true, that it gave him some sense of importance. He’s everyman and no man. He reminds me of one of Giacometti’s statues.

Nadler: Money. He did it for money.

Friedman: I’d be very surprised if Iraq weren’t still trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Nadler: The fact remains that the classified plans for uranium enrichment technology were stolen and sold to the Iraqis; what they do with it is a mystery. The enrichment technology they have is very difficult to detect by spy satellites. But Iraq is a state that sponsors terrorist groups worldwide, and terrorist groups are known to be looking for weapons of mass destruction. It’s not too far fetched that a group like Al Qaeda could get their hands on this technology. Once the technology is in place, you don’t have one bomb, you’ve got the capacity to assembly-line them, and that’s truly disturbing.

Nadler: It’s time to rethink the whole notion of the morality of nuclear weapons. There’s a growing movement to abolish nuclear weapons altogether.

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