Bang goes Adolf’s globe
QUESTION In The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin mocks Hitler with an inflatable globe. Did Hitler own a giant globe?
HITLER understood the power of visual imagery and owned a number of globes on which he would map out his plans for a German takeover of the world.
His favourite architect, Albert Speer, designed the imposing New Reich Chancellery — the headquarters for the Greater Germanic Reich or empire — in Berlin, where a giant globe took pride of place in the cabinet room.
Photographic evidence suggests it was around 4 ft in diameter and 6 ft high on its stepped, wooden plinth. It was the largest of a number of globes made by Columbus Globes of Berlin that were displayed by fascist leaders.
The Columbus factory and its archives were destroyed in 1943, so it’s unknown exactly how many were made, but there were certainly four giant globes: two for the new Chancellery, one for the Berghof (Hitler’s retreat in the Bavarian Alps) and one for the Foreign Office on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin.
The last evidence of Hitler’s globe is a photograph of it surrounded by Russian soldiers. Its whereabouts are unknown, though some say it is in the archive of the KGB. A slightly smaller globe, from Ribbentrop’s foreign office, is in the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. It has a bullet hole straight through the depiction of Germany.
Charlie Chaplin was also adept at employing powerful visual imagery. In his satire The Great Dictator, the globe becomes a balloon, an emblem of Hitler’s megalomania. He dances about the Chancellery with it to the strains of classical music — before it bursts in the fictional tyrant’s face.
Diane Quentin, London SW13.
QUESTION Why did the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus invade Scotland in the 3rd century AD?
SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS was born in the Roman province of Leptis Magna (in modern Libya) on April 11, 145 AD. He became emperor of Rome in 193 AD, following a time of turmoil known as the Year of the Five Emperors. He ruled Rome as a military dictator with his sons Caracalla and Geta as Caesars, or emperors.
Severus lavished money on his native Leptis Magna — its temples and official buildings rivalled Carthage and Alexandria, and its ruins are considered some of the most impressive of the Roman period.
After successful campaigns in the Near East and Africa, Severus hoped to cement his legacy with a great victory. He also wished to blood his dissolute sons. So, in 208, he took a party of up to 50,000 soldiers to subdue the troublesome Scots. A 165acre camp was built south of the Antonine Wall to assemble his forces. Abandoned forts along the east coast and Hadrian’s Wall were rebuilt and garrisoned.
The campaign was a troubled one. The Caledonian tribes used guerrilla tactics and caused heavy Roman losses. However, by 210 AD, the northern tribes sued for peace and Severus agreed, providing they ceded to him the Central Lowlands.
To secure his victory, he ordered the building of the substantial Roman Fort of Carpow at the confluence of the rivers Tay and Earn, and awarded himself and his sons the honorific ‘Britannicus’.
Success was short-lived, however, as the tribes rose up in revolt. Severus became intent on exterminating the Caledonians, but the campaign was cut short by his failing health. He died at Eboracum (York) on February 4, 211 AD.
Caracalla and Geta swiftly concluded a peace with the Caledonians, which returned the border of Roman Britain to the line demarcated by Hadrian’s Wall, and went back to Rome.
A lack of reliable written sources means the Severan campaigns are poorly recorded. Accounts by Cassius Dio, a In a big spin: Charlie Chaplin in his satire The Great Dictator. Inset: I The globe with a bullet hole through Germany statesman and historian, and Herodian, a civil servant who wrote a colourful history of the empire, are seen as problematic due to the authors’ closeness to the emperor.
Over the past decade, archaeological excavations have shed more light on the campaign. They have identified a series of temporary fortifications built at the end of each marching day to defend Roman soldiers in enemy territory.
John Collins, Melrose, Roxburghshire.
QUESTION How many stars does a uranium atom have to pass through to achieve its large mass?
CONVENTIONAL cosmo chemistry states that uranium is formed when a giant star enters supernova — the bright explosion of light at the end of its life.
Stars use nuclear fusion to release energy. For most of a star’s life, hydrogen nuclei join to form helium nuclei. As the star runs out of hydrogen, other fusion reactions take place, forming the nuclei of sequentially heavier elements. Supermassive stars continue this process until they reach silicon and, finally, iron.
However, fusing iron’s 26 protons costs energy. Thus post-ferric fusion will not create enough energy to sustain the star. under these conditions, the burned out stars implode under their own gravity, collapsing thousands of miles in seconds.
They then rebound from this collapse in a spectacular release of energy called a supernova. It is under these extreme conditions that elements heavier than iron form. What is left behind is a neutron star or a black hole, depending on the final mass of the core.
A second theory proposes that uranium is created when two neutron stars merge. A neutron star is the collapsed core of a giant star. They are incredibly dense: a teaspoon of neutron star material is said to have a mass of five billion tonnes.
When two such bodies come close together, the intense gravitational forces are violent, producing huge amounts of heavy elements, such as gold, platinum and uranium.