The day before we sat down in Kiel, a Second World War bomb was found next to our train in Hamburg. The next morning, every phone in the room started screaming.

That was the start of the week Graham Patterson (REEF Roundup) and I spent in northern Germany for a three-part documentary series.

Below the surface of the North Sea and the Baltic lie 1.6 million tons of munitions. Not lost in battle. Put there on purpose, after the war was over.

We met the people who decided, 80 years later, to go back down and bring it up: divers, a toxicologist, a retired navy officer who spent his retirement in the archives, a naval architect, and a chemist who isn’t sure the risk is what we all assumed.

Questions we couldn’t stop asking:– Why would anyone sink a war into the sea, and who signed for the boxes?– What can a frozen mussel from 1985 tell us about today?– Is this really a ticking time bomb, or is the clock something else entirely?– Why do coastal towns say “please, do it here” instead of “not in my backyard”?

I expected a story about the past. About my grandfathers. What I found was one of the rarest things in ocean work: a problem that went from first alarm to real solution in about a decade, because scientists, ministries, companies and citizens chose to pull in the same direction.

If you’ve ever felt that change in ocean conservation is too slow, too fragmented or too lonely, this episode is for you.

Episode 1 of Forget-Me-Not is out now. 🎧 Put your headphones on and start with the alarm.

This episode was made possible by SEASCAPE Hamburg.Thank you Wolfgang Sichermann for the ocean collaboration: https://seascape.deA special thank you goes toAndreas Beerlage for the help in preparing our packed three interview days (and this amazing fish restaurant we went together).

Link List:

Press Release of the Germany Ministry for Environment (BMUKN) to announce the winners of the tender process to construct the worlds first platform for ocean dumped munitions (german): https://www.bundesumweltministerium.de/pressemitteilung/bundesumweltministerium-erteilt-auftrag-zur-entwicklung-einer-mobilen-entsorgungsplattform-fuer-munition-im-meer

Mentioned companies and organsations of this episode:

SeaTerra: https://seaterra.deGeomar: https://www.geomar.de/University of Kiel (Insitute for Toxicology): https://www.toxi.uni-kiel.de/de

You wouldn’t mind a podcast episode for your ocean collaboration project? Don’t hesitate to get in touch! https://janmaisenbacher.com/en/ocean-podcast/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit janmaisenbacher.substack.com