Joe Dunthorne is a novelist and poet and the great-grandson of Siegfried Merzbacher. Even if you have heard of Dunthorne (author of Submarine), you probably have not heard of Merzbacher. He was a German-Jewish chemist, who helped make Doramad, a popular radioactive toothpaste, who made gas mask filters in Germany from 1933-1935, and did a bit more than that with regard to chemical weapons, in Germany and Turkey. In his later years, he also wrote a 2,000 page memoir about his life that referenced his regrets about his relationship with the Third Reich. Children of Radium sets out to explore Merzbacher’s complicated past and legacy, but it meanders into many other topics along the way.



Children of Radium has the familiar aspects of an account of family history. Joe Dunthorne wrestles with his great-grandfather’s memoir, travels to family-related sites, talks to historians and archivists, reflects on his tough grandmother, and gets a good deal of guidance from his mother. His mother is honestly a highlight of the book, always swooping in with humor and an unmatched ability to get things done whenever he calls on her. She is on a parallel journey—getting the family naturalized as German citizens, a reversal of the citizenship revocation under the Nazis. His mother also has German speaking proficiency, which the author lacks. Written in first-person, this second person in the narrative is often very nice company.



Most people can relate to the family history side of Children of Radium. Everyone has a relative who has become enmeshed in ancestry.com. People love heritage trips, as we see in movies like A Real Pain (2024), which features Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as cousins on a Jewish heritage tour visiting Poland in honor of their grandmother. Many people like to refer to a famous person that they consider a distant relation. On the other hand, most of us do not have Jewish great-grandparents who got out of Germany in time, but continued to help Germany produce chemical weapons.



Dunthorne goes down the rabbit hole with Siegfried Merzbacher. He discovers the work he did in Germany, which was beyond theoretical, and his connection to a chemical weapons factory. Dunthorne finds out that Siegfried did not exactly flee the Nazis in desperate haste, his German company got him out and then arranged (and partially funded) his employment in the Red Crescent in Turkey. The family took their piano. In Turkey, Siegfried kept working on gas masks and on chemical weapons and helped form the bridge between wartime Germany and Turkey. Eventually Siegfried separated from Auer, his German employer, but his work was apparently not entirely separable from the Turkish government’s use of chemical weapons in places like Dersim (which Dunthorne visits). Siegfried never played a military role and certainly did not knowingly deploy anything harmful on civilians, but the fruit of his work was applied in many unethical ways.



One aspect of Children of Radium is Dunthorne reckoning with Siegfried’s complicated past. He was a German-Jew who escaped the Third Reich, but he had some culpability for what occurred during the war and Holocaust. Children of Radium also considers the ways in which Germany itself is still reckoning with its past. There are towns like Oranienburg, which was not only an SS hub, but where the soil is still radioactive and there is a local ordnance crew for all the World War II Allied bombing leftovers. One contrast between Dunthorne’s reckoning and that of Germany is that Dunthorne’s guilt largely resolves into an awkward feeling, while some people in Germany are actively trying to address lingering problems and others are actively ignoring as much as they can. Dunthorne feels bad about what his great-grandfather did, but everyone everywhere is nice to him and expresses forgiveness. This seems to make his personal reckoning harder, not easier.



Children of Radium follows Siegfried far beyond Germany and Turkey and his scientific work for Auer. We follow him to the US and see his sad second life, suddenly much more insignificant than he was before while his son scientifically eclipsed him. Dunthorne also diverges into Siegfried’s personal life, which was very unhappy. Siegfried had a cold childhood and his later, severe depression, may have been linked not only to his guilt about his work but also his (maybe homosexual) wife who seems to have been unfaithful to him. As we go deeper into the drama, we learn more about Siegfried’s siblings, including Elisabeth—arguably the more interesting sibling according to Dunthorne’s mother. (The chapters do reveal her to be very interesting.) And we see Siegfried in his last years, close to his two sisters. After Elisabeth dies, he and Luise settle in the same care home for Jewish Germans in London.



As our guide for this memoir and first-person narrative, Dunthorne takes us many places. He purchases a Geiger counter and measures radiation in various places near and far, including his own medicine cabinet. He travels to Turkey and visits nearly forbidden spots where the government continues to repress minorities and a guide has an AK-47 tattooed across his back. Dunthorne goes to small German towns with high incidences of cancer and still mysterious factory sites. He visits many streets where the “old home” no longer exists. The writing is informative and amusing. We see everything through normal, not expert, eyes.



This is a “down the rabbit hole” experience with Siegfried and, at times, it feels like a rabbit hole experience you have on Wikipedia. Every thread is followed up, a bit. We never quite figure out how Siegfried felt about everything. We learn a little about radioactive toothpaste and products, but don’t really get into their significance. We learn that Turkey is repressing its citizens, but we do not get a very full account of Turkey’s relationship with minority populations or an explanation of the current government. We find out that Elisabeth was maybe more interesting than Siegfried and lost many friends in the Holocaust, but we move on after a few chapters. We learn that Munich did not have a new synagogue after the Third Reich until 2006, but we learn little about postwar German Jews in Germany. At the end of the book, we find out that close to Dunthorne’s home, a radioactive site was “covered up” for the London Olympics, mostly literally and a bit metaphorically. Dunthorne is neither moving nor altogether moving on. We have clicked on many connected links.



At times the book feels stretched out by the meandering or dissatisfying in its lack of conclusive takes. We have Siegfried’s lingering guilt, but also a relatively long account of Siegfried’s depression, his brief in-patient experience, and his crippling anxiety as a senior in suburban America. Should we be angry at him or feel sorry for him? Both? We learn about the long-term effects of chemical weapons production, but there is little said about disarmament—even though it was important to Siegfried in his final years. What should we do with all this information? Dunthorne is full of mixed feelings, even about the German citizenship he acquires. On the other hand, the narrative approach mirrors real life, the little bit we know about a lot of things, and the ways we sometimes sit between strong feelings without knowing exactly when and where to lean.



Children of Radium is a general audience book that combines family history, chemical weapons, a very long typewritten memoir deciphered years later, and some psychosexual speculation. Dunthorne’s writing ability and self-deprecating humor makes this work a more engaging read than many other family memoirs. The story exists at the intersection of many interesting topics and connects with the Third Reich in an uncommon way that many readers will find interesting.

Elizabeth Stice is a professor of history and assistant director of the honors program at Palm Beach Atlantic University. When she can, she reads and writes about World War I and she is the author of Empire Between the Lines: Imperial Culture in British and French Trench Newspapers of the Great War (2023).

In this intense and emotional memoir, Joe Dunthorne explores his family’s history and his German Jewish great-grandfather Siegfried’s role in developing chemical weapons and gas mask filters and experimenting with radioactive materials that were ultimately used by the Nazis. Based on his great-grandfather’s unpublished and lengthy memoir and some archival documents, Dunthorne travels across Germany to discover the brutal and dangerous legacy of Siegfried’s research and the lives it irreparably damaged. In upending his understanding of his family history, Dunthorne grapples with questions around trauma, guilt, truth, and scientific research and asks new questions that readers interested in their own family histories would do well to explore. By no means an easy or happy read, this book is nevertheless incredibly powerful and absolutely fascinating because of its challenges and the complex politics and historical events unfolding in the background. Dunthorne is an excellent writer whose prose is clear, readable, and straightforward, and he weaves in the historical context and analysis in some incredible ways. An excellent book for both historians and scientists, the mix of information and genres combines to create something heartbreaking but fascinating, and this powerful and well-written book is hard to put down and hard to forget.

A researched account of the life of Siegfried Merzbacher, a German Jewish chemist who developed many household products, including radioactive toothpaste. (Read Radium Girls by Kate Moore for more information on the effects of radioactive household products).
Siegfried was recognized by the Nazi army for his work and commissioned to make nuclear weapons for the German army. He manufactured gas mask filters and nuclear bombs, ironically for the very army that was persecuting his country and his fellow Jewish citizens.
The author began his study of Siegfried knowing none of this, thinking only that he was a chemist who had made a brave escape from his Nazi occupied home.
This book is a revelation not only for the reader but was new to the author as well.
During his research, the author travels near and even across whole stretches of land containing inactivated bombs that Siegfried had helped to make.
Very interesting story with a unique outlook. Contains pictures of some of the products Siegfried made and pictures of his family.
Recommend. Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book.

A fascinating read by a man whose great-grandfather (who was Jewish) ended up producing chemical weapons and masks for the Nazis. He also worked with radium and would brush his teeth with radium toothpaste. The impetus for the book started as trying to understand his grandmother's story and he discovers a 2000 page memoir by his great-grandfather and starts to see more to the story as well as things he concealed. This sets him on a journey to retrace his family's steps to uncover the truth. There is definitely some humor along the way too. When he leans about this mom's great aunt, who was a remarkable woman who founded schools and ended up escaping the Nazis. She also had a romantic relationship with her sister-in-law (the wife of Siegfried, the great grandfather) This is an interesting book and unfolds in an unexpected way that is definitely worth the read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for an ARC and I voluntarily left this review.

Joe Dunthorne bravely embarks on a family history to discover the role his great grandfather, a German-Jewish chemist during the rise of Nazism, may have played or not, in chemical warfare. It is a family history not trotted out at happy gatherings or even alluded to in remembrances. So, what happened? What was hidden? What was true? Hindered by obscure and hard to find German language records, Joe with begrudging assistance and indulgence from his mother seeks answers. Siegfried left behind a voluminous memoir which few clues and arcane scientific ramblings. Family lore had stories about a daring escape to Turkey and a clandestine return to retrieve family heirlooms from Germany. This story is as much a journalistic dive into the author’s familial past as it is a chronicle of a conflicted and arduous scientist. History, revelations and even some ironic humor work hand-in hand as secrets and insights are revealed. Recommended. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this title.

I enjoyed reading this, and I appreciate the author's vulnerability sharing this story and its progression. The sorry was encaptivating and I wanted to keep reading, so from that perspective, it is a winner.

I do have a couple comments:
-I have a hard time following the timeline, as it seems to jump around quite a bit.
-There seem to be conflicting themes throughout, in my opinion. I understand the obvious focus of the author's great grandfather's memoir. However the mention of the passports, Brexit, and other tangential thoughts distract from the read, in my opinion.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

hank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. I love anything WWII related and this was so informative. I really enjoyed learning all that i did in this book.

Wow. This is a highly historical and heavy novel surrounding World War 2, particularly in relation to contaminants and how they affected, and currently affect everyone involved. This isn’t a novel to sit down and read in one sitting, nor is it quick, despite its shorter length. The content is heavy, but it is interesting - and follows something that, to my knowledge, is currently under researched.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribnerbooks for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I so wanted to like this more than I actually did. It starts so strong with a story about the author's relative who created irridated toothpaste and how he and many, many children and adults used that toothpaste regularly until they all...glowed. EEK!!! Unfortunately, the story soon devolves into a confusing mess of trying to find out if the stories of his family the author has always heard were true, were they lies, or were they actually WORSE than what he has always been told; it becomes a jumbled mess that promises much more than it actually delivers, and the by the deeply unsatisfying end, I was ready for this short [which is some of the problem here I think; had it been longer, there would have been room to make it less jumbled, to flesh more of the story out, which really was needed] book to be over. I spent most of it confused and ultimately, I was just disappointed overall.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Scribner for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne is the story of the author’s family, but it’s also about the discovery of unexpected truths and uncomfortable legacies. What begins as an attempt to document a heroic escape from Nazi Germany in 1935 becomes something far more complex and haunting.

Drawing from over two thousand pages of recollections by his great-grandfather, Siegfried, the author reconstructs a life deeply entangled in the scientific advancements that shaped and, in some ways, scarred the 20th century. Traveling through the places Siegfried once lived and worked, the book explores the inventions that later played pivotal roles during World War II, especially in the context of the Holocaust.

I have mixed emotions after finishing this book. It left me with questions rather than closure. Who bears responsibility for the consequences of scientific inventions, the creators or those who weaponize them? This story is steeped in irony, and the moral complexities it raises are hard to shake off.

I do wish there had been a stronger foreword or conclusion by the author. As it stands, the book reads like a personal memoir, and I’m still unsure of its intended message. But I deeply respect the author’s courage in sharing this story, one that doesn’t flinch from the uncomfortable truth that a Jewish man, his own ancestor, was indirectly linked to scientific advancements later used in the Holocaust.

Thank you to Scribner for the opportunity to read this powerful and challenging book.

CW: Some parts are difficult to read due to the heavy and disturbing historical content.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for an early review copy of Children of Radium. This is a mostly fascinating account of the author's search for the truth of what his great-grandfather's role was with the Nazis. The truth was far from what the family stories had always been. Dunthorne visits several places where unexploded bombs still lie buried and soil is still irradiated to track down facts and local stories about his family.

Good pick for WW II history buffs.

Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne is a journey for truth regarding his families past. His great grandfather, Siegfried Merzbacher was a Jewish scientist in Nazi Germany, inventing and perfecting chemical weapons and gas masks. Delving into his grandfather's lengthy autobiography and family files, the author has to probe deeply to see the motivations for working for the enemy. Was he doing this for the preservation of his family or to further his career? After extensive research and multiple trips into hotspots, littered with bombs, Dunthorne tells a tale that perhaps no family wants to hear.
The book was very well written and interesting. The ending was not what I expected, the author writing more about his great grandfather's sister than I thought was necessary in the conclusion .

First and foremost Children of Radium has one of the best opening lines I’ve read in a while.

This was a fascinating book and one of the best parts of it for me was the very human approach to story telling. Some family history books make you feel like everyone secretly works at the Smithsonian with the level of research they’re able to conduct. They easily ask their relatives deep and thought provoking questions about the darkest periods of their life allowing them to open up and divulge parts of themselves previously unknown. Dunthorne doesn’t shy away from the difficulty of getting some information nor his feelings about what took place. While his great grandfather was Jewish and did suffer under the nazis he also did work that hurt his own people and went on to have lasting effects both on humans and the environment.

My one criticism would be that I it does feel as though the author forgets at certain points that this isn’t also our great grandfather. It can feel a little inside baseball when we start getting into the nitty gritty of certain areas of Siegfried’s personal life. I will say I do think the tie in of Dunthorne’s family perusing their dual German citizenship. It really added something special and brought this story even farther into present day.

First off a big thank you to the publisher, as well as to the author and NetGalley for the invite to read and review Children of Radium as well as another thank you to the publisher for kindly sending me a physical ARC copy of it which is how I ended up reading it , the book itself was not only emotional to read but the black and white photos also helped bring the author's grandfather and the rest of the people an places he talked about to life, but I do have to admit that I kind of struggled with the first chapter of the book but from chapter 2 and the rest of the book I had an easier time getting into . There was times that I didn't now how I felt about the Grandfather because it was like one moment he was against working for the Nazis, but the next moment he was still working with them even after he and his family made their escape. There was parts of the book that literally broke my heart , and kept making me ask myself how much more is still hiding from us and will the rest of the dark secrets ever come to life, over all this is definitely a book you can't read in one setting, it's better to read a few chapters each day . And is perfect for those who love this type of non-fiction. Like I do .

Wow! . . .
Reading Joe Dunthorne’s astonishing non-fiction-historical family memoir…….(a very different story I would have never know about)….but also a great reminder to never retire from considering to read (yet another book — even if Jewish — even if one had family members who survived to ‘share’) — books during the Holocaust. I have read many memoirs during the war ….but this was a fascinating story ….one I had never heard of.
It’s almost (but not totally), hard to believe that Joe Dunthorne is the same author who wrote the coming-of-age quirky book “Submarine” …..which was adapted into a film.
It’s still available to stream. (much fun)….. I recommend it.

I also recommend Dunthorne’s more serious book: …..this book: “Children of Radium” . . . (it’s no surprise that our author *Joe*….. gives us plenty of warm-humorous moments too) > humor-on-the nose, so-to-speak.

LOOK at the cover …”Ring around the Rosy” ? . . .
I see children playing …. Ha….
…..but ….okay? crazy? shocking? At ‘least’ eye-catching? Those gas protection masks are a vital communication.

“From 1935, the pages of a magazine reflected a nationwide campaign of military readiness as it became mandatory for every school to educate in air and gas protection. Young people learned the chemical structures of common poisonous gases, and how they could identify a phosgene attack by the smell of fresh cut grass”.

The blurb explains — impeccably — what this book is about —
[radioactive toothpaste should catch anyone’s attention]…..
And the physical book includes old black&white photos that I admit looking at many times ….
But …. it was the ongoing ‘discovery-journey’ between Dunthorne ….and his MUM …. and the tone of the entire book ….that had me saying to myself many times …. “I’m flabbergasted by this story”…..
“This is incredible and outrageous”….. (and inspiring to learn) …..

This is one of the most interesting aspects of Nazi Germany history that I’ve ever read.

“Siegfried Merzbacher was a German-Jewish chemist living in Oranienburg, a small town in North Berlin, where he developed various household items, including a radioactive toothpaste called Doramad.
He was asked by the government to work on products with a strong military connection. He made and tested gas-mask filters and established a chemical weapons laboratory.
Between 1933 and 1935, he was a Jewish chemist, making chemical weapons for the Nazis.
He and his family escape safely to Turkey before the war, But many members of his extended family were murdered in Auschwitz”.

The book starts out with two powerful sentences:
“My grandmother grew up, brushing her teeth with radioactive toothpaste. The active ingredient was irradiated calcium carbonate and her father was the chemist in charge of making it”.

Dunthorne discovered that his great-grandfather Siegfried had written about their life under the Nazis. It was a type of long confession. So at that point, Dunthorne realized he wouldn’t be writing primarily a memoir about his grandmother….but of his great-grandfather Siegfried…a Jewish scientist.
This story got more and more fascinating.
“You don’t write a two-thousand page memoir if you don’t want someone to notice it”.
Later (ethical grappling?)….its discovered that Siegfried had a type of religious transformation.
“Letters were found. A cousin brought a box file of letters in which Siegfried found God in the summer of 1965. He had an epiphany. So I’m a believer, he wrote, though of course, I cannot believe in a benevolent, anthropomorphic God, Father in Heaven. . . . I can’t believe in a personal life after death and in a reunion with loved ones”.
Siegfried also found somebody to speak openly to.

Dunthorne and his mother were inspiring, doing research together, traveling together, buying pastries to eat together . . . discussing their findings their thoughts.

We learned so much….
Example….
“What had begun as an instinctive reaction to seeing very young children on the street was now a registered organization, with space for thirty-five children of all religious backgrounds, and a philosophy inspired by the German pedagogue Friedrich Froebel. ‘Play it’s not trivial, but . . . of the deepest meaning, Froebel wrote, ‘only this is a free expression of the child’s soul’. Having spent her own childhood indoors, in a room where Anna ran a joyousness master class, it felt good to see them all playing together, enjoying the ‘little garden in the sunshine’”.

A kindergarten expand in into a neighboring apartment so that, by 1912, they had capacity for a hundred students. The kindergarten started providing after school care for older kids, and, in the evenings, a club where young working women could learn a language, discuss, literature, and make friends.

For a book that is only 240 pages long…..it’s sure gripping and packed with travel details …Berlin, Oranienburg, Munich, ….etc.

Holocaust survivors have shared many lessons ….one of them includes the importance of resilience, hope, and perseverance.
Maybe ….its a lesson I need to contemplate myself today ….

Beautiful book….worthy to be read….(a great book club choice).

Thank you Joe Dunthorne (your Mum too) and Scribner (many thanks)!!!!

Discovering one's family history can have surprising results - and end up being a great book. There have been many such memoirs in recent years, "The Hare with Amber Eyes" and "Fatherland" being just two of my favorites. Now "Children of Radium" joins the list.

What distinguishes this book is a more absurd sense of humor, the author's style reminds me of my beloved Jon Ronson. But there are some flaws - while I cannot accuse the author of leaving any stone unturned (or, to be more precise, of not digging deep enough into the contaminated soil...), I wish he would devote more space to some aspects of this story and stay more focused. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating and very well written account.

Thanks to the publisher, Scribner, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

It's sometimes hard to understand the motivation for the fact that people perform nefarious things without thinking of the consequences. However for Siegfried Merzbacher, German-Jewish chemist, this was both his life's work and a way to keep himself and his family alive in the pre Nazi era. His work in producing radium toothpaste (Doramand), proceeded to making gas masks and then making chemical weapons for the Nazis. For two years he did this, before escaping to Turkey with his family before the war actually started. Later, when he learned his work aided in killing Jews including his family members, he had to live with that fact for the rest of his days.

Joe Dunthorne, the author, is the great grandson of Siegfried Merzbacher, and he was intent on finding and tracking down his great grandfather's story. Traveling to towns in Germany, where the soil is still irradiated, Joe tries to understand and reconcile his great grandfather's past. Using Siegfried's rambling two thousand page memoir as his guide, he attempts to absorb and deal with his family's past.

Loved this book!
Dunthorne brings what little joy could come from hearing your family's history in their involvement in the Holocaust. He dives deep into his great grandfathers role but also explains what led the man to having to be involved in the genocide. He also explains the guilt the family felt as generations grew and learned of their family's history.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. What a fascinating read! This is a great piece of investigative journalism. The author writes about his great-grandfather, Siegfried, who was a Jewish chemist who was able to flee from the Nazis. But it turns out that his grandfather created chemical weapons for the Nazis. Great read! I recommend this to anyone who loves history!