Hello and welcome to this day an esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, Summer of 1942, a trial is wrapping up a New York City centering on a group of German-American men who had been sent to the United States by Germany to destroy a whole swath of key infrastructure sites and in general wreak havoc with bombs and

other plots on American soil. Their plot didn't come to fruition. The cell was

infiltrated by the FBI Amone when one of the men turned informant, but when you look at the list of possible

targets and the fact that the men were already in place in many ways in the United States with clear

orders, it's hard not to imagine the what if. The targets were factories and

dams and railroads throughout the industrial Northeast and the Great Lakes

region will read the list of reported targets in a minute, but let's talk about this foiled German plot, what came to be known as Operation Pastorius.

Here, as always are Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wesley. Hello there.

Hello Jody. Hey there. And our special guest for this episode is audio producer

Rebecca Seidal who actually suggested we do this topic so Rebecca thanks for

suggesting it and welcome to the show thank you

so glad to be here and we should frame your appearance in this way which is you have a

particular angle on this story I mentioned that list of targets and another one of the

reported targets was the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City.

One of the things that caught people's attention in this story was that it was one of the targets was a well-known place in New York City.

And when it comes to Bridges, Rebecca is the

one to talk to right now because she is the creator of a new podcast series called

Abridged which is a series of stories all about Bridges. So the near destruction of Hell Gate Bridge is the real angle

here for you Rebecca, but we'll also do some bridge talk in general.

Love bridge talk. Oh yeah, well you made a whole series. I hope you do.

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