What I've Learned from "Oppenheimer," "One Life," and "Masters of the Air"

Quick answer: What does John Fenzel take from Oppenheimer, One Life, and Masters of the Air?

John sees each as a moral lesson. Oppenheimer shows the weight of a scientific triumph with terrible consequences. Masters of the Air honors the Eighth Air Force bomber crews. One Life tells how Nicholas Winton organized the rescue of hundreds of children from Czechoslovakia before the war.

John says he's been telling friends he feels optimistic about the recent wave of films that take history seriously, from Napoleon to The Boys in the Boat and Killers of the Flower Moon. Three in particular stayed with him. Oppenheimer follows the physicist who led the building of the atomic bomb and the dread that followed, captured in the line he later quoted from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Masters of the Air follows the Eighth Air Force bomber crews of the "Bloody Hundredth" through the losses of the daylight bombing campaign over Europe. One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins, tells the quieter story of Nicholas Winton, a young London stockbroker who organized trains that carried 669 mostly Jewish children out of Czechoslovakia in 1939, and who kept it to himself for nearly fifty years. John recalls Ken Burns calling history "the story of who we are," and the actor Sam Waterston's remark that "history is hope." Films like these, he writes, teach us about the past and push us toward empathy, courage, and thoughtful action.

Why it matters for leaders: Seeing how others faced moral choices in history helps us recognize our own when they arrive.

Q: How many children did Nicholas Winton help rescue?

A: 669 children, most of them Jewish, were brought from Czechoslovakia to Britain on the Kindertransport trains he organized in 1939.

Q: What was the Bloody Hundredth?

A: The 100th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, known for its heavy losses over Europe, featured in Masters of the Air.

Read the full article on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-ive-learned-from-oppenheimer-one-life-masters-air-john-fenzel-7xspe

By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation