History Flakes - The Berlin History Podcast

Jumping off from Jonny’s brilliant discussion with historian Samuel Clowes Huneke about his book I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany (2026), we talk about some of the stand out stories from this time and the strangely invisible, sometimes very dangerous status queer women occupied under the Third Reich. Jonny and Sam chat on youtube watch here!  ++++++    💸 Donations keep us runni...

Legendary pioneering film director, original bad boy auteur, visionary…bit of a dick. Fritz Lang’s personal life was almost as dramatic as his films. He’s in Paris for the febrile pre-war days of 1914, showing real acts of bravery on the Galician front. Driving to work at the UFA studios on the days of the Spartacist Uprisings and conveniently dodging Goebbels in 1933. Not the most reliable narrat...

Matti Geyer is here!! And we’re talking about The biggest boy band 20th-century Germany had to offer! The Comedian Harmonists, move over 5ive, get out of the way N’sync. Who could forget ‘Mein Kleine Grune Kaktus’ (my small green cactus)  ‘Veronica der Lent ist da’…a song about Lent. The sexiest time of year  Who’s the cute one? Which one loves his mamma? Most importantly who’s the bad boy?! (It’s...

Roll up Roll up and welcome to Circus Busch! Sometimes it’s always there, in a permanent building along the Spree, that may or may not be used for significant meetings by various shades of the political spectrum, but this is Germany everybody, the context is gonna be colourful! Sometimes the circus is travelling to other places, like Paris in 1940 and everyone there is really happy to see you. Hon...

Moving the German army into the Soviet Union could probably be described as one of the more difficult tasks of the 20th Century, or ever really. You may need to get up as early as 6am, no seriously I think at least 8am… not even 10am?! Jonny shares with us some of what he learned heading out to the Wolf’s Lair. Hitler’s WWII bunker complex and residence where he is definitely doing all the things...

In this special episode we talk with Jack El-Hai, journalist and author of The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, recently adapted into feature film Nuremberg with Russell Crowe and Rami Malek. We talk about the importance of the trial to the allies in the aftermath of the second world war, and who was Dr. Douglas Kelley the cheif psychiatrist assigned to the first months of the Nuremburg trials. ++++++  ...

Why do bad things happen to hot people?! Welcome all, we are talking about the one and only Queen Luise of Prussia, wife, mother, babe. Although she's often difficult to find under the centuries of cultural and national baggage loaded on top of her, we do our best to unpack her life from minor aristocracy to Queen of small-ish kingdom that happens to be between a power crazed Frenchman and Mo...

Welcome Back everybody! We kick off season 4 with a look at doping in the GDR. How can we prove we’re the most awesome non-democratic socialist state of all time?! MEDALS of course. But which sports and athletes will yield the biggest margin of growth that can be state administered and controlled? Who knows what when? And how many acronyms can one episode contain?  We’ve left Seson 3’s focus on th...

We went in hard on this one… you’re getting a 2 for 1. A live spectacular on Kaiser Wilhelm II and his mother Empress Frederick AND some musings from us afterwards because we couldn’t get enough of this German/British collab that ended, well… terribly. Follow Vicky, daughter of Queen Victoria and liberal reformer Prince Albert, as she dives into the absolute viper’s nest that was the 19th Century...

Hello Dear History Flakes Listener! We miss you all most cruelly. To tide you over until Season 4 begins in 2026, here's a live show all the way from August 2024. It was over 30 degrees but Jonny rallied valliantly (and only mentioned it 7, 8, or 100 times).  We share with you some of the more ingenious and puzzling escapes from East to West Berlin. Air, land, sea, and even an inflatable matt...

Hello there! Just a reminder that we will return...most likely in the new year with season 4!!!  Thank you to all our listeners and supporters, it's a genuine pleasure to think about what you might enjoy hearing and getting your feedback! We have a couple of live episodes in our back pocket to keep you tied over until the new year so look out for those. Bis bald and take good care!  Jonny and...

Agent ZigZag, Agent Garbo, Mutt and Jeff…who are these people? Are they or have they ever been Portuguese wine merchants? How is running a spy ring like a running a cricket club? All this and more in… The Double Cross, LIVE!!!!! A special treat we recorded back in March at the Comedy Cafe Berlin! Bringing to an end our series marking the 80 year anniversary of the end of WWII. We revisit John C Ma...

This episode we dive into the ins and outs of Wernher von Braun’s wartime credentials, before the Americans would be faced with the decision of whether or not his file needed a paperclip to begin with. (It did!) Contrasting heavily from last episode’s Klaus Fuchs, we look at someone whose humanity always came second to his ambition as a scientist in Nazi Germany, and contextualise his role into th...

Excellent at mathematics, physics, and possibly even better at being an all round nice guy. Jonny tells us about the life of Klaus Fuchs and his roll in the melodrama of THE BOMB in 1945. Fleeing the Nazi regime, his relationship with Max Born, life as a German in WW2 Britain, his traumatic journey to Canada and his triumphant journey to the US and... spying! Also we talk a bit about Werner von Br...

Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings were two of the biggest stars in both Weimar Germany and Hollywood in the early 20th century…they’re not that bothered about each other, but they would star together in The Blue Angel, filmed precisely as Wall Street crashed, catapulting them off into wildly different directions, personally, professionally and politically.  This episode began as an attempt to che...

The Potsdam Conference... The Pozi Confs for those in the know, as you are soon to be. It’s like summer camp for if you’ve been a good boy and defeated Nazi Germany in Europe. You all get together and decide what the hell do we do now? Stalin and Molotov are there, having a BLAST. The newly elected Labour Party of the UK forgot their swimming trunks and no-one knows who this Truman guy is. Serious...

World War II is over in Europe. But technically, like how? Who's involved? What's in Karlshorst? What will Marshall Zhukov be drinking and who IS Julie Busted? Inquiring minds want to know.  Join us as we start to find a bit more brevity & levity in this series of War and despair. And reflect on the madness of a few people making decisions for huge numbers of us in medium sized rooms...

++++Content warning for violence and sexual violence, not one for youngsters or those of a senitive nature to these topics ++++ The Curse of the Dodgy Microphone! We've been trying to find ways to record remotely, and Pip had a bit of trouble this time, but you'll pull through, we believe in you! In this episode Jonny leads Pip through some of the key moments of the Battle of Berlin, fro...

80 years ago the Battle of Seelow Heights was the final hurdle for Stalin’s Red Army before reaching Hitler’s fascist capital, Berlin. Before the Battle of Berlin could begin, Soviet troops needed to cross the Oder river, break through several lines of German defences, and capture all the small towns and villages on the approach to Berlin. In this episode, Jonny tells Pip all about the four-day fi...

We continue our discussion about Ravensbrück concentration camp and to reflect on the 80 year anniversary of its liberation with Pablo aka Berlin con Pablo , who's been guiding Spanish language vistiors to Berlin for many years! We each bring a story of an individual woman's survival of Ravensbrück: Neus Català, Yevgenia Lasarevna Klemm, and Odette Sansom. This was a tough one to record...

Spring 2025 marks the 80th Anniversary of the end of World War II.  We're kicking off this season, focused on WWII, by discussing Ravensbrück concentration camp, the only camp purpose built for women under the Nazi regime.  In this first of two parts, we take a look at whom this camp was built for, who ran it day to day, and how it changed dramatically over the course of it's life. We al...

Dearest Listener!  Please enjoy this very special bonus episode! We welcome Dirk Hoffmann-Becking, from The History of the Germans Podcast. If there’s something this man doesn’t know about the Wittelsbachs, I sure as hell don’t want to hear about it! Dirk takes Jonny and I from the earliest context surrounding the founding of Berlin and introduces us to some real characters like Henry the Fowler,...

‼️👉 Click here to sign up! 👈‼️ Link not working? Look up “Pay What You Want Tour - International Women's Day Special with Pip Roper” on eventbrite.com Pay What You Want Tour - International Women's Day Special with Pip Roper It’s international Women’s Day! Come along for a special tour led by Pip Roper of History Flakes, Gender Historian and highly experienced Berlin Tour Guide. Learn...

Josephine Baker...Josi Bakes as we've taken to calling her, respectfully. Fizzing with energy, talent, and pure GUMPTION. The only African American woman to be inducted in the Pantheon of France. Her story takes us from the poverty and violence of segregated St. Louis, to the scandalously modern revues of interwar Europe. Beloved in Berlin, but finding herself most at home in Paris, she would...

Join us for a discussion with Berlin tour guiding legend Matti Geyer, as we tackle the sad, mad and certainly very bad Stella Goldschlag. Born and raised to a secular Jewish Berlin family, she would take advantage of her ability to pass as 'aryan' to aid the Gestapo as a chief ‘ Greifer ’ or ‘catcher’ of Jewish people during the Nazi period. We talk about her role alongside that of husba...