Messy History

Today is Gustav’s story - the daily account of a grandfather living on the German homefront during World War I. While the glorious war starts as “the greatest time of my life”, he worries about his son Ludwig fighting on the front.  IMAGE Picture from Gustav’s diary:  Ludwig Schlott.  BIBLIOGRAPHY Marshall von Hindenburg.  Translated by F.A. Holt.  Out of my Life . Cassell and Company, ltd.  1920...

Today we continue our conversation on life during the Russian Revolution and the Bolsheviks' ambitions for the country. Our primary account comes from Elfriede, a young woman living in Odessa, Ukraine when the revolution came. She describes the conflicts between the Reds and Whites, her stint as a typist for the infamous Cheka (secret police), and her eventual escape through Bulgaria. Bibliog...

What would you do if you woke up one day and suddenly found yourself an "enemy" of the people with whom you had grown up? In this episode, we follow the story of Anna's family - bourgeois Germans caught in Russia during World War I and the Russian Revolution. Bibliography "Anna's Memoirs", Deutsches Tagebucharchiv, DTA-368-1-2, Reg NR 418,1-2, Translation By Robyn Tho...

What's the difference between a diary and a memoir? In this episode, we take advantage of an opportunity to interview Christiane Weinzierl from the German Diary Archive in Emmendingen, Germany about diaries, memoirs, and the art and task of preserving the past. You can find out more about the archive at their website: https://tagebucharchiv.de

The story of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his family. We discuss their early lives, marriage, and the challenges they faced, such as their son Alexei's hemophilia and the introduction of Rasputin into their lives. Following this, we cover the political turmoil and the unrest leading up to World War I, Nicholas's role in the war, and his eventual abdication. Both primary sour...

That time China declared a war on drugs, and found themselves pitted against the narco traffickers of the 19th century - the British Empire. Welcome to the first Opium War. Image  Commissioner Lin and the Destruction of the Opium in 1839 . https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Destruction_of_opium_in_1839.jpg Sources Chang, Hsin Pao.  Commissioner Lin and the Opium War.  The Norton Library.  W.W...

After Kristallnacht, there were few places still taking in Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. One of those was Shanghai, under Japanese occupation. When Japan entered the war as allies of Germany, the fate of these refugees hung in the balance. Photo The arrival of Jewish refugees from Austria in Shanghai. The refugees are disembarking from the Italian ship Conte Verde. 1938 December 14 United States Holo...

We discuss the experiences of Edward Adler, a Jewish man in 1930's Germany, as he describes growing anti-semitism, being forced to build one of the first extermination camps, and his narrow escape after Kristallnacht. And that one time he was a kid and joined the Nazis - before they found out he was a Jew. Image Germany - a sign on a Jewish store: Protect Yourselves, Germans, Do Not Buy From...

Today we talk about Leopold II, King of Belgium from 1865-1909, and his personal empire in the African Congo. This is the story of a man who put his pocketbook ahead of a people, the nation he enslaved, and the global cast of writers and advocates that worked to bring him down. Image In The Rubber Coils. Scene - The Congo 'Free' State" Linley Sambourne depicts King Leopold II of Bel...

We discuss the Kindertransport program through which around 10,000 children were saved from Nazi occupied Europe from November 1938 until German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940.   Image A picture of one of the tags that children wore around their neck when arriving in Britain, as a way for them to meet with their foster families. This numbered identification tag was worn by Henry Schmelzer w...