-
This is the second in our two part interview special with historian David Barrett, whose new book 140 Days to Hiroshima examines the decision making regarding the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This time we examine the factionalism within the Japanese wartime leadership, the impact of the second atomic bomb on the regime’s decision making and the role of Emperor Hirohito.You can purchase the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/140-Days-Hiroshima-Untold-Surrender/dp/1635765811.Th
-
In 1942 Heinrich Himmler appointed a new administrator to the head of his concentration camp network, Oswald Pohl. Pohl saw the key to his personal advancement the utilisation of slave labour for arms manufacture. By late 1942 and in early 1943 it was clear that the tide of war was turning against Germany and Pohl believed that the brutal extraction of work from prisoners could contribute to victory. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expe
-
This special episode of the Explaining History Podcast features historian David Barrett, whose new book 140 Days to Hiroshima examines the decision making regarding the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This is the first of two interviews with David and it explores the decisions by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Truman to use the bomb instead of an amphibious landing in the Japanese home islands.You can purchase the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/140-Days-Hiroshima-Un
-
Even before 1933, the Nazis were aware that radio offered then unprecedented opportunities to shape public thought. However, the use of radio did not quite have the power to create the type of existential and cultural revolution that Goebbels and Hitler had envisaged. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusiv
-
Seizing political power was just the beginning of the Nazi programme, creating a profound and lasting cultural change among Germans to undo the perceived corruption of Germanic culture by the Weimar Republic was the longer struggle. Hitler’s war on liberal democracy and socialism was in his view a bid to reclaim the essence of German identity from false and foreign ideas. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the
-
Hitler’s vision of a new Germany, built in vast neoclassical grandeur, required stone to be quarried and bricks to be manufactured in vast quantities. Three camps, Flossenburg, Mauthausen and Orianenburg were created to supply these materials. They were significantly different from the existing network of camps and far more lethal in the 18 months before the outbreak of the Second World War. Listen to the full podcast now. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical
-
During the 1930s the Nazi regime attempted to exploit prisoners for their labour but there were few examples of successful profiteering and as the decade wore on prisoners were mainly forced to build the infrastructure of the Nazi camp system itself. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a P
-
By the end of the 1930s the Nazi regime had successfully directed public opinion in favour of the concentration camp system. As the decade wore on gradual apathy and disinterest in the camp system was a defining feature of public attitudes towards mass social and political incarceration. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the
-
For those unable or unwilling to offer manual labour in service of the Nazi volksgemeinschaft, mass arrests and imprisonment in the growing camp system was an ever present threat. The Nazi camps by 1938 were full of ‘asocial’ prisoners who were arrested largely on the basis of poverty, vagrancy or the inability to fit into the new world of the Third Reich. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the pre
-
In 1937 there was a dramatic increase in the numbers of petty criminals being arrested, re-arrested and taken into the Nazi camp system. There were deep seated economic reasons for this assault on Germany’s small time thieves and burglars, and precious little solidarity in the camps from other political inmates. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe