Peace In Their Time

Episode 39 - Despair on the Danube

It's a double feature today as I cover the former imperial partners Austria and Hungary. Their mutual defeat in the Great War ruined both and left them at the tender mercies of both their former subjects and enemies. After initial bursts of social upheaval that so characterized the early 20s in Europe, the pair would settle politically into right-wing dominance, making them future playthings of the larger Fascistic powers later on. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Berend, Ivan Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe Before World War II University of California Press 1998
2. Gerwarth, Robert The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2016
3. Hoensch, Jorg A History of Modern Hungary 1867-1994 Longman Group Ltd 1996
4. Bischof, Gunter, et al From Empire to Republic: Post-World War I Austria University of New Orleans Press 2010

Episode 38 - Polish Reboot

Out of all the unlucky nations I cover on this podcast, probably none had it quite like Poland. After over a century of non-existence, the interwar era saw the Polish nation birth itself back into being. Born in conflict, this version of Poland would never quite find its footing, whilst being wedged between two large nations who would love to partition the country yet again. But as I'll cover, much of their misfortune was self-inflicted, and the young state would tragically do itself few favors. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Berend, Ivan Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe Before World War II University of California Press 1998
2. Gerwarth, Robert The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2016
3. Davies, Norman God's Playground: A History of Poland, Volume II Columbia University Press 2005
4. Kochanski, Halik The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War Penguin Books Ltd 2012

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Episode 37 - The Other Guys

Overviews ahoy! Today we start a miniseries doing quick coverage of notable events in the long string of European nations that found themselves stuck between the two future Axis powers and the Soviet Union. This area would eventually become the killing fields of Europe, and knowledge of local histories is important to understand how each place fit into the bigger picture. Today I'll be focusing on a broad group of nations, Finland, the Baltic States, and Czechoslovakia, and how they struggled into existence during the 20s. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Berend, Ivan Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe Before World War II University of California Press 1998
2. Gerwarth, Robert The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2016
3. Jones, Nigel The Birth of the Nazis Constable & Robinson Ltd 2004

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Episode 36 - The Wilderness Years

The last episode on Nazis for a while! Fresh out of prison, Hitler has to reckon with a changed Germany in the back half of the 20s. After recovering from a cataclysmic economic collapse, nobody seemed receptive to a political message predicated on violence and social upheaval. This should be the time that the Nazi party disbands and Hitler fades back into obscurity, but he and his gang were a stubborn lot and stuck it out long enough to exploit the next disaster. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Kershaw, Ian Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris W.W. Norton & Company, Inc 1998
2. Toland, John Adolf Hitler, Volume 1 Doubleday & Company Inc 1976
3. Evans, Richard The Coming of the Third Reich Penguin Books, 2003

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Episode 35 - The Beer Hall Putsch

I would say it's funny that such a half-baked coup actually went ahead, except we all know how this ends up. This should have been the end for Hitler, yet the failings of Weimar meant that he'd eventually get his (much more important) second act. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Kershaw, Ian Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris W.W. Norton & Company, Inc 1998
2. Toland, John Adolf Hitler, Volume 1 Doubleday & Company Inc 1976

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Episode 34 - Anything for Attention

With his own micro-party on hand, Hitler became able to devote his time to his true calling: making a nuisance of himself. And it worked too, as his public persona brought him an expanded group of underlings and the interest of larger figures in the ultra-right scene of Munich. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Kershaw, Ian Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris W.W. Norton & Company, Inc 1998
2. Toland, John Adolf Hitler, Volume 1 Doubleday & Company Inc 1976

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Episode 33 - Crashing the Party

The end of WWI left Hitler an aimless soldier without a cause to fight for, but his ability to work a crowd began to emerge while investigating micro-political parties as part of an army assignment. Before long he had gotten himself signed up for a little group that would eventually be called the Nazis, and he got to work building a life for himself in politics. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Kershaw, Ian Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris W.W. Norton & Company, Inc 1998
2. Toland, John Adolf Hitler, Volume 1 Doubleday & Company Inc 1976

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Episode 32 - Hitler, The Poorly Documented Years

The misadventures of young Hitler continue in the big city of Vienna. And by misadventures I mean he lands in a homeless shelter once the money he got from his family ran out. But it won't be the end of him, and he'll eventually eke out an impoverished life first in Vienna, and then later Munich, before finding a greater purpose to his life in being a soldier during WWI.

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Kershaw, Ian Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris W.W. Norton & Company, Inc 1998
2. Toland, John Adolf Hitler, Volume 1 Doubleday & Company Inc 1976

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Episode 31 - Literally Hitler

It's finally time I covered the early days of Hitler and the Nazi party. I'm actually kind of proud that in a podcast about the context for how WWII happened that I haven't had to focus on them for thirty episodes. But it's finally time to introduce the bad guys, and just what they were doing in their more modest days, before they made their successful bid to control Germany. These next two episodes will focus on Adolf Hitler's early life and the remainder of the series will cover him as leader of the Nazi Party in the 20s. They're both modest stories, and in a sane world would not be worth telling. But we all know how it all turned out, so here are the early years. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Kershaw, Ian Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris W.W. Norton & Company, Inc 1998
2. Toland, John Adolf Hitler, Volume 1 Doubleday & Company Inc 1976

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com

Episode 30 - The Mirage

The years of 1924-29 represented a kind of golden age for Weimar Germany, and as a consequence not as much happened compared to the five years previous, so I'm compressing it into a single episode. But as relatively nice as those years were, they were also deceptive. All the problems of the past had only been papered over, not solved. Material conditions improved enough to encourage people not to try and overturn the republic, but fell short of making them identify with it. So when the next big crisis came around, Germany would be just as divided and vulnerable as ever. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Evans, Richard The Coming of the Third Reich Penguin Books, 2003
2. Peukert, Detlev The Weimar Republic Suhrkamp Verlag am Main, 1987
3. Weitz, Eric Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy Princeton University Press 2007

 

Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com