Hitlers 1941 Invasion of Russia | Part 1: A Great Gamble

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to season 6 of Anthology Of Heroes.

[00:00:05] Wow, 5 seasons and what, 80 episodes now?

[00:00:08] Man Time Flies For anyone tuning in for the first time,

[00:00:11] this show explores the most pivotal moments of history through the eyes of those who

[00:00:15] lived it.

[00:00:16] Each episode we share stories of heroism and defiance throughout world history.

[00:00:20] On average our episodes run for about 45 minutes and are blended with sound effects and music

[00:00:25] to help immerse you in the story.

[00:00:27] I'm your host, Elliot Gates and today's episode marks the beginning of our four part

[00:00:31] series on Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi codename for the invasion of Russia in 1941.

[00:00:38] The invasion is very important and very interesting for a number of reasons.

[00:00:43] Firstly it was and still remains the largest land invasion in world history.

[00:00:49] Four million men, 3000 tanks and 2500 planes.

[00:00:54] Now putting together an operation of that scale is an achievement in itself.

[00:00:58] A logistics for planning, it's a feat that only the elite German army could have pulled

[00:01:02] off.

[00:01:04] But what makes it even more unbelievable is that this was planned and executed in complete

[00:01:08] secrecy.

[00:01:10] Up until the tanks were literally rolling through Russian cities, Stalin, the leader

[00:01:14] of the USSR, never saw it coming.

[00:01:17] He was completely blindsided.

[00:01:19] His spies told him it was coming, captured German soldiers told him it was coming, Winston

[00:01:23] Churchill told him it was coming, his generals told him it was coming.

[00:01:26] Even reports from as far away as Portugal told him it was coming.

[00:01:30] Over 80 warnings in total and Stalin ignored them all didn't believe them.

[00:01:35] British propaganda he called it, the desperate means England would go to drag them into

[00:01:39] the war.

[00:01:41] In this episode we delve into the backstory behind Operation Barbarossa.

[00:01:46] From the perspective of the two most callous mass murderers in human history, Joseph Stalin

[00:01:50] and Adolf Hitler.

[00:01:52] In the West, it's well understood that the USA joining the Allies in World War II was

[00:01:57] a turning point.

[00:01:58] But we often forget that Hitler's decision to launch Operation Barbarossa was just as

[00:02:03] decisive.

[00:02:04] In this episode we're going to try and understand what made the dictator open another front

[00:02:08] when the German army was already stretched across so many others.

[00:02:11] We're going to learn why Stalin who was famous for his paranoia trusted the one man everyone

[00:02:16] told him not to trust.

[00:02:18] As we probe this unique relationship the two dictators had will explore the dire situation

[00:02:23] Europe found itself in in 1940.

[00:02:26] Faced against the unstoppable might of the Varmak Nazi army, Poland had fallen in 26 days

[00:02:32] Belgium in 18, even France, Europe's mightiest power capitulated in just six weeks.

[00:02:39] Now ruling almost all of Europe, Hitler looked east at what he saw as a futile wasteland

[00:02:44] populated by slabs, people he considered subhuman, barely better than Jews.

[00:02:50] In this episode I've gathered up several first-hand accounts through their own words will

[00:02:54] hear how ethnic Russians, Ukrainians or Germans felt about the invasion.

[00:03:00] We'll dive deep into the twisted Nazi worldview and learn about Hitler's genocidal plans for

[00:03:05] the Slavic people.

[00:03:07] We'll learn about some of the ethnic tensions that simmered within the USSR.

[00:03:12] Because in Poles who welcomed the Nazis with open arms.

[00:03:16] And we'll follow the Einsatzgruppen, the Varmak death squad tasked with murdering Jews and

[00:03:21] civil leaders in Nazi occupied villages.

[00:03:25] In part two we're going to watch Stalin try and pick up the pieces of his broken empire

[00:03:29] and himself.

[00:03:31] Calling himself from his stupa will watch as a dictator hangs portraits of famous Russian

[00:03:36] generals on his wall to inspire him.

[00:03:39] In part three the Russian colossus awakens.

[00:03:42] In this episode oil is the word of the day.

[00:03:45] With the horrific winter of 1941 behind them, the Varmak tour come out swinging.

[00:03:50] Hitler announces Operation Case Blue, a speedy southern march to the Caucasus.

[00:03:56] In this little pocket with some of the richest oilfields in the world, if the Varmak could

[00:04:00] take them it solved their fuel shortage and created one for Stalin.

[00:04:04] And finally in part four gonna zoom in on Stalin grad itself.

[00:04:09] Stalin grad and industrial city of minor strategic importance would become an obsession for both

[00:04:14] Hitler and Stalin.

[00:04:16] No matter the cost, no matter the consequences, both dictators refused to let the other man

[00:04:21] have it.

[00:04:22] Shouveling their men into the inferno like coal into a furnace, the fight for the city

[00:04:26] would turn into the most costly battle in human history.

[00:04:31] Understanding Operation Barbarossa and especially the battle of Stalin grad are essential to

[00:04:36] understanding the Russian psyche.

[00:04:38] It is a hugely important theatre of war and one that tends to get sidelined when we think

[00:04:44] of World War II.

[00:04:46] We'll soon see that the scale of death and suffering on the east front or austrant was

[00:04:50] like nothing in Western Europe.

[00:04:53] As Hitler himself announced prior to the invasion, the war quote, cannot be conducted in a

[00:04:59] nightly fashion.

[00:05:01] On a quick note, just a warning that this episode contains brief descriptions of violence including

[00:05:05] sexual violence with occasional cussing included from quotes.

[00:05:10] So here we go, Hitler's folly Operation Barbarossa Part 1, a great gamble.

[00:05:35] I'm Allison Holland, host of the Kennedy Dynastie Podcast.

[00:05:54] Equipped with a microphone and a long term fascination of the Kennedy family, I am joined

[00:05:58] by an incredible cast of experts, friends and guests to take you on a fun, relaxed, yet

[00:06:03] informative journey through history and pop culture.

[00:06:06] From book references to fashion, to philanthropy, to our modern expectations of the presidency

[00:06:11] itself, you'll see that there are so much more to Kennedy than just JFK or conspiracy theories.

[00:06:16] Join me for the Kennedy Dynastie Podcast.

[00:06:18] It's the 22nd of June 1941.

[00:06:24] The Kremlin, the command center of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known

[00:06:30] as the USSR, is in hysterics.

[00:06:33] The Moscow office is packed with people.

[00:06:36] Secretaries race across the floor with armfuls of paper and phones ring off the hook.

[00:06:41] Generals and party members answer the calls as quickly as they can.

[00:06:44] All the calls are coming from the front, and the messages are always the same.

[00:06:48] German soldiers, millions of them, are overrunning the border.

[00:06:53] Snatching a phone from a clerk, Colonel General Pavlov puts a receiver to his ear and

[00:06:57] barks down the line, I know it has already been reported.

[00:07:01] Was the top no better than we, slamming the phone down only to have it start ringing

[00:07:05] again.

[00:07:07] The air is thick with cigarette smoke and body odor.

[00:07:10] Panic is written on the face of every official.

[00:07:13] Each man tries to defer any decisions to their commanding officer.

[00:07:17] Better their superior be blamed rather than they for whatever was about to occur.

[00:07:21] All knew that Joseph Stalin's memory was eternal and his vengeance, legendary.

[00:07:27] The doors of the office burst open, and chief of staff Gioge Zukov pushes through the

[00:07:32] crowd, be lining towards the door at the end.

[00:07:35] Stalin's office.

[00:07:37] Early that morning, Zukov had telephoned Joseph Stalin to inform him of reports of German

[00:07:42] bombings on the border.

[00:07:44] Rouse from his slumber, Stalin answered the phone.

[00:07:47] Zukov frantically gave him a report and requested the dictates permission to return fire against

[00:07:52] the invaders.

[00:07:54] All he heard was heavy breathing.

[00:07:58] Now, as he pushed through the door to Stalin's office, Zukov learned his reports were not

[00:08:02] isolated.

[00:08:03] He had never seen so many members of the top brass gathered in a one place.

[00:08:08] Almost every member of the high command of the Russian army was there.

[00:08:11] Minister Molotov gesticulated wildly as Marshall Shapochnikov listened with crossed arms.

[00:08:17] A monochrome TV blared as groups of men pressed their ears against radio units, listening

[00:08:22] for hints of what was happening from foreign news channels.

[00:08:26] Blame was the word of the day.

[00:08:28] No one wanted to be left holding the bucket when Stalin's goons came docking on their

[00:08:32] door in the middle of the night.

[00:08:34] At the end of the office, in a haze of cigarette smoke, sat Joseph Stalin, General Secretary

[00:08:40] to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

[00:08:43] As his frenzied ministers desperately searched for what to do next, the man himself said nothing.

[00:08:50] A lit cigar, perhaps burning out in his ashtray, the five foot three dictator looked as if

[00:08:55] he was melting.

[00:08:57] Hunched forward in his leather desk chair, the expression of his face was one of vacant

[00:09:02] or wiltingen.

[00:09:04] The man was catatonic in the early stages of a mental breakdown.

[00:09:09] For once Stalin had no one to blame but himself for the situation he found himself in.

[00:09:14] In the past month alone there had been over 80 warnings of an imminent German invasion

[00:09:19] and he had ignored every one of them.

[00:09:22] Convinced that they were the work of the dastardly English Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

[00:09:26] Stalin, one of the most paranoid dictators to ever exist, had put his trust in Adolf Hitler,

[00:09:32] a man who had flattered international diplomacy at every opportunity and now his chickens had

[00:09:37] come home to roost.

[00:09:39] Outside the Kremlin the streets of Moscow were calm.

[00:09:43] The day was beginning like any other.

[00:09:45] In the warm summer morning early rises were queuing up for their bread ration and the

[00:09:48] first factory workers had begun walking to work.

[00:09:52] The state radio warbold as the newsreader announced another superb season of crop yields.

[00:09:57] Every man, woman and child of Moscow was completely oblivious to the fact that a few hundred

[00:10:02] miles away the largest invasion force in world history was blaring towards them.

[00:10:09] Almost four million soldiers marched, biked or galloped east.

[00:10:13] Operation Barbarossa had begun.

[00:10:16] For Adolf Hitler the initiation of the invasion had been sublime.

[00:10:20] Stalin had been completely blindsided.

[00:10:23] Even now as his air force, the Luftwaffe, bombed the last few Russian hangers still standing,

[00:10:29] Stalin desperately phoned Berlin, hoping, praying that this invasion was the act of a rebellious

[00:10:35] general and not sanctioned by Adolf Hitler himself.

[00:10:39] After all how could Hitler betray him?

[00:10:40] They had a deal.

[00:10:43] For Hitler the invasion had confirmed the naivety and stupidity of the Slavic race.

[00:10:48] And Joseph Stalin, the schmuck that had led them was the biggest fool of them all.

[00:10:59] It hadn't always been this way.

[00:11:00] Belia year back, Stalin had felt more confident about peace with Nazi Germany than he had in

[00:11:06] years.

[00:11:07] As the German army, the Vermacht, mopped up the last of Western Europe resistance, Stalin

[00:11:12] made the most of it, gobbling up most of the little Baltic states and pushing the borders

[00:11:17] of the mighty USSR closer to Central Europe.

[00:11:20] In you the world was too preoccupied to protest.

[00:11:24] Ideologically communism and fascism were at opposite sides of the political spectrum.

[00:11:31] Communism and Stalin's specific brand of it, Bolshevism, was a revolution of the working

[00:11:36] man.

[00:11:37] A classless utopia where the government distributed goods evenly regardless of religion,

[00:11:42] race or creed.

[00:11:43] That was the idea anyway.

[00:11:45] Hitler's fascism was an authoritarian hierarchical society where classes were tiered based on race,

[00:11:51] a society where the strong dominated the weak and those of impure blood were pushed out

[00:11:57] of the gene pool through government intervention.

[00:12:00] Despite these glaring differences throughout the 1930s the dictators had been co-zing up to

[00:12:05] each other.

[00:12:07] Numerous non-aggression packs and trade deals had worked their way through the embassies

[00:12:11] and by 1940 Stalin was actively intervening in Red Army propaganda, commanding his offices

[00:12:17] to tone down the anti-Nazi rhetoric that was drilled into the troops.

[00:12:21] In one instance after flipping through the state-run newspaper and seeing a negative article written

[00:12:26] about Adolf Hitler, Stalin penned a letter to the editor that said quote,

[00:12:30] don't irritate the Germans.

[00:12:32] Crustnaya Zavazda, the name of the paper, is always writing about fascists and fascism.

[00:12:38] Stop it!

[00:12:39] Hitler shouldn't get the idea that all we're doing is preparing for war with him.

[00:12:43] Later that year the dictator stunned his ministers by personally seeing the German ambassador

[00:12:48] offer the train station.

[00:12:50] With a big smile that must have looked out of place on the face of the dictator he walked

[00:12:54] beside the ambassador, put his arm around him and told him quote,

[00:12:58] we must remain friends and you must do everything to that end.

[00:13:02] Before waving him off his is trained departed.

[00:13:05] And Hitler's heartfelt letters to Stalin indicated the feeling was mutual, even wish him

[00:13:10] a happy birthday.

[00:13:11] Very sweet.

[00:13:12] But behind closed doors Adolf Hitler despised the pockmarked Georgian dictator.

[00:13:18] Two decades prior Hitler had penned mine-camp.

[00:13:21] My struggle.

[00:13:22] An autobiographical kind of manifesto where he laid out his worldview.

[00:13:27] And on Russia he said quote,

[00:13:29] this colossal empire in the east is ripe for dissolution and the end of the Jewish domination

[00:13:34] of Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state.

[00:13:38] As for Bolshevism he regarded it as a canter of the mind quote,

[00:13:42] Bolshevism is a doctrine of people who are lowest in the scale of civilization.

[00:13:47] So why the niceness?

[00:13:50] Well as all soon see Adolf Hitler was no me wartime commander.

[00:13:54] He saw himself as the builder of a new world order.

[00:13:57] A thousand year rike was the term he coined.

[00:14:00] A world where pure blooded Aryan Germans stood at the top of the podium,

[00:14:04] while all other races teared somewhere below.

[00:14:07] All the wars, policies and decisions his government made

[00:14:11] were helping to set up a framework for a society that would long outlive them all.

[00:14:16] Hitler's diplomacy with Stalin was an attempt to reorientate the USSR's political interests.

[00:14:22] To turn government policy away from Europe where Germany reigns supreme over to the far east into China.

[00:14:29] Hitler's thousand year rike had no interest in that part of the world,

[00:14:32] so if Stalin could be convinced to keep his nose out of Europe then perhaps war could be avoided.

[00:14:37] But this was a pipe dream.

[00:14:39] You only need to look at the build up of Russian industry on Europe's border

[00:14:43] to see where their national interests lay.

[00:14:45] Once it became clear that Russia could not be coaxed into a complete reversal of their politics,

[00:14:50] Hitler decided that war was not a matter of if but when.

[00:14:54] But there was a problem.

[00:14:56] Europe wasn't completely subdued.

[00:14:59] Great Britain had refused to be cowled.

[00:15:02] In the 1930s it seemed that British Republic opinion was shifting towards a peace deal with Germany,

[00:15:08] but in 1940 a squat man with a sharp tongue and a quick wit

[00:15:12] was elected prime minister of Great Britain.

[00:15:15] Winston Churchill.

[00:15:16] Churchill had read Mein Kampf

[00:15:19] and closely followed the increasingly barbaric laws Hitler had imposed on German Jews.

[00:15:24] Churchill categorically refused a peace deal with Hitler,

[00:15:28] who he saw as a madman who would stop at nothing in pursuit of his fanatical new world order.

[00:15:33] If Britain made peace, Europe would be ushered into a dark future

[00:15:38] where Hitler's twisted ideologies would become government policy.

[00:15:42] Through pithy raw speeches it seemed to ooze valiant and glory,

[00:15:46] Churchill galvanized British public opinion against any ideas of peace with Hitler.

[00:15:51] Even as bombs rained down on London,

[00:15:54] Britain's will to resist remained strong.

[00:15:57] With a glass of sherry in one hand at Sagarina's mouth and a top hat on his head,

[00:16:01] Churchill, a man so quintessentially British, became a reoccurring subject in Nazi propaganda.

[00:16:07] In early 1941 Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Gerbels told the German public exactly what to think of him.

[00:16:13] Quote.

[00:16:14] One has to see a current photograph of his face to grasp the true depravity of plutocracy.

[00:16:20] This face has not a single good characteristic, it is marked by cynicism.

[00:16:25] The ice cold eyes are free of any emotion.

[00:16:28] This man strides over corpses to feed his blind and limitless personal ecotism.

[00:16:33] The Sagarbite in his mouth is the last sign of a lifestyle that has outlived its time.

[00:16:39] England will one day pay a heavy price for this man.

[00:16:43] Hitler found himself at crossroads.

[00:16:45] With Churchill at his helm, England would not come to the negotiation table.

[00:16:50] And this was problematic because despite its small size, Britannia punched well above its weight.

[00:16:56] The last successful invasion of the British Isles was almost a thousand years ago during the Norman invasion.

[00:17:02] The British Empire spans most of the world.

[00:17:05] Her colonies gave her vast reserves of manpower and raw materials,

[00:17:09] and a trading network reached into every corner of the globe.

[00:17:13] Knowing this, Hitler decided that if an invasion of the British Isles did have to take place,

[00:17:17] you would much rather it happened last.

[00:17:20] Perhaps by then public opinion would have turned against Churchill.

[00:17:23] Which meant all that was left was Russia, the USSR.

[00:17:28] In 1939 the Führer had watched Gleefully as the Red Army struggled to subdue its tiny neighbor,

[00:17:34] Stinland, in a conflict known as the Winter War.

[00:17:37] We covered that war in our episode on Simo Hauer, make sure you check that one out after this.

[00:17:42] Stinland, a minor local power had rebuffed the enormous Russian army for many months.

[00:17:48] And though Stalin eventually gained some territory,

[00:17:51] the war was an embarrassment that highlighted the many shortcomings of the Russian military structure.

[00:17:56] As pens went to paper and Operation Barbarossa began to take shape,

[00:18:00] Hitler insisted to his war cabinet that the invasion of Russia would be a simple affair,

[00:18:05] that they quote, need only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure would collapse.

[00:18:11] His generals though were not so sure.

[00:18:14] The USSR was big.

[00:18:17] I mean really big it was about one six of the Earth's surface

[00:18:21] was a totally different battlefield to what the Vemak were used to working with.

[00:18:25] The key to the German army's success in Western Europe had been speed.

[00:18:29] They pioneered a new type of warfare, the Blitzkrieg.

[00:18:33] A quick heavy punch to the jugular designed to disable the enemy before he could hit back.

[00:18:38] Blitzkrieg had taken Poland in 26 days, Belgium in 18,

[00:18:43] and even the mighty French Republic had collapsed in just six weeks.

[00:18:47] In Western Europe this tactic had been so successful because of the short distances between countries.

[00:18:52] As the crow flies, Berlin to Paris was only 545 miles, 878 kilometers.

[00:18:59] That meant securing fuel and ammunition were not as important,

[00:19:02] and the country was rich, food was everywhere.

[00:19:05] But as his generals pointed out Russia was a different story.

[00:19:09] Huge distances between villages meant logistical challenges with supplies

[00:19:13] and the roads I mean what roads?

[00:19:16] Germany and France had highways, Russia had dirt tracks, that would slow things down.

[00:19:22] And then there was the elephant in the room, Napoleon's curse.

[00:19:27] At all Hitler and every one of his field marshals were all aware

[00:19:30] that an ill-fated invasion of Russia had been the downfall of the French general.

[00:19:35] Napoleon had underestimated the scale of Russia,

[00:19:38] and the bone-chilling freeze its winter's port.

[00:19:41] Through blizzards and snow drifts, Napoleon's army had limped back to France.

[00:19:46] His men freezing by the thousands,

[00:19:48] the corpses left on the side of the road with no one to bury them.

[00:19:52] The experience had ruined the French general,

[00:19:54] but the fewer promised that his invasion would not follow the same course.

[00:19:58] Hitler assured his generals that the war would be over in a few weeks, or two months tops.

[00:20:04] He told them that the crumbling Bolshevik state would topple long before winter arrived,

[00:20:09] and he was so sure of this that he made no provisions for winter uniforms.

[00:20:14] And finally the day came.

[00:20:15] Just before sunrise on Sunday 22 June 1941,

[00:20:20] Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in world history, began.

[00:20:25] The world will hold its breath, Hitler declared to his field marshals.

[00:20:30] While Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels justified the invasion

[00:20:33] to the German public as a preemptive strike,

[00:20:36] a kind of get them before they get our situation.

[00:20:39] Quote.

[00:20:40] Human imagination is insufficient to picture what would have happened

[00:20:43] if their animal hordes had flooded into Germany and the West.

[00:20:47] The Fuhrer's order to the army on the night of the 22 June was an act of historic magnitude.

[00:20:52] It will probably prove the critical decision of the war.

[00:20:55] The soldiers are paying his orders other saviors of European culture and civilization.

[00:21:01] As we get through this series, you'll start to notice that the language used by Nazis

[00:21:05] when describing this war is evocative of a crusade.

[00:21:09] And that was intentional.

[00:21:10] Hitler believed that this was a crusade,

[00:21:13] but not against religion against something much more insidious.

[00:21:17] Bolshevism.

[00:21:18] Even the name Barbarossa was picked with purpose.

[00:21:22] It came from Frederick Barbarossa, a famous German crusader.

[00:21:26] Hitler saw Bolshevism in the same way that a 12th century crusader saw Islam.

[00:21:31] A cancer that needed to be eradicated for the good of mankind.

[00:21:34] And so in the early morning hours, three million German soldiers

[00:21:38] and one million Romanian or Finnish soldiers

[00:21:41] stormed across the board that separated the territory of Germany and the USSR.

[00:21:46] The objective was pretty straightforward,

[00:21:49] a lightning fast blitzkrieg sucker punch

[00:21:51] to take out the most important cities in Russia,

[00:21:54] killing the big red giant before it could get to its feet.

[00:21:57] Three separate army groups would be lying

[00:21:59] to the most important cities in the USSR.

[00:22:02] One would head to Leningrad in the north,

[00:22:04] a second would make for Kiev in the south,

[00:22:07] and the third and largest group would make for Moscow.

[00:22:11] After the loss of these three cities,

[00:22:12] Hitler reasoned that the Soviet government would collapse

[00:22:15] and Russia would be theirs.

[00:22:17] The objectives might have been straightforward

[00:22:19] and the tactics similar to what was used in Western Europe,

[00:22:22] but the optics were very different.

[00:22:24] In his biography, Mein Kampf,

[00:22:26] Hitler declares that the Slavic people were incapable of self-governance.

[00:22:31] They were and had always been an inferior race

[00:22:34] destined only for hard labor.

[00:22:37] And since the Bolshevik revolution

[00:22:38] to replace the old Russian government,

[00:22:40] it was now, you guessed it, Jews

[00:22:43] were the sneaky puppet masters

[00:22:45] controlling the USSR behind the scenes.

[00:22:48] Because of this, they had to go.

[00:22:50] In the Fuhrer's New World Order,

[00:22:52] the most fertile lands in Western Russia

[00:22:54] would be re-inhabited by German settlers

[00:22:57] who would over generations germinate the region.

[00:23:01] But what did that mean for the people that lived there now?

[00:23:05] Hitler's solution for them was listed in the hunger plan.

[00:23:09] As a German army advanced,

[00:23:10] it would steal all the grain and livestock

[00:23:13] and send it back to Germany on railway.

[00:23:15] The millions of slaves living in those regions

[00:23:17] would starve to death.

[00:23:19] The land would be depopulated

[00:23:21] and once a war was over,

[00:23:22] German settlers would recalculate it,

[00:23:25] creating his so-called Leibund's realm

[00:23:27] or greater German Reich.

[00:23:30] For Hitler, this was more than just an invasion.

[00:23:32] It was land clearing.

[00:23:35] Bally, a few hours into the invasion,

[00:23:40] it was clear the Red Army had been caught

[00:23:42] completely by surprise.

[00:23:44] Hitler was jubilant.

[00:23:46] Once the dictator started talking,

[00:23:48] no one could stop him.

[00:23:49] His mind always raced ahead.

[00:23:51] The next stage of the plan,

[00:23:52] the next step towards his thousand-year Reich,

[00:23:55] gesticulating wildly,

[00:23:56] he spoke as if Russia was already theirs

[00:23:59] while his generals always aware

[00:24:01] of his tendency to dream big

[00:24:02] had to settle him back down.

[00:24:04] Of course, of course,

[00:24:05] he would have laughed as he shook hands

[00:24:07] and nodded rapidly.

[00:24:08] They were right before his thousand-year Reich

[00:24:10] could take shape.

[00:24:11] The final showdown with Bolshevism must occur.

[00:24:14] History is the greatest adventure story

[00:24:18] but doesn't ever leave you wondering

[00:24:19] what the women were doing all that time.

[00:24:22] This is Laurie from the her half of history podcast

[00:24:25] and the answer is that some women were seizing power

[00:24:28] or escaping slavery or spying for their country

[00:24:31] or creating artistic masterpieces

[00:24:33] while countless others were doing the laundry,

[00:24:35] getting married and wondering why their clothes

[00:24:38] don't have more pockets.

[00:24:40] If you would like to hear the stories

[00:24:41] of women doing all of those things,

[00:24:43] check out her half of history at herhaveofhistory.com

[00:24:46] or wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:24:50] Hello, this is Gary Shahoe

[00:24:51] welcoming you to check out the French History podcast.

[00:24:54] Our main show covers the history of France

[00:24:57] from the first humans until present.

[00:24:59] If you like Mike Duncan's The History of Rome

[00:25:01] and wanted a similar program covering the land of beauty,

[00:25:05] culture and love, we are exactly that.

[00:25:08] We also host world-renowned scholars

[00:25:10] who have delivered guest episodes on their specialties

[00:25:13] including 18th century pirates,

[00:25:16] revolutionary booksellers in 20th century Paris,

[00:25:20] the special friendship between the Marquis de Lafayette

[00:25:23] and Thomas Jefferson and numerous others.

[00:25:26] Learn what you love and listen

[00:25:28] to the French History podcast today.

[00:25:32] On the morning of the 22nd of June 1941,

[00:25:35] Constantine Maligan, chief of staff

[00:25:37] of the 41st tank division was up early.

[00:25:40] Bumping down the road in a staff car,

[00:25:42] he and a Colonel were sharing a coffee

[00:25:44] as they made their way from the polished border town

[00:25:47] of Valinsky to their favorite fishing spot.

[00:25:50] Today was their day off

[00:25:52] as they passed through the silent villages

[00:25:54] the deep crimson sky put them in a cheery mood.

[00:25:58] The Colonel was a little bit more

[00:26:01] The Colonel turned to Constantine

[00:26:02] and announced that he had a good feeling about the fish today.

[00:26:05] Everything was still.

[00:26:07] All of a sudden, a green solitary flair

[00:26:10] shot up from the horizon.

[00:26:12] They both stared wondering what it could be

[00:26:15] before the sound of distant rumbling thunder followed.

[00:26:18] Then out of nowhere, the world seemed to explode.

[00:26:22] Trace around zipped over their staff car

[00:26:24] as mortars began to plummet around them like hail stones.

[00:26:28] They were turned back, Constantine yelled to the driver.

[00:26:31] As their car sped back to HQ,

[00:26:33] 400 kilometers north,

[00:26:35] Lazar Belkin, a recent graduate

[00:26:37] of the 56th Rifle Division station to Grotto

[00:26:40] woke up to the sounds of aircrafts overhead.

[00:26:43] I'm sure of what to make of it

[00:26:45] he was calmed by his superiors

[00:26:46] who assured him it was probably just

[00:26:48] their planes returning from a drill

[00:26:50] as they were flying east.

[00:26:52] As he walked down the river to wash,

[00:26:54] the noise became louder.

[00:26:56] Out of nowhere, bombs began to rain down on their base.

[00:26:59] Their wooden barracks exploded into millions of wooden splinters.

[00:27:03] The silence of the early morning was gone

[00:27:06] as the groans of the dead and dying echo through the camp.

[00:27:09] Somewhere to the south of that,

[00:27:11] Sergeant Vladimir Ossulnk rushed to meet his captain

[00:27:14] and secure a nearby bridge.

[00:27:16] He'd spotted a group of men who seemed suspicious.

[00:27:20] They wore uniforms that were little too clean

[00:27:22] and rode bicycles, uncommon at this part of the front.

[00:27:26] These men were Brandon Berkers, German saboteurs.

[00:27:30] Men with a good poker face who could speak another language

[00:27:33] and they'd been sent behind Russian lines

[00:27:35] to shoot flares above strategic targets

[00:27:37] and ensure bridges were not exploded.

[00:27:40] Calling them over, Ossulnk's captain asked them what they were doing.

[00:27:44] As soon as they opened their mouth,

[00:27:45] their basic wooden Russian gave them away.

[00:27:48] As they stumbled over an explanation,

[00:27:50] the captain stepped forward and yelled at him.

[00:27:53] What are you talking about? You bastard!

[00:27:55] Before pulling out his pistol and killing the saboteur on the spot.

[00:27:59] Most civilians remember at the 22nd of June as the USSR's darkest hour.

[00:28:04] But for many Ukrainians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Poles,

[00:28:08] they were positively thrilled.

[00:28:10] These territories were recent additions to the USSR.

[00:28:13] Ethnic groups were forcibly woven into the empire by Joseph Stalin

[00:28:18] Europe was too busy with Hitler to protest.

[00:28:21] And these people, particularly the Poles and Ukrainians,

[00:28:24] were overjoyed at the side of a swastika flag flying over their village.

[00:28:29] Ukrainian but bushkers cheered as German tanks rolled through the town,

[00:28:33] welcoming them with the traditional offering of bread and salt.

[00:28:36] Polish farmers fired potshots at passing Russian troops

[00:28:40] and laughed as they fled from the Germans.

[00:28:42] Any ethnic Russians that lived in these places kept their heads down.

[00:28:47] Tatiana Deliotitski, an ethnically Russian child who lived on the borders of Poland,

[00:28:52] found herself alone picking through the rubble of her bombed out house looking for family members.

[00:28:57] When she begged her neighbors who were ethnic Poles for help,

[00:29:00] they mocked her and told her a family shouldn't be there to begin with.

[00:29:04] Another red army recruit, fresh from training,

[00:29:07] remembers marching through front and passing a Polish farmer

[00:29:10] who eyed up his patch clothing and antiquated rifles

[00:29:13] and whispered to him with a grin on his face,

[00:29:16] the Germans will annihilate you.

[00:29:19] These weren't isolated incidents either.

[00:29:22] The German tank commanders blitzing through these border towns

[00:29:24] were stunned by the reception they received.

[00:29:27] You can see videos of this as parades and banners,

[00:29:30] women in traditional costumes performing the Nazi salute,

[00:29:33] under tarp hollans that read,

[00:29:35] deliberators who Europe from Bolshevism,

[00:29:38] see Kyle to add off Hitler and his men.

[00:29:41] These people's hate for Joseph Stalin was so intense that

[00:29:44] German officers began to write to their high command,

[00:29:47] recommending that the population of these border villages be allowed to fight alongside them.

[00:29:51] Predictably Hitler, a port at the idea of subhuman slabs and poles

[00:29:56] disgracing the Vemuk uniform refused categorically.

[00:29:59] By the second day of the invasion,

[00:30:01] Stalin had accepted that this was not just some rebel general.

[00:30:05] He'd finally come to terms that Adolf Hitler had deceived him.

[00:30:09] But still, he was frozen.

[00:30:11] Usually measured at observant,

[00:30:13] he sat quietly as his generals discussed what to do.

[00:30:17] With every minute of delay,

[00:30:18] their losses compounded by incredible multitudes.

[00:30:21] In the first few days of the invasion,

[00:30:23] the reports filtering back to the Kremlin were staggering.

[00:30:27] The loss of men was one thing Stalin could live with that,

[00:30:30] but the losses in aircraft, command posts and garrisons

[00:30:33] and above all land was horrifying.

[00:30:37] Almost the entire Russian Air Force was gone,

[00:30:40] 96.4% according to one source I read.

[00:30:43] In most cases before Russian pilots had even woken up their plane was gone.

[00:30:47] The Tarnalvo aircraft hangout which was just 12 kilometers from the border

[00:30:51] must have seemed like a German dive bombers dream.

[00:30:54] Over 100 Soviet Air Force planes,

[00:30:57] half of the new model Russian MiGs were just sitting on a barely covered slab of concrete.

[00:31:04] Within seconds they were nothing but smoking scraps of debris.

[00:31:07] And for the few planes that did make it off the ground,

[00:31:10] the Gap in technology was so glaring

[00:31:12] that a German pilot would describe shooting Russian planes out of the sky as

[00:31:16] QUOTE in FANTASIDE.

[00:31:18] Russian pilots too were under no illusions of their plane's shortcomings.

[00:31:22] One man said QUOTE,

[00:31:24] our pilots feel they are corpses already when they take off.

[00:31:28] The Tali Kalamenko, a pilot who managed to survive,

[00:31:32] said that his friends referred to the I-15 biplanes as COFFINS.

[00:31:37] In frustration some brave pilots even resorted to ramming German planes

[00:31:41] as a last resort to even the playing field.

[00:31:44] For the Red Army, things weren't much better.

[00:31:46] Within just five days the Vemar could push them back 200 miles

[00:31:50] and were closing in on Minsk, the modern capital of Belarusia.

[00:31:54] Soviet leadership was in freefall.

[00:31:57] An infinite horrid of badly armed, badly led soldiers flooded back

[00:32:01] the number of dead, missing or injured soldiers was probably nearing

[00:32:05] half a million and rising.

[00:32:07] So the Germans in the Vemar guard, the first few days had reinforced

[00:32:10] everything the Fuhrer had told them that the Slavs were stupid and cowardly.

[00:32:15] But why was this happening?

[00:32:17] Where were the officers relaying reports to Stalin and High Command?

[00:32:21] Where was the leadership on the ground?

[00:32:23] Simply put there was no.

[00:32:26] In the 1930s Stalin had gutted the upper ranks of the Red Army.

[00:32:31] Paranoid about disloyalty here perched the best and brightest from the Army.

[00:32:36] I'm not talking about a couple of generals in a few officers.

[00:32:39] Have a listen to these numbers, these are the amount of soldiers

[00:32:42] Stalin had executed in prisoned or fined.

[00:32:45] 36,671 junior officers.

[00:32:48] 403 out of 706 brigade commanders.

[00:32:52] 15 out of 16 commanders.

[00:32:54] 50 out of 57 corps commanders.

[00:32:57] 158 out of 186 divisional commanders.

[00:33:01] 401 out of 456 colonels.

[00:33:04] And at the highest level, three out of five marshals.

[00:33:08] By the time Operation Barbarossa had begun, 75% of the Red Army officer corps

[00:33:13] had held their reign for less than a year.

[00:33:16] That is an enormous brain drain.

[00:33:19] And those that were still there were conditioned to avoid responsibility

[00:33:23] at all costs, less their name be associated with a particular link

[00:33:26] in the rusty chain of command.

[00:33:28] Though Hitler's racial narrative painted the failings of the Russian Army

[00:33:31] as a slave problem, it wasn't, it was a Stalin problem.

[00:33:35] By the time the war started, the Red Army structure of command

[00:33:38] was the foot soldier at the bottom, Stalin at the top, and nothing in the middle.

[00:33:43] Meanwhile the veh mark couldn't be more different.

[00:33:46] These soldiers were led by veteran Nazi officers like Eric von Manstein

[00:33:51] and legendary tank commander Hans Guderian.

[00:33:54] Their officers had both theoretical knowledge and practical experience in new style mechanized warfare.

[00:34:00] And as they raced from village to village, so many of them

[00:34:04] the greatest concern was the lies and germs that propaganda said they could catch

[00:34:08] from slave civilians.

[00:34:10] It was easy going.

[00:34:12] The summer weather was hot but that wasn't a problem.

[00:34:14] Officers called themselves with chilled champagne or a glass of cognac

[00:34:18] they bought from occupied France.

[00:34:20] If any soldiers pointed out that they'd bought no provisions for winter

[00:34:23] their comrades would have laughed them off.

[00:34:25] When this invasion commenced each soldier had been instructed to operate

[00:34:28] under a new directive known as the jurisdiction order.

[00:34:32] This order barred Soviet citizens from any legal or civil protections

[00:34:36] against German soldiers during occupation.

[00:34:39] Be that looting of property, rape or even murder.

[00:34:43] Hitler's official justification behind this decision was that

[00:34:46] because Stalin had refused to sign the Geneva Convention

[00:34:49] his soldiers were not protected under it.

[00:34:52] But this was just a technicality, even if Stalin had signed that the

[00:34:54] Führer would have found a way to legitimize his war crimes.

[00:34:59] One German officer seeing his men descend on a helpless village like

[00:35:03] Vikings in medieval Europe was disgusted and privately wrote in his diary quote.

[00:35:09] This type of thing turns the Germans into a type of being

[00:35:12] which had existed only in enemy propaganda.

[00:35:15] But men like this were the minority.

[00:35:18] For the average Vemak soldier, particularly the younger ones,

[00:35:21] years of Gurbals as propaganda had anithetized them into believing

[00:35:25] the Slavic people were less worthy of life than rats.

[00:35:29] Once a village fell to the Vemak the locals were at the mercy of the

[00:35:33] Einsatzgruppen.

[00:35:34] The Einsatzgruppen were a re-aguard that would tail the main

[00:35:38] Vemak army and occupy the villages they'd conquered.

[00:35:41] Their objective was to eliminate anyone who could support

[00:35:44] the old political infrastructure, commissars, clerks, administrators

[00:35:48] and specifically Jews.

[00:35:51] The men of the Einsatzgruppen were gathered from intellectual

[00:35:54] backgrounds, scholars, theologians or academics,

[00:35:58] men who were articulate enough to convince soldiers to kill unarmed

[00:36:02] civilians in cold blood.

[00:36:04] When they arrived, members of this death squad would take a census

[00:36:08] of the village, round up anyone with a lick of authority

[00:36:11] and walk them out to the nearest forest.

[00:36:13] Professors, doctors, council members and priests were marched out

[00:36:18] and forced to dig their own graves before being murdered on mass.

[00:36:21] The Einsatzgruppen would also make use of local gangs,

[00:36:24] feeding on nationalist tendencies that were particularly strong in the

[00:36:28] Baltic countries that would encourage locals to lynch Jews,

[00:36:31] which gave them Germans plausible deniability for the pogroms that followed.

[00:36:36] We know this happened because there is filmed evidence of it.

[00:36:40] Members of this squad took real delight in their work, sending home

[00:36:44] pictures of their victims to their wives and children.

[00:36:47] You can find a lot of this footage online and it's really twisted stuff.

[00:36:50] I won't go into too much detail but I mean naked men and women

[00:36:54] in a city square being beaten with clubs and bricks, broken hands,

[00:36:58] slipping in the mud trying to get away as members of the Einsatzgruppen

[00:37:02] egg the crowd on.

[00:37:04] What shocked me most about seeing this footage was how modern

[00:37:07] the cities looked and the clothes the perpetrators wore.

[00:37:10] You're not seeing people dressed in chain mail with a medieval castle

[00:37:14] behind them, they're modern times and all these horrific acts that happen

[00:37:18] in streets that look just like any European city today by people

[00:37:22] dressed almost like us.

[00:37:24] And that brings up the uncomfortable realization that this wasn't that long ago.

[00:37:28] Less than 100 years ago people did this.

[00:37:31] Over in the Kremlin the war council decided they had to tell the public

[00:37:35] what was going on.

[00:37:36] By now even citizens half a world away knew something on the front

[00:37:40] was up, a radio announcement needed to be given and it only made sense

[00:37:44] that Stalin should deliver it.

[00:37:46] But the dictator categorically refused.

[00:37:48] He could not bring himself to admit his catastrophic failure to his people

[00:37:52] so the duty fell on Minister Moltov, Stalin's number two.

[00:37:56] So party announcements the radio in the USSR was always switched on.

[00:38:01] So all at once almost everyone heard the wooden voice of Minister Moltov

[00:38:05] crackling through the houses, streets, schools and factories.

[00:38:25] Citizens of the Soviet Union, the Soviet government and its head,

[00:38:29] Stalin have authorized me to make the following statement.

[00:38:32] In a speech that was a little over three minutes long, Moltov told the Soviet public

[00:38:37] everything that they knew that Hitler had invaded and with the assistance of

[00:38:41] Fins and Romanians they marched towards Moscow.

[00:38:45] The announcement, Blanton light on detail concluded with,

[00:38:48] our cause is just, the enemy will be beaten, we will be victorious.

[00:38:55] As a clunk of the microphone marked the end of the recording there was silence.

[00:39:00] 170 million people had just learned that they'd be conscripted into war.

[00:39:05] Rushed as it was, the message evoked a deep sense of patriotism

[00:39:10] that thrummed in the heart of all USSR citizens, particularly ethnic Russians,

[00:39:15] and need to protect their land, their family and their way of life.

[00:39:19] This was real patriotism that went much deeper than he lip-service they paid

[00:39:24] to the communist regime.

[00:39:26] Many of the men that began rushing to the front had family members

[00:39:29] in Stalin's political prisons, his Gulaks.

[00:39:32] Fathers, sisters, mothers, uncles, everyone knew someone languishing in a Gulag

[00:39:36] in Siberia for some minor offense committed against the regime.

[00:39:41] So imagine that volunteering to fight for the country that had imprisoned and tortured your parents.

[00:39:46] But it didn't matter, now wasn't the time to air grievances against the regime.

[00:39:51] All throughout the urban centers, reservists made their way to mobilization offices.

[00:39:56] Many didn't even wait for orders.

[00:39:58] But getting them into the front was only half the problem.

[00:40:01] With so many conflicting reports coming in it was near impossible to figure out where a trip should be sent.

[00:40:06] A blitzkrieg wasn't just about speed, it was about maneuverability.

[00:40:10] The motorized divisions would apply pressure on a particular front

[00:40:13] and then when the Red Army moved to reinforce that point they pulled back and go somewhere else.

[00:40:18] This was a nightmare for Russian logistics, trying to coordinate millions of soldiers

[00:40:23] across a thousand mile front that was shifting by the day.

[00:40:26] The Russian command were at a loss on how to deal with this.

[00:40:29] Men were now arriving at the front on mass but they were just being thrown into the mall.

[00:40:34] For the average Russian recruit with virtually no combat experience,

[00:40:38] their lives were sacrificed for absolutely no gain.

[00:40:41] Orders would come down for a division to retake a specific village.

[00:40:45] The officer in charge who probably had a year of experience at best

[00:40:49] might know that retaking the village was impossible but he wasn't going to be the one to tell his captain that.

[00:40:54] And likewise, that captain may have known that when he gave the order

[00:40:57] the division was full of recruits with no combat experience

[00:41:00] but he didn't want to tell the marshal that.

[00:41:02] So the order eventually landed on the rank and file soldier.

[00:41:05] And these people weren't stupid, you know they had eyes, they could see.

[00:41:09] They knew that what they were being asked to do was suicide

[00:41:12] but it was also suicide to resist an order.

[00:41:15] So minute after minute, day after day these hopeless suicidal tactics were forced upon the laymen.

[00:41:21] Then you've got to remember a lot of these people were from regions like Kazakhstan

[00:41:25] or Ulanuday or even further East.

[00:41:28] Some barely spoke Russian and a good majority didn't even understand why they were there at all.

[00:41:33] One Russian squad commander remembers his interaction with a confused Uzbek soldier

[00:41:37] who had just arrived at the front.

[00:41:39] Do you understand what a rifle is and what it's for?

[00:41:42] I've never really thought it over, comrade officer.

[00:41:45] Well give it some thought now.

[00:41:48] When you go into battle shoot at the fascists.

[00:41:50] And if they come after you you simply can't get by without it.

[00:41:53] The rifle is your protection.

[00:41:55] After a brief pause you follow it up.

[00:41:58] Do you know what a fascist is?

[00:42:00] The man was silent.

[00:42:02] It's not hard to see why things were so chaotic isn't it?

[00:42:06] But on mass these men fought, marched and died on scales that the Germans found positively eerie.

[00:42:13] Their marks soldiers would shoot until their machine gun chambers were red hot,

[00:42:17] mowing down wave after wave of men.

[00:42:20] As their bullets raked through the front line the shabby masses of grey and brown would collapse.

[00:42:25] One man next to another before they started on the next line and they would just keep coming.

[00:42:31] They were killing, slaughtering on a scale that dwarfed their battles in western Europe.

[00:42:36] But from this endless wasteland more and more and more men arrived, died and were replaced.

[00:42:42] One German soldier wrote about this almost surreal experience of just murdering so many people with such ease.

[00:42:49] Quote, this is crazy.

[00:42:51] We are firing with four machine guns and at least 80 carbines from secure covered positions into the advancing hoard.

[00:42:58] Our machine gun bursts rip openings in their ranks, dead and wounded are hitting the ground all the time.

[00:43:04] But more of them are coming through the haze and we can't see them clearly.

[00:43:08] Even the veteran Nazi generals were unnerved just by how many men this nation could call up.

[00:43:14] In his diary General Halder wrote quote,

[00:43:18] Now we have already counted 360.

[00:43:22] And this is going to be a trend, everything about Russia Hitler had underestimated.

[00:43:27] The number, the sheer endlessness of its land, its industry and above all, the commitment of its people.

[00:43:34] As massacres like this became the norm, Stalin's depression put his high command on edge, further hampering any efforts to shore up the front.

[00:43:44] When they spoke about the war to the dictator, the information just seemed to go in one ear and out the other.

[00:43:49] In the past no crum of information got passed Stalin without him knowing, but now he asked and re-asked his subordinates to repeat reports they'd just given him.

[00:43:59] He lent on his generals to make decisions which made them anxious.

[00:44:02] Not used to being given so much autonomy or were cautious not to overstep the mark, wherever that mark may be.

[00:44:10] After a day of absent-minded nodding, Stalin would return to his little workhouse near the Kremlin and doodle introspectively passing the many framed portraits of Lennon.

[00:44:21] Unable to sleep at night he would wander the halls and brush past the telephone, half expecting them to ring and announce more bad news.

[00:44:29] One night General Rumyantsev was working late and saw the door of his office creak open only from to see the sad looking dictator staring at him like a specter in the hallway.

[00:44:39] Rumyantsev quickly scrambled to his feet awaiting an order.

[00:44:42] That Stalin said nothing and quietly walked away.

[00:44:46] The next day he summoned the war cabinet to his house.

[00:44:49] As Minister Molotov walked there, he prepared himself for a difficult conversation.

[00:44:54] Molotov was the closest thing Stalin had to a number two.

[00:44:58] And everyone in the war council agreed it should be him to broach this potentially dangerous topic.

[00:45:04] Molotov and the other members of the high command had observed how hamstrung field officers were for making decisions.

[00:45:10] Almost every battlefield manoeuvre needed to be routed through Stalin, and the dictator being in such low spirits meant that their responses were delayed, costing thousands of lives each time.

[00:45:21] Molotov's plan was to create a new rapid decision-making authority.

[00:45:25] Stalin, of course, would be the head of it but even still, Stalin was notoriously twitchy with power sharing.

[00:45:33] Nunnate forgotten his purges the last decade.

[00:45:36] Letting themselves in, Molotov and the others found that dictator slumped over in a small dining room chair, wearing the same clothes as yesterday his gaze firmly fixed on the floor, the dictator barely stirred until they approached him.

[00:45:50] Slowly he looked up and asked, what have you come for?

[00:45:54] Was a strange question because he had summoned them and seemingly forgot.

[00:45:59] But even stranger was Molotov's proposal.

[00:46:02] Once the minister had explained its function and purpose, Stalin still looking at the floor just said, fine.

[00:46:09] That was it. The decision-making body would come to be known as the Stavka.

[00:46:14] That same week Stalin received further reports of the front lines around the Ukraine collapsing.

[00:46:20] The vehrmark was now closing in on Kiev, one of the most important cities in the USSR.

[00:46:26] When given the news, Stalin said nothing as usual.

[00:46:30] But as he and the other Stavka members exited the Kremlin out of nowhere, he burst out with quote,

[00:46:36] Lenin left us a great inheritance and we, his heirs, have fucked it all up.

[00:46:42] Molotov and the others were gobsmacked but said nothing.

[00:46:49] And that is where we pulled the cord for today.

[00:46:52] Stalin and the Red Army were at their lowest but the worst was yet to come.

[00:46:56] Join us on our next episode as Stalin pulls himself from his stupa and rallies the citizens of the USSR

[00:47:03] for what was almost Russia's last stand.

[00:47:06] If you've enjoyed this episode please take a moment to give us a five-star rating on whatever podcast platform you listen on.

[00:47:12] If you'd like to keep up with the show, please follow us on Instagram.

[00:47:15] Our count handle is at anthologyofheroes or one word.

[00:47:19] And if you'd like to get notified every time we release a new episode, sign up to our mailing list on anthologyofheroespodcast.com.

[00:47:27] A huge thank you to all of our patrons, particularly our Justinian tier members.

[00:47:32] Angus, Claudia, John, Seth, Shane and Tom.

[00:47:36] All the best and see you on the next one.

[00:47:58] This is Peter.

[00:47:59] And this is Tom.

[00:48:00] We want to tell you guys a little bit about our podcast.

[00:48:02] Tom and I met in college, became best friends and then teachers almost 20 years ago.

[00:48:07] Sometimes school just does not allow us to elaborate on the topics that we find interesting.

[00:48:12] Like they do.

[00:48:13] We're going to talk about the best and the best and the best way to get to know each other.

[00:48:17] We want to tell you guys a little bit about our podcast.

[00:48:19] Tom and I met in college, became best friends and then teachers almost 20 years ago.

[00:48:23] School just does not allow us to elaborate on the topics that we find interesting.

[00:48:27] Like the real shark attacks that inspired the movie jaws or the real historical context to Indiana Jones artifacts.

[00:48:32] Where does serial come from?

[00:48:34] Or Zombies Real?

[00:48:35] Does Ben Franklin really deserve to be on a hundred-dollar bill?

[00:48:38] On our podcast, just like in our class, there are no stupid questions.

[00:48:42] Just two brains have a light harder conversation about history, pop culture and the context of carnivants.

[00:48:47] Listen to history teachers talking podcasts from Evergreen Network anywhere you get your podcasts.