Podcast Episodes

Prisoner's experiences in pre war Nazi camps 1933-39

As the 1930s progressed, the experience of life for prisoners in the camps became ever more regimented and focused on back breaking manual labour.

Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Cen…

Published on 7 years, 2 months ago

Austria Hungary's Wartime Secret State 1914-18

Long accustomed to dealing with the challenge of national movements within the Austro Hungarian Empire, the various police and intelligence forces merged to combat sedition during the First World War…

Published on 7 years, 3 months ago

The baby boom and post war America 1945-64

In America and much of the developed world, two decades of dramatically increased birth rates caused profound demographic, social and economic change. Newfound economic security and post war prosperi…

Published on 7 years, 3 months ago

The British Counter-culture in the 1960s

By 1968 counter cultural movements existed across the world. This podcast explores the British context and the art house and avant garde scene that surrounded it.

Explaining History helps you underst…

Published on 7 years, 3 months ago

The Nazi Party and German Monopoly Capitalism

The extent to which Hitler coopted and controlled Germany's industrialists has been a topic of fierce debate. The complicity of Krupp and IG Farben with the Nazis crimes has also been examined in dep…

Published on 7 years, 3 months ago

French national pride and empire: 1944

The devastating humiliation of defeat and occupation during the Second World War meant that for the new Gaullist Fourth Republic, regaining world status through empire was vital. However, the failure…

Published on 7 years, 3 months ago

Hunger and the Russian Revolution - 1917

The overwhelming pressures that the First World War placed on Russia resulted in chaos to the empire's food economy. Russia had plentiful food supplies but railway chaos, and peasants who could not g…

Published on 7 years, 4 months ago

Saving the Jews of Budapest

When the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944 and began mass deportations to Auschwitz, two unlikely saviours, a diplomat from Franco's Spain and a businessman from Mussolini's Italy, worked to save over 5…

Published on 7 years, 4 months ago

Gandhi, Nehru and wartime crisis - 1940

When the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India's behalf unilaterally there was considerable anger. This was replaced by concern and growing support for fighting a war against fasci…

Published on 7 years, 4 months ago

Nixon, returning POWs and the legacy of Vietnam

At the start of his second term in office Nixon saw an opportunity in the return of American POWs in Vietnam to present a positive and patriotic narrative at the end of America's most divisive confli…

Published on 7 years, 4 months ago