In 1933 the Nazi Party came to power and encountered a once powerful workers movement that was now deeply weakened and which hoped for compromise. Hitler was determined to destroy the trade unions which he believed were the source of Germany's downfall in 1918. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Review of Susan Paul Pattie's Armenian Legionnaires, published by IB Tauris. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, British fascist Oswald Mosley, free from internment, attempted to revive his political career. In the 1950s he used non white immigration to re-build a political platform but this met in the end with political failure. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution, there was a power vacuum in Petrograd that the Bolsheviks seemed to fill in name only. The new Bolshevik government had the loosest grasp on power but were able to effectively channel violence. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1945 there was every chance that America might retreat into isolationism once more. The US population sought to avoid overseas commitments, but the American foreign policy establishment recognised that in the new conditions of the Cold War, they were unavoidable Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The shortages of the command economy and the failings of Stalinism made speculation, theft and the black market an essential part of everyday life in the Soviet Union Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the 1930s progressed, the experience of life for prisoners in the camps became ever more regimented and focused on back breaking manual labour. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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, but ultimately failed to prevent the break up of the empire Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 prosperity was the basis of this unprecedented social change. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 depth by historians. This podcast begins to explore Hitler's approach to German capitalism and the Nazis incorporation of industry into their own racial world view. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 to stamp out independence movements in Lebanon and Syria meant that France's dreams of a new post war empire were fatally undermined. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 get paid fairly for their produce led to the food economy breaking down and the end of Tsarism. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 fascist aggression following Hitler's devastating successes in France in the summer of 1940.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 5,000 Jews from the Nazis and their Hungarian Arrow Cross accomplices.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 conflict since the American Civil War over a century earlier.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The dramatic increase in standards of living for British working class people from the mid 1950s onwards was accompanied by anxieties that an entire way of life and working class culture would be lost.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Comprised mainly of teenagers in the late 1930s, the Death's Head Division guarded the camps and brutalised prisoners, but many believed they had been recruited for more active military service in the name of the Fuhrer.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For a century Afghanistan had been a theatre for the 'great game' of espionage between the British and Russian empires, but on the eve of the Second World War the country was in an unenviable situation. Fearing Soviet aggression and occupation, the Afghans looked to British India for assurances of its security but found few concrete promises.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Hitler invaded the USSR in June 1941, the changing strategic picture presented Britain and America with opportunities and hazards. A deal with Stalin was in the minds of both Roosevelt and Churchill, but the American public was far more reticent and divided on the issue.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The mid term elections in 1946 were a disaster for the Democratic Party, which faced fraudulent accusations of communist sympathies from their Republican rivals. Both Democrats and Republicans learned that 'red baiting' was a useful tactic and could be weaponised against political enemies.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By the winter of 1941 the Japanese public, military planners and government were in broad agreement about the necessity of war against America, Britain, France and the Netherlands. However, the war was based on a number of strategic assumptions that would in time devastate the Japanese.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Second in the series of discussions on Italy's departure from the Paris Peace Conference.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When half a million supporters of the Spanish Republic fled from Franco's murderous nationalist armies in 1939 to France, they faced hostility and imprisonment, first at the hands of the French and later at the hands of the invading Germans.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A combination of free market economic liberalism and social conservatism, was Margaret Thatcher an 'inconsistent ideologue'?Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the hidden world of the Nazi camps, Himmler's desire for order presented the sadists who worked as camp guards with strict regulations on prisoner treatment. Himmler desired order above all things, ensuring that the brutal violence meted out to prisoners was centrally organised and directed.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Italy attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando had immense ambitions to acquire new territories. The disappointments Italy endured would speed fascism's path to power.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1955, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm examined the emotional realities behind the lives of Americans experiencing unprecedented material wealth. His findings formed his book the Sane Society. It concluded that despite the advances in prosperity, modern society actually was far from sane and generated much emotional suffering and neurosis.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the decade after 1945 American life was transformed by cheap housing, cheap fuel and the biggest increase in material well being in human history.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the Chinese people, the Second World War began in 1937, with Japan's ruthless invasion of the mainland and the destruction of cities such as Nanjing and Chongqing. This podcast explores the west's historical amnesia on the topic of Chinese wartime suffering and resistance. Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Despite impressive victories against the allied powers during the First World War, by 1918 the Ottoman Empire was exhausted by fighting and the advantage was shifting towards Britain in the Middle East. General Edmund Allenby skilfully encircled Ottoman armies in late 1918, seizing Damascus and Beirut.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 1930s Woodie Guthrie became the authentic voice of the dispossessed, drifting American diaspora in the drought afflicted heartlands of the USA. However, he was part of a long tradition of American folk and protest music.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the immediate aftermath of the German revolution, radical forces on the left and right were discontent with the development of a centre left Weimar Government. In January 1919, the army and freikorps violently suppressed the revolutionary movement of the Independent Social Democrats, also known as the Spartacists.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stalin's decision to ban private trade and to create state monopolies was carried out in haste with little planning during a period of immense economic upheaval. The results were chaotic and led to one of the most intense periods of economic hardship since the Russian Civil War.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Strange Fruit was the first popular song that reached a mainstream audience which addressed the question of violence against black people in America and it made Billie Holiday, its original singer, a star. The song lived far beyond her death in 1959 and shaped protest music America throughout the 20th Century.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Days after the November armistice was signed, the Red Army launched its bid for the Baltic States and only local anti communists, former German soldiers and German mercenaries stood in their way. The consequences for Latvia were horrendous, with warcrimes on both sides and civilians bearing the brunt of the violence.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whilst Leningrad's citizens starved, Soviet party bosses enjoyed food, warmth and comfort. Laying siege to the city, the demoralised and ever more brutal German Army started to see by the spring of 1942 the impossibility of Hitler's dreams in Russia.If you're able to support the Explaining History Podcast, you can fund it through Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Years of inconsistency in America's foreign and defence policy throughout the 1930s had left deep confusion at the highest levels of government about what kind of war might be fought against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and what kind of war machine was needed. It was only in early 1941 that these questions began to be answered and American mass production began in earnest.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Russia left the First World War in 1918, the generals and politicians of the Central Powers were convinced that victory was in sight. Germany's determination to end the war quickly resulted in the Ludendorff Spring Offensives that failed disastrously and within months the final cost of the war led to collapse not of Britain and France but of Germany and its allies.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rising living standards, new scientific innovation and a faith in progress were prevalent in America in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. However, social progress was segregated and enjoyed mainly by white Americans, creating the conditions of future conflict in the 1950s and 1960s.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When President of the Reichbank and Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht suggested slowing the pace of rearmament to Hitler in the mid 1930s, he was replaced by the ineffectual but loyal Herman Goering. A new policy to rearm Germany, the Four Year Plan was Hitler's subsequent attempt to finally address the seemingly intractable problems of Germany's war industries and economy.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The journey made by Vladimir Lenin in 1917 from Zurich to Petrograd was part of a German strategy to undermine its enemies from within. Previous attempts at subversion in the British Empire, specifically in Ireland had failed, and there was no way of knowing if Lenin would succeed. Creating chaos in Russia was as much as Germany could realistically hope for, but Russia's withdrawal from the war was the ultimate result.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the start of the Second World War, India had several overlapping defence concerns and Britain sought to place more cost and responsibility on the government of India. This podcast explores the strategic crisis facing India at the commencement of the war.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While the German Army prepared to seize Moscow, the longest siege of the war began at Leningrad on the Gulf of Finland. It would result in the deaths of over a million citizens and see the city completely cut off from Stalin's control for much of the war. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An interventionist state, the capture of global markets and the destruction of economic opponents (Germany and Japan) and the loss of Britain's economic world power saw America emerge as the wealthiest nation in world history from 1945 onwards. This prosperity would shape the hopes and ambitions of an entire generation.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a summer and autumn of devastating defeats at the hands of the Wehrmacht, the Red Army was finally able to inflict a major setback on Hitler's forces just nine miles from Moscow itself. A combination of the Russian winter, Germany's poor preparations and hardened Siberian divisions saw the first major German retreat of the war in December 1941.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Following the unilateral declaration of war by the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, in 1939 without consulting any of India's political parties, longstanding political divisions deepened. The Indian Congress Party and the Muslim League began to agitate for their visions of the future.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Lloyd George's political career ebbed away and he became increasingly marginalised in British politics, his sympathies for Germany and his positive view of Hitler led him to visit the Nazi dictator in September 1936.Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining History Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=763386 Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.