Agent ZigZag, Agent Garbo, Mutt and Jeff…who are these people? Are they or have they ever been Portuguese wine merchants? How is running a spy ring like a running a cricket club? All this and more in…

The Double Cross, LIVE!!!!! A special treat we recorded back in March at the Comedy Cafe Berlin! Bringing to an end our series marking the 80 year anniversary of the end of WWII.

We revisit John C Masterman, formerly playing football for the Ruhleben FC whilst a British POW in Berlin, he has a plan to exploit Germany’s lack of competency in the spy World. We've even got a little drinking game (that can also be played with snacks!) if you feel jealous hearing us gulp down our classy cocktails...play along!

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You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

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Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
 
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📚 Sources:

The Double Cross System, John C. Masterman

jamesbondlifestyle.com

This episode we dive into the ins and outs of Wernher von Braun’s wartime credentials, before the Americans would be faced with the decision of whether or not his file needed a paperclip to begin with. (It did!) Contrasting heavily from last episode’s Klaus Fuchs, we look at someone whose humanity always came second to his ambition as a scientist in Nazi Germany, and contextualise his role into the broader scope of the Nazi concentration camp system. Who were some of the more sinister characters he met along the way? What did the Summer of 1945 look like for him and his fellow engineers as the Third Reich crumbled around them?

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🎟️ You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

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You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

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Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
 
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📚 Sources:

Wernher von Braun, the SS, and Concentration Camp Labor: Questions of Moral, Political, and Criminal Responsibility. Michael J. Neufeld

The Nazi Smoke and Mirrors Escape That Launched America Into the Space Age. Amy Shira Teitel

Germans in Russia: Cold War, Technology Transfer, and National Identity By Asif A. Siddiqi 

Podcast: Paperclip: America's Nazi Scientists, Monique Laney, Michael Ian Black.

Excellent at mathematics, physics, and possibly even better at being an all round nice guy. Jonny tells us about the life of Klaus Fuchs and his roll in the melodrama of THE BOMB in 1945. Fleeing the Nazi regime, his relationship with Max Born, life as a German in WW2 Britain, his traumatic journey to Canada and his triumphant journey to the US and... spying!

Also we talk a bit about Werner von Braun as if we've already done an episode...Pip got a little turned around on the release dates...von Braun is coming up next, you didn't miss one! 

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 💸 Donations keep us running.

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🎟️ You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

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You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

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Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
 
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📚 Sources:

Atomic Spy: The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs, Nancy Thorndike Greenspan

Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings were two of the biggest stars in both Weimar Germany and Hollywood in the early 20th century…they’re not that bothered about each other, but they would star together in The Blue Angel, filmed precisely as Wall Street crashed, catapulting them off into wildly different directions, personally, professionally and politically. 

This episode began as an attempt to check in with these two people in 1945, and whilst we do that, they're too interesting to confine to that one time! 

We kick off with Jannings, because you have to eat your slightly rotten cabbage before you get to a delicious cream-topped strudel like Marlene…we don’t make the rules. Who had better legs? Who literally tried hiding behind their Oscar? How many tangents can we get into one episode?! Find out and please enjoy this romp through movie history, the 20th century, and don't worry, some WAR!

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🎟️ You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

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You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

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Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
 
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📚 Sources:

Jannings: The Portrait of an Actor. Liam Ó Laoghaire

Berlin Year Zero: The Making of "The Blue Angel"
John Baxter

MINISTRY OF ILLUSION: German Film 1933-1945
Eric Rentschler

For Posterity’s Sake: Emil Jannings’ Autobiographical (Self-)Denazification
By Wesley Kirkpatrick

Hadley Meares, Hollywood Reporter: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/which-best-actor-winner-allegedly-once-shouted-dont-shoot-i-have-won-an-oscar-4146311/

You Must Remember This Podcast, Karina Longworth: https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/youmustrememberthispodcastblog/2015/2/10/star-wars-episode-vi-marlene-dietrich-at-war-ymrt-32

Marlene Dietrich, A Personal Biography, Charlotte Chandler 

The Potsdam Conference... The Pozi Confs for those in the know, as you are soon to be. It’s like summer camp for if you’ve been a good boy and defeated Nazi Germany in Europe. You all get together and decide what the hell do we do now? Stalin and Molotov are there, having a BLAST. The newly elected Labour Party of the UK forgot their swimming trunks and no-one knows who this Truman guy is.

Seriously though…who’s in charge? Who’s not in charge? Who’s dead? Who’s been voted out? Who’s playing good cop bad cop with Joe Stalin? Who’s got stomach ulcers and what’s wrong with German milk?!

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🎟️ You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

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You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

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Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
 
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📚 Sources:

Potsdam, Michael Neiberg

Cecilienhof Palace Museum

World War II is over in Europe. But technically, like how? Who's involved? What's in Karlshorst? What will Marshall Zhukov be drinking and who IS Julie Busted? Inquiring minds want to know. 

Join us as we start to find a bit more brevity & levity in this series of War and despair. And reflect on the madness of a few people making decisions for huge numbers of us in medium sized rooms. 

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🎟️ You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

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You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

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Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
 
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📚 Sources:

The Karlshorst Museum & Supporting Materials

++++Content warning for violence and sexual violence, not one for youngsters or those of a senitive nature to these topics ++++

The Curse of the Dodgy Microphone! We've been trying to find ways to record remotely, and Pip had a bit of trouble this time, but you'll pull through, we believe in you!

In this episode Jonny leads Pip through some of the key moments of the Battle of Berlin, from the Red Army entering the city on April 21 to the surrender of the Berlin garrison on May 2. We look at the human cost of the battle and give an insight into what it was like to live through it.

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🎟️ You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

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You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

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Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
 
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📚 Sources:

Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Antony Beevor

Bloody Streets, Aaron S. Hamilton

A Woman in Berlin, Anonymous

80 years ago the Battle of Seelow Heights was the final hurdle for Stalin’s Red Army before reaching Hitler’s fascist capital, Berlin. Before the Battle of Berlin could begin, Soviet troops needed to cross the Oder river, break through several lines of German defences, and capture all the small towns and villages on the approach to Berlin.

In this episode, Jonny tells Pip all about the four-day fight that opened the gates to Berlin in April 1945.

Listen out for:

• Zhukov’s mistakes and Stalin’s anger
• The blinding Moscow searchlights
• German kamikaze pilots and tanks protected by spring mattresses
• Huge numbers of soldiers, chaos in command, minefields, and artillery

Look out for the next episode on the Battle of Berlin!

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 💸 Donations keep us running.

Click below to support the show.
 
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🎟️ You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

++++++

You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

++++++

Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
 
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📚 Sources:

Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Antony Beevor

Bloody Streets, Aaron S. Hamilton

We continue our discussion about Ravensbrück concentration camp and to reflect on the 80 year anniversary of its liberation with Pablo aka Berlin con Pablo, who's been guiding Spanish language vistiors to Berlin for many years!

We each bring a story of an individual woman's survival of Ravensbrück: Neus Català, Yevgenia Lasarevna Klemm, and Odette Sansom.

This was a tough one to record because of the sheer horror of the content and apologies everyone, it's not our best audio quality. But we hope you get something from these incredible and at moments truly devestating stories of endurance, survival and bravery.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of concentration camp, torture, death.

Sources:

Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women, Sarah Helm

KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann

Ashes in the Sky by Carme Martí

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You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

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Donations keep us running. If you like the show and want to support it, you can use the following links:

Donate €50 •• Donate €20 •• Donate €10 •• Donate €5

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You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

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Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/

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Spring 2025 marks the 80th Anniversary of the end of World War II. 

We're kicking off this season, focused on WWII, by discussing Ravensbrück concentration camp, the only camp purpose built for women under the Nazi regime. 

In this first of two parts, we take a look at whom this camp was built for, who ran it day to day, and how it changed dramatically over the course of it's life. We also discuss the concentration camp system more generally, contextualising it along side our knowledge as guides of the former concentration camp Sachsenhausen.

(ALSO, apologies Pip mixed up Sylvia Salvesen, who was from Norway not Sweden!)

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of concentration camp, torture, death.

Sources:

Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women, Sarah Helm

KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann

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You can get in touch and book Jonny or Pip for a tour of Berlin via www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com.

Don't forget to subscribe for more Berlin history every two weeks!

++++++

Donations keep us running. If you like the show and want to support it, you can use the following links:

Donate €50 •• Donate €20 •• Donate €10 •• Donate €5

++++++

You can find Jonny online on YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok!

++++++

Mixed and Produced by Alex Griffiths
https://www.instagram.com/alexgriffiths_music/
https://alexgriffiths.bandcamp.com/

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