The Danger Zone (DZ)

In this Danger Zone programme I’m going to tell you about the Spanish fashion designer who met 6 enormous thugs sent to his Paris studios by Adolf Hitler. Hitler wanted Berlin to become the fashion capital of the world. He wanted this designer to relocate there from Paris. Balenciaga sent them packing saying to

But there were also dark shades suggesting collaboration with the Nazis.

Who was he? Well I’ll tell you in a minute. But since he was a Spanish designer working in Paris I should play something suitable. And about perfect is the Torreadors song from Carmen. A song about bullfighting in Spain written by a French composer – that ticks all of the boxes.

Tag words: Adolf Hitler; Cristóbal Balenciaga; Nazis; Basque; Getaria; Marquesa de Casa Torres; Queen Victoria Eugenie; Queen Mother Maria Christina; Spanish Civil War; Wladzio Jaworowski d’Attainville; La Maison Blaenciaga; Eisa Costura; Florette Chelot; Mary Blume; Velásquez; Third Reich; Gloria Guinness; Mussolini; Lucien Lelong; Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture Parisienne; Franco; Ingebirgitt Hannah Hoess; Brigitte Hoess; Rudolf Hoess; Auschwitz; Bill Clinton; Al Gore;

He was like Dick Whittington. In 1835 a young boy of 14 set off walking to Paris looking for a job and to learn a trade. Today his company, Louis Vuitton, is a $42 billion dollar a year brand in a conglomerate with Moët and Hennessey. But what of its past that it doesn’t want to talk about. A past during the dark days when France was occupied by the Nazis. Follow me back to the time when Adolf Hitler ruled Europe and it didn’t look like that was going to change.

I can tell you that you were very unlikely to have heard Edith Piaf singing one particular song after May 1940 that she sang once only after the Nazis had occupied Paris. The songs lyrics tell of happiert times for the French – a time when they were confident of beating the Boche again. Some of the lyrics go “I can’t stand Hitler, the Nazis seem to forget that we were the people who slammed them in the first world war”. Edith Piaf had recorded that song after World War 2 had started but before the shock of the collapse of France just 8 months later. Probably by accident one day after Paris was occupied by the Germans, French radio presenter, Pierre Hiegel, accidentally played the “B” side of one of Edith Piaf’s records and THAT song went out on the air. It seems that nothing happened to him. He was a lucky man.

Tag words: Dick Whittington; Louis Vuitton; Moët and Hennessey; Nazis; Adolf Hitler; Boche; Edith Piaf; Pierre Hiegel; Clemence Emilie Parriaux; Monsieur Maréchal; Empress Eugénie de Montijo; Napoleon III; Tuileries Palace; Château de Saint-Cloud; LV; Maréchal Phillippe Pétain; Battle of Verdun; Third Republic; Gestapo; Vichy; Julius Caesar; Unsinkable Molly Brown; Château d’Yquem; Veuve Clicquot; Marc Jacobs; Guerlain; Pierre-François Guerlain; Chalimar; TAG Heuer; Edouard Heuer; Techniques d’Avant Garde; Bvlgari; Sotirios Voulgaris; la dolce vita; Fendi; Sephora;

Audrey Hepburn. Princess Diana. Kate Moss. What famous woman style icon isn’t known for her little black dress. For Hepburn, it was her Hubert de Givenchy in 1961, for Princess Diana it was Christina Stambolia in 1994, also known as “The Revenge Dress,” and Kate Moss is always wearing a show-stopping LBDs. So, where’s its power come from?

The LBD possesses what so many women want to achieve with their style: effortless elegance. If effortless elegance seems like a paradox, it’s because it is, and, like many evergreen fashion trends, it relies on tension. The Paste website says that the LBD doesn’t give the woman who wears it anything to hide behind—the dress insists that its wearer shine. Coco Chanel said that “Scheherazade is easy. A Little Black Dress is difficult”. Chanel, of course, is credited for having originated the LBD. But in 1940, when the Germans occupied much of France, including Paris, Coco Chanel did something that you might find surprising.

Tag words: Audrey Hepburn; Princess Diana; Kate Moss; Hubert de Givenchy; Christina Stambolia; The Revenge Dress; Coco Chanel; Little Black Dress; LBD; Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel; Cistercian convent orphanage; Etienne Balsan; Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich; Ernest Beaux; Chanel No 5; Igor Stravinsky; Wertheimers; Théophile Bader; Galeries Lafayette; Pierre Wertheimer; Société des Parfums Chanel; Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor; La Pausa; Pablo Picasso; Serge Diaghilev; Winston Churchill; Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage; Joseph Goebbels; The Ritz; Ritz Hotel; Herman Goring; André Palasse; Baron Louis de Vaufreland; Nazi Germany; Brian Wallace; General Walter von Schellenberg; Heinrich Himmler; Félix Amiot; Karl Lagerfeld; Marcel Haedrich; Marie-Claire; Little Coco; 'Ko Ko Ri Ko;

It’s 1939 in Germany and the future is looking bright – although there’s just a possibility of war. But in the 6 years since their new and charismatic leader, Adolf Hitler, was elected things have just have been getting better and better (though not so much if you’re a Jew though). Unemployment had been at 30% when Hitler came to power. By 1938 there wasn’t any.

German self esteem and pride has reached an all time high. Hitler has taken back the Ruhr. Austria had been enthusiastically absorbed into the new empire that is going to last for a thousand years. The Germans in the Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia, after a tense confrontation with England and France, have become part of the new empire. Hitler has even gone on to take over the rest of Czechoslovakia. It wouldn’t be long now before he gets Danzig back and even maybe the bits of Prussia that Germany had been forced to give to Poland at the end of World War I.

So when you turn your radio on at the end of a long day (working hours in Germany had stretched out to 60 hours a week by now – but there’s a lot to do) you might have heard this popular song (everyone had radios - Hitler wanted to be able to reach his fellow Germans whenever needed for his important messages).

The Nazis especially put a premium on smart uniforms.

Tag words: Adolf Hitler; Hugo Boss; Nazis; Heinrich Boss; Luise Boss; Nazi Party; German Labour Front; Reich Air Protection; Brownshirts; SS; Waffen SS; Josefa Gisterek; Auschwitz; Buchenwald; Eugen Holly; Chris Hemsworth; GQ Awards; Russell Brand;

Two men. Both lived at the same time. Both did the same thing on the same night, at the same place. Everything they did was the same. One man changed the history of the world. The other man was hardly even noticed, just for the record, his name was William Dawes. That will mean nothing to you – and that is the whole point of this programme. What was it that they did differently from each other that produced such a startlingly different outcome. You need to know, because what they did, and how they went about doing it can totally change your life. The world we live in today is still a radically different world because of the other guy.

Tag words: William Dawes; Paul Revere; HMS Boyne; John Hancock; Samuel Adams; Lexington; General Thomas Gage; Thomas Hutchison; Lord Dartmouth; Dr Joseph Warren; American Revolution; Tipping Point; Malcolm Gladwell; A Connector; Roger Horchow; Masonic Lodge; Boston Tea Party; a Maven;

On 12 November 2020 Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, announced that a 4½ year enquiry had revealed allegations of war crimes said to have been committed by some members of the Australian Defence Forces serving in Afghanistan. Scott Morrison “warned the nation to prepare for allegations of “serious and possibly criminal conduct” by Australia’s defence force in Afghanistan that could see soldiers prosecuted for unlawful killings.

General Angus Campbell, Chief of the Defence Force, soon after this news release said that he would write to the Governor-General asking him to revoke the Meritorious Unit Citation for special forces soldiers who served in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013. On 23 November he issued a further press release showing that many members of the SAS Regiment had been issued “show cause” notices about why they shouldn’t be sacked” – remarkably before any decision had been made on whether a crime had been committed.

It was back in March 2016, when General Angus Campbell was the Chief of the Army, caused Major-General Paul Brereton (a sitting judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court – never a combat soldier as far as I am aware – judges never have to have actually done the thing that is being heard by them) to be appointed to head up an enquiry into allegations of war crimes against some Australian Special Air Services soldiers.

The allegations are that there were 39 murders of prisoners and civilians and the cruel treatment of two others by members of the Australian Special Air Services regiment during tours of duty in Afghanistan in the periods between 2005 to 2016.

Although the top brass in the Army have been quick to “tut tut” this alleged behaviour by the men they command, they need to look to the standard set by the victorious Allies at the end of World War 2 regarding the responsibility of commanding officers for the conduct of the men they command. The Standard that they can’t walk past was the one set in the trial of General Yamashita, the Japanese commander of  the 14th Army in the Philippines in 1944 when large scale killings of civilians, especially in Manilla took place. The standard is disarmingly simple and I have to say I wonder why some of the commanders of our forces in Afghanistan at the relevant times are smugly taking pot shots at the men they were commanding and not contemplating the gravity of their own positions.

Tag words: Australian SAS; Australian Defence Personnel; war crimes; Scott Morrison; Taliban; Afghanistan; General Angus Campbell; Chief of the Defence Force; SAS Regiment; Major-General Paul Brereton; judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court; Australian Special Air Services; General Yamashita; Joint Task Force 633; Distinguished Service Cross; Lieutenant-General David Morrison; Tiger of Malaysia; Shobu Group; Shimbu Group; Colonel Harry E Clark Snr; International Criminal Court; S.L.A. Marshall; Men Against Fire; SAS Captain Mark Wales; Sergeant Matthew Locke; Mark Mathieson; Albert Einstein; Return to Australia Psychological Screening; The Age; the Sydney Morning Herald; Kerry Stokes; Seven West Media; Victoria Cross; Medal for Gallantry; Australian War Memorial; Janet Albrechtsen; Ben Roberts-Smith;

A story has broken concerning allegations of Australian Defence Personnel having been involved in war crimes. In the present age it seems that more often than not that an allegation is treated as if it was the sames as a conviction, only without a trial.

While that’s acceptable, and normal, in socialist regimes like Communist China and North Korea, the former Soviet Union, it has never been the way things are done in this country.

 A person’s reputation is a precious thing. It is easily lost. The reputation of one of Australia’s most important institutions, the Australian Defence Forces is also easily lost when hasty and ill-informed allegations are made as if they’re the findings of a court of law.

 It’s to Australia’s credit that it raises the issues of these allegations publicly. In 1940 the socialist regime of the Soviet Union butchered 22,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Woods in Poland and spent the next years, after the massacre was uncovered by the Germans in 1943, trying to shift the blame onto the Germans. All of the bodies were riddled with bullets from Russian weapons and overwhelming evidence, no longer disputed, showed that this was a Communist slaughter.

So let’s look at the allegations that have now been made against the Australian Defence Forces with a cool head, applying the principle of the Anglo-Saxon legal process that a person is innocent of a crime until proven guilty in a court of law.

Tag words: Australian SAS; Australian Defence Personnel; war crimes; Communist China; North Korea; Soviet Union; Katyn Woods; Andrei Vyshinksy; UN Human Rights Committee; Governor-General David Hurley; Defence Chief Angus Campbell; Meritorious Unit Citation; ABC; Australian Broadcasting Commission; War and Peace; Leo Tolstoy; Pierre Bezukhov; Clive James; World War 2; Corporal Patrick Hennessey; panzerfaust; ADF Lance Corporal Andrew Gordon; Darwash; Hekmatullah; Improvised Explosive Devices; IED; Fury; Brad Pitt; General William Tecumseh Sherman; Andrew Hastie; Peter Smith; Quadrant magazine; Taliban; Afghanistan;

This Danger Zone programme’s about how a Russian double agent, Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, fled the Soviet Union using only a plastic Safeways shopping bag and a Mars Bar.

And how an American spy got that old South American feeling – I Yi Yi Yi – and married his dream Latino woman, of very expensive tastes and needs, so he became a Russian spy to give her the lifestyle that she needed and that he couldn’t afford on his CIA salary - and because of him at least 10 men died.

Tag words: World War III; Ronald Reagan; KGB; MI6; CIA; Cold War; NATO; Oleg Gordievsky; Margaret Thatcher; Ben MacIntrye; The Spy and the Traitor; Safeways; Mars bar; PIMLICO; Aldrich Ames; Rosario Casas Dupuy; TICKLE; Nieman Marcus department store; Chuvakhin; Joe and Mos’s restaurant; K Directorate; Viktor Chebrikov; Vladimir Kryuchkov; Colonel Viktor Budanov; Aeroflot; Arthur Gee; Kit Kat; Charles Powell; Caroline Ascot;

In 1982/1983 the world stood at one minute before midnight. Russia was ready to launch an all-out first nuclear strike against the West – because, wrongly, they knew that America was about to launch a surprise nuclear attack on them. How the hell was the world going to avoid this! The key player to avoid this apocalypse was a Russian double-agent - Colonel Oleg Gordievsky.

Tag words: World War III; Stanley Kubrick; Vera Lynn; Dr Strangelove; Ronald Reagan; National Association of Evangelicals; Soviet Union; Warsaw Pact; Pershing II; Strategic Defence Initiative; Star Wars: KGB; MI6; CIA; Cold War; NATO; Oleg Gordievsky; Marxism-Leninism; Korean Airlines Flight 007; Kamchatka Peninsula; ABLE ARCHER 83; Operation Ryan; SS-20 inter-mediate ballistic nuclear weapons; Inter Continental Ballistic silos; Cuban missile crisis; The Day After; Pentagon; Margaret Thatcher; Bud McFarlane; John Keegan; Intelligence in War; Ben MacIntrye; Yuri Andropov; Konstantin Chernenko; Karl Marx; Das Kapital; Great Patriotic War; Adolf Hitler; Safeways; Mars bar;

This programme’s about the man who has undoubtedly been the greatest spy in the history of the world. Every one of you listening right now owes your life to him. If it wasn’t for him World War III would definitely have happened. No “”ifs” or “buts” – the Third World War would definitely have happened and civilisation would have ended.

A lot of people know about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. That was nothing. The only reason that the world was saved in 1983 was thanks to this Russian spy. In this program I’m going to tell you what he did – and what difference it made.

Tag words: World War III; Third World War; Cuban missile crisis; Russian spy; Yuri Andropov; Leonid Brezhnev; Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; Soviet Union; non-Aggression Pact; Joseph Stalin; Adolf Hitler; Nazi Soviet Pact; World War 2; Nazi Germany; MAD; Mutually Assured Destruction; KGB; D-Day; Imre Nagy; Margaret Thatcher; President Reagan; Afghanistan; Vietnam; East Germany; Berlin Wall; Cuba; Great Patriotic War; Operation Ryan; first nuclear strike; President Bush; Prime Minister Tony Blair; Saddam Hussein; Colonel Oleg Gordievsky; NKVD; Prague Spring; MI6; Archbishop of Canterbury; Red Cross; The Spy and the Traitor; Ben MacIntrye;