Surviving the Mad Propagandist of Nazi Berlin (Part 1)

Summary

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HISTORY This Week

Episode: Surviving the Mad Propagandist of Nazi Berlin (Part 1)

Date: May 4, 2026
Host: Ben Dickstein
Guest: Ian Baruma, historian and author

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode explores the transformation of Berlin under Hitler's chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, during World War II. Through a blend of vivid storytelling, historical context, and expert commentary, the episode shows how Nazi propaganda permeated daily life, shaped public perception, and ultimately failed to shield Berliners from wartime devastation and the collapse of the regime. Special focus is given to the infamous "Soviet Paradise" exhibition, acts of resistance within Berlin, and the shifting mood of the city as it endured war, bombings, and eventual defeat.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Goebbels Turns Berlin into a Propaganda Capital

• Goebbels’ Role: Both Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda and Berlin’s Gauleiter (governor), Goebbels saturated the city with Nazi ideology via posters, films, radio, and exhibitions ([00:00]-[02:00]).
• The "Soviet Paradise" Exhibition:
  • Opened May 9, 1942 in the Lustgarten, the exhibition depicted a grotesque vision of the Soviet Union, using real village artifacts and fabricated scenes to dehumanize Soviets and Jews ([01:30]).
  • Photographs meant to show "Soviet cruelty" were actually of Jewish prisoners held by the Nazis ([02:15]).
  • Over 1.3 million visitors in just six weeks—a testament to Nazi control, but also the reach of propaganda amid simmering public discontent.
• Resistance Within Berlin: Underground groups left counter-propaganda stickers: “The Nazi Paradise: War. Hunger. Lies. Gestapo. How much longer?” ([03:15]).

2. Berlin Before and After Nazi Ascendance

• Cultural Cosmopolitanism vs. Nazi Ideals:
  • Berlin compared to New York or London, long viewed by conservatives and Nazis as decadent and materialistic ([05:01]-[05:30], Ian Baruma).
  • Nazis always harbored a dislike for the city’s openness ([05:43], Ian Baruma).
• Impact of Economic Crisis: The post-WWI downturn and the Great Depression left Berlin (and Germany) desperate and vulnerable to Hitler's message ([05:46]-[06:15]).

3. The Reichstag Fire and Nazi Power Grab

• Reichstag Fire (1933):
  • Used by Hitler as a pretext for emergency powers, the fire’s true origins remain debated ([06:19], Ian Baruma).
  • Shifted Germany toward a totalitarian state and central repression ([06:48], Ian Baruma: "That was the spur...to take total control.").

4. Manufacturing War Through Propaganda

• False Flag Operations:
  • Nazis staged attacks dressed as Polish soldiers as pretext to invade Poland (Operation codenamed “Grandmother”) ([07:57], Ian Baruma).
  • Holocaust victims’ bodies displayed as alleged evidence ([08:06]).
  • Led directly to the start of WWII ([08:20]).
• Public Reaction to War: Despite massive propaganda effort, Berliners met Hitler’s 1939 war declaration with indifference and fear—raucous crowds did not fill the opera house ([08:39], [08:58], Ian Baruma).

5. The Totalitarian War Machine at Home

• Suppression of Dissent & Reinforcement of Nazi Ideology:
  • Early mass arrests (especially of Polish Jews), confiscation of property, forced deportations ([10:24]-[10:45]).
  • Anti-semitic and anti-Polish propaganda broadcast daily, fostering a siege mentality ([10:13], Ian Baruma).
• Control Over Everyday Life:
  • Dance and jazz banned as degenerate; public celebrations and “Christmas sentimentality” discouraged ([12:03]-[12:33]).
  • Nazi ideology partially supplanted Christianity: "[They] wanted to substitute traditional organized religion with a belief in the Nazi Ideology and in Hitler as a kind of sacred figure" ([12:39], Ian Baruma).
• Entertainment as Diversion: Goebbels balanced repression with organized entertainment to distract Berliners and maintain social order ([13:29], [13:38], Ian Baruma).

6. Berliners’ Changing Response to the War

• Initial Apathy, Later Euphoria:
  • Hitler’s parade after conquering France incited mass jubilation, as Germans hoped for a quick end to the war ([14:55]-[15:17]).
  • “That was probably the feeling a lot of those people—a feeling that quickly dissipated” ([15:45], Ian Baruma).

7. Escalating Warfare & Propaganda Crisis

• Allied Bombings and Stalled Nazi Advance:
  • After the Luftwaffe’s failure in Britain, Berliners face Allied bombings; “victory” messaging gives way to calls for “perseverance, endurance, and sacrifice” ([16:17]-[21:05]).
• Scapegoating Intensifies:
  • Jews forced to wear yellow stars, then face mass deportations in 1941–42 ([20:26]-[21:19]).
  • Scapegoating extends to shortages and everyday problems ([20:26], Ben Dickstein: “that they're the reason that Berlin has run out of strawberries”).

8. Artistic Collaboration and Moral Dilemmas under the Nazis

• Wilhelm Furtwängler's Performance (April 1942):
  • The Nazi-broadcast concert by non-Nazi conductor Furtwängler becomes staged propaganda. “He shook Goebbels' hand when it was offered and quickly...turned his back. But after the war, people felt that was really not quite good enough.” ([22:13], Ian Baruma).

9. Crisis, Resistance & Repression (1942–43)

• Baum Group Bombing of "Soviet Paradise":
  • Jewish resistance cell led by Herbert Baum sets off explosives in the exhibition ([23:09]).
  • Nazi retaliation is brutal: over 500 Jews are rounded up, Baum and others executed ([24:04], Ian Baruma: "The immediate effect is very often more bloodshed.").
• Propaganda Pivots to Desperation:
  • Goebbels' 1943 “total war” speech heralds a new era of extreme mobilization ([25:54], Ian Baruma).
  • "Do you want total war?" is met with mass hysteria at Sportpalast ([26:03]).

10. The Collapse of Berlin

• Life Under the Bombs:
  • Schools closed, teenagers on anti-aircraft duty, women conscripted; civilians adapt as best they can ([26:33]-[27:10], Ian Baruma: “people are people...they always hope things will get better”).
• Devastation in 1944–1945:
  • 25% of the city center destroyed; basic utilities intermittent; rumors and desperation spread ([30:10], [30:27]).
  • Goebbels' increasingly hollow propaganda—banners in bomb craters, suppression of “defeatism” through surveillance and arrests ([30:58]-[31:19]).

11. The End: Death, Ruin, and Aftermath

• Final Descent:
  • Hitler cloisters in his bunker; the civilian population suffers in overcrowded, unsanitary shelters ([31:19]-[32:24]).
  • Humanitarian disaster – 12,000 people crammed into a shelter for 3,000; mass deaths, brutal conditions ([32:08], “A doctor hands her the baby and said, ‘look, this is a hospital, not a cemetery.’”—Ian Baruma).
• The Soviet Assault:
  • Berlin falls after brutal street fighting; chain dogs (military police) lynch any male not fighting ([32:32]-[32:58], Ian Baruma).
  • April 30, 1945: Hitler’s suicide; May 1: Goebbels and his family follow suit—barely noticed by desperate survivors ([34:02], Ian Baruma).
• Aftermath & Memory:
  • Vast destruction—one-third of homes gone; city reduced to rubble ([34:18]-[34:42], Ian Baruma: “Berlin was pretty much...gone.”)
  • Rubble turned into memorial hills; public space marked with reminders of Nazi crimes ([34:53]-[35:27]).

12. Reflections: Civilian Suffering and Historical Memory

• Bombing and Civilian Spirit:
  • Baruma notes bombing rarely breaks civilian resolve or turns them against their leaders, but fosters desperate solidarity ([35:58]-[36:36]).
  • “…there is a kind of collective bloody mindedness that you get when you’re exposed to that kind of violence. Makes people stick together...that’s what happened in Berlin.” (Ian Baruma, [36:36]).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Nazi Control:
  • “The first thing that a totalitarian government does is destroy the idea of truth. The truth is what the regime says it is.” – Ian Baruma ([09:34])
• On Resistance:
  • “It’s always good to show that a totalitarian power is never total and that there are people who are prepared to stand up to.” – Ian Baruma ([24:20])
  • But resistance comes at a cost. “…the immediate effect is very often more bloodshed.” – Ian Baruma ([24:20])
• On Bombing and Civilian Resolve:
  • “The idea is that if you bomb civilian populations sufficiently, they will be so demoralized that they’ll turn against their leaders. Well, it never happened.” – Ian Baruma ([35:58])
• On Memory:
  • “They haven’t done anything to hide the darkest history...So a lot of effort has been made to remind people of the horrors of the past.” – Ian Baruma ([34:53])

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Notable Timestamps

• [01:30] — "Soviet Paradise" exhibition details and Goebbels’ warped displays.
• [06:19] — The Reichstag fire and Nazi seizure of power.
• [07:57] — False flag operation against Poland.
• [10:13] — Amplification of antisemitic campaigns in Berlin.
• [13:38] — Goebbels harnesses entertainment as a tool of control.
• [14:55] — Hitler’s triumphal parade and Berlin’s short-lived euphoria.
• [22:06] — Furtwängler concert and Goebbels' propaganda optics.
• [24:04] — Baum group’s sabotage and Nazi reprisals.
• [26:03] — Goebbels’ “total war” speech at the Sportpalast.
• [32:08] — Harrowing scene in an underground shelter during the final siege.
• [34:53] — Modern Berlin’s memorialization of its Nazi past.
• [36:36] — Baruma on collective resilience under bombardment.

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Tone & Style

Narration is straightforward and clear, weaving analytical observations into evocative, often starkly detailed descriptions. With Baruma’s expertise providing a reflective, at times somber perspective, the language is engaging yet unflinching about the horrors and complexities of life in wartime Berlin.

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Next Episode Teaser

The story continues in Part 2, focusing on Berlin’s fate in the tumultuous post-war years.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[Ben Dickstein]

Brought to you by Apple Card earn 2% Daily Cash back on everything you buy when you use your Apple Card with Apple. Pay subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and [e-mail] this podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. With the Wise account, you can send, spend and receive in over 40 currencies with no markups and no hidden fees. Whether you're sending pesos across the pond, spending reals and rentals, or getting paid in dollars for your side gig, you'll get the mid market exchange rate on every transaction. Plus most transfers arrive in less than 20 seconds. Join 15 million customers internationally. Be Smart, Get Wise Download the wise app today. T's and C's apply the History Channel original podcast history this week May 9, 1942 Ben I'm Ben Dickstein. Berlin is Joseph Goebbels personal playground. Goebbels is Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, the man in charge of strengthening Nazi ideology throughout the Third Reich. But Goebbels has another the Gauleiter, the Governor of Berlin. So Joseph Goebbels is chief propagandist and leader of the capital city. He looms large here. His works are everywhere posters, movies, radio broadcasts, German classrooms, all reinforcing. His German blood must remain pure and the other races must be eliminated. And to do this, the Nazi empire must vanquish its enemies the British, the Soviets, the Jews. Today, May 9, Goebbels unveils the newest creation from his propaganda laboratory. He brings it to the Lustgarten, a sprawling urban park in the center of Berlin. It's a city unto itself, a city of tents propped up across the park in a sprawling exhibition which Goebbels calls the Soviet Paradise. The space is illuminated with blood red light bulbs. Room after room shows how the Soviets live and behave, according to Goebbels. Inside of one tent, Goebbels has an entire block from a real Soviet village ripped up and brought to Berlin. He uses it to drive home his point the Soviets live like animals. The buildings are intentionally put in a state of disrepair, and he installs mannequins of Russian children dressed in rags. The exhibit write ups claim these children had no names, didn't know their ages, and survive only by stealing. In another room, Goebbels has built a mock Soviet torture chamber. There's another mannequin lying face down on the tile. The exhibit claims he was a German shot by the Soviet secret police and lining the walls throughout this whole thing, anti Semitic propaganda. It was the Jews after all, Goebbels makes sure to say, that are pulling the levers in the Soviet Union. All of this pain and suffering in Russia is their fault. Just look at these photographs of Soviet labor camps. Just look how the Jews are starving. These German prisoners, they look half dead. Look with your own eyes. Except in reality, these aren't photos of German prisoners in Russia. They're of Jewish prisoners held by the Germans at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, a 45 minute drive away. When Goebbels wants to show how Russia tortures its prisoners, he uses his own. And for Joseph Goebbels, the Soviet paradise is a success. 1.3 million people come to see it across six weeks. He advertises the show with posters all over the city. They show a starving child, a bombed out home. But if you look closely in the corner of some of these Soviet paradise posters, you might see a sticker placed by an underground group, a group resisting the Nazis. It reads, the Nazi Paradise War. Hunger, lies, Gestapo. How much longer? Today, living in the Nazi capital under a master of propaganda, how do Berlin's people experience World War II? And when the tide starts to turn, how does this great imperial city collapse?

[Ian Baruma]

Well, Berlin was a little bit like New York or London or any big metropolitan city.

[Ben Dickstein]

This is Ian Baruma, author and professor of human rights and journalism at Bard College. He explains that Berlin, like those other cities, receives some anti cosmopolitan bias.

[Ian Baruma]

There's always been a prejudice against the big city as the sort of den of iniquity and vice and decadence with mixed populations and materialism and so on.

[Ben Dickstein]

While the US had the Roaring twenties, Berlin had what was called the golden twenties. Theater, dance, cabarets, it's anything they hate. Hitler and the Nazis aren't exactly fans.

[Ian Baruma]

So the Nazis never liked Berlin.

[Ben Dickstein]

In the late 1920s, Berlin experiences a sharp economic decline. It's one of the main reasons Hitler is able to rise to power, a city and a country in dire financial straits. But at the beginning of the Nazi party's ascendance, Berlin still has its culture. It's kind of in a strange spot, a cosmopolitan city that's also becoming this seat of fascist power. And it's in Berlin in 1933 that Hitler makes his first big move. The Reichstag fire.

[Ian Baruma]

The Reichstag was set on fire by supposedly by a young Dutch communist.

[Ben Dickstein]

That's the story that Hitler tells, that a communist burned down the Reichstag, the German parliament building. Was it really this person? Could one person have even done this alone we don't know. Hitler could have orchestrated the fire himself. But either way, now Hitler explains this is an emergency situation and he needs emergency powers.

[Ian Baruma]

That was the spur or the excuse that the Nazis needed to take total control.

[Ben Dickstein]

The rise of Hitler and the Nazis continues throughout the 1930s. All the things you associate with this regime, antisemitic laws, concentration camps, annexing countries, Kristallnacht, are all orchestrated from his seat of power in Berlin. By the middle of 1939, Hitler has his eyes on Poland. He has his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, riling up the people at home, inundating them with anti Polish content that they're inferior vermin. At the same time, Hitler amasses a million and a half German soldiers on the Polish border. Now he just needs an excuse to let them loose. What follows is a secret military operation, code name grandmother, died on August 31, 1939. German agents dressed as Polish soldiers attack German targets right near the border. A radio station, a customs post,

[Ian Baruma]

and there were bodies found in German uniforms. And the bodies actually belonged to concentration camp victims that were put there.

[Ben Dickstein]

So you have Germans dressed as Polish soldiers and the bodies belong to victims of the Holocaust. Today, at a minimum, we'd call this a false flag operation. For Hitler, it goes exactly as planned.

[Ian Baruma]

Poland has attacked Germany and we will now retaliate. And it was an entirely false flag operation. And that was the beginning of World War II.

[Ben Dickstein]

The next day, he declares war on Poland. And that night in Berlin, Hitler makes a speech.

[Ian Baruma]

Since a lot of damage had been done to the Reichstag that was no longer used, and so they had to use the opera house.

[Ben Dickstein]

The Berlin police put up barricades. Hitler's expecting a huge crowd, but the opera house has plenty of empty seats. Despite Goebbels advanced propaganda, Berliners don't show up en masse.

[Ian Baruma]

There was very little enthusiasm. People still had memories of World War I, which were very painful, and most Germans were not at all keen on another war.

[Ben Dickstein]

Nevertheless, Hitler delivers a screaming, sweaty speech. This night, for the first time, Polish soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5:45am we have been returning the fire. And from now on, bombs will be met by bombs. Bomb.

[Ian Baruma]

The first thing that a totalitarian government does is destroy the idea of truth. The truth is what the regime says it is. So staging the reasons for an attack. To go to war with a country was entirely in character. So you could get a mob out into the streets to say, you know, we have to take our revenge on these terrible and wicked immoral Poles who are out for German blood.

[Ben Dickstein]

Over the next two weeks, Goebbels ramps up the rhetoric. Loudspeakers across the city broadcast the evils that these Polish people and the Jews, don't forget, have committed against the German people.

[Ian Baruma]

A lot of the anti Semitic propaganda that, you know, the Jews are out to destroy us and destroy our culture, undermine our morals. They want to take over the world.

[Ben Dickstein]

On September 13, less than two weeks after Hitler's speech, Nazi police arrest hundreds of Polish people in Berlin, mostly Jews.

[Ian Baruma]

The first victims were these Polish Jews, some of whom were born as Polish Jews but had lived in Germany for many years. Their children may not even have spoken Polish, but they were targeted.

[Ben Dickstein]

They're brought to a train station to be sent to a concentration camp. An angry mob awaits them. And when they arrive at the camp, another mob awaits.

[Ian Baruma]

And we're met by these local people who wanted to lynch them, basically.

[Ben Dickstein]

The prisoners are pelted with stones, nails, pieces of wood. When they arrive at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the guards spit on their Torah scrolls, yank them by their beards and force them to run in ill fitting shoes until their feet bleed. In the eyes of Goebbels, it's a success.

[Ian Baruma]

The great danger of extremist politics, especially when they go to war, is that they're very good at turning conflict into an existential conflict. It's either them or us.

[Ben Dickstein]

Goebbels, a failed playwright who walked with a limp, was one of Hitler's earliest supporters. After meeting him back in the 20s, Goebbels wrote in his diary, he is a genius, the natural creative instrument of a fate determined by God. I am deeply moved. And now, a decade and a half later, Goebbels is tasked with making the German people just as fanatical.

[Ian Baruma]

He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew how he was manipulating public opinion.

[Ben Dickstein]

Goebbels, remember, is not just Minister of Propaganda, but also Gauleiter of Berlin, the city's governor. In September, he bans public dancing. He wants to eliminate any entertainment he deems impure, in this case, jazz. That Christmas in 1939, Goebbels discourages what he calls Christmas sentimentality. On the radio, Goebbels, often in his

[Ian Baruma]

diaries, goes on about how he wants to do away with all this Christmas nonsense. And, you know, people have to toughen up.

[Ben Dickstein]

There's a broader ideological issue at play here, too. The Nazis do not like Christianity.

[Ian Baruma]

In some ways it was a pagan movement and that they wanted to substitute traditional organized religion with a belief in the Nazi Ideology and in Hitler as a kind of sacred figure.

[Ben Dickstein]

You can hear all about that in the episode we did on the Nazis and their mysticism. We'll put that in the show notes,

[Ian Baruma]

you know, Silent Night, the famous Christmas carol, was changed to a Nazi version of Silent Night where Hitler is the one who people have to pray to.

[Ben Dickstein]

However, in Berlin, people adapt, at least the right people, the regular German, as

[Ian Baruma]

long as they were not Jewish. Of course, life was still continuing fairly normally. You could still go to the theater, the movie houses. Life was okay.

[Ben Dickstein]

In fact, if anything, in this period, Goebbels wants Berliners to be out and about. He's organizing concerts, producing movies and plays with Nazi messaging.

[Ian Baruma]

He was very keen that people should be entertained. That made it easier for people to look away when you could see things that were very much not okay, like people being dragged from their homes to concentration camps.

[Ben Dickstein]

It's now July 6, 1940. At 3 in the afternoon, Hitler's armored train pulls into Berlin. The crowds, hundreds of thousands of Germans, have been building for hours over the last few days. Goebbels has been priming them for this moment. The Nazis have just conquered France. They've seen the photographs of Hitler in Paris at the Opera House, posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. And just days later, when the man emerges on the train platform in Berlin, the people erupt. Goebbels has meticulously planned every step of this show. So called Hitler maidens cover the streets in flower petals, allowing the Fuhrer's Mercedes limousine to silently glide down the parade route. Goebbels writes in his diary, the jubilation of a people united in joy is indescribable. And remember, many Germans, especially in Berlin originally, weren't that enthusiastic about the war.

[Ian Baruma]

Well, it seems like a contradiction that people were very muted and worried when the war began, but there they are, hundreds of thousands cheering Hitler after the fall of France.

[Ben Dickstein]

Now, almost a year in, that attitude has changed. Yes, Goebbels propaganda has played its part, but that post World War I anxiety is actually fueling this celebration.

[Ian Baruma]

People really did not like war and they were constantly hoping that it would speedily end. And when France fell so quickly, the feeling was, now this victory will mean that the war is going to end.

[Ben Dickstein]

The French have surrendered. So has Belgium. The Netherlands, Norway and Denmark made sense that Great Britain would be the next to fall. The end of the war and victory for Germany seem like they're on the horizon.

[Ian Baruma]

The French are knocked out. The British don't have the power to do anything. Much, and they probably won't. The war is over and Hitler is a hero because he achieved total victory. That was probably the feeling a lot of those people, a feeling that quickly dissipated. Foreign.

[Ben Dickstein]

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[Ian Baruma]

The war was very much presented as a civilizational war. There are echoes today in a lot of extremist politics that somehow, you know, we have to fight for our civilization

[Ben Dickstein]

and the Jews were threatening that civilization, according to Goebbels, he spins a story that soldiers who return to Berlin on leave can't stand the sight of Jews in their city, that the Jews are hoarding food, that they're the reason that Berlin has run out of strawberries. And finally, In September of 1941, Goebbels helps convince Hitler to force all Jews above the age of six in Berlin and across Germany to wear yellow stars. And in Berlin, the reaction among non Jews is mixed. Some throw rocks at them. Others just look away. The next month, the deportations begin. Goebbels promises Hitler that he'll liquidate Berlin of its Jews by the end of the year. It's now April of 1942, April 19th, to be exact. The night before Hitler's birthday, Goebbels has arranged an elaborate performance in the city, the Berlin Philharmonic, led by one of the world's most famous conductors, Wilhelm Furtwangler,

[Ian Baruma]

the great conductor who, not a Nazi, he was never a member of the Nazi party. But unlike some who felt that they could not stay in Germany in good conscience and continue to play music or write books, he felt he had to stay in Germany, that his art was rooted in the German soil, he couldn't perform elsewhere.

[Ben Dickstein]

But again, he's not a Nazi.

[Ian Baruma]

He had probably had little choice but to conduct, but that doesn't mean he liked it. But having decided to stay, well, that's the price he paid.

[Ben Dickstein]

After the finale, Goebbels rushes the stage and makes sure everyone sees him shaking the conductor's hand.

[Ian Baruma]

He shook Goebbels hand when it was offered and quickly sort of turned his back. But after the war, people felt that was really not quite good enough.

[Ben Dickstein]

Rightly or wrongly, Goebbels makes sure this gets captured on film. The non Nazi conductor shaking the hand of the Minister of Nazi Propaganda and turns that film into propaganda. And the next month that Soviet paradise exhibition opens at the Lustgarten in Berlin. Goebbels is thrilled as 1.3 million people walk through taking in these tableaus of Judeo Bolshevik evil, the Soviet secret police

[Ian Baruma]

torturing people to death and people who are so poor that they were living in holes in the ground. And it was basically a horror show presented to the German public as an example of why it was the duty of Nazi Germany to go to war against these savages.

[Ben Dickstein]

But this propaganda doesn't go unanswered. As we mentioned earlier, an anti fascist organization known as the Rotekappel put stickers on Soviet paradise posters across the city. The Nazi Paradise War. Hunger, lies, Gestapo. How much longer? But another organization takes it even further. A resistance circle called the Baum Group. Led by Jewish communist activist Herbert Baum. They sneak explosives into the exhibit and set them off. 11 people are injured and they do damage some of the exhibits. But the attack doesn't have its intended impact.

[Ian Baruma]

The sad thing about so many acts of resistance is that they have very little immediate effect. They do very little to bring a regime down. What they do do is that they lead to terrible repercussions.

[Ben Dickstein]

The Nazis are humiliated by the Baum group's sabotage. They indiscriminately round up 500 Jewish men and women. Berlin. The actual members of the Baum group are sentenced to death and executed at a concentration camp. Herbert Baum himself is tortured to death.

[Ian Baruma]

It's always good to show that a totalitarian power is never total and that there are people who are prepared to stand up to. But the immediate effect is very often more bloodshed.

[Ben Dickstein]

As 1942 rolls into 1943, Germany's fortunes in World War II start to tilt. Erwin Rommel's Nazi tank corps is driven out of North Africa. And at Stalingrad, the Germans suffer up to half a million casualties. The Soviets capture another 91,000.

[Ian Baruma]

By the time the Soviets defeated the German armies at Stalingrad, it was known that things were no longer going very well. Hundreds of thousands of Germans had already died in the war, so you couldn't keep that secret.

[Ben Dickstein]

For Joseph Goebbels, this is a PR nightmare. He compensates by accelerating his scapegoating of Germany's Jewish population. By February of 1943, Goebbels starts deporting the last of Berlin's Jews. He's behind his original schedule, but he still makes it happen. Goebbels is also forced to reimagine the Nazis propaganda. The idea of victory is replaced with concepts like perseverance, endurance and sacrifice. This culminates on February 18, 1943, just after Germany's surrender at Stalingrad. Goebbels assembles a crowd of 14,000 loyalists at Berlin's Sportpalest, an indoor arena. Goebbels himself delivers the keynote speech, what Ian Boruma characterizes as the peak of Berlin's mass hysteria.

[Ian Baruma]

Germany was already in a fairly desperate situation, and that's when all pretense to normality were abandoned.

[Ben Dickstein]

Goebbels calls for the elimination of Judaism. He asks the crowd if they're willing to sacrifice everything for their Fuhrer. And in the most infamous moment, he asks, Do you want total war?

[Ian Baruma]

When Goebbels called for total war, that's what he meant. That everything had to be sacrificed for what was presented as German's inevitable final victory.

[Ben Dickstein]

For all this talk of total war in the Nazi capital, Hitler barely steps foot in Berlin in 1943. He may have sensed public sentiment turning against him, but for the people of Berlin, this idea of total war brings significant changes. Goebbels shuts down schools so that teenagers can man anti aircraft guns. Women as old as 45 are conscripted into factory work. Many children are sent to the countryside. And yet somehow, Ian Boruma says Berliners, the ones that remain, adapt. Many of those who are left in the city make the best of their circumstances.

[Ian Baruma]

I mean, people are people and they always hope things will end. They hope things will get better. And you could pretend things were okay until the city was being bombed to smithereens.

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[Ian Baruma]

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[Ian Baruma]

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[Ben Dickstein]

Get the money side of the story. Subscribe [e-mail]. It's April 20, 1944, Hitler's birthday. It's been two years since Joseph Goebbels put on that concert, making the conductor Fertwanger shake his hand on stage. Berlin looks very different now. The Allies have been bombing the city for a long time, and the pace has picked up since the end of 1943. A quarter of the city center has been turned into a wasteland. The Sport palace, where Goebbels delivered his total war speech destroyed. Power, water, telephone service, all go in and out. Even the Berlin Zoo is bombed, and rumors are spreading that escaped crocodiles are roaming the city's sewers.

[Ian Baruma]

Nobody could hide the fact that the city was half destroyed and that things were not going well.

[Ben Dickstein]

And yet today, Goebbels tries salvaging Hitler's birthday. He puts up banners that read the Fuhrer orders We follow. Our walls broke, but our hearts didn't. In one part of the city, Hitler's portrait is placed in a bomb crater meant to serve as inspiration.

[Ian Baruma]

Swastika flag stuck on the top of ruins and that kind of thing. So it was all very half hearted.

[Ben Dickstein]

By that stage, a German journalist writes Berlin looks like an old whore in bad makeup trying to look. As the Allies make progress, Goebbels puts even more restrictive measures in place, even affecting his precious live theater.

[Ian Baruma]

There was no more room for frivolous entertainment and even actors had to be mobilized.

[Ben Dickstein]

Goebbels also ramps up his war on speech in the city, on what he called defeatism. The slightest talk that Germany might lose the war.

[Ian Baruma]

So there was a task force to sort of go into cafes and restaurants and public places and listen to what people were saying. And if people sounded defeatist, they could be arrested and even killed.

[Ben Dickstein]

In January 1945, Hitler arrives back in Berlin and descends into his underground bunker. He lives there for the rest of his life. And the bombs keep falling. Ian Baruma writes about a civilian shelter built under the Anhalter train station. It's designed to hold 3,3000 people, but up to 12,000 hide inside, many of them mothers and their children.

[Ian Baruma]

A young teenage woman was looking for a mother and her baby who I think had been neighbors and got lost in the, in the Malay of people trying to find shelter. And she finally tracked her down in this sort of makeshift hospital underground in a bomb shelter.

[Ben Dickstein]

It's a horror show. Doctors operate underground in unsanitized conditions without anesthetics. There's blood everywhere. And when this young woman finally finds the mother and her baby, they had both already died. A doctor hands her the baby and

[Ian Baruma]

said, look, this is a hospital, not a cemetery.

[Ben Dickstein]

Above ground, chain dogs roam the streets. These are packs of German military police looking for anyone avoiding military service. Boys as young as 14, men as old as 70.

[Ian Baruma]

Anybody who could be accused, any male who was not actively fighting would be strung up on lampposts.

[Ben Dickstein]

The Soviets move into the city on April 21. They take the fighting to the streets, block to block, hand to hand combat against the last stragglers of Hitler's army. 125,000 Berliners die in this final battle. Walking around the city In April of 1945, you see bodies, victims of the chain dogs suspended in the streets. You'd smell fire, sewage. You'd see buildings split in half, broken glass everywhere. When the bombs are falling and Berliners move into their shelters, you'd think the city was abandoned.

[Ian Baruma]

A scene of complete devastation of corpses and dead horses and bomb craters and so on. There's no question of that.

[Ben Dickstein]

On April 30th, Hitler commits suicide, killing himself and his wife, Eva Braun. The next day, Joseph Goebbels poisons his six children with cyanide and he and his wife Take their lives shortly after. In Berlin, their deaths barely register.

[Ian Baruma]

I think at that stage, things were so dire for most people, sheltering in bunkers with hardly any food, sick and terrified. The fact that Hitler had committed suicide or Goebbels and his family died, I doubt if people thought about it very much at all.

[Ben Dickstein]

By the end of the war, it's estimated that 1/3 of the homes and streets in Berlin have been destroyed between deaths and evacuations. Just over half of the city's 4 million people remain in the city.

[Ian Baruma]

The Japanese cities were ruined to the same extent, but yeah, Berlin was pretty much, pretty much gone.

[Ben Dickstein]

There's so much rubble, as much as 75 million cubic meters, that it's too much to move. Much of it gets turned into artificial hills which remain in the city today.

[Ian Baruma]

They haven't done anything to hide the darkest history. The former Gestapo headquarters. It's a museum. There are signs in the center of Berlin with all the names of the Nazi concentration camps and death camps. There are constant exhibitions about the subject. There are brass markers in front of houses where Jews were deported with the names of the families who were taken away. So a lot of effort has been made to remind people of the horrors of the past.

[Ben Dickstein]

Berlin is the seat of Hitler's fascist regime. It's the site of horrible atrocities and many Berliners participate in that. But there are also regular citizens victimized by Hitler's ambitions. They may have not supported him or his actions, yet it's their homes that get destroyed. And according to Ian Boruma, this fact is what he takes away from the story. Countries often bomb civilian populations in war. It's unfortunately a common tactic even now.

[Ian Baruma]

The idea is that if you bomb civilian populations sufficiently, they will be so demoralized that they'll turn against their leaders. Well, it never happened. And it didn't happen in Vietnam, it didn't happen in Japan, it didn't happen in Iraq. It doesn't work that way.

[Ben Dickstein]

First of all, people don't like being bombed. So it's not hard to imagine that they don't exactly welcome the country that's bombing them. It might not make them like their own leaders either, but what it does do, Baruma says, is bring everyday citizens together a resilient, maybe even desperate strain of civic pride.

[Ian Baruma]

It seems to happen everywhere where this tactic or this strategy has been attempted. There is a kind of collective bloody mindedness that you get when you're exposed to that kind of violence. Makes people stick together and adapt and show how resilient they are. And that's what happened in Berlin.

[Ben Dickstein]

Stay tuned for Part two of this story next week when we take a look at what happens to Berlin in the years following this devastating war. History this Week is a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel. To stay updated on all things History this week, Sign [e-mail] and follow us on Instagram History this Week podcast. If you have any thoughts or questions, any at all, send us an [e-mail] Special thanks to our guest, Ian Baruma, professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College and author of stay Berlin, 1939-1945. You can find his book and all the books we've used putting the season Together on our website, historythisweekpodcast.com this episode was a solo effort, produced and sound designed by me, Ben Dickstein. I'm also the Executive producer for Back Pocket Studios, and our executive producers from the History Channel are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler. Don't forget to follow, rate and review History this week, wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll see you next week.

[Ian Baruma]

Foreign.

[Ben Dickstein]

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