Episode 641: Heinrich Himmler Part V - Einsatzgruppen Day

Summary

Last Podcast on the Left

Episode 641: Heinrich Himmler Part V – Einsatzgruppen Day

Release Date: October 31, 2025
Hosts: Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski, Ed Larson

Overview

In this harrowing fifth installment of the Heinrich Himmler series, the LPOTL crew dives into the creation, operation, and consequences of the Einsatzgruppen—Nazi Germany’s infamous mobile killing squads. With their signature blend of dark humor and historical rigor, Marcus, Henry, and Ed examine how Himmler’s SS brought industrialized mass murder to Eastern Europe, the chilling evolution of Nazi methods and propaganda, and the way societies—and individuals—can become complicit in unimaginable horror. The episode is both a meticulously researched account of genocide's logistics and a meditation on complicity, trauma, and collective responsibility.

While the hosts’ banter occasionally lightens the heavy subject matter, this episode is notably somber and filled with disturbing, graphic content. Listeners are reminded throughout of the importance of remembering—and learning from—these grim chapters of history.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Tone: Gifts and Gallows Humor

• [02:32]–[04:41] The episode opens with the hosts playfully celebrating “Einsatzgruppen Day” for Marcus, who’s long awaited covering this topic. They exchange gifts (a “I poop on fascists” pigeon pin, a garden pickaxe, gardening shovel, and humorous trinkets) as coping mechanisms for the heavy material ahead.
  • Henry Zebrowski: “Today is going to be a difficult episode… a lot of horror.”
  • Ed Larson: “Whenever it gets too hard today… grab the pickaxe.”

2. The Expansion of Nazi Power & Preludes to Mass Murder

• [06:25] Marcus Parks: Recaps the annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia, and how Nazi appetite for “Lebensraum” (living space) and economic plunder set the foundation for the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.
• Nazi occupation required SS control; Himmler delegated to Reinhard Heydrich, who created the “Action Groups” (Einsatzgruppen).
• Humorous aside: The name “Action Group” sounds ironically juvenile and harmless.

3. Escalation in Anti-Jewish Policies and Financing War

• [09:53]–[14:24] “Pogroms” become systematic, especially after the Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass” – [14:53]), a major state-sanctioned outburst of violence against Jews.
  • Marcus: “A pogrom is a concentrated attack on a Jewish population made by a group of people. It happened so often they needed a word for it.” ([12:51])
  • Nazi strategy: alternate brutality and moral “pauses” to wear down public resistance.

4. Kristallnacht’s Atrocities & the Nazi Justification

• [14:53]–[18:42] The murder of a German diplomat by a Jewish teenager is used as pretext for Kristallnacht—murder, arson, arrest, and torture on a national scale.
  • Dachau concentration camp’s cruel “Dance Jew” game is described in graphic detail.
  • Quotes about the “routine” normalization of violence and the complicity of ordinary people.

5. Invasion of Poland and the SS/Wehrmacht Divide

• [20:15]–[34:01]
  • Invasion in 1939 is engineered via false-flag attacks (“Operation Himmler”) and mass murder of civilians, especially the intelligentsia.
  • Hitler’s speeches position the war as a “world war against international Jewry.”
  • Tens of thousands killed by both Wehrmacht and SS, distinctions blur.

6. Life Under Occupation: Lebensraum, Collaboration, and Methamphetamine

• Nazis forcibly displace millions, many to certain death from exposure or starvation ([31:03]).
• Dictatorial micromanagement: Himmler builds his own “second army” via the SS.
• Methamphetamine: Nazi armies fueled by meth, contributing to relentless but unsustainable military advances ([26:41]-[28:41]).

7. Birth and Mandate of the Einsatzgruppen

• [39:13]–[41:07]
  • Einsatzgruppen resurrected as full-time extermination squads to “secure the rear” but with real purpose: “straight up murder.”
  • They role-play “civilization,” keeping violence methodical and impersonal, with post-execution schnapps and appetizers ([67:21]).

8. From Pogroms to the Final Solution

• [48:13] The chilling line, “When I hear the word culture, that’s when I reach for my revolver,” cited as a distillation of Nazi thinking.
• Nazi genocide is modeled on earlier Western colonial atrocities, including the American genocide of Indigenous peoples ([54:25]).
  • Marcus: “The Nazis saw no difference between what they were doing in Eastern Europe and what the United States had done to the Native Americans.”

9. Mechanization of Mass Murder

• The “industrialization” of genocide:
  • Experiments with explosives, vans rigged for gassing ([63:06]).
  • Problem-solving: less traumatizing, more “efficient” methods.
  • Marcus: “The industrialization of mass murder was born on the Eastern Front and midwifed by a chemist named Albert Widman.”
  • The pit horror: mass burials, quicklime, and burying people alive; moving ground, chemical burns, and ongoing mass trauma ([99:18]).

10. Trauma, Turnover, and Organizational Psychopathy

• Even hardened Nazis break down; many Einsatzgruppen members die by suicide ([107:59]).
• Repeated use of blackmail and forced assignments; high turnover due to trauma or “punishment” ([66:10]–[82:50]).
• Himmler’s obsessive micromanagement: rules for food, personal behavior, punishments, and rewards.
  • Henry: “It’s almost like Himmler was the only real Nazi… Centered in his lane… can’t trust these guys.”

11. Babi Yar—The Pinnacle of Horror

• [85:28]–[92:03] The massacre at the Babi Yar ravine: nearly 34,000 Jews executed in just two days, victims forced to strip, shot en masse, and rapidly buried.
  • Nazis orchestrate the process to be mechanical and impersonal.
  • Subsequent use of the ravine to dispose of up to 150,000 corpses over years.

12. Collaboration, Civilians, and the Aftermath

• Local collaboration with Nazi killers is widespread (esp. in the Baltics, e.g., Kaunas, Lithuania).
• Nazis cynically attempt “reasonableness” (e.g., the Madagascar Plan) but double down on murder.
• Hedwig Pothast: Himmler’s mistress and confidante, living a life of luxury while atrocities occur; rumors of household items made from human remains, but likely legends ([95:00]-[97:12]).

13. Reflection on Legacy and Guilt

• The episode closes with the hosts (especially Marcus) emphasizing the “lessons we’re supposed to know” from this series—how bureaucratized hatred, normalized atrocity, and organized efficiency can yield unimaginable evil.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On escalation and "routine" horror:

  • Marcus Parks: “Eventually it almost became routine, like, ah, jeez, here’s another pogrom. Close the fucking window… just wait for it to pass.” ([11:35])

• On the term “pogrom”:

  • Marcus: “It’s a word that shouldn’t exist… a genocide is made up of pogroms.” ([13:09])

• On Nazi propaganda and complicity:

  • Marcus: “Nazis had a keen eye for just how much the public could take… Once people moved on from the plight of the Jews, the Nazis would restart the whole process.” ([11:35])

• On the mechanics of mass murder:

  • Henry: “You can dehumanize them as much as you want. Until they’re right in front of you.” ([61:16])
  • Marcus: “Because a traumatized soldier was useless, Himmler tasked Nazi scientists with… ways to traumatize the least amount of Nazis.” ([61:25])

• On Nazi self-justification:

  • Marcus: “A more common response from Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg… it was the only thing we could do.” ([44:21])

• On American genocide as precedent:

  • Marcus: “The Nazis saw absolutely no difference between what they were doing in Eastern Europe and what the US had done to Native Americans… They openly used the genocide that birthed America as a model for their conquest.” ([54:25])

• Babi Yar description:

  • “The Nazis and their collaborators did so happily, laughing as if—in the words of one author—they were merely watching a circus act… The operation was set up to be mechanical, soulless, and constant.” ([88:00])

---

Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:32] — Introduction, mood setting, and gifts for “Einsatzgruppen Day”
• [06:25] — Recap: Nazi expansion, Lebensraum, and SS/Einsatzgruppen evolution
• [14:53] — Kristallnacht: Turning point to state-sponsored, open violence
• [25:21] — Operation Himmler: False flag attacks spark WWII
• [31:03] — Invasion of Poland, mass deportations, death by starvation/exposure
• [39:13] — Re-founding of Einsatzgruppen as extermination squads
• [48:13] — “When I hear the word culture, that’s when I reach for my revolver.” (Origin of the famous line)
• [54:25] — Discussion: America as genocide model
• [63:06] — Nazis invent the gas van (mobile gas chamber)
• [85:28] — Description of Babi Yar massacre
• [107:59] — Aftermath: trauma, burnout, and the end of Einsatzgruppen relevance
• [110:11] — Japan enters the war against the US; shifting global tides
• [111:02] — Closing: Consequences, lessons, and the imperative to remember

---

Episode Tone & Style

• The hosts balance grim, distressing history with gallows humor, tangents, and self-aware asides (e.g., gift-giving to Marcus, music recs, playful jabs).
• At several points they underline the emotional difficulty of the topic, emphasizing the need to learn and reflect.
• Repeated references to how easily societies slip into complicity, as well as to the American context and its own dark legacy.

---

Concluding Thoughts

• Henry Zebrowski: “It never has and it never will [work]. Because it comes back…now we’re dealing with the sins of the past.” ([58:34])
• Marcus Parks: “Every October 23rd…Einsatzgruppen Day: it’s replacing the power of hate with the power of friendship.” ([111:05])

The episode ends with the hope that understanding these atrocities, and the banality of evil, arms us to resist their repetition.

---

Content Note:
This episode includes graphic descriptions of genocide, murder, torture, and discussions of complicity. The hosts' humor serves as a means of managing the heaviness but does not undercut the gravity or reality of the events described.

Transcript

[Marcus Parks]

Taking care of your money is taking care of your mental health. That's why I use Experian, my big financial friend. With the Experian app, I can check my FICO score, explore savings tools, and get matched with credit card offers. Some cards are labeled no Ding decline, which means if I'm not approved, they won't hurt my credit scores. That's confidence I can count on. Download the Experian app today. It's free. Applying for no Ding Decline cards won't hurt your credit scores. If you aren't initially approved, initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which.

[Dr. Sarah Rahal]

May impact your credit scores.

[Marcus Parks]

Experian Avoiding your unfinished home projects because.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You'Re not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin or what that clunking.

[Ed Larson]

Sound from your dryer is.

[Henry Zebrowski]

With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one.

[Marcus Parks]

You can hire top rated pros, see.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Price estimates and read reviews all on the app. Download.

[Marcus Parks]

Today on October 31st, Focus Features invites you to experience Begonia, the most delightfully deranged thrill ride of the year. When a high powered CEO was kidnapped, it's not for ransom, it's not for revenge. It's for the fate of the planet. Two conspiracy theorists stop at nothing to prove she's an alien bent on Earth's destruction, who's insane, who's lying, and who's really in control. From director, your ghost, Lanthimos, the director of Poor Things and the favorite and starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. Begonia. Rated R under 17. Not admitted without parrot. Now playing in theaters everywhere. There's no place to escape to. This is the last on the left.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's when the cannibalism started.

[Marcus Parks]

What was that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

So today's episode. You don't want me to play every member of the ein socks, right? Because I had a couple of guys locked and loaded.

[Marcus Parks]

You did?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

There was the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There was the. The. The guy that went like over there.

[Ed Larson]

There's more over there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And then there was the guy that.

[Ed Larson]

The Mexican one.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. That would have been great.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You have a Borat one?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, well, he was different. He's the. The funny victim. He's the funny guy. Yeah, yeah. And then you got the mumble mouth guys. You know that guy?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, that guy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That guy. But I'm not doing that.

[Marcus Parks]

You're not?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I thought not. Not.

[Ed Larson]

See?

[Marcus Parks]

Welcome to the last podcast on the Left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the oddly reserved Henry Zabrowski.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Historically accurate Henry Zabrowski. Today is a. Gonna be a difficult episode. Right? There's a lot of stuff. This is a lot of horror in today's episode.

[Marcus Parks]

This is by far. This is the worst episode of the Heinrich Himmler series.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But I want to say there is a silver lining to all of the horrible things that you're about to hear.

[Ed Larson]

Let's hear it. What is the silver lining, Henry?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And we also have Ed Larson.

[Ed Larson]

How you doing? Yeah, I've been watching this movies. What do you. What's the silver lining?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Is that this is a big day for Marcus.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And he's been wanting to tell this story for a long time, since the beginning of last podcast.

[Marcus Parks]

On the left it is. You know, as a little boy growing up in Texas like you, you hope this day's going to come, but you just never know. Like, you don't know until it's actually here, until it actually happens. And it's. It's. It's here, it's here.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So today we want to say Happy Einstein's Groupen day to Marcus Parks. And we just want to. First of all, let's give him some gifts. Right up top.

[Ed Larson]

We brought gifts for you, but whenever it gets too hard today, because I know how much this has been on you.

[Marcus Parks]

No, no, this has been an extraordinarily difficult week. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

So here's the first one I got. It's very cute. It's a pin of a pigeon and it says, I poop on fascists.

[Marcus Parks]

See, it's wonderful. And especially because Heinrich Himmler famously had the pigeon's chest. Thank you. That's very sweet.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Eddie and I bought you this pickaxe.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. It's for your garden. When it gets too rough, you got to break up the rocks.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Actually, this is extraordinarily useful. Not. Not in handheld. Not. Not like one that I can use as well. I have a pickaxe that I use with both hands, but not one with one hand.

[Ed Larson]

Cuz you get excited and that you pull it back too fast right in the eyeball.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, no, I know.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Okay, good. So we'll set the tone. We're going to set it positive right up top.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And if you get too stressful, you just grab the piss pickaxe and piss axe. Huh? Pickaxe. And you just hold it and you feel good about yourself.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, I might just hold on to it. It's really Nice, you know, for the camera. You know, I like to fiddle with things.

[Ed Larson]

Well, I might made a mistake. You see what do you see what you got? What you got coming later, man. You got some. It's very exciting day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, we'll see.

[Ed Larson]

I was doing a little research myself this week. I watched a film, unfinished, Very funny. And.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And then it's kind of crazy when they do that whole like break dance rap battle.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. It seemed unnecessary for the propaganda, but ahead of its time. And then, and then I also watched Triumph of the Will, which is a Hitler's movie, which he is a producer.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah, I know. It's why he has a higher IMDb rating than me.

[Ed Larson]

Have you seen it?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Triumph of the Will? Yeah, no, I mostly I watched it. There was like a jerk off booth he used to go to is. I've only seen it in sections.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

You gotta, you know, you didn't have enough quarters to finish it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

So I, I've been watching it and I rented it from the. The rental store.

[Marcus Parks]

Wow.

[Ed Larson]

And I was, as soon as I rent it, I was like, oh, that's.

[Henry Zebrowski]

On my file, huh?

[Marcus Parks]

Yep. Just. Just wait for the. You may likes that are coming in your future.

[Ed Larson]

But yeah, no, it's really. If you haven't seen Trying for the Will, let me save you some time. It's like 80% waving.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It's just them waving at each other. The first half hour is just Heils.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And you know Hitler, very feminine Heil.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that's the thing. He does the backwards Heil because he's receiving.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, to be. He's the bottom. Yeah, he is to be receiving. It's.

[Ed Larson]

He really does it. He's very flippant with his heels.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I would expect him to be stricter to shoulder.

[Marcus Parks]

He's flipping with it because he had to do so many of them.

[Ed Larson]

Every.

[Marcus Parks]

Imagine every single person you come across all day long you have to do it again like 100,000 miles. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

This is a lot of people there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Absolutely. But that's the Malcolm Gladwell expertise that he had at it.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, I, you know, I can't wait for my next viewing.

[Marcus Parks]

So when we last left Heinrich Himmler, the Nazis had expanded their borders eastward with the annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia. And because the great nations of Europe were doing anything and everything to avoid a repeat of the Great War, Hitler had managed to nab both countries without resorting to open warfare, of course. But Hitler also wanted to go to war. He was very disappointed when England gave Czechoslovakia over. He Wanted to go to war.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, because he was. This is the idea of asking to be punched in the face.

[Marcus Parks]

But while England and France had basically given Hitler whatever he wanted in order to ostensibly avoid bloodshed, they could not have imagined the pure hell that Heinrich Himmler was about to unleash upon Eastern Europe. All in the name of making so called living space for his fictional Aryan brethren. Now, as I mentioned last episode, Austria believed that they would become an equal part of the Reich after they were annexed. But the Austrians very quickly fell under the boot of the Nazis, just like everyone who ever threw in their lot with Hitler. See, since Adolf Hitler's economic policies were so incredibly nonsensical, Germany had to steal what they needed to fund and fuel the coming war. And Austria's food resources were rich. But in order to take what they needed, Germany had to use Heinrich Himmler's SS to take control of Austria's government.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know it's not true, but why do I just view all Austrian food as like big, like cream filled pastries and thick sausages.

[Ed Larson]

There's lots of strudels and coodles and oodles and noodles, right?

[Marcus Parks]

They're heavy meals. Yeah. Ever the master delegator, Himmler gave the job of bringing Austria under total German control to his second in command, Reinhard Heydrich, who was just as evil as Himmler himself. Using men from the Gestapo, Heydrich formed a new kind of unit that would operate within newly annexed countries to secure government buildings and documents, grill senior civil servants for information, and arrest Communists. Now, in English, the name of Heydrich's new unit, loosely translated to Action Group.

[Ed Larson]

Hey, I'm part of the Action Group.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It is cute. Hey, look at me.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm part of the Action Group.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I jump, I skip all sorts of actions. Oh, what am I supposed to do?

[Ed Larson]

Oh no. Well that's hard to do on a skateboard.

[Marcus Parks]

But as the Nazis continued their conquest of Europe and marched further east, Heydrich's so called Action Group would evolve to become one of Himmler's most effective tools for carrying out his long held plans surrounding Lebensraum and the Final Solution. As a result, the Action group. Ha.

[Ed Larson]

Sorry.

[Marcus Parks]

As a result, the Action Group would bear the weight of being the most brutal, cruel and murderous gang of men to ever walk the earth. History, of course, would remember them better by their German name. They called them the Einsatzgruppen.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yay back, Jack. Do it again. Why does it feel like that? We're gonna feel like. All right, now we're settling to the easy groovy tunes of the Einsat.

[Ed Larson]

I tell you, Steely Dan really would have helped him out a lot.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, you know who would helped him a lot? Who? Oh, Hermler. We'll get there. We'll get there. God. I'm waiting guys. I am waiting for hermore. I don't know when it can be useful in this episode.

[Ed Larson]

I need her now.

[Marcus Parks]

Since the original purpose of the Einsatzgruppen was to act beyond Germany's borders, they were somewhat put on ice after Austria and Czechoslovakia came under full Nazi control. They were after all, an action group. And the action to come for the Nazis lay in the inevitable invasion of Poland and the enactment of the Final Solution. But before the Nazis could begin exterminating every Jewish person on earth, Heinrich Himmler had to answer the so called Jewish question within the borders of Germany itself. And as the march to war got ever closer, attacks on Germany's Jewish population only got worse. Now the pogroms on Germany's Jews came in fits and starts so as to not upset the middle class Germans too much. But Himmler's quest to rid Germany of its Jewish population was not without its practical considerations. Remember, fascists are essentially criminal gangs, mobs even. And starting in 1938, Heinrich Himmler began taking wealthy Jews hostage so the SS could acquire their property and riches. Partly to fund the upcoming war with the rest of Europe and partly to make it look like the Nazis knew what they were doing economically.

[Ed Larson]

You know, you just can't fuck with doctors like that. You need doctors.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's these.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that was actually one of the things that enabled the Nazis to gain more power because the Jewish doctors and the Jewish lawyers were very, very good. So when the dog, when the Jewish doctors and lawyers got taken off the board, all the German lawyers and doctors were raised up and got all of their clients.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, we kind of talked about this last time. It's something, it's like a, it's a mediocrity machine. Like the whole thing is, that's like what the brain drain is right now.

[Marcus Parks]

There would be public outcries in response to actions like the ransoming of Germany's Jews. But the Nazis had a very keen eye for just how much the public could take if the heat got too high. The Nazis would strategically paus their attacks on Jews until the public lost interest. Then once people moved on from the plight of the Jews, the Nazis would restart the whole process. And doing this over and over again gradually got the people of Germany used to the idea of pogroms. Eventually it almost became routine, like, ah, jeez, here's another pogrom. Close the fucking window. They get very loud. Just wait for it to pass and be fine.

[Ed Larson]

I don't know the word pogrom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Okay, okay, Marcus. This is a very funny thing because Marcus and I noticed pogroms, but it's a very funny concept because Marcus and I had this very conversation this morning because I was in the bath watching my Nazi documentaries, having to literally had to go dry off the bubbles from my hands. I literally had to go and type in what just pilgrim into like. And then I'm on YouTube just watching like clips of what is a pogram mixed with Hank the angry dwarf.

[Ed Larson]

I almost texted you like you misspelled program a lot.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You idiot. You fucking idiot.

[Marcus Parks]

It's very simple. A pogrom is a concentrated attack on a Jewish population made by a group of people. It's one of those things where concentrated attacks on Jews were became so normal and happened so often that they needed to create a word for it.

[Ed Larson]

It's a word that shouldn't exist.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. Like, like a genocide is made up of pogroms. Like many, many pogroms make up a genocide.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. And they were also the people who founded America's coming up.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, hit him with the pickaxe. That's why I got you that weapon.

[Marcus Parks]

But just as we saw recently with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Nazis were given an excuse to openly wage war on the Jewish population of Germany when a single act of violence was perpetrated by a Jew who was upset about what the Naz Nazis were doing. On November 7, 1938, a 17 year old German Jewish refugee who'd been banished to France walked into the German embassy in Paris with the intent of murdering the German ambassador. Instead, the refugee shot and killed a minor German diplomat. He was immediately captured, but the Nazis found a note in the refugee's pocket saying that he'd committed the murder as an act of protest against Germany's treatment of its Jews. Now, while the refugees intentions were, I mean, I guess, good, the act of violence he perpetrated did absolutely nothing to help him or the Jews.

[Henry Zebrowski]

In Germany, you're dealing with an army and a legion of serial killers.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

In fact, it gave the Nazis the perfect excuse to say, look, the Jews are dangerous, they are coming to kill us all and something must finally be done. As a result, the Nazis organized their first state sponsored pogrom within just two days of the diplomat's murder. This brutal night in which the gloves were finally taken off, came to be known as Kristallnacht or the Night of the Broken Glass.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, some of their names are great.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, some of them.

[Ed Larson]

But like, action group is fucking stupid. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But again, there's something in the childishness of it that makes it extra scary.

[Ed Larson]

Like Proud boy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Well, I think they're not scary.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They're not. Don't even try to compare the proud boys to the action group. They would draw and quarter them. Those proud boys wish they were the action.

[Ed Larson]

The proud boys were allowed to be fat.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Actually, I think Crystal knocked came from the Jews. I don't think it was a Nazi creation. I think it was. They came from, you know, the people who suffered.

[Ed Larson]

Great writers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And honestly, it would absolutely go on to inspire Debbie Harry with her first rap classic. We all know that is one of the biggest missteps of World War II.

[Marcus Parks]

One single night of horror. Some 7,500 Jewish shops were destroyed and set on fire, along with hundreds of synagogues and Jewish homes, while dozens of Jews were shot dead while trying to escape the burning buildings. It was called Kristallnacht because all of the glass had been broken in all of the shops. Once the night was over, Joseph Goebbels propaganda machine went into full effect by claiming that the pogrom had been a spontaneous demonstration by the German people. Later, of course, secret documents would prove that Kristallnacht had been fully organized by Heinrich Himmler's Gestapo. In his number two man, Reinhard Heydrich, man, that's up.

[Ed Larson]

Because, like, you know, my Jewish family, like, if you got even close to the curio cabinet, they would. You got anywhere near the Schwarzky crystals, like, you're.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Did you have the room you couldn't enter?

[Ed Larson]

Oh, my God, I had two.

[Marcus Parks]

There was.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't know why. I don't know why our grandparents thought of that. The idea that there was one sacred room that I guess they were waiting for the president to come to the house.

[Ed Larson]

The room that we had, the room we couldn't go in was like. It only housed the Christmas tree. So like 11 months of the year, we never use the room. And then the other room that we had was so my father could call his mistresses.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, hey, he pays the bills.

[Marcus Parks]

Now. After Goebbels propaganda network used the murder of the German diplomat to justify and even openly encourage violence against Jews. At long last, pogroms became Nazi state policy. And it was all because an act of violence had given the Nazis the opportunity they had been waiting for. They knew something like this would happen. But the worst immediate consequence of Kristallnacht was that some 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. During the chaos, almost 11,000 Jews landed in Dachau. And there, the so called Dachau spirit was taken to the next level. Seeing the SS and the continued evolution of Dachau's frat boy atmosphere, they'd come across a new game called Dance Jew. In this, a steak. I really don't know how else to deliver that, but that's what it was called. In this. A stake was driven into the ground and Jewish prisoners were forced at gunpoint to dance around the stake until they got dizzy. But if they stumbled too close to the guards, they would be shot and killed.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that's the funny part of the game, right? That's what you're saying, is the funny part of the game?

[Marcus Parks]

According to Himmler's ss? Yes, that is the funny part of the game.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Comedy subjective.

[Marcus Parks]

It is.

[Ed Larson]

You know, I can't help but think, with all their reckless killing of Jews, like, did they ever miss and accidentally hit a Nazi?

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, all the time. That actually happened quite often.

[Ed Larson]

Well, you know, good.

[Marcus Parks]

Another Jewish prisoner sent to Dachau after Kristallnacht was forced to eat his own feces, which led him to hanging himself that night. Another prisoner took a break during a long workday. So the SS punished him by throwing him into a cement mixer until the constant tumbling finally killed him. Probably died of a broken neck.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's literally what would have happened to Mr. Magoo. But we didn't. We haven't seen David Fincher's Mr. Magoo. And I do think that that's the IP that we're looking for.

[Marcus Parks]

I think so.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The bumbling, iron hearted blind man.

[Ed Larson]

You know, this is actually one of the trainings they would do in Cobra Kai in the show Cobra Kai.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, my God.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Johnny threw the kids in a cement mixer.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Don't do that. Don't do that. Do you realize. Oh, man.

[Marcus Parks]

Like a Nazi. From Heinrich Himmler's perspective, things could not have been going better after Kristallnacht and the following pogroms.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Everything's coming up Himmler.

[Marcus Parks]

Himmler could see that while not all of Germany had been turned into bloodthirsty beasts, there were more than enough Germans on Himmler's wavelength to move forward with his plans of Lebensraum. Hitler, of course, saw the same. And In January of 1939, he gave a speech at the Reichstag declaring that the Nazis were ready to declare a world war, those were Hitler's words, against international Jewry. And thus the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe could commence. This, of course, meant that the time to begin the march east was nigh. And it was all set to begin with the invasion of the country with which Germany shared their eastern border, the long suffering Poland. Even though the British and the French had given away Czechoslovakia in an attempt to appease Hitler, praying that he would stop there, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain finally drew a line with Poland.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You won't go anywhere near those village people. Neville Chamberlain was just the worst.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I would say a misunderstood character of history. Like he was, he was the worst. And he also wasn't the worst at the same time, because he was. I mean, he was inundated with letters from, you know, so many people just saying, like, I don't do this, please don't do this. He thought that in after the Munich Conference in which he gave away Czechoslovakia or gave away the Sudetenland to be technically correct, he was met with cheers and cry. Like, you know, like in there, everyone, America, Canada, everyone wants to fight.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No one wants to do that again.

[Ed Larson]

It just happened.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And they all thought that he'd done a great job, you know, and the way he had described Czechoslovakia, what was the famous lines that he said? It was a quarrel in a faraway land between people of whom we know nothing, though why would we Restart World War I for that?

[Ed Larson]

But when you come for the pierogies, that's too much.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Exactly, dude. Everybody loves pierogies.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That is what binds. Every society has a pierogi. And I actually believe that the pierogies was the first of all. Yeah, sure, Asia, whatever.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Boiled bread and it's great.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, wonderful. Yeah. But with Poland, you know, Germany had their eye on the free city of Danzig, and.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That'S what they said when the Nazis arrived.

[Marcus Parks]

Neville Chamberlain said, hey, if you do anything with Poland, if you cross the Polish border, Britain is going to respond with force. In reply to Chamberlain's declaration, Hitler flew into a rage against the British and in private was reported to have shouted.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Quote, I will cook them a stew they will choke on.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, it's almost nice. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Very thick stew, Adolf. Thank you very much. A very hotty meal in the middle of the wind.

[Marcus Parks]

Rock stew.

[Ed Larson]

Yes, it's filled with rocks.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Then you must abraze this for a very long time because these rocks are indeed succulent and can separate with a fork.

[Marcus Parks]

And so By June of 1939, all of the Third Reich's ministers had come together to formulate a plan for total war against Poland. Hermann Goring drafted 7 million Germans for his labor needs, While Heinrich Himmler leaned on the slave labor of the concentration camps for his part of the plan, Himmler, of course, aimed to increase the amount of slave labor in the future by capturing and enslaving anyone in Eastern Europe that he wasn't planning on killing immediately. Meaning that the more lands the Nazis conquered, the more powerful they would become. Totally in secret though, Hitler had begun talks with the Soviet Union's dictator, Joseph Stalin. See, even though the communists were the Nazis most hated enemies outside of the Jews, Hitler still made a non aggression pact with Stalin in August of 1939. In this pact, the two dictators agreed to divide Poland in half. Germany gets the west, Russia gets the east. This of course gave Hitler some breathing room for the Nazis ultimate plan. In its logical conclusion, Lebensraum was to include the entirety of the Soviet Union whose population was set to be either enslaved or murdered.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hey, that's a big job. That's a hard job, Marcus.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it's incredibly hard and it's incredibly big. But the thing is that heinrich Himmler in 1939, the plans are already in motion to actually make it happen. He believes that he can make it happen. And throughout the summer of 1939, Adolf Hitler gave speeches in which he began whipping up the German people against Poland, Just like he turned them against the Jews with kristallnacht and the communists with the Reichstag. Fire. Turning Germany against Poland was a necessity because a significant number of Germans, civilians and German generals, many people within the Wehrmacht, they did not want the sort of war that the Nazis wanted. Hitler, however, needed the people on his side if he was going to succeed in conquering not just Poland, but eventually the Soviet Union and all of Europe.

[Ed Larson]

Poland's hard, you know. They're tough, dude. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they're small.

[Ed Larson]

They could take some hits. That's the thing with Poland, the most.

[Marcus Parks]

Conquered people in history.

[Ed Larson]

I know, we just kind of like.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It in a way. You know, we're just kind of like eh.

[Ed Larson]

But they fight. Oh yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I just think they like it. Yeah, they like to fight.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, they like. I thought you. I thought you were just victim blaming the Polish.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, never. No, we're the victims.

[Ed Larson]

But yeah, as a person who has been in a couple of fights, you know, we could take punches.

[Marcus Parks]

You really can. I. I lived in Greenpoint for five years, Poach neighborhood in Brooklyn. And I saw some Polls take some hits.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh yeah, they like to fall down and hit their foreheads against the city street fueled by alcohol.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, over the course of the summer of 39, a plan was formulated to convince the German people that the Polish were planning to attack them. And the operation they created was name named after the man behind it. As a result, World War II, the most destructive war in history, was kicked off with a plan called Operation Himmler.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I knew one day I would see my name in light.

[Marcus Parks]

In Operation Himmler, the Nazis planned dozens of false flag attacks on the German Polish border at radio, railway communications and customs stations. To make the claim convincing, though, they needed photographic evidence. Evidence. So Himmler ordered the Gestapo to dress concentration camp prisoners in Polish military uniforms before killing them and mutilating their faces so they couldn't be identified. These corpses were then left behind at the supposed sites of Polish aggression to make it look as if Polish saboteurs have been responsible for acts of terrorism that had actually been perpetrated by who else but the Nazis themselves? And as it went, time and again, the German people totally fell for it. And once Hitler felt he had the support of the German people at large, or at least enough of them, the Nazis launched the brutal Blitzkrieg invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The UK quickly made good on their previous promises to back Poland. And when France joined in against the Nazis as well, the European theater of World War II was open for business.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they're showing into the woods. We love a musical. It helps with the donor. I want to know, when did the Nazis start the process of doing the meth?

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, that was before. Way before the invasion of Poland.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So this is all fueled by meth too. I was just watching an interview with that guy from Blitz and he would talk about how he got some.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, some of the old Nazi meth. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And he took it and he was like, still works. He said he found. He went searching for it and he said, it's not as powerful. But he sat with a buddy on a roof and they both H81 and he was like, I didn't really feel anything. Then he ate two, then he ate three. And then all of a sudden he was like, I was. They were watching the river. They were in Amsterdam and they were watching boats go along the river and they were watching. He's like, I began to feel the surge, the power within me. I connected with the boats and the water. I was one with them. And he's like, that's the Nazi army.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, he just got Predator vision.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

No. They were all given predator vision. Like they were so incredibly focused on the war must go on, we must push as far as possible. I, I know, I'm not exactly sure how much it was used in Poland, but I do know that meth was how the Nazis were able to take France. Like the, how they were able to just fucking keep going and going and going and going because it was all meth. They were all messed up.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But then again it shows about work life balance because they got burnout.

[Marcus Parks]

They did.

[Ed Larson]

Was meth illegal?

[Marcus Parks]

No, no, absolutely not. No, no, it was. Everyone in Nazi Germany was on meth. But I mean it wasn't like, it.

[Ed Larson]

Wasn'T like, it wasn't like the meth we have today.

[Marcus Parks]

It wasn't necessarily crystal meth, but it was very, very close. Like it was sold in stor know, like it was manufactured by. I don't know if it was IG Farben who manufactured exactly, but it was manufactured in plants all across Germany and they had, they, they had mechanisms to ensure that like the, the speed didn't stop. The funny thing is that Himler, actually he was one of the few people who wasn't on speed. Himmler actually preferred herbs, like natural herbs that were grown at Dachau. He planted an herb garden at Dachau and had the concentration camp prisoners farm it. And that's.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What is that?

[Ed Larson]

Well, he never gave up farming. Like he's like two. Like he just kept farming until he died.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Potato. Yeah. You can literally just be like, I finally have grown potato. He didn't even do it.

[Marcus Parks]

He had other. He had concentration camp prisoners do it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He just, you know, their hearts are not in it.

[Marcus Parks]

From your grave.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Growing a business is complicated. Your network shouldn't be. Connected Workplace from T Mobile for Business.

[Marcus Parks]

Gives you fully managed business Internet.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That means network configuration and equipment tailored to your business needs and performance monitoring to keep systems and operations running smoothly. One cost effective solution to connect and support across locations so you can focus on what's next. Accelerate your growth on America's most advanced 5G network. Start now@t mobile.com Connected Workplace It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month and LifeLock is here with tips to help protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication and report phishing scams. And for comprehensive identity protection, Lifelock is your best choice. Lifelock alerts you to suspicious uses of your personal information and also fixes identity theft. Guaranteed or your money. Stay smart, stay safe and stay protected. With a 30 day free [e-mail] specialoffer terms apply.

[Dr. Sarah Rahal]

I'm Dr. Sarah Rahal, the founder and CEO of Armra. I developed Armor Colostrum because I know your body was designed to thrive. It's your natural state, your birthright, and you can reclaim it. Colostrum is the first nutrition we receive in life with every essential nutrient our bodies need. It's nature's original blueprint for health. After a devastating health crisis almost took my life, I made it my mission to harness this power. Using proprietary technology, AMRA captures over 400 bioactive nutrients in every scoop, delivering over 1000 benefits that transform your health at its foundation. Whether for gut health, metabolism, skin, hair, immunity, mood, energy, fitness or recovery, I invite you to join this collective revival of health and discover radical transformation for yourself. Visit armor.com that's a R M R A dot com and enter code health30 for 30% off your first subscription order this statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, street, cure or prevent any disease.

[Marcus Parks]

Now once the invasion of Poland was well underway, Adolf Hitler gathered the heads of Himmler's SS and gave them an hours long speech in which he basically said that Poland was not going to be merely occupied, but destroyed. While the German military would be tasked with taking and holding land in Eastern Europe, Himmler's SS were going to be the men who would finally take the twisted fantasies that Germany's extreme right wing had been talking about for decades and make them a reality. Working off Hitler's direct orders, Heinrich Himmler got to work organizing the expulsion of more than 8 million non Germans from western Poland to make living space for people of a more Germanic and or Aryan descent. And this was a much after they invaded, the entire railway network of the western half of the country was put to work transporting primarily Jews and Poles out of Nazi occupied areas. This is an extremely reckless move because the Nazis were simultaneously trying to balance the production of the war itself. But while the generals took care of the war, Heinrich Himmler was taking care of Levensraum. These expelled Poles and Jews were transported to lands within Poland where the coming winter was sure to starve or freeze them today. Death. And by the end of the season, 100,000 people had perished as a result of this action alone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I wonder how much farther all of the Nazi army would have went if they weren't so concerned with wanton murder.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I mean it's a, it is really a great question in history. Maybe if they were not like if there wasn't so many Logistics that were going into.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just murder.

[Marcus Parks]

Just the murder. Yeah. I mean, we're gonna. That's gonna be one of the questions we're gonna ask and talk about as this episode goes on. It's like you where the priorities were.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And you know what? They were all messed up.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

These Nazis priorities are just fucking out of whack.

[Marcus Parks]

Out of whack.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Also you, like, look at it like after the war, you know, and all this stuff, you know, like Germany and Japan, like, they became like nice places.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, that's because we. We hit them with a goddamn newspaper. And the other one, we hit him with it twice.

[Ed Larson]

It's almost like when you stop trying to kill people all the time. Where you live is nice.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Germany's beautiful.

[Marcus Parks]

They're both beautiful. Wonderful countries. Go. Now, at this point, I think it would be helpful to separate Heinrich Himmler and what he was doing from what the German military was doing. The German military, of course, also known as the Vermacht. See, while the Vermacht was supposedly loyal to the German people, and it had plenty of men who hated what the Nazis had done to Germany, Himmler's SS answered solely to the Nazis. In effect, Himmler had created a second army to carry out his and Hitler's personal goals and dreams on the battlefield. Himmler's bloodthirsty pack of psychopaths were as the Waffen ss. But even though the Waffen SS and the Vermacht were two separate entities, the Vermont often committed war crimes hand in hand with Himmler's ss. And this was especially true during the invasion of Poland.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Is this still trying to create a form of plausible deniability for the top brass? Is that kind of the idea of making or is it just efficiency sake? We need two armies to do two different things.

[Marcus Parks]

It's. It's. There's a couple of different reasons. It's that we need two different armies to do two different things, but it's also because it's known that, like, Himmler might have some ambitions towards taking Hitler's spot. And so you want. Already see, you're already starting to see it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So he needs his own crew.

[Marcus Parks]

You want to make sure that Himmler is. You want to make sure that Himmler is nowhere near the Wehrmacht. And also the generals in the Vera Mockt. They want nothing to do with Himmler because Himmler's not a military man. No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's just doing mass executions with the worst of the worst.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he's just some.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And they also are. And the German generals are also very displeased that so many resources that could be going towards fighting the actual war are instead going to Heinrich Himmler and all this Lebensraum bullshit.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, there's a weird idealist Nazi stripe that could have come through that said we need prisoners for work. We need this. We need. We're killing because that's what we'll get to eventually. It's like, we should be using some of these people. Like, why are we. You know, like, they were just killing everyone.

[Marcus Parks]

They were event. They. Yeah, they eventually got to that.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah, we're in the ss. Like. Like, didn't they exist because Germany couldn't have, like, its own huge army? Or by this point, are they like, fuck it.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, they were. They're long past that. But it was a part of that because. Yeah, because of the Versailles Treaty, Germany couldn't have a military of any more than 100,000 men. So the SS were a paramilitary group. They could do Hitler and Himmler's bidding, but were not trained militarily and were not recognized as a military force. In the first few weeks of the invasion, some 50,000 Polish civilians were murdered by the Nazis at large. Over 500 villages and towns were burned as the Wehrmacht marched east. And every captured Polish soldier and police officer was killed in a series of 714 mass executions. In one particularly baffling case, the Nazis rounded up a group of Polish boy scouts in the town of Bados, and they had a local priest give the boy scouts their last rights without any explanation as to why or what was going on.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Priest is like, yep, can't wait.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I never get to do this.

[Ed Larson]

I guess it's practice.

[Marcus Parks]

Once the priest was done, the Nazis mowed down every last boy scout with a machine gun. And then to top it off, they shot the priest who gave him last rights. You know, can't do it to yourself. The Nazis then rounded up all the prominent merchants and tradesmen in town, herded them into the town square, and again opened fire with their machine guns without explanation or justification. In contrast to how many Poles were killed, though, that's 50,000. Germany only lost 5,000 soldiers in those first few weeks. The Nazi propaganda machine, however, used those Nazi deaths to portray the Polish people as vicious murderers standing in the way. Way of Germany's destiny. Now, after just three weeks of the sort of killing we just discussed, the Wehrmacht decided that they were maybe not so stoked on directly participating in the wholesale murder of innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of Lebensraum it.

[Ed Larson]

Was like Hitler, can you find somebody.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Else to do this?

[Marcus Parks]

I don't really like it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It was really fucking with the guys. Yeah, yeah, because they were doing it one by one by one.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, you could. People get PTSD for like accidentally killing someone in a car accident?

[Marcus Parks]

Accident, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

You know, like, I could only imagine what killing a thousand people's like.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, for a while you believe you're serving some greater purpose, but then eventually it starts to be like, I don't know what us mass killing a bunch of Boy Scouts is really doing. I don't really see how. Those Boy Scouts were like a direct enemy. And eventually that is, it does begin to wear away at your brain.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, and not just that, but the Vermont is also like, you know, there's a bridge to take over there.

[Ed Larson]

There.

[Marcus Parks]

We should be taking that bridge. We should not be concerned.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We should be fortifying. We should be moving ahead like we're supposed to. We should be thinking about the economy. Aren't we trying to occupy this land? Why are we destroying all these buildings? Why are we burning all the villages down? Where are we going to go? Where's the Lebensraum going to? Like, yeah, sure, now there's room.

[Ed Larson]

What else are they like, sparing the, like, Aryan looking Pollocks?

[Marcus Parks]

Sometimes, but mostly not because they have, like. If they're. If they were children, then they would usually kill the par, kidnap the children and send them back to Germany where the child's name would be changed and all trace of their ancestry was erased. We actually have no idea how many kids they did that to. Just because, you know, they were. The records weren't kept, but they did it thousands upon thousands of times.

[Henry Zebrowski]

One day, somehow one Taylor Swiftenstein made her way into our. And I know that Nazi guy goddess is trying to destroy this country from the inside out by turning Travis Kelsey Weak.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. One member of the Kansas City Chiefs. That's the last thing standing in America's way.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It will fall. The union is fragile.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, because the Wehrmacht said that they didn't want to participate in the mass killings directly anymore. At least they didn't want it on their list of jobs to do. Hitler tapped Heinrich Himmler to figure out a better way to achieve Lebensraum. Himmler went to his top generals in the Waffen ss. And after some discussion, Himmler's second in command, Reinhard Heydrich, had an idea. Heydrich remembered how well his ad hoc unit of Gestapo men had performed in bringing Austria to heel after the annexation. So after some discussion it was decided that they would resurrect the Einsatzgruppen as a full time extermination squad squad. The official stated purpose of the Einsatzgruppen was to follow the Wehrmacht and secure the rear areas from resistance fighters and saboteurs. And while they certainly did do that, their true purpose was straight up murder. The Einsatzgruppen were ordered to find and kill every career politician, every member of the Communist Party, and every Jew who held anti Nazi views, which in effect was every Jew in existence.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I want to meet a couple of the pro Nazi Jews. What's that like? Honestly, that takes a fucking series of mental gymnastics. I don't even know. I know that there had to have been some.

[Ed Larson]

Well, there was plenty of guys that helped out, you know, but they were in the ghettos and.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But sometimes it's because they were also under pressure. Those are people that I don't necessarily blame when you're put in this whole society of murderers. I see you being up, I totally.

[Marcus Parks]

The Zonder Commandos, they were pieces of.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Those guys I'm talking about just in general, like, how do you even find that?

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, yeah, there were people, yeah, who flipped and saved them. And you're like, I'm going to save myself and I'm going to turn over as many people as possible. And yeah, you're right. Especially in the ghettos. That was, you know, you wanted to stay away from Sonderkommandos in the ghettos and in the concentration camps as well.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, a month after the invasion, Heiner Himmler decided that he could use the chaos of the war to enact every aspect of his ultimate plan for purification. So he tasked the Einsatzgruppen with the mass execution of mentally and physically disabled Germans, starting with the children. This extermination came to be known as Action T4. And since the Einsatzgruppen was established as a unit that operated outside of Germany's borders, the victims of Action T4 were transported from Germany by train to occupied Poland, where the Einsatzgruppen could murder them without worrying about German law. There was, of course, the matter of what to do with the bodies, because the Germans were still years away from the crematoriums, as it was with with everything in Nazi Germany. The process of body disposal evolved as the years went by for action T4. For example, an SS officer tasked thousands of Waffen SS soldiers with sweeping Polish towns for political prisoners. Once captured, those political prisoners were forced to dig mass graves for the disabled and so called mentally ill victims of action T4. After the pits were dug out in the wilds of Poland, the einsatzgruppen lined up 3,500 German citizens in front of the pits and shot them all so the bodies could easily fall backward into the mass grave the Polish prisoners had dug.

[Ed Larson]

That's more than 9 11.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, it is. By about 500. Yeah, that's crazy. And that's just one. And that's a day. That's one day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's a day.

[Ed Larson]

Well, 911 was just a couple hours.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're right. It was 114 minutes.

[Marcus Parks]

I know, I. Yes, yes, yes, we all know.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

One beautiful. Two.

[Marcus Parks]

To keep the men on the ground stoked on all this mass murder, Himmler and the other Nazi leaders again and again emphasized the concept of hardness. Hardness, they said, was a virtue, one that officers and soldiers had to maintain so that Germany and its Aryan bloodlines could survive.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's what Himmler kept saying to his, his awful wife back home. He kept saying, like the idea of, of like it's hard work and it's a hard process and it's all, it's hard, you know, like it's all, it's. Oh, it's so. It's hard.

[Marcus Parks]

My struggles, everything's hard except for my penis. Now, Germany soldiers were conditioned to believe that Jews, Communists, Romani, pretty much anyone who was an Aryan, they were all a relentless threat to Germany. The criminals, the rapists, etc. Etc. But if the Nazis could truly believe that the threat was not only real but existential, then the perpetrators of mass murder would have license to interpret their own violence as purely defensive. If it was defensive, the violence was not only justified, but in their minds, unavoidable. This mindset created a refrain that was repeated over and over again in the Nuremberg trials, in which some, but not anywhere near enough Nazis answered for their crimes. But rather than we were just following orders, which that's the one that everyone always comes back to again and again with the Nazis. A more common response from the Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg trials as to why they did what they did was it was the only thing we could do. They said that over and over again. It was the only thing we could do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's a baby sale, there's a talent show, there's a repertory company.

[Marcus Parks]

Would they've been conditioned to believe that they had no choice but to commit mass murder in order to survive? They truly believed that they were all coming for them.

[Ed Larson]

It's wild that everyone was just so ready to give up their own people. People like, you know, it's because, like, you know, not that like invading Poland or Czechoslovakia or Austria is like, good, but like, it's another country you can almost. It's easier to get behind. But when you start just killing, like the guy bagging groceries, like, who. How do you get behind that shit?

[Henry Zebrowski]

They have successfully done is attach your blood to the country. Right. What they have done is attach those two. So in some way in your brain you do begin to believe that those that are within your country, that are not of Aryan blood, the idea is they are people from. From another country. They are people from another society. They don't belong in this society.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, not just that, but Hitler said again and again, and the propaganda said that the Jews are people without a country. You know, that they just merely. They come in and they're these parasites.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, I'm more kicking of the handicap right now, to be honest with you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

You know, like, it's just crazy to me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Let's just say we've never had as a society, as human beings, we've always kind of had issues with handling very much people with handicaps that way. So this was. This was, is, to be honest, sadly, a more digestible beginning for this because there's a little of like these unfortunates.

[Marcus Parks]

And there were a lot of people in Germany that were like, this is up. Don't do, like, stop doing this. Don't do this.

[Ed Larson]

Like, it's my little brother.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, her was. Was just like, no child. You want to take. You want to take her to the playground? Child, you know, like, she was so upset.

[Ed Larson]

She was watching so many kids, 49.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Kids, each one with different little legs.

[Marcus Parks]

But. But then, you know, the, the Nazis would do what they always did and they would pull back just, just a little bit. All right, all right, we. We won't do it anymore. But then once people weren't looking, they started killing more and more. Like, for example, Ermin Schmidt, the. Pretty much the, the man behind the crock rock band Can. His mother was killed in action. T4.

[Ed Larson]

Damn.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And that definitely him up just like it up. Just like Nazi Germany fucking up every member of can in one way or another.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. God damn.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They never got over it. You can hear it in that, man.

[Marcus Parks]

Not every experimental song just sounds like you do every time. It's not even close. There's not a single can song that sounds anything like that.

[Ed Larson]

It's so funny because Henry actually made me listen to Can a bunch in college.

[Marcus Parks]

I know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I Love Can. There's no problem. I'm a huge fan.

[Marcus Parks]

And of course, if you want to know more about can, go listen to our series on no dogs in space for also, if you want to know. Also if you want to find out how post war Germany kind of went down and how the culture was and how the culture was created out of the ashes of Nazi Germany.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And did you see that Benistio del Toro said that he built his whole character on can and that he became obsessed with Cannes and he started listening to it and that's how he developed the character for one Battle after another because he gave that whole sequence to Paul Thomas Anderson. Yeah, he wrote that whole fucking sequence.

[Ed Larson]

That's amazing.

[Marcus Parks]

Clearing out Poland and Germany of the Nazis undesirables was all well and good, but for Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler, the ultimate prize was Russia. As such, Himmler had plans to murder as many as 30 million citizens of the Soviet Union in the pursuit of Lebensraum. This number actually came from one of Heinrich Himmler's friends, Hans Jost. Jost was a Nazi poet and playwright known unofficially as the Bard of the ss. And for all you mission of Burma fans out there, Yost was actually the source of an infamous line often misattributed to Hiner Kimler.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I forgot.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. The phrase was actually a corruption of a line from one of yo's plays. But what survived was a chilling distillation of Nazi thought. That line was. When I hear the word culture, that's when I reach for my revolver.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's when I reach for my revolver.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I love fishing.

[Marcus Parks]

A permit. Yeah, yeah. That's where that line comes. Comes from.

[Ed Larson]

I just can't believe that anyone ever wanted Russia.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, it's beautiful and it's filled with natural, very important natural resources. Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Bears. I love bears.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that's just this fat man.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, what the Nazis were after was the oil. There was a lot of oil in. In Soviet Russia later on, quite a.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Bit of plutonium as well.

[Marcus Parks]

But concern but concerning the Nazis lust for the Soviet Union's land, remember that they had signed a secret non aggression pact with Stalin. And even though almost everyone in the Soviet army was none too sold on this Adolf Hitler guy, Joseph Stalin, for some reason trusted Hitler.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I like him. I think if there was one guy who'd like Hitler would be Stalin.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. But all the other generals like, like Zhukov's like, don't trust, don't. He's like, ah, I like him. Give him a chance. Just Give him a chance.

[Ed Larson]

I like my mustache is bigger than his.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Seriously, I watch much bigger. I watched this documentary called. I think it's called 24 hours. And what they do is they go into one horrible, like, historical figure's life for their day. And it was Yosef Stalin's death day. The day that he died.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they're the same type of weirdo.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. They absolutely would have loved.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think they would have hung out. Well, they.

[Marcus Parks]

They kind of had a respect for each other, but they, of course, hated each other because one was kind of communist and one was fascist.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that was just, you know, what they needed. One kiss. That's all it would have been.

[Marcus Parks]

But the trust between Hitler and Stalin were shattered on June 28, 1941, when Nazi Germany launched the nerdily named operation Barbarossa, which was named after one of Hitler and Himmler's favorite historical Germanic figures. It's like naming something like operation Rambo. Reportedly, though, the betrayal absolutely, absolutely crushed poor Joe. Stalin, Hitler.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Of all the people who lied to me.

[Ed Larson]

I expect this from Churchill every day.

[Marcus Parks]

Maybe even Mussolini, but Hitler.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hitler, not Hitler.

[Marcus Parks]

Even though it seemed like things were already bad with the invasion of Poland, and they were. It was with Operation Barbarossa that the true horrors of the European theater of World War II 2 would begin. The Nazis war with the Soviet Union alone would consume 40 million lives, counting for about half of the estimated 80 million people who died as a result of World War II, the most destructive war in history. 80 million people.

[Ed Larson]

God damn.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And welcome to A E's last podcast. On the left presents Operation Barbarossa. Absolutely wonderful.

[Marcus Parks]

Four hours.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hours to fall asleep too, as you hear about atrocities over and over again.

[Ed Larson]

Try our Barbarossa tacos Tuesday.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I love a Barbarossa.

[Ed Larson]

It's Budoria with Rosa.

[Marcus Parks]

Also a great Willie Nelson movie.

[Ed Larson]

What?

[Marcus Parks]

Barbarossa. It's Willie Nelson. It's Willie Nelson and Gary Busey.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, whoa. Is it about this? Is he a Nazi?

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Does Willie Nelson play Heinrich Himmler? Oh, that's a. That a play right there, dude.

[Marcus Parks]

No, it's a. It's a western. Barbarossa means red hair.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, Ever.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Funny or my way.

[Marcus Parks]

I think it means red hair. Red something. Maybe. Maybe needs red beard.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, red beard. Yes, Beard and rose. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There we go. Radiance.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I ain't different now.

[Marcus Parks]

Once the German Vermont invaded the Soviet Union and began spreading across the Soviet states of Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, the einsatz groupen followed in their way with the express purpose of extermination. Within a month of Operation Barbarossa's launch, Heinrich Himmler gave a radio speech to the SS commanders in the field, giving them express orders that all male Jews in Belarus must be shot while the Jewish women were to be quote, driven into the swamps. Which Himmler meant literally. Ukrainian Jews meanwhile, were all to be shot except those who could be used for labor. In other words, the order had finally been given to enact the Final Solution. Although it is still a great mystery of history as to who gave the exact order and when. See the view that the Final Solution was the result of a single order from Hitler. Like okay, now we kill the Jews. That's a total oversimplification of all the factors and situations that led to the decision. There was actually a consensus amongst the leadership within the Third Reich and amongst the governments of the people they conquered that the Final Solution to the Jewish question was always going to involve murder long before the order was, was given.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The fact that there was a question.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Meant that the solution has to like equal out the question.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what I mean?

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's the terminology. It means it's seeking an end.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, what are we going to do about these Jews? Like it's like, you know where it's going to end. You know where it's going to end. It always ends the same place.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But it's also the enough of an open ended thing that they can. That every single bad actor that will ever exist will use the same exact, exact version of this. Like counter fu. Like what? This subterfuge. They will use this again and again. Like we didn't mean it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well asking the questions also gives them opportunity to pretend like they're reasonable people. Like you know, considered it. We considered it so much and we came up with plan after plan, but really the only thing we could do was murder them. It's all we could do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But it's also again there's lots of stuff you could do. Baseball teams, volleyball teams, a lot of.

[Ed Larson]

Stuff to keep people busy.

[Marcus Parks]

Sports.

[Ed Larson]

That's what I said.

[Henry Zebrowski]

If we start them young enough. And earlier bobsled, great Jewish sport.

[Marcus Parks]

But it's also important to remember that the Final Solution did not just involve the Jews. From the beginning, the Final Solution had included Romani, Communists, Russians. But concerning the origin of all this, if we face facts, the concept of Lebensraum did not solely spring from the brains of Germany's extreme right wing politicians and authors. See, the Nazis saw absolutely no difference between what they were doing in Eastern Europe and what the United States had done to the Native Americans. And they openly used the genocide that birthed America, as well as our enslavement of Africans, as a model for their conquest of Eastern Europe. See both Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. They believed that Germany was owed a colonial empire similar to the ones that France, England and the United States had established in Africa. Africa, India and the American West. The difference was that while France, England and the United States had established their empires by slaughtering brown people, the Germans were going to get theirs by killing white Eastern Europeans. The other difference was that Germany was going to commit their genocides far faster than anyone else in history, because why fuck around? To make matters even more uncomfortable, whenever Himmler finally began feeling any sort of inner turmoil whilst enacting the Final Solution, he reminded him himself that just as the Americans had exterminated their indigenous population, so too, must the Germans wipe out the Jews.

[Ed Larson]

Yikes. Yeah, I mean, it's true.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Enjoy baseball in playoff season.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, honestly, I don't know if I could win that argument against a Nazi. If he were to say, like, well, what about what. What America does? Like.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, it's also about, like.

[Marcus Parks]

It doesn't make it right. I get your point. It doesn't make it right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It doesn't make what you did right, Nazi boy. You also, is there not a way to say, like, yes, we had concentrated genocides of indigenous people here. We killed Native Americans on purpose.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It's the worst genocide this world's ever seen, in my opinion, because they effectively are gone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But the genocide that the Nazis did had such organized, unilateral corporate murder. Well, we got something. You know, obviously, it's a whole thing. I'm not trying to say one's better than the other. I'm just trying to say, like, the Nazis did a little extra something special.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it was never as naked as the Nazis did it, you know, like the. Because with the Trail of Tears, Andrew Jackson could always say, like, well, no, no, we're. We're doing this for their own good. We're moving them here.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like a whole validation game.

[Marcus Parks]

They'll be good. Yeah. And. And we could always fall back on smallpox, because smallpox killed more people more, you know, indigenous Americans than anything else. But we also.

[Ed Larson]

Even though we gave it to them.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, even though we gave it to them and spread it amongst them purposefully. Um, the. But the. Really, the big difference was that it happened over hundreds of years. Yeah. The genocide of the Native Americans, it happened over hundreds of years. And The Nazis were trying to do theirs in a matter of months. Like they were trying to do it because they had 20th century technology. That was. The big difference is that, you know, America, our genocide happened in the 18th century, 19th century, 17th century. You know, like, we don't have the mechanization that the Nazis had. They had incredible technology. They had human technology. Like, the more. The more advanced technology got, the better people got it. Killing one another.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. I was talking to Henry about this before the show and I honestly feel like if the Nazis would have slowed down and took their time, they would have been way harder to beat.

[Marcus Parks]

They would have been.

[Ed Larson]

But they didn't have any money.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, they didn't have a Hermler. To be like, child, you need to pace yourself. Take a nap. Don't you just want us to have a nice sweet tea?

[Marcus Parks]

It was the money. It was more the money. Maybe Herblar could have help. Maybe.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, but it was the money. It was the money. And just also. It's just.

[Marcus Parks]

And the speed as well.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's. It has diminishing returns. Marcus, I think the mass wanton murder, like, in the end doesn't work.

[Marcus Parks]

No, it does not. It never has and it never will because it gets.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It comes back. Because guess what we're doing now? Dealing with the sins of the past.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep.

[Dr. Sarah Rahal]

I'm Dr. Sarah Rahal, the founder and CEO of Armra. I developed armor Colostrum because I know your body was designed to thrive. It's your natural state, your birthright, and you can reclaim it. Colostrum is the first nutrition we receive in life with every essential nutrient our bodies need. It's nature's original blueprint for health. After a devastating health crisis almost took my life, I made it my mission to harness this power. Using proprietary technology, armra captures over 400 bioactive nutrients in every scoop, delivering over 1000 benefits that transform your health at its foundation. Whether for gut health, metabolism, skin, hair immunity, mood, energy, fitness or recovery, I invite you to join this collective revival of health and discover radical transformation for yourself. Visit armour.com that's a r m r a dot com and enter code culture30 for 30% off your first subscription order. The statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, 4 million Jewish people lived in the western states of the Soviet Union alone. So exterminating all of the Jews in the Soviet Union was going to be no small task. Especially because, like I said, they didn't have smallpox to lean on like we did. So after the Wehrmacht would clear the way, the Einsatzgruppen was ordered to follow behind and carry out Himmler's orders to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible by using 20th century technique technology. Now, because the Einsatzgruppen's murder directives were so wide, entire towns could lose half their population in a matter of days. As such, the Eastern Front, as it came to be known, was so horrible and brutal that even members of the Waffen SS were taken aback by the scale of the slaughter. According to the recollections of one S.S. mann, tens of thousands of Russian corpses, civilians and soldiers lay everywhere one looked in Eastern Europe. The piles of interlaced bodies were stacked up to a yard high in some places, as if machine guns had cut down wave after wave of people. The worst part, though, was that at the hottest part of the day, gases would expel from the corpses. As the SS man put it, this caused the most horrible and unbelievable gurgling sounds. That, by the way, that's just a consequence of the war. War. Never mind the actions of the Einsat Groupen. Now, even though Himmler believed that what he was ordering his men to do was morally correct, he was still smart enough to know that most humans are going to react badly when it comes to actually murdering millions of people face to face. Especially when it came to killing women and children.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because you can dehumanize them as much as you want. Until they're right in front of you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, until they're right in front of you and they remind you of your niece or your nephew or your mother.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because they're literally people that you could have known.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And you have to. And you have to kill everyone. Like, you can't leave the children because they would, they'll kill you. The argument they would use is that you can't leave the children alive. They would call the avenger Argument is that the kids just are just going to grow up to become an enemy later on. So whether you kill him now as an 8 year old or you kill him in 10 years as an enemy, there's no difference. So just kill them all. Well, because a traumatized soldier was useless in Himmler's view, he tasked various Nazi Scientists with finding 20th century soldiers Solutions in order to kill the most amount of people while traumatizing the least amount of Nazis. Now, we all know how this ended. Auschwitz. But the industrialization of mass murder truly was born on the Eastern Front. And it was midwifed by a chemist named Albert Widman. Working out of Minsk, Vindman began conducting experiments in mass murder, thinking first that perhaps the answer lay in dynamite. To test his theory, Vincent Vidman filled a reinforced concrete dugout, known as a pillbox, with explosives. Then he locked a bunch of kidnapped Russian mental patients inside and detonated the payload.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Ooh, that's.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. The problem was that while the result was indeed deadly, they did all die. The concrete dugout was also destroyed, and the explosion sent concrete shards and body parts flying in every direction. That's not going to work.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Everybody's mad.

[Ed Larson]

This is splatter.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which is why we decided to change tax. I have built this job giant foot that will step down upon them. They need to lay down so that the foot can imply equal pressure. We have to stop blowing them up.

[Marcus Parks]

Undeterred, Albert Vidman decided that his next instrument of death was carbon monoxide. Vidman and his team rigged a car engine with a hose to fill the interior cab with carbon monoxide. And he found that the victims inside fell unconscious within 10 minutes and died shortly thereafter. Encouraged by these results, Vidman converted a series of vans and put mobile gas chambers into production. These were the first gas chambers in the Nazi state, and these gas vans were presented to the Einsatzgruppen for use across Eastern Europe in September of 1941. The Nazis would cram as many people as they could fit inside and gas them. But the problem here was that the bodies inside the van would become so embraced in one another and contorted so badly that the Einsatzgruppen would have to dismember the bodies just to be able to carry them to the mass graves. Even so, it's estimated that between December of 1941 and June of 1942, up to 87,000 Jewish people were killed in these gas vans. The Einsatzgruppen, however, eventually stopped using the gas vans, not because it was too brutal, but because of how often the vans broke down. And they instead returned to their tried and true, true method of stripping victims naked and simply shooting them en masse.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think I see a problem here. It seems as if this van has been sold to us by Ford. Obviously, you all know it means to stand for fix repair daily.

[Marcus Parks]

I remember that. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now she's bumming me out.

[Ed Larson]

He's got a lot of good ideas for. He's got an idea. Vans have always been creepy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's not fair. It's not fair to vans. Because then I think about the lobotomy vans.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, the lobotomy vans. The kidnapping the hillside stranglers vans. There's something about a mobile space that's really dangerous for humans to have, and.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It turns like influencers.

[Ed Larson]

Crazy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It does when they become small house people.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, no, no, no, no. Bad things happen when, you know, humans can put isolation on we wheels. The Einsatzgruppen were designed to operate independently, both on the war front and behind enemy lines if necessary. But while they were independent, they also had the full logistical support of the Wehrmacht to ensure they were always well supplied. As far as how many Einsatzgruppen there were, the numbers varied throughout the war, but at any given time, between 1939 and 1945, there were between 25, 503, 500 individuals participating in mass murder every single day. It did not stop.

[Ed Larson]

Isn't it crazy? I actually thought it'd be more. The more the numbers of the item Groupen.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, you would think it'd be more. And the fact that it's so few is far more disturbing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

That it's only between 2500 and 3500. But you also got to remember they're also rotating out constantly because guys don't last a long time.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It had a high turnover rate and it was used as a of punishment.

[Marcus Parks]

When it reached the full height of its power. The Einot Groupen was split into seven Einsatz Groupa of 500 men each. And these groups were divided into several Einsat's, commandos of anywhere between 100 and 150 men, depending on the mission. So you basically had. Let's see here. I mean, you. So you basically just had like band after bat, about 100 psychopaths just constantly roaming Eastern Europe for years and murdering entire towns full of people.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dude, I just went and I went in a horrible rattle ra rabbit hole over all of different, like, leaders of all the separate Eisen Groupen, you know. And I got to Friedrich Yekulin, who did a bunch of bad stuff, and, man, he's a real jerk.

[Marcus Parks]

He is. He is.

[Ed Larson]

That's what happens when I don't go by Frederick, you know?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Seriously, dude. Freddy.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the largest group was Einsat's group in a, which included 990 SS personnel, complete with drivers, administrators, police secretaries, interpreters, radio operators. It cannot be stressed how organized all of this was.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They probably had, like, a chef.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But to show you the priorities of the Nazi regime, the Einsatzgruppen were fully motorized at a time when the Wehrmacht artillery was still horse drawn. The Einsatzgruppen's resources, of course, were due to Heinrich Himmler's clever administration. And since the Einsatzgruppen were so well equipped, just one unit operating in Poland was able to murder 90,000 men, women and children in a matter of one weeks. But the important thing to remember was that the Einsatzgruppen always looked at the violence they committed as civilized, and they conducted themselves in what they believed was a civilized manner. For example, at the end of an operation after an Einsatzkommando had killed hundreds, if not thousands of people in a single day, they would be served schnapps and appetizers as both a reward and as a way to make the action feel official, as if it was some sort of occasional occasion to be celebrated. Now, incredibly, the Einsatzgruppen were not the only band of SS psychopaths roaming Eastern Europe during World War II. Great in. Wow. Good. In particular, Heinrich Himmler had recruited an absolute psychopath named Oscar Derloanger as a supplemental force to the Einsatz Groupen.

[Ed Larson]

Like a one man Einson Groupen?

[Marcus Parks]

No, like a they. He thought like, okay, the Einsatz Groupen. Yeah, they're great. But what if I had one group that was worse?

[Henry Zebrowski]

The worse. Worse, worse one. And this was the guy that we were going to actually cover.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And we got to Himler because of this guy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there is in. There's a fair amount of information out about him, but his. But there's a biography coming out, it's just about to come out in like January about Oscar Dur Winger. He was in World War I. He was heavily involved in the Warsaw Uprising. Evil, evil, evil motherfucker.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But he's also one of those evil motherfuckers that kill people by hand.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oscar Durloanger is no Himmler. He's no even Hitler. He's a fool. He's a real killer.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

You know how many people you can gas in the Oscar Meyer wiener reveal?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Are they laying down?

[Marcus Parks]

Seemingly. Oscar Duranger's command was a sort of experiment.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sitting on this the whole time. No, you've been sitting on that since the band discussion. And you've been waiting. He said all these horrible things and you've been sitting on that Wiener mobile joke.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Durloanger and Himmler had collaborated in searching through the concentration camps to find the most violent, despicable men contained therein. Men willing to carry out absolute atrocities with glee. Think of it like the Suicide Squad, but with Nazis.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, like if they weren't using the Suicide Squad for good.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. If they were using. Using it for. For Leben's realm, you know, Himmler then put these psychopaths in Derwanger's command and set them loose on Eastern Europe to be as absolutely depraved as they wanted to be.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's almost like a graduated version of the Stormtroopers.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it is. Get like, let's just see what, like. It's basically unleashing a storm of psychopathy across a land and let's see what happens. Let's see what they do.

[Ed Larson]

The end of Blazing Saddles.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just like actually.

[Marcus Parks]

Really? Yeah, it totally is, yeah. Told you to wash your hands. Amongst other atrocities, Dirlewanger and his crew would round up thousands of civilians and cram them into barns before opening fire. Or they'd set the barn on fire and shoot anyone who tried to escape, all while they laughed to their heart's content. These sorts of actions made Dirlewanger notorious for his unsurpassed methods of viciousness and depravity, to the point where even other SS leaders were disposable, disgusted by Der Lewinger's reputation. And the Nazis did briefly consider a plan to simply deport the millions of Jews in Eastern Europe to the Asian country of Madagascar. Let's all. Let's just put them on an island, let nature take its course, see what happens.

[Ed Larson]

Madagascar not a part of Africa back then?

[Marcus Parks]

No, it was a French territory at that point.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they have all the lemurs. Yeah, it's cute.

[Ed Larson]

I've seen the movie Hitler.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We got a lot of very interesting reggae.

[Marcus Parks]

Really would have.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, do that. Madagascar Africa album is fucking awesome.

[Marcus Parks]

Hitler, however, abandoned this plan when he realized that he would have to compete with the British navy in order to ferry all of these Jews by boat. So Hitler told Himmler, just keep the Einsatzgroupin on their mission and just tell them, keep shooting every Jewish person you find. The final solution therefore kicked into a higher gear. And in the spring of 1941, several thousand Nazi soldiers were ordered to the small German town of Prech, where they were told that they were about to undergo training to expand the Einsatzgruppen. And so, with the extermination force embiggened, the Einsatzgruppen began the next phase of mass murder. On June 23, 1941, the Wehrmacht captured the Lithuanian city of Kaunas. Kaunas was home to 120,000 people, 35,000 of which were Jews. And just to let everyone know, this is when it to came gets bad.

[Ed Larson]

This is when it gets.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is the bad part.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, this is when it begins. This is. We're about. The escalation has reached.

[Ed Larson]

We've already killed like a million.

[Marcus Parks]

Fair amount. But this is when the people get involved.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, okay.

[Marcus Parks]

Once the city of Kaunas was captured, Einsat's group and a got to their business. But they did not do their dirty work alone. See, anti Semitism was not a German creation. So wherever the SS went in Eastern Europe, they found plenty of willing collaborators amongst the civilian population. These collaborators were either people who had long standing anti Semitic beliefs, people who were trying to ingratiate themselves to the invading force that was the Nazis, or they were simple psychopaths who saw an opening to commit horrific atrocities in public without consequence. In Kaunas, for example, a group of 600 Lithuanians organized to aid the Einsat. And that group of 600 civilians burned down synagogues and Jewish homes, all while they were rounding up their Jewish neighbors to beat them to death in the city square. The Nazis even opened the prisons so the prisoners could join in on the pogrom. And after the inmates armed themselves with clubs, they were set on the. They were set on the task of finding and killing every Jew in town. On the 1st. The first night, 1500 Jews were murdered and another 2300 followed. The next day, men with crowbars beat Jews to death in the streets. And after the bodies were dragged away from the town square, there was so much blood that the town had to bring out the hoses to wash it away. Similar scenes broke out all across Lithuania as soon as the Nazis entered. And as the mountains of corpses piled up, eager collaboration operators would grab accordions and play the Lithuanian national anthem next to the mounds of dead bodies. Because the Nazis were not alone in seeing the Jews as an existential threat. Once time came for disposal, though, the Einsatzgruppen organized the Jews they hadn't killed yet into a burial team. The prisoners were forced to dig mass graves and drag the dead into the pits. And once they were done, the gravediggers themselves themselves were shot as well.

[Ed Larson]

The Lithuanians, you know, they use this tie dye to make themselves look all cuddly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, they really do. But I think this is a really good.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, the Grateful Dead basket. I actually. That was the same thing that I thought. I thought the exact.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Like, I just want to say thank you to Marcus for all your hard work. And here's a little levity moment where I'm going to give Marcus another one of his Einsan Groupen Day presents.

[Marcus Parks]

Fantastic. Thank you so much.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. This one's going to like because I think this is really to help alleviate some of the tension. It's going to cut. Some of. This is good to see. They're still good in humanity. People still give each other gifts.

[Marcus Parks]

Grouping friendship still exists.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that is your commemorative AI designed St. Jeremy Allen White candle.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. Yeah, it's the guy from the bear who. Who I am told I look quite a bit like.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You do look somewhat.

[Ed Larson]

You do look a little like him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, somewhat like him. I see him often at the. He is at the. The farmer. Farmers market.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And he's always on the little train looking grumpy.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, well, his last name's White and he's on a train.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He should be happy.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you very much, Henry. This is very sweet.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Enjoy.

[Ed Larson]

Should I give?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, wait. Well, we have more.

[Ed Larson]

Okay, good. Because my gift seemed inappropriate at this moment.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And this one was Sir Jeremy Allen Wayne. Yes. Is that what this is? Do you see him there? Do you see? Honestly, he could play Oscar Dirlewanger.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh my God, he really, really could.

[Ed Larson]

Well, right now he's playing Bruce Springsteen. Oh, well, so similar.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, even though the Einsat Groupen were technically the creation of Reinhard Heydrick, they were still under Heinrich Himmler's direct control because Himmler was in possession of a secret and ensured Heyrick would do whatever Himmler wanted. See, during the standard investigation into Hydrick's ancestry, the investigation that was required for all SS men, Himmler had discovered that Heidrick had Jewish blood.

[Ed Larson]

And it wasn't just on his hands.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It was also in his little vial. He actually had a little like.

[Marcus Parks]

And Himmler used this knowledge as leverage anytime he felt that the balance of power was shifting too much in Heydrich's direction.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Can you imagine that meeting? Can you just the idea of you walk in, you get called in it because, you know, he probably was like, oh, I've got to talk to you for a minute in the office. Like, it was probably like real the way a Nazi would do it, where you sit down there and him just flapping it down on the table being like, we found something interesting, Heidrick. Yeah, Like I could just see it be the smile on his face.

[Ed Larson]

You're 23 and me results are very puzzling.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Mr. Pakistani.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I'm sure it was present from the very beginning because that had Kemmler did that investigation anytime someone joined the ss. But he saw something in Heydrich. Like he saw, I can use this man. He. He saw how self loathing he was. And he saw that he could use that hatred to, you know, get what he wanted.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh yeah, he's a highly vulnerable second in command.

[Ed Larson]

So he, he had more than three grandparents of Jewish blood.

[Marcus Parks]

He just had some Jewish blood and someone who's in Himler's inner char of the Einsat Groupen.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He better not be.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, he was the creator of the Einsat Groupen. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Story by But Himler probably did too.

[Ed Larson]

Man, he had that dark hair and like that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He just looked a fucking. He just was ugly and gross and it was nothing but recessive genes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he's just a. Yeah. A recessive mutt would probably be a really good way of describing Henry Kimmer. Recessive gene, European mutt. But Himmler, he didn't just think of himself as a mere administrator. He believed himself to be an educator. And he was therefore meticulously involved in the lives of those who served under him. But his meddling did not go both ways. While he did think of himself as their educator, Himmler also mistake trusted everyone beneath him. While every other top Nazi had a trusted staff. Goebbels had his guys, Goring had his guys. Himmler insisted on handling all the details of delegating his tasks himself, which meant that he was well aware of everything the Einsatz Groupen was doing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's almost like Himmler was the only real Nazi. You know, in some ways I just.

[Marcus Parks]

Think about according to Himmler, Goebbels was a real Nazi. Yeah, I'm. I mean, come on.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, sure, you're right. I'm sorry, I was saying like Himmler, just like this, the fact that he was just centered in his lane, knew he had to take care of what he had to take care of. He can't trust all these guys, all these busy bodies. No one knows what to do.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like I said in the first episode, there has to be the most Nazi Nazi and it's Himmler. See, Himmler thought of himself as a man always on the move. This is also what made him the Nazis Nazi. He thought that he was a guy making important decisions on the fly. He's constantly driving his man mission forward. And Himmler would even personally intervene to sort out problems between SS members. And his meddling would even extend to the diets of his men. For example, Himmler had a 22 point list about the rules for making toast so as to make the toast most easily digested. Himmler also insisted that his men only eat specific foods like apples, pears, nuts and oat flakes. Very Germanic. Foods.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know that he also believes that these are healthy and these are things to do. But also remember, like all good cult leaders, if you create a set of very distinct rules to follow, you get really used to following ornate sets of rules.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, but how boring do you have to be to write a book on toast?

[Henry Zebrowski]

You have to be the most Nazi of all Nazis.

[Marcus Parks]

Himmler also expected his leaders to keep their men well fed. And if Himmler thought that any of his SS units were suffering from malnutrition, he would send their leader to an actual place that he created called the House of Poor Nourishment. There, Himmler would force SS leaders to eat food that was overcooked or badly prepared. That was the whole point of it. You have to go to the House of Poor Nourishment for a month and eat canned peaches and overcooked fish for, you know, until I decide you've been punished.

[Ed Larson]

Today we call that the cracker barrel.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I just see a 1940s guy, Fieri, just popping up and like, hey, what's going on, you fucking bitches? And then, like, putting each one, like, know, like the dick's last resort.

[Ed Larson]

Like, my butt stinks, you know, driving and trains.

[Marcus Parks]

Himmler also had rules involving his men's personalities, arbitrary rules that were up to Himler's personal discretion.

[Ed Larson]

He has no right to talk about personality.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's exactly why.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he could deem a man too vain or too ambitious or too addicted to reading newspapers. And if Himmler believed the offense was bad enough, and this is really what it was all about, if he thought that a guy was more trouble than he was worth, Himmler had enough rules where he could say, like, all right, you're dead. Kill him. He's broken too many rules.

[Ed Larson]

He really is the mob.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Yeah. But Himler also might punish an SS man for being afraid of breaking the rules. You're not breaking enough rules. Or he might punish a man for being afraid of punishment. In other words, Himmler was merciless even with his own men, to the point where he would punish the families of SS men who died by suicide, making sure that the so called shame was noted at their graves. Himmler, however, could flip rule breakers if he saw an opportunity. If an SS officer was bad with money and needed a loan, or if he violated the SS's strict laws concerning copulation with non Aryans. And by the way, that role was broken with. Was broken more and more often with the more lands the Nazis conquered. Yeah, Himmler could blackmail the officer into participating in the Assignments that few men volunteered. Volunteered for. These assignments of course could involve being assigned to the Einsatzgruppen, especially as the killing reached new heights and scenes like the aforementioned pogrom and Kaunas played out in countless towns and cities across Eastern Europe.

[Ed Larson]

Dude, it's like a pimp, you know, he just uses anything he can against you. It's whether it's like for him or against him, like it doesn't matter because.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He understands that movement. It's like a shark. He can't not. Nazis have to be on the move, constantly on the defense because he's right. Himmler knows that everybody's trying to kill him. Everybody's trying to be in charge of the SS and the Einsatz group. And, and when you're in charge of all these murderers, you're you staff murderers. So you have to. And nothing like having a lot of like strings on somebody.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. And if you stay in one place for too long, people rise up. If you stay on the move, people are like oh thank God they're gone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And then also, oh, then things fall, fall to. Then the upstairs guys go like we need to send Himmler back there because he's the only one who knows what's going on. So then Himmler goes back, he proves himself to be very valuable.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And, but at the same time it's a, it's around this period that Heydrich starts believing that not only can he do a better job than Himmler, he can do a better job than Hitler. And Heydrich is actually starting to make plans to depose even Hitler. That that's how many ouch backbiting is going on.

[Ed Larson]

Well hey, Drake's the only guy who's actually getting his hands dirty.

[Marcus Parks]

Now if you are wondering why the civilians in these pilgrims didn't fight back, it's because the mass killing of civilians by the Nazis was an operation that was planned out and executed with extraordinary precision. And it was backed by a massive amount of organization and support. On your average operational day, an einsat's group and unit would surprise towns in the early morning hours when it was still dark. Accompanied by vicious attack dogs who would maul any civilian who got out of line. The able bodied males were killed quickly with advanced weaponry, machine pistols and machine guns. While the only weapons the civilians might have to fight back with were farm implements. Later the Nazis would even use power shovels to dig mass grave pits a few miles outside of the villages before they even went in. So the civilians wouldn't see what was coming until it was Far too late that of all the mass graves across East Eastern Europe, none were deeper nor filled with more bodies than the Babi Yar ravine in Ukraine. This ravine, which runs straight through the city of Kyiv, is known as the Babushka Ravine. And it is so massive that if you stood on one side and shouted, you would not be heard by someone on the other side. But unfortunately for the people of Kyiv, when the Einsatzgruppen arrived, they immediately saw both be as one massive pre dug grave.

[Ed Larson]

You know, it's so textbook. You kill the people who can fight the hardest first.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And so everyone you like. So why didn't they rise up? It's cuz like the most powerful guys we got just got killed immediately.

[Marcus Parks]

Within the first hour.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But question is, is this what it's called when you paint with all the colors of the wind?

[Marcus Parks]

What the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Using the land itself. Like, did he learn another horrible lesson from Pocahont? To use the land, use the land. The land is there somewhat.

[Marcus Parks]

At least the Einzat Groupen did when they saw it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, that song isn't gonna bum me out next time I sing that. Naked in the pool.

[Ed Larson]

Yes, he puts the hauntus in Pocahontas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

So on September 26, 1941, Einsat's group and C ordered all the Jews in the city of of Kyiv to appear near a cemetery at the edge of Babi Ya Ravine in three days time. They were told to arrive with all their documents, money and valuables, because the Nazis claimed that they were simply going to resettle them elsewhere. But when Kev's Jews arrived to the cemetery on September 29, the Einsatzgruppen and their collaborators spent two full days murdering Kyiv's 33,771 Jewish civilians, making Babi Yar the single worst massacre of the entire war. That day. The attacks began without explanation, as brutal blows rained down on the collected Jews from all directions. The Nazis and their collaborators did so happily laughing as if in the words of one author, they were merely watching a search circus act. People began collapsing to the ground where the Nazi dogs ripped them to shreds. And it was said that the victim's screams mixed with the sounds of Nazi joy in a sort of symphony of confusion now panic. Civilians did try running away, but in the end they were only crushing each other. And finally the Einsatzgruppen brought the group back under control. The Jews were then ordered to strip. And if they didn't do so fast enough, the Nazis tore their clothes clothing off and beat them with clubs and brass knuckles. All the clothing and valuables belonging to the Jews were of course, loaded onto trucks as Nazi plunder to further fund the war effort. But once the Jews were naked, they were forced to walk down to the bottom of the Babi Yar ravine upon pathways that the Nazis had cut into the side of a steep canyon. Once the first group was at the bottom of the ravine, they were ordered to lie down and a squad of 12 Einsatzgruppen's soldiers opened fire with submachine guns. After the first group was killed, the Nazis forced group after group after group of men, women and children to lie down on top of the previous layers of corpses so they could be mowed down just like the one that came before. The piles were eventually hundreds of feet long down the Babiyar ravine and layers piled several bodies high. The Nazis, however, had already predicted that the Jews would not march directly to the their deaths if they knew that it was a certainty. So the pathway they had cut into the ravine had a sharp right turn just before the corpse pile began. That way the victims wouldn't know until the very last second exactly what was happening. Although the screams and constant machine gun fire, which only paused every four hours to switch out a new squad, it probably gave them an idea of what was coming. But on the other hand, you're naked and where else are you going to go? What are you going to do? But in order to keep the assembly line of murder going, a so called packer was assigned to stand at the sharp turn. And this packer would push victims into the line of fire so the machine gunners would not have to aim in all. The entire operation was set up to be mechanical, soulless and constant. And the only survivors of Babi Yar were those who managed to avoid the guns of the other Einsatzgruppen, who are assigned to constantly hover around the piles of corpses looking for people amongst the bodies to shoot again.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Happy eins Gropen day to Marcus. What a wonderful day it is that we're having.

[Ed Larson]

I have another gift for you. This was a very powerful moment and it was very hard. So I, and I imagine it was very hard to write.

[Marcus Parks]

It was.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So this.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is from us.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Next time you have to write something like this, you know, maybe you could even use this right now, to be honest with you.

[Marcus Parks]

Very nice. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. You're welcome.

[Ed Larson]

This will kind of help you deal with all.

[Marcus Parks]

It's squarish.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think this will help.

[Ed Larson]

It's a Square.

[Marcus Parks]

You're right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is good.

[Ed Larson]

This is good for.

[Marcus Parks]

Right tile of some kind. I think this is. It's being. It's a coaster with a kitty on it that says don't stress me out.

[Henry Zebrowski]

See, that's really important to do me out.

[Marcus Parks]

Go on, guys. Don't stress me out.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know this right now, I mean, this was very stressful.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Eins Group and day.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you. Thank you both, very sweet. No problem.

[Ed Larson]

Still looking for a time to give this one gift away and I haven't. It just seems very inappropriate. You should have talked me out of it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's the other one. There's another one of.

[Marcus Parks]

Now the initial two day massacre at Bobby Yar.

[Ed Larson]

You're not using the coaster.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I mean, I'm. I'm using the I.

[Henry Zebrowski]

If you wanted to honestly stressing me out.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm using it as something to fiddle with.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm using. I'm rubbing it. Yeah, it's a. I'm using a little stem thing. Yeah, it's. It's good because I like the corners on it. Now, the initial two day massacre at Babi Yar resulted in the murder of almost 34,000 Jewish civilians. But the ravine was far too useful to be left left alone. As the Nazis purged the city of Kyiv of communist and Romani while it was still under their control, they dumped the bodies of the dead in Babi Yar on a schedule. Every Tuesday and Friday was corpse day. That meant that by the time the Soviet Red army liberated Kyiv In November of 1943, there was somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 corpses rotting in the Babi Ya ravine. We have no idea exactly how many. Just an estimate. Heinrich Himmler, meanwhile, was back in Berlin having a grand old time with his secretary, Hedwig. If we may take a short break from the Holocaust.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, wow. Yeah, we're going to date time now.

[Ed Larson]

Is this where TGIF comes from?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I do believe that is true, yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Himmler's secretary, Hedwig Pothast, had started working for Himmler in 1980. 1936, at the impressionable age of 23. But within two years, Hedwig had become Himmler's mistress. Incredibly, Hedwig seemed to have quite the effect on the usually taciturn administrator. And it was noted by friends that Himmler became a different man as a result of his love affair.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What is this, a Meryl Stream movie? This is turned into I just. All of a sudden he's over there, he's Matthew McConaughey. And Kate Hudson.

[Marcus Parks]

And this is what's happening while Bobby Yar is occurring in Ukraine. This is what's happening in Berlin with Heinrich Himmler. This is what Heinrich Himmler is doing with his day, doing with his time. While people are being killed by the thousands, Himmler is giving a pet name to his secretary. He called her Hussen, meaning little bunny. And Hedwig even convinced Himmler to get a haircut that was, quote, less severe.

[Ed Larson]

I agree with her.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, I was thinking the other day, you know, what you look good on? And I saw this in things the other day. Have you ever heard of Corn Rose? Very cool, very new. He could look good with some cornrows.

[Marcus Parks]

I could see it.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. See, as you get older, the hair on the top of your head goes away. So let's try growing some of the stuff on the bottom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That may be.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, you gotta lose the butt head.

[Marcus Parks]

But since Hedwig was Himmler's mistress, she naturally shared his enthusiasm for mass murder. Because you can't share a bed with Heinrich Himler without sharing his beliefs.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Isn't there like some kind of in and out about whether or not she really knew anything? It seems like they did see each other, but we have no idea what they're. It sounds like she was a grand old Nazi, but.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, I mean, according to one of Hedwig's friends, she knew and she was very, very involved.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Himmler's real into it. Yeah, I'm certain you talk. How much does Carolina now know about Himler? How much does Natalie have to know about UFOs? You mean to tell me these people aren't going to talk?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Carolina knows quite a bit because she helped with the story editing and much of the production on this episode. Thank you very much, Carolina, for your help on this. And she's always there on the couch. In the. In the 10 years that we've been together, she's always there when I'm, quote, watching my Nazi shows at night, you know, winding down.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

So, yeah, she knows quite a bit.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. And, you know, like Natalie, you know, she, you know, Hedwig, you know, had a partner who was like a pillow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, that's nice.

[Ed Larson]

I'm a. I'm a source of comfort.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it seems like once the Einsatz Groupen really got going, Himmler began living in his own twisted version of civilized society with Hedwig as his partner. They actually lived in a luxurious home in Hitler's neighborhood.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, whoa.

[Ed Larson]

That's crazy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

How'd they get that?

[Marcus Parks]

You Never think about that. Like, there was a Hitler had a neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He had a Hitler to favor. Random restaurant. We probably ate at it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It was actually quite good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That pork knuckle was so good. We went to this place in Berlin. It's the oldest restaurant in the entire city. It's one of the oldest restaurants in Europe. In the world. We went. Amazing food. They have all of these luminaries. Beethovenate there.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Every member of. Of all German society.

[Ed Larson]

The dog or the musician and.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But then there's like, almost like a sense that there's pictures missing.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. There's a period missing, possibly between 1933 and 1945. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like nobody went to the restaurant.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. I mean, the thing is, the food's good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Food's incredible. Well, according to one of Hedwig's friends, Hedwig knew, because the friend claims that Hedwig and Himmler's house featured chairs made from human bodies parts. One chair was supposedly made from the polished bones of a human pelvic girdle, while the other was made from human legs and feet.

[Ed Larson]

No health inspector, huh?

[Marcus Parks]

Himmler and Hedwig also reportedly owned a copy of Mein Kampf that had a cover made from human skin. Supposedly it was a gift that Hitler gave to all of the top Nazis. But it must be said that the existence of these items has never been confirmed, nor were they found after the Allies defeated Germany. If there was a. If Hitler did give a bunch of copies of Mein Kampf bound in human skin to all the top Nazis, one of them would. We would have found one.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's no way. There's not one around.

[Marcus Parks]

No. Yeah. If it. If they ever existed, which I don't.

[Ed Larson]

Think they did, they turned it into a football.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But I do. But I feel like that's a part of the legend. There's more legends in here, too, where I wonder whether or not, like, I got some flack by even thinking about Himmler as a asexual person, even though we had this extended affair. But honestly, who's to say it was hypersexual versus somebody just hanging out with. You finally have a younger woman that's paying attention to you that eats up everything that you say, and then maybe you just play house with this person. I don't see him as a big kisser.

[Ed Larson]

No. No. Especially with that chin. His teeth are going to fall out of his mouth.

[Marcus Parks]

But I guess she. But without the chin. She does have a good, like, nuzzle spot.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, she does. That is very comfortable.

[Marcus Parks]

But the Adam's apples going to get in the way.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She's frightening looking.

[Ed Larson]

Hers or his.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hedwig potass is frightening looking. She looks like a character from the Strangers.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, she. You know what she looks like? She looks like the girl from the Frighteners when she was young.

[Ed Larson]

What's her last name? I want to see her.

[Marcus Parks]

Potass. P O T T H A S T Pot. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Scary. Oh man.

[Ed Larson]

Deep eyes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah. She looks like someone who would love Himmler.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, she's like.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, it's very Sherry Moon Zombie. Yeah, right.

[Marcus Parks]

But whether or not Himler and Hedwig were living in an Ed Gein fever dream or not, the happy couple were actually having sex with each other. And just a few months after the Bobby Yar massacre, Hedwig gave birth to Heinrich Himmler's second child, a boy named Helga. Eventually she would give birth to two children from Himmler. Now, Himmler was still married to his horrible wife, wife Marga. But in his eyes, he'd done something to be proud of in having a child with another woman. In Himmler's view, he was merely practicing what he preached. Because Himmler's obsession with breeding the master race had only gotten stronger as the war went on. See, not too long after Himmler had his second child, he signed an order declaring that all quote unquote seductions of women and girls by SS men, they all needed to be reported to him personally so he could keep an eye on how Aryan blood was spreading across across Europe. Hypocritically, Himmler would even involve himself in cases of adultery within the ss, reviewing each case personally to see which couples should be forced to stay together in procreate and which couples should be sent to the camps.

[Ed Larson]

So he sent Nazis who were adulterers to the camps.

[Marcus Parks]

Let's be honest, he sent Nazis wives who were adulterers to the camps.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, Nazis were fine. It was all the women.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, if we may return to the Holocaust, you guys mind? Oh, great.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, I almost forgot.

[Ed Larson]

What else are doing we doing?

[Marcus Parks]

Not every location in which the Einsatz Groupen operated had a baby ravine ready to be filled with bodies. Therefore, the main logistical problems that faced Himmler's men in the Einsatz Groupen was what are we gonna do with all these bodies? Cuz leaving them out in the open was a gruesome health hazard. The obvious answer, of course, was to dig mass graves. And for a while that's exactly what they did. But the pits became their own sort of extraordinarily traumatizing horror. Horror shows for everyone involved. See, once these grave pits were filled with dozens, if not hundreds of victims and covered in dirt, the ground would move as if it was breathing. Yeah, because many of those who had been shot by the Einsatzgruppen before the dirt was thrown on top, they had not died before the burying began. The living would often dig themselves out, exhausted and covered in blood. Many died just a few yards from the pits. But those that didn't die were simply shot again by the Einsatzgruppen and left to rot where they lay. The Nazis also experimented with quicklime to speed up the decomposition process. But again, the problem was with the living. When the quicklime hit the skin of those thrown into the pits, those who had not yet died, the chemicals would boil them alive as their skin sloughed off the bone. According to some survivors, the screams of those being chemically eaten away by the quicklime was worse than the burns caused by the quicklime itself. And the screams would only get louder as layer after layer of humans were marched to the mass graves, shot and dumped on the melting mass of flesh.

[Ed Larson]

All right, so I didn't know that this was the script, you know, when I got this gift.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Okay, then, now it's one other wonderful moment for a happy day.

[Ed Larson]

Happy day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, just make sure you're saying, celebrating at home every single time you hear some sort of unearthly, ungodly horror.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Take a shot. I don't know. I don't know what you're supposed to do. Give a gift to yourself.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, you. That's. Maybe it's. Yeah, maybe give a gift to your. Give a gift to someone you love. Give it. You know what it is? Let's make it a. You give a gift to a friend. That's what it is. On. And. And we're recording this on October 23rd, so grouping day is a day when you try to replace the horrors committed by the Eins Groupen with the power of friendship.

[Ed Larson]

Okay, and then since, like. And like. I know that this could be insensitive, but I just have to mention again, I got this because I know who you are, personally.

[Marcus Parks]

Me, personally.

[Ed Larson]

It has nothing to do with the script.

[Marcus Parks]

Gotcha.

[Ed Larson]

It's a really nice shovel.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We got you this brand new shovel.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, my God, this is incredible.

[Ed Larson]

Really good shot. Somewhere with that thing. It's a good handle.

[Marcus Parks]

It's a really. It's a nice, like, short.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, we did debate.

[Ed Larson]

He's got a new garden. I don't know what the to do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He debated because of the master element. We know that. But he likes shovels. It's got nothing to do with the graves.

[Marcus Parks]

And it's not.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It just shovels.

[Marcus Parks]

I just. I enjoy digging. I. I have since I was a child. I enjoyed digging, I enjoyed dirt. And the fact that you, the two of you gave me two digging implements shows that you know me very well and I appreciate both of you.

[Ed Larson]

May this shovel bring you life. Thank you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, beautiful.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you. I will use the shovel to create life.

[Ed Larson]

Yes. Yeah. Vegetables maybe.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, wow.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Food, I think will be. You do with the shovel, you know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank you.

[Ed Larson]

Pit body if you can avoid it if it happens. You got a shovel.

[Henry Zebrowski]

If I do, the only thing that you can do.

[Marcus Parks]

I do. And this is just. This is so nice. Thank you. Because it's nice. I can fiddle with it. Too small enough to fiddle with.

[Ed Larson]

Exactly. It's like a sitting cane. It is so. Yeah. And I will say the one weird thing. I should have known better because when I was watching Triumph of the Will when they all the Nazis were lined up, they were all holding shovels.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Why not guns?

[Marcus Parks]

Because they wanted to show that, you know, they remember it's all about agriculture. It's all about, you know, warrior farmers.

[Ed Larson]

Such a nerd with the farming.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, buddy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. That was also. But that was also Goebbels. Like Nuremberg was Goebbels, baby. Yeah. Because, you know, he had a. I think he had a theater degree. Like, I think he had a theater tech degree. I remember he had studied like Goebbels had studied theater.

[Ed Larson]

Savings. Their fault.

[Marcus Parks]

Nope, that's ours.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Benjamin Franklin.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I had a idea. I was reading a thing about Nuremberg about how they had this thing where he had set up 151 aircraft detective lights around the Nuremberg rallies in order to create this column of light. This like godly column of light. And the most like literally on the nose thing at the very top of the converging, it would create this like point of light where it was converging. They said that during Nuremberg rallies, birds would fall from the sky as they got caught in the orb of light and they would die. They would literally fly until they died.

[Ed Larson]

Nuremberg. You know what? I want a Nur burger.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, it's cuz we're hungry. Let's wait.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah. You put sauerkraut on a burger.

[Marcus Parks]

As it was, the Einsat Groupen had plenty of reasons to dig pits. There was an unimaginable number of bodies to dispose of because Once they got started killing at a full clip, each of the seven Einsat Groupen could easily be responsible for 20,000 murders per month. But eventually, the mass murder began to wear on Himmler's men. You can't kill millions upon millions of people without it starting to with you a little bit. But while there were certainly Nazis in the. In the Waffen SS and the Einsatzgruppen who were traumatized by the atrocities they committed, there was a significant core who were eager and enthusiastic killers who did not need any sort of gradual brutalization to get them accustomed to. To mass murder. By the end of 1941, all seven Einsatzgruppen units developed their own tactics for mass murder. And each group tweaked their methods, depending on the unit leader's style and on what direction the unit sadism leaned. In Minsk, for example, one Einsatzgruppen leader would arrange for the youngest and prettiest of the Jewish girls in the city to march to a cemetery in a mock beauty contest. Once they were amongst the the graves, they were forced to strip naked before being shot one by one. The last to survive, the winner, so to speak, would be raped by the Einsatzgruppen leader, who would subsequently murder her himself.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Happy Einstein day. One last little gift for the wonderful dead.

[Ed Larson]

This.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This one last gift to bring a positive edge. You're looking for the silver lining.

[Ed Larson]

This is. Since this is the last one, this is the biggest gift.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay.

[Ed Larson]

It's a. It's a three parter, and it's all music based.

[Marcus Parks]

This is.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

First is Danny Bosan's new book, Make My Funk the P. That's a really good plug.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you so much.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Especially in the middle of Hamler Mil. He loves that.

[Ed Larson]

And then, you know, like, Marcus likes rare music. Punk's a little too popular for you. So here we have Larry Mullins album, who is the drummer for the Bad Seeds.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's awesome.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's as good as money.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. A lot of people say, you know, you don't need to give the drummer an album, but not Larry Mullins.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, because all it is.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, it's like Radiohead, but without the radio or the head. And. And then also this one is. I think the best one is it's a cassette of the Repo man soundtrack, but it's not the Repo man soundtrack. It's a tribute to the Repo man soundtrack. So it's covers of all of the Repo man songs.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, thank you.

[Ed Larson]

Hold on.

[Henry Zebrowski]

To that one.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, Mike Watt.

[Ed Larson]

Mike Watt. The, the, the, the, the first song, the Repo man theme song, is done by those darlings.

[Marcus Parks]

I love those darlings.

[Ed Larson]

It's good. It's really good.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm sure they love the. With the plug here as well.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Right in the middle of here.

[Ed Larson]

Himmler, man. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Hell yeah. But it does help us escape from Himmler.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Jesse Zazu unfortunately died of cancer, so there's no more of those shows.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, it's now I'm angry.

[Marcus Parks]

Mike Watt's still around. Mike Watt in the second man. They're doing great.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're doing great. And plug to them.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No. Happy.

[Marcus Parks]

I thank you very much. It's a very thoughtful guest. No problem. Nope. Back to the I, Einsatzgruppen.

[Ed Larson]

Great. Sure.

[Marcus Parks]

The insane brutality was not the case across the board. In order to deal with the murder of innocent men, women and children, some Einsatzgruppen leaders engaged in games of pretend where they would tell themselves that they were actually killing criminals or resistance fighters. But when the justification stopped working, some Einsatzgruppen would find themselves overcome with uncontrollable fits of crying. Come out of nowhere. Others began suffering from impotence multiple times. Einsat's group and soldiers completely lost all sense of reality. And they would begin shooting wildly, killing and wounding their fellow SS men. Eventually, the SS came to recognize when this was about to happen, and the men for whom it was all too much would be sent home to either die by suicide or drink themselves into oblivion. By number two was the more common one. But many, many Einsatzgruppen members killed themselves pretty soon after coming home.

[Ed Larson]

It's so rare that I'm like, suicide, right?

[Marcus Parks]

That's good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Get out of here. Honestly, get out of here.

[Marcus Parks]

You ruined. You ruined it. You ruined it and you gotta go. You gotta go. Himmler, however, eventually recognized that the Einsatzgruppen was not a long term solution. Which of course is when he got the idea to begin using the concentration camps to fully industrialize and more importantly, depersonalize the Holocaust. But in October of 1941, hope for the people of Eastern Europe finally arrived. That month, Japan sent word that they would remain neutral in the German Russian War. This met that Stalin could transfer all the troops he'd been keeping on Russia's Far east borders straight to Moscow for a counterattack. And because the Nazis had paid so much attention to slaughter in the name of Lebensraum, rather than focusing on long term logistics, the The Nazis took heavy losses immediately. But the reason why Japan was staying out of the Eastern front was because they already had their eye on a different enemy. And on December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Finally, we're at the Japanese.

[Marcus Parks]

And it's with the awakening of the sleeping giant that is America. That will return next week to conclude our series on Heinrich Himmler. And don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, the Nazis start dying immediately.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Then we can start getting into it next week because this has been sad.

[Ed Larson]

It's actually gonna be fun for. To finally kill some Nazis. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is a really good. Like, it's just important that we. We said this because normally with every episode, as soon as I learn everything, I delete it. Right. I delete so much stuff. But apparently it's seems like with this series, there's a lot of lessons we're supposed to know. Yeah, it's like lessons. And I think one of those lessons is I'd send grouping day. It's an awesome concept. And we're going to Hallmark.

[Marcus Parks]

Every October 23rd.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's Einstein's group for friends.

[Marcus Parks]

It's. It's replacing the power of hate with the power of friendship.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Remember that?

[Ed Larson]

Plant some vegetables. Yeah. Nights and scrupen day.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, that's that. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Buy a Jewish guy some pizza.

[Ed Larson]

Honestly, Jews love pizza. They do.

[Marcus Parks]

They do.

[Ed Larson]

They love.

[Marcus Parks]

They. Buy them. Buy him a pizza and a hip hop album.

[Ed Larson]

Honestly, just. Just please, my Jewish family. We did this great pizza thing. When I came into town, I was like, hey, I'd like to see everyone. And they got everyone together, and we all like pizza, you know? And so what we did was everyone brought one pizza from their favorite pizza place, and so. And they all showed up at the same time. Same time. We had seven fresh pizzas from seven different delicious pizza spots. Great Jewish tradition.

[Marcus Parks]

That's incredible.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We did that once, remember?

[Marcus Parks]

Those would all be New Jersey's pizza spots, right?

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing beats New Jersey pizza. These Chicago, Detroit, New York idiots. Jersey's got the pizza.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You Apparently Connecticut.

[Ed Larson]

Well, never.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I've never had it. Never had that New Haven pizza.

[Ed Larson]

I want to try it.

[Marcus Parks]

No. You know, actually last night, to kind of cleanse the palette a little bit. As soon as I finished writing this script last night, I went and met Eddie and some of our friends at the Red Lion Tavern for Heino karaoke night.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, my God, it was so much fun.

[Marcus Parks]

I had a. I had br and sauerkraut and A bit burger to remind myself that. No, this, this German. There's some good stuff in Germany.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's a lot of really great stuff. It's not just Merkel's tits. Yeah, you're obsessed with them. I mean, they're there.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, keep it. We'll keep that train rolling.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They're there.

[Ed Larson]

German breasts are nice.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Patreon.com lastpodcast make sure you give Ed money to describe other races breasts, if you could. He does it very often and my God, is he accurate. And you can go to LP on the left for all of your social media needs and they should be none. Come see us on tour at last podcast on the left dot com. Buy those tickets. We're out there flapping our gums for you.

[Ed Larson]

That's right. We're going to Akron, Portland, Philadelphia, Austin, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Go to our website to find out when those days are. And come see us on the road.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, come see us.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's fun.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's not like today's episode.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, you know, it's kind of brutal.

[Marcus Parks]

Our live show. Yeah, sorry, I. I just, I switched. He went right on it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's just seeing the Einstein group and he's waving goodbye. What a wonderful Einstein's grouping day. See you next year. Bye. Hail Satan.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you know, hail Friendship. I don't feel Ryan Murphy kind of, if I'm going to be frank, kind of ruined Hail Gein for me a little.

[Ed Larson]

Please be Marcus.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Take me back.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm just saying I'm going to have to give it a little bit of time. But in the meantime, you know, hail Friendship. Hail digging implements.

[Ed Larson]

Hail Friendship and digging implements and Andrea Merkel's tits.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

This is a really good weapon too. This tiny, this little shovel. I mean, God, a pickaxe is.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're going to kill somebody with that. It'll be awesome.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it's okay not to be perfect with finances.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched.

[Marcus Parks]

With credit cards on the app?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Some cards are labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores.

[Marcus Parks]

Download the Experian app from for free today.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Applying for no Ding decline cards won't.

[Marcus Parks]

Hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which may impact your credit scores.

[Marcus Parks]

Experian. Hi listeners. Marcus, Edd and Henry here. A little bit of an announcement.

[Ed Larson]

You loving all the episodes of last podcast on the left lately. Well listen, now you can get even more from us.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Squeeze it out of us. If you want to hear new episodes ad free and unlock access to last podcast podcast on the left seven days early. Subscribe to Sirius XM podcast plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.compodcastplus to start your free trial today. Do it.