← WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Loading summary
Transcript138 lines
- [00:02]
A
Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com we haveways.
- [00:24]
B
This episode is brought to you by ebay Buying a car should feel secure, start to finish. That's why you should buy your next ride on ebay. Whatever you're into, ebay's got it. From classics to SUVs and trucks to imports all in one place. And with secure purchase, the process is streamlined and protected. Secure purchase means no DMV visit. Sellers and titles are verified, all the paperwork is handled, and financing, delivery and insurance options are built right in. Plus, eligible vehicle purchases are backed by up to $100,000 in protection. Looking to sell your ride? Secure purchase makes that easy too. Your buyer and their funds are verified and the title transfer and loan payoff are totally seamless. So skip the hassle. Shop with confidence. Buy your next car on ebay. Ebay Things people love. Secure purchase is powered by Caramel Dealer Services, LLC, an eBay subsidiary.
- [01:16]
C
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy.
- [01:24]
D
Smart.
- [01:24]
C
Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [01:46]
A
Welcome to our ugly home. Reddit is back for a historically hideous season. It's our 100th ugly house. This place is mayhem. That is impressive. And if these walls could talk. Do you cry a lot?
- [02:01]
E
I do.
- [02:03]
A
They'd have a lot to say. What in God's name is this pit? Don't get too close.
- [02:09]
E
No, no.
- [02:09]
A
You've seen the show. I'm scared of Cat. Ugliest House in America season premiere Wednesday, January 7th at 8 on HGTV. Welcome to we have ways of making you talk with me, Al Murray. And James Holland. And Jim. We are delighted to be joined by some very, very special guests for this edition.
- [02:34]
F
Very, very special guests. We've got Henry Montgomery. Great friend of the show.
- [02:38]
A
Yeah.
- [02:39]
F
Grandfather of the marginally more famous Phil Marshall.
- [02:42]
A
Yes.
- [02:43]
F
And we've got Angela Findlay. And Angela has written a book called In My Grandfather's Shadow. Yeah. Because although she was born and brought up in the uk. Her grandfather was a German general by the end of the war.
- [02:55]
A
Goodness.
- [02:55]
F
All the complications that come with that. And you knew about it, didn't you? I mean, you were aware of your German ancestry growing up, and that was slightly problematic, growing up in rural Hampshire.
- [03:06]
E
Rural Hampshire, exactly. And we had. My mother had a photograph of her father in Wehrmacht General's hat with his knight's cross around his neck, you know, and sitting on her writing desk for everybody to see. And for us, it was completely normal to have a German general sitting on a writing desk. And for others it absolutely wasn't.
- [03:27]
A
So.
- [03:28]
E
Yeah. But it only came much later that it dawned on me what a sort of impact and what a significance this had. I just didn't know the context.
- [03:36]
F
So then you went on this sort of journey of discovery. Didn't you just find out about your. Well, later, grandfather's roots and.
- [03:43]
E
Yeah, that happened in sort of when I turned 40. And before that, it was all kind of unconscious because, of course, I grew up then, as probably we all did, with all three TV channels being full of anti German war films. People around me were going, I hate the Germans. The Germans were the baddies. They were the evil ones. They were the losers, and they are the enemy. So it isn't kind of psychological rocket science that I internalized, that half of me must be bad, evil enemy to those around me. Then, of course, we learned about the Holocaust at school. And of course, suddenly you. I'd been brought up that not all Germans were Nazis and that there were good Germans and my grandfather was one of them, of course. But, you know, when you see the Holocaust, there's suddenly no excuse. And that's when I think some shame set in about my heritage. But it was all very. Nobody was talking about the German side of history, and nor were they. It was all, you know, the silence had descended after the Second World War. Nobody was talking about it in their families. And it was really only when I turned 40, in early 2000s, that I saw the film Downfall with Hitler's last days in the bunkers. Bunker. And there, some of the German generals were kind of fighting against Hitler and saying, you're taking your own. You're killing your own people. And these generals were taken outside and shot. I just had the most extraordinary reaction to this film. I could not stop crying. My partner at the time said, what on earth are you crying about? You know, the war is over, Hitler's dead, the Nazis are finished. What's there to cry about? And I don't know. But something became kind of dislodged in my psyche and I googled my grandfather's name for the first time and up came that photograph which you saw of his surrender. It hasn't actually popped up since, but that moment was his downfall, you know, the moment of his down from fall from respected soldier to prisoner of war, which is what he was. And that was the beginning of my making a connection between my sort of internal confusion really about identity and the split between Anglo German roots. And then I set off on this amazingly interesting voyage of discovery into Germany's whole progression since the war and from the silence to the denial first of all, then to the silence and then to their whole incredible culture of memorials and remembrance. And that sort of paralleled mine.
- [06:34]
A
And Henry, your, your heritage though you were aware of from a young age. Right. There was no moment of resolving yourself to Monty in your past, was there?
- [06:48]
D
No, I was clearly very aware of my heritage and who grandfather was. I was a shy young boy and so I didn't sort of feel overly comfortable with that.
- [07:01]
F
You didn't seek it out?
- [07:02]
D
I certainly didn't seek it out. And I still have, I don't have many sort of clear memories of when I was a young boy, but I remember as a five year old grandfather, father taking the salute at the Royal tournament and coming down from the, the lift that comes down very slowly and there's a red carpet laid out and it was absolutely lined with people wanting to shake grandfather's hand but also patting me on the head and saying, oh, what a sweet little boy. And it's sort of slightly, I mean, no way. It's like the sort of what, you know, very different, but it's to Angela's experience obviously. But it was, it, for me it was quite traumatic and I sort of, you know, that memory I think stuck with me for quite a long time. So I, my sort of journey of, of remembrance as it were, was completely different. And I, I mean, as I grew up I knew the heritage, but I probably shied away from it quite a lot just to sort of, you know, I did, I did Remembrance Sunday, dragged my long suffering children out to the village war memorial to sit in, stand in silence in the pouring rain and cold for, for two minutes, rest of the year. Probably didn't give it a second thought, quite honestly. And that all changed when I started meeting veterans.
- [08:19]
A
Yeah. Because after all, I mean, these are very different experiences talking about here. Yours is one of having an extremely famous person in your life, in your family, but also a figure of great controversy as well. So I mean, you also see why might not want anything to do with that too.
- [08:36]
D
Yes, I probably was fairly unaware of the controversy. I've since realized that he was a controversial character and you know, and obviously met and read now a lot about grandfather. Sort of made it a little bit of a mission now to actually get to know him rather late in life. And I mean, I knew he was. I was 20 coming up to 22 when he died, so I sort of knew him.
- [09:01]
F
Yeah.
- [09:01]
D
But not well, I would say. I mean, you know, I knew him as a grandfather, but he was a.
- [09:06]
F
Good grandfather, wasn't he?
- [09:06]
D
He was a great granddad. He was. He was fantastic to me and my sister and we had, you know, very happy times. But it was more, it was quite formal.
- [09:14]
F
Yeah, he's little Marshall Montgomery. Of course it's gonna be formal.
- [09:16]
D
Yeah, it was, but he wasn't a formal sort of general, was he? I mean, you know, his style of dress and the way he interacted with his soldiers in particular was incredibly informal. So he wasn't particularly formal. But I think he was controversial latterly because, you know, I think the fame probably went slightly to his head. Yeah. And his perhaps his ego got slightly the better of him. And you know, he sort of wanted to be, you know, he played the politician general after the war, which probably wasn't great all the time.
- [09:52]
F
He was very greatly loved by, by the majority of the men during the war.
- [09:55]
D
Yeah.
- [09:55]
F
There were people obviously during the war that he rubbed up the wrong way and there were people who felt exasperated by it. But I think, I think even someone like Eisenhower would recognize that he was a very, very good operational commander, that he was probably the right man in the right job. It was the self serving memoirs that really kind of did for him because there was a backlash against that afterwards.
- [10:14]
D
There was, yes.
- [10:15]
F
And that's where he sort of. His reputation struggled. And then that was all mixed in with the kind of change of, of attitude to the war that developed into the kind of late 60s and 70s. AJP Taylor writing about the war and Coretti Barnes and sort of questioning, questioning Britain's position. You know, if you look at all the movies and films of the Second World War in the 1950s, with very few exceptions, they're all pretty gung ho.
- [10:43]
D
Yeah.
- [10:43]
F
And they're pretty kind of, you know, weren't we great?
- [10:45]
D
Yeah.
- [10:46]
F
And then there comes this sort of counterpoint and you know, the Germans are the only ones that fought the British. The Russians, for example, say we start to take a bit more attention to Them and I don't know, the sort of how you tell the narrative of the Second World War shifts. And Britain's position matched her reduced status in the world, and the reputation from the Second World War became reduced, and Monty got sort of swept up in all of that.
- [11:10]
A
But the thing is, these are narrative changes and arcs that are from the position of the victor. Angela. I mean, digesting the alternate narrative, the German narrative, must have been extremely challenging. And as you say, you suppress it as part of your personal heritage. But then how do you. I mean, because after all, Germany's been on this, as you say, it's been on this extraordinary progression of, as you say, silence, then gradual sort of baby steps really, towards accepting the past. I mean, how do you. How as. As someone with a foot in both camps, how do you relate to that?
- [11:52]
E
Well, it was a bit of a head fuck, quite frankly. It really was. It was very, very challenging. But more than anything, it's painful. It is deeply, deeply painful to look at a kind of maybe a loved grandfather. I didn't know him. He died a week after I was born, so I didn't actually know my or a much loved grandmother and sort of ask the questions, what did they know? What did they do? Were they complicit? Even as a. Even as a bystander. And with my grandfather, of course, he was on the Eastern Front, which was a war of annihilation. And, you know, what had he done? So it's. I have a lot of empathy for fellow Germans who even now today find it impossibly difficult to look at their. Germany as a whole, has looked as a culture on a political level, has looked at the past ad infinitum. And it's done a remarkable kind of job, I think, of the memorial culture and counter memorial culture, but within families, it's still impossibly painful and difficult. And. And the danger of that, of course, is that, I mean, the statistics are something like only 2% admitted that. I think it might have gone up a little bit of younger Germans have admitted that their family members were perpetrators. The rest were. They were either heroes or resisters or victims of National Socialism. And that just shows how painful it is.
- [13:30]
F
I had this friend who helped me. He was American, but married to a German. And she. She and her husband Ingo lived in Freiburg. So when I was doing archival work in Freiburg, because that's where the National Archives are, the military archives for Germany, you know, we'd always hook up. And I remember one evening going. Going to their flat in Freiburg and Ingo just letting rip on Germany and how much he hated Germany and how much he hated being German and how, how. Aw. And I said, why? And he said, because of the war. And you know, he was born, you know, he must have been born in mid-1970s, something like that. I mean, it's nothing to do with him at all. I mean, just incredible. And I remember being really, really struck by that, that this effect for someone. I mean, he didn't go into what his family had done during the war, but it was very real.
- [14:25]
D
And that's why I think that, you know, how we remember is really important because those sort of feelings that Angela's been des. It means that we haven't done a great job in terms of sort of reconciling because we've projected for so many years we've projected what Angela was describing at the beginning. You know, that feeling of, you know, there's no good Germans and that's not helpful. And you know, when I talk to veterans, they consistently say, don't let it happen again. You know, it was awful. There's no sense of glory in what. In the way they talk about their experiences. How do we unpack? Don't let it happen again. And that has to be about reconciliation and therefore, you know, being honest about the way we remember. And I think that's the bit that I'm sort of, the message I want to sort of get across is let's think about how we do that going forward because we haven't got veterans for much longer, certainly veterans of the Second World War for much longer with us. And how do we, how do we deal with that and how do we continue to tell what's a really important story, which is the story of sacrifice for our freedoms that we enjoy today. How do we continue to tell that story? Otherwise we risk the same, you know, talked earlier about, about how close we are to sort of, you know, potentially being. Having to be battle ready, you know, and, and you know, it's a dangerous place and the world's becoming more dangerous. You know, we need to have those discussions. We have grown up discussions.
- [16:01]
F
So I think, you know, come remember, stay, remember Sunday. We know as a nation we're still pretty, for the most part, pretty deferential. A lot of people wear their puppies and stuff and you know, we think about it then. But I agree with you that I think many one gives it moments for outside of that period and maybe that's a, that's okay.
- [16:18]
A
But also we live in a society where deference is something that that very often is sort of held arm's length, you know, because look where deference can get you. And I think people. People don't like the idea. You know, lots of people don't like the idea being told they have to do something that you ought to remember. I think you ought to remember. But how do you persuade people that they ought to, rather than telling them they should?
- [16:41]
E
I mean, my question is sort of, what are we remembering? Because every country has its national glory and its national trauma that we wheel out and it becomes part of our national identity. Every country is the same in that way. But then, I mean, where I feel we could do better with remembrance is to broaden our narrative of the Second World War. When you just look at the sheer number of dead, and it's not just about the veterans and the soldiers, but it's also about the women and the children. Then looking at the numbers of, for example, 24 million Russians died, 6 to 9 million Germans died, including civilians. And then when we come to the British, it's 451,000, including the Commonwealth countries. And these figures, when you expand them to 26 million, I kind of would love it probably is idealistic, but if we could include remembrance of other countries dead and also the sort of the acknowledgment of the sacrifice that the Red are. Well, the Russians or the 30 million Chinese. And the 30 million Chinese and the 6 million Poles who were at the front of the battle kind of for so much of it. So to broaden out our understanding of war as horrendous for everybody, as calamity for everyone.
- [18:08]
A
I'm really intrigued, though, Angela, about you decide to address your past or face it. I don't know what your preferred way of talking about it is. Confront it.
- [18:17]
E
Face it. Face it was definitely. And uncover it.
- [18:21]
A
Looking at your grandfather, who is a portrait on your mother's writing desk, to go beyond that. And you must have been nervous because you think, what on earth am I going to discover? What am I going to find out he was involved in? Because after all, in the photographs, he looks the part. He looks like the man in the war film who says, kills them all. You know he looks like that, right? He looks archetypical.
- [18:42]
E
He is, yeah.
- [18:42]
A
And so did you. Did you approach discovering? Because to remember we need to know and to remember and commemorate properly, we need to understand properly. Did you approach that with real trepidation? You must have done.
- [18:55]
E
Huge trepidation. I had all these letters which my German aunt had just typed up, because they were all in that little zittel in print handwriting. So I had all of them and I decided from the very beginning to approach it without judgment. And that I think was the key because I just kept on thinking, what would I have done? I really tried to walk a mile or many more in his boots and get into his head. And my main concern was how do essentially good, normal people become capable of monster, monstrous deeds. That's what I wanted to understand. Using my own grandfather as a, as a sort of model for this and also to uncover what did he do and what as a Wehrmacht officer who had been a career soldier since the age of 10 in a Prussian military school in Plume, as you've said in other podcasts. And he, yeah, so he, he, he was a soldier through and through and through and believed in his oath to Hitler, which they all had to swear straight away. And he was a good artillerist. But it was with huge trepidation. But by going in without judgment, I was able to ask people questions and they were not intimidated to answer them. And then you began to get a much, much bigger picture than this sort of just German soldier. This. He was, he was a poet, he wrote poetry and he made little crafty. I mean, of course you can say that about everybody, but he was also a thinker and I do challenge him in my book there is, you know, I really put him on trial in a way.
- [20:41]
F
You got to know him, I really did. And did you, did you like him?
- [20:45]
E
I grew to kind of respect him. At first I really didn't like him. I thought he was just this. Well, I had nothing to do with the army. I was an artist. I wasn't interested in war. I wasn't. So there was this kind of gung ho person who was raging for battle on the Eastern front, you know, and I just not my type at all. No, I couldn't, couldn't. But then I just gradually began to understand the context more and more and more that in which all these people had to make moment to moment decisions. And it's. Trying to understand is really not the same as condoning or justifying or excusing. I really want to make that clear. And there's nothing about any of it that I like, approve of. But I did want to give him a fair hearing sort of thing. But it was, it was terrifying and it was painful. Yeah.
- [21:42]
A
Well, we'll take a quick break now. We'll be back in a second. This episode is brought to you by Ancestry.
- [21:52]
F
Hello, James Holland here, joined by Al Murray From Goal Hangers World War II podcast we have ways of making you talk.
- [21:58]
A
These are those odd days between Christmas and New Year. The house buzzing with laughter, leftovers piled high, festive films murmuring in the background, and Trivial Pursuit debates still raging around the table.
- [22:10]
F
It's the perfect time to sit close, share family stories and think about people who came before you. Grandparents, great uncles, aunts you hardly knew, everyone who helped shape the family you're part of.
- [22:20]
A
Today, with an Ancestry membership, you can take those conversations further. All you have to do is provide what you know about your family history, such as your parents and grandparents. Birthplaces and ancestry will help you dig through billions of records to uncover fascinating news stories about the lives of your relatives.
- [22:37]
F
Maybe it's a great uncle ferrying a hurricane north, a grandmother stitching uniforms in a Glasgow mill, or a relative holding the line on the Normandy beaches. And suddenly the stories around your own table take on a whole new depth.
- [22:50]
A
The past isn't behind you. It runs straight through you. Head to ancestry.co.uk newyear to learn about Ancestry's memberships and start your family history journey today.
- [23:02]
E
So good, so good, so good.
- [23:04]
C
New Year New gear. Thousands of fresh, active styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Save on top brands like Nike, Puma and free people starting at just $35.
- [23:15]
F
How did I not know Rack has Adidas? There's always something new.
- [23:18]
C
Plus, join the Nordy Club to shop new arrivals first. Unlock exclusive discounts and more great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.
- [23:30]
G
Toast the holidays in a new way and raise a glass of Rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. Enjoy it over ice or in your coffee. Rumchata. Your holiday cocktails just got sweeter. Tap or click the banner for more. Drink responsibly. Caribbean rum with real dairy cream, natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume 27.5 proof. Copyright 2025 Agave Limited LOCO Brands, Pojoaquee, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
- [24:02]
A
Welcome back to. We have ways of making you talk where we're talking commemoration and Jim, go on.
- [24:06]
F
Well, I've just. I'm so struck by what you've both been saying and, and, and about the broader commemoration. And I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I don't disagree at all. I mean, the calamity, the catastrophe of the Second World War was. It's just. It's so hard to comprehend because it's not just the, you know, the 76 million people killed, it's also tens of millions of people displaced. And it's the millions of people that die consequently as a consequence of disease, of suffering, of hunger, of all the rest of it happens outside of 1945.
- [24:38]
D
And traumatized and traumatized forever.
- [24:41]
F
Exactly that and the huge levels of destruction. One of the things I think is absolutely remarkable is the sort of regenerative kind of force of the world and of humankind. And you know, look at Japan and look at the country now. You know, it's sort of double the size of population that it was hugely successful. You look at even countries like Italy ravaged by war. And you know, by the 19, late 1950s, 1960s was. Was very successful country again, ditto West Germany and now Germany and all the rest of it. So, you know, these countries that do sort of rehabilitate themselves. But I think one of the things that's really interesting is a friend of mine put me onto the JFK inauguration speech that he made when he was. When he became president. And he has that really famous line which is, do not ask what America can do for you, what you do for America. One of the things that kind of worries me at the moment is as we move away from the Second World War, you know, there's plenty of people who are still interested in it and want to learn about it, want to understand about it. I just think the jeopardy that came, you know, the trauma of the Second World War feels much, much more remote. And I worry that we in the west just feel all a bit too comfortable and a bit too safe and there isn't a need to rearm because that's someone else's problem. And it's not affecting me now. And as long as I can still watch, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here or whatever and do the things that I want to do and get my new iPhone, I'm kind of okay. I worry that we've all just become a little bit too. Kind of introverted, a bit too taking things for granted. The kind of reality of what happens when it all goes pear shaped is slipping out of living memory, even for people who were old enough to be in the war, but lived through it.
- [26:19]
D
You know, as I've explored this whole subject of remembrance and reconciliation, the thing that's really stuck with me, sort of from about 10 years ago, was reading a quote from Eisenhower. So this was his 4th of July 1st speech to the American people as President in 1953. And I'm trying to remember the words exactly, but it basically was freedom lives in the hearts, the minds, and the spirit of Men. By that he means mankind, not just men. And so it needs to be daily fresh and earned. Otherwise, like a flower cut from its roots, it will wither and die. And that principle of freedom is something that we should treasure. And that's what I think we need to sort of instill in our culture.
- [27:09]
F
We've all sort of started to take it for granted a bit.
- [27:11]
D
I think we've taken our freedoms for granted and I think we see that in the way that sort of social media is abused. And I suppose I mean by that, you know, the sort of hate speech that gets sort of, you know, the people feel safe in their own homes to be able to be very horrible about other people. And interestingly, if you go back to 1953, that was when McCarthyism was rampant in America. And so partly Eisenhower was addressing that issue. And in a sense we see that creeping into today's society. And I think it's highly dangerous. That's why I think that remembrance needs to be much more as we move away and from the sort of 11th of November ceremony with, without World War II veterans. But I mean, we still have legitimate reasons to remember people and we should still continue to do that. But we need to get the remembrance much more into our daily culture. That thing of Eisenhower saying daily, daily, daily refresh, you know.
- [28:14]
F
RIP and being mawkish, it's about saying, okay, well let's make sure this, this never happens again.
- [28:18]
D
Exactly.
- [28:19]
F
And that's a different kettle of fish.
- [28:20]
D
And that's a very difficult thing to do. But it should be much more in our sort of DNA. And for that to happen, I think, you know, we need to start with very, you know, with young people. We need to start that in schools. I mean, I know Angela's been doing work, you've been talking to schools, haven't you?
- [28:37]
E
In schools. But I think also, I mean, Germany, what Germany has taught me is how to really do a deep dive into the, as they would call it, you know, the real cause of how these things happen and what is behind war and conflict and nearly all of them, I think it would be safe to say, is there's an othering, there's a division between people. So you have I am right and you are wrong, I am better and you are lesser. These are us and them. And that if, while. And we all do it in everyday language, in, you know, we do it all the time, but when that builds up, this othering, then you've got the. That was the foundation of Nazism, that was the foundation of discrimination, of Conflict of war. And I feel that if we can teach that in school so that we really know what are we remembering, what are the lessons of history? Because we can't expect young people to remember with such reverence the veterans. Like we don't remember them of the Crimea war. As we were saying, you know, things have got, it's disappearing out of the connection is disappearing. But what happened in Germany could happen again to any of us. That layer of ice between democracy and not is particularly thin at the moment. You know, nobody's immune from falling through it.
- [30:09]
A
I mean you have experience of being othered. After all, as someone who was half German, my grandmother, my father's mother was Viennese and got out before the war. We don't have any of what you're talking about. They didn't learn German. My father and his siblings didn't learn German because they just, I think she thought their lives will be a lot easier if, if they aren't speaking German to one another as children. That feels like a, like a thing that's kind of within reach. But they, they, my grandparents obviously decided no, we're not going to expose ourselves to that possibility. And you, you know exactly what you're talking about here.
- [30:49]
E
Well, it's sometimes so.
- [30:52]
A
Well, in this instance, okay, let's not go crazy.
- [30:54]
E
I'm quite healed. But I think I've got the advantage of being half English. So when the going gets really tough, I can kind of slip into my flag waving British roots and go, who won the war? You know, we won the war. And then it turns into that psychological thing. I am both sides. And I had reconciliation modeled to me in my parents marriage from the age dot, you know, so they married 17 years after the war. So in their wedding picture there is a German general and a British naval officer and the two grandmothers.
- [31:33]
F
Does history relate how they got on?
- [31:35]
E
They all just pulled the stops out and really went for it. My two grandmothers became very good friends and they died within six weeks of each other at the age of 96.
- [31:45]
F
Oh my God.
- [31:45]
E
You know, so they, they really had an onset. But both had lost, you know, my English grandmother had lost her brother in Alamein and so they'd all suffered and lost under it. My grandfather had really suffered under the British as a prisoner of war. I mean that was in Germany till 1948 and but they pulled it out. But it was the sort of love the heart for not wanting to be dippy hippie or everything. But it was that middle ground, the heart and love that was was behind the reconciliation that was modelled.
- [32:19]
F
How did your parents meet then?
- [32:20]
E
They met in Fontainebleau, where my father was a naval officer, young naval officer posted there. And my mother was working actually for General Speidel, the NATO head of the European defense who had been Rommel's chief of staff of staff.
- [32:38]
D
I like to think that grandfather might have met your mum, but I doubt it. She was a bit later, wasn't she? I think he. He left Phantom Player, I think, in 58.
- [32:48]
A
Wasn't it extraordinary, the idea of a tiny world, really? Your grandfather was the other side of the hill from Spidel at one point. It's amazing. But, but this, the reconciliation has to happen, doesn't it? To actually face the past and to remember it properly rather than goodies and baddies. A thing that's noted noticeably happening in British history in popular discourse is a common people getting their heads around the idea of the British Empire, where that actually fits into the picture. Are we the good guys in that? How good are we? How bad are we? And that, you know, that post colonial discourse is now part of the way people are trying to digest being British, for instance.
- [33:30]
E
Yeah.
- [33:31]
A
And I think if you can do that with Nazism, then you can maybe you can, you know, use those tools to address our imperial past, perhaps.
- [33:39]
F
And also I think, you know, the past is obviously a very complicated place and I think it's okay to have a complicated relationship with your past as well. And I think, you know, whether you're British or German, whatever, I mean, you know, let's say you're German, for example. I mean, Germany's an amazing people. You know, this is, this is the, you know, the people that brought us Goethe and Beethoven and, and yeah, all sorts of things. And amazing architecture and engineering and the creation of the Merna Dam and the straightening of the Rhine and, you know, absolutely phenomenal. As well as the aberration of the twelve years in British Empire. There's better bits of British Empire and worst bits of British Empire. There's bits where, you know, from our imperial past we can be rightly quite proud. There's other bits where we can be deeply ashamed. But I think that's okay. I think that that's the rich richness, the rich nuance of.
- [34:32]
A
Don't use the ultimate N word is nuanced. Because after all, even there will be some people hearing you say that, Jim, who go, no, Fred, not people want to. Other points of view as much as they do other people.
- [34:44]
F
But also this point about the Second World War and the Allies in the Second World War. I'm talking about the Western allies here. I mean, how much bad do you have to do to do good? You know, when you're destroying Sicilian towns or destroying Casino or the Casino or Hamburg or whatever it might be, you know, it's, it's, it is complicated. It's not a straight line.
- [35:06]
D
And I think that's why, you know, remembrance needs to be honest. And, you know, we've talked a lot about reconciliation and remembrance, or remembrance and reconciliation going hand in hand. But reconciliation is not a sort of, you know, oh, we're reconciled. It's a process, and it's an ongoing process that you need to work at day after day after day, because you can slip back very quickly if you don't. And so that's sort of, I think, a little bit behind Eisenhower's sort of message is that, you know, actually if we value our freedoms that we enjoy in Western Europe now and still do, actually, we need to continually work at that reconciliation. And it's, you know, across many situations, I mean, not least in our daily lives, with our daily relationships with, with, with people who we don't happen to agree with, you know, because that is actually modeling. Modeling, you know, a good society.
- [36:03]
F
Yeah. My mother, who's. Who's been a churchgoer all her life and is a good Christian soul, I mean, she said to me only a few months ago, she said, I think generally speaking, one's life is better if we better forgive. You'll be better on in life. Forgiveness is such a powerful healing tool. And she's clearly right. And, you know, there's plenty of examples of that, aren't there? From, you know, Mandela's South Africa.
- [36:24]
D
Absolutely.
- [36:25]
F
Many others. Yeah. You know, of the, of the emotions that we have, hatred is the easiest to gain and it's the most powerful, and it's also the most destructive. And the lesson from the Second World War clearly, is about the catastrophe, the cataclysmic consequences of what happens when large parts of the world end up in conflict. The destruction, the death, the kind of mayhem, the ripping apart of lives, et cetera, et cetera. That's the warning, if certain circumstances follow, that is going to take you closer to war. If you get to war. This is the consequence of what can happen, and this is what we need to remember.
- [37:05]
D
It's important also that we don't, we don't overly make it too negative because if you look, you know, First World War, post First World War, pretty catastrophic really, how we dealt with Germany after the First World War. And that sort of gives rise to what happened. In fact, it gave rise to the Second World War Treaty of Versailles. Post Second World War, we did a pretty jolly good job. I mean, you know, to think that, you know, within four years they were holding national elections in. In Germany. You know, within six years, six countries. I mean, you know, that's a success story. So we mustn't sort of completely beat ourselves up as. As the winners or actually beat up Germany because they were part of what, you know, how they behave. They were part. Very important, part of the rebuilding, actually.
- [37:52]
F
And it was Japan and Ditto, you know, Italy and others.
- [37:55]
D
Exactly. So the. Lots of good things, but we just, you know, we are in danger of sort of forgetting that, and we do need to remember all the positives.
- [38:02]
F
I worry about the complacency of the mom, I've got to say. I really do.
- [38:04]
E
Well, also, I think another thing that's playing in is this whole concept of intergener, intergenerational trauma or intergenerational shame or something, which is the kind of. Often gets suppressed in one generation and then pops out a couple of generations after, which is exactly what happened with me. You know, what is suppressed, unprocessed, unresolved. It doesn't just go away, it comes out. And that's, I think, what we're seeing behind the Russia. I mean, imagine the trauma in Russia, the unbelievable trauma of generations there and of Jewish people in Israel as well. And when that resurfaces and kind of, from my experience of it, it kind of shapes your internal world in a way that isn't necessarily your own. It's something that is coming from unresolved issues. Yeah, we really need to include that in the narrative of war, that it doesn't just all go happily ever after. You know, once peace prevails, it's then other generations are carrying it and then acting. Acting.
- [39:14]
A
Well, ignorance isn't bliss.
- [39:15]
E
No.
- [39:16]
D
Which is why it has to be an ongoing process. That's why it doesn't stop. You know, you just need to continue to work at it.
- [39:24]
A
This has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. James and I were talking about this earlier. Somehow your book didn't reach me. It's going to, but it's. It's going to. I mean, we were saying before we came, before we started recording, just the chapter titles of the. The very things that. The spine of what we've been talking about today and of the. The issues of remembrance. Because as you say, it's not as simple as the war's over. Why can't we all be friends? Because you have to digest the things that have gone on and that have happened and the sheer calamity of it. And as you say, Henry, that, that. That there's no glory. There's no glory in any of this. Because that's often when Poppy Day comes around, when remembrance comes around, you get people pushing back against it because they say it's glorifying war. I, to be honest, I don't. I, I never really see that in, In Armistice. I don't. I. I can't locate that and what, what they're seeing, but people do see it as that. And, and it's really important to emphasize that there is no. There is no glory in this. This is. It's all horror. And your grandfather knew that. He knew war was a disgusting business. It was his business and the thing he was good at. But he wanted it to end.
- [40:36]
D
He definitely did.
- [40:37]
A
And he wanted to finish the job and get it done because he knew how ghastly the entire thing was. And I think when one of our great soldiers knows that and can communicate that, then you've got to listen, right?
- [40:53]
D
And I think, sadly, he probably carried that trauma, you know, buried until he died.
- [40:59]
A
Absolutely.
- [41:00]
F
As he said, when he was. When he was on his last days, he started talking about it.
- [41:04]
D
I don't know if he had dementia, but, you know, certainly the last couple of years of his life, he was in bed. You couldn't really have a proper conversation with him, but he would then start talking about killing Germans. And it was like all of that trauma was coming out, you know, subconsciously, because he wasn't in control of what he was saying really then. So it wasn't that he was proud of it. I think it was just he was traumatized by it, but he held it, you know, because it was the only way of coping. I mean, never, ever had any. Well, you well know, he respected Rommel. He respected his adversaries. He was constantly telling his men, these are well trained soldiers. You know, we need to be better than. We just need to be better than them. And it was extraordinary. When you read books about, you know, colleagues of his, you know, on his staff, about how he was in the immediate few days after, after signing the surrender document. It was like just. It was in a flash. That's all behind us now. We've got to concentrate on the rebound now. I mean, his words were, reconstruction, well, we've won the war, now we need to win the peace. And he would, you know, one of his talks to his men, which I think was, you know, literally few days afterwards, you know, you're not going home. We've actually got a more difficult job to do now than we've. We've had, which is rebuilding, you know, winning the piece, which is, you know, a job we still need to do today.
- [42:29]
A
Angela, thank you so much for coming to talk to us. And Henry, it's great to see you again. Your star turn at we have Ways festival in September. And hopefully we, we, we should do this again, I think, at the next festival, if we possibly can.
- [42:42]
F
Fascinating conversation.
- [42:43]
A
I mean, honestly, thank you so much.
- [42:45]
F
Much for schlepping into Gohanger Towers. Yep. Thank you.
- [42:49]
A
And thanks for listening or watching, if that's what you've been doing. And we'll see you again very soon. Cheerio.
- [42:54]
F
Cheerio.
- [42:55]
D
Bye.
- [43:06]
H
Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Fry.
- [43:08]
F
And I'm Michael Stevens, creator of Vsauce. We thought we would join you for a moment completely uninvited.
- [43:14]
H
We are not going to stay too long. Unless you want us to, of course.
- [43:17]
F
We're here to tell you about our brand new show, the Rest is Science.
- [43:21]
H
Every episode is going to start with something that feels initially familiar, and then we're going to unpick it and tear it apart until you no longer recognize it at all. You know how banana flavor doesn't taste like bananas?
- [43:33]
C
Yeah.
- [43:33]
F
What is that about?
- [43:34]
H
So it is supposed to taste like an old species of banana that was wiped out in a banana, and now you will only find it in botanical collections in the gardens of billionaires.
- [43:48]
D
Wow.
- [43:49]
F
Banana candy is actually the ghost of a long extinct banana.
- [43:54]
H
So if you like scratching the surface.
- [43:56]
F
Thinking a little bit deeper or weirder.
- [43:59]
H
Yes, definitely that too. You can join Michael and I every Tuesday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.