Dan Snow's History Hit

In 1940 the Polish resistance decided it needed to send an agent to Auschwitz concentration camp. They were desperate to find out what was going on in a place that even by that stage of the war had an evil reputation. Historian Jack Fairweather tells the story of Witold Pilecki the Pole who volunteered for the job. He smuggled out first accounts of the camp to the rest of the world. He chronicled its transition from a concentration camp for Polish political opponents to a factory of genocide. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the Second World War the Netherlands fell to advancing German forces in just a few hours. The Dutch found themselves under Nazi occupation. Many men and women resisted, which took many different forms. Recently the story emerged of three young women who chose a particularly dangerous way in which to strike back against the German occupiers.In this podcast Dan talks to the writer Sophie Poldermans about Hannie Schaft and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen. With astonishing bravery these three young women seduced high-ranking Nazi officers, lured them into the woods and killed them. They also provided Jewish children with safe houses and gathered vital intelligence for the resistance.Sophie tells us their story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The world faces a unique environmental challenge. The scale of response to this looming catastrophe can be overwhelming. But economist and activist Andrew Simms believes that history provides us with a guide. It can inspire us to see that we have overcome greater challenges than those we face now. It can encourage us to be bold and believe that the solution lies in our hands. Andrew co-founded the New Weather Institute and Green New Deal group and is a lover of history. In this podcast Andrew shares his thoughts with Dan on episodes in the past that we should be looking to, from the New Deal to the allied victory in the Second World War. He believes we "are capable of extraordinary things." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In October 1942 the British launched a small raid on the Channel Island of Sark. A cast of characters who gave their colleague Ian Fleming ideas for a new secret agent character, James Bond, crept ashore and captured German prisoners. A scuffle broke out and two of them were killed. The commandos escaped with one prisoner and that might have been the end of it. When Hitler heard the news however he went ballistic and very shortly after issued his infamous Commando Order. Henceforth they were to be shot on sight. It was another ratcheting up of the ferocity, and criminality of the Nazi war effort. In this podcast Dan visits the Channel Islands. Meets a local expert and retraced the steps of the raid.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast Dan talks to Golden Globe winning film maker Sam Mendes about his new World War One film 1917.Based in part on an account told to Mendes by his paternal grandfather, Alfred Mendes, it chronicles the story of two young British soldiers at the height of WWI during Spring 1917. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 5th century BC the world's first super power, the Persian Empire, went to war against a ragtag collection of cities and statelets on its western frontier. It was the start of the Persian War. Thankfully for us this war was recorded in some detail by the world's first historian. Herodotus. Despite previous millenia of history in the ancient Near East, this historical record means that the Persian Wars feels recognisably modern. The attitudes and decisions of commanders are discernable. The course of the battles, traceable.William Shepherd has written an engaging new account of the war. He took some time to sit down with Dan and explore the course of the war and why it still matters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After the First World War the German Army was in crisis. Limited in the size and its equipment by the Versailles Treaty which ended the war, it was a shadow of the mighty force it had been in 1914. Help came from a surprising source. Soviet Russia.Historian Ian Johnson explains to Dan how it was the Soviets who helped rebuild the German military machine before World War Two. 30% of Weimar Germany's defence spending took place in the USSR. 25% of German officers passed through camps in Soviet soil. This is the shocking conclusion reached by Ian Johnson who has trawled through the archives to understand just how much the German war machine owed to Soviet support. The cash strapped communists were happy to take German money in return for training areas, tank development labs and other activities banned by the Versailles Treaty. The Soviets helped turn the Wehrmacht into a military machine that in 1941-2 came very close to toppling the Soviet state.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matt Lodder is the world's leading expert on the history of tattoos. He has found evidence of people using ink or charcoal on their bodies stretching back thousands of years. He explodes myths at every turn. Tattoos were common long before Captain Cook allegedly imported them back from the Pacific in the 18th Century, and he demonstrates that they were never the exclusive preserve of marginalised subcultures, but actually adorned the bodies of royalty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

'Northumbrian patriot' Dan Jackson, who has just written a book on the history of Northeast England and its people, comes on the podcast to talk about his native Northumberland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Roger Crowley is the author of the new book, Accursed Tower: The Crusaders' Last Battle for the Holy Land.The city of Acre, powerfully fortified and richly provisioned, was the last crusader stronghold. When it fell in 1291, two hundred years of Christian crusading in the Holy Land came to a bloody end. Dan had a chat with Roger, which was a nice complement to his podcast with Dan Jones on the Crusades as a whole, earlier in the year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.