Reichs & Republics | The German History Podcast
Katja Hoyer & Dr. Christopher Dillon 12 episodes Nov 10, 2026
This podcast takes you beyond familiar clichés to uncover the richness and diversity of the German past. Join hosts Katja Hoyer and Dr. Christopher Dillon as they untangle this complex story, dispelling popular myths and misapprehensions about a national history that still shapes the world today. The podcast is produced by Battle Guide, a UK-based history content creator.
Episodes
Episode 35: West Berlin: Blockade, Airlift and the Wall with David E. Barclay
In this episode, Katja and Chris are joined by Professor David E. Barclay, author of Cold War City: A History of West Berlin, for the first of two episodes on the walled-in city at the heart of the Cold War. Why did David Bowie and Iggy Pop, of all people, choose West Berlin in 1976? And how did a temporary four-power occupation become a semi-autonomous city whose very name the two sides could nev
Episode 34: The Counter-Revolution: Germany, 1919–1923
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore how the largely peaceful German Revolution of November 1918 descended into terror and bloodshed. Picking up where the previous episode left off, they examine how Friedrich Ebert’s provisional government turned to the army and the Freikorps to crush the so-called Spartacist Uprising of January 1919, leading to the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembur
Episode 33: ‘The Greatest of All Revolutions’. November 1918 and the Fall of the Kaiserreich
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the German Revolution of 1918–19, when a mass popular uprising swept away the Kaiser and every other German dynasty. Tracing its roots to the thwarted revolutions of 1848, they follow the upheaval through the munitions workers’ strikes of January 1918, the naval mutiny that autumn, the formation across Germany of workers’ and soldiers’ councils, and the ext
Episode 32: The Curious Cult of St Oswald: Kings, Ravens and Mermaids with Sarah Bowden
In this episode, Katja and Chris are joined by Sarah Bowden, Professor of German and Medieval Studies at King’s College London, to explore one of the strangest puzzles of medieval Europe: why hundreds of churches and chapels across southern Germany, Austria and the Alps are dedicated to Oswald, a 7th-century king of Northumbria. From Bede’s account of a Christian warrior king and his miraculously
Episode 31: The Making of Baldur von Schirach and the Hitler Youth
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the life of Baldur von Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth and one of the more unlikely figures in the Nazi elite. Born into a wealthy, cosmopolitan family with American roots, Schirach enjoyed the privilege and connections to pursue almost any career. Instead, he threw himself into the fledgling Nazi movement long before it had any prospect of power. From
Episode 30: Augustus the Strong - Europe's Worst King? with Prof. Tim Blanning
In this week's episode, Katja and Chris are joined by Professor Tim Blanning to discuss Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Famous for his strength, mistresses and lavish parties, Augustus has been called one of Europe's worst monarchs. They explore how he won and lost the Polish crown, his failures in the Great Northern War, and his triumph as the patron who transformed Dre
Episode 29: The Guillaume Affair: A Stasi Spy in the Chancellery
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the Guillaume Affair, one of the Cold War's most dramatic spy scandals. Günter Guillaume was an East German Stasi officer who spent nearly two decades climbing the ranks of the SPD to become Chancellor Willy Brandt's personal aide. They ask how he got there, what West German intelligence knew, and why his arrest in 1974 brought down one of West Germany's mo
Episode 28: Wilhelm I with Jan Markert
In this episode, Katja and Chris are joined by historian Dr. Jan Markert to look past the myth of Wilhelm I as a passive "soldier on the throne" and uncover the shrewd, hands-on monarch who shaped Germany's path to unification. They trace his Napoleonic-era childhood, his doomed teenage romance, his brutal role in crushing the 1848 revolution, and the real story behind his appointment of Bismarck,
Episode 27: The Hidden Germans of the White House
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the hidden history of German America in the White House. From Friedrich Trump's secretive teenage flight from Kallstadt in 1885 to the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, they trace how the largest immigrant group in American history became so thoroughly assimilated that its influence all but disappeared from p
Episode 26: A Bureaucracy of Death: Nazi Germany's T4 Programme
In this episode, Katja and Chris examine the origins and implementation of Aktion T4, the Nazi regime’s systematic programme of mass murder targeting disabled people. They trace the intellectual and political foundations of the programme, from nineteenth-century eugenic thought and Weimar-era anxieties about demographic decline to the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
Episode 25: The Dark Legacy of Nietzsche’s Sister
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the extraordinary life of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister who became the architect of her brother Friedrich's public legacy. From a devout Protestant upbringing in Saxony and a doomed attempt to found a "racially pure" German colony in Paraguay, to her return as a penniless widow who transformed herself into the gatekeeper of Nietzsche's writings, t
Episode 24: From the Rhine to the Reich: German Jewish Life Before 1871
In this episode, Katja and Chris trace the long and sometimes misunderstood history of Jews in German-speaking Europe, from Roman Cologne to the founding of the German Empire in 1871. They explore how Jewish communities settled along the Rhine under Frankish and medieval rulers, survived cycles of expulsion and violence including the Crusades and the Black Death pogroms, and gradually built liveli
Episode 23: Building Socialism: How the GDR Tried to House a Nation
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the East German regime's ambitious drive to build socialism one prefabricated apartment at a time. Between 1971 and 1989, the GDR pledged to build millions of new homes, using concrete, steel and propaganda to try to eliminate the post-war housing shortage and forge a "classless" society. Drawing on Katja's own family history growing up in a GDR housing blo
Episode 22: How Germany Invented the Way You Eat with Claudia Kreklau
In this episode, Katja and Chris are joined by historian Dr Claudia Kreklau to uncover the surprising German origins of the way the world eats today. They explore how chefs fleeing the French Revolution found new homes in Prussian courts, how volcanic eruptions and failed harvests triggered starvation and revolution in the 1840s, and how the German middle class turned household preservation tricks
Episode 21: Blood and Iron in Africa - Germany's Colonial Violence
In this episode, Katja and Chris continue their exploration of Germany's colonial empire, turning to the violence that underpinned it. They examine the daily brutality of plantation and settler life, the international suppression of China's Boxer Uprising, and the genocidal war waged against the Herero and Nama peoples in German South West Africa under General Lothar von Trotha's extermination ord
Episode 20: The Reich Overseas
In this episode Katja and Chris explore Germany’s colonial empire, from its early roots in Brandenburg to its rapid expansion under the Kaiserreich. They examine why Germany pursued colonies, how empire was sold to the public at home, and the violence, racial hierarchy, and dispossession behind the colonial dream.
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Host: K
Episode 19: Reichs and Wrongs: Your German History Questions
In this special Q&A episode, Katja and Chris tackle listener questions on everything from whether the Nazis were really right-wing, to why Hitler never invaded Switzerland, the myth of the German Sonderweg, and the deep roots of Germany's "Russlandversteher" sympathies. They explore a counterfactual on Kaiser Frederick III, unpack why the "stab-in-the-back" legend took such powerful hold after 191
Episode 18: Hitler’s Long Death with Caroline Sharples
In this episode, Katja and Chris are joined by historian Dr Caroline Sharples to discuss Adolf Hitler’s death. Drawing on Caroline’s new book, The Long Death of Adolf Hitler: An Investigative History (Yale University Press), they explore the ways the Nazi dictator’s demise was imagined for years beforehand, what really unfolded in the Führerbunker on 30 April 1945, and how forensic detective work,
Episode 17: Konrad Adenauer and the Making of West Germany
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the long chancellorship of Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first postwar leader. From the narrow vote that brought him to power in 1949 to the economic miracle, Western integration, NATO membership, and the slogan “No Experiments”, they examine how Adenauer helped turn a defeated and divided country into a stable democracy. But they also ask what this succe
Episode 16: Konrad Adenauer, the Rhineland and the Reich
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the life of Konrad Adenauer before he became West Germany’s first chancellor. From his Catholic Rhineland upbringing and bitter opposition to Prussian dominance to his transformation of Cologne and uneasy survival under the Nazis, they examine the experiences that shaped his political outlook.
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Episode 15: The Eulenburg Affair and the Kaiser's Secret Circle
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the Eulenburg Affair, a royal scandal that struck deep into the heart of Kaiser Wilhelm II's circle of friends and advisors with grave and unintended consequences for Europe. They examine Wilhelm's intense friendship with diplomat Philipp zu Eulenburg, and how accusations of homosexuality became a weapon in the struggle over power.
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Episode 14: Erich Mielke and the Origins of the Stasi
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the origins of the Stasi, East Germany’s notorious secret police, and the ruthless mindset of its long-serving chief, Erich Mielke. From Soviet influence and early political repression to mass surveillance and paranoia, they examine how the GDR built one of the most intrusive police states in modern history.
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Episode 13: Austria and Germany: The Anschluss
In this week’s episode, Katja and Chris continue their exploration of the tangled relationship between Austria and Germany, from the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918 to the Nazi regime’s annexation of Austria in 1938. Why had so many Austrians believed their new republic could not survive alone? Why was union with Germany banned in the post-war peace settlement? And how did an idea previous
Episode 12: Why is Austria not in Germany?
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the long and complicated relationship between Germany and Austria. They explain how religious differences and Great Power rivalry sustained two competing German identities in Central Europe. Starting from Katja’s childhood memories of crossing the Austro-German border into a familiar yet foreign world, they debate the Holy Roman Empire, the impact of Napole
Episode 11: 1923 The Ruhr Crisis with Mark Jones
In this week’s episode, Katja and Chris are joined by historian Mark Jones to discuss the 1923 Ruhr Crisis: the French and Belgian occupation of Germany’s industrial heartland, the policy of passive resistance, and the crisis of violence, hyperinflation, and political extremism that pushed the Weimar Republic to the brink.
Guest: Mark Jones
Book: 1923: The Forgotten Crisis in the Year of Hitle
Episode 10: Who Wants To Be A Trillionaire? The Weimar Hyperinflation
In this week’s episode, Katja and Chris explore the Weimar hyperinflation crisis, when German money became almost worthless, prices changed by the hour, and a loaf of bread could cost billions of marks.
How did Germany reach this point? What did it mean for ordinary people trying to survive? And why did the trauma of 1923 leave such a deep mark on German society?
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Episode 9: 'We Are The People'. How the Berlin Wall Fell
In this episode, Katja and Chris dive into the final, frantic days of the GDR. They explore the lived reality of the Wende (the turning point) from the perspective of East Germans watching their world dissolve in real-time. From the bravery of the Monday Demonstrations to the surreal shock of the first border crossings, they discuss what it felt like to suddenly step out from the known and into an
Episode 8: What did you do in the war, Papa? The Student Revolt of 1968
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore how West Germany transformed from a conservative postwar society into one rocked by youth rebellion. From the economic miracle of the 1950s to the student protests of 1968, they examine why a new generation began questioning their parents’ past, asking uncomfortable questions about Nazism, authority, and democracy. Along the way, they uncover how cultural c
Episode 7: East Germany’s Forgotten Uprising
In this episode, Katja and Chris dive into the dramatic events of 17 June 1953, when East Germany was shaken by a mass uprising that nearly toppled the young socialist regime. What began as a workers’ strike in East Berlin quickly spread across the country, drawing in over a million people.
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Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr C
Episode 6: Where Did All the Nazis Go After 1945?
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore how the Allies attempted to denazify Germany after Hitler’s fall, focusing not just on top Nazi leaders but on the millions of ordinary Germans who had supported the regime. They compare the very different approaches of the American, British, French, and Soviet occupation zones, and examine how politics, pragmatism, and the early Cold War shaped the process
Episode 5: Terror Before the War: Concentration Camps in the 1930s
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the origins of the Nazi concentration camp system before the Second World War. They examine how the early camps were created, who they were meant to imprison, and how terror was normalized in German society. They discuss the differences between the early pre-war camps and the later wartime camp system, the role of Dachau as a model for SS violence, and why
Episode 4: Weimar 1928: The Humiliation of the NSDAP
In this episode, Katja and Chris examine the Weimar Republic at its apparent high point in 1928 and ask the question that still haunts historians today: was German democracy ever truly secure, or was collapse already built in?
Looking at elections, economic recovery, Stresemann’s diplomacy, rural unrest, and the Nazis' ongoing inability to gain a hearing from German voters, they explore how a rep
Episode 3: The Turnip (and Crow) Winter of 1916/17
In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the brutal reality of the 'Turnip Winter' of 1916/17, when the German civilian population was forced to endure extreme hunger, freezing temperatures and a collapsing food system. They explore how the British blockade, disastrous harvests and government mismanagement forced people to survive on animal fodder such as turnips (and crow). The episode reveals th
Episode 2: The Iron Chancellor: Bismarck and the Making of Germany
Chris and Katja take a closer look at the towering figure of Otto von Bismarck. Who was the Iron Chancellor really? What role did he play in the making of Germany? And how is he remembered today?
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Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon
https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host
To comment and ask quest
Episode 1: Reich? What Reich?
In the first episode of Reichs and Republics, we set the scene for a journey through German history, from the Holy Roman Empire to reunification.
We explore the meanings of 'Reich' and 'Republic', explain why Germany's past continues to shape the modern world, and share what sparked our fascination with the subject.
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