The History Podcast

Writer and broadcaster Andrew Hunter Murray uncovers last century’s biggest ever publishing scandal, a forgery which rocked the world and destroyed reputations.

When Germany’s biggest magazine Stern announced in 1983 that they’d found the long-lost diaries of Adolf Hitler, authenticated by the eminent British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, the world was poised to rewrite history.

Salvaged from the wreckage of a Junkers plane which had crashed escaping Hitler’s Berlin bunker in the dying days of the war, the diaries had been hidden in a hayloft in East Germany for forty years. And remarkably they had now come to light, smuggled across the border into West Germany at the height of the Cold War. One lone journalist, Gerd Heidemann, known as ‘The Bloodhound’, had tracked them down. It had taken two years of secret missions and millions of Deutschmarks to amass all sixty volumes of Hitler’s personal, handwritten journals. The world was about to find the truth of Adolf Hitler’s mind: what he knew, what motivated him, his intimate reflections as the Third Reich rose and fell.

That, at least, was the story – a story which news organisations the world over, including Rupert Murdoch’s newly-acquired Sunday Times, believed. This would be a sensation – assuming, of course, that it was true.

It’s a tale of greed, obsession and mass delusion. It includes Hermann Goering’s yacht, Nazi-themed honeymoons, Idi Amin’s underpants, and more details almost too unbelievable for words. Murray interviews the people who were there as the diaries were announced to the world, and as the story fell apart: the archivist tasked with authenticating the diaries in Germany, the TV producer led around the homes of retired Nazis to film a promotional doc for the scoop, and the Fleet Street editor given 24 hours to create a world-beating story based on fraudulent material.

Murray’s mission is to track down the actual books which caused all this chaos, and to get as close as he can to the truth. In our own time of AI, fake news and disinformation, are there any lessons we can take from the greatest hoax of the last fifty years?

Presenter: Andrew Hunter Murray

Producer: Ruth Abrahams
A Whistledown Production for BBC Sounds and Radio 4

It’s 1991 in New Hampshire and a cheerfully pugnacious TV pundit and political insider is announcing his campaign for the Republican nomination. His name is Pat Buchanan and what he is about to say will shock the room.
Not only does he challenge sitting President George H W Bush, but the entire post-war order, the vision of America that has persisted for the past half century - America at the head of a free world. Instead, Pat Buchanan says, “It will be time for a new foreign policy that looks out for America first, but not only America first, but also America second and third as well.”
This is the story of the idea that governs America’s new vision of its role in the world — America First — and what it really means.
Presenter: David Dimbleby
Producer: Redzi Bernard
Sound Design: Jeff Emtman
Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina
Story Editor: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4

A man sits in the Pentagon terrified. The building is shaking. He thinks it’s an Earthquake. In fact it’s 9/11 and this man senses an opportunity. To drag America out of its post Vietnam stupor and re-assert itself on the world stage.
The man’s name is Paul Wolfowitz. He’s an academic and political advisor. And he is obsessed with one idea. One idea he thinks will help America become great again. Invading Iraq.
This is the story of how in the early 2000s America re-established itself as the leader of the free world and the decision to fight a war that did more than anything else to burn that image to the ground.
David Dimbleby tells the story of how, in the middle of the 20th century, one country - America - became a superpower and shaped the world around it.
It began with a vision. A vision born out of the ashes of World War Two. A vision of a world shaped not by war but by peace. This vision of America at the head of the free world came to be the defining idea at the center of the past 80 years of world politics. And yet now it is under threat.
So how did we get here? How did America become the leader of the free world and why did it go wrong? It’s a story shaped by people. People you have probably never heard of.
In the 20th Century, these ‘invisible hands’ wrote the story America came to believe about itself. A story of moral leadership leading to prosperity and peace. But is it a story that has run out of steam?
Presenter: David Dimbleby
Producer: Redzi Bernard
Sound Design: Jeff Emtman
Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina
Story Editor: Joe Sykes, Dasha Lisitsina, and Peggy Sutton
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4

March 1965 Vietnam. American fighter jets are taking off to bomb munitions depot in the North. A few days later, American ground troops arrive in the jungle. They would stay there for almost a decade, dropping more bombs on Vietnam than in all theatres of World War Two. How did this happen?
The answer lies with someone who has evaded the glare of the spotlight. A liberal development theorist called Walt Rostow. A man who started off by advocating to help developing nations become capitalist and who ended up helping to unleash hell on an unsuspecting civilian population of a country on the other side of the world.
This is a story of how idealism can lead to disaster. Of how America went from defender of freedom to bearer of destruction.
David Dimbleby tells the story of how, in the middle of the 20th century, one country - America - became a superpower and shaped the world around it.
It began with a vision. A vision born out of the ashes of World War Two. A vision of a world shaped not by war but by peace. This vision of America at the head of the free world came to be the defining idea at the center of the past 80 years of world politics. And yet now it is under threat.
So how did we get here? How did America become the leader of the free world and why did it go wrong? It’s a story shaped by people. People you have probably never heard of.
In the 20th Century, these ‘invisible hands’ wrote the story America came to believe about itself. A story of moral leadership leading to prosperity and peace. But is it a story that has run out of steam?
Presenter: David Dimbleby
Producer: Redzi Bernard
Sound Design: Jeff Emtman
Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina
Story Editor: Joe Sykes, Dasha Lisitsina, and Peggy Sutton
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4

1953 Tehran. An American diplomat called Kermit Roosevely III rides through the city’s streets on his way to see the Shah of Iran. Although he can’t see anything because he’s riding in the boot covered in a Persian carpet. He doesn’t want to be seen because he’s on a top secret mission. A mission from the American government. To overthrow Iran’s popular Prime Minister threatening to nationalise the oil industry — Mohamed Mossadegh. Kermit is organising a coup.
This is the story of how America came up with a blueprint of how to fight its communist enemies abroad while still looking like the good guy. How it maintained its role as the virtuous superpower while getting rid of people it didn’t like. They decided to do it in secret, using the ultimate invisible hand - the CIA.
It’s a tale of oil, money, power and marks the start of a toxic relationship between Iran and the US that is still playing out to this day.
David Dimbleby tells the story of how in the middle of the 20th century one country - America - became a superpower and shaped the world around it.
It began with a vision. A vision born out of the ashes of World War Two. A vision of a world shaped not by war but by peace. This vision of America at the head of the free world came to be the defining idea at the center of the past 80 years of world politics. And yet now it is under threat.
So how did we get here? How did America become the leader of the free world and why did it go wrong? It’s a story shaped by people. People you have probably never heard of.
In the 20th Century, these ‘invisible hands’ wrote the story America came to believe about itself. A story of moral leadership leading to prosperity and peace. But is it a story that has run out of steam?
Presenter: David Dimbleby
Producer: Redzi Bernard
Sound Design: Jeff Emtman
Executive Producers: Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina
Story Editor: Joe Sykes, Dasha Lisitsina, and Peggy Sutton
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Samizdat Audio production for BBC Radio 4