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Operation Valkyrie
31 Plays5 years ago
Josh and M discuss Operation Valkyrie, the plot by Nazi officers to kill Hitler!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:09
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. Brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Denton. Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. Another good coconut, is that a new bottle?
00:00:24
Speaker
You've been getting some good. It can't be that good. Well, no. It is fairly empty. I don't know. You might have decanted it into something. I'm guessing better at popping. Fine. Well, the popper of the cork is, of course, Dr. M.R. Extenteth, hitting the scotch from the looks of things. And why not? It should have been schnapps or something to fit. Why not try to pronounce that? Auch Reusch.
00:00:47
Speaker
Not even close. No, I see, but is it Welsh or something? Is it Orisk or something? Yeah. Well, there we go. Right so you can try. But
Nazis Opposing Hitler
00:00:57
Speaker
no, it should possibly be schnapps or something a little more Teutonic to fit in with the thing. I do have German ancestry. What I should be drinking here is a good Bavarian beer. I have ancestry from Bavaria.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yes, because of course we're heading back to Germany and those wacky Nazis, they're at it again, coming up with conspiracy theories. And we're going to be talking about nominally good Nazis today, aren't we? Well... Nominally good. Nominally good Nazis. We're going to be talking about the Nazis who tried to kill Hitler. Well, some of them anyway. Turns out there were quite a few Nazis who had a crack at Hitler. Yeah, turns out that Hitler...
00:01:37
Speaker
actually was kind of opposed by quite a lot of the aristocratic Nazis for reasons we'll go into. And probably the Nazis who were too fond of plunging the country into a world war and rounding up people and sticking them in camps and what have you.
00:01:52
Speaker
Well, probably some of them as well. I don't know. So we're going to be talking about good Nazis. Yeah, the ones, the ones so good they get played by Tom Cruise in a movie. Yeah, this is so if you've watched the film Operation Valkyrie, which is about Tom Cruise trying to kill Adolf Hitler.
00:02:10
Speaker
Basically, we're going to be talking about that. So, have you seen Valkyrie? No. See, I have. Is it actually good? Yeah, it actually is a gripping film. And it's kind of interesting to see Tom Cruise playing a Nazi and not trying to make this person out to be this noble character. He's still a Nazi. He's just a Nazi who wants to kill Hitler. Does he try an accent? Or do they all just do...
00:02:36
Speaker
I can't recall, and now I'm thinking, I think Valkyrie was directed by Bryan Singer. Could be. Which is its own kettle of worms. Well, yes. But anyway, so we're not going to be talking specifically about the movie, we're going to be talking about the events that the movie was based on. Do we um...
00:02:56
Speaker
Do we have any sort of place-setting, administration-y, announcement-y stuff before we get straight into it? No, we do not. I think we go straight in to talking about Nazism again. Yay for Hitler. I'm sorry. No, no. We're not going out on Yay for Hitler. No, we're not going out. Forgive me for being such a fell for a good source of conspiracy theories. Springtime, Hitler. Then we could have gone into the producers and that would have been fine. Right. OK.
00:03:24
Speaker
And actually, there's a restaurant train. Restaurant chain. I haven't even started the whisky. A restaurant chain in Eastern Europe. I actually think it's found elsewhere in Europe as well, but I saw it mostly in Romania and in Bulgaria called Springtime.
Operation Valkyrie Overview
00:03:43
Speaker
And every time I walked past the Springtime, internet's going, Springtime for Hitler. Springtime for Hitler.
00:03:56
Speaker
Important news update, there is actually a film called Operation Valkyrie. It just isn't the Tom Cruise one. The Tom Cruise one is in fact directed by Brian Singer.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, so obviously not, when I say hooray for Hitler, I don't like, like, can we be clear that Hitler is bad? We can be clear. Hitler is bad, was bad, and I suspect will continue to be considered to be bad unless the alt-right actually do succeed in taking over Western civilization.
00:04:28
Speaker
So, this episode might age poorly in about 10 years' time. Indeed. Neville is a good source of conspiracy theories when he wasn't coming up with them himself. People were plotting conspiracies against him. Quite a few of them, apparently. So, I had a quick look. There were enough of them that they've got their own page on Wikipedia. There are assassination attempts of Hitler and it's not a short page. These Nazis have really made it if they've got their own page on Wikipedia.
00:04:54
Speaker
starting even before the start of the war, people didn't like Hitler. And so there were various either attempts to have a go at him or plans to have a go at him that never actually worked. But I guess the one that came the closest to succeeding and from the looks of things only really failed due to chance.
00:05:15
Speaker
was this one that gets referred to as Operation Valkyrie. Although Operation Valkyrie wasn't really the conspiracy to kill Hitler, wasn't it? No, it was not. It was the contingency plan as to what would happen if the Führer was killed. Yeah, so Operation Valkyrie itself was basically a contingency plan made by the night, signed off by Hitler for how the German reserve army could basically
00:05:44
Speaker
take over the country in case of the breakdown of civil society, which would generally happen if Hitler had been killed or something else. The Chancellor was dead. The Chancellor being Adolf Hitler.
00:05:57
Speaker
So, it was an official Nazi plan. It was the structure put in place. If everything goes pear-shaped, the army can not exactly stage a coup because this is arrangements that the government has put against for themselves. But the army would take over. Well, it was to stop a coup from occurring when the Chancellor died, basically.
00:06:17
Speaker
But it was then sort of repurposed by a bunch of German officers to stage a coup. Essentially, this was the plan. They would kill Hitler with Hitler out of the way. They could then sort of invoke Operation Valkyrie, which would allow the army to take... Blame outside forces for the death of Hitler, which would allow them to say Operation Valkyrie comes into effect. And who better to lead post assassination of Hitler Germany
00:06:44
Speaker
than these high-ranking Nazi officials who in no way were responsible for the death of the Führer. It's a very clever plot. It is, yes. We get a bit of false flag into it as well. This conspiracy theory keeps getting better and better, and by which better I mean worse.
00:07:03
Speaker
The script of this announcement that was going to be given, I think this script, this was prepared by these conspirators, is the thing that they were going to announce when they enacted Operation Valkyrie. It had a whole big list of orders, this was basically orders that would be given to the army to tell them what to do, but it was going to start. The Führer Adolf Hitler, this will be in German, I assume, they probably wouldn't.
00:07:25
Speaker
It would be a bit strange if they announced in English to their soldiers. Although if it wasn't English, it would be impeccable upper class English accent as we know from British war films. Obviously. I don't see we can avoid the Nazi general, Smith and Jones, sketch coming into this at some point because there are going to be a lot of Nazi generals involved. So just warm up your accent for that.
00:07:47
Speaker
But no, this announcement was going to start. The Führer Adolf Hitler is dead. An unscrupulous clique of party leaders alien to the front has attempted under the exploitation of the situation to betray the hard struggling front and to seize power for their own selfish purposes and would go on to basically tell the brave soldiers of the Wehrmacht to basically let these guys do whatever these guys tell you to.
00:08:12
Speaker
But of course, for that to happen, Hitler had to die. And the reason why Hitler had to die, not just be arrested or, you know, shun kicked out of the country or something, was because there were only two people with the authority to invoke Operation Valkyrie. One of them was Hitler himself, and the other one was General Friedrich Fromm, who was the commander of the Reserve Army. Who's going to be an interesting character in the story. Yes, he's a major figure. From?
00:08:41
Speaker
Turns out to be one of those people who was a little bit agnostic as to whether he thought Hitler was a good idea and was one of those generals who could basically sway different ways depending on which way the breeze was blowing on a particular day. So he was the general who changed sides frequently, not the general who would pick up the telephone and say, get me some food!
00:09:05
Speaker
Which Nazi general would you have been? I would have been the laid-back Nazi general who doesn't bother to salute properly. I'm definitely the Griffiths Jones Nazi general. If you don't know what we're talking about, look up Smith and Jones Nazi general sketch. It is the funniest sketch, uh, Mel Smith and Griffiths Jones ever did. It's probably actually the only funny sketch in retrospect that you can do as well. I haven't really looked at much of their other work. I just remember that one.
00:09:28
Speaker
So, General Fromm was the guy they needed to, and I should say at the start, they wanted to do it by the book, right? They wanted, they didn't want to, you know, just kill Hitler and then there'd be chaos, step two, question mark, question mark, step three, profit. They had a plan. They wanted to do it properly. They wanted the government, which they come up with afterwards, to be legitimate, basically.
00:09:55
Speaker
So, they needed everything to go the way it was
July 20, 1944 Assassination Attempt
00:09:58
Speaker
supposed to go. And so, for the army to take over, Operation Valkyrie has to be put into action. For Operation Valkyrie to be put into action, General Fromm has to do it, or Hitler has to be dead, and General Fromm has to do it. So, we come to the plot to kill Hitler. Actually, sorry, sorry, sorry. First, one thing I should point out, this was a big conspiracy.
00:10:19
Speaker
It was. It involved, as we'll say, a lot of generals, a lot of very high ranking people to these conspirators. I just want to point out, it's an awful lot of similarity with the death of Julius Caesar here. So when the assassins plot to kill Caesar, they also want to do it by the book. So the reason why there are 23 conspirators in the cabal of people who killed Caesar was that Marcus Brutus, Casca, etc.,
00:10:46
Speaker
got all the major figures who would need to be in place in the Senate to make sure there was an orderly transition back to Republican governance involved in the conspiracy, because once Caesar was dead,
00:11:02
Speaker
They need to make sure the right procedural votes went through the Senate to ensure a return back to Republican rule. And of course, their issue was they didn't really calculate on what Marcus Antonius was going to do. And that's why their conspiracy fell down.
00:11:20
Speaker
In the same respect, the Marcus Antonius of this story is going to be our general from. I think so. But we'll get to that after we talk about the very large number of people who turn out not to be Tom Cruise in this story. So, I mean, the key figures we have
00:11:36
Speaker
The guys running this were high-ranking officers in the German army. We have a General Friedrich Ulbricht, we have a Major General Henning von Treskau, and Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg, who was played by Tom Cruise. So he's the one who we'll see was sort of instrumental in the actual bombing attempt that almost managed to kill Hitler.
00:11:56
Speaker
So these were guys, there's also General Ludwig Beck, he was in there, these were the guys who were sort of leading the coup, these were the guys who were planning to form the government afterwards, I think the plan was that Beck would be president, Stauffenberg would be the Secretary of State, I think it was, yes. So these were the guys, but
00:12:16
Speaker
There were a lot of people, once again, there's a whole Wikipedia page of people who were in on Operation Valkyrie. There were lots of them all throughout the army and indeed outside the army, which as we'll see later, when everything went pear-shaped and people started getting really... Led to a lot of deaths. There was a lot of rounding up. A lot of deaths.
00:12:39
Speaker
So that was the plan. We would kill Hitler, we would put Operation Valkyrie into effect, take over the country, disarm the U.S.S., get rid of the Nazi Party, end the war.
00:12:55
Speaker
was the plan. Unfortunately, the plan didn't really go according to plan. Now, the date of the actual attempt, that is kind of the focus point of our story, is the 20th of July 1944. But that was basically their last attempt, because throughout 1943 and early 1944, they had been trying quite desperately to get Hitler
00:13:24
Speaker
and his co-conspirators in the government, you might say. So we're talking about our Himmler's Gurbles and Gurbles as well in a situation where they could take them all out at
Gestapo Crackdown
00:13:39
Speaker
the same time. And they had various plots as to whether they were going to shoot them or whether they were going to blow them up with a bomb. And there were actually several attempts, but these attempts were, they weren't very successful.
00:13:53
Speaker
No. There were plans. Often they didn't get to the stage of an attempt, really. There were plans to sort of get someone close enough to Hitler to shoot him, get someone close enough to Hitler to plant a bomb and blow him up. And either they
00:14:10
Speaker
Well, basically, none of them worked out most of the time because they planned, we'll get this guy to see Hitler. But as we've said, there had been a bunch of assassination attempts on Hitler already. And so Hitler was quite justifiably quite paranoid. So he was always guarded. He basically stopped taking visitors, essentially anyone he didn't, he wouldn't see anyone he didn't know. So first of all, you had the obstacle of we, you know, we
00:14:36
Speaker
Here's our man on the inside. We want to get him up to, you know, sneak up behind Hitler and shoot him. Well, that just didn't happen because he couldn't get close to Hitler. He wasn't ever going to get him to get the opportunity. Then it was, you know, we need to get in somewhere, plant a bomb. Well, again, no one can get close enough to Hitler to plant this bomb. And also the fact that they didn't want to engage in a suicide bombing.
00:14:57
Speaker
They wanted to be able to go into a room, leave a bomb behind, walk out to safety. They weren't really willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Yes, I believe there had been instances where that sort of suggested, well, you know, for the good, why don't you go off and become a suicide bomber? Why don't you go off and become a suicide bomber? And because we're talking about these people, we're kind of the upper grass. I'm the nurse who tells other people what to do. These were not the guys to
00:15:27
Speaker
especially given that these guys, the heads of the conspiracy, were planning to form the government afterwards, they presumably considered themselves to be indispensable. Yes, they were the kind of people who thought they were indispensable to the cause.
00:15:42
Speaker
So anyway, enter Klaus von Stauffenberg. Tom Cruise! So we hit von Stauffenberg. Who was the other one? Von Treskau. Von, of course, being an aristocratic title. So a lot of the officer class was sort of former aristocrats. And this was part of their motivation.
00:16:02
Speaker
Nazi-era Germany, or post-World War I really, the aristocracy had been, they were actually made to give up their Vons, I understand. You weren't allowed to be... A von Stauffenberg. You just had to be Stauffenberg. Part of it was that they kind of wanted a return to their former glory. Also, they did think they were born to wrong. Well, yeah, basically. And Hitler... Stuff had gone wrong. ...wasn't from the right class.
00:16:28
Speaker
So, Klaus Stauffenberg
Conspiracy Comparison and Historical Context
00:16:31
Speaker
slash von Stauffenberg, he had been wounded in Africa, I think, because in the movie he has the eye patch and everything doesn't. He had lost an eye. He had lost bits of both of his hands, I think. He was convinced the war was a bad idea. Hitler needed to go. So, around 1942, apparently, he had come to the decision that we've got to do something about this Hitler chatty.
00:16:53
Speaker
joined the conspiracy in 1943, and then when Von Triskau got assigned to the Eastern Front, he essentially took over as the ringleader.
00:17:04
Speaker
So then the plan was, sorry, the key thing came in on the 1st of July, Stauffenberg was appointed Chief of Staff to General From. So now he could go wherever From went, and From was one of the people who could actually get in a room with Hitler. Because From was trusted by Hitler, From's aides were presumably trusted by From, so transitivity allows von Stauffenberg to be in the same room with Adolf Hitler.
00:17:31
Speaker
So on July the 14th, they made their first attempt. He had a bomb in a suitcase. He was in a room with Hitler, but they wanted to get Hitler, Himmler and Göring all in one go, and the three of them weren't in the room. So at the last minute, they called it off. And I don't know, I think in the movie he's very pissed off about that.
00:17:51
Speaker
In the movie, it's kind of a attention thing of getting the bomb out of the room before it blows, because the worry is Hitler's not in the room when it's likely to blow. So if they only kill one of the lower ranks, then Hitler's going to be much harder to get. Now, whether that's actually how things went down in reality is another matter entirely. Supposedly on the 14th, I think Hitler was there, but Himmler and Göring weren't. And so they called it off.
00:18:20
Speaker
and Stauffenberg, from the sounds of things, argued the point fairly fiercely that, God damn it, we could have got him, and you pulled me out. So they tried to say, OK, fine, fine, fine. As long as we can get Hitler, then, we'll go ahead with it. We don't need to get the other ones that would just be nice if we can. So on the 15th, he had another try. The three of them were in a room. But then Hitler was the one who got called away at the last minute. So they had to call it off again. Yeah, I think in the film, they basically make those two events the same.
00:18:48
Speaker
And so finally, now, as we said, the conspiracy was fairly large. And so there was sort of the possibility of loose lips, sinking ships. And as we said, now, General Fromm was aware of the conspiracy, but not actively a part of it. So he wasn't involved in any of the plot, but he knew about it. He wasn't going around telling Hitler about the conspiracy either, because he was
00:19:14
Speaker
kind of agnostic as long as there was continuity of power, from wasn't particularly concerned about who was chancellor at any particular point in time. But apparently, the Gestapo was starting to close in on them with the number of people, you know, things were starting to get out, there were investigations being conducted, and so they were starting to become priests for time.
00:19:36
Speaker
So finally on the 20th of July, we had the situation where Stauffenberg was able to plant the bomb in a room right next to Hitler. The bomb went off.
00:19:48
Speaker
and Operation Valkyrie could proceed. Except it turns out that between start with von Stauffenberg going into the room and planting the bomb and Hitler sitting down where the bomb was meant to be, someone moved the bomb. Someone said, oh, what's that damn suitcase doing there? The briefcase there in the way shifted it around to the other side of the big, they were sort of sitting at a table with a big sturdy leg. So that when the bomb went off, Hitler was partially shielded from the blast. And although I think sort of three people were killed
00:20:18
Speaker
Everybody in the room was injured. Hitler was not among the fatalities. However, the conspirators weren't aware of this. The blouse went off. They assumed that given Hitler's proximity to where the bomb was meant to be, and also the reports that people had died, that Hitler had been killed by the bomb, and so Operation Valkyrie was invoked.
Aftermath and Betrayal
00:20:42
Speaker
So Stauffenberg immediately legged it and I think tried to put as much distance between him and the area as he could, so he couldn't have been blamed for it. General Ulbricht, one of the head conspirators, basically went to France and said, look, Hitler's dead, so go, go for it. And from was like, well, OK, hang on. I don't know.
00:21:02
Speaker
from, you've got to do this now, you've got to, and froms go, I have to make some phone calls. Yeah, so it very much sounds like from wanted to make sure he didn't end up on the wrong side. If he announces Operation Valkyrie and then it turns out Hitler's alive, then he's going to look mighty silly indeed. So he made some calls and eventually received word that Hitler was in fact alive. So I believe
00:21:27
Speaker
I believe some of the conspirators had actually be going out themselves and saying, you know, Operation Valkyrie, you can go ahead. Go for it, guys. Go for it. But but only Fromm could give the official word. And so then eventually there's I think this I think this was also a scene in the movie where the one of the sort of head generals of the reserve army ends up getting put on the phone with Hitler himself. So Hitler can say, I am not dead. Which he's like, right, you're OK. Definitely. We won't be doing the Operation Valkyrie thing.
00:21:54
Speaker
So, yeah, the fact that it was still alive kind of means that the conspiracy was buggered, basically. And a lot of people were in a lot of trouble. And the thing was, because of that and the realization that the Gestapo were going to engage in a
00:22:10
Speaker
fairly vigorous investigation as to what went on, Fromm basically sells out the conspirators almost immediately and tells them exactly everything that he knows, which then means that some of the conspirators being aware the Gestapo are close on their heels, commit suicide, and others like von Stauffenberg get captured and then executed by the Gestapo very, very quickly.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I think From, who didn't know the exact details of the bombing, was able to put to and to together and realize it was Stauffenberg who'd done it. And then, yeah, he refused to invoke Operation Valkyrie, tried to get the people arrested. There was some sort of a scuffle and they ended up detaining him and holding him at gunpoint. But then once everything fell apart and Valkyrie wasn't going to happen and everybody was aware that there'd been this plot to kill Hitler, which had failed.
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah, he immediately had the conspirators rounded up, tried, convicted and executed, toot to sweet. Oh, I suppose, what's German, and so fought.
00:23:13
Speaker
Now, the Kasapa arrested 7,000 people and executed 4,918. Because the great thing about a conspiracy to kill your leader is it also justifies a purge of other undesirables you've been meaning to get rid of but
00:23:34
Speaker
Haven't had enough reason to do so. Yes. So Hitler, as you might well imagine, wasn't too pleased about almost having been killed. He was really fussy about those things. He didn't like his bombings, that guy. No, he didn't like people, transnational teams. Not the kind of thing he was into. He was willing to give orders to kill off an entire ethnic group, but you try to kill him and he gets really paved.
00:23:59
Speaker
So he put the Gestapo onto it straight away, said, get everyone, get all of them, round up the entire damn lot of them and we'll be done with it. So the head guys, as we say, Fromm had seen to it that they had been tried and executed straight away, basically before they could drop him into it and put on a great show of how loyal he was to Hitler and how concerned he was at rooting everybody out. But yeah, 7,000 people, it has been basically said that, yeah,
00:24:27
Speaker
Not all of these people who were arrested and what have you were actually in on the conspiracy. There was a lot of score settling and a lot of, yeah, purging of people who they'd been looking for an excuse to do it. Including From. Because the problem with From's story is that he knew too much. He did. Which then led to people going, you seem to have known about plots against the Führer.
00:24:50
Speaker
And you didn't tell us about those plots, so it's good that you've sold out the conspirators now, but it's also bad that you didn't sell them out before they made the attempt. Yeah, so essentially it became clear that he was, if not part of the conspiracy, then at least in on it. So he was one of those 4,980 executions, apparently.
00:25:18
Speaker
The only concession he got was that Hitler personally ordered that he be executed by firing squad, whereas most of the conspirators were hanged like common criminals. As firing squad at least was a military death. It was a military death and a quote-unquote honorable death. But yeah, not so lucky, but most of them, including apparently Erwin Planck, son of Max Planck, he of the Planck constant.
00:25:41
Speaker
Plank Number, whatever it is, the famous physicist. That's such a great band. The Plank Constant. Is it? I don't know what reference you're making there. Sounds like a name of a great band. Hey, we're the Max Plank Constant. And so that was that. I'm sure you've heard about this before, even if you hadn't heard about the Tom Cruise movie. It's sort of the thing that... I'm sure I first heard about this on Ripley's
Political Implications and Historical Impact
00:26:03
Speaker
Believe It or Not.
00:26:04
Speaker
or something many, many years ago. Now hosted by Bruce Campbell. It is, actually. Yeah, this is back in the Jack Palance years. Oh, now that was someone with a great voice. Yes. I remember, you know, it's just this story people like to tell. You know, if it hadn't been for that one guy shifting the briefcase into the wrong spot, Hitler would have died in July of 1944. And then who the hell knows what would have happened? What would have happened?
00:26:28
Speaker
Probably not much. So it is true that most of the conspirators thought that Hitler had got them into a costly war in Europe, which they would win eventually, because Nazis did think that they were going to be the winning side. But it was going to be one of those long protracted things. It would be much better for suit or peace now. Suit or peace?
00:26:50
Speaker
Keep the holdings you've got in Europe, allow the Third Reich to basically stabilize, and have peace treaties with foreign nations.
00:27:03
Speaker
But there's no clear indication that this would have been, A, we're going to give up everything which makes Nazism Nazism. It would simply be we'll stop the war and we'll be happy with our holdings as we've got them now. Yes. I mean, these people, as we've said, they were aristocrats. They were the upper classes. So the government that they formed would have doubtless been a very conservative, very authoritarian, very sort of born to rule style government.
00:27:28
Speaker
And as we say, they'd written up their whole plans, they'd thought this all through, so we know how they were planning to negotiate peace with the Nazis. And people who've looked at what their demands would have been had they got the chance have basically said the Allies never would have gone for that.
00:27:46
Speaker
that was basically, it was basically make Germany great again, really. And it was, we will keep everything that we've conquered, and you won't ask us to return back to our natural borders, which was not what the allies were going to do, especially since they were fighting on behalf of a lot of nations which had been conquered by the Nazis since the advent of World War II. Yeah, so it was a
00:28:13
Speaker
You know, let's just put everything back the way it used to be in the good old days before three years of war. And indeed the war before that as well, I think, because they want one of the things, you know, obviously like one of the reasons why Hitler was able to rile up the Nazis was the whole World War I reparations thing, which nobody in Germany really liked. And these guys were very much on with that. So one of the conditions would have been no more World War I reparations.
00:28:38
Speaker
Yeah, they sort of expected to just put everything back, like just forget those two world wars, let's just put everything back the way it was and we'll just all get on with our lives. And yeah, probably was never actually going to work.
00:28:53
Speaker
No. So I mean, this is a quite fascinating conspiracy theory, because it's a wonderful example of a conspiracy which actually occurred. It's also a wonderful example of a conspiracy theory, which was being investigated by the Gestapo as the conspiracy is being developed, because
00:29:11
Speaker
As Josh pointed out, there were a lot of members in the conspiracy, and there was justified worried about information leaking from the conspirators to other people, which the Gestapo picked up upon, so they were investigating it. And of course Hitler was concerned about various conspiracies against him.
00:29:32
Speaker
So he was always theorising about where the next plot was going to occur. And it turned out both the Gestapo and Hitler were right to be concerned because there was a massive conspiracy being launched against him. And this is just the most successful one. I mean, as we said at the start, there had been others and there were possibly who knows if there are other ones going along. Well, yes, because the Gestapo did a very good job of making sure information about this stuff didn't really ever get out.
00:29:59
Speaker
So there you have it. There's probably not much more we can say about it that hasn't been said on the History Channel several dozen times. It's a fascinating incident and all the more remarkable that it managed to fail by accident, really.
Humorous Reflections
00:30:15
Speaker
Yes, if that one suitcase had not been moved, history would have been different. We talk about conspiracies requiring a goal that they're all working towards, but that goal
00:30:31
Speaker
It's not a requirement that the goal actually be successful for us to be able to say that a conspiracy had occurred. In this case, it was a goal not being successful in a fairly spectacular fashion. One porter moves, one suitcase, and the history of World War II is changed forever.
00:30:49
Speaker
Which is the reason why. You should get really good hired staff. Ooh, in this case, really bad hired staff. If you're going to try to assassinate someone, make sure the hired staff really don't care about the job they're doing. No. I'm not sure, was it staff or was it just someone who was sitting next to Hitler thinking he'd be helpful and ended up getting his body that's blown off?
00:31:10
Speaker
I think in the film it is a waiter-like character. I think from the notes it was... I might just be making that better. I think from the notes it was one of the Nazi guinerels or something. It was someone who was seated at the table. I am the Nazi general who moves the sword kits. So yes, apparently the guy who did it and saved Hitler's life. I think he survived but lost a leg, or possibly two, given that he had a bomb explode right next to his leg.
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, bad things happen in war. Yeah. I don't think we will ever, though, get to the bottom of which one of them was the Nazi general who listens to classical music while being measured for a suit. And it's also the general who says, so you see, Captain, they're not all savages.
00:31:55
Speaker
Now, that was Malsmith. That was Malsmith. The sadly departed Malsmith, who was in one of my favorite film, Brain Donors with John Tottoro. Is that the Marx Brothers one? Yeah. Right. Yeah. It was actually meant to be called A Night at the Ballet, which would have made a lot more sense than the name Brain Donors, but it was the 80s and Hollywood had particularly weird views about the naming of films then compared to even now.
00:32:23
Speaker
Well, there you go.
Episode Conclusion and Promotions
00:32:25
Speaker
So Operation Valkyrie, actually a really interesting conspiracy theory to talk about, I think.
00:32:30
Speaker
But we've come to the end of the episode. Which means it's signed to advertise our bonus content for our bonus listeners who are our bonus patrons. Our patron bonus bonus patrons. That's the one. So we'll be talking about four interesting topics on the bonus episode this week. We've got a whole update on that whole Trump Ukraine thing, which continues to get bigger and more exciting.
00:32:57
Speaker
which has actually brought in Hillary Clinton and the email, Sir Sather stuff, which is a resurgent conspiracy theory and kind of reaction to the conspiracy theory. Well, it's also actually being central to the reason why Trump is talking about these things in the first place. And Nickelback, I'm told. Oh, now that's something that I haven't put in the notes. So you've got exciting Nickelback news. There's the Trump and Nickelback, a small reference, but apparently it's in there.
00:33:24
Speaker
Then we've got an update on two local – update on one local New Zealand story. The whole Lauren Southern Stephen Molyneux issue has been decided in court and that's quite fascinating. And a professor at Otago, James Flynn, claims his book has been banned. We'll ask the question, has it?
00:33:47
Speaker
So if you'd like to know the answer to that question or hear about any of this other stuff or listen to any of our other bonus episodes that we do each week, become a patron.
00:33:55
Speaker
One dollar a month gets you access to our bonus episodes. You can do it at portrayon.com, you can do it at conspiracism.podbean.com, which is where this podcast is sort of officially... I don't understand how it works, quite frankly. We have it hosted at one site, but then it's on every service. Do they all get it from the same place, or is it mirrored everywhere? So basically you go... It's all a series of tubes, as far as I know. So basically you just link things to other things. I mean, we're on Spotify. We're on Spotify. Are we? Yeah. Good God. Yo, what else is on Spotify?
00:34:23
Speaker
Your mum? Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack. It's been on Apple Music for months. Oh, pfft, Apple. Pfft. Who uses Apples? We're filming on an iPhone right now. Pfft. iPhone. Pfft.
00:34:36
Speaker
You sound like a train that's dying. So we're on Spotify, we're on iTunes, or Apple Music, whatever the hell it's called now. Stitcher, Podbean. Stitcher, something, other stuff. And probably a bunch of others that we don't even know about, because I'm fairly certain there are a bunch of other podcast services that scrape the major ones.
00:34:57
Speaker
But wherever you listen to our podcast, why not give it a review? Now most people say, why not give it a five star review? You might not think we deserve five stars, so give us the review you think we deserve. Follow your heart. And with that in mind, I guess it's just time to say goodbye until next week. Indeed. You want to sing us out with your Smell of the Farts song? No, I don't. I'm not going to.
00:35:21
Speaker
Fair enough. Josh's musical career has launched and died in the space of an hour. Goodbye. Goodbye.
00:35:38
Speaker
You've been listening to the podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, starring Josh Addison and Dr. M.R.X.Denter, which is written, researched, recorded and produced by Josh and Em. You can support the podcast by becoming a patron, via its Podbean or Patreon campaigns. And if you need to get in contact with either Josh or Em, you can email them at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com or check their Twitter accounts, Mikey Fluids and Conspiracism.
00:36:39
Speaker
And remember, it's just a step to the left.