Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Stalin: Man of Steel, Episode 7

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

A deal with the devil. Hitler and Stalin join forces at the start of World War II. But the ultra paranoid Joseph Stalin strangely had a blind spot when it came to his dictator friend. How did Stalin, the man with the best spies in the world, end up getting double crossed? Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson Writers/researchers: Mandy Reid, Amy Watkin, Kari Anton, Sharon McMahon, Melanie Buck Parks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Dairy Farmers of Ontario. From our families to your table. Everybody milk. Visit milk.org to learn more. Here's Where It Gets Interesting is now available ad-free. Head to SharonMcMahon.com slash ad-free to subscribe today. Hitler was growing increasingly anxious. His plans to invade Poland were growing heavy on his mind. He needed to get a move on. If he waited longer than August 1939 to move forward, muddy roads and winter weather would ruin his plans. So Hitler sent a secret message to Stalin. In it, he proposed a meeting

between his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Stalin's guy, Vyacheslav Molotov. When finally Stalin wrote back, Hitler was giddy that he said yes. Marvelous, he cried. I have the world in my pocket. What Hitler wanted was to sign a non-aggression pact with Stalin. What Hitler wanted was to sign a non-aggression pact with Stalin, not out of any sense of being real friends, but in a calculated move that would allow Hitler to expand his empire in Poland without Soviet interference. And in exchange, Stalin would get some land for himself. Von Ribbentrop, decked out in a black overcoat, black jacket, and striped trousers, traveled to Moscow in Hitler's Condor airplane. He arrived to find the Moscow airport covered in swastikas borrowed from a propaganda production office. As he deplaned, an orchestra played the German national anthem.

Ribbentrop was hurried into a bulletproof vehicle, which sped off to the German embassy for a snack of champagne and caviar, before heading to meet with Stalin and Molotov. Ribbentrop opened with a generous offer, saying, Germany demands nothing from Russia, only peace and trade. After three hours, they had agreed to the terms of the non-aggression pact, which basically said, for the next 10 years, we agree that neither of us will harm the other militarily. This was the part that was made public. And then separately, they made a secret agreement as to how they would carve up Poland for themselves. Ribbentrop called Hitler with the good news, a green light to move forward

with his invasion. Toasts were made, backs were slapped, and professional photographers were brought in at 2 a.m. to capture the historic event, the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. As the evening wound down, Stalin turned to Ribbentrop and insisted, I can guarantee on my word of honor that the Soviet Union will not betray its partner. And soon, he would eat his words. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. When Hitler and Stalin signed their non-aggression pact in 1939, both men knew it was a temporary, strategic alliance, and that eventually it would end. This was no uniting of friends. In the meantime, though, Stalin agreed to send hundreds of thousands of pounds of raw materials,

oil, cotton, grain, and more to Hitler, who was supposed to make payments on the goods, but didn't. And then Stalin did something out of the ordinary. He was famously paranoid. It was a defining characteristic, according to everyone who knew him. So this decision is perplexing. Stalin ignored the human intelligence and the information he gleaned from wiretaps. Japan, Switzerland, and Romania, all signs were pointing to the same thing. War was looming. And his spies weren't the only ones ringing the alarm bells. Newspapers, too, were reporting the gathering storm. Lies, Stalin believed. Fools, he said. So in June 1941, when bombs began to fall from the sky, Stalin and his Red Army were caught wholly unprepared. When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, it was not a decision he arrived at hastily. The attack was going to come with incredibly high costs, but the Soviet Union had things that he wanted. Things like the breadbasket of Europe,

Ukraine. What were his forces if they could not eat? Things like Soviet factories. What was his army if they had no munitions? And while it's true that Hitler hated communism, his attack was not about the strategic destruction of communist ideology. It was the bread that was looking mighty appetizing. And what better time to attack than when your opponent was unaware? Given the vastness of the Soviet Union and the speed at which Hitler wanted to crush them beneath his heel, a German general summed up their military strategy like this, it must be conducted with unprecedented brutality, with no mercy. Stalin's actions before and during the early days of the war set the tone for an astronomical loss of Soviet life, both military

and civilian. And listen, I don't want to make this episode just a list of battle A with this many tanks and battles B through Z with that many bombs. And it's impossible to cover a multiple year war in depth in a single episode. But I want to give you a taste of what this time was like in the Soviet Union and what Stalin was up to during what they called the Great Patriotic War. The non-aggression pact Hitler and Stalin agreed to in 1939 was initially a boon to Stalin, who used the opportunity to scoop up land in the Baltic, send many of their people to his gulags, and increase the land holdings of the Soviet Union. He got the benefit of additional territory and more people to send to his forced labor camps so he could

increase industrialization. He scavenged while Hitler rampaged. When bombs began to fall on Belarus and Ukraine the night of June 22nd. Stalin had a small section of the Soviet border protected, but German troops poured into the Soviet Union by the thousands, ready to seize land and supplies. Humiliated and unwilling to be seen as a failure for his lack of adequate preparation, Stalin retreated to his personal home, where he remained for several days. He ignored all calls and messages. He disappeared while his country was under attack. His inner circle was increasingly worried. They had tried to warn him of the threat Hitler posed, but he refused to listen. Most had enough experience

with Stalin's tempestuous moods to know not to take any action without his approval. If they did, they might pay for their initiative with their lives. Stalin was unreachable for three days, after which time he emerged from hiding to boisterous applause and warm welcomes from his people. It was just the ego boost he needed. Bolstered by their enthusiastic welcome back, Stalin returned to the spotlight and addressed the country. Comrades, citizens, brothers and sisters, warriors of the army and the fleet, I call upon you, my friends. His greeting, meant to reassure his people that his steady hands were guiding the fate of their nation, ignored a multitude of facts. He was unprepared for the

first round of bombings. He hid instead of taking charge or delegating authority. And part of the reason he did so was because there were no military leaders on the ground to whom he could delegate. Why? The answer is because he had had them liquidated. Any experienced military personnel were killed long ago and replaced with younger, untrained, and untested men who had absolutely no idea how to lead a country into battle against Hitler. This left Soviet forces grossly disadvantaged, especially since the Germans launched multiple attacks within the Soviet Union, hoping to quickly neutralize the Red Army. German forces marched toward Moscow, Ukraine, and through Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in an attempt to take down Leningrad,

a hub of industrialization for the Soviet Union. Fighting on multiple fronts, as Hitler directed, should subdue Stalin, cut off the means of producing more weapons and ammunition, and bolster their own defenses. If German troops could achieve this goal, the war would be quick-lived. Hitler would be able to turn his attention elsewhere, this time with a guaranteed steady supply of food and equipment produced in Soviet factories. In late June 1941, the Germans were bombing Leningrad, which is now called St. Petersburg. Along Russia's western border were airfields full of planes, planes that German bombers absolutely obliterated. By noon on June 22nd, obliterated. By noon on June 22nd, 1,200 Soviet planes had been destroyed by the Germans.

For context, it had taken the German forces over a year to destroy that many English planes. Along the Russian front, it was mere hours. The destruction meant that the Red Army had to change military strategies and fight on the ground, which caused massive casualties among their untrained recruits. The Western Front Air Force commander was so distraught at the onslaught that he took his own life before the day was over. Later in the day, Stalin's right-hand man, Foreign Minister Molotov's voice boomed out of the loudspeakers all over the city. He said, men and women, citizens of the Soviet Union, German troops have attacked our country, attacked our frontier and many places. The government calls upon you to rally even more closely around the glorious Soviet government and our great leader, Comrade Stalin. Our cause is just. The enemy will be crushed. Victory will be ours. In response, hundreds of thousands of people volunteered to fight.

A new wartime slogan was posted all over the country. Everything for the front. Everything for victory. The volunteers had nationalism, but not quite the expertise or training required for fighting off German forces. The new troops. Listen, chaotic is the most appropriate description. Many of them were older men and they didn't know about or care for the newfangled technology like modern tanks. So they use them improperly and rendered 90% of them inoperable by the end of

July. So like a month later, the Soviets were left with little choice. Their alliance with Germany was clearly over and the enemies of their enemy were now their friends. They needed to join the Allies. This was challenging for Americans. FDR had openly condemned the Soviets because, listen, if you're going to be friends with Hitler, FDR had openly condemned the Soviets because, listen, if you're going to be friends with Hitler, don't try to come sit at this lunch table, right? The Allies didn't approve of the Soviet occupation of portions of Poland or how they tried to invade Finland and the Finns fought back with sharpshooters and men on skis. FDR recognized that Nazi Germany remained the greatest existential threat to the world, he privately told aides that he would, quote, hold hands with the devil if that's what it took to defeat Hitler. FDR sent someone he trusted, Harry Hopkins, to Moscow to speak directly with Stalin.

And you really can't fully understand World War II without knowing a little about Harry Hopkins, who actually moved into the White House and who was considered FDR's closest advisor and someone FDR hoped might succeed him as president one day. When you learn about the various World War II conferences that brought world leaders together during this time, like the Tehran Conference, the Yalta Conference, etc. Harry Hopkins was there. It was Harry Hopkins who oversaw much of FDR's New Deal and who helped make the federal government into the nation's largest employer. Harry had a unique ability not to think in broad theoretical abstractions, but to get right to the heart of the practical matter and to see the forest for the trees. He eventually became FDR's Secretary of Commerce. But Harry

Hopkins was sick, very sick. In fact, he required many admissions to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and would often stay for weeks at a time. He had stomach cancer, required multiple surgeries, and then suffered from such acute malnutrition even after surgery that the ill effects were quite pronounced. Even his adult children were shocked at both how sick he was and how much he was still getting done. Harry's wife died of cancer in 1937, which left him with even more time to devote to his role in government. In 1940, when Hitler invaded the Low Countries in Europe, Harry had been at dinner at the White House when he began to feel quite unwell.

Spend the night here, FDR told him. It's no trouble. So Harry Hopkins did, and then he stayed at the White House for three and a half more years. The fact that Hopkins moved into the White House and was so readily accessible to FDR made his counsel even more valuable. Churchill, too, grew to know, like, and trust Harry Hopkins. And Hopkins was the primary go-between in matters between Great Britain and the United States throughout much of the war. Harry Hopkins was in the Oval Office when FDR got the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. That's how close of a relationship we're talking about here. And it was Harry Hopkins. His name, by the way, is just kind of fun to say. Harry Hopkins.

Fun to say it. Harry Hopkins oversaw a program that changed the course of history. If you've been listening to me for any period of time, you may have heard me say this before, but this is an excellent time to repeat this point. The United States helped win World War II for the Allies because of one thing. It wasn't our biggest military because we didn't have the biggest military by a long shot. It was our defense production. We could make the most stuff.

We had a very large landmass with large amounts of natural resources. We had plenty of men and women who could make and grow all the things necessary to supply the war and not just supply the war for ourselves. We're not just talking about, oh, we had the most guns and warehouses. We made things for the other allies. Okay, quick little side note. I would like to point something out. I would like to point out that when hundreds of thousands of American men left to fight in the war, they left behind their family farms. And who did they leave them in the hands of? Women. And when women were in charge of the family farms, wartime food production went up, in some cases by 20%. What a weird idea. No one would have ever

guessed that women are capable and innovative. So strange. So weird. Okay, end of side note. Harry Hopkins, who changed the course of history, oversaw America's Lend-Lease program, which made all the difference in Allied success. Lend-Lease was a law signed by FDR in early 1941 that authorized the sending of food, oil, and military supplies to the Allies for free. For free.

Until they were done with it or until it was destroyed. I say for free and of course I mean for free to the recipient, not free for America. Of course U.S. taxpayers paid for these things. Some of these items were leased with the terms of like, pay us back later when the war is over. Over the course of the war, the United States offered over $700 billion in aid in today's money to the allies. Some of these bigger ticket items like ships were returned to the United States afterward. and in the case of Great Britain, the final Lend-Lease payments were made in 2006. You heard that correctly, 2006. All this to say, without Lend-Lease, Allied victory was unlikely. And without Harry Hopkins and other important war

production officials like Anna Rosenberg, the world would look very, very different today. So in 1941, Harry Hopkins was in London, and he asked FDR to send him to Moscow to meet with Stalin. Everyone who saw Harry described him as gaunt, ailing, pale, and tired, his voice tending more toward mumble whispering than an authoritative tone. But still, he was able to persevere. After the meeting, the physically weak Hopkins said one thing to the press. He said, my short visit here has given me even more confidence that Hitler is going to lose. And it was Harry Hopkins who recommended to FDR that the Soviet Union be included in America's Lend-Lease program. After this meeting with Harry Hopkins, an announcement to the Russian people said this, Comrade Stalin conveyed to President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill, respectively, the heartfelt thanks of the people of the Soviet Union and of the Soviet government for their readiness to aid the Soviet Union in its war of liberation against Hitlerite Germany.

But this didn't mean that the Soviets would not suffer mightily in the coming years. It didn't mean that Stalin had a change of heart and was ready to lead his country fairly and democratically. What it meant was one thing. We all, meaning Stalin, Churchill, FDR, we all agree that Hitler must be defeated. The end. As a FIS member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, must be defeated. The end. This episode is brought to you by Dyson OnTrack. Dyson OnTrack headphones offer best-in-class noise cancellation and an enhanced sound range, making them perfect for enjoying music and podcasts.

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And you can get a $1 small coffee, a $2 small latte, or like me, a $1 small coffee and a $2 small latte. Available now until November 24th in Ontario only. Woohoo! Available now until November 24th in Ontario only. The Soviet troops repeatedly suffered massive losses as German soldiers pushed further and further into the Soviet Union.

And if you thought it was bad before, it is about to get much worse. The German army kept advancing closer to Leningrad, and every adult was ordered to help shore up the city's defenses. Work a full-time job? Show up when your shift is over. There is work to be done, and everyone needs to help. Teams worked together in the fields near the border to dig earthen barriers and trenches that were meant to disable or at least delay approaching German tanks. trenches that were meant to disable or at least delay approaching German tanks. Despite their efforts to fortify their city, things were not looking great in Leningrad. The trenches had delayed the onslaught of tanks and given the Soviets a battlefield breather. It also bought enough time to get some of the city's children out of town by train. But that would soon end. On August 31st, the last rail line out of

Leningrad was surrounded. A child on the train that day, pointing out the window, shouted happily, look at the balloons. Look, so many. But what he saw were not balloons. They were thousands of German paratroopers. On September 8th, 1941, a bombing raid began that would become known as the Siege of Leningrad. City officials had decided to gather all of the city's emergency food resources and store them in a series of warehouses in the southwest part of the city, which turned out to be the wrong decision. The Germans discovered that all of the city's food was in these 38 wooden buildings, so they dropped over 6,000 bombs on that area, utterly destroying them and their contents. The stench of two and a half tons of sugar burning in the streets filled the

air. The bombers returned that night carrying high explosive payloads up to a thousand pounds each and dropped them on this now very vulnerable city. When the people of Leningrad who survived the night of bombing ventured outside in the morning, their city was unrecognizable. Most of the buildings were in piles of rubble. The same day that Leningrad's food stores were destroyed, Hitler called in a nutritionist to ask how long the population of Leningrad could survive and when his troops should invade. The nutritionists suggested that all Hitler had to do was wait for the people to starve to death. The longer they waited, the lower the cost to Germany. Not only would they risk fewer soldiers

in battle, they wouldn't have to waste munitions. Starvation was the slower but safer option in Hitler's mind. Stalin was determined to keep German forces away from Moscow and unwilling to divert any Soviet aircraft to drop aid to the starving people of Leningrad. They were just mere collateral damage in the service of what he deemed a greater good. The German troops built a wide swath of landmines that encircled almost all of Leningrad. They functioned as a prison, keeping people from trying to flee the city. And when starving citizens approached the German lines looking to surrender or beg for food, it saved the Germans the effort and bullets necessary to slaughter them. Starving citizens stood in the bracing cold in ever-increasing bread lines for up to 12 hours a day

with no guarantee that they would ever make it to the front of the line or if they did that bread would be available. Meanwhile, German troops flew over the city dropping bombs, first high explosives to destroy standing buildings and then on a return pass dropping incendiary bombs to light the rubble on fire. Waiting in line for food was gambling with your life, as any one of the thousands of bombs dropped on the city could instantly kill the starving masses on the streets. If German pilots could see lines of children waiting to board a train and obliterate them, they could easily do the same to civilians queued up for a few measly pieces of bread. As September turned to October, the temperatures plunged. Mud trapped German tanks and the oil and diesel fuel in their planes

couldn't function in freezing temperatures, which gave the citizens of Leningrad a brief respite from the onslaught of bombs. Relief, though, was fleeting, because by then, thousands of people were dying daily. During the hungry winter, about 100,000 people died each month. There wasn't anyone to officially record them, And besides, many families were reluctant to report deaths because doing so would reduce their rations. Although by that point, the bread was really edible pine filler or ground up dried pine trees. High in fiber, but not so much in nutrients, and rations had been slashed in half. Three tiny slices a day was not enough to sustain life. Humans are, of course, animals, and our ingrained impulse to survive is very strong. In Leningrad, that survival sometimes took the form of cannibalism.

Leningrad, that survival sometimes took the form of cannibalism. One survivor of the siege was six when it happened. He later recalled, quote, one day my auntie and I went to pick up some bread from the bakery on our ration cards. My auntie told me to wait outside the bakery while she got the bread. While I was waiting, a woman approached me and told me to follow her. She promised to give me bread, sweets, and other treats. I went after her. I believed her. After all, I was hungry. My auntie left the bakery and found me gone. She called for me, and then she saw me from afar. I was being dragged into the woman's flat. My auntie called a policeman, and he arrested the woman.

She was taken outside and shot on the spot. It turned out the woman was a cannibal. She wanted to eat me. Her flat was searched by the police and they found many human body remains. Some were half eaten. There were two types of cannibalism practiced. Those who scavenged, what people called corpse eating, and those who hunted and killed,

which at the time they called people eating. In February 1942, over 2,000 people were arrested and tried for corpse or people eating. The convicted people eaters were executed. eaters were executed. The diary of an 11-year-old girl, Tania Savicheva, was found after the war ended and publicized. In it, she describes the death of her family from hunger, which left her alone in the world. The entries said things like, Genia died on December 28th at midnight. Genia died on December 28th at midnight. Grandma died on January 25th at three in the afternoon. Lika died on March 5th at five in the morning. The Savachevs are dead. Everyone is dead. Tania is all alone. And where was Stalin during the nearly 900-day siege of Leningrad that starved somewhere between one and two million people to death, mostly pretending it wasn't happening. He couldn't risk the rest of the country or the world finding out what was going on in one of the Soviet Union's most important cities.

His secret police carried on trying to ferret out traitors and executing people who complained too loudly. He had plenty. It mattered little to him if others did not. And while he avoided starvation, Stalin's firstborn son, Yakov, finished military school about six weeks before World War II started. He knew that his father expected his sons to be soldiers. Yakov, the son his father abandoned, did everything he could to gain Stalin's approval. Before he departed for the war, his wife and younger brother threw him a party, but Stalin couldn't be bothered to attend.

Yakov was assigned to the front lines outside of Smolensk. Yakov's military unit was quickly annihilated, and he was taken as a German POW. When the Germans realized the identity of who they had on their hands, they hoped they could use Yakov as a bargaining chip with his father. The Germans scrambled to drop airplane loads of leaflets over Moscow, showing that they had Yakov in their custody in an attempt to demoralize the Soviets from fighting back against them. And then Stalin banished his Jewish daughter-in-law to prison for two years to punish her for tricking Yakov into surrendering to the Germans. By this time, Yakov had been moved to a German concentration camp outside of Berlin, specifically for political prisoners.

While he was there, he shared space with another prominent prisoner, the nephew of Vyacheslav Molotov. And as political prisoners, the conditions under which they were held were better than what Jews and other groups faced in the death camps, but they still lived every day under a very real threat to their lives. Two years later, Hitler proposed a prisoner exchange, Yakov, for a captured German field officer. for a captured German field officer. Stalin replied, quote, We don't trade ordinary soldiers for field marshals. You have in your hands not only my son Yakov, but millions of my sons.

Either you free them all, or my son will share their fate. One evening, some kind of argument occurred inside the barracks where Yakov was held. Yakov left the barracks and walked outside, which was against the rules. The SS officer called to him, Herr Lieutenant, you must go into the barracks now. Yakov replied, I will not go into my barracks. You can do what you like. Another guard came over and Yakov said to him in broken German, guard, shoot me. The second guard reportedly told him, don't

do anything stupid. Get back to your barracks and get to sleep. Yakov told the guard again, go ahead and shoot me. The guards stared, the cool darkness of the spring evening surrounding all of them. Yakov saw that the guards didn't want to just shoot him on the spot, or they would have, but he was done. He was done living in this hellish camp. He was done wondering what had happened to his wife, what had happened to his child, if his father would ever do anything to get him out of this situation. Against the warnings of the guards to just go inside and go back to sleep, Yakov kept moving, slowly, towards the death zone, the area near the electric fence that surrounded the camp.

He touched an insulator with his left hand. Nothing happened. He touched the live wire with his right. Nothing. Then he reached to touch both the wire and the insulator at the same time, yelling at the guard, shoot, shoot. The guard continued to yell at him, stop, go back to your barracks. And Yakov yelled, guard, don't be cowardly. The guard fired a warning shot. Yakov turned, defiant, chest out. And the guard was left with no choice but to shoot Yakov. Historians have spent decades searching, but it doesn't appear that Stalin ever learned of how his son died, although he generally assumed

that he did die, and also that he was a traitor for getting caught by the Germans to begin with. Stalin later offered a sizable reward for any information about the death of his son. And in 1968, the United States declassified documents with the Nazi records of Yakov's imprisonment. They show that the U.S. and Great Britain discussed whether to reveal to Stalin what they knew about Yakov's fate in the hands of the Germans, but they decided not to, to, quote, spare him the pain. Now, listen, literally thousands of books have been written about World War II. So this podcast is not going to devote hundreds of hours to detailing each battle, how many people died, and why things were absolutely terrible in the Soviet Union, but believe me when I say they were absolutely terrible. When all was said and done, around 27 million people were dead, including civilians and people in the military, and that does not include people who were wounded. While many died

in battle as Germany continued their invasion, many died of starvation, and Stalin did very little to alleviate the suffering of his citizens. At one point in the fighting, the average life expectancy of a new soldier wasn't even 24 hours, and an officer not quite even 72 hours. It was just a wave of warm bodies on an endless loop. New troops in, new troops dead, new troops in, like a conveyor belt of death. Meanwhile, Stalin was actively spying on other allied countries. Five separate spy rings were targeting the United States, with more working on Great Britain and other allied countries. While millions were dying in his country from a lack of food, Stalin was focused on trying to steal secrets from scientists like Robert Oppenheimer,

who were actively involved in the Manhattan Project and working to build atomic weapons. Some Americans, like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were later prosecuted and executed for being low-level Soviet spies. The Soviets were so good at spying, and the Americans not so much, that Stalin knew about the development of the gadget, what people who worked on the atomic bomb called it, before Vice President Harry Truman even did. In fact, it was a Soviet spy who saved the lives of FDR, Stalin, and Churchill, who were called the Big Three in November 1943. The three men were scheduled to meet in Tehran, Iran, territory controlled by the Soviets and the British, although it had recently been occupied by Germany. This recent occupation left many Nazis behind, which the Soviets had been working to round up.

Unbeknownst to the public, FDR's health was faltering, and the 9,000-mile trip was extremely difficult for him. He became so unsteady that he could barely light his own cigarettes. The Germans, too, were beginning to falter in the Soviet Union, and it's hard to overstate how much was on the line. It was literally the fate of the world that hung in the balance. With that in mind, the Tehran conference was going to sort out some of the big questions before the big three. Stalin was pressuring FDR and Churchill to invade France. Doing that would open a new front for the Germans to contend with,

splitting up their German resources, and hopefully relieving some of the pressure on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union. Enter Givork Vartanian. He was a Soviet spy, a 19-year-old Soviet spy who followed his father into the world of espionage, and by 19 was already so trusted that he was put in charge of the security of the Tehran Conference. He and other intelligence officers learned about a secret Nazi plot to assassinate Stalin, Churchill, and FDR. When Vartanian and his team learned of the plot, they arrested many Nazis in Tehran, intercepted Nazis carrying weapons on camels in the desert, and quickly went to the head of the Secret Service in charge of protecting FDR.

The Nazis want to kill him, the Soviet spies masquerading as security guards told Secret Service agent Mike Riley. He needs to move locations immediately. He will be much safer at the Soviet embassy. Riley had no time to think it over. According to the security team, there were at least six Nazi assassins en route to murder the big three. But how would they get FDR out? He was an incredibly recognizable figure and the Germans were nimble. What they needed was a bit of deception. So a motorcade was arranged to leave the British embassy in Tehran where FDR was staying. The motorcade contained a person who looked like FDR, a body

double, and they drove away normally in hopes of tricking any assassins. Meanwhile, they threw FDR in the back of a junky old car and began racing through the city, hoping no one would think this old vehicle was something to pay attention to. FDR was basically laying down in the backseat of the car as the driver took corners as fast as he dared before pulling up to the heavily guarded Soviet embassy, where there would be little chance of Nazi sharpshooters being able to take anyone out. When FDR got back from Tehran, reporters asked him, how was your trip? And he told them, great, reporters asked him, how was your trip? And he told them, great, except the Nazis tried to kill us. FDR later wrote about the plot in his memoir. Two small problems, though. FDR's room at the Soviet embassy was bugged to the hilt. The phones, the walls. If there was a way to bug it,

the Soviets had done it. And they were listening in, hoping to glean information about where FDR's head was at heading into the Tehran conference. And the second small problem, there is not decisive proof that the Nazi plot ever really existed. Was it invented by the Soviets as a ruse to get FDR to a bugged bedroom? Historians are still weighing the evidence. It's clear, though, that FDR believed there was a Nazi conspiracy. It was at this Tehran conference that the big three decided they would move forward with a ground invasion of France, a decision that changed the course of history. You've heard of D-Day, right? By the time the Allies met again in February 1945 in Yalta, Stalin argued that the high casualties the Soviets suffered should grant them the deciding vote in what happened globally after the war.

And he wanted Armenia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, portions of Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Armenia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, portions of Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania to become part of the Soviet Union. Plus, he wanted reparations. Churchill and FDR, who by this time was only a few months away from his death, ultimately wound up giving Stalin most of what he wanted. In April 1945, the world changed again. FDR died and Harry Truman took his place. Soviet forces took Berlin. Hitler knew it was the end for him. He killed his dog with cyanide pills. Reading reports about how Mussolini had been shot and strung up by his feet just two days earlier in Italy, he knew what was going to happen to him if he were taken by the Allies. On April 30th, 1945, Hitler and his wife of one day, Eva Braun, committed suicide,

and per his request, their bodies were cremated immediately. Ever paranoid, Stalin demanded proof that Hitler was really dead. And it hasn't been until recent years that scientists have been able to conclusively prove that the teeth and jaw fragment that the Soviets have had in their possession for decades actually belonged to Hitler. No, he did not escape to Argentina, as conspiracy theorists have claimed, for more than 70 years. When the war ended, there was no love lost between the Soviet Union and the other allies. Stalin did not mellow with age. He didn't increase in wisdom. He grew more and more paranoid and

foul-tempered. And now, a new war was about to begin. This one made up not of tanks and planes, but of ideology and differing beliefs of how the world should work and who should dominate it. The Cold War. I'll see you again soon. Thank you for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck-ets Interesting. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck-Parks. The show is written and researched by Mandy Reed, Amy Watkin, Kari Anton, Sharon McMahon, and Melanie Buck-Parks. Our audio producer is Craig Thompson. And if you enjoyed this episode, sharing, rating, and subscribing helps podcasters out so much. Thanks again for listening to Here's Work, It's Interesting, and I'll see you again soon.