Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Nazi Conspiracy with Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

On today’s episode, authors Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch sit down with Sharon to discuss their New York Times bestselling book, The Nazi Conspiracy. The pair discusses their research and writing process, including what it's like to collaborate on a book together. The Nazi Conspiracy takes readers deep inside the events of the Second World War and the semi-secret, in-person meeting between FDR, Churchill, and Stalin in Tehran. The Nazis grew wise to the meeting and conspired to assassinate all three leaders. What followed was a calculated series of spy missions, intelligence gathering, and strategic moves between the Allies and the Nazi powers. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Researcher: Valerie Hoback 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

Hey friends, welcome. So glad you're with me today. I know that you are fascinated by stories of World War II. We all are. Our series, How Women Won World War II, one of the most popular things we've ever done. That is why I think you're going to love today's conversation with authors Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch, who wrote The Nazi Conspiracy, the secret plot to kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill. And I absolutely love this conversation. I loved talking with Brad and Josh. I think you're going to get so much out of this, and I think you're going to want to read the book when we're done. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I am really excited to be chatting about the Nazi conspiracy. First of all,

so many conspiracies, gentlemen, so many books about conspiracies. Yes. You're talking to two very paranoid people right now. That's really but deep, you know, the thing about these conspiracies, though, is I do think conspiracies is kind of a bad term these days, you know, conspiracies used to be, and I will say I despise it. I despise that. What used to be a way for us to look at, you know, and question things has become a really disgusting how people will use our politics today to say any outlandish thing they want to make up about the opposing side, whatever your politics are. And then because they have an interconnection, say that it's fact. And when we talk about whether it's the

Lincoln conspiracy or the first conspiracy we did about the secret plot to kill George Washington, or even this one, what we really mean is a group of people getting together to do something and in a pretty nefarious way. And there's 50 pages of footnotes to prove everything we say. People ask me all the time, what's the difference between a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy? And of course, what's different is that one actually has evidence. The other one is just what you think might be true, but you don't know because your brain can't make sense of information. One of these two things.

And the way you can tell the difference is watch for these terms. People say that. And like when that happens, that's the code for, I have no evidence. I can't prove anything, but I've heard that this is true or people said that this is true. And I'm always like, oh, that's the code for, I have no evidence. I can't prove anything, but I've heard that this is true or people said that this is true. And I'm always like, oh, that's the code for your BS scene. I got it. People are saying that.

I mean, like you just be saying that to yourself in the shower. Like there's no way to disprove it. You can't disprove that. Oh, okay. Somebody said it. Fine. Josh, I would love to hear from you. What about writing about things like these conspiratorial plots to assassinate a president or another world leader? What about that is

inherently interesting? Well, I think for us, it's an excuse to combine two things. One thing that Brad and I both love is good plots, fast-moving plots, exciting plots, where you just want to know what happens next and the sort of thrill of just hearing or seeing a good story. And it combines that history, which we also both love. And so what we found are these stories from history that have some of the qualities of a thriller, like a spy thriller, but they really happened. And by telling this story and story, it also gives us a chance to really delve into the history and to provide the context and the background for the story that really makes the story important and interesting. So in this case, we're talking

about a conspiracy to a reason to just delve into the war, the war and the background of the war. So it's combining history and great storytelling. That's our goal, I would say. Yeah, I mean, the story of the plot to assassinate world leaders is a vehicle to talk about the broader ideas about World War II. If you set out to write a book where you're like, and now, on May 17th, the following telegram was received, and you go through just sequentially, it's not that interesting. But you can include the same details interspersed with this fast-moving plot, and you have a formula that people want to... Yeah. So first of all, how did you uncover this secret plot to assassinate the leaders of the allied powers? I found this story a few years ago and immediately sent it to Josh. It

was like a half page, page mention. It had no real facts, but it said there was a secret plot to kill Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill at the height of World War II. And my first reaction whenever I find that is, is this true or is this nonsense? And looked it up and it was true. It actually was true. And the moment just to kind of paint the picture for a moment, it's 1943. It's really the moment where Stalin wants us to invade continental Europe. He's getting decimated by the Nazis, and he needs help. And we're sending munitions, we're sending weapons, but what he really wants is us to invade, to do what becomes the invasion of Normandy, which we all know. And FDR realizes we need to get the big three together.

Stalin, FDR, and Winston Churchill, the big three must come together, look each other in the eye, plan weaponry, plan morale, plan supplies, and win the war. And the picture that I fell in love with was the meeting is in Tehran, Iran of all places. FDR comes to Tehran, Iran. Here's the president of the United States in Iran. And the motorcade's coming down the center of the city, and everyone's waving and craning their necks to see the president. And they're waving to the president, and the president's waving back. But here's what no one knows. That is not the president of the United States in that motorcade. It's a Secret Service decoy. And the real FDR is ducked down and hiding in the back of a beat up sedan across town, racing through the side streets because there's a bunch of Nazi assassins that they're worried are going to shoot him at

that moment. And I just ruined chapter one of the Nazi conspiracy. But that's chapter one. And that's where Josh and I started. We were like, we have this moment in time where it can all go wrong. And it all really happened. Now, how do we explore from there? Josh, what kind of resources do you even have to have when you're like, okay, Brad sends you this paragraph? How do you actually go about uncovering the facts of a far distant conspiracy? Because it's not like the conspirators are like, and by the way, it's all hidden under the floorboards. How does one put these pieces together?

Well, that's a great question. And in the case of this particular story, it was especially difficult because the first thing that happens if you just start looking into this story about this potential assassination plot to kill FDR, Churchill and Stalin in the middle of World War II, is you find all kinds of conflicting information. You find crazy stories. You find people who have written essays about it that don't make any sense. It's very confusing as you start to look into it to try to figure out what's real and what's not. And the story has also changed over the decades. So you just enter a maze, basically. And the first job is to start sifting through all this information and all these materials and figure out which of these fragments are real and which are not. And that involved not just looking at English language sources, but

German language sources and Russian language sources, because this story is very much about the German intelligence agencies, and it's about the Russian intelligence agencies. is very much about the German intelligence agencies, and it's about the Russian intelligence agencies. So it quickly became very confusing, but also very fun to try to piece together all these different elements and try to fact check everything and figure out what was real. And we sort of had to come up with our theory of the case of what happened and didn't happen. And it's a fascinating journey to go through all that material. How long does it take? How long does it take you to compile, sort through, narrow down? Like before you even start writing, how long does just the process of compiling information take? I mean, it takes months and months. And the thing is, it continues while you're writing.

When you're in the middle of the book, and when you're at the end of the book, you're still finding new stuff. And sometimes you find new stuff that makes you go, oh, God, we have to go back and change, you know, a couple of things. And in fact, it's still going on. And it's like something you never quite master it, because there's just so much information out there. But I think by the end, we felt a multi-year process. We felt pretty confident in what we knew and didn't know. Brad, talk to me a little bit about how y'all work together. People are always very curious about behind the scenes. Does one person do most of the writing and the other person most of the research? What is y'all's process?

Josh is a miracle worker, I do believe. And I think anytime you're going to write a book with someone, it's like a marriage. And like any marriage, you don't have to agree on everything. But what you do have to do is have the same worldview. If you don't have the same worldview and how the world kind of generally works in the big picture stuff, then you're going to start fighting over the little stuff. And Josh and I, what I think is most revealing about us is obviously he's a brilliant researcher. And I know that. And that was why I originally approached him to write a book together. And he's an incredible writer. But what I love most about him and our process is we don't just say, okay, what's that amazing plot? We always ask ourselves, why are we writing this

book? You know, Josh and I, he does the first pass of every book. He usually does the first 50 pages and then we look at it. And then once we get the first 50 pages established, then he kind of goes and then I come in. And the truth is, is I think what I really help with is also making sure it's a thriller. I kind of thrillerize it and make it, you know, because I want it to move fast. Because as you said, if you just tell this chronologically, it's an encyclopedia entry. But when you open on that moment of FDR, and then you go to the bad guys that you've never heard before, and then you go to the woman who's sleeping with this Nazi, who's going to reveal information, suddenly what started as just this is history becomes a thriller. And both of us, I think Josh

has made me certainly a better researcher and writer. I hope I've made him or at least give him a crash course in how to write a thriller. It's not. Writing history is hard because it has to be supported by evidence, has to be supported by the historic record. And sometimes a plot device would be so great in this moment. It would be so great. And it just doesn't exist. And it's wildly frustrating. You know, what we love though, the one thing that I love about this book, and we do it in all of our books we do together, is when there's moments that you just don't know, I'm amazed at how many wonderful history books will then pick a side and say, well, this is what happened, even though there's no actual proof of it, just because they have one little bit to

enhance their side. And when we get to those moments, we just say, no one knows here. No one knows. We can tell you we think this happened, but nobody can prove what happened because everyone there was dead. And it's amazingly refreshing. And when I experienced that as a reader, it's refreshing to me. Like, don't lie to me. Tell me the truth. You can find tons of books that tell you about Operation Long Jump, that that was the code name of this. And that's what, the whole books have been written about it, except it wasn't called that. That was a name made up years later and not supported by anyone. And it's just amazing how many people will just tell that story because it's sexier. not supported by anyone. And it's just amazing how many people just tell that story because it's sexier. And I think what's much more sexier is the truth, right? Tell me that this thing died

somewhere and nobody knows what happened. And suddenly I'm like, wow, this is the coolest story of all time. I feel that. I get it. Josh, what were FDR, Churchill, and Stalin doing in Tehran? Why is that the location? Why were they like, you know where we should meet? Iran. That's the answer. Right. And it's just about the most inconvenient place in the world for FDR to get to at that time. And the reason they were there is because Stalin wanted to be there. And so you have these three world leaders who are all on the same side in this massive war. FDR, the US president, Winston Churchill, prime minister of England, and Joseph Stalin, head of the Soviet Union. And FDR really, really, really wants the three of them to meet in person. Churchill wants it too, but it's really FDR who's pushing and pushing and pushing.

He really feels to win the war, they have to get together in person. And so for months and months and months, he's pressing and pressing and pressing. And Stalin is being very difficult. He's famously a stubborn and difficult person, inscrutable. And he keeps teasing that he will do this meeting, but then he keeps delaying, changing his mind. And one of the areas where he's so difficult is where they're going to meet. And when they first talk about it, they literally pick a spot that's halfway on the globe. They spin a globe and pick a spot that's right in between the Soviet Union and the United States. And that was going to be Alaska of all places. But then Stalin changes his mind. And then they talk about another place and Stalin changes his

mind. And he says, no, no, I won't do it there. I won't do it there. And finally, he says, there's only one place I'll do it. The city of Tehran, which happens to be very close to the Soviet Union and very, very, very, very far from the United States. And remember, FDR is in a wheelchair. It's hard for him to move. It's hard for him to travel. And to get from Washington, D.C. to Tehran, Iran, is a massive weeks-long undertaking that involves planes and trains and automobiles and boats and ships and every kind of form of transportation you can think of. It's logistically incredibly difficult. At first, he thinks he can't even do it because he has to be away from Congress for too long. And so it was really hard to get everyone to agree. And Stalin just made it as difficult as possible for his allies to meet.

Those were his terms. And FDR eventually said, you know what? I want this so badly. I'm willing to make this sacrifice. I will do what Stalin wants and travel all the way around the world for the three of us to meet in person. And so that's how they ended up in Tehran. Yeah, we think about it as just like, get on Air Force One. What's hard about it? But of course, that was not the case at the time. There was not a large 747 to just like

tarmac to tarmac. It took a very long time. And he was, of course, trying to maintain this elaborate ruse of being able bodied. And it was not a very simple thing for him to do physically, in addition to his wanting to be near Congress. Why does FDR want them to meet so badly? What does he hope to accomplish at this meeting that is worth a journey to Iran? I mean, it's for a couple of reasons. One is that he feels that in order to really figure out their plan to win the war, they need to be together in person, that you need to look each other in the eye and agree on plans and sort of come to a personal understanding of what their goals are.

But more specifically, there's two other reasons. One is that he also sees that for a PR reason, it will be great for the three allied leaders to be in a photograph together. This was the dawn of mass media. And FDR had learned earlier in the war that these big events where you get the kind of allied leaders together would generate headlines all over the world. And he thought it would be great for the global morale of the allied side to see the three leaders together united, because a lot of the fear was that the Soviet Union and the US and the UK would not be able to work together. So he wanted to show the world that they were working together. Pure PR, marketing, propaganda, call it what you will.

And then most specifically, Winston Churchill had been dragging his feet about the idea of actually invading continental Europe across the English Channel into France. And that's what Stalin wanted so badly. He thought the only way for the Allies to win the war would be for the US and the UK to finally get over their fears and cross the English Channel and attack Nazi Germany right in its heart. Because as it was, the German armies were just battering the Soviet Union. And Stalin was saying, I need help. Thanks for the weapon, guys. But you got to actually attack Germany where it counts. So FDR felt that he and Stalin had to get Churchill in

the room and basically gang up on him and force the issue and say, you got to do this. We all got to do it together, and you got to be on board, and we need to set a date so we can't keep delaying. So he felt that that could only happen if they were there in a room together. And so that's why he felt it was so important for them to meet in person. Or as we like to call it, World War II peer pressure. to call it World War II peer pressure. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey.

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Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. you get your podcasts. Brad, talk just very briefly about how bad things were in the Soviet Union, because I don't know that Americans are ever like really have the gravity of the level of destruction and death that Hitler's armies were rotting on the Soviet Union. We obviously featured this. It was so vital to us because we tell in America the story of Americans win the war, we came in, we saved the day. And then you look at the numbers in the Soviet Union, just in Leningrad alone, in a year, they buried a million people. That's one city in one year. When you look at the whole gross of what's happening there, in the United States, we lost about 421,000 troops. The UK and England lost about 450,000.

and England lost about 450,000. The Soviets buried about 24 million people. It's a staggering difference. And it was one of those resets for Josh and I when we wrote the book is like really trying to say like, let's put it in perspective here because during the Cold War, we don't want to tell stories in America where the Russians are the good guys. And so the whole story changes. And it was very important for us to be like, listen, don't let that get in the way of it. This is what really happened in this moment. So you'll look at World War II, I promise you, when you read the book, you'll never look at it the same way again. It's so true because we know, of course, that Stalin goes on to be the bad guy. And he's the bad guy when we start. He's on

the side of the Nazis at the beginning of the war. He's not a good guy. It's only when Hitler invades the Soviet Union, he's like, you know what? Maybe I'll hang out with the allies now. I'll be a good guy. But he's not a good guy. He was never a good guy. He was never a good guy. We never trusted him farther than we could throw him. But then he really ends up being a bad guy. And so I think you're right. The lens through which we view the Soviet sacrifice and contribution to World War II is very colored by how much we hated them, colored by all of the atrocities that he committed on his own people, the Cold War, et cetera, as you mentioned. Josh, so we know that people are going to Tehran. How publicized was it in

advance? Was it like the president was leaving for his multiple month long journey to Iran? Or was it done under cover of darkness where people woke up and they were like, how did he get there? Well, the allies tried as best they could to keep it a secret. There were many reasons they didn't want anyone to know about it, certainly for safety, number one, but also they didn't want to brag that it was going to happen and then something goes wrong and it doesn't happen or who knows what could happen. They wanted to conceal it from the enemy as long as possible. So it was supposed to be just totally secret. But of course, in reality, there's so many people involved in planning something like this and it takes so long to plan.

It's impossible that it's going to be kept totally secret. But really, the press didn't know about it. There were rumblings that something big was going to happen. There were rumblings of a potential meeting around that time. But no one in really the world press did not know when it started. They only learned about it towards the end of it. So they did a pretty remarkably good job of keeping it a secret for a very long time. The people who did find out about it were members of the Nazi intelligence services. They had figured out ways to eavesdrop on phone conversations. And in the case of this story, they learned about it in part through those methods, but they also learned about

it because this valet in Turkey, who was working for the British ambassador, ended up getting the secret trove of information from his boss and decided to sell those documents to the Nazis. And that's a whole story unto itself that's in our book that we can talk about. But through all these different methods, the Nazi services learn about this meeting, and they learn the location of it, and they learn the dates of it. So the three allied leaders meeting for the first time ever in one place in the middle of this war, when things could go either way in the war, and Nazi Germany is desperate to get any advantage they can, and their intelligence services learn that these three people are going to be in one

place at one time, and that almost gives them an opportunity they just can't pass up. So they see a chance to do something dramatic, to turn the tide in the war. Brad, obviously their thought was, if we can take these guys out, it'll throw their countries into chaos. They won't have these heads of state that are inspiring leaders that people want to follow for a variety of reasons. It'll give us a huge advantage in this situation if we can assassinate their leaders. At what point do they decide to themselves, you know what we should do? I got a plan. I know what we should do. How long did it take to formulate this plan? The hardest part of this whole book is, of course, it gets thwarted. So no one really knows what the final thing is. But I can tell you this. Here's what we do know.

We've all heard of FDR. Most of us heard of Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin. Those are the famous guys. What I love most about The Nazi Conspiracy is a book by the people you've never heard of. There's a Nazi named Franz Mayer who's stationed in Iran long before any of this happens. And when the allies take over, Berlin thinks, oh, he must have been killed. He must have been captured. And in truth, he went underground. And he goes underground. He starts finding people who are sympathetic to the Nazi cause. And what happens is he eventually gets word back to Germany and says, I'm alive. I got a group here. We're all together. Here's some secret passwords you can put on the air. You communicate

with me. Here's some drop zones. You can send me materials, but I'm your guy. And in that moment, the Nazis get the greatest thing that anyone gets in a fist fight, an opportunity. They have a guy on the ground. And at the same time that's happening, what's so fun, and I won't ruin what happens to him because you got to follow it, but he winds up, he's sleeping with a local woman. He's there not just because he loves Iran, but he loves this local woman named Lily Sangari. And he's in love. He's the Nazi in love. And Lily Sangari, what he doesn't know, is also sleeping with another guy who happens to be an undercover US GI. And I love the fact that he's whispering his Nazi secrets to his girlfriend, Lily. Lily's whispering them to a GI. They're coming back to us. And it's just one

of those moments where these people, you've never heard of them. We had never heard of them. No one knows these people, any of their names. but they're arguably such a vital part of this tiny moment in history. And, you know, the stories of these other Nazis, my other favorite one in the book, I'll tell real quickly, is a guy named Otto Skorzeny. He's a Nazi, incredible special operations fighter. And Adolf Hitler's like, I want to get my best Nazis, figure out who the best one is. He pages them to the Wolf Slayer. When the name of your secret headquarters is the Wolf Slayer,

you know you're not in for a picnic lunch, right? You could say, right, you're stroking your cat and this is it. Hitler lines all up his best fighters in this room, shoulder to shoulder, quizzes them with one question. He says, what do you think of Italy? And they all start kissing the rear end of the boss and say, oh, we love Italy. We'll fight to the end with Italy. They're on our side. And this one voice shouts above everybody else, Otto Skorzeny shouts out, I am from Austria, my Fuhrer. And it's a gamble by Skorzeny because he knows Adolf Hitler is from Austria. And he knows that a true Austrian forever resents Italy because back during the first world war,

Austria had a key piece of itself taken away by Italy and Italy never gave it back. And Adolf Hitler in this moment turns to this Nazi, Otto Skorzeny, he's like, you're my guy. You're my guy. And puts him on a secret mission that's so crazy that Josh and I actually asked the editors of the book, we asked our editor, can we put a photograph of this moment in the book because nobody will believe this secret mission that he's about to go on. And you'll see that picture in the book, but it's the wildest Nazi story you've never heard in your life. And so these pieces, Otto Skorzeny and Franz Mayer, are the ones that are kind of, as they find out that the big three are coming, as they become aware of what's happening, and

I won't ruin the ending here, but you'll see how they intersect and almost intersect to create this potential disaster. It's an incredible lost moment of history. Josh, I'm surmising exactly what the motivations of the Nazis would have had, you know, or what their exact motivations were, like they were hoping to cast America into chaos, etc. Did you uncover any other secret reasons for why they wanted to kill all three of these people at one time? What did they hope would happen? I guess is what I'm trying to say. What did they think would happen when they're like, oh, no, they're all dead? What did they hope would happen when they finally managed to successfully kill all

three world leaders simultaneously? Well, I mean, it really is kind of what you said. At this point, the tide had been turning toward the Allies. I mean, the war, we're still right in the middle of the war, but the allies were starting to get the upper hand. And of course, they want to seize the initiative and take advantage and press the war through. But the Nazis at this point are looking for any opportunity to get the momentum back on their side. And for the same reasons that FDR wanted to get everyone in the same room and take this picture of them all looking united, to have all three of them assassinated on the world stage, it just would have thrown the allied side into absolute chaos. I mean, it's almost impossible

to imagine what a big deal that would have been if those three leaders who were the icons of the war to be assassinated. It would have been such a show of disarray. It would have just spun the war in some brand new direction. And the Nazis had already shown that they were willing to use assassination as a tool. It was a tool of the trade at the time. When the stakes are as high as they are in World War II, when literally the future of humanity is at stake, and you've got these two visions for what the world should be and millions of people are dying, anything you can do is fair game. It was definitely a fair game to try to assassinate another leader. And if you can get three instead

of one, that's even better. So you could call it an act of desperation, but really it was just a strategic idea on how you can change the momentum of the war and throw the other side into just complete and total chaos. Yeah. Of course, you know, like people like to think that the United States is above assassinating people, which we've done it before. Hopefully we won't continue to engage in it, but people sometimes ask me like, why didn't we just try to kill Hitler? I know that's not the subject of your book. No, but listen, it's one of our obsessions. And we mentioned, actually, the plots to kill him in the book.

You guys like conspiracies. Where's the conspiracy to kill Hitler? And listen, we know the one, you'll see him in the book. You know, there's quick mentions of them. Obviously, there's the plot on the train. There's the one in the mountains. But the one that I was actually most fascinated with is General Yamamoto is the Japanese architect of Pearl Harbor. We're in the war,

not because we want to fight Nazis or stand for good. We're in the war because we're all pissed about Pearl Harbor. It's not that we're the best people in the whole universe. It's that we're like, oh, they came after us. We're going after them now. And they tell FDR, listen, we found Yamamoto. We know where he's flying. We know his flight plan. We know the plane he's going to be on. What do you want to do? You want to shoot him out of the sky? We can kill him right now.

And FDR in that moment, his quote at the time is, get Yamamoto. And they do. They kill him. And in fact, Hitler and the Nazis shoot a plane out of the sky in the UK because they think Winston Churchill's on it. And it's just a regular plane with regular citizens on it, but they, for some reason, Winston Churchill's on it. And it's just a regular plane with regular citizens on it, but they for some reason think Churchill's on it. They kill everyone on board. So this is being done over and over, but this is just what's happening then.

It's a really good tool in your arsenal. And so it'd be crazy not to try once they get word that it were that the big three are coming together. What do you hope that people who read the Nazi conspiracy, what do you hope they take away? Because of course, you mentioned they always start with you're like, why are we writing this? And there's this sort of bigger picture idea of we need to understand why these things happened so that we can prevent them from happening again in the future. This rise of authoritarianism, decrease in democracy in the West. But what is it that you would love? I'll ask each of you. You would love for the reader, when they close this book for the last time, to think or to have learned. I'll start with you, Brad. Yeah. And I think, you know, for me, history is

never just interesting on its face. History is only interesting when it tells us something about ourselves today. That's when it's the most interesting. Mark Twain is famously quoted as saying history doesn't repeat, but it sure does rhyme. Although he's not at all the one who said that and it's never been proven, but it's, it's a correct statement and we're rhyming right now. We're rhyming big time. And if you look at Adolf Hitler at the time, it's a charismatic leader and he identifies this group of white native born Germans and they're economically suffering. And he comes in and says, I'm going to make your life better. And he's got the magic words. He's like, those people, those people are the ones who did this.

And that phrase, those people, that's a phrase that's repeated decade after decade, generation after generation. And of course he means the Jewish people in World War II, but that phrase is the black community, the gay community, the immigrant community, like pick your minority community. And to me, what I hope people take away from this book is that when you see someone being picked on, you know, the American dream for me is not about making money. To me, the American dream is that when you see someone being picked on and you see someone being bullied, you jump in and you say, and you use your voice, you say, enough, enough.

And people say, oh, if you tell the story of history, it won't repeat. That's nonsense. You can tell all the stories you want. The only way history doesn't repeat is if you raise your voice and say, stop. I'm not standing for that anymore. That's how history doesn't repeat. So to me, that may be a lot to ask from a book, but I don't think you can leave this book and not look around today. And whether you're looking at Putin in Russia or anywhere else close to home,

that when you see these people being targeted, you don't just stand up for your own group, but you stand up for those who need it. That to me is the only way you change history and you prevent something like this from happening again. In the words of Ken Burns, there is no them. There is only us. Amen. Josh, what do you hope people get out of this story? Well, I think I'll repeat kind of in a slightly different way a few things that Brad already said. One is that I think, you know, just on a basic understanding of history, that this reframing we talked about of like understanding the war, not just from the United States perspective, but from the Soviet perspective and really from the global perspective is really eye opening and important. And you really learn about the devastation that happened all over the world and the fact that so many civilian populations, not just in the Soviet Union,

but in other countries too, were just absolutely decimated. It's so harrowing. And it's not just about the noble soldiers, but the sheer devastation suffered by massive civilian communities all over the world. And it's so awful and it's so harrowing, and it just makes you think about it a little bit differently. And hopefully, you know, that can serve as a cautionary tale about how quickly the world can spin into war and how devastating it is. But I think also to echo what, you know, what Brad said, when it comes to Nazi Germany, it's so easy to kind of think of, you know, the Nazi leaders, particularly Hitler, as these kind of supervillains, these sort of individuals who are kind of planning world domination. And they become cartoon characters. And it's about, oh, there's this evil person or that evil person, and they're this kind of mastermind. But really, what it was, was a political movement. And when you really study it and learn it, it's much more terrifying than one supervillain, because it's about how a whole society embraces

this ideology. And it wasn't just Hitler, it was all the people aroundain, because it's about how a whole society embraces this ideology. And it wasn't just Hitler, it was all the people around Hitler, and it was all of the followers who were ready to hop on board, because they liked this message. And how quickly, year after year after year, you know, in the decade leading up to World War Two, what starts as this kind of populist political movement turns into something really dark. And it happens step by step. And it's the thing where, you know, something that you once thought was terrible suddenly becomes acceptable. And soon an entire, you know, the majority of a country is embracing genocide and the most horrible crimes committed in the history of humanity. And this was just

a regular population like our population or like any population that ends up supporting this stuff. That's just something that we should never forget. And it's always worth looking at how it happened, why it happened, and try to understand it a little bit and look around the world today. And maybe by telling the story, it'll help kind of spread that message that you always have to be vigilant, be on the lookout for this sort of creeping rise of dangerous belief systems. You think about people like Charles Lindbergh, who start out as this incredible hero and like, oh my goodness, the plane across the ocean. He was so famous and so beloved.

And you see how quickly his words began to devolve into, like, maybe we shouldn't get involved in that conflict in Europe. It starts out sounding real good, like, listen, it's our fight to fight. And it quickly devolves into the Jews started World War II. And it goes someplace very dark, very quickly. And soon you have Nazis in Madison Square Garden. And proverbially, and soon you have Nazis in Madison Square Garden. And proverbially, there but for the grace of God, go I, right? Like that you think that couldn't happen again. Sharon, I love you for mentioning that. I love you for that. I mean, seriously, I mean, and we meant, you know, Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, all these people who use, you know, we think that celebrities using their big mouths to shout anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic remarks

today is some, you know, magical new thing. But Henry Ford and Charles Limerick did it, you know, decades ago, did it first, and obviously people did it before then. And we always want to, you know, we think that like the Holocaust started with death camps, and it didn't start with death camps. It starts with slogans and propaganda and rallies and book bans, right? Promises and promises. I can fix it. And book bans, right, and promises, right. Promises that I can make your life better. That's exactly right. Exactly right. Again, if that story sounds familiar to you, it should. Thank you both so much for being here. I loved the book. I'm huge fans of your work. It was great to meet you. It was great to chat.

Congratulations on all of its success. It has obviously found an audience for good reason. You have to be really, really tickled with how well it's done. It's only because our family buys so many copies. In fact, my son's review, I'll tell you this, you're going to know this. My son's review of The Nazi Conspiracy, I have a 21-year-old son, and he said to me, I love this book, Dad. He's like, I love the book. He's like, but I have one problem with it. I said, what's the problem? He says, I don't dad. He's like, I love the book. He's like, but I have one problem with it. So what's the problem? He says, I don't know. He's like the fact that FDR and Churchill live in the end, that was kind of boring. I wish they would have died. And I'm like, did you want me to like Tarantino the whole thing and just murder everybody in a giant spree, like change history

and just blow my way. And he was like, that would have been exciting. And I'm like, I understand, but you understand that this is a true story. Like, so yes. And the words of internet citizens everywhere, I don't approve of those facts. And so thus, they are a lie. We've never been closer. Thank you guys for being here today. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. We love you, Sharon. You're amazing. Huge fans here. You know that. Thanks so much.

There is so much more to the story. We did not get into even any of the specifics because you just got to read it. You got to read The Nazi Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch. You can find it wherever books are sold. And you can also follow each of them on Twitter, Instagram, and at their websites by their

same names. Thanks for being here today. This show is researched and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. Our executive producer is Heather Jackson. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder. And if you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform? That helps us so much.

And we always love to see your shares and tags on social media. We'll see you again soon.