Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I really can't fathom a minestrone

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

It's day three with no Fi, so to help her cheer up, Jane is joined by three guests this episode. Historical author Julia Boyd discusses the news that a 97-year-old former typist at a Nazi concentration camp has been convicted of aiding in the murder of more than 10,000 people. Times Radio's Chief Political Commentator Lucy Fisher shares her most memorable interview of the year, and Asa Bennett, former speechwriter for Liz Truss, sheds some light on working for the UK's shortest serving PM.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Assistant Producer: Kate Lee Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Podcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to day three of No Fee and oh it's getting harder it's like I've got a mountain to climb that's how it feels. She is back on January the 2nd. She is enjoying herself already on her summer holidays. Our proper summer holiday that encompasses the whole team actually starts tomorrow. But rest assured, there will be an edition of Off Air tomorrow, and then there'll be, and I can hardly believe I'm saying

this, there will be across the festive period some Jane and Fee highlights for you to enjoy at our usual live Times Radio time of 3 o'clock till 5. And then we're back on. We are back on on Monday, January 2nd. So don't be misled. It's not pokey old Tuesday the 3rd when everybody else goes back.

We'll be here January 2nd. I'm sure I'll barely have recovered from my less than hectic New Year's Eve. It's always my ambition to go to bed at about 10.20 on New Year's Eve. Let's see if I can see if I can break that record this year. So I have actually had a quite an interesting day because I had my sister and my nephew staying with me and I was able to bring my nephew into the building and he is 12 year old lad and it's fair to say that he is not easily whelmed in any way and certainly not overwhelmed, but he did say he thought the view from this building at London Bridge

in the heart of London was actually pretty decent. So, you know, if you know a 12-year-old boy, you'll know it's not easy to impress them. He did also enjoy a lovely lunch in the canteen. In fact, he got falafel and a chicken breast from memory, whereas for some reason I was only served the chicken. Obviously, they give double bubble to the under 13s. So, that's right, I'm about to catch up with him and take him out for yet another meal. How many meals is that lad going to get out of me in this trip? Ridiculous. Right, so my presenter's friend,

which is the showbiz way of saying the person who had the decency to sit with me for the first hour of the Times Radio show today, was Lucy Fisher, who is Times Radio's chief political commentator. And she wanted to tell me about her own political highlight of what has been a dizzying set of political circumstances in this unforgettable year of 2022. So here's our highlight. For me, it has to be interviewing Liz Truss in her hotel suite in the Hyatt Regency on the 22nd floor in the midst of the Tory party conference in October. And with something that now looks slightly presumptuous and slightly tragic, her central message to me then, in the midst of her cabinet erupting into internecine warfare, she pled for the public to give her until the end of 2023 before judging her record. But of course, events moved far more quickly than that, and she hasn't had the chance.

But it was fascinating to see how defiant her tone was in that interview even as things were falling down around her she'd been forced um you know to row back on scrapping the 45 pence top rate of income tax at that party conference her authority really did appear shot and it was only when i left the interview i bumped into someone with a good knowledge of these things who said i love that good someone with a good knowledge of good knowledge so no name but carry on a source familiar uh with events yeah um who said that one key issue had dominated the preparation to this grueling media round she'd had i thought well what would it would it be income tax the mini budget fallout would it be the row about benefits um some of the centrists in her party saying you've got to be more generous and uprate them in line with inflation no i'm told the key issue that was preoccupying her was whether or

not to wear socks or go bare ankles with her trendy white trainers in this interview round and i just thought fiddling while rome burns just uh just about covers it if you're being kind but what in that exchange you had in the interview with her what was her demeanor it was classic trust it was defiant classic trust and robotic you know it it's she's not someone who it's easily expresses warmth or empathy or connects very well on a human level but i think we got to know that by that time that she sort of has one mode which is transmit rather than connect or listen and eventually that uh did lead to her downfall okay i mean i'm going to sound now like the person who's dutifully rushing to her defense but i have heard people speak rather warmly of her potential for warmth in fact her friendly nature the fact that she does actually care for those

people who work with her and for her well i could feel my voice just whittling away, just weepling away into the distance. Well, you know, I've sort of known her through various jobs throughout the years. She can be very funny in private. So humour is something she can do. I don't think sort of, I'm not saying she doesn't care for people, but her ability to sort of show that in a sort of empathetic way, I don't think has been terribly much in evidence in Westminster. And that's not just my view, but I think quite a lot of people around her. For people who, in the nicest possible way, Lucy, are not as invested in the political world as

you are. The name Liz Truss, until she came to the fore in the leadership contest, will not actually have been that widely known. I appreciate she'd had any number of cabinet jobs under a string of Tory prime ministers, but she wasn't a name that a lot of people actually knew. No, and I think that probably helped her. In fact, she's been in the government since 2010. So she's a real survivor through successive administrations, you know, first promoted by Cameron. And I think probably people felt they had the measure of Rishi, at least the Tory party members, and they were when it came to voting this summer in the first leadership contest, I think there was a sense of anger that he'd been such a high tax Chancellor, you know, Tory members do care about their low taxes. She knew that she sort

of rode in behind that that agenda. And I I think because people hadn't made up their mind about her, she was able to present herself afresh and garner a lot of votes and go on to win that contest. That is the voice of Times Radio's chief political commentator, Lucy Fisher. Tomorrow, my friend, between the hours of three and four will be Tom Whipple, who is science editor at The Times. And that's going to be absolutely fascinating because he covers some amazing stuff, as you'll know if you read The Times regularly. So it'll be great to get some of his highlights from that world on the programme tomorrow between three and four and no doubt here on Off Air as well. Now, a story that I really wanted to cover today is the Nazi secretary, the woman of 97, who has been given a

suspended sentence in a German court. She was a former concentration camp worker implicated, we were told, in over 10,000 murders. But there is something about the image of a woman, a very frail 97-year-old woman in a wheelchair being taken in and out of court. Many people, of course, justifiably believe that everyone should face justice for some of the barbaric things that went on in the Second World War, but other people are just a little uncomfortable about the sight of such an elderly person being in court.

However, as you're about to hear, this woman, Irmgard Furchner, is not exactly contrite, which complicates matters even more. So we were trying to think of a person to talk to about this case, which does fascinate. I mean, there's absolutely no doubt about it. And I remembered the fantastic author and historian Julia Boyd, whose books about Germany and about World War Two I've really enjoyed. There are two that are really noteworthy. Travellers in the Third Reich, which is about tourism to Germany and about the view of Nazi Germany that many people from Britain had before World War Two started. people from Britain had before World War Two started. And then another of her books, which I thought was just fabulous, called A Village in the Third Reich, which she will explain more about

in this interview. So here's the view of the historian Julia Boyd. Well, it's an attempt to really dive down deep into one, in this case, a rather small community. It's in fact, the most southern village in Germany, called Oberstdorf, right down on the Austrian border. And to try and get a real sense of what it was like to be alive during the Third Reich and witness as time evolved, you know, as from the glory days at the beginning of the Third Reich

when Hitler came to power and everybody thought he was a sort of god, to the going through to the disillusionment and utter disaster that befell Germany by 1945. And I've tried to track from 1933 right through to 1945 the lives of these various people in the village and how they were affected. And what I learned from your book is that, unfortunately, for those of us who have to try and think these things through, it's not all black and white. There were some grey areas here, which I think confuses people like me who've grown up. I'm 58. So I've grown up in an age where all I knew about the war was some of my parents' stories of air raids and not much else. I couldn't agree with you more, Jane.

I mean, I'm even older. Even older? Good Lord. A great deal older than you. I was born in 1948, so both my parents fought in the war and I grew up very much with the backdrop of the war as part of my childhood. And I saw it very much through Brit eyes. You know, we were all heroes and it was all rather glamorous and dramatic. And so, yes, I think the tendency has been to look at this period of history in terms of

black and white, Nazis, monsters, everybody else, heroes. And as we all know, life isn't really like that. I certainly live in a sea of grey. And I think one of the objectives of writing this book was to try and present a more nuanced picture of what it was like for ordinary Germans. Right. And ordinary German, I suppose, is what Irmgard Furchner probably was. She was a young, very young woman.

And she ended up in a role and the court has decided that she knew exactly what she was doing. And that's why she's been given this suspended prison sentence. Yes, I mean, I tried to find out more about her, but we know almost nothing about her. But I would have felt some sympathy for her given her her age and so on. But her conduct since this trial emerged and so on has been, I think, really dreadful. I mean, she if she had stood up in court and said that she'd spent the last 70 years full of remorse at what she had witnessed, one would have felt sympathy. She was was after all only 18 years old but she actually wrote to the judge saying that she felt it was degrading for her to go to court which given all that she witnessed is utterly grotesque

and then she tried to deny in her defense or her lawyers did that she knew what it was about, which is again, utterly, utterly unbelievable. So I suspect without knowing anything, of course, about her, but I suspect that she probably was a hardcore Nazi. Now, whatever the truth may be about her, I think her case throws a spotlight onto her generation. I mean, all 18-year-old girls, as well as the men, were the property of the Third Reich. And they all had to work. They were all sent off with no choice about where they went

or what kind of work they did. And most of them were sent miles away from their own homes, where they probably hadn't spent most of their lives. And they were working in armaments factories and farms and um i think the reason i'm a bit suspicious about irngard is that i think those kind of jobs were probably reserved for people who were you know hardcore nazis she probably was a member of the party i'm'm only guessing. I have absolutely no idea. But since she has given us no clues at all, one can only imagine. But I think the really important thing to think about 18 year olds who found themselves in her position was that from the age of 10,

they'd been drafted into the sort of junior sections of the Hitler Youth and the girls' version. And they had been subject to relentless propaganda all their lives. They were virtually the property of the regime who tried to pluck them away from their parents and largely succeeded. And then these children, once they left the Hitler Youth and the Bund Deutsche Meidl, they then went into labour service or into the army or to military training. So it was virtually cradle to grave Nazi indoctrination. And I think one has to bear that in mind because there wasn't the internet, there wasn't the opportunity to travel

and hear other views. And Hitler was very good, as indeed Putin has been, in persuading the Germans that they were surrounded by enemies and that it was up to the youth to save Germany and to wipe out the shame of the Treaty of Versailles and the First World War. World War. So to what degree would there have been some sort of denazification programme for somebody like a teenage typist at a concentration camp? Well, I think the cutoff age, I don't think anybody was hauled before the denazification, the Spruchkammer, as they were called, under the age of 19, I think it was. I can't quite remember. So I don't know whether she had to face a denazification trial. She may have been I think she probably would have been too young. But the others would have done and they would have had to sign a form and they would have been classified in one of five degrees of sympathy for the Nazi party. It was a very tricky, it was a very tricky thing to carry out because who was a Nazi? I mean, we think of it being, as we were discussing just a minute ago, we think of it being very clear cut. You were either a Nazi or you weren't. But going back to Oberstdorf, a number of the villagers were very anti-Nazi, but their names appear as members

of the Nazi party because it was one way of protecting your job, your family, of making life perhaps a little bit easier. And some people, some people who'd been on the town council, for instance, I think joined the Nazi party because as they became more and more disillusioned with the regime, they felt they were was a good job being Nazi mayor of Oberstdorf. But clearly, as the war went on, became more and more disillusioned. If he tried to openly protest, he'd have been strung up on a meat hook or tortured or sent to Dachau. And what would have happened to his family? He had an epileptic son. So his choice, and I suspect it was the choice of many people, was to stay within the system, but to try and mitigate the worst excesses where they could. But from what you've said,

and from what you've gauged about Irmgard, it doesn't sound as though she was in that category. And I really, I suppose I wonder whether someone like her has melted, melted away into Germany, but continues to believe some horrific things. Oh, I absolutely think so. I mean, I, you know, by 1952, when a lot of Nazis were released, they, you know, the global politics had shifted and people were more concerned about making Germany a reliable ally against Russia. So many Nazis were released. And one of the most, again, it's in my book, one of the most horrific examples, really, was a young man called Heinz Schubert, who claimed to be descended from the composer's family, Franz Schubert. claimed to be descended from the composer's family, Franz Schubert. And he was a member of the Einsatzgruppe, which was a horrible unit that went in after the Wehrmacht into the newly conquered territories to murder gypsies and Jews and homosexuals and anybody else the Nazis didn't like. And he lived in Oberstdorf and his wife and his children were born there. And he was

responsible for organizing the murder of 700 gypsies in Crimea. He was originally sentenced to death, but that was commuted. And eventually, about 1953 or so, he was released and free to go and lead his life. But the interesting thing is at his trial at Nuremberg, a number of Einsatzgruppen men were tried. And they weren't psychopaths they weren't thugs um one of them was a priest one was an opera singer several were lawyers one was a philosopher and the only clue one can get as to what motivated them to do this completely hideous work that they did was Schubert said at his trial, we thought we were saving Western civilization.

And the propaganda to which they'd been subjected since they were young children was so intense that the communists were going to sweep across Europe and destroy everything. And they really believed that, I think. So do you think we have seen the last Nazi trial in Germany? Well, I think so, because I mean, you know, it's just a question of time, isn't it? I mean, my own feeling is, and it may sound a bit hard nosed, but if others were to emerge, I still think they should be put on trial trial because I think there isn't a statute of

limitations on crimes like these. It's very difficult with Irngard because we just do not know enough about her circumstances. But as I say, her behaviour has not lent one to believe that she is full of remorse. And if others came up for trial, I think they should be tried. But as in the case of her, you know, she's clearly been, I think, packed off back to her care home, which is, of course, the right thing to do. But I do think they should be put on trial if any more were to emerge. But it's unlikely, I think. I actually thought of you, Julia, a couple of weeks ago

when that bizarre story emerged from Germany about the attempted coup. Oh, yes. I remember talking to John Pienaar about it, actually, and he was saying it's just like something from some 70s paperback airport thriller. Well, I know. It can't be real. What did you think, very briefly, what did you think about that? Well, I didn't take it very seriously because I just thought,

I mean, again, I haven't followed it up and really read about it because it just seems so completely unbelievable. But it must have been quite serious. And obviously they'd been tracking these guys for some time. I mean, the man looked, in the photographs I saw him, he looked sort of faintly plausible as the sort of person who might be in some fairytale castle in Transylvania, dreaming up weird rebellions. But I mean, one can't take it terribly seriously. But I'm sure

that there do exist still, as we know, not just in Germany, but around the world, very hardcore right wing people. The historian and writer Julia Boyd. And if you do have an interest in the Second World War and in the social history of what it was like to be in Germany and to be German at that time, her books are absolutely so worth having a look at. Because Lucy Fisher was my co-presenter in the first hour of the live show today, we thought it would be worth talking politics.

So we had a chat to Asa Bennett, who was Liz Truss's speechwriter. Now, Asa has been around for about a decade. He was a political journalist. He rose to become Brexit commissioning editor at the Daily Telegraph newspaper. And he then went into the government. He wrote speeches for Liz Truss, first at the Department for International Trade. Then when she went to the Foreign Office, he went too. And finally, he followed her to number 10 when she was prime minister.

So I asked her, when did you hop on board the trust wagon for the first time? The trust train, I think, came calling, let's see, about the tail end of 2020, when she was just about to sign the free trade agreement with Japan. And obviously it came in a real good time because that's when, of course, you're starting to deliver all these Brexit, post-Brexit trade deals and really get into a stride. And since then, it has been, as Lucy was saying, effectively a bit of a roller coaster, because then going on to the Foreign Office the year after that and the momentum really building and then all coming to a head with the premiership.

And yes, obviously, I've worked for two years before her. And I confess I hadn't quite expected the premiership to only go on for two months. But there we are. Yes. So let's start on a positive note. What was your personal highlight of the brief trust administration? Personal highlight of the trust administration, I think, was being able to work with her on the conference speech um in which was the longest speech she ever gave about you know her story um what animated her in politics her desire to do things differently but kind of the vibe she was sort of channeling was that she was effectively you know the outsider's insider

that you know she'd fought against the system for years she knew that she had to do things differently she'd seen what it was like to grow up somewhere that hadn't been feeling the economic growth you know this is what animated her and effectively being that sort of iconoclast um and that you know was able and willing to sort of challenge the party if you like to properly embrace growth obviously people will remember then the uh the rambunctious ending about the anti-growth coalition um and either really about obviously i remember working up those lines very well and it was very much vintage liz well vintage bennett possibly effective as she is the chief speechwriter i am sometimes just the typist for these things

oh no come on i said no. I want you to own it. Are you the originator of the anti-growth coalition? What could you say? It was Lennon and McCartney. It was a partnership. So the sense that the trouble is, is obviously it had its own tragic ending, of course, with the party bringing a certain denouement to these things.

But this is the thing that like, she was someone who wanted to be so impetuous. She wanted to kind of give that sort of vision. That was clearly what the campaign was going to be on. That sort of, you know, her owning the growth, growth, growth mantra. And that's what the country needed. It was to sort of get us back

to where we were before the crash, to get us, you know, firing on all cylinders again. And so the whole tale of the premiership really is just someone who, you know, has spent so many years thinking about how to unleash Britain's potential and then finally getting the chance. And it being a sort of tragedy that it all came off so badly in the end. And that was merely because she was so impatient to change things.

Right. And did you not, or did you and other advisors, not warn her against her impetuous side and her lack of patience? I think it's, well, others will be able to know better about who warned what, when and why. And I'm sure they'll have their own versions of what exactly happened there. What I certainly know is that she had a very clear view on the urgency to get these things done. She thought there was only two years to try and bed in these reforms. And on paper, after the mini budget came out, it was independent forecasters were saying we would be on track for 2% growth

if all the measures came in the year after. But then the steady sort of U-turns and climb downs, which meant that ultimately she was having to present a programme that was no longer her own, I can imagine must have been soul destroying. And then when you are a sort of self-styled economist, someone who wants to sort of take on the orthodoxies and be different, I can imagine that's where you decide, well, why bother drawing this out any longer? Instead, leave with some dignity.

Asa, there's been a suggestion made in recent weeks that what happened on day two of the Trust premiership with the Queen's death and the enforced 10 day period of national mourning, that essentially derailed the administration by allowing Liz Trust and Kwasi Kwarteng, her chancellor, too much time to plot, too much time to dream big about the kind of tax cuts that they wanted to implement and therefore led to, you know, the not so mini budget that was such a vast overhaul of the tax system. Do you agree with that analysis? Is that your sense of why things ultimately collapsed? I'm slightly reluctant just to say whether it was because of the period of National Mourning, the XYZ, you know, but it's certainly like a really complex tapestry of what was going on back then. I mean, I definitely remember that back when we were at the tail end of the National Mourning period, there were conversations going on in which we were sort of saying in planning what happens afterwards that you know effectively

the recognition was was that we'd had you know 10 days of presiding over this intense period of national sobriety and poignancy and that this would be the time in the days off where we'd have you know three events chock-a-block you know rat-a-tat-tat you know we'd have therese coffee doing something in the nhs we'd have another minister doing something on x and then to cap it off that week when that period national money ends then would be the mini budget. And, you know, the assumption was, was that would be something that people will be talking about for days to come. Of course, it turns out they were talking about it for reasons we weren't quite expecting. Also, what the Queen's death offered, and I know it's probably insensitive perhaps to frame it like that, but what it

offered her was a chance to become a prominent figure. There she was, absolutely at the heart of a great deal of protocol and ceremony. And what was her reaction to all that, Asa? How was she about doing all that? Well, I think she rose to the moment she knew that this is a absolutely uh era defining you know change in national history that's why she came up with the phrase herself of um the queen as being the rock on which modern britain was built um and i think i've seen that definitely resonated across social media and in response from others um and i think she wasn't trying to really come across not sort of overreaching and not doing a sort of tony blair people's princess of a thing but just trying to have

that sort of quiet dignity in her own recognition of the moment and i think also it really cemented the idea that you know this was a new era and you know that i think that may have perhaps cemented the idea that you know this requires that approach. It's a whole new sort of chapter in the nation's history. So perhaps to a mild extent may have been incentive to really grasp the nettle and think this is the moment to make a mark. You're not just presiding over this, but presiding over the first weeks and months of a new sort of time, a new epoch in British history. a new sort of time, a new epoch in British history. Asa Bennett taking us behind the scenes in the Liz Truss prime ministership, which has already slipped away into history.

And actually, it really has, hasn't it? Anyway, we live in a different time. And no doubt 2023 will bring many of its own political highlights. Fingers crossed, eh? Now to your emails. The address is janeandfee at times.radio. Hello, Jane and Fee on holiday, says Julie. And she also says, happy Christmas. Thank you, Julie, same to you.

Your confession today about the confusion at home between bath foam and detergent and eardrops, which you put in the eyes, took me straight back to two similar incidents in my 20s, way back in 1977-78. I used to take off my waterproof eye make-up with baby oil. On honeymoon, after the customary champagne, I started the familiar routine and howled. I had used eucalyptus oil instead.

It was portentous, as the marriage lasted just three months. In brackets, Julie reassures us, not sad, a blessing in disguise. Let's see if somebody out there can beat Julie's record. Were you married for less than three months? Not for any tragic reasons, but because you both just realised it wasn't to be and arguably should never have happened in the first place. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. Back to Julie.

The second incident was told to me at Warwick University. I had a friend there who became totally blind in his teens. Now, he loved a luxurious bath, and whilst at home for the holiday, he found only old-fashioned bath salts of his mother's in a bowl in the bathroom. He used them anyway. After the bath, he felt itchy and sore,

so he asked his mum if she had any reaction to the bath salts. She said there were no bath salts. It transpired she had decanted into a pretty china bowl the original old flash crystal flakes. He thought it was hilarious, as did we. He told several stories like this of his various mishaps. Such memories, says Julie. I do remember flash crystal flakes. They will be known to a generation of people listening to this podcast. I am really glad I've never bathed in them. And I do hope your friend continues to be all right on his many and varied adventures through life.

Julie, all the very best to you. And Jane Minus Fee says, Cherie, I asked to hear about what you do at Christmas and what your family plans and traditions are. And Cherie says, I'm off on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day. We don't do gifts in my family, but we do have a soup supper. Everyone brings their favourite soup and we reminisce about past years. We play some kind of goofy game. Last year it was Elvisopoly. We play some kind of goofy game.

Last year, it was Elvisopoly. I quite like the idea of a soup supper, but what if there are sort of clashing soups? I mean, I would struggle. And also, there are some soups I really, really don't like. I do not like minestrone because of all the bits. There's too much going on in minestrone, and I can't... I just can't fathom it out.

I like a soup where you know what you're getting and each soup spoonful is consistent in texture so I don't, anyway that's my problem and obviously I need to get to grips with the challenging world of minestrone soup if it hasn't happened already the chances are it's not going to

happen at all. What's Cherie got for herself? Well she's got her hands on the latest Louise Penny, Chief Inspector Armand Ganesh novel, A World of Curiosities, and she's so looking forward to investigating it. She says, I can hardly wait to get lost in the Canadian village of Three Pines again. It is my Christmas gift to myself. Cherie, you sound like a woman after my own heart. I hope you enjoy that and getting lost in Three Pines. If you're interested in Canada,

there is a fantastic writer who I've just discovered called Mary Lawson. She's got, I think all her novels are out in paperback. Treat yourself. I think there are four of them. Just get one of them and you will not regret it. And I guarantee then, after you've read one, you'll probably want to read more.

I'm reading, what's the book I'm reading? A Town Called Solace is the name of the book I'm reading at the moment by Mary Lawson. Get involved. I promise you won't regret it. I'll be back tomorrow with Tom Whipple as my co-host. So I think science will be on the menu. Hope you can join me then. Now, you've been listening to Off Air with me, Jane Garvey. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell,

but he's obviously working from home because I haven't clapped eyes on him for weeks. You can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or download every episode from wherever else you get your podcasts. And don't forget, if you like what you've heard, then you can listen live, Monday to Thursday 3 till 5 on Times Radio. And I hope you can join me on

Off Air later. Thanks for listening.