Real Dictators is the award-winning podcast that explores the hidden lives of history's tyrants. Hosted by Paul McGann, with contributions from eyewitnesses and expert historians. New episodes available one week early for Noiser+ subscribers. You'll also get ad-free listening and exclusive content. To find out more about Noiser+, head to noiser.com/subscriptions. For advertising enquiries, email info@adelicious.fm Production: Joel Duddell, Ed Baranski, Miriam Baines, Tom Pink, George Tapp, Dorry Macaulay, Cian Ryan-Morgan, Anisha Devadasan, Joseph McGann. Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink. We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/real for £100 sponsored credit.
146 episodes transcribedIn 1917, Franco is posted to northern Spain. He courts a local schoolgirl named Carmen. But soon, a charismatic army superior convinces Franco to retu...
Today, Spain is Europe’s holiday capital. But under the sand lie sinister secrets. From 1939 to 1975, Francisco Franco ruled as the nation’s dictator....
In the final part of Hitler’s Early Years, the Nazi leader launches his very own assault on power: the Munich Putsch. Under cover of darkness, the SA...
The Nazis kickstart their media operation. Desperate to be an icon, Hitler pens a secret autobiography, where he compares his own rise to Jesus’s resu...
Hitler decides he needs an army of his own. The Nazis create a new paramilitary unit – the Sturmabteilung, or SA. These hooligans take National Social...
Hitler is sent undercover, tasked with spying on a band of extremists. But he soon falls under their spell and breaks cover to join their ranks. They...
The Great War ends. Hitler despairs. The Kaiser does a runner. Revolutions break out across Germany. Discharged from hospital, Hitler returns home to...
June 1914, Sarajevo. An assassination on the street disrupts the entire balance of power in Europe. The First World War explodes into action. Adolf Hi...
You may know something of the Hitler story. But there’s a decent chance you don’t know the half of it. We begin a deep dive into the early years of a...
From the creators of Real Dictators comes Real Narcos, the show that takes you to the front line of the war on drugs. For Season 2, we're in Mexico. I...
The walls close in on Hideki Tojo. The General turned Prime Minister takes hands-on control of the military, with catastrophic consequences. Emperor H...
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. The Pacific War is underway. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Tojo moves to take every significant government job for himself. Jap...
Major General Hideki Tojo takes command of the secret police - the Kempeitai. The Imperial Japanese Army invades China and terrorises the civilian pop...
General Hideki Tojo led Japan into World War Two and oversaw some of the most horrific war crimes in recorded history. Tojo did not hold absolute powe...
François Duvalier puts the finishing touches to his terrifying cult of personality. The President for Life declares himself an immaterial being - a sp...
Haitian dictator “Papa Doc” Duvalier crushes an attempted coup without mercy. Spooked by this near miss, Duvalier forms his own private militia called...
Just a few hundred miles south of Florida, across the Caribbean Sea, lies Haiti. From 1957 to 1971, this tropical island nation was ruled by a would-b...
Mao’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ sets out to purge the minds of an entire population. Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader himself leads a life of debauchery and...
Mao Zedong's Communists come down from the mountains to do battle with the Nationalists. After clinching victory, Mao is greeted by many as a hero. Bu...
In the centre of China’s capital city, Beijing, lies a corpse that no one dares remove. It’s been 44 years since Mao Zedong’s body was laid to rest in...
