Night and Fog: The Early Years of Hitler's Camps (Part 2) Artwork

The Great Purple State

Conall and Emerson talk history and politics in Wisconsin and around the world. From presidential elections to nuclear disarmament treaties, from the history of Wisconsin to the history of the rise and fall of fascism in Europe, we cover a wide breadth of topics in a conversational way.

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The Great Purple State

Night and Fog: The Early Years of Hitler's Camps (Part 2)

August 13, 2019 • Conall & Emerson • Episode 11

Conall and Emerson break down the initial years of the Nazi camp system. We discuss at length the political trajectory and worldview of Adolf Hitler, the first 8 or so years of Hitler being in power, and how the Nazi regime he oversaw expanded the usage and purposes of the concentration camp system as the years passed. We also analyze how the agenda of the Nazi state morphed from persecuting the Jews to outright murdering them, especially with the outbreak of the Second World War.

Another important thing we look at is the POW camp system ran by the Wehrmacht for captured Soviet prisoners of war, and the devastating toll this took on the Soviet prisoners of war imprisoned there (~3,100,000 would end up dying).

We decided to expand this series to 3 episodes - our final episode will cover the last 4 years of the camp system, from 1941 to 1945, when the camp system was retooled to commit total genocide against Europe's Jewish population in the Holocaust.