Battles of the First World War Podcast

This episode will visit the German strategic situation in June 1918 and the resulting plans for their next offensive, which would be called "Friedensturm:" the Peace Offensive.



The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
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and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or concerns.

A short exploration of the American poet Archibald MacLeish's connection to the First World War, and his poem "The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak."



The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak
 
Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?
 
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
 
They say, We were young. We have died. Remember us.
 
They say, We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.
 
They say, We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
 
They say, Our deaths are not ours: they are yours: they will mean what you make them.
 
They say, Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say: it is you who must say this.
 
They say, We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
 
We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.




The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or concerns. 
 
Please review the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes! :)

Authors Paul Friedland and Robert Hornick join us on the podcast to discuss their thoroughly researched, well-argued and thrilling biography of a now-forgotten German spy during WW1. 
 
One of the most notorious German spies of the twentieth century, Lothar Witzke lived a life that reads like a thriller. Convicted of espionage in 1918, he was the only German spy sentenced to death by the United States during World War I. After the war, he was pardoned by President Calvin Coolidge, only to be later accused of responsibility for one of the most spectacular acts of sabotage in US history: the Black Tom munitions depot explosion.
 
After being repatriated to Germany, Witzke lived in Latin America and China as a German expat and later joined the Nazi party. He ran espionage squads in Great Britain during World War II and became a prominent businessman in Hamburg after the war. He was killed in Hamburg in 1962, possibly by an East German agent as payback for suspected double agent work on behalf of the British.
 
With Citizen of the Shadows, the first full biography of Witzke, Paul Friedland and Robert Hornick trace Witzke's morally complicated life and show readers how an infamous spy thrived in the interwar years and after. They probe his trial, conviction, and pardon, and analyze whether Witzke was really involved in the Black Tom explosion. In doing so, the authors uncover that many of the details of Witzke's life—long assumed to be true—were lies.
 
Where to buy: https://utpress.org/9798895270332/citizen-of-the-shadows/
 
The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or concerns. 
 
Please review the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes! :)

In 2022, just as the world began to open after the isolation of a global pandemic, Briana Gervat set out to walk the length of the Western Front. Beginning at the border that France shares with Switzerland she went into the wild in search of hope and in search of peace. For 500 miles, she climbed over the mountains of the Vosges, through the battle-scarred landscapes of Verdun, the Marne, and the Somme, all the way to the North Sea in Belgium. It was not only a journey of thirty-six days, but a journey through a history that we have learned nothing from, only how better to repeat it.
 
Join us for a discussion of travel, France, WW1 history, and the feeling of connection and renewal that travel brings. 
 
Where to buy: https://a.co/d/06vEtvyk
 
Briana Gervat's website: https://www.theperegrinepilgrim.com/
 
The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or concerns. 
 
Please review the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes! :)

Author, historian, and battlefield guide Susan Raby-Dunne joins us to discuss her book "John McCrae: Beyond Flanders Fields." 
 
Most Canadians are familiar with John McCrae through his iconic poem "In Flanders Fields," which was penned on the battlefields of the First World War and remains a symbol of remembrance to this day. Although he will always be remembered as a war poet, the Guelph, Ontario, native was a physician, a university professor, and a veteran of the Second Boer War before he ever laid eyes on the carnage at Flanders Fields. Citing rarely seen diary entries and letters, as well as never-before-published photos of McCrae's early life, military historian and McCrae enthusiast Susan Raby-Dunne tells the complete story of John McCrae—a man whose final chapter of life made him immortal, but who accomplished so much and helped so many in the decades before.



Canadian War History Tours: https://canadianwarhistorytours.ca/



The BFWWP is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BattlesoftheFirstWorldWarPodcast. 
 
Any questions, comments or concerns please contact me through the website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Follow us on BlueSky at @WW1podcast.bsky.social:
 
https://bsky.app/profile/ww1podcast.bsky.social
 
and the BFWWP website, www.firstworldwarpodcast.com. Email me directly at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or concerns. 
 
Please review the Battles of the First World War Podcast on iTunes! :)