October 3, 2023 • 9 mins
On today's tour through the Cabinet, let's explore two influential figures with vastly different legacies.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Those who stand up for their convictions are often remembered
for their dedication and bravery. Well, not everyone is remembered
that way exactly, people like French philosopher and writer Francois
Marie Aroway. Although you probably don't know him by that name,
he's better remembered by his pen name Voltaire. And Voltaire
wrote a lot to paraphrase a popular musical about a
(00:58):
certain founding father, writing like he was running out of time,
composing everything from plays, novels, poems, essays, and even scientific papers.
By the time he died in seventeen seventy eight, Voltaire
had written tens of thousands of works, and although he'd
found popularity both domestically and overseas, he was not universally liked.
(01:19):
While he was still alive, the Roman Catholic Church loathed
him for referring to Christianity as propagandistic. He also perpetuated
a number of myths about the Church. For example, he
claimed that they had cut the number of Gospels down
from fifty to four. But Christianity and the Church weren't alone.
Voltaire seemed to aim his pen in any direction he
(01:39):
deemed worthy of criticism. He was also wildly anti Semitic
in his writings about Judaism and the Jewish people, and
also lobbed a heavy amount of vitriol toward Islam and
people of color. He disagreed with the idea of Adam
and Eve as represented in the Bible, and suggested that
each race came to be through various means across the globe,
(02:00):
rather than descended from one couple. But in the same
breath he would disparage black Africans as possessing less natural
humanity than white Europeans. Voltaire was the embodiment of cognitive dissonance,
perhaps best expressed in his stance on slavery. Scholars argue
as to whether he actually opposed the slave trade itself,
(02:21):
nor simply the harsh and violent conditions to which enslaved
people were subjected. Regardless and a bit surprising. He was
more enlightened than others on the subject, and that got
him into hot water with the powers that be. His
body of work, although problematic and downright offensive at times,
made him wildly popular, especially among his fellow writers. Victor
(02:41):
Hugo once said, to name Voltaire is to characterize the
entire eighteenth century. Depending on who you were, that could
either be a good thing or a very bad thing.
Napoleon Bonaparte admired him, as did Frederick the Great, but
those ringing endorsements don't exactly endear him to us today.
Adolf Hitler insulted Frederick's conversations with Voltaire while outlining his
(03:03):
plans for world conquest during World War II. The racist
and nationalistic rhetoric within Voltaire's works have led to a
backlash today. In fact, a statue of the philosopher that
once stood in Paris was torn down back in August
of twenty twenty. His legacy is tainted, some might say
it's cursed. After Voltaire died in seventeen seventy eight, a
(03:25):
French polymath by the name of Beaumarche purchased the rights
to as much of his back catalog as possible from
his old publisher, but Voltaire's work had been banned in France,
so in seventeen ninety nine beau Marche printed the manuscripts
in Germany instead, but he lost a lot of money
on the venture and his life. He died a mere
three months after he started publishing a complete collection of
(03:47):
Voltaire's writing, and then in the early eighteen hundreds, another
publisher put out a sixty volume edition of Voltaire's works.
The endeavor practically bankrupted them. Over the next seventy years,
at least eight publishers went broke by releasing complete Voltaire collections.
One went blind, while another was killed by a woman
he accused of stealing. It appeared that whenever someone tried
(04:11):
to publish a full series of Voltaire's portfolio, they met
an unfortunate end, either financially or mortally. Voltaire was a
controversial figure when he was alive. His opinions alienated almost everyone,
and he was no stranger to having his work cursed
by his contemporaries. What no one realized, though, was that
the twenty thousand letters and two thousand books about religion
(04:34):
and other cultures that he left behind might actually have
been cursed. Some fictional characters are so iconic that they
(04:55):
almost feel real. Think about Michael Scott from the Office
or Walter White in Breaking Bad. I'm not embarrassed to
admit that I can quote those guys verbatim, and I
know their personalities like the back of my hand. The
best characters are able to take on a life of
their own, and some of them are even based on
real people. In fact, one twentieth century writer created a
(05:15):
character that became so popular he has since been the
subject of a number of books and movies, and rumor
has it he's based on an actual person whose story
is as interesting as the fictional tales he inspired. Let
me set the scenario for you. It was June of
nineteen forty four, right in the midst of World War Two,
and our real life hero was in Germany trapped at
(05:36):
the Nazi run Bukenwald concentration camp. He was there to
be executed. You see, he had been charged with terrorism.
Most Nazi officers knew his background too. They even had
a nickname for him, the White Rabbit. For the last
year and a half, the White Rabbit had worked with
the British Air Intelligence Agency. He parachuted into Nazi occupied
France three different times and set up a central resistance
(06:00):
quarters in Paris. When his work was discovered, the Gestapo
put a bounty on his head, and he spent the
next eight weeks on the run before escaping back to
his home country of England. As soon as he crossed
the border, he met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
to request more weapons for French resistance fighters. In February
of nineteen forty four, four months before he landed in Buchenwald,
(06:21):
he re entered France to supervise those weapons shipments, but
things didn't go as planned. Someone betrayed him, and three
weeks later he was captured by the Gestapo. The Nazi
police hoped to get some valuable information out of the spy,
but his lips were sealed. They spent the next four
months subjecting him to every kind of torture you can imagine,
but he never cracked. Frustrated, the Gestapo shipped him off
(06:44):
to a concentration camp to die, but the White Rabbit
didn't go down without a fight. He managed to befriend
and probably bribe a German guard. Together they came up
with an idea to save our hero's life give him
a brand new identity, which was actually easy than you
might think. The German guard pretended to execute him, then
gave him an ID card that belonged to a Frenchman
(07:06):
who had already been killed at Buchenwald, and just like that,
the White Rabbit had a new name, Maurice Chaquette. Still,
Maurice hadn't really saved himself. He'd only bought some time.
Less than a year later, in April of nineteen forty five,
he was shoved onto a train filled with other prisoners
from Buchenwald. They were bound for an extermination camp in
(07:26):
Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia. At one point, the train had to
make a stop, and the White Rabbit jumped. On his
chance to escape, He and a small group of other
prisoners fled into the surrounding woods. Many were killed immediately,
but the White Rabbit spent the next eight days hiding
in the woods before being recaptured. Still going by the
name Maurice Chaquette, he was placed in a camp for
(07:49):
French prisoners of war near the Czech border. He was
only there for two days before hatching another escape plan.
He managed to make a convincing disguise and broke out
of the camp. But if if you can believe it,
he still wasn't free. He had to make it across
a literal minefield to reach the American Army. Only at
that point, after months of torture and two daring escapes,
(08:10):
was the White Rabbit finally going to be safe. Now,
this is just one of the stories of the White
Rabbit's incredible exploits. After World War II, he was awarded
thirteen Medals of Honor for his various contributions to Allied intelligence,
and in nineteen forty five, an author received a copy
of a letter the White Rabbit had written while in Buchenwald.
(08:31):
This letter contained the spy's real name, Forrest Jo Thomas.
I won't fault you if you've never heard that name before,
but I'm sure you would recognize the name of the author,
Ian Fleming and the character that he created after reading
this letter. The name was Bond, James Bond. I hope
(08:53):
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me, Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
(09:16):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Those who stand up for their convictions are often remembered
for their dedication and bravery. Well, not everyone is remembered
that way exactly, people like French philosopher and writer Francois
Marie Aroway. Although you probably don't know him by that name,
he's better remembered by his pen name Voltaire. And Voltaire
wrote a lot to paraphrase a popular musical about a
(00:58):
certain founding father, writing like he was running out of time,
composing everything from plays, novels, poems, essays, and even scientific papers.
By the time he died in seventeen seventy eight, Voltaire
had written tens of thousands of works, and although he'd
found popularity both domestically and overseas, he was not universally liked.
(01:19):
While he was still alive, the Roman Catholic Church loathed
him for referring to Christianity as propagandistic. He also perpetuated
a number of myths about the Church. For example, he
claimed that they had cut the number of Gospels down
from fifty to four. But Christianity and the Church weren't alone.
Voltaire seemed to aim his pen in any direction he
(01:39):
deemed worthy of criticism. He was also wildly anti Semitic
in his writings about Judaism and the Jewish people, and
also lobbed a heavy amount of vitriol toward Islam and
people of color. He disagreed with the idea of Adam
and Eve as represented in the Bible, and suggested that
each race came to be through various means across the globe,
(02:00):
rather than descended from one couple. But in the same
breath he would disparage black Africans as possessing less natural
humanity than white Europeans. Voltaire was the embodiment of cognitive dissonance,
perhaps best expressed in his stance on slavery. Scholars argue
as to whether he actually opposed the slave trade itself,
(02:21):
nor simply the harsh and violent conditions to which enslaved
people were subjected. Regardless and a bit surprising. He was
more enlightened than others on the subject, and that got
him into hot water with the powers that be. His
body of work, although problematic and downright offensive at times,
made him wildly popular, especially among his fellow writers. Victor
(02:41):
Hugo once said, to name Voltaire is to characterize the
entire eighteenth century. Depending on who you were, that could
either be a good thing or a very bad thing.
Napoleon Bonaparte admired him, as did Frederick the Great, but
those ringing endorsements don't exactly endear him to us today.
Adolf Hitler insulted Frederick's conversations with Voltaire while outlining his
(03:03):
plans for world conquest during World War II. The racist
and nationalistic rhetoric within Voltaire's works have led to a
backlash today. In fact, a statue of the philosopher that
once stood in Paris was torn down back in August
of twenty twenty. His legacy is tainted, some might say
it's cursed. After Voltaire died in seventeen seventy eight, a
(03:25):
French polymath by the name of Beaumarche purchased the rights
to as much of his back catalog as possible from
his old publisher, but Voltaire's work had been banned in France,
so in seventeen ninety nine beau Marche printed the manuscripts
in Germany instead, but he lost a lot of money
on the venture and his life. He died a mere
three months after he started publishing a complete collection of
(03:47):
Voltaire's writing, and then in the early eighteen hundreds, another
publisher put out a sixty volume edition of Voltaire's works.
The endeavor practically bankrupted them. Over the next seventy years,
at least eight publishers went broke by releasing complete Voltaire collections.
One went blind, while another was killed by a woman
he accused of stealing. It appeared that whenever someone tried
(04:11):
to publish a full series of Voltaire's portfolio, they met
an unfortunate end, either financially or mortally. Voltaire was a
controversial figure when he was alive. His opinions alienated almost everyone,
and he was no stranger to having his work cursed
by his contemporaries. What no one realized, though, was that
the twenty thousand letters and two thousand books about religion
(04:34):
and other cultures that he left behind might actually have
been cursed. Some fictional characters are so iconic that they
(04:55):
almost feel real. Think about Michael Scott from the Office
or Walter White in Breaking Bad. I'm not embarrassed to
admit that I can quote those guys verbatim, and I
know their personalities like the back of my hand. The
best characters are able to take on a life of
their own, and some of them are even based on
real people. In fact, one twentieth century writer created a
(05:15):
character that became so popular he has since been the
subject of a number of books and movies, and rumor
has it he's based on an actual person whose story
is as interesting as the fictional tales he inspired. Let
me set the scenario for you. It was June of
nineteen forty four, right in the midst of World War Two,
and our real life hero was in Germany trapped at
(05:36):
the Nazi run Bukenwald concentration camp. He was there to
be executed. You see, he had been charged with terrorism.
Most Nazi officers knew his background too. They even had
a nickname for him, the White Rabbit. For the last
year and a half, the White Rabbit had worked with
the British Air Intelligence Agency. He parachuted into Nazi occupied
France three different times and set up a central resistance
(06:00):
quarters in Paris. When his work was discovered, the Gestapo
put a bounty on his head, and he spent the
next eight weeks on the run before escaping back to
his home country of England. As soon as he crossed
the border, he met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
to request more weapons for French resistance fighters. In February
of nineteen forty four, four months before he landed in Buchenwald,
(06:21):
he re entered France to supervise those weapons shipments, but
things didn't go as planned. Someone betrayed him, and three
weeks later he was captured by the Gestapo. The Nazi
police hoped to get some valuable information out of the spy,
but his lips were sealed. They spent the next four
months subjecting him to every kind of torture you can imagine,
but he never cracked. Frustrated, the Gestapo shipped him off
(06:44):
to a concentration camp to die, but the White Rabbit
didn't go down without a fight. He managed to befriend
and probably bribe a German guard. Together they came up
with an idea to save our hero's life give him
a brand new identity, which was actually easy than you
might think. The German guard pretended to execute him, then
gave him an ID card that belonged to a Frenchman
(07:06):
who had already been killed at Buchenwald, and just like that,
the White Rabbit had a new name, Maurice Chaquette. Still,
Maurice hadn't really saved himself. He'd only bought some time.
Less than a year later, in April of nineteen forty five,
he was shoved onto a train filled with other prisoners
from Buchenwald. They were bound for an extermination camp in
(07:26):
Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia. At one point, the train had to
make a stop, and the White Rabbit jumped. On his
chance to escape, He and a small group of other
prisoners fled into the surrounding woods. Many were killed immediately,
but the White Rabbit spent the next eight days hiding
in the woods before being recaptured. Still going by the
name Maurice Chaquette, he was placed in a camp for
(07:49):
French prisoners of war near the Czech border. He was
only there for two days before hatching another escape plan.
He managed to make a convincing disguise and broke out
of the camp. But if if you can believe it,
he still wasn't free. He had to make it across
a literal minefield to reach the American Army. Only at
that point, after months of torture and two daring escapes,
(08:10):
was the White Rabbit finally going to be safe. Now,
this is just one of the stories of the White
Rabbit's incredible exploits. After World War II, he was awarded
thirteen Medals of Honor for his various contributions to Allied intelligence,
and in nineteen forty five, an author received a copy
of a letter the White Rabbit had written while in Buchenwald.
(08:31):
This letter contained the spy's real name, Forrest Jo Thomas.
I won't fault you if you've never heard that name before,
but I'm sure you would recognize the name of the author,
Ian Fleming and the character that he created after reading
this letter. The name was Bond, James Bond. I hope
(08:53):
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me, Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
(09:16):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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