October 3, 2019 • 33 mins
Kaiser Wilhelm II was nothing if not ambitious, and he had grand geopolitical plans to increase German influence across the planet. In his mind, there was one big roadblock in the way — the pesky United States. Join the guys as they explore the bizarre German plans to invade the U.S.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Uh. Several of our listeners today will be
familiar with a little country called Germany. I'm kidding Germany
as a huge country. As of seventeen, Germany alone accounted
for twenty eight percent of the economy in the EU,
according to the International Monetary Fund. I'm ben hey, I'm
(00:50):
no remember that weird Al song the Ryer the Kaiser.
It was like a joke on the eye of the tiger.
That's all I got. You know, weird Al is such
a technically phenomenal musician. Have you see him? Whale on
an accordion? Absolutely shreds Those keys are flying everywhere. I
(01:10):
don't know how you must go through an accordion a day,
and you know who is shredding on the producer in today,
our super producer Casey Pegram is here in spirit and
has bequeathed the next few episodes to our guest super
producer j J. Pauseway, I love that word bequeath man. Yeah, yeah,
(01:31):
it's so if it's very princely. What makes me think
of giving someone in a state or a fine castle
with linens and you know, high bedposts and things like that,
and everybody senses that that gravity. The drama that comes
with the use of that word such that if you
if you, if, if you're on the street and someone
(01:51):
asks you for a dollar or something and you say, yeah,
I'll bequeath you a dollar, they'll think you're being rude,
you know, because words have power. That's misuse of the
word band. That is gross negligence when using that where
you can just throw around bequeath. It's like bestowing right now,
there's there has to be respect on both sides of
the equation. But when bequeathing something, I think, at least
(02:11):
in modern English here in the States, the implication is
that something is posthumously given to someone. I have bequeathed
this and yeah, exactly, j J is JJ is looking on.
This is his first time working with us on Ridiculous History.
JJ thumbs up, thumbs down. How you doing well, that's
(02:33):
a strong thumbs up. Okay, we're gonna have to check
back in the end and see why he was always
my favorite son. Strong thumbs So, as you know, longtime listeners,
our show is based here in Atlanta, Georgia, which is
based here in these United States of ours. We mentioned
Germany at the top because today Germany is this incredibly powerful,
(02:59):
strong econo coomic, cultural, socio political force, and this was
not always the case. You see, Germany was kind of
late to the game of geopolitics. By the time the
nineteenth century came to close. It was sort of an
(03:19):
upstart in many other countries eyes because Germany, as we
know it really coalesces in eighteen seventy one when a
bunch of different provinces are unified at the end of
the Franco Prussian War, and at the time there was
this Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and he adopted this policy
(03:40):
he called real politic. This meant what they wanted to
do through the pursuit of real politics was to kind
of make Germany the go to mediator for European affairs,
such that like, if France and Britain have a problem,
they will speak with Germany and Germany will help try
(04:02):
to solve it. But the weird thing is, soon after
a guy named Kaiser Wilhelm the Second took over the
nation change the tone became nationalistic, militarily aggressive, and they said,
you know, why be mediators when we can expand our
(04:23):
empire into a world power. And this is where our
story sort of takes place. Right like two decades before
World War One even began, the Kaiser had a plan
for the US. Yeah, the guy had a real priapism
for the for the United States. Here he was not uh,
he wanted it. He wanted to flex his superiority, or
(04:47):
in his mind, you know, what was superior. And he
did not like this thing called the Monroe Doctrine one bit,
which was a thing that we adopted that established us
as sort of a sort of world police almost like
I'm sort of standing in the way of UH colonization.
That would, you know, affect our relationship with other countries,
(05:09):
for example, like Germany had relationships with UH South American countries,
and we wanted to kind of stem the tide of
that stuff. And Wilhelm was like, who are you gonna say,
I'm Kaiser, Wilhelm, I have a golden I have a
golden horned helmet. You can tell me nothing. Yeah, it's true.
And this this is weird because it was a slow
(05:29):
burned situation way before World War One. The Kaiser thought,
you know, it's in the cards for Germany and the
United States to come into conflict, and it's not too
far down the road because we had already had as
you said, no, they had already been some budding of heads,
especially in eighteen eighty nine when the two countries were
(05:54):
fighting over control of the Samoan Islands, and Germany, as
you said, wanted to grow. Right, we had established that
it went from real politics to what it called velt
politic world politics, and so it needed to expand. But
as it was trying to expand, especially in the Far
East in the Pacific theater, it also found another country
(06:19):
trying to rapidly expand, that be in the US. This
kind of situation is something that you can play out
for yourself. If you have you know, six bucks and
hours of free time. You can pick up the game Civilization.
Are you aware of that? Have you ever played that?
It's sort of like the SIMS or sim City, but
with you know, countries, countries and world events. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(06:40):
And you run into this idea of mutually conflicting expansionist
goals pretty often. And the other thing is, you know,
how okay, so we're pretty hesitant, and rightly so to
ascribe personal or emotional motivation to historical figures were not
in their heads. We don't know. We only know what
they wrote, or we only know what was written about
(07:02):
them or what they said, especially in the days before
widespread audio video capture. We do know, however, that Kaiser
Willhelm the second Uh really hated the US. It was like,
it's corrupt, it's decadent, democracy, capitalism, it's for the birds,
(07:22):
it's all gone to the dogs, and various other animal
related figures of speech. We we know this um through multiple,
multiple different accounts, and the Monroe doctrine, which had been
in place for a long time, I think half a century. Yeah, yeah,
(07:43):
the Monroe doctrine really really stuck. In the Kaiser's Crawl.
I don't know. I just wanted to say the Kaiser's Craw.
It feels like maybe it's the name of the beach
Cobrat Restaurants, Florida, perhaps a brand of margarine, the Kaisers,
the Kaisers, I don't know, I'm thinking Kroc. It's different
than kraw. Well, we could have a whole Kaiser line
(08:05):
and the Kaiser's Kroc, the Kaiser's Craw, the Kaiser's crab,
crab dip, the Kaiser's crab dip. Not the Kaiser's crabs.
That's a that's probably a medical condition. Go get it
checked out. So so what what happens. He's he's mad
about the Monroe doctrine. Well, he's in sense's sense, he's
(08:28):
thinking big though, right, UM. He wanted to essentially get
unfeathered access to the Pacific Ocean. UM. He wanted to
completely go against the Monroe doctrine and had all of
these very detailed military plans in place to establish a
naval base in the Caribbean in Cuba or possibly Puerto Rico,
(08:50):
and then that would give them access to South America,
Central America and the Panama Canal UM, which it was
hoping to take over once it was done being built.
It was still in the process of being built. You know.
He had big, big designs on the future, UM and
in order to do that, he needed to deal with
the United States. And there's a fantastic article from Gizmoto
(09:14):
called the Secret German Scheme to Invade America UM before
the First World War, and it outlines this story beautifully. Yes, yes,
you heard the line correctly there, folks. You see, will Helm,
while very aggressive, very bellicosts, belligerent, and agro as we
would say today. While he was all those things, he
(09:35):
was not a nincompoop. He was not a dunderhead. Right.
He knew that there had to be some sort of
plan addressing the US, because the US, like any other country,
would not be particularly happy with this foreign empire being
in their backyard, especially on what they considered already is
(09:55):
their domain. There the um, the place where they were Hedgemon's.
So he says to his military thinkers, he says, Okay,
let's let's sketch out plans for how to deal with
the US. Do we want to offer the money, No?
Do we want to uh seek their approval for this
naval base and then access to the Panama Canal, No,
(10:17):
So let's just figure out how to attack and invade
the United States. The US is big, right, It's much
larger than Germany. So we don't want to take over
the US. But we want to force them to bargain
with us. We want to get them to the point
where we make them an offer they can't refuse. This
(10:42):
information only came to light in two thousand two, when
some of these plans, of which there are three, you
gotta have options were uncovered at the German military archives
in Freiburg. So why don't we start with UM plan one,
which we will call attack in Blockade so UM. The
naval lieutenant Eberhard von mante Um in eighteen night helped
(11:08):
draft up this plan that would essentially UM have the
German Navy sailing across the Atlantic UM making laying waste
to the U. S. Navy forces in the Atlantic UM.
And then there would be a targeted artillery attacks against
some very key infrastructure points like the Newport News ship
(11:31):
Building Center and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard UM and also
uh an area in Virginia known as the Hampton Roads area,
which is another military strong point that was seen. These
were seen as being the weakest points are the most
sensitive spots to conquer by Lieutenant von mante Um. And
then once you know they've made quick work of the
(11:53):
American forces, they would send some folks outs to parlay.
Big problem with this plan. Huge problem. What's that they
didn't have any of this stuff. They didn't have enough
ships to pull this stuff off. I mean, you know,
like you said, I mean the Kaiser wasn't an idiot,
but his reach definitely exceeded his grasp and just about
all of these plans. We don't want to spoil the
(12:13):
fun equals of poetry. I like it there. Yeah, yeah, So,
as you said, there there are three plans. Plan one
has some operational problems, right, has some non starters, not
just the lack of naval units on the German side,
but the fact that post Spanish American War, the cribbing
(12:34):
is lousy with US ships they're all over the place.
So they make another plan, Plan two of three. This
is the land invasion. Did they make? Is the land
invasion more reasonable now? Is it? Uh? Is it like
a smaller scope plan? Absolutely not, It's crazier, it's even bigger.
The Kaiser says, okay, so the naval stuff is not
(12:55):
gonna work out in this eight. So he goes to
von Mante as you said, and he said, is this time,
give me a plan. Give me a scenario in which
we invade New York City and Boston will need and
the plan requires sixty warships. Remember again they don't have
very many ships. Uh, supply chain with sixty cargo and
(13:19):
troops ships carrying thousand tons of coal, hundred thousand soldiers
huge amount of artillery, and the invasion force would have
taken a little less than a month to cross the Atlantic.
It's twenty five days. You can you can read more
about this as well with some direct quotes on American
(13:39):
heritage dot com about the German plan to evade America.
The idea was that they would have this huge naval
battle and they would secure superiority over US ships and
naval forces, and then German troops would make an amphibious
landing at Cape Cod. From there they would go to Boston.
They would fire or artillery into the city, so they'd
(14:02):
be attacking civilians here. And for the attack on New York,
they would land at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and warships
would fire at the harbor, going through Fort Hamilton's and Tompkins,
and then they would go to Manhattan and they would
try They were purposely going to target civilians to make
people panic, to make the authorities have to concentrate on
(14:24):
controlling and saving the civilian population as well as fighting
off these German forces. And then von Nantee was actually
kind of bullish on this one. He said, you know,
two to three battalions of infantry and just one battalion
of sappers should be efficient, and a sapper is a
(14:45):
term for a military engineer or combat engineer. So they'll
like lay mines, they'll prepare defenses. They're also specializing in
demolitions and breaching fortifications. Go, it was not aware of
this term. It's like lane sea essentially, doesn't it almost
sound like a term of abuse. Are sort of like
like a negative thing, like the old sap. Are you
(15:06):
it does? It does because we call people a sap.
So these two plans now are collectively called von Mantes
Winter Correspondence. If you use the right tone, winter Correspondence,
it sounds like it's the name of an outdated perfume,
you know what I mean. It sounds like Elizabeth Taylor's
(15:28):
new fragrance Winter Correspondence. Very formal though it is. It is,
it is. It's definitely not not the late night perfume
exactly now. It's like for the formal, you know. Indeed,
So this stuff, these plans were kept active, which means
they were still being considered and maybe tinkered with for
(15:50):
a for about ten years as Berlin kept trying to
expand its influence, and uh von Mante we know, continued
to think about this. Sure. Have we talked a little
bit about Count Alfred von Schliffen, No, not yet. Yeah,
he was the chief of Staff at the time, and
he considered these plans to be a series of fools errands. Right.
(16:13):
He thought that the idea of attacking a country three
thousand miles away it is possibly not the best idea.
I thought it was a terrible idea. Yeah. He literally
thought that it could become some kind of ship show.
Literally would be a ship show because there's ships involved.
To um. So here's the thing. We also have a
guy named Admiral Turpitz, who was considered the father of
(16:36):
the German navy. He was all about it, but he's
like a hawk, you know, which you would refer to
as a war He wanted to just like go out
there and show off his new toys. He had these
flotilla that they hadn't been able to deploy yet. This
is a great opportunity well, and it also could turn
into more funding for the fleet because see, this is
a thing that happens in every military. Of course, the
(16:57):
guy who's in charge of hammers one to find nails everywhere, right,
So if you're a hammer, every problem it's like a nail, right,
and this is an opportunity for the admiral to receive
more funding to build more ships, which gives him more power.
It's like the way Trump loves those invisible planes and right,
(17:18):
and he really wants to see them deployed. And von
Schlieflin he was still really loyal to the Kaiser. He
was his boy. So he didn't say anything. Yeah, he
didn't say anything. And at one at one very crucial point,
history hinges on this kind of stuff, folks. At one
crucial point, he was on the verge of ordering the
(17:41):
invasion of New York and then he stopped and he said, look,
the problem is, we just don't have the manpower for this, right. Uh.
It seems like a lot of people didn't even They
got so carried away, they got so in the bubble
that they didn't think of the implications of beginning this
much less actually carrying it out. And there's a great
(18:03):
article in the Guardian called German Archive reveals Kaiser's Plan
to Evade America by Kate Connolly, a journalists we've mentioned
before on this show, that breaks down some of the
blow by blow. Remember these are just the first two plans.
By nine, will Helm says, you know what, alright, alright, alright, alright, guys,
maybe I was getting a little hot under the collar.
(18:26):
Maybe we can't launch an invasion force from Germany, but
I still need that base in Cuba. And this leads
us to Plan three, Yeah, which is kind of a
mash shop, right, sort of a remix of the other
two that involves some some little tweaks. This was a
little bit more of a sensible kind of version of
the plan where they buy their time, they would establish
(18:47):
um a stronghold in Cuba, and uh, I don't know.
It kind of depended on sort of catching the attention
of the United States where it's like, oh man, they
mean business and now we're we're panicking. Um. That sort
of kills the element of surprise there. But uh, there's
will get into why none of these things were ever
going to happen. So all of these plans have a
(19:16):
couple of things in common. I would say maybe two
to three. First, it requires a massive build up of
German forces, right more than they have at the time,
and that build up has to occur in secret. That's
number one. Two, there can't be a big war in Europe,
a troubled, troubled continent that is pretty famous for having
(19:41):
at this time for having countries almost always a war
with one another totally. And then lastly they would have
to catch Uncle Sam by surprise. This is tough because
the US would likely, through its European allies, already be
very well aware of any German build up and probably
spend some manpower trying to figure out why they were
(20:02):
building up their forces. By the first decade of the
twenty century, we know that a lot of things started
going wrong. Germany witnessed a shift of domestic power in Europe.
France and Britain decided that they would grow up, so
now they're buddies, and they started shifting their forces elsewhere.
(20:24):
And then Germany wasn't able to get ahead of Britain
in the naval arms race. At the same time, well,
this is all happening in Europe. Can Currently, the US
begins to assert itself more in its sphere of influence
we talked about right the Caribbean, Central and South America. UH,
(20:45):
the US demonstrates a new variation on the Monroe doctrine,
something that people would call the Roosevelt corollary to the
Monroe doctrine. That's Theodore Roosevelt. Uh, And it's referring to
the time that the US sent naval forces to intervene
in the Venezuela Crisis of nineteen o two. The Roosevelt
(21:06):
corollary essentially states this that the US will intervene in
conflicts between European and Latin American countries. And this is
one of those policies that made the US what we
call a police power. Now. Just because these three plans
didn't work null, Uh, that doesn't mean Germany ever lost
(21:27):
its interest in, if not directly invading the US, seeing
it invaded. It kind of held onto that one, right,
I mean absolutely, Like as we established from the top
of the show, Um Kaiser Wilhelm was just you know,
he had a real bone to pick with everything about America.
I was gonna do whatever he could to either see
(21:47):
it fail, invade it personally, or just bad mouth that,
you know in his diaries. On a microcosmic level. It's
kind of like the way some people talk about their exes,
you know what I mean. It's strange. And even during
World War One, just like a little more in ten
years later, Germany was talking to Mexico and saying, hey,
you know what you should do. You should invade the US.
(22:10):
That would be hilarious and it would be awesome, and
we can both agree that's a pretty snooty country, right.
The US learned about this proposal because of something called
the Zimmerman Telegram. But let's let's pause for a second, because,
as we said, none of these plans came to fruition.
But it does give us an interesting opportunity. There were
(22:33):
several close calls, and this allows us to speculate on
what might have happened. We know the Kaiser and his
administration were seriously planning this, and they put a lot
of thought into it. But would it have worked, What
would have happened if they tried at least? I mean,
it's hard to say. We know a little bit about
(22:53):
what might have happened, but we also know that Germany
just wasn't set up for this at all, like in
terms of sheer number of ships. And that's even if
they had some kind of you know, stronghold fortress, impenetrable
you know, base close enough to United States to actually
amass some forces. Um. But the thing is the US
(23:14):
probably would have known about that before they even met
on the field or the waters of battle. Right, we
just have this un mess with Herble Navy that you
just can't you can't really go up against unless you're
set up to do so. They just weren't. Plus it's
tough to cross an ocean in that with those numbers
(23:36):
in secret. And even if okay, even if they had
attacked let's say they weren't with the plan to attack
New York City in Boston. Theodore Roosevelt is president at
the time, and as as we know from previous episodes
on this president, he's not really a backdown guy. Right
he faces down Rhino's Big Game and so on. Not
(23:58):
only would he probably have refused to negotiate, Uh, it
also doesn't really matter who the president was at the time.
Just in the numbers of forces, the US would be
able to pull things together very quickly because it's a
it's a home game for them, But the German forces
would be at the mercy of supply chains and any
(24:21):
assistance they could get from third parties, whatever those might be. Right. Also,
this is an ugly truth if it lasted for any
long amount of time or met with any modicum of success.
Um in any fashion. Then it's quite possible that a
lot of German Americans would have been discriminated against, maybe
even placed in camps the way Japanese Americans were during
(24:43):
World War Two. It's very good that this didn't happen.
It's one of those close calls, just from from multiple angles.
It's very difficult to physically invade the US because of
the rise and information technology and what we call asymmetrical warfare.
The best and most popular way to invade the United
(25:06):
States now from within is from within, through through telecommunications
right and through you know bots, things like that, to
to mess with the mind, to gaslight the nation, rather
than to attack its harbor's physically. Uh. And that's that's
our story. If if Kaiser Wilhelm too had Twitter, who
(25:26):
knows what would be happening right now? He would be
tweeting up storms. I guarantee, don't you think I believe you?
Guys seem to really like to hear himself talking. He
was also a big fan of of wiener dogs, you
know that been Docksin's. They're called deaf tubes for badgers
and other bowering animals. That's right. Um. He actually was
eventually exiled from Germany because he was responsible, I mean
(25:50):
this kind of blustering nature that he had, Um was
responsible for steering Germany into the First World War. They
ended up being disastrously defeated in nineteen eighteen, and Um
he was kind of seen as the scapegoat, the fall
guy for that, and he was because he single handedly
pushed the country into that. Um. But he was actually
(26:14):
allowed to escape being charged with war crimes for a
lot of the German atrocities and was eventually exiled to
Holland where he lived in a you know, a modest
castle called hoss dorn Um where he kept several docsins Um.
He had Wattle, Hexel and senta Um and he had
(26:35):
a few others as well and had five of them
buried at this this modest castle where he lived in exile.
Um and those are the most famous ones that I
mentioned the names of. And Senta was always with him
when he was during during the war, and that is
what earned that creature an actual like a headstone with
(26:55):
a with a very sentimental um dedication. He also reminds
me of the Prussian King Frederick Wilhelm, the First of Prussia,
in that he had he had this weird military. I
hesitate to use the word, but he had a military fetish,
especially for uniforms. He was obsessed with them. Apparently he
(27:17):
thought dressing gowns were for WIMPs and milk toast types,
but he himself had more than four hundred military uniforms.
He was known to have them for every occasion. He
would have uniforms for going to parties, uniforms for eating out, uh,
some informal uniforms when he's just kind of doing his
(27:38):
version in Netflix and chill at home. He had uniforms
to greet other uniform people. And he also did really
we're not joking at the beginning there. He did have
a helmet of solid gold, and when he was informal receptions,
he would change his wardrobe like five or six times
in one night. And like, here's how here's how specific
(28:02):
and strange it was. And picture this description with a
bevy of of wiener dogs or badger death tubes running
around his ankles. Whenever he ate plumb pudding, he insisted
on dressing as a British admiral. He also wanted to
design his army's uniforms, but they were pretty horrible designs
(28:24):
like they didn't really fit the soldiers. Uh. They you
couldn't move around in them. They itched in the summer,
they weren't warm in the winter. But the big Daddy
of the army liked their style. So a lot of
us listening to today's episode are wondering about the timing.
(28:44):
Kaiser Wilhelm the Second was born in eighteen fifty nine
on the seven January, and he passed away in June four,
nineteen forty one. He was the last German Emperor and
King of Prussia. However, if you if you noticed the
timeline there, he was alive while Adolf Hitler was alive,
(29:08):
you know, after he had steered Germany in the World
War One. In Germany was defeated ninet eighteen, and he
was exiled in Holland, as as I believe you mentioned earlier,
not yet he lived in that he lived in that
small castle, but he kept his eyes on Germany. He
was writing his memoirs and blaming the First World War
(29:28):
on everyone except for one guy himself. And yeah, and
in nineteen forty he wrote a really weird telegram to
Adolf Hitler and said, congratulations, you have one using my troops,
and he was thinking he was like, all right, as
a good German, Hitler is going to restore my throne
(29:49):
right now. Hitler already was was on record as having
as not liking right at all. Right, he turned him down,
he said nope, and didn't get him a soft pass,
really just snubbed him. Kaiser was mad, and he said, okay,
don't send my body back to Germany until the monarchy
and the real rule of laws restored. And he said,
(30:12):
and also no Nazi stuff at my funeral. Yeah, they
did not honor those wishes whatsoever. His his estate was
absolutely covered with swastika's. Yeah, and there there ends the
story of Kaiser Wilhelm two's ill faded plan to invade
(30:33):
the United States. He did get a little bit of
a bone thrown to him, literally, his his own bones
were left there in a masoleum um in Holland rather
than returned back to Germany. So he got a little
song that he wanted, I guess. So. Yeah, but look,
if you look at the list of stuff, this guy
wanted a lot. He wanted a lot and didn't have
too much reciprocation. I think it was just so focused
(30:56):
on expanding his empire that he went a little bit
into mad king terry. Absolutely this thing I always wonder
about these kinds of monarchs, like is it all it's
all just for their own glory, Like it's not even
like even these plans were so poorly thought out, they
weren't realistic to achieve it was obviously does he was
(31:17):
just bluster and just wanting to kind of make himself
out to be some sort of you know, military genius
when his own military advisors are like, no, man, this
is this is not gonna work. He wanted to be
a conquering king. And the strange thing about conquering kings
or any kind of conquering, despot expansionist oriented leader is
(31:37):
that often they're they're piss poor maintainers of a kingdom
and empire or a country. You know, they spend so
much time focusing on growing stuff that they don't support
the people who already lived there, were already part of
their kingdom, their empire or their country. Yeah, that feels
like tales all as time. It's almost like, you know,
(31:58):
they're the least of of their concern. And so we
draw a close to today's episode, but not the show.
As we said at the beginning, let's check back in
with our guests. Super producer j J j J was
still thumbs up or thumbs down? Oh, thumbs up. Okay,
you're not thumbs upping the Kaiser's plan, are you? I
am not thumbs upping the Kaiser's plan. Not into that great,
(32:21):
that's j j uh. So Thank you so thanks so much, man,
seriously for for joining us on today's episode. Thanks as
always to our super producer Casey Pegram. Thanks to Alex Williams,
who composed our theme, um research associate Gabe Losier and
Ryan Barrish. Christopher Haciota is here in spirit as always.
Thanks of course to Eve's Jeff Coat, who recently finally
(32:44):
appeared on an episode of our show. Thanks for classing
it up their Eves uh And I don't want to
say thanks to the Kaiser, but I will say thanks
to everyone in the government at that time who kept
him from trying to invade the US. We'll see you
next time, Fooks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
(33:16):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Uh. Several of our listeners today will be
familiar with a little country called Germany. I'm kidding Germany
as a huge country. As of seventeen, Germany alone accounted
for twenty eight percent of the economy in the EU,
according to the International Monetary Fund. I'm ben hey, I'm
(00:50):
no remember that weird Al song the Ryer the Kaiser.
It was like a joke on the eye of the tiger.
That's all I got. You know, weird Al is such
a technically phenomenal musician. Have you see him? Whale on
an accordion? Absolutely shreds Those keys are flying everywhere. I
(01:10):
don't know how you must go through an accordion a day,
and you know who is shredding on the producer in today,
our super producer Casey Pegram is here in spirit and
has bequeathed the next few episodes to our guest super
producer j J. Pauseway, I love that word bequeath man. Yeah, yeah,
(01:31):
it's so if it's very princely. What makes me think
of giving someone in a state or a fine castle
with linens and you know, high bedposts and things like that,
and everybody senses that that gravity. The drama that comes
with the use of that word such that if you
if you, if, if you're on the street and someone
(01:51):
asks you for a dollar or something and you say, yeah,
I'll bequeath you a dollar, they'll think you're being rude,
you know, because words have power. That's misuse of the
word band. That is gross negligence when using that where
you can just throw around bequeath. It's like bestowing right now,
there's there has to be respect on both sides of
the equation. But when bequeathing something, I think, at least
(02:11):
in modern English here in the States, the implication is
that something is posthumously given to someone. I have bequeathed
this and yeah, exactly, j J is JJ is looking on.
This is his first time working with us on Ridiculous History.
JJ thumbs up, thumbs down. How you doing well, that's
(02:33):
a strong thumbs up. Okay, we're gonna have to check
back in the end and see why he was always
my favorite son. Strong thumbs So, as you know, longtime listeners,
our show is based here in Atlanta, Georgia, which is
based here in these United States of ours. We mentioned
Germany at the top because today Germany is this incredibly powerful,
(02:59):
strong econo coomic, cultural, socio political force, and this was
not always the case. You see, Germany was kind of
late to the game of geopolitics. By the time the
nineteenth century came to close. It was sort of an
(03:19):
upstart in many other countries eyes because Germany, as we
know it really coalesces in eighteen seventy one when a
bunch of different provinces are unified at the end of
the Franco Prussian War, and at the time there was
this Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and he adopted this policy
(03:40):
he called real politic. This meant what they wanted to
do through the pursuit of real politics was to kind
of make Germany the go to mediator for European affairs,
such that like, if France and Britain have a problem,
they will speak with Germany and Germany will help try
(04:02):
to solve it. But the weird thing is, soon after
a guy named Kaiser Wilhelm the Second took over the
nation change the tone became nationalistic, militarily aggressive, and they said,
you know, why be mediators when we can expand our
(04:23):
empire into a world power. And this is where our
story sort of takes place. Right like two decades before
World War One even began, the Kaiser had a plan
for the US. Yeah, the guy had a real priapism
for the for the United States. Here he was not uh,
he wanted it. He wanted to flex his superiority, or
(04:47):
in his mind, you know, what was superior. And he
did not like this thing called the Monroe Doctrine one bit,
which was a thing that we adopted that established us
as sort of a sort of world police almost like
I'm sort of standing in the way of UH colonization.
That would, you know, affect our relationship with other countries,
(05:09):
for example, like Germany had relationships with UH South American countries,
and we wanted to kind of stem the tide of
that stuff. And Wilhelm was like, who are you gonna say,
I'm Kaiser, Wilhelm, I have a golden I have a
golden horned helmet. You can tell me nothing. Yeah, it's true.
And this this is weird because it was a slow
(05:29):
burned situation way before World War One. The Kaiser thought,
you know, it's in the cards for Germany and the
United States to come into conflict, and it's not too
far down the road because we had already had as
you said, no, they had already been some budding of heads,
especially in eighteen eighty nine when the two countries were
(05:54):
fighting over control of the Samoan Islands, and Germany, as
you said, wanted to grow. Right, we had established that
it went from real politics to what it called velt
politic world politics, and so it needed to expand. But
as it was trying to expand, especially in the Far
East in the Pacific theater, it also found another country
(06:19):
trying to rapidly expand, that be in the US. This
kind of situation is something that you can play out
for yourself. If you have you know, six bucks and
hours of free time. You can pick up the game Civilization.
Are you aware of that? Have you ever played that?
It's sort of like the SIMS or sim City, but
with you know, countries, countries and world events. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(06:40):
And you run into this idea of mutually conflicting expansionist
goals pretty often. And the other thing is, you know,
how okay, so we're pretty hesitant, and rightly so to
ascribe personal or emotional motivation to historical figures were not
in their heads. We don't know. We only know what
they wrote, or we only know what was written about
(07:02):
them or what they said, especially in the days before
widespread audio video capture. We do know, however, that Kaiser
Willhelm the second Uh really hated the US. It was like,
it's corrupt, it's decadent, democracy, capitalism, it's for the birds,
(07:22):
it's all gone to the dogs, and various other animal
related figures of speech. We we know this um through multiple,
multiple different accounts, and the Monroe doctrine, which had been
in place for a long time, I think half a century. Yeah, yeah,
(07:43):
the Monroe doctrine really really stuck. In the Kaiser's Crawl.
I don't know. I just wanted to say the Kaiser's Craw.
It feels like maybe it's the name of the beach
Cobrat Restaurants, Florida, perhaps a brand of margarine, the Kaisers,
the Kaisers, I don't know, I'm thinking Kroc. It's different
than kraw. Well, we could have a whole Kaiser line
(08:05):
and the Kaiser's Kroc, the Kaiser's Craw, the Kaiser's crab,
crab dip, the Kaiser's crab dip. Not the Kaiser's crabs.
That's a that's probably a medical condition. Go get it
checked out. So so what what happens. He's he's mad
about the Monroe doctrine. Well, he's in sense's sense, he's
(08:28):
thinking big though, right, UM. He wanted to essentially get
unfeathered access to the Pacific Ocean. UM. He wanted to
completely go against the Monroe doctrine and had all of
these very detailed military plans in place to establish a
naval base in the Caribbean in Cuba or possibly Puerto Rico,
(08:50):
and then that would give them access to South America,
Central America and the Panama Canal UM, which it was
hoping to take over once it was done being built.
It was still in the process of being built. You know.
He had big, big designs on the future, UM and
in order to do that, he needed to deal with
the United States. And there's a fantastic article from Gizmoto
(09:14):
called the Secret German Scheme to Invade America UM before
the First World War, and it outlines this story beautifully. Yes, yes,
you heard the line correctly there, folks. You see, will Helm,
while very aggressive, very bellicosts, belligerent, and agro as we
would say today. While he was all those things, he
(09:35):
was not a nincompoop. He was not a dunderhead. Right.
He knew that there had to be some sort of
plan addressing the US, because the US, like any other country,
would not be particularly happy with this foreign empire being
in their backyard, especially on what they considered already is
(09:55):
their domain. There the um, the place where they were Hedgemon's.
So he says to his military thinkers, he says, Okay,
let's let's sketch out plans for how to deal with
the US. Do we want to offer the money, No?
Do we want to uh seek their approval for this
naval base and then access to the Panama Canal, No,
(10:17):
So let's just figure out how to attack and invade
the United States. The US is big, right, It's much
larger than Germany. So we don't want to take over
the US. But we want to force them to bargain
with us. We want to get them to the point
where we make them an offer they can't refuse. This
(10:42):
information only came to light in two thousand two, when
some of these plans, of which there are three, you
gotta have options were uncovered at the German military archives
in Freiburg. So why don't we start with UM plan one,
which we will call attack in Blockade so UM. The
naval lieutenant Eberhard von mante Um in eighteen night helped
(11:08):
draft up this plan that would essentially UM have the
German Navy sailing across the Atlantic UM making laying waste
to the U. S. Navy forces in the Atlantic UM.
And then there would be a targeted artillery attacks against
some very key infrastructure points like the Newport News ship
(11:31):
Building Center and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard UM and also
uh an area in Virginia known as the Hampton Roads area,
which is another military strong point that was seen. These
were seen as being the weakest points are the most
sensitive spots to conquer by Lieutenant von mante Um. And
then once you know they've made quick work of the
(11:53):
American forces, they would send some folks outs to parlay.
Big problem with this plan. Huge problem. What's that they
didn't have any of this stuff. They didn't have enough
ships to pull this stuff off. I mean, you know,
like you said, I mean the Kaiser wasn't an idiot,
but his reach definitely exceeded his grasp and just about
all of these plans. We don't want to spoil the
(12:13):
fun equals of poetry. I like it there. Yeah, yeah, So,
as you said, there there are three plans. Plan one
has some operational problems, right, has some non starters, not
just the lack of naval units on the German side,
but the fact that post Spanish American War, the cribbing
(12:34):
is lousy with US ships they're all over the place.
So they make another plan, Plan two of three. This
is the land invasion. Did they make? Is the land
invasion more reasonable now? Is it? Uh? Is it like
a smaller scope plan? Absolutely not, It's crazier, it's even bigger.
The Kaiser says, okay, so the naval stuff is not
(12:55):
gonna work out in this eight. So he goes to
von Mante as you said, and he said, is this time,
give me a plan. Give me a scenario in which
we invade New York City and Boston will need and
the plan requires sixty warships. Remember again they don't have
very many ships. Uh, supply chain with sixty cargo and
(13:19):
troops ships carrying thousand tons of coal, hundred thousand soldiers
huge amount of artillery, and the invasion force would have
taken a little less than a month to cross the Atlantic.
It's twenty five days. You can you can read more
about this as well with some direct quotes on American
(13:39):
heritage dot com about the German plan to evade America.
The idea was that they would have this huge naval
battle and they would secure superiority over US ships and
naval forces, and then German troops would make an amphibious
landing at Cape Cod. From there they would go to Boston.
They would fire or artillery into the city, so they'd
(14:02):
be attacking civilians here. And for the attack on New York,
they would land at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and warships
would fire at the harbor, going through Fort Hamilton's and Tompkins,
and then they would go to Manhattan and they would
try They were purposely going to target civilians to make
people panic, to make the authorities have to concentrate on
(14:24):
controlling and saving the civilian population as well as fighting
off these German forces. And then von Nantee was actually
kind of bullish on this one. He said, you know,
two to three battalions of infantry and just one battalion
of sappers should be efficient, and a sapper is a
(14:45):
term for a military engineer or combat engineer. So they'll
like lay mines, they'll prepare defenses. They're also specializing in
demolitions and breaching fortifications. Go, it was not aware of
this term. It's like lane sea essentially, doesn't it almost
sound like a term of abuse. Are sort of like
like a negative thing, like the old sap. Are you
(15:06):
it does? It does because we call people a sap.
So these two plans now are collectively called von Mantes
Winter Correspondence. If you use the right tone, winter Correspondence,
it sounds like it's the name of an outdated perfume,
you know what I mean. It sounds like Elizabeth Taylor's
(15:28):
new fragrance Winter Correspondence. Very formal though it is. It is,
it is. It's definitely not not the late night perfume
exactly now. It's like for the formal, you know. Indeed,
So this stuff, these plans were kept active, which means
they were still being considered and maybe tinkered with for
(15:50):
a for about ten years as Berlin kept trying to
expand its influence, and uh von Mante we know, continued
to think about this. Sure. Have we talked a little
bit about Count Alfred von Schliffen, No, not yet. Yeah,
he was the chief of Staff at the time, and
he considered these plans to be a series of fools errands. Right.
(16:13):
He thought that the idea of attacking a country three
thousand miles away it is possibly not the best idea.
I thought it was a terrible idea. Yeah. He literally
thought that it could become some kind of ship show.
Literally would be a ship show because there's ships involved.
To um. So here's the thing. We also have a
guy named Admiral Turpitz, who was considered the father of
(16:36):
the German navy. He was all about it, but he's
like a hawk, you know, which you would refer to
as a war He wanted to just like go out
there and show off his new toys. He had these
flotilla that they hadn't been able to deploy yet. This
is a great opportunity well, and it also could turn
into more funding for the fleet because see, this is
a thing that happens in every military. Of course, the
(16:57):
guy who's in charge of hammers one to find nails everywhere, right,
So if you're a hammer, every problem it's like a nail, right,
and this is an opportunity for the admiral to receive
more funding to build more ships, which gives him more power.
It's like the way Trump loves those invisible planes and right,
(17:18):
and he really wants to see them deployed. And von
Schlieflin he was still really loyal to the Kaiser. He
was his boy. So he didn't say anything. Yeah, he
didn't say anything. And at one at one very crucial point,
history hinges on this kind of stuff, folks. At one
crucial point, he was on the verge of ordering the
(17:41):
invasion of New York and then he stopped and he said, look,
the problem is, we just don't have the manpower for this, right. Uh.
It seems like a lot of people didn't even They
got so carried away, they got so in the bubble
that they didn't think of the implications of beginning this
much less actually carrying it out. And there's a great
(18:03):
article in the Guardian called German Archive reveals Kaiser's Plan
to Evade America by Kate Connolly, a journalists we've mentioned
before on this show, that breaks down some of the
blow by blow. Remember these are just the first two plans.
By nine, will Helm says, you know what, alright, alright, alright, alright, guys,
maybe I was getting a little hot under the collar.
(18:26):
Maybe we can't launch an invasion force from Germany, but
I still need that base in Cuba. And this leads
us to Plan three, Yeah, which is kind of a
mash shop, right, sort of a remix of the other
two that involves some some little tweaks. This was a
little bit more of a sensible kind of version of
the plan where they buy their time, they would establish
(18:47):
um a stronghold in Cuba, and uh, I don't know.
It kind of depended on sort of catching the attention
of the United States where it's like, oh man, they
mean business and now we're we're panicking. Um. That sort
of kills the element of surprise there. But uh, there's
will get into why none of these things were ever
going to happen. So all of these plans have a
(19:16):
couple of things in common. I would say maybe two
to three. First, it requires a massive build up of
German forces, right more than they have at the time,
and that build up has to occur in secret. That's
number one. Two, there can't be a big war in Europe,
a troubled, troubled continent that is pretty famous for having
(19:41):
at this time for having countries almost always a war
with one another totally. And then lastly they would have
to catch Uncle Sam by surprise. This is tough because
the US would likely, through its European allies, already be
very well aware of any German build up and probably
spend some manpower trying to figure out why they were
(20:02):
building up their forces. By the first decade of the
twenty century, we know that a lot of things started
going wrong. Germany witnessed a shift of domestic power in Europe.
France and Britain decided that they would grow up, so
now they're buddies, and they started shifting their forces elsewhere.
(20:24):
And then Germany wasn't able to get ahead of Britain
in the naval arms race. At the same time, well,
this is all happening in Europe. Can Currently, the US
begins to assert itself more in its sphere of influence
we talked about right the Caribbean, Central and South America. UH,
(20:45):
the US demonstrates a new variation on the Monroe doctrine,
something that people would call the Roosevelt corollary to the
Monroe doctrine. That's Theodore Roosevelt. Uh, And it's referring to
the time that the US sent naval forces to intervene
in the Venezuela Crisis of nineteen o two. The Roosevelt
(21:06):
corollary essentially states this that the US will intervene in
conflicts between European and Latin American countries. And this is
one of those policies that made the US what we
call a police power. Now. Just because these three plans
didn't work null, Uh, that doesn't mean Germany ever lost
(21:27):
its interest in, if not directly invading the US, seeing
it invaded. It kind of held onto that one, right,
I mean absolutely, Like as we established from the top
of the show, Um Kaiser Wilhelm was just you know,
he had a real bone to pick with everything about America.
I was gonna do whatever he could to either see
(21:47):
it fail, invade it personally, or just bad mouth that,
you know in his diaries. On a microcosmic level. It's
kind of like the way some people talk about their exes,
you know what I mean. It's strange. And even during
World War One, just like a little more in ten
years later, Germany was talking to Mexico and saying, hey,
you know what you should do. You should invade the US.
(22:10):
That would be hilarious and it would be awesome, and
we can both agree that's a pretty snooty country, right.
The US learned about this proposal because of something called
the Zimmerman Telegram. But let's let's pause for a second, because,
as we said, none of these plans came to fruition.
But it does give us an interesting opportunity. There were
(22:33):
several close calls, and this allows us to speculate on
what might have happened. We know the Kaiser and his
administration were seriously planning this, and they put a lot
of thought into it. But would it have worked, What
would have happened if they tried at least? I mean,
it's hard to say. We know a little bit about
(22:53):
what might have happened, but we also know that Germany
just wasn't set up for this at all, like in
terms of sheer number of ships. And that's even if
they had some kind of you know, stronghold fortress, impenetrable
you know, base close enough to United States to actually
amass some forces. Um. But the thing is the US
(23:14):
probably would have known about that before they even met
on the field or the waters of battle. Right, we
just have this un mess with Herble Navy that you
just can't you can't really go up against unless you're
set up to do so. They just weren't. Plus it's
tough to cross an ocean in that with those numbers
(23:36):
in secret. And even if okay, even if they had
attacked let's say they weren't with the plan to attack
New York City in Boston. Theodore Roosevelt is president at
the time, and as as we know from previous episodes
on this president, he's not really a backdown guy. Right
he faces down Rhino's Big Game and so on. Not
(23:58):
only would he probably have refused to negotiate, Uh, it
also doesn't really matter who the president was at the time.
Just in the numbers of forces, the US would be
able to pull things together very quickly because it's a
it's a home game for them, But the German forces
would be at the mercy of supply chains and any
(24:21):
assistance they could get from third parties, whatever those might be. Right. Also,
this is an ugly truth if it lasted for any
long amount of time or met with any modicum of success.
Um in any fashion. Then it's quite possible that a
lot of German Americans would have been discriminated against, maybe
even placed in camps the way Japanese Americans were during
(24:43):
World War Two. It's very good that this didn't happen.
It's one of those close calls, just from from multiple angles.
It's very difficult to physically invade the US because of
the rise and information technology and what we call asymmetrical warfare.
The best and most popular way to invade the United
(25:06):
States now from within is from within, through through telecommunications
right and through you know bots, things like that, to
to mess with the mind, to gaslight the nation, rather
than to attack its harbor's physically. Uh. And that's that's
our story. If if Kaiser Wilhelm too had Twitter, who
(25:26):
knows what would be happening right now? He would be
tweeting up storms. I guarantee, don't you think I believe you?
Guys seem to really like to hear himself talking. He
was also a big fan of of wiener dogs, you
know that been Docksin's. They're called deaf tubes for badgers
and other bowering animals. That's right. Um. He actually was
eventually exiled from Germany because he was responsible, I mean
(25:50):
this kind of blustering nature that he had, Um was
responsible for steering Germany into the First World War. They
ended up being disastrously defeated in nineteen eighteen, and Um
he was kind of seen as the scapegoat, the fall
guy for that, and he was because he single handedly
pushed the country into that. Um. But he was actually
(26:14):
allowed to escape being charged with war crimes for a
lot of the German atrocities and was eventually exiled to
Holland where he lived in a you know, a modest
castle called hoss dorn Um where he kept several docsins Um.
He had Wattle, Hexel and senta Um and he had
(26:35):
a few others as well and had five of them
buried at this this modest castle where he lived in exile.
Um and those are the most famous ones that I
mentioned the names of. And Senta was always with him
when he was during during the war, and that is
what earned that creature an actual like a headstone with
(26:55):
a with a very sentimental um dedication. He also reminds
me of the Prussian King Frederick Wilhelm, the First of Prussia,
in that he had he had this weird military. I
hesitate to use the word, but he had a military fetish,
especially for uniforms. He was obsessed with them. Apparently he
(27:17):
thought dressing gowns were for WIMPs and milk toast types,
but he himself had more than four hundred military uniforms.
He was known to have them for every occasion. He
would have uniforms for going to parties, uniforms for eating out, uh,
some informal uniforms when he's just kind of doing his
(27:38):
version in Netflix and chill at home. He had uniforms
to greet other uniform people. And he also did really
we're not joking at the beginning there. He did have
a helmet of solid gold, and when he was informal receptions,
he would change his wardrobe like five or six times
in one night. And like, here's how here's how specific
(28:02):
and strange it was. And picture this description with a
bevy of of wiener dogs or badger death tubes running
around his ankles. Whenever he ate plumb pudding, he insisted
on dressing as a British admiral. He also wanted to
design his army's uniforms, but they were pretty horrible designs
(28:24):
like they didn't really fit the soldiers. Uh. They you
couldn't move around in them. They itched in the summer,
they weren't warm in the winter. But the big Daddy
of the army liked their style. So a lot of
us listening to today's episode are wondering about the timing.
(28:44):
Kaiser Wilhelm the Second was born in eighteen fifty nine
on the seven January, and he passed away in June four,
nineteen forty one. He was the last German Emperor and
King of Prussia. However, if you if you noticed the
timeline there, he was alive while Adolf Hitler was alive,
(29:08):
you know, after he had steered Germany in the World
War One. In Germany was defeated ninet eighteen, and he
was exiled in Holland, as as I believe you mentioned earlier,
not yet he lived in that he lived in that
small castle, but he kept his eyes on Germany. He
was writing his memoirs and blaming the First World War
(29:28):
on everyone except for one guy himself. And yeah, and
in nineteen forty he wrote a really weird telegram to
Adolf Hitler and said, congratulations, you have one using my troops,
and he was thinking he was like, all right, as
a good German, Hitler is going to restore my throne
(29:49):
right now. Hitler already was was on record as having
as not liking right at all. Right, he turned him down,
he said nope, and didn't get him a soft pass,
really just snubbed him. Kaiser was mad, and he said, okay,
don't send my body back to Germany until the monarchy
and the real rule of laws restored. And he said,
(30:12):
and also no Nazi stuff at my funeral. Yeah, they
did not honor those wishes whatsoever. His his estate was
absolutely covered with swastika's. Yeah, and there there ends the
story of Kaiser Wilhelm two's ill faded plan to invade
(30:33):
the United States. He did get a little bit of
a bone thrown to him, literally, his his own bones
were left there in a masoleum um in Holland rather
than returned back to Germany. So he got a little
song that he wanted, I guess. So. Yeah, but look,
if you look at the list of stuff, this guy
wanted a lot. He wanted a lot and didn't have
too much reciprocation. I think it was just so focused
(30:56):
on expanding his empire that he went a little bit
into mad king terry. Absolutely this thing I always wonder
about these kinds of monarchs, like is it all it's
all just for their own glory, Like it's not even
like even these plans were so poorly thought out, they
weren't realistic to achieve it was obviously does he was
(31:17):
just bluster and just wanting to kind of make himself
out to be some sort of you know, military genius
when his own military advisors are like, no, man, this
is this is not gonna work. He wanted to be
a conquering king. And the strange thing about conquering kings
or any kind of conquering, despot expansionist oriented leader is
(31:37):
that often they're they're piss poor maintainers of a kingdom
and empire or a country. You know, they spend so
much time focusing on growing stuff that they don't support
the people who already lived there, were already part of
their kingdom, their empire or their country. Yeah, that feels
like tales all as time. It's almost like, you know,
(31:58):
they're the least of of their concern. And so we
draw a close to today's episode, but not the show.
As we said at the beginning, let's check back in
with our guests. Super producer j J j J was
still thumbs up or thumbs down? Oh, thumbs up. Okay,
you're not thumbs upping the Kaiser's plan, are you? I
am not thumbs upping the Kaiser's plan. Not into that great,
(32:21):
that's j j uh. So Thank you so thanks so much, man,
seriously for for joining us on today's episode. Thanks as
always to our super producer Casey Pegram. Thanks to Alex Williams,
who composed our theme, um research associate Gabe Losier and
Ryan Barrish. Christopher Haciota is here in spirit as always.
Thanks of course to Eve's Jeff Coat, who recently finally
(32:44):
appeared on an episode of our show. Thanks for classing
it up their Eves uh And I don't want to
say thanks to the Kaiser, but I will say thanks
to everyone in the government at that time who kept
him from trying to invade the US. We'll see you
next time, Fooks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
(33:16):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
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Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.