March 21, 2024 • 55 mins
Host Becky Milligan meets King Boris III’s children at Vrana Palace, a royal residence on the outskirts of Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital city. The children share the details of their father’s strange and painful death. Officially he dies of a heart attack, but the symptoms don’t add up. What—or who—is responsible? Becky speaks to witnesses who explain how Boris duped Hitler. But the discovery of a dusty document, thousands of miles from Bulgaria, makes Becky wonder if she’s way off course.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
March nineteen forty three, and Bulgaria suddenly wakes up to
what being an ally of Nazi Germany really means. A
top secret mission has begun to round up thousands of
Bulgarian Jews. They're being taken to Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second biggest city.
(00:27):
Everyone is terrified. From there, the Jews will be forced
onto trains headed for concentration camps in Poland. But someone
has leaped the secret plan and now there's uproar across
the country. Politicians, intellectuals and leaders from the Orthodox Church
(00:51):
are openly protesting. And just as the guards are about
to start loading.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
In the middle of the over the way that was stopped.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Michael bar Zoha had Jewish friends who were already on
their way to the rail station and police, you're free.
The police announce the trains pull away empty. There was
only one explanation. Someone must have signed the order to
(01:24):
let those people go.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Somebody had to say stop.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Who was responsible for that?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Then?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Who made that happen? The head of the country, and
who was the head of the country down to him?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Is it? Yeah? Yeah, well Boris is cure.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And if you guessed who it was, you can bet
Hitler did too, and we know the furor is unlikely
to shrug off disobedience. Forgive and forget are not words
in his vocabulary. In Hitler's eyes, King Boris has committed
the ultimate crime. King Boris has saved the Jews, is
(02:07):
the culprit, and is the motive for Boris's murder. Staring
us right in the face from Blanchard House and exactly right, media,
this is the Butterfly King. I'm Becky Milligan, Chapter two, Lies, Lies, Lies.
(03:13):
It's nineteen ninety four and we're partying in La. It's
Friday night, and it's a big posh dinner, white tablecloths
and candlesticks and some very decent wine. Everyone's doled up,
well they would be. There's royalty present.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
It is our honor tonight to welcome no other than
His Majesty Simeon Saxon.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
All I remember is sitting and having dinner.
Speaker 7 (03:42):
With the King of Bulgaria.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
That's what I remember.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
I don't remember what he said. I remember him being charming,
absolutely charming, and so you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Just very regal.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's Elaine all the ease. Years on, and she still
can't believe her luck. The seating plan that evening put
her right next to King Simeon of Bulgaria, Boris's son,
the man I've been chatting to in the Royal Palace
in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital. For Elane, this night back in
(04:19):
ninety four was a wonderful evening, one she'll never forget.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
Who would not be impressed with a king since I'd
never met a king in my life, So yeah, I
was impressed.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
This wasn't just any old party. It was a very
special award ceremony, and Simeon was there to collect a prize,
but not for himself.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Remember someone who for so long has been forgotten, Boris,
the third of Bulgaria.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Simeon was there on behalf of his late father, King Boris.
And this party is actually a Shabbat celebration Shabbad, the
Jewish day of rest. Pretty Much all the guests here
are Jewish, including Elaine Asa. Her husband is Rabbi Haim Asa,
(05:13):
and he's organized this whole ceremony.
Speaker 6 (05:15):
I remember just being our struck because it was just
so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The king, who was in partnership with the architect of
the Holocaust, Adolph Hitler, is getting an award from the
La Jewish community. And I'm not the only one who
finds this hard to square because not everyone in the
La Jewish community was invited to this fancy party, and
(05:41):
if they had been asked, many would have declined because well,
not all of them agreed with Rabbi Haim and Elaine
Asa about King Boris. But let's leave that for a
little later. For now, this is Elaine's view, as it.
Speaker 6 (05:59):
Is the oracle figure in the story of the saving
of the Jews. He played an important part. Elaine should
know I have proof the King saved my husband.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, I think I can safely say we have a
possible motive here. Any friend of the Jews was by
default an enemy of Hitler's. A bit of a backstory.
Elaine met her husband him at summer camp in the US,
but he was Bulgarian born and bred. Sadly, Hyen passed
away a few years ago, so we only get to
(06:34):
meet him through her. But I get the feeling we
all would have liked to have bumped into Hyien back
in the day.
Speaker 6 (06:41):
I saw this cute Israeli guy picking corn. You know,
from the waist up. He didn't have anything on and
I sort of fell in love at that moment.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So it was pretty much seeing his body start.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That was start.
Speaker 8 (06:57):
It was no.
Speaker 6 (06:58):
I have to tell you what real intrigued me. Our
dating was really his sharing his stories, his life stories.
And I was really so intrigued. I mean well, first
of all, Bulgaria. I didn't even know where it was
on the map. I was seventeen, What did I know.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
After a few more dates and a very long marriage,
Elaine became well versed on Bulgarian history. At rabbinical school,
Haim wrote his thesis on the Saving of the Bulgarian Jews,
and he spent his life campaigning to get King Boris
the recognition he felt he deserved.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
You know, he spoke about this forever, and he found
a space in telling his story, a space to thank
Boris for what he did.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Boris's children, King Simeon and Princess Maria Louisa, have heard
many similar testimonies. They're immensely proud their father defied Hitler.
Speaker 9 (07:56):
Bulgarian Jews, many of them that I come across time
in a gain say bless your father's soul and this,
and that he was behind the fact of not extraditing
our Jewish population to camps in Germany.
Speaker 8 (08:13):
Orders must have come from him.
Speaker 10 (08:16):
Wherever I've gone in my ninety years and come across
Bulgarian Jewish people, I've always had the greatest and most
wonderful welcome Papa and all that.
Speaker 8 (08:28):
They all remember it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But it's saving the lives that the Jews cost. Boris
his own.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
This is an amazing building, isn't it. I mean I
never knew it was. Have you been here before, yes,
yes I have.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I love it to try and find out my producer
e J. And I are a little closer to home
than you might imagine.
Speaker 11 (08:55):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Sort of it looks like brutalist architect which it's like
all concrete. This is the National Archives in southwest London.
You're probably thinking we're a little bit off patch here,
maybe about one and a half thousand miles off patch,
and that we ought to be looking in the Bulgarian
National Archives. Yes, that would be great, except that the
(09:20):
Bulgarian archives, well they've been stolen. When the Russians ended
their communist occupation of Bulgaria in nineteen ninety one, they
took the National Archives with them. That means that all
those vital records are still in Russia and right now,
(09:40):
I'm sure you're aware. Russia isn't really the kind of
place where journalists can just rock up and go digging
around for information. But there's another paper trail we can follow.
Until Bulgaria joined the Pact with Germany in nineteen forty one,
Britain had an embassy in so and most of the
(10:01):
paperwork from that embassy is now declassified. And here at
the London Archives, somewhere among the millions of records and documents.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I don't know, is it all computerized as well?
Speaker 12 (10:15):
It is.
Speaker 13 (10:15):
It's a bit fiddly, but it's going to take us
some time, I think, But I think it's worth it.
Speaker 12 (10:20):
It's worth it.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, Well, we're reappearing in a couple of weeks, aren't me.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Oh have we got your sleeping though?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
This certainly isn't going to be easy. I bet lots
of people can't be bothered to come here.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Actually A look, well I have to drag you obviously.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Obviously I've never bothered before, but not drag exactly. But
I do have a confession. Most of my journalistic scoops
have come through talking to people I put them at
ease and ask the right questions. Then sometimes without even
knowing it, people well they just tell the truth. But
(10:56):
when your murder investigation is nearly a century old, eyewitnesses
are a bit thin on the ground. So all we
have is the paper trail, and that's really time consuming.
If we don't find anything, I'll blame you for wasting
weeks in there. Ago, I can't believe we'll find anything.
Speaker 13 (11:17):
Of course we will, of course we've all I mean, what.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Kind of things do they having an archived like this?
Speaker 13 (11:21):
I mean, you know, documents from the Foreign Office that
have been declassified now that were secret. I'm sure we're
going to find things top secret, I promise me.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Do they also have really secret at the top or
some ultra secret? Although King Boris officially died of a
heart attack, even at the time, the rumors were rife
that he'd actually been poisoned, But what was he poisoned with?
That's where I'm hoping the archives will deliver some clues,
(11:53):
because my own experience of poison is rather limited, unless
you count crime fiction. Of course, I've had enough Agatha
Christie books to know that arsenic is always on the
suspect list, but that seems unlikely here because by the
Second World War doctors could detect arsenic pretty quickly. Cyanide
(12:13):
is another famous poison, Agatha Christie's favorite. Quite a few
Nazis used it to kill themselves after the war, including
Hitler's wife. That cyanide leaves a distinctive armored smell, and
again that would have been immediately identified. So I'm looking
for something more sophisticated, a chemical weapon, basically something designed
(12:37):
in a laboratory for a targeted killing.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I think I need a briefing from.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Someone whose knowledge extends beyond detective thrillers, someone who could
at least give me some context as I scan the archives.
Speaker 14 (12:51):
My name's hemis Schubrecagordon Myra of expertise is chemical, biological, radiological,
a NIKA characterrorism.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
This man knows everything about the state of the art toxins.
Colonel Hamish's ex British Army. He's served in Iraq and Afghanistan,
has worked all over Syria and is currently advising the
Ukrainian government. He's an expert on the history and use
of chemical weapons.
Speaker 14 (13:16):
After the First World War, chemical weapons developed into much
more deadly weapons called nerve agents. Which basically destroy your nerves. Now,
Hitler had a vast stock of nerve agents, and he
developed them nerve agents.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
But before I get too carried away with this, Boris
was in agony. His organs were failing, and crucially, his
heart shut down. Do nerve agents affect the heart?
Speaker 14 (13:42):
These nerve agents do impact your nerves, and your heart
is probably the first thing to break down. So some
sort of nerve agent would seem vaguely to fit the
bill of some of the symptoms that you're mentioning. If
it was the Germans, who seemed to be the most likely,
I would have thought it's some out of their chemical
weapon portfolio.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
This is significant information. I now have a motive and
a potential means. I just need the archives to give
me some proof that the king somehow fell foul of
a nerve agent. Keywords Boris, King, Boris, Boris.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
They don't have to be an order, do there. It's
just a keywords king. You have to do plus or
minus or whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
King, Bulgaria, Bulgaria and World War Two?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Right, enter, Oh, good grief?
Speaker 8 (14:34):
Quite a few.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Oh great.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
While we're waiting for those documents to arrive, let's just
wind back a few years. I want to examine how
Hitler and King Boris became allies, because on the face
of it, they certainly don't look like natural bedfellows. Boris
(15:01):
hadn't banked on being in Hitler's camp at all. As
war brewed, he spent months traveling around the European capitals
trying to negotiate a peaceful way out. He knocked on
pretty much every leader's door because Boris knew Bulgaria was
ill prepared for conflict under the ill fated leadership of
(15:23):
his father, Foxy King Ferdinand. It had suffered a brutal
defeat in the First World War. It lost huge tracts
of territory as a result, including Macedonia and the area
known as Thrace. And more than that, says historian Tessa Dunlop,
it lost its army.
Speaker 15 (15:42):
Remember, Boris didn't start rearming until about nineteen thirty five,
wasn't allowed to. Bulgara had been totally dearmed. So this
is a dude who's got basically a country without a
protective shell. He has no real soldiers.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Why on earth would he want to go to war.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Boris was a seasoned soldier, but he was terribly marked
by the brutal conflicts he'd fought in both Balkan Wars
in nineteen twelve and nineteen thirteen, and then the First
World War. When he became king aged twenty four, he
swore he would never allow Bulgarian blood to be spilled again,
(16:18):
which was why at the start of the Second World
War he declared Bulgaria was neutral. But the war spread
like wildfire.
Speaker 15 (16:27):
Little Bulgaria was in the middle of a giant world
feed and there's no way on Earth it couldn't get
sucked up into the drama.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Now, this next bit of history is crucial to understanding
who might have killed the king and whether it might
have been Hitler. I'll explain as clearly as I can.
Here's what forced Bulgaria to stop being neutral and put
its slap bang into Hitler's camp. So Germany and Russia
(16:58):
were allies at the start of the war. That suited
Boris just fine. Germany was Bulgaria's biggest economic partner, and
the Soviets had rescued Bulgaria from Turkish occupation only fifty
years back, so the Bulgarians felt an affinity with the Russians.
It was all just about manageable until the summer of
(17:20):
nineteen forty one, when Hitler tore up his non aggression
packed with Russia.
Speaker 15 (17:27):
The problem is when Hitler has this idea that actually, nah,
I'm going to head east. You know, I'm going to
build my empire in Russia. I'm going to kick down
the rotten door. And that means Boris has to get
off the neutrality tyrope. He's got to call it. Is
it going to be Germany or is it going to
be the USSR?
Speaker 1 (17:45):
And the crunch point came when Hitler decided he fancied
his chances in Greece. There was only one route, and
that was straight through Bulgaria. Boris now had to pick
a side.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Look at the map.
Speaker 15 (18:00):
Need to get to Greece, okay, to shore up the Italians.
How are they going to get there? They've got to
put boots on the ground and they've got to go
through Bulgaria. Better they go through as friends than his enemies.
Speaker 8 (18:08):
We know what.
Speaker 15 (18:09):
Happens if you're Germany's enemy.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
We already know that.
Speaker 15 (18:12):
By nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Bulgarian historian George bos Duganov spells out the stark choice
facing King Boris.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
The journals have only one question, frank or four.
Speaker 11 (18:25):
They don't care what Bulgarian king is thinking about at all, right,
friend or four?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
So Boris had two options, resist Hitler, knowing that he'd
invade anyway and accept the consequences of that would be brutal,
or give in and save all that bloodshed. His daughter,
Princess Maria Louisa is certain he made the right choice.
Speaker 10 (18:52):
Had we opposed Germany, there would have been nothing left,
as they did to other countries in Europe, run us
over kill a bonisam. It was no choice, absolutely no choice,
absolutely choice.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
So to protect his country, King Boris chose Germany. He
signed a pact with Germany, Italy and Japan in March
nineteen forty one, and from that moment on Boris was
a marked man. Overnight he became an enemy of the Allies.
(19:33):
Oh right, here we go at the Q Archives in London.
The first batch of the documents we called up has arrived.
There's a whole bunch of declassified telegrams and letters from
Sir George Rendall to the Foreign Office marked secret. Rendell
was the British ambassador to Sofia during the war. He
(19:54):
seemed to get on well with Boris, but when the
King signed that pact with Hitler, Rendall was curious.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
He freaked out. He felt the King did.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Have a choice about throwing in his lot with Hitler,
and now that the Nazis were walking the streets of Sofia,
Rendell was panicking. He was stuck in enemy territory and
he wanted to go home. He demanded permission to break
off all ties with Bulgaria immediately. In one particular document,
he's pretty dramatic.
Speaker 14 (20:24):
Bulgaria had not only been able to prevent the burglar
of from entering, but had opened the window to him
and beckoned him in.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
A few days.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Later, the British embassy in Sofia was closed and Rendall
left the country for good. The Allies certainly gave Boris
the cold shoulder, but whether he liked it or not,
the new found friendship with Germany meant the King would
get plenty of FaceTime with Hitler, and at first glance,
(20:55):
the King seemed very happy to hang out with the
Fura and his henchmen. Boris would sometimes go hunting and
shooting with them. He spoke perfect German, of course, remember
his father Ferdinand was German. And whenever the King met
Hitler it was all big smiles and handshakes and slaps
(21:17):
on the back, a real bromance.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Or was it only on film footage? They are friends
only in film footage.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So if they didn't share a friendship, did they share
an ideology?
Speaker 4 (21:31):
He's very clever in the blomacy.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Now, George Bosduganov isn't just a historian, He's Bulgaria's leading historian.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
He's unbelievably learned. Now.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I've done my best. I've digested all the books out
there on King Boris and the Second World War, but
it's fair to say that I'm not quite as up
to speed as mister bos Duganov on the minutii of
Balkan history. And I get the impression that sometimes frustrates him,
like when he grits his teeth and asks for a time.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Out, maybe a little break, of course.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Luckily, my producer EJ's on hand to back me up.
I can always rely on her, so if I can,
just I'm not recording me yet, Lory's fine.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I thought we were on a break. No, we're not
on a break.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Now, are you ready to go?
Speaker 16 (22:31):
Now?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Where?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Eventually we all get on the same page. No, yeah, no, no, no,
what do you mean now?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Right?
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10 (22:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Finally I get to ask my question.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Was he a Nazi.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
More? Never? Not at all? He has never been a
Nazi fan.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Never did he make that clear to Hitler.
Speaker 11 (23:09):
Boris would be afraid to make this very clear to
Hitler because of the Hitler's power.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
Everybody in the world.
Speaker 11 (23:19):
Was afraid by Hitler Inlish, true British, true, of course.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
So this alliance between Hitler and Boris was because.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Have not choice, really absolutely have not choice.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
But Hitler hoped the king was on side with the
whole Nazi project. Boris walked the walk, and he walked
it well.
Speaker 15 (23:41):
He wasn't intimidated by the fury, He wasn't intimidated by Hitler.
He is more politically experienced in many levels than Hitler is,
but he is an incredible political operator.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
So I mean kind of, I mean sly, Hitler says.
Speaker 15 (23:55):
Hitler says of Boris, he had never met a politician
as intelligent and shrew.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Now that's interesting because I've read that Hitler's nickname for
Boris was the Fox, not Foxy like his father Ferdinand,
but the Fox, which suggests to me that he had
Boris's number, and Hitler was right to be suspicious. King
Simeon is sure his father joined the Axis the alliance
(24:21):
with Germany only through political expediency, not because he shared
Nazi values.
Speaker 9 (24:29):
I think he distrusted Hitler deeply with good reason. So
to join the Axis was not any love of Hitler
or because our family is of German origin. But this
is what happens in these extreme situations in war time.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
And according to Simeon, Boris's nickname for Hitler was the
big dirty swine? Did Hitler know that? What we do know,
of course, is that Hitler always took revenge on those
who displeased him. Colonel Hamish de Breton Gordon is our
expert on chemical weapons like nerve agents. He tells me
(25:14):
that by the time Boris died in the summer of
nineteen forty three, Hitler had a whole pharmaceutical empire of
poisons at his fingertips.
Speaker 14 (25:24):
We do know the Nazis developed nerve agents, starting off
with Sonning called Soman, then Tavern and then Saren, which
you know the Syrian Regimus used recently in Syria. Now,
the sad thing to say is actually they are morbidly
brilliant weapons, and if you had no morals or scruples,
(25:45):
you'd use them all the time.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I think we'd be hard pushed to find anyone who
could defend Hitler's morals and scruples. So nerve agents do
seem to fit the bill.
Speaker 14 (25:55):
If it's the Germans who seem most likely, it'd probably
be something out of their chemical factory.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So if it's nineteen forty three and you want to
kill a head of state and you have access to
a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons, why wouldn't you
use them, especially if you thought you could get away
with it.
Speaker 14 (26:16):
The idea behind using deadly toxins and chemicals is actually
they're very difficult to attribute. There's a lot of uncertainty,
there's a lot of deniability. So if it was the
Nazi s kill Boris but didn't want to be directly
fingered by it, because actually they were supposed to be allies,
they were supposed to be working together. If you don't
(26:39):
want to be found out, then certainly some eyes is
that you would use a toxin that would do that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, they were certainly supposed to be allies who were
supposed to be working together. But the problem is, it
turns out Boris just kept on refusing to play by
the rules. Boris canceled the deportation of the Jews in
March nineteen forty three and sent those trains away. Hitler
(27:08):
ordered Boris to Germany to have a little chat, or rather,
he gave him a stiff talking to. Hitler insisted all
Bulgaria's Jews must now be rounded up and sent to
Poland by the autumn. So Boris did something quite extraordinary,
something that might well have cost him his life. He
(27:31):
pretended to be on the same page as Hitler when
it came to the Jews. Basically, he gas lit him.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
The King sir, I'm dying to send in my one
percent way II God blame these people.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
But then the King told Hitler unfortunately he couldn't send
the Jews away as they were otherwise engaged in forced labor.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
The King sir, but I need them for building roads
and railroads.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
And that was the biggest bluff of the Second World War.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Boris's bluff saved Michael Barzowhau's family. Michael is a writer
and former politician who now lives in Israel. Forgive the
audio quality, but zoom was the only way I could
get to speak to him, and he's certainly worth speaking to.
He was just a young boy in Bulgaria when the
king invented his fictitious road building scheme. Every able bodied
(28:32):
Jewish man in Michael's town was to be sent to
camps in the countryside, away from the prying eyes of
the Nazis, out of harm's way.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I think Boris told them, now, we are going to
mobilize all the able Jews men to labor camps, and
by doing that, we are going to prevent the sending
of the Jews.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
To pot And the King's scheme worked.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
And indeed they mobilized the Jews to the labor camps.
My father was one of them.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
According to Michael, his father's life in the camp was
not exactly arduous. He often played cards and socialized with
his Bulgarian guards. Now this was hardly a holiday. These
men had been forced to leave their homes and families
behind and their livelihoods completely uproot themselves. Not easy, but
(29:36):
it was still a far cry from a Nazi concentration camp.
Speaker 16 (29:41):
I have pictures with the camp drinking together, singing together,
and it was unbelievable because they did not work very
hard for these camps. They didn't build any railroads. Jing
Boris was played here a very very subtle game.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
He bluffed. He was a very wily man.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Now, nobody likes to be made a fool of. And
we know that Hitler clocked what Boris was up to
because his henchmen visited the camps and reported back. So
in May nineteen forty three, the deportation trains destined for
Poland were prepared again. All that was needed was Boris's signature,
(30:24):
if only someone could find him. It was a public
holiday in Bulgaria. As usual, crowds flocked to the city
center to see the king waving on the palace balcony.
But Boris didn't show for three whole days. He went missing,
(30:45):
and all the while the train drivers were waiting for
their orders. In fact, the Butterfly King had holed himself
away in his beloved mountains, and a few years ago,
Michael bars Oha tracked down the man who helped him disappear.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I found the driver. He was a simple man.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
The chauffeur told Michael that the king didn't leave his
mountain hut for three days, and while he was hiding inside,
Boris confessed his worries to him and his valet.
Speaker 12 (31:20):
He told him, I'm very much afraid that I might
get a phone call from Berlin to carry out a
certain operation. And I know very well if I get
this phone call, I can't refuse. So I decided to
be for a few days in Communicado to be unreachable.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
And just in case that wasn't clear. Michael saying that
the King deliberately cut himself off so that he couldn't
receive orders from Hitler about deporting Bulgaria's Jews on the trains,
and without the King's signature and say so, no one
had the authority to load those trains. When Boris came back,
(32:05):
he quickly evacuated all the remaining Jews to the countryside.
The elderly, the women and children, including Michael, were all
sent away out of reach of the Gestapo who were
billeted in the capitol. How many Jewish people from mainland
Bulgaria were deported to camps, concentration camps, death camps in Poland?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Not even one, not one.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
No one, of course, not There was not one Bulgarian
jum was reported.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Forgive the skeptical journalist in me, but I need to
check that fact myself, because it is pretty incredible. Bulgaria's
pre eminent historian, George Bosdiganov, always has the fact and
figures at his fingertips.
Speaker 11 (33:03):
Not a single Jews, Bolgarian on foreigner a living in
the Kingdom was killed or departed from the country to
the Nazi camps. Neither one, no one, no, not one.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
And for George, that makes Boris a legend.
Speaker 11 (33:27):
King boris third Bolgarian national hero of twenty century.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
It's extraordinary, such an incredible act of resistance, especially when
you remember Bulgaria was an official ally of Nazi Germany
and that the Gestapo the Bulgarian streets. Of course, not
everyone tells these stories in quite the same way, because
(34:08):
the definition of a hero is never universal. It's very
very personal, and as we'll hear in the next episode,
every hero is someone else's villain. But you can bet
Hitler wasn't rushing to congratulate Boris. Quite the opposite, although
(34:28):
since Boris had gone so far off message, why bother
with subterfuge? I mean, why didn't the Nazis just cut
their losses and shoot him.
Speaker 14 (34:41):
There would be no plausible defense. I mean, there's not
much clausible defense anyway, But I think that's the point.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Our weapons expert, Colonel Hamish de Breton Gordon thinks assassination
with a nerve agent is about much more than deniability.
It's also about scaring the living daylights out of everybody
around the king.
Speaker 14 (35:02):
These weapons are incredibly effective because of their psychological impact.
So half the message, or probably more than half the
message in these assassinations is to other people, you know,
trying to tell anybody else who wanted to oppose the regime,
you know, we'd get the same thing, and it's it's
incredibly effective at doing that.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Anyone who witnessed Boris's awful and prolonged death would have
felt distinctly uncomfortable, especially if the word poison was whispered
in the sick room. But how could Hitler have administered
the poison without Boris noticing? Remember that plane that Boris
(35:44):
took to meet Hitler for the last time, the one
that took him right into the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's top
secret base in Poland. It's also the one little Simeon
was so excited to see when it landed back in Sofia.
Here's some key evidence. It wasn't a Royal jet, it
wasn't even Bulgarian. It was a German plane, and it
(36:06):
belonged to Hitler. I've read a few history books which
mention the following story. On the way home from the
Wolf's Lair, the king was subdued, but after a moment,
he left his seat and went into the cockpit. You'll
remember how keen he was on all things mechanical, and
(36:28):
he asked the pilot if the plane could climb a
little higher to see if the altitude would affect his
ears the way it did when he went climbing in
the mountains. The pilot agreed, and that's when the oxygen
masks were handed out. So what if that's how Hitler
(36:49):
did it, substituting oxygen for some sort of poisonous gas
in Boris's mask.
Speaker 14 (36:56):
Actually, if it was a nerve age and he breathed
it in, it would probably kill him pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Well, Boris died fourteen days after he returned from that
meeting with Hitler. Could it have been a delayed reaction
to sign my gas?
Speaker 14 (37:10):
For instance, if you breathe stuff in, it's going straight
to your lungs, your lungs straight to your bloodstream, your
bloodstream straight to your heart. So if they wanted a
delayed reaction, they would probably want a dermal ingestion, in
other words, through the skin. If it was a nerve
agent on an oxygen mass type of thing, then that
(37:32):
scenario I would think would be less likely with the
outcome that we know happened.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
But here's something I learned from. Simeon and Maria Louisa
are two living links to these events. Boris's sister Eudoxia
told them that she was sure the Nazis burned his lungs.
So Boris's children carefully examined this theory.
Speaker 9 (37:57):
My aunt herself, she thought that it was the oxygen
mask that my father used on his way back. But
apparently in those days there was no poison which would
work with six days delay. So there we explode another story.
Speaker 10 (38:16):
You know, it's a myths because in those days they
put the oxygen masks to everybody on the plane, you know,
so the other people should have, you know, had the same.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
In fact, Maria Luisa tracked down the German pilot many
years after the war. He promised her that poisoning via
an oxygen mask would have been impossible because his allegiance
was clearly to the Bulgarian king rather than to Hitler.
He claimed he'd never have let those pigs, as he
called the Gestapo, anywhere near the plane, let alone the cockpit.
(38:51):
But a strange detail about that plane journey raises further questions.
According to the pilot's account, Boris him health became wary
when the oxygen masks came out, and he insisted on
swapping his own mask with the pilots. That seems odd,
to say the least. Did he suspect Hitler was trying
(39:13):
to kill him, because, according to accounts from advisers, when
the King arrived home, he didn't rush to see his
family as he usually did. He went to see a
close friend who was a former chief of cabinet, and
he told that friend that he'd had a terrible meeting
with Hitler, which he knew would cost him dearly. I
(39:33):
saved Bulgaria, he said, even if I will pay for it,
which of course he did with his life.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Colonel Hamish has his own theory.
Speaker 14 (39:45):
Maybe they thought Boris was an annoyance and wasn't helping things,
and if they killed him. Actually, others in the Bulgarian
higher command and raw family might be more sympathetic towards
the cause.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
You see, hadn't just duped Hitler over the Jews, He'd
also conned him over the war. Hitler was desperate for
support on the Eastern Front, where the Germans were fighting
a losing battle with Russia, and Hitler wanted that backup
from the Bulgarian army. But Boris had made a promise
(40:21):
when he first ascended the throne. He promised he'd never
send another Bulgarian soldier to war.
Speaker 11 (40:29):
He refused absolutely, He refused to send troops on the
Russian Front or any other front.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Not only that.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
In fact, historians George Bosdiganov and Tessa Dunlop say Boris
was doing far more dangerous things and refusing to hand
over his army. King Boris was actively trying to swap sides.
Speaker 15 (40:54):
He already is having conversations back channels, exist conversations about
possibly getting clear blue water from the Nazis.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Did he try? Did he try to?
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yes, he try, Yes, he tried.
Speaker 11 (41:08):
In the spring of nineteen forty three, a Sir Boris
began talks with Americans in Switzerland for complete withdrawal of
Bulgaria from the war, which he was enable to complete
due to his sudden death.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
So Boris was having secret meetings with the US.
Speaker 7 (41:30):
If it got Win learned about it, he had to
stop it. And the way to stop it was one looking,
because nobody else but the key was shaping the foreign policy.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
As writer Michael bar Zohars, Hitler almost certainly did get
wind of those talks. The Nazis had spies everywhere, which
is probably why that final meeting between Boris and Hitler
was so brutal. It's August nineteen forty three, and we're
back in the Wolf's Lair for eight whole hours. The
(42:07):
fewer rages at the Bulgarian King, and according to eavesdroppers
listening outside the door at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler goes
absolutely crazy. You don't need to speak German to understand
this friendship is floundering. But Boris speaks perfect German, which
(42:28):
means he's on his own in that room, with not
even an interpreter to take the sting out of Hitler's words.
It's rumored things got so heated that Hitler even swung
a punch, but Boris won't give an inch. He won't
send Bulgarian soldiers to fight Russia on the Eastern Front.
(42:49):
He won't send Bulgarian Jews to the death camps. As
far as Hitler was concerned, that wasn't the deal. That
wasn't the deal at all. And Hitler feels betrayed. And
no one likes feeling they've been taken for a ride.
But Adolf Hitler has been taken for a ride. So
when his royal guest leaves, Hitler doesn't bother to wave
(43:11):
him off yet this is the final goodbye. Boris doesn't
know it yet, but he has barely two weeks left to.
Speaker 10 (43:21):
Live, right, little corner are there.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Let's sit down.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Back at the National Archives in London. We've had some
more luck. Actually it could be a big breakthrough. The
librarians have pointed us towards the Churchill Archives Center in Cambridge.
They've just emailed us a very interesting document. Remember how
the king lay dying surrounded by scores of doctors and specialists.
(43:55):
This is a parenthlet written by some library society or
historical society ten years after Boris had died. Okay, and
you know those doctors who were there, it says here
the latter appeared to have been of opinion that it
was no natural death.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
No natural death.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, And then it says here a little bit further down,
according to private pronouncements of the official Physician of the court,
the cause of death was subsequently ascertained as a strange
poison of Asiatic origin.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Well, we've not heard that before, have we? Asiatic? I mean,
that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
And there's even more salient information in the pamphlet, something
which makes my blood go cold. They right here that
that particular poison paralyzes the muscular system of the heart
and shows symptoms resemble sort of heard attack cardiac areas
or whatever. And because it looks like that, it could
(45:05):
obviously be mistaken for that, you know.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
I mean I've never heard of that. I mean, what
does it mean?
Speaker 13 (45:11):
I know, what's asiatic poison?
Speaker 7 (45:12):
Asiatic?
Speaker 13 (45:13):
I mean, Bulgaria's next to Turkey. Yeah, he's half in Asia.
But how do they know it was Asiatic? Hang on
that that's really important because that means they must have
found a trace of it and examined it. Yeah, I mean,
everything else we've just read said he was poison. But
(45:34):
if they're saying it's a specific poison to Asia. I
think you're really onto something there. Seriously, I do think
this leads.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
It is a lead.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
It is.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah, let's just wind back a minute, back to the
summer of nineteen forty three. A few days after his
highly stressful meeting, Boris took his family for a breather
in the mountains. It was the school holidays, so the
days seemed long and carefree. On the Monday, though, Boris
(46:10):
told his family he had to leave them and return
to Sofia for work. What he didn't tell his wife
or his children was that he was feeling ill. But
Boris had already told his brother that his heart was
thumping and that he felt nauseous. It was a few
more days before his children found out, and at first
(46:30):
they weren't told the full story.
Speaker 9 (46:33):
My sister and I drew some painting. I think I
drew a little plain or something with my sister some flowers,
and we sent some mountain flowers to him, but not
suspecting or knowing that he was so gravely ill. And
then on Saturday he passed away.
Speaker 10 (46:52):
We were told he was quite ill. Then my mother
of course went down to be there, and on the
Saturday afternoon, we were out in the country in the mountains,
and when we came back, the radio was not working.
The nanny said, of course, they had pulled the black.
Speaker 8 (47:15):
And then we.
Speaker 10 (47:19):
Told that Papa was very very ill, so, you know,
very ill, we should maybe go to Sofia. And then
my father's sister, my Auntie Dorsa, came and she was
dressed in black, and she said it, and I still
didn't believe it. So we drove into Sofia and I
(47:41):
saw black flags hanging in front of the buildings, and
then you know, I knew it.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Six year old Simeon couldn't get his head around what
had happened until his father's right hand man or aide
de camp, approached him.
Speaker 9 (48:01):
My father's ADC came up to me and he addressed
me as your majesty, not your highness, as was the usual.
And that's when I suddenly realized, my god, I mean
he's addressing me like the king.
Speaker 8 (48:21):
I e my father has passed away.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
I'm more and more convinced that Hitler was behind King
Boris's death. And as I've told you, that was aunt
you doxy as hunch too. She always blamed the Nazis
for murdering her brother. Could Hitler have paid someone to
administer poison asiatic poison? What about one of the doctors
(48:50):
or nurses who were treating King Boris? What do we
actually know about those doctors? There were sixteen doctors in
that sick room. Thirteen of them signed the death certificate,
but three didn't.
Speaker 11 (49:06):
They are concertos that they are well known and will
established names with international.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
In all so, surely we can identify these doctors if
they enjoy worldwide acclaim.
Speaker 4 (49:19):
First that they are not Borgaeis. No, they're German doctors.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
And that's when King Simeon drops a bombshell, aren't you? Doxia,
who always suspected the Nazis killed her brother, left Simeon
and Maria Louisa a very special letter penned by her
own hand, to be read only after her own death.
Speaker 9 (49:43):
It's about twenty pages and hands written, and she left
it in an envelope in Germany when she died in
eighty five, with a huge sort of with a marker
on the envelope to be given to Simeon married Louise
after my death, and there of course her all her
(50:05):
first hand impressions aren't you.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Dot here places a distinct question mark over one of
the doctors who attended Boris in his final hours.
Speaker 9 (50:16):
She was sort of pointing or saying that this doctor
Zeites Rudel Zaide's who came from Berlin, was I mean,
there was something suspicious about him.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
And there wasn't just one German doctor but three at
the bedside of the king.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
One was Austrian but a known Nazi sympathizer, three of
them tending to King Boris, who's just betrayed the German
Feura Adolf Hitler motive means and opportunity accept.
Speaker 15 (50:55):
People like you journalists in excavating the archives pptunity together
and make the wonderful five that is Nazis. Blame it
all on the Nazis, It's not always all the Nazi's fault.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Have I let my imagination run away with me? Historian
Tessa Dunlops certainly thinks I'm jumping to conclusions.
Speaker 15 (51:16):
I commend you, Becky for having swallowed homeless bolus so
much of what's been written about this. But you are
seeing what you want to see. You're looking around the
room and you're only seeing swashtikas.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Am I just framing the most obvious suspect in the lineup.
Speaker 15 (51:31):
Why would you take out the one man who might
not have gone as far as you wanted him to go,
but has remained consistently loyal in his support. I would
suggest that was even madder than Hitler was by nineteen
forty three.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
From a historical perspective, I know that Hitler needed all
the friends he could get at this point in the war,
So I accept that logically it doesn't make sense to
murder your ally. But that's exactly my point. Why does
there have to be logic where Hitler's can concerned he
was insane? But the Palace doesn't seem to be backing
(52:04):
my theory either. Perhaps I'm being oversensitive or our King
Simeon and Maria Louisa giving me a gentle ticking off.
Speaker 9 (52:13):
One thing disturbs me terribly is when I see people
being not objective.
Speaker 8 (52:18):
I like objectivity.
Speaker 9 (52:20):
All these things, as I say, are simply theories or
hypothesis or just fantasy.
Speaker 8 (52:26):
But there's nothing prasional. I have no proof. I'm convinced
it wasn't. It wasn't a dramas.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Next time on the Butterfly King, we delve deep into
Asiatic poisons.
Speaker 11 (52:47):
It was some kind of poison from India, probably slake poison.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
That is what he had heard from the doctors.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
We find a new lead as a snake in the grass,
its ugly head in Asia.
Speaker 14 (53:02):
Tropical Asia has a horrendous snake bite death rate every year.
Speaker 11 (53:06):
The snake venoms are complicated cocktails of different toxins.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
And Boris's squeaky clean image takes a battering as we
hear dark stories about his very controversial legacy.
Speaker 4 (53:21):
It's a story, it's a falsifying history. His hands are
not clean. It's quite a lot of blood.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
The Butterfly King is a production of Blanchard House and
Exactly Right Media, hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written
and produced by Emma Jane Kirk. Original music is by
Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis nank Manell and Toby Mattamong. Sound
(54:08):
design and engineering by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans.
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac. The managing producer is a Mika
Schortino nowa. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye.
The executive producer and head of content at Blanchard House
(54:29):
is Lawrence Grisell for Exactly Right Media. The executive producers
are Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Daniel Kramer, with consulting
producer Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the
book Hitler and the King by John Hall Spencer
March nineteen forty three, and Bulgaria suddenly wakes up to
what being an ally of Nazi Germany really means. A
top secret mission has begun to round up thousands of
Bulgarian Jews. They're being taken to Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second biggest city.
(00:27):
Everyone is terrified. From there, the Jews will be forced
onto trains headed for concentration camps in Poland. But someone
has leaped the secret plan and now there's uproar across
the country. Politicians, intellectuals and leaders from the Orthodox Church
(00:51):
are openly protesting. And just as the guards are about
to start loading.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
In the middle of the over the way that was stopped.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Michael bar Zoha had Jewish friends who were already on
their way to the rail station and police, you're free.
The police announce the trains pull away empty. There was
only one explanation. Someone must have signed the order to
(01:24):
let those people go.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Somebody had to say stop.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Who was responsible for that?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Then?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Who made that happen? The head of the country, and
who was the head of the country down to him?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Is it? Yeah? Yeah, well Boris is cure.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And if you guessed who it was, you can bet
Hitler did too, and we know the furor is unlikely
to shrug off disobedience. Forgive and forget are not words
in his vocabulary. In Hitler's eyes, King Boris has committed
the ultimate crime. King Boris has saved the Jews, is
(02:07):
the culprit, and is the motive for Boris's murder. Staring
us right in the face from Blanchard House and exactly right, media,
this is the Butterfly King. I'm Becky Milligan, Chapter two, Lies, Lies, Lies.
(03:13):
It's nineteen ninety four and we're partying in La. It's
Friday night, and it's a big posh dinner, white tablecloths
and candlesticks and some very decent wine. Everyone's doled up,
well they would be. There's royalty present.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
It is our honor tonight to welcome no other than
His Majesty Simeon Saxon.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
All I remember is sitting and having dinner.
Speaker 7 (03:42):
With the King of Bulgaria.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
That's what I remember.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
I don't remember what he said. I remember him being charming,
absolutely charming, and so you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Just very regal.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's Elaine all the ease. Years on, and she still
can't believe her luck. The seating plan that evening put
her right next to King Simeon of Bulgaria, Boris's son,
the man I've been chatting to in the Royal Palace
in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital. For Elane, this night back in
(04:19):
ninety four was a wonderful evening, one she'll never forget.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
Who would not be impressed with a king since I'd
never met a king in my life, So yeah, I
was impressed.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
This wasn't just any old party. It was a very
special award ceremony, and Simeon was there to collect a prize,
but not for himself.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Remember someone who for so long has been forgotten, Boris,
the third of Bulgaria.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Simeon was there on behalf of his late father, King Boris.
And this party is actually a Shabbat celebration Shabbad, the
Jewish day of rest. Pretty Much all the guests here
are Jewish, including Elaine Asa. Her husband is Rabbi Haim Asa,
(05:13):
and he's organized this whole ceremony.
Speaker 6 (05:15):
I remember just being our struck because it was just
so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The king, who was in partnership with the architect of
the Holocaust, Adolph Hitler, is getting an award from the
La Jewish community. And I'm not the only one who
finds this hard to square because not everyone in the
La Jewish community was invited to this fancy party, and
(05:41):
if they had been asked, many would have declined because well,
not all of them agreed with Rabbi Haim and Elaine
Asa about King Boris. But let's leave that for a
little later. For now, this is Elaine's view, as it.
Speaker 6 (05:59):
Is the oracle figure in the story of the saving
of the Jews. He played an important part. Elaine should
know I have proof the King saved my husband.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, I think I can safely say we have a
possible motive here. Any friend of the Jews was by
default an enemy of Hitler's. A bit of a backstory.
Elaine met her husband him at summer camp in the US,
but he was Bulgarian born and bred. Sadly, Hyen passed
away a few years ago, so we only get to
(06:34):
meet him through her. But I get the feeling we
all would have liked to have bumped into Hyien back
in the day.
Speaker 6 (06:41):
I saw this cute Israeli guy picking corn. You know,
from the waist up. He didn't have anything on and
I sort of fell in love at that moment.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So it was pretty much seeing his body start.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That was start.
Speaker 8 (06:57):
It was no.
Speaker 6 (06:58):
I have to tell you what real intrigued me. Our
dating was really his sharing his stories, his life stories.
And I was really so intrigued. I mean well, first
of all, Bulgaria. I didn't even know where it was
on the map. I was seventeen, What did I know.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
After a few more dates and a very long marriage,
Elaine became well versed on Bulgarian history. At rabbinical school,
Haim wrote his thesis on the Saving of the Bulgarian Jews,
and he spent his life campaigning to get King Boris
the recognition he felt he deserved.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
You know, he spoke about this forever, and he found
a space in telling his story, a space to thank
Boris for what he did.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Boris's children, King Simeon and Princess Maria Louisa, have heard
many similar testimonies. They're immensely proud their father defied Hitler.
Speaker 9 (07:56):
Bulgarian Jews, many of them that I come across time
in a gain say bless your father's soul and this,
and that he was behind the fact of not extraditing
our Jewish population to camps in Germany.
Speaker 8 (08:13):
Orders must have come from him.
Speaker 10 (08:16):
Wherever I've gone in my ninety years and come across
Bulgarian Jewish people, I've always had the greatest and most
wonderful welcome Papa and all that.
Speaker 8 (08:28):
They all remember it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But it's saving the lives that the Jews cost. Boris
his own.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
This is an amazing building, isn't it. I mean I
never knew it was. Have you been here before, yes,
yes I have.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I love it to try and find out my producer
e J. And I are a little closer to home
than you might imagine.
Speaker 11 (08:55):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Sort of it looks like brutalist architect which it's like
all concrete. This is the National Archives in southwest London.
You're probably thinking we're a little bit off patch here,
maybe about one and a half thousand miles off patch,
and that we ought to be looking in the Bulgarian
National Archives. Yes, that would be great, except that the
(09:20):
Bulgarian archives, well they've been stolen. When the Russians ended
their communist occupation of Bulgaria in nineteen ninety one, they
took the National Archives with them. That means that all
those vital records are still in Russia and right now,
(09:40):
I'm sure you're aware. Russia isn't really the kind of
place where journalists can just rock up and go digging
around for information. But there's another paper trail we can follow.
Until Bulgaria joined the Pact with Germany in nineteen forty one,
Britain had an embassy in so and most of the
(10:01):
paperwork from that embassy is now declassified. And here at
the London Archives, somewhere among the millions of records and documents.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I don't know, is it all computerized as well?
Speaker 12 (10:15):
It is.
Speaker 13 (10:15):
It's a bit fiddly, but it's going to take us
some time, I think, But I think it's worth it.
Speaker 12 (10:20):
It's worth it.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, Well, we're reappearing in a couple of weeks, aren't me.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Oh have we got your sleeping though?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
This certainly isn't going to be easy. I bet lots
of people can't be bothered to come here.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Actually A look, well I have to drag you obviously.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Obviously I've never bothered before, but not drag exactly. But
I do have a confession. Most of my journalistic scoops
have come through talking to people I put them at
ease and ask the right questions. Then sometimes without even
knowing it, people well they just tell the truth. But
(10:56):
when your murder investigation is nearly a century old, eyewitnesses
are a bit thin on the ground. So all we
have is the paper trail, and that's really time consuming.
If we don't find anything, I'll blame you for wasting
weeks in there. Ago, I can't believe we'll find anything.
Speaker 13 (11:17):
Of course we will, of course we've all I mean, what.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Kind of things do they having an archived like this?
Speaker 13 (11:21):
I mean, you know, documents from the Foreign Office that
have been declassified now that were secret. I'm sure we're
going to find things top secret, I promise me.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Do they also have really secret at the top or
some ultra secret? Although King Boris officially died of a
heart attack, even at the time, the rumors were rife
that he'd actually been poisoned, But what was he poisoned with?
That's where I'm hoping the archives will deliver some clues,
(11:53):
because my own experience of poison is rather limited, unless
you count crime fiction. Of course, I've had enough Agatha
Christie books to know that arsenic is always on the
suspect list, but that seems unlikely here because by the
Second World War doctors could detect arsenic pretty quickly. Cyanide
(12:13):
is another famous poison, Agatha Christie's favorite. Quite a few
Nazis used it to kill themselves after the war, including
Hitler's wife. That cyanide leaves a distinctive armored smell, and
again that would have been immediately identified. So I'm looking
for something more sophisticated, a chemical weapon, basically something designed
(12:37):
in a laboratory for a targeted killing.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I think I need a briefing from.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Someone whose knowledge extends beyond detective thrillers, someone who could
at least give me some context as I scan the archives.
Speaker 14 (12:51):
My name's hemis Schubrecagordon Myra of expertise is chemical, biological, radiological,
a NIKA characterrorism.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
This man knows everything about the state of the art toxins.
Colonel Hamish's ex British Army. He's served in Iraq and Afghanistan,
has worked all over Syria and is currently advising the
Ukrainian government. He's an expert on the history and use
of chemical weapons.
Speaker 14 (13:16):
After the First World War, chemical weapons developed into much
more deadly weapons called nerve agents. Which basically destroy your nerves. Now,
Hitler had a vast stock of nerve agents, and he
developed them nerve agents.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
But before I get too carried away with this, Boris
was in agony. His organs were failing, and crucially, his
heart shut down. Do nerve agents affect the heart?
Speaker 14 (13:42):
These nerve agents do impact your nerves, and your heart
is probably the first thing to break down. So some
sort of nerve agent would seem vaguely to fit the
bill of some of the symptoms that you're mentioning. If
it was the Germans, who seemed to be the most likely,
I would have thought it's some out of their chemical
weapon portfolio.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
This is significant information. I now have a motive and
a potential means. I just need the archives to give
me some proof that the king somehow fell foul of
a nerve agent. Keywords Boris, King, Boris, Boris.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
They don't have to be an order, do there. It's
just a keywords king. You have to do plus or
minus or whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
King, Bulgaria, Bulgaria and World War Two?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Right, enter, Oh, good grief?
Speaker 8 (14:34):
Quite a few.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Oh great.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
While we're waiting for those documents to arrive, let's just
wind back a few years. I want to examine how
Hitler and King Boris became allies, because on the face
of it, they certainly don't look like natural bedfellows. Boris
(15:01):
hadn't banked on being in Hitler's camp at all. As
war brewed, he spent months traveling around the European capitals
trying to negotiate a peaceful way out. He knocked on
pretty much every leader's door because Boris knew Bulgaria was
ill prepared for conflict under the ill fated leadership of
(15:23):
his father, Foxy King Ferdinand. It had suffered a brutal
defeat in the First World War. It lost huge tracts
of territory as a result, including Macedonia and the area
known as Thrace. And more than that, says historian Tessa Dunlop,
it lost its army.
Speaker 15 (15:42):
Remember, Boris didn't start rearming until about nineteen thirty five,
wasn't allowed to. Bulgara had been totally dearmed. So this
is a dude who's got basically a country without a
protective shell. He has no real soldiers.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Why on earth would he want to go to war.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Boris was a seasoned soldier, but he was terribly marked
by the brutal conflicts he'd fought in both Balkan Wars
in nineteen twelve and nineteen thirteen, and then the First
World War. When he became king aged twenty four, he
swore he would never allow Bulgarian blood to be spilled again,
(16:18):
which was why at the start of the Second World
War he declared Bulgaria was neutral. But the war spread
like wildfire.
Speaker 15 (16:27):
Little Bulgaria was in the middle of a giant world
feed and there's no way on Earth it couldn't get
sucked up into the drama.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Now, this next bit of history is crucial to understanding
who might have killed the king and whether it might
have been Hitler. I'll explain as clearly as I can.
Here's what forced Bulgaria to stop being neutral and put
its slap bang into Hitler's camp. So Germany and Russia
(16:58):
were allies at the start of the war. That suited
Boris just fine. Germany was Bulgaria's biggest economic partner, and
the Soviets had rescued Bulgaria from Turkish occupation only fifty
years back, so the Bulgarians felt an affinity with the Russians.
It was all just about manageable until the summer of
(17:20):
nineteen forty one, when Hitler tore up his non aggression
packed with Russia.
Speaker 15 (17:27):
The problem is when Hitler has this idea that actually, nah,
I'm going to head east. You know, I'm going to
build my empire in Russia. I'm going to kick down
the rotten door. And that means Boris has to get
off the neutrality tyrope. He's got to call it. Is
it going to be Germany or is it going to
be the USSR?
Speaker 1 (17:45):
And the crunch point came when Hitler decided he fancied
his chances in Greece. There was only one route, and
that was straight through Bulgaria. Boris now had to pick
a side.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Look at the map.
Speaker 15 (18:00):
Need to get to Greece, okay, to shore up the Italians.
How are they going to get there? They've got to
put boots on the ground and they've got to go
through Bulgaria. Better they go through as friends than his enemies.
Speaker 8 (18:08):
We know what.
Speaker 15 (18:09):
Happens if you're Germany's enemy.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
We already know that.
Speaker 15 (18:12):
By nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Bulgarian historian George bos Duganov spells out the stark choice
facing King Boris.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
The journals have only one question, frank or four.
Speaker 11 (18:25):
They don't care what Bulgarian king is thinking about at all, right,
friend or four?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
So Boris had two options, resist Hitler, knowing that he'd
invade anyway and accept the consequences of that would be brutal,
or give in and save all that bloodshed. His daughter,
Princess Maria Louisa is certain he made the right choice.
Speaker 10 (18:52):
Had we opposed Germany, there would have been nothing left,
as they did to other countries in Europe, run us
over kill a bonisam. It was no choice, absolutely no choice,
absolutely choice.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
So to protect his country, King Boris chose Germany. He
signed a pact with Germany, Italy and Japan in March
nineteen forty one, and from that moment on Boris was
a marked man. Overnight he became an enemy of the Allies.
(19:33):
Oh right, here we go at the Q Archives in London.
The first batch of the documents we called up has arrived.
There's a whole bunch of declassified telegrams and letters from
Sir George Rendall to the Foreign Office marked secret. Rendell
was the British ambassador to Sofia during the war. He
(19:54):
seemed to get on well with Boris, but when the
King signed that pact with Hitler, Rendall was curious.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
He freaked out. He felt the King did.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Have a choice about throwing in his lot with Hitler,
and now that the Nazis were walking the streets of Sofia,
Rendell was panicking. He was stuck in enemy territory and
he wanted to go home. He demanded permission to break
off all ties with Bulgaria immediately. In one particular document,
he's pretty dramatic.
Speaker 14 (20:24):
Bulgaria had not only been able to prevent the burglar
of from entering, but had opened the window to him
and beckoned him in.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
A few days.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Later, the British embassy in Sofia was closed and Rendall
left the country for good. The Allies certainly gave Boris
the cold shoulder, but whether he liked it or not,
the new found friendship with Germany meant the King would
get plenty of FaceTime with Hitler, and at first glance,
(20:55):
the King seemed very happy to hang out with the
Fura and his henchmen. Boris would sometimes go hunting and
shooting with them. He spoke perfect German, of course, remember
his father Ferdinand was German. And whenever the King met
Hitler it was all big smiles and handshakes and slaps
(21:17):
on the back, a real bromance.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Or was it only on film footage? They are friends
only in film footage.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So if they didn't share a friendship, did they share
an ideology?
Speaker 4 (21:31):
He's very clever in the blomacy.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Now, George Bosduganov isn't just a historian, He's Bulgaria's leading historian.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
He's unbelievably learned. Now.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I've done my best. I've digested all the books out
there on King Boris and the Second World War, but
it's fair to say that I'm not quite as up
to speed as mister bos Duganov on the minutii of
Balkan history. And I get the impression that sometimes frustrates him,
like when he grits his teeth and asks for a time.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Out, maybe a little break, of course.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Luckily, my producer EJ's on hand to back me up.
I can always rely on her, so if I can,
just I'm not recording me yet, Lory's fine.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I thought we were on a break. No, we're not
on a break.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Now, are you ready to go?
Speaker 16 (22:31):
Now?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Where?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Eventually we all get on the same page. No, yeah, no, no, no,
what do you mean now?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Right?
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10 (22:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Finally I get to ask my question.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Was he a Nazi.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
More? Never? Not at all? He has never been a
Nazi fan.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Never did he make that clear to Hitler.
Speaker 11 (23:09):
Boris would be afraid to make this very clear to
Hitler because of the Hitler's power.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
Everybody in the world.
Speaker 11 (23:19):
Was afraid by Hitler Inlish, true British, true, of course.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
So this alliance between Hitler and Boris was because.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Have not choice, really absolutely have not choice.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
But Hitler hoped the king was on side with the
whole Nazi project. Boris walked the walk, and he walked
it well.
Speaker 15 (23:41):
He wasn't intimidated by the fury, He wasn't intimidated by Hitler.
He is more politically experienced in many levels than Hitler is,
but he is an incredible political operator.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
So I mean kind of, I mean sly, Hitler says.
Speaker 15 (23:55):
Hitler says of Boris, he had never met a politician
as intelligent and shrew.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Now that's interesting because I've read that Hitler's nickname for
Boris was the Fox, not Foxy like his father Ferdinand,
but the Fox, which suggests to me that he had
Boris's number, and Hitler was right to be suspicious. King
Simeon is sure his father joined the Axis the alliance
(24:21):
with Germany only through political expediency, not because he shared
Nazi values.
Speaker 9 (24:29):
I think he distrusted Hitler deeply with good reason. So
to join the Axis was not any love of Hitler
or because our family is of German origin. But this
is what happens in these extreme situations in war time.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
And according to Simeon, Boris's nickname for Hitler was the
big dirty swine? Did Hitler know that? What we do know,
of course, is that Hitler always took revenge on those
who displeased him. Colonel Hamish de Breton Gordon is our
expert on chemical weapons like nerve agents. He tells me
(25:14):
that by the time Boris died in the summer of
nineteen forty three, Hitler had a whole pharmaceutical empire of
poisons at his fingertips.
Speaker 14 (25:24):
We do know the Nazis developed nerve agents, starting off
with Sonning called Soman, then Tavern and then Saren, which
you know the Syrian Regimus used recently in Syria. Now,
the sad thing to say is actually they are morbidly
brilliant weapons, and if you had no morals or scruples,
(25:45):
you'd use them all the time.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I think we'd be hard pushed to find anyone who
could defend Hitler's morals and scruples. So nerve agents do
seem to fit the bill.
Speaker 14 (25:55):
If it's the Germans who seem most likely, it'd probably
be something out of their chemical factory.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So if it's nineteen forty three and you want to
kill a head of state and you have access to
a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons, why wouldn't you
use them, especially if you thought you could get away
with it.
Speaker 14 (26:16):
The idea behind using deadly toxins and chemicals is actually
they're very difficult to attribute. There's a lot of uncertainty,
there's a lot of deniability. So if it was the
Nazi s kill Boris but didn't want to be directly
fingered by it, because actually they were supposed to be allies,
they were supposed to be working together. If you don't
(26:39):
want to be found out, then certainly some eyes is
that you would use a toxin that would do that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, they were certainly supposed to be allies who were
supposed to be working together. But the problem is, it
turns out Boris just kept on refusing to play by
the rules. Boris canceled the deportation of the Jews in
March nineteen forty three and sent those trains away. Hitler
(27:08):
ordered Boris to Germany to have a little chat, or rather,
he gave him a stiff talking to. Hitler insisted all
Bulgaria's Jews must now be rounded up and sent to
Poland by the autumn. So Boris did something quite extraordinary,
something that might well have cost him his life. He
(27:31):
pretended to be on the same page as Hitler when
it came to the Jews. Basically, he gas lit him.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
The King sir, I'm dying to send in my one
percent way II God blame these people.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
But then the King told Hitler unfortunately he couldn't send
the Jews away as they were otherwise engaged in forced labor.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
The King sir, but I need them for building roads
and railroads.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
And that was the biggest bluff of the Second World War.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Boris's bluff saved Michael Barzowhau's family. Michael is a writer
and former politician who now lives in Israel. Forgive the
audio quality, but zoom was the only way I could
get to speak to him, and he's certainly worth speaking to.
He was just a young boy in Bulgaria when the
king invented his fictitious road building scheme. Every able bodied
(28:32):
Jewish man in Michael's town was to be sent to
camps in the countryside, away from the prying eyes of
the Nazis, out of harm's way.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I think Boris told them, now, we are going to
mobilize all the able Jews men to labor camps, and
by doing that, we are going to prevent the sending
of the Jews.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
To pot And the King's scheme worked.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
And indeed they mobilized the Jews to the labor camps.
My father was one of them.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
According to Michael, his father's life in the camp was
not exactly arduous. He often played cards and socialized with
his Bulgarian guards. Now this was hardly a holiday. These
men had been forced to leave their homes and families
behind and their livelihoods completely uproot themselves. Not easy, but
(29:36):
it was still a far cry from a Nazi concentration camp.
Speaker 16 (29:41):
I have pictures with the camp drinking together, singing together,
and it was unbelievable because they did not work very
hard for these camps. They didn't build any railroads. Jing
Boris was played here a very very subtle game.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
He bluffed. He was a very wily man.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Now, nobody likes to be made a fool of. And
we know that Hitler clocked what Boris was up to
because his henchmen visited the camps and reported back. So
in May nineteen forty three, the deportation trains destined for
Poland were prepared again. All that was needed was Boris's signature,
(30:24):
if only someone could find him. It was a public
holiday in Bulgaria. As usual, crowds flocked to the city
center to see the king waving on the palace balcony.
But Boris didn't show for three whole days. He went missing,
(30:45):
and all the while the train drivers were waiting for
their orders. In fact, the Butterfly King had holed himself
away in his beloved mountains, and a few years ago,
Michael bars Oha tracked down the man who helped him disappear.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I found the driver. He was a simple man.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
The chauffeur told Michael that the king didn't leave his
mountain hut for three days, and while he was hiding inside,
Boris confessed his worries to him and his valet.
Speaker 12 (31:20):
He told him, I'm very much afraid that I might
get a phone call from Berlin to carry out a
certain operation. And I know very well if I get
this phone call, I can't refuse. So I decided to
be for a few days in Communicado to be unreachable.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
And just in case that wasn't clear. Michael saying that
the King deliberately cut himself off so that he couldn't
receive orders from Hitler about deporting Bulgaria's Jews on the trains,
and without the King's signature and say so, no one
had the authority to load those trains. When Boris came back,
(32:05):
he quickly evacuated all the remaining Jews to the countryside.
The elderly, the women and children, including Michael, were all
sent away out of reach of the Gestapo who were
billeted in the capitol. How many Jewish people from mainland
Bulgaria were deported to camps, concentration camps, death camps in Poland?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Not even one, not one.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
No one, of course, not There was not one Bulgarian
jum was reported.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Forgive the skeptical journalist in me, but I need to
check that fact myself, because it is pretty incredible. Bulgaria's
pre eminent historian, George Bosdiganov, always has the fact and
figures at his fingertips.
Speaker 11 (33:03):
Not a single Jews, Bolgarian on foreigner a living in
the Kingdom was killed or departed from the country to
the Nazi camps. Neither one, no one, no, not one.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
And for George, that makes Boris a legend.
Speaker 11 (33:27):
King boris third Bolgarian national hero of twenty century.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
It's extraordinary, such an incredible act of resistance, especially when
you remember Bulgaria was an official ally of Nazi Germany
and that the Gestapo the Bulgarian streets. Of course, not
everyone tells these stories in quite the same way, because
(34:08):
the definition of a hero is never universal. It's very
very personal, and as we'll hear in the next episode,
every hero is someone else's villain. But you can bet
Hitler wasn't rushing to congratulate Boris. Quite the opposite, although
(34:28):
since Boris had gone so far off message, why bother
with subterfuge? I mean, why didn't the Nazis just cut
their losses and shoot him.
Speaker 14 (34:41):
There would be no plausible defense. I mean, there's not
much clausible defense anyway, But I think that's the point.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Our weapons expert, Colonel Hamish de Breton Gordon thinks assassination
with a nerve agent is about much more than deniability.
It's also about scaring the living daylights out of everybody
around the king.
Speaker 14 (35:02):
These weapons are incredibly effective because of their psychological impact.
So half the message, or probably more than half the
message in these assassinations is to other people, you know,
trying to tell anybody else who wanted to oppose the regime,
you know, we'd get the same thing, and it's it's
incredibly effective at doing that.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Anyone who witnessed Boris's awful and prolonged death would have
felt distinctly uncomfortable, especially if the word poison was whispered
in the sick room. But how could Hitler have administered
the poison without Boris noticing? Remember that plane that Boris
(35:44):
took to meet Hitler for the last time, the one
that took him right into the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's top
secret base in Poland. It's also the one little Simeon
was so excited to see when it landed back in Sofia.
Here's some key evidence. It wasn't a Royal jet, it
wasn't even Bulgarian. It was a German plane, and it
(36:06):
belonged to Hitler. I've read a few history books which
mention the following story. On the way home from the
Wolf's Lair, the king was subdued, but after a moment,
he left his seat and went into the cockpit. You'll
remember how keen he was on all things mechanical, and
(36:28):
he asked the pilot if the plane could climb a
little higher to see if the altitude would affect his
ears the way it did when he went climbing in
the mountains. The pilot agreed, and that's when the oxygen
masks were handed out. So what if that's how Hitler
(36:49):
did it, substituting oxygen for some sort of poisonous gas
in Boris's mask.
Speaker 14 (36:56):
Actually, if it was a nerve age and he breathed
it in, it would probably kill him pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Well, Boris died fourteen days after he returned from that
meeting with Hitler. Could it have been a delayed reaction
to sign my gas?
Speaker 14 (37:10):
For instance, if you breathe stuff in, it's going straight
to your lungs, your lungs straight to your bloodstream, your
bloodstream straight to your heart. So if they wanted a
delayed reaction, they would probably want a dermal ingestion, in
other words, through the skin. If it was a nerve
agent on an oxygen mass type of thing, then that
(37:32):
scenario I would think would be less likely with the
outcome that we know happened.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
But here's something I learned from. Simeon and Maria Louisa
are two living links to these events. Boris's sister Eudoxia
told them that she was sure the Nazis burned his lungs.
So Boris's children carefully examined this theory.
Speaker 9 (37:57):
My aunt herself, she thought that it was the oxygen
mask that my father used on his way back. But
apparently in those days there was no poison which would
work with six days delay. So there we explode another story.
Speaker 10 (38:16):
You know, it's a myths because in those days they
put the oxygen masks to everybody on the plane, you know,
so the other people should have, you know, had the same.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
In fact, Maria Luisa tracked down the German pilot many
years after the war. He promised her that poisoning via
an oxygen mask would have been impossible because his allegiance
was clearly to the Bulgarian king rather than to Hitler.
He claimed he'd never have let those pigs, as he
called the Gestapo, anywhere near the plane, let alone the cockpit.
(38:51):
But a strange detail about that plane journey raises further questions.
According to the pilot's account, Boris him health became wary
when the oxygen masks came out, and he insisted on
swapping his own mask with the pilots. That seems odd,
to say the least. Did he suspect Hitler was trying
(39:13):
to kill him, because, according to accounts from advisers, when
the King arrived home, he didn't rush to see his
family as he usually did. He went to see a
close friend who was a former chief of cabinet, and
he told that friend that he'd had a terrible meeting
with Hitler, which he knew would cost him dearly. I
(39:33):
saved Bulgaria, he said, even if I will pay for it,
which of course he did with his life.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Colonel Hamish has his own theory.
Speaker 14 (39:45):
Maybe they thought Boris was an annoyance and wasn't helping things,
and if they killed him. Actually, others in the Bulgarian
higher command and raw family might be more sympathetic towards
the cause.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
You see, hadn't just duped Hitler over the Jews, He'd
also conned him over the war. Hitler was desperate for
support on the Eastern Front, where the Germans were fighting
a losing battle with Russia, and Hitler wanted that backup
from the Bulgarian army. But Boris had made a promise
(40:21):
when he first ascended the throne. He promised he'd never
send another Bulgarian soldier to war.
Speaker 11 (40:29):
He refused absolutely, He refused to send troops on the
Russian Front or any other front.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Not only that.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
In fact, historians George Bosdiganov and Tessa Dunlop say Boris
was doing far more dangerous things and refusing to hand
over his army. King Boris was actively trying to swap sides.
Speaker 15 (40:54):
He already is having conversations back channels, exist conversations about
possibly getting clear blue water from the Nazis.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Did he try? Did he try to?
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yes, he try, Yes, he tried.
Speaker 11 (41:08):
In the spring of nineteen forty three, a Sir Boris
began talks with Americans in Switzerland for complete withdrawal of
Bulgaria from the war, which he was enable to complete
due to his sudden death.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
So Boris was having secret meetings with the US.
Speaker 7 (41:30):
If it got Win learned about it, he had to
stop it. And the way to stop it was one looking,
because nobody else but the key was shaping the foreign policy.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
As writer Michael bar Zohars, Hitler almost certainly did get
wind of those talks. The Nazis had spies everywhere, which
is probably why that final meeting between Boris and Hitler
was so brutal. It's August nineteen forty three, and we're
back in the Wolf's Lair for eight whole hours. The
(42:07):
fewer rages at the Bulgarian King, and according to eavesdroppers
listening outside the door at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler goes
absolutely crazy. You don't need to speak German to understand
this friendship is floundering. But Boris speaks perfect German, which
(42:28):
means he's on his own in that room, with not
even an interpreter to take the sting out of Hitler's words.
It's rumored things got so heated that Hitler even swung
a punch, but Boris won't give an inch. He won't
send Bulgarian soldiers to fight Russia on the Eastern Front.
(42:49):
He won't send Bulgarian Jews to the death camps. As
far as Hitler was concerned, that wasn't the deal. That
wasn't the deal at all. And Hitler feels betrayed. And
no one likes feeling they've been taken for a ride.
But Adolf Hitler has been taken for a ride. So
when his royal guest leaves, Hitler doesn't bother to wave
(43:11):
him off yet this is the final goodbye. Boris doesn't
know it yet, but he has barely two weeks left to.
Speaker 10 (43:21):
Live, right, little corner are there.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Let's sit down.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Back at the National Archives in London. We've had some
more luck. Actually it could be a big breakthrough. The
librarians have pointed us towards the Churchill Archives Center in Cambridge.
They've just emailed us a very interesting document. Remember how
the king lay dying surrounded by scores of doctors and specialists.
(43:55):
This is a parenthlet written by some library society or
historical society ten years after Boris had died. Okay, and
you know those doctors who were there, it says here
the latter appeared to have been of opinion that it
was no natural death.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
No natural death.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, And then it says here a little bit further down,
according to private pronouncements of the official Physician of the court,
the cause of death was subsequently ascertained as a strange
poison of Asiatic origin.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Well, we've not heard that before, have we? Asiatic? I mean,
that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
And there's even more salient information in the pamphlet, something
which makes my blood go cold. They right here that
that particular poison paralyzes the muscular system of the heart
and shows symptoms resemble sort of heard attack cardiac areas
or whatever. And because it looks like that, it could
(45:05):
obviously be mistaken for that, you know.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
I mean I've never heard of that. I mean, what
does it mean?
Speaker 13 (45:11):
I know, what's asiatic poison?
Speaker 7 (45:12):
Asiatic?
Speaker 13 (45:13):
I mean, Bulgaria's next to Turkey. Yeah, he's half in Asia.
But how do they know it was Asiatic? Hang on
that that's really important because that means they must have
found a trace of it and examined it. Yeah, I mean,
everything else we've just read said he was poison. But
(45:34):
if they're saying it's a specific poison to Asia. I
think you're really onto something there. Seriously, I do think
this leads.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
It is a lead.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
It is.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah, let's just wind back a minute, back to the
summer of nineteen forty three. A few days after his
highly stressful meeting, Boris took his family for a breather
in the mountains. It was the school holidays, so the
days seemed long and carefree. On the Monday, though, Boris
(46:10):
told his family he had to leave them and return
to Sofia for work. What he didn't tell his wife
or his children was that he was feeling ill. But
Boris had already told his brother that his heart was
thumping and that he felt nauseous. It was a few
more days before his children found out, and at first
(46:30):
they weren't told the full story.
Speaker 9 (46:33):
My sister and I drew some painting. I think I
drew a little plain or something with my sister some flowers,
and we sent some mountain flowers to him, but not
suspecting or knowing that he was so gravely ill. And
then on Saturday he passed away.
Speaker 10 (46:52):
We were told he was quite ill. Then my mother
of course went down to be there, and on the
Saturday afternoon, we were out in the country in the mountains,
and when we came back, the radio was not working.
The nanny said, of course, they had pulled the black.
Speaker 8 (47:15):
And then we.
Speaker 10 (47:19):
Told that Papa was very very ill, so, you know,
very ill, we should maybe go to Sofia. And then
my father's sister, my Auntie Dorsa, came and she was
dressed in black, and she said it, and I still
didn't believe it. So we drove into Sofia and I
(47:41):
saw black flags hanging in front of the buildings, and
then you know, I knew it.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Six year old Simeon couldn't get his head around what
had happened until his father's right hand man or aide
de camp, approached him.
Speaker 9 (48:01):
My father's ADC came up to me and he addressed
me as your majesty, not your highness, as was the usual.
And that's when I suddenly realized, my god, I mean
he's addressing me like the king.
Speaker 8 (48:21):
I e my father has passed away.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
I'm more and more convinced that Hitler was behind King
Boris's death. And as I've told you, that was aunt
you doxy as hunch too. She always blamed the Nazis
for murdering her brother. Could Hitler have paid someone to
administer poison asiatic poison? What about one of the doctors
(48:50):
or nurses who were treating King Boris? What do we
actually know about those doctors? There were sixteen doctors in
that sick room. Thirteen of them signed the death certificate,
but three didn't.
Speaker 11 (49:06):
They are concertos that they are well known and will
established names with international.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
In all so, surely we can identify these doctors if
they enjoy worldwide acclaim.
Speaker 4 (49:19):
First that they are not Borgaeis. No, they're German doctors.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
And that's when King Simeon drops a bombshell, aren't you? Doxia,
who always suspected the Nazis killed her brother, left Simeon
and Maria Louisa a very special letter penned by her
own hand, to be read only after her own death.
Speaker 9 (49:43):
It's about twenty pages and hands written, and she left
it in an envelope in Germany when she died in
eighty five, with a huge sort of with a marker
on the envelope to be given to Simeon married Louise
after my death, and there of course her all her
(50:05):
first hand impressions aren't you.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Dot here places a distinct question mark over one of
the doctors who attended Boris in his final hours.
Speaker 9 (50:16):
She was sort of pointing or saying that this doctor
Zeites Rudel Zaide's who came from Berlin, was I mean,
there was something suspicious about him.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
And there wasn't just one German doctor but three at
the bedside of the king.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
One was Austrian but a known Nazi sympathizer, three of
them tending to King Boris, who's just betrayed the German
Feura Adolf Hitler motive means and opportunity accept.
Speaker 15 (50:55):
People like you journalists in excavating the archives pptunity together
and make the wonderful five that is Nazis. Blame it
all on the Nazis, It's not always all the Nazi's fault.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Have I let my imagination run away with me? Historian
Tessa Dunlops certainly thinks I'm jumping to conclusions.
Speaker 15 (51:16):
I commend you, Becky for having swallowed homeless bolus so
much of what's been written about this. But you are
seeing what you want to see. You're looking around the
room and you're only seeing swashtikas.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Am I just framing the most obvious suspect in the lineup.
Speaker 15 (51:31):
Why would you take out the one man who might
not have gone as far as you wanted him to go,
but has remained consistently loyal in his support. I would
suggest that was even madder than Hitler was by nineteen
forty three.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
From a historical perspective, I know that Hitler needed all
the friends he could get at this point in the war,
So I accept that logically it doesn't make sense to
murder your ally. But that's exactly my point. Why does
there have to be logic where Hitler's can concerned he
was insane? But the Palace doesn't seem to be backing
(52:04):
my theory either. Perhaps I'm being oversensitive or our King
Simeon and Maria Louisa giving me a gentle ticking off.
Speaker 9 (52:13):
One thing disturbs me terribly is when I see people
being not objective.
Speaker 8 (52:18):
I like objectivity.
Speaker 9 (52:20):
All these things, as I say, are simply theories or
hypothesis or just fantasy.
Speaker 8 (52:26):
But there's nothing prasional. I have no proof. I'm convinced
it wasn't. It wasn't a dramas.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Next time on the Butterfly King, we delve deep into
Asiatic poisons.
Speaker 11 (52:47):
It was some kind of poison from India, probably slake poison.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
That is what he had heard from the doctors.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
We find a new lead as a snake in the grass,
its ugly head in Asia.
Speaker 14 (53:02):
Tropical Asia has a horrendous snake bite death rate every year.
Speaker 11 (53:06):
The snake venoms are complicated cocktails of different toxins.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
And Boris's squeaky clean image takes a battering as we
hear dark stories about his very controversial legacy.
Speaker 4 (53:21):
It's a story, it's a falsifying history. His hands are
not clean. It's quite a lot of blood.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
The Butterfly King is a production of Blanchard House and
Exactly Right Media, hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written
and produced by Emma Jane Kirk. Original music is by
Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis nank Manell and Toby Mattamong. Sound
(54:08):
design and engineering by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans.
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac. The managing producer is a Mika
Schortino nowa. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye.
The executive producer and head of content at Blanchard House
(54:29):
is Lawrence Grisell for Exactly Right Media. The executive producers
are Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Daniel Kramer, with consulting
producer Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the
book Hitler and the King by John Hall Spencer
Hosts And Creators
Emma Jane Kirby
Becky Milligan
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