November 28, 2025 • 9 mins
In Part 2 of this series, we explore the even stranger depths of Nazi Germany’s ideology and operations — from the looting of European libraries to the bureaucratic efficiency of genocide, propaganda radio systems, dystopian eugenics programs, and failed architectural mega-dreams like the city of Germania. We also examine the strange legends of Die Glocke, Nazi pseudoscience, facial measurement “research,” and the chilling contradictions between animal welfare laws and human atrocity. This is a thought-provoking, historically grounded, darkly humorous look at one of history’s most disturbing and bizarre dictatorships.
Like and Subscribe:
Apple
Spotify
IHeart
Audible
This episode of The Strange History Podcast was lovingly crafted with the help of ElevenLabs.io — the magical technology that gives Amy her time to sleep, eat, work and spend time with her dog Jack. While some might say she sounds too good to be true, we assure you, Amy is absolutely a real person… who just happens to have access to studio-grade AI vocal cords and an unnatural ability to pronounce “necromancy” without flinching. Any resemblance to an AI is purely coincidental — and mildly flattering. Dan the announcers name is really Bill and Patrick, the fake ad guy who thinks he is funny? well he is questionable at best. So yes, AI was used but the people are real and the shinanigans are.... well.... shinanigans.
Like and Subscribe:
Apple
Spotify
IHeart
Audible
This episode of The Strange History Podcast was lovingly crafted with the help of ElevenLabs.io — the magical technology that gives Amy her time to sleep, eat, work and spend time with her dog Jack. While some might say she sounds too good to be true, we assure you, Amy is absolutely a real person… who just happens to have access to studio-grade AI vocal cords and an unnatural ability to pronounce “necromancy” without flinching. Any resemblance to an AI is purely coincidental — and mildly flattering. Dan the announcers name is really Bill and Patrick, the fake ad guy who thinks he is funny? well he is questionable at best. So yes, AI was used but the people are real and the shinanigans are.... well.... shinanigans.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, dear listeners to the Strange History Podcast, where
we examine history's worst decisions and quietly hope we never
repeat them, although sometimes I'm not convinced. Last episode we
explored vegetarian propaganda, stolen babies, occult archaeology, and a concrete bunker.
So thick modern engineers went, yeah, that's permanent. Now today
(00:25):
we finish our descent, and yes, it gets weirder.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
The looting of libraries not just art.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
While Nazi art smuggling gets the headlines, the regime also
systematically looted books, millions of them. Entire archives from universities, synagogues,
and private collectors were cataloged, boxed, and sent to storage depots,
many underground. One such cash discovered in Poland after the
(00:55):
war held manuscripts from Jewish scholars who never returned. A
librarian who helped to recover them later said, we opened
crates full of knowledge but empty of authors. Sometimes history
breaks your heart in one sentence.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Forced labor built the secret war machine.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Those massive underground factories, the tunnels meant to house weapons, bunkers, headquarters.
None were built by volunteers, prisoners from concentration camps and
kidnapped civilians from occupied countries were forced to dig them
under brutal supervision. Survivors later recalled days without food, water
(01:36):
ration to a cup, and guards beating them if they slowed.
Many tunnels achieved only one finished feature mass Graves.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Tonight's episode is sponsored by Build a Bunker. The subscription
box for aspiring dictators. Each month get exciting items like
a shovel made of questionable ethics, a handbook titled maybe
Just Stop, a one year pass to your local government
run grocery store bread Quarters, where the motto is yes
(02:06):
we have bananas, but limit is one, and a sticker
that says authoritarianism. It's not a phase. Build responsibly or don't.
History will judge you.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Micromanaging the nation down to hairstyles.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
The Nazi obsession with purity was so extreme officials attempted
to regulate fashion, modernist women's clothing, suspicious jazz inspired fashion,
degenerate makeup acceptable if subtle and airy and friendly. One
propaganda article infamously declared a German woman does not paint
(02:44):
her lips red like a foreign temptress. Somewhere Joseph Gerbels
definitely believed lipstick caused jazz.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The Holocaust run like a paperwork department.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
One of the most disturbing realities. Genocide required astonishing office organization,
railway schedules, chemical requisition forms, billing invoices for Zyklon B,
meeting minutes titled final solution logistics, all horrifyingly routine. Adolf Eichmann,
(03:16):
an architect of the Holocaust, once testified I did not murder.
I merely managed transports, which is like saying I didn't
crash the car. I just cut the brake lines and
aimed it downhill.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Measuring faces to calculate race.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Thousands of photos exist of people from Europe, Africa, and
Asia forced to stand while ss anthropologists measured their faces
with calipers and drawn charts. They believed skull shape determined intellect, morality,
and race destiny. Spoiler, it does not. This wasn't science.
It was cosplay anthropology with the confidence of a man
(03:56):
who thinks reading half a Wikipedia page makes him in life.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Radios required independent thinking not included.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
The Volkshemfeger People's receiver was a cheap, mass manufactured radio
designed so everyone could hear Nazi broadcasts. Its tuning range
was intentionally limited to prevent access to foreign stations. Listening
to BBC broadcasts became a crime punishable by imprisonment. One
(04:27):
elderly German recalled, we knew something was wrong when every
station said the same thing and none of it matched reality.
Propaganda works best when it becomes the only soundtrack public health,
but only for approved people. Nazi health messaging sometimes looked
progressive anti smoking campaigns, exercise programs, public sanitation, but beneath
(04:52):
the surface eugenics, people with disabilities, mental illness, or epilepsy
became targets of sterilization or murder, disguised as mercy. One
nurse involved in the euthanasia program later confessed, we were
told it was medical progress, but it felt like killing hope.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
This episode is brought to you by Spin That Science,
the pr firm that turns pseudoscience into policy. Need to
justify cruelty, want to make racism sound like lab work.
Try Spin that Science now with free skull calipers, while supplies.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Last Germania, the gigantic fantasy capital.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Hitler plan to redesign Berlin into Germania, a monumental capital
with structures so large they would eclipse Rome and Paris.
The centerpiece a domed great hall, capable of holding one
hundred eighty thousand people, so large that architects calculated the
building would form its own weather system, including indoor fog
(05:56):
from human breath. Nothing says functional God governance like designing
a building that reigns on itself.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Die Gloca the Nazi time machine myth or miracle.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
After the war, rumors spread of a top secret device
called die Gloca. The bell allegedly anti gravity propulsion, time
distortions a glow like liquid mercury. Scientists vanished. No evidence
supports the story, but conspiracy theorists insist it was the
lost key to Nazi UFO technology, because if there's one
(06:32):
thing humans do well, it's assuming history's villains were smarter
than they actually were.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
The ban the slaughter house after the war idea.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Gribbels recorded a conversation where Hitler envisioned a future Germany
where slaughterhouses were abolished and people ate plant based diets. Meanwhile,
the regime was building gas chambers. Ethics not even once.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Futuristic propaganda in a ruined nation.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
As the war collapsed, propaganda showed jet fighters, rocket weapons,
concept art of sleek post war cities, all while German
civilians starved and cities burned. It was the World War
II equivalent of photoshopping abs onto your Instagram profile while
living in a basement eating crackers.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Nazi eugenics expanded beyond borders.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
In occupied countries. Doctors enforced rules determining who could marry, reproduce,
or undergo forced sterilization. Paperwork could decide fate approved equals
citizen denied equals deportation or death. Medical authority was weaponized.
Loving dogs, hating humans, Hitler adored his dog, Blondie. Himmler
(07:50):
wrote poems about animals, goring criminalized cruelty to pets, and
yet mass murder continued daily. The strangest, most chilling contradiction.
They knew empathy existed and chose where to turn it off.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
This episode is also brought to you by History Rewind,
the only time travel service that does not take you
to Nazi Germany. That's right. While other time travel agencies say,
let's visit the nineteen forties, it'll be educational, History Rewind says, no,
thank you, We've seen enough documentaries. With History Rewind, you
(08:28):
can choose the Renaissance, but only the fancy parts, not
the plague ancient Egypt, no manual labor the nineteen twenties.
Yes there will be jazz or literally any era where
goosestepping isn't a thing. Upgrade to History Rewind Platinum for
features like avoiding torture, automatic plague, vaccine, and a tour
(08:51):
guide who gently slaps your hand when you try to
fix history. History Rewind because if we're time travel we'd
rather drink wine with Cleopatra than argue with fascists.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So ends our two part journey into Nazi Germany's bizarre, contradictory,
and terrifying world. If there's one lesson here, it's this
evil doesn't always look chaotic. Sometimes it wears a uniform,
files paperwork, and believes it is logical. So please, my
dear listeners, pay attention to your present. History only repeats
(09:27):
when we stop paying attention. Thank you for listening, and
thank you for staying curious, skeptical and kind. Subscribe. Tell
your friends show us some love with a kind review,
History would approve. Let's work hard not to forget lest
we repeat it
Welcome back, dear listeners to the Strange History Podcast, where
we examine history's worst decisions and quietly hope we never
repeat them, although sometimes I'm not convinced. Last episode we
explored vegetarian propaganda, stolen babies, occult archaeology, and a concrete bunker.
So thick modern engineers went, yeah, that's permanent. Now today
(00:25):
we finish our descent, and yes, it gets weirder.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
The looting of libraries not just art.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
While Nazi art smuggling gets the headlines, the regime also
systematically looted books, millions of them. Entire archives from universities, synagogues,
and private collectors were cataloged, boxed, and sent to storage depots,
many underground. One such cash discovered in Poland after the
(00:55):
war held manuscripts from Jewish scholars who never returned. A
librarian who helped to recover them later said, we opened
crates full of knowledge but empty of authors. Sometimes history
breaks your heart in one sentence.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Forced labor built the secret war machine.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Those massive underground factories, the tunnels meant to house weapons, bunkers, headquarters.
None were built by volunteers, prisoners from concentration camps and
kidnapped civilians from occupied countries were forced to dig them
under brutal supervision. Survivors later recalled days without food, water
(01:36):
ration to a cup, and guards beating them if they slowed.
Many tunnels achieved only one finished feature mass Graves.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Tonight's episode is sponsored by Build a Bunker. The subscription
box for aspiring dictators. Each month get exciting items like
a shovel made of questionable ethics, a handbook titled maybe
Just Stop, a one year pass to your local government
run grocery store bread Quarters, where the motto is yes
(02:06):
we have bananas, but limit is one, and a sticker
that says authoritarianism. It's not a phase. Build responsibly or don't.
History will judge you.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Micromanaging the nation down to hairstyles.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
The Nazi obsession with purity was so extreme officials attempted
to regulate fashion, modernist women's clothing, suspicious jazz inspired fashion,
degenerate makeup acceptable if subtle and airy and friendly. One
propaganda article infamously declared a German woman does not paint
(02:44):
her lips red like a foreign temptress. Somewhere Joseph Gerbels
definitely believed lipstick caused jazz.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The Holocaust run like a paperwork department.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
One of the most disturbing realities. Genocide required astonishing office organization,
railway schedules, chemical requisition forms, billing invoices for Zyklon B,
meeting minutes titled final solution logistics, all horrifyingly routine. Adolf Eichmann,
(03:16):
an architect of the Holocaust, once testified I did not murder.
I merely managed transports, which is like saying I didn't
crash the car. I just cut the brake lines and
aimed it downhill.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Measuring faces to calculate race.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Thousands of photos exist of people from Europe, Africa, and
Asia forced to stand while ss anthropologists measured their faces
with calipers and drawn charts. They believed skull shape determined intellect, morality,
and race destiny. Spoiler, it does not. This wasn't science.
It was cosplay anthropology with the confidence of a man
(03:56):
who thinks reading half a Wikipedia page makes him in life.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Radios required independent thinking not included.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
The Volkshemfeger People's receiver was a cheap, mass manufactured radio
designed so everyone could hear Nazi broadcasts. Its tuning range
was intentionally limited to prevent access to foreign stations. Listening
to BBC broadcasts became a crime punishable by imprisonment. One
(04:27):
elderly German recalled, we knew something was wrong when every
station said the same thing and none of it matched reality.
Propaganda works best when it becomes the only soundtrack public health,
but only for approved people. Nazi health messaging sometimes looked
progressive anti smoking campaigns, exercise programs, public sanitation, but beneath
(04:52):
the surface eugenics, people with disabilities, mental illness, or epilepsy
became targets of sterilization or murder, disguised as mercy. One
nurse involved in the euthanasia program later confessed, we were
told it was medical progress, but it felt like killing hope.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
This episode is brought to you by Spin That Science,
the pr firm that turns pseudoscience into policy. Need to
justify cruelty, want to make racism sound like lab work.
Try Spin that Science now with free skull calipers, while supplies.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Last Germania, the gigantic fantasy capital.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Hitler plan to redesign Berlin into Germania, a monumental capital
with structures so large they would eclipse Rome and Paris.
The centerpiece a domed great hall, capable of holding one
hundred eighty thousand people, so large that architects calculated the
building would form its own weather system, including indoor fog
(05:56):
from human breath. Nothing says functional God governance like designing
a building that reigns on itself.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Die Gloca the Nazi time machine myth or miracle.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
After the war, rumors spread of a top secret device
called die Gloca. The bell allegedly anti gravity propulsion, time
distortions a glow like liquid mercury. Scientists vanished. No evidence
supports the story, but conspiracy theorists insist it was the
lost key to Nazi UFO technology, because if there's one
(06:32):
thing humans do well, it's assuming history's villains were smarter
than they actually were.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
The ban the slaughter house after the war idea.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Gribbels recorded a conversation where Hitler envisioned a future Germany
where slaughterhouses were abolished and people ate plant based diets. Meanwhile,
the regime was building gas chambers. Ethics not even once.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Futuristic propaganda in a ruined nation.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
As the war collapsed, propaganda showed jet fighters, rocket weapons,
concept art of sleek post war cities, all while German
civilians starved and cities burned. It was the World War
II equivalent of photoshopping abs onto your Instagram profile while
living in a basement eating crackers.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Nazi eugenics expanded beyond borders.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
In occupied countries. Doctors enforced rules determining who could marry, reproduce,
or undergo forced sterilization. Paperwork could decide fate approved equals
citizen denied equals deportation or death. Medical authority was weaponized.
Loving dogs, hating humans, Hitler adored his dog, Blondie. Himmler
(07:50):
wrote poems about animals, goring criminalized cruelty to pets, and
yet mass murder continued daily. The strangest, most chilling contradiction.
They knew empathy existed and chose where to turn it off.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
This episode is also brought to you by History Rewind,
the only time travel service that does not take you
to Nazi Germany. That's right. While other time travel agencies say,
let's visit the nineteen forties, it'll be educational, History Rewind says, no,
thank you, We've seen enough documentaries. With History Rewind, you
(08:28):
can choose the Renaissance, but only the fancy parts, not
the plague ancient Egypt, no manual labor the nineteen twenties.
Yes there will be jazz or literally any era where
goosestepping isn't a thing. Upgrade to History Rewind Platinum for
features like avoiding torture, automatic plague, vaccine, and a tour
(08:51):
guide who gently slaps your hand when you try to
fix history. History Rewind because if we're time travel we'd
rather drink wine with Cleopatra than argue with fascists.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So ends our two part journey into Nazi Germany's bizarre, contradictory,
and terrifying world. If there's one lesson here, it's this
evil doesn't always look chaotic. Sometimes it wears a uniform,
files paperwork, and believes it is logical. So please, my
dear listeners, pay attention to your present. History only repeats
(09:27):
when we stop paying attention. Thank you for listening, and
thank you for staying curious, skeptical and kind. Subscribe. Tell
your friends show us some love with a kind review,
History would approve. Let's work hard not to forget lest
we repeat it
Popular Podcasts
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.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
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.