Hello and welcome to the World War II podcast I'm Angus Wallace

Hitler when he came to power had very few

international connections and he distrusted elements of his own civil service.

What he needed was people he could trust

who were connected to the highest echelons of power throughout Europe.

These emissaries will be used to sound out opinion and

smooth over incidents when they happened. And that's what we're going to be

looking at in this episode, these back channels, the aristocratic

go-betweens that Hitler employed.

But before we get there, if you do enjoy my eclectic look at World War II, why not become a patron of the

podcast? You might buy a history magazine each month. How long will you spend reading it?

An hour? Two? I provide around two hours of podcasts each month for free and for patrons sometimes a little bit more.

This is all made possible from listeners like yourself becoming patrons of the show and donating

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To find out how it works you can find find me on Patreon at Patreon.com slash W.W.2

podcast or click on donate on the website W. W.W.2 podcast.com. So joining me today is Karina Erbach. Karina is

currently working at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Her book

Go Between's for Hitler, was published in 2015.

Karina, thank you for joining me.

Shall we start by defining what we mean by Go Between's, these back channels?

Well, it's important to understand that these are private individuals, they are not diplomats,

and they are people in high places.

...