Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II.

Episode 1, post World War I Europe in the early years of the Nazi Party.

World War II will certainly go down as one of the pivotal events of the 20th century.

The redefined human cruelty, but also embodied amazing courage and compassion.

It gave rise to some of the greatest villains and their atrocities, but it also allowed

heroes to demonstrate in measurable depths of kindness.

This is the story of the people who endured and those who did not.

Between Hitler, mindlessly slaughtering the people held in German-occupied countries,

the Allies bombing the civilians who made Germany's war machine possible, I hope to convey

the sheer tragedy that is war.

War will never again be as clear cut to its participants or as controllable by those who

sit around a table of maps.

As amazing as the story itself is, the effects of it stretched out for many years after.

While an unbelievable 60 million people died during World War II, it was followed by

and in part caused the Korean War where another 4 million people died.

At the end of this second World War, with the Allied armies facing each other across the

city of Berlin, their common enemy destroyed, the Republic and communist governments distressed

of each other, led quickly to the Cold War, which meant 50 years or so of everyone waiting

for the next World War, with its new and deadlier weapons.

The Third Reich of Nazi Germany lasted just over 12 years, from January 1933 to May 1945,

and it was called the Thousand Year Reich by its creators.

Even though it fell far short of that description, those dozen years wouldn't necessitate the

...