S8 Ep274: THE PHONY WAR AND CONTINUED CONSPIRACIES Colleague Charles Spicer. Following the outbreak of war in September 1939, the amateur spies remained active during the "Phony War," engaging with renewed efforts by the German opposition to replace the government.

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Arts, Society & Culture, Books, News

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2026

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

THE PHONY WAR AND CONTINUED CONSPIRACIES Colleague Charles Spicer. Following the outbreak of war in September 1939, the amateur spies remained active during the "Phony War," engaging with renewed efforts by the German opposition to replace the government. While the Oster Conspiracy remained a theoretical possibility, an independent assassination attempt by Georg Elser failed to kill Hitler, unrelated to the diplomatic plots. Graham Christie continued to meet with Hermann Göring, who played both sides, leading Christie to conclude that while Göring was evil, he might have been a preferable alternative for a negotiated peace. Meanwhile, Ernest Tennant risked his life on missions to Norway, and despite the bravery of these intermediaries in providing accurate information about the German threat, the British government still failed to fully grasp the scale of the danger before the invasion of France. NUMBER 13
0CT0BER 16, 1946 HANGED JULIUS STRIECHER REMAINS.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is CBS Eye on the World.
0:08.5	Here's John Batchelor.
0:11.0	With Charles Spicer, the book is Coffee with Hitler, the untold story of the amateur spies,
0:17.2	who tried to civilize the Nazis.
0:19.0	Again, our heroes, Graham Christie, the World War I flying ace,
0:23.6	a magnificent hero who provides really good information, perhaps because the German, the Luftwaffe,
0:32.0	and Herman Guring recognize a fellow knight of the air, but in any event, there is also Conwell Evans, whose information
0:39.8	based on his connection to the fellowship is also very good, and also his long-standing
0:45.0	relationship with von Ribbentrop, now the foreign minister of a country at war with the rest of
0:51.6	Europe. And then there is Ernest Tennet, who is quite bravely gone behind
0:56.9	German lines or going into territory where he could have been arrested or detained or just
1:03.7	disappeared. It is now the so-called Boer War. The American press eventually called it the phony war, the Sitzkrieg, they called it at the time,
1:13.5	because though Germany had overrun Poland very quickly and its ally, Russia, the Soviet Union,
1:21.3	it overrun the other half of Poland. And we know now that the Germans started their mass
1:26.3	murder campaign against the Jews and others right away in Poland.
1:31.3	And again, in the Baltic states, the Russians, the Soviets started brutalizing the population right away.
1:37.8	However, it is the Boer War from the point of view of London and Washington and Paris.
1:43.5	But our heroes are still very active. We begin with
1:47.1	September of 1939. Right away, the Oster conspiracy is again being talked about by Conwell Evans.
1:57.5	Christie knows about it. There are meetings, in fact, in Switzerland in October
2:02.0	to talk about a replacement government. Charles, I want to emphasize this again and again,
2:07.8	because you have provided material that other historians have been pioneers on about the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.