Surviving the Mad Propagandist of Nazi Berlin (Part 1)
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
May 9th, 1942. In the Lustgarten, a sprawling park in the center of Berlin, a strange new attraction opens to the public. It’s a maze of tents, glowing under red lightbulbs. Inside: a staged vision of the Soviet Union. Filthy streets, starving children, torture chambers. A horror show.
The man behind it all is Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, and the most powerful figure in Berlin. Posters, radio broadcasts, films, classrooms… his message is everywhere. The enemy is at the gates. The war must be won. No matter the cost.
And Berliners are watching. Some believe it. Some look away. Some quietly resist.
Because beyond the spectacle, the war is beginning to close in. Bombs fall on the city. Neighbors disappear. Truth itself becomes something the regime can manufacture.
This is life inside Nazi Berlin at the center of World War II.
How do ordinary people live under a system built on propaganda and fear? And when the story begins to crack… what happens next?
Special thanks to Ian Buruma, professor of human rights and journalism at Bard College, and author of Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945.
For more on this story, search for “Inside the Nazis’ Supernatural Obsession” on Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to HISTORY This Week (aired Jun 2, 2025).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is brought to you by Expedia and Visit Scotland. |
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| 0:25.7 | Today at expedia.co.uk slash visit Scotland. |
| 0:30.7 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:35.2 | History this week. May 9th, 1942. |
| 0:40.3 | I'm Ben Dixstein. |
| 0:43.3 | Berlin is Joseph Gerbiltz personal playground. |
| 0:53.3 | Gerbils is Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, the man in charge of strengthening Nazi ideology throughout the Third Reich. |
| 1:02.0 | But Gerbels has another role, the Gowleiter, the governor of Berlin. |
| 1:09.0 | So Joseph Gerbels is chief propagandist and leader of the capital city. |
| 1:13.6 | He looms large here. His works are everywhere. |
| 1:17.6 | Posters, movies, radio broadcasts, German classrooms, all reinforcing his message. |
| 1:24.6 | German blood must remain pure. And the other races must be eliminated. |
| 1:30.3 | And to do this, the Nazi Empire must vanquish its enemies, the British, the Soviets, the Jews. |
| 1:42.3 | Today, May 9th, Gerbils unveils the newest creation from his propaganda laboratory. |
| 1:49.2 | He brings it to the Loost Garden, a sprawling urban park in the center of Berlin. |
| 1:53.9 | It's a city unto itself, a city of tents, propped up across the park in a sprawling exhibition, |
| 2:00.5 | which Gerbels calls the Soviet paradise. |
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