This is true spies, the podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.

Week by week, you'll hear the true stories behind the operations that have shaped the world we live in.

You'll meet the people who live life undercover. What do they know?

What are their skills?

And what would you do in their position?

I'm Rihanna Needs, and this is True out in unremarkable rooms.

This particular room is in Germany. Within it sit three men. One of them,

to all appearances, an Englishman, produces a small atlas from his pocket. A second man,

an Estonian by birth, takes the Atlas from the first.

His dark, intelligent eyes alight upon Russia.

He moves to mark the page with his pencil, swinging it to and fro, drawing new borders.

The third man, the Estonian's immediate superior, is an Austrian.

He watches on, and, as habit demands,

all rates at length for his audience of two.

Well, look, what we're going to do is we're going to take on Russia,

and we, Germany, are going to want Ukraine and the Caucasus because of Ukraine's

minerals, and we're going to want the Caucasus, Azerbaijan and the oil fields around Baku.

And the British Empire can have, you know, what they like east of Ukraine.

The year is 1932. And to anyone with an ounce of sense, a German invasion of Russia sounds like pure insanity.

But in this room, and for these men, it's practically a done deal.

So, who's who?

The Austrian, as you've likely surmised, is an ascendant Adolf Hitler.

...