HISTORY This Week

May 30, 1945. In Washington, Secretary of War Henry Stimson calls General Leslie Groves to his office and demands answers: which Japanese cities are about to become targets for the atomic bomb? What follows will pull Stimson—a deeply religious statesman who believed in restraint, but also in overwhelming force—into a profound crisis over morality, destruction, and what modern war is becoming. 

How did Henry Stimson grapple with the bomb? And after helping usher in the atomic age, how did he reckon with what he’d done?

Special thanks to Evan Thomas, journalist and New York Times bestselling author of Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II.

You can find the rest of the books we used to research this episode at historythisweekpodcast.com.

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May 23, 1934. On a muggy Louisiana morning, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow speed toward the Texas border. They’ve been on the run for over a year—wanted for robbery and murder—and the lurid news accounts of their exploits have made them famous. But today, Bonnie and Clyde’s legendary crime spree comes to an end … in a hail of bullets.

Why did some come to view these Depression Era outlaws as agents of chaos the country needed? And what was the real motivation behind their crimes?

Special thanks to our guest, John Neal Phillips, author of Running With Bonnie and Clyde: The Ten Fast Years of Ralph Fults.

** This episode originally aired May 22, 2023.

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May 12, 1949. After eleven months under Soviet blockade, the people of West Berlin flood into the streets to celebrate. The lights are back on. The autobahn is open. The siege is over.

But just months earlier, West Berlin seemed doomed.

Surrounded deep inside Soviet-controlled territory, more than two million Berliners are suddenly cut off from food, fuel, electricity, and supplies after Joseph Stalin seals the city’s borders. Many fear the Western Allies will abandon Berlin altogether. Instead, American and British leaders gamble on something unprecedented: supplying an entire city by air.

In this episode, how the Berlin Airlift became the largest sustained airlift in history—and the first major showdown of the Cold War. Along the way: the flamboyant American commander known as “Howlin’ Mad” Howley, Soviet attempts to break the city’s spirit, pilots landing in near-zero visibility every few minutes, and the high-stakes crisis that helped create NATO and reshape the postwar world.

Special thanks to Giles Milton, author of  Checkmate in Berlin: The Cold War Showdown That Shaped the Modern World. 

You can find the rest of the books we used to research this episode at historythisweekpodcast.com.

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Family Lore is a weekly narrative podcast that celebrates and investigates ancestral mystique. Each episode begins with a guest sharing a fascinating family legend, followed by a historical deep-dive to uncover the truth and meaning behind the tale. Available now: link.pscrb.fm/f0281/FLFD

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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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