Show notes
🎙️ Episode 50 – The Brink, Part 1: The Night Hitler Broke a PresidentOn the night of March 14, 1939, an elderly judge with a weak heart arrived in Berlin as the president of what was left of Czechoslovakia. Hitler kept him waiting for hours while he watched a comedy film. After 1 a.m. the old man was told that German troops would cross his border at dawn, and that if he refused to sign, Prague would be bombed flat. He collapsed. Hitler’s doctor revived him with injections, and at 3:55 a.m. he signed his country away.In Episode 50 of World War 2 in Focus, we open The Brink, a five part series on the spring and summer that pushed the world to war. Inside this episode is the night Czechoslovakia died, the lone Czech captain who fought back anyway, the gold the Bank of England helped hand to Hitler, and the promise to Poland that would drag Britain into war six months later.Inside this episode:Emil Hácha’s night in Berlin: the waiting room, the threats, the collapse and the signature at 3:55 a.m.Captain Karel Pavlík and the only Czech unit that refused to lay down its armsHitler’s night in Prague Castle and the birth of the Protectorate of Bohemia and MoraviaThe Czech gold scandal, the seizure of Memel and the death of appeasementBritain’s guarantee to Poland: a bold deterrent or a promise it could never keep?Available now on Spotify and everywhere you listen to podcasts.This episode covers the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Emil Hácha, Hitler, Hermann Göring, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Slovak independence and Jozef Tiso, Carpatho-Ukraine, Karel Pavlík, the Czech gold scandal, the Memel crisis, Neville Chamberlain, the end of appeasement, the British guarantee to Poland in March 1939, and the road to World War 2.World War 2 in Focus: Echoes Through AICreated by Hector Sanchez, U.S. Navy veteran.Powered by AI.Sharpened by history.
