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The History Hour
Nazis and sex strikes
The History Hour
Apr 12, 2025

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Katrin Paehler, Professor of modern European history at Illinois State University.

First, a journalist describes how he accompanied Hitler through the embers of the Reichstag fire in 1933.

Then, the harrowing recollections of a doctor who saved survivors of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Next, a woman describes how she was caught between her job and her clan during the UN's disastrous Somalia mission in the 1990s.

A Liberian woman explains how she helped end the country's civil war.

Finally, how Germany's 'death zone' became a natural paradise.

Contributors:

Sefton Delmer - British journalist at the Reichstag fire. Dr David Tuggle - surgeon at the Oklahoma City bombing. Halima Ismail Ibrahim - former UN worker in Somalia. Leymah Gbowee - Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Professor Kai Frobel - co-founder of Germany's 'Green Belt'.

(Photo: Reichstag building on fire. Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)

More Episodes

Aug 15, 2026
The Mau Mau uprising and man-eating lions

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes focussing on Kenya.

We hear about Muthoni Kirima, one of the last Mau Mau fighters to come out of hiding and lay down her arms.

Caroline Elkins, Professor of History at Harvard University, discusses the brutality of the conflict between Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army, the British and Kenyan loyalists.

Next, when Princess Elizabeth became queen while staying at the Treetops Hotel, a lodge in the Aberdare National Park.

In 1997, scientists travelled to Kenya, in search of a cave believed to have been the den of the man-eating lions that terrorised railway workers in 1898.

Plus, we hear how Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga signed an unprecedented power-sharing deal to end a wave of violence that left more than 1,200 people dead.

And the heartwarming story of the friendship between a baby hippo and a 130-year-old giant tortoise.

Finally for our Sporting Witness story, we head to the first Ultimate Frisbee World Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1983.

Contributors: Caroline Elkins - Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. Muthoni Kirima - Field Marshall in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army. Frank Gillard - BBC correspondent. Thomas Gnoske - Scientist. Alan Patterson - British Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson's grandson. Maina Kiai - Chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in 2008. Maini Schildt - Swedish Ultimate Frisbee player.

(Photo: Mau Mau suspects are rounded up by police outside the camp in Manyani, Kenya, 1955. Credit: Getty Images/Authenticated News)


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Nazis and sex strikes

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