Reichs & Republics | The German History Podcast

Katja Hoyer & Dr. Christopher Dillon
  • 5.0 (85)
  • History
  • Updated Weekly

Takes you beyond the familiar clichés to uncover the richness and diversity of the German past. Join us as we untangle this complex story, dispelling the popular myths and misapprehensions about a national history that still shapes the world we live in.  Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon ⁠⁠https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host⁠⁠ To comment and ask questions, please join our community:⁠ https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters⁠ Support via Paypal:⁠⁠ http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal⁠⁠⁠ Merchandise and Shop: ⁠⁠https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all⁠ Our WW1 Podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/⁠ Our WW2 Podcast:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com⁠⁠ Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT⁠⁠ If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter:⁠⁠ ⁠https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter⁠⁠ Katjas socials X (Twitter): ⁠ https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist ⁠https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠ Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen

  1. 2d ago

    The Hidden Germans of the White House

    In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the hidden history of German America in the White House. From Friedrich Trump's secretive teenage flight from Kallstadt in 1885 to the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, they trace how the largest immigrant group in American history became so thoroughly assimilated that its influence all but disappeared from public view. The episode also uncovers Donald Trump's decades-long insistence that his family was Swedish rather than German, and asks why a community of 44 million Americans produced so few leaders ever remembered as German American. Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host To comment and ask questions, please join our community: https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters Support via Paypal: http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal Merchandise and Shop: https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all Our WW1 Podcast: https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/ Our WW2 Podcast: https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Katjas socials X (Twitter): https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen - Editing: Jessa Sargento Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. Sep 8

    A Bureaucracy of Death: Nazi Germany's T4 Programme

    In this episode, Katja and Chris examine the origins and implementation of Aktion T4, the Nazi regime’s systematic programme of mass murder targeting disabled people. They trace the intellectual and political foundations of the programme, from nineteenth-century eugenic thought and Weimar-era anxieties about demographic decline to the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring and, ultimately, the establishment of a coordinated system of mass killing by gas, which anticipated methods later employed during the Holocaust. The episode considers the roles played by doctors, nurses, administrators, and other state officials in implementing the programme, exploring how professional expertise and bureaucratic structures facilitated mass murder. It also examines the question of public knowledge, considering what ordinary Germans knew about the killings, how information circulated, and the extent to which popular opposition contributed to the programme’s pausing in 1941. During a second, more discreet phase of T4 from 1942 onwards, however, a further 120,000 victims were murdered. Katja and Chris discuss the slow engagement in post-war West Germany with the crimes of T4 and its belated recognition in memory culture. Links - Henry Friedlander - The Origins of Nazi Genocide https://uncpress.org/9780807846759/the-origins-of-nazi-genocide/ - T4 Registration Form (1939/1940) https://germanhistorydocs.org/en/nazi-germany-1933-1945/t4-registration-form-1939-1940 - One More Thing project https://www.findingivy.org/ Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host To comment and ask questions, please join our community: https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters Support via Paypal: http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal Merchandise and Shop: https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all Our WW1 Podcast: https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/ Our WW2 Podcast: https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Katjas socials X (Twitter): https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen - Editing: Jessa Sargento Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. Sep 1

    The Dark Legacy of Nietzsche’s Sister

    In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the extraordinary life of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister who became the architect of her brother Friedrich's public legacy. From a devout Protestant upbringing in Saxony and a doomed attempt to found a "racially pure" German colony in Paraguay, to her return as a penniless widow who transformed herself into the gatekeeper of Nietzsche's writings, they trace how she edited, curated and sometimes fabricated his work, most notoriously assembling "The Will to Power" from his scattered notes. They examine her growing nostalgia for the old imperial order, her early admiration for Mussolini, and her complicated relationship with Adolf Hitler, who visited her Weimar villa on every trip he made to the town as German chancellor until her death in 1935. Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host To comment and ask questions, please join our community: https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters Support via Paypal: http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal Merchandise and Shop: https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all Our WW1 Podcast: https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/ Our WW2 Podcast: https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Katjas socials X (Twitter): https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen - Editing: Jessa Sargento Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  4. Aug 25

    From the Rhine to the Reich: German Jewish Life Before 1871

    In this episode, Katja and Chris trace the long and sometimes misunderstood history of Jews in German-speaking Europe, from Roman Cologne to the founding of the German Empire in 1871. They explore how Jewish communities settled along the Rhine under Frankish and medieval rulers, survived cycles of expulsion and violence including the Crusades and the Black Death pogroms, and gradually built livelihoods as traders, doctors, and financiers who were excluded from land ownership and the guild system. Along the way they examine the Reformation's impact on Jewish-Christian relations, the Enlightenment-era friendship between Moses Mendelssohn and Gotthold Lessing, and how the French Revolution and Napoleon's armies spread the idea of Jewish civic equality across the German lands. The episode also looks at the 19th-century process of emancipation, the amicable social relations between Jews and Christians recalled by memoirists of this period, and how the deep, centuries-old entanglement of Jewish and Christian life made the antisemitism of the Nazi era so emotionally devastating for German Jews. Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host To comment and ask questions, please join our community: https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters Support via Paypal: http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal Merchandise and Shop: https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all Our WW1 Podcast: https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/ Our WW2 Podcast: https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Katjas socials X (Twitter): https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen - Editing: Jessa Sargento Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. Aug 18

    Building Socialism: How the GDR Tried to House a Nation

    In this episode, Katja and Chris explore the East German regime's ambitious drive to build socialism one prefabricated apartment at a time. Between 1971 and 1989, the GDR pledged to build millions of new homes, using concrete, steel and propaganda to try to eliminate the post-war housing shortage and forge a "classless" society. Drawing on Katja's own family history growing up in a GDR housing block, they trace the story from the rubble of 1945 and the Bauhaus's prefabrication experiments in Weimar, through Walter Ulbricht's neglect of housing in favour of heavy industry, to Erich Honecker's flagship building programme and the birth of vast new estates like Halle-Neustadt (aka "Ha-Neu""). They ask whether the GDR's caring dictatorship ever really delivered on its promise of a home for every family and what became of these estates after reunification. Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host To comment and ask questions, please join our community: https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters Support via Paypal: http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal Merchandise and Shop: https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all Our WW1 Podcast: https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/ Our WW2 Podcast: https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Katjas socials X (Twitter): https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen - Editing: Jessa Sargento Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  6. Aug 11

    How Germany Invented the Way You Eat with Claudia Kreklau

    In this episode, Katja and Chris are joined by historian Dr Claudia Kreklau to uncover the surprising German origins of the way the world eats today. They explore how chefs fleeing the French Revolution found new homes in Prussian courts, how volcanic eruptions and failed harvests triggered starvation and revolution in the 1840s, and how the German middle class turned household preservation tricks into an industrial food empire. From Liebig's meat extract and the rise of tinned goods to the 1879 food law that cracked down on adulterated products, they trace the messy, fascinating path from farmhouse kitchens to global brands like Knorr, Maggi, and Heinz.  And rediscover the women whose culinary innovations were quietly erased from the historical record. Website: https://claudiakreklau.wordpress.com/ Handles and Profiles: ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1621-5300 Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.url?authorId=57204513593 GoogleScholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fJ5HIJgAAAAJ&hl=en Research Profile: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/ck230/ BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/claudiakreklau.bsky.social Twitter: @Claudia Kreklau The Making of Modern Eating: How the German Middle Class Forged the Way We Eat, 1780-1910 - Studies in German History (Hardback) Berghahn PDF: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/OpenAccess/KreklauMaking/9781836953609_OA.pdf Amazon EPUB: https://www.amazon.com/Making-Modern-Eating-1780-1910-Studies-ebook/dp/B0GF76PPNX/ref=sr_1_1 And here the articles mentioned: “Masters of Food: Climate Crisis and Optimized Exploitation in an Atlantic Hinterland before the Revolutions of 1848,” German Studies Review (Johns Hopkins UP), 49:1 (February 2026) 1-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2026.a983097 “Vaterland, c.1780-1870,” German History (Oxford UP), 43:3 (October 2025) 373–394. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghaf036 The Vaterland piece is open access. Takes you beyond the familiar clichés to uncover the richness and diversity of the German past. Join us as we untangle this complex story, dispelling the popular myths and misapprehensions about a national history that still shapes the world we live in.  Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host To comment and ask questions, please join our community: https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters Support via Paypal: http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal Merchandise and Shop: https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all Our WW1 Podcast: https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/ Our WW2 Podcast: https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Katjas socials X (Twitter): https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen - Editing: Jessa Sargento Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  7. Aug 4

    Blood and Iron in Africa - Germany's Colonial Violence

    In this episode, Katja and Chris continue their exploration of Germany's colonial empire, turning to the violence that underpinned it. They examine the daily brutality of plantation and settler life, the international suppression of China's Boxer Uprising, and the genocidal war waged against the Herero and Nama peoples in German South West Africa under General Lothar von Trotha's extermination order. They also explore the lesser-known Maji Maji uprising in East Africa, the fierce backlash this violence provoked in German domestic politics, and the fraught historical debate over whether Germany's colonial atrocities prefigured the horrors of the Holocaust. Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host To comment and ask questions, please join our community: https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters Support via Paypal: http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal Merchandise and Shop: https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all Our WW1 Podcast: https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/ Our WW2 Podcast: https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Katjas socials X (Twitter): https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  8. Jul 28

    The Reich Overseas

    In this episode Katja and Chris explore Germany’s colonial empire, from its early roots in Brandenburg to its rapid expansion under the Kaiserreich. They examine why Germany pursued colonies, how empire was sold to the public at home, and the violence, racial hierarchy, and dispossession behind the colonial dream. Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host To comment and ask questions, please join our community: https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters Support via Paypal: http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal Merchandise and Shop: https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all Our WW1 Podcast: https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/ Our WW2 Podcast: https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Katjas socials X (Twitter): https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See All (27)

5
out of 5
85 Ratings

About

Takes you beyond the familiar clichés to uncover the richness and diversity of the German past. Join us as we untangle this complex story, dispelling the popular myths and misapprehensions about a national history that still shapes the world we live in.  Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Host: Katja Hoyer & Dr Christopher Dillon ⁠⁠https://battleguide.co.uk/reichs-republics#host⁠⁠ To comment and ask questions, please join our community:⁠ https://reichs-and-republics.com/supporters⁠ Support via Paypal:⁠⁠ http://battleguide.co.uk/rr-paypal⁠⁠⁠ Merchandise and Shop: ⁠⁠https://reichs-and-republics.com/collections/all⁠ Our WW1 Podcast:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://listen.not-so-quiet.com/⁠ Our WW2 Podcast:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://listen.both-sides-of-the-wire.com⁠⁠ Untitled History Podcast: http://listen.untitled-history.com/ Battle Guide YouTube Channel: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT⁠⁠ If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter:⁠⁠ ⁠https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter⁠⁠ Katjas socials X (Twitter): ⁠ https://x.com/hoyer_kat Substack: Zeitgeist ⁠https://www.katjahoyer.uk/ General Enquiries: republics@battleguide.co.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠ Credits: - Host: Katja Hoyer and Dr Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen

Information

  • Creator
    Katja Hoyer & Dr. Christopher Dillon
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Explicit