Episode 26: Norman Ohler

The Interview: 
 

Like many readers in the States, I first became aware of Norman Ohler’s work after reading Blitzed (2015), his epic history of drug use in the Third Reich. 

The Bohemians: The Lovers Who Led Germany’s Resistance Against the Nazis (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Ohler’s follow up—which came out in paperback in the States last year—was born from some of the research he was doing for Blitzed. The book is a page-turning historical thriller I couldn’t put down. It’s essential reading for anyone interested in WWII history and specifically subterfuge.

Ohler, who lives in Berlin, and I spoke last year while he was vacationing with his family on the island of Jersey.

We started in on how he discovered the untold story of Harro and Libertas, two free-love provocateurs who ran an underground circuit of anti-Nazi propaganda campaigns, as well as formal espionage activities, from the heart of Berlin during the height of the Third Reich’s power, and how their love story and largely unknown work to fight against fascism in their home country need to be better-known to the world.

The Reading: 

Scholar and author Jeffrey H. Jackson reads from his kindred spirit WWII resistance book, Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis (Algonquin Books), which follows the lives of two French women artists and lovers on the island of Jersey who defied the Nazis much the way Harro and Libertas did in Berlin.

 

Music composed by Kurt Weill

Performed by Westchester Symphony Orchestra & conducted by Siegfried Landau