Following the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939, Adolf Hitler immediately set his sights on Poland, intending to use the same tactics he had used against Czechoslovakia: the “tried and true” method, as he put it.
In Moscow, the Soviet government sought an alliance with France and Britain aimed at containing Germany, but the three nations could not overcome their mutual distrust. So Stalin chose instead to cut a deal with the Germans.
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Playlist:
Fanfare
Opening Theme
Sabre Dance
Composed in 1942 by Aram Khachaturian. Public domain.
Performed by Markus Staab, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.
Closing Theme
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
Beria’s father was Mingrelian, and the biography I’ve read of him indicated he was thought of and considered himself Mingrelian. And while Wikipedia reasonably calls Mingrelians a subgroup of Georgians, there were officially considered a distinct ethnic group in the USSR at the time. Beria’s youth, if I remember correctly, included discrimination based on his *not* being Georgian, though his mother was of Georgian lineage.