logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2024
51m 9s

Nazis in Egypt and Spain's La Tomatina

Bbc World Service
About this episode

A warning, this programme includes an account of antisemitic views and descriptions of violence.

Egypt recruited thousands of Nazis after World War Two to bolster its security. We hear from Frank Gelli, who in 1964 met Hitler's former propagandist, Johann von Leers, in Cairo.

Author, Vyvyan Kinross is our guest and talks about Nazis in Egypt.

Also, the celebrity murder case that divided France and how in 2001, Argentina went through five leaders in two weeks.

Shatbhi Basu, talks about how became known as India's first female bartender and finally the origins of La Tomatina, one of Spain’s most popular international festivals, as well as the largest tomato fight in the world.

Contributors:

Eduardo Duhalde – former Argentine President. Vyvyan Kinross – author. Michelle Fines- journalist. Shatbhi Basu - beverage consultant, mixologist and writer. Frank Gelli -met Nazi propagandists in Cairo. Goltran Zanon – involved in the first La Tomatina. Maria Jose Zanon - daughter of Goltran Zanon. Enric Cuenca Yxeres - Valencian history teacher.

(Photo: Johannes von Leers. Credit: ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Up next
Oct 4
India's nine day tea strike and the birth of the Excel spreadsheet
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.Tea expert Sabita Banerji talks about the history of tea in India. We look back at how women teapickers in 2015 fought for justice - and improved the lives of thousands of tea plantation workers.We hear the ... Show More
59m 20s
Sep 27
The origins of Indian cinema and the start of Scouting
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes taking us from India to Texas. Professor Sunny Singh, author of A Bollywood State of Mind, discusses the origins of Indian cinema in 1912. And we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Bollywood ro ... Show More
1 h
Sep 20
The fight against sexual harassment in Egypt and Omar Sharif enters the world stage
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes, all with an Egyptian theme.We find out more about the 2014 fight against sexual harassment. And we hear from Professor Nicola Pratt, an expert on Middle East feminism about the significance of that moment i ... Show More
59m 58s
Recommended Episodes
Aug 2024
Nazis in Egypt
After World War Two, Egypt’s government recruited thousands of Nazis and their collaborators to bolster the country’s defence and security. This was part of Egyptian President Nasser’s efforts to modernise the country and present himself as the leader of the Arab world in its con ... Show More
9m 7s
Aug 2024
Spain's La Tomatina
In 1945, a fight broke out between two groups of teenage boys during a parade in the Spanish town of Buñol in Valencia. The boys ended up throwing tomatoes at each other. They decided to repeat the deed every year on the anniversary of the first fight, defying disapproving looks ... Show More
9m 56s
Jul 10
Ni Una Menos women’s movement in Argentina
On 3 June 2015, tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital, Buenos Aires, and in dozens of cities and towns demanding an end to violence against women. There were demonstrations in Chile and Uruguay in solidarity too. Argentina was reporting a female murder rate of one e ... Show More
9m 31s
Aug 26
Harald Bodenschatz et al., "Urban Planning in Nazi Germany: Attack, Triumph, Terror in the European Context, 1933–1945" (DOM, 2025)
Urban Planning in Nazi Germany: Attack, Triumph, Terror in the European Context, 1933–1945 (DOM, 2025) is edited by Uwe Altrock, Harald Bodenschatz, Victoria Grau, Jannik Noeske, Christiane Post, and Max Welch Guerra. The book includes contributions from Christian von Oppen, Pier ... Show More
56 m
Apr 2025
The death of Adolf Hitler
On 30 April 1945 Adolf Hitler killed himself in a bunker in the German capital Berlin as Soviet Red Army soldiers closed in. But first he married his lover Eva Braun, and dictated his will. In 1989, Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries who was in the bunker when he died, sha ... Show More
9m 11s
Apr 2025
A Deadly Nazi Cult in Chile
For nearly 40 years, a secretive colony in the Chilean countryside hid unspeakable horrors: child abuse, torture, and a twisted legacy of Nazism. Colonia Dignidad, led by ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer, thrived not just as a cult but as a brutal tool of oppression during Chile’s Pinochet r ... Show More
33m 39s
Sep 2024
493. Lee Miller: Exposing the Horrors of World War Two
It’s August 1944: the Liberation of Paris is underway, and France appears to slowly be extricating herself from Nazi control. But, on the French western shores, in Saint-Malo, the deafening sounds of artillery fire continue to punctuate daily life, with the Germans making a last- ... Show More
1h 1m
Jul 16
Pinochet and the Nazis
Walther Rauff, a notorious Nazi war criminal, lived openly in Chile after the Second World War, working for the Pinochet regime’s secret police in the 1970s and avoiding extradition to West Germany. When General Pinochet was himself arrested in London in 1998 under an internation ... Show More
46m 21s
Nov 2018
How The Brazilian Dictatorship Made My Father Disappear
On a hot summer day in 1971, six armed men invaded the house of former Congressman Rubens Paiva in Rio de Janeiro. He was taken from his wife and children, never to be seen again. Paiva was one of the most famous Brazilians to disappear during the military dictatorship. His son, ... Show More
8m 59s
Sep 8
Festac ’77: Nigeria’s largest festival of African arts and culture
In 1977, Nigeria hosted the largest festival of African arts and culture there had ever been. About half a million visitors attended, as well as 16,000 delegates including Stevie Wonder and Miriam Makeba.Dozens of African nationalities, and people from the African diaspora were r ... Show More
10m 3s