The Weekend Intelligence: Detoxified

When a story about UFOs came across the desk of The Economist’s Michelle Hennessy, she was sceptical. A powerful cultural legacy of flying saucers and aliens is hard to ignore. But a recent flurry of interest from U.S defence agencies and NASA, stress the serious and scientific t ... Show More

Warnings from the Americans went unheeded, police took too long to respond, and now the Kremlin has found a way to link it to Ukraine. Could this tragedy be used to Vladamir Putin’s advantage? A hotline for Japanese men to discuss their anxieties is an unfortunate indicator of a ... Show More

When Magali and Hugo Urbina bought a pecan orchard outside Eagle Pass, Texas, they were dreaming of their retirement. But instead of idyllic afternoons spent by the Rio Grande, the river separating their home from the Mexico border, their lives are now dictated by a deepening imm ... Show More

<p>The story of Operation Mincemeat. It’s 1943 and World War 2 hangs on a knife-edge. Everybody knows the obvious next move for the Allies is to invade Sicily. So Winston Churchill gives his spy chiefs a daunting task: create a lie so good it will fool Adolf Hitler and get Nazi G ... Show More

Friedrich Merz is set to become Germany’s next chancellor after Social Democratic Party members approved a coalition agreement with the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union—bringing Olaf Scholz’s tenure to an end.  In this emergency ... Show More

World War 1 has begun, and Robert walks Amanda through how Alfred Hugenberg bought up the German media to make the case the the war should go on for ever, and then how he backed the Nazi party and ushered Hitler into power when that didn't go well for some reason. Sources: The Pa ... Show More

As of May 6th, Germany has a new government, led by the CDU’s Friedrich Merz in coalition with the CSU and SPD. Despite a last-minute hitch, Merz is now safely installed in the Bundeskanzleramt in Berlin, from where he immediately jetted off to Paris and Warsaw for high-level pol ... Show More

<p>In the heart of Berlin’s Tempelhof-Schöneberg district sits a hulking, crumbling concrete cylinder—an abandoned relic of a Nazi plan to rebuild the city as a grand imperial capital. But this eerie structure isn’t just a forgotten engineering experiment; it’s a lasting monument ... Show More

Eighty years after the end of the second world war, two former Berlin correspondents discuss how the Guardian covered the Nazis. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus 

<p>April 4, 1925. Paranoid about rivals within the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler establishes a personal bodyguard that answers to him alone.</p><p><br></p><ul><li><strong>Support the show!</strong>&nbsp;Join&nbsp;<a href="https://intohistory.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_bl ... Show More

<p>William Joyce wants to serve Britain. But when Britain's establishment rejects him, he chooses Hitler's Germany instead, becoming the plummy voice of Nazi propaganda. This is the story of one of history's most notorious traitors. A man whose voice poured from the heart of the ... Show More