Traitors and treachery
The History Hour27 Jan 2024

Traitors and treachery

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service all about figures branded as traitors.

In 1939 Wang Jingwei, once a national hero in China, signed an agreement with Japanese invaders which made his name synonymous with the word ‘Hanjian’, a traitor to China. But Pan Chia-sheng’s memories of living under Wang Jingwei’s government in Nanjing tell a very different story.

Our guest Ian Crofton, author of Traitors and Turncoats, explains the nuances involved in our historic understanding of traitors.

Also, the fascist Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling blamed for convincing the German dictator Adolf Hitler to invade Norway in 1940. Norwegian journalist Trude Lorentzen explains the story with an account she recorded from Quisling’s Jewish neighbour, Leif Grusd.

And, the story of the former Broadway showgirl, known as Axis Sally, who broadcast antisemitic Nazi propaganda on German State Radio during World War Two, told through the archives.

Plus, the Polish colonel, Ryszard Kuklinski, code-named 'Jack Strong', who passed Soviet military secrets to the CIA that changed the tide of the Cold War.

And, the Hungarian Sándor Szűcs, famous for playing in the country’s star football team, who was executed in 1951 for trying to defect from the communist regime.

Contributors: Pan Chia-sheng - on Wang Jingwei. Ian Crofton - author of Traitors and Turncoats. Trude Lorentzen - Norwegian journalist on Vidkun Quisling. Aris Papas - one of the agents who received intelligence from Ryszard Kuklinski.

Erzsi Kovács’ story is told using an archive interview he gave in 2011 to Hungarian journalist Endre Kadarkai on the Arckép programme, on Zuglo TV.

(Photo: Mildred Gillars, known as 'Axis Sally', on trial for treason in 1949. Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)

Avsnitt(468)

Psychological Warfare

Psychological Warfare

Spooking fighters during the Vietnam War, building the Mont Blanc Tunnel, designing a Nintendo legend, the murder of Gianni Versace and archive voices from the 'Bonus Army' a protest movement of WW1 veterans which shook the US government in 1932.Photo:Viet Cong guerrillas on patrol during the Vietnam War, 2nd March 1966: (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

22 Juli 201750min

The Oka Crisis

The Oka Crisis

A watershed moment for Canada's indigenous people as Mohawks take on the developers, the birth of UKIP in Britain, memories of the poet Irina Ratushinskaya who died earlier this month - plus dance music with ballet star Nureyev's defection and illegal raving in England's countryside.(PHOTO: A Mohawk activist confronts a soldier. Credit: IATV NEWS)

15 Juli 201750min

The Roswell Incident

The Roswell Incident

In July 1947 a US rancher found some debris in the New Mexico desert - did it come from an alien spacecraft? Witness hears from the son of one of the US servicemen who investigated the incident, and from Dr David Clarke, expert on UFO history at Sheffield Hallam University.Plus the first Tamil suicide bombing; a hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure discovered in an English field; a sex scandal in the USSR during perestroika; and the first non-stop journey around the world in a hot air balloon.PHOTO: Major Jesse Marcel at Fort Worth, Texas with balloon debris from the Roswell incident - copyright Alamy

8 Juli 201750min

The History of Modern Tourism

The History of Modern Tourism

In a tourism special we look at the original low-cost transatlantic airline, based in Iceland, the 1960s Hippie trail. Also the journey that led to the best selling Lonely Planet travel guides, political tensions caused by a luxury resort on the Red Sea and how Disney came to Europe.(Photo: An Icelandic Airlines advertisement from May 1973, in New York's Fifth Avenue (US National Archives)

2 Juli 201750min

Italy's Secret "State-within-a-State"

Italy's Secret "State-within-a-State"

Murder and conspiracy among Italy's elite, an Italian atrocity in 1930s Ethiopia, Christians in the Korean War, Japan hosts the first Body Worlds, and Asian Americans struggle against racism and violence in the 1980s. Photo: Robert Calvi, head of Banco Ambrosiano, who was convicted of fraud but released on appeal shortly before his murder (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

24 Juni 201750min

The Woman Who Stopped Equal Rights in America

The Woman Who Stopped Equal Rights in America

Phlyllis Schalfly, the woman who defeated a law to guarantee gender equality in the US; plus, the first performance of the Beatles hit "All You Need Is Love", a forgotten WW2 disaster, Berber rights in Algeria, and the volcanic eruption on the island of Montserrat.PHOTO: American political activist Phyllis Schlafly smiles from behind a pair of podium mounted microphones, 1982. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

17 Juni 201750min

The Six Day War 1967

The Six Day War 1967

Soldiers from both sides on the battle for Jerusalem; plus Robert Kennedy's assassination, the child who fought slavery in Pakistan, and the cousin of Anne Frank Photo:Israeli forces advancing in the Sinai desert during the Six-Day War, June 1967. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

10 Juni 201750min

Operation Lifeline: Canada's Refugee Revolution

Operation Lifeline: Canada's Refugee Revolution

How private citizens in Canada sponsored Vietnamese boat-people. Plus the first ever charity rock concert for Chernobyl, the actor who stared in a Hitchcock murder movie, America's first ever female rabbi and Mr Sanitation brings clean toilets in India. Photo: A Vietnamese boat crowded with refugees runs aground on the Malaysian coast. 1979 (BBC)

3 Juni 201750min

Populärt inom Samhälle & Kultur

mardromsgasten
podme-dokumentar
en-mork-historia
rattsfallen
aftonbladet-krim
p3-dokumentar
killradet
creepypodden-med-jack-werner
skaringer-nessvold
flashback-forever
nemo-moter-en-van
badfluence
p1-dokumentar
kod-katastrof
hor-har
svenska-fall
larm-vi-minns
rss-sanning-konsekvens
aftonbladet-daily
historiska-brott