280. Brothers-in-Arms (Briefly) - The Meeting at Torgau

Battleground

Goalhanger Podcasts

History

4.6 • 703 Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Battleground, Patrick joins Saul to delve into the historic meeting of American and Red Army Soldiers on the banks of the Elbe near Torgau, Germany on April 25, 1945. As Soviet and American forces converged on the banks of the Elbe River, a handshake across the ruins of Nazi Germany symbolised not just the end of a brutal war, but the dawn of a new, complex global order. Join us as we explore the strategic context, the emotional weight of the moment, and the long shadow this iconic encounter cast on the Cold War that followed. If you have any thoughts or questions, you can send them to - [email protected] Producer: James Hodgson X: @PodBattleground Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:22.8	entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me, Patrick Bishop.
0:47.5	Today we're going to discuss one of the great moments of 80 years ago,
0:52.1	the 25th of April, 1945, and the meeting of American and Soviet troops on the
0:57.4	River Elba, thus linking the two great forces, closing on Hitler's Germany from the West and the East.
1:04.4	It happened in and around a town called Torgao, in northern Saxony, on the banks of the Elba,
1:10.1	about 80-odd miles south Berlin.
1:12.8	It was a joyous moment and a hugely symbolic one.
1:16.4	Here were the armies of two utterly opposed ideologies,
1:19.6	literally joining hands in brotherhood, united,
1:22.9	not just in a hatred of Hitler and Nazism,
1:25.3	but in what, for a moment or two at least,
1:28.2	looks like a spirit of positive humanity. They called it the spirit of Turgar. Would it be too cynical to say?
1:34.7	We're seeing it in a new and strange form today in the apparent amity between the Trump White
1:40.8	House and the Putin Kremlin. Well, that's for another podcast, perhaps. Talking about it
1:47.2	to with me today is Saul David, who is currently engaged on a book dealing with the last months of the
1:53.7	war with the suitably Wagnerian title of Twilight of the God. It was a great moment, wasn't it,
2:01.1	Saul? I was looking at some other pictures.
	...

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