Traitors and treachery

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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)

Transcript

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0:00.0	World of Secrets, Season 2, investigates allegations surrounding one of the most powerful religious figures of the 21st century, TB Joshua.
0:10.0	Search for World of Secrets wherever wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.
0:14.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson the past brought to life by those who were there and this week we're looking at figures from the past who've gone down in history as traitors including Vid Kun Kun Quisling, the man whose very name has become a byword for treachery.
0:36.8	He was the Norwegian fascist leader who sided with Hitler.
0:40.0	He ran to the radio studio and pronounced himself the new Nazi Prime Minister.
0:49.3	Plus the Hungarian football star who paid the ultimate price for trying to defect.
0:54.6	The Polish Colonel, cod named Jack Strong, who passed Soviet military secrets to the CIA,
1:00.4	and the Broadway showgirl turned Nazi broadcaster known as Axis Sally.
1:05.2	The Lynn calling the American Mothers rise from St. Clapp.
1:10.0	And I just like to say girls that a Berlin call it pays to listen.
1:15.0	Those stories coming up later in the podcast and our first figure from the past who's gone down as a traitor
1:21.0	comes from that period around the Second World War.
1:24.0	This is from Japanese-occupied China, and involves a man who was at first regarded as a Chinese
1:30.0	hero, but who later became reviled for helping the Japanese puppet regime in Nanjing.
1:36.2	Ben Henderson has been hearing why.
1:37.8	Today we're going back to the Chinese city of Nanjing, previously called Nan King, during the Second World War.
1:48.0	The Japanese invaded in 1937 and committed a terrible massacre, often known as the rape of Nanjing.
1:57.6	To the fury of many Chinese, one of their national heroes then collaborated with the Japanese. That man's name was Wong
2:05.3	Jing Wei and he is synonymous with the word Khangian, a label reserved for traitors to China, but not everyone holds that view.
2:17.0	For some people, he's a national traitor, but for the people in the occupied area in Nanjing, he was our savior.
2:27.0	This is Panja Shen.
2:30.0	He was born in 1933 and lived through the Japanese invasion.
	...

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