Hitler's Final Days: Moral Responsibility, Evil & Complicity | Emma Craigie

I had a fabulous time speaking with the brilliant writer and historian, Emma Craigie. In our conversation, she examines the psychology of Nazi leaders and the final days of Hitler's life, focusing on those people who were around him in the bunker, including his secretary Traudl Junge and Joseph Goebbels' children.

Emma Craigie is the co-author (with Jonathan Mayo) of Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute, which reconstructs Hitler’s final hours from inside the bunker and across the wider world, from Berlin to Washington, London and Moscow. She is also the author of Chocolate Cake with Hitler, a powerful novel about Helga Goebbels, a twelve-year-old girl who was trapped in the bunker during the collapse of the Third Reich.

It's a conversation about Hitler's last days, moral complicity and the psychology behind those Nazi leaders and why they rarely saw themselves as evil. We also discussed the question of responsibility, considering how we should think about the crimes of 'ordinary' Nazis who worked in concentration camps and, when put on trial, claimed that they were just following orders and had no choice. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Emma Craigie's perspective on these big and important issues, and I hope you enjoy the discussion and find it valuable, too. She's an excellent writer, and I would encourage everyone to read her books.