Nazis

Steve Silberman talks about how Nazi extermination plans and a discredited scientific paper about childhood vaccines shaped our current understanding of autism. Originally broadcast Sept. 2, 2015.

After World War II. thousands of Nazis became informants in the Cold War against the Soviet Union -- and then got entry into the U.S. Eric Lichtblau's new book, The Nazi Next Door, tells the story.

In Gay Berlin, Robert Beachy describes the rise of a gay subculture in the 1920s and '30s, how it contributed to our understanding of gay identity and how it was eradicated by the Nazis.

In 1937, two Nazi art shows aimed to teach the public to despise modernist art and show them what art should be. An exhibit at New York's Neue Galerie reunites works from both landmark shows.

In the past year, actor Michael Fassbender has played a mutant villain in X-Men: First Class, psychoanalyst Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and a sex addict in Shame. He discusses several of those roles, as well as his part in Inglorious Basterds.

The director's latest film follows a Mexican immigrant living illegally in Los Angeles who tries to evade immigration officials and the city's pervasive gang culture. It's a far cry from Weitz's earlier films, the blockbusters The Golden Compass and New Moon.

William Dodd served four years as the ambassador to Germany before resigning -- after repeated clashes with both Nazi Party officials and the State Department. Erik Larson chronicles Dodd's time in Berlin in his new book, In the Garden of Beasts.

Hans Fallada's 1947 novel, Every Man Dies Alone, presents a memorable portrait of ordinary resistance to Nazism in wartime Germany.

Laurence Rees' Auschwitz: A New History provides details about the inner workings of the camp: techniques of mass murder, the politics, the gossip mill between guards and prisoners, and the camp brothel.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews “Journal 1935-1944: The Fascist Years” (pub., Ivan Dee) a journal of Romanian writer Mihail Sebastian (“Me-hi-eel Sebas-ti-an”) about the Nazification of Europe.

Film critic John Powers reviews two new movies about the horrors of World War II: "Life is Beautiful" and "Apt Pupil." They take wildly different approaches on the subject.

Lambert trained for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but was not allowed on the German team because she is Jewish. She emigrated to the United States in 1937 and worked as a masseuse, maid and physical therapist. That same year, she won the U.S. high jump and shot-put titles. This year, Lambert accepted an invitation by the German Olympic committee to attend the Atlanta Games.

Stephanie Barron curated of a new exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art called "Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant Garde in Nazi Germany." It recreates an exhibit the Nazis put together in 1937 to show the German public the types of art that they would no longer tolerate.

The German-born writer's memoir documents her parents' involvement in World War II. Reichel grew up in Hamburg after the end of the war, as the country dealt with the guilt of its Nazi past. She says the pain of that history was felt by all citizens, even if it was deeply repressed.