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The Nazi Super Horse Program, Part 1: Equine Eugenics · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so
0:30
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. This episode, I would say is
0:35
Speaker 1: for the equestrians in the crowd, for the fans of
0:38
Speaker 1: horses and all things equine. Uh Hi, my name is
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Speaker 1: ben Hi Wilbur No, okay, I'm leaving it in. My
0:48
Speaker 1: name is no yeah, okay, Just to get ahead of
0:51
Speaker 1: that before anybody yells at me. This is an episode
0:53
Speaker 1: about Nazi horses, and if they could talk, they would
0:56
Speaker 1: theoretically maybe say hil Wilbur. But the Germans after World
1:02
Speaker 1: War One apparently had a bit of a horse shortage.
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Speaker 1: And considering you know how much kind of grief they
1:10
Speaker 1: got after that war and essentially we're blamed for it,
1:14
Speaker 1: pretty sure they ended up with a lot of things shortage.
1:18
Speaker 1: M Yeah, that's true. Many resources, things that you would
1:21
Speaker 1: typically need to run a country during peace time, right,
1:25
Speaker 1: and imagine how many more resources you need if you're
1:28
Speaker 1: running a country during a time of war. Super producer
1:32
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram and I were talking about this a little
1:36
Speaker 1: bit before we we hopped on today's episode, and we
1:41
Speaker 1: were thinking about our earlier show on Clever Hans. You'll
1:45
Speaker 1: remember Clever Hans disappeared during World War One, Right, So
1:50
Speaker 1: what if there's an untold chapter of Hans. What if
1:54
Speaker 1: he ended up somehow roped into this this program What
2:00
Speaker 1: programmer are we talking about? Well, we know that when
2:05
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party invaded foreign countries during World War Two,
2:09
Speaker 1: they stole millions and millions of dollars worth of valuables.
2:13
Speaker 1: They were trying to get all the resources they could.
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Speaker 1: Jewelry famous works of art as well, and in the
2:19
Speaker 1: world of fiction and in documentaries of plenty, we see
2:23
Speaker 1: later attempts to recover those stolen valuables. But one thing
2:28
Speaker 1: a lot of people haven't talked about is another resource
2:33
Speaker 1: the Nazis were surprisingly focused on obtaining. They wanted to
2:39
Speaker 1: essentially kidnap hundreds of the world's best horses, prize horses. Yeah,
2:46
Speaker 1: it was called Operation Uber Horse. Maybe not, but that's
2:51
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna call it, and that's what it should
2:52
Speaker 1: have been called in my humble opinion. But no, it's true.
2:55
Speaker 1: The Nazis were all about developing super everything. Now that
2:58
Speaker 1: they wanted the best and the most advance and the strongest,
3:02
Speaker 1: the most tankiest of humans. Uh, and horses, and they
3:05
Speaker 1: would stop at nothing to achieve those results. Uh. So
3:09
Speaker 1: they wanted to breed a particularly powerful type of horse
3:13
Speaker 1: called the Lipazna horse, which was German horse that was,
3:17
Speaker 1: like you said, been very prized for its strength and
3:20
Speaker 1: stamina and beauty. Um. And they wanted to create a
3:25
Speaker 1: brand new race, a master race, if you will, of
3:30
Speaker 1: German horse. Um. And they set about doing this, didn't
3:34
Speaker 1: they They did. Yeah. Author Elizabeth Letts has a book
3:39
Speaker 1: about this called The Perfect Horse, and in that she
3:43
Speaker 1: examines the tremendous damage done to Germany's Germany's literal horsepower
3:51
Speaker 1: during World War One, and Adolf Hitler wanted to return
3:57
Speaker 1: the country to what he saw as its former glory
4:01
Speaker 1: in the world of all things horsey. We have a
4:04
Speaker 1: specific quote here wherein Let's rights. After World War One,
4:08
Speaker 1: several factors combined to almost destroy horse breeding and equestrian
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Speaker 1: sports in Germany. The number of equine casualties were so
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Speaker 1: high during the war that the horse population declined by half.
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Speaker 1: And then she goes on to say how the monstrous
4:25
Speaker 1: conditions of inflation in Germany made it really difficult to
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Speaker 1: take care of the horses that did survive and that
4:32
Speaker 1: would have been the gig that clever Hans would have
4:34
Speaker 1: been enlisted to fill. Right, well, we don't know exactly
4:36
Speaker 1: what his job would have been, but the need for
4:40
Speaker 1: horses in World War One was pretty significant, and many
4:44
Speaker 1: of them, the ones that you know, fell victim to
4:46
Speaker 1: these horrific casualties, would have been war horses that would
4:50
Speaker 1: have literally been ridden into battle, right Like, this was
4:53
Speaker 1: like a a trench kind of warfare situation where you're
4:56
Speaker 1: actually on the battlefield, sort of a hybrid between like
4:59
Speaker 1: the mob all we think of, you know, in older
5:02
Speaker 1: military conflicts, like you know, it's a civil war, like
5:05
Speaker 1: a war of eighteen twelve, where you have two parties
5:07
Speaker 1: on opposite side of a field running towards each other
5:09
Speaker 1: with sabers and horses. This was kind I mean, there
5:12
Speaker 1: was some of that antiquated military involved Napoleonic exactly, but no, no, no,
5:18
Speaker 1: you're you're absolutely right. But but then there also was
5:21
Speaker 1: that that trench warfare as well, and it's interesting to
5:25
Speaker 1: think about when they were trying to rebuild, and that's
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Speaker 1: a huge reason that Hitler and his promise of returning
5:33
Speaker 1: to this the glory days of this country and capitalizing
5:37
Speaker 1: on people feeling completely downtrodden and left behind and kind
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Speaker 1: of you know, like completely having been screwed by a
5:46
Speaker 1: war effort that they as individuals maybe didn't necessarily believe in.
5:51
Speaker 1: I mean, who who was responsible for World War one
5:54
Speaker 1: German involvement? That was Kaiser, wasn't it. Yeah, that's uh
6:00
Speaker 1: vill Helm the second and German Kaiser or Emperor and
6:05
Speaker 1: the King of Prussia born in eighteen fifty nine died
6:09
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one. That's right. And and Germany truly
6:13
Speaker 1: entered World War One in August first, nineteen fourteen when
6:16
Speaker 1: they declared war on Russia. Of course, they were allied
6:20
Speaker 1: with Italy and Austria Hungary before World War One. When
6:25
Speaker 1: they declared war on Russia and receive you know, and
6:29
Speaker 1: certainly aftermath, you know, the dust settle in World War One,
6:32
Speaker 1: Germany was really kind of the blame was placed on
6:35
Speaker 1: them in a very real way, and they received all
6:38
Speaker 1: kinds of sanctions and real blows to their infrastructure and
6:43
Speaker 1: to their ability to kind of, you know, go on
6:46
Speaker 1: in the way that they they knew. Uh So, when
6:48
Speaker 1: Hitler offered them these opportunities to kind of move forward
6:52
Speaker 1: and reclaim that position, it was very attractive. And that's
6:56
Speaker 1: that slippery slope that could happen when someone makes promises
6:59
Speaker 1: and people feel like they you know, need a strong
7:03
Speaker 1: hand to guide them back into their former glory. And
7:05
Speaker 1: then before you know it, you know they're breeding superhorses
7:09
Speaker 1: and uh and and worse. Yeah, put yourself in the
7:14
Speaker 1: place of the average German civilian post World War One.
7:19
Speaker 1: Inflation is crazy. If you own horses, statistically half of
7:24
Speaker 1: them are dead and it's incredibly difficult to take care
7:27
Speaker 1: of the ones you do have. But guess what you
7:31
Speaker 1: might lose those two because Germany was required to pay
7:36
Speaker 1: massive reparations after World War One and the Treaty of Versailles,
7:41
Speaker 1: and one of the things they specifically had to do
7:43
Speaker 1: was export their remaining horses or a certain amount as
7:48
Speaker 1: a form of reparations. So two decades later, in World
7:52
Speaker 1: War Two, horses are like, weirdly at the front of
7:57
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler's mind, you know, like he probably derailed some
8:01
Speaker 1: meetings about it to talk about the horses. This is
8:04
Speaker 1: something that confused me as a kid, Like a lot
8:07
Speaker 1: of kids growing up in the West, I always thought
8:09
Speaker 1: of World War Two in terms of like tanks and
8:13
Speaker 1: bombers and you know, dog fights and aircraft and and
8:17
Speaker 1: new terrifying technology. But we have to remember that wasn't
8:22
Speaker 1: entirely the case. According to Let's by, the German army
8:28
Speaker 1: was using more than one hundred and eighty thousand horses
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Speaker 1: and donkeys, and Adolf Hitler was convinced they had to
8:35
Speaker 1: double down and get more. They really thought they needed
8:38
Speaker 1: horses to win the war. What were they using them for?
8:41
Speaker 1: Like pulling horse drawn wagons with like artillery on the back.
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Speaker 1: Like didn't I mean they had panzer tanks and all
8:48
Speaker 1: that stuff at this point, right, Like, well, what are
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Speaker 1: they using horses and donkeys for? I don't understand spies? Okay,
8:54
Speaker 1: all right, they just dress them up. Give him a
8:59
Speaker 1: British accent whatever, a British accent for a horses. Yeah. No,
9:03
Speaker 1: you're making a good point, well, because it sounds like
9:05
Speaker 1: we're on the same page that a lot of us.
9:09
Speaker 1: I would think of the astonishing technology that's been developed,
9:14
Speaker 1: and then you have to ask yourself, what does a
9:16
Speaker 1: horse do? Maybe it's because they were already well established
9:20
Speaker 1: as a means of transport, pretty nimble, you know, I
9:23
Speaker 1: mean you can definitely like get places quickly on a
9:25
Speaker 1: horse that you couldn't get on a panzer tank. But
9:28
Speaker 1: they had motorcycles and they had all that stuff. I
9:31
Speaker 1: was a little I want to look a little deeper
9:32
Speaker 1: in to this, but that's sort of a discussion for
9:34
Speaker 1: a different day. What we do know right now is
9:37
Speaker 1: that horses became this like propaganda tool because Hitler. Okay,
9:42
Speaker 1: let's put it this way. I think a big thing
9:45
Speaker 1: was when Germany kind of got screwed, the regular German
9:49
Speaker 1: people got screwed after World War One because of all
9:51
Speaker 1: these reparations and having to expert all these horses. It
9:54
Speaker 1: was all about this loss of the life they knew,
9:57
Speaker 1: and a big part of the life they knew was
9:59
Speaker 1: horse breeding. That was something they took great pride in
10:02
Speaker 1: as a nation. And so Hitler started kind of using
10:06
Speaker 1: his like, Okay, we're gonna get back in the saddle,
10:09
Speaker 1: as it were. Let's writes about this in her book,
10:12
Speaker 1: and he started amassing all these horses and making it
10:15
Speaker 1: clear that he was going to bring back this part
10:19
Speaker 1: of German heritage and tradition. Yeah, it's, uh, dare I say,
10:27
Speaker 1: kind of a make Germany great again program expressed through
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Speaker 1: this equine lens when Hitler invaded Poland in nineteen thirty nine,
10:43
Speaker 1: or I guess I should say when Germany invaded Poland
10:45
Speaker 1: and nine wasn't just like Hitler running up there. But
10:49
Speaker 1: when that happened, he had already defined or articulated a
10:55
Speaker 1: plan for the horses of Poland. They wanted to rebuild
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Speaker 1: Poland's horse breeding industry, quote, for the interests of the
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Speaker 1: German nation. And that's when Hitler had to find he
11:09
Speaker 1: had to find a horse guy, right, he had he
11:11
Speaker 1: had to see a man about a horse, and that's
11:14
Speaker 1: when he went to was the first time I ever
11:16
Speaker 1: heard this word, noal. He went to a hypologist or
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Speaker 1: horse expert named Gustav Raut Goodness, hippop. I don't yeah,
11:26
Speaker 1: I'll have to look into the etymology of that a
11:28
Speaker 1: little later. Uh. Gustav raw Indeed, he was a horse expert,
11:34
Speaker 1: as you say, and the leading equery in the country.
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Speaker 1: He was actually the chief equerry in charge of all
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Speaker 1: of the horse breeding. He was made this for the
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Speaker 1: third right. He was responsible for, as we talked about
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Speaker 1: at the top of the show, creating the perfect horse
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Speaker 1: by using breeding techniques, which is something that at the
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Speaker 1: time was very poorly understood, and the concept of genetic
12:01
Speaker 1: inheritance and passing down, you know, selective breeding, passing down
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Speaker 1: the best qualities of certain breeds to to create kind
12:08
Speaker 1: of a new hybrid. He received his inspiration from the
12:13
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve Olympics, where there were some really fine specimens
12:19
Speaker 1: of military horses on display lined up next to each
12:23
Speaker 1: other in one of the ceremonies, and it gave him
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Speaker 1: the idea, according to Let's in her book, the Perfect
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Speaker 1: Horse to quote, develop a German breed of military horse
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Speaker 1: that was as clearly associated with Germany as the thoroughbred
12:37
Speaker 1: was with England. Yeah, and you can understand the idea,
12:41
Speaker 1: right because at this time he's thinking, while we can
12:44
Speaker 1: breed dogs, right, we can, we can breed for certain
12:47
Speaker 1: traits that we do know for sure. And so Rao
12:52
Speaker 1: started focusing on the lips on a stallion, which you
12:57
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. All uh, this is a breed that's known
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Speaker 1: for its dexterity and known for looking like the classic
13:04
Speaker 1: fairy tale version of a horse. So Ralph says, as
13:08
Speaker 1: a hypologist, Hey, I can breed tons and tons of
13:13
Speaker 1: these identical military horses. Of course, he wants them to
13:17
Speaker 1: be pure white and uh, he says, I can do
13:23
Speaker 1: this in just three years. I can make this perfect horse.
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Speaker 1: All I have to do is make sure that I
13:28
Speaker 1: continually in breed them. That's where we go to the
13:32
Speaker 1: to your earlier point about poor knowledge of genetics. He
13:37
Speaker 1: did not seem to understand the link between genetic defects
13:41
Speaker 1: and in breeding. So Hitler was sold. You know, Hitler
13:46
Speaker 1: was convinced this was a great idea and to do this,
13:51
Speaker 1: they needed these stallions, so they started stealing them. They
13:57
Speaker 1: started doing international horse heist. Why is this not on
14:01
Speaker 1: Drunken History? Why are we not narrating this on drunken History?
14:06
Speaker 1: Probably because Drunken History got canceled. But what a story. Yeah.
14:10
Speaker 1: And in the same way that those occupying German forces
14:12
Speaker 1: would go on to ravage the culture and history and
14:17
Speaker 1: you know, basically any kind of valuable items in places
14:22
Speaker 1: that they took over, German soldiers set to work essentially
14:27
Speaker 1: taking over, co opting, taking control of all of the
14:31
Speaker 1: horse breeding facilities in the entire country, horse stud farms,
14:38
Speaker 1: riding schools, and as we mentioned the top of the show,
14:41
Speaker 1: the way German forces when they would occupy a country
14:45
Speaker 1: would just start to ravage it and you know, essentially
14:47
Speaker 1: dismantle all of its culture and steal valuables and all
14:51
Speaker 1: of that. The priority in Poland was initially to completely
14:56
Speaker 1: take control and co opt any kind of horse breeding
14:59
Speaker 1: facility that they could get their hands on, things like
15:02
Speaker 1: stud farms and riding schools. There was one in particular
15:05
Speaker 1: riding school called the Janol Pudlaski stud Farm in Poland
15:08
Speaker 1: and that was right near the border with Russia, and
15:11
Speaker 1: another one in Vienna Um called the Spanish Riding School,
15:16
Speaker 1: and that had a very very remarkable collection of these
15:20
Speaker 1: Lipazner horses. They were very valuable, they were very beautiful.
15:24
Speaker 1: They were colored kind of a snow white coat with
15:28
Speaker 1: blue and black speckles, and oftentimes they were trained as
15:33
Speaker 1: Olympic dressage champions. Is that the one where they just
15:36
Speaker 1: kind of daintily step or is dressed. That's yeah, that's
15:39
Speaker 1: that's dressage, right, Yeah, that's where they have the weird walk.
15:43
Speaker 1: It's very specific walk. I you know, I gotta admit
15:48
Speaker 1: one time I went in a YouTube rabbit hole and
15:50
Speaker 1: just watched videos. There is something oddly satisfying about it.
15:55
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting to see these massive creatures tiptoeing around.
16:00
Speaker 1: You know, it's a little bit weird, but but kind
16:02
Speaker 1: of cool. Yeah, I agree, I think it's I think
16:06
Speaker 1: it's cool to have specific hobbies and as long as
16:09
Speaker 1: you slong as you're not hurting the horse, it's it's
16:12
Speaker 1: all fine. But you're right. They were. They were doing
16:18
Speaker 1: these international horse heist and they were very serious about it.
16:22
Speaker 1: They transported the horses in these pretty swanky, spacious train
16:28
Speaker 1: cars and then they took them to these top notch
16:30
Speaker 1: farms out in the countryside. And it's so weird when
16:35
Speaker 1: you consider how obscenely inhumane the Nazi Party was to
16:42
Speaker 1: other human beings. It's so weird to understand just how
16:46
Speaker 1: gentle and nice they were to the horses, like they
16:52
Speaker 1: would they were killing millions and millions of people, but
16:56
Speaker 1: they would like clutch their pearls at the idea of
16:58
Speaker 1: a horse being and lightly harmed. And this is a
17:03
Speaker 1: very dark point. But just to drive this home, we
17:09
Speaker 1: know that the horses who were taken prisoner by the
17:14
Speaker 1: Nazis were transported in better circumstances and better train cars
17:22
Speaker 1: than the human victims of the Nazis. She's I was
17:25
Speaker 1: gonna say it sounded like they are using the same
17:27
Speaker 1: train cars but adding insult to injury. I guess the
17:31
Speaker 1: horse has got a better shake. That's God And I
17:33
Speaker 1: can't even believe that, but it's true. And we're gonna
17:37
Speaker 1: stick with the horse angle for now. And this is
17:40
Speaker 1: all pretty early on. I think this was happening before
17:43
Speaker 1: any of that, right, this was happening before they were
17:46
Speaker 1: actually rounding up Jews and and um, you know, collecting
17:49
Speaker 1: them and shipping them off. Correct. Yeah, Germany and German
17:55
Speaker 1: leaders wanted to bring back the horse into street since
18:01
Speaker 1: pretty much the end of World War One, which at
18:03
Speaker 1: that time they called the Great War. I don't think
18:06
Speaker 1: I I'm glad to report that nobody called it World
18:12
Speaker 1: War One before World War Two. Yeah, that's like the
18:16
Speaker 1: it's just the laws of chronology, I guess. But you know,
18:19
Speaker 1: they definitely continued this horse thieving spree in addition to
18:24
Speaker 1: grabbing all of those priceless artifacts that we talked about.
18:28
Speaker 1: Horses were always kind of on the list because they
18:30
Speaker 1: really wanted to scale this operation and get you know,
18:35
Speaker 1: Germany back to its former horsey glory. So they're pretty
18:40
Speaker 1: much set up at this point and decide to build
18:43
Speaker 1: a base of operations, and that's something called the Hostile
18:47
Speaker 1: stud Farm, another facility they took control of, but that
18:51
Speaker 1: kind of became their home base for this you know,
18:55
Speaker 1: super horse program, the kind of stronghold and and like
18:59
Speaker 1: the you know cat lack of all of their facilities.
19:03
Speaker 1: And it was located in Hostile, in the hills of
19:07
Speaker 1: Hostile in Czechoslovakia, which at this point was occupied by
19:11
Speaker 1: the Germans. Let's is Elizabeth lett Let's is such a
19:15
Speaker 1: premier source on all this stuff. So we're gonna keep
19:17
Speaker 1: referring back to her book The Perfect Horse, But she
19:20
Speaker 1: says of this period quote the stud farm at Hostile,
19:24
Speaker 1: located next to the village of the same name, had
19:26
Speaker 1: been known for breeding cavalry horses long before Hitler's time.
19:30
Speaker 1: The most prominent local landowners the Troutsmundorff's. Yeah, the Troutsmundorff
19:36
Speaker 1: family had historically served as imperial equerries for the Habsburg crown.
19:42
Speaker 1: In addition to the main complex of stables adjacent in
19:45
Speaker 1: the village, there were pastures and three neighboring villages. The
19:48
Speaker 1: entire establishment covered fifteen hundred acres and could accommodate more
19:53
Speaker 1: than a thousand stallions. Mayors and fulls. And yes that
20:01
Speaker 1: Habsburg crown refers to the Habsburgs if you are, for
20:06
Speaker 1: some reason not aware of that story, another cautionary tale
20:11
Speaker 1: about genetic defects and in breeding. And then I I
20:15
Speaker 1: suggest that, when you have a chance, go to your
20:17
Speaker 1: browser of choice and just search for Habsburg jaw h
20:21
Speaker 1: b S b U r G. You guys know what
20:24
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, right, Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, so
20:28
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. Rao has found his perfect farm, right,
20:32
Speaker 1: and he's found his perfect horses. And throughout nineteen forty
20:39
Speaker 1: two he systematically moves all of these kidnapped horses from Italy, Austria,
20:46
Speaker 1: and Yugoslavia to this farm for safe keeping. He also
20:52
Speaker 1: sends out an assistant an emissary to wealthy noble families
20:59
Speaker 1: who all also raise horses. And this means that by
21:03
Speaker 1: the end of that year, by the end of this
21:06
Speaker 1: one guy Rao has gathered almost every single Lipizzan or
21:13
Speaker 1: in the world to this one spot. That's pretty crazy, right,
21:19
Speaker 1: and let's be having your mind blown by this idea
21:21
Speaker 1: in the world. Let's not forget the Lipizanas where own
21:23
Speaker 1: where it was a German horse. They were specifically bred
21:26
Speaker 1: in this part of the country. It's not like the
21:27
Speaker 1: Nazis were flying elsewhere on the globe to have to
21:30
Speaker 1: grab these that it didn't exist outside of this part
21:33
Speaker 1: of the country. So it was from this facility, this
21:36
Speaker 1: absolute you know, cutting edge horse breeding compound, where raw
21:41
Speaker 1: really decided that he was going to set up his
21:45
Speaker 1: empire of of of horse breeding there in you know,
21:49
Speaker 1: the German occupied areas of Europe, and at the center
21:53
Speaker 1: of this was kind of the same sort of purest
21:59
Speaker 1: any apology that went into the way Nazis thought about race.
22:03
Speaker 1: Like you said that white color was a big deal.
22:07
Speaker 1: The notion that the pure bred lip Posner horse came
22:11
Speaker 1: from wealthy noblemen, it was a very elite breed of horse,
22:15
Speaker 1: and ben Off, Mike, we were talking about how this
22:18
Speaker 1: really dovetailed with their you know, notion of the ubermens
22:22
Speaker 1: or like, you know, being able to maintain the purity
22:26
Speaker 1: of the German bloodline or the area in bloodline. Yeah,
22:30
Speaker 1: it's it's a true story. Well, and they ritualize this
22:35
Speaker 1: pretty heavily for various reasons. But but it is true
22:39
Speaker 1: that at the special places called birth clinics, officers of
22:46
Speaker 1: the s S who had to pass certain racial requirements
22:49
Speaker 1: to be in the SS. To begin with, they would
22:53
Speaker 1: mate with women who had been selected for their own
22:58
Speaker 1: perceived area in traits. And then when a child was
23:03
Speaker 1: produced from this sort of program, the baby's got baptized
23:08
Speaker 1: in a weird SS. Right. It's kind of like when
23:13
Speaker 1: we talk about the intersection between the Nazi Party and occultism,
23:16
Speaker 1: it gets really wonky. So they would, uh, they would
23:21
Speaker 1: baptize this kid in this special right, and then there
23:25
Speaker 1: would be uh, this symbolic dagger hanging over there, and
23:28
Speaker 1: they would chant these incantations and pledge the babies the
23:34
Speaker 1: Nazi Party kind of it kind of replaced the idea
23:37
Speaker 1: of a religious baptism, and the horses had their own
23:41
Speaker 1: kind of special right. Rao wanted them to have a
23:46
Speaker 1: specific brand, which was it looked like a kind of
23:50
Speaker 1: like letter H with a dagger going through it. And
23:54
Speaker 1: this shows us that the you know, the ritual, the
23:57
Speaker 1: propaganda and the trappings of it, uh seemed to be
24:01
Speaker 1: really really important. And again these folks were woefully misinformed. Uh.
24:10
Speaker 1: It reminds me a little bit of the White Tigers.
24:14
Speaker 1: You guys know the story of the White Tigers. How
24:16
Speaker 1: they're it's a it's a rare genetic mutation, and to
24:19
Speaker 1: breed white tigers is pretty controversial because they end up
24:24
Speaker 1: getting inbred and as a result of that, you end
24:29
Speaker 1: up with the same kind of genetic defects you would
24:31
Speaker 1: see after intense in breeding in humans. And off Air
24:35
Speaker 1: just shared with you all a picture of what what
24:41
Speaker 1: can happen to these white tigers when when this practice
24:44
Speaker 1: goes wrong? Yeah, unfortunately. I mean then you showed us
24:49
Speaker 1: some pictures of the white tiger issues that can develop.
24:53
Speaker 1: It's almost like a like it can manifest itself physically,
24:58
Speaker 1: but I think also cognitively, you know, in these animals,
25:01
Speaker 1: and you can see the results if you just google
25:04
Speaker 1: you know this. It's not pleasant, but yeah, that's and
25:08
Speaker 1: when you have this much extensive in breeding going on,
25:11
Speaker 1: you know, for a specific purpose, then that's when you
25:15
Speaker 1: can really have some of these cases that they're I'm
25:18
Speaker 1: sure not, I don't know, what do you think then
25:20
Speaker 1: you think they're like putting them down or I mean
25:22
Speaker 1: surely they would look at that as like a bastardization
25:25
Speaker 1: of their pure results that they were seeking. And yet
25:27
Speaker 1: they have this reputation for being kind to animals. So
25:30
Speaker 1: I'm a little wondering about that. Yeah, yeah, that's a
25:33
Speaker 1: good question, because, to be clear, they're breeding for very
25:38
Speaker 1: specific traits. Right, so some of these horses are solid black,
25:42
Speaker 1: but they want to only breed ones that will have
25:45
Speaker 1: a solid white coat and have you know, tall height
25:49
Speaker 1: and so on. But it feels like without an understanding
25:55
Speaker 1: of the dangers of inbreeding, things could have gone pretty long,
26:01
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. But something else happens that affects this program.
26:08
Speaker 1: It eventually becomes clear that Germany will lose the war,
26:15
Speaker 1: and this makes the Germans start worrying about the future
26:20
Speaker 1: of their horses. Would they be stolen by Russians or
26:23
Speaker 1: even worse, slaughter to feed humans. Obviously, the Nazi Party
26:29
Speaker 1: appears to like horses much more than people. And oh, lucky, lucky,
26:39
Speaker 1: we've done it again. We're looking at the clock on
26:41
Speaker 1: our recorder and and we're I think we're we've got
26:44
Speaker 1: enough story left to fill up another episode, and hey,
26:48
Speaker 1: you get them both the same week. So quit your
26:50
Speaker 1: complaining out there in podcast land. I'm just kidding out.
26:53
Speaker 1: Don't think anyone's necessarily complaining. Okay, all right, I'm sorry,
26:58
Speaker 1: I was being I was was that was me projecting um,
27:03
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think there's absolutely more than enough for
27:05
Speaker 1: another episode and a lot of fun places this story goes.
27:08
Speaker 1: And it's weird to say that about a story involving
27:11
Speaker 1: Nazis and super animal breeding programs, but trust me, there's
27:16
Speaker 1: a twist in this that's going to give it a
27:18
Speaker 1: bit of a silver lining and very cinematic. So stay tuned,
27:25
Speaker 1: stay at that moment. We are at a pivotal part
27:27
Speaker 1: of the story and we need to give it its
27:30
Speaker 1: full do thanks as always to our super producer, Casey Pegram.
27:35
Speaker 1: Thanks to Jonathan Strickland's a k. The Quister, who I
27:40
Speaker 1: just think you would love this story because it's so
27:42
Speaker 1: weird what what's about to happen? But you'll have to
27:45
Speaker 1: tune in for the next episode to find out. I
27:47
Speaker 1: know we're the worst, but you all out there and
27:50
Speaker 1: podcast Land are the best and we'd love to hear
27:52
Speaker 1: from you. Please right into us. You can find us
27:55
Speaker 1: on the email. Do we get that email sorted out?
27:58
Speaker 1: We haven't had an email for like three years. We
28:00
Speaker 1: just realized this, so I think we never had an email.
28:03
Speaker 1: We just and I always was confused as to why
28:06
Speaker 1: nobody emailed us. And and here the mystery has been solved.
28:09
Speaker 1: No emails, So anyone that's been getting like, you know,
28:12
Speaker 1: kickback emails when we used to say the email address
28:15
Speaker 1: of the show, sorry about that. We'll sort that out
28:18
Speaker 1: very soon. But in the meantime, just do the Facebook thing.
28:20
Speaker 1: You can do that on our group Ridiculous Historians um,
28:23
Speaker 1: where you can join the conversation around episodes, around your
28:27
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians and the amazing historical memes they post
28:31
Speaker 1: and articles and articles that's how you say that word
28:34
Speaker 1: and all of that kind of stuff. All you gotta
28:36
Speaker 1: do is name me or Ben or producer Casey Pagram
28:39
Speaker 1: or some little inkling that makes us know that you're
28:41
Speaker 1: an actual human being, and you're in my friends, You're
28:43
Speaker 1: in Yeah, And there's one pretty cool thing you on
28:47
Speaker 1: our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians right now. I went in
28:51
Speaker 1: there and I thought I was reading about James Joyce,
28:54
Speaker 1: right and I was just going over some of my
28:57
Speaker 1: favorite weird facts about a very weird man. And then
29:00
Speaker 1: I thought, who better than the ridiculous historians to tell
29:04
Speaker 1: us other strange, obscure, bizarre, funny or sweet ridiculous facts
29:10
Speaker 1: about people important people throughout history. So you can see
29:14
Speaker 1: the thread there. Now, I learned a lot of stuff.
29:16
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, our own Gladwin Boland decided to hop on
29:22
Speaker 1: with some very weird facts. Uh so, Dad, if you're listening,
29:26
Speaker 1: thanks for contributing to the Facebook. But if you if
29:30
Speaker 1: you'd rather just find us as individuals were cool with
29:33
Speaker 1: that too. We're also on social media as people, not horses. Yeah,
29:38
Speaker 1: and if you want to find me, you can do
29:39
Speaker 1: so exclusively on Instagram where I am at how now
29:42
Speaker 1: Noel Brown huge thanks to super producer Casey pegram as
29:45
Speaker 1: always on the case, Alexander Williams, who composed our theme.
29:48
Speaker 1: Christopher Rociota is always here in spirit and gavee Louisier.
29:53
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I like say how Manna just
29:55
Speaker 1: start changing the way his name sounds every time I
29:58
Speaker 1: say it because love time listeners. You'll remember he refused
30:02
Speaker 1: to tell us how to pronounce his last name, and
30:05
Speaker 1: I actually asked some other people and they said that
30:09
Speaker 1: he kind of told them the same thing. I love
30:11
Speaker 1: the mystery here, uh and I cannot wait for us
30:15
Speaker 1: to return to the Strange Journey. If he's stolen horses
30:19
Speaker 1: from World War Two. We'll see you next time. Folks.
30:29
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the I
30:31
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
30:34
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.