Daniel Finkelstein On Hitler, Stalin, And His Mum And Dad

Danny is a journalist, politician, and old friend. Formerly an adviser to Prime Minister John Major, he was appointed to the House of Lords in 2013. He’s a former executive editor of The Times of London and is still there as a weekly political columnist. He’s also a director of Chelsea Football Club. His latest book is Two Roads Home: Hitler, Stalin, and the Miraculous Survival of My Family (the title in the UK is way, way better: Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad). It’s an astonishingly well-researched thriller of a story.

For two clips of our convo — comparing the horrors of the Soviets and the Nazis, and whether Anne Frank would have been a Justin Bieber fan — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in Hendon (“my parents chose it because it wasn’t exciting”); his grandfather Alfred as “one of the great archivists of the 20th century”; his work contributed to the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; the Hitler/Stalin pact; their carving up of Poland; the purging of the bourgeois; “If you spoke Esperanto or had stamp collection you were considered a spy”; the horrific cattle-trucks into the Soviet interior meant to cull the weak; the gulags; the state collective farms; working for your food; keeping captives on the bring of starvation; the Katyn Massacre; the devastation in Ukraine; Danny’s relatives who knew Anne Frank as a neighbor in Amsterdam; the dangerous extremes of group identity; “the liberating value of truth”; the main crime of the Jews was their success; the question of Zionism; the Jewish Labour tradition; Danny’s experience as a Jewish Tory; and his mum attending his induction into the House of Lords.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Neil J. Young on his history of the gay right, Eli Lake on Israel and foreign affairs, Adam Moss on the artistic process, Johann Hari on weight-loss drugs, Bill Maher on everything, George Will on Trump and conservatism, and Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other pod comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.