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Season 2 is the unbelievable but true story of the greatest spy of World War II. The Nazis don't know her name, but they want this woman dead. A mysterious agent is strategically dismantling their violent grasp on France and not only leading her own resistance factions but inspiring others. The Gestapo sends their devious double-agent, the priest Robert Alesh, to hunt down The Limping Lady before she threatens their entire push for Western Europe. But Virginia Hall was tougher and more resilient than they ever expected. Season 1 was a Top 10 hit with millions of listeners, making it one of the Top 20 new podcasts of 2021. Bestselling author and journalist Stephan Talty returns with Season 2 of Good Assassins: the dramatic story of a different kind of spy. Written by CD Carpenter (“American Hostage”) and produced by the award-winning team at Diversion Audio.
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- 1 weeks ago3 min
Introducing: Curse of Miss America
Hello, Good Assassins Listeners! We want to share a new show you might enjoy, it’s Curse of: Miss America!!! About the Show: Miss America used to be a national icon. At its peak, the pageant was appointment television, drawing TV audiences that rivaled the Superbowl. But now, the crown is slipping. The organization is at the center of a tabloid courtroom drama. Two people are claiming to be the rightful owner of the Miss America pageant. And the fight is getting ugly. In one corner, a pageant girl boss. In the other, a self-proclaimed Palm Beach billionaire with a controversial past. After decades of leadership failures and declining interest, today’s scandal is the only the latest in a long line of controversies in the pageant world. And yet, thousands of young women continue to compete every year. What keeps drawing contestants to an institution that so many former insiders believe has failed them? Over the course of 10 episodes, we'll hear directly from former titleholders, participants, and whistleblowers. Hosted by pop culture journalist Bridget Armstrong, Curse of Miss America is an investigation into the unraveling of an American institution. Listen here and subscribe to Curse of: Miss America on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Jul 9, 20261 min
Introducing: DISGRACELAND
Hello, Good Assassins Listeners! We want to share a new show you might enjoy, it’s DISGRACELAND!!! About the Show: You know the myths. You’ve seen the biopics. But if you’re the kind of music fan who craves the rest of the story—the stuff they buried or cleaned up for streaming and theaters—this is your podcast. DISGRACELAND is the award-winning show that reveals the deeply human, highly dramatic, true crime–fueled chaos behind legendary musicians like Amy Winehouse, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sean “Diddy” Combs, the Grateful Dead, Blondie, and more. While we dig into the dark side, we do so with reverence for the artists—and an understanding of the extreme highs, lows, and personal costs that come with fame and making great art. This is music history like you’ve never heard it—edge-of-your-seat stories exploding with drama and the kind of information that’ll make you dangerous at dinner parties. New, fully scripted and sound-designed episodes drop every Tuesday. On Thursdays, we hand the mic to you—and feature listener voicemails, texts, and emails in our interactive bonus episodes. And on Fridays, we revisit the wildest stories from our 250+ episode archive with “Rewind” drops that’ll transport you back into music history’s most entertaining moments. DISGRACELAND is not a journalistic podcast—it’s an entertainment podcast inspired by true events. Certain dialogue and scenes are occasionally fictionalized for dramatic effect, as is common in scripted entertainment based on real stories. Sources and credits for each episode are available at www.disgracelandpod.com Listen here and subscribe to DISGRACELAND on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Dec 6, 202238 min
10. The Boy Who Shot the Nazi (Season 2)
Kristallnacht was the violent uprising against German Jews in November 1938 that was the opening to the eventual genocide of six million Europeans Jews—and then millions of others—during World War II. This final episode of Good Assassins Season 2 tells the story of Herschel Grynszpan, the young man whose story is at the dead center of the Holocaust. He became an assassin, and the assassination he committed on November 7, 1938 in Paris is the spark that set off the inferno that was the Nazi Holocaust. In 1938 Herschel Grynszpan was just 17 years old. This episode contains interviews with: • Joseph Matthews: author of the historical novel about Herschel Grynszpan called Everyone Has Their Reasons praised as a "A tragic, gripping Orwellian tale of an orphan turned assassin in pre-World War II Paris..." • Armin Fuhrer: journalist, archivist, and historian who wrote Herschel: The Assassination of Herschel Grynszpan on November 7, 1938 and The Beginning of the Holocaust • Herman Kempinsky (Ziering): Holocaust survivor and former president of the Society of the Survivors of the Riga Ghetto. Clips from interviews with Lore Oppenheimer and Hermann Ziering from the Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection. Created by Claude Lanzmann during the filming of "Shoah," used by permission of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem. © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem, State of Israel. For more information visit USHMM • Jonathan Kirsch: author of the book, The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris. Clip from interview with Los Angeles Review of Books Learn more at diversionaudio.com/good-assassins “Good Assassins” is a production of Diversion Audio, in association with iHeartPodcasts. Featuring the voices of Matthew Amendt, Orlagh Cassidy, Raphael Corkhill, Manoel Felciano, Sean Gormley, Mikaela Izquierdo, Lenne Klingaman, Andrew Polk, John Pirkis, Steve Routman. This season is hosted by Stephan Talty and written by C.D. Carpenter. Produced and directed by Kevin Thomsen for Real Jetpacks Productions. Story Editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering by Paul Goodrich. Sound Editing by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive Producers: Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Nov 29, 202240 min
9. Agents of Sabotage (Season 2)
Virginia Hall was back in occupied France, but she was no longer working for the British. She was an agent of the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA. Virginia was living in the farmhouse of a respected Resistance leader. She was spending her existence in disguise as an old woman, decked out in multiple wool skirts, makeshift prosthetics, and dyed gray hair; all the while constantly walking by wanted posters stapled around town with sketches of The Limping Lady. But this new life promised Virginia something she’d been waiting for since she’d had to flee France almost 18 months earlier: the opportunity to take the fight directly to the Nazis.The Maquis was a new faction of French, British, and German freedom fighters. They were scrappy guerrilla warfare fighters who sabotaged German trains, trucks, and tanks. In May of 1944, Virginia had split Colonel Vessereau’s Maquis faction into smaller groups of twenty-five fighters each, allowing them to continue working in secret without attracting attention from the Nazis. The Maquis were ecstatic to be led by a real secret agent, though they were slightly put-off by the sight of Virginia in disguise as an elderly, limping woman.By late May of 1944, French resistors were getting antsy. They’d been told to expect the arrival of the Americans, who were planning their invasion of Europe. And every day of waiting saw the Nazis become more and more brutal, as they upped their retaliations against the French citizenry. The Germans were expecting the American invasion too, and they wanted to dwindle French forces as much as possible. On June 6, 1944 over 150,000 American, British, and Canadian troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France and led the invasion against the Germans. It was the beginning of the end for the Nazi occupation of France—and is regarded as the turning of the tide for all of World War II. This episode contains interviews with:• Brad Catling: great nephew of Virginia Hall• Richard Lucas: radio enthusiast and author of Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany, the first biography of Mildred Gillars AKA Axis Sally• Karen Schaefer: worked at the CIA for 26 years in Latin America, Europe, Afghanistan and Iraq; she was Chief of Base and held leadership positions including Chief of Operations, Directorate of Science and Technology; Deputy Associate Director of Military Affairs; and Deputy Chief of Counterintelligence, Near East DivisionLearn more at diversionaudio.com/good-assassins “Good Assassins” is a production of Diversion Audio, in association with iHeartPodcasts. Featuring the voices of Matthew Amendt, Orlagh Cassidy, Raphael Corkhill, Manoel Felciano, Sean Gormley, Mikaela Izquierdo, Lenne Klingaman, Andrew Polk, John Pirkis, Steve Routman.This season is hosted by Stephan Talty and written by C.D. Carpenter. Produced and directed by Kevin Thomsen for Real Jetpacks Productions. Story Editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering by Paul Goodrich. Sound Editing by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive Producers: Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Nov 22, 202235 min
8. Return of The Limping Lady (Season 2)
Virginia Hall’s prison cell in northeastern Spain was something out of a nightmare. Hall imagined the moment in which the Spanish police would hand her over to the Gestapo and their glee at having finally captured "The Limping Lady." Hall knew the Nazis wouldn’t risk letting her escape. They’d transfer her to a secret facility, interrogate her, torture her, and kill her. Or sometimes the Nazis kept their prisoners alive and attempted to leverage them against the Allies. Months of psychological torture would give way to more physical punishments. Dousing with freezing water. Electric shocks. Beatings and cutting. This was the way of the Nazis. Virginia's Hall's American nationality was maybe the one thing that could save her. In late 1942, Spain was still considered technically neutral in the war. The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco had offered Hitler Spain’s allegiance in return for aid in nation-building. There was a division of Spanish volunteers fighting for the German army, but Spain still remained reluctant and fickle. Andrew Orr says, "Franco's regime is ideologically complex and people still fight over whether or not it was fascist or just really authoritarian and traditionalist. Regardless of how anyone's individual sees it, the regime was very friendly to Nazi Germany and especially fascist Italy because Italy and Germany had backed Franco in the civil war. So Spain tended politically to like the Axis powers a lot." But Virginia Hall’s capture by the Spanish was too big a threat to the British. Hall knew too much, and the Nazis could assume that the British would change battle strategy once the Special Operations Executive, Hall’s intelligence agency, discovered she’d been captured. Hall’s information would be useless to the Axis Powers, and so she was as good as dead. This episode contains interviews with:• Andrew Orr: a professor in the Department of History at Kansas State University, a specialist in modern military history, intelligence operations in the Middle East, imperialism, civil-military relations, and the history of French Communist Party identity; author of Women and the French Army• Chris Costa: Executive Director of the International Spy Museum, a 34-year veteran of the Department of Defense, and he served 25 years in the United States Army working in counterintelligence, human intelligence and with special operations forces in Central America, Europe, and the Middle East.• Judith Pearson: expert on Virginia Hall and author of the book The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Female Spy• Dr. Ludivine Broch: A scholar of World War II French history and lecturer at the University of Westminster, UK; Editor of Contemporary European History, associate fellow of the Birbeck Institute for the study of Antisemitism; co-founder of the French History Network• Brad Catling: great nephew of Virginia HallLearn more at diversionaudio.com/good-assassins “Good Assassins” is a production of Diversion Audio, in association with iHeartPodcasts. Featuring the voices of Matthew Amendt, Orlagh Cassidy, Raphael Corkhill, Manoel Felciano, Sean Gormley, Mikaela Izquierdo, Lenne Klingaman, Andrew Polk, John Pirkis, Steve Routman.This season is hosted by Stephan Talty and written by C.D. Carpenter. Produced and directed by Kevin Thomsen for Real Jetpacks Productions. Story Editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering by Paul Goodrich. Sound Editing by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive Producers: Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Nov 17, 202229 min
7. Escape into the Mountains (Season 2)
Virginia Hall’s identity was exposed. Now she had to get out of France and into Spain, and that meant an excruciating climb over 30 miles of tumultuous mountain terrain. Virginia knew that attempting the trek alone would mean death, especially given that she’d be hiking with her prosthetic leg. Luckily, Perpignan, the town she’d landed in, had a Resistance contact she knew fairly well. A man known to her by his codename: Gilbert.Edward Stourton: "If they were found out, things could be very, very nasty indeed and many of them who were caught went off into camps in Germany. A lot of 'em died. A lot of 'em died in really awful ways. The Germans had a system called ‘Nacht und Nebel’, Night and Fog, which meant that people just disappeared into the system of concentration camps, and nobody knew where they were. Which of course was intended to frighten anybody considering, going onto the wrong side and, and joining an escape line and helping people to get over over the Pyrenees."This episode contains interviews with:• Edward Stourton: BBC broadcaster who made a commemorative trek across the Pyrenees some 70 years after Virginia Hall; author of the book Cruel Crossing: Escaping Hitler Across the Pyrenees• Judith Pearson: expert on Virginia Hall and author of the book The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Female SpyLearn more at diversionaudio.com/good-assassins “Good Assassins” is a production of Diversion Audio, in association with iHeartPodcasts. Featuring the voices of Matthew Amendt, Orlagh Cassidy, Raphael Corkhill, Manoel Felciano, Sean Gormley, Mikaela Izquierdo, Lenne Klingaman, Andrew Polk, John Pirkis, Steve Routman.This season is hosted by Stephan Talty and written by C.D. Carpenter. Produced and directed by Kevin Thomsen for Real Jetpacks Productions. Story Editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering by Paul Goodrich. Sound Editing by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive Producers: Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Nov 10, 202227 min
6. Spy Versus Spy (Season 2)
Virginia Hall had been expecting company. One of the Resistance leaders in France had informed her of a new courier that could be of use to HECKLER, Virginia’s faction of the Resistance. But what Virginia didn’t know was that the courier was Robert Alesh—a Nazi operative who had managed to infiltrate the Resistance while posing as a priest. Right away, Virginia suspected something was off. This episode contains interviews with: • Karen Schaefer: worked for the CIA for 26 years on assignments overseas in Latin America, Europe, Afghanistan and Iraq, where she was Chief of Base and holding several different leadership positions including Chief of Operations, Directorate of Science and Technology; Deputy Associate Director of Military Affairs; and Deputy Chief of Counterintelligence, Near East Division. • Andrew Orr: a professor in the Department of History at Kansas State University, a specialist in modern military history, intelligence operations in the Middle East, imperialism, civil-military relations, and the history of French Communist Party identity; author of Women and the French Army • Chris Costa: Executive Director of the International Spy Museum, a 34-year veteran of the Department of Defense, and he served 25 years in the United States Army working in counterintelligence, human intelligence and with special operations forces in Central America, Europe, and the Middle East.Learn more at diversionaudio.com/good-assassins “Good Assassins” is a production of Diversion Audio, in association with iHeartPodcasts. Featuring the voices of Matthew Amendt, Orlagh Cassidy, Raphael Corkhill, Manoel Felciano, Sean Gormley, Mikaela Izquierdo, Lenne Klingaman, Andrew Polk, John Pirkis, Steve Routman.This season is hosted by Stephan Talty and written by C.D. Carpenter. Produced and directed by Kevin Thomsen for Real Jetpacks Productions. Story Editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering by Paul Goodrich. Sound Editing by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive Producers: Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Nov 3, 202229 min
5. Enemy Territory (Season 2)
Robert Alesh’s hunt for “The Limping Lady” brings him to the doorstep of Resistance operative Dr. Jean Rousset. Alesh tricks the doctor into believing he is a new courier for the French Resistance. In reality, he was a Nazi spy working directly for infamous SS officer Klaus Barbie. Virginia Hall had successfully managed to save a British pilot from German clutches, but the rescue came with a cost. She’d exposed her alias to the Nazis and now she had to move. Virginia abandons her safe house and sets up another. Up to this point, Virginia could move about in France without much push-back. She could use her status as an American to fend off a stint in a German prison so long as she wasn’t actively stirring up trouble. It was still the middle of 1941, and the US hadn’t officially entered the War. Between her rescue of the British pilot and Alesh’s visit to Dr. Rousset’s home, The Limping Lady had become a major thorn in the side of the SS. She had managed to gather intel of German missions and plots to target British strongholds in France that gave the Brits an edge. The Limping Lady was considered by the SS to be the leader of a new Resistance network named HECKLER, that supplied Resistance members with weaponry, housing, and escape routes out of the country. In reality, Virginia wasn’t just the leader of HECKLER, but the founder. This episode contains interviews with:• Christopher Dillon: a senior lecturer of modern German history at King's College London. In 2015, he published a book called Dachau and the SS: A Schooling in Violence• Abe Malnik: A Holocaust survivor and former prisoner at the Dachau concentraition camp. Contains clips from interviews with Abe Malnik from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Holocaust Eyewitness Project and Edith Fierst. © Holocaust Eyewitness Project. For more info visit USHMMLearn more at diversionaudio.com/good-assassins “Good Assassins” is a production of Diversion Audio, in association with iHeartPodcasts. Featuring the voices of Matthew Amendt, Orlagh Cassidy, Raphael Corkhill, Manoel Felciano, Sean Gormley, Mikaela Izquierdo, Lenne Klingaman, Andrew Polk, John Pirkis, Steve Routman.This season is hosted by Stephan Talty and written by C.D. Carpenter. Produced and directed by Kevin Thomsen for Real Jetpacks Productions. Story Editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering by Paul Goodrich. Sound Editing by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive Producers: Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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About Good Assassins
Season 2 is the unbelievable but true story of the greatest spy of World War II. The Nazis don't know her name, but they want this woman dead. A mysterious agent is strategically dismantling their violent grasp on France and not only leading her own resistance factions but inspiring others. The Gestapo sends their devious double-agent, the priest Robert Alesh, to hunt down The Limping Lady before she threatens their entire push for Western Europe. But Virginia Hall was tougher and more resilient than they ever expected. Season 1 was a Top 10 hit with millions of listeners, making it one of the Top 20 new podcasts of 2021. Bestselling author and journalist Stephan Talty returns with Season 2 of Good Assassins: the dramatic story of a different kind of spy. Written by CD Carpenter (“American Hostage”) and produced by the award-winning team at Diversion Audio.
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