Episode description

Hitler has a gift for oratory and party membership is growing: every week he draws a larger crowd. The party formally changes its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party – soon everyone will be calling it Na-Zi for short. But in his speeches, Hitler still reserves his vilest attacks for the ‘November Traitors’, namely any politician who signed the Versailles Treaty and plunged Germany into third-class status. But all this campaigning costs: will Helene Bechstein, whose husband inherited the piano company, be able to help?

Starring Nancy Carroll as Helene Bechstein, Tom Mothersdale as Adolf Hitler and featuring Edward Bennett as Gottfried Feder, the Nazi Party’s first economist, and Joseph Alessi as Ernst Röhm, Commander of the SA.

Cast: Helene Bechstein - NANCY CARROLL Adolf Hitler - TOM MOTHERSDALE Ernst Röhm - JOSEPH ALESSI Karl Harrer - OSCAR BATTERHAM Gottfried Feder - EDWARD BENNETT Rudolf Hess - GEORGE KEMP Anton Drexler - JACK LASKEY Other parts were played by: WILLIAM CHUBB, NICHOLAS FARRELL, SCOTT KARIM, SORCHA KENNEDY, MICHAEL MALONEY, FORBES MASSON, LYNNE MILLER and ANDREW WOODALL The Narrator is JULIET STEVENSON

Sound designer – ADAM WOODHAMS Studio Manager – MARK SMITH Casting Director – GINNY SCHILLER Original Score – METAPHOR MUSIC Writer and Director – JONATHAN MYERSON Producer – NICHOLAS NEWTON

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds