I’ve been studying German history and futzing with Audacity and a Blue Yeti mic since about May 2024. I decided that on the first day I upload for real, I should have circa twenty episodes ready to go. If someone discovers the podcast, they should have the ability to binge a little and get to know me.
I’m nearly ready to record those episodes. There are only a few writing tasks left before I have full scripts. I just made the table below to sort out what remains. While most of the work is done, the table itself is new, so nothing is yellowed out yet. Gold means complete.
I practiced the reading style last year and put half a dozen episodes on SoundCloud to get feedback from friends. I’m now comfortable that I understand the style and pacing of those introductory narratives. I’ve been busy compressing, reducing, and omitting in order to contextualize the audience enough to watch the Kaiserreich go up in flames in 1918.
The style from January 1, 1916, forward is going to change. From that point on, I plan to layer different narratives over a much stricter chronology. Until I can start writing and recording those episodes, I’m not entirely sure what will work and what won’t.
I was satisfied that I had done enough recording to get the feel for it, so I dug in and timelined. Because the style is going to change at that point, I wanted to close out everything I feel I should read before what I’m calling the “midterm exam” of Season One: the U.S. enters the war.
My timeline for January 1, 1916, to April 6, 1917, contains excerpts from everything I read, so I can review it all in strict chronological order. It is presently 502 pages long. It has to grow a little longer, however. Here’s what I have left.
I may have to add a little more about Wilson and the election, unfortunately. I resent how much that man’s ghost haunts this history. But before that, I am trying to put more effort into cleaning up the first twenty or so episodes. I hope my beta listeners will like them better this year than they did last year.
Once more unto the breach.