The Constant: A History of Getting Things Wrong · Mark Chrisler

Peace Forever

February 10, 2026·1 hr 22 min·5 clips

Osietzky published 'Stormy Matters for German Aviation' and the state treated it as treason.

1. The Constant: A History of Getting Things Wrong episode 'Peace Forever' centers on Walter Lohmann, Phoebus Film AG, and Karl von Ossietzky. 2. Mark Kreisler narrates as host, and the named reporters Kurt Winkle and Karl von Ossietzky drive the investigation because they expose the money and the rearmament. 3. The episode asks how the Weimar Republic hid military rebuilding behind film financing, black funds, and legal theater. 4. Phoebus Film AG grew into Germany's third-largest studio after its 1922 founding, even though it produced a string of expensive flops from 1925 to 1927. 5. Kurt Winkle, a business reporter for a large left-leaning daily newspaper, noticed that Phoebus kept financing bigger projects when the studio should have been shrinking. 6. Winkle followed the trail to Mr. Eisenberg, a former Phoebus director, and then to Walter Lohmann, who had sent checks totaling more than $2.5 million in 1920 dollars. 7. Lohmann's money came from navy funds, and the episode says he was funneling clandestine government money to Phoebus while officials publicly defended him. 8. The reporting in August 1927 toppled Admiral Hans Zenker and Defense Minister Otto Gessler, and Phoebus Film AG went bankrupt by the end of the month. 9. The episode then shows that Lohmann was only one part of a much larger system of covert rearmament built from black funds, fake scrapping of ships, and proceeds from the Ruhr occupation. 10. Walter Lohmann, as head of the Maritime Transport Service in 1923, was told to use 30 million marks to secretly grow the German navy and accept sole blame if exposed. 11. Lohmann used shell companies in the Netherlands and Spain, secret deals with Soviet shipyards, and civilian aviation fronts to build illegal U-boats, warships, and training facilities. 12. He also backed companies like the Berliner Bacon Company and Casper Works, trying to make civilian businesses serve military purposes at the same time. 13. The Phoebus deal gained extra significance after Lohmann reportedly saw Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin in 1925 and decided cinema could shape public opinion. 14. The episode says Phoebus could also offer espionage cover, travel for agents, and giant mock battles that looked like film production while violating the Treaty of Versailles. 15. Lohmann's relationship with Elsa Ektimov is described cautiously, with the episode noting both the government's line and a CIA analysis that called it platonic. 16. Karl von Ossietzky then becomes central through Die Weltbühne, where his collaborator Walter Kreiser identified Department M, Lufthansa test sites, and hidden fighter and bomber programs. 17. The trial against Ossietzky and Kreiser is described as a closed proceeding in which evidence was rejected, witnesses were blocked, and the defendants were convicted of leaking state secrets. 18. Ossietzky's prison speech, his release before Hitler's rise, and his later arrest after the Reichstag fire show the episode's dry, angry, and report-driven style. 19. Listeners interested in Weimar politics, military secrecy, and journalism will get the most from it. 20. Listeners seeking a simple linear history without digressions may skip it.

As heard by us

A sharp look at how denial, propaganda, and covert rearmament fed each other.

Peace Forever traces Phoebus Film AG from its 1922 boom years and disposable romances into military and political work, where the rising scale, cost, and mock battles point toward covert rearmament.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want hidden rearmament, press-freedom stakes, and a courtroom that can barely keep up.

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