Kind: captions
Language: en
And you see that manifest itself on
D-Day where you've got
6,939 vessels of which there are 1,213
warships,
4,127 assaultcraft, 12 a half thousand
aircraft, you know, 155,000 men landed
and dropped from the air in 24-hour
period. It is phenomenal. It is
absolutely phenomenal.
The following is a conversation with
James Holland, a historian specializing
in World War II, who has written a lot
of amazing books on the subject,
especially covering the Western Front,
often providing fascinating details at
multiple levels of analysis, including
strategic, operational, tactical,
technological, and of course, the human
side, the personal accounts from the
war. He also co-hosts a great podcast on
World War II called We Have Ways of
Making You Talk. This is a Lex Freeman
podcast. To support it, please check out
our sponsors in the description or at
lexfreeman.com/sponsors. And now, dear
friends, here's James Holland.
In volume one of the war in the west,
your book series on World War II, you
write, "The Second World War witnessed
the deaths of more than 60 million
people from over 60 different countries.
Entire cities were laid waste. National
borders were redrawn. And many millions
more people found themselves displaced.
Over the past couple of decades, many of
those living in the Middle East or parts
of Africa, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and
even the United States may feel
justifiably that these troubled times
have already proved the most traumatic
in their recent past. Yet, globally, the
Second World War was and remains the
single biggest catastrophe of modern
history. In terms of human drama, it is
unrivaled. No other war has affected so
many lives in such a large number of
countries. So what to you makes World
War II the biggest catastrophe in human
drama in modern history and maybe from a
historian perspective the most
fascinating subject to study thing about
World War II is it really is truly
global. You know it's fought in deserts.
It's fought in in in the Arctic. Um it's
fought across oceans. It's fought in the
air. Um it's in jungle. It's in the
hills. It is on the beaches. Um it's
also on the Russian step and it's also
in Ukraine. Um so it's it's it's that
global nature of it. And I just think
you know where there's where there's war
there is always incredible human drama.
And I think for most people and
certainly the true in my case you get
drawn to the human drama of it. It's
that thought that you know gosh if I'd
been 20 years old how would I have dealt
with it? You know would I have been in
the army? Would I have been in the air
force? would I been on a you know Royal
Navy destroyer or you know how would I
have coped with it and how would I have
dealt with that separation? I mean I've
interviewed people who were away for
four years. I remember talking to a tank
man from uh from Liverpool in England
called Sam Bradshaw and he went away for
four years and when he came home he'd
been twice wounded. He'd been very badly
wounded in North Africa and then he was
shot in the neck in Italy. Eventually
got home when he came home his mother
had turned gray. his little baby sister
who had been, you know, 13 when he left,
was now a a young woman. His old school
had been destroyed by Luftwaffer bombs.
He didn't recognize the place. And do
you know what he did? He joined up
again, went back out of Europe and was
one of the first people in Bellson. So,
you know, what was his justification for
that for joining right back? He just
felt completely disconnected to home. He
felt that the the gulf of time, his
experiences had separated him from all
the normalities of life. And he felt
that the the the normalities of the life
that he had
known before he'd gone away to war had
just been severed in a really kind of
cruel way that he didn't really feel he
was able to confront at that particular
point, but he decided to rejoin.
Couldn't go back to the Third World
Royal Tank Regiment. So, it went back to
a different unit. Went from kind of the
Italian campaign to European theater. um
didn't see so much action at the end,
but you know uh like a lot of British
troops if if you were in a certain
division at a certain time you know you
ended up passing very close to Bellson
and you know you suddenly realized okay
this was the right thing to do you know
we did have to get rid of Nazism we did
have to do this because this is the
consequence it's not just the oppression
it's just not just the secret police
it's not just the expansionism of Nazism
it is also you know the Holocaust which
hadn't been given its name at that point
but but you know you're witnessing this
kind of untold or cruelty. Um, and I
always, you know, I've always sort of I
think a lot about Sam. I mean, he's no
longer with us, but um, he was one of
the kind of first people that I
interviewed and I interviewed him at
great length. Uh, and I know you like a
long interview, Lex. And, um, and I
totally totally get that because when
you have a when you have a long
interview, you really start getting to
the nuts and bolts of it. One of the
frustrations for me when I'm looking at
at oral histories of of Second World War
vets is usually they're kind of, you
know, they're put on YouTube or they're
put on a museum website, they're 30
minutes, you know, an hour if you're
lucky and there you're just scratching
the surface. You never you never really
get to know it and you feel that they're
just repeating kind of stuff they've
read in books themselves after the war
and stuff. And you know, I was kind of
leave feeling frustrated that that I
haven't had a chance to kind of grill
them on the kind of stuff that I would
grill them on if I was put in front of
them. So, Tank Man, what what was maybe
the most epic, the most intense or the
most interesting story that he told you?
Well, I do remember him telling me uh
funny enough, it's not really about
about the conflict. I remember him
telling me about the importance of
letters. And there was this there was
this guy
who literally every few weeks, you know,
post would arrive intermittently. There
was no kind of sort of regular post. So
it was supposed to be regular, but it it
didn't come around regularly. So you
might suddenly suddenly get a flurry of
five all in one day. But he said it was
this guy and um in his tank member of a
different tank troop. It was a good
friend of his in the in the same
squadron. get British Huff Squadrons for
for for their armor and uh which as
Americans would have a company. I should
say that in your book, one of the
wonderful things you do is you use the
correct term in the language. Yeah. For
the particular army involved whether
it's the German or the British or the
American. Well, that's not to be
pretentious. That's that's really just
so it because you you're dealing with so
many numbers and different units and it
can go over your head and you can get
sort of consumed by the detail if you're
not careful. And as a reader, it can be
very unsatisfying because you you just
can't keep pace of everything. Um, so
one of the things about writing in the
vernacular German or or in the American
spelling armore rather than ar maua as
we would Brits would um spell it is it
just immediately tells the reader, okay,
this is American, okay, I've got that or
this is German, I've got that or Italian
or whatever it might be. But yeah, to go
back to Sam. Sam, this there was this
guy in in in his squadron and he'd get
his letters from his from his
girlfriend, his wife, and he said it was
like it was like a soap opera. He he
said we all just waited for his letters
to come in so we could find out, you
know, whether his, you know, his
daughter had, you know, got to school,
okay, or something, you know, won the
swimming contest or whatever it was. You
know, the sort of details of this sort
of dayto-day kind of benile life was
just absolute catnip to these guys. They
absolutely loved it. And then the letter
arrived, the Dear John letter, saying,
"Sorry, I found someone else and and
it's over." And his friend was just
absolutely devastated. It was the only
thing that was keeping him going. This
sort of sense of this sort of continuity
of of home, this sort of this this
foundation of his life back at
home.
And Sam said he could see was in a
really really bad way. Mhm. and he
thought, uh, he's going to do something
stupid. And he went up to him and he
said, "Look, you know, I know it's bad
and I know it's terrible and I know
you're absolutely devastated, but you
got your mates here. Just don't do
anything silly. Just, you know, maybe,
you know, when it's all over, you can
patch things up or sort things out." And
he said, you know, you got to understand
it from her point of view. You know,
it's a long way. You haven't seen you
for 2 years. This kind of stuff, you
know, so just just don't do anything
rash. And of course, the next next
engagement, two days later, he was
killed. and he said it was just a kind
of he could he just knew that was going
to happen. He said it was a sort of
self-fulfilling prophecy. That's
something I've never forgotten that
story. And I just thought, you
know, it's about human drama. You know,
that's that's that's the truth of it.
And how people react to this totally
alien situation. You know, for the most
part, the Second World War is fought by
ordinary everyday people doing
extraordinary things. And I think that's
something that's so fascinating. I
suspect I I think I instinctively I'm
quite slap dash I think. So I think I
would have I'd have bought it
literally. I don't think it would have
ended well for me. I just I'm just a bit
careless. Yeah. I think I also have an
element in me where I can believe in the
idea of
nation and fight for a nation especially
when the conflict is as grand. There are
things worse than death. Yes. as as the
propaganda would explain very clearly
but also in reality. Yes. So a nation
you know
France, Britain was you know maybe
facing the prospect of being essentially
enslaved. The Soviet
Union was facing the prospect of being
enslaved literally. I mean it was very
very clearly stated what they're going
to do. They're going to repopulate the
land with Germanic people. So well
they're not just going to do that.
They're also going to starve lots and
lots of um Soviet individuals to
death by the hunger plan, for example,
which is planned, you know, really very
casually and not by the, you know, this
is not SS units or anything like this.
This is the Vermach. This is the
economic division of the Obert Commando
de Vermac, the German combined general
staff. General Gayorg Thomas comes up
with you know and Herman Baka they come
up with the uh who's the kind of
minister for food they come up you know
what are we going to do you know we
haven't got enough food you know largely
because German um farming is inefficient
and they think well you know this is
part of we'll go in and we'll take the
food and there's been this colossal
urbanization of the Soviet Union since
the revolution in
1917 so they're just not going to get
their food you know these these people
in these cities cuz we're going to take
it all and that's going to lead to
that's going to lead to a lot of deaths.
You
know, teen millions is the phrase that
Gail Thomas used. So, let's talk about
the hunger plan. How important was the
hunger plan and lab to Nazi ideology and
to the whole Nazi war machine? It's
central to the whole thing. This is all
about this notion that is embedded into
Hitler's mind and into the minds of the
Nazi party right from the word go is
there is a big sort of global conspiracy
the Jewish bolevik plot I mean
completely misplaced that Jews and
Bolsheviks go hand in hand somehow
dovetail they don't obviously and the
whole ideology is to crush this you know
part of the way the Nazis think the way
Hitler thinks is there is them and
there's us. We are the white northern
European Aryans. We should be the master
race. We've been we we've been
threatened by a
global Jewish bulvic plot. We've been
stabbed in the back in 1918 at the end
of the first world war. We need to have
to overcome. This is an existential
battle for future survival. It's a
terrible task that has befallen our
generation. But we have to do this. We
have to overcome this or else we have no
future. We will be crushed. It's
absolutely cut and dry. And one of the
things about Hitler is that he is a very
kind of black and white them or us,
either or kind of person. It's it's
always one thing or the other. It's a
thousand-y year Reich or it's
Armageddon. There is no there's no
middle ground. There's no gray area.
It's just one or the other. And that's
how that's his worldview. And the reason
he came to the four was was because of
the crystal
clear clarity of his message which is
we've been stabbed in the back. There is
a global plot. We have to overcome this.
We are naturally the master race. We
have to reassert ourselves. We have to
get rid of global jewelry. We have to
get rid of global bulsheism. And we have
to prevail or else. But if we do
prevail, what an amazing world it's
going to be. So, so he starts with this,
you know, every speech he does always
starts with the same way. Always starts
from a kind of negative and always ends
with an incredible positive, this sort
of rabble rousing crescendo of of
of if you're in the front row, spittle
halattosis and justiculation. I mean,
you've seen pictures of him. I mean, I
don't know if you've ever seen, but he's
he's he's almost he wants to grab the
air and clutch it to him. um you know,
you can see the kind of the venom coming
out of his mouth just in a single still
photograph. I mean, it it it's amazing.
There's um apps you can get now where
where you can translate his speeches,
you know, just and it just sounds, you
know, by today's standards, you would
just think what a load of absolute
wibble. I mean, just total nonsense. But
but you have to kind of put yourself
back in the shoes of people listening to
him in 1922 or 23 or indeed 1933 and see
how kind of captivating that is to a
certain part of the part of the
population. So yes so so the so to go
back to your original point Libans is
absolutely part of it. So what you do is
you crush the bolevixs you crush world
jewelry then you expand you know the
Britain has had this incredible empire
global empire you know Germany needs
that too. Germanyy's stuck in Europe. It
doesn't have access to the world's
oceans. So, we're not going to be a
maritime empire. We're going to be we're
going to be a land mass empire, the
whole of land mass of Europe and into
Asia. That's going to be us. And we're
going to take that land. We're going to
take the the bread basket of of Ukraine.
We're going to use that for our own own
ends. We're going to spread our our uh
we're going to make ourselves rich, but
we're also going to spread our peoples.
we're going to spread the Aryan northern
master race throughout um throughout
Europe and into the traditional Slavic
areas and and we will prevail and come
out on top. And so you have to
understand that that that everything
about Operation Barbarasa, the planned
invasion of the Soviet Union in June
is totally wrapped up
in the Nazi ideology. And people, you
know, I I' I've read it that historians
go, if only Hitler had realized that,
you know, the Ukrainians had been quite
happy to kind of fight on his side. You
know, if only he he'd actually brought
some of these Jewish scientists and kind
of into the Nazi fold, then Germany
might have prevailed in World War II.
And you kind of think, well, you're
missing the entire point. That's just
never going to happen because this is an
ideological war. Yeah. This is not a
pragmatic,
rational leader. No, I mean part of his
effectiveness, we should say, is
probably this singular belief in this
ideology. There's pros and
cons for for an effective military
machine, probably having that singular
focus is effective. Yes. Except that
when you're making military
decisions, if those decisions are always
being bracketed by an ideology which is
fundamentally flawed from a pragmatic
point of view as much as a kind of
ethical, you know, a kind of reasonable
point of view, um you're kind of opening
yourselves up for for trouble. I mean,
this is this is a problem he has with
Barbara Rossa. you know, they they
realize very early on in 1941 when
they're when they're wargaming this
whole operation that it's not going to
work. And so, you know, there people
like like General Pow who's on the uh
general staff at the time, you know,
he's he's given a kind of, you know,
he's in charge of kind of wargaming this
and he goes, "This isn't going to work."
And Kitel, who is the uh chief of the
OKW, goes, "No, no, no, no, no. Go back
and make it work." He goes, "Okay." So
he comes up with a plan that does work,
but it's bogus. I mean, it's just it
doesn't work because they don't have
enough. They don't have enough
motoriization. You know, they go into
Barbar Ross with 2,000 different types
of vehicle. You know, every single one
of those vehicles has to have, you know,
different distributor caps and
different leads and plugs and all sorts
of different parts. you know, there's
the the
interoperability of the of the German
mechanized arm is super inefficient. And
so you've got huge problems because they
kind of think, well, you know, we we
took France in 1940 and that's kind of
one of the most modern countries in the
world with, you know, one of the
greatest armies and armed forces in the
world and we did that in six weeks. So,
you know, Soviet Union, look, they
struggled against Finland for goodness
sake. I mean, how hard can it be, you
know, but what you're failing to
understand is is that attacking the
Soviet Union is over a geographical land
mass 10 times the size of France just on
the frontage and you haven't really got
much more mechanization than you had in
May 1940 when they attacked the low
countries in France and you've actually
got less Luftwaffer aircraft to support
you and you just do not have the
operational mechanics to make it work
successfully. I mean, it is largely down
to incompetence of the Red Army and the
Soviet leadership in the summer of 1941
that they get as far as they do. I mean,
you know, Barbarosa should never have
come close to being a a victory. Let's
talk through it. So, Operation Barbar
Roa that you're mentioning, and we'll go
back. Yes. We jump straight into it.
I've I've eaten eaten off two years of
war. So this is June
1941, Operation Barbar Roa, when Hitler
invades the Soviet Union with I think
the largest invading force in history up
to that point collectively. Yeah. And
there's three prongs. Army Group North,
Army Group Center, Army Group South.
North is going to Lennengrad. Center is
going uh it's the strongest group going
directly towards Moscow. And South is
going and targeting Ukraine and the
caucus. So can you linger on that on the
details of this plan? What was the
thinking? What was the strategy? What
was the tactics? What was the logistics?
Now we should there's so many things to
say but one of them is to say that you
often emphasize the importance of three
ways to analyze military conflict of the
strategic, the operational and the
tactical. and operation of those is
often not given enough time attention
and it's the
logistics that make the war machine
really work successfully or fail. Yeah,
that's absolutely um absolutely spot on.
And it's interesting because the vast
majority of uh general histories of
World War II tend to focus on the
strategic and the tactical. So what do I
mean by that? world strategic just for
the for those who don't know that's your
overall war aims you know get to Moscow
whatever it might be conquer the world
that's your strategy the tactical side
of things is that's the coalace of war
that's the attritional bit that's the
following his spitfire the tank crew the
the soldier in his foxhole it's the
actual kinetic fighting bit the
operational bit is the level of war that
that links the strategic to the tactical
so it is absolutely factory ries, it's
economics, it's shipping, it's supply
chains, it's how you manage your war.
And one of the things where I think
people have been guilty in the past,
historians have been guilty in the past
is by judging
warfare all on the same level. But
obviously every competent nation has a
different approach to war because of the
nation they are, the size they are,
their geographical location. So Britain
for example is an island nation. Its
priority is the Royal Navy, which is why
the Royal Navy is known as the senior
service. And you know, in 1939, it's
easy to forget it now when you see how
depleted Britain is today, but 1939, it
has comfortably the world's largest um
navy, something like 194 destroyers. Uh
um I think it's 15
battleships, seven aircraft carriers,
and another kind of six on the way.
America, it's got Pacific Ocean, it's
got the Atlantic Ocean, it's got two
seabboards, you know, it has the second
largest navy in the world, but a tiny
army. I mean, the army, the US army in
19 September 1949 is the 19th largest in
the in the world, sandwiched between
Portugal and Uruguay. And it's just
incredible. It's like 189,000 strong,
which might seem reasonably large by
today's standards, but is absolutely
tiny by 1939 standards, you know.
whereas you know Germany's got an army
of you know 3 and a half million in
1939. So you know these are big big big
differences but but America's coming at
it from a different perspective.
Britain's coming up about it from a
different perspective. You know
Britain's Britain's empire is all about
you know it's it's a shipping it's a
it's a it's a seaborn
empire. Whereas there's also another
point which which is having large armies
is actually inherently impractical and
inefficient because the larger army, the
more people you got to feed, the more
kind of barracks you've got to have, the
more space you've got to have for
training, the more people you're taking
out of your workforce to produce tanks
and shells and all the rest of it
because they're tramping around with
rifles, you know. So there's an argument
saying saying actually it's really not
not a very good way of doing things. So,
you know, very much the uh the British
way and and subsequently the United
States way and way of Britain's
dominions and and and empire is to use
kind of steel, not our flesh as a as a
principle. This is the idea is that you
use technology, mechanization,
modernity, global reach to do a lot of
your hard yards. That's the sort of
basic principle behind the the strategic
air campaign. When we talk about the
strategic air campaign, we're talking
about strategic air forces which are
operating in isolation from other armed
forces. So a tactical air force, for
example, is is an air force which is
offering close air support for ground
operations. A strategic air force has
got nothing to do with ground
operations. It's just operating on its
own. So that's your bomber force or
whatever, you know, that's your your
your B7s and B244s of the Aair force
flying out of East England bombing the
rural industrial complex of Germany or
whatever it might be. So it's important
to understand that when you compare you
have to have the back of your mind that
Britain compared to Germany for example
is coming at it from a completely
different perspective. And I would say
one of the failures of Hitler is that he
always views everybody through his own
very narrow worldview which is not
particularly helpful. You know you want
to get inside the head of your enemy and
you know he's he's sort of guilty of not
doing that. So when you're talking about
operation Barbarasa to go back back to
your original question next you're
dealing with an operation on such a vast
scale that that operational level of war
is absolutely vital to its chances of
success or failure. Doesn't matter how
good your individual commanders are at
the front. If you haven't got the backup
it's not going to work. And the problem
that the Germans have is yes, they've
got their kind of, you know, three
million men on the front and they've got
their kind of, you know, 3,000 aircraft
and and all the rest of it, but actually
what you need to do is break it down and
who is doing the hard yards of that and
way the German war machine works is that
the machine bit is only the spearhead.
So people always talk about the Nazi war
machine. In a way, it's a kind of
misnomer because you're you're sort of
suggesting that it's highly mechanized
and industrialized and all the rest of
it. And nothing could be further from
the truth. The spearhead is, but the
rest of it is not. And this is the kind
of fatal flaw of of the German armed
forces
in in the whole of World War II really,
but but even in this early stage because
in Barbarasa you're talking about 17
Panza divisions out of you know 100 odd
that are involved in the initial attack.
Well 17 that a Panza division is not a
division full of panzas tanks. It is a
combined arms motorized outfit.
So scouts on BMWs with side cars, uh um
armored cars, infantry, grenaders,
panzer grenaders, which are infantry in
halftracks and trucks, mechanized, um it
is motorized artillery, it is motorized
anti-aircraft artillery. It is motorized
anti-tank artillery. And of course, it
is tanks as well, panzas. But those are
a really really small proportion of you
know you're talking less than 20% of
your of your attacking force are those
spearhead forces and inevitably they are
going to be attritted as they go you
know you are going to take casualties
and not only that you're not going to
just take battlefield casualties you're
also going to have mechanical casualties
because of the huge spaces involved you
just simply can't function so what you
see is in the initial phases of of
operation Barbarasa they surge forward
red army's absolutely no answers to
anything. Stalin weirdly hasn't heeded
the all the warnings that this this
attack is brewing and there have been
plenty incidentally halinsk falls on the
15th of July you know in less than four
weeks it's just incredible three and a
half weeks has gone you know they've
done overwhelmed the rest of what had
been Poland they surged into what is now
barus taken all you know this is army
group center uh army group north is
thrust up into the into the Baltic it's
all going swimmingly well but then the
next several months They barely go 100
miles and that's because they're running
out of steam. And and the 16th Panza
division, for example, by the time it's
taken Smealinsk involved in taking
Smelinsk on the 15th of July 1941, the
following day it's got 16 tanks left
16 out of you know should have 180. So
it's just being a TR. They can't sustain
it. and they can't sustain it because as
the Russians fall back, as the Soviet
Red Army falls back, they do their own
scorched earth policy. They also
discover that the railway line is kind
of a different loading gauge. So,
they've got to change it. So, it's
slightly the Russian loading gauge is
slightly wider. So, every single mile,
every yard, every foot, every meter of
that they're they're capturing of of
Russian railway has to be moved a couple
of inches to the left to make it fit the
German criggs lock in the standard train
of locomotive of the of the Reichkes
bar. Just imagine what that's like. And
also, Soviet trains are bigger, so they
can take more water, which means the
water stops in between are fewer and far
between. So they have to the Germans
when they come in their trains their
creeks lock are smaller so they have to
have be rewatered more often and
recalled more often. So they have to I
mean it's it's absolutely boggling just
how complicated it is and how badly
planned it is because they haven't
reckoned on this. They're having to kind
of think on their feet. I love the the
logistical details of all this because
yes that's a huge component of this
especially when you cover that much
territory. But there is a notion that if
Hitler didn't stop uh army group center,
it could have pushed all the way to
Moscow. It was it was only maybe a 100
miles away from Moscow. Is that is that
is that a possibility? Cuz it had so
much success in the early days pushing
forward. Do you think it's possible that
if Hitler, as we mentioned from a
military blunder perspective, didn't
make that blunder that uh they could
have defeated the Soviet Union right
there and then. Well, my my own view is
that they should never have got close.
You Red Army has plenty of men to be
able to see off anything that the the
Germans can do. The capture of Keev, for
example, in September
1941 was a catastrophe for for the
Soviet Union and should never have
happened. I mean, Zukov is saying to
saying to Stalin, we got to pull back
across the
Denipo. St can't possibly do that. You
can't abandon Kee. It's like third city
in Soviet Union. No way. No, absolutely
not. And he goes, well, we just we are
just going to be overwhelmed. You know,
we we can't hold this. and and he says,
you know, either back me or or farm me.
Back me or sack me. So Stalin sacks him.
Uh uh yeah, obviously as we know, Zukov
gets um rehabilitated in pretty quick
order and Stalin does learn very quickly
after thereafter to learn the lessons,
but the opening phase of Bar Ross has
been a catastrophe. And so as a
consequence of Stalin refusing to let
his men retreat back across the Dunipa,
which is a substantial barrier and would
have been very difficult for the Germans
to overwhelm had they not had they moved
back in time. Um, you know, that's
another kind of 700,000 men put in the
bag. I mean, that's just staggering
numbers.
Um, but yeah, I mean, there's so many
things wrong with the Barbarasa plan.
you know, too much over. It's just such
a vast area. I mean, you're talking
about kind of, you know, 2,500 miles or
something, you know, of frontage, you
know, maybe if you kind of put your your
your Panza groups, which are these
spearheads, and you put them all in one
big
frustr straight across on a kind of, you
know, much more narrow front of, let's
say, kind of 400 miles rather than
1,200, then they might have got, you
know, they might have just sort of burnt
away straight through to Moscow. They
really caught the Red Army unprepared.
Yeah. Is there um something to be said
about the the strategic genius of that
or was it just luck? No, I don't think
so. I I mean I think think what's
happened is you've had the you've had
the the Soviet purges of the of the
second half of the 1930s where they've
you know they have executed or
imprisoned 22 and a half thousand
officers of which you know three out of
five marshals
um you know god knows how many army
commanders um etc etc. So so you know
you've completely
decapitated the Red Army in terms of its
command structure. So before that, would
it be fair to say it was one of, if not
the greatest army in the world? Well,
there was a lot of experience. There's a
lot of experience there that but also
technology material. Yeah. The size of
the army, the number of people that
they're mobilized. Yeah. And they're the
first people to kind of adapt, you know,
create airborne troops, for example. So
yes, I think there is an argument to say
that. But the decapitation is is is
absolutely brutal. If you've decapitated
an army, you've then got to put new guys
in charge. And someone who who looks on
paper like a a halfdecent peace time
commander might not be a very good
wartime commander. They're different
disciplines and different skills. And
what comes to you don't know that until
you're tested. It's very hard to kind of
judge. And of course, you know, Stalin
is existing in a sort of, you know, a
vacuum of of paranoia and suspicion all
the time, which is unhelpful when you're
trying to develop a strong armed forces.
So they go into Finland in in back end
of 1939 and they get there, you know,
they get really badly hammered. They do
take about, you know, they get the
Corellia um peninsula and they do take
some ground, but at huge cost. I mean,
the casualties are five times as bad as
those of the Fins and it's a
humiliation. So Hitler sees that and
thinks, okay, we're not up to much cop.
Then Hitler loses the battle of Britain
and he thinks I can't afford to fight a
war on two fronts. That's one of the
reasons why Germany loses the war in
1914 to 18 is fighting on the eastern
front but also fighting on, you know,
the western front at the same time.
We've got to avoid that. But I've got to
get rid of Britain. And Britain hasn't
come out of the fight. Britain is still
fighting in the back end of 1940 having
won the Battle of Britain. And so maybe
I'll go into the Soviet Union now while
the Red Army is still weak. You know,
we're not 100% ready ourselves, but but
let's hurry the whole thing forward
because originally he'd been thinking of
planning an operation in 1943 or 1944.
So the idea is you take Poland out, you
take out France and the low countries,
you conquer most of Western Europe, you
you knock out Britain. So therefore, you
don't have to worry so much about the
United States because they're over the
other side of the Atlantic. That then
gives it buys him the time to kind of
rebuild up his strength for the allout
thrust on the Soviet Union. The failure
to subdue Britain in 1940 changes all
those plans and makes him think actually
I'm going to go in early. And he's also
been kind of, you know, he's hoisted by
Zopetard because he he starts to believe
his own
genius. You know, he everyone told him
that, you know, he wouldn't be able to,
you know, he wouldn't be able to beat
France and the low countries. Everyone
told him that, you know, it wouldn't
work out when he went into Poland.
Everyone was really nervous about it.
You know, well, go hang you, you
cautious, awful aristocratic Prussian
generals. You know, I'm I'm the best at
this. I've told you. I've shown you. I'm
the genius. Um, I can do it. He starts
to believe his own hype. And of course,
this is a problem. you know, he's
surrounded by sick of fans and people
who constantly telling him this he's
this incredible genius. So, he starts to
believe it and he thinks everything is
possible and and he's very much into
this idea of of the will of the German
people. You know, this is our destiny
and either will, as I say earlier on,
you know, it's the thousand-y year Reich
of Armageddon, but momentum is with us
and we need to strike it and only by by
gambling, only by being bold will will
the Germans prevail and all this kind of
nonsense. And so that's why he goes into
into Soviet Union in June 1941 rather
than you know a couple of or even three
years later. Yeah. He really hated the
Prussian generals. Huh. Yeah. He hated
them. Is there a case to be made that
there he was indeed at times a military
genius?
No, I don't think so. Cuz none of the
plan I mean even the plan for the
invasion of France and the low countries
isn't his. It's a the the concept is is
von Mannstein's and the execution is
Gerian Hines Gadderian. So heiscoded is
is a kind of he's the pioneer of of of
the panza force the panzer thrust this
idea of the ultra mechanized combined
arms panzer arm spearhead doing this
kind of lightning fast thrust um it's
not Hiller's idea he adopts it and and
takes it as his own because you know
he's a fury he can do what he likes um
but but it isn't his so it's not you
know and up until that point until that
comes into
being till that that plan is put forward
to France Halder who is the chief of
staff of the German army at that time
you know how is just thinking how do we
get out of this mess this is just a
nightmare because they know that France
has got a larger army they know that
France has got more tanks and know that
France has got double the number of
artillery pieces it's got par in terms
of air forces then you add Holland then
you add Belgium then you add Great
Britain and that looks like a very very
tough nut to crack I mean the reason why
France is subdued in 1940 is
50% brilliance of the Germans and their
operational art in that particular
instance and 50% French failure really
and incompetence. I mean there is a kind
of genius to be able to see and take
advantage and set up the world stage in
such a way that you have the appeasement
from France and
Britain. Keep the United States out of
it. just set up the world stage where
you could just plow through everybody
with no with very little resistance. I
mean there is a kind of well yes if
geopolitical genius if it works but it
doesn't you know that's that's a
problem. I mean you know I mean he goes
into Poland on the assumption that
Britain and France will not declare war.
You know he he
he is not prepared for Britain and
France declaring war on Germany. Right.
He thinks they won't. That's right. So
miscalculation blunder. But then France
does, right? And
then that doesn't, you know, France does
not successfully do anything with this
incredible army that it has. It has a
size, but one of the problems that
France has is that it's very very
topheavy. It's it's very cumbersome in
the way it operates. Um there's no
question that that it's got some
brilliant young commanders, but but at
the lot the top the commanders are very
old. Most of them are first world war
veterans, you know, whether you I mean
Vegan Gamlan, General George. Um these
people, they're all well into their 60s.
Um General George is the youngest army
commander and he's 60. You know, it's
too old to be an army commander. You
need to be in your kind of late 40s,
early 50s. And they're too just consumed
by conservatism and the old ways. And
what what they assume is that any future
war will be much like the first world
war. It'll
be attritional, long and drawn out, but
static. But actually, they're right on
two parts of it. It is, as it turns out,
it is going to be long and drawn out and
attritional, but it's going to be mobile
rather than static. And that's a big
miscalculation. So, here's here's my
question. I think you're you're being
too nice on France here. So when when
when Germany invaded Poland,
it correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels
like France could have just went
straight to Berlin. Yeah, they
absolutely could have and they and I
know you said it's very topheavy and
you're saying all of these things, but
they literally did basically nothing.
Yeah, they were pulling. So like that uh
and I think a part of that and I think
you described as well maybe you can
speak to that is the insanity that is
Hitler creating this psycholog with the
propaganda creating this feeling that
there's this Nazi force that's
unstoppable. So they're they're France
just didn't want to like step into that.
Maybe they were like legitimately I I I
hesitate to say these words, but scared
of war. 100% they are. That, you know,
because France has been totally
traumatized by the First World War. It's
fought on their land. It's fought in
their industrial heartland. You know,
they lose three times the amount of
people killed that that Britain does.
Britain's traumatized by it, but but but
not to the same degree that France is.
France, you know, there is just no
stomach to do that again. And so that
makes them risk averse. And by being
riskaverse, you're actually taking a far
greater risk. That that that that's the
irony of it. And the truth is also there
isn't the political will. And a a
successful military can only be
successful if there is a political will
at the top. And the problem with France
in the 1930s is it's very politically
divided. It's uh it's it's a time of
multiple governments, multiple prime
ministers, um uh
coalition
governments really extreme coalition
governments from the sort of drawn from
the left and the right as well as the
center and you know this is not a
coalition of of two parties. This is a
coalition of multiple parties and no one
can ever agree anything. I mean that's
the problem. It's amazing that the MNO
line is even agreed you know this
incredibly strong defensive position
down the western side of France of
border with um with Germany which is
kind of largely impregnable but the
problem is the bit that's not
impregnable which is the hinge where the
Mno line ends and it sort of basically
starts turning kind of towards in a kind
of north noy direction and the border
with Belgium
and you know what they should have done
is built kind of border defenses all
along the northern coast with Belgium
cuz Belgium refused used to kind of uh
allow any Allied troops into into his
territory. It was neutral. And France
should have said, "Okay, fine. Well,
then we'll defend our, you know, we're
not going to come to your rescue if you
get invaded. That's your that's your
what that that's that's the payoff." And
and a consequence of that, we are going
to stockpile everything that we're not
going to be drawn into the neutral
territory should Germany invade from the
West. But they don't do that because of
the psychological damage of having
fought a war in exactly that area a
generation earlier. And and that's the
problem. So when the you know there is
Germany is so weakened by the invasion
of Poland there is literally nothing
left. You know the back door from into
western Germany is completely open. And
so they do what they call the SAR
offensive but it's not. It's a kind of
reconnaissance in force where they kind
of go across the border, kind of pick
their noses for for a few days and then
kind of trundle back again. And it's
just it's embarrassing. And and that is
what you're seeing there is is a nation
which is just not ready for this, which
is scared, which is politically divided,
which is then having a knock-on effect
on on the decision-m process, and which
is just consumed by military
complacency. And that's the big problem.
There is this, you know, the the
commanders at the very top of the French
regime are are complacent. They they
they haven't bought into kind of modern
ways. They haven't looked at how
contemporary technology could help them.
I mean it is absurd for example that
there isn't a single radio in the chat
Devalsen which is you know the
headquarters of the commander-in-chief
of the French armed forces which is
General Marshall Morris Gamalan I mean
it's just
unbelievable but but that is the case
and and there's no getting away from
that and and it is all the more ironic
when you consider that France is
actually the most automotive society in
Europe it's the second most automotive
society in the world after the United
States by some margin it has to be said
as well you know has a fantastic
transportation system railway network is
superb it's it it there are there are
eight people for every motorized vehicle
in France which is way above Germany
which is in 1949 that figure is 47 for
example it's 106 in Italy so France is
very mechanized like very mechanized so
come on guys put your finger out get it
together and they just don't they're
they're incredibly slow and cumbersome
and what they think is when what will
happen is the Germans won't think of
going, you know, they won't do a pinser
movement because you can't possibly take
motorized forces through through the
Arden. That just is not possible, which
is the hinge area between the end of the
Majinow, the northern part of the Majino
line, which runs down the western,
sorry, the eastern border of of France
and and the northern bit. And so what
we'll do with that hinge around the town
of Sedan, we'll we'll move into into
Belgium. We'll meet the Germans before
they get anywhere near France. we'll
hold them and while we're holding them,
we will bring up our reserves and then
we'll we'll counterattack and crush
them. That that's the idea behind it.
But the problem is is they don't have a
means of moving fast and their
communication systems are dreadful.
Absolutely dreadful. They're dependent
on conventional telephone lines which
you
know dive bombers and whatever are just
kind of absolutely wrecking. Suddenly
the streets are clogged with refugees
and people can't move. So they're then
you know telephone lines are down.
There's no radios. So, you're then
dependent on sending dispatch riders on
little motorbikes. You know, General uh
Morris Gamalan sends out a a dispatch
rider at 6:00 in the morning. Um by
12:00 he hasn't come back. So, you then
send another one. Finally, the answer
comes back kind of 9:00 at night, by
which time the kind of Germans advance
another 15 miles and the original
message that you sent at 6:00 that
morning is completely redundant and has
passed it sell by date. And that's
happening at every step of the way, you
know. So you've got you've got overall
commander um headquarters, then you've
got army group, then you've got army,
then you've got core, then you've got
division. So the consequence of all that
is that French just can't move. They're
just stuck. They're they're rabbits in
headlights and the Germans are able to
kind of move them uh destroy them in
isolation. Meanwhile, they're able to
use their excellent communications
um to very very good effect. And you
were talking about the genius of of war.
It's not Hitler that's a genius. If
anyone's a genius, it's Gerbles, the
propaganda chief. And it is their
ability to
harness that they are the kings of
messaging. You know, they don't have
they don't have X, they don't have
social media. Um, but they do have new
technology. And that new technology,
that new approach is flooding the
airwaves with their singular message,
which is always the same and has been
ever since the Nazis come into power.
And it is using radios. And I think
radios are really really key to the
whole story because there is no denser
radio network anywhere in the world
including the United States than Germany
in 1939. So while it's really behind the
times in terms of mechanization, it is
absolutely on top of its game in terms
of coms. So 70% of households in Germany
have radios by 1939 which is an
unprecedented number that that is only
beaten by United States and only just.
So it is it is greater than any other
other nation in Europe. And in terms of
flooding the airwaves, it is the densest
because even for those who the 30% who
don't have radios, that's not a problem
because we'll put them in the stairwells
of apartment blocks. We'll put them in
squares. We'll put them in cafes and
bars. And the same stuff the state the
the the Nazi state controls the radio
airwaves as it does the movies as it
does newspapers. All aspects of the
media are controlled by by Gerbles and
the propaganda ministry and they are
putting out the same message over and
over again. It's not it's not all
Hitler's ranting. It's entertainment,
light entertainment, some humorous
shows. Um it is also Vagner of course
and Richard Strauss. Um it it's it's a
mixture but the subliminal message is
the same. We're the best. We're the top
dogs. Jewish Bolevik plot is awful. That
needs to be, you know, that's the
existential threat to us. We have to
overcome that. We're the top dogs
militarily. We're the best. We should
feel really good about ourselves. We're
going to absolutely win and be the
greatest nation in the world ever. And
Hitler's a genius. And and that is just
repeated over and over and over and over
again. And the, you know, for all the
modernity of the world in which we live
in today, most people believe what
they're told repeatedly. Yeah. They
still do. If you just repeat repeat
repeat over and over again, people will
believe it. You know, if you're a if
you're a diehard Trump supporter, you
you want to believe that and you'll
believe everything he says. If you are a
diehard Bernie Sanders man, you know,
you're from the left, you'll believe
everything he says because it's
reinforcing what you already want to
what what you already want to believe.
But the scary thing is uh you know radio
is the technology of the day. The
technology of the day today which is a
terrifying one for me is uh um I would
say AI on social media. So bots you can
have basically bot farms which I assume
is used by Ukraine, by Russia, by US I I
would love to read the history written
about this era about the information
wars. Who has the biggest bot farms? Who
has the biggest propaganda machines? And
when I say bot, I mean both automated AI
bots and humans operating large number
of smartphones with SIM cards that are
just able to boost messages enough to
where they become viral and then real
humans with real opinions get excited.
Also, it's like this vicious cycle. So
if you support your nation, all you need
is a little boost and then everybody
gets real excited and then now you're
chanting and now you're in this mass
hysteria and now it's the 1984 2 minutes
of hate and the message is clear. I mean
that's what propaganda does is it really
clarifies the mind and that is exactly
what what Hitler and the Nazis and
Gerbles are doing in the 1930s. Well,
they're doing in the 1920s as well, but
more effectively once they come into
power, of course.
And Hitler is so fortunate that he comes
he takes over the chancellorship in
January 1943 at a time where the economy
is just starting to turn and he's able
to make the most of that. And you know
if you're Germans and you've been
through hyperinflation in the early
1920s, you've been through the
humiliation of Versail treaty which was
terrible error in in
retrospect and you've been through then
having got through that you've emerged
into a kind of democratic VHimar
Republic which is based on manufacturing
you know Germany's traditional genius at
engineering and manufacturing and
production of of high quality um items.
they're merging through that. Then you
have the Wall Street crash and the loans
that are coming in from America, which
is propping up the entire German
economy, suddenly get cut off and you've
suddenly got depression again and and
massive
unemployment. And suddenly Hitler comes
in and everyone's got jobs and they're
rebuilding and they're growing their
military a