James Holland: World War II, Hitler, Churchill, Stalin & Biggest Battles | Lex Fridman Podcast #470

0:00 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,

0:46 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

1:34 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

2:20 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

3:07 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

3:52 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

4:38 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

5:23 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,

6:08 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

6:54 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

7:40 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,

8:27 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

9:13 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

10:00 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

10:46 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

11:32 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

12:18 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

13:05 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.

13:50 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

14:36 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 1941 is totally wrapped up in the Nazi ideology. And people, you know, I I' I've read it that historians

15:24 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

16:10 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,

16:57 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

17:43 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.

18:31 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

19:18 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

20:04 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

20:50 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

21:35 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

22:22 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

23:07 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

23:55 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

24:42 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

25:28 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

26:14 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

27:01 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

27:48 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

28:35 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.

29:22 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

30:08 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

30:53 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

31:39 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

32:27 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

33:13 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,

33:59 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

34:45 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

35:31 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

36:16 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

37:02 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

37:48 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

38:35 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

39:21 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

40:06 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

40:51 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,

41:37 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

42:23 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

43:10 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

43:56 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

44:42 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

45:27 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

46:14 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

47:02 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

47:47 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

48:32 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

49:19 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 and the message that's coming out is we're the greatest, we're the best, we're fantastic. You know, I was

50:05 telling you earlier on about about pillar speeches starting with the dark, starting dark and ending in in hope and light and the sunlit uplands. You know, that's what you're getting. You're suddenly getting this vision of hope. This sort of, you know, by God, actually, this is really working. You know, okay, so, you know, I'm not sure that I particularly buy into the kind of anti-semitic thing, but, you know, we'll sweep that under the carpet because overall, I've now got a job, I've got money, I've got my new radio, you know, and then this is the genius about the radios, for example. So they have the uh they have the the German receiver to start off with the the Deutsche Fanger and then they have the the Deutsche Klein and Fanger which is the German little receiver little radio. These are genius. This is this is as outrageous as the arrival of the iPod. I mean remember that you know suddenly you don't have to

50:51 have a Sony Walkman anymore. You can have something really really small and miniature and listen to thousands and thousands and thousands of songs all at once. What a what an amazing thing. And the Deutsche Klein Fanger is 9 in x 4 in x 4 in. It's made of bake light and everyone can have one cuz it's super cheap. It's just incredible. And no one else said that because up until that point, radios generally speaking are aspirational. You know, they've got sort of walnut lacquer at the front and you know, you have them if you're middle class and you show them off to your neighbors to show how kind of, you know, affluent and wellto-do you are. Um but suddenly everyone can have one and if everyone can have one then everyone can receive the same message and you can and you can also this is the whole point about the Hitler youth as well you know the young guys that's where they're they're most impressionistic they're they're least risk averse so they're

51:38 most gung-ho they're they're most full of excitement for the possibilities of life and they're also their minds are the most open to suggestion so you get the youth you hang on you get them and so a whole generation of young men are brought up thinking about the genius of Hitler and how he's delivering us this much better nation and returning our um over overhauling the humiliations of the first world war where overcoming the back the stab in the back that happened in 1918 etc etc and you know as a young 16year-old German you're thinking yeah I want a piece of that and and hey guess what they got really cool uniforms and and you know come and join the SS and you know get the throw line what's not to like you You know, you can see why why it it's so clever. And what's so

52:25 interesting is propaganda today is is still using those those tenets that Gerbles was using back in the 1930s. And this is why I was say say that, you know, history doesn't repeat itself. Of course, it doesn't. It it can't possibly repeat itself because we're always living in a a constantly evolving time. But patterns of human behavior do. And what you always get after economic crisis is political upheaval. Always, always, always. because some people are in a worse off position than they were financially before. They're thinking h well, you know, the current system doesn't work. What's the alternative? So, you know, in the case of of now, we in the west, you know, we face, first of all, we faced the crisis of 2008, financial crisis 2008. Then we've had the kind of double whammy of COVID and that has been incredibly unsettling. And so, we're now in a a situation of of

53:11 political turmoil. And whether you're whether you're whether you're proTrump or anti-Trump, what he's offering is something completely different. And you know, it's say, you know, he he's saying the old ways don't work. You know, I'm going to be I'm just going to say what I think. I'm just going to I'm going to come out. I'm not going to bother with all the sheen of diplomacy and kind of, you know, meymouth words that politicians always use, you know, which where you can't trust anyone. I'm just going to tell you as it is. And obviously people respond to that. You know, you you can understand why that has a has an appeal. And if the country already feels broken and here's someone who is going to be a disruptor and going to change the the way you go about things, you can see why a a reasonably large proportion of the population is going to go, I'll have a piece of that. Thank you very much. And especially uh

53:57 when the country is in a economic crisis like Germany was, I think you've written that the the Treaty of Versailles created Hitler and the uh the Wall Street crash and the great depression brought him to power. Yes. And of course the propaganda machine that you describe is the thing that got everybody else in Germany on board. Yeah. It's it's it's amazing how he cuz he comes in with 33% of the vote. He had 37% of the vote of the vote in July 1942. So again, this is another period of of turmoil just like it is in France where you're having constant different kind of coalitions and you know different chancellors leaders of Germany. So, it's very possible he he he wouldn't have come to power. Well, he said he he said, "I will only, you know, we will only take our

54:44 seats if if if I can be chanced. Otherwise, forget it. I'm not coming into any coalition." So, then the uh the government falls again in January 1943. They have the they have the election. The Nazi vote is down from where it was the previous summer. But this time, they go, "Okay, Heather can be chancellor, but we'll manipulate him." how wrong they were. You know, he's manipulating everyone and then Hinderberg who is the president dies the following summer and uh he's able to get rid of the presidency. There is no more president of Germany. There is just the furer him and he gets rid of uh he has a enabling act which is where all other uh political parties have disbanded and suddenly you've got a total inherent

55:29 state just like that. I think there's a lesson there. Uh there's many lessons there, but one of them is don't let an extremist into government. Yes. And assume you can control them. Yes. The arrogance of the existing politicians who just completely screwed it up. I mean, there is a real power to an extremist. Like there's uh a person who sees the world in in black and white can really gain the attention and the support of the populace. Yes, especially when there's a resentment about like Treaty of Versailles, when there's economic hardship and if there's effective modern technology that allows you to do

56:15 propaganda and sell the message. There's something really compelling about the black and white message. It is because it's simple and and what Hitler does throughout the 1920s is he sticks to this there there is actually when he comes out of prison in so he there's the bhole p in November 1923 he gets uh charged with treason which he has been because he's attempting a coup and he gets sentenced to 5 years which is pretty lenient for what he's done and he then gets let out after 9 months. The Nazi party is is is is banned at that point, but then comes back into being. And the year that follows, there is then a substantial debate about where

57:00 the party should go. And there are actually a large number of people who think that actually they should be looking at how the Soviets are doing things and taking some of the some of the things that they consider to be positive out of the communist state and applying those to the Nazis. and Hitler goes, "No, no, no, no, no, no. We we we've just got to stick to this kind of Jewish bosshit thing. This is this is how we're going to do it. This we're going to do it." Gerbles, for example, who is who is very open. He's he's very very Joseph Gerbles is a he's a he's a not very successful um journalist. He is uh but he does have a PhD in German literature. He's very disaffected because he was born with talipes, which is, you know, more commonly known as a club foot. He's disabled. can't fight in

57:45 the First World War. He's very frustrated by that. He's in a deep despair about about the state of Germany in the first part of the early 1920s. He's looking for a uh um a a political messiah as a sort of quai religious messiah. Thinks it's Hitler, then discovers that Hitler's not open to any ideas at all uh about any deviation, but then sees the light. Hitler recognizes that this guy is someone that he wants on his side. And so then goes to him, makes a real special effort. Come on, come to dinner. I think you're great. You know, all this kind of stuff. Wins him about over and girls has this complete vault fast. Discards his earlier kind of yeah, you know, Hitler's right. I was wrong. Hitler is the kind of messiah figure that that I want to follow. I want to follow the hero hero

58:32 leader. And they come on board and they absolutely work out. Hitler completely wins out. All dissenters within the what had been the German Workers Party drop becomes the German National Socialist Party becomes the Nazis. Um he comes out emerges as the absolute undisputed furer of that leader of that that party and what he says goes and everyone toes him behind it and part of the genius of that you know Hitler does have some genius. I just don't think it's military, but he does have some genius. There's no question about it. Is this the simplicity of message what he's doing is it's that kind of us and them thing that we were talking about earlier on. It's the kind of either or. It's kind of it's my way or the highway. It's kind of this is the only way. This is how we get to the sunlet uplands. This is how we we

59:18 create this amazing master race of the this unification of German peoples which dominates the world which is the preeminent power in the world for the next thousand years or it's decay and despair and being crushed by our enemies and our enemies are the Jews and and the bolevixs the communists and what he taps into as well is front ginehaft and vultmine shaft And these are there's no direct English translation of Volska shaft or indeed France shaft but but but in its most basic form it's community it's people community or front veterans community. So the front mine shaft is we are the

1:00:04 guys we're bonded because we were in the trenches you know we were in the first world war. We were the people who bravely stuck it out saw our friends being slaughtered and blown to pieces. We we did our duty as proud Germans, but we were let down by the elites and we were let down by the by this Jewish Bolevik plot. You know, we were stabbed in the back. The myth of the stab stabbing in the back is very very strong. So, we're bound we're bonded by our experiences of the First World War and the fact that we did what we should and what we could and we were we didn't fail in what we were doing. we were failed by our leaders um and by the elites. So that's that's front commine shaft. Volkine shaft is this sense of

1:00:52 national unity. It's it's it's a cultural ethnic bonding of people who speak German who have a have a similar outlook on life. And again that just reinforces the us and them good and evil. It reinforces the black and white worldview. And then you add that to this very simple message which Hitler is repeating over and over again. Communists are a big threat. Jews are a big threat. They're the they're the enemy. You have to have a you have to have an opposition in the them and us kind of process. And that's what he's doing. And and people just buy into it. They go, "Yeah, we're together. We're Germans. We're, you know, we're a

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