Post by dumbstruckSee http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/HistoryW for
a breathless, intense, fascinating couple hour lecture
summing up the significance of the war for a western
civ course.
I will give it 5 out 10 and could do better. He reinforces the Hollywood
view of WW2.
Points:
i)
Eisenhower - was too political preventing a 30 division thrust to Berlin
because of the US elections. The UK halted elections in WW2. He hindered
the outcome somewhat.
Churchill suggested that the US have the overall commander role of Allied
troops in Europe to lever the US to a Germany First stance - Eisenhower was
appointed.
ii)
Reasons for war? He did not mention the precedence of the USAs rise to a
world economic power by moving west and taking land & its resouces from the
natives and Mexicans, displacing the native populations. Hitler did the same
to his east.
iii)
Czechlosovia - appeasement? Not quite. He got that wrong. Hitler backed
down.
Tooze:
Page 273
"If Hitler had wanted war on 1 October 1938, he couldhave had it. The French
and British had reached the point at which they could make no further
concessions. The armies of France and the Soviet Union had mobilized. The
Royal Navy stood at full alert. On 9 September 1938 it was Hitler who
stepped back not his opponents"
Page 274
"Hitler backed down and accepted the extraordinarily generous settlement on
offer at the hastily convened conference in Munich. In so doing, he almost
certainly saved his regime from disaster."
iv)
The UK & France were not sitting by from Sept 1939 to May 1940. RN blockade
was on from 3rd sept 1939 which denied Germany of vital imports, raw
materials and food. German ships were being attacked. UK & France were
building up forces. industry working 24/7.
v)
In Norway 1940 it was a Brit/French operation. The German Navy was all but
eliminated in the campaign, so some substantial achievement. Norway was
neutral. The Allies were slow to grab Norway. The Germans got in first.
vi)
He ignores the USSR in Japanese war declaration. The Japanese thought the
USSR was to fall eliminating a threat on their northern Chinese borders.
vii)
Dunkirk evacuation was a retreat, it was merely across water - British and
French. Substantial numbers of French evacuated.
viii)
Their Finest Hour - he got it wrong..
Churchill on 18 June 1940:
"If we can stand up to him [Hitler], all Europe may be freed and the life of
the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands."
"But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States,
including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of
a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the
lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties,
and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last
for a thousand years, men will still say,This was their finest hour".
That meant they retreated and regrouped to prevent the world to "sink into
the abyss of a new dark age".
ix)
Mobile war did not materialize because of German tank commanders. He needs
to study the Battle of Arras in 1918 when the British formulated combined
mobile forces.
x)
Battle of Britain : it was not so decisive.
Tooze
Page 401:
"In the second half of 1940,desperate efforts on the part of the British
enabled them to produce twice as many fighters as the Germans, which was no
doubt reassuring in giving the RAF an extra margin of security. But this was
hardly decisive to the outcome of the battle. The fundamental point was
simple: in 1940 neither Britain nor Germany had developed the technology nor
had they mobilized the resources necessary to provide the kind of smothering
air superiority that would make a cross-Channel invasioninto a viable
proposition."
xi)
Radar was not first developed by Poles or Germans. Many countries were aware
that radio waves could deflected. The British were the first to fully
exploit radar as a defence against aircraft attack making the first workable
systems, hence inventing radar.
xii)
He did not understand why the Germans attacked the USSR. The UK was amassing
a massive air fleet which would come on-line late 41/early 42. The USSRs
resources were needed to give Germany the raw materials and food to sustain
a war with the UK.
Tooze
Page 431:
"the strongest arguments for rushing to conquer the Soviet Union in 1941
were precisely the growing shortageof grain and the need to knock Britain
out of the war before it could pose a serious air threat. The significance
of the Blitzkrieg strategy adopted in 1940-41 was not that it allowed the
overall level of mobilization to be kept to a minimum, but that it allowed
the German war effort to be split into two parts. The factories producing
for the army directed their efforts towards providing the equipment for a
swift, motorized Blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the rest of
the German military-industrialised complex began to gird itself for the
aerial confrontation with Britain and America."
"Hitler's as far as the German population was concerned were quite specific:
securing food supply and protecting Germany against aerial attack."
xiii)
He perpetuates the myth that 1941/42 winter defeated the Germans. That is
nonsense. By August 1941 the Germans realized Barbarrosa had failed and
even Hitler was muttering about peace talks with the USSR. By Dec 1941 the
Germans had
been repulsed at Moscow by a Soviet battering ram with new T-34 tanks. The
Germans were going nowhere.
xiv)
He leaves out Japan also attacked the British when the attacked Pearl
Harbour. Germany primarily wanted the Brits attacked by the Japanese to keep
them away from interfering with his attack on the USSR and to weaken the the
Brits in the desert.
Tooze
page 413:
"Hitler appears to have convinced himself that the military conquest of the
Soviet Union in 1941 was the key to ultimate victory in the war asa whole.
At the Berghof on 31 July 1940, in conference with the militaryleadership,
Hitler emphasized that the Soviet Union would have to be knocked out of the
war, if Britain was to be brought to heel and America's support neutralized.
'Britain's hope lies in Russia and the United States. If Russia drops out of
the picture, America, too, is lost for Britain, because elimination of
Russia would tremendously increase Japan's power in the Far East.' "
"Russia, according to Hitler, was the 'Far Eastern sword of Britain and the
United States', a spearhead pointed at Japan. Attacking and decisively
defeating the Soviet Union in 1941 would rob Britain of its 'dagger on the
mainland' and unleash Japan. If Britain did choose to continue the war and
if Japanese aggression pro-voked American entry, complete control of the
Eurasian landmass wouldat least secure for Germany the resources it needed
for a true trans-Atlantic confrontation."
Page
"In July 1941 Hitler had offered Japan an offensive alliance against the
Americans, if they would also enter the war against Britain. The Japanese
bided their time."
xv)
The Soviets occupied the near million strong Japanese Kwantung army in
China. He appears not to know this.
xvi)
Stalingrad was not a key turning battle. In the east Moscow was. Soviets
went on the
offensive before Stalingrad. He doen't appear to know this.
Tooze
Page 500
"the Sovietsmoved a significant number of first-line troops from Siberia and
the Manchurian border to Moscow to form the 1st Shock Army, the 10thand 20th
Armies.71In total, by early December 1941 Zhukov's WesternFront controlled
an offensive force of 1.1 million men, 7,652 guns andmortars, 774 tanks and
1,370 aircraft. Given the huge losses sustainedsince June, there was no
margin of numerical superiority, but the RedArmy had the initiative and
achieved total surprise. For the first time in the war the tables were
turned on the German army."
"Within days, Army Group Centre was knocked to its knees."
"the Wehrmacht lost 380,000 soldiers in two months of intense fighting".
Page 501:
"It is commonly said that the Wehrmacht 'failed' to take Moscow. But this
does no justice to the immensity of the shock delivered by the Red Army in
the winter of 1941-2. Army Group Centre, the pride of the German army, had
suffered a shattering battlefield defeat."
xvii)
He never knew Bletchley Park in England told USSR of German build up at
Kurk.
xviii)
Leningrad - Finns allowed supply the Soviet supply over the lake as they did
not venture onto pre 1939 USSR territory. Hitler was furious that the Fins
did this. The only people who knew about the Barbarrossa's plans were the
Fins.
xix)
El Alemein could be said to a be a WW2 key battle. It stopped the Germans
taking the Middle East oil fields. In early 1941 Hitler was proposing moving
into Turkey from Greece and moving into Iraq for the oil, and meeting up
with Rommel, who he hoped would have moved into Egypt. Circling tye Med
would have been easier for Hitler's oil problem and an attack on the USSR
from many points
xx)
Good he mentioned Gneral Clark was fool - the US promoted him.
xxi)
He thinks only the Americans won the war.
xxii)
UK & USSR together would have defeated Germany, their economies were
collectively far larger than Italy/Germany. German industrial output was
similar to the UK. He appears not to know this.
xxii)
Overstates, but very important, US industrial capacity. The USSR 1942
ouproduced the USA.
xxiii)
U-boats were not only to sink US ships as he stated, they were intially to
sink UK ships.
xxiv)
60% of British equipment in 1945 was from US. Overall in the war far, far
less. I think he may be confusing all imports, raw materials, grain, etc. A
lot of this was normal trade pre-WW2, so should not be counted as war aid.
xxv)
Monty did not design the Market Garden operation as he stated. He only
approved it when presented to him. It was rated a 90% success.
