The Storm of war -Andrew Roberts
The Russian Campaign(1941-1943)
One of the enduring mysteries of the Second World War is as to why Hitler opened a second front against Russia when Britain was as yet undefeated.
The consensus by most historians is that Hitler believed that by defeating Russia, Britain would be further isolated and further subjugation would be easier.
In addition, Hitler anticipated a quick victory over the ‘racially weak’ Russian Slavs. He did not expect the battle to last more than seven weeks.
But this decision of Hitler changed the course of war. By opening up a second front when Britain was not yet conquered was a gross miscalculation by the fuehrer.
And to compound it all Hitler declared war on the United States on 11 Dec 1941 (after Pearl harbor).
This was an unimaginably stupid thing to have done in retrospect, a suicidal act less than six months after attacking the Soviet Union. America was an uninvadable land mass of gigantic productive capacity and her intervention in 1917 – 18 had sealed Germany’s fate in World War I.
‘The entry of the United States into the war is of no consequence at all for Germany, ‘ Hitler had remarked in November 1940, ‘ the United States will not be a threat to us in decades – not in 1945 but at the earliest in 1970 or 1980. ‘
Talk of famous last words!
Hitler’s Russian campaign commenced in Jun 1941 (op barbarossa) and by Feb 1943 the campaign ended in a comprehensive and massive defeat from which the Germans never recovered. In attempting the Russian campaign, Hitler was repeating the same errors as Napoleon had over a century ago. And it was the same enemy that defeated Napoleon that proved to be the undoing of Hitler as well- The Russian Winter.
Once again the figures are staggering: 4 million German troops, stretching along the entire western border of the Soviet Union from Finland to the Black Sea.
With 3,350 tanks in twenty armoured divisions, 7,000 field guns and 3,200 aircraft, and 600,000 horses.
Against Hitler’s 180 divisions, the Red Army had 158 immediately available, along
with 6,000 combat planes and more than 10,000 tanks.
Dictator Stalin-the savior of modern democracy
After an initial hiccup, as Stalin was rather taken aback by the German onslaught, the supremo got into his element – His first command –and most sensible one in retrospect – was to mobilize every Russian male born between 1905 and 1918 – and 800,000 women . In all, five million people were called up immediately, and by December 1941 almost 200 new divisions – averaging 11,000 soldiers each – were considered ready for battle.
His second major decision - On 28 July 1941,a month into the German offensive, Stalin’s ordained a ‘Not One Step Back’ policy- that anyone who retreated without specific orders or who surrendered was to be treated as a ‘traitor to the Motherland’, and his family therefore liable to imprisonment.
Even Stalin’s own son, First Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili was not excluded; his wife spent two years in a labour camp. (Yakov was shot in 1943, when he entered the perimeter zone of his POW camp, either in an escape attempt or, just as likely, as suicide-by-escape.)
The death penalty was imposed for panic – malingering, falling asleep on duty, cowardice, drunkenness, desertion, loss of equipment, refusing to charge through a minefield, destroying a Party membership card on capture ( even though carrying one meant a death sentence from the Germans), and so on and on.
Marshal Zhukov ordered retreating soviet troops to be machine-gunned, and even wanted to shoot the families of those who surrendered.
In the first six months after Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Government moved 2,593 industrial concerns eastwards in 1.5 million railway wagons and trucks, at the same time that 2.5 million troops were being moved in the opposite direction. The operations has been described as an ‘economic Stalingrad’ in its sheer size and importance.
Industrial centers were being founded so fast that the Russians ran out of names to call them, and a town was actually entitled Bezymyanny (Nameless) in the outskirts of Moscow.
To shift a large part of Russia’s industrial base, along with food, tools, equipment and prisoners, as well as twenty five million Russians, so far eastwards, and then impose an eighteen hour working day with one day’s rest per month, probably required completely totalitarian power.
Factory production began behind the Urals even before builders had constructed the roofs and walls of the factories. Managers were given targets, and were made to appreciate that meeting them was a life and death matter, for them personally as much as for the nation. Of course conditions were often unspeakable; at one factory 8,000 female workers lived in holes bored into the ground. Every industrial concern that could be turned over to war production was turned over. A factory producing champagne bottles, for example, was appropriately enough reassigned to the production of Molotov cocktails.
Such was the efficiency and ruthlessness of the Soviet leadership- and at the heart of the Second World War lies this giant and abiding paradox: although the western war was fought in defence of civilization and democracy, and although it needed to be fought and had to be won, the chief vanquisher of the German fighting machine was a dictator who was as psychologically warped and capable of evil as Adolf Hitler himself.
During the battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army shot around 13,500 Russian soldiers – the size of an entire fully manned division – for treachery, cowardice, desertion, drunkenness and ‘anti-Soviet agitation’. The condemned men were ordered to undress before execution, so that their uniforms could be reissued ‘without too many discouraging bullet-holes’.
‘The only Extenuating cause for withdrawing from a firing position’, as the soldiers were told, ‘is death.’
Some 400,000 Russians served in the various punishment battalions that were set up to impose absolute obedience on the Red Army. Yet had the slightest backsliding been permitted, the Soviets could never have persuaded rational human beings to undergo the hell of the Great Patriotic War.
Probably only a dictatorship as savage as Stalin’s, and a people as inured to barbarism as the Russians, could have broken Hitler’s power,’ is Max Hastings’ verdict. ‘The story of how they did so has never been one for weak stomachs.’
Contrast this with Britain at the very same period - there were strikes over pay and conditions even in the aircraft production factories, something that in Russia would have been inconceivable ( although instantly resolvable).
‘Along came the Russian Winter’ - German Staff Ineptness
For all the celebrated German teutonic efficiency and General Staff foresight it is simply unfathomable as to why the German staff did not foresee the Russian winter and prepare themselves logistically for the same.
As the one thing that the German Army could have laid down with some exactitude was the certainty of a very cold winter in Russia, a matter of common sense and logistical foresight of the kind at which the High Command was supposed to excel.
The only answer is the gross miscalculation by Hitler as to duration of the campaign..he expected a brisk campaign, with the inferior Russian slavs capitulating without a fight and the battle to be over within a matter of weeks.
Hilter could have well taken a leaf out of history and learnt from the disastrous Napoleon’s Russian campaign undertaken in June 1812.
Napoleon had started his campaign with 6,00,000 men and he too expected a swift and decisive victory over the Russians and had made no plans for a winter stay in Russia.
But Czar Alexander had other plans and adopted a clever strategy: instead of facing Napoleon's forces head on, the Russians simply kept retreating every time Napoleon's forces tried to attack.
Enraged, Napoleon would follow the retreating Russians again and again, marching his army deeper into Russia. Thus the campaign dragged on much longer than Napoleon expected.
The Russians adopted a "scorched-earth" policy: whenever they retreated, they burned the places they left behind. Napoleon's army had trouble finding supplies, and it grew progressively weaker the farther it marched.
In Sep 1812 when Napoleon finally entered Moscow he found the Russians had simply abandoned the city, which was now on fire and in ruins in conformity with the scorched-earth tactics. It was only then that Napoleon, realising the futility of the campaign,ordered his army to retreat. Yet with a particularly harsh winter quickly setting in, it proved to be the cruelest foe for what was now an underfed, ragged army. Of the roughly 600,000 troops who followed Napoleon into Russia, just about 100,000 made it out.
So if it was the Czar’s cunning and the winter that proved to be the undoing for Napoleon, it was Stalin’s ruthlessness and the endless reservoir of manpower that the Russian’s possessed coupled with the Russian winter that meant the death knell for the Germans.
By Sep 1941, three months into the campaign, Hitler’s German army had occupied 6,00,000 square miles of Russian soil and decimated close to 3 million troops. But it seemed not to matter to the Russians. Divisions rose as soon as one got eliminated.
The Germans had been victorious so far, it was true, but as one German tank commander commented as they drove further and further into that enormous country: ‘If this goes on, we will win ourselves to death.’
In Jun 41, Stalin had 158 divisions. With its ruthless efficiency, the Russian state had raised 200 additional divisions by the end of 1941.
This affected Hitler’s ‘swift campaign’ idea, with defeat and capture not seeming to matter to the Russians, and then of course…Along came the Russian winter….
The Russians have a saying that there is no such thing as cold weather, only the wrong kind of clothing. The German commissariat had not transported anything like enough woolen hats, gloves, long – johns and greatcoats to Russia, and suddenly there was a desperate need for millions of such items, over and above what could be looted from the Russians and poles.
Hitler had no clue as to the grim fate he had set for his troops.
The consequences of this lack of warm clothing were often horrific. An Italian recalls watching German troops returning from the Eastern Front in Warsaw. He was puzzled as to strange appearance of some of the soldiers, who had a glazed look and zombie like movements.
He said ”Suddenly I was struck with horror and realized that they had no eyelids. The ghastly cold of that winter had the strangest consequences. Thousands and thousands of soldiers had lost their limbs; thousands and thousands had their ears, their noses, their fingers and their sexual organs ripped off by the frost. Many had lost their hair … Many had lost their eyelids. Singed by the cold, the eyelid drops off like a piece of dead skin… Their future was only lunacy.”
Churchill used the opportunity to mock Hitler by remarking caustically: ‘ There is a winter, you know, in Russia. For a good many months the temperature is apt to fall very low. There is snow, there is frost, and all that. Hitler forgot about this Russian winter. He must have been very loosely educated. We all heard about it at school; but he forgot it. I have never made such a bad mistake as that.’
In the end it was the Russian fighting man who had prevailed, defending his Motherland. The unbelievably dogged resistance shown by the ordinary Russian soldier had delivered victory.
Operation Barbarossa had indeed, as Hitler had predicted, made ‘the world hold its breath’ and it was only after the comprehensive defeat of the German forces that it could finally begin to exhale.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The 21 mile stretch of water that has changed the course of history (Part II)
The Storm of War -Andrew Roberts
The 21 mile stretch of water that has changed the course of history (Part II)
The British, most definitely in moments of candor, will easily admit that it was the English channel that allowed them with splendid isolation, and permitted them to move to all corners of the globe and build their ‘empire where the sun never set’.
When the home front is secured by a geographical accident, and has stood in wake of rampaging armies, time and again of Philip II, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser and finally Hitler, then you can go ahead and carry out the business of subduing the world.
On May 10 ,1940, when Hitler unleashed his blitzkrieg, huge swathes of Europe fell into German hands combined with the collapse of the French, Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg armies. Then inexplicably on 24 may, when Kleist’s army was just 18 km short of Dunkirk, came the order by Hitler to halt all advance. This pause in operations enabled the British to evacuate close to half a million troops to their mainland.
This was the turning point of the war. Why Hitler did not allow his Panzers to take on Dunkirk and thereby almost 3/4 th of the British army is still a mystery.
The evacuation at Dunkirk to safety across the English channel is counted amongst the most successful logistical feats in modern history what with the German army and the Luftwaffe breathing down the neck, strafing and bombarding the port at regular intervals.
The serpentine queues that formed up to get into the boats that would get the troops across the channel were not always orderly. In an incident, a soldier unable to take the pressure, broke ranks and made a dash to the gangway. Without a moment’s hesitation, the lieutenant in charge took out his revolver and shot the man through his heart, who lay motionless in the jetty. The young officer then turned to the men and told them calmly that he only wanted fighting men with him. The effect was electric and undoubtedly prevented a stampede by other troops awaiting evacuation.
By 04 june,1940, once the evacuation ended, when the entire world trembled under the might of Hitler and only Britain stood before Germany and the rest of the world, (America had not yet joined the war) Churchill produced his most sublime passage in all his magnificent wartime oratory:
“we shall not flag or fail, we shall go on to the end….. we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
The above passage itself is well known but what is not generally known is Churchill’s comments after he sat down to thundering applause in the House Of Commons. He whispered to his colleague : “ I don’t know what we will fight them with- we shall have to slosh them on the head with bottles-empty ones of course.”
Churchill of course understood the power of oratory. But he also knew its limitations- oratory was for the masses, they do not win wars. You need to get down to brass tacks, get involved in the minutiae of war-making.
Churchill constantly got into the details of conducting the war business. He buggered his staff peppering them with questions like:-
Why has he not received a report on how to counter the 4½-pound projectiles that German tanks could fire?
Would there be brass bands playing when the troops returned home?
Were the men getting their post on time?
Will the troops ‘will get decent cooked bread and meat.’?
Britain, and indeed the world, got the right man at the right time at the right place to see them through the war.
National Character In Trying Times
It is interesting to see how nations fared under duress, when the world trembled under Hitler. We are often critical of our own Maharajas & their cronies who collaborated with foreign forces , subjecting our nation to repeated invasions and reducing us to the status of a ‘colony’.
Turns out that the war record is not very clean for some of the European nations when they were faced with tough choices.
France
The speed with which France collapsed in May–Jun 1940 was a large surprise to everyone – including Hitler. But the state of France needs to be understood prior to the commencement of the war. In the first world war, of the 8 million men mobilised for the war, nearly 5 million causalities occurred. And that meant that “ Patriotism…… had lost much of it magic”, when faced with the brutal attrition of war. In 1939-40, Fascists & communists were trying to take control of France and secretly many upper and middle class French preferred the Nazis to the communists.
There was no other occupied country during the second world war which contributed more to the initial efficiency of Nazi rule in Europe than France. ‘Vichy Frances’ or occupied France under Nazi control, collaborated actively with the Nazis and millions and millions of French made their private accommodation with the occupying Force. The Vichy Government interned 70,000 suspected ‘enemies of the state’ (mainly refugees from the Nazis), dismissed 35,000 civil servants on political grounds and put 135,000 French on trial.
The German soldiers made good their station in France, by courting and charming the French women and as a consequence almost 2,00,000 babies were born. This surely must represent a tiny fraction of the sex that took place without such visible issue, considering the humiliation undergone by the mothers in many communities.
The Vichy Govt was ruthless in transporting scores of Jews to concentration camps of Auschwitz. Also there were no fewer than fourteen military engagements between the allied and vichy France during the war.
Switzerland
There were other countries who by maintaining neutrality tried to preserve their freedom. Chief among them being Switzerland and Sweden.
Churchill summed up the neutral’s position : ‘Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.’
Switzerland declared neutrality, but allowed German and Italian military supply trains to pass through their country. A Swiss state subsidized company also built a concentration camp (at Dachan) for the Germans where Jews were butchered.
It was inexplicable as to why the Swiss refused to accept Jewish refugees into their country, who were fleeing Nazi/Vichy France oppression. Scores of Jews were stranded at the borders by the refusal and some of them who gathered at the Swiss borders, committed suicide in front of the border guards, but to no avail.
The 21 mile stretch of water that has changed the course of history (Part II)
The British, most definitely in moments of candor, will easily admit that it was the English channel that allowed them with splendid isolation, and permitted them to move to all corners of the globe and build their ‘empire where the sun never set’.
When the home front is secured by a geographical accident, and has stood in wake of rampaging armies, time and again of Philip II, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser and finally Hitler, then you can go ahead and carry out the business of subduing the world.
On May 10 ,1940, when Hitler unleashed his blitzkrieg, huge swathes of Europe fell into German hands combined with the collapse of the French, Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg armies. Then inexplicably on 24 may, when Kleist’s army was just 18 km short of Dunkirk, came the order by Hitler to halt all advance. This pause in operations enabled the British to evacuate close to half a million troops to their mainland.
This was the turning point of the war. Why Hitler did not allow his Panzers to take on Dunkirk and thereby almost 3/4 th of the British army is still a mystery.
The evacuation at Dunkirk to safety across the English channel is counted amongst the most successful logistical feats in modern history what with the German army and the Luftwaffe breathing down the neck, strafing and bombarding the port at regular intervals.
The serpentine queues that formed up to get into the boats that would get the troops across the channel were not always orderly. In an incident, a soldier unable to take the pressure, broke ranks and made a dash to the gangway. Without a moment’s hesitation, the lieutenant in charge took out his revolver and shot the man through his heart, who lay motionless in the jetty. The young officer then turned to the men and told them calmly that he only wanted fighting men with him. The effect was electric and undoubtedly prevented a stampede by other troops awaiting evacuation.
By 04 june,1940, once the evacuation ended, when the entire world trembled under the might of Hitler and only Britain stood before Germany and the rest of the world, (America had not yet joined the war) Churchill produced his most sublime passage in all his magnificent wartime oratory:
“we shall not flag or fail, we shall go on to the end….. we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
The above passage itself is well known but what is not generally known is Churchill’s comments after he sat down to thundering applause in the House Of Commons. He whispered to his colleague : “ I don’t know what we will fight them with- we shall have to slosh them on the head with bottles-empty ones of course.”
Churchill of course understood the power of oratory. But he also knew its limitations- oratory was for the masses, they do not win wars. You need to get down to brass tacks, get involved in the minutiae of war-making.
Churchill constantly got into the details of conducting the war business. He buggered his staff peppering them with questions like:-
Why has he not received a report on how to counter the 4½-pound projectiles that German tanks could fire?
Would there be brass bands playing when the troops returned home?
Were the men getting their post on time?
Will the troops ‘will get decent cooked bread and meat.’?
Britain, and indeed the world, got the right man at the right time at the right place to see them through the war.
National Character In Trying Times
It is interesting to see how nations fared under duress, when the world trembled under Hitler. We are often critical of our own Maharajas & their cronies who collaborated with foreign forces , subjecting our nation to repeated invasions and reducing us to the status of a ‘colony’.
Turns out that the war record is not very clean for some of the European nations when they were faced with tough choices.
France
The speed with which France collapsed in May–Jun 1940 was a large surprise to everyone – including Hitler. But the state of France needs to be understood prior to the commencement of the war. In the first world war, of the 8 million men mobilised for the war, nearly 5 million causalities occurred. And that meant that “ Patriotism…… had lost much of it magic”, when faced with the brutal attrition of war. In 1939-40, Fascists & communists were trying to take control of France and secretly many upper and middle class French preferred the Nazis to the communists.
There was no other occupied country during the second world war which contributed more to the initial efficiency of Nazi rule in Europe than France. ‘Vichy Frances’ or occupied France under Nazi control, collaborated actively with the Nazis and millions and millions of French made their private accommodation with the occupying Force. The Vichy Government interned 70,000 suspected ‘enemies of the state’ (mainly refugees from the Nazis), dismissed 35,000 civil servants on political grounds and put 135,000 French on trial.
The German soldiers made good their station in France, by courting and charming the French women and as a consequence almost 2,00,000 babies were born. This surely must represent a tiny fraction of the sex that took place without such visible issue, considering the humiliation undergone by the mothers in many communities.
The Vichy Govt was ruthless in transporting scores of Jews to concentration camps of Auschwitz. Also there were no fewer than fourteen military engagements between the allied and vichy France during the war.
Switzerland
There were other countries who by maintaining neutrality tried to preserve their freedom. Chief among them being Switzerland and Sweden.
Churchill summed up the neutral’s position : ‘Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.’
Switzerland declared neutrality, but allowed German and Italian military supply trains to pass through their country. A Swiss state subsidized company also built a concentration camp (at Dachan) for the Germans where Jews were butchered.
It was inexplicable as to why the Swiss refused to accept Jewish refugees into their country, who were fleeing Nazi/Vichy France oppression. Scores of Jews were stranded at the borders by the refusal and some of them who gathered at the Swiss borders, committed suicide in front of the border guards, but to no avail.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Annihilation of Germany – for the Good of Mankind (Part 1)
The Storm of War – Andrew Roberts(2009)
Annihilation of Germany – for the Good of Mankind (Part 1)
The book is about the Second World War.
It is an amazing book, as the author has been able to cover the entire canvas of the war in his concise 700 page book. Roberts does not accept any dogma or hearsay. All facts are checked and sources confirmed and only balanced opinions expressed.
But you know what they say – the book is after all the ‘victors’ version. What would history read like if Hitler or the Japanese had subdued the allies? Its difficult to say- but it is not too far fetched to believe that in all possibility, before the turn of the 20th century we would have had the mother of all wars –‘the Third World War’ with nuclear pyrotechnics thrown in for our entertainment.
Amongst the multitude of figures churned out by the author, the one figure that stuck my mind was this- a staggering 50 million people perished in the war.
27 million Russians alone died in the conflict – more than the population of present day Australia.
The first world war saw a mere trifling 16 million deaths in comparison.
For the good of mankind- annihilation of Germany
The root cause of the war was not Hitler alone as one has been brought up to believe – but the state of the German nation since the mid 19th century.
Germany/Prussia had unleashed no fewer than five wars of aggression since 1864.
Under Bismarck’s policy of ‘Blood and Iron’, first it was Denmark(1864) then Austria(1866) and finally the humiliating loss of France of its territories Alsace and Lorraine(1871).
Kaiser Wilhelm goaded the Military commanders and the aristocracy into the Great War in 1914, followed by Hitler –the prime architect of the Second World War.
Why did Germany produce so many war mongerers?
Post the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans came to believe themselves to be a “Civilization superior to all other civilizations; and hence it was the duty of Germany to civilize and Germanize the world”
"God has called us to civilize the world," declared Kaiser William "we are the missionaries of human progress."
So for people believing themselves to be superior beings, they found it hard to digest the fact that they did not possess colonies like France and Great Britain.
Systematically they began preparing for war. Post 1871, the German schools mutilated facts of history and taught their children that :-
France was a nation of weaklings;
Russia a nation of slaves;
England, a nation of tradesmen, where war was not glorified, a "colossus with feet of clay," whose world empire would crumble before the German might.
America, peace-loving, idealistic, defenseless America, was to be taught her proper and subordinate place in a world ruled by German power.
The powerful military leaders, aided by the German press, preached the doctrine that war is a necessity, "an ordinance of God for the weeding out of weak and incompetent individuals and States."
In 1918 even after the surrender of Germany in the First World War, the German Army (at the lower level) and the German people strongly believed that the surrender was a sellout by the Kaiser and the German nation was not defeated.
This aspect was carefully cultivated by Hitler to cultivate the myth of the supremacy of the German race. The roots of militarism had not been weeded out and the German people thirsted for a war to avenge their humiliation in 1918. Hitler understood this and he nurtured and stoked this thirst.
The only way to have a lasting peace would be a total, comprehensive and humiliating defeat to be inflicted on Germany.
And that is exactly what happened when the end came for Germany. They had their backs to the wall with both the allied and the Russian forces at their doorsteps when Hitler committed suicide. Almost all German towns were pulverized in air raids and a million civilians perished. After six long years the people who carved for the war were saying ‘enough is enough’.
The hunger for power and war had been extricated from the roots and the defeat was total in all respects. And that is the reason we see the Germany of today – a pacifist, democratic and peaceful Germany- who are saying no to bombing Libya and other adventures undertaken by US & co.
If you have seen the movie ‘Valkryie’ starring Tom Cruise, then you would have been amongst those who bemoaned as to how Hitler escaped the assassination attempt by Strauffenberg (portrayed by Tom Cruise) in 1944 and how peace would have reigned if Hitler had been assassinated.
Actually, in retrospect, it was good fortune that Hitler survived the assassination attempt in 1944 by Col Von Strauffenberg. If Hitler had not survived the attempt and a negotiated peace reached with Germany, the myth that the German nation was not defeated but been sold out by a clique of Aristocrats, Capitalists, Jews, defeatists etc would have been propagated as had happened at the end of the first world war. It would have laid the foundation for a third world war, which would have finished all of mankind.
In any case Strauffenberg was hardly the ‘ideal democrat’ or the ‘bravest of the best’ as Churchill believed. Far from it – he despised the lie that ‘all men are equal’ ,believed the polish to be ‘an unbelievable rabble of Jews and Mongrels’. He even got married carrying his steel helmet. He would have been an ideal replacement for Hitler and we would not have noticed the difference.
Its times like this ,when you read history, when you actually start believing that maybe ‘God does not move in mysterious ways’ and everything is a part of a grand design revealed only in retrospect.
Read history and not religious books, I say , and maybe you will have a more healthy opinion on the existence of the almighty.
Annihilation of Germany – for the Good of Mankind (Part 1)
The book is about the Second World War.
It is an amazing book, as the author has been able to cover the entire canvas of the war in his concise 700 page book. Roberts does not accept any dogma or hearsay. All facts are checked and sources confirmed and only balanced opinions expressed.
But you know what they say – the book is after all the ‘victors’ version. What would history read like if Hitler or the Japanese had subdued the allies? Its difficult to say- but it is not too far fetched to believe that in all possibility, before the turn of the 20th century we would have had the mother of all wars –‘the Third World War’ with nuclear pyrotechnics thrown in for our entertainment.
Amongst the multitude of figures churned out by the author, the one figure that stuck my mind was this- a staggering 50 million people perished in the war.
27 million Russians alone died in the conflict – more than the population of present day Australia.
The first world war saw a mere trifling 16 million deaths in comparison.
For the good of mankind- annihilation of Germany
The root cause of the war was not Hitler alone as one has been brought up to believe – but the state of the German nation since the mid 19th century.
Germany/Prussia had unleashed no fewer than five wars of aggression since 1864.
Under Bismarck’s policy of ‘Blood and Iron’, first it was Denmark(1864) then Austria(1866) and finally the humiliating loss of France of its territories Alsace and Lorraine(1871).
Kaiser Wilhelm goaded the Military commanders and the aristocracy into the Great War in 1914, followed by Hitler –the prime architect of the Second World War.
Why did Germany produce so many war mongerers?
Post the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans came to believe themselves to be a “Civilization superior to all other civilizations; and hence it was the duty of Germany to civilize and Germanize the world”
"God has called us to civilize the world," declared Kaiser William "we are the missionaries of human progress."
So for people believing themselves to be superior beings, they found it hard to digest the fact that they did not possess colonies like France and Great Britain.
Systematically they began preparing for war. Post 1871, the German schools mutilated facts of history and taught their children that :-
France was a nation of weaklings;
Russia a nation of slaves;
England, a nation of tradesmen, where war was not glorified, a "colossus with feet of clay," whose world empire would crumble before the German might.
America, peace-loving, idealistic, defenseless America, was to be taught her proper and subordinate place in a world ruled by German power.
The powerful military leaders, aided by the German press, preached the doctrine that war is a necessity, "an ordinance of God for the weeding out of weak and incompetent individuals and States."
In 1918 even after the surrender of Germany in the First World War, the German Army (at the lower level) and the German people strongly believed that the surrender was a sellout by the Kaiser and the German nation was not defeated.
This aspect was carefully cultivated by Hitler to cultivate the myth of the supremacy of the German race. The roots of militarism had not been weeded out and the German people thirsted for a war to avenge their humiliation in 1918. Hitler understood this and he nurtured and stoked this thirst.
The only way to have a lasting peace would be a total, comprehensive and humiliating defeat to be inflicted on Germany.
And that is exactly what happened when the end came for Germany. They had their backs to the wall with both the allied and the Russian forces at their doorsteps when Hitler committed suicide. Almost all German towns were pulverized in air raids and a million civilians perished. After six long years the people who carved for the war were saying ‘enough is enough’.
The hunger for power and war had been extricated from the roots and the defeat was total in all respects. And that is the reason we see the Germany of today – a pacifist, democratic and peaceful Germany- who are saying no to bombing Libya and other adventures undertaken by US & co.
If you have seen the movie ‘Valkryie’ starring Tom Cruise, then you would have been amongst those who bemoaned as to how Hitler escaped the assassination attempt by Strauffenberg (portrayed by Tom Cruise) in 1944 and how peace would have reigned if Hitler had been assassinated.
Actually, in retrospect, it was good fortune that Hitler survived the assassination attempt in 1944 by Col Von Strauffenberg. If Hitler had not survived the attempt and a negotiated peace reached with Germany, the myth that the German nation was not defeated but been sold out by a clique of Aristocrats, Capitalists, Jews, defeatists etc would have been propagated as had happened at the end of the first world war. It would have laid the foundation for a third world war, which would have finished all of mankind.
In any case Strauffenberg was hardly the ‘ideal democrat’ or the ‘bravest of the best’ as Churchill believed. Far from it – he despised the lie that ‘all men are equal’ ,believed the polish to be ‘an unbelievable rabble of Jews and Mongrels’. He even got married carrying his steel helmet. He would have been an ideal replacement for Hitler and we would not have noticed the difference.
Its times like this ,when you read history, when you actually start believing that maybe ‘God does not move in mysterious ways’ and everything is a part of a grand design revealed only in retrospect.
Read history and not religious books, I say , and maybe you will have a more healthy opinion on the existence of the almighty.
The storm of war
The Storm of War – Andrew Roberts(2009)
Annihilation of Germany – for the Good of Mankind (Part 1)
The book is about the Second World War.
It is an amazing book, as the author has been able to cover the entire canvas of the war in his concise 700 page book. Roberts does not accept any dogma or hearsay. All facts are checked and sources confirmed and only balanced opinions expressed.
But you know what they say – the book is after all the ‘victors’ version. What would history read like if Hitler or the Japanese had subdued the allies? Its difficult to say- but it is not too far fetched to believe that in all possibility, before the turn of the 20th century we would have had the mother of all wars –‘the Third World War’ with nuclear pyrotechnics thrown in for our entertainment.
Amongst the multitude of figures churned out by the author, the one figure that stuck my mind was this- a staggering 50 million people perished in the war.
27 million Russians alone died in the conflict – more than the population of present day Australia.
The first world war saw a mere trifling 16 million deaths in comparison.
For the good of mankind- annihilation of Germany
The root cause of the war was not Hitler alone as one has been brought up to believe – but the state of the German nation since the mid 19th century.
Germany/Prussia had unleashed no fewer than five wars of aggression since 1864.
Under Bismarck’s policy of ‘Blood and Iron’, first it was Denmark(1864) then Austria(1866) and finally the humiliating loss of France of its territories Alsace and Lorraine(1871).
Kaiser Wilhelm goaded the Military commanders and the aristocracy into the Great War in 1914, followed by Hitler –the prime architect of the Second World War.
Why did Germany produce so many war mongerers?
Post the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans came to believe themselves to be a “Civilization superior to all other civilizations; and hence it was the duty of Germany to civilize and Germanize the world”
"God has called us to civilize the world," declared Kaiser William "we are the missionaries of human progress."
So for people believing themselves to be superior beings, they found it hard to digest the fact that they did not possess colonies like France and Great Britain.
Systematically they began preparing for war. Post 1871, the German schools mutilated facts of history and taught their children that :-
France was a nation of weaklings;
Russia a nation of slaves;
England, a nation of tradesmen, where war was not glorified, a "colossus with feet of clay," whose world empire would crumble before the German might.
America, peace-loving, idealistic, defenseless America, was to be taught her proper and subordinate place in a world ruled by German power.
The powerful military leaders, aided by the German press, preached the doctrine that war is a necessity, "an ordinance of God for the weeding out of weak and incompetent individuals and States."
In 1918 even after the surrender of Germany in the First World War, the German Army (at the lower level) and the German people strongly believed that the surrender was a sellout by the Kaiser and the German nation was not defeated.
This aspect was carefully cultivated by Hitler to cultivate the myth of the supremacy of the German race. The roots of militarism had not been weeded out and the German people thirsted for a war to avenge their humiliation in 1918. Hitler understood this and he nurtured and stoked this thirst.
The only way to have a lasting peace would be a total, comprehensive and humiliating defeat to be inflicted on Germany.
And that is exactly what happened when the end came for Germany. They had their backs to the wall with both the allied and the Russian forces at their doorsteps when Hitler committed suicide. Almost all German towns were pulverized in air raids and a million civilians perished. After six long years the people who carved for the war were saying ‘enough is enough’.
The hunger for power and war had been extricated from the roots and the defeat was total in all respects. And that is the reason we see the Germany of today – a pacifist, democratic and peaceful Germany- who are saying no to bombing Libya and other adventures undertaken by US & co.
If you have seen the movie ‘Valkryie’ starring Tom Cruise, then you would have been amongst those who bemoaned as to how Hitler escaped the assassination attempt by Strauffenberg (portrayed by Tom Cruise) in 1944.
Actually, in retrospect, it was good fortune that Hitler survived the assassination attempt in 1944 by Col Von Strauffenberg. If Hitler had not survived the attempt and a negotiated peace reached with Germany, the myth that the German nation was not defeated but been sold out by a clique of Aristocrats, Capitalists, Jews, defeatists etc would have been propagated as had happened at the end of the first world war. It would have laid the foundation for a third world war, which would have finished all of mankind.
In any case Strauffenberg was hardly the ‘ideal democrat’ or the ‘bravest of the best’ as Churchill believed. Far from it – he despised the lie that ‘all men are equal’ ,believed the polish to be ‘an unbelievable rabble of Jews and Mongrels’. He even got married carrying his steel helmet. He would have been an ideal replacement for Hitler and we would not have noticed the difference.
Its times like this ,when you read history, is when you actually start believing that maybe ‘God does not move in mysterious ways’ and everything is a part of a grand design revealed only in retrospect.
Read history and not religious books, I say , and maybe you will have a more healthy opinion on the existence of the almighty.
Annihilation of Germany – for the Good of Mankind (Part 1)
The book is about the Second World War.
It is an amazing book, as the author has been able to cover the entire canvas of the war in his concise 700 page book. Roberts does not accept any dogma or hearsay. All facts are checked and sources confirmed and only balanced opinions expressed.
But you know what they say – the book is after all the ‘victors’ version. What would history read like if Hitler or the Japanese had subdued the allies? Its difficult to say- but it is not too far fetched to believe that in all possibility, before the turn of the 20th century we would have had the mother of all wars –‘the Third World War’ with nuclear pyrotechnics thrown in for our entertainment.
Amongst the multitude of figures churned out by the author, the one figure that stuck my mind was this- a staggering 50 million people perished in the war.
27 million Russians alone died in the conflict – more than the population of present day Australia.
The first world war saw a mere trifling 16 million deaths in comparison.
For the good of mankind- annihilation of Germany
The root cause of the war was not Hitler alone as one has been brought up to believe – but the state of the German nation since the mid 19th century.
Germany/Prussia had unleashed no fewer than five wars of aggression since 1864.
Under Bismarck’s policy of ‘Blood and Iron’, first it was Denmark(1864) then Austria(1866) and finally the humiliating loss of France of its territories Alsace and Lorraine(1871).
Kaiser Wilhelm goaded the Military commanders and the aristocracy into the Great War in 1914, followed by Hitler –the prime architect of the Second World War.
Why did Germany produce so many war mongerers?
Post the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans came to believe themselves to be a “Civilization superior to all other civilizations; and hence it was the duty of Germany to civilize and Germanize the world”
"God has called us to civilize the world," declared Kaiser William "we are the missionaries of human progress."
So for people believing themselves to be superior beings, they found it hard to digest the fact that they did not possess colonies like France and Great Britain.
Systematically they began preparing for war. Post 1871, the German schools mutilated facts of history and taught their children that :-
France was a nation of weaklings;
Russia a nation of slaves;
England, a nation of tradesmen, where war was not glorified, a "colossus with feet of clay," whose world empire would crumble before the German might.
America, peace-loving, idealistic, defenseless America, was to be taught her proper and subordinate place in a world ruled by German power.
The powerful military leaders, aided by the German press, preached the doctrine that war is a necessity, "an ordinance of God for the weeding out of weak and incompetent individuals and States."
In 1918 even after the surrender of Germany in the First World War, the German Army (at the lower level) and the German people strongly believed that the surrender was a sellout by the Kaiser and the German nation was not defeated.
This aspect was carefully cultivated by Hitler to cultivate the myth of the supremacy of the German race. The roots of militarism had not been weeded out and the German people thirsted for a war to avenge their humiliation in 1918. Hitler understood this and he nurtured and stoked this thirst.
The only way to have a lasting peace would be a total, comprehensive and humiliating defeat to be inflicted on Germany.
And that is exactly what happened when the end came for Germany. They had their backs to the wall with both the allied and the Russian forces at their doorsteps when Hitler committed suicide. Almost all German towns were pulverized in air raids and a million civilians perished. After six long years the people who carved for the war were saying ‘enough is enough’.
The hunger for power and war had been extricated from the roots and the defeat was total in all respects. And that is the reason we see the Germany of today – a pacifist, democratic and peaceful Germany- who are saying no to bombing Libya and other adventures undertaken by US & co.
If you have seen the movie ‘Valkryie’ starring Tom Cruise, then you would have been amongst those who bemoaned as to how Hitler escaped the assassination attempt by Strauffenberg (portrayed by Tom Cruise) in 1944.
Actually, in retrospect, it was good fortune that Hitler survived the assassination attempt in 1944 by Col Von Strauffenberg. If Hitler had not survived the attempt and a negotiated peace reached with Germany, the myth that the German nation was not defeated but been sold out by a clique of Aristocrats, Capitalists, Jews, defeatists etc would have been propagated as had happened at the end of the first world war. It would have laid the foundation for a third world war, which would have finished all of mankind.
In any case Strauffenberg was hardly the ‘ideal democrat’ or the ‘bravest of the best’ as Churchill believed. Far from it – he despised the lie that ‘all men are equal’ ,believed the polish to be ‘an unbelievable rabble of Jews and Mongrels’. He even got married carrying his steel helmet. He would have been an ideal replacement for Hitler and we would not have noticed the difference.
Its times like this ,when you read history, is when you actually start believing that maybe ‘God does not move in mysterious ways’ and everything is a part of a grand design revealed only in retrospect.
Read history and not religious books, I say , and maybe you will have a more healthy opinion on the existence of the almighty.
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