World War Two
Published 10 Oct 2023In a re-upload of one of our D-Day 24 Hour videos, Astrid introduces you to the war’s most effective counter-espionage and deception programme, The Double Cross system. Today she’ll talk about their operations before and during D-Day and introduce you to some of the most important double agents. Their mission: fool the Führer.
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October 11, 2023
How Britain Broke Hitler’s Brain
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October 8, 2023
The End of the Warsaw Uprising – WW2 – Week 267 – October 7, 1944
World War Two
Published 7 Oct 2023The Warsaw Uprising comes to its conclusion, a tragic one for the Poles. In the field in Europe, there are Allied attacks toward Aachen, Bologna, and Debrecen, while in China the Japanese have begun a new phase of their Ichi Go Offensive.
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October 7, 2023
Eastern Front Tank Warfare 1944
World War Two
In this conflict, we’ve seen armored warfare on a greater scale than anything before or since. Indy takes a look at some of the tanks slugging it out on the Eastern Front, from the long-serving Panzer III and IV, to the newer and more powerful Tiger and T-34 85, and the monstrous IS-2.
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Rearming West Germany: The G1 FAL
Forgotten Weapons
Published 19 Jun 2023Today we are taking a look at a German G1 pattern FAL. The initial purchased of the G1 were actual made by the German Border Guard (the Bundesgrenschutz). In the aftermath of World War Two, the western Allies decided to perpetually disarm Germany, and German security was provided by French, British, and American forces. As the Iron Curtain fell across Europe, that attitude softened — West Germany was on the front lines of the Cold War, and could be a valuable ally against Communism in the East. Thus in 1951, the West German Bundesgrenzschutz (Border Guards) were formed and armed — basically with all WW2 Wehrmacht equipment. Looking to improve its small arms in 1955/56, the BGS tested a number of modern rifles and decided to adopt the FAL.
The BGS initially ordered 2,000 FAL rifles from FN, with wooden hand guards and a fixed flash hider (essentially a standard Belgian FAL) — these are known as the “A” pattern. A second BGS order for 4,800 more rifles followed, this time of the “B” pattern with a metal handguard and folding bipod. This was the first use of an integral bipod on the FAL, and would go on to be a popular option for other buyers.
In 1955, the German Army was reinstated as the Bundeswehr. Looking over the BGS rifle testing, the Bundeswehr also decided to adopt the FAL, and placed and order for 100,000 rifles — the “C” pattern. These include sights lowered 3mm by specific German request, as well as a set of swappable muzzle devices (flash hider and blank-firing adapter).
Ultimately, FN was unwilling to license FAL production to West Germany, and this drove the Germans to adopt the Spanish CETME as the G3 rifle, which it was able to license. The Bundeswehr G1 rifles were eventually transferred to the BGS and later sold to other allies as surplus.
Special thanks to Bear Arms in Scottsdale, AZ for providing access to this rifle for video!
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October 5, 2023
The Great War: Its End and Effects, Lecture by Prof Margaret MacMillan
McDonald Centre
Published 25 Jan 201922 January 2019, “How far did the Versailles Treaty make Peace?”, Professor Margaret MacMillan, Warden of St Antony’s College, Oxford. The lecture was sponsored by Christ Church Cathedral and the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life, Oxford.
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October 4, 2023
Paris under the Swastika – Collaboration and Resistance – On the Homefront 019
World War Two
Published 3 Oct 2023Occupied Paris, a paradoxical city of banality and brutality, of resistance and collaboration. Join Anna as she takes you on a tour of the city from occupation, the establishment of the Pétain regime and collaboration, the growth of resistance, and finally liberation. But the story doesn’t end there and into the 21st century, the city of lights is haunted by its occupation.
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Last Gasp of the German Maxim: the Air-Cooled MG 08/18
Forgotten Weapons
Published 7 Jun 2023The MG 08/18 was developed at the very end of World War One as a lighter alternative to the MG 08/15. It used an air-cooled barrel, and between not needing water and having lighter parts it managed to weigh about 6 pounds less than the 08/15. Only a few hundred appear to have been produced before the end of the war, and they were not used by the German military during the Weimar era (the Mg 08/15 was). The 08/18 barrel jacket served as the basis for the MG34 barrel shroud, interestingly.
Thanks to Limex for giving me access to this very rare gun to film for you!
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QotD: The Witchburning and the “Mandate of Heaven”
Turning to more familiar Western examples, look at Germany, especially in contrast to England. Germany was on the forefront of every big social and economic change in the late Middle Ages, but you couldn’t blame their rulers for not handling it, because they didn’t have any. The minor princely states, the Electors of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Emperor himself, the Hanseatic League, and what have you — what could any of them do in the face of plagues and economic dislocations and terminal papal corruption and the massive intellectual upheaval of the printing press, even if their authority extended more than a few miles in any given direction, which it didn’t?
So they burned witches. The “European Witch Craze” of the 15th century has been a feminist bugbear for a long time, and one must naturally assume that pretty much all modern scholarship on it is uber-politicized hooey1, but it’s clear that there really were a lot of witch burnings in Germany in the 1400s. All that free-floating anxiety has to land somewhere, and since it’s pointless to blame the Margrave — he of the one decrepit castle and three square miles of territory — “witches” are a prime target. See also “the Period of the Wars of Religion” — is it any surprise that the most famous witchcraft stuff came from Germany just before the Reformation, or France in the depths of the religious wars, or England around the Civil War?
Clearly something is wrong with the universe – the Mandate of Heaven has been lost, not by any individual ruler necessarily, but by society. “Purity spirals” are also characteristic of these periods, and they quickly spiral out of control — see e.g. the Anabaptist Commune at Munster, or of course the Puritans.
Speaking of, the most famous-to-Americans example is the Salem Trials, and here we see all the trends converge. Not that the Puritans of Plymouth Bay would be so hubristic as to claim the Mantle of Heaven for themselves — Puritans were nothing if not ostentatiously self-effacing — but claim it they did, in deed if not in word, since Plymouth Bay was the closest thing one will ever get to a theocracy this side of Calvin’s Geneva (they burned their “witches”, too). And they just as clearly lost the Mandate — economic dislocations, a devastating Indian war brought about largely by their own hubristic incompetence, even a plague.
The aftermath of all this is fascinating. COVID, of course, is our new witch panic, and feel free to prognosticate on our current situation based on the life of Cotton Mather. The colony’s hottest young intellectual superstar in 1693, he went all-in on “spectral evidence” and the like, and by 1700 he was a joke on both sides of the Atlantic. So, too, with “critical race theory” and all the rest. There’s a racial awakening happening, kameraden, no doubt about that, but it has nothing to do with the eggheads’ fantasies. Those are just witch panics, and while witch panics are devastating to those caught in them, the wheel always turns sooner than later …
Severian, “Witch Trial Syndrome”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-01-27.
1. Which was also true of earlier scholarship, most famously Miss Murray’s The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, which is Marxist economics-level disproven, but still fervently believed by “Wiccans” everywhere.
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October 1, 2023
The End of Market Garden – WW2 – Week 266 – September 30, 1944
World War Two
Published 30 Sep 2023This week, Operation Market Garden comes to its unsuccessful conclusion, but there’s a lot more going on — the Soviets launch an offensive in the Estonian Archipelago, the Warsaw Uprising is on the ropes, the Allies advance in Italy, the Americans on Peleliu, and Tito and Stalin make plans to clear Yugoslavia of the enemy.
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September 30, 2023
Why did the North Africa Campaign Matter in WW2?
The Intel Report
Published 8 Jun 2023As Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps rolled into Egypt in 1942, the only thing standing between them and Cairo and the Suez Canal was the British 8th Army. In this video we look at what was at stake for both sides, and why the North African campaign made a crucial impact on the outcome of the Second World War.
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September 29, 2023
WW2 Jet Engine Development
World War Two
Published 28 Sep 2023Jet planes and jet engine technology revolutionized air travel, as we are all well aware. However, the development of jet planes during WW2 was fraught with all sorts of obstacles and hurdles. Let’s take a look at it.
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September 24, 2023
Operation Market Garden Begins – WW2 – Week 265 – September 23, 1944
World War Two
Published 23 Sep 2023Monty’s Operation(s) Market Garden, to drop men deep in the German rear in the Netherlands and secure a series of bridges, begins this week, but has serious trouble. In Italy the Allies take Rimini and San Marino, but over in the south seas in Peleliu the Americans have serious problems with Japanese resistance. Finland and the USSR sign an armistice, and in Estonia the Soviets take Tallinn, and there are Soviet plans being made to enter Yugoslavia.
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September 22, 2023
Is the Slovak Uprising Doomed to Fail? – War Against Humanity 115
World War Two
Published 21 Sep 2023Even as they battle an uprising in Slovakia, the Nazis see the opportunity to continue their racial realignment of Europe. The latest victims of this genocidal legacy are Anne Frank and her family, who arrive at Auschwitz. In Britain, the V-1 menace is defeated. But as London breathes a sigh of relief, the Nazis and their allies reduce Warsaw to rubble in a rampage of burning, looting, rape, and murder.
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September 21, 2023
Iranian Railways, Red Cross Care Packages, and Tail Gunners – WW2 – OOTF 31
World War Two
Published 20 Sept 2023How did the Allies build and manage an enormous railway supplying the Soviet Union through Iran? How did the Red Cross deliver aid parcels through enemy territory to Allied POWs? And, how effective were the rear gunners in ground attack aircraft like the Stuka and Sturmovik? Find out in this episode of Out of the Foxholes.
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September 19, 2023
Jeremy Clarkson’s The Greatest Raid of All
North One
Published 4 May 2020Due to copyright restrictions, some music and scenes have been altered or removed in this upload. You can find the original unaltered documentary here: The Story Of The …
Jeremy Clarkson tells the story of the audacious commando raid on the German occupied dry dock at St Nazaire in France on March 28th 1942. Made for the BBC in 2007 by North One.
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