Quotulatiousness

December 25, 2021

“Christmas Truce” – December 1914 – Sabaton History 107 [Official]

Filed under: Britain, France, Germany, History, Media, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published 24 Dec 2021

You’ve all heard about it, but here are the nuts and bolts for why and how it happened — the Christmas Truce on the Western Front in December 1914, the first Christmas of the Great War.

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Archive: Reuters/Screenocean – https://www.screenocean.com

Sources:
– IWM NTB 178-2, IWM 205, Q 86849, Q 57165, Q 53616, Q 56198, Q 50720, Q 65834, Q 50719, Q 50721, Q 31575, Q 32613, Q 57361, Q 11718, Q 31576, Q 49581, Q 64568, IWM 130-01
– Santa vector created by vectorpocket – www.freepik.com

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December 24, 2021

How Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin Spent Christmas – WW2 Special

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 23 Dec 2021

They might be four of the most powerful politicians and/or military leaders on earth, but they are also citizens of their respective countries and today we take a look at what they do over the traditional Christmas holidays in 1942.
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How Soldiers and Civilians Celebrated Christmas During the Franco-Prussian War 1870

Filed under: France, Germany, History, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Real Time History
Published 23 Dec 2021

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Christmas 1870 reminded the German and French alike that the Franco-Prussian War was going on for far too long. Soldiers and civilians on both sides tried to make the best of the situation but the grim nature of the last weeks of fighting and the ongoing Siege of Paris made this a memorable Christmas for all the wrong reason.

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» OUR PODCAST
https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.

» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018

Gouttman, Alain: La grande défaite. 1870-1871. Paris 2015

Hahn, Joachim: Jüdisches Leben in Ludwigsburg. Geschichte, Quellen, Dokumentation. Karlsruhe 1998

» SOURCES
Allorant, Salomé u.a. (Hrsg.): La République au défi de la guerre. Lettres et carnet de l’Année terrible (1870-1871). Amiens 2015

Bernardt, Sarah: Ma double vie. Mémoires. Paris 1907

Fontane, Theodor: Der Krieg gegen Frankreich. Bd. 3. Berlin 1875

Fontane, Theodor: Kriegsgefangen. Erlebtes 1870. Briefe 1870/71. Berlin (Ost) 1984

Goncourt, Edmond de: Journals des Goncourt. Mémoires de la vie litteraire. Vol. 4. Paris 1890

Kriegsgeschichtliche Abteilung des Großen Generalstabs (Hrsg.): Der deutsch-französische Krieg 1870-71. 2.2. Berlin 1880

Meisner, Heinrich Otto (Hrsg.): Kaiser Friedrich III. Das Kriegstagebuch von 1870/71. Berlin, Leipzig 1926

Plitt, Franz: Rückerinnerungen eines Dreiundachtzigers. Kassel 1903

Russell, William Howard: My diary during the last great war. London 1874

Schikorsky, Isa (Hrsg.): “Wenn doch dies Elend ein Ende hätte”. Ein Briefwechsel aus dem Deutsch-Französischen Krieg 1870/71. Köln, Weimar, Wien 1999

Schmidt, Erna (Hrsg.): Briefe aus den Feldzügen 1866 und 1870/71. Berlin 1908

Speisekarte des Café Voisin Paris vom 25.12.1870

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» CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand

Channel Design: Battlefield Design

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021

December 22, 2021

The Nazi-Islam Alliance? – Amin al-Husseini – WW2 Biography Special

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Middle East, Military, Religion, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 21 Dec 2021

Amin al-Husseini is one of the leading figures in global Islam. He’s an Arab nationalist, an anti-Semite, and anti-Zionist. But he’s also willing to work with imperialist powers if it suits him. He’s been loyal to the Ottomans and the British. In 1941, he throws his lot in with Hitler and the Nazis.
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December 21, 2021

Tank Chat #136 | Schützenpanzer | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 3 Sep 2021

David Willey is back with another Tank Chat! This week’s episode is all about the Schützenpanzer. A West German infantry fighting vehicle developed from 1956 to 1958.
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December 19, 2021

Guadalcanal Life Expectancy: 30 Days- WW2 – 173 – December 18, 1942

Filed under: Africa, Britain, France, Germany, History, Italy, Japan, Military, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 18 Dec 2021

Just a few weeks ago massive offensives were launched in North Africa and the Soviet Union, against the Axis. These operations and offensives have now morphed into fully fledged campaigns, and the nature of these theatres of the war has been transformed.
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December 17, 2021

German States Vote For Unity – Battle of Nuits-St. Georges 1870 I GLORY & DEFEAT Week 23

Filed under: France, Germany, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Real Time History
Published 16 Dec 2021

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While the German delegations arrive in Versailles to set in motion the unification of the German states into a German Reich, the people in nearby Paris are starving and their army is still fighting in the countryside.

» THANK YOU TO OUR CO-PRODUCERS
John Ozment, James Darcangelo, Jacob Carter Landt, Thomas Brendan, Kurt Gillies, Scott Deederly, John Belland, Adam Smith, Taylor Allen, Rustem Sharipov, Christoph Wolf, Simen Røste, Marcus Bondura, Ramon Rijkhoek, Theodore Patrick Shannon, Philip Schoffman, Avi Woolf,

» OUR PODCAST
https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.

» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018

Gouttman, Alain: La grande défaite. 1870-1871. Paris 2015

» SOURCES
Hérisson, Maurice d’: Journal d’un officier d’ordonnance. Paris 1885

Kriegsgeschichtliche Abteilung des Großen Generalstabs (Hrsg.): Der deutsch-französische Krieg 1870-71. 2.2. Berlin 1880

Kürschner, Joseph (Hrsg.): Der große Krieg 1870-71 in Zeitberichten. Leipzig o.J. (1895)

Meisner, Heinrich Otto (Hrsg.): Kaiser Friedrich III. Das Kriegstagebuch von 1870/71. Berlin, Leipzig 1926

Pietsch, Ludwig: Von Berlin nach Paris. Kriegsbilder 1870-71. Berlin 1871

Schikorsky, Isa (Hrsg.): “Wenn doch dies Elend ein Ende hätte”. Ein Briefwechsel aus dem Deutsch-Französischen Krieg 1870/71. Köln, Weimar, Wien 1999

» OUR STORE
Website: https://realtimehistory.net

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand

Channel Design: Battlefield Design

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021

Those Olympic rings are more than just tarnished

Filed under: China, Germany, History, Politics, Sports — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In First Things, George Weigel notes the, ah, Olympian disdain for mere morality and human decency is far from a new thing as the IOC prepares for the Beijing games in 2022:

Google translation of the original German caption: “Before the ceremonial opening of the XI Olympic Games. Together with the members of the International and National Olympic Committee, the Führer and Reich Chancellor enters the stadium through the marathon gate. On the left of Adolf Hitler [Henry] Graf Baillet-Latour, on the right His Excellency [Theodor] Lewald.”
German Federal Archives (Accession number Bild 183-G00372) via Wikimedia Commons.

In July 2016, as we were sitting on the fantail of the Swiss sidewheeler Rhone while she chugged across Lake Geneva, my host pointed out the city of Lausanne, where a massive, glass-bedecked curvilinear building was shimmering in the summer sun. “Isn’t that the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee?” I asked. When my friend replied in the affirmative, I said, “I thought I smelled it.”

That rank odor — the stench of greed overpowering the solidarity the Olympics claim to represent — has intensified recently.

Even the casual student of modern Olympic history knows about the August 1936 Berlin Games, at which America’s Jesse Owens, a black man, took four gold medals and trashed Hitler’s Aryan supremacy myth. Fewer may be aware that, in February that year, the Olympic Winter Games were held in the Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. How, we ask today, could two Olympics be held in the Third Reich? How could people not know?

There was some controversy about holding the summer and winter Olympics under Nazi auspices. But in 1936, the German situation was not as comprehensively ghastly as it would become in later years. Yes, the Dachau concentration camp for political prisoners had opened in March 1933, and the Nuremberg Laws banning Jews from German citizenship and prohibiting marriage between Jews and “Aryans” had been enacted in 1935. The horrors of the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938 were two years in the future, however, and the satanic Wannsee Conference to plan the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question” would come six years later. Clear-minded people ought to have discerned some of the implications of the Nuremberg Laws. But the industrialized mass slaughter of millions, simply because they were children of Abraham, was beyond the imagination of virtually everyone.

So Hitler and his thugs temporarily behaved themselves (sort of) in the run-up to the Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Berlin Olympics. And the International Olympic Committee could salve whatever conscience it had in those days and proceed with the games.

The IOC has no excuses today, two months before the XXIV Olympic Winter Games open in Beijing. Because today, everyone knows.

Death Squads Arrive in North Africa – WAH 048 – December 1942, Pt. 1

Filed under: Africa, Germany, History, Italy, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 16 Dec 2021

Despite Allied occupation, the situation of the Jews in North Africa hardly improves, in newly German-occupied Tunisia it deteriorates. Meanwhile, the world learns more of the details of the Holocaust — they cannot believe their ears.
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December 15, 2021

Is the Wehrmacht Defeated in 1942? – WW2 Special

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 14 Dec 2021

It’s late 1942 and the German Army is close to ruin. The Ostheer alone has suffered more than a million casualties in its fight against the Red Army. If the Wehrmacht cannot find a way to return to its former strength or reap decisive strategic benefits in the near future, it will ultimately face destruction in a war of attrition.
(more…)

December 12, 2021

One Year Since Pearl Harbor – WW2 – 172 – December 11, 1942

Filed under: Africa, Australia, Britain, Germany, History, Italy, Japan, Military, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 11 Dec 2021

The Japanese try and fail to supply their starving soldiers. The Allies fail to break through in Tunisia and New Guinea. The fighting in the USSR is bloody, but the Axis prepare for a new offensive there.
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December 11, 2021

The Stahlhelm

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 10 Dec 2021

The Stahlhelm. Perhaps the most iconic symbol of German military power, ever present in images of the war. Hitler believes it strikes fear in his enemies and makes his own troops fearless. But where does it come from and why is it so enduring?
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December 10, 2021

The Frozen Battlefields of France – Battle of Beaugency 1870

Filed under: France, Germany, History, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Real Time History
Published 9 Nov 2021

Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/realtimehistory

On the frozen battlefields of France, the exhausted German and French armies are still fighting. The Battle of Beaugency sees a desperate struggle in which soldiers on both sides suffer from the harsh winter conditions. Meanwhile, the Siege of Paris continues to starve the population of the French capital.

» THANK YOU TO OUR CO-PRODUCERS
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James Darcangelo
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Scott Deederly
John Belland
Adam Smith
Taylor Allen
Jim F Barlow
Rustem Sharipov

» OUR PODCAST
https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.

» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018

Buk-Swienty, Tom: Feuer und Blut. Hauptmann Dinesen. Hamburg 2014

Gouttman, Alain: La grande défaite. 1870-1871. Paris 2015

» SOURCES
Chanzy, Général: La deuxième Armée de la Loire. Paris 1872

Goncourt, Edmond de: Journal des Goncourts. II.1. 1870-1871. Paris 1890

Horne, Alistair: Es zogen die Preußen wohl über den Rhein. Bern, München, Wien 1967

Kühnhauser, Florian: Kriegs-Erinnerungen eines Soldaten des königlich bayerischen Infanterie Leibregiments. Partenkirchen 1898

Sarcey, Francisque: Le siege de Paris: impressions et souvenirs. Paris 1871

» OUR STORE
Website: https://realtimehistory.net

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand

Channel Design: Battlefield Design

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021

December 9, 2021

Rzhev Meatgrinder: Day-by-Day Recap 02

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 8 Dec 2021

It is one of the deadliest battles of the Eastern Front and entire conflict, yet it is often overlooked next to the fighting at Stalingrad. Today, we will take a look at the 1942 Summer Battles of Rzhev.
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The sequel to the British disaster at the Battle of Coronel, the German disaster at the Battle of the Falkland Islands

Filed under: Americas, Britain, Germany, History, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On December 8th, the people of the Falkland Islands observe “Battle Day” to commemorate the British naval victory off the islands in 1914. This is the bookend to the Battle of Coronel the previous month (described here and here), where a Royal Navy squadron was almost annihilated by Imperial Germany’s East Asia Squadron under Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee. At the Battle of the Falkland Islands, an equally lop-sided victory eliminated von Spee’s ships with minimal damage to Rear Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee’s squadron. In The Critic, A.S.H. Smyth outlines the events as shown in a British film released in 1927:

Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1914 by William Lionel Wyllie. SMS Scharnhorst rolls over and sinks while SMS Gneisenau continues to fight.
Originally published in 1918 by Cassel & Company. Retouched image via Wikimedia Commons

Rear Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee (unimprovably British, isn’t it?), Chief of War Staff at the Admiralty, and at distinct risk of being scapegoated for the Coronel catastrophe, was summarily appointed Commander-in-Chief South Atlantic and Pacific(!) and despatched posthaste by [First Sea Lord John “Jackie”] Fisher (with whom he did not get on), on something of a do-or-die mission as the commander of new, eight-cruiser squadron.

The Admiral Superintendent of Devonport warns that Sturdee’s two battle cruisers, Invincible and Inflexible, cannot be ready before Friday the 13th November. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill balks at that ill-omened date, and orders that they sail on the 11th, ready or not. (Students of the 1982 conflict may see more than a couple of parallels here.) Cue: dockyard refitting montage.

Cut to the German colony at Valparaiso, where his countrymen fête von Spee’s glorious German victory in their first naval battle. “Damnation to the British Navy!” they want to toast. No, says, von Spee: “to a gallant enemy.” Handed a bouquet of flowers, he says he’ll keep them for his funeral “when my time comes.” For “when were the British ever content to leave an enemy to his triumph?”

Von Spee was well aware, it seems, that running the gauntlet up through the Atlantic was going to be a torrid prospect, even without a veangeful enemy on the look-out for him personally. But homeless (Tsingtau had fallen to the Japanese), in need of fuel, and down to half their ammunition, von Spee’s captains urged him now to head for Germany, and he agreed.

Von Spee’s ships were in need of dockyard maintenance and not steaming efficiently, but thanks to a captured British collier they were not in need of coal to be able to get home. Before setting off from where they’d been refuelling, Spee decided to strike another blow against the British and raid the Royal Navy’s supply base at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands where only local militia were expected to be defending.

It was, among other things, sheer bad luck that von Spee came up to Stanley just a few hours after Sturdee had arrived with his group of cruisers — all newer, faster, and better-gunned than their fatigued German counterparts — and was busily refuelling. Likewise, that the sea was calm, there was little wind, and visibility was excellent. Too late, Gneisenau observes that there are British warships in the harbour! (The acting here is particularly terrible.)

It has been suggested that von Spee had not known that the British ships were “waiting” there (they hardly were); but it has also been alleged that he was misled by poor German intelligence, or even false British cryptography. [The Wikipedia article on the battle credits misinformation by British intelligence for leading von Spee into the trap.]

In Britain, meanwhile, the Admiralty is under the impression that Sturdee is the one who has been caught unawares in the Falkland Islands. Von Spee is a mere 12 miles away, and none of the British ships have their steam up. The FIVF [the Falklands Islands Volunteer Force] are called out, as the ships are ordered to go from zero to hero. One poor lad has to run up the Union Jack in local weather conditions (I’ve been that lad: he has my sympathies); another forgets his rifle, as emphasised by a heavily-asterisked title card.

As so often happens, Fate now played its hand, and Canopus, parked, with her fully-functioning 12-inch guns (so missed at Coronel) in Stanley Harbour, as the Islands’ main defensive battery, came into her own. As the Germans turn and run, Canopus opens fire, and soon enough the “grimly purposeful” cruiser group — “fittingly bearing names from the four corners of Britain … Kent, Cornwall, Glasgow and Carnarvon” — set off in pursuit.

The maths was simply not on the Germans’ side. Sturdee even sent his men below to eat. At midday, he called them back to Action Stations. Von Spee responded by ordering his light cruisers to scatter and make for neutral ports, while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau remained to “accept action to cover their escape”. Flashback to the presentation of those flowers.

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