… perhaps there is a parallel between the state of human capital in the American elite [today] and the German elite during the war. The German soldiers were the best in the world, but the people further up the line were not the best tacticians. At the upper reaches, the strategists were terrible in all sorts of ways, starting with Hitler, who was laughably inept at running a war. Winning was never an option, but the Germans could have avoided total obliteration if they had better leaders.
The blame for this is always put on Hitler and that’s a good place to start, but the Germans had a brain power problem throughout the planning layer. This is obvious in how they went about making tanks. Instead of going for a tank that was cheap and easy to produce by a civilian workforce, they tried to build tanks that were complex and required specialists to produce. The effects of allied bombing raids were amplified by this strategic blunder in production planning. This is a very basic error in planning and execution.
One possible cause of this was that the middle-aged men who would have been sorting these production and design problems had died during the Great War. The German army tended to “use up” their units, rather than cycle them in and out of lines. That meant that a lot of experience with supply and logistics was lost in the trenches. The British and the Americans rotated units in and out of the lines, thus they came out of the war with a vast number of people with experience in the nuts and bolts of war fighting.
The current ruling class needs the Germans to be seen as the ultimate in super villains, but the truth is the Germans were dumb about a lot of important things. The Russians came up with sloped armor, for example, and the Germans never bothered to steal the idea, even after Kursk. The Germans got their hands on the Churchill tank, but never bothered to learn anything from it. They never learned from the Americans how to use communications to coordinate their artillery and their armor.
In many respects, the story of the tank in the war is a great proxy for the story of human capital and cultural intelligence. The Germans had the best trained military on earth, but they lacked human capital in the strategy and tactics layer. Either the culture was unable to produce it or there was simply not enough smart people to create the necessary smart fraction. That was ultimately why Germany was wiped from the map. It’s probably why no new culture has arisen from that place on the map either.
The Z Man, “Tanking It”, The Z Blog, 2019-03-01.
November 11, 2021
QotD: War and human capital
November 10, 2021
Wives – What Soldiers Left Behind – WW2 – On the Homefront 012
World War Two
Published 9 Nov 2021With men away at the front, couples have to separate and manage the struggle of war on their own. For women who stay at home, this is not any easier than for the man: worry, longing, loneliness, meaningless sex, the temptation of falling in love with others – it is an emotional rollercoaster.
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Tank Chats #131 | Kanonenjagdpanzer | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 9 Jul 2021Curator David Willey discusses the German Cold War tank destroyer the Kanonenjagdpanzer or Jpz 4-5 for short.
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November 7, 2021
The Allies Break Through! – WW2 – 167 – November 6, 1942
World War Two
Published 6 Nov 2021After all these months of fighting, the British 8th Army breaks through Erwin Rommel’s Axis positions in North Africa, but the Allies have even bigger plans for that theater of war — a huge invasion of Vichy French North Africa to take place next week. The Soviets also have a plan for a huge invasion to take place very soon near Stalingrad, though the fighting in the city itself sees a lull the second half of this week.
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November 6, 2021
Is the Answer in Uranus? – The Soviet Plan to Win at Stalingrad – WW2 SPECIAL
World War Two
Published 4 Nov 2021Georgy Zhukov told Josef Stain in September that if the Red Army could just hold out until November, he could put together a counteroffensive that would defeat the enemy. Well, November is here, and that counteroffensive is ready to kick off, but how was it put together? Let’s find out.
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November 5, 2021
The 1st (Failed) Paris Commune Uprising During the Franco-Prussian War 1870
Real Time History
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The Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War 1870 and the downfall of the French Empire after the Battle of Sedan created a volatile social situation in the French capital. And in November 1870 this situation erupted in an attempt to topple the provisional government and create a self-ruling Paris Commune.
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https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Die Geschichte des Deutsch-Französischen Krieges erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018Gouttman, Alain: La grande défaite. Paris 2015
Spiekermann, Uwe: “Die wahre Geschichte der Erbswurst”, unter: https://uwe-spiekermann.com/2018/05/1… (zuletzt besucht am 21.9.2021)
» SOURCES
Chuquet, Arthur: La Guerre 1870-71. Paris 1895Fontane, Theodor: Der Krieg gegen Frankreich. Bd. 3. Berlin 1878
Goncourt, Edmond de: Journal des Goncourts. II.1. 1870-1871. Paris 1890
Hérisson, Maurice d’: Journal d’un officier d’ordonnance. Paris 1885
Heylli, Georges d’ (ed.): M. Thiers à Versailles: l’armistice. Paris 1871
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. Leipzig 1926
N.N.: Bismarcks Briefe an seine Gattin aus dem Kriege 1870/71. Stuttgart, Berlin 1903
Schikorsky, Isa (Hrsg.): “Wenn doch dies Elend ein Ende hätte”. Ein Briefwechsel aus dem Deutsch-Französischen Krieg 1870/71. Köln, Weimar, Wien 1999
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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
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Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias ArandChannel Design: Battlefield Design
Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021
A United Front Against Nazi Atrocities – WAH 045 – October 1942, Pt. 2
World War Two
Published 4 Nov 2021As the war intensifies on all fronts, the occupied world is aflame with resistance and reprisals. From Paris to Papua New Guinea, Humanity is under attack — but it is also fighting back.
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November 4, 2021
Anti-Tank Chats #2 | Panzerbüchse 39 | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 2 Jul 2021Welcome to Anti-Tank Chats, a brand-new series on the history of infantry weapons used in Anti-Tank warfare. In the second episode, Archive and Supporting Collections Manager, Stuart Wheeler explores the Panzerbüchse 39 Anti-Tank Rifle.
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October 31, 2021
Nazi General Dies of Heart Attack – WW2 – 166 – October 30, 1942
World War Two
Published 30 Oct 2021The Allies may be on the verge of a breakthrough in North Africa, but they’re losing at sea to the Japanese this week, and the Axis are also advancing in the Caucasus, though the street by street struggle at Stalingrad continues as always.
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October 30, 2021
Revisiting the Battle of Britain
In The Critic, Phillips O’Brien has a historical hot take on the popular view of the Battle of Britain:
The Chain Home Tower in Great Baddow Chelmsford, a key part of Britain’s air defence network.
Photo by Stuart166axe via Wikimedia Commons.
The Battle of Britain was a lopsided affair. One side was much stronger and more modern, with advanced integrated detection technologies, superior logistics and intelligence, excellent fighter control, and much better production facilities churning out far more of the most important equipment.
The other side was plucky, flying from considerably less developed facilities, operating under severe handicaps in intelligence and flying time over the battle area, lacking the proper technology to achieve anything like what it wanted, and with a severely underutilized industrial base.
The stronger side was Great Britain and the plucky underdogs were the Germans.
The Battle of Britain was always one that the Germans were bound to lose quickly and disastrously. The key phase only lasted a few weeks during which German losses became unsustainably high and the Luftwaffe had to resort to the completely ineffective, if dramatic seeming, night time bombing of London and other British cities.
When the Battle of Britain entered this Blitz stage in early September, it was an admission by the Germans that they could not fly in the day over the UK and survive, and therefore they had no chance of actually damaging anything meaningfully in the UK.
Unfortunately this realistic vision of the Battle of Britain makes for both bad movies and bad politics, and for that reason a different vision has come down to us — that of plucky little Britain, relying on “the few” to defend itself against the mass power of the Luftwaffe and Nazi Germany.
This myth — partly witting, partly not — started to be created even before the Battle of Britain actually reached its climax, and it became such a useful one that it has persisted to today. Winston Churchill’s famous speech that “never has so much been owed by so many to so few” was given on August 20, 1940, though the Battle of Britain did not reach its highpoint until the two weeks between August 24 and September 6.
In that sense Churchill’s stirring phrase was a prophecy not a proper analysis — and it was a prophecy based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how strong the Luftwaffe and Germany were at the time. Churchill thought the Luftwaffe was twice as strong as it really was and that Germany was producing twice as many aircraft as it actually was. He believed that Britain had to rely on the few. It just wasn’t true.
Britain won the Battle of Britain because it was more powerful than Nazi Germany in the key areas the battle tested and because Britain was not standing alone, but fighting with a world-wide network of assets that meant it was never going to lose.
The Germans had one advantage going into the battle — the number of aircraft on hand (though the numbers of deployable German fighters was only a little higher than that of the RAF). However even this numerical advantage was partly irrelevant as German bombers, small, slow two-engine machines such as the HE-111 and DO-17, were inadequate to the task and the famous Stuka dive-bombers, even slower and more primitive, were more dangerous for their crews to fly than they ever were to the British being bombed by them.
In response the RAF had radar, which could see the Germans coming and give the RAF time to prepare, could fly for far longer over the Battle areas from its bases in southern England than the Germans could fly from their bases in France, and could rescue the majority of its pilots show down while the Germans lost theirs that survived to British prisoner of war camps.
October 29, 2021
Lying About the Jews in Film – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 28 Oct 2021How do you convince your people to hate and fear their neighbors, to support a genocidal war of aggression, and see you as their only hope? If you are Adolf Hitler or Joseph Goebbels, the answer is simple: you send them to the cinema.
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The Last Imperial Army Surrenders at Metz – Battle of Le Bourget 1870
Real Time History
Published 28 Oct 2021Much of the remaining French hope to stem the tide against the German armies comes from the more than 200,000 professional troops trapped in Metz since August. French Marshal Bazaine tries to negotiate with the Germans and even offers to march against the French republic. But to no avail.
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https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Die Geschichte des Deutsch-Französischen Krieges erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018Gouttman, Alain: La grande défaite de 1870-1871. Paris 2015
Milza, Pierre: L’année terrible. Paris 2009
» SOURCES
Braun, Lily (Hrsg.): Kriegsbriefe aus den Jahren 1870/71 von Hans v. Kretschman. Berlin 1911Crombrugghe, Ida de: Journal d’une infirmière. Paris 1871
Engels, Friedrich: Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg. Sechzig Artikel aus der “Pall Mall Gazette”. Berlin (Ost) 1957
Fontane, Theodor: Der Krieg gegen Frankreich. Bd. 3. Berlin 1873–1876
Großer Generalstab (Hrsg.): Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg, 1870–71. Bd. 1–3. Berlin 1874 ff.
Historischer Verein der Höhen von Spicheren des 67. Kaiserlichen Linienregiments der Infaterie (Hrsg.): Das Kriegstagebuch von Clovis Hardy. Soldat im 63. Linienregiment. Deutsch-Französischer Krieg 1870/71. Vom Lager in Châlons bis nach Ansbach in Bayern. O.O. [Esvres] O.J. [2011]
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
Sternegg, Johann Khoss von: Schlachtenatlas des XIX. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig 1886
Steenackers, François-Frédéric: Histoire du gouvernement de la défense nationale en province, 4 septembre 1870-8 février 1871. Band 2. Paris o.J. (1884-1885)
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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 ArandChannel Design: Battlefield Design
Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021
October 24, 2021
Showdown at El Alamein – WW2 – 165 – October 23, 1942
World War Two
Published 23 Oct 2021Could this be the beginning of the big break in North Africa? The Allies have the men, the armor, and the fuel … they just have to deal with the Axis minefields to try and get started. And the Axis are throwing ever more men at Stalingrad as the Soviets grimly hold on. Another roller coaster of a week.
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October 23, 2021
French Guerrilla War & German Retaliation during the Franco-Prussian War 1870
Real Time History
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The French increasing reliance on franc-tireurs, guerrilla style fighters, is causing brutal German retaliation and a spiral of violence in the fall phase of the Franco-Prussian War.
Special thanks goes out to Quentin Censier from Sur le Champ. Check out his Channel: https://www.youtube.com/surlechamp
» THANK YOU TO OUR CO-PRODUCERS
John Ozment
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Scott Deederly
John Belland
Adam Smith
Taylor Allen
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Rustem Sharipov» OUR PODCAST
https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Die Geschichte des Deutsch-Französischen Krieges erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018Keegan, John: Die Kultur des Krieges. Berlin 1995
Neitzel, Sönke/Hohrath, Daniel (Hrsg.): Kriegsgreuel. Die Entgrenzung der Gewalt in kriegerischen Konflikten vom Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert. Paderborn, München 2008
Roth, François: La Guerre de 1870. Paris 1990
» SOURCES
Busch, Moritz: Graf Bismarck und seine Leute während des Krieges mit Frankreich. Bd. I. Berlin 1878Chuquet, Arthur: La Guerre 1870-71. Paris 1895
Engels, Friedrich: Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg. Sechzig Artikel aus der “Pall Mall Gazette”. Berlin (Ost) 1957
Fontane, Theodor: Kriegsgefangen. Erlebtes 1870. Briefe 1870/71. Berlin (Ost) 1984
Kriegsgeschichtliche Abteilung des Großen Generalstabs (Hrsg.): Der deutsch-französische Krieg 1870-71. II.1 Berlin 1878
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
Roux, Georges: La Guerre de 1870. Paris 1966
Sarrepont, Major H. de (i.e. Eugène Hennebert): Histoire de la défense de Paris en 1870-1871. Paris 1872
Zeitz, Karl: Kriegserinnerungen eines Feldzugsfreiwilligen aus den Jahren 1870 und 1871. Altenburg 1905
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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 ArandChannel Design: Battlefield Design
Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021
October 17, 2021
Stalingrad, Stalingrad, Stalingrad, No Retreat! – WW2 – 164 – October 16, 1942
World War Two
Published 16 Oct 2021The Americans win a naval victory off Guadalcanal and even manage to reinforce the Marines there with the first Army units to arrive, but as the week ends the Japanese launch a major offensive on the island. Meanwhile far across the globe, Adolf Hitler orders that all German offensive operations except those at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus cease. There is plenty to do in Stalingrad, though, because this week all hell breaks loose there.
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