German troops pour into Bulgaria as they join the Axis alliance, while British troops enter Greece in anticipation of a German attack. Meanwhile, the British celebrate victories in East-Africa and on the Atlantic.
Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)
Sources:
– Bundesarchiv
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– IWM: TR 1762, CM 187, MH 27178, E 2370, E 2380, K 284, E 2376, E 1384, E 2383, E 3245, E 2001, E 2393
– Moscow icon by Graphic Tigers, film icon by Fernando Vasconcelos, oil barrel icon by Musmellow, from the Noun Project
– Slide projector sound by hpebley3 from Freesound.org
In this episode of Out of the Foxholes, we answer some community questions on what August von Mackensen did in World War Two, if there was a shortage on French wines and what the Axis’ perception of the Monroe Doctrine was.
Sources:
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
IWM F 3551
Library of Congress
Wine Bottles by Ivan from the Noun Project
Spider by Sneha from the Noun Project
Spider Web by Valerie Lamm from the Noun Project
Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Trabant 33 – “When in Bavaria”
Philip Ayers – “Trapped in Maze”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector”
Under the yoke of economic depression and more and more authoritarian rulers, Western women face renewed misogyny, patriarchy, and decreasing independence. But not all women think this is such a bad thing.
Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “Sophisticated Gentlemen” – Golden Age Radio
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Magnificent March 3” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Last Point of Safe Return” – Fabien Tell
– “Step On It 5” – Magnus Ringblom
– “First Responders” – Skrya
– “Step Lightly” – Farrell Wooten
– “Try and Catch Us Now” – David Celeste
– “Not Safe Yet” – Gunnar Johnsen
– “The Dominion” – Bonnie Grace
– “The Charleston 3” – Håkan Eriksson
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
TimeGhost History
2 days ago (edited)
So, we take a little break from the geopolitical developments in 1938 to look at the situation of women in the Western World in 1938. We’ve received a lot of requests on the WW2 channel to cover the situation on the home fronts. While we do mention it in the weekly episodes, and War Against Humanity covers the horrid parts of it, WWII was so much more. It literally changed the world’s culture in just six years. To do that subject justice we have asked Anna to join us as host for a new monthly WW2 series: On the Homefront.
A few years back Anna was a regular feature on German YouTube on her own channel and some of the bigger YouTube entertainment channels. She left YouTube to finish her studies, and because she was searching for more depth than YT entertainment content was offering her. As Astrid’s and my daughter, and having grown up with Indy around all the time, she has a passion for human history form childhood, especially cultural history.
She also has a personal relationship to this time through her grandparents, Herbert and Renate, Astrid’s parents who served in Germany during the war, on the front and at home. Herbert, a career administrator and later NCO in the Wehrmacht engineer corps, went on after the war to work for the British as translator, and then as a public servant supporting the creation of the Bundeswehr, the German defense forces, and eventually Germany’s contribution as NATO member.
Renate’s father, a bank director, died under mysterious circumstance in 1936 after repeatedly refusing to pay out money belonging to Jewish families to the Nazis. Her mother and sisters soldiered on under the Nazis as best they could, When the war broke out they first suffered under the Allied bombing, losing their home three times. When the bombing became a daily occurrence, Renate was drafted to the German flak and only barely survived the war.
Several years after the war Herbert and Renate met and started a family together. They both passed away only a few years ago, late enough so that Anna had a chance to spend countless hours over 23 years listening to their war stories, and what they took away from it: hope for a better world, and the knowledge that what happened in Germany between 1933 and 1945, must never happen again. Please join us to welcome Anna, our daughter to TimeGhost.
Spartacus
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Antony Beevor’s book Arnhem is good — but it contains a flawed argument. So flawed, that there’s a ton of counter evidence that shows it doesn’t work. Here, I will explain the events of the Nijmegen battle, what Beevor’s incorrect statement is, why he has to say it like he did, and how he could have done things differently.
Check out the pinned comment below for more information, notes, links, and sources.
Don’t forget to subscribe if you like history or gaming! And hit the little bell icon to be notified when videos like this are uploaded.
Brereton, L. The Brereton Diaries: The War in the Air in the Pacific, Middle East and Europe, 3 October 1941-8 May 1945. Kindle, 2014.
Frost, J. A Drop Too Many. Kindle, 2009.
Hastings, M. Armageddon. Pan Books, 2004.
Robert J. Kershaw, It Never Snows in September. Ian Allan Publishing, 2007.
Mead, R. General Boy: The Life of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Browning. Kindle, 2010.
Middlebrook, M. Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-29 September. 2009.
Neillands, R. The Battle for the Rhine 1944. Kindle, 2014.
Poulussen, R.G. Lost at Nijmegen. Kindle, 2011.
Ryan, C. A Bridge Too Far. Kindle, 1974
Urquhart, R. Arnhem. Kindle, 1958.
Sosabowski, S. Freely I Served. Kindle, 1982.
There is no more evocative phrase to emerge from World War II than Afrika Korps. The name conjures up a unique theater of war, a hauntingly beautiful empty quarter where armies could roam free, liberated from towns and hills, choke points and blocking positions, and especially those pesky civilians. It calls forth a war of near-absolute mobility, where tanks could operate very much like ships at sea, “sailing” where they wished, setting out on bold voyages hundreds of miles into the deep desert, then looping around the enemy flank and emerging like pirates of old to deal devastating blows to an unsuspecting foe. Finally, it implies a bold hero, in this case Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, a noble commander who fought the good fight, who hated Hitler and everything he stood for, and who couldn’t have been farther away from our stereotyped image of the Nazi fanatic. Everything about him attracts us — the manly poses, the out-of-central-casting good looks, even the goggles perched just so. Placing Rommel and his elite Afrika Korps to the fore allows us to view the desert war as a clean fight against a morally worthy opponent. It was war, yes, but almost uniquely in World War II, it was a “war without hate.”
It’s an attractive image all around, and it is unfortunate that practically all of it is false. The desert was hardly a haven of beauty or romance. It was a pain, and fighting in it was a nightmare for both sides. Far from letting the respective tank fleets roam free, the desert chained them irresistibly to their supply lines, and a single failed supply convoy or a lost column of trucks could stop an entire offensive dead in its tracks. Contrary to the alleged mobility of desert warfare, both sides would spend far more time in static defensive positions, often quite elaborate, then they would launching tank charges.
That leaves us with Rommel. Here, too, we should challenge the mythology. He was hardly apolitical. His entire career had been based on Hitler’s favor, and we might reasonably describe his attitude toward the Führer as worshipful. He was Hitler’s fair-haired boy, a young officer repeatedly promoted over more senior candidates. He was a media creation. Nazi propaganda painted him not only as a garden-variety hero, but as a model National Socialist and Aryan, a man who could overcome stronger enemies through the sheer force of his will. He was not merely a passive bystander to the hype; he was an active accomplice. He loved nothing better than having a camera crew along with him on campaign, and he would regularly order scenes to be reshot if his posture was insufficiently heroic or the lighting had not shown him to best advantage. As is often the case, his relationship to the media was both self-serving and self-destructive. During the years of victory, the German propaganda machine used him as an example to the nation. When things went sour, he became a diversion from the increasingly bad news on other fronts. Finally, when he was no longer useful for any purpose at all, the regime dropped him altogether and eventually killed him.
Parts of the British forces in North-Africa are being send to Greece to strengthen the Allied position there. While the remaining British plan for the near future, others make huge advances in East-Africa and Hitler plans his attack on Greece through Bulgaria.
Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Mikołaj Cackowski
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)
Additional animation: Ryan Weatherby
Sources:
IWM: E 2386, E 2372, E 2368, E 2388, E 450, E 1579, FL 10025
National Portrait Gallery
Letter by Mochammad Kafi from the Noun Project
Mil.ru
BASA (3K-15- 84-2, 3K-7-436-41)
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
Museum of Science and Technology Belgrade
Dissatisfied with the new German Republic and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, parts of the new Reichswehr and the paramilitary Freikorps decide to take matters into their own hands. The Marinebrigade Ehrhardt marches on Berlin to topple the government: It’s the Kapp Putsch.
» SOURCES
Grevelhörster, Ludwig: Kleine Geschichte der Weimarer Republik. 1918-1933. Ein
problemgeschichtlicher Überblick, 2000.
Haffner, Sebastian: Die Deutsche Revolution 1918/1919. 2010.
Heiden, Konrad: Adolf Hitler: Das Zeitalter der Verantwortungslosigkeit. Ein Mann gegen
Europa, 2016.
Kotowski, Georg (Hrsg.): Historisches Lesebuch. 1914-1933, 1968.
Möller, Horst: Die Weimarer Republik. Demokratie in der Krise, 2018.
Pöppinghege, Rainer: Republik im Bürgerkrieg. Kapp-Putsch und Gegenbewegung an Ruhr
und Lippe 1919/1920, 2019.
Stackelberg, Roderick & Winkle, Sally (Ed.), The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts, (Florence : Taylor and Francis, 2003)
Ulrich, Volker: Adolf Hitler. Band 1: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs 1889-1939. 2013.
Sturm, Reinhard (2011). “Weimarer Republik, Informationen zur politischen Bildung”. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.
»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Mark Newton
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Markus Linke
Fact checking: Florian Wittig
Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold
A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel
Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2020
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In the most recent Age of Invention newsletter, Anton Howes outlines the rocky investment history for German mining firms in England during the Tudor period:
Cropped image of a Hans Holbein the Younger portrait of King Henry VIII at Petworth House. Photo by Hans Bernhard via Wikimedia Commons.
It’s an especially interesting case of England’s technological backwardness, given that copper was a material of major strategic importance: a necessary ingredient for the casting of bronze cannon. And it was useful for other industries, especially when mixed with zinc to form brass. Brass was the material of choice for accurate navigational instruments, as well as for ordinary pots and kettles. Most importantly, brass wire was needed for wool cards, used to straighten the fibres ready for spinning into thread. A cheaper and more secure supply of copper might thus potentially make England’s principal export, woollen cloth, even more competitive — if only the English could also work out how to produce brass.
The opportunity to introduce a copper industry appeared in 1560, when German bankers became involved in restoring the gold and silver content of England’s currency. The expensive wars of Henry VIII and Edward VI in the 1540s had prompted debasements of the coinage, to the short-term benefit of the crown, but to the long-term cost of both crown and country. By the end of Henry VIII’s reign, the ostensibly silver coins were actually mostly made of copper (as the coins were used, Henry’s nose on the faces of the coins wore down, revealing the base metal underneath and earning him the nickname Old Coppernose). The debased money continued to circulate for over a decade, driving the good money out of circulation. People preferred to hoard the higher-value currency, to send it abroad to pay for imports, or even to melt it down for the bullion. The weakness of the pound was an especial problem for Thomas Gresham, Queen Elizabeth’s financier, in that government loans from bankers in London and Antwerp had to be repaid in currency that was assessed for its gold and silver content, rather than its face value. Ever short of cash, the government was constantly resorting to such loans, made more expensive by the lack of bullion.
Restoring the currency — calling in the debased coins, melting them down, and then re-minting them at a higher fineness — required expertise that the English did not have. From France, the mint hired Eloy Mestrelle to strike the new coins by machine rather than by hand. (He was likely available because the French authorities suspected him of counterfeiting — the first mention of him in English records is a pardon for forgery, a habit that apparently died hard as he was eventually hanged for the offence). And to do the refining, Gresham hired German metallurgists: Johannes Loner and Daniel Ulstätt got the job, taking payment in the form of the copper they extracted from the debased coinage (along with a little of the silver). It turned out to be a dangerous assignment: some of the copper may have been mixed with arsenic, which was released in fumes during the refining process, thus poisoning the workers. They were prescribed milk, to be drunk from human skulls, for which the government even gave permission to use the traitors’ heads that were displayed on spikes on London Bridge — but to little avail, unfortunately, as some of them still died.
Loner and Ulstätt’s payment in copper appears to be no accident. They were agents of the Augsburg banking firm of Haug, Langnauer and Company, who controlled the major copper mines in Tirol. Having obtained the English government as a client, they now proposed the creation of English copper mines. They saw a chance to use England as a source of cheap copper, with which they could supply the German brass industry. It turns out that the tale of the multinational firm seeking to take advantage of a developing country for its raw materials is an extremely old one: in the 1560s, the developing country was England.
Yet the investment did not quite go according to plan. Although the Germans possessed all of the metallurgical expertise, the English insisted that the endeavour be organised on their own terms: the Company of Mines Royal. Only a third of the company’s twenty-four shares were to be held by the Germans, with the rest purchased by England’s political and mercantile elite: people like William Cecil (the Secretary of State) and the Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley (the Queen’s crush). It was an attractive investment, protected from competition by a patent monopoly for mines of gold, silver, copper, and mercury in many of the relevant counties, as well as a life-time exemption for the investors from all taxes raised by parliament (in those days, parliament was pretty much only assembled to legitimise the raising of new taxes).
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Tanks! What a terrible and frightening sight they must have been for the Germans, the first time they had appeared on the battlefield at the Somme in 1916. The tanks were the product of many different ideas and prototypes, that all sought to overcome the perils of the modern battlefield — the machine gun, the bombed out ground and the barbed wire. The British Mark I tank would crush those obstacles through its sheer weight and begin a new age of mechanized warfare!
Sources:
– Bundesarchiv
– Bibliothèque nationale de France
– Library and Archives Canada
– National Library of Scotland
– Australian War Museum
– National Army Museum
– IWM: Q 53204, Q 115391, Q 1419, Q 78121, Q 72864, HU 55578, Q 14496, Q 14495, Q 2487, Q 2486, Q 5574, Q 52, Q 43463, Q 3565, Q 3542, Q 5578, Q 80026, Q 68975
– IWM ART: REPRO 000684 7
– Sound of tracktor engine by viertelnachvier, tank sound by nicstage, from freesound.org
An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.
With the increasing aggression of Italy, Japan, and Germany in the 1930s, the League of Nations is becoming increasingly ineffective in regulating international disputes. Britain and France adopt a diplomatic strategy of appeasement to hold off all-out war and buy some crucial time. But will it work, and can Adolf Hitler’s territorial ambitions be contained?
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Francis van Berkel and Spartacus Olsson
Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Tom Meaden, Izzy Wilson, and Francis van Berkel
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Sources:
Bundesarchiv_Bild:
102-08806, 102-08810, 102-09042,
119-5243, 146-1970-052-24, 146-1985-108-27A,
183-1987-0922-500, 183-R03618,
Photo from color by klimbim.
Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Last Point of Safe Return” – Fabien Tell
– “Split Decision” – Rannar Sillard
– “Death And Glory 1” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Guilty Shadows 4” – Andreas Jamsheree
– “Disciples of Sun Tzu” – Christian Andersen
– “First Responders” – Skrya
– “Easy Target” – Rannar Sillard
– “Death And Glory 3” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “The Charleston 3” – Håkan Eriksson
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
TimeGhost History
2 days ago (edited)
Hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy to look back at Anglo-French foreign policy in the 1930s and be shocked at how many mistakes politicians like Neville Chamberlain could make. This video will probably only add to that judgement, it more or less charts all the times Hitler could have been stopped but wasn’t. But put yourself in the context of the time. Memories of the Great War are only twenty years ago old, and the public has no appetite for another massive conflict. The global economy is only just showing signs of recovery after the Great Depression, and Britain and France barely have the industrial capacity to fight a modern war. So, imagine you’re Chamberlain (or any other politician of the time), are you really going to commit your country to war over a territorial disagreement between Germany and Czechoslovakia? The invasion of Poland in September 1939 shows that appeasement was a mistake. But maybe it was an understandable one? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Cheers,
Francis.
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This video is sponsored by Paradox Interactive. Indy shares his thoughts on what he thinks would have happened if the French would have decided to meddle in the Spanish Civil War – triggering a Civil War.
Hearts of Iron IV: La Résistance is now available! You can play Hearts of Iron IV for free until next Sunday, the 1st of March! Discover it here: https://pdxint.at/39Re5ld
The US first tested the Luger in 1901, and it seemed potentially good enough that the government spent $15,000 to buy 1,000 of the pistols (in 7.65mm Luger; the only cartridge available at the time) for field trials. The trials resulted in a variety of complaints, but particular among them was a dislike for the small caliber. In response, Georg Luger necked the 7.65mm round up to 9mm, and the US would be the first to trial the new model. After presenting 3 samples in 1903, Luger made a deal to swap 50 of the American 7.65mm pistols for 50 new 9mm ones. The US also specified that new guns had to be fitted with a cartridge counter grip system designed by one Graham Powell. The resulting guns (s/n 22401-22450) were delivered in April of 1904.
American testing did not find the 9mm much more satisfactory than the old 7.65mm, however. At the same time, the Thompson-La Garde tests of terminal ballistics were concluding that a new service pistol should be no less than .45 caliber. Luger would make one last effort to interest the US in 9mm with a duplex load in 1906, but this would also fail. Instead, he would redesign the Luger for .45 ACP and enter that in the US 1907 pistol trials.
As the British make spectacular advances in East-Africa, with even more spectacular advances on the horizon, South-Eastern Europe is getting increasingly tense.
Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)
Sources:
– Bundesarchiv
– Library of Congress
– IWM: E 6661
– National Library of Australia
– National Portrait Gallery
– Letter by Mochammad Kafi, post icon by Bonegolemfrom, from the Noun Project
– Photot of Goethe Medal by Mondfreund from Wikimedia Commons
– Eirik Sundvor, The Municipal Archives of Trondheim
The Nazi economy appears to do well during the 1930s. But this is largely myth, as the German economy under Hitler is based on a self destructive, ideologically or selfishly fuelled irrationality driven by conquest and criminal practice.
Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “Document This 1” – Peter Sandberg
– “March Of The Brave 10” – Rannar Sillard – Test
– “Ominous” – Philip Ayers
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Disciples of Sun Tzu” – Christian Andersen
– “Guilty Shadows 4” – Andreas Jamsheree
– “Last Point of Safe Return” – Fabien Tell
– “Death And Glory 1” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Easy Target” – Rannar Sillard
– “Split Decision” – Rannar Sillard
– “First Responders” – Skrya
– “The Charleston 3” – Håkan Eriksson
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
Spartacus Olsson
1 day ago
From an intellectual viewpoint, this is perhaps the most challenging episode I have written in this series. First of all it’s hard to make economic policy interesting, even when it’s about the Nazis. It tends to get, well … grey. Second of all it’s not that easy to simplify things without completely losing the essence of what was going on. Third of all, I’m fighting an uphill battle against a post truth, political talking point based on … let’s just call it less than ingenious purposes.
Obviously that’s the idea that the Nazis were Socialists. And perhaps that is not so far fetched when you think of the name of their party, the way they framed their anti-semitic rhetoric in a way that it would sound friendly to the working class, and their absolute disregard for telling the truth about anything, and everything. But although we have painstakingly showed you the facts, I am painfully aware that it won’t make a difference to stop the nonsense out there and in here — some pundits will religiously stick to their ideas, because if they don’t, they might have to face that some of the ideas they have are mutual with the people they so desperately want to distance themselves from. The same happened with the far left between the 1930s and 1970s, when they tried with cramped desperation to frame Stalinism as a right wing, Fascist movement — Red Fascism was the term — obviously as much nonsense as the alt-right idea that Naziism is Socialism.
And is it important? Well yes and no — the dumbos will probably get worn out at some point, it’s after all quite challenging to look for ways to distort the record over, and over again. I don’t really care if the extremists try to push their mutual garbage in each other’s lap — as a supporter of democracy and humanism, I have no regard for either end. I do however have an incredible amount of respect for conservatives, liberals, and progressives who are equally dedicated to democracy and human rights — and there is where it matters.
When the far left tries to frame Stalinism as right wing, and the far-right tries to frame Naziism is left-wing, they are trying to co-opt a position of less extremism. It’s an invasive attempt for Communists and (real) Socialists to just look like regular Progressives, and Fascists and Nazis to just look like regular Conservatives. And that my friends is dangerous, to all of us, regardless of our nationality, creed, political affiliation, or opinion — because it is specifically our individual rights and democracy that is at stake in this game. That’s what they want to take away, or in some places stop from developing.
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The perk for $100 Patrons is choosing a gun they would like me to find and film, and one such Patron (Mark) expressed a curiosity about US testing and lack of adoption of an MG-42 in .30-06 caliber. So, today we will discuss that (the trials gun was designated the T24) as well as why it took so long for the FN MAG to be developed and adopted.
