The Great War
Published on 18 Aug 2018Next to the Chair of Wisdom, Indy Neidell talks about how the German Army dealt with recruits from Alsace-Lorraine and how Elsa Brändström became the Angel of Siberia to many prisoners of war.
August 19, 2018
Recruits from Alsace – Angel of Siberia I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
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January 14, 2018
POWs in Japan – Great War Remembrance – Marasesti I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 13 Jan 2018Ask your questions here: http://outofthetrenches.thegreatwar.tv
In today’s episode, Indy answers questions about the state of the prisoner of war camps in Japan, the ways in which WW1 is remembered in Germany and the food shortages in the Ottoman Empire, plus he takes a closer look at the Battle of Marasesti.
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July 4, 2017
A Bit of Fry & Laurie – Nazi sketch
Published on 25 Apr 2007
Nazi Sketch
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April 22, 2017
Flamethrower Units – Handling of Prisoners – Artillery Fuses I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
Published on 22 Apr 2017
In this week’s episode, Indy talks about flamethrower units, the handling of war prisoners and different types of artillery fuses.
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March 12, 2017
Camouflage Patterns – Funerary Practices – Prisoner Exchange I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
Published on 11 Mar 2017
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May 11, 2016
Prisoners of War During World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
Published on 9 May 2016
Millions of men were captured during World War 1 and most of them spent years in prison camps as pawns of the nation that captured them. However, their experience was a taboo in the post war society. We take a look at the hardships of being a prisoner and how the world powers used the POWs as leverage.
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March 20, 2016
Germans in the US – Talerhof Internment Camp I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
Published on 19 Mar 2016
It’s chair of wisdom time again and this week Indy talks about German immigrants in the United States, the Austrian Talerhof internment camp and German East Africa.
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March 24, 2014
The Great Escape (with bonus Canadian content)
It was 70 years ago today that the “Great Escape” from Stalag Luft III took place:
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July 28, 2012
“Beevor’s book stinks”
Yes, the headline is taken out of context. Here’s the context:
Granted, we already knew that World War II was brutal. What, then, can Beevor add to this horridly familiar tale? Or, stated differently, do we need another history of that war? Yes, we do. While the war itself remains a constant, the way it is viewed evolves according to changing moral perceptions. In late 1945, for instance, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal decided to suppress evidence of cannibalism in order not to traumatize the families of soldiers who died in Japanese prison camps. Beevor thinks that this once-taboo story needs now to be told. He’s probably right. His skill lies in telling it without descending into gratuitous horror.
The challenge that confronts historians is how to convey the immensity of total war without losing sight of singular torment. Too often, the grandeur of great battles smothers the suffering of the individual. Soldiers become battalions that attack on faceless flanks. “One death is a tragedy,” Stalin famously remarked. “A million deaths a statistic.” In the grand narrative, human beings disappear. War is thus sanitized; Stalingrad and Normandy are re-created without the detail of men and women screaming in agony. That is how some readers like it — war without the carnage and putrefaction, without the dismembered limbs and torn faces.
But that is chess, not war. Good military history should stink of blood, feces and fear. Beevor’s book stinks. It reconstructs the great battles but weaves in hundreds of tiny instances of immense suffering. War is presented on its most personal level. We learn not only of the vanity of Gen. Mark Clark, the cruelty of Gen. George Patton and the stupidity of Gen. Maurice Gamelin, but also of the terrible misery endured by what the poet Charles Hamilton Sorley once called “the millions of mouthless dead.” Very few heroes emerge, because heroes are too often cardboard constructs. Detail adds nuance and dimension, clouding characteristics worthy of worship. “Say not soft things as other men have said,” warned Sorley to those who wanted to remember war. Beevor constructs a true picture by avoiding soft things. The book brims with horror, but so it should.
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July 11, 2012
Antony Beevor’s latest book
In History Today, Roger Moorhouse talks to Antony Beevor on his latest booK:
I asked what novelties of approach or new material he employed for the book? Did he, for instance, set out to try to draw the two traditionally distinct narratives of the war in the Pacific and the war in Europe into a single integral whole? Though he does make a nod in that direction, Beevor believes that such an approach is not really feasible, adding that the war in the Pacific was ‘almost like a war on another planet’, such was its separation from events in Europe. ‘I was fascinated,’ he went on, ‘by the reaction of the US Marines on Okinawa when they heard about the surrender of Germany. It was “Who cares?” For them it was impossible to imagine, just as it was impossible for the people fighting in the snows of Russia to imagine war in the Pacific Islands.’
If the approach is largely conventional, the book does not lack new information. Russian sources are still yielding fascinating material, he notes, despite political retrenchment, while German scholarship is throwing up new approaches and new resources, such as the archive of Feldpostbriefe (soldiers ‘field post’ letters) in Stuttgart. Beevor’s most interesting revelation, however, is the horrific contention that the Japanese army practised organised cannibalism. As he explains: ‘Allied prisoners, especially Indian army prisoners, were kept as sort of human cattle and slaughtered one by one for their meat.’ News of such crimes was largely suppressed after the war, as it was considered ‘too awful even to be mentioned in the war crimes trials’, but has since been brought to light by Japanese historians.
[. . .]
Of course the heart of Beevor’s appeal is precisely that straightforward narrative approach, coupled with his lively, engaging style and his use of memorable, almost cinematic, set-pieces. I put it to him that, in tackling a book of this scope, perhaps he had been obliged to rein in some of those literary flourishes. ‘You are right,’ he conceded. ‘There is so much more to tell and there is much less room for the vignette, but it is still terribly important, serving to root the reader in the reality of the moment.’ He is swift to acknowledge a debt to John Keegan in this regard, under whom he studied at Sandhurst and whose The Face of Battle (1976) was hugely influential. ‘It is absolutely vital to give the reader a frequent reminder of what it was actually like, the view from below, otherwise it’s just history from above, which never really works.’
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March 27, 2012
The first “home run” from the Colditz POW camp
BBC News has an interesting bit of history about the first successful escape from the “escape-proof” prisoner-of-war camp at Colditz:
Forged papers used by a British escapee from Colditz to make one of the first “home runs” back to the UK from the notorious German prisoner-of-war camp are being sold along with his medals. The tale of his ingenuity and success has become the stuff of World War II legend.
Perched high on a rocky outcrop overlooking the River Mulde near Leipzig, eastern Germany, Colditz castle was considered by German authorities in WWII the ideal site for a high-security prison for allied officers with a history of trying to escape.
But despite its “escape proof” label, the Gothic building witnessed 174 attempts by its troublesome, spirited inmates.
Nevertheless, just 32 men were ever successful — and only half of these managed the feat from within the castle.
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