We can't even post our rules of conduct anymore because the RUclips bot keeps deleting them. Read them here community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518 and do read them before you comment anything that you might even suspect might break the rules:
@@zhshsG7 In my experience (commenting on videos discussing WWII and history), if you post anything containing the 4-letter word that starts with an 'N' and rhymes with paparazzi then YT will delete your comment.
They were also wrong on a million other accounts. They probably had only very vague understanding of the war with the Soviet Union. It's like each time you hang out with the guys for some beer and discuss politics, someone will always claim that whatever's happening now is going to get a hell lot worse in the nearest future. That's not because he's so prescient or anything but just because we like to give pessimistic opinions (people tend to listen to them more).
@@jackapgar5824 i would say it depends on situation, if it's perceived as good, optimism bias, if bad - pessimism bias. Like now in Covid-19 crisis, there's a ton of pessimism bias I think, well maybe not now but in late March, early April definitely there were. You could see it in February when the virus was still just in China ''Ah it will never come to us, we're safe, let China deal with it''. In March when all the lockdowns started it was ''OMG we're all going to die''. Even day by day looking at the nr. of new cases where I live, one day when there are very few cases people go ''stupid government, all restrictions should be lifted, it's fine now!'' and the next when there's suddenly a ton of cases same people scream for more restrictions
Big respect for those Lithuanian civilians who were murdered for refusing to bury people alive. Absolutely despicable what they were ordered to do and it doubtlessly would have haunted them forever if they had gone through with it. Very brave souls.
In a world gone mad and being easier to keep your head down and just do what is necessary, , THANK YOU for those who died doing what they knew was right. Your name might not be known but your courage will never be forgotten!
At a time when so many millions of people "just followed orders" and lost any sense of morality, it's a pretty big victory for some random people from Lithuania to rise above and say no to one of the most murderous and ruthless totalitarian regimes in history.
The German army of summer 1941 conquered so much territory that it took three full years for the Soviets to recapture it. These German generals were debating “First World (military) Problems”. Logically, they had four key, potential objective: Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and the Baku oil fields/Azov. Moscow was the capital and key transportation and communications hub, Leningrad was the spiritual home of the Bolsheviks and link to the Allied convoy port of Murmansk. Kiev was the capital of one of the world’s foremost granaries. Azov had (and has) huge oil reserves. In the end, Hitler and The Germans captured one of four.
Samuel...I actually miss those, as I do casettes and music recorded on "magnetophone" reels (you know the machines) AND I'm not 60 or older.(just grew up with them in a former Communist country - we never got the latest "Capitalist filth").
All those telephones are probably meant to represent Stalin's famous Vetch and his Bodo. (Weird telephones that the Soviets had that were supposed to be immune to wiretapping or eavesdropping)
This goes against the myth we were taught that the Germans ran rampant in the Soviet union until General Winter stopped them. The beginning of Barbarossa was a wasteful, devastating experience for the German army.
That panzer division losing 70 tanks or nearly half its armoured strength just a month into Barbarossa is revealing. The Ghost Division formerly commanded by Rommel but now in Barbarossa will lose nearly all its tanks by early 1942, but its main losses will come later in the year.
"Le Russian Winter XD" was always meant to convey German superiority to the 'Asiatic hordes.' "Those slavs can't be superior to us Ubermensch, it was the weather that won the war!"
@@BenjoKazooie64 Yes, after the war the German generals (Halder & co.) under the auspices of the US Army, got to write the history of the German army in WWII. Their lies ended up in the history books, in the World at War, and in every History Channel documentary on the subject.
Now - especially now - the week by week format gives such great detail. We have read about Operation Barbarossa countless times, but that is all summarized with hindsight. This channel gives us a peak in how things were at that point in time. Keep up the great work!
This format works so well as a way to get an idea for how the war was going as it was actually happening, not just as one big blob of events where stuff gets all blended together. I love that they give us so much information about what the generals and political leaders were thinking at the time it was happening. Most historical accounts are told with the benefit of foresight, this works so much better :)
+1 agree... This format promotes first person pov understanding. You get a feel of what the actors in all this were thinking at the time and drove their decisions without hindsight.
the opening seems like an ode to Hogen's Heroes when Col. Klink has multiple radios on his desk trying to coordinate the search for one of the "escaped prisoners"
5:40: The disagreement between Hitler and Halder was far more complicated than just "Hitler wanted more land", it was a difference in strategic goals. Hitler believed that it was more important to destroy the Soviet Unions means to wage war. This is why he aimed for the south and north, since the most important ports (Sevastopol, Leningrad, Murmansk etc.) were located there. Ukraine was also the largest food producing region of the USSR, and the caucasus contained 80% of Soviet oil production. In contrast to this Halder believed the USSR would be defeated by capturing Moscow, and thus making Soviet logistics more difficult (Moscow was the largest railway hub). He also believed that capturing the capital would make the Soviets capitulate. Love the show, and best regards Sources: Robert Citino, Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942 David Stahel, Operation barbarossa and Germany's defeat in the east.
Also other generals backed Hitler's idea to go South and it was not the old rethoric "Hitler didn't listen to his generals". Of course if they only complain when Hitler doesn't agree with them, it creates the bias that Hitler didn't listen to his generals.
@@nomcognom2332 They also blamed every mistake the Germans made during the war on Hitler after the war. This created the "Hitler doesn't listen to his generals" myth.
The logistics aspect of the war gets criminally overlooked sometimes. The northern ports for example, you very rarely hear about how important holding Murmansk was to the Soviet war effort. But the Germans felt it was important enough to station troops in Finland (who could have been sent to Moscow instead) and launch Operation Silver Fox to cut it off from the rest of the USSR. That hardly ever gets mentioned as part of Barbarossa, but it was clearly an important strategic goal for the Germans.
@@Raskolnikov70 Oh, yeah, the Operation Silver Fox, where the almighty German-Finnish forces couldn't beat Soviet troops. Pretty much nobody talks about it.
welp, to be honest, you forget the rail network that was needed for German supply was mostly centered around Moscow. Rails in the Ukraine and Caucuses were much less. I don't say you are wrong, but there are other things you need to consider.
I of course hate Hitler but Halder acts like a military genius while absolutely being in the wrong. Securing the wheat of Ukraine, the oil of the Caucasus and the steel of western Russia is far more crucial than taking Moscow. Franz Halder seems to think that if they capture Moscow the Russians will just throw in the towel and go "well we tried" even though there is no reason to think that is how it would work
But even if Germany secures these areas, the soviet scorched earth policies would render them useless for a very significant time. They arealdy had plans for the destruction of the Caucasus oil fields.
@@wagnercarvalho1854 if I remember correctly the Germans did actually capture a major oil producing city in the Caucasus during Fall Blau. Think it might have been Maikop. The Soviets did in fact destroy the oil wells but Germany could fix them fairly quickly and now there's the issue that the Soviets aren't getting that oil. Still Maikop got recaptured a bit after but if they held Maikop, Baku and the other cities for a few months they would have had the upper hand as the terrain is extremely easy to defend
Yeah the wild optimism seen from time to time in the war is another tragedy. That said watching week to week, you can see more of how people could talk themselves into it. But it rarely comes true and many men die as a result. Just another day of war. And I thought TGW documentary was depressing.
Stalin's eldest son Yakov, an artillery lieutenant in the Red Army, was captured near Vitebsk on July 16. The Germans announced it a few days later. SPOILER Yakov Dzhugashvili committed suicide or was killed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943. The exact circumstances of his death have never been clarified.
Accounts vary and not all are credible, but one has him narrowly escaping being shot out of hand after capture because like many Georgians, he had a Mediterranean appearance and for the Germans this spelt "Jew".
@@pawelzybulskij3367 It was his son. He wouldn't have been trading any soldier for a field martial. He would have been trading his son for a field martial.
The Germans invading Russia remind me of myself invading a massive buffet: So many options to feast that I am utterly torn and confused as to where to go next!
@@TribuneAquila To the best of my knowledge I haven't missed a single one since I started. But due to my new job I have been later than usual on some. I'll do my best to never disappoint you again
@@jewiesnew3786 I believe the plan is/was to auction them all, with the proceedings going into making more content. That was part of the reason why I started actually
Sometimes their private diaries are more revealing than the public speeches although diaries were sometimes edited for publication and re-written to an extent.
he was indeed pretty sharp but did have his fair share of blunders. Among other things he had been one of the most vocal proponents of the invasion of Greece, believing it'd be a walk in the park. We all know how that went.
7:07 Ah of course Stalin's new Katyusha toy appears: Stalin's organ. The howling sounds which the Germans will soon get used to it in time, along with the many terrifying nightmares from it of course...
Never fails to amaze me to see weapons that were developed that long ago still being used today. The US Army has the MLRS, aka the "Grid Square Removal System" that does pretty much the same thing as those Katyushas. I've seen what they leave behind and it isn't pretty.
Yeah, they were so scared that the German army surrendered in 1941. Stop.fuckign romanticising war, stop romanticising weapons, stop being stupid! Millions died, but yes, oh, ah, the Germans were scared wow much fear such cries.
Wanted to give major props to Eastory again for his work on the maps for Operation Barbarossa in these videos. It is so hard to know where exactly USSR divisions were at this point in the war because of the limited good sources we have from the Soviet side and going off just the German records also doesn't give us a perfect picture of what was going on since the Germans don't know exactly where each Soviet division is each day. I've said this before but it would be a major help to all of History for Russia to open their archives on WW2 to everyone and not just to the select people they give access to them now. The Russians only give access to their records on WW2 to people who request so and that they approve which leads to very few Western historians to be able to wright books and articles about what happened. So unless you speak Russian and can read the books made by Russians who have seen the records the best sources we in the West have for the Eastern front of WW2 are David Glantz and Jonathan House who had access to the Russian records back in the 90's. The Russian reason to not just make WW2 records public to everyone online is pretty silly I think. They believe it is still a matter of national security to not open the records up to everyone. Yet every other country that fought in WW2 other then Russia and China allow their records from WW2 to be seen by anyone who wants to see them. If I were a Russian citizen I would not want to be in the same group as communist China. I would also want to be able to see what my ancestors did myself in the greatest moment in their countries history.
Even the Soviets didnt know where some of their own troops were. They had to send personnel out to look for them. The steppe is a very large place, and radios didnt have the range we have today.
Bill D. in Iowa yes, how many times in the memoirs of a Soviet General like Zhukov is it mentioned that in 1941, he visited a front HQ only to learn that they didn't know where their own units were? The most competent Soviet generals would then go look for them themselves in their staff car, sometimes getting dangerously close to the German spearhead. Only the brightest and most willing of the Soviet staff could fight the Germans at this point in the war, which is something that I do believe we will see clearly in the upcoming weeks at the battle of Yelnya.
www.bundesarchiv.de/EN/Navigation/Use/Using-specific-types/Military-Records/military-records-en.html German WWII archives are also not translated into English or digitized (not accessible online) Vinny, and you need to write them a request before going to a reading room. Russian military archives operate in the same way, and yes, you have to speak Russian, as you have to speak German in order to read original record in either language. The sheer amount of records related to WWII makes translation in English and digitizing absolutely impractical. And finally, a quarter of a century passed since the 90s, Russian military archives are open to the public. However, the question, why western historians are reluctant to research Russian archives, remains.
@@edilemma8052 Hello Olga, and thank you for your reply. There are 2 major differences between the German WW2 records compared to the Soviet ones. The first is that if you do request to view the German records you will be given permission to do so. Almost anyone in the West who requests Soviet WW2 records from Russia is rejected over the last decade plus. After the USSR collapsed western historians were given access to the records for a time which is when Glantz and House were able to do extensive research on the Soviet WW2 records. And as good as they did I 100% agree that they didn't get everything done. Which they also agree with themselves and have requested access to the records again multiple times and were rejected by the Russian government. Which makes no sense. They improved what so many people in the West thought of the Soviet military in WW2 with their books. So Russia should allow them to have access to the records on WW2 again to continue that work I believe. And then secondly the other most major difference between the German and Soviet WW2 records is that the US and UK governments have made all of the German WW2 records public themselves. Here is a link to some of those records: www.archives.gov/research/captured-german-records/foreign-records-seized.html and some more: www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2
@@Loup-mx7yt I also read about this in Rokossovsky's memoirs (although at that time he was still only a general), how they, drove on the staff cars along the front and collected the remnants of the almost destroyed armies, who were able to break out from the cauldrons, for reorganization and further resistance. It was absolutely insane and terrible times...
I just want to say thank you for doing this series. All the details you present makes it feel much more relevant, horrible, interesting and more global than I thought it was! Greetings from Sweden ❤️
Love the way you do these, makes it more useful to know what's happening in multiple theaters at once. Most history books don't do that, but of course the leaders at the time had to do it like that. These are really put together very well! Also glad you're back from CV, sorry you had to go through it!
By the way, the old rethoric "Hitler didn't listen to his generals" is proven false as it can be seen in the video some generals advocated for going to the South. If generals complained only when Hitler didn't chose their option, it creates the bias that Hitler never listened to his generals.
They're experienced, he's a corporal, they know what to do, he does not, he only assumes he does, and its incidental luck, and other factors that their early successes worked out, then the extensive resistance of staving off because the German troops are very well trained and committed, and are experts at defensive fights, rearguards and feints much more than they are at attack
@@adamscott7354 Halder made a lot of mistakes later in the war though, and so did Manstein. And often this was by going against Hitler's wishes. TIK history has a good series on stalinggrad that does a lot to disprove the "madman hitler" myth. The problem is that a lot of what we thing we know about the german army is from "Verlorene Siege" by manstein, and from Halders memoirs, both are basically works of fiction that exuses any action they took, and blame hitler for everything that went wrong. Both are now well proben to by full of lies too.
I love these week by week videos. They help me put into perspective the newspaper clippings that I read and the newscasts that I post on my channel. So much was not known in the United States about what was going on.
July 17 1941 Happy birthday grandpa George. You have a tough yet amazing life ahead of you, and you will witness the historic event’s of the late 20th century; both in person and on television.
Possible spoilers ahead! One thing I really like about the WW II channel ist how it busts many of the bad myths that are still floating around a lot nowadays. Like how the highly mechanized and unbeatable Wehrmacht teared through the Soviet Union without resistance. How Barbarossa was a genius plan and Hitler ruined it by not listenig to his generals. How capturing Moskau would have won the war. How it was the winter alone who ended everything or even that Wehrmacht soldiers weren't aware of all the atrocities taking place, let alone being part of it. We're now 3 weeks into Barbarossa and already the entire clusterfuck starts to fall appart with problems and disagreements on all ends. It wasn't the winter who let Barbarossa fail, or Hitler, the entire thing was a botonless pit from the getgo.
Barbarossa was a horrible plan that tried to accomplish everything at once using wild assumptions of Soviet resistance and no planning beyond immediate victory in three months.
Instead of Barbarossa, which was never, ever going to work, Germany should have consolidated gains in Europe while supporting the campaign in North Africa. Putting those resources into the theater could have resulted in control of the Suez Canal which would be a huge blow to England. Along with Italy and Vichy France, they would have held nearly all of Europe and the Mediterranean. While that could have been used to weaken England enough that an invasion was possible, that likely would have been a bad idea as well since there's a good chance it would have brought America into the war. Not only would that be a huge blow to Germany, but the chances of Russia seeing it as an opportunity to make gains in Eastern Europe against an exhausted Germany would have been there as well. Russia is almost always the same problem: a trap for overambitious commanders who have succeeded in Europe and don't know when to quit.
Operation barbarossa is a perfect example of "The more I learn, the more I know that I don't know. " Many historians, like Alexander Bevin, claim the "Mediterranean option" was the only way Hitler could have won the war. Give all the resources that Rommel wanted to take the Suez canal, onto Palestine, Jordan thru Iraq & Iran then turn north to take the Caucasus and the oil fields between the black and Caspian seas. Cut the rail lines from the oil fields to Moscow. This would have forced Stalin to at least negotiate with Hitler. I think the Marcks plan of 2 army groups would have been a better option. It wouldn't have diluted the forces and made the capture of objectives easier. An army group south and north. It would have simplified supply lines too. Army group south would still have the same objectives. Army group north would surround and lay siege to Moscow. If the Luftwaffe still had air superiority maybe it would have worked. All roads and rail lines went to Moscow. This alone would have protected the flanks of both army groups. And maybe more infantry would have survived to this point. Based on what I think I know, this makes sense to me.
01:30 , Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre , that is basically conditional surrender and evacuation of all Vichy military personnal minus they heavy equipment and vehicles without demolishing or destroying anythging behind in Beirut and Syria and agree Allied take over of Syria and Lebenon. It was additionally insulting and humiliating for Vichy French that the armistice treaty was signed and became effective on Bastille Day at Acre , Lebenese port city Napoleon Bonaparte besieged but unable to capture and defeated first time in his career in 1799 during Syria and Lebenon Campaign of Second Coalition War , at the location of Sidney Smith Barracks (named after Admiral Sir Sidney Smith who helped Ottomans to defend the port against Napoleons siege and to repulse them back to Egypt)
Loved that little bit Indy was doing with the phones at the start just to show us all that the German attack was turning into a Soap Opera. Great job, guy.
Really great. Gripping detail, about how Barbarossa unfolded in July, and the mega egos managing the mayhem, that, though I've read most of the cited sources, I didn't recall as presented, and of course the presentation, is superb. Many thanks for one of the little pleasures available during the boring c-19 pandemonium!!!!!!!!!
If traditional artillery barrages werent bad enough, the Kaytusha rockets had to have been absolutely horrifying. They're intimidating af when playing Hell Let Loose - can't imagine being caught in an open field with no cover, and hundreds upon hundreds of those are slamming down on you, making that horrible whistle-humming noise as they fly from the horizon.
Honestly the determination to keep a struggle like this going is frankly quite amazing. Looking at something like the english point of view after so many defeats and the germans then push so much in the east. I fear we, these days, would not be so resilient.
While I'm no fan of making fun as something as serious as history, there is comedy in and of itself that non of our current shitty comedians could ever write.
Almost 100 weeks of this vicious war. Who would’ve thought it would last thing long? Maybe it will all be over soon... But something tells me it’s only just begun! (Keep up the great work Indy and crew, another fine episode)
I dont want to come out as a tough guy or emotionless, but it's really hard to affect me especially with something on the internet, but the Felix Landau quote litteraly had me pause the video and pace around for couple of minutes I was so angry, my dog must have thought I finally lost it...
Does Indy's number of phones scale with the size of the Reich? Looking forward do find out wheter there are fewer phones towards the end of the war 😂 Thank you for providing an endles stream of interesting topics for my cardio sessions in the gym
@@Dustz92 The nearest high ground is the Caucasus - the western USSR was mostly flat. Even the Ural mountains, conventionally the eastern limit of Europe, are not particularly high.
"Is over Timoshenko, I have the High Ground !" "You have the Marshy Ground ! Marshy Ground ! You have the Marshy Ground !" "Stop it Timoshenko !" "You have the Marshy Ground !"
I must have had this play on auto whilst I fell asleep because I could half recall the details mentioned at12:45 and have been looking for this video all week. Simply amidst all the victims I want to raise a glass to those 30 good people of Mariampole. Most of the historical big facts of the war are well known but I never heard this group or their fate before. I raise a glass to them. Rest in peace forever. Whenever we are told to do evil we must stop !
Most documentaries and historians: General Winter won operation Barbarossa. * Yeah, well, actually, by the 4th week things where FUBAR for the Germans.
Most documentaries are incomplete, because only the Germans Generals were available after the war. And they are biased, it was not them, it was Hitler, it was the weather, it was the Soviet hordes, it was Germany's allies - it was NOT them. but the info comes out, it was them too.
I think this is the clear week (doesnt seem like it right now) that Germany lost the war. Going straight to Moscow despite the economical importance of the south in my mind would been better, i mean it was the Soviet Union biggest city and a already low morale Soviets loosing its capital could been much worse. Not to mention the clear decision of Japan not attacking the USSR. This 2 events too me its the major events that will bring the turn of the war.
@@stevekaczynski3793 obviously, there was even a time in DC that there was reports the USSR would fall. Its easy today to talk abour bad decision and what if scenarions when we know the entire picture. But history is made of unlikely events and odds.
The tension and stress which Stavka's high officers had to withstand during Barbarossa had no match in any other countries high officers during the whole war.
Ah so halder complains about Hitler interfering with the war plans. You know, one of the guys who believed that Moscow would be a better target than the Caucasus with all of its oil and industry.
In this case, history was written not by the victor, but by the survivor who kissed enough victor butt. Having German generals cooperate with Allied occupiers more concerned about the looming Cold War than they were about historical accuracy resulted in entire generations of this kind of misinformation. Those generals were the ones writing about how the "crazy madman" was responsible for everything that went wrong, deflecting criticism of their own actions.
The whole "If Hitler listened to his Generals." comment is a myth that was brought out by mostly his generals that played ball with the allies post-fall of Berlin. Early war with USSR Hitler interference actually helped the German war machine more than it would have if the Generals were left doing what they want. Either through incompetence or because they were trying to one-up each other in a way that made Patton vs Montgomery look like a friendly bet in Italy.
@@barnabasverti9690 OK you do make some really good points here, but I don't agree with everything. While Moscow definitely has its importance to the Russians, I don't think that it would be like the France campaign, where taking the capital pretty much wins the war. The reason why I would say that the Caucasus is of higher priority than Moscow or Leningrad is that the Germans had severe fuel problems. The reason why the Germans planned on winning the war against the Russians in a maximum of 3 months is because they had to. In 3 months after the start of the invasion they would not have any oil left. And that is why I think that it would have been more important to take the Caucasus first. I don't think that taking the Caucasus would win them the war, but it is of great importance to take it as soon as possible. And that would be most likely at the start of the war. But you do make some fair points that I didn't really take into account or know about. So thank you
Unfortunately, it seems that Halder confuses russians with the french. While french gave up their capital to spare its destruction, russians have no problem to burn it to the ground. They did so at least once before: "Here Napoleon, have fun in a ruined, burning city! We can rebuild it after we take it back". He fails to grasp the differences in culture, between East and West, the historic reality. Eastern peoples had to contend with roaming nomadic tribes and hordes, for hundreds upon hundreds of years, they had to cease territory temporarily and adopt scorched earth policies. So while it was unthinkable for the french, for example, to burn one of their own towns, it was common tactic for russians.
Is German production even keeping pace with loses? They need to win soon or face the fact they have few resources and not enough industrial capacity or even enough men to compete with the Soviet Union.
Yes. German production is actually keeping up with replacements. But that is mainly equipment and not personnel. But even then, German personnel losses are still at the very most being replenished but it simply takes more given they have a quality over quantity dynamic. In fact, even though the soviets are making significantly more equipment, they are not able to keep up with equipment loses because the German are destroying so much. And although the soviets have alot of man power, they would not be able to sustain current manpower loses if the Germans keep pushing at the current rate.
You might want to check out a RUclipsr named TIK. He has tons of info on supply logistics. It's all about the oil. The Germans only had enough oil reserves to operate for about 6 months, If I remember right. I'm actually amazed that they got as far as they did with what little they had. And as they advance, the supply lines get longer...
Jamisco Not really By the end of the year the German Army will be full of understrength and under-equipped units. In part due to manpower and equipment loses, as well as the difficulty of get supplies from Germany to the middle of Russia. They weren’t able to sustain these costly offensives which is why in 1942 the German attacks were much more limited in scale and much more reliant on non-German troops.
Sort of yes Sort of no They could produce more tanks and planes and even men were managable But they had limited oil. They need to win fast or get a new source of oil to stay in the fight. Making 20,000 tanks is useless if there is no oil for them to run on
Something interesting i read recently in When Titans Clash by Glantz and House. To make up for manpower shortages before Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht accelerated the conscription schedule drafting the next two classes of conscripts (totaling some quarter million men and teenagers). Just short of a month into Barbarossa the replacement battalions are functionally exhausted and many of the formations are operating at between 50%-75% strength. That's 40k levels of grim right there.
They also started to lose some racial inhibitions under the pressure of war - Poles and Czechs were classified as ethnic Germans, often on dubious grounds, so they could be drafted into the Wehrmacht. On the other side, the Red Army started recruiting boys, often orphans. They were referred to as "synovya polka" ("sons of the regiment"). In the Peckinpah film "Cross Of Iron", the Red Army kid captured at the start by Steiner's platoon is historically accurate, although his 1970s haircut is not.
@@stevekaczynski3793 The conscription/volunteering of children (by children i mean persons under 16 years of age) seems to have been the exception rather than the rule in the Red Army, and documents are slim on the subject.
8:59 this is not quartiermeister general Wagner. Because he has gauleiter' insignia. This must be gauleiter Wagner, who was a gauleiter of Baden and Alsace Edit: Quartermaster general Eduard Wagner was a member of resistance within the Wehrmacht. After the unsuccesful 20 july bomb plot, he commited suicide.
@Joakim von Anka This is no joke. Try finding someone with the last name "Kim" in a Korean phone book, you'll be calling hundreds of numbers looking for the right person.
Having given it some more thought, the Germans have got themselves in a bit of a bind. Indy somewhat comically refers to it in his phone calls, but the Wehrmacht's conundrum is where to go next. Leningrad is a major target - the largest and best naval base for the Soviet Baltic Fleet, the route by which the Finns can link up and, most importantly, one of the Soviet Union's major manufacturing centres. Moscow is a major target - manufacturing centre, seat of government and probably the most important rail and communications hub around. The Ukraine is a major target - major resource base, and location of the largest, mainly undefeated, concentration of Red Army troops lead by a talented commander. The forces in the Ukraine also pose the greatest threat to Germany, as they could potentially launch an attack into Romania and capture the Ploesti oil fields, Germany's primary supply for oil and gas. One or two of these offensives would occupy all the Wehrmacht's mobile forces, so which one(s) do you pick? The Wehrmacht is now rather like a fly caught in a pitcher plant - they can't go back, but going forward will probably lead to their doom.
I can't believe he did it. I mean didn't Molotov have that big hit song and all. LMAO. I love your phone calls at the beginning. Well the whole video rocks
Really amazes me how little the Germans seem to know about the Soviet military, I wonder if there are generals thinking about what kind of hornets nest they kicked up Edit: its really good of you to touch on what is going on in the rear areas.
Everyone had a bad opinion about the Russians back then. They knew about the purges and the "victory" against Finland. In 1944, when the war was already won, the Russians were still attacking in human waves. When the enemy wants to exterminate you, peace is not an option, and a normal life after the defeat is out of the question. It doesn't matter if you lose 30 million soldiers, it matters if 50 million civilians get to live.
God I'm such an idiot. Here I've been confused over why the battle for Kursk hasn't been mentioned yet but it doesn't happen for another 2 goddamn years. It's rather a surprising revelation to myself on how knowledge of just key moments in WWII really compact the sheer scale of what was going on.
I love this kind of show. It ingeniously fully uses the advantages of a "new" media platform like youtube compared to the more traditional forms of television!
This is what happens when your brain is just clogged with propaganda your entire life, that’s not me defending the Nazis, their ideology was evil but they were just normal humans (mostly) with the exception of a few - actual twisted humans... critical thinking, use it
Halder's argument has no strategic or tactical merit atleast in this instance considering the heavy resistance faced by the army groups, the equipment and personnel losses and above all the dire logistical situation. But ofcourse whoever, of hitler and halder, survives the war can claim to be correct, isnt it?
7:10 The number "320 rockets in 25 seconds" doesn't sound right. I think a single Kathyusa launcher (with the most common load-out) carried and could rapid-fire 16 missiles, maybe 320 is the number of rockets that a battery could fire in 25 seconds?
Those maps showing the advances each day are insanely detailed. Maybe when this is all over you could post a video showing the shifting frontlines over a period of a few months, instead of the couple of days we see in each episode now?
I am really intrested in the soviet perspective in the first weeks. I know that there is more english literature on the Wehrmachts side. But the struggle of the red army and the soviet civilians are very interesting in my understanding. It falls a bit short in this episode in my mind. Iwans war comes to mind.
Despite the trope of 'Hitler was a mad lad for wanting to bum rush Ukraine and the Caucasus', they really didn't have the gas (literally) to wage manuever warfare to ensure the Soviets were always off balance. While savaging RA divs in cauldrons is good, its not sustainable in long run and will bleed you faster than it bleeds them
Capturing the oil and other resources of the USSR was the primary short-term goal of the invasion. The Germans would have loved to have more time to prepare but they were running out of oil and wouldn't have been able to invade after 1941 even if they wanted to. But would a narrower-front assault against the Ukraine and Caucus while ignoring the Red Army forces to the north have worked? You'd have the same issue they had in '42 with Fall Blau, that huge exposed flank guarded by 2nd rate troops, except with a more intact Red Army to take advantage of it. Attacking on a broad front and going for a quick victory was really their only option. I did read a very interesting counterfactual once, about how the Wehrmacht might have been able to pull off a victory by sending in airborne troops to take targets like Maikop and Baku in the oil-producing regions. With enough air support (both direct/fire support and logistics) they could have held the oilfields and denied their use to the USSR, maintained them for later use by the panzer forces would have to race quickly south to reinforce the light airborne troops. Seems fantastic, and it would have had the same issue with having to fight against a much more intact Red Army not being hit on multiple fronts. But doing that as part of a general advance? Might have been crazy enough to work.
Stout Krout right but it still takes bullets and beans to break the encircled troops, besides a cornered animal fights more viciously than if they have some hope left in them
My Great Grandfather was in the 56th infantry divison, he was in it from the start, he was in Poland and France, he also parpicitated in the battle of Moscow and Kursk, later the divison was dissolved but it was restructerd in 1944 but was destroyd in the Heiligenbeil Pocket and was forced to surrender, he was later released after being an prisoner of war, then he went to west Berlin and went to Sweden wich his family lives on.
11:15 What is this footage exactly? Any chance we get the source of this? What are they even doing? Machinegunning a building block? I can't make sense of it.
It may be from the capture of Rostov (for the second time) in the summer of 1942. A lot of the photos and film of urban combat on the Eastern Front come from the Rostov fighting, second only to that in Stalingrad. An NKVD unit in Rostov put up bitter resistance, and it may be actual footage of German troops reacting to one or more sharpshooters in the upper floors of a building.
@@ramsnake5901 Many German troops had a dread of Red Army snipers - they had actually neglected developing their own sniper arm in the early war years and had to revive it after Barbarossa started. They took many losses from snipers and some German soldiers were convinced every third Red Army soldier was a sniper. This was an exaggeration of course. The soldiers do seem to be reacting to something (gunfire?) in a building or structure across from them and at a higher elevation.
@@stevekaczynski3793 It probably isn't "snipers" per se. Basic MOUT techniques include setting up riflemen in concealed positions and having them delay an enemy advance by picking off a soldier or two at a time, then running away. The entire unit stops, takes cover and burns up a bunch of its ammo going after the so-called sniper who's already gone. Then they get up, start advancing and do it all over half a block later. Incredibly effective at slowing them down and inflicting psychological stress on them.
With all do respect, why in this episode wasn’t mentioned 13. July, day when Montenegro had uprising agents Italian occupation? Unfortunately short living but first of that kind, where all region/country in Europe upraised no matter of fractions and political differences. Thanks, keep up with good work
Yeah, a shame. And it wasn't that short lived. And even after Italians had to bring in reinforcements to reconquer the place since we threw them out of most of the land, this was just the start of pretty damn open conflict with the occupiers.
Acts like that are covered in our War Against Humanity series and we will get to resistance and uprisings outside the Eastern Front in June and July in the next episode.
Germans "We'll only plan for a few weeks of the invasion, the Soviets will have surrendered by then." Soviets: *don't surrender* Germans: *surprised Pikachu face*
A note about the stated Katyusha: I think the number of 320 rockets fired in 25 seconds would be for a whole battery of truck mounted launchers. At this early stage of the war the rockets were probably 80mm.
@@АнтонЛавров-й7л Yes, it is okay, because the Japanese Navy and the combined fleet would attack the USA, not the land army. By now the land army has proven itself incapable of eliminating the Chinese threat.
Антон Лавров The thing is, it was much more logical to attack the USA than the soviets, the USA’s oil embargo on Japan was straining them of all their capable machinery, the only way Japan could get oil was to invade other parts of South east Asia which was... protected by the US and her allies; if they could knock the USA’s capabilities of defending the allies and inflicting any damage to japan via the sea they could use that to build up their war capabilities and get that sweet oil... they knew they could never beat the USA in an all out war but it was their last chance
It would have, but the Japanese imperialism hadn't been overly reasonable from the very beginning. "First we take Manchuria, then we take the world!" ;-)
@@joshando4092 Bingo. Japan's imperial ambition was being kept in check by the US, and if they wanted to expand and get more resources the US had to be taken out of the picture. There was no similar pressure to attack the USSR and it was convenient for both countries to just live-and-let-live since they each had bigger battles to fight.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
![Lp. Точка Невозврата #12 ИСТОРИЯ ПРОШЛОГО [Мир Архей]• Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8F2Qhw5TjHA/mqdefault.jpg)
We can't even post our rules of conduct anymore because the RUclips bot keeps deleting them. Read them here community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518 and do read them before you comment anything that you might even suspect might break the rules:
Why do the bots remove your comments? They think it's a spam as it's copy-pasted everytime or what?
"Unbiased factual content and rational discussion? Not on MY RUclips!!!" - Google, probably.
so. who wants Russia anyway?
Why do the youtube bots delete your comments? What words are automatically deleted?
@@zhshsG7 In my experience (commenting on videos discussing WWII and history), if you post anything containing the 4-letter word that starts with an 'N' and rhymes with paparazzi then YT will delete your comment.
And the award for best phone call in 1941 goes to....
Lindy,Cheers!
Realistic hitler representation in july 41
This is like trying to talk to talk to one person in a group chat
Hallo, ja, das ist hund!
Jonathan Williams Na those phone calls come after 1943
You know you messed up when Italian generals are saying your operation is in trouble.
You know you messed when you make the Italians look good
They were also wrong on a million other accounts. They probably had only very vague understanding of the war with the Soviet Union. It's like each time you hang out with the guys for some beer and discuss politics, someone will always claim that whatever's happening now is going to get a hell lot worse in the nearest future. That's not because he's so prescient or anything but just because we like to give pessimistic opinions (people tend to listen to them more).
yarpen26 i would say the opposite of that, people tend to have a optimism bias
@@jackapgar5824 i would say it depends on situation, if it's perceived as good, optimism bias, if bad - pessimism bias.
Like now in Covid-19 crisis, there's a ton of pessimism bias I think, well maybe not now but in late March, early April definitely there were.
You could see it in February when the virus was still just in China ''Ah it will never come to us, we're safe, let China deal with it''. In March when all the lockdowns started it was ''OMG we're all going to die''. Even day by day looking at the nr. of new cases where I live, one day when there are very few cases people go ''stupid government, all restrictions should be lifted, it's fine now!'' and the next when there's suddenly a ton of cases same people scream for more restrictions
lkrnpk yeah thats true, its probably a mix of the two
Big respect for those Lithuanian civilians who were murdered for refusing to bury people alive. Absolutely despicable what they were ordered to do and it doubtlessly would have haunted them forever if they had gone through with it. Very brave souls.
In a world gone mad and being easier to keep your head down and just do what is necessary, , THANK YOU for those who died doing what they knew was right. Your name might not be known but your courage will never be forgotten!
Wouldn't been shot anyway. So...small victory.
At a time when so many millions of people "just followed orders" and lost any sense of morality, it's a pretty big victory for some random people from Lithuania to rise above and say no to one of the most murderous and ruthless totalitarian regimes in history.
Seriously huge respect for them. I couldn't blame them for any choice they made there, and they made the hard one.
Brave, but pointless.
At this rate, Indy is going to need to a hire a secretary to keep up with all the phone calls.
He needs Siri to make the calls for him
I volunteer
He should hire Indy O'dell, who looks a lot like Indy Neidell, but with a different tie.
Dont worry, soon the German generals wont need directions anymore since there is only one way to go: back to Berlin
In the next episode he should have Astrid, Sparty, and Anna all frantically answering incoming calls from all around.
1940: allied clusterf*ck
1941: Wehrmacht soap opera
1945: The un-funniest comedy of errors ever.
Germany 1941: *ze plan isn't working WHY ISN'T IT WORKING*
Stalin: *laughs in not completely surrendering and dying as hitler had hoped*
2020 covid clvsterfuck
@@Cjnw with a side serving of Argentina 1976
The German army of summer 1941 conquered so much territory that it took three full years for the Soviets to recapture it. These German generals were debating “First World (military) Problems”. Logically, they had four key, potential objective: Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and the Baku oil fields/Azov. Moscow was the capital and key transportation and communications hub, Leningrad was the spiritual home of the Bolsheviks and link to the Allied convoy port of Murmansk. Kiev was the capital of one of the world’s foremost granaries. Azov had (and has) huge oil reserves. In the end, Hitler and The Germans captured one of four.
This series is actually an excuse for Indy to collect more old telephones XD
Its a tax write off!
I think you cracked the code. Same reason they did a Cuban Missile Crisis series, he wanted to get into collecting lava lamps.
Old? It's the most modern telephonic equipment in the world!
Samuel...I actually miss those, as I do casettes and music recorded on "magnetophone" reels (you know the machines) AND I'm not 60 or older.(just grew up with them in a former Communist country - we never got the latest "Capitalist filth").
All those telephones are probably meant to represent Stalin's famous Vetch and his Bodo. (Weird telephones that the Soviets had that were supposed to be immune to wiretapping or eavesdropping)
This goes against the myth we were taught that the Germans ran rampant in the Soviet union until General Winter stopped them. The beginning of Barbarossa was a wasteful, devastating experience for the German army.
That panzer division losing 70 tanks or nearly half its armoured strength just a month into Barbarossa is revealing.
The Ghost Division formerly commanded by Rommel but now in Barbarossa will lose nearly all its tanks by early 1942, but its main losses will come later in the year.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Yes, the Soviet army stopped the German invasion by sheer grit and sacrifice, not the winter or the rasputitsa
"Le Russian Winter XD" was always meant to convey German superiority to the 'Asiatic hordes.'
"Those slavs can't be superior to us Ubermensch, it was the weather that won the war!"
@@stevekaczynski3793 1940: The "Ghost" Division
1942: The Ghost division
@@BenjoKazooie64 Yes, after the war the German generals (Halder & co.) under the auspices of the US Army, got to write the history of the German army in WWII. Their lies ended up in the history books, in the World at War, and in every History Channel documentary on the subject.
Now - especially now - the week by week format gives such great detail. We have read about Operation Barbarossa countless times, but that is all summarized with hindsight. This channel gives us a peak in how things were at that point in time. Keep up the great work!
This format works so well as a way to get an idea for how the war was going as it was actually happening, not just as one big blob of events where stuff gets all blended together. I love that they give us so much information about what the generals and political leaders were thinking at the time it was happening. Most historical accounts are told with the benefit of foresight, this works so much better :)
+1 agree... This format promotes first person pov understanding. You get a feel of what the actors in all this were thinking at the time and drove their decisions without hindsight.
the opening seems like an ode to Hogen's Heroes when Col. Klink has multiple radios on his desk trying to coordinate the search for one of the "escaped prisoners"
I see you're a man of culture as well
5:40: The disagreement between Hitler and Halder was far more complicated than just "Hitler wanted more land", it was a difference in strategic goals. Hitler believed that it was more important to destroy the Soviet Unions means to wage war. This is why he aimed for the south and north, since the most important ports (Sevastopol, Leningrad, Murmansk etc.) were located there. Ukraine was also the largest food producing region of the USSR, and the caucasus contained 80% of Soviet oil production. In contrast to this Halder believed the USSR would be defeated by capturing Moscow, and thus making Soviet logistics more difficult (Moscow was the largest railway hub). He also believed that capturing the capital would make the Soviets capitulate.
Love the show, and best regards
Sources:
Robert Citino, Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942
David Stahel, Operation barbarossa and Germany's defeat in the east.
Also other generals backed Hitler's idea to go South and it was not the old rethoric "Hitler didn't listen to his generals". Of course if they only complain when Hitler doesn't agree with them, it creates the bias that Hitler didn't listen to his generals.
@@nomcognom2332 They also blamed every mistake the Germans made during the war on Hitler after the war. This created the "Hitler doesn't listen to his generals" myth.
The logistics aspect of the war gets criminally overlooked sometimes. The northern ports for example, you very rarely hear about how important holding Murmansk was to the Soviet war effort. But the Germans felt it was important enough to station troops in Finland (who could have been sent to Moscow instead) and launch Operation Silver Fox to cut it off from the rest of the USSR. That hardly ever gets mentioned as part of Barbarossa, but it was clearly an important strategic goal for the Germans.
@@Raskolnikov70 Oh, yeah, the Operation Silver Fox, where the almighty German-Finnish forces couldn't beat Soviet troops. Pretty much nobody talks about it.
welp, to be honest, you forget the rail network that was needed for German supply was mostly centered around Moscow. Rails in the Ukraine and Caucuses were much less. I don't say you are wrong, but there are other things you need to consider.
There’s one more German ally that isn’t fighting the USSR - Bulgaria. Not only Japan
Does vichy france count as an ally? If yes they also aren't fighting.
Harambe I think the Vichy are - just not the government. They have French SS divisions.
@@andrewimms7676 There were SS Divisions from anywhere, even a British Freikorps (very small).
Vichy is an ally though, but only defensive.
@@PalleRasmussen the British frikorp were only 8 men who wanted to get out of pow came .after the war they were found guilty of treason
I thought Russia and Japan had a peace treaty
I of course hate Hitler but Halder acts like a military genius while absolutely being in the wrong. Securing the wheat of Ukraine, the oil of the Caucasus and the steel of western Russia is far more crucial than taking Moscow. Franz Halder seems to think that if they capture Moscow the Russians will just throw in the towel and go "well we tried" even though there is no reason to think that is how it would work
@Tom Butthurt the Nazis lost the war for Germany
Of course you can hate Hitler, but you have to remember one thing. He did shoot Hitler. 🐱
But even if Germany secures these areas, the soviet scorched earth policies would render them useless for a very significant time. They arealdy had plans for the destruction of the Caucasus oil fields.
@@wagnercarvalho1854 if I remember correctly the Germans did actually capture a major oil producing city in the Caucasus during Fall Blau. Think it might have been Maikop. The Soviets did in fact destroy the oil wells but Germany could fix them fairly quickly and now there's the issue that the Soviets aren't getting that oil. Still Maikop got recaptured a bit after but if they held Maikop, Baku and the other cities for a few months they would have had the upper hand as the terrain is extremely easy to defend
Yeah the wild optimism seen from time to time in the war is another tragedy. That said watching week to week, you can see more of how people could talk themselves into it. But it rarely comes true and many men die as a result. Just another day of war. And I thought TGW documentary was depressing.
??: Shall I go west?
Indy Neidell: No east. es, You're going east.
East? I thought you said weast
@@nigerianprince2194 Weast? What kind of compass are you reading lad'?
No, No, no - the other west!
“Im sorry sir but the tanks have no ability to enter solar orbit”
@Andrew Ongais Oh, my mistake.
Stalin's eldest son Yakov, an artillery lieutenant in the Red Army, was captured near Vitebsk on July 16. The Germans announced it a few days later.
SPOILER
Yakov Dzhugashvili committed suicide or was killed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943. The exact circumstances of his death have never been clarified.
Was this the Hockey Player Son or the one that Stalin didn't want to trade for in a Prisoner exchange..
or are they the same kid...
Accounts vary and not all are credible, but one has him narrowly escaping being shot out of hand after capture because like many Georgians, he had a Mediterranean appearance and for the Germans this spelt "Jew".
@@nightspawnson-of-luna4936 trade a soldier for a Fieldmarshal. Did Germans really think Soviets that dumb?
@@pawelzybulskij3367 I think they also offered a number of generals, but I'm not completely certain.
@@pawelzybulskij3367 It was his son. He wouldn't have been trading any soldier for a field martial. He would have been trading his son for a field martial.
The Germans invading Russia remind me of myself invading a massive buffet: So many options to feast that I am utterly torn and confused as to where to go next!
Save plenty of room for the cold courses.
go for the cauldrons ;)
That phonecall was how I first started playin HOI4
"You know what? Just go!"
Relatable.
I’m addicted this is by far the best place to go to learn about WW2
Thank you for your kind words.
-TimeGost Ambassador
Who else is still waiting for Halders promised 2 weeks victory?
@-Umut Deniz- Damn
@@Kikuchiyo7 I was going to say that!
Excellent colour-combining of the tie, shirt and waistcoat. The tie itself is relatively simple, but everything put together is a solid 3.5/5
They should put a display of all their ties after the series is concluded!
Haha, it's nice seeing your comments; tends to lighten things up.
You missed the last couple tie reviews.
I dont ever want to be disappointed by you again...
@@TribuneAquila To the best of my knowledge I haven't missed a single one since I started. But due to my new job I have been later than usual on some. I'll do my best to never disappoint you again
@@jewiesnew3786 I believe the plan is/was to auction them all, with the proceedings going into making more content. That was part of the reason why I started actually
Count Ciano was pretty sharp. Sometimes he seems like the only man on the Axis side that knows what's going on.
Sometimes their private diaries are more revealing than the public speeches although diaries were sometimes edited for publication and re-written to an extent.
he was indeed pretty sharp but did have his fair share of blunders.
Among other things he had been one of the most vocal proponents of the invasion of Greece, believing it'd be a walk in the park. We all know how that went.
@@lordfedjuvekinval252 Especially if Italy is played by an AI or incompetent player in a HOI4 game.
@@lordfedjuvekinval252 how was he supposed to know that the Italian army was basically useless? :(
@@franzliechtmann6447 Maybe listening to the bloody army command screaming at them how bad of an idea it was in the first place would've helped
7:07 Ah of course Stalin's new Katyusha toy appears: Stalin's organ. The howling sounds which the Germans will soon get used to it in time, along with the many terrifying nightmares from it of course...
i would have nightmares too,i sometimes have strange and scary nightmares
Never fails to amaze me to see weapons that were developed that long ago still being used today. The US Army has the MLRS, aka the "Grid Square Removal System" that does pretty much the same thing as those Katyushas. I've seen what they leave behind and it isn't pretty.
🎶 Выходила на берег Катюша,
На высокий берег на крутой 🎶
... and then there was the Nebelwerfer.
Yeah, they were so scared that the German army surrendered in 1941.
Stop.fuckign romanticising war, stop romanticising weapons, stop being stupid!
Millions died, but yes, oh, ah, the Germans were scared wow much fear such cries.
Wanted to give major props to Eastory again for his work on the maps for Operation Barbarossa in these videos. It is so hard to know where exactly USSR divisions were at this point in the war because of the limited good sources we have from the Soviet side and going off just the German records also doesn't give us a perfect picture of what was going on since the Germans don't know exactly where each Soviet division is each day.
I've said this before but it would be a major help to all of History for Russia to open their archives on WW2 to everyone and not just to the select people they give access to them now. The Russians only give access to their records on WW2 to people who request so and that they approve which leads to very few Western historians to be able to wright books and articles about what happened. So unless you speak Russian and can read the books made by Russians who have seen the records the best sources we in the West have for the Eastern front of WW2 are David Glantz and Jonathan House who had access to the Russian records back in the 90's.
The Russian reason to not just make WW2 records public to everyone online is pretty silly I think. They believe it is still a matter of national security to not open the records up to everyone. Yet every other country that fought in WW2 other then Russia and China allow their records from WW2 to be seen by anyone who wants to see them. If I were a Russian citizen I would not want to be in the same group as communist China. I would also want to be able to see what my ancestors did myself in the greatest moment in their countries history.
Even the Soviets didnt know where some of their own troops were. They had to send personnel out to look for them. The steppe is a very large place, and radios didnt have the range we have today.
Bill D. in Iowa yes, how many times in the memoirs of a Soviet General like Zhukov is it mentioned that in 1941, he visited a front HQ only to learn that they didn't know where their own units were? The most competent Soviet generals would then go look for them themselves in their staff car, sometimes getting dangerously close to the German spearhead.
Only the brightest and most willing of the Soviet staff could fight the Germans at this point in the war, which is something that I do believe we will see clearly in the upcoming weeks at the battle of Yelnya.
www.bundesarchiv.de/EN/Navigation/Use/Using-specific-types/Military-Records/military-records-en.html German WWII archives are also not translated into English or digitized (not accessible online) Vinny, and you need to write them a request before going to a reading room. Russian military archives operate in the same way, and yes, you have to speak Russian, as you have to speak German in order to read original record in either language. The sheer amount of records related to WWII makes translation in English and digitizing absolutely impractical. And finally, a quarter of a century passed since the 90s, Russian military archives are open to the public. However, the question, why western historians are reluctant to research Russian archives, remains.
@@edilemma8052 Hello Olga, and thank you for your reply. There are 2 major differences between the German WW2 records compared to the Soviet ones.
The first is that if you do request to view the German records you will be given permission to do so. Almost anyone in the West who requests Soviet WW2 records from Russia is rejected over the last decade plus. After the USSR collapsed western historians were given access to the records for a time which is when Glantz and House were able to do extensive research on the Soviet WW2 records. And as good as they did I 100% agree that they didn't get everything done. Which they also agree with themselves and have requested access to the records again multiple times and were rejected by the Russian government. Which makes no sense. They improved what so many people in the West thought of the Soviet military in WW2 with their books. So Russia should allow them to have access to the records on WW2 again to continue that work I believe.
And then secondly the other most major difference between the German and Soviet WW2 records is that the US and UK governments have made all of the German WW2 records public themselves. Here is a link to some of those records: www.archives.gov/research/captured-german-records/foreign-records-seized.html and some more: www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2
@@Loup-mx7yt I also read about this in Rokossovsky's memoirs (although at that time he was still only a general), how they, drove on the staff cars along the front and collected the remnants of the almost destroyed armies, who were able to break out from the cauldrons, for reorganization and further resistance. It was absolutely insane and terrible times...
I just want to say thank you for doing this series. All the details you present makes it feel much more relevant, horrible, interesting and more global than I thought it was! Greetings from Sweden ❤️
Love the way you do these, makes it more useful to know what's happening in multiple theaters at once. Most history books don't do that, but of course the leaders at the time had to do it like that. These are really put together very well!
Also glad you're back from CV, sorry you had to go through it!
By the way, the old rethoric "Hitler didn't listen to his generals" is proven false as it can be seen in the video some generals advocated for going to the South. If generals complained only when Hitler didn't chose their option, it creates the bias that Hitler never listened to his generals.
They're experienced, he's a corporal, they know what to do, he does not, he only assumes he does, and its incidental luck, and other factors that their early successes worked out, then the extensive resistance of staving off because the German troops are very well trained and committed, and are experts at defensive fights, rearguards and feints much more than they are at attack
@@adamscott7354 Halder made a lot of mistakes later in the war though, and so did Manstein. And often this was by going against Hitler's wishes. TIK history has a good series on stalinggrad that does a lot to disprove the "madman hitler" myth.
The problem is that a lot of what we thing we know about the german army is from "Verlorene Siege" by manstein, and from Halders memoirs, both are basically works of fiction that exuses any action they took, and blame hitler for everything that went wrong. Both are now well proben to by full of lies too.
I love these week by week videos. They help me put into perspective the newspaper clippings that I read and the newscasts that I post on my channel. So much was not known in the United States about what was going on.
Glad you enjoy our episodes, and good luck with your channel too!
4:07 162 division starts playing the green hill zone theme as it withdraws from the pocket
Yep, they are going straight east to Vyazma - there they will be safe for sure... ;)
July 17 1941
Happy birthday grandpa George.
You have a tough yet amazing life ahead of you, and you will witness the historic event’s of the late 20th century; both in person and on television.
Possible spoilers ahead!
One thing I really like about the WW II channel ist how it busts many of the bad myths that are still floating around a lot nowadays. Like how the highly mechanized and unbeatable Wehrmacht teared through the Soviet Union without resistance. How Barbarossa was a genius plan and Hitler ruined it by not listenig to his generals. How capturing Moskau would have won the war. How it was the winter alone who ended everything or even that Wehrmacht soldiers weren't aware of all the atrocities taking place, let alone being part of it.
We're now 3 weeks into Barbarossa and already the entire clusterfuck starts to fall appart with problems and disagreements on all ends. It wasn't the winter who let Barbarossa fail, or Hitler, the entire thing was a botonless pit from the getgo.
Barbarossa was a horrible plan that tried to accomplish everything at once using wild assumptions of Soviet resistance and no planning beyond immediate victory in three months.
Instead of Barbarossa, which was never, ever going to work, Germany should have consolidated gains in Europe while supporting the campaign in North Africa. Putting those resources into the theater could have resulted in control of the Suez Canal which would be a huge blow to England. Along with Italy and Vichy France, they would have held nearly all of Europe and the Mediterranean.
While that could have been used to weaken England enough that an invasion was possible, that likely would have been a bad idea as well since there's a good chance it would have brought America into the war. Not only would that be a huge blow to Germany, but the chances of Russia seeing it as an opportunity to make gains in Eastern Europe against an exhausted Germany would have been there as well.
Russia is almost always the same problem: a trap for overambitious commanders who have succeeded in Europe and don't know when to quit.
Operation barbarossa is a perfect example of "The more I learn, the more I know that I don't know. "
Many historians, like Alexander Bevin, claim the "Mediterranean option" was the only way Hitler could have won the war. Give all the resources that Rommel wanted to take the Suez canal, onto Palestine, Jordan thru Iraq & Iran then turn north to take the Caucasus and the oil fields between the black and Caspian seas. Cut the rail lines from the oil fields to Moscow. This would have forced Stalin to at least negotiate with Hitler.
I think the Marcks plan of 2 army groups would have been a better option. It wouldn't have diluted the forces and made the capture of objectives easier. An army group south and north. It would have simplified supply lines too.
Army group south would still have the same objectives. Army group north would surround and lay siege to Moscow.
If the Luftwaffe still had air superiority maybe it would have worked. All roads and rail lines went to Moscow. This alone would have protected the flanks of both army groups. And maybe more infantry would have survived to this point.
Based on what I think I know, this makes sense to me.
01:30 , Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre , that is basically conditional surrender and evacuation of all Vichy military personnal minus they heavy equipment and vehicles without demolishing or destroying anythging behind in Beirut and Syria and agree Allied take over of Syria and Lebenon. It was additionally insulting and humiliating for Vichy French that the armistice treaty was signed and became effective on Bastille Day at Acre , Lebenese port city Napoleon Bonaparte besieged but unable to capture and defeated first time in his career in 1799 during Syria and Lebenon Campaign of Second Coalition War , at the location of Sidney Smith Barracks (named after Admiral Sir Sidney Smith who helped Ottomans to defend the port against Napoleons siege and to repulse them back to Egypt)
technically Napoleon's first defeat was in 1796 in the second battle of Bassano, but it was only a tactical one so yeah
SIR SIDNEY THE LEGEND
Loved that little bit Indy was doing with the phones at the start just to show us all that the German attack was turning into a Soap Opera. Great job, guy.
Really great. Gripping detail, about how Barbarossa unfolded in July, and the mega egos managing the mayhem, that, though I've read most of the cited sources, I didn't recall as presented, and of course the presentation, is superb. Many thanks for one of the little pleasures available during the boring c-19 pandemonium!!!!!!!!!
If traditional artillery barrages werent bad enough, the Kaytusha rockets had to have been absolutely horrifying. They're intimidating af when playing Hell Let Loose - can't imagine being caught in an open field with no cover, and hundreds upon hundreds of those are slamming down on you, making that horrible whistle-humming noise as they fly from the horizon.
Like sands through the hourglass. So are the days of Operation Barbarossa.
Coming July 25: Halder gets amnesia, and von Bock has an evil twin!
I learn more things from your videos than I did from school. Thank you for doing this.
Honestly the determination to keep a struggle like this going is frankly quite amazing. Looking at something like the english point of view after so many defeats and the germans then push so much in the east. I fear we, these days, would not be so resilient.
You guys are kickass historians. Thx for the continued uploads.
I think it's incredibly the amount of foresight Count Ciano had about the war, I mean what he said about the USSR is pretty much spot on.
These phone calls are the best intro in RUclips. Keep up the good work
Germany be like: RaTe My EnCiRcLeMeNtS
Definitely one of the better opening performances for this series, communicating the Wehrmacht's frustration well.
At this point I'm expecting a Timeghost Comedy Special :D
While I'm no fan of making fun as something as serious as history, there is comedy in and of itself that non of our current shitty comedians could ever write.
The model plane casting it's shadow over the UK in the background is a nice touch. I love this set so much.
Hmmm who is that hanging in the back ground... if it isn't our old friend Conrad!
Almost 100 weeks of this vicious war. Who would’ve thought it would last thing long? Maybe it will all be over soon... But something tells me it’s only just begun! (Keep up the great work Indy and crew, another fine episode)
I dont want to come out as a tough guy or emotionless, but it's really hard to affect me especially with something on the internet, but the Felix Landau quote litteraly had me pause the video and pace around for couple of minutes I was so angry, my dog must have thought I finally lost it...
Does Indy's number of phones scale with the size of the Reich? Looking forward do find out wheter there are fewer phones towards the end of the war 😂 Thank you for providing an endles stream of interesting topics for my cardio sessions in the gym
Guderian has a good point in wanting to take the High Ground.
After all, you mustnt underestimate the power of the High Ground.
He knew that for it to be over for the Soviets, the key wasn't Moscow or Ukraine, it was the high ground
@@Dustz92 The nearest high ground is the Caucasus - the western USSR was mostly flat. Even the Ural mountains, conventionally the eastern limit of Europe, are not particularly high.
"Is over Timoshenko, I have the High Ground !"
"You have the Marshy Ground ! Marshy Ground ! You have the Marshy Ground !"
"Stop it Timoshenko !"
"You have the Marshy Ground !"
I must have had this play on auto whilst I fell asleep because I could half recall the details mentioned at12:45 and have been looking for this video all week.
Simply amidst all the victims I want to raise a glass to those 30 good people of Mariampole.
Most of the historical big facts of the war are well known but I never heard this group or their fate before. I raise a glass to them.
Rest in peace forever. Whenever we are told to do evil we must stop !
Most documentaries and historians: General Winter won operation Barbarossa.
* Yeah, well, actually, by the 4th week things where FUBAR for the Germans.
Most documentaries are incomplete, because only the Germans Generals were available after the war. And they are biased, it was not them, it was Hitler, it was the weather, it was the Soviet hordes, it was Germany's allies - it was NOT them.
but the info comes out, it was them too.
@@tommy-er6hh It was always Mad Man Hitlers fault
I think this is the clear week (doesnt seem like it right now) that Germany lost the war. Going straight to Moscow despite the economical importance of the south in my mind would been better, i mean it was the Soviet Union biggest city and a already low morale Soviets loosing its capital could been much worse.
Not to mention the clear decision of Japan not attacking the USSR. This 2 events too me its the major events that will bring the turn of the war.
@@gordusmaximus4990 In hindsight this may well be the case though it was not clear at the time.
@@stevekaczynski3793 obviously, there was even a time in DC that there was reports the USSR would fall. Its easy today to talk abour bad decision and what if scenarions when we know the entire picture. But history is made of unlikely events and odds.
All you guys do a great job. But Indy, you could be the best at content, commentary, coverage. Speakers voice. No ums and ahs. Brilliant presentation.
The tension and stress which Stavka's high officers had to withstand during Barbarossa had no match in any other countries high officers during the whole war.
This episode was so jam packed with information I had to watch it twice...
Ah so halder complains about Hitler interfering with the war plans. You know, one of the guys who believed that Moscow would be a better target than the Caucasus with all of its oil and industry.
In this case, history was written not by the victor, but by the survivor who kissed enough victor butt. Having German generals cooperate with Allied occupiers more concerned about the looming Cold War than they were about historical accuracy resulted in entire generations of this kind of misinformation. Those generals were the ones writing about how the "crazy madman" was responsible for everything that went wrong, deflecting criticism of their own actions.
The whole "If Hitler listened to his Generals." comment is a myth that was brought out by mostly his generals that played ball with the allies post-fall of Berlin. Early war with USSR Hitler interference actually helped the German war machine more than it would have if the Generals were left doing what they want. Either through incompetence or because they were trying to one-up each other in a way that made Patton vs Montgomery look like a friendly bet in Italy.
@@barnabasverti9690 OK you do make some really good points here, but I don't agree with everything.
While Moscow definitely has its importance to the Russians, I don't think that it would be like the France campaign, where taking the capital pretty much wins the war.
The reason why I would say that the Caucasus is of higher priority than Moscow or Leningrad is that the Germans had severe fuel problems. The reason why the Germans planned on winning the war against the Russians in a maximum of 3 months is because they had to. In 3 months after the start of the invasion they would not have any oil left. And that is why I think that it would have been more important to take the Caucasus first. I don't think that taking the Caucasus would win them the war, but it is of great importance to take it as soon as possible. And that would be most likely at the start of the war.
But you do make some fair points that I didn't really take into account or know about.
So thank you
@@barnabasverti9690 I think we can agree on that Germany would have had a hard time winning anyway
Unfortunately, it seems that Halder confuses russians with the french. While french gave up their capital to spare its destruction, russians have no problem to burn it to the ground. They did so at least once before: "Here Napoleon, have fun in a ruined, burning city! We can rebuild it after we take it back".
He fails to grasp the differences in culture, between East and West, the historic reality. Eastern peoples had to contend with roaming nomadic tribes and hordes, for hundreds upon hundreds of years, they had to cease territory temporarily and adopt scorched earth policies. So while it was unthinkable for the french, for example, to burn one of their own towns, it was common tactic for russians.
Todays my birthday thanks for another amazing episode on world war 2 history keep up the great work to you and your team.
Happy birthday!
Is German production even keeping pace with loses? They need to win soon or face the fact they have few resources and not enough industrial capacity or even enough men to compete with the Soviet Union.
Yes.
German production is actually keeping up with replacements. But that is mainly equipment and not personnel. But even then, German personnel losses are still at the very most being replenished but it simply takes more given they have a quality over quantity dynamic.
In fact, even though the soviets are making significantly more equipment, they are not able to keep up with equipment loses because the German are destroying so much. And although the soviets have alot of man power, they would not be able to sustain current manpower loses if the Germans keep pushing at the current rate.
You might want to check out a RUclipsr named TIK. He has tons of info on supply logistics. It's all about the oil. The Germans only had enough oil reserves to operate for about 6 months, If I remember right. I'm actually amazed that they got as far as they did with what little they had. And as they advance, the supply lines get longer...
Jamisco
Not really
By the end of the year the German Army will be full of understrength and under-equipped units. In part due to manpower and equipment loses, as well as the difficulty of get supplies from Germany to the middle of Russia. They weren’t able to sustain these costly offensives which is why in 1942 the German attacks were much more limited in scale and much more reliant on non-German troops.
Sort of yes
Sort of no
They could produce more tanks and planes and even men were managable
But they had limited oil.
They need to win fast or get a new source of oil to stay in the fight. Making 20,000 tanks is useless if there is no oil for them to run on
The Germans are absolutely replacing their loses and they keep growing each year. The one thing that they couldn't replace was oil.
Thanks indy I am really glad you have kept making great new content weekly
7:12 Indy gets excited about rocket launcher statistics.
In the event of a war, I'm putting Indy in charge of them.
howardbrandon11 if we can somehow connect rocket launchers to Renault FT17s (Indy’s favourite tank), victory will be inevitable
He's actually wrestling Khrushchev for control of them right now ;)
Something interesting i read recently in When Titans Clash by Glantz and House.
To make up for manpower shortages before Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht accelerated the conscription schedule drafting the next two classes of conscripts (totaling some quarter million men and teenagers). Just short of a month into Barbarossa the replacement battalions are functionally exhausted and many of the formations are operating at between 50%-75% strength. That's 40k levels of grim right there.
They also started to lose some racial inhibitions under the pressure of war - Poles and Czechs were classified as ethnic Germans, often on dubious grounds, so they could be drafted into the Wehrmacht.
On the other side, the Red Army started recruiting boys, often orphans. They were referred to as "synovya polka" ("sons of the regiment"). In the Peckinpah film "Cross Of Iron", the Red Army kid captured at the start by Steiner's platoon is historically accurate, although his 1970s haircut is not.
@@stevekaczynski3793
The conscription/volunteering of children (by children i mean persons under 16 years of age) seems to have been the exception rather than the rule in the Red Army, and documents are slim on the subject.
@@pantherace1000 There was a British programme called "Boys on battleships". Does that need explaining ? ;)
8:59 this is not quartiermeister general Wagner. Because he has gauleiter' insignia. This must be gauleiter Wagner, who was a gauleiter of Baden and Alsace
Edit: Quartermaster general Eduard Wagner was a member of resistance within the Wehrmacht. After the unsuccesful 20 july bomb plot, he commited suicide.
@Joakim von Anka And the Germans don't all look the same. ;-)
@Joakim von Anka This is no joke. Try finding someone with the last name "Kim" in a Korean phone book, you'll be calling hundreds of numbers looking for the right person.
Love and appreciation Indy!!!
You mentioned it before so I would like to repeat it again:
The german army: tactically gifted, operationally flawed and strategically bankrupt
i LOVE your phone calls introduction. AB FAB!!!!
Having given it some more thought, the Germans have got themselves in a bit of a bind. Indy somewhat comically refers to it in his phone calls, but the Wehrmacht's conundrum is where to go next. Leningrad is a major target - the largest and best naval base for the Soviet Baltic Fleet, the route by which the Finns can link up and, most importantly, one of the Soviet Union's major manufacturing centres. Moscow is a major target - manufacturing centre, seat of government and probably the most important rail and communications hub around. The Ukraine is a major target - major resource base, and location of the largest, mainly undefeated, concentration of Red Army troops lead by a talented commander. The forces in the Ukraine also pose the greatest threat to Germany, as they could potentially launch an attack into Romania and capture the Ploesti oil fields, Germany's primary supply for oil and gas. One or two of these offensives would occupy all the Wehrmacht's mobile forces, so which one(s) do you pick? The Wehrmacht is now rather like a fly caught in a pitcher plant - they can't go back, but going forward will probably lead to their doom.
I can't believe he did it. I mean didn't Molotov have that big hit song and all. LMAO. I love your phone calls at the beginning. Well the whole video rocks
Instructions unclear, I'm back where I started
I simply love Indy & timeghost!
Right back at ya!
Really amazes me how little the Germans seem to know about the Soviet military, I wonder if there are generals thinking about what kind of hornets nest they kicked up
Edit: its really good of you to touch on what is going on in the rear areas.
U but
Everyone had a bad opinion about the Russians back then.
They knew about the purges and the "victory" against Finland.
In 1944, when the war was already won, the Russians were still attacking in human waves.
When the enemy wants to exterminate you, peace is not an option, and a normal life after the defeat is out of the question.
It doesn't matter if you lose 30 million soldiers, it matters if 50 million civilians get to live.
Constantin Raileanu the soviet horde is a myth, the germans had more manpower in early 1942, and more fielded manpower much longer
@@DerDop The Japanese developed a certain wary respect after Khalkhin Gol, which influenced the events of 1941.
@@jackapgar5824 it's not about the numbers it's about the tactics.
Thank you for the video . One thing that i really like is the Maps because of the large area involved . Eastory , Rabih and Patrick .
God I'm such an idiot. Here I've been confused over why the battle for Kursk hasn't been mentioned yet but it doesn't happen for another 2 goddamn years. It's rather a surprising revelation to myself on how knowledge of just key moments in WWII really compact the sheer scale of what was going on.
I love this kind of show. It ingeniously fully uses the advantages of a "new" media platform like youtube compared to the more traditional forms of television!
5:49 It's so hard to imagine Nazi party members and military officers as having a sense of humor.
This is what happens when your brain is just clogged with propaganda your entire life, that’s not me defending the Nazis, their ideology was evil but they were just normal humans (mostly) with the exception of a few - actual twisted humans... critical thinking, use it
@Belagerungsmörser the Sheep But still as preachy about it. How do you know if someone's a vegan? Don't worry, they'll let you know.....
@Mars Attacks Or how you have to flush toilet 10 times every time you go number two, or...
They had plenty of gallows humour. Often accompanying atrocities.
“There’s only man who knows how to wage wars.”
I had to see that three times. xD
Halder's argument has no strategic or tactical merit atleast in this instance considering the heavy resistance faced by the army groups, the equipment and personnel losses and above all the dire logistical situation.
But ofcourse whoever, of hitler and halder, survives the war can claim to be correct, isnt it?
I truly love your content, it is both historical, Intresting, funny and captivating
7:10
The number "320 rockets in 25 seconds" doesn't sound right.
I think a single Kathyusa launcher (with the most common load-out) carried and could rapid-fire 16 missiles, maybe 320 is the number of rockets that a battery could fire in 25 seconds?
Full ammo capacity of БМ-13 "Kathyusa" is 16 132mm rockets. Full salvo took from 7 to 10 seconds
General: “I’m going weast” Indy: “what? How does- just go!”
That opening 😂😂
Those maps showing the advances each day are insanely detailed. Maybe when this is all over you could post a video showing the shifting frontlines over a period of a few months, instead of the couple of days we see in each episode now?
"it's only treason if you lose." - Gen. Catroux
The intro is basically any multiplayer wargame that involves co-ops.
I am really intrested in the soviet perspective in the first weeks. I know that there is more english literature on the Wehrmachts side. But the struggle of the red army and the soviet civilians are very interesting in my understanding. It falls a bit short in this episode in my mind.
Iwans war comes to mind.
You might want to tell Putin... he's the one keeping the Soviet archives out of the reach of historians that don't toe the Russian revisionist line.
Guderian seeking to go to Yelnya now makes me understand a line in Al Stewart's Roads to Moscow: 'General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill'
I think it might have been the best option to move south to capture the oil fields? Comment any other strategies below, I'd like to hear them.
Despite the trope of 'Hitler was a mad lad for wanting to bum rush Ukraine and the Caucasus', they really didn't have the gas (literally) to wage manuever warfare to ensure the Soviets were always off balance. While savaging RA divs in cauldrons is good, its not sustainable in long run and will bleed you faster than it bleeds them
@@uhavedied12334557 I agree
Capturing the oil and other resources of the USSR was the primary short-term goal of the invasion. The Germans would have loved to have more time to prepare but they were running out of oil and wouldn't have been able to invade after 1941 even if they wanted to. But would a narrower-front assault against the Ukraine and Caucus while ignoring the Red Army forces to the north have worked? You'd have the same issue they had in '42 with Fall Blau, that huge exposed flank guarded by 2nd rate troops, except with a more intact Red Army to take advantage of it. Attacking on a broad front and going for a quick victory was really their only option.
I did read a very interesting counterfactual once, about how the Wehrmacht might have been able to pull off a victory by sending in airborne troops to take targets like Maikop and Baku in the oil-producing regions. With enough air support (both direct/fire support and logistics) they could have held the oilfields and denied their use to the USSR, maintained them for later use by the panzer forces would have to race quickly south to reinforce the light airborne troops. Seems fantastic, and it would have had the same issue with having to fight against a much more intact Red Army not being hit on multiple fronts. But doing that as part of a general advance? Might have been crazy enough to work.
Stout Krout right but it still takes bullets and beans to break the encircled troops, besides a cornered animal fights more viciously than if they have some hope left in them
@@uhavedied12334557 Actually they usually just surrender on mass especially in 1941.
The Dissing hitler part when Halder wrote abou thitler interfeering is absolutely hillarious
This show keeps getting better and better.....A lot like the Red army after Barbarossa........
Best phone call cold opening of this series!
8:55 That photo is of Gauleiter Adolf Wagner of Munich/Upper Bavaria, not General Eduard Wagner.
My Great Grandfather was in the 56th infantry divison, he was in it from the start, he was in Poland and France, he also parpicitated in the battle of Moscow and Kursk, later the divison was dissolved but it was restructerd in 1944 but was destroyd in the Heiligenbeil Pocket and was forced to surrender, he was later released after being an prisoner of war, then he went to west Berlin and went to Sweden wich his family lives on.
11:15
What is this footage exactly? Any chance we get the source of this? What are they even doing? Machinegunning a building block? I can't make sense of it.
Most likely providing fire supression on a building
It may be from the capture of Rostov (for the second time) in the summer of 1942. A lot of the photos and film of urban combat on the Eastern Front come from the Rostov fighting, second only to that in Stalingrad. An NKVD unit in Rostov put up bitter resistance, and it may be actual footage of German troops reacting to one or more sharpshooters in the upper floors of a building.
I would like to know too.
@@ramsnake5901 Many German troops had a dread of Red Army snipers - they had actually neglected developing their own sniper arm in the early war years and had to revive it after Barbarossa started. They took many losses from snipers and some German soldiers were convinced every third Red Army soldier was a sniper. This was an exaggeration of course. The soldiers do seem to be reacting to something (gunfire?) in a building or structure across from them and at a higher elevation.
@@stevekaczynski3793 It probably isn't "snipers" per se. Basic MOUT techniques include setting up riflemen in concealed positions and having them delay an enemy advance by picking off a soldier or two at a time, then running away. The entire unit stops, takes cover and burns up a bunch of its ammo going after the so-called sniper who's already gone. Then they get up, start advancing and do it all over half a block later. Incredibly effective at slowing them down and inflicting psychological stress on them.
Unity of Command, great little game, also comes with a Barbarossa campaign.
That "some kind of deal with United States" that the Japanese are thinking about looks promising, doesn't it? ;-)
I'm sure the US will come to its senses and stop the embargo against them. No way they'd risk a war in the Pacific.....
A really enlightening episode! Fantastic work!
With all do respect, why in this episode wasn’t mentioned 13. July, day when Montenegro had uprising agents Italian occupation? Unfortunately short living but first of that kind, where all region/country in Europe upraised no matter of fractions and political differences.
Thanks, keep up with good work
Yeah, a shame. And it wasn't that short lived. And even after Italians had to bring in reinforcements to reconquer the place since we threw them out of most of the land, this was just the start of pretty damn open conflict with the occupiers.
Insignificant and irrelevant, just like the country itself
@@cv4809 Back then it was part of a MUCH bigger country, not the banana republic of today. And this was the start of a much larger uprising.
Acts like that are covered in our War Against Humanity series and we will get to resistance and uprisings outside the Eastern Front in June and July in the next episode.
Holy shit these episodes just gets better and better
Germans "We'll only plan for a few weeks of the invasion, the Soviets will have surrendered by then."
Soviets: *don't surrender*
Germans: *surprised Pikachu face*
Pretty much xD
"Alright, everybody calm the duck down, they didn't surrender. Let's start plan B."
"There's no plan B"
*Pikachu face*
A note about the stated Katyusha: I think the number of 320 rockets fired in 25 seconds would be for a whole battery of truck mounted launchers. At this early stage of the war the rockets were probably 80mm.
16 132mm rockets
Japan cannot defeat China, thus attacking the USSR would have been complete madness for Japan.
Attacking US is okay then
@@АнтонЛавров-й7л Yes, it is okay, because the Japanese Navy and the combined fleet would attack the USA, not the land army. By now the land army has proven itself incapable of eliminating the Chinese threat.
Антон Лавров The thing is, it was much more logical to attack the USA than the soviets, the USA’s oil embargo on Japan was straining them of all their capable machinery, the only way Japan could get oil was to invade other parts of South east Asia which was... protected by the US and her allies; if they could knock the USA’s capabilities of defending the allies and inflicting any damage to japan via the sea they could use that to build up their war capabilities and get that sweet oil... they knew they could never beat the USA in an all out war but it was their last chance
It would have, but the Japanese imperialism hadn't been overly reasonable from the very beginning. "First we take Manchuria, then we take the world!" ;-)
@@joshando4092 Bingo. Japan's imperial ambition was being kept in check by the US, and if they wanted to expand and get more resources the US had to be taken out of the picture. There was no similar pressure to attack the USSR and it was convenient for both countries to just live-and-let-live since they each had bigger battles to fight.
I still need that opening theme song. It's so perfect that i have to have it in my life.