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World War II & Second World War (I)
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★ World War II & Second World War (I)

In the autumn of 1916, during the First World War, Germany began the construction of a major defence line ... The Hindenburg Line.  At the same time, however, the British and the French were both developing a new weapon, one which could easily breach Germany's line of defence – the tank.  The War in Europe, Movies4men 2013

 

By 1938 the same name was applied to a new extensive defence – officially the West Wall ... a staggering eight million tons of cement.  ibid.

 

Hitler’s war was regarded by many as the Fuhrer’s White Elephant.  For, they asked themselves, what useful purpose could it serve?  ibid.

 

It was over six hundred and forty kilometres long.  ibid.

 

 

The day the soldiers came the people were gathered together.  The World at War 1/26: A New Germany, ITV 1973

 

Germany in 1933: the huge, blind excitement fills the streets.  The National Socialists have come to power in a land tortured by unemployment, embittered by loss of territory, demoralised by political weakness.   Perhaps this will be the new beginning.  ibid.

 

As the sparks rose, the intellectuals fled.  ibid.

 

All over Europe the reservists got their telegrams.  ibid.  

 

 

September 1st 1939: Germany attacks Poland.  The World at War 2/26: Distant Land

 

The Germans thrust into Poland from the west and north.  In two weeks the Polish army had virtually ceased to exist.  ibid.

 

Lord Halifax was the obvious successor.  ibid.

 

 

Thank God for the French army, said Winston Churchill when he came to power.  But in 1933 the French Army was no longer the superlative weapon it had once had been.  The World at War 3/26: France Falls

 

France between the wars was deeply divided ... On the very day Hitler came to power France was without a government.  ibid.

 

France in the thirties build a series of great forts along her frontier with Germany ... The Maginot Forts were truly twentieth century wonders.  ibid.

 

The Maginot Line ironically protected Germany better than it protected France.  ibid.

 

Little attempt was made to harass the enemy.  ibid.

 

Life at the front was dreary and drab.  Badly paid, leave became an obsession for the French soldiers.  ibid.

 

Fifty British and French airfields were attacked on the first day.  ibid.

 

At one time twelve million people were on the road to northern France.  ibid.

 

 

May 26th 1940: The long roads lined with their smashed and abandoned equipment, British and French armies retreat to the only channel port still open to them  Dunkirk.  The World at War 4/26: Alone

 

Britain prepared to face immediate invasion.  An evacuation of children began.  ibid.

 

Fighting over England put the Luftwaffe at a disadvantage.  ibid.

 

Goering’s change of tactics relieved the pressure.  Fighter Command regrouped.  London burning.  ibid.

 

On the day September 15th fifty-six German planes were shot down.  Britain had retained control of the air by day.  The Royal Air Force had won the Battle of Britain.  ibid.

 

People somehow got to work through a nightmare of upended buses and cratered roads and bombed railways.  Radio reporters told America and the world that London could take it.  The spirit of Londoners won sympathy and help, but the United States remained neutral.  While Britain stood alone from September 1940 to May 1941 forty thousand people were killed in raids, half of them Londoners.  Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless ... But not morale.  ibid.

 

Factories went on working by night and by day ... There was no real defence against German bombing at night.  ibid.    

 

Many more shared London’s ordeal.  ibid.

 

Greece was overwhelmed in three weeks.  ibid.

 

Germany and her allies controlled most of mainland Europe.  ibid.

 

The important battle had been won.  Britain had survived.  Now it was Russia’s turn.  ibid.

 

 

The speed and sureness of his [Hitler’s] victories had astonished even his generals.  The World at War 5/26: Barbarossa

 

The ordinary German, like the ordinary Russian or the ordinary person anywhere, had been surprised by Hitlers pact with Stalin in August 1939.  To him as to them it had seemed the least likely about-face by the worlds bitterest rivals.  The Nazi-Soviet pact had served its purpose for Hitler.  He had not been hindered while he dealt with Poland and France.  ibid.  

 

Russia mid-June 1941: Bewildered uncertain country.  Rumours abounded of invasion by Hitlers Germany.  ibid.

 

Doubts about the Red Armys strength had been raised inside Russia itself.  For the purges of the ’30s had decimated its leadership.  ibid.

 

Even while Molotov was still in Berlin Hitler ordered his Generals to plan an attack on Russia for May 15th 1941.  They responded with a detailed scheme which he now named Operation Barbarossa.  ibid.

 

In a week the Wehrmacht was already halfway to Moscow.  ibid.  

 

The Germans were having trouble of their own.  Temperatures were down to minus forty degrees Centigrade.  Oil solidified in the sumps of lorries and tanks.  The intense cold affected the soldiers too.  There were more casualties from frostbite and stomach troubles than from actual fighting.  ibid.

 

 

Berlin in September 1940: Germany, Italy and Japan concluded the Tripartite Pact.  The World at War 6/26: Banzai

 

But the Japanese did not just succeed against the Americans at Pearl Harbor.  On December 10th the pride of the Royal Navy in the Pacific – the Prince of Wales and the Repulse – were sunk.  That same day Guam fell.  ibid.

 

Japan suffered more than most countries from the great depression after the First World War.  ibid.

 

Peking soon fell.  And then it was Shanghai’s turn.  ibid.

 

It was here at Nanking in December 1937 that the Japanese perpetrated what was until then one of the worst atrocities of this century when their troops massacred more than 200,000 Chinese in cold blood.  Even the Nazis were shocked.  ibid.

 

The sun had set on one imperial power; on another the sun was still rising.  ibid.

 

 

More than a hundred thousand Japanese Americans were interned en masse, mostly those on the west coast.  Whereas the 600,000 German and Italian Americans were treated individually.  The World at War 7/26: On Our Way

 

 

This land was made for war ... Here is no nubile girlish land.  No green and virginal countryside for war to violate.  This land is hard, inviolable.  The World at War 8/26: Desert

 

Like some latter-day Roman consul Mussolini longed for an African empire.  ibid.  

 

200,000 Italians were taken prisoner.  ibid.

 

Over a thousand raids were mounted against Tobruk [Libya].  ibid.

 

Rommel not only had the edge on the British in tanks and equipment he also enjoyed the confidence of his political chief Hitler.  ibid.

 

When the wind blew, the sand and dust got in everywhere.  ibid.

 

 

Russia: the summer of 1942.  The Germans are on the move again.  The World at War 9/26: Stalingrad

 

The German armys plan to destroy Russia by a blitzkrieg in 1941 had failed.  And in the attempt they lost a million men.  ibid.

 

Hitler turned south to the Caucasus.  Three-quarters of Russias oil was there.  ibid.

 

The Germans didnt take many prisoners.  They captured territory and towns.  ibid.

 

Soon it would be 30, 40, 50 degrees below freezing.  Equipment and men would freeze.  ibid.  

 

Hitler was obsessed with Stalingrad.  The Russians too.  ibid.

 

The same day he was promoted Von Paulus surrendered.  His captors had never seen such a senior German officer before ... Hitler had expected him to shoot himself.  It was not an ordinary defeat; it was a catastrophe.  ibid.

 

 

The Atlantic.  Britain’s lifeline.  Treacherous enough in peacetime, in war black with menace.  U-boat packs stalked through the night.  Knowing the danger, their victims still plough on.  The World at War 10/26: Wolf Pack

 

The Germans were still celebrating.  In the first half of 1941 they sank nearly three million tons of shipping.  ibid.

 

Donitz’s U-boats never had it so good.  ibid.

 

They finally established a system of offshore convoys.  ibid.

 

Eight of every ten U-boat crew men were to die in action.  They called their U-boats iron coffins.  ibid.

 

In January 1943 Roosevelt and Churchill decreed that the defeat of the U-boats be given top priority.  Improved escort vessels were built.  ibid.  

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