Excellent History Podcast on ww2 Japan

“The Outsider” - Decades before ‘Flags of our Fathers’ this 1961 film follows Ira Hayes from basic training, to Iwo Jima, and the years following the war. Gain an appreciation of Ira’s demise as survivor’s guilt is thrust into the hero’s spotlight.
Hidden Gem: One of the best accounts of just how happenstance the second flag raising was.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=22yCJWawEr0

For those of you who travel often, there is a really good podcast by the BBC.

“A story of love, denial and a curious death. Philippe Sands investigates the mysterious disappearance of senior Nazi, Otto Wachter, and journeys right to the heart of the Ratline.”

Very good report of the impact of having a senior Nazi father/husband on the Wachter family both during and after the war. I liked how they have been able to remain objective throughout the entire investigation.

Podcast here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSaScGMPJi0

Mussolini (and many others) thought the war all but won by Germany - hence the quote you post. From that starting point, with his political views and territorial aspirations, declaring war was an easy decision.

When you say “at this day and age” I think you mean with the largely pro-facist Italian mindset of 1940? So ignoring hindsight and my own morality?

Please clarify RJL.

Thanks
PP

@Gargantua:

I saw a documentary one time, that discussed the halt order.

The conclusion was that it was to do with the power dynamic of who was in charge of the Wehrmacht.  Hitler, or the High command.

The Dunkirk thing basically became a pissing match between the two parties, with Hitler winning the “halt” order, and exerting his will over total command.  At least… that was the opinion of the documentary, and I don’t know remember what the dynamics behind why Hitler wanted the halt order were, and why the Wehrmacht forces didn’t.

My impression–and I could be wrong–is that a large portion of the German general staff wanted the halt order. However, its most able, creative, aggressive generals–such as von Manstein–were strongly against the halt order.

Maybe the scale of the evacuation came as a surprise to many. On the other hand, it was common knowledge that Britain was a sea power with plenty of boats in or near the English Channel, so the idea that the soldiers might be evacuated should not have been a surprise. Perhaps more importantly, those Allied soldiers were on the run. The halt order gave them time to regroup, assume defensive positions, and to become a much harder nut to crack.

Von Manstein wrote that there are times when very important–but very fleeting–opportunities present themselves. When such is the case, it is often necessary to push soldiers to the absolute limits of human endurance. While this may seem cruel, seizing the opportunity in question is absolutely necessary to save your own soldiers’ lives.

The halt order was one of the two most important deviations from von Manstein’s original plan to conquer France. (Both deviations occurred over his objections.) The other deviation was that von Manstein had wanted to proceed to phase 2 (the conquest of Paris) even before having completed phase 1 (the encirclement and destruction of the BEF and nearby French forces).

You will recall that after the Germans reached the Channel, the French counterattacked from the south. Von Manstein didn’t want Germany to sit around waiting for that counterattack. Instead, he wanted to attack the French in their assembly areas, before they were ready to strike. That German attack would have secured the German path to the Channel, while also constituting the first part of phase 2.

Not really a weapon but a crucial life saver would have been a mirror or a small Perescope.

Try to look arround a corner in urban fights!

The “just sit and wait for the Phony War to end in April 1940” option is a bit perplexing as an answer to “You are the German High Command!  What is your next Combat Movement?” because it seems to imply that the Phony War was operating on a fixed timetable, and that this timetable was in someone else’s hands.  The lack of action on land on the Western Front is certainly due in part to inaction by France and Britain (whose strategy was basically to sit around for a couple of years to built up their strength for a showdown, while simultaneously hoping that the Nazi regime would be overthrown by a coup), but it was also very much a deliberate choice by Germany.  The Wehrmacht needed to analyze the Polish Campaign, fix the tactical and operational elements that hadn’t worked as well as expected, plan the upcoming campaign against France and the Low Countries, rest and replenish its forces, give them more training, provide them with additional equipment, and redeploy them to the west.  Doing this properly took time, but Germany could afford to take the time to do the job right because of the lack of Anglo-French pressure on the western front. ( In other words, by sitting on their collective hindquarters France and Britain surrendered the strategic initiative to Germany, which gave the Wehrmacht the luxury of attacking at the time and place of its own choosing.)  Moreover, the time period during which these activities took place were the fall of 1939 and the winter of 1939-1940, which was conveniently timed because this meant that the Wehrmacht wouldn’t have to fight in the fall (manageable, but rainy and muddy) or in the winter (far less harsh in the West than in Russia, but still potentially nasty as veterans of the Battle of the Bulge will recall).  The late spring / early summer period chosen for the offensive in the West was much more congenial for military operations.

He 219.
I like his strange configuration.