WEBVTT 1 00:00:21.399 --> 00:00:25.239 Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve. Today I'm sitting down 2 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:27.920 with historian Peter Fritschi and we're going to be talking 3 00:00:27.960 --> 00:00:31.719 about his most recent book, nineteen forty two, When World 4 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:35.640 War Two and Golf the Globe. Now, this is available 5 00:00:35.640 --> 00:00:37.759 for purchase right now. Link is in the show notes 6 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:41.560 as I always put them, And it's an amazing book, 7 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:45.079 especially if you're a World War Two aficionado, you're going 8 00:00:45.119 --> 00:00:48.759 to absolutely love this. It covers all the various theaters 9 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:51.000 of war that you can ever imagine and goes into 10 00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:55.439 incredibly rich detail. It's a gripping narrative that flows very 11 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:58.159 very well, and I polished it off even though it's 12 00:00:58.520 --> 00:01:00.920 several hundred pages. In fact at the back it's five 13 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:03.960 hundred and ninety two pages. I still finished it in 14 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.680 only a few hours because it's that quick of an 15 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:09.719 excellent engaging read. So I highly recommend it, and I'm 16 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:11.719 sure after you listen to the interview you'll be even 17 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:14.799 more engaged and want to pick up your copy right away. So, 18 00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:17.920 without further ado, after a few quick messages, here here's 19 00:01:17.959 --> 00:01:29.079 my interview with Peter Fritchie and his book nineteen forty two. 20 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:47.599 All right, welcome, back. Well, as I mentioned moments ago, 21 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:50.439 I'm sitting down here with Peter Fritchie and we are 22 00:01:50.480 --> 00:01:54.159 talking about his most recent book, which is one that 23 00:01:54.159 --> 00:01:55.359 I'm sure is going to be of interest to a 24 00:01:55.400 --> 00:01:58.799 lot of people listening to this, which is nineteen forty 25 00:01:58.799 --> 00:02:02.079 two when War TI engulf the globe. I know we 26 00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:05.680 can't do a World War two episode here without everyone 27 00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:08.479 being intensely interested. So everyone's going to love this book. 28 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:10.599 I can guarantee you of that, as I mentioned already 29 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:15.000 in the introduction. Now, I want to start out, mister 30 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.759 Fritchie by asking you a question about the introduction, because 31 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:19.199 in the introduction you write, and I'm going to make 32 00:02:19.240 --> 00:02:22.840 a direct quotation here, quote, this is what the war did. 33 00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:27.759 It handed you over to war, from one war to another. 34 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:31.879 I think that's a particularly apt and succinct way of 35 00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:35.400 talking about the impact of World War Two, and I 36 00:02:35.439 --> 00:02:39.120 was hoping you could start by explaining to the audience 37 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:42.159 first what exactly mean by that, And second, I'll ask 38 00:02:42.159 --> 00:02:44.199 the question I always do, which is why you chose 39 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:46.840 to write this book in the first place, because I 40 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:47.719 think that's relevant. 41 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:55.199 Well, the idea that you're handed over from one war 42 00:02:55.439 --> 00:02:59.280 to another is something that my dad used to talk 43 00:02:59.319 --> 00:03:03.680 about a lot. He was a World War Two veteran, 44 00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:09.919 drafted into the German Wehrmacht late in nineteen forty five. 45 00:03:10.960 --> 00:03:16.479 But from his almost adolescent perception, it was that there 46 00:03:16.520 --> 00:03:21.560 had been so many wars already, the war against Poland 47 00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:26.479 in nineteen thirty nine, the German invasion of France in 48 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:30.039 May nineteen forty, then the German invasion of the Soviet 49 00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:37.199 Union in nineteen forty one. These were all triumphant assaults. 50 00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:40.360 But the invasion of the Soviet Union, of course, turned 51 00:03:40.439 --> 00:03:46.000 very bad, very long, and so one winner turned into another. 52 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:51.639 The war kept going. When soldiers returned home. There was 53 00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:55.919 the bombing campaign that really intensified in nineteen forty two. 54 00:03:57.080 --> 00:04:00.800 At war's end, there were refugees on the road. So 55 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:04.719 from his microscopic position in Germany, there was just wherever 56 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:07.560 he went, there was a war. Of course, after nineteen 57 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:14.840 forty five in Germany. These Germans are hardly the victims, 58 00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:18.120 the great victims of World War Two, but again this 59 00:04:18.360 --> 00:04:21.959 was a difficult time for German civilians. The winner forty 60 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:28.879 six forty seven, with food shortages, people living in your house, 61 00:04:30.759 --> 00:04:33.079 and then the division of Germany so his sense was 62 00:04:33.079 --> 00:04:36.600 that there were all these different kinds of wars. He 63 00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:42.079 himself had not been an enthusiastic confederate of the regime. 64 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:45.680 He didn't like the Hitler youth when he was drafted 65 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:48.879 into that. He didn't like being an anti aircraft gunner, 66 00:04:48.879 --> 00:04:53.439 and he didn't like the army. He deserted the army 67 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:57.319 in March nineteen forty five and went underground with a 68 00:04:57.399 --> 00:05:01.240 farmer that was his own private war walked across Germany 69 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:05.199 to find his parents. So he thought there were many 70 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:07.399 different kinds of warn He always said, I was handed 71 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:11.000 handed from one board to the other, and that was 72 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:14.560 his impression. And he remained very opposed to war, very 73 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:19.480 opposed to conscription, even civilian conscription when it was talked 74 00:05:19.519 --> 00:05:22.560 about in the United States. And I think it's an 75 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:25.879 app way to think about nineteen forty two because we 76 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.879 have the expansion of the war with the entry of 77 00:05:29.920 --> 00:05:35.079 the United States in the war against Japan and Germany. 78 00:05:35.879 --> 00:05:41.800 But you also have insurrectionist wars against Japanese occupation, even 79 00:05:41.879 --> 00:05:46.839 against German occupation, even against British occupation of India. So 80 00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:49.000 you have a lot of different kinds. You could call 81 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:53.319 them anti colonial or anti imperialist wars that are bubbling 82 00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:58.079 up onto the surface during the what we think of 83 00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:03.160 as the conventional geopolitical campaign between the Allied and the Axes, 84 00:06:03.560 --> 00:06:07.959 and this made territories around the world actually second fronts. 85 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:11.480 The second front is usually what the Allies were supposed 86 00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:16.120 to do to help Russia by invading Europe and to 87 00:06:16.279 --> 00:06:21.519 relieve the Soviet Union from the against the Germans by 88 00:06:22.079 --> 00:06:25.120 creating a second front against Germany. But there were second 89 00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:31.040 fronts in all the belligerent countries, as labor organized, as 90 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:36.920 suppressed minorities were persecuted and then organized and mobilized, and 91 00:06:36.959 --> 00:06:40.920 then people mobilized against the pressors, whether it's British rule 92 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:45.680 in Cologne in India, or Dutch rule in Indonesia, or 93 00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:54.399 Japanese rule in the Philippines or Malaysia. So war begat war, 94 00:06:55.879 --> 00:07:01.959 and it moved from foreign soil to domes stick scenes, 95 00:07:02.519 --> 00:07:05.600 and so it was one more after the other, one 96 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:09.560 more begat another. It was a terribly long war. War 97 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:14.959 hit civilians with the bombing campaigns, So for many people 98 00:07:16.279 --> 00:07:18.600 I didn't think so much about who began what. But 99 00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:26.079 the war was an endless, never ending struggle, and nineteen 100 00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:28.639 forty two, there was no end. No one knew when 101 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:30.639 the end was going to come. And for much of 102 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:33.439 the year nineteen forty two, it looked like Germany and 103 00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:41.199 Japan were winning, which in fact mobilized even more campaigns 104 00:07:41.240 --> 00:07:47.639 against Allied misrule or British rule in India and even White 105 00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:53.879 rule in the Southern states of the United States. Yeah. 106 00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:56.040 I think one of the interesting things when I talk 107 00:07:56.120 --> 00:08:00.360 about World War Two with students or anyone else, and 108 00:08:00.399 --> 00:08:02.480 you really you bring this up really well, is to 109 00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:04.759 talk about, well, who's whose World War two are we 110 00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:08.720 talking about here? Because it's one of those conflicts that 111 00:08:09.480 --> 00:08:14.879 people have very different perspectives on, depending upon where you were, 112 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:19.560 what your position was. But the war affected everyone. I mean, 113 00:08:19.959 --> 00:08:23.759 listeners of the show will know that. Very recently. Of course, 114 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:27.720 we just had celebrations for victory in Europe day, you know, 115 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:30.839 previously make a couple of weeks ago, but Russia held 116 00:08:30.839 --> 00:08:34.399 their own separate you know, and the war, you know, 117 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:38.200 is treated differently depending upon whose perspective you are. And 118 00:08:38.200 --> 00:08:39.840 then if you want to talk about, well, and you know, 119 00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:42.120 is it the same if you you know, do you 120 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:44.639 celebrate similarly in Ukraine and so on? And so forth, 121 00:08:44.679 --> 00:08:46.960 and everyone has a different perspective on it. But one 122 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:49.360 of the questions I wanted to ask you next is 123 00:08:49.399 --> 00:08:53.799 really about the idea of this global war, and I 124 00:08:53.840 --> 00:08:57.159 think it's it is. I was really trying to find 125 00:08:57.279 --> 00:09:02.399 a comparison in my mind and I couldn't, And maybe 126 00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:05.360 you can tell me that there is one. But it 127 00:09:05.480 --> 00:09:09.200 really seems like World War two is the global war 128 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:12.360 that we've had, and that we really haven't had anything 129 00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:15.440 like it before or since. And so if you could 130 00:09:15.480 --> 00:09:18.799 explain it, what ways, was World War two truly global 131 00:09:19.159 --> 00:09:22.559 by nineteen forty two and is there a different historical 132 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:26.240 comparison or is it quite frankly just unique. 133 00:09:27.759 --> 00:09:30.759 Well, it was global in nineteen forty two because the 134 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:34.759 United States was forced to enter the war after the 135 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:37.960 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and four days later the 136 00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:42.679 German declaration of war against the United States. Britain then 137 00:09:42.759 --> 00:09:46.320 also found itself at war against Japan, and you had 138 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:50.519 a pretty neat division of the major powers, the major 139 00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:55.360 industrial powers, either on the Axis side or the Allied side. 140 00:09:55.399 --> 00:09:58.039 And the only exception to that is that the Soviet 141 00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:01.159 Union in Japan until the very very very end in 142 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:05.919 nineteen forty five were not belligerents against each other, but 143 00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:12.000 otherwise geopolitically it was very The entire globe had divided 144 00:10:13.639 --> 00:10:21.519 except for South America nineteen forty two. But the global 145 00:10:21.559 --> 00:10:25.679 war was also deeper. People thought about the ideological stakes 146 00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:31.519 of the war between the new boys on the block, 147 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:35.480 the fascists who wanted to rearrange the balance of world power, 148 00:10:36.399 --> 00:10:40.600 and the Allies, who stood for the status quo in 149 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:45.879 some ways, for freedom and sovereignty. And so there was 150 00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:50.879 the idea of liberty and freedom, and no particular side 151 00:10:50.919 --> 00:10:55.960 had a monopoly on it, and the Allied Supreme Command 152 00:10:56.039 --> 00:11:00.360 couldn't determine its meeting. So even within the Allied here 153 00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:02.759 you have all sorts of people. And the best example 154 00:11:03.720 --> 00:11:11.799 are the Indians and India who mobilize against British colonial rule. 155 00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:15.440 They see themselves as part of the Allies for the 156 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:18.600 most part, but are also fighting the British, and so 157 00:11:18.639 --> 00:11:22.480 they're all sorts of wars, often in the name of 158 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:28.000 the declared Allied war aims, which is sovereignty and liberty 159 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:32.240 and the freedom to choose your government and your rulers 160 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:36.440 that divide each of the geopolitical sides. Of course, the 161 00:11:36.440 --> 00:11:40.919 Germans and the Japanese also had to contend with underground 162 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:46.360 movements against the military occupations that they had imposed. So 163 00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:50.600 World War two sinks very deep ideologically, and just one 164 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:52.759 way to think about it is to think about the 165 00:11:52.799 --> 00:11:57.080 billions of bottles of coke that were drunk by people 166 00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:00.720 around the world as the American soul just came in. 167 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:05.080 The constant music, the swing music that was heard everywhere. 168 00:12:06.039 --> 00:12:11.840 Tip that really characterizes how popular and how deep the 169 00:12:11.879 --> 00:12:16.360 war was. But people didn't agree. There was no single 170 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:21.480 viewpoint on the war, and somebody in Nigeria or South Africa, 171 00:12:23.080 --> 00:12:29.639 or in occupied Poland saw the war differently than people 172 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:32.759 in the United States, and African Americans saw it different 173 00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:37.399 than differently than White Americans. So everyone had their own vision, 174 00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:42.960 their own interpretation of freedom and liberty. In fact, white 175 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:46.919 Southerners thought they were fighting for states rights and thought 176 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:50.360 that the war for Jim Crow was pretty much the 177 00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:53.480 same one as the war to liberate Poland from the Germans. 178 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:58.360 So people had vastly different interpretations and that deepened the 179 00:12:58.399 --> 00:13:02.159 war in that sense. It global the war, which probably 180 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:07.159 involved half the population of the globe, so about one 181 00:13:07.279 --> 00:13:13.799 billion people, more than ten percent of whom were in uniform. 182 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:15.440 All right, Well, I want to ask a follow a 183 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:17.519 question on that now, because I've never heard that before. 184 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:21.360 I've never heard this idea that white Southerners believed that 185 00:13:21.399 --> 00:13:24.240 World War II was fought in some way, shape or 186 00:13:24.279 --> 00:13:28.519 form to protect states' rights. That seems so counterintuitive to me. 187 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:29.960 Can can you explain what you mean by that? 188 00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:36.879 The idea was that people should have their own culture, 189 00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:41.159 their own government, and that Germans shouldn't impose their racial 190 00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:45.799 ideas and their geopolitical ideas on Poland. They have no 191 00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:49.840 right to Poland. And white Southerners felt that the federal 192 00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:57.960 government should not impose its laws and mores on us 193 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:02.799 white Southern folk ways, and that the way we do 194 00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:08.080 things here, the way that the states had defined and 195 00:14:08.279 --> 00:14:12.000 organized their liberty, that was exactly the sort of thing 196 00:14:12.759 --> 00:14:15.840 that polls were also fighting for, or that any other 197 00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:22.639 oppressed people were under military occupation were fighting for. And 198 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:28.279 more or less, this was the view of the white South, 199 00:14:28.360 --> 00:14:31.720 which the solid South is a term that comes from 200 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:37.799 the nineteen thirties and forties and the maintenance of racial segregation. 201 00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:42.159 And Jim Crow was very high on the political agenda, 202 00:14:42.200 --> 00:14:45.879 which means the agenda of the Democratic Party and Democratic 203 00:14:45.919 --> 00:14:50.440 primaries turned on that race issue, and so there was 204 00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:54.919 you can call it cognitive dissonance. But for many white Southerners, 205 00:14:55.399 --> 00:14:58.799 the war against Hitler was also a war four states rights. 206 00:15:01.519 --> 00:15:03.440 Which is so interesting, of course, because when you when 207 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:06.080 you normally think of, you know, the Nazi regime, you 208 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:09.200 think of these concepts of racial purity and all of 209 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:11.519 these ideas, and of course Jesse Owens and the Olympics 210 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:14.799 and all of that, and it seems so counterintuitive to me. 211 00:15:14.840 --> 00:15:17.759 But as you explain it, it makes perfect sense. You know, 212 00:15:18.080 --> 00:15:20.759 be from people fighting over dominant forces. We're trying to 213 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:23.840 enforce a way of life on that group of people 214 00:15:23.840 --> 00:15:26.879 that they don't necessarily agree with, and that's what makes 215 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:29.120 it so similar. But I want to go back to 216 00:15:29.120 --> 00:15:32.519 this question then again of historical parallels, and let's just 217 00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:34.720 go back to World War One, because that's obviously the 218 00:15:34.759 --> 00:15:38.440 closest parallel that we had. You know, I think World 219 00:15:38.519 --> 00:15:42.679 War One is argued as a global conflict. You know, 220 00:15:42.840 --> 00:15:48.799 Japan takes part, Germany has some colonial possessions. The United 221 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:53.960 States brings the Americas in in some way, shape or form. 222 00:15:54.480 --> 00:15:57.240 I mean, can we argue in the context of World 223 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:00.279 War Two that World War One is global or do 224 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:02.279 they does the comparison just not fit? 225 00:16:04.759 --> 00:16:07.919 It fits in terms of World War One was was 226 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:12.320 certainly global in similar ways to the Seven Years War 227 00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:18.279 in the eighteenth century or the Napoleonic Wars, but the 228 00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:22.360 main action in World War One by far as the 229 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:29.159 Western Front and to some extent, the Ottoman the Ottoman Empire. 230 00:16:29.799 --> 00:16:33.039 World War Two totally expands that, so that you have 231 00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:40.080 major operations in North Africa, in Western Europe, in the 232 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:48.919 Soviet Union, throughout the Southeast Pacific than the Philippines. In 233 00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:53.960 that sense, World War two, just geopolitically militarily is more 234 00:16:54.759 --> 00:16:59.000 is more global and less centered on Europe. But it's 235 00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:02.480 also more global because it involved people in a much 236 00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:07.720 more direct way in which they saw themselves not simply 237 00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:11.119 as victims of war, but as protagonists of a new 238 00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:14.839 kind of world, a new kind of order, a new 239 00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:20.279 kind of liberty. The example might be better the French 240 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:24.039 Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the 241 00:17:24.279 --> 00:17:30.079 nineteenth century, which had I mean, there was major conflict 242 00:17:30.200 --> 00:17:34.319 and struggle in North America, on South America, especially in 243 00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:39.279 the Caribbean Haitian independence stands for a great deal there 244 00:17:40.279 --> 00:17:44.960 as well as in India, and the ideas of the 245 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:49.079 French Revolution circled the globe and were contested were interpreted 246 00:17:49.160 --> 00:17:53.920 on their own. But World War Two is broader, deadlier, 247 00:17:55.039 --> 00:18:00.559 and is deeper in terms of touching more people and 248 00:18:00.680 --> 00:18:08.039 involving them ideologically in all sorts of contested and varied ways. 249 00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:10.799 But people did think in terms of the goals of 250 00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:16.519 the Allies and the Axis, interpreting the ideas of liberty 251 00:18:16.519 --> 00:18:19.960 and freedom in their in their own ways. The idea 252 00:18:19.960 --> 00:18:26.960 of self rule gets at self rule for the majority, 253 00:18:27.160 --> 00:18:30.279 or is it self rule in the sense that all 254 00:18:30.680 --> 00:18:34.400 men and women are equal and minority rights are respected. 255 00:18:35.279 --> 00:18:37.440 So there's a lot of there's a lot of contests 256 00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:41.319 on exactly what self rule means. But the idea of 257 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:46.359 self rule impassion people in a tremendous way. That makes 258 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:49.759 World War Two different than than World War One. But 259 00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:52.519 I would I would say sure, it's it's These are 260 00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:56.720 of course very similar, and in ideological age where ideas 261 00:18:56.799 --> 00:19:02.079 matter and ideas are deadly, they're there are parallels between, 262 00:19:02.279 --> 00:19:04.480 of course, between World War two and World War One, 263 00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:08.799 and between World War two and the Napoleonic and Revolutionary wars. 264 00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.759 The big difference, maybe to get at World War One 265 00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:15.400 versus World War two, is the vast majority of people 266 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:19.000 who are killed in World War One are male uniformed 267 00:19:19.039 --> 00:19:25.039 soldiers about eighty to eighty five percent, and the vast 268 00:19:25.039 --> 00:19:27.960 majority of people killed in World War Two are civilians 269 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:30.839 seventy percent. 270 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:35.079 It's interesting. I can hear somebody listening to this and 271 00:19:35.160 --> 00:19:39.079 thinking to themselves, oh, gosh, you know, really the only 272 00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:43.119 difference between World War One, say, or maybe the Napoleonic 273 00:19:43.160 --> 00:19:45.359 Wars or anything that came before it, and World War 274 00:19:45.359 --> 00:19:48.599 two is technology. You know, that's really the only difference. 275 00:19:48.599 --> 00:19:52.759 That's why it touches everyone is because the expansion of technology, 276 00:19:52.759 --> 00:19:55.759 of bombing and of air campaigns and so on and 277 00:19:55.799 --> 00:19:58.480 so forth. Well, what do you think about that argument? 278 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:01.039 If there's somebody listening and thinking that, do you think 279 00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:03.319 they're right or do you think that that's true? But 280 00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:04.759 maybe it needs a little nuance. 281 00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:11.519 Well, technology certainly makes a difference. The step from the 282 00:20:11.599 --> 00:20:16.119 step up from Napoleon to World War One versus World 283 00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:19.359 War one, were world War two, what's the bigger step. 284 00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:23.039 I'm not sure world War one was was quite deadly 285 00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:28.160 for uniformed soldiers. I think the big difference, though, is 286 00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:35.079 the nature of the ideas, not just the ideas of freedom, 287 00:20:35.359 --> 00:20:43.599 equality government that the Allies talked about, but the frankly 288 00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:49.839 imperialist and racial ideas that dominated the Japanese and especially 289 00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:53.519 the Germans. The Germans had a vision of a complete 290 00:20:53.960 --> 00:20:59.960 new racial order in which they would undo the land 291 00:21:00.119 --> 00:21:03.400 escape and the peoples on it in order to impose 292 00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:10.039 their own totally artificial racial hierarchy. They had plans that 293 00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:16.799 saw the elimination of almost all people in Eastern Europe 294 00:21:16.839 --> 00:21:21.880 and in Western Russia, and grand ideas that German colonists 295 00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:25.000 would replace them to the tune of tens of millions, 296 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:30.359 even one hundred million German colonists between the Black Sea 297 00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:39.119 and the and the Baltic Sea. These are extraordinary and 298 00:21:39.279 --> 00:21:47.119 audacious ideological visions that made the Germans extremely deadly and 299 00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:50.000 are completely different from what we see in World War 300 00:21:50.039 --> 00:21:54.559 One and the Napoleonic era. And this is what drove 301 00:21:54.759 --> 00:21:59.519 German arms. Was not fear of It wasn't a defensive 302 00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:05.240 war and anyway wasn't even to right the wrongs of Versailles. 303 00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:11.359 It was a much much more ambitious, radical reordering not 304 00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:17.559 only the political geopolitical landscape, but of what would happen 305 00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:21.920 to people under German rule and what was their role, 306 00:22:22.119 --> 00:22:24.559 And the role was usually to be slaves or to 307 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:30.839 be killed, very radical difference. And it was the Japanese 308 00:22:31.039 --> 00:22:34.400 and the Germans who killed the vast majority of those 309 00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:39.279 seventy civilians. The seventy percent of the dead of World 310 00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:45.519 War Two who are civilians, those are German and Japanese casualties. 311 00:22:46.039 --> 00:22:49.240 Those are the killed by Germans and Japanese on the whole. 312 00:22:54.359 --> 00:22:56.039 Well, yeah, I mean you need to only look at 313 00:22:56.039 --> 00:23:01.279 some of the Soviet death numbers to understand the picture really. 314 00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:04.400 China and the Soviet Union exactly. 315 00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:07.400 But yeah, I mean, of course, and what we always 316 00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:09.200 forget is that World War Two, I mean, it depends 317 00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:11.319 on when you want to say it starts. If you 318 00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:13.480 want to say that it starts with the Japanese invasions 319 00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:16.559 of Manchuria, then it starts a lot earlier than nineteen 320 00:23:16.599 --> 00:23:20.279 thirty nine, which is not traditionally how it's taught in 321 00:23:20.319 --> 00:23:24.160 American schools, but maybe it should be to that extent. 322 00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:26.680 But let's talk a little bit about the United States then, 323 00:23:26.759 --> 00:23:30.000 because I want to get a sense of what American 324 00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:33.599 perspectives were like about the war prior to the bombing 325 00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:36.839 of Pearl Harbor and how they changed. And specifically, what 326 00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:40.000 I'm thinking about is this isolationist sentiment. You know, it's 327 00:23:40.039 --> 00:23:43.599 often boiled down in simplistic terms that the United States 328 00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:48.319 is effectively isolationist going into World War Two and the 329 00:23:48.359 --> 00:23:50.920 only thing that coaxes it out is the attack on 330 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:54.799 Pearl Harbor. And I don't know, I always struggle with 331 00:23:54.839 --> 00:23:58.200 that and trying to decide to what level that assertion 332 00:23:58.440 --> 00:24:02.799 is accurate. I wanted to get your take on it. 333 00:24:02.839 --> 00:24:07.519 Is that a true statement speaking of the United States 334 00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:11.400 as purely isolationist? And really it's only Pearl Harbor and 335 00:24:11.519 --> 00:24:13.720 only it would have been an attack on the United 336 00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:15.920 States that ever really could have pulled the United States. 337 00:24:16.119 --> 00:24:18.480 And I know we're talking a little bit in hypothetical 338 00:24:18.559 --> 00:24:21.000 terms here, but I want to get a sense of 339 00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:24.519 what the mood was in this country going into nineteen 340 00:24:24.559 --> 00:24:25.000 forty two. 341 00:24:27.880 --> 00:24:30.400 Well, I think in a one or two cents summation, 342 00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:35.799 one could definitely say that the for those people who 343 00:24:35.799 --> 00:24:40.240 felt that the United States had a global responsibility by 344 00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:44.680 entering the war on the Allied side, a sentiment not 345 00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:50.519 necessarily shared by the majority of the American people. Pearl Harbor, 346 00:24:50.559 --> 00:24:54.759 a Japanese attack sneak attack as it was called, on 347 00:24:54.839 --> 00:24:58.440 the United States, as well as the German declaration of 348 00:24:58.519 --> 00:25:03.559 war that followed, made it very easy for Roosevelt, and 349 00:25:03.759 --> 00:25:10.160 it made also the terms of unconditional surrender much easier. 350 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:15.680 That the Japanese were not to be negotiated with. But 351 00:25:15.799 --> 00:25:18.799 I think if you look a little bit deeper, America 352 00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:23.559 is deeply divided, and the divisions exist within people, within 353 00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:29.319 within an individual or within a community. People hated the Nazis. 354 00:25:29.319 --> 00:25:31.920 They didn't have sympathy for the Nazis. That's a very 355 00:25:31.960 --> 00:25:36.079 small minority in the United States. But they didn't want 356 00:25:36.119 --> 00:25:39.920 to get involved in another war like World War One, 357 00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:42.880 and they didn't want to get involved in other people's trouble. 358 00:25:43.960 --> 00:25:46.839 And they had just gotten out of the depression. So 359 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:50.559 nineteen forty is a very good year, not least of 360 00:25:50.599 --> 00:25:56.480 course because of the because of the war industries. But 361 00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:03.119 there's prosperity finally and no war, and that is that's 362 00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:08.559 what Americans wanted. On the other hand, so Americans hated Hitler, 363 00:26:09.720 --> 00:26:14.839 but they also didn't want to start a war or 364 00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:18.000 enter a war in order to get rid of Hitler. 365 00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:22.480 And so both of these somewhat contradictory thoughts existed side 366 00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:26.000 by side. Both of them commanded majorities, and in a 367 00:26:26.039 --> 00:26:34.480 way this not was cut by Pearl Harbor and the 368 00:26:34.519 --> 00:26:40.480 German declaration of war. The opposition to the war was 369 00:26:40.519 --> 00:26:43.319 also more or less people agreed that there should be 370 00:26:43.359 --> 00:26:46.799 a draft, there should be selective service. That all kicked 371 00:26:46.799 --> 00:26:51.319 in in the fall of nineteen forty and the idea 372 00:26:51.480 --> 00:26:55.000 was to train a generation of young men for a 373 00:26:55.079 --> 00:26:59.680 year and have them be prepared for whatever global crises happened. 374 00:27:00.680 --> 00:27:03.720 But what happened in the summer of nineteen forty one 375 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:09.119 is that the one year term for those soldiers already 376 00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:12.759 drafted was extended. It was extended for what was thought 377 00:27:12.759 --> 00:27:17.440 to be another six months, but nobody really knew, and 378 00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:23.880 so this really sparked a lot of isolationist campaigning in 379 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:27.400 the spring and summer of nineteen forty one, simply that 380 00:27:27.519 --> 00:27:33.279 the draft had now been extended theoretically without extension, without 381 00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:42.000 a deadline, and that this cohort of American men were 382 00:27:42.039 --> 00:27:44.480 there sort of for the duration, and that the next 383 00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:47.759 ones would also be drafted for much longer periods of time. 384 00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:53.680 So spring and summer nineteen forty one season expansion of 385 00:27:53.720 --> 00:27:59.119 the anti war movement, and it's then joined by celebrities 386 00:27:59.160 --> 00:28:02.200 like Lindbergh, So they have quite a bit of airtime 387 00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:05.519 and they get quite a bit of media presence. They 388 00:28:05.559 --> 00:28:11.960 fill stadiums throughout the summer and fall of nineteen forty one. 389 00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:19.160 So there is this impatience and struggle against what seems 390 00:28:19.279 --> 00:28:24.880 to be America's imminent entry into the war without the 391 00:28:25.039 --> 00:28:30.160 drama of a huge incident that was then provided by 392 00:28:30.200 --> 00:28:35.160 the Japanese with Pearl Harbor. So the country is very divided. 393 00:28:35.759 --> 00:28:40.400 But once Pearl Harbor happens on the seventh of Sunday, 394 00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:44.240 the seventh of December, and the German declaration of war 395 00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:50.880 four days later, there's a near universal shift in opinion 396 00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:54.480 that this war has to be fought and those enemies 397 00:28:54.559 --> 00:28:55.559 have to be defeated. 398 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:01.759 I wonder you talk about this vision within the American public. 399 00:29:01.799 --> 00:29:05.799 But I wonder was the Roosevelt administration divided in the 400 00:29:05.880 --> 00:29:11.960 same way, or was the administration leaning more heavily towards 401 00:29:12.039 --> 00:29:15.440