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Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the
Peak and Yona show. We had a little bit of
a hiatus because you know, did a little traveling and everything.
But Thomas is back and we're going to finish up
the series on who started World War Two? Who's responsible?
And yeah, so take it away, Thomas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for hosting me again. There's there's two issues
here and if memory serves, in the first episode of
this little series, we addressed the issue of one exactly
the Second World War started, which seems pedantic, but it's not. It.
This is a real matter of contention for anybody who's
seriously engaged with the subject matter. There's a reason why
court historians claim the opposite of hostilities was September third,
nineteen thirty nine, because that represents a discreetly ideologically coded perspective.
And obviously the intention is to present the global strategic
and geopolitical situation as being one of relative peace until
the German Reich violated that peace through naked aggression against
the Polish state. Okay, that's a problematic perspective for all
kinds of reasons, you know, some of which are political,
some of which are purely historical in nature and factual.
Speaker 3: But what I think is irrebuttable.
Speaker 2: Even if one accepts, you know, the.
Speaker 3: Mainstream view of.
Speaker 2: The onset of hostilities between the German Reich and Poland
and the subsequent words declaration on the German Reich by
France and the United Kingdom. The fact of the matter
is that weeks prior, the Soviet Union assaulted the Japanese
Imperial Army at Chalcan Goal. This was a massive engagement.
This is a massive clash of forces, you know, and
obviously it represented the onset of a state of general
hostilities between two great powers, the Soviet Union and the
Empire of Japan. So I don't really see how anybody
whoks likes to be taken seriously It can claim that
this was some sort of insignificant event or somehow not
related to the broader nexus of causation that you know,
also precipitated the amin of hostilities in Europe.
Speaker 3: You know, either.
Speaker 2: The Soviet Union going to war with Japan in a
scale capacity represented the onset of general hostilities a planetary scale,
or it didn't.
Speaker 3: Okay, So there's that.
Speaker 2: Related to that, but more discreetly political in terms of
the significance of the subject matter vis a vis court history,
narratives and the way that official authorities in the United
States and the United Kingdom and.
Speaker 3: The Buddhist Republic.
Speaker 2: Continue to present, you know, and characterize the Second World
War is the issue with Soviet intentions and what exactly
the state of power political relations was between Moscow and
Berlin as of you know, June twenty second, nineteen forty one.
And it's pretty clear to me, you know, and I
draw a lot in substantial measure on the late Jacham
Hoffmann's exhaustive study of Barbarossa. It's pretty clear to me
that the Soviet Union was eminently going to assault Europe
and the German Rich, not just the Feure but okay,
w as well as you know, various command elements within
the party apparatus, the military and the secular state of
apparatus recognized this reality, as did myriad heads of state
who found themselves allied with the German Reich for various reasons.
You know, this included Croatia, Slovakia, Italy, and you know France.
You know, again, there was no Vhi France. There was
the Government of France, and it was absolutely on the
side of the Axis powers. You know, there were volunteers
from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland throughout this Central Asian Islamic countries.
You know, Romania. Romania contributed a quarter million men, which
is a massive contribution for a country the size of Romania.
You know, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, you know, Belgium, Luxembourg.
Speaker 3: You know, the list goes on and on and on
and on. You know.
Speaker 2: And obviously the Spaniards at Leningrad fought incredibly valiantly. But
you know, there there's this, This wasn't just a matter
of zeitgeist. There some sort of mass hysteria or some
sort of desire to sacrifice one's life, or some sort
of epemeral glory. The Soviet Union, uh had. Aside of
the fact that it was animated by a revolutionary ideology
that was really global in character. It, the Soviet Union
had built a military juggernaut the likes of which the
world had never seen. It was almost unfathomable, and it
was only growing larger and more powerful, you know, And
the like I said to me, this is obvious, Hoffman
Uh and Victor Suvarov and Uh a few other military historians,
all right, says Stope is another one they brought unique
insight to the table, and Hoffman in particular, his data
points were and are exhaustive. And Hoffman too, he he
not that I mean, obviously, I don't have any prejudice
against independence scholars. I am one, but such that people
are prone to dismissing historians who don't have what they
view as adequate credential affiliation with reputable institutions. Well, Hoffmann
when he was alive, he was in the employee of
the official Historical Records division of the Bundesman, you know,
and he was considered to be probably the seminole German
historian on Barbarossa in terms of the military aspects. Okay,
you can't say that he was a crank or that
he was some agrieved guy who was outside of the
establishment of the bundes Republic. He was very much insinuated
into it. Okay, not that that have to make a difference,
but such that it does, you know, I don't see
how people can impeach his credibility, you know. And one
of the issues that Hoffman takes up, because again Hoffman
was very focused on the quantitative military aspects of Barbarossa.
One of the things that he addressed was a lot
of lay people as well as historians and military analysts
who know better, but for cynical reasons. Van Wagen on
this argument, they claim that, well, if the Soviet Union
was so deep we mobilized and had to raise such
a massively scaled war machine, why did they absorb catastrophic casualties. Well,
that's exactly why they did, because they were deployed offensively.
And when you're talking about combined arms, even to this day,
I mean drones in localized autonomous firepower are are definitely
changing things, most strategically and tactically, and nowhere is that
more on display than than in various aspects of tactical
deployment and depth. But even to this day, this remains constant.
If we're talking about combined arms. Modern warfare.
Speaker 3: Were not.
Speaker 2: You can't just call a proverbial audible in the midst
of hostilities if your forces are a rayed to assault
and switch to a defensive paradigm. So coming under assault
when not prepared to defend in depth, it can lead
to catastrophe, particularly when one's opponent is the Wehrmacht. And
I'm gonna get into how exactly that plays out but
not only again, does the attrition rate and specifically the
skewed nature of that attrition rate, not only does that
not tend to rebut the claim before us, it actually
tends to substantiate it. Now, I'll get into some of
these data points, said, you know, to clarify what we're
talking about here. I can't remember if I got into
this or not in the first episode. And please tell
me if I'm repeating myself and know what has need
to correct me. I'm not gonna be offended. Quite the contrary,
You'll be quite gracious. Between November nineteen forty and literally
the eve of Barbarossa in June of nineteen forty one,
the Soviets undertook a massive arms build up. It now,
don't get me wrong. By the autumn of nineteen forty
the Soviets enjoyed numeric and arguably technological superiority pretty much
across the entire spectrum of combined arms. But this punctuated
build up of November nineteen forty to June nineteen forty
one can really only be interpreted as mobilization and anticipation
of offensive operations. On the outbreak of hostilities in June
twenty second, nineteen forty one.
Speaker 3: The Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: Had deployed no less than twenty four thousand tanks, close
to two thousand of which were T thirty fours, which
you know, in those days there weren't battle tanks. There
was light, medium, and heavy tanks. Then are you with
super heavy tanks? But uh, the T thirty four was
I think of it as kind of like the the
the zero of of of armored forces. You know, it
was probably the most effective armored platform of the entire war.
And and all are out in terms. Okay, yeah, obviously
you know, the the Tiger was a superior machine. That's
not what we're talking about, you know, in the the uh,
the ability of T thirty four is to be rolled
off the assembly line rapidly, you know, almost like model
T Fords or something odin that that that itself was
a force multiplier, you know it.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Between nineteen and thirty eight and June twenty second, nineteen
forty one, the.
Speaker 3: Red Air Force.
Speaker 2: Had acquired over twenty three thousand military aircraft, around thirty
seven one hundred of which could be considered cutting edge.
Probably about half of those had night fighting capability. The
Red Army had close to one hundred and fifty thousand
field artillery pieces and heavy mortars.
Speaker 3: The Red Navy.
Speaker 2: Had over two hundred submarines, which I can't remember if
I mentioned or not, But obviously the submarines are expressly offensive.
There aren't defensive submarines, you know. And to be clear,
this alone, I mean, the Soviet Union wasn't known as
any kind of.
Speaker 3: Maritime power.
Speaker 2: I mean, if anything, you know, the the Tsars Navy
had been sank by the Japanese in nineteen oh five,
and that it further compromised the prestige actual potential of
you know, the Russian Navy is a real force. But
by June twenty second, nineteen forty one, the Soviet Union
by far had the largest submarine fleet in the world,
more than four times that of the Royal Navy, you know,
in the UK was viewed as the foremost naval power
on this planet, you know. I mean, these data points
speak for themselves, you know. And on the political side,
I know I've gotten into this. In pre obvious series
that we've done, I put a lot of emphasis on
direct testimony, owing I'm sure in part to the fact
that my background in part at least is that of
a lawyer, you know. But also if we're talking about intent,
particularly of wartime executives, there's a tendency to be able
to rely upon the statements of a wartime executive or
an executive who is preparing for war. There's a there's
incentivization to telling the truth when the chief executives so
situated as talking to his cabinet or as a general
staff officers, Okay, because what incentive or there be to lie?
Number one, And there's there's there's active disincentives to lie,
because that compromises the ability of subordinate command elements to
effectively execute orders and wage war towards victory conditions.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: And so I put a lot of stock in what
Stalin said, and a lot of this testimony from Stalin himself,
you know, that which isn't independently documented by you know,
the minutes of his speeches or or by audio recording.
You know, a lot of Stalin's intimates were the sources
of these statements, including Colonel Volkaganov, who was Stalin's official biographer,
you know.
Speaker 3: And Stalin gave a series of speeches in this.
Speaker 2: In the year preceding Barbarossa, but particularly the six to
eight months immediately proceeding onset of hostilities, which approximately reflects
the final phase of mobilization that we talked about just now,
from November nineteen forty to June nineteen forty one. And
Volkognanov makes the point that Stalin was very taciturn, but
he became quite king ended and quite open within the
cloisters of you know, these command element corridors in his
discussion of you know, what was to be military doctrine
in the next war, which he increasingly discussed as if
it was an imminent possibility. In Volkoganov's own words, in
describing the speech Stalin made on May fifth, nineteen forty one,
he says, quote the leader made it unmistakably, unmistakably clear.
War is inevitable in the future. One must be ready
for the quote unconditional destruction of German fascism. The worl
will be fought on enemy territory and victory will be
achieved with few casualties. And again, this wasn't something that
Stalin merely devised as a polemical device to embolden forces
under his command or to overcome any potential or actual
crises and confidences among the general staff by appeal to
revolutionary fervor. Lenin made clear in identifying the core doctrinal
elements of the Red Army, you know, back in nineteen twenty,
nineteen twenty one, nineteen twenty two, that the Red Army
was an instrumentality of revolutionary imperatives. It wasn't a defensive element,
you know, and it was to be deployed offensively at
all times, you know, because the only rationale for its
existence within the paradigm of Mercist historiography and Leninist revolutionary
doctrine was to facilitate the advance of history and the
victory of the proletariat against the class enemy. So there's
really no there's really no way to interpret Soviet battle
doctrine as anything other than discreetly, ideologically coded and axiomatically offensive,
you know. And this is this is going on, or
this is relying upon the strictures of Marxist Leninist ontology
and the distinct Marxist view of military power and its
utility and its ethical functions. And the Marxist Leninism was
in fact a total philosophical and political system impoverished as
it may have been intellectually in various capacities, and to
be fair, it's sophisticated in others. What's irrebuttable or indisputable
is that it was a total theory of political and
social and thus historical ontology. So the idea that the
party state, which to be clear, by nineteen forty one,
had categorically annihilated millions of people within the Soviet Union
owing to what was identified as their ineducability, you know,
the idea.
Speaker 3: That Stalin.
Speaker 2: Or the Presidium or the pollit Boro Standing Committee, or
these surviving command elements in the Red Army, the idea
that they would somehow hesitate to see through these doctrinal
imperatives is somewhat laughable, you know. And we're not in
the court of law, so it shouldn't be a problem
to invoke subsequent as well as prior precedent, to demonstrate
persuasively what the doctrinal character was of Marxist Leninist revolutionary
military elements. I invoked the case of Cambodia a lot,
you know, from nineteen seventy five to nineteen seventy nine,
and I know for a fact because I hate me
all its effect on things. People suspect I only do
that for the sake of polemical expediency. But that's not why.
Paul Pott was not some simple minded brute. He was
actually a very sophisticated political soldier. He had a very
deep understanding of Marxist Leninism, far more than Mao and
Democratic Kempuccia, as Paul Pott and his cadre branded the
country during their brief tenure, was a very pure Marxist
Leninist stayed in some ways, and there was nothing There
was nothing heterodox in ideological terms about the way they
implemented class adjusting for the discrete conditions on the ground
in Southeast Asia as in nineteen seventy five. So what
I'm getting at, and I'll move on here in a
moment I don't quite understand. Are the same people who
acknowledge that the Soviet Union was this outlier country and uh,
that was unusual in every conceivable sense, you know, in
terms of practice and policy and theoretical foundations and everything else.
Yet they insist that this this didn't somehow impact military
decision making, or that revolutionary ontology somehow, somehow stopped at
the at the point of executive decisionism when it came
to the decision to you know, spread the revolutionary very
cause to Europe and specifically to annihilate the dialectical enemy
in the German Reich. But you know, the Stalin had
spoken again and again as well to the Central Committee,
most notably on January eighth, nineteen forty one, and there
was two high ranking Air Force officers in attendance, and.
Speaker 3: Stalin apparently.
Speaker 2: Spoke directly of the ratio and algorithm that was necessary
to defeat the German Reich.
Speaker 3: According to.
Speaker 2: The General Staff, as well as his own calculations, as
had been explicated to him by authorities that he trusted.
He spoke on this particular day to quote twofold superiority.
He said that, as had been explained to him, twofold
superiority is a law of military science, meaning the two
to one ratio contra the enemy and offensive operations. You know,
whether you're talking about raw numbers or you know, force
multipliers and variables tending to act as force multipliers that
magnify the effectiveness of offensive elements.
Speaker 3: You know, and.
Speaker 2: Stalin stated openly that quote, this is not a game.
The time is approaching for military operations twofold. Superiority is essential,
but greater supurity is even better. And he said that
he spoke specifically of the difficulty of traversing the Carpathians
and the need to designate at least five thousand attack
aircraft in order to neutralize defensive positions that infantry and
armor aren't going to be able to readily traverse owing
to the terrain. Now, this is hugely important for reasons
I'm going to into in a moment, Okay, But from
January of forty one, specifically January eighth until May you know,
only weeks before Barbarossa, Stalin talks again and again about
waging military operations in the Balkans, specifically across the Romanian frontier,
and discrete exigencies that are presented by waging war in
that theater. Okay, in a lecture given in the spring,
I believe March of forty one, but somehow neglected to
sign an execut date.
Speaker 3: He uh.
Speaker 2: Addressed uh the Soviet planopotentiary representative in Belgrade, which.
Speaker 3: At that time was under the.
Speaker 2: Rule briefly of a Chetnik junta, which in turn led
to the German intervention and ultimately the you know, bifurcation
of the Kingdom of Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. But in
addressing the Planopotentiary representative in Belgrade and uh select members
of the Pullet Buro, he said, quote, the USORROW will
only react at the proper time. The powers are scattering
their forces more and more. The USSR is therefore waiting
to act unexpectedly against Germany. And doing so, the USSR
will cross the Carpathias, which lads as the signal for
the revolution in Hungary. Soviet troops will penetrate Yugoslavia from Hungary,
advance the Adriatic Sea, and cut Germany off from the
Balkans in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Okay, So what does this mean in both.
Speaker 2: Immedia tactical terms and how this impacted the battlefield situation
in Operation Barbarosa as well as in broader strategic terms. Well,
I'll take up the latter question first. For the latter aspect, first,
the Soviet Union planned to assault Europe through Romania. By
capturing Romania, it could deprive Germany of essential access to
petroleum reserves. And also that's commensurate with Soviet deep battle doctrine,
which presuming forces and being ratios that Stalin described as
being you know, at least a twofold advantage and preferably
double or triple that Stalin basically was planning a deep
battle like pincer flanking maneuver across the entirety of the
continent in the north through Sweden and then down to
assault Germany from the north and in the south.
Speaker 3: The main.
Speaker 2: Stair punts would be through Romania. And I'll get into
in a moment. This is why the Army Group Center,
Army Group South Face Savage Resistance and Barbarossa Army Group
Center was moving so fast it was basically like face
with no more than token opposition on the road to Moscow,
which doesn't make any sense unless you understand the deployment
schema of the Red Army, which was totally offensive and
concentrated in the South in a way that wouldn't be
fashionably in a in a defensive.
Speaker 3: Oriented schema. It's a.
Speaker 2: Most uh, most significant everyone, I'm jumping around a bit,
but so please stop me if I'm not being clear.
Most significant. The super hypothesis, in terms of Stalin's declared
intentions was probably what's going to be known as the
secret meeting with the polit Burrow and the Soviet representatives
of the Common Tern who had been called back presumably
to be availed for the specific person being availed to
this speech on a August nineteenth, nineteen thirty nine, which
obviously coincided with the assault and the Japanese a Kalkan goal.
But this was a surprise secret meeting, and it was
unprecedented for the Russian delegation of the Common Turn to
be called back. Among other things, Stalin didn't have a
lot of He didn't have a lot of respect for
the Common Turn. I mean, in part because the his
UH rigid command doctrine. He didn't I mean, he wasn't
comfortable with uh an ideologic we coded cadre structure, whereby
independent of Moscow, just going to the fact of distance
and you know, remoteness. You know, he didn't he didn't
want some cadre making decisions, even superficially on behalf of
the Soviet Union without his direct oversight. Okay, but nonetheless,
you know, the Common Turn still had tremendous clout in
ninety thirty nine, and especially coming off of the defeat
in Spain, there was a real danger of a fracturing.
Speaker 3: Of a.
Speaker 2: You know, the the broad international front, red front. So
this is highly significant. You know, I guess what I'm
getting at is that Stalin wouldn't have called the Russian
delegation back just for you know, for the sake of
putting on airs or to stand on ceremony or something.
And this is when I think, I excuse me, I
think I briefly addressed this last episode. It was in
this it was in this secret meeting or secret speech
that Stalin declared that, you know, getting the Germans to
getting the right foreign ministry to agree to a non
aggression pact, you know, that would embolden them to act
against Poland, you know, because theretofore the Berlin and specifically
Hitler felt that his hands were tied in resolving the
Polish issue, because an assault on Poland, even in the
wake of a gross provocation or violation of Germany's territorial
integrity on the frontier, you know, what would lead to
a Soviet counter strike that would be devastating. So Stalin's
reasoning was, you know, we will uh will lull Germany
with this non aggression pact, which you know absolutely guarantees
that they will assault Poland, which will then you know,
lead to a ward declaration by the UK and France,
Germany you'll, uh will probably be victorious on the Western front,
but only at pure cost, you know. And then uh,
you know and that this thus, this is the icebreaker
that uh will uh soften uh what would be Europe's
defense in Cordon and allow the Red Army to you know,
just bowl over and annihilate resistance in the West. And
you know, thus uh reverse the reverse the defeat handed
to them and Iberia and you know, conquer the continent
in a rapid and devastating operation.
Speaker 3: And I mean Stalin.
Speaker 2: This is remarkably consistent as far back as nineteen twenty five,
you know, when he was less than three years into
his formal ascendancy as General Secretary, he spoke openly about
the need to act militarily against Europe as soon as possible,
but not until the political climate and the you know,
the myriad it ever sort of changing alliance structure in
the West was such that what Don called the quote
broad field of activity would be realizable in order to
you know, pursue the imperative of world revolution. And to
be clear, you know, not only was a Europe along
with America and Japan, you know, the kind of productive
core of this planet. But you know, the understanding was
that Europe was still the inconceptual terms, you know, the
political center of human affairs, you know, conceptually, you know,
every every every ideological schema you know, came from Europe,
and even even things like the di colonial movement were
fully locked into dialectical uh engagement, you know, with with
with European thoughts. So Stalin's notion was that, you know, first,
last and always your Europe needs to be overrun and annihilated,
and the revolution has to has to be implemented there.
You know, it's a waste of time and it's self
defeating them pursue uh, such imperatives on the periphery that
make no mistake, you know, where ever revolutionary activity jumped
off that had historical momentum and forces in being. Stalin
absolutely was in favor of supporting that and seeing that through.
But the uh, but but the but the core mission
orientation of the Soviet Union had to be you know,
the the you know, the implementing the World Revolution in Europe,
you know, first and foremost, and and that's also why
the Spanish War was so important, you know, it wasn't
just uh, I've read some court historians claim that Stalin
was somehow like reluctantly forced into the Spanish War just
for the sake of appeasing the common term. I mean,
that's that's that's laughable, for all kinds of reasons. But
it also you know, Stalin wasn't as heterodox of a
of a Marxist Leninist as he's often portrayed. I mean,
Stalin was complicated, you know, Like I said, I it's
a lean value, but it's a great book, Carrie Bolton's book,
Stalin The Enduring Legacy. You know, Stalin was a complicated figure,
and there were heterodox aspects to his worldview and his
own Velt politique, but it was a radical divergence.
Speaker 3: Or something, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's important, especially because these days even even some
fairly heterodox political fears and even Summer revisionists seem to
abide that.
Speaker 3: Fiction.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the you can't and in other words, this
you can't you can't extricate the ambition of the Sovietization
of Europe from the existence of the Soviet Union itself.
Speaker 3: You know, these these.
Speaker 2: These ambitions were synonymous, and that's that's also why the
Cold War developed the way they did in.
Speaker 3: In raw geo strategic terms.
Speaker 2: But you know, and I think I can't remember I
mentioned or not this speech and question, you know, the
August nineteen, nineteen thirty nine speech. It was obtained by
the French news agency Havas, and uh.
Speaker 3: The French were kind of notorious for getting a hold.
Speaker 2: Of these kinds of documents and records, you know, and
when uh when the Havas agency by way of Geneva,
when when?
Speaker 3: When?
Speaker 2: When they went public with it? It was published in uh,
some international journal and then in many of the major
French language newspapers. But Moscow's propagandas immediately wanted to overdrive,
you know, and claiming, you know, this is a this
is a forgery. You know this this is confabulated by
the the enemies of Russia and the Soviet Union. You know,
it's fascist propaganda. And uh it did not make us
nearly as big of an impact as one might think,
you know, which is really interesting because it goes to
show you too, how you know, and a lot of
that too had to do with uh, this kind of
deafening silence from American news agencies, you know, and other
than all all the major papers in America, I mean,
other than those brands held by McCormick. We're basically, uh,
mouthpieces for the New Deal regime, you know. But it's
still I mean obviously too.
Speaker 3: I mean this.
Speaker 2: There's a kind of nascent low tech globalism emerging at
least between America and Europe by way of you know,
the UK, but even you know, I mean, it's it's
it's it stort means remarkable that there is basically no
impact in terms of global opinion.
Speaker 3: And uh, I've looked too to see if.
Speaker 2: This pops up in any America first literature, and I
haven't found anything this positive on that question. But that
again goes to show you too, the degree to which
the psychological environment was being actively manipulated, you know, long
before the onset of formal hostilities, which might seem like
an obvious point to you or myself, but people are
inundated in this country with this idea that you know,
somehow the New Dealers had no interest in these goings
on and the European War and the intries from the
Soviet Union, the German Reich, you know, until Pearl Harbor.
When America was attacked, then that changed everything. I mean
that that could not be more false. From the first
months of the New Deal regime, which again coincided almost
precisely with the National Socialist Revolution, which was a totally
legal revolution again, you know, and Roosevelt from the first
days of his administration was pursuing an an absolutely radical
anti fascist imperative as the core mandate of an ambition
of his administration, you know.
Speaker 3: And that can't they can't be denied, you know. In
the I don't want to spin this off to.
Speaker 2: Tangentially, and I know that a lot of people criticize
me for my sources.
Speaker 3: Well, yet they have.
Speaker 2: Yet directly rebut any of these data points that I
have derived from these sources, namely Robert Conquests and.
Speaker 3: Ernst Nolty, and.
Speaker 2: As well as the Black Book of Communism, which is
a great resource. I'm gonna add, but it's indisputable if
the Soviet Union exterminated millions of people between nineteen seventeen
and nineteen forty one, and there was a massive series
of death camps, actual death camps that were employed towards
this incredibly gruesome task, and the degree to which there
was an information blackout about this reality can't be overstated,
you know. And people who raised this issue, you know,
not just not just America Firsters, but Joseph Schumpeter's wife. Interestingly,
she spoke Japanese and she was a big advocate for
Japanese people. She was kind of a human rights type,
but of a genuine sort, not like the twenty first
century sort. And she raised the issue of Soviet annihilation
therapy as an ULTI called it, and she was she
and Schumper were her hassled by the FBI, both for
you know, sympathies for the Axis vis a vis her
you know, dealings with with with Japanese people and stuff,
and particularly Japanese people who are being persecuted by the
New Dealers, but also h you know, propagandizing against the
Soviet Union in their review was this big subversive act,
you know, which seems kind of an incredible I'd imagine
that people today, but.
Speaker 3: They don't.
Speaker 2: I mean, but I mean, it only seems incredible if
one doesn't accept the true nature of a of that regime.
But that aside, it's remarkable that degree to which these
things could in fact be could in fact be hidden,
you know, But that also raised I mean there's there's
also obliquely and conversely it it also begs the question,
you know, if there was this mass murder conspiracy hatched
in the German Reich at Vance in ninety forty two,
like why wasn't anybody you know, publicizing that? I mean
that one would think that would be a godsend to
the New Dealers and a perfect way to portray the
Germans as as these horrific villains, and especially became imperative,
you know by ninety forty four, as the US Army
was quite literally near mutiny, you know, which we've talked about.
That was the real catalyst for the execution of poor
Eddie Slavic. You know, it's.
Speaker 3: People.
Speaker 2: So, you know, the Walter Winschel and the Opposite of
War Information and all these myriad anglophone news agencies, they
just decided not to report on the fact that the
German Reich only existed to exterminate Jewish people, just because
they didn't think it was important, you know, they didn't
think it was a useful way to code propaganda. I
mean that's like a bit tangential, But moving on real quick,
So I realized we're running out of time. I mentioned
a moment ago. Something that's often raised is okay, So
why why was Barbarossa so tactically so tactically successful? And
why was the attrition rate so algorithmically skewed against the
Soviet Union if in fact the Soviet Union was mobilized
for war and planning to attack. But that's exactly why
these things did develop that way. The Soviets were planning
to assault Romania by autumn of forty one, and that's
exactly why, like I said, army groups South encountered comparatively
savage resistance.
Speaker 3: And that's also why.
Speaker 2: That's also why there was a There was powerful reserve
elements in Ukraine because essentially they were there to rapidly
reinforce the shock element that was going to assault the Balkans.
So there was this awkwardly unbalanced deployment schema of Soviet
field armies where Soviet forces blocking the corridor to the
Moscow Leningrad deployment space, they were exponentially weaker than those
deployed to Ukraine, which doesn't make any sense unless you
account for the fact that they were deployed in an
offensive posture. The share punk of which was you know,
in the south to assault Romania through the Carpathians. Now,
don't get me wrong, the Soviets were sensitive to the
fact that Moscow was being left relatively undefended. But you know,
it doesn't like, it doesn't track any other way other
than accept what I just acknowledged. And it's also you know,
again this idea that's endlessly banned to this day, that
that Stalin was afraid of Hitler, or that the Soviet
Union was afraid of the Vermach That it's like, well,
I mean, okay, that's preposterous anyway, but so Stalin was
so afraid of the ver Manx that he he there
there basically was a token deployment on the path to Moscow.
You know, I mean, how how is heply does that work?
Any uh? I mean, any interpretation is uh, it can
only result in a conclusion that the Soviets were poised
for exclusively offensive uppers. I mean, unless you can it's
a tortured kind of logic. I mean, I guess you
could claim that the Soviets wanted to draw the Germans
in and funnel the main line of funnel under to
the main line of resistance at the gates of Moscow
and stop them their tracks. But that Moscow practically felt
you know, that doesn't make any sense. I've read people
who try to make some variation of that argument, but
it's it's so preposterous. I don't really think it warrants
to kind of blow by blow rebuttal but that's really,
you know, an example of extent conditions. Speaking of herself
and the resistance that every group center did encounter. To
be clear, they were defensively deployed either there wasn't any
depth to their deployment schema, and they in fact were
forward deployed with a heavily armed shock element in the lead,
you know, which is one reason why our group center, especially,
they didn't counter resistance. They got hit with a lot
of firepower that was immediately exhausted, and then when counterattacking
the Vermont immediately broke Soviet lines because there was again
there wasn't any there wasn't any depth to the deployment.
You know, if you know anything, I'm not any I'm
not at all like a military type person, but I
do know something about the internal logic of modern warfare.
You know, in an abstract deployment since I mean, and
if you know anything about this, just not even really
deep diving into the numerical data points and stuff, but
it's literally looking at the map of the deployment schema,
they should jump right out at you. It's it's almost
like you know those a you know, it's like illusion pictures.
They used to see them a lot, like beer companies.
And it's like you look at some picture and it
looks like it's like a bunch of old pictures, a
Spudge mackenzie or something. But then you see it and
it's like a sexy girl or something. And then once
you see that, like you can't unsee it. What's like that? Okay?
I mean you look at you look at an deployment
map of the Moscow, Leningrad Gorky battlespace on June twenty second,
ninety forty one, and you realize like what it is,
and then and then you can't undersee it, you know.
So the fact anybody makes an argument of the contrary,
I got to assume they're being dishonest or they're just
profoundly ignorant to the subject matter. Yeah, it looks like
we've gone over an hour. I hope that wasn't too
skater shot man.
Speaker 1: Let me let me hit you up with one question
before we go, and this is this is a little
bit off topic, but it's a question I wanted to
ask since we were talking about Stalin so much. Yeah,
did Stalin take half of Europe at the end of
the war or was he given half of Europe at
the end of the war?
Speaker 3: I mean both, That's what was decided at Yalta.
Speaker 2: If if if Stal's going to be precluded from taking Germany,
that meant that I Hower and Montgomery would have had
to assault Berlin. And had they done that, what would
have happened was even accounting for the punitive and purely
a lot purely ideologically motivated and additional surrender demand, vermacht
Off and SS elements would have basically welcomed them in
because that would have prevented the literal rape of and
destruction of the German Reich. And once it was clear
that Anglo American forces intended to take Berlin, Stalwoin immediately
shifted to a footing of hostility cot for the United
States and the UK. And even before that happened, it's
conceivable that these elements that were driving for Berlin on
the Soviet side, like first Ukrainian Shock Army, which I
think was under Rock. I think that I think First
Ukrainian Shock Army was enter Timoshenko. But whoever whatever formation
cone of and Rakasovski respectively were commanding, it's very conceivable
that they would have ordered down the company level commanders
to treat U, the US and the UK as enemies
who were literally trying to race to Berlin, as to
act as a blocking element. And the Soviet view, you know,
for the Germans so America to found itself at war
with the Soviet Union. You know, that's the only alternative.
But I mean, that's what that you like, I said,
the thing was decided at Yelt It's I mean, I
don't you can uh. On the one hand, yeah, it
was the new it was the New Dealers who kept
the Soviet Union in the war. But like von Manstein,
I highly recommend von Manstein's it's marketed as his memoirs,
it's called Loss Victories, but in reality it was just
debriefing by the War Department, which obviously was very interested
in learning as much as they could about fighting the
Soviet Union with combined conventional combined arms with an emphasis
on armored columns, obviously, but Manstein, who really was like
a kind of Prussian martinet and a very prejudiced guy,
he stipulated that the Soviet army was unbelievably tough. They
could absorb catastrophic attrition and not fall apart, and much
as in the Western world, as we might view their
doctrinal orientation on the battlefield as exhibiting a kind of
callous disregard for human life, it was and is highly effective.
And those things are all true. You can't really take
away from the gameness and just the raw toughness of
the Red Army, you know. So I'm not going to
sit here and say that, oh, Shtalin was just handed
a gift by you know, the New Dealer and in
general Eisenhower. You know, because the Soviet Union fought for
every single inch of ground that they won back, and uh,
the the attrition they endured is almost unfathomable. Yet by
the time they reached Berlin, their morale was great and
they were acting like they were at a party.
Speaker 3: I'm not being flippant. They were doing utterly horrible, horrible things.
Speaker 2: By my point being the enronment that arrived in Berlin
wasn't some broken ragtag for so it was a very game,
very aggressive, very high morale element, which is one of
reasons why they were so dangerous. Like it's realistic and
through Utergang where Troutle young, you know, she's trying to
pass through Soviet lines and then like the kid runs
up and grabs her hand.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It so which a really poignant scene. But uh there's
the Soviet infantry men and they're like Guzlin vodka and
like dancing like you're at a party. You know, these
guys have just been in action for the you know,
these guys probably were the last they were probably like
the last element drafted. They were probably the guys who
turned eighteen, you know in uh in a in the
in January of nineteen forty five, you know, and then
took you know, like eighty percent casualties. You know, they're
and they're they're like the surviving element and they're they're
acting like you're at a party. You know, they most
most people would have fallen apart, you know, even when
they had the kind of that kind of momentum in
in broad strategic terms, just because it was so it
was so brutal and so catastrophic. So yeah, I'm not
I'm not gonna take anything away from the Ivans in
terms of their toughness and gameness, but it you know,
I a race to Berlin between Montgomery and Eisenhower and
and uh, the Soviets would have meant war. So that's
the best answer I can give.
Speaker 1: Awesome, All right, Well, I will encourage people to go
over to Thomas's substack. That's real Thomas seven seven seven
dot substack dot com and you can connect to him
from from there to anywhere that he's at and check
him out on Twitter, and make sure to subscribe to
a substack so you can get the episodes and hear them. So, yeah,
that's at Thomas. This was a This was a great series.
I thought this was a series that needed to get
out there, especially after reading after reading suver Off and
getting a little of the way through Hoffman and having
to finish Hoffman. It's just vital information that people are
you're not going to hear even if you you exit
court history. This is stuff that's hidden and there's a
reason why both of those books. If you want original
copies of both of those books, you're paying to three
hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree on all accounts.
Speaker 2: And yeah, thanks thanks for including me man or rather
for inviting me to participate in lieu of somebody else.
That's just great.
Speaker 3: Really, thank you, Tomas.
Speaker 1: Take care now,