Modern Euro 2, Week Four: Operation Barbarossa & Trains

In the first week or two of this course, we discussed Hitler's goals.

1. Lebensraum (living space).
2. Propagation of Nazi ideology
3. Resources

Looking at a map, where would the Third Reich look that had plenty of space and resources? What country would have an ideology so rabidly against Nazi ideology that Hitler would want to subjugate and remove permanently? Look to the East. Russia. USSR. The Bolshevists. The Communists.

Resources, throughout history, have been a major reason for any type of skirmish or all out war. By looking at war through resources, rather than political and ideological differences, we can get a fresh understanding of why war happens. And we get to use our first John Green clip of the semester: World War II, A War for Resources: Crash Course World History

Which leads us to Russia, and a timeline refresher:

1939: 

• 23 August, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is signed; a nonaggression agreement between Germany and Russia, in the event that anything happens, Germany stays out of Russia, and Russia allows Germany to do what it plans on doing.
• 1 September, Germany invades Poland and WW2 begins

1940:

• 10 May, Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister
• 10 July- 31 October, Battle of Britain
• 25 August, RAF bombs Berlin
• 7 September- May 1941, The Blitz

1941:

• April, fall of Yugoslavia to Germany
• May, fall of Greece
• 22 June, Operation Barbarossa
• 9 July, fall of Minsk
• 5 August, fall of Smolensk
• 12 August, Hitler sends his center army group to Kiev instead of moving on to Moscow

Operation Barbarossa is the event that blasted the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact out of the water; the German invasion of Russia. This clip covers the relationship between the two countries prior to invasion and then the first few weeks of invasion. World War II in HD Color: Hitler Strikes East. We watched the first ten minutes of this video, but even though I pick clips apart, this entire documentary is stellar and the maps are fantastic.

Hitler's Barbarossa Blunders:

1) By the end of summer! Sound familiar? In the first war, Kaiser Wilhelm II believed it would be over by Christmas... and then it stagnated. The blitzkrieg (that had been successful heretofore in western Europe) of the East in the Second World War eventually stagnated, as well.

2) Hitler underestimated the size of the Russian military. While initially caught off guard, the Russian military's manpower far outstripped the Germany military. 

3) Hitler underestimated Russian ability to rapidly improve their technology and weaponry.

4) Hitler stopped just short of Moscow in the summer months, instead detouring south to help the souther flank in taking Kiev, which was rich in resources. Hitler had done this just a few months prior when he ended the blitz on London. If he had continued that operation, Britain could very well have fallen.

The second half of class was spent on German transportation and how pivotal it was to Hitler's goals.

This is probably one of my favorite documentaries (I've watched it several times) because it seems so simple. Trains and tracks. Hitler moved at great speeds in his invasions and warfare. He took the western portion of Europe in very little time. When he turned east, he could have just as quickly taken the west except he found a discrepancy between the gauge widths of the train tracks, and the invasion slowed. 

Nazi Megastructures: Hitler's Death Trains

For this class, we viewed the following minutes:

1) 5:18-13:48-- trains in Nazi Germany

2) 15:00-23:00-- trains taking Western Europe; Danzig; K-5

3) 31:24-34:00-- Operation Barbarossa