Before The Storm: The Nazi Myth (Part 3)

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3:08Al Murray: The winter of 1939 to 1940 was one of the longest and coldest in memory. Even the mighty Rhein was a solid sheet of ice and busy traffic had come to a standstill. It might have been an ideal time for the French army to attempt a crossing in the area of Alsace-Lorraine, where the Rhein was the border between France and Germany. But this was the time of the phony war, the last pause before the storm broke loose. It was as if all sides were waiting for a mediator to innuene and undo hasty deeds. Millions of Germans still believe that the British and French did not want to wage all-out war, despite their declaration of the 3rd of September.

3:46Al Murray: Christmas that year seemed still to hold a promise of peace for most people in our town. But, amidst the first signs of thaw, more troops poured into the villages and towns along the border. Every home in Wittlich had to take in soldiers, which most families didn't mind. They were paid a few marks per day, and it gave them a feeling of security. Vive ve la ver that one of the big French railroad guns could lob projectiles into the middle of our marketplatz. There was the strictest blackout, of course. Anyone careless enough to let a sliver of light show through was only warned once. Usually by eagle-eyed air raid wardens of the Hitler youth.

4:25Al Murray: A second defence through a heavy find. And occasionally a rock through the window. Those are the words of Alphonse Heck, who is a boy living in Wittlich in the Rhineland in the winter of the Phony War. And welcome, everyone, to We Have Ways to Make You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, where we're on our third episode of Before the Storm, the Phony War, the period before, as he says, the storm breaks loose. Yes. And isn't that interesting hearing the account of those months through the eyes of a boy living in a German village in the Rhineland? Yeah. The village of Wittlicht, Jim. I mean, amazing, isn't it?

5:04Because they're feeling vulnerable. They're feeling on edge. They're not in favour of the war. They feel like French guns, mighty French guns might open on them any moment. And I think it's interesting, that quote, because it stands in contrast to the perceived view, I think, that the Germans are doing all the running in this period. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, they're not. No. And the reluctance of the Germans to be involved in this war in the first place. They might all think the Fuhrer is a godlike figure and they're all hugely in awe of him and all he's done. But no one is interested in war at this stage.

5:39And I think it's really, really interesting. So what we thought we'd do in this episode is look at the home front during this period. Germany, Britain and France, see what they're doing, seeing what the good folks at home are thinking about it all, seeing the kind of privations that are starting to kick in, how they're viewing it, the hopes, the fears, all that kind of stuff. And we thought we'd start with Germany, didn't we?

6:00Al Murray: Well, yes. I mean, you know, why not start with the people who started it? That's one way of looking at it. And it is interesting, though, because as you're saying, this does fit into, So, you know, up till now, Hitler's victories in reversing the Versailles Treaty, if that's what people want, have been have been swift and relatively easy, haven't they? So so no wonder that's the move prevails. They think he's going to do that again. Surely it's going to happen again. But it's clear that by by Christmas, there isn't a negotiated settlement to end the war. It's not it's not happening. It's off the table.

6:33Al Murray: And life is beginning to sort of change completely for many Germans. It's worth pointing out that rationing has been introduced in Germany in the summer of 1939. And food is one of the big problems. It's food and oil are the biggest shortages. I mean, they're short of everything, but those are the two absolute key resources that obviously they can't do without. And food is a massive problem because German agriculture is really backward. It isn't mechanised for the absolutely large part. and it's impractical due to some cultural issues which we could maybe touch on in a minute. I think it's one of the interesting things, isn't it?

7:14Al Murray: Because often there's this idea that the Germans try not to go on to war footing until later in the war itself. But actually they've been on war footing for quite a while. Since 1933, really. Because it's one of the things that Heeler says, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's why you have the guns and butter crisis, essentially. You know, with Goering's five-year plan, that's why there's tension in the economy. And I think we mentioned in an earlier episode that as well as all this rearmament they're planning to do, so the vehicle plan or whatever, they've also got to run a normal economy on the side.

7:44Al Murray: So this idea that Germany isn't mobilised until the middle of the war, when Goebbels says so, well, don't go off what he says, you know. No, exactly. Because he's a lying bastard. Anyway, this is great, Jim, because we're looking at this through the eyes of younger people. So Margarete Dose is a 15-year-old girl living in Charlottenburg in Berlin. It's a rather nice part of Berlin, that, with her mother, her stepfather and her brother. And their car is taken off them by the Wehrmacht. You know, this is von Schell's attempt to... Requisition. To mechanise. Yeah, exactly. Just as Eric Winkle Brown's car was taken off him.

8:23Al Murray: I mean, he's not a German citizen, but they take his car anyway. And there's a blackout, obviously, because everyone's... Everyone, let's be honest now, there's been a lot of bloviating about bombing between the wars. So everyone's expecting bombers. And gas masks. Yeah, exactly. Just as the British don't actually know what the Germans have got in their inventory, the situation is, you know, the same the other way around. The Germans don't know what the RAF is capable of. These posters are basically the same. The enemy sees you put out your light. The messaging is quite similar. And so Margaret and her family, they've put up blackout curtains.

8:53Al Murray: They've got blinds across all their windows. There's camouflage netting all over Unten den Linden to protect it from air attacks so that, you know, the pilot looks down and doesn't see the obvious landmark. And the rationing, you know, it's meat, bread, cereals, cheese, milk, sugar and eggs. It's basically everything, isn't it? There's coupons, the S and Marken. And of course, the thing is, the Germans have practice because of the First World War, where they were under enormous privations and strictures, which is also one of the reasons the Nazi government is trying to say, we aren't on a full war economy.

9:27Al Murray: We aren't on a full war footing like last time around, because everyone knows how terrible last time round was. They've got to try and sweeten the pill, haven't they? Yeah, but it's amazing, isn't it? I mean, right for the word go, when Hitler comes to power, he says, we're going to have a military economy and we're going to rebuild our armed forces and we're going to do this right now. He's not hiding it from anyone. He's quite upfront about it, and so they do. And the way the Nazis paint this is this is a life or death struggle for the thousand year right you know get it right now get through these hardships now secure the master race secure germany make it great again all that kind of stuff and then future generations will be able to live in peace and harmony and and and all the rest of it but that is going to require some sacrifice right now so no one really bats an eye about their car being requisitioned or yeah having to have um or rather it's not they don't bat an eye they don't blame the führer they swallow the line that this is the necessary ill that they're just going to have to put up with.

10:32But obviously no one likes it. No one wants to be hungry. No one wants to be short of things.

10:36Al Murray: She's not happy about it at all. She says our clothes were always too small or too large or very ragged and our shoes never fit my toes grew crooked and my feet always hurt. And look, our clothes are generally brown. Well, I've just been walking for two days in Norfolk and, you know, I had incredibly comfortable shoes, trainers with sort of padded cushions, soles and all the rest of it but even then my feet were a bit sore at the end of it imagine what it's like to spend your whole time in with feet that hurt i mean just so debilitating yeah but you know they don't produce any much cotton and wool is very scarce and this is one of the reasons why their agriculture is so bad because german agriculture is incredibly under mechanized but also culturally their number one meat is pork.

11:21It's pig. And pigs compete with humans for foodstuffs. You know, they're in a field and they need to be fed. Whereas in Britain, for example, our national meat, more than any other, is mutton and lamb, which obviously comes from sheep, which can prance around on Snowdonia and Lake District and Highland areas, which aren't used for any other agriculture. And there was this weird, weird quirk that in 1939, there are 24 and a half million pigs and four and a half million sheep in Germany. And there are 24 and a half million sheep in Britain and four and a half million pigs. And that culturally is a massive advantage to Britain because when it comes to war, you've got lots of wool and you've got a food source, which isn't competing with humans for food.

12:08Whereas in Germany, you haven't got that wool and you have got a national meat, which is competing with humans. So it's a problem. And it's just one of those sort of cultural quirks that in Second World War comes out to work in favour of the British and not the Nazis.

12:22Al Murray: Yet another reason it was a foregone conclusion, Jim. Absolutely. If Hitler had just looked at that, gone, no, no, no, we can't beat these people or these sheep. But it's why Lieber's Rome is so central to the whole thing. This is why they want to get into Ukraine, because that's where they're going to find the food that they can't find. And the problem is even Hitler has to be very sensitive about the rural proletariat in Germany because they are some of the earliest and greatest supporters of the Nazis. Even a dictator has to keep those people on his side. So he's very nervous about going in and being being too gung ho with the with the farmers.

12:59So they're allowed to continue. And I mean, it's amazing. You see posters, Nazi posters about food and farming and the countryside and all the rest of it. it's peasants with scythes and and spreading corn from a sack by hand rather than any kind of machinery and you're thinking what the heck this isn't the modern germany of of kind of you know of stuka dive bombers and doodlebugs and panzers and radios this this is an old-fashioned east european corner of transylvania or something that's what it looks like it's amazing the thing

13:29Al Murray: is is rationing is all over the place isn't it it's inconsistent yeah of course because also they are short of stuff. Distribution problems. Yeah, one of the reasons they're doing this in the first place. And then coffee is replaced by Airsatz Cafe made from chicory and burnt wheat grains and it's nicknamed muckafook. It's very interesting this, isn't it? I think I first heard the word Airsatz. We should do cups with that on, don't you? Yeah, with the muckafook, yeah. I think I first heard the word Airsatz in relation to coffee. I think that from reading probably The Great Escape when I was 10 and the talk of air sacks coffee and chicory and not knowing what on earth chicory is, but knowing that air sacks means fake.

14:12Al Murray: But this is so early in the war. This is straight away, there's privations. And they're rationing coal as well, which I think is amazing. And there's this great recollection that Margareta recalls a placard saying, no one shall be hungry, no one shall freeze, which is saying you are hungry and you are cold that sign yeah you know what yeah why did you bring it up and a restaurant owner who's a family friend says now we're not even allowed to be hungry anymore so there are there are grumbles aren't there yeah definitely but the state's intervened of course so there's the state agriculture is run by the department of food and agriculture the rns everything begins with our rice headed by volta dare who's a old school original imprint Nazi, proper Pala Hitlers.

15:00Al Murray: Yeah. Rather embarrassingly has a French surname, but... Yes, I think he's to the society as well. And, you know, Deutsche Arbeitspartei and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And he believes in selective breeding and sort of eugenic style breeding program. Proper Nazi master race fantasy planet. Yes. And Aryan woo-woo stuff. He's on, you know, the Arneneurber and all that. The people that believe in sort of, you know, Atlantic ice theory and all this kind of nonsense. We should do an episode one day on all this. It's just so mad. Yes. Yeah. It's occult side of things. Yeah. Yeah. Himmler, who's the head of the SS, really loves Daray's attitude, all this blood and soil stuff.

15:37Al Murray: And he thinks, you know, the German farmer is your embodiment of the sustenance of the Nordic race. And it's sort of outdoors and fresh air and manliness and honest toil and horny handed sons of toil and all that sort of stuff. Yes. But that's their public facing version of it. as you said, they've got a real problem with their agriculture. The other thing is Germany is lots of different states cobbled together with their own ways of doing things as well, in fact. You know, and I think in a previous episode, we talked about how East Prussia is the sort of, and I think you can use the word backward, is the more backward part of Germany.

16:17Al Murray: And then you've got other bits, you know, There's no even distribution of stuff in Germany at all. And so you've got parts where the agriculture is very, very, very, very old fashioned. So feeding the army, getting the army ready and feeding the country is really difficult. They've got themselves a big problem. Yeah, it's a massive problem. And of course, don't forget, on the one hand, being very, very dependent on horses is great because they don't use oil, which you haven't got anything of. but they also require feeding, which is food, which is then again competing with humans. Because whether it's just fodder and hay, there's still a field, and that's a field where you can't be growing potatoes or sauerkraut or whatever it is you need to produce, because you're producing hay for the horses.

17:05So it's a constant competition between animal and human in Germany, and they're very selected and backward areas. And also a large part of Germany, of course, is mountainous, A large part of it is forested. Again, forests and mountains, places where you can't grow food. So the breadbasket of Germany is actually pretty limited. But also, their exports are down, and they need to reduce the money that's being spent on imports, because hardly any money is coming back in at this stage. But overseas spending can be lowered through importing less food and spending more heavily on home production, which is why there is such a critical role for the farmer in nazi society but it goes back to this problem again as you've got too many forests you've got too many mountains uh and you haven't got enough machinery and you're constantly competing with pigs and horses for that precious land that can produce food so it's it's a constant constant problem so so the battle for production a Zeugenschlacht is launched by Herbert Bakker, who is a Nazi agrarian technocrat in November 1934.

18:17And obviously, everything the Germans do, particularly the Nazis do, is always a battle. It is a battle against nature. It is a battle against, it's always a Schlacht or a Krieg or whatever. And the whole project is the battle for production, the Zeugenschlacht, is designed to maximise domestic output, but they're just not up to it. You know, Germany is self-sufficient in cereals, but they need huge improvements, technological improvements, and how they grow it in animal foodstuffs, fats and raw materials. Battle production is launched with a massive PR campaign. Everyone knows about it, you know, because they need to persuade farmers to cooperate.

18:56But appealing to farmers' national pride and honoured isn't enough because the problem is, is the shortcomings are unsolvable. Yeah. And it gets off to a very bad start because there's two consecutive bad harvests, which increases, not decreases, the requirement for food imports. Farmers then find themselves being asked to surrender 70 % of their rye harvest, which is usually used for animal feed in return for imported barley. And the farmers get pissed off of this and feel they're being manipulated. And the next result is there's a bad shortage of domestic fodder, which of course they're going to need lots of it when it comes to war because they're so dependent on horses for their military.

19:34So it's an absolute mess. It just doesn't work. You know, it's one of those things where you can shout and shout and have a big fanfare and have a big PR campaign, but that doesn't paper over the massive shortcomings you've got, which is you're not mechanised enough and you haven't got enough land space and you've got too much competing with that land space that you have got.

19:50Al Murray: The other thing is this point we've made before about Germany being a less mechanised country applies completely to farming. As much as it does to car ownership or trucks, freight, the army. I mean, I think it's interesting this, isn't it? You know, there's only one, there's one tractor to every thousand acres in Germany in 1939. In Britain, it's one to every 300 acres. In 1939. By 1945, it's one to every 20 or something. Yeah. These core advantages that Britain is bringing into play because it's a richer country, because Britain is much richer than Germany. It's as simple as that. And it's the right side of the Atlantic.

20:26Al Murray: It's the right time access and you know blah blah blah blah blah blah and you know those things are chicken and egg though aren't they and the you know that farmers i think it's very interesting this because farmers are always pissed off jim aren't they let's be honest now any of our farmer listeners yeah i know you're pissed off at the moment but generally you're pissed off most of the time and it's it's reassuring to hear that um that the the nazis with their attempts to organize farming are annoying everybody yeah i mean i can certainly confirm that my farming friends are pissed off there's not been enough bloody rain and the yields are too low.

20:59Al Murray: There we are. There we go. Wiki-do. It's fascinating, though. They really are supervising their farmers. So the four-year plan, this idea that everyone has to have a record card is extraordinary. Because that's, I mean, major intervention by the state into people's lives. Every farm under 12 and a half acres, which is 90 % of German farmland. Two million farms. It's extraordinary. And that tells you these are small holdings. They're entire things driven on small holdings that aren't mechanised. Inherently inefficient. And that aren't up to feeding Germany full stop. And as you say, this is why they're looking to Ukraine in the long term to get their hands on the fertile soil there and all this sort of thing.

21:45Al Murray: But it also suggests they don't know how to farm very well. So if they do get their hands on Ukraine, how on earth is that going to pan out? particularly if they starve everyone who lives there. Yeah, don't worry about that. Just don't worry about that. We'll sort that out when we get there. Yeah, I know, which is a great deal of the way of the Nazi way of doing things. Yeah, we'll worry about that later. But Manfuhrer, what do we do when we get to the Caucasus? Yeah, we'll worry about that then. Yeah, we'll worry about that later. Don't worry about it. And this just keeps swinging back round to Lebensraum being, from their way of thinking, being the only answer to how to sort this out.

22:15I mean, talk about being hoisted by your own batard.

22:17Al Murray: Yeah, yeah, yeah, completely. Yeah, forcing themselves into this series of bad decisions. But also, you're turning farmland over to fortifications, so they lose a million acres with the Siegfried Line. Don't do it, Adolf. There's land lost to autobahn construction, and obviously they need to requisition space for military training areas. And industrial growth. Where do all these aircraft factories go? If you look at the plans and maps and aerial photographs for targets on Big Week, for example, in early 1944, where they're attacking the aircraft industry, none of them are actually in Schweinfurt or Regensburg.

22:54They're right on the edge, because a plant of that scale can't fit in an existing city centre, so it has to go on the edge of it. So that is therefore farmland, what was farmland for the most part, because you have to build a factory on flatland. You can't build it on a mountain. Well, later on in the war, you build it into a mountain, but that's abnormal as well and pointless and stupid. So everything they're doing is working against efficient production of food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the battle of production is designed to help rearmament, yet rearmament is now inhibiting farmers from contributing to this battle of production.

23:32I mean, it's just insane. So by 1936, Germany is 81 % self-sufficient in food. 83 % has gone up incrementally by 1939. But due to the growth in imports too, self-sufficiently has only grown 3 % since 1933. So since the advent of the Nazis to power, that's not a lot, is it? No. And the demand for food, of course, is going up because there's more soldiers and there's more horses and there's more demands for food. Soldiers have to be fed if they're going to be successful.

24:04Al Murray: Yeah, you have a collision of the problem that food supplies offers you. So you obviously need, if there's going to be a war, it needs to be short and decisive. But also you need to conquer and plunder external resources because you can't get your hands on them otherwise. Interestingly, that pairing is one that Hitler's actually comfortable with. Because the thing is, as we were saying at the start of the episode, so far, so good. People have thrown in the towel and threatened with war. People have said, fine, all right, it's not worth it. After September 1939, that's what's changed. But he's, you know, he's always been vocal about how he wants to expand.

24:41Al Murray: You know, in 1937, he's explicit about it when he meets senior Nazis, including Goering and Rader, which is why you get Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland for this Greater Reich. I mean, the interesting thing, I think, is that, you know, Germans remember, they remember the kind of early 1920s. they're starting to sort of forget the golden 20s, the end of the 20s, where Weimar was being very successful. And Germany was once again turning into a land of plenty. You know, it was efficient, it had enough food to supply the population. There was jazz, there was degenerate art, there was, you know, there was freedom of expression and spirits and new creativity, as well as unbelievably advanced engineering projects and so on.

25:23Under the Nazis, it seems that, you know, on the one hand, they've created lots of jobs and employment and made Germany great again and made them feel proud about themselves, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. But it is also coming at a very, very prohibitive cost, which is everyone's wearing brown. No one's got, there's no imports coming in because they can't afford it. There's incredible hardship, the shortage of coal, the shortage of food, you know, and This is the problem with autocracies, is that people always end up being worse off, not better off. And that's before you add in the coming storm of aerial bombardment and just on a day-to-day basis where most Germans are living peaceably.

26:12You know, it is a very hard, bleak place that winter of 1939, living in Germany. It is not much fun at all.

26:21Al Murray: But given the Nazi government's propaganda that, you know, these are the hardships we have, the privations we have to deal with now because there's a life and death struggle coming. Actually, there being privations underlines that message, doesn't it? So it's sort of, it's quite a, it's a clever message because you sort of can't argue with it because you go, well, you know, we've got to eat our gruel now if we want caviar later. And there is gruel. So it proves it's really happening. It proves the struggle is real. This life and death struggle is real because look, already things are getting more difficult.

26:55Al Murray: And then you can blame the external enemies and the internal enemies for those things quite easily, can't you? I mean, it's interesting because, I mean, we've talked about this in previous episodes. The Nazi propaganda, it's really good because it still has people's imaginations now, nearly 90 years later. It's extraordinary. Well, we'll take a break and then we'll go and look at the situation in France over the Rhine.

27:24We are getting a statement from number 10 on that flight with 350 passengers on board. The great game. Strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess our Prime Minister with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War 3.

27:49Al Murray: He took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. The man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing!

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29:07Al Murray: Welcome back to We Have Ways of Make Your Talk. With me, Al Murray and James Holland for part three of our Phony War series. This is a Homefront roundup. We looked at the Germany. Germany, things are not great, but after all, it's all for the greater good, Jim. Whereas in France, there aren't concepts of Volksgemeinschaft and all that sort of thing. What there is, is a country with a gigantic agro-economy, essentially, for a start. Thank goodness for those Napoleonic laws. Yeah, never thought I'd hear you say that. They've had problems with wheat prices during the Depression, and they had amazing harvests in 1932, 1933.

29:44Al Murray: And of course, the problem with a really great harvest is that you end up with too much grain and the grain then ends up worth less. But, you know, these are problems of abundance that they have in France. Yeah, but the problems of falling wheat prices is a problem for the farmers, but it isn't a problem for the consumer. Yeah. He's very happy and has got plenty of pan and borsan and vin in their stomachs. You know, that's all good. Exactly. There we go. The farmers are unhappy. We got straight to that very quickly there. basically all of their markets are suffering in the similar way wine meat milk there is a gloomy mood in interwar france isn't there and this adds to this that's not least because of the politics of fractured politics of the endless coalition governments the fact that there's 19 changes of prime minister in 1930 to 1940 i mean you know it's all a bit bonkers it's interesting though because when the war comes the french go the french address the issue that they need to they need to feed their armies and you know the levy the french bring about is enormous so that's a big a big issue yeah so you have only i think that's how you pronounce his name

30:54Al Murray: who's the agriculture minister and he doesn't bring in rationing quite on purpose well he doesn't want all those all those farmers to stop burning tires on the on roundabouts does he it's pretty simple isn't it yeah french farmers start at pissed off you know because it's a more recognised country, have an abundance of tyres to burn. He also has the backing of Deladier and other big... Who's the Prime Minister. Yeah. So, you know, this is government policy. They're not going to do this. So who have we got as an example, Jim? She's very glamorous. Well, yeah. So an interesting person who we're sort of writing about this time is Cotline Luchère.

31:30And she's a very, very beautiful and famous French actress. She's still only 18 at the beginning of the war. and in the summer of 1939 she's hanging out at Deauville which is on the Normandy coast it's just a bit further east between Caen and La Havre she's there with her father who is very right wing and she is instinctively right wing too and she's living hedonistically and carefree she's having a fair with the Aga Khan's son Ali Khan over the summer there's lots of parties and new friends and everything. And she writes, war was just an accident. Everybody thought it was going to be very short.

32:10So she don't care. Crikey. She's just living the gay life. She's still being in films. Everyone's telling how beautiful she is. She's having an affair with that hunk Ali Khan, who's an amazing dancer. And she's not impacted by war mobilization at all. The only thing is her hotel, the Normandie, is requisitioned to become a hospital. And she and her father then move into an empty villa so you know what's not to like continue living normally there restaurants clubs casinos they're all still open they're still you know there's champagne clinking every night so she's born into a well-connected artistic family her mother's a painter father's a journalist and editor of the weekly notre tombe and her grandfather was an acclaimed playwright so she's always sort of destined for for high things and her beauty obviously marks her out in an age of the silver screen, spends her life growing up in Paris, but also in Germany.

33:03And her mother is a mistress of a German politician, Gustav Striezmann. And both her parents are constantly hopping in and out of bed, right and centre. She also spends time in Florence. She meets Otto Abetz there, the German ambassador to France, who is later secretary to von Ribbentrop. So she's sort of, you know, moving in reasonably high circles. She's given excessive freedom by her parents. She leaves school at 14, joins drama school. Not a great actress to begin with, but is cast in a film age 15. And then Présence en barreau, a year later, makes her a star. And she recalls, at the time, I didn't question the easy life I had thanks to money and fame.

33:42I was fully confident in my future. Nothing could happen to me but happiness. Oh, God. But suffice to say, things don't quite turn up that way once a war happens and France is, you know, and she's effectively a collaborateur. But she's amazing. I mean, when you look at black-white footage of her films, I mean, she's absolutely stunning. No, she's stunning. She's got a sort of, an incredible sort of delicacy to her. There is this kind of, I don't know, this sort of oversimplification of how we look at this, that they're all sort of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and kind of great thinkers of the left bank, and Jean Moulin and communist resistant leaders and stuff.

34:28And of course, the vast majority of French are quite right wing. Our majority are right wing and they're not kind of liberal arts types. They're completely conventional, conservative, and that's the same everywhere.

34:42Al Murray: But Jim, but that's interesting, though, because she is from an arts family, but isn't, you know, the arts doesn't necessarily mean liberal either. Right. Now let's hop across the channel because let's return to let's go to Blighty now. Well, we keep referring to Blighty for points of comparison, but let's look at the situation. Food is a massive problem for wartime Britain because of, you know, we talked about it as an advantage, maritime economy facing the Atlantic. But that means 70 percent of her food's imported. And, you know, this is this is this is, you know, Frey Bentos. This is beef beef from from South America.

35:16Al Murray: and, you know... Well, 70 % is imported. 91 % of the daily calorific intake is imported. Incredible. So in actual hard numbers, it's only 70%, but in effective numbers, it's 91%. That's unbelievable. So something's got to give. It really, really has. And part of it is, you know, so there's these two great periods of agricultural decline. You know, the first one is obviously in the second half of the 19th century, and this is a backdrop to all those Thomas Hardy novels For anyone who's read Tess of D 'Urberville's or Jude the Obscure or any of those books and read some of his poems, the backdrop is rural decline in Britain.

35:56And that's because there are now refrigerated ships coming from the Argentine and from Canada and from North America, which are outproducing, and far more cheaply, any British agriculture. So it's a mess. And then there is this sort of moment where British farmers are rescued by the First World War, but they're then abandoned again immediately afterwards. So the 1930s is, you know, Britain's rural shires are strewn with dilapidated farmhouses with hedgerows, which have overgrown and brambles squeaking out into the, you know, peeling out into the roads. and just a terrible state and fields just left abandoned.

36:35Most of the downland of the lower slopes from the Pennines through to the Quantock Hills to the short downlands of where I live down here in Wiltshire, they're covered in firs or gauze and shrub and blackthorn and completely unmanageable and not being tilled in any shape or form. So it's in a really, really, really bad way. And a second farming revolution is needed. you know and it is recognized throughout in 1938 during the munich crisis and into 1939 that the food production needs to be harnessed in a very very big way and so in the summer of 1939 you have the plow up start of the plow up policy this idea of plowing up more more pasture land and down land so all around britain on these sort of lower slopes of hills which have been covered in this gauze and furs and whatever in Blackthorn.

37:29You have these gyro tillers. And Britain is able to get these gyro tillers because most of them are manufactured in the United States. And they come in and they're just churning up all this vegetation on this downland, ready to be ploughed up. I mean, he's an incredible enterprise, which is all happening. And there was also the centralisation, but decentralisation of the agricultural policy. So overall is the Ministry of Agriculture. But what they do is they impose these, War County Agricultural Committees. And these are done on a county basis. And the members of these committees are local farmers and landowners and the gentry and well-to-do who are there to oversee government policy within their particular shire, within their particular county.

38:15But with a fairly soft touch, they're there to guide and help the local farmers. And the part of the committee members are brought from various parts of the county and they're then divided further again into subcommittees. So there are always people that know everybody. And obviously the farming world is quite a small one. So that means that you've got advisors going over to, you know, Bob Lately's farm and they're going, right, Bob, what you need to do is this. And he goes, well, the problem is, guys, I haven't got the kit to do that. Don't worry, we'll lend you a tractor or we'll be able to sell you one on a very, very low terms, long-term, low interest rate.

38:52We can get you a brand new Fordson because we've got this new factory at Dagenham producing these things. And we'll help you to do it. We'll guide you every step of the way, but you've got to do it. And it is absolutely incredible. And there is a lot of writing on this. So Laurie Lee, author of Side of Rosie, is harnessed into the Ministry of Information to help with the language of this. And he writes an amazing pamphlet about all this. and there's other people like A.G. Street who is a farmer, broadcaster, writer. He writes books, he does BBC broadcasts but he also farms as well and he writes, so once again in a time of national danger our industry of farming is to be transformed from Cinderella, not into a fairy queen but into Britain's fourth line of defence.

39:38After all, what is the good of starving to death in the air rage shoulder better to die outside with a full belly that makes total sense doesn't it

39:49Al Murray: there's no illusions here about any of this the popular conception of how food is handled in the second world war i think doesn't align with this uh this history really does it our actual food vulnerability i think is a thing people don't really realize because in the post-war era we completely turned that around didn't we we we we moved away from that almost completely it is remarkable how quickly this is turned around and by 1944 we are producing 90 of our food i mean you know from from you know 10 to 90 it is absolutely incredible yeah and it works incredibly well there are mechanization pooling schemes so those who actually cannot afford a a new Fordson or Alice Chalmers or freshening machine or whatever it is, there is a pool that they can come along and people will come along and help them out.

40:43There's also this huge problem, there's a manpower shortage because of course lots of people have left the shires because the work hasn't been there in the 1920s and 30s. So you've also got to retrain people. But an average size farm, for example, of let's say, no, a large farm of sort of 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 acres, most farms are 500 acres less. But a large farm of that sort of size would have 40 to 45 workers on it, and a dozen to 15 horses, which are used for pulling carts so the tractors can get on with the ploughing and the cutting and harvesting and all the rest of it. I mean, it is amazing how quickly they harness this.

41:25And it is done very, very efficiently. This idea of centralizing and decentralising is incredibly effective. I mean, this, of course, was exactly the backdrop to that novel I did a couple of years ago. Yeah, yeah. It was exactly the whole point about it was to chart this extraordinary progress. And of course, there were lots of times where these war rags, as they were known, kind of threw their weight around a little bit. There were a load of sort of character clashes and spats and so on. There was a famous case of a farm near Southampton where the farmer ended up getting shot because he just wouldn't plough stuff up.

41:56And then he sort of got off my land with a shotgun and police in the army were called. And he was, you know, in the frack, in suing frack, he was killed. God, crikey. But I mean, you know, that was that was an exception rather than the rule, obviously.

42:11Al Murray: I mean, the thing is, is and then rationing ticks in, doesn't it? Incrementally is the point. Yeah. Right. It's not imposed straight away. The rationing meet by March of 1940, aren't they? Again, you know, the First World War has all these lessons and all these mechanisms that the government that government has used before. So they, you know, they know what they know where the problems lie and they know they know what people are sensitive to. Just as in Germany, the privations of the, you know, jam tomorrow. You can phrase that frame this in the same way, can't you know, times are tight for now, but don't worry, we'll come out the other end and things will things will return to normal.

42:49Al Murray: What I'm saying is you can create a sense of unity and purpose through rationing. Well, you can, but also it's also you've got to galvanise your farmers as well and get them to realise that what they're doing is important war work. I mean, you know, in this pamphlet that Laurie Lee writes, he writes, no weapon ever invented is more deadly than hunger. I mean, you know, he's absolutely bang on. Admiral Durness, the commander of the U-boat arm, his entire premise, his entire strategy for his U-boat fleet is the assumption that Britain is completely dependent on food imports. So if you sink half a million tonnes of British shipping per month, given how dependent Britain is on food, that should do the trick.

43:30That's the thought. So, you know, the British know that. So they have done all these things, you know, as well as bringing in the war rags and all the rest of it. They've been stockpiling phosphates and oil seeds and so on. Ford has opened a 66 acre site in Dagenham in 1932 and it stepped up to mass production of tractors in 1936. So it is, you know, it is one in six farms have a tractor by 1939. But that's almost kind of one per farm by middle of the war. You know, in the summer of 1939, farmers are asked to plough up a further million acres of grasslander. You know, that's equivalent to the million acres the Germans lose with the safety line.

44:06And they're being asked to plough it up. So it's a kind of plus one, minus one. And, you know, and they aforementioned AG Street, you know, reflects this sense of duty. He says, whenever I see an airplane performing as dangerous evolutions above my farm, I realise that youth is taking the dangerous share. And the middle-aged country folk should be only too glad to toil in safety on the fields below. And, you know, that's the rhetoric. Yeah. And, you know, everyone buys into it. Of course they do. You know, the odd exception. And so you get rid of beef cattle because you don't need beef and they're not very productive per acre.

44:41What is the most food you can get out per acre? And obviously it's arable for the most part, but you still need milk, obviously. So you need dairy cows, but you cut back on your beef cows and you cut back on your sheep quite a lot, even though you still use sheep where you can't do anything else.

44:56Al Murray: Because it has to. Because, you know, the other thing you're doing is feeding an army and a navy and an air force. There is a sensitivity to making sure that the people are fed properly and all that sort of thing. The contrast with Germany, I think, is quite stark. Britain answers its problems very, very quickly, faces its problems and answers them really, really, really, really fast. Whereas in Germany, it's just too difficult. It's all seen as too difficult, which drives them to making crazier and crazier policy decisions. Whereas this is the road ahead. This is how we're going to have to do it.

45:27Al Murray: You know, long or short war. I mean, that's the other thing here is the British are hoping for a short war, but set for a long one. Because they can be. And the other point about rationing is they start rationing in January 1940, not because they have to ration, but because they're worried about people stockpiling. They don't want people stockpiling. They also want everyone to have a fair and balanced diet, because if you've got a fair and balanced diet, then you're going to stay healthy. And if you're healthy, you're going to be more efficient, whether you're a soldier or working in a factory.

45:56so it is about ensuring that the nation gets a healthy diet and it's also about buying which is why you have this sort of dig for victory gardens it makes people feel like they're part of it you know it gives national cohesion to a cause you know so uh you know there's allotments and stuff

46:11Al Murray: the prime minister says he's growing potatoes doing his bit king george says he's replacing his flower beds with vegetable beds around the queen victoria memorial opposite bucking palace I mean, God save the king. However, there isn't a sense of unity in Allied strategy, though, for all the sort of national feelings of unity that are being built here. You know, because there is no Allied strategy. Well, the Allied strategy is to sit back and wait, build up strength, and then counterattack. The enemy also needs a short war, and they must all know that. That's the thing that's curious about this.

46:47Al Murray: They must know the Germans are vulnerable to a long war. I need a short one so anyway so the Soviets invade Finland the end of November and then this is when the Finns refuse Soviet access to ports in the Gulf of Finland well you know why should they give them access to ports in the Gulf of Finland yeah quite Soviets are able to do this because there's a vacuum of action there's nothing going on and after all the Soviets are working in concert with the Germans let's not let's not let's not forget that forget that Yeah. Should we go to Italy, though, Jim, for our final... Although they're not, strictly speaking, in the war, are they at this point?

47:28Al Murray: It's important to remember. No, but they're a key player, I think. I think it's fair to say. You know, we haven't been quoting Count Charno in vain. Or they are in the war because their Abyssinian adventure is basically the first foray into the war, perhaps, from the European powers. if we're going to expand to 1931 as some historians would like to so Italy are well in it in fact they're in it before everyone else so what's Mussolini's situation Jim? well he's in between a double and a deep blue sea if we're brutally honest because his big concern has been that Hitler might push south into Italy so he's thinking I don't like the sound of that I need to protect myself the pact of steel have signed in May 1939 is very much a sort of a pact of convenience You know, it's an understanding that the Mussolini and Italy will have their sphere of influence in the southern Mediterranean area and leave Germany alone and vice versa.

48:24Italy is trapped in the Mediterranean, doesn't have access to the world's oceans, was absolutely completely spent by the end of the First World War, has had a period of very difficult political upheaval in the early part of the 1920s until Mussolini took power, now a fascist state, and industrially behind the ball, I would say, compared to the other leading nations of the world, and very, very short of natural resources itself. I mean, if Germany's in a bad way, then Italy is sort of, you know, 10 times as bad and is dependent on Britain for a lot of its imports. And so there is obviously a sort of carrot and stick going on here.

49:06Anyway, Roosevelt, as we've charted before and earlier on in other series this year, President of the United States is very anxious about what's going on in Europe and trying to kind of sort of placate the Italians and all parties, really. and he sends over Sumner Wells, who's a great friend of his and a great advisor and political figure in America. And he sends him to Rome and Paris, Berlin and London to talk with the country's leaders and then report back. Wells is urbane, he's fastidious, he's imperturbable and he very much exemplifies FDR's approach to diplomacy. You know, he wants only his most trusted advisors to do the high stakes work.

49:46Anyway, Wells goes to Rome first, to much fanfare, has to be said, arriving in Rome on the 25th of February. He meets with Count Charno, before mentioned, sort of friend of the show, kind of. I mean, you know, we mention him a lot at the Palazzo Chigi, which is in the centre of Rome. And Charno is much more sympathetic to the Allies' cause than Wells ever expects. He then sees Mussolini in the Palazzo Venezia and is surprised by how laboured the Ducci's movements are. He thinks he looks older than he's 56 years. But Il Duce is nonetheless cordial and assures Wells that peace between Germany and the Allies is possible.

50:28So he heads off to Germany with a certain amount of optimism, I think it's fair to say. And he has meetings with Ribbentrop and Goering and then Hitler himself. And Hitler hammers home the message that Germany won't relent until Britain and France are crushed into submission. There's absolutely no chance of compromise. as Hitler tells some of the worlds. And he's very depressed by this because Rome seems bright and opulent and Berlin is dark and sinister and the only colour is from the swastikas hanging left, right and centre rather than the people in their brown clothes. SS guards everywhere in uniforms.

51:06Next stop, Paris. The key monuments are all sandbagged and the city that he's been to before is much changed. But what he gets is something that mirrors the feeling of Corinne Luchère, one of total apathy. That's what he picks up on. You know, the bars are still open, people are still clinking champagne and all the rest of it. And he meets with Deladier, the prime minister, and then Leon Blum, who was the previous prime minister, who's Jewish socialist leader of the Popular Front Party. Blum feels distinctly despondent about the future of France and it leaves a very strong impression on Wells.

51:43And then finally, Sumner Wells goes to London, where he meets various figures, including Chamberlain, the prime minister and the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax. And they assure Wells that they cannot, under any circumstances, negotiate with Hitler unless he surrenders most of what Nazidem stands for.

52:01Al Murray: So where did he go next? He goes back to Rome, doesn't he? Yeah. I mean, this is an intensive business, isn't it? Particularly if he's flying, this can't be any fun at all. and he says to Mussolini is frank with him this time he tells Wells that a German offensive in the West is imminent and he says the minute hand is pointing to one minute before midnight and Mussolini doesn't like Sam Noels but Ciano doesn't mind him but this is very Ciano isn't it I have had too many dealings with a pack of conceited Bulgarians that make up the German leadership not to appreciate the fact that Sam Noels is a gentleman Italy and Germany are allies but Italy is not at war with Britain and France like Germany is.

52:42Al Murray: So there's obviously there's some beef at present because Mussolini's annoyed about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact because after all, he opposes communism in all its forms. He also thinks, well, Italy should be Germany's main ally. You know, you nicked the salute off me, didn't you? He's thinking. And Mussolini writes to Hitler saying, I feel that you cannot simply abandon the anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevist banner, which you have flown in the wind for 20 years and for which for so many of your comrades have died. You cannot forswear your gospel in which the German people have a blindly believed.

53:16Al Murray: Because Mussolini wants this top dog status, he has to keep saying, I really want to come into the war. Trust me, we want to be in, even though he knows perfectly well that they can't contribute properly because they're too poor. The military infrastructure is falling apart and the army's not up to much. You know, you have Generali Pariani, who's looking after the Army Generale Valley, who's overseeing the Air Force. And, you know, Reggio Mourinho as well, which we've encountered in previous episodes. They're just, they're short of stuff, of kit. They're short of trained people. They're short of raw materials.

53:56Al Murray: And as you said, Jim, they're reliant on imports. And they may have access to the Mediterranean, but the wider world is much more difficult to get a hold of. because Britain basically holds the entrance and the exit to the, or depending on your point of view, to the Mediterranean with the Straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. You know, these British strategic possessions are totally dominant. You know, they have all the luster and the bluster of the fascist marches and the black shirts and the cockerel feathers and helmets, and it all looks very spectacular during kind of, you know, the high days and hoe days in the centre of Rome as a kind of military marching past, etc., etc.

54:34But all this is papering over terrible cracks. The barrack blocks are falling to pieces. There's no money. They're impoverished, Italy. They're absolutely impoverished. Mussolini's wars so far, his conquest in Libya and the fighting he's been doing in Abyssinia, have obviously been incredibly expensive, and they can't afford it. Italy's a basket case in 1939. The dependence on Britain is extraordinary. 80 % of Italy's raw materials are controlled by the Allies. Britain controls all Italy's oil, rubber, copper and tin and coal.

55:11Al Murray: Their coal is shipped from Germany, which means it's blockaded. Because that's come through the English Channel. Because on the 21st of November, Britain announces a blockade on all German exports as well as imports, which closes the Rotterdam supply route. So Italian coal shipments from Germany, where they're getting their coal from, are cut off completely. That's quite the point of pressure for the British to apply pressure to the Italians, isn't it? And they then offer Italy with 70 % of its coal for all of 1940 in return for some arms and other goods, which actually, by the way, Britain doesn't want.

55:42It's about tying in Germany. Charlo, who's an Anglophile, is interested in this, but Mussolini absolutely refuses.

55:48Al Murray: Yeah, he says, I have the pleasure, and let me emphasise the pleasure, to inform you that English coal can no longer come into Italy. I went a bit Spanish there. But basically, Mussolini knows he can't agree to that, though, doesn't he? He knows because that's going to annoy Hitler. So he's got himself in a right fix. This is a disaster for Ciano because he wants to keep Italy out of the war. He knows they can't do it. And this is why Sam Noels is getting, when he comes to see Ciano, why he's getting a much more sort of sympathetic hearing from Ciano about the allied position. Mussolini thinks, however, if we join Germany, we'll win, we'll clean up.

56:28Al Murray: um that you know because because after all they think britain's decadent and had it and france is decadent and finished you know from their fascist perspective um uh and mussolini very much resents that the british blockade stands in the way of possible italian military glory i mean you the cognitive dissonance required to think like mussolini is quite hard going isn't it that the the series of contradictory thoughts you have to hold in your head all at once is quite something. And then Britain escalates the blockade because this is the thing is that... Yes, it does. Yeah. On the 1st of March, it reinstates the blockade on Italian coal shipments to Rotterdam.

57:09Al Murray: So 13 coal ships sailing to Italy are seized by the Royal Navy on the 5th of March as a consequence. Poor old Musso is furious. And he says to Ciano, it is not possible that of all the people I should become the laughingstock of Europe. I have to stand for one humiliation after another. As soon as I'm ready, I shall make the English regret this. My intervention in the war will bring about their defeat. I mean, well, talking a good game, isn't he? And then it's announced that charmer von Ribbentrop is coming to Rome. So that's OK, then. And Charno is Fivl. A good theatre, dear to the low-class taste of the Germans.

57:47Under the circumstances, Ribbentrop will need no great oratorial power to urge the Duce on a course which he, the Duce, desires with all his soul. So, of course, Ribbentrop comes over, yeah, rips up Mussolini.

57:59Al Murray: Into the required frenzy, who then meets with Hitler on the 18th of March. And at that meeting, Italy promises to enter the war on the side of Germany. It's confirmed. And it's now spring, people. It's the spring of 1940. We're into the second half of March. The storm clouds are definitely rolling across the hills. Another cliches. And other cliches. As the home fires burn, the storm clouds roll on. In the background there, Jim, and I think one of the things we've, you know, what we often talked about is that, yes, the land warders, but what you hear is the heavy boot print of the Royal Navy on various people's throats in this nine months of phony war.

58:41Al Murray: There's nothing phony about having all your coal cut off. There's nothing phony about a country flipping itself from being reliant on agricultural imports to becoming self-reliant in agriculture. You know, if you look at the war in those terms, radical action is being taken by the Allies and they're scoring big victories at this stage, even though, as we know, it's all going to go pear-shaped come May in terms of the land campaign. I think it's very interesting, this. The Royal Navy, which is Britain's, after all, Britain's actual front line globally in terms of global power, is doing its job excellently here.

59:22Al Murray: And is tied completely to policy and tied completely to home front policy in terms of agriculture and food. And then in the way they can exert pressure on their enemies and their potential enemies even. Because, you know, we're not at war with Italy at this point. It's very interesting. So hurrah for the Royal Navy is what we're saying there, I think. Always, always hurrah for the Royal Navy. Well, thanks for listening, everyone. What are we doing in our next episode, Jim? We're going up to the brink. German plans and how they evolve. So join our Patreon. You can hear that right away. Go to the We Have Ways of Making You Talk Patreon.

59:58Al Murray: Lots of stuff on there, audiobooks, episodes without any advertising and so on. We will see you at We Have Ways Fest, I imagine. We Have Ways Fest Mark 6, the 11th to the 13th of September, Black Pitbury. go to wehavewaysfest.co.uk to pick up your tickets for a weekend of intellectual stimulation and fun, basically. That's the best way of putting it. Your safe space for people who want to talk about Sherman tanks. We will see you next time. Cheerio. Cheerio.