Operation Barbarossa: To The Brink (Part 3)

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2:261100. Meeting of generals at Fuhrer office. A dress lasting almost two and a half hours. This war will be very different from the war in the West. In the East, harshness today means lenience in the future. Commanders must make the sacrifice of overcoming their personal scrupules. And that, of course, was General Franz Halder writing in his diary on the 30th of March 1941. And if that doesn't send alarm bells ringing, I don't know what will.

3:00Al Murray: Well, welcome to We Have Ways to Make You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, your World War II podcast of choice. and episode three now of Barbarossa. And we're in the middle of the build-up to Barbarossa, aren't we, Jim? And that's what we've decided to do with these three episodes, is have another look at the forces and streams of events that are pushing the Germans towards Operation Barbarossa. And the decision has been made, that's the thing, early on. And with some motivated reasoning at work, Hitler very much capable of finding the solution to the problem in front of him in something he's already said or something he wants in the first place.

3:37Al Murray: And so the problems that come with the conquest of Western Europe are problems of scarcity, problems of resources. And so the solution, it would seem, is to take out the Soviet Union and destroy Judeo-Bolshevism and all that stuff as well. Well, we were arguing in the last one that he doesn't really have any choice in the matter, really. He's got himself into such a mess because he's so short of resources, despite all these incredible victories. You know, it looks like he's got the world at his feet, but actually hasn't. He's just got himself into an unbelievably difficult situation where only victory in the Soviet Union very rapidly and involving the complete annihilation of the Red Army is going to suffice.

4:19Anything short of that, and he's in big trouble.

4:22Al Murray: I mean, I think one of the interesting points of comparison you could make here is, you know, the British Empire after the end of the First War was larger than it's ever been. That's one of the interesting sort of outcomes of the First World War is that Britain ends up with a bigger empire. The ruling class in Britain, they regard it as a colossal headache. They can't afford it. They can't afford to run it. They can't afford to police it. Yes, it creates this great big free trade zone for them, but the drawbacks are how expensive it is to do all that. And if Hitler had any idea of what a pain in the arse it is, what a burden empire is.

4:51Al Murray: It's expensive and it's difficult. And he thinks expansion is the answer to his problems, but in fact, it's just created a whole new portfolio of problems. But of course, the thing he's always had in his heart is the destruction of the Soviet Union. And Lieberman's Rome. So it's from Hitler's sort of reasoning point of view, it's a happy coincidence, isn't it? And also, I think we can't leave out the fact that he regards himself as a man of destiny, that fate drives him to his decisions. And it's his fate to take on the Soviets, isn't it? And so these things, these things are operating in sort of perfect confluence, aren't they?

5:26Al Murray: I think we said in previous episodes, it's like a cocktail. It may have different ingredients in it, but it's been shaken up to the point where you'll never separate them out. You may get the hint of one thing and the flavour of the other, but they're combined. And that's the situation the Germans are in, because that's how Hitler has come to his conclusions, isn't it? Made his decisions. Yes. But also, you know, he is aware of the historic shortcomings of what had been Prussia and the German states. Yeah. You know, their geographical isolation in the middle of Germany, their lack of natural resources.

5:59their lack of access to the world's oceans, all these things. I mean, that goes all the way back to the kind of, you know, 30 years war in the 17th century and frankly beyond. A constant sort of shifting of borders, friction, et cetera, et cetera. And his point is this time we're going to sort it out once and for all. We're going to be one unified whole and any threats that are coming to us, whether it's from the West, the capitalist, imperialist West, or whether it's going to come from the Bolsheviks on the East, we're going to sort it out. And in the same time, we're going to create living space, Lebensraum, where we will colonize and get the food and the resources and everything we need to sustain this.

6:39That's the grand plan. The fact that it's batshit crazy is kind of neither here nor there. I mean, but he's trying to solve a historic problem of the German states.

6:48Al Murray: And create the ethno-nationalist empire with the destruction of European Jewry into the bargain as well. But he thinks that that is what's going to create long-term stability. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But the thing is, again, the motivated reasoning is that that's the thing he wants to do. And destroying the Soviet Union offers him that opportunity as well. And frankly, haven't they just been rubbing him up the wrong way? I mean, you know, time and time again, you know, Stalin's been poking two fingers at him. And that's the other really interesting thing here, isn't there? Because there is a sort of, there is a school of thought that says that, that tries to paint the Barbarossa sort of purely preemptive and that the Soviets were about to attack, isn't there?

7:24Al Murray: There has been a sort of school of people trying to make that case. But certainly they haven't been getting along brilliantly. And the Soviet Union, Stalin has been taking liberties. He's been taking the piss. I mean, literally taking the piss with the pact. Literally taking people's liberties as well by invading countries and stripping them out and re-engineering them in the Soviet imperial style, which bears a very close resemblance to the Russian imperial style, which is come and install your own people, make everyone talk Russian, kill the people who represent some sort of political threat, which can be real or imagined, perceived.

7:57Al Murray: ideological whatever anyway it has had that going on on his eastern flank as well and that's the sort of thing he wants to do that's the other part of it isn't it he well i don't think there's any question that stalin has been provoking hitler and nazi germany and i don't think there's any question that he's he's massively overplayed his hand that is the cause of you know a lot of the early defeats in the Red Army suffering. At the same time, it's put Hitler in a situation that there is only one solution to the conundrum in which he finds himself, which is to go to war quickly before the Soviet industrial machine makes it impossible to do so.

8:39And that has been set up since he wrote Mein Kampf. That has been set up from the moment that he comes to power in January 1933. It is completely inevitable. There is no avoiding it. This is Hitler's worldview. But it's coming much earlier than he had originally planned or any of his commanders have originally planned. And it's coming with the kind of ideological consequences and shaping of the operation, which, you know, you're going to be reaping what you sow. And there's no getting around that. And the first sort of sign of this comes to the fore on the 9th of January 1941, when Hitler gathers all his senior commanders, plus von Ribbentrop, who's the foreign minister, to give them a kind of overview of the war to date and his latest strategic thing.

9:26Al Murray: And that's basically a heads of all department meeting, isn't it? Where everyone's gathered in and they're given the next year's plan. This is what we're going to do. Before we start, anyone want a coffee? this is exactly that meeting isn't it and and interestingly he stresses that one of the justifications for Barbarossa aside from all these things that we've we've been outlining is defeating Britain to defeat Britain you're going to have to defeat the Soviet Union to bring that about and Britain is holding up his plans and obviously what Britain wants is a continental block against Germany and I mean it's very the thinking here if you wanted to drive the Soviets into the britain's arms then you attack the soviets right i mean i by the way i'm just i'm completely distracted by this this notion of of sort of von bock and and braukic sitting around you know with hitler in full flow yeah desperately trying not to chink their kind of cup and saucer too much or crunch too hard on the finger of shortbread yes i'm sure it's just like that no It would have been just like that.

10:33Al Murray: You know, oh, no, I've interrupted his flow. Oh, no, I'm in trouble now. But there is this peculiar idea that, you know, in order to knock Britain out of the war, you have to knock the Soviets out. But the idea that that wouldn't force Britain and Soviets together is bananas. Well, and then on the other hand, you know, if USA and USSR join the war against Germany, that's quite problematic, isn't it? Yeah. And he can see this. Put it mildly. But he says this. So the thing to do is get it done now. And I think what's interesting, we were talking a moment ago about Stalin, because of his Marxist worldview, he is necessarily a strategic person, whereas Hitler is a tactician, relentless tactician.

11:13Al Murray: Everything Hitler deals with is immediate. And if we get this done quickly, then that will get the result we need and that will keep us going. Whereas Stalin's thinking in 50 years time, we will have chewed up the whole of Europe because of the inevitability of communism and our system. And actually, when you look at the outcome of the war, you could say someone with a strategy defeats someone with just tactics. And the truth is, the Soviet Union has mobilised its vast industry. It has mobilised its vast population. It is developing huge numbers of aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces, KV-1s, for which the Germans simply don't have any answer at all, and T-34s.

11:50And the Germans don't know this at the time. So they are doing all this. And Hitler has every reason to be worried about the military might of the Soviet Union, because it is mighty. Certainly in terms of numbers, you know, it is overwhelming. But what Hitler does know and knows correctly is that it's military leaderless at the moment after the huge purges. You know, where 22 ,500 senior commanders were purged, including four out of five marshals and something like sort of 13 out of 15 army commanders. all executed or locked up. You know, he's right about that. And it is true that the Red Army didn't do very well in Finland.

12:30At one level, he's absolutely right. You know, if he's going to go into the Soviet Union, now is the time to do it, you know, with spring and the summer ahead before winter comes and strike hard and strike while momentum is with the German forces, the Wehrmacht, and while the Red Army is still a little bit rudderless. So from that point of view, he's right. But, you know, everyone's going, yeah, but what about the huge distances? And he preempts that. He says there's absolutely nothing that the Germans haven't already mastered. Well, you know, he's just completely wrong about that. They haven't mastered them at all because they've never done it before.

13:04No one's done it before. Or those who have tried it before haven't done it successfully. So the operational objectives, he says, are...

13:12Al Murray: The annihilation of the Russian army, seizure of most important industrial regions, and the destruction of the remaining industrial regions. But not Moscow. He doesn't want to decapitate the country politically, which is quite interesting. He also has this ability, because the German high command is so craven, because they were so reluctant to accept the kind of talk he had about, you know, yes, we're going to sweep into the low countries, we're going to overwhelm France, and everyone's going, yeah, right, and sort of thinking, what are we going to do about this lunatic? It's all going to end in disaster.

13:45And then it proves right. They've gone the other way. so that now they hang on every single word. So there's this sort of grotesque kind of overconfidence about them. Well, and afterwards, Alfred Yodel, who is the kind of, you know, head of operations at the OKW, the Oberkommander de Wehrmacht, the German General Staff, he goes, The Vassan colossus will prove to be a pig's bladder. Prick it and it will burst.

14:09Al Murray: You know, they're overconfident. But the French army was regarded as the greatest army in the world and they defeated it in five days, fortnight, three weeks, depending on your point of view right so yeah so why is this going to be indifferent they also how hard can it be they also defeat russia in 1917 without having to go to moscow so there is a giant slab of precedent here there's precedent in their thinking and you know put those two together i can see how you might talk yourself into that particularly if you've got a they are talking themselves into it it is this um appalling group think and it goes on though this is this is what's really, really interesting is that every obstacle is sort of waved away and I'll be fine.

14:49Al Murray: Don't worry about it. What are you worried about that for? Don't worry about it. General Thomas. Georg Thomas. He's the head of the economics division at the OKW, the German general staff. He's the guy with the spreadsheet. So he's in charge of military finance, basically. He's got it all in front of him. And on the 28th of January 1941, Halder holds a big planning conference. And just a reminder, Halder is the chief of staff of the Gira, the army. So what you've got here is the bloke in charge of the army saying, right, how are we going to do this? And obviously the requirement is to do it quickly and big distances and everything.

15:21Al Murray: So you have Adolf von Schell, who's the grand plenariate of vehicles, isn't he, Jim? Yes. Of motorization in the army. He's basically the truck master general. He says truck production is still nowhere near where it needs to be, I'm afraid. And how old are the guys? That's not really a priority. Don't worry. Yeah, whatever. got french trucks um and we'll take some from switzerland as well what hang on a minute switzerland's neutral right we're gonna buy them anyway that all sounds fine but there is a really big problem here isn't there because other countries stuff requires spare parts and getting them well they don't have standardized distributor caps they don't have standardized gaskets they don't have standardized pipes coming into the carburetor or fuel pumps or whatever it might be so you know everything's got to be different and and when something goes wrong on a truck that you've half inched from switzerland or from renault from france or whatever you've got to have the part and obviously there's a certain amount of bodging going on you can bodge only so far before you actually need the real parts rather than the kind of you know on the spot manufactured part yeah exactly and all the british stuff they've got from dunkirk for instance fine but they don't have the spares the steering wheels on the other side exactly for a start yeah exactly exactly but anyway it doesn't matter jim because the red army are going to get smashed on initial contact to the western area of the soviet union doesn't matter it doesn't matter georg thomas though who uh you know gets out his spreadsheet and he says to the conference we need 13 000 tons of rubber a month but german industry can only process half that or let them just about half that 7 300 tons and current stocks are rubber they'll be gone by the end of february 1941 and this is remember this conference is the end of january 1941 so in other words they're almost out right we can replenish but we're dependent on is blockade runners getting here from south america as well as there's 12 000 tons on the water right now from indochina and of course this is the royal navy blockade that they're having to contend with they've bought some more from france 25 000 tons from france but japan isn't releasing the shipment, because it's not from France, it's from French colonies, or from French dealers in the French colonies.

17:33Al Murray: But Japan isn't going to release the shipment, despite them being allies. I mean, allies, ha-ha. Because obviously the Japanese need it themselves, because they're up against it. Because they're also short. They're short of everything. You know, it's this issue, the thing that's driving you into war, the shortages, is further exacerbating the shortages and making them worse. And they're running out of fuel. and poor old George Thomas. Al, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Just stop worrying about it. He's Cassandra, isn't he? He very much is going, look, cupboards bare. And he thinks there's probably two months of...

18:06Yes, and Halder is one of those... There is a moment at a conference in November 1939 where he has a pistol in his pocket and he's planning to shoot Hitler and he gets to shakes and he's so terrified he just can't bring himself to do it. And he goes, right, that's it. I'm just not going to do it anymore. Then he has his kind of sort of, oh, God, it's actually going to be okay. You know, Hitler's going to pull it off with the plan for going into France and the Low Countries in May 1940. And now he's absolutely full-on convinced himself to the other side. And, you know, he's not alone. You know, he's a really, really competent and experienced staff officer.

18:44And in his heart of heart, he must know better than this. But in his diary, what does he write? Speed. No stopping, no waiting for the railroads. Everything must be achieved with the motor. Increased motorization, since the railway, through destruction, water costs a different gauge, cannot be counted on for maintaining the pace. The continuous operation of supply depends upon the motor. But have you not been listening to what we've been saying? We haven't got enough fuel. We haven't got enough rubber. We've got too many different types. You know, Von Schell is reporting there aren't enough trucks.

19:18Al Murray: But in his diary eight days earlier, though, He had said the railway is the key to the logistical problem here, that we need the railways fixed. But then, I mean, it's absolutely amazing. In his diary on the 28th of January, he then writes, We must destroy the Russian army without pause over the Dnieper-Duner line, 500 kilometres into North Russia, and the other goals, 500 kilometres in total, 1 ,000 kilometres. Those crackers. It's crackers. It reveals such a fundamental shortcoming of the military elites in Germany. And I do think there is this sort of fear of relegation from the traditional position of privilege within German society, which these military elites have had, you know, since the formation of Germany in 1871 and before that, that they are now completely blind to the very obvious costs and problems of Hitler's ideological strategy and is very obviously opportunistic methods.

20:17you know there is a moment at this conference where phil marshal von bock questions what would happen if the red army does fall back in stages without collapse and his query is just that's not gonna happen don't be daft it'll be all right so then bock then later poses this to hitler and the fuhrer said in that case the campaign will simply have to carry on somehow some way it'll be you know the will of the german people so bock records this in his diary but doesn't make any kind of

20:42Al Murray: further comment is like all right whatever cripes the thing is though as we all know any military operation relies on a fair assessment of the enemy um intelligence so how's that going not very well um intelligence is thin uh um and you know it's the planning is based on low assumptions of red army numbers and totals of tanks and guns and so on um you know it reminds me so much of studio blue study blue before the battle of britain where they just get it all completely wrong and go in there with a massively overinflated opinion of their own strength and overestimate the weaknesses of the enemy.

21:19And that didn't go very well. I mean, that's why they're having to invade the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, because they didn't defeat Britain in the summer of 1940. So they're making exactly the same mistake. And the truth is that Von Schell, the plenipotentiary general of motor vehicles at the OKW, is having an absolute nightmare. You know, he just cannot achieve what's required. And in February, the situation is made much, much worse by the dispatch of Rommel and two panzer divisions and then a third motorized division for North Africa. I mean, you need that like a hole in the head, don't you?

21:49Al Murray: Yeah, yeah. And then it's made even worse by the demands of the campaign in Balkans and the Greece in March and April 1941, which, of course, is, again, over, you know, hard, dusty, stony roads, not great conditions, which have huge amounts of attrition on suspension systems and so on and so forth. And burning up this fuel that they've only got the fuel for a couple of operational months at best. I mean, what's interesting here, I think, is very often the Balkans campaign in the story of Barbarossa is presented as a reason there's a delay. And if they'd gone earlier, all this sort of stuff, right?

22:24Al Murray: Isn't it? That very often gets thrown in. Had they gone when they planned to go in May, but because they're distracted by the Balkans campaign, the delay then brings them closer to winter later on in the year and all that. But when you look at it like this, they don't have the stuff. They haven't got the spare parts. They haven't got the fuel, the rubber, the rubber, the Japanese won't let them have. Right. There are much bigger issues at stake here than, oh, we've been delayed by having to go to the Balkans in any way, going to the Balkans. Anything that blunts the spear in any way whatsoever makes the success of Barbarossa less likely.

22:59Al Murray: Anything, given the state they're actually in. It's not that if only the German war machine, which is gleaming and fantastic, hadn't been distracted for a few weeks. It's the fact it's hollow. Yeah, and the truth is, it doesn't matter whether you're a horse and cart or whether you're a truck or a half-track or a Stug or a Panzer IV or whatever, the effect of dirt roads with sharp stones on rubber is really bad. It really, really wears it away incredibly quickly. So when they're saying, you know, we're short of rubber and we're dependent on blockade runners to get through to deliver what we need, that really is a problem because if the wheels come off, Literally.

23:39You can't operate at the pace that you're supposed to operate. Yeah. Literally. You can't do what you need to do.

23:47Al Murray: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and, you know, it has to be remembered that the hard yards of all their victories have been achieved by the Panzer Division, these all-arms motorised unit and the motorised divisions. But out of 200 divisions that now exist in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS. Only 33 of them are mechanised. And only 17 panzer divisions are available for Barbarossa. So that's only seven more than were used for France in a country 37 times the size. And when you put it like that, the challenge is a big one. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? And also given this sort of two thrusts with a third thrust spiralling off one of the northern, you know, that strategy.

24:31With three, it's effectively four thrusts. Yeah, well, exactly. Because you've got one of the Northern. Exactly. Army Group North is going between the Baltics and Leningrad. Then you've got Army Group Centre. Then you've got Army Group South.

24:41Al Murray: But why not write a plan that fits what you're actually capable of? Well, because we've seen they're high on their own supply. And, you know, they did defeat France in a fortnight. And they're thinking, well, how hard can it be? And that the Russians are Slavic people of a sort of lower capability and all that sort of stuff, because there's racism in it too. I mean, it's interesting, though, because von Schell, I mean, God bless him. He's peddling hard to try and solve these problems, isn't he? He's come up with a complicated system of dumps and motor pools to get fuel as far forward as he can for your panzer motorized divisions.

25:18Al Murray: And he notes the Balkan campaign left a large hole in the stock of supplies because the vehicles of motorized troops that had taken part in it had suffered badly in the mountainous train. And they had to be re-equipped for action in the east in four weeks. All you're bringing me is problems here. He's writing that while dreaming of popcorn and movie theatres in America. Of course he is. Yeah. And the smooth hum of a Model T Ford production line. Exactly. Yeah, it's all of that. I'd really want a Chevrolet. Oh, wouldn't that be nice? I'll drive up the tear garden in my Cadillac and everyone will admire me.

25:55And then I look fancy. You'll get all the Ford line. Oh, God. I mean, the thing is... Don't tell Hitler, but I also quite like jazz music.

26:05Al Murray: Yeah, yeah. Oh, dear. Yeah, he needs to keep that under his pickle hoy, doesn't he? The thing is, though, Helder is honour Hitler about the need to, you know, rely on motorisation, because he knows that the Soviet railway gauge is different. And the spaces are much bigger. So the refuelling opportunities, the recharging of the steam water tanks and all that stuff is further spaced out because the trains are bigger with large capacity and it's mainly single track they they know this and they know and halder's saying also we're gonna have to get the baltic ports open because that's a crucial supply line and the thing is he's hitler's not having any of it is he he's he's like well we can do it the la la la don't tell me that it's the will yeah the will will triumph and he seems to think that you know if anyone comes to with problems what they needed good talking to and they'll go away convinced that everything's all right.

26:58Al Murray: Despite all that, though, Hitler is having his doubts. And after the break, we'll have a little look at Hitler's doubts around this grand escapade.

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29:20Al Murray: welcome back to we have ways of making you talk the third part of our barbarossa series and although hitler's big thing is obviously shows of confidence and will and all that sort of stuff he is having doubts about barbarossa and and you know as anyone might right well let's face it it's it's it's a big deal yeah yeah and history tells you it's quite challenging yeah i mean there is one big example from history isn't there of this having gone horribly wrong this kind of adventure so you know in february um he demands two studies this is a kind of a hitler technique isn't it where he what he wants to do throw up some doubt so that he can then go i was right you see right to doubt that and you were all wrong he does like to cover his tracks hitler it's one of the things he sort of does so he asks for a study about the obstacle of the pripet marshes and i think whenever you say the pripet marshes you should say it the way winston churchill loved saying the pripet marshes it's just a thing you hear the forecast how did he say the private marshal the obstacle of the private marshal so we have to say so he wants to study into the private marshal and the second one is economic considerations which is which is quite interesting so foreign armies east which is a department at the okw um look into the private marshal and conclude that the russians might be able to get across them using railways and then get into the german rear after the markets have been bypassed however they left this out of the report sent to hitler well you know you don't want to upset him but i mean i mean we we did talk about the pipette masses in the last episode but just to stress this is this vast area of generally unpassable um land in the middle of sort of what is now belarus so this is you know in front of minsk and it's huge and basically it's going to divide their advance because army group center and north is going to go north of the private marches and army group south is going to go to the south of it and it's this big block and it means that you can't be mutually supporting because you've got this and the theory is but yeah but it doesn't matter because you know the russians can't use it either or can they yeah that's that's the worry is that you you bypass this and then there's lots of russians in the middle who are sort of working warming their way through the private marshes and sort of attack you up the arse yeah yeah yeah they're worried yes that it leaves the an opportunity for a flank but they don't but they leave that out of it out of the report to hitler and they conclude that that yes that the russians could get through the prippet marshes because there are some railways and they could get into the german rear but as you say they don't tell this to hitler it's just yeah yeah you know what i think we're not going to tell him right no no no no it's a terrible idea is there any point turning the furer i mean you know he's only going to get off disney yeah we're so far down the line now.

32:08I'm sure it'll be fine.

32:09Al Murray: It'll be fine. It'll be fine. That's what's going on. Soviets are going to fold. Everyone knows that. They're terrible soldiers. And then there's General Georg Thomas's economic study. And he reports to Keitel on the 22nd of January with loads and loads of misgivings. And so he's told to come up with another memo. What happens on the 22nd? He has this meeting with Holder and he goes, I just want to let you know that I've got all sorts of problems. But anyway, I'll go off and do this study. He then presents the study on the 8th of February, which makes it absolutely clear that there's any number of problems, mainly to do with fuel and rubber and what have you.

32:42Al Murray: So basically, he's laid out the problems and Keitel says, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go away and look at the figures again. Come up with something, please. So he goes, okay. Okay. All right, boss. Five days later, so he's obviously pulling the all-night SA crisis response, isn't he? Yeah. Pulling a load of all-nighters. He's had his staff on it. It's called The War Economy Consequences of an Operation in the East. He's just been drinking coffee and ginger nuts for 24 hours. Smoking fags. For the next five days. And on the 13th of February... I have to make this verse, Pazifiora. And on the 13th of February, he produces this document.

33:22Al Murray: And then it's given to Hitler seven days later. And the new draft is entirely favourable to Hitler's wishes. It's just crazy. You know what? I mean, I know we're finding a lot of this funny, but the sheer cataclysm that this is going to unleash. If, you know, lessons in groupthink are right here. He doesn't dare submit that report again saying, no, the numbers don't add up. He goes away and he does the creative accounting. And what he leans into is the economic benefits of occupying the Soviet Union. You know, once we've done the hard bit, it's going to all be rosy. Sunlit uplands, literally. And he overlooks the problems of military feasibility.

33:59Al Murray: You know, there'll be grain coming from Ukraine. That'll solve our food shortage. And anyway, 75 % of the Soviet army will fall with the remainder offering little threat. So he basically writes the thing Hitler wants to hear. So whatever doubts Hitler may have had, other people have gone away and assuaged them, haven't they? But what is happening on the other side of the hill? Well, here we go. Stalin's mobilising for war. Absolutely, he is. He's front-loading everything. So, you know, everyone spends a huge amount of time sort of talking about the very, very obvious buildup of German troops on the eastern border.

34:31But Stalin is doing all that. You know, he's got this huge construction program of airfields, which are literally right on the border. You know, that's every bit as aggressive to the Germans as what the Germans are doing is to the Soviet Union. So Hitler might be fed up with the Molotov-Riventrop Pact of August 1939, but so is Stalin, who can now only see diminishing returns. and has quite enjoyed his little push into Romania and Baltic states and all the rest of it. And his aim had been to get Germany and the Western powers into an imperialistic war in which they effectively destroyed each other, which would then allow the USSR to sweep in and overrun the ruins.

35:08That hasn't happened because of Germany's sweeping and very rapid victories. And German troops are now in Finland and in Southeast Europe, which was far too close to comfort for Stalin. And Britain is still in the fight, but obviously not showing any sign of a future land campaign. And Hitler had been increasingly firm over Romania and Bulgaria. So that puts pay to Stalin's peaceful communist expansion plans, which, as you know, is not peaceful at all. And in fact, the Soviet economy has been on war footing since 1928 with a succession of five-year plans. So they're now in the third five-year plan, which has begun in 1938, and it's incredibly ambitious.

35:48aims to build 50 ,000 warplanes by the end of 1942. Well, that's kind of sort of Roosevelt language. 70 ,000 tons of aerial bombs, 125 ,000 aero engines, 60 ,755 tanks, and 119 ,060 artillery pieces, 450 ,000 machine guns, 5.2 million rifles, 489 million artillery shells, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And also, by the way, 298 ,000 tons of chemical weapons. So this is not small beer. And it's true that not all the targets are being met by any stretch of the imagination, but there is immense progress. I mean, really, really. And it's nothing like as fanciful as the German figures, for example.

36:31Al Murray: Well, and the other thing that the Soviets have also done in a way that Hitler hasn't done is they've had their revolution. They've reorganized their society around this form of production. You know, they've had American mass production experts over to teach them how to do, show how to do it. One of the things the Soviets are really good at is picking people's brains, getting experts in, ransacking their expertise, and then very often then putting them on trial for espionage, like the guys who build the tube in Moscow, the Vickers engineers, right? You know, the cynicism of it, at the core of it.

36:59Al Murray: But it means that what the Russians, the Soviets have actually done is revolutionised their society around mass production and mass industry in a way the Germans haven't. Hitler's revolution is going to happen after the war as the Soviets are doing it as part of their revolution. Well, yeah, and actually, you're absolutely right about picking other people's brains. I mean, J. Walter Christie, his suspension system, is the one that is used on the T-34, which is now in development, which is going to be one of the great war-changing tanks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, this is a totalitarian state, so there's numbers in the newspapers, and maybe that's not what's happening.

37:34Al Murray: And maybe, you know, there are all those old stories about the Soviet Union, where they'd have shoe factories that only produced one size of shoe, but they produced millions of them. You know, there's obviously a bit of that going on. And there's also, if you don't meet the figures, you'll get shot. Well, there's that too. But that means also you cook the figures. You know, all these problems with a totalitarian industrialized state like this. But it does mean that by the end of 1940, the Red Army on paper has 23 ,307 operational tanks. What? I mean, that's a lot of tanks, right? A lot of tanks.

38:04Al Murray: I mean, you can't sniff at that. 15 ,045 millimeter anti-tank guns and 22 ,171 aircraft. If it's just an inventory. If numbers count. If numbers count, yeah. And the Germans, by contrast, have 3 ,387 panzers. So that's almost 20 ,000 fewer.

38:26Al Murray: Yes. So in terms of raw numbers, on the spreadsheet, the Red Army is the strongest army in the world, full stop. By miles. By miles and miles and miles and miles. All this idea that it's a paper tiger, It's quite interesting that the Red Army is not hollowed out. No. And the VVS, the Red Army Air Force, in the war with Finland, for example, has more than the Luftwaffe and RAF combined during the Battle of Britain. Jeepers. And by 1941, the Soviet Union has 267 submarines. And again, by comparison, the Kriegsmarine had deployed eight U-boats in total in the entire Atlantic. Blimey. You need a lot of people to man 23 ,307 tanks.

39:08Al Murray: Let's touch on that. I mean, if each of those tanks, I mean, it's just the numbers of people have got to be enormous, aren't they? And the purges, the purges are really of the officer class, aren't they? Because that's what Stalin does. He deals with the people he regards with power and a possible threat. So even though you've had the purges in 37, 38, the Red Army is still growing. It's 1.2 million people in 1936, 1.9 three years later in 1939. In 1940, it's 3.75 million people. And by the spring of 1941, there are 5 million people in the Red Army. Now, of course, this kind of massive expansion comes with its own problems.

39:48You need a lot of bullets to kill 5 million Red Army.

39:51Al Murray: One way or another, you do, don't you? And that's not the end of it either, because there's a mobilisation plan in place. For 1941, sees it grow again to 8 ,682 ,000. How many? eight million six hundred and eighty two thousand it's it it's incredible isn't it and yeah and by the way nor do these fingers include the nkvd the forerunner of the kgb which includes huge construction battalions who are kind of near the frontier in with germany now you know in poland and so on and romania where they're building bridges roads railways tank parks petrol stations airfields and so on so add into that free labor of prisoners and what's called, inverted commas, a strategic labor reserve of teenagers, 800 ,000 to a million annually, who are each conscripted for four years.

40:40You want a childhood? Ah, you'll need to come and construct some airfields for four years.

40:45Al Murray: I mean, that's a lot of pairs of hands, isn't it? Yes, comrade. That's a lot of pairs of hands, isn't it? It's extraordinary. And I mean, the other thing is, tank production has been modernized and is ahead of the game. And they're doing better than anyone in the world at this point. um you know the british like to pat themselves on the back for having invented the tank the germans like to get the high fives for radicalizing tank warfare and you know the soviets are doing the thinking here in terms of what you need from the vehicle so you've got the great big 45 ton kv model it's much bigger than anything anyone else has produced and then the 234 which is a medium 29 ton tank like shaman they have that ready by 1941 for combat you know that it's a prototype in 1939 by 1941 there's 3027 of them how many german tanks did we say there were no there's going to be built in 1941 there's going to be 3027 so there's a that that's that's yeah but that that's about the total number of german tanks yeah yeah exactly and by the way only i think only eight percent of german tanks of panzer fours that's like um when you buy processed meat from the supermarket and you look at how much actual meat is in it the rest is reconstituted tissue but my point is my earlier point is that hitler's hitler is right that he needs to strike quickly if he's going to have any chance of victory at all because soviet industry is just dwarfing anything else they're going to come up against it is true that in the first half of 1941 soviet tanks are still absolutely tiny you know it's the t40 which is 5.5 tons which is titchy obviously yeah but then so too are panzer ones and panzer twos and t35s and t38s you know so The KV won, the production's also ramped up for 1941.

42:24So in other words, if you don't strike them hard in the summer of 1941, by 1942 it's going to be too late is the kind of implication. And on this point, Hitler is unquestionably right. It's just, has he got enough to do what he needs to do? That's the question. The structure of the Red Army is changing as well. The Red Army have been looking at the Blitzkrieg and looking at those victories that the Germans have, And they've realised, you know, you'd have much greater emphasis on mobility, motorised divisions. They're also, it should say, that the Red Army is training up in 1940 and 1941 for offensive operations, for attacking.

43:01It's not designed for defensive operations, which is obviously going to be a problem. They've also developed new airborne brigades of nearly 3 ,000 men. And they've equipped them with more machine guns and more mortars and artillery than either German or UK airborne troops, which are kind of, you know, in the offing by this stage.

43:19Al Murray: Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot of forward thinking. So the German mindset, you know, dopey Slavic Russians is not evidenced in any of this. They're also churning out tons of fighters and bombers that are coming. There's the long range Petlyakov PEH strategic heavy four engine bomber. So they are they're building a heavy. Yep. they've got the Sukhoi Su-2 bomber and the Il-2 Sturmovik which is based on an American aircraft the Valti which is basically a really heavily armed ground attack aircraft and makes the Stuka look sort of dainty and ridiculous really doesn't it and it's sort of a Soviet typhoon before the typhoon is a glimmer in anyone's eye yeah and much loved by flight simulator video games yeah that's right yeah yeah exactly they've also got the MiG-3 which can do 315 miles an hour which is basically kind of like a hurricane.

44:09Al Murray: So they're up to speed with what everyone else is able to produce. And because they've had their revolution and created mass production, once they get the jig set and the factory's going, and it's not a hard hat site, a Soviet factory, let's be honest now, or a high-vis area or any of those things, they can churn them out at will, can't they? We detailed, didn't we, the talks between the Soviets and the Germans, Molotov's visit to Berlin, and the attempts by the Germans to get the Soviets to sort of calm down on their eastern border and the Soviet point blank refusal to do so. And so Stalin, as a result of the collapse of those talks, orders a plan for southwestern front deployment along with these gigantic air bases.

44:48It's a very, very ambitious plan. And it's the kind of ambitious plan that you can do when you have complete control of your industry and you have complete control over your labour sources. So by May 1941, 80 % of these huge air bases have been built, and most of them, 199 of them, were in the Western districts, all within 30 minutes flying time of the Reich. Yeah. So that is at its very least very suggestive of aggressive intent, I would argue, which, of course, the Germans are watching and making a note of because they're doing their own incursions to kind of do photo reconnaissance of all this.

45:33And you can argue, and I think we will be arguing, that Stalin is slightly hoisting himself by his own petard by this. But be that as it may, the old Stalin line, which had been along the original border, the pre-Poland invasion border, is now redundant to a large extent. So they're having to build new pillboxes further west. But they're kind of a bit thin on the ground. This is known as the Molotov line. Huge railway construction, too, to facilitate rapid deployment. again with this wider Soviet railway gauge which just for those who don't know is 1524 millimeters wide which is five foot rather than the European standard of 1435 millimeters which is four foot eight and a half inches wide so it is it's not a huge amount but it's still three and a half inches wider so he is definitely preparing and you can see why this would make Hitler twitchy and think I've got a strike while the arm is hot.

46:28But not only is he doing that, Stalin is also doing diplomatic stuff to secure his own eastern border with Japan. And that is what we're going to be looking at in our next episode in this series on the build-up towards Barbarossa.

46:48Al Murray: Because there are so many moving parts in all this. You can't simply say it's the Germans want to knock the Soviets out. Yes, they do. But why? What's going on? And why is the timing so critical? And I think I think we're getting some way to explaining that. But as you say, Jim, what's going on the other end of the world is just as much on Stalin's mind and as much part of his strategic approach to everything. because Stalin has this world long view, doesn't he? Where he's trying to deliver something in the long term to create global revolution rather than Hitler who's thinking, oh God, I got a problem right now.

47:25Al Murray: How do I solve it? So in our next episode, well, we'll be plunging back into the world of diplomacy with the Japanese. I imagine it might have us tearing our hair out. Who knows? We'll see you in our next episode. If you want to get to that right away, the best way to do that is to go to our Patreon. become a we have ways of making you talk patreon sign up there's uh live casts audio books ticket offers events um and the chance to chat with like-minded people who don't glaze over when you start talking about a christy suspension on a t34 tank the best kind of people basically we will see you in our next episode thanks for listening and cheerio cheerio

48:29We'll see you next time. desirable menu has returned to Sweetgreen featuring fall's best dressed.

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