1941 cont'd
Some clips from the BBC documentary series "The Second world war," originally broadcast 6 June to 4 July 1976.
Considered one of the masterpieces of documentary filmmaking, the epic series "The Second world war," utilized archive film footage, expert testimony by military historians, and interviews by participants and survivors of the war to bring the history of the era to life for a new generation. Broadcast in two hour segments each Sunday night, narrated by Richard Burton, legend of stage and screen, each episode featured a different director from among the auteurs of Franco-British New Wave cinema, such as Jean-Luc Goddard and John Boorman.
EXT. KOLKHOZE - DAY
A panning shot of green country side. In some of the fields, wheat is beginning to sprout in the rich black earth. A kolkhoznik tries, in vain, to mend a broken-down tractor. The camera stops on the tractor.
TITLE CARD: "The Ukraine"
VOICEOVER:
Semyon works on a collective farm seventy kilometers south of Kharkiv. Last week, a comrade of his was tilling this field. Unbeknownst to the diligent Ukrainian ploughman, seeds from more than thirty years ago had begun to sprout.
Closeup on the tractor. The undercarriage is devastated, and the engine block appears to have fallen from its mounting. It lays sideways in in a shallow crater.
SEMYON, a weatherbeaten farmer in his late 40s, explains in thickly accented English. He points at the tractor with oil stained hands.
SEMYON:
(subtitled)
My nephew was ploughing field for potato planting early this week. His tractor struck a shell left over from Great Patriotic War. My nephew very badly hurt, but most of the blast was absorbed by tractor engine and body. I visit him in hospital yesterday; he say tractor bucked like a horse, and next thing he knew, he was on the ground in much pain.
Semyon gathers metal fragments from the ground.
VOICEOVER:
This lush country field was part of several great battles in the Second World War. Battles which left numerous unexploded munitions which plague residents to this day. The shell that damaged Semyon's tractor was likely a German 10 cm shell from the First Battle of Kharkiv.
DISSOLVE TO:
ARCHIVAL NEWSREELS
Tanks cross over hedges. They bear the Iron Cross of the
Wehrmacht. Artillery crews fire their guns frantically. Cut to gun camera footage from Soviet fighters diving on German Stukas. Soviet defenders man the trenches, armed with a motley of old Mosin-Nagants and newer SKG-40 rifles.(1) Wagon trains of civilians in exodus, leaving behind burning fields and homes.
VOICEOVER:
(interleaved)
On the 7th of April 1941, the Nazi Army Group South renewed its offensive. Its objective, delivered on high from the
Overkommando der Wehrmacht and Hitler himself: conquer the remaining sliver of Ukraine that had held on defiantly during Operation Teutonic, and race across the steppes of the Caucasus peninsula to the Caspian Sea.
An animated map. On it, the various units corps size and above are displayed. Black arrows emanate from Army Group South. One plunges down from occupied Ukraine in the Crimea peninsula. Another juts straight west from the Dneiper River, crossing Rostov before splitting. One angles north towards Stalingrad, another south to the Kuban River. A third strikes out from Kiev towards Kharkiv. It too continues to Stalingrad. Further lines can be scene, though out of focus. They strike from Army Group Center to encircle Moscow.
VOICOVER:
(cont'd)
For the ensuing attack, called Operation Frederick by the
OKW, the Axis amassed a sizeable host of nearly two million strong. The core of the attack would be led by 1.2 million German soldiers, 3,100 tanks and nearly two thousand aircraft. Sizeable contingents from Italy and the Balkan nations would form the reserve. British and French
SS detachments made their first appearance.(2)
Bf 110
Zerstörer fly in formation with Ju 288 medium bombers.(3) A bomb bay view over the Soviet city of Stalingrad, as bombs rain downwards. American F-34s and portly Soviet Il-3s(4) dogfight with Bf 109Gs and make diving attacks on
Luftwaffe bombers.
DISSOLVE TO:
Military historian KENNETH MACKSEY sits to be interviewed. He wears the purple beret of the Entente Armored Corps alongside his civilian professional attire. The interview is smartly edited, making it appear that he is lecturing.
MACKSEY:
The Germans began the summer offensive as part of a new strategy of economic warfare. The Soviet Union had survived the previous year. Its beating heart, Moscow, had remained unmolested. The German command resolved to decide the contest by crippling the Soviet's ability to make war. The oil fields of the Caucasus were targeted, ostensibly as part of Hitler's vision of
Lebensraum for Aryan settlement.
FAST CUT TO:
A man stands beside an oil drum. The camera zooms out to reveal the drum is part of a small mountain of oil drums.
TITLE CARD: "Armored division fuel consumption per day"
MACKSEY:
(cont'd)
In actuality, the immediate war aim was to deny their use to the Soviets. Both American and Soviet forces relied heavily on fuel produced and refined from the Caucasus. Their capture would greatly hinder the ability of the Comintern to make war in the Soviet theater.
DeOppressoLiber said:
Well, like I talked about a couple weeks ago, I've hit up some of my old army comrades working at HKMA, and we went digging through the musty archives for some primary documents from WW2.
There's a lot of neat stuff there that hasn't been digitized yet. I've made some rough scans for you guys, but rest assured it has been uploaded to InterLib. I've already PMed AdmiralSanders about one of them that I think will be particularly interesting to him: an official Stavka report assessing the combat capabilities of the British Cruiser Mk V. A lot of direct tactical comparison for a contest that never ended up occurring, but what's most interesting are the classified British Army reports it references. I knew British intelligence was heavily compromised, but I had no idea it was that thorough.
Ubermunch said:
You Reds always had an advantage in espionage that we could never replicate. You could make a man betray his country and feel like a hero for doing it. All in the service of your international revolution. :C
But thanks for the info dumps. It will take a while to piece through. I noticed there were some German documents in the dump as well, which I would very much love to be able to use for my Hitler Goes West TL, but unfortunately I don't speak a word of German.
UlrikeMeinhof said:
Well, I could give you some summaries and pick out the important parts, I don't really have time to do a full translation.
Good stuff, DOL. I'm not very big into military AH, but it seems to be the board's bread and butter. Anything that is good for the commune I certainly can approve of. There's one I'm really interested in reading for its own sake though: "Strategies for Regime Change." Looks like it is a summary report by the CSS on working with German dissidents to stoke anti-Nazi sentiment and encourage war resistance. Even seems to have a sort of an endgame in mind, judging by the table of contents, for post-war occupation.
I have to say, what an amazing find. I've always loved reading the histories of anti-Nazi resistance. You've given me a piece of that history.
AdmiralSanders said:
What I find most amazing is that even in the dark days of 1941 and 42, you Reds still believed that good would triumph over evil, and you'd win. When all of the Soviet Union from the Baltic to Astrakhan is occupied, Leningrad, Moscow, Volgograd and Baku are under siege, and now the Axis are spilling into Turkey and Scandanavia, and then the Petain betrayal in 42…that's an amazing level of faith.
My German is pretty basic, but it looks like some of them should go a long way in helping debunk the Nazi wunderwaffe crap…ah who am I kidding. Wehrjunkies are impervious to reason.
Looks like it'll be dry reading, so this'll take up a fair bit of my time. Doesn't really tell us anything we don't know already. We've all read military history books that had access to these primary sources, but it is nice to have it all available.
Empire of Endless Monologues said:
Tell me, are we any closer to settling the age-old Tiger vs. T-5 debate yet?
LeninsBeard said:
You should know better than to ask such a silly question, Empire.
Real nice finds there DOL. I'm particularly interested in General Patton's personal analysis of the proposed United Comintern Armed Forces. You know me, the incorrigible internationalist
Overview: The Armed Forces of the Communist International
Great Patriotic War or Revolutionary Struggle? This was the question before the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party in 1941. The Americans had been very keen on internationalizing the struggle against fascism. They had wished to formalize this policy by welding the various forces deployed in Eurasia and South America into a single Comintern military, to transform each struggle for national defense into a coherent struggle for world revolution.
The Soviet military had resisted initially. But the complexity of different national chains of command fighting in concert in a single theater had proven overwhelming. The path towards a unified military strategy was paved in December 1940 with the formation of a Combined Chief of Staff Committee to serve as an overarching leadership for the Soviet and American militaries.
The barrier was further broken down when Stalin acquiesced to the military's proposal of forming mixed commands on the tactical level. The defense of Leningrad demonstrated that Soviet officers could and would adapt to the different leadership expectations of American troops, and that American officers could reliably lead Soviet soldiers in the defense of the
rodina.
On 4 July, the Comintern Treaty was amended to include military articles. These new articles established the Armed Forces of the Communist International, consisting of three branches: Army, Navy and Air Defense. The further established the laws of war, the definitions and punishments for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. In content, this was not significantly different than the preceding international laws such as the Hague and Geneva Conventions, League of Nations Charter or the Kellog-Briand Pact, which both the UASR and Soviet Union had been signatories of.(5) There was a radical difference, which drew condemnation from the rest of the international community.
The Communist International, under these articles, asserted
universal jurisdiction to prevent and punish such acts. It held violations of the laws of war, democide, slavery and other crimes against humanity as preemptory norms. Morever, it explicitly rejected the notion of the sovereign nation-state. It was a notion the communist parties had long trumpeted, but had never taken concrete steps to realize.
The new accord also took steps to synchronize the differences between the Soviet and American military traditions. On the surface, this included some minor rank reforms. It was quick and easy enough to make up for the lack of a Brigadier rank in the Soviet military. The difficult part came in reconciling matters of doctrine, training and operational art. It was a task that would essentially take the rest of the war to be fully completed, but would succeed in combining the strengths of the two into a world-beating military machine, and mold the military experience of the many minor Comintern participants into effective participants.
In naval affairs, America naturally held prominence. Ships remained crewed substantially by sailors of their nation of origin. For a mix of solidarity and training reasons, many warships would participate in crew exchanges. The Soviet naval establishment was very keen to gain more experience in anti-submarine and carrier warfare. Over the brief life of the Unified Comintern Navy, the Soviets would achieve a great leap forward in naval architecture, doctrine and training. In total, they acquired four fleet carriers, two battleships, a dozen cruisers and a multitude of smaller escort vessels, many of which would serve with distinction in the war's final days, securing the downfall of the Empire of Japan. In the post-war era, they would form the nucleus of the Soviet Navy.
The Unified Comintern Army would provide a number of shakeups for both. Both the Soviets and the Americans were peers in land warfare. The compromises could at times be ugly. The engineering and technical services were regularized, receiving normal military ranks. The regiment would become the organic unit, and the institution of regimental soviets was reluctantly accepted by the Soviet military hierarchy. For most purposes, units of corps level or higher would regularly consist of units from multiple nations. While they attempted to preserve national chain of command in divisions and lower units, the practical requirements of warfare often saw this rule abandoned. Temporary task forces would routinely see the cooperation of American, Soviet, and other national troops.
Meanwhile, the American Army Air Forces generals griped at the loss of air defense duties to a dedicated Air Defense Force, which would include interceptor forces as well as strategic anti-aircraft artillery. Tactical and strategic airpower would remain part of the Comintern Army Air Forces for the time being, though some continued to call for an independent air force.
The most trying task was reforming the political commissars. The politruks were defanged, a reform the Soviet Communist Party accepted reluctantly. Many were drummed out of service or reassigned to rear-echelon roles. At American insistence, tested communists within the military hierarchy would assume the role of political commissar, serving as the moral and educational core of the unit, and if necessary the redress against officers too accustomed to brutalism. Summary execution for cowardice was abolished, and those practicing it would be face court-martial.
Minor offenses would be dealt with by the regimental soviets. Serious offenses would result in court-martial. Even then, it was emphasized, the death penalty would be applied sparingly.
(1) Samazaryadnyj Karabin sistemy Garand, 1940. Self-loading Carbine of (the) Garand system. A Soviet made version of the M1C carbine, a select fire light battle rifle chambered in the 7 x 51 mm Pedersen, with 20 round detachable box magazine.
(2) Fascist volunteers, particularly before the FBU entry in the war, is a taboo subject. Their acknowledgement here caused quite a scandal when the documentary was broadcast. It brings into focus the history of fascist collaboration by the pre-war governments. While they quite zealously blocked their nationals from joining the Comintern's International Brigades, they put up token resistance to their nationals volunteering for the fascist side.
(3) Twin engine medium bomber, entering limited service in early 1941. Powered by two license-built copies of the Bristol Centaurus two-row radial engine, it had a large 4,000kg bomb load, protected by a 15 mm MG 151 cannon in a stinger, two 13 mm MG 131s in a dorsal turret, and two MG 131 waist gunners. Later variants had cabin pressurization, remotely operated turrets and improved range.
(4) A stout radial engine fighter, built more like a carrier fighter. Armed with two 20 x 102 mm ShVAK cannons in wing mountings, increased to four in later models.
(5) The UASR is considered the lawful successor to the USA, inheriting its rights and obligations. This was indeed part of the pre-revision TL, but that was so long ago I can scarcely expect anyone to remember.
