Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "The Paradox of Germany’s WW2 COAL Problem" video.

Margarine was never made from coal -- except as a pilot test. It was way, way, way too expensive. Margarine was made from edible, but runny, vegetable oils: corn oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil... you name it. The process involves HYDROGENATION. The hydrogen used is, itself, created from water by electrolysis. This is expensive hydrogen. It's used because of its reagent grade (absolute) purity. One simply does not need much for the chemical reaction is to simply add hydrogen to a fatty oil. When such a food is packaged and labeled it reads: "Hydrogenated Oils." Look for that term, or something very close to it. The net result is that the oils become 'butters' -- ie thick as butter. For presentation, such butters are COLORED with dye. During WWII, if and when the dyes were not available, the product would ship looking like LARD. But it would actually taste just like today's margarine.
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Margarine TOOK OFF because there was no where near enough butter to go around in any nation's war economy. Further, most margarines need far less refrigeration. In Northern Europe, in the right seasons, it'd ship without refrigeration. Margarine would also LAST a lot longer without spoiling. This is why restaurants snapped up margarine. And the same held true for military mess halls. Margarine was so available that most nations didn't ration it ! Every nation rationed butter. (Exception: New Zealand)
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@KarakNornClansman El Duce's claim to fame was simply relaxing the railroad schedules. He actually went the other-way than the Nazis. This made sense as the Italian economy simply didn't need the frantic tempo of WWI, a time when most travel was by box-car. Even the Italians used a variation on the 8 & 40 car.
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@allangibson2408 NO. While many Right Wing governments are dictatorships// kingships Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot -- on down the line were WAY far to the left -- and totalitarian to boot. Right Wing always means a government that has a state religion. That's what todays' Saudi Arabia is. It's hardly alone: Iran, Kuwait... the Taliban... Pakistan are all nations that have fused their governments to a state religion -- in this case Islam. During the French Revolution when the very term came into being, Monarchists ALWAYS wanted the restoration of the fusion of the French Catholic Church with the King and his Lords. In the ancient past, the vast majority of all nations were just so: Right Wingers. It was the USA that broke that mold in a major way. It's ILLEGAL for any faction in the US to be Right Wing. For it's illegal to have a state-sponsored religion... straight from the US Constitution. The slur of Right Wing is now used against any faction more traditional/ classical/ conservative than the fellow cursing said Right Winger. Hence, we now have even AOC cursing (under her breath) Pelosi for being too far to the 'right.' Naturally, Nancy is hugely insulted. During WWII absolutely NO-ONE ever accused Adolf Hitler of being Right Wing. BTW, he not only hated the Jews, he hated the Church -- Catholic or Protestant. That's why so many clerics died during the Holocaust. In this, Hitler lined right up with Stalin and Mao. BOTH also hated religion -- and clerics. Ironically, Adolf did have nice things to say about imams. One gave him a fatwa so that he was morally justified in the genocide of European Jewry. This tidbit has blown by historians. They are not a religious crowd -- so a fatwa goes right over their heads or into the circular file.
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The Greens were a significant political force in Germany when it was unified. They absolutely flipped when they actually saw East German atomic plants -- that had NO containment worth talking about. { Soviet units went naked -- hence Chernobyl; their exported versions often had some semblance of containment -- but no-one in the West would trust such engineering. Soviet atomics had a LARGE reactor volume -- raising steam at lower temperatures than found in the classic Westinghouse design or the classic GE design. This meant that any containment for a carbon pile would be very much larger in mass... and cost.} So the pressure to shut down East German atomics began right from the start. It didn't need the Japanese fiasco. You'll also note that the Greens spread their dogma to Sweden. It's stopping its atomics, too. What Japan did was show that in extremis, the crews are witless. Straight out of "China Syndrome" they proved that they were able to do just about EVERYTHING wrong. Badly sited atomics, (tsunami coast, anyone?) Badly sited emergency power, (right at sea-level) Badly reacting crews, (didn't scram PDQ; didn't use sea-water to flood the cores; didn't vent N-19 to stop a gas pocket at the top;...good grief!) Badly schemed strategic back-ups; ( what if an earthquake// tsunami of severe power? Yet, the geology told all that such events MUST be expected.) In sum, the Japanese showed that from top to bottom their entire scheme was not as advertised. In reality the crews FROZE. They panicked. Then they made every wrong decision possible in the matrix. BTW, drastically more citizens died from the tsunami than atomic radiation. Total fatalities were in the many thousands. So, atomic hysteria is very much with us.
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@Seth9809 The policy was made at the national-political level. The well had been poisoned. As a general rule, a Green voter is a-scientific. They are not anti-science; they are just totally clueless as to science fact or procedure. This is why the larger public accepts the myth of Global Warming. Left off the table, plant growth goes CRAZY as carbon dioxide levels rise. NASA has known this for half-a-century. They ran the original science in the 1960s. They wanted to see if it was at all practical to grow food and create fresh oxygen while in low Earth orbit. The results were astonishing. IF they jacked up the carbon dioxide level -- artificially (it can be done quite easily) -- then algae will grow at an astonishing tempo, something drastically beyond that seen in nature. Today's bio-Diesel experimenters do the same thing, in vitro. If glass tubes were cheap, the numbers would work right now.
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@elLooto Your math is correct but the flow is a tad different. What's been happening is that India and Red China have absolutely NO limits on their coal industries. Red China is generating over HALF of all thermal-electric power on this planet -- something that the USA used to do. That power is consumed by industries that export commodities and finished goods to the 1st World. This nets out as if brown coal were shipped to Red China -- even though no such trade exists. Red China has brown coal coming out of its ears. Red China AND India have coal seams on the same scale as the USA and Russia -- which is to say -- they have no limit. So while Greens dance around the May-pole, they live like Eloi supported by Red Chinese Morlock slaves and serfs. It's just that the serfs live over-seas not under-ground. Red China's costs of production are so low because at the bottom of the pit, they use a VAST slave camp empire for basic inputs. It's in this manner that the CCP can hide economic reality. For Western firms, it's a real head-scratcher as to how this or that factor of production is SO cheap to hand in Red China. They should talk to the ghost of Oskar Schindler.
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@elLooto It's on the record that Red China imports staggering amounts of steam-coal from Australia. AFAIK, Red China does NOT import steam-coal from the USA -- certainly not in any size. For Red China has steam-coal coming out of its ears. And it's right near the surface. And there has been a HOWL from the work force every time the CCP cuts back steam-coal mining. Their stuff is filthy, too. While they have the technology of bag-houses and all the rest, the Reds simply shut off the air pollution control gear as it costs money to operate. And the price of wholesale electricity is set by the CCP. This means that power plant operators are under insane price pressure. But, their WHOLE economy is run in this crazy fashion. This is another story that Western publications just don't allow into print. Red China imports met-coal from just all over -- especially Australia. The US is a MAJOR exporter of met-coal -- which overwhelmingly goes to Europe. That's what our deep mines produce. It goes at one heck of a premium. Your tale about (slave-produced, price-controlled) cotton reflects what I'm 'on-about' namely that Red China is using staggering amounts of forced labor to crank out primal commodities without letting the 1st World in on what's up. That's the story of the Muslim 'labor-force.' FYI, what triggered the recent genocide: jihad. A hefty crew of Muslims used knives quite a few years back to mass-attack Han commuters in Southern China. It was THEIR 911. The attack was at a train stop. Knives met Mohammed's dictums, BTW. Muslims would LOVE a gun-ban, for then the stage would be perfect for old-school jihad by blade. The CCP concluded that the problem was innate to Islam -- and that across 1400 years there has been no cure (from jihad) except the complete expulsion of Muslims. (Hungary, Spain, et. al ) So the CCP opted for genocide and total repression of islam. Not mentioned, the CCP is certainly whacking ANY imam they can get their hands on. If you preach islam, you're dead by torture. A koran is now more incriminating than a Bible. ( Yes, they hate those, too. Atheism is the state religion of the CCP. ) You might note that you NEVER read about any of this rationale in any Western publication. It's taboo.
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@hermitoldguy6312 The Nazis actually put an order out for 5,000 steam locomotives at one shot. IIRC, that's the all-time epic one-shot order for locomotives. Even Canada and the USA railroads only ordered locomotives ~ a hundred or so at a crack -- to be delivered over a number of years. This mega-order is one reason why so many war-time photos show what appears to be the exact same locomotive being shot-up by USAAF//RAF planes during 1944. Re-gauging the Soviet net was NOT the killer. As detailed above, even idiot crews// prisoners could re-gauge the Soviet rails down to the German standard. The Soviet ties were longer -- and only one rail needed moving. With a jig, no talent was required. All that was necessary was placing so many crews per kilometer with the primitive tools required. Expert crews would deal with switches// points. The absolute killer was the Soviet destruction of their sleepers/ties during their retreat. This is best done with a locomotive pulling a sleeper-plough. This is a device that dates from the US Civil War -- so everyone in railroading knew about the gambit. While it's destroying the ties -- it's jacking up the rails, too. You don't have to bend rails into pretzels to utterly ruin them. The absolute KILLER during Barbarossa was the destruction of Soviet water towers. The Soviets used fewer towers per mile and bigger water tanks with their locomotives. This was a problem for the Germans. Now they had to drag super-sized water tanks and coal bins, too. They didn't appreciate this factor until it hit them in the face. They also found that much of the Soviet coal that they did stumble upon was nasty for their locomotives. It had more ash. This entailed more time back in the shop to clean out the boiler -- and to do so more often. The Germans also found out that the extreme weather in Russia did a number on their locomotives. Things like water freezing in this or that feed line. Consequently the boiler needed coal even when at idle -- if you wanted it -- for sure -- for duty. Lastly the Soviet network was NOT ballasted. This meant that even Stalin shut down his rail net twice a year. The tracks were actually sinking out of sight. That's why you'll come across German accounts of getting absolutely nothing off of the rails for days at a time during Barbarossa... even though they'd been working fine last week. Then there were ten-thousand minor, wooden trestles all over the USSR. These were sure to be blown by retreating Reds. So German wood consumption was through the roof -- and newly cut wood, green wood -- just doesn't cut it.
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@larryspiller6633 BINGO. The Nazis were actually begging the populace to just bundle up -- turn down the heat -- and not blame Adolf.
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@jimtaylor294 The East German government had a slew of Chernobyl type atomic plants. That's what caused the Germans to run, run, run away from atomic power. What's weird is that they could -- at any time -- import reliable FRENCH electric power. (Ditto for Spain) But religious faith has intervened.
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@elLooto By top grade coal I have to assume you mean LOW SULFUR steam-coal -- NOT Metallurgical coal. ( Used to reduce iron ore to metal. It's the REAL highest quality coal... except anthracite.) [ Anthracite is virtually never mined anymore. It has EVERYTHING going for it: it's smokeless, too. It also goes for Top Dollar. There is not so much of it -- and it's along the American East Coast. You always have to deep mine for it. ] Poor George Washington was freezing his tush off only miles from the best coal seams in the world. Oh, my!
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@tedarcher9120 And those divisions never made it East in time for the Germans to win, anyway. Isn't that a kick in the head?
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@Edax_Royeaux You left out that the US adopted a uniform gauge AFTER the end of the Civil War. It's an amazing story all by itself. What happened was that over a three-day week-end (a national holiday in the Spring, IIRC ) all of the non-standard track was re-gauged. (!!!) How so? Ordinary joes were used to re-gauge all straight track. Veteran rail crews solely concentrated on switches/points. To re-gauge, only one rail was normally moved. With a gauging jig, even idiots could nail down the rails to spec. As for the rolling stock, that took a bit longer, but there was enough 'northern' rolling stock such that the South had enough time for the crews to re-gauge the locos and cars. ( Some before, some after. ) The American's contrast with Australia is astounding. The Aussies were unable to re-gauge their rails to a uniform standard -- even though decades were to pass. But, that's another story. The issue with Soviet rails has been addressed repeatedly by me: the gauge was not the killer. The destruction of the ties/sleepers and the destruction of the water towers was the back-breaker. In the US Civil War the combatants developed 'sleeper ploughs' / tie-plows that a locomotive could drag to utterly ruin thousands of ties per day -- while doing a number on the rails, too. After that destruction, the only thing left was "The Way." That is, the graded path. Of course, all bridges were blown. The USSR had virtually no tunnels, so the Nazis lucked out on that score.
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@Edax_Royeaux Also, Japan was fighting on an industrial shoe-string... especially in the beginning.Very much like the Germans, the Japanese only wanted to serve in front-line combat units. The result was that for both nations, serving in the logistics tail was culturally humiliating. (This tic has been seen in Afghanistan in our own century.) In all three cases you end up with Start-Stop-Start-Stop-Start-Stop.... Naturally, the censored media of the times never reports that the latest, fantastically successful offensive has sputtered out -- yet again -- because the boys are out of bullets, food, and bandages. You can laugh, but virtually no army ever stocks up on sufficient bandages and coffins. The notable exception being the US Army in 1991.
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@livingwill1 The kicker with steam locomotives is that they use a tremendous amount of labor on a per-mile basis. So as their utilization sky-rockets, the shops become jammed with work. This soon proved to be a choke point within the transport economy -- as you just can't throw common labor at such capital intensive heavy repair work. A minor taste of such work was illustrated on film in "The Train." Our hero (Lancaster) shows what a project it is just to repair a minor component. This particular repair had to be performed a million times during WWII. For the driving piston and its bearings ALWAYS gave way after so many miles. As the Nazis expanded their terror empire, their ton-miles via railroad simply exploded. It didn't matter which side of the border the locos originated, there were never enough. Check out the USA and Canada. They went CRAZY trying to expand their locomotive fleet -- AND their rolling stock, too. As for Stalin, his prison-state was critically short of locomotives virtually from the start -- as the Luftwaffe deliberately went after them. Steam locomotives are the easiest pickings a strafing pilot could imagine. By the fall of '41, the USSR was so short of main-line locomotives that the Siberian troops had to trudge the last hundreds of miles on foot. Stalin had brought a surge of such troops. So great was the panic, there were not enough locomotives to pull them all the way from Siberia in the time allotted. Further, their very existence (movement from the East) would've been betrayed by slews of locomotives showing up within range of Luftwaffe reccee flights. The 2,000 American locomotives were CRITICAL for Stalin as the Nazis had bagged his Number One locomotive factory. It was in Leningrad -- the city from which the ENTIRE Soviet rail net expanded. This reality goes back to when the Tsar established it with imported machines. (French, IIRC -- Britain hated Russia as a geopolitical rival.) The very first substantial line ran from St. Petersburg to Moscow -- and was built for the Tsar and his family. The Tsar did not think of it as an industrial asset ! For him, his railroad was conceived as if it were a private jet -- almost a toy. He was keeping up with the other royals... and nothing more. (!!!) He was not too bright. Subsequent expansion of the Tsarist grid aimed at hooking the royals up with their other estates. That's why every last one of them is just off the rail line -- but not so close that locomotive noise reached vacationing royals. These are now Russian tourist meccas.
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@Black-js5ke Galen specifically mentions that Nazi racial policy DID adjust in the Caucus mountains -- as the Nazis DID regard those living there to be Aryans. Galen commented that if the Nazis had treated the rest of the USSR the same way, the Ostheer would've walked over the Red Army. The Nazi armies never suffered sabotage and full-on resistance way down South during Case Blue. Stalin noticed this -- and then went on a rampage with his NKVD once the Germans were forced back. This 'wholesale ethnic cleansing' -- the modern term -- displaced millions on no-notice at all. Folks were being de-hutted in the middle of the night on ten-minutes notice. Entire nations were hauled off to their own gulags.
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@Black-js5ke You missed it. The Nazis considered everyone living in the Caucus Mountains -- on SOUTH to be of Aryan blood. That includes Iran -- which means Aryan in that nations native tongue. Yes, they actually changed their national name in the 1930s because of the Nazi movement. And so, Britain and the USSR invaded Iran PDQ during WWII. If you really think about it, Stalin, a Georgian, would figure to be an Aryan by Nazi calculations. Heh. I can't figure out your other point. I just can't parse it.
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