Comments by "Alan Pennie" (@alanpennie8013) on "TIKhistory" channel.

  1. Effectively. But off - book I think because issued by a private corporation.
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  2.  @petriew2018  It's, "If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bicycle" logic.
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  3. TBF the Germans did have an ancient historical connection with Eastern Europe and many Germans had settled there over the centuries. This didn't make the idea of conquering the whole area sensible but the Ausland Deutsch were a real issue in an age of nationalist assertion and conflict
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  4.  @zxbzxbzxb1  True. True.
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  5. Bizarrely this was the most successful German operation in the final months of the war.
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  6. Did anyone point out that the Anglo - Americans wished to retain The Soviet Union as an ally and that until the atomic bomb was successfully exploded The US wanted them to join in the war against Japan at the earliest possible date?
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  7. They knew about but they didn't believe in it (with good reason).
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  8. That seems harsh.
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  9.  @eldragon4076  Pretty droll that someone would regard a potboiling hack like Hastings as an authority.
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  10.  @TheImperatorKnight  I think Courland was actually a better project, since it's so little known to Anglophones.
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  11. A good point. It should also be said that the infamous Night of The Long Knives saw Hitler and The Army collaborate in this murder spree, even though Schleicher was one of the victims
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  12.  @TheImperatorKnight  The little stukas (and Soviet aircraft) are a fun addition.
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  13. Interesting. I think those who had worn German uniform were less at risk of criminal prosecution than of social ostracism. It must have been tough living in The Soviet Union as a known Nazi collaborator. In some ways life in The Gulag may have been easier since no one there supported the regime
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  14. Indeed. A German - Polish entente would have been a disaster for The British. Fortunately the Poles never considered it, perceiving correctly that it would end their independence.
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  15.  @HomercleeseSimpson  I don't think TIK is totally wrong. There was a degree of overlap in Eastern Europe. You can see it in Romania where the Cold War "national communist" government followed a similar line to fascists who preceded them in power.
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  16. Yes. The idea is to smooth the economic cycle.
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  17.  @mrniceguy7168  So it would seem.
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  18. He's rather like a younger version.
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  19.  @TheImperatorKnight  I'm afraid Trevor - Roper was a rather unethical historian. Though I think The Last Days holds up. It was based on testimony gathered shortly after Hitler's death.
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  20.  @caryblack5985  Hitler nixed the foo fighters too (probably).
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  21.  The Colonel  Agreed. I don't think anyone doubts that the text we have gives a generally accurate account of what Hitler said but the participants were never given an opportunity to authenticate or query its accuracy (with the exception of Hitler himself, who declined to do so).
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  22. This is so. Hitler attacked Poland because Poland refused to to side with him against the Soviet Union.
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  23. You're not altogether wrong there. There's a good collection of testimony though.
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  24.  @Zveebo  I agree. The effect of increased money supply in the recent past has been asset inflation, and I see no reason why this should not continue indefinitely.
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  25.  @oliversmith9200  I think you're mostly right. Totalitarianism couldn't have perpetuated itself without mass support. You would think the fact that The Soviet Government being unable to feed the population adequately would have undermined its legitimacy but maybe this was believed to be a temporary problem.
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  26.  @lyndoncmp5751  Bad country for paras.
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  27. Apparently The RAF simply refused to land airborne forces anywhere near Arnhem, so Browning isn't to blame for that absurdity.
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  28.  @Malinb0ratt  They didn't feel any particular obligation to anyone wearing Nazi uniform. The deportation of civilians who had been living outside The USSR for many years was much less justifiable.
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  29. The charge against him is that he was better at the tactical than the operational level. Whether this is true is debatable.
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  30. I believe they were brought to The UK to work as agricultural labourers, and adopted by The Polish community there.
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  31. Impressive sarcasm.
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  32. Good explanation of what looks like an extraordinary delay in clearing the approaches to Antwerp on which depended the success of every other operation in this theatre.
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  33.  @johnpeate4544  Such an "inference" strikes me as insane. But then I reflect that there was no reason to believe that The Allies would be able to capture Antwerp intact before The Germans could wreck it. They were handed an amazing stroke of luck, and then threw it away.
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  34.  @johnpeate4544  As Tik the Brittany ports were utterly irrelevant. Allied planning really seems to have been bad. Though I guess only a choice of bad alternatives was available, until Antwerp fell. Interesting question how usable the southern French network would have been after the northern had been utterly destroyed.
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  35.  @johnpeate4544  I am highly sceptical about the feasibility of that "original planning". Certainly after Antwerp fell intact Chastity would have been completely pointless.
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  36. Yep. Ammunition was a problem for the Germans throughout the war because it consumes resources so voraciously.
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  37. No it was quite separate. But it does show that The Allies were very callous towards anyone suspected of collaborating with The Nazis.
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  38. Worth mentioning that Reiman lived most of his life in The USA, which is presumably why he came to the attention ofthe anarcho - capitalists. I hope he wasn't asked the, Are you now or have you ever been... question too often since that would have got old quickly.
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  39.  @TheImperatorKnight  Pretend - lend
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  40.  @TheImperatorKnight  They tried coal gas.
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  41. Milton Shulman, Defeat in The West (1947) is still worth a read, giving the experience of middle - ranking German officers fighting against the Anglo - Americans in 1944 - 45. Certainly not given to any extravagant praise of operational performance and in fact quite triggering to wehraboos.
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  42. This is a good point. The main value of German PoWs was that they could work at a time when war time losses had caused a major shortage of labour. There was no point in keeping really debilitated prisoners alive. After all The Soviets allowed many of their own citizens to starve if they couldn't work because of age or infirmity. This was an incredibly brutal war.
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  43. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
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  44. Chamberlain wasn't spineless. Once it became clear that Hitler really was pursuing a Lebensraum policy he declared war.
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  45.  @caryblack5985  Also Julius Fisher, Transnistria, The Forgotten Cemetery (1970). It's so little noticed it might be called, The Forgotten Book.
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  46. The Dawes/Young revisions and The Locarno Treaty were a strategic disaster for the French. They made it impossible to hobble Germany with reparations, and they left Poland and Czechoslovakia vulnerable to German irredentism.
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  47.  @AgendaFiles  They refused to make the payments demanded under the much higher 1921 schedule. Hence The Ruhr Crisis of 1923, which culminated in a French defeat.
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  48.  @AgendaFiles  Schuker is the authority I follow about reparations. It's a very complex topic and not many people understand it.
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  49. Charles Feinstein and Gerald Feldman are worth a read. And Niall Ferguson has some interesting comments in his, Pity of War. I know Ferguson is a doofus but he does know about banking.
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  50.  @vallergergo737  Pretty much.
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