Category: Russia

How Poland was torn in half in 1939 – Interview with military history author Roger Moorhouse

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How Poland was torn in half in 1939 – Interview with military history author Roger Moorhouse

Check out this book here   https://amzn.to/3eXW7Gp

Interview Timeline

Roger Moorhouse has been a historian for the Third Reich, Poland, and WWII for many years and has written many books on the subject. He recently published a book on the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939 and we spoke about the book and this military event. Poland 1939 (Basic Books, 2020)

0:39 – Roger talks about how he got into studying Poland and WWII.

2:14 – Roger talks about the strength of the German military in 1939 and the propaganda narrative.

5:52 – Roger talks about the scope of the book from tactical to a wider scope.

8:00 – Roger talks about the reasons for Germany’s early setbacks.

11:16 – Roger talks about the terrain and weather of Poland in 1939.

13:52 – Roger talks about German General Guderian reminiscing about his ancestral lands in Poland.

15:39 – Roger compares German tactics in Poland versus the French campaign and the massacres of POWs and civilians.

19:13 – Roger talks about ethnic German attacks against Poles.

22:08 – Roger talks about German propaganda and Goebbels.

27:01 – Roger talks about a battle with a German Panzer army.

28:22 – Roger talks about the Soviet invasion of Poland.

32:12 – Roger talks about Soviet propaganda about its invasion of Poland.

34:06 – Roger discusses Soviet atrocities against upper class and middle class Poles.

36:13 – Roger talks about the Polish death toll in WWII.

37:43 – Roger talks about what materials he used to do his research.

40:20 – Roger talks about the lack of access to Soviet materials.

41:54 – Roger talks about having visited some of the battlefields he wrote about.

48:05 – Roger addresses the concentration camps in Poland.

51:39 – Roger talks about the German and Russian use of elite troops to commit atrocities.

57:30 – Roger can be found at www.rogermoorhouse.com and on twitter @roger_moorhouse

Links of interest

https://amzn.to/3eXW7Gp

https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/roger-moorhouse/poland-1939/9780465095414/

https://www.rogermoorhouse.com/

https://twitter.com/Roger_Moorhouse

Contact Information

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me at www.warscholar.org, on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar. Or subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

Guests: Roger Moorhouse

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, Poland, WWII, Germany, 1939, September campaign, USSR, Great Britain, propaganda, espionage, air power, fortified, blitzkreig, Prussia, Guderian, Austria, liebensraum, France, massacres, Nazi, Goebbels, cavalry, tanks, class war, nationalists, Karte archives, concentration camps, NKVD, SS, Wehrmacht, Ukraine

Check out this book here   https://amzn.to/3eXW7Gp

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Cold War military history book – “Divided Allies” (Cornell University Press, 2019) – Thomas Robb interview

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Dr. Thomas Robb is a historian who studies and teaches British and US military history. We spoke about his latest co-authored book on how the ANZUS and SEATO treaties were developed. Check out the book here.

0:44 – Thomas Robb talks about how he got into writing on Cold War Asia-Pacific military relations.

4:03 – Thomas talks about how he begins the book with WWII and moves into the Cold War chronologically.

6:38 – Thomas talks about Australia’s strong concern about tPacific regional security.

8:25 – Thomas discusses France’s decline and Japan’s importance.

8:48 – Thomas talks about West’s concern with Japan’s resurgence economically.

10:04 – Thomas discusses China’s role in the region.

11:50 – Thomas talks about the Soviet role in the Pacific region.

14:12 – Thomas mentions Soviet pilots in the Korean War.

14:52 – Thomas talks about economic versus national needs of the four nations involved.

16:26 – Thomas mentions complaints about ANZUS.

18:38 – Thomas talks about the approach to nuclear weapons.

21:21 – Thomas discusses the US need for the treaty.

22:03 – Thomas talks about the relative military strengths of the four nations negotiating the treaties.

22:27 – Thomas says NZ and Australia were diplomatically punching above their weight.

22:45 – The Philippines not included in ANZUS.

24:57 – Thomas talks about how each nation could militarily contribute to the alliance.

26:01 – A cordon defense would go nuclear.

27:59 – Thomas talks about western concerns that Japan would become communist.

29:05 – Japanese reparations are discussed.

29:45 – Japanese strategic value was shown.

30:59 – Thomas talks about the payment of German reparations after WWI and compares that to the idea of having Japan pay reparations.

32:55 – Thomas talks about British strategic goals and aliances.

34:00 – The US prodded Britain to drop japan as an ally.

34:57 – Thomas talks about Churchill’s sentimentality.

35:54 – Thomas talks about how domestic politics impacted these treaty negotiations.

37:12 – The public used an excuse to not legitimize some treaty negotiations.

38:50 – The Eisenhower library just released a bunch of previously classified documents.

39:42 – Thomas talks about the archives he used for his research including various Presidential libraries.

42:23 – Thomas talks about going to the Truman library.

43:52 – The UK was angry that Australia and New Zealand went off without them and joined the US.

47:54 – Thomas talks about the interplay of racial ideas influenced policy.

50:44 – Thomas talks about how some of the American negotiators had very intense military ideas.

51:25 – Some of the Americans seemed bonkers to the Australians in their goals.

53:47 – The British met with press barons to impugn the character of a foreign minister over ANZUS negotiations.

1:00:19 – Thomas talks about a new project to study the political economy of the US Civil War.

Links of interest

Check out the book here.

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501741845/divided-allies/#bookTabs=3

https://twitter.com/obucoldwarrior

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me at www.warscholar.org, on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar. Or subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

Guests: Thomas Robb

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, asia-pacific, australia, new zealand, cold war, wwii, world war two, great britain, united states, united kingdom, japan, france, communism, china, NATO, korean war, ANZUS, nuclear weapons, macarthur, truman, philippines, okinawa, malay, SEATO, dean acheson, Russian Empire, Churchill, france, Dulles, US Civil War

WWII military history book – “A Satellite Empire” (Cornell University Press, 2019) – Vladimir Solonari interview

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Dr. Vladimir Solonari is a history professor at the University of Central Florida. He has written extensively on ethnic cleansing in Romania during WWII and we discussed his latest book on Romanian occupation of Transnistria in Ukraine during WWII. Check out the book here.

0:45 – Vladimir talks about why he is writing about Romanian occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

2:43 – Vladimir talks about the geography of the Ukrainian region the book focuses on.

5:58 – Vladimir talks about German post-WWII plans for this Ukrainian region had Germany won the war. Romania was trying to get Transylvania back.

8:18 – Vladimir talks about how the progress of Operation Barbarossa affected Romanian strategic plans for this region.

12:19 – Vladimir talks about how Romanian troops were deployed around the Eastern Front and used.

14:42 – Vladimir talks about Romanian elite troops known as “mountain shooters”.

15:30 – Vladimir talks about Romanian policing of the Transnistria region. He discusses Soviet created terrorist groups used to harass the Romanians. He also discusses local partisan groups.

22:35- Vladimir talks about how Romania conducted ethnic cleansing of Jews, Roma, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, and Hungarians and moved them to Transnistria. He also discusses how typhus spread through the camps.

27:05 – Vladimir talks about whether the Romanians used specialized troops to massacre ethnic prisoners.

29:55 – Vladimir talks about how some Romanian officers opposed ethnic cleansing. Ethnic German villages were willing to conduct ethnic cleansing in this region.

33:30 – Vladimir talks about how Romania wanted to show its power on the world stage and to Europe.

36:30 – Vladimir talks about German perceptions of Eastern Europe as an empty space that needed order.

38:07 – Vladimir talks about the archives he used for his research.

39:31 – Vladimir relates a story about an aspiring composer in Odessa who was living a double life and pining over a lost love.

46:05 – Vladimir talks about how the Romanian government withdrew their approval for him to use certain photographs in his book.

47:46 – Vladimir talks about visiting a museum and the catacombs of Odessa.

57:14 – Vladimir talks about the complexity of the whole situation.

59:58 – Vladimir tried to determine how much the German and Romanian occupation attitudes depended on racist ideas.

1:07:30 – Vladimir talks about the legalities that the Romanians applied to conducting their ethnic cleansing.

Links of interest

Check out the book here.

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501743184/a-satellite-empire/

https://history.cah.ucf.edu/faculty-staff/?id=318

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me at www.warscholar.org, on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Vladimir Solonari

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, Romania, ukraine, world war ii, wwii, ethnic cleansing, Odessa, Russia, USSR, Germany, fascism, communism, transylvania, transnistria, Moldova, operation barbarossa, crimea, sevastopol, stalingrad, eastern front, Hitler, mountain shooters, spy networks, terrorists, intelligence, partisan, stukas, jewish, hungary, bulgaria, roma, typhus, Antonescu, police, gendarme, colonialism, US Holocaust Museum, Sviatoslav Richter, NKVD, cannibalism, Stalin, cornell