But TIK, if Hitler wasn't a Madman, why did he assume Britain wouldn't fight?

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  • Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
  • Hitler famously asked Ribbentrop "Now what?" when Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 after Germany invaded Poland. This has sparked a debate, with one of my viewers asking why Hitler was shocked that Britain declared war if he understood Britain's 'European Balance of Power' strategy? Today we answer that question.
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 1,4 тис.

  • @peterg76yt
    @peterg76yt 2 роки тому +963

    I think it's a mistake to assume Hitler was always 100% convinced his actions would lead to a specific outcome. He took gambles.

    • @aerialmacaroon6312
      @aerialmacaroon6312 2 роки тому +24

      Particularly as war fell apart probably

    • @thewayfarer8849
      @thewayfarer8849 2 роки тому +109

      Hell, wasn't the Rhineland (edited) a big gamble where they were ordered to retreat if faced with the French? Taking risk seems to be a massive part of politics and military action

    • @theBEASTisJJ
      @theBEASTisJJ 2 роки тому +77

      @@thewayfarer8849 You are probably thinking about the Re-militarization of the Rhineland. Where the german troops where ordered to fall back if they saw any French troops coming to them

    • @aerialmacaroon6312
      @aerialmacaroon6312 2 роки тому

      @@thewayfarer8849 true

    • @steenkigerrider5340
      @steenkigerrider5340 2 роки тому +28

      "He took gambles."
      Hitler admitted this to Göring in August 1939. "Ich habe mein ganzes Leben lang Va Bank (Va banque) gespielt" Paul Schmidt, Hitler's interpreter, overheard him saying this.

  • @localenterprisebroadcastin5971
    @localenterprisebroadcastin5971 2 роки тому +839

    Just because someone misjudged something doesn’t mean they’re insane …it just means they’re human 😂

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +23

      or a wombat.

    •  2 роки тому +1

      🤨 *YUP*…

    • @dpt6849
      @dpt6849 2 роки тому

      Human? Not a subhuman more important😂

    • @sillypuppy5940
      @sillypuppy5940 2 роки тому +11

      I don't think I've ever heard Herr H being called human.

    • @EK14MeV
      @EK14MeV 2 роки тому +13

      Nonsense.
      People ignore Hitler’s widely criminal nature, extreme narcissism-he did consider himself the nation-and his unreachable behavior by well into 1942, according to Speer. Having goals and actions in enslaving and or eliminating entire peoples is also out of touch with any sense of reality or justification.
      Again, Speer said that nobody was able to reach Hitler by 1943, to change his mind on anything. Hitler nearly constantly went against those who who were much better informed than himself in the second half of the war, especially his remaining competent war professionals in the army (which didn’t include Keitel).
      It’s why many in his regime supported the later Valkyrie plot to end the war before Hitler took everything with him in fighting to the last capable resistance.

  • @ssz2150
    @ssz2150 2 роки тому +267

    I have another answer to that question: Britains grasp on its colonies was very weak, even befor the war. (The Japanese certainly realised that, too). If Britain went to war, they would surely lose their colonies, even if they won (which is exactly what happened), because the forces they would need to keep control, would be spent. His mistake was, that the thought that the Brits - before everyone else - surely must realise that, too.
    In other words: Hitler could not imagine that the Britains would purposely throw away their empire, just to throw a punch at germany. He did not imagine them to be this oblivious to their own situation.

    • @MyMy-tv7fd
      @MyMy-tv7fd 2 роки тому +49

      but Britain always ruled its colonies with a large measure of local agreement. Just look at the economic miracle of Hong Kong - Britain took over a patch of mud and a couple of wooden huts and turned into a free market multi-billion pound per year economy that every Chinese person on the mainland looked at with envy. Similarly with Singapore, and which of the two would anyone rather live in today?

    • @MarkVrem
      @MarkVrem 2 роки тому +25

      I'm not sure that Britain felt that way in the 30s. Britain had a colonial thing going on with France and The Netherlands. France in Vietnam/Madagascar, and other places in Africa. The Netherlands was prominent in Indonesia. So together they helped each other. These nations being able to stand up to Germany, and make Germany bend its knee, would be a show of strength to the colonial subjects. The problem only becomes a problem, when Germany ends the "Phony War" and runs right over France and The Netherlands.

    • @dpt6849
      @dpt6849 2 роки тому +10

      Hooligan mentality😂

    • @ssz2150
      @ssz2150 2 роки тому +31

      @@MyMy-tv7fd true, Britain very skillfully used the different interestgroups in their colonies to play them at each other and through this maintain dominance, even with a relatively small ground force. But that system came to an end after WW1. India was pretty much united in their struggle for independence (and that alone...). I mean Britain had to promise India independence if they were willing to fight for them in WW2!
      Hitler said multiple times, that he regarded India as the "crown jewel" of the british empire. His conviction was, that without India they would fall apart. So, of course they would not risk it. Makes perfect sense from this point of view.

    • @MarkVrem
      @MarkVrem 2 роки тому +25

      @@ssz2150 Britain can't expect a chance at the status quo in India or other colonies (Egypt etc) if it can't even maintain the status quo in its own backyard; Europe. I hate to use a stupid term but looking away from the drama that Germany is causing. Would label Britain a simp. Britain was trying to be an alpha, not a simp.

  • @doubleozero007
    @doubleozero007 2 роки тому +82

    It is always a good day when TIK releases a new video

  • @QuizmasterLaw
    @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +67

    Prior to Speer: the German war economy is a SPECIALIST and HIGHLY TECHNICAL war economy geared for a RAPID LIMITED war lasting at most six months.
    AFTER Speer the German war economy became total, geared for a long term war of attrition in very unfavorable circumstances.

    • @bludfyre
      @bludfyre 2 роки тому +18

      I think that also has to do with the situation at the time: Nazi leadership was convinced prior to 1942 that the Soviet Union would collapse quickly, Britain would stop fighting (because they couldn't fight the Nazis by themselves) and so the war would be over in 1941. Once none of those happened, they had to switch over to a more sustained war.

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +8

      @@bludfyre Yes, that is part of it. Believe it or not the Germans in 1939 didn't want to go to war. Getting the German populace to actuall go all in on the war was a stepwise process, ever larger commitments. Even then there were plenty of war skeptics. It's basically wishful thinking: Germany could only fight a short sharp decisive war so that was what they prepared for and fought, but then biting off more than they could chew led to history in your time line which i am desperately trying to change oh god they have discovered me no No NO NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
      ..

    • @chrislambert9435
      @chrislambert9435 2 роки тому

      Very good. I can not understand why TIK has not mention the "Winston Churchill - von Ribbentrop meeting (1937)" This astonishes me, see it on You-Tube

  • @nonyadamnbusiness9887
    @nonyadamnbusiness9887 2 роки тому +108

    I've thought that Chamberlain must have been the only Englishman Hitler ever met. When I was in England in the 80s and 90s I met some of the most stubborn people on Earth. They struck me as a people who would never be told what to do and never give up. I can't imagine how much stronger that attitude would have been back when they actually ruled a third of the planet.

    • @therealrobertbirchall
      @therealrobertbirchall 2 роки тому

      Hitler was a good friend of Edward 8th King of the UK who abdicated to marry an American divorcee. Britain could well have joined the German side in ww2 if Edward had remained king.

    • @chrislambert9435
      @chrislambert9435 2 роки тому +10

      Hitler also met Eden. Plus, I can not understand why TIK has not mention the "Winston Churchill - von Ribbentrop meeting (1937)" This astonishes me, see it on You-Tube

    • @therealrobertbirchall
      @therealrobertbirchall 2 роки тому

      @@chrislambert9435 selective history of the sort Neil Olliver trotts out.

    • @siroswaldfortitude5346
      @siroswaldfortitude5346 2 роки тому +2

      @@chrislambert9435 Did Hitler also meet Lord Halifax? For some reason I think he did, but I could be wrong

    • @petervote7914
      @petervote7914 2 роки тому +25

      "...It is probable that the groundwork for Halifax’s visit to Hitler had been laid by the earlier visits of Lords Lothian and Londonderry to the same host, but our knowledge of these earlier events is too scanty to be certain.
      ...As a result, Halifax had a long conversation with Hitler on 19 November 1937 in which, whatever may have been Halifax’s intention, Hitler’s government became convinced of three things: (a) that Britain regarded Germany as the chief bulwark against communism in Europe; (b) that Britain was prepared to join a Four Power agreement of France, Germany, Italy, and herself; and (c) that Britain was prepared to allow Germany to liquidate Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland if this could be done without provoking a war into which the British Government, however unwillingly, would be dragged in opposition to Germany.
      The German Foreign Ministry memorandum on this conversation makes it perfectly clear that the Germans did not misunderstand Halifax except, possibly, on the last point..."
      www.yamaguchy.com/library/quigley/anglo_12b.html
      www.carrollquigley.net/books.htm

  • @alexfilma16
    @alexfilma16 2 роки тому +145

    Historians: Hitler was a basket case!
    TIK: But is this really the (basket) case?

    • @TheImperatorKnight
      @TheImperatorKnight  2 роки тому +97

      Do you have the time,
      to listen to me whine,
      About Hitler and Manstein
      both at once?

    • @philvanderlaan5942
      @philvanderlaan5942 2 роки тому +7

      @@TheImperatorKnight a good start but I’ll wait till you finish the poem .

    • @gordonsmith4884
      @gordonsmith4884 2 роки тому +11

      @@TheImperatorKnight Mate, I'd make the time to listen to tou read the phone book and explain where it has gone wrong!:-)

    • @OtherDAS
      @OtherDAS 2 роки тому +3

      @@TheImperatorKnight Yes, I eagerly await the video.

    • @Irys1997
      @Irys1997 Рік тому +1

      @@TheImperatorKnight "Nonce" rhymes with "once," however, use with care, even in a Hilter poem

  • @alih6953
    @alih6953 2 роки тому +17

    Dear TIK it is so good you are back! You are the best critical thinker I know. You inspire me to think more critically!

    • @TheImperatorKnight
      @TheImperatorKnight  2 роки тому +2

      Awesome! Keep questioning things and get to the truth

    • @alih6953
      @alih6953 2 роки тому

      @@TheImperatorKnight Thank you so much TIK I would love if you ever did a video USSR and Britain vs Germany alone (No America). I think USSR and Britain would win because Fall Bleau would be a disaster

  • @melgross
    @melgross 2 роки тому +35

    You don’t have to be mad to be wrong.
    A big concern of Hitler was the USA. He wrote that after WW I, the USA had lent so much money to European countries, that those countries were beholden to the USA, and that he would never let that happen to Germany. It was a big part of his thinking that Germany become a continental power like the USA so that Germany could resist them and stand toe to toe.

    • @drscopeify
      @drscopeify Рік тому +3

      The USA had massive dealings with Nazi Germany prior to WW2 and Germany went on a large spending during their pre-war mobilization which lead to large amount of business. The list of American companies involved with Germany under Hitler was absolutely massive and lead to very friendly relations and open love affair between the countries from Politicians, business, media and the public even though there were signs of problems due to the treatment of Jews in Germany it was not enough to end the relations. Germany had financed fancy state of the art cruise liners, Zeppelins all for US-German relations and both countries were overall very friendly such as cruise ships until the declaration of war.

    • @melgross
      @melgross Рік тому +6

      @@drscopeify every country dealt with Nazi Germany before WWII. It wasn’t really understood where the country was going then. Dealing with dictatorships is something routinely done. Are you surprised? Even the YSSr, which should have known better dealt with them, and made treaties. The US public was isolationist and didn’t want confrontation. It took until late q939 for attitudes to begin to change. And businessmen care little about rights, just profits.

    • @seanlander9321
      @seanlander9321 Рік тому

      How was Europe beholden to the USA for war loans? Britain took 100 years to repay its debt and France took 100 years to pay…….not a penny. A country that does. It pay its debts isn’t beholden to another; France simply laughed at America, and still does, because the USA was taken for a sucker.

    • @gumdeo
      @gumdeo Рік тому +2

      @@melgross Rightly or wrongly, Stalin saw Poland as his greatest enemy. When the chance came to partition the country with Germany, he didn't hesitate.

  • @smarterthanurkel
    @smarterthanurkel 2 роки тому +68

    I think he had a pretty good idea what he wanted to achieve and he did not think the economic outcome of his policy was negative. He just wanted to replace the economic system by another system that simply required to conquer vast lands to maintain the population as the overall productivity per capita would be much lower than before. There was a huge settling and farming movement within Germany from the 1870ies onwards because many of the people felt that they would have problems to survive without some land they could cultivate on their own. So the general public was pretty much on board with this and I guess it was a pretty normal for his generation. Nothing unusual. 1880ies kids will remember.

    • @Arwcwb
      @Arwcwb 2 роки тому

      His economic policy was to conquer the Earth

    • @dondajulah4168
      @dondajulah4168 2 роки тому +1

      Autarky is a much more viable option if you have pretty much all the raw materials you need plus a skilled labor force. And if you know that you are hopelessly outgunned on the high seas while embracing a political ideology so odious as to ensure that you will be cut off from global sea routes, what other option do you really have?

    • @radec1566
      @radec1566 2 роки тому +1

      @@dondajulah4168 Europe had all the resources the Germans needed for their autarky any other things could have been obtained by peace with British empire. Britain would not have continued war indefinitely.

    • @dondajulah4168
      @dondajulah4168 2 роки тому +8

      @@radec1566 They would have continued war indefinitely. A Europe in which Poland and USSR to the Urals had been annexed and the rest of the continent vassalized would have meant doom for GB. They would have pulled out every stop to prevent that from occurring which is what happened historically.
      Hitler also correctly calculated that as German victory became more likely, the level of support provided by the US would increase and she would eventually join the Allies. There was also very good reason to believe this to be true as FDR was angling from very early on to become more involved in assisting GB than was desired by the US public at large.
      What I am saying is that embracing an ideology that the rest of the global community finds odious means you better plan on becoming as self-sufficient as possible and/or creating a competing sphere of influence that will trade with you on your terms. Helps greatly also to have a large modern navy with a naval tradition enabling you to conduct combat operations with confidence.
      Germany would be lagging GB in naval tradition for many, many decades even if they were to build out a fleet equal to or better than GB. The best they could hope for was to disrupt the British and US trade routes which they were able to do for a limited period of time.
      Putin and the Russian people are learning the same lesson that Hitler learned 80 years ago. Their aviation industry is near collapse due to sanctions that make it extremely difficult to impossible to obtain spare parts. Tanker to tanker oil transfers between Russia and China are being conducted on the seas instead of in ports. Apps that regular people rely on to practice their trade are no longer available to ordinary Russians. Other countries that have been sanctioned by the international community either eventually buckled to the pressure or accepted their status as pariah states and have dealt with the consequences.

    • @radec1566
      @radec1566 2 роки тому

      @@dondajulah4168 The British empire did not have the coffers to fight indefinitely, the empire was empire was falling apart as it was and the great loans the government had to take out were enormous it was a Pyrrhic victory in real life let alone if the war dragged out longer. War = Money, Britain = bankrupt.

  • @monophthalmos9633
    @monophthalmos9633 2 роки тому +43

    While Germany did have a war economy during and before WW2, it is worth noting that the economic mobilization for the war was not as total as it had been in WW1. A quick example: The bells from many churches were molten down to produce shells in WW1, that did not happen in WW2. The same can be said for many aspects. Stealing ressources from other countries instead of relying on war bonds, outsourcing starvation by stealing food unlike during WW1. That being said: An economy that produces consumer goods for the sake of maintaining morale during a planned and upcoming war is still a war economy. It's more complicated than "War economy is when you make lots of guns"

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +12

      one big diff between WWI & 2. Hitler knew to fight the war he would require domestic support and thus didn't skimp on plundering everyone else to feed the germans. except for the absence of coffee (nigh non existent) and tobacco (reserved for frontsoldaten) civilian life in the reich was sweet all the way into 1945. It's only around February/March 1945 that the domestic civilian consumer economy starts to crack. 3 months later they would know half as bad what they imposed on everyone else.

    • @chrislambert9435
      @chrislambert9435 2 роки тому +2

      I can not understand why TIK has not mention the "Winston Churchill - von Ribbentrop meeting (1937)" This astonishes me, see it on You-Tube

    • @seanlander9321
      @seanlander9321 Рік тому +6

      Germany in WWII had the benefit of France on its side producing 40% of its economic output.

    •  6 місяців тому +2

      I would also like to point out that no one does as much of a total war economy as Germany did in WW1.
      In my military history class, we basically discussed the idea of total war vs limited war as a spectrum upon which each combatant was a certain way down, but at a certain point on the spectrum, you hit "Total war" status, which is where everything that can sensibly be done to help the war effort is done at the expense of everything else in the civilian sector that might want stuff.
      Then, if you go BEYOND that threshold, you enter what we called "Stupid war" which is where you start to throw things to the war effort that you CANNOT sensibly do.
      Germany in WW1 broke the total war threshold, entered stupid war and it broke them.

  • @burymycampaignatwoundedkne3395
    @burymycampaignatwoundedkne3395 2 роки тому +262

    WW2 isn’t usually terribly interesting to me, but your videos present the war in a way that does interest me and make me want to look into it more

    • @localenterprisebroadcastin5971
      @localenterprisebroadcastin5971 2 роки тому +12

      Regardless of your statement I find your profile picture and screen name absolutely hilarious 😆…very cleaver

    • @MrWatchowtnow
      @MrWatchowtnow 2 роки тому +5

      Yeah , its the same old crap as always. Hitty bad.

    • @loungelizard3922
      @loungelizard3922 2 роки тому +2

      Love the name. Yeah World War II what a bore..

    • @ChocolateHabanero22
      @ChocolateHabanero22 2 роки тому

      Love your profile pic and name!

    • @sakabula2357
      @sakabula2357 2 роки тому +1

      Lol...Please I have to know...which war interests you?

  • @AoE2Replays
    @AoE2Replays 2 роки тому +6

    i dont know TIK, im still not convinced, you need to do 100 more videos on this!

  • @steenkigerrider5340
    @steenkigerrider5340 2 роки тому +17

    "Why did he assume Britain wouldn't fight?"
    Because one of his calculations was that Britain would not dare to risk its Empire by going to war for Poland.

  • @SittingOnEdgeman
    @SittingOnEdgeman 2 роки тому +60

    A big part of it I think falls down to Britain and France's failure to enact mobilization after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Anyone with eyes knew that Germany would only treat with the USSR - after almost a decade of railing against "the Bolsheviks" - if it was on the verge of starting another European war and needed security on what would be its new eastern border. A week of mobilization wouldn't have made a lot of military difference, but it would have made a huge political difference to Germany's calculus about how serious Britain and France were. And by that point, the French public were actually chomping at the bit to stop Germany (from what I understand). The only debate was whether the French military was ready or not, and there was no real serious debate about whether it should be done or not by that point.

    • @josww2
      @josww2 2 роки тому +13

      1) I would disagree that mobilization would have persuaded Hitler to back off. The deal to divide E. Europe had already been made, Germany had to follow through at that point. Further, Britain explicitly guaranteed Polish independence, which was more than enough to change Hitler's calculus, if anything could have changed it (but it was too late for that).
      2) For Germany (and USSR), the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was about dividing eastern Europe without having to fight another major power, not securing the eastern flank. USSR wasn't going to stand by and let Germany take lands that the Soviets considered theirs, unless, of course, they could get a piece of the pie as well -- and Germany knew this. Further, the Soviets were as wary of French and British responses to invading Poland, etc, as Germany was. Partners in crime is what the pact was about.
      Edit:
      previous point 1, before I understood your point re: mobilization
      The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed on August 23, 1939; France began mobilization on August 26. Not sure when Britain started mobilization (they had accelerated arms production over a year prior), but was was declared on September 3 after Germany invaded Poland.

    • @30cal23
      @30cal23 2 роки тому

      the MRP was signed in 1940 after poland and france ate shit....

    • @beowulf1312
      @beowulf1312 2 роки тому +3

      @peter coleman It is true that people often read history and cannot divorce their current knowledge and beliefs from what a person of that time would know or feel. However, I do not think it is impossible for short scenarios or periods to almost divorce yourself and see things with their eyes. It does require good all round knowledge of the period in question and practice in attempting this objectivity..

    • @delta2372
      @delta2372 2 роки тому

      Well as we know by now, france was to weak to actually do anything against germany and the british really didn't want to go into another war, had it not been for the collosal mistakes of both britian and france during the events of 1940, the germans could have been stopped but it is of my belief that France if it had held, would have had a civil war started by the communist's.

    • @FilipCordas
      @FilipCordas 2 роки тому +2

      @@josww2 If Britain was so concerned about 'Polish independence' why did they only declare war only on Germany and not USSR they both invaded together. And if Hitler wanted to 'take more space' for Germany, why did he only annex parts of Poland that where majority German and not the whole territory after Barbarossa. As much as people like to pretend that the Polish government was a freedom loving democracy, they were a military dictatorship at the time, and yes German people were discriminated and attacked in Poland before the war, and they were completely ethnicity cleansed after the war. He also didn't annex Ukraine after it was taken it had a fully autonomous government that attacked Poland during the war. You know the guys that invented Slava Ukraine and had a flag with the sword trident you see promoted by people on Twitter now yee those guys. War crimes were committed by everyone in WW2 but since the Nazis lost, we only hear about the terrible things they done and ignore everything else. England was just as much to blame for starting this war as Germany they were an Empire on the decline that used Poland to start a war with Germany, they believed they would win easily but that didn't happen, so it turned into a quagmire.

  • @TheMocholoco
    @TheMocholoco Рік тому +2

    An episode of The World At War had Luftwaffe pilot Galland being told by Hitler that the battle of Britain was a "camouflage" battle meant to divert Russia from noticing what Germany was concentrating. Gallands sad expression at realizing this during the interview was interesting.

  • @tentimetex
    @tentimetex 2 роки тому +14

    He wasn't a mad man, but he was an idealist. This is in part what also fueled him. He admired the British, their history, their conquest and empire building, and system and dedication to their King, etc...and hence truly thought they wouldnt fight back because they somehow conformed to his ideals.

    • @bearcubdaycare
      @bearcubdaycare Рік тому +3

      And the visible support from the king may have helped (willing photo ops with Hitler, etc.). Hitler may have assumed that there would be deference in government to the king.

    • @ambatuBUHSURK
      @ambatuBUHSURK Рік тому

      "he admired brits" he considered you subhuman, stop coping angloid

  • @Litany_of_Fury
    @Litany_of_Fury 2 роки тому +12

    At the time the perspective was that Britain got involved in WW1 because conflicts of interest over Empire and the Naval Arms race. From Hitler's perspective these things didn't exist in WW2 so peace with Britain was inevitable. While he was right these are things the British get involved over; if Britain wanted, it could have gone to war and taken the colonies a long time ago and destroyed the German Navy. The Reason for war was ultimately due to Belgium and Russia, it seemed like the winning side and a safe bet to secure British geo political aims.
    In WW2 though Germany fundamentally misunderstood the British perspective to the point it blinded them to go to war believing in Blitzkrieg. If anything Japan was closer to getting peace with Britain than Germany was post 1940. Make no mistake Japan represented a greater threat to the Empire than Germany did.

  • @warrioroflight6872
    @warrioroflight6872 2 роки тому +139

    Hey TIK! You're the only history UA-camr I can ask, so are you ever going to do a video detailing the life and numerous atrocities of Lenin? We could really use a video like that on UA-cam because he is grossly celebrated and glorified by people who know nothing about him.

    • @honzo1078
      @honzo1078 2 роки тому

      There are a million videos on the atrocities of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, and they all simply regurgitated the same falsehoods generated by the propaganda machine during the Cold War.

    • @AD-ji9ci
      @AD-ji9ci 2 роки тому +36

      That is a good idea. I often hear that communism was going great but then Stalin took over.

    • @alexgray2482
      @alexgray2482 2 роки тому +22

      @@AD-ji9ci yeah Lenin really laid the groundwork for Stalin in many ways, such as his brutal crushing of the Tambov rebellion and Kronstadt mutiny, as well as his centralisation of power ("democratic centralism" etc)

    • @jkotekvolnycz
      @jkotekvolnycz 2 роки тому +12

      Lookup something from Timothy Snyder on the "Bloodlands". It describes the mass killings by the red and brown socialists in central and eastern Europe. This includes Uljanov's actions as well as those of Dzugashvilli (a.k.a. Lenin and Stalin).

    • @warrioroflight6872
      @warrioroflight6872 2 роки тому +2

      @@alexgray2482
      Lenin also helped to start the famine of 1920 and decided to use it to force the Russian people into even more suffering so that they would stop believing in God and believe in him and the party instead.
      You don't need to be religious to see how twisted that is-to understand that Lenin was so cruel that he was willing to starve millions of people to death and force millions more to resort to cannibalism so that he could take away the comfort they found in their religious beliefs in order to make them believe in promises of kindness and prosperity that he was too arrogant to realize that he wasn't capable of.
      Fortunately, the story does get better. Eventually the famine caused enough of a catastrophe that Lenin gave in and did the right thing for once in his miserable life: He asked the Capitalist counties of the West for help. To make the irony even sweeter, America provided about 2/3 of the total aid given to the Soviet Union. I'll bet not even 100 Leninists in the West-scratch that-the whole world know about that.

  • @guitarman8778
    @guitarman8778 2 роки тому

    Thanks TIK. Good to see you back and as ever your astute observations.

  • @ErikHare
    @ErikHare 2 роки тому +12

    I wish to defend William L Shirer, if for no other reason than I grew up with his work. 🙂No, there's more than that.
    Seriously, his work was critical for two reasons. 1) He was the first person to put together a coherent narrative that explained how the German people went along with this, er, madness, and 2) He use journalistic techniques and his own experience on the ground in Germany as the perspective of his work.
    This was important because it got us away from the Great Man Theory in a constructive, useful way. Was this all about Hitler, madman or not? No, this was a nation that at the very least went along with it and, more accurately, invested their hopes and dreams in authoritarianism and conquest. How did this happen in the modern era?
    Shirer reported what he saw. On the ground there was no sign of a wartime economy until the war actually came. This was very much by design, and is almost certainly critical to the process of getting the German people to go along with the Nazi program.
    Is that what Shirer was saying? No, it was not. But his perspective is completely valid for what it is. We need to understand the limits of it and indeed we need to draw the right lessons from it. This is why multiple perspectives are necessary in history and why a conversation about what actually happened is necessary.
    I am defending Shirer because his perspective was fresh, at the time, and because it gives us insight into what I think is the greatest mystery of Nazi Germany as well as the most important lesson we need to understand. Can this happen again? I think a careful read of Shirer tells us, "Yes, if we do not learn." I do not want to throw this out, although I agree that it's just one perspective on the war.

    • @kingofthings7929
      @kingofthings7929 2 роки тому +1

      Shirer’s work is great for a general view of the Nazi regime, and actually includes a lot of things that would debunk later myths. Shirer has no time for the Clean Wehrmacht myth for example. He’s not perfect, but you can gleam a lot about the Nazis from one work. And it’s pretty readable too. A good starting point, but not everything.

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +1

      plenty of germans wound up murdered or put into concentration camps by nazis.
      these are the people stalin was talking about when Stalin said that the nazis destroyed their very best people.

    • @dondajulah4168
      @dondajulah4168 2 роки тому +2

      Yours is an excellent comment. History is a process and it is important to recognize the contributions of those that made the first efforts to tackle historical topics with diligence and fairness.
      These historians will almost certainly to have overlooked, misinterpreted, or even have been influenced by an unconscious bias that resulted in conclusions that required later modification. Nonetheless, it is their work that might be more critical in establishing the topic for future historians to tackle in greater depth.
      I am not even touching on the fact that societal norms change over time and documents turn up that help to clarify the motivations and participation of actors previously not known or understood. Like reading Gibbons on the Roman Empire, the work itself is almost as much history of the time and place it was written as the subject of the book.

  • @thetombaxter
    @thetombaxter 2 роки тому +2

    It's wonderful to hear the only person to know the definition of war economy tell us the truth. So many fools fail to know as Tik does what a war economy is.

  • @dan1984842
    @dan1984842 2 роки тому +12

    Great stuff TIK. I've watched you for - what - at least 6 or 7 years. Thanks for what you do. You can be proud of the body of work you've made, and the number of myths you've discovered about ww2 is astonishing, and I'm sure, crucial. So thank you.

  • @sillypuppy5940
    @sillypuppy5940 2 роки тому +57

    I was listening to Churchill's December 1941 speech to Congress yesterday, and it seems to me that he recognized that Germany had not just created a wartime economy before the war, but had also created what might be termed a wartime society: "For the best part of twenty years, the youth of Germany, of Japan and Italy, have been taught that aggressive war is the noblest duty of the citizen and that it should be begun as soon as the necessary weapons and organization have been made. We have performed the duties and tasks of peace. They have plotted and planned for war." I would think that Churchill would well know the difference between a peacetime and a wartime economy.

    • @hakapeszimaki8369
      @hakapeszimaki8369 2 роки тому

      Brits were anti-german since the late 19th century. Check out Cecil Rhodes and others. Brits were about to destroy Germany because she was a threat for anglo-american global interest that time. WW1 was about to stop Germany to be a naval power. WW2 was about turn down germany forever (this project is still ongoing with british-american-french occupation forces in Germany and massive influence to german ippolitics).
      Hitler did not want to fight with brits and the French (these countries declared war on Germany). Hitler belived if Germany expands towards East against Soviet Union then brits leave him alone. But brits had and still have german phobia.

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +7

      yes, germany was a militarized society as of 1933 but the idea was to take military structures and apply them to the problems of economic collapse / depressionn / unemployment / inflation. of course the nazis intended all along that these would eventually become fighting units...

    • @therealrobertbirchall
      @therealrobertbirchall 2 роки тому

      Eaton rifles

    • @therealrobertbirchall
      @therealrobertbirchall 2 роки тому

      @peter coleman Europe and the USA have been wrecked by the 1% who control 70% of the world's resources. Racism and anti liberalism are just tools to divide us so we don't kick the ruling elites out. I stand wit Trotsky and Lenin on this issue, until we have a total dictatorship of the proletariat we will always be enslaved by the capitalists.

    • @chrislambert9435
      @chrislambert9435 2 роки тому

      Silly Puppy is your name, I can not understand why TIK has not mention the "Winston Churchill - von Ribbentrop meeting (1937)" This astonishes me, see it on You-Tube

  • @charlesmoss8119
    @charlesmoss8119 2 роки тому +19

    I really enjoyed this - a respectful discussion that we can all enjoy and learn from

  • @UndergroundDev
    @UndergroundDev 2 роки тому +18

    Hello TIK, I have a question. In your older videos you mentioned that the big reason for going East was to implement full autarky, and that control of the vast resources of the East were vital to keeping the German war machine up and running, and that Germany could not wage a war of movement without oil. However, in this video you said that autarky "didn't work". How exactly would it not solve Germany's poor strategic situation? Sure, socialism did more damage than good, but autarky? It seems to me, at least, that the successful capture of the Caucasus would give Germany enough oil to keep the war going as long as she needs, provided that she manages to retain control over the oil fields and that they don't get destroyed. Furthermore, the Ukraine was supplying Germany with food, something which she desperately needed to avoid starvation thanks to the Allied blockade and the lack of foreign trade. Could you perhaps clear this up?

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому

      In TIKs presentation of Hitler's view autarky must fail because per TIK Hitler believes the economy to be "zero sum", that its all about distribution of an existing pie, and not about making more pies. Basically per TIK if Hitler gets his autarky kills all the jews redistributes all the slavs and jews slav labor corpseproduct there is no one left to redistribute and, per hitlers' logic as describe by TIK the ponzi scheme of rob rape plunder and kill must collapse in internal strife like coups and factional scheming among SS/SA/RSHA/Todt/LSAH/HJ etc.

    • @AndreLuis-gw5ox
      @AndreLuis-gw5ox 2 роки тому +6

      I think TIK criticize the concept of having a big centrally planned self sustained economy as a sustainable system. As in, even if we assume Hitler plan worked and he won the war and got to set up his full autarky, the system would eventually degrade due to the ever growing inneficiencies such system would. But this is just an asumption based on what I think I understood from his videos

    • @UndergroundDev
      @UndergroundDev 2 роки тому +1

      @@AndreLuis-gw5ox That might be, but autarky is not socialism, and vice versa. Autarky simply means economic self-sufficiency.

    • @TheImperatorKnight
      @TheImperatorKnight  2 роки тому +35

      Explaining why autarky doesn't work is a bit complex because there's a few different factors to it. In the first instance, it should be obvious why implementing autarky when you don't have the resources to actually implement it won't work. If you don't have access to oil (or enough of it), implementing autarky won't magically make oil appear. Hitler implemented autarky when Germany didn't have sufficient access to raw materials, and thus imploded his economy for that reason.
      But that wasn't the only reason. Let's say you owned a house and decided to implement autarky - so you don't trade with anyone outside your own house. This would be a disaster. Even if you had a garden and were able to grow food, would you be able to grow enough? You'd be spending all day growing food rather than creating something else, and the land might not be good enough for you to grow food anyway. Do you produce enough fertilizer? Would you have access to medicine, energy, water etc.?
      Clearly, implementing autarky on such a small scale is silly, but it highlights the problems with autarky. In a free market, you can trade with other people. So let's say your land isn't great for farming, but is great for growing a load of trees that you can chop down. No worries, you can go to a farmer and trade your wood for food. And obviously, you have an incentive to produce as much wood as possible to maximize the amount of food and other resources you need, and the land gets used optimally because you're not trying to grow food on land that's poor for growing food, but is good for growing trees.
      So the benefits of trading are that everyone can only focus (specialization) on producing goods that their local area is good at producing, and not produce goods that the land or climate etc aren't good at producing. Then they can trade with others who optimally produce goods that they need, thus making a very specialized but also efficient economy.
      If we scale this up to a national level, Britain might be good at producing wool, and South Africa might be good at producing diamonds. It makes sense for Britain to optimize its wool production and trade with South Africa, since Britain doesn't have access to diamonds and South Africa's weather isn't suitable for sheep. The result is that both countries and their consumers have access to all the goods and everyone benefit as a result.
      Autarky strips these benefits away and you're left with a huge disaster. Mises explains perfectly why talk of Autarky in post-WW1 Germany was silly here mises.org/library/autarky-and-stockpiling
      There are more factors here, but I think this comment is getting too long. Hope this helps.

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +1

      @@TheImperatorKnight You are literally the only person claiming Hitler thought the economy to require autarky, yet that his autarky cannot work.

  • @QuizmasterLaw
    @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +5

    Hitler knew Britain would fight ... eventually. All the rest was window dressing to forestall that day as long as possible and IF POSSIBLE to ally with Britain against the USSR. When that was not possible Molotov Ribbentorp pact and the rest is literally history

    • @tihomirrasperic
      @tihomirrasperic 2 роки тому +1

      you forgot that Hitler also offered an alliance to the Poles against USSR
      the whole thing failed because the Poles wanted the same as Hitler (Ukraine and the Caucasus), and Hitler offered the Poles north of Kiev all the way to the Bering Gulf
      after the fiasco with the Poles, they no longer had a chance and their days were numbered

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +2

      @@tihomirrasperic I am not saying you are wrong but i never heard this before and speak Russian and German fluently. Do you have a source for this claim?

  • @rudolfrednose7351
    @rudolfrednose7351 2 роки тому

    This channel makes me love mondays.

  • @sah1746
    @sah1746 2 роки тому +3

    I attempted to read Mein Kampf. The book wore me out so I quit but it was clear that this individual was something very different. Certainly not mad.

  • @AdamSmith-qo6km
    @AdamSmith-qo6km 2 роки тому +145

    You’re moving up in the world if Elon Musk is one of your patrons

    • @Irys1997
      @Irys1997 2 роки тому +66

      Says noted economic philosopher Adam Smith

    • @samsonsoturian6013
      @samsonsoturian6013 2 роки тому +1

      Definitely not his real name. Mr Musk isn't into history

    • @therealrobertbirchall
      @therealrobertbirchall 2 роки тому

      Musk is a fascist, he believes his money gives him the right to dictate to democratically elected governments.

    • @destubae3271
      @destubae3271 2 роки тому

      You're going places when Suck My Finger and Tiny Gay Pirate are investing in your venture.

    • @yetigriff
      @yetigriff Рік тому +5

      @@samsonsoturian6013 Few white South Africans are

  • @flycatchful
    @flycatchful 2 роки тому +5

    Always remember that the winner always gets to rewrite history.

  • @morningstar9233
    @morningstar9233 2 роки тому +1

    Thanks, that clears up Hitler's "What now?" question for me. Good to see you back Tik, hope you're holding up.

  • @white-dragon4424
    @white-dragon4424 2 роки тому +3

    True, Hitler was preparing for war during the 30's, but he wasn't preparing for war against Britain (that's what he really meant by "England"). On the contrary, he desperately wanted Britain as an equal ally, NOT an enemy. He said that getting Britain into the Axis was more important than both Italy and Japan combined. His main enemies were Russia and eventually the USA, who he planned to nuke. He said he wanted Britain to retain its overseas empire whilst Germany would've had its empire in mainland Europe. If he managed to get Britain on his side, with all of its military power, resources and scientists, he would've almost certainly have succeeded in winning WWII.

  • @johnevans347
    @johnevans347 2 роки тому

    Looking good, man. Glad to see you back.

  • @tomaltomal2702
    @tomaltomal2702 2 роки тому +3

    Another great video. Good job. :)

  • @unknownmale9486
    @unknownmale9486 2 роки тому +1

    I am hoping you tackle the Rzhev Meat Grinder soon.

  • @sergeant_chris6209
    @sergeant_chris6209 2 роки тому +6

    Daamn I didn't expect Elon Musk to be a WW2 history nerd

  • @johnm1926
    @johnm1926 2 роки тому +62

    This is a little off topic but it's a comment I've wanted to make for a while about TIK's videos.
    One of the biggest mistakes that historians and people in general make about historical situations and trying to gleam insights from them; is they look at these situations through the current eye. TIK does a good job of trying to neutralize this bias in his videos and it's a welcome change from a lot of other takes.
    A good example is the question of; why weren't France and England tougher on Germany prior to invading Poland... Unless you understand what the hell of WW1 did to the psyches of European countries, you can't properly understand why it took so look for England and France to act.
    Another example is; Hitler was a madman for thinking he could defeat the USSR... Unless you understand what Stalin had done to his military in the 1930s, how Germany's economy was structured, and what Germany's opinions of the USSR was prior to invading, you might make the wrong conclusions about the invasion.

    • @sirridesalot6652
      @sirridesalot6652 2 роки тому +17

      Don't forget the results of the Finnish/USSR War and the conflict in the Far East with the Japanese prior to WW2. Those two fights are where Hitler got the idea that "all we have to do is kick in the door and the entire rotten structure will collapse".

    • @johnm1926
      @johnm1926 2 роки тому +1

      @@sirridesalot6652 Good adds.

    • @insideoutsideupsidedown2218
      @insideoutsideupsidedown2218 2 роки тому +1

      Yes indeed. We have history as it is recorded by the individuals of that time, we would hope. We have to place ourselves into that place in time in order to comprehend what it was like and also to give us an idea of the why and how.

    • @IrishCarney
      @IrishCarney 2 роки тому +11

      @@sirridesalot6652 Plus the collapse of Russia toward the end of World War One. After the collapse, German troops simply rode the trains east, occupying the Baltics, Belarus, the majority of Ukraine, and some of Russia proper while facing minimal resistance. They saw a devastated Russia impoverished by war and assumed Russia at its lowest point was Russia's norm. This shaped the contemptuous dismissive views later.

    • @grahambaldwin9801
      @grahambaldwin9801 Рік тому

      The current eye is focused on Ukraine and we find ourselves in a similar predicament. Putin is not mad. He could win. Zelensky is not a clown. He could win. Previous history is of little value here.

  • @Alfred5555
    @Alfred5555 2 роки тому +5

    Could someone please explain to me the "Autarkies never work" line? Surely the history of every nation in mankind was almost exclusively Autarky until relatively recently?
    If Autarky means being self-suffcient, and "never works", then why does literally every country pursue self-sufficiency? (on paper)

    • @PeterJavi
      @PeterJavi 2 роки тому

      Trade is as old as mankind. Every nation has been dependent on it in some form or another. Every nation up until the industrial revolution was dependent on trade or conquest to fuel itself, after the economy becomes more global by the day.

    • @Alfred5555
      @Alfred5555 2 роки тому +2

      @@PeterJavi I understand what you're saying and can see the perspective you are viewing history from, but "every nation has been dependant on it" that's nonsense.
      Yes the general trend has always been trade or conquest you could say, but that has been because it was the optimal strategy to take, not because it was strictly necessary.
      Especially since as you say, today, post-industrial revolution, nations are trading more than ever, and the governments of the world justify this by saying it's simply "easy". Easier than being as self-sufficient as possible anyway, but still today not strictly as necessary as the amount that it is done.

  • @stevenmacdonald9619
    @stevenmacdonald9619 2 роки тому +1

    I think Neville Chamberlain's attitude of appeasement over Sudetenland, played a big part in that assumption.

  • @ricardokowalski1579
    @ricardokowalski1579 2 роки тому +8

    11:45 Solid
    Totalitarians implement their theories.
    When they start seeing that the results are bad, they claim that they need to apply said theories EVEN HARDER
    After they apply them FULLY and *fail miserably* ... then they claim "it wasn't real (whatever)"
    👍

  • @kmwmlw
    @kmwmlw 2 роки тому

    Good to see your back on form. Brilliant. Even I understood it.......

  • @stringpicker5468
    @stringpicker5468 2 роки тому +3

    The UK and France were bled white by WWI. Even far away Australia lost 1 in every 100 people. I think Hitler assumed there would not be the stomach fro a repeat. Had Edward VIII remained he may have been right. Churchill even though a fighter, was haunted by the Somme and Gallipoli, leading to his policies on D-Day.(He was quite right on this occasion)

  • @ahmetkeremcelik4164
    @ahmetkeremcelik4164 2 роки тому +1

    Make a video on Bengal famine and Iran famine in 1942-44.

  • @DigitalIndependent
    @DigitalIndependent 2 роки тому +5

    German here: what’s wrong with driving 150 mp/h?

  • @colder5465
    @colder5465 2 роки тому +2

    The answer is rather simple: he supposed Britain would surrender Poland exactly as it surrendered Chechoslovakia. The guarantees given to Poles were highly unconvincing for him. The Chechs had had the similar guarantees, more to that: they had had a formal treaty with France but all this didn't impede the British and the French to give them up. So why believe it this time? One more thing: the utter failure of the tripartite talks of A und F with the Soviet Union. Now it's well known that the British PM was categorically against these talks and he had full support of his Foreign Secretary Halifax. But he lost the Cabinet vote on the matter and had two alternatives: either to comply with the vote and organize a delegation or to resign. He chose the first option but essentially torpedoed the talks from the beginning by 1) selecting people of second and even third importance to the delegation and 2) explicitly forbidding them to sign any agreement with the Soviets and exchanging with them of any significant information. Stalin may be an utter autocrat and dictator but for him this behavior seemed as an outright deception and fraud from the beginning. He didn't understand how a democracy functioned. Of course, after several months of fruitless talks they ended in utter failure. And this couldn't be more encouraging for Hitler. And not so because of the Soviet Union itself (he considered it "colossus on feet of clay" literally) but primarily because of the British: the whole story with the talks only convinced him that the British aren't serious.

  • @The-Clockwork-Eye
    @The-Clockwork-Eye 2 роки тому +4

    "Actually, I don't agree with you." 😆😆 Excellent, glad to see you back TIK. Great video, very informative, thank you.

  • @grandadmiralzaarin4962
    @grandadmiralzaarin4962 2 роки тому

    Good to have you back TIK!

  • @gateway1600
    @gateway1600 2 роки тому +7

    Another outstanding presentation. We have the benefit of almost perfect information now that we are looking back 90 years and can see causes and effects. Hitler thought his cause was just, his enemies were not just weak, but corrupt and could not act on new information. Sometimes a simple explanation doesn't exist, but rather a change in attitude is triggered by a certain "we told you if you do x, we will do y" reality. We may never know all the tiny, hidden details that caused leaders to make the decisions that they made. Facts and myths meld together over time. It will be interesting to see what new controversy the new Ken Burns documentary on America's indifference to the plight of the German Jews in the 1930s and 40s stirs up when broadcast this next week on PBS. It was a very shameful behavior that is not well known here in America.

    • @chrislambert9435
      @chrislambert9435 2 роки тому +1

      I can not understand why TIK has not mention the "Winston Churchill - von Ribbentrop meeting (1937)" This astonishes me, see it on You-Tube

  • @hakdov6496
    @hakdov6496 2 роки тому +1

    autarky will probably sound like a pretty good idea in Germany this winter

  • @Josephbyrnehistory
    @Josephbyrnehistory 2 роки тому +6

    Hitler knew Steiner would always sort it all out! Great to see you back TIK, facinating and entertaining as usual

    • @artyom5659
      @artyom5659 2 роки тому +2

      Steiner would have pushed the Soviets back to the Oder and recaptured Berlin and Breslau. The USSR was exhausted and out run their supplies and the ussr was scraping the bottle in manpower, the Germans could have even made it to the vistaula. This would allow Germany to transfer materials to the west and launch a new counter offensive to recapture the ruhr and other industrial lands. This offensive would be successful because the Germans would have last of their patriotic duty and thrown everything at the Jewish armies

  • @carldecator2970
    @carldecator2970 2 роки тому

    Good video. Nice to see you back.

  • @leshmahagow364
    @leshmahagow364 2 роки тому +12

    I sometimes wonder if people on the internet have actually missed completely the "British Empire" ?
    Why did Britain fight ?
    1. The most technologically advanced nation.
    2. With unlimited access to resources.
    3. Mastery of the seas, for the last 300 years.
    4. Actual allies who were not going to walk away after the first shot.
    5. History .... "How to deal with Europe 101"
    Form Coalition fight lose.
    Reform Coalition fight again.
    Reform Coalition fight again .... repete until Victory

    • @90skidcultist
      @90skidcultist 2 роки тому +6

      Number 1 is debatable...

    • @kerriwilson7732
      @kerriwilson7732 2 роки тому +1

      @@90skidcultist debatable? Sure
      Wrong?....How does one measure?

    • @dondajulah4168
      @dondajulah4168 2 роки тому

      @@kerriwilson7732 Advanced technology isnt worth much if you dont have the resources to apply that technology to something that will advance your effort on the battlefield. I would say that so long as GB was competitive with Germany in technology it was enough to create a massive gap in the application of technology.

    • @kerriwilson7732
      @kerriwilson7732 2 роки тому

      @@dondajulah4168 lost me. 🤔
      But the de Havilland Mosquito & radar were impressive.

    • @alexzero3736
      @alexzero3736 2 роки тому +1

      German airplanes were better than British.

  • @Stefan-wj6mq
    @Stefan-wj6mq 2 роки тому +2

    Hitler idealized England and thought England would be just fine with other Aryans to share Hitler's World-Concept view. Hitler thought England, just like Germany, see the French as the main enemy. Hitler saw the reasons for WWI in an idiotic Kaiser who wanted a colonial empire and thought if he focus on the East, the English would be just fine to share the world stage with brothers-in-blood, the Germans. Hitler wasn't a nationalist, he was a "racialist", and thus, he has nothing against the English, and sharing power with England. Hitler thought that he and England were, pretty much, on the same page.

  • @sorsocksfake
    @sorsocksfake 2 роки тому +3

    Arguably Hitler had the sane position that the Allies would once again not go to war over Poland, that France had enough problems as it was and Britain didn't care about eastern Europe. And that the USSR was a mutual enemy, just like the Allies were a mutual enemy for Germany and the USSR.
    In and of itself, there was plenty to argue there. But Chamberlain didn't accept an ascendant Germany as an inevitable threat, Stalin didn't get fooled, and basically they ended up in the worst case scenario. Such is the way with gambles.

  • @tonybennett638
    @tonybennett638 2 роки тому

    I love your stuff ...learn so much different perspective and at a so enjoyable pace 👍

  • @michaelcarr7778
    @michaelcarr7778 2 роки тому +4

    Dear Tik,
    Thank you for your marvellous thought provoking, educational and entertaining videos.
    In line with your aim of dispelling the myths and distortions of the past so that we can learn from it and not make the same mistakes again, I was wondering, following from your theories about the underlying reason for WW2, if you may be able to provide a follow on comment on the subsequent historical role of post war developments in response to the same or similar underlying pressures?
    One may suppose that, empires and dictators and political parties may fall, but the underlying political and economic realities, government machine, civil servants and experts remain intact to one extent or another. One could thus argue that the National Socialists in Germany and their policies, especially their expansionist policies, were driven by underlying international political and economic forces. Indeed, I would presume that in most other cases, this would usually be the main Marxist analysis of social and political phenomena? The end of WW2 may have seen the removal of the Nazi party and main political front, but the underlying issues remained.
    Would you agree that;- Germany in the 20th century was probably the most productive industrial economy in the world, yet, they had a problem in the first half of the 20th century:- economic containment. They were disadvantaged by having less access to world commodity markets, sales markets and international investment; - as the British and French in particular had monopolised global markets through imperial dominance and the Russians dominated the “food basket” and to some extent mineral reserves to the east. The logical way out of this may have appeared to be war?
    In the post war period, the European Coal and Steel Community, the EEC, and then the EU served as the basis for a peaceful German dominance in Europe and ready access and control of European markets, European trading and investment rules, mineral and energy reserves etc, which, coupled with the dismantling of the French and British former international systems, which had been regulated formally under their respective imperial structures, allowed for this to function as part of a new world order where Germany (through the EU), USA, the Soviet Union shared power under US hegemony.
    So; - implicitly, if WW2 was mainly about the emergence of Germany and USA in conflict with a British dominated international world order, then what Germany had attempted to achieve through WW2 it went on to continue surreptitiously ever since, albeit through non-military means.
    To what extent would you agree with this theory?
    Michael

  • @Nochf
    @Nochf 2 роки тому +2

    TIK, will you make a video on the current state of the UK "cost of living crisis"

  • @nobleman9393
    @nobleman9393 2 роки тому +5

    I mean you don't need to be mad to be wrong.

  • @dougreid2351
    @dougreid2351 2 роки тому +1

    TIK, Thanks yet again for your cogent insights into a past deliberately made murky in order to keep the blame away from failed ideolgy/economic theories.
    Fresh videos from you are ALWAYS at the top of my viewing. King Kong, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Flies, et al, are far behind. And for every new video I watch, I play the immediate predecesor in the series.
    If there are/were ads I watch them too.
    BTW, didn't Britain & France make assurances to Czechoslovakia that they "walked back" when words turned blows?
    Cheers!
    DOUGout

  • @Gryffster
    @Gryffster 2 роки тому +35

    One of the best channels on YT. A more academic treatment than Mark Felton (whom I also enjoy), and deserving of far more subs than you have.
    Thanks for doing this TIK.

    • @azoniarnl3362
      @azoniarnl3362 2 роки тому +4

      Just came from Mark's Martin Bormann video xD
      Also fully agree this channel needs more subs.

    • @MakeAllThingsBeautiful
      @MakeAllThingsBeautiful 2 роки тому

      I think Mark finds interesting stories whereas TIK's at his absolute best as a story teller, I mean who else can make 1920's economics vaguely interesting or a long forgotten campaign in N Africa totally hilarious, only TIK. There is a big problem with the world, even being able to debate, look at what some extremes Putin's or Trump's supporters will go to, it's almost imposssible to engage in a good old fashioned 'put the world to rights' chat anymore, too many 'curve balls'. I do think TIK ought to compare Hitler and Putin, maybe throw in Stalin as well with the WW1 Kaiser, there are common denominators, particularly Putin now regards 'war economics' and the others mentioned above. Also the land grabbing Hitler pre WW2 compared to Putin pre Ukraine feb 24, like Ukraine 2014, Chechnya (twice) and Gerogia. Maybe all the answers are buried on those shelves behind TIK?

    • @Biggiiful
      @Biggiiful 2 роки тому

      @Robert Bailey. Dude, you're view of "Trump Supporters" is hilariously biased and misinformed. You seem like you're in the MSM bubble with that. There are some morons in the MAGA crowd, as with any group or movement. Most are perfectly reasonable people with opinions that you probably agree and disagree with. And it's not "Trump supporters" that are the ones who have been shutting down discourse and reasonable debates for the past 7 years. That's the people who hate Trump the most. Woke leftists and media personalities. Shouting down and shutting down any debate or opinions to the right of what their socialist teachers taught them. If TIK were American he would have voted for Trump. I consider myself a liberal, not a leftists, and also voted for Trump. You don't have to like the man, but you're view of him and his supporters strikes me as heavily influenced by propaganda.

    • @GenocideWesterners
      @GenocideWesterners 2 роки тому +2

      I have been here with TIK since 12k subs.

    • @Gryffster
      @Gryffster 2 роки тому +3

      @@MakeAllThingsBeautiful I find the idea of someone calling him a Nazi hilarious. WTF is wrong with people!

  • @thelexkex
    @thelexkex 2 роки тому

    it is so difficult to explain to people the basics of economics, especially the part that even you've got expected result the consequences can be devastating

  • @JanetandGavin2024
    @JanetandGavin2024 2 роки тому +3

    There were many members of the British aristocracy who supported Hitler, which included the Duke of Windsor (x-Edward 8th). Even with the deployment of the BEF in France he believed they would step in to force a peace treaty. This is why Hess flew to England, but it was a trap. After Churchill became Prime Minister many of those same aristocrats had "mysterious accidents" and the Duke of Windsor was exhiled to Bermuda.

  • @JohnSmith-ox3gy
    @JohnSmith-ox3gy Рік тому +1

    The Brits were tougher than expected.
    Better air defence and superior morale.

  • @AndreLuis-gw5ox
    @AndreLuis-gw5ox 2 роки тому +5

    Good to have you back! I love working while watching your videos

  • @Axisjampa
    @Axisjampa 2 роки тому +1

    And, following that logic, that explains why Germany didn't take Gibraltar, and the Dunkirk affair as well. I think it's clear the logic of Hitler behind this.

  • @tokencivilian8507
    @tokencivilian8507 2 роки тому +4

    Great to have you back TIK. Hope you're doing well. Great content as always.

  • @Graphene_314
    @Graphene_314 2 роки тому +2

    What even is a "war economy"?

  • @matejmacek5784
    @matejmacek5784 2 роки тому +5

    TIK, Hitler probably believe UK will go to war but will only fight to last Frenchman. So He was probably more surprised they did not ask for peace in 1940.
    A question about war economy. You mean they mobilize a good part (or unsustainable part) of its economy for weapon production and not total mobilization of "all" possible resources (boys, women, elderly). 3rd Reich was in rearmament stage similar to UK (at for least planes, tanks, machineguns). UK outproduce Germany in plane production from the start of WW2. Soviets and USA had grand expansion of their armies in the late 30 until the war started for them. So were they in war economy before WW2 started for them.
    If I am correct about 30% early war economy in Germany was dedicated to war. It was ca 50% for USA in 1944-1945. I think USSR was close to 80%.
    So what % of economy should go for weapons to be in a state of war economy?

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому

      Hitler knew the British would go to war. They are the finance capital banker wing of the you know whoish communist bankers conspiracy. He also thought he could delay their entry and even play them off against their bolshevik coreligionists.

    • @planet_69
      @planet_69 2 роки тому

      btutain didnt fight to the last frenchmen in ww1, they suffered mass casualties too.
      So why would hitler think that?
      Why post dumb comments?

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому

      @@planet_69 we all start ignorant for all you know he's literally 12.

    • @QuizmasterLaw
      @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +1

      @@planet_69 plus it's probably his second language. cut some slack u can't even spell Britain lol ;) pot+kettle ftw!

    • @planet_69
      @planet_69 2 роки тому

      @@QuizmasterLaw You mean uneducated, but if we are we don't post comments on a subject.
      He could be an attention seeking, energy parasitic dwarf. Know what i mean?

  • @paulhelman2376
    @paulhelman2376 2 роки тому

    Faulty economics mixed with unrelenting hubris are a ludicrous combination certainly

  • @--Dani
    @--Dani 2 роки тому +3

    Owning ideas and ideals are a great thing, one must keep them flexible because if it’s wrong that idea will own you. Stalin had idea’s on how things should be done…road to hell is certainly paved with good idea’s.

  • @Exodus-sb8so
    @Exodus-sb8so 2 роки тому +1

    Wouldn't people know that they had a war economy when there factories we're building tanks, ammo, airplanes, guns, ? I've been studying WW2 for a while now and there are different versions of the war by every country that was involved but in no countries does it get more complicated than Germany and Russia......

  • @LoganLS0
    @LoganLS0 2 роки тому +7

    Can you do a miniseries on Keynesian Economics or recommend one from someone else? I think we'd all enjoy that.

  • @bennconner1195
    @bennconner1195 Рік тому

    I am surprised Hitler didn’t do away with interest on currency loans considering he was supposed to be against charging interest on credit and currency that’s created from nothing. This was what Feder talked about.

  •  2 роки тому +3

    Don't forget that the German war economy received a major finance boost from the estimated £600 million in gold they stole from various sources never mind the silver and other precious metals , artworks , Other currencies , Ceramics , cultural items , books etc etc . Plus the vehicles looted from France , household furniture and appliances they stole which could have ended up in every home in Germany lessening the need for the production of these items opening up further capacity to produce armaments .

    • @BasementEngineer
      @BasementEngineer 2 роки тому

      Another simple mind spewing war propaganda.

    •  2 роки тому

      @BasementEngineer your reply is that of a simpleton Nazi Orc - never mind .

  • @sylvainvanduyl6143
    @sylvainvanduyl6143 2 роки тому +2

    The quote of Reese said Capitalist economy...
    Is 1930's Germany a Capitalist or a socialist country?

  • @joepalooka2145
    @joepalooka2145 2 роки тому +51

    I appreciate the William L. Shirer reference in your video. Most people know of his most famous work "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich", but his other great book which is less well know is "Berlin Diary". As the New York Times correspondent in German during the 1930s, nobody was better placed to cover what was happening inside Germany. Very few journalists at the time reported more frankly, truthfully, and objectively about the growing menace of Hitler and Nazism than Shirer did. He's one of the greatest reporters of all time, in my opinion.

    • @tomhalla426
      @tomhalla426 2 роки тому +10

      Shirer was with the Chicago Tribune, then CBS radio. He was not with the New York Times.

    • @DaveSCameron
      @DaveSCameron 2 роки тому +3

      And yet no one seems to cherish or even acknowledge Paul Manning (CBS) and his work. How strange that we have been fed just the individuals others deem allowed when they all wrote down what they saw.... Keep on with the blinkers and you'll never know what #OurHistory was.

    • @tomhalla426
      @tomhalla426 2 роки тому +1

      @@DaveSCameron The only reason I knew about Shirer was as a history writer.

    • @DaveSCameron
      @DaveSCameron 2 роки тому

      @@tomhalla426 Me too, but some stop there...

    • @WildBillCox13
      @WildBillCox13 2 роки тому +2

      His Collapse of the Third Republic is also worth reading.

  • @aganemnon77
    @aganemnon77 2 роки тому

    welcome back. I hope everything is ok.

  • @conserva-chan2735
    @conserva-chan2735 2 роки тому +4

    Imagine being Rudolf Hess

  • @reytorres6848
    @reytorres6848 2 роки тому +1

    I would like to see an episode called “Hitler, the nice guy”. It would explain how he became so popular as obviously he was in Germany.

  • @philvanderlaan5942
    @philvanderlaan5942 2 роки тому +10

    Just because Hitler was ( or was not ) a madman that doesn’t mean that the Generals are blameless for strategy or war crimes . Or the ministers or the bureaucrats.
    Did none of the Soviet leadership read mien Kampf ? Or did Stalin think that he was smarter so there was no way that Germany could betray the non aggression pact before The USSR could first ?

    • @reginabillotti
      @reginabillotti 2 роки тому +6

      Tik's hypothesis (as I recall from another video) is that Stalin assumed Germany wouldn't seek a two-front war, and therefore would hold to the non-aggression pact at least as long as it took to knock the UK out of the war.

    • @gaborrajnai6213
      @gaborrajnai6213 2 роки тому +2

      After the Munich accords it wasnt even sure, that Britain and France would really go to war for Poland or Eastern Europe, and Stalin wasn't in a position at that time to wage a war against Germany. And in that he was right as the Barbarossa campaign was at the beginning an enormous success.

  • @Davidboots1
    @Davidboots1 2 роки тому +2

    Hi TIK, I just found your channel about a month ago but I am hooked!
    I was hoping to get your thoughts about a somewhat sensitive question: How effective were the Russian collaborator legions (Vlasov Army, SS-RONA, RNNA)? Were any of them combat capable or were they just a total waste of time?
    Many thanks 🙏

  • @thepredator9002
    @thepredator9002 2 роки тому +5

    Hey Tik, hope you're feeling better.

  • @tomt373
    @tomt373 Рік тому

    Hitler also assumed that his letting the British Expeditionary force escape at Dunkirk would placate the British.

  • @soulknife20
    @soulknife20 2 роки тому +9

    I mean. Up until they declared war, Britain capitulated and let Hitler do what he wanted, so it makes sense he would think they wouldn't fight. Also, he felt that France and Britain wouldn't fight because of the horrid losses they suffered in the previous war. That's my opinion anyway.

    • @TheImperatorKnight
      @TheImperatorKnight  2 роки тому +7

      One of the French ministers did advocate a policy of just letting Hitler go east, which is interesting. But I think it would have been a problem in the long term. Had Germany conquered the Soviet Union, France would have been toast.

    • @soulknife20
      @soulknife20 2 роки тому +3

      @@TheImperatorKnight Oh yeah. Definitely. I'm not completely convinced Hitler would have been able to conquer the Soviet Union even with all resources the German army had pointed that way. But you are right. If they managed it, France is history.

    • @kerriwilson7732
      @kerriwilson7732 2 роки тому +1

      Hitler should have skipped Poland and 'liberated' Ukraine. Ukraine hated Stalin. The West hated communism. Win/win.

    • @kaletovhangar
      @kaletovhangar 2 роки тому

      @@kerriwilson7732 How old are you?

    • @ffff7164
      @ffff7164 Рік тому

      @@kerriwilson7732 hitler hates Slavs.

  • @alexhubble
    @alexhubble Рік тому +1

    Hitler actually believed that HMG would abandon the defence of the empire because... let me check "I'm completely reasonable, they're sort of german really, good sorts deep down, I'll let 'em keep India" - which I make the total depth of his reasoning.
    Well, if he's are not mad, he can see it from there.
    A narcissistic, grandiose, inadequate, bitterly vengeful mental architecture doesn't make you mad. But it is no hindrance.

  • @goodtoGoNow1956
    @goodtoGoNow1956 2 роки тому +4

    I'm trying to boil down the answer to the question posed in the title -- getting the essence of the answer. And I think it is: Hitler misunderstood England's position on power concentration in the world. Hitler thought that England was focused on the world and not on Eastern Europe -- and was wrong about that.
    If that is the answer -- it is a strange thing that Hitler would be so sure about this assumption given that England had definite defense treaties with Poland. Somehow this asks for Hitler to be too naive. If the answer is: Hitler was not sure but he was a guy who was forced into a position (by his beliefs) and was willing to roll the dice to get to an answer -- I could see that. I could also sort of see where he would roll the dice thinking he had the odds because he had Neville Chamberlain buffaloed. But I do not see where he would have been so sure that England did not care about the East.
    That seems too pat an answer.
    Maybe it was a calculus that had 4 parts: Germany was the aggrieved party so it was only fair -- and England supports fairness, Chamberlain was buffaloed, Hitler likes to take chances believing destiny is on his side, and England does not care about these Slav to the east.
    Maybe not just one thing. Maybe all those together make it ridiculous to suppose England would declare war.

    • @chrislambert9435
      @chrislambert9435 2 роки тому

      I can not understand why TIK has not mention the "Winston Churchill - von Ribbentrop meeting (1937)" This astonishes me, see it on You-Tube

  • @TuuSaR
    @TuuSaR 2 роки тому +1

    What about theory that Hitler was deliberately misinformed by Ribbentrop that Britain would not declare war?

    • @illegalewahrheiten2911
      @illegalewahrheiten2911 29 днів тому

      I think that goes back to an English propaganda piece that has stuck in the imagination. In reality Ribbentropp was fully aware that Britain might go to war. From what I can gather, Hitler made his decision after asking von Brauchtisch if Germany could win a European war. He was told, "against UK, France and Poland, yes. Against USSR, UK, France and Poland, no". So after the pact with Stalin, Hitler took his chance knowing the bet was hedged by his military leaders assurance that IF war broke out, it could be won.

  • @calumdeighton
    @calumdeighton 2 роки тому +7

    YOUR BACK!
    At long last you are back. And with an interesting looking video as well.
    Glad your back TIK.
    Hope you have being doing okay recently.

    • @TheImperatorKnight
      @TheImperatorKnight  2 роки тому +3

      Yes I'm back, thank you. Been doing okay. Hoping for no more tragedies for a while

  • @Centurion101B3C
    @Centurion101B3C 2 роки тому

    TIK! Welcome back! It is obvious that despite the sorrowful reasons the (assumed relative) rest and relaxation has done you much good. To be quite honest, I have been increasingly worried that you were precipitously circling the drain towards disappearing into the proverbial Rabbit hole or take up residence in an institution with Huggy-wall clad amenities. You were nosediving towards a nasty cratering but fortunately you have pulled up in time. I hope that you take this as a lesson to take better care of yourself.
    Anyway, Although I am not always in agreement with you, I for one am glad that you have returned in your inimitable good form and I look forward to be challenged by and with the contents of your excellent presentations.

  • @andrewdolokhov5408
    @andrewdolokhov5408 2 роки тому +6

    If the German economy was a war economy from the mid-1930s onwards because it was spending almost 10% of GDP on the military, then the USA had a war economy from 1950 to 1963-----a time when the US economy was experiencing huge growth overall. In 1944, the US economy was about 44% devoted to war. THAT was a war economy.
    There are various estimates, but all show Germany was much more committed to the military from 1942 on.

    • @allangibson8494
      @allangibson8494 2 роки тому +1

      The United States was at war with the communist block from 1949 (with various degrees of heat (including Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam).
      The Space Race funding that hit just under 5% of US Federal Budget in 1965 is part of that (it is now 10% of that peak).
      During the Korean War the Military budget was 57% of the total US budget, in Vietnam it was 43.3% - its now 14.3%.

    • @andrewdolokhov5408
      @andrewdolokhov5408 2 роки тому

      @@allangibson8494 I was alive for part of that period----the USA sure did not SEEM to be at war. It definitely was not at war like it was in WWII.

    • @Thematic2177
      @Thematic2177 2 роки тому

      the USA was at war in Korea (1950-1953) and Vietnam (1955-1975) at that time.

    • @andrewdolokhov5408
      @andrewdolokhov5408 2 роки тому

      @@Thematic2177 Neither of those wars were on the scale of WWII. Also, your dates for US participation in the Vietnam war are exaggerated----actual American involvement even at the end of 1963 was less than a division equivalent.

    • @dwwolf4636
      @dwwolf4636 5 місяців тому

      The german economy had some relation to a war economy.
      One dreamt up by a not quite sane person hoping to balance different factions against each other to retain power for himself.
      Actual production rationalisation ? Nahh. That's mainly 1943 onwards, if at all.

  • @gilbertjones9157
    @gilbertjones9157 2 роки тому +2

    Tik I liked you series on the Banks and Economists of Weimar. Hitler was Not a one man band nor tyrant threatening death for failure or madman. Hitler also had the Industrialists with their snots in the public trough and truffles and pulling in the 'Artisan' workers hyping the guild mentality concepts. Questions on the possible, Italy's econ was not geared for war, nor Rumania and Bulgaria; Mussolini was aware Italy needed 10 yrs (roughly) to prep for war (1945+/-) as would the other Allies. What would have happen of Hitler consolidated the economies of his allies to a similar stance as Germany pre-1938 with direct sales or licensing of war equipment even cloning Krupp and aircraft production in the allies countries, a form of NATO within the Axis (including Japan)? And delayed the push East (Ribbentrop Peace Pact accelerated the war) by 5 years? Was there the time before the econ of all craping out?

  • @QuizmasterLaw
    @QuizmasterLaw 2 роки тому +5

    You must love your work even more than your broken heart.
    You are now something of a hero.
    Herzlichen Beileid.

  • @aerialmacaroon6312
    @aerialmacaroon6312 2 роки тому +2

    I know you tend to focus on Germany but if you could at some point talk about the Japanese; like how badly was the civil war thing between the army and navy to war effort

  • @oddsman01
    @oddsman01 2 роки тому +4

    Great video as usual TIK. Whats your opinion on Hitler devolving into a madman from the stress of losing a world war, health issues and drug use?

    • @scotttracy9333
      @scotttracy9333 2 роки тому

      He did get Parkinsons , that must take a mental toll also

  • @aleksazunjic9672
    @aleksazunjic9672 2 роки тому +1

    Reason why Britain went to war over Poland, and not over Czechoslovakia previous year is simple : British policy was always to stop forming of a dominant power in Europe ! No matter if that power is France, Germany, Russia or someone else, British were and are determined to keep Europe from uniting. United Europe would bring Britain in a inferior position of a backwater island. Now, in 1938 British could allow Germany to annex Austria and part of Czechoslovakia, as this would create strong power in Central Europe as a counter-balance to USSR and France. But invasion of Poland if let unopposed would make Germany dominant in all of Europe, as it would be much stronger than France (historically proven) and USSR would be isolated on the margins. British could not allow this, so there was a war.

  • @siroswaldfortitude5346
    @siroswaldfortitude5346 2 роки тому +3

    Personally I also believe that Hitler assumed that as a fellow Germanic, and Saxon race, England would side with Germany in the face of the Communist threat in the East. In fact Chuchill was understood to dislike Stalin far more than the National Socialism coming from Germany.

    • @gumdeo
      @gumdeo Рік тому +1

      1914 should have been sufficient proof than London won't side with Germany.

    • @siroswaldfortitude5346
      @siroswaldfortitude5346 Рік тому +1

      @@gumdeo agreed, but only because it has always been British policy to insure there was no single dominant power in Europe, and the Kaiser had ambitions to match the British Navy and create an Empire of equal standing. At the end of the day, the heads of State were all related and thus we share a similar heritage.

  • @LawtonDigital
    @LawtonDigital 2 роки тому +1

    Something William Shirer also addressed in his book were the terms "left" & "right". As I recall, Russian communism and fascist socialism are uncomfortable neighbors on the political spectrum, and Shirer wrote that it was Stalin who insisted reporters refer to fascism as "right" so as to create a verbal distance between his communism and its direct competitor, the Nazis. If I (and/or Shirer) have this wrong or if you've already done a video on this, I'd love to know. It's not a point I wish to argue but rather to learn more about.

  • @HontasFarmer80
    @HontasFarmer80 2 роки тому +7

    Great video *_TIK_* ! What you said at 9:30 made me think of what Halford Mackinder said in the decades leading up to WWI and WWII. Hitler seems to have reached a similar conclusion. Ruel East Europe, the Eurasian heartland, and dominate the Afro-Eurasian "world island" and one dominates the world. Either he heard of Mackinder or reached the conclusion himself. He had to know the rest of the thesis. That any sea power (the UK / Japan or any American power) would work to keep that from happening at all cost...for the very reasons you gave.
    Funny that the closest anyone has come to ruling the heartland of a continent and commanding the world is the USA.

  • @AudieHolland
    @AudieHolland 2 роки тому

    I don't understand why Hitler would assume that Great Britain would accept 'another Napoleon rising'
    even if that Napoleon was German, not French.