Prewar interesting details..

" During the Blomberg/Fritsch crisis Rundstedt had acted as spokesman of the generals. He had prevented the appointment of Hitler´s favourite, Reichenau, as Army commander in chief, forcing him to accept Brauchitsch instead."

From Field Marshal von Manstein, a portrait by Marcel Stein

 

View attachment 17458

An interesting map outlining the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact... how it was planned and how it actually turned out.

 

Quite interesting. It also includes the marginal gains by the Soviets during the disastrous Winter War... the stats for which (from Wiki) are as follows:

FINLAND

Approx. 340,000 men
32 tanks
114 aircraft

SOVIET UNION

1 million men
between 2,500 and 6,500 tanks
3,880 aircraft

LOSSES

Finns:
25,904 KIA
43,557 Wounded
1,000 POW
957 Civilians killed in air raids
20 - 30 tanks
62 aircraft

Soviets:
126,875 KIA and MIA
188,671 Wounded
5,572 POW
3,543 Tanks
261 - 515 aircraft


Definitely opened up the Germans' eyes to the weaknesses of the Red Army's high command and small unit tactics... sad

 

Too bad (??) this forced Stalin to make huge changes about his army which saved the USSR in the end I believe. Without the changes Hitler´s gamble might have worked...

 

Sad in that so many men died for that change, but overall you're right, it led to very important changes in doctrine.

 

Eugen Hadamovsky was a leading Nazi radio expert, and the author of a half dozen books with heavy propaganda content. In this chapter from his 1934 book on radio, he outlines the nature of the Nazi radio warden system, which he had had a leading role in building. In 1934, his title was Reichssendeleiter, or national programming director. During the war, he held various positions in the Nazi Party’s Central Propaganda Office (Reichspropagandaleitung). Eventually, he annoyed Goebbels enough to be ousted. He went into the military and died on the eastern front in February 1945.

The Work of Radio Wardens

 

A little website on tanks used during the 1939 invasion of poland (Polish tankettes mainly):

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/polish/ww2_Polish_Tanks.php

 

" The nazi party did not adopt work creation as a key part of its programme until the late spring of 1932, and it retained that status for only 18 months, until December 1933, when civilian work creation spending was formally removed from the priority list of Hitler´s government. Despite the claims of Goebbel´s propaganda and despite the preoccupations of later commentators and historians, civilian work creation measures were clearly not a core agenda item for the nationalist coalition that seized power in January 1933. In fact, amongst the coalition partners of January 1933, work creation was highly divisive."

Wages of destruction by Tooze