0:01

One in four car batteries is weak

0:03

and needs to be replaced. Let our

0:05

professional parts people test your battery for

0:07

free at O'Reilly Auto Parts. O,

0:10

O, O, O,

0:12

O'Reilly Auto Parts.

0:15

People, it's

0:17

time again. Richard Grove is starting season eight

0:20

of his autonomy course. And as a graduate

0:22

of season one, I can tell you that

0:24

I doubt I could have gotten through the

0:26

last 27 or 28

0:29

months without Richard's guidance, leadership,

0:31

and friendship. So head

0:34

on over to freemanbeyondthewall.com

0:36

forward slash autonomy to get more information. I

0:38

have a couple links there, a link to

0:41

a video telling you about the course, and

0:43

a link to a 19 Skills

0:45

for Life PDF that

0:47

is free to download. Let's

0:49

all get on Richard's level. Thank

0:52

you. I.

1:21

Want to tell you about an upcoming

1:23

free to attend online? Some it by

1:25

my friend me, Kaltho or from X

1:28

money.com He's going to have over thirty

1:30

experts participating to help you move your

1:32

life, business, and wealth. Offshore.

1:34

A. Couple of the topics are had a

1:37

secure your own plan, be safe haven,

1:39

had illegally reduce your tax burden and

1:41

where are the best countries in the

1:43

world to find freedom for yourself and

1:45

your family. Register. Now for free

1:47

at X Pat money some it.com or you

1:49

can go to. My website. and

1:55

I link it there. I

1:57

want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingina show. Thomas

2:01

is back. How you doing Thomas? I'm

2:03

very well Pete thanks and again as

2:05

always I'm sure people are getting tired of repeating

2:09

myself but I really appreciate the

2:12

positive comments and support for

2:14

this ongoing series. It's really

2:16

great and I mean

2:18

that's the whole point. You know I know what

2:20

my own ideas are and things and I mean

2:22

I like having conversations with

2:24

you Pete and I'm always

2:26

game for that but the reason we record these

2:28

conversations is a predicate of

2:30

people who might not be familiar with

2:34

you know the body of a scholarship that we're

2:36

talking about. Today

2:38

I wanted to deep dive into Operation

2:40

Barbarossa which probably most people know

2:42

though so may not um

2:45

that was the code name for the for

2:48

the German assault on the Soviet Union you know

2:51

on June 22nd 1941 and

2:53

there's an absolute cataclysmic event you

2:55

know a clash of literally millions of men

2:57

on both sides across you know a

3:00

thousand mile front you

3:02

know utterly catastrophic losses um the

3:04

kind of kind of clash of

3:06

arms and men that without

3:09

exaggeration has

3:12

never been seen before and probably will never be

3:14

seen again and at least not for a thousand

3:16

years. This has been on my mind a lot

3:19

you know like I just like we're

3:21

talking about right before we began recording

3:23

I'm certainly not a military historian but

3:26

you know the military dimension to revisionism

3:29

because it's you know it's a

3:32

huge amount of it is pouring through

3:34

conflict literature and dealing

3:36

with them you know dealing

3:38

with the the entirety of the political horizon and

3:41

there's obviously there's

3:43

a major military dimension to that but

3:45

as these this this unfortunate Ukraine war

3:48

that did not have to happen that

3:50

is underway now you know

3:52

these place names and these battle spaces

3:54

these these um were the same

3:56

settings of our abilities you know during Barbarossa

3:58

and that's kind of I'm not a

4:01

ghoul, I'm not saying, oh, this is exciting,

4:03

I'm happy to... I've

4:07

got some kind of remote spectator of hostilities,

4:09

but it is fascinating how these places

4:12

that have been quiet for three-quarters of

4:14

a century are once again a flame

4:19

by the dogs of war. But

4:22

yeah, I want to deep dive into that today. But

4:24

first, I think there's such a huge

4:27

topic, and I don't think we're

4:29

going to need to dedicate quite as much time to it as

4:31

we did the career of Mr. Churchill, but we

4:34

need to dive deep into the

4:37

theoretical foundations of the ideologies

4:39

that created this clash. You've

4:42

got to look at the Second World War. I

4:44

mean, depending on where you're located in

4:46

terms of your nationality, you're

4:48

going to approach the Second World War differently. Not

4:51

just in terms of the narrative, but what you

4:53

emphasize. If you're here to talk to a Russian

4:55

person, he or she would tell

4:57

you about the Great Patriotic War. And

5:00

to them, it didn't really ensue until June

5:02

of 1941, because that was the war. You

5:05

know, he talked to an Englishman, and if

5:08

he's kind of accepted the narrative

5:10

of court history

5:12

and is presented from the bully

5:14

pulpit, he'll probably drop some kind of

5:16

hero narrative of Mr. Churchill on you, where he'll talk

5:18

about Dunkirk or something like that. Americans,

5:24

generally people, I

5:26

got introduced to the Second World War as a

5:28

little kid, because my mom's brother, he

5:31

was 22 years older than her, because

5:34

he was her half-brother, and her

5:36

father was something of a ladies

5:39

man. When he started my

5:41

mom, he was supposed to be 50 years old, and his wife

5:43

was 21. Which is great

5:46

props to him. I

5:51

hope as I age, I can still

5:53

attract pretty ladies if it

5:56

comes to seeming like it's a

5:58

good thing. assigned me to

6:00

siren error but that aside uh bob

6:03

o'herald uh who was

6:05

i my my middle name is

6:07

his namesake um he

6:09

fought on tarot war against the japanese and you

6:11

know when i was a little little kid he

6:13

talked me about fighting the japanese you know and

6:16

not in an inappropriate way i mean but you

6:18

know that that was common you

6:20

know like you you had a grandpa or you had an

6:22

uncle who you know fought the japs or something that was

6:24

kind of front and center right which is

6:26

why it was strange to me in school how you know

6:29

owing to the owing to the demographics

6:31

where i grew up and in the political

6:33

climate of the of the

6:35

1980s you know we hear all about this

6:37

you know quote unquote holocaust theology and things

6:39

but that that didn't really feature loom

6:41

large you know and but my

6:44

point is that you know

6:46

as with all conflicts and historical apocal events

6:48

you know different things are emphasized but in

6:51

revisionist terms like objectively um

6:55

i agree a lot with ernson nolte he

6:57

talks about um he talked

6:59

about the european civil war you

7:02

know um spanning from 1914 to 1945 um you know he looked

7:04

at it like a 30 years

7:09

war okay um if

7:11

uh the listeners are familiar with that

7:14

you know there's kind of terrible ongoing

7:16

sectarian conflict between kingdoms and duchies uh

7:20

characterized by shifting alliances and and a

7:22

kind of conflict and conflict and things

7:24

like that um i don't wholly

7:27

accept nolte's i accept

7:30

nolte's metaphysical description of the concepts

7:32

and kind of the you

7:34

know because he's very much a Hegelian or he was he's

7:36

dead now um in

7:39

terms of in terms of the kind of for

7:42

like a better way to characterize it

7:44

metaphysical causes you know the kind of

7:46

human causes in terms of ideas and

7:48

how ideas animated people to war i

7:51

accept basically what he posits entirely but

7:54

i diverge somewhat from

7:56

him describing it as a conflict

8:00

basically analogous to the 30 Years War.

8:02

I think of World War II basically

8:05

as a war between Hitler, Roosevelt, and

8:07

Stalin. Okay, the

8:09

Nazi-Soviet War is as known kind of

8:11

in the angles here with

8:14

America even entering on

8:16

the side of the Soviet Union very early

8:18

on. Prior

8:21

to that, there

8:23

was a kind of typical of the

8:26

modern era power political collision between France

8:28

and Germany. Only the kind

8:30

of conventional geopolitics. And it's one of

8:32

the reasons France, after being defeated militarily,

8:34

basically made real peace with Germany. We'll

8:38

get into that later in the series too, but some

8:41

people might be surprised to learn that when the Americans

8:43

landed in North Africa in 43, the

8:45

first forces that engaged them were French who were fighting on

8:47

the side of the axis. The

8:52

UK's war against Germany, which ensued in 1939,

8:56

when the UK declared war

8:59

on Berlin, I

9:01

view the UK as having been defeated

9:03

at Dunkirk. And I mean, after that,

9:05

the war was basically over until the

9:09

terror bombing was initiated

9:18

by the British bomber arm. But

9:20

that really, I look at the UK as

9:22

kind of liquidating. It's not just its assets,

9:24

but its sovereignty to

9:27

the United States and becoming quite literally a client regime.

9:31

And then, so I look at the UK as losing its

9:33

war against Germany, just as France lost its war in 1940.

9:36

And in the wake of defeat, becoming

9:39

a client of the United States in this

9:41

truly global war of

9:44

the Soviet Union United States against the German right.

9:46

Which by that point, had

9:50

a million non-Germans under arms and

9:52

have often had become really kind of a

9:54

truly European army. We had the Grell talks

9:57

about this and a lot of

9:59

right-wing guys were. into

10:01

the Third Reich history and things, I know

10:03

a lot of Leon de Grau. Okay, so

10:05

that's my perspective. I over-impaired people to death

10:07

with that kind of elaborate

10:10

introduction. But what

10:12

I want to get into now is what

10:15

was the origin of the German-Soviet war

10:17

and why did it happen? And first,

10:19

I want to tackle some myths that

10:21

have to be sort of dealt

10:25

with before I get into it. There's

10:27

kind of this fool's canard that a

10:31

lot of kind of pop history deals with. And

10:34

you'll even hear people like barstool types and even,

10:36

you know, even some, you know, even

10:40

some people who should know better, you know,

10:42

like history teacher types. They'll

10:44

say things like, oh, well, Hitler's big

10:46

mistake was assaulting the Soviet Union. The

10:50

only way Germany wins World War II is

10:53

defeating the Soviet Union. That's

10:55

how you defeat Churchill. That's how you

10:57

defeat Roosevelt. That's how you create

10:59

fortress Europe. That's how you make Europe a

11:02

superpower that can compete on the world

11:04

stage in the era of great space

11:06

politics, okay? Whatever

11:09

you consider to be the primary

11:11

war ambition in objective terms, whatever

11:13

you consider to be, you know,

11:16

what should have been the correct orientation, military

11:18

and political in Berlin, the

11:21

only way to accomplish that is the Soviet Union

11:23

goes down, okay, so this idea

11:25

that Hitler was just kind of looking at

11:27

a menu of where should I attack and,

11:29

oh, this was the wrong decision to attack

11:32

here. That's

11:34

not really a

11:36

meaningful understanding of the strategic landscape, okay?

11:38

Now, why do I say that? A

11:40

few reasons. First of

11:43

all, everything about the Third Reich in military

11:45

terms and the way it structured itself and

11:47

the way his doctrine became progressive

11:52

to the

11:54

sort of anticipated

11:57

deployment of. of

12:01

forces to,

12:04

you know, the Hitler-Gita strategic

12:06

vision of what would secure

12:08

Europe and enable

12:11

it to compete on the world stage in

12:13

power political terms. Everything

12:16

about that calculus owes to

12:18

the reality of the Soviet Union being

12:21

a bargaining superpower and its productive

12:23

capacity outstripping every other state on

12:25

this planet except potentially the United

12:28

States. But even though it's a

12:30

state... Can I ask you one more question? Okay, so I

12:32

saw this on a comment on Twitter yesterday. It

12:41

sounds like what you're implying is that

12:43

Hitler was fighting

12:45

for basically all of Europe where

12:48

a lot of people will say Hitler just wanted

12:50

to take every country in Europe and make it

12:52

part of Germany. He wanted to make Europe

12:55

all basically under his power.

12:58

So that's... When you say

13:00

it like that, it can sound like that and that's

13:02

not at all what happened. Well, there's

13:05

a couple... Here's the thing. I

13:07

made the point before that, you know, Hitler

13:09

was a Habsburg Austrian as everybody knows, but

13:12

he thought like oppression. Yet

13:14

somehow he also appealed to these kind of Munich

13:16

Bavarian types. Hitler

13:19

had to be somewhat cosmopolitan in

13:23

order to facilitate

13:25

his ascendancy. And

13:27

I don't think that was just a cynical ploy. I think he

13:29

believed that. But it's also... Hitler

13:33

made the point again and again that nationalism

13:35

was dead. Cabinet warring is...

13:37

You know, was dead. It was a dead end. It

13:39

wasn't going to lead anything. You

13:43

know, and he was constantly

13:45

talking about great space paradigms

13:47

as being the future of

13:49

power political hegemony. But

13:52

also with

13:54

the exception of Poland, which

13:56

the Soviets and the German

13:58

right just... destroyed as a

14:01

political and cultural, or

14:03

as a attempt to destroy the cultural entity, and destroyed as

14:05

a political entity. Other

14:08

than the European State of Croatia, which really

14:10

was kind of a mirror of

14:12

the national socialist state, albeit with

14:14

its own indigenous characteristics, Hitler

14:17

very much opposed exporting some kind

14:19

of national socialist paradigm

14:21

to other political cultures. That's

14:24

why Romania, we were talking about, you know, I made

14:26

the point that Antonescu was,

14:28

I believe, Hitler's best ally in

14:31

a lot of ways. He wasn't as

14:33

close personally to the Fuhrer as Mussolini

14:35

was, but Romania

14:37

committed, relative to the size

14:39

of the population, Romania committed a huge contingent

14:42

of men to the Eastern Front. Antonescu

14:44

was a war hero in his own right, he

14:47

was a holder of the Knight's Cross, he had

14:49

a great understanding of military and strategic matters. Hitler

14:52

favored Antonescu over the Iron Guard,

14:55

because he did not want some

14:57

radically fascist regime, or some national

14:59

socialist type regime, taking power in

15:02

Romania. Nordity

15:06

in Slovakia, Nordity in

15:08

Bulgaria, Nordity in, you

15:12

know, outside of, and

15:15

in France too, I know people talk about the

15:17

Vichy France, you know,

15:20

it's notable that until,

15:23

if it became clear, that there was going to be

15:25

no concord and no peace between the

15:28

UK and Germany, that, you know,

15:32

the Germans, they scrupulously

15:36

avoided occupying France outside

15:40

of the essential coastal areas. I

15:43

mean, they didn't do that because they were

15:45

nice guys, but, you know, the point being

15:47

that if the Germans were hellbent, then, you

15:50

know, kind of destroying Europe and restructuring it

15:52

in the image of the fear of national

15:54

socialism, that's not the way you

15:56

go about that. And,

15:58

you know, And

16:01

Franco and Salazar would have had something to

16:03

say about that, just using two examples. Yeah,

16:05

exactly. So, I mean, it's more complicated. You

16:07

know, it's not a question of whether Hitler

16:09

was a good guy or not. I mean,

16:12

in objective terms, that's not

16:15

really the sensibility that

16:17

guided him. And I mean, yeah, there

16:19

were men in the OKW, and there

16:21

certainly were men in the National Socialist

16:24

Party who had a very chauvinistic view

16:26

of things, you know, in racial terms

16:28

and in ethnic terms. But

16:30

I mean, that's just characteristic of Europe. And,

16:32

you know, regardless, even Germany today, which is,

16:35

you know, this runk state shadow of its

16:37

former self, you know, Europe,

16:41

it orbits around Berlin. I mean,

16:43

that's inevitable, you know, I mean,

16:45

in some basic sense. So, yeah,

16:48

if the Germans got their way, when

16:50

I did the Germans, I mean, the

16:52

Third Reich, definitely nothing

16:55

would have happened on

16:57

the continent within their sphere

16:59

of influence and dominance without their

17:01

say so. But this idea

17:03

that they would have created puppet regimes everywhere,

17:05

like, you know, characteristic of the Warsaw Pact,

17:07

vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, like, that's not the

17:09

case. And that I,

17:11

you know, what I'm going

17:14

to dive into in a moment is how it

17:16

wasn't just military exigencies that, you

17:19

know, in the reality of power politics that

17:22

led the Fuhrer

17:26

and the party, as well as, you know, the

17:28

military apparatus and the kind

17:30

of industrial, national economic elite,

17:32

the kind of structure the

17:36

state at its

17:38

productive capacities to combat the Soviet

17:40

Union in material terms. But

17:43

really, even if you're not a

17:45

Hegelian, like I am, you've got

17:47

to understand the emergence of national socialism.

17:50

It can only be understood as in

17:53

dialectical conflict

17:55

with communism. And

17:57

what animated people to fight against

17:59

the Soviet Union wasn't

18:02

that they loved the Fuhrer

18:06

so much, or they loved Berlin, or they all wanted to be

18:08

dominated by Germany. It was because

18:10

they didn't view another path. The

18:12

European survival as a discrete cultural

18:14

form and way of life, to

18:17

say nothing of politically

18:20

sovereign and independent states within

18:23

what could be considered a

18:25

European structure without a confederation.

18:32

Yeah, yeah, for better or worse. But

18:36

the point is that you wouldn't have had you

18:39

would not have had billions of literally a

18:41

million non-Germans in the Bafin SS. A

18:46

good portion of which were volunteers, if if

18:49

they were just fighting for the on

18:52

behalf of bringing

18:54

the German bootheel down on their neck or something.

18:56

I mean, it's not that that's

18:59

a gross oversimplification. And

19:01

German racialism, we might find

19:03

it off putting in the 21st century. But I

19:05

make the point again and again that's

19:07

only everybody on the planet thought. OK,

19:10

not everybody thought in terms of

19:13

we're not so aggressively and dialectically hostile

19:15

to Jews and what they viewed as

19:17

Jewish power. But you

19:19

better believe that in America, eugenics

19:22

was what everybody thought was the

19:24

correct kind of application of anthropology. You would

19:27

believe everybody in the UK and everybody in

19:29

Japan viewed a hierarchy of races. OK,

19:32

so it's not it's not weird that

19:34

the Germans viewed nationality in terms of

19:36

race or had this kind of strange

19:38

idea that your blood or

19:40

in our terms, your DNA, but

19:42

in those days, obviously, you know, that human

19:45

genome and map and people didn't understand those

19:48

kinds of things. But the

19:51

even people who are relatively traditional minded and

19:54

even people who had some affinity still for

19:56

religion and believe religion took a huge hit

19:58

in the 20th century. Thankfully,

20:00

that has abated. That's

20:02

a subject for another show. But, you

20:05

know, another thing that's mischaracterized is the

20:07

idea that, oh, the Germans were these

20:09

crazy guys who had this kind of

20:11

biologically determinant view of human

20:13

behavior. That's the way everybody thought.

20:16

You know, I'd argue

20:18

the Germans were somewhat less fixated that way

20:21

than the Americans. Like America

20:23

literally had, like Francis Galton and guys

20:25

like Lathrop Stoddard, who was a journalist.

20:29

They were literally fixated on this idea that,

20:31

you know, morphological characteristics were

20:34

indicative of behavior and potential. Like, I'm

20:36

going to be wrong. I believe race

20:38

is a significant biological characteristic. I'm not

20:40

saying otherwise. But they were foolish about

20:42

it. I mean, they talk about it

20:45

in ways that don't make sense. You

20:47

know, like your culture is not biologically

20:49

programmed or something. You know, it's not...

20:53

that's nonsense. But that's

20:55

important to understand. But

21:00

getting back to... There's

21:02

a quote I wanted to drop. It's about

21:04

one of the only things that I think

21:06

is kind of... remains timely about Mein Kampf.

21:08

I made the point before in our own

21:11

discussions, as well as I think

21:13

on the record, Mein

21:15

Kampf was really an election

21:17

year screed. It's not supposed

21:19

to have this perennial enduring

21:21

significance. Hitler didn't

21:23

really get into other metaphysics or

21:25

kind of deep historicism. It

21:28

was... it's really kind of an

21:32

appeal of the, you know, an

21:34

election year appeal to Weimar

21:36

voters as a wider national socialist. They're

21:39

going to, you know, bursting policy

21:41

that's the correct path forward. But there

21:43

is and was... I

21:46

think in most editions it's on page 60. If

21:51

I'm wrong with the edition, you or anybody has, like

21:53

forgive me that. But I'm

21:55

going to read this in a moment. And I try to

21:57

avoid like direct quoting text, but here I think it's... It's

22:01

timely. Something

22:04

Nolte talked about was fear of

22:06

what he called practical transcendence. I mean, that's

22:09

somewhat, there's not so

22:11

much loss in translation as there's not

22:13

a deep metaphysical tradition in American political

22:15

theory. I mean,

22:18

owing to the fact that America's so

22:20

kind of bound with the rational tradition

22:22

and such that America does

22:24

have kind of a

22:28

metaphysical tradition in

22:30

its indigenous philosophy, it's

22:32

basically Aristotelian and Bible

22:34

Protestant, which is my own

22:36

heritage. I'm not in any way suggesting

22:38

that's bad, but it's

22:41

not, it

22:43

doesn't really shed light on the European mind,

22:46

okay? Practical transcendence

22:48

in the term Nolte was talking about

22:50

is kind of a Heideggerian concept.

22:53

It refers the conceptual

22:56

horizons of the past and kind of

22:58

being destroyed by

23:01

collision with modern institutions

23:04

and ideas and ways of interpreting and

23:06

experiencing the world around us. So

23:09

whether it's on a beloved institutions of culture

23:15

or social organization or

23:17

of a labor, becoming outmoded

23:19

and man being kind of ripped out

23:21

of these environments and providing them not

23:23

just one identity, but with a kind

23:25

of historical rootedness and

23:28

consciousness that endures

23:30

across generations, the process

23:32

by which that sort of

23:34

thing becomes remote, if not out now

23:36

to abolish is referred

23:39

to as tradable transcendence and within

23:41

Nolte's and to some lesser degree

23:43

Heidegger's heron. Now,

23:46

Hitler was not a philosopher or

23:48

an impropriety, but he acknowledged

23:50

in some basic sense that some of this

23:52

is inevitable because it's

23:55

just one of the

23:57

crosses proverbially European

23:59

man. as the bear, not

24:02

just as he

24:05

experiences hyper-modernity,

24:09

but European man, kind of being enamored

24:11

with the Faustian ethos

24:15

and spirit, and being enamored

24:17

with techniques and technology. He

24:20

runs a real risk of losing himself in these

24:23

things. But of course,

24:25

the Hitler, one of the most insidious

24:27

iterations of this tendency or

24:29

his radical transcendence was

24:31

Marxism. And Marxism was a perversion

24:33

of these things, deliberately, and it

24:36

kind of weaponized erasure of these things, because

24:38

it came out of the Jewish world of

24:40

social existence. Now, Hitler wasn't saying

24:43

this is a conspiracy. We were saying that

24:45

there's an intrinsic hostility of

24:47

the Jewish culture. And the

24:50

way it spreads itself politically is always in

24:54

a form of hostile discourse. So

24:57

the way Hitler described Marxism

25:00

and what it represents to

25:02

European man, in my time,

25:05

he said, and I quote, the

25:08

Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic

25:10

principle of nature and replaces the eternal

25:12

privilege of power and strength by the

25:14

mass of numbers and their dead weight.

25:17

Thus, it denies the value of personality in

25:20

man. It contests a significance

25:22

of nationality and race, and thereby

25:24

withdraws from humanity the premise of its existence

25:26

and culture. As a

25:28

foundation of the universe, this doctrine would

25:31

bring about the end of any order

25:33

intellectually conceivable to man. And

25:35

as in the greatest of all recognizable organisms,

25:37

the result of an application of such a

25:40

law could only be chaos. On

25:42

Earth, it could only be the destruction of the

25:44

inhabitants of this

25:46

planet. If with the help

25:49

of his Marxist creed, the Jew is

25:51

victorious over the other peoples of the world,

25:53

his crown will be the funeral wreath of

25:55

humanity. And this planet will, as it did

25:57

thousands of years ago, move to the ether.

25:59

devoid of men. That

26:02

sounds like all dramatic and it is. You

26:04

can even say it's overwrought

26:07

language but Adolf Hitler believed this

26:09

100% and that is the end result

26:11

of the

26:13

Marxist enterprise

26:17

even if you don't accept that it's a

26:19

Jewish idea or that it was

26:21

born of a Jewish world of social existence.

26:23

I'm not here to argue with that point or

26:26

unpack that but it's

26:31

indisputable that the

26:34

removal of man from history, Marxism by

26:36

its own posture which seeks to literally

26:39

end history and

26:43

remove man from the

26:45

intellectual slavery in their view of

26:47

these conceits of metaphysics or of

26:49

God or of anything because in

26:52

the Marxist word as paradigm these

26:54

things will contrive into the

26:57

rationalized power dynamics relating to

27:00

labor and capital and authority

27:02

and hierarchy

27:05

that's imposed the

27:07

satisfied demands of those

27:10

things. It's an

27:12

ideology of cultural annihilation, masquerading

27:15

in some basic sense as an economic

27:18

science. Now

27:20

that's not to say that Marx is all rubbing

27:22

their hands together and saying, oh I want to

27:24

destroy Europe or I want to destroy white Christian

27:27

civilization. Certainly some of them did think that

27:29

but probably most of them didn't

27:32

but we're talking about the way man

27:34

instinctively responds to... A lot

27:37

of them still do. Yes indeed and I'd say

27:39

more so do now in terms of raw percentage

27:41

than before but the problem,

27:44

the reason why ideas develop this kind of

27:46

monumental power to animate people is because people

27:48

are taken in by them in

27:51

apocal terms and when people are

27:53

confronted by crises particularly

27:55

not just a physical mortal

27:57

crisis but at the same time a

28:02

kind of psychological crisis

28:05

of their conceptual horizon, not just

28:08

to them personally, but the entire culture in

28:10

which they're mired. This whole

28:13

conceptual horizon imploding on itself and

28:16

values that preceding generations can take for

28:18

granted, no longer having a context and

28:20

man no longer having any poll stars

28:23

to orient himself as life, individual, you're

28:26

among a community in which he lives, people

28:29

become desperate to make sense

28:31

of these chaotic

28:36

circumstances. And

28:39

they get very much taken in

28:41

by paradigms that seem

28:43

to make sense and seem to

28:46

reflect the concrete circumstances in which

28:48

they're found. So that's

28:51

essential to

28:54

understand why

28:58

the national socialists were not just making

29:01

a boogeyman of Marxism or something. They

29:03

weren't just

29:06

trying to rationalize what amount

29:08

of racial or tribal prejudice

29:10

against the Eastern Slavs under

29:12

the revenue of ideology or

29:15

something. There may have been an

29:17

aspect of that because

29:19

there certainly wasn't a lot of loss between

29:21

the Germans and the Eastern Slavs, and particularly

29:23

a man like Adolf Hitler, who

29:27

would have viewed Serbia essentially

29:29

as responsible for the Great

29:31

War, and opposite Hitler

29:33

within his coalition, these Prussian officer

29:36

types, who would have

29:38

viewed Eastern Slavs as not only the

29:40

way a white man in the West

29:42

would have viewed Apache or something in

29:45

the frontier days. I'm not saying that

29:47

to put shade on either Indians

29:50

or Slavic people. I'm talking about how

29:53

they were viewed as a fearful other that

29:56

was somehow savage and dangerous.

30:04

If you want to understand national socialism, I

30:06

mean, yes, there was positive characteristics.

30:08

I don't mean positive, like this is

30:10

laudable. I'm not issuing a value judgment.

30:13

I mean, proactive spontaneous characteristics that

30:16

gave rise to ideology, but, you

30:19

know, an equal percentage of

30:21

its content was like ethically,

30:23

I mean, conceptually was

30:26

reactive and would do the conceptual

30:28

challenge posed by communism. And this

30:30

was not just something remote. Like

30:32

we talked about in one of

30:34

our first episodes that, you know,

30:36

quite literally, you

30:39

know, in

30:42

Berlin and Munich especially, you know, where the

30:45

very, the very Soviet, you know,

30:47

actually for a brief period was

30:49

the reigning government. I mean,

30:51

albeit they captured sovereign

30:54

power through violence, but, you know, this, you

30:57

know, and to say nothing of what happened

30:59

in the Baltics where, you know, you had many,

31:01

many German refugees, you know,

31:04

who owing to fear of being ethnically claimed is when

31:06

the, when the

31:08

Bolsheviks exported, attempted to export

31:10

the revolution there. But so

31:12

I mean, this is very, this is something that German

31:16

people had firsthand

31:18

knowledge of, you know, it's not just a question

31:21

of becoming fearful about something

31:23

remote or that they read in

31:25

the papers or whatever. But moving

31:27

on to the kind of concrete

31:29

circumstances, one

31:32

of the big myths is

31:36

of the German-Soviet war

31:38

and Stalin's intentions opposite

31:41

Adolf Hitler's was this idea

31:44

that while the Soviet Union

31:46

was this inward-looking kind of state and, you

31:49

know, the Soviets were just, you know, the Russians were just

31:51

kind of primitive and, you know, Stalin

31:53

declared socialism in one country because

31:55

he had no interest in a

31:57

truly global power, holi-tique. And

32:02

also like within that kind of fatuous

32:04

narrative there's a claim that like

32:07

well, you know, Germany was this

32:10

aggressive power that was assaulting all its

32:12

neighbors, you know, like Austria and Czechoslovakia

32:14

and Poland and, you know, the Soviet

32:16

Union was pursuing a path

32:19

of relative peace over badly. It

32:21

treated people within and some borders.

32:23

That's a bald-faced lie. And

32:27

we're going to talk about that. As of

32:31

1940, owing to

32:33

aggressive invasion and conquest, as

32:36

well as the case being of the Baltic, as

32:38

with the case of the Baltic and Romania, by

32:44

coercion and threat, by

32:47

1940 the

32:49

Soviet Union had expanded its

32:52

territory by 426,000 square kilometers.

32:56

Okay, if you want for

33:00

reference that is the size of the entire

33:02

service area of what the German Reich had

33:04

been as of 1919. This is

33:07

a huge amount of territory.

33:09

Okay, the Soviet Union spontaneously

33:11

invaded Finland. It had invaded Poland, you

33:14

know, days, weeks

33:16

after the Wehrmacht did.

33:19

And I mean, as we talked about last episode when

33:21

Joe Kennedy posed to

33:24

John Simon like why why why

33:26

why doesn't it bother you know, Mr.

33:29

Churchill or Mr. Chamberlain that the Soviet

33:31

Union assaulted, assaulted Poland

33:33

too. Like nobody can answer this question. But,

33:36

you know,

33:38

so you have, in addition to

33:40

the kind of foundation

33:43

that we already established with respect to

33:45

the, you know, the

33:48

German political mind, for

33:50

better or worse, you know,

33:52

viewing not just Germany, but the entire

33:55

European way of life coming under threat

33:57

from Marxist Leninism, you had

33:59

quite literally what was becoming the world's

34:01

first superpower in the Soviet Union. Okay.

34:06

And Germany, despite

34:08

the fact that they had pretty soundly,

34:11

you know, defeated the

34:13

British Army at Dunkirk, Germany

34:17

still wasn't engaged in a state of

34:19

war with the UK, which still had

34:21

an incredibly powerful Navy in relative terms.

34:25

They still had a, you

34:28

know, a project capacity to reconstitute a

34:30

strategic air arm, which they certainly did

34:32

do to devastating effect. We're going to

34:34

get into that in a later episode.

34:38

But by 1940, you know, not only

34:40

have the Soviet Union, which as we just discussed,

34:42

you know, had

34:44

aggressively annexed

34:47

a huge amount of territory, Germany

34:49

was engaged essentially at

34:52

a hostile front to defend the

34:54

stretch from Norway to the Pyrenees

34:57

as a potential – as a potential battle

34:59

space. Okay. They were

35:01

in grave danger of losing access

35:03

to Romanian petroleum, which is really

35:06

their only source of

35:08

petrol if,

35:10

you know, the fuel or war machine,

35:13

as any modern war machine is fueled by, if

35:15

Stalin had given the order to, you know,

35:18

formally annex Romania and proceed

35:20

to embargo any, you know,

35:22

any access Germany would

35:24

have to essential commodities

35:27

therein. Like, what I'm getting at here

35:29

is that, you know, Germany was

35:31

in a position of abject inferiority

35:33

in material terms and military terms

35:35

and geotraticers. So

35:38

not only this idea that the Soviet

35:40

Union was benign, laughable, but it's, you

35:42

know, Germany was in a very critical

35:44

position. Now,

35:49

something interesting happened, not

35:51

just anything but critical in my opinion. In

35:56

November 12 and 13, 1940, Stalin transmitted

36:00

a series of demands to Molotov. As

36:03

I think people probably know, Molotov

36:07

was not just a man who invented

36:09

a particular kind of cocktail that people light

36:12

on fire and throw at the British police

36:14

and Northern Ireland and things. He was the

36:16

Soviet foreign minister and he

36:19

was within the

36:30

paradigm of Soviet power from 1917

36:32

until the fall of the Berlin

36:35

Wall. There

36:40

was very, very little leeway

36:42

that people had in

36:47

the foreign policy establishment to

36:52

negotiate on their own terms, recording

36:54

their own instincts. In

36:56

particular, Stalin, he very

36:59

rigidly controlled what was said,

37:01

what was guaranteed, what

37:04

official terms were from Moscow.

37:06

So, what I'm getting is

37:08

that whatever Molotov conveyed to Berlin, whether it

37:11

was talking to Riventroff, whether he was talking

37:13

to the right chancellor, whoever

37:15

he was talking to, it was as good

37:17

as coming from Stalin. That's not a myth.

37:20

It's not me simplifying certain

37:24

things as to show

37:26

off a point or something. It's an

37:28

arguable and pretty much everybody agrees on

37:30

that. Revisionist or not. The

37:35

demands of Stalin transmitted were basically

37:37

this. The

37:40

non-aggression pact that Riventroff and

37:42

Molotov had signed, Hitler's behest,

37:44

the tenure non-aggression pact between

37:46

the Soviet Union and Berlin.

37:50

Stalin periodically was

37:53

issuing demands as to whatever require

37:55

for it to be

37:57

honored. Now, of course, he was very

37:59

slow. lie about the way he phrased this.

38:01

He wasn't saying, okay, you'll either abide these

38:03

demands I have or we're going to attack

38:05

you. But the inference was

38:08

obvious and it's the only inference that could be

38:11

drawn. And this will become clearer as we

38:13

get more into this conversation. But on

38:17

November 12 and 13, what

38:19

the demands were was Molotov

38:22

said that in order for the Soviet Union

38:24

to be able to peaceably

38:27

coexist with Germany as well

38:31

as provide for its own security

38:33

and as well as the facilitator's

38:35

ability to deploy in depth, it

38:38

would need to increase its sphere of influence

38:41

to include Bulgaria, Romania,

38:43

Hungary, Greece, Yugoslavia, and

38:47

now all of Finland, not just Archangel,

38:49

but all of Finland. And

38:51

Hitler, albeit frosty but

38:54

reasonably formal relations with

38:57

Gustav Mannerheim, the

38:59

Marshal of Finland. And

39:02

obviously this was Stalin basically

39:04

demanding that Germany abandon any

39:09

pretension of Finland

39:11

as some sort of line in the

39:13

sand against Soviet expansion. This is incredibly

39:15

brazen. And you've got to ask yourself,

39:17

okay, supposedly Stalin was this man who

39:19

kind of lived in future of the

39:21

Third Right or of Adolf Hitler. The

39:24

Soviet Union was somehow

39:27

weak in material terms

39:31

and forces in being relative to the Third Right.

39:33

How could he be issuing these demands? That doesn't

39:35

make any sense. And also if Hitler

39:37

was this kind of reckless maniac

39:40

who just gave attack orders without thinking,

39:42

why wouldn't this be inviting an

39:44

immediate assault? None of this makes

39:46

sense, obviously, unless one's

39:49

willing to reject

39:53

the kind of prevailing period. Now, obviously,

39:57

this is a very important question.

40:00

Molotov demands,

40:02

which you know the Fedekta were

40:04

Stalin demands, obviously

40:07

I mean there's really only two options here. I

40:10

mean Germany could have

40:12

opted to fight and in the

40:14

case of Germany that would have meant

40:16

and did mean a preemptive assault or

40:21

simply accept the Soviet

40:24

hegemony. In

40:29

the 20th century with

40:34

the advent of strategic arms,

40:36

not just nuclear weapons,

40:39

which of course didn't exist yet, but there

40:42

was not a full understanding in 1994

40:44

that strategic arms could

40:48

be applied and what the outcome

40:50

would be in military terms, but

40:53

it was understood that the battlefield

40:56

techniques were going to be able

40:58

to create absolutely

41:00

devastating catastrophes for

41:04

the state under assault if they did not

41:06

have any countermeasures. Okay, I mean so what

41:08

I'm getting at is that if

41:13

Germany had remained dormant and

41:15

just kind of demurred to

41:18

Soviet demands, the

41:22

Soviets not wouldn't, I think the Soviets, I go down in

41:24

my mind the Soviets planned to assault Germany, you know we're

41:26

going to get into that in a minute, but even

41:28

if the Soviets had did not, just

41:31

by virtue of the fact that they would

41:34

have been so exponentially more powerful than

41:38

their next strong strategic rival in

41:40

Germany, like it wouldn't have mattered.

41:43

They would have, in

41:45

power political terms, Moscow would

41:48

have dictated what

41:50

was going to transpire in

41:53

Europe and Europe's orbit. Now,

41:56

I rely a lot on direct testimony, I think

41:58

people have noticed. Now, I've been

42:01

told that that's a conceptual bias of mine because

42:03

I was a lawyer. I

42:06

don't think that's the case. I

42:10

think that direct testimony is one

42:12

of the only ways we

42:14

can get inside the minds of people

42:16

who lived

42:19

in these apocalypse moments and

42:25

understand what their perceptions were, okay.

42:29

Obviously, there's an issue of how credible

42:32

the declarant is, but if you're

42:34

discriminating and I think over time

42:36

you see patterns and I kind of quorum emerges

42:39

of what people in

42:42

governmental roles thought, we

42:46

can get to the truth of what

42:48

perception was. And Jakim

42:51

Hoffman, he corralled,

42:53

he's a German historian, very

42:55

heterodox historian. I

42:58

highly recommend a book you wrote called Stalin's

43:00

War of Extermination. And

43:04

the first of that book is

43:07

a lot of testimony from people in

43:11

the Soviet government, in the Soviet military

43:13

apparatus, and

43:16

people from all walks, okay. Everybody

43:18

from apparatchiks were primarily political commissars,

43:20

you know, officers

43:22

and NCOs in the Red Army, the people

43:25

who were defectors to the Behrmacht.

43:28

And it's, there's

43:31

a basic agreement here. There's

43:34

a woman named, and I'm probably butchering

43:37

this pronunciation. I know I always add

43:39

that caveat and I'm sorry if that's the

43:41

case once again, but a woman

43:44

named Wanda Vasilevska,

43:47

she was

43:49

the chairwoman of what was called

43:51

euphemistically the Union of Polish Patriots.

43:54

Now this was the Expat Communist League in

43:56

the USSR, okay, after the, during

43:58

the Polish military done after, okay, and like

44:00

a lot of these people went on to form kind of the

44:03

core of the, you know, more

44:06

South Park client state after the

44:08

war. Now, what

44:11

she attested to in 1964, I believe the first historian

44:15

she discloses to was Robert Conquest,

44:17

but it's become, you'll

44:19

find this in a lot of different treatments, okay,

44:21

not just revisited treatments, but her

44:24

statement was this about the

44:26

orientation on the eve of

44:29

Barbarossa within Moscow. She

44:32

said, I remember

44:35

that we communists, regardless go

44:37

ahead. No, no, no,

44:39

no, because I remember that we communists

44:42

regardless of the official position of the

44:44

Soviet government, we were all

44:46

in the opinion that

44:48

the apparent friendly attitude toward Germany was

44:50

only a tactic of the Soviet government,

44:53

that in reality the situation was

44:55

entirely different. After

44:59

all, I want to not forget that it's

45:01

already clear to us, even at that time,

45:03

that a German-Soviet war was approaching, regardless of

45:05

the official announcement, we believed the war was

45:07

drawing near, and we waited for it every

45:09

day. Stalin

45:12

told me at that time there would be

45:14

war with the Germans sooner or later. This

45:16

means that indeed at that time, I already had

45:19

the assurance of and confirmation from the highest authority

45:21

that we were right to expect war. There's

45:28

a, like

45:31

I said, there's, there's, I'm

45:34

not going to endlessly relay

45:38

all these testimonials, but you

45:41

know, like I said, there's

45:44

probably half a dozen declarations,

45:48

you know, from everybody,

45:52

from men in Molotov's orbit to,

45:54

you know, like I said, some

45:56

of the defectors from,

45:58

when you the honest servant

46:00

was called the Blassoff Army. You know,

46:03

these were not, this

46:05

was a very diverse cornering people, okay, and

46:07

it's obviously not itself, I mean it's not

46:11

absolutely persuasive, but what

46:13

I think is, what

46:16

I think is indisputable

46:19

in terms of this persuasive

46:21

weight is what

46:24

deployments were as of June 22nd, 1941, all right, the date

46:28

of Barbarossa, okay, but

46:32

the Red Army had deployed on June 22nd, 1941 in offensive

46:35

deployment on the Western frontier and

46:38

deployed in depth, you know, behind

46:41

that front. There's

46:45

24,000 tanks, over 1,800 of which were T-34s, which I believe

46:51

everybody stipulates was the best all-around tank

46:53

platform of the war. 1,500 of

46:56

those T-34s are manufactured in the first

46:59

six months of 1941, okay, that's

47:02

an incredible production schedule, frankly,

47:05

for the time, okay. They

47:07

had 23,245 military aircraft amassed since 1938, and that's incredible

47:10

too. Close

47:19

to 4,000 away from latest

47:22

design and, inarguably, not obsolescent,

47:24

okay. They had

47:26

148,000 artillery pieces, okay,

47:28

close to 300 submarines, you

47:31

know, which is, I realize that,

47:33

I realize the

47:35

distinction between offensive and defensive war is dubious,

47:37

and we'll get into that a little bit too, but

47:40

I don't think anybody can claim that submarines

47:42

are a defensive measure. I

47:45

mean, I am, and towards the

47:47

end, the

47:52

T-30, even the Soviet models that

47:54

were viewed as inferior,

47:56

and again, I'm not a military expert at

47:59

all. And it's not by Forte, but

48:03

platforms like the T-35 and the

48:05

T-26, they were

48:07

specifically designed as countermeasures to earlier

48:10

German Panzer models. And they were

48:12

categorically superior to the Panzer III.

48:15

If not superior to the Panzer IV. And

48:20

they all had heavy armament that

48:23

was tailored to kill Nermak

48:26

tanks. You know, I

48:29

mean this is why they were developed. The

48:33

total arm strength in the weeks

48:36

immediately prior, May 15, 1941, the Soviets had

48:38

303 divisions. 258

48:45

of those, infantry, armor,

48:48

artillery, in other words

48:50

ground combat element, were

48:52

arrayed offensively, deployed on

48:54

the frontier against the German Reich. They

48:57

were supported by 165 flight

48:59

regiments, mobilized in direct support

49:02

of the

49:04

ground element. The

49:10

general staff reported after the onset of

49:12

hostilities, the general staff of the Red

49:14

Army, it is August, 1941. Even

49:21

with the losses incurred, which were catastrophic

49:23

in the opening weeks of Barbaros, you

49:26

can see that in mine. Soviet

49:28

forces and beings were between 330 and 350 divisions. They

49:35

were facing off against just

49:38

over 1,800 non-arsolescent

49:40

German tanks and self-propelled assault guns.

49:44

And the Luftwaffe threw essentially everything it

49:46

had at the Soviet Union. And

49:48

we'll get into this later too. I mean the German,

49:50

again I don't want to get too much into the

49:53

nitty-gritty of military hardware minutia,

49:55

but it's relevant at the perception.

50:00

forces in being and what we can extrapolate from

50:02

those forces in being to intent. The

50:07

right to deploy 2,500-ton every German

50:09

aircraft, but overwhelmingly, I mean,

50:12

the Luftwaffe did not have a

50:14

strategic capability. It really did not.

50:16

That's one of the reasons why the Battle of

50:18

Britain, even though it's talked about in these catastrophic terms,

50:21

it was nothing compared

50:23

to the area bombing

50:26

raids that killed tens of

50:28

thousands in one day of the Allies. It

50:34

was a completely different orientation towards

50:38

air war, and it was almost

50:40

exclusively dedicated

50:42

to ground attack

50:44

and tactical

50:48

exigencies. But what

50:51

I think is more significant is

50:54

a Red Army doctrine. I think

50:56

it was in some ways, and it's not going to

50:58

be corny, I

51:01

think it was in some ways the original revolution

51:03

in military affairs. The

51:06

Red Army, beginning with Lenin, Lenin

51:09

fancied himself a political

51:11

soldier, and he really

51:13

was. He wasn't just

51:15

some partisan type who declared

51:17

himself a general or something.

51:21

He had great attitude for certain kind

51:23

of warfare. What

51:27

became Red Army doctrine from

51:30

1917-18, the revolutionary days

51:34

until the last days of the Soviet Union

51:37

came from Lenin. Lenin

51:41

declared that the Red

51:43

Army was the

51:46

function of the Red Army. It was

51:48

literally the armed element of the party. Its

51:52

purpose was to bring

51:55

about socialist aims by

51:57

armed force. that

52:00

existed, you know, because within

52:02

the Marxist paradigm, you know, warfare

52:05

is just, you know, a means by which capitalists

52:07

are to profit or sustain their dominance or, or,

52:10

or, or sacrifice, you

52:12

know, surplus labor and

52:15

lumpen proletariat elements that, you

52:18

know, can't, can't

52:20

be disposed of in, in more profitable

52:22

ways. So Congress

52:25

with that particular claim

52:27

about history, anyway, you

52:29

know, the, the only, the only correct

52:32

use of, of a standing army

52:34

would be to implement revolutionary aims

52:36

and it aggressively export those aims.

52:41

Towards that end, what became official

52:45

Soviet military doctrine

52:49

theory, rather, which translated doctrine was, was the

52:51

assumption that modern wars just no longer were

52:54

declared. You know, not only is

52:56

this a capitalist contrivance and why, why, why

52:58

should we hurt as a famous fiction,

53:00

you know, relating to, you know, treaties

53:02

and, and the appearance of lawfulness,

53:04

but, you know, the, the, the

53:06

nature of, of, of

53:08

combined arms and technology driven

53:11

work there, surprise

53:13

has a paralyzing effect. That's what the Red

53:15

Army field duty regulation is declared in the,

53:17

in the 939 edition. It

53:19

said, literally, surprise has a paralyzing effect

53:22

on the enemy. Therefore, all

53:24

military action must be carried out with the

53:26

greatest concealment and greatest rigidity. And

53:29

if you want to know, if you

53:31

want, if

53:34

you want an example about

53:36

this translated to doctrine, both

53:38

the Soviet attack on Poland and the

53:40

Soviet assault on Finland in 1939, there

53:43

was no declaration of war. There was no

53:45

communication of a diplomatic nature. There

53:48

wasn't even an announcement by which,

53:50

you know, finisher Polish, you

53:52

know, representatives were banished from Moscow or

53:55

something. It was just a massive assault,

53:57

both from the blue. Okay.

54:02

So there you go. I mean, this wasn't

54:04

something that was put to paper as,

54:06

you know, by, you know, fever revolutionary

54:08

types, but didn't have

54:11

any real world precedent. So what everybody

54:13

learned real quick is that when the

54:15

Red Army assaults, it is a bolt

54:17

from the blue assault. You know,

54:19

they, there's not going to be early warning.

54:21

You know, there's not, there's

54:24

not going to be a formal declaration. There's

54:26

not going to be some community, some cryptic

54:28

community even that, you know, says there's no

54:31

longer good offices between us diplomatically. You know,

54:33

you're going to know you're at war with

54:35

them because they're going to be assaulting in

54:37

vast numbers across your border. You know, the

54:42

way Yacom Hoffman translated

54:44

a lot of this literature,

54:47

not just in the field duty regulations,

54:49

but from other official dispatches of the

54:53

Red Army High Command. And

54:57

I don't speak or read Russian, but

54:59

Mr. Hoffman certainly did. He's dead now.

55:01

And what he

55:04

translated was these five points. The

55:07

first was the Red Army

55:09

is an offensive army, the most

55:11

offensively oriented of all armies, them

55:14

speaking of themselves. Always

55:17

conduct, the Red Army will always

55:19

conduct war on enemy territory with

55:22

fewest possible friendly casualties. And it

55:24

will always aim to annihilate the

55:26

enemy completely, politically and militarily. The

55:29

proletariat in the hostile country is always

55:32

a potential ally of Soviet power. And

55:34

they will support the struggle of the Red Army through a

55:36

bolt in the rear of the enemy army. And this will

55:39

be called, this must be cultivated. War

55:42

preparations are preparations

55:44

for attack, defensive measures serve solely to

55:47

protect preparations for attack, and

55:50

the execution of an offensive attack in the

55:52

facing direction. And

55:54

finally, the Red Army

55:57

must at all costs preclude any possible of

56:00

the penetration of hostile forces into

56:03

the territory of the USSR. Now

56:06

again this isn't

56:08

just minutia of interest to military

56:10

sociologists or people who want

56:13

to study the Soviet

56:15

Union of history. If this

56:17

is your declared military doctrine taken

56:20

together with all these other

56:24

variables, I mean what

56:26

how probable is it how credible is

56:28

it this claim that you

56:30

know the Soviet Union was this kind of fearful

56:33

garrison state that we'll just wait was waiting

56:35

for the Germans to attack but hoping they

56:37

would not. I mean that would never happen.

56:40

I know

56:44

that the cliche and I it's

56:46

not the cliche that bears out

56:48

somewhat in truth. Operationally the

56:50

reputation of the Prussians and later the

56:52

Germans was that they jumped the gun

56:54

and assault too soon. The cliche or

56:56

reputation of the other Russians and later

56:59

the Soviets was that they wait too

57:01

long and I argued it bore

57:03

out in the Ukraine situation but

57:05

it's not what we're talking about. The

57:09

claim basically of court

57:11

history is that you know

57:13

Stalin was some sort of you know he

57:15

may have been a bad man and he

57:17

may have been an intruder and a Machiavellian

57:19

group but he somehow

57:21

had no designs on aggressive conquest

57:24

of Europe despite these you

57:27

know this keep this these massive slotted

57:29

territory that the Soviet Union is still in

57:31

an hostility. The claim is that

57:33

he was somehow fearful of Adolf Hitler as

57:36

a historical person agent as and

57:39

as well as you know fearful in Germany despite the fact

57:41

that it was it was it

57:43

was grossly disadvantaged in terms of

57:46

you know forces and being and material

57:50

assets and resources but and also at most

57:52

kind of incredibly is the claim that well

57:54

you know yeah maybe the

57:56

Soviets were anticipating war but they were just waiting

57:58

to be attacked. that's totally

58:00

at odds with not

58:04

just their stated doctrine, but with

58:07

the entire organizational structure and ideological culture

58:09

of the Soviet Union at the time.

58:11

They say nothing of their deployment. And

58:13

again, I don't, sorry,

58:16

I don't wanna get too deeply into

58:18

military minutia, not,

58:21

because it's not interesting, but it's, first of all, I'm

58:23

not the guy to do that. It's

58:25

not my wheelhouse. But

58:27

also, it does have to

58:30

be said though, even

58:37

accounting for that. One of the reasons the

58:39

Soviets were so devastated in

58:42

the early weeks of Barbarossa,

58:45

I mean, yeah, they had problems with command and

58:47

control. They had some officers, they

58:54

had some general officers who owed their

58:56

role to political reliability rather

58:58

than the aptitude. I mean,

59:00

yes, the Behrmacht and the Baffin SS

59:02

were incredibly tough, incredibly game, and incredibly

59:04

brutal. But the Red

59:07

Army was an offensive deployment. They

59:09

weren't a raid to absorb a

59:12

heavy, killer

59:15

combined arms blow across a massive front

59:17

from the Behrmacht, they just were not.

59:20

And that's one of the reasons it's happened.

59:22

I mean, if the Soviets were hunkered down

59:24

and dug in and

59:27

fearfully awaiting a Behrmacht assault, I

59:29

mean, we know how the Russians deploy when

59:32

that's what they're anticipating. And

59:34

they deploy like they did at Kursk. And

59:38

it's textbook deep battle when

59:40

it's devastating to the attacker.

59:43

I mean, you don't need to

59:45

be a military man or some

59:48

kind of armchair general to proceed this. If

59:52

you wanna support the show, head

59:54

on over to freemanbeyondthewall.com, forward

59:56

slash support. You can see all the ways you

59:58

can do it. Sitting right there

1:00:01

on the website which is the

1:00:03

best way. Also Patriotic Subscribe Star

1:00:05

and I even have some crypto

1:00:07

currency addresses listed there. so head

1:00:09

on over to Free Man beyond

1:00:12

the wall.com Forward/support. And.

1:00:14

Thank you. And. It was, you

1:00:16

know as a little bit and you could have saw

1:00:18

some of that from history m It's just look at

1:00:20

the Spanish Civil War. Yeah. Yeah

1:00:23

yeah a computer or yeah

1:00:25

exact goes forces were that

1:00:27

were killing. Commies. The.

1:00:30

Communists were. Killing

1:00:32

everyone. He has Hillary

1:00:34

where they're flying priests and nuns.

1:00:36

I mean they are basically. They're

1:00:39

not. Wow.

1:00:42

They're trying to take over. There are also

1:00:44

trying to punish. Yeah

1:00:46

suddenly awful stuff was a was

1:00:48

carried out on. Or

1:00:51

yeah, that's not not to go to

1:00:53

are a tangible than one thing that

1:00:55

really stuff and world opinion vertically in

1:00:57

Europe against. Your. The Communist: Are

1:00:59

you from this? Get a Republican cause. In

1:01:02

Spain is because the. It sounds

1:01:04

like it is the Soviet propaganda stuff with

1:01:06

the nuns really were being read them the

1:01:09

you know the ah. You.

1:01:11

Have these second choice. Going into

1:01:13

the cemeteries. We're we're we're clergy

1:01:16

people were in from him and

1:01:18

defacing or mean the mean was

1:01:20

disgusting stuff that. Would.

1:01:23

Only have heard of somebody you their

1:01:26

animated by real hatred of Obama. Of

1:01:28

an animal culture. And yeah, so

1:01:30

does not. Have as that using

1:01:32

born Point me not only ever tomorrow you're

1:01:35

not only was on. With.

1:01:37

The Germans not our with communism and

1:01:39

revolutionary com and not of remote thing

1:01:41

that they only knew all kinds of

1:01:43

abstraction at my partner. Your. They.

1:01:46

Lose. The guy to a party is it.

1:01:48

I'm like I'm. Like

1:01:51

I'm like Rosenberg. And. Much

1:01:53

sooner. Richter who fell and on. it

1:01:56

or munich and twenty three like

1:01:58

this guy basically were refugees the

1:02:00

Baltic because they were being ethnically cleansed.

1:02:04

These guys who constituted the kind of

1:02:06

backbone of the most dedicated

1:02:08

free core elements that ended

1:02:11

up taking up the National Social Banner

1:02:13

and the USA, they

1:02:15

fought the KPD in the streets and they fought

1:02:17

against the

1:02:20

Munich Soviets. And yeah,

1:02:23

the war in Spain, I mean, it wasn't some mystery

1:02:26

as to how the Red

1:02:28

Army fights. These Spanish

1:02:32

Republicans, they

1:02:34

were communists, they

1:02:36

weren't Republicans. No matter

1:02:39

what, some of the literature

1:02:41

was that was promoted in

1:02:44

English speaking newspapers and things, English

1:02:46

language newspapers, but they

1:02:48

were trained and outfitted by

1:02:52

Czechists and by Red Army officers and cut

1:02:54

their teeth fighting czarists

1:02:56

and things. So it wasn't this big mystery

1:02:59

as to how

1:03:01

the Red Army fights and what their doctrine

1:03:03

was and the fact that their doctrine, to

1:03:05

your point, ideological

1:03:07

commitment wasn't separable

1:03:10

from their practical orientation, but

1:03:14

I'll

1:03:18

wrap up scenes and realize we're

1:03:22

coming up on an hour, but something that

1:03:36

I think Mearshine got into this in one

1:03:38

of his more recent books. I

1:03:41

like Mearshine, right? I don't know the man, but I mean,

1:03:44

I like his work product and I think some

1:03:47

of his stuff is kind of middlebrow

1:03:50

deliberately, he's trying to appeal

1:03:52

to a more mass audience than

1:03:55

some political scientists

1:03:58

are, but he... There's

1:04:00

some pretty heavy stuff even that's said

1:04:03

in some of his, even

1:04:05

in some of his more polemical works. And one

1:04:09

of his books is called Why Leaders Lie.

1:04:11

And he made the point that states that

1:04:14

are, regardless of political, regardless

1:04:17

of their formal political apparatus,

1:04:19

whatever its declared structure

1:04:23

is, whether it holds itself as a democracy,

1:04:25

whether you're talking about a fascist state of

1:04:27

law, whether you're talking about, you

1:04:30

know, what is retrograde Arab monarchies, whatever

1:04:32

state you're talking about, states

1:04:35

that are approaching, states

1:04:38

that are mired in

1:04:40

existential emergencies, you know,

1:04:44

conditions approaching out

1:04:48

and out war or states that are actually

1:04:50

mired in conditions of total war. One

1:04:53

thing leaders really don't do is just tell

1:04:55

lies publicly. Or

1:04:58

to their, where you can particularly

1:05:00

rely upon the truth of

1:05:02

the matter asserted is when they're

1:05:05

talking to people who come to the control

1:05:07

group, either the military or the political apparatus,

1:05:10

because they tell lies in that circumstance, not

1:05:12

only could it lead to great

1:05:15

consequences of, in terms

1:05:17

of existential national security outcomes,

1:05:21

but it also means that, you

1:05:23

know, it's self defeating, you

1:05:25

know, because a man who's not, a man

1:05:27

who's not

1:05:29

going to tell the truth in life

1:05:33

and death conditions is not a man

1:05:35

who's fit for leadership. So

1:05:38

you can rely pretty much on what Hitler

1:05:40

and Stalin said

1:05:42

on the eve of Barbarossa and certainly when

1:05:45

it was underway. On

1:05:48

May 5th, 1941, I

1:05:51

don't know exactly how this was organized and

1:05:53

I'm sure some Russian fellas or ladies were

1:05:55

listening if they want to weigh in in

1:05:57

the comments later. there

1:06:00

was a unitary military academy in

1:06:03

the early Soviet days that

1:06:07

everybody went to okay whether they were Navy or

1:06:09

whether they were Army I don't know that for

1:06:12

certain so whatever

1:06:14

the whatever the whatever the red

1:06:16

army military academy was where army

1:06:18

officers went Stalin

1:06:21

appeared the much fanfare at

1:06:23

the graduation ceremony on May

1:06:26

5th 1941 and obviously that's only

1:06:28

a few days after you know May Day was the big you

1:06:31

know Gala day for communists

1:06:33

um yeah

1:06:36

so Stalin addresses a speech to this

1:06:38

uh to this graduating class now

1:06:40

mind you it's this is all a

1:06:42

young officer is about to get a commission and um

1:06:46

and a bunch of party honchos and generals so

1:06:48

I mean it's not it's not

1:06:50

properly secret but it's not Stalin's not you

1:06:52

know addressing you know the Soviet people when

1:06:54

he's certainly not going on the radio he

1:06:58

stated that these men or

1:07:00

a strike history these young officer graduates

1:07:05

because the because the Red Army

1:07:07

adoption was now to quote abandon

1:07:09

defensive tactics and adopt a military

1:07:11

policy of attack operations and he came

1:07:14

back to this point again and again throughout the speech that

1:07:16

you know you are this fear point as

1:07:18

a word of the party and you

1:07:20

know we're you know

1:07:22

we we were we are exclusively

1:07:24

a revolutionary apparatus you know we

1:07:26

are not a defensive

1:07:29

army you know so you matter of straight

1:07:31

history because you're literally gonna you

1:07:33

know bring a you're gonna

1:07:35

bring socialism to the planet essentially

1:07:37

you know and this is

1:07:40

not hyperbole is not you know some

1:07:42

kind of motto that appears under the heraldic hammer

1:07:44

and sickle in the Pulitzer Oh I mean this

1:07:47

this is something very seriously you know

1:07:50

and this uh this

1:07:52

uh this

1:07:54

was really validated and I'll wrap up with this

1:07:57

kind of final testimony

1:08:00

And again, forgive me if I'm butchering the name, Zilinkov,

1:08:06

I believe the pronunciation. Zilinkov,

1:08:11

he was a communist party official with

1:08:14

some prominence. He rose pretty rapidly in

1:08:16

the hierarchy. He

1:08:18

became a commissar in the Red Army. He

1:08:22

then became commander in chief at a

1:08:24

32nd Army on

1:08:26

the ground. And

1:08:29

finally, he ended up defecting to

1:08:33

the Vermak. And he served with the

1:08:35

Vlasov army. Vlasov was a lieutenant, I

1:08:38

believe he was a co-owner of the lieutenant general. But

1:08:41

the point is, he was a big defector. And

1:08:43

that's, there's some hardline Orthodox

1:08:45

people who consider him a hero and almost

1:08:47

the samely figure. Obviously,

1:08:51

people sympathetic to the

1:08:53

Soviet Union of history, like, consider him a

1:08:56

terrible individual and a Benedict Arnold. Other

1:08:59

Russian people, I talked using that mixed feelings about

1:09:01

him, but Vlasov

1:09:03

defected. Vlasov,

1:09:08

he led a kind of doomed force

1:09:10

of Russians, who to their credit, these

1:09:12

guys were very game and they fought

1:09:15

at the end and they got slaughtered

1:09:17

to a man. And Vlasov himself was

1:09:19

executed. Zilin

1:09:24

Tov, who served under

1:09:28

the committee to liberate the peoples of

1:09:30

Russia, I believe is what it translated

1:09:32

to, the political

1:09:35

apparatus attached to the Vlasov army.

1:09:40

He recalled that at the onset

1:09:42

of Barbarossa, you know, June 22nd,

1:09:45

he was in Moscow. And when news

1:09:47

first arrived that war was underway, he

1:09:50

said the rumor was, oh, of course,

1:09:52

finally, we've got the attack order.

1:09:55

How far are people from Warsaw? How

1:09:57

far are they from Bucharest? He

1:10:00

said, without exaggeration, the

1:10:03

impression of everybody was that we

1:10:06

have assaulted. We finally

1:10:08

struck the blow against the fascists.

1:10:11

We're finally moving on Europe. God

1:10:14

be with our people proverbially.

1:10:18

What's the news in the front? Are

1:10:21

we winning? How

1:10:24

are we advancing? I

1:10:26

know you could say that Zilin God was...

1:10:29

The rebuttal to all this is like all

1:10:31

those guys were liars. But why? Why would

1:10:33

they say these things? Particularly a guy who

1:10:35

knows he's going to the gallows. Or

1:10:38

particularly a guy who had no particular

1:10:40

truck without the national socialists or the

1:10:42

Soviet Union that he defected from. Maybe

1:10:46

I'm naive. Maybe

1:10:49

I'm just worldly in all the worst ways. Most

1:10:52

of the people I know don't just lie

1:10:54

about stuff of that kind of importance. Why

1:10:56

would they? I

1:11:01

consider it basically credible, particularly

1:11:04

because again, this kind

1:11:06

of testimony, it comes up again and again and

1:11:08

again. We're not talking about from

1:11:11

Catholics, privates in the Red

1:11:13

Army, or some random

1:11:15

villagers in Ukraine that very much

1:11:18

stopped and interviewed on the spot.

1:11:21

These are general officers and the people

1:11:24

who were political commissars

1:11:28

who had an audience was

1:11:30

Stalin. I

1:11:32

can't see that all these people are lying.

1:11:34

And that's how Stalin was just trying to...

1:11:38

What they said, some of them matches up with what Lenin

1:11:40

declared was red army military

1:11:42

doctrine and then what he was

1:11:44

only kidding. Or then Stalin, what

1:11:46

he said about the

1:11:48

Red Army being an exclusively offensive, apparatus

1:11:51

of revolution, but he was just trying

1:11:54

to rile up these young officers. It's

1:11:56

not how reality works. I

1:12:01

hope that this wasn't too

1:12:03

dry for people. This foundation

1:12:05

is fundamental. Okay great. No,

1:12:08

I will get into more kind of the

1:12:11

nuts and bolts of... Next

1:12:17

I want to deal with Stolfi and like how

1:12:19

did Third Reich lost in the East? I'm in

1:12:22

the minority. I agree with the late Mr.

1:12:26

Stolfi. I believe that World War

1:12:28

II was decided at

1:12:30

the gates of Moscow on December 41 and we'll

1:12:33

get into what I mean by that next

1:12:35

time we record and Ukraine features

1:12:38

essentially in this in this entire

1:12:41

story. So I think

1:12:43

it's timely also but yeah I

1:12:45

hope you're happy with what I

1:12:47

laid down and I hope the listeners

1:12:49

got something positive out of this. I

1:12:51

think this was really important. I

1:12:54

know we can't leave no stone unturned

1:12:56

in terms of establishing foundation but it's

1:12:59

essential in order to present

1:13:01

history correctly to establish the

1:13:03

context. So that was my

1:13:06

reasoning. Sounds good. So great.

1:13:10

Thank you. You can find me on

1:13:12

Substack. real.real.comest.p-h-o-m-a-s-7-7-7.

1:13:19

One word.substack.com.

1:13:22

There's a whole lot of my long form there.

1:13:25

That's where you can access my podcast. About half

1:13:27

of what's on there is free but for only

1:13:29

five bucks a month you can access everything. I'm

1:13:31

not always saying like even if you're a

1:13:33

hobo you can afford that. At

1:13:36

some point I'm hoping I can make even more

1:13:38

stuff free but we're not quite there yet but

1:13:40

it will always it will never be more than

1:13:42

five bucks a month. You can find me

1:13:44

on Telegram. We got a really cool

1:13:46

gang of people there who you know

1:13:49

just drop some serious knowledge and you

1:13:51

know promote their own content and you know

1:13:53

drop their own work product. It's

1:13:56

really a great community. slash

1:14:00

V-P-H-E number seven,

1:14:02

H-O-M-A-S, 777. Those

1:14:06

are the best places to find me. If

1:14:08

you want to reach out, if you want or need to reach

1:14:10

out to me personally, I behoove you to

1:14:13

do so on Telegram and DM me. If for some reason

1:14:15

you're not coming with that or can't do that, you

1:14:17

can reach out to Pete and he will put you in touch with

1:14:20

me. Oh

1:14:22

yeah, I'm always accessible and available. So

1:14:25

don't ever be shy. I love meeting

1:14:28

people and conversing with people on top of some

1:14:30

mutual interest. And thank

1:14:33

you again for all the incredible support

1:14:35

and compliments. Everybody's been very kind and

1:14:37

it's really incredible. And thank you Pete

1:14:39

very much for this ongoing series. No

1:14:41

problem at all. Till the next time.