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Peoples, Armies and Governments of WWII (notes)

3.31.26· 11 min read

#Lecture 1: Intro and What is Total War?

#Introduction

And yet there is so much we do not understand about the Second World War. We are blinded by hindsight and our biases. Nothing had to happen the way it did.
- Why did Hitler declare war on the United States?
- Blitzkrieg: the Germans never used it as official military doctrine or terminology. The first German mention was actually Hitler’s speech: “I have never used the word Blitzkrieg, because it is a very, very silly word.” The term was popularized by Western journalists; Time magazine used it in September 1939 to describe the invasion of Poland.
- Consider: in 1928 the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war. No one could have predicted WWII. We cannot predict the future even if we feel that current trends are very strong. And the surprises are not small: “the US will join the war alongside the USSR” would have sounded ridiculous in 1928. It’s not just that the future is going to surprise you, it’s going to surprise you big-time.
Not sympathy (that would be very weird), but empathy. Understand the human behind the action. What brings people to do such things, or to accept others doing them without saying much?
Chocolate in the war: Hershey bars were part of K-rations, packed for calories, not pleasure. Every soldier carried three. But who gets to eat chocolate? German soldiers couldn’t get any because trade had stopped. Now picture a soldier landing in Europe and handing a bar to a child in France who was born into the war and has never tasted chocolate. That child loves America forever. And they’re also watching Hollywood movies. This is power: give a child chocolate, show them a film. Propaganda is huge.
- Also interesting: Hugo Boss manufactured Nazi uniforms. Ford factories retooled to produce tanks. How did they do it, and how did they do it so fast?

#3 Key Military Terms

Only three terms of military jargon we need to know:

Strategy: we have political goals, we have means (production, scientists). Strategy is the way we bridge goals and means. The abstract plan of winning the war.
- What was Germany’s strategy? Purge the “subversive elements” of society. Lost WWI because the Jews and socialists stabbed us in the back. We’re going to be strong by purifying. Build a powerful Germany in the heart of Europe, Festung Europa (Fortress Europe). In which direction? I don’t know, but it will grow. Take 40% of all of France’s exports. Send it through Poland.
Tactics: the engagement, what you’re doing on the battlefield.
Operations: the translation layer between big abstract plans and small everyday tactical doing. The operational concept for a given front. You fight differently in the Pacific than in Europe.
- Analogy from our own lives: goal is to be happy. Strategy is going to Stanford. Operationally speaking, that’s your major. Tactics: this course.

#What was Germany’s Goal?

They had a goal? Yes.

To wage war you need troops, oil (Bulgaria, Romania, the Middle East), and food.

In WWI, Germany wanted to be a strong, recognized power and sought territory overseas. But in WWII they said: I’m going east. Where did they get this idea? In 1917, they forced a punitive peace on Russia with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: Russia lost 34% of its population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coal fields. The Germans realized there was a whole empire to be built right next door. Not just for the empire, but for the race.
- You think Versailles was a punitive peace? Take a look at Brest-Litovsk.
- When you think about German strategy, understand it from the racial perspective. By Week 2, stop saying “Germany,” because this is not the entity for which they fight. They fight for Lebensraum for the Aryans. The state has very little meaning. It is a tool in service of the race.

#What Makes a War Total?

Three elements: total mobilization, total aims, and no distinction between combatants and noncombatants.

No distinction between combatants and noncombatants. We’re going to bomb you and the factories. Nothing that belongs to an enemy country is out of reach. Nothing is out of our considerations. Children in Eastern Europe are the enemy: they are the future of a nation the Nazis want to retire out of existence.
Total aims: unconditional surrender. WWI was limited (e.g., a piece of France). Now it’s total. World domination. The Hunger Plan (der Hungerplan): a Nazi policy to systematically seize food from the Soviet Union and redirect it to German troops and civilians, deliberately starving millions. An estimated 4.2 million Soviet citizens died of starvation between 1941 and 1944.
Total mobilization. Everything. In the Soviet Union: 16-hour days, 7 days a week. Anything you used to own. In the US it’s different: you’re not going to eat a lot of meat or drive your car anywhere. So there are degrees. But it will affect everyone. What’s it like in Africa, or for indigenous peoples in Australia? Everyone is involved. No one is detached.

#Lecture 2: How Do You Get from Versailles to the Invasion of Poland?

Meta: don't enjoy hindsight, it's a bad bias. Also ask “why” several layers down.

Goal today: try to understand the world in which we're operating if we are the people in the 1920s and 1930s. Perhaps one day WWI and WWII will be taught together as one great war, but there is no undirected line from the Treaty of Versailles to the invasion of Poland. We are not enjoying hindsight; we are biased by it. It's not good for you!

#The 1920s World: Empires, Resources, and Respect

While some of us are having fun (the roaring 20s), this is still a very imperial world.

Why things were going well in the US: expanding industrial base. The financial markets had something to do with WWI: the US had loaned a lot of money. The first world war shaped our economy. End of 19th century → beginning of globalization.
The empire side: Italy and Germany are hungry. Italy wants to be an empire. Why?
- Resources. Need to build a strong capacity to fight. Rubber (for trucks; why trucks? to transport troops to the frontline. In WWI, they learned it takes 7-12 hours to detrain. If you have trucks, you have the advantage of speed), steel, oil. Italy and Germany are starved of critical raw materials because they are industrializing rapidly and outpacing their supply. Empires control it: Britain, the US controlling how much oil Japan can buy.
- Respect. Italy doesn't want to be stepped over like they were in WWI. They were victors! One of the Big Four. But they did not feel as such.
- Colonialism, learned from WWI. Britain had troops from India, France had troops from Senegal and Algeria. Colonies matter.

#The League of Nations

An American idea, but the US still wasn't interested. Britain was very interested (so long as all the countries they controlled had a vote, and that vote was theirs).
The USSR is not invited. The common enemy is the communists. Germany is not invited in the beginning.
It has no means of enforcing anything. But it creates something almost as powerful as troops: norms.

#The Problem of Borders: Self-Determination's Messy Reality

The borders of empires are a LOT easier to keep than borders of national self-determination.

Austria asked to be united with Germany at Versailles. The issue is the paying of reparations.
“Everyone gets self-determination but Germany.” Germans are left scattered everywhere.
Prussia was part of Germany, what unified Germany. The heart of Germany was taken to allow Poland access to the sea (the Polish Corridor).
Germany (with its 100,000-man army, no tanks, no planes) was most afraid of Poland. Stop enjoying hindsight. In the future, yes, France will be worried about Germany, but for now, who is going to threaten whom?
- How the Germans did their exercises: men held up cardboard with tanks DRAWN on them.

#Playing Countries: Grievances, Lessons, Ideology

The framework for each country: What are their grievances from WWI? What lessons did they draw? What's their ideology?

#Germany

Grievances:

War guilt. Who is to blame for WWI? A lot of different countries; everyone was willing to risk something. But the Germans call Versailles the Diktat (not an agreement). It's not fair. And if Germany is responsible, then:
Reparations. Paying for rebuilding all these factories and towns. After the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), France had paid reparations, so they could make Germany pay too. But here's the detail: France was willing to accept normal reparations IF Britain and the US were with France in enforcing the Versailles agreement. France does NOT want to be abandoned alone. France is panicking, realizing they are alone (the Brits regret it, the US has different priorities). France knows if it's only them and Germany rises again, they are cooked.
- The last reparations were paid decades after WWI. The Germans are sabotaging their own economy to avoid paying.
- The chain reaction: Germany decides not to pay → France isn't being paid back by Germany → the US isn't forgiving France's debt → so how is France going to repay? We are all linked in a big unhappy family.
No self-determination. When was the last time all Germans were included under one Germany? 1941. They don't get self-determination at Versailles.

Lessons:

WWI was not a decisive military defeat (no one went to Berlin, after all), so militarily speaking there's not a lot Germany needs to change. Plus the Dolchstoßlegende: stabbed in the back by internal enemies, not beaten on the field.
By 1922 they already start secretly rebuilding their army. Come the Geneva Disarmament Conference (1932–34, a League of Nations attempt to limit arms), Germany can now say they are rebuilding to the same extent as France. It's only fair!

Ideology:

Germany is in political turmoil → strong push to extremism (communists and Nazis, but the Nazis will prevail).
What IS a Nazi? A party built on racial hierarchy. At the very bottom of humanity are the Slavs. Jews are not even considered human; they are something else entirely. Anti-communism is central.

#The USSR