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- [00:00]
Tom Holland
If you want more from the show, join the Rest is History Club. And with Christmas coming, you can also gift a whole year of access to the history lover in your life. Just head to therestishistory.com and click Gifts.
- [00:17]
This episode is sponsored by Hive. Britain revolutionized the future with the might of industrial power. But now you can transform your own energy future and take control of with the power of Hive.
- [00:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
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- [00:41]
Tom Holland
And Hive's thermostats make it possible for you to heat your home without lifting anything more than a thumb and an impressed brow.
- [00:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
Their heat pumps draw warmth from the air and they keep it exactly where you want it. No smoke, no waste.
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Tom Holland
Hyve's EV Charger lets your car charge quietly overnight recharging while you do too.
- [01:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
Hive brings it all together, heating, charging and solar managed from one simple app in a quiet revolution.
- [01:14]
Tom Holland
In the long history of power, Hive helps you finally know yours. Head to hivehome.com to find out more. Subject to survey and suitability Hive app compatible with selected technology Paid for surplus Requires SEG Tariff.
- [01:36]
This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile.
- [01:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
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- [02:01]
Tom Holland
Shop Mint unlimited plans@mintmobile.com history, terms and conditions apply. See mintmobile.com this episode is brought to you by Spotify Portal for Backstage.
- [02:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
But you're wondering what's Portal?
- [02:17]
Tom Holland
Well, it's an internal developer portal built to improve developer experience and boost productivity. All software components are centralized, documentation is automated and easy to maintain.
- [02:27]
Dominic Sandbrook
New projects and components just a few clicks.
- [02:30]
Tom Holland
With your best practices already built in, think less friction, more innovation. Ready to double your productivity? Try Spotify portal@backstage.Spotify.com.
- [02:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
Hello everybody. Now for the first time all of goal Hangers, chart topping podcasts will be hitting the stage together for a weekend of thrilling shows and panels. We are so excited to announce the brilliantly titled the Rest Is Fest. It will be running from the 4th to the 6th of September and it will be at the South Bank Centre in London and we the Rest Is History will be performing on the Saturday that is the 5th of September 2026 at 4 o' clock at the Royal Festival Hall. Now members of the Rest Is History Club will be emailed a pre sale link at 10 o' clock in the morning on the 4th of December and the general sale will be at 10 o' clock in the Morning on the 11th of December. So if you want early access for these tickets and if you want to see us live, just head to the restishistory.com you can sign up in a few clicks and you will be one of the lucky people who gets early access to this exciting and thrilling festival.
- [03:55]
Winston Churchill (archive speech)
What General Wegon called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.
- [04:10]
Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our empire.
- [04:21]
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
- [04:35]
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science.
- [05:11]
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties.
- [05:16]
And so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say this was their finest hour.
- [05:33]
Tom Holland
So, Dominic, any ideas who that was?
- [05:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
God, I mean, yeah, it was, of.
- [05:39]
Tom Holland
Course, Winston Churchill and he was speaking in the House of commons on Tuesday 18 June 1940. And he was speaking at a moment of supreme danger for Britain, quite possibly the darkest moment in Britain's long history.
- [05:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
Definitely, I would say, you know, we've.
- [05:59]
Tom Holland
Had the miracle of Dunkirk. The British troops and 100,000 other allied troops have been got away from the trap that the Nazis had set for them. They're back in Britain. But, you know, the situation is still very, very bleak. The day before Churchill gave that speech, Marshal Petain had taken over as Prime Minister of France, had appealed to Hitler for an armistice. And I guess that what follows, the defeat of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, the end of any prospect of the Germans carrying out Operation Sea lion, the plan to invade and conquer Britain. This isn't just the most celebrated episode in modern British history, but more Germanely from the point of view of our current series, which is looking at the Second World War through the prism of the Nazis, it's a massive turning point in the story of the Third Reich. Isn't it? And we're not just indulging in British.
- [06:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
Grandstanding in saying that never, never on.
- [06:52]
Tom Holland
This podcast, when Churchill says that Hitler.
- [06:55]
Winston Churchill (archive speech)
Knows he will have to break us.
- [06:56]
Tom Holland
In this island or lose the war, I mean, he's. He's not wrong there, is he?
- [07:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
Not wrong at all. And even people who may be tempted to be skeptical will discover in this episode that it's precisely because of this that Hitler takes the catastrophic decision to launch his biggest gamble of all, which is the betrayal of Stalin, with whom he'd signed a pact, his decision to turn east and launch the invasion of the Soviet Union. And that all flows from his inability to break Britain in the summer of 1940, as we will discuss. So let's return to Germany in mid summer 1940. We ended last time with Hitler coming home to Berlin in triumph, having toured the conquered city of Paris. And among the ordinary people of Berlin, morale is now very high. You know, they had complained all winter about their frozen wages and high prices. But now American correspondents, for example, who are in Berlin report seeing women wearing silk stockings plundered from Paris, local pubs and taverns with kind of bottles of Cointreau and Armagnac and expensive French drinks. The fruits of conquest. Tom.
- [08:13]
Tom Holland
So, Dominic, can I just. I mean, how much plundering was there?
- [08:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, loads, loads. So when the Germans entered cities, I mean, this is standard, by the way, in wartime, you know, when the Germans enter these cities which, remember, are deserted, what was it, Chartres? Population fell from 20,000 to 800 or something, you know, they go into these shops and they help themselves and they bring this stuff or send it back to Germany. And these are. Might seem like trivial things, but these are little things that might make quite a big difference to the psychology of people who were previously anxious about fighting a war and now think they are winning and indeed now think they've effectively won it.
- [08:48]
Tom Holland
I remember in my brother's book, the War in the west, which I've been quoting a lot in this series, he has an account of German girls and their misery at the fact that the only CL clothes available in the shops are all brown. And presumably if soldiers are coming back from the chic boutiques of Paris, suddenly there's a little bit more glamour and color.
- [09:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, of course. And if you're a soldier, I mean, being posted to Paris is, you know, the gig you want. And actually talking of soldiers for the next year or so, if you are in the German army, you are unlikely to fire a shot in anger because this is the period For Germany, which feels like the phony war, you know, because effectively, as they see it, they've won the war in the west, you know, there's very little more fighting to be done. The only issue is, of course, there is still the problem of Britain. Now, remember, as we've talked about many times in this series, Hitler has quite a complicated attitude to Britain. He sees the British as Anglo Saxon racial cousins. That's bad news for the Celts, I suppose. He respects the British for building a vast global empire, but at the same time he knows there are people in Britain who are, you know, who will never give in to him, Churchill and co. And he hates and fears them and wants to bring them down.
- [09:58]
Tom Holland
And there is a sense, isn't there, that he does view England, as he calls Britain, as his most dangerous enemy. More than France, really?
- [10:10]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, definitely. More than France, definitely. Hitler despises the Soviet Union, for example. He knows he'll have to have a showdown with the Soviet Union, but he thinks the Slavs are subhuman and that Germany will easily be able to beat them. He respects and fears Britain and the United States. He sees them as the kind of Anglo Saxon capitalist democracies with whom there will have to be a final reckoning for control of the planet. I mean, that's genuinely the way that he thinks.
- [10:38]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [10:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
And he thinks he can knock the British out quickly by knocking the French out quickly. Because what he thinks is once France is out, once the British have been driven back into their island, ideally the British people will realize that Churchill was a fool, you know, and a tool of Jewish capitalism, and they will turn to a Lord Halifax or a David Lloyd George or even maybe bring back Neville Chamberlain and they will do a deal with Hitler.
- [11:04]
Tom Holland
It's often said that David Lloyd George or someone, or Oswald Mosley or some would be the equivalent of Marshal Petta in Britain. But presumably.
- [11:13]
Britain would not have been defeated as calamitously as France, so the terms would presumably have been better. What kind of accommodation do you think Hitler would have been content with with Britain?
- [11:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
Golly, this is a difficult one because this is into pure counterfactuals. But Hitler has already offered several times to guarantee Britain's empire. So he would probably have demanded the return of Germany's colonies from before the First World War. So colonies in, for example, what's now Namibia, maybe Cameroon, Tanganyika, maybe the transfer of some French colonies, who knows? Or the odd British colony. But by and large he wanted, as we saw last time, to preserve the British Empire because he doesn't want other predators to get those colonies, meaning Japan, the Soviet Union, the United States, within Britain itself, an Allied regime that probably joins him in a crusade against Bolshevism eventually in the East. I suppose it depends, of course, whether they just made a deal without being conquered. If they make a deal without being conquered, then he's not going to massively interfere, probably in Britain's intern external arrangements, I would imagine. I mean, basically Britain would become a satellite state, a kind of client state, but there would be. What, what does he want? Probably some form of national government, you know, right leaning. There's a difference in a Mosley and a Lloyd George. Mosley is more of the Quisling model, isn't he? Lloyd George is more of the Payta, the World War I hero who comes back. Of course, it doesn't happen because Hitler has completely misunderstood the mood in Britain after Dunkirk. I mean, Ian Kershaw says in his biography, what Hitler never really understands is how much British public opinion has shifted after 1938, after Munich. After Munich, there's probably no deal that Britain is going to make with Hitler, even though we, you know, if Lord Halifax had been Prime Minister, might have come close, but there have been a lot of people that would have opposed it, I would say.
- [13:04]
Tom Holland
And also, as we mentioned in our previous episode, Dunkirk also has a huge role in perhaps giving a bit of optimism to Britain, where really there are a few grounds for optimism.
- [13:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, totally, definitely agree. So actually, you know what, you, you brilliantly ventriloquized Winston Churchill. You know, the Battle of Britain is about to begin, or whatever it is. Hitler is only half expecting at this point to launch an attack on Britain. He's hoping that it won't be necessary. He said last time to Goebbels after visiting Paris, he said, you know, I'm going to make a last offer to the British, I'm going to make them a generous offer and hopefully they will finally see sense.
- [13:40]
Tom Holland
And is that in part because he has, you know, his perspective is very continentalist. He assumes that if the British have left the continent, then essentially they've lost the war and he doesn't properly have a handle on the kind of global dimension that Britain can bring to the conflict?
- [13:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
I don't think it's that, actually. I think in a weird way, what Hitler does is he overestimates the importance of the British Empire to Britain. That will sound weird to a lot of listeners.
- [14:06]
Tom Holland
That is interesting. No, that is interesting.
- [14:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
See here it looks at it and he thinks if you carry on Fighting. If you exhaust your resources in trying to fight me, you'll probably lose your empire. Spoiler alert. That's exactly what happens. He thinks, well, obviously the British would only care about their empire. Nothing would matter more to them than being strong and influential in the world. You know, Churchill, who loves the Empire more than anybody, presides over a war that basically destroys Britain's ability to keep hold of its empire. I mean, that's the kind of irony of the whole thing. Anyway, Hitler's planning to give this big speech where he's going to make this offer, and he plans initially to give it on the 8th of July, which is two days after he's got home from France. But he postpones it. And the reason he postpones it is because of a really interesting development in North Africa. The French had the fourth biggest fleet in the world, and Churchill was desperate to stop it falling into German hands. And he doesn't trust Marshal Petain's assurances that they won't let that happen.
- [15:03]
Tom Holland
I mean, he does kind of. He gives the French fleet in Mos El Kebir an ultimatum, doesn't he? And British officers kind of plead with the French to do it. And it's when they say no, that, yeah, the decision is taken. And that decision is a reflection of the fact that the British are prepared to be incredibly brutal themselves in. In their fight for survival.
- [15:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
So. So just explain to listeners. This is in Algeria, place called Mers el Kebir, where the French Mediterranean Fleet is based. And as you say, Tom, the basically give them an ultimatum, their own allies, you know, join us, hand yourselves over to us, we'll destroy you. The French don't do it. And so the British destroy them and kill more than a thousand French sailors. The Vichy government, you know, Peter, who was already quite down on the British, says this is like the worst betrayal in human history. He breaks off diplomatic relations with Britain. It sends a really clear signal to the world.
- [15:58]
Tom Holland
Yeah, it does.
- [15:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Britain's not messing around. You know, Churchill's not going to be doing any deals. We're really going to do whatever it takes. And the Germans had hoped they would get the French fleet and that would help them win control of the Channel if they had to. I mean, it now means they have to win control of the skies if they're going to get across the Channel. So that's, you know, it's preparing the ground for the Battle of Britain, but of course, it gives Hitler pause for thought. So now he postpones the speech. Interestingly, he doesn't really know what to do. In this episode, we will see Hitler at his most indecisive and confused because the British are not just not behaving as he thinks they, they ought to. So he talks to Goebbels again, Goebbels records in his diary on 9 July. Despite all this, the Fuhrer still has a very positive attitude towards England. He's still not ready for the final blow. He wants to think over his speech again in peace. So Hitler postpones the speech, he goes off to his mountain lair, the Obersalzberg in southern Germany, and he summons his military chiefs. So, first of all, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, who is the head of the Kriegsmarine, the Navy High Command. Now, Raeder is a, you know, your classic kind of career naval officer, conservative, Prussian family, right wing. He has been working since 1939 on invasion plans for Britain. And he knows that this is a massive challenge because his navy has taken a hammering in the Norway campaign.
- [17:25]
Tom Holland
Of course, the Bluka got blown up, didn't it?
- [17:27]
Dominic Sandbrook
The Bluka got blown up by the Norwegians, very heroically. Well done, the Norwegians. So Raeder has three cruisers and four destroyers that he can call on in the Channel. And the British channel fleet is five battleships, 11 cruisers and 30 destroyers. So the odds are very, very clearly in Britain's favour.
- [17:44]
Tom Holland
One thing to consider is that we don't like being having the advantage of numbers, so perhaps we'd be unsettled by that.
- [17:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
We'd be unsettled by the odds being in our favour. We always perform pluckily and generally win when the odds are against us. But I think we often do even better when the odds are in our favour. So I think it's just win, win, really. That's just the nature of it. And I don't want any complaints from people who don't pay their taxes on the other side of the Atlantic. So then Hitler receives the Wehrmacht Chief of Staff, General Franz Halder. Halder was the bloke, the kind of clipped guy with glasses who was trying to get rid of Hitler in episode one of this little bit of the series.
- [18:17]
Tom Holland
He'd given up, hadn't he?
- [18:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
And had given up. Exactly. Again, Halder is very, you know, he can see that Hitler doesn't know what to do. He writes afterwards, the Fuhrer is greatly puzzled by England's persisting unwillingness to make peace. He sees the answer as we do. Now, this is interesting in England's hope in Russia, and therefore counts on having to compel her by main Force to agree to peace. Actually, that's much against his grain. So it's interesting that Hala thinks that the British are hoping that Russia will change sides. Then he goes on. The reason that Hitler doesn't want to do it really is that a military defeat of England would bring about the disintegration of the British Empire. This would not be of any benefit to Germany. German blood would be shed to accomplish something that would benefit only Japan, the United States and others. So again, the sort of. The Germans don't want to see the British Empire fall apart. Preserving that is really important, their long term plan for the kind of conquest of the planet.
- [19:13]
Tom Holland
Hitler is speaking to an admiral and to a general. And again, I was talking about this with my brother. He said, the mad thing about this is that there's no kind of combined services general staff. So the admiral and the general are not talking to each other. So all the planning for kind of amphibious campaign. They have no concept of how to launch an amphibious campaign because the Navy and the army aren't talking to each other.
- [19:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
And also the man running the Luftwaffe is an extremely unreliable man who's more interested in like hunting trophies and looted art and eating. And that's Hermann Goering.
- [19:47]
Tom Holland
And I think it is really difficult when you're looking at German prospects in 1940. They have done so well. They have kind of obliterated everybody in their face. And yet there is still this kind of makeshift degree of incompetence about the organization of the armed forces that is kind of lurking there and will slowly emerge over the course of the next years.
- [20:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, and over the course of this episode, actually. Now there is another option, there is another possibility about how to bring Britain to heel. And this is that you could get a fifth columnist to do your job for you. Now, while he's at his lair, Hitler says to his cronies, God, I wish I'd worked harder to win over Edward VIII when he was king, you know. And he's also muttering about Oswald Mosley. Mosley's under arrest at this point. The leader of the British Union of Fascists. And actually somebody who really likes the idea of Edward VII the 8th, who is now, of course has abdicated because of his relationship with Wallis Simpson and he's become the Duke of Windsor. Somebody who really likes the idea of using him is the top German sparkling wine salesman, Joachim von Ribbentrop, who had been our old friend in Britain and now foreign minister, one of the worst people who's ever lived. Ribbentrop, because he hated Britain. I mean, he really does hate Britain and he thinks, let's, let's bring back the worst king in British history. This is a brilliant idea. Now this is a mad story. Edward and Wallace are in Portugal. They are going around telling everybody Britain has lost and should make peace with the Nazis. And Ribbentrop goes to this bloke and gets an SS officer called Valta Schellenberg and says, I want you to do a job for me. Basically, I want you to lure them across the border into Franco's Spain. And then this is how it will work. Edward and Wallace will be invited to go hunting on the Portuguese border with Spain. Their guides will trick them and lure them across the border into Spain. And there they'll be kidnapped by German agents. And then they will take Edward to a safe house and offer him 50 million francs to accept the British crown as a Nazi puppet.
- [21:52]
Tom Holland
And he'd probably have taken it, wouldn't he?
- [21:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, and he's a, he's quite a bad man, so he might have taken it. So here's the thing. Ribbentrop knows that the British wouldn't like this. He actually thinks that it might make war, you know, an invasion more likely.
- [22:04]
Tom Holland
But he loves that idea because he.
- [22:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
Really wants to invade Britain. He hates Britain. He wants. Yeah, he wants to see as many British people die as possible.
- [22:11]
Tom Holland
And he wants to force all those gentlemen's clubs to give him honorary membership.
- [22:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
And all those tailors who'd laughed at his shoes or whatever, his ill fitting suits. He'll get his revenge. But there's bad news for Ribbentrop. First of all, Edward doesn't want to go hunting on the Portuguese border. He says no. And then a disaster. Churchill, to get rid of them, offers Edward the job of Governor of the Bahamas. So this SS bloke, Shallenberg, he sends them death threats hidden in bouquets of flowers saying, you go to the Bahamas, you'll die. The Bahamas. And also spreads rumors that the Bahamas are a terrible place and they shouldn't go. So he basically bribes their chauffeur to tell them how awful the Bahamas are. Anyway, this is absolutely useless. They do go to the Bahamas. And my favorite detail of this is that Schellenberg's sort of passing shot is to have their luggage severely delayed.
- [23:06]
Tom Holland
That will show them.
- [23:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
You can imagine him laughing in a sinister way. The funny thing about this, the twist is everybody else absolutely hated Ribbentrop and the Nazi regime. So when Schellenberg got back to Berlin, Reinhard Heydrich congratulated him on having Made such a mess of the operation, said, brilliant, good job. You did exactly what we wanted because we didn't want Ribbentrop to get the win. While all this has been happening, Hitler has inched closer to a decision. On 16 July, he signed an order to prepare a landing operation against England, codenamed Selove Sea Lion. But even that order is hedged about with caveats if it should be necessary, because he's still hoping that the British will come to their senses. And then on the evening of Friday the 19th, he finally makes this great peace offer. It's a huge spectacle. The Reichstag is meeting at the Kroll Opera House. All his generals have been kind of promoted or decorated and they're sitting in the front row, a sort of sea of bling and medals. Goering has been promoted to Reichs Marshall, so he's wearing an even more extravagant uniform than ever. You know, great beam over his massive face. Hitler gives this speech and apparently he's on top form. William Shirer, the American correspondent, said it was one of the best speeches Hitler gave. He got to the end and he said, I want to make a last appeal to, to reason and common sense. I'm. I'm not the vanquished begging favors. I'm the victor, speaking in the name of reason. You know, basically, I don't. I don't like war. Hitler says, I'm in the irony. I don't like war. I don't like to think of all the. The sacrifices and suffering. I hope Churchill, a warmonger, you know, I hope he'll listen to reason. If he doesn't, it will end with a complete annihilation of Britain. But actually, I mean, he's had all this time to think of this offer and it is so vague and insubstantial, you know, that's all it is. There's no specifics at all. And Churchill rejects it that very evening. It's clear that the British are never going to accept it. And the mad thing is that so many people in Germany are genuinely surprised. So Shirer, the American correspondent, he listens to the news with a load of German senior officers and senior Nazis and they are genuinely surprised. Can you make it out? Can you understand these British fools to turn down peace now? Shirer said, they have nothing against Britain. They think they can lick Britain if it comes to a showdown, but they prefer peace. They can't get their heads around Britain's stubbornness as they see it. And Richard Evans, in his book on the Third Reich, says a lot of this is down to Nazi propaganda. They basically believe their own propaganda. And ordinary people genuinely think the British are the warmongers. The British have forced war upon us and, you know, we're making them these generous offers and the British are just swatting them aside because they, they're the tools of Jewish finance capitalism.
- [26:01]
Tom Holland
Isn't that what kind of chat show hosts in America? Some of them, yeah.
- [26:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
American podcasters, right wing American podcasters now make this point. So Churchill has said no. Even now, Hitler is dithering. And again, Hitler the gambler, the man who always launches the decisive stroke. This is arguably the first time since he became Chancellor of Germany that he's faced with a really, really big decision. And he genuinely does not know what to do because as deluded as he is, he knows that Britain as an island, as an empire, as an industrial superpower is going to be very, very hard to beat, to conquer. Anyway, on the 21st of July, an absolutely crucial day in the history of the Third Reich, I would say he meets his commanders and he says, okay, finalize your invasion plans. Will strike between mid August and mid September. But then, and this is the important bit, at this meeting, for the very first time, he mentions an alternative way of ending the war, possibly an easier way. And this is it. He says, why are the British holding out? Because clearly they hope that one day they will get help from another world power, probably the Soviet Union. Now Hitler and Stalin, of course, have been in a non aggression pact since 1939. And Stalin since then has seized eastern Poland and a bit of Finland. Stalin has also. While Hitler has been in Paris, Stalin has annexed the three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. And he took a bit of Romania, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Stalin has been kind of biting off bits of Europe. But Stalin's never going to attack Hitler. He knows the Red army is too weak. And Stalin does not a gambler, so he's not going to take that risk. But now, for the first time, 21st of July, Hitler says to his generals, maybe we should break the pact with Stalin. Maybe we should attack him. What will surprise listeners, I think, is that you might think, well, this is because, you know, Hitler has always wanted to do this. He's got a racial hatred for the Slavs, he hates Bolshevism, he wants to carve out an empire in the East Laban's ram, all this, but that's not the reason that he wants to do it. Now, you know, Ian Kershaw, in his biography of Hitler, is absolutely explicit about this, this is about the strategic need to get Britain out of the war. Hitler says to his generals, if Russia is smashed, that is the end of any hopes that England might have of a change in this situation. In other words, it will send a message to England, you are totally on your own and there's no help coming.
- [28:41]
Tom Holland
What about America? Isn't Hitler worried about the, the possibility that America might come to Britain's rescue and indeed is kind of girding her loins to do exactly that? Yes, in the summer of 1940.
- [28:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
So here's the thing. I think Hitler knows that the Americans are a factor, but it's an election year. Roosevelt is facing re election in an isolationist country. And Roosevelt is promising Americans, even while this is going on, you know, we're not going to get involved in another European war. So Hitler knows that he probably has a window of maybe a year, two years before the Americans might get involved. And what is more, if he can knock Britain out either through a deal with Britain or by invading Britain or by persuading the British to give up because he's crushed the Soviet Union, then the Americans are no longer even a factor. So if we do all this, this is his thinking, if we do all this, we don't even need to worry about America because without the British, the Americans will never get involved in Europe. That's a, I mean, he knows that at some point there'll have to be a showdown with the Americans, you know, in 1949 or something. But he's not anticipating it straight away, I would say. And of course he thinks, you know, attacking America would be difficult. How on earth are you going to get over there? But attacking the Soviet Union, he says to his generals at this meeting, I think we'll need maybe 80, 100 divisions. Let's do it next year. And I quote, compared with the fighting in the west, it will be child's play. You know, we talked before about the Soviet war in Finland. He watched that and he said, the Red army is rubbish. We'll definitely be able to wipe the floor with the Red Army. And this assumption will have a catastrophic effect on the fortunes of Hitler's war and indeed of the, the Third Reich, won't it? Anyway, for the time being, the focus is still Britain. The next evening, the 22nd of July, Hitler's about to go off to Bayreuth to hear some Wagner. He's going to hear Gutterdammerung.
- [30:39]
Tom Holland
The Downfall of the Gods.
- [30:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
The Downfall of the Gods, exactly. The very last Wagner performance. I think he will ever Attend. And just before he leaves Berlin, he hears that Lord Halifax, who's one of the people that he'd hoped would make a deal with him, has actually gone on the BBC and totally rejected any talking of a deal. In fact, even though we think of Halifax as a sort of wimpish, you know, weedy reputation in Britain these days. But if you read the speech, I've read the transcripts of the speech, it's pretty stirring stuff. Halifax says, we realize that the struggle may cost us everything, but just because the things we're defending are worth any sacrifice, it is a noble privilege to be the defenders of things so precious. You don't sort of associate that kind of quite rousing stuff with Halifax.
- [31:23]
Tom Holland
I imagine he was too tall and languid to engage.
- [31:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right. Such. Such rhetoric, you're told, and languid and you often engage in such rhetoric.
- [31:31]
Tom Holland
No.
- [31:33]
I, I wouldn't have been able to come up with that.
- [31:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, don't. You're too hard on yourself. I can't believe I'm saying that, because it's not even true. Hitler's options now are very narrow, so it's looking like they are going to have to attack Britain. Before he goes off to hear this Wagner, he says to Goebbels, prepare the ground with the people, use the radio, leaves the newspapers. Then he goes off to Wagner and then he goes off to the Berghof, his mountain lair, where he's going to spend the last weeks of July. And all the time his commanders are working on this invasion plan. So they assemble very Napoleonic, a fleet of flat bottomed barges to get across the Channel and they've got embarkation points on the Channel coast, just as Napoleon did.
- [32:12]
Tom Holland
What about the Sea Fencibles?
- [32:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
Exactly. We should have called out the Sea Fencibles. Well, you described them as the kind of Dad's army of the Napoleon wars, didn't you?
- [32:19]
Tom Holland
You, because this is the heyday of Dad's army, isn't it? The Home Guard are busy dusting down their wooden rifles and things.
- [32:26]
James Holland
Right.
- [32:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
Retired bank managers in Britain.
- [32:28]
Tom Holland
Yes.
- [32:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
Parading and drilling in preparation for a life or death struggle against Hitler's war machine. Makes you proud to be a British Tom. Now, meanwhile, the bloke who tried to kidnap Edward vii, Walter Schellenberg, the SS guy, he has been told to prepare a handbook for the German troops when they land in Britain. And this is a thing that you can buy now in gift shops in Britain. You've seen this? Yes.
- [32:51]
Tom Holland
He was obsessed by the Boy Scouts, wasn't he? He saw them as A sinister paramilitary organization that would need to be eliminated.
- [32:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
And I'm delighted to say Britain's historic public schools. There's a guide to Britain's top boarding schools there because they're also seen as a nest of capitalist patriotism.
- [33:11]
Tom Holland
Weren't their plans to bomb Harrow, which was Churchill School?
- [33:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
Churchill's old school, yeah. I love that you detect the hand.
- [33:19]
Tom Holland
Of Ribbentrop in that malevolently plan.
- [33:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, also there's a mad list of 2, 800 people who are going to be arrested and details of which bit of the Nazi war machine would be in charge of detaining them. So the Churchill and Chamberlain and so on. But there's also Robert Baden Powell, the Scouts again. I mean, he's got to go. Clearly HG Wells and very much not a friend of the show. Virginia Woolf was going to be arrested and detained.
- [33:45]
Tom Holland
And also Hitler is plotting to move Nelson's Column to Berlin, isn't he?
- [33:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes. I'll tell you who's not on the list actually. David Lloyd George.
- [33:51]
Tom Holland
And why do you think that is?
- [33:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think because they are genuinely thinking he's the kind of person who would do it, who would actually be the Marshal Pater. I'm not saying he would, but I think they think he might be, actually, even though they are drawing up all this stuff. But the. The thing is, see, I don't think they ever really thought they would do it because they have got these mad ideas about Nelson's Column, but they never really draw up a serious plan about what an occupied Britain would look like. And the reason they don't do that and the reason there's so much speculation even now about what a Nazi Britain would have been like is because the navy and the army never really think they're going to do it. So at the end of July, Admiral Raeder came to Hitler's lair and basically said to him, we're probably not going to be ready this autumn. And ideally, you know, I'd like to wait until 1941. And I think Raider really means never. Yeah, never.
- [34:46]
Tom Holland
But he's still not talking to the. To the army, is he? No, no, no.
- [34:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
They're not really talking to each other. They all hate each other in the Nazi regime. I mean, understandably, because they're all terrible people now. Hitler's got this great sense of urgency, you know, he's. He's going to. He thinks he's going to die at any moment. He thinks the wheels are going to come off his economy. And he's right. He thinks a long War will favour the British again. He's right again.
- [35:06]
Tom Holland
Echoes of the Napoleonic period. The blockade.
- [35:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
Exactly. These patterns are there for a reason. You know, the British fleet is still there, British industry is still there. Britain is a tough nut to crack. Even now, he's thinking about the Soviet option. You know, he's saying to his generals, do you know what, actually, if we don't do the invasion, we could attack Russia instead. Halder has the notes of the meeting on 31 July. With Russia smashed, England's last hope would be shattered. Germany would then be master of Europe and the Balkans. Decision. Russia's destruction must therefore be made a part of the struggle. If we start in May 1941, we would have five months to finish the job. However, Hitler says we can worry about that a bit later. Let's just give this British invasion a chance. Let's start the air attack now. If Goering has been telling me the truth and the Luftwaffe is as good as he says, then we're laughing. We'll win control of the skies. If we get the impression that the English are crushed, we shall proceed to the attack. And the very next day, 1st August, he signs directive number 17 for the conduct of air and sea warfare against England. And it reads as follows. The German air force is to overpower the English air force with all the forces at its command in the shortest time possible to establish the conditions for the final subjugation of England and Dominic.
- [36:36]
Tom Holland
With that, the Luftwaffe's assault on Britain. Not England. Britain begins unbelievable drama. Will Germany succeed in knocking out the raf? Will the invasion go ahead? Will Britain lie prostrate under the jackboot? There is literally only one way to find out, and that is to stay while we have a commercial break and listen to the second half of this episode.
- [37:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. History is full of gifts, but the best are those that last.
- [37:18]
Tom Holland
Because photographs have become our modern heirlooms, they're like fragments of the present, already turning into history.
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Dominic Sandbrook
Aura Frames let you relive these memories every day or give them to someone you love.
- [37:33]
Tom Holland
That is our beloved producer, Theo, pointing at a kebab in Sarajevo.
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Dominic Sandbrook
Preload the photos before it leaves the box. Add a message and you can keep updating it from anywhere.
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Tom Holland
Unlimited storage, no subscription, just memories.
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Dominic Sandbrook
For a limited time, visit auraframes.co.uk and get 35 pounds off Aura's best selling carver matte frame, named the top frame by the Independent. And use the promo code History at the checkout.
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Tom Holland
That's Aura Frames, A u r a.com.
- [38:12]
Promo code history this exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year, so order now before it ends. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.
- [38:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
This episode is brought to you by Uber. Now do you know that feeling when someone shows up for you when you need it most?
- [38:41]
Tom Holland
We all need that sometimes and Uber knows it.
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
Like for your long distance friends. Bringing soup when they're sick, sending flowers.
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
Uber on our way. Download the app today.
- [39:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
This episode is brought to you by Hotels.com make your next trip work for you.
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Tom Holland
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- [39:32]
Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
Envision converting discounts on this week's stay into rewards for a luxurious beach getaway next year. No complicated maths, no blackout dates, just you choosing how to make your travels work harder for you.
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Dominic Sandbrook
Only@hotels.com Save Your Way is available to loyalty members in the US and UK on hotels with member prices. Other terms apply. See site for details.
- [40:13]
Winston Churchill (archive speech)
The gratitude of every home in our island, in our empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
- [40:52]
Tom Holland
It will astound listeners to learn that that was Winston Churchill again speaking in the House of Commons on 20 August 1940. And welcome back everyone, to the Rest is history. Britain has rejected Hitler's final peace offer and so the Fuhrer has ordered the Luftwaffe to begin the assault that if Man Mountain Hermann Goering's boasts are justified, will pave the way for Operation Sea lion, the invasion of Great Britain.
- [41:28]
Winston Churchill (archive speech)
But Dominic, as Churchill's words suggest, Goering's men are not having things their own way. The Nazis are on the back foot.
- [41:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
They are indeed. And I really hope I encourage you to do the rest of the show in that voice. I think it would get a bit annoying to be Honest, I think it would do. Now, Theo is very keen for me to point out to people watching on Spotify and YouTube that I've turned a light on.
- [41:51]
Tom Holland
Yeah, you look like you've opened a chest of treasure.
- [41:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
I tell you what, I look like one of those top Nazis looking into the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You do.
- [42:00]
Tom Holland
Or Donald Trump when you have that light. The Saudis with the orb.
- [42:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
With the orb. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get into the Battle of Britain. So the Luftwaffe have been raiding Britain since June, but it's in August that this becomes properly intense. They want to target the British airfields, they want to lure out Britain's planes and destroy them and win control of the skies before the invasion. And people who are interested in the Battle of Britain, Tom, there's a podcast. I hate to do this because it's a rival show. A sister show.
- [42:32]
Tom Holland
It's a rival show. It's a sister show. It's a brother show.
- [42:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, Neighbourly. It's a neighbour show.
- [42:36]
Tom Holland
It's a fraternal show and it's called we have ways of making you talk. And it is co. Presented by my brother, James Holland and his friend Al Murray, and they have been doing a series on the Battle of Britain just recently on that show. And my brother has written a brilliant book on the Battle of Britain. And if you are interested in all the details of the various planes and the strategy and the infrastructure and everything, that is the place to go.
- [43:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
Let's try to summarise their series in about two minutes in a way that will probably horrify your brother and his co presenter. So, basically, thanks to Churchill's rhetoric, we in Britain think of the RAF as the few, you know, against overwhelming odds. Actually, in human terms, the difference isn't that great. The raf have about 3,000 pilots, the Germans maybe 4,000. Yeah.
- [43:24]
Tom Holland
But that's. We're still, you know, The Germans have more. And that's how we like it, isn't it?
- [43:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
They have more. All right, I'm not. Listen. Yeah, of course we like it when the odds are against us. Now, among the RAF crews, there are loads of New Zealanders and Canadians and Czechs and most famously, polls. You know, it's great to have the polls back on the show. The polls are the biggest contingent. There's about 150 of them. And of course, for them, this is absolutely personal. So one of the most famous Polish aces was a guy called Boris Swartz Robinski, and he said, I just did that. So that I could say the name, frankly. He said, when you saw the swastika or the black cross on the aircraft, your heart beat much quicker. It was a feeling of absolute vengeance. And people who listen to our episode about the fall of Poland will understand why.
- [44:09]
Tom Holland
Absolutely. And we, I think, in Britain tend to think of the Luftwaffe as a bit like those kind of enemy ships in Star wars full of, you know, TIE fighters, interchangeable baddies in mad uniforms. But the Luftwaffe pilots are humans as well. Right, Dominic?
- [44:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, that's profound. That's nice, because the point of this.
- [44:30]
Tom Holland
Episode is to look at the Battle of Britain from the point of view of the Germans. So tell us about the Luftwaffe and the pilots.
- [44:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
You're right.
- [44:37]
Tom Holland
And all of that.
- [44:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
So they are in their late teens, as the RAF are. They were late teens or early 20s, most of them, because to be fighting, you know, such altitude, at such speed, you have to be run because you need really, really good reflexes. Basically, if you're 30, you're too old. You know, it's like being a kind of a footballer or something, I think cricketers. But, Tom, I know a cricketer who's ancient and makes a huge hullabaloo about how good he is. Do you know such a person? Yeah.
- [45:05]
Tom Holland
Well, I would have been shot out of the sky, obviously, within five minutes.
- [45:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
The Luftwaffe, much more than the raf, encouraged the cult of aces. We don't really think of aces as being a world war war ii thing. It's a World War I thing for us. But in the Luftwaffe there, these guys, there's a guy called Adolf Galland and there's a guy called Werner Mulders, and they both recorded more than 100 victories each. And the German press made a huge deal of these air races.
- [45:27]
Tom Holland
Well, I suppose Hermann Goering had been an A70 over the. The battlefield of the Somme with the Red Baron, so.
- [45:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
Exactly.
- [45:33]
Tom Holland
He's in command of the Luftwaffe, so you can see where it's coming from.
- [45:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
He loves an ace. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's a brilliant book on the Battle of Britain by a guy called Stephen Bungay, and he quotes a German lieutenant called Hans otto Lessing, who's 23. And you get the same mixture of excitement and fear and bravado and exhilaration that you do with RAF pilots. So Lessing wrote to his parents on the 17th of July. I'm having the time of my life. I wouldn't swap places with a king. Peacetime is going to be very boring after this. And inevitably, he was killed the very next day.
- [46:09]
Tom Holland
Do you think on the part of the German pilots, there's a feeling that almost of sporting rivalry with the RAF pilots. In a sense. You know, these are peer air forces meeting on the. The skies over southern England are, you know, a sporting arena a little bit.
- [46:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean, I think there's sometimes this sort of sense, oh, they're the knights errant of the skies. But actually, you know, when you read the memoirs of pilots, they would often say, over time, as they lost more and more friends, they grew to hate. And the sense of it being, you know, a jolly, sporty encounter that fades. And it fades, I think, particularly for the Luftwaffe, because they are fighting a losing battle.
- [46:47]
Tom Holland
And also they're fighting over enemy territory, aren't they? So if they get shot down, then they've lost as well.
- [46:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, exactly right. So they have various disadvantages. Some of their planes are brilliant. The Messerschmitt 109s, we're getting into the planes now. This is very dodgy territory for us. The other plane they have, which is a 110, they're much heavier and less maneuverable. The RAF have two fantastic planes in Spitfires and Hurricanes. The British have radar, which is a huge advantage.
- [47:14]
Tom Holland
And this is crucial, isn't it? Yeah, it's effectively the world's only air defense system. And, yeah, the state of Nazi intelligence is so poor that they didn't even realize that the British have this.
- [47:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
So here's the thing. Nazi intelligence. You know, Howard, intelligence in the fall of France has been awful, but Nazi intelligence in the Battle of Britain is really, really terrible. And a lot of this, I think, is a result of their ideological arrogance.
- [47:40]
Tom Holland
And I guess our national state of defeatism being what it is, the British listeners may find this surprising, but technologically, Britain is very, very advanced relative to Germany. And that's the kind of key thing, isn't it? That with the. With the. With the radar and the kind of air defense system, generally, you know, you don't really think about it until it's pointed out. But the Luftwaffe never really catch British planes on the ground.
- [48:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, because the British know they're coming.
- [48:04]
Tom Holland
The British always know that they're coming. And that must be absolutely crucial to Britain's success in the Battle of Britain.
- [48:10]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think another really important element, though, is that the Germans are lying to themselves the whole time. And so actually quite senior people don't realize that their tactics aren't working because, you know, no one is telling them the truth. William Schirra, who we've quoted a lot. There's a point in August when he meets a fighter pilot in a Berlin cafe and this guy says to Shirer, only going to be two weeks. Two more weeks and we'll finish with the RAF in a fortnight. The British won't have any planes left. I mean, the irony. You could not be more wrong. In late August, Field Marshal Kesselring, who's one of their top commanders, is told we, the Luftwaffe, have only lost a tenth of our fighters, but the British have lost half of theirs. And this is mad. It's completely wrong. In fact, across August, the Germans have lost about 900 planes and the British have lost fewer than 500 planes. You know, the Germans are losing, they're hemorrhaging planes, but also they can't replace them. And this is massively important.
- [49:09]
Tom Holland
And so, again, this is a reflection of Britain's industrial power, that they are much more proficient at that. You must have read David Edgerton's book Britain's War Machine. It's kind of revelatory book about just how good at killing Britain's industrial capacity was in the Second World War. I found it completely eye opening.
- [49:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, because in our last episode, we had the stuff about the little ships, you know, the romantic, sentimental, nostalgic vision of how Britain won the war. We may. We've already joked in this episode about Dad's army, the idea about ordinary people with wooden, you know, fake rifles preparing to fight the Nazi war machine. The truth is, if there's a. If there's a top war machine in Europe, if not the world, in 1940, it's the British one, the most scientific, the most technologically advanced, all of this. Now, some of this is actually down to Neville Chamberlain. So Chamberlain, from 1938, had massively accelerated Britain's aircraft program. So by the second half of 1940, in the battle of Britain, British factories are producing twice as many fighters as German factories are. And they're building them so quickly that in early September, despite their losses, the RAF actually have more planes than they did in late August. You know, they're losing planes, but they're also building them so fast that the Germans just can't compete. And it's at this point the Germans start to change their tactics. They'd started with these kind of attacks on air fields, but then, you know, Goring is always changing his tactics and making a mess of it. They decide, well, we're going to have huge mass raids with massive escorts, kind of fighter escorts of bombers, and we'll target Britain's cities. So then you have these huge battles, this one on 7 September over Kent and Essex, involving more than a thousand planes. And then still the Germans are coming off worse. So that day they lost 41 planes and the RAF lost only 23. The most famous example was on Sunday, the 15th of September, and that's the day that is now called Battle of Britain Day. And Hitler ordered a massive attack on London, basically a last throw of the dice because it's clear that the Luftwaffe's campaign is not working. We'll draw the RAF out and maybe we'll be able to annihilate them. Hundreds of bombers with this gigantic fighter escort. An RAF Fighter Command scrambled everything to face it. So you got hundreds of Spitfires and Hurricanes going off, streaking off into the sky. I mean, for people watching from down below, it must have been an incredible spectacle. And the result is a resounding British victory. So the luftwaffe lost about 60 planes that day. That took their losses for the week to 175 planes. And their. Germany's factories just can't replace them in the time. And their human loss is actually pretty unsustainable. So by this point they've probably lost, killed, wounded or captured about 4,000 pilots, twice as many as the RAF have lost. What? We're six weeks into this campaign now, and it's clear even to the Germans that Goering is not winning, that his boasts have not been vindicated. And Hitler summons that weekend his armed forces chiefs. And he says to them, quite frankly, you know, the preconditions needed for Operation Sea lion are not yet there. And his adjutant, who is called Nicholas von Belloff, said it was pretty clear that he'd given up on the thought of invading England. The great unknown, the fairly improvised crossing over the sea, frightened him. He was unsure. And that is something new. That's the first chink, I think, in this whole story, in Hitler's aura of invincibility and of certainty. He doesn't know what to do. And three days later, they postpone Operation Sea lion indefinitely. It's never really brought back.
- [52:57]
Tom Holland
I mean, it's difficult for Hitler, isn't it? Because the aura of invincibility does depend now on this sense of conquest after conquest, of speed and remorseless progress, and that the Channel is a real problem. How do you cross it? And I guess also the truth is, as I understand it, that there was never really any prospect of the Nazis invading Britain. Operation Sea lion was never really going to work out. Hitler himself is nervous about it. His various commanders are nervous about it. Hitler's preparations for the invasion are Very kind of half hearted. And I gather that even Churchill, you know, in his private moments thought that it was unlikely, but he wanted to stiffen the sinews of the nation.
- [53:44]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [53:45]
Tom Holland
So he kind of hypes up the invasion scare to rouse British opinion.
- [53:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
Max Hastings books on Churchill and on the Second World War. He basically says, you know, Churchill deliberately, even cynically sustained the specter of invasion because he was worried that basically the British people were ultimately quite lazy and passive and that if the fear passed, that they would sink back into their torpor of 1939. So in 1974, veterans of the Second World War, sort of senior, those senior officers who were left and current commanders from both the British and the West Germany military played out this really big war game at Sandhurst. And they concluded, you know, unanimously that a German invasion would have been a complete disaster. That basically only the first wave of German troops would have got across, they wouldn't have got very far and they would all have been killed or captured and it would have been a catastrophe for the Wehrmacht.
- [54:46]
Tom Holland
Well, I've mentioned we have ways of making you talk. They did an excellent episode on that. And I think that as I remember from it, in that war game, they had to kind of rig the weather patterns to ensure that some Germans could get across. And even then, as you say, they were kind of, you know, they couldn't establish a beachhead. But none of that is to downplay the scale of Hitler's defeat in the Battle of Britain, because it does, I suppose, offer hope not just to Britain but to occupied Europe. And conversely, you know, it, it, you know, there's a kind of canker of doubt in the Nazi high command and perhaps even in Hitler himself.
- [55:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I think so, I think so. So once the Battle of Britain is, is over, as it were, it kind of evolves into the Blitz.
- [55:36]
Tom Holland
Well, kind of accidentally, don't they? Because the German air force accidentally drops bombs on. I think it's islington.
- [55:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. And then the British reply by bombing Berlin, I mean, from a German perspective, that really is one of the first big shocks of the war. The funny thing is the RAF attack was 100 RAF planes was the first retaliatory raid on Berlin. They didn't really cause much damage. I can't even remember how many people they killed, if any.
- [56:00]
Tom Holland
Then there are three more raids in rapid succession after that. So it is definitely experienced by Berliners and by the Nazi High command as a massive provocation.
- [56:10]
Dominic Sandbrook
And for Hitler, this is a real shock. You know, he gives a furious speech, a Few nights later, says, if the RAF keep doing this, we will wipe out their cities. Because it's. The last thing he wants is for a public that he knew before the war were quite anxious about being dragged into a world war, for them to start losing heart because their own cities are being targeted. And it's partly because of that, I think, that the Germans move towards the. The bombing raids of the Blitz. So these are eight months of nightly raids on British cities. And basically the plan is Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to break Britain's morale, destroy their factories, destroy the docks, destroy the railways, the supply chains, the fuel depots and so on and so forth. And there are two or three very infamous moments. So Coventry, on the 14th of November, the cathedral was destroyed. I think we've mentioned this before in the rest is history. At various points, the city centre, about 600 people killed. London at the end of December 29th. This is the famous scene, you know, you can Google it. The. One of the most famous photos of Britain ever taken. They're great clouds of smoke over St. Paul's Cathedral, which is emerging kind of undaunted. Yeah. From the. From the fires on 10th May 1941. This was. I actually didn't realize this until I looked it up. Twice as much of the city of London was destroyed on that night as had been burned in the Great Fire of London in 1666. So about 1,500 people killed.
- [57:43]
Tom Holland
Yeah. It's one of the three great disasters to overwhelm London. Boudicca's revolt, the Great Fire and then that day in the Blitz.
- [57:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
And yet. And yet none of this is remotely enough to bring the British to the table. And in fact, the head of Luftwaffe operations told the army chiefs a month into the Blitz, he said, I would need four times as many planes as I've got to have any effect, really, on British morale to make any real difference. And actually, you could argue by the time it's scaled down, the Luftwaffe have killed about 43,000 people, which is a lot, though nothing compared with the numbers of people who die in the bombings of Germany and Japan at the end of the war. I have to say, most historians agree that this is completely and utterly counterproductive. I mean, Max Hastings makes the point. It's actually an interesting counterfactual. If Hitler had just left Britain alone and just said, you know, stew on your island, who cares? I don't care about you. People would have got kind of bored of the war, you know, they'd have got bored of all the rations and the Economic privations and so on. Yes.
- [58:44]
Tom Holland
Can't we build bridges with Europe?
- [58:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right, exactly. But as it is, he Kindle, to use Churchillian rhetoric, he kindles in their hearts a fire that will never be extinguished. Right. I mean, people are furious. And then because the bombing of Britain cities.
- [59:01]
Tom Holland
I mean, this is not the universal lesson of bombing campaigns. Yeah, but they are counterproductive and that they always just stiffen the morale of people who are being bombed.
- [59:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
Either kill loads of people or don't bother, I would think, I would say, is probably the. I mean, that sounds very callous. I mean, if you're going to kill 40,000 people, you're not going to make a massive difference on Britain's morale anyway. So where's all this leave the Germans? So we're now in the autumn of 1940 and some of that hysterical enthusiasm of the summer has faded. It's pretty clear now the British are not going to crack. And actually now, I think for the first time, it dawns on a lot of ordinary Germans. We are in a replay of the First World War. After all, the one thing we wanted to avoid, a long war against an island nation with an empire and a fleet and loads of factories and a huge economic infrastructure. And Hitler's confidence. Notice at this point, there's a change in his mood. You know, he wanted to get Britain out of the war, but now he can't really think of a way to do it. And there are one or two other disturbing signs. So that autumn, even before the presidential election, Roosevelt agrees. The destroyers for bases deal with Churchill. Basically, the British will get 50 very elderly and frankly, useless American destroyers. One of Churchill's admiral said they were the worst destroyers I'd ever seen. And in return, the Americans get leases for bases in the Caribbean and in Canada. And it's around this time that one of Hitler's adjutants says of him, the Fuhrer seemed visibly depressed at the moment. He doesn't know what to do next. Now there are a couple of options. So Grand Admiral Raeder says to him, what about the Mediterranean? You know, a slightly Napoleonic strategy, actually. Get the Italians on board, get the Spanish on board, maybe the French. Take Gibraltar, take the Suez Canal, take Malta. Yeah, exactly. Malta, North Africa, maybe Turkey. And Hitler's quite interested in this. And then he has a series of disastrous meetings. So first of all, with Mussolini, Martini is more interested in the Balkans.
- [61:11]
Tom Holland
He wants Greece, doesn't he?
- [61:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
His greedy eyes are fixed on Greece. Yeah. And then two very low moments in Hitler's life. First of all, when he goes to see Marshall Payton. Marshall Payton says, you know, personally, I'd love to join the war and collaborate with you, but then I'd need the national assembly to approve it. And I really don't want to have to recall the National Assembly. Well, maybe talk about it another time.
- [61:33]
Tom Holland
Probably pass on that.
- [61:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, probably pass on that. And then a fun date with General Franco. This I find very amusing.
- [61:40]
Tom Holland
So this is the dictator of Spain.
- [61:42]
Dominic Sandbrook
Who Hitler had helped in the Spanish Civil War. They meet at the station at Ande in the border between France and Spain. Hitler has very little to offer Franco, but Franco has turned up with a massive wish list of like, food supplies and arms supplies and all this. Hitler has never met Franco before and he finds Franco a very, very objectionable man. As Ian Kershaw says, he considered Franco fat, swarthy, with a droning sing song voice reminiscent of an Islamic prayer caller. And Franco makes a dreadful faux pas at this meeting. He says to Hitler, do you think you've won the war? I don't think you've won the war. I think even if you got across the Channel, the British will never give up. If you got across the Channel, the British will just go to Canada and they'll continue with their fleet from Canada with the backing of the United States. And Hitler is absolutely furious at this. He can't believe that Franco is dissing his war efforts. And he actually gets up and goes to leave and has to basically be persuaded to sit back down at the table. Anyway, they continue the meeting and when they get up to go, finally Hitler says to his men in German, literally, there is nothing to be done with this bloke. And Franco says to his foreign minister in Spanish, these people are intolerable. They want us to come into the war in exchange for nothing. And then after this, Hitler goes and meets Mussolini. Mussolini says, how did it go with Francois? And Hitler says, I hate him. I would rather have three or four teeth taken out than have another meeting with that man. He describes Franco as a Jesuit swine.
- [63:12]
Tom Holland
Isn't Hitler very contemptuous of the fact that Franco has made the Virgin Mary a brigade commander in the Spanish army or something?
- [63:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's right, yeah. Well, the thing is about Franco that's quite confusing is Franco pretends to be a fascist. You know, he has the trappings of fascism. But Franco, unlike Hitler, is much more backward looking. You know, he's basically an ultra Catholic, ultra reactionary. Yeah, you know, let's turn back the clock to the 16th century, that kind of thing. And Hitler has no patience for that he wants to power forward into a new order and a new age.
- [63:43]
Tom Holland
Yeah, because that's the essence of, of Mussolini and of Nazism is the combination of the ancient and the, the, the, the gleamingly modern.
- [63:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, it's the ancient. And the ancient, I think, is what Franco. Like Salazar, actually.
- [63:57]
Tom Holland
Like Salazar in Portugal. Yes.
- [63:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
Hitler heads back to Germany by train and he's very downcast. And so it's now that he returns to that scenario of invading the Soviet Union and he says to his generals, look, it's win, win. We'll get all the raw materials that we are currently importing from the Soviet Union, we'll get all the grain from Ukraine, we'll get oil from Romania, oil from the Caucasus, we'll get that colonial empire in the east which we've always wanted for our living space. And above all, this is the only way to send a message to Britain. As he tells formerly General, now Field Marshal Fedor von Bock. The gentlemen in England aren't stupid, you know, they will realize there's no point in carrying on the war once Russia has been beaten. And what's also been playing on Hitler's mind in the autumn of 1940 is what's Stalin up to? What if Stalin goes into the Balkans? What if Stalin gets the oil in Romania? Molotov comes to Berlin in November and it's a very difficult meeting. Hitler and Ribbentrop say to Molotov, yeah, we think you should be looking at India, you should be looking at the Middle East. And Molotov isn't interested in that at all. He's talking about the Balkans. And Hitler finds this very disturbing. And he says to his adjutant afterwards, Molotov has let the cat out of the bag. You know, basically, the Russians are going to muscle in on our territory. And so it's about a week or so after that the Hitler sends his adjutants east and he says to them, I want you to go into the forests of East Prussia and to find me a good spot for a secret field headquarters. And this is what becomes the Wolf's Lair.
- [65:34]
Tom Holland
They do love a sinister name for.
- [65:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
A lair, don't they? The Wolf's Lair is brilliant. I'm just gonna. This Polish tourist board should be paying me for this. It's now in Poland. I had a very, very happy day there with Sambrook Jr poking around the ruins of, like, Hitler's bunker, Goering's bunker, all this. It's incredible. It's brilliant. There's no health and safety, or they're very pitiful. Attempt at health and safety so you can basically explore these tunnels and stuff.
- [65:58]
Tom Holland
Well, I think that's what Hitler would have wanted. He would have been contemptuous of health and safety, wouldn't he?
- [66:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, yeah, you're right. 5th of December, Hitler meets spineless Brauchitsch and Halder, and he says to them, the Russians are inferior. Their army has no leadership. I want to get this done. My mind is made up. Let's attack Russia and force Britain out of the war before the Americans can get involved. Now, the fascinating thing, I think, is that his generals, who've been horrified by all his suggestions up till then about attacking other people, are not horrified by this one. Now, partly, I think it's because he's been talking about attacking the Soviet Union for seven years, going back to 1933, when he first became Chancellor. So they've had a lot of time to get used to the idea.
- [66:39]
Tom Holland
So they've had time to adjust to the plan.
- [66:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, they knew this was always going to come. They all agree that Stalin's empire is rotten and will fall, that basically the Red Arm is useless. And they say, well, come on, the people in Belarus and Ukraine and stuff, they'll probably welcome us with open arms. And this is their ideology again. They think the laws of racial science mean we're bound to win. The Slavs are useless. They'll never be a Teuton, you know, an Aryan. They're riddled with Bolshevism. And so this will actually be dead easy. It'll be so much easier than fighting the British. What's not to like? And so it is that on the 18th of December 1940, Hitler issues one of the most fateful orders in history. Fuhrer Directive 21. The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia. And in a quick campaign, even before the conclusion of the war against England, they'll go into the Soviet Union. They will seize Leningrad, they will seize Ukraine's industrial heartland in the Donbass, and above all, they will power towards the Soviet capital in Moscow. And the name of this operation was originally Operation Otto, but now Hitler personally renames it in honor of the crusading Emperor Frederick I. It will now be called Operation Barbarossa.
- [68:03]
Tom Holland
And, Dominic, is that where you are ending this episode and the entire series on that cliffhanger?
- [68:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
It is on that bombshell. On that cliffhanger. That's the way I work.
- [68:14]
Tom Holland
Oh, my God. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we will be back next year, continuing this story, the epic history of the Third Reich. We have war in the Balkans we have the invasion of the Soviet Union, but we will also be looking at the home front, the euthanasia program and of course, the beginnings of the Holocaust. So Hitler, obviously a very bad man. Our next series will also be about a very bad man. And that very bad man is Jack the Ripper. As we head into the shadows of late Victorian London, telling the story not just of the murders, but of the broader context, the lives of his victims and the world of late Victorian London. Members of the Rest is History Club will get all five of those episodes on Jack the Ripper on Monday. And if you want to join them then please sign up@therealStishistory.com and of course.
- [69:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
Tom, Christmas is coming. So Rest is History Club membership makes a absolutely splendid Christmas gift for the history loving family members or friends in your life. And actually, do you know what? I think people should treat themselves a little bit more than they do. So why not treat yourself to the Rest is History Club membership as a little Christmas treat.
- [69:41]
Tom Holland
Raise a glass of eggnog to that and for now, goodbye.
- [69:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
Bye. Bye.
- [70:00]
Tom Holland
Throughout time, celebration has meant giving. So the Romans at Saturnalia handed out all kinds of gifts.
- [70:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
Gifts.
- [70:07]
Tom Holland
The three Magi handed out gold, frankincense and myrrh. And the Victorians absolutely loved wrapping things up in paper and then tying it up in string.
- [70:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Tom, those are lovely gestures, but I wonder if they're a little bit too extravagant for the typical Christmas morning. So this year, here's my suggestion to our listeners and our viewers. Why not give something a little bit more enlightened? Why not give the gift of the Rest is History Club membership? It's the discerning choice for anybody who prefers a Hannibal to a hamper.
- [70:40]
Tom Holland
It's ad free listening. You get a weekly bonus episode, you get early access to live shows, and you get exclusive deep dive series.
- [70:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
Also on top of that, this year's special gift edition of Rest is History Club membership comes with a sensational exclusive T shirt. It will make you the envy of the all your neighbors and all the cool people in your neighborhood, if such people exist, will admire you and want to spend more time with you. So just head to therestishistory.com and click on gifts that is therestishistory.com & please click on Gifts. The Uniswap wallet makes crypto easier and safer to own and use. Discover new tokens, research confidently, swap in instantly and manage it all securely in one place. The Uniswap trading protocol has powered over $3 trillion in volume and it's trusted by millions worldwide. Buy your first crypto assets in a few taps and experience the freedom of decentralized finance with uniswap. Tap the banner to get.
- [71:44]
Tom Holland
Started.
- [71:50]
Throughout time, celebration has meant giving. So the Romans at Saturnalia handed out all kinds of gifts. The three Magi handed out gold, frankincense and myrrh. And the Victorians absolutely loved wrapping things up in paper and then tying it up in.
- [72:07]
Dominic Sandbrook
String. Tom, those are lovely gestures, but I wonder if they're a little bit too extravagant for the typical Christmas morning. So this year, here's my suggestion to our listeners and our viewers. Why not give something a little bit more enlightened? Why not give the gift of the Rest is History Club membership? It's the discerning choice for anybody who prefers a Hannibal to a.
- [72:29]
Tom Holland
Hamper. It's ad free listening. You get a weekly bonus episode, you get early access to live shows, and you get exclusive deep dive.
- [72:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
Series. Also on top of that, this year's special gift edition of Rest is History Club membership comes with a sensational exclusive T shirt. It will make you the envy of all your neighbors and all the cool people in your neighborhood, if such people exist, will admire you and want to spend more time with you. So just head to therestishory.com and click on Gifts. That is therestishistory.com and please click on.
- [73:08]
James Holland
Gifts.
- [73:13]
Hello there, it's James Holland and Al Murray, hosts of wwe. We have ways of making you.
- [73:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Talk. Yes, so Al and I have been on the wrestler's history a few times now, haven't we, Al? We've been talking all things World.
- [73:24]
James Holland
War II with Tom and.
- [73:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
Dominic. And if you've been enjoying their recent series on the invasion of Norway.
- [73:29]
Tom Holland
The fall of France and the Battle.
- [73:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
Of Britain, then we have good news for.
- [73:32]
James Holland
You. That's right, Jim. We have our own show all about the fascinating history of the second World War. It's been going for longer than the second World War, World War itself, haven't we.
- [73:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
James? And longer than the rest is.
- [73:41]
James Holland
History. Twice a week, WW2 pod we have ways to make you talk. Discusses the fascinating people, the incredible innovations and the terrible tragedies of this, I think the most important period of history of all.
- [73:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
Time. Absolutely. The Battle of Hastings. I've got nothing on this. It's 1940, where it's all at this past year alone. Now we've done series, haven't we.
- [74:00]
Tom Holland
On Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, Hitler's.
- [74:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
Last days in Berlin, the dropping of the atomic bombs. And we've also explored the women of soe, Auschwitz and the nerve wracking siege of.
- [74:10]
James Holland
Malta. And in amidst all this we take our listeners family stories and give them an airing so that people can tell the story of what happened to their Uncle Albert where maybe they were involved with the siege of Malta. And we're doing loads of naval chat at the moment on the main show, such as the fight against the U boat wolf packs in the Atlantic War. So now is a really fantastic time to subscribe and get a yourself a bit more nautical. So search we have ways wherever you get your podcasts and we look forward to you joining us. Prepare to board. We have ways of making you talk with me, Al Murray and James.
- [74:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
Holland. Thank you.