Dr. Roy Casagranda gives an overview of the first part of WWII with an eye towards explaining the significance of the Battle of Stalingrad. This is the first Austin School lecture in 2 years!
@@Tamirpop I mean he makes up funny stories that have nothing to do with history. His comments on Stalingrad have been my first exposure to his very uninformed grasp on history.
@@Tamirpop You're listening to a nincompoop. He doesn't have any clue about history and is just retelling the fables that were taught to us. Then he passes them off to you like he's old and wise.
@@The2ndFirst seems that you have a personal problem with the man. Ok so you can present what you know about the "real" history instead of the "fables" as you called them.
I am at the process of listening to your lectures, its hard to stop listening simply because they are great and sincere and entertaining knowledge Thank you
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for posting your lectures and interviews! You have students all over the world. Thank you for the time you put into your research and thank you for the thinking it clearly takes to pull it all together.
Professor, please write few books on Middle-East, US Foreign Policy and WWII and all other topics that you are well versed in. I had already purchased your fiction book, just to show my gratitude for all the knowledge that I've gained from your videos (despite I only read non-fiction). I wish I was where you are so I could gatecrash all your lectures. Sincere, heartfelt gratitude Sir!
He mentioned the German soldiers were drinking heavily to get through the battle. My father-in-law fought for the Viet Cong for 10 years from 1965 until the end of the American War in 1975. He told me the same thing about that fighting. They drank a lot. He quit drinking after the war and never started again.
Thank u Dr. Roy Casangranda yet another interesting lecture. One remark 1:02:10 although the bombing campaign helped the ministry of propaganda and public enlightenment, it is interesting to note in this context that it forced the luftwaffe to recall airplanes from the fronts. This helped the soviet air forces to gain air dominance earlier than they otherwise would have. Flak 88's who were often used in an anti-tank role also had to be recalled from the frontlines, severely reducing anti-tank capabilities of infantry regiments, staffing these anti-air guns also took lot of girlpower. All these elements have let militarian historians to conclude that the bombing raids had a negative overall effect on the capabilities of germany to wage war.
The Germans kept producing more tanks planes and guns year over year through the bombing raids. All we accomplished was the murder of millions of women, children and elderly, refugees. And the destruction of ancient European architecture and artwork. The amount of men we lost, the resources sunk into those missions would have been better spent elsewhere.
I beg to differ. These guys did far a better job: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6W5QYdfQhmc.htmlsi=xX2oAJhEDVMcc-BR delves more profoundly into the topic. It's in Russian but the subtitles are in English. Don't get me wrong, I love Casagranda's lectures related to the Middle East, but Stalingrad demands thoroughness and objectivity.
Overall this lecture is pretty fantastic. It is worth noting a few things though, Dr. Casagranda brings up a lot of events regarding the soviets that are only ever mentioned in German war memoirs. The soviet order 227 (not one step back) was directed towards the officer corps, not the average soldier. It is widely regarded as a myth that the soviets shot retreating footsoldiers, the order was used to get rid of the spirit of "we can just keep retreating" that a lot of the officer corps had. The Soviets did have "barrier soldiers" who would stay behind the line and arrest retreating soldiers, but they very rarely shot them and more often than not would just send them back towards the front.
@@samlatifi3254 I agree with the sentiment. To clarify, I meant the vast majority of people with Internet access. The ones who don't, cannot enable the channel/content to go viral.
@@rayzimmerman6740 I agree with you completely. People dont have attention span. What I would say though is for while now vines / shorts / tiktok short form videos are the trend. So Austin School could use short videos to link back to longer ones. They could also run short courses with credit for an international audience. You can find ways to market to people even with the constraint of low attention span externality that mobile phones cause.
@@samlatifi3254 I admire your optimism - in as much as you think shorter videos would get engagement. I don't think it would meet with much success, but perhaps it's worth a shot? New York minutes are now New York moments. There are few exceptions that prove the rule. I think one would have to identify those "influencers" who are swimming against the tide, and get them on board to make the content relevant, as opposed to Austin School. The challenge is the appeal and stickability. In an increasingly self obsessed, opinionated, argumentative landscape, where everything is measured in likes, views and subscribers - this type of content doesn't quite fit. Look at our world leaders in the recent past - Bush Junior, Blair, Trump, Boris, Putin, Erdogan, Modi et al. With the exception of Putin, these are democratically elected leaders. To Paraphrase Kaku - its like we're all sitting in a car, driving at a great speed towards a brick wall, and we're arguing whose going to drive. I think George Harrison summed it up in the song "I, me, mine" all those years ago. Broadly speaking, this generation doesn't listen to Albums. I'd wager that by and large, they would have to look up George Harrison. As for smart phones, you know what they say - they're only as smart as the person holding it.
The first president of Algerian, Ahmed Benbella, and one of the leaders of the war of Algerian independence, was a decorated hero of the battle of Monte Casino, and was decorated by General De Gaulle himself. He later said in an interview that companies of 120 men of Algerians would go up to storm German position and less than 20-30 men would come back from the assault. That was the price Algerians paid for the independence of France. The reward was the famous massacres of 8 Mai 1945, on V-day, when Algerian went out to celebrate victory with illegal Algerian flags, and claim the independence that De Gaulle promised them in his Brazzaville speech in Congo in 1942. They massacred over 40 thousand Algerians over a period of three months to "teach" them to accept colonialism. That's France dark past for you.
1:07:30 .. there is some confusion here; there seems to be a proposal that is simultaneously bad for the Germans but also for the Russians, to engage in a battle at Stalingrad. We are to believe that they are both sides making a mistake, and both sides more likely to lose the entire war as a result of the Battle of Stalingrad.
this comment will be considered silly BUT, how could you skip Gauss (died 1855) as the single greatest mind in the last 200 years and one of the greatest in history of mankind
Afaik, the reason Germans were so predicteble in battle of kurst, at that time british broke German secret code machine Enigma, so soviets knew detailed German tactics.
Greece 🇬🇷 lost 530,000 or 7.22% of its population. The 1940 census had 7,335,000 inhabitants. In 1944 there were 6,805,000 inhabitants. Official data given to the allies and later to the U.N. - WE DO NOT FORGET - greetings from Greece 🇬🇷
I actually found his storytelling skills awesome, but he often say misleading things and wrong facts. But that’s nothing serious, since he’s telling the story in a such energetic and entertaining way! 😂
Americans will believe that the winter beat Germany and it was so cold the tanks froze but in the same breath claim half of the red army was running without clothes behind the guys that had clothes 🤣.
@@thenextgennoob9591 No, I think it is just a mistake. The numbers don't add up anyway because the total is 30,000 too low so it is clear he has made errors with the chart.
@@Oners82his chart was actually correct, the number was combined with the civiliant casualties and presumably the reinforcements. Source: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kiev_(1941)
I have been critical of this speaker because I think he uses a lot of false framing in the lectures I've listened to. But I'm still captivated. This is my third one this week. I like this one. I like how he treats the Germans. Too often it's hysterical hand waving and all that about how evil they were. The Nazis are kittens compared to Caesar or the Mongols, and their stories are often told with great fan fare. Nothing can ever take away the harm, but they were not alone in this, but the 40 hour work week, over time, limits on war profiteering, massive reduction in class significance.... it's a real shame because there is a great foundation there. I wonder if Orvil and Wilber Wright invented the airplane to do something evil if we would foreswear air travel today?
@@yjp7959 This video isn't so bad. I think he does a good job of listing the legitimate grievances and justifications for Germany that were created in the wake of WWI. He still clings to the allied idea that the Germans are the most evil thing ever. Anyway, I listened to this one again because I wasn't sure what caused me to make this specific comment months ago and even if I disagree with Prof Cassagrande he is a great story teller. Around 1h 35m in he talks about how a "Syrian refugee" invented the flamethrower. This is highly anachronistic and is simply projecting his contemporary politics on to the past. This doesn't cause significant problems when he discusses very recent history like WWII, although I would say he's a bit weird for saying WWII begins when it does, with the Japanese and Chinese. Why not push it back to the 1920s when the Soviets were at continuous war with their neighbors? Anyway, have you noticed in his videos on ancient history he likes to discredit the idea of western civilization? His argument for this is not much more complicated than "sugar comes from India and the Europeans liked sugar."
@@andysamet4554 his idea of western civ is that it is from the mid east.. he is trying to uncover a whole part of history not in the achool books.. i kinda agree, the ottoman period which basically was the dominant super power for like 800 years or more always get skipped and compiled in like 4 pages. Also the mesopotamia, babylon stuff always is seemed so short for me too... like 90 % of my history class was 1700-2000s That being said idk have not seen to much about him
Found the wiki page of the dude inventing the flamethrower... apparantly it was a jewish syrian refugee en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callinicus_of_Heliopolis doesnt seem anachronistic... but i will now fact check him more often
@@yjp7959 I took my western civilization class a long time ago and it started with Mesopotamia and Nile cultures. Sure we didn't spend a long time on them because so little remains. Very few writings, few artifacts compared to Greek and Roman. Even the pre Islamic Persian culture doesn't have much remaining compared to Roman civilization from the same time. So there isn't as much time that can be devoted to it. It seems to me to be anachronistic because Syrian refugee has a specific meaning in the modern contemporary world. He is attempting to use that as a vehicle to attack contemporary Europeans for not wanting to let refugees overflow their borders today. It's a dirty sneaky political trick. I find he fills his lectures with these. He is still a good story teller. But I find these little bits of subversive political rhetoric he sneaks in discredit him.
Of course Stalingrad's name is important as propaganda but more important it was a main railroad and supply chunk point at that time plus it would be the stronghold to hold off Soviets attack south to cut off Caucasus. Hitler also emphisised that that was not reason the name of the city to attack there. What actual reason was cutting the volga river which was and still main supply arteria from the allies by newly opened Iran supply route and oil from Caucasus. So it was a very reasonable object to take the city. Also token action to create pocket of Kiev was a right call as well I believe. History shows (Napoleon's campaigne) if there is an army eager to fight against you to take back what its own outside the city walls, you still have a fight to win against it. PS: Please stop considering a man who conquered Europe as a stupid warlord sir. There is no limitless power in the end.
It's easy to say they should've taken Moscow. But it wouldn't have won the war for them just like it didn't for Napoleon. Better to not have almost 700k on the flank of your salient or else the disaster of winter 41 would've been even worse. That was Hitlers call like it or not. Surviving the Winter of 41 of the sucessful supply of the Demyansk pocket against the advice of his generals convinced him the same should be done at Stalingrad which resulted in even worse disaster. So it's ok to give him credit for things he did. It always ends in defeat either way. If he was a bumbling idiot as we like to pretend then it was shameful it took literally the entire world to defeat him. Also it wasn't about morale they could either ship winter uniforms or ammunition and it was a hard but clear decision to make when the Russians were counter attacking. I don't appreciate the lies told about WW2 but at least the scale of Soviet sacrifices were well covered.
My greatest respect to Poland and Polish people. They are the most beautiful people I have ever met. And all of Europe watched Poland facing facing the genocide that Adolf crazy Hitler committing against Poland.
Interestingly you didn’t mention the German Soviet agreement to carve up Poland and conquer surrounding territories ? “You mentioned the peace pact in the wrong order!”
Sadly, one can tell this guy is a teacher of history and not a student of it. I didn't make it past "Hitler wanted Stalingrad because it had Stalin's name." There is absolutely no historical proof that is so. Quite the opposite actually. Hitler's whole goal from the beginning was to take the oilfields in the south. The entire goal of the push to the Don/Volga bend to secure the flank of the drive south to oil and survival. Fall Blau was by this time a bad idea but one could argue if all the money and blood spent trying to take Moscow, which was an OKW call had been present, it might've worked. The OKW hid many things from Hitler. The OKW wanted Moscow. They thought that was the "Center of gravity" that Clauswitz talks about. It wasn't. The Russians would have just kept falling back. They (Germany) were very lucky to escape destruction then and there. Casagranda clearly believes, as oh so many sadly do....Just like I did....The line of BS from the captured German generals. They all distanced themselves from Hitler and all of them to a man played the "Madman Hitler get out of jail free" card. Hitler knew exactly what he wanted but the people he really detested was the old Prussian aristocracy and their military class that dominated the army. And in the end really acted as a pull to a push and probably hastened the end of the war. If anyone *really* wants a complete blow by blow examination, multiple source based, examination of the totality of the eastern front there are multiple sources out there that aren't the cult of personality this man seems to be. I understand those students need to answer the right way to pass the class, and the right way is what he teaches need to do so. You can take his word for it. OR f you'd like to know the good the bad and the ugly I'd recommend: ru-vid.comvideos It's study down to the minutia and upward. Be a student. Then you can be a teacher. BTW; Call me what you want. Names don't hurt me. I just encourage listening to a voice that knows. The "Battlestorm Stalingrad" series is very good.
Very well then, I shall call you... the only breath of fresh air on this page, your comment is educated, just, fair and much more logic and reasonable than what the teacher says here I suppose, I stopped at the very beginning when he suggests that those he calls neo-nazis, we know what that means, should in fact, leave now. I am no prodessional historian but I have studied those events a little, enough to know that the story we were told at school was a complete set of misinformations and half truths, : ) and that the monsters were not those we thought, what was done to the German people during the war but mostly after the fighting had ended makes no sense on any human scale and the rights the Alliiies awarded themselves through the unbelievable atrocity propaganda they put out made that no one knows about those rapes, expulsions and the intentional starvation of a whole population according to plans established way before the war had ended, the men behing the curtains had called for the systematic destruction of the country and its people. As to Barbarossa I find Suvorov's proposition very interesting, it would explain why the Germans went in with a clear deficit in readiness and equipment, when I found out they had used 750,000 horses for their supply lines I couldn't believe it, once again it went so against the winner's... version. Cheers and thanks again.
@@rosesandsongs21 To be fair the Germans were horrifyingly brutal with the Russian people in areas they occupied. They were pretty brutal with the other occupied countries as well. Both sides weren't angels when it comes to that and one could make the case that the Soviets lost the cold war by the brutality they inflicted on the people of eastern Germany and Berlin in the last days of the war. To say the monsters aren't who we thought they were is a bit of a misnomer as both sides have a lot of baggage to answer for. It's fairly easy to see that western Germany faired a great deal better than the east. I've been there and was stationed there when the wall came down and got to see the proof first hand. The lack of mechanization the the German army is contrary to the whole image of "bewegungskrieg. The wehmacht had a very sharp pointy bit of the spear that was highly mechanized. Even then most wehrmacht panzergrenedier regiments only had one battalion in halftracks and the others rode in trucks. Horses were massively used as prime movers for artillery and for support and supply. De-mechanization started in earnest in 1942. Again, TIK does a great job on his channel and I highly recommend Dr. Robert Citino's work on the eastern front to fully understand the entirety of the situation on the eastern front.
@@The2ndFirst I agree with you to a certain extent, I am well aware of the codes of conduct and the subsequent "adjustments" published by the German high command, fighting an army of partisans dressed like civilians, attacking from behind and then taking refuge among the civilian population requires certain drastic measures that cannot be denied. In such a case the line between barbarity and survival is pretty much draw by the better propaganda machine after the war and we all know it was not German. I saw an interesting video yesterday here on YT that describes the sad life of the Lithuanians who were deported to Siberia after the Soviet invasion it is called "Letters from Siberia | Part One" and the channel is 'Audrius Plioplys' the first few minutes are important, please. Then there is a book and a film about the Soviet atrocities in Eastern Europe called "In the Shadow of Hermes" by Juri Lina, a stunner. And I don't think the Germans would have invaded Russia without being ready if they didn't have a good reason like 'survival' for example, there is clear evidence now that Stalin had over 170 divisions massed on the German border in June 1941, he was about to move over Poland and Germany into Europe, he was almost ready. And with the abundant and revealing documentation released in 1991 by the Russians, the orders Stalin gave like the mass murder of 22,000 Polish intelliectuals # 144 and the scorched earth policy #0428, the "torchmen" order also telling partisans to wear German uniforms and commit some horrors on their own people and so on... I have accumulated much documentation through the years here so I can now finally avoid having opinions as much as possible so you will understand that the deduction based mode of operation of Tik is highly incompatible with most documentation so thanks for the recommendation but I have other sources, mostly official documents, diplomatic communications and proven facts. The horrors inflicted on the Germans have no equivalent in human history and they have no common measure with the crimes commited by the Germans before, during and after the war. Now, let's be clear, I am no Hitler fan or a neo nazi or anything of the sort, I am Canadian but the injustice of the situation simply makes some form of communicating that information impossible for me to avoid, Obviously the Germans did commit war crimes, they were judged and executed for them but Churchill and FDR also have to be exposed as the criminals they really were and the truth be told about the atrocities they committed that almost no one knows about.
@@rosesandsongs21I certainly agree that Churchill and Roosevelt have a lot of things to answer for. More post war than during war. As far as fighting partizans that's not an excuse to did what Germany did. The German army was well equiped to fight with large bodies of troops, but ill prepared to fight with people that would fight. The occupied countries acted exactly like I would if a nation invaded mine and I was as I am; A fat, old Army vet. I think TIK pretty much has things rock on, so if you can post facts and not opinions, I'm willing to listen.. believe the Germans largely chose to reap the whirlwind.
you can hardly even touch hitler nowadays don't even think about saying other than the status quo i wish he started his lecture by a president kennedy quote : "Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived"
