Two books on WW2 - which is the memoir and which the novel?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มี.ค. 2018
- Two books I have read recently. When is a book a memoir and when is it a novel? WW2 from two different perspectives.
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The books:
From the City, From the Plough by Alexander Baron (Bernstein)
The Last Panther by Wolfgang Faust (Chris Ziedler)
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"The year was 1940. I was in the Afrika korps, advancing towards Moscow, when we were suddenly ambushed by 4 Shermans, 2 Katyushas and an LCVP. I quickly shot the first one: the tank instantly imploded, raining down hellfire before exploding, shooting chunks of burning metal that impaled a Spitfire, which crashed into an oil rig, vaporizing half the enemy fleet.
Then I switched to my Luger, shooting a bullet ricocheting through the barrel and detonating the ammunition storage, which tore the tank's turret off the chassis, bisecting the commander." - Wolfgang Faust
This should be a copypasta regarding all fake memoirs
Def the most fun fake accounts if WW2!
What is this crap? Is this really sold in bookform
The clarification of 'miners' was much needed.
le Beast I know - for a minute I was going to get irate at all those Cryptocurrency types at it again, driving up graphics card prices again...
le Beast wait what???!!?! Oh ok - my reaction to that part
David Bodor
To be fair probably. Wasn't entirely unheard of though markedly less common on the Western front.
Butt miner
le Beast tbh I thought he said minor the first time he said miners. "Oh gay minors? Wtf is this book about lol" then he said coal miners and I realised he was talking about something else entirely
The last panther is basically a script for a game of war thunder
: / it's too exagerated
HOW DID THAT NOT PENETRATE?!
written by 11 year old
if t was war thunder, it missed the occasional jets at that BR, and the ghost shells. And also the lack of crew models in closed tanks. And capturing the D point.
My teammate shouted that we should attack the D point with a fury that made my Sturmjagdpanzertiger 12.8cm burst up into the air in a blaze of smoke and we were charged by a T34 (the American post-war one, not T-34) which i landed on and then a hot girl appeared and then suddenly she was decapitated by an APCR shell from a 7.5cm Pa(c)K gun!!!
Just went to buy "From the City, To the Plough" and the hardcover went from 5 in stock to only one in the time it took me to place my order.
You REALLY know how to sell a story.
Lindy needs an amazon affiliate link to monetize his work
Well either that, or you just got suckered by the cookies playing games to make it look really popular while you were watching it..or perhaps a bit of both.
that`s just to get you to hurry up and purchase it , 100% true
The price for the book now is >150usd
Book "Currently unavailable".
I wrote my own WW2 memoir called "Fire arrows, or how i stopped worrying and loved my Spandau machine gun". Main action happens during the battle of midway in Africa. And my second book more of the guide " How to slice is-3 in half with a katana sword"
DUKE NUKEM lol
God bless
the battle of midway in Africa lol just like the battle of the bulge in Uzbekistan
I'll freely admit I hadn't read the 2nd book yet when I posted it to LB, I was taking advantage of a combined order opportunity (bought two, the other for me). Humble apologies Lindy, for putting you through such a thing! Must admit I'm amazed at your note taking, I had no idea you did that with books you read, good heavens. Well, lesson learned, I shall try to be more discerning in the future; I guess I fell for the book rating. I'll go stand in the corner now. :}
Nonsense. I got a video out of it! Thanks again.
Were you a Sven Hassel fan when you were young mapesdhs? I was...
Old Sven was definitely king of the fake WW2 German memoir in his day and the first author I thought of watching this video. I have a sneaking suspicion that the movie 'Cross of Iron' was based on his first couple of novels. I also remember a Sven wannabee who had an equally unfeasible war record called Leo Kessler. I just looked up his real identity and he was a Yorkshireman called Charles Whiting.
LB, good point! :D Clouds & silver linings, etc.
Gizmo Madug, I'd not heard that name before, most interesting!
The book I finished recently was this:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1539586391/
Grim, but thought provoking, poses some uncomfortable questions, and made me wonder whether even well regarded productions like BoB and Saving Private Ryan are dumbed down in order to tread that fine line between getting the audience to empathise with the key characters and the audience instead thinking ye gods, war is just absolute hell, can we please just not do it to anyone? Alas, humans as yet seem unable to push technology forward in some other manner by quite the same degree.
Indeed. All the Wehrmacht hated the Nazis, but kinda sorta fought for them though.
I loved that Irish accent in middle of the reading!
I was seriously impressed by how good and full of respect the accent was. As Lindy bashes the French in a beautiful British way, I presumed the Irish would get a similar treatment - in this case with a parody of their accent.
Sounded like Sargent Harper from the Sharpe series.
Wonder if Harper was inspired by that guy? The sound very similar.
Well it's a Northern Irish accent so therefore a British accent, but yes, well done that chap ;)
Well it would make sense that it would be a Northern Irish accent. The Republic of Ireland was neutral in the war
Lloyd needs to read audiobooks
"read audiobooks"?? Sounds redundant---
Do the voice over. Na, that doesn't look good either , Lecture? Na ---
Theres no good verb for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
narrate maybe?
Yes, Read the Flashman series!
"The Last Panther" sounds like a fanfic. Anyhow, they should turn it into a movie with the cast of "The Expedables" plus Dwayne Johnson.
Dwayne ''the faust'' Johnson takes his Panther 3 to Moscow on a mission of revenge. I'd watch that.
@@Gneeznow There was no Panther 3
@@filmandfirearms there will be in this movie😄
@@filmandfirearms That may well be the case, officially, but there is no limit to the descriptive names you can call a thing or a person.
I have even heard of a worker described as a 'half' yet still be a completely rounded person to the same people who awarded the name.
The long excerpt of 'From the Plough..' was so engaging that I didn't want it to end.
At the end the private no scopes the other guy and they clap
If Lloyd voiced a book for Audible, I'd buy it today.
Half of it would be rants after a minor historical inaccuracy.
@@sumvs5992 More reason to buy it then!
“and then he pressed the switch, activating the tnt…….good god, you dont activate tnt, you ignite it” proceeds to explain tnt and its application
I thought the name 'Wolfgang Faust' was too good to be true.
tacfoley r/quityourbullshit
it is more a script for a german tank movie...what 's the name of the american petrol explosions director of the 1980ies ?
But surely you read Goethes famous "Panzerfaust"?
I once knew a guy called Mike Venom. Coolest name i've ever heard
must have had a viper's tongue…. sorry could not stop myself
I'll have you know that Wolfgang Faust von Bismarck-Hindernburg of Prussia is one of Germany's most acclaimed war authors!
still dose stop hes storys been fake and sounds like a very made up name anyway
Daniella Stuart Yea that name is kinda cringy, at least to ke
I think the other replies haven’t reached understanding of sarcasm
@@ScottyMoolaH Nowadays you cannot be sure if something is sarcasm or real. And of course the real name was Adolf Wolfgang Faust von Bismarck-Hindenburg of Prussia.
I wanted to send one war memoar worte by Czechoslovakian pilot to Lindy but I just found out that it was never translated to English. Well, I guess that there is something I can do while sitting home.
The last panther is fake . But you can't deny listening to the audiobook was an amazing experience . Lol
The last panther legit sounds like a fanfiction... HOW THE HELL WAS THAT PUBLISHED.
Half the stuff on amazon isn't proofread, some of them are just published from a PDF sent to them and no humans are involved in the process at all it seems.
Self-published. E-books are easy and cheap to publish.
Say that to a wercmacht platoon, and an American company fighting together in a medieval castle against the German SS.
@@o5-109 I see you are a fellow Mark Felton listener!
Nobody:
JK Rowling: Wolfgang Faust had an intense sexual relationship with his Panther.
Michael Bay wrote Wolfgang Faust. Or at least directed it.
I was wondering whether the name is basically a reference to Faust by Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, taking the first name from one the last name from the other and you end up with something that could pass as a very traditional german name.
Mikkel Bayer
I heard Rian Johnson is already doing "The last Panther", with a full diverse cast.
i was thinking the exact same thing
Vermilion77 hahahahahahaha
Can story time with Lloyd be a thing?
The Last Panther sounds like it was written for the Warhammer 40k universe! And, based on your excerpt and recommendation, I have ordered From the City... already and I look forward to seeing that Irish soldier completely embarrassed! :-P
yes i immediately thought of Warhammer fantasy too. i bet the author has done one of those.
At least to 40ks credit its in the Future, while also potentially propaganda/folk tales.
A very fine machine gun? What, a spandau or something?
Fine only with a katana bayonet on it --
Alongside the special pommel ammunition
Err.... A Bren actually....
"You'll have to read the book to find out!" You got me. I'm actually going to have to buy that book now. I was really absorbed in that story and now I have to know what happens.
Joseph Stalin threes? I thought just one of them was enough!
damanorelse how dare you there is only one.
It's the name of the Tank IS 3 (JS 3)
Wait ages for a Stalin and three come along at once.
th-cam.com/video/v-1kaz8lp20/w-d-xo.html :)
London Stalin Syndrome...
"It is amazing how much he could see from a periscope at night". Makes me sure of it fakeness, having read "the Rommel papers", where he tells of one anecdote in which his division was moving back closer to other divisions after deciding against trying to take soem town (at the moment I can't remember which one) and that they made the trip across the field at night, but during the night they went into a road. As I understood it it wasn't only tanks, they also had infantry in trucks, much better visibility than in tanks, with them. Then dawn arrived and, with the light, they looked around and.... "wait a minute. That truck, that truck, that other truck... we're in the middle of a French column!". So yeah, if at night with people on trucks with better visibility could get mixed with a column of the enemy army, I don't think we can't believe anything about seeing so clearly from the periscope of a tank at night.
By the way, if someone could be as kind to please answer my question I would appreciate it: I'd like to know of some good book to read on WW2 written my a high ranking officer from the Italian and Japanese armies and an Allied from the Pacific front (perhaps both American and European or just American). I know MacArthur has an autobiography, but I'd be more interested in something specific to the WW2 and from what I know of him I'm inclined to not want to read his books before I've read enough about the Pacific front from other people, be it involved in the action or historians writing after the facts.
Have you read "the medic" yet
Can i keep the dream of having your voice in audio books some day ?
I have applied to several companies but have been uniformly rejected. The only time I was given a solid reason was that I have a standard English accent, and they are looking for regional accents.
I daresay they're making a terrible mistake. Perhaps you could offer your services directly to someone like the tank museum to narrate something and go from there?
Lindybeige Is it possible to just upload them to your channel?
I think the trouble is with rights; you are after all providing a copy of a book that isn't yours. It's why I suggest looking toward an institution that may either have rights to give, or the clout to acquire them.
+Linbygeige: Yes, try again. At some point someone might realise that over half a million subs is a bit of a 'tell'. A lot of the military history books available on Audible are ruined by flat, bored, non-regionally accented delivery. You could start with Audible's version of 'A Bridge To Far' ... please. The current version is terrible. Ditto for The Longest Day.
This channel deserves twice the recognition it currently has... great videos, each and every one of them
Could you in the future read parts of the notes you take and why?
You actually gave the Irishman a Northern Irish accent, I'm impressed, but did you have to make him Catholic?
Nah that’s definitely not a Northern Irish accent. It’s much softer than a Northern Irish one
"From the City, From the Plough" is definitely going on my list of books to read.
Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe: Faust, his most famous tragedy. Obviously the author had very little imagination.
I like reading books from the German side of both wars. It truly makes you see the war in a different light and how horrible the war truly was for both sides.
Yeah WW2 is really appealing to a lot of people because theirs this perception of it being black and white. Human vs monster.
The Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer
All English language books tell the German side. Virtually everything is Nazi propaganda. The start like this: We were not Nazis. We were brave, heroic German soldiers who secretly despised that Bohemian kaplar with a stupid mustache. We defeated humongous communist hordes, but then we ran out of fuel/ammunition/winter clothing/men/penicillin for our syphilis and then we came back, only to be wrongly accused of war crimes. You should read Russian books. The only possible conclusion after readings these books is that the Nazis and the USA were practically allies.
JustAMan Guess the comunist and nazis didn't have secret pacts to invade Poland and the Americans didn't send fleets of ships to provide the Russians with material resources. I'm just saying the horrors of Stalinism are at least comparable to those of the national socialism. So much so that there are war crimes that the Russian committed and then they tried to pin on the Nazis like the execution of thousand of Polish officers. My personal view is that I'm glad the Nazi were defeated but beyond the idealism of western democracies, there were no saints in that war.
To be a German in WWII was to be a 'Nazi', but the common German soldier was not some evil caricature, they were real people who fought and died for each other while German civilians were firebombed by the Allies.
Love your channel, it’s so good. Thanks for what you’ve given to the community. Would like to see more technical and historical videos such as the muzzle brake and Dunkirk videos of yours. Thanks. Particularly around the 20th Century and the wars.
It's good to check, though. The infamous Bren vs. Spandau is a proof that Lloyd not only makes mistakes, but refuses to admit some. And that's coming from a person, from whose country the Bren (ZB-33) originally is.
WE LOVE YOU LINDYBEIGE! ^^ Thanks for yet another charimatic and interesting video. Your attitude towards knowledge, fun and life in general is really healthy, greatly uplifting and puts a lindy hop in my step.
Cor, that dramatic reading with the accents was brilliant.
Could you read a loud the whole book for Audible?
13:00. You, sir, are an evil man.
Ow, uncle, finish the stooorwie, caaarme on...
yes... it makes me want to read it now
My actually reaction was: F*k you Loyd. I'm not a native english so reading in it isn't easy to me but I realy want to know
lol and after this video the book was really expensive. 3 years later though and the books back in print and I finally found out who won
Amidst the confusion in the battlefields of Kursk, Unteroffizier Faust's Tiger came up against a devastating IS-3, manned by zombie pirates. Rattling his saber, the zombie pirate captain, who was manning the commander's position, gave the order: "Forward, ARRR!". The IS-3 headed full speed towards Faust's tiger, but with one accurately fired shot, Faust sent the IS-3s turret flying into the air, as the tank's ammunitions blew up in a massive fireball. Flying through the air, the zombie pirate captain had one last trick up his sleeve. His dismembered, undead arm clutched the firing mechanism, but Faust had anticipated this and ordered his powerful Tiger on full reverse. The IS-3's cannon fired one last time and the shot just barely missed the Tiger's thinly armored top. The IS-3's burning hull lost control and drove at full speed towards a Soviet fuel dump, ending in a massive explosion that shook the ground. The massive fire lit the battlefield, as the IS-3's turret came falling down from the sky hitting another Soviet fuel dump, this ending in another massive explosion. The infernal flames poured into the sky and pillars of smoke blotted out the sun. Faust's lonely Tiger drove into the sunset. He knew that the undead pirate captain was still out there, plotting his next move.
Jesus, you should write a whole book like that. I'd buy it.
Jesus Christ, I love this too much
Better than anything 'Wolfgang Faust's has ever written
Excellent video Lindy! Very much enjoyed your reading too.
The Last Panther sounds like a cut-price Sven Hassel. Actually, cut-price Leo Kessler would be a better fit.
Leo Kessler's books are not in the same leage as Sven Hassels.
I was just thinking it sounds like a later sven hassel
i love sven Hassel books! I read about 4 of them when i was in my early teens. I had actually forgotten about them until i read your comment. Thanks.
Thank you for putting From the City, From the Plough on my radar.
Another good example of a poetic memoir is "A Helmet For My Pillow" by Robert Leckie. He once went on for three whole pages about how much he hated rain and it remained totally captivating throughout. I have yet to find a more emotional account by a Marine in the Pacific and recommend the book highly.
With the old breed by Eugene Sledge is also very good
I stumbled upon this video by chance and on the back of this excellent review I’ve ordered the Baron book. Thanks.
Your commentary on these two books is very interesting to listen to. What you think about various topics always fascinates me, plus your voice (tempo/pronunciation) is quite interesting to listen too.
I'd listen to an audiobook written by you, Lloyd! You've got a great reading voice.
I have a copy of cat in the hat, would you like it?
I think the hungry caterpillar may be more up his street
If the cat speaks in a Yorkshire accent, then yes, he wants it.
How about green eggs and ham?
Cat and the Hat and the Bren Gun.
Please do more reading videos, i learned a lot just from that. I think its great that you can explain a lot that comes on!
Please, please, PLEASE, do a video of you reading your favourite war memoir!!! I could listen to you for hours and hours! Keep up your awesome work Lindy!
'Wings On My Sleeve'. The Memoir of Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown RN. If you haven't read it, do so. It's a short book. Captain Brown was chief Royal Naval test pilot at RAE Farnborough during WWII, taking many firsts in aviation. Holds the record for most types of aircraft flown (over 400), was a combat pilot too, interviewed Goering and just had an incredible life! Would love you to do a video on him.
"You're going to have to read the book to find out!"
My god, you tricked my brain into *actually wanting to read a book.*
I really enjoyed this one! Excellent note taker!
Awesome narration!
Lindy, I would absolutely love to hear you narrate a documentary.
How does one go about sending you a book?
I love the detail that you spotted - a glowing review by someone actually involved in the production of the book. Amazon are trying to stamp that out.
You're a remarkable story teller, Llyod. I'm awaiting my copy of From the City From the Plough to arrive from Amazon.
You should consider a side career in reading audiobooks!
Less realistic than Girls und Panzer
But of course, Girls und Panzer is the gold standard.
The Irish accent you did was amazing!
I could listen to you read all day. You’re a very good narrator
I've never been convinced that I'll get on with audio books, this has convinced me to give them a go.
Very good, clearly you are a researcher Lloyd with a critical and pragmatic mind. While I did enjoy your infamous Bren v Spandau video perhaps this sort of thing is more up your street. There are a lot of pedants with vast knowledge on the inner workings of all sorts of machines and weapons that will disagree with an in depth analysis of a specific piece of equipment but book and movie analysis by a well read and knowledgeable person such as yourself are informative and entertaining if you're able to take a book apart in the way you do here.
Since this post I bought 'From the city, from the plough' for myself and my Dad to read based on your recommendation.
Before he finished say IS3 I was expecting the author to have written about hand to hand combat with Stalin
Damn I'd pay to listen or watch you narrate some of these Books.
You convey the atmosphere so well and make the story more interesting.
Loved the part where you read from "From the City, From the Plough".
Holy shit Lindy. You should be doing audiobooks man. You have a very soothing voice, similar to a very skilled spokesman. Loved it!
Hey Lindy, have you ever considered reading for audiobooks?
I read most of the Sven Hassel books when I was at sea in the 70's. I sometimes wondered how true they were.
Yeh. Wasn't he Danish and part of a Penal Battalion? But also a Pz Pioneer and Panzer crew member?
Hey Lindy!! I really appreciate your book reviews and your videos as a whole... I too have a book from the curator of the Tank Museum D.W.... Such a remarkable and charismatic man!!
Thanks for your efforts in making your videos! Added From the City From the Plough in my wish list now...
"Admittedly, one of them does get shot. But in an inspiring way!" would have been hilarious ^^
The idea of Scottish soldiers throwing hand grenades at English soldiers, really that much of a surprise is it?
this is so weird... i was thinking about buying 'The last Panther' about 3 hours before you uploaded this video...
I like your sense of humour Lindy. And, by the way, you got me interested in Mr. Bernstein's book. Thank you.
You never fail to please and entertain. Thanks. You do the research so I don't have to.
Some soldiers who get used to the gunfire around them seem to know that it’s not their time to go and can almost walk through two groups of soldiers shooting at each other and not get hit.
allan fulton It's less that and more reservations on the shooter's part. It's much easier to shoot a man who's shooting back at you, but a fearless man out in the open showing not a care and calmly moving about represents what is basically the ideal noble martial man across Europe, if not the world. When combined with the fact that he's not presenting you with an immediate danger, the hesitation it creates is statistically significant enough to decently lower your odds of getting shot.
(citation needed)
People were more likely to miss than hit. The officers knew that and took advantage of it to look fearless. But it's just like those extreme sports where people defy death by freeclimbing a tall monument: death is only a fraction away at all times, you can look amazing and fearless as ever but one slip and it's all over.
And sometimes they are wrong and get hit.
Till a sniper comes along
Darn, I need to know what happens next in the first book! That was cruel.
Purchased.
Lloyd, you definitely need to become a reader for Audible. I was utterly entranced by your reading. I would buy anything you did.
Great reading! And sounds like a gripping story
Am I the only one getting a strong "Harper" vibe from the Irishman's voice? (From Sharpe)
Damn, that tease. Everyone wants an audio book version read by Lloyd now but it will never happen :`(
Very well composed video thank you
Thanks, Lindy... This is not only great work as a book review, but a worthwhile effort in public services.
I agree with your assessment from get-go to finish. Only suggesting that you might point out some of the various easy points one might find useful in deciding on one's own whether something is "suspicious" or "plausible"...
I like how you picked apart the over-detailed descriptions in the "Last Panther". That's telling, as is the "attempted knife-fighting with tanks" consistency in the storyline. For a useful "real world" example, I've often listened to "war stories" myself, and there are certain phrases you start to instinctively look out for... "I found out later it was a..." or "Later on, someone told me I was looking at the..." Both of these are fairly common in a story that is fairly grounded in reality. The battlefield is often obscured, the lighting is terrible, weather terrible, visibility is never clean... Of course it's not! Nobody wants to fight in the rain and fog amid smoldering heaps of wreckage... BUT it's harder to see troops moving through smoldering heaps of wreckage in the rain and fog at night. THAT's the whole point...
AND with "lots of tanks rearing up wildly"... What, like horses? It happened, once in a great while... BUT remember, this is something that weighs more than 80 tons! The kind of hit it's going to take to do something like stand a tank up on end is going (in all likelihood) to kill the crew outright... and probably open the skin like a cheap beer-can. There are thousands of tanks used in a great war scenario, but the odds are closer to one in a hundred thousand(?) maybe one in a million, to stand a tank on end and still have a running mobile machine afterward... Just not even believable... Solution, forgive one incredible instance in a large book covering a fairly long term, but only just forgive that. A consistent recurrence is nothing short of fiction... (dubious fantasy).
In any case, this was great stuff. I do look forward to more from your channel... and I'm continuing perusal of past works... Just thought you might like an additive commentary to your assessment. Who knows, you might even find it helpful for like a step-point to another gifted narrative exposition... (lolz) If nothing else, maybe you got a giggle... :o)
Best book i ever read about a war and men is Michael Herr`s Dispatches
The Last Panther sounds like what WW2 tank warfare would look like if Micheal Bay was directing a movie about it.
I am happy to came back watch this great video.
I could have you read audiobooks to me all day. May be the fact your a northerner like me, or the enthusiasm you put into different videos. Great video as usual, bravo.
Didnt knew Micheal Bay wrote ww2 books.
No, he only makes hyper-realistic movies about it, like Pearl Harbor, which is so real that many people have confused it with a documentary recorded on the cell phones of the participants as it happened. Well, except for that shot that follows the bomb down the stack. Except for that. Everything else is real.
This reminds me of my contention that a high percentage of the favorable reviews on Amazon are from the author's relatives or creditors.
Absolutely love your content. Thank you.
Also - I would 100% buy From the City, From the Plough as an audiobook with your voice...
Damn you Lloyd! You got me in the edge of my seat! Please end the story!
You must seriously consider do audio books
Panther Ausf D and early Ausf A have an MP stopfen in the rear of the turret, which could be described as a pistol port
You could also find updated Ausf D turrets fitted to later variants (from Bergepanthers and recovered vehicles).
do you suppose Herr Faust was playing Sudden Strike 2 when he wrote the book?
Or reading sven hassel I reckon
In book club mode you are absolutely entertaining. Thank you!
I would really enjoy hearing about more WW2 stuff from you.
Unfortunately "The Last Panther" is available at Audible.com while "From The City, From The Plough", is not.
Were the soviets really allied to the reich? wasn't it a non-agression pact, the molotov-ribbentrop pact? those are different things.
they were allied against Poland
They weren't full allies, and it was more of a non aggression pact too. But, they have been cooperating on quite a few things for years now because they were isolated from the west, all the time knowing it will come down at some time. As for the Communist parties being against fighting the Axis, that's actually true. Before Soviet Union got invaded apparently they were advised not to provoke the Germans (because USSR was not yet ready for war) and that included actually promoting against the war. Which when you think about it, in 1940s, unless your country was directly threatened, wasn't that hard to do since the war seemed more of a repeat of WWI with it being a fight between imperialists that will be paid by the workers. Or it could be spun that way.
But once USSR did get invaded, they quickly changed their tune.
The Soviet Union helped invade Poland and supplied the Germans with a large amount of resources plus they shared some production and research facilities. Their 'alliance' was close enough that France and Britain actually considered bombing the caucasian oil fields using flights from Syria in 1940 since they basically figured the Soviet Union was in the war on Germany's side in all but name. Kinda the same way the US supplied Britain, and though claimed to be "neutral" really wasn't. All plans of bombing the Soviet Union were abandoned in May of 1940 with the invasion of France however.
Eh, and Sweden supplied a big chunk of German need for iron and isn't considered a German ally. The oil bit was because by that point Germany really couldn't get it from anywhere else. Atlantic was closed off to them the moment they declared war on Britain and Romanian production was NOWHERE NEAR enough to satisfy Axis need for oil. So yes, Soviets supplied them wit oil, but even that was not enough to feed the needs of an entire continent, but it was less propping up their allies but a trade deal since Soviets didn't give a rats ass about Allies (just as Allies didn't care of Comintern) as long as they occupied the Germans long enough for them to mobilize.
The French communists got orders from Moscow to support the invading Germans by sabotage, agitation for worker strikes etc.
Stalin also extradited a lot of political refugees back to Nazi Germany (among them faithful communists), so Hitler would do the dirty work of killing them for him.
I read "The Last Panther" and I must say your analysis is spot on. I will have to try to find the British book.
"It doesn't work and the men don't like it."
Still one of my favourite quotes from a Lindy video.. so yes, I have seen the video about the British Officers refusal to dive. :D
You should do audiobooks
I'll read it....in audible....if you are the one narrating
I thoroughly enjoy your videos. I came across them a little while ago. I think they were linked to The Great War. Ta very much!
Dammit Lloyd, that cliffhanger is unfair! I was absorbed into the story lol.
I'm german and the Panther book sounds embarrassing to me.
I would say its near to defamation that the book claims to be the memoirs of a real german soldier. I searched for the german version of the book and found nothing. But i found this article which comes to the same conclusion as you, Lloyd: weaponsman.com/?p=22319
The first book sounds really good though. I want to know how it continues!
Have you ever read The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer? Its been a while, but I remember reading several opinions online that came to the conclusion that the book was true but not factual. Even if it's not factual a quick look around the net suggests that this book has made its way onto US military reading lists.
Quint Rankid No sorry, I haven't read that.
why would a non factual book be an embarrassed
Sadly, "The Last Panther" isn't the only fictional book this publisher released. There were a couple other books released a few years ago under the same pretenses called "D Day through German Eyes". Same type of writing and same type of fictional storytelling pretending to be factual. My guess is all of these were written by the same person trying to pull a fast one on unsuspecting people that happen to be interested in WW2 history. They would make great movies, but not so great for historical accuracy.
King Leonidas Because it pretends to be factual. If it is fiction it should state that openly and not trick people into thinking its factual.
If you want to read real war stories, you can go to websites iremember.ru, where you can find a lot of ww2 veteran's interviews most of them from former Soviet Union, but I think there are interviews from Germany, Romania and other countries
To be fair to Faust, he was describing the final days of the 9th army, which was very much unlike the rest of the war in pretty much every way. Given how much of a clusterfuck that whole operation was, I could see a T-34 suddenly appearing 50 yards away. It was a time when everyone was shooting in every direction, so there wasn't as much of the "vague idea of an enemy" thing as in other parts of the war
lindy you should do more book reviews. Well worked video.