Stalingrad Movie Depicts Horror Of War, Part One, Historical Background

A little historical background: Stalingrad was a massive and famous World War Two battle, which came to symbolize, along with El Alamein in North Africa, the turning point in the war against Hitler and Mussolini. In the summer of 1942, a year after ordering his forces to invade the Soviet Union, Hitler concentrated his forces in the southern part of the Soviet Union in a strategic move to capture the oil fields of the Caucasus region, and to breach the Volga River, thus halting Soviet river traffic northwards. As the summer proceeded, Hitler divided his forces, sending one branch southward to take the oil fields, and keeping the other branch focused on the Volga at the city of Stalingrad.* The Soviets were determined to fight for the city, and German efforts to completely capture it were thwarted in August through October of 1942, bringing a street to street and building to building struggle for the remaining part of the devastated city still in Soviet hands.** In an effort to capture the last part of the city, the Germans sent in combat engineer battalions to try to gain control (the movie deals with a group of these combat engineers).*** As the slow, but brutal fighting took place, the Soviets mustered substantial forces outside the city for an offensive of their own.

With the bulk of his forces in the area tied down in and around Stalingrad, Hitler relied on his allies for forces to protect the flanks of his forces in the immediate Stalingrad area. These Italian, Hungarian and Rumanian troops were largely ill equipped to face the Soviet forces, especially to face Soviet tanks, but Hitler entrusted them with this important mission anyhow, believing the Soviets to be too weak to launch any major offensive operations, although German intelligence had reported Soviet troop concentrations on either side of German forces in the Stalingrad area, an area defended by Rumanian troops. In mid November the Soviets struck. While some Rumanian forces fought hard, the presence of large numbers of Soviet tanks eventually spread panic among their ranks and the front line collapsed. The Soviets raced to the rear of the German forces in the Stalingrad area (their 6th Army), trapping about a quarter of a million German troops, along with some Rumanian and Croatian forces.**** Hitler refused to allow a breakout attempt by the 6th Army, and a relief attack from the south was halted by Soviet resistance and winter weather. Attempts to supply the surrounded forces by air failed to adequately deliver enough supplies to keep the army going and repeated Soviet attacks gradually whittled down the size of the 6th Army. Although forbidden by Hitler to surrender, Colonel General (Generaloberst) Friedrich Paulus, then promoted to Field Marshal by Hitler as the end neared on January 30,***** decided to surrender his remaining 91,000 men to the Soviets in early February 1943. Only about 6000 of these men ever returned to Germany after the war. Prior to that time, the Soviets had attacked the Italians and the Hungarians, inflicting devastating casualties on these German allies, including many thousands killed. After the war, Italian-Soviet diplomatic relations were poor for decades, as the Italians said the Soviets had never given a full accounting for the Italian prisoners they had taken during the Stalingrad battle. "As I recall," the Soviets said the Italian prisoners, unfamiliar with the harsh winter conditions in Russia, had consequently suffered a high death rate in captivity, but the Italians felt the Soviets had mistreated their Italian prisoners, causing their deaths, or had executed many of them. The Rumanians and Hungarians, both under Soviet domination in the postwar era, could not offer any protest about their Soviet held prisoners of war until their communist governments were ousted and they were able to ask questions decades later.

This overall gigantic "Battle of Stalingrad" brought staggering casualties of at least three quarters of a million Axis troops killed, wounded or missing, and at least a million Soviet killed, wounded or missing. In addition, perhaps as many as fifty thousand Soviet civilians died.

* Stalingrad had been known as "Tsaritsyn" under the Tsars and into the early years of Soviet rule, when it was then renamed in honor of Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin. It was renamed "Volgograd," circa 1961, as Soviet leaders tried to distance themselves from Stalin's rule. Stalin had died in 1953.

** German air and artillery bombardment had left many structures in partial to total ruin, but these ruins then provided the remaining Soviet troops with excellent hiding places to ambush German units, slowly bleeding the German forces and leaving their units in a weakened state. The fighting was often confusing for the opposing forces, as later reports indicated examples where German forces would control certain floors of a building, while Soviet forces controlled other floors of the same building.

*** The movie has a scene using an actual preserved recording of Hitler giving a speech to long time Nazi Party members in Munich in November 1942. The movie has the exhausted men, who had just fought to capture a Soviet factory, sitting around and listening to the speech, which had been broadcast on radio all over Germany, and to the troops on the Eastern Front. In the speech, Hitler says he wants to take the remaining part of Soviet held Stalingrad "mit ganz kleinen Stoßtrupps" ( "with very small assault detachments"), in reference to the combat engineers. Some of the men look at each other in astonishment, as they have already suffered high casualties just taking this one factory.

**** Croatia had been established as an independent state, although with foreign policy tied to Italy and Germany, after the defeat of Yugoslavia in 1941. It was a fascist ruled nation which provided some military forces to Germany, although these forces were technically part of the "German" armed forces (Wehrmacht). Another small unit was part of the Italian military. Their other forces remained as part of their own Croatian military to combat insurrection forces in the Croatia-Serbia region, often, but not always, organized by communist leaders, most prominent of whom was Josef Tito, who later became the head of postwar Yugoslavia.

***** Essentially, German general ranks had been copied from the French long ago. Typically the Germanic languages (which includes English) place adjectives before the noun they describe, as in, "the blue car." The Latin based languages, which includes French, typically place adjectives after the noun. In the British and American armies of World War Two, there was the rank of Major General, for instance, but the Germans use the French form, "General Major" (Generalmajor, in German). Neither the British nor American armies had the specific German rank of "Colonel General" (Generaloberst) in World War Two, but it was equivalent to a four-star general in the U.S. Army. Hitler had promoted Paulus to field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) just a couple of days before the end, with the thought that Paulus would commit suicide, rather than surrender.   

Word History:
Freeze-This word goes back to Indo European "preus," which meant "to freeze, to frost over." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "freusan," as the Indo European "p" often became "f" in Old Germanic. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "freosan," which then became "fresen," before the modern version. The figurative sense, "to remain motionless, to stop in one tracks and remain motionless," may well have developed in Old Germanic and was passed on to a number of its offspring, including English. The noun form meaning, "a period of cold temperatures in which crops freeze," came from the verb. The other Germanic languages have: German "frieren," ^ Low German "fresen," ^^ Dutch "vriezen" West Frisian "frieze," Danish and Norwegian "fryse," Swedish "frysa" and Icelandic "frysta" and "frjósa."

^ Note the change of "s" or "z" to "r," a common change (sound shift) which developed in High German centuries ago, although the "s" sound continued in this case, as Old High German had "friosan;" and it wasn't until later that that sound shift took place. Another example is, English has "I was," but German has "Ich war" (not pronounced like English "war," but rather it rhymes with "far").

^^ Low German, under influence from German (standard German is heavily based on High German), also has "freren," a borrowing with the "r" from standard German. Low German was once the general dialect of northern Germany, but the teaching of standard German in schools has brought a serious decline to Low German, although it still is used, but less than in times past. Low German is very closely related to English, as northern Germany is the ancestral homeland of Anglo-Saxon.

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Thirty-Five

"Tax Cuts and 9/11" (Part Two)

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was driving to work. I was only a few blocks away from my job when a report came over the radio about a plane striking the World Trade Center in New York City. There were no other details at that point and my first thought was that a small plane must have hit the complex. When I got to work a few minutes later, I put the radio on and then came a report of a second plane hitting the World Trade Center. Now I knew this all was something more than an accident. Of course as time passed, reports came in of a plane hitting the Pentagon, and another plane crashing in Pennsylvania. We all remember where were were when we heard these things, and this will not be a retelling of those terrible events.

At that time, I managed an apartment building occupied mainly by college students, many of whom were international students. As events unfolded, the college, located just down the street, closed, and city officials asked employers to send workers home, as no one knew if further attacks were coming. I stayed at work, as many of our students were absolutely terrified, and that counted those whose actual homes were generally in the area, not just overseas. Phone service out of the country was down for awhile, as I recall, and there was an air of fear in many of the students. A police officer came to the building, as the city wanted workers out of the downtown area, because they were preparing to close some streets, so I finally left later in the afternoon.

After the initial shock, the country rallied and President George W. Bush addressed the nation. For quite some time Americans actually got along as they had not gotten along for years. Even the politicians stopped calling each other names and crime declined, and it's a shame it took such a series of events to shake us out of our nastiness. We found out that a radical Islamic group called "al Qaeda," led by one Osama bin Laden, a Saudi born extremist, was responsible for the attacks, as their agents hijacked four airliners. Three of the four planes were turned into "suicide missiles," as the hijackers struck their targets. Passengers on the fourth plane, "Flight 93," seem to have heroically battled the fanatical nutcases, causing the plane to crash into a field in Pennsylvania, rather than into its presumed target of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

I pay a lot of attention to news in various forms, but I must admit, I, like many other Americans, had just not paid enough attention to events which had gone on involving Islamic terrorists in other parts of the world, and the idea that these extremists would strike right here inside the United States was certainly not on the radar screen of many Americans. Unfortunately, it took these attacks and the loss of nearly 3000 lives to get our attention, but, once focused, we remained so for quite some time. To be honest too, when some of these extremists had gone to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet forces there in the 1980s, the American government supported them, as did a number of Americans, although I question how much many Americans really knew, if anything, about the situation, except that these extremists were opposed to the Soviets, and that was all they (and the Soviet-obsessed government of Ronald Reagan) needed to know. Sometimes people make a pact with the devil, as the saying goes. During World War Two, Winston Churchill allied himself with Josef Stalin against Hitler, although Stalin, just a couple of years prior to that, had signed a pact with Hitler; a pact that gave Stalin a large part of Poland, and included the eventual annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and parts of Rumania. Not only that, Stalin then turned around and attacked little Finland in late 1939, and though Stalin's forces eventually prevailed, the hardy Finns left Stalin's forces so bloodied, Soviet leaders were relieved when the Finns asked for an armistice.

The thing was, when Hitler attacked Stalin's Soviet Union in June 1941, Churchill leaped at the idea of having a powerful ally, especially one on the other side of Hitler, thus relieving Britain from the possibility of facing a Nazi invasion, or at least from continued heavy aerial bombardment. He knew this would divide Hitler's forces. You must remember, the United States was NOT at war with anyone at that point in time, although the U.S. was aiding Britain, and France had been defeated by Hitler. Churchill even said something to the effect that he'd have been willing to say a good word about the devil, if the devil was against Hitler. Churchill's hand was forced, as Hitler was one very dangerous nutcase. Defeating the more threatening devil of the moment was the important matter. Judging who the most threatening devil of the moment is, can be another matter, but Churchill made the right call, in my opinion. The point is, the U.S. supported Islamic extremists when they opposed the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, a country at that point, that was about as threatening to the United States as.... Finland! After Hitler was defeated, the association with Stalin came to an abrupt end, as the other side of the "pact with the devil" then came into play. Stalinist governments took over eastern Europe with the military backing of the Soviet Union. The price of allying with the devil out of necessity continued for more than four decades, although Stalin himself died in 1953.

In the case of bin Laden and Islamic extremists, the price continues to this day, although bin Laden too is now dead. The whole matter in Afghanistan during the 1980s helped to train and equip, but mainly finance, militant Islamists, with further loads of equipment captured from, or left behind by, Soviet forces there. These extremists then spawned the Taliban, an extremist group that took over Afghanistan and combined with al Qaeda to provide training facilities and operational bases to launch attacks against various targets around the world, including the 9/11 attacks. Making a pact with the devil is tricky and dangerous business.      

WORD HISTORY:
Kill-This word apparently traces back to Indo European "kwel," which had the notion of "to inflict pain, to torture, torment." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "kwaljanan," with the same basic meanings. This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "cwellan," which meant "to kill, to murder." Later the "cw" came to be spelled "qu," and this form became modern "quell" (covered in a previous "Word History"), which once meant "to kill," but then the meaning softened into "suppress." "Apparently" it had a spinoff, "kyllen," which showed up by the late 1100s meaning, "to beat, to hit," then proceeded to the meaning "to kill," a meaning then being vacated by its close relative "quell." Not uncommonly, words for "hit, beat, strike" eventually came to mean "kill," as the synonym of kill, "slay," once did. The noun "kill," as in "the lions devoured their kill," developed from the verb. Several of the other Germanic languages have had forms of "kill," but not usually with the modern English meaning, but rather they retained the "hit, strike" meaning. These terms appear to have died out in the standard languages, but may still be dialectal in usage. For Germanic language relatives of "kill" (and its relative "quell") see the "Word History" in the previous part of this series:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2013/01/its-about-coalitions-not-purity-part_9.html

Rolling Back Fascism Is Not Easy, Part Two

This was first published in January 2013. I'm adding this note 5/25/16: On May 22, Austrian voters narrowly defeated a far right candidate for president, Norbert Hofer, choosing instead, Alexander Van der Bellen.

Nazism differed from Italian Fascism, and indeed from most other European fascist movements, at least to some degree, in that Hitler's fascism was strongly based upon "race" and "ethnic" identity, with the fanatical furious Führer the proponent of mass murder against people he deemed to be racially unfit, with his number one target being Europe's Jews. Members of other fascist movements tended not to emphasize this hatred as much as did Hitler, but they acquiesced to the dominant German dictator by participating in many a crime against minorities.* 

A post World War Two Nazi revival in Germany didn't materialize, although the fear of such remained for decades,** and still does for some. First the Allied occupation forces, and then the Germans themselves cracked down on Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, by banning the display or use of the swastika, even banning medals for veterans of the war, as they virtually all contained a swastika somewhere on the medal, by forbidding the Nazi salute (Hitlergruss, in German; that is, "Hitler greeting"), by banning Nazi songs, and by making the third verse of the national anthem the official version, thus removing the first verse, which had been exploited by the Nazis and other super German nationalists to support conquest, as it touted "Germany over all," but it was originally meant to promote German unity, not conquest, and the third verse more clearly defines that principle with the words "unity, justice and freedom."*** The right wing fanatics have stomped, huffed and puffed, but German democracy has flourished, showing that sometimes national law may need to be to some degree undemocratic to protect the basic principle of democracy from those who would destroy that democracy to gain power, and let's not forget, this was all started under the Allied occupation in West Germany, enforced by three democracies, the U.S., Britain, and France.**** The last I checked, Germany was still a model democracy and the tough anti-Nazi laws haven't diminished that, nor ended civilization. Laws must be flexible and what might be good for one country may not be good for all, or others. Similar measures were put into effect in postwar Austria, but right wing political groups in Hitler's homeland have tended to be more successful than those across the border in Germany, but this is in no way meant to suggest that Austrians are about to lead an establishment of a Fourth Reich, as Austria too seems to be a solid democracy.

Next, Rightwing Extremism In The United States

* Croatian fascism during World War Two manifested itself in hatred of Serbs, their close kin. The only real difference between the two groups is, Croats are Roman Catholic and use the Latin alphabet (some call it the "Roman" alphabet), while Serbs are Eastern Orthodox and use the Cyrillic alphabet (most prominently used in Russia). Religion can be used by some as a powerful motivator, including in the motivation and justification of hatred. In this case religion determined the "ethnicity" of people and several hundred thousand Serbs were murdered and many more were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism by Croats, especially by their militia forces. As to fascist collaborators with the Nazis, this could be an article or series of articles on its own, but briefly, the greatest number of Europe's Jews and Gypsies lived in eastern Europe, especially in the then Soviet Union, Poland, Lithuania, Rumania and Hungary. Fascists in these countries eventually helped the Nazis in their murderous deeds committed right in those regions, or in the sending of Jews to "resettlement areas," a euphemism for "concentration camps," where many were murdered. Only a small percentage survived the Nazi defeat. Mussolini, the Italian dictator, was not a racist anywhere near the likes of his Axis partner Hitler, but he too came under the sway of the man with the toothbrush mustache, and I don't mean Charlie Chaplin, and the "Duce" had his fascist thugs persecute and terrorize Italy's small, but vibrant, Jewish community. Hungary, an Axis ally, held out against deportation of their Jews for much of the war, but by 1944 they too gave in to Nazi pressure and outright force. Earlier, Hungary persecuted and repressed their Jewish population, even murdering Jews, but the vast number of the country's Jewish population lived until the Nazi takeover in 1944. This is in no way meant to suggest that Hungary's pre-1944 treatment of Jews was okay.  

** The plot of "The Quiller Memorandum," a movie from the mid 1960s starring George Segal, was based on a neo Nazi group in West Germany and an agent sent to get information on it. As he meets various Germans, you can never be sure if they are Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, or anti-Nazis. The movie is well worth watching. The link to my article on the movie: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-quiller-memorandum-anti-nazi.html

*** For more on the German anthem, see my article:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2010/09/german-question-part-forty.html

**** East Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union and any inclination by former Nazis to regain power would have been met by severe penalties, and possibly death. "In theory" Soviet Communism was not supposed to be racist and bigoted, but in reality, Stalin was another nutcase whose paranoia brought suppression to some of the Soviet Union's many ethnic and national groups, including to German communities living there, like the Volga Germans (German: "Wolgadeutsche"), who had been living in southern Russia since the 1700s. They had been invited and encouraged to settle there by the German-born Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great. 

WORD HISTORY:
Crime-The ultimate origins of this word are unclear. It traces back to Latin "crimen," which meant "accusation of wrongdoing, offense." Some say this was derived from another Latin word, which itself was borrowed from Old Greek, but I'm not really sold on this. Anyway, "crimen" was inherited by Old French, a Latin-based language, the form of which is uncertain to me, perhaps "crimne," which was then borrowed by English in the 1200s, seemingly as "crime," and with the meaning "sin, evil deed." Within a couple of hundred years this had taken on the more legalistic sense of "act that violates the law." 

Allied Commanders of World War Two/Marshal Zhukov, Final

"Georgi Zhukov" Part 4/Final

During the summer of 1942, Hitler planned on capturing the the Soviet oilfields of the Caucasus and on taking the city of Stalingrad on the Volga River; thus cutting off the north/south river route for Soviet supplies. What is termed "the Battle of Stalingrad" was really a series of battles beginning with the German advance to the city and their ensuing attempts to capture the city with Stalin's name.* The Soviet defenders barely held on, but the worn out German forces could not fully capture Stalingrad. With Zhukov in overall command of the region, a massive offensive was planned to destroy the southern flank of the German and Axis front, and in November 1942, the Soviets struck, bringing on another chapter to the Stalingrad battle. Rumanian forces (German allies), on either side of the German forces in the city, were shattered by the Soviet attack, and the German 6th Army, along with some Rumanian units, were surrounded. Now began another phase of the battle; the reduction and final surrender of the German forces in Stalingrad, which took place in early February 1943. Interestingly, when the German forces were surrounded in Stalingrad, Zhukov was transferred north to the Leningrad sector to try organize an attack to relieve the besieged metropolis, which was not successful, although the Soviets did manage to get a quantity of supplies through to the city.

Zhukov went south again, this time to plan a defensive battle against an expected large German offensive around the city of Kursk. Large Soviet defensive works created serious problems for the German attack, and with the invasion of Sicily by the Western Allies, Hitler broke off the offensive in the Kursk area, his forces, especially his armored forces, badly depleted. Then came the Soviet counter thrust, and the Germans never really recovered. Zhukov remained in charge of large Soviet forces headed into Poland and then into Germany itself. In mid April 1945 Soviet forces launched the attack intended to end the war, and Zhukov's forces were given the direct route to the German capitol. Stiff German resistance during the initial part of the Soviet attack brought angry remarks from Josef Stalin, but Zhukov's troops finally broke through and headed for Berlin.

Zhukov served as Commander of the Soviet Zone in occupied Germany after the war, but his popularity made him a target of the paranoid Stalin, who had him sent to remote military posts. Stalin's death in 1953 brought Zhukov into public view again. In poor health from the mid 1960s, Zhukov died in 1974 from a stroke.

* The city was called Tsaritsyn in the days of the Russian Empire, but it was renamed during the early Communist era, after Stalin, in the mid 1920s. In the early 1960s the city was once again renamed, as Volgograd, as Communist leaders distanced themselves from Josef Stalin.

WORD HISTORY:
Man-While there is disagreement on the origins of this word, it likely goes back to the Indo European root "man(u)," which meant "human being, 'man,' in the general sense person." This gave Old Germanic "mann(a)," with the same meaning. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "mann," with the same meaning. Later this became "man." One of the questions about this word is why it took on the meaning "male person" in all of the Germanic languages (English has kept both meanings, "human being," and "male human"). English used "wer" for "male person;" thus "werewolf," "man wolf," but gradually "man" overtook "wer" in this meaning during the 1200s. In the male dominated world of those times, perhaps the general idea of "man," the human being, transferred to the dominate sex, male, but it is interesting that this occurred in all of the Germanic languages, which makes me wonder if this was already a secondary meaning going back in time. The verb form "to man," as in "to supply a group of men to some task," as in "man the walls of the fort," developed from the noun during the same period when "man" was overtaking "wer." Common in various forms in the other Germanic languages: German has "Mann" (male person, also husband) and the derived "Mensch" (person) plus "bemannen" ("to man"); Low German has "Mann" and "Minsch;" West Frisian has "man" and "minske;" Dutch has "man" and "mens;" Icelandic has "karlmaður" and "maður;" Danish has "mand" and "menneske;" Norwegian "mann" and "menneske;" Swedish has "man" and "människa."

Allied Commanders of World War Two/Marshal Zhukov, Part Three

"Georgi Zhukov" Part 3

As Chief of the Soviet General Staff Zhukov faced a daunting task, as German, Rumanian, Hungarian, Finnish, Italian and Slovak forces penetrated deep into Soviet territory, encircling large numbers of Soviet troops and inflicting staggering casualties on the Red Army. Zhukov's problems were complicated by the fact that he not only had to combat the Axis invaders, but he also had to contend with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who ordered counterattacks with little knowledge of the actual situation at the front, or with little preparation to give the attacks a chance to succeed. After strenuous arguments, Stalin relieved Zhukov at the end of July 1941, giving him command of a "front."* After some success at slowing the German onslaught in his sector, Zhukov was sent northward to keep Leningrad** from falling to the Germans. Defensive measures were implemented, including minefields, to slow the German advance. Generally small counterattacks sapped the strength of the German and Finnish forces and brought the situation to a stalemate. The Germans had to content themselves with besieging the city until they could bolster their forces for an all out attack, but this opportunity never came.

In the fall of 1941, Zhukov was shifted to the defense of Moscow to halt the German advance bearing down on the capitol. Winter weather and stubborn Soviet resistance brought the German attack to a halt with some German troops actually able to see the spires of the Kremlin off in the distance. A Soviet counteroffensive only a few days later threw the Germans back, but failed to achieve a decisive victory. Still, Moscow had some breathing room and the Germans took up defensive positions. As with Leningrad, the Germans had the idea of renewing the attack when the situation proved more favorable. But also as with Leningrad, the favorable situation never presented itself. The action now shifted to southern Russia and a decisive battle on the Volga River.

Next, the final installment on Marshal Zhukov.

* What the Russians called a "front" was what was termed an "army group" by western Europeans and Americans. An army group or a front was literally a "group of two or more armies serving in the same general area."

** Leningrad was the Soviet-era name for the northern city of Saint Petersburg, which had served as the capitol of Tsarist Russia since the times of Peter the Great, who had had the city built at great cost, including in lives. The Soviets returned the capitol to Moscow. With the fall of the Soviet Union came the renaming of the city as Saint Petersburg, but Moscow remains the capitol.

WORD HISTORY:
Yeoman-First the "yeo" part of this compound; the specifics for the "man" part will be covered in the next article. The ultimate origin of "yeo" is uncertain, but Old Germanic had "gawjan," which seems to have denoted a "piece of land near water; thus land ready for settlement and cultivation." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "gea," which meant "village, region of inhabitants." This then produced "geaman," "a settler, villager," and from this it later took on the meaning "a person who cultivates the land, a farmer." As large landowners became more common, the term was applied to "a common farmer who worked the land on a large estate." This association then led to "a person in the service of a noble." The term is rare in American English, but it is more common in British English, especially because of military units: "Yeoman Cavalry," which were volunteer cavalry used for the defense of England. Later the spelling was "yoman/yeman," depending upon dialect, before the modern spelling. "Yeo" still has some living relatives in other Germanic languages: German has "Gau," an old word for "an administrative region or district, like a county," dating back to Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse, in German), and resurrected by the Nazis for "an administrative district in the Nazi political system, both before and after they took power." It is pretty much confined to use in historical texts now; Dutch has "gouw," "a region or administrative district;" West Frisian was "gea," which means "region."

Allied Leaders of World War Two/Roosevelt, Part 5

"FDR As War Leader/Part 3"

Roosevelt wanted to help Britain very much, and he developed a close relationship with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, whose mother had been an American. In June 1941, Hitler launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, his former ally. When Japan attacked the American naval forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and America declared war on Japan, Hitler and Mussolini did both Churchill and Roosevelt a favor, of sorts, by declaring war on the United States a few days later.* Now American forces could be deployed directly to Britain. The decision was made to give more weight to pursuing the war against Hitler, as he was the primary threat to Britain, but major American forces were initially deployed in the Pacific to halt the expansion of Japan.** The already accelerating American economy shifted into high gear, and with millions of men (and some women) entering into the armed forces, unemployment plunged, albeit at the cost of high budget deficits, which exceeded 100% of GDP.***

In what became a highly controversial decision, Roosevelt signed an "executive order" which led to the relocation and internment in special camps of more than a hundred thousand people of Japanese ancestry, many of them natural-born citizens of the United States. About fifteen thousand people of German and Italian ancestry were also held, as were a very few people with ancestry tied to other Axis nations.

Roosevelt met with other top Allied leaders on several occasions during the war to discuss strategy, including the landing of Allied troops in western Europe, and post-war policies, with his most controversial meeting coming in early 1945 in the Soviet city of Yalta, where Roosevelt was seen by many as capitulating to Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin over postwar territories in eastern Europe. (See the individual articles on Stalin, Churchill and DeGaulle in this series for more info on Allied relationships during the war.) Roosevelt reluctantly stood for re-election in 1944, as his health was in decline. He defeated Republican Thomas Dewey (from New York), but his margin of victory shrunk considerably from his previous three elections. After returning from Yalta and visits with other world leaders in 1945, Roosevelt went to his vacation home in Georgia. On April 12 he suffered an apparent cerebral hemorrhage and died. The nation mourned collectively. The war in Europe ended just a few weeks later. Vice president Harry Truman assumed the presidency.

* I dare say, most Americans are undoubtedly unaware of this, but America did NOT declare war on Germany and Italy because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini seemed to grasp the fact of American power, and that America's entry into the war against them, barring a dramatic change in circumstances, sealed their fate.

** Remember, while Americans didn't like Hitler, they were far more furious over the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and Roosevelt was both militarily and politically committed to halt Japan, early on.

*** The deficits declined considerably after the war.

WORD HISTORY:
Glow-The ancient history of this word is uncertain, but it "may" go back to Indo European "ghel/ghluo," which, if true, had the idea of "shine." Whether this is the source or not, Old Germanic had "gloanan," which meant "to shine." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "glowan," which meant "shine brightly, glow." Later this became "glouen," before the modern version. The noun form developed from the verb in the 1400s. Common throughout the other Germanic languages: West Frisian has "gloeie," Dutch has "gloeien," German has "glühen," Low German Saxon has "glöhn," Icelandic has "glóa," Norwegian, Swedish and Danish all have "glo."

Allied Leaders of World War Two/Roosevelt, Part 3

"FDR As War Leader/Part 1"

By the late 1930s, with America still suffering from the Great Depression, Roosevelt, in tune with the sentiments of many Americans, was not inclined to get the country directly involved in overseas military actions, although the Japanese had shown aggressiveness in Asia since the days of Herbert Hoover's presidency, and China and Japan were at war in 1937. Several nations, including America, helped China by providing loans to buy war goods, and the "American Volunteer Group," known more famously as "the Flying Tigers," provided China with air support, while gaining valuable combat experience, although the unit did not actually see combat until Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. The U.S. and other nations also implemented an escalating embargo against Japan beginning in 1940, with the U.S. and Britain cutting off trade by mid 1941. It is important to remember that at that time, Hitler occupied much of Europe and had invaded the Soviet Union, and Japan had developed increasingly close ties to Hitler and Mussolini. The trade embargo heightened tensions between the United States and Japan, although negotiations between the two countries continued up until the surprise Japanese attack on American naval forces stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (then an American territory, not a state). The attack brought Roosevelt to Congress the next day to ask for a declaration of war against Japan; something Congress passed, with only one "No" vote, cast by a Republican congresswoman from Montana.

WORD HISTORY:
Meal-English has two words "meal," this is the one meaning "ground grain." It traces back to Indo European "mele," which meant "to grind." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "melwan," which meant "to grind," and the derived noun form "melwa," which meant "meal" (the result of grinding grain). This gave Old English "melu," which then became "mele," before the modern spelling. Common in the other Germaic languages: German and Low German Saxon have "Mehl," some Low German dialects have "Mäl," West Frisian has "moal," Dutch has "meel," Swedish has "mjöl" (Icelandic uses this same word, but now only in compounds), Danish and Norwegian have "mel."

Allied Leaders of World War Two/Churchill, Part 3

"Churchill, War & Postwar"

Churchill was (and has been) criticized by some for not pursuing the North African campaign against the Italians in early 1941, but instead, of choosing to withdraw forces to help bolster Greece against the Italians. While not a total certainty, the Italians were on the verge of collapse in Libya, and their total defeat would have removed the possibility of German forces coming to their rescue (the forces under the command of Rommel, aka "the Desert Fox"). Churchill, however, was always aware of a potential communist threat, and southeastern Europe remained such a concern for him throughout the war, as he tried to balance the war against Hitler, with an attempt to stay one step ahead of communists, including Stalin.*

While Churchill was wary of Stalin's expansionist goals, as displayed by the Soviet leader's deal with Hitler in 1939 to divide up eastern Europe between them, Churchill met with President Franklin Roosevelt and Free French representative Charles de Gaulle at Casablanca, in then French Morocco, in early 1943,** and the conference resulted in the Allied announcement that they would only accept the "unconditional surrender" of the Axis powers. This limited their ability to negotiate any deal with Germany, even if Hitler had been killed or deposed,*** and it did little to placate the always suspicious, if not paranoid, Stalin. In 1944 Churchill met with Stalin and they reached an agreement about the Balkans, with the Soviets getting the influence over Rumania and Bulgaria, but Britain getting the same with Greece. Influence was to be shared regarding Yugoslavia, but the point became irrelevant, as Marshall Tito, the communist resistance leader there, ended up running the country, and he was often at odds with the Soviets, who found they could not dominate him.

Churchill advocated a strategy of attacking southern Europe to knock Italy out of the war and to force the Germans to commit military resources to defend what he called, "the soft underbelly" of Axis Europe. Stalin pressed for a major Allied landing in western Europe to tie down the German army so that Hitler would be forced to defend two major combat areas, eastern Europe, against the Soviets, and western Europe, against Britain, the U.S., and the Free French. Instead, the Allies basically took Churchill's advice and invaded Italy, bringing about the surrender of the Italian government, although Mussolini was rescued by his German ally and then propped up by them as a counter force to the Allied liberated parts of southern Italy. The Allies finally delivered the major invasion blow in June 1944, as their armies landed in the Normandy part of France. A few weeks later the Soviets launched a massive offensive against the German forces in the central Soviet Union, staggering the German army. The huge losses incurred by the Germans in France and in the Soviet Union meant the war was nearing an end. The Allied leaders met in the Soviet Union at Yalta in February 1945, where they decided the postwar fate of eastern Europe and Germany. The Western Allies agreed to return all Soviet citizens in their occupation areas to the Soviet Union.****

Just after the war ended, Britain held new elections, and in a stunning outcome, Churchill's Conservative Party suffered a major defeat to the Labour Party, and Churchill was out as prime minister. He remained active in politics, however, and he again became prime minister in the early 1950s when he was well into his 70s. His health deteriorated from a stroke, and he retired in the mid 1950s. Never out of the public eye, Churchill was made an "Honorary Citizen of the United States in 1963 (remember, his mother had been an American). He suffered another stroke in early 1965 and passed away about a week later. He was 90 years old.

* Mussolini's Italy had invaded Greece from Albania (then an Italian possession) in the fall of 1940, but had met very tough resistance from the Greeks. Churchill sent small forces to help the Greeks at first, but then increased the British commitment there. There were already communist movements in Greece and elsewhere in southeastern Europe, and during the later occupation of the Balkan countries, communist resistance movements battled the German and Italian occupation forces there, although there were also non-communist resistance elements in these areas too, and it was not uncommon for the two sides to do battle with one another, in a prelude to postwar control of each respective country.

** Interestingly, the war in North Africa was still being fought not all that far from there in Tunisia. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin did not attend the conference, as the decisive battle of Stalingrad was nearing its end in the Soviet Union; a crushing defeat for Hitler and a major sign he could not win the war.

*** The hope among the German opposition to Hitler, within the military in particular, was to arrest or to kill Hitler and major Nazi leaders, but then to negotiate a separate peace treaty with the Western Allies to permit Germany to continue the war against the Soviet Union, perhaps even with Allied participation. This was also in Churchill's mind, it seems.

**** This was important because many Soviet citizens had taken up arms AGAINST Stalin. By returning these people to Stalin's control, it was a death sentence and untold hundreds of thousands (millions?) died as a consequence. It is important to remember, the Soviet Union was a multi-ethnic, multi-national empire based upon the old Russian Empire, but with the Tsar (or Czar, if you like) replaced by Soviet leaders who were every bit as ruthless as the Tsars, if not more so, at times, but with the empire's wealth no longer concentrated in the very few in the nobility and upper class as under the Tsars.

WORD HISTORY:
Drive-Known forms of this word are only present in the Germanic languages. Whether it was a Germanic creation, or an altered form of some Indo European word (as some believe), or a borrowing from a non-Indo Europan source, is unknown. Anyway, Old Germanic had "driban," with the meaning "to push, to force, to cause to move." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "drifan," with the same basic meaning. Later this became "driven" (with a long "i"), before the modern spelling. The basic notion behind the meaning was that ancient people either pushed carts, or used animals to pull the carts/wagons, but it took humans to "force" the animals to draw the vehicle. The same notion has continued into modern times, as it takes someone to step on the gas to "force" the vehicle to move. German has "treiben" (the "ei" is pronounced like a long "i," and notice the change of "d" to "t"), which was originally "triban," in Old High German, Low German Saxon has "drieven," some Low German dialects have "driewe," Dutch has "drijven," West Frisian has "driuwe," Swedish has "driva," Icelandic has "drífa," Danish and Norwegian have "drive." The meanings all center around "push, force, cause to move," but not all are necessarily used for "driving" a motor vehicle, as in English.

Allied Leaders of World War II/Stalin/Part 2

Part Two-"Stalin, The Purge, Hitler and World War Two"

Stalin implemented a massive purge of the Communist Party, the Red Army, the government, and various ethnic minorities, especially Poles, beginning in the mid 1930s, which made the terms "counter-revolutionary" and "enemy of the people" commonplace, as these were often the charges used against anyone deemed a threat to his power (at least in his mind). No one really knows how many people were killed or sent to prisons or labor camps, but about three quarters of a million is a starting point, although some historians believe the figure to be perhaps a million to two million. The purge began to wind down in 1939, although Leon Trotsky, a famous Bolshevik leader, and Stalin opponent, was assassinated by a Soviet agent in Mexico in 1940. Trotsky had been exiled from the Soviet Union in the late 1920s, and maintained a stream of criticism directed at Stalin's murderous ways.

While Stalin did away with anyone remotely believed to be against him within the Soviet Union, he was not unaware of the potential threat to him and to the Soviet Union from rightwing fascists in Europe, especially from Nazi Germany and its leader, Adolf Hitler. The propaganda battles between the two countries went on throughout the 1930s, but both Stalin and Hitler suddenly needed one another by the summer of 1939. Hitler likely wanted to launch a limited war against Poland, but did not want Britain and France to intervene.* He believed a treaty with Stalin would completely discourage the British and the French from declaring war on Germany, if or when he attacked Poland. Stalin, on the other hand, wanted to buy time to build up his military, especially after thousands of army officers were killed on his orders during the purge. Negotiations commenced between Germany and the Soviet Union, all nasty propaganda attacks by the two against each other ceased, and a treaty was signed in August 1939. Stalin accomplished some of his desire to buy time, but Hitler's plan failed, as France and Britain declared war on Germany two days after Hitler invaded Poland. Stalin and Hitler also secretly agreed to divide eastern Europe between them, with Stalin even getting eastern Poland. Less than three weeks after Germany invaded Poland from its western borders, the Red Army invaded Poland from its eastern frontiers. In 1940, Stalin moved into the other countries and regions included in the agreement with Hitler: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were annexed to the Soviet Union, and then two regions of Rumania, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, were taken over. In the meantime, on November 30, 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Finland after demands by the Soviets for border adjustments were rejected by the Finns.** Though small in number, the Finns fought like hell, inflicting heavy casualties on the Soviets, before finally agreeing to peace terms when faced by insurmountable odds. The treaty, signed in the spring of 1940, gave Stalin most of what he wanted, but the poorly executed Soviet campaign was seen as the consequence of Stalin's purge of the Red Army.

On June 22, 1941, Germany, along with her eastern European allies,*** invaded the Soviet Union. The opening months of the invasion were an absolute disaster for Stalin and the Soviet forces, as the Germans made dramatic advances deep into the Soviet Union along every sector of the front. Soviet casualties were simply staggering, and totaled to about 4 million (killed, wounded and captured) in just six months! Even with all of the German victories, Hitler had overplayed his hand. He intervened more and more in military matters once left essentially to the generals, and as winter set in, the German offensive to capture Moscow sputtered to a halt. Much of the Soviet government had left Moscow, but fresh troops from Siberia and German exhaustion helped Stalin hold his capitol. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. On December 11 both Hitler and Mussolini provided the final nails for their coffins by declaring war on the United States. The Axis Powers now faced formidable forces on all fronts.

Stalin intervened in military matters a great deal in 1941, nearly helping to bring defeat to himself and to the Soviet Union, as his stand fast orders allowed the German forces to encircle vast numbers of Soviet troops. By 1942, Stalin began to allow the professional military men to execute the plans to defeat the Germans. The massive battle of Stalingrad began in the summer of 1942 and ended with a decisive Soviet victory by February 1943. Hitler attempted to regain the initiative in the Soviet Union with his major offensive at Kursk, which failed, and had to be terminated due to the Allied landings in Sicily. This demonstrated that Hitler's days were numbered, as his outnumbered forces were pounded by the Soviets on one front, and as he tried to defend the rest of Europe from possible invasion by the Western Allies, spreading his forces too thinly to be successful anywhere. The Allied landings in France in June 1944 and major Soviet offensive operations drove German forces back into Germany itself, and the Soviets captured Berlin by early May 1945. Within a week, Germany surrendered.

Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and American President Franklin Roosevelt came to be called "The Big Three," and they planned and coordinated operations against the Axis Powers. Early in 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Free French representatives met at Casablanca in then French Morocco in North Africa.**** The policy of "unconditional surrender" of the Axis Powers was announced there, giving some solace to Stalin, who feared the Western Allies would conclude a separate peace with Germany; thus permitting Germany to turn all of its military forces against the Soviet Union. The three men met at Tehran in late 1943 to plan the further course of the war. In February 1945, with Hitler's Reich down for the count, the three leaders met again, this time in the Soviet Union at one of the Tsar's former palaces in the Crimea near the town of Yalta. Here the Allied leaders put together plans for post-war Europe, with many of the decisions having long term consequences for the population of eastern Europe. With the Red Army already in control of many eastern European countries, Communist movements within those countries became the governing apparatus in each. Of course, all of these Communist movements, except Yugoslavia's, owed their positions to Stalin, thus making them Soviet satellites. The plan to separate Austria from Germany and then to divide the two countries into occupation zones also was approved. Germany's borders were also a major item on the agenda, especially the border with Poland. Soviet claims to much of eastern Poland became a reality,***** but Poland was compensated by extending her western borders at Germany's expense. Stalin's gains were accomplished with his pledge to enter the war against Japan, which still held out at that time.

By the late 1940s, eastern Europe was firmly under Communist control, and Berlin lay within the Soviet occupation zone, but itself was divided into separate zones, with the western part being free. In 1948 Stalin ordered a blockade of West Berlin, thus cutting off all supplies to the area. This prompted a massive airlift by the Western Powers to supply West Berlin, which was successful. Stalin lifted the blockade.

Stalin was a heavy smoker and his health was very much in question after the war ended. In 1953 he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died a few days later, although some believed there was foul play involved.

Next... Charles De Gaulle.

* For more on this, see my article in "The German Question" series: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/08/german-question-part-one-hundred-thirty_10.html

** Stalin was concerned by the fact that Leningrad, the name used during the Soviet era for the former Russian capitol of St. Petersburg, was close to the Finnish border. He wanted the border adjusted away from Leningrad, although there were other demands, too.

*** Hungary, Rumania, Slovakia, and Finland were all German allies who committed substantial forces against the Soviet Union, and within a short time, Mussolini sent an Italian corps, later expanded to an army.

**** Stalin did not attend due to the final stages of the Stalingrad battle.

***** Anti-Communists felt the Western Allies, especially Rioosevelt, sold out to Stalin at Yalta, especially in view of Stalin's pact with Hitler of 1939, which had granted Stalin major concessions in eastern Europe, even a large part of eastern Poland. The issue has been debated since those times, but the Western Allies probably did not have much choice, unless they would have been willing to potentially go back to war, this time with the Soviets. Thus the pact with Hitler was set aside, as was the Soviet invasion of Finland and Soviet atrocities committed during the war, especially the execution of thousands of Polish army officers after the Soviet takeover of eastern Poland in 1939. While there are valid points on both sides of the issue, we have to remember, democratic nations are at a disadvantage when faced by totalitarian dictators like Hitler or Stalin, since free societies are much more dependent upon public support, while dictators can order just about anything, including war, and the only way for opponents to stop them is to risk their own lives, something most of us would not be willing to do. Let's be honest.

WORD HISTORY:
Steel-While we sometimes think we're pretty brilliant in the modern world, steel making has been around for about 3 to 4 thousand years, and perhaps longer. This noun goes back to Indo European "stak," with the notion of "be or remain firm," from the same base, "steh," that gave us "stand." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "stahlijan," which meant "formed, made of steel," and this application to the hardened metal is a Germanic invention, but borrowed by some other languages, like Polish and Russian, likely from German or Swedish. The Russian form later gave Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin his alias (his real family name was "Dzhugashvili"). The Old Germanic form gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "style/stele," depending upon dialect, and this later became "stel," before the modern form. The verb form meaning "to strengthen, or to make like steel," developed in the latter part of the 1500s. Common throughout the other Germanic languages, German and Low German Saxon have "Stahl," some Low German dialects have "stol," West Frisian has "stiel," Dutch has "staal," Swedish, Norwegian and Danish have "stål," and Icelandic has "stál."

Allied Leaders of World War II/Stalin

NOTE: Bolshevik/Communist politics was highly complicated, with various party factions vying for power at times. While a fascinating subject, all of this is far beyond the scope of this article, but there are many books and articles available on this subject, as well as on Joseph Stalin's abilities to outmaneuver his rivals.

Stalin's real family name was "Dzhugashvili" (there are variations in the transliterated spelling in English), and he was born in Georgia, an area of the Caucasus, in the southern part of the Russian Empire. The language was not Russian, but Georgian, a Kartvelian language unrelated (as far as is known) to Indo European, which is the ancient ancestor of English and Russian. Russian was taught in the schools of Georgia. Stalin suffered from smallpox as a child, and it left his face permanently scarred.

While in school during his later teens, Stalin came into contact with a number of people with Marxist beliefs, and within a couple of years he joined the Bolsheviks. He was arrested numerous times, and he wrote some revolutionary articles under the name "Stalin," a word for "steel," which Russian had borrowed from Germanic, and it is by that name that he came to be known and feared. He moved up through the ranks of the Bolsheviks, and after they had overthrown the moderate government that had replaced the Tsarist government a few months earlier,* his closeness to Lenin helped his power to grow. When an assassination attempt was made on Lenin in the fall of 1918, Stalin urged a severe crackdown, directed mainly at the more moderate socialists, which resulted in the execution of thousands without a trial, although the actual number is not truly known. Lenin made him General Secretary of the Communist Party. Lenin suffered a stroke in 1922, and Stalin was able to consolidate more power unto himself, although his relationship with Lenin went down hill. Lenin died in early 1924 and Stalin's power-base and his absolute ruthlessness gave him an advantage over other Communist officials, but it took time for him to truly become the absolute ruler of the Soviet Union. His use of the secret police to spy on rivals and citizens is legendary, and he had so many people killed or sent to labor camps, no one really knows with any certainty just how many there were, but it was in the MILLIONS! While not as concerned with "racial policies," like Hitler, I've always said you could put Stalin and Hitler into a bag, shake it up, and you wouldn't know which one would pop out first!

Stalin felt the Kulaks** were too independent minded and not interested enough in the overall good of the nation, and he wanted farming consolidated into "collective farms," which brought resistance from the Kulaks. Perhaps as many as five million were sent to camps in Siberia, where many died, while others were just outright executed. Stalin also wanted industrial production increased to build a formidable army to discourage incursions by European nations; that is, by the "capitalists." A severe crackdown was launched against worker absenteeism and workers who failed to meet production quotas. In the early 1930s, the Ukraine was hit by a major famine, and millions died.*** Ukrainians were independent minded, and many to this day believe much of the famine was orchestrated by Stalin (there was severe rationing and the border was closed off to stop Ukrainians from leaving for other, better supplied areas) to beat down Ukrainian independence. Disease and outright starvation claimed many lives.

Next, the conclusion of the Stalin info, which will include his role in World War Two.

* There were two revolutions in Russia during that era. The first took place in March 1917 and resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, thus ending the many centuries of Tsarist rule. A "provisional (temporary) government" was set up to rule the country until national elections could be held. It was socialist, but not really radically so (compared to other elements, like the Bolsheviks), and in fact, it continued to fight the war (World War One) on the side of the Allies. The continuation of the unpopular war and the economic mess of the nation kept discontent alive, and in late October 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in a second revolution, although it took them a few years to actually consolidate their hold on the country.

** During much of Russia's history, peasants were really serfs for large landowners. Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs in 1861, but most peasants remained illiterate and poor. While serfdom had "officially" ended, the rents peasants owed to landowners pretty much guaranteed a perpetuation of poverty. During Tsar Nicholas II's rule, one of his prime ministers, Peter Stolypin, implemented a program where peasants could own land and truly be free of the large landowners, thus keeping peasants supportive of Tsarism. The program was limited, especially considering Russia's enormous peasant population, but these farmers came to be called "Kulaks." Revolutionaries saw the reforms as a threat to their desire to overthrow the Tsarist system, so Stolypin was assassinated. Nicholas unfortunately took a turn back toward repression, which only served as a prelude to the revolution that brought him down. When the Bolsheviks came to power, they kept much of the Kulak system in place, at least at first.

*** Records from those times are scare and it is difficult to determine how many people died, but 4 or 5 million would be a good guess, although Ukrainians believe the number to by about double that.

WORD HISTORY:
Vodka-The "vod" part of this word is related to "water," and indeed it goes back to Indo European "wod/wed," the same ancient ancestor, which expanded to "wotor/wodr," which meant "water. This gave Slavic "voda/woda," and this then gave Russian "voda," meaning "water." The "ka" ending is a diminutive; that is, it makes it "smaller" or "endearing;" so "little water." It was borrowed into English circa 1800.

The Allies & Berlin, 1945

This is in answer to a very good question posed by a regular reader in one of the comments.
His question: "Why didn't the Americans and Brits take Berlin?"

General Dwight Eisenhower, the overall commander of the Allied forces, made the determination NOT to take Berlin. His decision came in February 1945, not long after the Allies had not only defeated the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, but had pushed the Germans back toward the Rhine River in western Germany. His decision was based upon the following:

-Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin had already agreed to divide Germany into occupation zones. Berlin, which would lie within the Soviet zone, was also to be divided into occupation zones. This meant that Allied forces, more likely American forces, would have to go through what was to become the Soviet zone to even get to Berlin.

-When Eisenhower made his decision, the Soviets had penetrated deeply into eastern Germany, and, at their closest point, were only about 40 miles from Berlin. On the other hand, the western Allies were perhaps 300-400 miles from Berlin.

-Eisenhower's staff told him it would cost at least 100,000 casualties for the Allies to take Berlin.

When put together, Eisenhower saw: heavy casualties to take a city hundreds of miles away, when the Soviets were already at Berlin's doorstep. Fighting through and taking casualties in territory that would then have to be given over to the Soviets anyway. It should be noted, Churchill wanted Eisenhower to go for Berlin, but the general chose not to do so.

For the Allies to take Berlin "could" have also brought about the "split" between the Allies and the Soviets so dreamed of by Hitler and the other Nazi leaders. The Soviets and Stalin were far more filled with revenge against Hitler and Germans than the Allies,* and they really wanted to take Berlin, regardless of casualties. You can draw your own conclusions, but I think Eisenhower made the right call, given the situation at that time. I know, many argued "later" that Berlin became the center of the "Cold War," but in February/March 1945, the Cold War was in the future.

* The Soviet Union suffered many millions of casualties, including millions of civilians, at the hands of Hitler and the Nazis.

WORD HISTORY:
Prosit/Prost-These words, "prost" is derived from "prosit," are drinking toasts, and were borrowed from German, apparently in the mid 1800s, and are equivalent to English "Cheers!" or "To your health." German borrowed "Prosit" from Latin "prodesse," which meant "be useful, be beneficial," and it is the third person singular present subjunctive of the verb. Subjunctive, also called "subjunctive mood," is used to help express a wish; thus, "may it benefit you." Of course, a few too many "Prosits" will not be beneficial to you...hicc! "Scuse me!" The "pros" part is related to English "for," and the "it" part is related to English "is."

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Six

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/F/3
"Germany Versus the Soviet Union" Part Three
"The German Tide Ebbs"

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (then a U.S. territory, not a state). President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress agreed to a declaration of war on Japan. Roosevelt had been trying to help Britain as much as possible, without getting the U.S. directly involved in the war, by sending material aid to the British. Before Pearl Harbor, the American public was split over possible American involvement in the war. Hitler solved the issue of American participation in the war against Germany by declaring war on the United States on December 11 at a session of the Reichstag. Always the racist, Hitler didn't seem to realize that he was bringing a formidable foe into the war against him. Various statements indicated he believed Americans could not fight well, because they were such a mixture of ethnic and racial groups. Such nonsense helped to hasten his demise. Mussolini followed suit with a declaration of war by Italy on the United States. It wasn't long before heavily armed convoys were transporting American troops and war equipment to Britain.

In North Africa, Rommel's German and Italian forces faced a new British commander, Bernard Montgomery, and "Monty" launched a major offensive against Rommel in late October 1942, in what became the last part of the El Alamein battle. After terrible losses of men and equipment, and in spite of Hitler's order to hold his positions, Rommel ordered a retreat. Thousands of Axis prisoners were taken by the Allies. Meanwhile, the Americans and British forces landed troops in the French North African colonies of French Morocco and Algeria, which were behind Rommel's retreating army. Hitler and Mussolini rushed troops to Tunisia, another French colony sandwiched between Rommel's retreating forces in Libya and the Allied forces which had just landed. French resistance to the landings was relatively light, and the struggle then centered on Tunisia. While Rommel inflicted a punishing defeat on the Americans at a place called "Kasserine Pass" in February 1943, the German and Italian forces surrendered in May 1943. This now left Italy vulnerable to attack.

In the Soviet Union, Hitler's stalled capture of Stalingrad gave the Soviets time to gather fresh troops north and south of the city. In mid November 1942 they struck, breaking through primarily overwhelmed Rumanian lines and trapping a large German, and a smaller Rumanian force, in and around Stalingrad. By early February 1943, the remaining encircled forces surrendered to the Soviets. During the overall Soviet operations that winter, the whole southern sector of the Axis front was pummeled, and a Hungarian army and an Italian army, besides two Rumanian armies and a German army were essentially destroyed. The Germans did not stabilize the front until February/March 1943, but they had lost virtually all of their gains from the previous summer. Although there would still be much intense fighting, Hitler's days were numbered.

WORD HISTORY:
Ebb-This word, closely related to "off," goes back to Indo European "apo," which meant "off, away (from)." This gave Old Germanic "ab," with the same meaning, and from that Old Germanic developed "abjon," with the meaning "tide flowing away, tide flowing 'off' from shore;" thus, "low tide." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "ebba," which later dropped the ending "a." The figurative use to mean "decline of someone or something" was already in use in the 1300s. There are various forms present in the other Germanic languages: German has "Ebbe," Low German Saxon has "Ebben," West Frisian has "ebbe," Dutch "eb," Icelandic has "ebbið" (=ebbith), Swedish has "ebb," Norwegian has "ebbe" and Danish has "ebbe." Some of the Germanic languages still retain a verb form, English being one of those, and in Old English it was "ebbian." Dutch has "ebben."

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Five

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/F/2
"Germany Versus the Soviet Union" Part Two "The Attack"

With Britain still undefeated, but relatively contained, Hitler felt confident to pursue the goal of all the maneuvering in eastern Europe, the conquest of Russia, the Soviet Union. While Stalin was usually prone to paranoia, in this case, though he was given many warnings of an imminent German attack by other nations and by some in his own military, he did not take these warnings as seriously as he should have, and while not naive, he thought he still had time to prepare for any German attack, and possibly enough time to even carry out an attack of his own on Germany.* The world was dealing with two major scoundrels, Hitler and Stalin, and if you had put them in a bag and shook it up, you wouldn't have known which one would have hopped out first.

On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. From East Prussia, German armored and motorized units thrust through the Soviet annexed Baltic states toward the metropolis of Leningrad.** Simultaneously from the north, Finnish troops sought to reclaim the territory lost to the Soviets in the recent war. Further north in Finland, actually near the Arctic Circle, German troops moved to capture the Soviet port city of Murmansk. From German occupied Poland, German units attacked toward Moscow. In the south, aided by Hungarian, Slovak, and Rumanian forces,*** the Germans advanced toward the Ukrainian city of Kiev, and toward the Crimea. Huge Soviet forces found themselves surrounded by the fast moving German mechanized units, and Soviet troops surrendered by the hundreds of thousands.**** Leningrad was surrounded and much of the Soviet leadership evacuated Moscow as the Germans approached the city. The Germans and Rumanians entered the Crimea and besieged the fortress city of Sevastopol. It certainly looked as if Hitler would win a stunning victory over Stalin and the Soviet Union, but time was running out.

Winter set in, and German forces found themselves unprepared for it, as the giddiness of early victories caused many Germans to assume the fighting would be over before winter arrived. Further, while the Axis forces won many astounding victories, the Soviets inflicted severe casualties on the invaders. Their units depleted, and the cold and snow taking its toll, the German offensive ground to a halt. The Soviets, reinforced by fresh units from Siberia, launched their own massive attacks, driving the Germans back in many places, but the German retreat was not a rout, and before long, the front stabilized. Both sides were exhausted.

With his units diminished, Hitler sent some fresh troops to bolster his forces for a new offensive in 1942. Leningrad remained surrounded in the north, Murmansk was still in Soviet hands, and German forces had retreated from the outskirts of Moscow to points somewhat further away from the capital. Hitler decided to narrow his 1942 offensive to the southern areas of the Soviet Union. Sevastopol fell to the Germans and Axis forces advanced toward the Caucasus, the center of Soviet oil production.***** Hitler then divided his southern forces, sending one segment after the oil fields, and the other after the city of Stalingrad, which was located on the Volga River, the capture of which would have deprived the Soviets of using that part of the river for shipping. The German forces entered and eventually captured about 90% of Stalingrad, but the Soviets hung on. With the city so devastated by the fighting, and especially by earlier German air attacks, there was plenty of rubble to provide cover for the stubborn Soviet defenders. The Germans could never completely dislodge them, and the situation stagnated as another winter approached. This time it was Stalin who had a surprise for Hitler.

* Stalin had a major streak of paranoia, although the political system in which he had functioned for so long didn't lend itself to any leader getting too comfortable, and his paranoia may well have kept him alive and in power. In the mid to late 1930s, Stalin carried out a huge purge in the Soviet Union, including of his military leaders, ruthlessly removing and putting on trial many commanders at various levels. Hundreds in the military were imprisoned or executed, leaving the military with a leadership gap. Most historians agree that the Soviets' poor military showing against Finland in 1939-40 showed the negative effects of the military purge. By the time of the German invasion, the Soviet army was still in the midst of reorganization, and the leadership gap had not been closed significantly.

** This was the former capital of St. Petersburg, renamed by the Communists in honor of Lenin. They moved the capital to Moscow.

*** In a short time, Mussolini sent an Italian corps, later expanded to an army, to fight in Russia.

**** In and around Kiev, the Germans claimed to have captured more than 600,000 Soviets troops. and that was just one battle!

***** As I mentioned in Part 144, the fight for oil was well under way well before our own time, and Hitler made the strategic decision to go after the significant Russian oil supplies in hopes of solving his own potential oil shortage, as well as depriving the Soviets of the oil.

WORD HISTORY:
Live-This verb goes back to Indo European "leip," which had the notion of "continue (on), remain, exist further." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "libjanan," meaning "to be alive." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "lifian," and "libban," depending upon dialect, both with the same "to be alive" meaning. Later, the two forms merged into "liven," and then the modern spelling. It is, of course, closely related to the noun "life." Common throughout the other Germanic languages: German has "leben," Dutch and Low German Saxon have "leven," Frisian has "libje," Norwegian and Danish have "leve," Swedish has "leva," and Icelandic has "lifa."

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Four

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/F 1
"Germany Versus the Soviet Union" Part One "Background"

Going back to his book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), Hitler talked often about Germans needing "Lebensraum" ("living space"). In Europe (and elsewhere, for that matter), looking well back in history, as various peoples settled into areas, developing their respective homelands, they often lacked various resources to help with their existence or to keep up with the changes taking place over the centuries, or to keep up with their own population growth. This led to one of two things happening; either they developed some sort of commerce with other people to get the items or land they needed, or they tried to take what they needed by conquest. If you have followed this series, you have seen how rulers tried to gain lands or specific resources by a variety of methods, including "strategic marriages," trade deals, and certainly wars (indeed "ego" played a part, too). For centuries, the "ethnic" composition of a region did not much matter to the rulers. They wanted certain territories for waterways, raw materials or other resources, including later, factories these areas possessed, not necessarily for the people who lived there. Later, however, the people living in these various territories developed a much more cohesive sense of "belonging to particular groups," which brought on the development of "nationalism" and the desire of these groups of people to live together and be ruled by people with much their same background, especially language, and often other characteristics, like religion. With so many territorial changes over the centuries having been made with little or no regard to the "ethnic background" of the population, the new sense of nationalism was bound to bring conflict. With western and central Europe more densely populated, Hitler saw the more sparsely populated, but agriculturally, and even industrially productive, areas of the Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union as the target for German expansion.

The population of these areas would become slaves to Germans, or be "eliminated." In Poland, many Poles in the areas annexed to Germany were moved to other regions, and per the agreement with the Soviet Union, Germans were resettled from Soviet controlled areas to places like the former Polish Corridor. Further, again per the German-Soviet agreement, in 1940 the Soviets moved into the small Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and they then annexed them to the Soviet Union. There were German minority settlements* within both Latvia and Estonia, some of these German settlements dating back centuries. A process of resettlement of these "Baltic Germans" to former Polish territory started, but it was interrupted by Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Further, also per the German-Soviet agreement, the Soviet Union pressured Rumania for a large region of its eastern boundary, called Bessarabia, and also a part of the Bukovina region, and these areas were annexed to the expanding Soviet empire. The turmoil caused the abdication of the Rumanian king, who was succeeded by King Michael, a great-great grandson of Britain's Queen Victoria. However, much of the real power lay with right wing general, Ion Antonescu, who became Prime Minister. Antonescu was pro-German, and Rumania became much closer with Hitler's Reich as a consequence. Rumania signed the Axis alliance within weeks of Antonescu's taking power. Rumania was very important to Hitler's plans, because of extensive oil reserves and oil refineries located there.** German troops and military advisers were permitted on Rumanian territory. Germany now had a common border with the Soviet Union from northern Europe to southern Europe; that is, with its own border in East Prussia and in occupied Poland, combined with the pro-German nations in eastern Europe, and Finland, in the far north, a nation anxious to get back the territory it ceded to the Soviets in 1940. Hitler now prepared to use that lengthy border to invade his "pact partner," the Soviet Union.

* These Germans were often referred to as "Baltic Germans."

** So, as you can see, the battle over oil was well under way long before our own era. It also demonstrates the point I made in the opening part above about nations and resources. Germany was technologically advanced in the automotive and aviation industries compared to many other nations, including the various military aspects of these industries, but it lacked extensive oil of its own as fuel for its vehicles, although this was not a situation limited to Germany, as other nations suffered similar low domestic oil production.

WORD HISTORY:
Soviet-This word came into use in English in the aftermath of the Bolshevik takeover in Russia. It is a compound formed from "su" and "vetu;" "su" meaning "with" and "vetu" meaning "counsel, advise." The history of both of these words is sketchy beyond about 900 A.D., but the compound goes back to Old Church Slavonic "suvetu," with a general meaning of "with agreement" (to something). Old Church Slavonic was the oldest form of written Slavic, developed back around 900 to translate religious texts into Slavic; thus the "church" terminology. The term passed into Old Russian, still with the same spelling, before altering to "sovet" ("совет" in the Cyrillic alphabet used by Russian, Serbian, and Bulgarian, for instance), which meant "council." The Bolsheviks used the term for a type of "governance council of workers." Once in power, the Bolsheviks "united" these various councils, giving the former Russian Empire the name "Soviet Union," a shortened form of "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."