Assessment of German Military training tactics. 1942 Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content https://stream.redcircle.com/episodes/050fd908-a530-4d39-ac80-ae0b80485279/stream.mp3 RELATED Podcast Episodes338: Uvalde School Shooting Tragedy. Tactical Response Assessment. Podcast Episodes304: How NOT to Lead. The Psychology of Military Incompetence Pt.2 Podcast Episodes303: Always Look for New Information. The Psychology of Military Incompetence. RELATED Podcast Episodes338: Uvalde School Shooting Tragedy. Tactical Response Assessment. Podcast Episodes304: How NOT to Lead. The Psychology of Military Incompetence Pt.2 Podcast Episodes303: Always Look for New Information. The Psychology of Military Incompetence. PrevNext
First off, thank you Jocko for all your service, in your military role, and now also in your civilian role. You have a big part in the upbringing of my 7 year-old girl and 4 year-old boy, showing them what it means to be a man, a leader, and a disciplined human being… and a true blue American. Thanks EC for bringing the aloha spirit!
After listening to the first half of this podcast, I wonder if any “alternative” sources had been consulted regarding Germany in the ’20’s and lead-up to the war, as well as regarding the aristocratic tradition.
Regarding the first, I would like to see what you think about “The Unnecessary War” by Patrick Buchanan. It opened my eyes to nuances to the pre-war time and especially softened the movie-like caricature of Germany and its situation. He brings up many, cited, details that are never talked about; and as you can see he goes against the theory that Hitler was planning to take over the world… regardless of the training being done ahead of time (discipline perhaps)
Likewise, an aspect that is often, deliberately, left out is the fear across Europe that what happened in Russia with the communist takeover, the abject brutality, the absolute destruction of life during Holomodor in the Ukraine in the early ’30’s, could happen in their country. While the fascist reaction to communism was severely overblown in hindsight, at the time there were communist activities in almost all mainland European countries, and why Mussolini, Franco in Spain, and the Vichy regime in France existed. For instance, Buchanan argues the possibility that Czechoslovakia invited Hitler to invade and help stop the communists that had overrun the east and looking to take over the entire country. Which they did many years later.
In a great Hardcore History episode on WWI, Dan Carlin elaborates on how Germany was considered non “aristocratic” by France and England, with WWI and the Versailles Treaty less about laying blame and more about putting down a second class country. Often not reported is that there is documented evidence that Hitler refused to bomb London many times, until all the civilian bombing by Churchill made him capitulate. Also documented is that he respected England, and France. With these sources you can see a perspective that he didn’t want Germany pushed around any more (Versailles), and that he was also dead set against communism. Dan Carlin also shows how all of Europe was afraid of Russia before communism, and Germany was at the front line with a uniquely evil mindset and leader.
Please, whoever is reading this, don’t twist this as a polar argument, that I must be siding with fascism and the Nazis mentioning these things. We need to be coldly objective to understand that history never a Hollywood movie script so we can avoid repeating it.
The communist overthrow and killing of the monarchy, and then hijacking for the subsequent government, was the first of what could have been an all out war against the “aristocracy”. You can say what you will, and war had been changing, but the “aristocracy”, at least until Napoleon, were the people that fought for the peasants. They sent their sons, not the people working their land, for they understood the cost of losing their land.
Finally, while nowadays you can look down on the “rich” sending their kids to college so they can move into the officer corps, in the old days the culture of the rich wasn’t as frivolous as it is now. It was much more like the older culture of the aristocracy, that they were grooming the future leaders that needed to make decisions to preserve their culture against constant attack, not grooming them to live off a trust fund. Instead of “rich” or “priviledged”, as my father and uncle went to college even though they were poor, you could say “upper class” or even better “educated”. You behavior, not your bank account, meant more back then.
Throw this on the jockopodcast subreddit. Interesting points.
Anyone have a link to the PDF of this document or know where you can get a hard copy?
No download option any longer?
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