American History Hit - 1945: America & Victory in Europe

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

May 8th saw the final surrender of Nazi Germany, marking the end of the Second World War in Europe. Eighty years on, we're taking a look at the final months of fighting in 1945. What were the experiences of US troops like on the ground? And what motivated the strategies of its political leaders?Don's guest is James Holland, co-host of the podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk. His new book, Victory ‘45: The End of the War in Eight Surrenders, is out on April 24th.Edited and produced by Tom Delargy. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. Hey, it's Don here, jumping in to tell you that there are some descriptions of mass murder and violence that some listeners may find very unpleasant. It's January 16, 1945, in the Ardenne Forest in Belgium.

It's blisteringly cold, below freezing. A thick layer of snow covers the ground, muffling all sounds and bringing an eerie quiet. And yet, just weeks earlier, these forests were the scene of a ferocious battle. The Germans, having been on the defensive for months, had launched a surprise attack when the Allies least expected it. Panzer tanks punched through the American positions, aiming to split the Allied front line in two. This, the Germans hoped, would give them enough momentum

to push their enemies back off the continent and turn the war around. But this was not to be. Despite initially pushing the Allies back, the Germans met tough defenses. American troops in key positions like Bastogne held out under vicious sieges. Now it's the Allies turn to attack. Now it's General Patton's tanks advancing through war-torn villages. And now the Germans retreat has begun.

Disorderly, desperate, doomed. The Battle of the Bulge marks the last major German offensive on the Western Front. It's now only a matter of time before the Allies reach Germany. The end of the war is in sight. This is American History Hit. Hello out there. I'm Don Wildman. Glad you're here. May 8th, 2025 will mark 80 years since the end of the war in Europe, what is called VE Day, victory in Europe, when the Nazis unconditionally surrendered after six brutal

years of total war. We're going to be taking a look at America's experience of those final months of the war, from the beginning of 1945 to the German capitulation in May, touching on the experiences of troops on the ground, as well as the movements and calculations of political leaders in charge, and how Americans generally took it all in back home. James Holland is the esteemed British World War II historian, someone I've followed closely for years, both in print and visual media. He has a new book coming out on April 24th, co-authored by Al Murray,

with whom James also hosts the podcast. We have ways of making you talk. Greetings, James Holland is a great honor to have you. Oh, Don, thank you for having me on. I think many Americans are left confused by the end game of World War II, right? We surely know how it starts, Poland, the Blitzkrieg, Dunkirk, all the big events, D-Day, the bombing of Dresden, the Battle of the Bulge. It all happened in a great rush of events in those last months. There are tremendous losses of life.

The Battle of the Bulge is the biggest loss of Americans in World War II and one battle, 19,000. And we are now on our way to Berlin. What is Germany holding out for at this point of the war? Well, that's an extremely good question. it's really down to the control that Hitler has over the Third Reich and over the German people, which is total and complete, you know, he's an absolute autocrat. And Hitler's always been very clear. I mean, the one thing you can say about him is he never speaks in grey areas at all.

It's always one thing or the other is he's a complete either-or kind of person. It always has been. You know, either the Aryan race will rise up, or will be consumed by Bolsheviks and Jews. Either we'll have the thousand-year Reich or it'll be Armageddon. You know, you are the German people. You know, you have to have the will in this struggle for survival. You know, and if our generation gets over this terrible struggle and burden now,

then there will be a thousand years of glorious Aryan peace, blah, blah, blah. And the German people had bought into this completely. Well, they have because in the 1930s, Hitler comes into power in January in 1933, just at the moment that the economy is starting to change. He's able to capitalize on that. And suddenly, you know, they're feeling good about themselves again. You know, he's creating jobs. He's building up the military again.

And that's sort of very much part of the kind of the old Prussian imperial German kind of way of thinking. So that's a big tick. Then he takes back the Rhineland, Landvats, a shot being fired. You know, then he takes a sedatine land about a shot being fired. Austria is morphed into the Third Reicher of the Anschluss. You know, then he takes the rest of Czechosvack and not a shot's been fired. everyone's going, this guy's a genius, it's great. You know, we're top dogs again in the centre of Europe. You know, what's not to like? And then, of course, it all goes pear-shaped when he invades Poland and Britain and France kind of hold out on their pledges, and they do go to war with Germany as a result of that. And it's the start of the Second World War. But start off with it, it all seems to go quite well. They've ever run Poland. And there's lots of people in Germany who kind of think, yeah, well, you know, we should be there because lots of German speakers and, you know, the Baltic coast. You know, we need to link East Prussia, which is this little sort of isolated pocket around Kernigsburg, the ancient, hand. Anzietic port of Kahnigsberg.

You know, so let's link that up again. You know, so they're all feeling quite good about that. And then there's, you know, enormous victories of the low countries and Scandinavia and mighty France, subdued and everything. And it looks like, you know, Hitler's this genius, you know, beginning of July 1940, you know, everyone's going, hooray, you know, swastika's lining the streets, have tick a tape in Berlin and all the rest of it. Seems like he's got all the answers.

But he, of course, you know, he overreaches himself. And like a lot of autocrats, you know, he surrounds himself by people, yes, men and sycophants and, you know, state of paranoia and all the rest. of it, none of which is conducive to making good decisions. Right. And the absolute catastrophic decision he makes is going to Soviet Union in 1941. And he only does that because he's lost the Battle of Britain. So he's got Britain still hovering in the wings, doesn't want to have a war on two fronts.

Hovering on the other side of the Atlantic is the brilliant and mighty America with all its huge potential manpower, resources, access to the world's oceans and all the rest of it. So those are two pretty big, big enemies. So the problem is He's already kind of the cupboard is already clear from all the gains that he's got in the Blitzkrieg stage You know He's nicked all the cars from France and trucks And factories and oil and food reserves and all the rest of it

And the cupboard's bare again I mean they've been like kids in a sweet shop So he thinks well what do we do And he says well the only way we're going to get all the supplies we need Is to go to Soviet Union You know he's originally planning that for kind of 43 44 But he goes instead in June 1941 It's a terrible plan

You know they kid themselves that they're doing quite well because the Red Army is so unspeakably awful and terrible, and so they do get very close to Berlin by the end of the year. But consider this. Take an arbitrary date like, let's say the 16th of June, 1941. At that point, Nazi Germany has got one enemy in the world, Great Britain, albeit Great Britain plus Dominions and Empire.

And then fast forward it six months to say the 16th of December 1941. Suddenly Nazi Germany has got three enemies. It's got the USSR, it's got the United States of America, and it's got Britain plus dominions and empire. And I would argue that you're never going to win from that point. So much of this is about control of information. The German people just didn't know what was going on. Yeah, and they're brilliant at this. So it's really, really interesting because they're actually nothing like as automotive as most people think they are.

Everyone talks about the Nazi war machine of the Blitzkrieg gears. Actually, they weren't very automotive at all. And they're quite down the pecking order. I mean, it would be no surprise to anyone listening in the US that America is the most automotive society in the world. in 1939. There are three people for every motorized vehicle in the United States in 1939. That figure is eight in France. So France is comfortably the most automotive. It's 14 in the UK. It is 47 in Germany. And so that's a problem because what that means is you haven't got that many people who know how to drive. You haven't got many, you know, gas stations. You haven't

got many factories churning out this stuff. So if you suddenly want to kind of escalate that into kind of war, you've got a problem because you can't mass produce because you don't have the capacity to do so. But where they have the, they have the, they have the, they have the, they have the the census radio network of any nation and the planet by 1939. And they've been really, really cunning. So in the early 1930s, for example, they create the Deutsche Fanghe, which is a German radio. And then they create the Deutsche Kleinenfanger,

which is the German little radio. And this is about as revolutionary when it comes in in 1933 as the arrival of the iPod. Up until that point, radios are aspirational, and they kind of come with a sort of walnut veneer, and you only get them if you're middle class. But what Germany realizes is if they control the whole media, then they can start to really warp people's minds.

It's the same as sort of taking over Twitter or something. Yeah, exactly. So what you do is you have this radio, which is nine inches by four inches by four inches, made a bakelite, super cheap. And even if those who can't afford it, you put them in stairwells and, you know, apartment blocks and in public squares and all rest of it.

And you're just churning out the same old nonsense whole time. So it is partly Hitlerian speeches with Spittl and all the rest of it, but it's also kind of light comedy moments. And it's sort of, you know, Wagner as well, and other speeches and other talk programs and discussion programs. But the subliminal message is the same. We're cool, we're German, we're the best in the world militarily. Jews are awful.

Bolsheviks, communists are awful. Slavs are awful. It is our destiny to take over the world. We need to do it. We're top dogs. And it just people start, if you repeat stuff enough, people believe it. So the reason they're still going is because Hitler has this grip and because they've all bought into it to start off with.

Then suddenly there's this halfway point, which is early 1940, threw in the surrender of Stalingrad. When everyone's suddenly things, ah, okay, we're not going to win here. So then it's kind of everyone's maximum effort. And if you don't do the maximum effort, you're going to have the Russian hordes coming here and they're going to rape and pillage and it's going to be Armageddon, which I warned you about. So what's the alternative?

So that's why they're keeping on fighting. Fear mentality. The Yalta conference takes place in February 45. How does this impact the war? It is basically the three main powers figuring out how this is all going to divvy up, right? Yeah, kind of. I kind of wonder whether too much emphasis has been put on Yalta. In a way, a more significant one is Tehran, which happens at the end of 1943. And that's the first time that kind of the big three Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill, and that's in Iran. Stalin has agreed with the Western allies, Roosevelt and Churchill, that the only unconditional surrender will do. So that's already worked out. What's sort of being worked out at Yalta is that there is clearly going to be effectively, an iron curtain over Europe when the war is over, one which is in the sphere of communism and the Soviet bloc and one which isn't. And Roosevelt knows this and Churchill knows this and they're trying

to get as many concessions as possible. And what Stalin agrees to is yes, there will be free and fair elections in these countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland once the war is over. But Churchill knows perfectly well that that's never going to happen. Roosevelt knows that's probably not going to happen, but they've got to get him to say it. Right. And he does say. it, but they all know by this point that by the time the war is over in Europe, there's still going to be the war against Imperial Japan. That is hovering over every decision the Western Allies make in 1945, and no one is expecting to be using atomic bombs on Japan at this stage. Right. So what they are expecting is to have to invade Japan, because what

the lessons of the war in Japan have showed them is that the closer they get to Japan, the heart of the Japanese fight. And that is why, you know, out of 18,000 Japanese on Iwojima, I think is 250 a taken prisoner. Out of 12,000 on Pelaloo, 360 are taken prisoner. So in other words, Japanese fight to the death. And that means a lot of casualties. That means when you get into Japan itself, you know, we're looking at several million casualties. And that is a terrible burden for the Western Allies, particularly the United States, which is taking over the lead in terms of, well, there's always been at the forefront in terms of operations in the Pacific rather than Southeast Asia. They just want to get Germany done and dusted. And there's

going to be no stomach for fighting Stalin. So what the line is at the end is going to be the line. And they can say, we want to have free, fair in elections. And Stalin can go, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but they all know that's not going to happen. The other thing to point out is by this stage, Roosevelt is a very, very sick man. I find it absolutely astonishing that the Americans agree to hold it in Yelter. Just by virtue of the travel. They should have pushed back on that said, no, you know, we'll meet in Malta or we're meeting in America.

So they should have gone. It should have gone to Washington. Yeah. The guy was at the edge of death. He's on the edge of death. So his arteries are furring up. Yeah. And so that is what's weakening him.

So he, I mean, he's 63 when he dies. Have you seen pictures of him at the artery? It looks like an 80-year-old. You know, he is absolutely spent this, this titanic figure with his extraordinary visions for peace, which he's been working on since. the 1930s, you know, the good neighbor policy for freedoms of January 1941, the Atlantic Charter of August 41, Bretton Woods, the creation of the IMF, an international monetary fund, the World Bank, this idea that he is absolutely wedded to that low tariffs, free trade,

prosperous neighbors means a prosperous nation for America in which America can dominate and be the number one and richest nation in the world through others' prosperity. and also the historical truth that prosperity breeds peace, financial disharmony breeds war. Right. Everything he'd fought for, everything he envisioned, you see the depression on his face that he realizes quite possibly is not going to happen. Well, it's going to happen in the free world, but it's not going to happen behind the Iron Curtain. You know, the balance of power has changed. You know, Stalin was a rabbit in headlights when the Germans invade Soviet Union in June 1941. He recovers his metal in pretty quick order.

And thanks to predominantly US lend lease, he's turned the corner. I mean, Russian listeners won't like me for saying this, but the encirclement of the German sick farming at Stalingrad and Operation Uranus is thanks to the 78,000 US trucks and lorries and other vehicles that were enabled him to do that. Because otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to do it. Yeah, right. You know, so Roosevelt and Britain, you know, American Britain,

have done the right thing in helping their enemy's enemy is our friend kind of principle. but as the war, the conclusion of the war is getting nearer, first of all, America particularly has got other problems on its hand, i.e. dealing with Imperial Japan. The second thing is the New World Order they've got to sort out. This is a time for compromise because you're not going to have a continuation of the European war against the Soviet Union. Do they talk about the United Nations at that point? Yeah, yeah. So the United Nations is all, it's all the chat. Yeah. But I mean, the Soviet Union is invited to Bretton Woods, for example, which is this economic conference where they agree on the IMF and the World Bank and they declined to come. Of course, they do, you know. War crimes in the Nuremberg trials are also agreed upon. They decided to prosecute and go for it. Yep. That's a pretty radical thing to do, isn't it?

That was unprecedented or not? Yes, you know, the terms sort of crimes against humanity and genocide and stuff like that, you know, these are new terms that are emerging at that period. Yeah. By March and April, the Allies are over the Rhine, right? Yeah, so the first crossing is the beginning march where they get across the bridge at Remigant. But actually, they don't, you know, this is, this is, this froze Eisenhower, because Eisenhower, wants everyone to pull up to the Rhine, then pours, gather their strain, get over.

What he doesn't want is any reverses. So he doesn't want a kind of a pocket over the other side of the Rhine, which can then be reduced and into which you have to then pour other resources to make sure it doesn't. He wants to maintain that balance. And actually, Eisenhower, by the beginning of March, is really, well, from the moment of the Battle of the Bulge, he really takes a grip and becomes the overall commander. He is the guy who is dictating the overall strategy on the Western Front by this point, and he's doing it very directly.

And he wants to be methodical. And from his point of view, because of the huge burden of going into Japan, he wants to preserve as much manpower as possible. So Britain and America have always had this principle of steel, not our flesh, as much as you possibly can. So you're limiting the number of casualties and a number of people in the coal face is you absolutely keeping that to the bare minimum by the use of mechanization, industrialization, new innovation and technology,

and all the rest of it. to do a lot of the hard yards for you. So they want to be methodical. They don't want to kind of waste eyes unnecessarily. And so little pockets like getting over the bridge at Remigun and stuff is actually kind of slightly unsettling the apple cart. And the main effort is going to be in the north in the sphere of 21st Army Group to which the US 9th Army under Bill Simpson, who's brilliant, by the way, is attached.

And this is Operation Plunder. And then there's going to be an airborne drop with the 17th. Where's Patton at this point? So Patton is in Third Army. So he is getting ready to cross as well. And he's been preparing this since the previous October. So the way he tells the story is that his guys just bounce the rind with no fuss while Monty had this kind of, you know, big preamble and amassed all this.

I mean, you know, that is just total nonsense because the genius of Patton, yes, he was a great tactical commander, you know, who's a fighting spearhead kind of, you know, gung-ho kind of guy. But I think his real genius was in his operational skill. And what I mean by that is how you organize your troops, how you plan, how you prepare. He had bridging teams and bridging experts and engineers all lined up across the Rhine since the previous October. Well, you trained in tank work with Eisenhower. Right, exactly. So he's further to the south, and they get across kind of the day before Operation Plunder.

So they get across on the 22nd. So it's the third week of March, basically. And they're all across. And then following that. So you have Remargan on, I think it's, if I remember right, it's the 7th of March. Then you've got Operation Plunder, 23rd of March. You've got Patton getting across on the 22nd of March. Then further to the south, you've got sick farming group, which is US 7th Army and the French First Army,

they're getting across again in the kind of last week of March as well. And it's important not to forget the sick family group because 7th Army, US 7th Army and the French First Army, they do really, really well. But they're kind of, you know, because everyone's obsessed with Patton, they kind of tend to get cut out of the story and the narrative. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. James, one of the big events, of course, is the death of FDR. 12th of April, 1945. He dies of a stroke, essentially.

cerebral hemorrhage. How is that news received on the front lines? How is this processed in military strategy? Is there a reaction like that? Yeah, I think everyone is really, really shocked because he has been this great leader. He's arguably, you know, the greatest president America's ever had. He's certainly, you know, in the top handful. And he's a titan. I mean, he's a titanic finger. He's the only president to have served four terms or almost four terms. How hands on was he with military strategy? Very, very hands on. He has this, superb personal military advisor called Admiral Leahy.

And yeah, he worked very, very close to that. He's a military man anyway. You know, he's a Navy man. He gets it. He understands it. He has this terrific geopolitical understanding. And he's got this great vision for world peace that's going to follow afterwards,

which I think is incredibly admirable. And he was Machiavellian and underhand at times and completely ruthless. But he was fundamentally a good man. You know, he wanted the world to be a better place. When he left, the world than when he was born into it and you know I think you can argue that he pulled that off Truman is really really interesting you know the reason he gets Truman is because he knows Roosevelt knows

that he needs to win the November 1944 election you know he needs to continue this job and some of the other potential candidates with Henry Wallace who's the existing vice president he's sort of seen a bit too left Jimmy Burns has got kind of issues with you know he's not so popular in the deep south and and so on so there's issues so the reason he goes with Truman is Truman is just completely neutral. Everyone likes Truman. But he's a domestic politician from Missouri, Independence, Missouri. Your classic kind of folksy kind of homegrown guy who kind of offends nobody. But does that put him in a really good position to be the leader of the kind of largest richest nation in the world by 1944 and to lead the free world into the post-war era? And there's a lot of question marks about that.

And a lot of people don't think he's going to do it. But I would argue that he does it with bells on. I think he's unbelievable. As of his death, where are? are the American troops located. They're on the Elbe. I mean, the Elbe has reached on the 11th of April. So they've done the job. The job's done. But the atomic bomb. I mean, Tumman doesn't know about Manhattan Project. It doesn't know about the atomic bomb when he comes president. He doesn't know about ongoing the brewing problems with the Soviet Union. All these, he has to kind of shoulder and burden. And he doesn't want to be president. He didn't want to be vice president. He does it out of a sense of moral duty of Christian, moral patriotic duty. But I don't think people

understand how incredibly symbolic FDR's death is at that time because the mission has been accomplished. He has carried it to that point. Literally the day after reaching the elbow. Great man, but I would argue that I think Truman is a surprise

in how good he was. And he was a, you know, there are some flaws in his presidency, don't get me wrong. But you know, out of that comes a continuation of the ethos of Roosevelt. You know, out of that comes a Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan, the only time ever in the history of world where the victors have financially helped the vanquished.

April 11th, 1945, the Buchenwald concentration camp is discovered by Allied troops. Yeah. 21,000 prisoners are found there. 30,000 prisoners are located at Daco, April 29th. It is hard to conceive how this news goes down for Americans and Europeans, salt in the wound. Or was there more of an understanding of this all the way along and speculation? They know about the deaf camps, much early. earlier in the war, but the average soldier doesn't.

You know, this is not sort of stuff that you bandy about. It's really interesting because Churchill makes a speech in the summer of 1940. Yeah. Where he talks about, you know, if we prevail, we'll return to the sunlit uplands. But if we fail, you know, we will descend into a new dark age made more sinister by the perversions of modern science. You know, he doesn't know about cyclone b at that point, but this is what we're talking about. And it's a real shot because, you know, one has to remember that before the arrival of the Nazis, before the first world, I mean, Germany is this place of unbelievably rich culture, of music, of science, of literature, of art, of engineering, of, you know, a proud nation of a brilliant military heritage and, you know, super creative, yet just like that.

Yeah. You know, 12 years. Right. Less than 12 years, they've descended into the Holocaust. And it's horrible. It's so grotesque. The contempt for human life is so appalling. the cruelty, you can't imagine it.

And even things like Zyclan B, that is to be more humane for the executioners, not for the executed. You know, you're all crammed naked together. That's humiliating. Different age groups. In a concrete room, you're being gassed. It's not a particularly quick death. Right.

It's horrific. It's horrific. It's incredibly painful. All your capillaries and your lungs burst. You're gasping for air. Your whole chest is heaving in pain. And some people can take up to 20 minutes. And you know there's no going to.

nowhere out and you're watching other people dying and you know that's your fate. It's unspeakably cruel. And then Allied troops are getting into Buchenwald and Belsen and Dachau and they're seeing these emaciated people and they're seeing, you know, defecation all over the place and disease and rife with typhus and typhoid

and the whole thing is just unspeakable. And of course people are shocked. You know, it's one thing going to war and you have kind of sort of basic notions of kind of Geneva Convention and all that kind of stuff. and then you see that. Right. Off the charts.

I mean, how can you contemplate that? How can you process that? Of course, they're absolutely devastated. They're completely shocked. And of course, it's why they've been doing it. I mean, if ever you want to kind of raise on debt, for going to war, it's that. And for all the kind of moral ambiguity of the war,

the bombing of cities and towns, mostly by allied guns or by allied bombs, when you get to Buchanvald, and you see this pitiful example of human, human deprivation and misery, then you realize what it is you've been fighting, that you are on the moral side of righteousness. Yeah, it's mild to say so, but it is a symbol of what you say before. I mean, many Americans don't realize.

Germany was our model. You know, in the late 19th century, into the 20th even, it was the model for high culture. It was the model for innovation and technology and goodness, really. We wanted to be like the Germans in so many ways. Of course, World War I's right there in the middle. but it's really unexpected that this could possibly happen within that culture. It's so bizarre, really. It's so bizarre.

And I think it's a really, you know, history never repeats itself. Of course it doesn't because this is now and that was then. You know, it's a different time frame always. But patterns of human behavior do. And I think one of the things that's so fascinating about it and so alarming is the fragility of democracy. Right. You know, how can a nation as advanced and sophisticated and kind of foundation of high culture, like Germany, descend into this monstrous, despicable regime so quickly.

Modern themes as well, and media has a lot to do with it. Yes. It's amazing. Let's talk, though, more in detail about the division of Berlin. How were those decisions made, basically? What moment did that happen? Was it Yalta? Yes, it was.

And by then, it's a foregone conclusion. It's only a matter of time. So, yes, it was worked out that it was going to be split up. So when we run into roll into town, this is how it's going to be. That was already set up. Of course, you know, it's a huge great resentment by the Soviet Union because they've got into Berlin and they don't really want then to kind of allow Americans and British and French. Right. They've all been shot and killed them. There's massive amounts of death going in there. The Americans are sitting by watching.

Yes, but my point is, again, is that one has to contextualize those huge casualties that the Red Army suffers. The Red Army approach is to have this huge battering ram. You swing it back and then you just go, wham, straight into the enemy. Lots of violence. Everyone dies. There's lots of carnage. There's lots of carnage to yourself. Then you have to kind of pause because your units are so depleted for three months. And then you kind of pull the battering ram back again and you swing it again and repeat. But the problem with this process is that it's incredibly costly in terms of material but particularly manpower. And it doesn't have to be that way. They've got all the kit in the world. They've got all the artillery.

There's a much better plan than the one they're doing. which is much less manpower heavy. And they don't do it. So, yes, they do have a huge amount of casualties going into Berlin. But I would argue that with a better plan, better trained men, and people that weren't quite so expendable, they could have done it for a heck of a lot less manpower and a heck of a lot less of a cost.

The chess game is about Russia, of course. In terms of the German landmass, how true is it that we held back in order to let them come forward? I mean, where... Yeah, so once they get across the rhyme, Eisenhower makes a decision that he's not going to attack Berlin. He's going to get to the Elba and then he's going to stop. So it's kind of interesting because by the beginning of February,

the Western Allies are still 250 miles from Berlin, and the Red Army is only 50 miles. By the 11th of April, which is when Bill Simpson's 9th Army reached the River Elba, they're both about 50 miles away because the Russians haven't moved since beginning of February. Whereas obviously the Allies have. So, you know, it's absolutely within the grasp of Eisenhower and the Western Allies to go into Berlin, and they would have got their first. But it's absolutely no question about it because the Germans would have not fought anything like as hard against the Allies.

The Allies would have fought much more efficiently, and they would have taken Berlin because no one wanted to be taken by the Russians because you read what you so. And back in 1941 and into 1942, they treated the Soviet Union so brutally that what do you expect when it comes back? So what's the rationale, Eisenhower's rationale about not taking? He's trying to conserve troops. Okay. Because the fighting's really still very fierce, right? It is, but it doesn't need to be. That's my point.

Yeah, yeah. So the only reason the Soviet, the Red Army have such casualties in the final battle is because it's a really badly planned battle and because the commanders have absolutely no regard for the lives of their men. I mean, Red Army loses something like 900,000 casualties between 16th of April and the 2nd of May. I mean, that's like nearly amazing. million in a fortnight. Eisenhower is leaving it to the Russians to...

You're saying, yep, I'm not going to... I'm not going to go any further. And the reason is because he doesn't want any further loss of life amongst the Western forces. And the reason he doesn't want that is, A, because he wants to conserve him, because it's all over. But second, it's because he thinks they're going to all have to go to the Pacific. Wow, interesting. And, you know, you're going to need every single man. It's not a politically strategic thing he's doing in terms of the division of Berlin and all of that.

It's not about Europe. But as far as they're concerned, they've crushed Nazi Germany. That was their kind of number one priority, as laid out in the Arcadia Conference in December 1941. And it's job done. You know, Germany is defeated. Hitler's, well, it goes on the 30th of April, you know, but it's all over. Whether the Western allies end up with an extra 50 miles of Germany or that 50 miles goes into the hands of Soviet Union, so what? It's not his concern.

His concern is winning the war as quickly as possible for the minimum. minimum amount of loss of life. A counterfactual is interesting about whether Berlin was not divided up. Would we have the Iron Curtain? What would we have that situation in terms of the division of Europe? Well, I think so, yes, because the front line ends on the River Elba, as Eisenhower agrees. And, you know, that's a division between what becomes East Germany and what becomes West Germany.

The finishing line isn't baked in by Yalta. It is baked in that there's going to be a division of Berlin, but it hasn't been agreed who is going to capture Berlin. and, you know, it's still odds on that it's going to be the Western Allies at this point. But then Eisenhower lets Stalin know that he's not going to contest Berlin, that he is going to stop at the River Elba, which is to say is kind of 50 miles to the kind of west of Berlin. And that then becomes the kind of iron curtain. Then there's a whole lot of horse trading that's been going on the previous autumn about, you know,

Italy and Greece and the Balkans and all the rest of it, and which is going to, you know, so Churchill goes to Stalin and Moscow and says, okay, let's thrash this out. And it's agreed that Greece will remain in the orbit of the West. but the Balkans won't. Interesting. You know, that decision is all made then. VE Day, 8th of May, 1945, euphoria in the streets of America. I mean, we see those pictures, the sailors kissing the nurses, packs of people in that in Times Square.

Was that the general reaction throughout the world? Were we free to be so euphoric or? Well, actually, Don, it's a little bit mixed because actually the surrender is signed in the early hours of the 7th of May. Yeah. Stalin's really annoyed about this because the Germans surrendered to the West. They surrendered to Eisenhower's headquarters. And they go, no, no, no, no.

It can't be properly surrendered until we have our own surrender in Berlin. And that's going to happen at one minute past midnight on the 9th of May. But then the Germans broadcast about the surrender. And the cats out of the bag and everyone starts nowhere. Everyone starts partying on the 7th of May. So Churchill and Truman agree that victory in Europe today will be celebrated on the 8th of May. But actually, ironically, it's a one day there isn't a surrender. And reactions are really mixed, you know, for the Western allies, you know, there's euphoria

and street parties and ticket taken in Times Square and all the rest of it. There's a kind of mild celebration and a lot of the troops in Europe. And then there's a kind of sort of, well, what was the point in the first place then if we've got to this. Then there is the anxiety about Japan. Plenty of people still fighting in the Pacific. I mean, you know, there's people still fighting on Okinawa. You know, there's no victory day for them. They're still fighting the Japanese.

and ditto, you know, British troops in Burma and so on. So it's a completely mixed reaction. And for those people who've, I remember talking to a lady who lived in my village, she'd lost her fiancé, who had been shot down in his bomber. And she just spent the whole of V-E day just in tears. Right. Because that was that. And it's very interesting, when you look at Truman's victory speech that he gives

on the morning of the 8th of May, it's coincidentally his 61st birthday that day, it's pretty muted. Yeah, I can read it. There's a job still to be done. Our rejoicing is sobered and subdued by our supreme consciousness of the terrible price we have paid to the world to rid the world of Hitler and his evil band. He dedicates the day to FDR and orders all the flags flown at half-mast. Yeah, that's definitely a mixed reaction because Americans have always had, of course, a big problem with spending lives to save others, you know, to go abroad. And quite rightly so.

And this is a major moment of considering the price that we've paid for this. It really, really is. And the other thing is, is he knows he's a new president. He hasn't been in office quite a month by that point. And he knows there's all sorts of problems brewing with the Soviet Union. You know, there is a complete clash of worldview. And there is a huge burden of the Japan. Yeah, a can of wars has been opened up. James Holland, I have been a fan for so long. It is an honor to meet you and sit with you in person. I invite all listeners to look up this man's books as a long list of them and to tune in. to the podcast, which he does with his partner, Al Murray. We have ways of making you talk. I'm going to be a big listener myself. Thank you so much. Oh, Tom, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. Thanks for listening to American History Hit.

You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. From mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman.

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