London 1940

“The heavy raids continued. Their scale, both in time and space, impressed Ford. As he walked the streets, he could fancy that he heard the laboured breath of London. Her incoherent vastness was stretched beneath the night and the raiders. Then, and then again, the hammer stroke of a heavy bomb plunged into the body of the city. London stirred, quivered, and caught her breath as if wounded. She was wounded, again and again. Yet she was so gigantic that her wounds became insignificant, were rendered trivial, were dwarfed, till they seemed no more than cuts or sores upon the hide of some great, slow animal. Ford, who had never had much feeling for London – she had seemed too shapeless and unending – loved her for being the home of a steady, stubborn people. She lay, not passive, but growling back at the tormenting bombers from her hundred guns. Yet she took what she had to take with magnanimity, a city once more worthy of history”.

Foreigners in Germany: POW’s and forced labourers.

Notes taken from ‘Hitler’s Foreign Workers’ by Ulrich Herbert

The German economy needed skilled workers to replace those called to the front. At first volunteers were sought in the newly occupied territories. In spring 1940 it had been declared that this scheme had failed and from then on workers were brought in by force. By 1944 1 in 3 of the German workforce was foreign forced labour.

‘The Last Enemy’ by Richard Hillary

Originally published in June 1942. “Was immediately successful”.

Hillary is an interesting character. He was an Oxford rower who, as part of the University Air Squadron, joined the RAF at the outbreak of war. Previously he had travelled Europe and was fluent in both French and German. His book is a sort of autobiographical novel, which largely sticks to the facts but occasionally wonders off into the realm of fantasy when he is desperate to make a point. Or at least, so says the introduction written by Sebastian Faulks.

It is a stunningly good read….

The Diary of Anne Frank

The Diary of Anne Frank. By Anne Frank.

This is not on my reading list but since I am doing a course about the Second World War I figured it would be simply embarrassing to have complete it having never read this classic.

Racial discrimination and persecution in occupied Europe

By the summer of 1941 of the 350,000 Reich Jews only 15,000 had been deported. By the same date of the 550,000 living in incorporated eastern territories the figure was about 110,000. Hitler sought a new ‘ethnographic order’. The policy was to include not just the removal of Jews and other unwholesome peoples from the Greater Reich but also to bring in those deemed to be ‘ethnic Germans’ who were found in the nations and lands of Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Authority was given to Heinrich Himmler for the organisation and implementation of the ‘ethnic new order’ and as such was his title became, the ‘Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood’…

Nineteen Forty

“Nineteen Forty, Out Finest Hour” by Arthur Mee

Arthur Mee was a writer during the first half of the century, finally meeting his end in 1943. He became most famous for his ‘Children’s Encyclopaedia” which he write in monthly instalments. When not doing this he was a journalist, notably for the Daily Mail (which would of course in the 1930’s become the main supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists) …

Racial discrimination and persecution in Germany 1933 – 1939

This is what will hopefully be the first in a long line of mini-essays which are really designed to firstly make me do the readings for my course and secondly provide some structure and purpose as I do them. This one is about the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany based only on the two books I have available (having left things to the last minute again). They being Michael Burleigh’s ‘The Third Reich, A New History’ and Christopher Browning’s ‘The Origins Of The Final Solution’.

That sinking feeling

What follows in the comments section is a very quick essay I produced in about three hours. It is horribly rough and I didn’t really learn anything new by it since to save time I simply went from the top of my head and only rarely used quotes or references to back up the work. I also became very tired towards the end but not wanting to accept defeat I quickly rapped it up so I could at least side step defeat, if not actually embrace any sort of victory over it. Two points of note should be that firstly I was experimenting with the idea that war was good for societies. This wild observation is difficult to back and sounds horrible if said out of context. Yet what I meant is that warfare and the lengths to which it forces people to become innovative and hardworking can have significant, if unintended, effects when it comes to advancing a societies knowledge base and even its very structure. The two total wars of the twentieth century were a catalyst for a great deal of social and technology change, which are still benefiting. Secondly I need to further research the directives over Allied shipping across the Atlantic. I was under the impression that firstly convoys were not required, then they were but only for some ships of a certain speed and then later the requirements were changed so that all merchant shipping had to cross the Atlantic in convoy. From my brief and hurried reading it appeared that I was wrong on two accounts. Firstly convoys were in place right from the start, beginning from Gibraltar before even the declaration of war proper and secondly that no instruction was ever given to say that all shipping had to be in convoys and that throughout the war it appears that ships outside the speed limits were free to travel independently. Both of these were new to me. This greatly undermined my initial argument which was going to be that the switch from limited convoys to total convoys was a great tactical coup. Unless I can prove otherwise it appears that I just invented this in my mind and proves that a lot more background reading, with effective notes are required. Notes should focus on numbers, dates and statistics far more then ‘trends’ for it is ‘trends’ that I tend to find easy to remember and it is the details that I need to quickly find when writing essays.

Well, take a quick look. I haven’t even proof read it. Consider this Concept 1, Version 1. Very rough indeed. I have previously hesitated to produce anything so shockingly incoherent but recent experience of failing essays has taught me that you have to start somewhere and you have to start somewhere as soon as possible. So here it is:

Athenia 2007

Brilliant news boys and girls, for a while there I had thought I had forgotten the password - but I came back to it with a fresh mind and hey presto - first time. So relax, you should all be getting your fix of World War II related stories sooner rather than later.

On a side note for Christmas I was lucky enough to be given the 'World at War' box set. A 70's documentary series done by the BBC that still to this day is generally regarded as the finest Second World War documentary series going. And it's not hard to see why. I've only watched six or so episodes but they are beautifully constructed and provide a balanced account of events. Yet they are also powerfully emotional and being in the seventies they also have some amazing interviews with many of the main players, men like Albert Speer and the German Navy Commander Karl Dönetz (who was also the man Hitler nominated to leave in charge of Germany after his suicide - upon taking command he promptly and wisely signed an unconditional surrender to the Allies). So so pretty cool stuff. But what actually hit me most was when I suddenly realised the obvious. The footage I was seeing of men being killed, planes five bombing civilians and ships sinking were actually real.

Think of that for a second. First imagine it in colour (a lot of the w@w footage actually is), secondly imagine the CNN logo in the top left hand corner and then imagine a scrolling bar across the bottom that reads "Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbour, two thousand American sailors killed" then imagine you had just turned on your TV to hear the news. It's real boys and girls, it happened. When you actually realise that - when the black and white footage no longer passes over you as unremarkable that is when you can finally realise just how astonishing these events are. Sounds like a simple thing really, realising that it's real - but its all to easy to forget when on digital TV you have around ten stations devoted to this stuff.

So where now for Athenia 1939? Good question.

I had several ideas over the Christmas period.

One was to write up here a book review once a week (i.e. I must read a book a week specifically for the site) which still seems like a good idea, perhaps once a fortnight might be more realistic however, what with my other commitments and all. Secondly I thought it might be a good place to host mini essays, of around 1,200 words apiece. In these I could investigate possibile future essays as well as drafting out works in progress.

I will have to get in contact with my good friend CK as to the technical side of this since I would rather host them as Word files (or even pdf's?) than copy them straight onto the blog.

Thirdly... Well, I can keep up what I have been doing, writing up little pieces on notable events and characters.

Well. Leave some comments if your reading this, and if your not - then you should be.

Nakizo.