A Canterbury Tale, 1944.

Written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

The opening scene shows us a retelling of the old story, ‘A Canterbury Tale’ in which people would make a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Shots of men and women on horseback end with the sight of a falconer, who lets a falcon soar into the air. The eagle, getting smaller and smaller into the distance suddenly transforms into an aeroplane which comes screaming back towards the camera. We have arrived in 1944. (incidentally this is also the scene that is supposed to have inspired Kubrick in the beginning of 2001 when the bone twists and turns into the air until it becomes the space station in orbit…

The victims’ experience:

Looking at the Jewish reaction to the holocaust, why did they stay in Germany after the Nazi takeover of power? Why did those who left do so? What role did Jewish community organizations have in resisting the Nazi oppression? To what extent can the Jewish councils within the Ghettos that actively co-operated with the German authorities be blamed with collaboration or accredited with protecting those that it could? Did the internal divisions within Jewish society itself contribute to the outcome of the holocaust? What actually counts as resistance during the holocaust? Why was there so little in the way of armed resistance? What sorts of armed resistance did occur? Were Jews pitted against one another in the concentration camps? Were Jews able to organize and show solidarity within the camps?

Nella Last’s War: A mother’s diary, 1939 – 1945

I meant to copy up the first two paragraphs of the preface because they summarize perfectly, but I’m writing this late and am away from the text. In the late 1930’s an organization known as ‘Mass Observation’ asked hundreds of normal people to keep diaries of their day to day events to be compiled into one record so as to benefit future generations looking back. The same organization also commissioned various polls and questionnaires of the general population. These records are currently held at the University of Sussex and needless to say they provide an important resource for historians and almost every social, economic or political historian of Britain during the Second World War will dive into these records at some point. Nella Last was a housewife from Barrow. Her diary was so complete and of such quality that it was deemed worth publishing separately as a piece of historical literature. It was first published in 1981 and has been recently republished following its transformation into a TV Drama. A very good read for everyone…

Extermination policy and practice: non-Jews

Interesting notes taken from two separate articles. The first one deals with Himmlers fascination with the Gypsy peoples in Germany and the bizarre policies pursed towards them and the second deals with the persecution of ‘regular’ state prisoners under nazi Germany and their inclusion in the holocaust out of Hitler’s fear of a negative selection process where the criminally deviant remained safe in penal institutions while Germany’s finest lost their lives at the front…


(notes taken from the articles: ‘Himmler and the Racially Pure Gypsies’ by Guenter Lewy and ‘Annihilation through Labor: the killing of state prisoners in the Third Reich’ by Nikolaus Wachsmann)

…

The Road to 1945

‘The Road to 1945, British politics and the Second World War’ by Paul Addison

Originally published in 1975. 1994 edition.

A brilliant book all about the political situation during the Second World War and how, during the period of National Coalition, the influence of the social progressive grew dramatically. This was allowed to be the case partly because of the scale of control the government was forced to take both socially and economically during the conditions of total war. This experience paved the way for the Labour program of state intervention and ultimately to the birth of the welfare state in Britain…

‘Nazism, Modern War and Rural Society in Württemberg, 1939 – 1945’, by Professor Jill Stephenson

Modern war has been seen as an urban concern. That the rural farm hands are conscripted and food production decreases has been seen only in the context that it produces shortages in the cities.

The NSDAP felt they had few security worries from the rural population, instead they focussed on urban, Marxist inspired uprisings. The only recent peasant protests had been inspired by the NSDAP themselves to unsettle the old regime...

Victory Production, 1942. by J.T Murphy

“A personal account of seventeen months spent as a worker in an engineering and an aircraft factory; with a criticism of our present methods of production and a plan for its reorganisation…”

Extermination Practice: The Jews

After being gassed in the vans (which were used before the permanent camps) the bodies were driven to mass burial grounds where they were unloaded and stripped of valuables (inc. jewellery and golden teeth) by gangs of Jews, fellow victims.

(p637, Michael Burleigh): “Michael Podchlebink, a saddler from Kolo, worked in the woods, and discovered that among the bodies pulled from the third van to arrive on a Tuesday morning were his wife, seven-year-old son and five year old daughter. He lay down next to his wife and asked to be shot, but was beaten to his feet to shouts of ‘The fellow can still work well.’”

The World At War: ‘It’s a lovely day tomorrow’: Burma 1942 – 1943

A gripping episode about a campaign I knew little about. Inspiring stuff. The devastating losses at the beginning of the campaign were surely enough to turn anyone against further action. Yet the Allies fought back, they suffered yet more serious defeats. They succumb to the environment, they lost thousands, they suffered defeat after defeat. And yet still they came.

In time they adapted. They changed their routines, they grew used to the conditions. Out of all the misery, bloodshed and pain they grew wise. They grew wise enough that eventually, after throwing themselves unsuccessfully at the Japanese time and time again – they succeeded. Unafraid to try new tactics. Unafraid to fail. They eventually found the winning formula and then stuck to it…

The World At War: ‘Tough Old Gut’, Italy:

November 1942 – 1944

Churchill once told Stalin that the Mediterranean was the ‘soft under belly’ of the crocodile. This was a British plan that the Americans only reluctantly agreed to pursue, believing it would detract from the main aim of attacking Germany.

The episode begins with footage from Operation Torch. The Anglo-American landings in French North Africa which took place and were successful in November 1942. The American military deemed it unnecessary but Roosevelt wanted to show support for Churchill who supported the plan and was eager to give his troops a taste of combat since most had never been tested before.

Cambridge Evacuation Survey

The Cambridge Evacuation Survey, Ed. Susan Isaacs.

Published in 1941 and arising from a conversation between social workers and psychologists in October 1939 who felt the details of the evacuation program needed to be recorded because of their importance as a study of a large-scale social experiment. They found they had access mainly to the Cambridge records so embarked upon a study of this one area in the hope that it might shed light on the whole...

Post D:

Post D: Some experiences of an Air Raid Warden, by John Strachey (1941).

John Scrachey was an Oxford educated journalist who wrote for the Spectator. Later he became a Labour MP and served, bizarrely, as the Parliamentary Private Secretary for Oswald Mosley between 1929 and 1931. Yet in 1931 he left the Labour party and joined the Communist Party. In 1940 he then left the Communists and joined the RAF. From here he was quickly transferred across to the Air Ministry where he became renowned as a radio commentator on the BBC. Later he once again became a Labour MP and spent time as the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Food Minister and Secretary State for War. He died in 1963. During his lifetime he published sixteen books.