What Happened When Hitler Broke The Treaty Of Versailles? | Total War | War Stories

total war is all-encompassing a war without boundary or limitation in the second world war massive armies advanced confronting whole populations with impossible choices [Music] the manufacturer of weapons transformed industry in the workforce area bombing campaigns reduce cities to rubble sieges doomed populations to starvation racial policies sponsored campaigns of genocide at the heart of this conflict were ordinary people who would reveal both the best and worst of humanity people whose lives were lost or mortgaged to the demands of total war [Music] [Music] [Music] to fight a total war munitions industries had to be revitalized populations mobilized and economies refocused towards war attempts were made in the 1920s and early 1930s to maintain peace but as treaty after treaty was violated it became clear that total war was increasingly probable [Music] by the mid 1930s nations began to mobilize in earnest so right through the interwar years people are very aware that a new total war will require mass mobilization indeed this is one of the fears people had that another great war would have tremendous economic as well as political and ideological consequences the threat of total war sparked an arms race for ever greater numbers of technologically advanced weapons total war would be fought in the factories as well as on the battlefields by workers as well as soldiers many believed victory would be one by whichever nation could produce and deploy the greatest number of weapons this understanding of the strain the total war would put on nations inspired rounds of peace agreements in the 1920s and early 1930s a series of conferences and agreements were created in the hope of maintaining peace and preventing an arms race [Music] though some of these packs met with initial success the momentum towards total war steadily increased as each agreement faltered there were high hopes for the disarmament conferences in geneva in february 1932 and 1933 representatives from 60 countries attended but negotiations failed when germany sought military parity with other western powers and rejected any plan that didn't deliver it the hope of a world with fewer weapons was finally dashed when both germany and japan withdrew from the league of nations in 1933 it is now clear that the disarmament conference will not fulfill what is its sole object namely general disarmament the german government is accordingly compelled to leave the disarmament conference one by one as these numerous promises of peace were broken total war looked more and more likely nations across the globe began to prepare i think we need to think in terms of what at the time statesmen scholars military thinkers of all ideological shades thought mobilization meant and what they really thought it meant at core was the mobilization of the power of the state to affect the economy markets to put people in jobs and positions in uniform with ever greater force hitler began planning for rearmament as early as 1933 but kept his activities secret from the international community until 1935. thereafter as he openly defied the conditions of the treaty of versailles hitler's path to total war became increasingly clear to the international community by about 1936 you're seeing the globe beginning to arm what's interesting is that there was an assumption that those states that had dictatorships that had state-controlled economies had a lead in re-armament the reich's law for the construction of the armed forces reintroduced conscription included plans for the expansion of the navy and army with the army to reach 580 000 men by 1939 versailles had kept the army at 100 000 the new air force would combine with the navy and army to create the fairmont hitler's four-year plan launched in 1936 laid out his aims for realment in four years hitler demanded the german army must be ready for combat and the german economy must be capable of war the heart of the plan was self-sufficiency or ortaki the german armed forces often talked about having some sort of economic dictator someone who would come in and subordinate the aircraft manufacturers the armored fighting vehicle manufacturers petroleum industry and so on to create an independent self-sufficient economy externally it looked like nazi germany was mobilizing to some sort of grand machiavellian plan and it was all going to be perfect and outsiders tended to assume this so french and british military intelligence assumed that the germans were doing everything efficiently and beautifully the truth is it was disorder and chaos on the inside one example of such inefficiency was the lack of standardization across german industry at one point german factories were producing 425 different kinds of airplanes 151 types of trucks 150 different motorcycles when germany went to war this diversity which made staggering demands on the spare parts inventory was to prove disastrous when we think about guring running the four-year plan i mean he may have been once a great aviator but did he understand the fundamentals of running the german economy i don't think so [Music] in response to the increasing threat of war britain followed a dual strategy of rearmament and appeasement these diplomatic solutions sometimes came at a cost to others germany invaded austria in march 1938 [Music] the union or angelus was confirmed a month later by orchestrated plebiscite returning a vote 99.7 in favor britain did not see the angelus as a threat so did not oppose it the tsar region had also been returned to germany following a plebiscite in 1935 germany exults in reunion with her divorced province hitler was taking tentative steps towards his goal of a greater germany and finding little opposition lieben's ram living space which meant expansion to the east must follow [Music] the sacrifice of the sudetenland in the munich agreement was the most cynical example of britain's appeasement policies in action the sedating region of czechoslovakia included about 3 million people of german origin hitler began planning for the occupation of czechoslovakia in may 1938 as the situation escalated and war looked imminent [Music] british prime minister neville chamberlain met with hitler to negotiate after a series of negotiations a four-power conference was held to decide the issue in september 1938 the leaders of britain and france complied with hitler's demands the sudan land was surrendered to germany in exchange for a hollow promise of peace britain was very much influenced by its experience in the first world war the cost in blood and treasure had been so great that there was a feeling that if in any way they could negotiate a war away that is appease hitler in particular they would do it the munich agreement and the appeasement strategy did not secure peace for our time as chamberlain claimed but it did buy time enough for britain to continue to scale our preparations for war it's important to understand about the arms race from 1936 to 1941 is that it's not simply about building up forces not building ships not just about building tanks or men it's about expanding the economic base regimenting people and securing the resources you need to wage toward war as nations age closer to total war an ever-increasing amount of the british national budget was being advocated to defence in 1935 the british royal navy was the largest in the world and the royal air force was among the most powerful it was only the army that remained relatively small as part of a strategy that sought to fight total war at arm's length what does this mean it means uh no conscription either in the united kingdom or in the rest of the empire it means a focus on attacking not enemy armed forces but enemy populations and enemy industry the means to do this were what we might call today high-tech weapons a very powerful royal navy and a very powerful air force centered on bombing the aim of this was to achieve offensive power at a low cost both a financially low cost and low cost in terms of the non-militarization of british society [Music] the french invested in defence [Music] work began on the maginot line in 1930 this heavily fortified defensive barrier running parallel to the border with germany would repel an invasion and prevent repetition of the catastrophic losses of the first world war so long as the invaders were obliging enough to come in the expected direction the maginot line was defense based on the lessons of trench warfare and in the event would be no match for the mobility of the blitzkrieg in the war to come but the french were allied to a country that was thanks to its empire a true superpower the two greatest empires in the world the french champion the british empire were united and could quite reasonably anticipate emerging victorious over germany should there be a war with germany in the soviet union stalin anticipated a future war knowing his nation was not as prepared as it could be the soviet union expected war for a very long time and they knew that they were behind they had lost the first world war they assumed that one of the reasons they lost was that they were not adequately prepared by implementing a series of five-year plans ruthless programs of collectivization and industrialization stalin transformed the soviet union into an industrialized socialist state there's a very drastic appreciation of the potential dangers of living in what they perceived as capitalist encirclement that is the only socialist country and the perception was that everybody wanted to invade them collectivization gathered individually owned farms into state collective farms the plan aimed to free laborers for work in factories the implementation was brutal an estimated five million supposedly wealthier peasants known as kulax were killed or deported the five-year plans also nationalized industry and services a large share of the investment was directed into heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods this command economy helped prepare the nation for total war the five-year plans shattered the lives of millions they also militarized the soviet union so that it was better prepared to fight a total war than it might otherwise have been for example in 1927 the soviet union produced only 500 motor vehicles 13 years later in 1940 they're producing 200 000 it says a lot about the five-year plans that stalin initiates and just how heavily focused they were on heavy industry and on armaments this is key to surviving the german invasion of the soviet union when the germans launched their invasion of the soviet union operation barbarossa the gaps in soviet preparations for war became clear but we must also be careful in looking at soviet production the material itself does not account for military effectiveness in other words we shouldn't confuse the two you need a full system of what truly utilize all of this production and that means good doctrine good training and good command culture the leadership of the red army had been severely compromised by the 1937 purges in which some of the red army's greatest leaders had been charged with involvement in a nazi soviet plot thousands were executed and tens of thousands discharged from their positions [Music] the great purge seriously weakened the army as the nation prepared for total war [Music] but the soviet union was able to hold against the german invasion because it mobilized its resources and population so effectively [Music] because it drew the invaders into enormous territory stretching supply because the russian winter was a powerful ally and because the red army did not stop fighting for the soviet case it's i think nearly an ideal typical total war the activities of the state focus nearly completely and exclusively on mobilization to war and on provision of the red army to the extent that they give up a lot of things they had done about controlling civilian consumption distribution and basically lets locals deal with it the united states abstained from mobilizing for war altogether in the 1930s weary of european wars and equally wary of bankers and munitions dealers who sought to make their fortunes in war the focus remained on neutrality for as long as possible weapons manufacturers were also reluctant to get involved again when the armistice came into effect at the end of the first world war government munitions contracts had been abruptly terminated tax laws prevented companies from writing off machines which were not worn out or obsolete factories across the country were demolished including what was at the time the biggest rifle manufacturing plant in the world on the other hand as europe darkened over the 1930s you had an increasing group of people who thought that the safety of the united states was very much tied up with keeping europe out of war and so therefore the difficulty of the united states in the 1930s was with the depression when one-third of the country was out of work for considerable time and the fact that because of this the us didn't really have a foreign policy in the 1930s no one really knew what they wanted to do or if they did know what they wanted to do they weren't sure they could actually accomplish it so moving towards the second world war in the united states you had a lot of confusion in september 1939 one poll suggested that at least two-thirds of the population had no desire to provide aid to the allies within a few short years the united states was transformed from an isolationist nation intent on neutrality to the arsenal of democracy to create the arsenal president roosevelt ramped up the defense budget [Music] we must increase production facilities for everything needed for the army and navy for national defense the most prominent examples was the second naval expansion act signed by the president in july 1940 which granted four billion dollars towards construction for the navy in december 1940 a year before the united states declared war president roosevelt made it clear that to preserve american independence against the nazi threat american production had to mobilize rearmament was essential providing weapons to the nations fighting against the nazis would roosevelt hoped enable the us to stay out of the fight the distribution of the arsenal began with lendlease len lease was put in place because president roosevelt and then gradually other members of the administration the congress decided if the united kingdom and indeed the empire was not supported it was going to go under one of the isolation laws had said no one could buy anything unless they bought it with cash and carried it back in their own ships well increasingly britain didn't have any cash aware of the need to remain neutral in law if not in thought president roosevelt sought a solution [Music] if britain could not pay for supplies the united states would lend them with payment later in the form of a consideration rather than cash u.s congress passed the lend lease act in early 1941. so our country is going to be what our people have proclaimed it must be the arsenal of democracy it would have been very difficult for the united kingdom extremely difficult for them to pay for ships to pay for men to pay for for whatever the accoutrements of war might be and of course russia was in that sense the same the united states gave food and it gave munitions it gave steel it gave all sorts of things that these countries could not have produced lend lease ultimately extended some 50 billion dollars in assistance to as many as 40 nations including great britain the soviet union china and british commonwealth countries but the policy was not purely altruistic the thing is although churchill called it the most unsorted act in history and in a sense it was on the other hand the united states during the war used len lease to impose a lot of policies on the united kingdom for one that were very hurtful len lease as far as i'm concerned was also for the united states a weapon a real weapon to try to replace the pound with the dollar and replace britain as the major financial power in the world with the united states and of course it worked as the arms race developed through the 1930s the total war to come was in a sense already being fought the outcome of the war was determined as much on the factory floor as on the battlefield production was vital for victory as the major powers prepared for war in europe production increased exponentially factories went into overdrive in 1933 for instance britain produced 633 aircraft germany 368. and france produced none at all [Music] the soviet union in comparison produced 2595 aircraft by the last year of the decade france produced over 2 thousand aircraft germany had caught up to the soviet union's level of production with both producing over ten thousand aircraft each britain produced the greatest number that year with over fifteen 000 aircraft manufactured once the united states entered the war its factories and factory workers made a significant difference to the allied war effort if total war relied on the factory the american factories were willing and able to deliver victory the united states until after the second world war didn't believe in huge standing armies and navies they could be a threat and they cost money so the mobilizing both militarily in terms of the navy in terms of industry and in terms of manpower really all began once the united states was in war [Music] americans are preparing with all possible speed to take their places on the battlefronts workers in the mills and the mines are laboring long hours under great pressure to turn out the weapons and the equipment without which the war cannot be won [Music] over the course of the war american manufacturers shifted their focus to war production u.s manufacturers produced in excess of three hundred thousand aircraft compared to germany's one hundred and eleven thousand and japan's seventy six thousand american factories produced over eighty eight thousand tanks contrasted with german output of some 46 000 and japan's 2500 the significance of the contribution of united states production to the war effort becomes increasingly clear perhaps most startling was the number of military trucks which rolled off the united states assembly lines some 2.38 million compared to around 345 000 for germany and 165 000 for japan by 1943 the us was said to be producing a tank every five minutes an aircraft every half hour and an aircraft carrier every week when britain mobilized it drew not only on its own national resources and population but those of its empire this belies the common perception that britain stood alone against the axis powers in 1940 [Music] after the second world war many britons prided themselves on having mobilized more than any other nation that's to say the united kingdom had a higher proportion of soldiers plus arms workers to total population of any belligerent nation in fact there's a very misleading statistic the reason the united kingdom was able to mobilize so much was that the british empire in the united states wanted it so mobilized and supported it with raw materials and with food so they could do precisely that canadian industry contributed vehicles weapons ships and aircraft over the course of the war canadian factories produced more than eight hundred thousand military transport vehicles and sixteen thousand military aircraft the extent to which the united kingdom could wage total war was contingent upon the efforts and commitment of the people of the british empire if one looks at the case of the soviet union or indeed nazi germany there we see a much greater commitment to war but the extent of mobilization in terms of people at the front or in the arms factories is limited by the fact that these countries have to grow their own food they have to produce their own raw materials germany also relied on the work of forced labourers to sustain its war effort the number of slave laborers germany pressed into service in five years was at least equal to the number that crossed the atlantic during almost 400 years of the slave trade food and raw materials were vital to waging total war for nations which relied on imports for food supply this could present considerable problems really the route caused the war start way back in the 1870s when the european population start to shift away from a grain-based diet toward a meat and milk based diet and that means you have to import a lot more fodder to feed the animals to produce the meat and the milk and so on and for britain that's fine but that was a real problem for germany germany the raw materials took priority over food supplies guring was quite serious when he said we've chosen guns over butter because they didn't want to spend money on importing a fodder from denmark or bacon or milk or whatever to feed the working classes they want to spend it on iron from sweden to rearm that makes them aggressive that makes them look to the east that's always the plan that they will invade russia and take over eastern europe in order to grow food for the german population access to resources was a great strength for the british war effort it did not have to rely solely on internal resources to prosecute the war but it also made the nation vulnerable imports travel by sea the support offered by the us through lend lease would have come to nothing if maritime supply lines were compromised the german navy sought to use u-boats to blockade starve and ultimately defeat britain the fight to secure the supply lines against german new boats was known as the battle of the atlantic it was the vital logistic battle of the war whether it failed or succeeded on either side really determined the course of the war and how well it was going profoundly influenced what each side could be doing in other campaigns burma u-boat commander admiral karl donitz fought the battle of the atlantic with total war in mind but he also faced competition from other arms of the german military for men and resources dernitz saw the battle of the atlantic as a tonnage war a race between the number of shipsies submarines or u-boats could sink and the speed with which the allies could bring new ships and crews into production it's usually thought that the main impediment to british imports were the submarines that were attacking merchant ships in the in the atlantic in fact really the main impediment was the lack of merchant ships more and more merchant ships were needed because trade routes have become very much longer and the threat of submarines meant you had to convoy ships together in large numbers which delayed the movement of ships so it's not the submarines themselves that are significant it's the the the potential effect of of submarines at the height of the u-boat campaign the wolf packs stalk allied convoys and ravaged ships the allies lost 575 ships to the u-boats in the last six months of 1942 the british understood the dire threat the u-boats posed the campaign had the potential to starve both war industries and the population it had the potential to bring the nation to its knees in 1943 winston churchill asserted in a statement to the house of commons that the u-boat warfare takes the first place in our thoughts in may the german admiralty made extreme exertions to meet with the british american and canadian forces of the sea and air hurled their strength upon the u-boats the allies fought the u-boats with a combination of radar aerial patrols convoys and mine lane the turn of the tide was the result of a whole combination of things it was the result of the continuing evolution of the intelligence system it was the result of the increase in strength the escort forces it was the result of technological developments coastal command hunted the u-boats from the air dropping depth charges if and when they encountered their enemy searching miles in miles of ocean for a shadow beneath the waves was a monotonous task which required significant physical and mental endurance for the crew to keep alert for hours at a time the german uber campaign ultimately failed although the royal navy and merchant marines suffered considerable losses britain's supply line was never completely cut germany realized too late that the campaign could have been a winning strategy [Music] it was a constant battle of offense versus defense and developing technology on both sides but fundamentally all these things together with perhaps the most important which was the provision of long-range aircraft and air support to the convoys which created a system which was able to reduce the u-boat threat the merchant ships delivering supplies across the atlantic the aircraft protecting convoys from above or hunting u-boats to secure the supply lines all relied on labor labor is a necessity of total war without it the voracious war production machine would be starved not only at sea but on land and in the sky women's labor was vital to the successful execution of total war but the extent to which it was used in different nations at different times in the war varied considerably women increasingly filled the gaps in the fields and on the factory floor left by men on active service sometimes women took these roles by choice sometimes they were compelled to do so you've got this massive involvement of the civilian population in a way that has never happened before being a citizen was no longer about just doing your own thing and voting every five years or something it was about what are you doing to help the war effort in britain the number of women in the workforce rose from six million two hundred and fifty thousand in 1939 to 7 750 000 at the peak of mobilization in 1943 the expansion was not only in numbers but in the variety of roles undertaken in the interwar years women's work had been regarded as unskilled labor married women were discouraged from entering the workforce but now the nation needed them when war broke out and labor shortages developed women no longer confined to traditional roles were actively encouraged to leave home to work they were drawn into manufacturing and agriculture and worked in factories and shipyards across the country mining was one of the few fields that remained a male domain initially the british government hoped women would volunteer setting up war work week exhibitions around the country to draw women into employment but recruitment fell far short of the target set the exhibition in worcester for example secured 100 volunteer workers it had aimed for 2000. for some women balancing work and family was the sticking point the jobs on offer rarely catered for part-time hours nonetheless to sustain the war effort the nation needed workers and volunteers from all quarters of society if you think about the war effort you know the absolutely massive amount of production for the uniforms and meals the weapons and it's just not enough people going into industries as the war progressed various pieces of legislation mandated women's work in december 1941 the national service number two act was implemented all single women between 20 and 21 were called up [Music] married women were exempt but could volunteer the powers were extended in february 1942 to all women between 20 and 30 who could be employed only through the employment exchange this it was hoped would ensure that their labour was directed to the war effort so they directed you you had to go and i think people don't appreciate what that actually means because you were placed in a factory you have no power to leave because you're committing an offence if you leave and of course that's why some women took time out or they were very slow at what they did because they didn't really want to be there balancing the needs of total war and the needs of family at home was a point of tension for many women but for others the war provided an opportunity to undertake roles they could not normally do economic motivation was also common many women with children did go into the war effort because you see the government paid these things called separation allowance so a wife would probably only get 30 shillings a week and that was not enough to pay rent and bring up your children so most women had to work anyway some women found having to work yielded attractive benefits because the government had taken away your civil rights in return you got an awful lot you got factory canteens hot midday meals for almost nothing and there were nurseries masses of nurseries i mean anywhere you want them you can have a nursery kind of thing so they've got a lot of power there's full employment it's not like the interwar years where women were much more deferential and cowed into submission because of in areas where there was unemployment you know the propaganda created around the experiences of women on the home front sought to depict in a positive light the varied roles being undertaken to help the war effort one poster for the women's land army offered women a healthy happy job this kind of propaganda was essential in mobilizing women for total war [Music] you know there are various kind of tropes or stereotypes which were pushed about the most obvious one is the long-suffering housewife who's got multiple children she's juggling everything all the time because she's she's got to manage on these rations and so on and then there's the kind of rosie the riveter type the munitions worker who is in the factories and she may be taking on work similar to what men did and she's a kind of tough cookie and then you've got the girlfriend glamorous you know it's beauty before duty so she's not going to let the war drag her down and she's going out and enjoying herself it was in the soviet union that the contribution of women to the war effort was the most extensive both on the home front and on the battlefield the soviet union fought the war on a scale and intensity unmatched by other nations it fought against a war of annihilation and needed every member of society to work together in defense of the motherland [Music] throughout the 1930s as the soviet union mobilized women were actively encouraged to consider themselves equal members of soviet society this included playing a role in the military it was very common in fact for women to be encouraged to acquire physical skills and military skills including parachuting skiing shooting skills and so forth so that in any forthcoming war they could participate equally with men in armed conflict propaganda and films and newspapers actively promoted women as full participants in the military following the german invasion the red army recruitment centers were inundated with women volunteering to do their bit though they were not always welcomed they found they would encounter let's say male military recruiting officers who would just tell them as the phrase went war is not women's business so the social reality versus the imagery of what women could really achieve in the soviet union at that time was well it was a long way apart despite the attitude of some military men the soviet union was fighting a total war and it needed women somewhere between 800 000 and 1 million women served in the military many in traditional roles such as nursing but others served in units which shattered gender stereotypes in october 1941 with a veer marked at the gates of moscow three women's regiments were created in secret they were at the time and probably still are in many respects a unique phenomenon in the annals of warfare out of that came the best known of those regiments the night witches air bomber regime the night witches were all volunteers drawn from moscow state university they were the educated elite these women conducted the nighttime air raids where they literally dropped bombs over the sides of these tiny planes [Music] they won proportionately more heroes of the soviet union the gold award the pinnacle of awards than just about any other unit of the of the red army if the night witchers were shattering gender expectations from above snipers were doing the same on the ground expertly trained they took on a dangerous and difficult task they would go through rigorous training and then be deployed to usually all male units as a group of women or with other male snipers on the front line their task was to kill point blank as many of the enemies as they could and there's a most famous emblematic figure again who comes out of this a woman by the name of pavlichenko who was credited with killing 309 enemy soldiers she was a crack shot [Music] they played an important role in the military but women's labor was also in great demand on the home front with 34 million men conscripted into the red army women were needed to fill the gaps they volunteered and were later conscripted into jobs in the industrial workforce in agriculture in construction and transport in contrast to britain women soon worked in the soviet coal mines by 1942 over a quarter of all coal miners were women girls as young as 12 worked in the factories in extremely harsh conditions we're talking about circumstances where food was in desperately short supply where you were expected to work 10 12 hours a day in a factory seven days a week if need be to produce munitions or equipment or whatever was required for the military food was so scarce rations were so poor that people were dying in the factories from overwork all of this while they were expected to attend to their children tend to the elderly tend to the sick labour was also extremely scarce in the agricultural sector machinery and horses had been commandeered for the war effort women's labor powered the plow and ensured food supplies for the armed forces and the urban population with no guaranteed rations for themselves so on their shoulders really the home front effort certainly depended again in the most arduous circumstances in germany the needs of total war conflicted with the nazi ideology [Music] under the principle of kinder kusha kirsch children kitchen church women were to remain at home in their traditional sphere despite the ideology millions of women were already working in germany when the war began in may 1939 14 626 000 women were working the number did not increase substantially in 1944 40 million 897 000 were at work the impact was less in the numbers recruited than the type of work undertaken between 1939 and 1941 the number of women working in heavy armaments increased [Music] women also drove trains and buses in the postal service and on the land replacing men who had been conscripted they did their year of duty and helped ensure the home front carried on as the war progressed and the via mark's losses steadily increased women were recruited to replace men but even in such circumstances they remained within relatively defined gender roles they worked as typists as radio and searchlight operators they were assistance on the aa guns but they had no military status and they did not fire weapons in addition to being ideologically driven this reluctance to fully mobilize women was also reflective of hitler's broader reluctance to embrace total war hitler interestingly enough i think was quite wary about total war in theory you know he was in favor goebbels was pressing most for total war he had some success but hitler kept trying to modify having that and when gubbel's wanted to close the theaters and horse racing and so on people said we must leave people entertainment so hitler was not a radical in the total war he he went along with it in the sense that he realized that more people had to be mobilized hitler resisted mobilizing the total war until july 1944 when it was arguably too late [Music] as was the case in germany japan struggled with the dichotomy between women's traditional gender roles and the needs for mobilization in total war women were initially encouraged to support the war effort through traditional supportive roles fundraising and home front groups and were not mobilized until late in the war the women and children in japan are mobilized but they're not mobilized as soldiers they are mobilized as supporters of the imperial project and therefore unless they're living outside of japan itself or near the front where they will see what's happening the news is so widowed the news is so carefully constructed within japan that that sort of history won't have found its way in eventually the demands of total war and mounting losses meant the nation was forced to draw women into the labor market we do see a mobilization of young women who will ultimately by 1943 and 44 because of labor shortage be moved into factories so there is an industrialization of the younger female labor force and of course moving them from school into the factories where they're making bombs and whatnot by march 1945 close to a half a million japanese women had joined the volunteer labor corps societal pressure meant it became difficult for women to resist signing up yet women were still encouraged to marry if given the opportunity and were immediately exempt from service if they did so [Music] as air raids on japan became common and defeat seemed more and more likely women were drawn into home defense [Music] we don't see the weaponization of the female side of the japanese population until late 1944 1945 where almost a kind of last ditch effort will take place and we see these in the front of magazine covers where women who are literally only armed with bamboo spears or some sort of gardening tool almost are being trained but one wonders if it's not just for the visual impact or the idea of you need to defend the motherland if it actually happened it would have been an immense slaughter whether they were mobilized by compulsion or contributed to the war effort voluntarily few on the home front could avoid some kind of interaction with a war that stretched across the globe although japan was slow to mobilize women's labor the mobilization of the economy was more effective of a total war effort the amount of the government budget committed to defence rose from 69 in 1931 to 85 in 1944 [Music] the extent to which nations mobilized for and fought a total war varied when resources were scarce within their borders leaders looked beyond them for raw materials and populations which could feed a total war mobilization significantly changed the lives of people at home but these experiences of total war paled in comparison to those who lived in the path of advancing armies for those who experienced it occupation was a brutal shock many were killed or assaulted by advancing armies displaced or forced to flee their homes some endured as best they could and others gathered together to resist the advance of total war

Channel: War Stories

Views: 283,456

Rating: 4.7258973 out of 5

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, treaty of versailles, hitler documentary, german ww2, why did ww2 start, german disarmement

Id: jt4YHQx6-_E

Length: 51min 30sec (3090 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020