Many years ago, I was chatting with the grandmother of a family friend, whose name was Hannelore. She grew up in Germany on a family farm in Schleswig-Holstein, not far from Hamburg, and candidly admitted that as landowning farmers, they all feared the communists and so were broadly supportive of the NSDAP during the 1930s. Indeed, when the war started, any misgivings they had evaporated when Poland swiftly fell in 1939, and then France collapsed in a month and a half campaign in 1940. The family even attended some pro-government rallies to celebrate these victories.
By 1943, Hannelore said it was clear it was not going to be a short war, as Allied bombers were now a constant presence in the skies above. It was also very hard to find farm labourers as the war effort was consuming more and more resources by then. Yet even so, the family remained broadly optimistic about the war ending with German victory.
But then in late July for an entire week, the RAF and USAAF filled the sky over Hamburg by day and by night. And although Hannelore did not know it at the time, it was called Operation Gomorrah. She told me that on one night in particular, her father called the whole family outside. It was bright as day, the entire skyline to the south a line of incandescent light. By morning, white dust entirely covered their home and farmland, with a constant rain of ash still falling from the sky. 40,000 people had burned to death in a firestorm in a single day in Hamburg. And only then, our friend’s grandmother said, did they finally realise everything was not going to be alright and the war had been a catastrophic mistake. Only then, and from then onwards, did everything they read in the newspapers or heard on the radio ring hollow.
I was in my late teens sitting in an old farmhouse in Scotland when Hannelore told me that story from her youth.
So, on this portentous Beltane as I watched a series of videos from Tuapse in Russia, I had something of a flashback to that story told me several decades ago.
In the early days of the ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine in 2022, there was a series of rallies in Tuapse in support of Putin’s government. I wonder if perspectives have started shift now that the reality of this war is coming home to Russia in earnest.
I don’t think so. This war has been attritional but things like Gomorrah, Hiroshima, Meeting House, Nagasaki were anything but. They were not a shift but a shock. There is a difference.
Nick, my point is not about the attritional nature of peer wars but rather changing perceptions from people who were previously perfectly fine with their government’s choice of wars. Hannelore said it took a shock to change that of her family: the ash of Hamburg falling on their farm.
Spot on. Ukraine’s ever expanding ability to inflict kinetic sanctions is what will end Russia’s ability to go on. Russia is catastrophically over dependent on an industry that burns so very brightly.
Yes, but…
Tuapse is a small town, a very long way from Moscow or St Petersburg. If every resident there completely reversed their opinion of the war, it is still a drop in the bucket. The oil won’t wash along the Moskva riverbanks or rain down on Gorky Park. Every burning Russian oil facility helps, but I don’t think it will be the distress and doubts of the people of Tuapse which will change the game. This attack might help more by adding to the general economic problems across Russia than by the effect it has on local opinion.
The military situation is not similar.
But that does not mean that Mr Putin was correct in invading in 2022 – whatever may have gone on in 2014 (and the Obama Administration was very much involved in removing rulers it did not like – from Kiev to the Vatican), on the contrary – Mr Putin made a terrible blunder that has got a vast number of Russians and Ukrainians killed.
Ukraine includes nothing that Russia does not have vast amounts of already – a pro Western government in Ukraine was NOT a threat to Russia.
“Victory” in this war will not be victory at all – it will gain the Russian people nothing, and it will not bring back to life the vast number of Russian dead – young men who should have been husbands and fathers.
Mr Putin has committed terrible crimes against the Ukrainian people – and also against the Russian people. On both grounds he should be executed.
And Ukraine has done something very similar to energy infrastructure in Perm, Ust-Luga, Primorsk, Kirishi, Norsi, Saratov, and Volgograd. More to follow I imagine.
Indeed, and I hope they’re able to step things up until every oil installation in Russia burns like Tuapse (though I suspect even Ukraine will have a hard time getting the facilities in Irkutsk and Khabarovsk for the foreseeable future). I just think the impact which is decisive won’t be a shift in the opinions of the people under the drizzle of oil in these places. What will matter much more, I believe, is the economic impact of lost revenues and the knock-on effects on inflation and supply in Moscow and St Petersburg. Only when the people close to the centres of power really start to see the impact on their lives do I think that Putin has to worry about public opinion.
Perry,
I think a major turning point in WWII was around the end of 1943 when the Luftwaffe simply could no longer ignore the fact Ford’s Willow Run plant was building a B-24 every hour.
Nick, that was indeed the military/industrial reality, but that kind of thing happens off-stage.
Ukraine alone intends to build 7 million drones in 2026 in highly dispersed production facilities and launch them against Russia. Russia can do something similar, but many Ukrainian joint ventures are in Poland and elsewhere (including UK) where Russia can’t strike them.
Indeed, but I was pondering attitudes rather than the harsh economic realities.
Hannelore said the inability to retain farm labourers by late 1943 also made it clear how dire the situation was. She also remarked by early 1944, the only German men working on the farm were elderly, children or people invalided out of the military missing various body parts such as fingers. Also, they were quite ‘modern’ but due to fuel shortages had gone back to using horses rather than motor vehicles.
Russia used to be able to outsource drone production to Iran, but no longer. Indeed, Ukraine is now helping the US and Israel against the Iranian regime. Not all good deeds are rewarded, but enough of them are.
1. It is interesting to contemplate that it took the Red Army 1,411 days to fight off the invading Wehrmacht and advance across eastern Europe to Berlin. Indeed, on this very day 81 years ago, a Red Army soldier raised the Soviet flag over the ruined Reichstag.
2. As of writing, the incompetent Russian special military operation against Ukraine has now been underway for 1,522 days with dismal results on the battlefield.
Perry: “…..Also, they were quite ‘modern’ but due to fuel shortages had gone back to using horses rather than motor vehicles”
And as the “creatively manipulated” assault on coal and petroleum rolls on, consider the practical “extensions” of such a “reversion”, today.
How many horses, or other draft animals, are required to replace / supplant our “modern vehicles and machines?
Even more importantly, whence the FOOD for our hooved helpers?
As recently as the First Great Unpleasantness, the logistic challenges involved in just FEEDING the “war-horses”, BEHIND the front lines were staggering. ALL of the major combatants had the same problem. Wounds and disease carried them off at a ferocious rate; ditto the horse handlers along with actual combat troops.
If I hop off a John Deere tractor and onto a Massey Ferguson, there is VERY little training / conversion time.
Unless you are a serious “horse whisperer” your “mileage” may vary with the equine types.
Quality
Quantity was essential but turning point was in quality when B-24s could get fighter escort to Germany. Losses of 5-10% were unsustainable. A loss of 5% means all initial crews are lost after 20 missions. 10% losses means all crews are lost after 10 missions.
Indeed. Night & 10/10 cloud accuracy greatly improved with the introduction & steady improvement of blind bombing systems like H2S/H2X, Oboe etc.