Home Front

The History Channel, original podcast. By the start of 1943, Germany and Japan have been at war for several years. Although the people of both nations have endured battlefield casualties from the beginning, two critical events are about to bring the war home. The leaders of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan respond in very different ways. This is World War II with Tom Hanks, episode 15, Homefront. With eight minutes to go, Dresden remains on the attack. Kugleskaurs are last goal. By early 1943, the Nazi Third Reich has absorbed much of Europe. Great cities have been bombed. Whole nations have been occupied. But in Germany, success on the battlefield allows life to go on as before. Hitler wants to maintain the semblance of normalcy even in wartime. So, theaters remain open, stadiums remain open, sporting events go on as scheduled. Germans are encouraged to go about their daily business. The Germans from the beginning of the war have really been sheltered and shielded by Hitler because there is a belief that Hitler has that one of the main reasons that Germany collapsed in 1918 was because the population didn't have enough to eat, their morale failed, and all of a sudden they turned against the government. Hitler constantly tells the German people they're a master race, but deep down inside he doesn't trust them at all. He was seared by the events of the First World War. Nothing could have looked stronger than the Kaiser's government in 1918, and it was overthrown in a revolution lasting a single day. And so, Hitler believes that the German people are in a sense fickle. If they aren't given what they want, if they don't have enough to eat, if they don't have the material, that they're going to somehow turn on him. And so, Hitler is very, very determined to make sure that the German people don't feel the pinch of the war. But in early February, Germans across the Reich are told in a short radio broadcast that the Sixth Army has been destroyed at Stalingrad. The sacrifice of the army was not for nothing. They died so that Germany would live. Germany suffered enormous casualties at Stalingrad, 90,000 captured, and over 200,000 dead. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Germans, had a family member or a friend or knew someone who fought at Stalingrad. This is the greatest catastrophe in German history. Nobody's been prepared for this. So, the families of people who are serving on the Stalingrad Float, it unleashes a wave of panic. It is the first admission of the Vermarkt defeat. But Hitler and his military leaders are busy planning a counterattack. Hitler is now up in the Wolf's Lair, the Wolf's Sansa, his massive headquarters up in East Prussia, in almost complete isolation. He rarely appears in public, and so the task of rebuilding morale amongst the people is left to others. Joseph Gerbels, Hitler's Reich Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda, has been at the center of the Nazi Party since it was formed in the 1920s. Joseph Gerbels is one of the most unusual Nazi officials. He looks like anything but the image of the Nazi Superman. He has no military background, but he's brilliant about the use of Propaganda. Gerbels decides that the time has come to deliver a speech, exposing the German people to the realities of what 1943 is going to give them. I am firmly convinced that the German people having deeply moved by the blow of fate at Stalingrad. For the first time, a Nazi party official stands up and says the war isn't going well. Only the German people are capable of lifting Germany up from the defeated Stalingrad to ultimate victory. It's time to fight total war. Total war is the commitment to a complete and full national mobilization, meaning that all businesses and then all people, all men, all women, absolutely everyone, become dedicated toward securing victory. Are you determined to follow the Führer through thick and thin and under the heaviest personal burden? The Total War speech is both an attempt to rally public opinion and an attempt to persuade Hitler to go to Total War. Think of this as like a closing argument at a trial. Gerbels is making a case to Adolf Hitler that if this war is going to prevail, you would have to accept the commitment to total war. We want Total War. And so this hand-selected crowd of followers and sick offense, they're saying, "Ah, it's every word that he says." And Adolf Hitler is saying, "Nine." Hitler is reluctant. He promised triumph, not sacrifice. People say Gerbels giving that speech, that's the switch when Germany really goes to Total War. But it isn't. That would, for example, have meant mobilizing women into industrial jobs as had happened in the United States. The conservative Nazi regime wants women to stay in the home, so they can raise children, care for the family. But with so many men serving in the Vermacht, primarily on the eastern front, Germany desperately needs workers. Albert Speer, Reich Minister of Armament and War production, must find a solution. Albert Speer is a complex figure. He begins his career as an architect and he is the architect for the Nuremberg rallies. And these become a huge propaganda success. In 1942, Hitler appoints Speer as his new armaments minister. Speer has absolutely no background in armaments production at all. But nevertheless, he's a good organizer and he does quite an amazing job. But if you're going to increase production but you're not going to tap into the German people because we're trying to keep everything normal back home, well, you got to find that manpower somewhere. Albert Speer has another strategy at hand and that's to use slave laborers. Recruited from the various occupation zones, massive numbers of people who are brought into the Reich to work as slave laborers, people from Western Europe, from France, from the Netherlands, but also from Poland, from Ukraine. In 1943, 12 to 15 million people were brought in from 20 other countries to effectively make up for the manpower that Germany has lost. However, it is also at a high human and moral cost. They're barely fed. They're practically chained to the machine. Whenever we look at the dramatic increase in German arms productions in 1943, we should always look behind the gleaming weapons and tanks and aircraft to realize that these were produced by human skeletons banging out parts for German weapons until they died. Production will rise 56% in the first six months. It is an armament's miracle. It also gives Germany a propaganda story to tell. Look at what we've done. We've turned armaments around. Look how many planes we're producing. Look how many tanks we're producing. Things are difficult, but it's going to be okay. But the RAF and the American Eight Air Force are expanding their relentless bombing campaign, aimed at destroying Germany's industrial infrastructure, and German morale. The Germans may not yet be fighting total war, but the war is coming home to Germany in 1943, and it's the Anglo-American round the clock bombing campaign. American B-17s flying from England bombed the Reich's war factories by day. At night, the RAF hits German cities. Germany is forced to divert more and more men and material to defend the skies over their cities. In facing the Allied bombing campaign, the Nazi regime does take steps. It builds these monumental flak towers which they're almost impossible to demolish. These massive flak towers are also air-raid shelters. They have infirmaries, they have schools, the German government is saying to its people, these air-raid shelters are there to protect you. But there's never enough for the population, and when the bombers come, most Germans wind up going into a neighborhood cellar. They're cramped, they're hot, you're there All night long, and the children are getting sick from fear. It was a terrifying experience and also exhausting. This happened night after night after night. You stay down there for hours. Maybe you're down there until the next morning. And then finally somebody cracks the door and you walk outside and you see your neighborhood is gone. This is the first time that war has really come home to the German people. And many of them are asking where is our government? While German cities are being bombed by the Western Allies, the skies over Japan remain clear. Germany is much more vulnerable in Japan because it is within flying range of the British and the American bombers. Bombing Japan is not possible for the Allies in 1943 because Japan enjoyed an enormous defense perimeter. The Japanese have conquered an empire that spans much of Asia. Distance and the capture of several remote Pacific islands had created a defensive perimeter of over 3 million square miles that protects this empire. But American victories at Midway and Guadalcanal have breached this defensive ring. Japan's home front still has not faced daily air raids, but military leaders know that tide is a shifting against them. In June 1943, Tokyo citizens gather to pay tribute to a fallen war hero. It's a solemn event. Today, holder of the Grand Corden or the Order or the Crescentmen, maybe martial hero Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto Sol was laid to eternal rest. Admiral Yamamoto was this huge figure. In Japan, the mastermind of Pearl Harbor, the hero of the early months of the war, and now he's gone. Acting on intercepted radio messages, the American Air Force shot down Admiral Yamamoto's plane over the Solomon Islands. His body was found and sent back to Japan. Japan tightly censors all news of the war, but the death of the Navy's Supreme Commander cannot be hidden from the Japanese people. You've got up to a million people lining the streets as this funeral cottage goes past a hugely somber occasion. There's a sense of a really significant figure, pulsing. Imagine what losing MacArthur would have done. These figures are seen as irreplaceable, and so when this pierces the news blackout for the public on what's really going on in the war, it's huge. This is a real concern in the Japanese government. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was an early advocate for war against the United States. Tojo at this point has been in power in Japan since shortly before Pearl Harbor. As the war situation is going increasingly badly, he needs a victory to be able to continue in power in Japan. Tojo is driven by honor, he's driven by loyalty to the emperor, and more than anything else, he wants to make sure that Japan escapes the war with its empire intact. The Japanese intended the attack on Pearl Harbor to be a knockout blow against the Americans. They understood they couldn't win a protracted war against the economic might of the United States. Even when Japan was winning in that initial phase of the war, Japan's wartime production capacity is roughly only one-tenth of the United States. So by 1943, the government really needs to use whatever it can get their hands on to keep the wartime production going. Oil from the East Indies. Rubber from Malaya. Iron ore from Manchuria are all vital to Japanese war industries. The problem is that you look at a map, you can see that that has to be transported over water. They have a huge merchant marine, the third largest in the world, to move resources from Southeast Asia. Now, all of it is threatened by the tightening strangle hold of the American Navy. The United States submarine operations have been quite successful in cutting dubbing supply routes. Japanese natural resources are increasingly lying at the bottom of the ocean, and so we begin to see critical material shortages on the Japanese home front. To maintain the nation's war effort, Prime Minister Tojo and his government impose severe austerity on the Japanese people. Unlike Nazi Germany, in Japan, there never was this phenomenon of trying to keep the Japanese people totally comfortable. In general, Tojo believed that if Japan were to be successful against the Americans and others, in lieu of natural resources, it would take the active mobilization of its human resources, its people. The message to people is if they will make these sacrifices at home, then soldiers abroad will keep them safe. They will keep the allies but they will do their bit if people at home do what they're supposed to do. 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Listen to what we spend, an Odyssey original available now wherever you get your podcasts. The American Naval Blockade is choking the Japanese. Food is scarce. The everyday necessities of modern life disappear. But Prime Minister Tojo demands even greater sacrifice. We certainly have rationing going on in the United States. This is on a national scale that is unmatched really in a lot of the allied nations. Electricity is being rationed. They're relying on sort of primitive ways of even just cooking food. And having to burn their libraries for fuel to try and keep warm. No one has enough to eat. You even got people going into the countryside to forage. The Japanese are producing cars that run on call rather than oil because oil is being taken for the war effort on such a large scale. You've got temple bells, railings, pots and pans being melted down so that they can make bullets and armor. In many ways, Japan is reverting to almost a pre-industrial society as the war goes on. However, Japanese people are not automatists. They don't necessarily willingly part with their food. The police realize there are widespread black markets all over Japan. So this is a real problem. And so Japanese leaders mobilize these neighborhood associations in Japanese called Tonari Gumi. The Tonari Gumi has been woven into Japanese culture for over a century. But in war time, it becomes a tool for the neighbors to keep an eye on each other. The Tonari Gumi are groups of five to ten households that work as a means of mobilizing the people behind Japan's war. They ration the food. They carry out civil defense drills. They do many of the things that we would think that government officials would do elsewhere. But it's done by the people themselves. But really, the key is mutual surveillance. The idea that Japan's leaders have is that the cheapest and the surest way to keep an eye on people is to get people essentially to keep an eye on each other. Someone is always watching you. By the end of 1943, this whole network of neighborhood associations looks like a very well-oiled machine and operates like that, collecting resources for the home front. But Tojo and his government, they have an enormous problem, labor shortages. labor shortfall. Women have been working in Japanese war industries for some time. Now, they employ their children as well. They're increasingly using very young labor teenagers, boys and girls who are not very skilled, quite hungry themselves. If your older than 12 study days were cut short, there is extremely limited time in class because most of their day they're spent in factories. Everybody is mobilized. Despite the American blockade, Japanese manufacturing continues. Keeping the wartime production going to some extent is truly remarkable. There is one motto that a Japanese people live by during the war don't ask or want anything until we win, so essentially let's sacrifice everything until we win. But now, in its seventh year of war, the Japanese military needs to replenish its ranks. So up until this point students are being kept out of the war effort. The Japanese education is extraordinarily important so you can get an exemption from conscription if you're studying at university, but by October 1943 things have become so serious in Japan you can no longer have that exemption. October 21st 1943, 25,000 university students arrive in Tokyo Stadium. These students are being inducted into the Japanese armed services. The students of the second year have finally come to the life of all for all of us. This is something that we see in other nations. For instance, in the United States they are progressively conscripting more and more university students as well, but not so much at this scale. I mean this is Japan's future. These ambitious young people where so much investment has been made over their entire lives, education, raising the whole thing. It's the mark of a pretty desperate war effort. You can't think about the future when the near future is very dire. We do not expect to return alive. We simply hope to repay our debt to the Emperor. Long live the Emperor! So this event is really a giant piece of propaganda by Tojo. These young people are being asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. Who's going to be next? The inevitable messages. Everyone. As 1943 draws to a close, every Japanese citizen feels the war's impact. But in Berlin, stores and cinemas are still full. Grubbles and the Nazis continue to deceive the German people with propaganda from the front. Our brave soldiers from all branches of the military have thwarted the enemy's ambitious plans everywhere. Around on the eastern front is called a strategic retreat. Allied bombers are consistently shot down and do little damage. The German people in Berlin are being fed a pretty steady diet of positive propaganda about the progress of the war. They had every reason to remain optimistic. And then at the end of 1943 everything changes. The RAF has been concentrating its bombing on the rural, the industrial heartland of Germany. But in November of 1943, they shift their focus to an even juicier morale target. Berlin. It's an incendiary raid that is bombs that are meant to start fires throughout the city. The bombers believe that if you break the morale of Berlin, you've broken the Third Reich. It's always important to have somebody taking care of the population at a time of great trauma. Very much like Churchill in London during the Blitz, but Hitler's gone off to the Wolfsler. He won't have anything to do with the population of Germany anymore. He seems to have abandoned them almost. And once again, the person who takes up that gauntlet is Joseph Gervels. Gervels is meeting the survivors so you'll bring a crew with him. They'll film. And what he's doing is reassuring the German people. If bombers show up over your city, we're going to be there to help you. First aid stations are set up free food and drink handed out to the population. And a big huge show is put up into showing how we're going to protect the population. Propaganda can come back up and say, "Look at these terrible things they're doing. Look what would happen if they win the war." And in some ways, the bombing raids actually increased morale and increased the determination to fight on. Japan remains out of range of American bombers, but Prime Minister Tojo and other Japanese leaders understand that it may be only a matter of time before the American secure air bases within flying distance of the home islands. Once the military leaders saw that fire bombs had been used against Germany, they realized that this may be in Japan's future. The cities that are being bombed in Europe have big stone buildings in a lot of places, and it's still a nightmare. The Japanese use a lot of wood. These are wooden cities, they are particularly vulnerable to these kinds of attacks, and you don't have to be a genius to figure out that that's going to be an issue if all of a sudden you have around the clock rate. There's a big difference in civil defense between Nazi Germany and Japan. The Japanese make the decision not to construct huge concrete bunkers and air raid shelters that could hold thousands of people thinking that it would be better off devoting their scarce resources to the military and not spending much money on defense. The Japanese government basically said, "Look, you have to prepare yourselves. You want a shelter? Dig it yourself." If there was a fire, there would be basically a sand and water bucket brigade that would try to put out the fires this way, and then they came up with the strategy to tear down houses, to isolate areas so that the fire wouldn't spread. So ordinary people are given hand tools, they're given ropes, and in some cases they're literally pulling down their own homes and carting away the pieces. In places like Tokyo and Osaka, tens of thousands of houses were torn down. These really cold messages go out from the government that essentially say, "Ask you family if you can stay with them. Maybe summer will house you." Yet again, there's a sense that the government just consider ordinary civilians to be expendable. In the summer of 1944, Japan suffers a major defeat in the Pacific. A key piece of Tojo's inner-defensive ring has fallen. After a month and a half of heavy combat, Japan has lost a side pan, and the entire Mariana Island chain. This puts the Americans and their B-29 Super Fortress in range of Japan's major cities, including Tokyo. For the Japanese, the loss of the Marianas is absolutely catastrophic, because they understand that there is this new bomber out there called the B-29, and they know that bomber will now be within range of almost all of Japan. The fall of Saipan is a huge psychological blow back at home in Japan, because there's been this hack that if you do your bit at home, if you sacrifice, if you put up with rations, if you work hard in the factories, we will protect you. The Allies will come nowhere near Baha'u Islands. So the government has failed as most fundamental promise to the Japanese people, and there's only one person who take the fall for this. Tojo. Even in such dire circumstances, we are steadily preparing for the attack, burning with the enthusiasm to crush the enemy. The loss of Saipan and the Mariana Island chain is a serious blow to the Japanese. Now Japan itself is at risk. Now civilian populations are potentially on the front line the way they've never been before. Now Japan needs to reflect on its own leadership. There is an undercurrent in Japan that people are feeling very hostile towards Tojo. There are stories of people phoning up Tojo's wife saying, "Why has your husband not killed himself yet?" Now it's the government who has to make a sacrifice, and they choose a scapegoat. Emperor Hirohito has rust confidence in Tojo, and he steps down. Launching from the Mariana's, hundreds of B-29s begin bombing Japan cities. Oshaka, Kobe, Nagoya, Tokyo. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are killed. When the serious bombing of Japan starts, it will be unrelenting. The enemy is there. They're right above you. The cities will become killing grounds. Two days after Tojo's fall, there is an attempt on Adolf Hitler's life. A real turning point in the German home front story is July of 1944. The assassination attempt on Hitler's life. A small group of officers realized that the war was probably lost. They believed that if they killed Hitler, that they would be able to make peace and start a new German government, and the person that was chosen to go and try and kill him was Gauf Schenk von Stauffenberg, who went on the 20th of July 1944 to the Wolf's Lair. He had a meeting with Hitler. He planted a bomb under the conference table where Hitler was speaking, and then took off. That bomb, it's positioned underneath this heavy oak table that absorbs a great deal of the blast of the weapon. Stauffenberg comes back to Berlin thinking that he'd killed Hitler. He saw the explosion. He believed Hitler had been killed. But unfortunately, for him, the pre-hero was not dead. At 1 o'clock in the morning of the 21st, Adolf Hitler comes on the radio. He says there's been a attack against his life done by traders. I speak to you today for two reasons. First, so that you can hear my voice and know that I am unheard and well. Second, so that you should find out about a crime that has unparalleled in German history. One of the first responses when Hitler speaks on the radio is an outpouring of relief. And there's spontaneous demonstrations across Germany by the civilian population. Things are not going well. In 1944, the Soviets are on the move in the east, the allies in the west have landed in Normandy. But German society has hitched its horse to Adolf Hitler. It's good to know his hands still on the wheel. And there's a degree of stability. On the radio, Hitler vows that he's going to take revenge on the traders who've tried to kill him. We shall settle accounts with them in the minute to which we national socialists are accustomed. Stalfenberg and a few other conspirators are quickly arrested and executed. But their deaths are only the beginning. Hitler had survived assassination attempts before. But this was something on another level. And the people that were trying to kill him. These are some of his most important military figures. Hitler believes he's been betrayed. And he no longer trusts anyone. Not the army, not those in his intimate circle, not even the German people. Hitler orders the investigation and arrest of anybody associated with a July 20th plot. Anybody who had anything to do with this plot, anybody who's related to those people, anybody who might be a problem in the future, he will hunt them down. It'll have Hitler who takes this opportunity to clean house. Shaq here, what's it like to buy a car from Carvano 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvano guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big tall and handsome? Not always. I was six, 10 once. Seven days to love it or return it, Mr. Shaq. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvano. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvano.com. A beautifully designed square space website is the difference between thinking about photography school and selling your portraits online. It's the difference between giving away those cookies you just made for free and running your cookie empire. A beautifully designed square space website is the difference between having a movie reviewing hobby and a movie reviewing career. Square space, because no matter what you're into, a website makes it real. Use offer code Difference for 50% off select plans terms and conditions apply. [MUSIC PLAYING] Berlin, 1944. Hundreds of Germans arrested after the attempt on Hitler's life are put on trial. It's referred to as The People's Court. A Field Marshal and a Colonel General. The defendants are brought in front of Roland Friesler, who's the head of the People's Court, who's an absolutely fanatical Nazi. Very often, to humiliate them, their belts have been taken away, so they have to hold their trousers. The verdict is never endowed. Every defendant is guilty. And every punishment severe. They're put in a place called Plotsin's A Prison and they're tortured, they're beaten. These people are executed, and Hitler insists that they will be hanged from detox and that it will be formed. Hitler's vengeance knows no bounds. He wants to make it clear to anybody else out there in the right that if you try and kill me, this is the kind of vengeance you can expect. Not just for you, but for your family and anybody who knows you. So you're never going to be safe. Nazi control of Germany is now complete. But Hitler's thousand year hike is crumbling. By the fall of 1944, the Allies are on the verge of crossing into the German fatherland. Up until this point, Hitler had resisted the call for total war. It wasn't necessary to list the entire population. But now, if he ever cared about the German people, he certainly no longer does. And so why not enlist every last one of them and let them get ground up at the front? As far as Hitler was concerned, the entire population is nothing but cannon fodder. Volk's ten soldiers of Berlin raise your right hand to take the oath and repeat after me. I swear by God, this sacred oath. November 1944, tens of thousands of Germans gather before Joseph Gerber's headquarters after swearing a blood oath to Hitler. They enter the ranks of the folks down. A folks term literally translated means the people's storm or the people's militia. These are young boys and old men put together into pseudo-military units and sent off to do or die against the Allied armies. The folks' stern units are given very little training and are supplied with the most basic German weapons. An anti-tank missile known as the Ponser Faust, the armored fist, it hissed aside of a tank and with enormous force blasts a hole through the armor. Now, the most important thing we need to know about it is that it was a single shot. And that to use it, you had to come very, very close to the tank you were firing at. So we're talking about a 65 year old man or a 14 year old boy, given a single shot weapon and sent out as a tank destroyer. You may destroy the tank, but you are almost certainly going to destroy the person wielding the Ponser Faust. In both the Eastern and the Western fronts, the folks' storm fight and die in their tens of thousands. It's the folks' storm, which often goes on fighting until the bitter end. For five years, the Nazis have tried to shield Germans from the consequences of war. But with a very marked end retreat, their cities in ruin and hundreds of thousands of their sons dead or grievously wounded, that is no longer possible. That whole bubble of normalcy is now shattered. All the other things that were being done in society to shield them, sporting events, cinemas, all that, they all get closed down. And the real war that they are in is now readily apparent to all of German society. This now is the total war vision that Gerbels and Speer had in '43. They finally arrived here in 1944. Those who have the firm and unshakable will never bow down before the enemies of the Reich or surrender cowardly. By the close of 1944, the people of Germany and Japan are paying for their country's aggression. The price steepens as the war heads to its conclusion. in Nazi-occupied Europe, where violence and terror have become routine, increasing numbers of people, begin to resist. World War II with Tom Hanks is produced by A&E Factual Studios, Utopia Limited, played Tom Productions, and Backpocket Studios, in association with Motion Entertainment for the History Channel. This episode was narrated by Tom Hanks, and mixed by John Lloyd, additional voicing provided by me, Jeremy Reagan. From the History Channel, our executive producers are Eli Lara and Liv Fiddler. For Play Tone, executive producers are Tom Hanks and Gary Getsman. For Backpocket Studios, our executive producer is Ben Dixting. Drive a better deal. With Worth Credit Union, rates as low as 3.99%, 90 days, no payment, and $200 cash when you move your auto loan to Worth Credit Union. Same car, better rate. From your daily commute to your next weekend getaway, let Worth help you get where you want to go. Worth Credit Union. Refinance your auto loan today. Apply online or visit a local branch. Subject to Credit Approval, Membership eligibility required, seeworthcu.org for details.