he describes how proponents of air power, still fairly new at the time, had to compete with the army and navy for resources. one of the major air force campaigns was the british bombing of cologne, which was viewed as retaliation for the bombing of london by german forces. his class is about 50 minutes. >> we talked to date about world war ii as a total war and the things that that means. we talked about total war, mobilization of an entire population and industrial efforts as well as actual military activities, but also in terms of ideological mobilization in terms of propaganda, in terms of how you motivate a populace to go to total war. when various leaders talked about the war being motivated by racial ideology and an attempt to secure racial perurity, it has

obviously a totalizing effect. when hitler talks about the destruction of the jews, that is clearly the language of total war. i talked to you about human rights. the way in which allied leaders promised that human rights would be secured everywhere in the world. also a total guarantee. other phrases that have a total izing quality are the terms unconditional surrender implying to had to be a total victory and no armistice. but i want to talk about a specific trope in the language of total war and that is the trope of revenge. revenge, by its very nature, is a sort of ratchet. somebody commits a wrong against you. you seek revenge. they retaliate. they interpret that as a wrong. they come back. and so on and so forth. the momentum of the language of

total war is fed onwards by the rhetoric and the ideas of revenge. when hitler talks about the destruction of the jews, he phrases it in the language of the revenge. he blames them, obviously wrongly, for the defeat of the german luftwaffe in world war i, the rise of bolshevism, for starting world war ii. we've also seen this language in american fighting the japanese in the pacific. going to talk a little bit today about how the language of revenge work for other combatants in the european theater of operation on both axis and allied side and the way the effort to seek revenge drove the war on in the years we have reached, which are approximately 1942, 1943.

i wanted to begin by looking at the czechoslovakia government in exile. just for the sake of admitting i know this -- i'm going to stop saying czechoslovakia, which is really awkward and start saying czech. i know some of these will not be the correct ethnicity. please accept that i am doing this because i want to get through the lecture and not that i do not care. ok? the xl government found in london. you remember that the germans took the german ethnic bits of czechoslovakia and the

czechoslovakia government headed into exile, became one of the earliest governments in exile to establish themselves in london. where they were later joined by a lot of other governments in exile as the nazis swept over western europe. then, the head of the czech government, depicted there with the scientist, looking at dictatorship in the modern world. the photograph indicates the problems he is facing in his career. the czechs in exile enjoyed advantages in their position. they were one of the earliest countries occupied by the germans. they were therefore an early valuable source of intelligence from nazi occupied countries in eastern europe. there were of course czech

partisans and guerillas. they could get information. they could pass that on to churchill felt government in london, providing viable information about german military resources to the british government. also the soviet government passing them information as well. yes, question? >> [indiscernible] >> benes. i should have written it on the board. he is found in london from 1939 onwards. now, the czech underground has a steady flow of information to the west from the exile in london. they said they could get useful information about german reserve locations. they said they could sabotage german industries. it's always hard to know when you're are doing the history of

secret activities, how much to rely on these kinds of documents because of course people who say they are in the position to do these valuable things hope that will make them indispensable. you always have to regard this with a degree of skepticism. nevertheless that is why there are in a particular valuable position for the allies during the war. after the german invasion of the soviet union in summer 1941, operation barbarossa, the soviets also begin to rely on czech connections for intelligence about where to find germans and they begin to funnel matériel, material assistance, to the czech resistance and that gave them an advantage against their german occupiers. meanwhile, in addition to the czech government in exile in britain, there were maybe 5000 czech soldiers who had been evacuated from france with the british expeditionary force in 1940 during the fall of france.

there were lots of soldiers sitting around britain with not much to do and they began to be trained with members of the british special operations executive or soe, which is an outfit established by the british government to engage in espionage, sabotage, and other secretive activities in occupied europe. naturally, one of the particular targets of interest for these czechs would have been the german occupiers of czechoslovakia, including this man, called the butcher of prague. he was in charge of what they variously called the jewish problem, the jewish question and finally the final solution. as you will remember, heidrick

was responsible for developing and implementing a plan for concentrating, deporting, and executing the jewish populations in eastern europe. part of his rise to preeminence within the nazi apparatus was owed to his efficiency in establishing himself as what we have called in typically euphemistic fashion the protector of all bohemian moravia, part of occupied czechoslovakia. bless you. in keeping with nazi ideology he believed that czechs had no right to be in nazi-occupied territory. he devised a system to divide the czech population into those who were racially unacceptable those who were politically unacceptable, and those who could be redeemed. they were rounded up.

but more immediately, he was forced to take up the question of the active czech resistance to nazi occupation. so, he had to arrest and execute 400 or so czech partisans or those identified as aiding the czech partisans as the protector of bohemian moravia in prague. this is how he got the name butcher of prague. he was in office and was busy detaining, deporting, and executing people an effort to show that he has a strong hands in control of what is going on in occupied czechoslovakia engaging ultimately in a show trial of the remaining czechoslovakian prime minister. he also began to deport hundreds of thousands of jews. and in the beginning, they were

deported from germany as well. he exhibited the quality of ruthlessness putting down the resistance. he acquired the nickname, as i said, the butcher of prague. he was able to call the conference, which we have artie talked about, and was able to apprise other parts of the german bureaucracy about the means of carrying out the final solution to what they described as the jewish problem. but were not really going there -- we are not really going there yet because we are interested in his relationship to the czech government in exile in britain who decided that, since he had been so successful at thwarting the activities of the resistance in czechoslovakia, that he should be targeted for a reprisal assassination. this led to what came to be known as operation anthropoid. you see you there churchill

reviewing a group of the czechs found in britain trained by the british special operation executive. the benes government in london persuaded the british government to go along with their plan to assassinate heidrick. they chose two of the soe-trained exile troops in 1941, part of the group to be parachuted from a bomber into occupied czechoslovakia to make their way, armed with guns and explosives into to prague to assassinate him as a reprisal for what he had done to the czechs during the occupation. so these guys are parachuted in

czechoslovakia. one immediately turns, if he doesn't break his ankle. they are very lucky to be rescued by a czech miller. he identifies himself as part of the resistance and they are taken to a safe place. they had with them a gun -- that is a british soldier holding it there. a very small, lightweight automatic weapon. they are capable of firing 500 rounds per minute. not very accurate. quite lethal at close range. they also have a series of especially designed bombs that the british soe helped them develop. there are antitank weapons. they were to be used against heidrick's car if necessary.

they were sent off on their mission into prague and for six weeks nobody heard from them. they were making their way through nazi-occupied territory into prague. they took advantage of the local resistance without letting on to what they were up to because they were afraid, probably correctly, that if they told the resistance what they were there for, they would lose all of that assistance. after all the butcher of prague was, you know, a butcher. kind of ruthless and someone you did not want to offend by trying to kill him. so, they feared the czech resistance would not help them if they knew precisely what they were there to do. it took some weeks before they were out of czechoslovakia. ultimately they developed a plan which they carried out on may 27, 1942. on a bright, warm day they waylaid heidrick in his normal

commute to work at a turn in the road shown on the slide next to the tram. heidrick followed a regular routine. he breakfasted late. at about 10:30 he got into his car with his driver, drove to work. it was a bright, warm day. windows open. the soe-trained czech parachutists bicycled to the spot where they decided to ambush heidrick's vehicle carrying the sten gun. they assembled the sten gun blind in the briefcase as they had been taught by the soe, so they could do it without looking at it so someone nearby would not notice and say, what are you doing with that small, but lethal machine gun? [laughter] then they whipped out the sten

gun, pulled the trigger, and it jammed. i know. unfortunately, this often happened with these guns. they were not the most reliable weaponry ever used by british paratroopers in the war. however, they were also armed with these little bombs, antitank weapons. they had a second shot. when they failed to shoot heydrich, he stepped out of the mercedes, pulled his pistol, intending to shoot the would-be assassins. of course, the other czech blows up a lot of the back parts of the car. the guy with the gun went and hid behind a telegraph pole because he did not have working weaponry.

hid behind the tram. the other assassin got on his bicycle and started to escape. heydrich was about to shoot the other one and then he collapsed holding his side, because it turned out that the explosion had driven some of the upholstery from the seat of the car into his side, and as it would turn out, into his clean. -- into his spleen. he was very badly wounded. the guy who was hiding done the telegraph pole was able to run away, chased by heydrich's aide. he ran into a butcher shop, realize there is no exit, ran back out and ran past the guy who was chasing him and was able to elude his chasers. heydrich had to be rushed to a hospital where they shot him up morphine, gave him multiple

transfusions, but ultimately were unable to save him. his wounds became septic and he died two days later, june 2. now, as you might imagine, the germans did not take this well. the gestapo ultimately were able to track down the parachutists because they were betrayed by one of their fellows who received a large sum from the germans exchange for giving their whereabouts. -- in exchange for giving their whereabouts. the czech parachutists were holed up with a number of allies in a prague church. they were surrounded by the secret police. there was a gun battle that went on for hours and hours and hours . ultimately, the czech parachutists decided they should shoot themselves rather than be taken captive. in part to protect those who helped them in czechoslovakia and, of course, in britain. the usus by doing this, they deprived the gestapo of any proof that the british had a

hand in the assassination, and let it to them to -- [dramatic music] yikes! [man speaking in german] >> well, that was dramatic. his death was turned into a propaganda film by the nazis as you might imagine. joseph goebbels, the head of the propaganda agency, staged a funeral to this great martyr to the third reich. a lot of people who paid tribute to him as a hero were people who detested him in life or feared him. this highly efficient, totally ruthless bureaucrat who was astute at politics, was terrifying personally and probably was also a little nuts. infamously, he came home drunk

one night, saw himself reflected in a mirror, pulled out his pistol, fired two shots, and said "i finally got you, you bastard." but now he was dead, which meant he was completely safe as far as the nazi high command was concerned. now he could be turned into a saint. they could make a death mask. send it down to the ss training school. here is our sainted reinhardt heydrich. we miss him so. thank god he is gone. of course, that last part was not in there. himmler eulogized him as an ideal nazi, hitler describing them as one of the bitterest foes. the site became a shrine. the whole thing was stage-managed. remember, the enthusiasm for spectacle? the importance of staging these events that are larger than life. the murder of reinhard

heydrich became the occasion for one of these and a very effective one of these propaganda efforts. but that was only the beginning. then the german high command had to decide how to carry out its own revenge even though it did not really know who was responsible for the murder of their now sainted reinhard heydrich. the first thing they did was to accelerate heydrich's own plan. the final solution. they built more death camps. they sent more boxcars full of jews to the death camps. beginning with jews from czechoslovakia. you will remember, heydrich was

responsible for this in the first place. this was only an acceleration of programs he put into effect before his death. something more, they felt, would have to happen. as it turned out on the body of one of the czech parachutists, they discovered a document from the village lidice. they did not know anything about this village, but they assumed it was somehow connected to the assassins who had got heydrich ultimately. so, a little over the week -- a week after the death of heydrich, they cordoned off the village, they herded together all of the men, defined as males over 15 years old and shot them 10 at a time, using a jewish work detail for the various bodies. the women were taken to a

concentration camp. the children they catalogued to determine those who were racially unacceptable, who were killed, and those who were racially acceptable were placed into the care of aryan families to be brought up. they destroyed completely the village and obliterated all traces of its descendents. ultimately 16 of the children were found after the war, but that was it. they burned the houses, the village. they opened up the ruins until there was nothing left. the village they determined for some responsibility for the death of reinhard heydrich. that act of revenge, of course became the occasion for another revenge in reprisal for czechs in london. here you see edward benes on

a visit to stoke-on-trent in england -- whoops. well, anyway. stoke was home to a number of miners. the village was a mining town. there was solidarity between the people of stoke and the people of lidice. he went there to do fund-raising. you see the poster there. it said "lidice shall live." in spirit. obviously not in reality. it became a motto for british support of the czech resistance. of course, he did not want to admit his role in the assassination of reinhard heydrich and neither did the british government admit because they did not want to be responsible for the death of so many czechs and jews. nevertheless they were able to take advantage of the cycle of revenge to further the motive

for the campaign of reprisals against the germans. most of the british did not need these extra motives, as you can probably understand because as you will number, the germans had been busily bombing british cities since early in the war. there is st. paul's cathedral. you see some of the wreckage being cleared in front of it. you will remember a lot of the luftwaffe had to be carried away east to affect the innovation of -- innovation of the soviet union. the bombing of british cities and killing of british civilians was a core part of german strategy and that occasioned a spirit of revenge in the british people. quite understandably, as i say so. they were determined that as soon as they could recover themselves and get their own plans in place they would carry out a similar campaign of destruction of german cities, so soon as they could reach them. the architect of that british campaign was this man, arthur

harris, are of the raf, better known as "bomber." bomber harris is depicted at his desk at bomber command, which was located in high wycombe, which is, i don't know, 40, 45 miles outside london. not directly underneath where the bombs would be. somewhat hidden by trees a nice little houses. but close enough to direct the campaign of reprisals. he came to the head of bomber command in the spring or late winter of 1942. as the american case, people who believed in air power in britain had to win an argument. they had to win an argument for resources. they had to compete with the army and the navy. they had to persuade politicians that a campaign of bombings by the air would be expensive in terms of machinery, and of

course explosives, and not least, trained pilots, would also be a way to bring the war to a satisfactory conclusion without too much loss of life on the western front during the war. it would also properly parallel reprisals against the germans for their bombing campaign in britain. one of the problems that the advocates of a bombing campaign came against early in the war was bombing was not terribly accurate. a study carried out by the real air force and fall of 1941 concluded that only a third of bombers were able to come close to their target, defining close as within five miles. which is not that close. there was also the problem that

many of the targets they wished to hit, whether in germany or occupied europe, were much further away than the smaller airplanes with fighters could reach. so, bombers would have to travel much of their way without fighter escorts to bomb deep inside germany. that meant they would be unprotected for much of their journey. this led to a decision on the part of the raf to try night bombing. because after all at night it is harder to see the bombers. also at night, it is harder for the bombers to see their targets. but on the other hand, if you were motivated by reprisal in and revenge, you don't care that much. as long as you get near enough you might be all right. harris did experiment with a variety of guidance systems including the use of radio beams to try to identify the targets but none were sufficiently long-range, successful enough

, swiftly enough really to characterize the raf bombing effort, which is largely characterized by using the same mix of incendiaries and high explosives we have talked about all the way back to the spanish-american war. harris began his bombing campaigns in 1942, a bit of a rocky start in night bombing. some of these cities are shown identified in red on the map. essen was one of the earliest in 1942. these cities had factories in them, but they were hardly no cities that did not have some kind of factory in a total war. when this effort did not work so well, they hit two other cities as well. again, if you can hit the wrong city, we're not really talking about precision targeting. the british had better luck at their effort to hit lubec just south of denmark there. lubec, march 1942. rather than try anything

complicated like using radio beam guidance systems, they took their visual cues from the spires of the old part of the town. many european cities have church spires in the old part of town. it is something you can see easily from the air. if you can home in on that you know you're hitting the city. you do not know what factory are building your hitting. they were able to take out 60% of the buildings in lubec. if you want to hit something really precise -- let's say a factory, a single building -- it would really help to be able to see. in april, the raf tried to carry out a day campaign against a diesel engine factory in augsburg. you can see that further south of those those red targets on the map. bombing during the day is more precise because the bombers can actually visually see. it also means the fighters and

anti-aircraft crews can visually see the bombers. the campaign was a success in terms of destroying their target, but the raf took horrific losses. at this stage in the war, the machinery loss was bad, but the loss of the trained crews is worse. think how long it takes to train bomber crews to the level where you can send them on vital missions. they went back tonight attacks -- to night attacks, which they carried out -- you can see up there on the baltic. again, they tried aiming at the old city and this was successful because they could not see that from the air. they could destroy perhaps 50% of the city.

these are relatively small raid. -- raids. perhaps dozens, hundreds of other bombers and aircraft. the idea was hit targets, and if they had to, take a target in the same area again. but the raf quickly concluded that was a bad strategy because if they had to come back to the same target or somewhere near the same target, they would find it better fortified and defended, because the germans would have realized it was a prime target for raf bomber command. so they would sustain worse losses. so, harris decided the thing to do was carry out massive raids against german targets so they can engage in total destruction of all possible targets in the area as quickly as possible, and also again, incidentally, have the propaganda success of having carried out so much destruction so quickly, as well as possibly the emotional satisfaction of having done so as well. so, let's try to do the raid

involving perhaps 1000 planes. when thousand is a big number and it is a scary number of bombers flying over your city. if you are, for example the fire marshal. if we can get them over the target, all within a window of 90 minutes. using the radio beam guidance to keep them in order as much as possible and on target as much as possible, and that with the aim for the city of cologne, which you see there on the right-hand side of your map there in may of 1942. i'm going to show you this british newsreel that hopefully will not make me jump out of my skin. and be equally comprehensible. >> [indiscernible]

were being prepared for their journey into the heart of germany's biggest industrial center. [indiscernible] target. >> the city of cologne. >> the largest payload of incendiary bombs ever to be taken on one attempt. tons and tons of beautiful bombs tucked away for the night operation. home again. the boys seem satisfied with their night's work, and rightly so. >> [indiscernible] nothing but a sea of fire.

>> [indiscernible] >> [indiscernible] [laughter] >> [indiscernible] >> so, there was not very much left for our attention. we will not have to be taking that trip again for a very long time. right? here's this photograph of cologne after the raid. you can see the church sort of still standing, although severely damaged. not much remain standing.

as the bomber pilots told you not much remain standing. you will remember, i hope, we talked about the use of different kinds of bombs. these high explosives can be used to destroy rail lines roads, do a lot of damage, right? that can prevent fire crews from moving around to put out the fires started by incendiary bombs. smaller bombs, slower burning. so, there is a method to using this kind of approach to the destruction of a city. on the other hand, as you can tell from the newsreel, the sheer numbers are overwhelming and appreciated by the germans as well as by the british. approximately 900 of the planes are set out. they are able to reach cologne. they dropped 1500 tons of bombs on the city. they rendered perhaps 45,000 of the 600,000 population homeless

killed people, destroyed 1500 factories and lost only 4% of their own bombers. so it was a success in terms of destroying industry, destroying the functioning of a german city and propaganda, they were able to take delight, in effect, as you saw, on the newsreel, their beautiful bombs. in may 1942 at this time the germans are continuing to prosecute the final solution and through the rest of 1942. we talked a little bit about how the final solution began in the east in poland in the soviet union and spread back into the western part of europe. here is a map showing your and -- europe and the effects of the final solution in various parts of europe. the darker the gray of any given country, the higher proportion

of its jewish population perished in the final solution. now of course, unsurprisingly, germany is a very dark gray. poland is shown as a very dark gray. what may perhaps be more interesting in terms of our thinking today, the spread of the holocaust to the west is that holland, the netherlands is a bit darker gray and belgium is . >>. >> -- there was a very effective nazi party. many dutch jews were deported and executed. you will remember her story

which became famous. there was only a small population that was deported and sent to the death camps in the east. meanwhile, belgium, for whatever reason the germans were never able to persuade them to take part in the area in project, and more belgian jews survived the war than those in the country only a little further north. however, this was the summer of the great acceleration of the killings through the implementation of the plan established by heydrich earlier in the year. this is perhaps exemplified best buy the building of new death camps. again, this is now the acceleration of the final solution that fell on heydrich's

assassination. treblinka was designed to be the most efficient possible method for the execution of the jewish people. ultimately they constructed, however, a railway station which stood in front of a small set of transit buildings. jews that traveled there were told they were going to a way station where they would get clean clothes and put their valuables in safekeeping while they went to a disinfecting shower. they were made to undress, to walk through an alley way to a brick building in which there were three gas chambers fed by a series of pipes through which, they initially pushed the fumes, from diesel engines, and later a

n insecticide repurposed as gas for executions. the ss troops ran the camps, set up a small orchestra outside the gas chambers to play music loud enough to drown out the screams of people being murdered. behind the building there was a series of long ditches. you have read a description of something like this. there were a series of ditches into which the executed prisoners would have been pushed for mass burials. how efficient was treblinka? as i say it was built in june of 1942. in two months of operation, a approximately 300,000 jews had been killed there. that was over the course of the first couple of months in operation. so many began coming in august as deportations were accelerated that the ss troops began shooting them on the platform to speed up the process of the

killings. they could not even keep up with the confiscation and expropriation of valuables from the jews arriving. there were simply piles of money and jewelry on the platforms to be dealt with later. again, speed and efficiency to carry out the final solution with the ultimate dispatch. many of the jews who were arriving to treblinka in the summer of 1942, coming from the polish ghettos, which you will remember were the creations of heydrich and his staff. ghetto leaders had to try to manage the population without very many resources. many residents of the ghetto fell prey to hunger and disease. what happened? as one of the inhabitants wrote,

every day polish jewry is being brought to the slaughter. people who did not die of hunger or disease were, of course deported. by september about 250,000 jews had gone from poland to treblinka to be executed. as one man said in his diary, he said he felt like the captain of the titanic trying to arrange activities for the people of the ghetto to improve the morale while the ship was going down. ultimately, the ss came to visit him in action reminiscent of the

scene at troubling for. -- at treblinka. they set up a gramophone in the streets while they talked so they would not be overheard and told him that he had to sign up on the order for mass deportations including those of children. he had saved a cyanide tablet for that moment and thought he could no longer mediate between the nazis and his conscience and this is the occasion he chose to take it. of course, the ss carried out the deportations anyway without his assistance. hundreds of thousands of jews were deported under the conditions i have already described. it was difficult, it was impossible, to carry out this many deportations and executions without catching the attention of allies in the west. and ultimately, it did come to the attention of parliament. this is anthony eden, a member of the british cabinet, for in

-- the foreign secretary. the foreign minister. in december 1942 -- after most of these deportations, the worst of the evacuations from the warsaw ghetto, he made a statement in parliament. he condemned hitler's plan to exterminate the jews in europe. in his statement to the house of commons, he called on governments including the united states, the soviet union, the netherlands to condemn the nazi bestial policy of "cold-blooded extermination." he described as well as he could the conditions in the ghettos. which in broad outline, those are as i have given to you already. he talked about them depriving the jews of their civil rights of their property, of their ability to care for each other

and for themselves, of those who were sick and injured being left to die, those being takeaway -- taken away amid conditions of "appalling horror and brutality," and finally, none of those taken away are ever heard from again. december 1942. it's very difficult -- right? this is a foreign minister of churchill's government speaking in the mother of parliaments being followed by a moment of silence for victims of the final solution. december 1942. it's very difficult for anyone afterward to say they didn't know what was going on. even though you will have read in some of your reading people saying that they didn't know what was going on. however it was very clear the british government knew what was going on. the british government said they

had a solemn resolution to ensure those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution. not justice, but retribution, right? as you know, it was going to get worse before that retribution came. in january 1943, jews in the warsaw ghetto who had been armed by communists supplying them outside the ghetto attacked the german guards carrying out the operations of deportation, and many of the jews intended for deportation escaped. the jews of warsaw began hoarding supplies. ultimately the ss marched en masse into the ghetto to liquidate it completely. they were fired on by the jewish resistance. they had to move forward street by street. himmler ordered the ss in charge of the liquidation of the ghetto

to proceed with the utmost harshness, ruthlessness, and toughness. so, they said, ok. i will burn down the houses, even those who belong to armaments workers. and they carried out the policy of liquidation, ultimately proceeding through all of your areas, even when there were valuable workers. not infrequently the jews stayed in the burning houses until because of the heat and they were afraid of burning to death, they decided to jump out of the upper stories, first throwing mattresses and other objects onto the street to cushion their fall. with broken bones, they still tried to crawl across the street to houses that were not yet a light or only partly inflamed.

some of the inhabitants crawled into the sewers. the nazis through smoke bomb so -- threw smoke bombs so they could reach and murder them. ultimately, they hid in the synagogue, which, as if nothing else, was a symbolic effort. one said, it was a wonderful sight. i called out heil hitler and pressed the button. the warsaw ghetto had ceased to exist. it was all that adolph hitler and heinrich himmler had wanted." ultimately about 14,000 jews were killed in the liquidation of the warsaw ghetto. the rest were exterminated under conditions we already described. we are trying to sort of cover the actions in different theaters of the war, and sometimes they occur in parallel, but you have to keep in mind the liquidation of the warsaw ghetto is carried on at

the same time the germans are incurring terrible losses in their fight against the soviets on the eastern front. and yet they believe it is worth their time to pursue the liquidation of the jews of europe. they believe it is worth their time. they believe it is worth their resources. this is at least as important a war aim as victory on the battlefield. and resources are diverted even though they are deploying valuable workers. again, that is all powerful the -- how powerful the rhetoric of total war is. but having been apprised of what was going on, having been armed with the rhetoric of retribution, the british are more than willing to explain they are coming to set these matters right.

as i say, this carries on through the spring of 1943. we know in january of 1943 , franklin roosevelt and winston churchill met in casablanca to discuss the role of the americans in assisting the british in their airborne campaign against the germans. they discussed the combined bomber offensive, which they would then begin to carry out in 1943, and here we have a newsreel featuring bomber harris explaining how this is going to work. >> [indiscernible] let the nazis take note. the western allies -- [indiscernible] but behind that cloud, the

massive power fo the united states of american. [indiscernible] as a man looks back at the gentle zephyrs of last summer. germany, clinging desperately to its conquests -- [indiscernible] >> right, so there is the very dry, understated language of revenge and retribution. if you could not quite make out the accent, let me paraphrase for you.

lubec and cologne only the beginning. if the germans were to look at the western horizon, they would see a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, behind which lies the might of the united states of america. the germans will look back on cologne and lubec as a man caught in a hurricane looks back on the gentle zephyrs of springtime. as you say, if you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind and the whirlwind is coming. we will pick up with that in our next meeting and you can pickup up your papers down front if you want to. thank you very much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015]

>> join us each saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern for lectures in history. lectures and history are also available as a podcast. download them from www.c-span.org/history/podcasts or download them from itunes. >> each week, american history tv's "reel america" shows archival films that tell the story of the 20th century. >> interrogations start with a thorough examination of personal effects, the contents of a wallet, a diary, or a map. from them can come valuable grains of truth and as often happens a prisoner can stub his toe hard on a bit of truth. what largely determines the interrogation technique to be used as the subject himself. his temperament, mood, background, age. this man is a pi