germans.me there was an effort to inflict glanders on some pack animals we were selling to the allies, all sorts of things along those lines. mysterious explosions at ammunition factories and that sort of stuff.we the germans were also trying toe fight the british sort of on our soil in the sense that there were a lot of americans or immigrants to america who had t come from parts of the british empire and had kind of a grudge or at least many of the people in those communities had kind o fmy irish-americans and the indian-americans for instance, so they were -- so there were some efforts to, you know, whip up anti-british fervor among those communities as well. the british then spent a lot of time trying to thwart this. during the war itself -- by the way, there were minimal laws ls against this at the time in the united states, this sort of a stuff. when the united states entered the war, however, actual german and austro-hungarian activity yo dropped to near zero because suddenly it became

in the german newspapers.his provided useful clues, german propaganda aims, strains among central powers and things like crop statistics and other important economic information among other things. the office ran other important cases, too. in western germany, someone davis described as an old gentleman of some local rank and distinction was an important indirect source on german military plans. this german had a friend who was german colonel of engineers who would confide secrets in him. he would share this information and one was a spy working ultimately for the americans. and in this way davis got information on the successive lines to which the german army would withdraw when the collapse came in the west. one of the primary tasks of allied, so british and french, personnel in the netherlands, was organizing train watching which was to say british and french organized recruited people in occupied belgian and back in germany, people who in the normal course of their business would spend their day, you know,

the germans played a single army. million person hold the german armyoperated in the notion. the outnumbered germans play tactics with russia. they kept at 19,000 prisoners. the russian army make that progress. arrival of of the reinforcements, the russians were ready. although the eastern front represented hell on earth, the next two years by end of the war 9 million allied soldiers have died. wire and deep trenches. a german soldier went into no man's land. the whistle of bullets, on the right another man was shot in the arm. we're supposed to fire but there was no enemy. getting into er on the disorder. tic tac, our own machine gun was firing at our backs. from behind we heard the cry of the soldier. we crawled out in spite of the fire. over later we had crawled the dead bodies. was killed soon after, in may 1915. allies and central powers. they had gas attacks and with special infiltration units. land ing through no man's and barb wire. 1915, the spring of everyday since small engagement occurred along the line. august, they to committed 1.2 million german soldiers. by th

germans.ation seemed certain. unless marsh remained in allied hands, it seemed possible the germans could sweep on to paris. the 84th division was ordered to withdraw from the positions and take up a defensive line along the marsh road. >> it was at this time that we got sudden orders to move. we were loaded into the army trucks, and we started moving back. we heard all kinds of rumors. we heard the germans had broken through. we heard there was a big offensive. everything was confused. all we knew, we were on the road and moving again. of course, it had only been a month before that we had moved up by trucks. so we were kind of used to it. but this was a night move in the dark, around the back corners. orders were changed constantly. we never knew from one minute to the next what was going on. on our way back we ran into trailers bringing up assault boats to cross rivers with. they apparently were for us. but we weren't going to be there to be with them. we finally found at the end of this tr

clearly, german history is at a critical crossroads, profound changes may lie ahead. but us for the moment address first thing's first. the first thing is seeing that east german people achieve their immediate aspirations. will newly opened borders remain open, even if the tide of departing germans turns into a flood? will there be a real commitment to free elections and a whole new kind of government? that is where our focus should be. that is both the drama and the task of the moment. mr. president, i would ask that my entire statement be made a part of the record. >> without objection, that's the order. >> mr. president. >> distinguished majority leader. >> i come mend the distinguished republican leader for his remarks. and would like now to address the same subject. early on a sunday morning in 195 a, i arrived in west berlin. i was a young officer in the united states army inn telltelligence service and it was a time of deep imp press for me. just a few days before, i had flown in an airplane for the first time traveling from the united states to frankfurt west

that is to say, a decisive german victory in 1914. what sort of a different world might that have made. well to begin with we can say that moltke, chief of the german general staff, made several questionable decisions, both in the lead-up to the war, when he was altering to some extent the original design of the so-called sh leaven balm. initially for diplomatic and strategic regions he weakened the right wing, which is to say he did not want german troops to violate dutch neutrality. that is holland or the netherlands. but rather only belgium. and that forced them into the kind of narrow aperture of liege in belgium which did slow them down. he also famously pulled back two corps from the advancing right wing of the german armies to the eastern front because russia had invaded east prussia. he also peeled off nearly half of the troops on the german left wing who originally designed a kind of tempt the french into al says lorraine in order to make it even easier for the germans to wheel around on the right. apparently he was tempted b

what prompted this is the ey knw germans themselves unleashed on. unrestricted submarine warfare, that is to say no more warningsd when they were going to fire torpedoes or drop bombs on this merchant vessels.i th no more women and children to the lifeboats.the fi they knew that might enrage . american opinion. allo they knew it might bring the u.s. into the war and so pro-actively and quite foolishle the germans sent this telegram. i think in the end it furnished what might call the final part of the case. there's not alone responsible for the u.s. entry into the war, but it did allow the financial argument wilson was able to present to congress in 1917. >> mr. mcmeekin we're also taking questions from our ink it facebook page, as well. simone writes how could the war have been avoided? was there any way it could have been stopped once it started? >> before it started, i think it could have been stopped. this would have required very different and much defter r statesmanship on the part of several statesmen trying to the prevent the war. we shouldn

it was a german flare and it lit up the whole woods. the germans opened up with machine gun fire.now i had a sinking feeling that this was it. this was the first real fighting our company had been in. we were playing with the big boys and we knew this was for keeps and all of us were terrified. these machine gun bullets were firing a few feet off the ground and occasionally, they would get down and then you would hear -- dip down and then you would hear somebody screaming. they sprayed us like a garden hose. more flares went up and the tanks opened up directly again. the man am i last was killed -- on my left was killed outright. the man on my right, on the other side, who was equally close, was wounded very seriously. his kneecap was blown off. the cries and shrieks of the wounded really went up then. i turned to the man on my right and at a tourniquet on his leg. >> i was a battalion commander in the 84th division in world war ii. it was critically important for the 84th division to hold the marche ridge and stop the attack. only by the determination of the men in the 84th divis

here the germans placed a single of russian path soldiers. the germanern front, army operated under the notion that it must stall for time until the western front was decided. oddly enough, it was here that the outnumbered germans masterful tactics. at the end of august, the german nearly annihilated the russian army. the russian advance made better against the austrian army. they brought this allied offensive to a halt by mid-december. just like the western front, the east was quickly transformed into a stalemated line, where the two sides jockeyed indecisively. although the eastern front represented near hell on earth thenyone would want, for next two years, the warring powers focused on the west. by the end of the war, that fighting chopped up 7.9 million 5.6 millioners and soldiers attached to the central powers. deep entrenchments, land mines and elaborate bunkers, rendering frontal assaults entirely impractical. a german soldier described a into the useless foray so-called no man's land. a continuous whistle of bullets. on my right, ano

the germans played a single army. million person hold the german armyoperated in the notion. the outnumbered germans play tactics with russia. they kept at 19,000 prisoners. the russian army make that progress. arrival of of the reinforcements, the russians were ready. although the eastern front represented hell on earth, the next two years by end of the war 9 million allied soldiers have died. wire and deep trenches. a german soldier went into no man's land. the whistle of bullets, on the right another man was shot in the arm. we're supposed to fire but there was no enemy. getting into er on the disorder. tic tac, our own machine gun was firing at our backs. from behind we heard the cry of the soldier. we crawled out in spite of the fire. over later we had crawled the dead bodies. was killed soon after, in may 1915. allies and central powers. they had gas attacks and with special infiltration units. land ing through no man's and barb wire. 1915, the spring of everyday since small engagement occurred along the line. august, they to committed 1.2 million german soldiers. by th

a german soldier wrote home, "my opinion about the wars remain the same. it is murder and slaughter. it is still incomprehensible to me that humankind in the 20th century can commit such slaughter." a professor of art from munich stated his feelings in better terms -- i've seen so much that is grand beautiful, monstrous base, brutal heinous and gruesome but like all the others, i am totally stupefied. to see peopledie, hardly interrupts the enjoyment of the coffee i've brewed in stark filth under fire. this is september 1914. a french poet described the same "beautiful innocent at news of victory, victory, quickly took flight as he surveyed the battlefield and he wrote his parents, there a lieutenant of the 74th. there a captain of the 129th. all in groups of three or four. sometimes singly and still in the position of firing prone. red pants. these are ours. these are our brothers. this our blood. the harrowism of 1870-71 he said was gone. "we feel small, so small, in the face of this frightening thing. some with bloody arms. others with boots ripped to s

the germans suffered somewhere about 281,000. despite months of heart ache and aggression the battles barely altereded the front lines, driving them a few miles here and there. nothing decisive enough to break either side's commitment. just as the battle sputtered to a close the british organized an offensive. planned an attack along a 20 mile front using the british fourth army and a portion of the frempbl fifth. for a week, 1400 british guns rained 1.5 million shells into german lines. on july 1, british infantry rolled forward. the british achieved little destruction with the artillery. the germans retaliated inflicting 30,000 casualties in an hour. by the end of the day the number rose to 57,000. the offensive droned on until november adding 630,000 additional allied casualties but doing nothing to break the deadlock. the fighting had a devastating effect on the survivors. even the most hearty soldiers felt the urge to cease action, commit acts of mutiny for the sake of self-preservation. lieutenant henry desagenau, a french

the germans minimized their losses, only to retake it again. the british lost 47,000 men and ended up getting pushed back to an area behind their initial line of departure. despite the victories they had achieved in 1917, the german armies elected not to sit passively in 1918. with the u.s. now entering in on the side of the allies, german high command believed that their armies were under the clock. they had to bring about a decisive victory before the american forces entered the fray. the major planned a meticulous spring offensive, one that meant to hurl three armies to the front. they utilized attack formation. 32 infantry divisions in front supported by 27 reserves, the german armies plowed into the british position, pushing it back some 35 miles. the largest offensive surge on the western front in terms of mileage of the entire war. still, germany's offensive did not achieve its goals. british generals managed to plug their lines with reinforcements. undeterred, they sent four more attacks in the area. by the time it was over, another 680

we spoke of the germans and thought of the germans as our enemy, enemy, but there was no such thing as is unique. he has to be the leader of his men but the men under him can also be leaders. >> one of the chief problems that replaces any officer is measuring up to the opinions the men had of the officers that commanded them before. >> after we got all the battalions settled down in their fox holes for the night i dug out a pair of blue silk pajamas that my wife had insisted i put in my bed roll and put them on and crawled in my bed roll to sleep for the night. of course this news spread around over the battalion immediately and my purpose was achieved because all of the men felt if the man had gotten in his silk pajamas and gotten into bed, certainly there was no trouble and they weren't in grave danger and they were able to relax and have a good night's rest. >> these are the men who served in the 84th infantry division. thus this story could be the story of any infantry division where the uncommon virtues of courage, endurance and self-sacrifice became the common place. ♪ by the beg

these include a pin calling on germans not to forget the kol anies. was a reminder they were fighting for holdings in africa. and then there's a pin here to show solidarity with the combatants. a little pin of a german helmet which a person could wear to signify their loyalty to the war effort. one theme that was really heavily represented in the collections was anti-german propagan propaganda. a lot of this in the u.s. focused on the"].Ñ german invas once again the idea that germany has violated neutrality and that's reflected in the pamphlet. crimes in which a bloody knife is stabbing through the treaty. but also we have a couple of nice images. for example, this image from reality in which the germans are bombing two belgian children and calling it military necessity and then this pamphlet given out in new york, thousands of children of france are crying to you to save them from german frightfulness. here the idea is again that germany is committing crimes against civilians, they're not conducting an honorable war. in conjunction with that, there a

at down on the 16th the german assault had achieved its first object, surprise. it overwhelmed the inexperienced troops in the forest where some, like colonel oliver patent were still trying to fight back to friendly lines on the 18th. >> the last attack down the road. in that attack, i was hit for the second time that day. i was hit through both legs and couldn't walk. i remember the battalion commander came through and told us that the battalion had to pum out pull out. they were going to leave us. there were four or five of us. they would leave us with a medic. >> to the south the german attack had split the 28th division, cut off the 112th infantry. >> that afternoon i received orders from division which was then at bastion to fall back and fight stiff delaying action direction bastion. i know that this was impossible. >> the german attack in this sector was made by troops of the 5th panzer army. the capture with the roads and rail ways was vital to the advance. they had been expected to take st. vith with little resistance. on the 18th their commander came u

aácgwt by the german army. he was not pleased.he first said the medal offed him a sense of compensation for services but the more he looked at it the more despicable the medal appeared. the day after he received it he wrote, when i was left alone for a few minutes with the cross i had different thoughts from he focused on the colors and said he began to5p'z imagine th nightmare colors he had seen on the western front. all things that were black but crusted in yellow. he wrote, it seemed like the cross were made of shell splinters, black blood congealed on a yellow dead face. ban daniels crusted with pus, strangled cries of horse voices, gangrene flesh on a leg. the thought unsettled him. he was scheduled to return to the front the next day. he didn't want to see all those black and yellow sights again. four days later he was killed. his opinion of the hollowness of glory well defined the ex peeshs of the great war. the symbol of the iron cross took on two meanings. one, the symbol of courage and fortitude. the other, the emblem of

a german officer. lying on his side. with him, his watch, a mouth organ -- harmonica -- a neolithic flint scraper. this guy was known as the archaeologist. we took the whole thing seriously. the bodies were recovered. they were handed over to the war graves commissio the unknown british soldier is in the oak coffin. we asked permission for dna. we were told you couldn't do it. it's not policy. we approached the german vdk who said do what you like as long as it is ethical. we have no money. can you pay for it? yes, we have tv money. that's fine. the work was done. in fact, it was interesting. the reason the vdk have no money is they are entirely sponsored by the public. there are no state funding at all for the german war graves commission. they have still a million missing from the second world war on the eastern front which they regard as more pressing than this one. back at ucl university london the conservation where people got to work. we had already gone here. we had already gone to the monuments of the missing and

and he explains the different command styles of the early german leaders. this is about 50 minutes. >> our next speaker is holger herwig. he earned his phd in the united states and resides in canada where he holds a position at the university of calgary and is the chair of the institute for research studies. his list of awards and appointments are staggering. fellow of the royal society of canada, a grant recipient from the alexander von humboldt foundation and he has held numerous distinguished visiting appointments such as the visiting professor of strategy at the naval war college, newport, rhode island. dr. herwig has an impressive publication list and many of his projects have been transformed into television documentaries. he has published more than a dozen books, inclusive of "the first world war germany and austria/hungary, 1914-1918" that won the norm lynn e. tomlinson prize for best book. another important book is "the marne 1914." dr. herwig will speak to us did about battle of the marne. of that engagement he writes he wanted to write about it b

that looked into german identity. what aspect of their identity are these protesters worried about losing? >> i think one of the issues, i think there's a kind of combuge roy bhuj wa germany. in the west i want to express a crisis. in the beginning of the 20th century for immigrants and for the other cultures, there was a kind of climbing up to the western culture. i'm bonn in turkey. turkey is a good exam until this. modernization was westernization. you had a role model. this role model is more like it in the beginning of the 20th century. in germany, it destroyed all. the history, it was destroyed. and if you don't have a very role middle class with a model bringing to others, you cannot come up with an assimilation program of those people on the streets have this isolation program if their heads. they want the other to disappear. and this is not possible. so they have this problem here. >> and now perhaps let's link that up to the particular region where these protests are occurring. this is, of course, eastern ge

had on german u-boats was much different. we believed that they were not technically capable of some things that they were. we find of thought that maybe our u-boats were the best u-boats or submarines. and weren't able to understand that the youboats were operating quite as far afield, and with quite as much -- they had much higher depth capabilities or torpedoes were much better. these types of things. >> are there any plans to expand the monitor sanctuary to include the diamond shoals light ship? >> yeah, absolutely. so the -- we have the site of the "uss monitor" is just the one mile radius around that shipwreck itself. and as we look at all these other sites and we realize how important they are to the american history, and our involvement in these wars, we've started to look at what is there. towards that end this is the basis for the study, we're required if we're going to claim that an area is nationally significant, our responsibility is to though that scientifically. this is centered around doing a significant asses

as german officers.rs. brown started collecting toy soldiers on her honeymoon to europe in the 1930s. many of these figures were made in the hide factory in dresden, germany. the factory was bombed during world war ii and no longer exists. she amassed a collection of 5,000 toy soldiers, of which you only see a small representative ranging from ancient egypt to the 1950s. let's now and go see some of her print works. here we have our first example of the printed works in ann brown's collection. this is by the french artist frank ilem. he was well known for depicting horses, particularly in racing scenes. in this watercolor the artist has captured a drab british convoy of horse-drawn wagons as it moves slowly along a rutted dirt road. this is particularly noteworthy for the depiction of the horses and the covered wagons which is reminiscent of a 19th century battle. but we also have a telegraph that seems to propel us more into 20th century technology. this is one of my favorite pieces in the exhibition as

which is, in fact, earlier than the germans reached french territory. it is true that the germans marched through belgium on the way and that is in many ways the greatest argument or indictment of the german war plan that it did involve violating belgian neutrality. but as far as claiming that the germans quote/unquote plan to invade france well of course that's true. the french also planned to invade germany and russia planned to invade germany, as well. that was the very essence of the franco russian war plan was a simultaneous invasion of germany from two directions. it was because of this, of course, that the germans had their own plans, which were to try to circumvent this with a lightning blow against france. as far as the military alliances, in many ways the far closer and more decisive alliance in all of this was the franco russian alliance which is why again when colonel house on behalf of the wilson administration visited europe in may 1914 he said precisely that. that as soon as england consents, france and russia will close in upon germany.

none of those countries were ecstatic about the idea of german unification. but by handling it the way the president did, he was able to achieve that german unification within a very narrow window of opportunity. if we hadn't moved when we did, i'm not sure we could have achieved unification the way we did. >> i think that's true, because right after the wall came down, gorbachev's attitude changed dramatically. he had been sort of on our side because he was practicing perestroika and glasnost. he wasn't trying to democratize the soviet union by any means, but he was trying to reinstill some sense of discipline and working it. and so he was encouraging what was going on in eastern europe till the wall came down, and then he got scared. >> talk a little bit about if you will, again, the diplomacy of this whole process. you touched on the reservations that mitterand had, thatcher had, clearly that gorbachev had. how did you handle those? >> well, we -- we have always been the leader of the alliance and the president, even as a new president, was the leader of t

france calls this the sacred union, all i see are germans. the idea being that united we can conquer or foes and conquer them quickly. none of the countries had a territorial stake on any of the other countries. the war that for example germany had in mind when they decided to engage france and russia, no the war of 1870 and 1871 in which germany won quickly and this idea that we would be home by christmas is something that all sides shared. nobody imagined that when the two armies met they would lead to stalemate and bloodshed of previously unknown scales, within this collection of e.w. madison, there's a sense that a sense of foreboding. on the fwroernt, the armies are primarily equipped with highly effective defensive weapon. things like ba. as the war developed, each side attempteded to find new offensive weapons in order to counter the very strong defensive positions that were opposite them in the western front. and this took a number of developments and this these included things like poison gas, the flame thrower, the tank, putting gun

but the bef stopped the germans.a marvelous book by sewell tyng, published 1935, british colonel, the battle of the marne. before all the documents were out. and you will hardly hear of the book because he was totally ostra sized in england by writing about the bef. hague, a calvariman, is absolutely hesitant about exploiting the gap. british flyers are constantly reporting, there's nobody ahead of you. sir john french and hay said, it's a trap, it's a trap, it's a trap. we see dust up there. well, the dust are the supply lines of kluk's army, which is racing up to the ork to fight monterey six army. there is a gap. but the british do not exploit it. joff, read this in the official french history,n")a abot hourls pleading, begging, ordering, cajoling the british, please, for f's sake, advance. there's nobody ahead of you. you're seeing phantoms. but, you know, this is the first weeks of the war. this army has not been trained to fight a world war. and, you know, you've got kluk advancing to the north on your left. y

that's what they tell the germans.e germans have been telling them no you have to go quickly invade now. they say no on august 12th. okay. that was on the sunday. monday the kaiser returns from his cruise, the kaiser, there's doesn't trust him but he makes up in the morning of the 28th, tuesday, july 28th, 1914 he goes for a staff ride. unfortunately he waited until after he got back from his horse ride to read serbia's reply to the ultimatum which he actually misread. he thought it constituted acceptance more or less. he then said oh, god this is brilliant. diplomatic victory. we must convince the austrians to negotiate and at the very least have some kind of symbolic occupation of belgrade, make sure the serbs behave, et cetera. but he doesn't pick up the telephone because he doesn't like using the telephone. and he thought it was such a critical document that he shouldn't send it by telegram either so he sent it by private courier and by the time this message reached berlin, let alone vienna, austria-hungary had dec

why this myth obscured for >c,m"át truth behind the german retreat.flawed command structure and adequate logistical system. antiquated communications arm and two inexcept field commanders. in the official history of the war,l:

i remember this meeting on german unification. and what he said there at the table was so different than what we had heard before. i thought, uh-oh, this whole thing has been knocked into a -- we're not going get it done. that was one incident that i could remember very well. >> we had a strategy. we were generally confident it would work. we didn't know how long. when we came in to office, there was a ferment in east germany. up until then, the u.s. policy toward the satellites, eastern europe, had been, we tried to help them cozy up to those making the most trouble for the soviet union. so our friend this morning, romania, romania, josh escue was our favorite. because they were always probing the soviet union. when we came in, we said, no, that's not the right measure. we're trying to liberalize. romania went from the top right down to the bottom. poland went to the top because were trying to change their system. we had a general sense of where we wanted to go and how. but there were lots of parallels that we weren't sure would

tender people, the germans.ery sweet music, indeed. ♪ chapter two, a new furor, kaiser wilhelm. new title, germany overall. and the same tender german people smacked us with their world war i against serbia. russia. france. belgium. italy. britain. and the united states of america. it took all of us to do it. but we finally knocked that furor out. defeated the german armies. second chapter ended. we marched straight into germany and said, why these people are okay. it was just that kaiser we had to get rid of. you know, this is really some country. when it comes to culture, they lead the whole world. we bit. we poured in our sympathy. we pulled out our armies. and they flung chapter three in our faces. furor number three, slogan number three, today, germany is ours. tomorrow, the whole world. and the tender repentant sorry german people carried the torch of their culture to austria, czechoslavkia, poland, france, england, norway, holland, denmark, belgium, luxembourg, russia, yugoslavia, greece and the united st

that's what they tell the germans. the germans have been telling telling them, no, you have to go quickly invade now. , they say no on august 12th. ok. that was on the sunday. on the the kaiser returns from monday, his crews. the kaiser, they are still kind of keeping details away from him because the war party doesn't trust him. he wakes up in the morning of the 28th, tuesday, july 28th, 1914. he goes for a staff ride. unfortunately he waited until , after he got back from his horse ride to read serbia's reply to the ultimatum which he actually misread. he thought it constituted acceptance more or less. he then said oh, god this is brilliant. diplomatic victory. we must convince the austrians to negotiate and at the very least have some kind of symbolic occupation of belgrade, make sure the serbs behave, et cetera. but he doesn't pick up the telephone because he doesn't like using the telephone. and he thought it was such a critical document that he shouldn't send it by telegram either, so he sent it by private courie

the germans cannot afford to bury them in a local cemetery. at least they were buried with their comrades. they decided to put up a monument erected at the edge of the field where the men were found. when it was unveiled, the stoodor of the museum with me and said this is the most unusual monument. is it the smallest? no, it's not the smallest. ath two germans and a british soldier on one monument. 100 years later, a reconciliation still takes time. this turned up on ebay of all things. there is a wreath hung in a trench. down there, it says in memory of comrades.allen had that arrived before the archaeology, it would have been inexplicable. except that we know this was dated june, 1915. those men we found had been buried in shell holes or scratch graves on the back of the trench with the intention that after the war the german soldiers would come back, recover their comrades and give them the honor burial they deserved. the fortunes of war did not allow that to happen. i want to at least have the great privilege of being buried. expert on the

thatcher turned to him and is just so german. [laughter] >> let's talk, for a moment, who is so german -- and i think the very best of the word -- the one who represented the west -- chancellor kohl. how would you evaluate his role of, he run-up to the moment and the aftermath, of the fall of the wall. kohl ll, iif chancellor and president bush hadn't been on the same wavelength, german unification would've never happened. we y made it happen because had the reluctance of france and the uk, and certainly the soviet union. chancellor kohl came to camp david in february of 1990 -- i and we right -- to jesus t of coming session there, where he said i really want your help, but we you to know from you that are not interested in a neutral germany in the heart of europe. and you are not interested in a germany that is going to lean eastward. and that you will support us in ng sure that the unified germany is a member of the north atlantic treaty association. he said, i will. lived up to it and got it done. we one of the things that wer

i read german. i lived in germi, and i thought if i didn't read german, what would i read in english? the more i looked, i realized there was not one good book on the opening of the wall in english. then the more i thought about it i realized this lack of a good book, this lack of an accurate account was more than just a historical interest. the belief that the united states single handdiddley opened the wall has -- affects on u.s. foreign policy to this day. it has the effect of making the united states think that it single handedly opened the wall with little risk and little cost and can repeat the general, wrote, from berlin to baghdad, which was a frequent saying in washington in 2001. also gave right to a very triumphant attitude about the berlin wall. so, for example, at the george h.w. bush presidential library, you see this statue of horses -- a statue of horses galloping over chunks of the berlin wall, showing the triumph of the american wild west over the berlin wall. there's a similar sta

that's what they tell the germans.the germans have been telling them no you have to go quickly invade now. they say no on august 12th. okay. that was on the sunday. monday the kaiser returns from his cruise, the kaiser, there's still kind of keeping slop of part because the war party doesn't trust him but he makes up in the morning of the 28th, tuesday, july 28th, 1914 he goes for a staff ride. unfortunately he waited until after he got back from his horse ride to read serbia's reply to the ultimatum which he actually misread. he thought it constituted acceptance more or less. he then said oh, god this is brilliant. diplomatic victory. we must convince the austrians to negotiate and at the very least have some kind of symbolic occupation of belgrade, make sure the serbs behave, et cetera. but he doesn't pick up the telephone because he doesn't like using the telephone. and he thought it was such a critical document that he shouldn't send it by telegram either so he sent it by private courier and by the time this messag

there was another soldier, not german but austrian, a volunteer. number three company of the list regiments. slightly older than leopold, an artist of sorts with the iron cross 2nd class. that man was adolf hitler. as i said, if you look at this war, you would immediately see another. we're now in a situation where we're continuing to do work. we have never yet gone prospe prospecting for the dead but we'd been approached to do just that by a large number of people. we have a burial of at least one plan, and probably his comrades from the village. i've spoken to the mayor and said we'd like to mark the plot. we know exactly where he is. the mayor said, i wouldn't bother. why not? he said the way it works in french law, if a family don't claim building plot for 100 years, we can sell it, the community gets the money and we'll build on it. so if you're going to do any work you've got about a year. we have another site, a site for the lancasters, about 54 bodies. we know where they are buried because the man who buried them was a german officer wrote

was neutral and brits versus germans once it is u.s.and brits versus germans international law did not mean as much to him as it did when he was neutral. >> dr. craig, would you say that he wasn't an arm chair admiral, he had no military background but then he was a publisher? and did he stay aloof from the operations, newspapers at the time that he was secretary or did -- sometimes like frank knox later on kind of distance himself a little bit from chicago when he became navy secretary. i don't know much about daniels tenure and if editorial policy changed with kind of with daniels change in views about our participation in the war effort? >> that's an interesting question and one that i actually address at some link in the book. the short answer is no. he did not separate himself from the management of his newspaper. and he tried initially, but he could not -- just as teddy roosevelt could not not be president -- he couldn't stop being president. daniels couldn't stop controlling the opinion side of his newspapers. so he continued to