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Dr Philip W Blood Profile picture
@HistorianBlood
Mar 9, 2022 • 17 tweets • 9 min read • Read on X
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History - Armoured Trains and the military use of railways.
A thread for all my kind friends and followers who requested more content. Mostly German with a few pictures from elsewhere.
Images: PWB
Mapping why the Germans had to employ armoured trains on the eastern front. 2 maps: the main railway network; and, a map show the intensity of partisan activity in the area area of Army Group Centre in 1943.
Maps: @USArmyCMH
The war of the rails was probably the decisive aspect of the Soviet insurgency. While decoy raids trashed German regiments, there were never enough to carry a strike into the rear areas.
After 1945, the former German soldiers in the US Foreign Military Studies project frightened the Americans into believing the Soviet partisans were the greatest threat of all time. The Americans spent millions in research - if only old man Kovpak had known.
A closer look at the armoured train in the Polish National Railway Museum in Warsaw.
Images: PWB
The museum also has some impressive standard gauge motive power. Change of ownership common to railways.
Images: PWB
Stencils confirming change of ownership not always so visible. The gauge nodal moment!
Image: Andreas Knipping
The little engines: the work horses of the the military-railway complex. Example of a little train turned into an armoured train.
Images: PWB/@BundesarchivD
Interlude - preserved military/historical locomotives still at work.
Images: PWB
A fascinating study of the actuality of railways at war: July 1943 - Ukrainian railway yards and troop trains:
Images: Walter Hollnagel
A Nazi ceremony to open a bridge constructed by the railway engineer troops:
Images: Walter Hollnagel
Sometimes allied air raids looked very destructive, but expert railway engineers can restore traffic flow within 3 days.
Images: Walter Hollnagel
Back to Armoured Trains - the construction of tank cars had a familiar silhouette.
Image: @BundesarchivD
A preserved command car is on display in Bratislava.
Image: Lukáč Peter
Armoured train providing security and protection as construction troops repair damage caused by Red Army partisans.
Image: @BundesarchivD Bundesarchiv
Fascinating analysis by Wolfgang Sawodny illustrating how the armoured trains their configuration. Highly recommended book - German version is my favourite.
Images: Sawodny
A couple more recommended reading:

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More from @HistorianBlood

Dr Philip W Blood Profile picture
Aug 2, 2023
#WarsawUprising - a short thread about the German command.

First a map that illustrates the full extent of Operation Bagration, the Red Army offensive.

Map - Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr
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20 July 1944 Guderian became Chief of the General Staff, Himmler - chief of the reserve army. On 30 July Himmler met Bach-Zelewski had been inspecting East Prussian defences. On 31 July they both met Guderian and Bronislav Kaminski.
@BundesarchivD


Image
Image
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The group were planning the defence and security of the Reich, post July plot and had received intelligence that an uprising was planned. Guderian bitterly denied this meeting took place during the postwar war crimes investigations.
Read 10 tweets
Dr Philip W Blood Profile picture
Jul 21, 2023
During the Second World War, the Germans adopted different types of Kampfgruppe to address command decisions, whether in defence or attack. Institutionally, the concept was used by the police, the army, the Luftwaffe, the SS and the navy during military operations. Image
Kampfgruppe could be small, company size, or an enlarged brigade. They could include all arms - tanks, infantry, artillery, or air units, or marine, or all of them. There were specialist Kampfgruppe, organised by engineers with some armour support, or infantry with assault guns. Image
The most famous have been written about like Kamfgruppe Peiper or Kampfgruppe Walther but they don’t explain the cultural story of the this form of battlefield organisation. Image
Read 18 tweets
Dr Philip W Blood Profile picture
Mar 18, 2023
The tale of two histories: #cultureofwar

1. 110,000 Latvian volunteer fought bravely as nationalists against Soviet oppression.
Or
2. About 42,000 Latvians of our legion served in the SS-Police units and joined Einsatzgruppen killing actions against Jews, socialists and Poles.
In 1944 another 123,000 men were conscripted but only 16,000 front fighters. The rest were committed to combating Soviet, Polish and Latvian partisans.
Latvian volunteers were assigned to HSSPF - North SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln. He devised the ‘sardine packing’ method of mass killing. Jewish victims were forced to stand on the previous killed. The most vile method during the Holocaust by bullets.
Wiki picture
Read 26 tweets
Dr Philip W Blood Profile picture
Jan 30, 2023
OTD - 30 January 1943 - 11.00am Berlin. Hermann Göring was about to give a speech commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazis coming to power. Since referred to as the eulogy for the 6th Army in Stalingrad. He was rudely interrupted. (Picture: VB 31.1.1943)
3 RAF Mosquitos, led by Squadron Leader Ted Sismore, on a daylight raid - the first on Berlin. The German public heard the air raid sirens (dubbed Meier’s Forest Horns) sound just as Göring was being introduced and the speech was delayed.
Another trio of Mosquitos attacked Rostock forcing Goebbels (aka the poison dwarf) off the air. 18 days later he would give his total war speech. (Picture @BundesarchivD )
Read 6 tweets
Dr Philip W Blood Profile picture
Sep 20, 2022
1. Consider the Holocaust by Bullets, which you wilfully ignore.
The war in the east had been raging since June 1941. Hitler’s war against the Jews was in full progress from July 1941. Hitler had argued in 1940 that defeating Russia would isolate Britain.
2. Weeks before the attack on Soviet Russia. Hitler and the SS were issuing killing orders known as the Barbarossa directives. The killing units, the Einsatzgruppen, were raised weeks before the invasion. America had no influence on these preparations.
3. The letter. The Heydrich-Göring letter signed on 31 July 1941, initiating the final solution, and it’s direct impact on the everyday killings.

A page from Birds of Prey, in which I focused on the killing actions of German soldiers.
Read 10 tweets
Dr Philip W Blood Profile picture
Jun 22, 2022
OTD - 1941 - Operation Barbarossa - Nazi Germany’s invasion of Soviet Russia. A thread about different German photo collections and sources.

Warning: some people might find some of the content in this thread distressing.

#CultureofWar
Hitler’s war of extermination unleashed a militarized genocide and the Holocaust. From the outset, German soldiers inflicted the ‘Holocaust by Bullets’ on several million people. The legacy has deeply scarred Europe.
Photography played a very important part in the campaign. The official newsreels, newspapers and journals all carried photographs. They were essential in the visualisation of ideological enemies - to be exterminated under Hitler’s directives.
Images: @USNatArchives @BundesarchivD
Read 11 tweets

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