German High Command Research Articles

Violent peace: effigies and the marking of the Armistice in Britain

ABSTRACT This article examines how effigies were used in Britain after the signing of the Armistice in November 1918. Effigies of Kaiser Wilhelm, the Crown Prince and members of the German High Command were paraded through the streets of villages, towns and cities as part of celebrations for the cessation of hostilities. These figures were physically and verbally abused, hanged on gibbets, displayed from shop windows, placed on trial and ‘executed’ by hanging and public burning. The violence that these effigies were subjected to is significant as it indicates the way the brutality of the war became part of civic life but it also demonstrates how civilians returned public spaces to public life. The war brought greater control of civic society by the operation of government to mobilise individuals and communities for the war effort. The carnivalesque celebrations that marked the end of the war was a means of acknowledging victory but also formed a means of dissent against the operation of power. Whilst these moments were fleeting and some harked back to traditional forms of celebration, the use of effigies transformed wartime spaces back into public ownership.

The Art of Double-Cross: writers in strategic deception during World War Two

ABSTRACT The success of British double-cross operations in World War Two is well-known. However, the techniques used by writers in MI5 to manipulate German intelligence officers and, through them, the German High Command have never been properly examined. This essay fills that gap of understanding, focussing on the most ambitious of the double-cross operations, the network of Juan Pujol, known as agent Garbo. As Michael Howard, Christopher Andrew and others acknowledge, the double-agent networks were crucial in disseminating disinformation to the enemy, including in the run-up to D-Day. As the article shows, however, they were also used more strategically, to wage a sustained campaign of manipulation against their opponents which ensured that deception plans were swallowed and acted on. By examining their tactics and strategies in detail, the essay highlights the historic contribution of writers in British intelligence during World War Two which has previously gone almost unrecognised.

‘A female voice is instrumental’ gender, propaganda and coerced labor on the Eastern Front, 1943-1945

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of local, female propagandists utilized by the German army on the Eastern Front during WWII. Although the work they undertook aligned with postwar notions of collaboration, the propagandists’ experiences at the hands of the Wehrmacht, in a context of a violent war and repressive occupation, constitutes coerced labour in multiple forms. Regardless of the women’s motivations for working for the Wehrmacht, they entered a relationship of domination and dependence with the occupation force. While female propagandists numbered far fewer than their male counterparts, they held a particular importance for German high command who believed that their “feminine” traits, such as empathy and charm, helped the Wehrmacht influence and control the largely female civilian population. At the same time, their work on the frontlines encouraging Red Army soldiers to defect crossed traditional gender boundaries. In this task too, the women were valued for their gender with German authorities believing that Soviet soldiers, largely deprived of female contact, would be particularly receptive to the charm of a woman’s voice. Such coerced labor on behalf of the Wehrmacht rendered these women vulnerable not only to German violence, but also to Soviet accusations of collaboration and its associated reprisals.

Current debates, developments and challenges regarding torture, enforced disappearances and human rights

There are, thus, three essential distinguishing features: intentionality, purpose and severity of suffering. Torture can be broadly defined as the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, by agents of the State, for a specific purpose, such as the extraction of information, a confession, intimidation or punishment or discrimination[1]. Other relevant elements not provided in the legal definition include the suppression of the will of the victim, powerlessness and the moral injury suffered, and the attack on dignity as an essential human value. Similarly, enforced disappearance (ED) is, also broadly defined, the deprivation of liberty by agents of the State followed by the refusal to acknowledge the fate or whereabouts of the detainee, this putting the person outside the protection of the law[2].
 
 ED is a composite human rights violation that involves two kinds of victims: first, the direct victim, who suffered the violence of abduction, the anguish of being held defenceless in an unknown place and who, in most cases, suffered physical or psychological torture, and, on the other hand, the relatives of the disappeared[3]. The level of anguish and suffering inflicted on family members has been repeatedly considered by the medical and psychological community to be of sufficient severity to meet the threshold of the definition of torture (Citroni, 2017; Hollander, 2016; Kordon, D., Edelman, L., Lagos, D., & Kersner, 1998; Pérez-Sales, 2000; Robins, 2010; Shaery-Yazdi, 2020; Smid et al., 2020; Zarrugh, 2018).
 
 There are strong arguments to consider that ED is a form of torture. Indeed, EDs always imply, towards the person disappeared, intentionality, purpose, suffering, powerlessness, absolute deprivation of will and attacks to dignity. At the same time, some of these elements may be more complex to prove in the case of relatives. One should recall, for example, that the German High Command, while implementing the sadly famous Night and Fog Decree, which instituted a program to enforcedly disappear victims in the occupied territories during World War II, expressly indicated that "[e]fficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminal and the population do not know the fate of the criminal. This aim is achieved when the criminal is transferred to Germany" (Finucane, 2010).
 
 This paper explores these links (see also Nowack, 2012) and puts forward some proposals and challenges for the future.
 
 [1] In accordance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, “the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions” (article 1.1).
 [2] Enforced disappearances are defined as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law”. See International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, article 2.
 [3]Indeed, the ED Convention, provides that the term ’victim’ means the disappeared person and any individual who has suffered harm as the direct result of an enforced disappearance”. In this sense, and as victims often recall, there are (a) the rights of the disappeared, including the right to due process, to liberty, security and integrity of the person, to be searched, reparation, etc. (b) the rights of the relatives to truth and justice, to measures of psycho-social assistance and other forms of reparation, etc.

The development and realization by the nazi leadership of the wehrmacht’s plans of the offensive operation for the spring-summer campaign of 1942 in the south wing of the soviet-german front

The article shows the history of the development by the German High Command of the plans of the Wehrmacht’s offensive operation in the south wing of the Soviet-German front for the spring-summer campaign of 1942. The objective of this paper is to elaborate on some individual aspects of the planning by the Nazi leadership of “Case Blue” (German – Fall Blau) and its subsequent realization. The result of this correction was a quick creation of the two new strategic plans: “Operation Braunschweig” – the offensive against Stalingrad and “Operation Edelweiss” – the offensive against the Caucasus. In the paper, the authors as a conclusion note that such dispersion of the armed forces of the German army led in the end to the shortage of forces for the realization of the both plans and the defeat of the Wehrmacht both in Stalingrad and in the battle of the Caucasus. The victories of the Red Army in those battles resulted in the radical turning-point at the entire Soviet-German front, in the beginning of the liberation of the Soviet territories from the German occupation troops.

Singing at Langemarck in the German Political Imaginary, 1914–1932

AbstractThis article reconstructs the history of the famous anecdote about the battle at Langemarck, where German youth allegedly sang “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” as they hurled themselves against British soldiers, bayonet in hand. Variants, including in poetry and other creative genres, helped to shape a public discourse about bravery. I also reconstruct the discourse on music and war in music journals and daily newspapers, suggesting possible influences on the German High Command, where the anecdote originated. The musical establishment initially ignored this lore—so remote was music in the concert hall from community music-making, including on the battlefield. Yet the enormous weight given to propaganda efforts eventually led musicians to write about and respond compositionally to the Deutschlandlied. The article concludes by examining the conflicting political meanings of the Langemarck anecdote in the decades after World War I.

The covert battlefield: Doctor Witaszek, the WKZO, and the Polish use of biological and chemical warfare against the Third Reich

ABSTRACT During World War II, the Polish resistance movement used chemical and biological weapons (CBW) against the Third Reich. The use of CBW against the Third Reich most likely originated in a secret Polish biological-weapons program, which existed in the 1930s and went underground after the September 1939 German invasion. Between 1940 and 1942, a unit of the Polish resistance movement named WKZO (Wielkopolskie Kierownictwo Związku Odwetu—the Greater Poland Leadership of the Union of Retaliation) conducted CBW sabotage in the German-annexed area Reichsgau Wartheland and its main city Posen (today’s Poznań). By investigating the use of CBW by the WKZO until its destruction in 1942, it is possible to demonstrate how these weapons were made and used. The article also describes the German reaction, including what defensive measures the German high command took to meet the threat of CBW.

German Military Invasion of Ukraine: Final Period of Phase Three (Late March — Early May 1918)

This article is to complete a series of publications aimed to discuss German military operations in Ukraine (from March to early May 1918). This offensive was aimed to expel Bolsheviks from Ukraine and to restore Central Council to power in Kyiv in accordance with the provisions of Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty. At the same time, Germany desperately needed Ukrainian food and raw materials to continue war on the Western front. Modern Ukrainian historiography tends to consider these events using the data obtained either from Soviet publications, where reliable data were substituted by ideological dogmas, or from memoirs, which too often proved to be misleading. Therefore, operations of the German Army were considered as a process perfectly executed according to a single predesigned plan. However, there were several distinctive phases determined by German High Command as political and military goals. Thus, it is important to explore the order of battle of German and Austro-Hungarian forces in Ukraine, and to consider relevant aspects of military operations aimed to expel Bolsheviks from the territory of Ukrainian People’s Republic. Valuable archival data were provided by recent studies of the Austrian scholars V. Dornik and P. Lib, as well as the Polish researcher V. Mȩdrzecki. This article is discussing the final period of Phase Three of the German military operations in Ukraine. 19 German divisions were engaged into the offensive in Donbas, Crimea, and the Black Sea coast. They established control over the entire Ukraine (excluding Crimea, with Ukrainian units forced to abandon the peninsula). The offensive ended in Rostov-on-Don with Germans trying to help Don Cossacks in opposition to Bolsheviks. Finally, hostilities ended in late May. The author provides the analysis of the operation made by the German High Command, as well as evaluated losses of German soldiers, which proved to be considerably lower than those claimed by the Soviet historiography.At that time, German occupation provided the only real chance to preserve Ukrainian statehood, however by making Ukraine a vassal to Germany.

German Military Invasion of Ukraine: the Beginning of Phase Three (March 5 — late March 1918)

It was a challenging task for the German Army to force Bolsheviks out of the Left-Bank Ukraine. The operation began on March 5, 1918. The Dnipro River was a formidable defensive line where Bolsheviks attempted to block German offensive and to oppose Central Rada as the government of Ukraine. Therefore, the principal task of Phase Three was to defeat Bolshevik forces along the line Bakhmach – Poltava – Dnipro bank up to Kherson and Mykolaiv. In case of success, this operation would have paved way to occupation of Donbas (establishment of the demarcation line between Ukraine and Russia), entry into Crimea, and seizure of Sevastopol – the main base of the Black Sea Fleet. Traditionally, these events were considered on the basis of Soviet publications relying on ideological dogmas instead of the trustworthy data. The Ukrainian historiography, in turn, tends to concentrate on operations of the Ukrainian Army, and often misinterprets the overall situation. The research works recently published in Ukraine (by V. Dornik, P. Liba, I. Mykulynskyi, etc.) and Poland (by V. Mȩdrzecki) do not provide an answer to several crucial questions and contain some mistakes. Therefore, it is important to discuss military operations in the Left-Bank Ukraine during March 1918 from the standpoint of the German High Command. During that time, the occupational forces became much stronger. Some valuable data were provided by the archival research considered in the works by V. Mȩdrzecki, V. Dornik, and P. Liba.This article discusses the initial period of Phase Three of the German military invasion of Ukraine (starting on March 5, 1918). On that day German units received respective orders to continue their operations in the Left-Bank Ukraine. By the end of the month Poltava and Bakhmach had been seized, and the Bolsheviks’ feeble defensive line along the Dnipro had been broken enabling further advance to the Russian border. At the same time, victories let German High Command take control over the Ukrainian State and demand food and raw materials supply to continue war on the Western front.

News - Briefing: History - Bletchley veterans hear how early computers helped plan D-Day

New archive research has revealed how German High Command messages decoded at Bletchley Park confirmed that an Allied deception operation had successfully fooled the enemy about the D-Day landing plans.

Max Weber and the Great War: Personal Opinions and Essays as Historical Sociology

The influence of the Great War on the personality, sociology, political activity, and views of Max Weber has not yet been sufficiently researched. The second complete edition of works by Max Weber presents us with new opportunities to conduct a historical and sociological analysis of these issues. His personal letters and essays written during the Great War provide us with highly informative materials for such research. These materials, some of which are not widely known, are studied in the article from the perspective of historical sociology, whose co-founder was Weber himself. At the very beginning of the Great War, Max Weber underwent an emotional experience. He gave up lecturing for two years of army service in the hospital commission. After his service, he would make the shift to political speeches, dec-larations, and opinion essays. His previous understanding of the essence of war had been critically re-evaluated from the national and patriotic to the insight that Germany during and after the war would face a difficult choice between the trajectory of individual historical development and the Western path to political freedom. The article analyzes and sums up Weber’s criticism of the politics of the German High Command which had obtained virtual governmental power in Germany. In particular, the article studies Weber’s criticism of the total submarine warfare started by the German mili-tary in 1917-1918 and its political consequences. This political prevarication used by the commanders at the end of the Great War resulted in the tight connection between democracy and military defeat in German public opinion. Some of Weber’s political forecasts are summed up and critically evaluated.

German and Austro-Hungarian Armies’ Invasion of Ukraine: Phase Two (February 20 — March 5, 1918)

Dramatic events of the spring of 1918 are important pages in the history of Ukrainian statehood. For the first time in the 20th century Ukraine faced the crisis caused by armed bands of Russian Bolsheviks, who, under the distorted slogans of “national self-determination”, refused to acknowledge Ukraine as an independent state. Soviet politicians proved to be as chauvinistic as their predecessors – Russian imperial bureaucrats. Upon signing peace treaty in Brest-Litovsk between Ukraine and the Central Powers on February 18, 1918, German Army started operations aimed to restore Central Rada to power. Ukrainian historiography considers this case primarily focusing on the activity of the Ukrainian Army and investigates operations of German and Austro-Hungarian forces quite fragmentarily. Even the recently published well-documented studies by Austrian scholars V. Dornik and P. Lib, as well as the Polish researcher V. Mȩdrzecki, did not provide a comprehensive coverage of these military operations. This article is aimed to study phase two of the German and Austro-Hungarian Armies’ march into Ukraine (February 20 – March 5, 1918). Initially, the plan of the German High Command did not envisage complete occupation of Ukraine. In the article, special attention is paid to the order of battle of the Central Powers’ armies that marched into Ukraine, their operational plans and tasks, as well as the battles that followed. This information should assist Ukrainian scholars in studying operations of the Ukrainian Army during the Central Rada period. Strategic situation as of March 5, 1918 determined further plans of the German and Austro-Hungarian commands and caused follow-up operations in eastern Ukraine during phase three (early March – late May 1918).

German and Austro-Hungarian Armies’ Invasion of Ukraine: Phase One (February 18—20, 1918)

Modern Ukrainian historiography tends to consider the march of Central Powers’ armies into Ukraine as a mere sideshow caused by internal political and social processes. This view was also influenced by the overideological and factually incorrect Soviet scholarly heritage. Recently, valuable investigations have been published by the Austrian scholars V. Dornik and P. Lib, as well as the Polish scholar V. Medrzecki, with the use of new data from German archives of Munich, Dresden, and Stuttgart. However, some facts have been misinterpreted. At the same time, 1918 historical events cannot be correctly reconstructed without proper understanding of German and Austro-Hungarian military operations in Ukraine. Therefore, it is important to reconstruct the order of battle of German and Austro-Hungarian forces in Ukraine, to study operations aimed to expel Bolsheviks from the territory of Ukrainian People’s Republic and the progress of the following occupation of Ukraine. The objective of the article is to study the first phase of the Central Powers armies’ march into Ukraine (February 18–20, 1918). At that moment, plans of the German High Command were not specified, and total occupation of Ukraine was not considered yet. Advance in Ukraine was a part of the Faustschlag operation, commenced on February 18, 1918, and aimed to conquer Baltic region and Belarus. Initially, only 6 divisions were employed; they were considered sufficient to restore the power of Central Rada and to help Ukrainians fight Bolsheviks. Phase one lasted only for two days (February 18–20, 1918). During those days it became apparent that German divisions would meet no organized or tough opposition. Therefore, offensive turned into hot pursuit along railways and principal roads. On February 20, 1918, German High Command started phase two of the operation, aimed at capturing Kyiv and restoration of power of the Ukrainian government.

World War I and the Russian Revolution in the Memoirs of German Officer Wilhelm Wölfing

This is the first publication of the memoirs of W. Wölfing, a German reserve officer and participant in World War I. This unique archival document contains information about his time in captivity in Siberia between 1915 and 1917 and his activity as an official representative of the German High Command in Moscow in 1918. The text of the memoirs is kept in the Federal Military Archive of Germany in Freiburg. It has never been published in Germany or translated into Russian previously. The text has a pronounced anti-Bolshevik tone: equally, its author presents the development of events between 1917 and 1918 as being unsupported by the German government, which makes it possible to consider the position of Wölfing as an alternative to the preservation of the German Empire and the destruction of the Bolshevik regime. The author’s biography combines typical and unique features: a certified lawyer; a reservist on the Eastern front during World War I; an uhlan sent on air reconnaissance; and a German officer who led a carefree life in Russian captivity and made an adventurous escape in 1918. After the signing of the Brest Peace Agreement between Germany and Soviet Russia, he headed the Moscow Office of the the German High Command’s Foreign Policy Department; in this capacity, he was engaged in propaganda work, promoted emigration, and was an advocate of a military intervention in Russia to overthrow the Bolsheviks. His status as a diplomat allowed him to establish broad and diverse contacts. He had contacts among representatives of the Bolshevik leadership, including the Chekists (Radek, Peters), “former people” hostile to the new government (Patriarch Tikhon, Prince Lvov), cultural activists, and many foreigners. The memoirs contain many details of Russian everyday life in the wartime conditions before the Revolution and at the beginning of the post-revolutionary period. They also make it possible to clarify prevailing ideas about the nature of the political processes that took place in 1918, primarily in regards to the extent to which the Bolsheviks influenced the events of the November Revolution in Germany and the possible alternatives to Russian history between 1918 and 1919.

Defiant Breakwaters or Desperate Blunders? A Revision of the German Late-War Fortress Strategy

This article analyzes the impact of Germany’s late-war fortress strategy on both the German defensive conduct and Soviet offensive considerations. The strategy remains shrouded in obscurity, as most historians merely employ the — predominantly negative — opinions of German generals. Therefore, it has been dismissed as yet another example of the inadequacy of Hitler and the German High Command (OKH) to form a suitable defensive strategy. The purpose of this article is to balance this view and bring to light some of the lesser-known characteristics of the strategy. Festung Königsberg, present-day Kaliningrad, will be used as a case study. The developments in and around the city during the period between November 1944 and April 1945 contradict most of the prevailing assumptions about the strategy.

Michael B. Barrett. Prelude to Blitzkrieg: The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania.

The 1916 Romanian campaign is little known and studied even less. Michael B. Barrett has written an important and timely account of one of the most remarkable campaigns of the First World War. After declaring war on the Central Powers of Germany, Bulgaria, and Austro-Hungary in August 1916, Romanian forces mounted Plan Z, a military operation that was supposed to secure their long-held territorial ambitions and liberate their kinsmen in Hungarian-controlled Transylvania. The Romanians had done so on the assumption that their enemies would be gravely weakened by the heavy fighting on the Western Front at Verdun and the Somme, the latter of which was barely a month old. They judged that now was the right moment to strike. Yet the Romanians had committed the cardinal sin of underestimating their opponents. In what was a stunningly successful counterattack, the German High Command on the Eastern Front rallied quickly and managed to bring a force of thirty-five infantry and six cavalry divisions into the field. In early September some three German and Austrian armies marched up to 360 miles into Romania, across heavily forested and mountainous terrain, and managed to push Romania out of the war in just 135 days. Compared with the seemingly endless battles of attrition on the Western Front, the campaign in Romania proved that decisive maneuver was still possible under certain circumstances. Moreover, it showed that General Erich von Falkenhayn, the man who had lost his job as Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army because of Romania's belligerency, was still a capable field commander at the operational level.

Hating Soviets—Killing Jews: How Antisemitic Were Local Perpetrators in Southern Ukraine, 1941–42?

This article intends to contribute to the scholarly debates on the role of popular antisemitism in the annihilation of East European Jewry. It focuses on the situation in part of southern Ukraine that in 1941-44 was occupied by the Romanians, who during that time were responsible for the death, either by killing or as result of starvation and disease, of between 104,000 and 120,000 Jews. (1) The study of perpetrators of crimes against humanity who were local residents of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe and Eurasia has made substantial progress in the past two decades. Drawing on the conceptual apparatus and methodology developed by scholars of German perpetrators and benefiting from the availability of previously classified Soviet-era archival documents, scholars have successfully mapped out new subfield of genocide and Holocaust research as well as of violence in modern Europe in general. (2) The fundamental issues in this subfield appear to be similar to those in the study of German perpetrators: how ordinary were the perpetrators; how representative were they of the local population; were the determinants of their extraordinary cruelty mostly sociocultural or psychiatric; what drove them to participate in the blood-curdling mass murder of apparently harmless civilians? The palette of responses to this last question includes vengefulness (that is, the desire to avenge those who suffered at the hands of the Soviets), careerism/conformism, attempts to expiate service to the Soviets by exaggerated loyalty to the new masters, ideological antisemitism, sadism, and lust for power. (3) Scholars have usually found that a combination of several of these motivations played role within each individual. (4) Still, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the most hotly debated question, and probably the most consequential, both methodologically and culturally/politically, is that of antisemitic ideology as determinant of local perpetrators' behavior. Although hardly anybody denies that antisemitism was one of the factors conditioning the violence, there exists considerable disagreement among scholars as to what kind of antisemitism it was: was it rooted in the unfathomable recesses of European culture, imbued with crazy medieval visions of satanic Christ-killers bleeding babies to death to cook matzoh on the eve of Passover, or was it less obviously paranoid belief system, stemming from the more recent experience of communist rule in which many local Jews supposedly participated willingly and in which they purportedly served as key propagandists, policemen, and executioners? While these varieties of antisemitism are not necessarily mutually exclusive, in practice scholars often favor one over the other. Depending on their choice, they may arrive at vastly different conclusions. Perhaps most famously, Jan Gross dismissed references to the traumatic experience of Soviet occupation and the Jews' purported role in the communist apparatus of repression in eastern Poland as lacking solid evidence. Instead, the age-old antisemitic imagination and traditions of sporadic popular violence against Jews legitimated by Romantic nationalism had incomparably greater heuristic value for Gross's investigation of how Poles turned against their Jewish neighbors in the wake of German occupation. (5) In contrast, Bogdan Musial sees the trauma and shock of Soviet occupation-era atrocities, with some Jews serving as the most trusted agents of the authorities, as an impulse for antisemitic pogroms perpetrated by local Christians with the connivance and support of the Wehrmacht in the summer of 1941, even in the absence (at this early stage) of genocidal order from the German High Command. (6) On the other hand, one renowned historian has recently suggested in well-publicized but controversial book that antisemitism was not an issue in this story at all, arguing instead that local helpers of Nazis were motivated by the need for survival and an all too human tendency to conform to superiors' orders. …

DELVILLE WOOD: THE SOUTH AFRICANS IN FRANCE APRIL-JULY 1916

On 28 June 1914 Bosnian nationalists had assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and thus unwittingly precipitated the sequence of diplomatic and military preparations which propelled Europe to war. By the end of July the major continental powers had mobilised and by early August Germany was at war with both Russia and France. Her ally, Austria, would be incapable of containing the massive Russian armies once these had been organised, and Germany faced the daunting prospect of a war on two fronts. The German High Command had long possessed a scheme for obviating this disadvantage, and by launching a swift and decisive stroke against France hoped to secure a victory in the West before moving the bulk of her armies eastwards against Russia. Yet the plan for this initial offensive, the so-called Schlieffen Plan, required the German armies to move through Belgium in order to outflank the French defences and on 4 August 1914 this action provided Britain with the necessary jus- tification to enter the war at the side of France and Belgium. In the first few weeks of war the invading German armies scored a series of rapid and in- spiring successes, but by the beginning of Septem- ber the French, aided by a small British Expeditionary Force, halted the enemy advance and compelled a tactical withdrawal.1 The front-line troops of both sides now dug themselves crude entrenchments and awaited reinforcements and fresh supplies. Attempts to restore the battle of manoeuvre by outflanking the northern end of the opposing line merely resulted in the establishment of a line of trenches

DIE ROL VAN DIE SEEMAG IN DUITS SUIDWES-AFRIKA 1914-15

At the outbreak of World War I the German colony of South West Africa poseda serious threat to the British war effort.' The colony wn situated on the main andsefest British supply and communication route to the eut, and It was therefore of theutmost Importance that It should fall Into Allied hands. Otherwise the harbours ofUideritzbucht, Walflsch Bay and Swakopmund might be used by the German Pacificsquadron - then operating off the South American Cont, and strong radio transmittersof the colony could keep the German High Command well Informed of the situationIn the southern hemisphere.General Botha, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, agreed to a Britishrequest to send an expedition against the German colony, but before this could getunder way, a serious rebellion broke out In the Union. The defeat of Cradock's squadronat Coronel and the prnenca of von Spee's warships in the Atlantic added to theanxietln of the South African leaders.For the next two months the Admiralty'. Inability to provide an adequate escortfor the expeditionary foree and the dlaorganlaetlon of the Union Defence Forenby the rebellion upset the South African plans for the campaign In South West Africa.Only with the defeat of von Spee at the Falkland Islands and the capitulation of theprincipal rebel forees In South Africa was It possibleto launch the expedition effectively.

Unwinding performance and power on Colossus, an unconventional computer

In 1944 the computing machine known as Colossus became operational in support of British cryptanalysis and decryption of German High Command wireless traffic. This first electronic digital and very unconventional computer was not a stored-program general purpose computer in today’s terms, despite printed claims to the contrary. At least one of these asserts Colossus was a Turing machine. While an appropriate Turing machine can simulate the operation of Colossus, that is not an argument for generality of computation. Nor does the behavior of Colossus resemble that of a Turing machine, much less a universal Turing machine (UTM). Nonetheless, we shall see that a UTM could have been implemented on a clustering of the ten Colossus machines installed at Bletchley Park, England, by the end of WWII in 1945. Improvements require even fewer machines. Several advances in input, output, speed, processing, and applications—within the hardware capability of the time and respectful of the specification of Colossus—are also offered.