History of the Second World War

As Bismarck and Prinz Eugen departed for the Atlantic, British reconnaissance exposed their presence in Norway and set the Royal Navy’s response in motion. This episode follows the German ships through their final preparations and dash toward the Denmark Strait while examining the severe endurance constraints, aging warships, and untested crews that shaped Britain’s pursuit.<...

In May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck prepared for its first and only wartime cruise into the Atlantic. This episode examines the strategic pressures behind Operation Rheinübung, the compromises that left Bismarck and Prinz Eugen without the support originally envisioned, and Admiral Günther Lütjens’s growing concern that the mission placed Germany’s most powerful warsh...

Geography, German Success in Russia, Economies, and much more in this listener question episodes.

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This episode follows the Battle of the Atlantic through the costly weeks of March 1941, when Germany lost three of its most celebrated U-boat commanders: Günther Prien, Joachim Schepke, and Otto Kretschmer. It examines the expanding British convoy-escort system, the battle surrounding convoy HX-112, and the decisions that pushed Dönitz to disperse his boats farther west and t...

This episode shifts the focus of the naval war from German surface raiders to the U-boats, tracing why they became the central German weapon in the Battle of the Atlantic and why there were still too few of them in late 1940 and early 1941. It covers the effect of French Atlantic bases, the construction of U-boat pens, cooperation with Fw-200 Condors, early combined attacks o...