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The Nazis were experienced at mass murder by 1942, having already killed millions of disabled people, Soviet POWs and Jewish people in Eastern Europe.

The year 1942 and Operation Reinhard would see a system of rapid and efficient murder of large numbers of people, the like of which had never been seen before. They kept the operation secret, and the very impossibility of imagining such a horror kept its victims ignorant of the fate that awaited them.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, “Pathétique.”
Composed in 1799 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Performed by Paul Pittman. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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When the Nazis came to power in Germany, the SS began building concentration camps. Those held there were mostly ethnic Germans until 1938, hardly any of whom were Jewish.

Imprisonment of Jewish Germans simply for being Jewish did not begin until 1938. After the fall of Poland in 1939, the Nazis began the policy of “extermination through labor.”

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Fyra Aqvateller
Composed in 1899 by Tor Aulin. Public domain.
Performed by Gregory Maytan and Nicole Lee, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Following the Battle of Midway, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff decided America needed to take advantage of the momentum gained by launching Operation Watchtower, the first US offensive operation of the war.

US Marines landed on Guadalcanal to seize an airfield the Japanese were building there. The operation was rushed and the Marines short on supplies, which moved them to refer to the mission jokingly as “Operation Shoestring.”

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Pacific – 1941”
Composed and performed by Antonio Serbanescu.
Presented by arrangement with Pond5.com

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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The first weeks of Germany’s 1942 offensive against the USSR went well enough, except that the Wehrmacht was no longer surrounding pockets of hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers as it repeatedly had in 1941. The Red Army was more mobile, and had learned its lesson.

Hitler was sufficiently pleased to revise the plan in July; instead to taking Stalingrad and the Caucasus sequentially, Army Group South was divided into two parts, which would proceed against those objectives simultaneously.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Song of the Volga Boatmen”
Traditional. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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As soon as the United States entered the war, the US military wanted to land in France and take on the Wehrmacht. The Western Allies eventually agreed to a raid on the French port of Dieppe to test German defenses.

Meanwhile, German military intelligence began an operation to land saboteurs in the United States.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“U.S. Field Artillery March”
Composed in 1917 by Edmund Gruber and John Philip Sousa. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Marine Band. Public domain recording. Source.

“Big Band Swing”
Composed and performed by Tim Brown.
Used by arrangement with Pond 5.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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When Japan attacked the US and the UK, China had new allies, but getting American Lend-Lease aid into China was a challenge.

Mao Zedong married Jiang Qing and secured his control over the Chinese Communist Party.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Asian Drums”
Composed and performed by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com).
Used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Over the winter of 1941-2, Hitler redeployed Luftwaffe units back to the Mediterranean, which meant more supplies were reaching Rommel’s army.

A new Axis offensive captured Tobruk and drove deep into Egypt.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Pomp and Circumstance, March No. 3
Composed in 1904 by Sir Edward Elgar. Public domain.
Performed by The Eastern Wind Symphony, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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When German air units in the Mediterranean were redeployed to support the invasion of the USSR, British air and naval units increasingly threatened Axis supply lines in North Africa.

In November 1941, the British Operation Crusader broke the eight-month siege of Tobruk and drove the Axis forces out of Cyrenaica.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Violin Concerto in F Minor, “Autumn”
Composed in 1723 by Antonio Vivaldi. Public domain.
Performed by John Harrison, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license. Source.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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When the US entered the war, German U-boasts began to prey on the heavy shipping traffic up and down the East Coast of the United States.

Disagreements between the US and Royal Navies, coupled with a shortage of escort ships, left American merchant ships with little to no protection.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre
Composed in 1870 by Richard Wagner. Public domain.
Performed by The University of Chicago Orchestra, conducted by Barbara Schubert, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. Source.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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On the Eastern Front, Hitler and the Wehrmacht planned their 1942 offensive. The Wehrmacht was battered after the hard winter, while the Red Army was stronger than ever.

Unhappy with the unrest in Bohemia and Moravia, Hitler assigned Reinhard Heydrich to pacify the region.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Violin Sonata
Composed in 1914 by Leoš Janáček. Public domain.
Performed by Jean-Claude Féret and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 3.0 DEED. Source.

Closing War Theme

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.