Pleasure to introduce todays offer. Andrew is an awardwinning journalist and author who spent more than three decades as a correspondent and editor for newsweek where he served as the bureau chief in hong kong, moscow, rome, warsaw and berlin. The subject of todays top 1941 the year germany losts the wars scheduled for public release next week. This is his first talk on the book and we do have them for sale following the lecture and they will be sold so please stay for the reception and book signing. According to jon meacham, the book gives a vivid account of the year that shaped not only the conflicts of the hour but the course of our lives even now and the bestselling author observes it must have been the bravest and stupidest year in modern times. With the gripping narrative and revelation, he shows us why a character is destiny. Please join me in welcoming andrew. [applause] thanks to all of you for being here. Everybody must want a little bit of a break from the intensive political news and want to talk about the good old days. I appreciate the hospitality inviting me to this event and giving me the tour which is fabulous im sure most of you have done it but it was my first. What particularly struck me is writers as you may realize tenth to be a little obsessive about things. The obsessions about the house, how to design it and then you just see things in her underlining it in various places make it feel very familiar. The other thing that feels familiar is that the works were often a product of her upbringing while she was back and forth between europe and the United States, she did grow up in mostly after a few years of a very Early Childhood in new york and her obsession with the social forays of that era turnofthecentury new york high society, the way social relations were conducted a. Its fascinating to see, and i think all her life, no matter where she was. My obsessions i think our a little bit a result of that they of my upbringing even though i didnt necessarily think i would end up writing books mainly about what happened in europe and in particular germany in the 20s, 30s and defending the war. I was just by way of background my parents grew up in poland. My father was called up into the polish army and win the battle was over which was about a month, poland have resisted very bravely at times, but were totally overwhelmed. He and a buddy decided not to turn themselves into the pow camp as they were supposed to and make a run for it. I grew up on the stories of how we got out of pulling mostly on foot starting with his buddy and the 26th of them eluding to the german patrols my grandfather was involved in the polish government and then as in the movie dunkirk, the polish troops who were there were evacuated from a different port and he ended up in scotland under british command and i was barn in the edinburg thats why im andrew. [laughter] however at the age of ten months i arrived and thats why my scottish accent is a little faint. [laughter] but i grew up hearing stories of the war, meeting people who had abandoned the underground in poland and other places and just hearing the stories about how much there was just, how much of it was a matter of chance erwhether you survived or didnt survive, and i was always intrigued by them, but growing up your not sure, your parents talk about these things and your friends talk about these things and i wasnt sure how carefully i was following all the conversations, but i know that certain things stuck inhi my mi. For instance the fact that at the time of the trial in 1961 when i would have been still quite a young boy, i remember at one point being in a diner with my dad and everybody is talking about these nazis that escaped and i said look at that older guy down there, that maybe hitler and he said no i dont think so. [laughter] but so there was a sense of this legacy that there and its not something far away and distant and thats the way when i became a reporter then based in germany twice in russia and poland and had chances to interview people whether they were Holocaust Survivors or they had been veterans sometimes part of the german army you realize this is living history and theres still a chance to get this history so what do i can i try not only to look at diaries and documents and so forth, that to interview people, and even for this book about 1941, i was able to draw on some of the interviews i did before particularly from the battle of moscow but even then i still managed to find some in minneapolis. Its incredible where some of these people can show up. I found a woman who worked in the polish government in exile where my grandfather was and i hear stories about the bombings of london and so forth. When i interviewed her, where i start the project three years ago, she was 103. And just this week, i made some inquiries can i send a book to her. Shes 106 and i can send a book to her so i feel very blessed to be able to still capture some of these voices, and when i was at newsweek in 95, we did a big cover story about the liberation of auschwitz on the 50th anniversary and i interviewed survivors from h many countries and the stories accumulate and became part of this book and in some cases other books. I think our fascination in this era, the fact that so many of you are here today it is also the fact that there is something about that era which is peculiar to the time of course to the main country germany but its also about human nature. One of the things of the newsweek correspondent in the 80s and in Eastern Europe and the soviet union it was evident to me how certain individuals driven movements like the dissidents in the soviet union or the leaders like pope john paul, gorbachev that things happen not because they are predestined but because of individual choices and sometimes almost accidental choices and history is something that is never a set predestined pattern. So, im always looking for those pivotal moments, and in the early days when i first started thinking about writing books about th the scarecrow i have t. How i have to say i was intimidated. I thought there were others that havhad written such i amazing b, who am i to try to write more about it but then began to realize theres always parts of the storyer that uncover new was of looking at it and the first book i wrote about this is a historical novel and a fantasy based on this whole question of how things could have turned out differently about hitlers life in munich in their early 20s, called last stop in vienna. When i was doing that to give you one example, competing historical versus journalistic approach i decided im going to write something about this pure cup i need to see where did hitler lived in munich when he first came as an unknown entity at first and i tracked down the one room he rented when he first was discharged from the austrian army, and then i tracked down it discovered a bigger apartment once the movement took off and he had bigger supporters so how will i get in to see these apartments . They are buildings of people that lived there so the first apartment where i went where you only have the one room i come up to visit and knock on the door and theres a young german man that opens the door, his father is there and i say in german but with an american accent, i am an american correspondent. She says you want to see hitlers room. [laughter] this was easier than i thought. [laughter] then the other place was a big fancy building with ae ten room apartment. When i pulled up in a taxi i could see the whole thing is undergoing major renovations from the inside. Everybodys been moved out, most of the apartments were turned into offices and so orders were going in and out, all the doors were open and i was probably dressed Something Like ibm todam today with a jacket and a tie. I didnt ask anyone, i just walked in with a notebook and went to the apartment and they assumed i must have had permission tossav be there. And i got to see s everything. I would like to really get a firsthand feel and in my books including the one about 1941, i tried to get a sense of what it was like then as opposed to an retrospect and this whole thing about germany, what was it like. In one of my earlier books i talk about the perspective of americans who lived and worked in germany in the 20s and 30s, the journalists, diplomats and others. It was always from their perspectives one of the things that the striking is after world war i, berlin was a fabulous place. Theater, painting, of course great science, albert einstein, all of that was happening. And in 1927, a wonderful correspondent for the Chicago Daily news wrote ii cannot conceive of a more Tolerant Society knowing whats coming next thats a rather stunning sentence. So a lot of what i tried to write about before is how thats what happened. And a lot of it ha had to do wih hitler being underestimated. The rhetoric was sort of for the base and it didnt much matter. It wasnt something we should be terribly worried about. Dorothy thompson and im almost sure she would have known. Dorothy thompson met hitler in 1931 before he took power. I have the most peculiar that shows the alcoholics into hysterics. At the same time, he has almost a soft almost feminine charm and by the way, this was often a reaction that he wasnt manly enough to deal with a german politician and she write to you will be out of luck. In other words, and you will nevehe will nevertake power. Later she corrected herself and was a Real Campaign against the nazis, but its interesting those kind of reactions and misreadings. For tickets to this point where hes underestimated and is sometimes scares his own juniors, the people working for him. Of the Top Economists in the german army by the name of general thomas kept warning him be careful about the plans for aggression first to force a confrontation over czechoslovakia. You will get these other powers against you and germany long term doesnt have the resources or the manpower to weigh in against all of our enemies. It was austria earlier everything is collapsing and in hitlers view this means they will have to make a separate peace. They are ready to conquer the whole world. They begin to doubt their own bout because it was at that point hitler had gotten away with this and he called him the greatest military commander of all time and even some of the generals who were the most skeptical, in marshalls head he seemed to have an infallible instinct you have germany at its height and everybody else reeling. Remember at this point the United States is still neutral, a strong isolationist movement with Charles Lindbergh among the most prominent figures in that. To keep friendly on the terms and provide all sorts of resources for the effort. So, hitlers writing quite high, and yet at the end of 1941, the situation is totally changed. And thats the story that im trying to tell the year germany lost the war. Obviously they didnt lose the war in 1941. Its not a typo. That is a dramatic and brave thing to do, but i would argue that the preconditions were all in 1941 and set the stage for the process of rebuilding that would eventually culminate i ino the conquest of the continent. What are the main factors here that madee that possible . Three things. First of all, the role of the individual in particular of churchill to a lesser degree roosevelt, but especially churchill being the one leader who refused to surrender. We all know his famous frederi frederick. The gobetween is the roosevelt administration. In may of 41 when their friends were falling he turned to his private bodyguard from scotland who congratulated him and said you have an enormous task ahead of you and churchill had tears in his eyes when he said i hope it isntch too late. That isnt public churchill, that was a private churchill. Theres a fascinating character in london and the i u. S. Embass. He fought in france and from an anglophile American Family he was constantly at odds with the u. S. Ambassador in london to the beginning of 41, joseph kennedy. Utit should cut a deal whatever deal it can and it makes no sense to support britain because it is going to lose anyway. Anything you do to support it is just a wasted effort. There are people like general eads are opposed to that and realized also that its a matter of fighting the Public Relations war back in the states particularly with the help of american journalists. Including by the way Dorothy Thompson he brought them into his office and had a staff of dictionaries on his desk and said im reading a lot of new reports where you are saying london is i devastated. Then they wrote a definition of devastated and said look out ths window. This isnt a devastated the city. If you want one soldiers opinion, itop wont be. By the end of 41 this message was this isnt devastation in the sense that its not going ta defeat the british. So there were all these efforts and churchill andh. Roosevelt st up a relationship that i going o at some length in the book where first when kennedy wasas still there, they communicated by letters and cables that bypass kennedy deliberately. Roosevelt tended to look at churchill as an oldfashioned british imperialist. Churchill in private again as much as he admonished his people dont push the people because he is god and electoral opposition and we cant expect him to go against his own interest. Only congress can declare the war. And there were a lot of complaints about some of the british americans that roosevelt was dragging his feet but when there is a battle in 41 about providing aid to britain and later the same legislation would help provide aid to the soviet union at one point he snapped and said something about those bloody yankees once again giving us problems, but on the whole they would nurtureon this relationship it was a longdistance relationship, that of course it was this kind of relationship where roosevelt began sending over and invoice like Harry Hopkins and others and they became very close personal relationships and churchill was an expert in and present them with his determination and bringing over the american journalists. By the end of the year after it ends with pearl harbor, after pearl harbor the u. S. Finally is forced into the war. To me the incident that epitomizes their relationship is at that point they finally come to the White House Companies invited to discuss the strategy and given the visibility. They are there to do the business in and out of each others bedrooms and one day he is dictating something to his aid and he got up and put a towel around himself and kept dictating and goes out and do aa certain point the towel falls to the floor. El that moment, the roosevelt rolls in on his wheelchair. You have by the way the governor, new ambassador who had come to represent the roosevelt administration, he had been the governor of New Hampshire and was very probritish and churchill and also has an affair with churchills daughter. That relationship was a prerequisite, but what was then the big factors were then hitlers gambles because he acted like a compulsive gambler. The more things began to go his waway, the more he upped the stakes and when things begin to gbegan togo against him, he uppe stakes some more. So what happens is his air force doesnt om britain into submission. Hes frustrated. So he goes back to the original ideas, which he spelled out again and again especially that germanys future lies on the conquest of the east which means the soviet union to enslave, colonize and exploit. He decides what im going to do a it wil little convincing to mt easy to dominate the soviet union so then he turns to say to downplay britain for a moment and then britain will be spirited and cave and of a u. S. Will not get involved in a serious way. He visited napoleons tomb in paris after he conquered paris and he knew that napoleon attacked the soviet union in the previous century going into late june and then his armies got stuck in the russian winter and famously were destroyed. He felt his army was much more modern and it would do better. But just in case, we will attack in may but then he is distracted by the coup in belgrade of a copublic government who sent ths forces. June 22 exactly to the date despite that he comes in because this ise the period where i thk you get the remark made about the book. He eventually would have to lose and stalin wasnt refusing to believe all sorts of western intelligence. Hitler is about to attack you. You better get ready. Hes not even allowing them to go on alert. He wasnt ready for the war at that point, and so than his own spies are telling him the same thing again and again. And heie refuses to and it is a western plot. They must be double agents. What happens, first of all, some of the people who welcomed his army out because they knew much about hitler or the nazis or the ideology that they had been terrorized by stalin for so long. There had been mass executions. Instead of hitler saying at least pretend for a while to be liberators, no committee was instituted by the army not against the jews of course with the beginning of the holocaust with what was the hebrew term for holocaust where they would send in killing squab and kill all of the jews and others in town and from herds of thousands were killed that way but also, the germans captured huge numbers of pows and some of them surrendered willingly at first thinking it would be better than being in stalins army. Well, they were starved, beaten, executed. So, by 1942, about 2 million have died in german hands. These numbers are just stunning. When stalin tells people you better fight them a the people o take him seriously. So you have this war which is horribly fought on both sides but the german armies are cominl up close but then hitler decides that hes going to send his army and they say theyve got to go south to the uk. That delay is the assault until first the fall rains come in a. So they come into the soviet union in that first year without uniform. He was so confident of victory so you can imagine what happen happened. Its a question almost of who can make the worst mistakes, and as a result stalling was able to hold out the panic in moscow but he manages to tie against lowly things began at the same thing here itimethere is the questione holocaust. Its no accident that it coincided with the beginning of the holocaust. It was the fulfillment of hitlers pledge to exterminate and he decides hes going to do it at all cost if i was reading the diary of a german general leading the drive on ask he says i just read when things started going badly they are being deported f from western europe o the front lines. He was outraged because he said we need winter uniforms, ammunition and so forth. So, these are the kind of things going on. During this time that this is happening, and then of course the other event is pearl harbor and the japanese attack on pearl harbor, but thehe number one thg about pearl harbor, japan attacks on the seventh, roosevelt asks for the declaration of war and of course it did at the declaration of wan is against japan, not germany. And at that point i think fdr knew that it was inevitable that hitler declares war on the United States first. He becomes, the progressive evolution is now that japan is in the war, we cant lose. It will tie down america on the pacific and they wont be able to continue helping britain and the soviet union. The numbers alone make that a huge miscalculation. By that time, the United States, britain and the soviet union had a three to one advantage in terms of population, a little bit more than three to one, two to one in terms of gdp, seven times the territory. One says if you declare war on the whole world, usually the whole world wins and thats what happened. And it wasni churchill who recognized there were still the votes going on to the fighting i, the fighting inafrica. Everything you need to everything still looked bleak by the end of 40 when everything was ending. It was far from a one war but churchill at that point in the speech the Canadian Parliament could say so we have won after all. England would lose and hitlers fate was sealed and he was right, but it would take another three and a half years for that to happen. Thank you. [applause] i would be happy to take some questions. If you can just wait for the microphone for a second. I stil i still dont understand why hitler would declare war on the United States even if he felt the United States was tied up with japan, why do it . For one thing, hitler signed a pact with germany, with japan and italycome, so they pledged o each other that they wouldt declare war, but its a pledge that didnt mean anything. Hitlerin was struck again and again in researching this and reading about conversations and accounts of conversations that o were not with his inner circle during this period many of which i quote inhe the book, how to an outsider it seems that he was doing was crazy basically. How can you expect to win. But it had an inner logic and that was again japan getting enticed on the United States and hes already worried about s he had a first estimation of the United States wouldnt be able to get industrial loft in 1945. Then by the mid1940s he began to realize its coming down. Okay now japan attacks. Great. They will be so tied up with japan. It was of course a huge the person who is considered a was a political genius at the beginning ofs, the year even by that point realized it wasnt functioning. Now why cant that is another question and its also interesting he begins to get administered in some of these vitamin cocktails by his doctor in this period for all sorts of reasons. He had enough problems without special injections but theyns my have also clouded his judgment a bit more. Yes in the first row. He said stalin wasnt prepared for war but he had already marched through czechoslovakia and have been in his own war in the east. He had to take in eastern poland and control of the baltic states. Czechoslovakia was dismembered by nazi germany. But your point is stalin wanted to expand his empire and they both could flirted. Like his purchase of the military were pretty good, maybe i should have done more of that with my own army. And stalin at one point after the war, his daughter wrote that at one point he said it fell apart but if we get stuck together we would have beeny pretty strong, something to that effect. But he knew the weaknesses of his own system and replaced the country wasnt ready for the war but he made the situation worse. There were flights from the planes constantly as they were preparing to attack. They would say those are just training exercises and stalin would say dont shoot anybody down, dont antagonize anyone. But he attacked with 3 million troops. You cant camouflage 3 million troops. And that was important for him marchinge forward . Of course he was austrian. I lived in west germany before and when there was this whole business in the former secretary generasecretarygeneral of the ud they conveniently forgot a few things in the bio about the war. One of the things was that the austrians had convinced the world that hitler was german and beethoven was austrian. [laughter] he was austrian, and he wanted to declare and when he first was rising to power, he was still technically an austrian citizen. That is true. Yes. This question will probably take you all evening to answer. One of the things i found fascinating from the writing is the way that megalomania manifested differently. Talk about the difference m between stalin and hitler. I wonder if you can talk about that and if there is more in your current book. I know we dont have that much time. The war was different in that this is very evident in this period of 1941. Hitler doesnt learn from his mistakes. He multiplies his mistakes. For a while he ran off and was humiliated and have all these predictions saying this isnt going to happen now. And at a certain point, the bureau membersit came to talk to them. They felt that they might be arresting him and stalin made one big decision at the moment when it looked like the germans might take moscow. This city ithe city and the 600o the east. The diplomats have been moved there. At least in terms of the immediate fighting. They eventually fired top generals. They begin to trust one man who was the commander in chief. They could begin teaching a few things about how to get out of the situation. They could still turn against anybody but he was shrewd in the long run. I know this is a theoretical question, but. I remember having an account ink the book. To urge congress to go all the way on this. If hitler had been attacked, i think its one of these things where the triggers were going off and its hard to imagine there could have been a completely separate for giving the alliances that have been formed and churchill himself said after pearl harbor when he got roosevelt on the phone and in the memoirs wrote something i hope americans will take basically said this is good news for us because we need you, and the americans have understood that were certainly sympathetic. But he campaigned in 1940 to keep the u. S. Out of the war, but at the same time he was telling people first the supply is like a neighbor if the houses ohouseifis on fire, take a garde and you better give it to your neighbor and not charge him for it. Thats logic even though there was isolation and the sentiment, that logic began to get through to people, and also the isolation didnt do themselves any favors. They would be better if britain won this war. No, not if neither side won the war. Was titled how hitler lost the war and the decisions for example the bombing of the airfield to and jet propulsion refusing to use automaticma weapons for the troops as a part of his megalomania, how do you view some of those decisions in general . One of the things, general lee was a fascinating character walking into these walkabouts in london in the show of support, and that was dangerous. There were b bombs falling. But at first i though he was buried, he would also say as a military man these bombings dont make sense. It was all over the place and part of it was the head of the air force. He thought he always claimed we will bomb everybody into submission and even earlier when the allied troops were retreating towards dunkirk, the german tanks of the general were within range and they were held back because they said the air force will take care of them, but they didnt and it proved as a result more than 300,000 french and british troops and others got out. So, t as a military leader, that was one of the biggest things that became apparent especially in 41 how hitler overestimated himself and what a poor military leader he was, but despite that for three and a half years even after dday e the battle shows f they had a good military leadership its chilling to contemplate how much worse it could have been a. [applause]. Cspan washington journal live every day with new and policy issues. Coming up friday morning, scott paul with the alliance for America Manufacturing talks about manufacturing jobs in trump demonstration trade policy. And part of the podcast we, we talk with congressionals, jennifer. Be sure to watch cspan washington journal live as seven eastern, friday morning. Join the discussion. Book tv look at world war ii continues with former Army Transportation specialist. She recalls the efforts of four african working women who sought the same treatment listed in the army corps in the book glory in their spirit