126 - The Formalization of Extermination - The Wannsee Conference - WW2 - January 23, 1942

January 23, 1942

The final solution.

I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.

Last week the Japanese offensives in Southeast Asia and the Pacific continued and grew even

larger, as they invaded the Dutch East Indies; the Soviet offensives also continued and grew

larger on the Eastern Front; and at sea German U-Boats began major operations just off the

east coast of the United States.

Something that’s finishing this week happens in North Africa.

On the 17th, the British finally take Halfaya Pass and 5,500 Axis prisoners.

It has held out isolated for two months under Major the Reverend Wilhelm Bach.

This is the end of the frontier battles, but they were important.

The Italians at Halfaya and Bardia tied down a whole British division, blocked the coastal

road, and prevented the railway from being built out to Capuzzo.

Summary

This is also really the end of Operation Crusader, though it actively ended in December.

Just comparing casualty figures, between November and now, the Allies took 17,700 casualties,

15% of the total they used, and the Axis 38,300, 32% of theirs, so this is on paper a decisive

Allied victory, but not in actual reality.

They did not achieve their aims.

And Axis commander Erwin Rommel has his supply system still in place and has administrative security.

And he’s perfectly capable of continuing the fight.

“In the final analysis, however, it was bad tactics and a weakness in command that

contributed most to the British failure to gain a thoroughly decisive victory, the underlying

factor being the inability of the senior officers to handle large forces of armor on the battlefield.”

But it’s not like they had been trained to handle larger armor groups, because they

hadn’t, so it was trial and error, and remember, this was the first time ever that a British

Armored Corps had been established.

Britain had never had an armored division until 1939 and had not had time for real training

with real equipment since then with or without the Sahara Desert, and the enemy certainly

has plenty of active campaign experience.

But victory it is, though not decisive victory.

And Theater Commander Claude Auchinlek and his staff are pretty confident about the future.

They’re going to prepare for another advance, and of course Rommel is in no position to

mount an offensive of his own for the time being.

Except not.

He gets 54 new tanks on the 15th, but already decided last week to launch a spoiler attack

to delay any coming enemy offensive.

He’s got 300 planes or so that can give at least local air supremacy, and 37,000 Italian

and German troops is larger than anything British 8th Army Commander Neil Ritchie can