Bedtime Facts (172/365)

in bedtime-facts •  6 years ago  (edited)

The Finnish Broadcasting Company has the only existing recording of Adolf Hitler's normal speaking voice

Finland and Germany were both at war against the Soviet Union from June 25 1941 until Finland entered into an interim peace agreement with the Soviet Union in September 19 1944. Marshall Mannerheim was the commander-in-chief of the Finnish defence forces during the war. The 4th of June 1942 was Mannerheim's 75th birthday. Hitler decided he wanted to pay Mannerheim a visit on his birthday which was arranged on a very short notice. There were no negotiations between Hitler and the Finnish government or Mannerheim. The visit did have some implicit political significance but its overt purpose was to be a social call only.

Mannerheim, Hitler, the president of Finland Ryti and prime minister Rangell were sitting at a table on the restaurant car of Mannerheim's private train that was parked on an industrial side track near Immola Airfield where Hitler's plane had landed. The conversation was secretly recorded by Thor Damen, a YLE technician. Hitler never allowed anyone to record his conversation off guard. Hitler's SS bodyguards did catch Damen in the act but they did not confiscate the tape, only stopped the recording. Since then the tape has been in YLE archives.

There is a YouTube video containing the entire 11 minute recording with English subtitles.

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Hi Markku. very interesting. Gives a good insight into the thinking and what the Russians missed out on.

Absolutely. Hitler is saying things that one would expect to go through the mind of the leader of a Central European power juggling powerful enemies (at that time the Soviet Union was a potential enemy as the two powers had an agreement) both in the west and the east. Germany synthesized petroleum from coal using the Fischer-Tropsch process but it would've been better to refine crude oil.

The Soviet Union provided Germany with the necessary petroleum products and other essential raw materials after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact when Germany was waging war on the Allied in the west. The Soviet Union got military technology from Germany in exchange.

Further reading: Nazi-Soviet economic relations (1934-1941)

he spoke about the petroleum wells in Romania. Something like 5 million tons was required to run the campaign. Mentioned he was shocked at the number of tanks the Russians had. 35 000. Biggest tank battle in history was at Kursk. 6000 tanks were involved and something like 2 million men lost in one battle.

The Battle of Kursk went on for two and a half weeks in July 1943.

Losses in the battle itself were nowhere near that great. That number of off by at least two orders of magnitude if von Manstein is to be believed. He estimates both German and Soviet losses to be in the tens of thousands during those 18 days. German record keeping was usually reliable in this matters.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

What a scare for Thor Damen. Well, that's what I think. Really I do not know if he shoot him or not. 😨

That shooting would've happened on Finnish soil and would have been extremely inconvenient for both parties. That was certainly not going to happen. The real surprise was that the tape was not confiscated.

ah .. then how good! ... I had not thought about that little detail. but the story would have been another (for you).

Really interesting fact! I'll give it a listen once I am home

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.