Experimental use of Rocket Launcher 1945 - Patreon Channel Member Advantages - Military1945.com

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That’s quality footage from the newsreel Nr. 644 from the Ausland Tonwoche newsreel series. The series is special because it was produced by the Germans to be shown in foreign countries often without commentary but with the authentic battle sounds. At the end of this video I’ll show more rare footage of experimental use of such rocket launchers.

But the main point of this video is to announce the release of the website Military1945.com, to show how the development of its functionality will evolve and to explain the advantages of becoming a Patreon Channel Member - patreon.com/Military1945

If you like the way I weave together primary sources to create unbiased historical content please like the video and subscribe to the channel. Please do it now, it only takes a second.

To start with go to Military1945.com and create a free account. Logged in you access this page which shows high definition photographs of the original OKW situational maps for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, operation Barbarossa.

All pages in the collection can be zoomed in to 400% which is especially useful for the maps. This is the table of contents listing all the maps in the original collection.

For non Patreon Channel Members the map for June 22, 1941 is active as an example. If you’d like access for the rest which are shaded out and deactivated you’ll need to become a Channel Member.

Here we’re looking at the Eastern Front for June 22, the day Barbarossa began. Ok, let’s increase the zoom to 300% so that we can get a better regional view of the formations.

The blue links lead to videos or groups of videos that cover individual units. The yellow links open order of battle graphs.

We’re focusing now on Army Group Center, specifically Panzer Group 3 that was being lead by General Hermann Hoth. In order to show how the development of this platform will evolve many of the videos that have been produced so far focus on Panzer Group 3.

If we click on the location of its headquarters on this day we can see the breakdown of the formation. It shows the units designation, the names of the leaders, and when available the number and types combat vehicles and their armaments. Motorized units are designated as such. Its kind of a mishmash of English and German terms which is something that serious amateur historians have to get used to. I’ll associate a German English dictionary of military terms that should help.

Now let’s take a look at the videos that have been created that cover the 20. PzD. For units that have multiple videos you will be sent to a playlist on YouTube which helps keep the histories in chronological order. I suggest you set your YouTube screen setting to theater mode. That works nicely.

This wonderful color footage was taken by crew member of a Sd.Kfz. 222 in a recon unit attached to the 20. PzD. Material like this makes up the backbone of my videos. I also use original printed sources and provide direct translations which give the viewers the opportunity to understand the historical significance by themselves. Why tell something that I can easily show. As an example the infamous Kommissarbefehl, or Commissar Order I’ve used in part 1 of the video covering the 20. PzD.

Other examples of printed material that I like to use are the OKW, or Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, War Diaries, and private diaries that were kept by soldiers that I’ve somehow been able to get my hands on. There’s nothing more interesting than being able to release primary source materials that have never before been seen. That goes for private film footage and photo albums also.

When doing a video about a unit, a majority, if not all, of the source material used is specifically about that formation. I can’t stand watching the same repetitive stock footage as overly generalized histories, for example about Stalingrad or Kursk, are told. Serious amateur historians get bored quickly.

You can imagine the amount of time and resources it will take to create the content that will go into all these situational maps. It’s also quite expensive buying the original primary source materials and getting access to such high quality film footage.

As promised, we’ll now take a look at some rare film material from the news reel series Eurpoa Woche Nr. 99 which was released in January of 1945. While it runs I’ll make my final pitch for support.

It’s become clear that YouTube doesn’t generate enough revenue to adequately support all the development of the content and website functionality that I’d like to produce and so I’ve decided to start a Patreon campaign to help finance it.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the advantages and conditions of becoming a military1945 Channel Member please go to Patreon.com/Military1945.