Stalin, the Nazis and the West

This is a lecture given by award winning historian, author and documentary filmmaker, Laurence Rees, at Coventry Cathedral.

In this talk, Laurence Rees shares insights into some of the issues faced when making his latest series, 'WW2: Behind Closed Doors Stalin, the Nazis and the West', which was broadcast on BBC2 in November 2008.

If you would like to watch more public lectures from Coventry University then please visit the Coventry University Youtube channel by clicking on the banner above. You can also download podcasts of a variety of lectures at http://coventryuniversity.podbean.com/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• stalin
• nazis
• war
• history
• coventry
• conversations
• cathedral
• lecture
• university
• laurence
• rees
• bbc
• WWII
• worldwar

[luddite1812]

Fascinating. Do you have the Question and Answer session that follows?

[covstudent]

Sorry, I dont have the Q&A session for this talk, I'll make sure i get it for the next time we have a guest speaker

[covstudent]

thanks for visiting us, we've heard some really great feedback from your talk, and we think that it is great that you have made the time to speak to us

all the best

cov uni

[nachovi2]

very good

[lj72872008]

This was wonderful! He is a very interesting man to listen to.

[TheCelloChickadee]

he forgot to mention the aussies... :( great lecture though!

[PBRjunkie]

there are several mistakes stalin made previous to,and during the war that weakened the soviet preparedness for a majior land war- such as purgeing his well experienced officer core and other groups out of paranoia. his subsequent dificulty against the nazis and inability/unwillingness to aid the allies more substantialy prolonged the conflict needlesly plus his own shady dealings and or (masacares) didnt help him win intrnational support during or after the war

[comprehensiveboy]

3. The significance of the Katyn massacre is not appreciated because the numbers are less than the holocaust. If this soviet policywere applied to conquered western countries e.g. Britain it would have meant the rounding oup of the top 60000 people and killing them. The country would be decapitated. This was signed by Molotov in suit and tie.

4. The holodomor must have been appreicated by conservative/nationlistic forces in the west in the 30s.

Who would not do anything to avoid this?

[comprehensiveboy]

Tehrea re rare lots of ideological hangovers from our being in league with communism. A few -

1. Nazism was about protecting big business - not a social movement with more complex roots. (Pure simplistic Marxism) Pictures of Hitler in top hat - proof apparently.

2. We know the specific names and ethnicity of the architects of mass murder on the Nazi side but not on the soviet side -apart form Stalin himself. (to be continued)

[ostrichspeed]

What a fucking hypocrite, getting a case of selective amnesia that he moaned and groaned about. He sweeps under the rug the fact the West continually rebuffed Soviet attempts at uniting against Nazi Germany (after all, the whole October Revolution/international communism thing still had them wetting their beds). Knowing that both the Nazis and the bourgeois democratic powers were both hostile to socialism, the Molotov-Ribentropp Pact was an attempt to buy time from the Nazis, nothing more.

[TookUpTheCause]

all that Roosevelt caused Hitler to lose is what the Communist bastard Stalin gained. Americans are the dumb slaves who helped the communists enslave the Europeans for several decades. It does not require any genius such as Hitler to recognize that the international jewish money masters who ruled over Communism also ruled over Roosevelt and Churchill. The unfortunate mental slightness of Americans was again proven when they swallowed whole the "holocaust" propaganda lies.

[PhilSunday]

If you found this interesting, Laurence has just posted a new free blog article about stalin on his World War 2 website.

[vivascargill]

@Indul1 anglo german naval treaty

[Lik2012]

true. patents went after the war to companys who were main supporters of nazi regim. plastics, steel...

[dmgcat]

Don't be so naive-the West knew but did nothing because it was controlled by Wall ST money. DO your homework and you will find that it was Ribbentrop who was meeting with UBC laundering money for the Nazis. Also look up Silesian Mining Corp. WHen Poland found out it was thier steel being used to re-arm Germany, they nationalised the mine. Two weeks later Germany invaded. I'm so sick of Amerika hiding its NAZI connections pretending not to know. Look up IBM -you will see...