81 - Britain's Blockade of Europe & the response of the ICRC
The WW2 Podcast
Angus Wallace
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2018
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At the outbreak of WWII Britain put into motion the strategy of using the Royal Navy to blockade Germany, depriving her of essential goods. When Europe fell the blockade was widened to include all of Europe.
This provided a dilemma for the British, the Ministry of Economic Warfare was in favour of depriving all occupied countries of goods, for the Foreign Office depriving occupied countries would mean negatively affecting countries that were allied with Britain.
In Greece this would lead to famine, and a relief operation organised by the International Red Cross.
I'm joined by Dr James Crossland of Liverpool John Moores University. James specialises in the history of international humanitarian law and the development of the Red Cross.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and |
| 0:02.8 | welcome to another episode of the World War II podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | I'm Angus Wallace. |
| 0:06.6 | I'm looking at the strategy of blockade which the British used |
| 0:10.5 | against occupied Europe during the war and its unintended consequences. |
| 0:16.7 | I'm joined by Dr James Crossland. |
| 0:19.9 | James is a senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moors University. |
| 0:26.5 | As I huddle round my microphone |
| 0:28.2 | and look out the aiced window |
| 0:30.8 | to watch the snow falling, a latter latter day Bob Cratchit. |
| 0:34.3 | I'd like to take the opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. |
| 0:40.8 | I think we've had another great year for the podcast, casting my eye over the topics we've |
| 0:46.4 | covered. There are a few highlights for me. Episode 59, looking at Case Red, proved very interesting, and on the back of that we looked at the |
| 0:55.4 | Battle of Britain from the German perspective with Patrick Ericsson in |
| 0:59.6 | episode 60 hopefully Patrick will be with us once more in 2019. |
| 1:05.0 | And I've also looked at some personal stories this year. |
| 1:09.0 | And I think my stand-out conversations there with Gabrielle about her remarkable husband |
| 1:16.6 | Jeffrey Rothwell and I also thoroughly enjoyed talking to Dean Small about his dad, finding the sunken tank and we hardly |
| 1:28.0 | scratch the surface of the tank's recovery. The story is all a bit nuts. |
| 1:31.9 | I'd like to thank you all for listening and to all the patrons who support the show |
| 1:38.1 | It really is very much appreciated and does help me keep the show on the road. Not already a patron. |
| 1:45.8 | Feel free to spread the Christmas cheer at patreon.com slash W. W.2 podcast. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Angus Wallace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Angus Wallace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.