E124 - Fall Gelb Part One

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

June 2021

In May 1940, the much-anticipated German attack on France brings the Phoney War to an end. The French have the largest land army in the world, the Maginot Line giving them hundreds of miles of defences and they know the route the Germans will take. But in the space of only a few weeks, the entire strategic course of World War Two is turned on its head. The Germans have gambled on a new invasion plan, ‘Fall Gelb’ (or ‘Case Yellow’) to set them on a risky route through the Ardennes and a dash to the coast.

With so many dramatic events happening in such a short period of time, we will be telling the story of ‘Fall Gelb’ over two ‘It Happened Here’ episodes.

In this first part, Dr Thomas Cheetham takes us through the planning and first phases of the operation, and the German and Allied intelligence activity that surrounded it.

Special thanks go to Sarah Langston and Dr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents.

Image: Commander Denniston’s 1940 Diary ©Bletchley Park Trust 2021

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #OralHistory,

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The From the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:38.8	Welcome to the June 2021 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast. Welcome to the June 2021 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:43.7	Falgelb, part one.
0:46.2	In May 1940, the much-anticipated German attack on France brings the phony war to an end.
0:51.6	The French have the largest land army in the world, the Maginot line,
0:55.3	giving them hundreds of miles of defences, and they know the route the Germans will take.
0:59.9	But in the space of only a few weeks, the entire strategic course of World War II is turned on its
1:04.4	head. The Germans have gambled on a new invasion plan, Val Gelb or Case Yellow, to set them on a
1:10.3	risky route through the Ardennes and a dash
1:12.1	to the coast. With so many dramatic events happening in such a short period of time, we'll be
1:17.4	telling the story of Valgelb over two It Happened Here episodes. In this first part, Dr Thomas Cheatham
1:23.8	takes us through the planning and first phases of the operation and the German and Allied intelligence activity that surrounded it.
1:30.8	Special thanks go to Sarah Langston and Dr Ben Thompson for voicing our archival documents. This is Bletchley Park.
1:53.9	It happened here.
1:57.4	It's been a while since our last It Happened Here episodes.
2:01.7	Just to recap, we had covered Alan Turing's first wartime break into Enigma in January
2:08.9	1940 and also an episode Invasion Norway, where we looked at the invasion of Denmark and Norway.
2:16.5	But Tom, can you kind of remind us a little bit?
2:19.4	Give us a picture of the general situation of the war as we come up to May 1940.
2:24.5	Sure.
2:24.8	So the first act of war was the German invasion of Poland,
	...

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