War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome to another episode of Key Battles of World War II in Europe, our 10,000-foot

survey of the Second World War in Europe and the areas around it. I'm your host, James Early,

as always, and my co-host, as always, is

Sean McIver. Well, if you recall, we are in the midst of a four-part mini-series within the

greater series, which we're just calling the epilogue. So we talked two episodes ago, I'm sure you

recall, about Europe in 1945 in the post-war world.

Last time we talked about key leaders in the war, what happened to some of the big cheeses after the war and well up to their deaths from the major powers.

And this time we are going to look at technology.

We're going to examine key technologies, military technologies primarily, that were developed during the war by the various great powers.

So what we're going to do is basically just go around country by country.

We'll start with Germany, look at the Soviet Union and the other major powers, and see what

kind of developments they made in their military and in other technologies as well.

We're going to start with Germany, and Sean is going to kick us off.

Sean, what kind of gadgets did Germany come up with during the war?

Yeah, so Germany did invent a lot of technology, actually.

But the one that I think we're going to start with is what Germany is mostly known for in terms of military technology during the Second World War, what they're kind of primarily known for.

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