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Communicating with the enemy on the battlefield


I didn't understand that part. Why were there telephones installed, and why did the Nazis speak to the Soviets on the phone. Was this normal practice to have telephone connections?

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In 1941 the Soviets had very few radios for their huge armies and overwhelmingly relied on WW1-style field telephones - which is one reason organised resistance collapsed so quickly as the German attackers moved a lot quicker than the soviet signallers could lay down telephone lines.

Similarly in 1941 Russian tanks and aircraft almost never had radios so the only way they could communicate was by the crews pointing and waving at each other.

The Germans having a far better consumer electronics industry to start with were initially far better supplied with radios - although this created its own problem in that most of their important military comms were broadcast in codes that the British broke - whereas Soviet orders mostly had to go by telephone lines which were far more secure.

Can't find figures but by 1943 the technological situations were reversed with the Russians receiving lots of high quality electronic equipment from the western allies, while the Germans became increasingly dependent on telephone systems.

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