Operation Barbarossa: Brutal Reality of Eastern Front Exposed by Lost German Diaries | Part Two

[Music] foreign [Music] Library Marshalls store videos foreign [Music] Tuesday 30th of September 1941. the path of our division has in recent days been turned into a lock Road otherwise it would have been impossible all the women from the nearby Villages had to build to get that work done all the men seem to have been drafted one can see only boys and the ancient rasputians that were here the roads are very much the same as in the area of Leningrad now then off we go away with the diary the advance continues further towards the east our objective being the positions along the upper reaches of the neighbor at the beginning of October 1941 the German Army in one last great effort Drew together three Panzer and two infantry armies 78 divisions totaling nearly 2 million men to finally end the war which had begun four months earlier the German troops occupied a front line over 350 kilometers in length their objective the capture of Moscow the capital of the Soviet Union to achieve this the last available reserves had been scraped together the Panzer divisions which had been tasked to capture Leningrad will shift it South while the continuation of the advance in Ukraine was left in the hands of Romanian formations in the first three months of the war against the Soviet Union the German Army of the East had lost more than half a million men one in six German soldiers had been killed or severely wounded in addition to these unprecedented losses only one-third of the 3600 tanks with which the German Army had gone to war was still operational and even for these fuel supplies near the front line were insufficient to sustain a long-winded offensive German High command assumed that the outcome of the campaign in the East had been decided and that the Red Army had been beaten since the great battles of encirclement the previous summer more than 1.5 million Soviet soldiers had marched into German captivity at least 500 000 more had been killed and 5500 Russian tanks had been destroyed or captured it would turn out to be a false assumption with far-reaching and dramatic consequences operation typhoon commenced on the 30th of September 1941. six Panzer Division with Panzer regiment 11 in the lead launched its attack as part of General Hospital's third Panzer Army on the 2nd of October deeply penetrating the Russian lines north of the asthma and crossing the Dinuba River on the following day [Music] Thursday 2nd of October 1941 before the attack from our deployment area both regiments 11 and 25 first rolled into the wrong direction which first took us too far towards the north but then the scene that unfolded before our eyes was tremendous hundreds of Tanks attacked and rolled across the open plain shells detonated between us forcing us to pull our heads in and button up when we rolled over the first line of enemy positions which had already been traversed by our infantry we were eagerly fired upon heart is rolling forward on my left next to him suddenly the vehicle is shaken by an enormous bank so violent that my microphone headphones and Kappa blown off my head for a moment I can't hear anymore in clumps of Earth rained down through the open turret hatch tank stands still for a moment I think we have been hit by artillery but when I left my head out of the turret to see what has happened I noticed a big hole in the ground under the track mines I shout to the radio operator so he can pass it on to the rest of the company before they all snuff it in the minefield but it's already too late a bang on our left side and one on the right which is followed by another one the radio operator shouting back that the apparatus isn't working the enormous pressure has blown the receiver out of its socket screams and groans on the left and right it did have a greater effect there than it had on us I Dismount at first run over to the left to engelhardt Otto Miller is just being lowered into the grass hop is sitting on the ground groaning angenhardt himself is bleeding on the forehead only Enderman is unscathed first of all I start uncovering the Mind system in close vicinity around us we have learned how to handle that at Leningrad one can roughly estimate whether things lie buried those damned green wooden boxes filled with what looks like small rolls of Shaving soap suddenly the ground gives way below one of my feet for a moment I'm frozen stiff as shock and my heart skips a beat below the thin layer of grass the green wood of a box mine becomes visible but nothing happens I haven't broken the thin sheer pin of the mine the shock however has shaken me to the Bone tell me again about dying a hero's death it is the most horrible of things this war there's nothing beautiful or grand about it only the hard and cold necessity the damn Duty and obligation in the idea of a great Arash and the security of our families at home which is standing behind everything on the desks of the pencil pushers this is of course a lot different no whistling bullets and explosions no sweeter death than to die in the face of the enemy is that really true saying farewell to my men was incredibly hard the last salute to the two Fallen comrades who lay on the roadside covered with 10 squares and then I followed the enemy humming the first stanza of the Panzer lead [Music] s about 1800 kilometers away in the Berlin Sports palast Adolf Hitler delivered his first public speech about the progress of the war in the East since the launch of operation Barbarossa in it he proclaimed that the enemy had already been broken and that the Soviet Union would never rise again foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] 1941 Saturday from the south we bypassed the village of romaniki and then squeezed past the village and began to cross the small stream from which yesterday the Russian tanks attacked while we were doing so we were taken under a raging defensive fire I used my machine gun to return fire terrible situation standing on open ground not being able to see properly against the glow of the Rising Sun two tanks next to one's own have already been destroyed in addition the steering of my own skoda Super Sport wasn't working properly I was lucky that I got through this before this vehicle suffered engine breakdown somewhere pillar set in the h-31 of Unto otizio the lead company then clashed with Russian tanks stood only two meters away from the Christie which fired around directly into the machine gun of the skoda's loader Michelle went right through his body another Christie rode up from the right was hit by one of our tanks and erupted into flames then early used his gun to finish off the Russian on this never before experienced firing distance 300 meters away I spotted another Russian which was firing on us but how was I to hit it with my miserable check Optics and aiming against the Sun we don't even have Tracer ammunition in our buckets and when firing without Optics couldn't even observe the fall of our shot I gave up firing on this target on October the 10th 1941 after a catastrophic Soviet defeat in the double encirclements of the asthma briansk German forces stood inside of the Mosaic defensive line an important barrier covering the advance route to Moscow the fall of the Soviet Capital lay seemingly Within Reach four days later the SS Das Reich and the fairmark's 10th Panzer Division reached the historic battlefield of borodino where 129 years earlier Imperial French and Russian troops had clashed in an enormous battle several days of fierce fighting against elite units of the Red Army followed until on the 18th of October the mosaisk defensive line had been broken and the road to Moscow lay seemingly open on the 15th of October already Stalin had ordered the evacuation of the Communist Party the general staff and the civil government offices from Moscow an act which caused Panic among muscovites many of whom fled using every available train and jamming roads leading out of the city despite all this the city was heavily fortified while Stalin himself publicly remained in the capital providing remaining workers with food and cash and unleashing his nkvd to put down riots and restore Civic order the depleted German Panzer groups however failed to close the wing around the city in time German casualties had been severe less than a third of the motorized vehicles were still working infantry divisions were often at a third or a half of their nominal strength and soldiers were worn out and tired after more than four months of campaigning after a brief period of snowfall the Autumn rain set in and the situation changed drastically within days the roads and paths turned into a quagmire of mud and deep morass making further operative motorized advances impossible while the German Supply system broke down the Autumn rasputita season again proved to be one of Russia's greatest defensive advantages and gave the Soviet formations the time they needed to reorganize and strengthen their defenses between the 2nd and 11th of October the fifth company of Panzer regiment 11 had lost 18 of its 24 tanks the entire second AB tilong of the regiment had shrunk to the strength of a single weak company the 12th of October Friedrich Zander without tanks to lead was transferred to a new temporary post as Courier to the 1B the second general staff officer and head of supply of sixth Panzer Division a post which offered ample opportunity to observe and ponder about life behind the lines 19th of October 1941. next to the W1 Workshop in cholin there is a prisoner of war camp or a collection point of some kind the Russians there have to camp in the open and in the previous days many of them didn't wake up anymore when the morning came these were then fully undressed by their comrades who then distributed the clothing among them they are being fed with a meat of slaughtered Panna horses I've seen how the ravenous Russians swarmed like a pack of starved wolves over the carcass of a dead and half decayed cow the centuries are armed with long sticks which they use to batter the prisoners to stop them from Catching diseases from eating the rotten stuff I feel sorry for the prisoners but on the other side the Russians show such laziness and lack of organizational talent that it does make me angry too for example they let the potatoes rot in their field and they didn't go to cut firewood but broke down the village fences and barns instead the men most the old rasputins don't work at all they just sit there and look at us in the best case they find the energy to complain that they have nothing to eat no firewood that they are cold hungry and lacking everything what a tragedy but if the lazy pigs were working instead of complaining they would be in a better situation they cross themselves 10 times and then start blathering in a manner that we can only half understand of what they're saying and when we tell them to sweep the houses and wash the muddy floors no that would be work and work that means rabota and that comes from the word RAB and that means slave that is what the Russians think about working how different the German thinks about working earning and spending 20th of October 1941. there is still no better place than with the further most tanks at the front when one catches a chicken in an abandoned Village and Chucks it into the pan or when one catches a cow for the field kitchens that isn't a problem there it only gets complicated when they clock that I speak and understand a bit of Russian then they crowd up the Wailing women counting with their fingers the number of their many children who used to be fed with that cow's milk and who will now starve to death the Russian women here look more like Eskimos than Europeans with their fed boots sheepskin skirts and thick headscarves they make a totally uncivilized impression the main job during the winter time seems to be the creation of more and more babies 22nd of October 1941. when will we drive on German ground again and when will I get my next period of leave the left wing cannot Advance any further because there is no fuel there we were with Reinhardt while guderian also without fuel was forced to watch the Russians pack their stuff and evacuate Moscow the Infantry is putting its Trust on the motorized troops while the motorized troops trust that the Infantry was sorted all out the Infantry however with his horse-drawn units is not making much progress either when will the ring above Moscow be closed and who was going to close it Keep Calm little man with great concerns it will all work out it is going to happen soon when will the real winter be coming and when will we return home Thursday 23rd of October 1941. Runway just now there are four girls sitting in the farmer's wife's parlor they have kept me from writing one of them had been a young communist a typical slav but the spriteliest of them all and she even knew a few words of German damn now I really can't write anymore one of them is Ukrainian from the Kharkov District what the beauty she is I can't deny that a face from which bolshevism hasn't yet taken the noble features a bit slim and tall oh well how should I fall in love with such a dream she's a Russian I am German the end the unpredictable Russian weather will continue to interrupt zanda's brief moments of respite reminding him that a quick end of the campaign and with that a return to Germany was becoming more and more unlikely Sunday 26th of October 1941 near charm in the previous night it started to rain and since then the Pitta Pata has not stopped dear me I'm stuck here and can't go any further just like that the roads have become unusable there I was yesterday claiming that one slowly gets used to the conditions in Russia and now all of a sudden a new chapter for new experiences has opened we are still in Russia and there's still a lot to do here the road to the Volga at yaros level is long and there's no way we can get there without fuel oil and bread I wonder how we're going to sort out the supply problem surely not before Frost sets in [Music] Sunday the 2nd of November 1941. W1 charm the 20th Sunday here in the Russian campaign the mood is just like the weather dim very dim hemenbach is singing a Zara lianda song at the moment the one from the film to know in ufan which has a text along the lines of I'm standing in the rain waiting for you [Music] yesterday when I took a look into that room the Russians were dancing to the Wild and yet monotonous sounds of the balalaika yesterday I would have really liked to have joined their dance just for the joy of moving foreign what are we still doing here middle of November German troops resumed their attack on what their propaganda called the catch you wish bolshevism with two Panzer groups attacking the town of Clin north of Moscow on the 19th of November Friedrich sander was recalled to Panzer regiment 11 where he rejoined his old company in gazatsk the regiment with its armored strength severely depleted had been pulled out of the line into a quiet area and was waiting to be transported back to Germany to refugeot 20th of November 1941 seems that our once Mighty Regiment of three up Tai lungan has shrunk to the size of a single full company mostly due to technical breakdowns the old buckets just can't take anymore Tuesday 25th of November 1941. if only the Red Army command knew how much the Russian women and children living in German occupied territory are waiting for the fall of Leningrad and Moscow and the downfall of the government [Music] the old people still remember a life without communism and commissars in the Baltic provinces in white Russia and in Ukraine everyone is already living under German civil Administration it's amusing really it's the same situation the old Romans had been in there every official was sent to the provinces once during his career the soldiers had to stay there as occupational forces while foreign workers were brought in to do the manual labor at home our human resources are only used for specialized work isn't that also some kind of pan-european Union I wonder what the result of the anniversary of the anti-common turn pact will be which is celebrated in Berlin today the species who owns a radio told me about it when we saw one another a moment ago he also told me that next to udet murders and Hopman from Vera another flying hero the general whose name I have forgotten has given his life for the Fatherland after this war we'll have plenty of Heroes who we can honor and pay our respects to let's just hope that all these great sacrifices have not been made in vain in the same way in which those of the world war have been the pace of the German Advance had slowed considerably not only due to the fierce resistance of the withdrawing Red Army troops but also due to the weather conditions on the 22 November the temperatures had for the first time Fallen to minus 35 degrees the cold froze equipment shut down diesel engines and took a heavy toll on the German Frontline soldiers who in expectation of a short campaign had not been issued with sufficient winter clothing and now face serious logistical issues preventing the delivery of warm clothing and other winter equipment [Music] on the 28th of November in heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures the sixth Panzer Division having captured the strategically important town of roguechevo stood about 30 kilometers in front of the Volga Moscow canal in some places German troops stood less than 20 kilometers from the outskirts of Moscow itself on the 1st of December a motorcycle Patrol Panzer Pioneer Battalion 62 reached kimchi a small River Port in the northwest suburbs of Moscow eight kilometers from the city and less than 20 kilometers from the Kremlin yet the ring around the city still had not been closed the German Panzer groups slowly grown to a halt with army group Center's losses for November totaling nearly 46 000 men killed one day later the hopes of the men of Panzer regiment 11 to be reunited with their families were shattered faced with a severe shortage of men the regiment was ordered to form a battalion of infantry which would be used to secure and defend the rearguard lines thus freeing up regular infantry units for service at the front line a terrible blow for Zander who suddenly found in command of a company of about 80 badly equipped men which using more sturdy captured Russian lorries were transported towards their defensive positions near Clinton we drove through voloca lumsk there they had hanged eight partisans two of them women on The Gallows a big sign announced that these people had taken up arms against the German military eight people on One Gallows that's a sight one doesn't see often today a column of prisoners came our way they were quite a large number of guards about 20 men for over 500 Russians usually in the viasma region you'd see six or so guards for one thousand Russians when we drove along the road they had come down we found the bodies of many Russians who hadn't been able to walk further and have been shot by the guards I myself counted 15 men who were lying in a ditch who had been shot in the back of the neck personally a site like this troubles me the fox Deutsche in Poland can say what they want I've seen cooler things here in the east Thursday 4th of December 1941 Clin last Friday at 8 45 our last Tank died on us Panzer regiment without Panzer 28th of November the unthinkable happened when the last still operating tank of Panzer regiment 11 broke down and had to be blown up to prevent it from falling into enemy hands on the 10th of December for the first time since the outbreak of the war the sixth Panzer Division did not have a single operational tank at its disposal anymore the once so powerful formation had become jokingly known as a Panzer Division on foot from then on the only available armored strength came in the form of whatever Vehicles could be spontaneously made serviceable patched up and repaired in the meantime Friedrich Zander and his men were not only suffering from lack of food warm clothing and ammunition but were also facing the full force of the Russian winter Friday the 5th of December 1941 Dodge shovel hoofed it over a distance of 25 kilometers through temperatures below 25 degrees minus and on roads Frozen smooth as glass result 50 percent of the men have taken some kind of damage Frozen feet toes heels noses cheeks and ears several of them had severely swollen lymph nodes and blisters on the feet many of them fear the effects of Old Wounds which don't allow them to move like they would have wanted to yesterday evening we learned that we would go on the march today we still didn't receive any ammunition and the company of artillery men hasn't got any warm clothing a walk through a hell of a Kind which can't have been any worse than that of the remnants of Napoleon's beaten Army [Music] enough for today the lamps need to be switched off there are 14 of us in a small Farmer's hover who knows what the future holds for us the German Army did not have winter quarters there were no barracks and the little available shelter often consisted only of villages with mostly small houses with the lack of food and suitable winter clothing casualties caused by hunger epidemics and Frostbite soon began to spiral out of control some regiments once 3 000 men strong had shrunk to fighting strengths of 500 men or less the Vermont's offensive had been stopped but German intelligence still estimated that Soviet forces had been broken that they had no more reserves left and that Stalin was unable to launch a counter-offensive an assumption that would prove catastrophically wrong in secret entirely undetected by German intelligence the Russians had managed to assemble more than one million men 780 tanks and 5 700 guns while along the entirety of the Eastern Front these numbers were not much Superior to those of the German army had concentrated troops in several key areas to achieve local superiority to break the German's grip on Moscow 34 Siberian divisions superbly trained and equipped for winter Warfare had been assembled on the 5th of December 1941 stavka the Supreme command of the Soviet Armed Forces Unleashed its great counter-offensive along the entire front foreign the German units which the Red Army did not overrun immediately had no other option than to try and save themselves by hastily retreating smaller German formations were often outflanked surrounded and annihilated and not only in front of Moscow but also in Ukraine the Crimea and at Leningrad two days after the start of the Russian offensive Friedrich Zander had not yet been directly affected by it but the warning signs of what was heading towards him were impossible to miss Sunday 7th of December 1941. in front of rogachevo if I didn't know that there will always be Wars and armed conflicts between the people but I would certainly be marching under the banner of the pacifists people of the kind of the reconciliation prophets of which we had so many after the world war I don't think there is much hope of that being successful however in the past days alone I've seen enough suffering and inhumanity to know that such efforts are futile last night the Russians broke into rugachevo from the east and set fire to several houses they were Siberian Rifleman formations which we are facing here from the north where we are holding the line they have not attacked yet but that can still happen [Music] yesterday stukas flew overhead Plastering an invisible Target in front of us [Music] [Music] we are lucky that the wind has died down we already have more than enough casualties due to frostbite in my platoon that the feet of our Sentry posts didn't freeze last night as only due to the fact that we had found enough hay in our sector on which we could stand on when rugachevo stood in Flames yesterday night Church looked absolutely amazing like a fairy tale castle of Arabian Nights the sight of the white spiers with their Oriental decoration and the blood red golden onion shaped domes he really illuminated against the dark night sky an infernal but glorious spectacle in an infernal concert the Russian guitarists and their incendiary oil shells towards us while the Russian Flyers dropped magnesium bombs and all kinds of other Ordnance on our heads the Russians clearly have aerial superiority here Russian inhabitants of this god-forsaken place are fleeing too a clear sign that it will get uncomfortable here soon I worry about our wounded and the sick who can't walk anymore the how of the Russian offensive had thrown the units of army group Center into a hasty Retreat to deny the rapidly advancing troops of the Red Army shelter and to delay the speed of their Advance the retreating Germans would leave only scorched Earth to their foe in some areas entire Villages were put to the torch forcing the local population into no man's land between the opposing forces in an effort to stall the speed of the Soviet advance in other places inhabitants sympathetic to the German cause were allowed to evacuate themselves and their belongings into less important settlements in the freezing temperature the loss of their homes would have been a death sentence to many of the local people for the first time the violence and brutality directed against civilian populations shook even the dedicated National Socialist Zander Tuesday 9th of December 1941. near clean for him since yesterday I feel a great amount of compassion for the great Napoleon who undefeated as he was had been forced to withdraw from Russia I have now lived to a similar withdrawal a smaller version Maybe but one that can't have been much worse in his days my mother used to tell me stories about the French and their allies how they had been forced to wrap Rags around their feet and how they had put on women's skirts just to keep warm well now I had the same experience myself yesterday we had been morally defeated just like Napoleon's Victorious troops had been we have been forced to retreat we the former panzermen have been sent from shots to this place to cover our retreat and to torch villages yes we have turned into proper murderous arsonists bloody hell I've heard enough of this there's one thing after the other it's time I can't even calm my anger through writing on Sunday we were relieved during a fierce snowstorm at about midday we were ordered to prepare the village for burning and to make ourselves ready to withdraw to veronina a distance of more than 20 kilometers which we would have to cover I only realized in the afternoon that it was Sunday it felt like mockery when I informed the men about this Roger chevo and the villagers in front of it had changed hands several times in the previous night now they were still defended by our rear God [Music] all vehicles we couldn't take with us anymore were blown up and all houses were put to the torch we received the order to do the letter to our village as well at 15 30 it was getting dark and we started loading our baggage onto the lorries of the company at 1600 the first Vehicles set out from bogdanable towards the rear Stan remained in the village for a while and during the night requested support from one of our platoons because six company had reported that Russians were advancing from the north such only two of our platoons remained in the small village while matusek and his men were sent to bug the novel Venture I and our platoons remained in our small village we were supposed to withdraw during the course of the night and later in the early morning at six after the infantry companies with their baggage had passed through then the houses were to be torched and I with my platoon was to form the rear guard until we had reached trefegino where sixth company would withdraw from once we had passed everything went as planned until Hiller panicked and in his fear torched the house that had been allocated to him early just in the moment when the first self-propelled anti-tank gun rolled into the village what a stupid thing to do Hiller didn't want to lose connection to the Infantry no matter at what cost and had then quickly driven away in his creeper the horse was burning so fiercely that the horses of the columns moving into the village would not walk past and were forced to wait until the fire had died down but that didn't happen the strong wind firmed up the flames and soon all the other houses which had been allocated to our platoon and had already been packed with hay and dolls with petrol were Burning Brightly as well we walked in between the burning houses through lines of waiting women and children towards the end of the village where Hitler was waiting anxious to get to suffragino as quickly as possible and sir fragino it was egas who panicked and set fire to the houses way too soon long before we had even managed to March through the village school we have learned about the Vikings how they had put all fishing villages to the torch we have learned about the 30 Years War and the suffering of the population whose cities towns and Villages had been burned by unhuman marauding soldiery so many fires the whole night sky was illuminated by their blood red glow in East Russia the people still remember how the Russians burned down the villages during the World War that we have now lived through ourselves we have seen the horrified faces of the waiting women and heard the miserable Christ for help of the old men we have seen the livestock running around in fear hurt cattle and horses screaming in Terror we have seen mothers with their children too terrified to even speak now we know how a German soldier feels when he according to the heart laws of war is forced to commit such brutalities himself hardship and danger the men on both sides trying to keep their spirits up as well as the increasingly deteriorating situation allowed [Music] foreign 11th of December 1941 my old orderly earthwick has taken a guitar and even though we are all an epoxy mood we have all raised our voices to sing the wild goose song a song which our fathers have sung out here in the East and to which I have a soft spot since my time in the Benicia Union more fitting to our mood our longing for home and what we hold here are the songs that he is playing now and to which we are singing to in moments like this it is the eyes of the Lancers who went through the thick of it who are first to well up with tears High command is urging us to not give up and to hold out a bit longer it is telling us that large reserves are being diverted up here but of what you saw reserves which aren't the same bad shape that we are in motorized regiments with 5 or 10 working lorries the others have been blown up where we have failed to do that have been taken for a drive by the Russians [Music] now we are singing during a day in Spring [Music] a bit when it goes [Music] we all think just how much luck we have had so far and in the previous days [Music] in a final desperate effort to somehow stem the Russian advance three German Panzer divisions with 45 operational tanks were thrown into the fighting to give the still withdrawing Germans much-needed breathing space Saturday 13th of December 1941 upper level in front of Clin in the coming night the defensive line will be pulled back to Clinton yet further back more men will fall into Russian hands Vehicles Cannon and tanks that would have to be blown up and more villagers going up in flames to cover the retreat they now have at least sent the last working tanks down here all of what was still running in first second and seventh Panzer Division German troops want certain that Moscow could be taken were physically and mentally exhausted heavy equipment and vehicles were abandoned and blown up many German soldiers lost their trust in the military leadership entirely and a sense of fatalism set in which led to more violence and crime prisoners of War were shot civilians were plundered and expelled and their livelihoods destroyed on the 16th of December Adolf Hitler issued his Infamous halt order which strictly forbade any further withdrawal unless approved by Hitler himself a blanket solution which immensely hampered Army group centers flexibility and response as such it caused Great resentment among the German commanders who from then on had to find creative ways to oppose and outmaneuver the dangerous how to be fail purposely defying Hitler who assumed that the only requirement for holding a position was the Iron Will to do so the most outspoken opponent of the order was General guderian by then the commander of Panzer group 2. on the 19th of December he announced to the Army group that he would not pass the order on even under threat of court-martial he was relieved of his command a week later on the same day angry about the catastrophic German situation in the East Hitler also dismissed General felt Marshall felter Von braukich formerly the highest ranking officer of the German army he did not designate a successor but instead decided to take the role himself claiming that the most important task of a supreme commander of the army was to educate the troops in a national socialist manner the little bit of operational leadership he could do himself in the wake of the failed capture of Moscow 40 senior German officers were relieved of their command of all this Friedrich Zander probably knew nothing when he arrived in the safety of shakovskaya on the 19th of December after having covered a distance of over 110 kilometers in a fighting Retreat through ice and snow 21st of December 1941. I will not talk about this withdrawal I am not diplomatic enough to smooth these events the greatest mess I've ever experienced over with words and I want to avoid being court-martialed as a mutineer on Monday morning I had been so mentally and physically broken that I collapsed after that night's March I couldn't go on anymore and after I had reached the house I just fell over even with lots of bean coffee and rushed as 97 schnapps I only regained my feet after two days Monday the 22nd of December 1941 register as we stomped through the snow which was already lying at knee height we came past another group of men wrapped up in their coats bracing the freezing snow with gritted teeth just like Weber we shouted over to them loudly cursing the snow the roads and the whole wall in general first they didn't reply but then one man among the group shouted back now we realized that these comrades and suffering deep in the snow on the other side were Russian prisoners this March gave me ample time to again think about the reason why there are always always two groups of men cursing and execrating the wall moving through the world [Music] on one side we now have kolkos Farmers metal workers and butchers on the other Fitters farmer Sons merchants and Craftsmen both sides share the same amount of suffering and grief and every day does this or the other group which has to bleed more I tell my men that this is about the reshaping of Europe the creation and protection of German lebensrome the absolute defeat of bolshevism the enemy of the people but have I myself really taken these slogans to Heart [Music] am I myself convinced by what I try to convincingly explain to my men again and again it is damn hard to get my own head around the fact that everything we are being ordered to do here is right and for the benefit not only of our people it is true that such a war is an eye-opener even more so when one has experienced the bad sides of a campaign When The War drags on and on [Music] but I can't help saying to myself in moments when I profoundly fail to make sense of it all but Hitler when he let us loose on the Russians had already been through the same kind of crap himself which didn't make a lot of sense then [Music] on the face of it it's all quite obvious and from the perspective of the beer table strategists those deferred from military service and arts company lighter or this year makes sense but ask a serious man one who doesn't just repeat the slogans and who has repeatedly put his own neck on the line if he at times didn't have the same thought as far as I can tell all of them did so [Music] funny I'm writing here like I'm the little tank on a pimplehofer and not a Prussian light nut who can look back on such a great number of soldier ancestors that it puts even Antiquity to shame am I really such a little Philistine that the experiences here are turning me into a pacifist and even in the face of all these great role models the Prussian light nuns and the Federation feiners who all knew how to die so nobly this isn't my idea a hero's death that is a fraud a hero's life that's what it should be there's nothing heroic in death only life lived until the final beat of the heart can be heroic dying is the easiest of things I often have secretly wished for such a Deliverance when I was morally broken up to the neck in the dirt we need to abandon the thought again it's this little spark which reignites me in the last moment reminds me of my duty and obligation on the 22nd of December genre had issued an order which hinted at spending the winter here and asked for increased readiness the snowstorm that's raging today was so bad that even the Pioneer horses perished in it we humans could hardly survive out there it is simply horrible faces Frozen hands feet as well in that way we are supposed to work and clear the roads which snow covers again as soon as one is finished there are always several men who are sick 27th of December 1941. during the night I had to think that we are supposed to stay here through the entire winter surely we'll get Replacements and new vehicles and when new operations are possible again in the coming spring we launch attacks which will destroy the Siberian Army of the East I will be there until an anti-tank gun an aerial bomb a shell or a mine will put a full stop behind the last sentence of my life story but I will continue to do my duty I will be as stubborn as a cartridge pouch up to the final outage then I will have had my campaign for which I have yeared so much after Poland and France gosh at the moment I'm so fed up again there is no way our division will get out of Russia anytime soon now the only thing we can do is to endure it on New Year's Eve zanda and his men suddenly found themselves at the sharp end of yet another attack of the Red Army which resulted in a further fighting withdrawal through ice and snow and for the first time since the beginning of the campaign Xander's diary Falls silent except for a few hastily scribbled notes in his notebook only weeks later he would briefly reflect on this period where he and his men stood helpless in the face of an onslaught by heavy Russian tanks listing the names of friends he lost in the battle wounded comrades left behind and freezing to death in the snow and how he and a handful of comrades only barely managed to save their lives the great Russian counter-attack however was at best a hollow Victory while it did push the German Army further away from Moscow the Red Army only managed to recapture seven percent of the territory conquered by the wehrmacht during the preceding months and while the losses of army group Center had been high they were dwarfed by those suffered by the Red Army which During the period was losing more than 500 000 men per month about six times more than the German Invaders not a single German division had been destroyed no major breakthrough had been achieved in the end the Soviet offensive fizzled out leaving the German forces well positioned to initiate another major offensive that would come the following spring 14th of January 1942 tretiakova does it still make any sense to preserve the whole drama here for posterity in my diary even if we manage against my expectations to stop the Russian advance then no one needs to know more than necessary about the hammering we have received here in the central sector of the front and if we fail to stop them even with the troops currently arriving from France and if the Russian closes the pocket at the Asma advances further and takes all that territory from us then this will be the beginning of the end this is how I see it at least with my December mood which isn't very Rosy I hope I'm wrong with a second prognosis that would be just horrible all all our sacrifices would have been in vain that's the end of it hopefully for the men and myself ours such as this were never never come again [Music] Divine Mercy thank you [Music] please [Music] foreign [Music] I thought [Music] it is [Music] my Jesus [Music] foreign [Music] thanks for watching this video on the history YouTube channel you can subscribe right here to make sure you don't miss any of our great films that are coming out or if you are a true history fan check out our special dedicated History Channel History hit dot TV you're gonna love it

Channel: History Hit

Views: 1,027,316

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, operation barbarossa ww2, operation barbarossa documentary, ww2 diaries, operation barbarossa, german invasion of russia, german soldier diaries ww2, unseen ww2 footage, lost ww2 footage, eastern front ww2, eastern front ww2 documentary, brutal reality of eastern front exposed by lost german diaries, eastern front, ww2 eastern front, brutal reality of eastern front, ww2 diary, history hits, history hit tv, history documentary

Id: ia1sv3vJWYs

Length: 58min 36sec (3516 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023