D-Day From the German Perspective | Animated History

limited edition posters are up over at store.armchairhistory.tv and will be gone in just two weeks consider also picking up a new matte black mug t-shirt or one of the few remaining tank pins all of your support helps the channel a trio of german officers stand on the parapet of the atlantic wall at their head is erwin rommel hi i'm griffin johnson the armchair historian the story of d-day and its accompanying airborne and partisan operations is well known from the allied perspective but seldom is this critical juncture of the second world war looked at through the eyes of those defending the atlantic wall seldom are the stories of individual german soldiers studied in today's episode we will revisit our most popular video d-day from the german perspective and bring you recollections from the men who saw the french sky darken with paratroopers and the english channel team with battleships and knew that the end of the reich was at hand here's a quick question for you what did george patton albert castlering and bernard montgomery all have in common well aside from being officers in the second world war they all suffered from unfortunate cases of male pattern baldness and as we all know those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it which is why today's video is sponsored by keeps a subscription service focused on making it easy for men seeking treatment for baldness featuring 24 7 access to a licensed doctor with personalized treatment plans affordable versions of fda approved medication and more five star reviews than any competitor keeps is the obvious choice for any man interested in keeping his hairline intact during even the longest and most stressful campaign if you're ready to take action and prevent hair loss go to keeps.com armchair historian or click the link in the description below to receive 50 off of your first order that's k-e-e-p-s dot com slash armchair historian [Music] the d-day landings did not take the germans completely by surprise on the contrary the highest echelons of german command were well aware that an invasion was imminent and of the least possible threat the fuhrer was confident that the atlantic wall stretching from the border of spain to norway would not only repulse any allied landing but caused so many commonwealth and american casualties that the western allies would lose their capacity to continue the war fritz bye line a senior aide to erwin rommel in africa and later commander of the ponzer lair division at normandy held the debacle at diaper up as incontrovertible proof the allies could not manage an amphibious assault the series of successful allied amphibious landings in italy gave even hitler pause however and he placed rommel in charge of shoring up the defenses along the english channel rommel's task was an inevitable one concrete was at a premium with the lion's share of germany's supply going to the construction of hardened u-boat shelters per hitler's direct orders french laborers and italian pows were conscripted to improve the defenses turrets from captured french tanks were made into makeshift emplacements named to brooks after a jury-rigged reinforced firing pit italian soldiers had built with buried cement pipes in north africa and extensive minefields were laid perhaps rommel's most ingenious inventions were the ramelsbargle or rommel's asparagus webs of metal wire strung along fields of short poles meant to shred gliders as they tried to land alongside anti-ship mines placed into the beaches atop angled poles driven into the sand but static defenses were only part of rommel's strategy hitler and the high command had become convinced the allies would land at the easy to reach paddy clay operatives confirmed this loudly and often falling for the allied deception operation operation fortitude rommel for his part began to shift his view toward an allied landing at normandy the beaches were similar to the italian shore and the allies would want to maximize their chances of success by striking on familiar ground regardless of where the allies came rommel argued that the only way to beat them back was through defensive action on the beaches meeting the allies as they landed and denying them the opportunity to take even a centimeter of ground given the quality of the troops defending normandy this was far easier planned than executed normandy was the responsibility of the seventh army whose units in the area were to put it mildly of mixed quality promising recruits were siphoned off by ss falsehood or panzer recruiters leaving a contingent of unfit or unremarkable men among the defenders of normandy were the so-called ear and stomach battalions composed of soldiers convalescing from combat wounds to their abdomens or who were experiencing hearing loss and astropin foreign auxiliaries from conquered lands forced to fight for the reich including many soviet pows naturally most proved highly ineffective with many deserting to join the french resistance or surrendering to the allies at the first opportunity the few capable soldiers either suffered from endemic fatalism such as captain eberhard vegemon of the 21st panzer division who commented we were well aware that neither our men nor our tanks were good enough or were almost fanatically prepared to meet their foes this attitude was usually invinced by the younger ss troops as june 5th crept into june 6th the kriegs marina pulled patrols from the english channel german meteorologists had declared the weather unsuitable for an invasion through june 10th there was scientifically speaking no chance of a landing rommel took these assurances as an opportunity to go on leave returning to germany to celebrate his wife's birthday and arrange an audience with hitler to request additional panzers along the wall friedrich dolman commander of the 7th army ordered a command post drill for his officers on june 6th the evening was shaping up to be a quiet affair and the germans began preparing for the next day's routine until allied bombs began falling this itself was not unusual as the allies had launched near continuous runs against the germans for some time but this raid was an overture to operation overlord as centuries fought off sleep gliders began to make silent landings as officers crawled into bed paratroopers began to descend to earth bewildered german commanders found enemies literally raining down on their heads and desperately rang to their superiors or assembled cells of ad-hoc resistance lieutenant general joseph ryker commander of the 711th infantry division recalled a night of drinking in the officer's mess ending in combat the inebriated officer pistol in hand stumbled out into the night to find british paratroopers raining down on the 711ths command post riker and his men were able to fend off the assault and the still drunk general desperately rang to his superiors to announce the beginning of the allied invasion in the american landing zones lieutenant general wilhelm foley commander of the 91st luftwanda division was ambushed and killed by the 82nd airborne just behind his headquarters near soulmate igle other germans proved less willing to give battle reiner hartmetz a soldier serving near normandy rushed to his command post to find his officers gripped by battleshock two men were simply catatonic while reiner's company commander was sprawled drunkenly in a foxhole every time a runner brought news from the front line the commander would idly threaten to execute anyone who returned to the scene of the action as dawn began to light up the normandy coast the germans were shocked to see an allied armada steaming toward them with no naval forces to challenge them the allied landing craft and their escorts took up their positions in the english channel and that's when the shells began landing [Music] the opening bombardment of omaha beach caught german shore batteries in the middle of preparing for gunnery practice turning what should have been a morning of plinking in the atlantic into a scramble for survival weathering this bombardment was the 716th static infantry division a unit of notoriously low quality composed of decrepit or boyish conscripts and ill-motivated astrupan the division was denied the usual allotment of artillery and heavy vehicles their peers in the army enjoyed relying on a hodgepodge of german armaments and foreign heavy weapons but the 716th was not alone at omaha as other areas were defended by the much more powerful 352nd infantry division as battle was joined on the beach and american servicemen scrambled for cover machine gunner heinrich zavilo of the 352nd could see the water spouts where my machine gun bursts were hitting and when the little fountains got close to the gis they threw themselves down they lay in the shallow water many tried to get to the most forward beach obstacles to find some cover behind them i fired some more at the many dark foams in the water zavolo senior one lieutenant freyr king pitied the americans as poor swine even as he called more artillery strikes onto the floundering infantry all over the beach xavillo could see wounded moving around on the bloody watery slime mostly creeping trying to get to the upper beach and find some cover behind the shingle embankment one by one they would occasionally run in a crouch as the day went on men like xavillo and their heavy weaponry would make omaha the deadliest landing on d-day [Music] the 716th division at sword beach was a sorry affair the overstretched germans were severely lacking in air support or completed fortifications and had utterly failed to coordinate with coastal artillery in their sector the area teamed with vacation homes and coastal settlements and saved for summon placements in the sand dunes and a handful of beach obstacles was largely undeveloped the individual soldiers were also of low quality with lieutenant carl haida bemoaning the condition of his division's officers many had been severely wounded previously some became unpleasant or socially inept due to their early harsh war experiences i will not deny that some did get drunk at times lieutenant schaaf of the 716th noted that the rank and file were overworked and ill-motivated too busy putting up wire and planting rommel's asparagus to have much time for training indeed the mix of germans and astropin defending sword beach routinely invinced a lack of care as artilleryman hans glaub describes his fellow gunners failing to keep their pieces clean sword would prove to be a relatively smooth landing with the germans yielding the beach to british forces with minimum casualties their attitude would change when they met the more professional soldiers of the 21st panzer division launching a two-pronged counter-attack to the east and west of sword however major hans von luke commander of the eastern thrust wrote in his memoir panzer commander of attempting to lead the 2nd battalion of the 21st against dug in british paratroopers only to be stymied by allied aircraft and naval fire the german defense at utah beach was compromised by the airborne operations cut phone lines had crippled their ability to exchange information while the spread out landing zones made mounting a large-scale defense difficult utah and its environs were defended primarily by the 709th infantry division made up of older germans and the ever ubiquitous astrubin armed with a bizarre mix of weapons french german polish even russian armaments filled their stores but blessed with competent leadership at least lieutenant general carl wilhelm graf von schlieben overall commander of the 709th would order an actual organized counter-attack in the face of the airborne assault arranging for the 100th panzer battalion to drive forward to meet the 82nd airborne at salmer igle and at their critical bridgehead over the meridae the 100th would be driven back by the 82nd in spectacular fashion as the obsolete french tanks they deployed against the americans were annihilated with bazookas and gammon grenades but the 82nd were not the only paratroopers in the area the sixth paratroop regiment under the command of major font der haita pushed out of karenta to reinforce their ground-based colleagues as they came upon the americans landing zones the germans were astonished at the number of parachutes left behind yards and yards of silk littered the fields of france the falsehood yeager would push onto the commune solcom dumas where haita climbed the church steeple and saw the endless armada in the channel things were not much better for the germans on the beach proper lieutenant arthur yonka commanded fort w5 a network of bunkers and pillboxes built into the dunes over the beaches which was all but destroyed by the morning bombings janko recalled how the raids obliterated his position avalanches of sand and concrete buried his men alive forcing them to be dug out even as the assault on the beaches began spotting the american landing craft janka ordered what men he could rally to dig in and ordered a dispatch rider to make for the nearest artillery battery to shell the beach ianko's rider would be intercepted by american paratroopers there was little yanka and his men could do as the landings began in ernst with men and floating tanks fighting their way through the surf and straight toward the ruins of w5 a blast knocked janka to the ground and as his eyes fought to focus and the ringing in his ears subsided he looked up through his skewed spectacles to see an american infantryman standing over him as combat intensified on normandy and reports of paratroopers and an allied fleet flooded high command the general staff thought to themselves this is all an elaborate ruse the general staff passed this thought around as hitler slept in as more and more allied troops and heavy equipment began making their way onto the beaches hitler finally rolled out of bed to be met with word of the invasion of france the fuhrer could not have been happier hitler declared again that the atlantic wall would throw the allies back and he eagerly anticipated following up the inevitable failure of the normandy landings by reigning v1 bombs on london the western armies would be ground into the sands of france and the seat of his hated british enemies would be blown to smithereens by superior german weaponry but as the day dragged on and the allies began to gain ground the frontline commanders flooded high command with requests for support requests to do something to prevent their positions from being overrun the beacons of normandy were lit but high command would not answer the call for aid hitler the only man on earth who could release the panzers would continue to insist that the allies could and should be thrown back on the shore this thinking had managed to seep into some of the defenders on gold beach friedrich verster helped crew a battery of four captured czech cannons at marie fontaine near the beach verster firmly agreed with his fuhrer that the atlantic wall was impenetrable an attitude he kept right up until the british overran his commander's spotting position near the shore in the face of allied superiority in men and materiel verster and his fellows quietly surrendered further behind the lines the germans were hard at work trying to corral the french civilian population propaganda vans drove through calm ordering the population to remain indoors while the german authorities began to arrange for the evacuation of key parts of the city at van roonshet's headquarters outside of paris telephones rang continuously and teletypes spewed seemingly infinite messages combat at gold beach began in ernst when the first landing craft dropped their ramps the moment the metal hit the surf german machine guns and artillery opened up on the british troops who fought hard to clear the beach and sweep the fortified coastal houses the germans had worked into their defenses indeed the germans put up a fierce fight at gold with elements of the 352nd infantry raining fire on the british from a cliff top over the beach at amel including devastating volleys from a flak 88. the british were only able to unseat the germans at amel with tank support including a mortar armed member of hobart's funnies elements of the 12th ss division spotted the invasion fleet anchored off of juno beach in the early morning hours lieutenant peter hansman of the 12th recalled being awoken by his nco in charge shaking my shoulders here loidnant the invasion has started han's been rushed to a vantage point near gold beach looking through my binoculars i recognized the individual outlines of ships at irregular intervals flashes of ship's artillery were coming from various spots fast boats with high white foamy bow waves were spitting out brown clumps of men on the beach the lieutenant counted over 400 ships in the channel from his front row seat to the end of the third reich i wanted to shout at all the generals right up to adolf hitler over here quickly before it's too late whoever can still fight come here the fastest most powerful divisions send them here the luftwaffe where is it the kriegs marina where is it it must get here grenadier hans viner who defended a position on juno dubbed wn-31 recalled watching the first tommy's jumping into the sea which was quite shallow the bullets hit them and their boats to good effect and i was a little surprised to see them falling i don't know why weiner's position was eventually torn apart by the tanks coming ashore with the canadians which managed to drive inland under the barrel of 88 millimeter cannons poised to shred them as they emerged from the surf 88 millimeter gunner hyrik zebel complained of not being able to see many tanks due to the smoke and chaos though his gun claimed at least two allied tanks before their block house ii was blown apart the germans provided a much tougher obstacle for their foes at the tai ville chateau roughly one mile or one and a half kilometers inland thai villa was supposed to be the starting point for a second line of defensive works laid out by rommel before the allied landings came it was a well-built strong point with a full communication and command complex and underground tunnels connecting it to to brook turrets armed with machine guns cannons and mortars the defenders managed to hold the allies back until nearly 6 pm that day with their final message before the position was taken reading hand-to-hand fighting inside the command post hemmed into a closely confined area but still holding out heil hitler not long after the fall of tyvil the canadians began making their way toward the luftwaffe airfield at copykat one of their key objectives the commandant of the airfield ordered an evacuation inciting panic in his ground cruise the germans made a hurried attempt to destroy the aircraft before they evacuated but their haste proved fatal attempts to raise the airfield left most of the taxiing area of the runway untouched the takeoff runway was damaged but not sufficiently to render it unusable and the vast majority of the field's fuel stores were salvageable in this one case haste ended up lessening waste from the invasion of poland all the way up until d-day the story of the second world war is told from the perspective of the ascendant nazi germany the bronze eagle casting a wide shadow over the history of the early war but from the very moment the first allied boot makes landfall in normandy the narrative changes and the rest of the war is studied almost exclusively from the allied perspective we hope you have enjoyed hearing these personal recollections from german soldiers on normandy and agree with us that it is important to know the thoughts of even those on the wrong side of history for it is only by seeing both sides of a conflict that one can form a complete picture [Music] you

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 2,369,384

Rating: 4.8790078 out of 5

Keywords: The German perspective, d-day, omaha beach, operation overlord, erwin rommel, the western front, second world war, german history, the beaches of normandy, heinrich severloh

Id: EUTo1urxwPo

Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 21 2021