Dunkirk from the German Perspective | Animated History

a Heinkel he1 11 medium bomber darts in and out of the mists above the French coast the pilot squints in a vain attempt to see through the foggy windshield and grits his teeth as anti-aircraft shells pierced the low-hanging clouds below as the Heinkel settles into its attack rod shrapnel rattles the fuselage even with dozens of Royal Navy destroyers filling the air with flak the civilian ships crowding Dunkirk harbours are an irresistible target for the pilot the bomb bay doors open directly over the hapless french steamer from which men spill out into the ocean waters even as certain death awaits them as the ship is consumed by a seething inferno the Heinkel disappears back into the fog bank [Music] before we delve into this topic I'd like to thank today's sponsor rise of kingdoms a free historical RTS game with millions of players across the world available on the App Store and Google Play Store start a battle anytime anywhere choose from one of eleven historical civilizations each with its own unique units and lead your people to glory against other players call upon dozens of historical figures to serve as your trustworthy commanders from Julius Caesar to sanzu to Joan of Arc battles happen in real time on a huge detailed map that requires you to account for natural obstructions like rivers and mountains join an alliance of up to 170 players and compete in the Osiris League for lucrative in-game rewards support my channel by clicking the link in the description below and use the code on screen to claim the prizes you see here it is may 1940 and the Second World War looks as though it will be over by Christmas the Manstein plan had accomplished in weeks what the Schlieffen Plan never could the Maginot Line had been bypassed and the impregnable Belgian Fortress of a Bini male had fallen to a handful of german paratroopers generals such as Heinz Guderian and Erlin Rommel were teaching Europe to flinch at the very mention of Panzer tanks while the Luftwaffe seem to have no equal in the skies above Belgium and France on every front the enemy was either in full retreat or being encircled the lowland countries once so troublesome during the Great War were little more than speed bumps on the road to Paris at the Battle of sedan the Vava conducted the largest bombing campaign in history flying nearly 4,000 individual sorties against enemy positions and causing thousands to flee in panic as the French line collapsed Army Group a under general GERD von Rundstedt started to drive a massive wedge between the bulk of the French army and to the British Expeditionary Force which had recently landed in Flanders the offensive was not intended to last long but the impetuous Panzer generals Rommel and Guderian openly defied orders and plunged straight towards the channel leaving chaos and devastation in their wake but the Allies were not intent to sit idly by and allow the Germans to encircle them on May 21st 2000 French and British soldiers intercepted two of Rommels Panzer divisions and an SS Division at the Battle of Arras although briefly startled by the bold move Rommel quickly rallied his men and forced the Allied troops to retreat under the cover of darkness far from delaying the German advance the counter-attack simply encouraged Rommel Antico Darien to reach the coast as fast as possible the German force was like a bull in a china shop and the Allies were the fly buzzing in its ear inadvertently causing the ensuing devastation meanwhile as General Fedor font Bach commander of army Group B dealt with belgian resistance to the east mechanized elements of Army Group a continued thundering West at breakneck speed Guderian's Panzers plowed through two unprepared British divisions on the 19th capturing vital bridge heads over the Somme and then swinging north towards Bologna and Calais as a result of these decisive maneuvers German forces had an encirclement at Dunkirk firmly established by the 22nd despite this unparalleled advance the German soldiers scarcely had time to dip his aching feet into the soothing waters of the English Channel before British evacuation ships appeared on the horizon although Luftwaffe bombers had already destroyed the port facilities British and French men began lining up on the seawall and beaches of Dunkirk waiting to board the boats deployed by the larger ships as they reached the shallow harbour initially the Germans were unconcerned these were not the mighty battleships of the Royal Navy but a ragtag assortment of destroyers and transports obviously scraped together last minute to evacuate a few thousand key personnel but as time wore on more and more ships started to trickle in and the trickle became a deluge generals and admirals alike began scratching their heads all pondering the same question where on earth had the British acquired so many transports then as reports from Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights began to trickle in the stage was set for one of the most controversial decisions of the war Americans and i'm dottie the politician havens and Leia seehim he - if - women can get shipped on defy Klinger intuition so Adam Yamaha was of animist ocean thief Stinson - ofits rifle - Tatsu van when they get stolen fantasy foolish pressure each Tomatsu volition sushi Long's along at us Aizen hi cyst there are Alec is Danza nine-year by Daphne amoeba right smear it sign my mentor and to reinforce reducing in the fog apart a via Hutton site begin these are often Ziva Kainat sites on fashion often on yet bitten Zamir shop for the manor of Chisholm for London to tighten each tank a terror focused in and sukhovka sting see laymen def a gang night once on OA other clicks will not see Vida on Drita bavette healthiest lieber in meine upon service at song and outs dying on shouldn't claim shelter in Verdun it's been denied so gladdened us on service here the deepness a physician there finds had sada hold its own fake a visa of insertion Ellis for and so they are given only care to keep chief at suger Hongdae in Britain on from souls inside ina ging orphans Eva to organs even VDT part effects oh gosh la nada Jebusite by deliver food mr. John Fela right precise between also Union de Botton said Becky guarantee Hobart SAT and Susan it invertebrates omits work seen bernzy in canadian mine Florida sat of can easy the Luftwaffe can meet in Britain Phantogram nor invert onto my negative n Sigma tons of Anne Klein and problema fasten vert leash on V Philadelphia ha ilkook especially on pollutant cancel negatron girly the ouster loft toosh Laughton witnessed by the two nights era and schloss hide surfaced again when we are in an Canon also it may even see best to let some cougar confirm I von Kleist's cap and certain division and happened hides food 50% velocity a little was not just easy Schlachter given and Vincent stinky King Frank like affiliate via by other ones are born than his air from food enforced was not Frank 99 a body farm Suresh a Luftwaffe is Bernards let's comrades and agonists Tim getting such - amil kanika get Nisour own and stuff the Deaf a few ones accompany a guarantee and we Conan kind of ITER at site remedies at the butter fresh mint mein Fuhrer has leaked ininin Vasanti Durbeyfield on May 24th the skies above Flanders began to fill with an ever-increasing swarm of German fighters the whine of their massed propellers almost have enough to deafen observers below during had won his argument Army Group a would halt and the mighty Luftwaffe would bomb Dunkirk and the evacuation fleet into submission although the tank crews were grateful for the respite their officers made no pretense of agreeing with Hitler's new strategy general Franz Halder wrote in his diary the air force on which all hopes are pinned is dependent on the weather this divergence of views resulted in a tug of war which costs more nerves than it does actual conduct of the operations however the battle will be won this way or that the reasons behind Hitler's decision to halt the advance of the German armor on May 24th are hotly debated to this day while good arguments have been made on all sides a lot of it boils down to as octa disease ACTA and although it's undoubtedly true that Hitler made many crucial errors during the war his decision to halt the ground forces at Dunkirk was not entirely without merit the ver muffed was in serious danger of becoming a victim of its own success their advance had stretched German supply lines and left the Panzer divisions sure on fuel and ammunition the men were exhausted the tanks ill-suited for urban warfare the infantry lagging behind the armor and the artillery lagging behind to the infantry it's also worth mentioning that after the war that was German generals who survived the conflict frequently ascribed to Hitler their own mistakes resulting in even further misinformation regarding Hitler's decision-making as one example Panzer General Kleist of Army Group a stated later I must say that the English managed to escape that trap in Dunkirk which I laid only with the personal help of Hitler the fact of the matter is that the English would have been unable to get into Dunkirk because I had them covered then Hitler personally ordered that I should withdraw my troops when Gen Kleist met Hitler a few days after the evacuation he was so furious he dared to remark that a great opportunity had been lost at Dunkirk Hitler in a perhaps uncharacteristic display of flippancy calmly replied that maybe so but I did not want to send the tanks into the Flanders marshes and besides the British won't come back in this war initially it seems like Hitler's assumption had merit the British were fleeing in droves scrambling aboard their ships while being repeatedly strafed by any one of our fighters that broke through their air defenses one German pilot wrote after the war I hated Dunkirk it was just cold-blooded killing the beaches were jammed with soldiers I went up and down spraying them with bullets but as the day's wore on it became clear to observers that despite during's assurances various factors had drastically limited the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe the Dunkirk pocket was far enough from German airfield sket fighters and dive bombers like the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and to the euchre's Ju 87 needed to expend the majority of their fuel just to reach the area twin-engine bombers such as the Heinkel 8111 had an even shorter flight time leaving no room for error during attack runs that were already made frustratingly inaccurate due to the thick low-hanging clouds shrouding the Harbor during dogfights the BF 109 feet faster than the British hurricane and have much better camouflage however German pilots quickly came to hate the Supermarine Spitfire which had better performance at higher altitudes but even with the Luftwaffe throwing almost a thousand fighters and bombers at a foe only mustering half that number British transport ships continued to slip away through the fog furious with the situation there moshed commander-in-chief walter von Brauchitsch dared to challenge hitler's decision to restrict the advance of Army Group A with great reluctance Hitler actually agreed rescinding the order on May 26th finally let off the leash rune step immediately began plans to advance however the same day Army Group B which had been pestering the British from the east launched a major attack across the EPO main canal realizing he was faced by a mere two divisions general fedor von Bach ordered a massive artillery and then in advance by three of his own divisions hectic fighting ensued all along the canal and for a moment it seemed as if the Germans would successfully break through the British flanks and encircle several battalions of troops but eventually the enemy had their backs to the wall and an account from the battle from the 41st Panzer Corps vividly illustrates the situation at every position heavy fighting has developed in consequence the Corps has not been able to make any notable headway to the east or northeast casualties in personnel and equipment are Grievous the enemy are fighting tenaciously and to the last man remain at their posts if they are shelled out of one position they shortly reappear in another but despite their fierce defense the British quickly began falling back German troops stormed across the canals only for Royal artillery shells to begin raining down on them even so every soldier knew that they were on the cusp of victory unlike anything that Kaiser could have dreamed of and they pushed forward with dogged determination soon after the Luftwaffe avenged the sacrifices made by the ground troops when they spend two hours bombing and strafing allied columns as they advance to retreat across one of only two ridges on the easier canal a huge number of British vehicles were either destroyed or abandoned in subsequent attacks disabled a large portion of their artillery allowing the German infantry to breathe a collective sigh of relief although the British and French were now falling back advancement on the eastern flank was still hampered by a large concentration of Belgian troops but unwilling to sacrifice thousands more lives in an obviously futile gesture of defiance Belgian King Leopold the third who was himself commanding troops agreed to an unconditional surrender on the afternoon of the 28th taking advantage of this situation von Bach ordered a swift advance managing to catch three British divisions by surprise as they attempted to reposition the eastern flank was now in disarray with British lines slowly but surely falling back before the seemingly unstoppable German war machine meanwhile on the western flank Ronstadt had required nearly sixteen hours to prepare for his own offensive maneuvers early on May 27th he had sent the Panzers surging forward across the canal results were immediate with Erwin Rommel brilliantly outmaneuvering the retreating French forces and isolating nearly 35,000 men in the town of Lille the jaws of the German trap were now closing shut driving the Allies back into a defensive line a mere seven miles or eleven kilometers from the coast with Dunkirk at the center throughout this period the Luftwaffe continued to harass the British evacuation clearly dropping an estimated 45,000 bombs during its 12 major raids on the Dunkirk pocket but for all of göring's bluster he proved unable to command the weather which remained mostly overcast until June 1st as fun Haldor put it in his diary the bad weather has grounded our air force and now we must stand by and watch how countless thousands of the enemy are getting away to England right under our noses this bullets filled the air over Dunkirk so too did heated words fill the air back at German High Command Hitler was by now thoroughly fed up with what he saw as an atmosphere of mistrust and insubordination and took swift action to rectify the situation impetuous men like Heinz Guderian were reassigned to the south while the forces encircling Dunkirk were placed under the control of general georg von kuchler whom hitler regarded as a much more steady and reliable officer although kuchler quickly ordered an assault his lack of familiarity with the new command resulted in a breakdown of communications in spite of these issues the Germans achieved a major victory on the first day of June when they finally over and the French force defending the town of Lille despite being encircled days earlier the defenders had required seven full divisions for 160 thousand men to fully isolate and contain them with these divisions free to join the main attack victory was inevitable and as the weather cleared the sky turned black with Luftwaffe planes eager to avenge their fallen comrades yet against all odds the remaining 40,000 members of the French first Army continued to resist amid the smoking rubble and greeted every German advance with a hail of gunfire final French word owl at fort de dune held out until June 3rd it's garrison only surrendering after German bombs had all but leveled the structure a day later German forces finally captured the harbour just in time to watch the last British transport ship steamed away into the channel as the dust settled the Germans finally had time to count their losses although 20,000 brave men had been sacrificed to collapse the Allied pocket the enemy had lost three times that number and the Germans had captured at least 100,000 French POWs arguments raged to this day over the exact number of planes lost during the engagement but Goering confidently claimed that his brave pilots had achieved a favorable kill ratio in every encounter and inflicted severe casualties on the evacuation route the Germans also captured a vast quantity of allied war materiel there had been no room on the civilian transport ships for vehicles of any sort and these now clogged the roads for miles in every direction tanks trucks armored cars artillery and motorcycles many still fuelled and loaded with ordnance for the rest of the war vehicles stolen from the British Expeditionary Force would serve in the vert marched on every front from these scorching deserts of Africa to the coldest depths of Russia [Applause] dan gilleon STF Allen built each thousand Frances not Englanders Indus Lester rest until grocer our main Fagin hooniverse a virus materialized were they avoided damage is the grace to slash their vegetable and death [Applause] of course while Hitler was basking in the adoration of the German public his officers were lamenting opportunities they believed to have been lost due to his meddling the Battle of Dunkirk was a German victory but many in the ver moshed remained convinced that it could have been more decisive if their superiors had been willing to take more risks even so as the war raged on the memories of Dunkirk would linger in the minds of both sides as a great victory don't forget to subscribe to the channel so you can see our video on the invasion of Poland from the Polish perspective which will be out in just a few short weeks [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 2,463,854

Rating: 4.8789678 out of 5

Keywords: the battle of dunkirk, world war two history, ww2 history, wwii history, great war history, escape at dunkirk, evacuation of dunkirk, christopher nolan, dunkirk movie, dunkirk history, the german perspective, What was D-Day like for the Germans?, the invasion of france, fall of france, dunkirk pocket, invasion of belgium, invasion of the lowlands, invasion of the netherlands, invasion through the ardennes, alsace lorraine, the maginot line, the Schlieffen plan, DUNKIRK

Id: 6cid6rZc3Tg

Length: 20min 54sec (1254 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 29 2019