How Did Nazi Germany’s Western Front Collapse? | World War II In Colour

[Music] by the summer of 1944 Allied troops were racing towards p the final phase of the war in Europe was about to be played out the Western allies were squeezing in on Germany through France the Soviet Union was approaching from the East Hitler caught in the middle made a last desperate attempt to break out of the Allied strangle hole while he was doing so Stalin was beginning to redraw the political map of Europe in an attempt to secure the Soviet Union's future but as the Russians now Advanced into German occupied territory they came across the most shocking Discovery in modern history a series of camps that would call into question the very nature of humanity the world was about to discover the true horror of the Nazi [Music] regim in August 1944 Allied troops arrived in [Music] Paris even as head desperately signal to his generals is Paris burning the German forces occupying the city surrendered Paris free again and the beginning of the last act in its Amazing Story the surrender of Lieutenant General Fon jolitz German commander of the Paris region at a denji office in Mora station formal end of German rule [Music] Paris threw itself into an orgy of Celebration [Music] the following day sh de the leader of the free French government in Exile arrived in the city to claim the glory for its liberation [Applause] [Applause] meanwhile as deal claimed the credit the Allies continued the fighting they crossed the river San and moved East towards Germany as they did so the German Army was retreating in confusion but the Allies were running into severe logistical problems the fleeing Germans had trashed the French [Music] ports that meant Allied supplies had to be brought in from Britain across the beaches of Normandy and then transported several hundreds of miles along tortuous roads truck convoys nicknamed the red ball Express from their identification sign rolled forward day and night but it was impossible to bring in enough supplies particularly fuel to maintain the Allied [Applause] Advance the US armor division drank up to 25,000 gallons of fuel a [Applause] day meanwhile as Supply problems slowed the Allied Advance Hitler was planning a new fight back his plan to destroy Allied moral by attacking civilian targets particularly in Britain his method a new Miracle weapon the flying bomb on June the 13th 1944 10 were fired at lump six struck home the Germans called it Vengeance weapon one the V1 the British simply called it the doodle [Music] Buck armed with a warhead of just under 2,000 lb it could be launched from sights 130 M away and could fly at 4 400 mph for the next few weeks up to a 100 doodle Bugs a day were fired at British cities from launch sites along the German occupied channnel Coast they caused panic and confusion more than 20,000 people were killed or wounded the British set up a screen of anti-aircraft guns around the capital many flying bombs were shot [Music] down the British also sent up fighters to intercept them including their first operational jet the Gloucester meteor [Music] but still the v1s kept arriving only when the Allies track down their launch sites in northern France did they stop but the reprieve was only temporary the Germans had a second Miracle weapon up their sleeves hard on the heels of the V1 came the much more sophisticated V2 rocket the first fell on London on September the 8th 1944 the V2s were launched from easily concealed mobile launchers 200 M away they traveled at 32,000 mph and carried a one ton Warhead for 6 months Britain had no response over 1100 V2s landed on defenseless British cities they only stopped when the German positions in Europe were pushed so far back back the launch sites were once again out of range of Britain yet despite the horror and damage the V2s caused British morale remained [Applause] [Music] unbroken meanwhile in Mainland Europe the Allied Advance reached Brussels on September the 3rd [Applause] 1944 the next day British forces took the huge Belgian Port of Anor it was still intact here at last seemed an answer to the Allies logistic problems new supplies could pour in through the port but it was not to be so simple antp is 40 mi from the sea up the river Shelt as the Germans pulled out of the city they dug in along the Waterway turning it into a corridor of death the river was also mined it meant the port was unreachable from the sea the Allied Advance now desperately low on supplies was in danger of grinding to a h discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and adree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all on History hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to watch everything from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to operation Barbarosa and D-Day immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the [Music] description by Autumn 1944 the Allied Advance across Western Europe was running short of supplies they needed a new plan if it was to move forward it was now that the methodical and Ultra cautious British commander Bernard Montgomery came up with a bold even Reckless [Music] idea instead of large numbers of troops advancing across a wide front why not send a smaller Force to punch a single hole through the German defenses it would be faster and much more economical the idea was to drive a narrow corridor from east of antp across Southern Holland to the Dutch town of arnam near the German border the Allies would then push across the rine into Germany out flanking the huge German defensive positions of the so-called SE freed line and drive deep into the heart of Hitler's Reich Montgomery's boss General Dwight Eisenhower the Supreme Allied Commander in the west had until now favored a broad steady advance but he unexpectedly agreed however it was never going to be easy the route went over a mass of waterways airborne troops would have to be sent in to see strategic Bridges behind German lines at the towns of vagel and zon grav and niman and finally across the rine at arnam their task would be to hold the bridges while the main attack led by a column of Tanks drove up from [Music] Belgium timing was critical if the tank column took too long the airborne troops holding the bridges would be overwhelmed [Music] operation Market Garden began early on the afternoon of September the 17th 1944 30,000 British and US airborne troops equipped with gliders landed in German occupied territory the US 101st Airborne with Screaming Eagles swiftly captured the bridge at veel but their second objective the bridge at zon was blown up by the Germans just as the Americans approached further north the US 82nd Airborne the all- Americans successfully seize the bridge at grav but stiff German resistance prevented them from capturing the second crucial bridge at niman [Music] [Music] meanwhile at arnam two brigades of the British first Airborne Division landed safely about 8 mil west of the [Music] town but as the paratroops advanced towards aram's vital Bridge across the Ry they ran into two German Panza divisions [Music] the British dropped reinforcements of men and machines but as they drifted down to earth they were cut to Pieces by German fire [Applause] [Music] finally by 8 in the evening after a day of fierce fighting an Allied Battalion reached the Northern end of the bridge but the Germans still held the other end operation Market Garden was in trouble [Music] at the same time the tank column advancing up a single Track Road was also running into difficulties as it drove towards the Dutch border on the first day the lead Vehicles were ambushed by German troops using the lethal handheld Panera anti-tank rocket the advance was halted while Infantry was brought in to clear the [Music] way the following day the tank column reached Z but was delayed overnight while the bridge was replaced with a temporary structure by the third day it had crossed the bridges at Veo and grav but was held up again by Fierce resistance at 9:00 finally 4 days after starting out the column was at last within Striking Distance of Anor but it was too late the British paratroops holding the Northern end of the bridge had surrendered monomer's daring plan had failed arnam had proved A Bridge Too Far the war on the Western Front seemed to have ground to a standstill again [Music] then 10 days later the Allies launched a new effort to break the deadlock the plan was to clear the Seaway into antp so that urgently needed supplies could be brought in it was slowo the Germans had flooded much of the area it took Canadian troops 3 weeks to clear the river banks of German soldiers and machine gun [Music] nests but still the Germans clung on to the strategically important valkin Island it had massive guns that commanded the River entrance on November the 1st 1944 British Commandos were sent in to flush the Germans out they were supported by two World War I monitors with huge 15in guns the Germans held on for another week before they were finally overwhelmed Allied mind sweepers could now clear the [Music] Seaway 3 weeks later on November the 28th 1944 the First Supply ships reached an now at last the Allies could move on towards the German Frontier but then just as the supplies had begun to flow the weather changed Autumn rain turned the battlefield into a swamp by late 1944 the Allied Advance had to stop again the final defeat of Germany would have to wait until the spring but even as the Allies waited Hitler was preparing a massive response by Autumn 1944 the Allied armies were virtually lined up along the Belgian German Frontier waiting for the winter weather to clear before they pushed on Germany's situation was disastrous her forces were hugely outnumbered they lacked air support and they were desperately short of fuel nevertheless Hitler against the advice of his senior commanders decided to launch a huge Counterattack it was a desperate gamble but if it paid off it might just change Germany's fortun his plan was to burst through the Allied lines in the Arden Hills and head for antor if he could retake the port the Allied supply lines would be cut once again some 200,000 German troops and 950 tanks and tank destroyers were assembled in total radio silence Hitler was calling on what was in effect his last remaining strategic reserve of troops the Allies missed the buildup completely as a result the lines facing the German positions were only lightly maned on December the 16th 1944 the Germans opened fire soon afterwards German tanks and infantry crossed the US line [Music] the Americans were caught completely by surar in fact during the first day General Omar Bradley commander of us 12th Army group even refused to believe a major German assault was underway the amican confusion was made worse when the Germans sent in English-speaking Special Forces and captured us uniforms and jeeps to carry out sabotage behind IND the US lines American troops became so nervous that even General Bradley was stopped and asked to produce his identity papers to prove that he was not a German but despite this the US forces regroup any Germans captured wearing us uniforms were summarily shot as spies wow the Americans began to fight back but the Advance had created a huge bulge in the Allied lines the attack would become known as the Battle of the Bulge it was now on the Northern flank of this bulge that the Germans committed one of the worst atrocities ities of the war in Northwest [Music] Europe SS colel yakim Piper captured some 150 members of a US Artillery observation Battalion near the village of [Music] Mal when later US forces retook the village they found 85 bodies their comr had been shot by their asss guards it was a sign of how desperate the fight had [Music] become as the German Advance near malmy continued us combat engineers blew up Bridges to slow it down the Germans were forced to use precious supplies of fuel to look for alternative Crossings meanwhile on the southern flank of the Bulge US troops blocked Road Junctions to slow the German tanks one of the most important Crossroads was at the small Belgian town of Baston here the Allies sent in reinforcements the Germans were forced to bypass it but the US forces holding Baston blocked their supply lines two days later however the Germans were approaching the town of donon some 30 m further west despite the setbacks Hitler's gamble appeared to be paying off the German bulge was moving forward but their supply lines were now dangerously overextended and they were running desperately low on fuel the advance slowed for almost a week in the biting cold the two sides remained dead neither could gain the upper half then on New Year's Day 1945 the LT vafer launched a du die assault on Allied bases over 300 Allied planes were destroyed but the Luft vafer lost several hundred too far more than it could [Music] replace as the weather now improved the Allies took advantage of their overwhelming air power US troops temporarily under Montgomery's command pushed in from the North US General George Patton's forces squeezed from the [Music] south Allied air power pummeled the German lons [Music] the German bulge was slowly pushed back by early February 1945 Hitler's gamble had failed the Germans had retreated to their original positions the attack had taken a heavy toll on their already depleted Resort forces over 120,000 men were killed wounded or taken prisoner meanwhile on the other side of Europe Stalin now began to move on Germany's eastern border in doing so he would begin to redraw the political map of [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Europe during the summer and Autumn of 1944 as the Allies overran France and Belgium in the East the core of Stalin's red arm Army was camped outside the Polish capital of Warsaw for the Russian leader the aim of the war had by now changed it was no longer a matter of survival or even of pushing the enemy out of the Soviet Union it had become a political Affair top of Stalin agenda was building a buffer zone between the Soviet Union and Germany one of the keys to this was Poland the Russians and poles had long hated each other Soviet armies had collaborated with the Germans in carving up Poland in 1939 [Music] then in April 1943 German soldiers found the bodies of more than 4,000 polish army officers in the Ken Woods near smolin in the Soviet [Music] Union they had been murdered by the Russians Stalin denied any involvement and blamed the Germans but the poles never believed him then in the summer of 1944 the Polish home Army in Warsaw rose up against its German occupies it was now that hostility between the two countries came to a head the home had been spurred on by a broadcast from Moscow on July the 29th urging a popular Uprising in the first few days of the rising it seized some 2/3 of the city it had about 40,000 men and women armed mainly with captured German weapons there were also more than 200,000 unarmed [Music] helpers but they lacked any weapons capable of repelling the German heavy [Music] armor the poles looked to the Soviet Army still camped just to the South for help but star St ordered it to do nothing and dismissed the home Army's leadership as power seeking criminals German reinforcements poured into wara under the command of ss General Eric fond debach zaluski he was an expert in crushing and slaughtering partisan groups the situation in the city became [Music] desperate Savage house-to-house fighting raged for two months the home Army was forced back into an Ever smaller area the German Advance was accompanied by rape and murder wounded prisoners were burned alive women and children were used as human Shields the Polish forces were forced back into the sellers and sewers but still the Red Army sat back Stalin's reasoning was simple he saw the Polish home Army as pro-western and [Music] anti-communist he reasoned that if it and its supporters were destroyed it would clear the way for the Polish Communists to take part by October thei the Germans had done just what Stalin had hoped the home Army and its sympathizers were crushed over 15,000 Army members and 2 200,000 civilians died [Music] some 15,000 people surrendered Hitler Now set about the complete destruction of the city warsa was raised to the [Music] ground the remnants of the home Army went underground later when the Red Army finally moved into wara they would be hunted down by Soviet Secret Police Stalin scheming had worked Pro Western polish forces had been smashed and the country would after the war become a key buffer State between Russia and the West in London the British prime minister Winston Churchill was appalled by Stalin's conduct but he was also a pragmatist in October 1944 Churchill went to Moscow it was several months after the crushing of the Warsaw Uprising there he agreed with Stalin on a division of the European spoils according to a document chural scried down the Soviets would have 90% of the influence in Romania and the British 90% in [Music] Greece in Bulgaria the Soviets would have 75% influence and 50% in Yugoslavia and Hungary the future of Poland was left vague probably deliberately Churchill described it as the naughty document the wording was confusing and nobody was sure quite what it meant but Stalin happily agreed to it he was probably aware that the winner would take all and he intended to be the winner in most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans Churchill never told the Americans about the document he knew that they would be horrified by such old-fashioned imperialism between the European powers but the US found out soon enough in late 1944 the Germans pulled out of [Music] Greece the country descended into a civil war between the monarchists and the Communists Churchill wanted his 90% influence and sent in British troops to support the pro-western monarchists Stalin mindful of the naughty document did not [Music] object but the Americans were outraged at what they saw as such blatant meddling in another country's Affairs but by the end of 1944 there was a more pressing issue Western and Soviet forces were about the same distance away from Berlin the race was on to be the first to get there but even before it began new and shocking news came out of the east on July the 23rd 1944 as Soviet forces Advanced through Eastern Poland they overran a small village called miden nearby they found a prison compound they quickly realized it was no ordinary [Music] Camp they found specially built gas Chambers and incinerators near them were piles of corpses it was a camp designed for the mass murder of Jews Adolf Hitler had always been [Applause] [Music] anti-semitic when in the 1930s he had come to power many German Jews had been forced to [Music] flee those who couldn't were persecuted and deprived of their [Music] rights then in the summer of 1939 the Germans invaded Poland [Music] suddenly the German Reich found itself ruling 2 million more Jews so the Nazis sent in special SS squads the einat's group whose job was to round them up many Jews were immediately shot the remainder were herded into walled ghettos in the major cities while the Germans worked out how to solve what they called the Jewish [Music] Problem life in the ghettos was harush people were systematically starved and beaten [Music] 2 years later the German Army entered the Soviet Union Millions more Jews suddenly found themselves under Nazi [Music] rule here the einat's group and were helped by the local population which was often anti-Semitic and only too willing to carry out pograms of its own hundreds of thousands of Jews were rounded up and exterminated the most notorious pogram occurred at babah in KF 33,000 Jews were shot in Cold Blood but machine gunning was an expensive way of dealing with the Jewish Problem nor was it popular with many German soldiers so at a conference in January 1942 the SS leadership cast round for more efficient Solutions first it tried using carbon monoxide [Music] fuels but that didn't kill enough people quickly enough the conference eventually agreed to set up a series of camps where Europe's Jewish population would be systematically exterminated there would be six of these death camps all in Poland they were at miden soore trinka chelmno belc and birkenau as the camps were being built the Jewish ghettos were [Applause] liquidated one notorious example was in waro here as the Germans moved into the ghetto to clear it out the inhabitants fought back they held out for nearly a [Music] month 7,000 died in the fighting before they were [Music] overwhelmed those who had survived it were rounded up and sent to trinka [Music] here they entered what was rapidly becoming a highly organized system of slave labor and extermination new inhabitants arrived at the camps in cattle trucks from all over Europe but places like birkenau the extermination facilities were next to work camps like aitz at facilities like this the new arrivals were sorted able bodied men and a few women went to the Work Camp to be worked to death as slaves children the old and most of the women went straight to the gas [Music] Chambers they were stripped and their head shaved [Music] next they were herded up to 2,000 at a time into sealed rooms disguised as showers SS officers then poured zeyon B crystals through a trap in the roof to form a deadly gas it was far more effective than carbon monoxide at alitz birkenau the gas Chambers could kill over 10,000 people a day small groups of prisoners known as s Commandos were used to clear the bodies out of the chambers some bodies were burnt in pits some in crematoria [Music] the camps could also be profitable businesses major German companies built Factories near them and paid the SS which administered the camps to hire Jews as [Music] slaves the belongings and hair of those Gast were sold off the gold teeth melted down and hoarded for most Jews resistance was almost impossible at trinka soore and burkau however the S Commandos mounted brief and doomed [Music] rebellions but in July by 1944 most of this was still unknown as news began to seep out of the Russian find at midanik most people simply found it unbelievable yet today we know that people in the west like Churchill almost certainly knew more than they admitted during 1943 and 44 several reports reached London about what was going on inside the extermin ation camps but nothing was done today it is estimated some 6 million Jews were exterminated in Hitler's [Music] camps what the Allies had never understood until the war was over was the vast scale of the Nazi extermination [Music] campaign nor did they they grasp the sheer quantity of resources the Germans were prepared to devote to when Germany was facing its final Gams [Music]

Channel: War Stories

Views: 115,887

Keywords: Battle of the Bulge, European history, General Montgomery, History Hit Network, Nazi Germany collapse, Operation Market Garden, War Stories, World War II, combat footage, concentration camps, engaging stories, historical battles, historical findings, military campaigns, military leadership, military strategy, strategic maneuvers, war accounts, war recollections, war revelations, wartime strategies

Id: 1sOWS2S2rYQ

Length: 51min 41sec (3101 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2024