Ludwig Bauer: The Panzer Tank Ace | Greatest Tank Battles | Timeline

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survival as he battles his way through some of history's greatest tank battles this is when i lost my face in god may 1940 german tanks thunder across belgium holland and france crushing everything in their path in just six weeks hitler's armies conquer all of western europe the blitzkrieg a fast mobile lightning war led by masses of heavy armor is unprecedented and redefines modern warfare [Applause] the stunning success of the german armor fuels hitler's propaganda machine panzer commanders like heinz guderian and erwin rommel become celebrities the third right has found its new heroes hands us when the tradition of the cavalry the dashing the attacking the riding over the open field and the national socialists were very keen on promoting this image of a modern weapon of modern warfare style so yes young men tried to get in there one of them is 18 year old ludwig bauer who joins the panzer troupe in late 1940. we are human all as young soldiers were hoping to get to the front but first we were ordered to put laws where we underwent more intense tank training training was extremely exhausting both physically we got deployed to the front [Music] in early 1941 bauer and thousands of tankers like him are ordered eastward part of a massive buildup of men and machines and on june 22nd after massing over 3 million soldiers and almost 3 600 tanks hitler launches operation barbarossa the nazi invasion of the soviet union in the initial stage of the attack german mobile tactics and superior armor easily overwhelms the soviet defenders but as the germans press their attack deeper into the motherland soviet resistance intensifies the russians never gave up no matter how hopeless the situation was it was sometimes incomprehensible to us stubborn by the fall of 1941 operation barbarossa begins to fizzle after 15 weeks of heavy fighting the red army finally slows the german advance on moscow hitler is determined to seize the capital before winter and orders one last push to finally break the soviet defenders but the invasion has cost both sides tremendously some german divisions have lost almost 50 percent of their original invasion force and the red army is holding on by a thread to protect their capital the russians have only 700 light tanks 100 t-34 medium tanks and only 47 of their powerful kv-1 heavy tanks while the germans attack with 1 000 medium tanks and over 500 light tanks most of these the antiquated panzer ii originally designed as a stop gap while other tanks were developed the panzer ii is modestly equipped with a light 20 millimeter gun and only 35 millimeters of frontal armor and is no match for the more robust soviet tanks piloting one of these outmoded tanks into battle is fledgling panzer trooper ludwig bower who attacks the southern anchor of moscow's defensive line at the industrial city of tula was a very big city with a major tank industry and the city was protected by a large tank ditch and the problem was that apparently the tank did was built in a way that no tank was able to drive across it or through it overnight we received the order that about eight or nine tanks should be laden with logs when the attack started at dawn those tanks started to drive towards the tank ditch it was a distance of about hundred to fifteen hundred meters and the thanks to all towards attack pitch at top speed and one of the worst artillery attacks i have ever encountered the russian shot as much as their barrels were able to give all the hair garden upon reaching the tank bit the tanks turned around the turret crew would get out and chop off the hoops with an axe again the logs fell down right into the tank ditch and the next group of tanks were able to drive over top of them it was a great adventure also more because one of the tanks ended up driving into the beach it was covered with the remaining logs they had to stay in there until the evening and all the other tanks drove over them and then all of the tanks drove up here towards the outskirts of town and when i got to the top of the hill i took a direct hit it probably was a kv-1 so a 762 the famous russian gun the tank caught fire immediately i was able to jump out of the turret but my driver and the radio operator burned to death inside the tank i had five bits of shrapnel in my eye one in my knee and one in my eye so i was i was just lying there [Music] like i said then die my comrades carried me out of this hellfire [Music] ludwig bower is evacuated to a hospital in aurel and over the next few months while he recuperates he is joined by a never-ending stream of fellow soldiers all victims of hitler's failing operation barbarossa and although the offensive costs the germans over a million men for fledgling tankers like bauer the war on the eastern front is only just beginning june 1941 convinced nothing can stop his mighty pantsers hitler unleashes a massive offensive against the soviet union and so begins the largest invasion in history but after six months of desperate fighting with four million men on both sides killed or wounded barbarossa fails and hitler's war machine comes to a freezing halt in the russian winter the first winter was horrible i think we lost more men deuces of grass during this first winter than we did due to the enemy does feel feel so dark in fact lots of soldiers had frostbite on legs hands ears and noses these were the worst injuries in flight i think the weather probably helped us because german troops were not ready to have military actions in freezing cold conditions the germans in the winter of 1941 had a big problem barbarossa had failed they had over 1 million casualties they were down to 50 percent of their strength so adolf hitler wanted to find a new way and to continue fighting against the the soviet union despite the fact that the wehrmacht at this point wasn't a suitable tool anymore undeterred by his losses hitler prepares for a massive spring offensive codenamed operation blue his troops will attack soviet positions all along the front stretching from the caucasus 900 kilometers north to the city of voronez the german high command sends tens of thousands of reinforcements to the eastern front including ludwig bower now recovered from wounds he received in the previous year's fighting at tula in the deutsche army he has a big advantage in the german army that the wounded soldiers could ask to rejoin their old unit i was redeployed back to russia to my regiment joined my unit there and the battle of varanesh was imminent my company had been assigned to secure a left flank and we saw 20 russian tanks driving into the valley at a distance of about two kilometers in this they said we had to let the russian tanks come closer to us and then try to shoot them the problem for our panzer 3 remains the same we only could fight the russian tanks at close range because the cannon's performance wasn't good enough they had just about enough penetrating power for the tanks at that time but there's a constantly increasing armor thickness the penetrating power of this gun is a short barrel was not strong enough and the enemy tanks could not be [Music] destroyed in the summer of 1942 the majority of panzer threes in operation are equipped with a short-barreled 50 millimeter main cannon and proved to be ineffective against most soviet armor but in an effort to improve their penetrating ability many panzer threes are up gunned with a more powerful long-barreled 50 millimeter cannon the russians then made a move to the side and suddenly appeared from the left and were as close as three or four started right i was able to away down a t-34 that was about 100 meters away but at the same time my tank had been rammed by a russian kv-1 the tanks were notched into each other so that we were all very close got one hit and couldn't turn the turret anymore because he ran into my tank two or three times then he pulled back to a distance of 10 meters and shot and the tank caught on fire immediately in the engine bay we got out the radio operator and i wanted to get out of this burning hell well now is bauer manages to escape from his burning tank only to find himself trapped behind enemy lines and after three days of avoiding russian patrols he finally makes it back to his regiment [Music] the stubborn russian defense stuns the german invaders and over the next few months operation blue progresses very slowly costing both sides tens of thousands of dead the russians had learned much and were fighting much harder than 1941 each russian man himself was convinced that he had to stand his ground at the point where he was in my soul i knew one thing whether i die or not die i would stay on the spot till then and i will win they even let themselves be hold over by tanks it was sometimes incomprehensible to us for ludwig bower and his comrades the hope of a quick and decisive victory on the eastern front is all but lost they did not come to us as guests they tortured our people shut them down they will get here over our dead bodies in the summer of 1942 hitler launches operation blue in a desperate attempt to complete his conquest of russia but after months of bloody fighting the attack slows to a crawl and tens of thousands of german soldiers die in the face of ferocious russian resistance by the fall of 1942 the red army has taken the steam out of the german invasion now all along the eastern front the soviets prepare to strike back and to do this they'll take a page from hitler's own playbook and spearhead the attacks with massive armored formations led by their t-34 main battle tanks the t-34 was a tank that was not very beautiful and not very sophisticated but the russians could produce it in vast numbers and very short time the germans built tanks that were fine products of german engineering but the numbers they could produce it were therefore very limited our tank was fast it could change direction fast forgive me heavy tanks are like towers on ice in comparison to the t-34 the t-34 is considered the best medium tank of the second world war will armed with a 76 millimeter main cannon and well protected by 45 millimeters of sloped frontal armor the t-34 has a decisive edge over its german counterparts the t-34 was a great tank of course and we certainly had a lot of respect for you [Music] by the summer of 1942 the russians have fielded thousands of these impressive tanks now almost anywhere the germans choose to attack they inevitably encounter scores of t-34s they came to this castle-like property that probably belonged to a russian herb a beautiful huge park with a huge property and very neat we expected to get some rest suddenly in the morning we had an alert when before we could even get everything together the park was full of russian tanks and we got into a tank battle i had to aim at where the target was going to little triangles had a certain distance from each other and these little triangles help to find the right deflection when firing at a moving target we shot seven russian tanks and at the same time the russian planes were dropping bombs we took cover and while doing this we unfortunately ended up in a graveyard and this turned out to be one of my most horrible experiences the russian planes and artillery were firing heavily on us and while doing this they had torn open their graves and the dead came out in everywhere half or three-quarter decade bodies and skulls were lying around [Music] on the tanks there was a half decayed leg still covered in the shroud all of us he had to throw up and he left the graveyard in a hurry without even caring that the enemy was firing on us and then we received the orders that five tanks including me should leave the woods it should go down into the valley [Music] and the russians opened up an unbelievable artillery bars [Music] had about 40 shell splinters from head to toe the gunner had been torn apart and i only caught a few pieces of shrapnel the rest of bauer's crew is killed in the explosion but he still manages to maneuver his tank out of the battle and back to the safety of the german lines but he is one of the lucky few [Music] operation blue was a failure technically and operationally and their losses were tremendous the german army in this year had losses up to a million and they lost nearly 75-80 percent of the tanks the wehrmacht was absolutely a shadow of its former self there was nothing left for bauer and the other german survivors the fall of 1942 will mark a turning point in the battle after 16 months of desperate resistance the soviet defenders are finally ready to strike back they were very determined they were fighting they were tough opponents there's no doubt about that hitler's war on the eastern front has been raging for 16 months but his mighty panzer formations have been unable to break through russian defenses by october 1942 the german offensive has lost momentum and the soviets launched their own attacks all along the eastern front the main strengths of the russian armor core was always the mass the russians always formed waves of tanks and sent them forward as a massive hammerhead as the germans continue their slow advance in the south red army forces defending moscow attack westward and once again ludwig bauer is in the crosshairs in october my company was driving towards a russian attack there were about 30 russian tanks approaching us and we wanted to run into the flank of this offensive for some reason the company chief first lieutenant pitner informed us via radio all commanders to see me and all commanders of 10 or 11 tanks have been to see him and suddenly one of the russian tanks fired from the side [Music] all the commanders were killed or by the injury and everything was upside down and during the chaos the russian tanks attacked us from all sides we weren't able to place a good shot as an immense artillery barrage approached attacked with an anti-tank gun that was like our 88 one of the red army's most powerful anti-tank weapons is the 76 millimeter zis3 originally designed as a long-range artillery gun the zis3 has proven highly effective against tanks especially when firing their deadly armor-piercing high-explosive rounds and zarasians had a hard time with these types of shells the shell penetrated through the tank turret it went right through the body of the gunner and almost ripped him apart and fell to the floor and stayed there as a dud and then the driver came up to me and said i refuse to drive any further unless this dud is removed from the time [Music] and i picked up the dog very carefully took it to the hatch and dropped it outside and during its fall the shell i exploded totally exhausted and i was just 19 years old when i went through all of this [Music] after three more months of desperate fighting ludwig bower is given special leave and just as he is returning home in january of 1943 his comrades on the eastern front are locked in the bloody climax of operation blue at the infamous city of stalingrad stalingrad was a turning point in regards to the fact that from the beginning of january 1943 everything went backwards and downhill many of my comrades weren't at all thinking about victory anymore it was more like how can we survive the defeat as well as possible in the summer of 1943 ludwig bower would return back to the front as an officer and find himself in a very different war against a very different and determined enemy after their disastrous defeat at stalingrad in january of 1943 the german army on the eastern front faces a massive soviet offensive for the next few months the russians powered the retreating germans and by the summer they have been forced three hundred kilometers back towards germany [Music] there once again fighting every day nonstop the division had almost entirely run dry in terms of equipment and people and there was talks that the ninth panzer division that was my division would be pulled out to undergo refitting but for bauer and his regiment their much reprieve from battle is short-lived on june 6 1944 only a month after arriving in france the allies launched operation overlord the largest seaborne invasion in history the germans are quickly overwhelmed and throughout the summer and fall of 1944 the allies pushed them 850 kilometers across europe but as they near the german border hitler prepares for a huge offensive in the ardan and once again the assault will be led by germany's panzers [Applause] at 5 30 a.m on december 16th over 1500 german tanks launched their attack the german tanks initially catch the americans off guard but in just a few short days their advance grinds to a halt as the allies begin to reorganize and fight back and leading the charge of their counter-attack is the latest in allied armor the m4a3 ez-8 sherman tank the easy-8 is armed with a high-velocity 76 millimeter main gun and has 63 millimeters of frontal armor but the sherman's biggest advantage over its german counterparts is its ease of manufacturing enabling the allies to put hundreds into action all along the ardennes battlefront sherman informed you could destroy a hundred of them there were 120 more he saw the thanks i was in the americans started attacking us with tanks but we were able to put the attack down in a classic tank battle the germans used the so-called mission-type tactics and the american army used the order type practice the difference for me was substantial for me the order type tactics that the americans used didn't leave any room for the commander while the unit commander is being told what to attack he is also being told and the german unit commander was able to decide for himself and this german tactic helped to achieve all the great results them from as close as 800 meters and that's what we did we take them off and in front of us on a hill there were american tanks that were hidden and were burning [Music] and so i continued driving and was put in charge of one assault gun against maybe 30 and i got him pretty fast and my driver lost the upper part of his head so he is sitting there with only half of his head with [Music] by the beginning of 1945 german forces in the ardan have lost over 40 percent of their initial strength and on january 7th hitler calls off the attack and the battle of the bulge comes to an end at this point we already figured it was impossible to win the war the few forces that have survived the battle retreat back into germany and prepare for what will soon become some of the second world wars most ferocious battles in defense of the fatherland after three weeks of fighting allied forces in belgium finally repel hitler's ardan offensive and in march of 1945 u.s forces crossed the rhine river and advance into germany desperate to halt the invasion of the fatherland all remaining german units prepare to meet the allies and among them once again leading a unit of panther tanks is ludwig bower that's all he continued to antiplate and there i had to report to a captain artario a guy from vienna and he told me that they were expecting an american attack and so i asked him where to position myself and he said here and there and you yourself will return with your tank and you will take position in the middle of the village so we took position in front of a shoemaker's house and i have to say that we hadn't been able to leave the tank since december 17th when the whole ardennes offensive started it was an email so we went to the shoemaker's house laid down on the floor he took a nap and the punter was standing in front of the house all of a sudden i heard shots and americans were shouting comrade come out the war is over and all the different tanks that were standing outside the village drove in and i saw them pass by and of course i wanted to save the tank i made it out of the house by shimmying down the eavesdrov and climbed on the tank from the back kingdom house up under up the side suddenly five or six americans jumped on the tank and i was sitting in the driver's seat one put his head inside the tank at the radio operator's side i think and his head was maybe this much apart from mine and i stopped breathing and thought that he would for sure hear my heart hammering he just left and the yanks jumped off the panther and were standing in front of it i thought now or never i started i had to drive about 20 meters up to the main road and i left the village and on the other side the tanks of my own company were standing there and a headset picked me off and for nine of them and i couldn't get out of the tank because of the camouflage net i tried to get out and just hit the net and i was sure that that was it and i fell back and saw the flames going through the net and i was able to tear the net apart and could get out this is printing its housing [Music] i burned my ear my back my arm my uniform alice uniform and this was my personal ending of the war this was my ninth hit and my seventh injury less than two months later soviet and allied forces converge on berlin and on may 8 1945 nazi germany surrenders the war in europe is over throughout the second world war germany's panzer corps was time and again called on to lead the charge into battle german armored tactics forever changed the way modern armies would fight and a new age of warfare was born but these deadly developments came at a terrible price between 1940 and 1945 the german army on the eastern front lost 50 000 tanks and 4 million men for the soviets the losses are even more staggering with an estimated eighty thousand tanks destroyed and seven million soldiers lost and those that did survive like ludwig bauer still live with the terrible memories [Music] at that time we were all soldiers that were used to war by now and had seen a lot of people die mentioned saying and so we prayed to god that he would make us wins a war and that he would let us survive [Music] i could not understand that we were praying to god to win the war and kill the others more or less [Music] and on the other hand the enemy was praying to god to win the war and kill us [Music] this is when i lost my faith in god [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Rating: 4.8312726 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, ludwig bauer, ww2 documentary, germany ww2, panzer tank, tank war, tank ace, german tanks, german panther tank, panzer division, ww2 germany

Id: bJORr0v0S7M

Length: 44min 5sec (2645 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 05 2021