The Battle Of The Bulge: Nazi Germany's Final Gamble | Both Sides of the Line | War Stories

foreign one Hatter always is the possibility there would be a counter-attack you know they would they would what they call stonkers you get these flaming onions the shells coming over in different things and you've just battened down we realize of course how formidable the German Army was you're never defeated unless you admit it [Music] El Alamein and Normandy battles that shaped the future of the world Dunkirk Monte Casino and Anna in World War II Revisited we go back with soldiers who fought on both sides of those epic struggles men who 60 years ago were deadly enemies meet now sometimes for the first time at the scenes of some of the most momentous battles of the second World War [Music] in this program an Englishman and a German come face to face in the Arden the quiet region in Belgium that was the scene of Hitler's last gamble in the west during 1944. [Music] after the dead air Landing I think there was a great year of Jubilation in England and they thought that the war was was taking a good course that it would be ended soon and they I think they really thought there that they that it was quite easy going here yeah and it wasn't there was some terribly Fierce battles and a lot of blood was shed yeah foreign [Music] the late months of 1944 brought nothing but bad news for Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich by then there was virtually no hope of Germany winning the war that the fuhrer had started with such Zeal five years earlier and everywhere he looked his enemies were closing in on the Eastern Front Soviet forces were advancing relentlessly towards Germany to the South Italy had been lost and in the west the Allied armies were pushing on through France and the low countries after the successful D-Day Landings [Music] making a mockery of the promise that no bombs would fall on German territory her towns and cities were being pounded Day and Night by Allied bombers [Applause] Hitler himself was now living in a bubble of self-delusion and fantasy that dictated German strategy in July 1944 he had somehow survived an attempt to kill him by desperate and disillusioned officers of the German Army now he saw treachery cowardice and incompetence at every turn [Music] there was though one last chance to salvage something from the wreckage a final opportunity to win time for Germany to develop the new V2 Terror weapon and a breathing space for its armies to regroup Hitler planned that his last great gamble would be an offensive in the picturesque Arden region of Belgium during the day you couldn't show yourself because at that time we didn't know whether the American units had set up forward posts in the woods because opposite is the land Rose upstairs the Arden was no stranger to the bitter fighting that characterized the latter stages of World War II through it ran the infamous German West Wall known to the Allies as the sea creed line [Music] this was the defensive line that the Allies had to breach if they were ever to set foot on German soil as they Advanced from the West nearly 60 years on had this section of the Siegfried line we brought together Gordon Newton a veteran of the ninth British para Division and Klaus Schultz then of the German 353rd infantry division Hello nice to meet you in the middle of the Siegfried Line work glad to meet you here also in a place where all which were actually our location and September 1945. I'm not sure I'd like to meet you then you probably have been your size and dispelled any belief I had in immortality even though the Siegfried line had become virtually obsolete by 1944 Klaus and the other German soldiers Manning it knew it was the last line of defense for Germany in the West the things which you see here these concrete structures are actually we were supposed to be tank obstacles this one is the line actually five trains of these things and the the part of the secret line or in German we call the the West Wall which run for about 630 miles from Switzerland to the Netherlands and it was a mixture of these tank obstacles and concrete bunkers the Americans call them pill boxes because of the shape of those bunkers there were 14 000 actually of them the company was divided amongst the West Wall bunkers and the bunkers hadn't been used for several years foreign we realized of course how formidable the German Army was there was a certain amount of anxiety because we knew they wouldn't give in they wouldn't give an inch unless they had to we were the same of course the Allied Forces which had Advanced so swiftly during July and August of 1944 were now up against a regrouped German Army intent on defending the Fatherland also was tanks but there were some germs with Panzer Faust and when the first Panzer fast was shot was shot well the tanks turned tails and there were no tanks for quite a while if a tank was destroyed with a Panzer Faust that often happened to close quarters and it was hit and burned is but almost all the men inside range it with Burns in the Autumn of 1944 there were costly battles fought in the area around Arkham and in the hertken forest [Music] Klaus Schultz was just 17 when he was transferred to the front line and into the hurricane Forest do you think you would lose Germany uh to the allies at that time not no no not not that that time not yet I thought that we would have a chance to drive them back I would have been satisfied if they just want to come back to Belgium and settle there yeah so this this I mean that this was all wrong that came later in the forest the Germans had control of dams which the Allies realized could be breached to create Havoc for miles around the celebrated dambusters air raid in May 1943 had demonstrated the awesome destructive power of millions of gallons of water and the Allies were determined not to have the tables turned on them the Allies aim of capturing the dams meant that there was Bloody fighting between American and German troops in the appalling claustrophobic conditions of the thick Woodland you were just listening in for strange noises and immediately when somebody started shooting next to you you started also shooting it never mind what what that was you know you didn't know you cannot in in such a Forest you cannot attack with a regimen it's impossible because that will be split within minutes into perhaps 20 to 25 sections and easily what what would would result that in would be friendly fire discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and ad-free 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 Barbarossa and D-Day immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description if there had been a great many losses then there was a short ceasefire or someone with a red cross flag stood up or waved and then there was no more firing and the yank said go on and fetch your wounded and the Americans [Music] thick pine trees 100 feet tall formed what appeared to be a roof over the forest making it dark and gloomy even on Bright Days there was little undergrowth and the lower limbs of the trees interlocked so that men had to stoop as they fought their way forward fog sleet rain and snow added to their difficulties [Music] the stubbornness of the German Defenders meant that the Americans had to use several different methods to try and break through their fortifications in one case there had been a bazooka actually on on on on that machine and sticking out there or on the entrances other modes were breaking of a flamethrower on on a pillow box and later in the war by November the Americans came out with a concrete piercing shell and that also works the high concentration of forces in this relatively small area coupled with the static nature of the fighting means that even today artifacts from the battle are still being found and recovered in the forest and this was actually very tricky yeah this one because it's some sort of had the idea to go off as as a gun warning not as you want that's right and this is found in 1998 yes yes in January yeah he won't need it again will they the battle in the hurtgen forest dragged on for three months and was still raging when Hitler decided to turn defense into attack on December the 16th 1944 he launched his last major offensive of the war through the our dead the our death had become the focus of all Hitler's homes plan was to muster an army that would deliver a surprise counter-offensive over the Christmas of 1944. shock of an unexpected German attack would he hoped threaten The Fragile alliance between the British Americans and Soviets and cause it to collapse meanwhile the German Army could capture Antwerp the main Supply Port for the Allied armies in the west and so forced the British Canadian and American armies to evacuate to Britain or better still surrender the trouble was that Hitler's plan was fatally flawed it assumed too much was born out of desperation and was full of ifs and butts the German general certainly had no faith in it but had little choice but to carry it out how they probably asked themselves was an Army outnumbered four to one supposed to carry out this attack successfully and what if the Allied Alliance didn't collapse if Hitler separated them then he could encircle and destroy the Americans or the British but he didn't think about the fact that the Americans had three times as many weapons as us and countless tanks planes ammunition and above all else fuel and we couldn't get it there the offensive was fraught with difficulties from the very start if the planned objectives were to be achieved speed was vital and the thickly wooded ardenne region was hardly ideal for Rapid movements of men and tanks something that the German soldiers already knew through fighting off American attacks in the area Warfare was not Dynamic here the advantage of tanks and and trucks and so on and even Jeeps was lost in the first during the attack then emphasis was on securing the vital Road Network which cut through the Arden traveling on the roads though was risky for the German armor as the Allies easily held air superiority in the region this is why Hitler deliberately waited for winter to attack as he believed that that was when most of the Allied Air Force would be grounded but the timing of the attack was another indication of Hitler's muddled thinking the weather took no one's side the atrocious conditions that hampered the Allies also made life hell for the Germans the other main problem for the Germans was Supply chronically short of fuel ammunition and artillery they were told to capture their own fuel as they Advanced and this slowed the all-important Panzer tanks in contrast the Allies were very well supplied however there was one crucial factor that worked very much in the German's favor the Arden sector was thinly defended held by inexperienced or battle-weary U.S troops Lindemann was part of the German 26th Fox Grenadier division which had recently been moved to the ardenne region he knew he would soon be part of a major offensive in that area we made continuous observations and during the trips I made back to the regimental Command Post I saw that large amounts of artillery and tanks had been set up everywhere in the woods to the east behind the Westville even in the Villages ammunition and tank shells were piled up under covers together with countless canisters 20 liter canisters or larger lined the edges of the roads in the woods and Villages I we were there uh was one objective and this is this objective for us that to throw back the attacking forces to Belgium in order to guard our Fatherland yeah because these forces were on our grounds and that was quite different than fighting with them in France or in Belgium or the Netherlands or in Luxembourg and that that is actually of which I think kept the fighting Spirit up the Arden offensive is better known to history as the Battle of the Bulge and this is just what the Germans planned to create a huge bulge in the Belgian Countryside that would split the Allied Forces to the South was the U.S army under General George Patton while to the north were the British under Field Marshal Montgomery on the morning of the 16th of December 1944 a huge German artillery barrage opened up along a front almost 85 miles long Ludwig Lindemann was on the front line his unit's objective was the village of hosingen it was set afterwards that 30 000 shells fell on hossain I couldn't count them but it was terrible the ground shook you thought the world was coming to an end because it was happening just in front of us and when the last artillery gun had stopped firing we were told company advance although intended mainly to surprise and confuse the Allies the bombardment created gaps in their lines into which the Germans poured troops isolating some Allied positions killing large numbers and taking many prisoner [Music] example as an advantage to the gardens I saw several Americans running out of the houses two of them in their under clothes they hadn't even had time to put on their uniforms trying to get out of our line of fire the attack certainly came as a shock to the Allies who struggled at first to get information that would provide a full picture of the position at the front it is true that the Arden still holds the record as the biggest surrender of troops in American military history but nevertheless the U.S forces grimly held on to strategically vital positions such as elzenborn Ridge in the north and Bostonia in the south foreign but also had the first losses the expectation that the Americans would abandon their positions prove to be an error of judgment on that part ners they defend it tenaciously we should have known that following the fighting on the Atlantic coast the American resistance at elzenborn in particular was vital without the capture of the ridge the Germans could not drive on to cross the river MERS which had to be done quickly if they were to press on to Antwerp the only German formation to make real progress in this area was a force of 4 000 infantry and a hundred tanks called Camp grouper Piper which although it pushed deep into Belgian territory was completely alone and unsupported it was Comfort grouper Piper that became involved in one of the war's most notorious incidents an episode that typified the savagery of the fighting in the Arden and which still causes debate today it happened near malmedi on the 17th of December an American Patrol discovered the frozen bodies of nearly 100 of their countrymen lying in the snow clearly as a result of a massacre the Americans were not surprisingly horrified they accused the Germans of a murderous cold-blooded War crime the Germans insisted that the troops were shot trying to escape [Music] whatever happened it now seemed that the barbarous nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front had been imported to the war in the west and some days after the malmedi incident another grizzly scene was uncovered by British troops in the small Belgian Village of bander a civilian came mapped to me waving his arms in the air you know and waving him even one he obviously wanted me to go along with him he caught me to a house where the house seemed to be collapsed and then he got in and he went in so I followed and um looked in and then when I looked under the roof which is being collapsed there was a smell was unpleasant in spite of the cold and then I look in I could see various bodies the innocent civilians in the house had been killed by the Gestapo in retribution for a partisan attack in the area the previous September when three German soldiers had been killed American troops had liberated bander before the Germans could respond but in the Arden offensive The Village had been retaken by the Germans and old scores brutally settled Gordon Newton was among the British troops who'd found the murdered civilians [Music] if you look around now that door way was as it is now and underneath this Memorial there is a cellar and just before dusk 30 young men the youngest of the community were marched along this road in threes halted until to face the road where Upon A Felder I think it's about sergeant went to the last man and touched him on the shoulder brought him here presented him to that doorway and as he came through the doorway an officer shot him behind their hair I tossed him in the cellar [Music] this is the cellar where the martyrs actually lay this Monument was built with a picture of each of the martyrs but when they got their bodies out they couldn't get them into the coffins because the Winchester's grotesque positions so we had to break the arms cut attendance and we've finally got them into their coffins [Music] I heard about uh liquidation commands of the security service going around I think this wasn't the only incidents there were others and there's just one thing you see here German army people uh looked actually I shouldn't disrespect on on the uh Security Service nevertheless it's served under the German flag and and that respect I think uh we should be ashamed of these these these people who performed such a cruel unjustible Act [Music] by the 19th of December the surprise element of the German attack had gone and it began to become more and more fragmented the Americans who had taken the brunt of the assault had performed heroic particularly as they were so inexperienced many were cooks and Hospital orderlies pressed by the desperate situation into taking our powers some of the most heroic defending by the U.S forces was at bastillinier for the Germans it was vital to take this town in order to control the road Network in the area without it their attack would soon Peter out and sometimes it was written in chalk see you in Paris it won't be that easy to get down there because we knew what our speed of Advance had been we should already have been beyond this day according to the attack plan laid down by the fewer headquarters on the 19th of December the Allies held a conference at Verda to decide a strategy to push back the German advance it was decided that the counter-attack would be made from the south by three divisions of General Patton's third Army there were now two distinct battles one to the north and one to the South field Marshall Montgomery assumed responsibility for all operations in the north immediately bringing up the British 30 Corps as reinforcements two o'clock one morning the alarm went up everybody jumped in the trucks back up to Brussels reload your tanks put the guns back in put the wireless back in load up the ammunition grown up the yard ends so we went up by Road oh we had to whitewash the tanks because the yard ends was covered in snow and when we got there we went we rented a little town called nemour every battle ready soldier in England was brought here to Endeavor not either stem the tide but to push the Germans back and we found Incognito because we were Airborne Division and we had to come along with our berries inside out without Insignia missing so we looked like Audrey infantry troops because they felt that if Hitler realized the desperation in bringing specialist troops over here it might have um made him change his mind and try and keep going Montgomery was an experienced campaigner who now had despite his differences with others in Allied command a reputation for getting things done his was a steadying influence as the Allies sought to seize the initiative from the Germans we will lower it up to a place called humane and we were in this Village because I thought it'd be without a bond it's only a small village there was American Tank line about destroyed a lot of his Jeeps tanks and were distributed into various directions and Maya particularly company went forward up onto a rich over at the German positions [Music] the weather at the start of the offensive which had been cold and wet was now freezing snow now falling it made life difficult for both the allies and the Germans within a few days you had about two feet of snow and it was getting colder and colder and colder and there was only uh one advantage and that is that the mechanism of the mines had totally Frozen and [Applause] so uh they didn't do any harm anymore Linda foxholes uh every morning they picked up a few fellows who had fallen asleep and were stiff and dead the main snag that um we experienced was our Airborne smokes were very green and brown and were rather um obvious against white snow which we didn't like you know particularly when we were patrolling and we had to um should I say requisition a number of white sheets which we improvised as a cloaked a sort of cloak to cover our dark colors I remember one thing we learned very quickly and that was that when a field is covered with ice and snow you don't notice a pound in the middle because whenever our guys found out and they brought to the turret in freezing cold water so we were told in future if you've got across the field take to the hedges because it's unlikely to have a pond up to the hedges but it don't go straight across I feel first of all the supplies didn't get through so fast on the narrow roads of the Arden where it's hilly and in the meantime the winter had set in the roads froze and were covered in ice although the end was in sight for Hitler's last offensive in the west there were still some extraordinary episodes to be played out one involved the German 150th Panzer Brigade ordered to penetrate deep behind the Allied lines with the express aim of creating panic and confusion in the Allied ranks they were also told to capture and hold vital River Crossings long enough for the main Army to reach them what made the 150th Panzer Brigade so remarkable was that it made use of captured American jeeps and adapted German tanks so that they would look like those used by The Americans they were managing to capture American Vehicles uniforms and dog tags identity tags and come over the bridge into our area disguises Americans and unless they opened their mouth you didn't know that it Americans were waving them on over the bridge and it was Germans as small units were stopped and arrested by suspicious Americans the rumor started that large numbers of Germans were operating behind the lines posing as friendly forces in the end it got so uncertain and so unsafe that they said right at midnight tomorrow any anybody the other side of that River any American's been told he's got to make it to this side by midnight and after that whatever comes up with the bridges you blow up and it doesn't matter if it's got the stars and stripes on it you will blow it up sometimes though the Germans didn't even need to disguise themselves to be mistaken for Americans especially in the dense forest of the Arden [Music] see one of problems we had was the German Helmet at times the look looks not unlike an American helmet yeah and on two occasions we've walked into a German unit you know figured there were Americans over there over and they weren't over there at all it was a flipping German and we found ourselves in a tight situation because we thought they were Americans despite these dramas the German Arden offensive was now reaching its high water mark the Allies were able to reinforce their positions with many more men and supplies the Germans had no such luxury all in all the Allies were able to commit the equivalent of 35 fresh divisions to the battle the Germans managed to scrape together just eight [Music] by the 23rd of December the weather had lifted enough for the Allies to be able to resume and another nail was hammered into the German Army's coffin missed Einsteins up until the 21st and 22nd it was raining sleet was falling which froze at night but it was Misty so that enemy planes weren't able to fly large-scale missions we didn't need to expect anything from the air during those days just before Christmas so that the American and British Air Forces gave us a great deal of trouble foreign all along the front the attack was faltering or had ground to a halt by Christmas eve even Kampf grouper Piper was completely cut off out of fuel and out of Hope the surrounded American troops at Bostonia had welcomed the arrival of the clear skies from the air supplies now reached them and enemy positions could be attacked by Allied fighter planes and bombers [Music] the German soldiers could only look on helplessly and um Christmas was approaching and we had completely encircled in this world and on the 23rd or 24th yes we saw the Americans bringing over huge formations of Transport gliders territory bringing in food all kinds of supplies foreign [Music] on the 26th of December news reached Allied command the General Patton had finally broken through the German ring around Bostonia and was holding open a corridor so further men and supplies could reinforce the town we have the 26th couldn't hold it division passed us to the South and the second Panzer Division was almost at the River Mass by then the supplies didn't arrive and from then on we were in retreat the 26th of December also saw the Germans reach the very farthest point of the advance into Belgium it came in the south at cell although a few tanks had struggled on as far as Dino on the previous day but were turned back by British 30 Corps [Music] this was the end the Germans were almost out of fuel and had lost so many troops it was impossible to go on [Music] Gordon Newton remembers the Turning of the tide the British troops were on this Ridge and the Germans were down in the dip and we heard them moving out and began to chase them we let them have a couple of days start I know went after them the Americans had brought up huge numbers of tanks and infantry and we had very high losses said that the company was almost completely wiped out the commanders of the individual groups were dead there were no more platoon commanders or they had been captured by The Americans the only man in German High command who could not see the hopelessness of the situation was Adolf Hitler and as he did at El Alamein and in Normandy he issued another order to stand and fight the Bulge said the fuhrer must be held as a base for further planned offenses the order was almost laughable as what remained of his armies were already being steadily pushed back only the cautious approaching the allies and the weather stopped the advance being made at higher speed Ludwig Lindemann had had enough but whilst retreating with what remained of his company he was stopped by a German military police patrol near the Belgium German border and ordered to turn around the sergeant major said that we had to stop and gather together for a new mission I said you can go and if you don't get out of my way I'm not going to the left or the right I'm going straight on we have come from the front under the remains of a company well he said after a long talk if you want to I'll step aside I said you're lucky [Music] from the air the Allied planes reigned death and destruction on the German Army just as they had during the battles for Normandy a glimmer of hope came at the beginning of January when the luftwaffe made its own attacks on Allied airfields destroying some 300 Allied aircraft these were costly Raves though more than a hundred aircraft and 200 precious Pilots were lost the costs eventually far outweighed the gains and the rates were stopped Hitler did launch smaller offensives to try and secure the Bulge on New Year's Eve 1944 operation nordvind involving some 10 divisions huffed and puffed with no success the following day one thousand Fighters and fighter bombers made a low-level attack in what was called operation Bodum platter many were shot from the sky [Music] on the 28th of January they are Den offensive the Battle of the Bulge was declared officially over and Adolf Hitler was left to count the cost of his last great gamble he had decided to go on the offensive in the Arden despite all advice to the contrary and the German army paid the price I think we all felt we were a damn sight better than the other side and there was no question I the question never arose that there who will win it isn't the point is well if we'd go on to the end when we ordinary soldiers saw that a victory for the German Army was no longer possible he should have been negotiated around this time whatever the terms the lives of many victims would have been spared more than 100 000 German troops had been killed or wounded during the battle two-thirds of German tanks have been lost all German Reserve armies had been wiped out there were none left Germany was virtually powerless to stop the Relentless Russian Advance on Berlin the fall of which was now only a few weeks away thank you Allied losses during the Arden offensive amounted to more than 80 000 men the vast majority of whom were American their sacrifices ensured that Hitler's dream of prolonging the war was shattered and that in the spring of 1945 Germany was finally defeated [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: War Stories

Views: 319,183

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, Full Documentary, Both Sides of the Line, The Battle Of The Bulge, Ardennes Offensive, WW2, Hitler, Nazi Germany

Id: ZIS6NH7ArSo

Length: 46min 22sec (2782 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023