Why Did Germany Keep Fighting World War Two in 1944 – 1945?

it was 1944 Germany was losing the war the Allies had landed in France and were pushing the Germans back towards their own borders Italy had fallen a year before and also since 1943 the Soviets were pushing the Germans back on the Eastern Front yet the Germans kept fighting this lost war till May 1945 why did Germany keep fighting the Second World War that's what you're gonna find out today hey welcome back regular viewers and if you're new welcome to the channel my name is Stefan I'm hustling history for you and if you liked it please consider subscribing and also hit that notification bell so you will become part of the hustle fighting until total destruction that can be sad for Germany in the Second World War while German cities were flattened by Arab bombardments German soldiers kept on struggling against their enemies while it was totally clear they were losing the war why didn't they revolt why did not something happen like in 1918 when the was a German revolution now some of you might say that's because the German soldiers were indoctrinated by the regime others say that it was out of fear of reprisals well there are many reasons why the Germans kept fighting til the end I'm gonna explain all of them so watch this video till the end because I might tell you some aspects you had never thought of before early 1943 the Allies demanded a unconditional surrender of Germany by that time the German 6th army was surrounded at Stalingrad see this was the very first extension threat for Third Reich why well because an unconditional surrender implies that the Nazi leadership would have come to an end so for the party leaf it meant their reign would come to an end if they surrendered so basically it was either victory or death it was all or nothing yet it does not explain why soldiers kept fighting a lost war see from 1944 reports showed that support for the party was dwindling now it is very hard to determine the popularity of the regime in a totalitarian state see during our public opinion polls because you could be prosecuted if he spoke us freely against the regime now even reports within the party show that many German people were sick of the war now do note here that we have to make a distinction see many people might have been sick of the war and one of the war to end they still did support the party others were against the party yet they supported the Fuhrer now we have the benefit of hindsight we can look back and say well the war continued because of the party and there was a party because of Hitler back then many people had different thoughts about this and had their own motivation to go on let's take a look in October 1944 the Soviets entered East Prussia and were now on German soil they took control over a village called nemmersdorf a German counter-attack drove him out when the Germans retook control over the village a few days later they made a horrible discovery the German field police who arrived later to find out what exactly happened reported 26 bodies mostly old men and women also a few children were among the death most of them were shot in the head two women were assaulted and looting and arson had occurred now for the German propaganda machine it was kinda hard to determine what to make of this see obviously this showed the Soviet atrocities that had taken place so yes these stories could have been exploited however bringing this news to the people also implied that the regime had failed to protect its own people and that the Soviets now entered German soil now eventually outrageous [ __ ] stories in German propaganda appeared and therefore it is kind of hard to determine what exactly happened at Neman stove how cruel were the Soviets well Ian Kershaw who wrote a book the end said about this following whatever doubts are raised about the actual scale of murders and rape and necessary dough it is to remember the nature and purpose of the propaganda exploitation the atrocities were no mere figment of propaganda terrible things did happened in and around mementh off when Soviets took control of German towns in the East many men were just randomly shot and women and girls assaulted sometimes by a whole series of soldiers knowing this it boosted morale for German soldiers to carry on the struggle if it wasn't for the right then at least it was to defend their homes and their people it was kind of fighting for heart and home and this was for many German soldiers and motivation to carry on the fighting the German apparatus did its best to keep everyone in line since February 1945 the German terror was directed internally set of externally German citizens that complained out loud they could count on harsh repercussions and however the German citizens proved to be sick of war and showed war fatigue they did not revolt and this was the result of living years and years in a totalitarian state but what about the German soldiers why didn't they revolt many German soldiers did know their country wasn't able to win the war it comes at promise of German won the weapons to turn the tide weren't believed by many and some soldiers deserted but this came at a costly price death since March 1945 flying martial councils roamed the country to arrest trial and execute any suspected deserters German general reading I'm sure nough was one of these hardliners who supported this as a firm loyalists sure nough took a hard stance against deserters and encouraged the executions he had deserted us hanged with a sign that the soldier were deserted and refused to protect german women and children now what we saw here were also many dropout soldiers and what is a dropout case well that was a German soldier that in the fog of war lost its unit and now wander around aimlessly now can you consider these men deserters well perhaps not intentionally although many German soldiers might have faked their drop out case in order to escape the fighting and also these men could count on harsh repercussions and by internally applied terror also mean those who suffered in the concentration camps because as the Allies drew nearer towards the German Reich the German concentration camps were mopped up inmates were killed off or are forced on a death march in severe winter cold many of these people died in the last months of the war Germany was attacked from the east from the west and from the air Arai was shrinking by the day yet despite under being immense pressure the system did not collapse and this is also due to the efficient system of bureaucracy civil servants high and low stage on their posts for example till April 1945 wages were still being paid out and mail was still being delivered now these civil servants did not stay on their post out of loyalty to the regime but more out of law towards the abstract concept of the state and therefore they sustained the system that was being under immense pressure but did therefore not collapse another aspect that should definitely not be overlooked was that many lower and middle class officers proved devoted supporters of the regime see as the war progressed Germany lost more men and thus more officers now these officers had to be replaced by younger officers and these were mostly the men that had served in the Hitler Youth in the 1930s and were severely indoctrinated therefore these officers played a key role in motivating their men to carry on the struggle but what about the high-ranking generals I mean sure there must have been generals who had a common sense who saw the war was lost and were not willing to let the country and its people go down in flames to explain that we need to discuss a pivotal moment and that occurred on the 20th of July 1944 been an assassination attempt was made on Hitler's life following by a coup attempt in Berlin the name for this operation was operation Valkyrie the details of this plot will be explained in a future video where it came down to was that the resistance movement within the German Wehrmacht trying to eliminate Hitler and seize control of the country it failed we can only speculate what would have happened if the July plotters were successful perhaps they would have signed a peace treaty with the West and carried on the war in the east or perhaps they would live up to the unconditional surrender and perhaps another stab at a back myth would have been born perhaps a civil war would have occurred but these are all what-if scenarios and these are beyond scope of this channel now what we're gonna look at now is what were the results of this failed July plot well I can tell you these results were tremendous a part of the fact that these July plotters were arrested and executed among which Klaus von Stauffenberg it led to a perch in the High Command their four generals who proved to be skeptical towards the war effort were replaced by hardliners this was a key reason why the war was dragged on for so long because now people in the top were only people who were willing to fight till the bitter end and this radicalization worked itself from top down to bottom this radicalization was also intertwined with Goebbels Total War ID in February 1943 gurbles held a speech in sports palace to a carefully selected crowd were asked if they wanted a total war yes or no [Applause] and we see this with the establishment of the Volkssturm in 1944 the Volkssturm which was established in october 1944 consisted of men that weren't conscripted yet between the age 16 and 16 the fall extreme itself had been born the previous autumn out of Nazi ideology and petty power struggles Hitler suspicions that the Army's leadership was both treacherous and defeatist made him determined that control of his mass militia should be kept out of its hands since almost all German males between 17 and 45 had already been called up the Volkssturm was an amalgam of teenagers and the elderly most of the time there were no uniforms for these men and had to do with a simple arm bent when it comes to down to weaponry bread butter worked a following about it equipped with a mixture of Russian rifles German like machine guns and pen sir Faust anti-tank weapons these men now prepared to face the feared Bolsheviks now obviously this military formation proved worthless and prolonged the war and therefore the human suffering a total war couldn't be more total than this or perhaps it could another element of Germany's total war were the stronghold tactics by declaring major cities in the East like Budapest Kooning's back Danzig and Breslau to so-called best donks it meant that these cities had to hold out till the bitter end civilians and for flavors were called up to work on the fortifications in East Prussia hundreds and thousands of people were put to work to establish the so-called eastern wall but eventually these preparations proved to be drops in an ocean the tactic of fortifications already proved unsuccessful in Russia because the Red Army moved around the strongholds it ensured major destruction and human suffering and prolonging the inevitable one of the most insane battles was the battle of coningsburgh that took place in East Prussia the city was largely destroyed during air raids in the summer 1944 and now besieged by the Soviets from January 1945 the final assault took place on April 1945 and left 90% of the city in ruins the Soviets would later an exit and renamed the city to Kaliningrad which till this day is a Russian city and so the war dragged on and the longer it dragged on the more insane it got between July 44 and May 45 more German civilians died than in the years before many died in the aerial raids did you know that most ayleid bombs were dropped after July 1944 the Soviet invasion of eastern territories led to additional civilian deaths around half of the military losses were suffered in these last ten months of the war a total of 5.3 million men of the 18.2 German military personnel died over the course of the war till July 1944 2.7 million were killed in the last 10 months an additional 2.6 million were killed of which 1.5 million was killed at the Eastern Front towards the end of the war around 300,000 to 400,000 men were killed in action each month the German people now were fatalistic the only thing they could do was keep their head down and pray there would not be a bomb landing on their heads and that the Americans will be there to liberate them broader than the Soviets and this brings me to the most important reason why Germany fought till May 1945 and that's what because of one man Hitler Hitler proved to be very stubborn and rigidly he did not want to surrender you want to keep fighting till the bitter end he did not want to have the same disgrace as in 1918 with the disregarding of the human suffering it ensured his build up of a totalitarian state were all forms of collective leadership or rendered non-existent over the course of the 1930s laid the groundwork for this collision course Hitler's rigidity excluded all other options this was enlarged by the fact that he was supreme commander of all armed forces those directly below him never broke with him Goering Himmler Goebbels Bowman or realized he had to do so too little too late like Albert Speer and the other German elites they lacked the collective will and means to resist the collision course of their Fuhrer which basically ended after Hitler took his own life however between Hitler's death and the actual end of the Second World War in Europe there's another story to be told but that is a story for another time so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on that video thanks for my patreon to see on screen and the special thanks to Henry parks and Cooling councilman to president Michael Nozick and wombat cookie if you want to support me go to the link right here if you want to know more about the last battles that were fought you can click right here for the siege of Breslau and here for the Battle of Berlin I want to thank you for watching do not forget to subscribe see you later

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Keywords: how did ww2 end, history of the second world war, Why did WW2 end in 1945, volkssturm, Why Did Germany Keep Fighting World War Two in 1944 – 1945, July Plot (Operation Valkyrie), germany in ww2, germany in wwii, end of ww2, end of wwii, end of world war 2, end of world war two, end of world war ii, end of the second world war, How WW2 ended.

Id: L_g1QpEtkLI

Length: 18min 42sec (1122 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2020