Why Hitler Divided His Army Before Stalingrad? | WWII: Price Of Empire | War Stories

war ravaging the east since 1937 and japan's invasion of china reached europe on the 1st of september 1939 with germany's invasion of poland it became global on the 7th of december 1941 when japanese aircraft attacked the american naval base at pearl harbor [Music] it touched every continent and lasted for six years [Music] it ended with a new weapon for a new age this is the history of the greatest of all man-made events these men are part of that history they are eyewitnesses to the triumphs and tragedies of the war wherever it was formed [Music] their testimony is part of the story of how our world was made by those who could pay and those who could no longer meet [Music] the price of empire [Music] the new empires of east and west japanese and german had reached their furthest limits in the course of 1942 and there was in the minds of some an extraordinary vision the japan spreading west would link hands with germany thrusting east the conquerors would meet in the indian subcontinent but as 1942 wore on both germany and japan would suffer setbacks which meant as winston churchill was to say if not the beginning of the end then the end of the beginning [Music] in may 1942 japan's imperial ambitions had been checked at sea battle of midway may not have turned the tide but it stopped the flood and the tide turned as the gap widened between the abilities of the two sides to re-equip and resupply the united states which was to provide the grand coalition with 75 of its war material demonstrated a remarkable capacity to deliver to its armed forces and its allies in apparently limitless quantities it was said that america by 1943 was producing a tank every five minutes an airplane every half hour and an aircraft carrier every week germany had always known that the longer the war went on the more remote its hopes of victory but on the 28th of june 1942 hopes were high as we have seen clan blue launched against the weakest soviet troop concentration the southern front the gateway to the caucasus made good progress had been warned of the offensive by british intelligence and by a complete german battle plan taken from a downed german aircraft he had dismissed all these warnings as misinformation stalin waited for the attack on moscow to be renewed but he got the plan that hitler favored and his troops fell back in disarray which encouraged hitler to make the call that many consider his costliest error he divided his force with the crimea taken he sent army group a along the black sea coast aiming for the crucial oil cities of mycop grozny and baku within 12 days it had advanced more than 550 kilometers hitler ordered army group b to advance on stalingrad yet but still in gerard [Music] [Music] in the initial bombing of stalingrad a period of just two days at least 40 000 soviet citizens had been killed when the assault on the city began russia's anti-aircraft guns had been entrenched for use on the advancing tanks the gun crews were almost all young women and they were almost all killed [Music] a million and a half soviet women served in the armed forces around 490 000 of them in front line rolls where they were granted one benefit not available to their male comrades an additional 100 grams of soap [Music] on august the 19th army group b began its assault on stalingrad within four days it had reached the suburbs what could possibly go wrong kilograms [Music] [Music] stalin's order number 227 simply said that the red army was to stand its ground it said that retreat means death it worked [Music] other measures announced by stalin helped he reopened the churches he spoke of the sacred motherland rather than the party for the first time since the revolution officers were to be addressed by rank and the role of the political commissar was reduced to the point of irrelevance in late august stalin appointed general george yukov the 42 year old son of a shoemaker deputy supreme commander and sent him to stalingrad stalingrad had been named saritsen until 1925 when it was given stalin's name to commemorate his role in its defense during the revolutionary wars the salvation of the city that bore his name was a matter of personal pride for the soviet leader and its destruction became a similarly illogical obsession for the fiora lavrenti beria the notorious head of stalin's secret police understood this ego dimension he described the battle as a confrontation between two rams on august 23rd von paulus commanding the sixth army the largest single formation in the wehrmacht two hundred and ninety thousand strong reached the river volga just north of stalingrad the next day august 24th zhukov arrived in stalingrad [Music] on september the 2nd hitler ordered that when the city fell the entire male population was to be eliminated stalingrad sprawled for about 40 kilometers on both sides of the volga and at a point where that river was 1300 metres wide by the middle of september soviet defense was concentrated on a garrison restricted to the west bank and to an area little more than 15 kilometers wide at its widest point the germans had closed to about 200 meters from the river when at 1700 hours on the 14th of september general alexander rodimtsev led the 10 000 men of his 13th guards rifle division across the volga and in a charge up the steep riverbank there were 320 survivors by the end of september nine tenths of stalingrad was in german hands it proved not to be enough [Music] at the beginning of november the combination of strengthening soviet resistance and the traditional russian ally winter halted the advance by von kleist's panzer army into the caucasus at origen ekitsi [Music] as the first ice appeared on the vulgar marshal zhukov and the rest of the staff of the soviet high command began planning their counter-stroke operation uranus designed to trap the german sixth army at stalingrad russian army formations were known as fronts general verkutin's south west front would attack from the north where it faced the third romanian army the stalingrad front general yerimenko south of the city also faced romanians as he drove north linking with the tutin at kalach the don front was commanded by a survivor of stalin's purges who had been tortured and twice subjected to mock executions his name was konstantin rokosovsky his task was to apply pressure to paulus preventing him from responding to the maneuvering in his rear these soviet formations represented a land empire whose population comprised one hundred and twenty nationalities [Music] [Music] is [Music] the [Music] on the 11th of november 1942 the german assault on stalingrad was renewed a week later the southwest and dawn fronts began their attacks the stalingrad front moved the next day by the end of november the 20th for tutin had advanced 40 kilometers on the 22nd he captured the bridge over the dawn at kalakh and on the 23rd the south west and stalingrad fronts linked up just as planned zhukov had sent a million men nearly a thousand tanks and more than a thousand aircraft against the enemy three hundred and thirty thousand axis troops were now trapped in their castle the cauldron 55 kilometers by 30. [Music] the romanian third army had been destroyed and the romanian fourth army crippled [Music] general paulus commanding the besieged army estimated that he needed an airdrop of 750 tons a day and hermann guring boasted that his luftwaffe could do the job of course it could not guring retired to the ritz hotel in paris [Music] for hither retreat or worse still surrender were not options his only order to the sith army was to stand fast [Music] on november 27th hitler created a new formation army group don he placed von manstein in command and ordered him to relieve the encircled palace at the end of november the red army launched new attacks a week of heavy fighting forced von manstein to postpone his planned offensive [Music] [Music] in the heart of the russian winter they fought street to street building to building rokusovsky said that the german army was a machine and he said machines can be broken people are not machines but they too can be broken [Music] thirteen thousand soviet soldiers were executed for desertion or cowardice during the battle they were forced to strip before being shot so that their uniforms destined for recycling would not contain demoralizing bullet holes morale was boosted by the performance of soviet weapons the t-34 tank based on an off-the-shelf design by the american water christie was the equal of any and the capucial rocket launcher had no equal it was effective and it was terrifying nine days later than originally planned on december the 12th von manstein finally launched vintage winter storm the offensive carried by group haute general herman holt went well until it met fierce resistance at the mishkaba river and then the soviet second guard's army general malinowski was thrown in winter storm was turned back and von manstein recognised that his rescue mission had failed on december the 16th the soviets launched an offensive little saturn against the italian eighth army which was wiped out tatzinskaya the main airfield used by the germans for resupply of stalingrad was now in soviet hands on christmas eve the stalingrad front broke through the fourth romanian army which had joined group haute and started to swing towards the lower door for manstein withdrew group hut [Music] [Music] [Music] i should [Music] [Music] really on december 28th in view of the deteriorating situation hitler permitted two army groups to fall back on the line constantino of sal skarmavir they were now more than 200 kilometers from stalingrad [Music] it was time for the end game on the 10th of january 1943 the soviet assault began yeremenko pressed against the east bank of the vulgar an offensive perimeter formed of six soviet armies drew in like a dragnet on the west bank the 65th army in the center pushed forward eight kilometers on the first day after two days rokosovsky's don front coming in from the city's southwest had lost more than 250 tanks and taken 26 000 casualties [Music] by now airborne resupply to the german forces was down to 40 tons a day by the 17th the only airfield from which supplies could be flown fell on january 23rd the last german aircraft flew from stalingrad a thousand years hence germans will speak of the battle with reverence and ore hermann goering said in a radio broadcast on january 30th on that day hitler promoted paulus to field marshall no german field marshal had ever surrendered his command and hitler no doubt expected the promotion to either guarantee that paulus would fight to the last man or commit suicide rather than march into captivity a day later january the 31st 1943 general field marshal friedrich von paulus surrendered his command in the southern pocket of the city to trick off's 62nd army i have no intention von paulus said of shooting myself for this bavarian corporal [Music] the germans had a name for the sort of fighting that had knocked down the city's buildings latin creek they called it rat war it produced legends like the fighting at the tractor factory the grain silo the main railway station which had changed hands 15 times and pavlov's house where sergeant pavlov and his unit had held out for 59 days until relieved [Music] but even such heroics must in the end be settled by the reality of modern war when the tractor plant was subjected to a bombardment by artillery mastered a density of 300 guns per kilometer it surrendered and the battle of stalingrad was over it had lasted 199 days [Music] [Music] on february the 3rd the furore announced to the fall of the city and declared four days of mourning [Music] the official communique announced that the entire sixth army had been wiped out to the last man and the last bullet in fact 91 000 prisoners of war were marched through the streets of moscow [Music] five thousand would survive their captivity following stalingrad's surrender german radio played the adagio from the seventh symphony of anton bruckner it would be played again in 1945 following the announcement of hitler's death [Music] from late in the winter of 1942 german propaganda had been recasting the war no longer a crusade to destroy jewish bolshevism it was now a life-or-death struggle against the asiatic horde in this vein the great orchestrator of german propaganda made a landmark speech on february the 18th joseph goebbels asked vogeir den total and krieg do you want total war do you want a warm or total and radical than even we can imagine those listening on the radio heard the carefully selected audience respond fanatically they heard goebbels end with a quotation that nazi leaders had used since 1920 now people rise up and let the storm break loose the storm that had broken over stalingrad resulted in about 1 million 130 000 soviet casualties [Music] axis forces suffered 850 thousand [Music] stalingrad may have checked the tide but defeat inner battle is not defeat in a war and the soviet union had yet to expel a single invader from its soil at the end of 1942 german troops were in occupation of 14 sovereign states france belgium the netherlands luxembourg denmark norway austria czechoslovakia poland greece yugoslavia estonia latvia and lithuania the soviet republics of biello russia and ukraine were occupied italy was an ally and so too hungary romania and bulgaria the eastern front remained a contest between two great continental empires so was stalingrad decisive [Music] like midway stalingrad was a battle in which both sides lost heavily but it proved that the german empire was not invincible the soviet generals were at least a match for their german counterparts above all that the soviet union alone was able to pay the cost of exorbitantly expensive victories it would do so again at kursk when the vermont still deep in soviet territory would once again go on the offensive what stalingrad along with midway and the reversal of fortunes in north africa did do was persuade people on the allied side from the lowest to the highest that they had turned the corner [Applause] ah this is not the end it is not even the beginning of the end but it is perhaps the end of the beginning churchill was referring to the second battle of el alamein through july and august as we have learned rommel was checked in north africa his newly arrived adversary montgomery was first tested when rommel launched an offensive with as his objective the british fuel depot fuel supply to the africa corps was a constant problem [Music] the key to rommel's plan was a swing against the alum halfer ridge he was beaten back and in early september withdrew to his start line montgomery was determined to build up a superiority in every type of arms before rejoining the fight some of the tactics were less than orthodox dummy tanks were positioned to persuade observers that the attack was forming in a certain place and real tanks were also disguised there was a framework on the outside of the tanks with canvas on all painted to look like a lorry and it did look like a lorry and there was any number of tanks behind the front line like this lorries had been part in an area and they'd pull out overnight you'd pull in overnight and this this really fooled the germans quite a bit the second battle of el alamein opened on the night of 22nd 23rd october 1942 with the first significant british bombardment since the end of the first world war the poor germans they got it they cut us from monday he opened up with over a thousand pieces of artillery on that other line and came right away like hailstones [Music] the line from which the offensive would move stretched from the coast road south to the impassable katara depression 13th corps general horox at the southern end of the line would push against general benvenuto gioda's tenth corps the aim was to draw ronald's armor south the main attack would be in the north 30th core general lease advancing through minefields new zealanders and south africans fought side by side on the southern end of 30th cause advance the new zealanders scoring an early success with the capture of miteria ridge up towards the coast the advance of ninth australian division was slowed by the minefield as was the push from both first and tenth armoured divisions on the 25th rommel who had been in germany for medical treatment when the attack was launched arrived in africa and resumed command of the africa corps [Music] both the north and south thrusts of montgomery's attacks stalled on the 25th the feared 88 millimeter anti-tank weapon was particularly effective the battle hung in the balance [Music] the star shells flying everywhere and there's a lot of whistling going on we thought the rear was full of it if you dropped the ground every time you had a whistling sound you'd never get up for two days blow and counter blow were traded without decisive outcome on the 28th churchill expressed his anxiety plans for an allied landing at the western end of the littoral in french north africa were about to be implemented and advancing from the east to affect the link up was vital on the 29th montgomery changed the plan supercharge now had the australian division on the coast road as the faint the attack began on november 2nd six days before the landings were scheduled for french north africa [Music] back i remember the one tank sitting on the front burning one of ours and there's a voice in my ear saying help help me the operator on that tank had been on the wireless when his tank was hit and somebody was trapped in that tank the wireless was still on god's sake helped me one of our times put a shot through the side of it and the voice stopped that burns inside me that doesn't sorry but [Music] as supercharged began to bite into the axis lines rommel whose forces were desperately short of fuel and ammunition was obliged to withdraw the pursuit of rommel across libya began on november the 4th and on the 10th churchill declared the end of the beginning [Music] one morning we saw a lot of burning going on another ricky two percent forward and came back the signal oh it's a general exodus in other words the germans were pulling back so we chased him all the way up the coast second el alamein was clearly an allied victory the enemy was in full-scale retreat but a sense of proportion is necessary at the midpoint of 1942 there were eight italian and four german divisions in north africa there were 12 and five respectively in the balkans 26 german divisions in western europe and 12 in norway and 197 axis divisions on the eastern front [Music] though romo was on the run he was fighting with all the stubborn skill and resource you'd naturally expect from this general as the eighth army drove west in pursuit of rommel it may be said to have represented the last hurrah of a once great empire on the other side of north africa her allies ground troops were entering the war against hitler under the supreme command of general dwight d eisenhower the yanks were coming [Music] operation torch the allied invasion of french north africa began on november the 8th when landings in three places met with strong french resistance these were forces loyal to the vichy french government there was a french navy ship that started firing at us i believe it was the vicki french who opposed us and our battleship sunk them at the pier and all the troop ships had their formation of landing craft gathered together and they emerged onto the beach a lot of the lcvp's that carried the troops into the beach were unable to dock efficiently so a lot of the troops with their heavy armament on them drowned in the water because of the heavy weight on his shoulder general patton's western task force landed at three points on the atlantic coast of morocco the center task force landed at auran and the eastern west of algiers both in algeria [Music] on november the 10th admiral francois vishi high commissioner in algiers ordered an end to resistance to the invasion vishy prime minister pierre lavalle hurried to berlin to assure hitler that dalai had acted illegally but the fuhrer was not impressed and the next day he ordered german troops to occupy the whole of france bringing the pretence of the zone libra to an end he sent an explanation of his action to the vichy leader philippe pettan it is to be regretted he wrote that unscrupulous anglo-saxons and primarily jewish wire pullers succeeded in interpreting every conciliatory gesture of the new reich as a sign of weakness hitler told peter that inciters in paris demanded dismemberment of the german reich he complained that they sought the enslavement of the german people above all complete restoration of the unrestricted right of plunder by the jewish race [Applause] on the 11th of november 1942 the anniversary of the armistice that had ended the first world war the french in north africa signed an armistice with the allies who began their advance on tunis which would hold out until april when it became the jumping off point for the invasion of sicily [Music] in the pacific major campaigns were changing the power balance of the war an archipelago of almost a thousand islands solomon islands is critically positioned off the northeastern cape of australia the japanese called the main island gadarukararu the americans called it cactus its name is guadalcanal japanese troops landed there in april 1942 and were soon observed to be building an air base such a facility could threaten mainland australia and naval and combined operations throughout the theater of war on july the second the american chiefs of staff ordered the capture of solomon islands little over a month later on august 7th american forces landed on guadalcanal it was the first landing by american forces in the pacific and the first of a series of island names to be indelibly inscribed in american history the primary target of the marines who landed on red beach was the airstrip that the japanese had been constructing when the marines overran the airfield on august 12th they named it for one of their number killed in action at midway major lofton henderson henderson field became the site of one of the bloodiest of the pacific battles the night after the initial landing a japanese naval task force of seven cruisers and a destroyer caught an allied force steaming through the 15 kilometer wide channel between guadalcanal and savo island sinking the american and australian cruisers with the loss of 1270 allied seamen and 34 japanese dead [Music] following the battle of savo island the us navy withdrew leaving the marines on guadalcanal without support but the japanese allowed their opportunity to pass not bringing up reinforcements until august the 18th the first japanese counter-attack went in on august the 21st they attacked at night because they believed that americans being effeminate did not like fighting at night 900 men commanded by colonel ishiki attacked at the battle of tenaru river the japanese were wiped out the americans lost 35 men colonel ishiki committed harakiri ritual suicide and it is said that crocodiles feasted on the japanese corpses [Music] later in august continuing naval action in the waters around the solomons swung the advantage there back to the americans whose fighters were by now operating from henderson field supply to imperial japanese army troops on guadalcanal was thereafter limited to vessels travelling from bougainville at night the americans dubbed it the tokyo night express the next significant attempt to displace the marines was led by general kawaguchi [Music] the battle of bloody ridge in mid-september was fiercely contested the japanese were driven back with 600 dead the marines lost 150 men by late september marine strength under general van de grift had risen to 23 000 the japanese recognizing the struggle that they faced sent lieutenant general hiyukotaki from rabul with the 17th army [Music] by mid-october the japanese had built their force to about 20 000. [Music] the battle for guadalcanal raged from mid-october until the final japanese evacuation at the beginning of february 1943 [Music] in the first two weeks of december the first u.s marine division severely debilitated by six weeks of fighting and the depredations of tropical disease was relieved by three marine divisions of fourteenth core general alexander patch hatch began offensive operations almost at once and by early january japan realized that its position on guadalcanal was not supportable losses to hunger and disease were far outstripping losses to enemy action evacuation was ordered the troops to be taken to new guinea by early february 1 600 americans had been killed as many as 32 000 japanese had been lost to military action or disease the imperial japanese army had feared no better during the parallel campaign on new guinea now for a dispatch from the jungles of new guinea by an australian newsreel cameraman just back from the front damian power it's an uncanny sort of warfare you never see a [ __ ] even though he's only 20 yards away they are complete masters of camouflage and deception i should say about 40 of our boys wounded in those engagements haven't seen a japanese soldier a live one anyway in july 1942 a small formation comprising one australian and one papuan infantry battalion was sent from port moresby on the overland journey to booner on new guinea's north coast booner had a small airfield which general douglas macarthur determined he needed as a base for further operations the small force that set off was named for one of sydney's better beaches maroubra force its journey lay along the kokoda track across the vertiginous and densely jungled owing stanley ranges marubra force reached the village of kokoda about the halfway point of the track in mid-july its orders from macarthur were to move on booner at the end of the month frustrated by the battle of the coral sea in their plans to take port moresby from the gulf of papua the japanese decided to approach overland a 2000 man advanced detachment under colonel yosuke yokoyama landed at gona on july 21st its orders were to make for kokoda the first contact between the japanese and marubra force occurred two days later the seventh australian division was dispatched to papua in early august and in the middle of the month one brigade began to move up the track [Music] the journey along kokoda was a journey into the malaria zone and for every man that was wounded seven were incapacitated by sickness supplying troops on the track was also problematic in the eight days it took native bearers to reach frontline troops they necessarily consumed half of the food that they carried two days after the australian seventh was dispatched the main japanese force of 11 500 men landed at buna by war's end 157 646 japanese soldiers would have been sent to new guinea barely six percent of them were to survive one important scene of action has been milne bay our pictures show reinforcements arriving after the japanese attempt to gain a foothold had been broken by australians there was contact made with the japanese for four nights when they would come and set up a machine gun alongside of a tree just across the uh the runway as fast as one would get killed there another would take his place [Applause] they would do that for a number of hours in the meantime we had troops infantry over their side and gradually they got the upper hand and they left 88 dead there was a japanese that had been machine gunned across his stomach and he had both hands in there and the pain of the agony was still on his face have to think of somebody's son somebody's father and or somebody's husband by september the 6th the attempted invasion of mill bay had to be abandoned japanese troops were evacuated back to rabbal milne bay was the first outright defeat of japanese troops importantly it denied them the opportunity to establish an air base after two more weeks of fierce fighting the australians began to advance along the kokoda track their objective booner fell to them after weeks of vicious jungle fighting in atrocious conditions of heat humidity and disease [Music] in the papua new guinea campaign the allies lost 8 500 as battle casualties the japanese 12 000 both sides lost many more to disease progress had been slow and the cost high the threat to australia had been removed [Music] in the next episode of the price of empire the change of fortunes that has led to allied victories gains in impetus through 1943 in the seas the skies in eastern europe in italy and north africa on the eastern front and through the pacific there is a steady grinding away at the axis powers if 1942 had seen the end of the beginning this was perhaps the beginning of the end [Music] you

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Keywords: Soviet Union, WW2 history lessons, WWII events, army movements, battle reenactments, combat narratives, conflict studies, history documentaries, military accounts, military blunders, military conquests, military decisions, military history analysis, military intelligence, military strategies, war chronicles, war recordings, warfare insights, wartime decisions, wartime strategies

Id: MCAXTbQJWhQ

Length: 49min 19sec (2959 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 07 2022