WW2 From the German Perspective (Full Documentary) | Animated History

thank you [Music] special thanks to the sponsor of today's video Men of War 2. as you may have heard the long-anticipated sequel to The acclaimed Men of War RTS franchise is scheduled to release soon and it features all new units locations campaigns and game modes combined with men of War's trademark historical accuracy and action-packed gameplay on the eastern and western fronts of the second world war experience an epic Story spanning three primary campaigns the Allies the Soviets and the Third Reich as well as the biggest multiplayer and Co-op modes in franchise history choose your side plan your battles and prepare to fight against other players or side by side with them against an advanced AI in a vast selection of realistic skirmishes across 22 maps from devastating tanks to incredibly accurate models of armament and military equipment Men of War 2 features the most extensive and highly detailed second world war locations vehicles and character roster in the series to date three sides 45 battalions and over 300 Vehicles Men of War 2 also features full mod support create and share your own scenarios using a special level design and modding tool set in fact by using the link in the description you can experience the game for yourself by signing up for an open Beta that begins May 11th through the 15th try it out or wish list your copy of Men of War 2 right now the speed and effectiveness of Nazi Germany's new war machine was demonstrated for the first time in full during their 1939 invasion of Poland in planning for the invasion one of the main concerns of Hitler and German High command the okw was the looming threat of France on their western border dividing their forces and engaging in a two-front war was out of the question so German planners concluded that they could only hope to win by destroying the Polish Army as rapidly as possible before turning all of their attention West to achieve this the okw relied on the Prussian strategy of decisive maneuver which aimed for Rapid surprise attacks followed by encirclements of retreating enemies this proven tactic was supported by new ideas about mechanized Warfare developed During the interwar period most importantly the concept of the Panzer Division While most armies at the time employed tanks primarily as support for their infantry the Vermont concentrated their armored units into separate divisions and placed them front and center in their operations the doctrines surrounding the use of these Panzer divisions as fast-moving armored spearheads would later form the strategy that we now call Blitzkrieg but at the time it was less of a distinct idea and more of a continuation of a tried and true Prussian Doctrine while armored units were very effective during the invasion of Poland punching through Enemy Lines with the help of infantry and luftwaffe dive bombers their presence was far from the decisive factor in the campaign's success out of the 53 divisions in the German invasion Force only six were Panzer divisions while another four were motorized the vast majority of the fighting in Poland was done by conventional infantry with horses playing an important role rather than widespread mechanization or brilliant tactics the Vermont's greatest advantage in its first campaign was arguably the Strategic weakness of the Polish Army diplomatic meddling and false promise from their Western allies had interfered with their mobilization leaving polish forces deployed in a thin line too close to their long border with Germany and Slovakia this left the poles especially vulnerable to flanking and encirclement and by the time the Soviets invaded from the East the fate of Poland was sealed in less than a month the Polish military had been crushed between the armies of Germany and the Soviet Union and the government had been forced into exile in April of the following year the Germans set their sights on Denmark and Norway in order to deny the British access to the Baltic secure their iron ore Supply from neutral Sweden and gain access to Norwegian heavy water facilities the invasion of Denmark was met with almost no resistance and was over in less than six hours making it by far the fastest campaign Germany would ever complete Norway did not fare much better while the Panzer divisions played a relatively minor part in a Polish campaign the invasion of Norway would see these new armored tactics take on a very different role specifically a non-existent one as the campaign did not involve any armored units instead the conquest of Norway was accomplished through an amphibious assault utilizing Naval Air air airborne and ground forces in a coordinated well-timed surprise attack to minimize their disadvantages against the Royal Navy the Germans planned the operation during April when harsh weather on the North Sea would hinder enemy ships and reduce visibility giving their Invasion forces a better chance to safely reach their targets as the kriegs marina held off the Royal Navy at Sea infantry units captured several key ports while paratroopers were deployed to Sea's key airfields this sudden and decisive attack caught the Norwegians and their allies off guard although it would be two months before the Norwegian Army would capitulate the nation's capital and most of its major cities fell to the German's amphibious Invasion within the first 24 hours the invasion of Norway was not the only important role that the kriegs marina played during the first two years of the war although Germany was blockaded immediately after the war started the Germans also simultaneously began their Convoy raiding campaign u30 for example sank the British ocean liner SS Athena mere hours after the war declaration the British soon adopted the convoy system and formed anti-submarine hunting groups based around aircraft carriers this would soon backfire as the HMS Arc Royal Britain's modern aircraft carrier was almost sunk two weeks after the war declaration and another British carrier the HMS courageous would actually be sunk three days later German submarines would even infiltrate the British base at scapa flow and sink a battleship the HMS Royal Oak with the adoption of wolf pack tactics the U-Boat Fleet had immense success sinking millions of tons of shipping even surface Raiders like the Admiral hipper and the Admiral Shearer had success attacking British convoys this period of early success would be nicknamed The Happy Time by German sailors a month after the invasion of Norway the Germans finally ended the eight-month phony War by launching their Western offensive into the Benelux and France the German plan relied heavily on fast-moving armored and motorized units to exploit weakness in the Allied defenses on May 10th the German Army launched a surprise attack on the neutral countries of the Benelux overwhelming Force combined with daring Airborne assaults quickly managed to break the back of the Dutch Army while the belgians supported by both France and Britain buckled in the face of Hitler's finest Panzer formations rather than attacking the enemy head-on fast-moving German units outmaneuvered their Allied counterparts to cut off their supply lines and disrupt reinforcements it was these armored spearheads that drove through the ardenne avoiding the imagino line and encircling the British expeditionary forces around Dunkirk the British were only spared from Disaster by a daring evacuation with the close support of the luftwaffe the invading forces were able to wreak havoc on Allied Logistics with devastating results the Germans also took advantage of the fact that the French deployed their tanks evenly across the front line which allowed them to mask their panzers into concentrated attacks a great number of France's dreaded Char B1 battle tanks in many ways Superior to contemporary German tanks wound up being abandoned across the battlefield after running out of fuel with their impressive armor barely scratched German Logistics on the other hand functioned very smoothly with a report from Panzer group kleist asserting that there was not a single Supply crisis that his group was unable to resolve this was in large part thanks to France's infrastructure which included a large quantity of gas stations the steady supply of fuel allowed the Panzer divisions to race ahead and attempt the far-ranging encirclement Maneuvers that would ultimately play a major role in the rapid destruction of the French army the stable supply lines the Germans enjoyed during the Western offensive were absolutely critical for continuing their fast-paced armored Maneuvers without them the Germans rapid advances could not be sustained after Dunkirk it only took the Germans three more weeks to conquer the rest of France the fall of France also had the added benefit of providing the Germans with Atlantic Naval bases which would contribute to the success of their U-Boat fleets meanwhile the Germans would establish the Vichy French government in the South the incredible success of the French campaign cemented a popular image of the Vermont as an Unstoppable machine capable of rolling over its enemies with overwhelming speed and strength even the German leadership was largely taken in by the notion of their invincibility despite the fact that it was blatantly false fascists in Italy looked on with envy and trepidation Mussolini feared being sidelined by Hitler and thus had thrust his forces into the Battle of France leading to war with the British Empire December of 1940 would see the Italians spectacularly fail on the field losing three ships at Toronto and swaths of Italian Libya to the British by February 1941. compounding these losses in the desert were Italian defeats in the Balkans where IL duche's half-baked invasion of Greece had turned into a route of Epic Proportions with the Greeks not only pushing the Italians out of their country but following them into Italian occupied Albania the British soon allied with the ascendant Greeks and the Italians found themselves brutalized by the Tommy's on one side and the hellenics on the other Italy's attempts at Conquest had turned into a dumpster fire and Hitler feared The Blaze would spread his worry exploded into outright Fury when Yugoslavia reluctantly joined the Axis powers only to implode into an anti-fascist coup that the fearer took as a personal affront rolling up their sleeves and dragging the Italians and hungarians along with them the Germans swept into Yugoslavia in a blowout Invasion subjugating the Rogue axis Ally in less than a month meanwhile other German troops trudged into Greece bailing out the beleaguered Italians and conquering the entire country the British sent an expeditionary Force to shore up the Greek defense but even their combined strength couldn't stand up to the Nazi counter-attack and its Italian Hangers On the Allies withdrew to Crete trying to make the island a Mediterranean stronghold but the German falshem Yeager cracked the defense on May 20th 1941 in a historic butyric Victory the German Triumph at Crete was a costly Affair to the point that General Kurt student who commanded the falsham Yeagers would dub Crete the graveyard of the German paratroopers Germany had well and truly saved Italy's panchetta but even as the dust of battle settled there were some in Germany who questioned the wisdom of coming to Mussolini's rescue Lenny Riefenstahl the Nazi propagandist influential filmmaker and close friend of Hitler recalled the fuhrer stewing over the possibility that if the Italians hadn't attacked Greece and needed our help the war would have taken a different course we could have anticipated the Russian cold by weeks and conquered Leningrad and Moscow there could have been no Stalingrad Hitler's assessment of operation Barbarossa is disputed by modern historians Richard Hooker Jr a U.S army analyst argues that the delayed timetable did not prevent the troops from advancing to Moscow between late June and mid-august especially given their morale was at an all-time high following the victories in Yugoslavia and Greece David glance a military history Professor believes that Germany's Balkan campaign actually helped Barbarossa by discrediting Soviet intelligence reports of an imminent Invasion however the popular belief is that Germany's support of Italy hindered Barbarossa resulting in the first of many defeats for the Third Reich the answer to this eternal question may never be found lost in the fog of History Operation Barbarossa initially lived up to its promise The Joint Invasion by Nazi Germany and Italy with support from Romania Hungary and Finland saw the axis make their typical quick gains and seize much territory even as Hitler constantly changed their strategic goals but the invasion hit a major stumbling block at the first battle of Smolensk which left the triumphant Army group Center severely debilitated High command elected to order the center to hold and diverted other forces to reinforce the push into Ukraine and against Leningrad Kiev would soon fall and the axis spent the ensuing months fighting their way to Victory across the USSR except for the grinding sieges at Leningrad and sevastopol buoyed by their success the axis made a rush for Moscow only to grind to a halt just outside the capital suburbs burned out from their rapid Advance bloodied by dogged Soviet resistance and with these Soviets gearing up for a counter-offensive the axis could do nothing but wait for the Communists response a response that would throw the Germans back from Moscow even as they held on to their other conquests but as the Germans licked their wounds a new foe was brought into the war the bombing of Pearl Harbor saw the United States declare war on the Empire of Japan and honoring its treaty obligations Nazi Germany declared war on the U.S soon thereafter Germany was well and truly being pushed closer and closer to the edge due to the logistical issues mostly lack of oil the Germans could only focus on one Army group for their 1942 offensive Hitler and his generals began planning for the next phase of their offensive against the Soviet Union aiming South with an eye towards seizing the Reds oil fields during a planning session Hitler grimly informed the commanders of army group South that if I do not get the oil of my cop and grozny then I must end this war their rush into the USSR had well and truly stretched the Germans then and the Nazi summer offensive including the Battle of Stalingrad represented A desperate Hail Mary if the Nazis could capture the Soviet oil fields they could retain the initiative and grind the hated Communists into the Dust but desperation bred under preparedness and the soldiers who marched to capture the oil were neither ready for the mountainous terrain nor equipped for Winter fighting these Soviets proved dogged as ever especially at Stalingrad leading to the Germans being encircled by a Soviet counter-attack that wiped out the sixth Army Army group South was ultimately forced back into Ukraine by the Soviets with the Germans in the Caucasus barely managing an escape during Operation Barbarossa failure led to finger-pointing with General Franz halder the chief of staff blaming the diversion of troops to the Ukraine for the inability to capture Moscow however halder's argument neglected the fact that Napoleon was able to occupy Moscow during his own invasion of Russia and history may have repeated itself had the Vermont reached the city even so this was not a Napoleonic War of Conquest but a war of annihilation these Soviets had to be exterminated their land and resources claimed for Nazi Germany Hitler in many regards picked the worst possible fight he chose to throw his men against a cornered animal with unbelievable reserves of Manpower and Industrial capacity and his men were mauled it is February 1943. the cracks are beginning to show on the Eastern Front The Battle of Stalingrad ending with both the Soviets and Nazis battered but the Soviets can weather the beating the retreat is draining Germany's oil the Soviets are draining Germany's Manpower and the privations of War are draining Germany's hope Yosef gerbils Infamous minister of propaganda and the man who convinced a nation that millions of Innocents just had to die takes to the podium to sell the German people on their words emblazoned on the banners overhead totala Krieg Total War s foreign foreign [Music] all right [Applause] whether the people were willing to follow or not to a taller Krieg wouldn't save the Third Reich the failure of operation fallblau or case blue was a major contributor to the eventual axis defeat on the Eastern front although many will argue that the invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa was doomed from the start launched in June of 1942 case blue was an attempt to simultaneously cut off Soviet access to resupply from the Black Sea and capture the oil fields located in the Caucasus the oil wells of Baku were of Paramount importance as Germany had exhausted its pre-war petroleum reserves yet ironically the operation designed to address this shortage only exacerbated it as the marathon drive toward caucasia and the scorched Earth Defense by Soviet forces stretched already fragile fuel lines leaving their offensives in the East all but dead in the water case blue culminated in the Battle of Stalingrad which marked the deepest penetration of Nazi troops into the Soviet Union but although they inflicted Grievous losses on the Red Army the offensive was ultimately turned back along with practically all of the momentum on the Eastern Front Germany went into the Caucasus for oil and Triumph but left with empty tanks and full graveyards as bad as this situation was Nazi officials had reason for some confidence the Allied raid at diap France in August of 1942 was an embarrassing failure and a windfall for the German propaganda Ministry indicating that the Allies lacked the expertise to launch an amphibious invasion of Europe the luftwaffe also regularly inflicted heavy casualties on Allied bomber sorties giving hope that they could still win the war in the air in the long term this optimism was strengthened with the knowledge that cutting-edge jet fighters like the me-262 might enter production within a year but these dreams became increasingly far-fetched as Germany's answer to its logistical challenges was the creation of Evermore complex wunderwaffe or Wonder Weapons that created more of the same challenges V2 rocket systems to Reign holy Terror on petulant londoners stg-44s that would influence modern assault rifles Mouse tanks to grind the judeo Bolsheviks into dust and other incredible inventions that were largely either too expensive ineffective or impractical fuel was a constant concern with the vermashed juggling supplies of petrol and synthetic gas to power its desperate operations far more sinisterly the Germans relied on slave labor from concentration camp inmates who suffered both from the malice of their oppressors as well as industrial accidents all of these issues saw Albert Speer Hitler's armaments Minister and the man with his hands on the levers of German industry playing an Ever more challenging game of the floor is lava economic Edition Fritz Reinhardt state Secretary in the German finance ministry reportedly said the contributions that have been allocated to paying off the interest and principle on the national debt must henceforth be covered by current revenues earned from the economic exploitation of the Eastern territories this economic exploitation one of the many schemes designed to remedy Germany's excessive spending paradoxically worsened the German economic condition in large part because the scheme was falsely predicated on a quick and decisive military conquest but Hitler and his advisors hardly concerned themselves with these practical considerations they had Nazi ideology which elevated the war to an apocalyptic struggle between the superior Aryan race and the untermench who stood between them and the Mastery of Europe early success in Poland and France had taught the Nazi party that shortcomings in strategy or Logistics could be overcome by raw Germanic prowess encouraging blind belief in Nazi Supremacy and downplaying objective analysis of defeats or strategic blunders after all as Hitler said regarding Operation Barbarossa all the Germans had to do was kick the door in and the entire structure would come crashing down that they kept having to find more doors to kick was another matter even after the failure of case blue Hitler tried to keep the Army on an offensive footing but his plans were constantly postponed meanwhile Soviet winter counter-offensives made inroads on nazi-held territory forming a Salient around the city of Kursk with Summer approaching Hitler authorized operation Citadel a massive attack on this Salient by Army group Center and army group South What followed is often considered one of the largest tank battles in history the luftwaffe and Panzer divisions exhausting themselves trying to break through the Soviet defenses and envelop the salient yet this Salient would ultimately hold and operation Citadel represented everything wrong with the German war effort it was a reactionary move based on vague strategic goals that even if successful would merely delay the inevitable after the failure at Kursk the German disposition would permanently shift to the defensive even so German morale endured the disaster at Kursk and the vermacht remained an effective fighting force throughout 1943. this was primarily due to the efforts of men like Walter modal and Albert kesselring who effectively transitioned the German Army to a defensive posture hopes rested on a series of fortifications constructed along the dinap river sometimes known as the OST wall despite hurling up to 3 million Soviet soldiers at the OST wall in August the Red Army was unable to cross the denipper for nearly three months meanwhile in the west the Allied invasion of Italy was brought to a standstill at the Gustav line in December as winter set in Hitler hoped that Germany could hold out until the Unholy alliance between the capitalist Western allies and the Communist USSR collapsed under its own ideological weight unfortunately for Germany reality finally came knocking on Hitler's door in June of 1944. it's my food kind of moment foreign [Music] s did not take the Germans completely by surprise on the contrary the highest echelons of German command were well aware that an invasion was imminent and of the least possible threat the furor was confident that the Atlantic Wall stretching from the border of Spain to Norway would not only repulse any Allied Landing but caused so many Commonwealth and American casualties that the Western allies would lose their capacity to continue the war for its buyer line a senior aide to Irwin Rommel in Africa and later commander of the Panzer Lair division at Normandy held the debacle at the app up as incontrovertible proof the Allies could not manage an amphibious assault the series of successful Allied amphibious Landings in Italy gave even Hitler pause however and he placed Rommel in charge of Shoring up the defenses along the English Channel rommel's task was an inevitable one concrete was at a premium with the Lion's Share of Germany's Supply going to the construction of hardened U-Boat shelters per Hitler's direct orders French laborers and Italian pows were conscripted to improve the defenses turrets from captured French tanks were made into makeshift emplacements named to Brooks after a jury-rigged reinforced firing pit Italian soldiers had built with buried cement pipes in North Africa and extensive minefields were laid perhaps rommel's most ingenious inventions were the Rommel spargle or rommel's asparagus webs of metal wire strung along fields of short poles meant to shred gliders as they tried to land alongside anti-ship mines placed into the beaches atop angled poles driven into the sand but static defenses were only part of rommel's strategy Hitler and the high command had become convinced the Allies would land at the easy to reach podik lay operatives confirmed this loudly and often falling for the Allied deception operation Operation Fortitude Rommel for his part began to shift his view toward an Allied landing at Normandy the beaches were similar to the Italian Shore and the Allies would want to maximize their chances of success by striking on familiar ground regardless of where the Allies came Rommel argued that the only way to beat them back was through defensive action on the beaches meeting the Allies as they landed and denying them the opportunity to take even a centimeter of ground given the equality of the troops defending Normandy this was Far easier planned than executed Normandy was the responsibility of the seventh Army whose units in the area were to put it mildly of mixed quality promising recruits were siphoned off by SS falshem Yeager or Panzer recruiters leaving a contingent of unfit or unremarkable men Among The Defenders of Normandy were the so-called ear and stomach battalions composed of soldiers convalescing from combat wounds to their abdomens or who were experiencing hearing loss and ostrupen foreign auxiliaries from conquered lands forced to fight for the Reich including many Soviet pows naturally most proved highly ineffective with many deserting to join the French Resistance or surrendering to the Allies at the first opportunity the few capable soldiers either suffered from endemic fatalism such as Captain Eberhard vigamon of the 21st Panzer Division who commented we were well aware that neither are men nor our tanks were good enough or were almost fanatically prepared to meet their foes this attitude was usually convinced by the younger SS troops thank you as June 5th crapped into June 6th the kriegs marina pulled patrols from the English Channel German meteorologists had declared the weather unsuitable for an invasion through June 10th there was scientifically speaking no chance of a landing Rommel took these assurances as an opportunity to go on leave returning to Germany to celebrate his wife's birthday and arrange an audience with Hitler to request additional panzers along the wall Friedrich dolman commander of the seventh Army ordered a command post drill for his officers on June 6th the evening was shaping up to be a quiet Affair and the Germans began preparing for the next day's routine until Allied bombs began falling this itself was not unusual as the Allies had launched near continuous runs against the Germans for some time but this raid was an overture to Operation Overlord as centuries fought off sleep gliders began to make silent Landings as officers crawled into bed paratroopers began to descend to Earth bewildered German commanders found enemies literally raining down on their heads and desperately rang to their superiors or assembled cells of ad hoc resistance Lieutenant General Joseph Reichert commander of the 711th Infantry Division recalled a night of drinking in the officer's mess ending in combat the inebriated officer pistol in hand stumbled out into the night to find British paratroopers raining down on the 711th command post Riker and his men were able to fend off the assault and these still drunk General desperately rang to his superiors to announce the beginning of the Allied invasion in the American Landing zones Lieutenant General Wilhelm Foley commander of the 91st luftwanda division was ambushed and killed by the 82nd Airborne just behind his headquarters near soulman igle other Germans proved less willing to give battle Reiner hartmatz a soldier serving near Normandy rushed to his command post to find his officers gripped by battle shock two men were simply catatonic while Reiner's company Commander was sprawled drunkenly in a foxhole every time a runner brought news from the front line the commander would idly threaten to execute anyone who returned to the scene of the action as Dawn began to light up the Normandy Coast the Germans were shocked to see an Allied Armada steaming toward them with no Naval forces to challenge them the Allied landing craft and their escorts took up their positions in the English Channel and that's when the shells began Landing [Music] thank you the opening bombardment of Omaha Beach caught German Shore batteries in the middle of preparing Ford Gunnery practice turning what should have been a morning of plinking in the Atlantic into a Scramble for survival weathering this bombardment was the 716th static Infantry Division a unit of notoriously low quality composed of decrepit or boyish conscripts and ill-motivated OST troopan the division was denied the usual allotment of artillery and heavy Vehicles their peers in the Army enjoyed relying on a hodgepodge of German armaments and foreign heavy weapons but the 716th was not alone at Omaha as other areas were defended by the much more powerful 352nd Infantry Division as battle was joined on the beach and American servicemen scrambled for cover machine gunner Heinrich zavalo of the 352nd could see the water spouts where my machine gun bursts were hitting and when the little fountains got close to the gis they threw themselves down they lay in the shallow water many tried to get to the most forward Beach obstacles to find some cover behind them I fired some more at the many dark Foams in the water zavalo senior one Lieutenant freerking pitied the Americans as poor swine even as he called more artillery strikes onto the floundering Infantry all over the beach zavalo could see wounded moving around on the bloody watery slime mostly creeping trying to get to the upper Beach and find some cover behind the shingle embankment one by one they would occasionally run in a Crouch as the day went on men like xavolo and their heavy Weaponry would make Omaha the deadliest landing on D-Day [Music] the 716th division at sword Beach was a sorry Affair the overstretched Germans were severely lacking in air support or completed fortifications and had utterly failed to coordinate with Coastal artillery in their sector the area teamed with vacation homes and Coastal settlements and saved for summon placements in the sand dunes and a handful of beach obstacles was largely undeveloped the individual soldiers were also of low quality with Lieutenant Carl Haida bemoaning the condition of his divisions officers many had been severely wounded previously some became unpleasant or socially inept due to their early harsh War experiences I will not deny that some did get drunk at times Lieutenant Schoff of the 716th noted that the rank and file were overworked and ill-motivated too busy putting up wire and planting rommel's asparagus to have much time for training indeed the mix of Germans and ostrupen defending sword Beach routinely convinced a lack of care as artilleryman Hans glaub describes his fellow Gunners failing to keep their pieces clean sword would prove to be a relatively smooth Landing with the Germans yielding the beach two British forces with minimum casualties their attitude would change when they met the more professional soldiers of the 21st Panzer Division launching a two-pronged counter-attack to the east and west of sword however major Hans Von Luke commander of the Eastern thrust wrote in his Memoir Panzer commander of attempting to lead the second Battalion of the 21st against Doug in British paratroopers only to be stymied by Allied aircraft and Naval fire the German defense at Utah Beach was compromised by the Airborne operations cut phone lines had crippled their ability to exchange information while the spread out Landing zones made mounting a large-scale defense difficult Utah and its environs were defended primarily by the 709th Infantry Division made up of older Germans and the ever ubiquitous ostrupen armed with a bizarre mix of weapons French German polish even Russian armaments filled their stores but blessed with competent leadership at least Lieutenant General Carl Wilhelm Graf Von schleiben overall commander of the 709th would order an actual organized counter-attack in the face of the Airborne assault arranging for the 100th Panzer Battalion to drive forward to meet the 82nd Airborne at salmer iglei and at their critical Bridgehead over the ameriday the 100th would be driven back by the 82nd in spectacular fashion as the obsolete French tanks they deployed against the Americans were annihilated with Bazookas and Gammon grenades but the 82nd were not the only paratroopers in the area the sixth paratroop regiment under the command of major Fon der haita pushed out of karata to reinforce their ground-based colleagues as they came upon the Americans Landing zones the Germans were astonished at the number of parachutes Left Behind yards and yards of silk littered the fields of france the fall shimmy anger would push onto the commune Dumont where haita climbed the church steeple and saw the endless Armada in the channel thank you things were not much better for the Germans on the beach proper Lieutenant Arthur Yanka commanded Fort W5 a network of bunkers and pillboxes built into the dunes over the beaches which was all but destroyed by the morning bombings Yanko recalled how the raids obliterated his position Avalanches of sand and concrete buried his men alive forcing them to be dug out even as the assault on the beaches began spotting the American landing craft Yanka ordered what men he could rally to dig in and ordered a dispatch Rider to make for the nearest artillery battery to Shell the beach Bianca's Rider would be intercepted by American paratroopers there was little Yanka and his men could do as The Landings began in Ernst with men and floating tanks fighting their way through the surf and straight toward the ruins of W5 a blast knocked Yonka to the ground and as his eyes fought to focus and the ringing in his ears subsided he looked up through his skewed spectacles to see an American infantryman standing over him as combat intensified on Normandy and reports of paratroopers and an Allied Fleet flooded High command the general staff thought to themselves this is all an elaborate ruse the general staff passed this thought around as Hitler slept in as more and more Allied troops and heavy equipment began making their way onto the beaches Hitler finally rolled out of bed to be met with word of the invasion of France the fuhrer could not have been happier Hitler declared again that the Atlantic Wall would throw the Allies back and he eagerly anticipated following up the inevitable failure of the Normandy Landings by reigning V-1 bombs on London the Western armies would be ground into the Sands of France and the seat of his hated British enemies would be blown to Smithereens by Superior German weaponry but as the day dragged on and the Allies began to gain ground the Frontline Commander's flooded High command with requests for support requests to do something to prevent their positions from being overrun the beacons of Normandy were lit but High command would not answer the call for Aid Hitler the only man on Earth who could release the panzers would continue to insist that the Allies could and should be thrown back on the shore this thinking had managed to seep into some of the Defenders on Gold Beach Friedrich verster helped crew a battery of four captured Czech cannons at Marie fonten near the beach verster firmly agreed with his fuhrer that the Atlantic Wall was impenetrable an attitude he kept right up until the British overran his Commander's spotting position near the shore in the face of Allied superiority in men and materiel verster and his fellows quietly surrendered further behind the lines the Germans were hard at work trying to Corral the French civilian population propaganda Vans drove through Kong ordering the population to remain indoors while the German authorities began to arrange for the evacuation of key parts of the city at Von roonshed's headquarters outside of Paris telephones rang continuously and teletypes spewed seemingly infinite messages combat at Gold Beach began in Ernst when the first landing craft dropped their ramps the moment the medal hit the surf German machine guns and artillery opened up on the British troops who fought hard to clear the beach and sweep the Fortified Coastal houses the Germans had worked into their defenses indeed the Germans put up a fierce fight at gold with elements of the 352nd Infantry reigning fire on the British from a cliff top over the beach at Amel including devastating volleys from Aflac 88. the British were only able to unseat the Germans at Amel with tank support including a mortar armed member of hobart's funnies elements of the 12th SS division spotted The Invasion Fleet anchored off of Juno Beach in the early morning hours Lieutenant Peter hansman of the 12th recalled being awoken by his NCO in charge shaking my shoulders herloin onto the invasion has started Huntsman rushed to a vantage point near Gold Beach looking through my binoculars I recognized the individual outlines of ships at irregular intervals flashes of ship's artillery were coming from various spots fast boats with high white foamy bowel waves were spitting out brown clumps of men on the beach the lieutenant counted over 400 ships in the channel from his front row seat to the end of the Third Reich I wanted to shout at all the generals right up to Adolf Hitler over here quickly before it's too late whoever can still fight come here the fastest most powerful divisions send them here the luftwaffa where is it the kriegs marina where is it it must get here Grenadier Hans weiner who defended a position on Juno dubbed wn-31 recalled watching the first Tommy's jumping into the sea which was quite shallow the bullets hit them and their boats to good effect and I was a little surprised to see them falling I don't know why ner's position was eventually torn apart by the tanks coming ashore with the Canadians which managed to drive Inland under the barrel of 88 millimeter cannons poised to shred them as they emerged from the surf 88 millimeter Gunner Heinrich zebel complained of not being able to see many tanks due to the smoke and chaos though his gun claimed at least two Allied tanks before their Block House 2 was blown apart the Germans provided a much tougher obstacle for their foes at the tyville Chateau roughly one mile or one and a half kilometers inland tyville was supposed to be the starting point for a second line of defensive Works laid out by Rommel before the Allied Landings came it was a well-built strong point with a full communication and command complex and underground tunnels connecting it to to Brook turrets armed with machine guns cannons and mortars The Defenders managed to hold the Allies back until nearly 6 PM that day with their final message before the position was taken reading hand-to-hand fighting inside the command post hemmed into a closely confined area but still holding out Heil Hitler not long after the fall of tyville the Canadians began making their way toward the luftwaffe Airfield at copycat one of their key objectives the commandant of the Airfield ordered an evacuation inciting panic in his ground Crews the Germans Made A hurried attempt to destroy the aircraft before they evacuated but their haste proved fatal attempts to raise the Airfield left most of the taxiing area of the runway untouched the takeoff Runway was damaged but not sufficiently to render it unusable and the vast majority of the Field's fuel stores were salvageable in this one case haste ended up lessening waste while operation by gratian in the East shattered the German's Precious Battle lines at the cost of around 400 000 men with Germany's forces being ground to a pulp by these Soviets Romania and Bulgaria defected in 1944 and the panicked Germans occupied Hungary to prevent their defection even as the Hungarian prime minister begged the Soviets for A Separate Peace though German ferocity delayed the Allied Advance they could not match their superiority in men material and air power hemorrhaging Manpower and with hardly any supplies or economic strength remaining the Germans had to get creative to replace their mounting losses in addition to raising 78 Volks Grenadier divisions and moving extant regiments around to create new armies on paper the Germans made a desperate attempt to augment their forces in the form of the volkster or people's storm on October 18 1944 Hitler personally ordered that all civilian males aged 16 to 60 join a new force that would continue to protect the Reich the volksterm was not an organ of the vermasht which Hitler was beginning to see as weak and incompetent but rather a paramilitary militia controlled by the Nazi party Allied intelligence at the time estimated that at full strength the volksterm could have mustered over 13 million fighters to oppose the march to Berlin less than half that number could put up an honest fight the volksterm were initially issued whatever uniforms could be scrounged up but as the logistical situation deteriorated their only standard piece of equipment became a black and red armband identifying them as members of the militia which led to members fighting and everything from civilian business suits to hand-me-down Imperial German kits from the first World War the volksterm were armed with a hodgepodge of Civilian hunting rifles weapons captured from Allied and Scandinavian countries and surprisingly ingenious last-ditch weapons an example of this last category was the eintos Flamin verfer a portable single shot flamethrower the eintos was essentially an oversized aerosol bottle designed to fire a single half-second gout of flame before being discarded in the same vein as the single shot Panzer Faust such a weapon would have been as simple as point and roast making it perfect for civilian users foreign resistance would not end at the front line however Joseph Goebbels launched a massive propaganda push centered around a partisan Network vervolf which would in theory continue the war even in the event of a German defeat people the foolish allies would take for friendly civilians would in fact be hardened Fighters with national socialism burning in their hearts and ready to transform at any moment into a fighting force to sow Discord and strife among the allies Nazi partisans would in reality carry out or take credit for numerous assassinations and sabotage operations during the final years of the war but the massive organization Goebbels wrote about was never a serious threat with wunderwaffa in hand the Germans would win the war Maybe the fuhrer realized that only a grand offensive could now conclude the war for Germany favorably the question was where it stood the best chance of success as action against the Soviets or in Italy would bear little fruit there was however one sector which had historically served a German Army well Hitler no doubt fueled by a sense of 1940 Nostalgia ordered a massive armored attack through the lightly defended Arden region his goal was to drive onto Antwerp and isolate the Commonwealth forces in Holland knocking them out of the war and forcing Britain into another Dunkirk to save what soldiers would be left perhaps even triggering negotiations for peace and freeing up German troops to finally defeat the inferior Soviets in the East Hitler was proven partly right in his predictions when the offensive codenamed operation vasht amrein took the American Defenders by complete surprise causing panic in their lines however in a characteristic display of hubris Hitler and his high command had not only severely underestimated the fighting prowess of the American Army which after the initial shock continued to provide tenacious resistance on key Crossroads and towns all over the Arden but they had also failed to provide their army with enough fuel exhausted and undersupplied The Battered remnants were ultimately ordered to withdraw entirely when a strong Allied counter-attack forced its way through their weakened lines Hitler's final gamble had utterly failed and with it Germany's last military reserves so desperately needed to repel the forthcoming winter offensive on the Eastern Front had been spent Germany's remaining Defenders now had their work cut out for them in January 1945 the Soviets built on the momentum of operation bagration to launch the Vistula odor offensive a crushing drive into Poland that saw Germany lose their first conquest of the war with renowned Field Marshal yorgi zhukov at the head the Soviets obliterated 45 divisions and claimed to have killed or captured 400 000 men stopping at the odor River bordering the Fatherland the propaganda Minister recorded a feeling of utter Terror sweeping through the capital of the Reich as the citizens of Berlin worried that the Soviets had a clear path to the city there is nothing between us no anti-tank gun no anti-tank obstacles not a single soldier [Music] the eyes of the world were now converging on Berlin as Stalin's Army is prepared for their final Act of Vengeance that would eradicate Nazi Germany once and for all although the Allies had promised to leave Berlin to the Red Army the ever paranoid Stalin still urged haste in the capture of the city the final Plan called for a three-pronged attack on the Berlin axis to encircle and capture the city within 12 to 15 days then move on to meet the Allies at the Elbow River zhukov's first belarussian front would be at the center of the thrust while Marshall Ivan conniff's first Ukrainian front to the South was set to attack across the Niza River in the direction of Potsdam and Dresden finally Marshall Constantine roccosovsky's second Belarusian front would tie down German forces to the north in the sector to prevent them from reinforcing Berlin having become accustomed to fighting on wide open terrain few in the Red Army had much experience in large-scale urban street fighting it was up to General vasili choykov's eighth guards army veterans of the Battle of Stalingrad to distribute pamphlets on Urban Warfare while special combined arms task forces were formed Red Army Engineers on their part worked day and night to construct hundreds of bridges and thousands of wooden assault boats to cross the odor and naiza rivers to achieve this Soviet planners had to find a way to move 29 armies over hundreds of kilometers to create shock groups capable of penetrating the German line in areas only 2.5 to 10 kilometers or 1.5 to 6 miles in width when it was all said and done the Red Army would Advance on Berlin with some 2.5 million men 6 250 tanks and self-propelled guns and 7500 combat aircraft aiming to make the Invaders bleed for every inch of German soil the vermacht constructed a series of well-entrenched defensive lines which barricaded the way into Berlin Manning these positions were the remains of army group fistula and fourth Panzer Army as well as the Berlin Garrison combined this Force consisted of 750 000 German soldiers supported by 1519 tanks and assault guns nine thousand three hundred and three guns and mortars and 2 200 aircraft however these numbers looked more impressive on paper than they did in reality as virtually all of its formations were under strength although many units were led by battle-hardened Veterans of the Eastern Front their Rank and file was often made up of a mix of wounded unfit and inexperienced soldiers and even boys from the Hitler Youth moreover some sixty thousand of the Defenders came from under trained and barely armed volkster militia battalions the Infantry would not be able to count much on its armored and air assets either as the Germans lacked the fuel reserves to keep its otherwise considerable force of fighting Vehicles operational for any extended period of time morale was also at an all-time low most suffered from malnutrition and a lack of hygiene and saved for the most fanatical Nazis few now believed in the promise of final victory even so every effort was made to convince the men that the much anticipated wunderwaffen would still turn the tide of the war and that peace talks with the Western allies were soon to bear fruit but if these motivations were only marginally effective the widespread fear of Soviet Vengeance and barbarism drove even the most cynical to continue fighting on April 12th the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra gave its last performance among the music played was Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries four days later another type of Orchestra began to play as thousands of katyusha rocket launchers and field guns of zhukov's front opened up on the first German defensive line along the Zelo Heights miles away in Berlin's Eastern suburbs houses began to shake as terrified citizens gathered in the street to listen to the start of the coming storm a stunned Russian engineer described to the unfolding spectacle along the whole lengths of the Horizon it was bright as daylight on the German side everything was covered with smoke and thick foundations of Earth and clumps flying up there were huge flocks of scared birds flying around in the sky a constant humming Thunder explosions we had to cover our ears to prevent our eardrums breaking as the sound of artillery gradually faded hundreds of men began shouting to Berlin as tank engines roared and the elite assault elements began advancing toward the heights many of the German Defenders unfortunate enough to have been caught in the preceding Onslaught had disappeared in the blink of an eye while dazed and panic-stricken survivors rushed back toward the second defensive line however the awesome bombardment obscured serious problems in zhukov's plan the destruction caused by the shelling had been so great in scope that it had severely worsened the condition of the terrain that his men now had to Traverse the searchlights intended to Blind the enemy instead reflected onto the smoke-filled air and obscured the vision of the advancing infantry in the resulting chaos units lost contact with each other as Soviet artillery and aircraft began attacking friendly formations worse still German intelligence had had prior knowledge of the coming offensive which meant that many of the first-line troops had been evacuated to the safety of the rear what ensued was nothing less than what a member of the gross Deutschland guard regiment described as a slaughterhouse countless soldiers were cut down as they struggled to advance across the flood Plains and through German minefields in other sectors too the attackers were cut down and repulsed as they attempted to cross the odor sensing disaster and increasingly agitated zhukov ordered his two tank armies to attack at once however most of the infantry's artillery and Supply Vehicles were still trying to make their way to the front causing the tank armies to become hopelessly stuck in an endless traffic jam even when the lead armor finally approached the heights they found themselves ambushed by concealed 88 gun emplacements Tiger 1 tanks and infantry armed with deadly Panzer fouls to recoilless anti-tank launchers unsurprisingly zhukov's decimated men had made little progress at the end of the first day and it would take three more days and countless more dead before his armies finally forced their way through the final defensive line naturally Stalin was infuriated but he could rest easy in the fact that coneb's front to the South had seen more success by the end of April the 18th his tank armies were across the spray River and were racing toward Berlin lacking sufficient reinforcements and ammunition the surviving defenders in both sectors were forced into a headlong retreat with the German defensive lines in the South and in the center broken and with vital troops in the north still tied down in heavy fighting the road to Berlin lay open lacking the supplies to keep on fighting German morale now visibly began to collapse thousands of encircled men surrendered while masses of stragglers deserters and refugees made their way into the doomed City all the while an increasingly delusional Hitler continued to demand fanatical resistance until The Bitter End on April 20th the fuhrer's birthday was rudely interrupted by Soviet artillery shelling Berlin's Northeastern suburbs as its citizens fled into Sellers zhukov and konaf's tank armies began a frantic race to these City's outskirts in the meantime many senior officials of the Nazi party engaged in a similar type of competition to be the first one to get permission to flee the city soldiers on the ground enjoyed no such Privileges and those who tried to run or displayed signs of cowardice were summarily hanged throughout the city with messages such as I was a coward or I was a deserter dangling from their chests the next morning Soviet artillery fired a frenzy barrage into Berlin's City Center while the remains of General Helmut vaidling's 56th Panzer Corps of the German ninth Army conducted a desperate withdrawal across Berlin's Autobahn ring while being mercilessly strafed by Soviet aircraft other remnants of the German defense attempted in vain to stop zhukov's armies from pushing into the city from the southwestern and Northern flanks however its depleted units could only delay the enemy and zhukov and konaf's forces both reached the city's outskirts that evening believing himself to be the next Frederick the great Hitler remained confident that a massive counter-stroke by the newly created Army Detachment Steiner and Ninth Army against zhukov's flanks would trap the Invaders In The City in a ploy similar to what had befallen the Germans at Stalingrad two years prior when it became clear on the following day that Schneider's Army Detachment lacked sufficient strength and ammunition to attack the fuhrer finally cracked and openly admitted for the first time that all was hopelessly lost with the Soviets breaking into the city General widling was appointed commander of the Berlin defense area however by the time vidling took command only about 45 000 Vermont and SS troops just over 40 000 men of the volksterm and a measly 60 fuel starved tanks were left standing to defend the city against some 1.5 million Soviet troops unsurprisingly zhukov's armies had managed to push the Defenders out of the eastern and Southeastern suburbs by the end of the 23rd while other fronts tightened their grasp around the city's flanks with Inevitable Defeat looming on the horizon many of the Defenders began to lay down their arms others however continued to resist fanatically at the templehof airport a mixed group of ss-led German Defenders including some 100 Hitler Youth wreaked havoc on the attacking Soviet tanks and infantry who had to resort to massive aerial and artillery bombardment to finally capture the airport a day later [Music] by that time the encirclement of Berlin had been completed however a manic Hitler promised weidling that yet another massive counter-offensive by General vank's 12th Army in the southwest was sure to come to the rescue of the beleaguered Defenders venk however had no intention on embarking in a futile suicide mission and instead moved to relieve encircled German troops further to the east with no further hope of relief weidling urged the fearer to Stage a breakout Westward to join up with remnants of army group Vistula Hitler however rejected the plan and restated his intention to fall at the head of his troops during the next three days the Red Army tightened its hold on Berlin as the advancing armies closed in on the inner defensive line protecting the governmental District the lack of clear demarcation lines between the fronts however led to various formations competing for space and getting hopelessly confused in the ensuing Quagmire after careful deliberation it was decided that most of konaf's frustrated men were to be redeployed to Czechoslovakia while zhukov was to go in for the final kill by the end of the 29th the eighth guards Army had blasted its way through the heavily defended tiergarten sector while the third shock Army had crossed the spray over the maltika bridge just to the north in front of them lay the Ultimate Prize the blackened walls of the reichstag the former Parliamentary Building widely regarded as the symbolic heart of the Third Reich capturing it would be nothing less than the culmination of the entire Soviet war effort the defense of the building and its surroundings was led by a determined group of mostly foreign SS Fighters with little less to lose in the morning of the following day Soviet artillery opened fire as a few hundred assault troops rushed forward after a heavy fire fight the men reached the main entrance and proceeded to clear the building in brutal Close Quarters combat after hours of bitter fighting the red banner was spotted hanging from the second floor at around 2 30 PM but it wouldn't be until late in the evening before a path to the roof had finally been cleared two sergeants identified as mikayo yagorov and melaton kantaria managed to reach the top and hoisted the hammer and sickle on top of the reichstag marking the symbolic end of Hitler's Third Reich as this historic moment unfolded an even more momentous event occurred barely a kilometer away with Soviet troops converging on his bunker complex the embittered fuhrer knew that he had reached the end of the line the German people had failed him and his vision of a Thousand-Year Reich after giving vaidling the go-ahead to attempt a belated breakout the fuhrer set his farewells to his remaining staff poisoned his dog Blondie and retired to his study room to commit suicide together with his newly wedded bride Ava Brown but Hitler's death did not put an immediate end to the fighting the new Chancellor Joseph Goebbels rejected Stalin's demand for an unconditional surrender of the Garrison prompting the Red Army to blast the remaining German positions until the defense was reduced to little more than a few isolated pockets with gerbil's subsequent suicide being announced that night the door to peace in Berlin could finally be opened at 6am on May 2nd General weidling officially ordered his remaining men to lay down their arms when the guns finally fell silent in the afternoon an eerie silence descended on the city of which troykov would later write the flame of world war was quenched there once it arose although fighting in Europe would continue until Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8th the war had come to a climax at the Battle of Berlin the capture of Germany's capital had cost the Red Army an estimated 78 000 men killed in action and over 274 000 wounded in return the Germans had lost some 90 to 100 000 men killed in action as well as at least another 200 000 wounded during their Advance into Germany the vengeful Red Army had left a trail of pillage and destruction in its wake an estimated 95 000 to 130 000 women in Berlin alone are said to have been sexually assaulted of which ten thousand would later commit suicide still many Germans were relieved that the conflict was finally over and that a semblance of normal human life was slowly returning under shared Allied Soviet occupation however the alliance between the two Victors would prove short-lived and the star of the Cold War would Usher a new type of crisis in the city which had suffered so much during the second World War the German soldiers shovel pierces the soft loam for the last year he has worked on a farm in the Southern United States transferred to a labor detail after several months in a Detention Center he and his fellows have spent their time laboring in the fields watching American films and thinking about what they'll do once the war is over the Americans work their charges hard but they are fed well and are treated better than the black sharecroppers who labor alongside them perhaps our soldier thinks he will have a new trade to practice when he returns home the German soldiers shovel strains against the Frozen Earth for the last year he has worked in a graveyard in the Soviet Union transferred to a labor detail after several months in a Detention Center he and his fellows have spent their time shunting Frozen corpses languishing in Spartan barracks and fighting desperately to survive the Soviets worked their charges hard but the privations of War mean the Communists can barely feed themselves much less prisoners of War perhaps our soldier thinks he will soon join his former comrades Who Stare blankly at him from the pit Korean when VE day was declared in 1945 the Allied powers held roughly 11 million German soldiers as prisoners of war the vast majority of these close to 8 million had been captured by the Western allies while the remaining 3 million were in the custody of the Soviet Union with Europe liberated from Nazi aggression the Allied Powers were left with a critical question what to do with their 11 million pows the issue was a divisive one to say the least as while the Western allies were signatories to the Geneva Convention which very clearly demanded the release of prisoners the moment the war ended the Soviets had notably abstained from signing the international agreement this meant that a captured German soldier's fate was ostensibly decided by whose hands they fell into but war is a brutal business and sometimes even international law is just ink on a piece of paper [Music] during the War years German soldiers were imprisoned in roughly 20 countries around the world including in the continental United States while Stateside many German prisoners were leased out to Farms or factories to serve as laborers providing additional hands to make up for the workers lost to the draft a hotbed of this leasing activity was the southern U.S where German pows befriended American citizens and watched Hollywood films during their off hours overall pow sent to the U.S were treated humanely and deaths of Germans in American custody were low at 491. things were different in the internment camps in Europe where American estimates for pows who died in custody lie in the low thousands while German tallies claim up to 40 000 fatalities in American custody the Americans early release of many prisoners complicates attaining an exact number for their part the British Empire managed the fate of up to 2.5 million German pows by the war's end Germans kept in Great Britain could be housed in anything from tents set up in a pastoral field to elegant manor houses repurposed as surprisingly Posh prisons similar to their comrades in the U.S German pows in Britain enjoyed a cordial relationship with British civilians who gave them money and foods that they were not usually fed Germans in Britain could also be put onto a labor detail for which they were paid a respectable two Shillings per day of work the number of German pows who died in British custody was 1254. British soldiers as well as American were also reported to have engaged in torture when interrogating Germans suspected of committing war crimes often leading to confessions extracted under duress but this was far from the worst a German captured on the Western Front could expect that dubious dishonor lies with France German soldiers captured during the liberation of France as well as a number relocated there from American custody faced abysmal conditions and vengeful civilians French citizens would verbally harass or assault German prisoners stoning or beating them sometimes to death some POW camps seemed designed for extermination rather than detention a French camp in the SAT gave its inmates only 900 calories worth of rations per day for comparison a Jew living in the early days of the Warsaw Ghetto was on paper at least allotted just over 1 000 calories of rations by the Nazis an average of 12 pows died daily at the SATA camp and shortly after VE Day the Red Cross reported that almost 200 000 German soldiers in French custody faced imminent starvation the United States was forced to Halt any further shipments of pows to France and mandate their adherence to the Geneva Convention and act that in practice was largely symbolic the end of the war meant according to international law repatriation but for the Western allies the end of the war largely seemed to mean reparation the U.S and Britain leased roughly 1 million German pows to the French to rebuild their country while 64 000 went to Belgium 10 000 to the Netherlands and 5000 to Luxembourg Germans on the continent would assist in reconstruction building roads or working in Sawmills and quarries some in France and the Netherlands were made to clear minefields 2000 pows were killed or maimed each month doing this conscripting the workers this way was a clear violation of the Geneva Convention but the Western allies claimed that since the German government technically did not exist their charges were not prisoners of war and therefore were not entitled to the protections afforded to pows thank you the Soviets had suffered greatly in their war against Fascism and they did not want a pound of Flesh for their trouble they wanted tons Soviet plans for post-war reconstruction included the use of German pows as forced labor as early as 1944. Ivan maisky Soviet ambassador to the British Empire called for the Germans to be given as reparations to the Soviet Union for a lengthy period which he ultimately defined as 10 years myski would refine his proposal for the Yalta Conference and provided Stalin with a full-scale plan to get the USSR a supply of 5 million German pows to be used as forced labor for a decade after victory was achieved with this Mass conscription and the Planned seizure of German land and wealth the Soviets hoped they could keep the German people from Ever fighting against the USSR again with the war's end and the carving of Germany into occupation zones the Soviet plans were put into effect Soviet authorities began identifying their new charges with ethnic Germans in Soviet territory investigated to determine if they had served in the war any who had verifiable vermacht service were ordered to Soviet POW camps to be prepared for forced labor the Soviets would organize their new workers into battalions of three to five thousand men divided into one thousand man companies they were primarily used for construction and heavy industry with a laser focus on rebuilding the utterly devastated Soviet Union three million Germans would be drafted into these Soviet labor companies a full third would die there it should be noted however that this may not have been the result of direct Soviet action or negligence theirs was a war of annihilation where both German and Soviet gave no quarter and expected none consequently a number of the men forced into these labor companies were pows captured by the Soviets directly and due to the horrible conditions of the Eastern Front came into Soviet custody malnourished sick utterly exhausted or some combination of the three but it would not have been pragmatic for the Soviets to intentionally slaughter their newly acquired labor pool so shortly after a war that devastated their working population from 1945 to 1946 many pows who were too sick to work were simply released by the Soviets rather than beworked to death a bad Harvest and endemic corruption and mismanagement seemed to be behind the travails of German forest laborers in the early post-war years however as time wore on the German laborers began to prove more trouble than their Soviet Masters thought them worth UW labor was a surprisingly expensive Enterprise and had to constantly be subsidized by the main Soviet economy the Germans contributed roughly 5 of the Soviet Union's total national income a far cry from the grand reparation envisioned by maisky and his 10 years of servitude in a surprisingly capitalist move Soviet industrial leaders began to see their German Workers as unprofitable and began to skimp on their responsibilities to feed and care for them after all why waste good money and material on what they saw as fascist parasites as their industrial managers began to sour on the concept Soviet leaders began making moves toward repatriation in 1947 the foreign Ministers of the Allied Powers agreed that they would repatriate all German pows by 1948. the Soviet effort would last well into 1950 with roughly 26 000 German pows who had been convicted of war crimes by Soviet courts not sent back to Germany as late as 1956. overall Germans in the Soviet Union after the war were faced with mandatory hard labor under challenging conditions but the majority were repatriated long before the initial plan of 10 years but what of Germany's soldiers who had been discharged before the war's end or who had deserted their fears Crusade against the rest of the world or who simply had been far enough away from the front lines that they were not captured those Germans who escaped capture and who were in the western occupation zones found themselves cast adrift in a new Germany the Allies were Keen to strip Germany of any martial will and to this end of militarism of any military inclined organization or Club this meant that German Veterans of the second world war unlike their former foes had no support system to help them transition back into civilian life these suddenly demobilized soldiers found themselves in a country gripped by denotification as the Western allies sought to purge the influence of Hitler and goebbel's propaganda machine and eliminate all traces of Nazi ideology and warmongering to this end former soldiers were ordered to present themselves to Allied tribunals for summary judgment originally run by the occupying forces before being handed off to German authorities in 1946 these tribunals would take stock of the defendant's military and civilian activities during the war the court would then categorize the defendant as a major offender offender lesser offender follower or give them a full exoneration by and large Rank and file members of the vermasht were categorized as lesser offenders and sentenced to a three-year period of probation during this time they were prohibited from holding public office or running their own businesses as more and more defendants were found or presented themselves the tribunal system began to buckle under an ever-growing caseload and judges began finding or making a multitude of exceptions to speed the process up disabled veterans were often Exempted from judgment along with those who could prove that they were impoverished during the War years or were born after 1919 while this system succeeded in streamlining the process of former vermacht Personnel it allowed those with real Nazi sympathies to slip through the cracks denotsification was abandoned in the 1950s as its inefficiencies became more apparent and the German public began pushing back on the idea of individual culpability why reckon with your part in crimes against humanity when you can simply pin it all on a dead Austrian painter and move on with your life foreign in one of History's moments of irony many former vermacht Personnel judged by the Allies for their service would soon find themselves right back in uniform with the growing threat of the Soviets to the east the Allied Powers realized that a militarized Germany would prove a keen Ally should the world descend into another global conflict the bundesvere was established in November of 1955 and many former Vermont soldiers could be found in its ranks sometimes wielding these same weapons they used to fight against the allies foreign the war criminals of Nazi Germany from the highest echelons of military and civilian leadership to rank and file guards were arraigned on charges of crimes against humanity and prosecuted at a series of Trials most famously at Nuremberg prosecutors from all Allied Nations presented a preponderance of evidence ranging from private Diaries to ledgers of concentration camps to military dispatches the prosecution's point was clear the military was equally responsible for Hitler's Horrors as the SS and civilian leadership there was no distinction to be drawn between the independent and politically minded SS and the duly enlisted soldiers of the Vermont while separate these two cogs in Hitler's machine of annihilation would often work in Sinister concert the Vermont would take an area and the SS would Purge it of undesirables Military Officers such as kaido and high ministers like ribbentrop were hanged While others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from life to time served others such as Hermann Goring took their own lives rather than face the hangman there were even a few female defendants such as the sadistic hyena of auschwitzer klasa was ultimately hanged for her brutal treatment of concentration camp inmates unusual for a time when executing women was a stark Rarity but these people were still allowed a defense and theirs was simple we were just following orders the thrust of these arguments was that any Nazi Soldier officer official or Minister accused of crimes against humanity was simply following a directive from a higher authority some in fact falsified orders to show that they had no choice in the matter creating false Paper Trails to justify their own malice and cruelty toward Jews Roma lgbtq people and others the Nazi party declared undesirable many of these false stories were pushed by the defendant's families who were tired of the war tired of the Reckoning and just wanted their son's daughters husbands or wives home whether they were a monster or not this attitude began to pervade German public Consciousness with unfortunate results in 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany was founded a new German state for a new German people the first Chancellor of this new Germany Conrad Adenauer opened his tenure by announcing plans for a general amnesty for war criminals who had been sentenced by the occupying powers the desire for Germany to be an ally against possible Soviet aggression trumped the desire for justice and spring of 1950 saw The Advisory board on clemency for award criminals established to review cases for leniency 105 cases were brought to the Advisory Board in August of 1950 as family and friends of convicted war criminals as well as representatives of the new German government presented all manner of mitigating evidence from medical history to the newly birthed clean vermacht myth which stated emphatically that all Nazi crimes were the fault of the SS and Hitler's Inner Circle proponents of the clean Vermont myth argued to this day that the common soldier of Nazi Germany was an honorable chivalrous man fighting for home and hearth untainted by the atrocities of his peers and the hateful rhetoric of his leaders 84 of the 105 cases heard by The Advisory Board were dramatically lessened or outright commuted and the fairy tale myth of the acclaimed vermasht spread through the German populace generations of Germans believed in a sharp divide between their ancestors who fought for Hitler and his crimes eager to compartmentalize the shame of their nation's atrocities and their own family histories [Music] War like history is never simple nor clean the soldiers of Germany captured on the battlefield rightfully expected to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention and in many cases they were until the wars end the pragmatic and vindictive moves by the Allies to force German pows into rebuilding Europe do not excuse the crimes of Nazi Germany just as Nazi atrocities do not excuse Allied violations of the Geneva Convention it is imperative that we remember history is not entirely black and white but rather painted Shades of Gray with definite areas of clear morality and Humanity to simplify history into West versus East good versus evil or any dichotomy is to ignore the true lessons our history has to teach us and the most profound lessons are often to be learned in its darkest chapters [Music] thank you

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 2,910,230

Keywords: military history, war, battle, the second world war, historical

Id: ZMUYH21Lmg4

Length: 90min 28sec (5428 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 16 2023