- 1 day ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:028th of May 1945, at last the darkness was lifted.
00:07The people celebrated victory over Nazi Germany.
00:16From the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944,
00:20it took the Allies almost a full year to win the war.
00:30Eleven long months of fierce, often cruel combat
00:33to plant the red flag on the roof of the Reichstag.
00:51Eleven months of hopes and fears.
00:54Eleven interminable months to defeat a Reich
00:57which had promised to endure for a thousand years.
01:02Those eleven months, with the highest death toll of the war,
01:05left an eternal scar in hearts and on history.
01:25Summer 1944.
01:27For nearly five years, Europe had been at war, awaiting its liberation.
01:34On the 6th of June, the winds of freedom finally began to blow
01:37over the beaches of Normandy.
01:39On the evening of the longest day,
01:42more than 150,000 soldiers had made it to land.
01:45By the 1st of July, almost one million men were fighting in Normandy.
01:51The Allies had control over the skies.
01:55They were systematically destroying the infrastructure used by the Germans.
02:01All their convoys of reinforcements were targeted.
02:05Even Field Marshal Rommel, the head of German forces in Normandy,
02:09was wounded in an aerial attack.
02:13A joke began to do the rounds in the German ranks.
02:15If you see a white plane, it's American.
02:18If you see a black plane, it's English.
02:20If you see nothing, it's the Luftwaffe.
02:26And yet, the outcome was far from settled.
02:30The Germans put up fierce resistance.
02:33The British General Montgomery hoped to take the port of Caen within 48 hours.
02:38In the event, it took six weeks and carpet bombing that flattened the city.
02:46At last, in the final week of July, the front gave way.
02:50The Americans managed to break through on the Cotentin Peninsula.
02:55Allied troops liberated Brittany,
02:57while General Patton's rampaging 3rd US Army liberated town after town and pushed east.
03:06The liberation of Western Europe was finally underway.
03:10Western France was in ruins.
03:11The population were embittered.
03:13But after four years under the Nazi jackboot, there was finally hope.
03:22The mood was one of confidence.
03:24We'll cut through Germany like butter, predicted a colleague of General Eisenhower,
03:29the Supreme Allied Commander.
03:36This mood of optimism was heightened, since on the Eastern Front,
03:39a huge offensive was underway.
03:44Stalin had unleashed Russian forces in operation by Gratian.
03:50His objective was to seize Belarus,
03:53with the subsequent aim of opening the route to Warsaw,
03:57which in turn controlled access to Berlin.
04:10the Red Army was advancing like a steamroller,
04:13crushing everything in its path along a 1,000-kilometre front.
04:18More than a million men, 4,000 tanks, 25,000 cannon, and 5,000 planes came at the enemy.
04:26Nothing could stop them.
04:27When the War of Moscow was behind,
04:33So, we need a war of competition.
04:38The war of combat movement.
04:44The war of combat movement.
04:57The strongman of the Kremlin showed he had a sense of history.
05:01Stalin waited until the 22nd of June to launch his offensive.
05:05Hitler had attacked Russia three years beforehand to the day,
05:08on the 22nd of June, 1941.
05:20On this front, the Soviets went from one victory to another.
05:25Hitler had ordered his generals to apply a fortress strategy,
05:29to dig in in a few well-defended places to contain the enemy
05:32and force him into long and bloody fighting.
05:36By imposing a war of movement in 1940,
05:39Hitler was a step ahead in terms of tactics.
05:42By pegging his generals in citadels,
05:45the Führer had now taken a step back to old-school war.
05:50On this front, the Soviets went from one victory to another.
05:55Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Bobrovsk, Minsk.
06:00The cities of Belarus fell one by one.
06:06Vassily Grossman, correspondent for the Soviet army newspaper,
06:10the Red Star, noted,
06:12The road to Babrovsk is the road of retribution.
06:15Here the cauldron of death boils,
06:18swallowing up in merciless vengeance
06:20all those who have not laid down their weapons and fled west.
06:28To slow the Russian advance,
06:31the Germans carried out a scorched earth policy,
06:34ravaging towns and destroying all infrastructure.
06:54But nothing could halt the Red Army,
06:57neither the blown-up bridges,
06:59nor the thousands of mines laid by the Germans.
07:09Their progress was so rapid that they were running out of fuel.
07:13To keep up the pace,
07:15Russian soldiers sometimes mixed vodka and diesel oil
07:18to keep the tanks rolling.
07:21One German corporal wrote to his wife,
07:23If the Russians continue in this direction,
07:26you won't have to wait long before they're on your doorstep.
07:32Hundreds of thousands of Germans were killed or captured.
07:35Many of them had not yet reached the age of 20.
07:42Many surrendered...
07:46..when they had the chance.
07:56The liberated territories were in flames.
07:58The liberated populations had lost everything.
08:02Their belongings,
08:03often their homes.
08:04Sometimes even their lives.
08:20To celebrate what was one of the biggest defeats inflicted on the Wehrmacht,
08:24Stalin paraded 60,000 German prisoners in Moscow on the 17th of July, 1944.
08:36Three years earlier,
08:38Hitler had promised them they would march through Moscow.
08:41A promise now fulfilled.
08:50Attacked from the west by the Anglo-Americans,
08:52from the east by the Soviets,
08:54the Reich was threatened with sudden collapse.
08:57Especially since a major blow was about to be dealt to its head.
09:02Convinced of the imminence of defeat,
09:04a circle of German officers wanted to eliminate Hitler
09:07so they could open negotiations with the Allies.
09:11On the 20th of July,
09:13while the Führer was meeting with his top brass,
09:15the bomb went off.
09:22The blast caused huge damage.
09:27But despite the violence of the explosion,
09:29Hitler had miraculously survived.
09:33He suffered a burst eardrum,
09:35and a dressing covered his ear.
09:37But he was alive.
09:39Not everyone was so lucky.
09:42Several men who were with him were gravely wounded,
09:44and would later die.
09:54That same day, Benito Mussolini,
09:57who still reigned over the northern half of Italy,
09:59paid him a visit.
10:01His right arm still in a sling,
10:03Hitler welcomed him and told him,
10:05Duke, a short while ago an infernal machine
10:07was set in motion against me.
10:12When Hitler showed him the location of the attack,
10:14he said,
10:15The bomb exploded just by my feet.
10:18It's clear that nothing can happen to me.
10:20My destiny is to pursue my course
10:22and complete my task.
10:24I am more certain than ever that the great cause
10:27which I serve will triumph,
10:28despite the current dangers.
10:32Hitler interpreted his survival as a sign from heaven.
10:35Mussolini refrained from contradicting him.
10:38Before leaving,
10:39Il Duce told him,
10:40After this miracle,
10:42it is unthinkable that our cause might fail.
10:48When the Germans learned that Hitler had survived,
10:51many wept with joy.
10:53Thank God the Fuhrer is alive.
10:55This was the sentiment heard on the streets of Berlin.
10:57For in July 1944,
10:59many Germans still thought their Fuhrer represented
11:01the only hope of winning.
11:04The very evening of the assassination attempt,
11:07the dictator addressed his people.
11:34The bombing heightened Hitler's natural tendency towards paranoia,
11:38opposition figures,
11:40opposition figures,
11:40real or imagined,
11:41were mercilessly hunted down.
11:49This hunt was led by a hardliner,
11:52Major General Otto Ernst Remmer.
11:565,000 people were detained.
11:59The conspirators were almost all arrested.
12:05This was followed by swift trials.
12:08Certain generals, smartly dressed a few weeks earlier,
12:11now appeared before the judges in shabby clothes,
12:14looking dirty and haggard.
12:17Eric Hoepner,
12:18who fought in campaigns in Poland and France.
12:23Marshal von Witzleben,
12:25former commander-in-chief of the Western Front.
12:28Having had his belt taken away,
12:31he had to hold up his oversized trousers
12:32to stop them falling down.
12:37Judge Freisler,
12:39a fanatical Nazi,
12:40showered them with insults.
12:58He shouted so loud that the technicians responsible
13:02for recording this parody of justice
13:03asked him to bring the volume down.
13:07The sentence gave no recourse for appeal.
13:11Why we live and fight,
13:13while they all are beaten with the dead.
13:16Their fortune is to defend the Reich.
13:19Some 200 people were executed.
13:23The executioners selected particularly fine ropes
13:26to prolong the agony of their victims.
13:31Among the conspirators was one special case,
13:34Field Marshal Rommel.
13:37He was a national hero following his victory in Tobruk,
13:40but his links with the plotters
13:43meant Hitler wanted him gone.
13:45To avoid upsetting public opinion,
13:49he gave him a choice,
13:50suicide or public trial.
14:02Rommel opted for suicide,
14:04with the assurance that his family would be spared.
14:12The regime staged a grandiose state funeral for him.
14:21The ordinary Germans knew nothing of his role.
14:24Officially, the Desert Fox died as a result of injuries sustained in Normandy.
14:34Following this brutal purge,
14:36Germans tended to become more fervent,
14:39to avoid being suspected of half-heartedness.
14:42One had to show loyalty to the Fuhrer to the bitter end.
14:45In the army, the Heil Hitler salute replaced the traditional military salute.
14:51The regime placed its most trusted men in the top posts,
14:55starting with the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler,
14:58who was appointed as replacement army chief.
15:00He now had full powers, over two million men.
15:07Goebbels, the minister of propaganda,
15:09became the Reich's overall minister for war, with full powers.
15:14Pleased with these enlarged powers, he wrote in his diary,
15:17it took a bomb under his butt for Hitler to see reason.
15:22The bombing hadn't broken the regime.
15:24On the contrary, it had consolidated it.
15:31However, the Allies were still advancing,
15:34both from the east and the west.
15:38Far the south, in mid-August,
15:40French and American forces landed in Provence.
15:49The GIs of General Patch,
15:51and the soldiers of the 1st French Army,
15:53commanded by General de Latres,
15:55began to make inroads into southern France.
16:01Helped by the FFI, the French forces of the interior,
16:05they liberated Marseille,
16:06before moving up the Rhone Valley.
16:12But these images of a humiliated Wehrmacht are misleading.
16:16The large majority of Hitler's soldiers managed to pull back.
16:20More than 400,000 made it back to Germany,
16:23and prepared to defend the fatherland.
16:34Far from the front, back in Germany,
16:36news reports screened in cinemas
16:38strived to brighten up daily life.
16:40In the summer of 1944, despite the bombardments,
16:43and while the Reich was teetering,
16:45for many Germans, the war was still distant.
16:55The images testified to the comfortable lifestyle
16:58and folklore traditions that reigned in the country.
17:04The Germans still had faith in Hitler.
17:07And how could they do otherwise,
17:09when the party was omnipresent?
17:13The population was well-fed,
17:16the factories continued to operate,
17:18the administration was functioning,
17:20and Berlin Zoo remained open.
17:28It was a wonderful summer,
17:30and those at home made the most of it.
17:32The war?
17:33What war?
17:38Yet, this bathing, filmed in August 1944,
17:43was in the town of Dachau.
17:45A few kilometres away,
17:47the oldest concentration camp in Germany
17:50continued to exterminate deportees
17:52arrested from across Europe.
17:56While Germany basked in the summer sun,
17:59occupied Europe remained in the grim shadow of the Nazis.
18:03The regime pursued its policy of annihilation.
18:09Between the 7th of June and the 9th of July 1944,
18:13more than 435,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to the death camps.
18:18In August 1944,
18:19the crematoriums at Auschwitz could not keep pace
18:22with the number of bodies piling up.
18:24The SS began to burn them in open pits.
18:38Even as the Allies approached Paris,
18:40one last convoy of deportees was leaving for the death camps
18:44on the 17th of August 1944.
18:55Only a week later, on the 25th of August,
18:58Paris was liberated.
19:00The Allies did not expect to make such swift progress.
19:05After four years in exile,
19:07General de Gaulle saw France regain its statehood.
19:12The Americans also made themselves at home.
19:15The 4th Infantry Division paraded triumphantly amid the cheers.
19:33The Parisian women hugged their liberators.
19:37Euphoria could be red on the faces.
19:40Oh-la-la, good morning, mademoiselle.
19:44Oh-la-la, I go to l'opéra.
19:47Oh-la-la, je speak pas very well.
19:50Oh-la-la, c'est-il là ou pas là en souriant
19:54la petite Parisienne.
19:56Dis gentiment, justement, je vais par là.
20:00Many GIs thought the worst was over
20:02and that defeating the Reich was now no more than a formality.
20:11Summer held the promise of victory.
20:14Fall would deliver a series of setbacks.
20:20Since the D-Day landings,
20:22the US General Eisenhower had lost confidence
20:24in the commander of Allied land troops,
20:27Britain's General Montgomery,
20:28who had overseen a string of failures in Normandy.
20:32Despite these setbacks,
20:34Montgomery demanded to run operations against the Reich,
20:36placing all Anglo-American forces under his command.
20:40But this demand was unacceptable for Eisenhower.
20:46To avoid putting all his troops under Montgomery,
20:49Eisenhower divided his forces into two groups.
20:52The first was under Montgomery's command.
20:56It would attack via the north,
20:58towards Belgium and the Netherlands,
20:59with the objective of seizing the port of Antwerp.
21:02Once in Allied control,
21:04tanks and munitions could then be shipped closer to the front.
21:08The second group was assigned to the US General Bradley
21:12and would attack to the east,
21:14backed by the armies of Generals Patton and Simpson.
21:23Things moved fast from September 1944.
21:26The British, under Montgomery,
21:27continued their advance and took Brussels.
21:30In the Belgian capital,
21:32the population celebrated wildly,
21:34as Paris had done ten days earlier.
21:48The following day in Antwerp,
21:50the victors captured hundreds of prisoners,
21:52but did not know what to do with them.
21:54The zoo was quickly reassigned.
22:02Although the Belgian authorities hailed Montgomery,
22:05he made a mistake.
22:07In the rush to invade Germany,
22:09his troops had taken the port of Antwerp as planned.
22:12But Monty had neglected to clean out the islands and banks
22:15which control its access.
22:17They were held by heavily armed German units.
22:21As a result,
22:22no Allied shipping could use the port and supply the front.
22:25This new failure enraged Eisenhower.
22:28And for good reason.
22:29For two long months,
22:31Allied troops now had to break down German resistance
22:33through dangerous amphibious operations.
22:37Some 13,000 men died in the process.
22:43But it would take more than that to undermine Montgomery's self-importance.
22:47The Englishman wanted to demonstrate his strategic talents to Eisenhower.
22:51Even with the command of half the troops he had called for,
22:54he would succeed.
22:56His aim?
22:57To be first to cross the Rhine.
23:00This achievement would erase memories of his failures
23:03and would eclipse the victories of his rival, General Patton.
23:06The American general, a big mouth who carried pistols with ivory butts,
23:11had liberated town after town, moving from Normandy to the east of France.
23:16Monty was envious.
23:18In a move that looked like arrogance,
23:21he persuaded the sceptical Eisenhower to give him all available resources.
23:25His objective?
23:26To launch a huge parachute operation on Arnhem in the Netherlands.
23:31Codename, Operation Market Garden.
23:35On the 17th of September 1944,
23:3820,000 parachutists and 14,000 combat troops carried by planes
23:43and 563 gliders took off, heading for Holland.
23:54It was the biggest airborne operation in history.
24:08The American, British and Polish parachutists were dropped behind the German lines
24:13to take a series of bridges across the Maas, the Waal and the Rhine,
24:18to stop the Germans destroying them.
24:21Once these bridges had been secured,
24:23land troops could go round the defences of the Siegfried Line by the north
24:26and invade the Reich.
24:35Monty was sure of himself.
24:37Thanks to his shrewdness, the war would be won by Christmas.
24:51Unfortunately, the situation on the ground soon became tricky.
24:54The gliders landed, but some crashed.
24:58The drop zones were too far from their objectives.
25:03But Montgomery had, above all, overlooked one detail.
25:06The Germans.
25:09They got hold of a glider and recovered some equipment and supplies.
25:17But, more importantly, they also found a plan of the operation
25:21that an officer had taken with him in contravention of orders.
25:28When the 4th Brigade was dropped as reinforcements,
25:31its parachutists were shot out of the sky like pigeons
25:34by Germans who were expecting them.
25:46In the town of Arnhem, two panzer divisions raced towards the British powers
25:51and besieged them.
25:58After five days of dogged fighting,
26:00Montgomery's soldiers were forced to surrender
26:02and the German newsreels displayed the prisoners.
26:06For them is the Operation Berlin,
26:09which General Eisenhower calls this company, to end.
26:12But they had to find out that the term of Churchill
26:16for these days of the German capitalization
26:20was not only again on a certain time,
26:23but would never come into question.
26:28In total, the Allies lost 17,000 men,
26:32and only liberated part of the Netherlands.
26:38The failure of the expedition was only the beginning of a terrible disaster.
26:42To help Operation Market Garden, Dutch railway men went on strike.
26:48As a reprisal, the Reich blocked all food imports to occupied Holland.
26:55The queues lengthened outside the food stores, which were all but empty.
27:04From October onwards, famine took a terrible toll.
27:08Thousands of civilians died of hunger.
27:13Henry, aged 10 at the time, recalls,
27:16nothing was more important than food.
27:19I woke up in the morning thinking about food.
27:21We used to talk about food all day long.
27:24And when I went to bed, hungry, I dreamt of food.
27:39The Dutch suffered for long months in what they called the hunger winter,
27:44the winter of hunger.
27:46At least 16,000 civilians perished.
27:54While Monty was halted in Holland, Bradley's US forces were making progress.
28:00In early October, his troops reached the German town of Aachen.
28:06Germany had finally been reached, but not conquered.
28:10The Americans demanded the surrender of the town, in vain.
28:15Hitler ordered his troops to defend the town to the last bullet.
28:25The first US army had to take the town street by street, house by house, in a fierce combat.
28:36I don't understand, said one GI.
28:38They know they will most likely get killed.
28:41Why on earth don't they just surrender?
28:53After 19 days of siege, during which 1,000 GIs were killed, the town finally fell.
29:08The Germans experienced for the first time what many people across Europe had felt a few years earlier,
29:14when they fled the Wehrmacht hordes.
29:28The taking of Aachen was a symbol.
29:31It was the first German town to fall into Allied hands.
29:37This toehold in German territory was a long way from spelling victory.
29:42The Anglo-Americans were stalling in the face of fierce German resistance.
29:47Monty had failed in his operation in the Netherlands.
29:49The port of Antwerp was still impracticable.
29:53And the hard-driving General Patton, who was eager to pursue his advance eastwards, was deprived of fuel.
30:00My men can eat their belts, but my tanks have got to have gas, he raged.
30:05He was at a standstill.
30:08In a further twist of irony, part of his fuel had been attributed to the British.
30:14With Patton slowed down, the Allies were unable to exploit the breakdown of the Western Front.
30:19As a result, the Germans had time to regroup their defences, taking up positions beyond the Rhine.
30:26The Western Front was blocked.
30:28War over by Christmas?
30:30That dream had evaporated.
30:32The war would go on.
30:41On the Soviet side, Operation Begration was a success.
30:45Russian advances were impressive.
30:48Between the 22nd of June and the 31st of August, 1944, their offensives had put 700,000 Germans out of
30:55combat.
30:56The troops under General Zhukov's command covered 500 kilometers in five weeks, almost as quick as the German tanks in
31:03the other direction in 1941.
31:11The Soviets were approaching Warsaw.
31:19In the city, the Soviet artillery could already be heard rumbling in the distance.
31:23Radio Moscow called on the population to rise up.
31:29Convinced they would be backed by the Red Army, the Polish secret army launched an insurrection on the 1st of
31:35August.
31:38But its fighters had only makeshift equipment.
31:41They seized some German helmets, along with some weapons and a few tanks.
32:00The first days were euphoric. In the exuberance, barricades went up in every neighborhood. Everyone took part in the combat
32:07in their own way.
32:15Soon, the Polish controlled parts of the capital and their flag flew once again over a few roofs.
32:26These heroic resistance fighters threw everything into it and drove back the Germans.
32:40The Polish knew the Russians were just nearby, the other side of the Vistula.
32:45With this powerful ally waiting in the wings, the insurgents had nothing to fear.
32:56But on the 4th of August, the Germans sent reinforcements.
33:02Their mission? To eliminate the Polish problem by whatever method.
33:13The city was mercilessly shelved.
33:39Gradually, the Germans re-took control of the city and crushed the insurgents.
33:45The hospital was torched, the wounded executed.
33:55The resistance movement could have tipped the balance if it had had support.
34:03But the Red Army stood on the sidelines.
34:05While the German forces destroyed the city, the Soviet troops camped on the banks of the Vistula.
34:18Stalin was unmoved.
34:20Stalin was unmoved.
34:20He would not intervene.
34:22For a while, he even refused permission for the Americans and British to use his aerodromes to supply the insurgents,
34:28leaving them to face slaughter.
34:33He had a dual motive.
34:35He had to allow his troops to recuperate their strength after Operation Begration.
34:39The supply corps had to bring up fresh fuel, weapons, munitions, and spare parts to this new front line on
34:46the Vistula.
34:50Meanwhile, Stalin left the non-communist Polish resistance to be wiped out,
34:55so he could put Polish communists in power at a later date.
35:01The Anglo-Americans protested, but not so strongly as to threaten their relationship with Moscow.
35:07That was the price of the Soviet alliance against Hitler.
35:16The uprising in Warsaw ended in a bloodbath.
35:19Some 220,000 civilians and resistance fighters died.
35:27After two months of fierce combat, the guns fell silent.
35:32The Polish general, Bor Komorowski, signed the surrender on the 2nd of October.
35:37The resistance army surrendered.
35:4285% of Warsaw was in ruins.
35:48The Polish, who had hoped for support from the Soviets, now feared falling into their hands.
35:54As one poet put it,
35:56We await you, Red Plague, to deliver us from the Brown Plague.
36:13While the Red Army camped on the Vistula,
36:16to the west, the Allied armies had at last been able to open the port of Antwerp,
36:20through which supplies were now flowing.
36:22The Americans had reached the Rhine.
36:24The Reich was finally caught in a pincer.
36:29But despite this attack on two fronts, the Nazi regime showed no sign of crumbling.
36:34On the contrary, the army blindly obeyed its supreme leader.
36:46In October, Himmler created the Volkssturm, the People's Storm.
36:55This militia recruited men who were not already serving in a home defence force.
37:01I swear by God this holy feast
37:05I swear by God this holy feast
37:06I swear by God this holy feast
37:08I swear by God this holy feast
37:12I swear by God this holy feast
37:19just ہے کہ
37:23I swear by God this holy feast
37:24A super libre feast
37:24I swear by God this holy feast
37:30At a stroke
37:32The provincial solicitor, the teenager in the countryside or the village baker
37:36found themselves armed with a rocket launcher to defend the Reich
37:46The German people were still solidly behind their Führer.
37:51They couldn't imagine any alternative to the Nazi regime.
37:55This was because during the 12 years he had been in power,
37:58Hitler and his regime had indoctrinated the Germans.
38:06In 1944, the Nazi Party still had 8 million members.
38:11There wasn't a family in the country
38:13which didn't count at least one party member.
38:22For those in any doubt, the propaganda of Dr Goebbels
38:26endlessly hailed the superiority of the German soldier
38:29and declared that Allied coalition would end up unravelling.
38:38His fables persuaded the Germans that they would triumph.
38:48In December 1944, Germany had been holding out on two fronts
38:53for nearly five months.
38:54The Reich was wounded. It was bleeding.
38:56But on the economic level,
38:59the country redoubled efforts in factories producing tanks,
39:02planes, submarines and munitions.
39:09While they couldn't win the battle in terms of quantity,
39:13German engineers invented new weapons,
39:15like remote-controlled miniature tank-buster vehicles.
39:22and one-man torpedo submarines.
39:36But above all, Hitler put great store in what he called miracle weapons.
39:44The V-1 flying bombs which had been raining down on London since June
39:48and had killed thousands of civilians.
39:57The V-2 was the first ballistic missile in history.
40:03For several years, they had been secretly developed in the Reich's factories.
40:11In the fall of 1944, they were finally ready.
40:16These rockets could carry one tonne of high explosives.
40:21Although these retaliatory weapons had a limited impact,
40:25they galvanised the Germans.
40:27One young man wrote,
40:28All we talk about is the V-2.
40:31Perhaps we can launch them against America.
40:33I'm sure that victory is ours.
40:38This industrial prowess was due to one man, Albert Speer.
40:43The Führer's architect supervised this reorganisation,
40:47which he portrayed as a miracle.
40:49Because despite the Allied bombardments,
40:52weapons production had actually increased up to July 1944.
40:56But this unholy miracle bore a name, slavery.
41:02The Reich exploited millions of workers.
41:06Deportees, Jews, communists, resistance fighters.
41:09There were also labour conscripts, rounded up from across Europe.
41:14Prisoners of war were turned into workers.
41:22Almost nine million men and women worked in atrocious conditions
41:26on behalf of the Reich.
41:30German industry could thus keep up with the war effort.
41:35The Reich was even able to go from being on the defensive to the offensive.
41:44On the Western Front,
41:45the division of Allied forces into two blocks
41:48had left the sector of the Ardennes dangerously ill-defended.
41:52That was where Hitler decided to strike.
41:59On the 16th of December,
42:01to the astonishment of the Allies,
42:031,900 cannons opened fire.
42:13In the first few hours,
42:15the element of surprise gave the German high command
42:18an unexpected success.
42:20The Allies thought they were dealing with a routed army.
42:23Instead, they found themselves facing a fierce counterattack.
42:29For Hitler, it was a big gamble.
42:32He hoped this offensive might stabilise the Western Front,
42:35convincing the Anglo-Americans that they could never win.
42:38And, who knows,
42:39maybe even prompt them to side with him against the Bolshevik demon.
42:45The Führer was convinced
42:47the East-West Coalition was against nature
42:50and was destined to break up.
42:53Marxists allied with capitalists,
42:55it was simply heresy.
42:57This alliance would crumble.
42:58It just needed to be dealt the coup de grace.
43:05The Germans made progress,
43:07helped by the bad weather
43:08which prevented Allied aviation from intervening.
43:16The advance was spectacular.
43:19One lieutenant wrote to his wife,
43:21You cannot imagine the days of glory
43:23that we're experiencing at the moment.
43:25It is as if the Americans cannot withstand
43:27the might of our thrust.
43:32The 5th Panzer Division captured almost 9,000 GIs,
43:36many of whom were black.
43:38This gave the Nazi propaganda machine
43:40the opportunity to claim
43:42the US Army was made up of subhumans.
43:50The news spread in Belgium and Alsace,
43:53both of which had only just been delivered
43:55from the Brown Plague.
43:57The Germans are returning.
44:00Civilians who had only just returned to their homes
44:02took to the road again.
44:07As they prepared to celebrate Christmas,
44:10German families also celebrated this new offensive.
44:13What a wonderful Christmas present,
44:15one could hear in the streets.
44:17Goebbels pollsters noted,
44:19People are profoundly happy
44:21that we have seized back the initiative,
44:23especially since no-one expected it.
44:30This operation reinvigorated the German population.
44:35One soldier wrote to his wife,
44:37The snow must be stained red with the blood of Americans.
44:41We're going to cast them into the ocean.
44:43The arrogant, loudmouth, apes from the new world,
44:46they will not set foot on our Germany.
44:51But the determination of the German soldiers
44:53sometimes escalated into bloodthirsty fervour
44:56as they committed numerous war crimes.
45:01On the 17th of December,
45:0369 American prisoners of war
45:05were shot dead by the SS.
45:10A few days later,
45:12in the little town of Malmedy,
45:13the bodies of 86 GIs
45:15executed by the same SS unit
45:17were discovered.
45:26Belgian civilians,
45:28men, women and children
45:29were also massacred.
45:33They spared no-one.
46:01Meanwhile,
46:03chaos reigned on the American lines.
46:05To add to the confusion,
46:07German commandos,
46:08disguised as Americans,
46:09had infiltrated Allied territory,
46:11switching roadsides
46:12and carrying out sabotage.
46:15The GIs were suspicious
46:17of everyone and everything.
46:19They intercepted vehicles
46:20and carefully checked identity papers.
46:23They were told to ask questions
46:25that only an American could answer.
46:29In one of the most critical periods
46:31of winter, 1944,
46:32the military police
46:34would ask at every checkpoint,
46:35who is Donald Duck's girlfriend?
46:38What is Roosevelt's dog's name?
46:45Sometimes, spies were captured.
47:02The German troops pushed on
47:04with their breakthrough.
47:05They besieged the small Belgian town
47:08of Bastogne,
47:09a crucial strategic point
47:10for the success of their operation.
47:1318,000 GIs were defending the town.
47:20In their ranks,
47:21the rumour spread
47:22that the Germans didn't take prisoners.
47:25The American soldiers doubled their efforts.
47:29But the town was quickly surrounded by panzers.
47:33The US troops were caught in a trap.
47:38While he was preparing an offensive further south,
47:41General Patton was called to the rescue.
47:43In mid-winter,
47:44he swung his army around 90 degrees
47:47and headed straight north,
47:48pushing hard for Bastogne.
47:51He had promised Eisenhower
47:53that this manoeuvre would take him
47:55no more than three days.
47:58His tanks drove day and night
48:00through appalling conditions.
48:02They had not planned for icy roads,
48:05but managed to keep moving forward.
48:16Meanwhile, in Bastogne,
48:18the GIs were up against the Germans
48:20and the weather.
48:21Many died frozen in their foxholes.
48:35On the 26th of December,
48:37the Germans looked up at the sky in horror.
48:40The snow had stopped.
48:43The snowflakes had been replaced
48:44by the heavy bombers of the US Air Force,
48:47which pounded the German positions.
49:04Soon after, as he had promised,
49:07Patton's Third Army
49:08came to relieve the siege of Bastogne.
49:11Just in time.
49:16Hitler's gamble had backfired.
49:18The human cost was high.
49:20On the Allied side,
49:2280,000 men killed or injured.
49:24The Germans counted 120,000.
49:28Overall, the battle merely pushed back
49:30the hour of reckoning for the Reich,
49:32but it came as a wake-up call for the Allies.
49:35They had realised one thing.
49:37Germany was still dangerous.
49:50At the Führer's headquarters,
49:51the mood was one of concern.
49:54Goering suggested to Hitler
49:55that he should seek an armistice.
49:57The war is lost, he explained.
50:00Hitler replied,
50:00I forbid you to take any such decision on this point.
50:04If you disobey my orders,
50:06I'll have you shot.
50:12Hitler was wrapped up in his delusions.
50:15He insisted,
50:15We will never surrender.
50:18We may go down,
50:19but we will take a world with us.
50:29Despite the withdrawal of Hitler's armies on all fronts,
50:32five months of war and chaos still lay ahead
50:35before the fall of Berlin
50:36and the defeat of the Third Reich.
50:49The beast was weakened but not yet dead
50:52and the Germans seemed ready to follow the Führer
50:55to the very end.
51:11The 기억 of Hitler
51:16He is the fuck.
51:25He is the fuck.
51:28He is the fuck.
Comments