- 5 days ago
For educational purposes
Together with international engineers and mechanics, James Holland uncovers the truth behind Germany's feared Panzer tank divisions, from the mini Panzer II to the enormous Tiger tank.
He also goes for a ride in Hitler's luxury Mercedes.
The NS regime tried to compensate for the numerical superiority of the enemy with ever larger and more complicated combat vehicles.
Did this dogged focus on armor ultimately contribute to the downfall of Nazi Germany?
Together with international engineers and mechanics, James Holland uncovers the truth behind Germany's feared Panzer tank divisions, from the mini Panzer II to the enormous Tiger tank.
He also goes for a ride in Hitler's luxury Mercedes.
The NS regime tried to compensate for the numerical superiority of the enemy with ever larger and more complicated combat vehicles.
Did this dogged focus on armor ultimately contribute to the downfall of Nazi Germany?
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:03I'm James Holland, and one of the things that's always really fascinated me about the Second World War
00:08is the interplay between man and machine.
00:12In this series, I'm going to go inside the Nazi war machine.
00:17Travelling across Europe, I'll explore the extraordinary machines they produced
00:22and uncover rare archives to understand who built them, how they evolved,
00:26and why their technically brilliant designs were militarily flawed.
00:34The magnificent fighter planes no rookie could fly.
00:37The first time you fly a Messerschmitt 109, you just have to take that leap of faith.
00:42The power of the panzers.
00:44If I had come up against this, I would have been terrified.
00:47But I'm about to learn one of the biggest cons of them all.
00:50The weapons that couldn't cope with mud or sand.
00:55Wow. It's got so little kick on it.
00:58And you hit the target, I'm proud about you.
01:00The U-boats that were floating bombs.
01:03That was a suicide command.
01:05Absolute horror.
01:07A journey through the heart of the Nazi war machine.
01:16In this episode, I'll uncover the truth behind Hitler's fearsome panzer arm.
01:22This actually did not really represent reality.
01:25And reveal the Nazis' passion for over-engineering.
01:29How many gears have we got here?
01:30You've got over 60 gears in that.
01:3260?
01:33That's insane!
01:35Whilst in the middle of a world war.
01:46To begin my investigation into Nazi land warfare,
01:50it seems only right that I should start with the panzer division.
01:56This wasn't just tanks,
01:57but a massive formation of motorised infantry, artillery and reconnaissance vehicles.
02:05For Adolf Hitler, the panzer division was his key to victory.
02:13I'm starting my journey at the Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset
02:17to explore the origins of this terrifying fighting force,
02:20and I'm meeting up with historian David Willey.
02:24It's amazing, David, isn't it,
02:25how when people are talking about the Blitzkrieg years,
02:28the first part of the war,
02:29they always say, talk about the Nazi war machine, don't they?
02:32And yet, in terms of panzers,
02:35this is one of the most prevalent.
02:37Yeah, the Panzer II is the most numerous tank the Germans have in 1940
02:41when they invade France, Belgium and Holland.
02:44And as a tank, when we look at it, you know, it's not that impressive.
02:49Standing at just over six feet tall,
02:51it really did look pretty inoffensive.
02:53It was armed with only a 20mm cannon and a single machine gun,
02:58had armour of 35mm at its thicket and weighed less than nine tonnes.
03:08Panzer I and Panzer IIs, in essence, were training tanks for the German military.
03:13They wanted to go to war with the Panzer IIs and Panzer IVs.
03:16They're starting to build those, but there's not many of them.
03:19And Hitler, in essence, jumps the gun for the German military.
03:28War caught Germany's manufacturers on the hop,
03:32even by the launch of the Blitzkrieg in May 1940.
03:36They only had 627 Panzer IIIs and IVs,
03:40but three times as many Panzer Is and IIs.
03:45This was a very different reality from the mighty Panzer Army,
03:48propagated by Hitler's spin doctor, Joseph Goebbels.
03:52This will be found in the next few weeks and months.
04:00During the last two weeks in August,
04:02the German armies moved toward the Polish border,
04:05where they assembled 70 divisions, many of them armoured.
04:09From a military standpoint,
04:10the Poles were hopelessly outclassed by their predatory neighbour.
04:13The Nazis, 5,000 modern tanks.
04:17Poland, 600 nondescript tanks.
04:21The key thing is that the Germans emphasised their success
04:25with that Panzer arm in 1940.
04:27That's what we see in all the propaganda movies.
04:30That then ends up emphasising the importance
04:34that the Germans have about the tank,
04:36and it slightly hides as well that background
04:39of it's only a small part of the German army,
04:41and it's only also a small part of their military effort.
04:47At this early stage of the war,
04:49the German army was relying not just on the Panzer II,
04:53but also on the tanks they had captured
04:55in the occupation of Czechoslovakia.
04:58Very soon, the Panzer II became completely obsolescent.
05:02But there were other tanks that also became outmoded,
05:05not least the T-38, which was Czech-built but captured
05:08when Nazi Germany absorbed Czechoslovakia into the Third Reich.
05:12And although these T-38s and Panzer IIs were used
05:15in the Blitzkrieg years,
05:17soon there was another role that could be used for them,
05:20because all sides were realising, as the war progressed,
05:24that actually you could use tracked vehicles for other purposes.
05:27You could use them as mobile artillery.
05:30So with the T-38s,
05:32which had a perfectly good track and wheel system,
05:34had a perfectly good engine,
05:36you'd whip off the turret,
05:37put an anti-tank gun on instead,
05:40and suddenly you've got something completely different,
05:43and that's the Marder.
05:48Don't be fooled by its origins.
05:50The Marder is an artillery piece,
05:51but because it's mobile and tracked,
05:54it was to become a key ingredient of the Panzer Division.
05:57Nearly double the size of the Panzer II,
06:00it had a four-man crew
06:02and an open rear firing compartment.
06:10Well, John, I've got to say, this looks very promising.
06:14It's a good vehicle.
06:15Yeah.
06:15Would you like to see her in the flesh?
06:17Yes, please.
06:18I've unearthed a restored Marder III in a farmhouse in Kent.
06:22Look at that, the big reveal.
06:24Oh, goodness me.
06:26That's seen some action, hasn't it?
06:28The man behind this mammoth restoration project is John Phillips.
06:33She's come together very well.
06:35Hasn't she?
06:36Very pleased with her.
06:37They're an amazing concept, aren't they?
06:38Because, you know, if you look at this as a tank chassis,
06:42which is what it originally was,
06:45that's pretty small, isn't it?
06:46But obviously what the Germans are doing,
06:49they're going, okay, well, T-35, T-38, Czech-built tanks.
06:52I mean, the T-35s and the T-38s,
06:55that's what Rommel was using in 1940 in the Blitzkrieg on France.
06:59That's right.
07:00In his 7th Panzer Division.
07:01Yes.
07:01But obviously as the war progresses,
07:03they become obsolete.
07:05You don't want those anymore.
07:06They're just not big enough.
07:07They're not powerful enough.
07:08But hang on a minute.
07:09We've got all these chassis.
07:10Let's use them.
07:10That's the principle behind it, isn't it?
07:12Yeah, evolution.
07:13So basically this is a mobile anti-tank gun.
07:17Yes.
07:17The crew would have dug a scrape up to here,
07:20hidden it, and then just left the gun above ground.
07:23Yep.
07:24Fired a couple of rounds off and then scarpered.
07:31Look at that.
07:32First go.
07:33Yeah.
07:44What's the technology like?
07:45I mean, how easy, how complicated?
07:48This is a pretty basic chassis using springs rather than torsion bars.
07:54Right.
07:54But because this is such a simple design, the wheels could be taken off.
07:58You see them, you know, with one wheel missing and still quite happily travelling along.
08:02And easy to maintain then, I guess.
08:04Very easy.
08:05Yeah, yeah.
08:05There's a few grease points here.
08:07You take these out and the grease nipples in there.
08:10So, yeah, very easy to maintain.
08:12Lovely design.
08:13Very clever.
08:13And this is a Pac-40, isn't it?
08:15Yes.
08:16Which, to the uninitiated, is a 75mm gun.
08:20Yep.
08:20And obviously the 75mm, that refers to the diameter of the shell that's fired.
08:26Correct.
08:27The whole point about an anti-tank gun is you want it to have high velocity.
08:29You want it to pass through the air incredibly quickly.
08:34And that's what you get with this Pac-40.
08:37The Marders were the first step in expanding the strength and distance of the high-powered anti-tank gun.
08:45Removing the tank turret and replacing it with the fixed Pac-40 made them much more manoeuvrable on the battlefield.
08:54Can we have a look at the back here?
08:55Yes.
08:58This just comes down, does it?
08:59Yeah.
09:00So, I suppose the brilliant thing about this is that rather than having to have a separate truck and tow
09:06a vehicle, unlock it, take, you know, unhitch it, get it out, put out the forks, all the rest of
09:11it, it's just here.
09:13You know, you go forward, you fire.
09:15Yep.
09:15You move back, go to a different place.
09:17It's just, it's such a sort of logical development, isn't it, for the anti-tank gun?
09:22It's very good.
09:23And also, these rounds, they would have had racks along here.
09:27Right.
09:27And that side, the only reason they're not there is for ease of access, but they'd have carried as many
09:33as they could get in the machine.
09:35So, they were self-sufficient.
09:37The only problem is they're a bit vulnerable at the top here.
09:40There's a few original bullet holes here.
09:43Look at that.
09:43Yeah, yeah.
09:43Isn't that amazing?
09:45It's amazing how much we discount the anti-tank gun.
09:49Mm.
09:49You know, we really do.
09:50It's just not on our radar.
09:53And tank destroyers, self-propelled guns, assault guns, all those sort of things, we're just so obsessed with Tigers and
09:59Panthers and Panzer IVs that we kind of forget there's this whole other range of weaponry which the Germans are
10:04developing in the war.
10:05The Marder gives you an insight into how the German army could adapt and come up with some ingenious solutions.
10:13But it's one thing to sit in the back of this Marder, but another to drive it.
10:17And so I've got to give it a go.
10:22OK, James.
10:23Yes.
10:24The driver is very simple.
10:26Yep.
10:26Basically, you've got the throttle and clutch.
10:30Throttle on your right foot, clutch on your second foot.
10:33Yep.
10:33Clutch here.
10:34Then you've got two levers, and basically the levers just pull a brake.
10:39So if I pull the right-hand thing, that'll start swivelling that way.
10:42That's right.
10:42You'll turn to the right and left, left.
10:45Very simple.
10:47You've already sussed it out.
10:48You'll be fine.
10:49Yeah.
10:50OK.
10:51Right.
10:52Right.
10:53Shall I start her up?
10:53Push the button, and you're ready to rock.
10:57OK.
10:58I'm pressing that.
10:58It's not happening.
10:59Oh, hang on.
10:59It might be the...
11:00Hang on.
11:00Let me just have a...
11:01Oh, I've turned the isolator.
11:03Yeah.
11:03Just be gent...
11:11Under pressure, the Germans did adapt to the changing patterns of war
11:15by using all the materials they had available.
11:20OK.
11:22That's it.
11:22Lovely.
11:24Perfect.
11:25But one of the reasons I found it so easy to drive
11:27was because it was designed by the Czechs, not the Germans.
11:34Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the Panzer II and the Marder,
11:39one of Hitler's most effective weapons remained his propaganda machine.
11:43His camera crews were careful to film only Nazi machines
11:46and relentless firepower.
11:50Through Poland, through Holland, through Belgium,
11:53spread the German war machine.
11:54It's every operation timed.
11:56It's every movement rehearsed a thousand times before.
12:00Only steel could challenge steel.
12:03And of steel, there could not be enough.
12:05But the next generation of panzers would be altogether much bigger
12:09and more powerful
12:10and most definitely designed and built in Germany.
12:22In 1941, Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union
12:26and the German army found itself in a front that was far larger
12:30and with far harsher conditions than anything they'd faced before.
12:37Gambling on taking Moscow by early fall,
12:41the Germans had timed their attack
12:43to take full advantage of the summer weather.
12:46But they had not counted on savage Russian resistance.
12:49And by September came fall rain,
12:54slowing the Nazi advance.
12:57Their new enemy also came with new weapons
13:00and not least this, the T-34,
13:02which with its sloping armour and its big 85mm main gun
13:06far outcast anything the Germans had in their panzer arm.
13:15So the Germans know that the Russians have tanks,
13:18but they're just shocked by the size and scale of it, aren't they?
13:20Yeah, Hitler later actually says,
13:22there's a line he comes out with,
13:23or purportedly comes out with,
13:24which is saying,
13:25if I knew how many tanks the Russians had,
13:27I wouldn't have invaded.
13:28What I don't think they picked up on
13:30is, number one, the quality,
13:32the underlying strength of the T-34 tank,
13:35and the other side of it as well
13:37is just the sheer numbers.
13:39And so that causes a real shock to the German military.
13:43Guderian sets up a special panzer commission
13:46and off they go to the Eastern Front
13:48to seriously look,
13:49how are we going to answer this problem?
13:55One of the potential answers is,
13:57let's copy the tank directly.
13:58They seriously think of drawing up plans.
14:00Reverse engineering a T-34.
14:02Exactly that, to put into production.
14:03Being the Germans,
14:05they have to go one better,
14:06we can do something better than this,
14:08and that tank becomes the Panther.
14:13Standing at just under 10 feet,
14:15it was the largest German tank created to date.
14:18The Panther incorporated
14:20many of the Soviet tank's unique features,
14:22like the sloped armour,
14:24but with a thickness of 100 millimetres.
14:27It housed a 75 millimetre gun
14:30with two MG-34 machine guns to support it.
14:34It weighed a staggering 45 tonnes.
14:39If we compare that to the 26 tonnes of the T-34,
14:43this was a terrifying opponent.
14:45But this is substantially bigger than the T-34.
14:48Yeah, you're looking at a tank...
14:49I mean, you're talking about one-upmanship.
14:50You are.
14:51The actual requirement sounds quite sensible
14:54when they start.
14:55The problem so often with the German military
14:57is Hitler intervenes
14:59and always insists on either bigger guns,
15:01thicker armour as part of the process,
15:04and inevitably,
15:05because of the situation that's going on,
15:08certainly on the Eastern Front
15:09and in other campaigns as well,
15:11this need to suddenly leap further ahead.
15:14He's pushing the German military,
15:17who at times are thinking,
15:18hang on, do we really need this, Gov?
15:21Actually, if it's an order from Hitler,
15:22you are going to go about doing that.
15:24So with the Panther,
15:26what happens is they try to use some common sense.
15:29They put a long-barrelled 7.5 centimetre
15:32high-velocity gun on,
15:34and because this is a new gun now we're looking at,
15:37this gun has greater penetration
15:40with an armour-piercing round
15:41than the traditional 88 millimetre that we think of.
15:44And this tank is all about that gun.
15:47Of course, the greater the size,
15:49the greater the complications.
15:51Come and have a look at this,
15:52because this is a prime example
15:54of where you see not only the complexity
15:56that goes into a late-war German tank,
16:00but also one of the problems that Germans have got.
16:03You have to be well-trained
16:05to be able to change gears effectively,
16:08and famously, the first to second gear on a Panther
16:10is one of those ones where,
16:12if you get it wrong,
16:13you can mess up some of that gearing.
16:15And the problem is,
16:17you look at the size of this,
16:18that means basically
16:19the whole of the top of the front of the tank
16:21has to be taken out,
16:23so this is then taken out by crane,
16:25lifted out to repair.
16:27And if you go back to, again,
16:28if we want to think of comparisons,
16:31look at the American Sherman,
16:33you unbolt that front section
16:35to gain access,
16:36so it's easy to be able to remove that gear.
16:38Yes, but the other thing about a Sherman
16:39is it's a manual gearbox
16:41of four gears forward,
16:42one reverse,
16:43and it can be more simpler,
16:44and you put your foot on the clutch
16:45and you remove the gear stick.
16:48I mean, what have you got?
16:48How many gears have we got here?
16:49You've got over 60 gears
16:51in the actual manual casing.
16:5260?
16:5260!
16:5360 different actual pieces of machine metal
16:55in terms of actual gear wheels.
16:56That's insane, isn't it?
16:58For a combat vehicle?
16:59And yet, in essence,
17:00what you're really trying to say is
17:02they both do the same function.
17:04Right.
17:05So why have the German military
17:07decided to go down this route
17:09as opposed to perhaps going
17:11for the simplicity to make numbers?
17:14If you've got 60 different moving parts,
17:18but there's a machine metal in there,
17:20I mean, and you're a new recruit
17:22and you're driving,
17:23I mean, your story about sort of changing
17:25from first to second
17:26can actually just crash the whole gearbox.
17:28The analogy I often use is
17:30you can drive your family car
17:33around the block here at Bovington
17:35faster than you can drive a Formula One car
17:37because the level of training you need
17:40to be able to use that paddle gear shift
17:43and all that other technology
17:45in a Formula One car,
17:46unless you've had training, training, training
17:48to get to that right standard,
17:50you are not going to be able to go
17:52as fast in that car
17:53as you would in your own car
17:54that you get familiar with.
17:57In contrast to the Nazis,
17:59the Americans, recognising that
18:00the majority of their troops
18:02were civilian conscripts,
18:03tried to make the driving experience
18:05as close to that
18:06of a domestic automobile as possible.
18:08Now, in the Second World War,
18:10you're looking at a generation
18:11that they were very...
18:13only a few families
18:14would have had a motor car.
18:15Of course.
18:15So everything you're learning about here
18:17is from Spain.
18:18And particularly in Germany,
18:19where the motor industry
18:20is not as big,
18:21despite propaganda.
18:22It seems to me that as the war progressed,
18:24so the tanks are getting,
18:25the panzers are getting bigger
18:27and more sophisticated,
18:27and at the same time,
18:30the qualitative standard
18:31of those who were expected
18:33to drive them
18:33is actually getting lower.
18:34It's dropping.
18:36So how well-equipped
18:37were these new recruits
18:38to drive the panther?
18:41While I'm at the Tank Museum,
18:43I'm heading to their research rooms
18:44to uncover some very revealing documents
18:47from German prisoners of war.
18:52So all sides in the Second World War
18:54were constantly analysing their equipment,
18:56trying to upgrade it,
18:57trying to improve it,
18:58and really going into it in some detail.
19:00What I've got here is a document
19:02between the 21st Army Group,
19:03which is the British and Canadian forces
19:05in North-West Europe,
19:06and there's lots about their own equipment
19:09and trying to get that better,
19:10but there's also a bit at the back
19:12on statements by German panzer crews,
19:15prisoners of war.
19:16And what's really interesting,
19:17this was taken on the 26th of July,
19:21so this is back in the summer
19:22during the height of the Normandy campaign.
19:25And it says here,
19:26on the panther especially,
19:27a large proportion of crews
19:28went into action
19:29after a comparatively short period of training.
19:31A large number of drivers
19:33had had only 10 days training on the panther,
19:35and some as little as 10 hours.
19:38I mean, as we know,
19:40the panther is an incredibly complex
19:43piece of equipment.
19:44It's very difficult to drive,
19:46it's very difficult to operate,
19:47that is just not enough.
19:51This is a big problem for the Germans,
19:53because they've designed a very complex tank,
19:56but haven't adequately trained the crews.
19:59But this didn't stop them producing
20:01equally complex variants of the panther.
20:10Oh, my goodness, look at that.
20:12That's not something you see in the back of most barns.
20:17I'm now at the Wild Foundation in Kent,
20:19where they house a unique collection of German armoured vehicles,
20:23all in working order.
20:25The one I really want to see is the German army's mighty Jagdpanther.
20:31They had a panther tank,
20:33and that had a big enough chassis
20:35to house a much bigger casement on top
20:37rather than a turret.
20:38And with a bigger casement,
20:40you could have a much bigger gun.
20:42In fact, you could have the really highly powerful,
20:45high-velocity 88mm Pac-43 anti-tank gun.
20:50The other advantage about having a casement on a tank
20:54rather than a rotational turret
20:55is you don't have to have all the mechanisation
20:58and hydraulics that are needed for a rotating turret,
21:01and also you don't need key supplies like bull bearings,
21:05which by this stage of the war were in really short supply.
21:12When you did that, you got the Jagdpanther.
21:15Weighing 45 tonnes,
21:17it could reach speeds of 45km per hour.
21:20The 100mm armour protected its five-man crew.
21:24But what really gave it its impact in the field
21:27was its massive 88mm high-velocity gun.
21:32I'm going to take a look inside
21:33with the man responsible for getting this beast
21:36back up and running, Mike Gibb.
21:40Well, Mike, I've got to say,
21:42this is absolutely incredible.
21:44This is what I would have seen
21:46if I was a crew member coming into the first time.
21:49This is what I'd be looking at.
21:50Correct.
21:51It's all kitted out exactly as it was.
21:53You've got the Sheeran fan roll, as it's called,
21:55the Bunnier binoculars over there.
21:57Right.
21:57Which is where you would be standing as the commander.
21:59You would be the eyes of the crew.
22:02Because if you look at it,
22:03there are not that many places that you can look out here.
22:05You've got the right in the front where the driver sits.
22:08He's looking through a letterbox.
22:10But he's looking through the letterbox
22:11from inside the house with the actual cage
22:14with all the mail sitting inside it.
22:15Because your face isn't right against it.
22:18No.
22:19And you're looking up and out with a periscope.
22:21So as a driver, you can see literally nothing.
22:23Yes, with him, he's reliant on you as a commander
22:25telling him where to go.
22:26Yeah.
22:27So you've got that machine telegraph.
22:29The commander's here.
22:30I'm sticking my head out or I'm keeping ducking down.
22:32Yes.
22:33And this is basically go forward, go left, turn right.
22:35Correct.
22:36Stop.
22:36It's just as simple as that.
22:38As simple as that.
22:39And every time you move that.
22:40He's got an equivalent.
22:41He's got the equivalent,
22:42which is a sliding scale mechanism on his dashboard.
22:46Right.
22:46Which mirrors exactly what you're saying.
22:50You've also got settings for adjusting the steering mechanism,
22:55which are actually behind the instrument panel in front of the driver.
22:59Right.
22:59And you've got to go in there.
23:00You can't see what you're tightening up.
23:02You've got to do it all by finger touch.
23:04By feel.
23:05Yeah, correct.
23:05And what would happen more often than not is unless you've actually been in the thing
23:10on a regular basis, unless you've actually checked your hydraulic pressure and everything else,
23:16you have, and you haven't got your settings right, you just can't steer.
23:21It really is tough.
23:23But, I mean, look at this gun.
23:24I mean, you know, the 88 is an enormous gun and one of the most powerful anti-tank guns of
23:30the war.
23:30But, I mean, what about the recoil here?
23:32The recoil here is terrifying.
23:34You've got your recoil guard here on the side.
23:36Now, if the guy is not in good communication with his gunner, he can't hear him, okay, the guy fires,
23:45the time that you are taking your arm out, you can lose your arm.
23:50Don't you find it just absolutely incredible that they go to so much attention and detail on little things,
23:55and yet that's such a big, important one.
23:58I suppose, though, if you think of it.
23:59I mean, look after the crew, surely.
24:01No, that's true.
24:02But then if you look at where the development of vehicles like this, starting off, you know, the Panzer I
24:07with your two machine guns,
24:10and moving to something like that in the question of, what, four or five years?
24:13Yeah.
24:13So the development was enormous, but they simply did not, they weren't really thinking about things like this.
24:19They should never have gone down the road of producing something like this just because of problems with the engine,
24:25problems with the steering, the cost.
24:27I would say at the end of it all, a bit of a waste of time, magnificent waste of time.
24:34It's clear after examining the monstrous Panther and Jagd Panther tank destroyer,
24:39the bigger is not always better and came at a grave cost.
24:43The Third Reich spent the entire war consumed by perfecting its appearances.
24:51Nowhere is this more evident than in their magnificent staff cars for the Nazi top brass.
25:01I think most people assume that a Panzer Division is just stuff full of tanks,
25:06but actually it's a unit of a broad range of vehicles.
25:09What's clear to me, though, is that no matter what the vehicle,
25:12nearly all of them were massively over-engineered and involved the mismanagement of materials.
25:19The Nazis never knowingly stinted on luxury.
25:22Their staff cars, built at a time of ever-shortening resources, simply defied common sense.
25:28But you can't deny they were magnificent feats of engineering.
25:35So there you're looking at an off-road luxury car.
25:39So these are like the Bentleys of their day.
25:41This was the equivalent.
25:43These were generally issued to your field marshals or your divisional commanders
25:49who'd achieved something pretty spectacular.
25:52This is a limited edition version of the Hawk Kraftwagen 21 command car, built in Dresden.
25:59These particular cars were custom-built with a specially designed chassis and heavy armour,
26:04making them expensive, complicated and difficult to drive.
26:08Only 36 were built.
26:11So at a time where they just cannot afford that kind of reckless squandering of resources.
26:16Stupidity, and they're doing it.
26:20And this was then put, this was put together.
26:22Look at that.
26:24You're talking about a vehicle.
26:26This particular one didn't serve in North Africa as we thought it did originally,
26:30but a vehicle just like this, the one that was actually Erwin Rommels, served in Africa.
26:38On the 21st of June 1942, General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, achieved his greatest victory,
26:45crushing the British 8th Army and capturing Tobruk in north-east Libya.
26:51The British were forced to flee back into Egypt.
26:55For his efforts, Hitler rewarded him with a Field Marshal's Baton
27:01and a luxury staff car.
27:06Think of this type of luxury in the middle of a desert or combat situation is just ridiculous.
27:12I mean, this is just smooth as glass.
27:13Shut the door in the old way.
27:15Just bang it shut.
27:17This is a very, very sturdily built luxury off-road car.
27:22All the seats are made of leather.
27:24The detail is absolutely incredible.
27:26The seat work, the leather, was all done by a specialist,
27:29as what you've just been holding here on the door was all done.
27:32Now, for what should have been a very rudimentary off-road vehicle,
27:37just to ferry a Field Marshal or a General around him is just ridiculous.
27:42Isn't it just?
27:43And a V8 3.8-litre engine to take one guy.
27:47So you've got a driver and then you have the commander.
27:50And most of these guys loved standing in the back and holding onto that bar and taking the salute.
27:59It's just that lack of prioritising that the Germans go in for, doesn't it?
28:03That is crazy.
28:03You know, what you do see with the Allies is that, by and large,
28:07they're using their resources that they do have in the best possible way.
28:11I mean, there's obviously certain things you could query.
28:14But with the Germans, you just see them repeatedly making the same mistakes over and over and over again,
28:19which is too much attention to detail.
28:21There's no thought process.
28:21There's no thought process.
28:22No plan.
28:23And bonkers things like this.
28:26It's just a pointless, reckless waste of time.
28:28And the engine, by the way, the engine is the same engine as you have in the armoured car series.
28:33Right.
28:34So why not build another armoured car with a V8 3.8-litre engine and build one of these?
28:43Needless to say, Hitler himself had access to an impressive array of luxury vehicles.
28:49Even for mundane trips to inspect the railways, the Fuhrer had to arrive in style.
28:55One such car was the magnificent six-wheeled Mercedes-Benz G4.
29:02It's a perfect example of the supreme engineering and design detail for which the Germans were rightly famous.
29:09But it came at a price.
29:14I've a big day ahead with an opportunity to get the lift of a lifetime in one of three surviving
29:20examples of this spectacular car.
29:22It lives in the Sinsheim Technology Museum, just an hour south of Frankfurt.
29:30Well, look at that.
29:32That is absolutely stunning, isn't it?
29:35And what a beast.
29:37God, it's enormous.
29:41Whoa.
29:44God, look at the condition of it.
29:47And there you are, the big six wheels.
29:49Oh, my God.
29:50I've been so excited about this.
29:52It's absolutely incredible.
30:02Well, when you think of these cars and parades, it's always with the roof down.
30:06So, yeah, now this is looking more like it, isn't it?
30:10It feels really kind of off-road luxury, I suppose, which is exactly what it was.
30:19But incredible to think this was built in 1938.
30:24Oh, see, look at that.
30:28Oh.
30:34Jörg is taking me for a spin in this very special machine.
30:38Now worth an estimated 10 million euros.
30:44There's no better man for the task, as he spent his career as a mechanic,
30:48painstakingly conserving these rare vehicles.
30:52In many old cars, they make the front for the driver and coat are very small.
30:58They make it small because the driver is not important.
31:00No.
31:01So they have more space at the rear seats.
31:09It's an odd and quite uncomfortable experience for me to sit where Hitler once sat.
31:18But I'm not going to lie.
31:19I reckon I could get used to it.
31:26Perfect.
31:33Brilliant, thank you.
31:35You're welcome.
31:43Well, Jörg, this is quite something.
31:46It's a beautiful machine, isn't it?
31:49Very big and very heavy, the whole car.
31:52And I was really struck when we were driving about how smooth it was.
31:57I mean, you felt high up.
31:58You felt you're in a big car, but it felt very, very smooth.
32:02Yes.
32:02So is it a four-wheel drive?
32:05Yes.
32:05Only in the rear axles.
32:08And the rear axle has something special.
32:12When you are offside in the mud.
32:14Yes.
32:15And the wheels are turning.
32:17Yes.
32:18It blocks by himself.
32:20You have...
32:21Just automatically.
32:22Yes.
32:23And so you can go better through the mud and grass and things like that.
32:27I mean, that's incredible technology for the 1930s, isn't it?
32:31Yes.
32:31It's a really special for that car.
32:34And in terms of luxury, high, high quality engineering, this is as good as it gets, isn't it?
32:43For that time, you have a lot of features here inside.
32:47The engine, it has 5.4 litres, 110 horsepower.
32:55Wow, it's a big boy.
32:57So it's got hooks in here.
32:59God, this is a little awkward to get to, isn't it?
33:01You can open.
33:03Whoa!
33:04That is heavy.
33:05And then bring it here inside.
33:07Yep.
33:07This part, you bring it here inside.
33:09Oh, yes.
33:09Look at that.
33:10It's very heavy.
33:11You can feel it, how many steel is on the car.
33:14Isn't that beautiful?
33:19Very special.
33:20Look at this.
33:20You know, leather down here.
33:22Yes.
33:23And why is there this gap here?
33:24What's this about?
33:25I think because the car is so big, and you have a space between the body and the front
33:34part of the body, and you have in the offside a little bit turning from the car.
33:40It's incredible.
33:41Here is the seat.
33:43Yes.
33:43And you bring, you can bring the seat up.
33:46Oh, really?
33:47You just lift it up?
33:47Pull it back.
33:48Yes.
33:49Ah.
33:50So you're standing.
33:52Bit of a security risk, perhaps, but...
33:55Yes, but there are a lot of people can see you.
34:00Yep.
34:02The G4 was originally designed in 1934, but Mercedes improved it for the Nazis in 1938.
34:10The upgrade included rear-facing spotlights to be used to temporarily blind unauthorized
34:16drivers who follow too closely.
34:19It also featured an ingenious early door-locking system.
34:24You talked about the security for the people at the back.
34:27They have bags for the pistol.
34:33Wow.
34:34I mean, you know, gosh, I can't begin to tell you how comfortable this is.
34:38I mean, I could, you could drive me to Hamburg, no problem in this, even if I'm only going
34:4460 kilometres an hour, I'd be very happy.
34:46I mean, really, it's a lot of leather, a lot of luxury.
34:50Yes.
34:51It's a statement, isn't it?
34:52It's saying, I'm powerful.
34:57I'm in command.
35:02The Mercedes-Benz G4 really is a stunning example of German engineering.
35:07With its exceptional craftsmanship, housing technology far in advance of its time.
35:13But on the other hand, it was never designed to win a war.
35:17The size and complexity of Germany's armoured fighting vehicles have dazzled the popular
35:22imagination.
35:23In books, films and even comics, panzers have played a starring role.
35:28But I'm about to learn one of the biggest cons of them all.
35:31That Nazi Germany wasn't really all that mechanical at all.
35:37For Hitler, imagery and spectacle were the key ingredients of projecting the power of
35:42the Nazi war machine.
35:46But to truly convince the world of their strength, the Nazis needed a machine to make them legendary.
35:54With the German army checked on the Eastern Front, by 1942, a new monster tank was vital.
36:06We're back at the tank museum in Bovington, to look at what became the most infamous German
36:10tank of them all.
36:13With this machine, they hoped to turn their fortunes around.
36:17I'm talking about the Tiger tank, one of the Goliaths of the German army.
36:26It stood at 10 feet tall and weighed 51 tonnes with thick 120 millimetre armour.
36:34For armament, it had two machine guns, but also housed the largest gun of any German tank
36:40at that time, with a high-velocity 88 millimetre.
36:49Well, I've got to admit, if I had been an Allied soldier and I'd come up against this, I would
36:53have been absolutely terrified.
36:55I mean, look at it.
36:55It's got a massive gun.
36:56It's enormous.
36:57It's full of armour.
36:59That is just a death-ringing machine, isn't it?
37:02And of course, it's amazing how much this has come to symbolise the kind of the Nazi panzer
37:08might.
37:09I mean, when we're thinking of panzers in the Second World War, tanks in the Second
37:12World War, the Tiger is almost certainly what we're thinking about.
37:16And yet, you know, we have to stand back from that and we have to look at it afresh and
37:22look
37:22at it a bit more objectively.
37:23And, you know, you can just start with the tracks.
37:25They're so wide, they don't actually fit on the continental loading gauge of the railways
37:32that the Germans were using.
37:34And because the Germans have so little fuel, the railways are really important.
37:38They're the glue that keeps the whole thing together.
37:41So what they have to do is they have to transport their Tigers by rail, but they actually have
37:46to change the tracks.
37:48So they have to lift this little side bit up, take this bit off, take off the tracks,
37:53put on travel tracks.
37:55And then when they get close to where they want to be, to the front line, they've got
38:00to do it all again in reverse.
38:02And then you just think about the transmission on this thing.
38:05You know, this is a six-speed, semi-hydraulic, pre-selector gearbox designed by Ferdinand
38:12Porsche.
38:13It sounds complicated.
38:14It was complicated.
38:16And you imagine putting a raw recruit into that.
38:19It's like putting someone who just passed his driving test into a Lamborghini Contest,
38:25you know, grinding the gears.
38:27And of course, the whole thing breaks down.
38:30So yes, it is big.
38:31Yes, it is scary.
38:33It certainly has the fear factor, the psychological factor, but only 1,347 of these beasts ever
38:40built.
38:41But 49,000 Shermans.
38:45So once again, Hitler had the technology, he had the fear factor, but he didn't have
38:51the resources, and he didn't have the numbers.
38:59Though his tanks ultimately failed him, his propaganda machine was still working overtime.
39:05The Third Reich was hiding a secret.
39:11Back at the Weald Foundation with Mike Gibb, I'm discovering that the vast majority of
39:16German soldiers were dependent on very different means of transport throughout the entire war.
39:23So from one extreme to the other, Mike.
39:25Yes.
39:26This is coming back to the reality of German transportation during the war.
39:33It looks like something that would have come out of the 19th century.
39:36Yeah, I mean, if you told me this was at Waterloo, I'd have believed you.
39:39Yes, this is the Second World War.
39:41It's called the Pannierwagen.
39:42This was the prime method of German transportation in World War II.
39:48In fact, 85% of their transportation was actually delivered in this way.
39:53These horse-drawn cars came with their own complications, not least how to feed all the horses pulling them.
40:00Remember, there was one railway line at that time, right?
40:04One railway line into Russia.
40:06And each horse had to be fed 20 kgs of fodder every single day.
40:12So the majority of supplies that were going through in those days was for the horses.
40:20But it is amazing.
40:21I mean, you know, you think German army used one and a half million horses in the First World War,
40:26but they used two and a half million in the second.
40:28I mean, two and a half million.
40:30That's just so many.
40:30That's correct.
40:30And remember, we were totally mechanised by the outbreak of the Second World War,
40:35in comparison to the Germans.
40:42While the German war machine was still largely horse-drawn,
40:45in Britain, the mechanised industries were booming.
40:49By 1939, there were 14 people to every motorised vehicle in the UK.
40:55In Germany, by contrast, that figure was 47 people per vehicle.
41:01So despite having Mercedes, Porsche, obviously, BMW and all those makes that we're still so familiar with today,
41:09you know, they were super luxury items.
41:11And, of course, the problem you have is that if you don't have a very automotive society,
41:16that means you don't have lots of factories building them.
41:19It means you don't have lots of workshops repairing them.
41:23You don't have lots of people who know how to drive them.
41:25You've got no mechanics.
41:26You don't have mechanics.
41:26And you can't just click your fingers and go, right, I want lots of machinery.
41:30And then you invade Russia with 2,000 different types of vehicles.
41:33Most of which are stolen.
41:40Most of which have come from Poland or have come from the British Army.
41:44Yep, and France.
41:46You're now having to translate all those or having to get them translated
41:49because you can't read French, you can't read Polish, you can't read British or English rather.
41:53And every single one has a different distributor cap and rotor arm.
41:58Yes, so you've got a parts problem.
41:59And that's exactly what these guys were contending with.
42:01The Germans used 135 divisions for the invasion of France and the Low Countries.
42:08But, incredibly, only 16 of those were mechanised.
42:16And that's where it comes back to that conventional wisdom.
42:19Yes, that's right.
42:20Drawn from those comics, the Commando comic, the Battle Picture Library, the War Picture Library,
42:25the Victor manual of us just imagining tanks.
42:30We never saw horses in those.
42:32I can't remember ever seeing a horse in those.
42:34No, it's absolutely true.
42:35And one of the main reasons that is because early part of the war they had a lot of propaganda.
42:40It was obviously, they were very successful at that.
42:41The Nazis, that's something they could do incredibly well.
42:44The Nazis alone assembled a striking force of 30 panzer divisions, 70 motorised divisions, 140 infantry divisions.
42:57All their victorious armies, they sent in with vast numbers of film crews and stills, cameras and all the rest
43:02of it.
43:02And it was verboten to take pictures of people with horses.
43:06And that's why we have a problem when we're trying to explain this to people.
43:10They simply don't believe you because that public narrative, it's...
43:14It's so entrenched, isn't it?
43:15It's so entrenched.
43:16Then, even worse than that, if you move on to the machine next door here...
43:20Yeah.
43:20This is called the infantry car.
43:23This is not...
43:24This person pulling this doesn't take 20 kgs of fodder, it's you and I.
43:29Right.
43:29And you pull something like this, which either carries machine guns, carries mortars, carries ammunition...
43:34So your machine gun's sitting slot in here?
43:36Yes.
43:36The barrel, the stock.
43:38Yep, I can see that.
43:39And you think now this would be pulled all the way from...
43:42Germany.
43:43Germany to the outskirts of Moscow.
43:45It's crazy.
43:47But that's what they did.
43:49But again, it's...
43:51It defies that narrative that we were brought up with.
43:56Absolutely.
43:58Nazi Germany might have had the most feared army at the start of the war, but it was utterly
44:03reliant on horsepower and handcars to get them through Europe.
44:13The Germans spent the war furiously trying to develop weapons that would give them...
44:16from the edge.
44:18Ultimately, though, they were too complex, too inefficient, and too few in number to be
44:23at all decisive.
44:35By May 1945, the Third Reich had been crushed, and it was here on this rather lovely hill
44:42southeast of Hamburg that German commanders surrendered to the British.
44:46On the 4th of May 1945, after 2,073 days of war, after the longest European war in 130
44:55years, the northern German army surrendered unconditionally to Field Marshal Montgomery on
45:01Lunenburg Heath.
45:02Field Marshal Montgomery.
45:03He signs not only for himself, for his armies, for England and her allies, he signs also for all
45:10those who ever marched with him and fell at a hundred barricades, who died for all of us,
45:16that with peace we may build a wiser world.
45:28For all the technical brilliance of the Germans, giant tanks and powerful guns had not been enough
45:34in a war that had become increasingly industrialised.
45:37Nazi Germany has simply been unable to keep pace.
45:42democracies of the Germans.
45:56Smart particularly in Germany
46:09Read New Times
46:11World
46:11Post
Comments