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00:03The Allies surge westwards across Europe and look set to win the war when Hitler unexpectedly counterattacks.
00:11All of a sudden, German tanks and troops were in their midst.
00:14The shock to the American troops was total.
00:19Who in their right mind would launch a major, major offensive on that scale in very, very difficult terrain in
00:26midwinter?
00:26The German army has lost millions of men in the east, and the Luftwaffe has taken a hammering.
00:33But Hitler is hell-bent on striking back.
00:36I mean, it is absolutely bonkers.
00:39It's pie in the sky, fantasy stuff, dreamt up by someone who's lost all grip on reality.
00:45But the assault costs more American lives than any other in the war.
00:50The hard-fought games of D-Day hang in the balance.
00:53It's sort of a mad gamble.
00:56This is the surprise offensive that Hitler hopes will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
01:03The Battle of the Bulge is one of the most titanic clashes of World War II.
01:10Now, rare footage from around the world, expertly restored in full colour, tells the story as you've never seen it
01:18before.
01:28On the 6th of June 1944, a massive Allied force lands on the beaches of Normandy in France.
01:39It is the biggest sea ball invasion in history.
01:44After four years, the Allies are finally back on French soil, and their armies are supported by a devastating Anglo
01:52-American bombing campaign.
01:54In the east, the Nazis also suffer huge losses against the Russians.
02:03Under attack on two fronts, the Nazis are close to complete defeat.
02:09The D-Day landings are enormously significant because it is the moment that Allied forces step back onto the continent,
02:16they get a foothold, and they then smash the German armies.
02:20And at the end of the Normandy campaign, they're then able to spread very rapidly across France and into the
02:26Low Countries.
02:38On the 25th of August, the Allies liberate Paris.
02:42Brussels and Antwerp follow in early September.
02:50Regaining the port of Antwerp gives the Allies the fuel and supply pipeline vital to their campaign.
02:57It's a major advantage over a German army suffering severe shortages.
03:02By December 1944, things aren't looking good for Hitler.
03:06He needs to strike at the Allies with such force that it's going to encourage them, he believes,
03:13to possibly drop out of the war to negotiate a peace.
03:19But bombing has taken its toll,
03:21and the retreating German army are fighting with just a quarter of the oil and gasoline they need
03:27to feed their tanks and armoured vehicles.
03:32Yet despite the disastrous situation, Hitler refuses to accept that the Germans are a spent force.
03:39He is dead set on fighting back.
03:43Hitler has this idea that real men don't retreat, that real men will kind of logger up in these armed
03:50camps.
03:51And today the Germans need to stand here and not budge.
03:54So there's this kind of almost medieval castle warfare mentality.
03:58But he also relies on the quality of his generals and the quality of his army and its technology.
04:08On the 11th of September, Allied troops enter German territory and soon take the border city of Aachen.
04:16The British and Americans have now liberated Belgium, Luxembourg and most of France.
04:23Germany's industrial heartland, the Ruhr Valley, will surely be next.
04:30Hitler remains in denial.
04:32Despite the barrage of disastrous news, he refuses to accept reality.
04:39He identifies Antwerp as key to turning the war.
04:44If his soldiers can recapture this supply line, they can choke the offensive and still defeat the combined Anglo-American
04:52forces.
04:55This time in December 1944, the major supply harbour of the Allied forces was Antwerp.
05:02Antwerp was one of the biggest harbours in Europe.
05:04And it was an ideal place to supply the Allied troops for the next dash into the Reich, because it
05:10was just behind the front line.
05:12So the whole idea of Hitler was to recapture Antwerp and by this having a major blow against the Western
05:20allies.
05:20And this would give him then a relief to concentrate on the Eastern Front.
05:28Hitler's ultimate objective is to take Antwerp.
05:31If you take Antwerp and you close this marvelous big port, basically all of these British, Canadian, American units that
05:40are advancing across France and the Low Countries toward Germany will essentially be stalled and might even wither on the
05:46vine for want of supplies.
05:48It's Hitler's idea that he can stun the Americans and the British, throw back their advance, buy time to then
05:56turn back against the Russians.
05:58So it's a sort of a mad gamble.
06:04Hitler's plan relies on two critical factors, the element of surprise and bad weather.
06:12With the enemy bogged down in the winter snow, he gambles that the muddy foxholes in subzero temperatures will have
06:20sapped Allied morale.
06:23And poor visibility removes the Allies' greatest advantage, air support.
06:38The forecast is for bad weather for at least 10 days. And the theory among the planners and Hitler, of
06:45course, is that this will give his armored formations a chance to break through the lines and to get all
06:51of the way to Antwerp.
06:52But it is going to rely on the weather, but it is going to rely on the weather's remaining true
06:56during that whole period.
06:57Because if the weather's bad, the Allied planes won't be able to get off the ground.
07:01And although they have technically, they have air superiority, they'll be kept on the ground and this will tilt the
07:06balance back in the Germans' favor.
07:10The gains since D-Day have made the Americans increasingly confident, so much so they are using the densely wooded
07:18Ardennes region to train recruits and let their battle-worn veterans recover.
07:25The regional commander, General Omar Bradley, only has the most senior position because the gifted General George Patton had been
07:35demoted.
07:37A brilliant soldier, but a harsh disciplinarian, Patton had been punished for abusing his troops during the Sicily campaign.
07:46But Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D-Eisenhower recognizes that Patton is indispensable to the war effort and keeps him
07:55in Europe.
07:57Omar Bradley sort of got there by default. Patton actually struck two American servicemen who were in hospital. He felt
08:05as malingerers.
08:05They were probably suffering from the equivalent of shell shock, battle fatigue, but he thought they were cowards and so
08:11he struck them.
08:11And when this got back to Command HQ, of course, he was more than slapped on the wrist. He was
08:17actually removed from his position of command.
08:20But despite his disdain for soldiers who wilted in the horrific phase of war, Patton's soldiers always knew what to
08:28expect on the battlefield.
08:30He famously told them, you're going to be up to your neck in blood and guts.
08:41By comparison, Bradley is believed by many to have been complacent.
08:47Was Bradley as good a soldier as Patton? Almost certainly not.
08:51He was relatively inexperienced as a major field commander and certainly by the time of the start of the Ardennes
08:59Offensive was probably underestimating what he had opposite him.
09:05There's a kind of sense of, you know, kind of bit of a lackadaisical attitude.
09:10Bradley and Eisenhower go back a long way.
09:12As young men, they were cadets together at the military training academy, West Point.
09:18Their close friendship is one of the reasons why Eisenhower has given him the commander job.
09:26A brilliant organizer, Eisenhower, known to the American people as Ike, had been made the Supreme Allied Commander.
09:35He was the consummate diplomat and handler of men.
09:39It was his decision, despite the disgrace, to keep the old war horse Patton close to the Western Front.
09:47He was absolutely masterful at juggling the very different characters that were in his command.
09:54He was a master at keeping cool in a difficult situation, which he proved during the Ardennes operation and others,
10:02and making the right decision, not panicking.
10:05The Americans are feeling so confident that they fly in celebrities to entertain the troops.
10:11The soldiers, holed up in the sleepy Ardennes forest,
10:15are buoyed by the appearance of stars like Marlene Dietrich.
10:33Marlene Dietrich, who was, of course, German-born, but was very much pro-ally at this point,
10:39was working for the entertainment services provided by the US Army, the USO as it was known.
10:45Apparently, as well as singing all her classic songs, Lily Marlene and all the others,
10:49she actually made jokes about Hitler, sort of questioning his virility and, you know,
10:54that was why he was so determined to fight the war, because, you know, he was inadequate in bed.
10:59You know, so she was funny, also a beautiful singer.
11:03The sense of complacency on the Allied front is palpable.
11:08The war is unquestionably over and in its final phase.
11:12How long that is going to be is still undecided,
11:15but it marks the kind of absolutely the beginning of the end in terms of the reinvasion of Northwest Europe.
11:25Neither Omar Bradley nor his army thought that they were going to be the focus of a big German offensive
11:32through the Ardent.
11:33I mean, they thought they were in a quiet sector.
11:35And it was the winter and the Germans were fully occupied, repelling these Soviet attacks in the east.
11:41And so Bradley thought it was going to be a continuation of this steady, bloody, but steady advance westward.
11:47And then suddenly all hell breaks loose.
11:50The 16th of December, 1944, 530 AM.
12:10Out of nowhere, the American divisions are subjected to a ferocious artillery barrage.
12:16Lasting about 90 minutes.
12:19Followed by a tsunami of tanks.
12:22The German 6th SS Panzer Army launches a surprise attack into Allied territory.
12:36The Americans are totally surprised by the German攻撃.
12:43In many places, the Germans quickly burst out.
12:48Especially in the middle part, within the 5th Panzer Army.
12:53F. Keith Davis, who was serving with the American 16th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, witnessed the initial German attack.
13:06It was a completely surprise. We had no idea.
13:09It was panic. And they had brand new King Tiger tanks.
13:13And they had thousands of thousands of infantry troops.
13:16They were mostly dressed in white for camouflage.
13:20It's a big shot and no one is expecting it because militarily it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
13:24And you cannot blame the Americans for not expecting it coming.
13:27I mean, you know, who in their right mind would launch a major, major offensive on that scale in very,
13:33very difficult terrain in midwinter when the snow is deep and crisp and even?
13:37I mean, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
13:40Yeah, there's no question the Germans had the upper hand for the first couple of days because they had broken
13:44through the Allied defenses.
13:45They'd taken them by surprise.
13:47They'd captured a lot of prisoners.
13:49They'd killed quite a few people.
13:50And they had made significant gains.
13:53There's no question about that.
13:55It was foggy.
13:57If you heard of tank treads coming down a cobblestone road, you couldn't tell if it was a German tank
14:02or an American Sherman tank coming towards you.
14:05You couldn't hardly see your hand in front of you.
14:08The Germans commenced the Battle of Bulge with a massive bombardment of a very concentrated shell fire which comes in
14:14and completely, you know, rips the guts out of the Americans that are garrisoned along this line.
14:18And then they roll the tanks through and so they achieve an absolute breakthrough and begin racing for the key
14:23road hubs on the way to Antwerp.
14:31The German army is able to have its way with this sort of understrength, unprepared, utterly surprised American force in
14:37the Ardennes.
14:38And that's why they're able to push through and create this massive bulge in the American line.
14:48It is ten hours before the American High Command hear about the German offensive.
14:55General Bradley is in Paris.
14:58It's unfortunate for the Americans that the group commander, Bradley, is actually absent from the field when the attack takes
15:05place.
15:06He's actually visiting his good friend Eisenhower in Paris. They're at the HQ in Versailles.
15:11He's congratulating Eisenhower on his recent promotion to five-star general.
15:16When Bradley hears of the attack in Paris, he thinks it's just a minor local attack and that it's probably
15:23not going to take too much to fight it off.
15:27Eisenhower, interestingly enough, instinctively thinks, no, there's something more to it than this.
15:31And it's lucky that he does because this allows him the opportunity to order up reinforcements immediately.
15:38Eisenhower, seeing the scale of the attack and the ferocity, thinks there's no way this is a feint.
15:44The Germans don't have forces to play around with them. What would they be feinting at?
15:48And he divines that this is indeed a German drive for his principal port.
15:52And so he's the one who says, look, we have to react and we have to react quickly.
15:57Bradley doesn't get back until the afternoon of the next day.
16:02Only then does he realize the scale of the German attack and that he needs reinforcements immediately.
16:10Overnight, the Germans have managed to sneak 1,500 troop trains and 500 trainloads of supplies to the Western Front.
16:19They're aided by winter weather, so Allied aerial reconnaissance is pretty spotty, so they don't catch this massive buildup.
16:25But they can't believe the Germans would do something so reckless with that Soviet pressure on the eastern frontier.
16:33Hitler's gamble on surprise and poor weather has paid off, and German progress in the opening days of the campaign
16:41is ominous.
16:45While the Allies hurriedly make white robes and paint their tanks to blend with the snow,
16:53the German army quickly move to secure crossroads and bridges.
16:57To add to the Allied confusion, further chaos is being carefully orchestrated by Hitler's favorite commando.
17:06Otto Scorsese has gained a reputation as a daredevil.
17:12His mission to rescue the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from a mountaintop prison had launched his reputation.
17:21The liberation of Mussolini is a major coup.
17:25It earned Scorsese the prestigious Knights Cross.
17:31There were not very many nice Nazis in the Second World War,
17:36but even among all those horrible people who followed Hitler and became his devoted supporters,
17:42Otto Scorsese was one of the nastiest.
17:44He was not one of the good Germans. He was a very, very nasty piece of work.
17:48In a plan devised by Hitler himself, the colorful Waffen SS Lieutenant Colonel Scorsese trained a unit of English-speaking
17:58German troops.
18:00Disguised in stolen American uniforms, they are now behind enemy lines, causing maximum disorder and confusion.
18:09Scorsese is a very interesting character. He's fanatical. He's very devoted to his job.
18:14And, you know, he's a kind of, he's a bit of a thug, really.
18:18You know, he loves fighting. He's aggressive. He's got huge dollops of personal courage.
18:24He's got dueling scars on him. He's quite big and tall.
18:28And he's got very, very distinctive features.
18:31And he's a kind of sort of troubleshooter as well.
18:33You want to kind of cause mayhem and destruction behind allied lines,
18:37In the Battle of the Bulge, Scorsese is your man.
18:43Known as Operation Grief, Scorsese's German soldiers pose as GIs.
18:50They travel in captured American jeeps and tanks disguised with plywood.
18:55The impostors cut telephone lines and send American reinforcements in the wrong direction.
19:02Everything within their means to cause complete and utter chaos.
19:08This plan is hatched to get German-Americans, people who've been in America before the war,
19:14but who have German backgrounds, come back to fight for the Reich,
19:17put them in American uniforms and put them behind the lines
19:20and just sort of start sowing seeds of mistrust, mayhem, changing signs around, murdering people and so on.
19:29And actually they're quite effective.
19:34A handful of Scorsese's English-speaking soldiers are captured, but their work isn't over.
19:40They spread a rumour that Scorsese is personally leading a raid on Paris to kill or capture General Eisenhower.
19:50This causes complete panic among Eisenhower's guards and there's a lockdown round about Christmas Day
19:57because they fear the commanders are on the way to kill him.
20:00And he's absolutely furious, as you can imagine, because he's pretty much put under house arrest for no good reason
20:07because there never had been an order of that type put out and there were no German commanders anywhere near
20:13Paris.
20:14It would have been such a vast embarrassment if the Germans had managed to get hold of him or kill
20:19him.
20:19And in that mood of panic, an awful lot of people in the Allied camp felt that anything was possible.
20:26Their actual military impact was almost nil, but the psychological impact was terrific
20:31because word went all through the American army saying half these people who are Germans who are coming,
20:37they're all dressed up as Americans and they speak American.
20:41And so the level of suspicion and everybody looking over their shoulder in those first few days was a great
20:47success for Scorsese.
20:50Aided by the chaos and the weather, the Germans' 5th Panzer Army drives towards the Belgian towns of Saint-Vyth
20:58and Bastogne,
20:59both strategically important targets on the route to the port of Antwerp.
21:06For the Germans, Bastogne and Saint-Vyth were like vital because these were the essential road hubs.
21:12And if the Germans could take them, they could then continue the advance toward Antwerp.
21:16And without them, the whole motorized, mechanized offensive would stall.
21:21An elite SS Panzer unit introduces a trusted weapon in their assault on Allied morale, terror.
21:30The most shocking atrocities are carried out under the orders of the infamous Panzer commander, SS Colonel Joachim Piper.
21:39Piper used to burn a lot of villages with a lot of civilians inside.
21:45You know, his battalion was known as the Blowtorch Battalion as a result of that.
21:49The whole idea of the Battle of the Bulge and the German advance was to have a Waffen-SS battle
21:54group,
21:55which should march through the Ardennes, speed, speed, speed, reach the river Meuse, make a bridgehead,
22:02and then try to advance further north.
22:04And the commander of that battle group is Standartenführer Joachim Piper.
22:09He was a veteran from the Eastern Front, a fanatical Nazi, an added Nazi.
22:12And he was massively under pressure.
22:16Piper knows he has to get to the river Meuse before the sky is clear and filled with Allied fighter
22:22bombers.
22:23Near the town of Malmedie, he captures 125 prisoners from the US 7th Armoured Division.
22:30The captives will only slow down his unit's progress.
22:34So on the 17th of December 1944, Piper's SS troops opened fire on them.
22:41Fire!
22:41Fire!
22:42Fire!
22:43Fire!
22:48So, the first days he realized, we are too slow.
22:51We have to speed up, speed up, speed up, speed up.
22:54And this, this situational pressure was one explanation for the Malmedie massacre.
23:04The Americans discover 84 American corpses lying, you know, shot in this field.
23:10Many of them frozen because of the cold with their hands in the air.
23:14So this spreads like wildfire among the American troops.
23:17And this further motivates them to counterattack and drive the Germans back.
23:25Warren Schmidt witnessed the savage slaughter.
23:30I was down in this street and I was looking up and watching it.
23:36And it was horrible.
23:38A little later on, the Germans got out.
23:40And when I walked over to where I was, I was just laying there like I was dead.
23:44And he stood there for a while and I said, oh, I'm going to get it.
23:48But he didn't shoot me.
23:49I didn't look up.
23:51I was down deep, as low as I could get.
23:54Just a whole lot of prey.
23:56Just a whole lot of prey.
24:02Fighting around the crossroads town of St. Vith approaches a climax,
24:06as the Germans launch an all-out assault to seize the town.
24:16The Germans take around 8,000 Americans prisoner in an attack on St. Vith.
24:22And on the 21st of December, they take the strategically important town.
24:28The Germans have secured their first significant victory of the offensive.
24:34The Germans are striking forward.
24:35They've got to reach these fuel dumps that the Allies have.
24:38They've got to replenish themselves.
24:39They've got to keep going.
24:40It's all about speed, speed, speed, just as it was back in May 1940.
24:44Building on the success, the German 5th Panzer Army besieges the town of Bastogne.
24:52Morale in the German ranks is running high as Hitler's plan unfolds.
24:58In the Ardennes, Bastogne is a hub for seven major roads,
25:03a crucial junction for supply lines.
25:06It's important that Bastogne is taken with as little damage as possible.
25:12Of course there was the danger that possibly the American troops in Bastogne would lose their nerves
25:19and would surrender to the Germans.
25:21There were other groups of American troops who surrendered,
25:24and the Germans took thousands of thousands of American prisoners.
25:29So, of course there was a danger and there was a German offensive and you have to stop it.
25:37Running low on ammunition, the besieged Americans are completely surrounded by German tanks.
25:43The temperature is minus 12.
25:47The overwhelming odds and the appalling conditions put the defenders under immense strain.
25:55The artillery shells were just continuous for days.
25:59Killed many of our men and wounded many more.
26:01But some of the men actually went insane from the shells.
26:10We were out of ammunition and we were hungry and I guess we were just scared.
26:15But we weren't going to give up.
26:21So many men got frostbite.
26:24They'd take off their boots to rub their feet.
26:28And when they did that, their feet would swell up and they couldn't get their boots back on.
26:32It would be horrible.
26:33They would just die if they didn't get any help and most of them didn't.
26:39One time I was in an area where there was a rock wall and I seen a pair of American
26:45gloves on the wall.
26:46And I didn't have any.
26:48So I went over to pick these gloves off of the wall and there was a hand in each glove.
26:52So I didn't take the gloves after that.
26:54I just left them.
26:57Despite the conditions, the Americans defending the strategic hub at Bastogne refused to surrender.
27:04The Americans took huge casualties at Bastogne, which will just give you an indication of the savagery of the fighting.
27:11You know, up to 3,000 casualties were taken there.
27:13But, crucially, they held on.
27:17Sensing the Americans are close to collapse, four Germans approach American lines,
27:23waving a white bedspread as a flag of truce.
27:26They deliver an ultimatum.
27:29Unless the Americans surrender, they will flatten the town and all civilians.
27:35Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe sends the briefest reply.
27:40All armies need legends and heroes and anecdotes.
27:46And, of course, one of the most famous of the US Army in the Second World War was that of
27:50the German demand to the US Airborne at Bastogne to surrender.
27:54McAuliffe, allerdings, kennt nur eine Antwort darauf, auf das deutsche Ansinnen.
27:59Er antwortet mit einem einzigen Wort, Nuts.
28:03Zu deutsch, Blödsinn.
28:05And the reply of Brigadier McAuliffe, Nuts.
28:13It is surely a one-word suicide note.
28:17But then, the weather turns.
28:20During the night of the 22nd of December, the heavy fog in the Ardennes clears.
28:27When the covered sky is on the ground, the situation is changing.
28:33Now the allies can finally use their air force forces.
28:37And bombard the German security colonists.
28:41The German colonists attack the German colonists on the streets.
28:46And thus, the front troops from all the resistance and strengthens.
28:55The troops in Bastogne start receiving airdrops of vital food and ammunition from American supply planes.
29:03Vehicles on German-held roads are bombarded by swarms of fighter-bombers.
29:16By nightfall, every road leading into the Ardennes from the east is lit up with blazing vehicles.
29:24All of a sudden, the Allied air armada could get into the air and cause an awful lot of damage.
29:32Not only by attacking the German troops on the ground, but also attacking their rear areas.
29:37And making sure, frankly, that the resupply of the forward panzers was incredibly difficult.
29:48The advantages of surprise and overcast skies are both now gone.
29:55Hitler's army are sitting ducks.
30:00If you base your own offensive on bad weather, I mean, what kind of plan is that?
30:07How can you base a whole offensive on bad weather?
30:11There was no way whatsoever that they could defeat the Allied forces.
30:16I mean, if the main ally is the weather god, I mean, then we are done.
30:24From the start, the offensive seemed desperate and irrational.
30:29We now know that it reflected the political and mental turmoil of the man who planned it, Adolf Hitler.
30:36Earlier that year, a growing group of German officers were so concerned
30:40that on the 20th of July, they smuggled a bomb into a meeting in Hitler's eastern headquarters, the Wolf's Lair.
30:50Staufenberg comes into the conference room in Hitler's bunker, and he places the briefcase with the bomb under the conference
30:55table.
30:56But it's an oak table with a very thick surface, and then it has a couple of stumpy legs that
31:01absorb the blast when it goes off.
31:05Four people are killed in the blast, but Hitler survives.
31:09If the attack was supposed to bring the war to an end, it has precisely the opposite effect.
31:17It's a very deadly bomb, and this contributes to Hitler's messiah complex, that he is going to be spared these
31:23mortal threats,
31:24and that he is a man of destiny, that he's evaded this deadly threat, and now he's going to go
31:29on, purge the armed forces of dissidents,
31:32and impose his will on Germany even more than before.
31:37At the funeral for one of the victims, Nazi newsreel cameras captured a defiant and strong Nazi leadership, unshaken by
31:46the traitors in their midst.
31:48Unseen is the execution of some 200 senior army officers behind the coup.
31:54From now on, Hitler will trust his instincts above the advice of Wehrmacht generals.
32:01The effect of the Stauffenberg plot is immense and dramatic and terrible for the German people.
32:11Hitler is already deeply paranoid by this stage of the war.
32:14He's addled with drugs, he's not a well man, and all this does is drive his paranoia to new levels.
32:20He'd never much trusted the generals, but now it was only the Waffen SS and its commanders
32:25whom he really felt that he could place his faith in.
32:29Hitler's overwhelming faith in his own infallibility is being fed by daily supplements from his doctor.
32:37Theodor Morel has been Hitler's physician since the late 1930s.
32:42The Führer has become increasingly reliant on his daily vitamin injection.
32:48In fact, Morel is giving him cocaine and eukedal, a chemical cousin of heroin.
32:54After his morning cocktail, Hitler feels energized and invincible.
33:00But his decisions are becoming increasingly irrational and delusional.
33:06Well, his relationship with Morel is that he thinks this absolutely ludicrous quack, um, is someone he can trust and,
33:13you know, everything that Morel says, you know, he believes in.
33:16And, you know, he's just a massive hypochondriac.
33:21People who are with him at the time talk about him as being increasingly jittery and talks too much.
33:28And as a strategic decision maker, he's making no sense whatsoever.
33:32The doomed offensive started at a secret meeting laced with paranoia.
33:39On the 12th of December, 1944, Hitler's commanders are taken from the Western Front to Koblenz.
33:46They are put on a bus that deliberately meanders through the forest for 30 minutes until they lose their bearings.
33:54Eventually, they arrive at a medieval castle and are marched into a massive concrete bunker.
34:01This is the Eagle's Erie, Hitler's secret command post on the Western Front.
34:06Just five months after the assassination attempt, Hitler is obsessed with security.
34:14And then when they arrive at the bunker where his, his HQ is, SS guards are lined up who then
34:20disarm, take the personal weapons of all these senior commanders because clearly Hitler doesn't trust them.
34:27And they're then led into the bunker where he is then going to brief them.
34:31Hitler was himself in a very bad shape.
34:34And some generals saw him for the first time since four years and they were shocked.
34:39What kind of old guy is that now?
34:43We had a totally different view of Hitler.
34:45He was only 55 years old.
34:47But he looked like a very, very old person in his 80s or something like that.
34:54We're talking about just a handful of years.
34:56He was totally mentally, physically totally collapsing.
35:01So this had an impact, definitely.
35:05So the day that Hitler comes up with this plan for a kind of armoured counter-attack through the Ardennes
35:10is a day in which paranoia is extreme.
35:15He is absolutely humming from the amount of drugs he has taken.
35:19The adult mastermind of the Battle of the Bulge sets out his attack plan.
35:25He gave a speech and tried to persuade the generals that this is the final moment of the Second World
35:33War and if we are able to have now a big victory against the Western Allied forces, the Western coalition
35:41will be broken because the Americans don't know what to fight for.
35:46They only fight for money.
35:48But as Hitler lays out the details of his plan, the commanders become concerned.
35:55I mean, it is absolutely bonkers.
35:58It's pie in the sky, fantasy stuff dreamt up by someone who's lost all grip on reality.
36:05There's absolutely zero chance of success whatsoever.
36:08And what is extraordinary is that his generals and his personal staff could see this.
36:13They could see that they were dealing with somebody who'd been always semi-deranged and was now completely deranged and
36:18yet still they go along with it.
36:20Still they obey the orders.
36:23And the drug-induced euphoria is extremely dangerous because it then lends credence in Hitler's own mind to his crazy
36:30plans.
36:31And he says he's feeling so good that there's no way these things won't work when any grounded, rational general
36:38beside him can say there's no way this is going to work.
36:40We don't have the capability.
36:41All Hitler's interested in is he wants can-do German commanders that will do his bidding and won't throw in
36:50the towel.
36:50He won't surrender. He won't give up a yard of German soil unless they absolutely have to.
36:57And after the cull following the failed coup, few generals are willing to appear disloyal.
37:02He is simply in no fit physical or mental state to make any decisions whatsoever.
37:09But it's kind of nothing they can do about it.
37:13You know, he is still the Fuhrer. His grip on Nazi Germany is still absolutely iron tight.
37:20Against the advice of his generals, Hitler forces through his plan.
37:25And against all the odds, the initial stages run smoothly.
37:29The Germans successfully move a quarter of a million men into position right under the Allies' noses.
37:36The initial attack was also textbook.
37:39But a Bastogne reality sets in.
37:42As Allied aircraft destroy supply routes, the offensive turns into a disaster.
37:50Meanwhile, General Omar Bradley's troops have been desperately holding on to Bastogne in the face of the German onslaught.
37:59The task force of 400 men set up a roadblock which holds up a crack SS panzer division for six
38:05days.
38:06When all hope of reinforcement is lost, they discard their equipment and march 14 miles back through enemy lines.
38:15Most of these guys have been pulled off the streets of Paris where they were on leave and piled into
38:19trucks on this unbelievably icy cold day and driven up there and plonked in Bastogne and handed their weapons and
38:27ammunition and so on.
38:28They became entirely dependent on parachuted supplies.
38:30And they had a week of some of the toughest fighting of the North West Europe campaign and they did
38:39brilliantly.
38:40Hitler has made the cardinal error of underestimating his enemy.
38:44The whole expectation, we are going to capture their fuel storage, relying on American fuel, and they were not going
38:56to fight, they were run away, and these are old bastards who are not able to fight.
39:01All these expectations were all wrong.
39:05Bastogne was cold as hell.
39:08We had very little food, very little ammunition, but again we prevailed because we were determined.
39:15The ground was fantastic. We did a hell of a job. I had the finest soldiers in the American army.
39:27Suddenly Eisenhower's decision to keep General Patton close to the fighting pays dividends.
39:33Patton responds to General Bradley's call for reinforcements with some 200,000 men.
39:41Patton is popularly remembered as the two-gun general, due to his two ivory-handled revolvers, worn on a custom
39:50-made belt.
39:50As a man who famously said, no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
39:56He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
40:04In a way Patton was, you know, more blitzkrieg than the Germans.
40:08His exertions to rescue the troops at Bastogne are just stunning.
40:12So Patton always saw that fighting was a pleasure.
40:15It was one of these great, lusty animal appetites of life, and by gum, people had to satisfy it.
40:24Patton, above all, he thought fast, he moved fast. He was a warrior to the roots of his soul.
40:29And although there was a huge bullshit factor about Georgie Patton, he did have this terrific moral effect on his
40:38troops.
40:39And what he did, the speed which he got his army shifted around and driven on that road to Bastogne,
40:46it was a terrific feat of staff works and a terrific feat of personal energy and imagination.
40:55Patton drives his men north to cover around 120 miles of terrain through grueling winter conditions in just two days.
41:05Punching through German lines, he establishes a supply corridor into Bastogne.
41:12Patton has a key asset, a plentiful supply of Sherman tanks.
41:19The Sherman is considered inferior to most of the German models, it's undergunned, but there's lots of them.
41:26You know, it's quantity over quality.
41:28It's, you know, mass producing Chevys instead of having a few burnished Mercedes and BMWs, right?
41:34So Patton takes advantage of this materiel advantage and he's able to, you know, beat his way through the German
41:41flank and break through to Bastogne.
41:45On Boxing Day 1944, the siege of Bastogne is broken by the arrival of General Patton's troops.
41:57For 10 days, Hitler's legions have held the initiative, but on the 11th day, they are routed.
42:04Defending Bastogne costs the Americans between two and a half and three and a half thousand casualties.
42:11But the siege has cost the Germans far more than they could afford to pay, in men, in time and
42:18in strategic position.
42:21The town of Bastogne is lost forever. The initiative is now with the Allies, pushing back the Germans towards the
42:28river Rhine.
42:31The feared Kampfgruppe of Jochen Peiper is now stranded.
42:39From all the SS-Truppes, the battle group of Piper came towards the west.
42:46However, like many other German military military forces, the battle is turned out.
42:54Piper sets fire to his remaining vehicles and is forced to lead 800 survivors on a perilous retreat.
43:02And there's no better illustration of the shoddiness, ultimate shoddiness of German planning for this battle,
43:09that, you know, like Jochen Peiper's Panzers literally run out of gas.
43:13And Piper and his men dismount and end up walking back toward Germany, leaving their tanks on the road to
43:19Antwerp.
43:20The pump-Gruppe Piper must leave their vehicles back and push back to their own lines.
43:28It is symptomatical for the entire planning of the Ardennen-Offensive.
43:32It was a blitzkrieg without gasoline.
43:38The German army is now losing its strongest asset, the armoured divisions.
43:45On the 8th of January, reports warn Hitler that unless an immediate retreat is ordered, disaster is inevitable.
43:54Hitler's dream to win back Antwerp and choke the western advance is dead.
44:00The authorisers are withdrawn.
44:05Hitler's Ardennen-Offensive, it didn't actually change much because it's almost impossible to come up with any scenario
44:11whereby Hitler could have succeeded with this crazy thrust against the will of almost all these generals.
44:19But it scared the living daylights out of the Allied high command.
44:25Hitler and his inner circle evacuate their western front headquarters
44:29and retreat to the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.
44:34He will never leave.
44:37In order to launch the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans have to bring a lot of forces from the
44:41eastern front,
44:42where they're desperately needed to stem this Russian advance.
44:45And so by taking from Peter to pay Paul, they make the Russian advance in the east much more rapid
44:50and much more dangerous.
44:55The day after Hitler's arrival in Berlin, Warsaw is seized by the Red Army.
45:02And in early February, the Russians crossed the river Oda, just 50 miles from the Fuhrer bunker.
45:09The drug crazed Fuhrer is paying the price for moving his best troops away from the eastern front.
45:18It was definitely, from a German point of view, the wrong decision to use that many troops, that many tanks
45:24to fight in this dark area of the Ardennes nobody was interested in.
45:29So in the end, it was a weird decision of Hitler to use the last good troops the Germans had
45:36at this very position.
45:37The best tank divisions, the best tanks, the best divisions of good fighting spirit and capability were assembled for the
45:48Battle of the Bulge.
45:49And we know, of course, they might have been better used to defend East Prussia and this area.
45:56Almost all Hitler's generals had known from the start that his bid to try and take back Antwerp was bound
46:03to fail.
46:03Why did these generals, who may have been very wicked men, but they were not all stupid men, why did
46:11they go along with all this stuff?
46:13And they saw no choice.
46:15They always quoted this line, we had sworn fidelity to the Fuhrer.
46:19And even in December 1944, they still stuck with this as their justification for going along with this madman in
46:26yet another act of madness.
46:30The callous massacre of 84 Americans, carried out by Jochen Peiper's SS unit at Malmedie, comes back to halt the
46:39retreating Germans.
46:40As some American troops exact revenge by refusing to take prisoners, killing them on the spot.
46:49This happened in an infamous incident at Chenonia after some tough fighting there, when American soldiers decided to shoot German
46:59prisoners of war who they had in their hands.
47:01And, of course, this wasn't known at the time, it was covered up.
47:05And when Patton was told about it, he said, it's unfortunate, but we need to keep this quiet.
47:11So, it was a, a revenge, so to say, and, and, and, and, and the Waffens has started that, that
47:20bloody game in the Battle of the Bulge.
47:28After the war, the brutal SS commander Jochen Peiper is tried and sentenced to 11 and a half years in
47:36prison.
47:37He goes to live in France, where he is assassinated in 1976 by former members of the French resistance.
47:47With more than 8,000 killed, over 46,000 wounded, and almost 21,000 soldiers missing, the Battle of the
47:56Bulge proves to be the costliest battle of the war for the Americans.
48:01Omar Bradley returns a hero, celebrated as the winner of the biggest battle the US Army has ever fought.
48:09But much of the credit for the victory belongs to his rival.
48:14Old blood and guts, General George Patton dies unexpectedly in a car crash.
48:22And he's buried in Luxembourg among his men, who gave their lives to win the Battle of the Bulge.
48:31In ignoring his generals, who advised him against mounting this hugely ambitious offensive, Hitler had made a grave mistake.
48:41I think you can say without hesitation that the Ardennes operation, with no chance of success, probably shortened the war
48:49for the Germans.
48:50What else should the Germans do? I mean, the Germans were in a very desperate situation, and normally everyone would
48:55say they should surrender.
48:57But if you don't accept surrender, of course, I mean, they had no chance whatsoever to stop their allies.
49:03And so, in the end, you could even make the argument, by pushing all these troops from the Eastern Front
49:10to the Western Front,
49:11Hitler has shortened the war. And this is something positive, isn't it?
49:16Within four months, Hitler will also be dead, as Soviet soldiers storm Berlin, and the war in Europe is finally
49:26over.
49:40MUSIC PLAYS
50:10Transcription by CastingWords
50:12CastingWords
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