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The story of how Nazi engineers responded to Hitler's megalomaniac vision, by building some of the largest tanks and land battleships the world had ever seen.....
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00:08Hidden in an abandoned Nazi army base.
00:11Big is good when it comes to armor.
00:13The relics of an astonishing secret weapons project.
00:16Just the sheer size of where they park these tanks is really impressive.
00:21Not just a tank, a mega tank.
00:23The height of this tank would be 11 meters.
00:25That's roughly the size of a four-story house.
00:28Fire!
00:30Inspired by the Fuhrer himself.
00:32This is it. This is what I want.
00:34Hitler absolutely buys into the idea that big is better.
00:39Designed to crush the enemies of the Third Reich.
00:42It must be horrifying and terrifying to the enemy to face this.
00:45This is the incredible story of the Nazi engineers who built Hitler's supertanks.
00:51It's a masterpiece.
00:52And the aces who rode them into battle.
00:55Kill ratios were very high.
00:57Attackers!
01:00In the space of 15 minutes, Michael Wittner destroyed 13 tanks.
01:05Fire!
01:07Nazi mega weapons is made possible in part by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
01:15The biggest construction projects of World War II.
01:19Ordered by Hitler to secure world domination.
01:25Now they survive as dark reminders of the Fuhrer's fanatical military ambitions.
01:31These are the secrets of the Nazi mega weapons.
01:45The Eastern Front.
01:49SS Commander Michael Wittner is riding into the largest tank fight in history.
01:56The Battle of Kursk.
02:00The Battle of Kursk.
02:09Tanks dominate land warfare in World War II.
02:13And Wittmann commands the biggest yet built.
02:17The Tiger.
02:19It's an awesome machine.
02:22And Wittmann will use it to become Germany's most celebrated and deadly tank ace.
02:28The Battle of Kursk.
02:56And just one reveals how they were put together.
03:02It's the only occasion you can see this tank and its pieces like a gigantic puzzle.
03:08Tank historian Ralph Raths is exploring Nazi Germany's entire supertanks program.
03:15Because thanks to Hitler, the awesome Tiger was just the beginning.
03:21Hitler himself was fascinated with big tanks, and he was the driving force behind them getting bigger and bigger.
03:28Hitler's obsession with giant tanks and big guns begins in World War I.
03:34As a corporal on the front line, he witnesses the power of heavy artillery firsthand.
03:40Hitler would have experienced this massive weight of firepower, this incessant shelling.
03:45This would have been something that would have been burned into his memory from his years as an infantryman.
03:52People tend to view the First World War as the war of the machine gun, but really more than anything
03:57else, it was the war of the artillery piece.
04:00Guns get bigger, they get heavier, they get longer range, throwing bigger and heavier projectiles further distances.
04:10In World War I, Hitler doesn't just watch artillery getting bigger, he sees it become more mobile, with the arrival
04:19of the first tank, Britain's Mark I.
04:27Here you are, a German infantryman in 1917, and over your trench looms this giant metal box, which is impervious
04:34to the light, small arms that you've got with you.
04:39It must have been an extremely frightening experience the first time one of those tanks crossed over a trench.
04:46Fifteen years on, Hitler rises to power, promising to avenge the losses of World War I.
04:55But peace treaties ban Germany from building tanks, a must-have weapon for modern armies.
05:04So Hitler approves their development in secret.
05:13Today, hidden in thick pine forest, lies an abandoned Nazi military complex that once led the world in weapons development.
05:25This is the former HQ for Nazi Black Ops.
05:30Over nine square miles of high-tech weapons labs and firing ranges, tank works, and fuel dumps.
05:38Here, Nazi scientists created the world's first ballistic missiles.
05:45And it's also here that revolutionary tank legends will be born.
05:52Colonel Chris Wilbeck is a veteran of tank warfare in Iraq, and a tank historian.
05:59This is where they conducted tests on their tanks.
06:02But it certainly has run down now.
06:04Seen its better days.
06:07Tests performed here would transform Hitler's idea of how to fight a mobile ground war.
06:16It'd be scary to get inside the mind of Hitler, but he had to have been influenced by World War
06:21I,
06:22where he was a corporal that fought on the front lines and saw the horrors of that static, linear warfare.
06:29No one wanted to have another war like World War I.
06:34So everyone was thinking about what can the tank do to restore mobility to the battlefield so that you avoid
06:40that long, drawn-out, costly war.
06:48At Kummersdorf in early 1935, Hitler is shown the first Nazi tank, the Panzer I.
06:59It can move at 25 miles per hour, eight times faster than the tanks Hitler saw in World War I.
07:10When he was presented with a display of what tanks could do here at Kummersdorf, he had to be impressed.
07:18This is it. This is what I want.
07:25Hitler's new panzers promise unprecedented mobility on the battlefield.
07:30But there is a problem.
07:33The panzers that are so impressed Hitler are really tiny.
07:36They're six foot high. They're only armed with machine guns.
07:38There's two men in them.
07:40But very quickly, they realize that these tanks are just not going to cut it in a modern war.
07:47Between 1934 and 1939, Nazi Germany produces a series of bigger panzers with bigger guns.
07:56The Panzer II gets a cannon, and then the Panzer III gets a slightly bigger cannon,
08:01and then the Panzer IV is a yet bigger cannon than that.
08:03So they go from, say, 5.8 tons, which is the size of the Panzer I,
08:08to 20 tons, which is the size of the Panzer IV.
08:13In just five years, Hitler's panzers quadruple in size.
08:20No longer a secret, the panzers are about to go into action for the first time.
08:29In September 1939, these tanks smash into Poland, kick-starting World War II.
08:40The unprecedented speed and power of panzer warfare spawns a new word,
08:46blitzkrieg, lightning war.
08:55The genius behind the Nazis' successful blitzkrieg tactics is General Heinz Guderian.
09:02This landscape is perfect.
09:04Yes, sir!
09:05Panzer in the middle, grenadiers left and right.
09:08Yes, sir!
09:10Guderian's success is about far more than cutting-edge machinery.
09:15The point about the panzer arm is it's not just the tank.
09:20The tank is the visual expression of that.
09:24You know, when you see the film footage, what you see is the tanks.
09:29But actually, what makes them effective is the whole package.
09:32It's the communication ability.
09:34It's the cooperation with the air forces, with artillery, with infantry.
09:39That's what makes the panzer arm effective, not the individual tanks on their own.
09:46They punch big holes into the Polish lines.
09:47Guderian's blitzkrieg tactics are successful pretty much from the beginning of the Second World War.
09:53They punch big holes into the Polish lines.
09:58They punch big holes into the French lines.
10:03The French are simply not capable of keeping up with the fast-moving German way of warfare.
10:08Part of this seemingly unstoppable force is 27-year-old Michael Vittman.
10:23A farmer's son who has risen through the ranks of the SS,
10:27he is forging a reputation as a commander with an uncanny knack for killing the enemy.
10:33Fire!
10:39In 1941, he is part of an unstoppable German army that conquers huge swathes of Europe.
10:47Now, Hitler turns his tanks east for the invasion of the Soviet Union.
10:54Operation Barbarossa.
10:55When Barbarossa commences, the world will hold its breath and make no comment.
11:03We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.
11:11The Führer masses the largest invasion force in history on the Soviet frontier.
11:163,600 tanks and 4 million men.
11:21Confidence among the panzer arm is enormous.
11:24And who are they up against?
11:25They're up against the Red Army, who propaganda has portrayed for years,
11:30ever since the Nazis took power,
11:32as being a bunch of sort of redneck peasants,
11:36Bolsheviks who know nothing.
11:37And it's going to be a walk in the park.
11:42On June 22nd, 1941, Germany invades.
11:55Within hours, they make a shocking discovery.
12:02The Soviets have a much better tank.
12:09The T-34.
12:15In previous battles across Europe,
12:18Hitler's armored units have destroyed everything in their path.
12:24But the T-34 is heavier, faster, with better armor,
12:30and packs a bigger punch than the latest panzers.
12:34Hitler is going to need some bigger tanks.
12:40The T-34 was a remarkable tank.
12:43It was an absolute breakaway from anything that had come before.
12:47And certainly influenced tank design throughout the rest of the war and way beyond it.
12:53The T-34 is a masterpiece.
12:56No bigger than the panzers,
12:58but packed with simple, smart innovations.
13:01The sloping forward armor was a great improvement on anything that had come before.
13:07Not only did German shells bounce off it,
13:10because it was sloping,
13:11it actually increased its protection against enemy shells.
13:16When armor-piercing projectiles strike,
13:20increasing the slope of the armor
13:23increases the armor's effective thickness,
13:25all without adding extra steel or increasing the weight of the tank.
13:32The sloping armor plate was incredibly effective in 1941.
13:36At that time, the Germans, their 37-millimeter cannon,
13:40couldn't even dream of penetrating this.
13:43German engineers are searching for a weapon
13:46that can eliminate the threat posed by Soviet T-34 tanks.
13:50And they find it in the form of a gun called the Flak 88.
13:55Originally designed to shoot down planes,
13:58this weapon will one day sit on the first Nazi super tank
14:03in a project ordered by the Fuhrer himself.
14:11One of the big advantages of the Flak 88 was,
14:13it was able to bring down the barrel horizontally.
14:16Not every Flak can have this.
14:17So very easily you could bring this gun down,
14:20in this position, down, down.
14:22So this gun was very usable against tanks,
14:25as the Germans quickly found out.
14:26The most important factor to penetrate enemy armor
14:29was not explosives in the grenade,
14:31it was the kinetic energy,
14:32how fast the ammunition was traveling.
14:34And this gun was designed to propel ammunition in the sky.
14:37So the projectiles coming out of this gun
14:40were able to penetrate armor just by their sheer velocity.
14:45The Flak 88's awesome tank-killing power
14:48helps Germany grind forwards.
14:51But the winter of 1941 halts their advance,
14:55allowing the Soviets to dig in and reinforce.
14:59Hitler longs to return
15:01to the lightning breakthroughs of Blitzkrieg,
15:03but that will require tanks powerful enough
15:06to take out the Soviet T-34.
15:11We need a bigger gun.
15:13I've said this before.
15:15Do not try to trick me.
15:18We need a tank with an 88.
15:25If the Germans mount the Flak 88 on a panzer,
15:29it will be the biggest gun ever put on a tank.
15:34But adding a gun this size will add a huge amount of weight.
15:38Deciding for an 8.8-centimeter gun
15:41was also deciding for a heavy tank,
15:43because you need a big heavy tank to transport this gun.
15:47This new super-tank will be very different from the panzers that came before.
15:52It will be given a name, the Tiger.
15:54The development of the Tiger is a major turning point,
15:57because it marks the point where the Germans suddenly go,
16:01yes, big is good when it comes to armour.
16:06Hitler's new monster will be the biggest tank the war has seen.
16:11Now, he needs someone to design it.
16:15His first choice is a 66-year-old car designer named Ferdinand Porsche.
16:22Porsche's never built a tank before
16:24and is best known for something rather smaller,
16:29the Volkswagen Beetle.
16:31Hitler admired Porsche because he thought that he was a technical genius,
16:36maybe the biggest technical genius of the time.
16:40Shortly after Hitler came to power,
16:43Porsche and Hitler met,
16:44and Porsche introduced his ideas of a sports car.
16:50That car was very successful at the time,
16:53and it raced around here.
16:55This is the former Avis racetrack in Berlin.
17:01Here in the 1930s,
17:04Porsche's sports cars showcased German engineering excellence
17:07and delighted Hitler.
17:10That led to a commission to build the Beetle,
17:14Nazi Germany's people's car.
17:18Creating the biggest tank of the war is a very different challenge.
17:23Of course, looking at these two vehicles,
17:27the difference couldn't be bigger.
17:29This Volkswagen here was designed to serve the people,
17:33the simple people, if you will,
17:36and the other one was designed to kill the simple people.
17:42Porsche must go from making a family car to a killing machine.
17:48Hitler and the Nazis said,
17:50go ahead, let's make a real monster of a tank.
17:54Porsche said, okay, let's do it.
17:58But even for can-do Dr. Porsche,
18:01putting together a monster tank won't be easy.
18:12Today, at an old flower warehouse in Switzerland,
18:15an exceptionally rare Tiger II tank is being rebuilt from scratch.
18:25For tank historian Ralph Raths,
18:28it offers an unprecedented chance to see firsthand
18:31the challenges facing Porsche.
18:35That's a very impressive sight.
18:38Porsche's Tiger will have thousands of precision parts,
18:42many hand-tooled.
18:44The main cause for its size and complexity is the gun.
18:49If you build a big gun and it shoots,
18:52it will go back through the recoil.
18:54So if the gun goes back into the turret, it needs space.
18:57So you have to make the turret bigger
19:00so that the gun has the room to go back.
19:04So if you start to make the gun bigger,
19:07everything else will get bigger accordingly.
19:13To carry the 88-millimeter gun,
19:16the Tiger will be more than twice the size
19:19of any previous Panzer and weigh 66 tons.
19:24So Porsche proposes a novel solution
19:27to get the weight down.
19:30The larger the gun, the larger the tank.
19:33More steel.
19:34Why are tall people constantly forced into these tanks?
19:38It seems like a waste of material
19:40when we have so little to spare.
19:43Have you got another solution?
19:45If we were to put smaller men in the tanks,
19:48then we could build smaller tanks.
19:50As you know, the main weight of a tank is its armor.
19:56Mm-hmm.
20:04This is an interesting idea.
20:07Our professor,
20:08it's well known that short people are braver.
20:14Porsche's idea of putting little people into the tanks
20:17is once again a proof how he was thinking
20:20only as an engineer, only technical.
20:23Much more important than the question
20:25than the question how tall or short a person was
20:27was how well-trained and drilled and educated the person was.
20:31Porsche's plan is rejected by German generals.
20:35He must design a tank big enough for normal-sized people.
20:39The pressure on Porsche is compounded by the announcement
20:43that a rival German engineering giant,
20:46Henschel, will also make a prototype.
20:49Now, each firm must somehow design an engine
20:52that can cope with the Tiger's immense weight.
20:58The Henschel engineers took the classical path.
21:00They put an engine in the back of the tank,
21:02a transmission through the whole tank,
21:04and then generating power on the axle of the tank
21:08via torque on the tracks.
21:10That's the classical way to power a German tank.
21:14Porsche, on the other hand,
21:16used a combined diesel-electro engine,
21:19meaning that he had a diesel engine,
21:22powering two electromotors on each track separately,
21:25which had the great advantage
21:27that there was no transmission needed at all.
21:31Porsche's system does away with mechanical gears,
21:34which are heavy and take up valuable space.
21:38It's a bold, visionary idea
21:40that won't be adopted for mass-produced cars
21:43until the 1990s.
21:44But will it work on a revolutionary new tank?
21:52Hitler's 53rd birthday.
21:56His treat, to watch demonstrations
21:58of the two rival Tiger prototypes.
22:02Porsche is so confident his version
22:05will get the Fuhrer's approval
22:06that he's already building 100 chassis.
22:11When Porsche and Henschel presented their prototypes
22:14on Hitler's birthday in 1942,
22:16the classical conservative design of Henschel
22:19proved very well on the testing fields.
22:21They drove around,
22:22they did everything they were asked for.
22:23The machine worked.
22:32Just the electrics, it is not a problem.
22:36The Porsche Tiger, on the other hand,
22:38went up in flames internally
22:39and didn't accomplish anything on the testing field.
22:43So the decision was quite clear.
22:44Porsche's innovative tank is a failure.
22:49His engine is too complicated
22:50and suffers repeated fires.
22:53Porsche's idea were intelligent
22:55and clever and interesting,
22:57but the Henschel design, on the other hand, worked.
23:02It is Henschel's Tiger
23:03that will go into production.
23:18For tank experts like Colonel Chris Wilbeck,
23:21Henschel's Tiger remains a legendary machine.
23:25It's close to 70 years since the first Tiger was built,
23:29and it's still just a very physically impressive tank even today.
23:33This must have been a tremendous sight
23:36to the Germans who were going to man it
23:39and to the enemy who had to face it.
23:42What made this tank outstanding in World War II
23:46were two main things.
23:47Number one was it was heavily armored,
23:50so it had 100 to 120 millimeters of armor on its front.
23:53The second thing was it was the main gun,
23:5788-millimeter main gun,
23:59capable of firing a high-velocity round
24:01that allowed it to engage and destroy enemy tanks
24:04well beyond ranges where they could destroy this tank.
24:08The Tiger is more than twice the size
24:11of the main Soviet tank, the T-34.
24:15It is also precision-engineered by hand
24:19and even comes with its own operator's manual.
24:23They produced this richly illustrated
24:25and very well-written manual for the Tiger crew
24:29so that each and every man on the Tiger
24:31knew what he had to do in his function on the Tiger.
24:35To grab attention, the Tiger manual
24:37includes pictures of scantily clad women
24:42and armaments minister Albert Speer
24:44telling gunners not to waste ammunition.
24:50It also features clever tips
24:52to deal with the tank's exceptional weight.
24:55It says if you're not sure if your Tiger is too heavy
24:58for the ground, take a comrade, put him on your back,
25:02go to the place you're unsure about and stand on one leg.
25:05If you don't sink into the ground,
25:07the ground pressure of your Tiger is okay with that ground.
25:10If you sink in, your Tiger is too heavy.
25:11So the heaviness is a problem,
25:14but they also provide the solutions
25:15for the simple man at the front
25:17how to decide what to do.
25:21The Tiger is an expensive sledgehammer
25:24built to smash Soviet lines.
25:27Now Hitler will test it in combat
25:29at the largest tank battle in history.
25:37Will his decision to go big pay off?
25:51The German forces are preparing to attack a 124-mile bulge
26:00around the city of Kursk.
26:03The reason the Germans want to do this,
26:06to attack here, is too far.
26:08First, because they want to reduce the front
26:10by 170 miles.
26:12The main reason is to take on
26:14the biggest concentration of Soviet forces head-on
26:17and hopefully defeat them.
26:24Everyone knows that this is a pivotal moment in the war.
26:31If the Germans lost at Kursk,
26:33their ambitions on the Eastern Front were over.
26:38They want to take on the war.
26:38But Hitler is wracked with doubt.
26:40Does he have enough Tigers?
26:43He delays for two months so more can be made,
26:47allowing huge Soviet defenses to gather.
26:54The scene is set for the biggest tank battle in history.
27:01Leading the charge will be 29-year-old Michael Wittmann.
27:06This dedicated commander has spent three months training
27:09with his new Tiger.
27:11He knows that its armor gives him a huge advantage
27:15over T-34s, half the size.
27:20They can't pierce our armor
27:21unless they get within 600 meters.
27:24Should we keep our distance from the enemy tanks?
27:26No.
27:27Give it the gas and let them have it.
27:30But that means...
27:31Give it the gas and let them have it.
27:39On July 5th, 1943,
27:42Hitler finally gives the order to attack.
27:47It is the moment of truth for the Tigers.
27:52That's the suit.
27:53Find 228.96.
28:14No high explosive.
28:18No high explosive loaded.
28:21Stop! Stop!
28:23Stop!
28:24Stop!
28:32Stop!
28:39Three tanks step ahead!
28:44Stop!
28:51By the end of day one, Wittmann has destroyed
28:5415 enemy tanks and anti-tank guns.
29:03Hitler's Tiger is a deadly success.
29:15In terms of effectiveness of killing enemy tanks,
29:20of destroying enemy tanks, the Tiger was very effective.
29:22The kill ratios were very high.
29:28After five days fighting, the Tiger helps German forces
29:32advance up to 18 miles.
29:35But despite the carnage, the Soviet T-34s keep coming.
29:41The problems the Germans have on the Eastern Front
29:43is just the vast numbers they come up against.
29:50It seems to be never-ending.
29:52It's sort of a bit like the Hydra's head.
29:53You chop one off and six more appear.
30:02Lieutenant, there are thousands of them.
30:05Listen to my orders. Repeat them. Otherwise, stay silent.
30:10Concentrate. That way you might stay alive.
30:16While Germany was creating their hand-built masterpiece,
30:20Soviet tractor factories have been churning out
30:23thousands of T-34s.
30:29The high-tech Tiger is massively outnumbered.
30:33It is also worryingly high maintenance.
30:36It was very mechanically complex.
30:39It was also very heavy, which meant that it had problems
30:41with its engine, transmission, and suspension,
30:44which caused it to have lots of breakdowns.
30:47Like many of the Tigers sent to Kursk,
30:49Wittmann's tank is not being defeated by the enemy,
30:52but by its own complex engineering.
30:56German records indicate that about as many tanks were destroyed
31:00by their own crews to avoid capture after they'd broken down
31:03or been damaged than were engaged and destroyed by enemy fire.
31:10Germany has too few Tigers to break through Soviet lines
31:14over 60 miles deep.
31:18After losing 54,000 men and over 250 armoured vehicles,
31:23Hitler abandons the Kursk offensive.
31:32Kursk is the last time the Germans go forward on the Eastern Front.
31:39It's the last time they go forward in Soviet territory.
31:45From then on, they're always on the back foot.
31:50Building the biggest tank of the war
31:52has not brought Hitler victory on the battlefield.
31:55Yet Nazi Germany celebrates the achievements
31:58of their new supertank and its heroic commanders,
32:02like Michael Wittmann.
32:04In gratitude for your heroic action
32:06in the battle for the future of our countrymen,
32:09I award you the oak leaves to the Knights Cross
32:12of the Iron Cross as the 380th soldier
32:16of the German Wehrmacht.
32:18Nazi Germany is a highly militarised society
32:20and individuals are fated in a way
32:24that they're not really in America
32:27and certainly not in Britain, for example.
32:30So the cult of the ace is a big thing.
32:33So how is it possible for one man
32:36to destroy 117 tanks?
32:39What is your secret?
32:43Concentration, my Führer.
32:45And the hunter's instinct, I suspect.
32:48So, how are things at the front?
32:51Are the Tigers everything you had hoped for?
32:54The Tiger is the very best tank in the world.
32:56In open country, the enemy flees as soon as he sees us.
33:00Well, when you've got lots of publicity
33:02about one person in his Tiger tank
33:04taking out lots of enemy tanks,
33:05what that tells the German people
33:07is that that tank and that tactic and that hero
33:10are incredibly successful and very good at what they do.
33:13And it builds up that sense of invincibility.
33:18Despite losing the Battle of Kursk,
33:21the successes of individual Tigers
33:23convince Hitler that big is better.
33:26To him, the next step is logical.
33:30Germany will build the first true mega tank.
33:34The idea of a mega tank
33:36ranging somewhere between 100 and 250 tons
33:40was circulating in the whole continent of Europe
33:43for about 30 years.
33:44Nearly every major land had one or two designs
33:48of this in their drawers.
33:51Now, designers bombard the Führer with rival plans,
33:56including a jaw-dropping design
33:5810 times larger than any tank in existence.
34:02The largest Nazi tank design,
34:05known as the Landkreuzer,
34:07is dreamt up by a submarine designer at Krupp Steel.
34:11Krupp has suggested to me a magnificent tank,
34:14a thousand-ton monster with a battleship gun.
34:17We can use it to replace destroyed defense bunkers.
34:21Get Herr Grote at Krupp on the telephone.
34:24This is the only plan that exists of this vehicle.
34:29If you look at this design and consider all dimensions,
34:32it's basically a ship on land.
34:34The height of this tank would be 11 meters.
34:36That's roughly the size of a four-story house.
34:39And the overall length of the whole design
34:42would be up to 39 meters.
34:45This design was so big
34:46that normal engines were out of the question.
34:49In this case, the designer Grote was a U-Bit designer.
34:52So he took what he knew.
34:54He took ship engines with roughly 2,200 horsepower
34:58and planned to install eight of them.
35:03The Landkreuzer is nothing less than a battleship on wheels.
35:11In June 1942, Hitler approves the plans.
35:15I want a tank of 1,000 tons.
35:18Truly nothing could stop it.
35:22Incredibly, the Germans also consider an even bigger tank.
35:26The idea was to take the heaviest German artillery piece they had,
35:31the 80-centimeter gun called Schwerer Gustav,
35:34resulting in a design that had roughly the same exterior data
35:37like the Landkreuzer, but was 50% heavier.
35:41So the whole design of the Landkreuzer monster,
35:44its nickname, would have been at a weight of 1,500 tons.
35:52These steel monsters are designed
35:54to terrify the enemy by sheer size.
35:58But this size creates a huge problem.
36:02Lack of mobility.
36:05Certainly, it must be horrifying and terrifying
36:07to the enemy to face this.
36:09But really, they would never have to face it
36:11unless you plunk them down in front of it
36:13because the thing could have never gotten anywhere.
36:17The Landkreuzer is a tank supersized beyond practical use.
36:23Realizing this, Armaments Minister Albert Speer
36:26shuts the project down.
36:31But Hitler's desire to build a mega tank is unstoppable.
36:35He turns to Dr. Porsche.
36:38This legendary car designer failed in his bid to build the Tiger,
36:42but now he has a shot at redemption.
36:46He still believed that Porsche was basically a genius
36:48and maybe this time something very good,
36:51something very new would come out
36:51with far more battlefield power
36:55than the other classical designs.
36:57And what would be the purpose of such a tank?
37:01Nothing could stop a land battleship of its size.
37:04Of course, it would not travel alone
37:06but with an escort of smaller armored vehicles.
37:09It also seems to me we could use some steel bunkers.
37:12Suppose one of our concrete bunkers was knocked out,
37:16this steel monster could quickly plug the gap again and again.
37:22This new steel monster will be called the Maus.
37:28It's a monumental engineering challenge
37:30and Porsche cannot afford to let his Fuhrer down again.
37:36Everything Porsche had to build into this tank
37:39according to the demands of Hitler
37:40was a problem on a much, much bigger scale than before.
37:44This is the first design Porsche proposed in June 1942.
37:48It's the classical German tank on a new scale.
37:50The whole thing was roughly double the size of a tiger
37:54but it still wasn't enough for Hitler.
37:57With Porsche failing to deliver the colossal scale he wants,
38:01Hitler gets even more hands-on.
38:04He specifies the exact length and diameter of the gun
38:08and the thickness of the armor for his dream tank.
38:12So this is the final Maus
38:14and this design now with the demands Hitler made over the time
38:18weighs in at 188 tons.
38:21This means the first Maus was as heavy as two Tigers
38:24and they added just a third Tiger.
38:28On May 14th, 1943,
38:31Hitler and Porsche gather at the Wolf's Lair
38:33to view a wooden model Maus.
38:37After disappointing Hitler with his Tiger prototype,
38:40Porsche knows another failure could be disastrous.
38:45So, can we build such tanks?
38:48Of course, mein Führer, we can build such tanks.
38:52We must now plan ahead for achieving superiority in 1944.
38:57This year, the Tiger and the Panther are the best.
39:01Next year, the Maus and the Tiger too must be the best.
39:06This is fantastic.
39:10The giant Maus is irresistible to Hitler.
39:14Porsche's super tank will be built.
39:17Everything he does leads towards vastness.
39:21Vast underground bunkers.
39:24Vast guns.
39:27Vast tanks.
39:29Hitler absolutely buys into the idea that big is better.
39:35But creating this giant tank presents Porsche with huge technical challenges.
39:42The Germans had tried building a massive mobile gun several years earlier.
39:48A weapon called the Schwer Gustav, which dwarfed Porsche's vision for the Maus.
39:55It's a valuable lesson in the pitfalls of building big.
40:00A piece of this gun still survives.
40:04One of its shells.
40:07What strikes me first when I look at this grenade is the enormous size of it.
40:12It's almost four meters long.
40:14It weighs about 5,000 kilograms.
40:17It could inflict enormous damage.
40:19It could penetrate 10 meters concrete.
40:22It could penetrate a steel plate of a meter thick.
40:26When this thing fired, you got firepower in need.
40:31Completed in 1942, the Gustav weighed over 1,400 tons.
40:37The gun was so big that the only way to move it was on its own dedicated railway.
40:44And transporting it to the battlefront was a mammoth undertaking.
40:49It took 25 trains to bring all the equipment, all the installations of the Schwer Gustav.
40:56It took about two to three months before it was ready to fire in June 1942.
41:02There were 2,500 people needed to build the tracks for the gun, to assemble the gun, and to fire
41:07the gun.
41:09Once in position, the Gustav required vast amounts of manpower and resources to operate.
41:16The giant gun couldn't swivel, so new railway tracks were laid to point it in the right direction.
41:23In all, it took 90 days to prepare the gun for firing.
41:29And it was only used once, against the Soviet city of Sebastopol.
41:36The gun's 5.5-ton shells had a range of over 24 miles.
41:42Spotter planes were needed to see where the shells landed.
41:52Over a period of eight days, the Gustav obliterated several large forts surrounding Sebastopol.
42:03It was able to destroy some heavy fortifications, but at a price.
42:09It could fire 48 shots, and then its barrel was worn out, worn out completely.
42:15Propelling its 5.5-ton shells at supersonic speeds had wrecked the barrel.
42:21It needs enormous maintenance to keep it in working order.
42:26And because of its dimensions, of course, it's very vulnerable to air attacks.
42:31Was the Swery Gustav a successful weapon?
42:35In the end, you have to answer no.
42:39When building his Maus tank, Porsche has to mount a large gun on the biggest tank ever built.
42:46Unlike the Gustav, though, it has to be practical and maneuverable.
42:51And crucially, it must deliver Hitler the lethal killing power he craves.
42:59The Fuhrer desperately needs weapons that can reverse the crushing losses in Russia.
43:06Weapons capable of striking fear into his enemies.
43:11Most Germans know that the war is not going to be won from 1943 onwards.
43:16But Hitler is still clinging on to this thousand-year Reich concept.
43:23And because he's always been such a technology buff, he starts to put increased amount of faith in wonder weapons.
43:31You know, whether they be rockets, or jet aircraft, or even, you know, mouse tanks.
43:45Hitler's mouse tanks will be kept at Kummersdorf.
43:52Here in 1935, Hitler had been wowed by Panzer I's weighing six and a half tons.
44:04Now, Kummersdorf will house a tank 36 times bigger.
44:10This building is the building that housed the two German Panzer 7s, the Maus.
44:27This was where all of their new weapons were tested and made sure that they met the specifications.
44:35But just the sheer size of where they parked these tanks is really impressive to see.
44:43Hitler and the Nazis have high hopes for the Maus tanks stored here.
44:49They were hoping that this would be a wonder weapon, that this would be such, you know, a large moving
44:56fortress that could defeat anything in its path.
45:01But before Hitler can use the Maus in combat, its inventor, Dr. Porsche, must get it mobile.
45:09Despite his disaster with the Tiger tank, he still has faith in his pioneering diesel-electric engine.
45:17The pressure on the tracks was so good, so well distributed on the ground, that the tank actually was able
45:24to reach 15 to 20 kilometers per hour on the open terrain.
45:30Porsche managed to design the interior of the Maus so that this humongous, cumbersome, real, real big tank moves like
45:39a normal car, basically.
45:41And everybody who could drive a car could basically drive a Maus.
45:44From an engineering point of view regarding the steering of the Maus, it's a masterpiece.
45:50Porsche's Maus is a technical triumph.
45:54But possibly not the most practical combat vehicle.
45:58Every bridge the Maus would have tried to go over would have been broken down by it.
46:03So the Maus had to go through rivers.
46:07For that, you had to build a snorkel on the Maus, keep every hole in the Maus shut and connect
46:12it to another Maus.
46:13Because a Maus had this typical Porsche diesel-electro-motor, which wasn't able to function under water.
46:22The Maus would go through the water, and then the Maus on the other side would give her energy to
46:27the second Maus, which go through the water then.
46:31On dry land, the Maus proves an astonishing gas guzzler.
46:35It burns a gallon of diesel every 370 feet, at a time when fuel is increasingly scarce.
46:45The Nazi high command are divided about whether to go into full production.
46:50But the war won't wait.
46:54In June 1944, the Allies invade Normandy.
47:00Within a week, they've advanced deep inland.
47:04To fight back, the Nazis must rely on their original supertank, the Tiger.
47:11And aces, like Michael Wittmann.
47:15Near a village called Villers-Bocage, Wittmann is sent to observe Allied tank movements.
47:22They think they have won the war already.
47:25Let's prove them wrong.
47:28Wittmann has found an entire tank formation napping.
47:32He decides to attack with just one Tiger.
47:41Knapp, Slatut!
47:42Find 228.6!
47:46So he just goes down on a parallel road and just goes boom.
47:48Fire!
47:50Boom.
47:52Boom.
47:53Fire!
47:54Boom.
47:55Taking out one after the other.
47:57And the space of 15 minutes in his own tank has destroyed, has taken out between 12 and 13 British
48:04tanks and the same number again of vehicles.
48:08It is one of the most devastating single-handed attacks of the war, and earns ice-cold tank ace Wittmann
48:16even greater fame in Nazi Germany.
48:20People like Wittmann did something good for their army concerning morale, but then again, they're actually distracted from the truth
48:27of the industrial warfare.
48:29Germany simply hasn't built enough tanks.
48:32In World War II, they produce over 1,300 Tigers, compared to 50,000 Shermans built by the United States.
48:422,000 of these Shermans are given extra big guns to destroy Tigers.
48:48They're called Sherman Fireflies.
48:51The genius idea about the Firefly is you're using the same tank that's already in mass production.
48:57So to support it, you don't need any new spare parts, because it's using two things that are already in
49:04existence.
49:04A 17-pounder gun, which the artillery have, and a Sherman tank.
49:10The Firefly would prove Wittmann's nemesis.
49:16On August 8, 1944, a Firefly gunner spots Wittmann's distant Tiger.
49:23Just one shot penetrates the Tiger's armor, ignites its ammo, and incinerates Wittmann and his crew.
49:38What Wittmann's desk tells us is that this idea of building super-heavy, super-complicated wonder-weapon tanks didn't work
49:46out,
49:47because the Americans just took their normal mass-produced medium tank, improved it, and killed Wittmann and his Tiger.
49:55As the Allies close in from east and west, defeat for Nazi Germany creeps closer.
50:04At Cummersdorf, Ferdinand Porsche continues to test his mouse.
50:09But only two prototypes are ever made, and the mouse hauls are never finished.
50:16The mouse was a marketing trick.
50:18It was to keep people believing in this silly war, in this vicious war, even when everything was lost.
50:28And it was obvious to everybody that things are lost.
50:32In March 1945, the Soviets reach Germany and discover two abandoned mouse tanks close to Cummersdorf.
50:41They would go on to test the mouse, but concluded that it had little practical use.
50:48No tank this big would ever be built again.
50:52I would say the mouse was an evolutionary dead end in terms of tank development, because it didn't have the
50:58mobility necessary to accomplish really anything practical on the modern battlefield.
51:03Modern tank design has sort of capped out at around 70 tons.
51:08Much bigger than that, and you are starting to damage the infrastructure around you.
51:12The vehicle becomes immobile.
51:13The mouse, like the Gustav gun, was a weapon supersized far beyond the practical.
51:21The result of Hitler's love of the very, very big.
51:26He always favored designs that just convinced because they were bigger or more thickly armored or were better armed.
51:35He always looked for technical growth rather than what was suitable for the battlefield.
51:41They have these huge ambitions for vast amounts of concrete, metal work, machinery, buildings and constructs, and yet they don't
51:52have the resources to produce that stuff.
51:54And yet they still do anyway.
51:56And it's just mad.
51:58I mean, it just makes no sense whatsoever.
52:00Some of Germany's best engineering brains were engaged in satisfying Hitler's desire to build the largest tanks and guns the
52:10world has ever seen.
52:12Yet in the end, the Allies proved that large numbers of tanks were far more decisive than their size.
52:23Nazi Mega Weapons is made possible in part by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
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