All language subtitles for m.m.n.g.i.w.s01e02.1080p.web.h264-cbfm_track3_[eng]

[THEME MUSIC]

ROD FOUST: With Poland
wiped off the map,

Denmark occupied, and
Norway conquered, Hitler now

turned all his powers
as a strategist

and the full might of Germany
against his enemies in the West.

Germany launched its offensive
blow on the morning of 10

May 1940.

During the night,
German motorized forces

occupied Luxembourg.

And in the morning, German Army
Group B, led by General von

Bock, launched a feint
offensive into the Netherlands

and Belgium.

German fallschirmjager or
paratroopers from the Seventh

Pfleger and 22nd Luftlande
Infanterie Division under Kurt

Student executed surprise
landings at the Hague

on the road to
Rotterdam and against

the Belgian Fort Eben-Emael.

The Allied command reacted
immediately, sending forces

north to combat a plan that,
for all the Allies knew,

resembled the earlier
Schlieffen plan.

This move north committed
their best forces

and diminished
their fighting power

through loss of readiness
and their mobility

through loss of fuel.

Outgunned and outflanked,
the poorly equipped

Dutch Army surrendered on
14 May after the Germans

bombed Rotterdam.

The expected major tank battle
took place in the Gembloux Gap

between the French second and
third mechanized light division

and the German third and fourth
Panzer divisions of Erich

Hoepner's 16th Panzer Corps.

The first major
clash of armor cost

both sides about 100 vehicles.

The German offensive in Belgium
seemed stalled for a moment,

but this was a feint.

Hitler, at last, unleashed the
rapier thrust of his Panzers

into the gut of France.

German Army Group A smashed
through the Belgian infantry

regiments and French
light divisions,

advancing into the
Ardennes, and arrived

at the Meuse River near Sedan
on the night of 12 to 13 May.

On 13 May, the Germans forced
three crossings near Sedan.

Instead of slowly
massing artillery,

as the French
expected, the Germans

replaced the need for
traditional artillery

by using the full might
of their bomber force

to punch a hole in a narrow
sector of the French lines

by carpet bombing.

The combination of the
psychological impact

of the bombing, deep
penetrations by some small

German infantry units,
and the lack of air

or artillery support
eventually broke

down the 55th's resistance.

Much of the unit retreated in a
route by the evening of 13 to 14

May.

On 14 May, every available
Allied light bomber

was employed in an
attempt to destroy

the German pontoon bridges.

But despite incurring the
highest single day action losses

in the entire history of the
British and French air forces,

they failed to
destroy these targets.

French resistance
began to crumble.

The commander of the French
second army, General Huntziger,

immediately took
effective measures

to prevent a further
weakening of his position.

The Third Armored Division and
a motorized infantry division

were positioned to block
further German advances

around his flank.

However, the commander of 19
Panzer corps, Heinz Guderian,

wasn't interested in
Huntziger's flank.

On 15 May, leaving the
10th Panzer Division

at the bridgehead to protect
it from attacks by French third

DCR, he moved his 1st and
2nd Panzer Divisions sharply

to the west, undercutting the
flank of the French Ninth Army

by 40 miles and forcing
the 102nd fortress division

to leave its positions
that had blocked

16 Panzer Corps at Monthermé.

While the French Second army
had been seriously mauled

and had rendered
itself impotent,

the Ninth Army began to
disintegrate completely.

In Belgium, Allied divisions,
not having the time to fortify,

had been pushed back from
the river by the unrelenting

pressure of German
infantry, allowing

the impetuous Erwin
Rommel to break free

with his 7th Panzer Division.

On 15 May, a French Armored
Division was sent to block him.

But his unexpected speedy
advance caught the French tanks

refueling and dispersed it with
minor damage to the 7th Panzer.

On 16 May, both
Guderian and Rommel

disobeyed their
explicit direct orders

to consolidate their
positions and moved

their divisions many
kilometers to the west

as fast as they could push them.

Guderian reached Marl
80 miles from Sedan.

Rommel crossed the River
Sambre at Le Cateau, 100 miles

from his bridgehead, Dinan.

While nobody knew the
whereabouts of Rommel--

he had advanced so quickly that
he was out of range for radio

contact, earning his 7th Panzer
Division the nickname Ghost

Division-- an enraged Von Kleist
flew to Guderian on the morning

of 17 May and, after
a heated argument,

relieved him of all duties.

However, Commander Von
Rundstedt would have none of it

and refused to
confirm the order.

On 16 May, Winston
Churchill flew to Paris.

He immediately recognized
the gravity of the situation

when he observed that the
French government was already

burning its archives and
preparing for an evacuation

of the capital.

In a somber meeting with
the French commanders,

Churchill asked General
Gamelin, "Where is

the strategic reserve?",
which had saved

Paris in the First World War.

"There is none,"
Gamelin replied.

On 18 May, Rommel made the
French give up Cambrai by merely

feinting an armored attack.

The next day, the Panzer
Corps started moving again,

smashed through the weak British
18th and 23rd Territorial

Divisions, occupied Amiens, and
secured the westernmost bridge

over the River
Somme at Abbeville,

isolating the British
French, Dutch, and Belgian

forces in the north.

In the evening of 20 May,
a reconnaissance unit

from 2nd Panzer Division reached
Noyelles, 100 miles to the west.

There, they could see
the estuary of the Somme

flowing into the channel.

While the 1st Panzer
Division was ready

to attack Dunkirk
on 25 May, Hitler

ordered it to halt on 24 May.

This remains one of
the most controversial

decisions of the entire war.

Hermann Goring had convinced
Hitler the Luftwaffe

could prevent an evacuation.

Von Rundstedt had warned
him that any further effort

by the armored divisions
would lead to a much

prolonged refitting period.

Attacking cities wasn't
part of the normal task

for armored units under
any operational doctrine.

Encircled, the British
Belgian, and French

launched Operation Dynamo
and Operation Aerial on 26

May to evacuate Allied forces
from the northern pocket

in Belgium and Pas de Calais.

On 29 May, 47,000 British
troops were rescued in spite

of the first heavy
air attack from

the Luftwaffe in the evening.

The next day, an additional
54,000 men were embarked,

including the first
French soldiers.

A further 64,000 Allied soldiers
departed on 1 June before

the increasing air
attacks prevented

further daylight evacuations.

The British rear guard departed
the night of 2 June along

with 60,000 French soldiers.

An additional 26,000
French troops were

retrieved the
following night before

the operation finally ended.

Defeat was near.

The best and most modern French
armies had been sent north

and lost in the
resulting encirclement.

The French had lost much
of their heavy weaponry and

their best armored formations.

Adding to this grave situation,
Italy declared war on France

and Britain on 10 June.

The Germans renewed
their offensive

on 5 June on the Somme.

An attack broke
the scarce reserves

that Weygand had put between
the Germans and the capital.

On 14 June, Paris
fell to the Wehrmacht.

[TENSE MUSIC]

France formally surrendered
to Hitler on 25 June

in the same railroad
car at Compiegne

that Germany, in 1918, had
been forced to surrender in.

[TENSE MUSIC]

[SOMBER MUSIC]

The Battle of France was over.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[ENERGETIC MUSIC]

On 22 June 1941, Hitler
took his greatest gamble.

"I decided today, again,
to lay the fate and future

of the German Reich
and our people

in the hands of our soldiers."

As he spoke, his armies were
rolling across the plains

of Eastern Poland into Russia.

Hitler called the assault
Operation Barbarossa

after the medieval German
emperor Frederick I

who won spectacular victories
against the infidel in the east.

In the invasion
of Poland of 1939,

the two powers invaded
and partitioned

the unfortunate state.

For nearly two
years, the new border

between Russia and
the Reich was quiet

while Hitler conquered Denmark,
Norway, France, and the Balkans.

However, the fuhrer had always
intended to renege on the pact

with the Soviet Union.

Lacking sufficient naval assets
and a strategic bomber force,

Hitler was unable to force
Britain's capitulation.

He was leaning toward
an invasion of Britain,

yet was impatient to get
on with his long desired

invasion of the East.

He was convinced
that Britain would

sue for peace once
the Soviet Union

was knocked out of the war.

In preparation for the attack,
Hitler moved 3.2 million men

to the Soviet border, launched
many aerial surveillance

missions over Soviet territory,
and stockpiled vast amounts

of material in the East.

Hitler, the OKW or
German high command,

and the various
high commands were

in disagreement about
a comprehensive plan

and what the main
objectives should be.

OKW desired a straight
line thrust to Moscow.

But Hitler wanted to
take resource-rich

Ukraine and the Baltics
before turning to Moscow.

The resulting squabble
disrupted logistical planning

for the invasion.

This, combined with the
German support of Italy

in the Balkans campaign,
delayed the invasion

about a week beyond the
originally planned date in May.

The strategy Hitler
and his generals

ultimately agreed upon involved
three separate army groups

assigned to capture specific
regions and large cities

of the Soviet Union.

At 3:15 on 22 June 1941,
3 million German soldiers,

to be joined by their
Italian, Romanian,

and other allies
over the next weeks,

burst over the borders and
stormed into the Soviet Union.

German Panzers massed
at key crossing points,

broke across the frontier, and
drove deep into the interior.

In the extreme South, the 11th
Army of Romanians and Germans

attacked across the Prut
River into Bessarabia,

winning it in a
week, and then moving

on with all Romanian
formations to besiege

Odessa along the Black Sea.

Hoepner's Army Group North,
comprising the 16th and 18th

Armies and 4th Panzer Group,
pushed out of East Prussia,

driving through
Lithuania, Latvia,

Estonia, and the
Russian cities of Pskov

and Novgorod toward Leningrad.

In Army Group Center, Guderian's
2nd Panzer Group plunged across

the Bug River at Brest-Litovsk.

And Hoth's 3rd Panzer Group
drove out of East Prussia with

Minsk, 215 miles
northeast of Brest,

as their initial objective.

As the Panzers moved eastward
and enveloped both sides

of the Russian forces
around Bialystok,

Field Marshal Bock
ordered his infantry

fourth and ninth armies to
encircle 12 Russian divisions

east of Bialystok.

On June 28, the 9th and 4th
German Armies linked east

of Bialystok, splitting
the encircled Soviet

forces into two pockets--

a larger Bialystok pocket
containing the Soviet 10th Army

and a smaller Novogrudok
pocket containing

the 3rd and 13th Armies.

On June 29, Minsk, the
capital of Byelorussia,

fell to the Wehrmacht.

Ultimately, in 17
days, the Soviet

Western Front lost
420,000 personnel

from a total of 625,000.

The combined Panzer
force reached

the Berezina River
in just six days

400 miles from
their start lines.

The next objective was to
cross the Dnieper River, which

was accomplished by 11 July.

With the capture of Smolensk and
the advance to the Luga River,

Army Groups Center and
North had completed

their first major objective.

They had gotten across and
now held the land bridge

between the Dvina and Dnieper.

The route to Moscow, only 250
miles away, was wide open.

Yet at this moment,
Hitler turned the campaign

in a completely
different direction.

He lost the one
chance that he had

earned through the
ferocious battles

to destroy the Soviet Union.

The German generals wanted an
immediate drive toward Moscow,

but Hitler overruled them.

He cited the importance
of Ukrainian grain

and heavy industry if they could
be put under German possession.

He also noted the massing
of Soviet reserves

in the Gomel area, which
was between the Army

Group Center's southern
flanks and the bogged

down Army Group South.

The order was issued to
2nd Panzer Group to turn

south and advance toward Kyiv.

This took the whole of
August and into September.

But finally, when 2nd Panzer
Group joined up with 1st Panzer

Group at Lokhvytsya on
14 September, 665,000

Soviet prisoners were taken.

Kyiv fell on 19 September.

Hitler then decided to
resume the advance on Moscow.

For the second
half of October, it

rained solidly,
turning what few roads

there were into endless mud.

It trapped German vehicles,
horses, and men alike.

With 100 miles still
to go to Moscow,

there was worse to come
when the temperature plunged

and snow started falling.

The vehicles could move
again, but the men could not.

They were freezing with
no winter clothing.

The German leadership
had expected the campaign

to be over in a few months.

They had not equipped their
armies for winter fighting.

The German soldiers were
in their summer uniforms.

The German army, as a
whole, had lost half

a million men since 22 June.

Almost no units were
at full strength.

Many of the 600,000 horses the
Germans had brought into Russia

to carry supplies were dead.

There were no replacements.

Ammunition had to be left
on the sides of the roads.

The sick could not
be left in the rear

because the forests behind
the advancing armies

were infested with
partisan guerrillas.

Shelter everywhere was
inadequate or non-existent.

Boots fell apart,
clothing turned into rags,

yet they moved on.

When the advance began
again, German Panzers

broke the Russian
front in five places.

Guderian drove northeast from
Sosna to Orel, 80 miles south

of Moscow.

His advance was so rapid that
the electric streetcars were

still running in the city
and evacuations of factories

were underway as
his tanks rolled in.

Workers abandoned machinery
and tools in the streets.

The battles were turbulent.

Frequently, German
troops were cut off

and had to fight their way free.

Russian aircraft bombed
frequently but flew so

high their aim was inaccurate.

Counter strokes by
T-34 and KV1 tanks led

to critical battle situations.

German tankers found that the
short barreled 75-millimeter gun

on their Mark 4 could
knock out a T-34

but only if it could
hit the grating

above the engine in the rear.

This kind of shot
was rarely possible.

The 480-mile wide battlefield
was covered with fallen

soldiers, dead
horses, shot-up tanks,

and the first American Jeeps.

The Jeeps were sent to
Russia from America as part

of the Lend Lease Program.

On 13 October, resistance in
the Vyazma cauldron ceased.

There were now very
few Soviet soldiers

between the Germans and Moscow.

The entire Soviet army in
European Russia had been reduced

to 600,000 men and 770 tanks.

Panic was setting
in among the people.

Rumors of advancing
Germans spread widely.

People began to
fly from the city.

Marshal Georgy Zhukov
stilled the panic

by mobilizing every
person he could

find to build anti-tank
ditches outside the city.

A quarter of a million people--

3/4 of them women-- did the
work by hand with shovels,

spades, and buckets.

At a meeting held in
Orsha between the head

of the German army general
staff, General Halder,

and the heads of
three army groups,

it was decided to push
forward to Moscow.

This final offensive went down
in the annals of the German army

as the die flucht nach vorn
or the flight to the front.

It was the desperate
attempt of the troops

to get into the
shelters of Moscow

before the onset of winter.

The attempt began on November
15 in clear, frosty weather.

The Panzer units of
the northern wing

gained a bridgehead across
the canal at Dmitrov.

And one division came
within 18 miles of Moscow

at Krasnaya Polyana.

Guderian went around
toughly defended

Tula and approached Kashira,
only 32 miles from Kolomna.

Members of the most
forward German patrol

saw the towers of the Kremlin.

Then the German
offensive stopped.

The reason was the
onset of cruel weather.

This was coupled with
the decision of Zhukov

to move the Russian
armies to the offensive.

He was able to do this when
reinforcements from the Far East

arrived in Moscow.

Temperatures sank to
minus 20 degrees Celsius

and then fell farther.

The German army was not
able to cope with such cold.

The number of frostbite
cases rose to 228,000.

Tanks, machine weapons,
and radios failed.

Boilers of locomotives burst.

An attempt by 4th Army to
renew its attack broke down.

Over the next 14 days, the
offensives in the north

and south also collapsed.

Stalemate was setting in.

German commander Bock doubted
the value of pushing on

and asked OKH on 1 December
to suspend the operation.

But Brauchitsch,
who was desperately

afraid of Hitler's
anger, insisted

that the attacks must continue.

The soldiers at the front
pressed a few miles forward.

But on 5 December, Zhukov
threw into the fight not only

the reinforcements
from the Far East

but three new
armies that had been

forming deep in the Russian
hinterland East of the Volga.

The counteroffensive blow hit
the worn-out German divisions

at the moment of their
greatest weakness.

Guderian, attacked by
what he called Siberians,

had to give up the positions
he had won around Tula.

On 6 December, a Soviet
penetration of four armies

spread in the direction
of Klin, forcing

the Germans back from their
closest approach to the capital.

South of Moscow,
other Soviet forces

threatened to cut off Guderian's
advanced forces around Kashira.

And he withdrew to the line of
the upper Don River 60 miles

to the south.

Barbarossa had failed.

Hitler never saw that
he made any mistake.

He blamed the defeat
on the unexpectedly

early onset of severe winter.

Furious that his army had
been unable to take Moscow,

Hitler dismissed his
commander-in-chief,

Walther Von Brauchitsch,
on 19 December 1941.

He took personal charge
of the Wehrmacht,

effectively taking control
of all military decisions.

Along with 30 other
general officers,

three army commanders--

Maximilian Von
Weichs of the 2nd,

Adolf Strauss of the
9th, and Carl-Heinrich

Von Stulpnagel of the 17th--

were also dismissed.

Hitler also expelled
Hoepner from the army

for an unauthorized retreat.

Most significantly,
he ousted Guderian.

Hitler had refused to listen
to an attempt by Guderian on 20

December to explain
the desperate situation

at the front.

So the best Panzer
leader in the German army

went into the army
officers reserve pool.

[PATRIOTIC MUSIC]

On 13 September 1940, the
Italian 10th Army stationed

in Libya launched an
ill-advised invasion

into British-held Egypt.

The Italian army was
largely unmechanized.

And its commander,
Marshal Rodolfo Graziani,

was opposed to the operation.

With the door to Cairo open,
Graziani chose not to advance.

This gave the surprised
British force time to recover.

The British forces were
outnumbered by over five to one.

And only half of the
British were combatants.

Nevertheless, General
Sir Archibald Wavell

launched a counterattack.

It was far more
successful than expected.

It resulted in the surrender
of the entire Italian army.

The Allies were also able
to advance to El Agheila.

The stunning defeat
of the Italians

did not go unnoticed by Hitler.

To save his blundering
ally, the fuhrer

sent the Deutsche Afrika
Korps under Erwin Rommel

to reinforce them.

On 24 March 1941,
Rommel, who had

been ordered to hold a defensive
position, launched an offensive.

He bypassed Tobruk and reached
the Egyptian border on 14 April.

There, the opposing British and
German-Italian armies remained

stalemated until November 1941.

The British 8th Army used
the summer and autumn

of 1941 to reorganize.

Taking advantage
of the diversion

of German human and material
resources from North Africa

to the eastern front
in Europe, the British

attacked Rommel's
positions in what was

known as Operation Crusader.

After early reverses, the
British drove the Axis armies

back into Libya.

They relieved the
garrison in Tobruk

and forced Rommel to pull
all the way back to El

Agheila on 6 January, 1942.

The ability of the Germans to
shift resources to North Africa

after stabilizing the
eastern front in January 1942

and the diversion
of British resources

to meet the Japanese threat in
the Pacific after 7 December,

1941 enabled Rommel to
launch a second offensive

on 21 January, 1942.

Axis troops reached Al
Ghazala just west of Tobruk

within two weeks.

On 26 May, 1942, German
and Italian troops

launched another offensive,
Operation Venezia.

This enabled them to encircle
Tobruk and drive Allied forces

back to the Egyptian border.

Tobruk fell on 21 June,
and Rommel's forces

pursued the British into Egypt.

During the course of July
1942, the British halted

the Axis armies at El Alamein.

Despite the British
success in stopping Rommel,

British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill

replaced his top military
commanders in the Middle East.

He appointed General Sir Harold
Alexander as commander-in-chief

of British forces in the
Middle East and Lieutenant

General Sir Bernard
L. Montgomery

as commander of the 8th Army.

On 30 August, 1942, the Axis
launched its final offensive

of the western desert campaign.

On 3 September,
the British halted

the Axis units at
the Battle of Alam el

Halfa just south of El Alamein.

After amassing
troops and supplies,

including new US-supplied
tanks, Montgomery

attacked Rommel's forces at El
Alamein on 23 October, 1942.

10 days later, the Axis forces
were forced to withdraw.

Hoping to preserve his
fighting forces for combat

from a better
strategic position,

Rommel retreated
rapidly across Libya.

He abandoned the Libyan
capital, Tripoli, on 23

January, 1943 and reached the
Tunisian border a week later.

The Tunisian campaign
began with an Allied

amphibious landing near
Sfax in Eastern Tunisia on 5

January 1943.

On 4 February, 1943,
the British Eighth army

crossed the border from
Libya into Tunisia.

Squeezed between US and
British Commonwealth forces

and cut off from
his supply bases,

German General Erwin Rommel
attempted to stall the Allies

with defensive operations.

Although German
and Italian troops

managed to route the US II Corps
at the Kasserine Pass on 18

February, the Axis
forces were still vastly

outnumbered and outgunned.

The Allies made slow
but steady progress

in forcing the Axis troops
into a pocket along the north

central Tunisian coast.

On 7 May, 1943 the British 7th
Armored Division captured Tunis,

the capital of Tunisia.

The US 2nd Army Corps
captured Bizerte, the last

remaining port in Axis hands.

Six days later, on 13 May, 1943,
the Axis forces in North Africa,

having sustained 40,000
casualties in Tunisia alone,

surrendered.

267,000 German and
Italian soldiers

became prisoners of war.

The Allied victory
in North Africa

destroyed or neutralized
nearly 900,000

German and Italian troops.

After the narrow failure of
Hitler's invasion of Russia

in 1941, the German
army no longer

had the strength and
resources for a renewed

offensive on a broad front.

But Hitler was unwilling
to stay on the defensive

and consolidate his gains.

He searched for an
offensive solution

that, with limited means,
might promise more than a

limited result. He
now concentrated

on the southern
part of the front

with the aim of
capturing the Caucasus

oil, which each side
needed if it was

to maintain its full mobility.

The 1942 offensive was
actually a greater gamble

than that of the previous year.

If it were to be checked, the
long flank of this southerly

drive would be exposed to
a counterstroke anywhere

along its 1,000-mile stretch.

Initially, the German
blitzkrieg technique worked.

A swift breakthrough was made
on the Kursk-Krakow sector.

And then General Ewald von
Kleist's 1st Panzer Army swept

like a torrent along
the corridor between

the Don and the Donets Rivers.

Surging across the lower
Don, gateway to the Caucasus,

it gained the more
westerly oil fields

around Maykop in six weeks.

The Russians' resistance had
crumbled badly under the impact

of the blitzkrieg.

This was Russia's weakest hour.

Fortunately for Russia,
Hitler split his effort

between the Caucasus and
Stalingrad on the Volga, gateway

to the north and the Urals.

Moreover, when the first attacks
on Stalingrad by Field Marshal

Friedrich Paulus' 6th Army
were checked in mid-July,

although they were
narrowly checked,

Hitler increasingly
drained his forces

in the Caucasus to reinforce the
divergent attack on Stalingrad.

This was the city of
Stalin, so Hitler could

not bear to be defied by it.

Its resistance obsessed him.

Hitler wore down his army
and the prolonged effort

to achieve its
capture and lost sight

of his initial prime
aim, the vital oil

supplies of the Caucasus.

The Russians' resistance
at Stalingrad hardened.

The directness of
the German attack

simplified the Russian command's
problem in meeting the threat.

A realization of the risks
led the German general staff

to tell Hitler in
August that it would

be impossible to hold the line
of the Don as a defensive flank

during the winter.

Hitler ignored the warning
because of his obsession

with capturing Stalingrad.

The Russian defenders
position in the city

came to look more and more
imperiled, even desperate,

as the circle contracted
and the Germans came closer

to the heart of the city.

The most critical moment
was on 14 October.

The Russians now had their
backs so close to the Volga

that they had no room to
practice shock absorbing tactics

and sell ground to gain time.

But beneath the
surface, basic factors

were working in their favor.

The German attackers'
morale was being

sapped by their heavy losses and
a growing sense of frustration.

They were becoming ripe
for a counteroffensive

that the Russians were
preparing to launch

against the German
flanks, which were

held by Romanian and other
Axis troops of poor quality.

The counteroffensive was
launched on 19 November.

Wedges were driven into the
flanks at several places

to isolate Paulus' 6th Army.

By the 23rd, the
encirclement was complete.

More than a quarter of a
million German and Axis troops

were cut off.

Hitler would permit
no withdrawal,

and relief attempts in
December were repulsed.

Even then, Hitler was
reluctant to permit

the 6th Army to try to break out
westward before it was too late.

Airdropped supplies
had proved inadequate.

Hitler promoted Friedrich
Paulus to general field marshal

on January 30, 1943, which
was the 10th anniversary

of his coming to power.

Since no German field marshal
had ever been taken prisoner,

Hitler assumed that Paulus would
fight on or take his own life.

Short of ammunition and freezing
in minus 30-degree temperatures,

Paulus and the bulk
of what remained

of his exhausted
and near starving

army surrendered on 31 January.

91,000 tired, ill, and starving
Germans were taken captive.

Only 6,000 of the
91,000 German prisoners

of war survived their
captivity and returned home.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

The Soviet counter-offensive
launched at Stalingrad

slowly threw back the Germans
along the entire front,

from Leningrad to Sevastopol.

Hitler had once
said, "The world will

hold its breath and fall silent
when Barbarossa is mounted."

Now the scales of war
were against Hitler.

In the summer of
1943, the Germans

met with a devastating defeat in
Russia at the Battle of Kursk.

The German and Italian armies
in Africa were destroyed.

1944 found Germany
totally on the defensive

with the successful
Allied invasion of France

and repeated losses in Russia.

By the beginning of 1945,
the British, Americans,

and Russians were
closing in on Germany.

The Russians, by
the end of January,

were within 100 miles of Berlin.

By April 1, 1945, the
Russians were outside Berlin.

They built up for two
weeks, knowing that Berlin

would be heavily contested.

The Western Allies plan to
drop paratroops to take Berlin

but decided against it.

Eisenhower saw no need to suffer
casualties taking a city that

would be in the Soviet sphere of
influence once the war was over.

The Battle of Berlin would
be the deciding conflict

between Nazism and communism.

The offensive began with
thousands of artillery

shells and rockets.

The rockets were called Stalin
organs because of their hideous

shrieking noise.

This opened a huge sustained
barrage that lasted for days.

On 16 April, the first
and second Belarusian

fronts and the first
Ukrainian front

boxed in Berlin from the east.

The next day, the
5th Guard Tank Army

linked with the US
1st Army at Torgau,

Germany on the Elbe River.

On 22 April, at his afternoon
situation conference,

Hitler fell into a tearful rage.

He realized that his plans of
a massive counter-offensive

from the day before were
not going to happen.

He declared that
the war was lost.

Blaming his generals, he
announced that he would

stay in Berlin until the end.

He would then kill himself
before being captured.

In an attempt to coax
Hitler out of his rage,

General Alfred Jodl
speculated that the 12th Army,

which was facing the Americans,
could move to Berlin.

This was because the
Americans already on the Elbe

River were unlikely
to move further east.

Hitler immediately
grasped the idea.

Within hours, General Walther
Wenck was ordered to disengage

the Americans and
move the 12th Army

northeast to support Berlin.

The German high command
then realized that

if the 4th Army
moved west, it could

link up with the 12th Army.

In the evening, General
Gotthard Heinrici,

with the 12th Army, was given
permission to make the link up.

Away from the map room in
the Berlin fuhrerbunker,

with its imaginary attacks
of phantom divisions,

the Soviets were getting
on with winning the war.

They had established a
bridgehead on the east bank

of the Oder over 10 miles
deep and were heavily engaged

with the 3rd Panzer Army.

The 9th Army had
lost Cottbus and was

being pressed from the east.

A Soviet tank spearhead
was on the Havel River

to the east of Berlin.

And another had, at one
point, penetrated the

inner defensive ring of Berlin.

By 24 April, the three Soviet
army groups had completed

the encirclement of the city.

Berlin's fate was sealed,
but the resistance continued.

The Soviet advance
to the city center

was along these main axes--

from the southeast along
the Frankfurter Allee

and ending at the
Alexanderplatz,

from the south along
Sonnenallee ending north

of the Belle-Alliance plots,
also from the south ending

near the Potsdamer
Platz, and from the north

ending near the Reichstag.

The Reichstag, the Moltke
Bridge, Alexanderplatz,

and the Havel bridges at
Spandau were the places

where the fighting was heaviest
with house to house and hand

to hand combat.

On 30 April, as the Soviet
forces fought their way

into the center of Berlin,
Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun

and then committed suicide.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

General Weidling, defense
commandant of Berlin,

ordered the surrender of
German defenders to the Soviets

on 2 May.

Despite this, heavy fighting
continued in the city.

Large numbers of the Germans
did not wish to surrender.

It was not until 8 May
when the last German troops

finally surrendered.

The army that conquered
Europe was no more.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]