All language subtitles for Hitlers Disastrous Desert War (2021)

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November 1942.

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An armada of 200 British
and American ships appears off

the coast of North Africa.

Operation Torch
is about to begin.

Right before the eyes
of the local people,

100,000 men pour
onto the beaches of
Morocco and Algeria.

It is this singular theater,

North Africa, that
between 1940 and 1943

was written a
famous chapter of
the Second World War:

The Desert War.

Why have the great
powers come to fight in

the challenging desert
conditions of North Africa,

so far from the
epicenter of the World War?

And how, there in the
furnace of the desert,

will the allies
manage to inflict one of
the first major setbacks

on the forces of the Reich?

The Desert War, the
war that nobody wanted,

was to turn the
World War upside down.

It all
begins with a big
gamble by a little dictator

who dreams of greatness:

Benito Mussolini.

He proclaims,

"Italy is in
truth a prisoner
of the Mediterranean."

Il Duce wants to restore the
splendors of the Roman Empire.

He dreams of controlling
the Mediterranean Sea,

and expanding his
empire into Africa.

Mussolini is suffocating
in an Africa dominated by

the old imperial powers,
France and the United Kingdom.

The modesty of his own
empire is a very sore point.

In the east, it
controls only Somalia,

Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In the north, Libya was
conquered by iron and blood.

Italy's victory was won
back in 1912 by means of
multiple massacres and abuses.

In summer 1940,

World War II
sets Europe on fire.

After taking over
a part of Europe,

the Third Reich troops
overrun France in a few weeks.

England, under siege,

fears succumbing to
the Nazi threat as well.

German and Italians,
united under the Axis banner,

are in a position of strength.

It's a chance that Il Duce
doesn't intend to pass up on.

He wants to see the
old colonial powers

that dominate
Africa driven out.

Italy's time has come.

From Libya, he orders
his troops to enter Egypt,

a kingdom controlled
by Great Britain.

A force of 80,000 men
advances about 60 miles

into Egyptian territory.

The Italian generals
are hesitant.

In their eyes, their
army is under-equipped,

and not ready for
such an adventure.

Winston Churchill doesn't
want to let go of Egypt.

Not at any price.

Ever since France surrendered,

the Reich has been
extending its grip on Europe.

For the British
Prime Minister,

another defeat
would be unacceptable.

Especially since the Luftwaffe

is relentlessly
pounding England.

Churchill knows that Britain's
salvation depends more than

ever on the
resources of its Empire.

The Suez Canal
belongs to Egypt.

For London, it is a vital
artery for transporting

its raw materials.

For Churchill, it's a
very serious situation.

So the old bulldog sounds
the alarm and mobilizes all

the Commonwealth's resources.

Thousands
of Australian, New Zealand
and South African soldiers

flock to Cairo
and join the British.

These men left their families
and their jobs to come and

fight in the desert sands.

In December, the
British go on the attack.

To their great surprise,

it's like a
stroll in the park.

The Italians are disorganized,

and have retreated
500 miles back into Libya.

The British even take Tobruk,
a highly strategic port.

His Majesty's generals know
that in these desert lands,

he who controls
the ports, is master.

In a matter of
just a few weeks,

Commonwealth troops have
won an outright victory.

At the beginning of 1941,
they occupy eastern Libya.

And the Muslim population
celebrates its liberators.

It has not forgotten
the 100,000 deaths

the Italian conquest
was responsible for.

The Arabs and the British
even come to an agreement.

Thousands of Libyans accept
to fight for Great Britain.

Churchill
promises them independence

once victory is achieved.

It's a good way to undermine
the influence of Rome.

Il Duce was
yearning for glory,

but now reaps nothing
but shameful defeat.

He leaves 400 tanks
and 130,000 prisons behind

on the battlefield.

Mussolini wanted to
impose his law in Africa.

Now he has to call for help.

By the
beginning of 1941,

Hitler has turned
his gaze to the east.

Along with his generals,

he's devoting himself
to his great project,

Operation Barbarossa,

the conquest of
the Soviet Union.

In his eyes, his victory
will be sealed out there

on the Russian Steppes.

Mussolini, devastated, knows
that his timing is not good.

But he needs his ally's help

if he's not to
lose Libya entirely.

Such a humiliation
would ruin his reputation.

On the strategic plan,
Hitler considers North Africa

as a secondary
theater of operations.

But he fears that a
weakened Mussolini will
lose his grip on power.

The fall of Il Duce would
threaten the security of

the southern flank of
his European fortress.

He agrees to help his ally,

but on his terms.

Any German
intervention must not,

under any circumstances,

disrupt its
operation in the east,

which is expected to be
launched in just a few months.

The Fuhrer sends
only a small expeditionary
force to Mussolini's rescue.

The Afrika Korps has only
45,000 men and 174 tanks.

It lands in Tripoli, the
capital of the Italian colony.

Its mission is a limited one,

to help the Italians
recapture eastern Libya,

and to protect
it from a British onslaught.

But the real game changer
is having General Rommel at

the head of those troops.

At 49, Rommel is
young for a general,

but he's the
Fuhrer's favorite.

He arrives in Tripoli,
trailing clouds of glory

from the French campaign.

Officially, Rommel is
under Italian command,

but he's ambitious,

and has no intention of
playing a supporting role.

In Africa,
Rommel dreams of glory,

even if it means
disobeying his superiors.

The Afrika Korps
has only been present on

the African soil
for a few weeks.

But Rommel is
already impatient.

On March 24, 1941,

without even warning
either Rome or Berlin,

he suddenly launches
an attack eastward.

His intentions are clear.

"My first objective," he says,

"Is the recapture
of eastern Libya.

My second, northern Egypt

and the Suez Canal."

It's a grand plan.

From the land of the Pharaohs,

he can head for
Baku in the Caucasus and

get his hands on
the precious oil resources.

Then, he can rendezvous
with the Wehrmacht troops

to strike at Russia.

It's pure megalomania,

and far from anything his
leaders are expecting of him.

But his troops are all for it,

for the Afrika Korps is
partly made up of volunteers,

all of them deeply
committed to the Reich.

North Africa provides
Rommel with the ideal setting

to rehearse it all.

On these vast expanses,

his Panzers can
get up to full speed.

His technique is to
push straight ahead,

and not worry about
his flanks or his rear.

He counts on the
element of surprise and

on his own intuition,

and that's what's earned
him the Fuhrer's admiration.

Rommel's sudden
offensive comes as a
shock to the British.

The Germans aren't the same
thing as the Italians at all.

Faced with such a
formidable adversary,

the worrying weaknesses of the
British army start to emerge.

The men are under-trained and

their equipment
is dilapidated.

As the British doctor
James Graham observes,

the Afrika Korps
is wreaking havoc.

"It was a blitz.

We were devoured.

The whole area was
marked by smoking remains,

bodies scattered around.

Some living, some not.

Our principal task
was to relieve suffering.

There was little
room for sentiment.

Interment being carried
out near the fatal spot by

a man's comrades,
enemy permitting."

Noticing that the
British are retreating,

Rommel decides to advance
towards Egypt heading deeper

into the desert.

He's well aware that
he's now disobeying orders.

To his wife Lucie,
he confesses,

"My darling Lucie,

we are attacking
with remarkable success.

I've taken the
risk of moving forward,

despite all previous
orders and instructions,

in order to seize
such a great opportunity."

Rommel's goal is Tobruk.

It's his modest aim to bring
it down in a matter of days.

He considers it
a mere formality.

To avoid disaster,
the British retreat
to the Egyptian border.

They abandon all the territory
they've taken in Libya with

the exception of Tobruk.

Tobruk is defended by
25,000 Commonwealth soldiers.

Their supplies arrive by sea.

The British will
never leave this
deep-water port to Rommel.

If it were to
fall into his hands,

he'd use it to
supply his own troops,

which would allow them
to advance into Egypt.

On the front line, life's
hard when you're under siege.

The men shelter
from the bombing in
flea-infested holes.

"Like rats," as the
German radio propaganda

is always saying.

So they defiantly refer to
themselves as the Tobruk Rats.

They are daily raided.

For the time being,
Tobruk's still holding on.

Rommel
is struggling.

He spends his days visiting
his units scattered around

Tobruk and on
the Egyptian border.

Unlike the
officers of the Wehrmacht,

he despises state duties.

He wants to see the
battles from the front lines.

And tirelessly keeps ordering
his men to break through,

whatever the cost.

German Lieutenant
Robert Witzke is fighting on

the front line.

He writes to his wife,

"Dear Inge, every
day there are attacks.

We can only ask ourselves
every day who is still alive

from the comrades.

Many are dead, but
even more are wounded.

Inge, keep thinking of me."

After a 15 day siege,

Rommel has
consumed an astronomical
amount of ammunition and

the fuel is about to run out.

It doesn't matter, to a
battalion of machine guns,

he declares, "We will be in
Cairo in eight days from now.

Pass the word around."

Rommel is waging an overly
ambitious war without a care

for one decisive element:

fuel and supplies.

Yet delivering the 53,000 tons
of monthly supplies that his

relentless attacks
require is a daunting task,

because the Axis supply
lines are long and dangerous.

In the Mediterranean, the
British are tracking down

Italian cargo ships
trying to reach Tripoli,

the only port controlled
by the Afrika Korps.

All the same, 80% of supplies
are still getting through.

Petrol, water,
food, ammunition.

Every day once unloaded,

the supplies have
to reach the front.

It's quite a challenge.

It takes 14 days to travel
the 750 miles from Tripoli

to the front.

It's a real trial for the men.

Ironically, the trucks consume
half of the petrol they carry.

Rommel is impatient with all
these logistical constraints.

He exhausts his troops
and fails to take Tobruk.

His attitude costs
the lives of 53 officers,

and 1,200 men.

The Afrika Korps
is very weakened,

but holds its ground.

It's far from
its bases though,

and difficult to refuel.

It is dangerously exposed.

A counter attack by the
enemy might well destroy it.

The Khamsin, the
burning wind that can
blow for long days at a time,

heralds the beginning
of the strong heat.

From May to October,
it is impossible to fight

between 12:00 am and 4:00 pm.

In daytime, the
heat is overwhelming.

At night, the cold is glacial.

Lieutenant Witzke
survived the hell of Tobruk,

and now he's
facing fresh ordeals.

In June 1941, he
confides to his wife,

"Hot is not the word.

For the past ten days,

we've had 58 to
60 degrees in the sun.

I've already lost 20 pounds.

If they don't
get us out of here,

it'll drive us all mad."

"The biggest
problem was water,"

laments another soldier.

"Drinking, always drinking.

That was the
be-all and end-all of
our desert existence."

The soldiers are
also confronted with
the scourge of the desert:

the flies.

Shortly after sunrise,
they arrive in hordes,

attracted by human sweat,

the only moisture available
in these arid lands.

There is no way
to escape them.

Rommel's men find no
comfort in the food.

It's insufficient in
both quality and quantity.

They try to improve the
quality of their meals by

buying from the Bedouins.

This trade may improve
Robert Witzke's daily life,

but above all, it
confirms his loathsome racism.

"These dogs are so wily, that
they ask a fortune for an egg.

We all reckon they're spies."

"If you look at
these filthy bastards,

then there is only one thing,
away with the riff raff."

At the
height of summer,
in the Libyan desert,

the crushing heat
immobilizes the armies.

While the men of the
Afrika Korps suffer from

the lack
of supplies, opposite,

in the British units camped
on the Egyptian border,

it's depression
that's tormenting the men.

They have been living in
isolation in the desert for

eight months now and have
no way to distract themselves.

Overwhelmed with boredom, a
soldier writes in his diary,

"Every day it's
the same old thing.

The desert's everywhere.

It drains your spirit.

There's nothing
here to look at,

nothing to listen to.

The only thing that
keeps us holding on
is thoughts of home."

Churchill
is exasperated.

Everything suggests that his
worn-out troops are incapable

of beating Rommel.

So the Prime Minister decides
to send the reinforcements

that have been
called up over the months
from all over the Empire.

From now on, North Africa has
become a major theater of war.

Indians, Africans, Maltese,

Jews from Palestine,

Mauritians.

In the autumn of 1941
more than 150,000 men

come to swell
the British ranks.

They are joined
by the Free French.

Responding to the call
of General De Gaulle,

they will carry on the fight
to restore France's honor.

By engaging his
massive forces,

Churchill forces
Hitler to raise the stakes.

Nearly 2,000 miles from
the burning sands of Africa,

the great offensive
against the USSR is entering

a decisive phase.

At temperatures of
minus 22 Fahrenheit

the Wehrmacht are
trying to take Moscow.

At the very moment
when the east is taking up
all his attention however,

Hitler decides to send
reinforcements to his protégé.

He can't afford to
lose North Africa.

By entrusting command to
an uncontrollable general,

the Fuhrer has turned
the desert into a trap,

because Rommel hasn't
given up on his fantasies.

On the contrary.

In January 1942, Hitler's
promised reinforcements

finally arrive.

That's barely enough to
solve his logistical problems,

but just enough to let him
dream of a new raid on Cairo.

Once again, to
everyone's surprise,

Rommel resumes his mad dash.

Overexcited, he
writes to his wife Lucie,

"Dear Lucie, I have several
plans in mind that I would

never dare talk to my
officers about at the moment

or they might think
I was going crazy.

You know me, it's
the wee small hours that

my best plans come to me."

There is no
guarantee that the British

will be able to stop it.

Their new General,
Claude Auchinleck,

has a clear superiority
in both men and equipment.

But Churchill's not
betting on the right horse.

Auchinleck does not know
how to surround himself with

the right people.

He had served for a
long time in India,

and has chosen his
subordinates poorly.

For months, he sends hundreds
of tanks to the slaughterhouse

by charging
frontal assaults worthy of

old fashioned cavalry charges.

In May 1942, Rommel
tries an unprecedented and

very risky maneuver to put
his enemy out of the game.

He decides to bypass the
defense line protecting Tobruk

in order to catch him
from behind and crush him.

But in a remote area,

he comes across an
unexpected obstacle,

Bir Hakeim.

It's a position that
the Free French under

General Koenig
have been holding onto.

Just a handful of them:

3,700 men.

Despite the deluge
of fire unleashed by
the Panzers and Stukas,

they managed, by
their heroic resistance,

to block the
Afrika Korps for 15 days.

The British,
grateful, salute the exploit.

Thanks to the precious hours
gained by De Gaulle's men,

Auchinleck's 8th Army,
in the midst of a debacle,

has avoided being surrounded.

It withdraws
its troops behind
the Egyptian border but,

for the second time,

abandons the east
of Libya to the enemy.

Here is Tobruk.

Rommel has
achieved his main objective,

to capture the port of Tobruk.

Robert Witzke
plays a leading role

in this victory.

"Our battalion," he exults,

"Had once again
the honorable task

to form the lead.

Jesus Christ, Tobruk is ours!

It's still hard to believe."

Two days after his triumph,

Robert Witzke is
severely injured.

He is evacuated to Germany.

Marshal Rommel
inspects positions
in the city's harbor.

There are still dense
clouds of smoke above Tobruk.

German war
reporters followed Rommel's

every step during the
last phase of the battle.

Their images give his
exploit a global impact.

The Desert Fox myth has begun.

And
while the cameras are
all focused on Rommel,

they're careful not
to film the vendetta of

the Italian settles.

The Arab people
chose the British camp.

They pay the price.

The looting and the
murders are multiplying.

One Italian rejoices,

"No sooner had
the English fled than

any Arab we found got
a bullet in the head or

a grenade in the stomach.

Our soldiers are here now,

finishing the job."

There's violence too
against Libya's 30,000 Jews,

whether they supported
the British or not.

Fascist racial laws have
previously been applied only

mildly to these
Italian citizens,

but military setbacks
provoke a radicalization of

the fascist regime.

Il Duce decides to intern
all the Jews in the region.

Entire families
are being arrested,

loaded into trucks and dumped
in concentration camps set up

on the edge of the desert.

The worst of these
detention camps is in Giado,

150 miles south of Tripoli.

About 3,000 prisoners
will be held there,

a quarter of them will
die of undernourishment

and ill treatment.

The disaster of Tobruk
strikes Churchill as he meets

Franklin Roosevelt
at the White House.

"It is one of the
heaviest blows I can
recall during the war.

Defeat is one thing,
disgrace is another."

Churchill's way of
ruling is openly questioned.

The British don't
trust their Prime Minister
to lead the war anymore.

As Mussolini did with Hitler,

Churchill must now win
the support of his ally.

His political
survival is at stake.

In meeting after meeting,
he harasses Roosevelt to

help him annihilate
the Afrika Korps.

His plan is to
land in North Africa.

Like Hitler, the
American generals have

no desire to
intervene in this region.

They believe that
to defeat Germany,

you have to strike at
its heart, in Europe.

So they're planning a
landing on the French coast

that could happen in
barely a year's time.

To
convince his host,

Churchill insists that
it would be harmful to
remain inactive for a year,

with public opinion
in the U.S. impatient

and hungry for victories.

It's an argument that
doesn't leave the American
President indifferent,

and it's true that he
is soon to face elections.

The Desert Fox
ignores all this scheming.

At the end of June 1942, he
decides to advance into Egypt,

with Hitler's
blessing this time.

The Fuhrer now considers
the conquest of Egypt as a

historic opportunity to
bring down the British Empire.

El Alamein is a
small railway station
on the Egyptian coast.

Nobody could guess
this lost place would
soon go down in history.

Yet this is where
the British will change

the course of the war.

Claude Auchinleck has chosen
this position so as not to be

surrounded again
by the Desert Fox.

It has impassable
obstacles on every side.

The sea to the north,

a vast area of
soft sand to the south.

In July 1942, Rommel
launches what he hopes would

be a decisive
offensive at El Alamein.

As soon
as the German offensive
was launched at El Alamein,

things go very wrong
for the British soldiers.

Over the past year, they
suffered defeat after defeat,

despite their
superior numbers.

The inept strategies
of their leaders and

their fear of Rommel
have undermined their resolve.

In
his field hospital,

Dr. James Graham is
seeing a flood of soldiers,

all wounded and unable
to continue the fight.

He discovers that some would
rather mutilate themselves

than go back to
the front line.

"The tricks used was to
break up a rifle cartridge and

swallow the explosive,
a poison for the liver.

After a few weeks in hospital,

there's a chance you might
get a non-combatant job."

In the summer of 1942,
Auchinleck sees his men

surrender in
droves to the enemy.

Such defeatism
is unacceptable.

He calls for the
reintroduction of

the death penalty
for deserters.

Auchinleck managed to
contain the Axis offensive
but falls into disgrace.

He is held responsible for

the collapse of
his troops' morale.

Devoured by anxiety,
Winston Churchill rushes to

Cairo in early August.

He abruptly dismisses
Claude Auchinleck.

To replace him,

he opts for
General Bernard Montgomery.

Churchill finds him proud,

but he chooses
Montgomery because he
has a precious quality:

an immense
self confidence that

he is able to communicate
to those around him.

James Graham is attached to
Montgomery's headquarters.

He sees him scrambling
to cure the ailments that

plague his men.

"Montgomery is out every day.

He goes assiduously
around all the units to

introduce himself
to the soldiers.

Never before has a
commander done that."

Montgomery's message to his
troops is simple but firm,

"The defense of Egypt
lies here at Alamein.

Here we will stand and fight.

There will be no
further withdrawal."

Clearly under him,

they'll not give an
inch of ground to Rommel.

James Graham confirms it.

"That was enough to
earn their loyalty.

Everyone likes to be
on the winning side."

Strategically,
Montgomery is the
absolute opposite of Rommel.

The British strategist,
for his part, likes to

prepare his
plans meticulously.

At the end of August when
Rommel goes on the offensive,

Montgomery is waiting for him.

Rather than gamble on an
unlikely decisive battle,

Montgomery decides to
wear his opponent out.

He does, after all, have a
clear material superiority.

"My plan is to
contain the enemy's
tanks while we carry out

a methodical destruction
of his defensive system.

The enemy will be
cut from his supplies."

Montgomery's target
is Rommel's weak point:

his petrol supply convoys.

Werner Mork
drives a supply truck
for the Afrika Korps.

He suffers
another air attack
that will mark him for

the rest of his life.

"The attack only
lasted a few moments.

I'm pretty messed up."

"Ever since, I've
been overwhelmed by
a mindless sense of panic.

It's with me now, the
war in all its cruelty,

all its horror."

Montgomery's wear and
tear strategy has paid off.

After a month of fighting,
the Afrika Korps has only

a few days of fuel left.

On October 27, 1942,

the Desert Fox is
finally done for.

British intelligence
intercepts a German message

indicating the imminent
arrival of two Italian tankers

in the port of Tobruk.

As they prepare
to drop anchor,

the ships are sunk by
Royal Air Force bombers.

So, due to a lack of fuel,

Rommel can simply no
longer afford to act.

Rommel has suffered a
terrible defeat at El Alamein.

He knows that this will ruin

his Fuhrer's
ambitions in Africa.

It's a broken man
who writes to his wife.

"God only knows whether I
will survive this defeat.

If I never return,

I would like from
the bottom of my heart,

to thank you and our
son for all the love and

happiness you
have brought me."

The victory at El Alamein
marks a turning point

in World War II.

The
British Prime Minister
doesn't hide his pleasure.

It is not even the
beginning of the end.

But it is perhaps the
end of the beginning.

Churchill gloats.

He knows that the Reich's days
in Africa are now numbered.

American troops have just
disembarked in North Africa.

On the beaches of
Morocco and Algeria,

two French colonies.

Despite opposition
from his staff,

Roosevelt yields to Churchill.

The U.S. President wants to
win the midterm elections.

He has promised his
public an easy victory
on the African continent.

Initially scheduled
to last six weeks,

Operation Torch, the
epilogue of the Desert War,

will in fact last
for six long months.

The British and American
forces and Montgomery's army

have planned to
meet up in Tunisia.

It's an ideal
springboard to hit Europe.

A project Hitler wants
to prevent by all means.

The Fuhrer had hesitated
to support the Afrika Korps.

He now sends heavy
reinforcements to Tunisia,

and even transfers some of
the Luftwaffe bombers from

the Russian front.

The ferocity of
the fighting dulls the
Americans' enthusiasm,

especially since
their first clash with

the Wehrmacht in
February 1943 in Kasserine.

It was a disaster.

But that terrible baptism of
fire has toughened them up.

Now the battle-hardened
American forces can

join up with
Montgomery's British army.

With
overwhelming superiority now,

the British and Americans
launch their final offensive

in central Tunisia.

The British enter Tunis,

while the Americans
enter Bizerte.

The Axis troops, crammed
into their final refuge,

surrender unconditionally.

The Allies take
275,000 prisoners,

far more than the
90,000 men taken at
the fall of Stalingrad.

These thousands of soldiers
won't now be able to repel

the allies at the
Normandy landing.

And so ends the Desert War.

It's a victory that drives
the Germans out of Africa.

Now the Allies are
ready to engage in

the great confrontation
in western Europe.

Along with Montgomery,
they've tamed modern warfare.

The lesson has been learned,

by the leaders as
well as their men,

at the cost of
unspeakable suffering.

The people
celebrate their liberators,

but all the
jubilation is ambiguous.

The Allied victory
may have rid Africa
of the plague of Nazism,

but despite all the promises,

it has not broken the
chains of colonialism.

The Desert War will lead
to the defeat of the Reich.

It will also herald a new era:

that of the liberation
of colonized nation.

Captioned by
Cotter Media Group.