3+ Hours Of WW2 Facts To Fall Asleep To

0:00 [Music] [Music] September the 1st 1939 German

0:58 troops thrust deep into Poland to win a Swift and absolute Victory barely 20

1:06 years earlier their forefathers had also been

1:10 on the March but back into their Homeland as a defeated Army in November

1:17 1918 after 4 years of World War I Germany's Emperor Kaiser vilhelm II had

1:23 been forced to abdicate his armies were

1:27 being ground down by a remorseless offensive

1:30 by British French and US troops his people

1:35 faced [Music] starvation but already a dangerous

1:41 myth was taking route the German generals

1:46 and troops claimed that they hadn't been

1:48 defeated in battle but betrayed by their own cowardly politicians even so at 11:

1:58 in the morning on November the 11th 1918

2:01 the 11th Hour of the 11th day of the 11th

2:04 month World War I came to an end the following

2:13 month President woodro Wilson of the United States arrived

2:17 in Europe promising to create a new world

2:23 order he persuaded the world's leaders to sign up

2:26 to a new League of Nations at the Treaty

2:32 of Versa they agreed that from now on disputes between countries

2:36 would be resolved not by fighting but by debate

2:40 in the league the peoples of Europe were set

2:46 free Germany's Ally the austr Hungarian Empire was dismembered

2:52 out of it new nations were created Austria Poland Hungary

2:58 Czechoslovakia Yugoslavia lvia Lithuania and Estonia Germany itself was

3:05 greatly reduced in [Music] size but this process contained

3:11 a time bomb not everyone celebrated the birth of countries

3:16 like Czechoslovakia several of them contain substantial German minorities

3:23 one day the desire to reunite the German peoples

3:27 would come to haunt Europe the war torn German

3:32 people also had one final indignity inflicted on them

3:37 they were forced to pay a massive 6.6 billion

3:41 in reparations to France and Britain something they could

3:45 ill afford and when he returned to America Wilson's

3:50 New World Order immediately fell apart the US Congress

3:55 decided it could not risk being sucked into another war

3:58 in Europe it refused to join his league

4:01 and the US withdrew into isolationism Germany was now a very

4:09 different Nation it was still Europe's biggest country but its

4:13 militaristic monarchy had gone it had become a democracy

4:19 but its government the so-called viar Republic was soon

4:23 struck by a series of hammer bones Street battles

4:29 erupted between extreme right-wing nationalists and Communists trying to start

4:33 a revolution then in 1923 the country was devastated

4:41 by hyperinflation which reached hundreds of percent a month

4:48 ordinary people's savings were wiped out this was fertile

4:55 ground for a new breed of rabble rousing right-wing

4:58 politicians [Music] ending among them Adolf Hitler Hitler had been

5:08 born in Austria he had fought bravely as a soldier

5:11 in World War I and been awarded the iron

5:16 cross on returning to Germany he settled in Munich

5:20 and his fiery oratory soon enabled him to seize

5:23 control of the small National Socialist or Nazi party

5:28 [Music] in October 1923 Hitler and his henchmen attempted

5:36 an armed coup against the viar government it failed

5:40 and he was sentenced to 9 [Music] months in prison

5:46 he wrote a book my encamp my struggle in which

5:50 he blamed Germany's Hills on the Jews and demanded

5:54 that it rebuild its strength and seek new territories

5:57 in the east on his release he set about building

6:03 the Nazis into a proper disciplined political party from now

6:09 on he would use the democratic system to achieve

6:14 power but for the next 5 years viar Germany

6:18 prospered support for extremist parties left and right dwindled

6:24 then suddenly Hitler's opportunity arrived in October 1929

6:35 the US Stock Market crashed billions of dollars were lost

6:41 and an economic depression swept across the world unemployment

6:46 in Germany soared to over 6 million only extremist politicians

6:51 seemed to offer a solution like hit by 1931

7:03 his Nazis were a true Mass move and they

7:07 had their own Brown shirted thugs the sa storm

7:11 troops who numbered almost 3 million in the 1932 elections

7:18 the Nazis became the largest party in Germany's Parliament

7:21 the rear but Hitler refused to join a coalition leaving

7:28 Parliament paralyzed to break the arm pass president Hindenberg

7:33 made him Chancellor in January 1933 head of the government

7:43 within a month the Reich doag burned down Hitler

7:46 accused the Communists and demanded emergency Powers he then

7:51 used them to ban all other political parties

7:56 in August 1934 president Hindenberg died Hitler declared himself president

8:02 he was now absolute leader the furer of [Applause]

8:14 [Music] Germany at first there was little sign of what

8:19 was to come for the next 3 years

8:23 the fura concentrated on rebuilding Germany's economy he spent Millions

8:28 on public works including the 5,000m auto system to soak

8:33 up the unemployed but in secret Hitler was also

8:40 spending lavishly on a huge rearmament program under the Versa

8:47 treaty the German Army had been limited to 100,000

8:50 men the country was forbidden to have an Air

8:53 Force tanks or [Music] submarines this small army was

9:01 trebled in size then in 1935 Hitler came out

9:06 into the open he unveiled a brand new Air Force

9:10 the Luft vaff it had 2 and a half

9:13 thousand planes far more than Britain or France unemployment

9:20 plunged and the Nazis became enormously popular now emboldened

9:28 nafura made his first expansionist move in 1935 he reoccupied

9:34 the saan district on the French border after it

9:37 voted to return from League of Nations to German rule

9:44 a year later he sent German troops into the reinand

9:47 part of Germany which had been demilitarized at versailes

9:55 at the time many felt that Hitler was only

9:57 claiming back what was rightfully germanies neither Britain nor

10:01 France objected when Berlin hosted the 1936 Olympic Games

10:11 the Nazis were seen by many as firm but fair

10:15 a government which was restoring the nation's pride

10:19 and which didn't threaten [Applause] anyone of course there were

10:25 signs the 1935 nurmberg laws forbad Jews to to marry

10:29 true Aryan Germans and deprived them of their citizenship

10:36 but when the first threats came to world peace

10:39 they didn't come from Hitler at all but from somewhere

10:44 else [Music] entirely Japan at the start

10:57 of the 20th century was already a military power it

11:03 had defeated Russia in a war in 1905

11:06 and it had fought alongside the Allies in World War

11:11 I after the war Japan was an acknowledged world

11:15 power and it signed up to the League of Nations

11:22 but politically it was a mess of contradictions nominally

11:28 a democracy the feudal tradition was still strong Most

11:32 Japanese revered their Emperor as a living God and regarded

11:36 him as their true leader and the country faced

11:40 major economic problems its population was exploding and it

11:47 had no natural resources to fuel its rapidly expanding Industries

11:53 its leaders needed Solutions and they saw them in Chinese

11:57 Manchuria Manchuria was a land of Rich grain Fields

12:05 with plenty of coal and minerals it was

12:08 a perfect Target Japanese troops were already stationed there other

12:16 possible targets were the colonies ruled by the European

12:19 powers Burma Mala and Hong Kong controlled by Britain Indochina

12:25 ruled by France and the Dutch East Indies

12:30 but at this stage Japan had to be cautious they

12:33 didn't want to Rouse the other great power

12:36 in the Pacific the United States for all its Anti-Imperialist slogans

12:44 the US actually ran an unofficial Empire in the Pacific

12:48 the Philippines Guam and several islands were under

12:52 its direct rule it undoubtedly had the strength to take

12:58 on Japan but since the end of World War

13:00 I it had had other distractions this was America's

13:12 Jazz [Applause] Age throughout the 1920s a nation concentrated

13:21 on exploiting its vast resources it was an economic boom

13:26 that seemed Without End Fortune were made both in industry

13:31 and the stock markets America seemed lost

13:35 to the increasing pursuit of [Music] pleasure with distractions like

13:43 these Japan's growing pains in the Pacific seemed very

13:47 far away America had slashed its Army after World War

13:53 I and agreed a naval reduction treaty with Britain

13:57 France and Japan this in effect handed Naval superiority

14:04 in the Pacific to the Japanese and then came

14:11 the Great Depression as the economic Devastation spread a quarter

14:24 of the population lost their jobs tens of thousands

14:27 were made homeless living in Shanty towns whereas before

14:33 it had been distracted by Pleasure now America was

14:37 distracted by pain it was time for Japan to make

14:40 her [Applause] move in 1931 without even informing their own

14:53 elected government the Japanese forces in Manchuria seized the capital

14:57 Muk and then overran the rest of the territory

15:04 a puppet state Manu qu was proclaimed under a puppet

15:08 ruler Henry Pui The Last Emperor of China who

15:12 had been deposed in 1911 was dragged out of retirement

15:19 discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries

15:22 and adree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all on History

15:26 hit watch them on your smart TV

15:28 or on the go with your mobile device download the app

15:31 now to watch everything from the gripping story

15:33 of the Band of Brothers to operation Barbarosa and dday immerse

15:37 yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era

15:40 by signing up via the link in the description

15:47 at its headquarters in Geneva the League of Nations

15:49 now faced its first great test Japan was universally condemned

15:57 but her response was blunt Japan however find it

16:03 impossible to accept the report adopted by the assembly

16:10 the Japanese then just walked out and the league

16:13 suddenly realized there was nothing he could do about Manchuria

16:23 Japan was declared an international Pariah but it didn't

16:26 care its leaders had turned their eyes to further

16:30 conquests in China these were easy pickings China was

16:37 in a state of chaos the government of generalisimo changai

16:41 Sheek was locked in conflict with the Chinese Communist

16:44 Party under ma there was Civil War in 1936

16:58 as a prec cursive to Invasion the Japanese signed

17:01 a pact with Hitler the aim is to guard against

17:04 any attack by Soviet Russia were it to move

17:07 on China then in July 1937 the Japanese provoked

17:15 an incident with Chinese troops and invaded at first

17:30 the Chinese were taken by surprise but they soon

17:36 for back fiercely the Communists even joining the Quan

17:40 Tang in a United fight the Japanese responded with amphibious

17:47 Landings by the end of 1937 they had overrun

17:51 much of northern China and the coast [Music] the Japanese

18:02 fought this war with exceptional brutality bombing cities

18:08 indiscriminately westerners living in the commercial center the port

18:12 of Shanghai were now evacuated the city was then

18:16 besieged for 3 months [Music] [Music] it suffered widespread damage

18:39 the Japanese forces showing no pity or concern

18:42 for the native population but it was after the capture

18:48 of Nan King then the Chinese capital on December

18:52 the 17th 1937 that the Japanese forces really ran a mock

18:58 over three 300,000 civilians are estimated to have been

19:01 massacred during a 6 week orgy of rape and indiscriminate

19:11 killing the Japanese even attacked British and US warships

19:15 which had been sent to protect their shipping and trade

19:20 the worst incident came on December the 12th 1937

19:23 the American gunboat pan was sunk by Japanese bombers

19:28 50 crewmen died despite this the Western Powers refused

19:34 to intervene so the League of Nations could do nothing

19:44 in the United States President Rosevelt wanted to impose

19:47 a naval blockade of Japan it has become clear

19:51 that acts and policies of nations in other parts

19:56 of the world have far far reaching effects on us

20:02 but the British would have none of it fearing

20:04 that it might provoke a war so all Rosevelt

20:08 could offer was a $25 million loan to chanai

20:12 Sheek to buy [Music] arms even though the Communists were

20:17 now fighting alongside the quman Tang the Soviet Union

20:21 did little to help either its only involvement was

20:24 a series of clashes along its own border

20:26 with manur but China itself received nothing instead it had

20:35 to fight on alone during 1938 the Japanese overran

20:44 Canton and pushed the Chinese forces deeper into the west

20:48 of the country all the rhetoric of the League

20:51 of Nations all those promises to stop International aggression had

20:56 come to nothing and by now the Western Powers

20:59 were facing aggression much closer to [Applause] Hal today

21:22 it is easy to laugh at Bonito musolini

21:25 the fascist dictator of Italy all that posture ing seems

21:29 faintly ridiculous now but it didn't seem that way

21:33 in [Music] 1922 back then Italy had seemed to be

21:41 on the edge of Anarchy the country was Riven

21:44 by strikes and land CES the democratic government just

21:49 as in Germany seemed powerless in the face

21:52 of such unrest so Bonito musolini the war veteran

21:56 and a journalist decided to take a stand he organized

22:00 a right-wing nationalist party the fascists with a country Paralyzed

22:07 by a general strike in August 1922 musolini ordered

22:11 his followers to march on road fearing a civil war

22:18 Italy's King Victor Emanuel asked him to form a government

22:31 musolini swiftly Stamped Out any political opposition and assumed dictatorial

22:43 Powers by 1928 his position seemed secure Parliament was

22:48 appointed rather than elected and all power was firmly

22:52 in the hands of the fascist Grand Council like

23:00 Hitler melini's first acts made him immensely popular massive programs

23:06 of Public Works provided employment and transformed Italy's [Music]

23:13 infrastructure corruption was rooted out and the mafia more

23:17 or less eliminated Italy's armed forces were built up

23:24 including an advanced modern Air Force in the Mediterranean musolini

23:32 launched a powerful navy bigger than the combined might

23:35 of the British and French Mediterranean fleets when the Great

23:42 Depression came Italy seemed to weather it better than

23:49 most musolini became a source of worldwide inspiration political

23:54 leaders not least Adolf Hitler in Germany saw

23:57 the fascist system as a role model strong and purposeful

24:02 in contrast to the weakness of the democracies in Britain

24:05 and France but musolini wanted more than adulation he

24:11 wanted to recreate the Roman Empire and he already

24:15 had a Target in mind for his first Imperial

24:19 land gr his Target was ABIA today's Ethiopia Italy

24:31 already had colonies on its borders in Eritrea and Italian

24:36 Somali land in December 1934 Italian forces provoked a clash

24:44 with Abyssinian troops at an oasis in the ogaden

24:47 region well inside abian [Music] territory musolini then sent

24:56 reinforcements to Eritrea and Italian Somali land demanding that abisinia

25:01 pay reparations the Emperor of abisinia Highly salassi appealed

25:10 in person to the League of [Music] Nations he

25:16 called on it to live up to its ideals

25:19 here was a small nation under threat from another member

25:22 of the League this was the Supreme test

25:26 but the league did nothing Britain's foreign minister Anthony Eden

25:31 at least tried to broker a peace deal but musolini

25:35 would have none of it in early October 1935

25:41 the Italian Army invaded from Eritrea and Italian [Music]

25:49 Somalia the Primitive abian forces stood little chance against

25:53 a modern Army equipped with artillery and tax [Music]

26:09 the Italian Air Force had total command of the air

26:12 and harried the absans on occasions dropping gas bombs even

26:19 though gas had been outlawed at versailes as a crime

26:23 against humanity after 6 months abis was completely overrun

26:31 the emperor H salassi fled into Exile in Britain

26:39 from its headquarters in Switzerland the League of Nations

26:42 rung its hands it did impose economic sanctions but they

26:47 had little effect melini's aggression had revealed two things

26:55 the League of Nations that great hope for peace

26:58 was impotent and both Europe's supposed major Powers

27:03 the democracies Britain and France no longer had the stomach

27:07 for a [Music] fight both Britain and France had

27:16 been Shattered by World War I and their economies had

27:20 never really recovered both had witnessed waves of strikes

27:27 and unrest both had suffered mass unemployment even before

27:32 the Great [Music] Depression both also faced the cost

27:40 of controlling Empires now swollen by taking on German's former

27:44 colonies and the Middle Eastern territories once run

27:48 by the Turkish Ottoman Empire and above all both had

27:54 been traumatized by the horrific casualties of World War

27:59 I a succession of British leaders Lloyd George Ramsey McDonald

28:03 and above all Stanley Baldwin All resolved to keep

28:07 Britain out of future conflicts despite horrific casualties

28:14 on the Western Front Britain had ended World War I

28:17 with a large and very effective conscript Army this was

28:22 immediately run down to a small professional Force designed

28:26 to police its sprawling Empire and when the Great Depression

28:32 struck any ideas of modernizing the army were abandoned

28:36 it meant that Britain went into the runup to war

28:39 economically and militarily weak French losses during World War

28:48 I had been even worse than the British ever

28:54 mistrustful of the Germans a large conscript Army was

28:58 maintained but throughout the 1920s France's birth rate had

29:02 declined it became clear that there would be

29:05 a Manpower shortage by the mid to late 1930s France

29:09 realized it could never compete with Germany on the size

29:13 of its Army alone the solution was to adopt

29:22 an entirely defensive mentality [Music] the majino line a series

29:33 of fortifications was begun in 1930 along the frontier

29:37 with Germany and ran as far as the Belgian

29:42 border there it theoretically linked up with fortifications planned

29:47 by the belgians this new French military approach meant

29:54 that France was only capable of waging a defensive War

29:58 it just did not have the ability to launch

30:00 an attack on Italy even if the British had had

30:03 the troops to help and of course both countries

30:08 knew that their navies in the Mediterranean were outnumbered

30:12 by melini's new Fleet so when Italy conquered abisinia

30:21 it made sense for both powers to do nothing it

30:25 just seemed too remote too much T someone else's

30:30 [Music] [Applause] problem by now they both had to deal

30:37 with all the traumas of the Great Depression

30:40 that seemed so much more pressing and above all they

30:45 were now faced with a military threat far closer

30:47 to [Music] home a resurgent and rearming Germany and Germany's

30:59 power and that of Italy too was soon about

31:02 to be demonstrated in supporting the rise of another

31:07 dictator in [Applause] Spain in 1936 Civil War erupted

31:22 in Spain it was exceptionally vicious setting family against family

31:28 communist against fascist Believers against [Music] atheists in 1931

31:38 a left-wing government had come to power determined to get

31:41 rid of the centuries old Spanish monarchy the King

31:46 was forced into Exile and a republic was declared

31:54 in February 1936 the parties of the left combined

31:58 in a popular front to take on the forces

32:00 of the right in a general election the popular

32:03 front won narrow even though its reform program was modest

32:11 the wave of strikes and land seizes led the right

32:14 to fear that a communist takeover was [Music] inevitable

32:23 within the Spanish Army Long a Bastion of conservative

32:27 and Catholic thinking senior officers began to consider the possibility

32:32 of a coupe among them was General Francisco Franco

32:38 a former Chief of Staff who had been effectively

32:41 exiled to command Spain's forces in the Canary Islands

32:49 on July the 17th 1936 the units of the army

32:53 fighting guerillas in Spain's colony in Morocco mued the next

33:00 day Franco flew to join them proclaiming a new

33:04 nationalist movement which would save Spain from communism Mainland

33:10 garrisons now join this Revolt the popular front responded

33:15 by calling for volunteers to defend the Republic Battle

33:19 lines had been [Music] drawn at first Franco faced problems

33:28 he and his army were in North Africa

33:30 and he had to get across the Straits of Gibralter

33:33 back to Spain so he turned to the one

33:36 person he thought might help Adolf Hitler within a month

33:46 Transport Aircraft from Hitler's new Luft buffer had begun

33:49 an airlift taking Franco's battle hardened veterans over to Southern

33:53 space [Music] at this stage the Republic still seem

34:06 to have the advantage the pro- Franco military uprisings

34:11 in Madrid and Barcelona were quickly crushed leaving it

34:15 in control of most of the east of the country

34:21 Franco's nationalists were confined largely to the Northwest

34:25 and part of the South but the Nationalist situation was

34:34 transformed when Hitler and musolini started to pour

34:38 in troops and weapons the German dictator seized the opportunity

34:46 to test his new equipment and expanding armed forces

34:52 the first Panza tanks were sent along with some 12,000

34:55 troops and the LT buffer deployed its Condor Legion

35:01 with its ultramodern new bombers and [Music] Fighters musolini

35:14 sent a so-called volunteer core of 50,000 men and more

35:18 than 700 aircraft in vain did the Republicans appeal

35:26 to Britain France and the Soviet Union for help

35:32 but London and Paris were scared of setting off

35:35 a European War they declared a policy of non-intervention cynically

35:45 both Germany and Italy signed up to this but when

35:48 it became obvious that they were still sending arms

35:51 to the nationalists Yosef Stalin the Soviet leader announced

35:55 that he would help the Republic Stalin's worry was

36:02 the rise of fascism in Germany Hitler had made

36:06 it abundantly clear that he believed communism to be

36:09 Nazism Ultimate Enemy Stalin saw the Spanish conflict

36:18 as a way of keeping Germany and Italy occupied while

36:21 building up the Soviet Union's military strength about 700 military

36:28 advisers were sent along with tanks and fighter aircraft

36:32 it was something but no match for the support

36:35 Franco had received in fact the largest source of outside

36:42 help for the Republic didn't come from a country

36:45 at all but from volunteers the international brigades about

36:50 30,000 left-wing Americans British French and Germans signed up

36:55 to fight in Spain with their new fascist support

37:03 the nationalists were able to open two fronts one advancing

37:07 towards Barcelona from the north the other led by Franco

37:11 pushing up towards Madrid from the south by the end

37:17 of 1936 Madrid was enveloped on three sides

37:21 and virtually Under Siege the fighting was intense and often

37:28 accompanied by appalling atrocities against civilians the Republicans hunted

37:35 down and murdered Roman Catholic priests the nationalists slaughtered

37:40 anyone accused of being [Music] communist German and Italian

37:46 air power was used indiscriminately against civilian targets Madrid was

37:53 heavily bombed but the worst incident came in April

37:59 1937 when The Basque town of gica was virtually

38:03 obliterated with 6,000 civilian deaths the area controlled

38:11 by the Republic was steadily ground its forces fought with great

38:16 gallantry but undertrained and undere equipped amateurs were

38:20 no match for the professional soldiers led by Franco

38:24 or for the combined modern Weaponry of Italy [Music]

38:31 Germany as the war dragged on the fighting around Madrid

38:35 became a symbol of the left's determination not to be

38:38 crushed by a fascist dictatorship but behind the scenes

38:44 the Republican Alliance was falling apart the Communists

38:48 and socialists wanted to concentrate on winning a military Victory

38:54 but the more idealistic anarchists and syndic ists saw

38:58 the war as an opportunity for a mass Revolution

39:01 by the workers these disagreements burst out into the open

39:08 in May 1937 fighting broke out in Barcelona

39:12 between the anarchists and Communists it was a fatal

39:15 weakening of the Republican Court by the end of 1938

39:23 the nationalists had penned their enemy into a small

39:26 Enclave around Barcelona and another stretching Eastward from Madrid

39:31 to the coast Madrid continued to hold out

39:41 but the international brigades were withdrawn more and more Nations began

39:47 to recognize Franco's government as his forces closed

39:51 in for the final assault on Madrid [Music] at the end

40:01 of March 1939 his Defenders exhausted after nearly 3

40:05 years of fighting the capital finally [Music] surrendered a month

40:16 later Franco forly declared hostilities at an [Music] end

40:25 the scars of Spain's civil War took years to heal

40:29 and in some ways they never have and internationally

40:36 Franco's victory over the Republic proved a disaster Hitler

40:42 and musolini were confirmed in their belief that the democracies

40:45 of Britain and France were impotent to resist

40:48 any real pressure while Stalin despaired of their willingness

40:55 to confront fascism Hitler in particular saw his way

41:01 open to begin the aggressive policies outlined in mamp

41:07 even before the Spanish Civil War ended his armies were

41:11 on the [Applause] march from the moment he became

41:20 chancellor of Germany on January the 30th 1933 Hitler

41:25 had begun to put his long-term Ambitions into [Applause]

41:31 action on February the 3rd he told his top commanders

41:36 that his ultimate aim was to conquer territory

41:38 in the East and ruthlessly germanize it they were instructed

41:44 to prepare for a massive [Music] expansion although Germany had

41:51 been forbidden tanks a secret treaty with the Soviet Union

41:54 in 1923 had allowed the develop Vel M

41:57 of tank designs and experimentation with new mobile armored tactics

42:04 energetic young German officers like Hein Garian read the theories

42:08 of British thinkers like basil little Hart and Colonel

42:12 John Fuller they even watched exercises being carried out

42:17 by the British during the 1920s on soulsby play it

42:21 was from these that they came up with the idea

42:23 of fast moving units combining tanks artill and infantry

42:28 that could thrust fast and deep into enemy territory

42:36 Hitler adopted their ideas with enthusiasm the new Army

42:41 was to have three Panza divisions similarly the new

42:47 Air Force the LT baffer under former World War I

42:51 fighter Ace Herman guring had had a framework to build

42:54 on throughout the years in which its Air Force

43:00 was officially banned Germany had kept up its design

43:04 skills by building civilian machines and gliding and flying clubs

43:10 provided a reserve of potential [Music] airc Hitler revealed

43:17 the existence of the LT buffer in March 1935

43:24 he then announced that the Army was to be

43:26 increased to 300,000 men and conscription was reintroduced Britain

43:35 and France protested feebly at this flagrant breach

43:38 of the Versa treaty but soon they reluctantly and slowly began

43:45 to rearm until this point Hitler had been modest

43:55 in his goals he had only taken back what was

43:58 his the reinand and Salah but now he had

44:03 a grander Target in mind his homeland Austria in 1934

44:10 Austrian Nazis had attempted to seize power and unify

44:14 the country with Germany the austrians after all spoke

44:19 German even if they had never been part

44:22 of a German state in February 1938 another Nazi plot was

44:29 discovered Austrian Chancellor Kurt Von shush protested to Hitler

44:38 Hitler responded by demanding that Austria stop mistreating the Austrian

44:42 Nazis and Unite with [Music] [Applause] Germany shush Nik

44:54 promptly called a referendum so that the a an could

44:57 vote on whether to remain [Music] independent but on March

45:03 the 12th 1938 the eve of the referendum

45:07 Hitler fearing that it might produce the wrong result

45:10 sent in his troops complete surprise and an enthusiastic

45:16 welcome by Nazi sympathizers made it a bloodless Invasion

45:23 within hours Hitler announced Austria's incorporation into the the third

45:27 Ro a Sovereign Nation had for the first time

45:31 been subsumed into a greater Germany once again the Western

45:37 democracies failed to react in the summer of 1938

45:45 he turned on his next prey Czechoslovakia a substantial

45:50 German minority lived in the northwest of the country

45:53 an area known as the Sudan land these Sudan Germans

46:00 had been part of the old Austrian Empire but had

46:03 been cut off when Czechoslovakia was created in 1990

46:10 this was the time bomb that had started ticking

46:12 at the signing of the Treaty of Versa Hitler

46:19 encouraged sedan German demands for autonomy and then threaten

46:23 the Czech government with Force if it refused to agree

46:29 undaunted the Czech government ordered General mobilization and prepared

46:33 to resist the czechoslovak Army was large and well

46:38 equipped with formidable fortifications on its Frontier with Germany

46:43 Hitler backed off but then at the beginning of September

46:49 concern that war might be imminent the British prime

46:52 minister Neville Chamberlain decided to act as a peacemaker

47:00 he flew to meet Hitler twice the Nazi dictator

47:04 assured him that if he could have the Sudan land

47:06 he would make no further territorial demands in Europe

47:17 in Munich on September the 29th 1938 with musolini acting

47:22 as mediator France and Britain signed an agreement giving

47:25 the Sudan land to Germany in return for a formal

47:29 declaration by Hitler that he had no more territorial

47:37 Ambitions Chamberlain flew back to Britain waving the piece

47:41 of paper which he claimed guarantees peace in our time

47:49 and so on October the 1st German troops occupied

47:52 the Sudan land and seized the Czech Frontier

47:56 for ifications Hitler now began sizing up his next Target

48:10 Poland again the nominal cause was a German minority

48:14 marooned as a result of the Versa treaty Hitler demanded

48:21 the return of the port of danik to German

48:23 control so that East Prussia could be linked up

48:26 with the rest of [Music] Germany the polls refused

48:32 and Hitler hesitated he was not quite ready for allout

48:37 war and he had unfinished business with [Applause] Czechoslovakia

48:43 in March 1939 the eastern part of the country

48:46 Slovakia which was ethnically different to the Czech lands

48:50 appealed to Hitler for help in achieving greater Independence Hitler

48:58 summoned the czechoslovak Prime Minister Emil Hatcher to Berlin

49:02 and browbeat him into putting his country under German

49:07 [Applause] protection German troops now marched into the rest

49:13 of Czechoslovakia unopposed most of the country was annexed

49:18 into the Reich Slovakia was declared a protector

49:24 for the first time Hitler had seized non German speaking territory

49:29 but again there was only a feeble protest from Britain

49:32 and France at the end of March he again

49:37 repeated his demand that Poland give up dancing

49:40 this time France and Britain declared unequivocally that they would

49:44 declare war if he attacked Poland but by now

49:50 Hitler cared little whether they did or not he was

49:54 sure that they would be weak and IND decisive

49:57 [Applause] opponents in Russia Stalin had also become increasingly

50:05 concerned by Hitler's aggression in April Stalin proposed an alliance

50:10 with Britain and France but negotiations made little progress

50:16 and finally Stalin despaired deciding that there was another

50:20 solution to the German threat on August the 2

50:26 3rd the Soviet Union and the Third Reich who

50:30 everyone had believed were sworn enemies announced a non-aggression PCT

50:37 the agreement secretly specified that Poland would be split

50:40 between the two countries and Stalin would have a free

50:43 hand to take over Estonia lava and Lithuania now

50:51 free from any Russian threat Hitler ordered his Armed

50:55 Forces to prepare for for an immediate Invasion

51:01 on the evening of August the 31st the German Fair

51:04 Mar prepared for the assault its furer had made

51:08 the decision which would plunge the world into war [Music]

51:41 [Music] during the afternoon of August the 31st 1939

52:35 German forces made their final preparations for the invasion

52:38 of Poland air Crews studied their targets tanks moved

52:42 to their assault positions then in the early hours of September

52:49 the 1st German soldiers dressed in Polish uniforms attacked

52:52 a radio station on the German side of the Border

52:55 leaving behind some bodies this was the aggression which

53:05 Hitler later used to justify his attack at 8

53:13 that morning German troops pushed aside the Polish Frontier

53:16 barriers and mobile forces raced forward 2 days later

53:26 on sep mber the 3rd Britain and France declared war

53:29 honoring their promise to stand by Poland but by then

53:37 the poles were in deep trouble they were not

53:43 only outnumbered but facing a new form of warfare

53:46 for which they were ill prepared Blitz Creek

53:54 [Music] in 1939 a German Army consisted of 1

54:01 and A2 million men its Elite with the panzas

54:08 tax six armored divisions and four light divisions intended

54:12 for reconnaissance a total of 2,400 taxs these had been

54:20 designed to break through an enemy's defenses and strike deep

54:23 cutting Communications and spreading confusion [Music] enemy strong points

54:31 would be bypassed left to the following infantry to moop

54:39 up the new German air force the Luft vaer

54:42 was also designed for Blitz screen it had 2,500

54:47 aircraft lined up against the [Music] poles the most

54:53 notorious was the juna's ju8 s Shuka dive bomb it

54:58 was a form of flying artillery making pinpoint attacks

55:02 in support of the fast moving ground forces the poles

55:09 could Master just 600 [Music] planes on the ground

55:16 it was just as bad Poland's Army was just

55:20 500,000 strong it had only 880 tanks it even

55:27 had 11 brigades of Cavalry lances and horses against arm

55:35 but it wasn't just numbers that gave the Germans

55:37 their advantage they used their panzas in a radically

55:41 new way the separate hard striking units the Polish

55:48 tanks were dispersed to support their infantry the poll's task

55:55 had been made even more difficult by the German

55:58 takeover of Czechoslovakia the west of the country including

56:02 the capital warsa was now surrounded on three sides

56:06 by German controlled territory this geographical advantage was essential

56:13 to Germany's grand plan the task of the first

56:19 thrust of the tanks was to create an initial

56:23 breakthrough but actually winning the war depend Ed on deep

56:27 pins movements designed to surround and crush the enemy

56:33 these would come from army Group North under General

56:36 fedo Von Bach he would launch two thrusts from Northeast

56:40 Germany and East Prussia Army group South under General

56:44 G Von runet would launch two more from Silesia

56:48 and Slovakia the aim would be for the pincers

56:52 to meet near Warsaw and breast lovk [Music] from the start

57:03 it went well for the Germans polish Air Force

57:11 was effectively eliminated within the first two [Music] days

57:26 panzas cut through and struck deep and nukas

57:32 and medium bombers proved devastatingly [Music] effective the poles were

57:42 sliced apart pinned into Pockets which yielded vast numbers

57:46 of prisoners Legend has it that some Polish Cavalry units

57:55 gallantly tried to attack the [Music] panzers but it

58:00 was [Music] futile they were just brushed aside by September

58:12 the 8th the inner pinces had met up German

58:17 troops were advancing on the outskirts of warsa on September

58:23 the 17th the outer pincers met at breast Lov

58:32 on the same day Soviet forces crossed the Eastern

58:35 polish Frontier as part of the agreement reached between

58:39 Hitler and Stalin in the Nazi Soviet pact the Polish

58:45 Army was now in full Retreat its government fleeing

58:49 abroad Warsaw however fought on its Defenders rejected a German

59:01 offer to surrender so the full Fury of the German

59:04 war machine was turned on [Music] it watching

59:18 it all was Adolf Hitler who had followed close

59:21 behind his conquering Army on September the 27th warsa

59:33 surrendered the next day the victors carved Poland up

59:36 according to the Nazi Soviet PCT the Soviet Union annexed

59:43 slightly over half the country to the East Germany

59:48 took the rest both regimes began rounding up anyone

59:53 who might present a danger in future many were

59:59 murdered and for the first time the Germans revealed how

1:00:02 they would behave against those peoples in Eastern Europe

1:00:06 whom they considered [Music] inferior they sent in the einat's

1:00:12 groupin special SS squats to round up [Music] Jews

1:00:24 most were forced into ghettos in the major cities

1:00:27 where they would be starved to death others were

1:00:32 executed on the [Music] spot this was not however

1:00:40 the end of the Polish Army more than 50,000 troops

1:00:44 escaped and eventually reached France there a provisional government had

1:00:50 been formed by General vladislav Sikorski the poles would

1:00:53 fight on Bravely from abroad [Music] in Britain the air

1:01:06 raid sirens had sounded within minutes of prime minister

1:01:09 Neville Chamberlain's announcement that hostilities had begun in fact

1:01:14 despite their politicians guarantees of Polish sovereignty Britain and France

1:01:18 had done very little to help Poland as Hitler

1:01:21 had gambled they had no idea what to do

1:01:25 once they had actually declared [Music] war both countries

1:01:31 had begun mobilization air raid precautions were speeded up

1:01:37 anti-aircraft guns were placed in major cities shelters were

1:01:45 erected soon children were being evacuated everyone had to carry

1:01:52 gas masks and a blackout was introduced the British

1:01:58 army began to deploy its 100,000 strong expeditionary Force

1:02:01 to northern France French troops did Advance a little way

1:02:09 inside the German border but they refused to move

1:02:12 beyond the protective cover of artillery range the initiative was

1:02:17 still firmly in Hitler's hands and he at least

1:02:22 knew precisely what he was going to do next

1:02:31 the blitz G against Poland had been a stunning

1:02:34 success for adol Vi he had subdued an entire

1:02:38 country in less than 4 weeks and he was

1:02:40 hungry for more so he ordered his generals to plan

1:02:46 to attack the British and French in November 1939

1:02:50 less than 2 months after the fall of Poland

1:02:56 his general staff was a port the bulk

1:02:59 of the German Army was still out east and had

1:03:02 to be moved West and there had been some

1:03:05 serious losses in the Polish campaign lessons had to be

1:03:13 learned polish anti-tank guns had destroyed a divisions worth

1:03:17 of the lightly armored panzas a quarter of the aircraft

1:03:23 used had been lost the panzas were too light

1:03:27 and unreliable and they had frequently outrun both their supply

1:03:31 columns and the marching infantry reluctantly after Furious arguments

1:03:39 Hitler agreed to wait until the following spring meanwhile

1:03:48 his enemies were also learning lessons Britain had thought

1:03:54 that bombers would be a key weapon in the coming

1:03:57 conflict but when on September the 4th Britain's royal

1:04:00 Air Force made a daylight raid on German shipping

1:04:03 seven of the 30 bombers were shot down it

1:04:08 soon became clear that this wasn't a one-off misfortune

1:04:11 in some raids over half the aircraft were lost

1:04:16 British bombers just weren't up to the job so

1:04:20 the RAF switched to night raids and they decided

1:04:23 to drop not bombs but leaflets so as not to provoke

1:04:28 [Music] retaliation so with the blitz C stalled

1:04:36 and the air War quiet the focus now went

1:04:39 to the one remaining Arena the [Music] sea Germany's Navy

1:04:47 was still in the middle of an ambitious building program

1:04:50 that wasn't due to finish until 1948 the command

1:04:55 of its submarine arm Admiral Carl dernitz planned to cut

1:04:59 Britain's supply routes across the Atlantic for this he

1:05:03 wanted 300 oceangoing submarines but he had just 38

1:05:11 nevertheless derit ensured that all available uots were at Sea

1:05:15 on September the 3rd the first day of the war

1:05:18 against Britain that evening believing it to be

1:05:22 an armed Merchant Cruiser u30 sank the line of athenia

1:05:27 without any warning 112 lives were lost including 26

1:05:37 American citizens the Royal Navy dwarfed its German counterpart

1:05:45 it had 12 battleships Germany had none it had

1:05:49 five aircraft carriers Germany again had none so after

1:05:54 the athenia Britain declared a total blockade of German

1:06:02 ports but for all its size the Royal Navy had

1:06:06 too few escort vessels many Merchant ships had to sail

1:06:12 alone and by the end of 1939 more than

1:06:15 a 100 had been suck it quickly became apparent

1:06:21 that the British had woefully underestimated the submarine threat

1:06:25 on September the 17th u29 sank the British aircraft

1:06:29 carrier courageous on October the 14th the battleship Royal Oak

1:06:40 was sunk when new 47 slipped through the defenses

1:06:43 of the British main Fleet base at scapa Flo

1:06:46 in the OR meanwhile Germany's small surface Fleet had

1:06:54 also been Unleashed against the sea Lanes in the North

1:06:59 Sea the battle Cruisers Shan H and naau intercepted

1:07:03 a convoy on November the 22nd they sank its

1:07:13 escort the armed Merchant Cruiser RL pindy but it

1:07:20 was the pocket Battleship graph which caused the greatest problems

1:07:26 designed specifically for Commerce raiding its 11-in guns could

1:07:30 overwhelm any ship fast enough to overtake it and it

1:07:34 had the speed to escape from any battleship the Graf

1:07:40 Bay had slipped away from Germany before hostilities began

1:07:48 soon it was Cutting Loose in the South Atlantic

1:07:51 and Indian oceans finally three British Cruisers exitor Ajax

1:08:00 and achilles intercepted it off the River Plate

1:08:03 on the east coast of South America the British ships damaged

1:08:10 the pocket Battleship so badly but it had

1:08:12 to take refuge in the neutral Uruguayan Port of Mont

1:08:18 Vio the Germans were then fooled into thinking

1:08:21 that a more powerful British Force had arrived when the graph

1:08:27 was commanded to leave port her Captain scuttled

1:08:30 her rather than risk Annihilation back home the Royal Navy

1:08:41 Crews were fated as Heroes but this was just

1:08:44 about the only obvious success enjoyed by the British

1:08:47 or French Armed Forces during the winter of 1939 though

1:08:53 the British did enjoy one secret victory in the technological

1:08:57 War which was to prove vital as soon

1:09:08 as the War Began Britain began to lose large numbers

1:09:11 of ships to German [Music] mines what was so

1:09:15 mysterious was that the ships didn't seem to have

1:09:18 actually struck them the mines had simply exploded

1:09:22 as the ships passed nearby then on the night of November

1:09:30 the 22nd 1939 a German plane was spotted dropping

1:09:34 a mine at low tide in t [Music] estery disarmed

1:09:42 and rescued from the mud the mine was found

1:09:44 to be set off by the magnetic signature of a ship

1:09:48 passing close by the solution was to reduce

1:09:54 a ship's magnetic signature by hanging a copper cable around

1:09:58 the hull and then passing an electric current through

1:10:01 it a process called deing once de Goring was applied

1:10:07 to All Ships the danger from the magnetic mine

1:10:10 was massively reduced but otherwise as 1940 began the war

1:10:18 was quiet the two sides did little during

1:10:21 the winter except to patrol train and try to keep

1:10:25 warm for it was a particularly cold [Music]

1:10:30 one an American journalist called it the phony War

1:10:34 for the Germans it was the sitz Creek in the spring

1:10:43 the British expeditionary Force took up its position towards

1:10:46 the left of the front on the Belgian [Music]

1:10:54 border but was dwarfed by its French Ally France had

1:10:58 some 100 divisions along the Belgian and German Frontiers

1:11:02 or in reserve nearby this imbalance meant that the British

1:11:07 commander Lord Gort had to go along with the ideas

1:11:10 of the French General Maurice Gala and these were

1:11:15 entirely [Music] defensive French hopes were pinned

1:11:22 on the massive ramparts of the majino line a series

1:11:26 of fortifications it ran from Switzerland to Belgium along

1:11:30 the French German border the majino line was considered

1:11:35 to be completely impassible and would ensure that French

1:11:38 territory remained safe but otherwise the Allies had no idea

1:11:45 of how actually to defeat Germany instead they brought

1:11:52 up their forces and prepared for a repeat of world

1:11:55 War one they would blockade Germany to sap its

1:12:00 strength and they would dig in ready to grind

1:12:04 down the assault which they knew must come none

1:12:09 of their commanders seem to consider that the Germans might

1:12:12 have totally different ideas or that the next moves

1:12:16 might come in a completely different Arena Scandinavian on November

1:12:30 the 30th 1939 a new theater of war was

1:12:34 opened up the Soviet Union invaded its tiny neighbor

1:12:41 Finland Finland had only achieved independence from the Russians

1:12:45 in 1918 and hated them Soviet dictator ysf Stalin was

1:12:51 convinced that one day the fins might allow

1:12:53 the Germans in to attack lening and the vital Arctic

1:12:57 Port of [Music] manans the Red Army outnumbered its

1:13:02 Finnish opponents by more than 10 to one The Invasion

1:13:06 should have been a walkover but its leadership had

1:13:10 been devastated by Stalin's terrible purges the fins were led

1:13:18 by General Gustaf manaheim he fought back using hit

1:13:23 and run tactics amid the Deep snow often on skis

1:13:28 the Soviet troops confused and poorly LED suffered massive

1:13:36 losses finland's Gallant resistance caught the imagination of the British

1:13:40 and French soon they were planning to send help

1:13:44 bya Norway and Sweden the fact that this might

1:13:48 sucked two neutral countries into the war was ignored

1:13:58 But A Renewed Soviet offensive at the beginning of February

1:14:01 broke the finnished defensive line in early March

1:14:07 the fins had to seed territory to Stalin by now

1:14:14 Hitler too had become interested in Scandinavia the Nazi

1:14:19 war machine relied on iron ore from Sweden

1:14:24 in the winter months the only way it could

1:14:26 get to Germany was via the Norwegian Port of navik

1:14:30 if the Allies landed in Norway this vital Supply

1:14:33 could be cut off so he ordered plans to be

1:14:38 prepared for an invasion of Norway Denmark which was

1:14:42 in the way would also have to be seized

1:14:49 the Norway theater heated up on February the 16th

1:14:52 1940 the British Destroyer KAC B boarded the German

1:14:55 Supply ship altmar in a Norwegian fiord to release

1:15:00 [Music] prisoners then on April 9th German troops began landing

1:15:08 at five ports Oslo Christian sand Bergen tonim and navik

1:15:22 at the same time men of their newly formed

1:15:24 German parachute division seiz Danga and Oslo [Music] airfields

1:15:32 the Norwegian Defenders were swiftly overwhelmed as were the days

1:15:43 German forces occupied their country within 24 hours in Norway

1:15:51 the Germans moved swiftly to link up their Beach

1:15:53 heads and see all the major times in the air

1:15:59 the Luft buffer had total control the Allies

1:16:05 now responded a landing force was dispatched to recapture

1:16:12 navik French and Norwegian forces achieved this on May

1:16:15 the 28th but a substantial German force was now

1:16:23 approaching so 6 weeks later later the Allies abandoned Norway

1:16:28 to its fate Hitler had spent most of that winter

1:16:37 and spring at his country Retreat the beov

1:16:40 in southern Bavaria for him the events in Scandinavia

1:16:43 were a sideshow instead he was preparing for his next

1:16:48 major Blitz Greek against Britain and France the first

1:16:54 plan his generals brought him had a familiar ring

1:16:56 to it the Germans would Advance into Belgium aiming

1:17:01 to swing down towards Paris it was a repeat

1:17:06 of the schen plan which the Germans had used

1:17:08 at the start of World War I the Allies were

1:17:14 expecting this and their main strategic discussion was how

1:17:17 to prepare for it when the Germans attacked the Allies

1:17:23 planned that their forces west of the m

1:17:25 line would swing forward into Belgium to hold them

1:17:28 on the shorter and more defensible line of the rivers

1:17:31 dial and Ms then on January the 10th 1940

1:17:40 a German liazon aircraft lost its way and crashed

1:17:44 in Belgium a copy of the German plan was [Music]

1:17:50 found this convinced the Allies that their dial plan

1:17:53 must be right and they deployed their troops accordingly unfortunately

1:18:00 the same event made the Germans alter their ideas

1:18:06 entirely Chief planner General Eric Von manstein had always

1:18:11 thought the original plan unimaginative he was worried

1:18:14 that the German forces would become bogged down as in World

1:18:17 War I and that his country would lose

1:18:19 a long drawn out War so he proposed to Hitler

1:18:25 that the main thrust should be made at the point

1:18:27 where the majino line ended and where the Allies were

1:18:30 most vulnerable as their Western armies moved forward virtually

1:18:37 all Germany's panzas would be gathered opposite the Arden

1:18:40 in southeast Belgium the Allies considered this hilly and wooded

1:18:46 area almost impossible for tanks it was therefore lightly

1:18:53 defended the plan was to drive deep behind

1:18:56 the Allied armies which would have advanced into Belgium they

1:19:00 could then cut them off and all the forces

1:19:02 sitting in the majino line would be bypassed it was

1:19:08 a high-risk strategy the German armor could become stuck

1:19:12 in the forest but Hitler loved it so the German

1:19:18 forces were redeployed without the Allies knowing [Music] the Allies

1:19:25 meanwhile prepared for their long defensive war in addition

1:19:30 to the formidable barrier of the magino line they

1:19:33 had a slight Advantage both in Manpower some 110

1:19:37 divisions available against 95 German and in armor about

1:19:44 3,000 Vehicles against 2,700 the French also had the better

1:19:50 tanks their 32 ton sha Bay had both 75

1:19:55 and 47 mm guns its disadvantage was that the main

1:19:59 gun was mounted in the hull and so was

1:20:02 difficult to aim the other gun was in a one-man

1:20:07 turret from which the commander had to control

1:20:10 the tank as well as man the gun in contrast

1:20:17 the newest German design the 17t paner markv had

1:20:21 a 75 mm gun in a spacious three-man turret

1:20:24 so its crew could work as a team though

1:20:27 only about a 100 were available the other main

1:20:34 French tanks also had guns which matched those of their German

1:20:38 counterparts but again the French had the onean

1:20:44 turret the one area where the Germans had

1:20:47 a clear Advantage was in the air the Luft buffer

1:20:53 had 2,000 bombs the Allies just 800 the LOF

1:21:00 buffer had 4,000 Fighters including the ultramodern messes Schmid BF

1:21:05 109 they faced just 2,500 mainly older aircraft

1:21:13 the Royal Air Force did have about 800 excellent Spitfire

1:21:16 and hurricane Fighters but it was Keen to keep them

1:21:19 for home defense but the main difference between the two

1:21:26 armies was in philosophy everything the Germans did was

1:21:30 focused on the possibilities of Blitz cre all their armor

1:21:34 was grouped in 10 independent Panza divisions but the French

1:21:41 were preparing for a repeat of the static fighting of World War I they saw tanks

1:21:47 as infantry support and distributed them peace me instead

1:21:51 of concentrating them they had noticed the success of Germany's

1:21:58 panzas in Poland so they were assembling three armored

1:22:02 divisions but by the start of hostilities none was

1:22:05 fully operational two totally different ways of military thinking

1:22:13 were about to go head-to-head blitzk against static Warfare

1:22:21 the summer of 1940 would soon show which was correct

1:22:30 on May the 10th 1940 Winston Churchill became prime

1:22:34 minister of Britain he couldn't have picked a worse

1:22:38 [Music] day that was the day Hitler chose to launch

1:22:43 his Blitz Creek against France and Britain at dawn

1:22:48 a whole German airborne division parachuted into Holland

1:22:52 to seize Bridges and airfields simultaneously the massive Belgian Fortress

1:23:00 of Ean imal was [Music] assaulted paratroop Engineers were dropped

1:23:07 on top by swooping German gliders they swiftly silenced its

1:23:12 [Music] guns meanwhile the Luft buffer attacked Dutch and Belgian

1:23:18 air bases then the frontier barriers were pushed aside

1:23:28 and Hitler's Army Group B under General fedo vonach

1:23:32 now drove into Holland and Belgium as planned the French

1:23:40 and British armies along the Belgian border moved forward

1:23:43 to their new defensive line along the dial and Ms

1:23:50 Rivers but none of the Allied commanders seem

1:23:52 to have noticed that ger German Army group a which

1:23:55 had the bulk of the panzas after brushing aside

1:23:58 the Belgian Frontier troops had now begun driving through

1:24:02 the hills and woods of the Arden to their [Music]

1:24:10 South meanwhile the Germans were pushing rapidly through Hollow

1:24:21 the obsolete Dutch Army was no match for the high

1:24:24 tuned German war machine and it was under

1:24:28 continual heavy Air Attack by the LT raffer which

1:24:31 roam the skies unchallenged on May the 14th the Germans

1:24:38 demanded the surrender of the port of rdale

1:24:43 a large force of bombers took off as the Dutch

1:24:46 [Music] hesitated while they were Airborne the Dutch agreed

1:24:52 to surrender the city but apparently a recall message never

1:24:56 reached the [Music] boms Rotterdam was devastated the Dutch

1:25:08 capitulated the next day then came the hammer BL

1:25:17 the thing that British and French planners had thought impossible

1:25:20 had happened German panzas were through the Arden and had

1:25:24 reached the MS by the evening of May

1:25:26 the 12th among the first to arrive at sedon well

1:25:34 north of the majino line were the men

1:25:37 of the 19th panac Corp commanded by General hin garan fresh

1:25:41 from the triumphs in [Music] Poland Garian now showed

1:25:49 how Blitz Creek should be done he ignored the troops

1:25:53 in the mag line and he didn't wait

1:25:55 for his own infantry to catch up he pushed straight

1:26:02 on the next day assault troops crossed the river

1:26:10 Ms Engineers began building bridges for the armor while

1:26:14 under heavy French fire on the 4 the panzas

1:26:25 began Crossing that evening garan's Bridge head was 8 m

1:26:30 deep the French troops stuck in the majino line

1:26:34 were too immobile to intervene Allied bombers made despairing

1:26:42 attempts to destroy the German Bridges but most were

1:26:52 shot down all the while German artillery pounded the French

1:27:04 defenses while the shookers screamed [Music] in just 3

1:27:14 days after the attack had been launched the French

1:27:16 Defenders around sedon broke Garian panzas began racing westwards

1:27:25 by Nightfall they had Advanced more than 40 mil behind

1:27:28 the northern group of Allied armies these had been

1:27:33 holding firm on the dial line but now the French

1:27:36 Supreme Commander General Galan realized that they were about

1:27:40 to be encircled he ordered them to fall back

1:27:46 this sudden decision to withdraw bewildered the Allied troops

1:27:50 who had no idea what was going on behind

1:27:52 them as they fell back they were hindered

1:27:58 by a growing flood of refugees clogging the [Music] roads

1:28:06 that day the French Prime Minister Paul Reno phoned

1:28:09 Churchill he said we are beaten we have lost

1:28:13 the battle but for all the Brilliance of the blitz

1:28:18 Greek the Germans were vulnerable as the pant raced westwards

1:28:25 they created an Ever longer Corridor just a few

1:28:28 miles wide the Allies realized that this was open

1:28:31 to Counterattack the bulk of the German Army was still

1:28:36 totally dependent on horsepower or its own feat for transport

1:28:41 so the gap between the rampaging panzas and the follow-up

1:28:44 infantry grew with every hour on May the 17th

1:28:51 Colonel sh deal Commander of one of the newly

1:28:55 formed French armor divisions made the first of two

1:28:58 attempts to cut through the German Line near chesi

1:29:03 but the cumbersome French command system meant that units

1:29:06 were sent into battle peacee not in a coordinated

1:29:18 thrust the Germans had little difficulty warding off both attacks

1:29:22 inflicting heavy can casualties it seemed that nothing could

1:29:29 now stop Garian he plunged on further and further

1:29:34 into France by the 19th his lead units were

1:29:38 pass Peron on the 20th in an extraordinary 56 mile

1:29:44 dash Amia had been taken by lunchtime abil

1:29:50 just 14 mi from the English Channel was seized

1:29:53 by 9 that evening and at midnight a battalion

1:29:59 of the second Panza division reached the coast at Noel

1:30:07 the Germans had split the Allied front in two

1:30:11 everything now depended on whether they could defend this long

1:30:14 thin Corridor or whether the Allies could successfully Counterattack

1:30:25 so now the British got ready to break the German

1:30:31 lines on May the 21st two armored battalions prepared

1:30:35 to launch an attack south of Aris the British

1:30:42 tanks were even more unsuited to fast moving armored

1:30:45 Warfare than the French their most effective machine the Matilda

1:30:49 2 had been designed for infantry support although well

1:30:54 armored it was slow and under [Music] gun the Germans

1:31:09 had little trouble in repulsing the attack but it

1:31:15 did have an effect by now the German High

1:31:20 command were becoming worried by their extended lines

1:31:23 of communic ation so for the time being driving South

1:31:30 into the rest of France was put on hold

1:31:33 until the Infantry had caught up the priority was

1:31:37 to turn north and eliminate the British expeditionary force

1:31:41 and the French first army fighting beside it on May

1:31:48 the 22nd Garian and the panzas began their attack

1:31:51 to destroy the Allied armies these were now pulling back

1:31:57 to the ports of Bin Cal and Dunkirk

1:32:00 but they were trapped on May the 23rd General Alan

1:32:06 Brook Commander British two core wrote nothing but a miracle

1:32:10 can save the British expeditionary Force 2 Days Later

1:32:16 the Germans seized B it was begin to look

1:32:24 as if even a miracle would be too late May

1:32:32 the 25th 1940 the situation of the British expeditionary

1:32:36 force in the French first Army was desperate the port

1:32:41 of Bin had been overrun German troops had isolated

1:32:47 Cali the British were being forced back to the port

1:32:50 of dunker Lord Gort the British commander advised

1:32:56 his government that the only hope of saving even

1:32:59 a fraction of his troops was to organize an evacuation

1:33:02 by sea but as the dive bombers screamed down

1:33:09 and the panzas were poised for the final assault

1:33:12 evacuation seemed a forlorn hope the British anticipated that Dunkirk

1:33:19 would be overrun within a day but unknown

1:33:23 to the British Hitler and the German High command had made

1:33:27 a decision which was to save them from Total

1:33:34 Annihilation the Germans were only too aware that their Panzer

1:33:37 Crews were exhausted and their machines needed urgent repairs

1:33:43 those attacks by deal and the British may have

1:33:45 failed but they have shown very clearly how vulnerable

1:33:48 the German lines of communication were this was the great

1:33:53 weakness of Blitz green so the high command made

1:33:58 a fateful decision it decided to stop the Pan's

1:34:02 advance to save them from further damage and wait

1:34:04 for the Infantry to come up only then would

1:34:08 the Allied pocket around Dunkirk be eliminated so

1:34:15 the blitz C was halted and the panzas lay idle

1:34:20 they would not advance for 2 days just in enough

1:34:24 to buy the British in particular a little time

1:34:26 to prepare as the tanks waited the only major

1:34:34 action was in Cali there the British and French

1:34:36 Garrison refused to surrender instead they had to be

1:34:43 overrun in three days of bloody hand toand fighting when

1:34:51 the panzers got going again 2 days later on May

1:34:53 26th the weather had [Music] changed the Germans became

1:35:03 bogged down in the Heavy Rain Again giving the Allies

1:35:06 more time so it was that at 7:57 p.m.

1:35:14 on May the 26th vice admiral Bertram

1:35:17 Ramsey flag officer commanding DOA received a signal

1:35:21 that he was to put operation d D into action operation Dynamo was a plan

1:35:29 to withdraw the British expeditionary Force by sea

1:35:32 he had prepared it more in Hope than expectation that it could ever be used

1:35:40 the following day a makeshift Fleet of Destroyers tugs

1:35:43 and passenger faeries crossed the English Channel but by the end of the day less

1:35:51 than 8,000 of the over 300 100,000 troops

1:35:54 at Dunkirk had been rescued the port was

1:36:01 under such heavy Air Attack that it could not be used and the ships could not

1:36:08 get in close enough to the beaches so Ramsey now sent out a call for any

1:36:16 boats of shallow draft that were over

1:36:18 30 ft long hundreds of cabin cruisers fishing

1:36:23 boats and barges were gathered from Harbors all

1:36:26 over Southern England and sent across to China

1:36:29 often crewed by their civilian owners The Little

1:36:35 Ships worked on the beaches of Dunkirk

1:36:37 fering troops out to the larger boats waiting

1:36:40 to take them to safety all the time they were under constant Air Attack [Music]

1:36:54 the British Air Force threw every fighter it possessed

1:36:57 into the battle to drive the LT buff [Music] off even so seven French and six

1:37:14 British destroyers were sunk together with 24

1:37:17 smaller warships a quarter of the 665 small

1:37:23 boats never got home but when the evacuation

1:37:29 was halted on June the 4th over 300,000

1:37:33 men 41% of them French have been rescued none of this would have been possible

1:37:44 without the heroism of the French army it played a vital role in slowing down

1:37:49 the German advance the French rear guard didn't

1:37:58 leave its positions around dunker until the last

1:38:01 boats had pulled away from the [Music] beaches

1:38:08 one British officer compared them to the Last

1:38:11 Stand of the Spartans at thopi even so the British army had lost most of its

1:38:21 heavy weapons it wouldn't be fit to fight the Germans again for a long time

1:38:30 France still had to fight on but it had lost more than half its Army

1:38:35 against them the Germans had 92 divisions including

1:38:38 masses of armor at 4 in the morning of June the 5th a short bombardment began

1:38:49 the final destruction of France [Music] assault troops

1:38:57 crossed the Som and the a at first

1:39:00 the French Resistance was fierce and the Germans

1:39:03 struggled to break out of their Bridge

1:39:06 heads but once again the Luft Rafer helped

1:39:10 crush the defenses soon the panzers were pushing

1:39:19 South and the trickle of surrendering French troops

1:39:22 turned into to a flood by the 9th the panzas had reached the river s

1:39:30 and the Infantry were only a few hours

1:39:33 [Music] behind once across the river the Germans

1:39:39 found out into the interior of the country on the 14th the German Army marched

1:39:47 into Paris [Music] the swastika was raised

1:39:55 on the Eiffel [Music] Tower Hitler had secured the prize

1:40:04 which had eluded the Kaiser in [Music]

1:40:09 1914 the parisians could only watch in stunned

1:40:17 horror throughout the period of the French collapse

1:40:20 Winston Churchill paid five visits to to France

1:40:24 trying to bolster French Resistance on June

1:40:28 the 16th he even offered Paul Reno a union

1:40:31 with Britain if France stayed in the fight

1:40:35 but it was too late Reno's cabinet rejected

1:40:38 the proposal and the Prime Minister resigned

1:40:41 that [Music] evening he was succeeded by Marshall Philip

1:40:46 pan who immediately asked the Germans for an armistice

1:40:56 it was only now that the Germans finally began to attack the majino line

1:41:01 which had been left isolated after a heavy

1:41:07 artillery bombardment the French Defenders offered only token

1:41:11 resistance before the German troops occupied the [Music]

1:41:19 forts on June the 21st Hitler went to compen where the railway carriage in which

1:41:25 the Germans had signed the Armistice in 1918

1:41:28 was kept as a French delegation entered the carriage he handed them his terms

1:41:36 and then left the French insisted on Consulting

1:41:39 their government but the next day they were

1:41:41 told that if they didn't sign immediately the panzas

1:41:44 would roll again they signed and the humiliation

1:41:50 of France was complete [Music] for Hitler

1:41:59 his control of Western Europe seemed absolute he

1:42:02 felt sure that Britain must now seek peace

1:42:05 and that soon he could turn to the next stage of his master plan but even

1:42:12 though the blitz Creek had achieved so much so fast it hadn't won him the War

1:42:21 the British battered and wounded had escaped

1:42:25 to fight another day [Music] on June the 22nd

1:43:50 1940 Britain stood alone against the Nazis

1:43:54 France had surrendered and prime minister Winston Churchill

1:43:57 could only growl Defiance we'll fight on the beaches

1:44:03 we will fight on the landing grounds

1:44:05 we shall fight in the fields and in the streets we shall fight in the Hills

1:44:11 we shall Never [Music] Surrender Britain still

1:44:18 had all the resources of its vast Empire

1:44:21 Canada Australia New Zealand South Africa India

1:44:24 and a host of other territories had all been

1:44:27 quick to declare war on Germany but they

1:44:32 were thousands of miles away across the oceans

1:44:35 and their military power could not be

1:44:37 brought to bear where it mattered Britain's situation

1:44:42 seemed hopeless and Hitler had no doubt

1:44:46 that Britain would soon try to negotiate a [Music]

1:44:51 peace but Churchill quickly showed how determined

1:44:54 he was prepared to be in the war against the Nazis a powerful Squadron of two

1:45:04 French battleships and two battle Cruisers was lying in the port of mercel Kabir

1:45:09 in French North Africa if the French ships fell

1:45:14 into German hands the British Navy's position

1:45:16 in the mediteranian would become impossible so on July

1:45:24 the 3rd a royal Navy task force demanded that the French ships either join it

1:45:29 or sail to a neutral port to be intered the French refused so the British opened

1:45:37 fire on their former [Music] allies they destroyed

1:45:48 or severely damaged three of the battleships almost,

1:45:56 1300 French Sailors were killed but Churchill's ruthlessness didn't seem

1:46:04 to impress Hitler on July the 19th he returned in Triumph

1:46:08 to Berlin and was greeted by more than a million

1:46:11 [Applause] people that day he made a speech in the RAR

1:46:17 the German Parliament offering peace terms to Britain his offer

1:46:24 seemed generous Britain could keep its Empire in return Hitler wanted

1:46:28 a free hand in Europe his plan was to conquer the countries

1:46:31 of the east in order to win leanr room to live

1:46:35 for the German people but Churchill would have none of it

1:46:42 the British would fight on this would as he put

1:46:45 it be their finest hour [Applause] Churchill's Defiance was immensely

1:46:57 popular King George V 6 wrote in his diary personally I

1:47:02 feel happier now that we have no more allies to be

1:47:05 polite to and to pamper but it was difficult to see

1:47:14 how Britain could ever turn the tables and actually win

1:47:17 the War the British army might have survived dkirk that it

1:47:24 had lost almost all its tanks artillery and transport

1:47:28 in the evacuation it had just 25 divisions armed mainly with rifles

1:47:34 to resist the vast armored Columns of the world's most fearsome

1:47:38 war machine so there was little to be done except dig

1:47:44 in and wait Coastal defenses were prepared and concrete strong

1:47:52 points built built all across Southern England signposts on roads were

1:47:58 removed to make it harder for any Invaders to find

1:48:00 their way around large open areas were littered with obstacles to deter

1:48:08 airborne troops a volunteer Defense Force the Home Guard was

1:48:14 recruited it was made up of men who were otherwise ineligible

1:48:17 to fight often because of their age by the end

1:48:27 of June 1940 almost 1 and a half million volunteers had signed

1:48:31 up but there were few weapons with which to arm

1:48:36 them Hitler meanwhile was getting on with his invasion plans code

1:48:41 named Operation Sea [Music] Lion some 20 divisions would be landed

1:48:50 on a broad front along in the South Coast barges were

1:48:58 gathered from all over Northwest Europe these were hurriedly converted

1:49:04 into makeshift landing craft troops were trained for Beach Landings

1:49:13 but for all Hitler's bravado those planning sealon were worried Hitler

1:49:20 might dismiss the English Channel as just Just Another River to be

1:49:24 crossed but Britain's Navy was still the largest in the world

1:49:29 it might be stretched thin by its worldwide commitments

1:49:32 but the Royal Navy's home Fleet far outnumbered the German Navy

1:49:37 the German Naval Chief Admiral Eric Raider had no confidence that he

1:49:42 could seize control of the English Channel for long enough

1:49:44 to get the Army [Music] across but the Germans did have

1:49:51 one area of a apparent massive superiority the Luft vafer

1:49:56 far outnumbered Britain's royal Air Force the lvfa commander Herman ging

1:50:06 had little doubt that he could establish air control over

1:50:08 the channel long enough for Seine to take place on July

1:50:16 the 10th the bft buffer began attacking shipping in the channel

1:50:22 [Music] in response the British had two of the most outstanding

1:50:31 of the new breed of single engine multi-gun monoplanes the supermarine

1:50:38 Spitfire and the Hawker hurricane the Spitfire was slightly faster

1:50:44 and more agile than its German rival the mmid BF 109

1:50:48 which escorted the German bombers it would be used to intercept

1:50:56 things the Hurrican would prove a lethal bomber kill but in July

1:51:03 1940 air Vice Marshall Hugh daing the head of fighter

1:51:06 command had less than 700 [Music] Fighters against them were

1:51:13 2,600 German Fighters and bombers the odds against the RAF were

1:51:20 daunting doubting knew that he could not take on the Loof

1:51:23 fluffer every time it came over the channel so when

1:51:27 the Germans began hitting British shipping he did [Music] nothing instead

1:51:40 he would only use the ARF to stop the Luft faffer

1:51:43 from establishing the Air Supremacy needed for Invasion so he would

1:51:48 only take on its big attacks to help him the British

1:51:54 had one crucial Innovation radar by the 1930s scientists in both

1:52:03 Britain and Germany knew that objects well beyond human sight

1:52:06 could be detected by bouncing radio pulses off them

1:52:10 and measuring the time it took for the signals to return

1:52:16 in Britain a team of scientists led by Robert Watson watt

1:52:20 began developing radar as a means of detecting protecting approaching aircraft

1:52:24 at long range their work was seized upon by doubting he

1:52:30 made radar the core of the world's first integrated air defense

1:52:34 [Music] system known as chain home this was a string

1:52:42 of 21 300t tall radar masts cited along the south and east

1:52:47 coasts of Britain these could pick up aircraft at a range

1:52:51 of 120 miles and give their distance Direction height

1:52:55 and numbers the information would be passed back to ARA fighter

1:53:01 command's headquarters at Bentley prior just outside London there it would

1:53:08 be assessed and warning of an impending raid passed to fighter

1:53:12 command's operations rule moonshine one4 sky blue take Target one

1:53:18 channel G George controllers were alert the nearest ARF airfields

1:53:24 and scramble the necessary number of Fighters the question was would radar

1:53:32 make up for Germany's massive superiority in numbers the stage

1:53:36 was now set for what would become known as the Battle

1:53:40 of [Music] Britain since June the 10th 1940 the German

1:53:48 lft buffer had been battering British shipping in the English Channel

1:53:55 the Luft vaffa Commander Reich Marshall Herman ging was determined

1:53:59 to lure the British Air Force into combat but Britain's air Chief

1:54:05 Marshall Hugh daing refused to take the bait he used

1:54:08 his Fighters sparingly knowing that the real battle was still to come

1:54:17 as this first phase of the Battle of Britain began

1:54:20 the LT baffer had a massive superiority he's had 1100 single

1:54:25 engine Fighters available to the Royal Air Forces 700 almost

1:54:31 all the German Fighters were the excellent Messa Schmidt BF 109e

1:54:35 with a top speed of around 350 mph about 2/3

1:54:43 of the British Fighters were Hawker hurricans slower than the 109's

1:54:47 but more agile the remainder were supermarine Spitfires with a top

1:54:54 speed similar to the 109s for their assault the Germans had over

1:55:04 1300 medium bombers dnia do 17s hle H1s and yuna's

1:55:10 ju 88s each carrying about 4,000 lb of bombs ging selected

1:55:21 August the 3rd 13th as adak Eagle day for the start

1:55:25 of his main [Music] assault his aim was to destroy ARF

1:55:35 fighters in the air and the arf's airfields and Britain's

1:55:39 aircraft [Music] factories softening up attacks were made the day before

1:55:49 these concentrated on the airfields and the radar Towers along

1:55:52 the South Coast one station on the aisle of white was put

1:56:03 out of action and several were damaged but these were

1:56:06 working again within hours Garing did not believe that radar had

1:56:13 a significant role to play in the battle and so

1:56:15 these attacks were not repeated it was a big mistake [Music] Adler

1:56:25 tag dawned cloudy so the main assault was postponed until

1:56:29 the afternoon when it came radar gave ample warning St calling

1:56:39 planes heard 3 m [Music] Southwest nonetheless most of the ARA

1:56:49 airfields in the South were hammered [Music] but by the end

1:56:57 of the day none had been put out of [Music]

1:57:04 action the Luft vafer lost 46 aircraft Britain just [Music] 30

1:57:19 the LT buffer mounted its largest attack of the whole battle

1:57:22 on August the [Music] 15th waves of heavily escorted German bombers

1:57:37 forced their way through to the ARF [Music] airs the ARF

1:57:44 was so overstretched that some Pilots flew seven sorties that day

1:57:52 by the time the raids died away some 90 German

1:57:56 aircraft had been shot down for the loss of 42 British

1:58:05 Fighters the battle continued with equal ferocity over the next

1:58:09 few days both sides became increasingly exhausted doubting tried to rotate

1:58:16 his Pilots to rest them but he simply did not have

1:58:19 enough of them many were being sent into battle with just

1:58:24 10 hours flying [Music] experience the LT fapper was suffering

1:58:33 too its Pilots were shocked and increasingly demoralized by the resilience

1:58:38 of the British the AR of Fighters always seemed to be

1:58:43 waiting for [Music] them as the fighting wore on for 12

1:58:52 ID days the British losses began to creep up to match

1:58:55 those of the Germans the Royal Air Force was close

1:58:58 to Breaking to turn the screw guring began using his bombers

1:59:05 to attack at night as well but this decision had

1:59:10 an unexpected outcome on the night of August the 24th

1:59:14 a flight of hanle bombers lost its way and bombed the city

1:59:17 of London [Music] [Music] it was the first attack on a non-military

1:59:33 Target the next night 81 British bombers responded by raiding

1:59:39 [Music] Berlin Hitler was infuriated and demanded massive retaliation this came

2:00:02 on the evening of September the 7th German bombers attacked

2:00:06 the London docks and surrounding areas more than 450 people died

2:00:14 and thousands of homes were destroyed but in fact this was

2:00:21 guring second second crucial Mistake by switching from the arf's

2:00:28 airfields just at the moment when it seemed about to break

2:00:31 he gave it the rest fite it needed had Garing

2:00:35 continued to attack the airfields the ARF could not have continued

2:00:38 to defend the skies instead on September the 15th British

2:00:45 Radars picked up another massive assault on London the first way

2:00:52 of 100 bombers and 400 Fighters was intercepted fighting raged

2:00:58 all the way from the coast in the afternoon another Fleet

2:01:07 of 150 bombers renewed the attack Winston churcher was at fighter

2:01:14 command headquarters that day after

2:01:16 he heard controllers calling in reinforcements

2:01:19 from neighboring groups he asked what other Reser NES have we

2:01:25 got the reply was there are [Music] none but it was

2:01:38 obvious that the L buffer had failed to gain control

2:01:41 of the air and on September the 17th Hitler postponed operation

2:01:48 Seine the Battle of Britain did not really end it died

2:01:52 away Hitler now tried a new tactic by October the 5th

2:02:00 the daylight raids stopped and the Germans concentrated on bombing

2:02:03 Britain cities by [Music] night this was a so-called Blitz London

2:02:13 was attacked every night but one up to November the 12th

2:02:18 on November the 10th the center of the city of centry

2:02:21 was abl iterated the blitz continued into 1941 with the last

2:02:33 major raid being made on London on the night of May

2:02:35 the [Music] 10th more than 50,000 civilians were killed

2:02:42 in the blitz but there was never any question of Britain cracking

2:02:51 [Music] victory in the Battle of Britain was a moment

2:02:55 of huge National relief Pilots had come from all over the Empire

2:03:00 to join the ARF and from countries occupied by the Nazis

2:03:04 like Poland and Czechoslovakia Churchill summed up the nation's gratitude

2:03:09 never in the field of human conflict when so much

2:03:13 owed by so many just so few but for Hitler

2:03:22 this was no more than an irritating setback Britain he was

2:03:27 convinced could never be a serious threat so he now turned

2:03:31 to Eastern Europe for Britain there was now a chance

2:03:34 to rebuild with a view one day to taking the fight

2:03:38 to the enemy but to do that Churchill would need help

2:03:45 [Applause] [Music] Britain may have won the Battle of Britain but it

2:03:54 was still immensely [Music] vulnerable night after night its cities were

2:04:06 hammered by the Nazis [Music] Blitz its Supply lifelines at Sea

2:04:15 were under constant assault Churchill needed more help and there

2:04:25 was only one country that could provide it the United States

2:04:36 by 1940 the US had recovered from the Great Depression

2:04:40 and the economy was booming again it had immense reserves of Manpower

2:04:45 and unrivaled industrial strength but the people of the United

2:04:51 States were utterly opposed to becoming involved yet again in Europe's

2:04:56 Wars in July 1940 a poll showed that only 8%

2:05:00 of them were willing to enter the [Music] war undeterred Churchill

2:05:07 lobbied the US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Roosevelt had long admired

2:05:14 Churchill for his outspokenly anti-nazi views and the two men shared

2:05:18 an interest in Naval Affairs Roosevelt had been under secretary

2:05:22 for the US Navy in 1917 after he became president Roosevelt

2:05:29 kept in touch with Churchill the two began a correspondence Churchill

2:05:33 signing himself former Naval person for all his avuncular image Roosevelt

2:05:40 had no illusions that German aggression would one day suck America

2:05:43 into the war so he began the long job of preparing

2:05:47 American public opinion I am a pacifist but I believe

2:05:53 you and I will act together to protect and to defend

2:06:00 our science our culture our American freedom and our civilization

2:06:14 in July 1940 he got approval for a massive expansion

2:06:18 of the US Navy including the building of six large large

2:06:21 battleships and a new class of aircraft [Music] carriers the following

2:06:29 month Congress agreed that the National Guard and other reserves should

2:06:33 be called up for one year's active duty and in September

2:06:39 the large expansion of the 150,000 strong US Army was

2:06:43 agreed with a limited number of conscripts being chosen by Lottery

2:06:48 the first number drawn by the Secretary of War is

2:06:54 serial number 158 that same month Roosevelt announced a deal under

2:07:04 which the US would Supply Britain with 50 World War One

2:07:08 destroyers in return for 99-year leases on bases in New Finland

2:07:12 and the Caribbean the British Navy desperate for more escorts

2:07:18 to fight the uots began taking them over within days days

2:07:21 of the deal being signed the clear sign that Roosevelt was

2:07:27 slowly winning the argument came in the November 1940 presidential election

2:07:32 when he convincingly defeated the isolationist Wendell Wilkey with 27

2:07:37 million votes to 22 [Applause] [Music] million will at the end

2:07:45 of the year Roosevelt spoke to the American people setting out

2:07:49 the four essential freedoms which he believed belied were at stake

2:07:52 and which Britain was fighting to uphold freedom of speech

2:07:56 and religion and Freedom from Want and from Fear to save

2:08:03 these the United States must become the Arsenal of the democracies

2:08:07 other words it must arm Britain we shall send you

2:08:12 in ever increasing numbers ships planes tanks guns that is

2:08:18 our purpose and our plan [Music] but some Americans remained implacably opposed

2:08:29 to helping [Music] Britain one of the most outspoken was

2:08:36 the American ambassador in London Joseph Kennedy father of the future President

2:08:40 John F Kennedy a Boston Irish businessman who had made

2:08:45 his fortune booze smuggling during prohibition

2:08:48 Kennedy hated the British and seized

2:08:50 every opportunity to CLA claimed that they would shortly be

2:08:52 forced to surrender however Kennedy's

2:08:59 virulence was counterbalanced by the growing

2:09:02 admiration many Americans felt for The Bravery shown by the British

2:09:06 people during the [Music] Blitz in particular the broadcasts

2:09:13 by the CBS London correspondent Ed marrow helped to change public

2:09:17 opinion [Music] this is London I remember the evening of Sunday December

2:09:27 29th it was just like any other winter evening the first

2:09:31 bombers were over London at about half [Music] 6 soon

2:09:39 the fires hissed from the top story [Music] Windows Hitler once

2:09:45 boasted I will rub out their cities this is what they

2:09:56 meant encouraged by his electoral success in January 1941 Roosevelt

2:10:02 introduced his so-called lendle Bill the United States would Supply weapons

2:10:13 and War material to Britain and China which was still struggling

2:10:17 desperately against the invading Japanese

2:10:20 payment would be delivered [Music] Roosevelt

2:10:28 liken lendle to lending a neighbor a hose to put

2:10:31 out a fire you would worry about the payback later Roosevelt

2:10:36 was also being canny it also meant that unlike in 1917

2:10:40 if America had to enter the war it already would have

2:10:43 a substantial weapons industry American war preparations didn't end there

2:10:51 Rosevelt secretly authorized US military staffs to discuss a common strategy

2:10:56 with the British should America enter the [Music] war by April

2:11:05 1941 he felt confident enough to take another step to help

2:11:08 Britain at se he greatly extended the Pan-American security Zone

2:11:14 the area within which US warships would protect us Merchant vessels

2:11:24 in May US troops set up bases in Greenland

2:11:27 and in July US Marines were sent to replace the British Garrison

2:11:30 in Iceland which was there to deprive the Germans of its

2:11:39 harvest the US Navy also began providing limited Convoy Escorts particularly

2:11:45 for us ships carrying lendle materials [Music] Hitler now gave

2:11:54 his submariners strict instructions not to sink American ships as he didn't

2:11:59 want to provoke the United States into war but inevitably

2:12:06 there were clashes on September the 4th 1941 a British aircraft

2:12:12 attacked a German submarine thinking that a strike had come

2:12:18 from the nearby US Destroyer Greer the booat fired a torpedo

2:12:22 at [Music] it the career responded with depth charges and there

2:12:29 was a running battle which lasted 3 hours neither vessel was

2:12:37 sunk but the tension was mounting on November the 17th

2:12:44 the Destroyer USS KY was hit by a torpedo while on Convoy

2:12:48 Duty off Iceland the ubot commander claimed it was an accident

2:12:55 he'd been firing at a British ship and a Ki

2:12:58 had got in the way but 11 US Sailors were

2:13:04 dead and the Destroyer only just made it back to port

2:13:07 in reu Roosevelt protested and the US press was outraged

2:13:14 however the American public remained resolutely opposed to going to war

2:13:22 within weeks at the end of 1941 the situation was reversed

2:13:26 in a single day but in the meantime Britain would have

2:13:34 to fight on alone and luckily it had an astonishing

2:13:41 weapon to hand [Music] it looks like just another mansion

2:13:55 in the English Countryside a bit run down but Bletchley Park

2:14:01 once contained a secret that fundamentally affected the course of World

2:14:04 War II because it was at Bletchley the Britain worked

2:14:10 out how to read Germany's most secret codes since the mid

2:14:19 1930s all the German army forces and intelligence departments had adopted

2:14:24 a standard machine for encoding their messages the cipher machine e

2:14:31 better known as Enigma it was developed in the early

2:14:39 1920s as a handy tool for businessmen to keep commercial messages

2:14:47 secret it was powered by a battery and its encoded messages

2:14:51 were transmitted in M code to be decoded on a second

2:14:54 Enigma machine at the [Music] receiving the critical element

2:15:00 of the machine was three rotors which could be set to scramble

2:15:03 the message in a way which could only be unscrambled

2:15:06 by another machine with the same settings the rotors could be replaced

2:15:12 and set differently as a result each letter typed could

2:15:19 come up in any one of 150 million ways given

2:15:26 the almost infinite number of settings it was not surprising

2:15:29 that the Germans remained convinced throughout

2:15:31 the war that Enigma was uncrackable

2:15:39 it was the poles who took the first steps in solving

2:15:42 this baffling puzzle they knew of the existence of the Enigma

2:15:51 machine and assembled a team of top mathematicians to crack

2:15:54 it Marian rvi Jersy Ritz and Henry zagalsky but the team

2:16:06 could not decipher messages without knowing the internal wiring

2:16:09 of the [Music] rotors the solution was supplied by French intelligence which

2:16:16 sent its polish allies material gathered by a spy

2:16:19 in the German army Cipher Department amongst this was an enigma manual

2:16:26 the poles were able to reconstruct an Enigma machine and began

2:16:29 laboriously decoding messages by July

2:16:38 1939 Hitler was sounding increasingly threatening

2:16:41 towards Poland Britain and France had promised to come to its

2:16:48 Aid it was clear that war was coming so Intelligence Officers

2:16:54 from the three allies met in warsa there the British

2:16:59 and French were astonished at how much the poles had done

2:17:02 in decoding Enigma and the poles agreed to send two

2:17:06 of their reconstructed machines to London just 2 weeks after they were

2:17:11 handed over Poland was invaded [Music] by the time Poland

2:17:23 fell to the Germans the Polish cryptographers had destroyed all evidence

2:17:27 of their work on imig some were captured and tortured

2:17:34 but none revealed what they' been up to the task was now

2:17:43 taken up by the British at their government code and Cipher

2:17:46 school at Bletchley Park near London [Music] its head was

2:17:51 commander alist Denniston Denniston recruited

2:17:56 a strange collection of mathematicians Chess

2:17:59 Masters and crossword puzzle experts to continue the [Music] decoding among

2:18:07 these experts was Alan Turing at Cambridge Dawn in 1936 Turing

2:18:12 had described the idea of a universal Computing machine a machine

2:18:17 that he believed would one day be able to solve all

2:18:19 mathematical problems he used his ideas to design decryption machines known

2:18:26 as bronze goddesses the raw material for Bletchley came

2:18:33 from the British y service a chain of radio listening stations which

2:18:38 monitored and recorded German [Music] Transmissions the messages were fed

2:18:45 into Bletchley bronze goddesses and permutations run until at last the key

2:18:50 was [Music] found once a message had been decrypted it

2:18:58 was translated analyzed and passed on to the appropriate Authority

2:19:06 from the moment he became prime minister and learned of bletch

2:19:09 ley's work Winston Churchill understood its

2:19:12 extraordinary importance he referred to bletch

2:19:17 ley's Output as his Ultra secret information and Ultra became

2:19:22 its code name the distribution of ultra was tightly controlled senior

2:19:30 commanders were shown only that information

2:19:32 which directly concerned their operations

2:19:38 the need to keep the source of the intelligence secret

2:19:41 was so great that Churchill insisted that no action could

2:19:44 be taken on the basis of ultra material unless a cover

2:19:48 plan had been developed to convince the Germans that the intelligence

2:19:51 must have come from another [Music] source the third critical element

2:20:01 of The Bletchley operation after decoding and assessing the material

2:20:05 was keeping control it often Ultra revealed Vital Information about German

2:20:15 plans and actions news of forthcoming attacks and other in elligence

2:20:21 was filed away in a massive card index system this was

2:20:26 constantly mined for answers to questions Great and Small by the end

2:20:33 of the war Bletchley was decoding much of the German

2:20:35 traffic almost as fast as it was being sent it was

2:20:39 jokingly said that it would have been quicker for a German

2:20:41 Commander to ring Bletchley to get his orders it was

2:20:48 at Sea that the Allies first became aware of how Vital

2:20:51 Information from Ultra could be an early example of its potential

2:20:59 came on June the 8th 1940 the British aircraft carrier glorious

2:21:06 was covering the convoys withdrawing Allied troops from Norway when Bletchley

2:21:11 decoded signals showing the German battle Cruisers Shan hor and niso

2:21:15 were approaching its position a warning was passed to Royal

2:21:20 Navy headquarters but unaware of how accurate the information was likely

2:21:24 to be this chose not to pass it on the Glorious

2:21:37 was intercepted and suck the British Navy had learned the hard

2:21:43 way just how important the new source of intelligence could

2:21:48 be it was not a mistake it would make a [Music]

2:22:00 game Bletchley also performed a critical role in the buildup

2:22:04 to the Battle of [Music] Britain it had provided a clear

2:22:10 picture of the Luft va's order of battle and the overall

2:22:14 strategy being adopted by its leader Hammon G this information

2:22:21 convinced the head of British fighter command air viice marshall Hugh

2:22:24 daing that his tactic of committing his Fighters bit by bit

2:22:28 rather than in large numbers was the correct one a tactic

2:22:32 that played a crucial part in preserving the raf's narrow

2:22:35 winning margin as Britain continued its lonely fight into 1941

2:22:46 it had at last found a way of fighting back Bletchley

2:22:52 Park was ready for action the major breakthroughs had been made

2:23:00 the systems for exploiting them put in place and well tested

2:23:08 in the coming years Ultra and the work of Bletchley Park

2:23:12 would prove vital to the Allied successes but as the Battle

2:23:17 of Britain and the blitz ground on these were still

2:23:19 a long way way [Music] off Churchill still needed more immediate

2:23:28 results and by early 1941 he thought that he had

2:23:31 at last found a way to get [Music] them Nazi G Germany

2:23:50 might now control most of Western Europe but Britain's prime minister

2:23:55 Winston Churchill now decided to take the war to the Germans

2:23:59 we shall not flinch from the Supreme Tri all will

2:24:03 come right out of the dep even before France had surrendered

2:24:07 he was looking for ways of striking back and of keeping

2:24:10 resistance alive in the countries which had been overrun just

2:24:18 as the last troops were being taken off the beaches

2:24:20 of dunker Churchill was already planning ahead he wrote to his Chiefs

2:24:27 of Staff demanding the formation of raiding forces which could attack

2:24:31 the coasts of occupied Europe within a few days a call

2:24:36 for volunteers had been circulated to create a force of 5,000

2:24:44 men they were to be called commanders after the highly

2:24:48 mobile B units which had for the British for 3

2:24:51 years in South Africa at the turn of the century 10

2:24:55 Commando units each of 500 men were set up they

2:25:01 began practicing attacks from the [Music] sea one unit was ordered

2:25:10 to specialize in parachuting and using assault gliders this soon became

2:25:14 the basis of the separate parachute regiment Admiral Sir Roger Keys

2:25:24 was appointed director of combined

2:25:28 operations Churchill instructed him to prepare

2:25:30 to mount three major raids as soon as a threat

2:25:33 of an invasion of Britain had passed one of Key's first

2:25:38 tasks was to develop ships which could land his new troops

2:25:44 Three cross Channel faeries were converted so as to carry

2:25:47 landing craft on March the 4th 1941 two Commando units

2:25:57 and a demolition Squad were landed on the loten islands off

2:26:00 Northern [Music] norw their main objective

2:26:06 was to destroy factories which converted

2:26:08 fish oil into Glycerine for [Music] explosives the commanders achieved

2:26:17 total surprise and landed without a shot being fired a German

2:26:24 armed troller in the harbor was seized they quickly destroyed

2:26:28 the factories and the fish oil [Music] tanks one officer could not

2:26:40 resist using a local post office to send a telegram

2:26:43 to a Hitler Berlin it read reference your last speech I

2:26:48 thought you said that wherever British Troop land on the continent

2:26:51 of Europe German soldiers will face them well where are they

2:26:59 the commanders then rounded up 60 Norwegian collaborators and 225

2:27:03 German prisoners before returning without any losses with them they also

2:27:12 took 115 Norwegian volunteers these would then join the free Norwegian

2:27:17 forces in Britain The leoen Raid was an enormous public relations

2:27:28 success and a huge boost for British Mora but its most

2:27:35 important result was one which could not be publicized the capture

2:27:40 of a set of rotors for an Enigma machine although

2:27:43 the machine had been thrown overboard from the armed troller its

2:27:46 crew forgot the spares they were to give invaluable help

2:27:49 to the the cryptographers of Bletchley Park in Breaking the German

2:27:53 Naval [Music] codes then in December 1941 four Commando units

2:28:04 landed at the Norwegian Port of varo and were immediately involved

2:28:08 in heavy fighting the approach to varo was covered by the small

2:28:15 island of Marlo from which the Germans had placed artillery

2:28:23 this was quickly overrun but across the water in varo

2:28:28 the fighting was [Music] intense it took several hours for the main

2:28:43 German Garrison to be subdued the commanders then blew up

2:28:54 several factories and sank eight ships before withdrawing these raids convinced

2:29:03 Hitler that sooner or later the British would attempt to retake

2:29:10 Norway so for the remaining four years of the war

2:29:13 he kept some 250,000 troops there troops which might have

2:29:18 proved vital on our the fronts but effective as they were

2:29:24 Commander raids were not enough to stop the Nazis Churchill needed

2:29:29 other ways to hurt them so he focused on the resistance

2:29:32 movements in the occupied countries in July 1940 a special

2:29:42 operations executive s OE was formed as Churchill put it

2:29:47 to set Europe Ablaze [Music] its objectives were to encourage sabotage

2:29:55 of the enemy war effort gather intelligence and prepare clandestine forces

2:30:01 to disrupt German [Music] defenses the bulk of s soe's activities

2:30:10 centered on France soon agents were recruited in Britain to build

2:30:19 up and coop ordinate the French Resistance networks radio operators

2:30:23 and Couriers were also trained to support them one problem was how

2:30:34 to get these teams into the country submarines highspeed launches

2:30:38 and fishing vessels were all tried out but the German Coastal

2:30:41 defenses proved difficult to penetrate the answer was aircraft and in August

2:30:51 1940 a special RAF unit was set up with Whitley

2:30:55 bombers and short takeoff and Landing Westland licens agents

2:31:05 and Equipment were either parachuted in from the bombers or flown

2:31:09 in and brought out by the lers on moonlit nights a growing

2:31:18 number of reception committees would be waiting as an increasingly widespread

2:31:23 network of resistance groups was built [Music] up but all

2:31:32 the while they were hunted by an increasingly sophisticated German counter

2:31:37 Espionage system this used Direction finding equipment to locate hidden

2:31:43 radios and double agents to infiltrate Networks the work of s

2:31:51 soe agents was desperately perilous and their life expectancy short

2:31:57 the slightest laps in concentration might betray them to the Gestapo

2:32:01 many suffered torture and death but Churchill was sure it was

2:32:08 worth it keeping resistance alive in the occupied countries gave hope

2:32:16 to millions that Liberation would eventually come [Music] the British

2:32:27 Broadcasting Corporation the BBC was also enlisted to raise the hopes

2:32:31 of those living under German rule they broadcast the news in all

2:32:35 the languages of the occupied countries the German penalty for listening

2:32:43 to these bulletins was death but people tuned in regardless

2:32:50 the BBC also played a crucial role in transmitting coded messages

2:32:53 to resistance groups these always came after the 9:00 news

2:33:10 for the peoples of occupied Europe the prospect of Liberation might only

2:33:13 be a distant dream but in the middle of 1941

2:33:17 it suddenly became more likely for by then Britain was no

2:33:23 longer alone in fighting Nazism it had gained a massive Ally

2:33:32 but it wasn't America which Churchill had assiduously been Coury it

2:33:37 was the Soviet Union [Music] Adolf Hitler had never disguised

2:35:12 his belief that the Soviet Union would be his regime's Ultimate

2:35:16 Enemy he hated communism and saw the vast open spaces

2:35:33 and abundant natural resources of Soviet Russia as the prize which would

2:35:37 finally enable the German people to become the masterace [Applause] throughout

2:35:50 the early months of 1941 as he stayed at the burkhoff

2:35:55 his country retreat in the Bavarian Alps Hitler planned his greatest

2:36:00 gamble operation Barbarosa The Assault on the Soviet [Music] Union

2:36:12 steadily his armies were redeployed to the East and re-equipped

2:36:16 for what would be their greatest challenge in theory Stalin's Soviet

2:36:24 Union was still Hitler's Ally and Stalin was Keen to keep

2:36:28 it that way for his country was woefully unprepared for war

2:36:37 the mighty Red Army once the largest and most technologically

2:36:41 advanced in the world had been devastated by Stalin's purges

2:36:45 in the late 1930s some 3/4 of its senior officers had

2:36:50 been shot or [Music] imprisoned despite

2:36:56 appearances there had been a catastrophic

2:36:59 collapse in morale and [Music] efficiency as German soldiers now

2:37:10 flooded into neighboring Poland Stalin desperate to maintain the peace gave

2:37:15 orders that nothing should be done to offend Hitler [Applause]

2:37:25 but Hitler had one other task to perform before he could push

2:37:28 on to Russia he needed to secure his Southern flank

2:37:36 Romania Bulgaria and Hungary were Germany's firm allies but in March

2:37:43 1941 the Yugoslav government sympathetic to Germany was overthrown by pro-

2:37:48 British forces its nextdoor neighbor Greece was also pro- British so

2:38:04 on April the 6th 1941 the German Army invaded the Balkans

2:38:14 33 German divisions moved into Yugoslavia they swiftly tore its

2:38:22 defenses apart the capital Belgrade surrendered on April 12th Greece fell

2:38:37 almost as quickly despite British help Athens was captured in less

2:38:43 than 3 weeks the way was now clear for operation

2:38:57 Barbarosa over 4 million men were to be deployed they were

2:39:03 supported by more than 3,000 aircraft The Plan called for three

2:39:14 simultaneous thrusts Army Group North would overrun the Baltic state

2:39:19 and seiz Leningrad Army group Center was to advance to Moscow

2:39:38 and army group South would occupy the Ukraine Hitler's generals

2:39:47 went silent when he showed them the land they were worried

2:39:52 it was too ambitious and would spread their forces too thinly

2:39:58 but none dared voice their doubts the Red Army was

2:40:05 much bigger it had nearly 2 million men within Striking Distance

2:40:10 of the Western Front and millions more in reserve the Russians

2:40:20 also had more than 20,000 taxs far outnumbering Germany's 6,000 they

2:40:27 were older and less powerful but they were still a formidable

2:40:31 fighting [Music] force the issue for Germany was could its

2:40:40 Superior technology and speed overwhelm the Russians before the red Army's

2:40:45 vast numbers ground them down operation Barbarosa began at 3:15 a.m.

2:40:56 on June the 22nd 1941 the Luft buffer joined in at dawn targeting Soviet

2:41:11 [Music] airfields s simultaneously the ground attack

2:41:26 began the Germans swiftly crossed the river

2:41:29 bug on the border between Poland and the Soviet Union Hitler's panzas were soon

2:41:39 thrusting deep into Soviet territory within 2

2:41:46 days the panzas had penetrated more than 50

2:41:49 miles ill coordinated Red Army counterattacks were

2:41:56 swiftly brushed aside tens of thousands of Soviet

2:42:09 prisoners were rounded up meanwhile the Luft

2:42:16 buffer had Total Domination of the air

2:42:23 the red Army's leadership seemed Paralyzed by the German arm Rush on June

2:42:34 the 29th 7 days after the start of the assault two Panza thrusts met up

2:42:40 near Minsk surrounding huge pockets of Soviet

2:42:43 troops as the follow-up infantry arrived more

2:42:54 than 300,000 prisoners were taken often

2:43:03 the Germans found themselves welcomed as liberators particularly

2:43:08 in the Ukraine where anti-russian feeling was

2:43:11 [Applause] [Music] widespread in Moscow St alen

2:43:19 appeared to have suffered a near breakdown at the news of his betrayal by Hitler

2:43:24 he remained silent for more than a week not until July the 3 did

2:43:38 he appeal to his people's patriotism to save the motherland in Britain the prime

2:43:49 prime minister Winston Churchill received the news

2:43:51 of operation Barbarosa with very different feelings

2:43:59 it meant the country no longer stood alone he announced that any enemy of Nazi

2:44:05 Germany was a friend of Britains no

2:44:08 matter what the political differences in the past

2:44:15 he then sent a mission to Moscow to sign a treaty of M

2:44:19 Mutual assistance with Soviet foreign minister

2:44:21 veslav Molotov but apart from sending Aid by CA there was Little Britain could

2:44:29 do immediately to help the Soviet [Music] Union

2:44:42 as June turned to July the German

2:44:45 Blitz Creek slashed deeper into Soviet territory

2:44:50 it was beginning to look as if nothing could stop Hitler but he was about

2:44:54 to make his first major strategic [Music]

2:45:11 blunder in early July 1941 over 300,000

2:45:16 Red Army troops were surrounded west of me

2:45:25 Hitler's Panza commanders in particular General Hein

2:45:28 scaran begged to be allowed to race

2:45:34 on operation Barbarosa was working like clockwork

2:45:51 within a week the panzas were at smin deep inside Russia and only a couple

2:45:56 of hundred miles from Moscow on July the 22nd a Panza Pinson movement met

2:46:05 to the east of Smet trapping another

2:46:08 310,000 Soviet [Music] troops here there was

2:46:19 a brief pause while the rest of the army caught up though the tanks

2:46:25 could move at spectacular Speed Most of the army still had to walk or rely

2:46:31 on horsedrawn transport but it still only took them 5 days before they arrived

2:46:39 and began mopping up the operation was completed in just nine more days vast

2:46:51 Columns of Soviet prisoners began trudging West to captivity over 2 and a half

2:46:59 million never returned Moscow was now only 200 M away and the road lay

2:47:11 open it seemed certain it would fall by the end of the summer as planned

2:47:22 but elsewhere the German Advance was finding

2:47:25 the going more difficult the Red Army

2:47:28 was counterattacking more effectively and by mid

2:47:31 July Army group South was still more than 50 miles from [Music] KF Hitler

2:47:41 decided Garian panzas should delay their Advance on Moscow and swing South to KF

2:47:47 to provide help Garian objected strongly but Hitler

2:47:55 was adamant there should be no further Advance on Moscow until KF had fallen

2:48:02 it would turn out to be a fateful decision there were already worrying signs

2:48:11 the Red Army was not going to be the pushover Hitler had been expecting

2:48:16 [Music] Soviet Manpower seemed endless more

2:48:21 than 16 million troops were now mobilized

2:48:27 and the Red Army now had some formidable new weapons in particular a new tank

2:48:39 the 37 T t34 it had a 76 mm gun and was faster and better

2:48:47 cross country than the Panza mark [Music] four yet as the blitz cre continued

2:48:59 it was easy to miss the warning signs Garian Panza group began its thrust

2:49:06 South on August the 23rd 1941 the panzas of army group South struck North 3

2:49:14 weeks later the pincers met East east of KF on September the 16th two

2:49:29 more Soviet armies were utterly destroyed half

2:49:32 a million men were killed or captured

2:49:42 on the same day more than a th000 miles to the north Army Group

2:49:47 North surrounded the city of Leningrad today's

2:49:50 St Petersburg it was immediately cut off

2:49:55 from the rest of the Soviet [Music] Union the city was besieged Hitler decided

2:50:05 not to storm it and the German troops settled down to starve it into surrender

2:50:14 conditions in the city became dark the only link to the rest of the Soviet

2:50:19 Union was across Lake ladoga to the east but only a small amount

2:50:23 of food could come in by [Music] water starvation set in over 11,000 people

2:50:33 died in [Music] November not until December could an Ice Road be opened across

2:50:44 the lake and there was a slight increase in rations but 3,700 people died

2:50:51 of starvation on one day in December

2:50:55 [Music] alone meanwhile Army group center now prepared

2:51:07 for the final assault on Moscow the Darian panzas had rejoined it to lead

2:51:15 the blitz group the Germans had a 2:1 superiority in tanks and men at the front

2:51:22 and 3:1 in [Music] aircraft the assault started on September the 20th 1941 once

2:51:39 again Garian panzas slashed deep through the redar by October the 7th yet more

2:51:47 Soviet TR troops were surrounded but Stalin

2:51:55 was determined to defend Moscow to the last

2:51:59 he appointed Marshall googi jukov to organize the defense of the [Music] city

2:52:11 the people of Moscow were mobilized to dig a series of defensive lines

2:52:21 but the real obstacle to German Advance would

2:52:24 be the weather on October the 8th Heavy

2:52:28 Rain set in German vehicles soon became bogged down in a sea of mud

2:52:42 by late October appalling weather and an increasingly

2:52:46 stubborn Soviet resistance Army group Center

2:52:49 was still some 50 m short of Moscow Hitler was finally paying the price

2:52:56 for his decision earlier in the year to delay his Advance on Moscow at around

2:53:09 the same time Army group South reached the Black Sea trapping yet more Soviet

2:53:14 soldiers another 100,000 prisoners were taken [Music]

2:53:22 but they too were hampered by the weather

2:53:30 even so the city of kov was captured on October the 24th 1941

2:53:40 but the weather was now starting to freeze

2:53:43 the German forces confident the campaign would

2:53:46 be over by the summer were caught un un prepared with no winter clothing

2:53:51 they now suffered terribly on the Moscow

2:53:59 front Army group Center was now beginning

2:54:02 its final push to capture the Soviet [Music] cab by December the 4th its

2:54:10 leading units were just 19 miles from Red

2:54:13 Square some reconnaissance patrols claimed they could

2:54:16 see the golden domes of the Kremlin glinting in the distance but that night

2:54:24 the temperature plunged again tank engines would

2:54:27 not start weapons froze many soldiers were severely frostbit on December the 5th

2:54:39 the Germans halted the attack winter had come

2:54:45 to the rescue of the Red Army but the Germans were confident that come

2:54:51 the spring they could finish the job for much of autumn 1941 Stalin's armies

2:55:11 wheeled under the German [Music] Onslaught

2:55:17 but all the while he had another worry that the Japanese would attack his forces

2:55:22 in Siberia but in November the Soviet dictator

2:55:29 received a message from his top spy in Japan assuring him the Japanese had no

2:55:34 such intention immediately more than 30 divisions

2:55:41 began moving West along the Trans Siberian

2:55:44 Railway to Moscow they were well equipped

2:55:52 and well trained in Winter fighting by early

2:56:00 December more than half a million extra men were in position near the capital

2:56:15 on December the 5th just as the Germans were abandoning their attempt to capture

2:56:19 Moscow they were hit by a Savage Russian [Music] attack first came a massive

2:56:33 Soviet artillery barage then swarms of Soviet

2:56:38 t-34s crashed through the German defenses stunned

2:56:46 by the savagery of the attack by by an enemy they had assumed was

2:56:49 on the ropes the Germans fell back for the next 7 Days the Soviet troops

2:56:59 tore into the German forces for Hitler who had only reluctantly agreed to Halt

2:57:13 the attack on Moscow it was a terrible blow on December the 19th he

2:57:23 sacked his overall commander-in-chief field Marshall valter

2:57:27 Von brait and assumed command himself hin Garian was also sacked along with 35

2:57:38 other senior officers Hitler now ordered that there

2:57:49 would be no more Retreats the German troops should fight and if necessary die

2:57:54 where they stood it worked the German

2:58:03 line gradually [Music] steady but Stalin elated

2:58:11 by the red Army's success now demanded a massive Advance across the whole front

2:58:20 Marshall zukov one of Stalin's most trusted

2:58:23 commanders tried to dissuade him but Stalin was

2:58:29 [Music] determined for the next four

2:58:38 months fighting swirled inconclusively around the German

2:58:43 defensive positions for for Hitler this was

2:58:48 a very uncomfortable situation he was used to and expected quick results now he

2:59:00 was dangerously bogged down in the Soviet Union

2:59:03 and facing an enemy that never seemed to give up nor was Russia his only

2:59:15 headache on December the 7th 1941 Germany's

2:59:22 Allied Japan attacked the United States without

2:59:27 warning Hitler with almost no thought also declared war on the US with no

2:59:35 Advanced planning he had taken on a massive new [Music] enemy as 1941 became

2:59:46 1942 Hitler remained determined to go

2:59:49 on the offensive again in Russia but he needed

2:59:52 a new strategy the original plan of fighting across the whole front was no

2:59:57 longer tenable moreover as his economic advisers

3:00:05 told him Germany's oil supplies were running

3:00:09 low so he decided to Halt the attacks in the north and instead head

3:00:15 for Russia's oil fields in the south the initial plan for Operation Blue as it

3:00:24 was called envisaged an assault south of kov with army group a swinging

3:00:30 down to seize the oil fields while Army Group B covered its flank along

3:00:35 the river [Music] Dawn straight away there

3:00:43 was a brutal encounter with Soviet forces

3:00:46 trying to retake car another 200,000 Soviet

3:01:08 troops were captured 70,000 were killed as part

3:01:24 of the same operation the Germans tightened

3:01:27 their Siege of the port of Sebastapol in the Crimea for 8 months The Defenders

3:01:34 had been under constant bombardment from German

3:01:37 artillery including a massive 400 MM Railway

3:01:46 gun in late June 1942 Sebastapol finally

3:01:50 fell to the Germans it was now safe to head for the oil fers

3:02:04 on June the 28th the offensive began Army Group B forced its way through

3:02:09 to the river Dawn and advanced along

3:02:12 its Western Bank Army group a faced stronger

3:02:31 resistance but by July the 9th it was close to rosof Hitler now made

3:02:44 a series of what would turn out to be serious strategic plunders as Army Group B

3:02:50 made its way along the dawn the fura ordered it to capture staring grat

3:02:55 even though the city had no immediate

3:02:57 strategic significance the Army had suddenly been

3:03:03 given a massive new [Music] task two

3:03:10 weeks later Hitler compounded his misjudgment frustrated

3:03:14 by the slow progress of the campaign in the Caucasus he Di diverted the bulk

3:03:18 of his panzas down to the mountains the march on Stalingrad slowed noticeably

3:03:31 the reinforced Army group a now raced across the Caucasus to within 70 Mi

3:03:37 of the caspan threatening to cut off all the Soviet armies in the [Music]

3:03:46 area but then then Hitler changed his mind again enraged by Army group B's slow

3:03:52 progress to Stalingrad he now ordered the pancers back up north on August

3:04:01 the 9th Army group a seized the first of the Southern oil fields at M

3:04:08 it found them comprehensively trashed but with without

3:04:18 reinforcements it could get no further

3:04:20 and the huge oil fields in the central Caucasus and those near the Caspian Sea

3:04:25 remained Beyond its grasp but by now

3:04:31 Hitler's attention had shifted again in late

3:04:36 August German forces were within Striking Distance

3:04:40 of Stalingrad there some on the city

3:04:48 which bore the name of Hitler's Arch Enemy had begun it would be one

3:04:53 of the most crucial battles of World War II on August the 17th 1942 General

3:05:14 Friedrich pulis's 6th Army crossed the D and began a final push on starting

3:05:20 [Music] Road 6 days later one Panza thrust had reached the vulgar River just

3:05:32 north of the city and German forces were fighting in the outer [Music] summs

3:05:42 Hitler seemed poised for a famous victory

3:05:50 Stalingrad was an important industrial center it straggled

3:05:55 for more than 12 miles along the West Bank of the river its factories

3:06:01 produced over a quarter of the Soviet

3:06:03 unions tractors and trucks as well as tanks

3:06:06 and guns the Russian people had turned it into a formidable Fortress they had

3:06:15 been helped by Hitler's decision to send Army group B's panzas to the South

3:06:20 this had given them another 2 weeks to prepare the German plan was

3:06:31 to make a direct assault on the city now began one of the most prolonged

3:06:43 and intense battles of World War II

3:07:00 slowly the Germans edged Forward Street by street

3:07:04 with stooker dive bombs blitzing just ahead

3:07:06 of them [Music] the fighting was Savage

3:07:19 house to house room by room the Soviet Defenders used the sewers for shelter

3:07:31 and Communications and the ruins above

3:07:34 for sniping Russian reinforcements had to be brought

3:07:46 across the [Music] River often they were under assault from the air but even

3:08:04 so thousands got through by late September

3:08:12 the Germans have pushed their way through most

3:08:15 of the city almost to the vault for Hitler the capture of Stalingrad was

3:08:23 now an obsession on October the 4th 1942 General paulus launched what was meant

3:08:35 to be the final assault on Stalingrad tanks led the way grinding over the rubble

3:08:44 and firing Point Blank into courtyards one

3:08:52 German officer said the advance is measured

3:08:55 in corpses not [Music] meters German victories

3:09:01 seemed certain but in fact the Germans

3:09:04 were dangerously overextended by mid November

3:09:12 the Soviet Army was bringing in reinforcements more

3:09:16 than a million troops 132,000 guns 900

3:09:21 tanks and over 1,000 aircraft were secretly

3:09:25 moved to the Battle [Music] Zone on November

3:09:38 the 19th they attacked the Germans Northern

3:09:43 [Music] flank after a massive artillery barrage

3:09:49 the t-34s and assault infantry burst through

3:09:52 the German positions now it was the Germans

3:10:00 who surrendered in their thousands the next

3:10:10 day a Soviet assault in the South was equally successful and on November

3:10:18 the 23rd these pins movements met west

3:10:21 of Stalingrad cutting off the German sixth Army

3:10:29 general paulus in charge of the German forces could have broken out but Hitler

3:10:34 ordered him to stand and fight the fura had been assured by the Luft

3:10:42 buffer that sufficient supplies could be airlifted

3:10:45 into Stalingrad this was enough for him

3:10:47 to announce that the German positions must

3:10:50 hold out until relieved to help Paul as's

3:10:55 Field Marshal Eric Fon manstein the overall

3:10:58 German commander in the region launched operation

3:11:01 winter storm on December the 12th it was an attempt by the German panzas

3:11:08 to break the Soviet encirclement of the city [Music] for two days it went

3:11:19 well but then Red Army resistance increased

3:11:25 by December the 23rd the German rescue attempt

3:11:28 had ground to a halt about 30 m from the [Music] city manstein advised

3:11:37 the baguer paulus to attempt to break out of staling but paulus wanted Hitler's

3:11:45 permission this was refused it was probably

3:11:54 too late anyway Marshall zukov now unleashed

3:11:58 the next stage of his master plan it was a massive assault on the Panza

3:12:08 relief operation the panzas were pushed back a away from the city

3:12:18 and by the end of December all hope

3:12:20 of relieving the German forces in Stalingrad had

3:12:28 gone worse still plans to airlift Aid into the city were a fiasco the German

3:12:37 troops needed 700 tons of supplies a day to survive they never received more

3:12:43 than 80 the weather was too bad and the red Air Force now commanded

3:12:52 the skies steadily the Soviet troops squeezed

3:13:01 in on the encircle Germans 200,000 men were

3:13:13 trapped on January the 8th the Soviets called on the the Germans to surrender

3:13:20 they [Music] refused on January the 31st

3:13:43 1943 paus was forced to surrender [Music] over

3:14:03 a 100,000 men stumbled off into captivity

3:14:08 only 5,000 would ever return to Germany

3:14:14 [Music] Stalingrad had been a bloody battle

3:14:21 the Germans had been Savaged they had

3:14:24 lost some 300,000 of their men and at least as many of their [Music]

3:14:35 allies the Russians had lost about

3:14:37 the same number including thousands of [Music] civilians

3:14:45 it was Germany's greatest catastro atropy in the war so far but it wouldn't

3:14:50 be the last the Red Army was now inflicting massive defeats on Hitler's forces

3:14:57 across the whole Eastern [Music] Front Stalingrad

3:15:09 had been a great Triumph for the Soviet

3:15:11 Army now its operational Commander Marshall zukov

3:15:15 set his sights on Germany's army group

3:15:18 a still camped in the Caucasus Soviet troops thrust their way west of Stalingrad

3:15:28 and by early December 1942 were within 120 Mi of rof there was a real

3:15:36 possibility all the German forces in the South would be cut off with little

3:15:43 Choice Hitler reluctantly gave Army group

3:15:46 a permission to fall back over the next month the Germans fought a skillful rear

3:15:56 guard [Music] action hundreds of thousands of troops

3:16:09 withdrew then on January the 12th 1943

3:16:13 zukov launched an allout assault the Soviets

3:16:24 attacked along a 500 Mile front outnumbered

3:16:34 7 to1 Fon manstein the overall commander

3:16:37 of German forces in the region fought a brilliant mobile retreat but by the end

3:16:47 of February the Red Army had recaptured both KK and the nearby city

3:16:52 of kov this Russian winter offensive had

3:17:00 struck a crippling blow to German power over

3:17:04 a matter of months it had lost a million men and vast numbers of tanks

3:17:09 and guns the Red Army still had enormous reserves of Manpower it was also

3:17:26 benefiting from a huge increase in weapons

3:17:28 production and aid from the United States and Britain the Germans also no longer

3:17:37 had the technological upper hand the t34 tank

3:17:42 was more than a match for the Panza Mark 4 and they also had

3:17:49 the terrifying katucha multiple rocket system which

3:17:53 shattered German troops yet Hitler refused to give

3:18:02 up hope he still dreamed of a preemptive summer assault that would throw

3:18:09 the Soviet Union off balance and regain the initiative the the city of KK seemed

3:18:18 the obvious place to start here the Soviet assault had pushed a bulge deep

3:18:23 into the German lines it looked temptingly

3:18:28 exposed Hitler decided it should be cut off

3:18:31 and annihilated he also had an ace up his sleep the German Counterattack would

3:18:40 be led by a new generation of German

3:18:43 tanks specially designed to combat the formidable

3:18:46 Russian t34 the massive but slow 55ton tiger had a lethal 88 mm gun

3:18:58 and its frontal armor made it almost impervious to Soviet tank guns and then

3:19:09 there was the faster 43 ton Panther with a new 75 mm gut also

3:19:15 capable of knocking out the te [Music] 34 these tanks were so new Hitler

3:19:22 was forced to delay the attack

3:19:24 whilst sufficient numbers were manufactured and delivered

3:19:27 to the [Music] front but even as the German

3:19:37 forces began to assemble the Soviet Commander

3:19:40 Marshall zukov guessed what was about

3:19:43 to happen [Music] soon afterwards he received information

3:19:49 from a Soviet spiring inside the German

3:19:52 High command confirming the sight of the attack

3:19:57 zukov ordered the construction of a series

3:20:00 of defensive lines with anti-tank ditches Mine

3:20:03 Fields and deep belts of barbed wire he also massively built up Soviet forces

3:20:10 in the area pulling in troops and tanks from less vulnerable parts of the front

3:20:21 by the eve of the assault on kusk the Germans were hugely outnumbered

3:20:26 by Soviet Defenders who also knew exactly when the Germans would attack on July

3:20:38 the 5th 1943 just as the German troops prepared to assault they were hit

3:20:44 by a huge Soviet artillery bomb [Music]

3:20:55 bombardment even so the next morning the panzas

3:20:59 still rolled forward but this time they

3:21:05 were up against a well-entrenched enemy there

3:21:08 was no realistic chance of a lightning

3:21:11 Blitz Greek breakthrough [Music] the results were

3:21:25 disastrous in the north the German Army gained a mere 6 miles for the loss

3:21:30 of 25,000 men and more than 200 tanks in the south the Germans fared

3:21:48 a little better a wedge 25 M deep was driven into the Soviet defenses

3:21:53 but it also came at a high [Music] price 10,000 men were killed and 350

3:22:04 tanks [Music] destroyed but for a brief moment it looked as if a German

3:22:14 breakthrough might be possible then zukov threw in his reserves on July the 12th

3:22:27 1943 900 tanks charged into the German

3:22:31 flag [Music] [Music] [Music] almost 2,000 tanks

3:22:53 now engaged in what was the largest armored battle of World War [Music] II

3:23:11 the Soviet t-34s drove into the German

3:23:13 lines and opened fire at Point Blank [Music]

3:23:27 range after a single day of brutal combat the Germans had lost a further

3:23:32 350 tanks and were [Music] retreating meanwhile

3:23:42 overhead there was an epic Air Battle

3:23:48 [Music] eventually the Soviet Air Force established

3:23:52 Supremacy over the LT [Music] buffer now

3:23:59 the Russians could unleash their formidable illution

3:24:03 il2 storic tank kills by July the 23rd

3:24:15 the ger had lost any ground they had gained and with it the cream

3:24:20 of their [Music] army Hitler's Adventure at KK had cost him at least 50,000

3:24:32 troops and more than 700 attacks never again would the Germans launch a major

3:24:44 offensive on the EAS fr the Russians had turned the tide of the war [Music]