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(narrator) August 25, 1944.

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Paris was liberated.

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That same day, to the east,
Romania changed sides,

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and with her defection
went Hitler's only natural oil supply.

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Bulgaria had already quit the Axis,

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00:00:42,584 --> 00:00:48,714
and Finland, too, began negotiating
with the Russians for an armistice.

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General de Gaulle, the Free French
leader, enters his capital,

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a capital four years before he had left
a comparatively unknown soldier.

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Now he was being greeted
as the very soul of France.

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For Parisians, the dark years
of German occupation were over.

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Could it be long
before the rest of Europe was freed too?

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August 15, 1944.

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Operation Anvil,
the Allied invasion of southern France.

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With the break-out from the Normandy
beachhead under way to the north,

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Anvil was meant to begin
the pincer movement

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on Hitler's Germany from all sides -

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the pincer movement
that was to squeeze the Third Reich dry.

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We leapt out near St Tropez and
l thought, "They'll open up any minute,"

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and suddenly out of the mists

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on our particular beach
there came a Frenchman.

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He carried a tray of champagne glasses.

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And we all stopped.

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Clearly, this was utterly unexpected,

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and he smiled and said,
"Soyez les bienvenus, Monsieur."

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"Welcome. But if l may venture a little
criticism, you are somewhat late."

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From there on it was known to the troops
as the "Champagne Campaign".

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(narrator) Everywhere, during
those mad, joyful weeks of August 1944,

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the Germans were being driven back

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towards the borders
of their own country.

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(gunfire)

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Those Frenchmen who had
collaborated with the hated Boche

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became ever more desperate.

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Those Frenchwomen who had
consorted with their conquerors

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were now singled out
for special treatment.

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Thousands upon thousands of sullen,
bewildered Germans were taken prisoner,

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sometimes whole divisions at a time.

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(newsreel) 20,000 German troops
are surrendered

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by their commander,
Major General Erich Elster.

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General Elster hands over his pistol
as a token of surrender.

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General Elster
commanded the Biarritz area

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from the Pyrenees to the Bay of Biscay.

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(narrator) To many in the Allied camp,
the war seemed as good as over.

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lndeed, there was talk
of being back home for Christmas.

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But the top brass
didn't always see eye to eye

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on just how the final victory
was to be won.

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(man) Montgomery argued

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that the Germans had had
a very heavy defeat in Normandy.

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They'd lost
approximately 500,000 troops.

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43 divisions had been smashed,
and 2,000 tanks.

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This was the moment to really hit them.

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And what he advocated
was a strong drive up the coastal plain,

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with the right on the Ardennes and the
left probably almost on the coastline.

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Day and night, never letting up,
never giving them time to recover.

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And, of course, he would be
in command of this.

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And we'd go right through,
bounce the crossing of the Rhine,

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come round behind the Ruhr,
cut them oft,

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and the war would be over in 1944.

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Eisenhower said, "No. l don't
like this. lt's a pincerlike thrust."

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"You're not touching a lot of the troops

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which are in France."

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"l propose to advance on a broad front,

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right up to the Rhine,

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and then do a crossing of the Rhine

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and finish the war there."

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But... That was perhaps safer,

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but it meant that the war

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couldn't be finished in 1944.

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l think the British were very slow

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to realise that the main eftort

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for war in Europe

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lay with the Americans.

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l think the British press
was probably slow, as well.

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l think people forgot

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that the great weight of divisions
and supplies and so on were American.

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After we broke out from the bridgehead,

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supply for a very long time
had to come over the beaches

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or be carried by air.

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Army groups found often that
they couldn't do what they wanted to

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for lack of supplies,
particularly petrol.

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(narrator) Each tank used
a gallon of petrol a mile.

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The trucks carrying the stuft

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stretched back 250 miles
to the Normandy beaches.

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Such had been the speed
of the Allied break-out

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that pockets of German troops
had been left behind,

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and so the road convoys had often to run
a gauntlet of enemy sniping on the way.

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The lorry drivers
had nicknamed the area

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between Paris and the front line
"lnjun country".

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The hardest fighting of all
was along the coast.

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Every port had been garrisoned by Hitler

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with orders to fight
to the proverbial last round.

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Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, Calais,
Dunkirk, had all to be assaulted in turn

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by separate set-piece battle.

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Hitler knew supply
would be the Allies' main headache,

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hence his determination to hang on
to the Channel ports as long as possible

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and, when finally yielded,
to see they were destroyed utterly.

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One third of Montgomery's forces

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were engaged in clearing Germans
from the Channel ports

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while the rest pushed on into Belgium.

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(Horrocks) My really big moment
was when we crossed the frontier,

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because, you see,
l had commanded the rearguard

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during the withdrawal to Dunkirk.

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l was then a battalion commander.

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And l'd been doing flank guard
and rear guard to the 3rd Division,

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commanded by a certain Field Marshal
Montgomery, who was then a general.

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And l was very ashamed of myself.

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We'd advanced
to the cheers of the Belgian people,

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and now a few days later, back we were
going through these ashen-faced crowds,

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terribly despondent -

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they knew they were going
to be occupied again by the Germans.

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And l kept on saying, "Don't worry.
We'll come back."

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And as we crossed the frontier,
we had come back.

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And a young man - l suppose
he saw the red round my hat, you know -

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and he ran across to my tank.

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There were tears pouring down his face.
And he held out his hand like this,

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and he said, "l knew you'd come back!
l knew you'd come back!"

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(cheering)

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A friend of mine in Brussels told me
that he heard the sound of tanks,

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but they were quite used to that.

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He looked out of the window,
and he said to himself:

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"Those are difterent.
They don't seem to be German."

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Then he opened the window and leant out,
and somebody waved.

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He said, "They're British!"
And he tore down into the street,

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and so did everybody else in Brussels.

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There has never been such a scene
as when we liberated Brussels, never.

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And some of the really tough
old 30 Corps veterans

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still blush to think
of the things that happened.

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So far, so good.
Now we come to the mistakes.

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We were ordered to halt. The reason
was that we were outrunning our supply.

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Now, this was wrong,

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because we had 100 kilometres' worth
of petrol with our vehicles,

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and another 100 kilometres'
within about 24 hours' reach,

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and they should, in my opinion,
have taken a chance.

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Because that day that we were halted,

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the only thing between us and the Rhine

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was one division of very old gentlemen.

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We called them "stomach divisions",
because they were sort of my age,

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and all had things wrong
with their tummies.

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They'd been guarding
the coast of Holland,

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never seen a shot fired in anger,

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and they'd have been delighted
to move peacefully into our POW camps

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without having to indulge in this horrid
war - that was the sort of mentality.

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Plus one Dutch SS battalion - nothing.

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We could have brushed straight through
them, bounced the crossing to the Rhine,

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cut all the Germans in Holland
oft from the Ruhr,

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and then got round behind the Ruhr.

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Unquestionably, it was, to my mind,
a very bad mistake.

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We should have taken the risk.

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When we were allowed to advance,
which was September 7,

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we made ten miles in four days.

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We had previously done
250 miles in seven days.

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We were no longer pursuing.
We were now fighting again.

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Then, on September 1 1 ,

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l got my orders for Arnhem.

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(narrator) The three main waterways
of the Rhine delta

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lay between the Allied spearheads
and Germany proper:

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the Maas, the Waal and the Neder Rijn.

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Montgomery's plan was to lay an
airborne carpet across these waterways,

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capture the bridges,

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and rush a mobile force round
the left flank of the Siegfried line

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to cut oft the Ruhr, and so end
German resistance before Christmas 1944.

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l've got it.

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(Strong) Many people will tell you
that the plan was wrong -

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there were too many objectives,

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or the parachutists were not landed
in proper places and so on.

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And the weather, of course,
was not good, and did interrupt it.

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But l think that
if more attention had been paid

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to what you might call
the enemy's dispositions,

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then l think the plan
would have been alright.

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(De Guingand) Airborne troops
who landed at Arnhem

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suddenly found themselves
up against some German armoured units

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that were refitting there, and
just happened to be there at the time.

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(gunfire)

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(Strong) Among the first ofticers
who were landed among the parachutists,

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the Germans found
a complete copy of our plan.

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And this was whisked oft
to the German commander on the spot,

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and, of course, from then on
he had all the information

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of what we were trying to do.

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(De Guingand)
lt's anyone's guess whether,

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having got that Rhine bridgehead,

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at that time of year,
with the bad weather setting in,

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whether we'd have been able
to maintain that

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for several months during the winter.

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Because one knew from experience
how magnificent the Germans were

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at retrieving critical situations.

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The battle went on
for three or four days,

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and we couldn't really
make any progress.

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Eventually Montgomery decided
that he couldn't go on,

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and that the operation
was to be called oft,

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and get as many people back across
the Rhine as possible, which he did.

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We lost quite a lot. But l think
one's got to be quite honest,

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and say that it failed in its object.

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lt achieved partial success,

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and l always hate using that expression

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of "glorious failures".

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l wouldn't call it that, but...

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it was a failure, up to a point.

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(narrator) The failure at Arnhem

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meant the war would now definitely
not be over by Christmas 1944.

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lt meant, too, that the initiative,
for the moment,

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had been lost by the Western Allies.

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But on the Eastern Front,
it was a vastly difterent story.

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There, the Red Army
was advancing everywhere.

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ln the centre, 100,000 Germans
had been surrounded at Minsk.

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ln the north, Finland had been
knocked out of the war,

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Estonia recaptured, Latvia and Lithuania
cleared of German troops,

206
00:19:03,642 --> 00:19:07,436
and the borders of East Prussia reached.

207
00:19:07,521 --> 00:19:10,982
ln the south,
the Ukraine had been freed.

208
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Romania had capitulated,

209
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Bulgaria had been overrun,

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Greece cut oft,

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and a link-up eftected
with Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia.

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lt was a story of gigantic triumph,

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00:19:25,164 --> 00:19:27,039
of overwhelming success

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everywhere in the east,

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save in one near-forgotten city,

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where the war had first begun
five years before:

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Poland's capital, Warsaw.

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By July 1944, the Red Army
occupied the eastern half of Poland,

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that half allocated to them in
the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939.

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The exiled Polish government in London
was anxious to assert itself

221
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before the Russians overran the country.

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Otherwise, in their eyes,

223
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it would merely be an exchange of
occupiers rather than true liberation.

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As the Red Army approached Warsaw,

225
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the German garrison
seemed ready to leave.

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On July 29, a Russian broadcast
talked of Warsaw's impending liberation,

227
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and urged the workers of the Resistance
to rise against the retreating Germans.

228
00:20:33,899 --> 00:20:38,361
On August 1 , the Polish underground
army inside Warsaw did rise,

229
00:20:38,445 --> 00:20:41,906
though they did not all support
the London government.

230
00:20:41,990 --> 00:20:43,783
However, the aim of those who did

231
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was to fly in the government-in-exile
once they had control

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00:20:47,329 --> 00:20:52,750
and set up a legitimate regime
before the Russians arrived.

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00:20:52,834 --> 00:20:57,546
But the uprising coincided with the
Russian oftensive running out of steam,

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00:20:57,631 --> 00:21:00,841
a coincidence that nevertheless
suited Stalin's book.

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00:21:00,926 --> 00:21:05,179
(man) Stalin was very suspicious
of the underground,

236
00:21:05,264 --> 00:21:09,100
but it was utterly cruel that
he wouldn't even try to get supplies in.

237
00:21:09,184 --> 00:21:13,896
He refused to let our aeroplanes fly and
try to drop supplies for several weeks.

238
00:21:13,981 --> 00:21:15,856
And that was a shock to all of us.

239
00:21:15,941 --> 00:21:18,943
l think it played a role
in all of our minds

240
00:21:19,027 --> 00:21:21,862
as to the heartlessness of the Russians.

241
00:21:25,367 --> 00:21:28,828
(man) We had a very strong
underground organisation,

242
00:21:28,912 --> 00:21:34,625
with a civilian government
and all the military commands,

243
00:21:34,710 --> 00:21:40,673
and that was organised during
the four years of the German occupation,

244
00:21:40,757 --> 00:21:43,801
and it just surfaced
and took its functions.

245
00:21:44,803 --> 00:21:47,972
The postal serVice,
which was run by Scouts,

246
00:21:48,098 --> 00:21:52,810
was the only means of communications
between the various districts of Warsaw,

247
00:21:52,894 --> 00:21:55,771
which were completely cut oft
by enemy fire.

248
00:21:55,856 --> 00:21:59,108
The Scouts, to get
from one district to another,

249
00:21:59,192 --> 00:22:05,573
had sometimes to go through sewers,
or under the enemy fire.

250
00:22:05,657 --> 00:22:08,284
(gunfire)

251
00:22:10,746 --> 00:22:12,788
At the very beginning of the uprising

252
00:22:12,873 --> 00:22:15,833
we had ammunition for only,
l think, ten or 12 days.

253
00:22:15,917 --> 00:22:21,630
And then we had to rely on
the ammunition taken from the Germans,

254
00:22:21,757 --> 00:22:27,720
or there were factories of ammunition
and arms in Warsaw going on,

255
00:22:27,846 --> 00:22:30,931
and they were producing
their own ammunition.

256
00:22:45,655 --> 00:22:49,700
(woman) There is something in the
Polish character which is optimistic,

257
00:22:49,785 --> 00:22:51,452
and we do not give up so easily.

258
00:22:51,536 --> 00:22:53,412
l would have given half of my life

259
00:22:53,497 --> 00:22:57,083
for the privilege of participating
in the Warsaw insurrection.

260
00:22:57,167 --> 00:22:59,794
There was a tremendous intensification

261
00:22:59,878 --> 00:23:05,174
of moral life, intellectual life,
emotional life,

262
00:23:05,258 --> 00:23:09,428
the best sides of people
coming to the foreground.

263
00:23:09,513 --> 00:23:11,680
(stirring march)

264
00:23:23,568 --> 00:23:28,823
We had lots of recitals
through all the Warsaw insurrection.

265
00:23:36,164 --> 00:23:43,003
(man) There were people who took
single-handed actions against the tanks,

266
00:23:43,088 --> 00:23:48,551
people who threw themselves
at enemy machine guns, things like that.

267
00:23:48,635 --> 00:23:51,387
There was plenty of individual heroism.

268
00:23:51,471 --> 00:23:54,223
(narrator) The London Poles
almost pulled it oft.

269
00:23:54,349 --> 00:23:57,768
By the end of the first week,
they controlled most of the city,

270
00:23:57,853 --> 00:24:02,398
and the RAF was set to fly in
the Polish government-in-exile.

271
00:24:02,524 --> 00:24:06,861
But then Hitler, realising
Stalin was going to do nothing,

272
00:24:06,945 --> 00:24:09,321
ordered the SS to crush the uprising,

273
00:24:09,406 --> 00:24:13,242
which they proceeded to do
with great relish and ruthlessness.

274
00:24:33,889 --> 00:24:37,725
(woman) The bombing was very bad -
without interruption, practically.

275
00:24:37,809 --> 00:24:40,978
Not only bombing, we had artillery also.

276
00:24:41,062 --> 00:24:43,606
We would cover our dead with newspapers.

277
00:24:43,690 --> 00:24:48,277
This was the first thing always,
you see, before the funeral,

278
00:24:48,403 --> 00:24:51,197
in order not to spoil the morale.

279
00:24:56,286 --> 00:24:59,914
(man) During the last days
of the uprising,

280
00:24:59,998 --> 00:25:03,125
only one district was left
unoccupied by the Germans.

281
00:25:03,210 --> 00:25:06,295
There were three to four,
perhaps 5,000 people.

282
00:25:06,379 --> 00:25:10,299
There were sometimes 30 or 40 people
sleeping in one room.

283
00:25:10,383 --> 00:25:15,679
Now, the Germans were bombarding us
with their dive bombers.

284
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,236
(woman) We had less and less food,
you know.

285
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:32,738
We had some starches,
we didn't have bread,

286
00:25:32,822 --> 00:25:34,990
we had spaghetti, things of that sort.

287
00:25:35,075 --> 00:25:41,455
And at the end, you know, we would
kill horses, and eat horse meat.

288
00:25:41,540 --> 00:25:44,625
And dogs were eaten also.

289
00:25:49,422 --> 00:25:53,592
(narrator) The London Poles became
more frantic in their hopelessness,

290
00:25:53,677 --> 00:25:56,303
and blamed the British for their plight.

291
00:25:56,388 --> 00:25:59,974
But the RAF
couldn't fly in much supplies

292
00:26:00,058 --> 00:26:04,812
as long as Stalin refused to let them
refuel in Soviet-held territory.

293
00:26:04,896 --> 00:26:09,108
By the time he'd been persuaded
to relent, so little was left of Warsaw

294
00:26:09,192 --> 00:26:14,321
that the supplies dropped fell
more often than not into German hands.

295
00:26:14,406 --> 00:26:20,202
(man) We were terribly disappointed.
The whole world forgot about us.

296
00:26:20,287 --> 00:26:24,790
(woman) l feel that
Poland was betrayed by Allies, you see?

297
00:26:24,874 --> 00:26:28,502
(man) lt was the end. We felt
there was absolutely no hope for us,

298
00:26:28,587 --> 00:26:31,338
that we wouldn't get any help
from the Russians.

299
00:26:31,423 --> 00:26:35,384
The Germans were
set on absolutely annihilating us,

300
00:26:35,468 --> 00:26:40,472
and therefore l didn't bother to duck

301
00:26:40,557 --> 00:26:44,810
when l was going under the fire,
anything like that.

302
00:26:44,894 --> 00:26:51,066
l just had the feeling that l should die
sooner or later - sooner, better.

303
00:26:54,237 --> 00:26:57,364
(narrator) The Germans brought
their biggest siege gun,

304
00:26:57,449 --> 00:27:00,326
the dreaded giant mortar
nicknamed "Thor",

305
00:27:00,410 --> 00:27:04,580
each of whose shells
weighed more than two tons.

306
00:27:06,708 --> 00:27:12,129
lt was a hopeless battle now that
had been going on for ten long weeks,

307
00:27:12,213 --> 00:27:16,759
and had already cost the lives
of more than 200,000 Poles.

308
00:27:16,843 --> 00:27:19,595
The time had come to call a halt.

309
00:27:37,614 --> 00:27:42,242
Surprisingly, the Germans allowed
the Poles to surrender honourably,

310
00:27:42,369 --> 00:27:45,663
and treated them
not as partisans fit for execution,

311
00:27:45,747 --> 00:27:48,874
but as enlisted combatants,
due the rights of POWs

312
00:27:48,958 --> 00:27:51,293
under the Geneva Convention.

313
00:27:51,378 --> 00:27:53,587
Clearly, some of the German generals

314
00:27:53,672 --> 00:27:59,009
already had their eyes on possible
war-crimes trials after the war.

315
00:28:21,700 --> 00:28:25,285
Once the remaining citizens
had been driven from the city,

316
00:28:25,370 --> 00:28:28,914
Warsaw was systematically
razed to the ground.

317
00:28:56,234 --> 00:29:00,112
Hitler was determined
it should never rise again.

318
00:29:17,130 --> 00:29:21,508
Thus ended one of the war's
most tragic episodes.

319
00:29:44,324 --> 00:29:46,825
Despite the bombing
and the privations,

320
00:29:46,910 --> 00:29:51,914
the morale of the German people that
autumn of 1944 was surprisingly high.

321
00:29:51,998 --> 00:29:55,667
They responded well
to every propaganda call Hitler made.

322
00:29:55,794 --> 00:30:00,881
This one was for collecting
winter clothing for the Eastern Front.

323
00:30:06,888 --> 00:30:10,766
Hitler reduced the call-up age
that autumn to 16½,

324
00:30:10,850 --> 00:30:15,729
and raked in those who so far had
escaped it on grounds of essential work.

325
00:30:15,814 --> 00:30:19,233
Some 700,000 new recruits were raised,

326
00:30:19,317 --> 00:30:22,361
partly for the Volkssturm,
a sort of Home Guard,

327
00:30:22,445 --> 00:30:27,324
and partly to replace his terrible
losses in both east and west.

328
00:30:27,408 --> 00:30:32,371
But he also had in mind
a more daring use for his new recruits.

329
00:30:33,414 --> 00:30:38,001
Since his defeat in Normandy, Hitler had
been planning a major counterattack,

330
00:30:38,086 --> 00:30:41,672
hoping not just to halt the Allies
before they reached the Rhine,

331
00:30:41,756 --> 00:30:45,717
but to turn them back so decisively
that they would want to sue for peace -

332
00:30:45,802 --> 00:30:49,596
a peace that would give him a breathing
space to stem the Russian advance

333
00:30:49,681 --> 00:30:52,599
before it got too close to Berlin.

334
00:30:54,644 --> 00:30:56,728
Such was his fantasy.

335
00:30:58,064 --> 00:31:01,775
To that end, too,
he'd been conserVing his panzers,

336
00:31:01,901 --> 00:31:04,987
re-equipping them
after their mauling in Normandy.

337
00:31:05,071 --> 00:31:06,864
But where to strike?

338
00:31:09,993 --> 00:31:11,869
That autumn of 1944,

339
00:31:11,953 --> 00:31:14,913
the Allies in the west
had closed up to the German border

340
00:31:14,998 --> 00:31:16,498
along a 1 ,000-mile front,

341
00:31:16,583 --> 00:31:20,502
and had even penetrated
the Siegfried line in one or two places.

342
00:31:20,587 --> 00:31:25,591
But supply still remained a problem,
for Antwerp was not yet open.

343
00:31:25,675 --> 00:31:29,094
To the north of Antwerp
lay the bulk of the British forces.

344
00:31:29,178 --> 00:31:33,515
lf, by a daring blow, Hitler could
capture Antwerp and reach the sea,

345
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,852
he would not only eliminate
the Allies' main supply port,

346
00:31:36,936 --> 00:31:39,396
he would also have split
the Allies in two,

347
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:43,859
and the British might once again
have to contemplate a Dunkirk.

348
00:31:43,943 --> 00:31:47,154
Eisenhower,
in manning his 1 ,000-mile front,

349
00:31:47,238 --> 00:31:49,781
had had to spread his forces
thinly in places.

350
00:31:49,866 --> 00:31:55,412
One such place was just 125 miles
from Antwerp - the Ardennes,

351
00:31:55,496 --> 00:31:59,666
of 1940 magical, mystical memory
for Hitler.

352
00:31:59,751 --> 00:32:03,587
lf only history
could repeat itself for him.

353
00:32:08,468 --> 00:32:13,805
(De Guingand) ln war, one must remember
that you can't be strong everywhere.

354
00:32:13,890 --> 00:32:19,436
12th Army Group, Bradley's army group,
were given certain tasks.

355
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:21,855
And therefore he had to decide

356
00:32:21,940 --> 00:32:25,275
where he was going to be strong,
and where he would be weak.

357
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,945
And he assessed the situation

358
00:32:28,029 --> 00:32:32,324
and decided he'd thin out
on the Ardennes sector.

359
00:32:42,961 --> 00:32:45,545
(American man)
We were told by some of the men

360
00:32:45,630 --> 00:32:50,175
who were in the houses that we took over

361
00:32:50,259 --> 00:32:54,596
that it was a very quiet sector,
nothing happened.

362
00:32:54,681 --> 00:32:57,265
Once in a while a patrol was sent out.

363
00:32:57,350 --> 00:33:02,020
They would hear sometimes
the crackling of a gun in the distance,

364
00:33:02,105 --> 00:33:05,315
and... well, there was nothing to it.

365
00:33:17,537 --> 00:33:22,958
l was... not exactly green,

366
00:33:23,042 --> 00:33:25,919
but there weren't too many
in our particular unit

367
00:33:26,004 --> 00:33:30,590
that had had much
in the way of any combat experience.

368
00:33:42,770 --> 00:33:44,896
(German man) On October 24,

369
00:33:44,981 --> 00:33:47,816
l was ordered to come to Hitler,

370
00:33:47,900 --> 00:33:52,279
to his headquarters in East Prussia.

371
00:33:52,363 --> 00:33:56,408
And he developed me and General Krebs,

372
00:33:56,492 --> 00:34:01,788
the chief of the army group
in the centre, who accompanied me,

373
00:34:01,873 --> 00:34:03,540
that we would get,

374
00:34:03,624 --> 00:34:10,005
end of November or beginning
of December, strong reinforcements.

375
00:34:10,089 --> 00:34:14,509
He named... 20 infantry divisions,

376
00:34:14,594 --> 00:34:19,848
ten armoured divisions,
and a lot of other special troops,

377
00:34:19,932 --> 00:34:24,770
and he promised that
we would be supported by the air force,

378
00:34:24,854 --> 00:34:27,647
with about 3,000 planes.

379
00:34:29,901 --> 00:34:33,361
But we were totally surprised.

380
00:34:33,446 --> 00:34:39,201
He explained that the objectives,
Antwerp and Brussels,

381
00:34:39,285 --> 00:34:41,870
were something of a risk,

382
00:34:41,954 --> 00:34:46,792
and might seem beyond
the capacity of the forces available,

383
00:34:46,876 --> 00:34:49,294
and their condition.

384
00:34:49,378 --> 00:34:54,716
Nevertheless, he had decided
to stake everything on one card,

385
00:34:54,801 --> 00:34:56,551
because Germany needed

386
00:34:56,636 --> 00:34:58,887
a breathing space.

387
00:34:58,971 --> 00:35:00,931
A defence struggle, he said,

388
00:35:01,015 --> 00:35:03,433
could only postpone the decision,

389
00:35:03,518 --> 00:35:07,062
and not change
the general situation for Germany.

390
00:35:14,028 --> 00:35:17,364
(narrator) For his attack,
Hitler, unknown to the Allies,

391
00:35:17,448 --> 00:35:20,450
had assembled
more than half a million troops.

392
00:35:20,535 --> 00:35:25,372
Opposing them were just 80,000
ill-equipped, inexperienced Americans.

393
00:35:25,456 --> 00:35:29,167
lt seemed like May 1940 all over again.

394
00:35:34,340 --> 00:35:39,803
(Manteuffel) The morale
of the German attacking forces was high,

395
00:35:39,887 --> 00:35:42,848
and this compensated, in my opinion,

396
00:35:42,932 --> 00:35:47,602
for our comparative weakness
in weapon and in manpower.

397
00:35:48,354 --> 00:35:53,942
(German man) We saw this build-up
of forces - tanks in great number,

398
00:35:54,026 --> 00:35:58,738
more tanks than we had seen
in the last two years.

399
00:35:58,823 --> 00:36:01,491
We even saw aircraft,

400
00:36:01,576 --> 00:36:07,914
and then we saw that the preparations
were well kept in secrecy.

401
00:36:08,833 --> 00:36:11,168
(narrator) "Null Day" - Zero Day -

402
00:36:11,252 --> 00:36:13,378
December 16, arrived.

403
00:36:26,642 --> 00:36:28,393
Feuer!

404
00:36:39,530 --> 00:36:42,157
The barrage lasted an hour,
and gave the Allies

405
00:36:42,241 --> 00:36:46,036
a taste of what they had themselves
meted out at Cassino some months,

406
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:49,831
and at El Alamein some years, before.

407
00:36:53,878 --> 00:36:57,088
The last great attack
of the Germans in the west had begun.

408
00:36:57,215 --> 00:37:00,800
Hitler's most desperate gamble was on.

409
00:37:06,807 --> 00:37:10,268
(German man) As a simple soldier,
everything is on the road,

410
00:37:10,394 --> 00:37:13,605
and you think these are
more divisions than they are.

411
00:37:13,689 --> 00:37:18,318
Therefore we had the feeling
that this build-up of force

412
00:37:18,402 --> 00:37:24,199
might enable us to reach the final goal,
which was Antwerp.

413
00:37:24,909 --> 00:37:27,410
The weather was foggy.

414
00:37:27,495 --> 00:37:35,377
The American and British air superiority
didn't matter in that type of weather,

415
00:37:35,461 --> 00:37:40,423
and therefore we believed
that we would be successful.

416
00:37:49,517 --> 00:37:51,393
(narrator) Surprise was total.

417
00:37:51,477 --> 00:37:54,562
lt began a day
of monumental confusion for the Allies,

418
00:37:54,647 --> 00:37:59,567
the worst they experienced
in the whole European war.

419
00:38:06,659 --> 00:38:09,577
Even as the first Wehrmacht waves
were overrunning

420
00:38:09,662 --> 00:38:12,163
the American positions
along the Ardennes,

421
00:38:12,248 --> 00:38:14,916
talk at Allied headquarters
back at Versailles

422
00:38:15,001 --> 00:38:18,628
was focused more on the news
of band leader Glenn Miller's death

423
00:38:18,713 --> 00:38:24,384
than of the possibility of the biggest
German oftensive in the west since 1940.

424
00:38:24,468 --> 00:38:28,763
lt was the day Eisenhower
was promoted five-star general,

425
00:38:28,848 --> 00:38:31,850
and the day Field Marshal Montgomery
applied for leave

426
00:38:31,934 --> 00:38:34,769
to go home to England for Christmas.

427
00:38:34,854 --> 00:38:38,440
lke was attending
his chaufteur's wedding that morning,

428
00:38:38,524 --> 00:38:41,401
while Monty was playing golf.

429
00:38:41,485 --> 00:38:46,531
As the day wore on,
the resemblances to May 1940 grew.

430
00:38:46,615 --> 00:38:49,868
The overwhelming German might,
their relentless speed,

431
00:38:49,952 --> 00:38:52,370
above all the chaos in the Allied rear,

432
00:38:52,455 --> 00:38:55,749
as bewildered, untried troops
dashed for safety,

433
00:38:55,833 --> 00:39:00,420
clogging the roads and preventing
reinforcements reaching the front.

434
00:39:00,504 --> 00:39:03,673
(German man) A rumour was spread
that the Americans

435
00:39:03,758 --> 00:39:07,635
would hand over part of
the prisoners of war to the Russians,

436
00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:13,433
and that helped to build up morale
and the will to fight.

437
00:39:18,272 --> 00:39:21,107
(narrator) 7,000 Americans
surrendered in one go,

438
00:39:21,192 --> 00:39:27,364
the biggest mass surrender of
American arms in the European campaign.

439
00:39:32,995 --> 00:39:36,581
German newsreel cameramen
had a field day.

440
00:39:54,892 --> 00:40:00,105
(American man) The fog was lifting
a little bit in the area where we were,

441
00:40:00,189 --> 00:40:06,569
but by about 12 o'clock, we found
that we couldn't go any further,

442
00:40:06,654 --> 00:40:10,407
that it was just a question
of surrendering.

443
00:40:13,869 --> 00:40:16,788
(man #2) The lieutenant went
and made arrangements

444
00:40:16,872 --> 00:40:19,833
with the German ofticer in charge,

445
00:40:19,917 --> 00:40:23,586
and came back up
and told us that we had one hour

446
00:40:23,671 --> 00:40:29,717
to dismantle and destroy our weapons,

447
00:40:29,802 --> 00:40:33,972
or dig holes and bury
whatever we wanted to bury,

448
00:40:34,056 --> 00:40:38,268
and be ready to come oft that hill
within one hour.

449
00:40:43,065 --> 00:40:47,861
(German man) The first American
prisoners didn't know what was going on.

450
00:40:47,945 --> 00:40:51,072
They came to us, asked for bread,
and we had bread enough,

451
00:40:51,157 --> 00:40:55,285
so we gave them bread
and they gave us chocolate.

452
00:41:39,622 --> 00:41:43,291
(German man) After two or three days,

453
00:41:43,375 --> 00:41:47,962
we already saw that
the resistance of the American troops

454
00:41:48,047 --> 00:41:51,633
was stronger than we had believed.

455
00:41:51,717 --> 00:41:54,344
(gunfire)

456
00:41:57,139 --> 00:42:00,391
(American man)
They had been able to break through

457
00:42:00,518 --> 00:42:03,186
because we could get
no fighter-bomber support.

458
00:42:03,270 --> 00:42:06,189
The weather was sitting
right on the treetops,

459
00:42:06,273 --> 00:42:11,486
and we couldn't pick up
any of their moving troops from the air.

460
00:42:11,570 --> 00:42:15,990
But on Christmas Eve, the clouds lifted,

461
00:42:17,952 --> 00:42:21,371
and thereafter
the fighter-bombers came in,

462
00:42:21,455 --> 00:42:25,083
and they simply
destroyed the German armour.

463
00:42:40,307 --> 00:42:43,434
(narrator) Manteuftel's panzers
had run out of petrol,

464
00:42:43,519 --> 00:42:46,729
still some 70 miles short of Antwerp.

465
00:42:46,814 --> 00:42:51,985
Motionless, they were sitting ducks
for the Allied planes.

466
00:42:57,741 --> 00:42:59,325
"lt was a great slaughter",

467
00:42:59,410 --> 00:43:02,745
the American divisional commander
wrote in his report.

468
00:43:02,830 --> 00:43:07,417
For Hitler, it was more
than the beginning of the end.

469
00:43:10,838 --> 00:43:14,340
(Manteuffel) The failure
of this oftensive aftected morale,

470
00:43:14,425 --> 00:43:19,262
and, therefore, the behaviour of
the soldiers and the civilians alike.

471
00:43:19,346 --> 00:43:24,726
Thus we have contributed
to speeding the end of the war.

472
00:43:26,228 --> 00:43:28,855
(narrator)
With the German oftensive halted,

473
00:43:28,939 --> 00:43:31,816
Americans from the south
and British from the north

474
00:43:31,900 --> 00:43:35,695
pressed on the bulge that had been
formed within the Ardennes front -

475
00:43:35,779 --> 00:43:40,033
the bulge that gave
this particular battle its popular name.

476
00:43:40,993 --> 00:43:44,287
They met in mid-January 1945,

477
00:43:44,413 --> 00:43:48,291
by which time the German army
was in total disarray,

478
00:43:48,375 --> 00:43:52,003
for the Russian winter oftensive
had begun four days before.

479
00:43:52,087 --> 00:43:57,759
Now Hitler's gamble in the west
was seen to be supreme folly,

480
00:43:57,843 --> 00:44:01,971
for, to do it, he had denuded
his defences in the east.

481
00:44:09,938 --> 00:44:13,524
With its carefully hoarded reserVes
of fuel and equipment

482
00:44:13,609 --> 00:44:16,694
and, of course, of men too, gone,

483
00:44:16,779 --> 00:44:20,573
the German war machine
began to disintegrate.

484
00:45:01,657 --> 00:45:07,328
l would say that Hitler's attack
in the Bulge brought the war to an end

485
00:45:07,413 --> 00:45:11,708
perhaps six months earlier
than it would otherwise have ended.

486
00:45:11,792 --> 00:45:14,502
The Germans
could have fallen back to the Rhine,

487
00:45:14,586 --> 00:45:16,879
which was a real obstacle.

488
00:45:17,005 --> 00:45:20,925
But they had nothing with which
to hold the Rhine, because essentially,

489
00:45:21,009 --> 00:45:25,805
the reserVes of the German army,
the mobile troops and the reserVes,

490
00:45:25,889 --> 00:45:28,307
were destroyed
in the battle of the Bulge.

491
00:45:28,392 --> 00:45:31,602
The German soldier was exhausted,

492
00:45:31,687 --> 00:45:36,983
and he had only one desire:
to end the war.

493
00:45:37,067 --> 00:45:42,488
But he was willing to fight on,

494
00:45:42,573 --> 00:45:46,993
to cover the rear of the Eastern Front.

495
00:45:48,954 --> 00:45:51,998
(narrator) On January 20, 1945,

496
00:45:52,082 --> 00:45:55,418
Zhukov's tanks entered Germany proper
for the first time,

497
00:45:55,502 --> 00:45:58,504
a mere 100 miles from Berlin,

498
00:45:58,589 --> 00:46:00,590
the occasion being celebrated

499
00:46:00,674 --> 00:46:05,094
by a particularly savage sacking
of every village in sight.

500
00:46:18,108 --> 00:46:21,027
Soon, thousands upon thousands
of German civilians

501
00:46:21,111 --> 00:46:24,864
took to the roads westwards,
away from the dreaded Russians,

502
00:46:24,948 --> 00:46:27,742
producing scenes reminiscent
of those long lines

503
00:46:27,826 --> 00:46:31,621
of French and Belgian refugees
five years before.

504
00:46:49,765 --> 00:46:51,808
As the Allied bombing intensified,

505
00:46:51,892 --> 00:46:54,852
more and more German cities
were reduced to rubble.

506
00:46:54,937 --> 00:46:59,565
ln Mein Kampf, Hitler had written,
"Even if we cannot conquer,

507
00:46:59,650 --> 00:47:03,444
we shall drag the world into destruction
with us."

508
00:47:16,625 --> 00:47:21,879
All during March, the Russian guns
could be heard in Berlin.

509
00:47:49,950 --> 00:47:53,995
(Horrocks) They came to me and said,
"Do you want Cleves taking out?"

510
00:47:54,079 --> 00:47:58,749
By "taking out" they meant all
the heavy bombers putting on to Cleves.

511
00:47:58,834 --> 00:48:04,255
Now, l knew that Cleves
was a fine old historical German town.

512
00:48:05,215 --> 00:48:09,594
Anne of Cleves, one of
Henry Vlll's wives, came from there.

513
00:48:09,678 --> 00:48:12,471
l knew that there were
a lot of civilians in Cleves,

514
00:48:12,556 --> 00:48:15,308
men, women and children.

515
00:48:15,392 --> 00:48:19,103
lf l said no, they would live.
lf l said yes, they would die.

516
00:48:19,229 --> 00:48:24,942
A terrible decision you've got to take.
But everything depended

517
00:48:25,027 --> 00:48:28,404
on getting a high piece of ground
at Materborn.

518
00:48:28,488 --> 00:48:31,741
The German reserVes
would have to come through Cleves,

519
00:48:31,825 --> 00:48:35,286
and we would have to breach
the Siegfried line and get there.

520
00:48:35,370 --> 00:48:38,331
And your own lives, your own troops,
must come first,

521
00:48:38,415 --> 00:48:42,585
so l said yes, l did want it taking out.

522
00:48:42,669 --> 00:48:45,963
But when all those bombers went over
the night...

523
00:48:46,048 --> 00:48:49,508
just before zero hour,
to take out Cleves,

524
00:48:49,593 --> 00:48:52,011
l felt a murderer.

525
00:48:52,095 --> 00:48:57,475
And after the war l had an awful lot
of nightmares. lt was always Cleves.

526
00:49:24,836 --> 00:49:28,756
(narrator) The cities west of the Rhine
were cleared of German troops -

527
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:33,761
Bonn, Koblenz, Mainz
and, of course, Cologne.

528
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:43,205
By March 22, no German soldier
fought west of the Rhine.

529
00:50:58,555 --> 00:51:01,849
Only the Rhine now lay
between the Western Allies

530
00:51:01,933 --> 00:51:04,977
and the heartland of Hitler's Germany.

531
00:51:05,062 --> 00:51:08,564
Preparations began straightaway
to cross it.

532
00:53:07,350 --> 00:53:12,229
(Horrocks) At nine o'clock
in the evening, l remember waiting,

533
00:53:12,314 --> 00:53:15,524
sitting in a command post.

534
00:53:15,609 --> 00:53:20,821
Then the news came through that
the Black Watch were over the Rhine.

535
00:53:20,906 --> 00:53:24,909
Rather historic, you know, in a way.
They were over the Rhine.