1945: The Final Collapse Of Nazi Germany | World War II In Colour

[Music] by early 1945 Hitler's thirdd Reich was entering its death throws in the west Allied Forces had pushed to within Striking Distance of the Ry in the East the Red Army was crossing the Polish border into Germany as the Allies battled their way towards Berlin from east and west the Germans fought them all the way but it was a hopeless task by May 1945 Hitler would be dead and Germany finally [Music] defeated February 1945 and the Allied Forces in the west had assembled near the R for the final push into Germany in the north were

the massed ranks of field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army [Music] group to its South was General Omar Bradley's 12th Army group it included the US third Army commanded by General George p on February the 8th Montgomery's Army group launched a two-pronged assault on German forces defending the r the northern prong had to fight its way through the wooded Countryside the southern prong was delayed when the Germans released water from a series of d dams flooding the surrounding area it would be over 2 weeks before the two prongs met up on the West Bank of the

Ry by early March 1945 Montgomery's forces were in control of some 60 Mi of the West Bank of the river the next task was to cross it south of Montgomery Bradley's armies were also moving eastwards looking for a route across the river on March the 7th 1945 they reached the Ry at colog but Hitler had ordered all the bridges to be destroyed then as the US forces explored further south they found one Bridge still intact near the small town of reman they made a dash for it brushing aside German resistance then just as they were

about to cross it there was an explosion but against the odds the bridge remained standing a small group of Americans raced across it desperately cutting any wires that looked like demolition cables us commanders began to push men across as fast as possible the Allies had at last penetrated the German hardland in Berlin News of the capture of the bridge at reman infuriated Hitler five Junior officers were Court Marshal four was shot in addition the long-suffering German commander in the West Field Marshall G Von runed was sacked it was the second time it had happened to

him in less than a year he was replaced by veteran Commander Field Marshal Albert kastler ring who' been in overall charge in North Africa and Italy over over the next week the Germans launched desperate air attacks to try and destroy the bridge at [Music] remig none of them succeeded then suddenly on March the 17th while combat engineers were repairing it the bridge unexpectedly collapsed 28 men plunged to their deaths the first Allied thrust into Germany had been blocked meanwhile further north Montgomery Was preparing the first fullscale Allied crossing of the r [Music] on March the

23rd 1945 he launched an aerial bombardment on German forces defending the East Bank of the river some 200 RAF Lancaster bombers virtually flattened the town of visel then British Commandos in Buffalo amphibious vehicles crossed they met little opposition from the days German Defenders other divisions followed the crossing lasted all [Music] night the following day in the largest Airborne operation of the war 177,000 men of British 6th and US 17th Airborne divisions were dropped to seize key positions east of the river they were met by heavy German anti-aircraft f a newsreel report told the story in

a short time time hundreds of gliders make their hazardous Landings their men beginning the fight as soon as they land one glider has its wing shot away when only 50 ft from the [Music] ground more than half the gliders were destroyed or damaged before landing but within hours the paratroopers linked up with Montgomery's land forces and the Allied Bridge head was secured it should have been for the ferociously competitive Montgomery A Moment Of Glory but he'd been upstaged the night before his great rival General Patton had unexpectedly crossed the Rind near oppenheim and had already

entered Germany it was a sign of the intense rivalry between Montgomery and American commanders as they competed to be the first into Germany over the next few days there were more Allied Crossings German defenses along the rine collapsed in the north Montgomery now pushed deeper into Germany towards monster in the South Bradley's forces including Patton's thirdd Army pushed East towards MarBorg and laach the major German city of frankf for a mine was circled and bypassed di hard German troops fought back ferociously but by now there was no question that the Germans were finished the only

issue was when they would realize it discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and adree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all on History hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to watch everything from the ripping story of the Band of Brothers to operation Barbarosa and D-Day immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description as the Western allies battled their way across West Germany Stalin's Red Army in Poland prepared to launch a major

offensive on Germany's eastern border Hitler's forces in the region were poorly equipped and Ill prepared to repel an [Music] attack supplies of weapons had run so low they were reduced to using first world war [Music] rifles German intelligence estimated the red Army's infantry outnumbered them 11 to1 the Russians also had vast more tanks and artillery but the Germans had nothing left Hitler's strategic Reserve had already been used up on the Western Front on January the 12th 1945 the Russian offensive began with the usual artillery barage it stretched along a 300 mile front a week later

the Red Army drove into the devastated remains of War they then pushed westwards towards the German border 300 M away to the South a second Soviet Force took the Polish town of kaka on January the [Music] 18th as the Soviet forces now raced westwards on a broad front across Poland they left behind pockets of German resistance in cities like posan and brla these would later be mocked up by the end of January 1945 Soviet troops had crossed the German border and reached the river [Music] Oda the Russians were now just an hour's Drive east of

Berlin for the veteran Russian Commander Gori zukov it had been a Triumph he had traveled 300 miles in just 14 days it was one of the fastest and longest Blitz cre advances in military history zov's troops now paused to catch their breath and and bring up supplies they were soon joined by a second group of Soviet armies that dug into their south on the river niser meanwhile a third Russian Force Penn the remnants of the German armies in East Prussia into the Baltic Port of kingburg K inrat today Hitler had appointed the SS Chief hinr

himler to command his forces in the neighboring region it was a sign of How Deeply he had come to distrust his army generals but himler had no military knowledge or experience during February 1945 troops under himmler's command were torn aparted by Russian forces moving West this time Hitler could have sent reserves a large force of German troops still occupied the Coran peninsula in neighboring Latvia but in another bizarre decision Hitler refused to allow it to break out and provide [Music] assistance he was still committed to holding on to land his Laban Throne however irrelevant or

wasteful it might now [Music] be it meant some 200,000 German troops spent the final months of the war doing nothing the Red Army now prepared for its final assault on Berlin it lay less than 50 mil away in Germany the imminent Soviet invasion caused mass panic among the civilian population the Russians had seen firsthand the horrors perpetrated by the Germans in the Soviet Union they'd witnessed whole towns and Villages destroyed their inhabitants massacred they were now very clearly looking for Revenge there were horrific Tales of Russian rape murder and pill in snow and bitter subzero

temperatures more than 5 million German civilians on the Eastern Front fled their homes and flooded West to seek Refuge 2 million people were evacuated by sea from German held ports along the Baltic Coast they were easy pickings for Soviet submarines 24 German passenger ships were torpedoed they included the cruise liner vilhelm gustof which had over 10,000 people on board barely a th000 survived the worst loss of life ever in a single incident at Sea Hitler's acting Chief of Staff General Hein Garian now urged the fura to bring back any units that could be spared from

the Western Front to defend Berlin Hitler agreed and brought back the elite 6ss Panza Army but he didn't send it to Berlin he sent it to Hungary he had become obsessed with defending Germany's last remaining source of oil the Hungarian oil field west of Lake Balaton it was an ill-considered decision in Hungary the panzas were hopelessly outnumbered by the Russians to make matters worse the weather conspired against them a sudden th turned the ground into a sea of mud for several days the panzas struggled to hold back the advancing Russians but they were steadily forced

back into Austria soon they were drawn into the defense of Vienna as the Red Army Advanced towards the Austrian Capital but six SS Panza Army was a spent Force its Commander SS General sep Dietrich had no Illusions we call ourselves he said the sixth Panza Army because we have only six panzas left on April the 10th the Red Army swept them aside and took Vienna as they did so the question now became who would be the first to reach Berlin would it be the Red Army or the Western allies the race for Berlin had become

not just a military but a political [Music] issue by March 1945 the Red Army was lined up along the river Odin awaiting a final assault on Berlin it presented the allied military command in the west with a dilemma Berlin was less than 300 mil from their Advanced positions most Allied commanders wanted to race to the city to beat the [Music] Russians but at a conference a month earlier in the Black Sea port of Yalta the Allied leaders had divided up Germany into zones of influence B Berlin was firmly inside the Russian zone so Eisenhower was

instructed to tell his commanders to ignore Berlin and spread out to take the rest of the country on April the 1st US troops surrounded the German industrial cities in the ru German soldiers occupying the area put up a stiff resistance when 2 weeks later the area fell more than 325,000 troops were taken prisoner it was one of the largest number of German prisoners taken in the war so far the German Commander the diard Nazi Field Marshal valta murdle committed [Music] suicide elsewhere in the country resistance was more patchy and general Bradley's Army stormed across Germany

[Music] by April the 18th 1945 the US forces had punched a corridor through to the Czech border splitting Germany in two meanwhile north of the ru Montgomery's Canadian first Army began the liberation of Holland the Dutch had suffered horrendously during the bitter winter of 1944 [Music] 1945 the German occupying Force had deliberately taken supplies of food and fuel from the country to use elsewhere there had been widespread deaths from starvation and [Music] cold the Dutch town of arnam was seized on April the 15th 1945 progress was rapid and on the following day the Canadians had

liberated Groningen close to the Dutch North Coast [Applause] that left a German Army virtually intact but surrounded near [Music] Amsterdam soon afterwards a ceasefire was negotiated Allied aircraft now roared over the Dutch Countryside dropping food and medical [Music] supplies at the same time the British second Army also under Montgomery's command pushed fast across the north German plane osbrook fell on April the 4th the British were soon at the German port of Breman here there was fierce German [Music] resistance it took 9 days of house toh housee fighting before the port was secured 2 Days Later

monomer's British forces reached the elb at lenberg [Music] as the Allies Advanced across Germany they now came across horrific new evidence of the Nazis Final [Music] Solution in early April 1945 US troops overran a concentration camp at U near vaar in central Germany a visibly shocked General Eisenhower paid a visit the SS had evacuated most of the prisoners but they had left behind piles of bodies 8 Days Later British troops overran another concentration camp at bson north of Hanover here they discovered over 70,000 th [Music] prisoners thousands were already dead the remainder were starving and

disease ridden a radio broadcast by the BBC correspondent Richard dimbleby gave the horrific details [Music] I passed through the barrier and found myself in the world of a nightmare the living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful ghostly procession of emaciated aimless people with nothing to do and no hope of Life unable to move out of your way unable to look at the terrible sights around them it was as though they were waiting their turn this is what the Germans did let there be no mistake about it did deliberately

and slowly meanwhile far to the south in Italy the German front was also starting to collapse the German forces were dug in across the appenine mountains Field Marshal sir Harold Alexander the Allied Commander in the Mediterranean now launched a spring offensive on April the 9th 1945 British troops attacked pulling German forces in from along the front 5 days later US troops also moved forward and swiftly reached the South Bank of the river pole the Germans retreated to the North Bank [Music] but Hitler's commander in Italy General Heinrich V vittinghoff had no illusions that he could

hold back the Allied advance for long so he now made de approaches to the allies and on April the 29th surrendered unconditionally it would take effect from May the 2nd 1945 this was the first formal surrender of German forces anywhere in Europe the war was moving swiftly towards a conclusion back in Germany American and Russian forces had by now met up on the elb near liic the moment the world has been awaiting so long when a lie from West meets a lie from East the meeting was achieved on April 26th when a Detachment of the

American 69th Infantry Division under Major General Reinhardt was roded across the elow to the Russians assembled on the far [Music] Bank the stage was set for the final assault on Berlin Hitler was desperate he now turned to the old and very young for help been defending the city his Thousand-Year Reich Was preparing for its final apocalyptic struggle to survive on April the 1st 1945 Joseph Stalin summoned his top commanders to Moscow to receive their orders for the capture of Berlin Marshall Gori jukov Russia's most successful Commander would make the main assault from his Bridge head

on the Oda River a second group of Soviet armies under Marshall Ivan KF would cross the river niser further south and push deep into Germany by passing the German capital between them they represented a massive Soviet force of over 2 and A2 million men they were equipped with 6,000 tanks and self-propelled guns and 40,000 guns mortars and rocket launchers but the Germans were never going to make it easy the city was defended by about a million troops many were dug into strong defensive positions particularly along the CeeLo Heights a steep escarpment rising out of the

odor Valley and slap in front of zov's point of assault The Defenders were a mixed bunch of combat veterans SS Fanatics and inexperienced consits some as young as 14 as well as elderly members of the vtor or People's Army by now Hitler had retired to a bunker under the reich's chancell in Berlin he was a heavily medicated and shambling figure who spent much of his time issuing increasingly unrealistic orders to largely imaginary armies his public appearances were becoming ever more rare but in early March he was persuaded to visit some of the troops preparing to

defend the Oda [Music] line later in the same month he emerged to inspect a small group of Hitler Youth soldiers it was his last ever appearance before the cameras then on April the 13th 1945 the US President Franklin Roosevelt died of a heart attack he had been one of the architects of the war responsible for throwing America's might behind the Allied offensive the Nazi propaganda Minister Yosef gerles seed seed on the event to encourage his increasingly befuddled fura to believe the Allied Alliance would collapse a German Victory could still be snatched from the jaws of

[Music] defeat but any Illusions were rapidly dispelled 3 days after Roosevelt's death zukov began his assault on Berlin he had one gun for every 13 ft of the front but the German defense had anticipated it and pulled back to avoid the bombardment as a result when zov's infantry Advanced they met unexpectedly heavy resistance [Music] desperate to retrieve the situation zukov threw in his tanks but they too were soon bogged down meanwhile to the South the assault by con's second group of armies had gone better his troops had crossed the Nisa River and were well on

their way to the next obstacle the river spray Stalin stoked the Rival between his two commanders by authorizing KF to swing his tanks north towards Berlin he was only too happy to see a race to take the city after 3 days of savage fighting zov's troops managed to enter the Eastern suburbs of Berlin at the same time KF was approaching the city from the [Music] south there was desperate German resistance but on April the 25th the Soviet armies met up and the final assault on Berlin began [Music] as the fighting moved on from District to

District civilians began to emerge from the cellers but the Russians took little notice of the flags of [Music] surrender the rape of German women and girls was widespread after three more days of fighting the city's remaining Defenders were pinned down in a narrow strip of Central Berlin less than 2 mil wide every street and house was contested [Music] then on the morning of April the 30th Soviet troops began an assault on the Reich Stu the German Parliament building Stalin regarded it as the symbol of Nazi power they was stopped by heavy fire so they blasted

the building at Point Blank Range with heavy artillery that evening the Russians stormed it fighting raged from room to room and up and down corridors and staircases it would take 4 hours before the red flag could be hoisted on one of the [Music] tows the next morning on May the 1st 1945 the event was restaged for the [Music] cameras but by then Hitler was already dead on April the 30th as fighting raged overhead the man whose insane Ambitions had embroiled the world in war laid waste a continent and led to the extermination of millions of

Jews took his own [Applause] life his longtime mistress Eva Brown who he'd married the day before died with him their partially burned bodies were buried in the garden of the reich's chancell but the fighting continued Hitler had appointed Grand Admiral Carl dernitz his successor and for the next few days the new leadership attempted to salvage something from its nation's cataclysmic defeat on May the 1st 1945 the day after his death German people were told that their fura had fallen in battle but they were told to continue the fight against the Bolshevik Menace but the German

leadership was falling apart in Berlin Yosef gerles and Martin Borman tried to negotiate a city-wide ceasefire with the Russians but the Russian Commander Marshall zukov demanded unconditional surrender of all German forces everywhere it was more than Geral and Borman could deliver fighting in Berlin continued later that evening Gobles and his wife killed their six children and then committed suicide themselves that same night Borman disappeared eventually in the 1990s DNA testing confirmed that a body found in Berlin was his the next morning Berlin surrendered by midaf afternoon all fighting in the city had [Music] stopped across

the country the pace of the German surrender now gathered momentum the following day derit sent a delegation to the British commanding officer field Marshall Montgomery he offered to surrender all German forces in Northern Germany Montgomery sent a reply saying he didn't have the authority to accept a surrender on behalf of the Americans or the Russians he could only accept the surrender of those troops fighting him dernitz had no choice but to agree to monomer's terms [Music] but that left Germany still fighting in the rest of the country dernitz now sent another delegation to General Eisenhower

the Supreme Allied Commander to discuss a peace deal with the west but it carefully avoided any reference to a surrender to the Russians Eisenhower rebuffed him and insisted that only the unconditional surrender of all German forces was acceptable once again daret was forced to back down at 2:41 in the morning of May the 7th 1945 at Eisenhower's headquarters in France General Alfred yodel Hitler's chief of operations throughout the six years of war signed a document of unconditional surrender Eisenhower's Chief of Staff Walter Bell Smith signed for the Western allies General Ivan suslov signed for the

Soviet Union [Music] the only member of the Allies side not happy with the arrangement was Stalin the Soviet Union had suffered too much to miss out on its own humiliation of the Germans so Stalin countermanded sus loparo and declared Russia would only accept a surrender in Berlin [Music] it meant that the following day Hitler's former Chief of Staff field Marshal wihelm kitle signed a second surrender document to satisfy [Music] Stalin Marshall zukov signed for the Soviet Union with air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur tedar signing on behalf of the western allies in January 1943 the late

President Roosevelt and Premier Churchill met in Casablanca there they pronounced the formula of unconditional surrender for the A's powers in Europe that formula has now been [Music] fulfilled the R Europe and the United States crowds began to celebrate the end of the war in [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Europe from now on the day after the German surrender May the 8th would be known as VE Day victory in Europe [Music] [Applause] but as the celebrations continued many were aware of two very sobering issues in the East Japan was still [Applause] fighting and in Europe the continent

lay in Ruins and huge problems needed to be solved [Music] millions of Germany's concentration camp victims and slave laborers would need help to rebuild their [Music] lives millions of captured German fighting men had to be screened before being allowed to go home to ident identify and arrest major war criminals the SS was a particular Target it had been responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the [Music] war leading Nazis like Herman guring head of Hitler Air Force were rounded up and paraded in front of the cameras other top Nazis arrested included civilian leaders like

Albert and military leaders like yodel and dnit they would be put on trial in the German city of nurenberg for crimes against humanity you must plead guilty or not guilty Rudolph H you must plead guilty or not guilty that will be entered as a plea of not guilty the Nazi leadership received sentences ranging from the death penalty to 10 years in prison guring committed suicide before he could be hung two months after the German surrender the Allies met in the Berlin suburb of Poa Germany was divided into four zones of occupation Soviet British American and

French Berlin although deep in the Soviet zone was parled up between the Allies in the same way the peoples of Europe would also find themselves divided some would now live under the control of the western allies some under communist Russia but before any of this could be faced there was still the war in the Pacific to be won [Music]