Week 295 - 300,000 Germans Surrender in the Ruhr - WW2 - April 20, 1945
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 เม.ย. 2024
- The Soviet drive on Berlin continues, but it is now very much a race between the forces of Georgy Zhukov and those of Ivan Konev. In the west, over 300,000 Germans surrender to the Allies as the Ruhr Pocket is eliminated, though there are advances by all Allied armies this week on the whole Western Front. There is even an Allied breakthrough in Italy, though on Okinawa American attacks get nowhere. The Japanese are advancing in China, and in Burma the Allied drive for Rangoon continues.
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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Marek Kamiński
Community Management: Jake McCluskey
Written by: Indy Neidell
Research by: Indy Neidell & James Newman
Map animations by: Daniel Weiss
Map research by: Sietse Kenter
Editing and colour grading by: Simon J. James
Artwork by: Mikołaj Uchman
Sound design by: Simon J. James & Marek Kamiński
Colorizations by: Mikołaj Uchman
Source literature list: bit.ly/SourcesWW2
Archive footage: Screenocean/Reuters - www.screenocean.com
Image sources:
Source - Image Name/Number
Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
Annihilation - Jo Wandrini
Breathe it in Deep - Hampus Naeselius
Hope and a Future - Edgar Hopp
Phoenix Rising - Edgar Hopp
The Dominion - Bonnie Grace
Truce No More
Additional sound effects provided by Zapsplat.com
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
This week's episode is dedicated to Leonard Tabaracci, a member of the United States Army by TimeGhost Army Brigadier member Josh Hammel, his grandson. We thank Josh for sharing his Grandfather's story with us and we are happy we could do this for him.
If you'd like to dedicate an episode to someone, you can do so by joining the TimeGhost army at the brigadier tier for 12 months or doing a one-time pledge.
My father was colorblind too, but as long as you had two eyes, you were qualified for the Army infantry.
"He loved his country and served it with honor." No better epitaph.
Quick request for Indy please do an in depth piece on Matthew Ridgeway imo an underrated American commander who proved his worth time and again, especially in Korea.
MODL did the Pontius Pilat thing I see ! Luegger instead of the noose !........PLEASE DO THE "AFTERMATH OF THE JAPANESE-AMERICAN INTERNMENT". "GO FOR BROKE" !
Thank you for your diligent effort team. Good natured people, forgive those who aren't in the place to thank you appropriately.
This is it guys. We're at the start of the movie Downfall.
And also not far from the start of the movie Fury either
Steiner better start cooking, I got a feeling he might get a call from Fuhrer himself soon
@@snopallchannel241plot twist: steiner never existed
Mit dem Angriff Steiners wird das alles in Ordnung kommen.
Maybe Steiner really represented the friends we made on the way…
Oh wow we are almost to the day that Hitler finds out he was banned from x box live!
Kek
NIEN NIEN NIEN!
They removed Juggernaut.
Juggernaut!!!
If Sony once again brings our great community into a console war it will be the end of playstation in Europe!
Fr
Today, April 20 1945, Adolf Hitler emerged from his bunker, saw his shadow, and retreated to his subterranean lair.
April 20 is Hitler's birthday.
@@joaopedrobaggio4475Or as We say in Denmark...
International Cake day 😂
@@munteza9262I love cake 😋
I was thinking the same thing.
@@Ronald98 everybody loves cake😂
Specially on the 20 of April 🙋
A rather peculiar sidenote this week is that German submarine U-1206, built in 1944 at Schichau Yard in Danzig, will be lost in the North Sea just off the coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland in the United Kingdom following a rather bizarre accident.
At 70 feet below the surface, Kapitänleutnant Karl-Adolf Schlitt had decided to use the toilet without consulting a rating trained in its complicated operation. Something went wrong, and when the specialist arrived, he misunderstood the situation and opened the wrong valve, which resulted in large quantities of seawater entering the boat. The water reached the batteries directly under the toilet and caused production of chlorine gas.
As a consequence, the U-1206 was forced to surface immediately. However, when the submarine surfaced, she was discovered and bombed by British patrols. Schlitt ordered the crew to destroy secret equipment and papers, scuttle the submarine and abandon ship. Three men drowned in the heavy seas and 46 were taken prison by the British. The name "shitwreck" was coined shortly after the news reached the British.
Oh man, what a story. Got me rolling, thank you for a good laugh!
Ironic the name Schlitt rhymes with well you know the rude word for poop :p
@@alexamerling79 Schlitt's ship well and truly in the ...
I remember learning about that from Simple History.
I remember it as an episode from The History Guy.
My father was engaged in the Ruhr pocket with the 7th Armored. One day he was on outpost duty and a German officer approached under a white flag and asked if he could surrender his unit. Dad was quite happy to do so; he told the officer to have his men put their weapons in a pile in one place and then stand over in another spot a few yards away. The Germans started coming out and doing as he had instructed . . . and coming . . . and coming . . . and coming, and Dad began to worry a bit that if they changed their minds, he had eight rounds in his M1 rifle and there were a lot more than eight of them! However, the Germans were happy that the war was over for them and gave Dad no trouble. I still have that German officer's binoculars, which he gave Dad.
You remind me of a former colleague who was in SOE in Yugoslavia. At the end of the war he and his band of partisans were told of a German unit in a cave that wanted to surrender. So they approached the cave very cautiously from the sides. The Czech commander suggested they get the Germans out and then shoot them. Mike indicated that his superiors would not be happy. They called on the Germans to surrender and drop their weapons as they came out. The first ones came - and more and more - till 20 Czechs were confronted by over 300 Germans. Who on a promise of good treatment formed up and marched themselves to the next village. They'd had enough.
I love reading stories like this. Those binocs are history now.
@@Turnipstalk The Czech's attitude points to the more ruthless view of the Germans held in central/eastern Europe, perhaps fed by the experience of German occupation (the French could also be ruthless to captured Germans, no doubt for the same reason).
@@stevekaczynski3793 Actually it wasn't that; they simply had no idea what they were going to do with them. The Germans (who let's face it were probably only logistics personnel) solved that problem by making it very clear that they knew the wr was over.
Reminds me of Sargeant York in WWI
We all know what we want after the WWII series come to end:
The 100 years war - week by week!
At first the 30 years war, then the time French Revolution+Napoleonic wars 1789-1815...then after the 100 years war. Step by Step
...Presumably skipping over the parts where absolutely nothing happened?
@@randomguy-tg7ok Skip a bit, brother Maynard...
And the truth is, it was 116 years☠️
Jokes aside, a miniseries about the revolutions/wars of 1848/49 would be really cool, and easily doable. That or the Russian Civil War and related conflicts in the former Empire (such as the Baltic wars of independence and the Finnish Civil War). They are both ideal for this format, with stuff happening (or to talk about) every week.
Walter Model's confession should be a lesson to all officers in all armies who refuse to take responsibility by hiding behind orders.
Well, he also refused to take responsibility by killing himself.
Unlike Manstein, Model knew he couldn't blameshift his crimes to others and took the easy way out
That was the most interesting part of the episode for me. I was aware of the outcome of the Ruhr pocket & that a despairing Model followed the surrenders with suicide, but not that he'd condemned the regime he'd served so faithfully - even to the extent of committing genocide on its behalf - as criminals and swine.
He put a bullet in his brain so he wouldn't have to face judgement for his actions. I really don't think that counts as 'taking responsibility'.
I wonder whether he would have been deported to the USSR if captured. By shooting himself he saved the Americans from a possibly controversial decision in his case. In some ways his suicide resembled that of Russian General Samsonov, surrounded by German troops in East Prussia in 1914. He walked away from his staff and shot himself in a forest.
Actually hurts to know a series that has been with me for almost 6 years is coming to its end. I hope the show will continue through the various wars fought in the Cold War. At some point in the far future such a series should be made for the Ukraine war as well. Your ability to inform millions is so important so thank you to the whole team for everything you’ve done. You’ve truly changed lives.
There is still a couple more months.
WW2 doesn’t officially end until September.
@@graceneilitz7661I know but the war started in Europe and we are now at the end of the European theatre. Just feels surreal having watching since week 1 and watching the fall of Danzig and Warsaw to seeing the fall of Berlin and Cologne
Korean war starts june 25th
@@neweraamerica7363
This channel showed the starting point in Europe, but I would argue that a better starting point is 1937 - the Japanese invasion of China.
But, yeah it does feel strange that a show I started watching while in middle school is close to over.
There is so much materiel studied that im(and surely a lot of others) bound to rewatch the series.
Steiner! Where's Steiner?!
We'll get a special episode for April 22nd guaranteed
Mein Failure! Steiner.....
At Steiner's Pub, in Las Vegas.
getting the iron sky strategy ready
Despite the popularity of that meme, I still think the of the pro wrestling Steiners and the Steiners from Battletech before I think of Steiner of the Wehrmacht.
One thing I found in common amongst veterans who saw what war actually is is that they don't want to talk or brag about it. My grandfather was the same. He only spoke once about his time in the Hungarian Army and it was to express how much he hated Nazism and the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party.
While I understand the reticence, I think history can suffer. People age and die without telling their stories.
@@stevekaczynski3793Yup. Accounts are precious, even those that may get a slant of ideology.
It is normal for people to want to forget the bad things they have been through, and also being unable to talk about them with people unable to relate to their experiences, like their family. Nowadays veterans could find each other and talk online with each other about their experiences, but back then it was much harder to keep in touch, find each other and talk. Reunions were mostly the times they saw each other again, and even then the talk usually was about the good things, not sharing and letting go of the bad things. We should be thankful that in their old age many of them finally started to open up to interviewers and giving us an insight as to what happened and how it was for them. Even then, we've lost so much living history due to vets taking their traumas and stories with them into the grave.
My Grandfather was the same way. He would never talk about his wartime experiences for most of his life. All we knew was what ship he was on, and the three things he hated most in order were Tirpitz, The Japanese Empire, and the Nazis.
Then, when I was about eight, he would sit me down every night and just tell me stories. How he used to make money in baseball. The day he entered Tokyo Bay. The Kamikaze attacks. Shore bombardments. Pretty much anything he could think of.
He died the next year. I think he somehow knew and wanted to get it out before hand.
@@Plaprad Considering he 'intensely disliked' the Tirpitz, the Japanese empire and the Nazi's am I that wrong to conclude your grandfather served with the Royal Navy on the Arctic convoys, or protecting them, and then with the British Pacific Fleet off Okinawa and Japan?
Admiral King: "Hey Curtis, just ask the marines what happens when the navy abandons them on an island!"
LeMay really was a detestable creature. He's so laser focused on roasting Japanese infants in their cribs that he's lost sight of the fact that his planes would be of more immediate military utility eliminating the kamikaze threat.
King may have been a legendary curmudgeon with a volcanic temper, but he's in the right here.
Isn't Okinawa mostly an army operation? The marines were recuperating after their bloody Iwo Jima campaign.
@@senpainoticeme9675 I was referring to the marines on Guadalcanal.
@@senpainoticeme9675 No, much like Saipan both the U.S. Army & U.S. Marines are involved, though the latter are under army command. The 1st Marine & 6th Marine divisions are also involved in the battle of Okinawa, with both currently reducing that pocket in the north.
Spoiler alert, but the 27th Infantry Division will take severe casualties in the battles for the ridges in the south and will be replaced by the 1st & 6th Marine Divisions along the Shuri line. The former will after heavy fighting go on to capture Shuri castle and Naha, Okinawa's capital, and the 6th Marine division will be involved in the capture of Sugarloaf Hill, in some of the bitterest fighting of the campaign. Both divisions will also sustain heavy casualties, with the 6th Marine Division losing 576 men in the bloodiest day of fighting on Sugarloaf, to give an idea of the ferocity of that battle.
Eugene Sledge, the author of With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa (part of the basis for the HBO tv series The Pacific) was with K company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division on Okinawa. During the battle his company sustained 80% casualties.
@@senpainoticeme9675
The 1st and 6th Marines were on Okinawa
My grandfather was a baker on a supply train ship in the Pacific. All that ship did was produce bread, rolls and cinnamon rolls then freeze them. When the ship "docked" with the fleet they off loaded all the frozen pastry and returned to the US.
Logistics is the least celerbrated yet most important part of any war effort
@@emmiannon1266 very true.
@@emmiannon1266 Logistics are said to be 90% of winning wars. Getting the bangy stuff to well fed troops is how you win battles.
The fact that the US Navy had dedicated bread ships should have given the Japanese pause before ever attacking.
@@Raskolnikov70 Apparently at least some Japanese commanders (who had been to the US in person before hostilities) were aware of this (i.e. unmatched American industrial and logistical capacity) but were overruled by their superiors and peers in Imperial High Command.
The eastern and western front are so close can't wait for the allies to meet and peace and understanding last for the next 1000 years... why do I feel it's getting kinda cold.
At least there was no another World War... yet.
Bourbon and vodka exchanged ….🥴
Must be the hundreads of thousands of germans and their guns in between the forces. They form a type of a... steel veil.
19:25 - LeMay : Airforce operations are too important to delay by protecting the Navy
Adm King : Let me show you just how important the Airforce is…
And thus the US created a separated Airforce after the war.🤷♂️
For good reasons, but this isn't one of them
LeMay furious that he might have to actually hit a military target lol
th-cam.com/video/dP8Bq6e9fRU/w-d-xo.htmlsi=WiOeUsoqgE-KXeEN
LeMay was absolutely a War Criminal of the first degree. He reminds me of Eichmann or Himmler
@@martijn9568 It always struck me as odd that the USA only created an independent air force 30 years after many other countries.
My ROTC instructor in high school, MSGT Carl Dixon, was serving as a platoon sergeant on Ie Shima with the 77th Infantry Division when Ernie Pyle drove by in a jeep. He, along with the other men, waived and called to him and Ernie waived back. A few minutes later word came down the line that Ernie had just been killed by Japanese machine gun fire. He told our class this story nearly three decades after it happened, but you could still see how the memory of the incident affected him. Such was the effect Ernie Pyle had on the American fighting man. He was loved by all.
The troops erected a crude memorial to him following the incident that read, "Near this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy. Ernie Pyle 18 April 1945."
Pyle's remains were moved to the US military cemetery at the Punchbowl, Oahu.
@@elcastorgrande I was fortunate to visit his grave in the late 1990s. I was stationed in Hawaii as a member of a US Marine artillery battalion, and for memoral & veteran's day the Marines & Army artillery units would alternate performing artillery salutes in rememberance ceremonies at Punchbowl.
On one occasion I was posted overnight as a corporal of the guard in the cemetery, as we'd set up the guns & powder the night before. In the morning there were some tourists that arrived very early, and one elderly gentleman came over to chat. As it turned out he was a German veteran of the Second World War, one of the 16 year olds called up near the end, and he was involved in the fighting against the Soviets though I do not recall where. In any event the experience had made him a lifelong pacifist, and it was an interesting conversation.
Punchbowl is stunningly beautiful and has an amazing view of Honolulu. Even aside from remembering the dead, or it's potential interest for history geeks, it's well worth a visit.
The collection of Pyle’s dispatches, Up Front, is still available, 50th edition I believe.
Highly recommended, I read my mom’s copy from the 1940s.
I wasn’t surprised that he was a bit surprised by Japanese brutality as opposed to German ones.
I know a guy whose father liberated Montese. I got emotional just by seeing that little green and yellow square in the Italian front. Thank you for giving them attention throughout this series.
I was touched by both the sight of the flag and your comment. Always brings a smile seeing our boys being recognized by their achievments.
I had a relative whom I never met, he served as intelligence officer of the expedicionary force, he spoke german fluently. I feel honoured we share the same blood.
Finally, the time has come where I can post the memoires of my grandfather Werner Meinecke from Celle.
These are his memoires from the Ruhr pocket where he fought in the age of only 17 years.
During World War II, my grandfather served in the 22nd Flak Division of the Luftwaffe under Generalmajor Friedrich Römer. Stationed within one of the Flak Regiments, his unit was equipped with four 10.5 cm Flak guns and consisted of 80 men out of a total of normally 240. He was equipped with a medium-range rangefinder.
The journey through the war-torn landscapes of Europe was treacherous. From the orderly retreat from the Hürtgen Forest to Cologne via the Cologne Bridge, where many of the Flak batteries fell victim to strafing by enemy aircraft, to the encirclement in the Ruhr Pocket, each step brought its own challenges and dangers.
At one point, my grandfather's unit found themselves taking up a defensive position with their 10.5 cm battery near Wermelskirchen. It was here that they engaged and successfully destroyed American tanks, only to face retaliation in the form of heavy artillery fire. The barrage decimated their ranks, leaving only eleven survivors amidst the wreckage. My grandfather, miraculously, managed to endure by sheltering in a makeshift foxhole.
Despite the losses, the retreat continued, eventually leading them to Solingen. There, they split up the soldiers salaries of the whole unit among the survivors.
Finally, the arrival of American forces signaled the end of the fighting. In end of April, my grandfather's group surrendered, bringing an end to their ordeal in the Ruhr Pocket.
For my grandfather, the journey did not end with surrender. He, along with many others, would spend the remainder of the war in captivity, eventually finding himself held as a prisoner in England.
He lives to this day in Hannover and is 96 years old now.
It would be so interesting to interview someone who had fought for Germany and survived the war and then lived in the West.
How did he feel at the time? What did he know about Holocaust at the time? What was it like to learn about not only the Holocaust but also what had happened in Russia? Does he, as a term at the time, feel betrayed by his military superiors and the governmental authorities? Is it difficult to find a sense of national pride? Etc, etc
Had he watched this series?
@@aaroncabatingan5238 no he hadnt. He does not want to think about war.
@@iconoclastic12007 I didnt talk in detail to him about his war experience.
But he said, that they ate a lot of horse meat in the Ruhr pocket, because rations were in shortage.
The Americans sent him home from prison camp, because of his age.
But later someone in Germany told the British that he was in the Wehrmacht and they took him prisoner and he spend a few years in England.
He also told me that his family always heard allies news with a radio. Therefore I assume that they didnt believe the nazi propaganda anymore that time.
Thank you very much for your questions. Next time when I am in Hannover, I will ask him about the topics you mentioned. Really interesting points!
@@iconoclastic12007 There comes 1 more thing into my mind now. He told me that he had an older brother who fought in Russia and got prisoner. That brother was ill and got treated by the soviets at a Crimean hospital.
If I remember correctly, then his brother always remained a nazi in his life.
They have no contact to each other anymore.
One additional note from a Ruhr native. "300.000 Germans" only refers to the soldiers. While it is difficult to estimate how many civilians were left after many women and children were evacuated due to the air raids, I would guess we are talking about around two million people, maybe more.
My grandmother and her three children, one of them my father, had been evacuated to Bavaria the year before, and they would not return well after war's end.
For the Kingdom of Satan this was a defeat even more ruinous than the defeat at Stalingrad. The Reich depended upon the industral production of the Ruhr. Yes, it would revive and it would again be German -- but under very different management.
The Reich was effectiely dead when it simultaneously lost the coal fields for which it depended upon for energy and for iron production.
I don't envy the logisticians that had to move mountains to feed all these people in addition to all the troops that reduced the pocket. Talk about a monumental task, and one that often gets taken for granted despite the great importance and severe consequences if not handled adequately..
In the film of surrender in the Ruhr, some German women in civilian clothes can be seen among the uniformed crowds. Civilian employees of the German armed forces, typists and so on, sometimes were taken prisoner too.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 The Rhine meadow camps, where many of the Germans will end up, will prove to be controversial.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Certainly, though the difficulties were due to there being far many more prisoners to deal with than anticipated (made worse by many German formations fleeing west to escape the Soviets as the war ended) and Allied logistics being strained, rather than through intentional mistreatment.
Also there are some greatly exaggerated claims of PoW deaths by bad actors (namely James Bacque, who alleges the U.S. committed genocide based on very poor research).
I wasn’t expecting to laugh watching this as it’s quite a grim and somber topic, but when Indy got to Hitler on his birthday in surrounded Berlin and asked ‘so what’s the birthday boy doing?’, I lost it.
Can we have the phone jokes even in memorialized episodes too? I miss them so much
The best of all ever ever ever is next week. But we can't combine them with memorialized episodes. Sorry.
@@Southsideindy How about a supercut of just the phone jokes!
I guess the dedications bring in the money.
You guess well.
WE WANT PHONES! WE WANT PHONES! WE WANT PHONES!
Crazy to still see the Battle of the Bulge on the map behind you, that feels like a decade away
8:43 Significant event seeing the Stars and Stripes, Union Jack, and Hammer and Sickle flagged divisions on the same zoomed in map.
No tricolour😢
They’re going to meet very soon
if that map sounds familiar it'0s because it's the one Hitler is watching at the beginning of his rant.
One of Ernest King's daughters said that he was the most even-tempered man in the entire navy, because he was always in a rage
#ThatsMySecretCaptain 😂
The whole pacific campain could be described with the sentence "Resistance is more stubborn than anticipated."
At least Kaiser was responsible enough to abdicate and avoid something like this at the end of WWI.
While Hitler might've not felt much affinity to Wilhelm, he did for Bismarck and was quite a Frederick the great fan.
Thing is, for whatever their faults, Frederick and Bismarck weren't genocidal maniacs nor bloodthirsty war fetishists.
About that Freidreich the Great fanboy part, Hitler believed that a similar miracle to the Miracle at the House of Brandenburg which saved the defeated Prussian monarch during the Seven Years War was due for himself in the end. When Roosevelt, an American president who was hostile towards him from the start of the war, died, and Truman took charge, Hitler has been reported to have exclaimed "Elizabetha (Russian Empress who died in 7 years war) has finally died!" believing that his "miracle" had finally been realized as Truman was way more hawkish towards the Soviets than his predecessor ever was.
There's a brief scene in the movie Downfall where Hitler gazes upon the portrait of Fredreich the Great with a blank and lifeless stare. Still waiting for the miracle to save him and bring about the 11th hour victory, the Endsieg.
@@paulhan1615 Frederick was a tactical and strategic genius, he didn't need a miracle, he would just outmaneuver you.
@@samsmith2635A miracle saved his reign when the Russian tsaritsa died, she was replaced by Peter the III who was a huge fan of his.
@@mrluk-ci4osYep that's true. Prussia was super lucky near the end of that war
Well shit. The end of the war really snuck up on me. It didn't even dawn on me that Hitler was already in the bunker as of last week.
Actually he moved in on 16th of January, but mainly was in the Chancellery's appartment and conference room, it wasn't until the heavy bombing of March and early April that he went completely underground.
Still plenty to cover, but the end is certantiely creeping closer.
@@WorldWarTwoIt’s going to be a busy few weeks!
"No other General was as hated by his men as Model."
I Think Ferdinand Schörner took that Position pretty easily.
Thank you Indy for this series, I finally saw my hometown near Groningen get liberated! As well as Zwolle being liberated by a single Canadian mad man called Leo Major who scouted the city got into a firefight after which the Germans left and Major signalled in that the planned artilelry barrage wasn't needed saving lives and the beautifull city of Zwolle. 🇳🇱🇨🇦
A Berliner joke from just before the Soviet attack:
“How long will it take the Soviets to take Berlin? Two hours and five minutes. Two hours to laugh at our defenses and five minutes to break through them.”
Reminds me of a Garfield joke where Jon comes out in his fishing getup (complete with a hat with WAY too many fishlure decorations on it) and asked “How do I look?” and Garfield says “Great! - Fish being paralyzed from laughing so hard WOULD be easier to catch!”
This was excelent guys, ive been with you since the first half of 1915. Its been quite the ride.
What a ride indeed; thank you for your continued support and kind words.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
Had Hitler watched guides on division templates, supply system and production, this MP game would've beed way different.
So many wasted tech slots spent on rocketry... what a noob.
My Fuhrer... the internet connection was blown up... the guides won't load..
@@konstantinriumin2657CONNECTING TO THE WI-FI WAS AN ORDER!!!!
He watched the guides but he was playing the black ice mod
Lmao
my father was from england and told me a story about one of his teacher who comitted suicide due to what he saw in bergen belsen poor guy
Watching the 28 minutes live made them suddenly pass faster than it should be.
But the episode was as great as always.
Thanks for joining the premiere!
"or anyone in any army who was as disliked by the men under him"
Schörner : "Am I a joke to you?"
Such a damn good series, I can't believe we're already at this point. I've been binging all of the episodes and this is a priceless works in terms of both documenting history, educating and entertaining.
The crushing fall of the Reich is here.
Thanks for watching, see you at Korea: www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell
When you showed that clip of the women at the concentration camp in 14:05, just seeing how she started sobbing when she grabbed the soldier's hand made me want to sob as well. Its a small comfort that now that the suffering of some people will be over soon.
I've got to hand it to the Soviet generals. They seem to be highly flexible and adaptable to changing conditions. Something the Germans did in the Invasion of France, and seemed to forget the longer they were at war.
I mean, they were up against a far inferior force at this point. And a lot of the 'new strategy' was to just throw everybody at the enemy. They could have achieved what they did with WAY less casualties if they were just more careful about it.
Unlike the Germans, which barely had any general commanding armies and army groups in 1940 still around, men like Rokossovsky Konev and Zhukov were commanding such forces since 1941. 4 times of continuous warfare gives you a lot of insight and experience to do such things. Also, the Red Army, like the Russian Army still does today, considers the art of war a science. So like historians they study war meticulously. Since 1941 they have been documenting and studying every battle they fought, every defeat they suffered, every victory they won, to see how they could do better. The Germans, like we do today, did nothing of the kind. All knowledge gained was usually lost when a commander was sacked. At best corps and armies that were never destroyed kept records of enemy tactics, but those were never passed on to a central level to be studied and its lessons distributed. So yeah, the Soviets got really good over time, the Germans never improved past their prime.
@@maynardburger That is just Manstein and Halder talking, distorting what had happened to make themselves look good and useful to the new NATO alliance. The battle of the Seelow Heights was an outlier, not the norm, because Stalin played these 2 generals against eachother for the prize of the war. Soviet generals were overall more ruthless and willing to take casualties, but they knew the USSR had reached the limits of manpower reserves. At this point of the war no Red Army unit was ever at full strength again so they had to keep casualties as low as they could. Yes, the Red Army attacked with overwhelming force, but that is how you are supposed to attack. Every German offensive similarly tried to concentrate force at a single point and overwhelm the enemy. That's how they broke US lines at the Battle of the Bulge. Once you actually study Soviet tactics and operations they show far more cunning and better handling then their German counterparts. Who got outgeneralled, but tried to hide that after the war by claiming the Red Army just threw lots of bodies at them. And that Bad Man Hitler interfered with them.
I wouldn't say germans "forgot" about it, more like Hitler fucking killed it, just like how he killed everything vaguely related to german nationalism. He is the worst thing to have ever happened to the nationalist movement.
@@maynardburgerIt's a rather weird statement to make when the Soviets' logistics and strategic plans were very well developed and brought them incredible victories during the Dnieper-Carphatians, Belorussia, Vistula-Order, Romanian, Silesian and Pomeranian campaigns
Absolutely adore these personal dedications, they simply offer an entirely different perspective on the story as it unfolds - and I'm so glad that you guys put such effort into the presentation of these things too. Thank you.
My grandfather was a pioneer with the British force that liberated Belsen. He ended up becoming a violent drunk in later life, before drinking himself to death. I often wonder if that experience was what changed him. Meanwhile my other grandfather was on the otherside of the world at Okinawa.
Night Witches mentioned, nice :)
I wasn't aware that they were involved in supporting the final push on Berlin itself. Fitting. Also, they've got to be somewhere in the top 5 of military units with the best nicknames.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 And the most militarily effective per ruble.
🎉
Where's the new episode
I think they are surrounded by Russians in the bunker
TimeGhost army searching for Fegelein...
here it is!
th-cam.com/video/f-ftuBbCjDI/w-d-xo.html - TimeGhost Ambassador
Incredible. A tour de force. You guys are simply the absolute best.
The mini maps you use are really excellent for getting the geography right. Thank you!
I enjoyed the memorial very much. Outstanding job Indy !
It feels so surreal being so close to the capture of Berlin after having followed the series for so many years, loving the very detailed coverage these past weekly episodes, keep up the good work!
We plan too! Hope to see you at Indy's next series: www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell
Thank you so much for all the great content you guys have put out! 😊
Yea crazy to think about the war finally ending and that I've even watched this for the length of the war. The time amount itself is a history lesson. Truly amazing dedicated work, cuddos to the whole team
‘What were you thinking?! You have horses!!’
"say hello to ford. and general fucking motors"
A bit one-sided. The Red Army still had quite a lot of cavalry and horse-drawn wagons hauled much of their supplies.
SPOILER
Significant numbers of cavalry will be used when it attacks the Japanese in Manchuria.
"Drag our asses half way around the world...interrupting our lives FOR WHAT?!! You ignorant servile scum! WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE?!! HUH??!!"
@@stevekaczynski3793 They had enough trucks to fill out the rest (both domestic and lend lease). Hell they were able to combine cavalry and mechanized units to even out each others drawbacks in the field
@@emmiannon1266I wonder if there were any Ford-supplied cars in Germany left by then.
My Grandad, as a Royal Army Service Corps Captain attached to an infantry battalion in the 51st Highland Division was detached to help clear out Bergan Belsen. He never spoke to me about it.
I can understand why. Seeing the images and footage is already bad enough. Being there in person was probably a million times worse. And unless you were there as well it was probably hard for him to share this with. And also, maybe he wanted to spare you this, knowing that what he had seen was a million times worse then what you got to see.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 Absolutely.
This series, along with The Great War series are one of the coolest things to ever be done on TH-cam
April 20, 1945
*Traudle:* "Das ist ja Artillerie!"
Hello Sir Hanush
Koller: Nein, it was just nothing
* Traudl
I hope you make a WAH episode about the suffering of the civilian population on Okinawa.
More Japanese civilians died during the Battle of Okinawa than in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial lists almost 150,000 Okinawans who died during the battle, which includes some 40,000 civilians, including school boys, who were drafted or impressed into the Japanese Imperial Army and sent into battle with little or no training.
@@DavidKutzler One can only imagine how that would have played out in an invasion of Japan itself. Millions, possibly tens of millions dead. It's no wonder the Allied commanders were looking for ANY way to end the war without having to conduct such an invasion. Fortunately for Japan, as well as the Allies, such a means was in the final stages of development at an obscure and secret facility in the desert in the southwestern US.
@@brucetucker4847That said, what about the special bombs (as the Japanese initally called them) was any different from the months long firebombing campaign? As we saw in this very episode, it was such a major focus for LeMay that he even straight up ignored the pleas of the Navy to defend them from Kamikazes.
@@extrahistory8956 I think part of it was the psychological shock - that one plane and one bomb could cause so much death and destruction. It plainly marked a new era in warfare. And they had no idea how many more there might be.
@@brucetucker4847
“A pillar of fire, ten thousand feet tall, deadly neutron effects for a mile, in all directions, all from a single device, dropped from one barely noticed B-29.”
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Two points from me on this episode. First, my paternal grandfather will turn 56 three days before Hitler on April 17th 1945, he was a veteran of both world wars, though stateside during the second and never having completed the sixth grade, during his interwar service in the North Carolina National Guard, he was commissioned an officer and retired a major and later promoted to honorary Lieutenant Colonel after the war and dying just short of the age of 101 in February 1990.
The second, being the advantage of having moved recently moved to Charleston, South Carolina, last Tuesday on the 16th I got the opportunity after work to visit the U.S.S. Laffey on the anniversary of her refusing to die to one of, if not the worst kamikaze attacks during the war. "The ship that wouldn't die" was attacked by 22 kamikaze, suffering four bomb hits, six kamikaze strikes (and clipped by one Marine Corsair that was chasing a Japanese plane and hit the Laffey's radar mast) and is now at Patriots Point as a museum shop.
Once again brilliant work Indy et al
Leonard 🙏 thank you ✊
Loved the dedication.... great work as always....
Thank you for watching.
Two and a half years later
Berlin April 20 1945 Adolph Hitler's 56 birthday....
And what a Birthday Party it was!😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@doolittlegeorgeYears after I first watched the film did I realize that Traudl Humps joined the office just in time for the fiasco in Stalingrad, too. 😅
I find it interesting how ww1 and ww2 contrast. Ww1 is a constant attrition and deadlock, with the war seemingly going either way until an eventual allied breakthrough in 1918, whereas ww2 is an axis domination in 39-40, and then a tip of the scales 41-43, and the eventual downfall in 44-45.
And a mighty downfall at that.
And so it is different seeing young boys join the army in All Quiet vs in The Bridge or Downfall.
Thank you, Leonard.
Well done again TimeGhost Team, well done
Thank you for the comment.
WOW! this has been a real good series, you can never top it, but you can cover the rest of the 20th century, and I hope you do
Indy will be covering the Korean War starting this June: www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell
Damn. Didn't know that the Night Witches bombarded positions so near to Berlin. I've been following this channel since the outbreak of Covid and I keep learning new stuff. Thank you.
The remarkable thing is, despite being well and truly wrecked that day, the Laffey survived.
In fact she is still around today, as a museum ship in Charleston.
"You see how things have changed my friend. Now it is their land, their people, their blood."
Princess Elizabeth will celebrate her 19th birthday tomorrow.
Tremendous effort. Its felt like Overlord happened only yesterday, and Uranus the day before that. Heck, I remember the Winter War coverage being fresh and new.
Wow. My long binge is over, and just in time for the finale, it looks like
A certain CoD game would love Seelow heights
“Dmitri, you cheat death once again my friend.”
@@MaxwellAerialPhotography best line of the whole game. Besides the other one in the pacific 😂
Downfall happened after Seelow Heights
Hitler : Oh, you guys remembered my birthday? how sweet of you! 🥰
The Soviets : We didn't forget your birthday either 🙂 *Sends artillery shells with birthday ribbons strapped to them*
«С Днем рожденья тебя!»
*pop, pop, pop*
«С Днем рожденья тебя!»
*pop, pop, pop*
«С Днем Рождения, дорогой Адольф!»
* whistling*
«С Днем рожденья тебя!»
*explosion*
Excellent work Indy & team.
Thank you!
This weeks dedication was incredible. While we know so much about the war through decades of studying, it's always fascinating to hear what little family members know of their loved ones individual service. My great grandfather fought in Italy and told his children and grandchildren nothing about his service. When I was a child and he was in the last stage of his life he opened up, and we all found out why. Aside from the daring heroics and spectacular bravery, many surviving men lost huge parts of themselves to the war.
I was shocked to hear LeMay was against bombing someone, then you said it's only because he wanted to bomb a whole other bunch, these civilians, then it made sense.
Contrary to the perception Hollywood has built up around the man, LeMay wasn't bloodthirsty or warmonger. I've never heard of any accounts or remarks that indicated he genuinely liked killing all the people his orders resulted in. He was, however, completely ruthless and diamond-focused on achieving any military objective put before him by the most efficient means possible. I am not an expert on the subject, but if I had to guess, as a bomber general, he thought the firebombing campaign was the most efficient way to bring Japan to its knees, and end the war more quickly. From that perspective, diverting his sorties to blow up some kamikaze planes here and there was a waste of resources and damn what the Navy thought.
The difference between Harris and LeMay and Harris was that Harris would happily bomb civilians even if that wasn't helping win the war while LeMay would happily bomb them if it that helped win the war.
Future US Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole suffered his crippling wound from a mortar shell on the 14th, the first day of the attack towards Bologna. He served with the US 10th Mountain Division.
Looking forward to next week for the Italian front. They are still outside Bologna and all will end on the 25th…. What happened? Great job with the narration, you make my day start ever Saturday
Josh, an amazing and proud legacy. Glad you shared it with us via Indy!
(side note- who were these German crazies fighting like this at this point. Nuremberg is a fascinating place to visit!)
We are glad Josh shared it with us too!
This week in French news.
The 14th, beginning of the liberation of the Pocket of Royan.
The 15th, first massive use of Napalm in France in the Verdon Pocket (1100t of napalm in one day). The Royan pocket is reduced until the 18th to just the city itself and the Point of Coubre. The 18th Admiral Hans Michahelles surrenders his forces of Royan but some troops continue to fight until the 20th in the point of Grave, where the defenders have almost all diphtheria.
The 19th, the Committee in Sigmaringen disperses.
The 20th, Pétain is warned by the Gestapo that he will be taken to Wangen and then Switzerland. He protests wanting to be taken to the French Army nearby, but the 21st he is sent to Switzerland with Debeney and Bléhaut. He arrives the 24th, day of his anniversary. The group is then sent to Weesen before Pétain is sent to France. He is made prisoner the 26th in Vallorbe by General Koenig.
In order to understand the situation of the opinion, the IFOP asked the question “Should Pétain be inflicted a sentence. 58 % said no, 22% because of dementia, 18 % out of respect for his age and the men, only 5% said due to his act in 1940 and during the Occupation.
The evolution is fast due to all his implication in Vichy is demonstrated: in April 1946, 28% are for a death sentence, 22% are for nothing. In July, 76 % are for a sentence and 37 % for death. When Pétain arrived in front of French troops sent to protect his transfer, he saluted them but none responded and when he tried to handshake Koenig, this one only saluted him, Koenig was condemned to death by Vichy in 1941. He is then sent to the Fort of Montrouge in Paris until his trial.
Pétain was one of the few French WW1 commanders who cared about the lives of French people and common soldiers. He was doing what he thought was right to preserve France. I wonder how many of the people who wanted him executed had ev er had to make a decision half as hard as his?
@@Turnipstalk No matter why he turned a traitor, he was still a traitor. No mercy for traitors. He should have done France a service and done what Model had done, sparing France the division and debate of what to do with him. The fact that he thought that he could go back to France as a general and leader of France shows how delusional he was.
@@Turnipstalk A: toxic masculinity is cultural marxist speech, comrade, and B: when you cooperate with the enemy that invaded your country and got a lot of your countrymen DELETED, THAT is being a traitor. Quisling was executed in Norway, Mussert was executed in the Netherlands, Mussolini was DELETED by partisans, Vlasov was executed by the Soviets. Traitors, when captured, tend to get executed, and not forgiven because muh toxic masculinity.
Napalm in France??? Wow
@@Turnipstalk Pétain is a traitor to the Republic and for all the crimes he endorsed. It is a little bit difficult to protect him.
Stalin all through the war: "The Western Allies must do more to more again Germany!"
Stalin once the Western Allies liberate France & Belgium and plough through most of Germany: "no no not like that!"
Stalin’s issue was that they were surrendering en masse while fighting the Soviets. All this while the West had delayed an invasion for a year from the promised timeframe. To stalin it looked like the West and Germany were colluding
Yeah he begged for years for allies to land but when they do he truest to race and capture as much territory like why u asked them to land in Europe if you want the territory
@@jamessicker they waited til the soviets had defeated them. By the time US landed in 1944, the Soviets had won the war
@@Mfields4517Not exactly? They had already captured a great deal of Axis troops in North Africa, knocked Italy out as a military power that same year, landed troops in Europe in September 1943, and had done so while placing Japan on the defensive as they slowly grinded out Japan's outer oght of defense
I'd never heard the account of the human chewing on a human thigh bone. Dear god. You think you know how bad the camps were, but there's always another horrifying detail.
Yeah, I unfortunately was eating lunch when listening to this episode. You'd think I'd learn... the horrors never seem to cease.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
8:18 the call we've been waiting for. The war is nearing its end for sure
8:56 No! The 9th Army! Quickly! Call Steiner and Wenck!
At this time just last year we had to pan the entire map to see different fronts of the war. Now we can see the eastern and western front in a single zoom in. We've come so far.
Masterful effort! Great series! Everything is absolutely fenomenal! However I cannot understand how there is not a single mention of the Syrmian front breakthrough. It is like nothing is happening in the Balkans and as if nobody is rushing towards Zagreb at this point. Just a couple of seconds per video would have been enough. I just hope that the battle of Odžak will at least be mentioned as the last WW2 battle on the European front.
I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Thanks for the like!
I missed getting this in. The 10th mountain in Northern Italy was taking hill 905, April 15 1945 - Pvt Nesber Gilton Brandt, my dad's brother was a replacement on April 1, and was part of that. The attack failed on April 14, and on April 15 they hit it again and were thrown back again. Two wounded were in no man's land. Nesber went out, got one and got him back. He went for the second and was killed by machine gun fire as he picked up the wounded man. He was buried in Italy and his body was brought back about 1949 and interred at Uriah (UMC) in Cumberland County PA about 20 miles from Harrisburg.
You know people talk about interservice rivalry for the Japanese, but the Americans are no slouches either 😂
Nicely done video
The Canadians liberate Arnhem on the 16th and Appledorn on the 17th. The Dutch population are suffering from starvation at this point and the Canadians do what they can to bring in food and medicine.
It would be great if all the animated maps presented in the videos with the units could be made public after the serie is over. Like a website where you can just click play ww2 happens in details
We'd love to do more stuff with the maps in the future, whilst this is a really cool idea we'd be more likely to do it in video form for specific moments than create a website for it like we did for Stalingrad.
Dear Time Ghost. (cracking a beer) I propose an internet toast to your series. Salute! It's been one hell of a ride!
Cheers!
Here we go. The Battle for Berlin is in full swing.
Every description given of this offensive makes it sound like the end of days. And as it continues i expect many more such descriptions
I'm pretty sure that many a soldier and civilian in Europe and East Asia thought that they were living through the Tribulation.
I'm honestly surprised we didn't see more doomsday cults pop up between '42 and '50 than we did.
I'm always glad that the Western Front segments always make sure to showcase how vast the battlefields and how numerous the armies, corps, and divisions were. Often times, works on this make the same old mistake of focusing too much on one part of the front or on a particular unit and its adventures at the expense of many others.
One of my complaints about nearly all documentary coverage of the Battle of the Bulge, aside from this channel's. They tend to focus mainly on the battle for Bastogne and often don't even mention the fighting for Elsenborn Ridge 46 miles to the northeast, despite the latter having much more impact on the end result and being just as fiercely fought.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 Or Sankt Vith which actually absorbed main weight of German offensive for nine days
@@merdiolu Very true. Normandy arguably has a similar problem in that many documentaries are too focused on Omaha or don't extend much beyond securing the beachheads.
At this point Western Armies are pretty much just walking into German cities unopposed
Thank you the lesson.
Thank you for watching.
@@WorldWarTwo I emailed you some photographs of some Stars and Stripes newspapers that my grandmother gave me when ai was young.
There are several of them.
One is the linkup of the Soviet and American forces at the Elbe River.
Another is the VICTORY in Europe edition.
Looking forward to the Kikusui episode!
Wow, wow. Patton has reached Czechoslovakia. The French have taken Stuttgart; such a thing hasn't happened since Napoleon; absolutely amazing. Its not like 1918; the German Government isn't asking for an Armistice it seems.
Ironically the armistice in 1918 gave the Germans a false sense of belief that they were not militarily defeated.
This gave rise to the stab in the back propaganda heavily used both by the Weimar Republic as well as the Nazis.
This time around the allies are making sure for the Germans to not have any doubts they were defeated.
The nazis rose to power on the back of 'the stab in the back' myth from the WWI armistice. They would never ask for a truce.
For the same reason the allies were not realy offering an armistice: nothing but a complete capitulation from Germany was acceptable.
Unfortunately, it seems as if Japan’s form of defeat in 1945 is kind of their version of 1918.
Week 2 of hoping the mention of the breaking of the Syrmian front in Yugoslavia (based between Drava and Sava rivers) that occurred on April 12th, performed by the Yugoslav Army, a real Army that arose from the Yugoslav partisan formations and was acknowledged as an Allied Army since 1943.
That breakthrough led to a race west that covered cca 20 kilometers a day on average, and reached Trieste some 420km away where the units of the YA met with the Allied NZ brigade, and nearly had a clashdown over who will occupy the town. The German SS units in Trieste refused to surrender to the YA, and fought until the next day the New Zealanders arrived in order to surrender to them.
Given the way people from the Balkans usually fight their wars and what was done to them during this one, I'd rather surrender to the Kiwis too.
Just finished band of brothers episode 9. The closing of the rhur pocket
I haven't seen this amazing channel for a while and I see that you are at April 20, 1945. That means I have to start at the very beginning 1939 to see what I have missed and to find out what happens next. No problem.
Welcome back! Hope to catch you on Indy's upcoming series: www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell
its insane how many divisions are on the soviets front vs the germans
It is a bit misleading however as even at full strength Soviet divisions were much smaller than German ones. That said at this stage in the war the Red Army does have a very large manpower advantage across the front. In earlier battles like Moscow however where that was not the case (there was a rough parity there) you'd still see a lot more Soviet units on the map.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 yeah i'm aware, but the german divisions are probably so depleted I wouldn't be surprised if they were at parity at this stage of the war.
@@Inhumane I believe the Soviets outnumbered the Germans 3 to1 but on the most important areas around Berlin the Soviets were able to concentrate their troops so the Soviet strength was much higher.
@@caryblack5985 yup i liked TIK’s video on this if you haven’t try giving it a watch. I think it was like the myth of soviet’s numerical superiority
@@Inhumane This is 1945 and the Germans are definitely outnumbered at this time period.
Anyone else had the music from Call of Duty World at War pop into their heads to pair with Indy's narration?
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