At the beginning of 1945, Europe continues to be ablaze.

Nazi Germany is caught in a vice, yet it keeps on fighting.

In the east, the Red Army has gained ground.

In the west, the Allies have freed practically the entire French territory.

They’ve settled in Belgium and foray into Holland in often extreme conditions.

The winter of 1944 to 1945 was a particularly harsh winter.

It was also uh very dispiriting, as you might imagine, for all of the soldiers living in these muddy trenches or whatever, often in flood planes.

The biggest problem on the American side is the lack of proper foot gear.

In other words, like your feet are immersed in icy water, slush, snow for far too long, and they’re not insulated well enough.

And of course, you’re not taking your boots off in this kind of environment.

And eventually, you know, your feet just start to die.

If we’re looking really at the daily soldiers plight, there is a sense, you know, when is this going to be over? When will this nightmare ever end? [Music] As the month of January begins, the troops are engaged in one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war in Europe.

Two weeks earlier, the Germans launched a violent counterattack in the heart of the Arden.

Hitler’s goal is to turn the tables by taking the Allies by surprise.

The Nazi strategy was one basically of holding the western the all Anglo-Saxon armies on the line of the river Rine.

But Hitler had this idea that he wanted to surprise and astonish the world with a huge counterattack in the Ardan.

The idea being basically he felt and this was sheer fantasy that if he managed to charge across the river M and then swing north all the way to Al and capture that port this would actually knock the British out of the war.

Antwerp was a very important target for both sides.

It would give the allies the port they desperately needed while the Germans wanted to prevent the landing of additional weapons in Europe.

But the Third Reich’s counterattack fails.

Its decimated air force can’t compete with British and American air power on the ground.

Despite the troops exhaustion, the Allies regained the advantage, forcing the Germans to retreat.

This surprise attack did take the Americans totally by surprise, but they did react with astonishing speed, and only the Americans had again the resources with troops.

They were bringing in up to 45,000 men a day in reinforcements.

[Applause] [Music] On January 16th, Adolf Hitler leaves his East Prussia headquarters and returns to Berlin.

Upon arrival, he’ll order the next operations from his bunker.

The future of the Reich is at stake since the situation is also deteriorating on the Eastern Front.

4 days earlier, the Red Army has launched a major offensive.

You have armies attacking across the Vistula, north into East Prussia, and all the way across towards the river Oda.

The Red Army had 6.

7 million troops between the Baltic and the Adriatic.

So from this point of view, they had more than double the German armies present on that front.

The best of the German forces sent in the Arden are sorely missed to fend off Stalin’s troops.

The Soviets gain ground in East Prussia as well as in Polish territory.

Germany must draw on its last strengths.

The regime is forced to rely on its popular militias.

At the end of 1944, the Nazis had implemented mass mobilization of all able men between 16 and 60 years of age.

Mere delusion in the face of the Soviet steamroller.

[Music] The idea of defending the territory by Vulk units which were made up of simple civilians who were supposed to know how to fight proved to be a catastrophic strategy.

The situation was utterly absurd.

They were obviously in no position to oppose the Russians with only handguns and bazookas at their disposal.

They were hopelessly inferior to the Russian tanks.

[Music] The Red Army continues to advance with unprecedented violence.

When Stalin heard about the way the Soviet troops were behaving towards the Germans and their civilians, he said their actions were understandable given what they had gone through.

After all, they had witnessed the destruction of their country and the loss of their friends and relatives.

Who cared if some of them messed around with a few German women? To this day, it’s still used as an explanation, even an excuse for the crimes they committed.

Did they take pity on us? No.

Then we will do the same.

[Music] The brutality imputed to the Russians was part of Gel’s propaganda, but it was also fueled by the soldiers experience.

The arrival of the Russian troops on German soil caused widespread panic, which obviously urged people to flee East Prussia.

That isn’t the extent of the horrors of World War II.

What the world is about to uncover is beyond words.

10 days after setting foot in the ruins of Warsaw, the Red Army enters the Ashvitz Burkenau camp [Music] on January 27th, 1945.

While progressing in Polish territory, Soviet soldiers stumbled upon the survivors of the horrors inflicted by the Nazis.

[Music] Over a million men, women, and children had been killed here.

[Music] The vast majority being Jews exterminated in gas chambers.

Soviet cameras record what is left of them.

The Nazis had recovered everything they could through a morbid recycling process.

[Music] In order to get rid of the bodies, the executioners had used these crematory ovens.

The Nazis saw it as an efficient and discrete tool.

Polish citizens, gypsies, and political prisoners had also been executed in Avitz.

People had known about concentration camps, of course, already before the end of the war, but knowing about things is never quite the same thing as actually seeing them.

The horror was almost beyond human imagination.

Avitz will go down in history as one of the worst crimes ever committed by mankind.

But right now, the war rages on and diplomatic affairs are underway.

[Music] February begins with a summit conference held in an old Zar Palace on the shores of the Black Sea.

Here near Yalta, a small resort city in Crimea, the Allied leaders decide to meet.

British Prime Minister Churchill, American President Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Stalin wished to hasten victory and prepare for the post-war period.

Stalin had his main priority, which was to assure Soviet control over Central Europe and above all Poland.

Because as far as Stalin was concerned, that was where he had been surprised in June 1941.

And never again was he going to allow the Soviet Union to be taken by surprise.

[Music] Roosevelt had a very different priority.

He had this idealistic view of preventing war in the future by the creation of the United Nations.

And this was going to be his legacy.

He was prepared to make concessions to Stalin so as to get Stalin into the war against Japan, but above all to agree to the United Nations.

The Allies agree to divide Germany in occupied territories once victory is secured.

But the war against the Third Reich is far from over.

In order to bring Hitler to his knees, the British and American forces unleash a hail of fire.

They strike the city of Dresden with incendiary bombs, killing between 25 and 35,000 civilians.

Simultaneously, the Allied army’s ground forces fight their way towards Berlin.

Despite the freezing winter and a violent enemy resistance, the first French army with the support of the Americans finally liberates the Kmar pocket on February 9th.

But a natural border still stands in the way of the Allies.

Hitler’s mindset at this point is to fight to the end.

So he hopes that the Rine will be an impenetrable barrier in the west to the Western Allies and thus he can then hold on to the heart of Germany that way.

In order to block the allies progression, the Germans destroy the bridges over the rine.

At the very last moment, the Americans manage to take over the Remogan bridge, the only one still standing.

The Germans try to destroy it, but only a section is damaged.

On March 7th, the Allies cross the river and establish a bridge head on the right bank.

The heart of the Reich is now in the crosshairs of the US Army.

The inevitable defeat of the Reich stirs up the rivalry between the Allied powers.

General staff are agitated by the symbol of victory at stake.

Which army will get to Berlin first? Which flag will fly over the Reich’s capital.

At the other end of the world, the Allies are fighting the Japanese Empire in the Pacific.

Over 3 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Americans are prevailing.

In early March of 1945, the battle is raging on the island of Ewima.

Located some 1,000 kilometers from Tokyo, it would offer a valuable base to the Allied Air Force.

But on this island riddled with underground defense, the boys are facing a bloody guerilla war.

They were determined to fight to the end.

I mean, it was quite astonishing.

No soldier was allowed to surrender.

The humiliation at home would be intense.

Retreated in trenches, caves, and bunkers, the Japanese soldiers can emerge at any time.

The Americans try to force them out with grenades and flamethrowers.

The important thing was never to allow them to surrender just in case they had a grenade hidden.

There was a dehumanization in that particular war on both sides uh which was pretty shocking.

In order to ensure victory, the Allies go beyond close combat.

They decide to destroy enemy cities with bombs.

From the night of March 9th to the 10th, Tokyo is their intended target.

The US Air Force sends bombers to strike the Japanese capital.

The pilot’s orders are ruthless.

Low-level nighttime incendiary bombing is basically to burn out Japan’s cities.

There’s a lot of cottage industries that are melded in with the the residential areas.

And in many of those areas, of course, the buildings are built of wood and paper and whatnot that are quite vulnerable.

The Empire of the Rising Sun’s capital is burned to the ground, resulting in 100,000 victims.

It’s the deadliest bombing of the entire war.

[Music] Back in Europe, the Americans reach the heart of Germany.

In the beginning of April, they also discover the horrors of Nazi camps.

[Music] In Ordlru, one of the annex camps of Bkenvald, General Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces on the continent, witnesses the emaciated victims with his own eyes.

[Music] It was such a shock that General Eisenhower decided this had to be publicized very widely in news broadcasts in cinemas and radio and so on so that people would finally understand what the war was fought for.

He himself was horrified.

What will they do with these men and women who managed to survive? The question raised in the spring of 1945 will become one of the major challenges of the post-war period.

The deported people are now refugees.

Many of the Jews who came from places like Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, and so on couldn’t really go back home because there was nobody left.

They’d lost all their family, their friends.

These were often places that were still hostile to Jews and so they had nowhere to go.

And so the old concentration camps then became so-called displaced persons camps where some people desperate to go somewhere Palestine, the United States, anywhere were cooped up and sometimes for years.

The allies are getting ever closer to Berlin.

The Americans are now less than 100 km away from the Reich’s capital.

However, General Eisenhower makes a decision that will raise controversy among his own faction.

Eisenhower makes what he terms a military decision, but it’s also a political decision in the sense of saying, you know what, we’re not going to go with our armies to Berlin.

Eisenhower was not willing to lose the lives of British, Canadian, American soldiers for terrain you were going to maybe give up to the Soviets.

The Americans let the Red Army pay the blood money.

The Red Army has free reign.

Stalin’s troops are ready to use their firepower against the Reich’s capital.

[Music] In 1945, the strength of the Soviet army relied on one simple fact.

Their numeric superiority in terms of manpower and equipment.

Their aircrafts and tanks outnumbered the enemies.

From that standpoint, it was a war of number, not skill.

The Soviet divisions are about to launch an attack on Berlin.

2 and a half million men are preparing to swarm into the German capital.

[Music] On April 16th, at dawn, the final offensive begins.

Over 2 million shells were fired on that very first day.

The artillery was literally sort of parked wheelto-heel in such a concentration.

Already devastated by the bombing, the German capital sinks into desolation.

For Hitler, the clock is ticking.

He knew by then he was going to die, usually by suicide, because Hitler had this terrible fear of being taken back to Moscow in an iron cage and being humiliated.

So he had no doubt about his own death, but he felt that the German people should share his death in utter disarray.

On his 56th birthday, the Furer decides to make a public appearance.

And here you actually see the last film of Hitler as he goes along the line of young heroes from the Hitler youth who have been used in fact basically as suicide squads.

He was in such an advanced stage of uh decay and disability.

[Music] The next day on April 21st, 1945, the Soviets enter the city.

The Battle of Berlin is exceptionally violent.

block by block, combined arms warfare, self-propelled artillery pieces, tanks, infantry soldiers cleaning out sewers and building blocks and all that.

And of course, everybody on the German side, just a weapon thrown at them and told to fight.

While Berlin sinks into chaos, the Allies join forces further south.

On April 25th, the American troops and the Red Army meet on the banks of the Ela.

[Music] The uh lack of comprehension, this clash of cultures was so enormous.

Neither spoke the other’s language.

So, you know, they would share toasts to victory or whatever it might be.

But I think the real idea going through American uh minds was, “Thank God, the war is over.

We can leave the old world, corrupt Europe to get on with its own lives, and we’ll go back home.

We’ve done our job.

” [Music] While waiting to return home, the men stand in front of the photographers.

A symbolic picture immortalizes the event.

On the left stands American sublieutenant William Robertson.

Next to him is Soviet Lieutenant Alexander Silvashko.

This emblematic picture will spread around the world.

Far from these images of joyous celebrations, Hitler’s Italian allies are punished by the victors.

On April 28th, Benito Mussolini is executed by resistance fighters.

The next day in Milan, the fascist leader and his mistress are hung upside down.

Their bodies are shouted down by a raging crowd.

The news of this humiliating death reaches Germany.

Hitler had seen it.

He was afraid of his corpse being displayed in public.

Hitler’s determination was that his body should be burned.

Cornered, Adolf Hitler commits suicide.

According to the latest studies, he took cyanide before shooting himself in the head.

Germany collapses.

The world envisioned by the Nazis is swept away.

In Berlin and several other cities around the country, political leaders, military officers, and civilians commit suicide.

There was a huge number of suicides, especially after the news of Hitler’s death.

Obviously, they did not say on the radio he had committed suicide.

They said he died leading his troops.

It was a cover up.

But to many Germans, it was clear that Hitler’s suicide was the only honorable solution.

[Music] It is interesting to see how many Germans, including officials of the regime, believe they should kill themselves along with their families.

Recent studies have looked into this and shown that this apocalyptic climate had been systematically implanted by Hitler.

He had imagined the downfall of Germany being similar to a vagarian opera.

On the day of Hitler’s death, bloody combats take place in the Reichto, the historical parliament of the German Empire.

[Music] In Berlin, the troops followed battle tactics, ensuring the occupation of the city by taking one quarter after the next.

In the end, even though some parts of the city were not yet secured, the main troops headed towards the empire’s symbol, the Richtag, in order to raise the red flag.

Around the same time, Hitler had just committed suicide in his bunker.

Or maybe he was still alive.

After all these years of fierce combat and incalculable deaths, hardship, tears, and fears, the war in Europe is finally over.

It’s time to celebrate.

[Music] In many countries, of course, the liberating armies were greeted like rock stars really because not only were they liberators, but they were also richer than the local population.

They had chocolate to dispense, Hershey bars, silk stockings, chewing gum, and so on.

And they brought jazz music with them.

One reason that 1945 was called the summer of love is that not only was there a lot of partying going on with the Allied troops, but an awful lot of children were born more or less 9 months after that event, too.

And it was just another sign of a world that was trying to sort of start from scratch and remake itself after all the the death and the mayhem.

The excitement contrasts with the continuing bloodshed in the Pacific.

thousands of kilometers from there.

[Music] The battle of Okinawa is raging when VE Day happens and the soldiers and marines who are fighting on Okinawa hear of course all about it and the correspondents are excited.

They’re eager to share this great news of the end of the war in Europe.

And of course, you know, everybody’s happy to hear this, but the general attitude is, so what? How does that affect me? [Music] After the seizing of Ioima, the Americans are deep into the merciless battle to conquer the island of Okinawa.

Around 500 km from the main Japanese islands, Okinawa is a strategic goal.

There are now the preparations in fact for basically operation downfall which is going to be the invasion of the home islands of Japan which actually terrifies the allied planners the British and the Americans because they are estimating that they are going to suffer half a million casualties.

[Music] During this relentless war, the Allied ships must face an airborne danger.

Overwhelmed, the Japanese air force resort to a quasi infallible weapon.

The kamicazis.

They found at this particular point that their most effective way was simply to pack the aircraft full of explosives.

And then they would use recruit pilots, new pilots who’d only just finished their pilot training to fly these aircraft straight into American warships.

They would always be accompanied by a veteran pilot in another aircraft uh ready to shoot them down if they wanted to change their mind at the last time and avoid uh crashing themselves.

The Japanese strategy is still the same.

Inflict as many casualties on the Allies as possible.

Hang on as long as you can and force some sort of negotiated solution or outcome to this war.

[Music] In Europe, the end of the war doesn’t mean a return to happy days.

For more than a year, the liberation has been striking the hour of vengeance with its share of violence, humiliation, and injustice.

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