Summer 1944.

For nearly 5 years, Europe had been at war, awaiting its liberation.

On the 6th of June, the winds of freedom finally began to blow over the beaches of Normandy.

On the evening of the longest day, more than 150,000 soldiers had made it to land.

By the 1st of July, almost 1 million men were fighting in Normandy.

The Allies had control over the skies.

They were systematically destroying the infrastructure used by the Germans.

All their convoys of reinforcements were targeted.

Even Field Marshall RML, the head of German forces in Normandy, was wounded in an aerial attack.

A joke began to do the rounds in the German ranks.

If you see a white plane, it’s American.

If you see a black plane, it’s English.

If you see nothing, it’s the Luwaffer.

And yet, the outcome was far from settled.

The Germans put up fierce resistance.

The British General Montgomery hoped to take the port of Khn within 48 hours.

In the event, it took 6 weeks [music] and carpet bombing that flattened the city.

At last, in the final week of July, the front gave [music] way.

The Americans managed to break through on the Cotton Peninsula.

Allied troops [music] liberated Britany while General Patton’s rampaging Third US army liberated town [music] after town and pushed east.

The liberation of Western Europe was finally underway.

Western France was in ruins.

The population were embittered.

But after 4 years under the Nazi jack boot, there was finally hope.

The mood was one of confidence.

“We’ll cut through Germany like butter,” predicted a colleague of General [music] Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied commander.

This mood of optimism was heightened since on the Eastern front a huge offensive was underway.

Stalin had unleashed Russian forces in Operation Bigration.

His objective was to seize Bellarus with the subsequent aim of opening the route to Warsaw which in turn controlled access to Berlin.

The Red Army was advancing like a steamroller, crushing everything in its path along a 1,000 km front.

More than a million men, 4,000 tanks, 25,000 cannon, and 5,000 planes came at the enemy.

Nothing could stop them.

How long? The strong man of the Kremlin showed he had a sense of history.

Stalin waited until the 22nd of June to launch his offensive.

Hitler had attacked Russia 3 years beforehand to the day on the 22nd of June 1941.

On this front, the Soviets went from one victory to another.

Hitler had ordered his generals to apply a fortress strategy to dig in in a few well-defended places to contain the enemy and force him into long and bloody fighting.

By imposing a war of movement in 1940, Hitler was a step ahead in terms of tactics.

By pegging his generals in citadels, the Furer had now taken a step back to old school war.

On this front, the Soviets went from one victory to another.

Viteps, Orcher, Mgalev, Borisk, Minsk.

The cities of Bellarus fell one by one.

Vasili Gman, correspondent for the Soviet army newspaper, The Red Star, noted, “The road to Babusk is the road of retribution.

Here the cauldron of death boils, swallowing up in merciless vengeance all those who have not laid down their weapons and fled west.

To slow the Russian advance, the Germans carried out a scorched earth policy, ravaging towns and destroying all infrastructure.

But nothing could halt the Red Army.

Neither the blown up bridges nor the thousands of mines laid by the Germans.

Their progress was so rapid that they were running out of fuel.

To keep up the pace, Russian soldiers sometimes mixed vodka and diesel oil to keep the tanks rolling.

One German corporal wrote to his wife, “If the Russians continue in this direction, you won’t have to wait long before they’re on your doorstep.

” Hundreds of thousands of Germans were killed or captured.

Many of them had not yet reached the age of 20.

Many surrendered when they had the chance.

The liberated territories were in flames.

The liberated populations had lost everything.

Their belongings, often their homes.

sometimes even their lives.

To celebrate what was one of the biggest defeats inflicted on the vermarked, Stalin paraded 60,000 German prisoners in Moscow on the 17th of July 1944.

[cheering] Three years earlier, Hitler had promised them they would march through Moscow.

[cheering] A promise now fulfilled.

Attacked from the west by the Anglo-Americans, from the east by the Soviets, the Reich was threatened with sudden collapse, especially since a major blow was about to be dealt to its head.

Convinced of the imminence of defeat, a circle of German officers wanted [music] to eliminate Hitler so they could open negotiations with the allies.

On the 20th of July, while the Furer was meeting with his top brass, the bomb went off.

The [music] blast caused huge damage, but [music] despite the violence of the explosion, Hitler had miraculously survived.

He suffered a burst eard drum and a dressing covered his ear, but he was alive.

Not everyone was so lucky.

Several men who were with him were gravely wounded and would later die.

[music] That same day, Bonito Mussolini, who still reigned [music] over the northern half of Italy, paid him a visit.

his right arm still [music] in a sling, Hitler welcomed him and told him, “Juke, a short while ago, an infernal machine was set in motion against me.

” When Hitler showed him the location of the attack, he said, “The bomb exploded just by my feet.

It’s clear that nothing can happen to me.

My destiny is to pursue my course [music] and complete my task.

I am more certain than ever that the great cause which I serve will triumph despite the current dangers.

Hitler interpreted his survival as a sign from heaven.

Mussolini refrained from contradicting him.

Before leaving, Iluche told [music] him, “After this miracle, it is unthinkable that our cause might fail.

” [cheering] When the Germans learned that Hitler had survived, many wept with joy.

Thank God the furer is alive.

This was the sentiment heard on the streets of Berlin.

For in July 44, many Germans still thought their furer represented the only hope of winning.

The very evening of the assassination attempt, [music] the dictator addressed his people.

for the bombing heightened Hitler’s natural tendency towards paranoia.

Opposition figures, real or imagined, were mercilessly hunted down.

This hunt was led by a hardliner, Major General Otto Anma.

5,000 people were [music] detained.

The conspirators were almost all arrested.

This was followed by swift trials.

Certain generals smartly dressed a few weeks earlier now appeared before the judges in shabby clothes looking dirty and haggarded.

Eric Hner who fought in campaigns in Poland and France.

Marshall von Vitzleben, [music] former commander-in-chief of the Western Front.

Having had his belt taken away, he had to hold up his oversized trousers to stop them falling down.

Judge Fryler, a fanatical Nazi, showered them with insults.

Evil is another I look.

He shouted so loud that the technicians responsible for recording this parody of justice asked him to bring the volume down.

The sentence gave no recourse for appeal.

Some 200 people were executed.

The executioners selected particularly fine ropes to prolong the agony of their victims.

Among the conspirators was one special case, Field Marshall Raml.

He was a national hero following his victory in Tbrook.

But his links with the plotters meant Hitler wanted him gone.

To avoid upsetting public opinion, he gave him a choice.

Suicide or public trial.

[music] RML opted for suicide with the assurance that his family would be spared.

The regime staged a grandiose state funeral for him.

The ordinary Germans knew nothing of his role.

Officially, the desert fox died [music] as a result of injuries sustained in Normandy.

Following this brutal purge, Germans tended to become more fervent to avoid being suspected of half-heartedness.

One had to show loyalty to the furer to the bitter end.

In the army, the high Hitler salute replaced the traditional military salute.

The regime placed its most trusted men in the top posts.

Starting with the head of the SS, [music] Hinrich Himmler, who was appointed as replacement army chief.

He now had full powers, over 2 million men.

Gerbles, the minister of propaganda, became the Reich’s overall minister for war with full powers.

Pleased with these enlarged powers, he wrote in his diary, “It took a bomb under his butt for Hitler to see reason.

The bombing hadn’t broken the regime.

On the contrary, it had consolidated it.

However, the Allies were still advancing both from the east and the west.

[music] Farther south in mid August, French and American forces landed in Province.

The GIS of General Patch and the soldiers of the first French army commanded by General Data began to make inroads into southern France.

Helped by the FFI, the French forces of the interior, they liberated Marseilles before moving up their own valley.

But these images of a humiliated Vmar are misleading.

The large majority of Hitler’s soldiers managed to pull back.

More than 400,000 made it back to Germany and prepared to defend the fatherland.

[music] Far from the front, back in Germany, news reports screened in cinemas strived to brighten up daily life.

In the summer of 44, despite the bombardments, and while the Reich [music] was teetering, for many Germans, the war was still distant.

The images testified to the comfortable [music] lifestyle and folklore traditions that reigned in the country.

The Germans still had faith in Hitler.

And how could they do otherwise when the party was omnipresent? The population was wellfed.

The factories [music] continued to operate.

The administration was functioning.

and Berlin Zoo remained open.

[music] It was a wonderful summer and those at home made the most of it.

The war? What war? Yet this bathing filmed in August 1944 was in the town of Dhau.

A few kilometers away, the oldest concentration camp in Germany continued to exterminate deportes arrested from across Europe.

While Germany basked in the summer sun, occupied Europe remained in the grim shadow of the Nazis.

The regime pursued its policy of annihilation.

Between the 7th of June and the 9th of July 1944, more than 435,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to the death camps.

In August 44, the crerematoriums at Ashvitz [music] could not keep pace with the number of bodies piling up.

The SS began to burn them in open pits.

Even as the allies approached Paris, one last convoy of Deportiz was leaving for the death camps on the 17th of August 1944.

[applause] Only a week later, on the 25th of August, Paris was liberated.

The Allies did not expect to make such swift progress.

After 4 years in exile, General De Gaul saw France regain its statethood.

The Americans also made themselves at home.

The fourth infantry division paraded triumphantly amid the cheers.

[music] [music] The Parisian women hugged their liberators.

Euphoria could be read on the faces.

[music] I go to speak very well.

[music] Many GIs thought the worst was over and that defeating the Reich was now no more than a formality.

[music] Summer held the promise of victory.

fall would deliver a series of setbacks.

Since the D-Day landings, the US General Eisenhower had lost confidence in the commander of Allied land troops, Britain’s General Montgomery, who had overseen a string of failures in Normandy.

Despite these setbacks, Montgomery demanded to run operations against the Reich, placing all Anglo-American forces under his command.

But this demand was unacceptable for Eisenhower.

To avoid putting all his troops under Montgomery, Eisenhower divided his forces into two groups.

The first was under Montgomery’s command.

It would attack via the north towards Belgium and the Netherlands with the objective of seizing the port of Antworp.

Once in Allied control, tanks and munitions could then be shipped closer to the front.

The second group was assigned to the US General Bradley and would attack to the east, backed by the armies of Generals Patton and Simpson.

Things moved fast from September 1944.

The British under Montgomery continued their advance and took Brussels.

In the Belgian capital, the population celebrated wildly as Paris had done 10 days earlier.

The following day in Antworp, the victors captured hundreds of prisoners, but did not know what to do with them.

The zoo was quickly reassigned.

Although the Belgian authorities hailed Montgomery, he made a mistake.

In the rush to invade Germany, his troops had taken the port of Antwerp as planned.

But Monty had neglected to clean out the islands and banks which control its access.

They were held by heavily armed German units.

As a result, no Allied shipping could use the port and supply the front.

This new failure enraged Eisenhower, and for good reason.

For two long months, Allied troops now had to break down German resistance through dangerous amphibious operations.

Some 13,000 men died in the process.

But it would take more than that to undermine Montgomery’s self-importance.

The Englishman wanted to demonstrate his strategic talents [music] to Eisenhower.

Even with the command of half the troops he had called for, he would succeed.

His aim to be first to cross the Rine.

This achievement would erase memories of his failures and would eclipse the victories of his rival [music] General Patton.

The American general, a big mouth who carried pistols with ivory butts, had liberated [music] town after town, moving from Normandy to the east of France.

[music] Monty was envious.

In a move that looked like arrogance, he persuaded the skeptical Eisenhower to give him all available resources.

His objective to launch a huge parachute operation on Arman in the Netherlands, code name Operation Market Garden.

On the 17th of September 1944, 20,000 parachutists and 14,000 [music] combat troops carried by planes and 563 gliders took off heading for Holland.

It was the biggest airborne operation in history.

The American, British, and Polish parachutists [music] were dropped behind the German lines to take a series of bridges across the mass, the Val and the Rine to stop the Germans destroying them.

Once these bridges had been secured, land troops could go round [music] the defenses of the Seagreed line by the north and invade the Reich.

Monty was [music] sure of himself.

Thanks to his shrewdness, the war would be won by Christmas.

Unfortunately, the situation on the ground soon [music] became tricky.

The gliders landed, but some crashed.

The drop zones were too far from their objectives.

But Montgomery had above all overlooked one detail, the Germans.

They got hold of a glider and recovered some equipment and supplies.

But more importantly, they also found a plan of the operation that an officer had taken with him in contravention of orders.

When the fourth brigade was dropped as reinforcements, its parachutists were shot out of the sky like pigeons by Germans who were expecting them.

In the town of Arnham, two Panza divisions raced towards the British powers and besieged them.

After 5 days of dogged fighting, Montgomery’s soldiers were forced to surrender and the German news reels displayed the prisoners.

You see is the operation.

General Eisenhower.

In total, the Allies lost 17,000 men and only liberated part of the Netherlands.

The failure of the expedition was only the beginning of a terrible disaster.

To help Operation Market Garden, Dutch railway men went on strike.

As a reprisal, the Reich blocked all food imports to occupied Holland.

The cues lengthened outside [music] the food stores which were all but empty.

From October onwards, famine took a terrible toll.

Thousands of civilians died of hunger.

Henry, aged 10 at the time, recalls, “Nothing was more important than food.

I woke up in the morning thinking about food.

We used to talk about food all day long.

And when I went to bed hungry, I dreamt of food.

The Dutch suffered for long months in what they called the hunger winter, the winter of hunger.

At least 16,000 civilians perished.

While Monty was halted in Holland, Bradley’s US forces were making progress.

In early October, his troops reached the German town of Arkham.

Germany had finally been reached, but not conquered.

The Americans demanded the surrender of the town in vain.

Hitler ordered his troops to defend the town to the last bullet.

The first US Army had to take the town street by street, house by house in a fierce combat.

I don’t understand, said one GI.

They know they will most likely get killed.

Why on earth don’t they just surrender? After 19 days of siege during which a thousand gis were killed, the town finally fell.

The Germans experienced for the first time what many people across Europe had felt a few years earlier when they fled the Vermarked hordes.

The taking of Arkham was a symbol.

It was the first German town to fall into Allied hands.

This tow in German territory was a long way from spelling victory.

The Anglo-Americans were [music] stalling in the face of fierce German resistance.

Monty had failed in his operation in the Netherlands.

The port of Antworp was still impracticable and the hard [music] driving General Patton who was eager to pursue his advance eastwards was deprived of fuel.

“My men can eat their belts, but my tanks have got to have gas,” he raged.

He was at a standstill.

In a further twist of irony, part of his fuel had been attributed to the British.

With pattern slowed down, the Allies were unable to exploit the breakdown of the Western Front.

As a result, the Germans had time to regroup their defenses, taking up positions beyond [music] the Rine.

The Western Front was blocked.

War over by Christmas.

That dream had evaporated.

The war would go on.

On the Soviet side, Operation Bration was a success.

Russian advances were impressive.

Between the 22nd of June and the 31st of August, 1944, their offensives had put 700,000 Germans out of combat.

The troops under General Zukov’s command covered 500 km in 5 weeks, almost as quick as the German tanks in the other direction.

In 1941, the Soviets were approaching Warsaw.

In the city, the Soviet artillery could already be heard rumbling in the distance.

Radio Moscow called on the population to rise up.

Convinced they would be backed by the Red Army, the Polish secret army launched an insurrection on the 1st of August.

But its fighters had only makeshift equipment.

They seized some German helmets along with some weapons and a few tanks.

The first days were euphoric.

In the exuberance, barricades went up in every neighborhood.

Everyone took part in the combat in their own way.

Soon the Polish controlled parts of the capital and their flag flew once again over a few roofs.

[music] These heroic resistance fighters threw everything into it and drove back the Germans.

The Polish knew the Russians were just nearby the other side of the Vistula.

With this powerful ally waiting in the wings, the insurgents had nothing to fear.

But on the 4th of August, the Germans sent reinforcements.

Their mission to eliminate the Polish problem by whatever method.

The city was mercilessly shelved.

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