The Wehrmacht_1of5_The Blitzkrieg
Transcript
00:30The Wehrmacht, 18 million men under arms, commanded by Adolf Hitler.
00:39This army will march into Europe and wage the bloodiest war in history.
00:45What sort of an army was it?
00:47Obedient followers of Hitler?
00:49Or millions of manipulated young men?
00:53Young men, trained and sent to the front.
00:56One in three will perish.
01:01Hitler's officers and generals, status-conscious military professionals.
01:05Most of them non-political.
01:07Some of them were thoughtful men.
01:09Many were spineless careerists.
01:14Did they all share Hitler's goals?
01:17What part did they play in the crimes committed in the name of the German people?
01:24Ordinary soldiers who put their lives on the line.
01:27Privates, non-commissioned officers.
01:30What did they feel?
01:32What did they believe in when they went to war?
01:48Today you see the profession of a soldier a little more critically.
01:53But back then, you were glad to die somewhere as a young man.
02:01I shot him automatically.
02:05And I had to experience that I had killed a man on my first mission.
02:13It still haunts me to this day.
02:17We didn't think about it.
02:19We were a bunch of people who were pretty much together.
02:28We ate our bread next to our dead comrades.
02:33Or we ate a spoon of porridge.
02:36And we just hoped that we would get through.
02:43The feeling that I had to betray my conscience
02:47against the commitment to obedience.
02:50Today I would say corpse obedience.
02:54A piece of life was stolen from us.
02:57Otherwise I can't say that.
03:00At first, the Wehrmacht seems invincible.
03:03German soldiers are victorious in almost every battle.
03:07Battles that caused the deaths of millions.
03:10First of the enemy, then increasingly Germans too.
03:14What made this army so destructive?
03:18In military terms, Hitler was an amateur.
03:21Yet he made himself commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
03:24In a series of ruthless power struggles, he gained absolute authority.
03:28And he made the Wehrmacht his tool.
03:32Recent research has uncovered new sources
03:35that give us a clearer picture of Hitler's Wehrmacht than ever before.
03:39The files give new answers to old questions.
03:42They illustrate how little separated good and evil.
03:45They reveal in a horrific way how people were abused and manipulated.
03:50And they show how many refused to heed their conscience.
03:54Newly discovered records offer a unique glimpse
03:57into the world of the German military elite.
04:00British secret service files.
04:03They were discovered and evaluated by historian Sönke Neitzel.
04:07Until recently, these documents were still top secret.
04:11Tens of thousands of documents were kept in secret.
04:15But they were not the only documents.
04:19Until recently, these documents were still top secret.
04:23Tens of thousands of pages,
04:25on which secretly recorded conversations are transcribed.
04:29The conversations of leading generals of the Wehrmacht.
04:36This is where it happened.
04:38The idyllic country estate of Trent Park near London.
04:42This is where all the German generals
04:44into the hands of the Western Allies were held.
05:14And the special thing about the situation is
05:17that the British recorded these conversations on records.
05:21And the special value of the source is, of course,
05:24that they are private conversations.
05:26In these conversations, there was no consideration
05:29for the superior, for the family, for the woman.
05:32In these conversations, from comrade to comrade,
05:35they were spoken without make-up.
05:37So we get very close to the generals,
05:39what they thought, how they reflected.
05:44Without realising it, the captured generals
05:46gave away their real opinions about the war and the Nazis.
05:51World history will concede one point to the Führer,
05:54that he recognised this great Jewish danger
05:57for the whole of mankind.
05:59Once it was Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun.
06:02This time it's Jewish Bolshevism.
06:06We in our tiny West European countries have been so short-sighted.
06:10We were always bickering with each other over petty issues.
06:13We simply failed to understand what was threatening us from the East.
06:16And this, the Führer was absolutely...
06:18But what he did was stupid.
06:20We were the stupid ones.
06:22The countries of Western Europe refused to join us, those idiots,
06:25and we suddenly found ourselves fighting on two fronts.
06:28And doing the dirty work for the Western world.
06:34Few Wehrmacht soldiers are completely free
06:37of anti-Semitism and nationalism.
06:39They're children of their times.
06:42They don't realise they're witnessing the beginning
06:45of the greatest disaster the world has ever seen.
06:48They even regard Hitler as a man of peace.
07:12That's what Heinrich Hussmann has learned from the propaganda.
07:16He's with the 5th Panzer Division, based in Upper Silesia,
07:20in the summer of 1939.
07:28On September 1st, the tanks crossed the border
07:31into the German-occupied West.
07:33They were attacked from all sides.
07:37On September 1st, the tanks crossed the border into Poland.
07:41It's the start of World War II.
07:47The older soldiers have mixed feelings.
07:50But the young are consumed by Hitler's ideas.
07:57Walter Heinlein is 20 years old.
08:07On this first day of the war,
08:09Adolf Hitler addresses a jubilant German parliament.
08:13He makes a blatant threat.
08:37...this national commandment,
08:39be it directly or indirectly,
08:41to be able to impose it,
08:43who falls, traitors have nothing to do with it.
08:51We all confess to our old principle.
08:54It is unimportant for us to live.
08:57But it is necessary for our people to live.
09:07The soldiers are not prepared for the horrors of war.
09:15The Wehrmacht is far superior to the defending Polish forces.
09:19Even so, the ugly reality comes as a shock.
09:23But the men can't give vent to their feelings.
09:36There were two dead in our company
09:40during the attack on Ples.
09:43The Poles had a line of bunkers.
09:46We were supposed to take them as foot soldiers,
09:50I almost said, with bare breasts.
09:53We didn't succeed.
09:57Approximately 1.8 million Wehrmacht soldiers have been mobilized.
10:02They're going to war, under the command of the generals.
10:10Men like Infantry General Johannes Blazkowicz,
10:14the son of a pastor from East Prussia.
10:18His mother died when he was still a baby.
10:21He was raised in military academies,
10:24the elite establishments of the Prussian aristocracy.
10:33Here he's trained for the life of an officer,
10:36the toughest education in the entire Reich.
10:39In exchange, a penniless young man gains entry to a privileged world.
10:45A uniform makes you something superior.
10:48Officers are treated with the highest respect.
10:51They receive the best service in restaurants
10:54and the best tickets are reserved for them at the theater.
10:59In World War I, a formative experience for most Wehrmacht generals,
11:04Blazkowicz makes rapid progress.
11:06At 33, he's appointed to staff headquarters.
11:12But then comes the defeat of 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles,
11:17a humiliating blow.
11:23The German army is cut to 100,000 men.
11:27The generals want only one thing, the return of their former power.
11:33Johannes Blazkowicz, now a colonel, is accepted into the new army,
11:37but he's given administrative duties.
11:40For the time being, there's no hope of career advancement.
11:50Unknown to him, the military office in Berlin
11:53and undercover general staff is already planning rearmament.
12:01Karl Dirks, himself a World War II veteran, has written a book
12:05arguing that the army leadership wanted massive rearmament.
12:23Hans von Seeckt, head of the army,
12:26is the driving force behind rearmament.
12:29It must be kept secret,
12:31for the planning alone is a violation of the peace treaty.
12:37Hans von Seeckt, now a colonel,
12:39has written a book arguing that the army leadership
12:42wanted massive rearmament.
12:44Hans von Seeckt, himself a World War II veteran,
12:47has written a book arguing that the army leadership
12:50must be kept secret, for the planning alone is a violation of the peace treaty.
12:56In reality, Seeckt is planning for war.
13:20That was the purpose of this plan,
13:23a basis for the necessary procurement,
13:26the necessary funds, the necessary personnel.
13:30A total demand of 3.75 million heads was met.
13:37When Hitler comes to power in 1933,
13:40plans for the deployment of the Wehrmacht are ready.
13:43Karl Dirks has shown that the Wehrmacht of 102 divisions,
13:47with which Hitler begins World War II,
13:50corresponds exactly to the blueprint of the generals.
13:54Everything is ready for Hitler.
13:59Rearmament now moves ahead at top speed.
14:02The effects can be felt in everyday life.
14:18There was a man living on Dommannsweg.
14:21He always greeted us.
14:23We lived on the third floor in the Fruchtallee.
14:26Every time we sat by the window, he took his hat and greeted us.
14:30Four weeks later, he came in uniform with a saber.
14:33He did this.
14:35I said, look, I don't want to take his name.
14:38He was already in uniform.
14:40My father said, now the postman will also carry a sword.
14:44I swear by God, this holy oath,
14:47I swear by God, this holy oath,
14:50that I will be ready at any time for the Führer of the German people and Reich,
14:54Adolf Hitler,
14:56to devote my life to this oath.
15:01to devote my life to this oath.
15:05That was close to my heart. That was my firm conviction.
15:08From 1934 on,
15:10millions of manipulated young men had to swear allegiance directly to Hitler,
15:15a man who is planning a war of conquest.
15:19The idea came from the Wehrmacht leadership itself.
15:22Some of the generals hope that by this overt act of loyalty,
15:26they will preserve the military's independence.
15:29They're wrong.
15:31The Minister of War, Werner von Blomberg,
15:33is the first to suffer the consequences.
15:41In 1938, Blomberg is dismissed for marrying a former prostitute.
15:46Hitler himself was best man at the wedding.
15:49He feels he's been deceived.
15:52He exploits the situation for his next move.
15:56There's only one man he can trust to take charge of the Wehrmacht.
16:00Himself.
16:03General Wilhelm Keitel, in charge of the newly created OKW,
16:08the Armed Forces High Command,
16:10reports directly to Hitler.
16:13Franz Halder becomes Chief of Staff of the Army High Command.
16:17The two organisations become permanent rivals,
16:20ideal conditions for Hitler's intrigues.
16:26Panzer General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma knows the Army High Command.
16:32In November 1942, he's captured by General Montgomery in North Africa
16:37and greeted with a handshake.
16:48The British are experts in dealing with high-ranking prisoners.
16:52First they question them and keep them in base camps.
16:56After they've suffered these disagreeable conditions for a while,
17:00they're taken to the more salubrious surroundings of Trent Park.
17:04The idea is they'll feel comfortable here
17:07and converse freely with one another,
17:10not suspecting their every word is recorded
17:13by the microphones of the British Secret Service.
17:16The prisoners are treated as if they were prisoners of war.
17:20They're treated as if they were prisoners of war.
17:23This is one of the most important doctrines of the British Secret Service.
17:27It works.
17:29Thoma speaks quite openly about the Army's leadership.
17:34I tell you, don't expect anything from the general staff.
17:4099% of them are completely spineless.
17:47They have always been servile.
17:50They were never commanders.
17:53They were more like assistants.
18:02Which is why most of them have no backbone.
18:07It's their upbringing, of course.
18:16You can't expect anything else!
18:21Hitler is mistrustful of his generals, too,
18:25since he hasn't got them completely under his control.
18:30But he knows how to get his way.
18:33The generals are no match for him.
18:41Colonel Karl-Heinz Friese is a military historian in today's German army.
18:48In the end, it came to a modus vivendi,
18:51to an unholy alliance.
18:53Both needed each other.
18:55Hitler needed this reactionary military caste to conduct his wars.
19:00And for the generals, Hitler was the one who not only set up new divisions,
19:06but also created new positions, new posts as division commander.
19:18But Hitler wants more.
19:20He wants to enslave the Slavic peoples and to create Lebensraum,
19:24living space, in the East.
19:26Poland will become the first victim.
19:30There were only negative opinions about Poland.
19:33Polish economy. Dirty. Unmodern. Ugly.
19:38It was all fashionable.
19:40What was unfashionable was Polish.
19:42And if it was dirty, it was also Polish.
19:45Poland was seen as a very evil enemy.
19:48And that should last for about two or three weeks,
19:52and then the war would be over.
19:54That was the belief.
19:56Old prejudice and new belligerency fanned the flames against Poland.
20:01Johannes Blazkowicz is one of the generals in charge of the invasion.
20:05A few days before the start of hostilities, he issues a command.
20:10Soldiers of the 8th Army.
20:12From today, the 8th Army is established,
20:15the command of which has been entrusted to me
20:17by the supreme commander of the Wehrmacht.
20:20Our duty is to execute his will with hard, fast, forceful strikes.
20:25Long live the Führer!
20:29The Polish campaign is a war between unequal opponents.
20:33The Poles put up fierce resistance,
20:35but in the end they can only wait in vain for the help of the Allies.
20:40Just three and a half weeks after the outbreak of war,
20:43Blazkowicz accepts the Polish surrender on a bus in Warsaw.
20:49Hitler's plans seem to be working.
20:51He presents himself as victor to the Poles and to his own generals.
20:58This commander-in-chief can advance their careers.
21:03Soon after the victory parade,
21:05General Blazkowicz is awarded the Knight's Cross.
21:08He becomes head of the German occupation forces in Poland
21:11with the title Commander-in-Chief of the East.
21:15He's still a loyal, hard-working general in Hitler's Wehrmacht.
21:21But he slowly begins to have misgivings.
21:24This war is different from previous ones.
21:27In the area under his command,
21:29Jews are being harassed, pressed into forced labour, abused and even shot.
21:36The generals only talk about it behind closed doors.
21:46It's the SS, not the Wehrmacht,
21:48that are carrying out the deliberate mass murders in Poland.
21:52But the overall head of occupying forces is Blazkowicz.
21:56A Wehrmacht general.
22:00After several months, he issues a statement.
22:05Only later is it apparent that many officers and generals
22:09have been disturbed by the events in Poland.
22:18Edwin Count von Rotkirch is a 50-year-old colonel in a cavalry regiment.
22:23He has a hobby, making amateur films with his 8mm camera.
22:28He also likes appearing in his films.
22:32Later, as a prisoner of war, he recalls a disagreeable situation.
22:40Only now does he dare to speak about it.
22:45I was in Kutnow.
22:47I went there to film.
22:49I was in Kutnow.
22:51I went there to film.
22:53I make films, that's all I do.
22:56I knew an SS officer there quite well.
22:59And we were talking about this and that.
23:01And then he said,
23:03do you feel like filming an execution?
23:06I said no.
23:08I find that too disgusting.
23:10He said, well, it doesn't make any difference.
23:14We always shoot people in the morning anyway.
23:17But if you prefer, we still have a few left.
23:20We could also shoot them in the afternoon.
23:24You can't simply imagine how these men,
23:27they've become animals.
23:34September 4, 1939.
23:37Częstochowa, in southern Poland.
23:39The fourth day of the war.
23:42For some unexplained reason, wild shooting breaks out
23:45shortly after German infantry enter the town.
23:48Eight German soldiers are killed and 14 wounded.
23:54The Germans retaliate in the most brutal fashion.
23:58Thousands of civilians are rounded up.
24:01At least 100 people are murdered, many of them Jews.
24:08Thus, from the opening days of the war,
24:10Wehrmacht units, some under Blazkowicz's command,
24:13have participated in atrocities.
24:24In this case, the original shooting seems to have been friendly fire.
24:28Nervous German soldiers shooting at their own comrades.
24:34It was nothing unusual for their nerves
24:36to get the better of young soldiers.
24:43You don't know what you're doing.
24:47You're walking through the area and don't know where you're going.
24:51That's when the situation is like that.
24:55Then they're happy when someone says,
24:57Man, lay down on your ass or lay down,
25:01so that you can get out of the fire zone.
25:07Nervous soldiers and aggressive Nazi ideology.
25:10A potent mix.
25:14Private Heinrich Hussmann records his experiences in his diary.
25:20September 10th, 1939.
25:22Upatow. Jews' paradise.
25:25I believe at least 85% of the inhabitants are Jews.
25:29And that's what it looks like.
25:31A terrible stench everywhere.
25:33And the Jewish shops are worst of all.
25:36They demand outrageous prices.
25:38We wouldn't dream of giving these vermin so much money.
25:41Anti-Semitism was not rare in the Wehrmacht.
25:44But other soldiers are much less prejudiced.
26:11I asked myself,
26:13Do we have to be afraid of our lives?
26:18And I realized that it was a Jew.
26:22I said to her,
26:24As far as I know, you don't have to be afraid.
26:28A year or a month later, I would have told her,
26:31Get the hell out of here.
26:34General von Rothkirsch feels partly responsible
26:37for the atrocities he witnessed in Poland.
26:41Look how savage we have become ourselves.
26:44I drove through a small Polish village.
26:47They were shooting students there,
26:49just because they were students.
26:51And Polish aristocrats and landowners, too.
26:54They were shooting everyone.
26:56I went to General Bockelberg and told him about it.
26:59He just said...
27:05He just said,
27:07Now listen to me. It has to be done.
27:09There is no other way.
27:11The students are the most dangerous of all.
27:14They all have to go.
27:16And the aristocrats, they're always going to make trouble.
27:19And don't get yourself so horribly worked up.
27:22If we win the war, it won't matter.
27:27I said, Herr Generaloberst, that may be.
27:30But first of all,
27:32I will have to get used to these new principles.
27:40But he didn't protest.
27:43Not so General Blazkowicz, a devout Christian.
27:46He's genuinely horrified by the systematic murders
27:49the SS task forces have been carrying out.
27:52Though he ignores the actions of his own units,
27:55he criticises the misdeeds of the SS and the police
27:58in two memos to the commander-in-chief of the army,
28:01Walther von Brauchitsch.
28:03The army refuses to be linked
28:05with the atrocities of the security police
28:07and does not work with the SS task forces,
28:10which function almost exclusively as execution units.
28:13The police have so far only spread terror among the population.
28:17To what degree the police are able to come to terms
28:20with the fact that they are forcing their own people
28:23to take part in this murderous frenzy
28:25cannot be judged from here.
28:27It is impossible to establish security and peace
28:30in this territory with violent measures alone.
28:33Hitler is outraged and Blazkowicz is dismissed.
28:37However, only a few months later,
28:39he's given a new post in the West.
28:44The transcripts from Trent Park
28:46reveal that his fellow generals
28:48knew the background to his dismissal
28:51and did nothing.
28:55We shot people.
28:59It started in Poland as early as 1939.
29:05Apparently, the SS really cleaned up around there.
29:11That's probably why they dismissed Blazkowicz.
29:14Yes, of course.
29:17And the SS people were promoted
29:20instead of being shot.
29:24Shortly after victory in Poland,
29:26Hitler reveals his next plan to the generals.
29:29He intends to attack France as soon as possible.
29:32Most of his generals believe it can't be done.
29:36Franz Halder, chief of the army general staff,
29:39wants to talk Hitler out of it.
29:43He considers it the idea of a madman,
29:46but still he wavers.
29:49Christian Hartmann, a historian
29:51at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich,
29:54has researched Halder's life
29:56and his relations with Hitler.
30:19He was often described as a back-up.
30:23I think Halder's role is well expressed there.
30:27A man who wants to keep all possibilities open.
30:32The date for the war in the West is postponed again and again.
30:36Could this give Halder his chance?
30:39For weeks, according to a confidant,
30:42Halder went to see Hitler with a pistol in his pocket
30:45in order to shoot him.
30:48It's crucial that Halder didn't give up
30:51the shot at Hitler.
30:53That's the key point.
30:55But as we know, there were times of great differences.
30:58In 1938 and 1939,
31:00also in the summer of 1941 and 1942.
31:03It's a very ambivalent relationship.
31:05But in the end, the assassination didn't take place,
31:08and that alone counts.
31:12In November 1939,
31:14Halder witnesses Hitler in a fit of rage,
31:17railing against the cowardliness and ineptitude of the generals.
31:23Halder now believes he has been betrayed
31:26and assigns himself to remaining silent.
31:30A contemporary described the chief of staff thus,
31:34Halder is like a balloon man,
31:36strong and brave when someone pumps him up,
31:39floppy and hollow when deflated.
31:45Meanwhile, in Koblenz, on the banks of the Rhine,
31:48in the Prince-Bishop's Palace, now taken over by the army,
31:52the rival of Halder is planning the campaign against France.
32:00General Erich von Manstein,
32:02chief of staff of the newly formed Army Group A.
32:06Together with Panzergeneral Heinz Guderian,
32:09Manstein has developed a totally new concept.
32:14He doesn't think in fixed positions like First World War strategists.
32:18His will be a mobile war,
32:20a rolling attack that never stops, spearheaded by motorised units.
32:25The idea runs counter to the thinking of all the generals of Europe.
32:29From a military standpoint, it's revolutionary,
32:32but it poses immense logistical problems.
32:40There are many myths about the French campaign.
32:45Research by military historian Karl-Heinz Friese
32:49has traced some of them back to their roots.
33:19The Germans concentrated their 2,400 tanks
33:23along the entire front,
33:26mainly in the Ardennes,
33:29and then the big surprise was achieved.
33:35The surprise attack is to come through south Belgium,
33:38where no-one is expecting it.
33:40No-one worries about infringing the neutrality of the Benelux countries.
33:45This is the famous sickle cut.
33:50The idea of Manstein's sickle cut
33:53was so amazing, so crazy,
33:57it was like the old transition from honey-bite to elephant,
34:01that you would have expected it to be the imagination of a student,
34:05but not the methodical, pedantic thinking of a German general.
34:09And so came the complete surprise.
34:13The weak point in Manstein's plan
34:16is that the sickle cut will expose a 100km flank to the Allies.
34:20It's a huge gamble.
34:35Army Chief of Staff Halder exiles Manstein
34:38to an unimportant post in the provinces,
34:40but Manstein still manages to present his plan to Hitler.
34:44The irony is that Hitler can't stand Manstein
34:47and doesn't grasp the full significance of his plan.
34:50Nevertheless, Manstein becomes the key creative mind
34:53for the invasion of France.
34:56Of course, he saw it as his greatest achievement,
35:00and we at home knew that it came from him,
35:03and of course he wasn't very happy
35:06that everyone else, including Hitler,
35:11claimed his plan for themselves,
35:14and that Hitler sold it as his brilliant idea and deed.
35:24Hitler was subsequently celebrated by the Nazi propaganda
35:28as the creator of the sickle cut,
35:31but in reality he didn't quite understand this idea.
35:36Thus concentrated, the tanks are to push through northern France
35:40all the way to the Channel, with full aerial support
35:43and virtually without stopping.
35:45There hasn't been a campaign like it in all military history.
35:53General Guderian will lead the most important tank formations.
36:05Walter Heinlein is a gunner in a panzer division
36:08under General Guderian.
36:13His upbringing has made him entirely ready for war against France.
36:36Neighbours are enemies, the spirit of the times.
36:40On May 10, 1940, the attack in the west begins.
36:44The rapid advance units of the Wehrmacht
36:47are to push forward through the Ardennes in southern Belgium.
36:51The countryside is so hilly and the roads so narrow
36:54they're considered to be impossible for tanks.
36:59They take the risk.
37:01More than 40,000 vehicles have been prepared for the attack.
37:05As there are no supply depots along the way,
37:08fuel and provisions for hundreds of thousands of soldiers
37:12have to be brought along and made available at specific points.
37:16An exceptional feat of organisation.
37:23But the terrain in the Ardennes keeps posing new problems.
37:27It seems the critics of Manstein's plan
37:31were right.
37:35The advancing columns of tanks and following infantry
37:38repeatedly clog the narrow mountain roads.
37:42They called it the biggest tailback in history.
38:00We were practically an infantry company.
38:03We sat on our vehicles,
38:06there were always seven of us sitting on them,
38:09for hours and did not move on.
38:24The roads of our vehicles and tanks
38:27were often so clogged
38:30that we had to drive up on postcards.
38:36Eventually they succeed in unravelling the tailback.
38:40The Allies had not expected an attack through the Ardennes
38:43so there are few casualties along the way.
38:46The element of surprise is crucial.
38:57I was involved in this.
39:00There were English officers in the castle.
39:03They were afraid.
39:06They were so surprised by our advance
39:09that they never thought it would work.
39:12We all took prisoners.
39:15The soldiers come to believe they're part of a modern,
39:18almost invincible army.
39:21It will turn out to be a dangerous illusion.
39:27The advantage of the West and the German Wehrmacht
39:31was clearly in favor of the West.
39:34They even had considerably better tanks.
39:37The German engineers had to make a huge comeback.
39:41In 1940, the West was almost entirely superior.
39:57In the German divisions, only 10 have tanks
40:00and only 6 are fully motorized.
40:03Behind the tanks come the horse-drawn units,
40:07technologically unchanged since the Napoleonic Wars.
40:16The vast majority of soldiers march on foot.
40:19Most divisions are poorly equipped and insufficiently trained.
40:23Only about half the army is fully battle-ready.
40:29Yet the ideas behind the army are modern,
40:32especially the system known as mission command.
40:54The company attacks the enemy there,
40:58after a local exploration.
41:01The lieutenant leads the attack.
41:04Then he could work out the optimal positions
41:07that the enemy couldn't know about.
41:23The question of good and evil is posed to each and every individual.
41:28A bunker near the town of Sedan in France,
41:31the next obstacle to the Wehrmacht south of the Ardennes.
41:35The valley of the Maas is like one gigantic fortress.
41:40The Germans had won an important victory here in 1870.
41:45Hitler wants the army to pause after taking Sedan.
41:49Yet in Manstein's plan,
41:51the Maas is just one point in the advance to the channel,
41:54which is to continue without interruption.
41:57Conflicts in the Wehrmacht leadership have become inevitable.
42:06The attack on Sedan begins with a massive bombardment.
42:10The French put up desperate resistance,
42:13but the defenders are finally overwhelmed.
42:17Now Walter Heinlein finds out about the terrible side of war.
42:21Heinlein's early enthusiasm soon evaporates.
42:51He's not afraid, he's a liar.
42:53Every day, until the end of the war, he's afraid.
42:56He's a human being, he's afraid, that's how he reacts.
43:21The Maas is advancing towards the channel.
43:25General Guderian's tank corps is advancing
43:28against the express orders of his superiors and Hitler.
43:31According to Hitler's supposedly brilliant plan,
43:34the blitzkrieg was to have stopped here.
43:38Through his own initiative, Guderian saves the campaign.
43:52Guderian gets his way, and his tactics seem to succeed.
43:56A mid-level general of the Wehrmacht
43:59has shown up the commander-in-chief.
44:02It's very embarrassing for Hitler.
44:07Ten days later, the Wehrmacht is almost at the channel.
44:10Manstein's plan calls for an encirclement
44:13of the Allied armies in Belgium,
44:16preventing their retreat through the port of Dunkirk.
44:19But then something extraordinary happens.
44:22Hitler orders the attack to halt.
44:27For three days, the panzers don't move.
44:30The generals feel like hunting dogs,
44:33held back in the heat of the hunt.
44:36They watch their prey escaping.
44:41The order to stop before they reach the channel
44:44The order to stop before Dunkirk was a critical mistake.
44:49Many people still scratch their heads about it today.
44:52Did Hitler intentionally let the British escape across the channel?
44:57The soldiers can't believe it.
45:15From Dunkirk, the bulk of the Allied armies
45:18are evacuated across the channel.
45:21340,000 men.
45:24Only vehicles and heavy equipment are left behind.
45:28Later I found out that there was an order from the Führer
45:32to stop before the channel.
45:35The order was to stop before the channel.
45:38It was an order from the Führer
45:41to stop before the English escape.
45:44The order was to stop before the English escape.
45:47The order was to stop before the English escape.
45:50The order was to stop before the English escape.
45:53We thought it was a mistake.
45:56Our commander said,
45:59the English are Vikings, a Germanic race.
46:02The race madness was widespread at the time.
46:07There was no such order.
46:11To ensure the rapid success of the operation,
46:14the Army High Command had taken important decisions
46:17without consulting the Commander-in-Chief.
46:20Once again, Hitler felt ignored.
46:23Hitler didn't want to stop the tanks at Dunkirk.
46:27He wanted to stop the generals.
46:30At Dunkirk, for the first and last time,
46:33the commander-in-chief stood up
46:36against Hitler as a test of power.
46:39And Hitler won.
46:42It was a revolt against him as a military leader.
46:45And now he set an example
46:48and ordered the tanks to stop.
46:51and ordered the tanks to stop.
46:54Hitler's ploy works.
46:57The generals have lost a crucial showdown.
47:00For him, that's more important
47:04A short time later, France surrenders.
47:07And Hitler can once again play the role of brilliant victor,
47:10commander of genius.
47:13A large part of France is occupied by the Wehrmacht.
47:21In their euphoria, the soldiers are ignorant
47:24of the power struggle going on behind closed doors.
47:27Their feelings of invincibility seem fully justified.
47:31The few critical voices in the army are silenced.
47:38Victory comes at a high cost.
47:4125,000 German and over 100,000 Allied soldiers
47:44have lost their lives.
47:47Thousands of civilians have been killed.
48:00And the young people who had to die,
48:03for whom and for what?
48:06For whom did they fall?
48:09For the fatherland.
48:12An important shift has taken place
48:15in the power structure of the Reich.
48:18Now more than ever before,
48:21the Wehrmacht is at the mercy of the dictator's whim.
48:24The military leadership has become
48:27one of the most dangerous forces in history.
48:30The German generals wonder how it could have come to this.
48:33No matter how hard I try,
48:36I just can't get into my head what it was
48:39that made us follow that maniac Hitler.
48:42And how did it begin?
48:45The officers were so unpolitical,
48:48and they believed that the government
48:51was just as honest as they were.
48:54It was the national spirit.
48:57He wrapped himself in the cloak of national spirit,
49:00and he deceived us.
49:03From a negative, from a criminal point of view,
49:06the Nazis did what they did extremely well,
49:09and so logically.
49:12The clique around him, they are to blame.
49:15They all should have said to him,
49:18my Fuhrer, now it's...
49:22Then they should have resigned.
49:27But no one did.
49:30Franz Halder stayed at his post until 1942.
49:33Then, following arguments with Hitler,
49:36he was dismissed.
49:39After the assassination attempt on the 20th of July 1944,
49:42he was arrested.
49:45Halder lived until 1948.
49:48At the end of the war,
49:51Heinrich Hussmann is a sergeant major.
49:54The terrible things he's seen
49:57help him to get over his belief in Hitler's ideology.
50:00Today, he's a deeply religious man.
50:03Johannes Blazkowicz is appointed to various senior posts
50:06and is highly decorated.
50:09In 1948, he takes his own life
50:12while on trial at the Nuremberg military tribunal.
50:15The reasons for his suicide are not known.
50:18Walter Heinlein was wounded six times.
50:21He was decorated and reached the rank of captain.
50:24After the war, he became a carpenter,
50:27later an architect and building contractor.
50:30Today, he still gives lectures about his war experiences.
50:36Erich von Manstein was further promoted,
50:39but in 1944, Hitler dismissed him.
50:42He refused to take part in resistance efforts.
50:45After the war, he became a consultant
50:48for the formation of the new German army.
50:51He died in 1973.
50:54Georg Pendl saw out the war in his Luftwaffe ground unit.
50:57At the end, he felt betrayed, but wiser.
51:00After the war, he became a policeman.
51:07Most of the Wehrmacht soldiers
51:10had a strong enthusiasm for the commander-in-chief for a long time.
51:13But Hitler's blitzkrieg, as represented by Nazi propaganda,
51:16was a myth.
51:41In 1940, Hitler, his army and many ordinary Germans
51:46are intoxicated by the victory in the West.
51:49The prestige of the Nazis is at its highest point.
51:56Hitler need no longer fear opposition from the army.
52:10The consequences of that will be seen the following year in the East,
52:14with the war against the Soviet Union.
52:40To be continued...