Adolf Hitler – Great History

The Battle of Berlin

April 20th, 1945. On the Führer’s birthday, Nazi Germany is on its last legs. As the Soviet Artillery begins to hammer the city from the east and the Allied forces closing in on the Rhine from the west, it may have just dawned on Adolf Hitler, who had ruled Germany with an iron fist for the last twelve years, that his thousand year Reich may never come to pass.

Soviet Artillery on the outskirts of Berlin

1944 had been a disaster for the German war effort. Italy had become embroiled in Civil War in the aftermath of the deposition of Mussolini the year prior, with the fascist faction being a puppet of Hitler. The war had turned sour and the Fascist only controlled the North by the end of 1944. In the west, the Allies had made a great achievement with the Normandy Landings on D-Day, and had been liberating France all throughout the year. With mass army encirclements across the Eastern Front, the Red Army was breezily pushing across Eastern Europe, uncovering Nazi war crimes along the way.

Bulgaria and Romania had fallen under Soviet control, with Hungary holding out in Budapest as the last bastion of Fascism in Eastern Europe. Hitler, hoping to secure Hungarian oil fields, had focused the last of his armoured reserves onto relieving the defenders of Budapest. However, this had fallen right into Soviet hands. Considering that Hitler had pushed the armoured corps down to the increasingly pressurised Hungarian front, this meant that the Polish front would, hopefully, be a breeze. In just 11 weeks, the Soviet Army captured Warsaw and arrived on the outskirts of Berlin.

Throughout January of 1945, the outgunned Germans were forced into desperate retreat. General Heinz Guderian insisted to Hitler on the need for more armour in Poland. Whilst Hitler claimed that he would send two SS Panzer Divisions, these only ended up on the Hungarian front, leading to mass surrenders on the Polish Front. Meanwhile, propaganda echoed over the radio, implying the incoming apocalypse, comparing the advancing Soviets to the Mongol horde intent on bringing about the death of civilisation, encouraging thousands of Germans to flee west.

However, the problem with the Soviets speedy advance was that it had left Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov’s flank exposed. He decided not to advance any further onto the capital of the Reich until it was covered. Managing to trap German forces in a northern pocket in Prussia, the new Front line extended from Stettin in the north all the way down to the Czech border.

Despite assurance from the Allies that Berlin would fall into Soviet hands after the war, Stalin was quick to rush the capital, devising an encirclement around the city and a force to push towards the Elba river to meet up with the Allies. The 1st Belorussian Front would be the centre of the thrust towards Berlin, whilst the 1st Ukrainian Front would push from the south towards Potsdam and Dresden and the 2nd Belorussian Front would push from the north in order to prevent reinforcement. Used to open fighting in massive spaces, veterans of the Battle of Stalingrad handed out leaflets regarding the ins and outs of urban combat.

Whilst the German Defence force seemed decent enough, totalling around 760,000 men, with additional tanks, artillery and aircraft, it was nothing compared to the sheer numbers of the Red Army, who had a force of 2.3 million men attacking Berlin. In addition, much of the German defences were made of the Volkssturm, a mass conscripted force of any man between 16 and 60. Much of the army was also comprised of Hitler Youth boys, some even as young as 12. Furthermore, having lost the Hungarian oil fields, they could not rely on their Panzer Divisions or the Luftwaffe for much support.

The battle began on April 16th near Seelow Heights, beginning with barrages from Katyusha Rocket launchers, which lit up the night. One Soviet Soldier described it as being as bright as daylight, with them having to cover their ears to stop them from going deaf. However, due to this mass bombardment, the terrain was significantly more difficult to traverse for the Red Army, not just because of the holes in the ground but also the spotlights, intended to blind the enemy, ended up reflecting in all the smoke, confusing the advancing forces.

A photo of the Berlin Defence force with Panzerfausts at Seelow Heights

The Oder River was becoming another problem in the Soviet Advance, as many who tried to cross it were cut down by the desperate defence forces. Attempting to force a crossing, Zhukov ordered that both tank armies attack simultaneously, causing enormous traffic jams behind the front lines. Upon reaching the heights, the attackers were once more pushed back by concealed artillery divisions and Panzerfausts. Despite these setbacks, the South had eventually broken, and Soviet forces finally had unlocked the gates to the capital city.

As the initial footmen attacked Berlin, Hitler, a shadow of his former self, cowered in the Führerbunker, a secret underground complex buried deep underneath the Old Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Down underneath the city, he was accompanied by Martin Bormann, Personal Secretary to the Führer and Chief of the Party Chancellery, Joseph Goebbels, Gauleiter of Berlin and Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, with his family and Eva Braun, the long time lover of Hitler. His last visit to the surface was on his birthday of April 20th, awarding an Iron Cross to a young boy in the Hitler Youth. He was noticeably withered and older, having developed an undiagnosed tick in his right hand.

One of the last photos ever taken of Hitler on April 20th, 1945

Despite this, Bormann and Goebbels remained loyal to the end. Over the next week, he distanced himself from Hermann Göring, former Head of the Luftwaffe, Speaker of the Reichstag and Minister of Prussia, who, upon learning that Hitler had plans of taking his own life, had telegrammed to the Führer requesting leadership of the Third Reich. Viewing this as an act of treason, he expelled him from the party, fired him from all government positions and ordered his arrest. A similar scenario befell Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS, Reichminister of the Interior and Chief of the German Police, who had began peace talks with the Allies in an attempt to focus all effort onto the Eastern Front. Learning of this on April 28th, Hitler reacted to this the same way he did with Göring. Hitler’s paranoia and delusion was slowly catching up to him.

On the front, many soldiers, who had considered deserting, were hanged in the streets. By now, all the remaining forces could do was simply delay the inevitable, as forces cut in from the northeast and southwest. However, Hitler was still hopeful of a mass counter attack by General Felix Steiner, an Obergruppenführer in the SS, which would hopefully encircle the Soviet forces in the city, in a similar vein to what the Soviets had done to them at Stalingrad two years prior.

However, this attack never came, due to the lack of manpower and supplies in Steiner’s army. Upon learning this news on April 22nd, Hitler flew into a “tearful rage”. His delusions of a Thousand Year Reich shattered into a thousand pieces as he officially declared that the war was lost, saying that he would remain in Berlin until the end, whereupon he would commit suicide. It was not long after this that he heard of Mussolini’s execution by the Italian Partisans, whereupon his body was hanged upside down from the roof of a service station where it was spat on by the people he oppressed throughout his rule.

Soon after this, the encirclement was completed, leaving Berlin with around 85,000 men, 40,000 of whom were in the Volkssturm, defending the city. As the Soviets tightened their grip, the last bits of defence were just around the governmental district. Many high ranking Nazis were making plans of escape out of the city before it was too late. In the early morning of April 30th, the Soviet forces managed to capture the Reichstag, the symbolic heart of the German Reich, defended largely by foreign SS legions.

The Soviet flag billowing over the Reichstag

The previous day, Hitler was observed signing his final will and testament by Goebbels and Bormann. It detailed that Hitler would marry Braun as well as all “[he possesses] belongs – in so far as it has any value – to the Party. Should this no longer exist, to the State; should the State also be destroyed, no further decision of [his would be] necessary” except for portraits that he had purchased, which would be given to a gallery in Linz, his home town. It also detailed that he and Braun would soon commit suicide in order to avoid capture.

He detailed that the role of Führer be split into three bodies, the President, which would go to Karl Dönitz, Chief of German Naval High Command, the Chancellor, which would go to Goebbels, and Party Minister of the Nazi Party, which would go to Bormann. He gave an official order, allowing General Helmuth Weidling, who had largely led the defence of the city, to escape Berlin. Hitler then married Braun in a small ceremony, before both were found dead in his study in the Führerbunker in the afternoon of April 30th, Hitler having shot himself with his Walther PPK handgun, and Braun having taken a hydrogen cyanide capsule. Their ashes were cremated in a bomb crater with petrol as the Red Army’s artillery echoed through the streets

Despite this massive loss in morale for the Third Reich, Goebbels rejected Stalins offer for unconditional surrender, reducing the defence to isolated pockets around government buildings. However, eventually seeing the direness of the situation, Goebbels and his wife, Magda, fed cyanide to their six children before they too committed suicide on May 1st just outside the Führerbunker. His body was attempted to be cremated with the petrol left over from Hitler’s cremation, though it only did half a job, leaving the heavily charred body of Goebbels outside the bunker. His body was later taken into Soviet possession. In 1970, the remains were burned, crushed and scattered in the Biederitz River.

Weilding eventually began peace talks, ordering all the men to lay down their arms. The city fell and the German Reich was divided down the middle. By the time that Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command, signed the unconditional surrender of Germany, only fragments of pre-Nazi German land remained a part of the Reich. Due to the new government never repudiating Nazism, Dönitz was never officially recognised as the President of Germany. Keitel was hanged in a botched execution for war crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy on October 16th, 1946. His head hit the trap door rim and it took him 24 minutes to die.

I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I follow now my sons – all for Germany.
The last words of Wilhelm Keitel

Many senior Nazis went into hiding, committed suicide or went on trial for their war crimes. Most notably, Bormann made a bid for freedom on May 2nd, eventually giving up and committing suicide on the grounds of Lehrte Station in Berlin. Unaware of this, the International Military Tribunal tried him in absentia at Nuremberg. His remains were not discovered until 1972 and were conclusively proven as his in 1998. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Baltic Sea by his surviving family, in order to prevent a potential grave from becoming a neo-Nazi rallying site. His eldest son, Martin Adolf Bormann, openly denounced his father’s Nazi beliefs and Hitler, his godfather, and became a priest and a theology teacher, working on a mission in the Congo and meeting Holocaust survivors in Israel. He passed away in 2013.

Heinrich Himmler was captured by allied forces. After interrogation, he was subjected to a medical exam on May 23rd, including an oral one. Upon declining to open his mouth, he bit into a potassium cyanide capsule concealed in his mouth and died despite efforts to expel the poison from his system. He was buried in an unmarked grave, the location of which remains unknown to this day. His daughter, Gudrun Berwitz, openly associated with neo-Nazi circles and married an official of the neo-Nazi Homeland Party. She passed away in 2018.

Whilst Göring did end up at the Nuremberg trials for the role he played in the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity, he was not given the punishment assigned to him by the tribunal. Before his execution by hanging, he too ingested cyanide and died. His body was displayed on the execution grounds for witnesses before being cremated and his ashes thrown into the Isar River. Edda, his only child, hardly spoke publicly about her father aside from one interview in 1986, where she recalled him fondly. She passed away in 2018

Dönitz was also put on trial at Nuremberg, being found guilty for his crimes against peace. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. Whilst never repenting for his role in Nazi Germany, saying that he “acted at all times out of duty to his nation”, he actively avoided contact with neo-Nazis, even when approached by Manfred Roeder, who still believed him to be the legal leader of Germany, something that Dönitz called ridiculous. Roeder, taking this as a declaration of resignation, declared himself President of Germany and became an active terrorist.

Dönitz died on Christmas Eve 1980 at his home in Aumühle. He was buried without any military honours during a service where no-one was allowed to wear military uniform. Despite this, over 100 people in attendance had earned the Knights Cross in battle during the Second World War. Only Dönitz’s daughter, Ursula, survived the war, who remained very private about her family’s history until her death in 1990.

Weilding was taken into Soviet Custody, where he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes perpetrated during the German occupation of the East. He died of an apparent heart attack in Vladimir whilst in the custody by the KGB in 1955. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery of Vladimir Central Prison. It is unknown if he had any children

Other high ranking Nazis, not directly involved in the Battle of Berlin also befell similar fates. Albert Speer, Reichminister of Armaments and Munitions and a chief Nazi Architect, was sentenced to 20 years at Nuremberg, attempting to portray his role in Nazi Germany as less significant than his peers, claims that were disproven after his death in 1981, being revealed that he was involved in multiple slave labour programmes across Nazi Occupied Europe. Adolf Eichmann, an SS Obersturmbannführer and key architect of the Holocaust, and Josef Mengele, an SS Hauptsturmführer and head of human experimentation at Auschwitz, both escaped to South America after the war. Whilst Eichmann was captured by Mossad, the Israeli Intelligence Service, and executed in 1961, Mengele lived out his life in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, until drowning after suffering a stroke in 1979.

In their vengeful advance across eastern Europe, thousands of civilian Germans were murdered by the Red Army, including thousands of sexual assaults of women. In all, 40 million people were killed by the Nazis under their regime, 17 million of whom were killed systematically as a part of the Holocaust. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany strictly outlines laws that will prevent a Nazi-like party from ever rising again.

Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing, and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.

These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons, and in the right to personal honor.

Art and scholarship, research, and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.
Article 5 of the German Constitution

Whoever allows content (section 11 (3)) suited to violating the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning or defaming a group defined by its national, racial, religious or ethnic origin, ideology, disability or sexual orientation or individuals on account of their belonging to one of these groups to come to the attention of another person who belongs to one of the aforementioned groups without having been requested to do so by that person incurs a penalty of a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine.
Section 192a of the German Criminal Code

One of the first meetings of the democratic Bundestag in West Germany, 1949

Casualties

The Greater Germanic Reich – 917,000–925,000
Soviet Union – 361,367
Civilian – 125,000

Liberation of the Concentration Camps

When we went to Nohra, […] we took a day trip into Buchenwald. […]It was just unbelievable to see. You couldn’t—there was so much of it, you couldn’t grasp at all. We just see these people standing, you see the bodies. You see the ashes. You see the ditches. It’s just—I can’t really describe it to tell you, you know, how horrendous it was to see these people treated like animals. You might see even worse than that.
Andrew Kiniry, 45th Evacuation Hospital, describing when the 3rd Army liberated Buchenwald

As the allies advanced from the West and the Soviets from the east, many expected to see the remnants of training camps or POW camps. What they found was beyond their wildest nightmares.

What they found were thousands upon thousands of men, women and children, all on the brink of starving to death, who had been left abandoned in fences like cattle. Not only were these people but specific groups of people. Some were disabled, some were gay, some were slavs. But the most notable among these groups of people were the Jews. The soldiers thought they had seen the worst of it but they were very wrong.

They found large gas chambers, in which the prisoners would be put inside, under the pretence of having a shower to cleanse themselves. Then, Zyklon B, a pesticide, would be poured in through the showers. Deaths could take anywhere between 3 minutes to 30. The bodies were then dragged out and burnt in ovens nearby. The specific targeting of Jews was called Germany’s “Final Solution”, which involved the eradication of the Jewish population from Europe. This was known as the Holocaust, but many Jews today prefer to call it the Shoah.

Over 5.7 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Others killed included 2-3million Soviet POWs, 1.9 million Poles, 1.5 million Romani, 250,000 disabled people, 170,000 Freemasons, 25,000 Slovenes, 15,000 homosexuals, 5,000 Jehovahs witnesses, 7,000 Spanish Republicans as well as countless others. Around half of the Jewish deaths were attributed to the gas chambers, whilst the rest were due to forced labour in the camps, starvation in the camps and ghettos as well as mass shootings, most notably by the Einsatzgruppen, a death squad that tailed the Wehrmacht in their march east.

Upon discovery of the concentration camps, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, told his men to film the horrors they encountered. The film reels were then compiled into a 1 hour long documentary, shown as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials and the Trial of Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, after his capture in 1961

Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened
Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking to his men about the Concentration Camps

Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, George Patton and American forces at Ohrdruf concentration camp, a part of the Buchenwald network

The survivors were liberated, many only to find that their homes had been repossessed. Many Jews sought shelter in Palestine whilst others stayed in Europe, where persecution still occurs to this day. To this day, people still deny these events happened, either that the statistics are overestimates or that such things never occurred and is simply a victim complex made by Jews, despite the countless amount of evidence recorded not just by the Allies and Soviets but by the Germans themselves. Many cite the Holocaust as the greatest humanitarian tragedy in history.

The Battle of the Bulge

By Februrary, 1943, the Wehrmacht had just suffered a great loss at the Battle of Stalingrad, in which German forces had just suffered 800,000 casualties and the hands of the Red Army. With German Morale low, Dr Joseph Goebbels, Reichminister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, took to the stage of the Berlin Sportpalast to deliver a speech that would change the German attitude to the war.

A photo of the rally on February 18th, the banner reading “Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg” or “Total War – Shortest War” in English.

The German nation is fighting for everything it has. We know that the German people are defending their holiest possessions: their families, women and children, the beautiful and untouched countryside, their cities and villages, their two thousand year old culture, everything indeed that makes life worth living. […] Total war is the demand of the hour. […] The danger facing us is enormous. The efforts we take to meet it must be just as enormous. […] I ask you: Do you want total war? […] I ask you: Is your confidence in the Führer greater, more faithful and more unshakable than ever before? Are you absolutely and completely ready to follow him wherever he goes and do all that is necessary to bring the war to a victorious end? […] Now, people rise up and let the storm break loose!

The applause that ruptured from the hall after this was enormous, with chorus’ of Sieg Heil and chants of “Führer command, we follow!” Nazi banners are raised high. Little do they know, the German people just signed their own death sentence.

As winter set in on the Western Front, the war was not looking great for Germany. With almost all of France liberated, the Italians firmly losing and the Soviets at the gates of Warsaw, Hitler needed a miracle in order to win the war. His miracle would come in the same plan he conducted four years prior.

The largely undefended and heavily wooded Ardennes region of Belgium and France began to look promising for Hitler once again. Having initially invading France in 1940 using the same area as a breakthrough point, Hitler planned to push a surprise attack through the area, cutting off most of the Commonwealth forces in the Netherlands, forcing them into another Dunkirk style evacuation. Many questioned the validity of the plan. Whilst Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command, was in fully support of the plan, many others, such as Field Marshals Gerd von Rundstedt and Walter Model as well as General Siegfried Westphal, were much more hesitant, fearing that the attack might not even reach the Meuse River. Despite their concerns, they kept silent for fear of being accused of defeatism, which, by this point, had become a crime in Nazi Germany.

Nicknamed Operation Wacht Am Rhine, after a famous Prussian patriotic anthem, every member of high command involved in the offensive was sworn to secrecy at the threat of death, with regimental commanders only being told a day before the attack. In order to not alert American Forces, soldiers used the cover of night in order to advance from town to town, covering up their vehicles when daybreak came. Complete radio silence was enforced during the whole operation. This secrecy had clearly worked, as the Allies were not expecting an attack in any capacity, with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery of the 21st Army Group confident that the Germans would not counter attack. Whilst the Germans were vastly disadvantaged, in terms of manpower and resources, they weren’t exactly fighting the cream of America’s crop. The defence force in the Ardennes was only seven divisions, most of whom were either new to combat or had been redeployed as an in-work vacation.

American Troops on deployment in the Ardennes

Despite the lack of fuel that was desperately needed in an operation through the terrain of the Ardennes, the 6th Panzer Army, commanded by Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich, the 5th Panzer Army, lead by General Hasso von Manteuffel, and Erich Brandenberger’s 7th Army, began the assault on December 16th, attacking the North, Centre and South respectively, with the Panzer forces set to capture Antwerp and the 7th protecting the flank from American General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army. Dietrich’s main objective was to capture the key bridges over the Meuse within the first 24 hours of the assault, before an advance onto Antwerp, whilst Manteuffel was to capture Brussels. Before these objectives could be reached, however, St. Vint and Bastogne had to be secured first, as it was crucial for maintaining supplies.

The 1st SS Panzer Division of the 6th Panzer Army was given special care by Hitler, as it contained the most elite troops of the Waffen-SS, including the Peiper Unit, consisting of nearly 5,000 Waffen-SS troops with 800 of their vehicles commanded by SS Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant-Colonel) Joachim Peiper. The full assault was preceded by Operation Grief, in which a brigade commanded by SS Standartenführer (Colonel) Otto Skorzeny adopted American customs, dressed in American uniforms and infiltrated American territory in order to capture bridges, by tampering with road signs, cutting telephone wires and minor acts of sabotage. American forces became so paranoid of encountering one of Skorzeny’s men that they distrusted everyone in an American Uniform, even holding General Omar Bradley, commander of Twelfth Army Group, captive for a short period.

Whilst Dietrich’s Army began with an artillery barrage of American positions, Manteuffel’s fighting force did not go in guns blazing, instead opting for the element of surprise. Despite this disobeying Hitler’s orders of the artillery barrage, the tactic worked well across the board, with many American forces retreating out of fear, with one officer recounting his men wetting themselves and vomiting. The heavy snow also meant that the Allies could not use their superior air power on the battlefield.

A German machine gunner in the Ardennes, December 1944

Despite the vast and quick progress, this was not consistent across the whole German front. Lieutenant Lyle Bouck of the American 99th Division, for instance, valiantly fended off German forces for the whole day with only 18 men, killing or wounding 400 Germans whilst losing only one man. This vexed Peiper so much that he ordered his unit to advance hard on the enemy position, including into a minefield, losing 5 tanks in the process. Meanwhile, the 326th Volks Grenadier Division advanced north, attempting to cut off American reinforcements but were sabotaged by their own artificial moonlight made out of bouncing spotlights off clouds, which silhouetted them in the horizon, where they were picked off like sitting ducks. In addition, the weather also meant decreased visibility and movement ofr their vehicles, slowing the advance significantly.

Despite these setbacks, German High command was satisfied with initial progress on the first day. However, due to the slower advance, Eisenhower was given ample time to move reinforcements to the front, including the famous 101st Airborne Division, to defend the town of Bastogne and block the German Advance. Meanwhile, Peiper’s unit ignored the orders of Hitler due to muddy paths, instead capturing different towns, where they would massacre POWs and civilians during the Maldemy Massacre, wherein 84 civilians and POWS were executed.

A photo of dead US Soldiers in the aftermath of Maldemy

As casualties mounted on the front, especially in the besieged town of Bastogne, an emergency meeting was called between Patton, Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, who ordered that the 7th Army cover for Patton’s position in the south, whilst his 3rd Army moved north to relieve the 101st Airborne and the 28th Infantry Divisions. Even with continuous artillery fire that prevented the Germans from capturing the city, they managed to encircle the 101st and 28th. The Germans were incredibly confident with a potential victory at Bastogne. Despite not having the strength to destroy the defenders of Bastogne, General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz of the XLVII Panzer Corps sent a demand for surrender to General Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the Bastogne Garrison and Artillery Commander of the 101st, simply responded with the following.

To the German Commander.

NUTS!

The American Commander.
McAuliffe’s response to Lüttwitz’s demand for surrender

Eventually, the snow began to ease up, allowing for Allied air superiority to make a comeback, conducting a massive supply drop onto the besieged troops at Bastogne, whilst fighter bombers proved extremely effective at breaking up German attacks. Despite this, Patton strill struggled to breach the German encirclement, repeatedly vexed by blown bridges, activities done by American engineers in order to slow the Germans earlier in the battle.

German Chief of the General Staff, Heinz Guderian, urged Hitler to withdraw forces from the Ardennes, citing it as a massive failure and to put more supplies into the East. However, German forces had just captured Celles, the furthest west of the advance, which buoyed Hitler’s spirits, and so the struggle went on.

Despite this achievement, supplies were running low, to the point where not even a full withdrawal was feasible. When American forces recaptured Celles, they found starved and exhausted Panzer troops greeting them. Runstedt now had to inform Hitler that the plan was a mass failure, to which Hitler, in a fit of rage, dismissed him. Eventually, Patton relieved Bastogne in the most Patton way possible, via a reckless charge from the north, accompanied by storms of napalm.

In a moment of delirium, Hitler commanded that no effort be spared in crushing Bastogne, having forgotten the objective of Antwerp entirely. In attack after attack, more and more lives were lost to Allied Air Superiority and artillery fire, with the Germans eventually giving up and retreating by January 11th of 1945. The Battle of the Bulge, which it was later dubbed, served as the last major offensive operation by the Third Reich, which only delayed the inevitable and now it was a desperate retreat back to Berlin.

American forces marching with an M1 Sherman in the Battle of the Bulge

Casualties

United States – 81,000
The Greater German Reich – 63,000-100,000+
United Kingdom – 1,408

Stauffenberg’s Plot to Kill Hitler

By July, 1944, the war was turning sour for Germany.

A map of the Front Lines by July 15th, 1944 (Allies – red, Axis – white, neutral – grey)

After a disastrous loss of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, the German army was on the run from the Soviets, who had begun to enter Poland. On the Western front, the Allies had made an incredible landing at Normandy, whilst an allied invasion was coming up from the south through Italy, where the Germans were assisting their allies. Germany was now fighting a war on three fronts and losing. Many Nazis began to blame Hitler’s mismanagement. Some of these men wanted Hitler gone. One of these men was Claus von Stauffenberg.

A photo of Stauffenberg before the accident

Claus von Stauffenberg was a general in the German Army. He had been severely wounded in North Africa, losing his right hand, two fingers on his left hand and his left eye. While agreeing with many of Hitler’s nationalist policies, he believed that the war would do nothing but run Germany into the ground. During his time in Russia before the accident, he was appalled by the treatment of the citizens there, especially the Jewish ones, by the SS. He believed that the only way to stop the war was to stop Hitler, and the only way to stop Hitler was by killing him. And by 1943, he had met the right man to do it.

Henning von Tresckow was a major general and the leader of a small conspiracy group inside the Nazi high command. Tresckow used to be a staunch Hitler supporter until the Invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Not only that but he knew about the Holocaust and felt he had a moral responsibility to stop this mad tyrant.

Tresckow had previously made attempts himself to kill Hitler. One famous one was in March of 1943, where he had given Heinz Brandt, a lieutenant colonel who was travelling with Hitler, a box containing two bottles of Cointreau. However, the box instead contained a bomb which would be detonated by a crushed capsule of acid, with the intent that the bomb would explode during the flight from Smolensk to Prussia. However, the bomb was stored in the cold cargo hold, whereupon the acid detonator had frozen over and Hitler landed in Prussia unscathed. Thankfully, Tresckow had managed to take a flight to Prussia, swap out the bomb with two bottles and disarm the bomb.

Stauffenberg joined the conspiracy and had eventually rose the ranks to become one of its leaders along side Tresckow. They came up with a new plan, wherein Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche would detonate a British hand grenade at a meeting he would have with Hitler, showing the new Wermacht Uniforms. However, an allied bombing raid on a train shipment delayed their plans, as the train contained the new uniforms. Not only that but during this time, Bussche was seriously wounded and had to have his leg amputated. They now had to find a new man to kill Hitler. This man would be Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, who was only 21 at the time. However, Hitler cancelled on short notice and, once again, the plot could not go through. Eventually, the meeting finally took place on July 7th, 1944, with Hellmuth Stieff as the new assassin. However, Stieff backed out, most likely because he did not want to end his life. The bomb did not detonate and Hitler walked free.

However, the conspiracy went on and this time Stauffenberg wanted to take matters into his own hands. Not only did he want to kill Hitler but also take out the entire Nazi Regime.

On July 20th, Stauffenberg and his aide, Werner von Haeften flew to the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s Headquarters in Prussia. They find out that the meeting had been pushed forward by half an hour due to a visit from Benito Mussolini. Stauffenberg and Haeften rushed into a room, planning on activating two bombs and placing them in Stauffenberg’s briefcase, which would then be placed under the table in the room where the meting was held. Stauffenberg would then leave the room and the bombs would detonate. The meeting was intended to be held in an undergound bunker in the Wolf’s Lair, which would mean that the pressure of the explosion would certainly kill Hitler. Stauffenberg managed to arm one bomb, before they are interrupted, being informed that the meeting was starting. He handed the unarmed bomb to Haeften before entering the meeting.

A diagram of the room where the bomb went off. Survivors are marked in green, casualties in red, the bomb in yellow and Hitler in blue

The plan had now reached a second hiccup. Due to the weather, the conference was being held upstairs in a ventialted room with open windows. The pressure plan would not work. Stauffenberg decided to place the bomb on the left side of the table leg on the right end of the table. Hitler and the bomb were only separated by 1.3 metres. Stauffenberg then gives his briefing on the Eastern front before quickly leaving the room to take an important phone call. Once he leaves, the briefcase was moved to the other side of the table leg. At 12:42, Hitler then leaned over the table to discuss more in depth plans. At this exact moment, the bomb went off.

Stauffenberg watched the explosion 20 metres back from the building. He was very confident that Hitler was dead. He then drove out of the lair with Haeften, tossing the unarmed bomb into the forest. The next step of the plan was about to commence, Operation Valkyrie.

Operation Valkyrie was originally intended to deal with domestic disturbances inside the German Reich and orders to commence the operation would be issued to the reserves. It would implement in the event of a general breakdown in national civil order. It was made by General Friedrich Olbricht, who later became a member of the conspiracy. However, he, Tresckow and Stauffenberg modified the plan to detail that in the event of Hitler’s death, the Nazi Regime would be abolished. However, General Friedrich Fromm was the only one allowed to authorise the plan. Fromm was confronted and decided to remain silent on the matter but declined to be directly involved.

Olbricht was recieving two conflicting messages. From one line, he was being told Hitler was still alive and on the other Stauffenberg was insisting Hitler was dead. Eventually, he gave the go ahead and the reserves began to mobilise, with the orders to arrest High Ranking officials, including SS officers, framing them for a coup. The conspirators would then form a government which would appeal more to the allies and attempt to negotiate peace from there.

Eventually, a group of reserves commanded by Otto Ernst Remer began surrounding the Ministry of Propaganda, with the intent of arresting Josef Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda. However, Goebbels handed Remer the telephone in his office.

Do you recognise my voice?
Hitler on the other end of the line

Hitler had survived the explosion, meaning that Operation Valkyrie could not go through. Remer was ordered to crush the plot as fast as possible. Eventually, the Bendlerblock, the headquarters of the conspiracy, was laid under siege by the Wermacht. Fromm, betraying the conspirators in order to not be caught, rounded up the conspirators. 4 of them were executed in the courtyard of the building, including Olbricht, Haeften, another conspirator called Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim and Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg’s final words were:

Long live sacred Germany!
Stauffenberg’s last words

Many of the other conspirators who were not arrested either committed suicide or went into hiding in the following weeks. Many families of the conspirators were also arrested. over 5,000 people were executed for, indirectly or not, being a part of the conspiracy. Erwin Rommel, the famous North African Tank commander, was rumoured to be a part of the conspiracy. Many movies have been made about the sacrifice of these brave men, most notably in 2008, where Mission Impossible Star, Tom Cruise, portrayed Stauffenberg. It was filmed on location in the Bendlerblock, where director Bryan Singer lead the crew in a minute of silence to honour the dead before filming began. In 1980, a memorial museum was opened in honour of these men who, in the face of evil, risked their lives to try and stop that evil from spreading.

The street sign for Stauffenbergstaße in Berlin, named after Stauffenberg. Upon this road is the Bendlerblock

The Battle of Stalingrad

By July of 1942, Operation Barbarossa had been raging for over a year. The United States had entered the war and with no signs of Britain surrendering despite the U-Boat warfare and bombing campaign, Hitler decided to turn his back on his old ally and invade the Soviet Union. For the last 13 months, the operation had raged on and they were beginning to fall short of key objectives. One important thing that the Germans were lacking was oil. They were now over 1,000 miles into foreign territory and, with the Russian scorched earth tactic, supply lines were running thin.

In one last ditch effort to find some more oil. Hitler set his eyes on the Caucuses, an oil rich area of the Soviet Union in modern day Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, Hitler added a new objective to the plan. He believed that in order to secure the Caucuses, they would need to capture the key city of Stalingrad.

Stalingrad, named after General Secretary Joseph Stalin, was a massive supply hub, due to its bountiful number of factories and a massive transport hub. Despite this, German High Command did not believe that Stalingrad was a very important objective, who thought that Army Group South should flank the Caucuses by pushing through to Astrakhan and then the armies would go down from there. However, Hitler believed that they should split Army Group South in half from the onset, and assigning Friedrich Paulus and his 6th Army to capture Stalingrad.

A photo of a building in Stalingrad before the war

The advance was swift and forceful, and the city was very close to being surrounded. However, due to the advance the supply line was even thinner. Some in the 6th Army resorted to eating their own horses to prevent themselves from starvation. 1/4 of the casualties from the 6th thus far had been due to disease rather than bullets.

Meanwhile, Stalin had prepped for a change of plans. Wanting to keep the city named after himself, he had built a large number of tanks, placing all his reserves in the city. On the 28th of July, Stalin issued his infamous order 227.

Not one step backward without orders from higher headquarters!
An excerpt from Order 227

Any officer or soldier who did not comply with the order would, most likely, be shot on sight. After a large Luftwaffe attack, the 6th Army pushed into Stalingrad, managing to seize much of the suburbs. The Soviet Divisions were now split in two, with the 62nd and 64th armies shipping supplies and reinforcements across the Volga River, whilst under heavy bombardment from the Luftwaffe.

The Russians are ordered to stay close to German lines, in order to stop air support out of fear that Hitler would bomb his own men. The unique urban combat of Stalingrad had begun, with most gunfights engaging within spitting distance of the enemy. The German advance slowed but pushes into the city were still made. The Soviet Divisions in Stalingrad were on their last legs, until the Russian secret weapon eventually came.

The winter soon began to set in. The already hungry Germans were also beginning to feel the effects of the cold. The German advance either halted or slowed to a crawl, allowing Soviet High Command to recuperate and form a plan of counter assault. Whilst the plan is being formed, Paulus, orders another assault. The Germans manage to push back the Soviet forces to a small sliver of land against the Volga. However, having suffered 60,000 casualties, the battered and hungry German army cannot advance. A stalemate began to set in

Barmaley Fountain in the middle of the war torn city

Eventually, Georgy Zhukov, one of the key Russian Generals in the defence of the city, unleashes his master stroke. Operation Neptune goes ahead on November 19th, with 10 entire armies, totalling 1 million men, push through the German line, managing to encircle the German 6th and 4th armies, taking out the Romanian 5th corps, inside the city in only 3 days.

With supply lines cut off, Hitler decided to airlift supplies into Stalingrad. However, for reasons unknown, only army supplies, such as ammunition, was dropped and not food and clean water, a dire resource in the war torn city. Not only that but he also ordered 500 tons of said supplies to be dropped into the city, despite Paulus claiming that they needed 700 and the Luftwaffe saying they could only manage 300. Many Germans starved whilst the wounded succumbed to the elements, dying of hypothermia as winter truly began.

Around Christmas, Erich von Manstein, head of the Wehrmacht, ordered a push through the soviet line in order to relieve the 6th and 4th Army. However, due to orders from the Fuhrer, and dwindling numbers, Paulus did not attempt to meet up with Manstein’s men. Thousands more die in this attempted breakthrough. With no ammunition or food, the Germans are offered 2 surrenders by Zhukov, both of which Hitler orders Paulus to deny. by this time only 40,000 men of the 300,000 who initially marched on Stalingrad are still alive, whilst there are 18,000 men who are injured and yet untreated due to the lack of medical supplies. The situation became even more dire once the Soviets capture the last airfield that could be used for airdrops into Stalingrad. Despite his failure, and the German force in Stalingrad being split in two, Paulus received a promotion to Field Marshal, from Hitler himself. However, Hitler knew that there has never been a single Field Marshal ever who has been taken alive. Hitler had just signed Paulus’ death warrant.

Eventually, the Russians found his base of operations in a worn out department store basement, with the southern part of the army falling not long after that. The Soviets took mercy on Paulus, who lived out the rest of his life in East Germany until 1957. He is the only Field Marshal to ever be taken prisoner. The commander of the northern pocket also subtly requested that his men surrender. 11,000 German insurgents did not surrender and it would not be until March of 1943 before Stalingrad was clear of a German presence.

Many historians cite Stalingrad as a key turning point in the war. If Stalingrad had been captured, it would’ve been a catastrophic loss of life and morale for the Red Army. Thankfully, Hitler’s forces were pushed all the way back to Berlin thanks to the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, leading to the death of Hitler in April, 1945, and the end of the war in Europe. However, it came at a heavy cost. The Battle of Stalingrad was and still is the single deadliest battle in human history.

Casualties

German Reich – 800,000-1.5 million casualties
Soviet – 1.3 million
Civilian – 40,000

The Hunt for the Bismarck

By 1941, Paris had fallen to the Nazis. The next big target on Hitler’s wish list was the United Kingdom. In one ear he had Karl Doenitz, head of the Kreigsmarine and U-Boat effort said that Hitler needed to expand U-Boat operations in the Atlantic Ocean, in order to cut off Britain’s supplies and force them into surrender through starvation. In his other ear, he had Erich Raeder, the Chief of the German Navy High Command, who said that if Hitler built some very large battleships, he could destroy Britain’s mighty Royal Navy. Soon, Hitler’s mind was made up.

Admiral John Tovey, Commander in Chief of the Home Fleet was stationed at Scapa Flow, a large ocean stretch in the North of Scotland. His mission was to patrol the vast expanse of Greenland and Nazi occupied Norway. At his base, he had been receiving regular intel about this ship. A ship so large that it is the third largest battleship in human history and the largest ever used by a European country. That ship was the Bismarck.

Towering over its opponents at almost 30 ft tall, this eight 15-inch gun battleship was the might of the German Navy. Weighing in at around 40,000 tons and being equipped with the top grade armour, it was a flagrant violation of Post WW1 treaties, that limited the size of German ships.

However, while the Royal Navy was mighty once, it had somewhat lost its touch since WW1. Due to naval treaties, battleships could not be produced in the interwar period, so many ships had to be converted to match and, in some cases, not very well. Ships that were produced because of the war were produced very hastily and thus not equipped very well, and hardly had any time to test to see if they functioned.

Whilst it was operating in the Baltics at the time, a real fear of the British Naval command was the Bismarck making a break through the North Sea and escaping into the Atlantic, a guaranteed disaster for the British. And it was possible this fear was becoming a reality, as Tovey was informed that the Bismarck had left a Polish port 3 days earlier, whilst a group of German boats had been spotted passing in between Denmark and Norway. Tovey ordered his men to refuel and stand by.

A photo of the *Bismarck* moored in the fjord

An RAF scouting plane spotted a large boat, shadowed by a small cruiser, in a Norwegian Fjord. The plane sent photos back to base, where analysts confirm it’s the Bismarck, accompanied by the Prinz Eugen. A foul fog soon set in, and Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland is ordered to guard the oceans surrounding the possible path of the Bismarck from a naval base in Iceland, with Tovey believing it’ll take this opportunity to slip out into the Atlantic. A reconnaissance plane flies to the Bismarck‘s last known position below the clouds. It’s gone. Tovey ordered his fleet, who have been stationed at Scapa Flow, to sail for Iceland, filling up the gaps across Holland’s line. Tovey then radioed Holland, ordering him to maintain radio silence.

In the Denmark Strait, two cruisers were patrolling the water. One young crew man spots the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen. Knowing that they could not take on the 15-inch guns and that they could not pierce the armour, the cruisers took a sharp turn into the fog. Notifying the other cruiser, the radar was activated, a true technical marvel at the time. However, the second cruiser had a very close call with the Bismarck, only being 6 miles out. Shots rang out from the Bismarck as the cruiser made its getaway. Soon, HMS Prince of Wales, commanded by Captain John Leach and HMS Hood, commanded by Captain Ralph Kerr with Holland aboard, set sail to confront the Bismarck.

Hood, was one of the warships that had been built in 1918 and revamped for WW2 but was still largely considered to be the pride of the Royal Navy, whilst Prince of Wales was a new one, fresh out of the factory only 2 months prior. Prince of Wales was still having mechanical problems, with civilian engineers still fixing hydraulics issues by the time they encountered the German ships. At 6AM on the 24th of May, 1941, Holland ordered his men to fire at the leading ship. However, Hitler had, unconventionally, placed the cruiser first. The Bismarck was the second ship. Realising the error, Leach opened fire on the Bismarck all their shots missed. They had lost the element of surprise and were now sitting ducks.

Whilst a few shots were hit against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, the British ships were no match for the German 15-inch guns, which laid waste to them. Unfortunately, Hood was struck hard. Leach watched in horror as a large fire erupted from the centre of the Hood, before it exploded, splitting in half and sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Both Holland and Kerr were lost in the destruction.

The Prince of Wales manages to put itself in the exact same position that the Hood was in just moments earlier. After getting a lucky hit off on the Bismarck, a shell crashed through the bridge, killing all but 4. Leach was luckily one of those 4. He managed to order a retreat, dispensing a smoke screen to cover his get away. Out of the crew of 1,318 men, only 3 were rescued from the Hood. The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a disaster for the British and the Bismarck now had a clear path to the Atlantic but, thankfully, the fight was not over yet.

Reconnaissance planes saw oil slicks in the area, trailing away. It appeared as though Bismarck had been damaged in the battle. This should be a relief but Tovey began to worry. A while back, some of what was Holland’s Icelandic guard had lost the Bismarck on their radars. They had no idea where the beast was. Depending on how bad the damage was, there could be a mid ocean refuelling if the damage wasn’t that bad. If it was bad, it would most likely return to base, at either France or Norway. Analysts believed that it would stop at France, due to the signals being sent to the Bismarck had changed source from Berlin to Paris. Tovey’s map, due to a mathematical error, indicated that the Bismarck was travelling North to Norway. Tovey charged his fleet north, to where he believed the Bismarck might be.

Back on the home front, in Bletchley Park, mathematicians and codebreakers were scrambling to find any clues on the Bismarck’s whereabouts, before one German speaking codebreaker noticed something. A letter from a concerned father to German Naval Command, asking whether his son, who was serving on the Bismarck, was safe after the battle. The Navy confirmed that everyone was fine and that they were headed to Brest for refuelling. This message was quickly conveyed to Tovey aboard the King George V.

A photo of Bletchley Park during the war

Meanwhile, American lent scout planes were surveying the area, and spotted a large battleship leaking oil which opens fire with the anti-aircraft guns. They’ve found the Bismarck. As the planes climbed, they relayed this to the Admiralty. The HMS Ark Royal, an aircraft carrier, headed straight to the location. The had to catch her now, before she got in the range of the Luftwaffe airbases in France, where she would be unstoppable. 15 Swordfish torpedo bombers took off from the aircraft carrier. With intel claiming that it’s the only ship in the area, the Swordfish got into attack formation upon seeing a ship. The HMS Sheffield, however, realises that the Swordfish were targeting them instead. As four of the Swordfish pulled out, having realised their error, 11 released the new magnetic torpedoes. 6, thankfully, detonate on contact with the water and Sheffield managed to weave through the other 5.

The Swordfish returned to the carrier before heading out one last time. This is their final chance to sink the Behemoth. In their attack run, two torpedoes strike the Bismarck, one in its side and one in its stern. They saw the Bismarck sail on. Having prepped to report a mission failure, the jubilant crew of the aircraft carrier reported that the Bismarck was acting erratically, indicating that the torpedo run had damaged its steering.

Over next few hours, destroyers, under Tovey’s orders, have been firing upon the ship, making sure it’s occupied and cannot return to base. However, they still kept their distance till morning when Tovey spotted the Bismarck at around 9 in the morning on the 27th of May, 3 days after the sinking of the Hood. Tovey’s plan involved approaching the Bismarck from all sides, in order to disperse the gunfire across 4 directions. But first, an advance from the West must occur. One of the ships, the old, slow HMS Rodney, managed to take out the main fire control director with its massive 16-inch guns. With the Bismarck falling silent for a moment, the barrage began. The assault was from multiple sides, with even the Norfolk and Dorsetshire‘s 8-inch guns making decent work of the upper deck. An ammunition locker exploded, taking the secondary fire control director with it. The Bismarck’s crew were now firing whenever and wherever they wanted. Once the main guns fell silent permanently and the bridge down, Tovey began slamming broadsides into the Bismarck. Shockingly, it did not go under, even after 50 minutes of fire. Tovey ordered the Dorsetshire to finish the Bismarck while the other ships returned to base, which fires to torpedoes into the hull. The pride of Hitler’s fleet is finally sunk.

As they’re pulling German men out of the water, the crew of the Dorsetshire noticed a periscope peering over the water line. The Captain ordered the Dorsetshire to move, less it be sunk, abandoning hundreds of men in the water. Out of the 2,200 men on the Bismarck, only 114 were pulled from the water.

In Parliament the next day, Churchill sat down just before he was handed a note. He stood and proclaimed:

I have received news that the Bismarck is sunk.
Churchill speaking to the House of Commons

A photo of Churchill in the House of Commons

Bletchley Park erupted into cheers and applause. The sinking of the Bismarck was a naval victory that Britain desperately needed. It showed the competence of Bletchley Park and that they were highly important to the war effort. It distracted the press from the naval losses in the Mediterranean. And, most importantly, it showed the US Congress, who were hesitant about the war, that the Royal Navy could defend American Convoys. Despite Goebbels portraying the Bismarck as a noble last stand Hitler, from then on, would only use capital ships in defence of Germany, listening to Doenitz and expanding U-Boat operations in the Atlantic. Only 3 weeks later, Hitler would attack the Soviet Union, the beginning of the end for the Third Reich. The hunt for the Bismarck showed that even in the face of the might of Germany that Britain would never give up and never surrender.

The Battle of France

By May 1940, Germany controlled most of the European Continent. With Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark and Norway being under Nazi control, Britain and France now stood alone as the last enemies of Germany, for the time being. One key problem in Germany’s path was the Maginot Line

A photo of a fortification on the Maginot Line

Between the late 1920s to mid 1930s, the French had built a large line of forts across their border with Germany. These forts were nigh impenetrable, so Hitler needed to think of a new strategy. He had two options. To breach south through Switzerland or to go North through the Low Countries of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Hitler chose the latter.

However, there was much bickering in army high command about how to attack. Whilst most advocated for a mere replica of the Schlieffen Plan in World War 1, Hitler and Erich von Manstein, Chief of Staff for Army Group A, requested a battle plan be made through the Ardennes, a dense forest region in Belgium and Luxembourg. Eventually, a compromise is reached, wherein Army Group B would attack from the Dutch border, whilst Army Group A would swoop in through the Ardennes.

Meanwhile, the British and French were prepping for a hypothetical counter attack. Whilst the Belgians and Dutch refused to allow French and British troops to immediately enter territory, for fear of provoking the Germans, they came up with a plan to hold the line and hopefully counter attack. However, the plan left little in the means of defence in the Ardennes, which British and French high command believed is impassible for armoured units, despite intelligence that sugggested the German’s plans to do just that.

On May 10th, 1940, Germany began to invade the Low Countries. They began with the pretence of just attacking the Netherlands, forcing Allied forces to organise up there. However, they were delayed in their response by mass numbers of refugees fleeing the opposite direction. Meanwhile, German forces began pushing through the Ardennes in mass numbers, forcing traffic jams 250km back from the front. All too late, the Allies realised their response in the Ardennes had been far too weak. The Blitzkrieg tactic worked once more in the Lowlands, with Stuka dive bombers, Messerschmidt fighters and Panzer divisions all working together in order to hit fast and hard.

The tension in France was felt on the home front too. With much of the British Public and government believing that Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policies in the lead up to the war, with Czechoslovakia, has done nothing but think Hitler he can do what he wanted, Chamberlain resigned and was replaced by First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.

By May 24th, Allied forces had been forced into a pocket in Belgium and Northern France. In a fighting retreat, Allied forces moved to Dunkirk, planning to evacuate forces there. Many French commanders viewed this as an abandonment and betrayal. Fearing a Southern counter attack, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt requested a cease of a direct assault on Dunkirk, to which Hitler agreed. Many say that if the Nazi forces had advanced on Dunkirk, Britain would’ve been more likely to surrender. Hitler defended this decision later, saying he did not want to humiliate the British, in hopes of initiating peace talks. Runstedt later claimed that it was not his order but Hitler’s. Regardless, nearly 340,000 troops were evacuated from Dunkirk in a spectacular feat in co-operation with land, air and sea, both civilian and military.

After the troops were evacuated and Belgium surrendered, without the consultation of the British and French, Germany launched an all out assault on the south. Only 10 days after the last troops left Dunkirk, German forces entered Paris on June 14th, 1940. On the 16th of June, the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, resigned, and was immediately replaced by Phillipe Petan, who immediately began peace talks with Germany.

Many protested to this, including Charles de Gaulle, who broadcasted a radio message from Britain, urging his fellow country men to fight. Whilst Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, was calling for peace talks through neutral Italy, Mussolini began forcing troops through the Alps on June 21st. The armistice eventually took effect on June 25th, 1940. The puppet of Vichy France was established whilst some overseas colonies remained under Allied French Control. However, Britain and the Commonwealth, with the assistance of a fractionalised France, now stood alone against the might of the German Army.

A photo of Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
Churchill’s famous speech to Parliament before Dunkirk

Invasion of Poland

Gaining living space, striving for land power in the East. France’s opposition to this is unavoidable, but not that of England or Italy. […] France as an ally is possible, but undesirable. Help for South Tyrol only with Italy against France; this also means freedom of movement against the East.
Hitler writing in his second posthumously published book, 1928

After World War 1, many Eastern European countries were unified to form Poland. As such, Poland divided East Prussia from the remainder of Germany. Hitler formed a non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin, Communist Leader of the Soviet Union. The non-aggression pact also included the East of Poland being occupied by the Soviet Union in the event of an invasion. Many people didn’t agree with this, since Hitler was heavily anti-Communist, with many anti-leftist purges taking place in Germany and in their recently annexed territories.

On the night of August 31st, 1939, 3 men dressed in Polish Army Uniforms infiltrated Gleiwitz Radio Tower, on the Polish-German border. They transmitted anti-German messages, all in Polish, to the people of Germany using a radio tower. The next day, a man in a Polish Army Uniform was found dead near the tower. His body was reported to the police. This was a staged operation by the Nazis.

Gleiwitz Radio Tower, the staging of the false attack

The man found dead was Franciszek Honoik, a Polish man, who was legally the first casualty of the war. Franciszek was killed by the Gestapo. He was unmarried, 43 and wasn’t even a soldier. The same day, German soldiers marched on the west side of Poland, with Soviet soldiers closing in on the East.

The German tactic known as Blitzkreig, involving striking fast and hard with as many units as possible, was used in taking out many Polish divisions. Not only that, but the highly advanced Panzer Divisions combined with the Stuka Dive bombers made quick work of the Polish Cavalry. The West of Poland was captured within two weeks. On October 6th, the last Polish Division surrendered, having been encircled by the German Army. The invasion only lasted 1 month and 5 days. In accordance with the agreement, Germany occupied the West, establishing the Generalgouvernement in the southern region, with the USSR Occupying the East.

Casualties

Germany – 16,343
Soviet Union – 737
Poland – 66,000

This morning, the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
Neville Chamberlain’s radio broadcast to Britain, September 3rd, 1939

Hitler’s Pre-War Expansions

By 1938, Adolf Hitler had turned his attention toward Central Europe. His policy of uniting ethnic Germans within a “Greater Germany” had already been proclaimed for years, and Austria was a central target of this ambition.

Austrian Nationalist Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg had attempted to preserve Austrian independence while easing tensions with Germany. When the two met in February 1938, Hitler made clear that Austria’s sovereignty was no longer acceptable.

What is all this nonsense about your independence? Whether Austria is independent or not is not the question. There’s only one thing to discuss. Do you want the Anschluss brought about with bloodshed or without?
Hitler speaking with Schuschnigg

Schuschnigg announced a referendum on independence for 13 March, believing that a majority of Austrians would reject union with Germany. In response, Hitler ordered military preparations and demanded Schuschnigg’s resignation. Under threat of invasion and without support from Britain or France, Schuschnigg stepped down, and German troops entered Austria unopposed.

A photo of German soldiers driving through the Austrian streets

Although the annexation was achieved through intimidation and political coercion, it was not imposed on an entirely unwilling population. Austrian Nazis had been active for years, and many Austrians welcomed German forces with public celebrations. Another referendum held in April 1938 reported that 99.7 percent of voters approved of union with Germany, but the vote was conducted under conditions of propaganda, intimidation, and the exclusion of Jewish voters and political opponents. While many Austrians opposed annexation, a significant proportion supported it, particularly among German nationalists and Nazi sympathisers.

The consequences were immediate. Austrian Jews and political opponents were subjected to public humiliation, violence, and dispossession, often carried out by Austrian civilians as well as German authorities. In the weeks following the annexation, hundreds of Austrian Jews committed suicide, fearing worse under Nazi rule. Austria’s independence was destroyed, and its population was absorbed into the structures of the Nazi state.

Czechoslovakia was a democratic state with a modern army and extensive border fortifications, particularly in the Sudetenland, a mountainous region inhabited largely by ethnic Germans and held much of Czechoslovkia’s industry. With Austria annexed, Germany now surrounded the state of Czechoslovakia on three sides, who had open intentions about wanting to take Czechoslovakian territory. It was allied to France and had an agreement with the Soviet Union, but geographic and political realities weakened these arrangements. Soviet assistance would have required passage through Poland or Romania, both hostile to communism, and France showed little willingness to fight without British support.

Hitler claimed that ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland were oppressed and demanded that the territory be transferred to Germany. While minority grievances existed, the demand went far beyond cultural rights and threatened Czechoslovakia’s territorial integrity and security. Czechoslovakia appealed to Britain and France for support. Instead, both powers sought to avoid war by encouraging territorial concessions.

However much we may sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbour, we cannot, in all circumstances, undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war simply on her account. If we have to fight, it must be on larger issues than that. I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me. But if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it should be resisted. And that such a domination like the people who believe in liberty, would not be worth living. But war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake, and that a call to risk everything in their defense, when all the consequences are weighed, is irresistible.
Chamberlain’s statement on Czechoslovakia

In September 1938, Britain and France convened a conference with Germany and Italy to resolve the crisis. Czechoslovak representatives were not invited to attend. At the conference, Germany was granted the Sudetenland in return for Hitler’s promise that he would make no further territorial claims in Europe. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned home declaring that the agreement had secured “peace in our time.” The settlement dismantled Czechoslovakia’s defences and transferred major industrial resources to Germany.

Neville Chamberlain waving the agreement

The loss of the Sudetenland left Czechoslovakia strategically and politically crippled. Hungary seized southern Slovak territories soon afterward, while Germany supported a separatist movement in Slovakia that resulted in the creation of a dependent Slovak state under German influence. In March 1939, German forces occupied the remaining Czech lands and transformed them into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This action demonstrated that Hitler’s promises at Munich had been tactical rather than sincere, and that his objectives extended beyond the unification of German-speaking populations.

At the same time, Germany exerted pressure on Lithuania over the Memel region, a small territory with a German-speaking population that had been detached from Germany after the First World War. In March 1939, Germany issued an ultimatum demanding its return. Lithuania, diplomatically isolated and facing overwhelming military superiority, ceded the territory without resistance.

Dawn of the Axis Powers

Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party in Germany, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on January 30th, 1933. He proposed a foreign policy ideal when he was appointed, that being the ‘Heim ins Reich’ or ‘Back Home to the Reich’ in English. It was the idea that all German speaking peoples should be united under a “Greater Germany”. One of the main targets of this policy was Austria.

A photo of Hitler addressing a crowd after his appointment to Chancellor

Austria has an almost entirely German speaking population and is the second largest population of German speakers. The First Austrian Republic was established in the aftermath of the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Due to much political instability, massive violent riots and economic hardship, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss of the Fatherland Front, a right-wing conservative, authoritarian, nationalist, corporatist, and Catholic organisation that opposed what it called “heathen” Nazism, took power in March 1933. Dollfuss suspended parliament in 1933 and gradually established an authoritarian state, replacing Austria’s democratic system by 1934. However, political instability persisted, leading to a short civil war between the Fatherland Front and social democrats in February of 1934, ending in Dollfuss’ assassination by Austrian Nazis in July. Because of Hitler’s policy regarding the Austrians, they began receiving political and economic backing from Fascist Italy.

Italy, governed by Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini, was the birthplace of fascism which German Nazism came from. It stemmed from groups of veterans of the First World War, who believed that much of the territory that Italy gained in the Treaty of London was not worth the struggle, especially considering it was a lot less than what was originally promised to them by the British and French in 1915. They were organised into the National Fascist Party by Benito Mussolini, a former socialist journalist, and seized power by marching on Rome in 1922, demanding that Mussolini be appointed Prime Minister by the King. He would often threaten political opponents through extrajudicial violence through a violent fascist paramilitary group known as the Blackshirts. These threats materialised with the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, an anti-fascist, socialist opposition leader in the Italian Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. When the Blackshirts met with Mussolini after the murder, they demanded that he crush the opposition or they would undermine his position and do it themselves. At a speech in the Chamber of Deputies, Mussolini took responsibility for the murder and other political violence waged by the Blackshirts and challenged the Deputies to depose him. When nobody did, he assumed absolute power and transformed Italy into a one party state.

Fascism, the Government and the Party, is at its highest efficiency. Gentlemen, you have deceived yourselves! You thought that Fascism was over because I was restraining it, that the Party was dead because I was holding it back. If I would use one one-hundredth part of the energy that I used to contain the Fascists, to unleash them…. Oh! You would see, you would see then…
An excerpt from Mussolini’s Speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 1925

A photo of Mussolini standing in front of a statue of Julius Caesar

Attempting to establish a Greater Italy, Mussolini waged war against Libyan rebels, leading to the Libyan Genocide, with estimates ranging from 40,000 to over 70,000 killed. He also bombed Corfu and secured Fiume through the Treaty of Rome in 1924 after diplomatic pressure. Mussolini feared that German action in Austria would threaten the Italian province of South Tyrol, as it is a German speaking former territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This led to Italian and German relations being initially sour by the first half of the 1930s.

In 1934, Hitler met with Mussolini in Venice, where he promised him that he would leave Austria alone, at least for now. However, after Dollfuss’ assassination and the failed Nazi coup, Mussolini, feeling his position to be insecure, turned to France for an alliance. He was eventually pushed away after the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and was sanctioned. However, when Hitler remilitarised the Western Rhineland province of Germany, he demonstrated the weakness of British and French opposition, encouraging Mussolini to seek closer ties with Germany as sanctions collapsed. This softened Mussolini’s initially hardline stance on Austria and began speaking of a potential Rome-Berlin axis by 1936. German Italian relations would soon be brought closer together by the Spanish Civil War.

Hitler and Mussolini standing together upon Hitler’s state visit to Rome in 1938

Entering the 20th Century, Spain was strongly divided between a growing liberal movement and the old elitist collective of bureaucrats, landowners and the clergy, the latter of which manipulated politics in order to remain in power. Eventually, General Miguel Primo de Rivera seized power in a coup in 1923, which had backing from King Alfonso XIII. However, his military dictatorship alienated the leftists and the conservative elite and was eventually forced into resigning in 1930 after great economic downturn that led to civil unrest.

After the loss of Rivera, support for the monarchy collapsed, Alfonso fled the country and the Second Republic was born. Leftists sought radical change, by curbing the power and influence of the clergy, army and landowners, which the right saw as an existential threat. After an attempted coup by General José Sanjurjo in 1932, leftists began to suspect that there was a fascist conspiracy to stop their reforms. By 1933, a right wing government undid much of the leftist reforms and led to mass civil unrest. However, by 1936, the leftists had narrowly won a majority. However, the right and military factions believed that this government, which some suspected had committed fraud in the election, was unacceptable so organised a coup in July 1936. However, it failed in capturing Madrid, so a civil war was born between the right-wing Nationalists and the left-wing Republicans.

A group of Republican fighters in the Spanish Civil War

Both Germany and Italy began assisting the side of the nationalists. Mussolini and Hitler both supported the fascist elements of the nationalist movement whilst also opposing much of the socialist, Marxist, Stalinist and anarchist sects of the republican movement. Specifically, Hitler wanted to create an ally south of France in the event that France acted upon his planned annexations of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. One of the first key operations was helping General Francisco Franco, a key leader of the nationalist movement and commander of the elite and brutal colonial Moroccan forces, bring his troops out of Morocco and across the strait of Gibraltar. However, this, as well as many other actions taken by German and Italian forces, was in violation of the Non-Intervention Committee of 1936, organised by the British and French which aimed to stop intervention by foreign powers in the Spanish Civil War. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following Stanley Baldwin’s resignation in 1937, especially prioritised Italy in the agreement, as he saw keeping Mussolini on side as incredibly important. However, as the war continued, Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union consistently violated the Committee ruling. France also was prone to violating it from time to time.

A leaky dam, better than no dam at all.
Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary (1935-1938)

A Soviet officer photographed with Spanish Republicans in 1936

Specifically, Soviet intervention on the side of the republicans came at a price, forcing communist voices, especially those who were pro-Stalin, to become more influential in the movement, enabling the nationalists to decry that the Republic was nothing more than a Bolshevist movement set on destroying Spain. This further envigorated the firmly anti-socialist Germany and Italy to continue their support for Spain, which also helped their relationship. One notable instance of assistance was at the bombing of Guernica during a northern Campaign.

Guernica was an old town in North Spain with, at the time, a population of 7,000 people. At around 4:30 in the afternoon on the 26th of April 1937, Luftwaffe and Italian planes blotted out the Sun as the whistling of bombs echoed through the streets. For an hour and a half, Italian and German planes flew over and bombed the town, killing between 170 and 300 people. The indiscriminate nature of the attack caused the bombing to become a symbol of fascist terror. This event was immortalised by Pablo Picasso in one of his most well-known works, simply titled ‘Guernica’. Picasso was in Paris at the time of the German Occupation of France. When a German Officer came into his apartment, he spotted ‘Guernica’. The officer asked Pablo, “Did you do that?” to which Pablo replied, “No, you did.”

A reproduction of Guernica on a tiled wall

The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – at any rate not in Spain.
George Orwell in ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War‘

The war would continue for another 3 years. Whilst Franco, who later became the leader of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975, was not a fascist, he practiced a very authoritarian and dictatorial government, incorporated much fascist symbolism into his regime and did appreciate Hitler. Spain never formally joined the Axis powers and were never involved in direct fighting in the Second World War, with only limited logistical support given to the Germans. As Spain was otherwise occupied, Hitler turned his attention elsewhere, specifically to the far east and the Empire of Japan.

After the First World War, Imperial Japan had claimed many of the former German territories of the Pacific Ocean. However, by the 1930s, the Great Depression had caused a global trade halt, key to the economy of the island nation of Japan. After a far-right military faction instigated a false flag operation, the Japanese conquered Manchuria, an eastern Chinese province, and established the puppet state of Manchukuo, which was also created to establish dominance against the Soviet East. However, this conquest was done without oversight from the civilian government, undermining their influence in Japanese governance.

The Imperial Japanese Army celebrating a victory at Shanghai

In February of 1936, the Kōdōha faction, or the Imperial Way, in the Japanese Military had attempted to organise a coup by murdering a series of government and police officials. Once the uprising was suppressed, the faction purged and the partakers executed, the Japanese military began exerting more control over the civilian government, weaponising their role in the suppression of the coup in order to gain more influence. They pressured the new Prime Minister, Kōki Hirota, about his cabinet appointments and demanded that only active duty officers could serve in ministerial defence positions, a role only reserved for retired officers before this. This meant that a defence Minister could resign and refuse to appoint a successor and a government would bend to their will, shown when Hisaichi Terauchi resigned as Minister of War when Hirota refused to dissolve the Japanese Parliament, the Diet. Whilst Hitler believed that he could secure neutrality with the British, he believed that an alliance with the Japanese would be more prudent, as he thought that Japan was under threat from a Jewish plot and that securing them as an ally would stop the Jews from whatever plans he believed they had.

It was not in the interests of Great Britain to have Germany annihilated, but primarily a Jewish interest. And to-day the destruction of Japan would serve British political interests less than it would serve the far-reaching intentions of those who are leading the movement that hopes to establish a Jewish world-empire.
Hitler in Mein Kampf

Both Japan and Germany also shared a hatred of communism, demonstrated through their war plans against the Soviet Union, further strengthening Hitler’s want for an alliance. Hokushin-ron, the Japanese doctrine, and Lebensraum, the German doctrine, both stated that expansion into the Soviet Union was inevitable. Soon, the pair agreed upon and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, an agreement to undermine the Communist International, a Soviet international body committed to global revolutionary socialism. The Nazis officially qualified the Japanese as those it considered to be honorary Aryans. Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu, brother of incumbent Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), visited the Nazi Party Congress, more commonly known as the Nuremberg Rally, of 1937. Mussolini later signed the pact, one of the first stepping stones in the creation of the Axis Powers, that would come to terrify the world in years to come.