Notes 14: The Allies Close in on Germany

World Wars – HamerJanuary 25, 2010

Major Claus vonMajor Claus vonStauffenbergStauffenberg

July 20, 1944 Assassination Plot

1. Adolf Hitler 2. Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel 3. Gen Alfred von Jodl 4. Gen Walter Warlimont 5. Franz von Sonnleithner 6. Maj Herbert Buchs 7. Stenographer Heinz Buchholz 8. Lt Gen Hermann Fegelein 9. Col Nikolaus von Below10. Rear Adm Hans-Erich Voss11. Otto Gunsche, Hitler's adjutant12. Gen Walter Scherff(injured)13. Gen Ernst John von Freyend14. Capt Heinz Assman(injured)

July 20, 1944 Assassination Plot

• Culmination of years of planning and attempted plots

• Approximately 7,000 were arrested by the Gestapo and almost 5,000 were executed

Allied Decision – What to do After Paris PART 1

• Germany appeared beaten after the fall of Paris– The Allies had recaptured France– Soviet Union was moving in from the East– Allies wanted to end the war in 1944

Allied Decision – What to do After Paris PART 2

• 2 options– Montgomery proposed a single pronged attack

towards the Ruhr• This would involve Monty’s armies leading the attack

and Patton’s standing still to preserve supplies

– Eisenhower wanted a broad front strategy instead• Even though the Allies were having supply shortages

since their only ports were still back in Normandy

Allied Issues Fall 1944• Manpower shortages– England didn’t have anyone else– America was stretched from a 2-front war

• Overconfidence– Had issues with intelligence and underestimating

German reserves in the West

• Troops were outrunning supplies and Allies needed a port nearer to the front – were hoping for Antwerp in Belgium– Allies captured the port of Antwerp in September 1944,

but Hitler controlled the estuary leading from the port

Operation Market Garden PART 1• Planned for September 1944• Montgomery’s plan– Wanted to cross the Rhine in

Holland to outflank the Siegfried line

– Wanted to threaten the V2 launch sites in Holland

• Allied paratroopers would be dropped in to control bridges– Would have to hold out for 3

days before reinforcements would come

American troops cross the Siegfried Line

Operation Market Garden PART 2• Would face 2 German Panzer

divisions– Once again overconfidence got

the better of the Allies

• Market Garden was a huge failure as the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem faced terrible resistance from the German Panzer corps– Meant the Allies would not win

the war or cross the Rhine in 1944

German troops near Arnhem (above)

Allies Enter Germany• Patton’s First Army were

bogged down in Lorraine during Market Garden– Entered Germany and took

the town of Aachen, after an almost 3 week long battle, on October 21, 1944

– Aachen saw 5,000 casualties for the Allies and 5,000 dead or injured for the Germans with another 5,000 taken prisoner

GI’s in Aachen 10-15-1944

Germany’s Ardennes Offensive PART 1

• Hitler wanted one last offensive in the West – hoping to defeat the Allies– This was against the urgings of his high command who

wanted to fortify defenses behind the Rhine

• Plan was to attack the Allied line in the Ardennes Forest, then make a drive for Antwerp to split the Allied forces and seize the oil coming in there.

• Finally the Germans would destroy the different bits of the Allied army that were now encircled

Germany’s Ardennes Offensive PART 2

• Hitler sent his best troops and tanks into this battle– Tigers– Panthers– SS from the

Eastern Front

Vulnerable Allies

• Assumed the Ardennes were impenetrable to tanks

• Germans assumed radio silence so Ultra didn’t work– But duh – what did they think the radio silence

meant?• Germans were massing troops along the

Western Front and the overconfident Allies ignored what this meant

Operation Autumn Fog• Launched December 16, 1944• Aimed at the Allied line in between British (North) and

American (South) forces• Took Americans by surprise– Some Nazis who spoke good English wore American

uniforms to sneak through the line and do sabotage at the beginning of the battle

– Patton described it as: “Krauts… speaking perfect English… raising hell, cutting wires, turning road signs around, spooking whole divisions, and shoving a bulge into our defenses.”

• Allies couldn’t use air support because of terrible weather for one week

• Created a huge bulge in the American lines– Hence called “The Battle of the Bulge”

The Battle of the Bulge PART 1

• Hitler used seven panzer divisions, two panzer brigades and thirteen infantry divisions for a total of 240,000 soldiers.

• The tank divisions drove 60 miles into the Allied territory

The US 75thin the

Ardennes Forest

during the Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge PART 2• Patton’s army was able to break the siege

of the important crossroads town of Bastogne on December 26, 1944

• Allied air power was able to halt the German offensive once the weather cleared

• This battle raged on until January 25, 1945 when the line was pushed back until it was close to its original position.

Clockwise from top left: American POW’s; massacred Belgian civilians; NAZI soldiers in the Ardennes; the Malmedy Massacre

The Battle of the Bulge PART 3• By the time the battle was over, the Germans had

lost 120,000 troops (dead, wounded, or captured), 600 tanks and assault guns, and 1600 planes.

• This proved to be too much of a loss, and after this point the Nazis were on the retreat on both fronts– Operation Autumn Fog had pulled too many resources

from the Eastern Front and now the Soviets were closing in on Germany

• Battle of the Bulge Maps

The Battle of the Bulge Atrocities

• Malmedy Massacre December 17, 1944: A group of German soldiers from the 1st SS Panzer division massacred 120 American troops by mowing them down with machine guns and pistols in a large field.

• In another location (Wereth) soldiers from the same division on the same day tortured and killed 11 African American troops

Hitler’s Secret Weapons PART 1

• During the war, Hitler had focused the German army’s attention on creating new and deadlier weapons.

• Originally, the research was focused on a nuclear weapon, but this was later put aside because it was considered too slow and costly.

• While some weapons did not work, like the vertical take-off plane, many were successful and revolutionary.

Hitler’s Secret Weapons PART 2• The V-1 Flying Bomb was

created in Germany by1942.• It operated on a jet-pulse

engine with a gyroscopic guidance system.

• After initial flight problems were fixed, the V-1 was first used against England beginning in June of 1944.

• The V-1 had to be launched from ramps on the ground or from planes.

Hitler’s Secret Weapons PART 3• The British knew the V-1 was coming because of its

characteristic buzzing noise, which gave it the nickname of “buzz bomb”.

• The V-1 killed over 6,000 people and injured almost 18,000 in London.

• British countermeasures involved sending misinformation through Double Cross to convince the Germans that they were aiming wrong.

Spitfire tips a V-1 mid-flight

Hitler’s Secret Weapons PART 4• Next, the Germans invented

the V-2 Rocket.• This was an improvement

on the V-1 because it could fly faster than the speed of sound.

• It flew so quickly and quietly that the British did not know what hit them when the V-2 attacks began in September of 1944.

Hitler’s Secret Weapons PART 5

• The V-2 flew so quickly on its alcohol and oxygen fuel that countermeasures were useless; thankfully by March of 1945 the Allies had captured or destroyed the V-2 launch sites.

• The V-2 technology and those who created it would later be brought to America and the Soviet Union to create rocket technology that would take us into space.

V-1 Rocket:V-1 Rocket:“Buzz Bomb” - first guided missile - used against “Buzz Bomb” - first guided missile - used against

Allies since June 1944Allies since June 1944

V-2 Rocket - supersoninc, first successfully fired on V-2 Rocket - supersoninc, first successfully fired on September 8, 1944September 8, 1944

Werner von Braun

Hitler’s “Secret Weapons”:Too Little, Too Late!

The Holocaust

Kristallnacht• November 9-10, 1938 – Night of Broken Glass• First mass orchestrated violence against Jews by

Nazis in Germany• “In response” to the assassination of a German

diplomat by a Polish Jew– According to Wikipedia: “In a coordinated attack on

Jewish people and their property, 91 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked”• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht

Clockwise from top left: NYT claims that

Goebbels stopped the violence; burning

synagogue; Jewish prisoners at Buchenwald;

evidence of violence

Timeline of Nazi Racial Policy

• 1935 Nuremberg Laws about Jewish citizenship

• November 1938 Kristallnacht• 1938 Policy of forced emigration• January 20, 1942 Plan for final solution –

systematic mass murder of Jews• Death camps were built in 1942: 10% would

work, the rest would be killed

Allied Knowledge of the Holocaust• Some knowledge met with different reactions:– Were aware of concentration camps, but not as much

information about death camps– Many were skeptical about reports of death camps

• Why no Allied response?– Racism– If camps or rail lines were bombed, inmates would be

killed and this would distract from the war effort– Focused on ending the war and figured that would end

the atrocities

Liberation of the Death Camps PART 1

• British and American forces were pushing into Germany from the West while the Soviets were making their way to Germany from the East.

• As the Soviets moved across Poland, they were the first to come upon the Nazi death camps in July 1944.

• The SS guards that ran the death camps worked feverishly to bury and burn all evidence of what happened there, but they were not fast enough.

Liberation of the Death Camps PART 2

• The Soviets entered Majdanek, a death camp in Poland, and found a thousand starving prisoners, the world’s largest crematorium, and a storehouse containing 800,000 shoes.

• A Soviet war correspondent reported that, “this is not a concentration camp, it is a gigantic murder plant.”

• American troops would later come across equally horrific camps in Germany.

Liberation of the Death Camps

• Selection of Jews for work or death

at Birkenau

Liberation of the Death Camps PART 3

• These death camps were a part of the Nazis’ “Final Solution” for those that they wanted to get rid of for the Nazi plan for Germany.

• This wide scale massacre of approximately 10 million people by the Nazis is known as the Holocaust.

• Some of the groups that were targeted were: homosexuals, those with disabilities, anti-Nazi clergy, the Roma (gypsies), and the Jews.

Liberation of the Death Camps PART 4• An estimated 5 to 6 million Jews, including 3 million

Polish Jews• Estimates place total number of Polish deaths around

5.4mill. 1.8 – 1.9 million Christian Poles and other (non-Jewish) Poles

• 200,000 – 800,000 Roma & Sinti (Gypsies)• 200,000 – 300,000 people with disabilities• 80,000-200,000 European Freemasons• 100,000 communists• 10,000 – 25,000 homosexual men• 2,500 – 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses

Liberation of the Death Camps PART 5

• The anti-Semitism program of the Nazis began by forcing Jewish people into ghettoes and then concentration camps.

• Some Jews (and the other groups that were captured) were forced to perform slave labor at work camps. Others had medical experiments performed on them.

• In 1942, the Germans began widespread execution of Jews and other victims at death camps. This killing did not end until the death camps were captured by Allied troops.

Crematoria at Crematoria at MajdanekMajdanek

Entrance to Entrance to AuschwitzAuschwitz

The Holocaust

Slave Labor at BuchenwaldSlave Labor at Buchenwald

The Holocaust

Mass Graves at Mass Graves at Bergen-BelsenBergen-Belsen

The Holocaust

STOP

The Fall of Berlin• The two sides of the Allied armies were closing in

on Germany by the spring of 1945. By April 25, 1945, the Soviet army had stormed Berlin. Approximately 10,000 German soldiers were left to defend the city. The Soviets captured the German Reichstag (Congress) on May 2, 1945. Small pockets of resistance continued until the official surrender on May 8, 1945. This was known as V-E Day – Victory in Europe Day – when the war in Europe was finally over.

The Fall of Berlin

• Russian Katyusha rocket launchers fire on Berlin

The Fall of Berlin

• The Red Army flew the Soviet flag from the top of the Reichstag

• Soviet troops signed their names on the side of the Reichstag

The Fall of Berlin

• President Roosevelt did not live to see this victory, he died on April 12, 1945 at his home in Warm Springs, Georgia. Vice President Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president and guided America through the victory in Europe.

Hitler’s Death

• Hitler had made the Füherbunker, located in Berlin, his primary base on January 16, 1945. By April 22, 1945 it seemed to those around him that Hitler had finally admitted defeat and realized that Germany would lose the war. Shortly after midnight on April 29, 1945, Hitler married his long time companion, Eva Braun. Earlier that day he had written his last will and testament.

Hitler’s Death

• At approximately 2:30 pm on April 30,1945, the Soviets raised their flag over the Reichstag and Hitler and Eva Braun went into their study. Approximately an hour later, a gunshot was heard. Hitler’s valet opened the door to the study and found Eva Braun and Hitler dead.

Hitler’s Death

• Braun had killed herself by ingesting a cyanide capsule. Hitler shot himself in the right temple at the same time that he had a cyanide capsule in his mouth. Following Hitler’s orders, members of Hitler’s SS bodyguards took the bodies outside, doused them with gasoline, and tried to cremate the corpses. This did not completely work, so the bodies were buried where they were later found and confiscated by the Soviets.

The FThe Füührer’s Bunkerhrer’s Bunker

Cyanide & PistolsCyanide & Pistols

Mr. & Mrs. HitlerMr. & Mrs. Hitler

Hitler Commits Suicide April 30, 1945

Hitler’s Death

• On the left, an American Military paper wrongly stated that Hitler fell in Battle

• Time magazine cover after Hitler’s death (eyes wrong color)

Hitler’s Death• Many believe that the

public and disturbing execution of Mussolini and his mistress further encouraged Hitler to take his own life instead of being captured. Others in Hitler’s command, such as Goebbels, also killed themselves and their families.