How Hitler Lost The WW2 | Hitler's Lost Battles

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In July 1944, the British secret services consider that as head of the German army, Hitler has become their best ally to bring about the fall of the Reich. During the second world war, Hitler made an increasing number of errors and lost many battles. In 1940, when England was in his reach, Hitler allowed the British army to rebuild itself. A mistake that he will pay a high price for during the Allied landings. In 1942, in yet another bad decision regarding the Red Army, Hitler sends his troops into the cool Russian winter. Hitler loses almost a million soldiers in what will be the real turning point of the second world war. In 1944, he launches an unnecessary attack in the Ardennes. The only one responsible for this massacre, Hitler used up the last of his troops and opened up Germany's doors to the Allied forces. On May 10th, 1940, Hitler launches Operation Fall Gelb, Case Yellow. When Hitler ends his strange war by giving the order to simultaneously invade the Netherlands, Belgium and France, the shockwave created by this lightning invasion shakes the entire world. The plan was to strike in the centre, at Sedan, at the joint of the Maginot Line and its forces in Belgium, where they engage three Panzer Division 1s with an aerial mass of 1,500 aircraft. And they strike the 9th French Army, composed of demotivated reservists. An attack in Belgium and the Netherlands, with the aim of attracting the best Allied troops, followed by a main push in the centre from the Ardennes to break the enemy. That was the plan to scythe through Europe, which the Wehrmacht strategists submitted to Hitler. Cornered on the beaches of the North Sea and faced with German forces who were advancing on them, the Allies can only wait for the final death blow of the Wehrmacht. That's when the unthinkable happens. Going against some of Hitler's most powerful forces, and with the help of his generals, Hitler orders his army to stop advancing. He showed his officers and generals that he was in charge. A leader needs to mark his territory. He's in charge. So he says, stop. That's enough. Hitler was afraid. He was afraid it would be a trap. His troops were advancing much too fast for him. And he was afraid that the lines would stretch, that the supply sources would lag behind. So the Haltpfeld in Dunkirk is probably a panic attack from Hitler that demands that we stop, that we regroup, before we continue to advance. This will give the British time to carry out this incredible operation, the evacuation, the Operation Dynamo, which will be an incredible feat that no one imagined possible. Taking advantage of Hitler's strategic error, the British military launch Operation Dynamo. It was a real gamble that aimed to repatriate the 350,000 soldiers of its expeditionary troops that were held prisoner in Dunkirk. There are no ports. You can't bring big boats to the beach. So you have to bring a lot of small boats that will get as close as possible to the beach. It's an operation that mobilizes everything that floats. That is, we have military boats, we have private yachts, we have boats, fishing boats. The Royal Navy, but also the British Merchant Navy, but also the yachtmen from the coast, everyone in Great Britain, but it has a hard time sending ships. As soon as these British ships moved away from the coasts of France, they had to face the firepower and harassment of the Stukas, the formidable bombers of the Luftwaffe. During this operation, the Luftwaffe, Hitler's air force, killed countless people and caused significant losses. A violent battle took place in the air between the German Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force, which was still well-guarded by the Battle of France, but whose fighters remained very effective. After the British evacuation, all the available air forces on British soil are mobilized. These are serious times, and the very survival of the British army is at stake. Half victory or semi-failure? Certainly, the British forces were rebuilt, but at the cost of tens of thousands of French soldiers who were sacrificed to protect their escape. These are sent into captivity on the other side of the Rhine. Worse still, the British army is unarmed. In its haste, it had to abandon all of its weapons on the French beaches. This loss, assuming that the war continues, is a disaster for the British, while at the same time, on the other side of the Channel, its French ally has surrendered. On the Champs-Élysées, the German troops parade triumphantly. In retorn at the signing of the armistice, Hitler lets his joy show, and with good reason. Continental Europe is entirely at his mercy. And on the other side of the Channel, the British enemy is ready to drop like a ripe fruit. And against all expectations, the Führer does not take action. He tries to make a deal. The British were forced to surrender in order to avoid facing two fronts. So this one would be stopped in the West, and it could be dedicated to the East. It could have worked, except that since May 10, the Prime Minister is no longer called Chamberlain, but Winston Churchill. The choice of Churchill by King George VI was the choice of war. We had a great pretender at the Prime Minister's post, Lord Halifax. He was a pacifist who could have engaged in a policy of compromise with Germany. But King George VI appealed to Churchill, a 65-year-old man with a heavy political career behind him. Churchill is the experience of the First World War. He fought during the Bourse War in South Africa. When Churchill arrives, in his first speech to the Commune, he says, I have nothing to offer but tears and sweat. I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We will fight. We will fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. And he finishes his speech by... We shall never surrender. We will never surrender. We shall win time. He gives a speech saying that some Englishmen are arguing, while in reality it's all nonsense. When Hitler realizes that a negotiation with the British will not succeed, his main objective is to land in England. And to prepare for the landing of the Battle of England. From the many invasion plans put forward by the military, Göring is the one chosen by Hitler. Göring, for reasons of personal prestige and internal positioning in the Nazi hierarchy, wants to push the air force. He promises Hitler that the Luftwaffe will give him Great Britain and the British Empire. Göring says, mein Führer, kein Problem. La Royal Air Force, j'en fais mon affaire. Ils ont perdu mille avions, j'en fais mon affaire. Trois semaines. Hitler, qui n'y connaît rien dans l'aviation, dit, bon, vas-y, puisque, de toute façon, les autres en face n'ont pas l'air de vouloir discuter. C'est une erreur stratégique immense, parce qu'en commençant la Bataille d'Angleterre, il conforte la position de Churchill, et il dresse toute la Grande-Bretagne et l'Empire britannique contre le Reich. July 1940. Hitler and his military set in motion Operation Seelewe. The Sea Lion plan aims to land on the British Isles. In order to achieve dominance in the air, which is essential for the invasion, the entire German air force is mobilized. A thousand fighter jets and as many bombers. Göring's first strategy is to create an artificial embargo from England to isolate the islands from the continent. The ports and navy convoys are the main targets. The second phase is against the bases of the Fighter Command. The Fighter Command is the air defense organization responsible for the defense of the British Isles. This is the crucial period. They will try to destroy the military airfields around London to try to build an air corridor that would allow the German bombers to reach this area. The first idea is to put the British fighter jets at sea or at sea. If on the one hand the British are militarily weakened and on the other hand their aviation is reduced to almost nothing, then the landing will be less difficult. When the Battle of Britain begins, the British air force only has 850 planes, vastly inferior to the number in the Luftwaffe. However, the quality of the British pilots combined with the great maneuverability of the Spitfire made them a formidable opponent. In one month, 500 German planes were destroyed. In addition, in this battle, England had a particularly effective weapon. The planes are 3 miles southwest. They have observers. They have a whole communication system that allows them to use their squadrons as best they can. As soon as the German squadrons take off, we know when they take off, we know what they are made of, we know who they are. And on the other hand, everything is centralized by the air force, which will give, like in a huge war game, the order to take off to this or that squadron. So every time the Germans are expected and surprised. And so their strategy is continually played out by the British. The war effort is entirely in the hands of the RAF pilots. In the first phase of the Battle of Britain, they bring down around 40 German planes every day. But they also have worrying losses. More than 300 fighter planes are brought down and 230 pilots disappear. On the eve of the 7th of September 1940, the British forces have reached the breaking point. At the end or beginning of September 1940, we can say that the British air defense is at the limit of its possibilities. The losses in aircraft and pilots are greater than the renewal of pilots and planes. And so it's a very close game. If Hitler had continued in this strategy, maybe two or three weeks later, he would have won. Except that he changes his mind and decides to attack the large British agglomerations. How can Hitler's strategic U-turn be explained at the very moment when victory seemed imminent? On the 24th of August, an important event takes place that will change everything. On the 24th of August, German bombers by mistake bomb the suburbs of London. The reaction of Churchill was immediate. He bombarded Berlin. Symbolic. A few kilos of bombs. A few, not even hundreds of kilos of bombs. Megering had said something. I'd like to be called Toto. The equivalent of the German Toto. I'd like to be called Toto if an enemy bomb falls on Berlin. Imagine victorious Germany on all fronts and, on the 24th of August, Berlin is bombed. Hitler gets out of his boots and becomes furious. He says, they bombed our cities. Very well. We change our objective. We don't bomb the airfields anymore. And we're going to put pressure on the English cities. Day and night, waves of German bombers receive the order to crush civil targets. London and large cities in the south become their priority targets. Hitler reacted in an emotional way following the bombing of Berlin by focusing on the British cities instead of focusing on the military strategic objectives. The day Hitler got angry and said, I'm going to bomb the cities, it's written in the memoirs of Sir Hugh Dowden, the boss of the Fighter Command, he said, I fell to my knees and thanked heaven for this change. Because during that time, we were going to have dead and wounded in London, but my industrial tool was complete. By moving away from his original objectives, Hitler offers an unexpected response. Factories are starting to operate at full speed with weapons, ammunition and aircraft being manufactured at high speeds. Rearmament is in progress. The decision to bomb the populations instead of the strategic, military and industrial objectives is a huge mistake. When you target a population, you target it behind its government. It's a major psychological and strategic mistake. Subjected to constant bombing, everyone in London is mobilized and stands up in the face of disaster. Some search the debris in search of survivors. Others fight fires with often limited resources and at the slightest alarm, everyone abandons their post to rush to the shelters. When the attacks intensify, Londoners take refuge in the underground stations. They remain calm and settle there as a family. During this period, however, 50,000 people will perish as a result of the German bombs. When the bombings are only carried out at night, hope is truly reborn. It's proof that the Luftwaffe is losing its supremacy in the air. The Royal Air Force, backed by its anti-aircraft defense, has found its efficacy once again. They have 10 minutes over British territory. The fighters escorting them, the Messerschmitt 109, have barely 10 minutes to fight. And when we fight, we have the controller in front of us. We're full of gas, so we're consuming a lot. Very often, if the fighter escort has to face an interception by the fighters of the Fighter Command, they don't have enough autonomy to protect the bombers in the London sky. And these fighters of the Fighter Command are waiting for the bombers in the London sky without an escort to block these German bombing raids. And that's when they lose a lot of people and a lot of planes. The defeats in the air start to add up for the Luftwaffe. Goering has overestimated the strength of his air force. The British planes will hit the German bombers and more than 1,850 bombers and German fighter planes will be destroyed during this battle in England. The advantage will still be with the British. When a British plane is hit, if the pilot is not killed, he jumps in a parachute and lands on British soil. He jumps in a car, a motorcycle. He has to get out of his plane in flames and he is forced to be a prisoner and lost to Germany for the rest of the war. And the Germans will lose a lot of navigators and crews who will make a huge mistake for the rest of the war. During the Battle of Britain, Hitler also made the mistake of putting too much confidence in his air force's technological advances in nocturnal guidance by radio waves. In this War of the Waves, the fighter command that coordinates all of the actions of the British anti-aircraft defense once again has a head start. The British scientists were decisive in this war. German night bombings were regulated by radio navigation. The Germans had automatic guidance systems for the bombers. The bombers were equipped with radio systems and radio-electric beams. Basically, the bomber landed on this beam. When he cut the first one, he heard a beep and he knew he was one minute away from being shot. The second one, he pressed the button. It worked quite well. The British noticed it, they messed up the system. In conclusion, it beeped before, beeped after, and the bombs didn't hit. German bombers often bombed in the wild. The British also reinforced the defense of their city by a consequent death. Balloons made of iron wire were likely to cut the wings of a plane passing through. It was a failure. I would say that on the German side, we let this campaign die on its own so as not to say that it was a failure. In London, the population is relieved. In Berlin, even if he refuses to admit it, Hitler has just lost his first battle. It is difficult to know from when he understood that he would not be able to put the British down. What is certain is that from the end of the 1940s and the very beginning of 1941, his gaze turned east and that the priority became the Soviet Union. Hitler's main goal was a racial and ideological war against the Jews and against Bolshevism. His main objective was the conquest of the East. He warned his relatives that he was planning an attack on the Soviet Union in the spring of 1941. To the amazement of his interlocutors, who tried to calm him down. But he will continue on this idea. He knows that the Red Army is in a very bad state. The equipment is not up to the task. The logistics will not follow. So there is a window of opportunity. And then, of course, it is ideology. That is to say, you have to finish with your inferiors and you have to extend the Nazi empire to the east. To attack Russia, it is necessary to avoid winter. And to avoid winter, it is better to take it very early, that is, in the spring. What was planned was to attack the USSR in March, April 1941. But Mussolini took the initiative without referring to Hitler, to attack Greece. Hitler was furious, of course. But he had to help his ally because the Italian army could not break through to Greece. On the border between Greece and Albania, 16 badly equipped Greek divisions block 27 Italian divisions. Hitler's supposed power is seriously undermined. Hitler detaches forces to help the Italians in Greece. And then he attacks Yugoslavia, which is on the British side at that time. And he can't stand it. On the 6th of April 1941, without any declaration of war, the Luftwaffe bomb Belgrade. Yugoslavia surrenders 10 days later. Mussolini is the main culprit in Greece. Mussolini needed to attack Greece. As for Yugoslavia, it's a story of pure love. It's a sign of pride and anger that Hitler had to punish them. Despite the delay, Hitler once again improvises and decides to put the Soviet Empire out of the game immediately. In his mind, the hopes of the British rely on the USSR. They must be destroyed by succeeding with another blitzkrieg in the east. He had counted two things. On the one hand, the distances, and on the other hand, the population. Because if the Red Army in 1941 is not ready, it has a lot of people. It will be able to mobilize. And with time, it will come to play. On June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa is finally set in motion, three months late. Hitler gave the order for nearly 4 million Axis power soldiers to invade Russia. During the German offensive on the Russians, Hitler gave a terrible blow to Stalin, who locked himself in his office for three days and did not come out for three days. Stalin is completely crazy. He is not surprised that Hitler is crazy enough to engage a second front in the east on such a large territory. Barbarossa mobilizes 4,000 tanks and as many German planes. It's the biggest military operation in history. Fighting on three fronts, the divisions advance in the south towards Kiev, in the center towards Moscow, and north towards Leningrad. At the start of the invasion, the advance of the German divisions is dazzling. The first reason is simply the quality of the German forces. For the last time, the Blitzkrieg works. The strategy of the Blitzkrieg works. So the Germans are very good, and they play to the full extent of their strength. Faced with this blitz, the Red Army is outnumbered and in disarray, especially as it is defending itself without any real strategy. Stalin made a purge on the 37th and 38th, eliminating thousands of Soviet officers. The Red Army, in terms of command, is not the best, it is ineffective. Stalin gave very firm instructions at the beginning, at least, not to retreat. Instead, we fight desperately, we are encircled, and huge numbers of Soviet soldiers are captured. Entire armies of 200,000 to 300,000 men capitulate, captured during large encirclement maneuvers. In total, more than 2.5 million men are captured during the first six months of Operation Barbarossa. It is a huge number of soldiers that the Red Army will lose. Stalin refused to sign international conventions on prisoners of war. He said, a soldier of the Red Army must fight to the death. If he is taken prisoner, he is already a traitor. So his fate does not interest me anymore. These poor Russian soldiers who are taken prisoner will go to German camps, where they will be treated very harshly. They will be treated as slave laborers. More than 30% of them will perish in these camps. We are close to concentration camps and extermination camps. We are getting closer to the conditions. The German soldiers who fall into the hands of the Russians, the Russians do not give them any gifts either. In German cinemas, where propaganda is in full swing, the civilian population is impressed by the rapid progression of the armies. In October 1941, Kiev is conquered. Leningrad is surrounded and Moscow is just a few hundred kilometers away. The environment is catching up with the Germans. The Germans, who were fighting in Western Europe, in Southern Europe, at short distances, are confronted with the Soviet immensity. The lines of communication and supply stretch for hundreds of kilometers. And these are not roads like we have in the West. The logistics of German supply no longer follow. It is an army that was mechanized, which was modern, and which becomes a fantasy army with wagons pulled by horses. And this is what happens to the formidable German army from the fall of 1941, a demodernization. More than 70% is still hippo-mobile. That is to say that horses should not be given gasoline, but hay. If you can bring oil by pipeline, because there are pipelines that advance at the same time as the advance of the troops, there is no hay pipeline. The orders are clear. We feed on the population. So very, very quickly there will be looting, literally villages, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Baltic. And the soldiers will feed, even if people die of hunger. In light of this, the Russians retreat and systematically apply a scorched earth policy. No urban areas are spared. All of the houses and the harvests are burned. Nothing is saved. Infrastructures are destroyed. Every bridge is demolished with explosives. The invaders' advance must be slowed down as much as possible. The German troops' difficulty progressing is compounded by a climatic event known by the Russians as the Rasputitsa. In October, in the Soviet Union, there are rainstorms that turn the roads into a 1-meter-thick boulder. These are rainstorms that fall on the Russian plains. So the army will get stuck in boulders from October 1941. As soon as it rains, the roads become boulders. So progressing becomes very difficult, very slow. And this is something that Hitler does not realize. Horses eat up to the chest. You have to kill them. The trucks and the tanks stay in there. And the problem is that by the end of October, in eight days, it all goes down to minus 30. So the trucks that are 1-meter-thick are now 1-meter-thick. Von Rundstedt, like many German generals, has information coming back from the field, from the lieutenants and captains, saying that the situation is catastrophic. There are 20 or 30 companies with 200 men left. There are only a dozen tanks on a theoretical force of 50 or 100. From November 1941, the German army is at the gates of Moscow. The legend says that some already saw the Kremlin bells. We are about 50 kilometers from the Kremlin. The objectives are quite reached, but with delay. This delay will explain that the German armies will be blocked in front of Moscow, simply because of the snow. The greatest support of Stalin will be, despite the Americans who will provide him with equipment, the Russian general who will come to Stalin's rescue and freeze the German war machine. The soldiers will be equipped with their summer equipment and will not be equipped with winter jackets when the cold falls on them. And a cold of minus 30, minus 40, no one will resist. The German armies are not equipped in the cold because they cannot do everything either. They are not equipped in the cold, or very little. There may be a few SS divisions that are equipped, but they are not equipped. So the poor guys have a hard time. The fuel freezes, you take your rifle, you tighten it and your hands are stuck to the frozen steel. Their tanks will freeze on the spot, their planes will not start, the soldiers will die of cold, everything stops. The German army is now paying a high price for Hitler's delay in launching Operation Barbarossa. It is a badly equipped army, cold and thin, fighting with courage and determination against the Russians who were also more and more determined to defend Moscow and the Motherland. Zhukov is probably one of the most brilliant minds of the Red Army. He started his career as a simple knight. It is even said that he beheaded a white knight with a sword. He is a very brilliant mind, who was trained in particular in Berlin with some Soviet officers who had as a teacher a certain Captain Paulus, who will be the great winner of Stalingrad. Zhukov is a protector of Stalin. He is the man of the situation. He is not someone who will lose his nerves or, like some Soviet generals, want to lead the charge forward to hide their incompetence with a surge of courage. On the 5th of December 1941, the Red Army's counterattack begins. Zhukov takes the offensive, a very well-conducted counteroffensive, which takes the Germans by surprise. They are forced to retreat despite the orders. Hitler gives an order to stop, to turn the villages into fortresses. It is often the civilians who pay for it. They are hunted and delivered to themselves in the snow. Terrible battles take place in these villages because the battle will decide who will sleep in the snow and who will not. These are excessively savage battles, and no longer a modern war. At the end of December 1941, the German front was pushed back 100 or 200 kilometres. In December 1941, Hitler had to admit that his strategy of conquest was a failure. And instead of taking responsibility for this failure, he took charge of these three marshals who commanded the three army groups, the North, the Centre and the South, and invited the officers to leave the battlefield. After the Battle of Moscow, von Rundstedt and 37 other generals were dismissed. Hitler is then forced to have a radical reshuffle of his army. Some of his subordinates can't stand him anymore. He calls on younger wolves who, by ambition, will be much more servile. The head of the German staff is called Keitel. There was a pun at the time, he was nicknamed La-Keitel. It gives an idea of the servility of Hitler's entourage who dared not contradict him, this extreme concentration of decision-making power resulted in catastrophes because a single man took disastrous initiatives. In December 1941, while the situation on the Eastern Front is becoming more complicated, Hitler makes one of the most disastrous decisions of the war. On 7th December 1941, 353 Japanese aircraft take off from six aircraft carriers in the direction of Pearl Harbour, the base of the US fleet in the Pacific. On 7th December 1941, Admiral Yamamoto, in command of the fleet, attacks Pearl Harbour. It's not the United States that's at war. It's Japan that's bombing Pearl Harbour. There's a state of war that the United States can see. I ask that the Congress declare a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire. Two days later, Hitler, supposedly thanks to the German-Japanese pact, declares war on the United States. The pact with Japan only provided assistance if Japan was attacked. But it was Japan that attacked the United States. So there's no case of alliance. Hitler could have declared war on the United States. Germany, Italy and Japan will be defeated by the United States. The German generals are critical, but they can't oppose this project. They're disgusted by this decision, but they obey. I think this decision was made by Hitler's total ignorance of the United States. He never set foot in the United States. He doesn't realize how powerful the United States is. He certainly underestimates the US army. In 1940, the US army was 140,000 men. Hitler thought, if the US army is 140,000 men, they won't be the ones to turn the world upside down. The US army will be a huge war machine. It will produce tens of thousands of tanks. 50,000 Shermans will be produced during World War II. Thousands of planes. By the end of the war, the US army would be 16 million men. In four years, it will grow from 140,000 to 16 million. By underestimating the military power of the United States, Hitler definitely compromises his chances of winning the war. What we see in this war declaration in the United States, which is a personal decision, is the extreme concentration of the decision-making power at the top of the Third Reich, especially in military matters, in Hitler's hands. He wasn't a strategist. He was a man who was starting to get sick, who was full of amphetamines and drugs, like most German generals in general. He was a man who was in crisis. He was a man who was completely suspicious and paranoid. At that time, he was leading the German army in a crucial turn of events in his life, the end of 1941. He lost the world. It is estimated that during the campaign of 1941, he lost about 700,000 men. So he doesn't have the same potential as in June 1941. His strategic perspectives are much more limited. In early 1942, Hitler, who from that point really held all of the power, prepared to make more poor strategic decisions. Between July 1942 and February 1943, the decisions of Hitler to take Stalingrad turned out to be catastrophic. It would have been better to encircle the city of Stalingrad and not to let the German army enter it. So it was terrible. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers from their North African army are condemned. Lax loses so many troops in Tunisia that he loses some in Stalingrad. Germany, withdrawing on all fronts, has to face the consequences of declaring war on the United States. In June 1944, the Normandy landings begin. Hitler doesn't register the importance of this event that will bring about the fall of the Reich. August 1944. Part of the military staff organise a bombing to put a stop to the Führer's dangerous and deadly decisions. December 1944. Hitler, who is increasingly dependent on drugs, convinces men in a counter-attack in the Ardennes that is as pointless as it is deadly. Hitler's final lost battle. This catastrophic attack will bring about the fall of the Third Reich.