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Thanks a lot. That's very kind. I enjoyed your reaction to Al Murray. He has a massive interest in war history and also in film history. He has presented many tv programmes about both subjects.
Thanks. This time of Russian history has a lot unknown points. I'd like to offer you a GREAT FILM produced by US. WAR DEPARTMENT . IT'S; "WHY WE FIGHT." I think you will like it.
The Red Army from 1944-1945 was the strongest land force in the last 100 years. An unstoppable force of millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of tanks, aircrafts and artillery pieces.
@@Ares-s6v Yes, the price was high, especially because in 1941 the Soviet Union was ill prepared for German invasion. My country Serbia, for example, lost 28 % of its population during the First World War. Victory cannot be achieved without sacrifice.
I am sad because author of this animation didnt even mentioned Yugoslavia and Yugoslav partisans who libereted almost whole country by themselves. Only part of Serbia was libereted with Soviet help and we are really proud of that 😊 Fun fact: At the end of war 1945. Yugoslavia had large army of 800.000 soldiers. One of the largest in Europe (beside Red Army, Britain, America) Also, german forces in Greece was not "important" for Red Army because Yugoslav partisans taken care of them, and almost completely destroyed that army, and others forces in Yugoslavia.
I think that they had to cover so much in so little time that "sideshows" (and I don't mean that in a demeaning sense) like Yugoslavia couldn't be fitted in. Worthy of a documentary on its own. I knew an old man who had fought, as a British officer , with Tito's partisans.
If you look closely, you can see some Yugoslavian army counters in the southern part of the front (for instance at 24:00), so they were not completely forgotten :)
A bridge head is an area captured on the enemy side of a river (or coast). It needs to be held and expanded so new troops coming in have a relatively safe place to cross into. On D-Day each beach had it's own bridge head and the main objective of day 1 was to link them together. It didn't quite work but close enough so by day 2 they were all linked.
Very very good to see an American really learn about the Eastern Front of WWII. It is so pivotal to understanding WWII and has by far the most interesting dynamic from a historical point of view, with Germany having the upper hand to start with and conducting strategically brilliant offensives, only for this to gradually change, and for the Red Army to be turned into an incredible war machine, conducting its own mastermind offensives. The Eastern front is where Germany goes from winning to losing the war on the grand scale. Trying to grasp the scope of the Eastern front is mind boggling, and there are so many individual campaigns/battles to dive into, that you can practically study it for a lifetime. What the series could have included is to show strength of force including tanks and aircraft, not only soldiers. The use of tanks and aircraft in the war is an entire chapter in itself, and I would also suggest looking into the development and use of tanks during the war to understand this aspect better. It is very interesting!
7:28 The Soviet won the winter war, but they severely underestimated the finns and got a bloody eye from them. which made them look weak and that persuaded Hitler too invade the Soviet Union sooner
To elaborate: the Soviet union "won" in terms of coming out of the conflict with the land they wanted. However, they suffered casualties at a ratio around 5-1 and made themselves look weak for struggling so much to take a small country.
The eastern from was one of the most intense theaters of the war. The Germans always had about 2/3rds of their army posted to the east throughout the war and about 80% of Germanies casualties in the war were suffered on the eastern front. There are some good channels that go over the fighting in the east in more detail. I would recommend Potential History or The Armchair Historian. Their channels have some really good videos on the eastern front and other battles. The movie your thinking of is The Bridge over the River Kwai. It's about British POW's being forced to build a bridge for the Imperial Japanese army in Burma during World War 2.
I'd argue it was the MOST intense theater. As well as the military casualties, the civilian casualties were monstrously high too - entire villages and communities were turned into deserts as part of the German policy to cleanse the land of so-called 'undesirables', and the Holocaust effectively began there with huge massacres at places like Babyn Yar The Eastern Front was hell on earth.
My great-grandfather, after he set up the production of cartridges and shells in Staltngrad (he was sent there from Moscow in 1941) volunteered to go to war. He hit the Marines. He had a chance to fight on the Kursk Bulge. In one of the operations in that great battle, the marines marched in the front ranks and captured the first line of defense of the Nazis, giving time to our main forces to approach. "Suicide" are shorter. There his foot was blown off by a shell fragment. He lay for 2 days and waited for his approach. The fact is that all the troops were rushing forward, as soon as possible to recapture the plateau from the Germans, but the rear had not yet approached. And great-grandfather found himself in a vacant lot, some had already left, while others had not yet arrived. He screwed up with the corpses of fascists (an improvised fortification) and fired off individual small groups of retreating fascists. After 2 days, he was picked up by the rear artillery during the offensive. The leg was completely computed due to infection.
West of Budapest in Hungary were the last remaining oil fields available to the germans so they tried to desperately cling to the western part of Hungary. Greetings from Budapest.
The Bridge of the river Kwai involved the British and the Japanese in Burma. Films involving this front are : "A Bridge Too Far" and "The Bridge of Remagen". By the way this is what the Battle of Berlin looked like : Battle of Berlin 1945 - Nazi Germany vs Soviet Union [HD] - UA-cam and with more detail, starting from the Battle of the Bulge : Battlefield S1/E6 - The Battle of Berlin - UA-cam At the time of the Battle of Berlin, one German general commented that he could not imagine it would be possible to walk from the Eastern to the Western fronts in a day.
'The Bridge on the River Kwai', was a film set in Burma in early 1943. It basically looks at the building of the Burma-Thailand Railway. The protagonists were Japanese/Thais vs The Allies (British, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, & US POWs)
@@Paltse The film bears NO real relation to the actual story Merry Christmas Mr. Laurence is better played by David Bowie. That film BotRK shat all over the soldiers and officers captured.
@@dave_h_8742 So what? I am not the OP and am specifically interested in the protagonist/antagonist situation and not other merits or the lack of said.
Yes, there might be a mix up with the bridge of Arnheim or the bridge of Remagen which are in fact at the Rhine river and played some role in the conquest of Germany by the Western Allies. Also movies on these historic episodes exist.
You should watch the Soviet film 'Come and See'. It is the most accurate war movie ever made. The director and camera man were partisans in ww2. Its strange that the scariest movie ever made is not a horror film, but a war film.
@@carolinekofahl8867 we know. many people say germans instead of the axis cus it’s just more popular which i think people should atleast use nazis but would prefer axis since it includes all their allies and puppet states
In addition to your words: While well-equipped experienced and numerous units were fighting against the USSR, only 60 divisions were fighting against the Allies, consisting in most cases of Volkssturm fighters, who had almost no equipment and of which there were only 2 tank units.
20:09 The southern part was more important because Germany used to import oil from Romania. Soviets attacked Romania in August 1944 in an effort to cut Germany's supply of oil. Once Romania was knocked out, German industry went dead and military had only limited offensive potential.
@@АндрейЛарин-в6н Hungary's oil reserves were modest.Romanian oil fields fueled the German industry and military. Already in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, Germans experienced first serious problems with oil supply.
@@milostomic8539 Romania supplied Germany with about 14million barrels a year from 1941 to 43 and only 7million in 1944, Germany produced 10million crude in 1944 and 44million synthetic. Germany also lost about 90% of its soft skinned vehicles to the Allies air force by the time 1944 had ended.
@@brianlong2334 Even that wasn't enough for German industry and military.Hitler wanted the oil rich Caucasus at all cost. Oil wasn't the only problem, from 1943 Germany faced lack of manpower in military.They were already fighting in the East and North Africa, later in Sicily and Italy. In 1944 German military was stretched on 3 fronts - East, West and Italy + engaged in a bitter fight in the Balkans against resistance movements.
@@milostomic8539 Manpower was a problem due to the multiple fronts. The German military was at it's peak the same size as the Russian's peak, at 11million, however Russia didn't have two fronts. And had over 3x as much fuel and an ally that could totally supply it with resources and equipment.
A bridgehead is a launchpad for future operations, which normally spans a natural obstacle, so fir example the army controls some territory on the other side of a river or a mountain range, beyond which the enemy is in control. Keeping a grip on such small pieces of land are something crucial for future operations
Reaction to Western front: Animated 1940? Its basically the same but it shows the invasion of france with the same amount of Detail. Its by the same guy
Word!!! I watched many years ago when I was a kid in Panama. Watching that series started my lifelong interest in European History in the 20th century.
The Soviets actually won the winter war with Finland due to a huge numbers advantage but they started really badly and the Finns held on really well. It highlighted how the political changes Stalin had made to the army had failed and really weakened it. The Finns had to give some land to Russia at the end of that war. That's why they joined the Germans in WW2, to try get it back.
@@Admin-gm3lc I have no reason to spread Finnish propaganda and don't think I have. I would be happy to be corrected if I have said anything that is not factual.
Its not because of the "political bullshit" it was because the first attacks were badly commanded and planned. Stop sticking that "commie bad" in every fucking sentence.
And that's a wrap! Loved watching your reaction. Do try epic history TV history of Russia . It's like 5 parts of like 10-15 mins each. Cheers from Sevastopol 🇷🇺❤️
The Soviets didnt lose the winter war. They won it. The Fins made a peace deal with them, giving up some small terretories to the Russians. Its a Thing of perspektive. The Russians have lost much more Man and Equipment then their Enemy. But they also did in WW2 and they won. So jusrt because someone with a much bigger Population and much bigger Economy loses more Man and Equipment that doesnt mean they lose.
Yes, you're right. The Soviets achieved their goals in the Winter War. An interesting clarification: before the Winter War, Stalin offered Finland an exchange of territories to move the Finnish border away from the important Soviet city - Leningrad. In return, the Soviets offered even more territory to the Finns in Karelia, but the Finns foolishly refused this offer. And Stalin started the war as a result of which the Finns lost their territory, but did not get anything in return.
@@AWtify That is a narrative the Moscow has keen interest on keeping on, in the Finnish side the narrative is: would you willingly compromise the defenses of the second most influential city you have for unending tracts of wild forest that is not as defensible because the roads at that point were and still are a muddy mess there, whilst carelian isthmus had two to three major rail lines?
@@AWtify In reality Soviets wanted whole Finland, the demands were just the first step. Soviets didn't achieve their goals. They demanded half of Mannerheim line (Finland's main defensive line) and a military base in Hanko and offered useless forest in return. Soviets made similar "offers" to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and look what happened... they got tricked and were part of Soviet Union until -91.
@@AWtify Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Nazi-Germany and Soviet Union divided Europe to their zones. Soviets got Eastern Europe, so they used the chance to occupy more land now that Germany wasn't going to intervene.
A few more details on Romania: 1. We only tried to keep our people united in an independent country. So when France surrendered and Great Britain was focused on defense, we had to choose, Germany or Soviet Union. Since Soviet union was a BIG no, we went with Germany to survive. 2. When we joined the war with the soviets we wanted to stop once we got Bessarabia back (the soviets demanded it 1 or 2 years earlier). We kept pushing once we achieved this because Hitler told our leader that if we help we might get northern trasylvania back (demanded by hungary 1 or 2 years earlier). 3. We changed sides in 1944 because there was a coup d'etat (there's more to the coup, but it is not the main point of my comment). So in the end we just tried to survive, like we always did in history. We joined axis because it was the only option we had on the table. Our battle on the east was more about politics than army.
Just wanted to say you have really good commentary. Like you might not know too much about this part of history but you’re asking all the right questions and making solid observations
Germans concquered Denmark and Norway in 1940, in order to secure naval bases in north and shipping of resources like iron from both Norway and Northern Sweden, so that's why they retreated from Finland up there
So Gal you might also like the "Soviet Storm " it contains most of the bigger battles, in 18 one hour parts, produced in 2011. The best I have seen since the "Unknown war" narrated by Burt Lancaster in 1979.
Hi SoGal, another late viewing by myself. The Warsaw uprising was crushed by the Germans. It has been said that Stalin withheld his forces from liberating Warsaw to allow this to happen, which meant he would face less opposition when he occupied Poland after WW2. In some ways he let the Germans do his dirty work.
Pushed into the sea is basically what happened to the British at Dunkirk. The Germans assumed they would all have to surrender and so stopped attacks for 6 days. That was a big mistake and allowed the British to evacuate 350,000 men - the core of the army - back to England, along with substantial numbers of French, who became the Free French forces.
3:20 From biggest to smallest: Army group -> Army -> corps -> division -> brigade -> regiment -> battalion -> company -> platoon -> group. Army consists of a few corps and other units Corps - at least 2 divisions but could be more depending how the units were formed. Division - around a few regiments (5-10 regiments) Brigade is like a smaller division
Small fact the Russian attack on 26 th June, operation Bagration was to coincide with the Anglo American attack on D Day of the 6 th June but was delayed by Stalin until the 26 th to make sure that the D Day landing in the West hadn’t failed.
Hello SoGal. I've recently discovered your channel and am really enjoying your videos. I'm a 65 year old Brit who's dad was in the Royal Navy in WW2. As you're interested in military history and in regard to your Eastern front reviews, which were great, I'd recommend the book Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor. Also, treat yourself and watch a UK tv series from the 1970s, the world at war, narrated by the actor Sir Laurence Olivier. It was great then and it's great now. Thanks for the panto review!
I'm going to be the contrarian here and say that anthony beavers book was pretty inaccurate and riddled with biases. I'm not sure if you'll even see my reply so I wont go into specifics but if you do, feel free to ask me and I can run through some specifics about why I dont like his book
The Wehrmacht had very trained officers from the old compact and professional German army. Unfortunately, Stalin carried out a bloody cleansing among his trained officers and the Wehrmacht had the full advantage at the beginning of the war. But then the Soviet soldiers noticed that if you kill German officers, then the offensive impulse of the Germans drops significantly. Then the sniper war began. By the end of the war, the Germans no longer had experienced officers. They prepared them on 2-3 month courses. Therefore, by the end of the war, the professionalism of the Wehrmacht fell dramatically. The Volkssturm could not lead to victory.
@@geodude205 Parts of the Soviet people were experiencing hell before the German invasion due to purges and famines. That is why Germans were actually welcomed in some places - like Ukraine.
Regarding the Finnish campaign. This is the origin of the term 'Molotov Cocktail'. The Russians claimed to be dropping g bread to the Finnish, they were actually dropping cluster bombs. As a reposte the Finnish attacked Soviet forces, particularly mechanised with lit bottles of Vodka. They called these Molotov Cocktails after the Soviet Diplomat, he was the equivalent of Foreign Secretary at the time.
Small correction: The Soviets didn't formally lose the Winter War. A peace treaty was signed and Finland had to give up 11% of their territory and pay war reparations. As for the USSR, they have had tremendous casualties which showed the embarassing weakness of the Red Army at that time. That's why it has become a meme, and furthermore, why people consider the USSR to be the looser. Nontheless, it was frankly Finland.
Yeah, I got that wrong. Someone had explained to me before that the Soviets didn't do a great job fighting against Finland, and I mixed that up as them losing. But my mistake.
@SoGal In reply to your question about Romania: Romania did provide quite a lot of intel to the Soviets when captured or pressed. Antony Beevor's famous book, Stalingrad goes into detail about how Red Army and NKVD officers found Romanians to be pretty open about the German army, their capabilities, and dispositions during the offensive towards Stalingrad and during the battle (it was only 1942 and the Romanian army was already not happy with the whole situation). Romania was a very reluctant participant of the Axis and was backed into a corner politically and diplomatically as their main allies, France and Britain pretty much allowed Romanian territory to be carved up and handed over to Hungary. Romania was fixated on just simply getting their lost territory back, and then some extra. This is why their participation level and contribution to the war were so high. Their defection did speed the war up and it meant the Soviets could start pushing into Hungary a lot quicker than they anticipated. German and Hungarian troops were in a mad dash to withdraw now they were in a very hostile country with their biggest ally (in terms of manpower) now hell-bent on driving them out. Their reward for defecting was in short, they got their lost territory back from Hungary but had their border fixed as it was in 1941 against the Soviet Union. All of the captured Soviet equipment they had (which was being put to very good use by the underequipped Romanian army) was taken off them and they were used in a lot of bloody offensives to free up Soviet manpower elsewhere. TLDR: They did provide intel, but for their own national interests in an effort to get what they felt they were (rightfully) entitled to, but the Soviet Union made them pay a steep price for it.
If you're interested in a bit of a more detailed view of the eastern front - there's a documentary called "Soviet Storm" here on youtube by StarMediaEN. In my opinion it's the absolute best documentary on the subject currently in existence. It was originally made in Russian, the script was written by some of the best Russian historians. Unfortunately, the translators of the English version for some reason decided to replace some of the original lines with pretty much their political opinions. But it doesn't affect the material too much and it's still an amazing documentary, highly recommend it.
Quick Recap A bridgehead is a 'breach' in a defensive line which was stationed in the river. For more context, the enemy army might form a defensive line by the river, and a bridgehead is a term for breaching it.
A bridgehead/beachhead is essentially a perimeter that you can hold and defend. If you were to capture or build a bridge across a river being used a a defensive barrier, your troops would cross the bridge and push outwards to create a perimeter. A large number of troops and supplies requires a large physical space. You can only reinforce your troops, the bridgehead, if the perimeter expands. Your troops need to keep pushing outwards, this enables you to reinforce across your bridge and into the physical space your existing troops have created. That reinforcement will help/enable you to increase the size of your perimeter, thus making more space and so on. The enemies job is to stop that expansion, if they stop your perimeter from growing then they stop your ability to reinforce. They don't have the same problem you have got, they already have the space, but can they react in time? It is a race to build up the required numbers to gain a decisive advantage in numbers and fire power.
Bulgaria declared war on Germany and the other Axis powers on September 9th 1944. An armistice was signed with the Allies on October 28th, so technically Bulgaria was at war with both the Allies and the Axis for a time.
That's cool that you watched this video. It's sometimes lack a specific informations but serves well as overthrough information before watching more detailed videos about some of the particular eastern front facts.
The POLISH were the first to break the German Enigma code. Some Polish mathematicians smuggled their work to the British. This was the land army Enigma machine code. Later the British got the German Navy enigma machine code by sinking a German Uboat and before it fully sunk British sailors retrieved the code books from the sub allowing thr Navy codes to be broken.
The Winter War of the USSR and Finland ended with a military victory of the USSR. Finland was forced to cede all of Karelia in favor of the USSR. The losing side never receives a portion of its territory from the winning side.
@@SoGal_YT The winner of a war is not determined by the number of soldiers lost. The USSR conducted offensive operations, and the Finnish army conducted defensive operations. in textbooks on the art of war, it is written that the losses of the attackers are threefold compared to the losses of the defenders. in addition, that war was winter not in africa, but in the homeland of santa claus, it was very cold. The Finns were in their heated concrete pillboxes, and the Soviets were in the tundra. therefore, the soviet troops had a lot of frostbitten and frozen, and the finns had very little.
Like one Red Army General about the Winter War, looking at a map of the territory just conquered, is said to have remarked: "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead." ...War isn't always that simple that one wins and other loses. Finland might lost some of it territories, but at least they didn't lost their independence.
@7:29. So there's some misinformation about this topic, probably due to all the memes. The Soviets did win the Winter War, it was just very pyrrhic (high casualties), took way longer than it should have, and was poorly conducted.
@@b4nterontilt umm okay so Finns lost about 100k people. By your logic the Soviet Union lost half a million. Lol thats Just crazy. Its more like the Soviet Union lost 150 and Finland lost 100. Thats anywhere near 5 times more.
@@geodude205 Russian Casualties: 126,000 killed 260,000 wounded or sick 7K POWs 900 aircraft lost + around 2K lost tanks and vehicles Finnish Casualties: 29,000 killed 36,000 wounded 40 aircraft lost 30 tanks lost Soviet losses were catastrophic
If no one has written it yet At that time Hungary had a few small oil fields that the Germans urgently needed for the war. This were the last small oil resources after Romania switched sides. Since the transport of the oil to the German Reich was very difficult due to the Allied bombings and the distance, the Germans were only able to try offensives in Hungary. That was one of the reasons why the Russians first tried to conquer Hungary and focused on the south. In addition, of course, they wanted to drive the last German ally (Hungary) out of the war, and fasten the collapse of German Reich by that. Regarding what you meant by free ride to Berlin: In addition to the numerical superiority, there were several reasons for this: 1. The last combat-ready troops had tried to defend the Ruhr area, since that is the industrial heart of Germany. These are the troops that have been trapped at 25:37 2. It was precisely at this time that German troops surrendered in rows, as the end of the war was in sight and every soldier would rather be captured by the Allies than by the Russians. 3. Even when soldiers wanted to continue fighting, this was often problematic because the Germans could not withdraw quickly enough because there was a lack of fuel for trucks and tanks. Many tanks were abandoned and / or blown up during this period because there was no fuel supply. Allied troops were fully mechanized and overrunned the germans resistance. In general, you can say that the Allies saved one thing from higher losses: The absolute air superority! Germany didn't have the problem that the planes didn't exist or were too bad. There was simply no fuel and the few pilots were too inexperienced, especially after the German Pyrhic victory in Operation Bodenplatte. In this way, the Allies were able to bomb the German armaments industry almost unhindered, making supply much more difficult. But above all, they were able to take out the superior German tanks, because in terms of tank technology, the Germans were superior to all others. But since the tanks were often attacked from the air while they were being transported and there was a lack of fuel, the Germans could not use this advantage. Without Allied air superiority and with enough fuel fot the Germans, the Allied losses would probably be three or four times as high.
May I suggest going back in history to the 18th century, and check out the incredible British defence of Rorks Drift. A brilliant film which has now became a classic was made about it called Zulu ❤️🇬🇧
Someone else mentioned this to me, but I don’t believe I’ve seen it. I’d like to though. Will probably have to do it on my own time since it’s super long!
Excellent documentary that covered theatres of war that were less well known and importantly as it was made so long ago it featured first hand accounts from all sides.
yea i don’t know if u know the exact number but it’s estimated that the soviet’s lost at a minimum 26,000,000 people (soldiers and civilians) and at the max 34,000,000 people
In order to understand the nature of the war between the USSR and Germany, you need to know the content of the main program document of the NSDAP "Mein Kampf". Without knowledge of this book, only a quarter can be understood.
@Dave Arloff The fact is that Mein Kampf was known very well in the USSR because after 1933, when Adolf Schicklgruber was elected chancellor in the democratic elections in Germany, this book began to be published in millions of copies in Germany. In the USSR, it was read and everyone knew it.
As you seem interested I would like to add some things here. I hope they are interested. 1. It's useful to think of western Russia as a huge funnel - as the Axis forces advanced the supply lines not only stretched but the forces became dispersed. In otherwords each division had to cover more frontage and was therefore weeker. 2. Everyone is taken with the huge encircilments the Germans achieved. However these operations were a kind of uncomfortable hybrid between blitzkrieg and koulder klacken (cauldron battles) - the kind of tactics favoured by, for example, the Kaisers generals. The encircilment operations slowed the penetrative power of the panzer divisions. Tens of thousands of soviet troops DID escape to fight another day. Not to mention the losses to the Germans......and all the time the winter got closer. The Kiev encircilment is perhaps the best illustration. 3. Perhaps this is controversial. If British surrender had occurred in 1940 Hitler would still have tried to gain his empire in the east. In many ways THE aim of the third reich was massive expansion into eurassia. Probably the extra divisions/resources available to the Germans (Romel in Russia? ) would have been the straw that broke the bears 🐻 back.
@@SoGal_YT Just a small think he mentioned Rommel he was one of Germany’s best generals he had quite impressive war track having been very effective. And he wasn’t a Nazi just a Wehrmacht general.
I think the movie you are talking about is "A bridge too far". I think that is set during Operation Market Garden, which was a combined airborne and land invasion of The Netherlands in September 1944 conducted by US and UK troops in the attempt to secure bridges to cross the Rhine and end the war as fast as possible. That operation was a complete failure: not only the Germans managed to deny any crossing by blowing up most of the bridges, but they also managed to capture quite a number of UK forces trapped in Arnhem and other locations.
Importance of the south and why the fighting was more dramatic there, asked around 20:24: I think there's a lot at play and the reasoning for each southern push depends on the time. On the one hand, the most recent pushes from the time you asked this were largely because the natural resources in the area (the Carpathian mountains and the sea) could have been used to cut off much of the German military from access to supplies -- which was done to some extent but in many ways was a missed opportunity. I think earlier in the war, the fighting in the south was so intense for many of the same reasons as it was in 1941 with the German push and the constant encircling of the Soviets -- the land isn't ideal for defense, and also there was a certain momentum that called for continual pushes; there were large gaps in the Axis line even as early as 1942 with the Romanian force collapsing north of Stalingrad and later Italian and Hungarian forces being overrun in the push following the encirclement of Stalingrad, and though the Germans were able to redeploy and slow the advance somewhat, the Soviets continually exploited the chaos all the way to the Carpathians of Hungary
Also recall in the 1942 video that the Germans weren't expecting a southern offensive, just one in Moscow, and had diverted reserves and a massive force to defend the approach to Moscow.
A good series to start next would be World War 1 by Epic History TV, there's four parts and they do an episode for each year of the war, like this was.
Axis forces were in the far north to protect the nickel mine at Petsamo, and to use it as a base to capture Murmansk, or, failing that, cut the railroad from Murmansk to Leningrad. The Red Army was acive in the south when the other sectors were quiet for two reasons: winter will start later there so leaving that to last made sense, and oil, mainly in Romania, but also, later, in Hungary and Austria.
The "Winter War," (1939-40) was a costly Soviet victory early in WWII. The Finns became allied to the Germans in 1941, during Barbarossa, but did little more than take and hold the territory they'd lost in 1940 - they lost it permanently in 1945. An interesting piece of trivia is that in 1941 Britain declared war on Finland - the only instance of one democracy declaring war on another in WW2 - the British had their hands full with the Germans, and the Finns with the Soviets, so neither side took it very seriously. A bridgehead is simply an area taken by an invading army in the first stage - a beachhead is much the same for an amphibious invasion.
Hi SoGal in relation to the intelligence picture of possible interest was a British operation carried out in England. 1. England utilised 3/4 stately homes in England , where they housed German Army , Luftwaffe and U boat officers/crew. 2. On arrival the officers were saluted and treated with great respect, dining well with wine. Long walks in the grounds of the homes etc. 3. The officers came from Western and Eastern theatres etc. 4. The British had installed secret microphones throughout the homes and even in the trees, the microphones were listened to via German operators of Jewish descent who had escaped the Nazies and the conversations translated into English. 5. Churchill described the operation as was one of the best intelligence operations of WW2.
A bridgehead is an area of land across a body of water. For example if I was going to advance across a river I must first secure both sides of the river where I intended to cross, the bridge 'tail' being on my side and therefore relatively safe, and the bridgehead being a pocket of my troops on the far side securing a landing area for more troops, combat engineers and supplies. This term applies regardless of the size of the body of water I need to cross. D-Day for example can be seen as a large scale attempt to establish a bridgehead in Normandy across the English Channel. This also ties into the concept of being "trapped against the sea" large bodies of water have always been a problem for armies because they restrict movement, historically if you can trap an enemy against a sea or large lake you can encircle and liquidate them with minimal effort and fewer resources because they have nowhere to retreat to.
Thanks for these, they’ve been rather enjoyable, and your questions have been very good. This may have already been noted, but there was a reason why such strong German forces were in Hungary in 1945, rather than defending Berlin. The only remaining Axis controlled oil field was in Hungary, so the German tanks were defending it, as they’d be unable to function if it was lost. If you are interested in WWII videos then I’d recommend the Time Ghost series looking at WWII week by week. They’ve just got to Pearl Harbour. I’m not sure they’re reactor material, but they’re very good.
The mobilization resource of the Axis countries (in fact, united Europe) was approximately twice that of the USSR. The ratio of military losses in the end was 1:1.2, the advantage was not in favor of the Russians due to the first year of the war, when the outnumbered armies, hardened by several years of war in Europe, attacked the USSR. At the same time, the irrecoverable military losses of the Russians amounted to less than 11.5 million people, the total losses of about 27 million (excluding demographic). That is, 15.5 million was civilians, against whom genocide was unleashed, which was directly declared as a policy towards the people of the occupied Russian territories. One way or another, the entire population of the country suffered in this war, the USSR lost a third of the national wealth, 1710 cities, more than 70 thousand villages, 32 thousand industrial enterprises; after the war hunger broke out, which was hardly overcome. Your stupid comments of an absolutely illiterate, uneducated and politically biased person who in his life has not read anything except Wikipedia and a textbook on US history, insult the memory of people who died and suffered in this war. You should be ashamed, you and your parents, who raised such an immoral and unprincipled person.
Troops of European countries in the war against the USSR (1941-45) Troops of Romania, Hungary, Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia fought on the side of Germany in the war against the USSR. In addition, volunteer units of the Spaniards, Belgians, Dutch, French, Danes, Norwegians fought on the side of Germany against the USSR. This is almost the entire European Union. All the more interesting is this "The European Parliament adopted a resolution for the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, equalizing the Third Reich and the USSR"
I would love if you'd react to the History of the Swedish Empire. In this video: ua-cam.com/video/aTbbTMb5HVA/v-deo.html After that you could go to this series and learn about the Great Northern War: ua-cam.com/video/VyBPAz1H-lU/v-deo.html And lastly, learn about one of the most brutal wars in human history, the 30 years war: ua-cam.com/video/EBLVzdvp8qE/v-deo.html The 30 years war is the reason the Christian world isn't 100% Catholic.
After these Eastern Front videos Eastory also made video about 'Western Front 1940' You should also react to that if you are interested seeing how Germany defeated France. Here is the link ua-cam.com/video/36UrLDiTLvU/v-deo.html
Re the "River Kwai", that took place in the Asian theatre of war (Burma), not in Europe at all. You perhaps noted that the bad guys all were Japanese??
My Father and Grandma were Berlin Jews who escaped Germany in 1936 leaving the bulk of the family in Germany, all but one died in the many Camps set up around eastern Europe. My Father joined up in 1938 and become an Anti Aircraft gun loader, he was lucky and escaped from Dunkirk. Before he knew it he was sent to Scotland and joined what was then just called Commandos. He finished a lifetime of service as a ranking Officer in Her Majesty's Royal Marine Commandos from 1940 till 1981, with a short break between the end of the send World War and the Korean War when he was called back into service. He retired in 1981 after Serving at NATO H.Q. in Brussels, Belgium. So I was an army baby, and always wanted to follow in my fathers and older brothers shoes. My fathers childhood best friend wasn't a Jew, and he fought for Germany as a Paratrooper until he surrendered in 1945. It was always fun watching them going back forth at each other. especially as they both fought in Italy at the same time. I met my wife and owner when we were both 15 at school, and we had our oldest daughter when we were just 16. I did any job I could to support my young family until I was 17. Two weeks after my Father retired he consigned my paperwork for me to follow in the family tradition by joining Her Majesty's Royal Marine Commandos on my 17th birthday. I served in Her Majesty's Royal Marine Commandos and Special Forces for 36 years and 3 months, the last two I spent in hospital. When signed up on my 17th birthday 1981, 3 days later I was starting 32 weeks of basic training (twice that of the U.S. Military's basic training), followed by 16 weeks of Arctic and Survival training. I was sent with part of my Regiment 42 Commando, to the Falkland Islands in 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falklands and other British territories in the South Atlantic. I have had the honour of serving my Queen and Country on every Continent. I have even guarded Windsor Castle while Her Majesty was in residence. When I was in the British Special Forces, I was tasked with crowd observation during Prince William's wedding. But my greatest honour during my service was meeting Her Majesty when she visited wounded service men, I was less nervous being shot at. I was with part of my Regiment was in a refugee camp at the height of the famine in Ethiopia. We listened to Live Aid on the radio. We were surrounded be the horror of the Famine, but when Queen came on the radio while we were listening to Live Aid, those poor soles who were there amazed us and reacted in a very positive way. I remember that a lot of us Royal Marine Commandos were crying watching some of the children dancing along, I always tear when I remember. I looked around at men I had fought alongside, who were tough, hardened Royal Marine Commando's who had fought a life and death war against Argentinian's in 1982. By the end of Queen's set we were dancing with the children. It went along way to help build their trust in us. The famine is one of the worst memories I have. And I hate to say I've seen a hell of a lot worse. In 1988 I was in Bosnia in an Observation Position, where we had to film what the Serbo-Croatian military were doing to the Muslim population. Shortly after that I was invited to join a branch of the British Special Forces. I was later sent to fight in the Balkans against the very forces I had filmed. I was in in both invasions of Iraq and the war on "Terror". Multiple postings to Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot zones. During posting's in Iraq and Afghanistan we used to be dropped into regular outfits all the time to keep us at full readiness, and back in the U.K. we worked in Hospitals to maintain our medical knowledge. During my carrier I got a higher education and earned two PhD's from Cambridge University, one in Modern Military History, and the other is on the History and Effects of the British Empire on the modern world. Here are three links for a UA-cam channel which covers certain battle's of the second World war. the 1st;- ua-cam.com/channels/fZz8F37oSJ2rtcEJHM2kCg.html is for the channel, the second give's you an excellent about the lead up and reasons that led to the battle of Stalingrad:- ua-cam.com/video/hzr6dD8fvVY/v-deo.html , and the last is the start of the battle:- ua-cam.com/video/YAfo5mse-ag/v-deo.html . It is an extremely detailed channel and the maps and illustrations are spot on.
The Russian Spearhead was also a Salient. When two Spearheads converge, they cut off and surround a Salient as did happen at Stalingrad. The Russians had respect for all-but-defeated enemies, a lesson they from the French at Berezina.
I think you are mixing two films in your mind, a bridge too far is probably the one you're remembering which was on the western front involving British and Canadian forces. The bridge on the river Kwai was in the far East and involved British and Japanese forces.
The structure of the forces is, say, from the platoon level. A platoon is infantry, about 30-40 men. Several platoons are a company. Several companies are a battalion. Several battalions are a regiment. This is how it goes up, Brigade, division, corps, army, to the level of army group. The Soviets also have the "front". This is a combination of several army groups. Of course, the larger a unit is, the more types of equipment and types of units it combines. An armored division has anti-aircraft gunners, infantry , scouts, technical teams, etc 03 33
I'm all ways having trouble with long posts ,The bridge on the river Kwai is in Thailand ,nothing to do with the war in Europe .I do enjoy your programs .Im not even sure Americans were involved apart from Hollywood.
"it's very very apparent to me now that the eastern front was far bloodier far worse than anything else in world war ii" Private Apparent just got promoted to Captain Obvious.
The Germans invaded Norway in 1940 if I'm correct. Neutral Sweden was exporting iron ore to Germany trhough neutral Norway. The British wanted to stop that trade, so they tried to invade Norway to get to Sweden. The Germans sent their Paratroopers (the Fallschirmjäger) to Norway and won the battle. They then occupied Norway because it has rich oil field (until this very day btw. it's one of the reasons for the norwegians not to join the EU).
Winter war in Finland happened AFTER start of WW2. WW2 started September 1st 1939 by German attack on Poland, followed by USSR attack on Poland two weeks after. Then for two years Germany and USSR were allies, Luftwaffe could not bomb London without oil from USSR.
20:10 the northern part had far stronger defenses in eastern Prussia. Long many miles of concrete bunker systems. Soviets wisely decided the South is easier to break.
Hidfő = to cross the water obstacle, a defensive section must be secured so that the crossing or landing teams do not reach the shore in an orderly battle. Of course, the creation of the bridgehead is usually done by violent combat, see Normandy 10 43
The Kwai River is in Thailand, I believe. It was the Japanese, not the Germans that were the perpetrators of the atrocities there. It was part of the horrific story of the Burma Railway. The Western Front was not only Americans, but also English (including Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians etc), and French armies. Remember, Germany was divided up between the UK, France, America and Russia after Germany's defeat.
I know this comment is a bit late, and I don't know if you'll see it, but to explain some things regarding the minor nations that were on Germany's side: There really wasn't much intelligence that could be shared with the Soviets, not for lack of wanting tho, but because the Allies, primarily the UK had managed to decrypt the German cipher in the early war and thus had ready access to almost all german communications, which they routinely shared with the Soviets. It is also true that the Germans were really, really and I do mean truly utterly terrible at trying to coordinate this war with their allies. They heavily distrusted them and often blamed their defeats on them, even if they were directly culpable.
Its important to know that before the Germans attacked Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin had done a purge on his own army commanders as he was paranoid that they were plotting to overthrow him and regime. Thousands were sent to death camps (gulags)in Siberia. This severely weakened the Soviet army.
Theres no proof of the Great terror being conducted because of Stalin and his paranoia. More like a plot within the NKVD(interior ministry), after if was uncovered the perpetrators were given death penalty and many of those in prison were released by amnesty (1939-1940).
23:11 looks like a trap by the Germans to tangle Berlin in front of their face. If the Soviets rush on Berlin the Germans can cut them off from supplies and destroy them. But the Soviets played the right move and didn't take the bait.
First Bridge over the river Kawi takes place in Burma (Myanmar) in south east Asia it was British and American POW's being forced to build a bridge for the Japanese. (on a personal note your not helping the american stereotype for being bad at geography) In the late war there just wasnt enough Germans left to fight, this is including a militia that the Germans raised that was equipped with out dated weapons, The Hitler Youth was pressed into service with the idea that the soviets would hesitate to shoot children, they didn't. This series really dose gloss over events since Stalingrad was a meat grinder for both sides you had soviet divisions that would come out with 90% casualties. As for the battle of Berlin well i once hared one historian say "i wouldn't call it a battle, i would call it a slaughter" The Germans planned to have house to house fighting to make the Soviets pay as much as possible for the city. The soviets responded to this by flattening the city with rockets killing most of the defenders. Hitler wanted the last armys in the area to come to Berlin to hold of the Soviets but the last German army in the west had to fight both the Americans and the soviets as they tried to link up with the 9th army that was just south of Berlin. not a lot of them got out. Then this last German army tried to open a small corridor to Berlin to evacuate as many civilians and anyone stuck in the capital as possible, This was accompanied by part of the defenders trying to break out of the city itself. The last big battle within the Battle of Berlin was the siege of the Government district which the Soviets thought must be defended by 5,000 men. In reality it was closer to 500 but when the Soviets finally took the roof and raised the flag in the famous picture which was done again for the picture. The French SS was still fighting in the basement and didnt surrender until after the war had ended.
My Step Grandfather was Latvian, when Germany invaded Russia 1941 he joined the German army, he hated communism and Stalin he only told me a few stories but I was fascinated by it he did tell me he fought at Leningrad and conditions were brutal, thankfully near the end of the war he managed to be picked up by the British but ended up in a POW camp in Belgium after he left the camp he was given a choice were he could live Canada Australia or the UK he chose Britain where he met my grandmother he was a interesting man and loved his adopted country
Why did we lose the Winter war? All the reasons that served as a pretext for its beginning were settled in favor of the USSR, the Mannerheim Line was broken. Yes, we suffered heavy losses, but this is common in offensive operations. As a result, the border was pushed back, which relatively secured Murmansk and Leningrad. That is, from the point of view of politics, it was an unconditional and complete victory.
25:44 yes Germany also told the western allies they would not be opposing them at a certain point and instead be fighting on the east to slow the Soviet advance.
during the offensive, the attacking troops lost 3 to 1 on the enemy's position according to the statistics of wars. when the SOVIET FORCES WERE BATTLES IN GERMANY STATISTICS were 1 to 3 to the attackers
A reason for why the southern part of the eastern front was so important was because of Romania. Germany doesn't have any oil. Romania had oil. Which is why Romania was so important to take from the Nazis. Pair that with the fact that so many partisan movements and local communists joined with the Red Army was a massive boost to their manpower.
At its widest, the Eastern Front extended to about 2000 km (or about 1250 miles). In 1945, my grandfather was doing forced labor in Berlin when the Soviets attacked the city. My grandfather was stationed (or how do you call that for essentially slave labor?) in an attic room. Through the window, he could see Soviet bombs falling all around him. If any of those Soviet artillery pieces had aimed a little to the left or the right, he could have been killed. My mother (born in 1948) would not have been there, which means that I would not have been here to write this.
Romania was a big oil supplier to Germany during WW2, the second oil supplier in Europe during the war, so when we turned on them, they lost a vital resource, Germany was hindered by the lack of oil almost the entire War, you need oil obviously for tanks and ships and all that, but the germans never had enough
Troops of Romania, Hungary, Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia fought on the side of Germany in the war against the USSR. In addition, volunteer units of the Spaniards, Belgians, Dutch, French, Danes, Norwegians fought on the side of Germany against the USSR.
Quick announcement! Now you can follow me behind-the-scenes and direct message me if you want:
Instagram: instagram.com/sogal.yt/
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Hope to see you there!
Thanks a lot. That's very kind. I enjoyed your reaction to Al Murray. He has a massive interest in war history and also in film history. He has presented many tv programmes about both subjects.
I think you’d like this as a follow up video. ua-cam.com/video/ZhDzSzsD49o/v-deo.html
Thanks. This time of Russian history has a lot unknown points.
I'd like to offer you a GREAT FILM produced by US. WAR DEPARTMENT .
IT'S;
"WHY WE FIGHT."
I think you will like it.
Ussr won the winter war, with big casualties, but won.
i think its a breach head not bridge or beach
The Red Army from 1944-1945 was the strongest land force in the last 100 years.
An unstoppable force of millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of tanks, aircrafts and artillery pieces.
Definitely looked like it!
Absolutely!
Glory to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army!
But at what cost?
@@Ares-s6v Yes, the price was high, especially because in 1941 the Soviet Union was ill prepared for German invasion.
My country Serbia, for example, lost 28 % of its population during the First World War.
Victory cannot be achieved without sacrifice.
I am sad because author of this animation didnt even mentioned Yugoslavia and Yugoslav partisans who libereted almost whole country by themselves. Only part of Serbia was libereted with Soviet help and we are really proud of that 😊
Fun fact: At the end of war 1945. Yugoslavia had large army of 800.000 soldiers. One of the largest in Europe (beside Red Army, Britain, America)
Also, german forces in Greece was not "important" for Red Army because Yugoslav partisans taken care of them, and almost completely destroyed that army, and others forces in Yugoslavia.
Hopefully we’ll get to some of the Yugoslavian involvement in some of the other videos on this subject. But thanks for letting me know about it!
@@SoGal_YT thank you for answering!
I think that they had to cover so much in so little time that "sideshows" (and I don't mean that in a demeaning sense) like Yugoslavia couldn't be fitted in. Worthy of a documentary on its own. I knew an old man who had fought, as a British officer , with Tito's partisans.
@@raymartin7172 True
If you look closely, you can see some Yugoslavian army counters in the southern part of the front (for instance at 24:00), so they were not completely forgotten :)
"We're definitely going back to visit Stalingrad."
Me, a German: No! No, no, no! Hell, no!
😄
Mit dem Angriff Steiner's wird das alles in Ordnung kommen!
*NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN 🤣🤣🤣
Hello. I am Russian.
---
It's a city with very bad roads but with good skvers
@@MWcrazyhorsenazi idiot…
Allies had around 200k men in Belgium but the whole western front was 3-4M strong
ага, сидели в парижских кабаках да борделях.
@@АлександрСаратцев-м1п ??????
@@b4nterontilt что тебе не понятно? гугл переводчика нет?
what don't you understand? no Google translator?
@@АлександрСаратцев-м1п google translator is bad at its job
@@b4nterontilt use Russian Yandex
A bridge head is an area captured on the enemy side of a river (or coast). It needs to be held and expanded so new troops coming in have a relatively safe place to cross into. On D-Day each beach had it's own bridge head and the main objective of day 1 was to link them together. It didn't quite work but close enough so by day 2 they were all linked.
Thanks for the explanation! That makes sense.
Very very good to see an American really learn about the Eastern Front of WWII. It is so pivotal to understanding WWII and has by far the most interesting dynamic from a historical point of view, with Germany having the upper hand to start with and conducting strategically brilliant offensives, only for this to gradually change, and for the Red Army to be turned into an incredible war machine, conducting its own mastermind offensives. The Eastern front is where Germany goes from winning to losing the war on the grand scale. Trying to grasp the scope of the Eastern front is mind boggling, and there are so many individual campaigns/battles to dive into, that you can practically study it for a lifetime. What the series could have included is to show strength of force including tanks and aircraft, not only soldiers. The use of tanks and aircraft in the war is an entire chapter in itself, and I would also suggest looking into the development and use of tanks during the war to understand this aspect better. It is very interesting!
7:28 The Soviet won the winter war, but they severely underestimated the finns and got a bloody eye from them. which made them look weak and that persuaded Hitler too invade the Soviet Union sooner
To elaborate: the Soviet union "won" in terms of coming out of the conflict with the land they wanted. However, they suffered casualties at a ratio around 5-1 and made themselves look weak for struggling so much to take a small country.
The eastern from was one of the most intense theaters of the war. The Germans always had about 2/3rds of their army posted to the east throughout the war and about 80% of Germanies casualties in the war were suffered on the eastern front. There are some good channels that go over the fighting in the east in more detail. I would recommend Potential History or The Armchair Historian. Their channels have some really good videos on the eastern front and other battles.
The movie your thinking of is The Bridge over the River Kwai. It's about British POW's being forced to build a bridge for the Imperial Japanese army in Burma during World War 2.
I'd argue it was the MOST intense theater. As well as the military casualties, the civilian casualties were monstrously high too - entire villages and communities were turned into deserts as part of the German policy to cleanse the land of so-called 'undesirables', and the Holocaust effectively began there with huge massacres at places like Babyn Yar
The Eastern Front was hell on earth.
My great-grandfather, after he set up the production of cartridges and shells in Staltngrad (he was sent there from Moscow in 1941) volunteered to go to war. He hit the Marines. He had a chance to fight on the Kursk Bulge. In one of the operations in that great battle, the marines marched in the front ranks and captured the first line of defense of the Nazis, giving time to our main forces to approach. "Suicide" are shorter.
There his foot was blown off by a shell fragment. He lay for 2 days and waited for his approach. The fact is that all the troops were rushing forward, as soon as possible to recapture the plateau from the Germans, but the rear had not yet approached. And great-grandfather found himself in a vacant lot, some had already left, while others had not yet arrived. He screwed up with the corpses of fascists (an improvised fortification) and fired off individual small groups of retreating fascists. After 2 days, he was picked up by the rear artillery during the offensive. The leg was completely computed due to infection.
Спасибо деду!
West of Budapest in Hungary were the last remaining oil fields available to the germans so they tried to desperately cling to the western part of Hungary. Greetings from Budapest.
The Bridge of the river Kwai involved the British and the Japanese in Burma. Films involving this front are : "A Bridge Too Far" and "The Bridge of Remagen".
By the way this is what the Battle of Berlin looked like :
Battle of Berlin 1945 - Nazi Germany vs Soviet Union [HD] - UA-cam
and with more detail, starting from the Battle of the Bulge :
Battlefield S1/E6 - The Battle of Berlin - UA-cam
At the time of the Battle of Berlin, one German general commented that he could not imagine it would be possible to walk from the Eastern to the Western fronts in a day.
Bridge on the River Kwai story happend in Asia, I belive somewhere on the border between Burma and Thailand
Thailand and it was pows that was building it... based on the book of the same name writen by a French man
So that's why they call it "world war"?
Yes, maybe getting confused with the movie "A Bridge Too Far" about Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands.
@@rja421 maybe that ... i know that movie too ... but that river shes talking about is not in EU
I think she means the bridge at Remagen.
'The Bridge on the River Kwai', was a film set in Burma in early 1943. It basically looks at the building of the Burma-Thailand Railway. The protagonists were Japanese/Thais vs The Allies (British, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, & US POWs)
Wait so the antagonists were the POWs? Or the environment? Or the other POWs who planned to blow the bridge out?
,,,and Dutch.
@@Paltse The film bears NO real relation to the actual story Merry Christmas Mr. Laurence is better played by David Bowie. That film BotRK shat all over the soldiers and officers captured.
@@dave_h_8742 So what? I am not the OP and am specifically interested in the protagonist/antagonist situation and not other merits or the lack of said.
Yes, there might be a mix up with the bridge of Arnheim or the bridge of Remagen which are in fact at the Rhine river and played some role in the conquest of Germany by the Western Allies. Also movies on these historic episodes exist.
You should watch the Soviet film 'Come and See'. It is the most accurate war movie ever made. The director and camera man were partisans in ww2. Its strange that the scariest movie ever made is not a horror film, but a war film.
The main thing you need to remember about ww2 for every 1 german soldier fighting the allies there was 7 fighting on the eastern front
Not all were Germans; many nationalities took part as soldiers on the German side.
@@carolinekofahl8867 we know. many people say germans instead of the axis cus it’s just more popular which i think people should atleast use nazis but would prefer axis since it includes all their allies and puppet states
In addition to your words:
While well-equipped experienced and numerous units were fighting against the USSR, only 60 divisions were fighting against the Allies, consisting in most cases of Volkssturm fighters, who had almost no equipment and of which there were only 2 tank units.
20:09 The southern part was more important because Germany used to import oil from Romania.
Soviets attacked Romania in August 1944 in an effort to cut Germany's supply of oil.
Once Romania was knocked out, German industry went dead and military had only limited offensive potential.
A last German oil resource was in Hungary.
@@АндрейЛарин-в6н Hungary's oil reserves were modest.Romanian oil fields fueled the German industry and military.
Already in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, Germans experienced first serious problems with oil supply.
@@milostomic8539 Romania supplied Germany with about 14million barrels a year from 1941 to 43 and only 7million in 1944, Germany produced 10million crude in 1944 and 44million synthetic.
Germany also lost about 90% of its soft skinned vehicles to the Allies air force by the time 1944 had ended.
@@brianlong2334 Even that wasn't enough for German industry and military.Hitler wanted the oil rich Caucasus at all cost.
Oil wasn't the only problem, from 1943 Germany faced lack of manpower in military.They were already fighting in the East and North Africa, later in Sicily and Italy.
In 1944 German military was stretched on 3 fronts - East, West and Italy + engaged in a bitter fight in the Balkans against resistance movements.
@@milostomic8539 Manpower was a problem due to the multiple fronts.
The German military was at it's peak the same size as the Russian's peak, at 11million, however Russia didn't have two fronts.
And had over 3x as much fuel and an ally that could totally supply it with resources and equipment.
A bridgehead is a launchpad for future operations, which normally spans a natural obstacle, so fir example the army controls some territory on the other side of a river or a mountain range, beyond which the enemy is in control. Keeping a grip on such small pieces of land are something crucial for future operations
Reaction to Western front: Animated 1940? Its basically the same but it shows the invasion of france with the same amount of Detail. Its by the same guy
For a truly epic documentary series about WW2 checkout the UK tv series "The World At War" made in 1973. All episodes on UA-cam.
The definitive documentary on WW2 . The depth it gives is unsurpassed . I think 26 episodes charting the whole conflict and all theatres of the war .
Word!!!
I watched many years ago when I was a kid in Panama. Watching that series started my lifelong interest in European History in the 20th century.
The Soviets actually won the winter war with Finland due to a huge numbers advantage but they started really badly and the Finns held on really well. It highlighted how the political changes Stalin had made to the army had failed and really weakened it. The Finns had to give some land to Russia at the end of that war. That's why they joined the Germans in WW2, to try get it back.
Finnish propaganda is everywhere, im tired of this.
@@Admin-gm3lc I have no reason to spread Finnish propaganda and don't think I have. I would be happy to be corrected if I have said anything that is not factual.
@@stevegray1308 The finnish propaganda is that soviets lost the war. Your statements are correct
Ok, I got that mixed up with the Soviets underperforming, but thanks for straightening that out.
Its not because of the "political bullshit" it was because the first attacks were badly commanded and planned. Stop sticking that "commie bad" in every fucking sentence.
And that's a wrap! Loved watching your reaction. Do try epic history TV history of Russia . It's like 5 parts of like 10-15 mins each.
Cheers from Sevastopol 🇷🇺❤️
Thank you! I’ll keep those videos in mind when we get to Russia.
The Soviets didnt lose the winter war. They won it. The Fins made a peace deal with them, giving up some small terretories to the Russians. Its a Thing of perspektive. The Russians have lost much more Man and Equipment then their Enemy. But they also did in WW2 and they won. So jusrt because someone with a much bigger Population and much bigger Economy loses more Man and Equipment that doesnt mean they lose.
Yes, that was my mistake. I have to do a video on the Winter War.
Yes, you're right. The Soviets achieved their goals in the Winter War. An interesting clarification: before the Winter War, Stalin offered Finland an exchange of territories to move the Finnish border away from the important Soviet city - Leningrad. In return, the Soviets offered even more territory to the Finns in Karelia, but the Finns foolishly refused this offer. And Stalin started the war as a result of which the Finns lost their territory, but did not get anything in return.
@@AWtify That is a narrative the Moscow has keen interest on keeping on, in the Finnish side the narrative is: would you willingly compromise the defenses of the second most influential city you have for unending tracts of wild forest that is not as defensible because the roads at that point were and still are a muddy mess there, whilst carelian isthmus had two to three major rail lines?
@@AWtify In reality Soviets wanted whole Finland, the demands were just the first step. Soviets didn't achieve their goals. They demanded half of Mannerheim line (Finland's main defensive line) and a military base in Hanko and offered useless forest in return. Soviets made similar "offers" to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and look what happened... they got tricked and were part of Soviet Union until -91.
@@AWtify Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Nazi-Germany and Soviet Union divided Europe to their zones. Soviets got Eastern Europe, so they used the chance to occupy more land now that Germany wasn't going to intervene.
A few more details on Romania:
1. We only tried to keep our people united in an independent country. So when France surrendered and Great Britain was focused on defense, we had to choose, Germany or Soviet Union. Since Soviet union was a BIG no, we went with Germany to survive.
2. When we joined the war with the soviets we wanted to stop once we got Bessarabia back (the soviets demanded it 1 or 2 years earlier). We kept pushing once we achieved this because Hitler told our leader that if we help we might get northern trasylvania back (demanded by hungary 1 or 2 years earlier).
3. We changed sides in 1944 because there was a coup d'etat (there's more to the coup, but it is not the main point of my comment).
So in the end we just tried to survive, like we always did in history. We joined axis because it was the only option we had on the table. Our battle on the east was more about politics than army.
Just wanted to say you have really good commentary. Like you might not know too much about this part of history but you’re asking all the right questions and making solid observations
Germans concquered Denmark and Norway in 1940, in order to secure naval bases in north and shipping of resources like iron from both Norway and Northern Sweden, so that's why they retreated from Finland up there
Thanks. Couldn’t remember if that was covered in these videos or not.
To put this into perspective, the Soviets lost so many men that Russia’s population growth is still stunted to this day.
So Gal you might also like the "Soviet Storm " it contains most of the bigger battles, in 18 one hour parts, produced in 2011. The best I have seen since the "Unknown war" narrated by Burt Lancaster in 1979.
ua-cam.com/video/rJAEdLnZsgI/v-deo.html
The germans were on scandinavia because sweden exported iron to germany thru norway and Basically Germany invaded Norway to secure the iron
There is this "joke-with-an-edge" that the germans took Norway in two months, Denmark over night and Sweden with a telegram...
And because The British had mined Norwegian waters- an act of war.
@@12hairyjohn Perfectly legitimate if a neutral country is exporting crucial war materials to an enemy. Not an act of war.
@@allenwilliams1306 I said only that Britain had mined Norwegian waters, and that is an act of war.
Hi SoGal, another late viewing by myself. The Warsaw uprising was crushed by the Germans. It has been said that Stalin withheld his forces from liberating Warsaw to allow this to happen, which meant he would face less opposition when he occupied Poland after WW2. In some ways he let the Germans do his dirty work.
They gave the "fake army to Patton precisely because he had his hard reputation." Gott und himmel, this must be ein kick ass unit"
The idea and method came from a British music hall illusionist who was sent to Egypt to disguise Allied activity in North Africa during 1941/42.
The film about crossing the Rhine in 1945 is "The Bridge at Remagen".
There is also A Bridge Too Far, about the atempt to cross the Rhine and end the war at the end of 44, which obviously failed.
Yep, I got those movies mixed up, 😆
Pushed into the sea is basically what happened to the British at Dunkirk. The Germans assumed they would all have to surrender and so stopped attacks for 6 days. That was a big mistake and allowed the British to evacuate 350,000 men - the core of the army - back to England, along with substantial numbers of French, who became the Free French forces.
Ah, so they could have been evacuated. Thanks.
3:20 From biggest to smallest: Army group -> Army -> corps -> division -> brigade -> regiment -> battalion -> company -> platoon -> group.
Army consists of a few corps and other units
Corps - at least 2 divisions but could be more depending how the units were formed.
Division - around a few regiments (5-10 regiments)
Brigade is like a smaller division
Thank you, that’s very helpful!
Army group was in German. In red army was a "Front".
@@АндрейЛарин-в6н not only German. American had army groups too
@@b4nterontilt OK, but in red army was "Front".
@@АндрейЛарин-в6н and there were no corps and seldom tank divisions
The Bridge on the river Kwai was in Burma now called Myanmar English and Australian POW forced to build the Burma railway for the Japanese .
Small fact the Russian attack on 26 th June, operation Bagration was to coincide with the Anglo American attack on D Day of the 6 th June but was delayed by Stalin until the 26 th to make sure that the D Day landing in the West hadn’t failed.
Hello SoGal. I've recently discovered your channel and am really enjoying your videos. I'm a 65 year old Brit who's dad was in the Royal Navy in WW2. As you're interested in military history and in regard to your Eastern front reviews, which were great, I'd recommend the book Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor. Also, treat yourself and watch a UK tv series from the 1970s, the world at war, narrated by the actor Sir Laurence Olivier. It was great then and it's great now. Thanks for the panto review!
As as Brit I’d second that regarding Stalingrad written by Anthony Beaver, one of the best historical books I’ve ever read.
I'm going to be the contrarian here and say that anthony beavers book was pretty inaccurate and riddled with biases. I'm not sure if you'll even see my reply so I wont go into specifics but if you do, feel free to ask me and I can run through some specifics about why I dont like his book
It must have been pure hell for the German troops by 1942, certainly by mid 1943. By then they knew they were losing and morale must have just gone.
Hell was starting for the Germans majorly only in 1944. Before that they made life for the Soviet people pure hell
The Wehrmacht had very trained officers from the old compact and professional German army. Unfortunately, Stalin carried out a bloody cleansing among his trained officers and the Wehrmacht had the full advantage at the beginning of the war. But then the Soviet soldiers noticed that if you kill German officers, then the offensive impulse of the Germans drops significantly. Then the sniper war began. By the end of the war, the Germans no longer had experienced officers. They prepared them on 2-3 month courses. Therefore, by the end of the war, the professionalism of the Wehrmacht fell dramatically. The Volkssturm could not lead to victory.
by this time the German army was fighting to defend the homeland so the soldiers were fighting for pride only
@@geodude205 Parts of the Soviet people were experiencing hell before the German invasion due to purges and famines. That is why Germans were actually welcomed in some places - like Ukraine.
Regarding the Finnish campaign. This is the origin of the term 'Molotov Cocktail'. The Russians claimed to be dropping g bread to the Finnish, they were actually dropping cluster bombs. As a reposte the Finnish attacked Soviet forces, particularly mechanised with lit bottles of Vodka. They called these Molotov Cocktails after the Soviet Diplomat, he was the equivalent of Foreign Secretary at the time.
Small correction: The Soviets didn't formally lose the Winter War. A peace treaty was signed and Finland had to give up 11% of their territory and pay war reparations.
As for the USSR, they have had tremendous casualties which showed the embarassing weakness of the Red Army at that time. That's why it has become a meme, and furthermore, why people consider the USSR to be the looser.
Nontheless, it was frankly Finland.
Yeah, I got that wrong. Someone had explained to me before that the Soviets didn't do a great job fighting against Finland, and I mixed that up as them losing. But my mistake.
@SoGal In reply to your question about Romania:
Romania did provide quite a lot of intel to the Soviets when captured or pressed. Antony Beevor's famous book, Stalingrad goes into detail about how Red Army and NKVD officers found Romanians to be pretty open about the German army, their capabilities, and dispositions during the offensive towards Stalingrad and during the battle (it was only 1942 and the Romanian army was already not happy with the whole situation). Romania was a very reluctant participant of the Axis and was backed into a corner politically and diplomatically as their main allies, France and Britain pretty much allowed Romanian territory to be carved up and handed over to Hungary. Romania was fixated on just simply getting their lost territory back, and then some extra. This is why their participation level and contribution to the war were so high.
Their defection did speed the war up and it meant the Soviets could start pushing into Hungary a lot quicker than they anticipated. German and Hungarian troops were in a mad dash to withdraw now they were in a very hostile country with their biggest ally (in terms of manpower) now hell-bent on driving them out. Their reward for defecting was in short, they got their lost territory back from Hungary but had their border fixed as it was in 1941 against the Soviet Union. All of the captured Soviet equipment they had (which was being put to very good use by the underequipped Romanian army) was taken off them and they were used in a lot of bloody offensives to free up Soviet manpower elsewhere.
TLDR: They did provide intel, but for their own national interests in an effort to get what they felt they were (rightfully) entitled to, but the Soviet Union made them pay a steep price for it.
If you're interested in a bit of a more detailed view of the eastern front - there's a documentary called "Soviet Storm" here on youtube by StarMediaEN. In my opinion it's the absolute best documentary on the subject currently in existence. It was originally made in Russian, the script was written by some of the best Russian historians. Unfortunately, the translators of the English version for some reason decided to replace some of the original lines with pretty much their political opinions. But it doesn't affect the material too much and it's still an amazing documentary, highly recommend it.
22:38 basically mirroring 1941 and Moscow
Quick Recap
A bridgehead is a 'breach' in a defensive line which was stationed in the river. For more context, the enemy army might form a defensive line by the river, and a bridgehead is a term for breaching it.
A bridgehead/beachhead is essentially a perimeter that you can hold and defend. If you were to capture or build a bridge across a river being used a a defensive barrier, your troops would cross the bridge and push outwards to create a perimeter. A large number of troops and supplies requires a large physical space. You can only reinforce your troops, the bridgehead, if the perimeter expands. Your troops need to keep pushing outwards, this enables you to reinforce across your bridge and into the physical space your existing troops have created. That reinforcement will help/enable you to increase the size of your perimeter, thus making more space and so on. The enemies job is to stop that expansion, if they stop your perimeter from growing then they stop your ability to reinforce. They don't have the same problem you have got, they already have the space, but can they react in time? It is a race to build up the required numbers to gain a decisive advantage in numbers and fire power.
Best series about eastern front is definitely "Soviet storm" way more accurate and beautifully presented.
Bulgaria declared war on Germany and the other Axis powers on September 9th 1944. An armistice was signed with the Allies on October 28th, so technically Bulgaria was at war with both the Allies and the Axis for a time.
That's cool that you watched this video. It's sometimes lack a specific informations but serves well as overthrough information before watching more detailed videos about some of the particular eastern front facts.
The POLISH were the first to break the German Enigma code. Some Polish mathematicians smuggled their work to the British. This was the land army Enigma machine code. Later the British got the German Navy enigma machine code by sinking a German Uboat and before it fully sunk British sailors retrieved the code books from the sub allowing thr Navy codes to be broken.
The Winter War of the USSR and Finland ended with a military victory of the USSR. Finland was forced to cede all of Karelia in favor of the USSR. The losing side never receives a portion of its territory from the winning side.
Yep, sorry I messed that up. I was thinking about how the Soviets lost more men, and forgotten they actually won.
@@SoGal_YT The winner of a war is not determined by the number of soldiers lost. The USSR conducted offensive operations, and the Finnish army conducted defensive operations. in textbooks on the art of war, it is written that the losses of the attackers are threefold compared to the losses of the defenders. in addition, that war was winter not in africa, but in the homeland of santa claus, it was very cold. The Finns were in their heated concrete pillboxes, and the Soviets were in the tundra. therefore, the soviet troops had a lot of frostbitten and frozen, and the finns had very little.
I have no idea why you dont have any upvotes. I mean im sure youre not even a commie supporter (like myself), you Just say pure logical facts
@@geodude205 it is a fact!
Like one Red Army General about the Winter War, looking at a map of the territory just conquered, is said to have remarked: "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead." ...War isn't always that simple that one wins and other loses. Finland might lost some of it territories, but at least they didn't lost their independence.
@7:29. So there's some misinformation about this topic, probably due to all the memes. The Soviets did win the Winter War, it was just very pyrrhic (high casualties), took way longer than it should have, and was poorly conducted.
Absolutely!
Not as pyrrhic as people think, but could've been better
@@geodude205 Soviets lost I think 5 times Finnish losses bro
@@b4nterontilt umm okay so Finns lost about 100k people. By your logic the Soviet Union lost half a million. Lol thats Just crazy. Its more like the Soviet Union lost 150 and Finland lost 100. Thats anywhere near 5 times more.
@@geodude205
Russian Casualties:
126,000 killed
260,000 wounded or sick
7K POWs
900 aircraft lost
+ around 2K lost tanks and vehicles
Finnish Casualties:
29,000 killed
36,000 wounded
40 aircraft lost
30 tanks lost
Soviet losses were catastrophic
If no one has written it yet
At that time Hungary had a few small oil fields that the Germans urgently needed for the war. This were the last small oil resources after Romania switched sides. Since the transport of the oil to the German Reich was very difficult due to the Allied bombings and the distance, the Germans were only able to try offensives in Hungary. That was one of the reasons why the Russians first tried to conquer Hungary and focused on the south. In addition, of course, they wanted to drive the last German ally (Hungary) out of the war, and fasten the collapse of German Reich by that.
Regarding what you meant by free ride to Berlin:
In addition to the numerical superiority, there were several reasons for this:
1. The last combat-ready troops had tried to defend the Ruhr area, since that is the industrial heart of Germany. These are the troops that have been trapped at 25:37
2. It was precisely at this time that German troops surrendered in rows, as the end of the war was in sight and every soldier would rather be captured by the Allies than by the Russians.
3. Even when soldiers wanted to continue fighting, this was often problematic because the Germans could not withdraw quickly enough because there was a lack of fuel for trucks and tanks. Many tanks were abandoned and / or blown up during this period because there was no fuel supply. Allied troops were fully mechanized and overrunned the germans resistance.
In general, you can say that the Allies saved one thing from higher losses:
The absolute air superority! Germany didn't have the problem that the planes didn't exist or were too bad. There was simply no fuel and the few pilots were too inexperienced, especially after the German Pyrhic victory in Operation Bodenplatte. In this way, the Allies were able to bomb the German armaments industry almost unhindered, making supply much more difficult. But above all, they were able to take out the superior German tanks, because in terms of tank technology, the Germans were superior to all others. But since the tanks were often attacked from the air while they were being transported and there was a lack of fuel, the Germans could not use this advantage. Without Allied air superiority and with enough fuel fot the Germans, the Allied losses would probably be three or four times as high.
May I suggest going back in history to the 18th century, and check out the incredible British defence of Rorks Drift. A brilliant film which has now became a classic was made about it called Zulu ❤️🇬🇧
Surely you have seem the world at war docs. The best
Someone else mentioned this to me, but I don’t believe I’ve seen it. I’d like to though. Will probably have to do it on my own time since it’s super long!
Excellent documentary that covered theatres of war that were less well known and importantly as it was made so long ago it featured first hand accounts from all sides.
yea i don’t know if u know the exact number but it’s estimated that the soviet’s lost at a minimum 26,000,000 people (soldiers and civilians) and at the max 34,000,000 people
Writing from India and thank you for making ww2 simple to understand faithfully yours Sandeep Sharma ( Gurgaon)
In order to understand the nature of the war between the USSR and Germany, you need to know the content of the main program document of the NSDAP "Mein Kampf". Without knowledge of this book, only a quarter can be understood.
@Dave Arloff Unfortunately I don't understood that talking. He wanted to make a joke?
@Dave Arloff The fact is that Mein Kampf was known very well in the USSR because after 1933, when Adolf Schicklgruber was elected chancellor in the democratic elections in Germany, this book began to be published in millions of copies in Germany. In the USSR, it was read and everyone knew it.
As you seem interested I would like to add some things here. I hope they are interested.
1. It's useful to think of western Russia as a huge funnel - as the Axis forces advanced the supply lines not only stretched but the forces became dispersed. In otherwords each division had to cover more frontage and was therefore weeker.
2. Everyone is taken with the huge encircilments the Germans achieved. However these operations were a kind of uncomfortable hybrid between blitzkrieg and koulder klacken (cauldron battles) - the kind of tactics favoured by, for example, the Kaisers generals. The encircilment operations slowed the penetrative power of the panzer divisions. Tens of thousands of soviet troops DID escape to fight another day. Not to mention the losses to the Germans......and all the time the winter got closer. The Kiev encircilment is perhaps the best illustration.
3. Perhaps this is controversial. If British surrender had occurred in 1940 Hitler would still have tried to gain his empire in the east. In many ways THE aim of the third reich was massive expansion into eurassia. Probably the extra divisions/resources available to the Germans (Romel in Russia? ) would have been the straw that broke the bears 🐻 back.
Thanks for all the additional info!
@@SoGal_YT Just a small think he mentioned Rommel he was one of Germany’s best generals he had quite impressive war track having been very effective. And he wasn’t a Nazi just a Wehrmacht general.
I think the movie you are talking about is "A bridge too far". I think that is set during Operation Market Garden, which was a combined airborne and land invasion of The Netherlands in September 1944 conducted by US and UK troops in the attempt to secure bridges to cross the Rhine and end the war as fast as possible. That operation was a complete failure: not only the Germans managed to deny any crossing by blowing up most of the bridges, but they also managed to capture quite a number of UK forces trapped in Arnhem and other locations.
Importance of the south and why the fighting was more dramatic there, asked around 20:24:
I think there's a lot at play and the reasoning for each southern push depends on the time. On the one hand, the most recent pushes from the time you asked this were largely because the natural resources in the area (the Carpathian mountains and the sea) could have been used to cut off much of the German military from access to supplies -- which was done to some extent but in many ways was a missed opportunity. I think earlier in the war, the fighting in the south was so intense for many of the same reasons as it was in 1941 with the German push and the constant encircling of the Soviets -- the land isn't ideal for defense, and also there was a certain momentum that called for continual pushes; there were large gaps in the Axis line even as early as 1942 with the Romanian force collapsing north of Stalingrad and later Italian and Hungarian forces being overrun in the push following the encirclement of Stalingrad, and though the Germans were able to redeploy and slow the advance somewhat, the Soviets continually exploited the chaos all the way to the Carpathians of Hungary
Also recall in the 1942 video that the Germans weren't expecting a southern offensive, just one in Moscow, and had diverted reserves and a massive force to defend the approach to Moscow.
A good series to start next would be World War 1 by Epic History TV, there's four parts and they do an episode for each year of the war, like this was.
Thanks, I’ll take a look at it. Haven’t watched anything from that channel yet.
@@SoGal_YT I can say that series is amazing.
I don't know if it as mentioned before, but if you want more detailed documents, check "Soviet Storm. WW2 in the East" series.
Axis forces were in the far north to protect the nickel mine at Petsamo, and to use it as a base to capture Murmansk, or, failing that, cut the railroad from Murmansk to Leningrad. The Red Army was acive in the south when the other sectors were quiet for two reasons: winter will start later there so leaving that to last made sense, and oil, mainly in Romania, but also, later, in Hungary and Austria.
18:24 usually it's really heavy fighting. Mountains and high hills are not very suitable for heavy weapons like tanks or armored cars
The "Winter War," (1939-40) was a costly Soviet victory early in WWII. The Finns became allied to the Germans in 1941, during Barbarossa, but did little more than take and hold the territory they'd lost in 1940 - they lost it permanently in 1945.
An interesting piece of trivia is that in 1941 Britain declared war on Finland - the only instance of one democracy declaring war on another in WW2 - the British had their hands full with the Germans, and the Finns with the Soviets, so neither side took it very seriously.
A bridgehead is simply an area taken by an invading army in the first stage - a beachhead is much the same for an amphibious invasion.
Hi SoGal in relation to the intelligence picture of possible interest was a British operation carried out in England.
1. England utilised 3/4 stately homes in England , where they housed German Army , Luftwaffe and U boat officers/crew.
2. On arrival the officers were saluted and treated with great respect, dining well with wine. Long walks in the grounds of the homes etc.
3. The officers came from Western and Eastern theatres etc.
4. The British had installed secret microphones throughout the homes and even in the trees, the microphones were listened to via German operators of Jewish descent who had escaped the Nazies and the conversations translated into English.
5. Churchill described the operation as was one of the best intelligence operations of WW2.
A bridgehead is an area of land across a body of water. For example if I was going to advance across a river I must first secure both sides of the river where I intended to cross, the bridge 'tail' being on my side and therefore relatively safe, and the bridgehead being a pocket of my troops on the far side securing a landing area for more troops, combat engineers and supplies. This term applies regardless of the size of the body of water I need to cross. D-Day for example can be seen as a large scale attempt to establish a bridgehead in Normandy across the English Channel.
This also ties into the concept of being "trapped against the sea" large bodies of water have always been a problem for armies because they restrict movement, historically if you can trap an enemy against a sea or large lake you can encircle and liquidate them with minimal effort and fewer resources because they have nowhere to retreat to.
Thanks for these, they’ve been rather enjoyable, and your questions have been very good. This may have already been noted, but there was a reason why such strong German forces were in Hungary in 1945, rather than defending Berlin. The only remaining Axis controlled oil field was in Hungary, so the German tanks were defending it, as they’d be unable to function if it was lost.
If you are interested in WWII videos then I’d recommend the Time Ghost series looking at WWII week by week. They’ve just got to Pearl Harbour. I’m not sure they’re reactor material, but they’re very good.
The mobilization resource of the Axis countries (in fact, united Europe) was approximately twice that of the USSR. The ratio of military losses in the end was 1:1.2, the advantage was not in favor of the Russians due to the first year of the war, when the outnumbered armies, hardened by several years of war in Europe, attacked the USSR. At the same time, the irrecoverable military losses of the Russians amounted to less than 11.5 million people, the total losses of about 27 million (excluding demographic). That is, 15.5 million was civilians, against whom genocide was unleashed, which was directly declared as a policy towards the people of the occupied Russian territories. One way or another, the entire population of the country suffered in this war, the USSR lost a third of the national wealth, 1710 cities, more than 70 thousand villages, 32 thousand industrial enterprises; after the war hunger broke out, which was hardly overcome. Your stupid comments of an absolutely illiterate, uneducated and politically biased person who in his life has not read anything except Wikipedia and a textbook on US history, insult the memory of people who died and suffered in this war. You should be ashamed, you and your parents, who raised such an immoral and unprincipled person.
Troops of European countries in the war against the USSR (1941-45)
Troops of Romania, Hungary, Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia fought on the side of Germany in the war against the USSR. In addition, volunteer units of the Spaniards, Belgians, Dutch, French, Danes, Norwegians fought on the side of Germany against the USSR. This is almost the entire European Union.
All the more interesting is this "The European Parliament adopted a resolution for the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, equalizing the Third Reich and the USSR"
Sad this is our last video in this series! Let me know what series you'd like next. Also, like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video 👍🏻
I would love if you'd react to the History of the Swedish Empire. In this video: ua-cam.com/video/aTbbTMb5HVA/v-deo.html
After that you could go to this series and learn about the Great Northern War: ua-cam.com/video/VyBPAz1H-lU/v-deo.html
And lastly, learn about one of the most brutal wars in human history, the 30 years war: ua-cam.com/video/EBLVzdvp8qE/v-deo.html
The 30 years war is the reason the Christian world isn't 100% Catholic.
After these Eastern Front videos Eastory also made video about 'Western Front 1940' You should also react to that if you are interested seeing how Germany defeated France.
Here is the link ua-cam.com/video/36UrLDiTLvU/v-deo.html
All good suggestions, thank you.
Definitely need to do those!
I would like if you'd react to the cold war oversimplified:ua-cam.com/video/I79TpDe3t2g/v-deo.html
Re the "River Kwai", that took place in the Asian theatre of war (Burma), not in Europe at all.
You perhaps noted that the bad guys all were Japanese??
By the way, here is a British account of the final push to Berlin:
ua-cam.com/video/aigpXmWSWxM/v-deo.html
25:23 The Bridge over the River Kuai commonly refers to a bridge built by British POW's for Japan in Burma (modern day Myanmar). It was not a battle.
My Father and Grandma were Berlin Jews who escaped Germany in 1936 leaving the bulk of the family in Germany, all but one died in the many Camps set up around eastern Europe. My Father joined up in 1938 and become an Anti Aircraft gun loader, he was lucky and escaped from Dunkirk. Before he knew it he was sent to Scotland and joined what was then just called Commandos. He finished a lifetime of service as a ranking Officer in Her Majesty's Royal Marine Commandos from 1940 till 1981, with a short break between the end of the send World War and the Korean War when he was called back into service. He retired in 1981 after Serving at NATO H.Q. in Brussels, Belgium. So I was an army baby, and always wanted to follow in my fathers and older brothers shoes. My fathers childhood best friend wasn't a Jew, and he fought for Germany as a Paratrooper until he surrendered in 1945. It was always fun watching them going back forth at each other. especially as they both fought in Italy at the same time.
I met my wife and owner when we were both 15 at school, and we had our oldest daughter when we were just 16. I did any job I could to support my young family until I was 17. Two weeks after my Father retired he consigned my paperwork for me to follow in the family tradition by joining Her Majesty's Royal Marine Commandos on my 17th birthday.
I served in Her Majesty's Royal Marine Commandos and Special Forces for 36 years and 3 months, the last two I spent in hospital. When signed up on my 17th birthday 1981, 3 days later I was starting 32 weeks of basic training (twice that of the U.S. Military's basic training), followed by 16 weeks of Arctic and Survival training. I was sent with part of my Regiment 42 Commando, to the Falkland Islands in 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falklands and other British territories in the South Atlantic. I have had the honour of serving my Queen and Country on every Continent. I have even guarded Windsor Castle while Her Majesty was in residence. When I was in the British Special Forces, I was tasked with crowd observation during Prince William's wedding. But my greatest honour during my service was meeting Her Majesty when she visited wounded service men, I was less nervous being shot at.
I was with part of my Regiment was in a refugee camp at the height of the famine in Ethiopia. We listened to Live Aid on the radio. We were surrounded be the horror of the Famine, but when Queen came on the radio while we were listening to Live Aid, those poor soles who were there amazed us and reacted in a very positive way. I remember that a lot of us Royal Marine Commandos were crying watching some of the children dancing along, I always tear when I remember. I looked around at men I had fought alongside, who were tough, hardened Royal Marine Commando's who had fought a life and death war against Argentinian's in 1982. By the end of Queen's set we were dancing with the children. It went along way to help build their trust in us. The famine is one of the worst memories I have. And I hate to say I've seen a hell of a lot worse.
In 1988 I was in Bosnia in an Observation Position, where we had to film what the Serbo-Croatian military were doing to the Muslim population. Shortly after that I was invited to join a branch of the British Special Forces. I was later sent to fight in the Balkans against the very forces I had filmed. I was in in both invasions of Iraq and the war on "Terror". Multiple postings to Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot zones. During posting's in Iraq and Afghanistan we used to be dropped into regular outfits all the time to keep us at full readiness, and back in the U.K. we worked in Hospitals to maintain our medical knowledge.
During my carrier I got a higher education and earned two PhD's from Cambridge University, one in Modern Military History, and the other is on the History and Effects of the British Empire on the modern world.
Here are three links for a UA-cam channel which covers certain battle's of the second World war. the 1st;- ua-cam.com/channels/fZz8F37oSJ2rtcEJHM2kCg.html is for the channel, the second give's you an excellent about the lead up and reasons that led to the battle of Stalingrad:- ua-cam.com/video/hzr6dD8fvVY/v-deo.html , and the last is the start of the battle:- ua-cam.com/video/YAfo5mse-ag/v-deo.html . It is an extremely detailed channel and the maps and illustrations are spot on.
The Russian Spearhead was also a Salient. When two Spearheads converge, they cut off and surround a Salient as did happen at Stalingrad. The Russians had respect for all-but-defeated enemies, a lesson they from the French at Berezina.
I think you are mixing two films in your mind, a bridge too far is probably the one you're remembering which was on the western front involving British and Canadian forces. The bridge on the river Kwai was in the far East and involved British and Japanese forces.
Yep, I totally screwed that up. 🤦♀️
The structure of the forces is, say, from the platoon level. A platoon is infantry, about 30-40 men. Several platoons are a company. Several companies are a battalion. Several battalions are a regiment. This is how it goes up, Brigade, division, corps, army, to the level of army group. The Soviets also have the "front". This is a combination of several army groups. Of course, the larger a unit is, the more types of equipment and types of units it combines. An armored division has anti-aircraft gunners, infantry , scouts, technical teams, etc 03 33
I'm all ways having trouble with long posts ,The bridge on the river Kwai is in Thailand ,nothing to do with the war in Europe .I do enjoy your programs .Im not even sure Americans were involved apart from Hollywood.
"it's very very apparent to me now that the eastern front was far bloodier far worse than anything else in world war ii" Private Apparent just got promoted to Captain Obvious.
The Germans invaded Norway in 1940 if I'm correct.
Neutral Sweden was exporting iron ore to Germany trhough neutral Norway. The British wanted to stop that trade, so they tried to invade Norway to get to Sweden.
The Germans sent their Paratroopers (the Fallschirmjäger) to Norway and won the battle. They then occupied Norway because it has rich oil field (until this very day btw. it's one of the reasons for the norwegians not to join the EU).
Winter war in Finland happened AFTER start of WW2. WW2 started September 1st 1939 by German attack on Poland, followed by USSR attack on Poland two weeks after. Then for two years Germany and USSR were allies, Luftwaffe could not bomb London without oil from USSR.
20:10 the northern part had far stronger defenses in eastern Prussia. Long many miles of concrete bunker systems.
Soviets wisely decided the South is easier to break.
my grandfather, a hero of the Soviet Union, died on February 5, 1945, 60 kilometers from Berlin, he was 19 years old
You can find a "Unknown War" documentary series by Bert Lancaster: ua-cam.com/play/PLr7tdO3Zp0VFhTUH2LD9NYPzBh9uc3Kxb.html
Hidfő = to cross the water obstacle, a defensive section must be secured so that the crossing or landing teams do not reach the shore in an orderly battle. Of course, the creation of the bridgehead is usually done by violent combat, see Normandy 10 43
The Kwai River is in Thailand, I believe. It was the Japanese, not the Germans that were the perpetrators of the atrocities there. It was part of the horrific story of the Burma Railway. The Western Front was not only Americans, but also English (including Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians etc), and French armies. Remember, Germany was divided up between the UK, France, America and Russia after Germany's defeat.
I know this comment is a bit late, and I don't know if you'll see it, but to explain some things regarding the minor nations that were on Germany's side: There really wasn't much intelligence that could be shared with the Soviets, not for lack of wanting tho, but because the Allies, primarily the UK had managed to decrypt the German cipher in the early war and thus had ready access to almost all german communications, which they routinely shared with the Soviets.
It is also true that the Germans were really, really and I do mean truly utterly terrible at trying to coordinate this war with their allies. They heavily distrusted them and often blamed their defeats on them, even if they were directly culpable.
Its important to know that before the Germans attacked Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin had done a purge on his own army commanders as he was paranoid that they were plotting to overthrow him and regime. Thousands were sent to death camps (gulags)in Siberia. This severely weakened the Soviet army.
Theres no proof of the Great terror being conducted because of Stalin and his paranoia. More like a plot within the NKVD(interior ministry), after if was uncovered the perpetrators were given death penalty and many of those in prison were released by amnesty (1939-1940).
Bridge over the river Kwai happened in the Asian Theater, in a Japanese POW camp in Thailand, which was Japan's ally, with British prisoners
23:11 looks like a trap by the Germans to tangle Berlin in front of their face.
If the Soviets rush on Berlin the Germans can cut them off from supplies and destroy them.
But the Soviets played the right move and didn't take the bait.
First Bridge over the river Kawi takes place in Burma (Myanmar) in south east Asia it was British and American POW's being forced to build a bridge for the Japanese. (on a personal note your not helping the american stereotype for being bad at geography)
In the late war there just wasnt enough Germans left to fight, this is including a militia that the Germans raised that was equipped with out dated weapons, The Hitler Youth was pressed into service with the idea that the soviets would hesitate to shoot children, they didn't.
This series really dose gloss over events since Stalingrad was a meat grinder for both sides you had soviet divisions that would come out with 90% casualties. As for the battle of Berlin well i once hared one historian say "i wouldn't call it a battle, i would call it a slaughter" The Germans planned to have house to house fighting to make the Soviets pay as much as possible for the city. The soviets responded to this by flattening the city with rockets killing most of the defenders. Hitler wanted the last armys in the area to come to Berlin to hold of the Soviets but the last German army in the west had to fight both the Americans and the soviets as they tried to link up with the 9th army that was just south of Berlin. not a lot of them got out. Then this last German army tried to open a small corridor to Berlin to evacuate as many civilians and anyone stuck in the capital as possible, This was accompanied by part of the defenders trying to break out of the city itself.
The last big battle within the Battle of Berlin was the siege of the Government district which the Soviets thought must be defended by 5,000 men. In reality it was closer to 500 but when the Soviets finally took the roof and raised the flag in the famous picture which was done again for the picture. The French SS was still fighting in the basement and didnt surrender until after the war had ended.
At first pushing into the sea mean big problems in the supply of huge numbered troops. And after that - lose.
My Step Grandfather was Latvian, when Germany invaded Russia 1941 he joined the German army, he hated communism and Stalin he only told me a few stories but I was fascinated by it he did tell me he fought at Leningrad and conditions were brutal, thankfully near the end of the war he managed to be picked up by the British but ended up in a POW camp in Belgium after he left the camp he was given a choice were he could live Canada Australia or the UK he chose Britain where he met my grandmother he was a interesting man and loved his adopted country
Why did we lose the Winter war? All the reasons that served as a pretext for its beginning were settled in favor of the USSR, the Mannerheim Line was broken. Yes, we suffered heavy losses, but this is common in offensive operations. As a result, the border was pushed back, which relatively secured Murmansk and Leningrad. That is, from the point of view of politics, it was an unconditional and complete victory.
25:44 yes Germany also told the western allies they would not be opposing them at a certain point and instead be fighting on the east to slow the Soviet advance.
during the offensive, the attacking troops lost 3 to 1 on the enemy's position according to the statistics of wars.
when the SOVIET FORCES WERE BATTLES IN GERMANY STATISTICS were 1 to 3 to the attackers
A reason for why the southern part of the eastern front was so important was because of Romania. Germany doesn't have any oil. Romania had oil. Which is why Romania was so important to take from the Nazis. Pair that with the fact that so many partisan movements and local communists joined with the Red Army was a massive boost to their manpower.
At its widest, the Eastern Front extended to about 2000 km (or about 1250 miles).
In 1945, my grandfather was doing forced labor in Berlin when the Soviets attacked the city. My grandfather was stationed (or how do you call that for essentially slave labor?) in an attic room. Through the window, he could see Soviet bombs falling all around him. If any of those Soviet artillery pieces had aimed a little to the left or the right, he could have been killed. My mother (born in 1948) would not have been there, which means that I would not have been here to write this.
Romania was a big oil supplier to Germany during WW2, the second oil supplier in Europe during the war, so when we turned on them, they lost a vital resource, Germany was hindered by the lack of oil almost the entire War, you need oil obviously for tanks and ships and all that, but the germans never had enough
Troops of Romania, Hungary, Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia fought on the side of Germany in the war against the USSR. In addition, volunteer units of the Spaniards, Belgians, Dutch, French, Danes, Norwegians fought on the side of Germany against the USSR.
True.Reminds me of 1812 and Napoleon's coalition of European nations against the Russian Empire.