In Mein Kamph, Hitler had written "Even if we cannot conquer, we will drag the whole world into destruction with us." This installment of World at War shows how he basically got his wish, but the Allied Powers managed to deal crippling blows to the country while being able to afford the losses and setbacks the Germans inflicted on them. At the end of August 1944, Paris was finally freed of Nazi control after 4 agonizing years. Around the same time, Finland began negotiating with Stalin to put an end to their fighting with the Soviets, and Romania had given up. Charles de Gaulle, formerly a low status politician, returns to his capital, embodying the soul of France. Also in august 1944, the allies launch an amphibious attack on the southern part of france just 2 months after the invasion of Normandy, thus creating a pincer movement intended to circle the Reich. Germany was to be bled dry by this maneuver. British General Bernard Montgomery and US Supreme Commander General Eisenhower disagreed on how best to seal germany's fate. Eisenhower wanted to advance on a broad frontline right up to the Rhine river, cross it, and finish the war that way. Montgomery thought this plan was too cautious and would take too long, so he favored a strategy that was to become one of the biggest allied mistakes of the entire war. At this point, it is September, and british forces have managed to advance quite close to the delta of the Rhine. Three major waterways sat between the allied forces and the german border; the Maas, Waal, and the Neder Rijn. Montgomery's plan was to stage airborne assaults using paratroop infantry to capture the bridges in these places, then swing to the left side of the german defensive Siegfried Line in order to cut off the Ruhr: the industrial heart of germany. He hoped that by doing so, the war would end before 1944 was over. However, as Operation Market Garden (as it was now called) got underway, german resistance in this section of Holland was unexpectedly heavy. In the town of Arnhem in particular, british forces jumping out of planes were surrounded pretty much immediately. To make everything worse, a copy of the british plan is found and the germans now knew in advance exactly what was going to occur. The catastrophe of Market Garden meant the war would definitely not be over by the end of 1944, but on the other side of Europe, Russia was making a lot of progress. At Minsk, over 100 thousand germans were cut off and surrounded, finland had given up in the north, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia had been freed of germans, Ukraine was liberated, nazi controlled Greece was cut off due to the occupying of neighboring Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia (led by communist dictator Tito) had been reached. The USSR's push toward the west seemed unstoppable, but stalled unexpectedly right outside a city in Poland where the war began 5 years before: Warsaw. The USSR still controlled roughly half of poland, which was given to them during their deal with germany in 1939. The exiled polish government wanted to be reinstated before the russians had a chance to move any further west, or else poland would just be trading one tyrant for another instead of actually being freed. Polish underground resistance fighters and partisans came out into the open to try and attack the germans, but their revolt coincided with the russian attack running out of momentum. Nevertheless, Stalin, being as heartless as ever, tells his forces to back off and let the germans deal with the polish uprising. With pleasure, genocidal SS troops proceed into warsaw and obliterate any resistance. Stalin also refuses to allow supply planes attempting to help the poles land in russian territory, so oftentimes the supplies would fall right into the hands of the nazis. People were reduced to eating dogs. After the SS deals with the revolt, warsaw is (once again) blown to bits. Meanwhile, Hitler plotted a counterattack against the british and americans in the west that would be so severe, it would knock them back and give him ample time to stave off russia before they got too close to Berlin. By Autumn 1944, the allies were basically hugging the german border along an 1000 mile front, and germany was getting ready to stage its last major attack of the war; the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler's objective was to break through the british forces located north of the port of Antwerp and reach the sea. By doing this, he would not only sever a major supply artery, but also back the british forces located near the sea into a corner. To start the attack, he would punch through a quiet forest on france's border with Belgium (the Ardennes), which he was confident would work because it did against france in 1940. For the attack, the germans had a great deal of advanced heavy tanks and about half a million troops, many of them wielding StG-44's, the world's first assault rifle. Opposing them were just 80k freezing and tired americans. In the foggy weather, america's dominance of the air didn't matter very much. At first, it looked like the invasion of france all over again, as relentlessly fast german armored forces pushed deep into american lines, and inexperienced soldiers panicked, ran and clogged roads, thus preventing reinforcements. On Christmas Eve, the fog disappeared, so american and british planes had a field day blowing up germany's vehicles. With Hitler's attack stopped, american and british forces (each advancing from the south and north respectively) pressed down on the bulge this battle is named after, and erased germany's progress in the ardennes frontline. By January 1945, germany's army in the western front had basically ceased to exist. All the reserves of fuel, tanks, planes, soldiers and everything else Hitler had was destroyed in the battle of the bulge. Later that month, russian tanks enter germany itself for the first time as the soviets continue to ravage and raze every village they come across. As german civilians began to flee to escape them, american and british forces push into the western part of germany. The Rhine is crossed, and defeat for the third reich is now unavoidable. Like all episodes of this show, there's simply no way I can describe how spellbinding this one is. The atmosphere that this show sets up is just so magical, seeing all the footage of the war play out while those who were actually there talk over it. It's like being in the 40s. As always, there's a bunch of surprising information that even those interested in World War 2 might not even know, such as how the soviets gladly waited for their arch enemy to force the polish uprising into submission. Stalin really was a terrible person. Overall, Pincers is one of my favorites from this show, as a lot of action is going on during it, and it shows just how fast germany's dreams of winning started to crash and burn.
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