Transcription
The Second World War. 6 years full of suffering, fighting, destruction, and death. In the spring of 195, it is obvious that the defeat of Nazi Germany is inevitably approaching. Nevertheless, Hitler's regime recruits a final contingent. Thousands of Germans still go to their deaths for the so-called Führer in the final months of the war. Hitler orders a kind of duty to perish, and the Wehrmacht High Command follows him. In the west, the troops of the USA advance further and further, and in the east, the Red Army approaches. The population fears dragons. Hundreds of thousands of women, children, and the elderly flee, often without knowing where to go. People are simply afraid. They were told that the Russian [ __ ] is coming now. They are afraid of the Red Army. In the final weeks of the war, the battle for Berlin rages. Stalin's troops conquer the capital of the Reich in a bloody house-to-house combat. Adolf Hitler barricades himself in his bunker. [Applause] Hitler will then always say that a depressive physical decline sets in, because he naturally also knows where the journey is heading. When everything is already lost, the last months before the downfall [Music] [Applause] of Nazi Germany. Early 1945 in Courland on the Baltic Sea. For several months, Army Group North of the Wehrmacht has been encircled on the peninsula by the Red Army. The immense losses of men and material from the past war years have shattered the once feared army of Nazi Germany, even in the north of the Eastern Front. Amateur footage illustrates the weakened state of the trapped units. Nevertheless, NS propaganda continues to cling to the myth of military strength. The newsreel shows the commissioning of so-called Volksgrenadiers in the homeland. I feel, by God, this sacredness, that I obey the Führer of the Greater German Reich and People without question and want to be ready as a soldier, everyone to make a sacrifice for this life, the idea is to make a sacrifice, a final one, not to give up. And the idea in National Socialism to sacrifice oneself is a very strong, a very, very important one. That's why Hitler also found the Navy so great, because they went down with the Manus. That impressed him. That was good. That's how you have to do it. On January 12, 1945, the Red Army launches a major offensive in East Prussia. At 4:45 AM, the sky turns bright as up to 300 Soviet guns per front kilometer open fire on the German positions. Cameramen of the Red Army film apocalyptic scenes after the Wehrmacht's defense lines have collapsed. In the years before, they had waged a war of annihilation against the population in the Soviet Union, considered racially inferior according to the ideology of the National Socialists. Now the theater of war shifts to the territory of the German Reich in the east as well. With the Red Army comes the fear of revenge. People are simply afraid. They were told that the Russian [ __ ] is coming now. Um, they are afraid of the Red Army, but they also know, of course, what atrocities have been committed in the territory of the Soviet Union. That is known. So in that respect, it is a mixture of prejudices against the Russian subhumans, um, a realistic assessment that the Red Army would not be gentle during its advance, and a clear recognition of the mass crimes that Germany has committed and for which retribution is now feared. Of the approximately two and a half million people living in East Prussia at the time, many want to leave their homeland as quickly as possible and flee to the west. But there is a problem. The National Socialists had forbidden flight for a long time. They wanted them to hold their positions and thus be able to offer something against the advancing Soviet army. Um, that certainly contributed to the flight being so chaotic and violent afterward. People left at the last minute, they left with hastily packed luggage, and they were often enough caught up in the fighting. Because the land route to the west is largely cut off by the Soviets, numerous people flee across the frozen sea. However, further dangers threaten on the coastal waters. The provisional destination for many is the Baltic coast near Danzig. People hope to continue their flight from here by ship, as the ports in the region are still under German control. This is also the case in Gdynia. Here, on January 30, 1945, thousands of people board the Wilhelm Gustloff. The ship was known nationwide. Adolf Hitler himself traveled to Hamburg for its launch in May 1937. I christen you Wilhelm Gustloff. [Music] For years, the cruise ship then served as a holiday steamer for the NS organization Strength Through Joy. Party comrades relaxed on its decks during trips through the Mediterranean and North Sea. Now the Wilhelm Gustloff is to help transport refugees and soldiers to the west. The ship is overloaded with several thousand people when it sets sail. Due to the high weight, the captain chooses a course through deep water. Thus, the ship sails far out into the Baltic Sea, where the Soviet navy also cruises. Around 9 PM, the ship, named after the National Socialist Wilhelm Gustloff, murdered in 1936, is spotted by a Soviet submarine and torpedoed. The Gustloff sinks into the icy waters. More than 9,000 people lose their lives in the catastrophe. By the way, it was not a war crime legally, because the Gustloff sailed darkened in war waters, was armed, and had soldiers on board. So in a way, if you take martial law, it was legal to attack the Gustloff. Whether it was legitimate is another question, and everyone can answer that for themselves. On the other side of the world, the war against Japan, allied with the Hitler regime, rages. Units of the US Navy cruise off the island of Iwo Jima, about 1000 km south of Tokyo. In mid-February 1945, battleships open fire on the island, only 21 square kilometers in size but strategically important. US bombers take off from the Mariana Islands and support the operation from the air. The volcanic island of Iwo Jima is an important place, an operationally important place, because there are airfields there that can then be used for escorting bombers or as emergency landing strips for bombers. So Iwo Jima comes into focus. War correspondents of the US Government Office of War Information film as tens of thousands of US Marines land on the island three days after the attack began, shortly before 9 AM. A few days after the landing operation began, one of the photographers captures US Marines raising the US flag on the dormant volcano. It is merely the replacement of a US flag previously hoisted higher. But the photo goes down in history. The flag-raising on Iwo Jima, staged later, the photo symbolizes the American victory in the Pacific. More than 6,800 Marines fall before the island can be fully captured. Almost 20,000 US soldiers are wounded. On the Japanese side, most of the approximately 20,000 defenders lose their lives. Not only on Iwo Jima do the troops of the Japanese Empire vehemently resist the impending defeat. Since October 1944, their commanders in the Pacific have also relied on a new tactic, Kamikaze. Pilots hurl themselves in their machines at enemy warships, accepting their own death in the process. The American side had not expected such a willingness to sacrifice at all. It was, of course, completely shocking for the American soldiers. They had not expected anything like this. It was a completely new form of warfare. The squadrons of suicide pilots bear names like Morning Sun and Mountain Cherry Blossom. There is no shortage of fanatical recruits for the commandos. However, if you look at the results, these attacks were not particularly efficient. They didn't achieve much. Many of these aircraft were shot down by American defenses before they could even reach their target. And even those that hit often did not have much effect. So it was more of a shocking element. Terror as a means of psychological warfare. In January 1945, the Red Army, under the command of Marshal Ivan Konev, advanced towards Breslau and Krakow without encountering significant resistance. In view of the impending defeat, the German occupiers begin to cover up their crimes with murderous thoroughness. This is also the case in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex. As the Soviet army approached, the SS evacuated most of the camps. The inmates were sent on so-called death marches. They were tried to be taken on foot into the territory of the Old Reich in order to erase traces. However, most of the people sent on these marches were no longer physically able to do so, so these marches essentially became death marches because a large percentage of those sent on foot marches simply died. Heinrich Himmler is responsible for the evacuation of the concentration camps. The Reichsführer SS orders his troops to systematically destroy all evidence of the regime's mass murders, and to do so quickly, before it can fall into the hands of the Allies. This infamous Sonderkommando 1005 began already earlier, in 1943, to excavate all mass graves again, to burn the dead, and this was naturally also done in the center of this entire extermination program, it was also done in Auschwitz with a certain success, records were destroyed, the crematoria were dismantled, the gas chambers were blown up. On January 27, 1945, the first soldiers of the Red Army reached the concentration camp. In the barracks, despite the evacuations, they find numerous inmates who will report on the horrors that took place here. I believe there were 6 to 7,000 inmates that the Red Army found there, completely emaciated. Of course, they tried to help these people immediately, but that is also a known phenomenon with people who have starved severely, that they then actually die at the moment they receive food. And that is exactly what happened, so another 20% of these people died in the following weeks. The liberated also report on the gas chambers in which up to 10,000 people were murdered daily. What was new about Auschwitz was the dimension of the whole thing. So, it is now assumed that about 1.3 million people were murdered there, and that was new again, and that naturally had a corresponding effect. Anyone who has been to Auschwitz knows that much more has been preserved than the perpetrators would have liked. The glasses, the hair, the suitcases, so all of that is still there, and it left no doubt about what actually happened there. Auschwitz-Birkenau becomes a symbol of the worst mass crime in [Music] history. In the then Soviet seaside resort of Yalta, the Big Three of the anti-Hitler coalition meet for a summit at the beginning of February. For years, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States have been united against Nazi Germany. Now the war in Europe seems to be decided in their favor. Its end is only a matter of time. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt discuss future plans. They concretize their agreements on the post-war order, made about a year earlier at the Tehran summit. The Big Three are gathered in Yalta, and the issue now is the westward shift of Poland, which was already indicated in Tehran, and is now being decided. It is also clear that there will be occupation zones. And then, above all, they talk about what should happen with the Pacific. Until now, the Soviet Union had not participated in the fighting against Japan. The US President, in poor health, now wants to change this in order to end the war in the Pacific quickly and avoid further heavy losses. There, Roosevelt approaches Stalin and says: "We need you in the Pacific," and negotiates with him and gets the assurance that three months after the end of the war in Europe, the Red Army will attack, which they also keep to the exact day. In return, the Western Allies pledge to increase their support for the Red Army through bombing raids on the German Reich. Two days after the summit, Dresden comes into the focus of their [Music] air forces. Around 800 British Lancaster bombers take off on this February 13, 1945, for an attack on what was then the seventh largest German city, which had previously been largely spared from air raids. In this situation, it was important for Churchill. Give me something to show Stalin that we are supporting the Soviets. And the idea then matured, if we carry out air raids in the hinterland of the Soviet front and cause chaos there, then that somehow helps the Red Army. Shortly before 10:30 PM, the British machines reached Dresden. An automatic camera films from the air as high-explosive and incendiary bombs are dropped. The attack is not aimed at specific targets. The metropolis is to be destroyed on a large scale. Within 15 minutes, three-quarters of the city center is in flames. The first division of the Eighth Air Force drops tons of bombs today to help an ally. Dresden was hit the hardest. In total, four waves of attacks hit the important transport hub on the Elbe. The attack clears away everything that stands in the Russians' way, so that the two fronts from east and west can be merged at Berlin. The consequences of the Anglo-American air raids are devastating. Estimates suggest that up to 25,000 people fell victim to them. "I never believed," a civil servant from the Dresden Missing Persons Office recounts his impressions, "that death could approach people in so many different forms. Burned, charred, dismembered, seemingly sleeping peacefully, contorted in pain, completely cramped, clothed, naked, and as a pathetic pile of ashes, and above all, the biting smoke and the unbearable smell of decay." Pictures taken months after the attacks convey an impression of the extent of the catastrophe. On the Western Front, the Wehrmacht is increasingly on the defensive. In the autumn of the previous year, the Allies had liberated Aachen as the first major German city. The surprise German offensive from December 44 had initially slowed down the Anglo-American advance. However, the German counterattack was successfully repelled in January 1945. Now the US forces can concentrate fully on the advance to the east again. Near Jülich, they encounter bitter resistance. Near Hüchel, German intervention reserves launch a counterattack. Wherever the enemy attacks, he encounters the stubborn resistance of our Grenadiers and paratroopers. The German defenders had blown up the Ruhr dam. As a result, the river's water level had also risen noticeably near Hüchel. Only after the floodwaters receded could US units cross the Ruhr on February 23 and enter the city center. There, the GIs were met with a shocking sight. Jülich no longer exists. The city had been under bombardment for months. What remained was a field of ruins. In the east, the Red Army continues its advance. Not only in East Prussia, but also further south in Silesia, Soviet troops advance far. The reasons for the success are the numerical superiority of the Red Army in men and material and Hitler's grave strategic errors. Since November 43, Hitler has focused on the west. That went quite wrong in June, July, August 44. And then he sticks to this vision, I must strike a blow against these Western Allies who have now kicked us out of France. And that at a time when the Red Army is mobilizing for one of the largest offensives ever on the Vistula, he focuses on the west and thus makes himself Stalin's best alliance partner. Numerous Germans had fled to Silesia in recent years to escape the bombing raids of the Western Allies, as it had been spared from air warfare for a long time. Due to the advance of the Soviets, they now find themselves in the midst of the fighting. Similar to East Prussia, many people here have only one goal: to flee from the Red Army. The revenge will be terrible, because what we have done in the occupied territories or during the so-called Eastern Campaign, especially against the Soviet civilians, but also in Poland, what crimes we have committed, that will return to us as revenge. The fears are not infrequently justified. Many Red Army soldiers are now indeed brutally taking revenge for the crimes that the Wehrmacht and SS had previously committed. We have here an escalation of violence against the German civilian population through the shooting of civilians, through the shooting of women and children, the deportation of German civilians, and also the mass rape of women. The sexual violence against German women is explained by various factors. On the one hand, it is symbolically said that the body of the woman symbolically represents the nation. So, a desecration, to use the contemporary term. A desecration or dishonor through sexual violence thus also means a desecration or dishonor of the entire nation. NS propaganda regularly picks up on these rapes, and fear and hatred in the population continue to grow. Newsreel report from January 1945 from Silesia. In these places recaptured by German troops, every house is marked by the atrocities of the Bolshevik soldiery. The bestialities are too monstrous to show everything that the camera captured. Agonizing horror still stands in the faces of these German women. Despite the militarily hopeless situation, capitulation remains unthinkable for leading National Socialists. Instead, they continue to adhere to strategically outdated concepts with which the Red Army is to be stopped. The question for the Germans is, how can we stop this avalanche of the Red Army? And one concept that was developed on the Eastern Front as early as 1944 is to introduce fixed positions, which are then later declared fortresses, located at transport hubs, and to defend these points, thus having breakwaters against which the Red Army's attack breaks. One of these breakwaters is to be the Lower Silesian city of Breslau, which Hitler has declared a fortress. The uninterrupted onslaught of the Bolshevik enemy on the fortress of Breslau repeatedly fails against the iron will of its defenders. The Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, Hanke, who has instilled a fanatical spirit of resistance in the garrison and the population of Breslau. Men and women join in to keep the city constantly ready for defense. On January 20, the Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, Karl Hanke, orders the civilian population to leave the city. However, due to a lack of organization and fear of the dangers of flight, 200,000 people remain in Breslau. The militarily inexperienced population is to defend the city together with units of the Volkssturm, Wehrmacht, and SS. Those who refuse will be shot. The so-called Volkssturm has been mobilized by the NS leadership since the autumn of '44 to strengthen the weakened Wehrmacht. Male civilians from initially 18, later even from 16 to 60 years of age, must go into battle for the still-propagated final victory to prove to your people and the whole world that Germany has millions of ready-to-fight men not only at the front but also at home, who have the best, unshakable will never to lower the flag to the enemies of the Reich and to surrender. For tens of thousands of teenagers and older men, it is a march to death. The Red Army cannot be stopped. It advances to the Oder from February 45 onwards. Nevertheless, the NS leadership remains unfazed. Goebbels notes in his diary: As far as the East is concerned, the Führer is no longer too worried. He has the impression that we are slowly returning to solid fronts. A bizarre interview illustrates the absurdity of NS propaganda. Mr. Comrades, you have built yourselves a prime position here. That's a thing. Where are you from? I'm from Berlin-Charlottenburg. Berlin-Charlottenburg. Yes. Does your wife know we are here? Well, at the moment she is still very much in doubt. Yes. Yes. Lück Lück must be somewhere around. Well, let's see if the recording hopefully sees me here. One is still quite alright, and otherwise the Russian leaves you alone here. What? After all, he has more than us. While the Red Army has conquered large parts of Silesia and Pomerania in the east, Americans, Britons, and Canadians are advancing rather slowly in the west. Their next major milestone is the Rhine. Since the end of February, US forces have been fighting their way towards Cologne. The Rhine is now the great natural border in the west. Therefore, the fighting on the way to the Rhine is still relatively difficult, relatively costly. February 1945 is one of the costliest months for the US Army. On March 5, American units reach the outskirts of the cathedral city. The 3rd US Armored Division advances through the districts of Bickendorf, Müngersdorf, and Vogelsang. The ordinary citizen of Cologne has nothing to fear from the Allied troops, according to leaflets previously dropped over the city. A day later, the Americans have fought their way into the city center. Near the cathedral square, a Panther tank blocks the way to the Rhine. But it too cannot hold back the offensive for long. The last significant resistance is broken. In the late afternoon of this March 6, peace returns to the left-bank districts of Cologne. The fighting here is over. The Wehrmacht High Command reports the next day laconically: The rubble heap of Cologne has been surrendered to the enemy. As part of the Special Film Project 186, cameramen of the Army Air Forces accompany the advancing US troops. In Cologne, they capture the immense degree of destruction on 16 mm color film. These images provide a disturbing testament to the city, which has been destroyed to almost three-quarters. Before the defeat, the defenders of Cologne had blown up bridges over the Rhine. The way across the river thus remains blocked to the Allies for the time being. About 55 river kilometers upstream, the Americans succeed a day after the conquest of the Cologne city center in another military coup. A small vanguard of the Ninth US Armored Division reaches the Ludendorff Bridge, which spans the Rhine. To the surprise of the men, the structure has not been blown up. Enemy troop resistance is also largely absent. The Remagen Volkssturm does not show up. If the Remagen Volkssturm battalion had been there and had shot around a bit, then this small patrol, it wasn't many American soldiers, would not have been able to reach the bridgehead and the bridge approach so easily. The capture of the bridge is achieved by storm. The action is reenacted by propaganda units a few days later. More than 8,000 US soldiers thus reach the east bank of the Rhine in the next 24 hours. Wehrmacht units try to correct their mistakes and destroy the bridge through air raids and artillery fire. However, it will take 10 days until the structure actually collapses. Until then, US engineers have built a pontoon bridge and can continue to deploy units across the Rhine on a large scale. A heavy blow to the defense of the Reich. Hitler is furious, and the bridge commander is executed, and those who can be held accountable are punished. Three, four people are summarily tried and, I would say, murdered. On March 20, Adolf Hitler makes a final public appearance in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. On this day, he decorates Hitler Youth who have distinguished themselves militarily. The fact that the war is lost changes nothing in the propagated duty to continue fighting. Especially the younger generation becomes a victim of the misanthropic fanaticism. Youth, especially in this final phase of the war 44-45, is the last reserve of this Third Reich, the last reserve individually, personally as a disposable mass, which is sacrificed, sacrificed for the final battle. During our first attack, I was deployed as a messenger by order of the battalion commander. I had to bring a very important message back to the assault guns and get them to move. They then arrived, and thus enabled us to penetrate the enemy-occupied village, and we lifted the deployment. As the Russian advanced closer to Lauban, I voluntarily made myself available as a messenger to the combat commander of Lauban. My task was to deliver messages to the individual company command posts. In addition, I often brought Panzerfausts and ammunition to the main combat lines. The boy with the Panzerfausts is called Wilhelm Hüpner. He was reported on several times in the newsreel at the time. 16-year-old Hitler Youth Wilhelm Hüpner distinguished himself excellently as a messenger in the ranks of the Grenadiers during the recapture of Lauban. He received the Iron Cross a few hours ago. The Lower Silesian town of Lauban, in present-day Poland, had already been largely occupied by the Red Army in February 1945. However, it was recaptured by the Wehrmacht at the beginning of March. One of the extremely rare success reports of those [Music] days. Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels immediately travels to the region and gives a fanatical speech a short time later in nearby Görlitz. It will be his last appearance in the newsreel. Those divisions that have already launched small offensives and will launch large ones in the coming weeks and months will go into this fight like into a divine service. And when they shoulder their rifles and board their armored vehicles, they will have only their slain children and violated women before their eyes. And a terrible revenge will flow from their veins, the enemy of the pale will be defeated. Especially Goebbels, uh, if you will, cynically put, is in top form again. There is a speech, then they will go into this fight like into a divine service. And it is, of course, also an staging of the downfall, and of course also the permanent staging of the will. We, we will definitely not survive it. That's it, really. Of course, we are still talking about a turning point, about victory, but the underlying motive of the masterminds is actually NS ideology or nothing. In January 1945, Goebbels had still called for a popular sacrifice for the Wehrmacht and Volkssturm. As in the Napoleonic Wars of the previous century, the population was to donate. Grenadiers and Volkssturm men need clothing and equipment. The popular sacrifice will give them [Music]. What cabinets and drawers bring that is not absolutely necessary, bring it to the collection points. It is for our soldiers and Volkssturm men, and thus for you. In the face of impending doom, the regime desperately tries to compensate for losses, including with women. Panzerfaust firing in a German city. Here, every German can learn how to handle this anti-tank weapon feared by the enemy [Music]. It is as easy as it looks. [Applause] In the west of the Reich, the situation for the German defenders also continues to worsen. After crossing the Rhine, the Allies advance relentlessly eastward, conquering city after city. The strength of the Wehrmacht was exhausted in February 1945, March 1945, and they have no more strength for any organized defense. Now everything is collapsing. As the Red Army had done before in the east, troops of the Western powers are now also confronted with the crimes of the NS era, to which millions of people had fallen victim in recent years, during their advance. In mid-April, British units reach the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near Celle. Here people were tortured, mistreated, and murdered. The battle-hardened soldiers are shocked. What they see here eclipses everything they have experienced so far. Soldiers of the British army have described that they actually thought they would be greeted with cheers, "Our liberators are coming." And instead, they saw, especially in Bergen-Belsen, it was terrible, emaciated figures, corpses on the street. The survivors were not even able to move away any further. Um, the cheers were indeed very limited, because everyone was too weakened to show any human reaction. By the end of the war, at least 75,000 inmates were crammed here, including many women and children. The later well-known German-Jewish girl Anne Frank was also interned in Bergen-Belsen. She died here of hunger, illness, and exhaustion. On April 19, US forces reach Leipzig. On this Thursday, Josef Goebbels implores the German population. To bravely take on a fight that is inevitable and unavoidable, to stand upright before your fate with a clear conscience and a pure heart, to endure all suffering and every trial, but never to even think of faltering in the agonizing hour of the final decision and throwing in the towel. This is not only manly, it is also German in the best sense. Pathetic words that cannot stop the advance of the GIs. On the morning of April 19, they capture the main train station in Leipzig. Resistance is only sporadic. Resistance groups have been distributing leaflets for days with slogans like "End the Nazis' insane war" and "White flags out." Many Leipzig residents have obviously taken the messages to heart. They just want to get through it somehow. They are waiting for the Americans, that's where hope is greatest, and somewhere, sometime, this madness will end. That is at least dominant among the people who, so to speak, no longer believe in National Socialism. However, as in all parts of the Reich, there are still fanatical supporters of the regime in Saxony. In the town hall, the Americans make a gruesome discovery. The mayor, with his wife and daughter, has committed suicide, as has the city treasurer. This situation is also accompanied by an unprecedented wave of suicides. So for many people, it is really the end, and they cannot imagine a world beyond National Socialism, but a world beyond these circumstances, and so yes, that is of course a unique atmosphere of doom that prevails at the time. The more areas are controlled by the Western Allies, the more German soldiers surrender. Cameramen of the US troops document on color film how more and more Wehrmacht members raise their hands instead of their weapons. This step is not without danger. The commander-in-chief of Army Group South issued an unambiguous order at the end of March. Anyone who leaves the unit in combat must report immediately to the nearest fighting unit. Finding them is not difficult. The sound of combat is the surest guide. Those who disobey the order risk being sentenced to death for desertion. But more and more soldiers are willing to take this risk. In April 1945, a Jäger battalion of the Wehrmacht fights units of the advancing Red Army about 60 km northeast of Berlin. The footage is likely among the last scenes filmed by German propaganda units in this war. Capitulation is still not an option in the logic of the National Socialists. Hitler orders a kind of duty to perish, and the Wehrmacht High Command follows him, and many soldiers and units also follow him. It is simply that they did not want to endure another 1918. Yes, no defeat where it was said that we capitulated too early. This time, the soldiers have in mind to capitulate five minutes past twelve rather than five minutes to twelve. The whole thing, of course, with horrific losses, which significantly exceed everything that has happened so far. On April 21, the first Soviet units cross the Berlin Autobahn ring. While heavy artillery fire begins, the Soviet air force attacks, and Red Army soldiers advance into the outskirts, Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels addresses the city's population by radio. Defenders of Berlin, the eyes of your women, your mothers, and your children are on you. They have entrusted their lives, their happiness, their health, and their future to you. You now know your task, and I know you will fulfill it exemplarily. A final loyal contingent of the regime forms in the ruins to defend Berlin and the Führer. Adolf Hitler has barricaded himself with his entourage in the bunker under the Reich Chancellery. The Red Army soldiers fight their way through the outskirts towards the city center. The heavy fighting is documented by Russian cameramen. The Soviet commanders show no consideration, neither for German civilians nor for their own soldiers. They could have encircled Berlin. Instead, they took it house by house, and thousands of Red Army soldiers ultimately died in this senseless fight. And that also surprised the Allies, the way the Soviet Union waged war. The death toll on the German side is also high. How many people exactly lost their lives in Hitler's capital is unknown. Since April 25, the siege ring of the Red Army around Berlin has been closed. Soviet tanks finally advance towards the city center and thus towards the Reich Chancellery. Hitler then asks, "How long can you hold out?" The commander finally says, "Only 24 hours, no longer," and only then, one must also imagine, only then does Hitler decide to commit suicide, with a certain delay. So he really tries to drag out the fighting until the last conceivable moment. Hitler still dictates his political testament and marries Eva Braun. In the afternoon of April 30, the dictator shoots himself. Eva Braun dies by poison. The bodies are burned behind the Reich Chancellery. Hitler had repeatedly said, "I will stop at five minutes past twelve." And that is fundamentally an equally brutal, inhumane, and simple strategy, which he, however, realizes until the end. Fighting continues even after the dictator's death. On May 1, the Red Army occupies parts of the government district, standing within sight of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reich Chancellery. There, Josef Goebbels now takes command. Hitler had decreed that Grand Admiral Dönitz would become Reich President and Propaganda Minister Goebbels Reich Chancellor. Goebbels attempts to open surrender negotiations with the Red Army, but the Soviet side, on Stalin's orders, insists on the immediate and unconditional surrender of the city. The majority of Berliners have recognized the signs of the times on this May 1, 1945, and have hung white flags from their windows. In the evening, the news of the Greater German Radio announces a lie to the people. From the Führer's headquarters, it is reported that our Führer Adolf Hitler fell today afternoon in his command post in the Reich Chancellery, fighting against Bolshevism to his last breath for Germany. In the following hours, Josef Goebbels also ends his life. His wife dies with him. Before that, they poison their children. In the worldview of the fanatical Nazi Goebbels, an unavoidable step. Meanwhile, Berlin has unconditionally surrendered. The Soviets take command of the city on this May 2, 1945. In Reims, France, four days later, the end of the war is to be decided. US General Eisenhower holds the command of the Allied Expeditionary Forces here. After final hopeless negotiation attempts by the German delegation, Colonel General Alfred Jodl signs the unconditional surrender late at night. On May 8, the German surrender is signed again. This time at the headquarters of the Soviet High Command in Berlin-Karlshorst. Moscow insists on this second signing, as no Soviet delegation was present in Reims. at that moment, and that is a longer process of several days in which the Germans surrender, in that time everything that this German Reich has to offer in terms of power is truly exhausted. And that is hour zero, I believe, is a very old-fashioned term, but it describes it. There is nothing left of military or political substance. When Grand Admiral Dönitz, appointed Reich President by Hitler, is arrested in Flensburg on May 23, the Third Reich is definitively history. Berlin is largely destroyed, but people are already starting to rebuild. So-called Trümmerfrauen (rubble women) clear away the debris. Some Berliners live in apartments without an outer wall, but they are alive. In Potsdam, the new US President Truman, Josef Stalin, and Winston Churchill meet to discuss further action in defeated Germany. Japan does not surrender until after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on September 2, 1945. The Second World War is over. It lasted 6 years and one day.