May 9, 1940.
A little French town, with little French children.
A town in the Ardennes, not far from Germany which is at war with France.
But things are being quiet,
until now.
So the children continue to line their clogs up neatly,
and their school teacher says:
Today we'll learn a nice song, to bring peace back to us.
Round, round, round, go the puppets.
This will be their last class.
Timing & Viet by jdinic3@podnapisi English by godlob@IDWS
Apocalypse The Second World War
May 10, 1940. At 5:35 AM, The Germans unleash their offensive.
2/6 Crushing Defeat
German paratroopers are dropped into Holland.
They are the vanguard, the first of 3 million invaders.
Wehrmacht marches into Belgium.
This is Hitler's decoy.
The Germans pretend they're going to attack France through neutral Belgium
as they did in 1914.
The French General Gamelin, commander-in-chief of The Allied Forces, is confident.
He has everything covered. He finds two "de strategy" during the "phoney war"
Gamelin moves his best motorized division, the elite of the French Army, into Belgium
along with the entire British Expeditionary Force.
These are fighting soldiers with true grid,
They will stop the German advance through Belgium.
But Hitler, in his own quarters, is gloating. His decoy worked.
He exclaims,
I could weep for joy.
He instructs Field Marshall Goering, who commands the air force,
not to bomb the French columns to let them proceed deep into Belgium territory
and he attacks them from the rear.
His real offensive will be through the Ardennes.
According to a French high command:
No tank can get through those dainty forests and hills.
But nothing stops them, except their own traffic jam.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands and Belgium,
People who own cars were among the first to flee.
Everyone is suspected
a so-called 'fifth column' is feared, spies working for the Nazis.
The German continue their diversionary tactics,
invading Belgium with specially trained airborne forces.
The sappers belt out their song from their campaign in Poland.
The girls will have to wait, comrades. It's time to go, comrades.
On May 11, on daybreak, they're dropped in to Belgium
Their goal is to capture the linchpin of the Belgian defense system.
Fort Eben-Emael, on the Albert Canal which is reputed to be 'impregnable'.
An intrepid German soldier heaves himself onto the top of a turret, with a load of explosives.
The conquerors strive through the ruins of Fort Eben-Emael, the key to Belgium.
Images such as these, will force the Wehrmacht's reputation of invincibility.
After the fort falls, people scramble to catch the last train to Paris.
In the French capital, The Red Cross is swapped.
Belgian refugees are transferred to cattle cars heading south.
As the German enters Liege, panics grow and spread.
Faced with such a force, they are only 2 options:
obey, or flee.
Many of the refugees are the people from the country side.
As in many times in history, farmers have always been the last to flee.
loath to abandon their crops and their animals.
The great Belgian poet, Emile Verhaeren wrote:
The people around here have nothing at all.
Nothing before them, but the endlessness of the open road.
The people who work the field, the people around here,
have only endless misfortune.
The German unleash their aerial offence,
destroying strategic crossroads, air fields,
refineries, and fuel supplies.
Cities in northern and eastern France are bombed.
The French are now facing reality of modern warfare.
In the Netherlands, the Port of Rotterdam is ablaze.
The result of the German terror bombing raid
like the one in Warsaw.
But these bomb are dropped, after the city has surrendered.
Another of Hitler's war crime.
In London, the new prime minister is Winston Churchill.
His first speech reveals his determination to keep fighting
whatever the circumstances.
I will say, without a doubt
that the faith of Holland, and Belgium
like that of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria,
will be decided, by the victory of the British Empire and French Republic.
But things have suddenly turned very grim in France.
In just 3 days, the German have swept through the Ardennes
and advancing towards French's defensive line on the Meuse River.
They are closing the net with their 'pinsel' movement,
seeking to entrapped the Allied troops amass in Belgium.
The German infantry-men knock over the French, as if they came from a different world
With their hand- grenades,
machine guns, and with their sleeves rolled up
They take the town in one day.
Sedan, the key to the Ardennes,
which was already terribly marked by the French defeat in 1870.
But the real obstacle for the German is the Meuse River.
On the night of May 13, they bring in beams to build bridges.
The French fight back.
But the German neutralized the French artillery, and the next morning their sappers finished the bridge.
Galvanized by the General Guderian, a 52 years old Prussian.
A great armored warfare strategist
Using tanks to strike with force, daring and speed.
Blitzkrieg, or Lightning war, should not give the enemy time to react.
First, the tanks, followed by the infantry, and backed by aircraft.
especially the Stukas.
The Stukas, dive bombers, equipped with sirens.
resisting the intense pressure of the descent
their highly trained pilots release their bombs at the last minute
with lethal precisions.
The French prime minister, Paul Reynaud, telephoned Churchill in alarm:
We have been defeated, we have lost the battle.
The French generals are at a loss. they are unable to react to the situation.
With the Allied forces tied up in Belgium, how can they stop the Germans from advancing?
In Paris, the French authority is trying to deal with the increasing numbers of refugees.
People from Belgium and Northern France are pouring in the city.
Schools, hospital, and barracks are soon overflowing.
Information is passed, rumors are bound
Has Gamelin committed suicide?
No.
The French high command has just realized that the Germans are heading for the coast
and the allies has fallen into the trap.
A counter attack is ordered,
allowing a certain Colonel de Gaulle, to distinguish himself at the head of the tank brigade.
The French Army possesses more tanks, and they are of better quality than the German panzers.
But without any reinforcement, or aerial supports, the French tanks become prey to the Stukas
The French combatants put up a good fight, but they wondered why the air force isn't protecting them.
Poorly prepared, and with fewer planes, the French pilots are heavily outnumbered by the Luftwaffe,
but they fight courageously.
Dozens of German pilots are shot down and taken prisoners.
Some of these pilots will be returned to Germany when the armistice is signed
and then join the battle against Britain.
The German tanks move swiftly through the towns and the villages of northern France.
Valiantly, the French try to slow the German advance,
but the Germans crush any pockets of resistance.
The Germans have reached the English Channel.
Hitler's strategy of the circle-cut has worked.
The British Expeditionary Force, the Belgian army, and the French armed forces are encircled.
The Belgian King surrenders, along with his army.
The British Expeditionary Forces withdraw towards the coast,
leading to the final collapse of the Allied army.
In Paris, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud dismisses Gamelin
and finds a new savior, General Weygand, 72 years old
One of the artisans of the Allied victory in 1918.
To boast the moral, Reynaud names another World War I hero as Vice Premier.
84 years old Maréchal Petain.
who will soon turn his back on Reynaud's policies.
Weygand has no choice. He too is forced to order a full retreat towards Dunkirk.
Hitler lets them go.
A gesture of clemency towards Great Britain? Is he still hoping for a separated peace?
Or has Goering assured him that his air force is capable of preventing any evacuations?
400,000 men cramped the beach, helpless and in disarray.
They have one last chance of escape, over the sea.
Churchill orders any vessel that can float to go and get them.
On the outskirt of Dunkirk,
the French hold back the Germans, suffering heavy losses.
Goering sent out the Luftwaffe's Stukas and bombers.
218,000 British and 120,000 French troops
are successfully evacuated.
The British Army is saved, but is in tatters.
The French will be sent back to France in a final attempt to defend their country.
The British are sent off to re-equipment centers.
All of Great Britain hails Dunkirk as an extraordinary feat.
Churchill, however, puts it into perspective.
With lucidity, he says:
Wars are not won by evacuation.
Even so, in those fist days of June 1940,
The "Dunkirk spirit" is born.
The ruthlessness of this war, and the destructive power of the Nazi enemy,
are now apparent to the British.
light-heartedness and humor give way to frantic efforts, to mobilize the nation..
On June 4, Churchill, who is also battling the defeatists on his own side,
speaks out, his tone is unforgettable:
We should fight on the beaches, on the landing ground.
in a field, in a street. And on the hills.
We shall never surrendered.
On June 4, the Germans take Dunkirk.
A fabulous bounty awaits them,
lavishly filmed by the Wehrmacht Propaganda Units.
The British have left behind almost all of their equipment.
The soldiers of the Wehrmacht film themselves in high spirits.
They find a French gramophone with the famous record by Maurice Chevalier.
The offensive continues.
France collapses.
But Reynaud and de Gaulle, who is under Secretary of State
for Defense and War, want to continue fighting.
In Rome, the Italian dictator Mussolini, "Il Duce"
has big news for his people.
A declaration of war
has just been delivered...
... to the ambassadors of Great Britain and France.
Mussolini is hoping for his share of the spoils,
the Rhone Valley, Marseille, as well as the disarmament of Corsica and Tunisia.
The French say, "It's a stab in the back."
Mussolini's offensive is cut short by the French's Alpine Division.
General Rommel's troop storm Normandy
and enter Loire.
Paris is declared an 'open city', in other words, it's turned over to the enemy without a fight,
in order to be spared the fate of Warsaw or Rotterdam.
The government has moved to Bordeaux.
The Germans are approaching the city.
Rumors fly, they kill, they rape, like the Prussians did in 1870.
The Parisians, abandoned by their government, flee.
All of France takes to the road.
A cataclysm that will be come to be known by a biblical name,
The Exodus.
Millions of French men and women head towards the Loire, the last rampart.
But there is no rampart strong enough, against the Stukas.
On June 14, 1940, at daybreak, the Germans march into Paris.
The Nazi's emblem, the Swastika, flies over Paris.
One of the first acts of the German occupiers
is to seized all the records of the abandoned ministries.
List of spies, of Jews, of Freemasons,
and even the original copy of The Treaty of Versailles
that so humiliated Germany in 1919.
It is immediately sent off to Hitler.
The exodus, has come to a halt.
The bridges over the Loire are blown.
The only hope now, is that the fighting stops.
Petain in Bordeaux, also want to put an end to things.
The Germans continue their relentless advance southward.
Though once considered a formidable force, the French army is now *****.
and yet to dispute up a better fight that would stored especially at the time.
In 1 month, 100,000 French soldiers die.
More than in the same period of time during World War I,
the deadliest war until then.
1,850,000 soldiers are taken prisoner,
along with 36,000 officers and 176 generals.
Among the prisoners there are many African soldiers from the French Colonial Troops.
The Wehrmacht amateur film makers film them with a perverse sense of satisfaction.
Famished, these soldiers kill a goat.
German propaganda news reels insist on showing repeated close up of their faces.
The official instructions are to portray the degeneration of the French
who are forced to go to war with their slaves from their colonies.
The original German commentary is revealing:
The Allies say they're fighting
to defend civilization
against our "medieval barbarity".
Just look at them, the guardians of culture!
3,000 African soldiers and officers from the French army will be shot and killed, after their captured.
After 7 years of Nazi's indoctrination, racism is rampant
among the German soldiers.
3 dates will now be decisive in determining France's fate.
On the June 16, 1940,
Reynaud is out-maneuvered by the Council of Minister in Bordeaux
and he resigns.
As his successor, Philippe Petain, is appointed to head the French government.
Place de la Bastille,
those who remain in Paris listen to Maréchal Petain.
The war hero at Verdun announces that he is seeking for armistice.
People of Paris,
I have asked our enemies
to cease all hostilities.
I have taken this decision, painful to the heart of a soldier
because the military situation demands it.
The German radio translates the speech announcing France's capitulation.
Some French people are able to pick up the BBC.
General de Gaulle has arrived in London.
On June 18, he denounces the armistice.
A few days later, he records a new speech,
We believe that the honor of France
lies in continuing the war alongside our allies.
Hitler receives a telegram of congratulation from Moscow.
On June 22, 1940, Hitler arrives in Compiegne, near Paris.
The setup he is ordered is designed to humiliate the losers.
He is brought the same railway car that was used for the signing of 1818 armistice.
that sealed Germany's defeat.
His revenge is completed.
The French delegations is led by General Huntziger.
An interpreter reads out a diatribe
accusing France of declaring war without any reason.
Hitler does not utter a single word.
He stands up and leaves.
The French delegates have been informed of the terms of the armistice.
One of its conditions is that France hand over all the anti Nazi Germans
who have taken refuge in France.
Huntziger tries to negotiate.
The German refuse.
Huntziger calls the government in Bordeaux.
The German Secret Services take his conversation with Weygand.
- This is Huntzinger. - Yes.
Well, it's done.
- It's done ? - Yes, General...
I'd like to thank you for the way you handled it.
- Yes Sir, well, you understand me, don't you? - Yes, yes, I do.
Afterwards, Hitler has the railway car taken to Berlin.
In the final days of the Reich, he will have the SS blow it up with dynamite.
Soon, the major symbols of France's victory on World War I
will be mocked.
Like here, in Verdun, where half a million of French soldiers were killed
to come to this, 20 years later.
Hitler jeers, as he visits his men who've only just taken the Maginot line.
He is more solemn when he enters Strasbourg and its cathedral.
Alsace and Lorraine are German once again, as he promised they would be.
The spoils of the French campaign,
2,000 tanks, 5,000 cannons,
300,000 riffles, 4,000,000 rounds of ammunition.
At an army supply warehouse, the Wehrmacht finds
a stock of long johns meant for the French army,
warm woolen garments which will be stored away for future campaigns.
The spoils are the factories, the harbors, all the riches of France.
It was the French who declared war, as a consequence, they will pay the equivalent
of $100,000,000 a day, in occupation costs.
General Huntziger goes to the Germany for the first meeting of the commission
charges with declining the term of the armistice.
To spare troops, Hitler decides to let France retain partial sovereignty
under a government at his beckon call
and with limited armies stripped of heavy weapons, just to maintain order.
The country is split in 2:
An occupied zone in north and along the entire Atlantic coast, providing access to all the harbors.
Italy controls the Mediterranean area, and occupies a narrow ribbon along the Alps.
The rest is called the 'Free Zone' with a new capital, Vichy.
This 'spar town' has been chosen in part for its many hotel.
In early July, Maréchal Petain moves into them
along with government ministries.
The atmosphere everywhere, is abysmal.
*****
However, this Vichy Government continues to control a vast colonial empire
and ***** is still a powerful navy.
Hitler's only request is that it ships be disarmed, and remains in their ports
for he is afraid it might join forces with Britain.
Churchill fears the opposite that it will fall into German hands.
He orders the Royal Navy to neutralized them.
A British naval force sails to one of France's biggest naval bases.
Mers-el-Kebir, in Algeria.
Churchill is taking no risk, an ultimatum is dispatched.
Either join us, scatterly around ships
or sail under escort for demilitarization in the Caribbean.
The French rejects all proposals.
The British open fire.
2 French battleships are heavily damaged and one, De Bretagne, is sunk.
1297 French sailors are killed.
Seeking to show his people, the world, and above all, The United States, how determined he is,
Churchill strikes out at his former ally
whose fleets could've help the Germans land on British shores.
Two days after the attack, The Vichy Government breaks off diplomatic relations with Britain.
All of Germany acclaims Hitler.
His lightning conquest of France enthralls his generals.
He sees himself as the greatest war leader of all time, on a par with Napoleon.
And like The Emperor, no one dares to contradict him anymore.
The Germans occupy the Channel Islands, Jersey and Guernsey,
stepping stones towards the invasion of Great Britain.
The British get ready for a German invasion, taking measures that might appear trifle.
Another urgent matter is to send the children away to the country side, for safety,
always a painful moment.
Their elder sisters, their mothers and grandmothers join the war effort.
Every woman must defend her home against the Fallschirm German paratroopers.
The men join arms as Local Defense Volunteers for the Home Guard.
Even veterans of the First World War.
The willing and able are mobilized, while the army rescued in Dunkirk reforms.
America supplies riffles, machine guns, and anti aircraft cannons,
and everyone perfect their skills.
Churchill delivers a most inspired speech to the British people,
Battle of Britain is about to begin,
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty,
and so bear ourselves
that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years,
men will still say,
'This was their finest hour'.
One of Churchill's main weapons is The Royal Air Force
Along with its remarkable aircraft, The Spitfire with its Rolls-Royce engine,
One of the best fighter planes in the world.
Britain also excels in the field of electronics.
The British are the first to use radar for the purpose of defense.
In the ops room, radar is used for detecting planes and guiding pilots towards the enemy.
The pilots from all over the British empire are joint by airmen
who have managed to flee their countries on the German occupation.
or whose government are in exiles in London,
Polish, Dutch, Czech,
and the first of the free French forces along with de Gaulle.
Many of the British pilots are Oxford's and Cambridge's students.
One of them, Richard Hillary, later wrote:
We were known as the 'long-head boys'. We were disillusioned and spoiled.
The press refers to us as the lost generation. Superficially, we were selfish and egocentric.
The war demanded no heroics, but gave us the opportunity to prove to ourselves and to the world
that undisciplined though we might be, we were a match for Hitler's dogma-fed youth.
These German pilots have been trained by the 'Hitler-Jugend', The Hitler Youth,
with the idea of revenge.
They feel that they are invincible.
Their leader, Goering, is a popular figure in the regime.
Goering, who is a man of luxury, often stays at the Hotel Ritz in Paris.
and turns the Luxembourg Palace, into the Luftwaffe's headquarters.
He has promised Hitler that The Luftwaffe could obliterate The Royal Air Force, in days
take control of the air, and enable the Wehrmacht to invade Great Britain.
The Luftwaffe has in its disposal, all of France's airfields,
their installations, and their equipment.
Its pilot are well-trained,
like Adolf Galland, with his trademark cigar who fought against the Republicans in Spain.
Or Werner Molders, an ace from the battle of France.
He was one of the pilot shot down, taken prisoner, and then returned to the German.
He is now part of aerial offensive against Great Britain.
Taking off from this field in occupied France, the Germans will attack convoys on the Channel,
harbors, and airfields in southern England.
They will shoot down 500 British aircraft, at a cost of 1,000 of their own.
The British pilots hold out giving everything they have.
Churchill proclaims,
Never in the field of human conflict,
was so much owed by so many to so few.
Hitler decides to postpone his plan to invade Britain.
This is his first setback.
His tactics now rely more on night-time bombings.
He says,
The British will surrender when their cities have been destroyed.
German's bombers attack British cities like Coventry and London
This is the blitz, daily bombings
As for the British people, they hold up admirably.
They dig shelters in the gardens of their cottages.
And in London, they sleep in the underground stations, and go to work the next day.
They never lose their confidence, or sense of humor.
Churchill says to the French:
Here in London,
which Herr Hitler says he will reduce to ashes,
our people are bearing up unflinchingly.
Hitler is exasperated.
He will later call Churchill, "A Jew-ridden, half American drunkard".
From now on, whenever he is thwarted, he will offend his spite against the Jew.
On October 12, 1940, on the Day of Yom Kippur,
The Jews of the Warsaw are told that the ghetto will be set up.
A wall 3 meters-high is erected,
enclosing half a million of Jews, men and women, children, the elderly.
They will suffer horrifically from hunger, cold, and poverty.
In his chalet in the Bavarian Alps, The Berghof,
Hitler is filmed by his mistress Eva Braun as he celebrates New Year.
surrounded by children of Nazis dignitaries.
He has another plan in his sleeves, another big gamble.
His mission now is to conquer new 'Lebensraum',
'Living Space' to the east.
He has allied himself with Stalin, only to better attack him later on.
His failure to take Britain compels him to move quickly.
Before Churchill is able to draw America in.
That, would set the world ablaze.
Need help on some blanks (*****).