Surrender and War Damage

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 237 ORIGINALS for sale... https://www.militaria1945.com The Courland Pocket was an area of the Courland Peninsula where Army Group North of Nazi Germany and the Reichskommissariat Ostland were cut off and surrounded by the Red Army for almost a year, lasting from July 1944 until 10 May 1945. The pocket was created during the Red Army's Baltic Offensive, when forces of the 1st Baltic Front reached the Baltic Sea near Memel (Klaipėda) during its lesser Memel Offensive Operation phases in October 1944. This action isolated the German Army Group North from the rest of the German forces, having been pushed from the south by the Red Army, standing in a front between Tukums and Libau in Latvia, with the Baltic Sea in the West, the Irbe Strait in the North and the Gulf of Riga in the East behind the Germans. Renamed Army Group Courland on 25 January, the Army Group in the Courland Pocket remained isolated until the end of the war. When they were ordered to surrender to the Soviet command on 8 May, they were in "blackout" and did not get the official order before 10 May, two days after the capitulation of Germany. It was one of the last German groups to surrender in Europe. On 9 October 1944, the Soviet forces reached the Baltic Sea near Memel after overrunning the headquarters of the 3rd Panzer Army. As a result, Army Group North was cut off from East Prussia. Hitler's military advisors—notably Heinz Guderian, the Chief of the German General Staff—urged evacuation and utilisation of the troops to stabilise the front in central Europe. However, Hitler refused, and ordered the German forces in Courland and the Estonian islands Hiiumaa (Dagö) and Saaremaa (Ösel) to hold out, believing them necessary to protect German submarine bases along the Baltic coast. Hitler still believed the war could be won, and hoped that Dönitz's new Type XXI U-boat technology could bring victory to Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic, forcing the Allies out of Western Europe. This would allow German forces to focus on the Eastern Front, using the Courland Pocket as a springboard for a new offensive. Hitler's refusal to evacuate the Army Group resulted in the entrenchment of more than 200,000 German troops largely of the 16th Army and 18th Army, in what was to become known to the Germans as the "Courland Bridgehead". Thirty-three divisions of the Army Group North, commanded by Field-Marshall Ferdinand Schörner, were cut off from East Prussia and spread out along a front reaching from Riga to Liepāja, retreating to the more defensible Courland position, abandoning Riga.

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 257 Ausland-Tonwoche Nr. 701, january 1945 1:21 - Germany: Dealing with and enjoying snow 1:56 - Reviewing of Hungarian troops 3:21 - Germany: Education of science and technology 4:32 - Donation drive 1945 in Hamburg 5:13 - Eastern volunteers awarded close combat medal in gold 6:35 - Alsace: Operation Northwind (Nordwind) 8:09 - Resupply of encircled units by air canister 9:20 - combat operations in Hungary 11:32 - BONUS: Color US footage including the first use of Napalm in war Operation Northwind (German: Unternehmen Nordwind) was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. Northwind was launched to support the German Ardennes offensive campaign in the Battle of the Bulge, which by late December 1944 had decisively turned against the German forces. It began on 31 December 1944 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine in southwestern Germany and northeastern France, and ended on 25 January 1945. The German offensive was an operational failure, with its main objectives not achieved. By 21 December 1944, the German momentum during the Battle of the Bulge had begun to dissipate, and it was evident that the operation was on the brink of failure. It was believed that an attack against the United States Seventh Army further south, which had extended its lines and taken on a defensive posture to cover the area vacated by the United States Third Army (which turned north to assist at the site of the German breakthrough), could relieve pressure on German forces in the Ardennes. In a briefing at his military command complex at Adlerhorst, Adolf Hitler declared in his speech to his division commanders on 28 December 1944 (three days prior to the launch of Operation Nordwind), "This attack has a very clear objective, namely the destruction of the enemy forces. There is not a matter of prestige involved here. It is a matter of destroying and exterminating the enemy forces wherever we find them." The goal of the offensive was to break through the lines of the U.S. Seventh Army and French 1st Army in the Upper Vosges Mountains and the Alsatian Plain and destroy them, as well as seize Strasbourg, which Himmler had promised would be captured by 30 January. That would leave the way open for Operation Dentist (Unternehmen Zahnarzt), a planned major thrust into the rear of the U.S. Third Army, intended to lead to the destruction of that army. On 31 December 1944, German Army Group G (commanded by Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz) and Army Group Upper Rhine (commanded by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler) launched a major offensive against the thinly stretched, 110-kilometre-long (68 mi) front line held by the U.S. 7th Army. Operation Nordwind soon had the overextended U.S. 7th Army in dire straits; the 7th Army (at the orders of U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower) had sent troops, equipment, and supplies north to reinforce the American armies in the Ardennes involved in the Battle of the Bulge. On the same day that the German Army launched Operation Nordwind, the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) committed almost 1,000 aircraft in support. This attempt to cripple the Allied air forces based in northwestern Europe was known as Operation Bodenplatte. It failed without having achieved any of its key objectives. The initial Nordwind attack was conducted by three corps of the German 1st Army of Army Group G, and by 9 January, the XXXIX (39th) Panzer Corps was heavily engaged as well. By 15 January at least 17 German divisions (including units in the Colmar Pocket) from Army Group G and Army Group Oberrhein, including the 6th SS Mountain, 17th SS Panzergrenadier, 21st Panzer, and 25th Panzergrenadier Divisions were engaged in the fighting. Another smaller attack was made against the French positions south of Strasbourg, but it was finally stopped. The U.S. VI Corps—which bore the brunt of the German attacks—was fighting on three sides by 15 January. The 125th Regiment of the 21st Panzer Division under Colonel Hans von Luck aimed to sever the American supply line to Strasbourg, by cutting across the eastern foothills of the Vosges at the northwest base of a natural salient in a bend of the River Rhine. Here the Maginot Line, running east–west, was used by Allied forces, and "showed what a superb fortification it was".[8] On January 7 Luck approached the line south of Wissembourg at the villages of Rittershoffen and Hatten. Heavy American fire came from the 79th Infantry Division, the 14th Armoured Division, plus elements of the 42nd Infantry Division. On January 10 Luck reached the villages. Two weeks of heavy fighting followed, Germans and Americans each occupying parts of the villages while civilians sheltered in cellars. Luck later said that the fighting around Rittershoffen had been "one of the hardest and most costly battles that ever raged".

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 258 ORIGINALS for sale... https://www.militaria1945.com The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II which took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg. The offensive was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to encircle and destroy each of the four Allied armies and force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor. The Germans achieved a total surprise attack on the morning of 16 December 1944, due to a combination of Allied overconfidence, preoccupation with Allied offensive plans elsewhere and poor aerial reconnaissance due to bad weather. American forces were using this region primarily as a rest area for the U.S. First Army, and the lines were thinly held by fatigued troops and inexperienced replacement units. The Germans also took advantage of heavily overcast weather conditions that grounded the Allies' superior air forces for an extended period. American resistance on the northern shoulder of the offensive, around Elsenborn Ridge, and in the south, around Bastogne, blocked German access to key roads to the northwest and west which they had counted on for success. This congestion and terrain that favored the defenders, threw the German advance behind schedule and allowed the Allies to reinforce the thinly placed troops. The farthest west the offensive reached was the village of Foy-Nôtre-Dame, south east of Dinant, being stopped by the U.S. 2nd Armored Division on 24 December 1944. Improved weather conditions from around 24 December permitted air attacks on German forces and supply lines. On 26 December the lead element of Patton's U.S. Third Army reached Bastogne from the south ending the siege. Although the offensive was effectively broken by 27 December, when the trapped units of 2nd Panzer Division made two break-out attempts with only partial success, the battle continued for another month before the front line was effectively restored to its position prior to the attack. The Germans committed over 410,000 men, just over 1,400 tanks and armored fighting vehicles, 2,600 artillery pieces, and over 1,000 combat aircraft. Between 63,000 and 104,000 of these men were killed, missing, wounded in action, or captured. The battle severely depleted Germany's armored forces, which remained largely unreplaced throughout the remainder of the war. German Luftwaffe personnel, and later also Luftwaffe aircraft (in the concluding stages of the engagement) also sustained heavy losses. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were effectively out of men and equipment, and the survivors retreated to the Siegfried Line. Allied forces eventually came to more than 700,000 men; from these there were from 77,000 to more than 83,000 casualties, including at least 8,600 killed.[19] The "Bulge" was the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States in World War II and the third-deadliest campaign in American history. It was one of the most important battles of the war, as it marked the last major offensive attempted by the Axis powers on the Western front. After this defeat, Nazi forces could only retreat for the remainder of the war. BACKGROUND After the breakout from Normandy at the end of July 1944 and the Allied landings in southern France on 15 August 1944, the Allies advanced towards Germany more quickly than anticipated. The speed of the advance of the Allies caused several military logistics issues: Troops were fatigued by weeks of continuous combat and rapid movement Supply lines were stretched extremely thin and supplies were dangerously depleted. By December 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (the Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front) and his staff decided to hold the Ardennes region primarily as a rest area for the U.S. First Army, with limited Allied operational objectives in the area. The Allies defended the Ardennes line very thinly, due to the favorable defensive terrain (a densely wooded highland with deep river valleys and a rather thin road network) and because they had intelligence that the Wehrmacht was using the area across the German border as a rest-and-refit area for its own troops.

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 GERMAN SURRENDER Episode № 2 Military1945 Episode № 278 Be sure to give this video a THUMBS UP! Best way to support the channel! SUBSCRIBE to M1945 Type XXI submarines were a class of German diesel–electric Elektroboot (German: "electric boat") submarines designed during the Second World War. One hundred and eighteen were completed, with four being combat-ready. During the war only two were put into active service and went on patrols, but these were not used in combat. They were the first submarines designed to operate primarily submerged, rather than spending most of their time as surface ships that could submerge for brief periods as a means of escaping detection. They incorporated many batteries to increase the time they could spend submerged, to as much as several days, and they only needed to surface to periscope depth for recharging via a snorkel. The design included many general improvements as well: much greater underwater speed by an improved hull design, greatly improved diving times, power-assisted torpedo reloading and greatly improved crew accommodations. However, the design was also flawed in many ways, with the submarines being mechanically unreliable and, according to post-war analysis, vulnerable to combat damage. The Type XXI submarines were also rushed into production before design work was complete, and the inexperienced facilities which constructed the boats were unable to meet necessary quality standards. The main features of the Type XXI were the hydrodynamically streamlined hull and conning tower and the large number of battery cells, roughly triple that of the Type VII submarine. This gave these boats great underwater range and dramatically reduced the time spent on or near the surface. They could travel submerged at about 5 knots (9.3 km/h; 5.8 mph) for about 75 hours before recharging batteries, which took less than five hours using the snorkel due to the new super-charged diesel engines. Being designed primarily for submerged use, the Type XXI's maximum surface speed (15.6 knots) was lower than that of the Type IX (18.2 knots) but its submerged speed was more than twice that of the Type IX (17.2 knots versus 7.7 knots) because they were equipped with much more powerful electric drive motors and had less drag. The Type XXI was also much quieter than the VIIC, making it more difficult to detect when submerged, and the design eliminated protruding components that had created drag in earlier models. The new, streamlined hull design allowed submerged speed of 17.2 kn (19.8 mph; 31.9 km/h), versus 7.6 kn (8.7 mph; 14.1 km/h) for the Type VIIC. The ability to outrun many surface ships while submerged, combined with improved dive times (also a product of the new hull form), made the Type XXI much more difficult to pursue and destroy. It also provided a sprint ability when positioning itself for an attack. Older boats had to surface to sprint into position. This often revealed a boat's location, especially after aircraft became available for convoy escort. The Type XXI was also equipped with a pair of electric "creep motors" for silent running. The Type XXI was equipped with six bow torpedo tubes (instead of the more common four in German submarines) and carried 23 torpedoes. It featured an electric torpedo-reloading system that allowed all six bow torpedo tubes to be reloaded faster than a Type VIIC could reload one tube. The Type XXI could fire 18 torpedoes in less than 20 minutes. The class also featured a very sensitive passive sonar for the time, housed in the "chin" of the hull.

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 GERMAN SURRENDER Episode № 1 Military1945 Episode № 277 Be sure to give this video a THUMBS UP! Best way to support the channel! SUBSCRIBE to M1945 In Operation Doomsday, the British 1st Airborne Division acted as a police and military force during the Allied occupation of Norway in May 1945, immediately after the victory in Europe during the Second World War. The division maintained law and order until the arrival of the remainder of Force 134, the occupation force. During its time in Norway, the division was tasked with supervising the surrender of the German forces in Norway, as well as preventing the sabotage of vital military and civilian facilities. The German Instrument of Surrender was delivered on 8 May to General Franz Böhme, the commander of all German forces stationed in Norway, and the 1st Airborne Division landed near Oslo and Stavanger between 9 and 11 May. The majority of the transport aircraft carrying the division landed safely, but three planes crashed with a number of fatalities. The division encountered little of the expected German resistance. Operational duties included welcoming back King Haakon VII of Norway, looking after Allied ex-prisoners of war, arresting war criminals and supervising the clearing of minefields. The division was also able to confirm the deaths of the British airborne troops that had taken part in Operation Freshman, an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the German atomic weapons program in November 1942. The division returned to Britain at the end of August and disbanded two months later. Since 1943 the Western Allies had been developing plans for the occupation of Norway, code-named Operation Apostle, after Germany's surrender.[2] Force 134, the occupation force, was composed of Norwegian troops who were stationed in Scotland, as well as a British contingent , a few American troops,[3] and some 12,000 Norwegian police troops stationed in neutral Sweden. In the event of an emergency, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force would deploy troops into Norway from Germany. Two separate scenarios were considered in planning for Operation Apostle. The first, known as 'Rankin C (Norway)' was based on the assumption that all German forces occupying Norway would surrender as part of a more general unconditional surrender by Germany. The second was known as 'Rankin B' and assumed that there was no surrender and that only parts of Norway would be abandoned by the Germans in order to reinforce their troops stationed in north-western Europe against Allied advances there; in this scenario, Force 134 would encounter heavy German resistance.[2] The development of plans for the liberation and administration of Norway were complicated by it being difficult to predict whether the landings would be opposed by German forces and the extent of damage resulting from Allied bombardments and any German "scorched earth" demolitions. As a result, planning for the administration of Norway was detailed and flexible. Either of the two 'Rankin' scenarios would be difficult for Thorne to accomplish however, as the troops allocated to Force 134 were meagre; from late 1943 onwards the majority of military resources were dedicated to the campaign in north-west Europe. In September 1944 Thorne was even deprived of 52nd Lowland Division, which was attached to the 1st Allied Airborne Army by the War Office and earmarked for Operation Market Garden. Instead Thorne was later given the 1st Airborne Division, under the command of Major General Roy Urquhart. However, owing to the heavy casualties the division had suffered during Market Garden it would not be combat ready until 1 May 1945 after being heavily reinforced. In order to bolster his forces, Thorne would therefore have to rely on Milorg, the Norwegian Resistance.[2] The Allied civil affairs planners maintained very close contact with the Norwegian Government in exile which was based in London as well as Milorg.[7] As a result, by the end of the war Milorg had been preparing for the arrival of an Allied force for some time; its 40,000 members were well-armed and trained, and led by more than 100 Special Operations Executive agents parachuted into Norway, and it was prepared to prevent any sabotage of key communication centres and other important facilities by German troops if they resisted the Allied forces.

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 270 Be sure to give this video a THUMBS UP! Best way to support the channel! SUBSCRIBE to M1945 TO DECIMATE kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group. "the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers" VENGEANCE OR GOOD POLICY? This fabulous footage show German POWs forced to clear minefields in Denmark after the German surrender. Although seen by many as an appropriate punishment for the suffering caused during the occupation it was in fact a war crime. After watching this reel and talking about Operation Land of Mine I’ll show some additional footage in Copenhagen of the Germans evacuating and surrendering so stick around, it’s worth it, I promise. Over 1.3 million German landmines were cleared from Denmark's shores and fields from May to September 1945 It’s estimated that more than 2,000 soldiers including a number of teenagers, under the command of Danish officers, removed mines. 149 of them lost their lives during the five months of mine clearing, 165 were severely wounded and 167 lightly wounded. The removal, the cynically named Operation Land of Mine, was part of a controversial agreement between the German Commander General Georg Lindemann, the Danish Government and the British Armed Forces, under which German soldiers with experience in defusing mines would be in charge of clearing the mine fields. But in reality many of the POWs that were forced to take part were teenagers and elderly men who were not trained for this dangerous task, they were poorly fed and not well taken care of. The huge quantities of mines that had been successfully removed were gathered together in large holes and blown up. In order to ensure that those doing the de-mining were working diligently, after an area in the grid was declared mine free, the POWs were then forced to walk the field to prove it. It wasn’t uncommon for men lost their lives during this walk. The final step in the de-mining process was to test using surrendered German armor. Within the hour, the designated de-mined area is reported back to headquarters. The warning sign is removed from the zone. In retrospect, this activity has been condemned as a war crime since it violated the Geneva Convention of 1929, which states in Article 32 that no prisoner of war must be forced to participate in dangerous or unhealthy labour. This certainly qualifies. MOVIE Land of Mine (Danish: Under sandet, lit. 'Under the Sand') is a 2015 historical war drama film directed by Martin Zandvliet. It was shown in the Platform section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. It was selected and nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 89th Academy Awards. Plot Following the end of World War II in Europe and the liberation of Denmark from German occupation in May 1945, the Wehrmacht and SS occupiers became prisoners of war. A group of young German prisoners are sent to the west coast where they are trained to use their bare hands to remove the landmines that the Germans had buried in the sand. After their training, the boys left under the charge of Danish sergeant Carl Leopold Rasmussen who is determined to treat the young prisoners without sympathy. Marching his squad onto the dunes, he promises that they will return home in three months, if they can each defuse six mines per hour for a total of 45,000 mines. One of the boys, Sebastian Schumann, attempts to remain optimistic as they discuss their plans for when they return home. The POWs are given little food due to post-war shortages and begin to suffer from malnourishment, with Ernst befriending a young local girl to steal some bread from her. One day, while defusing a mine, Wilhelm's arms are blown off and he later dies in a field hospital. Most of the boys become ill after eating grain contaminated with rat faeces that they found on a nearby farm; they are treated by Rasmussen who makes them purge themselves with seawater. Rasmussen gradually treats his charges more kindly, stealing food from the base for them and tries to maintain morale by reporting that Wilhelm has survived. He also allows the boys to use a device invented by Sebastian to improve productivity. Hearing rumours of Rasmussen stealing food for the boys, his commanding officer Captain Ebbe Jensen brings a group of British soldiers to abuse and torment the boys. Rasmussen stops them but is confronted about the theft by Ebbe, who accuses him of being sympathetic towards the Germans. During another day of demining, Werner is blown to bits after encountering landmines buried one above another, leaving his twin brother Ernst distraught....