Raw Footage

SUBSCRIBE https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN2UQVe6Xaqz5rLFaWq8-mw?sub_confirmation=1 Open a free account and see example exclusive footage on Military1945.com This periodical was published in February of 1944 and is in the series Die Wehrmacht. Its first article covers the defensive preparations being made along mainland Europe’s Atlantic coast intended to counter the expected Anglo-American invasion which would come four months later. As we go through the article, I’ll mix in more rare associated film footage to bring it to life. At the end of the video I’ll talk about the purchasing, collecting and selling of such investment grade originals so stick around, it’s worth it. For many weeks, on the other side of the English Channel, discussions about whether the planned invasion which has long been pushed by the Soviets, can succeed. In newspapers and on the radio professionals and amateurs alike have prognosticized the expected result of such an Anglo-American operation. It’s as if the media frenzy is somehow supposed to give them courage, to convince themselves that it is bound to succeed. They hope that through heavy air attack against the civilian populations that the German Reich would simply collapse and so make this risky invasion unnecessary. This hope has proven false. In order to force a decisive outcome in this war the Allies will have to come and do battle on the European mainland. The caption for this photo reads.. Anti-tank barriers, densely positioned barbed wire and smooth cement walls surround by numerous machine gun and other automatic weapon equipped emplacements make up this formidable unbroken chain which stretches the entire length of the Atlantic coast. For the photo on the left the caption reads.. In the narrow straights between small islands and the mainland heavy obstructive barriers have been lain which make the approach by landing craft and small transport vessels difficult. These areas are in range of nearby positioned batteries of artillery. The caption for the photo above reads.. Command and observation towers armed with flak and coastal guns are heavily concentrated along the Atlantic coast all the way from Holland through the Bay of Biscay. Under the heavy layers of concrete those inside have unobstructed views in all directions. Here they stand attentively watch of both the sky and of the waves. Right off the bat you might recognize this exact shot from the film clip I showed earlier. Interestingly the cameramen who took movie footage for these propaganda films likely also took the photographs that were used in these periodicals. Fieldmarshal Rommel was put in charge by the Führer of inspecting and improving the coastal defenses. Here, a regional commander of a bunker system explains to him the layout of the mine fields for the area. With heavy camouflage netting the silhouette of the long cannon barrel blends in to the surroundings. The short sandy beach just in front is well mined and blocked with so called “Spanish Rider” obstacles. The gigantic concrete blocks of a coastal fortification look like an animal of prey prowling along the landscape, ready to spring. The heavy weaponry inside the fortress jumps to life and begins to speak its terrifying language as soon as the silhouette of the enemy fleet is spotted above the horizon. Layered tiers of artillery batteries extend far inland and wait prepared to engage an approaching enemy from all directions. This is just a small part of the powerfully destructive capability of Fortress Europe that awaits the attackers false sense of security and confidence. ORIGINALS Viewers have asked for me to talk specifically about the collecting of, or investing in, originals like the ones shown in the M45 videos. Please let me know in the comment section if this is something that interests you. The Die Wehrmacht periodical I used from this collection in todays video is a good example of a series that is of investment grade. This means that there is enough demand to expect that over time the value will go up. The collection has a combination of normal Die Wehrmacht periodicals and Aufgabe A versions. Generally having different kinds of periodicals bound together, or of different languages, lessons the value but since they are of the same series it’s ok. The Ausgabe A versions were published for distribution in occupied countries, have color covers and the content was sometimes somewhat different. They’re more rare than the normal issues and therefor more valuable. The Die Wehrmacht series was published bi-weekly and went from 1936 until 1944. Normal years had 26 editions, a few of which being called special editions. In 1944 only 18 numbers were published. DIE WEHRMACHT 1944 COLLECTION 9 Ausgabe A editions & 5 normal Militaria1945.com/wehrmacht-1944-ausgabe-normal-p-31786.html ORIGINALS FOR SALE Militaria1945.com

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL and get access to exclusive film footage www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 179 Six weeks after the Allied invasion of Normandy, Operation OVERLORD showed distressing signs of stalemate. More than a million American, British, and Canadian troops had come ashore in France by mid-July 1944, but they remained wedged within a narrow bridgehead roughly fifty miles wide and twenty miles deep. Both German defenders and Allied attackers had suffered more than 100,000 casualties; it was small comfort to the Allies that the enemy wounded included Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of Army Group B, who was critically injured in a strafing ambush on July 17. Fighting was intense, grim, and unspeakably violent, with daily advances often limited to a few yards. Morale hardly improved when British efforts to expand the bridgehead south of Caen gained little ground in Operation GOODWOOD, an attack led on July 18 by three armored divisions which together lost more than 400 tanks. Beyond gaining a few dozen square miles, GOODWOOD did succeed in further fixing German attention on the eastern half of the Allied bridgehead, allowing the Americans in the west to position themselves for the blow that would finally break the deadlock, transforming a war of attrition into a war of movement. That decisive blow, known as COBRA, was largely planned by the U.S. First Army commander. Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley flew from France to England to plead for a massive assault by heavy and medium bombers to blow a hole in the German line for ground troops to exploit. Originally intended to follow on the heels of GOODWOOD, COBRA was delayed several days by the wretched weather that plagued Normandy in the summer of 1944. Thick clouds also led to the abrupt cancellation of sorties launched from England on July 24, but not before the first waves had dropped their payloads, including several dozen bombs that fell behind American lines, killing or wounding about 150 U.S. soldiers. Some 1,500 B-17s and B-24s dropped more than 3,000 tons of bombs when COBRA resumed shortly before noon on July 25, with almost another 1,000 tons of bombs and napalm dropped by medium bombers in one of World War II's most devastating air attacks. Many bombs fell short, killing 111 American soldiers including Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces who had imprudently joined front-line troops as an observers and wounding nearly 500 others. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied supreme commander, had crossed the English Channel to Normandy for the day, only to return to his headquarters in England that evening, dejected and uncertain about COBRAA's success, but determined never to use heavy bombers in support of ground troops again. In fact, the bombing had unhinged German defenses almost precisely as planned. "The bomb carpets rolled toward us, most of them passing only a few yards away" reported Gen. Fritz Bayerlein, commander of the badly mauled Panzer Lehr Division. In addition to killing perhaps a thousand German soldiers and demolishing numerous command posts, the bombardment overturned tanks, demolished enemy communications, and terrified those who survived the onslaught only to face several attacking U.S. Army infantry divisions. Late on the afternoon of July 25, the VII Corps commander, Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins, shrewdly decided to send his armor exploitation force into the breach. The next day, the German Seventh Army reported seven ruptures in the line from east to west. By the night of July 27, the 30th Infantry Division, which had suffered most of the fratricidal casualties earlier in the week, reported, "This thing has busted wide open." Things got even better. More than 100,000 combat troops poured south through a gap not five miles wide, soon turning the German left flank and capturing several key bridges near Avranches, the gateway from Normandy to Brittany. At noon on August 1, the U.S. Third Army was committed to the fight under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, and the stalemate anxieties of mid-July would soon vanish in a hell-for-leather pursuit of a beaten enemy across France.

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL and get access to exclusive film footage www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 182 Operation Market Garden was an Allied military operation during the Second World War fought in the German-occupied Netherlands from 17 to 27 September 1944. Its objective was to create a 64 mi (103 km) salient into German territory with a bridgehead over the River Rhine, creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany. This was to be achieved by two sub-operations: seizing nine bridges with combined U.S. and British airborne forces (Market) followed by land forces swiftly following over the bridges (Garden). The airborne operation was planned and undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by XXX Corps of the British Second Army. It was the largest airborne operation of the war up to that point. Although the operation succeeded in liberating the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many towns, and limited V-2 rocket launching sites, it failed to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, with the advance being halted at the river. Geography A World War II military operation fought in the Netherlands from Sept. 17 to 25, 1944. Highway 69 (later nicknamed "Hell's Highway") leading through the planned route was two lanes wide, partly raised above a surrounding flat terrain of polder or floodplain. The ground on either side of the highway was in places too soft to support tactical vehicle movement and there were numerous dikes and drainage ditches. Dikes tended to be topped by trees or large bushes, and roads and paths were lined with trees. In early autumn this meant that observation would be seriously restricted. There were six major water obstacles between the XXX Corps' jumping-off point and the objective of the north bank of the Nederrijn: the Wilhelmina Canal at Son en Breugel 100 feet (30 m) wide; the Zuid-Willems Canal at Veghel 80 feet (20 m); the Maas River at Grave 800 feet (240 m); the Maas-Waal Canal 200 feet (60 m); the Waal River at Nijmegen 850 feet (260 m); and the Nederrijn at Arnhem 300 feet (90 m). Plans were made to seize bridges across all these obstacles nearly simultaneously – any failure to do so could result in serious delay or even defeat. In case bridges were demolished by the Germans, XXX Corps had plans to rebuild them. To this end, a vast quantity of bridging material was collected, along with 2,300 vehicles to carry it and 9,000 engineers to assemble it. Although the area is generally flat and open with less than 30 feet (9 m) of variation in altitude, Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, commander of XXX Corps recalled that "The country was wooded and rather marshy which made any outflanking operation impossible."[13] There were two important hill areas, 300 feet (90 m) high, that represented some of the highest ground in the Netherlands; one north and west of Arnhem and one in the 82nd Airborne Division's zone, the Groesbeek ridge. Seizure and defence of this elevated terrain was considered to be vital to holding the highway bridges.

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL and get access to exclusive film footage www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 184 This raw footage is part of a sensational collection from a German army film crew that was produced in September of 1941 after the Battle for Kiev. The material, being processed for use in Deutsche Wochenschau newsreels, had at this stage in the production cycle not yet received the recorded voiceover and more importantly had not yet been censored. That first scenes, for example, would never be shown to the general public and you can probably imagine why. Using footage from this unique collection we’ll get an uncensored look at occupied Kiev and its population. We’ll then witness the staggering moment that soviet radio bombs were triggered which caused destruction on an enormous scale in an otherwise relatively undamaged city. It was in direct response to these attacks that the German authorities organized the 3-day massacre in the ravines of Babi Yar. At the end of this video we’ll see part of the newsreel that contains some of this raw footage so stick around, it’s worth it. The city of Kiev was occupied by German forces on September 19th 1941. Contrary to the supplement to directive 34 in which Hitler ordered the city to be raised to the ground, since there had been no fighting within the city limits, it had been spared. To some this might have seemed an indication that the war against the Soviet Union might progress in a less brutal fashion. If the civil population was willing to trade the autocratic rule of the Soviets to that of the new German occupiers then a relatively peaceful transition might be possible. Either way those in the German High Command had no intention of creating an independent Ukrainian state. Here we see the German authorities providing papers to Ukrainian families which released the Soviet soldiers from the army and gave them the supposed right to return to their former agricultural activities. This soldier standing next to his family is removing his Porlyanki, the traditional Russian soldiers’ foot wraps which had been in use since the 17th century. He happily trades in his Soviet uniform for civilian clothing. This scene filmed in Kiev probably around September 22, shows German produced newspapers being passed out to the civilian population. Although filmed clearly for its propaganda value, there seems to be authentic interest in learning about the progression of the war from a non-Soviet source. These urban scenes portray an uncanny normality. To what extent had the population acclimated to the new normal? On September 24th the first of the soviet F-10 radio-bombs exploded in central Kiev with more attacks following up until the 28th. It’s believed that these were detonated by stay behind Soviet engineer units that sent out the activation signal on the designated radio frequency. The Germans tended to occupy large office buildings recently vacated by the Soviets knowing that they were to a large extent in better condition, offered space and sometimes even had communications lines that were left intact. Using this knowledge boobytrapped locations offered the opportunity to kill high value targets much as a sniper does on the battlefield. The Soviets would even sometimes leave behind poorly camouflaged more simplistic booby traps in the area which, once deactivated, gave the occupier a false sense of security. An F-10 that was detonated on September 24th managed to hit the Rear Headquarters of the Wehrmacht Army Group South killing many officers including the artillery commander of the 29th Army Corps. Appropriately, in the Lenin Museum, stashes of such F-10 radio-bomb detonators and thousands of kilos of explosives was found. Within a few days the Germans had developed counter measures which included using an electronic listening device which could localize the radio-bombs mechanical clock component, broadcasting a blocking radio wave at a discovered F-10 frequency or simply digging to find the radio antennae. But in Kiev, with the combination of the explosions and the resulting fires, the damage had already been done. In response the occupiers organized the largest reprisal massacre to date in the ravines of nearby Babi Yar. The downward spiral of increasing violence was accelerating.

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL and get access to exclusive film footage www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 185 This is part two in a series that uses sensational raw footage from a German film crew that was produced in early September of 1941. The material, being processed for use in Deutsche Wochenschau newsreels, had at this stage in the production cycle not yet received the recorded voiceover and more importantly had not yet been censored. Much of the material will be completely new but If you know your stuff you’ll recognize some of the clips, and might even know which newsreel it was shown in. In part 2 we’ll follow Army Group South as it advances into the Ukraine, get an uncensored feel for the magnitude of the prisoners of war taken and delve into their miserable fate that has gone largely untold. At the end of the video we’ll see part of the released news reel with subtitles so stick around, it’s worth it. The quick advance of the German armies into the Ukraine in the summer of 1941 created a temporary power vacuum and left the majority of the civilian population to their own devices. This level of individual freedom hadn’t been present during the Soviet’s decades long rule. Under the tight control of their well established terror apparatus, the Soviets squeezed the Ukrainian agricultural base which lead to the death by starvation of around 3.9 million Ukrainians. Had the war in the east been quickly won by the Germans, the planned “extinction of industry as well as a great part of the population” would have taken place. Cities would have been leveled and entire regions depopulated in preparation for colonization by German agrarian settlers. This was expected to lead to the death by starvation of approximately 30 million. The whole of the Crimea, for example, was to be integrated into Greater Germany and converted into a massive tourist destination but here the Soviets struck first. Following the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, over 60,000 ethnic Germans, all that the Soviet authorities could get their hands on, were deported from Crimea to Siberia. For the German “Hunger Plan” to be realized they would need to have complete control of the territories and population which they never fully accomplished and so the Slavic population was largely spared from this horrific fate. The millions of completely vulnerable Soviet POWs, however, were not spared. POW camps were set up by the Germans in the Ukraine, Belarus and in Poland but weren’t allocated the resources to support the lives of the millions of former Soviet soldiers. In these camps the names of the POWs were not even registered which was an ominous indication as to what was in store for them. Those that couldn’t work were systematically left to starve to death. In one instance POWs from the camp at Molodechno in Belarus, prisoners submitted a written petition asking to be shot rather than dying slowly of hunger in the cold. During the war some 3.1 million died in German captivity. About 500,000 were shot and the remaining 2.6 million died of starvation and hunger related disease. This crime has been forgotten to a large extent because Stalin considered the POWs as deserters. After the war, of the few that had managed to somehow survive and were repatriated, most were simply shot by the Soviets. There was no going back. And unlike other victimized groups no-one was specifically interested in correctly representing their memory. If you are interested in finding out more about the subject I can whole heartedly recommend Timothy Snyder’s book Bloodland’s, Europe between Hitler and Stalin. And now here’s that clip from the produced Wochenschau that some of the footage is found it. If you know which reel number this is write it in the comment section below.

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL and get access to exclusive film footage www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 186 In part 3 we’ll watch more raw footage of the Wehrmacht advancing into the Ukraine. Then I'll respond to some interesting comments from Part 2 of the series. At the end of the video I’ll touch on why the war in the East was destined to become one of complete annihilation. There was no room for sincere compromise. These films scenes, meant to cleverly contrast the supposedly cultured and racially pure Waffen-SS soldiers to the barbarian Bolsheviks that they were facing. Finding and filming individuals with pronounced asiatic features was no accident. The message was these were the men that civilization needed to be saved from. In part 2 of the series I talked about the fate of millions of Soviet POWs and touched on Görings hunger plan. Comments were generally positive however there was also push back. Some claimed that the invaders had no intention of leveling cities or depopulating entire regions of slavs to make space for ethnic Germans. It went as far as to claim that they were liberating the Slavs and that Soviet POWs were treated well. Many are incapable to disentangle Hitler from Stalin; that Stalin was responsible for all of the evils done and that’s it. One of these comments ended simply with the words - LIES Judah! Which of course is a conversation stopper. You can’t help stupid. Then I came across a comment that literally stopped me in my tracks. It was in response to my statement that Stalin had considered returning POWs as traitors and had most of them shot - "The germans should have released the captured Russians soldiers, since Stalin would've killed them anyway. A win win situation." The one reply was: That’s pretty sick, you should be ashamed…. Which of course is true, but… the question he’s answering is “What should be done with all the Soviet POWs?”. Although what he suggests wasn’t viable, obviously they wouldn’t simply release the POWs, his solution to a complicated problem with complete disregard to traditional moral constraints, is authentic. These are the kinds of questions and types of answers behind most of the worst atrocities. An example: In May of 1942 Heydrich was assassinated. It was believed that residents from the Czech town Lidice had helped the assassins. Question: “How should the authorities respond?” Solution: kill all Lidice’s men by firing squad, to divide the women from the children and send them to Ravensbruck, to slaughter all of the town’s pets and animals, to burn the town and then to blow up the remains of the buildings, to dig up Lidice’s cemetery to loot the graves and dessecrate the remains, to reroute the stream that ran through the town, to completely cover the former area of the town with topsoil and to plant crops, finally to put a barbed wire fence around the entire area. The complete destruction of Lidice was filmed for posterity. Problem solved. And now, regarding the question as to whether the Germans could have liberated the Slavic populations and so possibly won the war in 1941. This is the 1933 book commemorating that year’s NSDAP Party Day in Nuremberg which was the first held during the 3rd Reich. The book was produced by Julius Streicher the man responsible for publishing the racist periodical Der Stürmer and self proclaimed Frankenführer. Sorry, I really can’t stand listening to Streichers racist rants. Interpretation: An armored knight rides through a narrow gorge accompanied by his loyal dog who has complete trust in his master. They are flanked by a goat-headed devil and the figure of death. Death's rotting corpse holds an hourglass, a reminder of the shortness of life. The rider moves through the scene looking away from the creatures lurking around him, and appears almost contemptuous of the threats, and is thus a symbol of courage. The knight's armor, the horse which towers in size over the beasts, and the fortress on the mountaintop are symbolic of the resilience of faith. It’s clear who was seen as the 3rd Reich’s shining knight. Hitler’s fanatical crusade for Lebensraum in the east was clearly spelled out in Mein Kampf. The war of annihilation was to end with conquered lands dominated by ethnic Germans. The liberation of foreign populations was totally out of the question. This 1942 pamphlet titled, Der Untermensch, clearly show that the Slavic populations were also considered racially inferior. The first illustration compares them to the Mongul hoards that terrorized Eastern Europe in the 13th century. Ironically it was actually the Slavic populations that suffered most. Being trampled by the hooves of these supposed “horsemen of the devil” as they advance west can be seen a murdered baby and a bound and raped European women. The message here was that the Slavs were the destroyers of civilization and culture. So was it really possible for Hitler to go down in history as the “Great Liberator of the Slavs?” I think not.

🔥SUPPORT THE CHANNEL and get access to exclusive film footage www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 208 1:33 - Japanese landing on the Aleutian Islands and Kiska in June of 1942. A Japanese convoy in rough waters travels to the north; Troops land in landing craft; Seaplanes in a bay; Attack of an American bomber on Japanese ships; Japanese flak firing, the bombers bombs explode in the water, the bomber is shot down; Japanese soldiers celebrate their successful landing. Animated map showing the Japanese successes over the first 12 months of war. 3:37 - Italian Battalion "M" prepare to leave for the Eastern Front. They bid fairwell and march through the streets of an Italian city. 4:15 - Attack of German Stukas south of Lake Ilmen. Bombs explode; Infantry fight Soviet tanks; Captured Soviet soldiers march to the back. 6:38 - German-French border. German troops cross on 11. November; Trucks pass through and tracked vehicles follow down the Toulouse-Carcassone road; Tanks drive through the city of Narbonne; They take a break, Soldiers read newspapers; A train carrying fuel for the Luftwaffe goes past; At the port of Marseilles, Flak batteries secure the airspace of the port; Greeted by Spanish border guards at the French-Spanish border in the Pyrenees. German troops occupy Toulon; the coast is secured. 9:29 - Private footage taken by Luftwaffe soldiers in 1943 #DeutscheWochenschau #worldwar2 #GermanNewsreels #Goebbels #GermanPropaganda #Monatsschau #Blitz #EasternFront #WaffenSS @Military1945

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 216 FOR SALE, Die Wehrmacht 1943 & 1944 Complete! SOLD other originals here: https://militaria1945.com 1:40 - Glass blowing workshop 2:49 - Circus acts 4:49 - Mountain troops on in the Italian Alps 6:21 - Die Wehrmacht periodical from 1944, Nr 3 article 9:01 - Soviet bombing raid on a Luftwaffe base in Norway 9:28 - With a Kriegsmarine unit setting up anti-submarine nets 11:40 - 29th (mot.) Infantry Division (Falcon Division) The content of the Die Wehrmacht periodicals included military life, stories from all branches of the German military, the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Heer and Waffen-SS. Articles covered current political events, battlefield results in all the theaters of war including the French Campaign, Belgium and the Netherlands, Battle of Britain, invasion of Norway, Balkan campaign, and the war against the Soviet Union. Although heavily laden with German propaganda, much information about important historical events can be found. Over the years this collection has been widely collected and collections have become quite valuable. The 29th Infantry Division was a unit of the German army created in the fall of 1936. It was based on the old Reichswehr 15th Infantry Regiment and drew its initial recruits from Thuringia. It was upgraded to 29th Motorized Infantry Division in the fall of 1937. The division was also known as the Falke-Division (Falcon Division). Taking part in Operation Barbarossa it was attached to the German 4th Army and took part in a number of actions against isolated Soviet formations at Minsk, Smolensk and Bryansk. It was then sent to support Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army near Tula. The division lost most of its vehicles and many killed and captured during the retreat from Moscow at Mordves, south of Kashira in the Moscow oblast. In 1942 it spent the first 6 months in action near Orel and then in July 1942 was assigned to the German 6th Army as part of Army Group South. It took part in the fighting on the approaches to Stalingrad, and in the city itself. It was redeployed to serve as the 4th Panzer Army's mobile reserve at the end of September, and relocated behind the IV Corps guarding the southern flank of the 6th Army forces in Stalingrad. When the Red Army's second pincer attack was launched from the south, the division was pushed into the south-west corner of the pocketed German forces. Having been held in reserve for most of the Stalingrad campaign, the division was at 90% combat strength according to its situation reports. On 21 January 1943 it was attacked by the Soviet 21st Army, and was destroyed. It was then reconstituted in France in the early spring from the recently formed 345th Infantry Division. It was transferred to the Sicilian Campaign as the 29th Panzergrenadier Division for sometime in the defence of the Northern Route to Messina. Thereafter it fought in Italy at Salerno, Anzio, and San Pietro and was destroyed by the British in northern Italy just before the end of the war. In the final days of the war, on 29 April 1945, the division was involved in the San Martino di Lupari massacre, where it used Italian civilians as human shields against partisan attacks and eventually executed 125 hostages.

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 226 ORIGINALS for sale... https://www.militaria1945.com EUROPA WOCHE Nr. 97 3.1.45 1:17 - Youth at an ice rink 2:17 - Figure skating event in Berlin 3:03 - Artistic gymnastics competition 4:13 - Girls working in a youth hostel 5:35 - Production of new leather goods 6:53 - Christmas presents for children 8:43 - Concert by a soldiers' choir (1. Galician Div. Waffen-SS) 9:24 - Use of armor-piercing weapons 10:54 - Bonus: Deutsche Wochenschau Nr. 686 10:54 - Bonus: Private footage, civilians digging anti-tank trenches with a Free India Legion soldier THE INDIAN LEGION The Indian Legion (German: Indische Legion), officially the Free India Legion (German: Legion Freies Indien) or 950th (Indian) Infantry Regiment (German: Infanterie-Regiment 950 (indisches)), was a military unit raised during the Second World War initially as part of the German Army and later the Waffen-SS from August 1944. Intended to serve as a liberation force for British-ruled India, it was made up of Indian prisoners of war and expatriates in Europe. Due to its origins in the Indian independence movement, it was known also as the "Tiger Legion", and the "Azad Hind Fauj". As part of the Waffen-SS it was known as the Indian Volunteer Legion of the Waffen-SS (German: Indische Freiwilligen Legion der Waffen-SS). Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose initiated the legion's formation, as part of his efforts to win India's independence by waging war against Britain, when he came to Berlin in 1941 seeking German aid. The initial recruits in 1941 were volunteers from the Indian students resident in Germany at the time, and a handful of the Indian prisoners of war who had been captured during the North African campaign. It later drew a larger number of Indian prisoners of war as volunteers. Though it was initially raised as an assault group that would form a pathfinder to a German–Indian joint invasion of the western frontiers of British India, only a small contingent was ever put to its original intended purpose. A small contingent, including much of the Indian officer corps and enlisted leadership, was transferred to the Indian National Army in South-East Asia. The majority of the troops of the Indian Legion were given only non-combat duties in the Netherlands and in France until the Allied invasion. They saw action in the retreat from the Allied advance across France, fighting mostly against the French Resistance. One company was sent to Italy in 1944, where it saw action against British and Polish troops and undertook anti-partisan operations. At the time of the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, the remaining men of the Indian Legion made efforts to march to neutral Switzerland over the Alps, but they were captured by American and French troops and eventually shipped back to India to face charges of treason. After the uproar the trials of Indians who served with the Axis caused among civilians and the military of British India, the legion members' trials were not completed. 1. GALICIAN The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) (German: 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (galizische Nr. 1); Ukrainian: 14-та гренадерська дивізія СС «Галичина», romanized: 14-ta hrenaderska dyviziia SS "Galychyna"), commonly referred to as the Galicia Division, was a World War II infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the military wing of the German Nazi Party, made up predominantly of volunteers with a Ukrainian ethnic background from the area of Galicia, later also with some Slovaks. Formed in 1943, it was mainly deployed in the Eastern Front of World War II in combat against the Red Army and in the repression of Soviet, Polish, and Yugoslav guerrilla partisans. Parts of the division were said to have taken part in several massacres, such as at Huta Pieniacka, Pidkamin, and Palikrowy. It was largely destroyed in the Lvov–Sandomierz offensive, reformed, and saw action in Slovakia, Yugoslavia, and Austria before being transferred to the command of the Ukrainian National Committee on 14 April 1945, a change that was only partially implemented amidst the collapse of Germany, and surrendering to the Western Allies by 10 May 1945. The unit went by several names during its existence. It was originally known as the SS-Volunteer Division "Galicia" (German: SS-Freiwilligen-Division "Galizien", Ukrainian: Добровільна Дивізія СС "Галичина", romanized: Dobrovilna Dyviziia SS "Halychyna") from its creation until October 1943. It then became the 14th Galician SS-Volunteer Division, before being renamed again in June 1944 as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division (1st Galician) until November 1944, when its designation was changed to 1st Ukrainian (German: 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (ukrainische Nr. 1)). In late April 1945 its name was changed to the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army for the rest of the war.

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS www.Patreon.com/Military1945 Episode 232 Be sure to give this video a THUMBS UP! Best way to support the channel! SUBSCRIBE to M1945 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN2UQVe6Xaqz5rLFaWq8-mw?sub_confirmation=1 ORIGINALS for sale... https://www.militaria1945.com The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on the day selected for D-Day was not ideal, and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and time of day, that meant only a few days each month were deemed suitable. Adolf Hitler placed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of German forces and developing fortifications along the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an invasion. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt placed Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower in command of Allied forces. The invasion began shortly after midnight on the morning of June the 6th with extensive aerial and naval bombardment as well as an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops. The early morning aerial assault was soon followed by Allied amphibious landings on the coast of France ca. 06:30 AM. The target 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Strong winds blew the landing craft east of their intended positions, particularly at Utah and Omaha. The men landed under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous. Casualties were heaviest at Omaha, with its high cliffs. At Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns were cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold were disabled using specialised tanks. The Allies failed to achieve any of their major goals beyond the establishment of the beachheads on the first day. Carentan, Saint-Lô, and Bayeux remained in German hands, and Caen, a major objective, was not captured until 21 July. Only two of the beaches (Juno and Gold) were linked on the first day, and all five beachheads were not connected until 12 June; however, the operation gained a foothold that the Allies gradually expanded over the coming months. German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Allied casualties were documented for at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.