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1:43

Of all the horrors of the place, the

1:45

smell, perhaps, was the most startling of

1:47

all. It was a smell made up of

1:49

all kinds of odors, human excreta, foul

1:52

bodily odors, smoldering trash fires, German tobacco, which

1:54

is a stink in itself, all mixed

1:56

together in a heavy dank atmosphere, in a

1:58

thick muddy woods where little breeze could

2:00

go. The ground was pulpy throughout the camp,

2:02

churned to a consistency of warm putty

2:04

by the milling of thousands of feet, mud

2:06

mixed with feces and urine. The smell

2:08

of guns -kirkin nauseated many of the Americans

2:10

who went there. It was a smell I'll

2:12

never forget, completely different from anything I've

2:14

ever encountered. It could almost be seen and

2:16

hung over the camp like a fog

2:18

of death. And that was

2:20

Captain J .D. Pletcher of the

2:22

71st Division Headquarters. And welcome to

2:24

We Have Ways to Make You

2:26

Talk, victory in Europe, victory 45,

2:28

episode four. And we, now that

2:31

we're in Germany, and in our

2:33

last three episodes, we've got across

2:35

the Rhine, we've bussed into Germany

2:37

and the Allied armies, British... American

2:39

and French, of course, as we lent

2:41

into the last episode, are running rampant and

2:43

they are discovering the truth about Third

2:46

Reich. I think it's fair to say. They

2:48

are. And I'm afraid it's just unavoidable.

2:50

You have to confront it, but we've got

2:52

a bit of other stuff to talk

2:54

about first. So let's introduce the 71st Infantry

2:56

Division because they're not a famous one.

2:58

They're not the Rock of the Mon. They're

3:00

not the Thunderbirds and not the big

3:03

red one. They're not even the golden acorns.

3:07

And they've only arrived in early

3:09

part of 1945. And

3:11

they fought through Alsace. Yeah.

3:14

Anyway, there's a chap I

3:16

came across called Staff Sergeant Alan

3:18

Moskin. He was an 18 -year

3:20

-old Jewish soldier from New Jersey

3:22

in the 66th Infantry Regiment

3:24

of the 71st Infantry Division. And

3:26

he'd been drafted after high

3:29

school. Right. And early 1945. So

3:31

he has his training. His training is

3:33

pretty rigorous, pretty tough for all the rest

3:35

of it, makes some buddies. But he's

3:37

not aligned to a particular unit at this

3:40

time. So in early 1945, he sent

3:42

overseas on a conveyor belt replacements. lands at

3:44

Liverpool, down on the train, down to

3:46

the south coast, down on a boat, then

3:48

over the channel to a rep or

3:50

depot, which is a replacement depot. And from

3:52

there, he's sent to join the 66th

3:54

Infantry Regiment, part of the 71st. Infantry Division

3:57

on the length of March in a

3:59

place called Ratsvilla, which is in Alsace. And

4:01

at the time, the 71st Division

4:03

are just relieving the 100th Infantry

4:06

Division. So then on the 28th

4:08

of March, the 71st Infantry Division

4:10

is shifted and that's the point

4:12

where they join the 3rd Army

4:14

and they then cross the Rhine

4:16

two days later. It's

4:19

interesting for him, it is absolute

4:21

assault on the senses, a total

4:23

shock to go from the comparative

4:25

safety and security of training in

4:27

the US and ships and camps

4:29

and depots to suddenly finding yourself

4:32

in action. He finds himself in

4:34

action for the first time in

4:36

Alsace, just this is before the

4:38

Ryan crossing. He finds

4:40

the experiences war for real when he's crouching

4:42

down behind somewhere and suddenly something hurls over

4:44

and hits him on the helmet and he's

4:46

a bit dazed and when he when he

4:48

looks around he realizes he's been hit by

4:50

a human arm and it's not just any

4:52

old arm either it's a arm of one

4:54

of his buddies because he can recognize the

4:57

tattoo on it. That

4:59

as a sort of barometer of horror

5:02

that will do when it I mean

5:04

and that's yeah And that is like

5:06

something out of a film out of

5:08

a out of a horror film. Yes

5:10

ghastly Not not long after they get

5:12

across the right he then comes up

5:14

behind a discernment the disabled German tank

5:17

and although the tank is the pants

5:19

has been knocked out it's still firing

5:21

and that panzer fire several rounds but

5:23

then moskin and some of his fellows

5:25

see one of the Germans tank crew

5:27

clamber out the tank and so he

5:29

fires and sees the man fall and

5:31

soon after they kind of overrun the

5:34

position and moskin goes over to see

5:36

the prostrate body of the man he's

5:38

just shot and. the helmet has come

5:40

off the soldier and he's young and

5:42

you know similar age to him. He

5:44

looks over and sees the helmet sort

5:46

of nearby scattered in the you know

5:49

inside the helmet is a photo. Several

5:51

photos and one of them is of

5:53

who are clearly his parents and it says

5:55

Velebandik, Muti and Vati. Yeah. So

5:57

and it just he has nightmares about

6:00

this. I mean the interesting thing with

6:02

these all of the I mean his

6:04

stories that you could pluck 10 ,000

6:06

people out of the American armies at

6:08

the point and they'd all have stories

6:10

like this. Yes. The reason finding the

6:12

guys' photographs with mum and dad, I

6:14

mean, these are almost cliches, aren't they?

6:16

The reason they're cliches is because they're

6:18

happening, they're happening absolutely everywhere to everyone.

6:20

This is, this is what it is,

6:22

you know, recognizing your buddy's tattoos. It's,

6:24

it's really striking how these stories fall

6:26

into like, into a paradigm, but that's

6:28

because that is what he's happening to

6:30

everybody. That is what is happening. Yeah.

6:32

Yeah. Yeah. And it's really grim and

6:34

it's, you know, this stage of the

6:36

war. I mean, all the war is

6:38

always violent and always has been right

6:40

from the, from the opening shots, but

6:43

there is some something particularly grim, especially

6:45

grim about these final stages where it's

6:47

also pointless and all around you can

6:49

just see Armageddon. I mean, you know,

6:51

this is post -apocalyptic stuff. There is carnage,

6:53

death, burnt out

6:55

stuff, rotting corpses,

6:58

desolation, leaking

7:00

sewers. You

7:02

know, skeletal landscape,

7:05

mud. You know, even into April,

7:07

it's just a utter horror story. And it's

7:09

also completely pointless. There's another time where his

7:11

best buddy gets really, really baddy wounded. He's

7:14

bleeding out and he stops to help him.

7:16

The sergeant comes on and orders him to

7:18

leave him, abandon him, says, come on, you

7:20

know, I've got to keep moving. And he

7:22

never, ever gets over having to leave his

7:24

best friend. Yeah. So he's got quite a

7:26

lot of trauma there. It's bitter stuff. And

7:28

he's interesting because he talks about fear as

7:31

well, doesn't he? He says people are peeing

7:33

their pants. There's nothing they're shamed of. Everyone's

7:35

scared. There's nothing abnormal about it. Replacements are

7:37

coming in in the spring of 1945. The

7:39

war is as real in terms of men

7:41

being killed and injured as it has at

7:43

any other phase of the war. It isn't

7:46

this thing of once you cross the

7:48

Rhine, it's all kind of a picnic. No.

7:50

It carries on as bitterly as it

7:52

has before. And there's lots of terrifying stuff.

7:54

You know, this is a time when

7:56

big forests and... Yeah. people jumping out of

7:58

pans of thousands of stuff, which we

8:00

should get on to because elsewhere, I was

8:02

always very struck by that essay by

8:04

Paul Fussell. You know, brutal fighting and lots

8:06

of his buddies get killed and, you

8:09

know, he witnesses all sorts of horrors and

8:11

he reads the great big first account

8:13

of the Second World War and his division

8:15

isn't even mentioned. That's

8:17

right. So, you know, that's

8:19

why I'm kind of interested in, you

8:21

know, mentioning Alan Moskin and the 31st

8:24

Infantry Division. But actually, Alan Moskin will

8:26

come back, will return before the end

8:28

of his episode. But meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile.

8:30

Yes, British Second Army pushing on into Northern

8:32

Germany. And they, as we said in

8:35

the last episode, they've been, they are not

8:37

to go to Berlin. We're basically on

8:39

an axis towards Hamburg

8:41

and Denmark. Bremen. Yeah, and Bremen. And they're

8:43

being held up here in their pockets of

8:45

resistance. 30 Corps, for example, they turn north

8:47

from Reese, where they cross the Rhine, and

8:49

they go into Holland to start with and

8:51

then head for Bremen. And it's, it is

8:53

this business of every now and again, the

8:55

peace battles are over, but you really don't

8:58

know what there's violence around the corner everywhere.

9:00

People leaping out with Panzerfaust's training schools and

9:02

all that sort of thing they run into

9:04

where people, you know, hang on. Well, I

9:06

remember following that route and, you know, you

9:08

do go through the old maps that they

9:10

had, you know, we had a, we had

9:12

an old sort of one to 250 ,000 scale

9:14

map that the British had been issued with.

9:17

And it's basically the same. So on the

9:19

maps, you can see the big forest is

9:21

a sort of dead straight Roman road going

9:23

through the forest linking, you know, the town,

9:25

the forest ends, then there's a village or

9:27

a town, then there's another forest, then there's

9:29

another town. And you can drive through these

9:31

same forests and you can just imagine the

9:33

kind of the road, you know, the big

9:35

tree trunk across the road and people jumping

9:38

out and being the first in the column

9:40

and being blasted and stuff. No

9:42

one wanted to be in the in the vanguard.

9:44

No one wanted to be on point. No. But

9:47

they are making incredible significant and

9:49

rapid progress. There's no getting away from

9:51

that. Yeah. So Canadians break into

9:53

the Netherlands. And well, their

9:55

job is to sort of scoop round, isn't

9:58

it? North. Cut back westwards to the,

10:00

you know, the Dutch coast. Yeah. Because

10:02

there's still that large part of Holland, which

10:04

is sort of cut off. Yeah. but

10:06

still garrisoned by the Germans. So

10:08

they're into, they get across the river

10:10

Esel and they capture Appledon and Zutphen

10:12

as part of Operation Cannon Shop. Then

10:15

on the 12th of April, Operation Anger,

10:17

which is the... 49th Polar Bears Division

10:19

who attached to Canadian Second Corps. Four

10:21

-day battle for the town, which is in Arnhem,

10:23

which is, of course, empty because it's evacuated

10:26

after Market Garden. That fighting goes on to the

10:28

16th of April. Often enough, in books about

10:30

Market Garden, you get the odd photo, which is

10:32

actually from April. It's one of some lads

10:34

with a six -pounder in the shop window. But

10:37

it is Brits that liberated not Canadians, even

10:39

though they're attached to the Canadian Second Corps.

10:43

79th Armoured Division also peppered through all

10:45

this with their specialised armour. Yep. Canadian

10:49

Sten, Groningen, Otlo,

10:51

and they sweep west and north. And

10:53

what's interesting about this is that you have

10:55

these pockets of Germans hanging on all over,

10:57

don't you? And second SAS

11:00

are involved in a lot of this, aren't they, as

11:02

well? Yes, this is where Paddy

11:04

Main gets his disputed. He gets

11:06

his fourth DSA, which could have been

11:08

a VC. VC. And Operation Amherst,

11:10

the Canadian second corps, they pushed north

11:12

to liberate the different bits of

11:14

Holland that are still held by the

11:16

Nazis. Because after all, we've had

11:18

the business of the hunger winter to

11:20

deal with as well. 30

11:22

,000 die. Starvation

11:25

and ills. Deliberate starvation.

11:28

I mean, what's interesting as well

11:30

is the resistance to the

11:32

Germans from within the Wehrmacht. on

11:35

Texel, and I trained to parachute

11:37

on Texel. Did you? Years and years

11:39

and years ago. And it really

11:41

is one of those fingers of land

11:44

that's, you know, right on the

11:46

Dutch coast, sort of, you go up

11:48

in water on either side, sort

11:50

of place, you know. It feels very

11:52

isolated. And there's an uprising there

11:54

of the Georgian legion, Osttruppen, the rebel

11:56

on the 5th of April. You

11:58

have amazing story this, isn't it? Yeah,

12:00

absolutely incredible. But you also two

12:02

week battle. What are the Germans doing?

12:04

I mean, all right, fine, go.

12:06

The 565 Georgians get killed, 120 civilians

12:08

get killed and 800 Germans! Oh,

12:10

just so pointlessly! Yeah. I also quite

12:12

like the fact that French parrots

12:14

are involved. Yes. They're dropping into parts

12:16

of Friesland and Drinta. And they

12:18

catch the Stoker's Vallart Bridge, which is

12:20

a sort of, you know, the

12:22

door that leads into this whole area.

12:24

And then at the very end

12:26

of April, of course, in Holland, you've

12:28

got the humanitarian food drops, you

12:31

know, Operation Manor by the RAF and

12:33

Chowhound by the US Army Air

12:35

Force. So this 11 ,000 tons of

12:37

food are dropped in 10 days between

12:39

the 29th of April and the

12:41

7th of May. And there's also a

12:43

ground operation as well, FALSE, which

12:45

sees 200 Allied trucks delivering to a

12:47

relief column to the town of

12:49

Hainan, which is behind German lines

12:51

and which has only been agreed with the

12:53

authority of Arthur Seisinkart. He's also got

12:55

an eye to the post -war world, but

12:57

it's not going to do him any good

12:59

because he gets executed, doesn't he? Well,

13:01

Betel Smith is that account, isn't there, where

13:03

the Betel says, as far as

13:05

Seisinkrat says, well, that prospect leaves me

13:07

cold. And the Betel says, yeah, it tends

13:09

to leave people cold. Meaning you're going

13:11

to the gallows, mate. Yeah.

13:13

Yeah. The thing is, is that's all

13:16

like this rolling battle of German capitulation, isn't

13:18

it? And what's the point of any

13:20

of it? But lots of little sort of

13:22

stands and blowouts. I mean, the Paddy

13:24

Main VC action is quite interesting because what

13:26

happens is, you know, they're beating along

13:28

and they're jeep supporting the Canadians as they're

13:30

pushing northwards. They're going, actually, it's just

13:32

on that bit where the Dutch border stops

13:34

and you get into Schlingwig -Holstein. Exactly.

13:37

So it's that kind of neck of

13:39

the woods and they're going along with the

13:41

jeeps and the first jeep gets shot

13:43

up by a little ambush. There's a little

13:45

flurry of little farm buildings on the

13:47

right hand side and then just beyond there's

13:49

a small kind of wood. They're being

13:51

shot out from the wood but also from

13:53

the farm buildings and they get shot

13:55

up and the survivors jump out and hide

13:57

in a ditch and Paddy Main goes

14:00

forward and clears the first house with a

14:02

brand gun. Then the second house completely

14:04

clears it. He's got one person giving you

14:06

a little bit of cover. Then he

14:08

goes back, gets into a jeep, gets a

14:10

volunteer who's a lieutenant that's been promoted

14:12

through the ranks. And they just main driving,

14:15

and the lieutenant whose name I can't remember

14:17

in manning the Vickers guns, they just burn

14:19

past the woods just spraying it. And they

14:21

do a couple of runs on that. And

14:23

that's what he's recommended the VC for. But

14:25

I mean, what's the point if you're the

14:27

Germans? The Allies are over the Rhine. There's

14:30

no problem whatsoever. Okay, so you've ambushed a couple

14:32

of, you know, a handful of jeeps at the top

14:34

of a column. I mean, do you think that's

14:36

it? Do you think that's all you're going to have

14:38

to deal with? You know, you

14:41

know, two dozen sort of badly trained

14:43

falchion yeager in a wood and a

14:45

farmhouse. I mean, you know, put your

14:47

hands up, just surrender. It's hopeless. Yeah,

14:49

anyway. Anyway,

14:51

and then on the length of

14:53

April, the US Night Farming reaches

14:55

the Elba, the river Elba. which

14:57

is a sizeable river which runs

14:59

from sort of Magdeburg, goes down

15:02

Wittenberg, you know, as in Martin

15:04

Luther and the, you know, that's

15:06

where Hammers... Lovely town there. Lovely

15:08

town. Yeah, you still go to

15:10

Martin Luther's house. Anyway, that's the

15:12

line and Tangermunder is the only

15:14

bridge that's left open and that's

15:16

been destroyed, but there is a

15:18

walkway across it. So German troops

15:20

are trying to flee across from

15:22

the Russians and get across. But

15:24

anyway, they reach the Elba. Meanwhile,

15:27

the Southern Reich, it's just

15:29

chaos. It's absolute chaos.

15:31

It's just huge movement of

15:33

people retreating German troops

15:35

fleeing Nazis, liberated prisoners, displaced

15:37

persons, refugees. On the

15:39

2nd of May in 1945, an

15:41

Oberammergau US troops from the, I think

15:44

it's the third infantry division, the

15:46

Rock of the Mard, they capture three

15:48

figures of the Nazi rocket program.

15:50

So this is... Herbert Wagner, Dr. Werner

15:52

von Braun, we've all heard of

15:54

him. Yeah. Pine the Rockets are behind

15:56

the ME262 and the V2s and

15:58

all the rest of it. And General

16:01

Walter Dernberger. And Walter Dernberger is

16:03

the general in charge of the whole

16:05

project. And they've come from Pinamunder.

16:07

Yeah. that they're fleeing and they managed

16:09

to make their way down into

16:11

southern rye they've quickly taken to paris

16:13

and this is part of operation

16:15

paperclip yes operation paperclip we're all about

16:18

flying saucers and teleportation devices and

16:20

zero point yeah zero point and german

16:22

moon lasers and food fighters. You

16:24

know, food fighters and and so on.

16:27

I mean, is it enough that the Americans got

16:29

a bloke who could send them to the moon?

16:31

Why do we need flying saucers as well? They've

16:33

also got they've got these these v2s and they've

16:35

got all these the heads of the v2s are

16:37

equipped with taban nerve gas, you know. Yes, that's

16:39

right. Saren comes from it. Yeah. And

16:41

they're all getting ready to farm them at Britain

16:43

and, you know, Antwerp and stuff. The thing is, it's

16:45

interesting, isn't it? Because because we talked about Captain

16:47

Brown and Wolf, there are Nazis

16:49

who have stuff to offer the Allies.

16:52

Yeah. And there are other Nazis who

16:54

think they have stuff to offer the

16:56

Allies and don't. You know, if you

16:58

are Von Braun, you probably are pretty

17:00

sure that you have something to offer.

17:02

I'm the guy who built the rockets.

17:04

You're going to need my... You're going

17:07

to want to pick my brains. Whereas

17:09

if you're Volf, it's like, well, I've

17:11

tried to sue for peace. Does that

17:13

help? The Americans are being very materialistic

17:15

and pragmatic in their decision Well, the

17:17

truth is that, you know, since Yilta,

17:19

the Cold War has started, although there's

17:22

still a hot war going on. The

17:24

Cold War, the post -war change of global

17:26

order and the ideologies that those two

17:28

leading orders are representing have

17:30

started to come to the fore. And

17:33

it's interesting because I've just been reading,

17:35

you know, a few weeks ago, I

17:37

was reading Tim Buvery's book called Allies

17:39

at War. And, you know, he makes

17:41

the point that his point is that

17:43

actually, it's already a lot of the

17:45

stuff that the controversy of Yalta has

17:48

already been kind of laid out at

17:50

Tehran the previous winter. Yeah, I'm not

17:52

entirely sure about that. But The point

17:54

is, is certainly by Yalta, everyone knows

17:56

where they stand. You know, Roosevelt is

17:58

sick as a dog. He, you know,

18:00

he's really, really struggling. And it's clear

18:02

that the Soviet Union are going to

18:05

be in possession of a large wave

18:07

of Eastern Europe, and they're not going

18:09

to give it up. Yeah. You know,

18:11

they can agree in inverted commas to

18:13

have free and fair democratic elections after

18:15

the war. to do about it? What

18:17

are they going to do about it?

18:19

Yeah. Before they get

18:21

to Yalta, this is slight segue. Churchill

18:24

is desperate to have a kind of

18:26

pre -summit talk with Roosevelt, and Roosevelt won't

18:28

speak to him. No, he won't, will he?

18:30

Because he's decided that basically Britain's a busted

18:32

flush. Britain's done, and therefore Churchill's

18:34

done, you know. And after all, there's

18:36

a sizable chunk of American opinion that's

18:38

quite comfortable with the idea that Britain's

18:40

done, that British Empire's over. Yep.

18:42

He is the arch Machiavell. Yeah,

18:44

yeah, he is. Roosevelt. He's

18:46

brilliant, absolutely brilliant, but Machiavellian. And also,

18:49

I think he also does have these

18:51

high ideals and they don't quite align

18:53

with colonial Britain or the rest of

18:55

it. Anyway, the capture of operation paperclip

18:57

is all about the Cold War. And

18:59

actually, to a extent, that has already

19:01

started because paperclip has already been instigated

19:04

the previous autumn. It's already

19:06

worked out before. Cold war or not, you'd still

19:08

take the rocket bloke, wouldn't you? You'd say,

19:10

yeah, you're coming, you're coming. Yeah, but why are

19:12

you going to need that? You know, who's

19:14

your future enemies? You know, you're already kind of

19:16

starting to work that out, aren't you? Yeah.

19:18

Anyway, and the lasers and zero point and the

19:20

moon. And the few fighters.

19:22

Based on the moon and the few fighters.

19:24

Yeah. Now

19:26

we're well deep into the Reich. So

19:28

the heart of Germany's being overrun there

19:30

aren't any armies fighting but there's you

19:32

know there's towns and and it's through

19:34

the sort of flavour of the local

19:36

Nazis isn't it basically completely yeah well

19:38

you know five miles to the north

19:40

you can just run through a town

19:42

and you know everyone surrenders and white

19:44

sheets are out and it's job done

19:46

five miles to the south you know

19:49

you've got a four -day battle yeah

19:51

yeah yeah so for example at a

19:53

Schaffenberg that's attacked by Major General Wade

19:55

D. Hastlips 15 Corps yep And it's

19:57

on the River Mine. It's

19:59

a 30 ,000 people place. It's on an

20:01

outcrop on the bend of the river.

20:03

But there's a big tank repair shop

20:05

there. And basically, the

20:07

guy in charge there, Mya

20:09

Amir Lambert, who's an old

20:11

fighter, basically, isn't he? Yeah,

20:14

he's a First World War veteran, a

20:16

reserve army officer. And he's basically totally

20:18

dedicated Nazi. And he runs

20:20

a reserve army officer school in one

20:22

of the barracks there. So he's

20:24

going to fight to the last. Yeah,

20:26

absolutely determined to do so. The

20:28

account of the battle for a Schaffenberg

20:30

comes in PCA's magnificent tome. Yes.

20:32

Victory in the West, 1945. Victory the

20:34

West, yeah. Brilliant account of a

20:36

Schaffenberg. So this is plundered from that.

20:38

So thank you, Peter. But we

20:40

thought it was a good idea to

20:42

have like just a little example

20:44

of one of these to kind of

20:46

illustrate the bigger picture. And Lambert's

20:48

determined to defend a Schaffenberg to the

20:50

last, although as we shall see,

20:52

you know. And he drags together everyone

20:54

he can get his hands on.

20:56

So it's Hitler Youth. Vox, Grenadiers, Waffen

20:58

SS, the police, Hungarian volunteers. Yes, a

21:00

volunteer in inverted commas. Yeah. Lufa

21:02

for people, as ever. But there's 5

21:04

,000 of them. And Lambert is duly

21:06

promoted to Fest on Commandant. I

21:08

bet he feels great about that. What

21:10

does that mean? Puff you up,

21:12

kind of title, isn't it? Meet

21:14

yourself important. And then prepares

21:17

the town for combat. He

21:19

receives a code word, Gneisenile, which means

21:21

people get ready. The insistence

21:23

is that the garrison, there's 3 ,000 civilians

21:25

who also have to have got to resist

21:27

the enemy on pain. Yes, I mean, it's

21:29

much reduced to 7 ,000 of the 10 ,000

21:31

have gone, but there's 3 ,000 still there. And

21:34

they've got to resist on

21:36

pain of death. And

21:38

he sends out a signal, he goes,

21:40

Soldiers, men of the Volkssturm, come where it's

21:42

the fortress of Eschaffenberg, will be defended to

21:44

the last man. As of today, everyone is

21:46

to give his last. I order that no

21:49

one should rest more than three hours out

21:51

of 20. I'm sure it's 24. I

21:53

forbid anyone sitting around or loathing. Our

21:55

belief is that our mission to give

21:58

the cursed enemy the greatest resistance and

22:00

to send as many of them as

22:02

possible to the devil. You know, and

22:04

then there's the local Christ -lighter. He

22:06

was a kind of sort of junior

22:08

Gow -lighter. Heinemut Vulgamut. And he pitches in.

22:10

Whoever remains in this city belongs to

22:13

a battle group which will not know

22:15

any selfishness, but only unlimited hatred for

22:17

their cursed opponent of ours. They

22:19

will know only complete sacrifice for

22:21

the fuel and the Reich. Day and

22:24

night, we will work, we will

22:26

commit all our power to do the

22:28

opposition the greatest possible damage, because

22:30

we know that Germany will live if

22:32

we are prepared to give our

22:34

lives. I mean... Total bollocks. Cobblers, isn't

22:36

it? Absolute twaddle. The highest order. And

22:39

it's so frustrating, isn't it? Just give

22:41

up. Yeah. Especially as the last few episodes,

22:43

we've been making kind of clear that

22:45

the Allied armies are now very, very good

22:47

at what they do. Yes. They've really

22:49

got it all figured out. And what they

22:51

do is if they don't like the

22:53

cut of your jib, they will shell you

22:55

into oblivion. Yes. And it may surprise

22:57

you to know. This is

22:59

exactly what happens to a chapel

23:02

bag. So it's attacked by the 157th

23:04

Infantry of the 45th Thunderbirds. This

23:06

is Felix Sparks' mob. They're tackling 28

23:08

for margin. Of course, it turns

23:10

into a horror show. Infantry is initially

23:12

repulsed. They're not expecting to be

23:14

so heavily defended. So they pull back

23:16

and they go, okay, boys, do

23:18

your worst. That's what you want. So

23:20

they end up, no less than

23:22

12 artillery battalions and 4 .2

23:25

inch mortars. 5 ,000 shells are fired

23:27

onto Schaffenberg on the 29th of

23:29

March alone. Then just to kind

23:31

of really ram the point home,

23:33

they then bring the longtoms up,

23:35

which is 155 millimeters, eight wheeled

23:37

big boys. Napalm is used

23:39

on the 1st of 2nd of April,

23:41

dropped by P -47s. Over 100 tons of

23:43

bombs in addition to the shelling is dropped

23:45

on the Schaffenberg. And let's face it,

23:47

by the end of it, there's not much

23:49

left. Tan is eventually taken

23:51

on the 3rd of April and surprise

23:53

surprise, Lambert doesn't commit suicide. He's

23:55

captured and then Felix Parks and Sissy sits

23:57

on the front of a Jeep telling everyone

24:00

to surrender. When the GI group

24:02

only kind of clear the town, they

24:04

find loads and loads of Germans, troops

24:06

and civilians swinging from landfares with placards

24:08

around their necks going, Todd Allen Verretten,

24:10

you know, which is deaf to all

24:12

traitors. It's just unbelievable, isn't

24:14

it? It's the bitter punchline that these guys

24:16

don't then kill themselves at the end

24:18

of all this. It happens again and again

24:20

and again. Yes, I feel Marshall Schirm.

24:22

Yeah. Scherner. Do you remember at the end?

24:24

Well, maybe we'll come on to him

24:26

in subsequent episodes, but absolutely bastard. And then

24:28

fleas. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And in

24:30

Breslau as well, the Galaite are there. This

24:32

is what the military fighting is like

24:34

inside Germany. But the other big

24:37

feature, of course, of the end of the

24:39

war in Germany, the end of the war

24:41

in the west, is discovering the camps inside

24:43

the Third Reich. And we'll be looking at

24:45

these, and particularly one as an example after

24:47

the break. So we'll see you in a tick. Ryan

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26:27

Welcome back to We Have Ways

26:30

to Make You Talk. Now,

26:32

with the kind of fighting that

26:34

you have around Aschaffenberg, there's

26:36

also the business of discovering hundreds

26:38

of camps. But it's just

26:40

camps literally everywhere. Because there's slave

26:42

workers, there's enforced workers camps,

26:44

there's POW camps, there's concentration camps.

26:47

There's also just vast numbers of foreign

26:49

workers just wandering around, not knowing

26:51

where to go, trying to get home,

26:53

but living off the land. There's

26:55

refugees galore in their hundreds of thousands.

26:57

And there's POWs being relocated and

27:00

also discovered. So this... Yep, and death

27:02

marches and... Yeah, swirl of people.

27:04

And at Falling Bostell, the British discover...

27:06

Peter Whiting with the jocks writes

27:08

an excellent description of when they get

27:10

to Falling Bostell and they discover

27:12

all these British POWs. Which is up

27:14

between Bremen and Hamburg. Yeah, and

27:16

it's full of parrots from Market Garden,

27:18

as well as lots of other

27:20

people. Yep. They are all immaculately turned

27:22

out they come out to salute

27:24

and all this sort of stuff but

27:27

you've also got Deladier, Reno, Gamalard,

27:29

Végant, all those people French French leaders

27:31

from 1940 have been in the

27:33

bag ever since and I love this

27:35

that one Dunkirk POW says so

27:37

that's what a Jeep looks like. I

27:39

mean. Yeah, because it's a different

27:41

century. 1940. It's such a

27:43

long time ago. You know, this

27:45

is a world without submachine guns

27:47

and Sten guns. It's a world

27:49

without rocket -firing typhoons. It's a world

27:51

with big tanks and foreign bombers.

27:53

It's just a different planet. Yeah.

27:56

And obviously, this is a massive organisational

27:58

problem, especially as they're still fighting going

28:00

on as well. So there's this, of

28:02

course, Peter White's accounts of, you know,

28:04

when they take over a farmhouse, and

28:06

he'll put his platoon in it and

28:08

they'll be slave labour working for the

28:11

farmer. There'll be all this sort of

28:13

sullen stuff going on and then DP's

28:15

coming, displaced persons coming through their positions,

28:17

all this of stuff. It's constant churn.

28:19

The term DP is coined at this

28:22

time. Yeah. Displaced person. And there's millions

28:24

of them, literally. And there's that, the

28:26

fact, are they, where are they from?

28:28

How are they going to get home?

28:30

Where are they trying to get to?

28:32

What state are they in? It's the

28:34

greatest single refugee crisis that the world

28:36

has ever known. Yeah. You know, there

28:39

are millions and millions of DPs, displaced

28:41

people. Yeah. And people just trying to,

28:43

you know, now and after the war

28:45

is over. It's just, it's just an

28:47

astonishing period. Yeah. But beyond this, though,

28:49

of course, is the discovery of concentration

28:51

camps. So Dora Middlebowl, which is at

28:53

Nordhausen. at Nordhausen, which is where they're

28:56

building V weapons in the gypsum. This

28:58

is one in the mountain. One tunnel

29:00

goes in and goes all the way

29:02

down. The tunnel comes back out, parts

29:04

come back out on the where are

29:06

we carriage built as a rocket or

29:08

a V2, V1 rather. It's the most

29:10

extraordinary place. Very, very few workers come

29:13

out. And that thing of you're

29:15

training people to build rockets and then

29:17

working them to death. pure

29:19

contradiction of it all. So,

29:21

Dora is discovered on the 11th of

29:24

April. Buchenwald is discovered by Third Army troops

29:26

on the 13th. Belsen by the British

29:28

by the Inns of Court Regiment on the

29:30

15th of April, 945. Flossenberg,

29:32

which has been evacuated for death march,

29:34

is discovered on the 17th of April, though

29:37

there's 2 ,000 prisoners there. On the 19th

29:39

of April, 25 ,000 ordered to Dachau. Many

29:41

are still in the town on the

29:43

27th of April when the SS disappear. And

29:46

the Americans, the US Third Army liberates them the 23rd

29:48

of April. It's awful, isn't it?

29:50

Of all these people they liberate,

29:52

only 1 ,208 survive. Because

29:54

they're in such a state when they're discovered,

29:56

owner at Belson, the British have to figure

29:58

out how to feed people, don't they? that

30:01

people have been killed by eating

30:03

too much too quickly. Yep. Dachau, the

30:05

first ever of the concentration camps,

30:07

is liberated on 29th of April by

30:09

the 45th Division of Thunderbirds. Ravensbrook,

30:12

so executions are accelerating in the final weeks

30:14

because there's still 50 ,000 there in January

30:16

1945, even though this is in, you know,

30:18

this is sort northeast of

30:20

Berlin, but less than three and

30:22

a half thousand left by the of April

30:24

when they're liberated by the Red Army.

30:26

So 24 and a half thousand of them

30:28

are sent on a death march in

30:30

Ardien if they've survived. Then the Saxon housing,

30:32

which is mainly Soviet prisoners, only 3400

30:35

inmates left when they're liberated by the Red

30:37

Army of Rokosovsky's first Belarusian front on

30:39

the 22nd of April. So that's just to

30:41

name a few, but there are many

30:43

more. But we thought we'd focus on one

30:45

particular and we mentioned it right at

30:47

the front of the quote at the front,

30:49

that's Guns Kirkland. But we also wanted

30:51

to tell one story because always, you know,

30:53

so many people, how do you kind

30:55

of illustrate the experience? How do you stop

30:57

them being statistics? How do you stop

30:59

them being statistics? Yeah, all

31:01

of this has been statistics so far. Yeah.

31:03

So the person we're going to follow is

31:05

a chap called Hugo Grinn, who, anyone who

31:07

used to wake up and listen to the

31:09

Radio Forza Day program back in the day

31:11

will recognize him because he was a regular

31:14

on Fourth of the Day. He was a

31:16

chief rabbi in the UK, but he was

31:18

a Jewish boy from Blair Hovo in Carpathian,

31:20

Rufania, and he is born

31:22

into a kind of prosperous, tight,

31:24

loving family. Father is a successful

31:26

timber merchant. And they're part of

31:28

this really strong Jewish community, which

31:30

makes up about 50 % of

31:32

the town population of Berehovo. It's

31:34

not a minority at all in

31:36

that environment. No, no. So it's

31:38

like an absolutely integrated part and

31:40

they're living really very happily and

31:42

it's all fine. So this is

31:44

on the cusp of Czechosvakia and

31:46

Hungary. Yeah. It's right on that

31:48

kind of disputed beat. And

31:51

he has a very nice childhood, he's

31:53

got a younger brother, they're all absolutely fine,

31:55

until things start to sort of turn

31:57

a little bit in the end of the

31:59

1930s where anti -Semitism starts to become rife.

32:01

Behovo is then annexed by Hungary in

32:03

1938, so they become part of Hungary. It's

32:05

after Munich. After Munich, yeah. So

32:08

then there's anti -Jewish sentiment.

32:10

that intensifies decidedly, particularly

32:12

once Hungary aligns with Nazi

32:14

Germany. Anyway, March 1944,

32:16

despite this, despite the anti -Semitism,

32:18

Hungary and Admiral Horty has

32:20

been resisting Nazi pressure to prosecute

32:22

the Jews in Hungary and

32:25

doesn't until March 1944 when Horty

32:27

is overthrown and Nazi German

32:29

troops invade Hungary because Hungary's been

32:31

seeking a piece of the

32:33

Allies and they go, well, forget

32:35

that. So they go in

32:37

and at that point this is

32:39

where it's curtains for hungry

32:41

Jews. It is for this reason that

32:43

that extra railway line has been created that

32:46

goes straight into the camp at Birkenau and goes

32:48

all the way down to the gas chambers.

32:50

And I think it's striking that this is all

32:52

happening at the point of the war where

32:54

really the Germans should be concentrating on other things

32:56

if they're thinking strategically. 100%.

32:58

And it underlines that as the destruction

33:00

of Europe's Jews is a war

33:02

aim of the Third Reich, no two

33:04

ways about it in as much

33:06

as defending France's or defending Norway or

33:08

defeating the Soviet Union. Yep. Anyway, what

33:10

then happens is they're forced in

33:12

April of 1944, the Grinn family's forced

33:14

into a ghetto at a sawmill.

33:16

Yep. Which his father had been owned

33:18

at one point. Hugo Grinn's father is

33:20

able to basically parley his skill

33:22

into keeping them alive, isn't he? Yes.

33:24

The other thing that's awful about

33:26

this is his father, Giza, has actually,

33:29

before this has happened, before they've been

33:31

moved into this enforced ghetto, he's

33:33

managed to get exit visas and prepared

33:35

to go to Turkey. And then

33:37

he suddenly just thinks, I just can't

33:39

do it. I can't run away with

33:41

my family and not the rest

33:43

of the family. So he

33:45

says, you know, we're all in this

33:47

together and I've got to stick with

33:49

the family. I can't just abandon them.

33:51

But he has had for exit visas,

33:53

you know, and rail travel and passes

33:55

to get to Turkey. So they could

33:57

have escaped, but they don't. And then

33:59

in June, 1944, then suddenly, you know,

34:01

the roundup starts and they're put on

34:03

the railway wagons. They have no idea

34:05

where they're going to go. They're given,

34:07

there's one milk churn full of water

34:09

and there's another one for doing their

34:11

business in on this thing and it's

34:13

just, it's just a render and they're

34:15

deported to Auschwitz. It takes them several

34:17

days to get there. When they do

34:19

get there, they're immediately separated and one,

34:22

there's a Zonda Commando guy and as

34:24

Hugo Green is getting out, he's holding

34:26

on to his rucksack and the guy

34:28

takes it from him and says, tell

34:30

them you're 19, tell them you're 19.

34:32

And Hugo releases his rucksack, gets down,

34:34

gets separated. They see his younger brother

34:36

immediately sent off on his own, severed

34:38

from his parents, from his older brother,

34:40

and that's it. And he

34:42

is taken straight to the gas chambers,

34:44

younger brother. But his mother isn't.

34:46

But you go realizes what's going on

34:48

doesn't he realize really quickly the chimneys are

34:50

for extonation to build the building the

34:52

two buildings of the chimneys are for extonation

34:54

he gets it and he did in

34:56

years though he's only 14 at this point

34:58

he is siphoned off he says i

35:00

am 19 so he siphoned off and. Yeah

35:02

you know they learn very very quickly

35:04

the kind of dehumanization the shaving the disinfectant

35:06

you know all the hair is cut

35:08

off. You know we talked about this didn't

35:10

we when we were doing the series

35:12

but he learns very quickly to lie which

35:14

he finds very difficult because this is

35:16

one thing that he's always been taught not

35:18

to do and his father says to

35:20

him i know i've always told you not

35:22

to lie but this is now different

35:24

circumstances like now the time you and i

35:26

have to stick together we have to

35:28

look after one another and we are going

35:30

to have to lie they managed to

35:33

get some messages to their mother hugo's mother

35:35

they learn that burkin has referred to

35:37

as an extermination camp. But after about three

35:39

weeks, they are, they have

35:41

a roll call and they say, you know,

35:43

have any of you got any skills, you know,

35:45

can you do woodwork and stuff? And because

35:47

of the sawmills, Geyser, his father does know about

35:49

a bit about woodwork. And, you know, he

35:51

sort of nudges Hugo to put his hand up

35:53

as well. And they put their hands up.

35:55

And so they're, they're isolated. They're then

35:57

sent out of Birkenau. His mother

35:59

is still there. But Geyser and his

36:01

son Hugo, they are then sent

36:03

to Liberosa. So they put on a

36:05

train again. And actually, when

36:07

they're on the train, they see one

36:09

of the milk churns on the trains

36:12

has Bera Hovo written on it. Sure.

36:14

That's this one connection to his hometown.

36:17

And they're sent there and they dropped in

36:19

this forest. And Liberosa is kind

36:21

of, it's sort of just on the

36:23

banks of the, it's really close to

36:26

the Oder, which so it's kind of,

36:28

you know, 50 miles, 35 miles east

36:30

of Berlin, someone like that. Do you

36:32

know what they're doing? They're building a

36:34

holiday camp. for beleaguered, fair -marked officers. I

36:36

mean, it's absolutely crazy, isn't it? Where

36:38

the war is at, this whole sort

36:40

of diverted effort is crazy. They're wearing

36:42

red triangles, aren't they? Because his father

36:44

has come up with a backstory about

36:46

being political prisoners. They've managed to finagle

36:48

the system. That's right, yeah. Yeah, yeah,

36:50

yeah. No one's quite checking. And they're

36:52

not checking them as to, they're not

36:54

labeled as Jews, they're just prisoners. Yeah.

36:56

And they learn to conserve energy, to

36:59

avoid the guards. So it's really interesting

37:01

this, isn't it? So you don't walk

37:03

fast. Yeah. You do everything slowly. You

37:05

can serve as much energy. You never

37:07

look a guard in the eye. You

37:09

never volunteer for anything. The

37:11

winters are terrible and they have all these Greek prisoners

37:13

there and the Greeks can't cope with it because

37:15

it's too cold. They learn when people are about to

37:17

die because then their knees and ankles swell and

37:19

it's basically their body giving up. And as soon as

37:21

they see that, they just know that that person's

37:23

kind of gone. He's gone or about

37:25

to be about to be gone. They're

37:27

taking some food back. There's four of them.

37:29

They're each got a handle, corn of

37:31

a handle. It's like a sort of old

37:33

fashioned sedan chair or whatever. And they're

37:35

taking a big saucepan of food or whatever.

37:37

And the most sadistic guard, they suddenly

37:39

decide to attack him and they kill him.

37:42

Yeah. They overwhelm him and kill him,

37:44

hide the body and then carry on as

37:46

though nothing's happened and get away with

37:48

it, which is extraordinary. Well, he's discovered a

37:50

few days later. Yeah. And there's, and

37:52

there's roll calls and all the rest of

37:54

it, but, and people get punished, but

37:56

no one's actually pinned for it. Later, he's

37:58

then caught with a spanner. So he's

38:00

whipped 25 times. And then he's saved by

38:02

a sympathetic camp doctor who's known his

38:04

school. The doctor's son was at the same

38:07

boarding school that Hugo had been at

38:09

just before they're put into the ghetto. He

38:11

begins working in the camp hospital under

38:13

the pretense of being a medical student. And

38:15

his role is as a neophysist. I

38:17

mean, can you imagine? You know, he's certainly

38:19

15. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

38:21

you are not a medical student. You

38:23

are not. Yeah. And then suddenly on

38:25

the 2nd of February 1945, they're told,

38:28

right, we're all out. So 1 ,200 ill

38:30

prisoners are all burned to death in

38:32

the hospital or shot. And

38:34

as they're marching out, he can see

38:36

this huge fire conflagration. And he knows

38:38

exactly what's happened. And they also know

38:40

that they've got to keep going because

38:42

those who fall out of line are

38:44

just shot and left to dead on

38:46

the side. They've reached the outskirts of

38:48

Berlin and they've then trudged through the

38:50

ruined capital. mean, it's just amazing. Lots

38:52

of Germans watching them and just looking

38:54

at them with contempt. This is one

38:56

of the things he finds kind of

38:58

the hardest, and eventually they reach Sachsenhausen,

39:01

which we mentioned earlier on, and half

39:03

of them die en route. But he

39:05

and his father, Geyser, are still alive.

39:07

They're still together. And while they're there,

39:09

they're working on the counterfeit money. You

39:11

know, this is Countenbrunner's mob. Yeah. Just

39:13

amazing. And they're only there for a

39:15

month. It is all amazing. I suppose

39:17

that the crowds looking at the contempt,

39:20

what are they thinking as those people go

39:22

by? Because one of the things that

39:24

happens as a sort of functional holocaust is

39:26

because Jewish people are starved and kept

39:28

in rags. Germans are able to point at

39:30

them and say, look, see, they are

39:32

scum. Yes, but they don't know these are

39:35

Jews, do they? No, I suppose they

39:37

don't even know. No, they don't. They're just

39:39

force workers. They're just force workers. But

39:41

it's just what on earth are you thinking

39:43

in February of 1945 as you see

39:45

a parade of a forced march? All right,

39:47

but if you're a homeless person on

39:49

Waterloo Bridge and you're sitting there, what would

39:51

you say that most people look at

39:54

you at during the day? Oh, indifference. Complete

39:56

contempt or indifference, yeah. That's the same

39:58

thing. It's shame, isn't it? Yeah. But in

40:00

difference and contempt, it's not really difference

40:02

and contempt. It's shame that here's one of

40:04

your fellow citizens of the country, sitting

40:06

on the bridge with a paper gut going,

40:08

you know, please help me. Or they

40:10

just don't look as J .R. producers pointed

40:12

out. Anyway, by the end of February, they

40:15

then sent yet another train to Matthausen.

40:17

I mean, all the logistics and organization of

40:19

sending these people around, they're still being

40:21

used as slave labor. So they go to

40:23

Matthausen where they're working in a quarry.

40:25

You know, in freezing conditions, they're housed in

40:27

tents. What's really interesting is there's one

40:29

evening where Hugo, suddenly they're in the

40:31

corner of a tent and he suddenly feels overwhelmed

40:33

and he feels completely like he's just got to

40:35

get away. So he says to his father, come

40:37

on, let's just leave this tent. Can we just

40:39

go into the woods for a bit? So they

40:41

step out and go into the woods and an

40:43

astray ally bomb lands on the tent and kills

40:46

loads of them. What are they quarrying for? Another

40:48

holiday camp? I mean, this is the other thing.

40:50

What's going on? I don't know. Because after all,

40:52

one of the things when we look to the

40:54

Holocaust, when we look to Auschwitz in

40:56

those Auschwitz episodes, there's that whole ratio, isn't

40:58

there, of how slave labor doesn't work very well

41:00

because they don't work as hard. You don't

41:02

get the productivity out of these people that you'd

41:04

want. No. There is no benefit in having,

41:06

you know, whereas if you fed them better and

41:08

looked after them, you get the productivity you

41:10

need. So this is the ever -decreasing circles of

41:12

this. Yeah. But they can't feed them better because

41:14

they don't have food themselves. Exactly, exactly. But

41:16

also because... So I go back to the kind

41:18

of original point we made many moons ago

41:20

in an earlier episode, which if you can't afford

41:22

to do it, don't get involved in the

41:24

first place. Don't invade Poland on the 1st of

41:26

September 1939. You know, that's the lesson. So

41:28

on the 13th of April, they moved again. This

41:31

time there are... This is a

41:33

forced march. No food, people dying on

41:35

mass on the roadsides, conditions... Absolutely

41:37

catastrophic. His father is increasingly unwell and

41:39

he doesn't realize it, but he's

41:41

actually gone typhus at this point, or

41:43

typhoid, I should say. They know

41:45

that liberation is on its way at

41:47

this point, but it's just whether

41:49

they can hold out or not. You

41:51

know, they are both severely weakened

41:53

at this point. Anyway, we're going to

41:55

momentarily pause with Hugo Green's story

41:57

and return to the Southern Reich and

41:59

actually the U .S. 3rd Infantry Division

42:01

because they are still making huge

42:03

great swathes and they are getting these

42:05

camps one by one and getting

42:07

liberated, but also the grip that the

42:09

Nazis have in the Southern Alps

42:11

is also being loosened. So the 7th

42:13

Infantry, the Cotton Baylers as they

42:15

know, this is part of the 3rd

42:17

Infantry Division, reached Salzburg. And the

42:19

3rd Infantry Division, I've always had a bit of

42:21

a soft spot for them because this is the

42:23

Infantry Division. of Audie Murphy. He wrote to Helen

42:25

Back. He's the most decorated US serviceman of the

42:28

World War II. And if anyone hasn't read to

42:30

Helen Back, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's

42:32

absolutely brilliant. They are,

42:34

by the time the war is

42:36

finally over, they will be the most

42:38

combat -experienced infantry division in the US

42:40

Army in World War II with

42:42

531 days of combat. Having landed in

42:44

North Africa in November 1942 in

42:47

Morocco, as we said earlier, along with

42:49

the 45th Division being through Sicily,

42:51

Southern Italy, Anzio, Operation Dragoon, the whole

42:53

shebang. And in that time, they've

42:55

suffered more than 25 ,000 casualties, which

42:57

when you think an entire division is

42:59

15 ,000 strong, that's a lot. So

43:01

they feel they've done their bit

43:03

and more than done their bit, which

43:06

is why Major General John Iron

43:08

Michael Daniel, who has taken over command

43:10

of the Third Infantry during the

43:12

Anzio battle at the beginning of 1944,

43:14

decides to ignore orders. not to

43:16

touch Berkes Garden and send his seventh

43:18

infantry into the town. And the

43:20

reason Berkes Garden is so important is

43:22

because this is where the Ober

43:25

Salzburg is, and this is where the

43:27

Berghof is, which is Hitler's house.

43:29

It's his main house. This is his

43:31

favourite place on the planet. And

43:33

while the Allies are not going to

43:35

be able to get into Berlin,

43:37

they can take this other prized headquarters

43:39

of Nazidom, you know, Nazis

43:41

on the Hill, Ober Salzburg, you know,

43:44

it's where Göring's got a house, it's

43:46

where Boorman's got a house and his

43:48

courses. And it's a much cheaper win

43:50

than going to Berlin. as well. It's

43:52

a much cheaper win. Oh, Daniel knows

43:54

that Divas has promised Berkes -Garden to the

43:56

French. And he thinks, solve that for

43:58

a laugh. This

44:01

has been related to Patch, who is a semi -farm

44:03

commander. And Patch has told Mike, whatever

44:05

happens, do not exceed your remit. Do not

44:07

leave Salzburg. Berkes -Garden is to be left to

44:09

the French. And he just thinks no. What are

44:11

they gonna do about it? It's the end

44:13

of the war. I'm gonna take this. I'm gonna

44:15

have the glory of this. So

44:17

he calls up. Jimmy, is he saying that

44:19

in a whatever you do, don't do this

44:22

way. In other words, do this. No, I

44:24

don't. I think he's not saying. He's actually

44:26

saying don't go. I think he's saying don't.

44:28

But I think Daniel is so, they're so

44:30

peed off about this. They just think, you

44:32

know, we've done more fighting than anyone else.

44:34

We deserve it. Why do the French do

44:36

it? Because it's not just promise to the

44:38

French first arm. It's actually promise to Philippe

44:40

Leclerc, who's the commander of the 12th Division

44:43

Blondie, which is the French second arm division.

44:45

which has actually been an outlier because this is

44:47

one that's come from the UK. This is three

44:49

French troops that have come from the UK. They've

44:51

been attached to the US Third Army in Normandy.

44:53

They've been sent in at the head of, you

44:55

know, for the liberation of Paris. They've already had

44:57

that glory. And since then, they've actually been detached

45:00

from Third Army and they've been doing coastal festering

45:02

and clearing. Yeah. And then they're

45:04

transferred and the clerk doesn't want to

45:06

be part of the French First Army because

45:08

he thinks they're dangerous Vichyites. I mean,

45:10

so there's all this classic internally seen battles

45:12

that the French have. French stuff. And

45:14

I know Daniel just thinks why the hell

45:16

should these guys get it so he

45:18

calls up colonel john a hankers and hankers

45:20

is the commander of the convales and

45:22

is actually german born but emigrated early stage

45:25

to america to america and Daniel is

45:27

quite out front about he says look i'll

45:29

tell you right now. Patch has forbidden

45:31

us to take Burke's gun, but I think

45:33

we should, you know, you prepared to

45:35

do this and Heine goes, yeah, damn right.

45:37

The hundred first airborne and Maxwell Taylor

45:39

is also told is also told the hundred

45:41

first airborne to get ahead of the

45:43

French. Yeah. So there's three different groups all

45:45

converging on Burke's garden. But it just

45:48

so happens that the Seventh Infantry, the combat

45:50

is our closest. So the leading

45:52

patrol is commanded by Lieutenant Sherman W.

45:54

Pratt of B Company, which is obviously

45:56

the first battalion of the Seventh Infantry.

45:58

And they're leading their way. And he

46:00

says, we rounded a bend and there

46:02

before us in a broad opening lay

46:04

the ruins of what had once been

46:06

Hitler's house and the SS barracks. After

46:08

all the years of struggle and destruction,

46:10

the killing, pain and suffering here for

46:12

sure was the end of it. And

46:14

they take it. They found the Berghof

46:16

bombed. Well, yes, the REF has got

46:18

there first, in actual fact. So, six

46:20

ones, seven squadron. They've got there first

46:22

and destroyed it. And so, the symbol

46:24

of Nazi defeat has been brought about

46:26

by the Royal Air Force. Which quite

46:28

interesting actually, because now below the Berghof

46:30

is a golf course, and you can

46:32

walk across the golf course, and then

46:34

you get into some woods. And in

46:36

the woods, you can still see huge

46:38

bomb craters and damage. And the old,

46:40

and you can still see the remnants

46:42

of the old Nazi perimeter wire, which

46:44

runs through the woods and, you know,

46:46

is keeping everybody else out. To

46:48

put everyone's mind at rest, it wasn't

46:50

Banner Brothers, it wasn't the French, it was

46:52

the cotton balers. No, it was the

46:54

Danbusters. Danbusters, okay, it's the Danbusters. This is

46:56

a win for Britain, this one, after

46:59

all that. I

47:02

mean, how did Hitler take an advice

47:04

and gone there as demanded by several of

47:06

his subordinates in the last month of

47:08

the war? Yeah, were all being bombed. He'd

47:10

have been there when it was bombed,

47:12

right? Yeah, he would have done. But because

47:14

they're Germans, they built huge amounts of

47:16

bunkers underneath it. There's a whole network of

47:18

bunkers. There'd have been a very different

47:20

fight there had he been there, I imagine.

47:22

Yeah. Then the Americans would have been

47:24

able to... I have a 617 squadron who

47:27

would claim the death of Hitler or

47:29

the Americans would have captured him. Anyway. Anyway.

47:31

So that is the end of the

47:33

Berghof. But meanwhile, that means that you've now

47:35

got American troops in Austria. And while

47:37

you've got the 7th Army creeping around into

47:39

southern Austria and now into southern Bavaria.

47:41

And actually, the French do arrive that afternoon

47:43

as well and the 101st Airborne. And

47:45

it's the 101st Airborne that get up to

47:47

the Kelsstein house, which is the Eagle's

47:49

Nest. But it is the cotton balers that

47:51

take the Berghof. Meanwhile, you've got Patton's

47:53

3rd army going around the northern bit of

47:55

Austria. And it is in that northern

47:58

bit of Austria towards Linz that you've got

48:00

the 71st Infantry Division. And on the

48:02

4th of May, it's they that reach Gunskirchen,

48:04

which is an outlying camp of Matt

48:06

Hausen and a makeshift concentration camp.

48:09

So we're back with Alan Moskin. And

48:11

we're back with Alan Moskin. Where

48:13

we began. And they're just horrified by

48:15

what they discover. You know, skeletal

48:17

prisoners sort of, you know, completely dumbfounded,

48:19

you know, out of their minds,

48:21

not knowing what's going on. There's a

48:23

typhoid epidemic through the camp. Everyone's

48:25

ill. Alan Moskin goes in. He's absolutely

48:27

horrified. There's a Jewish prisoner who

48:29

falls at his feet and tries to

48:31

kiss his boots. And his boots

48:33

are covered with excrement. And he's utterly

48:35

revolted by what he sees. Moskin

48:38

can't comprehend it. He just, he breaks down

48:40

completely. And the only thing he can mutter

48:42

is, I knew that I'm

48:44

also a Jew. Yeah.

48:47

Yeah. And then income American tanks,

48:49

Hugo Grin and his father, they

48:51

say that Sheshish Janyu are blessing.

48:53

They've been saved, but they've both

48:55

got typhoid. Hugo is helping other

48:57

people onto trucks. They're taken to

48:59

a makeshift hospital at Hirshing. And

49:02

after everything they've been through together

49:04

to the point of liberation, and

49:06

they're sharing a bed, his father,

49:08

Geyser, dies in his arms three

49:10

days later. He's still

49:12

only 45. The liberation

49:14

has come too late, just too

49:16

late for Hugo and his dad. I

49:19

think it's really powerful

49:22

to talk about one person

49:24

in this. Yes, and particularly

49:26

from a camp that no one knows about.

49:28

No one has ever heard of. It's

49:31

the total humiliation and

49:33

degradation of human beings. And

49:35

I just finished this point that when Churchill

49:38

makes that speech, I think it's on the

49:40

18th of June where he says, you know,

49:42

if we prevail, you know, we will return

49:44

to the Sunday uplands. But

49:46

if we don't, we'll descend into a

49:48

new dark age made more sinister by

49:50

the perversions of modern science. Yeah.

49:52

And of course, there's no such thing

49:54

as Cyclone B as a means of

49:56

mass execution at this point. Yeah. But

49:58

how prescient that line was. And those

50:00

are the stakes. You know, he's laid

50:02

it bare back in June 1940. These

50:05

are the stakes that we're talking about here. And

50:07

he's absolutely spot on. Well,

50:09

in the same way that there

50:12

were no Jeeps and Sten

50:14

guns and four -engine bombers in

50:16

1940. No, but... doubted what Churchill

50:18

was saying back in June, 1940,

50:22

nearly five years earlier, here in the

50:24

closing stages of the Third Reich, both

50:27

Red Army troops and Western Allied troops

50:29

are discovering the true utter horror of

50:31

what Nazi Germany means and what the

50:33

Nazi regime means. And if they've all

50:35

been wondering what they've been fighting for

50:38

at various times, here it is in

50:40

black and white, what they've been doing

50:42

it for. In the new documentary what

50:44

they saw the Sam Mendes thing which

50:46

is interviews with two of the AFP

50:48

you guys who at the discovery of

50:50

belson with their interviews over over the

50:52

footage that they shot there in the

50:55

midst of the footage there's a gunnery

50:57

sergeant I'm from Chester you know says

50:59

and I've the things I've seen I

51:01

now know I now know what I

51:03

was fighting for right I've seen here

51:05

beggars belief yep and he's holding the

51:07

microphone you know like to one side

51:10

clutching the microphone and he looks. Purely

51:12

angry that this guy appalled there's

51:14

a couple of people saying this stuff

51:17

right then and there not not

51:19

in the interviews because in the interviews

51:21

they sort of they're reflecting on

51:23

20 years later these interviews that the

51:25

IWM did. They're shooting people then

51:27

and there at Belson saying exactly this

51:29

and I think you're absolutely right

51:32

Churchill's prediction unfortunately he was right. Obviously,

51:34

there's been all those leaks about what's

51:36

been going on in the def camps

51:38

and, you know, certainly the higher levels

51:41

of the Allied command they know about

51:43

it. Tommy Atkins doesn't know. But Tommy

51:45

Atkins doesn't know. And, you know, that's

51:47

why when American troops turn up at

51:49

Doron Middleberg or British troops turn up

51:51

at Belson or wherever, they are absolutely

51:53

horrified. I mean, they're so shocked at

51:55

what they're saying. They cannot believe that

51:58

the fellow man can do this to

52:00

fellow man. And yet here it is.

52:02

You know, everyone starts repulsed by it.

52:04

And, you know, you're right, It's to

52:06

have one story because Hugo Green's story

52:08

could be anyone else's. He's

52:10

the lucky one. He survives, but...

52:12

but mean, what what? Tragedy. I

52:14

mean, his mother survives, actually. Mother

52:16

does survive, but his younger brother, Gabby,

52:19

and his father, Geyser, don't. Plenty

52:21

his... and all the rest of his

52:23

other family don't. So father made

52:25

that incredible decision not to flee and

52:27

abandon the rest of his family,

52:29

but it's to naught because the rest

52:31

of the family get killed. But

52:33

nobody leaves the camps. That's the thing

52:36

from the end of the Auschwitz

52:38

series that no one leaves one or

52:40

another. Thanks everyone for

52:42

listening. We will be coming on in our

52:44

next episodes to the business of the surrenders

52:46

as they unfold. fall of Berlin. And the

52:48

fall of Berlin. Thanks everyone for listening. If

52:50

you want to listen to these all in

52:52

one go, course, you know this, sign up

52:54

for officer class on our Apple channel or

52:56

become a Patreon member. And even better, come

52:58

and see us at We Have Fest the

53:00

beginning of the autumn, 12th of the 14th

53:02

of September at Black Brewery, V for putting

53:05

the fun into fun. Thanks everyone for listening.

53:07

We'll see you again. Cheerio. Cheerio.