(orchestral music)
- [Narrator] By the time
Hitler came to power in 1933,
his thoughts on the
future of armored warfare
had already been widely
published in the Nazi press.
He had a keen interest in the tank
and placed its development high up
on his list of priorities.
When German rearmament began in earnest,
plans were made to produce an entire range
of armored fighting vehicles.
This was based largely on the philosophies
of Heinz Guderian, a veteran
of the first World War
and chief-of-staff to the
inspector of motorized troops.
Guderian had long since recognized
the full potential of the tank.
If allowed to operate at its own speed
instead of being hindered by
the slowness of the troops,
the tank could provide the ideal means
of avoiding static trench warfare.
In a series of exercises
and motorized war games,
Guderian had demonstrated
that mobile armored divisions
could win a modern war in
the shortest possible time.
Two main types of tank were envisaged
by the German general staff.
The first would carry a 37-millimeter,
high-velocity anti-tank gun
and would be deployed in large numbers
to form the bulk of an armored assault.
The second type would be a medium tank
weighing some 20 tons,
equipped with the
largest 75-millimeter gun
firing high explosive shells,
it would act in support
of the lighter vehicle.
The Panzer III and Panzer IV
would eventually fulfill these two roles,
but their development and production
took much longer than expected.
In the meantime,
two small lighter tanks
were used to fill the gap.
These were the
five-and-a-half-ton Panzer I
and the 10-ton Panzer II.
With relatively weak firepower
and thin defensive armor,
they were hardly suitable as battle tanks,
but they were the ideal vehicles
for training and reconnaissance work.
The Panzer I was one of the
smallest tanks ever built,
measuring just 13 feet in length
and less than seven feet in width.
Armed with two 7.92-millimeter
MG-34 machine guns,
it had an operational
range of over 100 miles.
And in spite of its low-powered
four-cylinder engine,
it could reach a top speed of
25 miles per hour on the road.
With a crew of only two men,
the tank commander also
had to act as the gunner.
His job was made even more difficult
by the very poor visibility
from inside the turret.
To properly judge what was
happening outside the tank,
it was usually necessary to stand up
through the turret hatch.
With the top part of his body exposed,
the commander presented
an extremely good target
for both riflemen and machine gunners.
The tank itself was designed to be immune
to small arms fire,
but its angular construction
and thin armor plating
rendered it susceptible to
any gun of a larger caliber.
It entered service in 1934
and was built on a relatively large scale.
Before long, several variants had evolved,
and between them, they formed nearly half
of the total tank force.
By 1935, the larger Panzer II
began to appear in limited numbers.
The new vehicle had considerably
thicker armor plating,
but its 130-horsepower engine
enabled it to match the top
speed of its predecessor.
The addition of a third crewman
eased the strain on the commander,
enabling him to concentrate
fully on directing operations.
Armament had been improved by replacing
one of the machine guns
with a 20-millimeter cannon.
But with limited penetrating power
and an effective range
of less than 700 yards,
the gun was of little use
against opposing heavy tanks.
Nevertheless, the new tank was
well received by its crews.
(speaking foreign language)
It was a very good vehicle,
technically and mechanically.
The only problem was the steering.
We had the old heavy steering system.
You had to have a lot of
strength to move this tank
in the direction that you wanted to go
because of the strange
old steering system.
Once you are on a straight
road, it was fine,
but as soon as you had
to go over uneven ground,
there were problems.
It was hard to maneuver
because it was very long,
and with its extra size
and the belt system,
it was harder to handle.
Mostly, people enjoyed
driving the Panzer II.
The five-wheel suspension of the Panzer II
was a distinct improvement
over the external girder system
used on the Panzer I.
The elliptical springing on each wheel
was far more effective
than the previous layout
and gave the occupants a much better ride.
By 1935, compulsory military service
had been introduced in Germany.
In October, the first three
Panzer divisions were formed,
together with their own
specialized Panzer command.
The tactics and training
methods used by the divisions
were based on Guderian's
two main principles
of tank fighting.
The first of these was
that the tanks themselves
should play the primary role,
while all other weapons should
be used to support them.
Tank divisions would be
used in concentrated thrusts
in order to break through and
isolate the enemy's positions.
By using speed and surprise,
the tanks would become the
single most decisive factor
in any major offensive.
The second principle involved
a system of close cooperation
between German aircraft and armor.
Pinpoint bombing should
be used to clear a path
for the tanks and to eliminate
any points of resistance.
To enable them to fight along these lines,
the first Panzer divisions
were very carefully structured.
Each one consisted of a Panzer brigade
with two tank regiments
and a motorized rifle brigade
with one motorcycle battalion
and two rifle battalions.
Of the divisional units included
artillery, reconnaissance,
and anti-tank battalions,
as well as engineering
companies and signal battalions.
Communications equipment
became an integral part of the system,
and on Guderian's insistence,
every tank was fitted with
both an intercom and a radio.
During the opening part of the war,
this factor would give the
Germans a decisive edge
over their opponents.
(speaking foreign language)
I think one of the advantages
was the technical abilities of the tank
in that we had much better
communications between our tanks.
Each of our tanks had a radio,
and therefore could
always be in radio contact
with the leader or commander.
This made it successful,
not because of superior armaments,
but because of the improved
communication facilities.
In 1938, Hitler ordered the
occupation of Czechoslovakia
and seized control of the Czech tank firms
of CKD and Skoda.
In addition, every tank already in service
with the Czech army was
absorbed into the Wehrmacht.
Most were light tanks,
similar in size and
performance to the Panzer II.
The Czech TNHP tank was
redesignated by the Germans
as the 38T.
Armed with a reliable 37-millimeter gun,
it made a sizable contribution
to the Panzer force.
It served with the Wehrmacht
in most of the early war theaters
and continued in production until 1942.
By 1939, both of the heavier German tanks
had completed their acceptance trials.
The Panzer III and Panzer IV
were officially declared standard issue
on September the 27th.
The F-model was the first
major production version
of the Panzer III.
Weighing 20 tons, it
carried a crew of five
and had a top road speed
of 25 miles per hour.
It could reach 11 miles
per hour across country
and had a maximum range of 110 miles.
Inside, the vehicle was relatively roomy
when compared with its
smaller predecessors.
The driver and radio operator
both sat inside the hull,
while the commander, gunner, and loader
were all positioned in the turret.
Visibility was extremely good,
and the commander had no
less than five vision slots
equally spaced around the
rim of the turret cupola.
Yet in spite of its good points,
the first production version
had some serious shortcomings.
Armor plating was far too thin,
and the 37-millimeter main gun proved
unable to penetrate the hulls
of contemporary enemy tanks.
But the basic design was sound,
and the construction methods used
enabled improvements to be made
without any major problems.
Before long, the 37-millimeter gun
had been replaced by a more
powerful 50-millimeter weapon,
and bolt-on armor had been developed
for both the hull and the turret.
The additional protection
would make quite a difference
in the forthcoming battles.
(speaking foreign language)
The advantage was the
strong armor plating.
It was much better and so you felt safer,
and it made you feel braver,
as you knew your chances of
getting hit were a lot less.
So as I said before,
I was hit three times.
I can still picture it.
It looked like a problem,
but the tank was all right.
With regard to the technical
performance of the Panzer III,
I would say that it was a
well-constructed vehicle.
Mechanically, in view of its tracks,
it was not as vulnerable
as some other types
because it had running belts,
and if anything got caught, it
could easily cut through it.
I can't say too much about
the technical aspect of it,
because as a gunner,
I was responsible for loading the weapons.
Overall, the Panzer III
was an unqualified success.
It dominated the early tank battles,
and for the first three years of war,
it played a decisive part in
almost every German victory.
By the time production ceased in 1943,
more than five-and-a-half
thousand had been built.
Running in parallel with the Panzer III
came the introduction of
Germany's standard support tank,
the Panzer IV.
It weighed three tons more
than the fighting tank
and used a longer chassis
in order to accommodate
the larger 75-millimeter main gun.
In spite of the extra weight,
it could reach the same
road speed as the Panzer III
and was even slightly
faster over rough ground.
Eight-wheel suspension
gave a comfortable ride,
and the internal layout was good,
with the hull being divided
into three separate compartments.
Periscopes were fitted for both the driver
and the radio operator,
and the turret could be
operated either electrically
or by hand.
The front superstructure
was made from a single piece of metal,
and the thickness of the basic armor
was increased from 30
millimeters to 50 millimeters.
But the plating was still too thin
to cope with heavy opposition,
and during the early campaigns,
Panzer IVs were unable to carry out
their support roles properly.
When the deficiencies were exposed,
the army instigated a lengthy
program of improvements.
Thicker armor was added, and after 1941,
most models were fitted
with a long-barrel version
of the 75-millimeter gun.
This new weapon transformed
the vehicle to such an extent
that it superseded the Panzer III
as Germany's main fighting tank.
It proved extremely
reliable throughout the war
and became one of the few tanks
to remain in continuous production
from 1939 right through to 1945.
When it was upgunned for
a second time in 1943,
it had the ability to take on almost any
contemporary Ally tank.
By the time production ceased,
nearly 9,000 Panzer IIIs had been built.
As the medium tanks were
phased into service,
the number of Panzer divisions
increased accordingly.
By the autumn of 1939,
three more had been formed,
and on September the 1st,
all six divisions took part
in the invasion of Poland.
Of the 3,000 German tanks
involved, 98 were Panzer IIIs
and 211 were Panzer IVs.
The remainder of the force was
made up of Panzer Is and IIs
together with a number
of Czech-built 38Ts.
Facing them were 1,100
outdated Polish tanks
of all shapes and sizes.
Codenamed Operation White,
the invasion began at 4:45 in the morning.
Two German army groups
struck simultaneously,
one in the North and
the other in the South.
As soon as the ground attack began,
the Luftwaffe launched a
series of massive airstrikes
against the Polish airfields.
The Polish air force consisted of just
a few hundred obsolete aircraft,
and within a few days, it
had been all but demolished.
On the ground, the Poles
were equally ill-equipped.
They were desperately lacking
in mobile anti-tank guns
and were completely outclassed
by the speed of the Panzers.
Nevertheless, they fought
with astonishing bravery
and even resorted to using cavalry units
in an attempt to hold up the German army.
By the end of the month, it was all over.
Warsaw had been completely
surrounded in just 18 days,
and on the 28th of September,
the Polish capital was
forced to surrender.
The Panzer divisions
had proved their worth,
losing little more than 200 tanks
during the entire Polish campaign.
Eight months later,
they were poised to repeat their success.
By the spring of 1940,
Hitler had two-and-a-half-thousand
tanks at his disposal.
Panzer Is and IIs made
up 40% of this force,
while the heavier Panzer IIIs and IVs
accounted for less than 25%.
Each Panzer division now included
its own anti-aircraft battalion,
as well as its own squadron
of nine reconnaissance planes.
By cooperating closely with
the divisions' tank formations,
these units were to prove highly effective
in the coming campaigns.
Training methods had now reached
a state of near-perfection.
The tank men were taught the advantages
of teamwork and versatility.
And each member of a crew was
able to operate as a driver,
gunner, loader, or as a radio operator.
Normally, the crew would be one unit.
There wasn't any difference
between ranks within the unit,
which was rather unusual
for the German armed forces.
For example, even the
commander had to help
with carrying the canisters
of ammunition to the camp
regardless of his rank,
just as the wireless operator
and any other soldier had to do.
The driver was the only one
that didn't have to help
as he had to drive all day long
and repair any damage done to the tank.
But all the rest chipped in.
The wireless operator organized the food.
He made sandwiches
and looked after all
the food side of things.
On May the 10th,
Hitler ordered the start
of Operation Yellow,
the invasion of France
and the low countries.
Opposing the German armor
were 4,000 British and French tanks,
plus a small number of
Belgian and Dutch vehicles.
Although the French had a number
of the fairly potent Char B tank,
much of their force was equipped
with inadequately armed light tanks,
such as the Renault 35
and the Hotchkiss H39.
Britain and France were both convinced
that the Germans would
attack in the North.
The Maginot Line and the
thick forests of the Ardennes
would surely prevent a
breakthrough further South.
So when Hitler struck
in Holland and Belgium,
the Allies moved Northwards
and took up a pre-planned
defensive position
on the Dyle Line.
The German offensive opened
early in the morning,
with the Luftwaffe attacking
airfields in Belgium, Holland,
Luxembourg, and France.
Meanwhile, paratroops were landed
at Rotterdam and the Hague,
while additional airborne
forces attacked Fort Eben-Emael,
the key defensive position in Belgium.
By midday on May the 11th,
the fort had surrendered
and the Panzers of Army Group B had pushed
deep into Holland and Belgium.
While the Allies were decoyed
into fighting in the North,
Hitler launched a real
attack further South
straight through the supposedly
impenetrable Ardennes.
On May the 13th, von Kleist's
tanks of Army Group A
smashed across the River Meuse,
forcing a gap between Sedan and Dinant
to the North of the Maginot Line.
With the main French defensive system
rendered completely useless,
the Allied armies were rapidly outflanked.
By May the 17th, Army Group A's Panzers
were racing westwards across France.
Three French tank divisions
under the command of Charles de Gaulle,
counterattacked Montcornet.
But in spite of support
from British armor,
they could do little to stem the tide,
and by May the 20th,
Guderian's tanks had reached
the coast at Abbeville.
Soon they began to swing to the North,
and by May the 24th, the
Allies were encircled
in the coastal pocket some 60 miles long.
Faced with a hopeless situation,
the British decided to withdraw on Dunkirk
and evacuate as many troops as possible.
Hitler's nervousness came to their aid.
Worried about an overextended line,
he halted the German Panzers
on the edge of the Aa Canal.
And in a nine-day rescue operation,
a third of a million Allied troops
managed to escape to England.
The Battle of France continued
for almost another three weeks,
but the result was inevitable.
After a brief rest, the
Panzers swung South.
Paris fell on the 14th of June,
and eight days later, France surrendered.
It had been a resounding
victory for the Panzer divisions
and a triumph of German military planning.
Holland had been conquered
in just four days,
Belgium in three weeks,
and the whole of France
within seven weeks.
In September, Italy
opened the first offensive
against British forces in North Africa.
The following month, they invaded Greece,
but by the end of the year,
they were in serious
trouble in both war zones.
The Greeks forced a retreat to Albania,
and in December, four Italian
divisions were wiped out
in a British counterattack
at Sidi Barrani.
Early in the new year,
the British 7th Armored
Division took Tobruk.
Within two months, they had
destroyed 10 Italian divisions
and captured 130,000 men.
When most of the British force
was transferred to Greece,
Hitler decided to go to Mussolini's aid.
In February, the newly formed Africa Corps
were landed at Tripoli,
and under the command of Erwin Rommel,
they began to prepare for their first
major offensive in North Africa.
German forces also invaded
Yugoslavia and Greece,
and by the end of the month,
both countries had surrendered.
At 3:15 AM on June the 22nd,
Operation Barbarossa began,
with more than 3,000 Panzers
spearheading the invasion of Russia.
In a series of well-timed attacks,
the Luftwaffe destroyed
much of the Soviet air force
while it was still on the ground.
By July, German pilots had claimed
more than 4,000 Russian aircraft
for the loss of less than
200 of their own machines.
(gunfire)
Within a few short weeks,
the Panzer divisions had
enveloped five Russian armies
and had taken several
hundred thousand prisoners.
But in the autumn, the Germans had begun
to encounter a new threat
in the form of the Soviet
medium tank, the T-34.
Armed with a powerful 76-millimeter gun
and with a road speed of
50 kilometers per hour,
the much heavier T-34 completely
outclassed the Panzer IV.
(speaking foreign language)
As we marched into Russia,
they showed us big posters
of all the different types of tank,
but none of the T-34.
It wasn't there so we
didn't know about it.
Well, we said, we've got good protection
and that's how we went into it.
We were told it would all
start in six to eight weeks
and to get ready for it.
But we learned after the second day
after fighting the T-34
and being hit by it
that you couldn't get out of
the tank in the time you had.
The T-34 had a strong impact.
In the face of powerful
tanks like the T-34,
the Wehrmacht's standard Panzer IV
proved to be completely out of date.
Germany reacted by
speeding up the development
of its own heavy battle tanks,
the Panzer V Panther
and the Panzer VI Tiger.
But neither would be ready
for at least another year.
In the meantime, the
divisions fighting in the East
pressed on with their existing equipment.
The initial three-pronged German attack
was aimed at Leningrad in the North,
Smolensk in the center,
and Kiev in the South.
Smolensk fell in August,
followed by Kiev at the end of September.
In three months, the
Russians had been pushed back
several hundred miles, and in the process,
they had lost vast numbers
of men, tanks, and guns.
German losses had also been high,
especially in the Russian minefields.
(speaking foreign language)
The Panzers III and IV had
an opening in the round flap.
We used to call it our pee hole.
When we drove for days on end
and didn't have time to
do our business anywhere,
we used it as a toilet.
Anyway, we were driving along
and one of these mines
landed on top of a flap.
You can imagine what happened.
There was not much left.
My wireless operator sat
on the right at the front
and the man that supplied the ammunition
stood right on the top of the flap.
It ripped his back off, his legs off,
and my legs were injured.
The leftenant who was at the
front seemed to be all right.
But later he got shot in the
head by the infantry and died.
The other two were alive still.
It's horrendous to
witness a thing like that.
There was screaming,
screaming for half an hour.
The driver and myself got dragged out
and had to sit on top of the tracks.
The infantry was still there
and we happened to sit on a blind spot.
The tank was completely wrecked.
The only thing left was the
top, that wasn't damaged.
The tank cans that the Russians
had were also dangerous.
They were long things that
burrowed into the soil.
They would fire within
a short range of 100,
150, to 200 meters, and they
would go through everything.
They would shoot upwards
and blow the tops off us.
So we would be driving along for ages
in our tanks without a breakdown
when, suddenly, they were just blown up.
The impact was very fast and effective.
If you got hit, there
wasn't much you could do.
It was rather an unpleasant experience.
We had a lot of respect for the tank cans.
They would rip through anything.
We managed to get hold of one,
and I must confess, we
were quite impressed by it.
Whoever fired them must have
had very strong shoulders.
I still admire those
who had to handle them
and fire the tank cans.
By the end of September, Hitler sensed
that his ultimate objectives
were at last in sight.
On the last day of the month,
Army Group Centre began
its drive on Moscow.
But the German Panzers had reached
the pinnacle of their success,
and in October, 1941,
the Russian weather turned against them.
Torrential rain turned
the roads into quagmires.
As temperatures fell,
the rain turned to snow
and keeping the tanks running
became extremely difficult.
(speaking foreign language)
We would stop anywhere,
under the open sky, in a
field, underneath a few trees.
It didn't matter if it was day or night,
as you worked in shifts.
Usually, there were three men,
one of whom would be sleeping.
You always had to make
sure that the division
had their tanks repaired
as quickly as possible.
Even if it meant working
in temperatures of say
minus 30 or 40 centigrade,
you had to get on with it.
By the end of the year,
the Russians had begun
to launch a series of
massive counterattacks.
In the vast Soviet expanse,
the German supply lines
became stretched to the limit.
Shortage of fuel and lack of air support
became decisive factors,
and the thick armor of
the heavy Russian tanks
forced the Panzers to
fight at close range.
(speaking foreign language)
If you wanted to be successful
at shooting down the Russian tanks,
you had to make sure that
you were close enough.
You had to come out of hiding,
sometimes you were camouflaged.
It was best to attack head on,
and it would be difficult to
shoot the enemy further than
600 to 800 meters away.
It was easier to get
close up from the side.
We didn't bother to target the turret.
We would go for the tracks.
We had various types of
ammunition, and it was important
to choose the right one at the right time.
It wasn't easy.
As the push towards Moscow
ground slowly to a halt,
Hitler ordered his armies
to go on the defensive.
Meanwhile, the first clashes
between German and British tanks
had already taken place in North Africa.
The situation had swayed to and fro,
but after a pause of several months,
Rommel launched his second major offensive
in January in 1942.
By the end of the month,
he had captured Benghazi,
and after another lull in the fighting,
he began a long drive towards Tobruk.
At the Battle of Gazala, newly
arrived American-built tanks
inflicted heavy losses
on the German armor.
The M3 Grant's twin-gun
armament came as a nasty shock
and finally gave the British a weapon
capable of matching the Panzer IV.
Nevertheless, Rommel pressed on,
and on June the 21st, he stormed Tobruk,
taking 32,000 prisoners,
plus all of their equipment.
Four days later, the remainder
of the British 8th Army
withdrew to El Alamein,
the last defensive position
before Alexandria.
While reserves were brought in from Egypt,
morale was boosted by the
appearance of a new commander,
General Bernard Montgomery.
On August the 30th, Rommel
attacked at Alam Halfa.
The British were well-prepared,
and within 48 hours, the
German Panzers had bogged down
in an extensive range of minefields.
While Montgomery's strength
continued to build,
Rommel's was eroded by shortages
of both fuel and supplies.
By October, the British had
gained overwhelming superiority
in men, tanks, aircraft, and guns.
- Fire! Fire! Fire!
- [Narrator] At 9 PM on the 23rd,
Montgomery opened the Battle of El Alamein
with the greatest artillery
barrage since World War I.
The artillery fire and air bombardment
took the Germans by surprise,
smashing their communications
and paving the way for a
British armored assault.
The ensuing battle lasted for 14 days
and mark the combat debut
of the most prolific medium
tank of all, the M4 Sherman.
(speaking foreign language)
Our weapons were much
better than the Shermans,
but we had a lot of
respect for the Sherman.
When it was introduced for the first time,
we realized how vulnerable we were.
In the early days,
I think we were ahead of
the English, technically.
But the story changed at Alamein
when the Sherman was used
for the first time ever.
I wasn't there then.
As I said, we respected
the Sherman completely.
By November the 6th, the
Battle of Alamein had ended
in a resounding victory for the British.
Montgomery's 8th Army
had broken through the German positions,
and by November the 2nd,
Rommel was in full retreat.
With a loss of 30,000 men,
400 cannon, and 350 tanks,
the Africa Panzer Army was no longer
an effective fighting force.
By the late spring of 1942,
the German armies in Russia were preparing
for a new offensive against Stalingrad
and the oil fields of the Caucasus.
Many units began to
receive the much improved
F2 version of the Panzer IV.
(speaking foreign language)
We were moved to Germany
to take over the Panzer
IV with the long gun.
After a short period of training,
our section was moved to the
4th tank regiment in the South
to support the Caucasus campaign.
This was the most interesting
period of all my war missions.
The landscape as well as the battles
were not particularly difficult.
The Russian defense fell
back onto the Caucasus.
We had problems with our tanks,
which were really built
to fight in Middle Europe.
In these conditions, desert landscapes,
it was very difficult
to operate these tanks.
By September, the Germans had reached
the outskirts of Stalingrad,
but in the face of a defensive system
that was several miles deep,
their advance ground to a halt.
Further North at Leningrad,
the world's most powerful tank
went into battle for the first time.
Weighing 55 tons, the Tiger could outgun
and outrange any existing Allied tank.
Its armor plating was so strong
that the hull was virtually
impenetrable from the front.
The high-velocity, 88-millimeter main gun
was a truly formidable weapon,
feared and respected by
all Allied tank groups.
Based on the original Flak
36, the tank-mounted version
could penetrate 100 millimeters of armor
from well over 1,500 meters.
(speaking foreign language)
I remember a conversation
with a friend of mine
who had seen this type of tank before,
and when I came back
from leave I asked him,
"What does this tank,
"which we've heard so many
wonderful things about,
"look like?"
My friend, Heine Kleiner, said,
"I imagine a tank with a very long gun."
He asked if I could picture it and said,
"But this one is much longer."
When I first saw the tank,
I was a little disappointed.
I had imagined it to be more
elegant, a bit like the T-34.
But here it was, this great,
big dinosaur in front of us,
square, vertical form, powerful,
but the gun was very impressive.
The debut of the Tiger proved
little short of disastrous.
Hitler had insisted on using the new tanks
at the first opportunity,
but the marshy terrain and
forest tracks near Leningrad
forced them to drive in single file.
As a result, the Russian anti-tank gunners
were able to knock them out one by one.
Most of the Tigers were destroyed
before they could use their
powerful, 88-millimeter guns
with any real effect.
But in spite of this inauspicious start,
the very appearance of a
Tiger on the battlefield
was enough to shake the
morale of its opponents.
To the crews of lighter Allied tanks,
it appeared almost invincible,
and before long, it had built
up a formidable reputation.
But on the eastern front,
the tide was about to turn.
Hitler's offensive in the
Caucasus dragged on into winter,
and in December, the
Russians relieved Stalingrad.
In the new year, a series
of massive Soviet thrusts
inflicted devastating losses on the 4th
and 6th Panzer armies.
Six months later, Hitler
launched Operation Citadel,
his last major effort in the East.
Aimed at destroying Soviet forces
in the vital Kursk salient,
this large-scale offensive
became the most decisive battle
on the entire eastern front.
During seven days of continuous fighting,
a combined total of
six-and-a-half-thousand tanks
and assault guns were involved.
The Battle of Kursk
marked the first appearance of
Germany's second heavy tank,
the Panzer V Panther.
Although twice the
weight of the Panzer IV,
it was considerably faster
and had a much better
level of armor protection.
(speaking foreign language)
One of the advantages of the Panther
was that it had relatively
strong armor plating on the front
and quite a good gun, the
7.5-centimeter gun L71,
which was superior to the Russians' 762.
It enabled us to shoot
down heavy Russian tanks
up to a distance of 1,000 meters.
The disadvantages with the Panther
were the lack of distance it could travel
because of carrying
insufficient fuel supplies,
and also problems with
the power propulsion unit
were rather substantial.
So that is why we
suffered such high losses
on the early missions,
mainly through technical difficulties.
(speaking foreign language)
The Panther was a good tank, we liked it.
I think that it was the
best tank around then.
There were a few disadvantages
due to it being designed so quickly
and the lack of resources available.
The engine was good but was perhaps
a little too weak for its size.
This was the main disadvantage
and we suffered many losses because of it.
A third of the Panthers were lost.
During a retreat, we
didn't always have time
to tow damaged tanks back with us,
so we had to leave them
behind and blow them up.
Citadel opened at 5 AM.
With more than two-and-a-half-thousand
Panzers deployed
over a 60-mile front,
it was the largest tank battle in history.
Within hours of advancing in the North,
the 9th Panzer Army had
destroyed an entire wave of T-34s
and had captured the village of Baterky.
A simultaneous attack in the South
breached the Soviet lines,
and by the late afternoon,
the Panzers had captured the
key village of Cherkesskaya.
But the Russians had been
expecting this battle
for a very long time
and had turned the entire area
into a veritable fortress.
Concealed within the
multi-layered defense system
were 3,000 miles of trenches,
25,000 guns and mortars,
and more than 40,000 anti-tank
and anti-personnel mines.
As the battle progressed,
both sides suffered enormous losses,
and within a few days,
the salient was littered
with burnt up tanks and guns.
Successive German attacks were
repulsed one after another
until finally, the Russians
counterattacked at Orel.
The crisis point came on July the 12th,
with a final German
assault on Prokhorovka.
900 Russian tanks defended
the town against 900 Panzers.
With both Russian and Germans
firing at point blank range,
the carnage was appalling,
and by nightfall, more than
700 tanks had been destroyed.
Among them were 300 Panzers,
including 70 Tigers.
On July the 13th, Hitler
called off the offensive
and the Battle of Kursk was over.
Russia had lost 50% of its tank strength,
but the German advance
had at last been halted.
For the rest of the war
on the eastern front,
Hitler's Panzer armies
would be permanently
on the defensive.
As the Russians advanced in the East,
the Allies at last opened
a second front in the West.
It began with the invasion of Italy
and continued nine months later
with the main assault in Normandy.
By midnight on June the
6th, 150,000 had come ashore
equipped with a variety of vehicles,
including mine-clearing flail tanks
and bridge-laying Shermans.
After a slow start, the Germans reacted
by sending 10 Panzer divisions
to defend the vital
communication center at Caen.
Two months of heavy fighting followed
before the town fell to the Allies.
In August, the Americans
finally broke out at Saint-Lo.
Sweeping round in an arc, they
linked up with the Canadians
and caught the 5th and 7th Panzer Armies
in a trap at Falaise.
It was a catastrophe for the Germans.
A relentless air onslaught
annihilated the Panzer divisions.
Out of the 500 German tanks at Falaise,
only 60 managed to escape.
60,000 men were either
killed or taken prisoner,
and the cost to the
Germans in other materials
was enormous.
On August the 25th,
French and American tanks drove into Paris
amidst scenes of wild jubilation.
As the Allies began their
long advance to the Rhine,
Germany's ultimate heavy tank
made its first appearance in battle.
Known as the King Tiger, it
carried the thickest armor
and was the heaviest and
most powerfully armed tank
of the entire war.
Equipped with the 88-millimeter L71,
it was 24 feet long
and was capable of destroying
any armored vehicle
at a range of 2,000 yards.
In total, nearly 500 King Tigers
entered service with the German army.
Used correctly, they were
virtually invincible,
and wherever they appeared in numbers,
they completely dominated the battlefield.
Their immensely strong armor
made them almost invulnerable to gunfire,
and a single King Tiger was
quite capable of engaging
and destroying several Allied
tanks at the same time.
At the Battle of Arnhem
in September, 1944,
the 2nd SS Panzer Corps with
two King Tiger battalions
played the decisive role in cutting off
the British 1st Airborne Division.
In just nine days, they
had completely crushed
Montgomery's plans for
shortening the war in the West.
Three months later, on December the 16th,
Hitler launched Operation Autumn Mist,
his last major attempt at
halting the Allied advance.
Two armies with a quarter-of-a-million
men and 1,800 tanks
were used in a massive
surprise counterattack
through the Ardennes.
The German objective was
to drive an armored wedge
between the British and American armies.
By forcing their way through
to the Belgian coast,
the Panzers would retake Antwerp,
sever the main routes of supply,
and force the Allies to withdraw.
The attack came at the weakest
point of the Allied line,
with the German forces
outnumbering the opposing Americans
by nearly three to one.
As usual, the heavy tank units
of the 5th and 6th Panzer
Armies spearheaded the attack
using Tiger Is and King Tigers.
At first, it looked as if
the plan might succeed.
In the foggy weather conditions,
the Allies were unable
to call in airstrikes.
And during the first 24 hours,
the 5th Panzer Army advanced 20 miles
through the American lines.
But on December the
23rd, the weather cleared
and the Allied air forces
were deployed en masse.
(exploding)
On the ground, the German tanks met
increasingly stiff resistance,
especially at Bastogne,
and as they began to lose momentum,
the Americans counterattacked.
By the end of January, the battle was over
and the Allies had
reached the German border.
During five weeks of ferocious fighting,
neither German army had advanced
any further than 70 miles.
Between them, they had suffered
more than 70,000 casualties
and had lost over 500 tanks.
After Autumn Mist,
the 5th and 6th Panzer
Armies were so badly depleted
that they would never regain
their maximum strength.
5th Panzer Army was pushed
back across the Rhine
and became encircled by
the Allies in The Ruhr,
while the remnants of the 6th
were transferred to the eastern front,
where they were forced to surrender
less than four months later.
When the Americans reached the
River Rhine in March, 1945,
the 512th Battalion's Jagdtiger companies
were sent into action against
the bridgehead at Remagen.
But it was a hopeless situation,
and by the end of the month,
they had been withdrawn to the North.
By the third week in April,
most of them had surrendered
together with the rest
of the German armor trapped
inside the Ruhr pocket.
The heyday of the Panzer was finally over.
(solemn orchestral music)
