(dramatic orchestral music)
- [Narrator] In 1917, during
the final stages of World War I
at Caporetto in Cambrai,
Germany unleashed a new form
of weapon in an effort to break
the consistent stalemate
of trench warfare.
This new German weapon caught the enemy
completely off guard.
But unlike the British in
trench who were also developing
their new weapons, such as the tank,
Germany's new weapon was
nothing to do with technology
or equipment, theirs was
more a new form of warfare,
and one which was to
become, in later years,
a tried and well tested practice.
Germany's new weapon was
the use of stormtroopers.
(dramatic ominous music)
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
Stormtroopers, or shock
troops, were elite soldiers,
specially trained for
infiltration tactics.
They sought out weak spots
in opposing defenses,
and then literally stormed that position
using the maximum amount of force.
By causing utmost confusion
in the enemy rear,
the stormtroopers were highly successful.
Within months of becoming Chancellor,
in January 1933, Hitler had transformed
a democratic Germany into a dictatorship
imposed through terror,
disguised by skillful propaganda.
By 1939, some six years later,
Hitler had completely changed
the face of the modern Germany.
The country was now organized
under the Nazi regime,
which maintained power
and a hold over the people
through the SS and the Gestapo.
National socialism had
spread its tentacles
through every aspect of German life,
from education and the
arts to labor and religion,
and ordinary Germans lived
and worked under its shadow.
Under the terms of the
Versailles Peace Treaty,
Germany's army was to have
no more than 100,000 men,
six war ships above 10,000
tons, and no submarines,
or military aircraft.
Hitler, however, on his rise to power,
swept aside any notion
that he would follow such restrictions.
He was determined to break
the shackles of Versailles
and rearm Germany.
By 1934 he has given orders
that his armed forces
should be strong enough to
defend Germany within five years
and capable of offensive
action within eight years.
By 1939, Hitler's military
machine was gathering strength.
Unlike other countries at
that time whose armed forces
were ostensibly for defense,
the true purpose of Hitler's
was designed for attack.
The Luftwaffe, made up
of fighters and bombers,
had no less than 4,093 frontline aircraft
and many more were rolling
off the production lines.
His navy had a fleet of battleships,
heavy cruisers, and destroyers,
along with 57 U-boats.
The Wehrmacht has a strength
of 86 infantry divisions,
six tank divisions, and
eight motorized divisions.
The mere presence of Hitler's armed forces
was grossly and successfully magnified
by his propaganda machine.
This served to deter all opposition
by much stronger nations as his armies
marched into the Saar,
the Rhineland, Austria,
the Sudetenland, and finally,
the whole of Czechoslovakia.
Initially, the only body which
could have stopped Hitler
during his rise to power
could have been the Wehrmacht,
but the prospect of rearmament
and the subsequent military triumphs
were enough of a bribe to
ensured the continued support
of the generals.
(triumphant music)
The Wehrmacht now
possessed within its ranks
a new breed of soldier, men
who had been indoctrinated
into the Nazi ideals and
beliefs since childhood.
This new German soldier was
tough, resilient, well-trained,
and above all, dedicated.
His uniform would be much
the same as his counterparts
within the Wehrmacht,
but this is where the
similarity would end.
This new soldier would form the backbone
of some of the hardest and toughest units
within Hitler's army.
He would be fearless in battle
with little regard for
his own personal safety.
Unlike World War I, when
there were designated
stormtrooper units, the
World War II stormtroopers
would come from within the
divisions of the Waffen-SS,
the commandos, grenadiers, infantry,
and parachute regimens.
(militaristic drumming)
In September 1939, Hitler's
troops invaded Poland.
Many had foreseen the coming conflict,
but when it came, few could have predicted
the astonishing success of the Wehrmacht.
The attack on Poland saw Germany
unleash an entirely new kind of warfare.
Striking with unprecedented
speed and precision,
Hitler's armies launched the
world's first blitzkrieg,
or lightning war.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Providing the spearhead of the swift
and powerful invasion force
was six Panzer divisions.
With the formation of these
independent Panzer divisions,
Germany had developed the tank
into a decisive weapon.
Deviating from the World War I concept
that the tank was merely
an escorting weapon
for the infantry.
(tanks rumbling)
Backing up the tanks and
mobile forces on the ground
and pounding the air fields
and centers of communication
of the air were the awesome
dive bombers of the Luftwaffe.
(bombers droning)
There was also a third element
along with the tanks and dive bombers
involved in the blitzkrieg
operations, stormtroopers.
(ominous drumming)
(machine guns firing)
These troops were used
alongside the Panzer divisions.
They identified weak spots
in the enemy defenses
and also isolated their strong points.
The speed of the blitzkrieg attack
and the use of stormtroopers
was designed to cut enemy
lines of communication,
spreading confusion through
the enemy's rear echelons.
With the enemy then pinned down
and unable to respond or make
meaningful counter moves,
the Panzer divisions were free to advance
over hitherto impossible distances
and move forward towards
objectives in days
rather than the months
of previous campaigns.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
The basis of German philosophy
at the beginning of the war
and through to 1942 remained
that of blitzkrieg tactics.
Throughout the invasion of Poland,
it was repeated both on
the ground and small scale.
This was particularly noticeable
with the use of stormtroopers
and their emphasis on
aggression and speed.
Like all successful concepts,
that of blitzkrieg was simplicity itself
although it is still often
misunderstood, even today.
The idea was to mass sufficient force
against one sector of the enemy line
in order to achieve superiority.
Once the stormtroopers had broken a hole
in the defenses, the Panzer
divisions and the infantry
would keep moving as rapidly as possible
to keep the enemy off balance.
Secondary and diversionary attacks,
either side of the breakthrough point,
prevented the enemy from
transferring reinforcements.
It was this idea of continuous movement
with an almost total disregard for flanks,
which made the blitzkrieg concept
work so well at the outset of the war.
Despite having an overall superiority
in terms of manpower, guns, and tanks,
the Poles were unable to
respond quickly enough
to check the German tidal
wave of men and machines.
(guns firing and shells exploding)
(bombs exploding)
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
The awesome flamethrowers
were one of the most feared weapons
used by the stormtroopers.
Employed in close up fighting,
this brutal weapon was
extremely effective.
The mere threat of their presence
often proved sufficient
to force the defenders
of a strong point to surrender.
The short range of this weapon
made the flamethrower crews
approach to the target
very dangerous as they
would be the most vulnerable
to attack from snipers.
Concealed enemy marksmen would often aim
for the flamethrower crews first.
Therefore, the units storming a position
would ruthlessly
concentrate on flushing out
all enemy snipers before
the main units arrived.
(machine guns and rifles firing)
(soldier speaking foreign language)
(guns firing)
It took just over three weeks
for the Germans to devour Poland.
And on the 27th of September,
wreathed in flames, the capital
city of Warsaw capitulated.
By the beginning of April 1940,
Hitler's forces were
advancing on western Europe.
Once again, the tactical
employment of stormtroopers
was used at the front line
of the blitzkrieg invasion force
clearing a path for the Panzer divisions
racing behind them.
Stormtroopers, although often motorized
to keep pace with the fast
moving armored divisions,
seldom fought from their vehicles.
Their practice was to move up
into an advantageous position,
dismount, then attack on foot.
The first of the Low Countries
to fall to the stormtroopers
was Luxembourg.
(ominous music)
On the 10th of May,
Germany invaded Belgium
and Holland simultaneously.
Standing in their way near
the frontier with Belgium
was the fortified Albert Canal,
vital to Belgium's eastern defenses
with its supposedly
impregnable fortresses.
In a joint effort using airborne
troops and stormtroopers,
the forts were simultaneously attacked
including this one Eben-Emael.
With the machine gunners and mortar crews
laying down as high a concentration
of firepower as possible
the rest of the unit dashed
towards their objective.
Crossing the canal using
small inflatable rafts,
with air cover provided
by the dive bombers
of the Luftwaffe, this
was a classical operation
using the stormtroopers and
one for which their method
of warfare was best suited.
Taking a stronger defensive position
using the maximum amount
of aggression and speed.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
You can see here, clearly,
how one intrepid stormtrooper
uses a telescopic rod to throw a grenade
into a small opening
of the concrete bunker
with devastating results.
(bombs exploding and guns firing)
Within a few hours,
those defending the fort
have little alternative than
to surrender their position.
The German whirlwind continued west
through Belgium towards France.
There were many rivers to be crossed,
which served as natural
defenses for Belgium.
But these proved little obstacles
for the stormtroopers.
One by one, the motorized craft
would ferry the troops across.
The assaults on the rivers were planned
and executed using shock
troops, or stormtroopers.
They attacked key points
away from the main bridges,
which were their main objectives.
The bridges themselves could
then be attacked from the rear,
creating maximum confusion
with the greatest possible effect.
In reality, these rivers,
such as the Meuse,
were crossed with relative ease.
von Blumentred, the operations officer
of the advancing Army Group A
later wrote, according to plan,
the stormtroopers were to attack
the Meuse and force a passage
for the subsequent crossing
of the Armored Corps.
Previous to the assault,
the whole of the artillery
would have to be in position en masse
and take steps to ensure a
plentiful supply of ammunition.
However, the defenses were
lighter than expected.
Here and there, a few French machine guns
were firing from small
ludicrous concrete emplacements
on the west banks of the Meuse.
That was all.
We initially feared this as a French ruse,
but the dreaded Meuse position
was almost non-existent
and only weakly defended.
Then, the Panzer race
across the river began.
Within a few days, the Belgian towns
were being overrun as
the Germans swept on.
Enemy counterattacks were
being smashed in their path.
It was very much the same story
for the Army Group B advancing
rapidly through Holland.
Resistance was light.
(machine guns firing and bombs exploding)
Stormtroopers seldom wore
a full battlefield kit
worn by the rest of the infantry.
Instead, they were lightly
equipped for mobility
and were able to go into action
with the minimum amount of
hindrance of carrying kit.
Standard weaponry would also
include a Kar-98 carbine
and also a sub-machine gun or hand pistol.
When shock troops, or stormtroopers,
had first been established in World War I,
it was never intended for the units
to become permanent features
of the German order of battle.
Instead, they were to be the role models
for the rest of the army to emulate.
Once this had been established,
the stormtroop formations
were to disappear.
Consequently, the stormtrooper battalions
were never incorporated into
the peacetime army structure.
When Hitler had come to power,
the name stormtrooper had been hijacked
by one of the paramilitary groups
from the German Workers' Party,
which called itself the Sturmabteilung.
During World War II, although
there was no official
stormtrooper regiment or unit,
there were small elite
units within the Wehrmacht
which specialized in the same tactics
used by the stormtroopers of World War I.
A great many of these
came from the Waffen-SS,
and it was during this campaign in 1940
that their title became official.
(bombs exploding)
For the final push into France,
Hitler's armies had to
clear the Ardennes Forest.
A mammoth invasion force of
tanks and armored divisions
along with thousands of
men had been assembled.
(military march music)
As this mighty army rumbled westward,
stormtroopers once again
would be at the spearhead
of the attack.
They brought up light artillery
and made lines of communication.
Paths were smashed through the forest
to clear the way for the advancing tanks,
heavy artillery, and motorized divisions.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Under heavy fire from the enemy,
motorized units brought
up small inflatable rafts
and rubber boats to the front line.
These would be used to cross the river
and secure the bridgeheads.
In typical blitzkrieg style,
waves of Stuka dive
bombers of the Luftwaffe
screamed overhead, bombarding
the enemy positions.
Heavy ground fire was concentrated
on the Allied defenses and pillboxes,
giving the maximum amount of cover
for the storm troops up ahead.
(artillery firing)
The attack continued into the night.
A never ceasing hail of artillery shells,
mortars, and rockets rained on the enemy.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
By daybreak, the
stormtroopers had moved up
into a position to launch an assault
across the river taking the enemy
completely by surprise.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
These shock troops held the bridgehead
until the engineers brought up pontoons
and laid down a series of bridges
for the motorized divisions.
(shells exploding and guns firing)
Within a few hours, the German army
was on the move yet again
leaving behind in its wake
a scene of destruction.
(triumphant orchestral music)
All along the natural river defenses,
the scene was much the same.
France was beginning to
fall into German hands,
and the Allies were being driven back
towards the English Channel.
(artillery rumbling)
The principle difference between the men
who volunteered for the Waffen-SS
and those who went into other
branches of the armed forces
lay in the oath they had to swear,
affirming total loyalty to
the person of Adolf Hitler
rather than to the state.
This was a key factor in
understanding the psychology
of a stormtrooper and
why they were such tough
and fanatical fighters,
earning themselves the description
soldiers of destruction.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
The lightning war was gathering momentum
as the Wehrmacht poured
across the French countryside.
Town after town fell
under German occupation
as they raced towards their objective.
Confronted by the German onslaught,
some of the French fought
to the very last man.
Others broke rank and ran.
The German build up went on remorselessly.
Counterattack after
counterattack had failed
for the French and their allies.
The German armor from
both Army Groups A and B
had cut a swathe westwards
some 80 kilometers broad.
The French Ninth Army,
which was in its path,
was disintegrated.
In fact, the blitzkrieg
almost went too fast
at this point of the war
and had to slow up in order to
allow the following infantry
to catch up and avoid being cut off.
By now, the British Expeditionary Force
had been ordered to retreat
and save as many men as possible
rather than risk any more counterattacks.
(triumphant orchestral music)
During this operation,
there were many reports
which came to light at the end of the war
detailing how some of
the elite Waffen-SS units
which were being used as stormtroopers
clearly demonstrated their
will to win at all costs
as well as their sheer bravado in battle.
(ominous music)
There were, however, those instances
which indicated a far
darker side of the character
produced by SS psychology and training.
On many occasions, small pockets
of retreating enemy soldiers,
who in the face of the
aggressive stormtroopers
realized that further
resistance was futile
and surrendered.
But unwilling to risk losing
the momentum of the advance
and spare men to guard prisoners of war,
the SS lined them up and gunned them down.
(guns firing)
Three divisions of Waffen-SS
served in the Battle
for France during 1940.
These were the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler,
the SS Panzer Division Das Reich,
and the SS Panzer Division Totenkopf.
These three, along with the army's
crack Deutschland regiment,
all used elite units within their force
as stormtroopers during
this part of the war.
(bombs exploding)
(rockets screaming)
In the autumn of 1940,
Hitler made one of his most
costly mistakes of the war.
He ordered two Panzer divisions
and 10 infantry divisions
to move eastwards.
He intended to start a war on two fronts
and attack Russia.
Within a few months, his
armies had passed through
Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria.
On April the 6th, 1941,
Hitler attacked Yugoslavia.
Hitler now had at his command in the east
some 50 divisions along
with a strong contingency
of air support from the Luftwaffe.
Facing this onslaught, the Yugoslavians
had 28 divisions, many of
which were poorly equipped.
And they had made little
preparations for defense.
Worse still, they had
dispersed their forces
along a 1,600 kilometer border
holding back little as central reserve.
There was little the
Yugoslavians could do.
Ill-prepared for war and trying to hold
such a wide front meant
they were soon overwhelmed.
At a cost of only 151
German soldiers killed
and 392 wounded, the
Germans had netted 254,000
prisoners of war.
However, although the
country was capitulating,
some 300,000 Yugoslav troops,
many of them Serbs,
managed to evade capture
and escaped to the forests and mountains.
They managed to maintain
an increasingly effective
anti-German resistance
which hampered any further German advance.
With the Panzer divisions
now being kept at bay,
German units were sent into the mountains
to try and force out the defenders.
Specialist mountain units
of Waffen-SS stormtroopers
were used with great effect.
(bombs exploding)
(machine guns firing and shells exploding)
Although the stormtroopers
did manage to capture
many of the resistance force,
many more still evaded capture.
These ferocious fighters
were to hound the Germans
in the Balkans for the
remainder of the war.
(ominous music)
It took only 12 days to
completely overrun Yugoslavia
in what Hitler code named
Operation Punishment.
On April the 12th Easter Sunday,
the Germans had entered
Belgrade, Yugoslavia's capital.
(ominous music)
(tank firing)
(guns firing)
(tanks rumbling)
(artillery firing)
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
Defiant Yugoslavs still
holed up in the city
which had been bombed to ruins and rubble
by the Luftwaffe.
It took two more days
to flush out completely.
(guns firing)
Three days later, the remainder
of the country capitulated.
(triumphant orchestral music)
In Greece, which had
been attacked by Germany
on the same day as Yugoslavia,
the British had been forced to retreat.
Convoys of British and Greek troops
were making their way south
to be evacuated by the Royal Navy
and taken to the island of Crete.
In their line of retreat was a single road
and a rail bridge across
the Corinth ship canal,
and Germany had a plan.
On April the 26th, German paratroopers
using typical storm tactics
launched an airborne
assault on the bridge.
The British had already laid
explosives along the bridge,
but the raid happened so quickly
that they had been
unable to detonate them.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
Within just a few hours,
the garrison on the bridge
defended mainly by
Australians had been captured.
The German army, including the crack
SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler
had meanwhile been
storming through Greece.
15,700 Greek troops had been killed
and a further 300,000
had been made prisoner.
The British, Australians,
and New Zealanders
had suffered 12,000 casualties
of whom a further 10,000
had been captured.
The Germans on the other hand
had suffered 1,684 killed, 3,752 wounded,
and 548 missing.
A small price to pay for
their territorial gains.
In June 1941, German forces began to cross
into Finland from Norway.
They had been passing troops through here
to reinforce their garrisons
in northern Norway.
Now the Germans had persuaded the Finns
who had been keen to
regain their territory
lost in early 1940 to join them
in attacking the Soviet Union.
Stormtroopers were once
again at the spearhead
of the German advance.
The German stormtroopers were
soon across the riverbank
and stormed Soviet defenses
south of the river.
Operation Barbarossa, the
invasion of Russia, had begun.
Most of the bridges over the river
were captured intact.
Some were even unguarded.
(machine guns firing and bombs exploding)
The German war machine involving
more than 100 divisions
drove relentlessly forward.
The Russian defenders
were shocked and confused
from the start.
By the end of the second day,
the Panzer divisions had
advanced 80 kilometers,
quickly brushing aside
any Soviet opposition.
Ahead of the main force, shock troops
attacked fiercely defended villages.
Further south, they were
advancing towards Leningrad.
(lively orchestral music)
By mid-July, they had passed through
the so-called Stalin Line.
The Stalin Line was a defensive belt
built prior to 1939 to
protect western Russia.
(bombs exploding and guns firing)
Storm troops were also
used to destroy enemy tanks
blocking the paths of the
advancing German army.
(artillery firing)
On the 27th of September,
something did manage to
slow up the German advance.
The autumn rain started.
This meant that Hitler's original plan
to capture Moscow before
the autumn had failed.
The Germans were ill-prepared
for the harshness
of the Russian weather,
and progress was slowed.
Motorized divisions often had to resort
to becoming foot soldiers.
But the inclement weather
did not hamper the operations
of the elite Waffen-SS troops.
Although motorized infantry,
they were used to fighting a war on foot.
Stormtroopers from
Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler,
Totenkopf, Das Reich, and
the Panzer Grenadiers,
which later became part of the Waffen-SS
all fought in the early Russian campaign.
They set up advanced communication posts
and attacked small targets.
They were also used to
destroy enemy positions
such as bridges and railway lines,
which could be used by the Russians
to bring in reinforcements.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
The growing threat of German occupation
inspired a number of Russians
to join the partisans.
They soon began to make
attacks on the German lines
of communication, which forced them
to deploy an increasing number of troops
to the rear areas.
The partisans were no match
for the often ruthless
Panzer grenadiers who were
employed to hunt them down.
Any that were captured were shot on sight,
and those who helped in
their escape or evasion
were dealt with in the same manner.
Complete villages suspected
of aiding the partisans
were often burned to the ground
by the stormtrooper flamethrower units.
Wherever they fought, whether on the east
or western fronts,
stormtroopers wreaked havoc
and left a mass of
destruction in their wake.
The combination of their
swift moving Panzer formations
accompanied by the Panzer grenadier
and SS stormtrooper units
proved to be so successful
that within a few months,
Germany ruled most of Europe.
And a year later, she also
controlled huge areas of Russia.
The Allied nations, having
neglected their armed forces,
using outmoded tactics
and being ill-prepared
for such an onslaught,
could not halt the concentrations
of German armor and infantry.
Though it was actually the British
who coined the phrase
blitzkrieg or lightning war,
the successful operations of the Panzers
and the stormtroopers working hand in hand
did seem to be pulling
off lightning strikes
on many occasions.
Fast movement and the use of
the aggressive stormtroopers
to lead the attacks and
consolidate any gains
made the Panzer divisions
the most effective military formations
in the world.
Throughout the war, Germany
used her stormtroopers
to suit the changing conditions.
They fought with skill,
courage, and determination.
(lively orchestral music)
During the campaign in Italy,
stormtroopers using
Krupp half track vehicles
thundered through town after town.
By this stage of the war,
many of the airborne divisions
were now being used as
stormtroopers within the infantry
in support of the Panzers.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
During the counterattacks in Russia,
despite the freezing harsh conditions,
stormtroopers often defeated
far superior forces.
Throughout the changing
conditions of the war,
the esprit de corps of many
of the stormtrooper units
remained high in spite of reverses
in the field of battle.
But as more and more
inexperienced replacement troops
entered front line units,
combat effectiveness often suffered.
However, even new troops could
put up a strong resistance
especially when they are
fighting for their Fatherland.
And as the Allies moved
further towards German lines,
Germany's troops fought an
even more determined war
as they retreated.
Towards the last year of the war,
most of the SS units had been forced
into a defensive role,
but they could still deal heavy blows
against enemy forces.
Ironically, the German troops,
including those that
served as stormtroopers,
were defeated by the same tactics
and similar formations
that Germany had introduced
earlier in the war.
(guns firing and bombs exploding)
The tactical use of stormtroopers
had been developed by
Germany in World War I.
Although there was no actual
stormtrooper division,
as there had been earlier in the century,
their methods modified in World War II
accompanying the tanks into battle
resulted in overwhelming
victories for the Germans.
The Allied tactics used later in the war
were remarkably similar to those
which made the
stormtroopers so successful.
And these basic concepts
still form the basis
for tactics used by most armies today.
(dramatic orchestral music)
