quite insane to imagine that there could have been soldiers that raced through the ardennes in 1940 successfully, at rapid speed, and then found their end in those same forests a few years later.

"They don't advance without air support and tanks" I dunno sounds like a pretty smart policy to me

"The American is cowardly, he won't attack without air cover or heavy support!"- some German soilder ready to get mowed down by air cover and heavy support.

I absolutely love these personal stories. To hear what a soldier on the ground thought was always the most interesting part of military history to me.

That German soldier writing home about Americans seems to have a very British attitude: "The enemy is being quite unsportsmanlike by refusing to charge directly into our machine guns. How dare they use the weapons they saw fit to bring several thousand miles to bear against us!"

While in the army in the mid 80s, I met my boss's dad. The WW2 vet told me about fighting in the Bulge as we ate Thanksgiving dinner in Flint Michigan. He said artillery would impact just yards away but the deep snow threw the blast upwards thus saving a lot of lives. He was knocked out by a blast and woke up in the dead truck, the truck carrying dead for processing. He was bleeding from his ears, eyes and mouth. They weren't allowed to have fires so he cleared snow off what he thought was a log to sit and eat. It was in fact a dead German. He sat on the dead German and ate because he said it was better than sitting in the snow. He killed a German officer and took his binoculars which he showed me. Keep in mind he manned an anti-tank gun, so that must have been some close fighting.

These two channels are outstanding! This and Operations Room are brilliant. This series along with the Iwo Jima were and are top notch. Thanks again for the upload. Cheers from Tennessee.

it always impresses me the amount of information you're able to gather and the way you're able to visualize it to us with such quality visuals. amazing job as always!

Many years ago, while taking graduate classes, one of my professors, Dr. Cook, told me abt his experiences during the battle. He said his unit, I don't remember the name or division number it belonged to, had been virtually wiped out the first morning. He survived by lying in a culvert beside the road and playing dead for three days and nights. Even described how an occasional German stopped to take his watch, cigs, etc. Even lent me his regimental history book tht described his ordeal. I have no idea why he chose me to tell the story to after class one night. I think abt him often and try to imagine the horror and his bravery. A lesser man wd've surrendered. Rest in peace, Dr. Cook. gb

"Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics"

Man these videos are so good. The feeling of dread is almost palatable. This is real war education.

These are simply the best WWII videos ever, imo. I understand what happened better. Even though I'm learning very little because I already know most of this history I just seem to comprehend better. War is HELL!

My uncle was in Patton's 3rd Army relieving Bastogne from the south. He told me by a few days after Xmas the Germans were surrendering in droves, they were cold, hungry and without any more confusion about the course of the war. Some US units didn't accept surrender from SS troops, Malmedy Massacre was well know by all US troops by then.

The German soldier pictured at 11:25 is probably one of the most often copied. I've seen this picture reproduced on game boxes, magazines, book covers, documentaries, etc. I've often wondered if he was ever identified by name, and if he survived the war. The German soldier on the right at 16:33 appears to be carrying what looks like an American M-1 Carbine.

Oh man, I'm used to one video from the other channel, all of a sudden I get *another* video along with it? Absolute insanity, thanks for the work/effort, it's appreciated.

It was not just the difficult terrain that caused heavy losses on the German forces. Many units had been reinforced with largely untrained conscripts who were literally herded forwards by experienced NCOs. So even equally green US troops who were at least dug in, could score massive kill rates by firing into these bunched up German troops.

This explains more of what was going on after only learning broad overviews of the Battle of the Bulge, and then seeing Band Of Brothers in Bastogne.

Not running into machine gun fire without armor support? Sounds good to me! Steel, not flesh!

Thirty years ago, only near the end of his life, did my professor, Richard Kuhns, tell me how he'd been captured during the Bulge and placed with others in a barn, which was bolted or chained shut. The retreating Germans had been burning soldiers alive in barns. Before that could happen to him, the Americans retook the town. Kuhns became Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, and an expert on aesthetics. None of his generation ever spoke about the war to us until the very end of their lives. I am in awe of them.

I had the honor to talk with veterans of the battle of the Bulge ….. “ fighting the Germans was a job till the Malmedy massacre , after that it was a crusade ! “ My impression was it was a not boasting .

The 82nd Airborne on the northern shoulder were a key defense. Add to that the Engineer battalions that destroyed bridges and other infrastructure that delayed the Germans so much that Peiper made a comment “Damn engineers”. Peiper missed a fuel depot off a side road defended by about 100 men of a Belgian Forester company. The 82nd Airborne put the final mail in the coffin for Peiper by finding a M12 HMC and moving it to a ridge looking down on Peiper’s position. With little fuel and ammo Peiper slipped away back to his lines in the night on foot, the 155mm shells of the M12 as a final insult.

A friend in 101st said they slept in the same trenches as WWI and much of the insignia were still in place. It was beyond ghostly to think they were where so many had already died.

The work you do is greatly appreciated. Thank you for this.

My father was a scout and forward observer for the 75th INF in support of artillery. His job was locate German targets. The work required him to be in front of American lines. His life expectancy was about 30 days. He was one of the few enlisted men who had and prized his M1A carbine because it was comparative light fast loading, and contrary to what some would say had plenty of punch and accuracy. He was decorated with the Bonze Star for Valor in confronting a German Panzer with only rifle grenades. By applying accurate fire to the view slit of the tank, he apparently convinced the crew that he might in fact be using a bazooka, and so they backed away from the contact. Frostbite probably removed more Americans from the front at the Bulge than enemy fire as it was the coldest winter in recorded European records at that time. The old man walked around for three weeks on his heels fighting frostbite and not returning to the rear for aid because they would take away his carbine. Oh, he was chewed out for slapping a mouthy SS Officer, because you know, any officer no matter what atrocities they commit, well they are still officers.

What should be noted was that the Allies used a new invention for this battle. The Proximity Fuse attached to artillery shells shredded mass formations of German soldiers. In fact, the Proximity fuse along with the Atomic bomb were considered the most important technological inventions by the Allies made during WW2.

Germans when using combined arms: Superior blitzkrieg tactics 😏 Germans when seeing Allies use combined arms: "NEIN THATS CHEATING FIGHT ME 1 V 1 NO ITEMS INFANTRY ONLY FINAL DESTINATION"

Excellent! One of your best efforts yet!

My dad fought in the Bulge. Unfortunately he came home with what now is called PTSD. He just suffered with extreme alcoholism & a very violent temper that both my mom & I paid for with blood & pain. Sadly, he quit drinking & got his temper under control just in time for them both to die. 😢 🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️ 🫡 🇺🇸

Wow! It's always amazing to hear what it was like from the other side. It really can show you some stuff you may never have known before about the other side.

I've always found it ironic that the Germans claimed US forces only attacked with the overwhelming support of armor, artillery and air power. Apparently, they had forgotten about the concept of "Blitzkrieg" that had worked so well for them in Poland, France and the opening phase of the Russian invasion.

Just found your channel and now I’m binge watching. A HUGE thank you for your vids, they’ve shown new photos/film footage I’ve never seen. Most documentaries show the same public clips over n over. You’ve taught me so many new things too that you don’t learn in any text book or docu-series. Love your channel n eagerly tap vid to vid to vid.

One of the few Zaloga presentations on youtube is on this very subject. Its a worthwhile watch.

My uncles served during WW2. One with Patton, spoke of the horror perpetrated on Allied soldiers by the Wehrmacht. We were slaughtered after capture by German soldiers. Not by SS, but the regular army Germans were as horrific as the SS. Sadly as I have aged I have watched a determined rewrite of the true history of German action during WW2 and from 1938 on. I know not all people were evil but certainly we must all consider if our own death would be better than allowing millions of people to be slaughtered. If we are cowards we are still responsible for the actions of our neighbors if no one is saying This is Wrong.

I Love your videos and narration about these battles.

What a fantastic video! Thanks.

Such an interesting period of the war

yay ive been waiting for ur vids mate ty

I live near St. Vith. My neighbour, now 96 and still driving his tractor, told me that it was minus 20 and with loads of snow. He was in Setz where he lived as Germans blow up the small bridge. The 3 Germans came in his house and adked for coffee. While drinking it, GIs came silently across the river. The neighbour, then 18 y o, was talki g outside with his father and a neighbour. The GIs showed up and they asked the men if tjete are Germans inside. Yes, wasthe answer. They surtounded the house and shouted to get oit of thr house with their hands up. The Lt wanted to fighy but the very young Wehrmacht soldier to please not to. They surrended. So, the bridge was blown up for nothing. My neighbour who told me this is 97 and still okay. He told me it was a positive exciting time and he still feels like being 18, like in 1945. Setz is a Germans speaking Belgium town south of St. Vith. Wehrmacht soldiers were not allowed to plunder because this part of Belgium was annexed into Germany in 1940. He did flee for the SS i to the forest because thry could take him to serve in the SS.

love your channel sir! Really interesting videos from the 'alternative perspective'. The iwo jima ones were fantastic, looking forward to this :)

Great work, as usual.

The 2 regiments of the 106th fought encircled until they ran out of ammunition and food. This was their baptism to fire. Being unable to fight back, surrender for the surrounded troops was the best option with those that wanted to filter back to Allied lines allowed to do so. It’s third regiment was outside St. Vith joined those defenders and fought well throughout the battle.

It's a good day when I get to watch a new video from The Operations Room & The Intel Report. The beer helps too.

Excellent, really like this new channel. The one item I hoped to hear described was the German's impression of the VT-98 proximity fused artillery used by the Americans in the counterattack. Taking from Rick Atkinson's 'The Guns At Last Light' "Shell fragments were said to slice through the thick logs atop enemy bunkers. A single 155mm shell could shred every square foot inside a 75 foot diameter. Such mayhem was pure manslaughter, another German prisoner complained "The devil himself could not escape." pg 460.

Good video, thank you for posting.

I love this series.

At about 5 minutes into the video, you mention the Chain Dogs, nicknamed so because of their chain and badge around their neck. Back in the very early 1980's, when I did military service here in Sweden, that kind of chain and badge was still used. They were carried by the DO, "Dagofficer" ("Day Officer"), and the BDO, "Biträdande dagofficer" ("Assistant Day Officer"). Those two persons served as the top ranking officer, and top ranking NCO, at the regiment for the current day. So they were in charge, for now, in case something happened that needed a quick response. And it was as far as I can see the exact same type of badge, it looks very similar at least. Weird to see SS military police wearing the same kind of chain and badge.

Great stuff, nice footage

Very well done guys. I stayed interested right til the end...

“The coward Americans won’t advance without their vehicles!” -German who’s entire attack revolved around giant panzers

My uncle was a US Army tanker at the Bulge, and a couple of his cousins were there with the German Army. They all managed to survive the battle.

Very nice unbiased report. Subscribed.

Fantastic video.

Ironically my last boss came to U.S. from Germany and works in an American bank. German and Japan are now our allies. It’s a crazy world we live in.

Beyond brave combat photographers, from all countries and within all theaters of war, never receive anywhere near enough overdue credit.

Awesome video 👍

Great video

I’m guessing many of the Germans were thinking “what has that idiot got us into this time?”

11:20 The American soldier "..does not attack without aircraft and tanks. he's too cowardly for that". A German soldier describing the Blitzkrieg when done by other than German soldiers.

Heard the familiar voice, subbed. :) Tbh the channel has been popping up in my feed for a few weeks already , sorry I am a bit late. :)

Very good interesting. Thank you

At the risk of stating the obvious, the superior ability of the Americans to quickly resupply would eventually overcome any sort of tactical advantage, even if Germany had succeeded at the Bulge.

One major correction: The Ardenne Offensive was NOT the last major german offensive of the war. The last major offensive was in Hungary and was called operation spring awakening (Unternehmen Frühlingserwachen): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spring_Awakening It was however the last major offensive on the western front for the war. But I really hope you do a report on the War in Hungary in 1944/45. It is often compleatly ignored in the western world and is arguably the most brutal fighting in the final phase of the war over the germans last ally and oil field. The Siege of Budapest alone makes Bastogne look like an absolute cake walk in comparisson (Bastogne was encircled for days, Budapest for half a year). To quote how Hitler saw Hungary in 1945: "Hitler considered the protection of Vienna and Austria as of vital importance and that he would rather see Berlin fall than lose the Hungarian oil area and Austria. He [Hitler] accepted the risk of the Russian threat to the Oder east of Berlin". PS: If we want to be really picky, the last german offensive was in April 1945. It would eather be the Potsdam Offensive by the 12th army to break through to the encircled 4th Army and help them escape to the west (Pocket of Halbe, object of the Sabaton Song "Hearts of Iron") or the last (successfull) german armored assault of WW2, the Battle of Bautzen (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bautzen_(1945)) where german forces launched a counter attack against the polish second army and defeated them, recapturing several towns and villages which they would hold until the end of the war. There are also different definitions on who won that battle. Poland claims they won because the germans didnt break through their frontline, but considering this was late April 1945 the simple fact the germans advanced several dozent kilometers into the soviet advance, stopped the polish troops heading to Dresden and foirced them into a although small retreat under heavy casualties can only be seen as a massive blunder on the polish militaries part at best. The polish force was two times stronger then the german one but suffered significantly heavier casualties and needed to be safed by soviet troops (obviously not exactly a popular image in poland today for obvious reasons).

great video 👌

This was very well done. .

This video was an intriguing perceptive into the minds of the German soldier during the Battle of the Bulge.

Insane, that soldier on the left is the one from that famous picture of the German soldier 10:08

Outstanding video and congrats on the Battle of the Bulge documentary. It would be nice if you could also do the same for Operation Spring Awakening, Germany offensive against the soviet union.

I never heard too much about the use of napalm from aircraft in the European Theater. Thanks!

Those scouts next to the signpost (at Kaiserbaracke) are actually with Kampfgruppe Knittel, not Peiper.

Well done...Good video

From David A. Wood: As with the Organized Crime stories, I also enjoy watching the highly interesting stories shown about Military Culture, especially those pertaining to WW2 History, as I invariably end up learning something new. Mind you, I have been an ardent consumer of WW2 History ever since I was a pre-adolescent back in the mid-1970s. To KZfaq: Please do keep up your good work!

In 12 days we will be Antwerp or lost the war - Is a good assesment really

I love the complaints about the Americans they faced. "Waaah! They won't attack without combined arms! They won't run headlong into our MG fire! Cowards!"

My grandfather was there, he came home with PTSD, because of that he died in his early 50's!

I had an old friend that was there, I heard the stories over several years across campfires.

Suffering frostbite on the west front must have been the final nail on the coffin

I don't think that I have encountered a telling of the Battle of the Bulge quite from the Wehrmacht perspective, although I did see the 60's film that showed a small amount of it.

Outstanding presentation, meaningfully supplemented by the actual accounts of German troops of all ranks with their highly varied experiences from the early days of triumph to the bitter retreat after their final ground offensive collapsed in failure!

That Ambleve River turkey shoot sounded fun.

A bunch of the troops committed by Germany for this offensive were originally supposed to go to the Eastern Front. In mid-1944 you had the Western Allied invasion at Normandy. A few weeks later the Red Army kicked off Operation Bagration out east and German Army Group Center was ripped apart. Germany was scrambling to rectify both of these problems but Army Group Center's fate was a big problem. They had been trying to plug the bursting dam out east and the reserves sent to the Ardennes instead dashed those hopes.

“No fair you’re fighting with heavy weapons and air support!” -virginGermansoldier “Isn’t that exactly how you guys blitzed France and the Soviet Union in the early days when you had those things?” -Chad American GI

My father was in a Mortar unit that got overrun in a small town during the battle of the bulge. A unit of tigers went by as he said his unit hid in large trash cans. He said he had never seen a tiger and it scared the hell out of him because of how large they were. They later made it back several days later to the American side. Later he and the two other guys in his unit were relieved when the Germans were being driven back. The 3 had to take about 300 German prisoners several miles to a fenced in area. He said the German prisons were ragged and many wounded. He felt bad for them!

I knew a guy who served in the American army during WWII. He told me that, while they had no particular problem taking German prisoners, they never took SS prisoners. Any prisoner found to be SS got a 5 second head start and was shot.

My mother told me once that it was horrible during this battle. She lived in the city of Buffalo NY, and during the battle there were lots of units with guys from Buffalo. She said that you would see families, daily, getting the announcement that their son, husband or father was killed. I always thought it kinda funny that the weather, the terrible weather was simply a normal Buffalonwinter for those guys. ...now for the Texans 🤣

the German soldier at 11:30 should be a millionaire from the royalties by now, as his face is in every WW2 documentary about the Bulge. Without exception. Every one. Am I imagining this?

Wonderful

One of the most importaint facts, prior to 'Battle of the Bulge' was that German Parachute Regiment 6 was not sent to the Walcheren Causeway at 18.00h on the 31st of October 1944 which would have resulted in delay of least two weeks in opening the Port of Antwerp and a 100% operable port after a fortnight after the beginning of 'the Bulge'. Student lied in his statement after his capture and only mentioned the 2nd attempt of the next day, to conceal his collosal blunder of blowing the golden opportunity to keep the port inoperable. Bastogne is twice as far from Antwerp as it is from Normandy. And 5 times as far to Nijmegen. All equipment,supllies and reinforcement would have to come from Normandy instead, while the Red Ball Express was already at its maximized capacity.

Most of them that had previous experience of combat probably thought it was a waste of time and effort. By that stage of the war all they could have tried was futile but they had burned their bridges with the crimes that had been perpetrated in the preceding years.

You can hear and see how the mentalities were so different between the Wehrmacht and SS.

What is the SPG halftrack at 9:23. Is that a Hanomag? The body looks wrong, but it might be the perspective from the 3:2 video.

Thanks. ✌🏻👊🏼

Guess they didn't show later post-war interviews of German soldiers that complained about being expected to fight without being supplied with fresh water and food rations. Said they spent a good amount of their time looting the GI's and vehicles of rations, water and the nifty small Coleman stoves that would run for hours on 8 ounces of any liquid that burned. Those came inside a two section cover that served as pots for heating water and rations.

My Doppelganger was with the Germans at the Bulge, I have no name, only that the photo was taken there. It's freaky lol

"I'm better than you"...the thought that destroys people inside and out.

Jagdbomber is literally a "Hunting Bomber" or "a bomber who is hunting"

Battle of the Buldge was a bold and audacious move by Hitler, but it was doomed to fail and simply wasted Allied and German lives for no real reason.

So very tragic on both sides - look at all of those young men - what a senseless waste of young lives!

Make a playlist please

Paul here. My Dad was wounded by an 88 shell to his left during the. Battle of the Bulge. The two men to his left were killed . This happened on the 21 of December. He was picked-up by the men gathering the died he moaned and he remembered the guy yelling we have a live one. He later woke up in England and was told his feet had frostbite and my need to be amputated is the didn't show a change in color in 72 hours. They started getting color and he was transported back the Hot Springs Arkansas. Thats how he survived the war. Raised a family of 7 and lived to 90 years old. Bulge. The two men beside him were kille 8:19 he had shrapnel wounds and was pi

They might want to mention the numerous war crimes German military committed in this campaign. The locals NEVER forgot