Week 294 - Soviets Take Vienna and Königsberg - WW2 - April 13, 1945 

i unfortunately do not have the funds to become a member of the army, let alone get a episode dedicated... but if i could i would dedicate one to my late uncle Willem Jonkman. he smuggled guns and messages for the resistance, making good use of the fact that he was a short guy, they thought he was just a kid in his short pants and with his babyface. he never took credit for it...

Not to be a sceptic or anything but so many Dutch people claim their grandparents were in the resistance in WW2. Frankly, it's hard to believe all those stories are true as many more of my countrymen served the Nazis than actively resisted them. Also, the Dutch resistance was small, poorly organised and largely infiltrated by the Germans. As brave as some individual resistance fighters were, their actions likely caused more harm than good. Our country's heroic resistance deeds are blown way out of proportion and our involvement with the Nazi regime largely downplayed.

@@lucas82 True. My mother-in-law always swore that her family hid - can't remember if it was a resistance fighter, Allied pilot, or Jewish guy in their attic for some time. Nobody else in the family remembers it at all.

Another great example of immigrants being the backbone of our country. Thank you!

What a wonderful story about mr Wormmeester. Thank you for recounting

It's going to be a blast!

litteraly! ​@@patrickstephenson1264

soviets preparing a special painting for the austrian painter

Steiner will make sure the Soviets cannot deliver their birthday present.

@@zafinet1169 don't worry. The red army will send part of the present in advance with the help of artillery. They will make in time. Artillery will always be in time.

It is amazing, how fast the Wehrmacht crumbled since the Normandy invasion last year. Then they still held an area from the Atlantic coast into the Soviet Union. But in an accelerating way the Wehrmacht disintegrated since fall 1944 and the Allies to East and to the West could make huge progress towards and then especially into Germany. It is only a few weeks ago, that they crossed the Rhine river and look how much they have taken since then. In comparison the Italian front has been pretty stable for the past months, though I suspect it will crumble soon as well.

@@stoffls Sparty mentioned in the war against humanity episodes. The main reason why after recovering in the fall the Wehrmacht has collapsed so rapidly since late February, has been the collapse of Germany's industry following the Soviets taking Silesia and the allied bombing of the rivers also rendering the way out of the Ruhr's coal impossible.

@@stoffls Actually its the opposite. Its a very surreal thing that the germanmilitary didnt compleatly collapse in summer 1944. Most people only think of D-Day but Operation bagration in the East compleatly broke the german military. Within 3 months Germany suffered loses equal to about 2.5 Stalingrads...In the east 1 army group was wiped out and one was encircled in Kurland, in the West one army group was routing to the german border. Pretty much only Italy wasnt a compleat desaster for the german military in 1944. Sadly I dont have an english verison of it but a big german historian who researched on german military integrity basically said that the german army was able to keep moral up until summer 1944 because it was able to keep the core groups of soldiers and units together (germany recruited locally into local divisions to increase cohesion) but after summer 1944 this compleatly broke down. New german units were raised with troops from all over the place and were basically only held together by germanys lower officer corps until the end of the war. This however had massive negative effects for german unit cohesian and the efficency of german divisions broke down massively. While on paper it still was a division, in actual combat power it was maybe a brigade. Also the only real reason the germans were able to survive and somewhat recover from the 1944 catastrophe was the simple fact that both the soviets and the americans literally ran out of fuel and had to wait to rebuild their supply lines. Also both the soviets and the western allies focused in late 1944 on "side objectives" instead of heading straight into the middle of germany (market garden in the west, Romania/Bulgaria/Hungary in the east). Not saying they werent important (Romania was a crippling blow to germany) but it slowed down the main assault directly at Germany itself by months. Additionally the same thing that happened in 1918 to the german army happened here again. If most of your units are only able to do static defense (dig in and hold) then your entire frontline can collapse if it is breached in a single place as there is no way to stop the enemy from breaking through without mobile reserve forces to plug the gap. Bya 1945 germany didnt have any real mobile reserve forces anymore. Even in the small instances were german armored divisions mamaged to stop an enemy breakthrough at one point, the front would be broken at anther point. The germans didnt have enough left to fill the gaps and after that its a compleat route until the next natural defense like the rhine where the germans can again dig in their static divisions. In the east that task was done primarily by the major cities with german populations. It is a lot harder to fully destroy a weak german division in city combat then as it would be in the open field. Add to that the compleat collapse of the german industry in februar of 1945 primarily do to a) the allies finally stopping poointless terror bombings for a minute and bombing the german rail infrastructure (especially destroying locomotives) and b) Germany losing silesia, where they had previously moved a lot of industry to do to allied bombings. Inaddition to that the obvious daily increase of fuel shortage did the rest. From the day germany lost the romanian oil fields you could literalyl calculate how long germany would be able to continue fighting do to daily fuel demand vs. storage/remaining production. In summary, the desaster in Belarus in 1944 broke the german militarys back and they were never able to even remotely recover from it. And "painted map" is very deceptive of what is actually going on in a war. Again, WW1 has the best example with the collapse of the russian military in 1917/1918 where it desintegrated to a point that german troops could literally take the train from town to town to advance to the east. Operation "Faustschlag", the last offensive on the eastern front in WW1 only took 11 days (bolchewiks refused to sign treaty germany wanted them to sign so germany restarted hostility) to ocucpy pretty much all of the modern baltic states, belarus and ukraine, even reaching Rostov. The wikipedia atricle on it has a nice map of the 11 days advance: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Faustschlag Once an army is defeated or routed it is easy to quickly advance hundreds of kilometers. Same thing that happened after the allies crossed the rhine, it was the last defense line where the german army could dig in an reestablish a static defense. This is why the allied bridgehead at Remagen was such a debacle for the germans.

yeah, I had to doublecheck where Magdeburg was, and it was shocking to realize they went from getting stuck before the Rhine till basically in the Berlin area in mere weeks. There was just nobody left to intercept breakthroughs.

​@@noobster4779 nice.

Those who are not trustworthy cannot fathom anyone else could be trustworthy. Russians and Communists can NEVER be trusted - and still can't to this day. Halting in the west was a no brainer for the Americans and British. Why fight an urban battle in Berlin and lose all of those men if you know the Soviets want to and will do so. Among other reasons, we wanted to save forces for what at that time seemed like an inevitable invasion of Japan. And Germans wanting the western forces to take as much as possible was equally a no brainer. They knew the Russians were going to be nasty.

As a Dutch saying goes, as is the innkeeper is his trust in his guests. Stalin betrayed a lot of people, so in turn he distrusts everyone and expects treachery at every turn.

Surrendering to the soviets es the worst followed by any resistance groups followed by Greg French then by the Anglo-Americans

​@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623it is the same thing with drug peddlers. This is not to weigh in on drug use, my point is drug peddlers because in their trade there is no one to be trusted they bring the same mentality to the rest of the population.

Never forget that Stalin helped start WW2 by attacking Poland as well.

...you mean the person who had the greatest part in dismantling the Abwehr, literally the German MI6? Can't believe this wasn't mentioned

Churchill was the oldest of the 3, yet he looked the youngest

Churchill demonstrated the preservative effects of alcohol. (Actually he did nearly die of pneumonia at one point and required frequent medical attention and a valet who was also something of a nursemaid.)

Tbf Roosevelt had Polio

@@deeznoots6241actually it was very likely that he had Guillain-Barre syndrome, and not polio.

@@AC-ym1ef either way the point is that FDR might have been the youngest of the big three but he was certainly the least healthy

Now, there's a cunning plan.

@@keithscott1957 Operation Volksbananasturm

They'll never see it coming.

​@@dskywalkerw The trombones must be timed precisely as to not compromise operational secrecy.

'Yes! We Have No Bananas!' *Sings*

My grandfather took the aftermath photos of the atomic bombs. Pretty much lived the same life as your father died when he was 59 years old. You have my sympathy and I feel sorry for all the young men who were forced to do what they did in defense of our nation.😢

The father of a minister in my church landed on Omaha beach and fought all the way to the end of WW2 in Europe. When the Korean War came along (1950-53) the US government tried to pressure him back into service. He told them "You can put me in jail but I'm not going back to war for anyone!" And he didn't. The government gave up. He also had at least one child and it might have been dicey for the feds if they took him to court. So they didn't. 👌💖

Glad for you that the casualties slowed down with you getting sober. Honor those who served. Remember all who suffered

Uncle was 2nd Marines, did the Pacific tour with them, he never had a good word to say about the Japanese, ripped him apart until the end.

@@c1ph3rpunk My ex wife's uncle Bob was with the 27th Infantry on Saipan and he told me they just never, ever took Japanese prisoners. There were so many episodes of surrendered Japanese pooping out a grenade and killing several US soldiers that immediately executing Japanese prisoners became the unwritten rule of thumb. There were about 28,000 Japanese soldiers on Saipan and only about 1800 survived, some civilians and some Korean.

You have been writing this comments, for many years, and I would like to ask where you get all your Informationen from?

@@thanos_6.0 Usually from World War Two Database (ww2db) and Wikipedia, with some cross referencing checks where possible. Sometimes also from other sources such as biographies and books as well.

@@gunman47 Thanks. Always love reading your comments

I feel sad knowing this will end soon. will you call it there or continue to korea?

@@pnutz_2 I’m not sure if I may continue this for the upcoming Korean War as my commitments and time have been increasing over the years. Also I may need to see if it is easier to source information like this for the smaller scale Korean War too, fingers crossed!

We had a teacher in history in 8th and 9th grade in Sweden back in the 60’s. We loved him because he was a BIG man, tall and muscular and talking with a loud voice with a strong accent and when we got too excited the called out: “SILENCIUM PUBLICUM!!” (Shut the F-- up!). He was from Lithuania but I don’t think he had been into the war but often referred to his father who, when the Soviets approached “took his rifle and ran into the woods …”. Like most people from the Baltics he hated the Russians.

“Premature anti fascist “ is a terrifying phrase.

You do understand that the Baby Boomers were raised by a generation that was mostly all suffering from acute PTSD. Our parents were recovering as they tried to raise us.

I had a science teacher in fifth grade who, when breaking up fights, would turn to the bully and erupt, turning purple as he worked his way to the climax: "That is the sort of behavior that leads to people like ADOLF HITLER!!!" These episodes always freaked everyone out. As Top Science Nerd he trusted me to clean out his cabinet on the last day of school. Among the items I boxed up for him? A well worn road map of Germany, 1940, with Berlin denoted by a swastika. I never mentioned it to anyone else.

It is a good thing though because now the Ukrainian people can have vengeance against Russians for the Holodomor/Голодомор! and all the other horrible things Russians have done to them over the past 500 years.

He lived till 1996. It is weird to imagine that this man who fought in ww2 lived to see the fall of the soviet union.

It is a good thing though because now the Ukrainian people can have vengeance against Russians for the Holodomor/Голодомор! and all the other horrible things Russians have done to them over the past 500 years.

It is a good thing though because now the Ukrainian people can have payback against Russians for the Holodomor/Голодомор! and all the other horrible things Russians have done to them over the past 500 years.

@@RK-cj4ockind of sad, he fought for a dream that died before he did

Dude spoilers

​@@chanhjohnnguyen1867 wait til you find out who kills him

@@chanhjohnnguyen1867 Don't mind him, he's just joking. Of course Steiner will turn this whole thing around. He was just patiently waiting for FDR to die before making his move.

​@@hebl47Erich Bachmann will turn this around. He will free prisoners and steal tanks.

Thanks so much! Your words really mean a lot to us here at TimeGhost. Hope to see you in our next project too!

I was born in the Vienna Region and I’ve seen Footages of the Allied- occupied Germany and Austria. It’s weird seeing my people living like this, as Germans, Austrians, British, Russians/Soviets have always been different people. On the other Hand I’m Bulgarian and Bulgaria had good Luck having always been close with Russians so Bulgaria didn’t suffer as much as Germany and Austria. I also have Great Grandfathers from both countries. My Austrian Great Grandfather died in the Eastern Front, in Siberia. My Bulgarian one supported the Bulgarian Partisans, who overthrew the Pro- German Government.

"They were discovered and executed about 30 minutes before the allies liberated the city. There was a German soldier who refused to take part in the executions. He himself was then shot by his commanding officer." I read about that. They were caught as they let a german guard go, who promised not to reveal them but did anyway.

This morning I was thinking about the Suzuki quote.

Yeah I was surprised by that too

Jup, Japan’s political situation during the war was a strange one for most of us.

​​​@@Turnipstalk Was the modern political commentary really needed? I know exactly who you're referring to but what you said could be applied to hundreds upon hundreds of politicians. Only difference is they only get punished if the political elite decide they should be.

Hitler gave the same orders to soldiers and civilians fighting against the western allies and the soviets. Difference was that the willingness to actually fight and resist the soviets to the end was significantly higher among germans then to fight the americans or british in the west.

@@noobster4779 German soldiers were told that the Western Allies planned to hand over a proportion of any prisoners they took to the Red Army. This was designed to stop German troops from seeing the Western Allies as some sort of easy option. SPOILER My understanding is that at war's end, some German POWs in Western hands were in fact handed over to the Soviets. Certainly "Vlasovites" and such were handed over.

@@stevekaczynski3793with all due respect I wouldn’t say “some” From what I have read, operation ‘keelhaul’ as it was called saw the transfer of nearly 2 million German POW to Eastern Europe Edit: I just read some more articles that claim about 5 million anti-communists from all across Eastern Europe where send to the Soviet Union for persecution and about 2 million where Germans and the rest where fascists from Eastern Europe captured form SS division that fought the western allies.

@@tsardean7438 By and large Ukrainians from the 14th SS Galician Division were not handed over - they claimed to be Polish subjects and so not liable to be returned to the USSR. People who think Patton was some kind of anti-Soviet saviour overlook the fact that his Third Army troops handed over followers of Vlasov who surrendered to them to the Red Army, though here and there with some exceptions. Patton hated Russians but probably did not hate Russians less who turned their coats. My use of "some" referred to actual Germans - in reality some were indeed handed to the Red Army at war'se end, partly because some Western commanders and occupation officials thought they were holding too many POWs.

@@stevekaczynski3793 Right, some even survived to get a standing ovation in the Canadian parliament...

😂

I'm only 29 and both my parents and grandparents had children relatively young, so none of them remember it. Only my grandfathers were alive to hear it and only one of them would have been old enough to remember (would have been 8 years old), and he died 20 years ago; the other grandfather would have only been 2 or 3 and would not have remembered. The closest would be JFK's assassination, though I never got the chance to ask my grandfathers about what they were doing when that happened (and they'd have both been adults too). My maternal grandfather did say he registered to vote as a Democrat in 1960 specifically to vote for JFK. I did have a coworker a few years ago who's in his late 60s now and remembers JFK's assassination quite clearly, he was in 4th or 5th grade. He remembered his parents being very upset (both were big Kennedy supporters), but he was a kid and didn't really understand what was happening aside from the fact that the president being killed is a really big deal. I'd have to ask him again but I think he said something about school either releasing for the day or pulling the kids into an assembly? Not sure.

@@browncoat697 - That sounds correct. I was eight at the time.

My dad told me that he heard that FDR died, while on a troop transport from Washington to Leyte. While on the same 29 days at sea he also heard that Germany surrendered.

Communists aren't known for their skills at self-reflection and questioning their assumptions.

@@Raskolnikov70 Austrian and German civilians fled the Czarist army in WW 1. It was Russians they feared, regardless of ideology.

@@juniatapark54 And they knew retribution was coming for the German atrocities in the USSR.

@@juniatapark54 Franz Kafka took part in relief efforts on behalf of (mostly Jewish) civilians who fled Galicia in 1914 and who in some cases ended up in Prague. West Ukrainians were much less prone to flee and Austro-Hungarian troops sometimes hanged them for supposed collaboration with the Russians.

Guess it’s his ego, like Hitler. Call them psychopaths or paranoics or whatever, but I guess these people saw it all from their own ideas, horizons and beliefs, much like the former “president” of USA, regarded the world and other countries from his rather egocentric views.

Wow, really? I always assumed none survived. That's good to hear.

@@robertmiller9735 The Warsaw surrender negotiations resulted in the surviving insurgents being granted POW status. Some German commanders were beginning to be worried about war crimes trials.

I really should look more into the Yugoslavian Campaigns. It sounds Fantastic!

One of my uncles was in the 2nd Division and took part in the disarming and expulsion of Yugoslav soldiers in Trieste. He didn't understand it and didn't like doing it, but soldiers generally follow orders. He died last year, a couple of months before he would have turned 100.

@@davidw.2791 The partisans who had liberated Trieste from the Nazis. Due to language difficulties, my uncle couldn't have a political discussion with them.

97 though, tough old lady.

The German army's record of its losses were very sketchy. And many who died but whose deaths were not confirmed were deliberately registered as MIA or POW to keep the official KIA counts low. This led to a myth in Germany after the war that many German soldiers had died in Soviet captivity, or were still in captivity. But when the Soviet archives opened after the fall of the USSR no evidence of more German soldiers captured was ever found. Many might still turn up, in unmarked graves somewhere in Eastern Europe. Or never be found at all as all their remains get obliterated in the current fighting in the Ukraine.

It always amazes me how the Germans thought that they could take on the world.

@@michaelroark2019 Wisely, others were more restrained. The people who think it would have been good to let Patton go to war and drive on Moscow did not win the argument at the time.

I notice he didn't mention how they were supposed to win the war. And that he conveniently ignores that he was one of the people who committed the atrocities that made the Soviets so vengeful.

Thank you for watching!

Jesus...

I believe, when he died, it was more like 0/0, but I ain't a doctor

200/120 is considered high enough to make a visit to a hospital emergency room highly advisable.

Source?

I don't feel so bad about my numbers now ... !

Still more to cover, but it's on the horizon for sure. Thanks for watching!

Thank you for the sincerity of your thought. My own sister was born the 10th of April. Our father's great grandfather was affected by the Seven Weeks War of 1866, as Emil"s mother was Jewish. In November, I, too, will be 63.

😮

Frederick the Great really was Hitler's great hero, fancying himself as like the new Frederick and as he increasingly lost touch with reality hoped that with the death of Roosevelt the great miracle would repeat itself.

@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 By this time they were clutching at straws.

@@stevekaczynski3793 Yeah, but isn't it fascinating the way they thought and grasped at straws?

@@AndrewMitchell123 sorry, was on my phone and didn't have auto correct haha. I wanted to say Czechoslovakia but the 3rd Army only really gets into the Czechia part of the nation. Fixed it.

Yes I always like the appearance of the 15th Army,4th Army I remembered from reading about the early Paciific War in 41-42 ,when we expected the Japanese to invade the West Coast .Stillwell was the first commander ,covered the Western Coast from Southern Cali to Alaska .Good job ,thnaks for the update .

I had always known generally that he died late in the war, but it wasn't until now (well, the special episode yesterday) that I realized he made it this close to the end. :(

He had been to the mountaintop and saw the promised land. His work was done.

@@MrDubyadee1 I see what you did there.

@@MrDubyadee1 And was simply an amazing leader for the country outside of the war, too. The dude could die quite proud of everything.

I suspect that the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have preferred Roosevelt to have lived at least a few more months. He got on quite well with Stalin, and I doubt that he would have decided to vaporize two cities full of civilians just to intimidate the Soviets and keep them out of the Pacific.

Indeed, Semper Fidelis sir

Maybe not the next episode but the episode after that

Well said.

An excellent recommendation. I love that series

Real Time History 💪

We aren't going anywhere! Indy will be covering the Korean War: www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell And, there will still be new episodes on this channel in the form of specials and more!

@@WorldWarTwo I' ll be there. Count on it!👍

In March, the last major air raid by aircraft on Britain had taken place. German night fighters followed RAF heavy bombers home and shot down a number of them as they were coming in to land. An RAF radio operator signalled "R" for "raid" but it took airfields vital minutes to switch off their beacons. Some night fighters also scattered anti-personnel bombs on runways and even strafed visible targets like railway stations when they turned around to head back to Germany. A number were shot down by British night fighters and were the last German planes shot down over Britain.

I dunno, Steiner could make a right hook after he's done singlehandedly defeating the Soviet forces.

Aside from all the German soldiers that had already been killed, a few million were also in captivity already. It is mind boggling that some still thought Germany could win the war when it was resorting to calling him old men and little boys to replace all the fighting aged men who were lost.

Thanks for watching!

Hitler was a Social Darwinist, committed to the idea that the strong triumph and the weak perish.

Thanks a lot, mate! -TimeGhost Ambassador

Because they are terrified of retribution...

They knew what they did to Russian civilians and knew the Russians would return the favor.

There is still the Courland pocket though the video wont talk about them

@@exeexecutor festungkurland (sorry I played a lot of red orchestra back in the day) is more and more irrelevant at this point and so falls off the record, similar to what's going on in Rabaul

@@pnutz_2 thats not the same, Rabaul was cut off from supplies was rendered useless, meanwhile the courland pocket was well supplied they had all this equpment: 75 aircraft; 307 tanks and self-propelled guns; 1,427 guns; 557 mortars; 3,879 machine-guns; 52,887 rifles and submachine-guns; 219 armored personnel carriers; 310 radio stations; 4,281 motor vehicles; 240 tractors, 3,442 carts loaded with military cargoes, 14,056 horses. I dont know what they had in Rabaul but one post mentions they had 1200 buildings of wich only 120 remained due to bombing. So you get the picture. There were also 180.000 who surrendered in Courland pocket and 70.000 who surrendered in Rabaul.

Do not fret! They'll be back soon.

Much appreciated!

Great to here that!

Glad you enjoyed, thank you for watching!

Thank you for watching!

There is indeed, thanks for the shout out!

Thanks for being a member!

Thank you so much!

What a disgraceful episode for Patton. He should have been sacked for it, IMHO. Eisenhower was furious at him because he did it on the sly behind his back. For those who don't know, Patton had learned, likely from intelligence reports Eisenhower had forwarded to him in strictest confidence, that his son in law was in a German POW camp at Hamelburg only about 60 miles away. So, jealous of General MacArthur's favourable press for the saving of many US POWs in the Philippines, Patton put together an armoured column of tanks, trucks and more than 300 men and sent them to get the POWs. They managed to get to Hamelburg with difficulty but were mostly chopped to pieces on the way back. At least 30 men were killed, the entire armoured column lost, and the remaining men wounded and/or taken prisoner themselves, with but around 30 making it back to Allied lines. Immediately following the war Eisenhower sent a letter to General Marshall stating that "Patton is the problem child of the army." In the end Patton was assigned to commanding a very small army group, mostly writing up a history of the US army and its activities in northwest Europe. His career was likely doomed by his many indiscretions and foolish wasting of men's lives, and he must have known it. It may have been a kindness that he was injured in a car crash and died days later on December 21, 1945.

@@ToddSauve Given his politics it was absolutely a kindness to his historical memory that he died before the end of 1945. Had Patton stuck around through into the Cold War, he'd have been known as one of the most psychotically fascist, bloodthirsty commanders in NATO, and I'm not calling him a fascist lightly. There's a reason he's known to have remarked that "we fought the wrong enemy," even as the Nazis gassed an entire ethnicity into near-extinction.

@@browncoat697 Patton had little sympathy for Jews. He was the proverbial loose cannon, and many generals in the US army probably privately heaved a sigh of relief when they found out he was gone.

@@ToddSauve Honestly Patton probably should have been relieved of command for his outbursts in Italy. He was gifted in some respects but was far too much of a loose cannon. A general should have more restraint.

@@ahorsewithnoname773 I agree absolutely, and there is so much mythologizing of him by mostly American historians since the war who seemingly relied on newspaper reporters for their information. For instance, I went to Wikipedia this morning to ascertain his day of death, and near the start of the WW2 Normandy part of the article it said something along the lines of Patton was the most feared Allied general by the Nazis. "The German High Command had more respect for Patton than for any other Allied commander and considered him to be central to any plan to invade Europe from England." They may or may not have thought that by the end of the war but it was not that way before he showed up in Normandy in August 1944. I saw a video by historian Dr. Marc Milner and he stated that people have now gone through all of the German high command's archives from the war and Patton's name only appears a few times before the Normandy campaign and makes no mention of him being feared or even respected. All the Germans knew was that he had been in North Africa and Sicily, and beyond that it said nothing of significance. The 1970 movie "Patton" did a lot to spread these ideas of Patton's greatness but it does not stand up very well to rigorous scrutiny. And Wikipedia articles are all too often written by people who can't keep their enthusiasm for their subject in control, and lack objectivity all too often.

The thing is that none of the agonists in that war had been genocidal nationalists with enormous amounts of blood on their hands.

@@Turnipstalk Also the US was not an autocracy ruled by the whims of a single leader.

berating large swaths of land from the enemy. While on the Eastern Front, the Soviets have captured Vienna and Königsberg and are preparing to make their final push towards Berlin. Meanwhile across the world, in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations, the Japanese attack against the Chinese has failed. The Chinese are far more powerful than before. Whilst in Burma, the Allies are making slow gains against the determined Japanese forces but they will push toward Rangoon whatever the cost. And in the Philippines, the Allies have pushed the Japanese into the far corners but they still need to secure the Philippines and hard fighting is to come. And lastly in Okinawa, though the Americans haven’t met any strong resistance, the Japanese will offer fierce resistance and they are waiting for the right moment to strike. The end of the war is here but even as the end is nearing, the Axis leader will not heed the warnings and will drag their nation down into flames. This is Total War. Godspeed to those who perished.

And thanks for watching!

It's more saying that he already knew deep down the war was lost in 1943. From then on he could only spread false hopes to buy time.

Yea I dont really buy that. I think it's very easy to overlook how utterly fantastical some people can fool themselves into being. I see it all the time with people completely divorced from reality, and who become ever moreso as they live in denial over being wrong or mistakes they've made, choosing complete delusions and conspiracies instead. Human brains can go to some seriously extreme lengths to protect the ego.

Thanks for watching!

Thank you for watching.

Same, now - although a lot of postwar immigrants also moved to the Hamilton, Ontario area where I grew up! Surprised us after moving away from the Holland/Zeeland area