The World at War s01e21 Episode Script

Nemesis: Germany (February - May 1945)

Dresden, a beautiful imponent e city-museum, that the war little affects and whose inhabitants considered inviolable, technician became in terms a case serious of on-bombardeamento.
We had as many refugee, come of the eastern front, that at this time the city it increases for the double of the size.
The only men were the blind people e cripples of the hospital of the veterans.
The blind people tried to carry the cripples and did not see the way.
Some people who tried to escape they were dragged by the fire.
They disappeared suddenly, exactly to the front of our eyes.
Fortíssimas has airflows in a fire storm thus.
It is horrible.
We have of moving away in them from the fire, because the draft pulls in them.
In the following day, they had come the Americans.
A demonstration support occidental person to the Russians, now to less than 150 km.
More than 1300 flying ortalezas to jam the ruins of the city.
The city was, is clearly, in flames, but we come back three days after, to try to find people e to remove them of rubbles.
To the times, one has been valid full it contained nine or ten people, because they had shrunk e they occupied little space very.
It could not believe that age a person.
It was a terrible image.
Vi pairs of people very meetings, perhaps in desperation, casting in one it appears small letter.
In the center of the city, the survivors they had constructed great piras funerary.
It did not have time to open individual hollows.
We dig common ditches.
We try to identify them through of jewels or other belongings, but many people not they could have been identified.
Later, in the ruins, registrations met: "Hans, you are alive" "Martha, still you are in the ruins" The industrial damages had been light.
The railway if recouped in three days.
But one hundred a thousand had more than died.
Dresden was another monument to the total war.
The World in War Nemesis Germany February the May of 1945 The last cinematographic set of documents nazista that the Germans capsize.
It showed units of recognition in German the eastern front, ground.
Slogans explored now the sexual fear of hordas communist.
The main weapon of the propaganda they were breaking histories, supported estereotipados stories for photographs doubtful, where the bodies could be, to vary, Germans.
Stories on the licentious soldadesca brutal e in the language of the racial hatred: monsters, breaking, animals, brutality.
Of the German provinces and territories busy to the east, they came refugee.
The families were separate for never more congregating itself.
Thousands died for drowning, thousand with the bombings.
The German Empire was shrinking.
The Germans came back toward house.
The west, the Allied Air Force they sobrevoavam to the will the Reno, paralyzing all the movement in the preparation of the final attack.
With bombs, rockets and bullets of cannon they had attacked railway bridges, ways, roads.
.
until an isolated wagon pulled for a horse.
It was my duty to say the Hitler that, of the point of view of the armament, the war was lost and it said in some memoranda.
Hardest it was of 19 of March of 1945, where it said, without Popes in the language, what nobody was dared to say.
It said that the war would finish inside of four the six weeks.
Hitler boasted that the decreases were compensated for new units.
He himself gave medals to the new conscripts.
What it lacked to them in experience, it sobrava in national-socialist ardor.
A young courier counts as she led weapons for the aircraft marshalling area.
Its rewards: a Cross of Iron of second classroom.
The last exemplary battle of Montgomery.
In the sum of the river, the Americans they advanced almost without opposition.
The objective of the commanders of field it was Berlin.
A crossed time the Reno, of the border dutch to the Black Forest, the south, the Allied columns had invested for the heart of Germany, through common scenes in war times.
Cities and villages burning, as the cities and villages of Poland, of France, Russia, of Yugoslavia and Greece they had burnt.
But for these civilians, women e children who attended the war, gas chambers did not exist ghettos nor.
But, in some, a sensation of anger.
When I felt hatred against Hitler e the nazistas for the first time, it was not hatred against the regimen of terror, it was the type of hatred that if it feels against outlaws.
Hitler promises to us to conquer the heart of the world, it asked for aid to us and us we help.
E now we did not have nothing, except the clothes of the body.
The collapse of the nazista Government leaves an emptiness.
The armies that advanced they were politically innocent; its efficient methods were rudes and.
The first burgomestre that we find, with its insignias, it informed us that was not nazista, as well as the city council, e arrest we it judging to have apanhado all the nazistas.
We put welded with the people of the city e, after the first hours where the tension was reduced, each part saw that to another one it did not go to trair e in we saw changing them to cookies or chocolates for a prepared meal for one of the German families e they in had shown photographs to them of relatives, without uniforms, e the flat soldiers had shown photographs of its families.
Funny as the feeling it can move so quickly.
A woman came to speak to me e offered its services, in the attempt to get any thing.
I looked at for it, feeling me particularly bad in that day.
My father was sick and knew for a of the Red Cross telegram that my young brother-in-law he had been died in Germany.
He was ready to attack somebody with my proper hands.
It came to say and I to me she said, almost in desperation: "It does not full me, I am Jewish and not it goes to want to have nothing to see with me".
E it looked at for me and said: "Aber Sie sind ein weiss Juden".
Translating, it means: "But it is a white Jew".
I had that to restrain the will of beating to it with the belt in the mouth.
The fields had been opened.
Many Germans had heard to speak of them.
Others had preferred not to know.
Now, they were obliged to see.
In a place, the speaker of the house e the woman had hung itself in house.
That is Buchenwald.
Those that had survived to deportation, to the enslaved work, to the election for the fields of the death e to the hunger was of all the Europe, of all the classrooms, many religions and many ideals politicians.
Some had turned over against the oppressors.
The prisoners Allies had been freed.
The soldiers German had been placed in captivity.
Vulgar refugee, Germans e war prisoners they were crossed in the roads and not they had nothing to say ones to the others.
Germany was a creeps I insult for the kick of a giant.
In some places it had booties, brief chances of to festejar the collapse of the system.
The winners had its ideas on the law and the order.
Some goods still were sacred.
In April of 1945, Berlin was more ruin of what city.
Especially in the center of Berlin, almost no building was unbroken.
But I desired that the Filarmonica of Berlin of this a last concert.
Wise person who would be my last concert for much time, perhaps forever, e I invited friends e the biggest possible number of people.
In them we seat dresses with coats, because it did not have heating e was a cold of arrepiar e, in this atmosphere of destruction and misery, the concert started.
It started for the last part of "Twilight of the Deuses".
Hitler already did not appear in public.
Each time more, was collected in its underground quarter-general, under the Imperial Chancellery, bunker.
When I came back of this concert, a military conference happened.
We enter in bunker and we saw Hitler almost is of itself.
Goebbels already was there e Hitler showed telegrams to us that it finishes to receive, announcing the death of Roosevelt, while Goebbels jumped and said: "It is of this, now I find that everything it goes to run in the best way".
To the east, in the railway ways widened for the Russians, the Russian authorities accumulated vast reserves of material.
Six armies were involved.
Its objective: to jam the German forces in the doors of Berlin and to occupy the nazista capital.
In 75º anniversary of the birth of Lenin, in 16 of April of 1945, the allied artillery opened fire.
My spirit was esmorecendo e I was very anxious, because wise person who the attack had started.
The first barrage was less efficient of what Zhukov waits; the Germans remained in security for backwards of the second line of defense.
In the center of the attack line, front Berlin, way to the assault cars.
The Red Army crosses the Oder, strengthening its head-of-bridge.
The columns of tank advanced against a desperate resistance.
Some of our youngsters had jumped of trenches with its bazookas, they had gone off against the tanks e had destroyed four more than, while others shot e killed welded Russian.
The Russians must have passed for one warehouse or for a candy plant, because they had the full arms of candies and chocolates.
In our unit, we had all 15 or 16 years e we run for the street with the chocolate.
The west, the situation was different: skirting small enemy groups, the Allied columns went for the east.
In these days, it could to bind for the following city e to see if still was busy for Germans and if the central office functioned.
"Olá, what it is happening there" The situation was almost unreal: cities and villages abandoned without resistance.
The field was normal, without any damage.
Every day, we said in them: "This cannot continue".
I find that, after this, the fear of the death if it became each bigger time.
When we found resistance, half of our reaction age of anger: "As this people if atreve to draw out this agony?" E to another half age of total terror.
Uelzen, a small city in the north of Germany, the 50 km of the Elba.
Here, the Germans had resisted.
The current irritability of the Allies it became them fast in the trigger.
Its opponents were welded of the elite and officers cadets.
Only after four days of battle, with considerable losses e many died civilians, the resistance lost.
The majority of the Germans she was grateful for if relieving.
The main objective was to be captive of Anglo-Americans and not of Russians, in whose people and territory they had inflicted as many losses.
They fought desesperadamente to reach security in ocidente.
In the stock market of the Ruhr, more than 300 a thousand men of the Group of Armies B they had been surrounded and obliged to surrender.
The occidental Allies had reached its main objective: the destruction of the forces terrestrial Germans the west.
It only left to bunker it in the first fortnight of April, because the aerial attacks increased of intensity and frequency.
Bunker was divided in such a way that in the inferior area it had a room for military conferences with an antechamber that led to the cabinet of study of Hitler.
The antechamber also led to the room e to the cabinet of work of Hitler e to one room with bathroom for Eva Braun.
Previously in the life of Hitler, it had important women for, but I think that, in the last times, nobody so close age fond e it as Eva Braun.
It loved it of truth and came unexpectedly for Berlin.
When it arrived, Hitler tried to seem angry, but did not obtain.
Its eyes had been full of joy e was clearly so happy for ve it, that nobody.
it tried to order it in return.
The Russians shot now in the interior of Berlin, with the advanced destacamentos in suburbs, opening way street the street.
Its anniversary arrived, in 20 of April, e all had pressed its hand, had given the congratulations and had desired happinesses.
But it already was depressed.
It was not a happy anniversary.
When the official party finished, Hitler left immediately, but Eva Braun invited some people to go up to its small room for an anniversary party e one of them found a record, with a success of the time, a music to dance.
Thus, we seat in them in return of the table, trying to forget the sad situation.
It had laughs and jokes and.
all drank, laugh and talked.
It was an artificial joy very.
Later, it had another conference on the situation, but already he was well-known that the end if approached.
The Head of Bormann General staff he said me that he prepared everything for terms the ready luggage in the case to go for the vacation residence.
It refused stubbornly and said: "I cannot abandon Berlin.
I have to take a decision here, in Berlin, or I will have to hide me".
It was the first time.
that it mentioned the possibility not to be successful.
that it mentioned the hypothesis of the defeat.
I remember day 20 of April of 1945.
It was the anniversary of Adolf Hitler.
The radio transmitted a speech of Josef Goebbels where it said: "Berlin will remain German e Vienna will come back to be German".
E my mother said:"Thanks to God, we go to gain the war".
E I said:"He is been deceptive, mother, and the Goebbels also.
It is terrible, but I have the certainty of that the war finished and we lose".
E my mother answered: "It finds that Goebbels would lie in them in this hour" The Battle of Berlin was extremely difficult.
It had of being conquered street the street, marries the house.
Some had nine or ten floors.
It had many houses of these.
The fascists had defended each floor e the streets had raised barricades in all.
They had converted the main buildings in ranks strenghtened against us.
We were then in Berlin and, a night, I was to visit my mother e I found crying it almost, because it thought that I could to be dead or wounded.
The night went advanced and wanted to sleep there, but some inhabitants of the house had come e had said that it was impossible: "They cannot sleep here for cause of the Russians.
They are not far.
If to arrive at night turn and them perhaps with these weapons, they kill in them".
We could not sleep there.
We leave for the street and we sleep in a school.
In day 21, we cross together the limit of the suburbs of Berlin.
The order of the day of ours High Command it echoed for the entire country.
It was heard in the whole world: "Our soldiers had entered in Berlin".
The Russians had developed tactics with models of streets and buildings.
Under the apparent chaos of the street combats, a necessary plan existed to surround the city and to attack in the center.
Some soldiers had crossed all Russia, for lands that the Germans in withdrawal they pilharam, they had burnt, they destroyed.
The Berliners, sheltered in its bilges, they were asked how much to its destination at the hands of the Russians.
If the children had not been defecated, all in the bilges lived.
It entered in the bilges and I remember above of everything the repetition of this phrase: "When it will finish this nightmare" Suddenly, in 22 of April, I believe.
It left the military conference with the face total petrified e the scared dark eyes e called in them in the small antechamber, it ordered to search Eva Braun and the secretaries e the cook who cooked for it and still was in Berlin.
Later, it entered and it said, in a monotonous and cold voice as never we had heard directed: "Please, mine ladies, make already the luggages.
They have that to go for south.
The last airplane has broken daqui about one hour".
It had a silence.
"Not", it said, "Is all lost one.
He does not have hope.
They have to leave".
A silence moment was followed absolute.
We were estupefatos.
Suddenly, Eva Braun it gave some steps stops next to Hitler and it said: "But you know that I do not abandon you.
I am to its side.
You know this.
To order he does not try me even so".
Then, Hitler made something amazing.
It never turns nobody it to make such gesture.
It kissed it in the lips.
Then, the other women and I in we saw them saying: "We also are".
The situation in bunker absurd age.
It is impossible.
It was unreal.
It is impossible to describe as the spirit states if they occurred as waves.
To the times, they were all amused thinking: "The occidental forces they come to free Berlin".
Goebbels exclamava: "One of the biggest decisions of war that Hitler took it was not to fight against ocidente, to only fight against the east in Berlin.
This means that the powers occidental people will join we, in our fight against Russia".
This type of things it happened of time in when e few minutes later they said all in the suicide that they were preparing.
Goebbels spoke at great length, is clearly, saying as it would leave the children to die, that already they were in bunker.
Few days later, it came a telegram of Goering saying:"My Führer".
Already it did not say:"Esteem Mine Führer", only "My Führer".
"I know that he is total isolated, without freedom to command.
According to law of the succession, I will take its place now e I will represent Germany in the internal and external questions.
Yours truly, Goering".
Hitler was sufficiently transtornado with this.
Of beginning, he was seated in the chair without obtaining to perceive.
In some way, Bormann botou more firewood in the fogueira and Hitler said: "To make me an ultimatum? It is really the end" One day, came a man of the press cabinet e brought a notice that I believe that hears in the radio, of the Reuters Agency: Himmler negotiates the capitulation with the Conde Bernadotte.
Hitler was very insane, therefore it considered Himmler its more faithful paladino, of bigger confidence, e now saw that also it tries trais it.
One remembered suddenly that the poison that had to take it are given to it for a collaborator of Himmler e distrusted of its effect.
Perhaps Himmler tried to make a dirty game, giving something to it for to leave only unconscious, in order to be led of bunker against its will e delivers to the enemy.
To test the poison, it called a doctor e commanded to it that it tested the capsule in its dog.
It said good bye to the animal.
I find that it was, after Eva Braun, the being next to it.
The Blondi died immediately.
For the few antinazistas Germans, Russians had arrived as liberating.
In the morning of tuesday, day 24, we saw that the Gestapo if evaporates.
During the night, it delivers the arrest the normal prisionais guards, old men, nothing likeable, e when we saw many uniforms, the uniforms of the Gestapo, side ranks, we said: "When the Russians to occupy this, vocês is that they go to be deceased, not we.
Leave to leave they".
They had answered:"We cannot make this.
The Gestapo comes back this night".
In the afternoon of tuesday, we made an agreement with them and we said: "We, the prisoners, we will put guards in the roof to observe the approach of the Russian front e, when to hear Russian firearms beyond explosives, they leave in them to leave".
They had accepted.
When we leave the arrest, was with us a Jewish Russian doctor, that it was in a concentration camp with Sachsenhausen, the celebrity.
I do not know why reason, is prisoner for the Gestapo has one month e was it who always made dirtier works of the arrest.
We could not speak very with it, we knew but it, clearly.
It was motionless in the street without knowing for where to go, while Russian.
I invited to come it with us.
It said that my mother-in-law would give food to it.
It could be in our bilge.
E it was with me.
When the first Russian units they had arrived, two days later, it was it finds them in the door and it spoke in Russian: "In this bilge, they are all antifascist ones".
When the Russians finally they had arrived, we find.
At least, we find the first ones combatants who had arrived.
They had taken our clocks, clearly, but they had been very cautious e we understand.
They took things of that liked, but they were very practical.
They had been lodged in this house e had occupied one room, three or four officers of raised clear.
They arose it 8h00 e to 9h00 went to the Tiergarten, that he is not very far daqui.
For backwards, it was the Chancellery, where Hitler was alive and fought.
They left, made its work e came back to 17h00 in point.
Later, they asked for to me that it went down to touch piano, to hear a music.
Then, we drank and we sang together.
Suddenly, we saw first Russian soldiers.
They had beaten to our door, had entered e had been very amiable.
They had asked to my mother and me if it had in the German house welded or weapons.
Later, they had left, but the next Russians had been very different.
I was violated by one of them, such as other inhabitants of the house.
Two women in the house lived to the side, that had been deceased.
We could not embed them, because the bombing continued.
When the Russians had arrived, had asked: "Where they are its women? We want its women".
"Frau, Frau, Frau", said they, about what they thought to be German.
I remembered the trick of to take them it the two corpses.
I moved away the carpet and said:"This is my woman.
I cannot give none.
They were the two only women that we knew here".
E some Russians had kneel themselves, they had made the signal de a Cruz e had praid small conjuncts, what it was sufficiently surprising.
Later, they had been arisen they had kissed and me, judging that he was the widower.
E had given gifts, cigarettes and bread to me, you cover in the coasts and had left e probably would find what they wanted in the house or the street to follow.
All the nights, went in the house to see my mother, to eat and to arrange cigarettes, because of day food was not arranged.
E my mother, all the nights, it was felt fortunate seeing for me e asked for to me, as well as other people of the zone: "Strap the uniform, is here e does not come back toward the fight".
E I answered whenever I could not.
It could not be the safe one in house while others fought.
Zhukov called the Battle Berlin one of most difficult of the war.
It more than cost to the Russians one hundred a thousand men.
The total of German decreases is unaware of.
The assault Berlin continued.
The wall in redor of the city in its all and in redor of its center it was each pressed time more.
We were to few meters of the nest of the viper, the quarter-general of Hitler, the Imperial Chancellery.
Then, it started its last will.
It dictated first the private will to me e later its certification politician.
E I confess that it was.
The principle, was very moved, because it waited to be first and the only one namely, that one that would be knowing the explanation of the war to have fond of this end, of Hitler not to have obtained to stop, of this development and this catastrophe.
It thought:"Now the moment of the truth arrived".
It had the heart to the pulls while it wrote what Hitler dictated.
But it did not say nothing of new.
It was left with old expressions.
It repeated accusations, revenge to the enemy swore e to the Jewish capitalist system e announced, in the second part of history.
of the will politician, he announced a new government.
Eva Braun then had persuaded the Führer, to the point of it to want to improvise a marriage ceremony.
For this, they had been to search an officer of the Ministry of the Propaganda.
that it would play the judge function.
I joined it the others in the small one cabinet of work of Hitler.
They were seated in return of a table e I had to compliment Eva Braun.
It was a little shy and not wise person what to say.
I pressed it to it hand and it said: "Now it can call me Mrs.
Hitler".
E I thus made.
Mortar has written: "This is for the Imperial Chancellery".
Others said:"One remembers Stalingrado"; "One remembers the Ukraine"; "One remembers of the widowers and the children"; "One remembers the tears".
Hitler already takes off its conclusions.
It was said farewell to all.
I was the last one to who if it directed.
Hitler said me: "I commanded that they ran away.
They must run away in groups.
It is joined to one and it tries to reach ocidente".
E I asked the Hitler: "For who we must fight now" To this, Hitler answered in tone monotonous:"For the coming man".
I made the pipe the side, it extended to me the hand and I left the room.
Suddenly, a burst, a detonation heard.
It are obviously inside of bunker, because the detonations of the exterior.
they were a noise that already we knew.
The son of Goebbels repaired.
E repaired in another sound.
It said:"It was a certeiro shot, it was a certeiro shot".
E I thought:"Yes, he has reason, a certeiro shot was same".
I entered in the cabinet of Hitler with Former-Head of Bormann General staff e we saw this image: Hitler seated in the left side of the sofa, with the onward inclined face e hanging for the right.
With its 7,65, give one shot in the extemporaneous right.
The blood runs for the carpet e salpicos of this puddle of blood they had reached the sofa.
Eva Braun was seated to its right.
It was seated with the two legs on the sofa e the contracted lips, what it left soon clearly for us that it had taken cianeto.
I caught in Hitler for the neck.
Behind me, they were two officers of its escort.
We catch in the body of Hitler we take it to e for the park.
In the park, we place the bodies side by side we water them to e with the available gasoline.
In the park of the Chancellery, it had fire everywhere.
The wind hindered us to set fire fire to the bodies with a common match.
Therefore, I made a coil with paper of a note block e the Head of Bormann General staff, that it goes up with the Dr.
Goebbels, Burgdorf and other officers, lit the coil e played I it on the bodies, that they had been set on fire in one instant.
In this night, we were the first ones combatants to arrive at the Chancellery.
Our objective age to firm our flag in the building.
We were a group composition for me, Sanogen, Alimov and Uzbek, that he was the Coordinator of the Young Communists of our battalion.
It and its Young Communists they had fought with us.
They had protected me to be able to open way and to hoist the flag.
I had given to me flag to it for to hoist, after to enter in the building.
We enter and we start to go up the staircase for the attic.
Fascists had gone off on us e Sanogen fell, reached in the head.
The friends had precipitated for it, while I went up with the flag.
A time arriving at the roof through the hole of a bomb, I firmed our red flag with a wire piece of I telegraph.
It says to them that I have much pleasure in knowing them.
When the armies of the east and west if they had congregated in the heart of Germany, it had a brief moment of animation and camaraderie.
I am very happy for knowing it.
Very happy, sincerely.
Thanks a lot.
We do not speak same language, but we feel the same.
The Red Army was seen as liberating, not as avenging.
The crimes of the empire of Hitler they had of being punished.
They had been the common Germans who had paid for them.

Previous EpisodeNext Episode