Real Dictators - Adolf Hitler: The Final Solution (Part 21)

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

This is Part 21 of the Hitler Story. You can start listening here. Or, scroll down the Real Dictators feed for earlier episodes. We pick up the story in 1942. World War 2 is well underway and the Führer is still in the box seat. But he is not as untouchable as he used to be. Nazi high-ups gather at the Wannsee Conference, honing a plan to exterminate an entire race. With the war in Russia on the rocks, and Hitler increasingly AWOL, Goebbels struggles to control the narrative. The resistance is growing. A leading figure of the Third Reich is about to be taken out in broad daylight… A Noiser production, written by Jeff Dawson. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started with a 7-day free trial. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's 11am on January the 20th, 1942. We're in Berlin. In the southwest of the city is an address known simply as 56 to 58 Am großen Wsee it's a sumptuous villa with spectacular views across the lake in the lobby an attendant takes guests coats the atmosphere is calm gentile calm, genteel. Today's invitees are gathering for a special Nazi conference. They're an elite band, 15 high-up SS officers.

They look smart in their black Hugo Boss uniforms, exchanging pleasantries, partaking of the coffee and pastries. But the conviviality belies this meeting's deadly purpose. It is top secret. Officially it doesn't exist. The Third Reich is at a critical juncture. The war in the East is not going well. Everyone here knows it, even if the general public doesn't.

Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, is ground to a shuddering halt in the snow outside Moscow. Hitler's campaign has been waged with extreme barbarity. Behind the front line, Einsatzgruppen, death squads, have been rounding up Jews and executing them by the thousands, tens of thousands, shooting unarmed men, women and children into giant pits, pile upon pile of corpses. It is this which is the concern of today's conference. Not the question of its morality, not at all.

The issue is with its inefficiency. Mobile gassing vans, which they've also tried, just can't handle the workload. A suggested scheme to relocate Europe's Jews to Madagascar is, at very best, half-baked. at very best half-baked. Now, if Jews are to be dispatched on an industrial scale, then doesn't it make sense to dispatch them by industrial methods? Around the big oak table of the committee room, soundings are taken, heads nod.

The extermination of Europe's Jews requires a determined, ultimate strategy. For the Jewish problem, a final solution. To be continued... Through the 1930s, the Third Reich had risen like a phoenix from the ashes of economic ruin. Austria had been incorporated. German honour, territory and military capability had been restored. In May 1940, France was conquered in just four weeks, something the Kaiser's generals had failed to achieve over four long years. Hitler, by his own hand, had rewritten the ending of the First World War. From the Pyrenees to Poland, North Cape to Crete, the continent was either under Hitler's control or with Axis and vassal governments in place. Hitler could now indulge phase two of his

master plan, the annihilation of the Soviet Union. This would allow him to secure Lebensraum, living space for his people. In June 1941, the biggest army in history had set out to conquer the USSR. But Hitler, like Napoleon before him, was never going to beat the Russian winter, or an enemy he had grossly underestimated. Now his Wehrmacht, his once unstoppable war machine, is in retreat, pursued by a red army in no mood for mercy. Tucked away in the forests of East Prussia, deep amidst the trees, is a reinforced bunker. Known as the Wolf's Lair, this is Hitler's eastern campaign headquarters. It is here, on December 7th, 1941, that exciting news reaches the Fuhrer. A brand new distraction, a relief from

the doom and gloom. On the other side of the world, Germany's ally, Japan, has launched an audacious, devastating attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. So giddy with joy is Hitler that four days later he declares war on the United States. This is now a battle for the planet. A new, a second, world war. The onset of conflict with the USA changes the terms of the game. There's a temporary pause. Conflict with the USA changes the terms of the game.

There's a temporary pause. But now, in early 1942, with the war in the Pacific preoccupying the new adversary, the Nazis can get back down to business. Thomas Weber is Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen. Ever since Hitler had been politicized and radicalized in the aftermath of the First World War, Hitler had been clear that Germany and Europe could only survive if Jewish influence was eliminated as radically as possible from Europe. And eliminated meant ideally to really just get rid of Jews altogether. We sometimes hear that only once the war wasn't really working so well anymore that Hitler pivoted to killing the Jews. I think that is absolutely wrong. As far as Hitler is concerned,

German Europe could only live if Jews were to be driven out of Europe, ideally killed, and that had been the design from the beginning. And Reinhard Heydrich, chief of Reich security, is more than eager to lend a hand. We've met Heydrich in earlier episodes. He's a man of high culture. The beauty of his cello playing, it is said, can reduce a grown man to tears. But make no mistake, Heydrich, tall, blond, blue-eyed, is also an ice-cold psychopath. Nicholas O'Shaughnessy is Emeritus Professor of Communication at Queen Mary University of London.

Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, Professor of Communication, Queen Mary University of London Interestingly, Heydrich was the only Nazi who actually looked like their propaganda among the leadership. The Nazis put up a lot of statues, but they're all of naked, muscular males. They were of the racial ideal. They didn't put up statues of themselves. As one of the Gauleiters said to Himmler, if I looked like him, I wouldn't speak about the master race so much. And the only one who did was Heydrich. The Third Reich's poster boy, Heydrich,

has been rewarded by the Fuhrer for his sterling character, his Nazi fervour. He is a senior member of the SS, serving as Heimlich-Himmler's deputy. In addition, he's been gifted the effective governorship of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, today's Czech Republic. And Hangman Heydrich has impressed. The executions have come thick and fast. He seems to have a stronger stomach than his boss. When Himmler, the ex-chicken

farmer, was given a demonstration of a mass killing he'd thrown up dr chris dillon a senior lecturer in modern german history at king's college london so in late november 1941 heidrich sends out some invitations to a conference that was to be followed by breakfast, as stated on the invitation, in a luxurious villa which the SS owned. And the conference is to coordinate what's described as a matter of extraordinary significance, end quote, which we now know, in retrospect, was a European-wide genocide. in retrospect, was a European-wide genocide. They create a list of Jews per country. Two million Jews are identified in Poland, 13,000 in Norway,

300,000 in England, there's five million in the Soviet Union, and they come up with a total of 11 million based on this list. And we have quite detailed minutes of the discussion on how this enormous number of people are to be. No one is indelicate enough to use the phrase murder, but it comes through very clearly from the language. quite detailed minutes of the discussion on how this enormous number of people are to be no one is in delicate enough to use the phrase murder but it comes through very clearly from the language according to the conference's directive jews will now be liquidated as part of a factory process essentially the vanze conference puts together three existing programs.

So the concentration camp system, which provided the secrecy and also kind of a cover story that Jews would be put to work. The T4 euthanasia program, under which supposedly mentally deficient Germans have been murdered since September, 1939. And then also the experience that the Nazis and the SS acquired in the mass transportation and deportation

of people, particularly in Poland. Extermination must not take place in the heart of Germany. That might bring unwelcome attention. Instead, Himmler has a word with the commandant of a camp in Poland. Or rather, what used to be Poland. Located near Krakow, this location is isolated, has good railway links, and is well appointed for the task in hand. It is about to become the biggest dedicated killing center in the history of humankind.

Auschwitz. Those fit enough will be segregated and worked to death as slave labor. And as for the rest? They will be herded into communal showers. Here, a new drug, Zyklon B, can be fed in through vents in the ceiling. Zyklon B is a lethal cyanide derivative. It's being manufactured in handy pellet form by chemical giant E.G. Farben, who helpfully open a new plant right next door. Auschwitz will, at its peak, account for up to 15,000 killings a day, 1.1 million by the war's end, part of a grand total of around 6 million.

In fact, it was so big that the SS divided it into three separate camps in November of 1943. So there's the old main camp, there's the extermination facility at Birkenau, and then there's a huge forced labor camp in Mornewitz. And then alongside Auschwitz, there's this whole network of facilities, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chalmno, Majdanek. Words are powerless to convey the true horror of this crime against humanity.

Something we know today as the Holocaust. Back at Wannsee, Heydrich brings the discussions to a conclusion. Duty done. The schnapps and brandy come out. Adolf Eichmann, officer for Jewish Affairs and Heinrich Müller, chief of the Gestapo, sit around, getting drunk, singing songs. Nothing to feel guilty about, they say. They're just following orders. Eichmann is 35. Prior to the war, he worked

as a travelling salesman before throwing his lot in with the Nazis. He will become, as Heydrich's go-to guy, the architect of the final solution. The man who takes care of business, the emptying of the ghettos, the cramming of the cattle trucks. After the war, Eichmann will be tracked down to Argentina. In 1960, he will be kidnapped by Israeli agents. Brought back to stand trial in Jerusalem,

he will be hanged for his crimes. Eichmann was a ferocious Nazi, absolutely murderous. Recordings have emerged from the early 1950s of him speaking to others about Jews and simply wishing that he'd gone much further, wishing he'd killed all of them. Eichmann was the worst of the worst. Even those who are robustly opposed to the death penalty would probably draw the line at Eichmann. For the moment, the extermination of the Jews is still a dirty secret. The full extent of it will not become apparent to the outside world for another three years. Even then, some will continue to protest that the final solution was pursued

without the Führer's knowledge. Show us Hitler's own signature on the orders, they will say. That cuts no ice. I personally do not find that argument particularly persuasive. Hitler is never someone for long meetings, for long conferences. He's not the guy who is chairing some cabinet meeting. He is the kind of person

who is kind of holding court either in his Alpine retreat or in his military headquarters. And the way things generally work is people approach him, they hope for a conversation or chat with him, and then he issues orders orally. Which is why the documents that meetings produced are so valuable to historians. Hitler deals in signals and green lights rather than in documentary instructions. So what mattered throughout the Holocaust was the communicated will of the Fuhrer rather than a clear paper trail. Generally, Hitler avoids explicit allusions in public to the genocide of Europe's Jews and tends to speak more in kind of blood-curdling generalities.

But the whole process is marked by signals, encouragements, green lights and competition by local actors to impress Berlin with their zeal. The most immediate concern for Hitler is to resolve the calamitous situation on the Russian front. calamitous situation on the Russian front. An incompetent Fuhrer, a Hitler on the ropes, is not the image that the party wants to sell to the German people, to the Volk. And the propaganda mission is only made harder by the Fuhrer's tendency to go AWOL, to withdraw from public view when the chips are down.

In March 1942 a film is released, promoted by Josef Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda. It's called The Great King, a biopic of the Prussian military monarch Frederick the Great. It's a thinly veiled homage to Germany's current leader. It even has Frederick spouting some of Hitler's rejigged speeches. Helen Roche is Associate Professor in Modern European Cultural History at the University of Durham. The Great King, that's also part of a series of films which try and equate Hitler with great Russian leaders, Frederick the Great and then Bismarck and then Hitler, kind of trying to imply this genealogy of great German rulers.

And it's a damn good film. That is the problem, of course, that although they could not aspire to the very heights of Hollywood in the same period, they could really get a competent, good Hollywood-style movie. And this is one of them. But it was a way of dealing with the fact that Hitler was absent, that you only saw him in newsreels, not making speeches anymore. And so you deal with this emotional gap, Hitler is no longer with us, by creating a celluloid Hitler, and by backward projecting him, but by also claiming the greats

of German history as proto-Nazis, which they certainly weren't. Frederick the Great said, German is the language I speak to my horses. And his great friend was Voltaire, the French philosopher. So who is the real Hitler anymore? In June 1942, Hitler makes a surprise visit to Germany's ally, Finland. The purpose is to honour the 75th birthday of Finnish Commander-in-Chief, General Gustav Mannerheim. Flown in in secret, Hitler is transported on Mannerheim's personal train to the small town of Imatra.

The Fuhrer and Mannerheim remain in the dining car, toasting the Finnish general, plotting new moves against the Soviet Union. Also present is a sound engineer for the Finnish state radio broadcaster. He is tasked with recording the official birthday tribute, but he leaves his tape running for another 11 minutes. What transpires is the only existing record of Hitler speaking in his normal everyday voice. A Mannheim recording is quite extraordinary. Hitler was bugged and his guards eventually noticed they had been bugged

and so this whole thing ends. But it records Hitler's private conversation with another head of state, a totally different voice, slow and deep, but no hysterics, very rational, very reassuring, even sounding reliable. You realize how much of what we know of Hitler was a stage performance. It was a piece of theater. We see the last 10 seconds of Hitler's speech, the raging and spitting Hitler. We somehow think that that is how Hitler always operated.

And if we look behind the scenes, we get a totally different image of Adolf Hitler. Part of the reason why the Third Reich could function for so long is because Hitler managed to persuade people to go along with him. But before long, Hitler is returning to full stage mode. He makes a speech demanding powers to act ruthlessly and immediately should any citizen be found wanting in their duties to the Reich. The subtext, should anyone care to study it, is that something's not quite right with the war.

As ever for Hitler, others are to blame for the failings in Russia. Heinz Guderian, Germany's most exalted tank commander, is summoned for an ear-bashing. He's too soft, he has too much pity for his men. The Eastern War is being lost through weakness. Unfortunately, Hitler's predilection for interfering in the plans of his generals is becoming his undoing. Sir Anthony Beaver is a renowned military historian and author. His way of interfering, of believing that he was a great leader and therefore a military expert, when

of course many of his generals despised him. And Rundstedt referred to him as the bohemian corporal. So one sees this cynicism about his military capacity growing enormously. The Nazis referred to him as the greatest leader of all time. And this actually then became a cynical joke amongst the military leadership during the latter part of the war. And the interesting thing, of course, is that we see Stalin, who was disastrous at the beginning in 1941, becoming by autumn 1942 much more of a war leader and showing an ability to allow his generals to really run their own shows while Hitler was trying to micromanage everything with disastrous effects.

At Berlin's Sportpalast, a huge indoor arena, Hitler addresses 10,000 new SS officers. He reminds them that they are engaged in nothing less than a struggle for humanity, to save civilization from Jews and Bolshevism. The war in the East must be won at all costs. Hitler has never paid much attention to the war in North Africa, but he can at least take heart from what's happening here. In the desert, Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps have been pushing back against the British. They've taken the port of Tobruk and are advancing into Egypt. Commonwealth troops are on the back foot.

They've been forced to hold a line west of Alexandria at a railway halt called El Alamein. Mussolini was supposed to be taking care of North Africa. Hitler only got involved to bail out his old chum. John Curatola is a military historian and a former U.S. Marine Corps officer. historian and a former U.S. Marine Corps officer. Hitler is not getting involved personally, but he has also basically given the Italians full reign in the Mediterranean. He's willing to see that that's their realm. I'll let them operate in there. And then, of course, that changes because they can't fight their way out of the paper bag. And so he has to send the Afrika Korps down there to kind of help out his Italian allies.

And Rommel, being the excellent tactician that he is, is actually rolling up a number of victories because nobody's really interfering with him. Mussolini was the original fascist dictator. Hitler once worshipped him like a starstruck groupie. He is now the ball and chain around Nazi ambitions, but the pair have come too far. In late April 1942, the Führer and Il Duce rendezvous in Austria. The weekend is full of the usual PR spin, but really, Hitler is now testing Mussolini's patience

as much as the other way round. After lunch on the second day while the Fuhrer is droning on, Mussolini keeps checking his watch. General Jodl, who's heard Hitler's tales of his own genius on too many occasions, falls asleep. If only, thinks Hitler, they could be as keen and dutiful as dear Reinhard Heydrich May the 27th, 1942 We're in Prague, just before 10.30am There's a road that joins Reinhard Heydrich's country villa and Radchin Castle. On it is the Hairpin Bend.

Here, two men lie in wait. Their names are Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabcik, and they are Czech partisans. Slowly but surely, over the last two years, resistance across occupied Europe has been growing. Rebel groups are being coordinated and supplied from Great Britain by its military secret service, the Special Operations Executive, or SOE. Kubish and Gabchik, like other fighters, have been schooled by British commandos. They've been put through their paces at training camps in the wilds of Scotland. Five months ago, the men were parachuted back into Bohemia.

And now they find themselves here, on this bend in the road, armed with explosives and quick-assembled submachine guns, Sten guns. They're waiting to ambush the man who is the source of their people's misery. Kubish has a briefcase clutched to his chest. Gabchick has a raincoat slung over his arm, concealing his weapon. They know Heydrich's route and his routine.

Any moment now. They know Heydrich's route and his routine. Any moment now. Heydrich, of course, did this performative dramaturgy of riding around in his tight-fitting black death-said uniform in a huge open-top Mercedes without our protection, living in a mansion just outside Prague with his family and roaring in every day, it was the ultimate block of Nazi hubris. So he doesn't take security precautions, travels around in an open-top car without an escort.

Heydrich followed a fairly familiar routine every day and it wasn't hard for the Czech partisans to work out what would be a good spot to take a pop at him. Suddenly the sign they've been waiting for. Up ahead, something's glinting in the morning sun. Their colleague is signalling with a mirror. That means that Heydrich's staff car is coming. Kubis crosses the cobbles and takes up his position. Kubish crosses the cobbles and takes up his position. Right on cue, a city tram trundles past. Behind it, Heydrich's open-top Mercedes is forced to slow down.

He's a sitting duck. Gabchik steps forward, stem gun raised. But at the crucial moment, it jams. The driver goes to accelerate away, but Heydrich orders him to stop. He whips out his Luger. Kubisch now seizes his chance. He pulls from his briefcase his British Army grenade. He lobs it at Heydrich from close range.

It's a poor throw. The grenade glances off the rear wheel. But the explosion, at waist height, is enough to rip into the SS man's side Heidrich staggers out of the vehicle riddled with shrapnel Kubitsch clambers onto a bicycle and pedals away furiously Gabcik too turns and runs Heidrich's driver Heinrich Klein pursues him up the street. Gabchick ducks into a butcher's shop. He turns back and points his pistol. Klein charges into view then ducks for cover as bullets whistle past him. The pair exchange shots till Klein is hit in the leg, and Gabchick can make a break for freedom. Heydrich has been badly injured.

He's taken to a nearby hospital. His guts have been ripped through with debris, grenade fragments, slivers of car door, shreds of Hugo Boss fabric. On hearing the news, Hitler is stunned, shaken. Himmler rushes to Heydrich's bedside. Eight days after the attack, Heydrich, the butcher of Prague, succumbs to septicemia.

A major Nazi figure has been taken out, brazenly and in broad daylight. This is really a serious blow. Of course, they always knew that something like this could happen. Hitler himself had been extremely worried about assassinations. So on one level, there's nothing surprising at all on the fact that one of the leading Nazis would be killed. But on a different level, it is also a blow because in a way, the Germans realize there's not much they can do about it. And again, it is a sign that the war really is not going according to plan. The biggest manhunt in the history of the SS is on.

Martial law is proclaimed. 36,000 homes are searched. The owner of the butcher shop, as it turns out, is a German informer. His brother works for the Gestapo. He can identify Gabcik. Three weeks later, betrayed by one of their own for a cash reward, the agents and their associates are found, holed up in an Orthodox church in Prague's new town. A six-hour siege ensues. Kubis is killed.

Gabcik and his colleagues commit suicide in defiance of the Germans. At Hitler's behest, vengeance comes hard and fast. 5,000 Czech civilians are murdered, including all 200 male inhabitants of the village of Lidice, a place selected erroneously because of its alleged association with the plot. A further 19,000 are swept up and sent to the camps. But if the Nazis think they have quashed Czech resistance, they are sorely mistaken. The Czech agents, martyrs to the cause, were never going to get away with it. The SOE knew it, as did the exile Czech government who ordered the hit. Probably even the men themselves. Hitler's retribution galvanizes the resistance. There should be no illusion now

about the brutality of Nazi rule. Extremist regimes of any kind, they have an explicit belief in the power of coercion. We can frighten you, we can terrify you into submission. What they never understand is that you can eventually teach human beings to lose their fear of death. This is very, very fundamental. When humans lose their fear of death, they're capable of anything. lose their fear of death, they're capable of anything. Slowly, hesitantly at first, and with huge cost to themselves and their fellow citizens, brave men and women across the continent will open their own domestic fronts against their Nazi oppressors. Over in Russia, Stalin has been calling for an official second front against the Nazis for some time.

But it's still some way off. The Soviet Union is desperate for reinforcements from the West. If the Americans and the British were to cross the English Channel into France, that would create a means to attack Germany from both east and west. In 1942 and 1943, both the Americans and the British do not have the forces and the wherewithal and the knowledge and the staff functioning and all the other sinews of war to conduct that major cross-channel operation. And of course, the British aren't interested in the cross-channel operation. They would rather come up through the Balkans and use this Balkan strategy.

So there's actually a disconnect between American grand strategy and British grand strategy at this time. America's entry into the war hasn't yet had a direct impact on the European theater. But using Britain as a base is only a matter of time before US might is brought to bear. In the summer of 1942, the US Army Air Force launches the first of its daylight heavy bomber raids against Axis targets. With the RAF attacking by night, they will, between them, build to reigning round-the-clock destruction upon the fatherland. The main objective of the United States, over the first few months, had been to thwart the Japanese in the Pacific. Hitler rarely talks tactics with his allies in the East.

But in a rare strategic conferral, he demands the Japanese increase their efforts. Having seized Singapore, he wants them to step up the pressure on the British in India. But in Asia and the Pacific, as in Europe, the tide is beginning to turn. is beginning to turn. In June 1942, the Battle of Midway secures US naval supremacy. In August, US Marines land on Guadalcanal

in the Solomon Islands, a strategic gain. Uncle Sam is now on the offensive. But Hitler isn't done in Russia just yet, not by a long shot. Back at the Wolf's Lair, he assures the Japanese ambassador that he has the situation under control. A renewed spring offensive will see the Wehrmacht recover lost ground, just you wait and see. What's more, if he can push into the southern Caucasus region,

he will seize the key oil fields all the way down to Baku. In doing so, he will secure Germany's energy resources before any Anglo-American intervention. This ambitious operation is codenamed Blau – Blue. Hitler's plan for the spring of 1942 was basically to relaunch Barbarossa, see New Patlia well, unless he got those oil wells in the Caucasus. As he said to his generals on several occasions, he would not actually win the war in the end. And he was convinced that once he had those, the whole of the Russian forces in the south would disintegrate.

And once again, Hitler made the serious mistake of underestimating his enemy. As per usual, Operation Blau doesn't start on time. The spring rains postponed its launch until the end of June. Hitler, it seems, has learned nothing from the battle for Moscow. Once again he's racing a ticking clock, rushing to fulfil his objectives before the Russian winter sets in. To begin with, Hitler has good reason to be buoyant. German divisions and Hungarian detachments push towards Kursk in western Russia. It seems just like the Axis army of yore, the proverbial hot knife through butter. By the end of July, they've taken the port of Rostov, where the Don River joins the Black Sea.

Renewed in his enthusiasm, Hitler moves to a new campaign headquarters in Ukraine, codenamed Werewolf, where he can bark at the moon. But the hot, stifling atmosphere here is not to the Fuhrer's liking, and his nerves are frayed at the best of times, because, as ever, Hitler is at odds with his generals. The Germans have pulled off a huge encirclement of the Soviet army at Voronezh, but still the Fuhrer rails at General Bock for being too slow.

More than that, there's a difference of opinion over objectives. Hitler wants to storm the oil fields and push to the Volga River simultaneously with massive twin assaults. His generals disagree. In order not to stretch supply lines, they urge for a more cautious approach, one goal at a time. Generals be damned.

Hitler is obsessed. All he sees are lines on a map. That summer, a detachment of crack Alpine troops crosses mighty Mount Elbrus. The new German Empire, albeit briefly, spans three continents, Europe, Africa and Asia. On July 23rd, Hitler overrides his chiefs of staff and gives the order. The forces in the Caucasus will divide into two. One army group will push east to the Volga, isolating the region below. There a second thrust will drive towards Grozny, Maikop and the oilfields. On August 23rd, General Friedrich Paulus' 6th Army reaches the Volga.

Objective achieved. But this is not just about oil now. Hitler is tantalised by what lies downstream. In terms of a propaganda victory, what could be better than smashing a city named after the USSR's leader, Stalingrad? As Hitler puts it, communism must be deprived of its shrine. There is some nervous shuffling. Is this wise, mein Führer? This time it's General Halder who is the recipient of the Hitler hairdryer.

How dare some jumped-up staff officer question the judgment of a man who slogged through the mud of the trenches on the Western Front? Hitler's mistake in the conduct of Operation Blue was to start changing his plan once it was underway. Having failed to break through as rapidly as he'd hoped into the Caucasus, he then started to fear that he might not get those oil wells after all, and he needed a victory. For Hitler, again, this is where dictators are different to generals. For Hitler, the idea was prestige. And the very fact that Stalingrad happened to bear Stalin's name, now Hitler felt, well,

at least even if we don't get the Orwells, I can say to the German people, I have defeated Stalin because I have conquered the city with his name. And this was the mistake. The Sixth Army, which was the largest formation in the whole of the Wehrmacht. He actually ordered them to capture the whole city purely for its symbolism. Stalingrad is a port city of half a million people. With safe remove from the Russian front, 600 miles from Moscow, it's become an important industrial and armaments centre.

It commands the western bank of the mighty Volga, spreading for 15 miles along huge bluffs. Geography alone makes it a tricky proposition to storm. Moving into September, the Axis forces are meeting huge resistance. The citizens are digging in just like they did in Leningrad and Moscow before. German casualties are mounting. No two ways about it. Taking Stalingrad is going to be a nightmare. When General Paulus gives a less than optimistic report,

Hitler rages at him. The Russians are finished. Dispatches come in, detailing how the Soviets are able to ferry troops across the river behind them, thereby bolstering their defences. Hitler simply issues the usual frothing diatribe about National Socialist ardour. No one can conceive of the purgatory that lies in store. And even Beria, the head of Stalin's secret elite, knew perfectly well that for Stalin, the last thing he could do was allow Stalingrad to be captured. And he described it therefore as

a battle of rams, i.e. these two egos were smashing into each other over the battle of Stalingrad. these two egos were smashing into each other over the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad will be one of the bloodiest and cruelest battles ever fought. It will prove the pivotal point of the European war, the defining moment in the fight back against the tyrannical rule and conquest of Adolf Hitler. We'll return to Stalingrad in the next episode. Unfortunately for Hitler, North Africa is now coming unstuck too. In the western desert, Rommel has been pushing hard on the port of Alexandria, once the playground of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. Take Alexandria and Egypt will crumble. The road to the Middle East lies

wide open. Unfortunately, bolstering the Afrika Korps would mean releasing troops from the Russian front, and this is something Hitler will not countenance. Instead of putting boots in the sand, Hitler prefers to use the Luftwaffe. They will bomb the hell out of Malta. The strategic Mediterranean island is key to Britain's supply route. This is not what Rommel wants to hear. Plus, with a reshuffle at the top of the British army, a new commander, General Bernard Law Montgomery, Monty, has reinvigorated his men. On October 23, 1942, an apocalyptic artillery bombardment by his Commonwealth forces begins.

This heralds a counteroffensive which will soon reverse all the Axis gains. It is the Second Battle of El Alamein. Now is not the end, as Churchill puts it. It's not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Within fifteen days, Rommel will be pushed back several hundred miles into Libya. pushed back several hundred miles into Libya. He had been told by Hitler from his armchair at the Berghof to stay put. Death or glory. There are other developments to go with this.

At the western end of the Mediterranean in the past few days, a huge armada has been forming off Gibraltar. The Germans had assumed it was going to sail in convoy to Egypt. But no. From the early hours of November 8th, a series of amphibious landings begins, across Morocco and Algeria. An allied force begins putting ashore. It's codenamed Operation Torch, and this is the first coordinated Anglo-American ground operation. North Africa is now the war on two fronts. The Germans and Italians are being squeezed from both ends, and this will have far-reaching consequences. The Anglo-American landings in Algeria and Morocco are happening on territory controlled by Vichy France.

The resistance is short-lived. The duplicitous Admiral Darlan, leader of the French forces there, soon throws his lot in with the Allies. The experiment of Vichy France, the compliant vassal state, is over. Hitler has a contingency plan. He orders Case Anton, the occupation of France's southern self-governed zone. The French navy refuses to take this lying down. In the port of Toulon, in an act of defiance, they scuttle their remaining warships, lest they fall into Nazi hands. Germany is now obliged to fully control and administer the whole of France. This will be another critical drain on German resources. Hitler's occupation of France had always been incredibly economical.

And this is one of the things which, especially Stalin, found very hard to forgive the French for was that they allowed themselves to be occupied with so few troops. So from that point of view, when in November 1942 you have Operation Torch landing in North Africa, in Morocco and Algeria and so forth, they have to start reinforcing North Africa, but also they have to occupy the whole of southern France as well. So all of those areas are now meaning that they're going to have to transfer troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front, which had never been foreseen or planned for. In January, the Libyan city of Tripoli, a prized possession of Mussolini, falls.

Retreating to Tunisia, the Axis troops are cornered, cut off. By May 1943, a quarter of a million men will have been taken prisoner in North Africa, including most of the fabled Afrika Korps. prisoner in North Africa, including most of the fabled Africa Corps. In a way, what is being pulled out in North Africa is a central piece from a huge house of cards. And it is really here where Hitler really had to pay the price for not taking North Africa seriously. North Africa seriously. Looking northeast from Tunis, across the Med, Sicily, Italy is just over 80 miles away.

Even Mussolini, a man who could start a war in an empty room, is turning peacenik. Maybe if Germany surrendered some territories in the east, they could reach a settlement with Britain and America. Perhaps Japan could broker some kind of armistice. January the 24th, 1943. A year on from the Wannsee Conference. We're in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. The winter sun is pleasant. The palms sway in the sea breeze. The recent movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman has put Casablanca in the spotlight.

At the Anfa Hotel, a suitably A-list set of guests gathers. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the Sultan of Morocco plus assorted Allied admirals, field marshals, air commodores. Present too are General Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud on the part of the Free French. Joseph Stalin was invited,

but with Stalingrad entering its darkest hour, it's not the right time to go skipping off on a jolly. Over the past ten days, those assembled have discussed global strategy, cooperation, funding, tactics, the pooling of men and resources. This is the kind of joined-up thinking that Hitler and the Axis powers never once entertain. There are disagreements, to be sure, but no dictator to call all the shots. This will be a team effort. At its conclusion, in the garden, the VIPs gather for the photo-op. Sitting together, all smiles.

Roosevelt's staff, as ever, arrange proceedings to avoid their president having to stand, masking his disability. Churchill, as he does, lights up an enormous cigar. This is all in marked contrast to the icy sadism of the Wannsee Conference. But make no mistake as to Casablanca's deadly resolve. Roosevelt declares that the Allies will accept nothing less than Germany's unconditional surrender. There will be no deals, no negotiations, no truces, no trade-offs. The goal of the Allies is to finish off Nazi Germany once and for all. Back in the Axis heartlands, the European conflict has entered a new and perilous

phase. The bit where Hitler has no plan. In the next episode… The Battle of Stalingrad blows apart the myth of the Nazi war machine. Serious questions arise as to Hitler's leadership, encouraging a growing German resistance. As Allied forces land in Sicily, a paranoid Fuhrer will retreat further into himself. His war of conquest is becoming a war of defense. That's next time.