Das Reich Division - Hitler's last chance to stop D-Day 1944 Animated

Also check this out:- Sinking of Blücher - The Battle of Drøbak Sound - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlBkym_Ky6E The Channel Dash 1942 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6029I0kcLA The Saint Nazaire Raid - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyjeRWWbUns

I had no idea the Maquis had this kind of impact, always figured they did some sabotage in the lead up and mopping up later, I should have figured it was a lot more coordinated. Thanks for sharing.

Makes no sense to me why they were kept at Montauban, but also how a single division was supposed to be able to stop a beachhead from expanding. Awesome video on something I've never heard about before!

Sir Tommy Macpherson, mentioned here, of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders was, I believe, the second most decorated British Army soldier of WW2. He spent much of the war on ultra-high risk missions behind the lines. He candidly told me he had three complete nervous breakdowns after such operations. he said it was common among soldiers in the hard fighting of 1942-43. He recovered from each, and promptly went back to battle. If you read his biography you'll be astonished by his escapades. A man in the finest Scottish military tradition..

A really important part of D day I had never heard about, thank you.

Two things the Germans learned in Italy that Rommel missed. One: it was easy to stop the Americans on the beach ( Salerno, Anzio ). BUT, 2, they could never push them into the sea due to the US and Royal Navy.

I’m 56. I was today years old when I learned about this aspect of the Normandy campaign in WWII. The Maquis had stones! And that town Das Reich wiped out, like the towns abandoned because of the chemical blight of WWI…was designated by Frances Parliament as POUR LA FRANCE…the highest honor France bestows upon groups that have literally sacrificed all for the liberty of France. Excellent presentation.

I cannot stand the narrative of French surrender and impotence which surrounds WW2; may we honour those brave members of the Resistance who made D-Day possible. Vive la France!

My grandmother was in the French resistance and partook in this operation. She was pregnant at the time, and went into labor soon after blowing up a train. Grandma you are a hero to France and free world! 🫡

The Germans were lucky Normandy succeded or the Red Army would have occupied all of Germany.

There is a movie, "Georges the Great" (2012) (*Le grand Georges*) about Georges Guingouin. It mentions the agonizing decisions that had to be made in 1944, because every time the Maquis fought the Germans it resulted in mass executions of innocent civilians.

By this stage of the war, and arguably at all stages of it, there was nothing “brilliantly eccentric” about anything at Bletchley Park. It was highly professional and produced intelligence product on an industrial scale. David Kenyon’s book “Bletchley Park and D-Day” is a very good examination of this.

I am from the region (living in Bordeaux, but have family in Limoges). So I visited Oradour sur Glane multiple times. They kept the village as it was found after the massacre, this is quite a sad site and memorial.

I've been to Oradour-sur-Glane it has been left as it was ,human ashes in the church, it was chilling.

you can't really meme about the french surrender when you had these french resistance fighters with balls of steel that stalled the biggest nazi boss of the whole fight

So glad this popped up on my feed. We visited Oradour in 2017, and left with emotions shattered. For some reason, I thought the Waffen SS unit was retreating from Normandy, not rushing to engage. I now understand so much more, and having been in the cemetary in Oradour, it shows why man's inhumanity to man, is so profound. Even though the war touched us in Australia, it was a mere drop in the ocean on what Europe, Africa and Asia went through. Will we ever learn?

Thank you for the Canadian Red Ensign on the map. 99.9% of You Tubers put in the 1965 Flag which has no relevance whatsoever when the video is about WW 1, WW 2 or Korea.

I haven't enjoyed a English speaking narration as good as this since Tim Piggot Smith did the Battlefield series. What a nice treat to come across this channel.

A great topic to cover and you did it so well. Thanks

Very interesting to know the background behind the Das Reich move north via Tulle and Oradour, both of which I visited and learnt of the atrocities comitted there.