Bremen was an important port city of Germany. It was bombed
during WO2. But did you know that there was also a Battle of Bremen that occured in April 1945. It was one of
the last battles in Germany during the Second World War. The city was eventually captured by the British. It's a battle often
overlooked. Not by the History Hustler. In this video you're gonna learn about the Battle of Bremen. Keep watching.
Good to have you back on the channel. If you're new: I'm Stefan, I'm a Dutch
history teacher, and I like to cover history on location. Like right now, I'm in Bremen in front of an old bunker. Back then the HQ of Generalmajor Werner Siber.
If you find these on location videos interesting, consider subscribing, hit that notification bell and if you wanna support me you can do so via Patreon or via PayPal. Links can be find below the video.
Let's start with the episode.
The Westwall (a.k.a. the Siegfried Line) was established to protect the western
borders of the German homeland. In the chaotic retreat of September 1944 many German
units had fled behind this line. Allied supply problems and the faillure of Operation Market
Garden gave the Germans time to regroup. Now the main Allied attack against Germany
was launched in March 1945. The Allies already got a foothold in Germany when capturing their
first German city: the city of Aachen. This happened in October 1944 in a brutal battle
nicknamed the 'America's Stalingrad'. In order to reach the Ruhr Dams the
Americans had to cross through the Hürtgen Forest. From September to December the
Allies fought in a gruelling battle for this area nicknamed: 'America's Meat Grinder'. The
battle ended with a German victory and after this the German attack through the Ardennes
started. In February the Allies attacked once more and that month the Ruhr Dam was taken.
The Rhineland Offensive was a series of Allied attacks by 21st
Army Group commanded by Bernard Montgomery from 8 February to 25 March 1945. The
operations were aimed to capture the Rhineland and securing a passage across the Rhine river.
The British launched Operations Veritable from Nijmegen into Germany through the
Reichswald Forest and encountered heavy defenses. The British broke through but
suffered heavy losses. Especially capturing the German city of Cleve was hard because
the German defenders hid behind the rubble caused by the massive Allied bombings.
Operation Grenade was carried out by American troops and was severily delayed because the
Germans had destroyed the dam which caused flooding. In March the Allies achieved their goal.
Further south Operation Lumberjack was carried
out by the Americans. During the Battle of Remagen they managed to
secure the intact Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine river. The bridge
would later collapse however but it gave the Allies a foothold across the Rhine river.
Once the allies had crossed the Rhine there were no natural barriers. They therefore captured
city after city in Germany. Also the German divisions were very depleted. They were, on paper, 60 divisions
but in reality they proved just half as strong. Many Wehrmacht
units surrendered in droves. SS units fought on more fanatical,
but were hindered by the lack of supplies.
The German port city of Bremen was one of the last German cities to be captured by the Allies
and therefore ended the European campaign of WW2.
The city was to be captured by the British. The Allied attack on Bremen consisted of a
two-pronged attack by the British 3rd, 43rd and 52nd Division.
In just over five years, the Allies had carried out a total of 173 air raids on Bremen, dropping
around 5,500 tons of explosives, killing more than 4,000 residents. In addition nearly 65,000
houses and apartments were destroyed, equivalent to about 62 percent of the city's living space.
The British infantry divisions were supported by tanks and specialized
armored vehicles during the fighting in Bremen. Before the capture of Bremen,
767 British aircraft launched a tactical bombardment. The bombs were mainly intended
for the southeastern suburbs, along which British troops would launch their attack on the city.
The main attack routes of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division converged on the Bürgerpark
in Bremen, where the last German pockets of resistance were. On April 26, 1945,
after a heavy night battle, the 4th Somerset Light Infantry captured the first of three
command bunkers in the park. This was Bunker B31 opposite Benquestraße – where
the command post of Generalmajor Werner Siber, the Wehrmachtkommandant of Bremen was located.
The one you see right here. The high five-storey bunker with a capacity of 261 people reminds us
of the city's wartime history. The second bunker, known as the Regierungsbunker,
which had served high party and civilian leaders in the preceding days, was captured by the
Somersets later that night. This command bunker is also still in the park opposite Bulthauptstraße.
Most of the fighting took place on the outskirts of Bremen, after the British soldiers invaded the
city, the German resistance collapsed. Only a few small pockets of resistance remained. On April 27,
1945, the command post of Generalleutnant Fritz Becker, commander of Bremen,
surrendered to the British. After the fighting, large parts of Bremen lay
in ruins. An area two by four miles had turned into a desolate
wasteland. Between 22 and 27 April, 540 civilians were killed in the fighting.
Two days ago, on April 25, the Americans and Soviet forces met each
near the town of Torgau. Hitler committed suicide five days later.
Karl Dönitz became the new leader of the Third Reich and his rump government held out till 28 May.