We Were the Last Men on the East Bank | The Frozen Hell of Nikopol, 1944 | Ep. 1

18 years old. 4 days at the front. And behind him, only the river. December 1943. On the frozen steppe east of the Dnieper, the German 6th Army clings to the Nikopol bridgehead, a curve of land Hitler refused to give up because of the manganese buried beneath it. In front of them stands the Soviet 4th Ukrainian Front. Behind them, a river more than 500 metres wide. 200 VIDEOS MORE HERE: MORE VIDEOS ON PATREON HERE: https://www.patreon.com/ShadowsOfConflicts Through the eyes of Franz Moser, a young machine gun loader in the 3rd Mountain Division, we follow eight weeks of winter war: the first human-wave assault, a desperate night counterattack, a trench raid for prisoners, a sniper duel, the great tank attack of January 1944, and finally the collapse of the bridgehead, when a handful of men were ordered to stay behind and make the Soviets believe the line was still held. Seventeen men pretending to be four hundred. This is their story. ⚠️ Note: Franz Moser and his comrades are composite characters, created to represent the soldiers of the 3rd Mountain Division at Nikopol. The battles, dates, places and conditions are historical. 📚 FURTHER READING If you want to go deeper into the Eastern Front in 1943–44, these books helped shape the world of this episode: The campaign and the big picture - Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East** by Earl F. Ziemke (covers the Nikopol bridgehead and its evacuation in detail) - The Road to Berlin by John Erickson (the Soviet offensives of 1944 from the Red Army's side) - When Titans Clashed by David Glantz and Jonathan House (the clearest one-volume history of the Eastern Front) - Lost Victories by Erich von Manstein (the commander of Army Group South, including his arguments with Hitler over Nikopol; read critically) The soldier's experience - Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II by Stephen G. Fritz - In Deadly Combat by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann (a German infantryman's memoir of the Eastern Front) - The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer (a classic, though historians debate how much of it is literal fact) - Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale (the men on the other side of the steppe) The harder questions - Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov (how the Eastern Front shaped and brutalised the Wehrmacht) 🎖 This channel tells the story of war from the ground level, to understand what ordinary men lived through, not to glorify it. #WW2 #EasternFront #Nikopol #WorldWar2 #MilitaryHistory #History #Dnieper #1944 Support this channel to gain access to the following benefits: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZppEeAm8fLVIwCD-5-3VPw/join Music By: 'Decoherence' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au