We Blew the Last Bridge Off the East Bank The Black Mud of Nikopol, 1944 Ep. 1...

Twenty years old. One bridge. And a single minute at midnight on February 6, 1944, that nobody could afford to waste. In the winter of 1943–44, the German 6th Army held a bridgehead on the east bank of the Dnieper River, opposite the Ukrainian town of Nikopol. Hitler had ordered it held because of the manganese beneath the steppe. Then the Third and Fourth Ukrainian Fronts attacked from two directions. The thaw turned every road to mud, Soviet planes ruled the sky, and the way out narrowed to a single bridge. This is the Eastern Front of World War II at ground level, the retreat from the Nikopol bridgehead in 1944. Through the eyes of Walter Dahlke, a combat engineer, this video follows: A bridge under Soviet air attack in December 1943, and the men who kept it open Night work with Teller mines on the frozen steppe, and the first names wiped from the platoon’s chalk board The Soviet assault of January 12, 1944, with T-34 tanks driving at the trenches The order to evacuate the bridgehead, the thaw, the mud, and the road to the river One last decision at the Nikopol bridge, and what it cost ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Midnight at the Nikopol Bridge 01:25 - Planes Over the Dnieper 06:30 - Manganese, the 6th Army and the Last Way Out 08:30 - Teller Mines on the East Bank 12:45 - January 12th: The Fourth Ukrainian Front Attacks 19:40 - Two Fronts Closing on Apostolovo 23:35 - Mud, Fire and the Road to the River 28:25 - The Last Night on the East Bank 32:10 - Midnight on the Dnieper 33:50 - The Cost of Nikopol, 1944