The Forgotten Siege of Dunkirk (1944 – 1945) – The Last German Offensive Operation in France D

When I say the Siege of Dunkirk you  most likely will think about the 1940   Dunkirk evacuation where the Allies were  stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk and   eventually were evacuated. But what if I told  you there was another Siege of Dunkirk which   occurred from mid-September 1944 till May  1945 and this time it was the Germans that   were besieged by the Allies. But they held  on till Germany’s unconditional surrender.

This here is the story about Germany’s last  offensive operation in France. Keep watching. First of all a quick apology,  sorry about these animal noises.   I love shooting on location but man,  these creatures were loud. Anyway,   the rest of the video is recorded from my  studio so we won’t be disturbed by animal   noises… *Meow* Let’s just start,  but before doing so I want to say…

Good to have you back on the channel. If  you’re new on this channel, my name is Stefan,   I’m a Dutch history teacher and I love to cover  history (partially) on location. Like right now,   I’m in Dunkirk, France. And if you  find this content interesting please   consider subscribing and do not forget to hit that  notification bell. Let’s start with the episode.

Dunkirk in 1940. In May that year, German troops  invaded France and the Low Countries at lightning   speed. British and French armies were surrounded  along the coast near Dunkirk and faced total   annihilation. Instead of surrendering or fighting  to the last man, the Allies decided on a massive   evacuation: Operation Dynamo.

Between May 26 and  June 4 more than 338,000 soldiers were evacuated   by sea to Great Britain. Not only military ships,  but also hundreds of small civilian vessels,   such as fishing boats and pleasure yachts, were  deployed to rescue soldiers from the beaches.   Although vast quantities of equipment had  to be left behind, the majority of the   British army was saved. The evacuation was  later hailed as the “Miracle of Dunkirk.

”  Four years later the Allies returned to Dunkirk.  At the end of July 1944, the Allies finally   achieved a breakthrough in Normandy with Operation  Cobra. Nearly two months after the D-Day landings,   they managed to break out of the narrow Normandy  bridgehead and begin a rapid advance across   France.

The German army, already weakened by  the devastating Soviet offensive of Operation   Bagration on the Eastern Front, could no longer  contain the Allied forces in western France. As   German resistance collapsed, Allied troops pushed  swiftly toward Paris. By this stage of the war,   forces from many occupied nations had joined  the campaign to liberate Western Europe. Polish,   Free French, and Dutch troops all fought alongside  the British, Americans, and Canadians during the   advance across France.

Another important but  often overlooked operation in the liberation   of France was Dragoon. In mid-August 1944,  more than 150,000 Allied soldiers landed on   the French Riviera between Marseille and Nice.  The landings forced the Germans to retreat even   faster from southern France and helped accelerate  the liberation of the country. Although much of   southern France escaped major destruction,  the same could not be said for Normandy,   where countless towns and cities had  been devastated during the fighting.

After the Allied breakout from Normandy in the  summer of 1944, Adolf Hitler issued a clear order:   all major ports along the Atlantic and Channel  coast had to be defended as “fortress cities.”   The goal was simple. The Allies were not to use  these ports for supply operations and had to be   forced to waste valuable time and manpower.

Ports  such as Le Havre, Boulogne, and Calais eventually   fell into Allied hands. But one port proved far  more resilient: Dunkirk. By early September 1944,   British and Canadian troops had fully encircled  the city. Instead of launching a direct assault,   however, they chose a different strategy. They  would isolate the city and attempt to force the   fortress into surrender.

This decision was also  influenced by the fact that the Allies prioritised   Antwerp, which was considered strategically  more important. To use that port, the Scheldt   estuary first had to be secured. Inside Dunkirk  were more than 10,000 German soldiers. Their   commander was Vice Admiral Friedrich Frisius,  an experienced naval officer now responsible for   ground defence.

His forces included elements  of the 226th Infantry Division, naval units,   and heavy coastal artillery. But their greatest  ally was the landscape itself. The area around   Dunkirk was low-lying and deliberately flooded,  turning large sections into impassable terrain.   Troops could only move along raised  roads, making every movement visible   and highly vulnerable to enemy fire.

Here is an  example of a British captain and his orderly: “During the evening, the battalion’s intelligence  officer, Captain Bruce Valentine Marshall,   and his batman, Private L. Torlacius, took  a wrong turn in a jeep while heading back to   brigade headquarters. The two drove straight  into an 88 – millimetre gun position guarded   by machine guns, and twenty-three-year-old  Marshall was killed.

Torlacius found cover   in a ditch and then worked his way back  to the Camerons’ lines. Marshall’s death   due to blundering into a strong German  position served as yet another warning   that the defenders of Dunkirk were determined  and strong enough to offer a real fight.” Allies were constantly exposure to German  artillery.

Every attack became dangerous   and costly. The task of encircling Dunkirk  fell mainly to the First Canadian Army. In   September 1944, Canadian brigades advanced  toward the city, not to capture it directly,   but to seal off all access routes. Fighting  concentrated around places such as Loon-Plage,   Mardick, Spycker, and Bergues. The flooded  terrain made operations extremely difficult.

With open fields turned into waterlogged  ground, soldiers were forced to advance along   narrow roads—perfect kill zones for German guns.  German artillery fired on anything within range.  At Loon-Plage, Canadian troops initially pushed  forward but were eventually forced back. Many   soldiers had gone days without food or water.

At  Coppenaxfort, troops had to advance along a long   straight road for kilometres without cover,  under continuous fire. Armoured vehicles were   knocked out and infantry units pinned down.  Progress was slow and costly. Nevertheless,   by mid-September the Allies achieved their  objective: Dunkirk was completely surrounded.   Rather than risk a direct assault, they decided  to leave it contained.

The siege was handed over   to the Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade  Group under General Alois Liška. This unit,   formed in Britain in 1943, consisted of  Czech and Slovak soldiers who had fled   their occupied homeland. From October 1944  onward, the city remained under siege with   no major assault launched. The German  garrison held out inside the perimeter.

Surprisingly, they were still being supplied.  Between 28 April and 2 May 1945, just days before   the end of the war, the Germans used small Seehund  midget submarines. Normally armed with torpedoes,   they were instead fitted with containers  of food. These missions earned them the   nickname “butter torpedoes.

” The submarines  delivered supplies and even carried back   mail. Even in the final days of the war,  Dunkirk functioned as a besieged fortress.  However, the story does not end there. We go  back a month, to early April 1945. At that time,   Commander Frisius made a surprising decision. On 5  April, he launched Operation Blücher—a large-scale   sortie against the Allied lines surrounding  the city.

The attack was so unexpected that   British forces blew up bridges, even dozens  of kilometres away, fearing a breakthrough.   German troops initially gained ground and held  their positions. It was a remarkable moment:   while Berlin was on the verge of collapse, German  forces in Dunkirk were still actively fighting and advancing.  This illustrates the determination of the troops,  but the outcome was inevitable.

On 8 May 1945,   Nazi Germany officially surrendered. One day  later, on 9 May, Dunkirk also capitulated.   In the village of Wormhout, Frisius signed the  surrender to General Liška after eight months   of siege. The Czechoslovak forces suffered 167  dead, 461 wounded, and 40 missing. The Germans,   meanwhile, had held out for months in a port that  ultimately no longer had any strategic value.

The   number of German casualties is unclear. After the  surrender, they were taken as prisoners of war.   The 1944-45 Siege of Dunkirk as well as  Operation Blücher are forgotten battles   of the Second World War. You must know that  I often make videos about these overlooked   clashes of World War II. Do check this playlist  and I am sure that you will learn something new!