The Germans Knew D-Day Was Coming

#history #ww2 #animatedhistory Why D-Day Almost Failed Normandy, 6 June 1944, 5:30 in the morning. A German artillery officer looks through his binoculars and sees the sea full of ships. Within hours, 156,000 Allied soldiers will land in France. We remember D-Day as a victory that was bound to happen. It wasn't. The commander wrote a note in case of failure, one beach came close to being abandoned, and the invasion succeeded partly because the other side kept taking the wrong turn. In this animated documentary we count eight forks from both sides: a phantom army and a double agent called Garbo, Rommel's fight over the panzers, a crossword that leaked the code names, the weatherman who found a gap in the storm, a birthday that took Rommel home, a poem on the BBC, panzers waiting for Hitler, and the battle for Omaha Beach. Then we give our verdict. ⏱ Chapters 0:00 10,000 Ships 1:12 Where Will They Land? 2:58 The Field Marshal and the Panzers 4:12 Secrets 5:32 The Weatherman 7:07 Happy Birthday 8:30 The Night 10:44 Bloody Omaha 12:50 The Verdict Which fork really decided D-Day, 1 to 8? Tell us in the comments. Subscribe for more of history's wrong turns. Sources include Antony Beevor (D-Day: The Battle for Normandy), Max Hastings (Overlord), Ben Macintyre (Double Cross), Stephen E. Ambrose (D-Day: June 6, 1944), Cornelius Ryan (The Longest Day), James Stagg (Forecast for Overlord) and the U.S. Army's Omaha Beachhead study. Character lines are dramatized from words recorded in memoirs and interviews; some of these accounts were told years later and may not be exact, as we say in the narration. Casualty figures are historians' estimates. Illustrations and backgrounds were created with the help of AI tools and animated by Forks of War. #history #ww2 #animatedhistory