German WWII Archive

Hey everyone,

I hope you all had a great start to the new year and are doing well.

Today, January 6th, marks the birthday of the last two living German Knights Cross Holders of WWII. Out of the over 7,000 people who were awarded this award, these two are the only ones still alive, and considering that the Knights Cross is amongst the most well-known awards of WWII, I thought I’d write a short text about them:

The first one, the older one, is Hugo Broch.

Born on January 6th, 1922, in Leichlingen, a small town near Cologne, Broch joined the Air Force on January 15th, 1940, a few days after his 18th birthday. Between November 1940 and October 1941 he completed his basic pilot training, followed by fighter pilot courses, which he completed between November 1941 and February 1942, and again between May and November 1942 at the Fighter Pilot School 2 in Zerbst.

He was then assigned to the 6th Staffel of the 2nd Group of JG 54, which he joined in January 1943. Fighting on the northern part of the Eastern Front,he claimed his first kill on March 7th, but that was not officially acknowledged. His first official kill was on March 13th, where he shot down a Soviet Il-2 battle plane. He also took part during Operation Citadel, the famous Battle of Kursk. After his Staffel had to be evacuated towards Ukraine due to Soviet counterattacks, he continued to operate mostly over Ukrainian territory, and after his 44th kill, he was awarded the Honor Goblet of the Luftwaffe on November 6th, 1943; a few days later on the 26th, he was also awarded the German Cross in Gold.

Afterwards, he was active as a flying instructor in France and Silesia between December 1943 and August 1944, but returned to his unit, which was now stationed in Lithuania. For the reminder of the war, he fought in Courland, and on March 12th, 1945, he was awarded the Knights Cross after 79 kills. His final award was the “Kurland” cuff title, which he was awarded on April 20th, 1945. In total, he shot down 81 Soviet planes, including 12 heavily armored Il-2 Sturmoviks.
On May 8th, 1945, he flew with his plane to Flensburg, where he surrendered to British troops and was a POW for two months. After the war, he worked for the Agfa AG, a chemical company in Leverkusen, until he retired.
In 2017, aged 95, he was the first former Luftwaffe pilot that flew aboard a Spitfire, which was widely reported especially in British press.


The second living Knights Cross holder is Heinz Rafoth.

Born one year later, on January 6th, 1923, in Putzar, a small town in Pomerania, close to the present German-Polish border, he was drafted in October 1940. His unit was the 3rd Company of Infantry Regiment 48, 12th Infantry Division.

His first combat experience was during the German invasion of the Soviet Union, where he also, similar to Broch, fought in the northern sector of the Eastern Front. He was wounded for the first time in October 1941, returned to his unit in December; his division was one of the units that got encircled in the Demyansk pocket.

Rafoth proved to be a capable soldier, and was promoted to Sergeant in September 1942; in February 1943, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class. He continued fighting with the 12th Infantry Division at Staraya Russa, later in the Nevel area and in late '43/early '44 around Vitebsk, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class and the Close Combat Clasp in Bronze.

In March 1944, he was ordered to attend officer training. As the Wehrmacht lost many of its officers after years of fighting, more and more NCOs were sent to a officer training to fill up the gaps. In August 1944, he was promoted to Lieutenant.

In January 1945, he “returned” to the 12th , which was destroyed on the Eastern Front in June 1944 and raised again as 12th Volksgrenadier Division, now fighting on the Western Front; Rafoth was appointed chief of the 2nd Company of Grenadier Regiment 48.

In March 1945, his Battalion was surrounded by American troops in Blessem, a small town west of Cologne. Rafoth took over command of a Kampfgruppe- only around 20 men-, which was supposed to cover a breakout attempt by the battalion. However, he spotted strong American forces moving in, and decided to attack the Americans, which were completely taken by surprise and pushed back.
Rafoths group captured a railway bridge and held it against strong enemy counterattacks for two hours, allowing his battalion to safely retreat and slowing down the American advance towards Cologne. For this action, he was awarded the Knights Cross on April 20th, 1945.


After the war, Rafoth finished his PhD in agriculture in 1952, and joined the post-war Bundeswehr in 1956 as a captain. He joined the BND, Germanys secret intelligence service, and was involved in the Guillaume affair in the 1970s. This text is already long enough as it is, so I won’t go into details about it, but feel free to look it up if you’re interested.

Rafoth retired in March 1982, and nowadays lives in Bavaria.

So there you have it, a brief biography of the last two living Knights Cross holders, who celebrate their 104th and 103rd birthday today, respectively. I hope you found this story a bit interesting, and I thank you all for watching my videos and supporting my channel!

Wishing you all a great new year!

The first and second images show Hugo Broch (right person) in 1945, the second image shows him a few years ago.

The third image shows Heinz Rafoth, both in his Wehrmacht uniform and in his post-war Bundeswehr uniform.

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5 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 445

German WWII Archive

Hey everyone,
I hope you are all doing well.

As 2025 is coming to an end, I would like to thank you all for supporting this channel, watching my videos and posting comments- a lot of them are interesting to read, and I do read every single one of them (some are also borderline stupid, but at least they make me laugh).

I want to extend a special thanks to everyone who has supported this channel financially over the year, so all my Patreon supporters and people who have donated coffee to me. I will finally start working next year, so money will be less of an issue, but as a poor student, it still is very much an issue now, so I greatly appreciate the support.

I actually had a lot more planned this year in terms of narrated videos and I have some pretty neat ideas about that, but sadly I don't have much time for that and I've also been super busy with job hunting, writing my master thesis and asking homeless people to leave (I work nightshifts as a security guard).

Anyways, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year 2026.
I've also just released a Christmas-themed video, and this will be my last video for this year.
I will take a small break and will be back with a new video in the first weekend of January.

Untill then, take care, have a happy new year and I'll see you all again next year!

2 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 649

German WWII Archive

Hey everyone,
I hope you are all doing well.

I have a small question for you: Would you prefer a video in lower quality, but without a watermark (first picture), or would you prefer a higher quality version but with a watermark (second picture)?

Ultimately, for me it doesn't really matter much, but I just wanted to get some opinions from you guys, so let me know in the comments below!

Hope you are all having a good start into the week! :)

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1 month ago | [YT] | 297

German WWII Archive

“On the Battlefields of the Greater German Struggle for Freedom", a German personalized propaganda film for Field Marshall von Brauchitsch, is now avaliable on Patreon! If you have a few bucks to spare and want to support the channel, head over to Patreon! (please do, I need money)

This one is actual a rather interesting piece of propaganda film. It is meant as a birthday present for the 60th birthday of the commander in chief of the German Army, Field Marshall Walther von Brauchitsch (1881-1948), who held that post between February 1938 and December 1941.

While it follows the German campaigns through Poland, France, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, it places a special emphasis on the work of von Brauchitsch, showing him leading German forces, conducting frontline visits, awarding medals, visiting field hospitals, and even some interesting and rare footage of him being presented a Samurai sword by Japanese General Yamashita, or being present at the meeting of Hitler and Franco at the Hendaye station in southern France in October 1940.

It is 32 minutes long and definitly worth a watch, so again, if you want to support the channel, head over to Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/GermanWWIIArchive

Thanks to everyone who supports the channel. And of course, the content on the Youtube channel will always be free, but if you're interested in some extra content, feel free to take a look at my Patreon.

Have a nice weekend!

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4 months ago | [YT] | 297

German WWII Archive

Hey everyone,
I hope you are all doing well.

While I usually don't share much of the readings I do on WWII, I came across a rather interesting article in the Japan Times today that talked about a few of the last living Japanese veterans of WWII.

It is definitely worth a read if you're interested in the topic, so here is the link:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/07/29/japan/history/last-soldiers-imperial-army-wwii/

That's all for today, as always, stay safe and thank you all very much for the interest in my channel. :)

5 months ago | [YT] | 157

German WWII Archive

Happy 4th of July to all my American subscribers!

1st image: German Paratroopers from the 500th SS-Paratrooper Battalion holding captured British and American flags after Operation Rösselsprung, the failed attempt at capturing Yugoslav Partisan leader Tito, early June 1944

2nd image: Japanese soldiers with a captured American flag and weapons, Shanghai, December 8th, 1941

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6 months ago | [YT] | 234

German WWII Archive

Hey everyone,
I hope you are all doing well.

I just wanted to quickly remind you that I have a Discord server, which is currently about as active as the German Army in April 1945.

So, if you want to chat with me or other WWII enthusiasts about WWII, gaming, the current state of the world or anything else, feel free to join: https://discord.gg/Qm3GzNXePu

There are some weird people in there (including me), but generally everyone is friendly and easy to talk to^^

Thats all for today, I wish you all a good start in the week and thanks for watching my videos!

6 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 138

German WWII Archive

Hey everyone,
I hope you are all doing well.

As some of you may have already seen, this channel has recently reached 70,000 subscribers.
I want to thank all of you for being subscribed to this channel and watching my videos. I could have never imagined reaching 70,000 subscribers, and I am very grateful for that.

A special thanks goes out to all my Patreon subscribers and people who have donated money to me, no matter the amount. You guys are the sole reason I am still doing this channel, and I cannot stress how thankful I am for your financial contribution to this channel.

This will probably be the last milestone that this channel will ever reach. As some of you may be familiar with, channel growth has slowed down considerably, and I am currently gaining, according to YouTube Studio, on average between 68 and 109 new subscribers every month. Even going from 69,200 to 70,000 subscribers took over seven months.

So I highly doubt that this channel will ever reach 80,000 subscribers, but that’s alright.
Again, I am very grateful to everyone who has subscribed and who is still watching my videos.
As a special thanks, I will upload an additional video tomorrow. It’s somewhat different from the usual war stuff, a bit more lighthearted, so stay tuned.

I wish you all a good week ahead and again: Thank you!

8 months ago | [YT] | 254

German WWII Archive

I have just uploaded my 150th video on this channel.
What originally started a few years ago as just me uploading some obscure German speeches and radio broadcasts from WWII, has evolved into something that I honestly never expected, and 150 videos is actually quite a lot.

(Actually, including the Patreon-exclusive videos, I've long surpassed 150 videos, but that's just a small detail)

Thank you all for watching my stuff and being subscribed to my channel, and a very special thank you to all my Patreon subscribers and people who have donated to me, without you, I would have stopped doing this a long time ago.
As of recently, I don't get that many views anymore, which is somewhat sad, but I'll still continue, at least untill I graduate University (March next year). I have more than enough video material anyway.

So yeah, thank you all for watching and commenting my videos, and I hope the stuff I upload and the subtitles I make have been helpful to at least some of you.
Here's to the next 150 videos, I guess^^

9 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 322

German WWII Archive

Hey everyone,

I hope you are all doing well.
I just wanted to give you all a quick update that I was able to track down a few Italian Fascist Newsreels from WWII. I've already uploaded an Italian Newsreel last weekend, but this was more of a German newsreel with Italian narration.

I was now able to actually find a few Italian newsreels prodcued by the LUCE Institute (basically the Fascist Italian propaganda movie company), and, more important, I was also able to properly translate them (well, I'd say the translations are 90% accurate).

Here are some screenshots from an episode I'm currently working on, from April 1943, which features interesting scenes of Italian reconnaissance units in Tuinisia, and footage from the 20th anniversary of the Royal Italian Air Force. The video is not the best quality wise, but it's acceptable.

Obviously, this channel was and will always be focused on German WWII stuff, but I am genuinely interested in these Italian newsreels, its something different after all, so I will upload one or maybe a few more in the future.

That's all for today, wishing you all a great week ahead!

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10 months ago | [YT] | 373