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00:00No country, no people suffered so terribly in the war as the Soviet Union.
00:19Nowhere else are the memories of war so alive today and so profound.
00:26The German invasion brought about a catastrophe which it seemed at first no nation could survive.
00:33In the siege of Leningrad alone, which lasted for over two years, more human beings died
00:40than the total war dead of Britain and the United States combined.
00:47Yet it was here that Hitler was broken.
00:51The Russian people faced the possibility that they might perish and overcame it.
00:58We are hoping for the victory.
01:00We are quite sure that the victory will come sometime and we hoped that our hardships would end.
01:51Kharkov, under German occupation, 1942.
02:18Hitler had written in Mein Kampf.
02:20The colossal empire in the East is ripe for dissolution and the end of Jewish domination
02:26in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state.
02:32The Soviet system was to be demolished.
02:35But there was more.
02:39It was in Russia that Hitler would find Lebensraum, new territory for German colonization.
02:50The Soviet peoples would be treated as mere natives in a German colonial empire.
02:55Their cities would be Germanized or razed to the ground.
03:00They would be peddlers, backward peasants, domestic servants, laborers.
03:27Occupants and intellectuals were exterminated.
03:30The least sign of defiance brought instant reprisal.
03:38The occupiers were harsh, very harsh, especially in those areas where the partisans were active.
03:47In the Ukraine, 511 villages were burnt down by the Nazis before the population could escape.
03:56In one village, Pisk, near Kiev, which was totally razed to the ground, babies were
04:04thrown into the fire.
04:12Before the war, the regions now occupied by the Germans had produced nearly three-quarters
04:17of the country's coal and iron, a third of its beef and grain, almost all its sugar.
04:25By autumn 1941, the Germans controlled what had been the industrial and agricultural heart
04:31of the Soviet Union.
04:41The invaders found that the Russians had tried to destroy everything they had to leave behind.
04:46Villages burned, the summer harvest flamed in the fields around them.
04:52By that autumn, the Germans had advanced for 600 miles over scorched earth.
05:01In some of the Baltic republics, which had only been annexed by the Soviet Union a year
05:06before, the Germans were made welcome by local nationalists.
05:13In parts of the Ukraine, some of the peasants made the traditional offering of bread and
05:17salt.
05:24The bodies of nationalists shot by the Soviet security at the last moment were brought out
05:29and carried through the streets.
05:36For a brief moment, it seemed to some that these submerged nations might become willing
05:41partners of the Nazis.
05:46The Soviets were hunted down, and in all the places the Nazis occupied, the round-up of
05:52the Jews began.
06:17In the path of the Germans, Russia seemed to be crumbling away.
06:22Stalin had the defeated commander of the Western Front and his staff arrested and shot.
06:36Monuments of Soviet construction, even the Dnieper Dam, the very symbol of the Five-Year
06:40Plans, had to be blown up and abandoned.
06:51Ships were wrecked, though they were needed as never before, for there now began a planned
06:56evacuation which, in the end, was to save Russia and change the course of the war.
07:12Fifteen hundred factories moved on 18,000 trains, with over a million workers, to the
07:18safety of Eastern Russia and the Europe.
07:22One witness said, it was as if the earth tilted up and everything human or mechanical rolled
07:29from west to east.
07:35There was no factory when we arrived.
07:38There were only storehouses where materials were kept.
07:45We began by emptying the stores and clearing the land around us.
07:53We were working up to 14 hours a day.
07:58In bleak places, lacking food or sleep, the Russians reconstructed a new war industry
08:03beyond the reach of the Nazis.
08:09When we'd emptied the storehouses, the machinery arrived.
08:15Where the warehouses used to be, we built a new factory.
08:36Unlike the Germans, the Russians from the first hour waged a total war.
08:43Every pair of hands was set to the machines as the men were drafted into the battles of
08:47the West.
08:49War work strained everyone to the heart.
08:52Eleven to fifteen hours a day, rations short, worry about a husband or a son at the front,
08:58exhaustion like a permanent illness.
09:08But for the cameras, they wore a cheerful, determined face.
09:17Now the Germans were breaking through to Leningrad, Russia's second city and capital of the revolution.
09:29The workers were given rifles.
09:39Harking back to the days of revolution, Leningrad's leaders encouraged the whole city to stand
09:44and fight.
09:45Untrained, they marched out to face the panzers within sight of their own factory chimneys.
09:54The chance to get non-combatants out of Leningrad was missed.
09:58Anyway, most families preferred to stay.
10:02My husband, he got to a place on a plane and he asked me certainly to take the child and
10:11go with him, but I refused because I couldn't left my mother and his mother, my mother-in-law,
10:19here in the besieged city.
10:23So I told him to take the old lady with him and I remained in Leningrad with my mother
10:29and child.
10:30In September, the German ring closed.
10:34Over two and a half million people were trapped in the city, four hundred thousand of them
10:39children.
10:41Leningrad's only link with Russia was across Lake Ladoga.
10:44The greatest of all sieges was beginning.
10:47Now Stalin intervened.
10:50Marshal Voroshilov, in command of Leningrad, was sacked.
10:53In his place was sent Marshal Georgi Zhukov, who was to become one of the great commanders
10:57of the war.
10:59His deputy was the hard and resourceful Andrei Zhdanov, Leningrad's Communist Party chief.
11:09Leningrad soon felt the new team's determination.
11:14Outside the city, Zhukov threatened that anyone who retreated further would be shot.
11:20Inside, the security forces hunted down spies and defeatists.
11:24Zhdanov's men ended the wastage of food, mobilizing everybody for the city's defense.
11:37Every major building was mined in case the Germans broke in.
11:43The German attempt to take Leningrad by storm failed.
11:54Berlin ordered, the Fuhrer has decided to raze the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth.
12:01There is no reason for the future existence of this large city.
12:08The Leningraders were to be bombarded and starved to death.
12:19Day after day, the bombers came over.
12:49German gunners could see the spires of Leningrad from their lines.
13:18Their shells could strike every district, every street.
13:41Lake Ladoga remained the only gap in the enemy ring.
13:45When it froze, an ice road for supplies was built across its surface.
14:01Trucks fell through the ice or were destroyed by air attack.
14:16The ice road could bring too little in and take too few civilians out
14:21to keep Leningrad from the onset of starvation.
14:26Everything was running out.
14:28Trams and buses stopped.
14:30In the darkness and intense cold of the North Russian winter,
14:34there was no longer heating or electric light.
14:37Workers, half conscious with hunger, kept the arms factories turning,
14:43even when shells had torn off the roof.
14:54Tons of raw, unpainted steel drove out of the factory into the front line.
15:00Bread was now made with sweepings, cattle cake, sawdust.
15:05People ate soap, linseed oil, a paste for wallpaper.
15:11Housewives and children got only four and a half ounces of this bread a day.
15:30Frozen and silent, Leningrad refused to die.
15:36The libraries stayed open.
15:39People took inspiration from the new literature of the blockade.
15:45Poetry was for us a great force that kept us alive.
15:51For what they say of Leningrad is true.
15:53The tears have frozen in the people's eyes.
15:56We cry no longer, for no tears could quench our burning hate.
16:01And hate is our only cause.
16:04The guarantee of life, the cure for grief, the one uniting, warming, guiding force.
16:12At the end of November, December, in general, were the most tragical times.
16:19Firstly, it was, quote, minus 40.
16:23Then the famine, the hunger began to be felt.
16:31And people began to starve and to die from cold.
16:38Siege went on.
16:42There were few ways to hit back at the Germans.
16:46One was with naval guns from the warships trapped in the port.
16:51On land, small raiding parties penetrated behind the German trenches.
17:04They cut supply lines.
17:06They captured prisoners and collected information.
17:18They descended on collaborators and tried them on the spot.
17:33January 1942.
17:36About 4,000 people were dying in Leningrad each day.
18:03When I went to the shops to receive my ration for my family,
18:16if I passed on the way there, two bodies, so on the way back there were four.
19:04Outside the ring, the Russians fought to loosen the German blockade
19:10and speed up the pitifully slow convoys across the frozen lake.
19:15But there was no major offensive to break the siege ring and no airlift.
19:22The battles before Moscow had first called on men and equipment.
19:34Spring brought new fears.
19:37The murderous cold slackened,
19:39and melting snowdrifts revealed thousands of corpses in the streets and yards.
19:49A campaign was launched to clean up the city.
20:01There was no epidemic.
20:15Now the ice road was melting.
20:17Although there would be a difficult time before the lake was clear for ships,
20:22the mood in Leningrad was turning confident.
20:25When the sun began to shine, we began to clean and to wash,
20:32because now we had water in our homes.
20:36We began to feel normal again.
20:40The city council dared to send a few trams back on the streets.
20:45We greeted the tram as a long-forgotten friend coming back to us.
20:50I remember I clapped my hand when I saw the tram running along the city.
21:15The survivors felt stronger.
21:25Their rations were increased.
21:42Squads of young volunteers went from house to house,
21:45bringing help to families who in the winter
21:47had almost lost contact with the city outside.
21:59Children who should have been evacuated eight months before
22:02were taken by ship across Lake Ladoga.
22:12The ships brought back fresh troops and munitions
22:15to relieve the gaunt men in the trenches.
22:18Leningrad began to look more like a military base.
22:25The worst of the siege was over.
22:28When the bombardment went on, it now made sense to repair the damage.
22:34Heat was dug for fuel against the next winter.
22:39Schoolchildren and professors of botany
22:42helped to plant every open space with vegetables.
22:53There were no worries about food for the Germans
22:55occupying the prairies of the Ukraine.
22:58For 50 years, German expansionists had looked to this region
23:02to free Germany from dependence on imports by sea.
23:08General Manstein said,
23:09a large part of the population will have to go hungry.
23:14Nothing out of a misguided sense of humanity
23:17may be given to the population
23:19unless they are in the service of the German Wehrmacht.
23:50In Kiev, the Ukrainian capital,
23:53plans to win over local nationalists
23:55with the promise of an anti-Russian puppet state
23:58never got off the ground.
24:00They were brushed aside by the army and the SS.
24:03The reality was work under German overseers
24:08or deportation to the Reich.
24:14Each village learned the price of defiance.
24:24In Moscow in early 1942, there was confidence.
24:28The winter fighting had revealed
24:29that the Germans were no more invincible than Napoleon had been.
24:33But it seemed to the Russians
24:34that they were bearing the whole burden of the war
24:36against fascism alone and that the West was not doing enough.
24:43When Stalin began to call for a second front,
24:46a landing in the West,
24:47the people joined willingly in the meetings
24:49organized to support it.
24:52Molotov, the foreign minister,
24:53was told by Western diplomats
24:55that though they admired the heroism of the Red Army,
24:59a second front was not yet practical.
25:02Stalin didn't believe them.
25:09Stalin was in direct command of an army
25:11becoming harder and more formidable every day.
25:17But the Russians did not pretend to be immune to grief.
25:21Tens of thousands knew this poem by heart.
25:25Wait for me, and I'll return.
25:28Only wait very hard.
25:31Wait when you are filled with sorrow
25:33as you watch the yellow rain.
25:36Wait when the winds sweep the snowdrifts.
25:39Wait in the sweltering heat.
25:41Wait when others have stopped waiting
25:44for getting their yesterdays.
25:46Wait even when from afar no letters come to you.
25:50Wait even when others are tired of waiting.
25:54Wait even when my mother and son think I am no more.
25:58And when friends sit around the fire
26:00drinking to my memory,
26:02wait, and do not hurry to drink to my memory too.
26:07Wait, for I'll return, defying every death.
26:13And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky.
26:18They never will understand that in the midst of death
26:21you, with your waiting, saved me.
26:25Only you and I will know how I survived.
26:29It's because you waited as no one else did.
26:36Still disasters to come.
26:38In May, the Germans beat off a Russian offensive near Kharkov.
26:43As the Red Army advanced, the panzers cut round its flanks.
26:57The Soviet commanders begged to be allowed to pull back
27:00before it was too late.
27:02But Stalin, pushing advice aside, forbade them to retreat.
27:07The German pincers closed.
27:10Most of the men of three Russian armies
27:12were forced to lay down their arms.
27:33In the whole war,
27:35over five million Russian soldiers were taken prisoner.
27:40Less than two million survived.
27:48For the British especially,
27:51the Russians were now our gallant Soviet ally.
27:56But at first, help could be sought.
28:00But at first, help could only come through the Arctic Convoy,
28:04heading for Murmansk and Archangel,
28:07through the killing ground of the German U-boats, bombers and warships.
28:18In July 1942, this one convoy lost 80% of its ships.
28:24But the courage of British seamen
28:27could not make the convoys carry enough for Russia's gigantic needs.
28:321942 was the year of deep war.
28:37Defeat fought off, but as yet, no sign of victory.
28:42This was a time of bitter endurance,
28:45a season for learning to bear disappointment and loss.
28:50Once it seemed possible that German soldiers
28:53were only brother workers in uniform.
28:56Now, Soviet writers spoke in words of hate.
29:00One can bear anything, the plague, hunger and death,
29:04but one cannot bear the Germans.
29:07One cannot bear these fish-eyed oafs
29:10contemptuously snorting at everything Russian.
29:13We cannot live as long as these grey-green slugs are alive.
29:18Today there are no books. Today there are no stars in the sky.
29:22Today there is only one thought.
29:25Kill the Germans. Kill them all and dig them into the earth.
29:30Then we can go to sleep.
29:32Then we can think again of life and books and girls and happiness.
29:42We shall kill them all, but we must do it quickly,
29:45or they will desecrate the whole of Russia
29:48and torture to death millions more people.
30:02As the Soviet soldiers advanced,
30:05they found what Germans had been doing to civilians.
30:15HEAVY BREATHING
30:45HEAVY BREATHING
31:03The churches were full once more.
31:15The priesthood was invited to pray for the life of Holy Russia,
31:19to work on the patriotism of the worshippers.
31:25The icons were honoured again.
31:28The public campaign for atheism was dropped.
31:46CHOIR SINGS
31:58The Germans murdered Jews and Communists.
32:02They murdered those suspected of supporting the partisans.
32:06They murdered hostages.
32:16After battle, in retreat, they just murdered.
32:36To the north, the Russians prepared to attack the German ring round Leningrad.
32:42As they waited, runners brought the news
32:45of the surrender of the German armies at Stalingrad.
32:50For army and people, this was the sudden glow of victory at the tunnel's end.
32:55Now they knew they would win.
32:59EXPLOSION
33:12EXPLOSION
33:25At Leningrad, the relieving troops broke through.
33:31CHANTING
33:41They forced open a land route.
33:43The 16-month blockade was over.
33:46But they did not break the siege.
33:49The Germans and Finns still lay around the city.
33:53CHANTING
33:56It was such a feeling, I can't relate it.
33:59I went to my neighbour across the yard,
34:02and we kissed each other and told each other,
34:05now we shall live, there is a way out.
34:08In a fortnight, a railway was laid through the gap.
34:12Food and fuel began to roll into Leningrad.
34:16EXPLOSION
34:21The symbols of old Russian honour were restored to the army
34:25as they had been to the church.
34:27CHANTING
34:30Propaganda united Lenin with Alexander Nevsky.
34:38The 18th century hero, Suvorov.
34:46Heroes of the Red Cavalry, mighty ghosts
34:49cheering forward the avengers of the Soviet motherland.
34:57The insignia of a traditional and professional army were brought back.
35:04Gold braid was imported from Britain.
35:07Political commissars lost rank.
35:11The years of the purges were forgotten.
35:16CHANTING
35:41CHANTING
35:56Every Soviet citizen felt himself a part of the common struggle.
36:01Some people say it was the fascist cruelty
36:04which led to resistance in the Ukraine and other occupied lands.
36:09No.
36:14I believe resistance was inevitable.
36:23Soviet people in the rear could not hold themselves back from the struggle.
36:28CHANTING
36:39In 1941, behind the lines, partisan bands began to form.
36:45At first they lacked arms.
36:47They grew slowly.
36:56German deportations for forced labour made thousands flee to the forests
37:00where they joined the partisans.
37:08CHANTING
37:18Soon the partisans became a formidable army
37:21operating against the enemy lines of communication.
37:38EXPLOSION
37:56The penalty for collaboration was death.
37:59On a mere suspicion of sympathy for the enemy,
38:02whole national groups, the Volga Germans, the Crimean Tatars
38:06were deported to Central Asia.
38:08For individual collaborators, no mercy.
38:11EXPLOSION
38:21As German prisoners were paraded through Leningrad,
38:24people struck out at an enemy they could reach.
38:37EXPLOSIONS
38:44In the steppes of Soviet Asia,
38:46in the new factories and mines of Siberia,
38:49the most desperate production effort of modern times was coming to its climax.
38:54EXPLOSIONS
39:06CHANTING
39:36CHANTING
39:42Russia had been caught with obsolete aircraft,
39:45unfit for close battle support.
39:48Now the plants turned out 9,000 modern aircraft every month.
39:52In 1943, military output finally outstripped Germany's.
39:58CHANTING
40:07Above all, it was the tank.
40:10In 1943, the factories built 24,000 of them.
40:17More than any other weapon, it was the tank,
40:20especially the famous T-34, which won the battle on the Eastern Front.
40:26CHANTING
40:37CHANTING
40:41With the American trucks now streaming in from Persia,
40:44this torrent of armour moved up to the line.
40:49The Russians knew that in July 1943,
40:52the Germans would launch their full strength against them once more.
40:57They knew, too, that the blow would fall at Kursk.
41:00They must hold firm.
41:03Then, the Red Army, now the biggest land force ever seen in war,
41:07would strike back.
41:12The Germans planned to drive into the shoulders of the Kursk Bulge,
41:15hoping to cut off the huge Soviet armies there.
41:18Then, hit at Moscow.
41:28They brought up 70 divisions,
41:30almost a million men, with the new Tiger tanks and Ferdinand guns.
41:34Hitler had intended to strike in May,
41:36but there were delays in production and building of reserves.
41:48Weeks passed.
41:50When the Germans were ready to attack,
41:52the Russians were waiting for them.
42:01We were all prepared.
42:03We were more than ready to meet Hitler's attack.
42:07We knew we had enough armour
42:09to stop the fascists breaking through our defences.
42:20Our reconnaissance patrols had captured prisoners.
42:24Then, we learnt that Hitler's troops planned to start the attack
42:28at 2.30 in the morning on July 5th.
42:32The news was given to our troops.
42:38A commander sits in the observation post,
42:41the soldiers are in the trenches,
42:44and tomorrow the enemy is expected to attack.
42:48You can imagine what thoughts are in his mind.
42:59There were more than a hundred tanks every kilometre.
43:04When tanks are moving, the whole earth trembles,
43:07and the guns fire at the soldier.
43:10When tanks are moving, the whole earth trembles,
43:13and the guns fire at the soldier.
43:16But the soldier just sits.
43:28Soviet aircraft took off at dawn
43:30to wreck the German bombers waiting on their airfield.
43:41The Germans kept to the timetable.
43:46On the morning of July 5th,
43:48the Panzer divisions moved forward.
44:10Kursk was the biggest tank battle in history.
44:26Kursk was the biggest tank battle in history.
44:31In the north, the German Panzer made 10 miles in 5 days
44:34and halted with 50,000 dead and 400 tanks destroyed.
44:41In the south, in an even vaster battle,
44:44a 20-mile dent was made in the Russian defences,
44:47but the Germans were spent.
44:50On July 15th, Hitler called off the Kursk offensive.
44:59The Red Army went over to the attack.
45:10The Red Army went over to the attack.
45:41Under bombardment, the Sappers went ahead
45:44to cut a path into the German defences.
46:00Through the gap, the tanks plunged forward,
46:03the troops riding on their sides.
46:10The tanks plunged forward, the troops riding on their sides.
46:33These were the new Russian soldiers,
46:35very different from the defeated masses of 1941.
46:40Their clothes were shabby, but their weapons were clean.
46:43They were tough, chasing the enemy into close-quarter battle.
46:48They were resourceful, trained to live off the land
46:51and to cross rivers on their own.
46:57If there was no boat, a bench or a log would do.
47:06They went without regular leave or pay,
47:09but now their morale was fierce and high.
47:16In military terms, it was Kursk which decided
47:19how the European war would end.
47:23When this supreme German effort failed,
47:25the Soviet victory began.
47:29At first, the fighting to break through the German positions
47:32was hard and slow, but after nine days,
47:35the Red Army had recaptured all the ground lost
47:38during the first German offensive.
47:41The Germans began to fall back,
47:44destroying everything as they went.
47:47Now they, the enemy,
47:50was in a state of complete defeat.
47:53The Soviet Union had to retreat.
47:56The Soviet Union had to retreat.
47:59The Soviet Union had to retreat.
48:02The Soviet Union had to retreat.
48:05The Soviet Union had to retreat.
48:08They were destroying everything as they went,
48:11but now they were under constant attack by Soviet fighters.
48:17The Luftwaffe had lost command of the air.
48:33Suddenly, the towns of occupied Russia
48:36were full of armour moving west.
48:39After two years, the conquerors were pulling out.
48:49At Leningrad, the Germans were still at the outskirts.
48:52The city still under shell fire.
49:02The siege was not to be finally broken
49:04until January the following year.
49:12The strength of Russia,
49:14like a gigantic spring compressed back to its limit,
49:17was now bursting forward.
49:20The first cities were liberated.
49:35On August the 5th, 1943,
49:38Oriel and Belgorod were free.
49:44In each town, those who had died in battle were buried.
49:52Do not call me, Father.
49:55Do not seek me.
49:58Do not call me. Do not wish me bad.
50:01Do not call me. Do not wish me bad.
50:04We're on a route uncharted.
50:07Fire and blood erase our track.
50:10On we fly, on wings of thunder, never more to sheath our swords.
50:13All of us in battle fallen,
50:16not to be brought back by words.
50:19Will there be a rendezvous? I know not.
50:22I only know we still must fight.
50:25We are sand grains in infinity,
50:28never more see life.
50:34Farewell, then, my son. Farewell, then, my conscience,
50:37my youth and my solace,
50:40my one and my only.
50:43And let this farewell be the end of a story
50:46of solitude vast and which none is more lonely,
50:49in which you remain barred forever and ever
50:52from light and from air with your death pangs untold,
50:56and unsoothed, not to be resurrected forever and ever,
50:59an eighteen-year-old.
51:02Farewell, then.
51:05No trains ever come from those regions, unscheduled or scheduled.
51:08No aeroplanes fly there.
51:11Farewell, then, my son, for no miracles happen,
51:14as in this world dreams do not come true.
51:17Farewell.
51:20I will dream of you still as a baby,
51:23with little strong toes.
51:26The earth where already so many lie buried.
51:29This song to my son, then, has come to its close.
51:38In Moscow, Stalin announced,
51:41tonight at 2400 hours on August the 5th,
51:44the capital of our country, Moscow,
51:47will salute the valiant troops who liberated Oryol and Gelgorod.
51:50To arms!
51:56Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the struggle
51:59for the freedom of our country.
52:02Death to the German invaders.
52:09In November, Kiev was freed.
52:20The end
53:20The end
53:38Russia was saved by its soldiers and by its people.
53:41But in the end,
53:44never to welcome the coming of peace,
53:47lay 20 million dead.
54:17The end
54:47The End