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00:00Russia, the summer of 1942.
00:24The Germans are on the move again.
00:32The Sixth Army, Hitler's largest, victorious in France, almost victorious in the first
00:38year of the Russian campaign.
00:40Now it has a new task, to fight further east than the Wehrmacht has ever fought before,
00:46to cut Russia in two on the Volga.
01:16The Sixth Army, Hitler's largest, victorious in France, almost victorious in the first
01:23year of the Russian campaign.
01:47The German army's plan to destroy Russia by a blitzkrieg in 1941 had failed.
01:53And, in the attempt, they lost a million men.
01:57In 1942 they were not strong enough, even with the help of their allies, to attack along
02:02the whole front.
02:04Hitler turned south, to the Caucasus.
02:07Three quarters of Russia's oil was there.
02:10He divided his forces into two groups.
02:13The Sixth Army and the Fourth Panzer Army would move first.
02:19His plan was to encircle and destroy Soviet armies in the Don Bend, drive east towards
02:26Stalingrad and cut off the Caucasus from the rest of the country.
02:31Then, in the main campaign, the other army group would capture Rostov and strike south
02:37to the oil fields.
02:42The offensive started late.
02:44It was high summer before the Sixth Army under Friedrich von Paulus began to move.
02:50The armour in front, as usual.
02:53The motorised supply columns close behind.
03:02The foot soldiers slogged along in the rear.
03:12At first, the Russians seemed to melt away.
03:17No matter how far the Germans advanced, the Red Army always eluded them.
03:41The Germans didn't take many prisoners.
03:44They captured territory and towns.
04:00The army wanted to keep pressing ahead to encircle the Russians, but couldn't.
04:05Time and again, its spearheads had to pause and wait for supplies to catch up.
04:13One soldier, Wilhelm Hoffmann, was keeping a diary.
04:18He thought the war might soon be over.
04:20Perhaps we'll be home by Christmas, he wrote.
05:06EXPLOSIONS
05:16The Russians had lost a quarter of a million troops in the spring.
05:20Now they could not afford pitched battles, so they kept retreating.
05:27For the Russian commanders, it was a skilful, planned withdrawal.
05:32For the Russian troops, it was a demoralising rout.
05:37To Hitler, it was a crushing victory.
05:41He thought the Russian armies had been wiped out.
05:46So, with the offensive barely two weeks old, he started to shift his armies south.
05:52At the end of July, his troops entered Rostov, the key to the Caucasus.
06:02EXPLOSIONS
06:33EXPLOSIONS
06:36Hitler now gave absolute priority to the thrust towards the oil fields.
06:41He unleashed his fresh southern armies.
06:45He diverted the 4th Panzer Army south.
06:48He stripped the 6th Army of its fuel and most of its armour and sent them south too.
06:54But he still expected the 6th Army to carry on as before.
06:59By mid-August, the 6th Army had been on the march for six weeks.
07:03Late in the afternoon of the 23rd, a panzer column reached the Volga just north of Stalingrad.
07:09It cut off river traffic and brought the opposite bank under fire.
07:16The infantry dug in along the railway and waited for reinforcements.
07:29Though the 6th Army's original mission was now accomplished,
07:34Hitler now expected them to take the whole city.
07:38Stalingrad was built on bluffs overlooking the Volga
07:42and stretched 15 miles along its western bank.
07:47The old town, log huts and wooden buildings in the south,
07:51a modern centre, steel and concrete.
07:55To the north, three large factories with workers' housing nearby.
08:01The whole city lay on hilly ground scored by deep ravines.
08:06The Soviet showpiece, Stalin had named it for himself.
08:15Stalin had determined to defend the city.
08:19He decided not to evacuate most of the civilians.
08:22The troops would fight better, he said, for a live city than for a dead one.
08:37Air defences were improvised.
08:40Half the anti-aircraft guns in the town had women crews.
08:44A workers' militia was recruited. Stalin had coined the slogan,
08:48not one step back.
08:51Troops and security police patrolled the streets.
08:57It wasn't all coercion.
09:00There was fear of the Germans and patriotism and communist zeal.
09:10Comrades and citizens of Stalingrad,
09:13each of us must apply ourselves to the task of defending our beloved town,
09:18our homes and our families.
09:21Let us barricade every street, transform every district,
09:25every block, every house into an impregnable fortress.
09:43The Sixth Army had not reached the Volga in enough strength
09:46to take Stalingrad on its own.
09:54Its reserves were still far behind.
10:14The Luftwaffe was called in to help the ground forces.
10:22For three days, from August the 23rd,
10:25every aircraft available on the Russian front attacked the city.
10:34Almost the only defence came from the gunboats on the Volga
10:38and from the batteries on the opposite shore.
10:43The Germans were on their way to Stalingrad.
11:13Stalingrad
11:43Stalingrad
12:13Stalingrad
12:43Stalingrad
13:13Stalingrad
13:43Stalingrad
13:55The city did not fall to air attack,
13:57and the shattered buildings were transformed into fortresses.
14:08The beginning of September.
14:10Russian artillery could harass the Germans from the east bank of the Volga.
14:16But the Russian reserves were useless
14:18unless they could cross the river and be brought into the city.
14:21There were no bridges, and by day,
14:23river ferries were under constant Luftwaffe attack.
14:27As long as the Russians held any of the western bank,
14:30they could send troops into the city.
14:33Once across, they could use tunnels dug into the high bluffs
14:37and force the Germans to battle for every foot.
14:45The German armies held the initiative,
14:48but they were at the very end of a precarious supply line.
14:52All their troops were committed to the offensive.
14:55They had no reserves left if anything went wrong.
15:00September
15:04The Germans launched their first attacks early in September.
15:10September the 11th, Wilhelm Hofmann.
15:13Our battalion is fighting in the suburbs of Stalingrad.
15:16Firing is going on all the time.
15:19Wherever you look is fire and flames.
15:22Russian cannon and machine guns are firing out of the burning city.
15:26Fanatics!
15:29Fanatics!
15:59Fanatics!
16:29Fanatics!
16:59Fanatics!
17:06Hofmann, September the 16th.
17:09Our battalion plus tanks is attacking the grain elevator.
17:13The battalion is suffering heavy losses.
17:16The elevator is occupied not by men but by devils
17:19that no bullets or flames can destroy.
17:22September the 18th.
17:24Fighting is going on inside the elevator.
17:27If all the buildings of Stalingrad are defended like this,
17:30then none of our soldiers will get back to Germany.
17:34September the 20th.
17:36The battle for the elevator is still going on.
17:41September the 22nd.
17:43Russian resistance in the elevator has been broken.
17:46Our troops are advancing towards the Volga.
17:49We found only about 40 Russians dead in the elevator.
17:55The German army high command, a thousand miles away,
17:59was beginning to have second thoughts.
18:01General Halder, chief of staff,
18:04had not seriously opposed Hitler's directives earlier in the year.
18:08Now, with the original strategic objectives accomplished,
18:11he urged caution, but in vain.
18:15A member of Halder's staff observed
18:18that the Fuhrer used to move his hands in big sweeps over the map.
18:22Push here, push there.
18:24It was all vague and took no account of practical difficulties.
18:28Halder refused to take the responsibility
18:30for continuing the advance with winter approaching.
18:34Hitler said,
18:36We now need national socialist ardour
18:39rather than professional ability to settle matters in the east.
18:42Obviously, I cannot expect this of you.
18:46He sacked Halder and replaced him by General Zeitzler,
18:50who was thought to be a genius at logistics,
18:53a man who would know how to move armies where he, Hitler, wanted them to go.
19:03In Stalingrad, the 6th Army's commander was having second thoughts too,
19:07when Paulus's troops were not used to fighting hand to hand in bombed-out cities.
19:21Here, their tanks moved at a snail's pace,
19:24yet Hitler insisted, demanded, that they take the city.
19:51EXPLOSIONS
20:02A Russian soldier, Anton Goznik,
20:05he moved back, occupying one building after another,
20:09turning them into strongholds.
20:12The soldier would crawl out of an occupied position
20:15only when the ground was on fire beneath him
20:18and his clothes were smouldering.
20:42September the 26th, Hoffman complained about the way the Soviets fought.
20:47We don't see them at all.
20:50They've established themselves in houses, in cellars,
20:53and are firing from all sides, including from our rear.
20:57Barbarians. They use gangster methods.
21:08Zeitzler, Hitler's new chief of staff,
21:11took a long look at the situation and told him,
21:14The most dangerous positions on the whole eastern front
21:17are the north front of Stalingrad and the eastern flank of the 4th Panzer Army.
21:22If steps are not taken in good time to rectify the situation,
21:25there will be a disaster.
21:28Hitler replied, You're too pessimistic, Zeitzler.
21:31Here on the eastern front, we've been through worse periods than this
21:34before you joined us and we've survived.
21:37We'll get over our present difficulties too.
21:40The German position was dangerous.
21:4320,000 men a week were being lost in Stalingrad.
21:47They could only be replaced by stripping the army's flanks of German troops.
21:53Romanians were moving in here.
21:56This area was now held by the Italians.
22:00Next to them were Hungarians.
22:03The most precarious position of all was here,
22:06where the Russians held both banks of the River Don.
22:10They faced the Romanian 3rd Army,
22:12which had no heavy anti-tank guns and no tanks either.
22:17Hitler wasn't worried.
22:19He thought, and the high command's own intelligence confirmed this,
22:22that the Russians had no strategic reserves left.
22:29In October, the Germans attacked again towards the Volga.
22:33Unless they captured the entire river bank,
22:36the Russians would bring in troops and supplies at night.
22:41EXPLOSION
23:03Wilhelm Hoffmann, October the 4th.
23:06A lot of Russian tommy gunners have appeared.
23:09Where are they bringing them from?
23:12Another German wondered,
23:14were we really going to have to fight through another of those dreadful Russian winters?
23:21Hoffmann on October the 14th.
23:24It's been fantastic since morning.
23:26Our aeroplanes and artillery have been bombing the Russian positions for hours on end.
23:39EXPLOSION
24:04The Panzerleutnant Weiner wrote,
24:07Stalingrad is no longer a town.
24:10By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke.
24:14It is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames.
24:19And when night arrives,
24:21one of those very hot, noisy, bloody nights,
24:25the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank.
24:30The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them.
24:33Animals flee from this hell.
24:36The hardest stones cannot bear it for long.
24:39Only men endure.
25:06HOFFMAN'S DIARY
25:14Hoffmann's diary, October the 22nd.
25:17Who would have thought, three months ago,
25:21that instead of the joy of victory,
25:23we would have to endure such sacrifices and torture,
25:27the end of which is nowhere in sight?
25:30The soldiers are calling Stalingrad
25:33the mass grave of the Wehrmacht.
25:38From far behind Stalingrad,
25:41long columns of Russian tanks and men came that autumn.
25:46But only a trickle went to Stalingrad,
25:49just enough to keep it from collapsing.
25:52The rest went to assembly areas north and south of the city.
26:03THE WORKING PEOPLE
26:12Newsreels told the Russian public what their leaders wanted them to know,
26:16that small arms factories were working round the clock from Moscow to Georgia.
26:32THE WORKING PEOPLE
26:38Sweethearts were writing letters about production quarters,
26:44or wrapping parcels for the front
26:47and delivering them by special messenger.
26:56Youth groups could adopt their own tanks
26:59and even pose with their crew.
27:04Groups of workers could buy their own Stormovik
27:07and send it off to shoot down Hitlerite invaders.
27:13But the underlying message was clear.
27:16The terrible days of shortage were over.
27:18Now, at last, the Red Army was getting all it needed.
27:22When it seemed likely that Stalingrad would hold out,
27:25its generals were filmed.
27:30GENERAL YEREMENKO
27:32General Yeremenko, commander of the Stalingrad Front,
27:35found time to distribute medals.
27:41Stalin's speeches were much read to the troops.
27:46There was even a Stalingrad oath.
27:49Its burnt-out houses, its ruins, its very stones are sacred.
27:59The war went on.
28:03The Russians ferried their troops across the Volga and the Don
28:07and crammed them into the bridgeheads they had held since the summer.
28:16The Russians dug in and waited.
28:30EXPLOSIONS
28:46The Germans now held nine-tenths of the city.
28:49On November 8th, Hitler made an after-dinner speech in Munich.
28:55I wanted to get to the Volga,
28:59at a particular point where stands a certain town
29:02bears the name of Stalin himself.
29:05I wanted to take the place, and, you know, we've done it.
29:08We've got it, really, except for a few enemy positions still holding out.
29:15Now people say, why don't they finish their job more quickly?
29:18Well, I prefer to do the job with quite small assault groups.
29:22Time is of no consequence at all.
29:53EXPLOSIONS
29:59But time was creeping up on the Germans.
30:03Even before Hitler's speech,
30:06the Russian winter had begun.
30:09EXPLOSIONS
30:23The Germans knew what was coming.
30:26Soon it would be 30, 40, 50 degrees below freezing.
30:31Equipment and men would freeze.
30:40EXPLOSIONS
30:43But the Russians would keep going.
30:58The Russians tried to keep their build-up a secret,
31:01but they could neither move all their men by night,
31:04nor hide completely three-quarters of a million new troops.
31:10On November the 10th, von Paulus asked Hitler
31:15to let him withdraw from Stalingrad.
31:18Hitler told him to keep attacking.
31:23The Russian build-up went on.
31:40EXPLOSIONS
31:44On November the 19th, the Russians struck.
31:47EXPLOSIONS
31:54They attacked the Romanians from the north,
31:57and two days later, from the south.
32:00Within hours, the Russian tanks were through.
32:09EXPLOSIONS
32:27The Russian plans were ambitious.
32:30Their two pincers would cut through the Romanians and link at Kalach.
32:34That would trap the German Sixth Army.
32:37They would reduce the Stalingrad pocket
32:40and could then strike south-east towards Rostov.
32:43That would trap all the Germans in the Caucasus.
32:46EXPLOSIONS
32:49Just four days after the offensive began,
32:52the two Russian armies did link up.
32:55It had all gone so quickly, there was no time to film it,
32:58so it was re-enacted for the cameras.
33:07MUSIC
33:10EXPLOSIONS
33:33The Russians thought they had trapped 75,000 Germans.
33:37In fact, 250,000 men were cut off.
33:41All the Sixth Army, some of the Fourth Panzer Army,
33:45Romanians, Croatians, and even Russian volunteers.
33:49The commander on the spot, von Paulus, asked to be allowed to break out.
33:54Hitler told him to stay put.
33:57He would send troops to break in.
34:00And he sent him a cheery message.
34:02I know the brave Sixth Army and its commander-in-chief.
34:05And I also know that it will do its duty.
34:08EXPLOSIONS
34:18But the army still had to eat.
34:24Göring, the Luftwaffe's commander-in-chief.
34:28Earlier that year, his planes had supplied a whole army cut off
34:32for 60 days with fuel, ammunition and food.
34:35Now he thought they could do it again.
34:38Providing the weather was good and providing the distances weren't too great,
34:42they could fly in 500 tons a day.
34:48Hitler thought that would do,
34:51though he knew the army said it needed at least 800 tons.
35:02EXPLOSIONS
35:14The Russians were waiting.
35:17EXPLOSIONS
35:28Bombers were used as transports.
35:33EXPLOSIONS
35:39The weather was vile.
35:45The airlift brought in only a tenth of what was needed,
35:49though it did once deliver a plane load of ground pepper
35:53and 12 cases of contraceptives.
35:56EXPLOSIONS
36:03The Russians did not attack the 250,000 troops in the pocket directly.
36:07They were not yet strong enough.
36:09Instead, their armies drove westwards,
36:12and the further they drove, the wider grew the gap
36:15between the Germans besieged in Stalingrad and their would-be rescuers.
36:20EXPLOSIONS
36:32EXPLOSIONS
36:36EXPLOSIONS
36:58German troops inside the pocket were cold and hungry, but confident.
37:03They settled down, ready to move when their rescuers got close enough.
37:08But they never came.
37:10The Germans, fighting their way to relieve Stalingrad,
37:13turned back to meet a new threat to the entire southern front.
37:25The Germans in the pocket were on their own.
37:34EXPLOSIONS
37:41The Russians had the upper hand.
37:43Even the quality of their medical care showed it.
37:46German wounded, except the few airlifted home, died in their dugouts.
37:51The Russians at Stalingrad had the best recovery record of any Russian armies.
38:03EXPLOSIONS
38:21The Russians now had mastery of the air.
38:24Their bombers were virtually unopposed.
38:27EXPLOSIONS
38:30Hitler was obsessed by Stalingrad.
38:33The Russians, too.
38:35They could have left the men trapped there to freeze and starve.
38:38Instead, they massed seven armies round the pocket.
38:46EXPLOSIONS
38:49In Stalingrad itself, fighting went on in the same bloody way.
38:57EXPLOSIONS
39:00EXPLOSIONS
39:24On Christmas Eve in Germany,
39:26the radio broadcast this live message from the troops in Stalingrad.
39:37But it was a fake.
39:39Broadcasts from Stalingrad had stopped a week before.
39:42EXPLOSIONS
39:57On Christmas Day, radio Moscow broadcast to the Germans in Stalingrad.
40:03Every seven seconds, a German soldier dies in Russia.
40:07Stalingrad is a mass grave.
40:14The ticking and the message went on all day.
40:21EXPLOSIONS
40:27EXPLOSIONS
40:46The Germans were now eating raw horse flesh.
40:49On January the 8th, the Russians offered surrender terms.
40:53Warmth, medical care, food.
40:56Officers could even keep their ceremonial daggers.
40:59EXPLOSIONS
41:05Hitler refused.
41:07Every day the 6th Army holds out, he said,
41:10helps our situation everywhere else on the front.
41:17January the 10th, the final Russian assault.
41:20EXPLOSIONS
41:27They thought it would take about four days.
41:30EXPLOSIONS
41:51EXPLOSIONS
41:54But two weeks later, they were still fighting.
41:57EXPLOSIONS
42:15On the 24th, von Paulus signalled Hitler.
42:19Troops without munitions or food.
42:22Effective command no longer possible.
42:25Collapse inevitable.
42:27Army requests permission to surrender
42:30in order to save lives of remaining troops.
42:33EXPLOSIONS
42:35Hitler still forbade surrender.
42:38The 6th Army will do its historic duty at Stalingrad until the last man.
42:43EXPLOSIONS
42:47But German soldiers and German officers were already giving themselves up.
43:02EXPLOSION
43:11EXPLOSIONS
43:16EXPLOSIONS
43:30MUSIC
43:46MUSIC
43:49MUSIC
44:13On January 31st, Hitler made von Paulus a field marshal,
44:18knowing no German field marshal had ever been taken alive.
44:33The same day he was promoted, von Paulus surrendered.
44:41His captors had never seen such a senior German officer before.
44:46General Shumilov, who took the surrender, didn't quite know what to do.
44:51So he asked Paulus for proof of his identity.
44:55Then for proof that he was commander of the 6th Army.
44:59Then whether he really was a field marshal.
45:05They talked a while. Von Paulus cheered up.
45:10He even proposed a toast to the Red Army.
45:14Hitler had expected him to shoot himself.
45:28It was not an ordinary defeat. It was a catastrophe.
45:43MUSIC
46:13Two German armies, 24 generals, 2,000 officers, 90,000 soldiers, prisoners, and 150,000 dead.
46:26The Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian armies destroyed.
46:32Enough material lost to equip a quarter of the whole German army.
46:38This was the same 6th Army, which two years before could not imagine defeat.
47:09MUSIC
47:28Prisoners were marched off to camps.
47:3150,000 died within weeks of cold, malnutrition, and typhus.
47:38Of all but 100,000, only 6,000 ever returned home.
47:44MUSIC
48:08MUSIC
48:38MUSIC
48:41MUSIC
49:04The people of Stalingrad came back to look for what was left of their homes.
49:11MUSIC
49:27When it was all over, a Russian soldier said,
49:32Germans are funny fellows, coming to conquer Stalingrad in shiny leather boots.
49:38They thought it would be a joy ride.
49:41MUSIC
50:03MUSIC
50:06When it was all over, Hitler said,
50:09What is life? Life is the nation.
50:13The individual must die anyway.
50:16Beyond the life of the individual is the nation.
50:22On February the 3rd, 1943, the German radio announced that Stalingrad had fallen.
50:30The 6th Army had fought courageously,
50:33but had succumbed to vastly superior enemy forces and to unfavourable circumstances.
50:43MUSIC
51:00MUSIC
51:30MUSIC
52:00MUSIC