How Stalin Achieved One Of The Greatest Comebacks In Military History | Man Of Steel

when Nazi Germany invaded Russia in June 1941 the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin teetered on the brink of Collapse by December the Germans had driven the Russians back over 600 mil and were at the gate of Moscow What followed is one of the most remarkable turnarounds in military history 3 years later the Russians were at the gates of Berlin this film is about why Stalin would eventually emerge as the big winner from World War II and what the cost would be for Russia Europe and the world Stalin had to learn to bend and compromise in order to win he would even enter into perhaps the most bizarre shotgun marriage in diplomatic history sealed with an arch capitalist during a drunken evening in the [Music] Kem Stalin had a strange almost seductive charm Winston Churchill an unremitting enemy of communism responded with respect at times even affection towards the man he himself nicknamed Uncle Joe this is the enduring mystery of Stalin the friendly uncle and the Man of Steel a Titan of the second world war and a monster of the 20th century who got away with it [Music] Stalin made a critical decision soon after the German invasion much of Soviet industry lay west of Moscow easy pickings for Hitler so the Russians dismantled some, 1500 factories put them on trains together with workers and families and then rebuilt them east of the Ural [Music] Mountains the scale was incredible over a million Railway wagons were needed placed end to endend it was estimated they would have stretched right across the country from Poland to the Pacific what made ordinary Russians soldiers and civilians struggle so tenaciously here's one story which I think captures the spirit of Russian resistance in 1941 fleeing the German Onslaught on the road to Moscow the war correspondent vasel grman was given Shelter by an old peasant woman she used up her tiny stock of supplies welcoming him with a good meal and a roaring fire all the while singing songs she told grman of her son fighting at the front and of her nightmares the devil came to me last night and sank his claws into my hand I started to pray but the devil took no notice so I told him to [ __ ] off and then he did [Music] disappear grman was very struck by the this typically Russian mix of generosity and bloody mindedness if we do win in this terrible cruel War it will be because there are such Noble hearts in our nation they illuminate all our people with a miraculous light for this old woman and for millions of Russians their Defiance was rooted in a deeper sense of Homeland of Russ history and faith that stretched back long before Lenin and [Music] Stalin one popular wartime poem tapped into this mood Imagining the ghosts of the old religious Russia coming to the aid of Stalin's Godless Communists it was as if at the graves in each Russian village guarding the living with the sign of the cross our ancestors were gathering to pray for their grandsons who no longer believe in a [Music] god with customary opportunism Stalin responded to this resurgent sense of history and Russians in turn responded to Stalin or more precisely to the heroic image of Stalin projected by the regime the Man of Steel the modern are became a symbol for the Russian people of their determination to resist the new Invaders Stalin accelerated his transformation into nationalist leader his speech for the revolution day parade in November invoked Lenin but also the Russian Heroes who'd repulsed earlier Invaders including the zaris general kof hero of the war against Napoleon the troops paraded through red square and marched straight on to the front Moscow was now under almost nightly attack from the Luft buffer the kremlin's air rate shelters had not yet been completed so for a few days Stalin shared the ordeal of ordinary muscovites dossing down in his great coat alongside them in one of the Metro stations by December the 2nd 1941 German Advance units were only a dozen miles from the kemin its domes and spires glinted in the pale Sun one German medical officer reached a tram stop on the road into the city there was an old wooden bin attached to the wall I felt inside and dragged out a handful of old tram tickets we picked out the cilic letters which by now we knew spelled mosa but there was to be no easy ride into Moscow for those German soldiers this vast replica of a tank trap marks the end of the line for them the point where Barbarosa once molten fire literally froze [Music] up temperatures were now 30 below tank and plane engines had to be heated for hours before they could be started many German soldiers lacked winter clothing even proper gloves victims of Hitler's hubris about a quick Victory seizing their chance Stalin and his chief of staff zukov now planned a dramatic Counterattack Before Dawn on December the 5th Soviet troops plowed into the Frozen Nazi pincers around [Music] Moscow although the Germans weren't routed they were driven back a 100 miles at last for the Russians after 6 months of defeat a first Victory but could they keep it up zukov knew the limits of his army he wanted a targeted strike to save Moscow but Stalin was now on a roll though no General he'd apparently done what cusa could not do save Russia without sacrificing Moscow and like like Hitler when he launched Barbarosa Stalin now believed his enemy to be ripe for Destruction facing around his study in the Kremlin Stalin told his generals the Germans are taken aback by their defeat near Moscow now is just the time to mount a general offensive zukov protested that he hadn't the resources to advance in this way all along the front Stalin would have none of this our task is not to give the Germans a breathing space we must drive them Westward without a halt this will ensure the complete defeat of the Nazi forces in 1942 according to zukov nobody else spoke up the dictator had browbeaten his generals the all New Year offensive went ahead and Stalin with customary vindictiveness crossed Zuko's name off the list of those to be honored for saving [Music] Moscow along the whole front the great Russian counter offensive which Stalin personally worked out in every detail Springs to life British news reals recorded Stalin's great offensive the heroic Russians seem to be the only ones in effectively fighting the [Music] Germans Britain was still on the back foot and America though at last in the war was in disarray after Japan's surprise attack at Pearl [Music] Harbor yet in early 1942 Stalin was sniffing Victory and like Hitler it went to his head having lost Eastern Europe in 1941 he was now determined to get it back he told Britain and America that Russia's rewards for victory should include Eastern Poland and the Baltic states the very territories signed over to him in 1939 as part of his pact with Hitler now he wanted his allies to endorse the same dirty deal this obsessive haggling for territorial gain may seem bizarrely premature to us now but I think it makes sense if we remember that Stalin still on a high from the success of the winter counter offensives thought the war might be over within a few months so he was trying to strengthen his hand For an upcoming peace conference Russian friendship was vital for Britain but handing over Poland and the Baltic states to the Soviets just as Hitler had done seemed utterly immoral after anguished debate the British government dug in so Stalin applied direct pressure he sent Molotov his tough guy foreign minister to Britain to press Russia's case for territory early one morning in May a powerful for engine Soviet bomber came in to land at a northern airrow out of it stepped the Soviet people's commissar for foreign affairs Miss Molotov clad in heavy furlin flying kit in front of the newsreal cameras it was all smiles but behind the scenes Molotov did not prove an easy guest treat conscious perhaps that 20 years earlier his host Churchill had tried to strangle bolshevism in its CR Molotov and his Aid slept with revolvers under their pillars their rooms were also guarded Around the Clock by Grim Russian matriarchs dressed in black Molotov was Notorious for his hardnose negotiating style but he couldn't get his way on carving up Eastern Europe Churchill would only offer a general Treaty of Alliance and no promises about territory Molotov caed the British offer to Stalin contemptuously we consider this treaty unacceptable as it is an empty declaration which the Soviet Union does not need molof assumed that Stalin would agree but back in the Kremlin the mood was changing as bad news filtered in from the front boyed up by overconfidence and once again riding rough shot over generals like zukov in May 1942 Stalin had ordered a reckless new assault to recapture HOV Second City of the Ukraine after a week of fighting cha phoned to report that the Soviet forces at harkov had driven themselves into a trap and were being encircled by the Germans Stalin refused even to take the call put down the phone as if he knows what he's talking about [Music] it was like June 1941 all over again only after a quarter of a million men were captured and 1,200 tanks written off did Stalin face the facts with his regime on the ropes one once more staling called off the offensive and rethought the priorities of his diplomacy Stalin dropped his demands for territory What mattered now was getting the Allies to mount a second front a British and American assault on Mainland Europe to divert German forces from Russia Stalin cabled molotov in London he told him to stop protesting sign the treaty with Britain and firm up the Allies commitment to a second front Molotov was flabbergasted but the man whom the British regarded as the hardliner groveled abjectly to his boss I shall act in accordance with the directive I believe the new draft treaty can have positive value I fail to appreciate it at once at the foreign office the Grand Alliance was entered into as signatures were appended to the document by the representatives of the high Contracting parties full understanding was also reached with regard to the creating this year of a second front in Europe in mid 1942 Hitler resumed his offensive the new campaign was directed Southeast to seize Russia's oil in the Caucasus but Starling still assumed that Hitler's real goal was Moscow thanks to Stalin's misplaced deployments the German Advance was even swifter than in 1941 by the end of the summer the swastika was flying over the highest point in the caucuses the Red Army had lost another 600,000 prisoners and thousands more tanks [Music] the pattern was the same as 1941 armored pincers and mass encirclements rants from Stalin about not one step back and new orders for blocking units to shoot those trying to flee in July 1942 with the Red Army collapsing Stalin was once again desperate for help Stalin now really needed Churchill to deliver on the promise of a second front in Europe in 1942 but nothing seemed to be happening Stalin sensed that he was being betrayed by the old enemy personal and secret Premier Stalin to Premier Churchill in spite of the agreed communic concerning the Urgent tasks of creating a second front in 1942 to the British government postpones this matter until [Music] 1943 relations between London and Moscow were reaching crisis Point as the German Juggernaut rolled East rumors swirled around about Soviet capitulation and peace talks a new Nazi Soviet pact would be a disaster for Britain for the British Stalin's military BL Thunders opened up a terrifying scenario Churchill's Chief of Staff alen Brook noted in his diary while we are talking the Germans are walking through the caucuses our defenses in Iraq and Persia are lamentably weak if the Germans smashed through the caucuses to Iraq and Persia they would grab most of Britain's oil neutral turkey would probably throw in its lot with Hitler perhaps even allowing a link up with rl's Army in Egypt now steamrolling towards the sez Canal the Germans might even join forces with the Japanese to threaten India from the West as well as the East nightmares perhaps but all too real and Vivid at the time in 1941 Russia's collapse threatened to expose the British Isles to the Nazi war machine in 1942 the whole British Empire seemed at stake because of Stalin's military [Music] bungling while Stalin felt betrayed by Churchill over the promise of a second front Churchill doubted Stalin's ability to hold out against Hitler without trust the alliance was doomed Churchill felt that he and Stalin had to meet face to [Music] face in the middle of August 1942 after a long flight dodging German Fighters Churchill arrived in Moscow Churchill was excited to meet Stalin for the first time and Keen to get the measure of the man but he was also anxious he was about to give Stalin an update on on the second front that wouldn't be welcome it was he said like carrying a large lump of ice to the North [Music] Pole at 700 that evening Churchill was ushered into Stalin's office First Impressions were not flattery at the door was a bald nervous dwarf actually Stalin's secretary Alexander POS grubish and Stalin himself didn't look particularly impressive attired as usual in lilac tunic baggy trousers and long boots this was actually standard Communist party dress but to the British he looked a bit of a [Music] Yoko for Starling a gangster from the Caucasus used to manipulating cronies and underlings having to negotiate at with a grande from the West face to face and on equal terms was a new experience a first test if you like of his ability to play in the Premier League of international diplomacy and I think that the records of his meetings with Churchill throw a Revealing Light on Stalin's Effectiveness as a Statesman as he leared to manage Russia's wartime alliances for his own ends to start with the meeting was heavy-going Stalin admitted that the news from the Caucasus was bad Churchill spoke defensively about all the problems of mounting a second front in France that year Stalin looked Grim what about a smaller operation he asked like recapturing the Channel Islands Churchill said it would be a waste of seed corn for the real Harvest which would come in 1943 Stalin who was used to wasting tons of seed corn replied testy a man who isn't prepared to take risks cannot win a war but then Churchill revealed that he and the American president Franklin Roosevelt had a top secret plan which would be every bit as good as a second front of ensive against Mainland Europe he drew a sketch of a crocodile northern France he said was Hitler's hard snout but the Mediterranean was his soft belly Churchill promised that in the Autumn British and American troops would land in Morocco and Algeria if North Africa was one in 1942 he said we will launch a deadly attack on Hitler next year Stalin was now fully engaged he asked a lot of questions the meeting broke up after 3 and 1 half hours the British prime minister was driven back to the ducher he had been assigned Churchill was jubilant my strategy was sound he crowed first he'd given Stalin the bad news then he'd offered Glad Tidings Stalin he said ended enthusiastic in a glow Churchill declared that Stalin was just a peasant whom he knew exactly how to handle too late Churchill was warned that the room had probably been bugged and that his comments might well be passed on to Starling but Churchill wasn't cowed stalking up to the likely location of a microphone and shouting the Russians I have been told are not human beings at all they are lower in the scale of nature than the Oru Tang now let them take that down and translate it into Russ it was a strange echo of Churchill's spluttering 20 years earlier about bolik Bab whether his bombass got back to Stalin we don't know but the next meeting between the two leaders was very different perhaps Stalin felt insulted by Churchill's tauns or maybe he'd seen through the so-called second front in the Mediterranean the evidence isn't clear but Stalin now played the hard man sitting back in his chair I half closed puffing at his pipe he tore Churchill to shreds he dismissed North Africa as an irrelevance he accused Churchill of breaking a firm promise about the second front he even mocked the British for cowardice if the British army had been fighting the Germans as much as the Russian army it wouldn't be so frightened of them Churchill was livid he shouted back giving as good as he got the second meeting ended in icy Deadlock next day at the data Churchill fumed in the garden safely out of range of the bugs that man has insulted me from now on he will have to fight his battles alone I represent a great country and I am not submissive by Nature this was no longer a policy dispute a row about the second front it was a clash of cultures between two proud men representing two proud Nations each desperately needed the other but there was a limit to how far either of them would bend unlike Starling Churchill wasn't surrounded by Lackey the British Ambassador sir archal Clark Carr talked back at Churchill hard in a letter later he recalled how he asked Churchill bluntly whether he intended to flounce off home all because you are offended offended by a peasant who didn't know any better you are an aristocrat they are rough and inexperienced straight from the plow and the lathe don't let your pride blur your judgment no bless obl that was the message Clark Carr urged Churchill to unbend and asked Stalin for another talk but would Stalin unbend as well in fact for Stalin the ground was also shifting he had just learned that the Germans had routed Soviet troops on the dawn River Stalingrad the great industrial city named after the Man of Steel himself was now in Hitler's sights round three between Stalin and Churchill began at 7 in the evening in Stalin's office the two leers had a polite and business-like final discussion about various aspects of the war but as Churchill got up to say goodbye Stalin became Mr Nice Guy all of a sudden why don't you come back to my apartment in the Kremlin and have a little drink H the little drink mushroomed into dinner with a dictator a 6-hour feast washed down with endless bottles of choice wine Stalin introduced churel to his daughter fet Lana and watched his reaction with a twinkle in his eye as if to say you see even we bolix have family [Music] life the mood became progressively more unreal as conversation lurched from the present to the Past Churchill boasted about the military Genius of his ancestor the Duke of mbra Stalin with an impish smile said he thought the Duke of Wellington was more talented because he crushed Napoleon who presented the greatest danger in history then Stalin got on to the collective Farms campaign and the criminal resistance of the peasants it was he said a terrible struggle 10 million people all very bad and difficult but [Music] necessary he hacked at a pig's head picking at the flesh with his fingers Churchill had a vivid image of millions of men and women being blotted out forever but he held his tongue with the world war going on all around us it seemed vain to moralize aloud this final meeting cemented the alliance Churchill left Moscow with a new confidence in Stalin on the plane home next morning nursing a massive hangover he murmured I was taken into the family we ended friends of Joseph Stalin the Prime Minister has brought back an excellent impression of a great rugged Warchief frunt of speech with a saving sense of humor the two formed of friendship which promises well for the victory of the United Nations in the course of the war Churchill's view of the Soviet Union and the threat of what he called Russian barbarism would yo-yo up and down but he retained his faith that Stalin was a man with whom he could do business for his part Stalin had played a shrewd game of hot and cold with Churchill knocking him off balance this was a routine Stalin Ploy but I I believe there was something more behind his Mr Nice Guy act when he invited Churchill back into his flat Stalin I think made a deliberate decision to open up to show a more human side the Bruiser had to become a charmer he couldn't afford to let the meeting end on a sour note because Russia's military situation had gone critical the Caucasus and Russian oil fields now seemed within Hitler's grasp the decisive battle would be in The Cauldron of Stalingrad where 2 million Soviet and German troops became locked in a struggle to the death Churchill much vaunted offensive in the Mediterranean Landing 100,000 troops on the beaches of North Africa was a mere Sideshow to this horrific climax of the war having failed to wipe Leningrad and Moscow off the map Hitler was now determined to erase Stalingrad his orders were Stark male population to be destroyed female to be deported [Music] Hitler was becoming ever more the control freak as Supreme Commander but staling the Man of Steel who' bent towards Churchill was also learning to be less rigid in dealing with his generals swallowing his old fear of bonapart ISM in the Army Stalin dismantled the system of political commissars the appara who could question officers orders on party or ideological grounds now commanders were allowed to take decisions for military reasons alone party hacks like VOR shiloff were demoted while Stalin promoted zukov to Deputy Supreme Commander zukov knew the fate of Stalin generals at first he tried to refuse the promotion claiming that their temperaments were incompatible but Stalin was insistent let us subordinate our temperaments to the interests of the motherland zukov wasn't just a one-man band around him he built a capable staff of intelligent and efficient [Music] planners this was a decisive moment a sign that Stalin had the essential flexibility to survive in 1941 Stalin had appealed to nationalism not communism in order to Galvanize his people for war in 1942 he compromised again scrapping the ideology of party control to give his top generals the freedom to fight while Russian soldiers battled heroically in the ruins of Stalingrad zukov and his staff formulated a bold plan to relieve the city and Stalin let them do it finally releasing the reserves he'd retained to protect Moscow and not pushing zukov this time into a premature [Music] assault in November 194 2 the pincers closed again but they were Russian pincers slicing through weak divisions that guarded the rear of Hitler's Army in Stalingrad it was the Germans who were now encircled their final surrender in January 1943 coincided with the 10th anniversary of Hitler's seizure of power it was a devastating turn of Fortune's wheel War correspondent vasel Grossman witnessed the Russian Victory prisoners move on and on in crowds their mes tins rattling belted with pieces of rope or wire Russian troops are Marching their Spirits are higher now ah it would be great to get to KF another man ah I'd like to get to Berlin the Red Army was now on the March so were the British and Americans by the end of 1942 routing the Germans in North Africa as a springboard for control of the Mediterranean but it was the Eastern Front the great battles for Moscow and Stalingrad that turned World War II beginning a fight back that would eventually entrench the Soviet Union as a new superpower throughout Eastern Europe not just Poland and the Baltic states but Hungary Czechoslovakia and half of Germany [Music] itself the second world war was a struggle to defeat Hitler's genocidal imperialism yet the man who gained most from victory was a dictator as cruel and ruthless as his [Music] enemy the difference between Victory and defeat was in large part that Stalin eventually learned from the mistakes that had cost millions of Russian lives whereas setbacks only made Hitler more unyielding in his fantasies ultimately Stalin for all his Bolshevik ideology was a pragmatist with a Keen Eye for survival although he was an outsider his command over the Russian people gained him an Empire bought with their blood that surpassed anything won by the Zars so there was a ghastly moral compromise at the heart of the Allied victory in 1945 the defeat of one evil helped entrench another evil across half of Europe and in Russia itself [Music] having Leed to loosen up his regime to win Victory after the war Stalin tightened his grip once again reverting to Terror he put his generals back in their place demoting the war hero zukov on charges of corruption and he clamped down on his people with renewed censorship and another Purge of the party in the 1950s vasel grman pondered the cost of Victory reflecting on how the heroism of the war had saved Russia while also saving Stalin and Shoring up the stalinist system his Epic Novel life and fate was modeled on TL sto's War and Peace at the fulcrum of his book grman evokes Stalin waiting anxiously for the start of Zuko's vital counter offensive around Stalingrad the passage is pure fiction but also I think Sublime poetic truth grman imagines the dictator recalling the shambles of 1941 his bumblings that nearly ruined Russia in his Mind's Eye behind Hitler's tanks Stalin sees the millions of Russians he destroyed coming back to life the prisoners of the Arctic Gulag breaking up through the permafrost emaciated peasants crawling out of the soil all of them looking for him then zov's pincers close the Germans cannot Escape Stalingrad will be remembered as a Triumph not not a disaster grman now imagines Stalin's devoted secretary Bal little posish cheef whose wife was one of Stalin's Victims Watching silent and motionless as his boss sits back drinking in the wonderful news To the victor the spoils this was his hour of Triumph he' not only defeated his current enemy he had defeated his past in The Villages the grass would grow thicker over the tombs of 1930 the snow and ice of the Arctic Circle would remain dumb and Silent he knew better than anybody that no one condemns a Victor very slowly and gently his eyes closed he repeated the words of a song you're caught in the net my pretty little bird I won't let you go for anything in the world posf looked at Stalin at his gray thinning hair his Pock marked face his closed eyes suddenly he felt the ends of his fingers grow cold [Music]

Channel: Real History

Views: 66,812

Keywords: Battle Strategies, Cold War, Dictatorship, Dictatorship History, German Invasion of Russia, Great Patriotic War, Historical Comebacks, Historical Documentaries, Iron Curtain, Nazi Germany History, Political Leaders, Real History, Red Army Campaigns, Red Army Offensive Movements., Russian Nationalism, Russian Revolutionaries, Russian War Heroes, Soviet War Efforts, WWII Strategy, WWII Tactics, War History

Id: nBENJ44syIY

Length: 45min 20sec (2720 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024