Inside The Brutal Battle Of Moscow | Battlezone | War Stories

[Music] foreign [Music] at the beginning of 1941 moscow is the only great european capital not yet at war paris brussels and warsaw are occupied london under bombardment berlin mobilized but in moscow spring comes in peacefully for several months the atmosphere is relaxed the great political purge has been achieved and copies of the third five-year plan fill the bookshop the muscovites have begun the new year full of confidence even though on the other side of europe the imperialistic war grinds on besides since the division of poland and the annexation of the baltic states the frontier is a long way off the germans are 600 miles from the capital in case of danger the red army is always there powerful doubtless invincible anyhow why should there be danger starting with some skill has signed a pact with hitler thus saving the peace on november the 12th 1940 morotov stalin's right-hand man arrives in berlin welcomed with great ceremony hitler proposes dividing up the british empire since on all the evidence england is going to be overwhelmed molotov demands explanations what are the germans going to do about romania and finland and why is hitler so concerned with bulgaria turkey and the balkans all this is very suspicious schmidt hitler's interpreter is worried no one has ever taken this turn with the fuhrer the conference achieves nothing molotov filled with dance returns to moscow it's true that apparently nothing has changed there are strange sights like that of general duderian creator of the german armored forces reviewing soviet tanks and thinking of what is to come hitler in fact pursues his policy of diplomatic encirclement unceasingly in the newly inherent countries who signed the anti-common turn pact defiant yugoslavia is bombarded and occupied in a few weeks so is greece the links with spain italy hungary romania and bulgaria are strengthened at the right chancellory in berlin von ribentrop is very busy in the name of the fuhrer signing sessions follow each other in quick succession more than 10 packs between 1940 and may 1941 at the other end of the world a little man is getting ready to leave for europe yosuki matsuoka japan's foreign minister has meetings arranged with hitler and stanley according to which agreements he signs one will know on whose side destiny leads mr matsuoka is accompanied to the railway station by all those tokyo-based german diplomats [Music] among them is the ambassadors presidency richard sorghi nazi double agent and true communist stalin's number one spy from tokyo sauger who signs his messages ramsay tells the kremlin everything in this text of 25th of march 1941 for example the german offensive against the ussr will begin in the second half of june the strongest attack will come from the german left wing stalin although told doesn't believe it meanwhile mr matsuoka carries on in berlin hitler sounds him out what will japan do if by any chance war breaks out between the reich and the ussr [Music] politely mr matsuoka steals away two days later on the 13th of april 1941 matsuoka is in moscow where he signs a non-aggression pact between the soviet union and japan stalin is delighted he will not have to make war on two fronts at last hitler has made his decision since the summer of 1940 he has dreamt of a great campaign the greatest war of all time his generals when consulted a scarcely time to raise objections before operation barbarossa takes shape on june the 22nd 1941 at 3 30 in the morning without a declaration of war the wehrmacht enters soviet territory the assault troops throw footbridges across the river book the frontier posts are taken the barbed wire cut [Music] at daybreak on june the 22nd german stukas bombard the 66 soviet airfields continuously [Music] [Music] the old rata fighters of the soviet air force try in vain to oppose the luftwaffe but they're hopelessly outclassed by the measures [Music] [Music] by midday on june the 22nd 1200 russian planes have been destroyed 800 of them on the ground the luftwaffe has made certain of air supremacy for several knots at least cape north in the arctic to the black sea in the south 153 german divisions move off to the east towards moscow in front of the panzers the great plain opens out thousands of miles of forest prairie and small villages swept by the wind of the russian steps the soviet army is taken completely by surprise the frontier troops are alerted only two hours before the attack and having time to organize themselves no proper plans have been made in case of invasion [Music] at some points the germans meet no resistance at all and others resistance is bitter but to no avail [Music] during the first 24 hours the german advance guard covers 40 to 60 miles but the old fortress of brest litovsk on the river bug is going to give the vermont a foretaste of what the russian campaign would eventually become [Music] several hundred russian soldiers are trapped together with some civilians under the command of the captain and the political commission it takes more than a month for four german divisions to subdue them the garrison finally succumbs but not without leaving a message we are dying but not surrendering goodbye my country moscow it's general mobilization for 15 million russians those on home leave surprised by the german attack hastily rejoined their regiments all the existing units the soviet command can find are sent promptly to the front with the order to counter attack because the soviet military doctrine only admits the offensive but this is not the only drawback they have to face obsolete tanks and badly camouflaged columns move up towards the front [Music] but their limited experience of modern warfare is no match for the german [Music] techniques retreat is inevitable and little by little white russia has to be abandoned to the invader stalin intervenes on july the 3rd and gives the order for a scorched earth policy a terrible admission comrades citizens brothers and sisters i speak to you my friends never had one heard such words from the mouth of the feared georgian who proclaims the enemy must not find a single machine a single wagon a piece of bread or a can of petrol shepherds must remove all their flocks this sort of frenzy of burning as from the tragic past seizes the people as against the invasion of teutonic horsemen and against napoleon they set fire to their own homes the earth is scorched [Music] the germans advance into a desert of bonfire and ashes towards a horizon of flames which seems to go on forever foreign do advancing towards minsk three thousand five hundred german tanks in long grey columns are set loose in the plane behind the panzers marks the infantry drunk with singing and son in these immense open spaces the war is increasing but there are battles for roads and villages with a crash of artillery and the grinding of tank traps [Music] [Applause] [Music] great encircling movements are developed by the germans which succeed in wiping out entire russian armies few succeed in getting out of the trap but some are lucky these russian tanks and trucks managed to escape by running the gauntlet of the german infantry and anti-tank units [Music] others not so fortunate swell the ranks of the prisoners who will soon be suffering the fate of nazi policy an order of hitler's stipulates the communists and political commissars be executed in the field this order is often ignored by the army at the front but the ss in the rear areas take it upon themselves to apply it in this manner hundreds of thousands of russian prisoners die executed or starved to death among them starring son-in-law the german armored troops after a 120 mile breakthrough enter a devastated minsk the first big town on the road to moscow at the beginning of july the cavalry crosses the berezina [Music] the advance proceeds not by brief and violent fighting [Music] the taking of vteps is announced by german military fanfares the panzers are now driving towards smallest where russian fortunes are about to change [Music] outside smelling the soviets produced some secret weapons the terrifying stalin organ that the russian soldiers called katusha after their favorite song 36 rockets launched from a truck [Music] the t-34 tanks are also seen for the first time more heavily armored and faster than german panzers the t-34 is probably the best tank of the second world war [Music] so [Music] but numerically the germans still hold the advantage [Music] the fight for smolensk is going to last three weeks the town has to be taken by hand-to-hand fighting in spite of the efforts of the german propagandists the russian soldiers resist to the end [Applause] so communiques are always triumphant but german supreme headquarters knows that the vermont has already lost 100 000 dead and 300 000 wounded or missing that's more than 10 percent of the total force sent out on june the 22nd the equipment is worn out but less so than the troops operation barbarossa begins to slow down hitler feels that something somewhere is getting out of hand in his personal junkers he flies to minsk to look over the road it is at this moment that hitler feels he has a better understanding of military necessities than his general staff and he decides to take matters into his own hands the conduct of the russian campaign will never be the same again the troops acclaim him but the generals are apprehensive of this meeting a troubled conference is held in front of the map the generals feel that the only thing to do is to swoop down on moscow which is only 210 miles away the hitler on the contrary moscow is only a symbol the objective must be changed what counts is the ukraine with its reserves of wheat ukraine which will feed the reich in the middle of august 1941 he alters course turns the armed columns away from moscow and moves them southward despite the protests of the general staff but it's above all the partisan movement that expresses the will to resist the german invasion many soldiers who escaped capture in the pockets of minsk and smelensk take up with the underground movement in the impenetrable forests of white russia [Music] for the germans the danger is deadly it weighs on their lines of communication and still more on their morale in the forests death can come at them from all sides to liquidate the underground special detachments under the ss are set up and immediately distinguish themselves by their ruthless brutality the russian campaign takes on overtones of hatred [Music] there are innumerable volunteers sometimes they're very young people often mature men the war has become the business of all the russian people men and women flood in to serve in any way they can vintage equipment is used to train the raw recruits and government posters promise better material to come but the most extraordinary effort is in industry 1500 factories have been hastily moved and threatened areas thousands of trains have carried them hundreds of miles towards the euros in siberia and some weeks later the men and women work again for the red army the germans are going to learn that the soviet union is also a great industrial power on the same day as the german invasion of russia churchill from london office starring the help of great britain some weeks later sir stafford crips british ambassador to moscow signs an aid treaty the same agreement will be signed soon with aval harriman special envoy from roosevelt [Music] almost immediately thousands of tons of war equipment leave the british polls to get to moments the convoys must run the blockade of the german u-boats in the icy seas but as time passes and the ukraine is conquered moscow once again is the number one objective for the burma general guderian moves off on september the 30th in the direction of moscow it's the first act of operation typhoon the objective to take the soviet capital in a pincer movement by more than 50 armored divisions [Music] there is bitter fighting in the forests of biasma and brian's the mass formations of german armor succeed once more in surrounding several soviet armies and inflict enormous losses on the russians [Music] for the highly mechanized german army the problems grow ever more severe heavy rain bogs the primitive russian roads only frost complicates the situation in the icy mud of these roads the germans lose precious days big movements become impossible only the tracked vehicles can still go on the speed of the supply trucks has fallen to 18 miles a day the transport gets bogged down in the evening and by morning is stuck in the frozen earth the advance guard has to wait three weeks for fuel and munitions further to the rear the situation worsens the lines of communication are stretched to the absolute limit provisioning is held up and the russian railway lines have to be changed to the german gauge which is narrower as soon as the frost hardens the earth thousands of trucks get on the move hoping to regain lost time [Music] in moscow with the germans now less than 120 miles away panic sets in can the capital be saved the state of siege immediately proclaimed clears any doubts about giving way the administration is sent to the town of kubichin a few hundred miles to the rear half the citizens are evacuated towards the east but the rest prepare to stay and fight in the squares and boulevards women dig anti-tank ditches and raise barricades in a few weeks four hundred thousand volunteer workers dig five thousand miles of trenches soon the city bristles with obstacles steel and wire tent traps and barrage balloons to stop the dive bombers national monuments are protected as far as possible the bolshoi theater and the lenin mausoleum are camouflaged [Music] moscow prepares for the german attack each section of the city supplies an infantry division hastily equipped and in this way workmen in uniform wage war against german armor to counter the morale of the muscovites the luftwaffe launched terror raids every evening hundreds of bombers the same planes which in the preceding year bomb london fly eastwards each night the mayor of moscow peronjin picks up his telephone and gives the alarm as soon as they hear the sirens people go down into the metro the subway system of moscow built only three years previously and the pride of the country [Music] [Music] the german aim is to burn the city which still has many houses made of wood in moscow itself the civilian population become firefighters and learn to extinguish incendiary bombs there aren't enough men so the women and children are grouped into firefighting brigades on november the 6th stalin decides to leave the kremlin to attend a meeting of the consumer to the moscow party leaders on the 24th anniversary of the october revolution stalin attempts to rally the morale of the people russian defeats were due to the fact that no second front existed to take the pressure off the russian armies but in spite of this the germans had failed to reach the euros in the summer campaign the next day november the 7th the traditional parade takes place in red square under cover of the heavy snow cards and stalin makes another speech there who had weakened the red army by the ruthless purges of the 1930s realizes that only the loyalty and devotion of the army can save russia he gives extravagant praise to the armed forces although the russian commanders cannot spare troops for the annual review stalin insists that a show of strength must be made and in the end his will prevails the red army whom starting calls upon to save sacred russia has changed a lot in six months the soldiers who file past today under the first snow of the year are trained and newly equipped the battalions of workers take their turn in red square but with the parade hardly over the troops who came to march past are sent up to the front which is only 60 miles away for already the indications are that the capital is surrounded any hopes of saving moscow rests with the tanks men by young people in one case a family of brothers who get an emotional send-off from their father on the roads leading into moscow from leningrad and from boracay lance hastily constructed obstructions are put up [Music] the german tanks advance in spite of sustained losses in spite of the increasing cold and in spite of the hardening resistance they pass borodinot scene of napoleon's great victory past the dead defenders [Music] [Music] [Music] in the north the advanced guard reaches the vulgar then the moskva canal in which enormous ice flows are drifting the objective is only 30 miles away in the south godarion has gone beyond the meridian of moscow the pincer movement is nearly closed suddenly a great cold descends on the battlefield winter has come to the unexpected rescue of the russians the german forces are totally unprepared for such intense cold the german army is shaken and frozen by the conditions hitler's plan had gambled on speed and now it has become impossible the battle develops into a fight with the elements for the poorly equipped german soldiers they have no proper winter clothing for a campaign that should already have been completed the icy winds prove to be more effective than any russian weapons the mechanized forces of the wehrmacht discover that even the lubricating oil of their tanks and trucks is not suitable for such freezing conditions and so they lose their technical superiority the paralyzing cold affects the men as well as the material and the german soldiers have to expend most of their energy in just keeping warm it seems impossible that the meticulous planners of the general staff could have overlooked such a basic situation napoleon had already set a historic example in germany news from the eastern front provokes disbelief then a surge of emotion three million parents of serving soldiers search their cupboards for warm clothes a gigantic collection is organized across the right but it's too late the trains held up by the ice and interrupted by the party's ends take two months to reach the russian front meanwhile hitler is shown a number of inventions that could hardly influence the course of the war nazi arrogance still ignores reality and the german authorities issue a list of the bullets that will be taken over in moscow by the conquering vermont the list includes all official buildings hotels and boarding houses and the barracks of the soviet militia [Music] the final german effort in the first days of december 1941 take them to within 25 miles of the [Music] crimp they reached krasnaya palana a suburban bus stop on the outskirts of the russian capital they will go no further the bitter resistance of the defense and the huge sacrifices of the russian army together with the numbing code proved too much for panzers and the german grenadiers the fact of the matter is simply that the vermont does not have sufficient strength available to continue the assault now when the german tide has reached its limit a new blow threatens from the east coming west from the euros in siberia new russian shock troops coming to the line [Music] the rugged siberians are prepared to fight in temperatures that fall to 40 below zero it's a new red army which comes from the forests and factories of the eastern plains equipped to fight in the conditions of the russian winter new commanders lead the troops and their names will soon become known throughout russia general biloff davato [Music] master tactician the future martial kanye the counteroffensive is launched on december the 5th 1941. it's kanye for attacks first on the kalinin front just north of moscow [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the russians too had taken a gamble under the inspired leadership of marshal zhukov they've been planning this counter-strike for several months it took iron nerves and ruthless determination to build up the new forces without sending them in small batches to reinforce the hard-pressed defenders of the capital when the situation seemed blackish for the defense and it seemed the germans must break through zhukov pinned all the russian hopes on the counter-strike now across the frozen fields of white russia the fresh troops rolled over the exhausted germans the timing was perfect more important the russians were equipped with tanks and skis that could handle the difficult conditions and carry them swiftly across the terrain mobility was now a russian advantage the germans could not equal [Applause] the towns of dimitrov and clean are the first to be liberated from the german grip the russian steamroller will spread out over the retreating germans the russian air force retakes possession of the winter skies it flies low in support of the advancing tanks and infantry [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] towns and villages are recaptured one after another like kalinin where the germans though retreating continue to put up a stubborn defense the wehrmacht is fighting for his life overwhelmed by russian numbers it still holds together and remains a hard foe training and discipline are still the strongest remaining factors in their favor but it's little comfort to the german soldier that he can retreat in good order russian tanks and firepower continually increase the pressure and the enemy withdrawal is now a flight from annihilation hundreds soon thousands of germans are captured overwhelmed by winter and defeat the retreat is marked by the graveyards of tanks and trucks littering the road back from moscow all along the front the roads to the west are attacked from the air as the vermont pours back to avoid [Music] destruction [Applause] harris from the air the germans are also hunted on the ground by the cossack cavalry who sweep in pursuit over the snow fields that no tank could negotiate the retreating german army disappears into a blinding visit leaving thousands of dead a furious hitler rages against his generals and dismisses guderian and dozens of senior officers [Music] moscow is safe at the cost of heavy losses after the battle the dead are buried among them is general de vato killed at the head of his cossack cavalry [Music] the frozen earth of russia is broken to receive his body while his men fire a last salute [Music] moscow is safe but over the white countryside the bodies of civilians lie scattered in death the gestapo squads who follow the retreating soldiers assassinate prisoners and all those connected with the partisans at vodka lamps all the resistance fighters have been hanged [Music] moscow is safe but russia's inheritance is ravaged tchaikovsky's house is destroyed jacob's house is burnt down tolstoy's house has been pitted close to the tomb of tolstoy the germans had buried their dead in a military cemetery when the russian troops return their hatred of the enemy reaches even to the graves the russian army has pushed the wehrmacht more than 60 miles back from moscow history repeats itself as the troops passed the old monument at borodino where general kutztusoff had forced napoleon's retreat some 130 years earlier for moscow the hour of liberation has come [Music] you

Channel: War Stories

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Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, moscow, eastern front, WW2, World War Two, Stalin, Joseph Stalin, Hitler, Adolf Hitler, USSR, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Archive Footage, Tanks, moscow war

Id: mANFd7Yftpg

Length: 48min 12sec (2892 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2021