Soviet Storm. WW2 in the East. Episodes 10 - 18. English Subtitles. RussianHistoryEN

[Music] is [Music] dawn on a summer's day 1943 the first rays of sunlight revealed a column of grey vehicles and men crossing a bridge over the denepa river [Music] they were moving west the columns and vehicles kept on coming day after day night after night from behind them came the sporadic sound of gunfire each burst caused the retreating germans to cast anxious glances over their shoulders but then they heard a new sound the soldiers began to run and push their comrades aside it was the squeal of tank tracks and the familiar roar of t-34 engines the tanks approached the bridge at full speed [Music] then there was a deafening explosion german demolition charges had collapsed three sections of the kanyev bridge with them when the soviet high command's last chance of getting tanked quickly across the deneber soviet infantry had crossed the river at several points but without tank support the germans were able to contain the small bridgeheads after the german defeat at kursk in august 1943 the front line began to race westwards the red army advanced in overwhelming strength with more than 2.6 million men and two thousand four hundred tanks [Music] the german high command planned to make it stand at the dunepa river the army was ordered to dig in on its western bank to form the so-called voter line [Music] to slow the soviet advance von manstein's army group began a scorched earth policy [Music] anything that could not be carried away was burnt or blown up it was nothing less than the systematic destruction of eastern ukraine [Music] this was one of the climactic horrors in a country where the war claimed more than five million civilian lives one in eight of the population [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] as the germans retreated westwards they destroyed all the bridges and tore up the railway lines the advance across this devastated landscape put a huge strain on red army logistics fuel and ammunition had to be delivered by truck over hundreds of miles heavy artillery and bridging equipment struggled to keep up [Music] north of kiev andrei kravchenko's fifth guard's tent corps became one of the first units to reach the dunepa andre grigorovich kravchenko was an experienced tank general whose brigade had played a key part in the battle of moscow in 1941. the following year he commanded a tank core at the battle of stalingrad after which his unit was renamed the stalingrad guards tank hall in 1943 he fought at the famous tank battle at prokhorovka part of the kursk offensive kravchenko was rather heavily built for a tank soldier in fact he was so large that when he sat in the commander's seat it was impossible to close the hatch the wide diesna river did not stop the tanks of krabchenko's fifth guard's tank hall without waiting for the bridging units his men made their tanks watertight and drove across [Music] but the denipa was too deep to be crossed in this fashion only the infantry using rafts and floats were able to get across they establish small footholes on the far bank of the river [Music] south of kiev an extraordinary attempt was made to get the 40th and third guards tank armies across the river the dunepa here was about 600 meters wide almost a thousand piles were used to build a temporary bridge able to bear the weight of a tank [Music] the engineers worked under german artillery fire and aerial bombing but after 10 days the bridge was ready [Music] t-34s from the third guards tank army began to roll across the denipa meanwhile the germans had been busy strengthening their defenses the ukrainian capital kiev lay on the far side of the river and would be almost impossible to capture by frontal assault therefore general vatutin commanding the voronic front decided on two flanking attacks from his bridgeheads across the river throughout october batutan's troops struggled to fight their way out of the bridgeheads as winter came it seemed the front line itself had frozen solid so vatutin decided to change the plan he would target just one bridgehead and use all his armored formations to smash his way out about forty thousand soldiers of the third guards tank army and hundreds of tanks move north under cover of darkness [Music] on the morning of the 5th of november the red army attacked immediately cutting the highway between kiev and jitomir the german's only escape route was blocked soon the first t-34s were in kiev entering by the twisting road that runs through the ravines of the nifki district today this street is still called tank street [Applause] in the city itself burning buildings tracer rounds and flares turned night in today the red army tank crews smashed their way into downtown kiev the surviving germans made a hasty exit [Applause] by dawn the city was clear general kravchenko's fourth stalingrad guards tank corps could add another battle honor to their standard [Music] the red army liberated kiev just one day before the anniversary of the bolshevik revolution on the 7th of november there were rumors that stalin had given vatutin a clear order take care of by the anniversary of the revolution at any cost but this was probably not true otherwise vatutin would have sent his tank straight into kiev but instead he chosen to first cut off the german escape route by encircling the city from the west that winter ukraine was to be the scene of ferocious fighting the vast open step once frozen hard was ideal terrain for tanks both sides poured in their armored reserves the red army's sixth tank army the last to be created in the war was formed in january 1944 it was to be led by the liberator of kiev general andrei kravchenko his new army received its baptism of fire within days by the beginning of 1944 the red army had advanced as far as gitamir and kirovagrad but the germans still held a bowl stretching east around the city of kenya hitler with total disregard for the facts believed this could form a launch pad for a future german counter-offensive the soviet high command had its own plans for this bulge the coursen chevchenkovsky offensive began on the 24th of january 1944. the attack was led by the second ukrainian front two days later the first ukrainian front joined in on the opposite flank the attack was led by the 245 tanks and self-propelled guns of kravchenko's sixth tank army self-propelled guns or spgs were heavy guns mounted on the chassis of a tank or some other vehicle they were a mobile form of artillery used to provide fire support to infantry and tanks heavy versions like the soviet su-152 were also effective at knocking out german heavy tanks like the tiger [Music] in just five days kravchenko's tanks had linked up with rod mistroff's fifth guards tank army near the village of sveni garotka almost sixty thousand germans had been [Music] the encircled forces became known as group stemmerman after the general commanding them [Music] two soviet tank armies now turn south prepared to repel any german rescue attempt [Music] the encircled germans fought on in the firm belief that help would arrive but all remembered the fate of paulus's sixth army at stalingrad the previous winter [Applause] [Music] general kanye commanding the second ukrainian front had promised stalin just such another victory but hitler was equally adamant that no such thing would occur he told the encircled men you can rely on me as on a stone wall but for the present stand firm and shoot as long as you have ammunition general hoover commanding first panzer army radio to stemmerman simply i shall release you hoover [Music] meanwhile the luftwaffe was able to resupply group stemmerman by air relying on air resupply had been disastrous during the battle of stalingrad the luftwaffe had not been able to get in enough supplies for 300 000 men but group stemmerman was a fifth of that size meanwhile von manstein was assembling armoured units to make a rescue attempt he turned to the 3rd and 47th panzer corps commanded by generals niklaus von forman and hermann breit hermann breit with a highly experienced 51 year old panzer general he was a veteran of the campaigns in poland and france and had served with the army general staff during the invasion of the soviet union he then commanded a panzer division before leading third panzer corps during the battle of kursk the soviets came under attack from four german panzer divisions reinforced by 80 tigers and panthers of the heavy panzer regiment becker [Music] in february 1944 the red army's main tank was still the t-34 armed with a 76 millimeter gun it was no match for these german heavy tanks the germans captured the village of lysyanka but they were still a few miles short of breaking through to group stem and now red army reinforcements arrived general bogdanov's second tank army [Music] both sides found it extremely difficult to maneuver if previous winters had been unusually severe this winter was remarkably mild already the thor had turned roads into rivers of mud the battle of the course and chicassi pocket had become a decisive phase of the winter campaign and it was here that a fearsome new soviet tank made its first appearance the yosef stalin the yosef stalin or east 2 tank was developed as a direct response to the german tiger its front armor was 120 millimeters thick comparable to a tiger and although less accurate and with a slower rate of fire its powerful 122 millimeter gun was a serious threat to the german heavy tanks the east 2 tanks were grouped into independent heavy tank regimens and assigned to crucial sectors of the front where a breakthrough was required they were particularly effective at storming german towns and cities in 1945 versions of the east 2 tank were still in service with the russian army as late as 1995 [Music] the first combat between east twos and tigers and panthers ended in stalemate the germans held on to their gains but could advance no further group stemmerman was bombarded with leaflets urging them to surrender general seidlitz kurtzbach who'd been captured at stalingrad appealed to them by loudspeaker he was now a committed anti-nazi a soviet envoy was dispatched with proposed terms of surrender but he was sent back group stemmerman knew it was now up to them to fight their way out of the pocket fighting desperately they got as far as shenderovka just five kilometers short of third panzer call a furious stalin telegraphed zhukov the reason for the enemy's breakthrough was that the weak 27th army was not reinforced in a timely manner claimed stalin [Music] wrote mistrough's tank army was hurriedly redeployed to ensure there was no breakout a february frost had frozen the ground hard restoring momentum to operations breit was able to renew his advance on schenderovka at the forefront of the fighting was the fifth ss panzer division viking recruited largely from scandinavian volunteers but one by one its vehicles were knocked out fuel resupply by air was erratic and often interrupted by bad weather field marshal von manstein commander of army group south well remembered the stalingrad disaster there had been no attempt by the encircled troops to fight their way out this time without consulting hitler he gave stem a man clear orders group stemmerman must make the breakthrough itself to the line georgenzi hill 239 there it will link up with the third panzer corps the encircled divisions prepared for the last stage of their breakout on the evening of the 16th of february they destroyed heavy equipment and supplies and at dusk began their advance [Music] [Applause] the belgian nazi leon degrel who commanded the fifth ss volunteer stone brigade baloneyan described the scene at 2200 the soviet batteries shelled the center of the village the burning houses lit up the retreating troops as if it were daytime this made it easier for the soviet artillery spotters to do their job the shells fell onto our huge column to survive we had to drop into the snow every second [Music] that night several units slipped through the lines to the third panzer corps the next day soviet attack aircraft were grounded by bad weather but most units had still not reached safety even worse they found their rendezvous at hill 239 was still in soviet hands and heavily defended by t-34s the germans were forced to bypass hill 239 but this put the neloy ticket river between them and the safety of their own lines 20 000 men were trapped on the wrong side of a fast-flowing river it was 30 meters wide freezing cold and there were no bridges [Music] t-34s were approaching from the north desperate to escape some men improvised rafts and lifelines to get across but many panicked and held themselves into the icy water hundreds were drowned many succumbed to shock or hypothermia [Music] in all about half of group stemmer stemmerman managed to escape but there had been 30 000 german casualties amongst them general stemmerman himself killed commanding the rear guard it could have been much worse for the germans the stalingrad on the dunepa that connief had promised had failed to materialize but it was still a heavy defeat for the wehrmacht [Music] step by step river by river the red army was forcing the invader back [Music] [Music] the battle of the course and chicasi pocket was only a prologue to soviet success in ukraine the heavy losses sustained there by german panzer divisions meant army group south could no longer mount effective counter-attacks as the battle raged around the pocket the first ukrainian front was fighting its way westwards to liberate the cities of rovno and lutzke instead of tanks general vatutin was able to exploit his success with old-fashioned cavalry as they swept forwards through the villages of ukraine another salient was formed hanging over german army group south the soviet high command moved two tank armies into this salient intending to launch them southwards against the rear of general huber's first panzer army the offensive began on the 22nd of march 1944 three days later two hundred thousand men of first panzer army were encircled this new german pocket was centered on the city of kamenetz podolski hitler ordered the second ss panzer corps to be sent from france to rescue hoover's panzer army [Music] with the help of these reinforcements and hoover's skillful handling of his troops the first panzer army fought its way out of the trap but most of their vehicles and heavy equipment had to be left behind the rampant success of the red army in ukraine had dramatic strategic implications one was that the german high command became convinced that the great soviet summer offensive of 1944 would be launched in ukraine so it was here that they rushed their tank and aircraft reserves but the red army's summer offensive codenamed operation bagratian will be launched in biela russia it resulted in the liberation of minsk and the annihilation of german army group center german panzer reserves had to be rushed north to shore up the line [Music] the two remaining german panzer divisions in ukraine were moved to the rear and put under general brakes they were to be held back to counter-attack any soviet offensive [Music] on the 14th of july 1944 the first ukrainian front attacked towards the city of levof brait's armored reserve moved forward to counter-attack but the soviets now also controlled the air on the march road general von mellentin the 8th panzer division moving in long columns was attacked by russian aviation it sustained great losses many tanks and trucks were burned all hopes of a counter-attack collapsed [Music] the first ukrainian front's advanced led to the encirclement of the german eighth army corps near the town of brody amongst its units was the 14th waffen ss grenadier division galicia [Music] the 14th ss division was called in german galician in ukrainian galicinia its recruits were anti-bolshevik volunteers from galicia a historic region of western ukraine in july 1944 the division was 15 000 strong it was commanded by a german ss brigade fuhrer fritz freitag in 1943 it had been engaged in anti-partisan operations in the summer of 1944 it was at the front for the first time general von mellentin described how the ss division galicia holding positions in the woods could not hold firm so the russians penetrated deeply into the left flank of our core there was to be no breakout from the brody pocket the survivors surrendered to the red army four days after their encirclement [Music] the ss division galicia was reformed around the 3 000 men who escaped the catastrophe at brody it was later used to fight partisans in yugoslavia the division surrendered to the western allies in may 1945 thanks to the influence of the vatican which viewed the men of the galicia division as good catholics and devoted anti-communists its members were able to avoid extradition to the soviet union instead many settled in britain and canada now soviet tank armies raised towards levof but the germans had reorganized their defenses and were able to repel a direct assault on the city so soviet forces began to outflank the city from north and south the news that soviet tanks had been sighted west of the city caused panic the germans abandoned the city the red army crossed the border of the ussr almost unopposed at the end of july they captured the sandomizi bridgehead across the vistula river this would become the launchpad for the final offensive into germany [Music] the southern flank of the eastern front might have become a sideshow if it hadn't been for the vital factor of the romanian oil fields they were essential to the german war machine hitler would defend this resource at any cost but he rejected a proposal to retreat to a new line based on the carpathian mountains as suggested by hitler's ally the romanian dictator ian antonescu the only way through the mountains was an 80 kilometer wide valley known as the foxarne gate here antoniesco was building 1500 concrete pillboxes romania could have been turned into a formidable fortress but hitler was utterly inflexible on all questions of retreat [Music] in the summer of 1944 the romanian front followed the niesta river it was held by the german sixth army the sixth army was formed in october 1939 the next year it marched into france and helped to seize the french capital in 1941 it led army group south invasion of ukraine but 19 months later it was destroyed at stalingrad the army was reformed the following month under general [Music] hollett it might have been thought that the number six was unlucky for the germans but the army wanted to forget the catastrophe it had suffered at stalingrad and instead revived the fighting spirit of its first years this was the army that had marched victoriously through paris and advanced fearlessly through ukraine now it would defend romanian oil ironically six army had the same neighbors as it had at stalingrad its flanks were held by the romanian third and fourth armies the stafka high command planned another massive encirclement the second ukrainian front under general malinowski and the third ukrainian front under general tolbukin were to deliver converging thrusts in order to encircle german troops on the niesta river kravchenko's sixth tank army was transferred to the second ukrainian front it had not been in action for several months it was rested and re-equipped bristling with more than 400 tanks and self-propelled guns [Music] this was the only soviet tank army in south eastern europe its role was to make the breakthrough to the romanian oil fields before leading the advance on hungary and austria meanwhile the other soviet tank armies would lead the advance into germany soviet preparations were made in complete secrecy the stafka's main concern was that the enemy would withdraw to the foxane gate before the offensive was unleashed [Music] by 1944 the red army were masters of camouflage and concealment the germans on the nyesta river detected no buildup of soviet strength in mid-august general freda pico commander of the german six army reported that all was quiet on his front little did he realize it was the calm before the storm [Music] the soviet offensive across the niesta began on the 20th of august 1944 one german officer remembered the divisional headquarters came under heavy soviet artillery fire from our vantage point it seemed the entire niester valley was covered with a dense cloud of smoke the sun was completely blotted out romanian and german units were soon in complete disarray in particular they lacked the anti-tank defenses to meet this onslaught of soviet armor on the third day of fighting the six army was ordered to retreat by then most of its escape routes had already been cut off and as they withdrew columns of german troops were strafed and bombed by soviet aircraft [Music] the six army raced to get back across the river fruit but as retreating german units approached the town of hushi they ran straight into red army t-34s entering town on the other road [Music] the tanks caused carnage amongst the retreating lorries and wagons [Applause] the next day white flares were greeted with cheers from the red army soldiers it meant that the second and third ukrainian fronts had linked up the soviets had encircled the german sixth army once again the german and romanian survivors were falling back to the river cirret [Music] the offensive had been a stunning soviet success [Music] meanwhile the 22 year old king michael of romania summoned marshall antonescu to his palace he asked antoniescu to take the country out of its alliance with nazi germany when he refused the king had him arrested with a guarantee from the ussr that romanian independence would be respected romania joined the allies within days the romanian army was fighting the germans [Music] there were still significant german forces in romania particularly guarding the ployest oil fields the germans used these to try and overturn the romanian royalist coup but they were repulsed by the romanian army [Music] now kravchenko's sixth tank army received orders to advance rapidly on the foxarne gate to deny the enemy any chance to regroup his tanks raced ahead passing fortifications abandoned by the romanian army [Music] three days later t-34s reached the ployest oil fields the next day they reached the romanian capital bucharest the surviving german forces in romania had one way out across the carpathian mountains to hungary [Music] few units managed to escape after several unsuccessful attempts to break out of its encirclement german sixth army was overwhelmed in september 1944 to defeat palace's sixth army at stalingrad had taken two months to defeat freda pico's sixth army in romania had taken just two weeks for this brilliant victory stalin awarded the sixth tank army the coveted title guards it was just eight months since the unit had been formed that autumn of 1944 while operations wound down on the rest of the eastern front the battle of hungary roared into life here hitler was desperate to hang on to his last remaining oil fields the soviet advance westwards through the carpathians was slowed by difficult terrain and bad roads what's more romania used a different railway gauge to the soviet union it meant all supplies arriving by rail had to be transferred onto new wagons these logistical problems slowed the red army's advance more than the enemy but nevertheless it rolled steadily onwards towards the hungarian capital budapest [Music] meanwhile hitler had ordered his armored reserves to hungary amongst them was general breit's reinforced third panzer call with the six guards tank army leading the way the second ukrainian front was closing in on budapest but a direct attack on the city had been ruled out the hungarian capital was to be encircled on the 29th of october 1944 six guards tank army began its advance along the right bank of the danube scattering the german forces in its path in the south the third ukrainian front crossed the danube and encircled budapest from the west the trap closed on christmas day 1944 the german reverses near budapest caused hitler to reshuffle his commanders the sixth army reformed once again was placed under the command of general hermann bark its mission was to lift the siege of budapest [Music] to achieve this goal six army was reinforced with two ss panzer corps redeployed from poland hitler's chief of staff heinz guderian objected strongly to weakening the central front but hitler was adamant fierce fighting raged throughout january 1945 as ss panzer units tried but failed to break the siege soviet ultimatum sent to the garrison were rejected the fighting that followed destroyed most of the city and killed nearly 40 000 civilians the garrison finally surrendered on the 13th of february 1945. on the 7th of january soviet tanks reached the danube bridges near kimono on route to the hungarian oil refineries but hitler increasingly isolated and delusional had not given up hope in hungary he planned to send in the mass elite panzer formations of the third reich now organized into the six ss panzer army after securing his oil supplies hitler planned to use the ss panzer army to hurl back the soviets from the gates of berlin soviet forces in hungary would face the best unit still left in the wehrmacht but by tying them down in the south it meant these elite ss formations would not be available for the decisive battle around berlin [Music] the movement of the ss panzer army did not pass unnoticed by soviet radio intelligence to counter this threat the third ukrainian front was hurriedly reinforced with su-100 tank destroyers these vehicles were specifically designed for taking out german heavy tanks [Music] the third ukrainian front received 80 su-100s it now had more than any other soviet front even those advancing on berlin [Music] the su-100 self-propelled gun was a dedicated tank destroyer it was built on the same chassis as the t-34 tank but had a forward-facing 100 millimeter gun this fearsome weapon could penetrate the front armor of a german panther at 1500 meters mass production only began in september 1944 [Music] the last german offensive of world war ii was launched at lake balaton and stopped by the concentrated fire of soviet self-propelled guns with the german assault planted soviet tanks launched their counter-attack the huge numerical advantage of the red army meant that it was able to constantly threaten the enemy with encirclement the ss panzer army retreated all the way to austria where they prepared a desperate defense of the capital [Music] but on the 13th of april after several days of fierce street fighting vienna fell to the red army but this was not the last battle for the men of the six guards tank army [Applause] [Music] even as the soviet victory banner fluttered over the reichstag in berlin field marshal schoener's army group center fought on in czechoslovakia [Music] the sixth guards tank army raced on towards prague they were joined by tanks of the first ukrainian front advancing from the south [Music] the two soviet fronts met at the czech capital encircling army group center and forcing its surrender [Music] in czechoslovakia the red army captured 900 000 soldiers of the vermont including 60 generals [Music] victory was complete in the south but in the meantime a ferocious and desperate battle had been raging in the north it was the climactic battle of the war the final objective of the red army the battle for berlin [Music] so [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] so in the middle of the night and under close guard a new tank regiment arrived at a train station near the border with biella russia alongside the t-34s some very heavy bulky objects covered in tarp hauling were unloaded from the flatbed wagons [Music] the red army's plans in bl russia were top secret these objects would remain a mystery for several days until they were unveiled on the training ground they were heavy metal rollers which were to be attached to the front of a t-34 they transformed the tank into a mine sweeper the rollers would detonate any mine in the tank's path clearing a safe lane for infantry and other vehicles to follow two regiments of these engineer tanks had been secretly deployed to the first bjella russian front clearly the front commander general rokosovsky was planning some sort of offensive but to any onlooker soviet forces in biella russia seemed only to be making defensive preparations from the air only movement away from the front lines could be detected everything was being done to give the impression that this sector was being weakened and that a soviet offensive was being prepared somewhere else on the 6th of june 1944 the day of the allied landings in normandy stalin wrote to churchill the summer offensive of the soviet forces as was agreed at the tehran conference will begin in mid-june at one of the vital sectors of the front which vital sector was not even to be shared with allied heads of government in the east the germans were firmly on the defensive in june 1944 as they struggled to fend off the d-day landings in france army group north was retreating from leningrad army group south had given up the crimea and much of ukraine only army group center seemed to be hanging on german positions on this front formed the so-called biela russian balcony here army group center stood firm over the winter it had successfully repulsed two soviet offensives around vitebsk and osha hitler and the german army high command had much to consider as summer approached they had no firm intelligence on when or where the main soviet offensive would be launched the germans decided that stalin would seek to capitalize on his recent gains in ukraine they had brought the red army to within striking distance of romania and its oil fields so in the summer of 1944 precious german reserves of tanks and aircraft were sent south [Music] when the soviet staffca high command saw german reinforcements moving to ukraine it confirmed their decision to launch a surprise attack in biella russia here the red army would be given the chance to avenge its worst defeat suffered at german hands in the first months of the war the operation was code-named bhagratian the staffca planned a series of assaults against the flanks of army group center which would be encircled and destroyed near the cities of vitebsk and bobrusk then the red army would advance on minsk cutting off german retreat the soviet plan nothing less than the total destruction of german army group center the red army had never set itself such a massive and ambitious goal general rokosovsky proposed that his first beela russian front deliver two simultaneous thrusts against the german right flank at bobrusk and slutsk each thrust would be given equal priority this contradicted standard soviet military doctrine which dictated that there be a single main axis of advance with all other attacks acting in a supporting role constantine konstantinovich rokosovsky was a decorated hero of the first world war and the russian civil war but probably because of his polish origin he found himself under arrest in stalin's great purge of 1937. despite being tortured by the nkvd secret police he refused to sign a confession or inform on his colleagues he was released in 1940 and restored to his rank at the beginning of the war he commanded a mechanized corps but rose rapidly to senior command in may 1944 rokosovsky was summoned to a meeting of the staffer to defend his proposal it was a dramatic scene in which his plan to deliver two simultaneous thrusts came in for much criticism [Music] in his memoirs rokosovsky wrote i was twice sent into the next room to think over the supreme command's comments and each time i came back i was yet more insistent that i was correct [Music] at last stalin said the front commander's persistence proves that the planning of the offensive has been thoroughly considered it is a firm guarantee of success rokosovsky's proposal had the green light vitebsk was held by general reinhardt's third panzer army but despite its impressive name by 1944 third panzer army had hardly any tanks left general reinhardt began the war in command of the fourth panzer division but replaced hoth as commander of third panzer group during the battle of moscow in 1941. that year his tanks had got to within 15 kilometers of the russian capital army group center was made up of four armies with a total strength of about one million men operation bagration was to be the largest and most thoroughly prepared soviet operation of the war so far [Music] if the germans had discovered the preparations they would immediately have reinforced the biela russian front [Music] the forests and swamps presented enough difficulties german reinforcements would have been disastrous [Music] therefore secrecy was of the utmost importance all troop movements took place only at night under camouflage with no lights white posts were placed at the roadside to keep drivers on the road tailgates and bonnets were painted white so they could be seen by other vehicles [Music] units that hadn't reached their destination by dawn would immediately pull over and begin to camouflage their vehicles a special pass was needed to drive a vehicle in daytime and less than 100 passes had been allocated to each army soviet aircraft flew overhead to inspect the troops camouflage if a pilot spotted a red army unit he dropped a pennant this told the unit commander that his men could be seen from the air and that he had to improve his camouflage [Music] security measures were in place from top to bottom plans were drawn up by hand by just two or three officers and taken to the staffer by the front commander in person around vitebsk the decision was made not to bring up any tanks for the first phase of the attack there was too much risk that they would be detected red army radio traffic vanished russian units were notorious for bad radio discipline but as one german noted the russians broke with tradition and observed complete radio silence meanwhile soviet soldiers practice crossing the swamps and forests of biela russia infantrymen learned how to cross marshes how to swim and how to find their bearings in the woods many made mars shoes so they could walk without sinking into the swamps [Music] they built rafts to transport machine guns mortars and light guns through the marsh [Music] logs and fashions bundles of sticks tied together were laid to create roads for vehicles [Music] meanwhile supplies flooded in by rail [Music] the stafker had ordered that the troops were to be issued with five times their normal ammunition load for the offensive this amount of shells bullets and grenades would require six thousand five hundred railway carriages to transport in total four hundred thousand tons of ammunition three hundred thousand tons of fuel and more than five hundred thousand tons of food and forage were delivered to the troops in biella russia it meant that every day 100 supply trains arrived at the front it was impossible to completely conceal preparations of such magnitude but the german high command still thought that the soviet attack would come in ukraine field marshal bush commander of army group center went on leave three days before the soviet offensive his million strong army group was about to be attacked by the combined strength of four soviet fronts 2.4 million soldiers 5 200 tanks and self-propelled guns and 5 300 aircraft [Music] the final preparations for the offensive fell to red army engineers both sides had laid massive minefields in front of their lines now the engineers would have to crawl into these minefields and begin to clear safe lanes for the attack they would have to work in the dark and in silence and they had just two nights to complete the job key element of any mine is the firing mechanism pressure on it causes the mine to explode demining involves first of all locating the mine then removing or disabling the firing mechanism and then removing the disarmed mine to a safe place the mine clearance teams had to work quickly and quietly they knew that a single mistake could cost them their life to save time the engineers only remove detonators leaving the actual mine in place [Music] they also had to worry about german booby traps including tripwires hidden amongst the long summer grass [Music] both sides were forced to constantly refine and update their methods to counter new threats or tricks devised by the enemy step by step the engineers picked a path through this lethal landscape in just two nights they diffused 34 000 mines it was the final stage of preparation through these cleared lanes the red army was now poised to launch one of the largest and most decisive operations in history [Music] the final preparations had been made for the great soviet summer offensive of 1944 a last-minute change to its timing only added to the weight of expectation operation bagration would begin on the 22nd of june the third anniversary of germany's invasion the offensive began on the northern flank with probing attacks in the vicinity of vitepsk here infantry of the first baltic and third biella russian fronts successfully stormed the german front line trenches by nightfall soviet units were engaged along the entire front as probing attacks gave way to full-blooded assault [Music] hundreds of aircraft arrived overhead to pour bombs onto the german front line at dawn the t-34s joined the assault swarms of illusion ground attack aircraft crossed the front line with orders to hunt and destroy german artillery batteries in the enemy rear [Applause] german heavy artillery was a feared opponent capable of stalling the whole offensive [Music] but it was also extremely vulnerable to air attack [Music] in low-level strafing attacks the il-2s used machine guns cannons and rockets to mow down gun crews and destroy ammunition stockpiles [Music] the illusion il-2 was designed by sergey illusion of the soviet central design bureau it became the most heavily produced military aircraft of all time the crew and engine were protected by armor this was essential to protect them from small arms fire when making low level attacks at an altitude of just 25 to 50 meters the il-2 was slow and therefore extremely vulnerable to german fighter attack so by the second half of the war they always flew their missions with a fighter escort but by june 1944 the luftwaffe was a shadow of its former self german army group center had just 40 fighters available for air defense its troops had been left wide open to soviet air attack soviet sturmovic ground attack aircraft roamed freely over the battlefield often dispensing with their fighter escorts meanwhile hitler had come up with the idea of the fortress town troops defending locations with this special status were expected to fight to the last man even when completely surrounded one such fortress town was vitepsk the city was held by the 53rd corps part of general reinhardt's third panzer army after the first day's fighting reinhardt proposed to withdraw his forces from vitebsk before they became cut off but field marshal bush passed on the fuhrer's order the city was to be held at all costs on the third day of the battle the red army julie encircled the 53rd corps at vitepsk only now when it was too late did hitler authorize a retreat but he still insisted that one division be left behind in vitepsk with orders to fight to the end the germans desperate attempt to escape the trap was doomed from the start the breakout was led by the fourth luftwaffe field division which got as far as the forests to the south west of the city there it came under overwhelming artillery and air attack and was annihilated [Music] after five days of fighting the german 53rd corps capitulated seventeen thousand survivors entered captivity amongst them the corps commander general golvitzer the single german infantry division left in vitebsk met a similar fate the red army burst into the city capturing the bridge over the western divina the germans tried to escape at the last minute but all were either killed or captured meanwhile to the south rokosovsky's first beela russian front began their attack towards the city of bobrusk this was where rokosovsky was attempting his controversial two-pronged assault from the direction of rogachof and from the village of parichi shukoff arrived to observe the assault of general gorbachev's third army with rokosovsky directing the southern attack across the marshes and zhukov coordinating the northern assault a clear rivalry had developed as to who would be the first to crack the german lines [Music] near rogachoff soviet heavy bombers attacked under cover of darkness they were helped to their target by red army trucks drawn up in long lines facing eastwards with their headlights turned on these lights hidden from the germans pointed the soviet pilots towards their target in his memoirs general gorbatov wrote first we heard the buzz of light aircraft flying over to attack the enemy positions [Music] then this noise was joined by the rumble of heavy aircraft wave after wave of them [Music] soon the enemy lines erupted in explosions and flames [Music] [Applause] [Music] at dawn soviet ground attack aircraft continued the bombardment they strafed german trenches and pummel strong points with rockets and bombs [Music] [Music] soviet air attacks could be wild and inaccurate but now they also began to take a fearsome psychological toll on the german soldiers with no protection from the luftwaffe they lived in almost constant fear of a sudden deadly attack from above [Music] before the smoke had cleared shells and katusha rockets screamed through the air [Music] as the bombardment raged minesweeping tanks began their advance their heavy rollers detonated the mines in their path clearing wide lanes for the tanks and self-propelled guns that followed in their wake [Music] despite this massive assault by land and air the red army continued to encounter fierce german resistance around rogachoff but further to the south around the village of parichi general rokosovsky was making steady progress through the swamps and forests now he ordered forward general plieve's mechanized cavalry corps to exploit the breach rokosovsky's gamble on a two-pronged assault had paid off he had made a breakthrough and he had done it before zhukov army group center's only panzer division was ordered to make a counter-attack near roger chop but at the last moment it received urgent new orders to move south to block rokosovsky's advance many of its vehicles broke down in the difficult marshy terrain but rokosovsky had widened the breach and was already pouring in fresh troops one panzer division was not going to stop him now german defenses around rogerchoff robbed of their tank reinforcement and under zhukov's incessant hammer blows now collapsed the german ninth army was encircled two days later it surrendered twenty thousand germans were taken prisoner [Music] the red army's next objective was minsk the capital of biella russia its liberation was to be led by general rod mistroff's fifth guard's tank army [Music] the plan was for rodman's tanks to dash straight down the smalense minsk highway but attempts to capture osha along the route had been bloodily repulsed so the decision was taken to launch the attack from the vicinity of vitebsk where the red army had already blown a hole through the german defenses the 5 000 vehicles of the fifth guard's tank army began their attack towards borisov deep in the rear of army group center for two days their advance met virtually no resistance meanwhile hitler had relieved field marshal bush of command his successor was field marshal model the so-called furious fireman and master of defense but he inherited a desperate situation three soviet fronts were advancing on minsk the germans were in full retreat hoping to reach the berezina river but the red army already held most of the crossing points the germans held just one bridge on the mogalev minsk highway thousands of german vehicles carts and soldiers were now converging on the bridge one german witness described the scene the scramble was wildest on the approaches to the bridge carts and cars were trying to push each other off the road each wanted to be first onto the bridge there were fights and swearing the military police were powerless [Music] and always there was the constant fear of air attack sturmovic ground attack aircraft mauled retreating columns of german troops increasingly the situation began to resemble the summer of 1941 but now the roles were reversed it was the german's turn to flee in terror and confusion under incessant attack from above and now they could expect neither respite nor mercy as german army group center threatened to disintegrate the wehrmacht threw its medium bombers into the battle it was hoped they could halt the soviet tank columns and earn their own troops some desperately needed breathing space [Music] but in the face of soviet air superiority daylight raids led to heavy losses for little gain [Music] one week into the offensive german panzer divisions began to arrive from ukraine the german fifth panzer division reinforced with a battalion of tiger tanks prepared to meet the advance of rock mistroff's army [Music] the tigers and panthers slowed the soviet advance to a bloody crawl in july 1944 the fifth guards tank army had yet to receive the new t-34 85 tanks this updated version had a much more powerful 85 millimeter gun although it didn't make them the equal of a german tiger or panther tank it did make their encounters less one-sided [Music] the tank battles raged for two days [Music] the red army suffered enormous losses but german tank strength was also reduced from 159 to just 18 tanks the fate of minsk was sealed tigers and panthers had bought army group center some time but they couldn't prop up the entire front [Music] at dawn on the 3rd of july tanks of the 1st and 3rd biela russian fronts rolled into minsk from the north and southeast encircling the remnants of two german armies meanwhile the second biela russian front carried the german retreat from the east [Music] it took a week to eradicate german resistance within minsk the encirclement at minsk led to the capture of another 35 000 prisoners including 12 generals by now german army group center had suffered catastrophic losses seventeen of its divisions had been wiped out in just two weeks of fighting the germans had suffered total casualties estimated at four hundred and nine thousand a hundred and fifty thousand of these were prisoners the german panzer divisions remained a potent weapon but army group center no longer had the manpower to form a defensive line [Music] operation bagration did not end until the 19th of august by which time the red army had reached central poland the border of east prussia and the baltic sea five soviet fronts on a front of more than a thousand kilometers had advanced between 550 and 600 kilometers the success of the operation surpassed the wildest expectations of the staffka high command after operation bhagratian stalin began to address rokosovsky using both his name and patronimic constantin konstantinovich the only person he'd honored in this way before was marshall shaposhnikov his most trusted general [Music] the soviet victory was so overwhelming that some foreign press agencies doubted whether the reports were accurate so stalin decided to prove it he gave the order to begin operation the great waltz named after a popular american film of 1938. trains from biela russia secretly began to arrive in moscow the central moscow hippodrome and the dynamo stadium were cordoned off on the 17th of july it was announced to the public the german prisoners of war captured in operation bagration will be paraded through the streets of moscow muscovites poured onto the streets to witness this strange spectacle the procession was led by 19 german generals in full uniform they were followed by more than a thousand officers after them shuffled columns of weary unshaven soldiers [Music] this was what stalin wanted the world to see the fate of adolf hitler's once proud conquering army [Music] the people of moscow watched for the most part in silence in many of their minds the german soldier had become almost totally dehumanized [Music] the soviet people had been subjected to endless propaganda but they had also suffered terrible and brutal losses to many the german soldier was a fascist beast responsible for murders and rapes and the burning of villages and towns [Music] 57 000 german prisoners were paraded through the city on route to labor camps in the east the procession was followed up by street cleaners washing away all trace of the hated fascists [Music] this startling display made a huge impression on muscovites and foreign observers alike as was its intention now none had any doubt of the war's ultimate victorious conclusion [Music] the collapse of german army group center allowed the red army to advance towards poland and east prussia in the baltic region the advance was led by general bagramian's first baltic front and general czernikovsky's third biela russian front on the 8th of july chanyakovsky's troops reached the outskirts of vilnius [Music] the city was soon surrounded and after five days of vicious house-to-house fighting the garrison laid down its arms [Music] the third guard's mechanized corps made a bold and rapid advance covering 70 kilometers to reach the lithuanian city of chola [Music] on the 31st of july the commander of its eighth mechanized brigade radioed core headquarters to tell them we're on the beach at the gulf of riga [Music] this short radio message meant something incredible all german forces in the baltic were now cut off [Music] the commander's report was so unexpected that his core commander asked him to repeat it then he gave him the following unusual order fill three bottles with seawater then seal the bottles and have the commander sign them personally to confirm that the water was taken from the baltic sea then send the bottles to core the headquarters of seawater were delivered to front headquarters by aircraft and from there sent to moscow they were on their way to stalin soon the bottles stood on a kremlin table as proof that soviet tanks had reached the sea [Music] operation bagration had smashed open the eastern front now the red army was on the move in the baltic next stop was tallinn the estonian capital was the objective of red army units of the 8th estonian rifle corps under lieutenant general pern he organized a motorized column which covered a hundred kilometers in one day his men stormed into talon and took the city on the 22nd of september 1944. now there just remained german army group north trapped in the koalan peninsula despite repeated requests from general guderian now chief of the general staff hitler refused to allow the troops to be evacuated from coaland [Music] the german pocket in corland was described as an armed prisoner of war camp the troops trapped there ceased to have any influence on the course of the war army group corland finally laid down its arms on the 11th of may 1945 two days after germany's surrender the red army had reached the border of east prussia it was here at koenigsberg that remnants of army group center had withdrawn after defeat in biella russia [Music] the shattered german formations had received new recruits and new weaponry the red army couldn't safely bypass such a potential hornet's nest nor did the prospect of a long siege appeal to the staffer the decision was taken to isolate east prussia with a thrust north into east pomerania towards dancing on the baltic coast then resistance in east prussia would be methodically broken down it would be hard many german units now fought fanatically to defend germany from the wrath of the red army [Music] the job of breaking through to the baltic was entrusted to rokosovsky's second biella russian front he attacked on the 14th of january 1945. [Music] but just one day into the offensive the weather took a turn for the worse [Music] rokosovsky recalled it was already daylight but nothing could be seen everything was hidden by a veil of mist and falling snow the weather was abominable and the meteorologists predicted no improvement so i cancelled all air operations [Music] [Applause] the artillery fired blindly into the snowstorm [Music] the infantry advance was slow just three or four kilometers on the first day the germans stiffened their defense with tiger tanks and sturm geschut's assault guns general reinhardt now in command of army group center still hope to launch an armored counter-attack to stem the soviet advance but his tanks were sent south to face more soviet offensives on the vestula reinhardt could only call on the elite panzer grenadier division gross deutschland as it began its advance it ran into 500 soviet tanks of the front reserve by 1945 the t-3485 was the main tank of the red army it retained many of the characteristics of the earlier t-3476 such as excellent mobility and reliability the main improvement was a powerful 85 millimeter gun housed in a larger three-man turret the size of the crew was increased to five about 80 000 of these tanks were produced by the ussr before production finally came to an end in 1950 they remained in service with many armies around the world until the 1990s after having defeated the enemy's tank reserve rokosovsky ordered forward the fifth guard's tank army [Music] reinhardt appealed to hitler my fuhrer a captured enemy map shows that the russian tank army is moving towards danzig if it gets through we'll be attacked from the rear and unable to defend ourselves reinhardt requested permission to retreat nine days passed before hitler agreed by then it was too late [Music] the soviet tanks had reached the vistula lagoon east prussia had been cut off from the reich chernakovsky's third biella russian front had arrived at koenigsberg from the east german army group center had been chopped into three parts bad weather prevented the soviet air force attacking the retreating columns of men and vehicles this allowed the germans to assemble improvised fighting groups around konigsberg they were still able to offer fierce resistance on the 18th of february 1945 general chanyakovsky commander of the third biella russian front was badly wounded by shell fragments at melsack he died the same day he was just 39 years old marshall vasilevskiy arrived to take command of soviet troops in east prussia marshall alexander vasilevskiy was the chief of the soviet general staff for most of the war this meant he was responsible for planning most of the major soviet operations on the eastern front he was described by colleagues as polite and diplomatic and he was trusted by stalin however some said vasilevskiy lacked the courage to stand up to him vasilevskiy was twice decorated as hero of the soviet union gradually german resistance in east prussia was overcome the pockets south of kernigsburg was first to fall kerningsburg itself did not surrender until april 1945. [Music] in east prussia the red army faced fanatical german resistance but soviet firepower was overwhelming in his memoirs vasilevskiy described the east prussian offensive as the most expensive in history in terms of the consumption of ammunition he estimated that in this campaign the red army used over 15 000 railway carriages of ammunition [Music] the fortified city of konigsberg was finally pummeled into submission by the soviet artillery its surrender netted the red army another 92 000 prisoners by this point marshal zhukov was putting the final touches on his plan for the assault on berlin to the south fighting continued to rage in czechoslovakia and hungary the second and third ukrainian fronts battled elite ss divisions as they advanced on austria all had been made possible by the success of operation bagratian in the south too the red army had traveled a long and bitter road to victory it had begun many miles to the east in 1943 as soviet troops prepared to cross the deneba river before them lay the battle of ukraine [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] the first day of the war two messerschmitt 109s were on the tail of a damaged soviet seagull fighter suddenly another seagull appeared behind the two german fighters [Music] the germans left the damaged plane and went after the new arrival they put several holes through the soviet aircraft but were unable to shoot it down this seagull was flown by lieutenant reg karloff this was his baptism of fire [Music] shot down his first german aircraft five days later he went on to score 61 victories making him the third highest scoring soviet ace of the war he was twice decorated as a hero of the soviet union the ussr's highest award a medical board had declared wretch karloff unfit for combat because of colorblindness but when he reported to his regiment the war had just begun and he was immediately pressed into services in 1941 the main soviet fighters were the i-153 seagull and the i-16 they were designed by the polycarp bureau led by nikolai nikolayovich polycarp seagull had a tight turning circle but it was painfully slow compared to the german messerschmitt 109. soviet pilots first encountered the 109 during the spanish civil war it was immediately clear that it posed a serious threat the messerschmitt 109 was designed by willie messerschmitt of the bayerischer fluxoid verker company it would become the most produced fighter of the war by june 1941 the latest f variant had a top speed of 390 miles per hour compared to the seagulls 266 miles per hour [Music] its two machine guns and one 20 millimeter cannon meant the 109 was also more heavily armed the maneuverability of the seagull meant soviet pilots could often escape but they could never fight on their own terms [Music] on the first day of the war more than 300 soviet aircraft were shot down but as many as fourteen hundred were destroyed on the ground the worst losses were in belo russia where general chernuk's ninth air division equipped with new mig-3s lost 347 of its 409 aircraft sergey alexandrovich chernyouk was a hero of the soviet union a veteran of the spanish civil war and the first soviet pilot to shoot down a messerschmitt 109 but now he became a scapegoat for the air force's failures and was arrested and shot the western front lost 738 aircraft 528 of them on the ground when the air force commander in biela russia general koppets realized the scale of the disaster he shot himself these men were talented young pilots who'd been rapidly promoted to high command to fill the vacuum created by stalin's purge of senior air force officers but when war came they were out of their depth despite the enormous losses of the first day the remnants of the soviet air force began to fight back [Music] on the 25th of june 27 soviet tupolev sb bombers attacked the german second panzer group as it masked to cross the shara river in bella russia the bombers destroyed vehicles and took out the river crossing [Applause] on the way back the sb's were attacked by german fighters 10 were shot down soviet ground attack and fighter regiments were under army command but bombers were under front or army group command it proved almost impossible to coordinate their actions bombers attacked without fighter protection while fighters were ordered to attack ground targets poor soviet tactics were also being exposed bomber pilots had been trained to fly in loose formations meaning their machine guns couldn't cover each other soviet tactics and organization needed a rapid overhaul nevertheless soviet bombers continued to attack german ground forces as well as strategic targets including koenigsberg in east prussia warsaw the romanian port of constancia and the ploiesti oil refineries [Music] one of the pilots defending the vital romanian oil fields was oberloytment guntaval on the 26th of june his unit intercepted soviet bombers returning from a raid on ployesti [Music] raal shot down three bombers his fellow pilots destroyed six more [Music] gunterral enlisted in the infantry in 1936 two years later he transferred to the luftwaffe to train as a fighter pilot he first saw action over france in 1940 where he scored two victories he ended the war as germany's third most successful fighter pilot with 275 kills to his name german pilots not only had the advantage of superior aircraft they also had excellent training [Music] they followed the maxim of the legendary first world war fighter race the red baron himself manfred von richthofen find the enemy and shoot him down anything else is nonsense german fighter pilots fought almost a separate war more like an athletic contest in which only their individual scores mattered drawing on their experience of the spanish civil war luftwaffe fighter pilots had invented their own tactics they flew in a flexible formation made up of two pairs known as the finger four which allowed them to utilize their superior speed other air forces including the british and soviet flew in rigid v-shaped formations in which pilots spent most of their time concentrating on holding position in the soviet case a tight formation was essential because most aircraft did not yet have radios section leaders had to communicate by waggling their wings or using hand signals it left the pilots with no freedom to maneuver in the weeks leading up to the german invasion a brand new aircraft began to arrive at soviet ground attack regiments it was the ill-2 and it would become the most famous soviet aircraft of the war the ill-2 sturmovic was designed by sergey illusion and entered service in may 1941. his creation was soon nicknamed the flying tank the l2 carried cannon machine guns bombs and rockets and was protected from ground fire by armor plating more than 36 000 were eventually built making it the most produced military aircraft in history the first unit to receive the ill-2 was the fourth sturmovic regiment but the war began before its pilots had had a chance to train with it they'd practiced takeoffs and landings but hadn't flown in formation or even fired the aircraft's weapons yet some of the pilots had never seen an rs rocket before and now they were expected to use them in combat on the 27th of june pilots spitzin philippov and kolobaev flew off on their first mission they attacked a german column from low altitude they could only use their machine guns since the 20 millimeter cannon had a production defect [Music] all the pilots returned to the airfield kolobaev's plane was riddled with holes the fuselage was covered with oil the aircraft was a write-off but he had survived a week later the regiment received a citation from the front commander for destroying nine crossings over the berezina river but losses were high by mid-july of the regiment's 56 aircraft only 10 remained in service in august the regiment handed its last three aircraft to a neighboring unit and headed east for rebuilding [Music] in the first summer of the war an illusion two was destroyed on average after just eight or nine missions in some regiments after just three or four but better tactics and training would gradually improve these survival rates by 1945 the average had gone up to 90 missions that autumn gregory rich karloff was wounded during a combat mission despite serious leg injuries he managed to land his aircraft back at base by then his score stood at three german aircraft destroyed by the end of 1941 the soviet air force had lost more than 20 000 aircraft the luftwaffe just 3800 but despite this success the luftwaffe proved unable to effectively target soviet transport and infrastructure the luftwaffe had been designed primarily to support ground operations it lacked the aircraft to carry out strategic bombing the luftwaffe was unable to prevent the evacuation of soviet industry to the urals or crucially prevent red army reinforcements moving up from the russian interior german air raids against moscow underlined this weakness soviet fighters supported by formidable anti-aircraft defenses were able to prevent any serious damage to the capitol by the winter counter attack the soviet air force outnumbered the luftwaffe by almost three to one and soon it would start to receive some desperately needed modern aircraft above an airfield in russia an aircraft slowed began to shudder and then fell into a spin down below its designer semyon lavoshkin feared the worst the day before he told the pilots don't test it for tailspin you'll destroy the prototype and yourselves but the pilot quickly recovered and returned to level flight two weeks later the state defense committee approved production of the lag three fighter with a new m82 engine it would be called the la-5 its predecessor the lag-3 was designed in 1940 by lavoshkin gurbanov and goodkov because of the ussr shortage of aluminium the aircraft had a wooden frame with key sections made from a wood veneer that was treated with bakelite and compressed at high temperature this made the wood very strong and fire resistant but it was heavy compared to aluminium its weight and an underpowered engine made the lag three sluggish and unmaneuverable in the autumn of 1941 it was decided to cease production of lag fighters and concentrate instead on the yak-7 in late 1941 the yak-7b was considered the best soviet fighter it was armed with one cannon and two machine guns and had a top speed of 365 miles per hour [Music] the lavoshkin design bureau faced closure its savior was a new more powerful m82 air-cooled engine installed in the lag-3 airframe it gave birth to the la-5 and the lavoshkin bureau was back in business on the 21st of march 1942 a few days before the bureau was evacuated to the caucasus test pilot vasily michenko took the prototype for its first flight in the first year of the war the soviets had lost huge swathes of territory and suffered devastating losses of 22 600 tanks available at the start of the war about two thousand were left from twenty thousand aircraft just two thousand and of one hundred and ten thousand guns and mortars two thousand eight hundred these losses had to be made good quickly but at the same time soviet factories had to be evacuated east to safety the people's commissariat of aviation industry had evacuated 118 factories 85 percent of its facilities nine major tank plants were evacuated by the end of 1941 more than 10 million people and two and a half thousand enterprises had been relocated the task required more than one and a half million rail wagons on arrival most factories resumed production immediately the soviet air force meanwhile was putting into practice the painful lessons of 1941 in march 1942 the air force received a new commander general novikov immediately recommended that its units be concentrated into air armies making it easier to manage and coordinate air operations soviet fighter pilots learned new tactics some drawn from combat experience others borrowed from the luftwaffe the air force abandoned its mixed air groups instead fighters stoma vics and bombers were formed into specialized divisions obsolete aircraft such as the seagull were gradually replaced by new yaks lavoshkins and illusions the la-5 made its debut in august 1942 over stalingrad gunther gave his assessment of the new aircraft the russians were quick learners the la-5 based on the inefficient lag-3 was a great plane all german pilots soon learned to respect the la-5 it had particularly impressive performance at low altitude where it could out turn a messerschmitt 109 and out climb a fokker wolf 190 [Music] however the soviets continued to suffer heavy pilot losses the situation was described in a report by the 49th fighter regiment the la-5 is the best type of soviet fighter the regiment's losses are explained by the fact that 45 percent of personnel are young pilots casualties included three sergeants with 15 to 17 flying hours on la-5s and two lieutenants with similar background only one in five is an experienced pilot pilot training would remain one of the soviet air force's greatest failings until the end of the war soviet flight schools suffered from a shortage of instructors and of fuel pilots graduated after just 90 days of basic instruction they concentrated on takeoffs and landings acrobatics were strictly forbidden because they led to too many accidents [Music] as a result pilots often arrived at their unit with as little as eight hours flying experience often none of it on the aircraft the unit was equipped with nor had they been trained how to fly in bad weather [Music] flight school graduates received virtually no instruction in air combat most had done some target shooting but few knew much about deflection shooting or how to use their gun sights these men were expected to fight german pilots with hundreds of combat missions under their belt [Music] but what they lacked an experience they made up for in spirit sergey gorolof typified the commitment of soviet fighter pilots [Music] we were eager for battle and ready to die in combat we even said our goodbyes before going on a mission [Music] oh [Music] [Music] in late 1942 gregory rich carlos regiment was withdrawn from the front in order to retrain on new aircraft american era cobras sent to the ussr as part of the allied lend lease program of military aid of all the types of allied aircraft supplied through lend lease this was the pilot's favorite the bell p-39 era cobra had one unusual design feature the engine was situated behind the pilot half of the 10 000 era cobras built by bell were sent to the soviet union under the terms of lend lease the aircraft carried a 37 millimeter cannon and two heavy caliber machine guns besides rich karloff other era cobra pilots included nikolai goliath the fourth highest scoring soviet ace with 57 confirmed kills and alexander pogristian the third highest with 59 kills reg carlov who liked to hunt alone in his era cobra won 42 victories in 1943 he finished the war with 61 confirmed victories by the war's end reg karloff had twice been decorated as a hero of the soviet union [Music] in april 1943 the red army's north caucasus front began an offensive against the cuban bridgehead on the black sea coast their aim was to break through the german fortification system known as the blue line and to liberate tamar after six days of fierce fighting the 56th army had succeeded in capturing just one german stronghold the village of krimskayama any further red army advance became impossible in the face of massive german airstrikes launched from luftwaffe bases in the kirch peninsula [Music] soviet offensive had to be called off on the 15th of may [Music] that summer a vicious struggle for air superiority raged over the kuban bridgehead on one side the soviet fourth air force under general verschinen on the other field marshall von richthofen's fourth air fleet it would prove the beginning of the end for luftwaffe supremacy on the eastern front [Music] the soviet union's top ace was ivan nikitovich kashidub spent two years as a flight instructor and only joined a frontline fighter regiment in the spring of 1943 where he flew la-5s by the end of the war he had shot down 62 enemy aircraft making him the highest scoring allied ace of the war he was also a three times hero of the soviet union in his first 40 missions kashudub failed to shoot down any enemy aircraft instead he often returned with his own plane badly damaged [Music] but his chance would come at the battle of kursk [Music] in the summer of 1943 near kursk the wehrmacht planned a massive two-prong defensive that would lead to the encirclement and destruction of substantial red army forces the red army had never before withstood the combined german assault of tanks artillery and aircraft kolobaev meanwhile was instructing young pilots of the seventh guard stermovic regiment chiles [Music] extolled the virtues of aggression in his pilots he urged them to attack without hesitation by 1943 soviet stomach regiments had developed tactics based on solid combat experience they began with a nosedive from three thousand feet to just a few hundred then they would form a circle this formation gave them freedom to maneuver select their ground targets and engage them with cannon machine guns bombs and rockets as they made their attack the aircraft following behind protected them from german fighters just before the battle of kursk ill-2 units received a new anti-tank weapon the p-tab aerial bomb gregory cherkashin was one pilot to use the new weapon p-tabs are our best weapon against tanks they're a beast six stermovics approach an armored column the first unloads its four hatches then the second then the third the germans unleashed their kursk offensive on the 5th of july 1943. the next day kashadub shot down his first german aircraft over the next two days he shot down three more [Music] [Music] in one battle lieutenant gorovich was credited with destroying nine stukas the last by ramming it before his heavily damaged la-5 was shot down at the cost of his own life alexander konstantinovich gorovich set a soviet record of destroying nine enemy aircraft in a single mission the exact number of aircraft shot down by the world war ii aces remains the subject of heated debate the nature of air combat made it difficult to be sure if an aircraft had been shot down or just damaged the soviet air force like all others required victories to be corroborated by witnesses in the air or on the ground or for kills to be confirmed by gun camera footage but pilots on all sides were prone to exaggerate the number of aircraft they'd shot down in the battle of britain for instance fighter pilots claim for about twice as many aircraft as were actually shot down at kursk the air battle raged with as much ferocity as the fighting on the ground one thing was clear the luftwaffe no longer had things all its own way [Music] experienced german aces flying high-performance modern aircraft continued to exact a heavy toll on the soviet air force but sergey gorollov exemplified the soviet learning curve by kursk i'd learned how to maneuver and shoot accurately now we had reliable radios and ground control while i destroyed one plane in 1941 in 1942 i got five and in summer of 1943 20. the lavoshkin fighter played an important role in his success in 1943 it received a new engine with direct fuel injection which made it a solid match for the latest messerschmitt 109. on the 3rd of august gorolov and nine other la-5 pilots were escorting stermovics to their target when they were jumped by 35 enemy fighters [Music] in the ensuing dog fight eight messerschmitts were shot down two of them by gorolove [Music] [Music] us [Music] when attacking a formation of soviet stomachs and fighter escorts german fighters would climb 500 meters above them there they would circle waiting for the optimum moment to make a diving attack their plan was simple strike at maximum speed take out a stoma vic and then climb away to safety these high-speed diving attacks were made at more than 400 miles per hour [Music] the escort fighters orders were to stay with the slower less maneuverable stermovics and protect them from these attacks they would turn to face the attacking german aircraft and open a defensive fire which even if it missed might force him to break off his attack the escort would then rejoin the formation [Music] it could be a frustrating experience for soviet fighter pilots forbidden to pursue and destroy damaged enemy fighters german aces scored many victories with these high-speed diving attacks but there weren't enough of them to prevent the stermovics carrying out their mission to bomb and strafe german ground forces without mercy on the 4th of february 1944 first lieutenant keshadub was awarded the gold star of a hero of the soviet union for destroying 20 enemy aircraft in 146 missions his comrade sergey kramarenko described this exceptional pilot lots of pilots envied him thinking he must be really lucky hitting so many planes without being hit i mean it's really rare but after flying with him a few times i realized that behind the luck lay lightning reactions and excellent situational awareness kozadap had an instinctive understanding of aerial combat he was always in the right place at the right time then all he had to do was push the gun button [Music] in 1943 british and american air forces launched their combined bomber offensive against germany the casablanca directive stated its goals the progressive destruction and dislocation of the german military industrial and economic system and the undermining of the morale of the german people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened [Music] germany was to be bombed around the clock the americans attacking by day the british at night on the eastern front german pilots were able to hunt freely but against allied bombers and their fighter escorts they no longer had the option to fight only on their own terms on two fronts the luftwaffe was slowly being ground into submission shortly before dawn on the 23rd of june 1944 the alert was sounded at the seventh guard stomach regiment all personnel formed up on the airfield the regiment had been completely remanded three times and the men who began the war in biella russia were long gone commander kolabayev had been promoted and transferred the men stood to attention a parade was being held to mark the start of operation bagration [Music] regiments in the lead resulted in the destruction of an entire german army group the red army had cracked the eastern front wide open a commission had been sent to assess the efficiency of the 230th ground assault division of which the seventh guards regiment was apart they found that in one day the division destroyed more than 100 vehicles six tanks and 20 guns [Music] as the germans retreated through russia traffic jams formed particularly around the river crossings with the luftwaffe nowhere to be seen the columns were at the mercy of the soviet air force oh here [Music] in april 1945 the soviet air force prepared to support the red army's final offensive across the oder river and into berlin they would outnumber the luftwaffe almost seven to one but the german sixth air fleet could be counted on to fight desperately in defense of the capital [Music] of la-7s took off to guard the crossings ivan kashadub was in the lead [Music] below them they spotted 32 [ __ ] wolf 190s flying in two groups [Music] kashadub descended slipped onto the german formation and attacked the lead aircraft [Music] a [ __ ] wolf opened fire on kashadub his wingmen shot down the german at almost point blank range using their speed the soviet fighters climbed and attacked the second enemy group kashadub destroyed another plane [Music] then another a dogfight began as pilots twisted and turned trying to get into a good firing position on an enemy aircraft in spite of their superior numbers the focke wolves turned tail and fled west pursued by the levoskins [Music] back at base the scores were tallied up casual had shot down three aircraft getting away with a few holes in his tail grommakovsky had two and kamenitzy stedsenko and olaf won each the once mighty luftwaffe had been chased from the sky and soviet fighter pilots roamed at will over the enemy's capital several became aces in the final days of the war amongst them vladimir gromykovsky who shot down five aircraft during the berlin offensive and victor alexandruk who claimed seven on the night of the 9th of may pilots woke to the sound of gunshots they sprung out of bed and raced outside with their sidearms german regiments were still trying to fight their way to the west sometimes attacking airfields in their path but the shots were being fired into the air news had arrived of the german unconditional surrender the war was finally over [Music] for the soviet air force it had been a costly and bloody struggle but from the devastating defeats of 1941 had emerged a ruthless and powerful air force that had played its full part in the final soviet victory [Music] is [Music] [Music] on the deck of a german warship the crew rolled trolleys loaded with huge metal spheres towards the stern anime it was nearly midnight on the 21st of june 1941 the eve of the german invasion of the soviet union and german warships were busy mining the gulf of finland there were just a few hours left before the first german air raids hit the soviet union and the german ambassador in moscow handed over a declaration of war but here in the baltic the war had already begun unlike the army and air force the soviet navy was expecting war for three days it had been on high alert its ships and aircraft mounted regular patrols to give early warning of any incoming attack just before midnight on the 21st of june the navy was put on red alert by its commander people's commissar nikolai kuznetsov but while soviet airfields were hammered on the first day of the war the navy was hardly in the firing line at all the main baltic naval base at tarlin wasn't even attacked but naval mobilization still left plenty to be desired submarine commander peter grishenko was asleep when the germans attacked [Music] but it was not the submarine base that was being attacked it was the airfield [Music] if the bombers had targeted the soviet fleet there was every chance they could have pulled off a german pearl harbor but the germans planned instead to block eight soviet ships in their ports with mines the soviet navy was divided between four distinct operational zones the baltic sea and black sea the arctic and the far east the distances involved were vast it was a sea voyage of nearly 9 000 miles from vladivostok to leningrad in 1941 the soviet navy possessed few large modern warships its expansion had focused instead on submarines and light ships a strategy advocated by several young soviet naval theorists the argument ran one submarine can disable a battleship several submarines can impede the actions of several fleets [Music] the doctrine received official approval people's commissar of defense clement varashilov declared all we want is to protect our coasts and borders our light forces naval aviation and submarines will [ __ ] an attacking enemy the ussr began a massive program of submarine construction the navy conducted maneuvers in which submarines practiced working with coastal batteries aircraft and light ships to repel an enemy naval attack at the outbreak of war the soviet navy had three battleships seven light cruisers 54 destroyers 215 submarines 22 guard ships 290 torpedo boats and 62 sub hunters all three battleships dated back to the days of the tsar the baltic fleet was strongest with two battleships two modern light cruisers and 21 destroyers the northern fleet was weakest with just eight destroyers the german navy and contrast had three battleships eight cruisers 34 destroyers and 155 submarines at 6 30 a.m on the 22nd of june baltic fleet headquarters received orders from people's commissar kuznetsov but such a course could have little effect as admiral pantilyev pointed out the nazi navy had no intention of entering the gulf of finland on the contrary it intended to blockade us inside it [Music] a cruiser covered by a smoke screen maneuvered slowly through the harbour of thailand every few minutes its main guns roared out the cruiser kirov was firing at german troops advancing on the estonian capital the enemy retaliated with heavy artillery this was why the kirov kept on the move hiding amongst the smoke by late august 1941 the red army had been forced to yield most of its baltic conquests only tallinn remained a last soviet bastion in estonia the germans and their finnish allies were determined to prevent the evacuation of tallinn by sea there were only two navigable channels to the city one along the coast and one through the middle of the gulf of finland the germans and finns filled this central channel with two and a half thousand mines [Music] the sea mine was a highly effective naval weapon responsible for one-fifth of all shipping losses during the war the german em or moored contact mine consisted of a hollow sphere with seven thin horns inside in a watertight box was a 300 kilogram explosive charge most of the sphere was empty so the mine would float the mine was rolled overboard with its trolley to which it was attached by a cable the trolley acted as the mine's anchor and held it in place the cable length could be adjusted to set the depth of the mine the metal horns triggered the mine when a ship hit one it broke an acid container within the horn this turned it into a battery and sent an electric charge to the detonator the mine would then explode having fought their way to the coast the germans opened fire on the navigation channel but neither artillery nor the mines could prevent soviet transports reaching tallinn soviet mine hunters led the way because of their shallow draft they passed safely over the mines dragging a troll that cut their cables when a mine floated to the surface it was destroyed with gunfire creating safe lanes through the minefield during august a steady stream of wounded soviet soldiers and refugees were evacuated from thailand by sea but it took a heavy toll on the soviet mine hunters some hit shallow mines others were sunk by tma influence mines triggered by a ship's magnetic field on the 26th of august stalin telegramed voroshilov authorizing a withdrawal from turlin and the evacuation of its garrison by sea [Music] the operation called for an armada of more than 200 soviet ships they would have to run a gauntlet of german and finnish aircraft and torpedo boats and minefields that could not be cleared because of bad weather the convoy departed thailand at noon on the 28th of august carrying 28 000 soldiers and refugees the ships sailed in the central channel meaning german and finnish coastal batteries fired at extreme range luftwaffe dive bombers joined the attack as soviet destroyers laid smoke screens to protect the convoy there were dozens of mines in the channel they soon began to claim their victims [Music] the cruisers and destroyers forged ahead making for the heavily defended naval base at cronstadt the slower transports were left behind german aircraft fell upon them like vultures of the 75 transports that left thailand 12 were destroyed by mines and 19 by aircraft [Music] if the warships had slowed down to protect the convoy the losses might have been fewer but the fleet commander needed his warships back safely the baltic fleet could not be sacrificed [Music] the cruiser kirov reached kronstadt without serious damage as did 11 of 13 submarines but only 5 out of 10 destroyers of the 28 000 evacuees two-thirds arrived safely but more than fifteen thousand lives had been lost on the 200 mile voyage from tarlin within days the germans began their assault on leningrad the warships saved by the brutal decision to abandon the talon convoy would play a vital part in the city's defense hitler's hopes of a rapid victory against the soviet union had been dashed as the war entered its second year the germans became increasingly concerned about their own shipping routes vital supplies of swedish iron ore came across the baltic and along the norwegian coast crowmore came across the black sea from neutral turkey the germans turned to their sophisticated sea mines to protect all these shipping lanes in 1942 they created huge minefields along norway's northern coast watched over by aircraft and coastal batteries it had an immediate and deadly impact on soviet submarine patrols [Music] in april 1942 the sheriff 421 hit a german mine and sank the same month sure 401 went missing on patrol three further submarines were lost in quick succession sinkings by soviet northern fleet submarines dropped off rapidly from 21 in the first half of 1942 to just four in the second half of the year they came at a cost of nine submarines [Music] the sailors of the baltic fleet suffered all the hardships of their home base the besieged city of leningrad rations were so meager that many of them suffered the effects of malnutrition meanwhile german factories were turning swedish iron ore into tanks guns and shells only the submarines of the baltic fleet could disrupt this supply [Music] on the 2nd of july 1942 s7 under commander lee sin slipped through the minefields of the gulf of finland [Music] sweden was neutral but while surfaced lee sin came under attack from swedish aircraft and was lucky to escape that night lee sin sank the swedish transport margareta loaded with coal two days later he sank another swedish ship lulio carrying iron ore to germany the swedes claimed both ships had been sunk within territorial waters a violation of their neutrality the soviets denied this but felt it prudent to order s7 away from the swedish coast on the 30th of july leeson cited four more ships to overtake them he took a huge risk sailing on the surface at full speed in broad daylight he attacked from a depth of just 20 feet if detected he stood little chance of escape but lee sin's audacity paid off the german transport cutter was sunk s7 had no torpedoes left and was heading home when a finished steamer was detected [Music] the main deck gun had jammed so the crew opened fire with their anti-aircraft gun it took almost 400 shells to sink her [Music] from the wreckage lee sin picked up the finnish captain and his engineer and brought them to leningrad it was a very rare example of a submarine taking prisoners four crew members of the s7 were decorated lee sin was recommended for the highest award the title hero of the soviet union [Music] in september 1942 s12 under commander turiev left on patrol but one day in she was damaged in an attack by finnish aircraft her leaking oil tanks left a greasy trail on the water's surface then the sonar operator picked up the sound of propellers the submarine's batteries were almost dead and she was in shallow water on the charts toriyev spotted a small 60 meter deep trench on the seafloor the seabed all around was 40 meters this was where the fins would set their depth charges to explode [Music] s-12 descended into the trench [Music] the submarine was rocked by exploding depth charges and battered by debris from the seabed [Music] but she suffered no serious damage [Music] after dark s12 made her escape but turiev had no intention of cutting short his patrol he made a torpedo attack on the aging german battleship schlesian but missed he was finally forced back to base by autumn storms on the 17th of october 1942 commander lee sin took s7 on a second baltic patrol [Music] but while recharging batteries on the surface s7 was attacked by a finnish submarine four men of the upper watch including commander lee sin were thrown clear the other 42 crew members perished it was from inside a finnish prisoner of war camp that lee sin heard he'd be made a hero of the soviet union when finland signed an armistice in 1944 lee sin returned to active service he fought against japan in 1945 and finally retired from the service in 1970 in 1942 soviet submarines had struck a small but significant blow against germany's vital supply line across the baltic sea [Music] but it came at a heavy price in 1942 soviet submarines sank at least 21 ships and damaged a further nine but of 27 baltic fleet submarines on patrols 12 did not return [Music] and what was already a dangerous environment for soviet submarines was about to become a death trap by the end of 1941 it was clear that hitler faced a long struggle against the soviet union he assigned the german air force and navy the task of stopping allied aid convoys reaching russia across the arctic ocean these convoys brought much needed shipments of food supplies and vehicles to the northern ports of moormansk and archangels cargo ships from north america and britain were assembled into convoys and assigned a naval escort for the dangerous arctic crossing to northern russia the proximity to german-occupied norway made the protection of warships essential convoys bound for the ussr were codenamed pq and those returning qp the first allied convoy of seven merchant ships arrived without loss at arciangelsk on the 31st of august 1941 the convoys passed within 200 miles of the norwegian coast at speeds of no more than 10 knots conditions on the crossing could be horrendous waves the size of houses temperatures of minus 30 degrees centigrade and incessant arctic gales [Music] destroyers of the soviet northern fleet joined the escort for the final leg of the journey to russia and provided defense against german air and submarine attack [Music] the early convoys to russia consisted of no more than a dozen transport ships and the first seven convoys suffered no losses at all the first u-boat attack against an arctic convoy did not occur until january 1942 and resulted in the loss of one transport from convoy pq7a but as the convoys increased in size so too did their losses convoy pq 17 set sail in june 1942 with 34 ships of which 23 were sunk by german aircraft and u-boats this disaster led to the suspension of arctic convoys for three months hitler in his determination to choke off any aid to the soviet union sent heavy reinforcements to norway including the mighty new battleship tirpitz she was a sister ship to the bismarck and like her carried a fearsome battery of eight 15-inch guns soviet sub k 21 under commander lunan was also bound for norway [Music] on the afternoon of the 5th of july 1942 k21 sonar officer reported the sound of heavy warships it was the tirpitz leading a german squadron to intercept the allied convoy pq 17. lunan used his periscope to observe the target although he knew that in clear weather there was a danger that its wake could be spotted by a german lookout the german ships were moving at high speed leaving only a small window for lunan to make his attack as lunan made his approach the warship suddenly changed course he had to act quickly from inside the enemy formation k21 attacked with its stern torpedo tubes [Music] lunin fired four torpedoes then waited for the sound of explosions [Music] the sonar officer reported two explosions lunan radioed the fleet commander claiming a hit on the tirpitz [Music] but they were wrong the torpedoes had missed meanwhile in the black sea soviet submarines were also active in hunting down the enemy lookouts on the shure 205 studied a freighter that carried no national flag according to an anglo-turkish agreement all cromwell mined in neutral turkey was to be brought up by great britain thus depriving germany of its main supply of chrome which it needed for alloys used in the armaments industry but turkey continued to sell cromwell to germany as well in shipments sent to bulgaria which soviet submarines tried to intercept [Music] the turkish freighter dua tepa spotted the submarine and raced for an inlet captain lieutenant sukhim linov gave the order to open fire with the deck gun a stream of shells soon reduced the dewatepa to a blazing wreck the submarine's next victim was the turkish transport shaft two torpedoes tore the small ship to pieces the shirt 205's next mission was to deliver ammunition to the besieged naval base of sebastopol when the ammunition was unloaded 50 wounded soldiers were crammed into the small submarine for evacuation [Music] the sure 205 survived around 40 bomb and depth charge attacks before reaching the safety of novrossisk on the black sea's eastern shore the black sea was less dangerous for soviet subs than the narrow straits of the baltic but shallow coastal waters posed their own risk the sea was often no more than 10 to 15 meters deep and could be heavily mined by the germans soviet submarine commanders had to be bold and aggressive in october 1942 commander greshalov in a small m-class submarine sank the 500-ton german tanker le progress as she sailed under escort near the danube delta in august 1943 greshalov now commanding a larger pike-class submarine struck again sinking the turkish transport tisbee under the noses of her escort of two destroyers and two sub-hunters she went to the bottom with 1600 tons of chrome ore aboard her in 1944 grecialoff was awarded the ussr's highest honor the title hero of the soviet union back in the baltic the threat posed by soviet submarines caused the germans to take drastic new measures minefields alone were clearly not working in the spring of 1943 the germans began erecting huge steel nets across the gulf of finland this double anti-submarine net codenamed walrus stretched 25 miles from nicer island off the coast of estonia to the coast of finland [Music] the net was too strong for even the largest submarine to break through for good measure the germans and finns laid another 9 000 mines in the gulf of finland on hogland island they built an underwater listening station to detect passing submarines when the winter ice melted the first soviet submarines attempted to break through this formidable array of defenses in may 1943 sure 303 under the command of ivan travkin left kronstadt bound for the baltic two days into the patrol sonar reported a rhythmic metallic raspberry against the hull [Music] trovkin made several attempts to get through the net but all ended in failure [Music] with sonar also picking up several enemy anti-submarine patrols trafkin decided to report his findings and head for home [Music] 408 was less lucky she was detected and sunk by enemy patrol craft [Music] shir 406 under the command of hero of the soviet union evgeny ossipov also never returned to base when trafkin returned he and his crew were greeted like men back from the dead the baltic fleet command tried bombing the nets from the air submarines tried firing torpedoes at it [Music] but neither had any effect two more submarines the s9 and s12 were lost whilst investigating the net [Music] after that all attempts to break through were suspended for the time being the germans had succeeded in trapping and neutralizing the entire soviet baltic fleet in the black sea it was the german luftwaffe that posed the greatest threat to the soviet navy in the first weeks of the war the soviet black sea fleet conducted raids against romanian ports and later against the german occupied crimea the first raid just four days into the war targeted oil storage facilities at the romanian port of costanza but after a short bombardment the destroyer moskva hit a mine and sank rapidly leading to the withdrawal of the raiding force soviet marines also carried out small-scale raids against romanian targets after the fall of the crimea the black sea fleet targeted axis forces stationed on its coastline in october 1943 three destroyers kharkov spazovni and bespachadni left the east coast to conduct a nighttime bombardment of german positions at yalta and theodosia then they sailed for home at dawn the destroyers were attacked by eight stuka dive bombers with fighter escorts [Music] kharkov was hit in a boiler room and taken in tow by sposodny but the german air attack was unrelenting the last raid consisted of 25 stukas with a large fighter escort soviet fighters arrived but it was an uneven contest [Music] anti-aircraft guns and fighters managed to destroy 18 german aircraft but all three soviet destroyers were sunk 780 sailors of the black sea fleet were lost with them this disaster caused the stavka to prohibit any further surface raids in the black sea from the conning tower of s-56 men peered anxiously towards the shore finally they saw the signal the submarine was there to land a reconnaissance team behind enemy lines it was a frequent mission for soviet submarines during the war s56 under commander shadrin had travelled from vladivostok more than halfway around the world via the panama canal to reach the arctic ocean [Music] this 17 000 mile route was the only way to avoid major war zones and the winter ice [Music] northern fleet submarines were also tasked with attacking convoys that brought supplies to axis forces in northern russia [Music] on the 17th of may 1943 near the northern tip of norway s56 cited a convoy of one tanker four cargo ships and eight escort vessels [Music] chadrin fired a salvo of four torpedoes [Music] in one salvo s56 had sunk the tanker eurostat carrying 1300 tons of fuel and damaged the steamer vatiland [Music] the attack was followed by a six-hour chase in which more than 60 depth charges were dropped but none found their mark [Music] as huge battles raged at stalingrad and kursk in the north the front remained static and the battle to defend the arctic convoys with their vital cargos of military aid continued [Music] the soviet northern fleet fought a running battle against u-boats and the luftwaffe into 1944 [Music] that year a major development finally allowed the soviet baltic fleet to break free of its shackles in september 1944 finland signed an armistice allowing soviet ships to bypass the net and mine defenses of the gulf of finland and even operate from finnish ports in january 1945 the red army launched an offensive into east prussia the germans began a massive operation to evacuate military personnel and equipment by sea the ships also carried thousands of refugees amongst them was the wilhelm gustloff a cruise ship requisitioned by the german navy on the 30th of january she set sail from gadina amidst heavy snowfall and temperatures of minus 10. on board were 918 u-boat cadets 500 other military personnel and according to some estimates as many as 9 000 refugees of whom nearly half were children fearing a collision with other convoys the captain of the wilhelm gustloff turned on her navigation lights [Music] it was these lights that led commander marinesko's s13 to her shortly after 9pm [Music] marinesko stalked his quarry for more than an hour having got into a firing position he launched four torpedoes three hit the liner with devastating consequences more than 9 000 lives were lost on the wilhelm gustloff but the soviet navy defended its right to attack a ship under escort carrying military personnel two weeks later the same submarine sank the liner von steuben with the loss of four thousand lives the majority of them in this case wounded german soldiers [Music] in the first months of 1945 the red army was advancing rapidly crossing poland to threaten berlin in the north and crossing hungary to reach vienna in the south but there were still pockets of german resistance along the baltic coast in pomerania and latvia destroying these groups communications by sea was the baltic fleet submarine's last mission of the war searchlights swept across the entrance to the bay of danzig for the commander of soviet submarine l3 it was a discouraging sight commander konovalov had orders to break into the bay but he considered it a suicidal task l-3 stood off at the bay's entrance in early 1945 it was the scene of intense air and sea battles particularly around the hell peninsula as the germans desperately tried to evacuate the remnants of their military forces and thousands of terrified refugees but they had to run the gauntlet of soviet submarines [Music] on the 17th of april 1945 l-3 cited a convoy leaving the bay it was bound from hell to spina mundo after dark conevanov attacked with three torpedoes [Music] his victim was the transport ship goya carrying more than six thousand passengers there were just 183 survivors in july 1945 conovalov was awarded the title hero of the soviet union his crew were also decorated on the very first day of the war the submarine l3 had been at the mercy of the german luftwaffe it had only been spared because the germans did not consider soviet submarines to be a high enough priority but they had gone on to prove themselves a truly deadly adversary today the conning tower of l3 is on display at the moscow museum of the great patriotic war [Music] the soviet people celebrated victory day on the 9th of may 1945 and on the 22nd of july soviet ships hoisted their colours to mark the first navy day since the end of the war it was also marked by parades and on this occasion an address from joseph stalin to all soviet sailors it read the navy has more than fulfilled its duty to the soviet motherland so uh [Music] [Music] the sound of hammer blows echoed through the dark forest as german engineers worked hurriedly to repair the rail tracks [Music] [Music] the germans were nervous they kept their weapons trained on the edge of the forest [Music] in november 1942 the sixth panzer division was on route from france to reinforce the german army at stalingrad but the safety of its rail transports was a major concern for the germans even hundreds of miles behind the front the division's commander was general rouse the thing that most concerned me was to make sure that the units we were transporting could go straight into battle when they arrived therefore in partisan areas we proceeded with caution trains had to go slowly so they could break in time to avoid derailing on sabotage track and there was the ever-present danger of an ambush [Music] [Music] rouses division hadn't even reached the front yet and already it was suffering its first casualties [Music] hey on the third of july 1941 stalin had made his first wartime radio broadcast to the soviet people partisan detachments must be formed in areas occupied by the enemy to stir up guerilla war everywhere to blow up bridges and roads sabotage telephone and telegraph lines and to burn forests stores and transports we shall create intolerable conditions for the enemy and his supporters they must be pursued and eliminated at every step [Music] to organize the partisan war a special unit was formed within lavrenti barriers nkvd secret police set up by pavel sudaplatov the new unit was known as omspon short for independent special motorized brigade its recruits included the best soviet sportsman they would help to form the nucleus of sabotage groups which would be sent behind enemy lines the recruits were sent to be trained at a new school for guerrilla warfare its students included an international battalion made up of hundreds of dedicated anti-fascists from spain germany poland czechoslovakia and yugoslavia [Music] just two weeks after stalin's directive the wehrmacht issued orders to combat the threat from soviet partisans all axis units were to maintain a state of constant alert soldiers were forbidden from walking alone weapons were to be kept on their person and ready for use at all times [Music] in the 1930s soviet strategic planning had assumed that in the event of war the red army would attack and fight the war on enemy soil so caches of weapons and food to support a guerrilla war on home soil had been destroyed [Music] for the same reason they had stopped training experts in guerrilla warfare in 1941 this infrastructure had to be hurriedly re-established until it was what training partisans received if any came from red army officers few of whom were specialists in guerrilla warfare [Music] and crucially hardly any partisan units were equipped with radios little or no training absence of radio communication and lack of coordinated action meant that of 2800 partisan units formed in the summer of 1941 only 270 lasted into 1942. in ukraine in 1941 the nkvd claimed to have established 778 partisan units and 622 sabotage groups theoretically they consisted of 29 000 personnel by june 1942 just a hundred and ten of these units were still in contact in the midst of such chaos only partisans led by experienced commanders like vasily kosh proved successful vasily zakarovich was a committed pierre-russian communist who had fought as a partisan against polish forces in the 1920s he was also a decorated volunteer of the spanish civil war when war broke out corch immediately began organizing local resistance and just six days after the invasion his partisans were the first to mount an attack against german troops in may 1942 the central headquarters of the partisan movement was set up by the staffca high command by november 1942 it recorded partisan strength as 90 000 personnel operating in 1100 detachments central headquarters distributed 200 radio sets which allowed it to communicate directly with the partisans to coordinate their actions and assign high priority targets one such target was rouse's sixth panzer division central headquarters had given the task of impeding its movement to two separate detachments led by saburov and koppak sidor artemovic was another experienced partisan leader who had his detachment up and running before the germans arrived in his ukrainian hometown in the summer of 1941. in 1943 his unit conducted the legendary carpathian raid sabotaging supply lines and wiping out isolated enemy garrisons in the course of a 600 mile advance to the romanian border while planning the war against the soviet union hitler had declared that the land was to be exploited to its fullest potential the wehrmacht's ultimate goal was a line running from arkhangelsk in the north to astrakhan in the south soviet territory was to be carved up into zones of occupation certain strategic areas like the crimea would become part of a greater germany all was outlined in the top secret general plan host master plan east the plan spelled out a dark vision for eastern europe following the german victory over the ussr it entailed a massive program of deportations murder and enslavement of the native populations followed by the colonization of the land by germans and other racially acceptable peoples all senior figures in the third reich became familiar with the master plan east [Music] general plan host document number one issued by ss reichsfuhrer himmler on the 28th of may 1940 top secret national importance on the 25th of may i hand it to the fuhrer a memorandum outlining my thoughts on the treatment of local populations in the occupied eastern territories the fuhrer read all six pages of my report considered it correct and warmly approved [Music] most of those who escaped extermination were to be deported to western siberia a minority 10 of poles 25 percent of yellow russians 35 percent of ukrainians were considered suitable for germanization millions would be retained as slave labor general plan aust would never be implemented but those living under nazi occupation still felt the effects of its brutal ideology the nazis planned to strip eastern territories of all valuable resources in 1941 special commissariats were established for the purpose the special commissariat in biello russia was headed by wilhelm cuba [Music] wilhelm cooper joined the nazi party in the 1920s when it was still on the fringe of german politics he rose to become gaul lighter or regional party leader of brandenburg but he fell from favor after fabricating charges against a party rival in june 1941 he was given a chance to redeem himself in biella russia when the germans moved into a town or village they would appoint a burger master or village headman public notices printed in russian listed their responsibilities [Music] all burger masters and village head men are responsible for safety in their area should the locals fail to ensure this at least twice the number of dead german soldiers will be taken from the local population and shot in the event of damage being done to roads bridges or mines at least three local people will be shot those who give shelter or food to strangers or render them any assistance without permission of their burger master or village head man will be hanged it didn't take long for the brutality of the new regime to be felt driving a deep wedge between invaders and the occupied in the first winter of the war the germans began to deport hundreds of thousands of workers to the reich where they were to be used as slave labor [Music] one and a half million people most of them ukrainians were transported to the right more than half a million girls were sent to become domestic servants in german households the treatment such workers were to receive was outlined by fritz circle all these people must be fed housed and treated in such a way that the greatest results are achieved with the minimum outlay ss chief heinrich himmler put it even more starkly if ten thousand russian women collapse from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch it interests me only in so far that germany at the end of it has an anti-tank ditch at the nuremberg trials fritz sarkel was found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged himmler escaped a similar fate by committing suicide in the spring of 1942 local police came to the village of yamashinka near smolensk looking for men of working age when they entered the agorov household 18 year old mikhail was out [Music] the family had decided not to wait for the deportations to begin they packed their belongings and headed for the forest to join the partisans they met a group of saboteurs in the forest they were on route to the village of sillavoninka to blow up a bridge [Music] mikhail said he knew the way on the 5th of may 1942 his 19th birthday mikhail gorov was accepted into the special guerrilla regiment codenamed the 13. its commander was sergey grisham christian began the war in a tank platoon his unit became encircled during operation barbarossa but grisham escaped and returned to his home village to raise a partisan unit it became special guerrilla regiment the 13 named after grisham's favorite action film by director mikhail rahm at dawn on the 13th of may 1942 the partisans walked 15 miles to attack the german garrison at silivoninka it was mikhail gorov's baptism of fire [Music] despite several local successes the partisans failed to have any significant impact on the german supply chain but the significance of their actions could be measured in other ways thousands of german soldiers urgently needed at the front had to be diverted to fight the partisans and protect supply routes german morale began to suffer too in the occupied territories anyone could be on the side of the partisans no one could be trusted any suspicious noise could turn out to be the start of a partisan attack [Applause] the partisans war at the nerves and resources of the german occupying forces [Music] german reports state that of the 3.6 million soviet prisoners of war they'd captured in 1941 by the spring of 1942 only 800 thousand remained fit for work sixty percent had been murdered or had died of starvation or disease in the spring of 1942 thousands of soviet prisoners of war sat or lay in the open at the savaki camp in poland they were given almost no food some had resorted to eating blades of grass [Music] it was then that the former chief of staff of the 229th rifle division lieutenant colonel vladimir rodianov decided to offer his services to the nazis he approached the germans and offered to establish a fighting union of russian nationalists [Music] their aim would be to overthrow stalin's regime and establish a nationalistic russian state under the protectorate of germany rodyanov's offer was taken up by the nazi security service the sd rodianov who also used the alias gill was joined by a hundred former inmates of the suvaki camp they were issued with czech military uniforms and became the first ss russian volunteer detachment the unit soon had 500 volunteers most of whom were ex-red army officers to prove their fighting ability and their loyalty their first missions were conducted against polish partisans the detachment was later expanded to a brigade more than two thousand strong [Music] but despite the inhuman conditions some prisoners remained steadfast nikolai obrimba a medic serving with a militia battalion was taken prisoner in 1941 near vitepsk if you don't want to lose yourself in a desperate situation you must purge your soul of doubts regardless of your feelings towards stalin there are two camps two ideas and two men leading those camps and you shall support one idea one camp and one man embodying this idea you shall hold on to the end for otherwise neither death nor torture will justify you in your own eyes [Music] by the spring of 1942 the partisans were operating on a much larger scale across occupied biello russia ukraine and western russia soviet reports estimated 200 000 partisans were now operating behind german lines partisan units were especially active in the rear of german army group north and army group center they made their camps in the forest and marshland around briansk vitebsk smolensk novgorod and leningrad a large partisan unit operated in the mountains of the crimea the organization and tactics of the partisans were refined a partisan detachment was a self-sufficient unit consisting of 100 to 200 fighters it had its own commander political officer and chief of staff each detachment had support and medical services and could be divided into several platoons several detachments formed a partisan brigade each brigade had its own hospital and workshops which produced camouflaged capes sheepskin jackets and boots a brigade could be a few hundred or a few thousand strong the bella russian brigade dubover for example had 1700 members several brigades formed a partisan group used for strategic operations in some areas the partisans drove out local german forces completely and established enclaves wholly under their control near polansk in northeastern bilo russia the partisans set up their own schools telephone lines mills and workshops they printed their own newspapers and pamphlets which they distributed to the 80 000 civilians living within the enclave they even opened an art gallery which exhibited the work of partisans including nikolai gutiev and nikolai obrimba who had escaped from german captivity abrimba described what it meant to the partisans the dubova brigade were proud of their paintings that's why they put them in the headquarters right next to the brigade's banner we challenge the enemy we can do anything and our life doesn't depend on fear and death we proclaim it for tomorrow and forever the partisans could only operate with the help of the local population villagers brought them food and sometimes information which was vital to both their success and their survival it required great courage on the part of the villages if they were caught by the germans not only they but their whole communities might suffer brutal reprisals on the 13th of may 1943 hitler signed the orders approving operation citadel the kursk offensive as if in reply the partisans blew up both bridges over the river desna near briensk cutting the main supply route to the build-up area for the offensive [Music] it took 12 days for german engineers to get both bridges back in action this delay on the eve of the offensive was serious if it happened again at the height of the battle it could be catastrophic therefore in the weeks leading up to the kursk offensive the german high command ordered large-scale anti-partisan sweeps using frontline combat troops including panzer regiments the largest of these operations took place around briansk and was codenamed operation gypsy baron about 50 000 soldiers took part in the operation including local collaborators they faced several partisan brigades with a combined strength of approximately eleven thousand the partisans were hindered by the fact that many women old people and children had fled to the forest to join them it made the partisans less mobile and less able to move their camp in a hurry the germans managed to separate the partisan brigades and drive them against the desna river the headquarters of the partisan movement took immediate steps to assist they flew in weapons ammunition and medical supplies and evacuated about 900 wounded partisans and others most at risk soviet aircraft bombed enemy troop concentrations but partisan casualties mounted rapidly they were outgunned and outnumbered on the night of the 2nd of june fierce fighting erupted at the pioneer farm as the partisan detachments attempted to fight their way out of the trap they succeeded but at a heavy price [Music] as soon as german regular units returned to the front partisan detachments began to reform in the forest that summer central headquarters used radio to coordinate a massive partisan assault on the german rail network at the very height of the battle of kursk it was codenamed operation rail war there was one problem to disrupt german rail transport on the scale envisaged would require thousands of tons of explosives more than could be flown in by air so the sabotage groups began to experiment [Music] before the war it was thought that between 200 and 400 grams of tnt were needed to destroy a rail track but experiments with different rhomboid and trapezium shaped charges showed that a rail track could be blown up with as little as 75 grams this discovery reduced the quantity of explosives needed by more than half and made it an amount that could be delivered by air [Music] operation rail war began on the night of the 3rd of august 1943 railways were blown up across biello russia leningrad aurel and briensk but the results of operation rail war and operation concert that followed in september were disappointing the germans soon learned how to minimize any disruption trains traveled with their own track repair crews who would make quick temporary fixes to get the train moving again once the unit was passed the rails could be replaced a famous soviet saboteur questioned the wisdom of blowing up the tracks he thought it was better to blow up the trains but the rail war did have an impact the head of transport for army group center reported figures for august 1943 partisan activities in august resulted in an average of 45 track demolitions per day and damage to 266 locomotives and 1 373 railroad cars one of the partisans greatest achievements during the battle of kursk was to blow up the ossipovichi railway station the mission was carried out by special guerrilla detachment the brave men led by a colonel from omsbon alexander rebzevich [Music] is [Music] a russian engineer working for the germans managed to attach two magnetic mines to the fuel tanks [Music] the explosion destroyed 33 fuel tankers 65 ammunition wagons eight tiger tanks seven armored vehicles 12 food wagons five locomotives and the entire rail junction the station was burning for two days the partisans were 200 meters from the railway line [Music] [Music] with the foreign gun covering them mikhail igorov and a comrade crawled quietly towards the railway embankment [Music] wooden barricades lined both sides of the track they were hung with barbed wire and tin cans which would rattle and alert the german sentries if anyone tried to sneak past in the dark working by touch the partisans carefully cut away at the wire a german patrol passed by it took them an hour to cut their way through then they heard a train approaching [Music] they rushed to the rails to plant the explosives [Music] they buried the tnt then tied a piece of string to the fuse pin and attached the other end to a ramrod this they drove into the ground 50 centimeters away the germans put empty wagons at the front of the train which would trigger a simple pressure mine and take the force of the blast but this mine was different the empty wagons passed harmlessly overhead but the locomotive whose running gear overhung the side of the track knocked down the ramrod and pulled out the fuse pin it was the latest example of ingenuity in a constantly evolving war between soviet saboteurs and german transport officers soon the germans would devise a countermeasure and the saboteurs would have to think of something new by the spring of 1944 mikhail gorov had derailed five trains and destroyed five bridges he was awarded the red star medal the medal of glory third class and the partisan medal first class [Music] according to statistics from the german general directorate of eastern railways partisans carried out approximately 500 raids and acts of sabotage in february 1943 rising to 700 in april and to more than a thousand per month in may and june a derailed train blocked the line for about eight hours so to bring movement to a complete halt required three derailings per day this simple arithmetic was making life hell for the germans a kite soared 300 feet above the dark forests of bella russia up towards it crept a little sail on wooden rollers when it reached the kite its cargo of leaflets was knocked loose and scattered across the forest below each leaflet was an appeal to the men of lieutenant colonel rodianov's brigade of russian nationalists urging them to join with the partisans in fact many of these men had already begun to question their new allegiance after seeing the brutal way germans treated their fellow russians [Music] rodyanov himself had been shocked at the way the nazis were operating in the east he had been promised an alliance he now knew it was all lies he sent a delegation to make contact with the partisans rajyanov asked what guarantees the partisans could give for his own safety and that of his men the partisans radioed moscow the reply came straight from general ponomarenko head of the central headquarters of the partisan movement [Music] [Music] as a result almost his entire brigade came over to the soviet side it was renamed the first anti-fascist partisan brigade [Music] within weeks the brigade was in action against its former masters attacking a german police garrison in the village of st juncker the partisans attacked at dawn with mortars and machine guns by 7am they had stormed the village and wiped out the german garrison for this successful operation rodyanov was promoted to colonel and decorated with the order of the red star many of the men in his unit went on to receive the partisan of the patriotic war medal meanwhile general commissioner wilhelm continued his brutal reign in biella russia in the summer of 1943 the nkvd intelligence department made his assassination a top priority the task was assigned to all partisan units operating in the minsk area the hunt for wilhelm cuba was on on the 22nd of july a huge explosion tore through the minsk theater soviet intelligence reported that 70 enemy soldiers had been killed and 110 wounded but that cuba had left the theater a few minutes before the explosion [Music] weeks later a partisan unit ambushed cooper on his way to his country residence but he escaped again the partisans suggested bombing cuba's residence from the air the mission was assigned to 15 crews from an elite long-range bomber unit [Music] but cuba survived once more and moved his residence into the city on the 6th of september a banquet was held in minsk to mark the 10th anniversary of hitler's rise to power a bomb in the officer's mess killed 36 military and government officials but cuba wasn't there then yelana mazanik cuba's housemaid was contacted by partisan maria ossipova maria told yelena about the terrible crimes for which cuba was responsible she persuaded her to carry out an act of revenge and gave her a delayed action mine on the morning of tuesday the 21st of september yelena mazanek put the mine in her bag and went to work locals were always searched when entering the general commissar's residence but that day yelana was lucky she knew the supervisor the search was a formality she went into cuba's bedroom and put the mine underneath the mattress below where his head would lie [Music] and her sister valentina were smuggled out of the city to a partisan safehouse [Music] that night shortly before 1am general commissar wilhelm cooper was asleep in his minsk residence when the mine exploded the mine that killed cuba had a directional force that ensured it only killed its target neither cuba's pregnant wife nor his children sleeping in the next room were harmed [Music] by the beginning of 1944 soviet records showed 300 000 partisans under arms there were nearly 150 radio sets in use in beela russia alone the partisans now had a dedicated air unit the 101st long-range aviation regiment which flew 20 missions to the partisans every night in the spring of 1944 the germans planned a massive operation to destroy the partisan enclave near polansk in northern bella russia they deployed 60 000 soldiers 137 tanks 236 guns 70 aircraft and two armored trains sixty thousand partisans and civilians found themselves encircled by units of the german third panzer army which quickly seized control of all their airfields so the partisans built a new one on a hill in the middle of the marshes the partisans needed to fill the bog with soil to make a strip at least 1 000 meters long logs were laid first then tightly packed brush wood and then soil on top 2 000 peasants from the local village supervised by nikolai brimba worked on the strip for three weeks pits were dug for fires to act as landing lights carpenters made hatches with iron bottoms to put the light out quickly you pulled a rope tied to the prop that held up the hatch to support the partisans the soviet air force carried out 354 missions these included bombing raids against german positions ferrying in 250 tons of supplies and evacuating about 1500 casualties but the pressure from heavily armed german troops was relentless at the end of april the surviving partisans attempted to break out at first partisan brigades tried to coordinate their actions with the army high command but communications broke down and each unit had to fight its own way out as best it could by the 27th of april the germans had forced the last partisans into a pocket just 20 kilometers wide the local commander ordered the survivors to break out at all costs and eight days later they succeeded in leading fifteen thousand civilians to safety at the forefront of the fighting was colonel rodyanov's first anti-fascist brigade during his service with the german security forces rodyanov had led his brigade in punitive actions against belarusian civilians and had taken part in the destruction of five villages along the bereggino river now rogerian offer turned for these crimes with his own blood during the breakout rodyanov was killed while persuading his soldiers to stand up and attack the enemy his remains were rediscovered in 1992 and reburied in a communal grave for partisans in the town of uscachi one month after the fall of the partisan enclave the red army launched operation bhagratian soviet regular forces drove the enemy from all parts of beela russia many partisans joined the ranks of the red army in the small hours of the 1st of may 1945 one former partisan mikhail gorov alongside sergeant melaton cantaria was in the heart of berlin climbing to the very top of the reichstag building igorov had brought a sack containing the assault banner of the 756th rifle regiment of the 150th rifle division they were covered by their commanding officer lieutenant alexey barrest behind mikhail agorov late two years of the deadly partisan war a serious shoulder wound and service as a red army infantry scout in poland and germany ahead lay a few steps to the roof of the reichstag and to victory [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] the 21st of june 1941 moscow an express train from berlin arrived at the bjelarsky terminal on board was mikhail varantsov naval attache at the soviet embassy in berlin he was taking no chances with his briefcase two days before varantsov had received a high priority telegram from moscow ordering his immediate return an escort arrived to meet him on the platform an official from the commissariat of foreign affairs accompanied by two officers of the nkvd secret police [Music] a government car pulled up outside varantsov was ushered onto the back seat between the two policemen he could relax for the first time since leaving berlin his precious briefcase was now someone else's concern mikhail alexandrovich varonsov fought with the bolsheviks in the russian civil war before joining the naval academy after graduation he was sent to the far east where he rose to become deputy chief of staff of the pacific fleet in 1939 he was sent to berlin as the soviet naval attache the driver stopped outside the spas kaya tower the entrance to the [Music] kremlin ten minutes later mikhail varantsov entered stalin's office amongst the documents he brought from berlin was a copy of a message he'd been given by the swedish naval attache the document was headed official inquiry from berlin regarding the roots of swedish ships and aircraft in the baltic sea after the 22nd of june 1941 to avoid engaging them during war with the ussr [Music] soviet intelligence work was carried out both legally by agents traveling under soviet passports and illegally by agents with forged documents foreign intelligence work was carried out by networks known as residencies each member of a residency whether working legally or illegally had a specialized role one agent recruited and managed local agents another was responsible for radio communications another acted as courier of secret or stolen documents and the resident himself oversaw all the group's operations in the early 1920s soviet intelligence began to establish legal and illegal residencies across europe after 1933 and hitler's rise to power in germany it became clear which country posed the greatest threat to the soviet union therefore many soviet agents were reassigned to nazi germany to gather information on the country's military potential and its intentions after war broke out in 1939 the number of illegal soviet residencies in germany increased by 50 percent similar networks were active in belgium the uk the netherlands switzerland france japan bulgaria and yugoslavia military intelligence residencies worked legally in many of the same countries each agent had a cover job at the soviet embassy or with some other soviet delegation the agent might be a diplomatic official a chauffeur or a technical expert [Music] in june 1941 the military intelligence central office employed 914 people abroad 316 of whom worked as part of legal residencies and 598 of whom were illegal agents even stalin knew most of these men only by their code names he himself had enough experience of working in the underground to know that the more times an agent's name was mentioned the greater the danger he faced from the autumn of 1940 an increasing number of reports began to warn about the build-up of german forces along the nazi soviet frontier in poland soviet military intelligence desperately sought the answer to the questions would hitler attack and if so when the incoming reports offered many different dates for a german invasion of the ussr initially it was supposed to take place in march or april 1941 then new reports said it had been postponed to the summer but depended on britain's surrender then there was fresh information that it had been postponed until 1942 the situation was further complicated by the fact that only one person knew hitler's exact intentions adolf hitler himself he only signed the order authorizing operation barbarossa the invasion of the soviet union on the 10th of june 1941 12 days before it was launched on the 18th of june moscow began to receive reports from agents on the frontier that german military units were preparing for something big it was clearly no longer a matter of months or weeks but of days but despite the growing warnings soviet intelligence failed to produce anything even varonsov's swedish telegram that could persuade stalin that war was imminent in just a few weeks veronsoff would be promoted to chief of staff of naval intelligence and by september he would be its commander it was a job he would hold for more than 10 years but he would inherit an intelligent service rendered blind and death by the sudden german invasion [Music] operation barbarossa had begun and despite all the warnings the soviet union was not prepared in the first days of the war all soviet legal residencies in germany in the countries of her allies and in countries occupied by the axis were terminated and all embassy workers were deported back to the soviet union [Music] soviet military intelligence lost contact with its agents in 11 european countries the agents themselves remained at large but if they couldn't contact moscow they were of little use [Music] a similar situation occurred with intelligence networks that had been established along the frontiers as the german army swept forwards contact with most of these agents was lost until the end of the war soviet agents working abroad did not have access to enough radio sets or skilled operators the radio equipment they did have was bulky and unreliable there was even a shortage of radio batteries [Music] the range of these radio sets was no more than 600 miles which meant their signal could only reach the western soviet union it wasn't strong enough to reach moscow let alone koi bishev where military intelligence headquarters had been moved to the codes and encryption keys used by soviet intelligence at the start of the war were complex and difficult to work with it took a long time to encode and decode even the simplest message radio transmissions could also be picked up by german counter intelligence who patrolled the cities with direction finding equipment to locate illegal transmitters direction finding used directional antennae to establish the source of a radio signal by the mid-1930s it was in use by most counterintelligence services three vans equipped with mobile directional antenna would patrol a city looking for unusual radio transmissions they would triangulate their findings to pinpoint the exact location of the radio transmitter once the exact building was identified police units would surround it force their way in and arrest the operator [Music] german counter espionage made it almost impossible for soviet agents to communicate directly with moscow communication with most soviet pre-war agents was only re-established in 1945 as the red army advanced into eastern europe improvised lines of communication often using couriers were used to deliver the most important information [Music] but foreign couriers could move across europe with ease in peacetime during the war it was a different matter they not only ran the risk of being arrested by the gestapo but also of being killed in attacks on ships trains and roads [Music] in japan and china soviet agents remained active a few illegal residencies continued to operate in occupied france belgium and holland soviet intelligence remained highly effective in the usa the uk and in neutral sweden and switzerland [Music] july 1941 stockholm three weeks into the german soviet war from the outside the fish warehouse near the docks of the swedish capital looked like any other building in the area [Music] but this one harbored a secret it was the home of the code and cipher department of the general staff of the swedish armed forces [Music] a swedish war ministry courier was considered a master of his trade the general staff trusted him with their most urgent and important papers he was a stickler for the rules and would only ever hand his package to the exact person to whom it was addressed it annoyed a lot of people but the war minister was impressed by his punctilious career none of the swedish authorities knew was that nearblood was a secret communist and soviet agent to make it easier for the couriers to get around town their bicycles carried special license plates this meant they wouldn't be stopped by the local police one day after receiving a package addressed to the general staff alan nebland set off on his bike through the quiet stockholm streets but then took an unexpected turn down a deserted alley and dismounted after checking the coast was clear he took off his special license plate and replaced it with an ordinary one he arrived at a two-story house and went in [Music] come in [Music] officially for a russian tourist agency he also worked for soviet military intelligence [Music] semyon kuzmich staristan codenamed kent joined soviet military intelligence in 1937 and was sent to scandinavia in 1939 his cover story included a job as director of the russian tourist agency in tourist in sweden norway and denmark as well as a representative of aeroflot the soviet state airline in november 1941 he returned to the ussr when one of his agents was captured [Music] when all the documents had been photographed storistan put the papers in a new envelope rubber stamps from numerous swedish institutions were at his disposal [Music] the value of this intelligence was enormous thanks to kent moscow received daily reports on enemy movements along the entire eastern front because the swedes were listening in on the germans and had broken their codes in 1940 sweden had suspected germany of planning to occupy the country stockholm set out to uncover hitler's intentions swedish maths professor anna burling working alone with just pad and pencil was able to crack german military and diplomatic ciphers in just two weeks it allowed the swedes to intercept and decode german cable traffic and what the swedes saw now also went to moscow in january 1942 knee blood was picked up by the swedes and sentenced to 12 years hard labor but by then moscow had information on how the swedes had broken the german encryption in june when the germans were tipped off that the swedes were listening in soviet cryptographers were able to decipher the new german codes themselves [Music] the 18th of october 1941 tokyo the japanese empire and the soviet union observed an uneasy piece but tension remained high at dawn japanese counter-espionage launched an operation to smash an illegal soviet spy network one of the men they arrested that morning was richard zorgaid the group's resident [Music] as he was led away under heavy guard a thorough search was made of his flat the japanese found incriminating documents cameras and a photostat copying machine [Music] when they searched the house of max klausen the group's radio operator they found his transmitter and his codebox [Music] ricard sergey also known by codenames santa schwarz ramsey and insan was born in czarist russia but as a boy moved with his family to germany after fighting for germany in the first world war sergey became an ardent communist and moved to moscow there he was recruited by soviet military intelligence and sent back to germany to build a cover story as a journalist and nazi sympathizer it served him well until october 1941 when he was arrested by the japanese they hanged him three years later in 1964 he was posthumously awarded the state's highest award the title hero of the soviet union sergey's network included 32 japanese agents four germans two yugoslavians and one britain they included german radio operator bruno vent and his successor max clarson manchester guardian journalist gunter stein yugoslavian journalist branko verkaillich japanese journalist miyagi otoku and japanese journalist hotsumi ozaki an advisor to the japanese prime minister another valuable source for the group was oygen art german ambassador to japan and confidant of richard sorkey [Music] sergey's arrest and the dismantling of his tokyo network was a bitter blow to soviet intelligence he had been an invaluable source on japanese and german intentions in the far east sergey's greatest coup had been to establish that japan did not intend to attack the soviet union in 1941 as stalin feared he sent a telegram from tokyo in september according to the secretary of the cabinet ozaki the japanese government has decided to take no action against the ussr this year but armed forces will remain stationed in manchuria for a possible attack next spring if the ussr is defeated by germany after the 15th of september the soviet far east can be considered safe from the threat of a japanese attack this vital information came as the germans made their final push on moscow it allowed the stafka high command to rush 32 divisions from siberia and the far east to help defend the capital on the 5th of december 1941 these divisions spearheaded a massive counter-attack that threw the germans back from the gates of moscow it was a crucial victory which owed much to ricarde soviet military intelligence also had its eyes and ears in washington from there too news reached moscow about japanese intentions in 1941 lev sergiev worked at the soviet embassy as the military attaches driver he was also an intelligence agent codenamed morris all that summer he sent messages to moscow stating that japan had no plans to attack the ussr 16th of july 1941 morris de moscow the attitude of japan towards the ussr is wait and observe [Music] february 1942 berlin the head of the german military intelligence service the abv was a man named admiral wilhelm canaris that spring he was in low spirits hitler blamed canaris for not providing accurate information on the size of soviet reserves and for allowing the wehrmacht to be caught off guard by the soviet counter-attack that winter this and the weather was how the german generals explained their failure [Music] admiral wilhelm canaris became head of the abv in 1933 he was a dedicated anti-communist which is why he initially gave his support to hitler and the nazis but by 1938 he'd become convinced that hitler would lead germany to ruin he began to actively conspire against the fuhrer and in 1942 established a secret line of communication to british intelligence the ss had its suspicions about canaris and he was dismissed from his post in february 1944 he was arrested following the july bomb plot against hitler and hanged in a concentration camp one month before the end of the war as an anti-communist canaris still had a vested interest in the war against the soviet union but the abv failed to provide the army high command with an accurate estimate of soviet military strength in the run-up to the german invasion they also failed to place any agents within the soviet high command the nkvd was extremely adept at exposing enemy agents numerous soviet prisoners of war were recruited as spies by the affair and smuggled back across the lines but almost all of them disappeared into the vast russian hinterland some turned themselves in some were picked up by the nkvd others simply went home [Music] very few of these agents made it back and their reports contained little of value [Music] canaris mood improved in december 1941 when he received an unexpected report from the intelligence chief of army group center there exists in moscow an underground anti-soviet organization called the throne it is attempting to spread anti-soviet feeling amongst the people the leaders are sadovsky a royalist and poet and his wife a former lady in waiting to the tsarina one of its members dem yanov the grandson of a cossack chief and former noble risked his life crossing the front line to tell us about the existence of the throne during his interrogation demianov claimed to have been in contact with german intelligence since 1940 his contact had been a man named stotz after his story was rigorously vetted demianov was given a code name max and sent back to the soviet union max's mission was to organize underground anti-soviet cells in major cities to orchestrate a campaign of sabotage and to establish a network for gathering information about the movement of red army forces most importantly max was to use his contacts in the soviet general staff and the ministry of transport to find out about military movements by rail [Music] at the end of the war rickard counter an officer of the abv was captured by the americans during one of his interrogations he told them that in 1942 and 43 max supplied valuable information that was often passed on to the vermont high command the germans believed that demianov had infiltrated the soviet general staff as a junior signals officer cauder further claimed that the throne had set up several cells in moscow and gorky which communicated directly with the abv in berlin they did this using three transmitters supplied to them by the germans and all of this it seemed under the noses of the faint soviet counter-espionage services the germans did not discover until after the war that this underground anti-soviet organization had been created by the nkvd soviet intelligence had meticulously created plausible anti-soviet agents which they then used to infiltrate the advair these agents then fed the enemy misinformation it was called operation monastery since the 1930s the poet boris sadowsky had been used by the nkvd as bait to trick opponents of the regime into revealing their anti-soviet sentiments on three occasions the secret police had arrested his associates but the poet himself always remained free alexander demianov was a former noble who became an nkvd agent in 1929 he infiltrated german intelligence in 1942 and even received specialist training from the advair he was later awarded the order of the red star for his exceptional service in operation monastery meanwhile german intelligence continued its attempts to recruit soviet prisoners of war from the spring of 1942 canaris's agents brought him regular reports about the progress made with former soldiers of the red army german intelligence was well versed in techniques for turning soviet citizens against stalin and soviet communism the admiral hoped that these recruits would provide valuable intelligence but he would be disappointed once again [Music] october 1942 poltava occupied ukraine at the intelligence school of affair group 102 former soviet soldiers were listening to a lecture on how to gather military secrets whilst [Music] is [Music] [Music] former depot commander of the soviet fifth army had infiltrated german military intelligence under the orders of the nkvd all the information he was giving them was in fact misinformation prepared in moscow [Music] priyanka's role in ab appfair group 102 was to forge papers for the students he always made small mistakes that would ensure the agent was arrested when his papers were properly examined his misinformation also succeeded in compromising several high-ranking german intelligence officers who were dismissed from their posts [Music] priyadko sent back information on 101 agents working for the germans and 24 members of the adver in december 1942 he rejoined the red army he was subsequently awarded the order of the red banner for his courage and heroism [Music] over the course of the war the abv was infiltrated by hundreds of soviet agents they gathered information about the enemy and planted false information about the red army and its intentions they had effectively succeeded in turning germany's own intelligence services into its high command's biggest source of enemy misinformation 13th of september 1943 paris a car carrying two passengers drove up to a pharmacist's shop on rome street one man left the car and went in [Music] after a few moments the other man went in two [Music] the man on the run was leopold a soviet agent who'd agreed to work for the germans two weeks before but now he'd given his up their handlers the slip the furious germans launched a city-wide manhunt [Music] [Music] as early as 1938 trepper had established a powerful soviet intelligence network across belgium the netherlands france and italy it had about 300 members and trevor was its head until his arrest by the abv in november 1942 through his group the soviets also received intelligence from rudolf rosa rudolf rusla codenamed lucy was one of the most valuable agents of the second world war a german refugee living in switzerland he began working for soviet intelligence for ideological reasons he supplied the soviets with vital information about the german kursk offense of 1943 brussler's own source codenamed remains a mystery at the nuremberg trials alfred yodel of the german armed forces high command said that information about the kursk offensive reached moscow before it reached his own desk after the war russler continued to feed the ussr information gathered in west germany leading to his arrest and a year in a swiss prison he died soon after his release in 1958 after trevor's arrest german counter intelligence succeeded in shutting down most of his networks [Music] in berlin they referred to soviet radio operators as pianists trippers network involved at least 10 pianists hence the nickname the red orchestra [Music] german counter intelligence was able to force some of the red orchestras former radio operators including trevor himself to start feeding misinformation to moscow [Music] admiral canaris had made a breakthrough the soviets did not only believe the misinformation they asked for more [Music] after his escape trepper with the help of french communists managed to get word to moscow that his network had been compromised the information coming in from its former radio operators was finally seen for what it was november 1944 two soviet agents were conducting round-the-clock surveillance on the norwegian coast [Music] [Music] [Music] b [Music] twelve hours later a staff officer entered the office of the chief of naval intelligence mikhail voronsoft [Music] [Music] the teams are using commissions was one of the few remaining threats posed by the german navy she'd played little direct part in the war so far but her presence in norway threatened the arctic convoys to the soviet union and tied down a significant number of british warships the sister ship of the bismarck she might still prove a formidable adversary on the 12th of november 1944 british lancaster bombers carrying five ton tall boy bombs set off for the norwegian fjord of tromso the germans had no warning of the raid the luftwaffe was nowhere to be seen [Music] two of the huge bombs hit the port side of the tirpitz blowing a massive hole in the ship's hull as water poured in she took on a heavy list and capsized [Music] the destruction of the tirpitz at tromso cost the lives of 1 000 of her 1700 man crew it was a final nail in the coffin of hitler's navy [Music] since the summer of 1941 the soviets had had their spies in norway including units gathering intelligence for the soviet northern fleet they also recruited agents from the local population and worked with the norwegian resistance [Music] some norwegian agents were sent to a soviet training camp near mummans where they were given basic instruction in radio communications and intelligence gathering [Music] the agents were then sent back to norway by submarine [Music] after nightfall they would be landed on a secluded stretch of coastline groups would also be resupplied and finally extracted by submarine [Music] the agent's orders were to observe german fortifications troop movements and military supply depots they were also ordered to find german warships hidden in the norwegian fjords and transmit this information back to mumansk soviet and british air forces were able to use this intelligence to make raids against valuable german targets in norway and finland following germany's surrender in may 1945 for most the celebrations could begin but there was no let up for the secret services it was clear that in washington and london the rise of soviet power aroused great mistrust mutual suspicion came to the fore now the common enemy had been defeated in april 1945 the british prime minister winston churchill ordered his military staff to investigate the feasibility of an attack against the soviet union codenamed operation unthinkable [Music] the study was conducted by the british armed forces joint planning staff their report envisaged a scenario in which 47 british and american divisions fighting alongside polish forces and 12 re-armed german divisions launched a surprise attack against the red army in northwest europe the planning staff concluded that britain would have to commit to a long and costly war and that even so the prospect of success was extremely doubtful [Music] in his comments on the plan churchill stated that it was a precautionary measure for a highly hypothetical situation [Music] on the 18th of may 1945 the soviet military attache in london major general ivan sklarov passed information on the top secret operation unthinkable to moscow [Music] scleros source was an agent x whose identity to this day remains a mystery over the next few weeks this same agent was able to pass clear off more details about operation unthinkable including the size of british and american forces involved in june 1945 marshal zhukov received details of the plan and immediately regrouped soviet forces in eastern germany he issued orders for the red army to strengthen its defenses and to closely observe the western allied forces [Music] churchill knew british and american forces were outnumbered by the red army more importantly he knew that there was neither the public nor political will for such a war in 1945 the americans were more interested in getting soviet help in the war against japan operation unthinkable remained just that in july 1945 during the potsdam conference american president harry truman as agreed with the british prime minister mentioned to stalin that the u.s had developed a new weapon of unusually destructive force truman was surprised by the reaction of the soviet leader a few minutes later as they waited for their cars churchill asked truman how it had gone he never asked a question replied the [Music] president the british and american leaders assumed simply that stalin had failed to understand the significance of what he was being told but they were mistaken since 1942 soviet intelligence had been gathering information on the allies atomic bomb program more than 10 agents were feeding information to the soviets thanks to their efforts the ussr tested its first atomic bomb as early as 1949. in february 1945 in a letter to truman's predecessor president roosevelt joseph stalin had even hinted at the effectiveness of soviet intelligence as to my informers i assure you they are all very honest and modest people who carry out their duties carefully and without giving offense these people have proven themselves by their deeds many times [Music] is [Music] chief [Music] season [Music] cut down an unexpected guest fell down into a german trench the nco a seasoned veteran of the eastern front immediately took note of the deserter's cap [Music] there was no customary red star on it the man was from a punishment battalion during his interrogation the deserter told the germans about the coming soviet offensive [Music] the man's punishment battalion had been due to attack in the first wave he had become convinced that he would not survive [Music] the german high command took the deserters information seriously [Music] the vestula front in central poland had stabilized by the autumn of 1944 weeks passed but the expected red army offensive did not materialize german forces were withdrawn from poland for a counter-attack in the ardennes the fourth ss panzer corps was pulled out of warsaw and sent to hungary the front defending the road to berlin had been stripped there [Music] but the soviet offensive had only been the twister postponed wizard forced a good system damaged luxor for landing gun the german units in poland had been rehearsing new tactics to counter the initial red army onslaught the initial soviet artillery barrage would often wipe out german units holding the front line of trenches so the germans decided that at the last moment they would withdraw the infantry to the second line two to three kilometers to the rear every three to five hundred meters they dug communication trenches connecting the two lines the soviet bombardment would fall on empty trenches while the infantry prepared to meet the soviet assault from the second line most of the barbed wire and obstacles were placed between the first and second lines the germans prepared to fall back at any moment behind them panzer divisions including the new king tigers were ready to counter-attack soviet intelligence had severely underestimated the strength of the enemy's reserves the vermont was preparing to fight for germany they would bleed their enemies white and force them to accept peace on their terms a new soviet trick was to play loud music from the trenches it drowned out the noise of tanks and gun tractors as they moved up for the attack finally on the 12th of january they put on a new record through the gray dawn and across the snow-covered plane came the sound of an unbreakable union of freeborn republics the national anthem of the ussr [Music] [Music] as the last words of the anthem faded there was a short pause and then the roar of hundreds of guns german infantry streamed back through the communication trenches the first shells landed as the germans were still falling back to the second line they expected a long bombardment of the forward trenches but it was only a short barrage [Music] by the time the infantry reached their new positions the soviet guns were pummeling the second line with all their remaining ammunition the german army's new defensive tactics had failed on this occasion but the german command still had its armored reserve at kyotsi a german heavy tank battalion with 72 tigers and king tigers launched its counter-attack by early 1945 most soviet tank regiments had been re-equipped with the new t-3485 this tank had a much more powerful long-barreled 85 millimeter gun it gave the crews a much better chance against heavily armored german tanks like the tiger and panther at leaseoff the tigers were ambushed by the soviet 61st guards tank brigade after a ferocious battle the tiger battalion was defeated around kiatse the germans counter-attacked with more than 350 tanks and self-propelled guns but they failed to halt the advance of two soviet tank armies the german panzer divisions were encircled and destroyed other counter-attacks by german armoured units at puava and magnussev were also unsuccessful on the 17th of january 1945 the red army entered warsaw a giant breach had been made in the german front line red army tanks advanced so fast that they overran airfields where german aircraft was still being refueled near lublin they captured 60 luftwaffe aircraft at one airfield but in east prussia the third bjella russian front had less success here intelligence work proved much more difficult the local german population was fiercely hostile many reconnaissance patrols never returned from their mission [Music] reconnaissance failed to detect the withdrawal of german forces so the artillery bombardment did fall on empty front-line trenches the germans were falling back to kerningsburg the soviet air force had been grounded by blizzards and was unable to support the attack [Music] 15 days into the offensive the second ukrainian front approached the grey huts of the auschwitz concentration camp surrounded by its guard towers and electrified fences [Music] auschwitz was in fact a network of more than 40 camps of which auschwitz birkenau was the largest [Music] the rapid advance of the red army forced the germans to hurriedly shut down operations at this factory of death himmler issued orders for the camp to be liquidated surviving prisoners were to be evacuated or killed and all the apparatus of extermination was to be demolished with dynamite sixty thousand emaciated prisoners were marched away on foot amongst them was soviet partisan irina karina we walked column after column guarded by ss men and surrounded by dogs the snow was soaked with blood it was pink because anyone who fell behind tripped or stopped was shot on the spot the last crematorium was blown up 24 hours before the red army arrived at the last minute the ss shot around 700 prisoners hoping to silence the last witnesses but in their rush to escape the approaching soviet tanks the ss failed to carry out all its tasks the red army found seven and a half thousand starved prisoners inside the camp and enough evidence to work out what had happened there they found mountains of personal belongings taken from the dead the victims at this camp alone 90 percent of them jews numbered 1.1 million [Music] as the red army advance continued the first ukrainian front under marshall ivan konyev met determined resistance around the industrial region of silesia so he chose another approach to drive the enemy from this vast sprawl of factories and plants would cost men and time and stalin wanted the factories intact he described this region to marshal kanye as pure gold and so with the agreement of the general staff kanyev allowed the germans to escape from sanesia [Music] a corridor six kilometers wide was left open to the south through which the germans withdrew by the end of january the entire region was under soviet control [Music] when albert speer hitler's minister of armaments sent the fuhrer a memorandum on the significance of the loss of silesia it began with the words the war is lost [Music] after the destruction of the rural industries by allied bombing silesian mines provided sixty percent of german coal with the loss of silesia 1945's coal output would be one quarter of the previous years and her steel output just won six spear continued german industry will not be able to meet the front's requirement for ammunition weapons and tanks [Music] it meant defeat within the year but this information was kept within hitler's inner circle hitler continued to demand self-sacrifice and fanatical resistance from his followers to salvage the disastrous situation on the eastern front he turned to one of his oldest allies ss reich's fuhrer heinrich himmler hitler appointed him head of the newly formed army group vestula despite his total lack of experience of military command [Music] one man who was appalled by this decision was the talented panzer general heinz guderian now chief of the army general staff guderian knowing himmler would need all the help he could get appointed valtte venk an experienced staff officer as his chief of staff hitler gave this role to himmler because he believed only a true nazi could instill the troops with the necessary fanaticism to defeat the enemy it was an illustration of how far the fuhrer had become detached from reality soviet tank crews walked amongst snow-covered aircraft at the posnenia dozens of heinkel 111's grounded by lack of fuel the days of the third reich were numbered [Music] but the german garrison of poznani was in no hurry to surrender the commander of the first tank army general katukov soon found that the city was a tank crew's worst nightmare narrow streets and well-prepared killing zones [Music] was authorized to continue the advance to berlin poznanu would be left to general chuikov the hero of stalingrad and his eighth guard's army chewikov's orders were to take poznani by storm it lay in a crucial position at the heart of the local road and rail network chuwikov's troops began their assault on the 26th of january chewikov left an escape route open to the west he hoped the germans would withdraw so he could take the city quickly and at minimal cost but the besieged garrison made no attempt to break out this was a real fortress held by twenty thousand germans behind three meter thick stone walls soviet artillery pounded away at the city's 18th century fortifications to limited effect hitler had advocated the fortress or feshtung strategy in 1943 it meant holding designated fortresses at all costs even after they had become completely cut off [Music] in ukraine and biela russia the strategy found little support amongst his generals but by 1945 as the fighting reached german soil fewer generals were willing to stand up to the fuhrer [Music] a fashion that held important road and rail junctions made it difficult for the red army to resupply its forward units on the other hand the strategy meant valuable german units became trapped and isolated the second assault on poznani began on the 28th of january chewikov preceded it with an ultimatum to the garrison i general propose that you lay down your arms and surrender i guarantee your life and that you will return home after the war otherwise you will be destroyed few of the defenders took up the offer the garrison commander major general donald was a dedicated nazi he had no intention of surrendering meanwhile katukov's tanks had bypassed poznani and were heading west towards berlin but at the old polish-german border they encountered the ostvar the east wall [Applause] the ostval was an old fortified line which germany had begun building along its border with poland in 1934 but in 1938 hitler decided that these defenses were no longer a priority and halted further work on the line in 1944 as the red army closed in the fortifications were hurriedly prepared for action the line was composed of a series of readouts called panzerworks reinforced steel cupolas provided firing points and the approaches were covered by concrete anti-tank obstacles known as dragon's teeth the panzerworks held enough food water and ammunition to hold out for weeks the problem for the german high command was finding the men to garrison only ragtag units could be spared and many of these arrived late one soviet tank brigade drove straight through unmanned fortifications but a few hours later the german army arrived and began digging sections of rail into the road making it impossible for tanks the next brigade to come down the road ran into fierce resistance the brigade in front had been cut off all attempts to break through were unsuccessful the armored cupolas were impervious to tank rounds and in the rapid advance the infantry and heavy artillery had been left far behind that night the men listened to the sounds of heavy fighting behind the german line where their comrades were cut off if german reserves arrived the brigade would be wiped out but not all sections of the ostval were held with such determination the men holding the line near schwibus didn't even have uniforms they were men of the voxtool [Music] towards the end of 1944 with the german army increasingly short of manpower hitler authorized the raising of a national militia it was called the volch storm and hitler confidently believed it would raise six million men and initiate a people's war against the invader these hopes were wildly optimistic [Music] the nazis hoped to raise 24 volk storm battalions but could raise only one all german males between 16 and 60 were eligible for conscription into the volts stone the punishment for desertion was death to ensure voxstorm battalions possessed the necessary fanaticism to defeat the enemy they were placed under the command of the gow lighters the local nazi party bosses rather than under army control the volkssturm received few weapons and little ammunition although they had plenty of panzerfaust anti-tank weapons they received no uniforms just an armband which they wore over their civilian clothing predictably such units proved ineffective in combat at schweibus they could do little to hold up the soviet first guards tank brigade the trapped soviet brigade was rescued and the advance continued to the ode river similar events unfolded to the north at mesuritz the sixty-year-old oberloytment hermann schtepp commander of the 128th volksw what happened to his soviet captors [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] the voltstorn surrendered the defenses around mesuritz without firing a shot the red army broke through to the oda and established bridgeheads just 70 kilometers from berlin only there was the advance halted by the arrival of german reserves [Music] by february 1945 the soviet first biello russian front had fought its way across germany to within 70 kilometers of the capital berlin in just three weeks across a 500 kilometer front the red army had advanced 500 kilometers [Music] thousands of german civilians fled their homes fearing the vengeance of the red army their fears proved well justified soviet soldiers had long been taught to despise their enemy germany was the lair of the fascist beast and many set out to avenge bitter grievances amongst them was evgeni basunov we entered towns and saw two-story houses with nice tiled roofs at first we would set fire to these houses we couldn't forget the site of our own villages burned to the ground with only chimneys standing amongst the ashes [Music] it was not just property that felt the wrath of the red army soviet soldiers many fueled by alcohol were responsible for the rape of thousands of german women many of whom they then murdered prisoners and civilians were frequently shot out of hand some soviet soldiers were for a time out of control lizard sense was with the red army in 1945 nobody would lay their hands on prisoners but in 1944 vigilantism was common once a master sergeant that i didn't know took five germans outside and started shooting them one by one i approached him took his gun and said you better kill them in battle the looting of german property was systematic the soldiers gathered luxuries they'd never known before jars of stewed fruit jam and stewed meat [Music] they took anything that was in short supply back home including clothes fabric and shoes [Music] there was even an official postal service for sending loot back home to families privates could send five kilograms per month officers 10. as the advance continued commanders recognized that the brutal treatment of german civilians was inspiring the enemy to fight harder they tried to clamp down on such behavior [Music] nevertheless many officers continued to turn a blind eye to their men's behavior as the red army entered east prussia stalin himself was persuaded to issue an order forbidding the mistreatment of german civilians [Music] similar orders were issued by the military councils of the various fronts and armies [Music] one order signed by marshall rokosovsky commanding the second yellow russian front urged all ranks to eradicate all activities shameful to the red army with the force of a red-hot iron [Music] in february 1945 as churchill roosevelt and stalin gathered at yalta to decide the future of post-war europe recent red army successes put stalin in a strong position [Music] the western allies made major concessions to start over the soviet polish border they allowed the soviet union to keep much of the territory it had seized from poland in 1939 including the city of lev although bioistock would be returned in compensation poland would receive german territory east of the oda and most of east prussia a final decision was reached on the demilitarization and the nazification of germany it is our inflexible purpose to destroy german militarism and nazism and to ensure that germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world [Music] germany was to be divided into four zones of occupation in addition to the ussr usa and great britain one would also go to france the german capital situated in the soviet zone would itself be divided into four zones [Music] churchill pushed stalin to commit to free and fair elections in poland so that the country might choose its own government stalin agreed but it was a promise he would never honor [Music] stalin made a further promise that the ussr would join the war against japan within 90 days of germany's surrender [Music] meanwhile at poznani chuikov's eighth guard's army cleared german defenders from the rubble the second assault engineer brigade prepared to storm the city's fortifications their main obstacle was a fire swept moat 10 meters wide and 8 meters deep under the cover of a smoke screen the engineers rolled barrels filled with explosives into position [Applause] [Music] the fuse was to be lit at the last moment and the barrel rolled forward into the moat the explosion would kill german soldiers at their loopholes soviet assault groups waited to cross the moat and capture the war within lay the citadel fort vigneri these formidable fortifications were held by several thousand die hards under the command of the fanatical major general ernst cornell [Music] the assault began on the 18th of february heavy artillery opened fire on the forts at point-blank range the guns blew breeches in the walls wide enough for men to get through now the barrels of explosives were lit and rolled into the moat survivors were left deafened and concussed [Music] [Music] the assault groups crossed the moat using ladders and duck boards and fought their way into the city the engineers built a bridge over the moat to get tanks and self-propelled guns into the city the armored vehicles brought resistance to an end the month-long siege was over general gunnell lay down on a swastika flag and shot himself his deputy general matan led more than 4 000 survivors into captivity but elsewhere the nazis planned the last desperate counter-attack to save berlin heinrich himmler the commander of army group vistula hoped to turn the tables on the red army as it approached berlin his staff planned a counter-attack by the 11th ss panzer army operation solstice would be launched from pomerania against the northern flank of zhukov's first biello russian front the waffen-ss grew out of the paramilitary wing of the nazi party [Music] in 1939 it had just three regiments which proved unreliable in combat but as the war went on the waffen-ss expanded to more than 30 divisions and forged a reputation as an elite fighting force its units were the first to receive new equipment by 1945 the waffen-ss was a multi-national force its divisions manned by volunteers from across europe many were now gathered in pomerania including the ss northland nederland valonian landmark frankfurt and polizzi the german counter-attack began on the 16th of february 1945 but it could make little headway against biloff's 61st army and bogdanov's second guard's tank army then came zhukov's response he redirected two soviet tank armies against the german forces in pomerania within five days t-34s from the tank armies of katukov and bogdanov had reached the baltic sea trapping german forces who desperately sought to escape by sea after this catastrophe hitler allowed heinrich himmler to resign his command of army group vestula most soviet guns were modern designs from the 1930s but some were much older the 305 millimeter howitzers still bore the double-headed eagle of the romanovs all right their target was the fortress city of konigsberg capital of east prussia in early april there was a lull across much of the front but here the battle raged the walls had to be smashed and the air force could not help it had been grounded again by bad weather the heavy siege guns fired one round every three minutes there would be four days of this before the assault began konigsberg was defended by a series of modernized 19th century forts their thick walls protected by tons of earth [Music] but the red army bombardment was overwhelming by 1945 the german situation in east prussia was desperate in late january soviet troops had reached the vestula lagoon cutting off all german forces in east russia communication with the rest of germany was only possible by sea but the germans stubbornly fought on when the commander of the third bueller russian front was killed in action stalin said marshall vasilevskiy to replace him stalin urged him to secure a swift liquidation of the enemy to allow the red army to reinforce its assault on berlin but after assessing the situation vasilevskiy decided against an immediate assault he ordered three more weeks of preparation first he ordered an attack on german forces pinned against the coast south west of konigsberg the pocket was eliminated in late march now it was time to attack the city itself [Music] the red army had assembled a quarter of a million men for the final assault on koenigsberg they were supported by more than 5 000 guns and 500 armored vehicles they conducted a thorough aerial reconnaissance of the city and its approaches soviet intelligence estimated the kernigsberg garrison to be about 60 000 strong it turned out to be a serious underestimate the final assault began on the 6th of april 1945 the partially destroyed outlying forts offered no serious resistance but on the approaches to the city the soviet advance bogged down there were more germans than they had reckoned with and the air force was still grounded by bad weather but on the 7th of april the skies cleared 500 soviet bombers appeared overhead the luftwaffe was nowhere to be seen thousands of bombs rained down on the city after the bombing chaos reigned in kernigsburg communications across the city had been cut on the 8th of april the remnants of the garrison were driven back into the center and east of the city communications with the port of pilau were cut further resistance was pointless the next day the garrison surrendered [Music] the true number of casualties was lost amidst the chaos and the propaganda the red army claimed more than forty thousand enemy dead it took up to seventy thousand prisoners [Music] soviet casualties were up to 60 000 many more of them were reported at the time koenigsberg had been virtually destroyed [Music] the east prussian campaign had reached its conclusion the victorious soviet forces rolled west once more to prepare for the final battle the second yellow russian front would now take up positions along the river oda and then all would be in place for the final assault on berlin [Music] is oh [Music] red army tank crews looked on intently as mechanics arrived carrying steel meshes they began to fix them to their tanks hull and turret it seemed a flimsy kind of armor but this experiment could save the tank crews lives [Music] as soviet tanks advanced into german towns and cities in the spring of 1945 they were regularly ambushed by german panzerfaust teams the wehrmacht was running out of trained soldiers they had been forced to conscript teenagers and old men but even in their hands the panzerfaust could be just as lethal as a tank [Music] the commander of a soviet guards tank regiment described the aftermath here's a tank standing with the hatches buttoned down there's a small hole burnt through the turret just wide enough to put your little finger in this is a panzerfaust's work we have to weld off the hatch which is locked from inside we pull four dead men from the turret a hollow charge round has burned through the armor and the spitting of melting metal has killed them all [Music] engineers believed steel meshes could protect soviet tanks by causing the panzerfaust warhead to explode before it reached the tank's armor the report read the surface of the mesh was torn and bent as a result of the impact there was a hole in the tank's sloping armor plate it went right through so the panzerfaust could kill a t-34 even if it was cloaked in the protective mesh nonetheless many tank crews adopted this new measure in this bitter fighting they were willing to try anything that gave them an added chance of survival on the 31st of january 1945 tanks of the first biella russian front reached the oda river near custon and frankfurt ander oda they crossed without waiting for the infantry to catch up they had advanced 400 kilometers across poland 35 destroyed enemy divisions and hundreds of thousands of prisoners lay in their wake they were now just 100 kilometers from berlin the lair of the nazi beast [Music] but now the stafka soviet high command ordered a halt the frontline troops needed resupply and rest before they were ready to begin the final assault in march 1945 pomerania to the north and silesia to the south were cleared of german troops the flanks were secure for the drive on berlin the germans attempted a counter-attack at questrin but it ended in complete failure [Music] in the process some of the last armored forces available for the defense of berlin were destroyed [Music] from his fuhrer bunker beneath the reich chancellery hitler raged at this latest failure he was particularly scathing of the commander of the ninth army theodore busa but when chief of the general staff heinz guderian stood up for busa hitler's wrath fell on him instead guderian was sent on leave effectively enforced retirement his successor was general hans krebs hans krebs had been a military attache in moscow when the war began more recently he'd been chief of staff for modals army group b which that winter had launched the arden offensive against the western allies during his career krebs had shown a talent for planning defensive operations now hitler expected a miracle from him in berlin as guderian packed his bags an old acquaintance of his was preparing for the final push on berlin he was the soviet general simeon kriversheid the two men had met in september 1939 in poland during the nazi soviet carve-up of the country simeon mossey began his military career in 1918 with a cavalry in 1939 as part of the nazi soviet partition of poland his brigade occupied breast in modern belarus this was when krivershane met guderian the german general responsible for handing over control of the city to the soviets in 1945 krivershane commanded the first mechanized core it was the only unit of the first biella russian front to be completely equipped with american sherman tanks first mechanized core was on the eastern bank of the oda river but every night its soldiers crossed the river to help dig in placements for guns and tanks on the night of the 15th of april the corps crossed the odor to take up these prepared positions as hitler ranted and raved at his generals commander of the first biella russian front marshal zhukov was summoned to moscow [Music] he and stalin were to discuss details of the final assault on burleigh shukoff had prepared two plans for the offensive on the german capital plan a envisaged a thrust from the crewstream bridgehead plan b from the bridgehead near frankfurt the germans will be kept guessing as to which was the real line of advance forcing them to disperse their troops but bad news awaited zhukov in the kremlin in his memoirs he described a late night meeting with stalin he was told the german front in the west has completely collapsed the germans don't seem to be willing to take any measures to stop the advance of the western allies british and american troops had crossed the ride they had destroyed german army group b on the roar their armoured divisions were advancing rapidly towards berlin although the allies had agreed at yalta that berlin would be in the soviet zone of occupation the western allies hadn't ruled out entering the city before the red army winston churchill had expressed his opinion to the american president russian armies will no doubt enter vienna if they also take berlin will not their impression that they have been the overwhelming contributor to our common victory be unduly imprinted in their minds i therefore consider that should berlin be in our grasp we should certainly take it [Music] zhukov understood he put forward the plan that could be implemented most rapidly a single assault from the equestrian bridgehead marshall conyeth commander of the first ukrainian front also flew to the staffca headquarters in moscow in his memoirs kanye recalled the chief of staff read aloud a telegram the point of which was that the western allies were preparing an operation to capture berlin stalin addressed zhukov and myself so who is going to take berlin are we or are the allies i was the first to answer we shall take berlin and we'll take it before the allies the general staff worked night and day as they planned the operation one of the directives received by the first biella russian front ran as follows after the german defenses have been breached tank armies are to be introduced on the line of the main thrust to enable the envelopment of berlin from the north and northeast the purpose of this maneuver was to block the western allies eastward advance on berlin the prize was not for sharing zhukov planned to deliver the main thrust through the seal off heights held by general weidlings 56 panzer corps then the soviet armies would race west and establish a perimeter in the suburbs of berlin this cordon would prevent german forces retreating into the city konyaf was unhappy that he was not making the main assault on berlin instead his front would encircle the city from the south west but kanye ordered his staff to prepare two plans one following the staffers directives the other planning a quick dash to berlin [Music] meanwhile in berlin life went on most services continued to run including public transport in response to the air raids many had volunteered to help with firefighting or to help clear debris there were still films and concerts but over everything hung a sense of fear a fear of what was to come berlin bore the unmistakable scars of war cratered streets and scorched ruined buildings now berliners helped to build barricades as the city prepared to defend itself berlin's barricades were made of wood stone and rails they could be up to 2.5 meters high and 4 metres thick they made many streets completely impassable and the approaches to them were mined [Music] immobilized tanks were dug in at crossroads and became fixed gun emplacements berlin also boasted three massive flak towers built to defend the city from allied air raids these were 40 meters high and bristled with anti-aircraft artillery [Music] many berliners now wore the armband of the folk storm the german equivalent of the home guard these units were controlled not by the army but by the nazi party the folk storm was formed in october 1944 after hitler ordered the mobilization of all german males between the age of 16 and 60. by 1945 this meant the conscription of the only men left teenagers invalids and the elderly the nazis hoped to create a fanatical people's militia but most had little stomach for a one-sided fight with the red army there were very few weapons available for these units some received italian or dutch rifles with just a few cartridges but there were plenty of panzerfasts the panzerfaust was a one-shot disposable launcher that fired a hollow charge anti-tank warhead it was very cheap and easy to make the germans produced more than 6 million of them between 1943 and the end of the war [Music] the most common version the panzerfaust 60 had an effective tank killing range of 60 meters its warhead traveled at 45 meters per second and was able to penetrate 200 millimeters of armor this was very bad news for soviet tank crews the front armor of a t-34 medium tank was just 45 millimeters and of an east 2 heavy tank 120 millimeters standing between zhukov and the capital of the third reich were four german armies they consisted of nearly a million soldiers more than a thousand armored vehicles and almost ten thousand guns and mortars [Music] more than 200 volkstern battalions were formed into the berlin army command reserve the berlin garrison itself totaled more than two hundred thousand men busa was extremely cynical about their prospects we will consider our task fulfilled he wrote if american tanks strike us in our back the german general staff believed the fate of berlin will be decided on the sealoff heights therefore most troops were committed to the front rather than held back inside the city on the 15th of april a proclamation from the fuhrer was read out to the troops berlin will remain german vienna will remain german and europe will never be russian form a single community to defend not the empty word fatherland but your families your wives your children and hence your own future the slogan berlin will remain german appeared daubed on walls around the city many still believed that somehow the city could be saved troops of the first biella russian front were addressed by their commissar our troops have travelled a difficult but glorious road our battle standards are covered with glorious victories one at stalingrad and kursk on the denipa and in biella russia at warsaw and in pomerania in brandenburg and at the oda with our own sweat and blood we have earned the right to assault berlin to be first to enter the city to berlin at 3am on the 16th of april 1945 more than 7 000 guns mortars and katusha rocket launchers began an earth-shaking bombardment of the german line it was one of the greatest concentrations of firepower ever seen in berlin the bombardment was heard like the sound of distant thunder in houses closer to the front pictures fell off walls and windows shattered in monteberg the cross tumbled from the church spire [Music] amongst the guns were six massive 280 millimeter mortars from the 34th independent battalion of heavy artillery when the bombardment stopped 150 giant searchlights were switched on pointed straight at the german lines [Music] the searchlights were zhukov's idea they were supposed to light the way and dazzle the german defenders but they struggled to penetrate the thick morning mist and the smoke and dust thrown up by the barrage the searchlights proved just as effective at dazzling their own men [Music] and many were silhouetted by the lights becoming easy targets for the germans [Music] the germans had known the initial bombardment would be massive so most of their troops had already been withdrawn to the second line [Music] this allowed soviet troops to advance the first few kilometers with relative ease [Music] as the sun rose the searchlights were turned off [Music] despite the early success it was clear by afternoon that there had been no immediate breakthrough [Music] the sealoff heights were defended by a network of machine gun nests and gun emplacements it was a slow and bloody process for the soviet infantry to fight their way through the advance of the first blu-russian front was supported by 800 soviet aircraft unchallenged by the luftwaffe they arrived overhead to batter the german positions [Music] by 1pm zhukov explained i clearly understood that the enemy's defensive fire system was intact so to reinforce the attacking troops and ensure a breakthrough we decided to feed both tank armies into the battle his decision created huge traffic jams on the approaches to the sealoff heights tanks artillery tractors and supply trucks all struggled to get forward [Music] by committing his tank armies to the battle zhukov had altered the plan that he'd agreed with the staffer it showed desperation and stalin was not happy he rang zhukov to reprimand him for this unauthorized use of the tank reserve and he demanded to know when the breakthrough would be made zhukov tried to remain calm the enemy's defenses at the sealoff heights will be breached tomorrow he told stalin now zhukov had to make it happen [Music] [Applause] shukoff's advance led by chewikov's eighth guard's army and catacoff's first guards tank army was faltering on the sealoff heights [Music] meanwhile marshall conieve's first ukrainian front was advancing towards the nicer river and the forest southeast of berlin the germans had no forces here able to withstand his assault [Music] on the evening of the 17th of april kanye informed stalin that he was ready to send two tank armies to help zhukov stalin thought about it for a moment then he agreed very good he said direct the tank armies towards berlin kanye immediately issued orders to ribalco's third guards tank army and lila yushenko's fourth guard's tank army to turn towards berlin at the nicer river ribalco's troops found a ford no more than a meter deep rather than wait for bridging equipment his tank crews made their vehicles watertight and drove straight across [Music] by the third day of the offensive tanks of the first ukrainian front were poised to break through the german defenses [Applause] at the same moment zhukov's troops were at last about to break through german positions on the sealoff heights general krivershane's motorized infantry had managed to capture an intact bridge at the town of platkov now his first mechanized core was advancing unchecked behind them rolled the t-34s of bogdanov's second guards tank army on the 20th of april wrote general weidling commanding the german defense our units having suffered huge losses and exhausted to extremity could no longer withstand the pressure of the russian assault weightling's core was outflanked on both sides that evening zhukov entrusted general simon bogdanoff with a historic mission to lead his second guard's tank army into berlin and to become the first soviet troops to enter the enemy capital the next day crivashayan's first mechanized core part of the second guard's tank army reached the berlin suburb of vicenza and fulfilled the mission for this krivershane received his nation's highest award the title hero of the soviet union the main force of the first biella russian front was now sweeping around veidling's shattered core and arriving on mass at the outskirts of berlin connie's dream of conquering berlin had been thwarted forests and lakes minefields and pillboxes had slowed his advance there was hard fighting around zossen from where the wehrmacht high command had recently fled [Music] but his advance had trapped twenty thousand men of the german ninth and fourth panzer army in the forest south of berlin these men could no longer reach the city to help in its defense hitler faced a dilemma stay in the capital or flee to his alpine fortress he pinned his hopes on the army detachment of ss general felix steiner hitler telegraphed the general the primary task before army detachment steiner is to attack from the north the fate of the capital of the third reich depends on how successfully you execute this mission it was an impossible order that could not be carried out when hitler was told this he flew into a rage accusing the army of cowardice and treason it's all over he at last recognized [Music] the fuhrer would stay in berlin but he clutched at one last straw general venk's 12th army facing the americans on the elba river on the 23rd of april venk was ordered to relieve berlin but neither steiner nor venk could save the capital [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the berlin garrison was formed from a host of shattered army and ss divisions supplemented by vorkstone battalions police and air defense units about 120 000 men in total it was not enough although many of the ss men were prepared to fight until the end [Music] the soviets outnumbered the germans by more than four to one and many red army soldiers were now battled hardened veterans graduates of the stalingrad academy of street fighting [Music] soviet tanks advanced on both sides of the street in a staggered double file they kept 30 meters behind the infantry and used their main gun to take out defensive strong points that were holding up the advance infantry squads and snipers worked to flush out the german panzerfausters the soviets knew that the panzerfaust had a short range about 60 meters so tanks would pull up 150 meters from an enemy held building and shell it from a safe range [Music] when assault teams captured a building they used smoke grenades to fill the street with smoke allowing more troops to move up in safety general krivershane's mechanized core was redeployed to the northwestern suburbs after crossing the river spree it joined up with ribalco's third guards tank army to complete the encirclement of berlin [Music] the river spree curled through the german defenses in places the river was 200 metres wide the germans considered this an impenetrable barrier and so the south bank was lightly defended [Music] the appearance of soviet motorboats was therefore an unpleasant surprise for the germans these boats of the dunepa fleet had been transported by road and were now launched onto the spree the amphibious assault succeeded in establishing a foothold across the river reinforcements were then quickly ferried in to shore up the position [Music] this sudden advance where it was least expected threw the german defensive plan into chaos several blocks were given up without a fight as units raced back to avoid being cut off the red army troops were all aiming for one spot the reichstag building the reichstag building was completed in 1894 in the interwar period of the weimar republic it was where the lower chamber of the german parliament met in 1933 shortly after hitler came to power it caught fire in suspicious hitler accused the communists of starting the fire as part of a plot against the government the next day the reichstag fire decree gave the nazi party emergency powers to deal with its political opponents in effect it was the death of democracy in germany the reichstag building no longer had a purpose the centre of government was now located somewhere else entirely inside the fiera bunker 25 feet beneath the garden of the old reich chancellery the bunker had been built during the war in complete secrecy by april 1945 it had become adolf hitler's permanent residence and the site of his military headquarters according to those who experienced life inside the bunker the place smelled of wet cement and there was a constant drone from the ventilation system it was claustrophobic but impervious to bombs and shells [Music] the red army didn't know about the fury bunker even as their tanks fired onto the reich chancellery itself [Music] the observation point of the 34th battalion heavy artillery was located in an elevator tower on schlesinger strasse they couldn't see the reichstag only flames and smoke on the 27th of april their unit was ordered forward as the artillery spotters looked for a new vantage point their telephone rang a voice demanded to speak to the senior officer sergeant pavel lahren commander of the scout section was given the phone 18th orders you to fire on target 21 said the voice target 21 was the reichstag building sergeant larin acknowledged the order his battery hadn't fired on the reichstag before and larry knew that there were red army troops just 300 meters from it firing from a range of three miles the smallest mistake in their calculations could end up killing their own comrades larry also knew that any delay in the fire mission would not be forgiven the br5 heavy mortar fired an anti-concrete round that weighed 246 kilograms and carried 58 kilograms of explosive this shell made a crater 10 meters wide and 6 meters deep [Music] the battery fired 42 shells one after another then the phone rang again at the other end of the line they were shouting to ceasefire they'd been hitting their own positions [Music] the new order was to fire on target 20. target 20 was the reich chancellor the battery fired 18 rounds [Music] the forward unit came back on the phone good shooting i officially thank you on behalf of the assaulting units pavel larin had just played his small part in the fall of berlin [Applause] [Music] the soviet third shock army was leading the race to the reichstag its commander was vasily kuznetsov the same kuznetsov who'd faced the germans on the first day of the war near the bla-russian town of grodno as he struggled to save his third army from encirclement his war looked like it would finish in the baltic where he'd been a deputy front commander then in march 1945 zhukov clashed with nikolai simoniak commanding the third shock army it was just two weeks before the berlin operation the experienced kuznetsov was flown in as a replacement [Music] the third shock army had fought its way through the northern suburbs of berlin now kuznetsov's men were just 800 meters from the reichstag building the first attempt on the reichstag took place on the 29th of april but the attacking troops were fired on from the rear by germans in the crawl opera house [Applause] [Music] so first the opera house had to be cleared soviet infantry attacked again at 11 30 a.m on the 30th of april they were supported by artillery fire falling directly onto the reichstag building at 10 30 p.m the victory banner finally flew above the reichstag building [Music] so the previous morning hitler had spoken with major general monca commanding the defense of the berlin central sector he asked him how long will you be able to hold out 20 to 24 hours maximum came the reply that evening hitler ordered a report on the status of venk's 12th army the answer came at 1am venk had been forced to abandon his attempt to relieve berlin 14 hours later hitler shot himself his body was carried to a shell hole outside the entrance to the fura bunker covered in petrol and burned under a white flag a delegation led by chief of the general staff hans krebs approached the soviet lines they were taken to see general chewikov at eighth guard's army headquarters krebs informed chuikov of hitler's death and the formation of a new german government under grand admiral dernitz but chewikov refused to negotiate his demands were simple and to the point he wanted the immediate and unconditional surrender of the berlin garrison [Music] the germans refused the fighting went on after returning from his failed negotiations general krebs committed suicide in the furore bunker on the 1st of may it fell to general weidling to surrender the berlin garrison and end the fighting [Music] vitaling contacted the soviets by radio please cease fire we will send true send voice to the potsdam bridge at 12 50 pm berlin time the arrangements of the surrender were agreed at these brief negotiations at about 6 am the next day the 2nd of may the headquarters of the berlin garrison crossed the front line and surrendered from captivity weidling issued his last order on the 30th of april the fuhrer committed suicide thus abandoning those who had sworn loyalty to him the situation makes further resistance meaningless i order the immediate cessation of resistance this order was relayed through loudspeakers the germans began to put down their weapons the battle of berlin was one of the largest battles in history about three and a half million men fought on both sides during the campaign red army soldiers liberated hundreds of thousands of prisoners from german concentration camps amongst them were more than two hundred thousand foreign nationals they included eduard herriot the former prime minister of france and general otto ruger commander of the norwegian army on the 7th of may the german instrument of surrender was signed at reim in france the signatories were the german general alfred yerdall us general walter smith soviet general evan suslaparov and french general francois cevez as the official witness but the soviet union decided suslaparov did not have proper authority to sign the surrender it would have to be done again and so on the 8th of may 10 43 p.m central european time field marshal keitel representing the german army general stumpf of the luftwaffe and admiral von friederberg of the kriegsmarine signed another act of surrender in berlin in the presence of martial georgie zhukov and air chief marshal saratha tedder on the 9th of may the red army entered prague on the 10th of may the red army occupied the hell peninsula in the danzig bay and on the 11th of may german army group corland finally surrendered in these last days of the war 1.2 million german soldiers were taken prisoner including 101 generals [Music] on the 24th of june a victory parade was held in moscow's red square marshall rokosovsky commanded the parade marshal zhukov inspected the troops thus ended the great patriotic war of the soviet people [Music] sergeant pavel laren never found out who 18th was the voice who'd ordered him to fire on the reichstag and reich chancellory he was just thankful to have survived the war [Music] on the morning of the third of may larin was ordered to go to the reich chancellery and document the effects of their bombardment the berlin garrison had surrendered but suddenly they came under fire from a machine gunner on a rooftop luckily he missed laren wasn't allowed to enter the reich chancellery he was being visited by zhukov and the front commanders the artilleryman made his notes and headed towards the reichstag it was difficult to get in there too the building was crowded with thousands of soldiers celebrating their victory [Music] then standing on his comrade's shoulders [Music] he wrote on the wall sergeant pavel larrin [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] is [Music] [Music] the soviet assault team advanced through the ruins of konigsberg with the confidence of veterans they used the cover of the smoke and buildings and cleared the way with short bursts of submachine gun fire it was april 1945 and the red army was clearing the last german stronghold in east prussia [Music] [Music] at the headquarters of the third yellow russian front marshall vasilevskiy followed events with satisfaction he was generous with his praise but many of his commanders knew he was mentally selecting the men to take with him on his next assignment he had already been told what to expect in the summer of 1944 i learned that after the biela russian operation i would have to go to the far east stalin told me that i would be given command of the army there for the war against japan stalin had promised the allies that he would join the war against japan within 90 days of germany's surrender in turn he had been assured that certain soviet territorial demands in the far east would be met [Music] as the fighting continued in the east prussian capital of konigsberg the soviet union denounced its 1941 neutrality pact with japan it had done little to ease tension between the two powers stalin had kept almost 40 divisions stationed in the far east throughout the war [Music] foreign [Music] the soviet denunciation of the neutrality pact was a clear warning of stalin's intentions now the red army began to build up its forces in the far east [Music] the new arrivals included the 53rd army and sixth guard's tank army redeployed from czechoslovakia their experience of fighting in the mountains of romania and austria would prove extremely valuable in the far east some of the soldiers thought they were going home after the defeat of nazi germany but their war wasn't over yet [Music] japan had attacked manchuria in northeast china in 1931 before hitler even came to power it led to border clashes with the soviets at lake hassan in 1938 and hau hingol in 1939 japan had embarked on a policy of ruthless imperial expansion which brought war with china america and the british empire after germany's defeat the allies met for a conference at potsdam near berlin there the us the uk and china issued a stark threat to japan surrender or face prompt and utter destruction the japanese response was predictable prime minister kantaro suzuki stated that the japanese government would ignore the declaration and move forward to successfully conclude the war the response condemned the country to a terrible unprecedented fate [Music] in the new mexico desert the americans had just tested the first atomic bomb [Music] on the 26th of july 1945 the uss indianapolis delivered the little boy bomb to the u.s base on tinian island two days later general marshall the u.s chief of staff confirmed the order authorizing its use against japan the primary target was the city of hiroshima alternative targets were kokura and nagasaki many civilians had been evacuated from hiroshima because of the threat of air raids but at the time of the attack there were still 350 000 people living in the city on the 6th of august at 8 15 a.m the bomb was dropped from a height of nine kilometers 43 seconds later 600 meters above the city the bomb exploded with the force of 13 000 tons of tnt seventy thousand people were killed almost instantly it's estimated that the effects of radiation killed the same number again within six months within five years total fatalities had reached two hundred thousand three days later the americans dropped a plutonium bomb with an explosive force equivalent to 21 kilotons of tnt on nagasaki according to a report of the nagasaki prefecture everyone within a one kilometer radius was killed instantly within two kilometers almost all houses were destroyed and within three kilometers all flammable material was set on fire by the end of 1945 total deaths in nagasaki had reached 80 000 in the years that followed thousands more died from leukemia and cancers caused by the effects of radiation um [Music] the two nuclear blows against japan did not immediately break the country's will to fight on few outside the affected areas knew anything about the bombings [Music] members of japan's supreme council still believed they could negotiate an end to the war but a third catastrophic blow was materializing [Music] the japanese had detected heavy troop movements along the trans-siberian railway it could mean only one thing us forces had just completed a brutal struggle for the island of okinawa 300 miles south of the japanese mainland the experience taught them that an invasion of the japanese homeland would be a long and bloody affair the war might drag on for at least another year [Music] but a blow from the seasoned red army could prove decisive particularly if it was struck against a strategically vital part of the japanese empire manchuria in northeast china was such a place with korea to the south it was indispensable to japan's economy its industries produced coal iron steel electricity and more than half of japan's synthetic fuel factories had been moved here from japan to be out of range of u.s bombers the loss of manchuria would make it impossible for japan to fight on the sheer size of the theatre of operations was daunting enough manchuria is as big as germany and italy combined its central plain is like a fortress surrounded by a ring of mountains and the remoteness of its frontiers was another important factor [Music] between the far east and the russian interior the roads and railways simply did not exist to move or supply a big army japanese forces in manchuria centered on the kwantongami had been greatly weakened to reinforce the pacific but still contained seven hundred thousand men [Music] the commander of the kwantongami general yamada knew it was impossible to defend the whole length of the frontier so he placed only light screening forces along the border his reserves were located in the interior they were stationed close to railway hubs ready for rapid deployment when the enemy's intentions became clear [Music] the soviet high command plan nothing less than a double envelopment of the whole of manchuria one pincer would attack from mongolia the other from vladivostok the attack from the west would be made by marshall malinowski's trans-baikal front from the east by marshall moretzkov's first far eastern front the distance between the two forces was 3 000 kilometers [Music] in the path of general kravchenko's sixth guard's tank army lay the greater chingang range [Applause] krafchenko's orders stipulated that he was to cross the mountains in no more than five days any hold up and the japanese could send troops to fortify the passes and then the entire soviet offensive could grind to a halt at the yalta conference in february 1945 stalin had promised that the soviet union would join the war against japan no more than 90 days after germany's surrender he would keep his word just exactly 90 days after germany's surrender troops of the soviet first far eastern front prepared to go into action august in manchuria is the rainy season the downpour began on the 8th of august the eve of the offensive some river levels rose by two or three meters the ground was soon sudden the manchurian strategic offensive operation would begin in the dark in the pouring rain there was to be no artillery preparation the japanese were to have no warning the attack would be led by assault teams supported by isu-152 self-propelled guns but their main weapon would be surprise the assault teams were built around hardened veterans of the fighting in europe for identification they sewed patches of white cloth to their caps and tunics the password was petroleum at 1am on the 9th of august assault troops of the first far eastern front began their advance scouts led the way laying telephone wire for the infantry to follow at the command posts officers waited anxiously for news if the attack failed it would be plan b a four-hour artillery barrage foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] the red army's sudden onslaught against manchuria took the japanese by surprise some soldiers were caught still in their barracks those that manned their defensive positions in time were soon encircled and are taken out with explosives or flamethrowers the assault teams used infiltration tactics to bypass enemy strong points and advance up to 20 kilometers in the first few hours of the operation the city of mudanjang was next in their sights [Music] the soviet advance was so fast and unexpected that it took several hours for news of the attack to filter back to kwandong army headquarters and from there to tokyo the japanese command had believed that the soviets would not be ready to attack for several more weeks general yamada was so sure of this that on the 9th of august he was at a conference hundreds of miles from his headquarters [Music] the trans-baikal front offensive began at dawn and met little resistance kravchenko's sixth guard's tank army led the way with 75 000 soldiers 6 000 vehicles 800 tanks and 200 self-propelled guns the t-34s and lend-lease shermans advanced alongside old bt-5s and t-26s which had been stationed in the far east throughout the war they overran the weak japanese units in their path and advanced 120 kilometers on the first day a simultaneous supporting attack was made along the rail line [Music] as the first reports of the soviet attack reached the japanese high command the senior staff did not initially comprehend its scale yamada received instructions to maintain a staunch defense of areas occupied by japanese troops and prepare for large-scale military operations but there was more news that day from hiroshima came a detailed report on the scale of the devastation then a few hours after the soviet attack news arrived that a second bomb had been dropped on nagasaki [Music] these blows coming one after another were a profound shock to the japanese leadership prime minister suzuki told a meeting of the supreme council that the soviet union's entry into the war made the situation hopeless it was impossible to continue the allied terms offered at potsdam must be accepted that night the meeting was resumed in the presence of emperor hirohito it continued into the small hours of the morning following the emperor's lead the council finally agreed to the allied terms but they demanded an assurance that the emperor would retain his position this was rejected only unconditional surrender was acceptable the war continued in eastern manchuria the infantry advanced with well-practiced assault drills the men blasted their way in through the armored door it became routine to completely demolish these bunkers otherwise japanese survivors would hide and wait for the first wave to pass then rush back to their positions and resume firing mine clearance experts who had served in germany were struck by the simplicity of japanese minefields they caused little hold up for the soviet tanks and infantry the red army met more serious opposition to the north around the highland fortified zone after several days of heavy fighting the japanese defenders were encircled then the air force went in [Music] [Music] more than 80 soviet bombers dropped 120 tons of bombs on the japanese two hours later they surrendered krafchenko's tank army meanwhile struggled through the passes of the greater qingan mountains the 26 ton tanks crawled along the old caravan routes where the track was too narrow they widened it with explosives or improvised other solutions captain dimitri lozar led a tank battalion through the mountains two tank recovery vehicles were chained together at the top of the mountain one had a winch the other acted as the anchor a tank was attached to the winch cable and put into first gear then it was slowly lowered down the slope this is how we got them down safely by the 12th of august the mountains were behind them they were through with one day to spare they left an old bt tank at a crossing and inscribed on its turret soviet tanks passed here 1945 [Music] but as the tanks began to cross the plane dark specks appeared on the horizon japanese aircraft arrived to strafe the soviet columns with cannon and bombs some even made suicidal ramming attacks [Applause] nine kamikaze attacks were recorded by the tank crews but not a single tank was lost [Music] tank tracks quickly chewed the wet dirt roads into bogs so resupply became a major problem two transport divisions of the twelfth air army were given the job of flying fuel to the front but despite making 160 deliveries per day it wasn't enough [Music] as the soviet advance struggled on on the 14th of august news came that the japanese government had agreed to surrender [Music] a message had been sent to the governments of great britain america the soviet union and china that it was emperor hirohito's will that japan accept all the allies conditions set out at potsdam the war should have been over but the order to surrender was slow to reach the quantum army general yamada's orders only instructed him to immediately burn all banners imperial portraits and edicts and all secret documents in western manchuria the increasingly one-sided fight caused many japanese troops to surrender regardless in eastern manchuria the soviet first far eastern front faced a different situation suicide attacks by japanese infantry [Music] a special unit of 1700 soldiers under an officer named kobayashi was sent into battle near mudanjang [Music] general bella borodov witnessed their attack soldiers in green uniforms emerged from camouflaged foxholes and ran at the tanks the paratroopers shot them down they were decimated by machine guns but more of them emerged from foxholes and trenches throwing themselves at the tanks [Music] on the 15th of august 1945 as emperor hirohito made a radio address to the japanese people announcing his decision to surrender soviet tanks of the fifth army rolled on towards mudan jang the next day the soviet general staff issued a bulletin the emperor's statement of the 14th of august regarding japan's capitulation was only a general statement accepting unconditional surrender no order was issued to the armed forces to cease fire and japanese forces continue to resist thus in effect there has been no capitulation [Music] the japanese aircraft was acting strangely it flew slowly and waggled its wings as it approached the soviet lines the anti-aircraft gunners took a chance and held their fire [Music] this is it was a message from general yamada's staff informing the red army that he had ordered a ceasefire it was not news to marshall vasilevskiy his headquarters had already received a radio communication from general yamada stating that he had ordered his men to lay down their arms [Music] some japanese troops began to surrender including the garrison of the haila fortified area holding the rail line but other units did not receive or chose to ignore the order so vasilevskiy sent yamada an ultimatum i propose that at noon on the 20th of august you cease all military operations against soviet forces lay down your arms and surrender [Music] the waterlogged plane meant that the railway line was the only way for kravchenko's tanks to advance but a two-day march along the rails was tough on men and vehicles any breakdown brought the whole column to a standstill some tanks were simply shoved off the embankment to make way but the long advance was taking its toll one core was down from 200 tanks to just 70. marshall vasilevskiy now demanded the immediate capture of chang chun muktan jilin and habin by highly mobile task forces to be supported by airborne landings [Music] on the 19th of august seven lisunov twos carrying 175 officers and men left for jillian they were escorted by four fighters and three pe two bombers [Music] the japanese command had been officially informed of the landing as the second aircraft came into land the japanese suddenly opened fire the unit's commander was colonel dmitry krutzky i was standing by the aircraft's wheel when the japanese opened fire i received a light facial wound i led my soldiers into the attack and we captured eight hotchkiss machine guns and took 40 prisoners to tell the truth we tried not to take prisoners we were too mad we'd had a deal and they started shooting at us airborne units 200 strong were also sent to seize control of the japanese airfields at harbin mukhtan and changchun as soviet fighters circled the landing zones the transport planes made their drop within 24 hours the paratroopers were relieved by soviet tanks on the 19th of august japanese troops began to surrender on mars most combat operations came to an end but fighting continued on the island of sakhalin where soviet infantry carried out amphibious landings on the 20th of august five days later the red army entered the capital toyohara and accepted the surrender of eighteen thousand japanese troops to prevent the destruction of important industrial and naval facilities detachments of the sixth guard's tank army boarded trains at mukden and raced south to the large japanese naval bases at port arthur and dalmy paratroopers were sent ahead to make sure the americans didn't get there first the two powers were already positioning themselves for the cold war that was to come in one of the most remote outposts of the soviet empire naval gunners were hard at work the coastal battery at cape lopatka was firing at an island barely visible on the horizon the target was shonshu the northernmost of the japanese held kuril islands it was the prelude to an invasion in exchange for joining the war against japan stalin was promised certain japanese territories including the coral islands and south suckalyn he also had his eyes on hokkaido but the new american president harry truman was alarmed by these concessions in his view too much had been promised to the soviets he asked his commanders to look at ways to prevent the soviet occupation of the islands [Music] so stalin decided to present the allies with a fate accompli a few hours after the emperor of japan announced his nation's surrender marshall vasilevskiy ordered the invasion of the kuril islands to proceed the operation would be launched from soviet bases in the kamchatka peninsula their initial objectives were the islands of shemshu paramashir and anakotan [Music] the invasion would be led by major general jiakov's 101st rifle division it had been an intensive training for an opposed amphibious landing for more than six months they would be accompanied by marines and nkvd border troops the landing force would be 10 000 strong the main objective was the island closest to kamchatka perpetual cloud prevented any effective soviet air reconnaissance but it was known that the japanese had constructed a strong defensive line including pill boxes and anti-tank traps to protect the key naval base at kataoka at the island's northern tip there were several bunkers and an anti-aircraft battery mounted on the mario pa a soviet tanker stranded in 1943 the garrison of eight and a half thousand men was commanded by major general fosaki general ji yakov opted for a beach landing in the north thought that a direct assault on the port of katahooka was too risky but his land campaign carried its own risks if the japanese could bring in reinforcements from the neighboring island of paramushir general fosaki would have 23 000 men including 16 amphibious tanks at his disposal at 4 a.m on the 17th of august the invasion force of 42 ships set sail from kamchatka in thick fog it was a day-long voyage to shemshu radio silence was enforced messages were sent only by signal lamp or semaphore at 2 a.m the next morning the fleet arrived off the landing beach the assault troops would have to contend with powerful currents and freezing water the regular bombardment from the cape lapatka battery caused the japanese to miss the landing of the soviet advance guard [Music] it was detected only an hour later by which time they were more than a mile in land the japanese guns belatedly opened fire soviet naval guns set fire to the lighthouse which acted as a beacon for the rest of the landing ships [Music] the next wave was landed 200 meters from the shore hundreds were carried away by powerful currents but enough men reached the beach to begin the assault heavy cloud cover meant there was no air support they were on their own but the light japanese tanks proved vulnerable even to soviet anti-tank rifles [Music] seven tanks were destroyed with anti-tank grenades first sergeant babic distinguished himself by destroying two tanks single-handedly it was a massacre only one japanese tank escaped the infantry moved forward to assault the enemy strong points supported by artillery which had now been landed at the beach within 24 hours the japanese opened negotiations general fusaki announced a ceasefire the following day and on the morning of the 22nd of august the garrison laid down its arms the last battle of the second world war had cost the lives of more than a thousand soldiers on both sides on the 25th of august the garrison of onakoten surrendered followed by matsua with its naval base in their field the rest of the kuril islands soon followed suit soviet forces were planning to occupy hokkaido the northernmost of the japanese home islands but the operation was cancelled by stalin in the face of forthright opposition from the united states but in line with the agreement signed at yalta the soviet union now took full possession of the former japanese territories of south sakhalin and the kuril islands on the 2nd of september 1945 the japanese instrument of surrender was signed aboard the uss missouri in tokyo bay it was signed on behalf of the soviet union by general derivianco the soviet union had earned its place at the ceremony by its decisive action in manchuria which proved a crushing blow to japanese hopes of continued resistance but the first hints of coolness had crept into relations between the wartime allies they had already begun to form two distinct camps and five years later soviet and american pilots would meet over korea as enemies but for now the allies celebrated their victory the largest war in history was at an end [Music] the fighting had raged across three continents and four oceans it had claimed the lives of an estimated 70 million people but now the soldiers were coming home [Music] they believe that this wall was the last the very last how could it be otherwise [Music] you

Channel: Russian History. Films & Show

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Id: GwQZww0_New

Length: 401min 20sec (24080 seconds)

Published: Tue May 03 2022