January 1945. The Red Army
is poised to invade Germany. The final chapter of the war in Europe
will witness fanatical Nazi resistance and brutal Soviet retribution. Originally produced
for Russian television in 2011, this is the story
of Russia’s Great Patriotic War and the Red Army’s long road
from defeat to victory. 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. 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. The man’s punishment battalion
was due to attack in the first wave. He had become convinced
he would not survive. The German high command took
the deserter’s information seriously. The Vistula front in central Poland
had stabilized by the autumn of 1944. Weeks passed, but the expected
Red Army offensive did not materialise. German forces were withdrawn from
Poland for a counterattack 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 bare. But the Soviet offensive
had only been postponed. 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, 2 to 3 kilometres to the rear. Every 3 to 500 metres, 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 counterattack. Soviet intelligence
had severely underestimated the strength of the enemy’s reserves. The Wehrmacht was preparing
to fight for Germany — they intended to 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 12th January,
they put on a new record. Through the grey dawn
and across the snow-covered plain, came the sound of “An unbreakable
union of free-born republics”… the national anthem of the USSR. 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. By the time the infantry
reached their new positions, the Soviet guns were pummelling 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 armoured reserve. At Kielce, a German heavy tank battalion with 72 Tigers and King Tigers
launched its counterattack. By early 1945, most Soviet tank regiments
had been reequipped with the new T34-85. This tank had a much more powerful,
long-barrelled 85 millimetre gun. It gave the crews a much better chance
against heavily-armoured German tanks, like the Tiger and Panther. At Lissow, the Tigers were ambushed
by the Soviet 61st Guards Tank Brigade. After a ferocious battle,
the Tiger battalion was defeated. Around Kielce, the Germans
counterattacked 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 Counterattacks by German
armoured units at Pulawy and Magnuszew were also unsuccessful. On 17th 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 were German aircraft
were still being refuelled. Near Lublin, they captured
60 Luftwaffe aircraft at one airfield. But in East Prussia, the 3rd Byelorussian
Front had less success. Here, intelligence work
proved much more difficult. The local German population
was fiercely hostile. Many scout patrols never returned
from their mission. 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 Koenigsberg. The Soviet Air Force
had been grounded by blizzards and was unable to support the attack. Fifteen days into the offensive,
the 2nd Ukrainian Front approached the grey huts
of the Auschwitz concentration camp, surrounded by its guard towers
and electrified fences. Auschwitz was in fact
a network of more than 40 camps, of which Auschwitz-Birkenau
was the largest. 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. 60,000 emaciated prisoners
were marched away on foot. Amongst them
was Soviet partisan Irina Kharina. “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 7,500
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% of them Jews… numbered 1.1 million. As the Red Army advance continued,
the 1st Ukrainian Front, under Marshal Ivan Konev,
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 Konev as "pure gold". And so with the agreement
of the General Staff, Konev allowed the Germans
to escape from Silesia. A corridor 6 kilometres wide
was left open to the south, through which the Germans withdrew. By the end of January the entire
region was under Soviet control. When Albert Speer,
Hitler’s Minister of Armaments, sent the Fuehrer a memorandum on
the significance of the loss of Silesia, it began with the words, "The war is lost." After the destruction of the Ruhr
industries by Allied bombing, Silesian mines provided 60% of German coal.
With the loss of Silesia, 1945’s coal output would be
one-quarter of the previous year’s, and her steel output, just one-sixth. Speer continued. “With the loss of Silesia,
German industry will not be able to meet the front’s requirement for ammunition,
weapons, and tanks.” 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 Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler. Hitler appointed him head of the newly
formed Army Group Vistula — despite his total lack of experience
of military command. 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 Walther Wenck — an experienced
staff officer — as his Chief of Staff. Hitler gave this role to Himmler
because he believed only a true Nazi could instil the troops with the necessary
"fanaticism" to defeat the enemy. It was an illustration of how far the
Fuehrer had become detached from reality. Soviet tank crews walked
amongst snow-covered aircraft at the Poznan airfield —
dozens of Heinkel One-Elevens, grounded by lack of fuel.
The days of the Third Reich were numbered. But the German garrison of Poznan
was in no hurry to surrender. The commander of the 1st Tank Army,
General Katukov, soon found that the city was
a tank-crew’s worst nightmare — narrow streets,
and well-prepared killing zones. Katukov was authorized
to continue the advance to Berlin. Poznan would be left to General Chuikov,
the hero of Stalingrad, and his 8th Guards Army. Chuikov’s orders were to take Poznan
by storm — it lay in a crucial position, at the heart of the local road
and rail network. Chuikov’s troops began
their assault on 26th January. Chuikov 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 20,000
Germans behind 3 metre thick stone walls. Soviet artillery pounded away
at the city’s 18th century fortifications… to limited effect. Hitler had advocated the fortress
or “festung” strategy in 1943 — it meant holding designated
fortresses at all costs, even after they
had become completely cut-off. In Ukraine and Byelorussia 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 Fuehrer. A Festung 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 Poznan
began on 28th January. Chuikov preceded it with
an ultimatum to the garrison. “I, General Chuikov, 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 Gonnel, was a dedicated Nazi. He had no intention of surrendering. Meanwhile, Katukov’s tanks
had bypassed Poznan and were heading west, towards Berlin.
But at the old Polish–German border, they encountered the Ostwall —
"the East Wall". The Ostwall was an old fortified line, which Germany had begun building
along its border with Poland in 1934. But in 1938 Hitler decided that these
defences 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 redoubts called "Panzerwerks". Reinforced steel cupolas
provided firing points, and the approaches were covered
by concrete anti-tank obstacles known as "dragons’ teeth". The Panzerwerks held enough food, water
and ammunition to hold out for weeks. The problem for the German high command
was finding the men to garrison them. Only rag-tag 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 impassable 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 armoured 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 Ostwall
were held with such determination. The men holding the line near Schwiebus
didn’t even have uniforms. They were men of the "Volkssturm". 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 Volkssturm, and Hitler confidently believed it
would raise 6 million men, and initiate a people’s war
against the invader. These hopes were
wildly optimistic. At Poznan, the Nazis hoped to raise 24 Volkssturm
battalions, but could raise only one. All German males between 16 and 60 were eligible for conscription
into the Volkssturm. The punishment for desertion was death. To ensure Volkssturm battalions possessed
the necessary fanaticism to defeat the enemy, they were placed
under the command of the Gauleiters — 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 Schwiebus, they could do little to
hold up the Soviet 1st Guards Tank Brigade. The trapped Soviet brigade was rescued, and
the advance continued to the Oder River. Similar events unfolded
to the north at Meseritz. The 60-year-old Oberleutnant Herman Step, commander of the
128th Volkssturm Battalion, described what happened
to his Soviet captors. Volkssturm units around Meseritz
surrendered without firing a shot. The Red Army broke through to the Oder, and established bridgeheads
just 70 kilometres from Berlin. Only there was the advance halted
by the arrival of German reserves. By February 1945,
the Soviet 1st Byelorussian Front had fought its way across Germany to within
70 kilometres of the capital, Berlin. In just three weeks,
across a 500 kilometre front, the Red Army had advanced 500 kilometres. 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 Yevgeny Bessonov. “We entered towns and saw two-storey
houses with nice tiled roofs. At first, we would set fire
to these houses. We couldn’t forget the sight of our
own villages, burned to the ground, with only chimneys standing
amongst the ashes.” It was not just property that felt
the wrath of the Red Army. Soviet soldiers, many fuelled 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. Lazar Tsents 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’d 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. They took anything that was
in short supply back home, including clothes, fabric and shoes. There was even an official postal service
for sending loot back home to families. Privates could send 5 kilograms
per month — officers, 10. As the advance continued, commanders
recognised that the brutal treatment of German civilians was inspiring
the enemy to fight harder. They tried to clamp down on such behaviour. Nevertheless, many officers continued to
turn a blind eye to their men’s behaviour. As the Red Army entered East Prussia,
Stalin himself was persuaded to issue an order forbidding
the mistreatment of German civilians. Similar orders were issued by the military
councils of the various fronts and armies. One order, signed by Marshal Rokossovsky,
commanding the 2nd Byelorussian Front, urged all ranks
"to eradicate all activities shameful to the Red Army
with the force of a red-hot iron". 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. The western allies made major concessions
to Stalin 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 Lvov, although Białystok would be returned. In compensation,
Poland would receive German territory east of the Oder and most of East Prussia. A final decision was reached
on the demilitarization and denazification 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.” 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 4 zones. Churchill pushed Stalin to commit
to free and fair elections in Poland, so that the country might
chose its own government. Stalin agreed. But it was a promise
he would never honour. Stalin made a further promise —
that the USSR would join the war against Japan within
90 days of Germany’s surrender. Meanwhile at Poznan,
Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army cleared German defenders from the rubble. The 2nd Assault Engineer Brigade prepared
to storm the city’s fortifications. Their main obstacle was a fire-swept moat,
10 metres wide and 8 metres deep. Under the cover of a smokescreen,
the engineers rolled barrels filled with explosives into position. 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 wall. Within, lay the citadel — Fort Winiary. These formidable fortifications
were held by several thousand diehards under the command of the fanatical
Major General Ernst Gonell. The assault began on 18th February. Heavy artillery opened fire on
the forts at point blank range. The guns blew breaches in the walls
wide enough for men to get through. Now the barrels of explosive were lit,
and rolled into the moat. Survivors were left deafened,
and concussed. The assault groups crossed the moat
using ladders and duckboards, 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 armoured vehicles
brought resistance to an end. The month long siege was over. General Gonell lay down
on a Swastika flag and shot himself. His deputy General Mattern led more
than 4,000 survivors into captivity. But elsewhere, the Nazis planned a last
deserpate 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 counterattack
by the 11th SS Panzer Army. Operation Solstice would be
launched from Pomerania, against the northern flank of Zhukov’s
1st Byelorussian Front. The Waffen-SS grew out of the paramilitary
wing of the Nazi Party. In 1939 it had just 3 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 multinational force, its divisions manned
by volunteers from across Europe. Many were now gathered in Pomerania,
including the SS Nordland, Nederland, Wallonien, Langemarck,
Frundsberg, and Polizei. The German counterattack
began on 16th February 1945. But it could make little headway
against Belov’s 61st Army and Bogdanov’s 2nd Guards Tank Army. Then came Zhukov’s response. He redirected two Soviet tank armies
against the German forces in Pomerania. Within 5 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 Vistula. Most Soviet guns were modern
designs from the 1930s. But some were much older. The 305 millimetre howitzers still bore
the double-headed eagle of the Romanovs. Their target was the fortress-city
of Koenigsberg, 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 3 minutes. There would be four days of this
before the assault began. Koenigsberg was defended by a series
of modernised 19th century forts, their thick walls protected
by tons of earth. 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 Vistula Lagoon, cutting off all German
forces in East Prussia. Communication with the rest of Germany
was only possible by sea. But the Germans stubbornly fought on. When the Commander of the 3rd
Byelorussian Front was killed in action, Stalin sent Marshal Vasilevsky
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, Vasilevsky 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 Koenigsberg. The pocket was eliminated in late March.
Now, it was time to attack the city itself. The Red Army had assembled
quarter of a million men for the final assault on Koenigsberg. They were supported by more than 5,000 guns
and 500 armoured vehicles. They conducted a thorough
aerial reconnaissance of the city and its approaches. Soviet intelligence
estimated the Koenigsberg garrison to be about 60,000 strong. It turned out
to be a serious underestimate. The final assault began on 6th 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 7th 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 Koenigsberg. Communications across
the city had been cut. On 8th April, the remnants of the garrison were driven back
into the centre and east of the city. Communications
with the port of Pillau were cut. Further resistance was pointless.
The next day the garrison surrendered. The true number of casualties was
lost amidst the chaos, and the propaganda. The Red Army claimed more than 40,000
enemy dead. It took up to 70,000 prisoners. Soviet casualties were up to 60,000 —
many more than were reported at the time. Koenigsberg...
had been virtually destroyed. The East Prussian campaign
had reached its conclusion. The victorious Soviet forces rolled west
once more, to prepare for the final battle. The 2nd Byelorussian Front would now
take up positions along the River Oder. And then all would be in place...
for the final assault — on Berlin.
