All language subtitles for D-Day to Berlin A Newsnight Special BBC 1080p EN SUB_Subtitles01.ENG

This programme contains scenes which
some viewers may find disturbing

First light on 6 June, 1944.

An armada of more than 5,000
Allied warships and landing craft,

protected by barrage-balloons,
closed on the Normandy coast.

Among the thousands
of Allied troops crossing
the Channel that morning,

was a Hollywood director
called George Stevens.

Stevens was aboard HMS Belfast,

in charge of the newsreel team
recording the event for the US army.

But as well as
the official version,

Stevens also took these unique
pictures for himself - in colour.

Stevens had brought out
from California

a private stock of the
revolutionary new 16mm Kodachrome.

The colour and clarity
are remarkable.

By half past five,
the German coastal defences
were within range of the guns.

The assault on occupied Europe
was about to begin.

A few hours
after the main assault force,
Stevens himself went ashore.

He landed at Bernieres-Sur-Mer,

in the centre of the beach
code-named Juno.

By breakfast time,
the people of Normandy were waking
to an historic announcement

from the Allies' supreme
commander, General Eisenhower.

'People of Western Europe!

'A landing was made
this morning in France

'by troops
of the Allied expeditionary force.

'I have this message for you.

'Although the assault may not
have been in your country,

'the hour of your liberation
is approaching.'

A British tank crew,
successfully across
a German minefield, poses.

Stevens commanded the Special
Coverage Unit, an elite team of
about 30 cameramen and directors.

Attached to the Allied
supreme headquarters,

they could move about
as they wished.

It was this superb access
which enabled Stevens to shoot

one of the most evocative
home movies in history.

These 14 battered cans
contain the colour footage

George Stevens shot during
the last year of the war.

Buried in a Hollywood film archive,

forgotten for almost 40 years,

it now constitutes the most
important colour record we have

of the war in Europe.

And none of it has ever
been seen in public before.

George Stevens was appointed
commander of the Special Coverage
Unit by General Eisenhower

to improve the film reporting
of the war.

Stevens himself died in 1975,

but we've tracked down some of the
surviving members of his team,

including director Holly Morse,

cameraman Dick Kent

and Ivan Moffat,
the English-born scriptwriter.

Using their memories
and George Stevens' footage,

we've tried to re-create
their journey across Europe.

Their story ends in Berlin.

It begins one summer's evening
in June 1944,

when the unit pitched camp
for the first time in Normandy.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
'And now, Captain Glenn Miller!'

APPLAUSE
'Thank you
and good evening, everybody!

'Our boys have fired
the opening guns of the drive
to liberate the world.

'Now music. Here are the boys
with their rocket-gun version
of Flying Home.'

MUSIC: "Flying Home"
by the Glenn Miller Orchestra

The Special Coverage Unit called
themselves The Hollywood Irregulars.

We had a sign up there

that started off as
New York and Paris on it,

and gradually more and more
was added on

until finally at the bottom,

it was Shirley 4,200 miles
or something like that.

Shirley was one of the boys'
girlfriends.

I believe it was Chicago,
but I couldn't be sure.

George Stevens had the rank
of lieutenant-colonel

and a reputation
as a successful director.

Before the war, he made Gunga Din
and after it, such famous pictures
as Shane and Giant.

George was one of probably the best
directors

that I've ever seen
or worked with.

And George felt very strong
about the war.

He knew what his mission was.

He knew what the war was about

and he was very dedicated

to the best motion picture coverage
of this tremendous event.

We were all highly professional.

We'd all been in the motion
picture business for some time.

And we'd all made many, many
motion pictures.

We felt a little more qualified
than some of the Signal Corps
cameramen.

We had cameramen like
William Miller

who was an Academy Award winner.

Joe Brock who is currently thumbing
all the great shows of today.

We were all experts in our field.

The unit's camp was near Carentan,

midway between the two
American beaches, Utah and Omaha,

which pumped men and material
into the beachhead.

'The overwhelming impression was of
an extraordinary logistical power.'

Of thousands and thousands of ships,

and hundreds of thousands of tons of
material being landed 24 hours a day,

pouring inland across every lane
and every road in that beachhead.

It was a sight
you'd never dreamt of seeing.

'If there is victory,
which we assume there would be,

'this is what it is going
to be made of.

'These were the sinews of war.

'One almost felt that such things
as regimental traditions,
individual gallantry,

'elite brigades of soldiers and all
that was hardly to be reckoned with

'against the scales of this
amazing accumulation of stuff.'

Four weeks after D-Day, the unit was
summoned to the Allied Armies

headquarters in France
for a photo call.

General Bernard Law Montgomery,
commander-in-chief,
Allied Land Forces, was present

along with General Omar Bradley,
commander of the American
First Army.

While George Stevens concentrated
on the official newsreel coverage,

he gave his colour camera
to his sergeant, Bill Hamilton,

who took these pictures.

Among the commanders,
on the left is George Patton,

a flamboyant figure with his famous
pearl-handled pistol.

The generals were worried
about the state of the campaign,

but, publicly,
Montgomery radiated confidence.

MONTGOMERY:
'The pace has been hot,

'and it was clear that someone would
have to give way sooner or later.

'It was also clear that the Allied
soldiers would see the thing

'through to the end
and never give up.

'So the Germans
have been forced to give ground,
which is very right and proper.

'The Allied armies
fighting in Normandy
have good grounds for satisfaction.

'So to every Allied soldier
in Normandy, I say, "Well done!
Well done indeed!"'

In reality,
as Montgomery was well aware,

Normandy had become
a battle of attrition.

In the campaign's first 12 weeks,

over 50,000 Allied troops
were killed

and 150,000 were wounded.

On the German side,
the suffering was even worse.

The ordinary German soldiers fought
with great skill and tenacity.

They sustained a quarter
of a million casualties.

One German commander
was moved to call the battle
"a monstrous blood bath."

The Allies tried to break out,
using their overwhelming
air superiority

to pulverise the German positions.

Day after day, the ancient towns
and villages of Normandy

were turned
into landscapes of rubble.

On 25 July,
in one of the biggest raids of all,

2,500 Allied bombers

flew over the film unit's camp.

Their objective -
to destroy the German positions

west of the town
of Saint Lo.

Wave after wave
of German bombers came in.

They were dropping their bombs
on one particular little place,
Saint Lo.

And the concussion was just terrible.

This push went on for hours
and hours,

plane after plane.

The skies were full of bombers...

..coming over, everywhere
you looked.

And dropping rows of bombs

just ahead of where we were.

To clear out that area...of Germans.

Saint Lo had been a peaceful
and picturesque market town,

famous for its medieval churches.

Then came its liberation.

12 shattering Allied air raids
destroyed the German garrison

not before they'd
flattened the town.

800 of Saint Lo's civilians
were killed in a single Allied raid.

Saint Lo's fate was typical
of the fate wrought across Normandy

by the British and Americans

as they struggled to escape
their bridge head.

After the thing was over,
the bombing was over,

we pushed forward and you'd pick
Germans out of foxholes

and things like that,
they were just...

devastated by what had happened,
they couldn't believe that.

And they were just out of their
minds.

I'm sure it took them a long time
to get back to reality.

The smell of death,
I still smell,

once in a while at night.
I wake up screaming.

And this is 1985.

And that was 1944 that that
happened,

and it still bears with you.

The devastation was so extreme

that I'll never outlive it.

At last, in the final week of July,
the German resistance
began to break.

Thousands of prisoners surrendered,

to be herded into makeshift camps.

After two months of constant
bombardment,

the Germans' fighting spirit
had collapsed in the face
of the Allied firepower.

For most Americans,
this was their first contact with
the enemy en masse.

An unforgettable impression
of exhaustion and defeat.

There was an unmistakeable smell
of leather and sweat.

They had a lot of leather,
the Germans used a lot of leather
in their equipment.

Much more than we did and there was
a smell of sweaty leather,

and unwashed uniforms

and a peculiar smell
one got used to,

came to recognise
wherever they had been

among prisoners of war.

Columns of German prisoners
jammed the Normandy roads.

By the end of August,
more than 200,000 had surrended.

The Allies were now
pushing the Germans back.

The American third army
commanded by General Patton

swung west into Brittany.

The Special Coverage Unit
went with them,

finally leaving their base camp
in Carentan,

passing through Saint Lo
and arriving on 18 August

at the port of Saint Malo.

Some buildings were still on fire,

the town had only been
liberated the previous day

after heavy fighting.

EXPLOSIONS

Outside the harbour,
on the tiny island of Cizembra,

the German garrison
refused to surrender.

The Americans bombed it from the
shore and the air.

EXPLOSIONS

Despite the shelling, the Germans
held out for another two weeks.

Stevens and his unit moved on
to join the American armour,
now racing east towards Paris.

MUSIC: "Alouette"
by the Glenn Miller Orchestra

# Alouette, gentille alouette

# Alouette, je te plumerai

# Je te plumerai la tete,
Je te plumerai la tete

# Et la tete... Et la tete!
Et le bec... Et le bec!

# Et la bouche... Et la bouche!
Alouette... Alouette!

# Oh... Alouette

# Gentille alouette

# Alouette, je te plumerai

# Alouette... Alouette!
Alouette... Alouette!

# Alouette! #

Stevens and his men
crossed the Seine by the army's
hastily-built pontoon-bridge.

They were now only 30 miles
from the French capital.

On 23 August, Eisenhower
agreed to give the Free French army
the honour of liberating Paris.

Units of the French
2nd Armoured Division,

commanded by General Leclerc,
began moving into the outskirts
of the city.

As the plan was explained, Stevens
saw an opportunity to record the
crowning moment of the liberation.

In a field near Fontainbleau, he
approached a Free French colonel,

and received permission to join
them on their drive into the city.

'The atmosphere was halfway
between a carnival and a bullfight.

'The whole purpose of the war
seemed to be coming true.

'It was a rare moment
for the soldiers to experience.'

'The streets were lined
with happy, happy people...

'..Women, children, men,
tight in the streets -

'just enough room to allow
our jeeps and vehicles through.

'They were waving.
They were kissing us.

'The women and girls
were jumping on board
the jeeps, tanks and trucks

'to kiss the boys.

'To ride into Paris
through a gauntlet like that
was a very exciting thing.

'To think that we were part

'of freeing the French people from
this occupation by the Germans...'

Stevens had barely set up
his cameras when Leclerc arrived
at his headquarters

with the commander
of the German garrison.

General Dietrich von Choltitz,
to Hitler's fury,
had agreed to surrender Paris

rather than see it destroyed
by fighting.

A crowd began to gather.

Von Choltitz said
he hadn't expected to get out alive.

When the two men emerged,
Leclerc called the cameras over
to record the scene.

The Germans' prompt capitulation
had saved the city.

ANNOUNCER:
'BBC Home Service. Here is the News.

'Paris has been liberated.

'A communique from General Koenig
announces that it has been liberated
by French forces of the interior.'

In the confusion, however,
not everyone had heard the news.

GUNSHOTS

Isolated groups of Germans
continued firing.

GUNSHOTS

I think I ended up under a Jeep.

I don't know where Dick was,
someplace else.

But Stevens was standing alone
out in front.

And he looked around...

looked down at me,

and said, "You can't
make any pictures from down there.

"This is where the action is."

You didn't know whether
you were gonna get shot,

or whether you were gonna
get kissed.

You didn't know which!

It was happening all about us.

To stop the shooting,
captured German officers

were dispatched across the city
to spread word of the ceasefire.

White flags provided protection
to some extent.

Ivan Moffat was detailed to escort
one nervous German officer.

We drove off with some difficulty
through this enormous angry,

ferocious, rejoicing crowd
which was on the Place de Rambuleau.

And he was spat at.

We were all drenched in spit.

And I had to sort of reassure him

that he wasn't going to be lynched
or something.

At 4.30, De Gaulle himself,
leader of the Free French,

arrived to confer with Leclerc.

De Gaulle was the dignity
of France made flesh.

At his insistence, the Germans
surrendered not to the Allies,
but to the French government.

"We are living",
he said that afternoon,

"through minutes which transcend
our poor individual lives."

'It was intoxicating.

'No matter what would happen
afterwards,

'nothing would ever exceed
the emotional experience
of 25 August 1944.

'And nothing did.'

'Unless you've lived through it
or been there,

'you can't imagine
how the Allies were greeted.

'The French populace went crazy
and mad, absolutely wild,

'kissing you and giving you a drink,
and "Come on over to the house".

'And you used to say,
"No, I've work to do."'

There were girls and more girls!
How can I explain it to you?

You had to beat them off!

CROWD SINGS "LA MARSEILLAISE"

MUSIC: "La Marseillaise"
played by a military band

Four days later,

the Americans made a reviewing
stand out of a bailey bridge.

General Bradley asked De Gaulle to
take the salute at a victory parade.

MUSIC: "Over There"
played by a military band

The moment
the American 28th Division
had passed down the Champs Elysee,

it accelerated out of the city
to rejoin the Allied offensive.

It had taken less than 12 weeks
since D-Day to reach Paris.

Watching the parade,

one member of Stevens' unit
bet another a hundred dollars

that the war would be over
by October.

The German resistance was collapsing
all around.

Quite aside from the exhilaration
and the wonder of Paris itself,

there was this marvellous feeling
that the war was in fact over.

That winter, the German resistance
did not collapse. It stiffened.

In the towns of Belgium
and later in Germany,

the Allies were often forced
to fight their way forward

street by street.

GUNSHOTS

This region was the scene
of Hitler's last great offensive
in the West.

He attacked through the Ardennes
known as the Battle of the Bulge.

On 16th December,
along a 60-mile front,

200,000 German troops
attacked American positions

in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Their objective was
to re-capture the port of Antwerp.

Six weeks of heavy fighting
cut a swathe of destruction

through south-east Belgium.

Refugees fled their shattered homes
to escape the fighting.

The Americans eventually
stemmed the German advance,

but they paid a heavy price.

Over 19,000 GIs were killed,

47,000 wounded.

The mid-winter days were short
and dark, and the weather freezing.

Such miserable fighting conditions
seemed more like the First
than the Second World War.

One of Stevens' cameramen
was ordered to make a film about
the dangers trench-foot,

to which thousands
of men succumbed.

'It was mud and snow...

'and wet and uncomfortable.

'It was just... An army
in winter is not very happy,

'especially at the Front
where they're righting.

'It's just miserable,
trying to keep warm,

'and trying to meet the enemy.'

Obeying orders...

..and Christmas away from home.

It was very demoralising
in that sense.

CHOIR SINGS:
"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

An American heavy mortar detachment,
clearing out the countryside

for the infantry to move forward.

In the spring of 1945, after
the frustrations of the winter,

the Allies were once more
advancing into Germany.

On 24th March,
the British and Americans
mounted Operation Varsity.

22,000 parachutists and glidermen
supported the land forces
crossing the Rhine

in the largest one-day
air-borne operation of the war.

Once across the natural barrier
of the Rhine,

Stevens' unit followed
the American 1st Army into Germany.

In two and a half weeks,
they penetrated 150 miles,

until, on 11th April, they reached
one of Germany's greatest

and most secret installations -
Nordhausen.

Driven into the mountainside
at Nordhausen,

the Allies found 40 miles of
passages and tunnels, housing the
world's largest underground factory.

This was Nordhausen's product -
the V1 flying bomb.

Each flying bomb was capable
of delivering a ton of explosive

a distance of 200 miles.

Nordhausen's factory line
assembly was such

that each cost £125 -
less than a Volkswagen car.

These sophisticated liquid fuel
rocket engines belonged to the V2.

Nordhausen turned out V2 rocket
bombs at a rate of 700 a month.

Another section
of the factory was set aside
for the manufacture of jet engines.

The Messerschmitt 262
was the first operational
jet interceptor in the world.

But the brilliance of German
science co-existed at Nordhausen

with the brutality
of the Nazi state.

The factory had
13,000 slave labourers -

Czechs, Poles, Russians,
Frenchmen, Belgians, and Italians.

The Allies brought men up from
below ground to lie in the sun.

Some of them hadn't
seen daylight for a year.

'Ken and I walked
through one barracks.

'There was a man lying in a bed,
with another two men in a bunk.

'We said we were Americans.'

This one man was very happy,

with a weak, sick face.

And we interviewed
some of the people.

When we came back,
that man had rolled over and died.

'We saw some ambulatory prisoners
who had bandages on them.

'They were slowly walking around.

'There were many men left to die.'

In all, 20,000 of Nordhausen's
slaves were killed.

Some died in the factory, but most
were worked till they dropped

and then shipped to extermination
camps for disposal.

Ivan Moffat spoke to one prisoner,
a Belgian civil servant,

just before he died.

I asked him what he thought
of the Germans

and he said, "Monsieur, you can take
a thousand German children

"and bring them before me
lying here, before my eyes,

"and you can shoot them,
I wouldn't blink an eyelid."

German resistance in the West
was now virtually over.

A week after the liberation
of Nordhausen,

the German Army Group B
was encircled.

The Allies had expected to take
about 150,000 men prisoners.

Instead, by 18th April,
they had captured 320,000,

including
25 generals and an admiral.

This was an even larger
German force than the Russians
had captured at Stalingrad.

'It was extraordinary to see them
suddenly. They were in fields

'usually below the road.

'Masses and masses of them -
some were admirals, generals,

'even field marshals, privates -
everybody coralled there together.

'They were quite co-operative
in a way.

'They wanted to get on
with what was next.

'There was an odd feeling
of all this enormous power

'having laid down its arms,
standing there before us -

'a very strange sensation.

'Not of victory, but a feeling
that this formidable machine

'was there like
a whole mass of sheep.

'They were there,
defenceless and unarmed,

'ready to do our bidding.

'I suppose all armies feel
that in the face of prisoners,

'but that was heightened
because the Germans

'were probably a more professional
and better trained army than we were.

'And there they all were before us.'

Most of the German prisoners
were happy to be in Allied hands.

They had at least
escaped the Russians.

The Allied advance had reached the
River Elbe on 15th April and halted.

East of the river was to be
the responsibility of the Russians.

In the next nine days,
they advanced over 100 miles,

until they too reached the Elbe.

The armies came face to face
at Torgau.

The first contacts between
the Americans and the Russians

began at about lunchtime
on 25th April.

Despite language
and culture differences,

there was an unmistakable
emotional affinity.

Here were ordinary soldiers,
thousands of miles from home,

within sight of victory
over of a common enemy.

'The first Russian I saw

'was a rather hoary soldier.

'It sounds very corny
and improbable,

'but he actually came up to me
and grinned.

'He embraced me and said,
"Kapitalisti! Kommunisti!"

'It sounds awfully unlikely,
but it happened.'

'It felt like this was
what we'd been working for.

'The link-up with the Russians

'signified the end
of the German army.'

'They used many more women
on front-line duty,

'or right behind
the front lines, than we did.

'They were quite tough,
but I guess you get tough

'when you get shot at long enough.'

General Emil Reinhart,
the local American commander,

had been furious when he'd first
heard of the fraternisation.

His men had been ordered not
to stray beyond the Allied lines.

But by mid-afternoon, it was clear
that nothing could be done.

The general swallowed his anger
and joined in the ceremony

the press was insisting
on stage-managing.

RADIO: 'This is General Bradley's
headquarters. East and West have met.

'At 20 minutes to five on Wednesday
afternoon, 25th April, 1945,

'American troops of General Bradley's
12th Army Group

'made contact with Marshal Koniev's
1st Ukrainian Army Group

'near the German town
of Torgau on the Elbe.

'This is the news for which
the Allied world has been waiting.

'Nazi Germany, toppling
to their final collapse,
has been split clean in half.

'The forces of liberation
have joined hands.'

For thousands of Allied prisoners
of war held captive in Germany,

now was the moment of liberation.

The Allied advance freed men
of many nations - Africans,

Indians, Algerians.

Some men had been in captivity
for more than five years.

Others, like these British
paratroopers, had been prisoners
for only a few months.

In 1945, the Allies repatriated
more than 1.5 million men
from German prison camps.

As Nazi Germany split apart
that April, refugees and PoWs
spilled onto the roads

until it seemed that the entire
continent was on the move.

'The whole of Europe was like
some enormous crossroads -

'dusty from all the vehicles
churning up the roads.

'In the green of the spring,
there was this dust

'and this constant stream
of all the men of Europe going home,

'pushing perambulators and carts.

'Norwegians going north,
Italians going south, Belgians
and the French going west,

'people going to Russia and Poland.

'Everywhere, people were passing
on this endless crossroads
of Europe.'

The war in Europe
was within a week of its end

when George Stevens and his team
received orders to move on.

From Torgau in the north, they drove
250 miles south

to somewhere the Americans
wanted recorded for posterity.

The place was near a small
Bavarian town called Dachau.

Dachau was Germany's
oldest concentration camp.

The following scenes still shock.

40 years ago, their impact on
the camera crew photographing them
was devastating.

First thing at Dachau
was these open box cars

on a railroad track leading
into the gate of Dachau.

Snow-covered bodies...

two and three thick,
lying on the floor...

These people had been transported
from another camp to Dachau,

probably for the crematorium...
and the gas chambers.

And there was... Some of them
didn't make it.

'Man lying at the opening
of the box car was...

'head down, his feet dangling
outside and his head over.'

So, there were probably 20 box cars
with these bodies,

'snow-covered bodies,
because it was winter.

'Prisoners only had
their one prisoner suit,

'no overcoats or blankets.

This was a consignment
of Hungarian Polish Jews

averted westwards to avoid
the advancing red army.

At some point during the journey,
more than 2,000 had died
of cold and hunger.

There were hundreds, if not
thousands, of bodies lying

exposed, or lying in striped pyjamas
in these open box cars.

'Some of the flesh
had been gnawed away

'because of desperate attempts
of some people to get food.

'Some of it was raw, and that
was absolutely appalling.

'Many prisoners there,
probably 3-4,000 in barracks...

'some healthy, some very sick,

'dying daily.

'When they died, they were taken
outside the barracks,

'laid on the...street with
their head up against the curb,

'white...

'..very thin, white bodies, naked.

'Other prisoners probably
took their clothing.

'Naked bodies...five feet high...

'..two deep...

'about 30 or 40 feet long,

'waiting to go to the crematorium.

Dachau was not a mass extermination
camp like Auschwitz.

Nevertheless,
in its 12-year existence,

it is estimated that upwards
of 30,000 people died here.

Beaten, tortured, starved and
subjected to medical experiments,

many of Dachau's 35,000 inmates
were in a dreadful condition

when the Americans liberated
the camp on 29th April.

Although years of war might have
brutalised their feelings,

nothing had prepared
the Allied troops for such a shock.

As a 20-year-old young man

with a sheltered life behind him...

..it was a terrible shock.

How can one human being do this
to another human being?

Impossible to think of!

How does one justify...

this mass murder?

You just want to hate the Germans -
all Germans - at this time.

The captured German guards
were terrified - with good cause.

Furious and sickened, the GIs
shot 122 of them on the spot.

Some of the SS disguised
themselves as prisoners,

but their healthy faces
gave them away.

The Americans held identity parades
to pick out guards,

hiding among the inmates.

An American major, apparently
barely in control of himself,

listens to the excuses
of some of the guards.

It was this maddening self-assurance
which provoked the GIs to acts
of vengeance.

In addition to the SS guards
killed by the Americans,

40 or 50 were murdered
by the inmates themselves.

They were beaten to death with
shovels, clubs and rifle butts.

For the inmates,
the misery of Dachau
didn't end with its liberation.

The camp was in the grip
of a typhus epidemic.

The entire place
was sprayed with DDT.

Prisoners were de-loused.

Even so, in the month after
the Americans reached Dachau,

a further 2,500 people died.

Most succumbed to typhus,

others to the shock of over-eating
after years of starvation.

Some simply died
from the sheer excitement.

Relief was mingled with resentment.

The US authorities refused
to let prisoners leave the camp

for fear they spread
disease or crime.

Dachau was therefore still full, and
Stevens and his crew still filming

when news came a week later
of the Allied victory in Europe.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
'Good morning from the White House
in Washington.

'Ladies and gentlemen,
the President of the United States.'

PRESIDENT:
'The world has been freed of the
evil forces, which, for five years,

'has imprisoned the bodies
and broken the lives of millions
upon millions of free-born men.

'The flags of freedom fly
all over Europe.'

ANNOUNCER:
'This is the BBC Home Service.

'We're interrupting programmes
to make the following announcement.

'It is understood that,
in accordance with arrangements
between the three greatpowers,

'tomorrow, Tuesday, will be treated
as Victory in Europe Day,

'and will be regarded as a holiday.
The day following, Wednesday...'

WINSTON CHURCHILL:
'Our gratitude to all our allies
goes forth, from all ourhearts,

'in this island
and throughout the British empire.

'We may allow ourselves

'a brief period of rejoicing.

'Advance Britannia!

'Long live the cause of freedom!

'God save the King!'

SINGING

ANNOUNCER: 'This is London.'

AMERICAN REPORTER:
'As you walk down the street,
you hear singing from open windows.'

THE ANDREWS SISTERS:
# I wrote my mother

# I wrote my father

# And now I wanna be sure
Very, very, sure

# Of you

# Don't sit under the apple tree
With anyone else but me

# Anyone else but me

# Anyone else but me
No, no, no

# Don't sit under the apple tree
With anyone else but me

# Till I come marching home... #

With the war in Europe over,
George Stevens and the Special
Coverage Unit

began the last leg of their journey.

Their final destination was Berlin,

but first, curiousity drew them east
to Berchtesgaden.

This was the Berghoff,
Adolf Hitler's private mountian home

with its tea rooms and terraces.

And this was Hitler's
famous picture window

with its spectacular view
over the Obersalzberg.

Scattered pictures, records
and crockery were liberated
by the crew for souvenirs.

'I captured most
of Hitler's dinnerware up there.'

I took it back to Paris
and traded it for cognacs,

so an awful lot of Hitler's
dinnerware is around Paris.

At last in July, the unit
received clearance from the Russians
to enter Berlin.

'The Russians were very systematic
about cleaning up the city.

'They'd take a block and then
somebody who wasn't a true Nazi,

'they made him the boss.

'They'd form endless lines
and they pass all these bricks out,

'from one to the other, and that's
the way they cleaned up.

Some Berliners still showed
remnants of fighting spirit.

Most did not.

'They were absolutely beaten.

'They were wandering around -
most of them, not all of them -
in a daze.

'They were more afraid
of the Russians than the Allies.'

The Russians had more than
12 million men and women in uniform
by the end of the war.

Four fifths of Nazi Germany's
strength had been directed
against them.

They had truimphed and now,
they claimed their victory.

By the summer of 1945, Stalin had
made it clear to the Allies

that the Soviet Union would
not be dislodged from Berlin,

from Germany or from Eastern Europe.

The fragile Allied unity,
like George Stevens' mission,
had come to an end.

And here,
with the Second World War over
and the Cold War about to begin,

George Stevens' film record stops.

The final sequence was shot in the
ruined heart of Hitler's Berlin,

the Reichskanzlerei, where in the
1930s, Hitler had plotted his war,

and where, in 1945,
it finally consumed him.

His corpse burned in the garden,
in a trench full of petrol.

The unit, its work done, split up.

Its members
went their separate ways.

But 40 years later, something of the
spirit of that last year of the war
- its hopes and disappointments,

its happiness and horror - lives on
in 14 rusting cans of colour film

and in the memories of the men
of the Special Coverage Unit.

'I was fortunate to be able
to photograph it,'

to be part of it and to live it.

Today, it's a great memory
that I was able to be in on that.

I took part in history,

and recorded it as well.

MUSIC: "Halls of Montezuma"
played by a military band