All language subtitles for wwii.battles.in.color.s01e02.1080p.web.h264-cbfm_Subtitles01_Unnamed

[Narrator] June 1941.

Cameras roll as Nazi Germany

launches an all out assault
on the Soviet Union.

Operation Barbarossa-- a savage
and dehumanizing mission:

to obliterate the Red Army.

And massacre its population.

[crowd chanting]

Now, newly colorized film
and amateur home movies

will plunge us deep into this
brutal conflict

to witness the Nazi killing
machine cut a bloody scar

through the pages of history

in the deadliest campaign
ever fought.

[theme music playing]

July. 1941.

Soviet soldiers tow
balloons through Moscow.

They crawl through Red Square
like a giant caterpillar.

But this is no parade.

These are barrage balloons,
tethered with steel cables,

to foil low altitude bombers.

The Nazis are coming.

[indistinct voice on PA]

Civilians descend into the
depths Moscow's subway system,

taking shelter
on packed platforms.

The Moscow Blitz
begins at night.

Searchlights scour
the darkness,

as anti-aircraft gunners
look to light up their targets.

[explosion]

Total warfare has
hit the Eastern Front.

Just two years
earlier in Moscow,

Germany signed a non-aggression
pact with the Soviet Union.

Joseph Stalin, believes
the two countries are allies.

[Stalin] "The Soviet Union
is very serious
about the new pact.

I give you my word of honor

that the Soviet Union will
not cheat on its partner."

[Narrator] Stalin's faith
borders on denial.

[crowd cheering]

Ever since he began his
rise to power in the 1920s,

Adolf Hitler has preached

about his desire to
defeat the Soviet Union.

[Jeff] For Hitler, the decision
to invade the Soviet Union

goes back to his writing about

the Soviet Union in his book,
Mein Kampf

and his belief that securing
this land of milk and honey

would allow Germany
and its empire to expand.

It would allow the Germans

to become a healthier more
powerful group of people.

[Narrator] By the summer
of 1940,
the Fuhrer is riding high.

[crowd cheering]

Celebrating the success of
the German Blitzkrieg campaign

that almost wiped
out the French

and the British at Dunkirk

on the packed street
of Berlin.

Hitler now turns
his attention East.

Images like this are used to

lure millions of young Germans
to the Nazi cause.

Like Goetz Hirt-Reger, here
swimming in the Austrian Alps.

He's 15 going on 16.

His father's just bought
a 16mm Kodak camera.

A new gadget that will instill

in Hirt-Reger a lifelong
passion for filming

that will see him
capture some of the most

powerful images of the war

that will soon erupt
across the planet.

Two years later, Hirt-Reger

begins compulsory basic
training in the German army.

He films his fellow recruits
learning the ropes.

At times it can seem like camp.

Initially, the rookies aren't
issued guns,

so they drill
with garden shovels.

[officer speaking indistinctly]

Six months later, Hirt-Reger
and his unit,

shovels still in tow,
are moving out.

Leaving Freiburg,
in southern Germany,

on an 800 mile train
journey east to Poland,

now under Nazi rule, following
its invasion in September 1939.

The country's capital, Warsaw,
is a shell of its former self.

The destruction a sign
of things to come.

600 miles away,
in a German countryside

unspoiled by
the ravages of war,

ruthless plans are being
made for the future of Europe.

Hitler's lover, Eva Braun,
films him in the Berghof,

his mountain retreat
in the Bavarian Alps.

Hitler loves the region
and embraces its traditions.

And it's here that Hitler
comes to relax

with the children
of visiting VIPs...

to play with his dogs...

[dogs barking]

...and to dream of
his Nazi Empire.

In July, 1940, Hitler invites
senior generals to the Berghof

and orders them to attack
the Soviet Union
the following year.

A war Hitler believes
will deliver the land he wants

and the chance to wipe out
the people

he blames for all
the world's ills-- the Jews.

In the seven years
Hitler has been in power,

the Nazis have been whipping up
anti-Semitism across Germany.

Newsreels show baying,

swastika wearing thugs
screaming anti-Semitic insults.

Jewish owned shops are
daubed with the star of David.

And German civilians
drag Jewish neighbors
from their homes

and attack them in the streets.

[indistinct chatter]

Hitler, he saw world Jewry

as a threat to the German race.

Hitler is thinking about
this in terms of biology.

He also sees communism as a
threat to western civilization.

And from Hitler's perspective,

and many of those
in the Nazi leadership,

Jews were behind
the Soviet threat.

Jew equaled a Bolshevik.

So if he's able to destroy
the Soviet Union,

he could kill
two birds with one stone.

[Narrator] Nazi propaganda
also focuses on
another target of their hate,

the Slavs found in much
of Eastern Europe,

portraying them as
untermenschen,

sub-humans that should
be kicked out,
enslaved or killed.

In the autumn of 1940,

Hitler finalizes both his
military campaign

and his genocidal one.

To annihilate the people of
the Soviet Union

he orders a deliberate
policy of mass starvation,

known as the Hunger plan.

The Nazi invasion is
code-named "Barbarossa"

after the medieval German
crusader, Frederick Barbarossa.

Barbarossa will be
a three pronged attack,

Army group north will push
through the Baltic states

to Leningrad.

Army group south will smash
its way across

the Soviet southern plains
into Ukraine.

While the largest of
the Army groups, Center,

will attack Moscow

and wipe out the city
and its inhabitants.

The plan is
for the whole operation

to be over in just 16 weeks.

Hitler's decision to invade
the Soviet Union

was his greatest gamble
of the Second World War.

They needed a swift victory

to destroy the Soviet Union
in the summer.

If it was a campaign that
was drawn into the winter,

they weren't prepared
for that psychologically,

technically, or in terms
of their fighting methods.

[Narrator] Despite facing
a Red Army

with almost three million men
on its western border,

Hitler is confident of victory.

His Wehrmacht outnumber
this Soviet vanguard
by a million men

And there's another reason
Hitler doesn't see Stalin

and his Red Army as a threat.

A Soviet propaganda film

shows Stalin surveying his
military's collective strength.

But it's a force
lacking leadership.

For the last decade,
fearing the army
as a threat to his power,

Stalin has ordered the death

or imprisonment of many
of its leading officers.

[Jeff] Hitler and
the German High Command

viewed the Red Army
as a poorly led instrument,

one which had been decimated
by Stalin's purges in the '30s,

Essentially, Stalin
decapitated his own army

in the years leading up
to the Second World War.

[Narrator] Hitler orders
Operation Barbarossa

to begin in
the summer of 1941.

Goetz Hirt-Reger
is called into action.

He's now a radio operator

with the 29th motorized
Infantry Division.

With camera in hand, Hirt-Reger
and his unit roll toward

the Soviet Union's
western border.

Tank units multiply.

Until three and a half
thousand Panzers

gather along
the Soviet frontier.

Johannes Schumacher
also films his trip east.

His unit is traveling by truck

with signature
license plates.

They're SS Einsatzgruppen.

[Jeff] The SS Einsatzgruppen,

essentially served
as death squads

that followed the German
army into the Soviet Union.

They were there to eliminate
any possible resistance.

Their focus was on
communist functionaries,

and male Jews.

And these were to be murdered
by the Einsatzgruppen.

[Narrator] By the
evening of June 21st

almost four million
Wehrmacht troops.

three quarters of the
entire German ground force,

stand ready to begin
the invasion of
the Soviet Union.

Despite reports of massing
German military on his border,

Stalin refuses to believe
they will attack.

[Stalin] Germany is up
to her ears
with the war in the West,

I'm certain Hitler
will not risk attacking
the Soviet Union.

He is not such an idiot

and understands that
the Soviet Union is not Poland,

not France,
and not even England.

[Narrator] Many Red Army units
are demobilized,

far from the frontline...

[indistinct chatter]

Their guard is down.

In the early hours
of June 22nd, 1941,

Operation Barbarossa begins.

It is the start of
the largest and most

brutal conflict ever fought.

Dawn.
June 22nd. 1941.

An eerie silence
envelops the Soviet border.

German troops brace
themselves for what's ahead.

It's the calm before the storm.

Operation Barbarossa,

the German invasion of
the Soviet Union, has begun.

Nazi propaganda crews film
as Howitzers

fire 250 pound shells
at Red Army defenses.

Sending shockwaves along
an 1800 mile frontline.

With the aftershocks
still reverberating,

the Wehrmacht charges forward.

Soviet cameramen capture
their troops' surprise

and the ensuing chaos.

[explosion]

[Lloyd] The early days of
Operation Barbarossa,

saw the Soviets perform in
a way that Hitler had hoped,

and indeed, expected.

It was a case
of the Germans

being able to exploit

an underwhelming opposition
very quickly,

and in a way that very much
reflected the sort of success

that they had seen in 1940.

-[gunshots firing]
-[explosion]

[Narrator] Stalin is horrified.

[Jeff] The German invasion
shocked and surprised Stalin,

because according to his
own perceptions of things,

it made no sense
for Hitler to attack.

So, when the Germans do
tear open these huge gaps,

these huge holes
in Soviet lines,

it leads Stalin to...

some historians have suggested

that he had a type of
nervous breakdown,

in which he
kind of disappears

and falls from the scene.

[Narrator] The damage
is not just psychological.

Major Wilhelm Emmerling
films as his division

moves into the destroyed Soviet
border town of Rawa Ruska.

Marveling at huge craters left
by high explosive shells...

and the shreds of
Soviet uniforms

literally blown sky-high.

Emmerling also records
blasted-out pillboxes

and the corpses of the troops
that once manned them.

[gunshots at a distance]

In the face of the cold-blooded
German onslaught,

many Soviet divisions
are wiped out.

A camera operator assigned
to the 112th Rifle Regiment

films German units moving
along open roads,

fields and through villages
with no resistance.

The footage also shows
bewildered looking Soviet POWs.

Their expressions leave
little doubt

they know
their fate is sealed.

[Hoepner] Every military action
must be guided

in planning and execution

by an iron will to
exterminate the enemy...

mercilessly and totally.

Hitler addresses his
High Command in March of 1941,

in which he gives
this long lecture

about that this has to
be a war of extermination.

That officers need to leave
their scruples behind.

So, this meant that
on the word
of a German officer,

all the men could be shot;
the whole village could be shot.

This power of life and death

was passed on to German
officers in the field.

[Narrator] It drives
a merciless assault.

In the fortress town
of Brest Litovsk,

defenders try
to stand firm.

They're hammered with a near
constant artillery bombardment.

Led by a Mörser Karl,
an enormous rail-borne gun.

[explosion]

After eight days,

Soviet troops finally raise
the white flag in surrender.

German propaganda
camera crews

show the high price
of their resistance.

Stables filled with
dead horses,

and streets littered
with human corpses.

Brest-Litovsk was a foretaste

of what was to come
for the rest of
the Soviet Union.

Complete destruction.

Men, women, children,
animals; fields laid to waste.

The Soviet Union was
not simply to be conquered;

it was to be destroyed.

[Narrator] By the end of
the first week,
all three German army groups

have achieved their
initial objectives.

Lead tank units make the
most of the open fields

and scattered Soviet infantry.

Within days, they penetrate
over 200 miles
into the Soviet Union.

Hitler greets the news
with a bold proclamation.

To all intents and purposes
the Russians have lost the war.

Exhausted and underfed,
weakened Soviet soldiers

are captured in their
hundreds of thousands.

The wretched sight of
their downtrodden enemy

shocks even the German troops.

[Bidermann]
The dusty road was lined

with endless columns of
Russian prisoners

in ragged khaki-brown uniforms.

Some were barefooted
and half-dressed,

they filed past us
with downcast eyes;

many support others who are
wounded, sick, or exhausted.

[Narrator] General Graf
von Rothkirch visits
one Soviet prisoner camp.

The emaciated state
of the POWs is obvious.

The Germans make
little provision

for the vast number
of enemy prisoners

they regard as sub-human.

With many forced to
drink fetid, stagnant water...

and use their
own helmets and beanies

to hold the meager
rations they are given.

Almost 3 million
Red Army soldiers

will eventually die
of malnutrition

at the hands of
the Wehrmacht.

The Nazis ruthlessly execute
their twisted ideological war.

The sign reads...

"These Jews agitated
against the German Army."

It's a scene being repeated
all across
the Soviet frontline.

[Werth] The first day
the Germans came,

they hanged eight people
in the main street,

among them a hospital
nurse and a teacher.

The teacher's body was left
hanging there for eight days.

Because moral boundaries
weren't in place;

because ideology was
a major objective,

it was a case of

the German
soldier feeling that

it was just an extension
of a military campaign,

to move into unlawful acts;

to murder; to loot;
to rape; to maim.

And they may have
known that it was wrong,

but once the moral
boundary had been crossed,

it was very difficult
to pull back from that.

[Narrator] Footage shot in
the summer of 1941

shows SS Einsatzgruppen
forcing Jews into ditches

before systematically
shooting them.

By the end of the year,

the SS will have murdered
almost one million
Soviet Jews,

a massacre known as
the Holocaust by bullets.

The Nazis' genocidal
campaign spares no one.

To solve their food shortage

and wipe out their
ideological enemies,

the Germans
implement The Hunger Plan,

an engineered famine.

-[speaking indistinctly]
-[hens squawking]

Rather than cover up the plan

to systematically starve
an entire population,

Nazi propaganda films celebrate
laughing soldiers

as they steal
poultry and livestock.

The Germans knew that
a campaign of this scale,

they lacked the logistics
and supplies.

And food and supplies from
the Soviet population

were going to have to
make up the difference.

To the Germans,
it didn't matter;

these were sub-humans anyway;

lower races
who could be killed.

They spoke openly of
a Hunger Plan,

twenty to thirty million
Soviet civilians

would have
to be starved to death.

Barbarossa was not
a normal military campaign.

It was a murder campaign.

[Narrator] Operation Barbarossa
is now into its second week.

With the suffering and death
toll of his armies

and people escalating
out of control,

Joseph Stalin is
forced to face reality.

He addresses the nation.

[muffled, speaking indistinctly]

[Erskine] When Stalin's
speech began,

his words resounded
from all directions,

with amplifiers carrying
the message

to every nook and cranny
of the city.

[Jeff] Stalin's first radio
address
to the Soviet people

was one that called
on the Soviet people

to come together and rise
up as one against the Germans.

He demanded that the Soviet
people hound and harass

German units wherever they are.

It was no longer the Red Army
versus the German Army,

but the Soviet Union
fighting for survival

against Nazi Germany.

[Narrator] The Red Army
scrambles to mobilize.

With Stalin's words ringing
in their ears

and thirsting for revenge
for the German atrocities,

hundreds of thousands of Soviet
troops head to the front.

The counterattack is on.

[explosion]

Throughout July,

many Soviet forces fight
with suicidal ferocity.

[Captain Ivan] If you are
wounded, fake death, and when
the Germans approach,

kill them with your rifle,

with the bayonet,
with your knife,

tear their throats
out with your teeth.

Don't die without leaving
a dead German behind you.

[Narrator] The savagery of
the Soviet counterattacks

catches some German units
off guard.

For the first time

the invaders
start to suffer heavy losses.

[Rick] Mother Russia opened
her arms wide in embrace.

Welcome to the war.
Welcome to hell on earth.

[Narrator]
In the summer of 1941,

harrowing Soviet
propaganda films

underline the deadly impact
the Red Army's fight back

is having on
Operation Barbarossa.

And following the massive
Luftwaffe air raid
against Moscow...

[sirens wailing]

Soviet newsreels revel
in the fact

less than a dozen of
the 200 German bombers

break through the city's
anti-aircraft measures.

They show a burning plane
plummeting to the ground.

But careful inspection shows
the footage is fake,

the downed aircraft is a model
plane hung from a fishing line.

[Lloyd] The Soviets
use propaganda
very astutely,

we see the war being
used to bind

the Soviet people
to the center,

and particularly to
the personality of Stalin.

This was the great patriotic
war; the war for Mother Russia,

and Stalin wasn't going
to let anyone forget that.

[Narrator]
By the end of July,

Army Group Center's
blood drenched advance

has driven it to within
200 miles of Moscow.

But the intense opposition
is knocking the German campaign

further and further
off schedule.

And it's about to get worse.

Throughout July, heavy
downpours hit the Soviet Union.

Dirt tracks transform
into muddy rivers.

Fuel consumption
and breakdowns soar

as engines strain to wrench
trucks from the quagmires.

And armored half trucks are
reduced to the role
of tractors.

[Lt. Roth] Stuck under my cape
with the rain
running down my back

and my feet in a pool of water,
I feared for the attack.

I had witnessed what
mud could do to armor

and it filled me with dread.

[Narrator] Operation Barbarossa
is drowning in mud.

For German units that
were marching through this mud,

this could become a matter
of life and death.

Because German
soldiers were sinking down

to their shoulders in the mud,

and if no one helped them out,
they would simply die there.

[Narrator] The German's
state-of-the-art
mechanized forces

have fallen into
an age old trap.

If in the summer of 1941,
we took a snapshot

of the German Army trying to

fight its way through
the mud and the rain,

you'd be hard-pressed to know

whether it was the 1940s
in the Second World War,

or whether this was a scene
from the Napoleonic war,

or indeed, a scene from
more ancient times.

[Narrator] Infuriated by
the slow progress
of his forces,

Hitler flies to Army Group
Center's HQ just east of Minsk.

Propaganda footage reveals
the Nazi leader's arrival

is met by jubilant troops

and the leader of Army Group
Center, General von Bock.

To get the campaign
back on track,

Hitler demands
a change of tactics.

He tells von Bock

that Moscow is no longer
the primary objective.

Barbarossa will now prioritize
seizing Soviet resources

and use them to
fuel the German advance.

To achieve Hitler's goal,

armored units from
Army Group Center

are sent north to execute
a speedy capture

of the industrial powerhouse,
Leningrad.

And south, to the oil
and agricultural rich

territories of Ukraine.

Hitler also reiterates
his desire

to obliterate
all that stand before him.

Hitler was now branching
out away from that

one critical capital city
objective

into an economic war,

as well as a military war
on top of an ideological war.

It was becoming more
complicated phase by phase.

[Narrator] As the autumn
of 1941 closes in,

Operation Barbarossa is set to
begin its bloodiest
chapter yet.

Hitler orders the capture
of the resource rich city,

and former capital
of Russia, Leningrad.

[people speaking indistinctly]

The protection of the city and
its three million inhabitants

is led by Marshal
Georgy Zhukov,

a veteran of World War I
and a close adviser to Stalin.

With the Germans fast
approaching,

Zhukov orders the inhabitants
of the city into action.

Men, women and children
frantically dig

an outer ring of
anti-tank ditches

and barricade the streets.

Tanks from German Army
Group Center

join up with
their northern counterpart.

The combined forces mass
on the outskirts of Leningrad.

On September 9th,

the German armored units
are ready to attack.

German guns fire
at city defenses.

[explosion]

While the Luftwaffe mercilessly
pounds away from above.

As shells explode
all around them...

[explosion]

...Soviet camera crews record
the carnage inside Leningrad.

And the desperate
counterattacks

as the Red Army tries to
stop the German advance.

[Kleist] The German Army
fighting in Russia

is like an elephant
attacking a host of ants.

The elephant will
kill thousands,

perhaps even millions of ants,

but in the end their numbers
will overcome him,

and he will
be eaten to the bone.

[Robert] I think the Germans
had an unrealistic expectation;

a Panzer division would
motor its way to Leningrad

and blast into the city.

But the Soviet defenses
have toughened;

the Germans have been
weakened getting there,

and as a result,
their plans turn to siege.

[Narrator] The Nazis
cut Leningrad
off from the world.

For over two years the its
inhabitants are left to starve.

The city never falls,

but over a million of
its citizens will perish.

It's the longest and deadliest
siege in modern warfare.

While the deadlock around
Leningrad plays out,

the 2nd Panzer Army heads south

to execute the other
phase of Hitler's plan,

the conquest of Ukraine.

Villagers, all too aware of the
Nazi's genocidal hunger plan,

set fire to their own property.

A scorched earth policy

to deny the approaching
Germans shelter or supplies.

Erhard Schauman serving in the
20th Panzer Grenadier Division

films houses and fields

torched in and around
the town of Vitebsk.

To further disrupt
the German advance,

the Red Army targets the most
ambitious engineering project

ever built in the Soviet Union:
the Dnieper Hydroelectric dam.

At the time of
its construction,
the 2,500 foot long dam

was the biggest on earth.

Twenty tons of explosive blow
a 500 foot hole

in this engineering
masterpiece.

This rare footage shows
nearby cities

flooded by the resulting
cascades of water.

Roads, factories and
resources are washed away.

[Knickerbocker] The Russians
have proved
by their destruction

of the great dam
they mean truly

to scorch the earth
before Hitler.

Even if it means
the destruction

of their most
precious possessions.

[Narrator] Ukrainian locals
receive no prior
warning of the blast.

An estimated 100,000
are killed in the flood.

Soviet disregard for
Ukrainians is nothing new.

Many already hold a deep rooted
hatred of Joseph Stalin's rule.

[Jeff] Many Ukrainians had
suffered under communism,

we have the famine
induced during the 1930s,

in which several million
Ukrainians die;

this is followed
by the Great Terror,

which kind of rips its way
through Ukrainian society.

So, for many Ukrainians,
when the Germans come in,

they see this as their
opportunity to free themselves

from the yoke of Moscow.

[Narrator] A feeling reflected
by this sign that reads,

"Long live Adolf Hitler
and his army."

[indistinct chatter]

Filmed by his personal
camera operator,

General Rothkirch and his men

enjoy ice cream
with Ukrainian villagers.

Later, operating
the camera himself,

Rothkirch films locals
in traditional dress,

carrying Swastikas and
making the Nazi salute,

as they parade
past German officers.

Another sign reads,

"The liberators of Europe
from Bolshevism.

Sieg Heil to Adolf
Hitler and his men."

But this outpour
of Ukrainian support

is met with Nazi contempt.

[Robert] The Germans
don't view the Ukrainians
as potential allies.

They view them as an inferior
race, as part of this

sub-human racial grouping
of Eastern Europe,

against whom they
are campaigning.

They treat the Ukrainians
with brutality;

murdering them en masse;
raping women en masse.

It's an orgy of
violence in Ukraine.

[Narrator] Sources estimate
there are up to
10 million cases of rape

during the German occupation
of the Soviet Union.

Few are punished.

To stamp their authority
on Ukraine,

two Panzer divisions,
one commanded by
Heinz Guderian,

the hero of the French
campaign a year earlier,

head towards the country's
capital, Kiev.

For 10 days German
artillery assaults the city

and pounds it into submission.

Endless lines of prisoners
march down the streets.

Well over half
a million Soviets

are killed or captured
in the battle for Kiev.

It's a staggering loss,
for the first time,

the Wehrmacht outnumber
the entire Red Army.

Confident his forces have
secured the resources
they need,

Hitler redirects
Operation Barbarossa

back to the
destruction of Moscow.

Almost two million German
troops advance on the capital.

Hitler's dream of obliterating
the Soviet Union

looks set to
become a reality.

In the first week
of October 1941,

the German High Command

launches what it believes
will be the final act

of Operation Barbarossa:
the demolition of Moscow.

Footage from Soviet camera
crews trapped inside Moscow

shows its residents
filling sandbags

as they prepare
for the Nazi attack.

Anti-tank barricades
called iron hedgehogs

and other fortifications
spring up across the city.

Muscovites fear a siege.

They bring livestock
in from the fields,

and herd them right past
the Bolshoi Theater.

[cattle moos]

Few expect mercy,
but none know the true extent

of Hitler's plans
for Moscow and its residents.

Hitler wants Moscow wiped
off the face of the earth.

He wants its physical
presence to be extinguished.

It will only be a memory;
the death of Moscow

will mean the death
of Bolshevism,

the death of communism.

The triumph
of Adolf Hitler.

[Narrator] By mid October,
the 10th Panzer Division

is just 40 miles from Moscow.

[Jeff] The Germans decide to
concentrate all their resources

for one final drive on Moscow.

The goal here, is to end
the Soviet campaign

in the calendar year of 1941.

It's kind of the last
gasp attack on the capital,

in the hopes that
Operation Barbarossa can be

brought to a
victorious conclusion

before the onset of winter.

[Narrator] But on December 2nd,
blizzards hit the area. Hard.

Temperatures plummet
to 30 below.

Visibility drops to near zero.

It's the coldest European
winter of the 20th century.

The Nazis' mechanized
army freezes in its tracks.

[truck engine revving]

[Hans] Technology no longer
played a role.

The elemental power of nature

broke the operation
of our engines.

What do we do now?

[Narrator] German soldiers,
ill-prepared for winter combat,

seize heavy coats,
scarves and hats.

Locals, stripped of
their warm clothing,

freeze to death in the streets.

Keeping warm is not
the only problem.

Starving Germans,
butchering
horse carcasses for meat.

General Rothkirch
witnesses the harsh reality

of the Eastern Front's
winter first hand.

Frozen bodies cover the fields.

Rigid corpses are
piled high onto sleds,

the ground is too
hard to bury them.

Frostbite and disease

take as many German
lives as enemy bullets.

Over 150,000 die
in just three weeks.

[wind howling]

Even as conditions worsen,

the SS continues to execute
its campaign of atrocity.

Amateur footage shows
hanged Soviet POWs,

the sign declaring
the soldiers beasts.

In Moscow, Stalin orders
reserve troops

from eastern Siberia
into the fight.

[indistinct chatter]

They specialize
in winter warfare.

And drop right into
the heart of the action.

Strapping on skis, the troops
join up with divisions

of winter ready T34 tanks

Wave after wave of Soviet
men and machines

target known German
weak points.

Frozen and battered German
troops raise the alarm.

The Soviet onslaught is
a brutal and unexpected blow.

The shock of these fresh
Siberian troops

proved devastating to German
soldiers in many ways.

They had seen the battlefields
littered with Soviet bodies

and Soviet equipment,

it seemed like they
were fighting an enemy

with never-ending
waves of troops.

It broke the German belief

that victory was
attainable that year.

[Narrator] The shell shocked
Germans are overrun.

They're caught
cowering in barns.

And crawl spaces.

[indistinct chatter]

Or by pitchfork
wielding villagers.

The Nazis merciless treatment

of their countrymen and women
is fresh in Soviet minds.

[Werth] You cannot imagine
the hatred
the Germans have stirred up

amongst our people.

What we've got in
the Red Army now

is men thirsting for revenge...

especially when they
see some of these arrogant

fanatical Nazi swine.

[Narrator] Soviet executions
of Nazis are commonplace.

[crowd clamoring]

Day after frigid day,

the Wehrmacht is pushed back
in unprecedented disorder.

As December 1941
draws to a close,

the majority of German forces

have retreated over
100 miles from Moscow.

Operation Barbarossa is over.

Over 800,000 Germans

and almost
five million Soviets are dead,

MIA, wounded or captured.

Numbers that make Barbarossa

the costliest military
operation in history.

But its aftermath is to
prove even deadlier.

[Jeff] From an ideological
perspective,

Operation Barbarossa
ushered in the Holocaust.

We see the evolution of
Nazi policy towards Jews

in the Soviet Union,

beginning with the mass
murder of all male Jews

then by the end of the
campaign in December of 1941,

the Nazi leadership
has made the decision

that each and every Jew
in Europe is to be murdered.

[Narrator] The Nazis,

desperate to destroy
their Soviet nemesis,

dig in for the long fight.

[explosion]

But in the wake of the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor,

America enters the war.

And begins to send weapons
and supplies to the Soviets.

War on the Eastern Front
is about to get even deadlier.