All language subtitles for wwii.battles.in.color.s01e06.1080p.web.h264-cbfm_Subtitles01_Unnamed

[tanker engine roaring]

[canon banging]

[narrator] April, 1945...

[canon banging]

...the Soviets launched
the greatest artillery
barrage in history...

[rockets blaring]

...as they blast their way
towards Berlin.

[bomb blasting]

Cameras followed the steps

of over a million
Red Army troops,

thousands of tanks...

[canons banging]

...and a wall of heavy guns.

[canon blasting]

As the Germans draft
in the young and the old

in a desperate defense
of the capital
of the Third Reich.

[tense music]

This is one of the bloodiest
battles in World War II.

[guns banging]

Rare footage, newly colorized,

goes inside
the crumbling Nazi empire.

[guns firing]

And onto the frontlines
of the firefight

for the streets of Berlin.

[guns firing]

One that will determine
the fate of Europe

and the future course
of history.

[theme music playing]

[gentle music]

It's June 3rd, 1944.

Gretl Braun, the sister
of Adolf Hitler's mistress,

Eva Braun,

celebrates her wedding to
SS General Hermann Fegelein.

The reception
is in the Eagle's Nest
above the Berghof,

Hitler's alpine retreat.

Here, Gretl is greeted
by her sister Eva.

Hitler is the guest of honor.

It's his last stay
in Berchtesgaden.

Three days later,
the Allies land at Normandy.

He returns to Berlin
to reverse the tide of war.

Hitler's priority
is in the East.

In August 1944, the Soviet army

has reached the gates
of the Nazi occupied

Polish capital, Warsaw.

[bomb blasting]

The Polish
Resistance's Home Army

lead a revolt against
their German occupiers.

Polish Resistance
cameraman, Stefan Baginksi,

shoots over
his comrades shoulders

during the Warsaw Uprising.

[tense music]

It is the largest
military operation

by a resistance force
in World War II.

The Poles hope their Allies,

the Soviets
will aid the uprising.

So Bagiski highlights
their fighting spirit.

17-year old
Wanda Traczyk Stawska,

wearing a pilot's
outfit volunteers.

And learns how to use
a sub-machine gun.

[canon bangs]

In intense street fighting,

the Home Army regains control
of most of the central city.

[canon bangs]

Baginski films as they
round up German POWs.

Patriotic elation
briefly floods the streets

as they destroy Nazi symbols.

But Hitler is determined
to keep control of the city

and halt the Soviets
advance on Germany.

He sends in reinforcements.

[jets engine roaring]

Unfortunately for the Polish
fighters of the Warsaw Rising,

the Red Army refuses
to come to their aid.

[Robert] Stalin has
no interest whatsoever

in seeing the Poles
liberate themselves.

He wants to do it with his army

and thus,
be in a position to dictate

what sort of government Poland
has in the post-war era.

[plane engine roaring]

[narrator] The Germans
recapture the city

district by district.

They kill 200,000
civilians in reprisal.

Again, Baginski is there
to film the carnage,

before escaping
to survive the war.

By October 2nd,
the uprising has failed.

It's a lesson to the world
that Germany isn't beaten yet.

The Nazis destroy nearly 90%
of the city in retaliation.

[canon bangs]

[tanker tracks rattling]

Eventually,
on January 14th, 1945

the Red Army makes its move.

They force the Germans
out of the Polish capital

in just three days.

Warsaw's survivors
greet their new occupiers.

By the end of January,
the Soviets control Poland.

Now they can move on
towards Germany.

[gentle music]

On February 4th,
news cameras set the scene

at the Crimean seaside
resort of Yalta.

Long disputed,
the Crimea is now Soviet turf,

taken from the Germans
the previous spring.

Their propaganda crews
film at the airport

as the Kremlin Guard
form a Guard of Honor

for President Roosevelt
and Winston Churchill.

[tense music]

They're meeting with Stalin
at the beautiful Livadia Palace

once the summer home
of Czar Nicholas II.

Churchill arrives
suitably dressed

in a fur hat for the occasion.

But Roosevelt looks haggard.

The aim of the Big Three

is to plan for the final defeat
of Nazi Germany

and the reorganization
of Europe.

The plan is to divide
post-war Germany
into four occupied zones,

administered by American,
British, French,
and Soviet forces.

As will the capital, Berlin.

It's an agreement that sows
the seeds of further conflict

between the Soviets
and the West.

[Robert] Stalin gets his control
of Eastern Europe

confirmed at Yalta.

Now for Churchill,
who sees this entire war

as being fought over
the liberation of Poland,

this is a bitter pill indeed.

But there's very little
the Western Allies can do

about Stalin at this point.

[narrator] The Western Allies

want to keep Soviet
ambitions in check.

Two days after Yalta,

they show Stalin their full
destructive capability.

This amateur colored footage
of Dresden in eastern Germany

is shot four years earlier

when a 20-year old Goetz
Hirt-Reger is on vacation.

[gentle music]

It is the only known
color footage of the city

known as the "jewel box"

before it is completely
destroyed by Allied bombs.

[tense music]

The raids start at night,
on February 13th, 1945.

[bombs blasting]

RAF cameraman, Robert Buckland

films from on board
a Lancaster bomber.

[tense music]

From the air,
39,000 tons of explosives

glitter like exploding
stars creating a firestorm.

Eight square miles
of the city are left in ruins.

At least 25,000 people
die in the firestorm.

Many were refugees
from the East

fleeing the advancing Red Army.

[somber music]

[Matthias] When the Western
Allies bomb Dresden,

they don't only do it to inflict
casualties on the Germans,

they also do it
to impress Stalin.

It's a show of force to Stalin,

to show the military might
of the Western Allies.

[narrator] The Soviets
have reached the River Oder.

It's Germany's Eastern border

and last natural barrier
before Berlin.

Its defense is vital
for the survival
of the Nazi regime.

Hitler decides
that most of his fresh troops

must be sent to reinforce
the river defenses.

The troops are still
more than willing to fight

for their Fuhrer.

[canon banging]

But their number are thinning.

Boys in home-made camouflage

now fill out
the German infantry.

[Robert] These are young guys.

They're wearing
non-standard kit.

It looks like someone
raided a supply depot

and put whatever uniforms
they could find on them.

There are weapons of
different calibers and make,

foreign-manufactured
captured weapons.

There's an unserious
look in their eyes.

[narrator] Crushing pressure
weighs on Nazi Germany

from both sides.

In the West, the Rhine
is Germany's mightiest river

and a symbol
of German National pride.

[tense music]

But in March, 1945,

the British use
Buffalo amphibious vehicles

to prove that even
a thousand foot wide waterway

is no obstacle.

[tense music]

The supreme Allied Commander,

US general Dwight D. Eisenhower

orders an invasion of western
Germany on a broad front.

While the Soviet armies
are at the River Oder
in the East,

the British army will attack

the northern German
city of Hamburg

and cut off
German troops in Denmark.

The U.S. 9th
and 1st Army forces

will surround Army Group B
in the Ruhr Valley,

the German
industrial heartland.

The U.S. 6th and 7th army
head toward Bavaria,

birthplace of Nazism.

On March 28th, Eisenhower
sends Stalin his plan

confirming that Berlin is
no longer an important target

for the Western Allies.

[somber music]

Eisenhower's most controversial
decision of the war

was to let the Soviets
take Berlin

and not try to take it from
the west with his own forces.

But he had said all along,

he wasn't going
to risk lives for it,

and he stuck to that
decision throughout.

[bombs blasting]

[narrator]
Stalin has no such concerns.

The moment he receives
Eisenhower's cable,

he orders Marshal Georgy
Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev

to advance on the German
capital with all speed

and whatever cost.

[tense music]

He wants the capture of Berlin

to become a global symbol
of Soviet success.

[taker engine roaring]

[Robert] Of course, Berlin is
a massive prestige target.

In modern war, taking capitals
is what it's all about,

and Berlin is
the grand-daddy of them all.

[canon bangs]

[bright music]

[narrator] April 12th,
newsreels show America
in mourning.

President Franklin D.
Roosevelt has died suddenly

from a cerebral hemorrhage.

[somber music]

In Berlin,
the Nazis are ecstatic.

The propaganda chief,
Joseph Goebbels tells Hitler:

[Joseph] Mine Fuehrer,
I congratulate you!

Roosevelt is dead.

It is written in the stars
that the second half of April

will be the turning
point for us.

[tense music]

Hitler really thinks the Allies
are going to lose all cohesion.

He thinks that Churchill,

the anti-Communist,
and Stalin the Communist

are gonna be
at each other throats.

Hitler thinks that
because he is a dictator

with a cult of personality,

that every leader is a dictator
with a cult of personality,

and that without Roosevelt,
the great war leader,

America is going
to go to pieces.

[guns firing]

[tense music]

[narrator] But it's the Soviets,

not the Americans
who threaten Berlin.

In April 1945,
2.5 million Red Army soldiers

camp on the bank of the Oder.

They are loading captured
German rocket firing mortars.

The Seelow Heights
overlook flat ground

bordering the River Oder.

They are called
the Gates of Berlin,

and are the last
major defensive line

the Germans hold
east of the capital.

To speed up his campaign,

Stalin splits the command
of the Berlin operation

between Marshall
Zukhov in the north

and Marshall Konev,
pictured here in the middle,

in the south.

[canons banging]

Their mission
is to cross the river,

advance on Berlin
as quickly as possible.

And then punch
their way to the center.

[Lynette] Stalin is very careful
to take two generals

and allow them,
in fact force them

to race each other to Berlin.

Zhukov and Konev
both want to be the ones

who win the great patriotic war

and neither one is willing
to let the other guy be first.

[narrator] Zhukov remembers.

[Gregory] The closer
the end of the war came,

the more Stalin played games
with his Marshals,

often making them
go head to head

sowing differences
or creating jealousy,

pushing people to seek glory
on unhealthy basis.

[canons banging]

[narrator] On April 16,
Zhukov's one million
strong army

launches one of
the most powerful

artillery barrages in history,
firing across the Oder.

[rockets blaring]

Howitzers and Katyusha
rockets blast a path

so the tanks can storm forward.

[rockets blaring]

1 million shells thunder down
on German positions.

They create tremors
felt 60 miles away in Berlin.

[canon banging]

[Hansen]
This infernal hellish storm

continued with daybreak.

[bombs blasting]

[narrator] The bombardment
is supposed to crush

any German resistance
on the plains

in front of the Seelow Heights.

But acting on intelligence,

the Germans withdraw
into the Heights themselves,

out of range of Soviet fire.

Where they prepare to stop
the Red Army advance.

Sensing opportunity,
Zhukov has let the cameras

into his Command Post,
overlooking the battlefield.

Now with the battle
in the balance,

he takes a decisive stance
and radically changes tactics.

[canons banging]

He orders his tanks
to scale the Seelow Heights.

[Matthias] The terrain
at the Seelow Heights

is not suitable
for large tank operations.

First of all, the entire area

is churned up by the Soviet
artillery bombardment...

and secondly, there is only
a very limited number of roads

that the Soviet tanks can use.

And that channels their attack,

and that makes it possible
for the German anti-tank gunners

to shoot these tanks
as they roll towards
the German positions.

[canons banging]

[narrator] 80,000 German
soldiers fight back bitterly.

[guns blaring]

The fight is personal.

Four years earlier, the Germans
invaded the Soviet Union

and committed atrocities,

like the hanging
of Soviet POWs,

declaring they are beasts.

[gun blaring]

Both side have seen
propaganda images like these.

They also know
that they will be revenged.

[canons banging]

German troops also hear
how the advancing
Red Army soldiers

mass-raped German women

when they invaded East
Prussia in October 1944.

Now, they defend
their homeland fanatically.

[canons banging]

It takes three days
for Zhukov's forces and tanks

to advance across
the bloody battlefield,

and breach the German defenses.

[tense music]

It is a brutal victory.

A German soldier crushed
under one of his own Panzers

is a grim symbol
for the impending death
of Nazi Germany.

But Soviet losses
are even heavier,

over 30,000 to 12,000 Germans.

[somber music]

Zhukov's rival, Marshall Konev,
has his own challenges.

He still needs to cross
the river Niesse,

to the south of Berlin.

[canons banging]

Artillery and aerial bombing
keep the Germans occupied,

while the advance wave
cross the river
in assault boats.

[tense music]

By midday,
they have bridges up and open

and the T-34 tanks
are rolling towards Berlin.

These mass-produced
Soviet tanks

have greater mobility
and better armor

than the German Panzer IV.

An umbrella
of Ilyushin II Shturmovk,

ground attack aircraft,

help Konev's men overwhelm
the defending Panzer division.

[canons banging]

Meanwhile in the west,
the Americans
are also advancing.

They capture more
than 300,000 Germans.

Hollywood director,
George Stevens,

who is part of
the US Army Signal Corps,

films this unique color footage
of German POWs.

There are so many,

the Americans have difficulty
processing them

and so have to hold them
in huge field-camps.

Military Police
search the German troops

and confiscate
any weapons or trophies

the Germans may have looted.

[Robert]
The George Stevens footage
of the German prisoners of war

gives a perfect snapshot
of the Wehrmacht in 1945.

They're young, they're old,

they're dressed out
in non-standard kit,

they're demoralized.

Anyone who thinks the Germans

have some special
genius for war,

or some special form of valor,

needs to take
a look at this footage,
they're human beings.

[somber music]

[canons banging]

[narrator] Red Army troops
storm the suburbs of Berlin.

They are one step closer
to reaching the heart

of the Third Reich.

They pick their way
toward a ruined city.

Two years of Allied bombing

have destroyed 50%
of Central Berlin.

And sent civilians scrambling.

[somber music]

But the city's
3.5 million residents
are not evacuated.

[canon banging]

And there is no food.

[canons banging]

Still the Nazis
refuse to accept defeat.

And set up makeshift defenses
in the rubble.

As the Red Army approaches,

desperate German
graffiti states,
"Berlin stays German."

Hitler's subordinates
are entirely divorced

from the reality on the ground

because Hitler is divorced
from the reality on the ground.

Hitler does not comprehend
that two Soviet army groups

are smashing
into the center of Berlin.

[narrator] Civilians of all ages

are digging anti-tank
trenches around the city

and putting up gun positions.

[somber music]

In an act of desperation,
30,0000 civilians

are enrolled in the Volksturm,

German for People's Army.

Many are old
or in the Hitler Youth.

They attend a rally to swear

their loyalty to
the Nazi cause.

[speaking in German]

Adolf Hitler.

[crowd] Adolf Hitler.

[narrator]
Once they have enlisted

the Volksturm learn
how to operate a panzerfaust...

[gun bangs]

...a single shot
rocket-propelled
anti-tank gun.

Even women who until now

the Nazis spared
from military service

are taught how to operate one.

[bomb blasting]

[speaking in German]

Propaganda Chief Josef Goebbels
tells this hodgebodge army

that no man should surrender.

[speaking in German]

But there are signs
that his rhetoric

is finally losing it's grip.

Senior Party Members
begin to flee the city.

[tense music]

In the rubble
of the city center,

Hitler is holding out
in the Reichschancellery,

his underground bunker.

His very last appearance
above ground

takes place
on his 56th Birthday
on April 20th.

He awards medals to
a detachment of Hitler Youth,

boys no older than 14.

Just as he did in March
when this footage was shot.

He keeps his left hand
carefully hidden
behind his back,

it is shaking uncontrollably.

[Lynette] Hitler clearly
shows symptoms

of what could be
Parkinson's Disease,

but Hitler is on a constant diet
of amphetamines.

Hitler is so gacked up
on whoop chicken,

you can't tell whether
the shaking in his left hand

and the paralysis
in his left leg
are Parkinson's Disease

or just the effects
of all those drugs.

[somber music]

[narrator] While Hitler
and many of the remaining

high-ranking Nazis
withdraw to the bunker

to celebrate his birthday,

the Soviets begin another round

of shelling Central Berlin.

[canon bangs]

But Hitler refuses to leave.

[canon bangs]

He still has a loyal army
fighting outside Berlin.

[guns blaring]

He orders them
to relieve the city.

80,000 German troops
regroup in the dense forests

near the small town of Halbe,
south of the capital.

Only to find
themselves surrounded

by a quarter of a Million
Russians under Konev's command.

The Red Army attacks
with its superior numbers

of tanks, artillery,
and bombers.

It rapidly decimates
Hitler's ill equipped

and tired relief army.

[canon bangs]

As civilians try
to flee the carnage,

thousands are massacred
by Soviet fire.

The forest itself
becomes a death trap.

[bomb blasts]

[Robert] And now there's
evidence that the Soviets

actually fired at the trees,

every single shell
splinters the trees

and causes multiple casualties

to German soldiers
and civilians alike.

It's a bloodbath.

[tense music]

[narrator] Over 50,000 soldiers
and local people die at Halbe.

Most are German.

The Nazis desperate
last stand has failed.

[canon bangs]

In Berlin, 60,000 Nazis
prepare to fight to the death.

[guns blaring]

Once-fashionable apartments,
are now machine gun nests.

The attacking
Red Army are forced

to fight street by street.

Against the Reichs
most fanatical troops.

[machine gun blaring]

The Soviet tanks enter Berlin,

one declares death to fascism.

The Volksturm and Hitler Youth

are finally able to put
their Panzerfaust training

to good use.

[bomb blasting]

There's no shortage of targets.

Thin side armor makes the T34s
particularly vulnerable.

[Matthias]
The German Panzerfaust

is an extremely
formidable weapon.

It can destroy any enemy tank
on the battlefield.

And it has a huge effect

during the Battle
of Berlin as well,

because the Germans can crawl
up in the urban environment

to the Soviet tanks,
and knock them out
at very close range.

And as a consequence of this,

the Soviets lose
a high number of tanks

during the Battle of Berlin.

[bomb blasting]

[narrator] Nevertheless,
the Germans continue

to find themselves outgunned

and outnumbered
by the Red Army.

[tense music]

[guns firing]

By April 25th,
the Americans have advanced

so far across Germany,
they meet up with Soviet troops

South West
of the capital at Torgau.

[somber music]

American news reels
show Lieutenant
Alexander Silvashko

and Second Lieutenant
Bill Robertson shaking hands.

[cheerful music]

East and west celebrate,

as they link up
for the first time.

[cheerful music]

Soviet Women soldiers
get the attention
of American GIs.

As well as fighting
in active combat,

women could also be nurses,

tank crew,
and radio operators
in the Red Army.

Also present at
the Torgau celebrations,

is American war correspondent,
Virginia Irwin,

from the
St Louis Post Dispatch.

She and a colleague
talk an Army sergeant

into a daring
night-time jeep drive

through no man's land,
all the way to Berlin.

[rockets blaring]

That night,
they enter the capital

without official permission.

They are the first western
Allied journalists into Berlin

as the Soviets
are entering the city.

[Virginia] The air
is heavy with smoke.

Everywhere around us
is the clatter
of small arms fire.

Russian artillery is pouring
an almost constant barrage

into the heart of the city.

The Russians were happy,

with an almost
indescribably wild joy.

In this German capital
lies their true revenge

for Leningrad and Stalingrad,
for Sevastapol and Moscow

[Lynette] Virginia Irwin
gets one of the great scoops

in the Second World War

because she is
in the center of Berlin

when the Soviets win the war.

[narrator] Zhukov's army
moves to the city center

from the north
and Konev from the south.

[tense music]

The fighting is still block
by block, room by room.

[guns blaring]

[bombs blasting]

As the Soviets close in,
many of Hitler's entourage

are trying to leave the bunker.

[bomb blasting]

Only a year ago,
Hitler's de facto
brother-in-law

Hermann Fegelein
was celebrating his wedding

with the inner circle
at the Berghof.

[canon bangs]

Now he is caught trying
to flee the city.

He is accused of plotting
to negotiate peace

with the Allies.

Hitler has him shot.

[tense music]

May 1st, 1945,

Soviet troops approach
the shell-damaged Reichstag,

the former parliament
and symbolic heart of Germany.

They're carrying
the Soviet flag with them.

Cameraman, Boris Sokolov
follows it closely.

He films as soldiers raise it
over the Reichstag.

[tense music]

It becomes a defining image
of the Soviet victory.

But Sokolov later admits,
he faked it.

[bright music]

[Boris]
We could not film at night

there wasn't enough light,
despite the fires.

Therefore some moments
were staged,

shot in the daytime.

Many believe
such filming is deception,

but it is just the restoration
of the facts.

[tense music]

The Soviet Union wants anyone
who studies World War II

to remember one thing,
they were in on the kill.

[tense music]

That flag-raising over
the Reichstag building

it's equivalent to the U.S.
flag-raising on Iwo Jima.

It's a sign to posterity
of just who won World War II.

[narrator] The day before
Hitler married

his long-term mistress,
Eva Braun in the bunker.

Now on the same day,
the Red flag is being hoisted

by jubilant Soviet troops
over the Reichstag.

Hitler and Eva Braun
kill themselves.

Hitler's remains
are buried in a shallow crater

in the Reichschancellery Garden
above his bunker,

just a few hundred yards
from the Reichstag.

The Soviets recover the remains

and many years later
destroy them

to remove any chance of them
becoming revered Nazi relics.

[tanker engine roaring]

In a final lie after his death,

German radio reports
that Hitler
has fallen in battle.

With Hitler dead
and Berlin surrounded,

German Commander finally
seek a favorable surrender.

The Russians reject it.

They issue an ultimatum.

Agree to an unconditional
surrender by 10:15 pm

or the Soviets
will blast Berlin into ruins.

At 10:40 on May 1st,
with no response
from the Germans

about the unconditional
surrender,

the Red Army unleashes
a hurricane of fire

on central Berlin.

[canon bangs]

The last German
resistance crumbles.

Shell-shocked troops
finally give up the fight.

As Berliners
put out white sheets
as signs of surrender.

Across the city,
soldiers and civilians

emerge from cellars
and bombed out buildings.

Desperate residents try
to eke a drop of water

from broken pipes.

And the only meat available

is what can be carved
from dead horses .

They're forced
to loot to survive.

[Helga] We are vegetating
in a ghost town,

without electric light
or gas, without water.

We are forced to think of
personal hygiene as a luxury

and hot meals
as abstract concepts.

We are living like ghosts
in a vast field of ruins

[narrator] The Nazis
said Berlin

would be the capital
of a Thousand Year Reich.

Now locals
give it their own name,

The Reich's Funeral Pyre.

Joseph Goebbels propaganda
has lost its grip.

He is in the nearby
Fuhrerbunker

with his six young children,

seen here in happier days
with their mother Magda.

That evening,
they are poisoned
by their parents

who then both commit suicide.

Nazi Germany
is now on its knees.

A day later, on May 2nd,

its leaders finally surrender
Berlin unconditionally.

Then on May 7th,
General Alfred Jodl,

arrives in Reims, France.

He confirms Germany's
total defeat and surrender.

The ceremony takes six minutes.

But Stalin is determined
to capitalize on the prestige

of capturing
the German capital.

He insists that the official
ceremony takes place in Berlin.

[Matthias] The Second Signing
of the German Surrender

is of utmost
importance to Stalin,

because he wants
to show to the world

that it was the Soviet Union,
the Red Army,

and also, Stalin himself,

who defeated Nazism and Germany
in the Second World War.

[narrator] The Allies agree.

On May 8th,
a second signing takes place

as Field Marshal Keitel
heads to Karlshorst,

a suburb of Berlin,

to sign the document
in front of

Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov

and a small Allied delegation.

Footage is broadcast
from Berlin across the world.

[audience cheering]

Celebrations by the Soviets

take place
all over the capital.

Rare Soviet footage
shows Red Army soldiers

dancing in front of
the Old Museum in Berlin.

[gentle music]

One Soviet soldier
is carrying the spoils of war,

a captured German Panzer faust.

[gentle music]

The battle for Berlin
has brought to an end

the bloodiest conflict
in European history.

[soft music]

The fight for Berlin alone

has cost the Soviets
81,000 soldiers,

the Germans, 92,000.

Hundreds of thousands
of German prisoners of war

are marched East
to camps in Siberia.

Many will perish, as most
Soviet prisoners have done

in German camps.

Soviet propaganda footage
shows occupying troops

giving out bread
to starving Berliners.

But some Soviet soldiers

also commit atrocities
against civilians.

Over 100,000 Berlin
women are raped.

[Lynette] When the Red Army
comes to Berlin,

they're attacking
the nationhood

and the people hood
of Germany in kind.

They are saying to the Nazis,

where is your
racial superiority?

Where is your Aryan purity?

They are avenging the war
crimes of the Wehrmacht,

of the SS,
of the entire German people

and the women of Berlin
are the ones
who are made to pay.

[tense music]

[narrator]
When the shooting stops,

Berlin is engulfed
by an eerie silence.

[airy music]

Broken only by American
reconnaissance planes,

dispatched to film
the utter destruction

of the German capital.

Post war Berlin is situated

in the middle of Germany's
Soviet occupied zone.

But as agreed in Yalta,
the city itself

is divided into
an American, a British,

a French, and a Soviet sector.

Rare color footage
from July 1945,

shows civilians
clearing through the rubble

as they start
to rebuild the city.

Mainly women, because most
men over 18 are either dead

or in POW camps.

These scenes are filmed

by Hollywood director
George Stevens,

who arrives with the US Army.

He makes a cameo appearance
at the Brandenburg Gate.

[bright music]

But the wartime alliance
is over.

The Americans want
Eastern Europe and Germany

to become democratic states.

Stalin wants to keep them
in the Soviet Union's

dictatorial orbit.

From the Ashes
of the Second World War,

a new cold war
is about to take hold.