All language subtitles for World.War.II.in.Colour.S01E08.The.Soviet.Steamroller.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

Summer 1943,
and on the Eastern Front,

Hitler's armies
were in retreat.

Huge Soviet artillery
barrages and tank assaults

were shredding the German lines.

Hitler, by now, was fighting
a war on two fronts.

In Western Europe,
an Anglo-American force

was moving up through Italy,
menacing his southern flank.

The Germans had been forced to
pull some of their elite troops

back from
the Eastern Front to help.

It left their forces in the east
dangerously over-stretched.

The exhausted German soldiers
were up against

the enormous reserves of the
huge Soviet military machine.

The Soviet leader,
Joseph Stalin,

now seized this opportunity
to wreak his revenge

and move onto the offensive.

By early August 1943,

the Red Army had
driven the Germans

from the cities
of Orel and Belgorod.

To celebrate the victories
Stalin ordered

twelve 124-gun salvoes

and a barrage of fireworks
in Moscow's Red Square.

He proclaimed: "Eternal glory
to the heroes who fell

in the struggle for freedom.

Death to the German invaders."

In Germany, Hitler's response

was to take greater
personal control

of all important
military decisions.

The effects were felt almost
immediately by Axis troops

occupying the strategically
important city of Kharkov.

The Soviet forces approached
the city from three sides.

The German commander,
Erich von Manstein,

ordered a tactical withdrawal.

Hitler immediately
countermanded it.

Kharkov should be
held at all costs.

Hitler would not accept
anything that would reduce

what he called "Lebensraum",

the land he believed Germany
needed to ensure its greatness.

Just as importantly, he also
believed Germany would
win the war,

if not by numbers,
then by the sheer will to win.

The Germans dug in.

At first it seemed to work.

For several days, repeated
Soviet assaults were repulsed.

More than 300 Russian
T-34 tanks were destroyed.

But by the end of August 1943,

the German positions
had been overrun.

Eventually, Manstein
went against his Fuhrer.

He order his men to get out.

The Red Army drove into the
ruins of Kharkov the next day.

It marked the beginning
of a massive Soviet offensive

along a 1,500 mile front.

It stretched from Rostov in the
south to Smolensk in the north.

At the southern end
of the front, near Rostov,

a Russian breakthrough
threatened to trap pockets

of German soldiers
in the Crimea.

Once again, Manstein asked
permission to withdraw.

All he got was
a message from Hitler:

"Don't do anything,
I am coming myself."

But he never did.

The German military
was forced into another

last minute, chaotic, retreat.

The withdrawal was made worse

by bands of battle-hardened
partisans.

Many were former
Red Army soldiers

who had been cut off
behind enemy lines.

They now ambushed
the retreating Germans,

cutting their communication
and supply lines.

The Germans responded
with predictable ferocity.

There were savage reprisals
against the civilian population.

The Germans also launched
a scorched earth policy.

Factories, power plants,

railways and bridges
were all blown up.

A massive hydro-electric dam,
which provided electricity

for the whole of the Ukraine,
was wrecked.

Meanwhile,
in the center of the front,

the Germans fell back
across the River Dnieper.

As they fled, they blew up
yet more bridges,

turning the river into
a formidable defensive line.

They then dug in
along the west bank.

Stalin response was to offer
the Soviet Union's highest award

to the first Red Army soldier
to cross the river.

By the early autumn 1943,

a number of small Soviet
bridgeheads had been established

on the German-controlled
west bank.

But they met determined
German resistance.

Fighting raged along the Dnieper
throughout October 1943.

Finally, at the beginning
of November,

Soviet troops captured Kiev.

All along the river,
the Germans were pushed

out of their defensive positions

and forced to retreat
still further west.

By the end of 1943,

the Red Army had virtually
cleared the Germans

out of Russia's
historic homeland.

They were now moving west
across the Ukraine.

The countries of Europe
were in their sights.

By spring 1944, Hitler's
armies were in full retreat.

The Soviet leadership
now poured in

ever greater quantities
of men and equipment.

The Germans had
two excellent tanks,

the Tiger 1 and
the Panzer Mark V Panther.

Both were well-suited to the
sort of mobile defensive warfare

which was the only
remaining hope

for the German armies
on the Eastern Front.

But the Red Army had
at least twice as many tanks,

mostly the battle tried T-34,

and armament factories
in Siberia

were turning out more
at a rate of 2,000 a month.

While Hitler was forced to
divide his forces between
a war on two fronts,

Stalin's war machine
was working flat out.

Six million Soviet troops faced
less than three million Germans.

In early January 1944,

the forces of the 1st Ukrainian
Front moved in from the north

on the German-held town
of Korsun.

It was the last German toehold
on what they'd hoped

would be their defensive line
along the River Dnieper.

Twelve days later, the forces
of 2nd Ukrainian Front

drove forward
on the southern side.

The attack followed a, by now,
well-established Soviet pattern.

First there was a build up
of an overwhelming number
of troops.

The Germans were never
quite sure

where the first assault
would come from.

Then there was a devastating
artillery bombardment.

Next, the massed tanks of
the Red Army would punch a hole

through the German defenses.

Finally, the infantry poured in.

In Korsun, it quickly became
obvious to the Germans

they were about
to be overwhelmed.

The German commander, Field
Marshal Erich von Manstein,

flew to Hitler's
headquarters in East Prussia,

to beg yet again for
permission to pull out.

But Hitler once more refused.

After a week of fierce fighting

about 60,000 men were trapped
in what became known

as the Korsun pocket.

The Soviets called it
"Little Stalingrad".

The German forces now
attempted to break out.

But the Russians
were ready for them.

T-34 tanks
and Cossack horsemen

harried the Germans
as they tried to escape.

The fighting lasted two days.

By the time Korsun fell,

the Germans had lost
some 30,000 men.

The Red Army forces were now
moving forward at speed.

Their advance was made
possible by fleets of trucks,

mostly provided by
the United States,

that kept their forces supplied.

It was a much faster process
than for the Germans,

who still relied
heavily on horses.

The Russians were also
dominating the skies.

The Luftwaffe had always
been a key part

of the German war machine.

But Hitler had been forced to
divert many of his aircraft

to defend the homeland from a
US and British bomber offensive.

As a result,

Russian planes outnumbered
the Luftwaffe five to one.

The Red Air Force's
Stormvik fighter-bombers

took a heavy toll on German
armor and supply columns.

Yet Hitler refused
to contemplate defeat

and now announced a new version
of his "no retreat" policy.

He ordered the German troops
to create what he called

"Fortified Areas"
or "Local Strongholds".

These were to be defended
to the bitter end.

Only with his personal approval

could any of these
fortresses be abandoned.

It was a desperate ploy

and would come to cost
the Germans dearly.

One of the first tests
of the new strategy

was near the Ukrainian town
of Kamenets-Podolsky.

Here 20 divisions of Panzers

were threatened
with being cut off.

But Hitler declared it
a "fortified area"

and refused to allow a retreat.

In the face of bitter fighting,

there was a vitriolic argument
between Hitler and Manstein,

who could see
the writing on the wall.

Finally Manstein got his way

and the Panzers were given
permission to breakout.

Ten days later, some 200,000
men of the 1st Panzer Army

safely reached the German lines
over 100 miles to the west.

But they had lost most of their
heavy equipment and weapons.

By now Manstein's
requests to retreat

had become too much for Hitler.

The Field Marshal was sacked.

Further south, the Germans
attempted to hold back

the Soviet torrent on
the Yezhnyy Bug River.

They failed and a large
force of Germans

was caught behind Russian lines

in the Black Sea port of Odessa.

They too faced being cut off.

In early April 1944,
Hitler declared it a fortress.

But the German troops ignored
him and slipped out of the city.

Several days later, on April
10th, Odessa was liberated.

Stalin was winning
on all fronts.

He could now turn his attention
to the northern Russian city

that had suffered under
Nazi assault for years.

By the beginning of 1944,

the Russian city of Leningrad

had been under siege
from German forces

for nearly two and a half years.

During the first winter,
almost half a million people

had starved to death.

Volunteers struggled to put out
fires and construct defenses.

But by 1944, life in the city
had become almost unbearable.

Several attempts to
relieve it had failed.

One effort in 1942,

led to the capture
of more than 50,000 troops

of the Soviet 2nd Shock Army.

Another, in 1943, had enabled
a trickle of supplies

to get into the city.

But even so, throughout 1943,

up to 20,000 people
continued to die of cold,

disease and starvation
every month.

By January 1944, however,

with the Germans
in headlong retreat,

Stalin now turned his attention
to the plight of the city.

That month Soviet forces
secretly infiltrated

the neighboring peninsula
around Oranienburg.

The attack on
the German positions

started with a savage
65 minute bombardment.

Then Russian troops ripped
into the startled German lines.

At the same time another
Soviet force attacked

from the north-east
around the city.

They too burst onto
the German lines.

For three days
the German commander,

Field Marshal Georg
Von Kuechler, held out.

Finally, he asked Hitler for
permission to fall back.

Hitler, as always, refused.

Kuechler argued back,
telling the Fuhrer

only a swift withdrawal would
save his army from a massacre.

Hitler sacked him.

He was replaced by
General Walther Model.

He was known
as "Hitler's fireman"

for his fierce loyalty
and avid Nazi outlook.

But even to Model,
the danger was obvious.

He now disobeyed Hitler
and pulled out.

After two and a half years,
the siege of Leningrad

was finally lifted.

Nearly a million Russian
civilians had died.

Relief in the city
was overwhelming.

The first fall-out was in
neighboring pro-German Finland,

which now feared
a Soviet invasion.

So in March 1944,
a secret Finnish delegation

arrived in Moscow
to discuss peace.

Stalin's terms were harsh.

He demanded the Petsamo region
in the far north of Finland,

an area rich in nickel,
an important ingredient

in the manufacture
of metal alloys.

He also demanded reparations
of $600 million.

The Finns refused and prepared
for a Soviet invasion.

But Finland could wait.

The Soviet High Command,
or STAVKA as it was known,

had more pressing
business further south.

The Red Army offensives in
the Ukraine, in late 1943,

had trapped 120,000 German
troops in the Crimea.

Hitler, as ever, had refused
to allow them to withdraw.

They now waited helplessly
for a Soviet onslaught.

In early April,
two months after the lifting

of the siege on Leningrad,
it came.

The troops of
the 4th Ukrainian Front

crashed into the Crimea
from the north.

At the same time,
a diversionary attack

landed on the eastern end
of the peninsula.

In less than a day,

the Axis troops in
the west had given way.

They fell back on
the port of Sebastopol

and Hitler ordered
"Fortress Sebastopol"

to hold out to the last man.

They didn't stand a chance.

Within two weeks of the siege,

German troops were
being evacuated by sea.

40,000 men escaped.

But some 30,000 defenders
were still trapped in the port.

They retreated to the beaches
south of the city

hoping to be rescued
by more German ships.

It didn't happen.

The evacuation was interrupted

by a Soviet
artillery bombardment.

Three days later,
the Germans surrendered.

Meanwhile, back in the
north-west of the country,

the Germans still occupied
much of what is Belarus today.

But the Red Army had
grabbed a vast bulge of land

stretching into
Poland and Rumania.

It meant the Germans had to
defend a 1,400 mile front.

They were hugely over-extended.

Military logic suggested
it was time for the Germans

to withdraw to more manageable
defensive positions.

But Hitler, still obsessed
with territorial gain,

refused to allow
any further retreat.

The German military would
continue to pay a high price

for Hitler's constant meddling
and unrealistic ambitions.

By the spring of 1944,

Hitler's forces were
stretched to their limit.

All along the Eastern Front

there was a desperate need
for reinforcements.

The problem for the German
High Command was where to place

the few resources it had,
to maximum advantage.

German intelligence
reports suggested

the next big Red Army offensive
would be into Belarus.

But Hitler disagreed.

He was convinced Stalin
would strike south

and seize the Rumanian
oilfields.

Both were wrong,
at least to begin with.

In the early summer,
the Red Army Command

finally turned
its attention to Finland.

Russian troops attacked
across the Karelian Isthmus.

After two days fighting, the
Finns were forced to retreat.

Slowly, over the next month,

the Red Army advanced
north into Finland.

By August 1944, it was all over

and the Finns sued for peace.

It was now that Stalin
showed the first signs

of a pattern that would be
repeated across Europe.

He seized land, in this case
areas of Finnish Karelia,

and the nickel-rich
Petsamo region.

Next, Stalin's attention
turned to central Europe.

In summer of 1944,

he launched what he called
Operation Bagration,

named after a Russian hero
of the Napoleonic wars.

At 5:00am on June 22nd,
three years to the day

after Hitler's invasion
of the Soviet Union,

the guns of the Red Army
began a ferocious bombardment

of German forces in
what today is Belarus.

It was exactly where,
months earlier,

German intelligence
reports had suggested

a Soviet attack would come.

But because Hitler
had ignored them

the area was poorly defended.

It was another of his mistakes.

The Germans were now being
pounded along a 350 mile front.

In some places the Russians used
over 400 guns for every mile.

The barrage was followed,
as always,

by a torrent of
Soviet tanks and infantry

crashing into
the German defenses.

To make matters worse
for the Germans,

they had almost no air support.

Much of the Luftwaffe
was still tied up

defending the German homeland.

It was now that Hitler's
folly of fighting a war

on two fronts became
all too apparent.

The Red Airforce could
operate almost unopposed.

Russian planes now struck
deep behind German lines,

cutting communications and
harassing reinforcements.

Within 36 hours, the German
Panzers had been swept aside.

About 50,000 men
faced encirclement

in the German
held town of Vitebsk.

Hitler, as had become routine,

initially refused
to let it retreat.

Then, when on the
following day he relented,

it was too late for
many of his troops.

Four days later Vitebsk fell.

20,000 Axis troops were killed
and 10,000 taken prisoner.

Further south, along the Belarus
front, the pattern was repeated.

Hitler, now furious,
sacked his general,

Field Marshal Ernst Busch.

Once again, he brought
in his favorite,

the now promoted
Field Marshal Walther Model.

But it made no difference.
Town after town fell.

The regional capital of
Minsk was now within reach.

Two days later,
the Red Army encircled it.

Over 100,000 German
troops were trapped.

Soviet forces bombarded them.

Within a week, the German
survivors surrendered.

The unstoppable Russian advance

now pushed on
to the Baltic states.

First to fall was the
Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

Across the entire Eastern Front
the Germans were in retreat.

But they left behind them towns
and countryside laid waste.

They committed
widespread atrocities

against local inhabitants.

Nothing, however, could have
prepared the Red Army

for what it was about
to discover.

On July 23rd, 1944,

Soviet forces reached
the small Polish village

of Maidanek near Lublin.

Here they came across
their first evidence

of Hitler's "Final Solution",

the Maidanek extermination camp.

It was a camp designed
for the murder of Jews

on an industrial scale.

But as the first Soviet reports
of what they'd found leaked out,

the Western Allies
simply dismissed them.

Three days
after seizing Maidanek,

the Russians were
approaching Warsaw.

But here the Red Army paused.

Stalin now stood ready to do
what Hitler had done before,

grab land not in the name of
"Lebensraum", but of communism.

By the summer of 1944,
Operation Bagration

had ripped the heart out of
the German army in the east.

More than 300,000 Axis
soldiers had died.

150,000 had been taken prisoner.

The Red Army now paused

and dug in along the River
Vistula south of Warsaw.

Stalin was in no hurry
to bring the war to an end.

With Europe in turmoil,
conditions were ideal

for the spread of communism.

The first victims of Stalin's
political calculations
were the Poles.

On August 1st, 1944,
the Polish Home Army

rose up in Warsaw against
its Nazi occupiers.

But it desperately needed help.

The Red Army,
camped just to the south,

was perfectly placed
to provide it.

But Stalin regarded
the Polish Home Army

as close to the Polish
government in exile in London

and hostile to communism.

So, he turned a blind eye

to the plight of
the Polish fighters.

They were crushed
with terrible brutality.

The Germans wouldn't finally
be pushed out of Poland

until the Russian army drove
them out in January 1945.

It was the start
of a Soviet masterplan

that would eventually
see communist governments

across most of eastern Europe.

To the north,
contingents of the Red Army

continued to clear the Germans
out of the Baltic States.

These would later be
incorporated into
the Soviet Union.

Near the Latvian capital
of Riga,

over 200,000 Germans were
trapped behind Russian lines.

But Hitler,
still determined to hold on

to his "Lebensraum", refused
to countenance a retreat.

Even so, gradually
the German forces

were pushed back to
the Baltic coast.

By mid-October 1944,
the Germans had been squeezed

onto the Courland Peninsula,
west of Riga.

They would remain marooned
there for the rest of the war,

when they eventually
surrendered to Soviet forces.

Stalin, meanwhile,
was already sizing up

other territory
in eastern Europe.

He could have moved directly
west towards Germany.

Instead units of
the Red Army moved south

in a vast thrust down
through the Balkans.

Nearly 1,500 tanks
and a million men

pushed into Rumania
in late August 1944.

The defending Axis forces
had less than 400 tanks

and just 800,000 troops.

Pro-German Rumanian troops
gave way almost immediately

all along the front.

Three days later,
large pockets of German troops

were surrounded near Kishinev.

Hitler issued his standard
command, "no retreat".

For nine days,
there was bitter fighting.

Over 180,000 German troops
were killed or taken prisoner.

The remainder beat
a belated retreat.

In late August,
Rumania's pro-German dictator,

Marshal Ion Antonescu,
was arrested.

Romania surrendered.

By the end of the month,
the Red Army was in Bucharest

and had occupied
the strategically important
Romanian oilfields.

It meant Germany had lost
its main supply of oil.

Three Soviet armies now
moved south into Bulgaria.

Bulgaria had tried
to stay neutral

but it too would soon
be swallowed up

by the Soviet empire.

Meanwhile, the rest of
the Russian forces

now moved west
towards Yugoslavia.

German troops to the south,
in Greece, faced being trapped.

They began a hasty retreat
up through Albania

and southern Yugoslavia.

They were harried all the way by
Albanian and Yugoslav partisans.

By mid-October 1944,

the Red Army had reached
the Yugoslav capital

of Belgrade.

Only now did it begin
swing north and west

towards Hungary
and then Germany.

German reinforcements
poured into Hungary

to support the pro-Nazi
puppet government.

But the Red Army ground on.

Eight weeks later,
it laid siege to Budapest.

The siege lasted over six weeks

before the German puppet
government collapsed.

By the end of 1944,

most of eastern Europe
lay in Stalin's grasp.

His troops controlled
the Baltic States and Poland,

Rumania and Bulgaria.

Pro-soviet forces ruled
in Yugoslavia and Albania.

Hungary and Czechoslovakia
were in his sights.

Stalin had successfully
laid the foundations

for the future Soviet Bloc.

He could now at last
move on to Germany.

But in the west, Allied forces

were also approaching
the German border.

The race was on to be
the first to take Berlin.