All language subtitles for Soviet.Storm.WWII.in.the.East.Series.2.7of9.The.Battle.for.Germany.1080p.WEB-DL.h264.AC3.MVGroup.Forum_[eng]

January 1945. The Red Army
is poised to invade Germany.

The final chapter of the war in
Europe will witness fanatical
Nazi resistance

and brutal Soviet retribution.

Originally produced
for Russian television in 2011,

this is the story
of Russia s Great Patriotic War

and the Red Army s long road
from defeat to victory.

An unexpected guest fell down
into a German trench.

The NCO, a seasoned veteran
of the Eastern Front,

immediately took note
of the deserter s cap.

There was no customary
red star on it.

The man was from a
punishment battalion.

During his interrogation,

the deserter told the Germans
about the coming Soviet
offensive.

The man s punishment battalion
was due to attack in the first
wave.

He had become convinced
he would not survive.

The German high command took the
deserter s information
seriously.

The Vistula front in central
Poland had stabilized by the
autumn of 1944.

Weeks passed, but the expected
Red Army offensive did not
materialise.

German forces were withdrawn
from Poland for a counterattack
in the Ardennes.

The Fourth SS panzer corps was
pulled out of Warsaw, and sent
to Hungary.

The front defending the road to
Berlin had been stripped bare.

But the Soviet offensive
had only been postponed.

The German units in Poland
had been rehearsing new tactics

to counter the initial
Red Army onslaught.

The initial Soviet artillery
barrage would often wipe out

German units holding
the front line of trenches.

So the Germans decided
that at the last moment,

they would withdraw the infantry
to the second line, 2 to 3
kilometres to the rear.

Every 3 to 500 metres,

they dug communication trenches
connecting the two lines.

The Soviet bombardment
would fall on empty trenches,

while the infantry prepared to
meet the Soviet assault from the
second line.

Most of the barbed wire and
obstacles were placed between
the first and second lines.

The Germans prepared
to fall back at any moment.

Behind them, panzer divisions
including the new King Tigers

were ready to counterattack.

Soviet intelligence
had severely underestimated

the strength of the
enemy s reserves.

The Wehrmacht was preparing
to fight for Germany

they intended to bleed
their enemies white,

and force them
to accept peace on their terms.

A new Soviet trick was to play
loud music from the trenches.

It drowned out the noise of
tanks and gun tractors as they
moved up for the attack.

Finally, on 12th January,
they put on a new record.

Through the grey dawn and
across the snow-covered plain,

came the sound of An
unbreakable union of free-born
republics

the national anthem of the USSR.

As the last words of the anthem
faded, there was a short pause,

and then the roar of
hundreds of guns.

German infantry streamed back
through the communication
trenches.

The first shells landed as the
Germans were still falling back
to the second line.

They expected a long bombardment
of the forward trenches.

But it was only a short barrage.

By the time the infantry
reached their new positions,

the Soviet guns were pummelling
the second line with all their
remaining ammunition.

The German army s new defensive
tactics had failed on this
occasion.

But the German command
still had its armoured reserve.

At Kielce, a German
heavy tank battalion

with 72 Tigers and King Tigers
launched its counterattack.

By early 1945, most Soviet tank
regiments had been reequipped
with the new T34-85.

This tank had a much more
powerful, long-barrelled 85
millimetre gun.

It gave the crews a much better
chance against heavily-armoured
German tanks,

like the Tiger and Panther.

At Lissow, the Tigers were
ambushed by the Soviet 61st
Guards Tank Brigade.

After a ferocious battle, the
Tiger battalion was defeated.

Around Kielce, the Germans
counterattacked with more than
350 tanks

and self-propelled guns. But
they failed to halt the advance
of two Soviet tank armies.

The German panzer divisions
were encircled, and destroyed.

Other Counterattacks by German
armoured units at Pulawy and
Magnuszew

were also unsuccessful. On 17th
January 1945, the Red Army
entered Warsaw.

A giant breach had been made
in the German front line.

Red Army tanks advanced so fast
that they overran airfields

were German aircraft
were still being refuelled.

Near Lublin, they captured 60
Luftwaffe aircraft at one
airfield.

But in East Prussia, the 3rd
Byelorussian Front had less
success.

Here, intelligence work
proved much more difficult.

The local German population
was fiercely hostile.

Many scout patrols never
returned from their mission.

Reconnaissance failed to detect
the withdrawal of German forces,

so the artillery bombardment did
fall on empty front line
trenches.

The Germans were
falling back to Koenigsberg.

The Soviet Air Force
had been grounded by blizzards

and was unable to
support the attack.

Fifteen days into the offensive,
the 2nd Ukrainian Front

approached the grey huts of the
Auschwitz concentration camp,

surrounded by its guard towers
and electrified fences.

Auschwitz was in fact
a network of more than 40 camps,

of which Auschwitz-Birkenau
was the largest.

The rapid advance of the Red
Army forced the Germans to
hurriedly shut down operations

at this "factory of death".
Himmler issued orders for the
camp to be liquidated.

Surviving prisoners
were to be evacuated or killed,

and all the apparatus of
extermination was to be
demolished with dynamite.

60,000 emaciated prisoners
were marched away on foot.

Amongst them was Soviet
partisan Irina Kharina.

We walked, column after column,
guarded by SS men and surrounded
by dogs.

The snow was soaked with blood.

It was pink, because anyone who
fell behind, tripped or stopped
was shot on the spot.

The last crematorium was blown
up 24 hours before the Red Army
arrived.

At the last minute, the SS
shot around 700 prisoners,

hoping to silence
the last witnesses.

But in their rush to escape
the approaching Soviet tanks,

the SS failed to carry
out all its tasks.

The Red Army found 7,500 starved
prisoners inside the camp,

and enough evidence to work out
what had happened there.

They found mountains of personal
belongings taken from the dead.

The victims at this camp alone,
90% of them Jews numbered 1.1
million.

As the Red Army advance
continued, the 1st Ukrainian
Front,

under Marshal Ivan Konev,
met determined resistance

around the industrial region of
Silesia. So he chose another
approach.

To drive the enemy from this
vast sprawl of factories and
plants would cost men,

and time. And Stalin
wanted the factories intact.

He described this region
to Marshal Konev as "pure gold".

And so with the agreement
of the General Staff,

Konev allowed the Germans
to escape from Silesia.

A corridor 6 kilometres wide
was left open to the south,

through which the
Germans withdrew.

By the end of January the entire
region was under Soviet control.

When Albert Speer,
Hitler s Minister of Armaments,

sent the Fuehrer a memorandum on
the significance of the loss of
Silesia,

it began with the words,
"The war is lost."

After the destruction of the
Ruhr industries by Allied
bombing,

Silesian mines provided 60% of
German coal. With the loss of
Silesia,

1945 s coal output would be
one-quarter of the previous
year s,

and her steel output,
just one-sixth.

Speer continued.

With the loss of Silesia,
German industry will not be able
to meet

the front s requirement for
ammunition, weapons, and tanks.

It meant defeat within the year.

But this information was kept
within Hitler s inner circle.

Hitler continued to demand
self-sacrifice and fanatical
resistance from his followers.

To salvage the disastrous
situation on the Eastern Front,

he turned to one of his oldest
allies, SS Reichsfuehrer
Heinrich Himmler.

Hitler appointed him head of the
newly formed Army Group Vistula

despite his total lack of
experience of military command.

One man who was appalled by this
decision was the talented panzer
general

Heinz Guderian, now Chief
of the Army General Staff.

Guderian, knowing Himmler would
need all the help he could get,

appointed Walther Wenck an
experienced staff officer as
his Chief of Staff.

Hitler gave this role to Himmler
because he believed only a true
Nazi

could instil the troops with the
necessary "fanaticism" to defeat
the enemy.

It was an illustration of how
far the Fuehrer had become
detached from reality.

Soviet tank crews walked
amongst snow-covered aircraft

at the Poznan airfield
dozens of Heinkel One-Elevens,

grounded by lack of fuel. The
days of the Third Reich were
numbered.

But the German garrison of
Poznan was in no hurry to
surrender.

The commander of the 1st
Tank Army, General Katukov,

soon found that the city was
a tank-crew s worst nightmare

narrow streets,
and well-prepared killing zones.

Katukov was authorized to
continue the advance to Berlin.

Poznan would be left to General
Chuikov, the hero of Stalingrad,

and his 8th Guards Army.

Chuikov s orders were to take
Poznan by storm it lay in a
crucial position,

at the heart of the local road
and rail network.

Chuikov s troops began
their assault on 26th January.

Chuikov left an escape
route open to the west.

He hoped the Germans
would withdraw,

so he could take the city
quickly and at minimal cost.

But the besieged garrison
made no attempt to break out.

This was a real fortress, held
by 20,000 Germans behind 3 metre
thick stone walls.

Soviet artillery pounded away at
the city s 18th century
fortifications

to limited effect.

Hitler had advocated the
fortress or festung strategy
in 1943

it meant holding designated
fortresses at all costs,

even after they
had become completely cut-off.

In Ukraine and Byelorussia the
strategy found little support
amongst his generals.

But by 1945, as the fighting
reached German soil,

fewer generals were willing
to stand up to the Fuehrer.

A Festung that held important
road and rail junctions

made it difficult for the Red
Army to resupply its forward
units.

On the other hand, the
strategy meant valuable German

units became trapped
and isolated.

The second assault on Poznan
began on 28th January.

Chuikov preceded it with
an ultimatum to the garrison.

I, General Chuikov, propose
that you lay down your arms and
surrender.

I guarantee your life and that
you will return home after the
war.

Otherwise you will
be destroyed.

Few of the defenders
took up the offer.

The garrison commander, Major
General Gonnel, was a dedicated
Nazi.

He had no intention
of surrendering.

Meanwhile, Katukov s tanks
had bypassed Poznan

and were heading west, towards
Berlin. But at the old
Polish German border,

they encountered the Ostwall
"the East Wall".

The Ostwall was an
old fortified line,

which Germany had begun building
along its border with Poland in
1934.

But in 1938 Hitler decided that
these defences were no longer a
priority,

and halted further work on the
line. In 1944, as the Red Army
closed in,

the fortifications were
hurriedly prepared for action.

The line was composed of a
series of redoubts called
"Panzerwerks".

Reinforced steel cupolas
provided firing points,

and the approaches were covered
by concrete anti-tank obstacles

known as "dragons teeth".

The Panzerwerks held enough
food, water and ammunition to
hold out for weeks.

The problem for the German high
command was finding the men to
garrison them.

Only rag-tag units could be
spared, and many of these
arrived late.

One Soviet tank brigade drove
straight through unmanned
fortifications.

But a few hours later,
the German army arrived,

and began digging sections of
rail into the road, making it
impassable for tanks.

The next brigade to come down
the road ran into fierce
resistance.

The brigade in front...
had been cut-off.

All attempts to break
through were unsuccessful.

The armoured cupolas
were impervious to tank rounds,

and in the rapid advance, the
infantry and heavy artillery had
been left far behind.

That night the men listened to
the sounds of heavy fighting
behind the German line,

where their comrades
were cut-off.

If German reserves arrived,
the brigade would be wiped out.

But not all sections of the
Ostwall were held with such
determination.

The men holding the line near
Schwiebus didn t even have
uniforms.

They were men of
the "Volkssturm".

Towards the end of 1944, with
the German army increasingly
short of manpower,

Hitler authorized the raising
of a national militia.

It was called the Volkssturm,

and Hitler confidently believed
it would raise 6 million men,

and initiate a people s war
against the invader.

These hopes were
wildly optimistic. At Poznan,

the Nazis hoped to raise 24
Volkssturm battalions, but could
raise only one.

All German males
between 16 and 60

were eligible for conscription
into the Volkssturm.

The punishment for
desertion was death.

To ensure Volkssturm battalions
possessed the necessary
fanaticism

to defeat the enemy, they were
placed under the command of the
Gauleiters

the local Nazi Party bosses
rather than under army control.

The Volkssturm received few
weapons and little ammunition,

although they had plenty of
Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons.

They received no uniforms
just an armband,

which they wore over
their civilian clothing.

Predictably, such units proved
ineffective in combat.

At Schwiebus, they could do
little to hold up the Soviet 1st
Guards Tank Brigade.

The trapped Soviet brigade was
rescued, and the advance
continued to the Oder River.

Similar events unfolded
to the north at Meseritz.

The 60-year-old
Oberleutnant Herman Step,

commander of the
128th Volkssturm Battalion,

described what happened
to his Soviet captors.

Volkssturm units around Meseritz
surrendered without firing a
shot.

The Red Army broke
through to the Oder,

and established bridgeheads
just 70 kilometres from Berlin.

Only there was the advance
halted by the arrival of German
reserves.

By February 1945, the Soviet
1st Byelorussian Front

had fought its way across
Germany to within 70 kilometres
of the capital, Berlin.

In just three weeks,
across a 500 kilometre front,

the Red Army had
advanced 500 kilometres.

Thousands of German civilians
fled their homes fearing the
vengeance of the Red Army.

Their fears proved
well justified.

Soviet soldiers had long been
taught to despise their enemy.

Germany was
"the lair of the fascist beast",

and many set out to avenge
bitter grievances.

Amongst them... was
Yevgeny Bessonov.

We entered towns and saw
two-storey houses with nice
tiled roofs.

At first, we would set fire
to these houses.

We couldn t forget the sight of
our own villages, burned to the
ground,

with only chimneys standing
amongst the ashes.

It was not just property that
felt the wrath of the Red Army.

Soviet soldiers, many
fuelled by alcohol,

were responsible for the rape
of thousands of German women,

many of whom they then murdered.

Prisoners and civilians were
frequently shot out of hand.

Some Soviet soldiers were,
for a time, out of control.

Lazar Tsents was
with the Red Army.

In 1945 nobody would lay
their hands on prisoners,

but in 1944 "vigilantism"
was common.

Once a master sergeant that I
didn t know took five Germans
outside

and started shooting
them one by one.

I approached him, took his gun,
and said, You d better kill
them in battle.

The looting of German
property was systematic.

The soldiers gathered luxuries
they d never known before:

jars of stewed fruit,
jam, and stewed meat.

They took anything that was
in short supply back home,

including clothes,
fabric and shoes.

There was even an official
postal service for sending loot
back home to families.

Privates could send 5 kilograms
per month officers, 10.

As the advance continued,
commanders recognised that the
brutal treatment

of German civilians was
inspiring the enemy to fight
harder.

They tried to clamp
down on such behaviour.

Nevertheless, many officers
continued to turn a blind eye to
their men s behaviour.

As the Red Army entered East
Prussia, Stalin himself was
persuaded

to issue an order forbidding the
mistreatment of German
civilians.

Similar orders were issued by
the military councils of the
various fronts and armies.

One order, signed by Marshal
Rokossovsky, commanding the 2nd
Byelorussian Front,

urged all ranks "to eradicate
all activities shameful

to the Red Army with the
force of a red-hot iron".

In February 1945, as Churchill,
Roosevelt and Stalin

gathered at Yalta to decide
the future of post-war Europe,

recent Red Army successes
put Stalin in a strong position.

The western allies made major
concessions to Stalin over the
Soviet-Polish border.

They allowed the Soviet Union
to keep much of the territory

it had seized from Poland in
1939, including the city of
Lvov,

although Białystok
would be returned.

In compensation, Poland would
receive German territory

east of the Oder and
most of East Prussia.

A final decision was reached
on the demilitarization

and denazification of Germany:

It is our inflexible purpose to
destroy German militarism and
Nazism,

and to ensure that Germany will
never again be able to disturb
the peace of the world.

Germany was to be divided
into four zones of occupation:

in addition to the USSR, USA,
and Great Britain, one would
also go to France.

The German capital,
situated in the Soviet Zone,

would itself be
divided into 4 zones.

Churchill pushed Stalin to
commit to free and fair
elections in Poland,

so that the country might
chose its own government.

Stalin agreed. But it was a
promise he would never honour.

Stalin made a further promise
that the USSR would join the war

against Japan within
90 days of Germany s surrender.

Meanwhile at Poznan,
Chuikov s 8th Guards Army

cleared German defenders
from the rubble.

The 2nd Assault Engineer Brigade
prepared to storm the city s
fortifications.

Their main obstacle was a
fire-swept moat, 10 metres wide
and 8 metres deep.

Under the cover of a
smokescreen, the engineers
rolled barrels

filled with explosives
into position.

The fuse was to be lit
at the last moment,

and the barrel rolled
forward into the moat.

The explosion would kill German
soldiers at their loopholes.

Soviet assault groups waited to
cross the moat, and capture the
wall.

Within, lay the citadel
Fort Winiary.

These formidable fortifications
were held by several thousand
diehards

under the command of the
fanatical Major General Ernst
Gonell.

The assault began
on 18th February.

Heavy artillery opened fire on
the forts at point blank range.

The guns blew breaches in the
walls wide enough for men to get
through.

Now the barrels of explosive
were lit, and rolled into the
moat.

Survivors were left deafened,
and concussed.

The assault groups crossed the
moat using ladders and
duckboards,

and fought their
way into the city.

The engineers built a
bridge over the moat

to get tanks and self-propelled
guns into the city.

The armoured vehicles
brought resistance to an end.

The month long siege was over.

General Gonell lay down on a
Swastika flag and shot himself.

His deputy General Mattern led
more than 4,000 survivors into
captivity.

But elsewhere, the Nazis planned
a last desperate counter-attack
to save Berlin.

Heinrich Himmler, the commander
of Army Group Vistula,

hoped to turn the tables on the
Red Army as it approached
Berlin.

His staff planned a
counterattack by the 11th SS
Panzer Army.

Operation Solstice would be
launched from Pomerania,

against the northern flank of
Zhukov s 1st Byelorussian Front.

The Waffen-SS grew out of the
paramilitary wing of the Nazi
Party.

In 1939 it had just 3 regiments
which proved unreliable in
combat.

But as the war went on, the
Waffen-SS expanded to more than
30 divisions,

and forged a reputation
as an elite fighting force.

Its units were the first
to receive new equipment.

By 1945, the Waffen-SS
was a multinational force,

its divisions manned by
volunteers from across Europe.

Many were now gathered in
Pomerania, including the SS
Nordland,

Nederland, Wallonien,
Langemarck, Frundsberg, and
Polizei.

The German counterattack
began on 16th February 1945.

But it could make little headway
against Belov s 61st Army

and Bogdanov s 2nd
Guards Tank Army.

Then came Zhukov s response.

He redirected two Soviet tank
armies against the German forces
in Pomerania.

Within 5 days, T-34s from
the tank armies of Katukov

and Bogdanov had reached the
Baltic Sea, trapping German
forces,

who desperately sought
to escape by sea.

After this catastrophe,
Hitler allowed Heinrich Himmler

to resign his command
of Army Group Vistula.

Most Soviet guns were modern
designs from the 1930s.

But some were much older.

The 305 millimetre howitzers
still bore the double-headed
eagle of the Romanovs.

Their target was the
fortress-city of Koenigsberg,
capital of East Prussia.

In early April there was a lull
across much of the front, but
here the battle raged.

The walls had to be smashed, and
the air force could not help

it had been grounded
again by bad weather.

The heavy siege guns fired
one round every 3 minutes.

There would be four days of this
before the assault began.

Koenigsberg was defended by a
series of modernised 19th
century forts,

their thick walls protected
by tons of earth.

But the Red Army bombardment
was overwhelming.

By 1945, the German situation
in East Prussia was desperate.

In late January Soviet troops
had reached the Vistula Lagoon,

cutting off all German
forces in East Prussia.

Communication with the rest of
Germany was only possible by
sea.

But the Germans
stubbornly fought on.

When the Commander of the 3rd
Byelorussian Front was killed in
action,

Stalin sent Marshal Vasilevsky
to replace him.

Stalin urged him to secure a
"swift liquidation of the
enemy",

to allow the Red army to
reinforce its assault on Berlin.

But after assessing
the situation,

Vasilevsky decided
against an immediate assault.

He ordered three more
weeks of preparation.

First, he ordered an attack
on German forces pinned

against the coast south-west
of Koenigsberg.

The pocket was eliminated in
late March. Now, it was time to
attack the city itself.

The Red Army had assembled
quarter of a million men

for the final assault
on Koenigsberg.

They were supported by more than
5,000 guns and 500 armoured
vehicles.

They conducted a thorough
aerial reconnaissance

of the city and its approaches.

Soviet intelligence estimated
the Koenigsberg garrison

to be about 60,000 strong. It
turned out to be a serious
underestimate.

The final assault began
on 6th April 1945.

The partially destroyed outlying
forts offered no serious
resistance.

But on the approaches to the
city, the Soviet advance bogged
down.

There were more Germans
than they had reckoned with,

and the air force was still
grounded by bad weather.

But on 7th April, the skies
cleared. 500 Soviet bombers
appeared overhead.

The Luftwaffe... was
nowhere to be seen.

Thousands of bombs
rained down on the city.

After the bombing,
chaos reigned in Koenigsberg.

Communications across
the city had been cut.

On 8th April, the
remnants of the garrison

were driven back into the
centre and east of the city.

Communications with the
port of Pillau were cut.

Further resistance was
pointless. The next day the
garrison surrendered.

The true number of casualties
was lost amidst the chaos, and
the propaganda.

The Red Army claimed more than
40,000 enemy dead. It took up to
70,000 prisoners.

Soviet casualties were up to
60,000 many more than were
reported at the time.

Koenigsberg...
had been virtually destroyed.

The East Prussian campaign
had reached its conclusion.

The victorious Soviet forces
rolled west once more, to
prepare for the final battle.

The 2nd Byelorussian Front would
now take up positions along the
River Oder.

And then all would be in
place... for the final assault
on Berlin.