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Summer 1944. One year on from
 their great defeat at Kursk,

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00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:42,840
the German armed forces are
 suffering shortages in men,
 tanks and aircraft.

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00:00:45,080 --> 00:00:47,000
Now Hitler faces
 war on two fronts.

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00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:49,280
As troops move west
 to face the D-Day landings,

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00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:51,320
the Red Army prepares
 a mighty offensive in the East.

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00:01:09,720 --> 00:01:13,560
In the middle of the night,
 and under close guard,

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00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,720
a new tank regiment arrived at a
 train station near the border
 with Byelorussia.

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00:01:23,360 --> 00:01:27,600
Alongside the T-34s,
 some very heavy,

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00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:31,880
bulky objects covered in
tarpaulin were unloaded from the
 flat-bed wagons.

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00:01:41,320 --> 00:01:44,200
The Red Army s plans
 in Byelorussia were top secret.

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00:01:46,200 --> 00:01:48,680
These objects would remain
 a mystery for several days...

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00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:52,120
until they unveiled on
 the training ground.

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00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:59,000
They were heavy metal rollers,
 which were to be attached to the
 front of a T-34.

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00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:03,400
They transformed the tank
 into a minesweeper.

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00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:10,520
The rollers would detonate
 any mine in the tank s path,

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00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:15,000
clearing a safe lane for
 infantry and other vehicles to
 follow.

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00:02:17,160 --> 00:02:20,040
Two regiments of
these engineer tanks

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00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:22,560
had been secretly deployed
 to the 1st Byelorussian Front.

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00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:26,280
Clearly the Front Commander,
 General Rokossovsky,

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00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:29,000
was planning some
 sort of offensive.

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00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:36,040
But to any onlooker,
 Soviet forces in Byelorussia

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00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:39,240
seemed only to be making
 defensive preparations.

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00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:44,760
From the air, only movement away
 from the frontlines could be
 detected.

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00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:48,720
Everything was being done
 to give the impression

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00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:51,200
that this sector was
 being weakened,

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00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:53,600
and that a Soviet offensive was
being prepared somewhere else.

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00:02:56,200 --> 00:03:01,280
On 6th June 1944, the day of the
 Allied landings in Normandy,

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00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:06,000
Stalin wrote to Churchill: The
 summer offensive of the Soviet
 Forces,

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00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,840
as was agreed at the Tehran
 Conference, will begin in
 mid-June,

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00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:11,640
at one of the vital
 sectors of the front.

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00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:18,000
Which "vital sector" was not
 even to be shared with Allied
 heads of government.

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00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:25,600
In the east, the Germans were
 firmly on the defensive in June
 1944,

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00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:28,040
as they struggled to fend off
the D-Day landings in France.

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00:03:30,680 --> 00:03:32,560
Army Group North
 was retreating from Leningrad.

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00:03:34,160 --> 00:03:37,960
Army Group South had given up
 the Crimea and much of Ukraine.

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00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:40,640
Only Army Group Centre
 seemed to be hanging on.

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00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:46,840
German positions on this front
 formed the so-called
 Byelorussian balcony .

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00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:54,960
Here Army Group Centre stood
 firm. Over the winter

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00:03:54,960 --> 00:03:59,200
it had successfully repulsed two
 Soviet offensives around Vitebsk
 and Orsha.

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00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:05,680
Hitler and the German Army High
 Command had much to consider

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00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:10,280
as summer approached. They had
 no firm intelligence on when

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00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:12,800
or where the main Soviet
 offensive would be launched.

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00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:16,480
The Germans decided
 that Stalin would seek

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00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:18,200
to capitalise on his recent
 gains in Ukraine.

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00:04:19,840 --> 00:04:21,720
They had brought the Red Army
 to withing striking distance

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00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:23,600
of Romania and its oil fields.

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00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:28,400
So in the summer of 1944,

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00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:31,520
precious German reserves of
 tanks and aircraft were sent
 south.

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00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:42,160
When the Soviet Stavka High
 command saw German
 reinforcements moving to
 Ukraine,

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00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:45,120
it confirmed their decision to
 launch a surprise attack in
 Byelorussia.

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00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:52,040
Here, the Red Army would be
 given the chance to avenge its
 worst defeat,

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00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:54,680
suffered at German hands
 in the first months of the war.

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00:04:56,400 --> 00:04:58,120
The operation was
 codenamed Bagration.

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00:05:02,520 --> 00:05:06,920
The Stavka planned a series of
 assaults against the flanks of
 Army Group Centre,

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00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:11,160
which would be encircled and
 destroyed near the cities of
 Vitebsk and Bobruisk.

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00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:13,840
Then the Red Army would advance
 on Minsk, cutting off German
retreat.

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00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:17,680
The Soviet planned nothing less
 than the total destruction

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00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:18,960
of German Army Group Centre.

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00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:27,840
The Red Army had never set
 itself such a massive and
 ambitious goal.

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00:05:33,280 --> 00:05:36,720
General Rokossovsky proposed
 that his 1st Byelorussian Front

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00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,240
deliver two simultaneous thrusts
 against the German right flank,

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00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:44,760
at Bobruisk and Slutsk. Each
 thrust would be given equal
 priority.

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00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:50,440
This contradicted standard
 Soviet military doctrine,

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00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:52,720
which dictated that there be
a single main axis of advance,

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00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:56,560
with all other attacks acting in
 a supporting role.

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00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:03,360
Konstantin Konstantinovich
 Rokossovsky was a decorated hero

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00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:06,400
of the First World War
 and the Russian Civil War.

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00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:09,120
But probably because
 of his Polish origin,

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00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:12,200
he found himself under arrest
 in Stalin s Great Purge of 1937.

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00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:19,760
Despite being tortured
 by the NKVD secret police,

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00:06:19,760 --> 00:06:22,080
he refused to sign a confession
 or inform on his colleagues.

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00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:25,960
He was released in 1940
 and restored to his rank.

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00:06:27,440 --> 00:06:29,960
At the beginning of the war
 he commanded a mechanised corps,

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but rose rapidly
 to senior command.

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00:06:36,080 --> 00:06:40,800
In May 1944, Rokossovsky was
 summoned to a meeting of the
 Stavka

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to defend his proposal. It was a
 dramatic scene, in which his
 plan

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00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:49,280
to deliver two simultaneous
 thrusts came in for much
 criticism.

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00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:56,640
In his memoirs Rokossovsky
 wrote: I was twice sent into
 the next room

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00:06:57,960 --> 00:07:00,040
to think over the Supreme
 Command s comments.

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00:07:01,840 --> 00:07:06,000
And each time I came back, I was
yet more insistent that I was
 correct.

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00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:14,800
At last Stalin said: "The Front
 Commander s persistence proves

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00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:16,560
that the planning of the
 offensive has been thoroughly
 considered.

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00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:19,440
It is a firm guarantee
 of success.

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00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:24,560
Rokossovsky s proposal
 had the green light.

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00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:30,880
Vitebsk was held by General
 Reinhardt s Third Panzer Army.

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00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:34,840
But depsite its
 impressive name, by 1944,

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00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:38,400
Third Panzer Army
 had hardly any tanks left.

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00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:46,040
General Reinhardt began the war
 in command of the 4th Panzer
 Division,

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00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:48,760
but replaced Hoth as commander
 of Third Panzer Group

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00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:52,440
during the Battle
 of Moscow in 1941.

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00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:55,480
That year his tanks had got to
 within 15 kilometres of the
 Russian capital.

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00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:02,800
Army Group Centre
 was made up of four armies,

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00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:04,840
with a total strength of about
 1 million men.

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00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:11,720
Operation Bagration
 was to be the largest

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00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:14,320
and most thoroughly prepared
 Soviet operation of the war so
 far.

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00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:18,600
If the Germans
 had discovered the preparations,

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00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:22,880
they would immediately have
reinforced the Byelorussian
 front.

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00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:29,680
The forests and swamps
 presented enough difficulties.

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00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:33,000
German reinforcements
 would have been disastrous.

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00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:42,280
Therefore, secrecy was
 of the utmost importance.

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00:08:42,280 --> 00:08:46,760
All troop movements took place
 only at night, under camouflage,
 with no lights.

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00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:55,240
White posts were placed at the
 roadside to keep drivers on the
 road.

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00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:00,640
Tailgates and bonnets were
 painted white so they could be
 seen by other vehicles.

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00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:12,800
Units that hadn t reached
their destination by dawn

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00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:15,200
would immediately pull over and
 begin to camouflage their
 vehicles.

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00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:19,560
A special pass was needed
 to drive a vehicle in daytime,

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00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,560
and less than a hundred passes
 had been allocated to each army.

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00:09:26,560 --> 00:09:29,000
Soviet aircraft flew overhead to
 inspect the troops camouflage.

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00:09:30,680 --> 00:09:32,880
If a pilot spotted a Red Army
 unit, he dropped a pennant.

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00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:38,040
This told the unit commander
 that his men could be seen from
 the air,

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00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:39,440
and that he had to
 improve his camouflage.

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00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:48,400
Security measures were in place
 from top to bottom.

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00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:54,240
Plans were drawn up by hand
 by just two or three officers,

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00:09:54,240 --> 00:09:56,600
and taken to the Stavka by the
 Front Commander in person.

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00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:03,120
Around Vitebsk, the decision
 was made not to bring up

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00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:04,800
any tanks for the
 first phase of the attack.

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00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:09,800
There was too much risk
 that they would be detected.

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00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:15,520
Red Army radio traffic vanished.

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00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:20,760
Russian units were notorious
 for bad radio discipline.

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00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:24,080
But as one German noted, The
 Russians broke with tradition,

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00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:25,600
and observed complete
 radio silence.

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00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:32,520
Meanwhile, Soviet soldiers
 practiced crossing

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00:10:32,520 --> 00:10:34,560
the swamps and forests
 of Byelorussia.

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00:10:37,080 --> 00:10:40,520
Infantrymen learnt how
 to cross marshes, how to swim,

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00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:41,960
and how to find
 their bearings in the woods.

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00:10:44,400 --> 00:10:47,040
Many made marsh-shoes so they
 could walk without sinking into
 the swamps.

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00:10:54,960 --> 00:10:59,560
They built rafts to transport
 machineguns, mortars and light
 guns through the marsh.

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00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:07,280
Logs and fascines bundles
 of sticks tied together

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00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:09,080
were laid to create
roads for vehicles.

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00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:19,640
Meanwhile, supplies
 flooded in by rail.

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00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:29,040
The Stavka had ordered that the
 troops were to be issued with
 five times

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00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:31,760
their normal ammunition load
 for the offensive.

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00:11:31,760 --> 00:11:34,880
This amount of shells,
 bullets and grenades

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00:11:34,880 --> 00:11:37,440
would require 6,500 railway
 carriages to transport.

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00:11:39,680 --> 00:11:43,960
In total 400,000 tons of
 ammunition, 300,000 tons of
 fuel,

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00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:48,480
and more than 500,000 tons
 of food and forage

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00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:51,560
were delivered
 to the troops in Byelorussia.

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00:11:51,560 --> 00:11:54,680
It meant that every day, 100
supply trains arrived at the
 front.

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00:11:57,120 --> 00:11:59,840
It was impossible to completely
 conceal preparations of such
 magnitude.

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00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:03,480
But the German High
 Command still thought

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00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:05,080
that the Soviet attack
 would come in Ukraine.

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00:12:07,680 --> 00:12:10,520
Field Marshal Busch,
 Commander of Army Group Centre

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00:12:10,520 --> 00:12:12,960
went on leave three days
 before the Soviet offensive.

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00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:19,280
His million-strong army group
 was about to be attacked

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00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:21,360
by the combined
 strength of four Soviet fronts.

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00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:28,520
2.4 million soldiers, 5,200
 tanks and self-propelled guns,

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00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:31,760
and 5,300 aircraft.

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00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:40,720
The final preparations for the
 offensive fell to Red Army
 engineers.

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00:12:42,680 --> 00:12:45,120
Both sides had laid massive
 minefields in front of their
 lines.

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00:12:46,600 --> 00:12:50,240
Now the engineers would have
 to crawl into these minefields

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00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:52,160
and begin to clear safe lanes
 for the attack.

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00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:56,080
They would have to work
 in the dark and in silence.

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00:12:56,080 --> 00:12:57,840
And they had just two nights
 to complete the job.

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00:13:00,680 --> 00:13:02,560
The key element of any mine
 is the firing mechanism.

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00:13:03,840 --> 00:13:05,720
Pressure on it causes
 the mine to explode.

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00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:10,080
Demining involves
 first of all locating the mine,

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00:13:11,400 --> 00:13:14,640
then removing or disabling
 the firing mechanism,

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00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:16,560
and then removing the disarmed
 mine to a safe place.

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00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:23,520
The mine clearance teams
 had to work quickly and quietly.

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00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:27,280
They knew that a single mistake
 could cost them their life.

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00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:38,160
To save time, the engineers
 only removed detonators,

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00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:41,040
leaving the actual
 mine in place.

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00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:49,760
They also had to worry
 about German booby traps,

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00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:52,400
including trip wires hidden
 amongst the long summer grass.

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00:14:01,960 --> 00:14:06,320
Both sides were forced to
 constantly refine and update
 their methods,

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00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:09,720
to counter new threats
 or tricks devised by the enemy.

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00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:20,480
Step by step, the engineers
 picked a path through this
 lethal landscape.

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00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:24,120
In just two nights,
 they d defused 34,000 mines.

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00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:27,720
It was the final stage
 of preparation.

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00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:33,160
Through these cleared lanes,
 the Red Army was now poised

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00:14:33,160 --> 00:14:38,280
to launch one of the largest and
 most decisive operations in
 history.

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00:14:45,920 --> 00:14:52,280
The final preparations had been
made for the great Soviet summer
 offensive of 1944.

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00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:56,680
A last minute change to its
 timing only added to the weight
 of expectation.

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00:14:56,680 --> 00:15:00,960
Operation Bagration
 would begin on 22nd June

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00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:03,040
the third anniversary
 of Germany s invasion.

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00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:06,840
The offensive began on
 the northern flank,

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00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:09,680
with probing attacks
 in the vicinity of Vitebsk.

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00:15:10,440 --> 00:15:14,360
Here, infantry of the 1st Baltic
 and 3rd Byelorussian Fronts

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00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:17,520
successfully stormed
 the German front line trenches.

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00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:23,040
By nightfall, Soviet units were
engaged along the entire front,

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00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:25,600
as probing attacks gave way
 to full-blooded assault.

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00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:32,280
Hundreds of aircraft arrived
 overhead to pour bombs onto the
 German front line.

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00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:39,040
At dawn the T-34s
 joined the assault.

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00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:47,360
Swarms of Ilyushin ground-attack
 aircraft crossed the front line,

185
00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:50,520
with orders to hunt and destroy
 German artillery batteries in
 the enemy rear.

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00:15:56,680 --> 00:15:59,440
German heavy artillery
 was a feared opponent,

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00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:01,840
capable of stalling
 the whole offensive.

188
00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:07,200
But it was also extremely
vulnerable to air attack.

189
00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:16,160
In low level strafing attacks,
 The IL-2s used machine guns,

190
00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:19,960
canons and rockets to mow down
 gun crews and destroy ammunition
 stockpiles.

191
00:16:24,280 --> 00:16:27,360
The Ilyushin IL-2 was designed

192
00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:29,640
by Sergey Ilyushin of the
 Soviet Central Design Bureau.

193
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:34,040
It became the most heavily
 produced military aircraft of
 all time.

194
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:36,880
The crew and engine
 were protected by armour.

195
00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:41,840
This was essential to protect
 them from small arms fire,

196
00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:45,600
when making low level attacks at
an altitude of just 25 - 50
 metres.

197
00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:55,080
The Il-2 was slow and therefore
 extremely vulnerable to German
 fighter attack.

198
00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:00,880
So by the second
 half of the war,

199
00:17:00,880 --> 00:17:03,000
they always flew their missions
 with a fighter escort.

200
00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:10,080
But by June 1944, the Luftwaffe
 was a shadow of its former self.

201
00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:16,640
German Army Group Centre had
 just 40 fighters available for
 air defence.

202
00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:18,800
Its troops had been left wide
 open to Soviet air attack.

203
00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:28,080
Soviet Shturmovik ground attack
 aircraft roamed freely over the
battlefield,

204
00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:29,960
often dispensing
 with their fighter escorts.

205
00:17:32,960 --> 00:17:36,000
Meanhwile, Hitler had come up
 with the idea of the fortress
 town .

206
00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:40,560
Troops defending locations
 with this special status

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00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:41,800
were expected to fight
 to the last man,

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00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:47,520
even when completely surrounded.
 One such "fortress town" was
 Vitebsk.

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00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:52,360
The city was held
 by the 53rd Corps,

210
00:17:52,360 --> 00:17:55,840
part of General Reinhardt s
 Third Panzer Army.

211
00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:59,080
After the first day s fighting,
 Reinhardt proposed to withdraw

212
00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:01,640
his forces from Vitebsk
before they became cut off.

213
00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:05,320
But Field Marshal Busch passed on
 the Fuehrer s order

214
00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:08,200
the city was to be
 held at all costs.

215
00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:14,440
On the third day of the battle,
 the Red Army duly encircled the
 53rd Corps at Vitebsk.

216
00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:19,480
Only now, when it was too late,
 did Hitler authorise a retreat.

217
00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:23,840
But he still insisted that one
 division be left behind in
 Vitebsk

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00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:25,920
with orders to fight to the end.

219
00:18:29,360 --> 00:18:32,080
The Germans desperate attempt
 to escape the trap was doomed
 from the start.

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00:18:33,560 --> 00:18:36,840
The breakout was led by the
 4th Luftwaffe Field Division,

221
00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:38,920
which got as far as the forests
 to the southwest of the city.

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00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:44,400
There, it came under
 overwhelming artillery and air
 attack, and was annihilated.

223
00:18:49,120 --> 00:18:52,680
After five days of fighting, the
 German 53rd Corps capitulated.

224
00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:56,040
17,000 survivors
 entered captivity,

225
00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:59,320
amongst them the corps
 commander, General Gollwitzer.

226
00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:06,320
The single German infantry
 division left in Vitebsk met a
 similar fate.

227
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:11,040
The Red Army burst into the
city, capturing the bridge over
 the Western Dvina.

228
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:13,760
The Germans tried to escape
 at the last minute,

229
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:17,000
but all were either
 killed or captured.

230
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:25,280
Meanwhile to the south,
 Rokossovsky s 1st Byelorussian
 Front

231
00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:26,880
began their attack towards
 the city of Bobruysk.

232
00:19:29,120 --> 00:19:32,040
This was where Rokossovsky was
 attempting his controversial
 two-pronged assault,

233
00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:36,040
from the direction of Rogachov,
 and from the village of Parichi.

234
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:41,800
Zhukov arrived to observe the
 assault of General Gorbatov s
 Third Army.

235
00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:48,000
With Rokossovsky directing the
 southern attack across the
 marshes,

236
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:49,800
and Zhukov co-ordinating
 the northern assault,

237
00:19:51,720 --> 00:19:55,040
a clear rivalry had developed as
 to who would be first to crack
 the German lines.

238
00:19:59,520 --> 00:20:02,320
Near Rogachov, Soviet heavy
 bombers attacked under cover of
 darkness.

239
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:07,040
They were helped to their target
 by Red Army trucks,

240
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:10,120
drawn up in long lines, facing
 eastwards with their headlights
 turned on.

241
00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:13,640
These lights, hidden
 from the Germans,

242
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:15,400
pointed the Soviet pilots
towards their target.

243
00:20:19,480 --> 00:20:21,840
In his memoirs, General
 Gorbatov wrote:

244
00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:26,440
First we heard the buzz of
 light aircraft flying over to
 attack the enemy positions.

245
00:20:30,600 --> 00:20:33,480
Then this noise was joined by
 the rumble of heavy aircraft,
 wave after wave of them.

246
00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:39,400
Soon the enemy lines erupted
 in explosions and flame.

247
00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:53,600
At dawn, Soviet ground attack
 aircraft continued the
 bombardment.

248
00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:58,840
They strafed German trenches,
 and pummeled strongpoints with
 rockets and bombs.

249
00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:10,640
Soviet air attacks could be
wild and inaccurate,

250
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:16,680
but now they also began to take
 a fearsome psychological toll on
 the German soldiers.

251
00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:21,880
With no protection
 from the Luftwaffe,

252
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:25,240
they lived in almost constant
 fear of a sudden, deadly attack
 from above.

253
00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:43,640
Before the smoke had cleared,
 shells and Katyusha rockets
 screamed through the air.

254
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:53,600
As the bombardment raged,
 minesweeping tanks began their
 advance.

255
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:03,280
Their heavy rollers detonated
 the mines in their path,
 clearing wide lanes

256
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:06,040
for the tanks and self-propelled
 guns that followed in their
 wake.

257
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,080
Despite this massive assault
 by land and air,

258
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,080
the Red Army continued to
 encounter fierce German
 resistance around Rogachov.

259
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:23,760
But further to the south
 around the village of Parichi,

260
00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:28,760
General Rokossovsky was making
 steady progress through the
 swamps and forests.

261
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:33,600
Now he ordered forward General
 Pliyev s mechanized cavalry
 corps

262
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:34,600
to exploit the breach.

263
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:41,360
Rokossovsky s gamble on a
 two-pronged assault had paid
off.

264
00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:46,280
He had made a breakthrough. And
 he had done it before Zhukov.

265
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:52,560
Army Group Centre s only
 panzer division was ordered

266
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:53,600
to make a counterattack
 near Rogachov.

267
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:57,760
But at the last moment it
 received urgent new orders

268
00:22:59,120 --> 00:23:01,320
to move south
 to block Rokossovsky s advance.

269
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:06,280
Many of its vehicles broke down
 in the difficult, marshy
 terrain.

270
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,840
But Rokossovsky had widened the
 breach and was already pouring
 in fresh troops.

271
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,840
One panzer division
 was not going to stop him now.

272
00:23:20,120 --> 00:23:23,920
German defences around Rogachov,
 robbed of their tank
 reinforcement

273
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,320
and under Zhukov s incessant
 hammer blows, now collapsed.

274
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:32,640
The German Ninth Army was
 encircled. Two days later, it
 surrendered.

275
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:37,600
20,000 Germans were
 taken prisoner.

276
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:46,640
The Red Army s next objective
 was Minsk, the capital of
 Byelorussia.

277
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:52,040
Its liberation was to be led by
 General Rotmistrov s 5th Guards
 Tank Army.

278
00:23:56,120 --> 00:23:59,720
The plan was for Rotmistrov s
 tanks to dash straight down the
 Smolensk-Minsk highway.

279
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,520
But attempts to capture Orsha,
 along the route, had been
 bloodily repulsed.

280
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:10,760
So the decision was taken to
 launch the attack from the
 vicinity of Vitebsk,

281
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:13,240
where the Red Army had already
 blown a hole through the German
 defences.

282
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:19,760
The 5,000 vehicles of the 5th
 Guards Tank Army began their
 attack towards Borisov,

283
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:22,280
deep in the rear of
 Army Group Centre.

284
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:27,040
For two days, their advance
 met virtually no resistance.

285
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:33,320
Meanwhile, Hitler had relieved
 Field Marshal Busch of command.

286
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:35,880
His successor was
 Field Marshal Model,

287
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:38,400
the so-called "Fuehrer s
 fireman" and master of defence.

288
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,720
But he inherited a
 desperate situation.

289
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:46,520
Three Soviet Fronts
 were advancing on Minsk.

290
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,520
The Germans were in full
 retreat, hoping to reach the
 Berezina River.

291
00:24:52,120 --> 00:24:54,040
But the Red Army already held
 most of the crossing points.

292
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,920
The Germans held just one bridge
 on the Mogilev Minsk highway.

293
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,000
Thousands of German vehicles,
 carts and soldiers were now
 converging on the bridge.

294
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:08,160
One German witness
 described the scene.

295
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:12,840
The scramble was wildest on
 the approaches to the bridge.

296
00:25:14,360 --> 00:25:16,440
Carts and cars were trying
 to push each other off the road.

297
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,040
Each wanted to be first onto the
 bridge. There were fights and
 swearing.

298
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:23,480
The military police
 were powerless .

299
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:32,120
And always, there was
 the constant fear of air attack.

300
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,920
"Shturmovik" ground attack
 aircraft mauled retreating
 columns of German troops.

301
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:47,120
Increasingly, the situation
 began to resemble the summer of
 1941.

302
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:49,640
But now the roles were reversed.

303
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:54,560
It was the Germans turn to flee
 in terror and confusion,

304
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:57,800
under incessant
 attack from above.

305
00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:01,480
And now they could expect
 neither respite, nor mercy.

306
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:09,360
As German Army Group Centre
 threatened to disintegrate,

307
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:12,680
the Wehrmacht threw its medium
 bombers into the battle.

308
00:26:14,360 --> 00:26:17,920
It was hoped they could halt
 the Soviet tank columns,

309
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:20,560
and earn their own troops some
 desperately-needed breathing
 space.

310
00:26:28,360 --> 00:26:30,280
But in the face of
 Soviet air superiority,

311
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,240
daylight raids led
 to heavy losses for little gain.

312
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,680
One week into the offensive,
 German panzer divisions began to
 arrive from Ukraine.

313
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:50,400
The German 5th Panzer Division,
 reinforced with a battalion of
 Tiger tanks,

314
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:52,160
prepared to meet the advance
 of Rotmistrov s army.

315
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,120
The Tigers and Panthers slowed
 the Soviet advance to a bloody
 crawl.

316
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:18,800
In July 1944, the 5th Guards
 Tank army had yet to receive the
 new -34-85 tanks.

317
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,560
This updated version had a much
 more powerful 85mm gun.

318
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,840
Although it didn t make them the
 equal of a German Tiger or
 Panther tank,

319
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:30,840
it did make their encounters
 less one-sided.

320
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:37,680
The tank battles
 raged for two days.

321
00:27:44,360 --> 00:27:46,200
The Red Army suffered
 enormous losses.

322
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:52,360
But German tank strength was
 also reduced, from 159 to just
 18 tanks.

323
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,040
The fate of Minsk was sealed.

324
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,640
Tigers and Panthers had bought
 Army Group Centre some time,

325
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:09,880
but they couldn t prop
 up the entire front.

326
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:20,440
At dawn on 3rd July, tanks of
 the 1st and 3rd Byelorussian
 Fronts

327
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:22,160
rolled into Minsk
 from the north and southeast,

328
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:25,640
encircling the remnants
 of two German Armies.

329
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,720
Meanwhile the 2nd Byelorussian
 Front harried the German retreat
 from the east.

330
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,520
It took a week to eradicate
 German resistance within Minsk.

331
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:47,960
The encirclement at Minsk led to
 the capture of another 35,000
 prisoners,

332
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:49,720
including 12 generals.

333
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:54,320
By now German Army Group Centre
 had suffered catastrophic
 losses.

334
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,120
17 of its divisions had been
 wiped out in just two weeks of
 fighting.

335
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:04,840
The Germans had suffered total
 casualties estimated at 409,000.

336
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,880
150,00 of these were prisoners.

337
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,240
The German panzer divisions
 remained a potent weapon.

338
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,440
But Army Group Centre no longer
 had the manpower to form a
 defensive line.

339
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:34,040
Operation Bagration did not end
 until 19th August,

340
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:37,280
by which time the Red Army
 had reached central Poland,

341
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:42,320
the border of East Prussia, and
 the Baltic Sea. Five Soviet
 Fronts,

342
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:47,440
on a front of more than 1,000
 kilometres, had advance between
550 and 600 kilometres.

343
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:53,840
The success of the operation
 surpassed the wildest
 expectations

344
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:56,000
of the Stavka High Command.

345
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:04,360
After Operation Bagration,
 Stalin began to address
 Rokossovsky

346
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:09,080
using both his name and
 patronymic Konstantin
 Konstantinovich.

347
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,640
The only person he d honoured in
 this way before was Marshal
 Shaposhnikov,

348
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,120
his most trusted general.

349
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:24,240
The Soviet victory
 was so overwhelming

350
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,240
that some foreign press agencies
 doubted whether the reports were
 accurate.

351
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,880
So, Stalin decided to prove it.

352
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,000
He gave the order to begin
 Operation The Great Waltz,

353
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,040
named after a popular
 American film of 1938.

354
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:44,080
Trains from Byelorussia secretly
 began to arrive in Moscow.

355
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:49,960
The Central Moscow Hippodrome
 and the Dynamo Stadium were
 cordoned off.

356
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:58,120
On 17 July it was announced to
 the public that German
 prisoners-of-war

357
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:01,280
captured in Operation Bagration
 would be paraded through the
 streets of Moscow.

358
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,800
Muscovites poured onto the
streets to witness this strange
 spectacle.

359
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:11,800
The procession was led by 19
 German generals in full uniform.

360
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:15,920
They were followed
 by more than 1,000 officers.

361
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,000
After them shuffled columns
 of weary, unshaven soldiers.

362
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:35,280
This was what Stalin
 wanted the world to see

363
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,640
the fate of Adolf Hitler s
 once proud conquering army.

364
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,160
The people of Moscow watched
 for the most part in silence.

365
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:02,040
In many of their minds, the
 German soldier had become almost
 totally dehumanised.

366
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:10,400
The Soviet people had been
 subjected to endless propaganda.

367
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,920
But they had also suffered
 terrible and brutal losses.

368
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,240
To many, the German soldier
 was a fascist beast,

369
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:25,560
responsible for murders and
 rapes, and the burning of
 villages and towns.

370
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:42,680
57,000 German prisoners
 were paraded through the city,

371
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:44,000
on route to labour
 camps in the east.

372
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,080
The procession was followed up
 by street cleaners,

373
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,360
washing away all trace
 of the hated fascists.

374
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:04,400
This startling display made
a huge impression on Muscovites

375
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:06,720
and foreign observers alike,
 as was its intention.

376
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,560
Now none had any doubt in the
 war s ultimate victorious
 conclusion.

377
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,160
The collapse of German Army
 Group Centre allowed the Red
 Army

378
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:25,200
to continue its advance towards
 Poland and East Prussia.

379
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:32,960
In the Baltic region, the
 advance was led by General
 Bagramyan s 1st Baltic Front

380
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:35,520
and General Chernyakhovsky s 3rd
 Byelorussian Front.

381
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:41,360
On 8th July Chernyakhovsky s
 troops reached the outskirts of
Vilnius.

382
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,080
The city was soon surrounded,
 and after five days of vicious
 house-to-house fighting,

383
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:52,480
the garrison laid down its arms.

384
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,640
The 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps
 made a bold and rapid advance,

385
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:06,080
covering 70 kilometres to reach
 the Lithuanian city of Šiauliai.

386
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:14,600
On 31st July, the commander
 of its 8th Mechanized Brigade

387
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:18,040
radioed corps headquarters to
 tell them, We re on the beach
 of the Gulf of Riga .

388
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:23,480
This short radio message
 meant something incredible

389
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:27,360
all German forces in the Baltic
 were now cut off.

390
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,000
The commander s report
 was so unexpected

391
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:35,960
that his corps commander
 asked him to repeat it.

392
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:42,120
Then he have him the following
 unusual order: Fill three
 bottles with sea water.

393
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:47,560
Then seal the bottles, and have
 the commander sign them
 personally

394
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:49,520
to confirm that the water was
 taken from the Baltic Sea.

395
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:52,680
Then send the bottles
 to corps headquarters.

396
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,440
The bottles of sea water were
 delivered to Front headquarters
 by aircraft,

397
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,120
and from there sent to Moscow
 they were on their way to
 Stalin.

398
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:07,960
Soon, the bottles stood
 on a Kremlin table,

399
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:12,920
as proof that Soviet tanks
 had reached the sea.

400
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:20,480
Operation Bagration had smashed
 open the Eastern Front.

401
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:26,440
Now the Red Army was on the move
 in the Baltic. Next stop was
 Tallinn.

402
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,320
The Estonian capital was the
 objective of Red Army units

403
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:34,280
of the 8th Estonian Rifle Corps,
 under Lieutenant General Pärn.

404
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:39,840
He organised a motorised column
 which covered a hundred
kilometres in one day.

405
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,440
His men stormed into Tallinn and
 took the city on 22nd September,
 1944.

406
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:52,520
Now there just remained German
 Army Group North, trapped in the
 Courland Peninsula.

407
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:58,720
Despite repeated requests from
 General Guderian, now Chief of
 the General Staff,

408
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:02,760
Hitler refused to allow the
 troops to be evacuated from
 Courland.

409
00:36:07,240 --> 00:36:10,520
The German pocket in Courland
 was described as "an armed
 prisoner of war camp".

410
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:15,960
The troops trapped there ceased
 to have any influence on the
course of the war.

411
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:23,000
Army Group Courland finally laid
 down its arms on 11th May, 1945,

412
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:25,760
two days after
 Germany s surrender.

413
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:35,480
The Red Army had reached the
 border of East Prussia. It was
 here, at Königsberg,

414
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,760
that remnants of Army Group
 Centre had withdrawn after
 defeat in Byelorussia.

415
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:48,360
The shattered German formations
 had received new recruits and
 new weaponry.

416
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,000
The Red Army couldn t safely
 bypass such a potential hornet s
 nest.

417
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:00,840
Nor did the prospect of a long
siege appeal to the Stavka.

418
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:09,920
The decision was taken
 to isolate East Prussia

419
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:13,800
with a thrust north into East
 Pomerania, towards Danzig on the
 Baltic coast.

420
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:19,560
Then resistance in East Prussia
 would be methodically broken
 down. It would be hard.

421
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:24,360
Many German units now fought
 fanatically to defend Germany

422
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:25,600
from the wrath of the Red Army.

423
00:37:33,240 --> 00:37:36,520
The job of breaking through
 to the Baltic was entrusted

424
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:41,200
to Rokossovsky s 2nd
 Byelorussian Front. He attacked
 on 14th January 1945.

425
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,120
But just one day into the
 offensive, the weather took a
 turn for the worse.

426
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:57,480
Rokossovsky recalled: It was
 already daylight but nothing
 could be seen:

427
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:01,280
everything was hidden by a veil
 of mist and falling snow.

428
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,280
The weather was abominable, and
 the meteorologists predicted no
 improvement.

429
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:09,240
So I cancelled all
 air operations.

430
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,040
The artillery fired blindly
 into the snowstorm.

431
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:23,240
The infantry advance was slow,
 just 3 or 4 kilometres on the
 first day.

432
00:38:26,240 --> 00:38:29,800
The Germans stiffened their
defence with Tiger tanks and
 Sturmgeschütz assault guns.

433
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:36,000
General Reinhardt, now in
 command of Army Group Centre,

434
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:38,960
still hoped to launch an
 armoured counterattack to stem
 the Soviet advance.

435
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,880
But his tanks were sent south to
 face more Soviet offensives on
 the Vistula.

436
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,960
Reinhardt could only call on the
 elite Panzergrenadier division,
 Grossdeutschland.

437
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:59,200
As it began its advance, it ran
 into 500 Soviet tanks of the
 Front reserve.

438
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:08,800
By 1945, the -34/85 was
the main tank of the Red Army.

439
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,600
It retained many of the
 characteristics of the earlier
 T-34/76,

440
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,400
such as excellent
 mobility and reliability.

441
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:20,960
The main improvement
 was a powerful 85 mm gun,

442
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:26,280
housed in a larger three-man
 turret. The size of the crew was
 increased to 5.

443
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,840
About 80,000 of these tanks
 were produced by the USSR

444
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,560
before production finally
 came to an end in 1950.

445
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:40,680
They remained in service with
 many armies around the world
 until the 1990s.

446
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:47,160
After having defeated
the enemy s tank reserve,

447
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,440
Rokossovsky ordered forward
 the 5th Guards Tank Army.

448
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,280
Reinhardt appealed to Hitler:

449
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:04,400
My Fuhrer! A captured enemy map
 shows that the Russian tank army

450
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,760
is moving towards Danzig.
 If it gets through,

451
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,320
we ll be attacked from the rear
 and unable to defend ourselves.

452
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:15,960
Reinhardt requested
 permission to retreat.

453
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:21,640
Nine days passed before Hitler
 agreed. By then it was too late.

454
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,120
The Soviet tanks
 had reached the Vistula Lagoon.

455
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,360
East Prussia had been cut off
from the Reich.

456
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:43,120
Chernyakhovsky 3rd Byelorussian
 Front had arrived at Königsberg
 from the east.

457
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,360
German Army Group Centre had
 been chopped into three parts.

458
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:55,720
Bad weather prevented
 the Soviet air force

459
00:40:55,720 --> 00:40:57,840
attacking the retreating
 columns of men and vehicles.

460
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,520
This allowed the Germans
 to assemble improvised

461
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:02,800
fighting groups
 around Konigsberg.

462
00:41:04,240 --> 00:41:06,080
They were still able
 to offer fierce resistance.

463
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,520
On 18th February 1945,
 General Chernyakhovsky,

464
00:41:13,720 --> 00:41:14,960
commander of the 3rd
Byelorussian Front,

465
00:41:16,240 --> 00:41:18,640
was badly wounded
 by shell fragments at Mehlsack.

466
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:23,040
He died the same day.
 He was just 39 years old.

467
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:30,160
Marshal Vasilevsky arrived to
 take command of Soviet troops in
 East Prussia.

468
00:41:32,240 --> 00:41:36,160
Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky was
 the Chief of the Soviet General
 Staff

469
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:40,360
for most of the war.
 This meant he was responsible

470
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:43,120
for planning most of the major
 Soviet operations on the Eastern
 Front.

471
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:48,000
He was described by colleagues
 as polite and diplomatic,

472
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:49,240
and he was trusted by Stalin.

473
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:54,320
However some said Vasilevsky
 lacked the courage to stand up
 to him.

474
00:41:57,720 --> 00:42:00,640
Vasilevsky was twice decorated
 as "Hero of the Soviet Union".

475
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:08,480
Gradually German resistance
 in East Prussia was overcome.

476
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:12,040
The pocket south of Konigsberg
 was first to fall.

477
00:42:12,720 --> 00:42:16,520
Königsberg itself did not
 surrender until April 1945.

478
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:10,640
In East Prussia the Red Army
 faced fanatical German
 resistance.

479
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:13,960
But Soviet firepower
 was overwhelming.

480
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:24,560
In his memoirs, Vasilevsky
described the East Prussian
 Offensive

481
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:27,560
as the most expensive in history
 in terms of the consumption of
 ammunition.

482
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:31,160
He estimated that
 in this campaign,

483
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:34,920
the Red Army used over 15,000
 railway carriages of ammunition.

484
00:43:44,720 --> 00:43:47,760
The fortified city of Konigsberg

485
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,880
was finally pummelled into
 submission by the Soviet
 artillery.

486
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:54,800
Its surrender netted the Red
 Army another 92,000 prisoners.

487
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,560
By this point, Marshal Zhukov
 was putting the final touches

488
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:05,000
on his plan for the
 assault on Berlin.

489
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:12,920
To the south, fighting continued
 to rage in Czechoslovakia and
 Hungary.

490
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:16,520
The 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts
 battled elite SS divisions

491
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:17,760
as they advanced on Austria.

492
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,880
All had been made possible by
 the success of Operation
 Bagration.

493
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:33,680
In the south, too, the Red Army
 had travelled a long and bitter
 road to victory.

494
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:39,000
It had begun many miles
 to the east in 1943,

495
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,680
as Soviet troops prepared
 to cross the Dnieper River.

496
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:46,240
Before them, lay the
 Battle of Ukraine