Original subtitles

The 8th of May, 1945.

The last German troops tried to escape the anger

of the occupied people of Europe.

8th of May, 1945.

All capital cities celebrate the victory,

except Berlin and Tokyo.

8th of May, 1945.

Hitler is dead. Field marshall, Keitel,

signs the surrender of Nazi Germany.

A symbol of liberty regained,

the US Cavalry frees its horses.

(galloping horses)

(violin music)

April, 1945.

Nazi Germany is under attack from both sides.

In the east, the Red Army advances towards the Elbe,

the last line of resistance.

The Germans retreat from the other side of the river

to escape the reprises of the Russians,

who have suffered 20 million deaths

in this pitiless war against the Germans.

One of the ongoing issues between the Germans and the Allies

would be to allow the maximum of Germans

to escape this vengeance.

(dramatic music)

Millions of civilians flee from the Russians.

Rumors are rife.

They kill, they loot, they rape.

(intimidating music)

The other issue concerns Berlin.

Who will arrive first?

The British in the north, the Americans in the center,

the French in the south?

The Western Allies ferociously attack the fanatics.

The SS hang the deserters

where the Allies will discover them.

The German forces will resist to the bitter end.

The Germans themselves

no longer have the will to resist.

They have lost five million soldiers.

They have suffered heavy bombing for three years.

Their towns are in ruins, like here in Nuremburg,

the birthplace of Nazism.

It must end.

The Allies have one main objective,

unconditional surrender.

A leader, American, General Eisenhower,

nicknamed Ike, a good organizer and diplomat.

He wrote to his wife, the famous Mamie Eisenhower,

whom he married in 1916.

It's difficult to lead a coalition

with such strong personalities like those of

Monty and George.

Monty, Marshall Montgomery,

victorious in the desert battles

and now the head of the British Army in Europe.

George, George S. Patton,

one of the most famous American generals

who always wants to lead his tanks forward,

and doesn't understand why Eisenhower holds him back.

These are the orders from Washington,

the consequences of decisions taken at Yalta.

The conference of February 1945 between the big three,

the President of the United States,

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the British Prime Minister,

Winston Churchill, and the Chief of what was then known as

the Soviet Union, the USSR, Joseph Stalin.

Roosevelt, already in poor health, gives in to the Russian.

An occupied zone in Berlin and a part of the rest of Europe,

very favorable for Stalin.

Iossif Vissarionovich Djougachvili

better known as Stalin, the man of steel,

had made the USSR a totalitarian state.

It's hard to believe the terror he inspired.

Here, an aide slavishly repeats his moves.

Stalin had an inner circle of accomplices,

including Lavrenti Pavlovitch Beria,

who was also from Georgia.

Stalin seems to appreciate him here.

Beria is the Minister of Interior

and Chief of the Secret Police, the NKVD,

later known as the KGB, which deported

millions of people to the Gulag.

Stalin didn't like to be filmed with him,

especially if caught in informal situations.

Stalin surrounds himself with his chosen people.

He replaces his high command with men like Zhukov,

here on the left, also imitating his every move.

Zhukov is also a great strategist

who leads the offensive on Berlin, symbol of victory.

During their advance, the Soviets discovered

the horrific world of Hitler's concentration camps.

The Nazis assassinated 10 million human beings.

Jews, gypsies, Russian prisoners, underground fighters.

This murderous madness is not just ideology

but stems from pure organized crime.

The SS salvage everything, even the most sordid.

The Russians discovered 7 tons of women's hair

destined to make German uniforms,

and 122 tons of bones waiting to be dispatched

to a fertilizer plant.

The Americans discover hoards of belongings,

which the SS had amassed at the bottom of a salt mine

at Merkers, near Frankfurt.

(slow music)

Piles of gold teeth, wedding rings,

8,000 ingots of gold, silver, and platinum,

1,000 sacks of dollars, pounds, and gold francs,

and many works of art,

the plunder of Europe.

The discovery of the concentration camps

would change the very nature of the fight against Nazism.

The first American soldiers to enter Buchenwald

were horrified. They contacted their general, George Patton,

a tough fighter, but he couldn't face it.

He had his superiors sent, Bradley and Eisenhower,

who informed Washington by telegram

beginning with the words,

"Never have I seen anything like it in my life."

Beyond his emotional response,

Eisenhower wanted to make a political point.

"I insisted on making this visit to be witness

so that in the future, we cannot be accused of propoganda."

With future denials in mind, he prepares his ground.

He has a documentary film made.

He brings 1,000 local people from Weimar,

a town close by,

and he invites many journalists who write,

"In our fight, it isn't enough just to use big words

like the defense of liberty, the crusade for democracy.

It's about absolute evil,

the fight for life over death."

The Allies.

Here, a British officer refuses to shake the hands

offered by the Germans.

The Germans, forced to bury their dead

from the concentration camps, will bear this cross

for a long time.

(slow music)

The Wehrmacht sent the crippled and the aged to the fronts.

Others are very young.

They can't find uniforms to fit them.

Don't misunderstand this.

They aren't crying like lost children,

they are crying with rage.

These are amongst the worst.

All the German youngsters were forced

into the Hitlerjunge, the Hitler Youth.

Manipulated and indoctrinated by hate since childhood,

no longer capable of feeling any pity.

They will join the herds of German prisoners

left behind and abandoned.

The Allies have other priorities.

(unhappy music)

(men humming)

Their nightmare will continue long after the war,

especially for those who will fall into the hands

of the Russians, and the 750,000 who will be

allocated to France, which is in ruins.

They will also be used in clearing the mine fields.

France is infested with millions of mines,

for the most part, planted by other Germans.

Many will lose arms, legs, or their lives.

Mine clearing, reconstruction, reshaping French politics,

just some of the tasks facing General de Gaulle,

now the head of the provisional government,

which is housed in the Ministry of War

to make the priority clear, the struggle against Germany.

(cheering)

Under the orders of General de Lattre,

the first French Army have just crossed the Rhine,

marching towards the Danube.

(explosions)

(gunshots)

France has been liberated, except for Dunkerque,

Lorient, St. Nazaire, La Rochelle, Royan.

German strongholds, submarine bases from which

the Nazi chiefs can still escape.

These Atlantic pockets are surrounded by former guerrillas,

badly equipped, badly armed, but courageous and determined.

They are aided by the famous General Leclerc's

2nd Armored Division, which helps to liberate

Royan, destroyed by the Allied bombing.

Criminal because useless.

On this day, 20 of April, the German prisoners

still display the aggressive look of those who know

that Hitler is still alive.

20 of April, 1945, is his birthday.

He is 56.

The Minister of Propoganda, Joseph Goebbels,

as is usual on this day, makes his annual radio broadcast.

"Hitler," he says, "will be the man of the century.

Soon, Germany will be saved,

and its gardens will bloom again.

In this abyss of suffering in which we now find ourselves,

my fervent wish is that he remains,

as he always has been, our Adolf Hitler."

25th of April, 1945.

The Americans from the west, the Soviets from the east,

meet up at Torgau, near Leipzig,

in front of the destroyed bridge on the Elbe.

An advanced platoon of the American 69th Infantry Division

meet the first elements of the 58th Division of the Guard.

All the generals from the sector joined them,

then a crowd of journalists, amongst them,

Frank Gillard from the BBC.

... the whole Allied world has been waiting.

Nazi Germany, contrary to her final collapse,

has been split clean in half.

(cheering)

Next time, we will be at the Brandenburg gate in Berlin.

Brothers in arms are still brothers

for at least as the nostalgic Russian song lasts

or the dance continues.

(accordian music)

The Russians danced together but not with the Americans,

who are busy trying their luck with the robust women

military traffic police of the Red Army.

The Soviet tanks advance relentlessly.

The battle for Berlin claims 100,000 lives.

(cannon fire)

(fire burning)

(slow music)

(tank motors)

For the first time since the German invasion of the 22nd

of June, 1941, the Soviet soldiers can relax.

Of those drafted at the beginning of the war,

only 5% are still alive.

(piano music)

The traffic is now directed by the women soldiers

from Torgau.

Ana Pavlova has survived.

She's at her post at the Brandenburg Gate,

but she's disappointed.

I'm, at last, at the center of Berlin,

and I try hard to stop them,

but nobody takes any notice of me.

Come back when you want. I'm not moving from here.

Marshall Zhukov, who won at Moscow,

Stalingrad, and Berlin, walks through the ruins

of the Reichstag, which was the political heart of Germany.

(drums beating)

This is what is left of the great chancellery,

from where Hitler terrified the world.

(haunting sounds)

In the middle of what was once Hitler's imposing office,

the famous globe parodied in the Charlie Chaplin film,

The Great Dictator.

In the courtyard of the chancellery,

Zhukov savors his triumph.

He is exactly above the bunker

where Hitler lived out his last days

during the battle for Berlin.

Hitler shot himself in the head on the 30th of April

after marrying Ava Braun, who then poisoned herself.

Hitler had arranged for their bodies to be burned.

The Soviets captured Admiral Hans-Erich Voss,

naval attache to the fuhrer.

He was in the bunker.

(dramatic music)

The Soviets take the bodies and place them next to those

of Goebbel's children,

a young boy and five young girls.

It was their mother, Magda Goebbels herself,

who poisoned them before she and her husband

both swallowed cyonide capsules.

Goebbels had also arranged for the SS

to burn his corpse.

Voss continues the identification process,

after which, he is taken into captivity for 10 years.

He'll have time to think about the last thoughts

noted in Goebbel's diary.

"The world will remember us

as the biggest criminals in history."

The street names have to be changed.

Every German town and village has its Hitler Strasse.

The sign painters are going to have a lot of work.

(trumpet music)

Mussolini was executed by guerrillas

who are displaying here a German overcoat he was wearing

in the hope of passing unnoticed,

but it was difficult in this kind of car.

Nearby, a unit of the SS, which could protect him,

didn't move. They have no orders anymore,

but are still armed.

They allow an Ally cameraman to film them,

a real scope. Before that, it had been quite dangerous

even to get anywhere near them.

The last remaining fascists are captured by the Italians,

now on the side of the Allies.

Italians, under American command,

shoot other Italians.

The worst wars are civil wars.

His crimes meet the cruelty of others.

(gunshots)

The British forces advance in the north of Italy.

The Americans overcome the last pockets of resistance.

(tanks firing)

The 2nd of May, the German army in Italy surrenders.

The next day, in Flensburg in the north Germany,

Hitler's successor, Admiral Donitz,

the former Chief of Submaries, calls the last

government of the Reich in this naval college.

They decide to end the war but, if possible,

only on the western front.

This would allow most of the soldiers and civilians

to escape from the Russians.

Donitz dispatches his deputy, Admiral Von Friedeburg,

to the headquarters of the British forces,

not far away now.

On the 4th of May, Montgomery accepts

only a local surrender of the German forces

in northern Germany.

(dramatic music)

The German delegation will now sign this,

this paper.

This paper has indeed

little significance for Montgomery,

who has Friedeburg driven to the headquarters

of the Allied forces in Reims.

This time, accompanied by Jodl,

number two of the Wehrmacht.

Jodl and Friedeburg try again to get a cease fire.

The Ally delegation remains inflexible,

unconditional surrender.

Yet, all these discussions and signings

have given 3 million refugees and soldiers

the time to cross over into the west.

This triggers Stalin's anger.

He demands a final surrender ceremony in Berlin.

Berlin, what a symbol

to make everyone understand that he had won the war.

France, represented by General Sevez,

signs only as a witness in Reims.

De Gaulle wants to have a better role in Berlin.

The surrender is signed.

Germany is defeated.

Then, Jodl stands up and says in English,

"I want to say a word."

Then, in a voice broken with emotion, he says,

"The German people and its army are in your hands.

I hope the victor treats us generously."

"What a nerve!" says the American general, Bedell Smith,

thinking about the manner in which the Germans

had treated their victims.

(piano music)

Eisenhower takes the two historic pens

and makes the "V for victory" sign.

Near him is Kay Summersby, his chauffer and secretary.

Everyone here closes their eyes to their story.

Is Ike going to divorce Mamie and marry Kay?

(dramatic music)

A special edition of Stars and Stripes,

the American Army newspaper,

comes out in Paris in the afternoon of the 7th of May,

in spite of instructions for discretion

so as not to upset the Russians.

The Paris evening newspapers make headlines.

The first crowds begin to gather

in front of the opera house.

(cheering)

(soft music)

Spontaneously, they wave the portrait of Roosevelt,

who had died a few days before,

as a big thank you to him.

In America, the news of the German surrender

causes an outburst of joy

amongst the exuberant New Yorkers.

The American government, on the other hand,

keeps a low profile, again, not to upset Stalin,

who so much wants his own celebration in Berlin.

The New Yorkers are quick to understand,

and turn their attention to the big news of the day,

the opening of the film, Salome,

directed by Charles Lamont and starring Yvonne De Carlo.

(slow music)

Because of the time difference,

we move to the 8th of May, 1945.

In Paris, from daybreak on, thousands of wives

wait in front of the main meeting point

for the French prisoners of war, repatriated from Germany.

There are still 1 million in Germany.

Liberated after 5 long years, they make their way

to the Allied airports all over Germany.

Eisenhower has taken the decision

to organize an enormous airlift.

(uplifting music)

In a few days, the miracle happens.

They are back.

(slow music)

(plane engines)

(car horn)

(suspenseful music)

(cheering)

He's here!

More patience is needed.

There's a lot of administration ahead.

The deportees arrive in their striped uniforms.

It will take them years to forget the horror

and the feelings of shame.

Serious diseases, like tuberculosis,

will continue to ravage them for a long time to come.

The 8th of May, 3 o'clock on the Champs-Elysees,

the crowds begin to gather.

General De Gaulle is coming.

He doesn't want to wait for the final signature

to address his people.

Today will be a historic speech,

broadcast live from the Place de l'Etoile,

later become known Place Charles de Gaulle.

(cheering)

As de Gaulle arrives at the Arch of Triumph,

he is unaware of what is happening in Algeria

at the very same moment.

At Setif and Guelma, near Constantine,

the victory celebrations are turning into

demonstrations for dependents.

Some French settlers are massacred

and the reprisals are terrible.

General Duval, the commander in Algeria,

will warn de Gaulle, "We have overcome the rebellion,

but if steps towards reforms are not taken soon,

the same thing will happen again in ten years."

(cheering)

(plane motor)

London is in the midst of clearing up the ruins

of the German bombing.

They don't wait for the final signature either,

paying homage to Churchill,

whose voice we can hear announcing

the surrender of the Germans.

General Jodl,

the representative of the German high command,

and Grand Admiral Doenitz...

Churchill, who had saved England,

and perhaps the world, by stopping Hitler

in the worst moment of history.

(cheering)

The Royal Airforce had won the Battle of Britain,

and now receives its honors.

Air Marshal Tedder is in Berlin.

The big moment has arrived,

the final signature of the German surrender.

Tedder has just landed at Tempelhof,

one of the German fighter bases.

Tedder looks thoughtfully at one of his worst enemies,

a Focke-Wulf 190, now abandoned.

He sees General de Lattre arrive,

who is going to sign for France.

De Gaulle have finally got him accepted.

He is given a big Soviet reception

worthy of the event.

When de Lattre arrives at the Soviet headquarters

in Karlshorst, near Berlin, where the signature

is to take place, he gets a shock.

All the war correspondents are here,

and there isn't a French flag.

De Lattre flies into one of his famous fits of rage,

and demands that one is made immediately.

The German delegation arrives.

It is headed by the imposing field marshall, Keitel,

Chief of the army, accompanied by General Stumpff

for the Luftwaffe, and Admiral Fon Friedeburg

for the Kriegsmarine.

At Karlshorst, the Soviets take great pleasure

in making the Germans wait all day in a small room where,

one imagines, the atmosphere is quite heavy.

Keitel, awarded the Nazi party gold medal,

was despised by the German generals because of his

stupidity and his servile attitude towards Hitler.

Here he is in the hands of the Russians.

Admiral Friedeburg, who has already surrendered

to Montgomery and Eisenhower, is facing the idea

of surrendering a third time.

Zhukov opens the ceremony.

Keitel enters, giving a theatrical salute.

No one responds.

He's heard to remark bitterly,

"How come there are French people here?"

Then, he tries to make believe he's reading

the text of the surrender for the first time.

This exasperates Zhukov and he makes it clear

that Keitel doesn't have a great deal of joy.

"There's nothing else to do, Air Marshall,"

says his aide, sadly.

Keitel will be hanged in Nuremberg.

Friedeberg will commit suicide

under a portrait of Donitz.

At Flensberg, the last government of the Reich

is brought to an end.

Donitz, Hitler's successor, ten years in prison.

Albert Speer, architect to the chancellery,

Minister of Armaments, 20 years.

Jodl, hanged.

To mark this historic occasion,

Zhukov invites all the participants to a banquet

with, of course, plenty of caviar and vodka

for the toast to Stalin.

Radio Moscow broadcast its famous opening

for special events.

"This is Moscow," says the star speaker, Yuri Levitan.

His forceful voice had galvanized the masses

throughout the war, and Hitler had put a price on his head.

Today, Levitan roars, "By a most bloody battle, the land

of the Soviets has saved civilization from German fascism."

The Soviet newsreels showed celebrations

in Stalin's home village.

The first toast is to comrade Stalin,

who defeated fascism.

(people cheering)

(children singing)

(applause)

The 8th of May, 1945.

Molotov, Stalin's minister of foreign affairs,

is in San Francisco.

At the first general assembly of the United Nations,

Molotov is cheered as he goes to announce

the end of the war.

Suddenly, his speech turns threatening.

"Millions of people are ready to take up arms

to protect their country," he says,

directing his remarks to the American Secretary of State,

Edward Stettinius, and the British delegate, Anthony Eden.

Both of them try to affront him with what is called

the Polish question.

Stalin is taking over this unforunate country,

disregarding all his promises.

At the same time, in the midst of the ruins of Warsaw,

the Soviets organize a gathering for the few survivors

to celebrate the 8th of May.

The banners proclaim, "With the Soviet Union forever!"

The Poles mumble, "Forever? Okay, but not a minute longer."

Prague is in revolt against the German occupiers

who have to fight back in spite of the general surrender.

The Czechs are fighting before the Russians arrive.

Perhaps the Americans will arrive before them.

Patton's army has crossed the border.

They can't be far away.

Their advance is strewn with flowers.

General Marshall in Washington issues an order to Eisenhower

to stop Patton and to allow the Soviets to take Prague.

The Red Army enters the Czech capital.

Stalin's bet on the weakness of the west has paid off.

On the 12th of May, Churchill will write,

"An iron curtain has fallen across Europe.

We don't know what's going on behind it."

(dramatic music)

Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's Minister of Police,

arrives in Berlin.

His first visit is to the ruins of the chancellery.

Then, to Hitler's bunker, an old story by now.

Beria goes, next, to Torgau,

where the Allies met the Russians.

That's an old story too.

Here in Torgau, Beria organizes a construction

of a concentration camp called Special Camp No. 8.

He organizes the reopening of the Buchenwald camp,

evacuated by the Americans, but is now in the Soviet zone.

Yes, Hitler's death camp, Buchenwald, becomes

Special Camp No. 2.

In Buchenwald, 122,671

Germans, considered as anti-Soviet elements,

Christians, social democrats, those against Stalinism,

would be interned.

42,889 would starve to death.

The USSR demands that repatriation

of the Soviet prisoners of war in Germany,

who had been liberated by the Allies.

Many are afraid to return.

It would be better for them to have been killed

than to have surrendered.

Some attempt suicide, like this one,

who has slashed his chest.

The Americans round them up and load them onto trains

for the USSR, where some Allied prisoners

are still retained to be used as a bargaining force.

The Soviet prisoners will be deported to the Gulag.

(train passing)

Western Europe needs American aide

to help reestablish itself.

De Gaulle, becoming increasingly friendly

towards the United States, bestows the liberation medal

on Eisenhower, who would always have difficulty

with this French traditional greeting.

De Gaulle goes to America

to visit Harry Truman, the new President,

and to pay his respects to the tomb of Roosevelt,

a man who has never been too kindly

towards him to say the least.

All that is forgotten.

De Gaulle delivers a speech in English,

quite exceptional.

The first thing I want to say is thank you.

Without you, American people,

led by your great presidents,

Roosevelt and Truman,

it would have been no future for Europe,

but an intolerable servitude.

Now, we have to organize the world.

In this immense task, the United States

has to play the leading part.

It is the earnest desire of France

to unite her efforts to yours

in a spirit of confidence and friendship.

Long live the United States of America!

(applause)

Eisenhower returns,

a homecoming triumphful, but also a little sad.

Mamie is waiting for him and throws herself

into his arms. It's the end for Kay Summersby.

General Marshall, the head of the American army,

had refused Eisenhower's request for a divorce

with this remark.

"When so many of your soldiers are weeping, being far from

their families, such a behavior is unacceptable."

The GIs return aboard the Queen Elizabeth or the Queen Mary,

which now shuttle from Europe to the States.

Everybody aboard knows that the war isn't over.

It continues on the other side of the world.

Another hell.

The kamikazes.

(explosions)

The bloody fighting in Okinawa.

(gunfire)

Victory over Japan looks costly.

Americans speed up their efforts for the atomic bomb.

A high-level team of scientists,

led by Professor Oppenheimer,

prepares the test of the first nuclear weapon in history.

(suspenseful music)

It will end the war against Japan.

It will also serve to halt Stalin.

Stalin wants to show the world his power.

A grand victory parade is organized in Red Square.

The flags of the defeated army

are thrown at his feet.

Now, the cold war can begin.

(cannon fire)

(orchestral music)

(drumming)