All language subtitles for Apocalypse.Hitler.Takes.On.The.East.S01E02.1080p.HDTV.H264-CBFM.eng

Between 1939 and 1940,

Hitler crushed Europe.

Then he launched
Operation Barbarossa,

the invasion of
the Soviet Union.

On September 6th, 1941, Hitler
issues his directive Number 35,

under the code name Typhoon,

the attack on Moscow.

Like all Germans, Hans Baur,
Hitler's personal pilot,

is confident.

No doubt about it, the
Wehrmacht will defeat the

Russian army.

The Führer will
defeat the Red Tzar.

This will be the decisive fight.

After three months of fighting,

the German advance on the
three axes of attack has made

its way inside Russia.

Leningrad is surrounded,
Moscow is threatened.

In the south, Kharkiv,
the major Ukrainian city,

is under siege.

In Kharkiv, the
sixth German army,

whose objective is further away,

first Stalingrad,
then Baku for oil,

encounters fierce
Russian resistance.

The Red Army has already
lost three million soldiers.

Yet, miraculously, it
keeps up the fight.

For Hitler, passing through
his chalet in the Bavarian Alps,

the Berghof, these are
only the last battles before

the final victory.

Eva Braun, his hidden mistress,

his guests, and the immense
majority of Germans believe

that Hitler has
always been successful,

and that he will
continue to succeed.

He is a charming, gallant man,
and no one suspects,

or wants to suspect, the horrors
committed under his orders,

since the beginning
of the invasion,

such as the
massacre of the Jews.

Who dares say a word?

Only in the privacy of the
home will a German soldier,

returning on leave,
speak of his war.

Families discover
that their husbands,

fathers, and sons are
following criminal orders on

the Eastern Front.

Soldiers tell of the
unleashing of anti-Semitism in

Ukraine, legitimized by Hitler.

The malaise makes
its way up the ladder.

Hitler's generals believe that
it may damage the morale of

both the troops and
the German people.

Additionally, the
executions of civilians,

of women and children, in
what is known today as the

Holocaust by bullets, use
up too much ammunition.

Chief executioner
Heinrich Himmler

has commissioned
designs for death factories.

Nazi engineers are working
on plans for a large-scale
killing process,

with gas chambers
and crematoriums.

Auschwitz, in Poland, is one
of six extermination camps,

At Auschwitz, some of the
prisoners work for German

industrialist IG Farben.

The others are gassed.

This is what the Nazis
call the Final Solution.

Work sets one free

But he still must defeat Stalin.

Yesterday's
enemies are today's allies.

An Englishman, Stafford Cripps,

appointed by Churchill
as ambassador to Moscow,

comes to conclude a
military alliance.

Molotov, Stalin's shadow,
reminds the Russian leader:

"Let's not delude ourselves."

The capitalists
still want to kill us,

"but they need us."

On September 30, 1941, three
months after the start of the

German invasion, General
Guderian's 2nd, 3rd, and
4th Panzer divisions,

already victorious in the

Battle of France, continue
their relentless march towards

the Soviet capital.

Moscow is in a state of panic
as early snow falls on the city.

Thousands of
Muscovites try to flee.

The administration and the
diplomatic corps are evacuated.

As in the Politburo,
the seat of power.

On October 17th, 1941, Russian
journalist Leonid Timofeev

"notes:" The population
doesn't hide its hostile,

contemptuous attitude
towards its leaders.

They have abandoned us.

"People are bitter,
they feel betrayed."

Stalin, however, stays put.

He orders resistance to the end.

The city's countless
loudspeakers broadcast
this song:

"We will drive a
bullet into the forehead,

of the putrid fascist vermin!"

Muscovites are requisitioned
to build barriers.

But can they stop
Guderian's tanks?

The last able-bodied
men are mobilized.

Many of them are workers from
the capital's arms factories,

who have received orders to
destroy their machines so that

they don't fall into
the hands of the Nazis.

Few even know how
to handle a rifle.

But where is the Red Army?

It was just defeated in Kharkiv,

to the south of Moscow,
on October 24th, 1941.

The German newsreels show
hundreds of thousands of

Russian prisoners.

Paradoxically, this
worries the spectators.

In the cinemas, they
whisper to each other:

"We already have restrictions
and ration cards.

How will we ever
feed all these men?"

As usual, Hitler simply
lets them starve to death.

"He says:" We are
fighting an enemy that

does not consist
of human beings,

"but of animals or beasts."

Hitler arrives at
his headquarters,

The Wolf's Lair near
the Russian border.

First, he orders a
massive bombing of Moscow.

The bombings take
place night after night,

The Muscovites take
cover in the subway,

the world's most
beautiful subway,

the people's temple, as
intended by the regime.

November 6th, 1941.

Everyone sleeping in the
huge Mayakovsky station,

named after the
eminent Russian poet,

is evicted by the police.

Stalin arrives on
a subway train.

Sheltered underground
in this flowery setting,

under a large bust of Lenin,
Stalin wants to show everyone

that the Soviet
State is still standing.

The Communist Party leaders
who didn't flee are gathered

on chairs stolen from
the Bolshoi Theater.

They applaud at length.

One should never be the
first to stop clapping.

The dignitaries are there,
next to the most fearsome man

of all, police chief Beria.

Stalin signals Pronin,
to stop clapping.

Stalin's speech
is highly awaited.

He pessimistically states:

"Comrades! After four months of
war, I must emphasize that this"

danger has not
only not grown less,

"but, on the contrary,
has even increased."

After a long speech, they launch
into a heartfelt rendition

of The Internationale,
the revolutionary anthem.

At dawn on November 7th,
the following morning,

snow and fog ground the
German bomber planes.

But for how long?

Stalin emerges from his
shelter for the cameras.

Only for a few minutes, just
enough time to defy Hitler.

It is the
anniversary of the
Bolshevik takeover of 1917.

Meager troops march in the
traditional parade before

returning to combat.

Safe in his shelter,
Stalin rallies the masses by

remembering old Czarist
heroes like Alexander Nevsky,

Russia's medieval savior,

conqueror of the
Teutonic knights,

who had already come from
across the Germanic plains.

The German
advance is relentless.

Lieutenant August von Kageneck,

tank commander of a
reconnaissance unit, attests:

"We did not
doubt our superiority."

We still believed in a swift
victory over the Russians,

even though our numbers
were greatly diminished.

Even if the rows of graves
that lined our path were

getting longer...

"Come on, one last effort,
and we can go home!"

The front now is
dangerously close to Moscow.

But the Russian climate now
comes to Stalin's rescue,

exacerbating the
already unrealistic
German invasion plan.

The weather is milder,
and torrential rains

pour down on the front.

This is the Rasputitsa,
the November rain season,

also called the Sea of Mud.

The German propaganda machine
gladly shows these images,

to justify the
slowing-down of operations.

"You see," these films say,
"it is not the Red Army

stopping us, It is the mud."

The Nazi leaders begin to worry.

On November 8, 1941,
they meet up,

as they do each year, in the
Munich brewery where Hitler

had attempted to
seize power 20 years ago.

Hitler comes to
reassure his followers.

"He says:" Never before has a
gigantic empire been shattered

and defeated in a shorter
time than the Soviet Union

"has been this time."

However, some voices
cautiously suggest that

everything should be
stopped and that a
solution should be found.

Hitler then blames
Stalin for the conflict.

"He concludes:" The war can
last as long as Stalin wants,

but the last battalion on
the field will be German."

The first attempt on Hitler's
life took place in this brewery.

There will be 42 in all.

Mainly bombs, which he
miraculously always
manages to avoid.

He is especially wary of poison.

No gift or food can be touched
without first being tested.

In his residence
kitchens and headquarters,

or like here at the Wolf's Lair,

young women are
requisitioned by the SS.

They are tasters,
earning a monthly wage,

the salary of fear.

In Russia, hell is icy.

It does not burn, it freezes.

As of November 15, 1941,
after the mud,

the temperature drops
to minus 4 Fahrenheit.

There are no winter uniforms!

Hitler believed the Russians
wouldn't last three weeks,

but they have
resisted for five months!

General Guderian and his
tanks struggle in the snow.

Hitler has himself filmed at a
winter equipment exhibition.

How does he rationalize
the ordeal of hundreds of

thousands of young Germans?

This shocks the Germans.

How could the Führer have let
our soldiers face such cold,

in their lightweight
uniforms from June 22nd?

Meanwhile, the propaganda
machine asks them to smile.

Occupied Europe must
also make its contribution.

Lustra, a Brussels
family business,

receives a huge order
for rabbit skin jackets.

This saves their workers and
families from the death camps.

Ribbentrop, Hitler's
Minister of Foreign Affairs,

and his brother-in-law,
named Director of Champagne

in occupied France, sets up a
successful alcohol delivery to

the Eastern Front.

On November 25th,
1941, Hitler returns to Berlin,

to his imposing chancellery.

During a ceremony
of alliance renewal,

he continues to reassure.

He will rid the Russian
soil of its inhabitants.

"He says:" The goal of my
Eastern policy is for

100 million Germans to settle
in this colonized land."

The first German settlers,
welcomed with great fanfare,

arrive in the summer of
1941, along with the invasion.

They are mostly peasants,
in charge of taking over the

collective farms.

They are shocked
by the miserable,

hostile environment.

"Hitler says:" We must get used
to the idea that we should not

scour the dominated
population every day,

"nor try to instill in them a
sense of German cleanliness."

Children also populate
Russia and its "living space".

Those who are deemed "racially
correct" are rounded up from

orphanages and even
taken from Russian families.

In Germany, another aspect
of Hitler's racial policy,

since coming to power,
is the Lebensborn program,

the "Fountain of Life."

The SS impregnates
selected young girls,

to provide the Reich
with future blond,

blue-eyed SS officers.

The girls are subjected to the
German doctrine of the

"three K's": Kinder,
Küche, and Kirche.

Children, Kitchen, and Church.

After being indoctrinated
through the Hitler Youth,

the boys are mobilized as
auxiliaries of the Flak,

the German
anti-aircraft defense,

attacked almost
nightly by British bombers.

In the cold autumn of 1941,
the Germans spend their nights

in shelters, praying to
return home in the morning.

From his train, Hitler
summons his first accomplice,

Germany's master of aviation
and anti-aircraft defense,

Reichmarshall Goering.

Goering had imprudently said
that no enemy aircraft would

ever fly in the Reich's skies.

Major von Below,
aide-de-camp, greets Goering.

He recounts the meeting.

Goering is very
popular; therefore,

Hitler curbs his criticism.

"He only bitterly tells him:" I
will have to take care of the

Flak cannons myself!"

Goering replies that all the
aircraft are needed on the

Eastern Front.

Russia is large and
its sky is immense.

There are no longer enough
fighters to defend the Reich!

One of the men in
charge of Germany's
aeronautical production,

General Udet,
commits suicide after

sinking into alcoholism.

He was the most
famous German pilot,

a World War I ace, and
an aerobatics champion.

Could his lavish
funeral be a bad omen?

Hitler will lead
Germany into a world war.

He hesitates.

For four days.

Then he appears before
the Nazi parliament.

On December 11th, 1941, six
months after invading Russia,

the Führer solemnly announces
that Germany is declaring war

on the United States.

The Reich stands in solidarity
with its Japanese ally,

who attacked America
at Pearl Harbor on

December 7, 1941.

He fires his
army's Chief of Staff,

Field Marshal Von Brauchitsch,
and takes his place.

German soldiers are dead,
wounded, captured,
frozen, or missing.

The following day,
December 12th, 1941,

Hitler receives the
head of the Dutch Nazis,

Anton Mussert, who recruits
men for what will be

called "The Crusade
against Bolshevism".

Germany's newsreels celebrate
the meeting between

Hitler and Jozef Tiso.

A "National Catholic"
anti-Semitic priest,

Tiso presides over Slovakia,
established during Hitler's

dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

Tiso promises to send
soldiers to Russia.

Hitler enlists the
help of General Franco,

who had defeated the Spanish
Republic with his help.

Franco cautiously refuses
to engage in the war on
Germany's side.

He merely sends
20,000 Phalangists,

fanatical fascists, to Russia.

These men form the
Azul or blue division,

and fight alongside the Germans,
shouting Viva la Muerte!

"Long live Death!"

Other volunteers
pour in under the Nazi banner.

At the Legion of French
Volunteers recruitment
office in Paris,

ideology is not the only
reason for the influx of

men, young and old,
over the past months.

They are often unemployed,
required to show a certificate

proving that they are not Jews.

Nazi Collaboration
fanatics supervise them.

Before leaving, they
sing the Marseillaise,

surrounded by Germans.

"Pétain sends them this
message: "Don't forget that

you hold a piece of
our military honor."

In December 1941,
3000 of these men,

in German uniforms, end up in
the snow on the Eastern Front.

One of them,
Marc Augier, writes:

"Absolute despair.
Absolute cold."

Nothing moves anymore.

The birds are dead.

The trees too.

Men only move to
perform essential functions.

Any man to fall asleep
dies in that position,

"sitting, standing,
lying or crouching."

Moscow, December 1941.

Word spreads that the Germans
are back on the move.

The last residents of
Moscow, plagued by misfortune,

forced to do the
worst defense work,

continue to be blasted
with this patriotic anthem.

According to the propaganda,
it announces the arrival of

"the Soviet people's best sons,

come to defend Moscow".

Regiments from
Siberia arrive in warm,

white clothes.

Stalin has urgently
sent them to Moscow.

Vassily Grossman, the war
correspondent, writes:

"Siberians are more stocky,"

more reserved, sterner.

They are hunters, they
are more disciplined,

"more used to cold and hardship."

The T34 tank, a
formidable machine,

appears on the scene.

It is proof that Stalin's
Russia has extraordinary

industrial reserves.

Its factories, relocated
under cover far to the East,

produce 200 per month.

Its oblique armor is
immune to anti-tank guns,

making it every German
soldier's nightmare.

"Lieutenant Von Kageneck
writes: "We had lost our

perception of
absolute superiority.

The Russians were infinitely
better equipped than we were.

We shifted from one
improvisation to another.

"Our idea of the enemy
was completely changing."

Guderian's tanks reach the end
of the bus line leading to

Red Square, visible
with binoculars.

All hell suddenly breaks loose.

Russia has a new weapon, a
multiple rocket launcher,

which the Germans
nickname "Stalin's organ".

This weapon has a
devastating effect on the
German soldiers' morale.

And the Russian
generals, Zhukov,

Konev, and Rokossovsky, launch
their armies on the offensive.

The Siberians attack!

"Heinrici, the German general,
writes: "December 24th.

The Russians have
broken through our lines.

Things are happening as in 1812,

the retreat in the snow,
it's just like Napoleon.

High command won't accept
that the army is surrounded in

front of Moscow.

Our leaders refuse to
recognize that Russia is

"capable of this achievement."

During the night, Hitler calls
Field Marshal von Kluge for

two hours, giving him the formal
order to be killed on the spot.

He sacks Guderian, but
cannot prevent his troops from

retreating 15, then 60 miles.

The front finally settles.

The Russians film the carnage
of the Battle of Moscow.

300,000 Germans have
been killed or wounded,

and 30,000 captured.

Most of them will never return.

600 miles away, at
the Wolf's Lair,

Hitler spends Christmas alone.

"Later he will say:" Snow has
been my enemy all my life,

I've always hated it.

"It was foreshadowing."

For Hitler, spring will
be the decisive moment.

In the meantime, he must
galvanize his people and

reassure his allies.

For the news cameras,
he summons three
symbolic figures.

On January 4th, 1942, Goering,
struggles to overcome the

extreme cold.

Goering, the
embodiment of the Nazi party,

the foundation of power.

Then, one of the most
important military leaders,

Marshal Von Bock.

He is excessively thin
due to a stomach ulcer,

and very much
affected by the situation.

For the camera, the Führer
wants this older man to look

him in the eye, stand straight,

and shake his hand,
smiling confidently.

With General Sepp Dietrich,
Hitler wants to show that the

SS still protects him and is
a force to be reckoned with.

After seven months
of combat in Russia,

Hitler looks to renew with his
inspirational speeches.

"He says:" He who fights
for the life of his people,

for their daily bread, for
their future, will win!

The blood shed in this war
must be, and it is our hope,

the last in Europe
for generations!

May the Lord help us
in this coming year.

In his entourage,
some dare, once again,

to ask him to stop this war.

Including Fritz Todt,
Reich Minister for
Armaments and Ammunition,

His plane explodes in mid-air.

The day before, he had a heated
confrontation with the Führer.

Todt told him that Germany
could not afford a long war.

Hitler orders a
national funeral.

He is exceptionally
compassionate toward the family.

He replaces Todt with
his favorite architect,

Albert Speer.

Hitler gets it right.

Speer proves to be a great
organizer for the war effort.

He never hesitates to provide
industrialists with hundreds

of thousands of slaves, taken
from the concentration camps.

The voices of
dissension must be silenced.

On April 20th, 1942, Hitler
celebrates his birthday at the

Wolf's Lair, to make it clear
that the war will continue.

He is 53 and appears to be in
great shape in the newsreels.

The Germans must not know
that he gets ten shots of

stimulants a day.

Marshal Keitel, the servile
commander-in-chief of the army,

wishes him to
be victorious in 1942.

Goering and Himmler, of
course, share this wish.

But Ribbentrop, the
Minister of Foreign Affairs,

also suggests that they come
to an agreement with Stalin.

"Hitler replies:" That won't be
possible as long as I'm here.

I might as well shoot
myself in the head."

In the spring, Hitler
takes possession of his new

headquarters, the Werwolf,
in Vinnytsia, Ukraine.

He hates this place,
which is too hot and humid,

and infested with mosquitoes.

He spends most of his
time developing Case Blue,

the great offensive
of the summer of 1942,

to seize Stalin's oil.

The highly-mechanized German
army needs this to wage an

extended war.

In the North, Hitler orders to
hold the siege of Leningrad.

In the center, he succeeds
in limiting the retreat
of his troops.

In the south, he orders
his army to take Stalingrad,

Crimea, and the Caucasus,
toward Baku and its oil wells.

Once again, against the
advice of his generals,

Hitler divides his forces.

But the successful
attacks in the south
seem to prove him right.

Sevastopol, Crimea's
great military port,

is crushed by giant cannons.

The swastika floats once
again over a Russian fort.

Another victory for
General von Manstein,

who had already won
the battle of France.

But Hitler
appoints another general,

Friedrich Paulus, to lead
the offensive on Stalingrad.

This is a doubly
symbolic gesture.

Paulus participated in
the Barbarossa plan.

He will erase the shame of
the Moscow defeat by taking

Stalingrad, Stalin's city.

Paulus is in
charge of the 6th Army,

reputed to be the Wehrmacht's
most powerful unit.

The Landsers, the infantrymen,

have been marching
for 1200 miles.

Over a decade, they have
grown up in the Hitlerjugend,

the Hitler Youth, which has
turned them into fanatics.

They were humiliated by the
Moscow defeat and the loss of

so many of their elders.

Now, they, too,
want their revenge.

But as in Moscow,

they didn't count on the
Russians being so resistant.

The Germans launch
their Stuka dive bombers,

which level the model
city of Stalingrad,

the pride of the Soviet regime.

The Stukas also destroy
the main industrial centers,

like the T34 tank production
lines inside the Tractor Plant,

and the Red October Factory.

However, the carcasses of
twisted steel and city ruins

become fortresses
for the Russians.

They provide
shelter for snipers,

like Vasily Zaitsev, who
kills 225 German soldiers,

according to the official story.

Inside this hellhole,
people fight with knives,

even with sharpened shovels.

They cut each other up in
the cellars and sewers.

And the months go by.

Until the
relentless winter returns.

The Russians
surround the Germans again.

Zhukov and Khrushchev's armies
sweep away Hitler's allies,

the Hungarians, Romanians,
and Italians who had been

protecting Stalingrad's center,

occupied by the Germans.

On Christmas Day 1942,
Hitler orders Manstein's army,

further south, to
come help the 6th Army.

On December 29th, 30
miles from Stalingrad,

Manstein is stopped by
superior Russian forces.

For a month, Goering, who had
been bragging about supplying

the troops under siege,
mobilizes all available

transport planes.

They are not equipped for
below-freezing temperatures,

and the Russian fighters
shoot down half of them.

The few who managed to fly
over the entrenched camp

provide the very weak
troops with barely 7
ounces of bread a day.

On January 10th, 1943,

Paulus gives the orders
to eat the horses.

After seven months
of fierce combat,

the Germans have
run out of everything:

no ammunition, no hope.

Paulus signs the 6th Army's
surrender to the Russians.

Hitler, who is fully to blame,

dares to judge those who
obeyed him.

"He comments:" The old
commanders threw themselves on

their swords when they saw
that the cause was lost."

And he adds: "I curse myself
for having risked this war

with such bad generals."

The Russians capture
24 German generals,

along with 2,500 officers and

the 100,000 survivors
of the 6th Army.

Stalingrad remains one of the
bloodiest battles in history.

Stalin's Russia lost
over one million men.

Goebbels writes in his diary:

"The Führer seems to
have aged 15 years."

In April 1943, a wave of
hope sweeps through Rotterdam,

Liège, Bordeaux,
Belgrade, and Copenhagen.

Despite the hardships, the fear,

and the German occupation,
the news of Hitler's defeat in

Stalingrad fills
hearts with joy.

No, the Nazis are
not invincible!

The past year has been a
dark one for the Germans.

Their Japanese allies,
initially victorious,

were defeated in the Pacific.

The Americans sank the Japanese
aircraft carriers at Midway,

and their famous Zero
fighters had to land miserably

on the ocean.

In the Battle of the Desert,
General Rommel,

sick and weakened, was
defeated by British forces

in El Alamein, Egypt.

Simultaneously, the Americans
and the British landed in

North Africa to prepare
for the European invasion.

CHURCHILL This in
not the end, it is not even the
beginning of the end.

But it is perhaps the
end of the beginning.

Hitler regains his
strength at the Berghof,

his Berchtesgaden chalet.

His determination is back.

He declares: "Persistence
is the secret to success!"

On July 5th, 1943, he prepares
to launch the Tigers and the

Panthers, his new
armored monsters,

against the Soviets.

He targets their weak
link of defense at Kursk,

in central Russia.

Once again, Hitler is about
to unleash the Apocalypse!

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.