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00:06Since the death of Lenin in 1924, Joseph Stalin has maintained an iron grip on all aspects of
00:13life in the Soviet Union. As a Soviet premier, Stalin agrees to the 1939 non-aggression pact
00:21with the Nazis, extending his western border and precluding any chance of going to war
00:27with Hitler's Germany. Stalin could not have been more mistaken.
00:34All wars change the world, but none of them change the world like the Second World War did.
00:41Japan's on the march. Germany's on the march.
00:45No one can imagine a nightmare they're about to unleash. The most destructive war in human history.
00:52Suddenly the world is turned upside down and all hell is let loose.
00:58The West is stunned by the speed of the advance.
01:02You get the Allies led by the big three. Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin.
01:08Men who are dealing with immensely complicated questions.
01:13It's the biggest military operation of human history.
01:17The Allies have to come together, not just militarily, but industrial scale. It's a global perspective.
01:24They have to fight in every climate from the Arctic to the jungles of the Pacific to the deserts of
01:30Africa and the depths of the ocean.
01:35But there was no certainty of victory. It was going to be a horrific bloodbath.
01:42We see humans at their absolute worst, how they treat other human beings.
01:46And we see them at their absolute best, willing to give their lives that others might live.
01:51World War II was a struggle in which there could be one victor and one vanquish.
02:02World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:03World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:04World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:15World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:16World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:17World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:18World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:18World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:19World War II was a struggle in which there could be one of the most destructive wars.
02:28As war between Great Britain and Germany continues,
02:33from his offices deep within the Kremlin,
02:36Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
02:38is confident the non-aggression pact he made with the Germans will hold
02:44and that he will soon have even more influence around the world.
02:50Stalin's ideal plan was that the British and French would fight off the Germans
02:55and that those two sides could fight it out as much as they liked
02:59while Stalin watched from the sidelines as they exhausted themselves.
03:06Since he was a young revolutionary,
03:09Stalin hoped that conflict in the West would ultimately provide
03:12an opportunity for communism to spread throughout Europe.
03:20Vissarinovich Jugashvili, the man that we know as Stalin,
03:24is Georgian by birth and origin.
03:27He comes from a particular milieu marked by, among other things,
03:31feuding and banditry and a certain code of honor,
03:35a code of vengeance and vendetta.
03:37In the 1920s, Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union
03:43and quickly suppressed any opposition to his rule.
03:52In 1936, he launched a purge that became known as the Great Terror,
03:58targeting political opponents,
04:02then expanding it to high-level army officers.
04:06Stalin supervised, through the NKVD secret police,
04:10the killing of millions of people, the destroying of families.
04:15Millions were deported and sent to concentration camps known as the gulags.
04:23He turned the country into a totalitarian police state.
04:29A few years later, in 1939, Stalin makes a deal with Adolf Hitler.
04:38Even though Germany and the Soviet Union are hostile,
04:43Stalin signs an agreement known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Nazis.
04:49As a result of the pact, Hitler and Stalin not only carve up Eastern Europe
04:54and together invade Poland,
04:58Stalin also commits to supplying vast quantities of raw materials to the German Reich.
05:05The Soviet Union is providing Adolf Hitler massive amounts of natural resources,
05:09which is funding the economic engine to build the military machine
05:13that Adolf Hitler is using around the rest of the world.
05:15By 1940, it looks as if the pact has paid off, certainly for Stalin.
05:21He's got this agreement with the Nazis
05:24that he doesn't have to worry about a war on their Western Front.
05:36Then, in late September, Germany, Italy and Japan
05:40signed a military alliance called the Tripartite Pact.
05:46In Berlin, Hitler welcomed Japan to his gang.
05:50The three-power treaty, Germany, Italy, Japan.
05:54Dictator nations falling in step for world domination.
06:00It was not clear what the role of the Soviet Union might be in this new pact.
06:04Would it become a quadruple pact instead of simply a Tripartite Pact?
06:09Would the Soviet Union become a full partner?
06:13These were all still open questions in the fall of 1940.
06:21In November, Stalin sends one of the few people he trusts to Berlin.
06:28His foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov.
06:35Molotov means hammer in Russian.
06:38His nickname was Iron Ass because he could sit for so long doing work.
06:45He was intelligent, he was ruthless, and Stalin trusted him.
06:54Hitler receives Molotov in the Chancery.
07:00There's an amazing scene as he enters.
07:02Huge, blonde, giant SS men in their gleaming black Death Heads uniform salute.
07:17In walks this little Russian diplomat,
07:20and Hitler greets him warmly, and they have two big sessions of chats.
07:27Hitler's at an impasse in this war.
07:29He's conquered everything within reach.
07:31He's trying to talk to the Soviets about some tighter level of cooperation.
07:36Hitler wants to get the Soviets on board
07:38for some kind of global war against the British Empire.
07:43The Germans propose that the Soviets join the Tripartite Pact
07:47and offer India as a prize for when the British are defeated.
07:54Molotov doesn't take this seriously.
07:58Iron Ass is not impressed with Hitler.
08:02And the conversations become increasingly awkward.
08:07German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop is hosting a reception for Molotov
08:13when the Royal Air Force begins a raid on Berlin.
08:18In the middle of the banquet,
08:22the air raid sirens start to sound,
08:25and they have to go down into Ribbentrop's air raid shelter.
08:31And during the air raid,
08:34Ribbentrop starts to boast that Britain is defeated,
08:38and it's only a matter of time before Britain surrenders,
08:41and the war is won.
08:44Ribbentrop, trying to make the best of an obviously embarrassing situation,
08:49jokes that the British are complaining that they have not been invited to the party.
08:54Molotov, however, is not charmed by the Germans' attempted humor.
08:58He says, well, if the war is over,
09:01then why are we in this bomb shelter and whose bombs are falling on us?
09:09The next morning, Foreign Minister Molotov returns to Moscow,
09:15unaware that Hitler and his military leaders are planning a secret operation.
09:23Hitler is capable of, you know, shaking your hand and looking you in the eye
09:26and saying everything is okay while planning to stab you in the back,
09:29and that is clearly what's going on between Molotov and Hitler.
09:34One month after Molotov's Berlin visit,
09:37on December 18th,
09:41Hitler signs off on Fuhrer Directive number 21,
09:47a plan for a massive invasion of the Soviet Union the following year.
09:53The invasion is given a code name after a red-bearded medieval German emperor.
10:01The stage is now set for the biggest military invasion in history.
10:08Operation Barbarossa.
10:20In the last weeks of 1940,
10:23Adolf Hitler tours German weapons factories
10:26as preparations progress for Operation Barbarossa.
10:31His plan is to attack and conquer the Soviet Union
10:35to establish more Lebensraum,
10:37living space,
10:38for the new German Empire in the East.
10:53The operation is top secret.
10:57But within days, sources have fed the information to the Soviet intelligence services.
11:04Stalin is receiving information from nearly every quarter,
11:08right from the belly of the beast in Berlin,
11:10from the American military attache,
11:14from the British,
11:16and from his spy in Tokyo.
11:18But Stalin doesn't believe what he's hearing.
11:22Stalin is paranoid that what is happening here is a very high-level game on the part of the Western
11:28powers.
11:30They're trying to maneuver him into a one-on-one war with the previously undefeated Wehrmacht
11:37that he does not believe he's ready for at the moment,
11:40and he is bound and determined to avoid being maneuvered.
11:44You can get all the intelligence in the world,
11:47but if you are predisposed not to believe it,
11:50it doesn't really make that much difference.
11:53And when he receives a report from his master agent in the German Air Force
11:58that Hitler is planning an imminent invasion of Russia,
12:03he says Hitler would not be so stupid
12:05because he doesn't even realize what he's dealing with,
12:09the scale of the Soviet Union.
12:14Both Stalin and Hitler have read deeply into history.
12:21Stalin has studied the great German-Prussian statesman Bismarck.
12:27Bismarck thought that a war on two fronts was an extremely bad idea.
12:34Germany remains at war with Great Britain,
12:37and Stalin doesn't believe Hitler would open a second front.
12:41Stalin thinks it very unlikely that Hitler will invade,
12:45because he thinks Hitler is a sort of rational Bismarckian player.
12:50And in that sense, he misread Hitler.
12:55But Hitler believes that he is destined to lead Germany to greatness.
13:01Hitler is nothing if not arrogant.
13:05He believes he's better than Bismarck, better than just about anybody else
13:09who's ever lived before him.
13:12Hitler finalizes the details of Operation Barbarossa.
13:16Proposed date of invasion, May 1941.
13:21The plan is to overwhelm the Red Army and topple the regime within two months,
13:26well before the Russian winter sets in.
13:30A lightning blow against the Russians that will prove once and for all that he, Hitler, and Germany are unconquerable.
13:38The offensive is divided into three giant army groups, each with a specific objective.
13:46Going from north to south, the first army group is Army Group North, which moves along the Baltic,
13:51and its final operational goal is Leningrad.
13:56The center of the invasion is Army Group Center, it's the largest force by far, and it is going toward
14:02Moscow.
14:04Army Group South is moving through what we would now call Ukraine to secure resources,
14:11and eventually the historic Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
14:14But in the spring of 1941, the Nazis face a challenge in the Balkans in southeastern Europe.
14:29Hitler is forced to send an army into Yugoslavia to crush an anti-Nazi coup.
14:39His infantry then marches into neighboring Greece to help his Italian ally, Benito Mussolini.
14:46Hitler has been cleaning up this mess in the Balkans,
14:49and so it's now a five-week delay in the start of Operation Barbarossa.
14:56The Kremlin receives more intelligence that the Germans are preparing an invasion.
15:04Stalin dismisses it all.
15:09And he doesn't stop sending Soviet grain, oil, and steel into Germany.
15:24June 22nd, 1941.
15:26As dawn breaks, over three million German soldiers poured across the border into Soviet territory.
15:37Operation Barbarossa is launched.
15:57It's the biggest invasion force in the history of human warfare.
16:02It's just so vast, it's difficult to get one's mind around it.
16:11If you just take the Eastern Front, it's like trying to invade the United States from San Diego to Seattle.
16:17It is, by itself, the largest war that's ever happened.
16:21That's crazy.
16:25It's 3,000 tanks, 2,700 aircraft, another 7,000 artillery pieces, 600,000 vehicles.
16:36It is massive on a scale no one else has ever seen before.
16:44This is the largest army that's ever been organized in modern European terms.
16:49This is 3 million men, spread across a couple of thousand miles of front.
16:54300 divisions, including 19 panzer divisions.
16:59This is a big force.
17:05This is German manpower moving east.
17:09This is the culmination of all the dreams, the hopes that Hitler has put into his leadership.
17:17This is going to be the future of Germany in the east.
17:23Hitler thinks that the Soviet system is so rotten that he just has to kick in the barn door and
17:28the whole structure is going to collapse.
17:32The Wehrmacht moves fast.
17:36In just a few hours, miles of Soviet territory is overrun.
17:45The invasion seems to be going according to plan.
18:00On the morning of the invasion, Stalin is awoken by his chief of staff.
18:08The phone rings in Stalin's bedroom and Stalin answers it and he just says the war has started.
18:16And the silence.
18:17And he can just hear Stalin breathing as he kind of wakes up and absorbs this information.
18:31The German advance is fast, it's furious, it's efficient, it's brutal.
18:43Adolf Hitler today launched his fast mobile panzer divisions against what may be the largest mass army of the world,
18:51the Red Army of Communist Russia.
18:57The Red Army and the Soviet Air Force are caught unprepared.
19:11On the very first day, the German Luftwaffe report that they've destroyed nearly 2,000 Soviet aircraft, both in the
19:21air and on the ground.
19:24Russian airfields were bombed.
19:27Russian cities were bombed.
19:31Russian airfields were bombed.
19:32Russian airfields were bombed.
19:42Russian airfields were bombed.
19:45Russian airfields were bombed.
19:46Russian airfields were bombed.
19:48Russian airfields were bombed.
19:49Russian airfields were bombed.
19:49Russian airfields were bombed.
19:50Russian airfields were bombed.
19:51Russian airfields were bombed.
19:52Russian airfields were bombed.
19:54Russian airfields were bombed.
20:02The opening days of Barbarossa are Hitler's dream.
20:05It goes incredibly well.
20:07The forces are racing through former Poland.
20:11They go across below Russia.
20:13They get through the Baltic states.
20:16It's just amazing.
20:17It's like a hot knife cutting through butter.
20:21In just the first week,
20:23the Wehrmacht pushed 300 miles into Soviet territory,
20:27capturing over 400,000 troops.
20:31The Russians are simply being stampeded
20:35by a much more savvy German force.
20:40During the Great Terror,
20:42Stalin dismantled the leadership of the army,
20:45executing thousands of experienced military officers.
20:54It is on a colossal scale.
20:56Three of five field marshals,
20:5813 of 15 army commanders,
21:0250 of 57 corps commanders,
21:0445% of all brigadier generals,
21:0650% of all colonels have been executed.
21:10The leadership of the Soviet armed forces is not in place.
21:17Stalin had decapitated his own army.
21:20He put younger men in their place,
21:22but they weren't experienced.
21:23And sometimes they were little more than Stalin loyalists
21:26or party hacks.
21:28They're rookies.
21:29This is an army that has suddenly been reduced
21:31to kind of the teething level.
21:37Some Soviets initially welcome the Germans.
21:43They even tear down communist statues
21:45raised in Stalin's honor.
21:55On June 28th,
21:59Hitler's army group's center reaches Minsk,
22:02the capital of Belarus,
22:04just over 400 miles from Moscow.
22:10The Germans keep coming.
22:12Those three million Nazi troops
22:14keep advancing ruthlessly.
22:16And Stalin is ordering counterattacks
22:19that never happen.
22:20It's just chaos out there.
22:23There was now a very palpable sense
22:26of paranoia and fear
22:29that the Germans now might be able
22:32to advance as far as Moscow.
22:37At the Kremlin,
22:39the news reaches Stalin.
22:44Stalin suddenly realizes
22:46that he's lost control of the Soviet Union.
22:49He's lost control of the invasion.
22:51He turns to Molotov
22:53and he just says,
22:54everything's lost.
22:55So many lands have been lost.
22:59He's not simply talking about the army.
23:01He's talking about the revolution.
23:03He's talking about
23:03the first proletarian dictatorship,
23:05the birthplace of communism.
23:07All this, he says,
23:08has been flushed down the toilet.
23:10See you at the press rally, he says.
23:15Stalin retreats to his dacha,
23:17his country home outside Moscow,
23:20and shuts himself off completely.
23:23At this crucial moment,
23:26the Soviet Union has no leader.
23:36As the Wehrmacht tears through Soviet territory,
23:41Stalin has not left his country house.
23:46Some of his closest aides fear
23:48he's suffering a nervous breakdown.
23:52Back in the Kremlin,
23:53there's total panic.
23:54So finally, Molotov says,
23:56we've all got to go out to see Stalin
23:58and to tell him to come back.
24:00So they drive out
24:02and Stalin is sitting in a chair,
24:05pale, thinner, exhausted.
24:08He says, what have you come for?
24:10They say, come back, lead us.
24:12We can't do this without you.
24:16Molotov persuades Stalin
24:18to return to the Kremlin,
24:20where he speaks directly
24:22to the Soviet people.
24:26But instead of talking about communism,
24:29he evokes their sense of history,
24:32honor, and national pride.
24:44Stalin appeals to Mother Russia.
24:46He appeals to the sorts of attitudes
24:49and spirit of the people.
24:51He could have been the czar
24:53in the way that the czar
24:54might have appealed to the people.
25:15This is a really smart, canny move.
25:17This is a wonderful way
25:19to unite society
25:20in a way that brings people together.
25:23We have the same enemy
25:25and Mother Russia is at stake here.
25:27So rally to the cause.
25:32Tens of millions of Soviet peoples
25:34are moved by Stalin's words.
25:37He appoints himself
25:38Supreme Commander-in-Chief
25:40and he takes complete control
25:43of the war effort.
25:45The Soviets also begin
25:47to receive unexpected support
25:49from the West.
25:51The Soviet Union
25:53is now acquiring sympathy
25:55from Winston Churchill in London,
25:57from President Roosevelt
25:58in Washington.
25:59These countries
26:00will offer Stalin aid.
26:04Roosevelt sends to Moscow
26:06his closest advisor,
26:08Harry Hopkins,
26:09to find out how America
26:11can support the Soviet Union.
26:13At the airport,
26:15our camera filmed
26:15the arrival of Mr. Harry Hopkins,
26:17who conferred with Stalin
26:18on Russia's immediate knee.
26:20But it will be some time
26:22before Western aid will arrive.
26:37By mid-July,
26:39the Red Army has lost
26:40nearly 4,000 tanks
26:41and over 6,000 aircraft.
26:47Two million soldiers
26:48have been captured or killed.
26:53Troops taken prisoner
26:55are sent to German work camps
26:57or left to starve.
27:04It becomes the most pitiless campaign
27:07ever launched,
27:08I think,
27:08in modern history.
27:11They were rounded up
27:12in their thousands
27:13and hardly given any food.
27:15In fact,
27:15they would just throw loaves
27:16over the barbed wire
27:17and laugh
27:18when the prisoners
27:19fought amongst themselves
27:20because they were starving.
27:27The Nazis also target civilians.
27:32Both the army and the SS
27:34are ordered to eradicate
27:35all resistance.
27:37Hitler's guidelines
27:38for the conduct
27:39of his troops,
27:40issued ahead of Barbarossa,
27:42demand ruthless
27:43and energetic measures
27:44against political agitators,
27:46saboteurs,
27:47and Jews.
27:51They give the army
27:53carte blanche
27:54to do exactly
27:55what they want
27:56to the populations
27:57as they swarm
27:59over the borderlands.
28:02This is where we start
28:03to talk about
28:03the idea of total war.
28:05We are now going to
28:06literally target civilians
28:07on purpose.
28:18But the Soviets
28:19begin to fight back.
28:22Partisans raid
28:23German outposts
28:25and Stalin demands
28:26a scorched earth policy.
28:29People are told
28:30to burn everything
28:31as they flee,
28:33depriving the Nazis
28:35of food and shelter
28:36as the German
28:38army marches
28:39into the immensity
28:40of the Soviet Union.
28:44The terrain
28:45in this part of Russia
28:46is like the Great Plains
28:48of the United States.
28:49It's like being in
28:50Nebraska
28:51or Iowa,
28:53flat seas of grass.
28:57When you start
28:58with a front
28:59of a thousand miles long
29:00and as they advance
29:01it gets to
29:022,000 miles,
29:04they don't know
29:04how to deal
29:05with an area
29:05where the armies
29:06are operating
29:06like ships at sea.
29:09There is no running
29:11out of territory
29:12when you're fighting
29:12the Soviets.
29:13There's always more
29:14territory to retreat to.
29:18By the end of July,
29:20the German army
29:21has progressed
29:21over 400 miles.
29:23But their advance
29:24is slowing
29:25and supply lines
29:26are being stretched.
29:28every army has to understand
29:30every army has to understand
29:30that if it advances rapidly,
29:33it can outrun its supplies.
29:35They always say,
29:36you know,
29:36amateur stock tactics,
29:38professional stock logistics.
29:40Tank repair,
29:42replenishment of ammunition,
29:44food, uniforms,
29:45it just consumed
29:46the German armed forces.
29:49Eventually,
29:50every force
29:50will reach
29:51what's called
29:52a culminating point
29:53where you've simply
29:55exhausted the men,
29:56outrun the supplies,
29:57hit something
29:58you can't overcome.
29:59Your combat power
30:00has been expended.
30:04As German commanders
30:06and their men
30:06confront the magnitude
30:07of their task,
30:10Hitler faces perhaps
30:12the greatest test
30:13of his leadership.
30:26It's been six weeks
30:27since German troops
30:28stormed into
30:29Soviet territory.
30:31Hitler visits his men
30:33on the front.
30:37He meets with his commanders
30:39to discuss strategy.
30:41The army groups
30:42are no longer moving
30:44at the same pace.
30:47Army group center
30:48has pushed too far ahead.
30:51It is only about
30:53200 miles outside Moscow,
30:56but its supply lines
30:57are perilously thin.
31:01That's a real problem
31:02if you're an operational planner.
31:04You have one thrust
31:06that's hanging out there
31:07on a limb.
31:09The German high command
31:11is divided
31:12about what to do next.
31:14Some of Hitler's generals
31:16want to continue
31:17pushing towards Moscow
31:18and capture the capital
31:20before winter sets in.
31:23Hitler believes
31:24if he and the German armies
31:26can overrun Ukraine,
31:27it'll undercut
31:28the economic basis
31:29of Stalin's dictatorship
31:31and undercut the economic basis
31:33of the Soviets
31:34continuing the war.
31:37And so the decision is made
31:39to hold the tanks
31:40from their thrust
31:40against Moscow
31:41and send a vast force
31:43into the Ukraine.
31:54on September 18th,
31:56the city of Kyiv
31:57is encircled
31:58by the Nazis.
32:00Kyiv is enormously important
32:02because Kyiv in and of itself
32:03is the control of Ukraine.
32:05And what's Ukraine?
32:05Ukraine is the breadbasket
32:07of Europe.
32:10So there's a huge
32:11encirclement battle
32:12at Kyiv,
32:13one of the biggest battles
32:14thus far in the war.
32:33With the panzer groups
32:36coming from the north
32:37from the central axis
32:39and also in the south,
32:42they capture 600,000 troops
32:45in the north.
32:46It's staggering.
32:47One's never imagined
32:48a battle like that
32:50in the past.
32:51Hitler keeps on saying
32:53they can't go on
32:54providing more troops
32:55for us to surround
32:56in this particular way.
32:57They're going to collapse
32:58at any moment.
33:04With over half
33:05his forces resupplied,
33:12Hitler turns to Moscow.
33:22The Wehrmacht forces
33:24progress very, very rapidly.
33:26They get so close
33:28to the city of Moscow.
33:29You can actually see
33:29the towers of the city center.
33:33People were obviously scared
33:35at the prospect
33:35of what was likely to happen.
33:37But at the same time,
33:38by now,
33:38there was a determination
33:39to fight back.
33:43They are preparing
33:44the defenses of the city.
33:46Men and women
33:47are out digging ditches.
33:50Everything is ready
33:51for a last-ditch defense
33:52of Moscow.
33:54That is,
33:55Moscow will be defended
33:56to the last drop of blood.
34:00Stalin considers evacuating
34:02the Soviet government
34:03to a city
34:04on the River Volga
34:05over 500 miles away.
34:08Stalin's staff
34:10begin to prepare
34:11his own library,
34:14his own houses
34:15to be evacuated
34:17and to abandon Moscow.
34:20But Stalin is very aware
34:22of appearance.
34:23He's always thinking
34:25about history.
34:26He knows
34:26if Stalin leaves Moscow,
34:28Moscow will fall.
34:32Many people think
34:34that the regime
34:34is about to collapse.
34:36For the first time,
34:37it looks like
34:38the Communist Party
34:39is actually
34:40about to be toppled.
34:43At the last moment,
34:46Stalin decides to stay.
34:52The German army
34:53is poised
34:54to capture Moscow.
34:57But Stalin has an ally.
35:05General Winter.
35:18Four months
35:19into the invasion
35:20of the Soviet Union,
35:21the German army
35:23faces a new enemy.
35:25It was always said
35:27that Russia's greatest general
35:28was General Winter.
35:30So the Russians
35:31were much better prepared
35:32for Winter
35:33than the Germans.
35:39So what happens
35:40in the Soviet Union
35:41if you're on the path
35:41toward Moscow,
35:42as invaders have found
35:43over the centuries,
35:44the weather turns bad.
35:45It rains.
35:46And a very inadequate road network
35:48now gets turned into mud.
35:49The Russians call it
35:51Rasputitsa
35:52the roadless time.
35:57This is not like
35:58normal mud.
35:59You can't move
36:00and you can't bring
36:01supplies forward.
36:03General mud
36:04slows the German advance
36:06at a time when
36:07they're trying
36:07to beat the clock here.
36:09Then when it gets
36:10really cold,
36:11you see an entirely
36:12different situation.
36:14The soldiers
36:15start freezing.
36:17By November,
36:19temperatures are plummeting
36:20to as low
36:21as minus 40 degrees
36:22Fahrenheit,
36:24devastating the Wehrmacht's
36:25men and supply lines.
36:28These German soldiers
36:30were fighting
36:31with frozen steel,
36:32with their bare hands,
36:35unable to service
36:36their weapons.
36:37So the weapons jam,
36:39the lubricants freeze
36:41on the tanks,
36:42they have to build fires
36:44under the tanks.
36:44at night
36:45to keep the oil
36:47loose enough.
36:48Everything degrades
36:50their combat performance.
36:52Hitler told them
36:54they were going to be
36:54the all-conquering
36:55master race
36:57of Europe.
36:58They're cold
36:58and they're tired
36:59and they probably
37:00haven't had a square meal
37:01in two weeks.
37:04An invading army
37:05has been here before.
37:07Napoleon Bonaparte
37:08had tried to seize
37:09Russia in 1812.
37:12Napoleon invades Russia,
37:13takes Moscow
37:14but as winter comes
37:17is defeated
37:17by the unconquerable
37:19vastness of Russia
37:20and the cold
37:21and in the end
37:23the retreat from Moscow
37:24really destroys
37:26Napoleon's empire.
37:30But Hitler ignores
37:32the lessons of history.
37:34He orders his troops forward
37:36to take Moscow.
37:41Stalin still has a fear
37:42that there'll be
37:43some breakthrough
37:44into the heart
37:44of Moscow itself
37:45but you know
37:46something happens
37:47in this period
37:48a piece of intelligence
37:49comes across his desk
37:51that for once
37:52he's willing
37:53to listen to
37:54and it comes
37:54from his agent
37:55in Japan.
38:03The intelligence
38:04from Stalin's agent
38:06in Tokyo
38:06suggests that Japan
38:08will not attack
38:09the Soviet's
38:10eastern border.
38:12Instead
38:12Japan is planning
38:14to move south
38:15against British,
38:17French and Dutch
38:18colonies in Asia
38:19and perhaps
38:21against the United States
38:23in the Philippines.
38:25so Stalin transfers
38:27400,000 troops
38:29that were stationed
38:30in the Soviet Far East
38:31to Moscow.
38:35A whole new army
38:38fresh, untouched,
38:40fully manned,
38:41tanks,
38:42howitzers, planes.
38:45This is the Siberian Reserve.
38:47These are troops
38:48dressed in heavy
38:49white parkas,
38:50ski troops.
38:52They're used to
38:52operating in the cold.
38:57in November
38:59with some German units
39:00just 21 miles
39:01from Moscow.
39:05Stalin celebrates
39:07the anniversary
39:08of the Russian revolution
39:09in Red Square.
39:31marching in the parade
39:33are Stalin's
39:34Siberian divisions.
39:39They were not
39:40raw recruits
39:41being sent
39:42to the front.
39:42They were trained
39:43and experienced
39:44hardline soldiers.
39:48The defense
39:49of Moscow
39:50is largely
39:51in their hands.
39:52the defense
39:55of the German
39:55army.
39:56The defense
39:57of the German
39:58occupation.
40:01The defense
40:01of the German
40:02The defense
40:03of the German
40:03soldiers.
40:04The defense
40:19will be
40:20to the victory.
40:37it catches the germans at their worst possible moment they're tired they're hungry they're sick
40:44they're freezing to death they're out of supplies
40:51and the soviet offensive sweeps all before it
41:09the germans are completely stunned and they are thrown back over a hundred miles it's an astonishingly
41:15successful counter-offensive and moscow is safe over the next weeks soviet troops halt the wehrmacht
41:26and begin to push the germans back
41:34stalin has stemmed the tide
41:39the defeat of the german drive on moscow and the near destruction of the germans
41:43is a sea change for both hitler and stalin hitler now has to look at a scene of desperation and
41:49trying to rebuild his army in the soviet union
41:54stalin now not only knows that he's going to survive he also knows that he's going to be
42:00able to launch one hammer blow after the other against the germans
42:07designed to be another victorious blitzkrieg operation barbarossa descends into a deadly stalemate for the
42:14germans in the free west president roosevelt and prime minister churchill provide support to the
42:20red army to wear down the nazi invaders across the pacific a new power has been building its own empire
42:28one that will attempt to destroy american forces in a single day of infamy
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