All language subtitles for The.Battle.of.Russia.1943.Part1_Eng

(cannon exploding)

- [Narrator] This is a film
about that scale and grandeur.

(cannon exploding)

This is a film about that
military achievement.

(cannon exploding)

This is a film about a
people who, for all time,

shattered the legend of Nazi invisibility.

(cannon exploding)

This is a film about victory and defeat.

(rousing orchestral music)

German victory, and German defeat.

(cannon exploding)

This is the battle for Russia,

a battle that has been
going on for centuries,

a battle that fills the
pages of Russian history.

1242.

(dramatic music)

The Germany order of Teutonic Knights

had invaded northeastern Russia,

and occupied the old city of Pskov.

Under the leadership of
their grandmaster, von Bock,

they threatened to enslave
the whole population

of that area, including
the capital, Novgorod.

(bell ringing)

In their hour of peril, the Russian people

turned for leadership to their
prince, Alexander Nevsky.

And on April 5th, 1242, on Lake Peipus,

the Russians met the might
of the German forces.

(rousing orchestral music)

They weren't as well equipped
or as well organized.

(speaking Russian)

- [Narrator] But in their
hearts was a flaming courage,

a flame so fierce that it
pierced the German army.

The victory they won fills a
bright page of Russian history.

1704, and another conquering army

marched across Russian land.

This time, under Charles
XII of Sweden, and again,

the Russians fought for their country.

(cannons exploding)

Led by their emperor, Peter the Great,

after five long years of war,

they defeated the Swedes, in
the historic battle of Poltava.

(speaking Russian)

- [Narrator] The invading
Swedish armies were crushed,

and forever driven out of Russia.

1812.

("La Marseillaise")

Napoleon and his armies have
blazed their triumphant way

across Europe, and were
marching on Moscow.

Conquering armies entered the city,

but they entered a city in flames.

Even in that day, Russian
earth was scorched earth

to an invader, and once again,

the invader was forced
to start the long march

on the road back out of Russia.

1914, and another German army, this time,

under Kaiser Wilhelm, set
out to conquer Russia.

(bombs exploding)

("1812 Overture")

This time, the Russian people,
under the regime of the czar,

were not only fighting German guns

(cannons exploding)

but oppression and corruption
in their own country,

and only the ultimate
collapse of imperial Germany

saved Russia from losing
the Ukraine and the Crimea,

which the Germans had occupied in 1918.

Yes, for 700 years, the Russian
people have had to fight

and defend their land
against would-be conquerors.

Why?

Why have all these attempts
been made to conquer Russia?

Perhaps Russia itself
can provide the answer.

Here it is.

One sixth of the Earth's surface,

reaching from east to west,

nearly halfway around the world,

and southward from the North
Pole to the borders of India.

One country of nine million square miles.

That's our own country three times over,

or all of North America, and a
million square miles to boot.

The sun never sets on Russia.

When it is dusk on its western
borders, facing Europe,

it is already dawn on its eastern borders

facing the Pacific.

That's Russia, or to be correct,

the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Deep in its mountains lie thick,

rich veins of gold and silver.

Below ground lie enormous
deposits of copper, tin,

manganese and nickel,

chromium and radium,

sulfur and magnesium.

Russia is rich in raw materials.

Her forests cover millions
upon millions of acres.

One fourth of all the
lumber reserve in the world

belongs to Russia, and as for fuel,

there's coal, ton upon ton,

and more important, there's also oil,

213 million barrels a year of it,

black gold flowing from the earth,

that contains 55 percent
of the world's oil.

What else?

Iron?

Russia has better than 10 billion tons.

That can make a lot of
steel before it's done.

Yes, Russia is rich.

Her farms cover millions
upon millions of acres,

the rich black earth
that besides giving forth

oil and coil, will also grow everything

from sunflowers to lotus.

The tea your people drink
in such huge quantities,

and the tobacco that they smoke.

Cotton grows here, too.

Three million, 800 thousand bales a year,

and sugar, and on the pasture land,

the animals grow fat for
food and wool for clothing,

while on the warm plains,
the fields of grain

stretch as far as the eye can reach.

Corn, oats, hops, rye,
and don't forget wheat.

One third of the world's best.

Yes, Russia is very rich,

for it has not only raw materials

and the products of its soil,

Russia is also people.

(people singing in Russian)

193 million people.

(people singing in a foreign language)

People of every race, color and creed,

people coming from the
many different republics

that comprise The Soviet Union,

people speaking more than a
hundred different languages,

but all citizens of one country.

(people singing in Russian)

Whether they are the great Russians,

the descendants of the first
settlers of this vast area,

and for a thousand years,
its main population,

or Cossacks, or famous
horsemen from the open plains

of the Don River Valley.

(people singing in Russian)

Whether they come from the
southwest, the Ukraine.

Here in the bread basket
of the Soviet Union

live the little Russians
that are known as Ukrainians,

and beside them, the
Moldavians and Bessarabians,

but if they come from the far south,

between the Caspian and Black Seas.

Where we find the Armenians
and the Georgians,

the Ingush, the Chechens,

and rugged as the high peaks

of their native Caucasus Mountains.

Whether they are Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kyrgys,

from the Persian and Indian frontiers.

Or Mongols.

(traditional Mongolian music)

The Bashkirs, the Turko-
Tartars, the Buryats,

the Yakuts, from beyond
the Ural Mountains,

or the people of the ice country,

hunters like the Saamis.

Or settlers like the Laplanders.

Whether they come from
the pioneering wilderness

of the far north,

or from a great city, like
their capital, Moscow,

where the ancient buildings
of an ancient civilization

stand beside the modern structures
of a modern civilization,

where the old Russian
droshky still competes

with the modern limousine.

(people singing in Russian)

Whether they work in
factories or as soldiers,

whether they are brick
layers or traffic cops,

sailors or riveters,
school children or farmers,

nurses or engineers,

window washers or sales girls,

housewives or postal clerks,

radio announcers or stewardesses,

scientists or typists,

musicians or ballerinas.

("Swan Lake")

Regardless of what they
do or where they live,

they all have one thing in
common: love of their soil.

(people singing in Russian)

That is Russia.

Size?

The largest country in the world.

Raw materials?

Unlimited.

Man power?

193 million.

These are three reasons why
ever conqueror in history

has wanted Russia, and
these are the reasons

why the modern would be conqueror wrote.

- [Man] "When we speak of new territory,

"we must think of Russia.

"Destiny itself points the way there."

- [Narrator] Yes, as we have seen,

Germany's spirit of
aggression was handed down

from generation to generation,

and now, in Hitler's Germany,

the dream was world conquest.

For such a dream, there
could be only one answer:

collective security.

So with this objective,

in 1934, the Soviet Union
joined the League of Nations.

Again and again before the League,

its representatives
urged binding agreements

to support by collective action

any nation submitted to attack.

- [Litvinoff] The State I
represent entered the League

with the sole purpose of the maintenance

of invisible peace.

The League of Nations
is still strong enough

by its collective actions

to avert or arrest aggression.

There is no room for
bargaining or compromise.

- [Narrator] But while
some members of the League

were pleading vainly for
the use of collective force

to stop aggression, the
world saw other members,

Germany, Italy, Japan,
withdraw from the League

to follow the path of aggression.

Manchuria, Ethiopia,

then Hitler invaded Austria,

Czechoslovakia, and in 1939, Poland.

First step on the road to Russia.

But his eastward march was interrupted

by France and Britain declaring war.

So the Germans were forced to turn west,

and in 1940, as we have seen,

wiped the last opposition
from western Europe,

and while the Nazis were
unsuccessfully trying

to bring Britain to her knees,

the German generals were
already planning to resume

the interrupted eastern blitz.

The road to Russia was now open,

but before that attack,
preliminary steps were necessary.

South and east of Germany
are Hungary, Romania,

Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece,

and Hungary had grain, rich fields of it,

grain too good for Hungarians,
when German soldiers

have such good appetites.

Hungary had bauxite.

Bauxite makes aluminum,
and aluminum makes planes,

and Hungary had an army,

not the battle trained German army,

but good enough to throw
against Russian guns.

Romania had not only grain, but oil,

and Hitler needed every last drop of it

to power his war machine.

Romania also had men, more slave labor,

and more cannon fodder
for the attack on Russia.

And most important,
Romania and Hungary both

had Russian frontiers, and
Hitler wanted those frontiers

in the hands of German generals.

Bulgaria didn't have a Russian frontier,

but it did have bases,

bases on the Black Sea,

bases for German submarines
to prey on Russian shipping.

By the spring of 1941,

the reactionary governments of Hungary,

under the dictatorship of
Admiral Horthy of Romania,

governed by young King Michael,

who was only a tool in the
hands of Hitler's puppet,

General Antonescu, and of
Bulgaria, ruled by King Boris,

always a disciple of German imperialism.

All had sold their
countries out to Hitler.

Now, threatened by a
revolt of their peoples,

they were only too glad to be
protected by Hitler's armies.

So by March of 1941, German
armies were in occupation

of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria.

That still left Yugoslavia and Greece.

So long as they remained
unoccupied territory,

they remained the root

for a possible Allied counter invasion.

At one of their regular meetings,

Hitler had assigned the
job of conquering Greece

to his stooge, Mussolini.

The stooge was delighted.

Here was his chance to prove to his people

that he, too, was a conqueror.

But he was wrong.

Perhaps the uniforms fooled him.

Something did.

For after the fascist legions
had blitzed on one cylinder

this far into Greece, the Greeks,

in a brilliantly conducted
mountain campaign,

drove the Italians back,
and invaded Albania.

Hitler was enraged.

The failure of his stooge to
protect his southern flank

was delaying the attack on Russia.

He sent a final ultimatum.

For the Yugoslavs and Greeks,
it was surrender or else.

But the Yugoslavs and
Greeks come from a long line

of fighting men.

Nazi slavery didn't appeal to them.

(plane engine whirring)

(bombs exploding)

(missiles whirring and exploding)

(missiles whirring)

At dawn on April 6th, German
bombs told the Yugoslavians

they were at war with Germany.

The Nazis and Italians launched a powerful

and coordinated attack
from all their bases,

supported by virtually
unopposed aerial bombarding.

The conclusion was inevitable.

Although resistance was determined,

the Yugoslav army was cut up

into many small segments, and captured.

The war in Greece also began on April 6th.

There, in spite of fierce
and valiant resistance

by the Greeks, and the British,

who had come to their aid,

the Germans, overwhelmingly superior

in both numbers and equipment,

forced their way past the Vistritza River,

Mount Olympus, the famous
passage of Thermopylae,

and by the end of April,

a swastika flew over the
ancient city of Athens.

The conquest of the
Balkans was now complete.

The whole force of Nazi might could now

be turned loose on Russia.

There was no time to waste,

for time was Russia's weapon.

Their industries, so
recently built and which,

like our own, were designed
for the ways of peace,

were converted for war.

Instead of steel for plows and tools,

steel for shells and guns.

They knew their industry
could never produce enough

too adequately for the titanic struggle,

but what they could produce, they would.

(people singing in Russian)

At the same, the army began to grow.

More and more men were
called up to be trained,

hardened, drilled, prepared
to defend their land.

(engine revving)

(people singing in Russian)

(people singing in Russian)

With the conquest of the Balkans,

the Nazis had a solid front
from the Black Sea to the Baltic

but the Russians had
built themselves a buffer,

to take some of the steam
out of the Nazi punch

no matter where it landed,

but where would it land?

(cannons exploding)

When the blow came, it was
from five different directions,

and from the north, one
extra, just for luck.

That was the big day.

(engines roaring)

As dawn broke, more
than 200 Axis divisions,

more than 2 million men
plunged into a front

2000 miles long, reaching from
the White Sea to the Black.

Their aim?

The annihilation of the Red Army,

in the decisive battle on the frontier.

(gunfire exploding)

The offensive started along
the whole length of the front,

but was concentrated on
three main objectives:

Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev,
the capital of the Ukraine.

In the first 30 days, von Leeb's forces

drove to within 125 miles of Leningrad,

while the Finns under Mannerheim,
supported by the Germans,

began to drive from the
north to encircle the city.

In the center, von Bock's
army plunged 480 miles

into Soviet territory.

One Russian city after
the other was overrun

by the invaders.

And on July 17th, they captured
the first main objective:

Smolensk, regarded as the key to Moscow.

Simultaneously in the south,
von Rundstedt's forces

cut deep into the Ukraine.

This was Blitzkrieg at its best.

The world gave Russia another six weeks,

and the Germans issued a communique.

- [Man] The issue in the east
has already been settled.

Smolensk is the last halt
on the road to Moscow.

- [Narrator] But then, a
strange thing happened.

For the first time since
the mighty German army

started its career of blitz,
smashing into submission

one European country after the other,

that same German army
came up against a country

(cannons blasting)

that did not submit.

Despite the fact that Hitler's army

swept deeper and deeper
into the Soviet Union,

and by October the 15th stood practically

within the shadows of the Kremlin,

despite the fact that
the Soviet government

and all foreign missions were
forced to move to Kuibyshev,

700 miles to the east,

despite Hitler's triumphant pronouncement,

I can say that this
enemy is already broken

and will never rise again.

(speaking German)

Despite the fact that by December,

500,000 square miles of Russian territory,

an area equal to the entire
middle western United States

had fallen to the invaders, yes,

despite Russia's loss of
her best agricultural areas,

her most thoroughly
developed industrial plants,

millions of her people,

thousands of her tanks and her planes,

despite everything, those
six weeks had lengthened

into nearly six months,
and the dread Nazi blitz

had spluttered, stumbled,
and finally died.

What had happened here?

Let's try to analyze it.

First, in this titanic
struggle, not only two armies,

but two fighting methods
and two strategies

came face to face.

The German strategy was
based on the well tried

'Keil and Kessel'

or wedge and trap maneuver.

One wedge would be driven
deep into the enemy territory,

to hook up with another spearhead,

driven through to meet it.

In the trap thus formed,
the victim would be pocketed

for annihilation.

The German plan in every
campaign was to seek

a decisive battle at
the moment of invasion.

- [Man] A single blow
must destroy the enemy,

without regard for losses,

a gigantic, all destroying blow.

- [Narrator] Remember the
campaigns you have already seen

in these films.

Poland, the Poles
concentrated on their borders.

The blitz broke through.

18 days finished Poland.

France, the Allied
strength on the borders,

the breakthrough at Sedan,

and the issue of France was settled.

The Balkans, the Yugoslavians
rushed to the border,

the breakthrough came and in
12 days, Yugoslavia was gone.

The Germans planned the same
blitz against the Russians,

but the Russians had
developed their own strategy,

one to take full advantage of
the vast area of their land.

The Russian strategy
was a defensive depth,

line after line, far
back into the interior,

and when the Nazi wedge struck,

the first line would bend with it,

until it became part of the second.

Again, the wedge would strike,

again, a segment would be lost, but again,

the line would bend, until
it became part of the third.

So the deeper the Germans
plowed into Russian soil,

the stronger their opposition,

until finally, they faced
an unshatterable wall,

and were robbed of their chance to hit

that all destroying blow
they had counted on.

The result?

The Germans conquered land
and lost the campaign.

For the Russian tactics kept the main bulk

of their armies intact, and
made a long war inevitable,

instead of that quick
decision the Germans sought.

And the Russians had other tactics

that threw the Germans for a loss.

(bombs exploding)

Germany had developed blitz warfare,

mechanized warfare, armies on wheels,

juggernauts to crush
everything before them.

(cannons exploding)

But the Russians found
a way to drag them out

of their traveling fortresses.

They used their cities as strongholds,

and made the blitz come
to them down alleys.

(cannons exploding)

The more a city was bombed,
the more impassable it became

to the German Panzers.

They made the names of
these Russian cities

as familiar to us as the names
of towns in the next county.

Rostov, Kharkov, Kiev, Kursk, Smolensk.

City after city, standing in
the path of the Nazi blitz,

the Red Army has found a
way to make their cities

of great strategic importance.

Odessa, the scene of a heroic
siege of more than two months

held up the whole Nazi
thrust into the Crimea.

Sevastopol, which resisted
every attempt of the Germans

to break through.

Here, for eight and a half long months,

the Russians fought for the town.

Inch by inch, barring the Germans

from the great Black Sea
naval base located there.

Finally, when the
Germans entered the town,

each district was
defended street by street.

(guns firing)

(machine gun firing)

Each street house by house

(guns firing)

and each house room by room.

(guns firing)

(bombs exploding)

The Russians knew their
cities would be demolished,

but their objective
was not to save cities,

but to destroy Germans,

a high price to pay for
a copy of Mein Kampf.

So the Germans were forced
out of their armored shells,

to fight and to die in
the hand to hand combat

they thought they had abolished.

There was another item the
Germans had overlooked.

They overlooked people, and
generals may win campaigns,

but people win wars,

and on that fatal June 22nd,

when the Russian people first learned

of the invasion of their country,

their grim faces told
of their determination,

to fight and to die,
but never to surrender.

They knew this wasn't a
question of who occupied

what piece of land.

This was a question of life or death.

(speaking Russian)

- [Interpreter] This war
is not an ordinary war.

It is the war of the
entire Russian people,

not only to eliminate the
danger hanging over our heads,

but to aid all people groaning
under the yoke of fascism.

- [Narrator] So the alarm was
spread to factory and farm,

and from every Russian town and village,

men poured forth to answer the call.

From now on, one thing mattered,

and one thing only: victory.

Total war meant total mobilization,

not war just for soldiers,
war for everyone,

young or old, male or female,
it made no difference.

Age had nothing to do with it.

If you were only 12
years old, there was work

for 12 year olds to do.

Sex had nothing to do with it.

If you could hold a
rifle, you were a soldier.

If you could turn a
lathe, you were a soldier.

If you could harvest the
fields, you were a soldier.

If you could handle a locomotive,

or pilot a ship, or guide a tractor,

you were still a soldier.

For everything you did was
part of that total war.

Nothing that the enemy
could use was left behind,

not a yard of wire, or a pound of iron,

not an acre of wheat or a head of cattle,

and the old men stood
watch over the fields,

ready to give the word to burn

at the first sight of the enemy.

Scorched earth.

What can't be withdrawn must be destroyed.

That meant the factories,
the plants, the oil depots,

flames claimed them all.

The giant dam at Dneprostroi,
into which had been poured

not only steel and concrete,

but five long years of Russian
toil and Russian sweat,

to yield the miracle of
electricity to the farms

and people of the Ukraine.

Now, rather than let
the power it generated

fall to the enemy, they destroyed it.

(exploding)

Scorched earth.

The land they had lived on, worked on,

their forests, their fields, their farms,

they surrendered them to the flames,

but not to the invaders.

That was the scorched earth.

(flames crackling)

And for action behind the German lines,

a new army was formed,

an army without uniforms
whose home was the forest,

and whose front was the enemy's rear,

the guerrilla army.

A minimum of glory, and a
maximum of determination.

Their achievements were seldom recorded.

Look well at these faces.

You will never see them again
in the ranks of war prisoners,

or read their names over heroes' graves.

Ahead of them lay nothing
but the rope and the halter,

but they stayed behind
and went on fighting.

Their only goal was merciless destruction,

destruction of communication
lines, supplies,

the invaders themselves.

(guns firing)

Their weapons were dynamite,
and the terror of surprise.

(exploding)

They asked for no mercy,
and they gave none.

(guns firing)

This is the guerrilla army,
this, the scorched earth,

this, the Red Army, these, its leaders.

These are the reasons why

although the Germans conquered land,

500,000 square miles of it,

it was just land, barren
land, scorched land.

These are the reasons why,
after five and a half months

of blitz warfare, after coming
within sight of their goal,

the Germans were stopped at
the very gates of Moscow.

These are the reasons why
although Hitler had sworn

that before December,
the swastika would fly

from the Kremlin towers,
December had come,

but it wasn't the swastika that flew

over the Russian capital,

and it wasn't the Nazi
conquerors who marched

through the streets of the ancient city.

(singing in Russian)

But fresh reserves of the Red Army.