All language subtitles for Soviet Storm WWII in the East Series 1 6of9 The Rzhev Meat-Grinder 1080p.eng

October 1941. The Germans reach
Rzhev, 130 miles from Moscow.

The battles fought here are some
of the bloodiest of the war.

They come to be known
as "The Rzhev Meat-Grinder".

Originally produced
for Russian television in 2011,

this is the story
of Russia s Great Patriotic War

and the Red Army s long road
from defeat to victory.

The Red Army was pulling back
across the Volga.

Suddenly, enormous explosions
ripped through the city behind
them.

The ammunition and fuel dumps
in Rzhev were being blown up

to prevent them falling into
the enemy s hands.

Everywhere there was confusion.

The roads were crowded
with retreating soldiers.

No one knew where it would end.

It seemed the whole
front was collapsing.

It was October 1941. The Germans
had launched Operation Typhoon

the Battle for Moscow.

The German army was in Rzhev
just hours behind the Soviets.

An investigation into the
conduct of Soviet commanders at
Rzhev

cleared them of wrongdoing.

There had been no way to get
the ammunition out.

The Luftwaffe had already
destroyed all transport
connections to the city.

The Red Army ammunition
dumps were at Rzhev

because the city lay at the
heart of the rail network.

Both sides depended on
ammunition, food and fuel by the
trainload.

It made Rzhev a valuable prize.

Red Army units retreating from
Rzhev were reorganised into the
Kalinin Front.

Their new commander was Colonel
General Ivan Stepanovich Konev.

Konev was the son of
Russian peasants,

and became a conscript
of the Tsarist army in 1916.

By 1941, he d risen to senior
command and been put in charge
of a Front

the Soviet equivalent
of an army group.

However his forces became
encircled in the opening phase
of Operation Typhoon.

Konev s conduct was investigated
by the State Defense Committee,

led by Molotov and Voroshilov.

Konev s predecessor,
General Pavlov,

had been shot following
a similar investigation.

But Konev was saved
by Zhukov s intervention.

Zhukov knew any general could
have a bad day. And shooting
competent officers,

with the enemy at the gates of
the capital, was
counter-productive.

That winter, outside Moscow, the
Red Army launched a massive
counterattack.

The German 9th Army was forced
to retreat from Kalinin back to
Rzhev.

Hitler s response was to sack
Army Group Centre s commander,
Fedor Von Bock.

He was given just a few hours to
brief his successor, Field
Marshal von Kluge.

Von Bock painted
a bleak picture.

He warned von Kluge that he
believed the enemy was preparing
a powerful strike

against both flanks
of Army Group Centre.

Gunther Von Kluge had been
promoted Field Marshal the
previous year,

following his success
in the Battle of France.

He came from a Prussian family
with a long tradition of
military service.

In 1944 he would take his own
life following the failure of
the army plot

to assassinate Hitler.

Von Bock s warning
proved accurate.

As Zhukov attacked from the
east, Konev s 39th Army

broke through
the German lines west of Rzhev,

threatening Army Group
Centre s supply lines.

The Soviet 29th Army followed
through the breach, threatening
Rzhev itself.

The Germans clung on
desperately. Heinrich Haape,

a medic in the German 6th
Infantry Division, described the
chaos:

We got reinforcements from
construction companies and rear
area units.

Many didn t know anything
about handling weapons.

They were cannon fodder
thrown into the battle.

While we changed
positions after firing,

the newcomers always shot
from the same spot.

One burst from a Russian
machine gun was all it took.

In 12 hours, from 130 new men,
just 26 were left.

Konev s counterattack encircled
the German 23rd Corps near
Olenino.

But Zhukov s advance became
bogged down in fighting around
Yukhnov.

Only Belov s Cavalry Corps
broke through to Vyazma.

Because of the almost total
destruction of Red Army tank
units

in the first weeks of the war,
by late 1941,

the Soviets were forced to look
elsewhere for fast-moving
offensive units.

They turned to their cavalry.
The cavalry was used to exploit
breakthroughs

and attack enemy lines
of communication.

Each cavalry corps included one
tank brigade, anti-tank guns,
and mortars.

The cavalry were in effect
mobile infantry. Horses got them
there,

but then the men dismounted to
fight, and the horses were led
to the rear.

Mounted cavalry charges were
for the newsreels.

Later in the war, the Red Army
created Cavalry-Mechanised
groups,

containing cavalry, tanks,
self-propelled guns and rocket
artillery.

These formations were powerful
and highly mobile.

On 16th January, General
Strauss asked to be relieved

as commander of the German 9th
Army. His replacement was Walter
Model.

Model now turned the
tables on the Soviets.

First he broke through
to the isolated 23rd Corps.

Then he cut-off the
Soviet 29th Army.

Konev launched ferocious
counterattacks in a bid to
rescue his trapped units.

But Model successfully parried
one blow after another.

The Soviets failed
to break through.

Konev ordered the encircled men
to save themselves. On 17th
February,

a small airborne force was
parachuted in to guide the
troops back through the lines.

5,200 men of the 29th Army
made it back... 14,000 did not.

The Soviet plan to cut
the Smolensk-Vyazma highway,

thereby cutting off German Army
Group Centre, had ended in a
bloody failure.

The losses were extraordinary,
but casualty claims remain
controversial.

The Soviets admitted to a
staggering 341,000 casualties on
the Kalinin Front.

The Western Front suffered an
additional 105,000 casualties,

while German Army Group Centre
sustained an estimated 150,000
casualties.

Summer, 1942. The drone of a
light aircraft could be heard
over the forest,

and the occasional crack of a
rifle. Field Marshal Von Kluge

was indulging in his new hobby
fox hunting from the air.

It was a dangerous sport.

Partisans and stranded Red Army
soldiers hid in the forest.

Model had recently been wounded
by a lucky shot.

After the winter fighting, many
Soviet units were cut off behind
the German front line.

The front here had become a
confusing patchwork of pockets
and salients.

The largest salient projected
into the forests around the town
of Zhirkovsky.

It contained parts of the Soviet
39th Army and 11th Cavalry
Corps.

They were supplied along a
narrow corridor through enemy
lines.

Artillery officer Mikhail
Lukinov described conditions:

We were few and no one was in
good shape. All the horses had
died.

The sick and wounded were
evacuated on foot. And we envied
them .

The Stavka was not willing to
give up any of its hard-won
ground,

no matter how exposed it left
the troops. And now disaster
loomed.

On 2nd July, the Germans
launched Operation Seydlitz.

Within three days, they had
closed the corridor at the
village of Pushkari.

It meant the encirclement of the
39th Army, 11th Cavalry Corps,

and also parts of the
41st and 22nd Armies.

Attempts to break out lasted
for several days.

Poliakov, a signals officer from
a Guards Rifle Division
described the atmosphere:

At Headquarters there was
a sense of calm foreboding.

You could sense people thinking
we ve done all we can.

Now duty demands we
go to the very end.

But while his troops
fought bravely on,

39th Army Commander General
Maslennikov was evacuated by
air.

His injured deputy, General Ivan
Bogdanov, was also flown out,
but died of his wounds.

In all 18,000 soldiers escaped
the trap. More than 60,000 did
not.

Operation Seydlitz gave the
Rzhev bulge its definitive
shape.

At its tip the city of Rzhev,
and the junction of two rail
arteries:

one running east-west
from Moscow to Velikiye Luki;

the other running north-south
from Torzhok to Vyzama.

German control of Rzhev
prevented the Soviets moving men
and supplies

between the two flanks.
But if Rzhev fell,

the Red Army would be able to
launch powerful offensives on
both flanks.

They would trap and destroy
German forces in the salient.

What s more, the German lines
here were only 150 kilometers
from the Soviet capital.

It was imperative that Soviet
forces drive the enemy as far
from Moscow as possible.

In July 1942, the Wehrmacht
launched a new offensive in
southern Russia

to capture the
Caucasus oil fields.

The Red Army retreated towards
Rostov and Stalingrad.

Stalin issued his famous Order
Number 227 Not a step back!

At the Rzhev salient, the
fighting had settled into a
routine of bombardments

and small-scale raids.

For the Eastern Front, this was
what passed for a quiet patch.

But it was the calm before the
storm. The Soviets were
preparing something big.

B-4 guns, dubbed Stalin s
Sledgehammers , had arrived at
the front.

The B-4 was a Soviet 203
millimetre heavy howitzer.

It was a fearsome weapon, used
for smashing enemy
fortifications and strongpoints.

B-4 batteries were under the
direct command of the Stavka
strategic reserve.

This meant that wherever they
showed up, something big was
being planned.

The explosion of a 100-kilogram
B-4 shell would instantly catch
the Germans attention.

So to keep the presence
of the heavy guns secret,

gunners carried out their
ranging fire with light
howitzers.

The results were
then recalculated for the B-4s.

But that wasn t all
the Soviets were hiding.

The new M-30 rocket launcher was
about to make its operational
debut.

M-30s were similar to the famous
Katyusha truck-mounted rocket
launchers.

But this version carried a
heavier 300 millimetre rocket
with a bulbous warhead,

which meant the launcher had to
be installed directly into the
ground.

Each M-30 could be loaded with
four, or later eight rockets.

It was a crude but devastating
weapon, nicknamed "Pounding
Ivan" by the troops.

Each rocket had a range of 2.8
kilometres. Later in the war,

an M-31 rocket was developed
with a range of more than 4
kilometres.

It was fired from a car-mounted
launcher known as Andryusha .

The frontline was quiet
when Leonid Sandalov,

Chief of Staff of the 20th Army,
went to visit:

On a clear day, you could see
German guards changing shifts,

smoke drifting from
their dug-outs,

and soldiers bailing out flooded
trenches with buckets.

In the evenings you could hear
them playing their harmonicas .

These routines were carefully
observed by Red Army staff
officers,

disguised as common soldiers.

This sector, near
the Derzha River,

had been chosen by the Stavka
High Command for an ambitious
operation.

The orders from the Stavka were
to seize control of the cities
of Rzhev and Zubtsov,

and then advance to fortify the
lines of the Volga and Vazuza
rivers.

The attack was to be made by two
armies of the Kalinin Front,

and two armies of the Western
Front. It would commence on the
28th July 1942.

But the Germans were preparing
their own offensive.

The Germans planned
to attack at Sukhinichski,

where there was a
bulge in the front.

Operation Whirlwind would be
the classic German pincer move:

two blows from north and south
to encircle Soviet troops in the
bulge.

Summer rainstorms turned
roads into swamps.

The Western Front s attack
had to be delayed.

But Konev s Kalinin Front went
ahead without them on 30th July.

Its troops had been given
two days to capture Rzhev.

General Khlebnikov, the Kalinin
Front s artillery commander,

reported the effect of his guns:

Two of the forward positions of
the enemy s main defensive line
were destroyed.

The forces occupying them were
almost completely wiped out.

But Model used
the German 6th Infantry Division

to plug any gaps that
appeared in the line.

Battles raged for days
over villages and landmarks.

To the north of Rzhev, Polunino
village and Hill 200 were the
focus of bitter fighting.

A battalion commander from the
6th Infantry Division tried to
describe the experience:

Our trenches are under constant
fire from guns, rockets and
mortars.

It s hard to imagine
the sheer number of guns.

The indescribable
sound of the rockets.

The wounded drag themselves to
the rear. They say it s all bad
in the front line.

The Russians destroy our guns
and level our positions .

But still the Soviet infantry
failed to break through.

Soviet infantry tactics
weren t helping. In 1942,

Red Army doctrine stated that
infantry should be drawn up in
two echelons.

For a division, this meant two
regiments in the first echelon,
and one behind.

Their battalions and companies
were arranged in the same way.

It allowed a division to move
quickly to exploit a successful
attack.

It also meant that
in a rifle division,

only 8 out of 27 companies
were in the front line.

Attacks were weakened,
and units in the rear

were exposed to shells and bombs
long before they even engaged
the enemy.

In the bloody fighting around
Rzhev, the Red Army would learn
many painful lessons.

4th August 1942.

The dawn silence was about to be
broken by a deafening cannonade.

Stalin s Sledgehammers
had joined the battle.

Then the Katyushas joined in.

Five days late, Zhukov s Western
Front had joined the battle.

As Zhukov s troops advanced,
they liberated their first
Russian village.

At Pogoreloye Gorodishe,

they learned first-hand about
the brutality of Nazi
occupation.

Jews had been murdered,
Russians starved

or transported to the Reich
as slave labour.

From a population of 3,076,
only 905 remained.

In two days of slow
and costly advances,

the 20th Army reached
the Vazuza and Gzhat rivers.

Now it had to storm across them,
take Sitchevka,

and so cut the vital
Vyzama-Rzhev rail-line.

Model hurriedly redeployed the
five divisions, three of them
armoured,

that had been earmarked
for Operation Whirlwind.

The attacking Red Army
units were decimated.

Zhukov was forced
onto the defensive.

He turned his attention to the
village of Karmanovo on his left
flank.

It was a virtual fortress,
protected by the Yauza river in
front,

and impenetrable
swamps on both flanks.

For the Soviet infantry, it
meant more costly, frontal
assaults.

On 21st August, the Kalinin
Front finally took Polunino

and advanced to the
outskirts of Rzhev.

The Western Front managed
to outflank Karmanovo,

and finally took the
on the 23rd August.

Model demanded that von Kluge
release three more divisons

to help shore up Ninth Army s
position. He got them.

With these reinforcements, and
his skilful handling of the
tactical situation,

Model was able to fight the
Soviet offensive to a
standstill.

Red Army gains had fallen far
short of expectations.

Stalin now telephoned Zhukov at
Western Front Headquarters. He
told him:

You must report to the Stavka
as soon as possible.

Think carefully about who will
take over from you there .

Stalin was sending Zhukov south,

to oversee a new crisis
unfolding near the city of
Stalingrad.

Zhukov named Ivan Konev as his
successor at Western Front
Headquarters.

Konev immediately
ordered a new strategy.

There would be no more attempts
to cut the railway at Sitchevka.

Instead Konev would
concentrate all his resources

on driving the Germans
out of Rzhev.

New attacks were
launched in late August.

Konev seemed on the
brink of victory.

But once more Model received
reinforcements in the nick of
time.

They included the elite
Grossdeutschland motorised
infantry division.

This unit exemplified
the superior equipment,

tactics and training still
possessed by the German army.

In October, the Soviets were
forced to abandon their
offensive.

The Rzhev sector began
to quieten down.

That summer, Model s Ninth Army
had lost 60,000 men.

Soviet casualties were 314,000
men more than five times as
many.

Red Army soldiers called it
"the Rzhev meat-grinder".

Alexander Bodnar was
in the middle of it:

We d never attacked in
the summer before that.

And we didn t know how
to attack the Summer German.

I was a kilometer
behind the front,

and suddenly I saw a field
covered with our dead.

Young boys with guard badges,
wearing brand new uniforms

The German machine gunner
was just mowing them down.

We were still learning how to
fight from the Germans, right up
until Stalingrad.

But after Stalingrad, we had
nothing to learn. We knew
everything .

The Russian poet, Alexander
Trifonovich Tvardovski, gave a
voice to the dead.

I was killed near Rzhev.
In a nameless bog,

In fifth company,
On the Left flank,

In a cruel air raid.

I did not hear the explosions
And did not see the flash.

Down to an abyss from a cliff
No start, no end.

And in this whole world
Til the end of its days,

Neither patches nor badges
From my tunic you ll find .

November 1942. At a Red Army
Air Force base near Moscow,

aircrew rushed to inspect
a brand new arrival.

This sleek new twin-engined
bomber was the Tupolev TU-2.

The TU-2 was a high-speed bomber
with a crew of four.

It was armed with two 20
millimetre cannon, three
defensive machineguns,

and could carry more
than 3 tons of bombs.

The designer Andrei
Nikolayevich Tupolev

worked for the Aviation Design
Bureau known as OKB-29.

They were based at 24
Radio Street, Moscow,

where they were closely
supervised by the NKVD secret
police.

Most Soviet wartime designers
and engineers worked under
similar supervision

by the authorities some whilst
under actual arrest.

The Germans still held Rzhev
and the crucial rail hub.

It made it difficult to resupply
the Kalinin Front for a fresh
assault.

So the Stavka allocated it more
transport aircraft, to get
supplies in by air.

It was all part of the build up
to a new offensive, codenamed
Operation Mars.

In November 1942,
the Red Army planned

to encircle German forces at
Stalingrad in Operation Uranus.

Mars would be a simultaneous
hammer blow at Rzhev,

that would prevent the Wehrmacht
sending reinforcements south.

Zhukov, who had been in the
south acting as the Stavka s
representative

on the Stalingrad Front, would
return north to command
Operation Mars personally.

The offensive would be carried
out by Konev s Western Front,

and the Kalinin Front, now
commanded by General Maksim
Purkayev.

Zhukov would oversee them both.

The Red Army would attack with
660,000 men and 2,000 tanks.

It was clear that Zhukov hoped
for a significant breakthrough.

On the first day of the
Operation, a harsh wind blew
from the Southwest,

bringing heavy grey clouds.
Wet snow fell from the sky.

Visibility was down
to twenty yards.

Zhukov and Konev had placed
great emphasis on close air
support.

But nothing could fly
in this weather.

There was no question
of postponing the attack.

On the west side of
the Rzhev salient,

one Soviet mechanised corps
broke through the positions of a
Luftwaffe Field Division,

while Katukov s 3rd Mechanised
Corps advanced along the Luchesy
Valley.

Model and von Kluge committed
all their forces to the battle.

Supreme High Command reserves
were now on route to Army Group
Centre from Smolensk.

From the east of the salient,

Soviet tanks and cavalry briefly
cut the railway line to Rzhev.

But with the help of an armoured
train, the Germans threw them
back.

The Red Army sent wave
after wave into the attack.

But the German defences
were well-organised

and held by well-armed,
experienced troops. Soviet
losses were enormous.

But the German High Command
foresaw disaster.

If defences around Beliy
crumbled, the whole salient
could be cut off and destroyed.

The fighting in the Luchesy
Valley would prove critical.

Here the Germans finally managed
to contain the Soviet advance.

Far to the South,
Field Marshal von Manstein

was preparing an offensive to
rescue German forces trapped at
Stalingrad.

It was codenamed Operation
Winter Storm. But there were
serious concerns

that it lacked the strength
to break through to Stalingrad.

When von Manstein asked
for more divisions,

he was told no the strategic
reserve had already been
committed at Rzhev.

As Operation Mars continued,

German infantry fought a bloody
struggle in freezing conditions,

for a handful of vital highways
and railway lines.

Elite German units who fought
here would remember these months

as the worst of the entire war.

Katukov s 3rd mechanised corps
was just 2 kilometres short

of cutting the highway to Rzhev.
He was down from 270 tanks to
just 70.

But Operation Mars
could go no further.

By 20th December, the offensive
had ground to a halt.

The Red Army was still
outmatched by the Wehrmacht.

Although in some arenas, such as
sniping, the Soviets were highly
proficient,

they still lacked
crucial capabilities.

Many lives were still being
wasted in repeated,

frontal attacks on
German strongpoints.

Their tanks and infantry still
hadn t learnt to work together
effectively.

The Red Army often lacked good
intelligence on enemy forces.

One captured Soviet officer
told the Germans

he had been shocked
when their reserves arrived.

A German intelligence report
picked up this point:

The enemy wasn t counting
on these troops appearing.

No German reserve forces are
marked on any of the Soviet maps
we ve recovered .

Soviet statistics put casualties
for Operation Mars at 216,000.

They may have been much higher.
German 9th Army casualties were
53,000.

Von Kluge, Commander
of Army Group Centre,

was awarded the Oak Leaf Cluster
to his Knight s Cross.

But in secret, the Field Marshal
was already plotting against
Hitler.

In July 1944, von Kluge was in
France commanding the Western
Front

when von Stauffenberg
tried to blow up the Fuehrer

at his headquarters
in East Prussia.

When it became clear the plot
had failed, von Kluge took a
cyanide pill.

He was succeeded by his former
subordinate, Walter Model

who would also later commit
suicide to avoid Soviet war
crimes charges.

There were no medals
for the Red Army commanders.

Konev was relieved of command.
But he was soon back in favour.

He later led the 1st Ukrainian
Front into Germany and Berlin.

The Commander of the Kalinin
Front, Maksim Purkayev,

was reassigned to the Far East,
where he remained for the rest
of the war.

Operation Mars was a bloody
defeat for the Red Army,

and it was a personal failure
for Marshal Zhukov. For these
reasons,

the events were largely ignored
by Soviet historians,

and are hardly
known in the west.

But despite the enormous
casualties, the offensive did
achieve something.

Army Group Center s reserves
had been pinned down at Rzhev.

It meant they had not been
available to assist von
Manstein s

rescue operation at Stalingrad.

General Model s 9th Army had
suffered heavy casualties too.

These were experienced officers
and men that Germany would
struggle to replace.

In January 1943,
Velikiye Luki was liberated,

a town 250 kilometres
west of Rzhev.

The loss of this important
transport hub hampered German
supply,

and put the Rzhev salient in an
even more precarious situation.

On 26th January 1943,

von Kluge requested permission
to withdraw from the Rzhev
salient.

Five days later Paulus
surrendered at Stalingrad.

Hitler, suddenly anxious
to avoid another encirclement,

Hitler gave von Kluge
permission to retreat.

Ninth Army would be vulnerable
as it withdrew from the salient.

So its staff had begun
planning the retreat

even before Hitler s
authorisation came through.

The result was
codenamed Buffalo,

a massive operation
to move 365,000 men

to new prepared positions
100 kilometres to the rear.

As the Germans
prepared to withdraw,

they launched a large-scale
anti-partisan operation.

They rounded-up Red Army
stragglers, and many innocent
civilians too.

All faced swift and
summary punishment.

A corporal from the 4th
Panzer Division described

how such operations
were conducted:

Our patrol arrested an old man
and a 6-year-old boy carrying
potatoes and salt.

They claimed they
were going fishing,

but they were obviously
delivering food to the
partisans.

We didn t detain them for too
long. We sent them on their way
to Paradise .

In the East, such crimes
had become commonplace.

Now as the Germans retreated,

Model gave orders to deport
all males of working age,

confiscate all food supplies,
poison wells, and burn villages.

For these actions he would be
declared a war criminal by the
USSR.

The German retreat began
on 1st March 1943.

Engineers waited to blow the
Volga bridge after the last unit
had crossed.

Hitler had demanded to hear
the explosion for himself.

It was carried by telephone line
back to Fuehrer Headquarters.

Across No Man s Land, a Russian
medic noticed something was up:

A strange silence
filled the air.

Not a sound, neither
from the German side, nor ours.

Slowly, our men left
their trenches

more and more of those
daredevils with every minute.

Then I heard a cry:
"Fritz has run away!

The German withdrawal
was conducted in stages.

In their wake they left
land-mines and booby-traps.

Model s "scorched earth"
policy spared nothing.

When the Red Army liberated
Vyazma, they found total
devastation.

Every building had been
demolished or gutted,

every telegraph pole had been
cut down, every railway point
smashed.

Even oil drums
had been riddled with bullets.

German soldiers spoke of having
left Rzhev undefeated.

But the reality was that they
were retreating to avoid a
second Stalingrad.

The Battles of Rzhev saw
some of the most ferocious,

futile blood-letting
of the entire war.

Red Army casualties
were estimated at 1.2 million.

The only recompense was that the
Germans too had suffered
appallingly.

On 3rd April 1943, Model was
awarded the Swords to his
Knight s Cross.

He was also told to prepare his
Ninth Army for a new offensive:
Operation Citadel.

The General had no illusions
about the prospects for this new
offensive.

His forces, although
nominally large,

contained many units worn-down
and exhausted by the long winter
fighting.

Now they were to be thrown into
the white heat of the Battle of
Kursk