All language subtitles for Apocalypse.Hitler.Takes.On.The.East.S01E01.1080p.HDTV.H264-CBFM.eng

Germany, 1941.

In just a few weeks,
Hitler has defeated France.

His occupation now
spans half of Europe.

He is at the peak of his glory.

A woman from Berlin,
Mrs. Dagmar Dassel,

sends her 250th
letter to Adolf Hitler.

She writes: Mein führer!

The noblest, most
brilliant of all men!

Prayed for and divinely sent!

The savior of peace!

The first soldier!

The most brilliant of generals!

The greatest
strategist of all time!

The most outstanding statesman!

Hitler has the German
people on his side.

But the German people do
not yet know that he will unleash

the Apocalypse.

From one speech to the next,
Hitler has openly expressed

his hatred of the Slavs,

and his desire to
destroy the Soviet Union,

as Communist Russia
was known at the time.

Hitler wants to
conquer the East,

to give the Germans what
he refers to as Lebensraum,

Living Space.

For this living space, he looks
towards the vast Soviet territory.

It is a nation of 200
million human beings,

presented in communist
propaganda as happy in their

kolkhozes, or collective farms,

when in fact, they are
terrorized by a bloodthirsty

dictator, Stalin.

Neither Voroshilov at the
People's Commissar for Defense,

nor Stalin, nor Molotov
in Foreign Affairs,

considers themself
ready to confront Hitler.

To stall for time,
in August 1939,

the Communist leaders had signed
a non-aggression treaty with Hitler,

who wanted to avoid a
second front in the East.

But Stalin believes Hitler
will attack him one day.

"He says:" Hitler thinks
he's outsmarted me,

but actually, it's I
who will trick him."

Stalin does not want
an enemy in the East,

in Siberia.

He wants a non-aggression
pact with Japan,

Hitler's ally in what is known
as the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis.

In Moscow, April 13, 1941, the
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Yosuke Matsuoka,
comes to sign this pact with

the Soviet Union.

Tokyo doesn't want to be
at war with the Russians.

Japan is preparing her
attack against the Americans.

Matsuoka has orders
to be friendly to Stalin.

In an extraordinary
show of familiarity,

they stand arm in arm!

When Matsuoka leaves,
Stalin literally puts on a show for

Hitler, on the platform
of the train station.

On April 20th, 1941, the Führer
celebrates his 52nd birthday...

Heil Hitler.

Bormann, Speer and
Schaub, and Goering,

display opportunistic optimism.

Some doubt Germany's
ability to defeat Russia,

but Hitler tells them: "I'll
hear no more about it."

The most reluctant
voices are military men,

like Marshal von Brauchitsch,
Commander in Chief of the army,

or Admiral Raeder, head
of the Naval Command.

Many recall Napoleon, who lost
his empire in the Russian snow.

Hitler will need
all his soldiers,

even those in France who
are relishing their victory.

In the spring of 1941,

Hitler assembles his Great Army.

3 million German soldiers
and 700,000 men from countries

allied with the Reich,
including Romania and Hungary,

Slovakia and Croatia.

200.000 Finns will resume
their fight against Russia.

60,000 Italians, and
even 45,000 Spaniards,

a disappointing
number for Hitler,

who had tried to convince
Franco to get more involved

in the war.

At least Mussolini
remains an ally.

Who has just suffered
serious defeats in

Albania and Greece.

Hitler had to
come to his rescue,

wasting time, men,
and equipment.

To save Mussolini,
Hitler occupies Greece,

then Yugoslavia.

But, in doing so, he also
secures the oil he so badly

needs, produced
by his ally, Romania.

For Hitler, England
is no longer a threat.

The country is weakened and
starved by the submarine war.

And he can no longer continue
to ally himself with his worst

enemy, Stalin.

He schedules the offensive
against the Soviet Union for

June 22, and gives
it a code name,

Operation Barbarossa,
after a great German emperor.

"Hitler declares:" When
Barbarossa commences,

the world will hold its breath!"

Hitler imposes on
his high command,

Keitel and Jodl, a
dispersion of troops.

To the North, towards Leningrad,

to secure the Baltic,

in the center, near Moscow,

to bring down the
communist regime,

to the south toward Kiev,
and even further south,

around Baku and its oil.

Hitler so desperately needs
this oil for his motorized army.

He has neither doubt nor fear.

Hitler lines up
cannons and tanks.

His propaganda minister,
Joseph Goebbels,

"writes in his diary:" So far as
personnel and equipment are

concerned, Russia cannot
compare with our force.

The enemy will be
driven back in one,

smooth movement.

The Fuhrer estimates
that the operation will take

four months, I reckon on fewer.

"We face victories
unequaled in human history."

Hitler's pilots, who
are all 20 years old and

members of the Hitler Youth,
know nothing but Nazi dogma.

They fly the
Luftwaffe's 3000 aircraft,

and despite the losses
in the Battle of Britain,

their faith in the
Führer remains intact.

All the soldiers
have faith in Hitler.

They have all sworn
allegiance to him.

"I swear by God that I will
render unconditional obedience"

to the Führer of the
German Reich and People,

"Adolf Hitler."

In Alsace Moselle, annexed
to the Reich after the French

defeat of 1940, the local
men are incorporated into the

German forces,
against their will.

They will be nicknamed
the "Malgré Nous",

meaning 'despite ourselves'.

They risk being thrown
into Natzweiler-Struthof,

the terrible Nazi
concentration camp that has

just been set up
outside Strasbourg.

2000 of them are forcibly
integrated into the SS.

Heinrich Himmler, the head
of this criminal organization,

makes them take
an oath to Hitler.

The children of Alsace
Moselle join the Hitler Youth.

Women are also mobilized,
many are volunteers.

Hitler is always
eager to meet women.

He charms them with his voice,

warm and smooth
when he is not shouting.

One of these
Alsatian Malgré Nous,

filmed by his parents,
is André Muller,

19 years old, from Molsheim.

A medical student, who
is assigned as a nurse

to an infantry
division heading east.

What awaits him
on the other side?

Russian soldiers.

There are three million of them,

The Germans call
them Untermensch,

inferior people.

Everything is dismissed and underestimated
by the German intelligence service,

The Red Army has
been massively armed,

at the cost of great sacrifice.

However, Stalin
has disorganized it.

Consumed with paranoia, he
has just killed 600,000 people

in the Great Terror.

He had the High Command
marshals and the regiments'

colonels assassinated, and
sent thousands of officers to

the Gulag, the Soviet
concentration camps.

Even in June, Stalin continues
to receive countless warnings

from his spies.

On the eve of the German attack,

a Wehrmacht soldier,
deserts to warn the Russians.

Stalin says, "Shoot him".

On Sunday, June
22nd, 1941, at 3:00 a.m.,

without a declaration of war,

the Barbarossa
plan goes into action.

Hitler chooses to
attack on a Sunday,

a day of lesser vigilance.

The German vanguards
overrun the Russian defenses.

The Wehrmacht's armored
Panzer divisions move deep into

Soviet territory.

One of the soldiers writes:
"To the left and right of us"

along the road we follow,

there are Russian corpses
and burned-out tanks,

pierced by shells.

"The charred bodies of
the crew are still inside."

Luftwaffe planes wipe
out most of the Soviet fleet.

Nearly 4000 planes are
destroyed on the ground or

shot down in flight.

The Germans control the skies
since the first day of the attack.

The Stuka dive bombers
and their terrible warning sirens

spread terror and devastation,
as they had done in France

a year earlier.

The Soviet soldiers
are panic-stricken.

Among them is Vassily Grossman,

a great Russian writer.

For him, June 22nd, 1941
is a sign of things to come.

"He writes:" These initial
battles were waged with the

cruelty that would mark the
entire confrontation between

"these two evil empires."

Hitler, meanwhile, follows
Barbarossa's stunning

progress from the
Reich's new Chancellery,

which cost a colossal
sum of money.

Hitler wanted his
architect, Albert Speer,

and his favorite
sculptor, Arno Breker,

to design this vainglorious
building with allegories of

the Nazi party and the army.

After going through endless
corridors and monumental doors,

the heads of state must
walk 150 yards across slippery

marble to reach the
Führer's immense office.

A year ago to this
day, on June 22, 1940,

the French armistice had been
Hitler's greatest victory to date.

At that moment, the
British Prime Minister,

Winston Churchill,
speaks on BBC radio.

He says

CHURCHILL Hitler is a
monster of wickedness,

insatiable in his lust
for blood and plunder.

Not content with having
all Europe under his heel,

or else terrorized into various
forms of abject submission,

he must now carry his work
of butchery and desolation

"among the vast
multitudes of Russia."

On June 22nd, 1941, the
Germans break through the

weak Russian resistance and
advance along the enormous front,

the largest of all time,

from the White Sea
to the Black Sea.

It is Sunday in Moscow.
The capital is quiet.

The Kremlin is empty.
Where is Stalin?

In his regime,
everything is hidden,

especially the panic of
the Soviet government.

Stalin is hidden
away in his dacha,

his secret country house.

At first, he is devastated,
unable to react.

The great Stalin is afraid of
being indicted and executed!

As the German army
advances, Stalin's effigies are

destroyed by the
Balts and Ukrainians,

who welcome the Germans
as liberators from Stalin's terror.

Here they are, running
out in front of the tanks,

holding flowers.

Zina Gurskaya is 7 years old.

"She recounts:" I saw
my first German up close.

He was tall, with blue eyes.

He took my breath away.

"So handsome, and he kills!"

Nina Yarochevich, a
young Ukrainian girl, writes:

"They ride in trucks
covered with birch branches,"

just like what we
do for weddings.

They look like normal people.

According to rumor,
they are setting fires.

"Yet they simply
ride by, laughing."

An officer of the Grossdeutschland
Infantry Regiment,

which had massacred the Senegalese
infantrymen in France, writes:

"We could sense their fear,
but most of them applauded us."

"They shouted to us that
we were liberating them!"

Two days after the attack,

on June 24th, Hitler takes
his famous personal train,

where he has his
meeting room, a bedroom,

a bathroom, and incredible
means of communication for his

aides de camp.

A section of elite soldiers
and anti-aircraft weapons

ensure his protection.

He constantly tries to
justify his criminal acts.

"He says:" We have no
obligation to the Russians.

There's only one duty: to
Germanize the country by the

"immigration of Germans and to
look upon the natives as Redskins."

Hitler will move to
his new headquarters,

The Wolf's Lair, as close as
possible to the Russian front.

The Wolf's Lair,
The Wolf's Ravine,

The Werewolf, Hitler chooses
code names using the word

'wolf', reminiscent of his
pseudonym in Nazism's

early days, Mr. Wolf.

Eva Braun is far
away, with his wolf-dog.

A train station is
constructed at the Wolf's Lair.

It is connected to a track, surrounded
by fake trees and a minefield.

A dozen blockhouses
with steel doors

house the high command.

Hitler's quarters are
relatively spartan.

But he can still have his
tea and cakes at 4:00 p.m.

Hitler, a staunch vegetarian,
never drinks alcohol.

But the ministers, marshals,
and guests appreciate the

champagne offered by Ribbentrop,

Minister of Foreign Affairs
and a former representative of

a champagne house.

Hitler hates this place.

Although perfectly camouflaged,

it is built on marshland
to absorb bomb impact,

which makes it
damp and unhealthy.

Hitler, who suffered in
the trenches during the

First World War,
cannot stand it.

But news of Barbarossa gets
better with each passing hour.

He appoints a minister for
the territories already occupied

in the East.

Alfred Rosenberg is a theorist,

firmly opposed to Bolshevism.

Hitler wants the
land, not the people.

He says, "This is a
war of extermination."

He repeats to his generals:
"Forget the concept of"

comradeship among soldiers.

A Communist is not a 'comrade',

neither before
nor after the battle.

"Yes, this is a war
of extermination."

Hitler gives orders to capture
and kill the political commissars

spreading Stalin's word
throughout the Soviet units.

And immediately, the
hunt for the Jews begins.

If they are circumcised,
they are hung.

Along with the yellow star,
this intimate sign of Jewishness,

is perversely exposed.

Thus, the immense massacre
that begins on June 22nd, 1941,

is not carried out solely
by specialized units,

the Einsatzgruppen.

The soldiers of the German
army also participate.

Italian author Malaparte, a
war correspondent at the time,

seeks to understand
this in his book Kaputt:

"The German has no
fear of the strong man,"

who faces him with courage.

The German fears
the defenseless,

the weak and the sick.

That which drives
the German to cruelty,

to deeds most coldly,
methodically and

scientifically cruel, is fear.

Fear of the
oppressed, the elderly,

"the women, and the Jews."

The Wehrmacht's brutality
quickly turns against the

Germans and
mobilizes the Russians.

This popular upsurge brings
the Soviet people closer to

its regime, whose
will, until now,

was only imposed through terror.

A peasant girl from
the Smolensk region,

Elena Kovalevskaya,
18, immediately enlists.

"She explains:" I
felt instant hatred!

Immediately! Terrible hatred!

How dare they tread on our land!

Who are they?

Where did they come from?

I had only hatred in my heart!

The fervor was raging inside me!

I left!

"Mother stayed home
alone, with the cow."

Everyone chants The Sacred War,

They are inspired by
the heroic resistance of

Brest-Litovsk, the besieged
fortress on the road to Moscow.

Here, Hitler's soldiers
must confront NKVD troops,

police officers, and tough guys,

all entrenched in the citadel.

They hold out for days, slowing
down Operation Barbarossa.

In Moscow, on June 30th,
Stalin returns to the Kremlin.

How can he turn
this situation around?

First, he wants to
reassure the whole world.

Taking advantage of the
presence in Moscow of a famous

American photographer,
Margaret Bourke-White,

he summons her to the Kremlin.

These historical pictures
will not be published.

At the time, America
considers Stalin to be one of the

dictators of Europe.

It isn't until 1943, once he
has become an indispensable,

therefore respectable, ally,
that Life magazine honors him

on its cover.

But in 1941, Margaret
Bourke-White,

filmed by the Soviet
news cameras,

seems impressed, yet cautious.

My most remarkable day
since I have been here was

the day that I
went to the Kremlin,

to photograph Stalin.

And I saw before me a very
unpretentious looking man,

rather short, and a face so
serious that I almost thought

it was carved out of granite.

Until he smiled!

And then I was surprised by
the amount of charm and humor

in his smile.

But Stalin is still Stalin.

His repression gets worse.

He has military tribunals.

All those who have backed
down are shot en masse,

despite their
desperate explanations.

Stalin has officers
executed, including the

Commander, General Pavlov,

accused of cowardice.

The families are deported
to concentration camps,

the horrific Gulags.

Stalin gives the
scorched earth order,

like the Tzar against Napoleon.

The Wehrmacht, like
the Grande Armée,

will find nothing on its
path, neither livestock,

nor food, nor shelter.

Hitler's soldiers, enraged,
set fire to what little remains,

The German advance
continues, with worrying signs.

The unbearable heat of
this continental climate.

The dust from the roads,
which are more like paths,

unsuitable for large,
motorized units.

Fuel transport is a nightmare.

The men must be moved
across immense distances,

along with all the necessities:

spare parts, ammunition,
food, and above all,

drinking water.

Hitler's generals want to
make it quickly to Moscow,

blowing through the defenses
of Minsk and Smolensk,

and encircling the
trapped Soviet armies.

Combats from July
9th to the 18th of 1941

are increasingly violent.

August von Kageneck, a young
lieutenant leading the attack

in an armed reconnaissance
vehicle, is in trouble.

"He says:" The
Russians fight well...

but in disarray.

Their tanks are
inferior to our panzers!

Our air force discourages them.

Occasionally, their planes
venture out to attack us,

"but they are
quickly shot down."

Thousands of Soviets surrender
in the ruins of Smolensk.

And how many Russian
soldiers have deserted?

The commander-in-chief of
the German Army Group Center,

"Field Marshal von Bock,
writes: "My automobile drives

by an endless line
of these wretches,

crushed by fatigue and hunger.

The sight of tens of thousands
of Russian prisoners from

Smolensk leaves me
with a horrific impression.

"Some collapse
from battle wounds."

Hitler lets his prisoners
starve to death.

Millions of them.

He said he would, and he did.

But this war crime will
also fuel Soviet resistance.

The Red Army demonstrates
its astonishing ability to rebuild.

Stalin has decided to sacrifice
the Russians to save Russia.

And his hide!

Groups of partisans with
the peasants and workers,

harass and sabotage the
Germans behind the lines.

All take this oath:
"I swear to be brave,

disciplined, and willing,
without mercy for the enemy."

They are equally
merciless toward the traitors,

whom they hang, shouting,
"Down with fascist snakes!"

Lieutenant von Kageneck
writes: "We knew that we were"

fighting a battle to the death,

with very little hope of escape.

"A ruthless war awaited us."

Hitler will now
confront his generals,

who disagree with him.

He wants to stop the
offensive on Moscow,

to encircle the
Russians in front of Kiev.

Field Marshal von Bock and the
renowned General Guderian try

again to convince Hitler
not to disperse his forces.

Guderian later writes, "This
was Hitler's greatest mistake."

Guderian, in his command 4x4,

marked with his initial
G, like his entire army,

takes off toward
Kiev with his panzers.

His nickname is Schneller
Heinz, Fast Heinz.

His supplies are slow to follow,

especially drinking water.

His soldiers, who
drink anything,

are sick with dysentery.

The entire Wehrmacht
has dysentery.

Even Hitler is plagued by
violent attacks of diarrhea.

Hitler has insomnia
and painful migraines and

high blood pressure.

His doctor claims
it is psychosomatic.

Could the weight of war
be too much for Mr. Wolf?

At the Wolf's Lair,

the Duce's special
train rolls in.

The Führer always
seems happy to see his ally.

The news deserves a
smile, but Hitler presents his

condolences to Mussolini,
who has just lost his son,

a bomber pilot,
killed in an accident.

To cheer him up, Hitler
organizes a sightseeing trip

to the ruins of the
Brest-Litovsk fortress,

part of which
is still off limits.

Clearly happy, Hitler shows
off the seized equipment,

The unfortunate Italians
have already been sacrificed,

in the sands of
the Libyan desert.

The Italian soldiers
hate the Germans,

who look down on them.

They are now
prisoners of the British,

who send them far
away from fascist Italy,

to Canada.

Hitler had sent the
tanks of the Afrika Korps,

led by Erwin Rommel,
the Nazi general and

a propaganda idol, to Libya.

To launch an offensive towards
Egypt and the Suez Canal,

during the Russian advance
towards the Caucasus,

in a great pincer strategy.

Hitler triumphs on
the Eastern front.

He shows Mussolini that,
against the advice of his

generals, by temporarily
abandoning Moscow and

diverting Guderian's troops,
he captured four Russian

armies in the greatest
encirclement in history.

Guderian now has 400,000
Russian prisoners on his hands.

They are already famished.

General Guderian attacks the
last Russian defenses around Kiev.

Capturing the Ukrainian
capital delays the Germans'

main objective,
the road to Moscow,

by a month.

On September 19, 1941,
Guderian enters Kiev,

and the German propaganda shows

the entire world the extent
of Hitler's new victory,

Long live Hitler!
Long live the Ukraine!

German newsreels highlight the Ukrainian
people's resentment against Stalin,

and the active support
for Nazism from some.

Yet most of the
population is appalled,

as witnessed by
Vassily Grossman,

in his War Diaries.

"He writes:" They cry.

As soon as they start
to speak, they cry...

and you want to cry
in spite of yourself.

"What a tragedy!"

On September 29th, 30,000
Jews are directed to a ravine

which separates
two districts of Kiev,

called Babi Yar, the
"Old Woman's Ravine".

Thousands of them,
with their children,

are stripped of their
clothes, which will be sold.

German Lieutenant Horst
Pilz witnesses the massacre of

these innocent people.

"He writes:" I saw how the
children's little heads exploded.

The Jews who were to be
executed afterwards were also

forced to see this.

We heard terrible
moans, prayers and wails.

"The children screamed
and cried the loudest."

How could men do this?

Tens and tens of thousands
were killed in just a few days

in Babi Yar, Lubny, Minsk,
and 100 other places of torture.

One and a half million men,
women, elderly and children

are killed in this
"Holocaust by bullets",

until the Nazi leaders
decide that it is

going too slowly and
using too much ammunition.

The extermination camps,
gas chambers, crematoriums,

and six million
victims will soon follow.

Private Hermann Gieschen,
a photographer with

Infantry Division
105, writes to his wife:

"The Jews are being
completely eradicated."

Dear Hanna, don't
think about it too much.

"It must be done."

How could Hitler instill such
hatred and violence in his troops?

St. Petersburg, the name
of the Tzar's former capital,

was changed to
Leningrad, after Lenin,

Communism's guide.

The city had retained the
charm of the old Russia,

until the arrival
of the Germans.

Stalin has mobilized
its terrorized population,

caught between his ruthless
police and the German scourge.

Day and night,
women and children,

young and old, frantically
dig miles of anti-tank ditches

around the city.

But the Russians are
unable to stop the Germans,

who soon reach the city's gates.

Just as in a distant past,
when the Teutonic Knights had

arrived in the East.

And the savior of the Slavs
was named Alexander Nevsky.

Centuries later, in 1941,
it's the brilliant Russian

general Georgi Zhukov who
succeeds in containing the

German advance.

But Zhukov can't prevent the
Germans from closing in on Leningrad.

These wives of Russian
soldiers do not yet know that

they're about to live
through an ordeal,

which will be hidden for three
years so as not to demoralize

the Soviet people.

Rare images, that were
shown throughout the country,

give the impression
of a normal life.

But the famine, which pushes
hundreds of these unfortunate

people to cannibalism, and
the terrible cold of winters

without heating, will
result in a million victims.

Three months after the
start of Operation Barbarossa,

western Russia is
occupied by the Germans.

Stalin has ordered the emergency
evacuation of 1500 factories,

a massive undertaking involving

thousands of wagons, and
the relocation of workers.

But since all men
are at the front,

the workers are primarily women.

Tatiana Mokrova recounts:
"We were immediately sent to"

factories that did
not yet have a roof.

We worked ten hours a
day, without a single break,

"and with only 300
grams of bread."

Tatiana must produce ten
times, 100 times more ammunition

for what the Russians now
call the Great Patriotic War.

The Motherland is calling you!

In Moscow, the
anti-aircraft balloons

appear in the sky.

Along with the
barricades of despair.

In the Kremlin,
doubt settles in.

Stalin then raises the
idea of a negotiated peace,

like in 1918.

Hitler hesitates.

The soldiers of the
Wehrmacht are exhausted.

Will Hitler stop?

No.

Hitler trades on.

On October 3,
1941, he proclaims:

"Today I can say that this enemy

is already broken and
will never rise again!"

The anthem rings out.

Germany, Germany Above All!

Just how far will
Hitler take Germany?

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.