1 00:00:52,852 --> 00:00:55,184 More civilians died during the War 2 00:00:55,388 --> 00:00:58,915 in the East than in any other conflict in history. 3 00:01:07,767 --> 00:01:09,962 lt's estimated that as many as 13 million 4 00:01:10,170 --> 00:01:13,469 Soviet civilians died under the German occupation. 5 00:01:16,743 --> 00:01:20,839 Why did this war result in such human catastrophe? 6 00:01:35,829 --> 00:01:37,922 As winter came in 1941 , 7 00:01:38,164 --> 00:01:41,463 the Germans advanced on Moscow in Operation Typhoon. 8 00:01:50,844 --> 00:01:52,675 The Germans had covered 600 miles since 9 00:01:52,879 --> 00:01:55,677 their invasion of the Soviet Union the previous June, 10 00:01:56,249 --> 00:01:58,740 and captured three million Red Army prisoners. 11 00:01:59,686 --> 00:02:03,383 But they had expected the war to be won before the onset of winter. 12 00:02:04,524 --> 00:02:08,688 Now, with their supply lines stretched almost to breaking behind them, 13 00:02:09,229 --> 00:02:13,097 they found themselves still battling on towards the Soviet capital. 14 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:16,626 Up to Moscow, we said there's a good chance to win the war, 15 00:02:16,936 --> 00:02:20,372 or at least to win the - the - the battle in Russia. 16 00:02:20,740 --> 00:02:24,676 l was a signals officer with the erm, battalion staff, artillery battalion, - 17 00:02:26,779 --> 00:02:31,978 - putting together the - the maps of the surroundings of er, 18 00:02:32,185 --> 00:02:34,745 Moscow, very good quality maps, - 19 00:02:35,054 --> 00:02:38,581 - and the measuring and putting in the positions of our batteries. 20 00:02:38,958 --> 00:02:41,927 l measured this er, distance to the Kremlin, said, what the hell, 21 00:02:42,128 --> 00:02:46,690 if we had long range cannon we could shoot at the er, at the Kremlin. 22 00:02:47,934 --> 00:02:49,902 And then the whole night the guys were shooting, 23 00:02:50,103 --> 00:02:52,071 always shooting at the Kremlin. 24 00:02:55,341 --> 00:02:56,899 ln November 1941 , 25 00:02:57,277 --> 00:03:00,713 just days before the Germans came in artillery range of the Kremlin, 26 00:03:01,481 --> 00:03:04,279 Stalin recorded a speech to rally the Soviet people. 27 00:03:32,979 --> 00:03:36,415 But Stalin also knew that these troops might not stay and fight. 28 00:03:37,517 --> 00:03:39,610 Many of the Red Army had turned and retreated 29 00:03:39,819 --> 00:03:42,253 in the face of the German Blitzkrieg that summer. 30 00:03:43,223 --> 00:03:44,815 Now, Stalin determined, 31 00:03:45,458 --> 00:03:47,790 his soldiers would be made to hold their ground. 32 00:03:49,395 --> 00:03:50,657 Just behind the front line, 33 00:03:50,863 --> 00:03:53,161 he ordered blocking detachments to assemble. 34 00:03:56,069 --> 00:04:00,699 They had one simple task: if Red Army soldiers ran past them, 35 00:04:01,341 --> 00:04:02,968 then they were to shoot them dead. 36 00:04:50,857 --> 00:04:54,657 An estimated 8,000 Red Army soldiers were executed for cowardice 37 00:04:54,861 --> 00:04:58,024 or desertion in the winter of 1941 . 38 00:05:18,551 --> 00:05:22,180 As the Soviet resistance grew harsher, so did the weather. 39 00:05:23,156 --> 00:05:24,180 This was not a war for which 40 00:05:24,390 --> 00:05:26,153 the Germans had planned. 41 00:07:23,176 --> 00:07:26,976 Then the Red Army counter attacked, using reinforcements, 42 00:07:27,180 --> 00:07:29,444 many drawn from the East of the Soviet Union. 43 00:09:02,108 --> 00:09:04,702 When this film was taken, in December 1941 , 44 00:09:04,911 --> 00:09:06,936 the war was not going to plan for Hitler. 45 00:09:07,413 --> 00:09:09,643 The Germans now found themselves at war with America, 46 00:09:09,849 --> 00:09:12,317 as a result of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, 47 00:09:12,618 --> 00:09:15,815 and the German army faced desperate problems before Moscow. 48 00:09:16,656 --> 00:09:19,022 Hitler responded to the crisis in a brutal way. 49 00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:23,325 He ordered the inadequately equipped German army to bear any losses 50 00:09:23,629 --> 00:09:25,119 but to stay where they were. 51 00:09:26,933 --> 00:09:30,960 Heinz Guderian, one of his most successful generals, protested at the order. 52 00:09:32,071 --> 00:09:33,504 Hitler baldly stated: 53 00:09:33,806 --> 00:09:36,331 Do you think Frederick the Great's grenadiers 54 00:09:36,542 --> 00:09:39,170 enjoyed dying for their country either? 55 00:09:43,816 --> 00:09:47,684 The temperature that winter dropped to minus 43 degrees Celsius. 56 00:09:48,654 --> 00:09:51,680 But on all fronts the Germans tried to stand their ground. 57 00:09:52,592 --> 00:09:54,992 lt was easy for Hitler to say 'stand firm'. 58 00:09:55,861 --> 00:10:01,060 Soldiers were overwhelmed by fatigue and couldn't think straight. 59 00:10:02,201 --> 00:10:05,034 Nearly numbed by fatigue. 60 00:10:05,371 --> 00:10:08,340 But that may have made them more willing to obey orders. 61 00:10:08,908 --> 00:10:12,605 No step backwards, we must hold the line. No step backwards. 62 00:10:14,347 --> 00:10:16,110 Those who retreat will be shot. 63 00:10:17,083 --> 00:10:18,107 That kind of thing. 64 00:10:19,919 --> 00:10:24,049 So we just stayed there in our bunkers, - 65 00:10:24,557 --> 00:10:26,184 - not too happy about it. 66 00:10:29,462 --> 00:10:32,226 The infantries, they had to sleep in the open. 67 00:10:32,431 --> 00:10:36,527 You could - try - tried to make a hole in - in - in the snow - 68 00:10:36,936 --> 00:10:42,568 - and er, then was the order that er, a guard had to go every two hours - 69 00:10:42,775 --> 00:10:45,335 - to make sure that you were still alive, 70 00:10:45,578 --> 00:10:47,478 otherwise you could freeze to death. 71 00:10:48,180 --> 00:10:51,980 lt is a very nice death, but er, you don't want to have it. 72 00:10:53,786 --> 00:10:57,449 And particularly if you had been sweating during the day, and - 73 00:10:57,657 --> 00:10:59,625 - and then cooling off during the night, 74 00:10:59,825 --> 00:11:02,885 that was the greatest danger that you would freeze to death. 75 00:11:09,001 --> 00:11:14,564 The crisis was over as both sides bogged down in the spring thaw of 1942. 76 00:11:19,145 --> 00:11:22,706 The Red Army had prevented the Germans from taking Moscow, but did not 77 00:11:22,915 --> 00:11:26,851 yet possess the tactics or the equipment to defeat the invaders. 78 00:11:29,455 --> 00:11:33,892 The battle of Moscow had demonstrated the ruthlessness of both Hitler and Stalin, 79 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:37,793 a ruthlessness that was to be one of the defining reasons 80 00:11:37,997 --> 00:11:40,591 why this war became as brutal as it did. 81 00:11:51,210 --> 00:11:52,609 During 1942, 82 00:11:52,878 --> 00:11:55,108 Hitler moved his headquarters from the Wolf s Lair 83 00:11:55,314 --> 00:11:58,078 in East Prussia to Vinnitsa in the Ukraine. 84 00:12:02,321 --> 00:12:05,984 This is all that remains of Hitler's forward headquarters at Vinnitsa. 85 00:12:08,861 --> 00:12:11,796 From here, he oversaw not just the battle on the front line, 86 00:12:11,997 --> 00:12:14,795 but also German rule of the occupied territories. 87 00:12:16,769 --> 00:12:19,363 And how the Nazis chose to govern their conquered lands 88 00:12:19,572 --> 00:12:23,269 would be another crucial factor in making the War in the East so cruel. 89 00:12:24,643 --> 00:12:25,974 From the outset of the invasion, 90 00:12:26,178 --> 00:12:29,079 Hitler had made clear that this was no ordinary war. 91 00:12:30,116 --> 00:12:32,016 There is only one duty: 92 00:12:32,485 --> 00:12:36,046 to Germanise this country by the immigration of Germans 93 00:12:36,388 --> 00:12:39,084 and to look upon the natives as redskins. 94 00:12:41,861 --> 00:12:44,955 As Hitler saw it, the people of the occupied territories, 95 00:12:45,164 --> 00:12:47,894 including the Ukrainians who now lived around him, 96 00:12:48,134 --> 00:12:50,534 should be denied even basic schooling. 97 00:12:51,604 --> 00:12:54,698 The locals should be educated just enough to understand 98 00:12:54,907 --> 00:13:00,277 our highway signs so that they won't get themselves run over by our vehicles. 99 00:13:04,183 --> 00:13:07,482 When the Germans had first occupied the Ukraine the previous summer, 100 00:13:07,686 --> 00:13:09,950 they had been welcomed by many local people. 101 00:13:10,956 --> 00:13:14,392 To these Ukrainians, the Germans promised relief from the rule of Stalin, 102 00:13:15,094 --> 00:13:18,552 rule which in the 1930s had brought them collectivisation, 103 00:13:18,764 --> 00:13:21,255 oppression and mass starvation. 104 00:13:47,059 --> 00:13:49,357 Aleksey Bris, a fluent German speaker, 105 00:13:49,562 --> 00:13:52,053 began to work for the Nazis as an interpreter. 106 00:14:12,451 --> 00:14:16,319 But the Nazis were not about to create a better life for the Ukrainians. 107 00:14:19,458 --> 00:14:23,690 To begin with, Hitler cast an envious eye on the country's agricultural produce. 108 00:14:25,464 --> 00:14:31,494 lt is inconceivable that amorphous masses which contribute nothing to civilization 109 00:14:31,704 --> 00:14:36,038 occupy infmite tracts of a soil that is one of the richest in the world. 110 00:14:47,152 --> 00:14:48,551 True to Hitler's belief, 111 00:14:48,821 --> 00:14:51,585 the Germans set about stealing food from the Ukrainians 112 00:14:51,790 --> 00:14:54,156 and transporting much of it back to Germany. 113 00:14:58,230 --> 00:15:01,461 Em Freund, em guter Freund, 114 00:15:01,667 --> 00:15:04,932 das ist das Beste was er gibt aufder Welt... 115 00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:32,620 The man Hitler appointed to oversee this exploitation was Erich Koch, 116 00:15:32,898 --> 00:15:35,264 one of the hardest of the hard-line Nazis. 117 00:15:58,924 --> 00:16:01,017 The way Koch chose to run Kiev, 118 00:16:01,260 --> 00:16:03,353 and the rest of his fiefdom of the Ukraine, 119 00:16:03,562 --> 00:16:08,056 was to be one of the first tests of just how brutal the Nazi occupation would be. 120 00:16:08,767 --> 00:16:12,430 Koch was guided by his own maxim that the lowliest German worker 121 00:16:12,638 --> 00:16:16,335 was a thousand times more valuable than the population of the Ukraine. 122 00:16:17,843 --> 00:16:21,836 Koch's boss, Alfred Rosenberg, disagreed with this approach. 123 00:16:22,348 --> 00:16:24,077 Although a committed Nazi himself, 124 00:16:24,350 --> 00:16:28,309 he wanted the co-operation of the Ukrainians and was even prepared for them 125 00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:30,818 to have a limited independence under the Nazis. 126 00:16:32,558 --> 00:16:37,461 Koch and Rosenberg clashed, with Koch contemptuous of his superior. 127 00:16:59,351 --> 00:17:00,875 The dispute reached Hitler. 128 00:17:02,521 --> 00:17:04,216 And his position was clear, 129 00:17:04,723 --> 00:17:07,590 as the minutes from a meeting he had with Koch record. 130 00:17:08,327 --> 00:17:12,525 Both the Fuhrer and Reich Commissar Koch reject an independent Ukraine. 131 00:17:12,998 --> 00:17:15,831 Besides, hardly anything will be left standing in Kiev. 132 00:17:20,539 --> 00:17:23,770 To the Nazis, the Jews were the most hated enemy. 133 00:17:25,244 --> 00:17:27,872 This propaganda film shows Jews being forced to work 134 00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:30,207 for the Germans in the occupied territories. 135 00:17:31,417 --> 00:17:33,317 But by the autumn of 1941 136 00:17:34,053 --> 00:17:37,250 the Nazis were also hunting down and killing Jewish men, 137 00:17:37,456 --> 00:17:41,483 women and children, often with the help of the local population. 138 00:17:42,694 --> 00:17:46,425 Viktoria lvanova was nine years old when in 1942 139 00:17:46,632 --> 00:17:48,725 she witnessed the betrayal of her mother. 140 00:18:53,332 --> 00:18:54,026 Although Jews, 141 00:18:54,233 --> 00:18:57,634 Gypsies and Communist Party members were singled out by the Germans, 142 00:18:57,936 --> 00:19:00,700 the rest of the population also lived in fear, 143 00:19:01,373 --> 00:19:03,864 for this was an occupation based on terror. 144 00:19:07,679 --> 00:19:10,842 We came for them as a kind of liberators, 145 00:19:14,486 --> 00:19:17,011 liberating them from - from the Bolshevistic, Communist system, and er, 146 00:19:17,222 --> 00:19:20,555 and my personal opinion is the Nazis were too stupid to exploit that. 147 00:19:20,859 --> 00:19:23,657 You see, we could have really come as liberators. 148 00:19:23,862 --> 00:19:30,233 But with their idea of the Herrenmensch, that they were second class human beings, 149 00:19:30,435 --> 00:19:31,800 that was ridiculous, you see, 150 00:19:32,004 --> 00:19:34,734 that - the feeling we never had in - in the army. 151 00:19:35,941 --> 00:19:38,842 The idea that responsibility for the suffering of civilians 152 00:19:39,044 --> 00:19:44,141 in the occupied territories rests solely with dedicated Nazis is disproved 153 00:19:44,349 --> 00:19:47,841 by what happened here in Kharkov in the East of the Ukraine. 154 00:19:49,054 --> 00:19:52,820 Because it was near the front line, Kharkov was administered by the army, 155 00:19:53,592 --> 00:19:58,052 and they pursued the same exploitation policy as Nazis like Koch. 156 00:20:04,703 --> 00:20:06,603 German soldiers sealed the city 157 00:20:06,805 --> 00:20:09,774 and stopped the population getting food from the countryside. 158 00:20:10,642 --> 00:20:13,509 Only those who worked for the Germans were given rations. 159 00:20:14,613 --> 00:20:17,741 As a consequence, thousands began to starve. 160 00:20:22,254 --> 00:20:27,089 They didn't pay much attention to people dying. 161 00:20:27,392 --> 00:20:31,055 They - l think they thought it was a norm. 162 00:20:32,864 --> 00:20:36,630 Er, l don't think they were shocked. 163 00:20:38,604 --> 00:20:40,538 No, they weren't. 164 00:20:40,739 --> 00:20:42,730 They took it easy, l'm afraid. 165 00:20:44,676 --> 00:20:47,611 Well, l wouldn't like to think so, you know, 166 00:20:48,013 --> 00:20:49,947 but l'm afraid that it was so. 167 00:20:50,148 --> 00:20:51,479 They took it easy. 168 00:21:13,171 --> 00:21:16,607 At first they killed dogs and ate dogs, - 169 00:21:16,875 --> 00:21:20,470 - but dogs didn't last long. 170 00:21:20,912 --> 00:21:25,542 Well, either they had escaped or they had been killed. 171 00:21:25,751 --> 00:21:31,383 Well, people ate rats, pigeons, crows. 172 00:21:41,633 --> 00:21:44,124 lnna Gavrilchenko was luckier than most. 173 00:21:44,803 --> 00:21:47,863 She had occasional work in a German-run slaughterhouse 174 00:21:48,273 --> 00:21:51,106 and sometimes could take home a bottle of cow's blood. 175 00:21:51,343 --> 00:21:56,610 Blood, if you know, you may make - you can make an omelette with blood. 176 00:21:57,416 --> 00:22:00,351 Just as you make scrambled eggs, you know. 177 00:22:00,552 --> 00:22:04,420 So without - this is an omelette without eggs. 178 00:22:05,090 --> 00:22:07,456 l was just filling my stomach, 179 00:22:09,027 --> 00:22:10,255 if l could afford it, - 180 00:22:11,163 --> 00:22:14,462 - you see. And all people who could afford it did it. 181 00:22:19,905 --> 00:22:24,740 Have you ever tried er, the well, just er, 182 00:22:24,943 --> 00:22:27,377 the bark of a birch tree? 183 00:22:29,181 --> 00:22:30,876 l can advise you, 184 00:22:32,451 --> 00:22:34,919 it is sweetish. 185 00:22:35,454 --> 00:22:38,082 lt is not exactly sweet, but sweetish. 186 00:22:40,025 --> 00:22:43,324 You can try it. And you can try er, 187 00:22:43,528 --> 00:22:47,555 the leaves and the er, young twigs of Jasmine. 188 00:22:49,968 --> 00:22:51,492 lt is eatable. 189 00:22:52,771 --> 00:22:56,138 There are a - a lot of eatable things er, that - 190 00:22:56,341 --> 00:22:58,172 - you hate to think of today. 191 00:23:07,819 --> 00:23:10,083 Around one hundred thousand civilians died 192 00:23:10,288 --> 00:23:15,590 during the German occupation of Kharkov, many of them children. 193 00:23:31,676 --> 00:23:34,270 Among the children who suffered during the German occupation 194 00:23:34,479 --> 00:23:36,379 was six year old Anatoly Reva. 195 00:24:22,093 --> 00:24:24,721 From the first days of the war, Stalin had called for the people 196 00:24:24,930 --> 00:24:28,058 of the occupied territories to fight back against the Germans. 197 00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:32,600 As a result, this was to become the biggest guerrilla war yet seen. 198 00:24:39,044 --> 00:24:40,875 These partisans included not just those 199 00:24:41,079 --> 00:24:43,741 who had fled from the Germans and run to the forests, 200 00:24:44,149 --> 00:24:47,380 but also special Ministry of lnterior guerrilla fighters 201 00:24:47,686 --> 00:24:52,521 who were infiltrated behind enemy lines - - men like Mikhail Timoshenko. 202 00:25:16,915 --> 00:25:19,008 The Soviets staged the supposed exploits 203 00:25:19,217 --> 00:25:21,981 of the partisans for their propaganda newsreels. 204 00:25:25,991 --> 00:25:29,119 This his an inconvenient truth about the partisan war, 205 00:25:29,661 --> 00:25:33,290 for the way it was conducted helped escalate the brutality of the conflict. 206 00:25:34,399 --> 00:25:37,061 To start with, Soviet partisans did not look kindly 207 00:25:37,269 --> 00:25:39,294 on any German prisoners they captured. 208 00:26:01,726 --> 00:26:06,390 Soviet propaganda showed well behaved partisans accepting food from locals, 209 00:26:06,598 --> 00:26:09,032 happy to contribute to the Communist cause. 210 00:26:10,669 --> 00:26:13,035 The reality could be very different indeed. 211 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,335 ln an act which was to heighten the terror in the occupied territories, 212 00:27:51,536 --> 00:27:54,801 he approved an order calling on the partisans not just to kill Germans 213 00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,573 but also to kill any Soviet citizen they believed might be helping them 214 00:27:59,177 --> 00:28:00,838 - a command that was often interpreted to mean that 215 00:28:01,046 --> 00:28:03,446 the suspect's relatives should be killed as well. 216 00:28:04,683 --> 00:28:07,743 Stalin's desire was to remind those of his subjects who were now under German 217 00:28:07,952 --> 00:28:11,388 rule that they could still not escape his vengeance. 218 00:28:12,624 --> 00:28:14,251 lt was a recipe for anarchy. 219 00:28:19,831 --> 00:28:22,026 The widespread terror wrought by the partisans 220 00:28:22,233 --> 00:28:25,134 was not a story the Communists wished to tell after the war. 221 00:28:28,807 --> 00:28:32,174 This rare archive shows a woman hanged by the partisans and displayed 222 00:28:32,377 --> 00:28:34,436 to the rest of the population as a warning. 223 00:29:40,145 --> 00:29:43,171 complains that amongst one large partisan division: 224 00:29:43,515 --> 00:29:48,077 Drunkenness, robbery, beatings and rape are universal occurrences. 225 00:30:19,818 --> 00:30:23,481 One of the suspected murderers was partisan Efim Goncharov. 226 00:30:24,189 --> 00:30:26,384 Before the war he had been the local teacher. 227 00:30:37,168 --> 00:30:40,262 The Communists never held any investigations into these killings. 228 00:30:41,105 --> 00:30:43,835 After the war, Efim Goncharov was given a medal 229 00:30:44,108 --> 00:30:46,201 and became chairman of the district committee. 230 00:30:51,115 --> 00:30:54,414 The partisans became a growing problem for the German occupiers. 231 00:30:55,019 --> 00:30:58,386 lf the Germans suspected a village had been used as a partisan base, 232 00:30:58,923 --> 00:31:01,483 then it was common practice to bum it to the ground. 233 00:31:03,261 --> 00:31:06,697 We saw empty trenches and spent bullets lying around, 234 00:31:08,066 --> 00:31:10,534 so the partisans had been there and shooting at us and had run away. 235 00:31:11,336 --> 00:31:18,708 So l gave the order, 'Pour out gas,' and spread some straw and set them afire. 236 00:31:20,278 --> 00:31:21,336 And we burnt the houses. 237 00:31:21,546 --> 00:31:24,071 We didn't take it so seriously to - to say, well, 238 00:31:24,282 --> 00:31:27,774 fire a Russian house or damage them and so on and so on. 239 00:31:27,986 --> 00:31:31,649 So that they were on a lower level practically. 240 00:31:32,390 --> 00:31:36,156 So we didn't respect them as - as - as civilised as we are. 241 00:31:42,300 --> 00:31:44,734 On the one hand l didn't regret it too much because l knew what 242 00:31:44,936 --> 00:31:46,733 - what is the worth of a Russian house? 243 00:31:46,938 --> 00:31:48,405 They are so primitive anyhow. 244 00:31:48,606 --> 00:31:51,666 But all in all, it's not much value in it, in such a house. 245 00:31:51,876 --> 00:31:54,436 And they will survive. That was my feeling. 246 00:31:55,914 --> 00:31:58,712 Not comparable to a German house or - or an English house or 247 00:31:58,917 --> 00:32:01,715 French house or so on, not at all, you see. 248 00:32:05,590 --> 00:32:08,559 The cows were stolen also and brought back. 249 00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,485 But you also stole their pigs, didn't you? 250 00:32:11,863 --> 00:32:12,761 Yes. 251 00:32:13,998 --> 00:32:16,899 What were they supposed to eat if you'd taken their food from them? 252 00:32:17,101 --> 00:32:19,092 l know. They had vegetables. 253 00:32:19,771 --> 00:32:22,137 But didn't you feel that it was dishonorable to make war 254 00:32:22,340 --> 00:32:23,705 on women and children in this way? 255 00:32:23,908 --> 00:32:25,341 Yes, naturally. We didn't shoot them, you see. 256 00:32:25,543 --> 00:32:26,601 We let them live. 257 00:32:26,911 --> 00:32:28,811 lt was the best we could do, you see. 258 00:32:29,213 --> 00:32:31,181 Many of them might have died as a result. lt was cold. 259 00:32:31,382 --> 00:32:33,282 Yes, l know, l know, it could have happened. 260 00:32:33,651 --> 00:32:38,111 But we know Russians are quite resourceful, you see, in coping with cold. 261 00:32:38,823 --> 00:32:41,587 They could easily fell new trees, build shelters, 262 00:32:41,793 --> 00:32:43,454 just like we did, you see. 263 00:32:44,662 --> 00:32:47,756 What would you say then to someone who would say you burning down 264 00:32:47,966 --> 00:32:49,900 that village was a war crime? 265 00:32:51,069 --> 00:32:53,094 Yes, maybe it is a war crime. 266 00:32:53,504 --> 00:32:55,972 But there was the order, so l did it. 267 00:33:08,219 --> 00:33:13,748 ln the Ukraine, the Germans' brutal rule helped create a new partisan movement, 268 00:33:14,292 --> 00:33:16,260 one which was to wreak further havoc. 269 00:33:26,270 --> 00:33:29,068 Ukrainians had always been fiercely nationalistic, 270 00:33:29,674 --> 00:33:33,110 and now that their hopes for an independent Ukraine had been crushed, 271 00:33:33,511 --> 00:33:35,877 many took up arms against the invaders. 272 00:33:53,064 --> 00:33:57,626 Thousands of Ukrainians left the towns and sought refuge in the forests. 273 00:33:58,736 --> 00:34:01,899 Even some of those who had previously collaborated with the Germans, 274 00:34:02,273 --> 00:34:03,900 like Aleksey Bris. 275 00:34:25,630 --> 00:34:28,565 Bris joined the Ukrainian nationalist partisans, 276 00:34:28,866 --> 00:34:33,496 a third force which hated not just the Germans but the Soviet partisans as well, 277 00:34:34,038 --> 00:34:38,338 and conducted a bloody war, rich in atrocities, against both of them. 278 00:35:37,034 --> 00:35:41,095 Around Bris's town of Gorokhov, as elsewhere in the Ukraine, 279 00:35:41,439 --> 00:35:46,035 the Soviet partisans took revenge against supporters of the Ukrainian partisans. 280 00:36:12,570 --> 00:36:16,006 And it wasn't just the Ukrainian partisans who suffered such a fate. 281 00:36:16,941 --> 00:36:20,775 These film rushes, never shown to the German public during the war, 282 00:36:21,279 --> 00:36:24,043 reveal Soviet mutilation of German prisoners. 283 00:36:33,324 --> 00:36:37,420 Actions like these only served to escalate the level of the German reprisal. 284 00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,447 Hitler would not have been concerned by these arbitrary killings. 285 00:38:07,018 --> 00:38:10,954 At the start of the war, when he learnt of Stalin's call for partisan action, 286 00:38:11,255 --> 00:38:12,381 Hitler had remarked: 287 00:38:12,923 --> 00:38:15,756 This partisan war has its advantages. 288 00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:19,418 lt gives us a chance to eliminate anyone who turns against us. 289 00:38:24,335 --> 00:38:27,429 Hitler believed that only by terrorising the local population 290 00:38:27,638 --> 00:38:29,299 would the partisans be defeated. 291 00:38:33,311 --> 00:38:38,214 But the policy of ever-escalating terror reprisals did not appear to be working. 292 00:38:40,985 --> 00:38:42,646 ln November 1942, 293 00:38:42,987 --> 00:38:45,922 the head of the German army's intelligence agency for the East, 294 00:38:46,123 --> 00:38:49,354 Colonel Reinhard Gehlen, argued for a different approach. 295 00:38:50,194 --> 00:38:53,288 He called for the locals to be encouraged to help the Germans 296 00:38:53,698 --> 00:38:58,158 and said that the current Nazi idea of treating the Soviets as inferior was: 297 00:38:58,369 --> 00:39:01,270 An error of the most grievous kind. 298 00:39:04,175 --> 00:39:05,437 Hitler disagreed. 299 00:39:06,077 --> 00:39:08,705 He had reached an entirely different conclusion. 300 00:39:09,347 --> 00:39:12,475 Only where the struggle against the partisan nuisance was begun 301 00:39:12,683 --> 00:39:16,642 and carried out with ruthless brutality have successes been achieved. 302 00:39:30,067 --> 00:39:34,231 The result was a greater emphasis on a huge anti-partisan operation 303 00:39:34,438 --> 00:39:38,340 which swept over the occupied territories leaving chaos in their wake. 304 00:40:17,715 --> 00:40:21,651 During these raids, occasionally some villages would remain in their homes, 305 00:40:21,852 --> 00:40:24,480 thinking that because they were innocent they would be safe. 306 00:40:56,220 --> 00:41:01,157 A brother killed by Hitler's army, a sister killed by Stalin's partisans, 307 00:41:01,826 --> 00:41:05,284 that was Nadezhda Nefyodova's experience of this war. 308 00:41:19,510 --> 00:41:22,741 lt was obvious that the Germans were not now too scrupulous about 309 00:41:22,947 --> 00:41:24,915 who they defined as a partisan. 310 00:41:28,018 --> 00:41:31,977 Peter von der Groeben was a senior officer with German Army Group Centre. 311 00:41:33,924 --> 00:41:37,416 He read and initialed a report on one of the anti-partisan actions, 312 00:41:37,628 --> 00:41:43,362 Operation Otto, in his capacity as 1A, Chief of Operations. 313 00:41:44,368 --> 00:41:48,998 lt details 1 ,920 partisans and their helpers 314 00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,738 killed by soldiers of his army group. 315 00:41:52,710 --> 00:41:57,010 But only 30 rifles and a handful of other weapons were ever recovered. 316 00:41:58,015 --> 00:42:01,974 More than 90 per cent of those killed by the Germans had no guns. 317 00:43:38,382 --> 00:43:40,816 ln the Belorussian village of Maksimauka, 318 00:43:41,118 --> 00:43:44,053 the Germans conducted another anti- partisan sweep. 319 00:43:45,022 --> 00:43:47,684 Their actions here demonstrated how cheap a life 320 00:43:47,891 --> 00:43:50,325 in the occupied territories had now become. 321 00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:30,590 There were many reasons 322 00:45:30,794 --> 00:45:34,457 why such huge numbers of innocent people died in this war: 323 00:45:35,466 --> 00:45:39,596 in particular the Nazi drive for an empire based on racial dominance, 324 00:45:40,637 --> 00:45:44,471 the atrocities of the partisans together with the German reprisal, 325 00:45:45,309 --> 00:45:47,675 and the character of Hitler and Stalin, 326 00:45:48,612 --> 00:45:52,480 two men who believed that terror could only be beaten by more terror. 327 00:46:00,624 --> 00:46:02,751 But no matter how much the innocent suffered, 328 00:46:03,060 --> 00:46:06,086 the war itself could not be won with their blood. 329 00:46:16,540 --> 00:46:19,100 This war would only be decided on the battlefield, 330 00:46:19,843 --> 00:46:24,746 in a savage conflict that echoed the brutality of the actions behind the lines.