1 00:00:35,135 --> 00:00:36,932 ln the spring of 1942, 2 00:00:37,370 --> 00:00:40,669 with the German army still deep inside Soviet territory, 3 00:00:41,041 --> 00:00:45,671 Stalin ordered a huge offensive over these fields near Kharkov in the Ukraine. 4 00:00:50,717 --> 00:00:54,847 Stalin had overruled his high command, who had advised against the attack. 5 00:00:55,588 --> 00:00:57,852 The Soviet dictator had demanded action. 6 00:01:01,428 --> 00:01:03,328 But the result was disaster. 7 00:01:04,464 --> 00:01:06,295 Even though they outnumbered the Germans, 8 00:01:06,733 --> 00:01:10,760 the Red Army was encircled yet again, and destroyed. 9 00:01:13,673 --> 00:01:15,698 There seemed little prospect of the Soviet Union 10 00:01:15,909 --> 00:01:20,039 ever being able to mount a successful major offensive against the Germans. 11 00:01:27,320 --> 00:01:31,620 Yet here, at the battle of Stalingrad, less than ten months later, 12 00:01:32,325 --> 00:01:34,088 the Soviets were to inflict on the Germans 13 00:01:34,294 --> 00:01:37,058 one of the greatest military defeats in their hist 14 00:01:40,767 --> 00:01:43,998 How did the Red Army finally learn how to win? 15 00:01:58,651 --> 00:02:00,084 ln June 1942, 16 00:02:00,487 --> 00:02:02,955 Adolf Hitler traveled to the east of the Ukraine 17 00:02:03,256 --> 00:02:06,157 to congratulate his army on a devastating victory. 18 00:02:11,397 --> 00:02:13,763 Hitler believed that during 1942 19 00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:16,862 the Germans could finally win the war in the East. 20 00:02:25,011 --> 00:02:29,948 He ordered his own hugely ambitious offensive, codenamed Operation Blue. 21 00:02:34,020 --> 00:02:36,045 By July 1942 the final plan 22 00:02:36,256 --> 00:02:38,690 called for one thrust, Army Group A, 23 00:02:38,992 --> 00:02:41,483 to attack south towards the mountains of the Caucasus 24 00:02:41,694 --> 00:02:45,061 and secure a major source of the Soviet oil supply at Baku. 25 00:02:46,599 --> 00:02:48,692 The second spearhead, Army Group B, 26 00:02:49,102 --> 00:02:51,866 was to push on to the city of Stalingrad on the Volga, 27 00:02:52,438 --> 00:02:56,033 the mighty river which carried vital Soviet supplies from the south. 28 00:03:03,616 --> 00:03:08,315 That summer more than 700 German tanks advanced across the Soviet steppes. 29 00:05:27,527 --> 00:05:29,461 The Germans advanced just as successfully 30 00:05:29,662 --> 00:05:33,098 as they had in the early stages of the invasion the previous year. 31 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:36,168 But this time there was one difference. 32 00:05:37,103 --> 00:05:41,665 ln 1941 the Red Army had been bewildered by German tactics. 33 00:05:42,375 --> 00:05:46,141 Now it looked like they were beginning to work out the Wehrmacht's routine. 34 00:06:27,420 --> 00:06:29,752 The new Soviet tactic of a fighting retreat meant 35 00:06:29,956 --> 00:06:32,823 that relatively few Red Army prisoners were captured. 36 00:06:33,693 --> 00:06:38,221 ln 1941 Red Army units had stayed where they were and become encircled. 37 00:06:38,931 --> 00:06:42,594 But now Stalin allowed his military commanders to pull their men back. 38 00:07:22,175 --> 00:07:27,044 All through the summer of 1942, German Army Group A advanced further south, 39 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:31,712 reaching the mountains of the Caucasus, and even taking time out to climb 40 00:07:31,918 --> 00:07:34,512 the high peaks and claim them for their volk. 41 00:07:53,473 --> 00:07:56,965 Despite this success, Hitler was still unhappy. 42 00:07:59,145 --> 00:08:03,047 At his field headquarters here in the Ukraine he fretted in the summer heat. 43 00:08:03,349 --> 00:08:06,841 He had hoped for even greater progress, and was furious that the German army 44 00:08:07,053 --> 00:08:11,217 had not managed to complete the same giant encirclements as in 1941 . 45 00:08:12,091 --> 00:08:14,559 ln particular, he felt that Army Group A, 46 00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:17,820 to the south, ought to have pushed on even further. 47 00:08:18,631 --> 00:08:21,998 Angry with Field Marshal List, Commander of Army Group A, 48 00:08:22,201 --> 00:08:24,965 he sacked him and as an immediate replacement 49 00:08:25,171 --> 00:08:29,938 he chose the only German he felt was up to the task ahead - himself. 50 00:08:31,878 --> 00:08:33,675 This created a bizarre chain of command, 51 00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:37,145 where Hitler, now in direct command of an Army Group one thousand miles 52 00:08:37,350 --> 00:08:41,480 away was answerable to himself as Commander-in-Chief of the army, 53 00:08:41,988 --> 00:08:45,924 then himself again as Supreme Commander of all the German armed forces 54 00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:50,051 - and then finally to himself once more as Head of State 55 00:08:50,263 --> 00:08:52,288 and Fuhrer of the German people. 56 00:08:52,999 --> 00:08:55,627 Hitler's desire to intervene at this detailed level 57 00:08:55,835 --> 00:08:57,928 in the army's decision making process resulted 58 00:08:58,137 --> 00:09:01,436 in growing disillusionment amongst his senior commanders. 59 00:09:05,912 --> 00:09:10,076 Meanwhile, German Army Group B, including the German Sixth Army, 60 00:09:10,283 --> 00:09:17,553 had pressed on, and on August 23rd 1942, finally came to the river Volga. 61 00:10:15,915 --> 00:10:20,045 The original German invasion plan had said that the Volga here would be the boundary 62 00:10:20,252 --> 00:10:22,777 between the Soviets and the new German empire. 63 00:10:26,192 --> 00:10:28,251 But before that dream could be realised, 64 00:10:28,461 --> 00:10:30,691 there remained one last task for the Germans. 65 00:10:31,597 --> 00:10:34,930 ln order to consolidate their defences along the West Bank of the Volga, 66 00:10:35,501 --> 00:10:39,801 the Germans needed to conquer a city that hugged the river for some 40 miles. 67 00:10:58,858 --> 00:11:01,224 The Germans subjected Stalingrad to the biggest aerial 68 00:11:01,427 --> 00:11:04,453 and land bombardment yet seen on the Eastern Front. 69 00:11:05,898 --> 00:11:08,093 During the final days of August 1942, 70 00:11:08,734 --> 00:11:11,601 they dropped more than a thousand tons of bombs on the city. 71 00:11:29,522 --> 00:11:32,582 As the German army advanced on into the outskirts of the city, 72 00:11:33,225 --> 00:11:35,193 Stalin decided that while it had been acceptable 73 00:11:35,394 --> 00:11:38,955 for the Red Army to stage a fighting retreat across the steppes, 74 00:11:39,565 --> 00:11:43,331 they must not lose this vital foothold on the west bank of the Volga. 75 00:12:02,888 --> 00:12:05,789 Valentina Krutova, her brother and younger sister, 76 00:12:05,991 --> 00:12:10,690 lost contact with their parents and became three of the several thousand children 77 00:12:10,896 --> 00:12:13,729 now trapped in the city behind German lines. 78 00:12:38,257 --> 00:12:40,122 During September 1942, 79 00:12:40,626 --> 00:12:42,184 the Germans managed to push the Red Army 80 00:12:42,394 --> 00:12:45,591 defenders of Stalingrad back almost into the Volga. 81 00:12:46,432 --> 00:12:49,697 Soviet reinforcements had to make the harzardous journey across the river 82 00:12:49,902 --> 00:12:52,234 to join their comrades clinging on in the city. 83 00:13:40,286 --> 00:13:44,382 Even if Soviet soldiers managed to get to the Stalingrad bank of the Volga, 84 00:13:44,690 --> 00:13:48,717 there remained horrific dangers for them, as these bones testify. 85 00:13:49,995 --> 00:13:53,396 Almost daily around the city farmers still uncover human remains 86 00:13:53,599 --> 00:13:55,430 from their shallow makeshift graves. 87 00:13:57,269 --> 00:13:58,236 Before the fall of Communism, 88 00:13:58,437 --> 00:14:01,565 it was forbidden to calculate the true Soviet death toll here, 89 00:14:01,974 --> 00:14:04,636 for fear the sacrifice would be shown to be too high. 90 00:14:06,145 --> 00:14:09,945 Only recently have historians been able to estimate that on the Stalingrad 91 00:14:10,149 --> 00:14:13,209 front at least a million Soviet soldiers died, 92 00:14:13,953 --> 00:14:16,820 and that the average life expectancy for a Soviet private soldier 93 00:14:17,022 --> 00:14:19,718 in Stalingrad was 24 hours. 94 00:14:27,333 --> 00:14:28,732 At this desperate moment 95 00:14:28,968 --> 00:14:30,435 Vasily Chuikov was the man 96 00:14:30,636 --> 00:14:34,402 chosen to command the Soviet 62nd army in the centre of Stalingrad. 97 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:38,674 He knew his task was to defend the city or die in the attempt. 98 00:16:12,938 --> 00:16:15,498 Chuikov was merciless with the lives of his men. 99 00:16:15,908 --> 00:16:19,844 Several hundred of them were executed during the battle for alleged cowardice. 100 00:16:29,621 --> 00:16:31,111 lmmediately after their victory, 101 00:16:31,323 --> 00:16:34,588 the Soviets made newsreels which demonstrated Chuikov's ruthless tactics 102 00:16:34,793 --> 00:16:36,624 for fighting in the city itself. 103 00:16:37,396 --> 00:16:40,388 Chief amongst them was the use of special assault groups to enter buildings 104 00:16:40,599 --> 00:16:43,762 and seize the most vital part, the stairwells. 105 00:16:44,636 --> 00:16:47,196 The casualty rate amongst these groups was enormous. 106 00:16:54,179 --> 00:16:58,343 Suren Mirzoyan was one of those who took part in these primitive encounters. 107 00:21:13,739 --> 00:21:17,072 There wasn't just danger for the Germans inside the ruined buildings: 108 00:21:17,609 --> 00:21:21,101 out on the streets they faced further unexpected risks. 109 00:21:49,207 --> 00:21:50,367 On the Stalingrad Front, 110 00:21:50,575 --> 00:21:51,542 the captured German prisoners 111 00:21:51,743 --> 00:21:53,904 were often taken across the Volga to interrogation centres 112 00:21:54,112 --> 00:21:57,081 on the eastern bank of the river, where they were questioned 113 00:21:57,282 --> 00:22:00,149 by specially trained Ministry of lnterior officers. 114 00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:04,819 One of those who helped examine captured German prisoners during the war was 115 00:22:05,023 --> 00:22:08,754 Zinaida Pytkina, who subsequently became a member of SMERSH, 116 00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:12,054 one of the most infamous of all Stalin's secret organisations. 117 00:22:13,265 --> 00:22:15,256 Only now does she feel able to talk openly 118 00:22:15,467 --> 00:22:16,866 about how these interrogations were conducted. 119 00:22:54,906 --> 00:22:57,340 After their interrogation many of the captured Germans 120 00:22:57,542 --> 00:22:59,567 were simply taken outside and shot - 121 00:23:00,178 --> 00:23:03,579 a task Zinaida Pytkina was once asked to perform herself. 122 00:25:06,471 --> 00:25:09,736 While the Red Army tried to resist the Germans in Stalingrad, 123 00:25:10,242 --> 00:25:14,008 Soviet industry was out-producing the Germans in military equipment. 124 00:25:15,180 --> 00:25:17,341 Thousands of factories had been dismantled in the face 125 00:25:17,549 --> 00:25:20,347 of the German advance and reconstructed further east. 126 00:25:25,857 --> 00:25:28,291 But though the Soviets were showing they could make tanks, 127 00:25:29,194 --> 00:25:31,185 they hadn't yet shown they were able to use them 128 00:25:31,396 --> 00:25:33,591 to win decisively against the Germans. 129 00:25:40,539 --> 00:25:43,531 That autumn, here at his dacha just outside Moscow, 130 00:25:44,142 --> 00:25:47,976 Stalin discussed with his Generals the plans for an offensive against the Germans 131 00:25:52,450 --> 00:25:55,783 And how Stalin acted during these discussions was to be a crucial reason 132 00:25:55,987 --> 00:25:59,047 why the Red Army managed to turn their fortunes around. 133 00:26:00,258 --> 00:26:03,421 For while Hitler was brow-beating and overriding his generals, 134 00:26:03,895 --> 00:26:06,557 Stalin began to pursue a very different approach. 135 00:26:29,421 --> 00:26:35,087 The offensive, code name Operation Uranus, began on the 19th November 1942. 136 00:26:39,564 --> 00:26:43,000 Soviet commanders had been studying German armoured tactics, 137 00:26:43,335 --> 00:26:46,168 and now combined this knowledge with their own military theory. 138 00:26:47,072 --> 00:26:51,634 The idea was to attack the German line 100 miles north-west of Stalingrad, 139 00:26:51,977 --> 00:26:54,673 at the point where the Germans' allies, the Romanians, 140 00:26:54,946 --> 00:26:56,777 made up much of the defensive formation. 141 00:26:58,016 --> 00:27:00,382 Then another thrust was to attack from the south 142 00:27:01,019 --> 00:27:03,351 and catch the Germans in a giant encirclement. 143 00:27:53,038 --> 00:27:55,666 As out on the steppes the Red Army advanced against the Germans 144 00:27:55,874 --> 00:28:00,004 and their allies, in Stalingrad Chuikov and his men still held on, 145 00:28:00,779 --> 00:28:02,508 dug into the banks of the Volga. 146 00:28:17,962 --> 00:28:20,590 Red Army soldiers even took to living in sewers. 147 00:29:47,452 --> 00:29:51,183 As the Germans tried to eliminate the last resistance in Stalingrad, 148 00:29:51,422 --> 00:29:56,860 a fearsome human weapon was being used by the Red Army as part of Operation Uranus. 149 00:29:58,897 --> 00:30:03,561 That summer Stalin had issued an order calling for the formation of penal units. 150 00:30:05,937 --> 00:30:08,963 Given dangerous, almost suicidal tasks, 151 00:30:09,374 --> 00:30:11,934 his orders said that these soldiers would have a chance to atone 152 00:30:12,143 --> 00:30:15,135 with their blood for the sins they had committed. 153 00:30:16,381 --> 00:30:20,181 Vladimir Kantovski, sentenced to ten years in a labour camp 154 00:30:20,385 --> 00:30:22,478 for protesting at the arrest of his teacher, 155 00:30:22,687 --> 00:30:25,053 was one of those who served in a penal company. 156 00:30:58,556 --> 00:31:01,821 Kantovski and his comrades were ordered to advance towards strongly 157 00:31:02,026 --> 00:31:04,586 held German positions directly ahead of them, 158 00:31:05,096 --> 00:31:08,031 in what was termed 'reconnaissance through combat'. 159 00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,767 The idea was that as the Germans shot the penal company down, 160 00:31:13,538 --> 00:31:16,132 the watching Soviet commanders could assess the strength 161 00:31:16,341 --> 00:31:18,673 and position of the enemy's fire power. 162 00:31:53,344 --> 00:31:56,609 Kantovski knew that if he returned to the Soviet line with only a minor 163 00:31:56,814 --> 00:31:59,908 wound he would be shot for cowardice. 164 00:32:39,824 --> 00:32:43,055 Thanks to the sacrifice of men like Vladimir Kantovski, 165 00:32:43,294 --> 00:32:46,388 together with the power and surprise of the Red Army offensive, 166 00:32:46,631 --> 00:32:51,466 on 23rd November 1942 units of the Red Army met near the town of Kalach 167 00:32:51,803 --> 00:32:55,500 and encircled 250,000 Germans and their allies. 168 00:33:32,243 --> 00:33:33,733 Pushed back by the Red Army, 169 00:33:34,045 --> 00:33:37,981 German soldiers inside the encirclement withdrew towards Stalingrad. 170 00:34:15,586 --> 00:34:17,952 Hitler called on Field Marshall Manstein to prepare 171 00:34:18,156 --> 00:34:22,115 an armoured column to push through the Soviet line and rescue the 6th Army, 172 00:34:22,427 --> 00:34:24,418 while the Luftwaffe attempted to keep the Germans 173 00:34:24,629 --> 00:34:26,688 in Stalingrad supplied from the air. 174 00:34:28,366 --> 00:34:30,561 lt was well known at the Fuhrer's headquarters that Hitler 175 00:34:30,768 --> 00:34:33,794 had previously overruled the Chief of the General Staff 176 00:34:34,272 --> 00:34:36,934 when he had said the German army couldn't take Stalingrad 177 00:34:37,141 --> 00:34:41,134 and advance to the Caucasus simultaneously without being vulnerable to attack. 178 00:34:44,582 --> 00:34:47,983 The looming crisis at Stalingrad was of Hitler's own making. 179 00:34:52,857 --> 00:34:57,794 Operation Winter Storm, Manstein's relief effort, began on 12th December. 180 00:35:00,898 --> 00:35:02,388 lt was the opposite of blitzkrieg, 181 00:35:02,767 --> 00:35:05,998 as the armoured column crawled towards the Red Army's defences. 182 00:35:06,704 --> 00:35:08,729 The furthest German spearhead became bogged down 183 00:35:08,940 --> 00:35:11,807 still forty miles away from Stalingrad. 184 00:35:40,738 --> 00:35:43,036 The Red Army had placed 60 divisions inside 185 00:35:43,241 --> 00:35:48,611 their defensive ring around Stalingrad, and Manstein's task was hopeless. 186 00:35:50,948 --> 00:35:52,779 On Christmas Eve 1942, 187 00:35:53,084 --> 00:35:55,075 Manstein's own force was threatened 188 00:35:55,286 --> 00:35:58,255 with encirclement and began to withdraw. 189 00:36:08,232 --> 00:36:10,700 With Manstein defeated, together with the failure 190 00:36:10,902 --> 00:36:13,894 of the German Air Force to deliver sufficient food from the air, 191 00:36:14,772 --> 00:36:17,070 the 6th Army knew they were doomed. 192 00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:29,797 As 1943 began, 193 00:38:30,207 --> 00:38:33,404 German soldiers waited for the final Soviet assault. 194 00:38:36,447 --> 00:38:39,644 And the commander of the 6th Army, Friedrich Paulus, 195 00:38:39,984 --> 00:38:42,009 considered personally what he should do. 196 00:38:43,788 --> 00:38:46,052 A clue to his state of mind is given by a conversation 197 00:38:46,257 --> 00:38:49,556 he had with one of his other Generals, Richard Stempel, 198 00:38:50,127 --> 00:38:52,652 a conversation witnessed by General Stempel's own son, 199 00:38:52,863 --> 00:38:56,390 Joachim, then a young German infantry officer. 200 00:39:40,978 --> 00:39:45,745 A few days later Joachim Stempel had one last conversation with his father. 201 00:41:46,136 --> 00:41:49,936 The prisoners the Red Army took were unrecognisable from the proud soldiers 202 00:41:50,140 --> 00:41:53,473 of the 6th Army that had entered Stalingrad five months before. 203 00:41:54,612 --> 00:41:58,946 For weeks many of the German soldiers had been surviving on one side of bread a day. 204 00:42:18,903 --> 00:42:23,272 As Soviet forces moved on into the city, they also came upon civilians who had been 205 00:42:23,474 --> 00:42:26,500 trapped since the arrival of the Germans the previous autumn. 206 00:42:27,745 --> 00:42:31,511 For Valentina Krutova, her brother and small sister, 207 00:42:32,049 --> 00:42:34,313 the Red Army came only just in time. 208 00:43:30,074 --> 00:43:33,043 Red Army soldiers pressed on towards the centre of the city, 209 00:43:33,711 --> 00:43:37,147 and by the 30th January 1943 were little more than 210 00:43:37,348 --> 00:43:40,181 a hundred metres away from Paulus' own headquarters, 211 00:43:40,551 --> 00:43:44,248 in a department store on the Square of the Fallen Fighters. 212 00:43:46,857 --> 00:43:49,917 That same day, Hitler sent Paulus a message received 213 00:43:50,127 --> 00:43:53,255 at 6th Army headquarters by Gerhardt Hindenlang. 214 00:44:26,363 --> 00:44:28,422 Everyone knew what the message really meant. 215 00:44:29,233 --> 00:44:32,669 No German Field Marshal had ever been taken prisoner before. 216 00:44:33,704 --> 00:44:37,231 lt was obvious that Hitler wanted Paulus to commit suicide. 217 00:45:10,441 --> 00:45:15,140 On 31st January, Paulus was captured alive by the Red Army. 218 00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:18,805 Only days before, several of Paulus' senior officers, 219 00:45:19,016 --> 00:45:21,610 including General Stempel, had killed themselves. 220 00:45:34,031 --> 00:45:38,092 When Hitler head of Paulus' capture, he too felt betrayed. 221 00:45:38,902 --> 00:45:41,370 What hurts me so much is that the heroism 222 00:45:41,572 --> 00:45:43,335 of so many soldiers is cancelled out 223 00:45:43,540 --> 00:45:46,100 by one single characterless weakling. 224 00:45:46,710 --> 00:45:47,608 What is life? 225 00:45:47,811 --> 00:45:49,403 The individual must die anyway. 226 00:45:51,615 --> 00:45:54,345 He could have got out of this vale of tears and into eternity 227 00:45:54,551 --> 00:45:58,920 and been immortalised by the nation and he'd rather go to Moscow. 228 00:45:59,456 --> 00:46:01,651 How can he even think of that as an alternative? 229 00:46:02,159 --> 00:46:02,989 lt's crazy. 230 00:46:03,794 --> 00:46:06,922 That's the last Field Marshal l promote in this war. 231 00:47:17,034 --> 00:47:21,130 At Stalingrad the Red Army learnt that the Germans were not invincible. 232 00:47:26,944 --> 00:47:30,243 A hundred and ten thousand German soldiers were taken prisoner, 233 00:47:31,081 --> 00:47:35,017 and 95 per cent of them were to die in Soviet captivity. 234 00:47:51,802 --> 00:47:54,566 Now, as Soviet forces prepared to advance, 235 00:47:55,472 --> 00:47:57,372 they were ready to make the rest of the Germans 236 00:47:57,574 --> 00:48:00,907 pay for the suffering inflicted on their motherland.