1 00:00:39,706 --> 00:00:40,764 Auschwitz. 2 00:00:41,307 --> 00:00:44,743 The crimes Hitler and the Nazis committed here are infamous. 3 00:01:00,527 --> 00:01:04,019 Less well known are the crimes the Communists committed at the same time. 4 00:01:05,832 --> 00:01:09,598 This memorial, only recently erected in the remote steppes, 5 00:01:09,903 --> 00:01:13,031 commemorates just one of Stalin's terror reprisals 6 00:01:13,606 --> 00:01:17,440 - the forced deportation of an entire ethnic population. 7 00:01:25,218 --> 00:01:28,153 As the war between Hitler and Stalin came to a close, 8 00:01:28,888 --> 00:01:31,322 the innocent were to suffer as never before. 9 00:01:45,572 --> 00:01:48,598 As the Germans retreated, they destroyed. 10 00:03:58,605 --> 00:04:02,234 Adolf Hitler oversaw this brutal retreat from his headquarters here 11 00:04:02,442 --> 00:04:05,434 in the forest of Rastenburg in the eastern part of Germany. 12 00:04:10,850 --> 00:04:14,251 Hitler had ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 13 00:04:14,988 --> 00:04:17,650 and expected the war to be over in a matter of weeks. 14 00:04:18,558 --> 00:04:22,153 Now, three years later, everyone around him knew 15 00:04:22,362 --> 00:04:24,296 the German army was losing the war. 16 00:05:25,625 --> 00:05:31,257 ln June 1944, the military situation, already bad, grew even worse for Hitler. 17 00:05:32,265 --> 00:05:34,927 Not only had the allies invaded France on D-Day, 18 00:05:35,468 --> 00:05:37,732 but in the East the Red Army was preparing 19 00:05:37,937 --> 00:05:40,030 one of the biggest offensives of the war. 20 00:05:42,775 --> 00:05:46,040 On June 23rd, over these fields in Belorussia, 21 00:05:46,479 --> 00:05:48,447 more than two million Red Army soldiers 22 00:05:48,648 --> 00:05:51,811 attacked the Germans in Operation Bagration. 23 00:05:53,486 --> 00:05:56,148 The Soviets faced about twice as many Germans as their allies 24 00:05:56,356 --> 00:05:58,688 did in the wake of D-Day in France. 25 00:06:39,866 --> 00:06:43,495 The German army, so skilled in the art of lightning armoured attack, 26 00:06:43,703 --> 00:06:45,534 proved less successful in defence. 27 00:06:46,639 --> 00:06:50,598 Hitler was obsessed with the idea that individual strength of will almost alone 28 00:06:51,043 --> 00:06:55,309 could hold back a Red Army which was better equipped and superior in numbers. 29 00:06:56,449 --> 00:06:59,316 He called for the formation of fortified places. 30 00:07:00,386 --> 00:07:04,254 The theory was that German units would allow themselves to become encircled 31 00:07:04,624 --> 00:07:08,116 and then mount successful counter attacks behind the Soviet line. 32 00:07:09,328 --> 00:07:11,455 But that's not how the plan worked out. 33 00:09:16,522 --> 00:09:19,616 A combination of Hitler's refusal to let his troops withdraw 34 00:09:19,825 --> 00:09:23,556 and the surprise and scale of the Red Army attack made Operation Bagrati 35 00:09:23,763 --> 00:09:26,163 on the biggest Soviet victory of the war. 36 00:09:26,866 --> 00:09:29,357 Four hundred thousand German soldiers were captured, 37 00:09:29,569 --> 00:09:31,366 seriously wounded or killed. 38 00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:38,606 The Red Army had evolved from the badly equipped and badly trained force 39 00:09:38,811 --> 00:09:43,510 of 1941 into one of the world's most powerful fighting machines. 40 00:10:05,338 --> 00:10:09,172 At the point of the Germans' farthest advance in November 1942, 41 00:10:09,475 --> 00:10:12,638 they had reached more than a thousand miles into Soviet territory. 42 00:10:13,546 --> 00:10:18,381 But by August 1944 the Red Army was at the gates of Warsaw. 43 00:10:20,519 --> 00:10:23,818 Stalin re-imposed his will quickly and ruthlessly 44 00:10:24,023 --> 00:10:26,924 on the newly liberated population of the Soviet Union 45 00:10:28,628 --> 00:10:30,858 - particularly on the ethnic minorities. 46 00:10:33,299 --> 00:10:35,995 The Kalmyks were some of the first to suffer. 47 00:10:44,343 --> 00:10:48,939 The bleak Kalmyk steppe was the furthest point east the German army had reached. 48 00:10:50,750 --> 00:10:53,014 lt was home to a people with a Buddhist tradition 49 00:10:53,252 --> 00:10:55,413 whose culture and religion were brutally suppressed 50 00:10:55,621 --> 00:10:57,816 by the Communists during the 1930s. 51 00:11:16,542 --> 00:11:20,103 Stalin was particularly suspicious of ethnic groups like these Kalmyks, 52 00:11:20,446 --> 00:11:23,643 fearing that one day they might want to be free of the Soviet Union 53 00:11:24,450 --> 00:11:27,146 - a suspicion fuelled by the fact that during the German occupation 54 00:11:27,353 --> 00:11:30,345 a minority of Kalmyks had collaborated with the Nazis. 55 00:11:31,457 --> 00:11:35,723 Now Stalin decided that the innocent should suffer along with the guilty. 56 00:12:05,691 --> 00:12:08,922 Stalin wanted to deport all Kalmyks to Siberia. 57 00:12:09,195 --> 00:12:11,629 So after the Red Army had recaptured Kalmykia 58 00:12:11,831 --> 00:12:14,959 he send in the secret police, the NKVD. 59 00:12:44,296 --> 00:12:47,197 ln the early hours, the NKVD acted. 60 00:12:48,234 --> 00:12:51,726 While the small minority of Russians who lived in Kalmykia were left alone, 61 00:12:52,338 --> 00:12:54,636 the secret police entered the homes of every one 62 00:12:54,840 --> 00:12:57,172 of the tens of thousands of ethnic Kalmyks. 63 00:14:00,306 --> 00:14:01,705 But there were thousands of Kalmyks 64 00:14:01,907 --> 00:14:04,432 who weren't at home when the secret police called. 65 00:14:05,110 --> 00:14:09,308 They were on the front line, fighting in the Red Army against the Germans. 66 00:14:33,706 --> 00:14:38,439 Aleksey Badmaev had won awards for bravery and for the defence of Stalingrad. 67 00:14:38,711 --> 00:14:40,679 But these medals were no protection. 68 00:14:41,013 --> 00:14:42,810 Stalin ordered that even Kalmyk fighters 69 00:14:43,015 --> 00:14:45,506 on the front line be arrested and deported. 70 00:15:13,045 --> 00:15:16,378 Stalin presided over the deportation not just of the Kalmyks 71 00:15:16,582 --> 00:15:20,279 but other ethnic groups like the Tartars, the Balkars and the Chechens. 72 00:15:21,453 --> 00:15:24,479 ln total, more than a million people were taken from their homeland 73 00:15:24,690 --> 00:15:29,127 and sent on trains to Siberia and other remote areas of the Soviet Union. 74 00:15:30,396 --> 00:15:33,854 One in four of them died in the freezing conditions of their transport. 75 00:15:43,409 --> 00:15:46,674 While the Kalmyks and other ethnic minorities were shipped East, 76 00:15:47,413 --> 00:15:50,246 the German army was being forced ever Westwards. 77 00:16:39,965 --> 00:16:41,830 Hitler too was searching for someone to blame 78 00:16:42,034 --> 00:16:44,468 for the disastrous way the war was going. 79 00:16:49,942 --> 00:16:54,936 ln spring 1944, German troops had even occupied their own allied Hungary. 80 00:16:56,548 --> 00:16:58,641 Hitler was angry with the Hungarian leadership, 81 00:16:59,051 --> 00:17:01,713 believing that they lacked commitment to the war effort. 82 00:17:03,555 --> 00:17:05,750 He particularly blamed Hungarian Jews, 83 00:17:06,258 --> 00:17:09,318 accusing them of corrupting the rest of the Hungarian people. 84 00:17:11,597 --> 00:17:13,565 l could see the fear on my parents' faces, 85 00:17:15,868 --> 00:17:17,733 and l could see the whole atmosphere has changed. 86 00:17:17,936 --> 00:17:20,996 That it's something - it's the beginning of something horrible. 87 00:17:22,141 --> 00:17:24,575 Though we were - we were hoping this is just something, 88 00:17:24,777 --> 00:17:29,908 a military - military manoeuvre and the Jewish population will not be affected. 89 00:17:31,183 --> 00:17:33,743 Hitler was furious that the Hungarians had not cooperated 90 00:17:33,952 --> 00:17:38,480 with the Nazis Final Solution - the extermination of the Jews. 91 00:17:39,358 --> 00:17:43,556 All that was to change as during the spring and summer of 1944 92 00:17:44,129 --> 00:17:48,429 the Nazis organized the most ruthlessly efficient Jewish deportation yet 93 00:17:48,634 --> 00:17:50,226 seen in occupied Europe. 94 00:17:52,204 --> 00:17:53,967 They knocked on the door and said, 95 00:17:54,173 --> 00:17:56,869 'you've got - you've got half an hour to pack your belongings. 96 00:17:57,076 --> 00:18:00,170 Everybody can take only as much as they - as they can carry. 97 00:18:01,213 --> 00:18:04,307 And the - we'll wait for you outside in half an hour.' 98 00:18:10,622 --> 00:18:12,647 At the same time as Stalin's secret police 99 00:18:12,858 --> 00:18:15,850 were deporting Soviet ethnic groups to Siberia, 100 00:18:16,428 --> 00:18:19,124 Hitler's SS were committing murder here. 101 00:18:25,771 --> 00:18:30,640 440,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to Auschwitz during 1944, 102 00:18:31,376 --> 00:18:34,106 and only those the Nazis thought could be used as slaves 103 00:18:34,313 --> 00:18:35,940 were spared immediate death. 104 00:18:37,216 --> 00:18:41,482 The majority of women and children were murdered within hours of arrival. 105 00:18:50,295 --> 00:18:54,493 l realised with a - within three to four weeks after arrival at 106 00:18:54,700 --> 00:18:57,225 Auschwitz that there are gas - gas chambers here. 107 00:18:57,436 --> 00:19:01,304 l felt numbness. Numbness. Numbness. 108 00:19:01,507 --> 00:19:03,532 As there is nothing that l can do about them, 109 00:19:03,809 --> 00:19:06,004 what l have to ensure, that l should survive, 110 00:19:06,211 --> 00:19:11,843 at least l should - l should be able to tell the story what - what happened here. 111 00:19:15,420 --> 00:19:19,186 The Nazis may have managed to deport Hungarian Jews to the death camps, 112 00:19:19,758 --> 00:19:22,921 but their attempt to shore up the defence of Hungary was short lived. 113 00:19:24,062 --> 00:19:25,586 By the autumn of 1944, 114 00:19:26,064 --> 00:19:30,501 Red Army troops had entered both Hungary and another former Nazi ally, Romania. 115 00:19:38,210 --> 00:19:40,804 Many Soviet soldiers decided that these former allies 116 00:19:41,013 --> 00:19:43,538 of the Nazis owed them a personal debt. 117 00:19:57,930 --> 00:20:01,866 Fyodor Khropatiy watched as some of his comrades did more than just steal. 118 00:20:46,345 --> 00:20:48,973 East Prussia, with its forests and lakes, 119 00:20:49,248 --> 00:20:52,740 was the first part of pre-war German territory the Red Army entered. 120 00:20:58,590 --> 00:21:00,854 By the beginning of 1945, almost the whole 121 00:21:01,059 --> 00:21:03,459 of the East Prussian population was on the move. 122 00:21:09,368 --> 00:21:11,199 Some were trying to escape to the West; 123 00:21:12,070 --> 00:21:15,039 others had been driven out of their homes by the Red Army. 124 00:21:20,779 --> 00:21:24,510 Anna Seddig and her one year old son Siegfried were just two 125 00:21:24,716 --> 00:21:28,379 of the thousands of East Prussian refugees tramping through the cold. 126 00:21:57,015 --> 00:22:00,041 One night, seeking shelter for herself and her baby, 127 00:22:00,485 --> 00:22:03,648 Anna Seddig encountered a group of Red Army soldiers. 128 00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:55,485 lt is estimated that as many as 129 00:24:55,694 --> 00:24:59,027 two million German women were raped by Red Army soldiers. 130 00:24:59,798 --> 00:25:03,393 Only a handful of Soviet soldiers were ever court-martialled for the offence. 131 00:25:22,587 --> 00:25:25,488 But there were those who had been glad to see the Red Army. 132 00:25:26,157 --> 00:25:29,422 First the population of the occupied parts of the Soviet Union, 133 00:25:30,195 --> 00:25:32,163 and now the Soviet prisoners of war. 134 00:25:59,958 --> 00:26:03,394 Tatiana Nanieva, who had served in the Red Army as a nurse, 135 00:26:03,628 --> 00:26:06,222 was one of more than a million Soviet prisoners of war 136 00:26:06,431 --> 00:26:09,798 who had been transported to camps within the Greater German Reich 137 00:26:10,068 --> 00:26:11,660 to act as forced labour. 138 00:26:13,638 --> 00:26:16,004 She was overjoyed when the Red Army arrived 139 00:26:16,441 --> 00:26:18,375 - a feeling that was not reciprocated. 140 00:27:08,393 --> 00:27:12,090 Nearly two million Soviet prisoners of war were liberated by the Red Army. 141 00:27:12,697 --> 00:27:14,961 All were to suffer at the hands of Stalin. 142 00:27:16,034 --> 00:27:17,831 For many like Tatiana Nanieva, 143 00:27:18,169 --> 00:27:21,900 their suffering began here in a filtration camp run by the secret police. 144 00:27:23,041 --> 00:27:25,601 Their problem was that Stalin maintained that the Soviet Union 145 00:27:25,810 --> 00:27:29,211 had no prisoners of war, only traitors. 146 00:28:01,179 --> 00:28:03,647 For the crime of being captured by the Germans, 147 00:28:03,948 --> 00:28:08,282 volunteer nurse Tatiana Nanieva was sentenced to six years in the Gulag, 148 00:28:08,653 --> 00:28:10,746 and lifetime exile in Siberia. 149 00:28:15,060 --> 00:28:18,496 ln Moscow, renewing the suffering of the Soviet prisoners of war 150 00:28:18,697 --> 00:28:21,291 was just one of the tasks Stalin had set himself. 151 00:28:22,333 --> 00:28:25,131 But what obsessed him now, as it became clear that the Soviet Union 152 00:28:25,336 --> 00:28:28,271 would win the war, was his own reputation. 153 00:28:29,140 --> 00:28:30,869 The fact that his military incompetence earlier 154 00:28:31,076 --> 00:28:35,069 in the conflict had nearly lost them the war had to be erased. 155 00:28:36,981 --> 00:28:40,712 This picture, which still hangs in the Russian High Command headquarters, 156 00:28:40,952 --> 00:28:43,352 was commissioned by Stalin after the victory 157 00:28:43,588 --> 00:28:46,182 and shows the Soviet dictator as he wanted to be seen: 158 00:28:46,691 --> 00:28:49,751 the decisive Generalissimo who determined the fate of the war. 159 00:28:51,496 --> 00:28:53,691 The truth was that the great victories had come only 160 00:28:53,898 --> 00:28:55,763 after he had allowed his Generals, 161 00:28:55,967 --> 00:28:58,868 particularly Marshal Zhukov, a freer hand. 162 00:28:59,704 --> 00:29:02,935 But Stalin wanted that fact too eliminated. 163 00:29:38,376 --> 00:29:40,936 The same month that Zhukov was moved out of the headquarters 164 00:29:41,146 --> 00:29:44,673 in Moscow and sent to command a whole army group at the front line, 165 00:29:44,916 --> 00:29:47,510 Stalin was filmed receiving the Order of Victory, 166 00:29:47,786 --> 00:29:50,277 the highest military order of the Soviet Union, 167 00:29:51,022 --> 00:29:53,650 a decoration which up to that point had only ever 168 00:29:53,858 --> 00:29:56,759 been given to high ranking professional soldiers. 169 00:30:04,469 --> 00:30:07,597 By now, Stalin expected to receive all the plaudits. 170 00:30:08,506 --> 00:30:13,068 This film shows his reception before making a speech in the autumn of 1944. 171 00:30:30,128 --> 00:30:32,722 No one wanted to be the first to stop clapping, 172 00:30:33,431 --> 00:30:36,662 so a mechanical device gave them all permission to stop. 173 00:31:01,359 --> 00:31:04,624 ln Germany, as news from the front line grew still worse, 174 00:31:05,263 --> 00:31:08,926 these were the sort of images the Nazis' Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels 175 00:31:09,133 --> 00:31:10,794 preferred the public to see. 176 00:31:19,544 --> 00:31:24,277 Unlike Stalin, who was seen more and more in Soviet newsreels as the war went on, 177 00:31:24,616 --> 00:31:26,948 Hitler now scarcely appeared in public at all. 178 00:31:30,822 --> 00:31:35,418 ln January 1945, he made a rare radio broadcast to the German people. 179 00:32:09,460 --> 00:32:14,159 By spring 1945, the situation had become all but hopeless for the Germans. 180 00:32:17,168 --> 00:32:19,159 The Red Army had reached the river Oder, 181 00:32:20,104 --> 00:32:23,039 the last great natural obstacle before Berlin. 182 00:32:32,517 --> 00:32:34,712 At Juterbog airfield near the Oder, 183 00:32:35,219 --> 00:32:38,086 a special group of Luftwaffe pilots had been assembled. 184 00:32:38,756 --> 00:32:42,317 They wanted to do whatever the could to stop the Red Army crossing the river. 185 00:33:03,681 --> 00:33:07,117 Among this group of determined volunteers was Rudolf Escherich. 186 00:33:33,811 --> 00:33:37,008 Rudolf Escherich and twelve of his comrades signed this letter 187 00:33:37,215 --> 00:33:40,013 proclaiming their willingness to take part in a suicide mission. 188 00:33:42,420 --> 00:33:46,356 They wrote: 'we sacrifice ourselves voluntarily for our Fuhrer, 189 00:33:46,557 --> 00:33:49,025 our homeland and for Germany.' 190 00:33:52,864 --> 00:33:55,389 The plan, code named Special Mission Freedom, 191 00:33:55,666 --> 00:33:58,567 was to crash their planes into the bridges over the river Oder. 192 00:33:59,837 --> 00:34:01,270 But the operation was a failure. 193 00:34:01,639 --> 00:34:04,608 Many of the planes, loaded down with 500-kilogram bombs, 194 00:34:04,809 --> 00:34:06,709 were destroyed before they reached their target, 195 00:34:07,078 --> 00:34:09,512 and others couldn't find the bridges in thick smoke. 196 00:34:10,548 --> 00:34:13,881 Shortly afterwards, with the Red Army already across the Oder, 197 00:34:14,485 --> 00:34:16,715 further suicide missions were abandoned. 198 00:35:30,862 --> 00:35:35,390 The Red Army reached the outskirts of Berlin on 21st April 1945. 199 00:35:38,169 --> 00:35:41,263 Stalin had encouraged competition between the two Soviet Marshals 200 00:35:41,472 --> 00:35:44,236 charged with taking Berlin, Zhukov and Koniev. 201 00:35:45,143 --> 00:35:47,407 But this competition did not make the operation smoother 202 00:35:47,612 --> 00:35:50,103 for the Red Army - quite the reverse. 203 00:35:50,648 --> 00:35:52,707 At the boundary between the two Soviet armies 204 00:35:53,117 --> 00:35:56,553 there were cases of Red Army soldiers firing at each other in the confusion. 205 00:37:01,819 --> 00:37:06,153 A week after the assault had begun, most of Berlin was in Soviet hands. 206 00:37:44,595 --> 00:37:46,859 This Soviet film shows how one Berlin family 207 00:37:47,064 --> 00:37:49,294 reacted to the arrival of the Red Army. 208 00:37:54,205 --> 00:37:58,608 The husband appears to have shot his wife and children before hanging himself. 209 00:38:00,711 --> 00:38:04,841 ln the German capital that spring such stories of suicide were commonplace. 210 00:38:57,968 --> 00:39:01,335 German resistance in Berlin finally crumbled on May 2nd, 211 00:39:01,572 --> 00:39:04,166 after Zhukov's troops had stormed the Reichstag. 212 00:39:06,010 --> 00:39:09,639 The British and Americans, having accepted that the Soviets should take Berlin, 213 00:39:09,980 --> 00:39:12,278 were still more than fifty miles away to the West. 214 00:39:20,191 --> 00:39:24,594 Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker rear the Reich Chancellery on April 30th. 215 00:39:25,896 --> 00:39:29,354 One of his last remarks had been that if the German people lost the war 216 00:39:29,900 --> 00:39:32,425 they would have proved themselves unworthy of him. 217 00:39:40,845 --> 00:39:44,042 The Red Army now had complete control of Berlin, Warsaw, 218 00:39:44,248 --> 00:39:48,742 Budapest and Bucharest - nearly all the capitals of Eastern Europe. 219 00:39:59,797 --> 00:40:02,766 Soviet vengeance did not stop with final victory. 220 00:40:03,701 --> 00:40:05,498 A few days after the German surrender, 221 00:40:05,803 --> 00:40:09,534 Vladlen Anchishkin was fired at by retreating SS soldiers. 222 00:40:10,441 --> 00:40:15,902 Having captured them, he and his comrades embarked on a personal crusade of revenge. 223 00:43:03,847 --> 00:43:09,285 The Soviets held a victory parade in Red Square on 24th June 1945. 224 00:43:19,163 --> 00:43:21,723 Four years and two days had passed since Hitler 225 00:43:21,932 --> 00:43:24,298 had launched his invasion of the Soviet Union. 226 00:44:25,629 --> 00:44:28,120 Stalin allowed Zhukov to inspect the parade. 227 00:44:28,966 --> 00:44:32,458 There was a rumour that Stalin had wanted to reserve this honour for himself, 228 00:44:32,903 --> 00:44:35,201 but he was worried that he might fall of his horse. 229 00:45:18,282 --> 00:45:20,216 Within a year of the victory parade, 230 00:45:20,551 --> 00:45:22,416 Zhukov was accused of the crime of trying 231 00:45:22,619 --> 00:45:25,588 to take too much credit for his part in winning the war. 232 00:45:26,824 --> 00:45:30,590 This order, signed by Stalin as Generalissimo of the Soviet Union, 233 00:45:30,861 --> 00:45:33,830 accuses Zhukov of being pretentious and ambitious. 234 00:45:35,733 --> 00:45:37,325 Stalin had him removed to command 235 00:45:37,534 --> 00:45:41,470 the Odessa military district, 700 miles from Moscow. 236 00:45:44,842 --> 00:45:46,332 Zhukov did not suffer alone. 237 00:45:47,177 --> 00:45:49,645 The head of the Navy was arrested and demoted, 238 00:45:50,314 --> 00:45:53,374 and the head of the Air Force was arrested and tortured. 239 00:46:07,631 --> 00:46:08,791 By the war's end 240 00:46:09,066 --> 00:46:11,967 Stalin had extended his rule into the heart of Europe. 241 00:46:14,104 --> 00:46:17,699 Part of the continent had exchanged one tyrant for another. 242 00:46:23,881 --> 00:46:26,475 But this was not the only legacy of the conflict. 243 00:46:27,351 --> 00:46:31,117 Hitler had said that the war in the East would be a different kind of war 244 00:46:31,555 --> 00:46:36,492 - a war of annihilation. And in that he was right, 245 00:46:37,561 --> 00:46:42,521 the war he began brought a scale of atrocity never previously known. 246 00:46:44,868 --> 00:46:48,634 This war would for all time be a reminder of just 247 00:46:48,839 --> 00:46:53,776 what human beings had been capable of in the 20th century.