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Adolf Hitler had never disguised
his belief that the Soviet Union
would be his regime's ultimate enemy.
He hated communism,
and saw the vast open spaces,
and abundant natural resources of Soviet Russia
as the prize which would finally enable
the German people to become the master race.
Throughout the early months of 1941,
as he stayed at the Berghof,
his country retreat in the Bavarian Alps,
Hitler planned his greatest gamble.
Operation Barbarossa,
the assault on the Soviet Union.
Steadily, his armies were redeployed to the east
and re-equipped for what would be
their greatest challenge.
In theory Stalin's Soviet Union was still Hitler's ally,
and Stalin was keen to keep it that way
for his country was woefully unprepared for war.
The mighty Red Army,
once the largest and most technologically
advanced in the world,
had been devastated by Stalin's purges
in the later 1930s.
Some three quarters of its senior officers
had been shot or imprisoned.
Despite appearances there had been a catastrophic
collapse in morale and efficiency.
As German soldiers now flooded
into neighbouring Poland,
Stalin, desperate to maintain the peace,
gave orders that nothing should be done
to offend Hitler.
But Hitler had one other task to perform
before he could push on to Russia.
He needed to secure his southern flank.
Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary
were Germany's firm allies.
But in March 1941, the Yugoslav government,
sympathetic to Germany,
was overthrown by pro-British forces.
It's next door neighbour Greece was also pro-British.
So, on April the 6th, 1941,
the German army invaded the Balkans.
Thirty-three German divisions moved into Yugoslavia.
They swiftly tore its defences apart.
The capital Belgrade surrendered on April the 12th.
Greece fell almost as quickly.
Despite British help
Athens was captured in less than three weeks.
The way was now clear for Operation Barbarossa.
Over 4 million men were to be deployed.
They were supported by more than 3,000 aircraft.
The plan called for three simultaneous thrusts.
Army Group North would overrun the Baltic states
and seize Leningrad.
Army Group Centre was to advance to Moscow.
And Army Group South would occupy the Ukraine.
Hitler's generals went silent
when he showed them the plan.
They were worried it was too ambitious
and would spread their forces too thinly.
But none dared voice their doubts.
The Red Army was much bigger.
It had nearly two million men
within striking distance of the western front
and millions more in reserve.
The Russians also had more than 20,000 tanks,
far outnumbering Germany's 6,000.
They were older and less powerful
but they were still a formidable fighting force.
The issue for Germany was,
could its superior technology and speed
overwhelm the Russians before the Red Army's
vast numbers ground them down?
Operation Barbarossa began at 3:15 A.M.
on June the 22nd, 1941.
The Luftwaffe joined in at dawn,
targeting Soviet airfields.
Simultaneously, the ground attack began.
The Germans swiftly crossed the River Bug
on the border between Poland and the Soviet Union.
Hitler's Panzers were soon thrusting deep
into Soviet territory.
Within two days the Panzers had penetrated
more than 50 miles.
Ill-coordinated Red Army counterattacks
were swiftly brushed aside.
Tens of thousands of Soviet prisoners
were rounded up.
Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe had total domination of the air.
The Red Army's leadership seemed paralysed
by the German onrush.
On June the 29th,
seven days after the start of the assault,
two Panzer thrusts met up near Minsk,
surrounding huge pockets of Soviet troops.
As the follow-up infantry arrived
more than 300,000 prisoners were taken.
Often the Germans found themselves welcomed
as liberators, particularly in the Ukraine
where anti-Russian feeling was widespread.
In Moscow, Stalin appeared to have suffered
a near-breakdown at the news of his betrayal
by Hitler.
He remained silent for more than a week.
Not until July the 3rd,
did he appeal to his people's patriotism
to save the Motherland.
In Britain, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill,
received the news of Operation Barbarossa
with very different feelings.
It meant the country no longer stood alone.
He announced that any enemy of Nazi Germany
was a friend of Britain's,
no matter what the political differences in the past.
He then sent a mission to Moscow
to sign a treaty of mutual assistance
with Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
But apart from sending aid by sea
there was little Britain could do immediately
to help the Soviet Union.
As June turned to July
the German Blitzkrieg slashed deeper
into Soviet territory.
It was beginning to look as if nothing
could stop Hitler.
But he was about to make
his first major strategic blunder.
In early July, 1941,
over 300,000 Red Army troops were surrounded west of Minsk.
Hitler's Panzer commanders,
in particular General Heinz Guderian,
begged to be allowed to race on.
Operation Barbarossa was working like clockwork.
Within a week, the Panzers were at Smolensk,
deep inside Russia, and only a couple of
hundred miles from Moscow.
On July the 22nd a Panzer pincer movement
met to the east of Smolensk,
trapping another 310,000 Soviet troops.
Here there was a brief pause
while the rest of the army caught up.
Though the tanks could move at spectacular speed,
most of the army still had to walk
or rely on horse-drawn transport.
But it still only took them five days
before they arrived and began mopping up.
The operation was completed in just nine more days.
Vast columns of Soviet prisoners
began trudging west to captivity.
Over two and a half million never returned.
Moscow was now only two hundred miles away
and the road lay open.
It seemed certain it would fall
by the end of the summer, as planned.
But elsewhere, the German advance
was finding the going more difficult.
The Red Army was counter- attacking more effectively,
and by mid-July Army Group South
was still more than 50 miles from Kiev.
Hitler decided Guderian's Panzers
should delay their advance on Moscow
and swing south to Kiev to provide help.
Guderian objected strongly,
but Hitler was adamant.
There should be no further advance on Moscow
until Kiev had fallen.
It would turn out to be a fateful decision.
There were already worrying signs
the Red Army was not going to be the pushover
Hitler had been expecting.
Soviet manpower seemed endless.
More than 16 million troops were now mobilised.
And the Red Army now had some
formidable new weapons.
In particular, a new tank,
the 37-ton T-34.
It had a 76 mm gun,
and was faster and better cross-country
than the Panzer Mark IV.
Yet, as the Blitzkrieg continued
it was easy to miss the warning signs.
Guderian's Panzer group began its thrust south
on August the 23rd, 1941.
The Panzers of Army Group South
struck north three weeks later.
The pincers met east of Kiev on September the 16th.
Two more Soviet armies were utterly destroyed.
Half a million men were killed or captured.
On the same day,
more than a thousand miles to the north,
Army Group North surrounded the city of Leningrad,
today's St. Petersburg.
It was immediately cut off
from the rest of the Soviet Union.
The city was besieged.
Hitler decided not to storm it
and the German troops settled down
to starve it into surrender.
Conditions in the city became dire.
The only link to the rest of the Soviet Union
was across Lake Ladoga to the east,
but only a small amount of food could come in by water.
Starvation set in.
Over 11,000 people died in November.
Not until December could an ice road be opened
across the lake and there was a slight increase
in rations.
But 3,700 people died of starvation
on one day in December alone.
Meanwhile, Army Group Centre
now prepared for the final assault on Moscow.
Guderian's Panzers had re-joined it
to lead the Blitzkrieg.
The Germans had a two to one superiority in tanks
and men at the front,
and three to one in aircraft.
The assault started on September the 20th, 1941.
Once again Guderian's Panzers
slashed deep through the Red Army.
By October the 7th,
yet more Soviet troops were surrounded.
But Stalin was determined to defend Moscow
to the last.
He appointed Marshal Georgy Zhukov
to organise the defence of the city.
The people of Moscow were mobilised
to dig a series of defensive lines.
But the real obstacle to German advance
would be the weather.
On October the 8th, heavy rains set in.
German vehicles soon became bogged down
in a sea of mud.
By late October, appalling weather
and an increasingly stubborn Soviet resistance
meant Army Group Centre was still some fifty miles
short of Moscow.
Hitler was finally paying the price
for his decision earlier in the year
to delay his advance on Moscow.
At around the same time,
Army Group South reached the Black Sea
trapping yet more Soviet soldiers.
Another 100,000 prisoners were taken.
But they too were hampered by the weather.
Even so, the city of Kharkov
was captured on October the 24th, 1941.
But the weather was now starting to freeze.
The German forces, confident the campaign
would be over by the summer,
were caught unprepared.
With no winter clothing,
they now suffered terribly.
On the Moscow front,
Army Group Centre was now beginning its final push
to capture the Soviet capital.
By December the 4th,
its leading units were just 19 miles from Red Square.
Some reconnaissance patrols claimed they could see
the golden domes of the Kremlin
glinting in the distance.
But that night the temperature plunged again.
Tank engines would not start.
Weapons froze.
Many soldiers were severely frostbitten.
On December the 5th,
the Germans halted the attack.
Winter had come to the rescue of the Red Army.
But the Germans were confident
that, come the spring,
they could finish the job.
For much of autumn 1941,
Stalin's armies reeled under the German onslaught.
But all the while he had another worry.
That the Japanese would attack his forces in Siberia.
But in November,
the Soviet dictator received a message
from his top spy in Japan
assuring him the Japanese had no such intention.
Immediately, more than 30 divisions
began moving west along the Trans-Siberian railway
to Moscow.
They were well-equipped and well-trained
in winter fighting.
By early December,
more than half a million extra men
were in position near the capital.
On December the 5th,
just as the Germans were abandoning their attempt
to capture Moscow,
they were hit by a savage Russian attack.
First came a massive Soviet artillery barrage.
Then swarms of Soviet T-34's
crashed through the German defences.
Stunned by the savagery of the attack
by an enemy they had assumed was on the ropes,
the Germans fell back.
For the next seven days
the Soviet troops tore into the German forces.
For Hitler, who had only reluctantly agreed
to halt the attack on Moscow
it was a terrible blow.
On December the 19th,
he sacked his overall commander in chief,
Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch,
and assumed command himself.
Heinz Guderian was also sacked,
along with 35 other senior officers.
Hitler now ordered
that there would be no more retreats.
The German troops should fight
and, if necessary, die where they stood.
It worked.
The German line gradually steadied.
But Stalin, elated by the Red Army's success,
now demanded a massive advance across the whole front.
Marshal Zhukov,
one of Stalin's most trusted commanders,
tried to dissuade him,
but Stalin was determined.
For the next four months,
fighting swirled inconclusively
around the German defensive positions.
For Hitler this was a very uncomfortable situation.
He was used to, and expected, quick results.
Now he was dangerously bogged down
in the Soviet Union and facing an enemy
that never seemed to give up.
Nor was Russia his only headache.
On December the 7th, 1941,
Germany's ally Japan attacked the United States
without warning.
Hitler, with almost no thought, also declared war on the U.S.
With no advanced planning
he had taken on a massive new enemy.
As 1941 became 1942,
Hitler remained determined to go
on the offensive again in Russia.
But he needed a new strategy.
The original plan of fighting across the whole front
was no longer tenable.
Moreover, as his economic advisers told him,
Germany's oil supplies were running low.
So he decided to halt the attacks in the north,
and instead, head for Russia's oilfields in the south.
The initial plan for Operation Blue,
as it was called,
envisaged an assault south of Kharkov
with Army Group A swinging down to seize the oilfields
while Army Group B
covered its flank along the River Don.
Straight away there was a brutal encounter
with Soviet forces trying to retake Kharkov.
Another 200,000 Soviet troops were captured.
70,000 were killed.
As part of the same operation
the German's tightened their siege
of the Port of Sevastopol in the Crimea.
For eight months the defenders had been
under constant bombardment from German artillery
including a massive 400-mm railway gun.
In late June 1942,
Sevastopol finally fell to the Germans.
It was now safe to head for the oilfields.
On June the 28th, the offensive began.
Army Group B forced its way through to the River Don
and advanced along its western bank.
Army Group A faced stronger resistance.
But by July the 9th, it was close to Rostov.
Hitler now made a series of what would turn out
to be serious strategic blunders.
As Army Group B made its way along the Don,
the Fuehrer ordered it to capture Stalingrad
even though the city had no immediate
strategic significance.
The army had suddenly been given a massive new task.
Two weeks later Hitler compounded his misjudgement.
Frustrated by the slow progress of the campaign
in the Caucasus, he diverted the bulk of his Panzers
down to the mountains.
The march on Stalingrad slowed noticeably.
The reinforced Army Group A
now raced across the Caucasus
to within 70 miles of the Caspian,
threatening to cut off all the Soviet Armies
in the area.
But then Hitler changed his mind again.
Enraged by Army Group B's slow progress
to Stalingrad, he now ordered the Panzers
back up north.
On August the 9th, Army Group A seized the first
of the southern oilfields at Maikop.
It found them comprehensively trashed.
But without reinforcements it could get no further
and the huge oilfields in the central Caucasus
and those near the Caspian Sea
remained beyond its grasp.
But by now Hitler's attention had shifted again.
In late August, German forces were within
striking distance of Stalingrad.
The assault on the city which bore the name
of Hitler's arch-enemy had begun.
It would be one of the most crucial battles
of World War 2.
On August the 17th, 1942,
general Friedrich Paulus's Sixth Army
crossed the Don and began a final push
on Stalingrad.
Six days later, one Panzer thrust had reached
the Volga river just north of the city,
and German forces were fighting in the outer suburbs.
Hitler seemed poised for a famous victory.
Stalingrad was an important industrial centre.
It straggled for more than 12 miles
along the west bank of the river.
Its factories produced over a quarter
of the Soviet Union's tractors and trucks,
as well as tanks and guns.
The Russian people had turned it into a formidable fortress.
They had been helped by Hitler's decision
to send Army Group B's Panzers to the south.
This had given them another two weeks to prepare.
The German plan was to make a direct assault
on the city.
Now began one of the most prolonged
and intense battles of World War 2.
Slowly the Germans edged forward,
street by street, with Stuka dive bombers
blitzing just ahead of them.
The fighting was savage,
house to house, room by room.
The Soviet defenders used the sewers
for shelter and communications,
and the ruins above for sniping.
Russian reinforcements had to be brought
across the river.
Often, they were under assault from the air.
But even so, thousands got through.
By late September,
the Germans had pushed their way through
most of the city, almost to the Volga.
For Hitler, the capture of Stalingrad
was now an obsession.
On October the 4th, 1942,
General Paulus launched what was meant to be
the final assault on Stalingrad.
Tanks led the way,
grinding over the rubble and firing point-blank
into courtyards.
One German officer said:
"The advance is measured in corpses, not meters."
German victory seemed certain.
But in fact, the Germans were dangerously
overextended.
By mid-November,
the Soviet army was bringing in reinforcements.
More than a million troops, 13,500 guns, 900 tanks
and over one thousand aircraft
were secretly moved to the battle zone.
On November the 19th,
they attacked the German's northern flank.
After a massive artillery barrage,
the T-34's and assault infantry
burst through the German positions.
Now, it was the Germans who surrendered
in their thousands.
The next day, a Soviet assault in the south
was equally successful.
And on November the 23rd,
these pincer movements met west of Stalingrad
cutting off the German Sixth Army.
General Paulus, in charge of the German forces,
could have broken out.
But Hitler ordered him to stand and fight.
The Fuehrer had been assured by the Luftwaffe
that sufficient supplies could be airlifted
into Stalingrad.
This was enough for him to announce
that the German positions must hold out
until relieved.
To help Paulus, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein,
the overall German commander in the region,
launched Operation 'Winter Storm'
on December the 12th.
It was an attempt by the German Panzers
to break the Soviet encirclement of the city.
For two days it went well.
But then Red Army resistance increased.
By December the 23rd,
the German rescue attempt had ground to a halt
about 30 miles from the city.
Manstein advised the beleaguered Paulus
to attempt to break out of Stalingrad.
But Paulus wanted Hitler's permission.
This was refused.
It was probably too late anyway.
Marshal Zhukov now unleashed the next stage
of his master plan.
It was a massive assault on the Panzer relief operation.
The Panzers were pushed back, away from the city,
and by the end of December,
all hope of relieving the German forces
in Stalingrad had gone.
Worse still, plans to airlift aid into the city
were a fiasco.
The German troops needed 700 tons of supplies
a day to survive.
They never received more than 80.
The weather was too bad
and the Red Air Force now commanded the skies.
Steadily, the Soviet troops
squeezed in on the encircled Germans.
200,000 men were trapped.
On January the 8th,
the Soviet's called on the Germans to surrender.
They refused.
On January the 31st, 1943,
Paulus was forced to surrender.
Over a 100,000 men stumbled off into captivity.
Only 5,000 would ever return to Germany.
Stalingrad had been a bloody battle.
The Germans had been savaged.
They had lost some 300,000 of their men
and at least as many of their allies.
The Russians had lost about the same number,
including thousands of civilians.
It was Germany's greatest catastrophe
in the war so far.
But it wouldn't be the last.
The Red Army was now inflicting massive defeats
on Hitler's forces across the whole Eastern Front.
Stalingrad had been a great triumph
for the Soviet army.
Now its operational commander, Marshal Zhukov,
set his sights on the Germany's Army Group A,
still camped in the Caucasus.
Soviet troops thrust their way west of Stalingrad
and by early December 1942
were within 120 miles of Rostov.
There was a real possibility all the German forces
in the south would be cut off.
With little choice,
Hitler reluctantly gave Army Group A,
permission to fall back.
Over the next month,
the Germans fought a skilful rear-guard action.
Hundreds of thousands of troops withdrew.
Then on January the 12th, 1943,
Zhukov launched an all-out assault.
The Soviets attacked along a 500 mile front.
Outnumbered seven to one,
von Manstein, the overall commander
of German forces in the region,
fought a brilliant mobile retreat.
But by the end of February,
the Red Army had recaptured both Kursk
and the nearby city of Kharkov.
This Russian winter offensive
had struck a crippling blow to German power.
Over a matter of months it had lost a million men,
and vast numbers of tanks and guns.
The Red Army still had enormous reserves
of manpower.
It was also benefiting from a huge increase
in weapons production and aid
from the United States and Britain.
The Germans also no longer had the technological upper hand.
The T-34 tank was more than a match
for the Panzer Mark IV.
And they also had the terrifying Katyusha
multiple rocket-system,
which shattered German troops.
Yet Hitler refused to give up.
He still dreamed of a pre-emptive summer assault
that would throw the Soviet Union off balance
and regain the initiative.
The city of Kursk seemed the obvious place to start.
Here, the Soviet assault had pushed a bulge
deep into the German lines.
It looked temptingly exposed.
Hitler decided it should be cut off and annihilated.
He also had an ace up his sleeve.
The German counter-attack would be led
by a new generation of German tanks
especially designed to combat the formidable
Russian T-34.
The massive but slow 55-ton Tiger
had a lethal 88 mm gun
and its frontal armour made it almost impervious
to Soviet tank guns.
And then there was the faster 43-ton Panther
with a new 75 mm gun,
also capable of knocking out the T-34.
These tanks were so new,
Hitler was forced to delay the attack
while sufficient numbers were manufactured
and delivered to the front.
But even as the German forces began to assemble
the Soviet commander Marshal Zhukov
guessed what was about to happen.
Soon afterwards he received information
from a Soviet spy ring
inside the German High Command,
confirming the site of the attack.
Zhukov ordered the construction of a series
of defensive lines with anti-tank ditches,
minefields and deep belts of barbed wire.
He also massively built up Soviet forces in the area,
pulling in troops and tanks from less vulnerable parts
of the front.
By the eve of the assault on Kursk,
the Germans were hugely outnumbered
by Soviet defenders,
who also knew exactly when the Germans would attack.
On July the 5th, 1943,
just as the German troops prepared to assault,
they were hit by a huge Soviet artillery bombardment.
Even so, the next morning
the Panzers still rolled forward.
But this time, they were up against
a well-entrenched enemy.
There was no realistic chance
of a lightning Blitzkrieg breakthrough.
The results were disastrous.
In the north,
the German army gained a mere six miles
for the loss of 25,000 men and more than 200 tanks.
In the south, the Germans fared a little better.
A wedge 25 miles deep
was driven into the Soviet defences.
But it also came at a high price.
10,000 men were killed and 350 tanks destroyed.
But for a brief moment,
it looked as if a German breakthrough
might be possible.
Then Zhukov threw in his reserves.
On July the 12th, 1943,
900 tanks charged into the German flank.
Almost 2,000 tanks now engaged
in what was the largest armoured battle
of World War 2.
The Soviet T-34's drove into the German lines
and opened fire at point-blank range.
After a single day of brutal combat,
the Germans had lost a further 350 tanks
and were retreating.
Meanwhile, overhead, there was an epic air battle.
Eventually, the Soviet air force
established supremacy over the Luftwaffe.
Now the Russians could unleash
their formidable Ilyushin IL 2 Sturmovik tank killers.
By July the 23rd, the Germans had lost any ground
they had gained and with it, the cream of their army.
Hitler's adventure at Kursk
had cost him at least 50,000 troops
and more than 700 tanks.
Never again would the Germans launch
a major offensive on the Eastern Front.
The Russians had turned the tide of the war.