- In part one of Battle of Russia,
you saw the Russian people's historic defense
of their land against centuries of unsuccessful invaders.
You also saw how after five and a half months
of Nazi blitz.
The Russians stopped Hitler at the very gates of Moscow,
and how, in spite of Hitler's prediction
that by December of 1941, the swastika would fly
with the Kremlin towers, December had come,
but it wasn't the swastika that flew over the Russian capital,
and it wasn't the Nazi conquerors who marched
through the streets of the ancient city.
But fresh reserves of the red army on their way
to reinforce and relieve the front lines.
The Russians read this appeal and knew what it meant.
They remembered that in their past history,
the time always came when they could turn and strike back.
Time had come.
Their old ally, the Russian winter,
had carpeted the Russian land.
And while in the churches of Russia,
men of God prayed for victory against the invader.
In the front lines, the men of the red army
listened to the long awaited order of the day.
The whole world is looking to you to destroy
the German hordes.
The war you are fighting is a war of liberation.
A just war.
Death to the German invaders.
Fighter command ready.
Bomber command ready.
Parachutists ready.
Artillery in position.
Tanks manned.
Calvary in position.
Infantry ready.
Beyond those hills is the enemy.
Now it was the Germans' turn to fight for their lives.
Now, for the first time, it was the German army
that retreated.
Now it was for the Germans to learn
the terrors of strafing.
Village after village, town after town,
on the red army swept through the country for days and weeks
had been under the invader's yolk.
Out of the cellars, out of the forests,
out of only they know what hiding places,
come the men and the women and the children
that had once called these towns home.
Soldiers and guerrillas find wives and mothers.
Friends are reunited.
There is thanksgiving in the streets.
Thanksgiving in their hearts.
There is also something else,
something they will never forget.
Their ruined homes.
The shattered towns they once had known
as thriving and prosperous communities.
They stand gutted now.
Ghostly relics of what they once had been.
Nothing has been spared.
This was a museum.
A former home of Peter Tchaikovsky.
A man who wrote music for Russia.
Music that sought the heart of his own people.
And because it found that heart, it found the hearts
of people everywhere.
This piano concerto.
The Fifth Symphony.
The Sixth Symphony.
His work was, is, and always will be inspiration
to countless millions.
But it brought only one inspiration to the Nazis.
Vandalism.
And this was the home of Leo Tolstoy,
the author of the immortal novel War and Peace.
His home, too, was a museum,
until the Germans came.
And this is Tolstoy's grave.
If the Nazis buried nearby had read his famous book,
they would have learned their fate beforehand.
But there were other dead the Nazis didn't bury.
Russian dead.
They weren't soldiers, and they weren't killed in battle.
No, these aren't dolls.
These are children.
Mass murdered by orders of the high command.
And there were other children.
Perhaps more fortunate, perhaps less.
Young girls, but not young now.
The attentions of the Nazi soldiers aged them very quickly.
And whoever resisted the invaders met with this.
These are the things the Russians can never forget.
These are the things the Russians will never forget.
These are the reasons why every Russian
pledged his life to uphold this sacred oath.
Blood for blood.
Death for death.
That was the reason the Russians smashed on.
Deeper and deeper, along the entire front
from Rostov to Leningrad.
Nowhere could the tide of Russian pressure be stopped.
And by spring of 1942, this area was delivered
from the Germans.
But this was not the important result.
Not that this town or that village was retaken,
but that the whole legend of Nazi invincibility
had been shattered.
German armies could retreat, too.
German armies could be defeated.
German troops could be captured.
But besides this crushing offensive,
there was another factor that shattered the legend
of Nazi invincibility.
That factor, which will live forever in the history
of this war, was written by the people of this city.
A city now called Leningrad, after the leader
of the Russian revolution, Lenin.
And which, before that, was called Petrograd,
in honor of its founder, Peter the great.
A city which, today, with the exception of Moscow
is the most important center in the Soviet Union.
Because some of Russia's largest industries
are centered here.
And also because it is Russia's principle port
on the Baltic Sea, and the base for its Baltic fleet.
Here, as throughout the Soviet Union,
on June 22nd, word came of the attack.
But here the city was only a few miles
from German lines.
And while the men of the red army and the Baltic fleet
moved out to meet the enemy, behind them another army
was formed, an army whose weapons were shovels,
instead of rifles.
An army of men.
An army of women.
An army of children.
Feverishly, they dug the trenches.
Threw up barricades.
Built defenses.
Prepared themselves for the worst.
They knew that they, too, were in the front lines.
They weren't wrong.
Leningrad's baptism of fire
didn't stop with the darkness.
Finally, the morning comes, and the people of Leningrad
dig themselves out from the ruins.
They seem very similar here to the people of London.
Of Rotterdam, of Warsaw.
As in those cities, there were ruined homes,
museums, and other important military objectives.
Like the Russian Dumbo, from the Leningrad zoo.
But there was one important difference.
Bombing from the air was only one small part
of what the people of Leningrad had to face.
In September, the Nazis surrounded the city,
unannounced, it was cut off and doomed.
The German commander sent the city an ultimatum,
demanding its surrender.
He is still waiting for the answer.
Thus began the siege of Leningrad,
a siege that was to last for nearly 17 months.
In Leningrad, as everywhere else in Russia,
the winter came early that year.
A cold, hard winter.
The hardest in years.
But here, unlike everywhere else in Russia,
the winter wasn't an ally, but an enemy.
Here the 10, 20, 30 below zero temperatures
could only mean more suffering, more hardship.
In the trenches outside the city,
trenches of snow and of ice,
the defenders stuck firm to their oath,
to die if necessary, but not to go backward
one more step.
When the enemy, in spite of all its efforts,
was stopped at the very gates of the city.
A city now facing disease, famine, destitution.
There was no oil for fuel.
No power for the electric lines.
But the people defied the elements,
and trudged the necessary miles to lathe and workbench.
The pipes froze, water was shut off.
So they dug holes through the streets
until they could get to water.
There was no food,
and the whole city went on starvation rations.
A factory worker got eight ounces of bread a day.
Everyone else, child and adult alike, only four.
And to keep the dread enemy of disease
from stalking the streets of their city,
an army of women worked with shovels,
worked with picks, in those streets every day,
clearing away the rubble, the refuse,
the sources of contamination.
Bombs from the air couldn't force the defenders
of Leningrad to surrender.
Winter couldn't do it.
Hunger couldn't do it.
So the Germans decided to shell them into surrender.
For days, long range guns hurled ton after ton
of high explosives into the heart of the city.
The more the people of Leningrad were shelled,
the harder they worked.
Drenched in a rain of high explosives,
cut off entirely from the rest of Russia,
with only their own hands to depend on,
their determination never faltered.
Every day, more people died.
Of cold.
Disease.
Hunger.
This was Leningrad in its darkest hour.
And then, a miracle happened.
To the west of Leningrad is the Baltic Sea.
And to the east and north is Lake Ladoga.
7,000 square miles of inland water.
The Fins and the Germans occupied one border of the lake
to about this point.
And in the south, the Germans controlled the lake to here.
Between these two points was a stretch of lakefront
still in Russian hands.
But there was nearly 100 miles between this shore
and the beleaguered city.
100 miles of what had been open water,
and was now snow covered ice.
Across this frozen surface now went tractors,
sledges, carving a road across the lake.
And soon, across this highway,
from the far side of the lake, poured a stream of trucks.
Bringing in food.
Oil.
Grain.
Fuel.
Truckload after truckload of fresh life
for the people of the city.
Too late the Germans discovered that they had left
one avenue of rescue open.
Their planes bombed the road,
but the trucks kept rolling.
By day and by night.
The lake highway remained open.
And soon, more than trucks would reach the city,
for the Russians were now laying a track across the ice.
To the heroes of Leningrad, says the inscription
on this locomotive, as it starts its pioneer voyage.
From the far shore of the lake, it brings food, medicine,
supplies of all kinds.
Across the lake, and into Leningrad,
this train is but the first of many.
Trains that not only brought in supplies,
but that could take out the wounded.
The sick women, the half frozen children.
All those that needed better care.
All winter long, the lake traffic continued.
And all through that terrible winter,
the men of the red army, outside the city,
found the strength not only to defend,
but to attack.
Time after time, they hurled themselves against the invader.
Driving him inch by inch back from the city's outskirts.
And then spring came.
Spring.
Outside Leningrad, the snows begin to thaw.
And German bodies are washed from their icebox graves.
New evidence of Russian tenacity.
The warm breath of spring is felt, too,
on the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga.
But the trucks continue to roll,
even though the ice is melting beneath them.
And spring, as it invariably does,
comes to the city, too.
But spring is more than a new season to the people
of Leningrad.
It's a new life.
The city begins to breathe again.
For the first time in months, the trollies ran.
That first day, it seemed that every man and woman
and child in the city had to go for a ride.
This was life again.
Life for the Leningrad children that weren't killed
by Nazi bombs or by the horrible winter.
Life for the Russia WACs,
the women of the red army.
And for the Russian waves, the women of the red fleet.
And for the sailors of the fleet themselves,
the artists of the famous ballet theater had come
to offer entertainment.
Spring is here.
Summer is coming.
And Leningrad is still free.
Although, some Germans did finally succeed
in getting into the city.
But under different circumstances
than they had anticipated.
Yes, here, too, the legend of Nazi
invincibility was shattered.
Against the iron will and courage of a determined people.
The citizens of Leningrad have proved
that generals may win campaigns, but people win wars.
By summer of 1942, new posters were appearing
in the streets of Moscow.
Posters that greeted and welcomes their allies.
Allies whose help was already arriving
in Russian ports.
Allies whose friendliness had sent drugs and food
and warm clothing to help sustain them
in their darkest hour.
But in spite of all this,
the staff of the red army knew that they still faced
the most powerful enemy in history,
and that that enemy would attack again.
But when this attack came, the whole German strength
was to be concentrated on one objective.
The Caucasus and oil.
The Caucasus Mountains represent one of the toughest
military obstacles in the world.
Towering peaks rising to heights of as much
as 18,000 feet, with only one practical highway
traversing them.
And Baku, the biggest oil field, is on the other side.
To reach Baku, the only feasible military route
was along the coast of the Caspian Sea.
But the map shows what a dangerously extended supply line
this would entail.
To make the operation a success for the Germans,
the first necessity was control of the northern hub
of the rail lines of the area.
And a new base of operations.
That hub was a Volga River port
we have come to know well, Stalingrad.
Named for Russia's present leader.
The pride of this generation of Russians,
for it was their city, built in their time.
With the capture of Stalingrad,
the Nazis would have a base from which to launch
a flanking attack on Moscow.
With one master stroke, the Russian armies to the south
would be cut off from help.
And in the north, Russian factories, Russian farms,
and Russian armies, would be practically cut off
from Caucasus oil, and also from American
and British supplies, which were shipped to Russia
through Iran and Iraq.
German control of the entrance to the Volga
and its two main ports, Astrakhan and Stalingrad,
would be a crippling blow for Russia.
For the Volga is the vital artery through which
the lifeblood of supplies.
Early in May, the German offensive began
along a front extending from course to the Crimea.
Within two weeks, the Nazi steam roller
had overrun the Kerch Peninsula.
Although two months more were to elapse
before embattled Sevastopol finally fell,
giving the Nazis complete control of the Crimea.
And the southern route to the Caucasian oil fields.
Next, they started to drive further north.
And drove through to the Don River in the area Voronezh.
Then spread south and east, until they occupied
the whole area from the Don River south to Rostov.
This left them in perfect position
to strike against Stalingrad.
Further and further south, the drive plunged on.
And by the end of August, they had captured
the oil fields at Maikop.
Needless to say, first demolished by the Russians.
And reached the northern Caucasus.
Yes, the Germans were only a few miles from their goal,
the oil fields at Baku.
But two barriers still stood between them.
Russian mountains, and Russian determination.
A people of the Caucasus.
Joined with the army to form an unshatterable wall
against the full onslaught of the attack.
Further north, the Nazi pincers were within
15 miles of Stalingrad.
This city had become the focal point of the whole campaign.
Regardless of the cost, Stalingrad must be captured.
Those were the German orders.
German guns.
German bombs.
Shattered the city into pieces.
By September 20th, the Germans, after 30 days
of grueling and ceaseless fighting,
battled their way into the city's outskirts.
By the end of the month, their drive had carried them
through the whole northwest section of the city,
and into occupation of part of the center,
including the railroad station.
From the last day of September, Hitler announced
that the fall of the city was only a matter of a few days.
Once more, the world was afraid
the Russian campaign was lost.
But once more, the Germans were to stand
on the very threshold of victory,
and still fail.
For now they were to meet a fire of fury
such as they had never known.
For all that had gone before,
the battles waged in the streets of Kiev, Rostov,
Odessa, Stofel.
These were all preludes to what happened in Stalingrad.
Every inch of the city was a strategic point
to be defended as such.
By the end of October, snow covered Stalingrad.
From the air, the Germans tried to force surrender
of the Russian held part of the city.
Same time, the battle of the streets continued.
But as November dawned, the Russians were no longer
defending their city inch by inch.
Inch by inch, they were regaining.
And now, as the whole world spoke in admiration
of the city of steel, the ticker tape
brought its breathtaking news.
American and British troops had landed in
and occupied North Africa.
Further east, the British eighth army
was driving westward, pursuing the African core.
But in the northeast, the red army had launched
its smashing counter offensive.
But Germans were learning the real meaning
of the words combined operations.
As though a spring had been released,
the Russians attacked along the entire front.
In the far north, the Germans felt the first impact
as the Russians recaptured Schlusselburg,
breaking the axis ring around Leningrad.
Soon after, another offensive lashed out further south,
bypassing the Germans defense position of Rzhev,
and plunging down to the Velikie Luki.
Still another Russian blow fell in the Voronezh area,
pushing a threatening spearhead deep into the German lines.
In the far south, the Germans were moving away from Grozny.
Instead of toward it.
Under the force of the Russian attack.
At Stalingrad, the Germans were about to meet
new opponents.
Fresh reserves were arriving from far side area.
They had been stationed there in case of trouble
with the Japanese.
Now these troops had been transported to relieve
the embattled defenders of Stalingrad.
And as the reserves entered the city,
at headquarters, the commanders of three Russian armies
were meeting.
The Germans had fought for Stalingrad as a prize.
The Russians were determined to make it a trap.
Two simultaneous attacks were launched.
One from the north, one from the south.
The German armies encircling Stalingrad
were now, themselves, threatened and encircled.
Finally, the two prongs met.
These battle hardened soldiers of the northern army,
as soldiers of the southern,
were emotional as children as they greeted each other.
They knew this meeting meant the salvation of Stalingrad.
And of their country.
And on this Christmas of 1942,
the people of the Soviet Union
can celebrate with happy hearts.
They have received a most precious gift
from the men of their army.
The assurance of ultimate victory.
Just as in our home towns, it is the children's day
in Moscow.
It is a happier Christmas this year.
Today there are no German bombers overhead.
In other years, the Russians, like ourselves,
celebrated on New Year's Eve.
Not now.
The factories are just as busy as on any other night.
The moment comes.
It is the new year.
And at the front, the greeting is the same.
Up to a point.
Outside Stalingrad, the icy winter becomes a fiery hell.
Here are concentrated the latest in Russian equipment.
Flamethrowers.
Ice gliders.
Used here by shock troops to capture air fields
and advance the main army.
Rocket guns.
Ketusha, the Russians call them.
Every last resource of the red army is thrown
into a crushing offense of ultimate destruction.
This was 'Keil and Kessel' with a vengeance,
for the Nazis were getting kesseled
instead of the Russians.
And on February the second, 1943,
after 162 days of the heaviest fighting
in the history of warfare, the last shot was fired.
Peace came to Stalingrad.
In the shattered streets, the blasted ruins,
the ghastly evidence of their ordeal,
the defenders of the city greet the rescuing army
of the dawn.
Stalingrad is free.
The Nazis had capitulated.
The German generals, who had been ordered by Hitler
to take Stalingrad, regardless of the cost,
and who would obediently promise the city would be his,
these generals, 24 of them, who had covered themselves
with such glory, and such medals, on the fields of Poland
and Norway and France, they now had only
their past glory to comfort.
This is Field Marshal von Paulus.
Commander in chief of the German armies at Stalingrad.
This is the man who told his soldiers that if they
surrendered, he would see to it that their families
would die in reprisal.
When he faced his captors, perhaps his worried expression
reflected an anxiety that Hitler might take
the same revenge on his family.
For he knew that when he surrendered, Hitler lost
not only a field marshal, he lost an entire army.
22 divisions, 330,000 men.
These are the men who had been promised that
as conquerors they would winter in Stalingrad.
Well, it was winter.
And this was Stalingrad.
But here were the conquerors.
And when another spring broke over the Russian
countryside, the results of the winter were clear.
The invader had been driven back far beyond the lines
he had occupied a year earlier.
185,000 square miles of Russian land had been freed.
An endless winter campaign of 1942,
the axis powers had lost 5,090 planes.
9,190 tanks.
20,360 guns.
30,705 machine guns.
More than 500,000 rifles.
17,000,000 shells.
128,000,000 cartridges.
Vast stores of other materials.
And 1,193,525 men, of whom 800,000 were dead.
That is the story to date of the German attempt
to conquer Russia.
In 1941 they tried for Moscow.
And failed.
In 1942, they tried for the Caucuses.
And failed.
In 1943, and for as many more years as necessary,
they will not only be resisted,
wherever their failing powers strikes,
but they will be attacked.
Attacked and attacked by these united people
of these united nations.