Episode 2 begins after the desperate German winter of 1941. Yet 1942 began badly for the Soviets, with more vicious Nazi campaigning seeing millions more Russians captured and starved. The Nazi plan to win greater Lebensraum for the German people was working. They thrusted south and eastwards, leaving trails of burning villages as they went. Murdering scores. The Russians were being forced into headlong retreats; the hearts of the Russian people seemed broken – morale was at its lowest ebb, and annihilation reared its head on the horizon. There was a desperate need for a change in fortunes. Hitler’s decision to make a rash dash for Stalingrad would set the scene for such a change – and for one of the most infamous and grim battles imaginable; patterned out in house to house closequarters fighting. Through sheer grit and sacrifice the Russians were able to repel the Germans; creating a victory of mythic proportions that reversed the momentum of the war and rescued Soviet morale from the depths of despair. Stalingrad paved the way for another historic defensive victory at Kursk, in the largest land battle of all time. At Kursk, the plains were blackened by a clash between millions of men on each side and neverbeforeseen numbers of tanks. The result was a final exhaustion of Nazi offensive power; their ability to fight on the front foot was spent. Kursk marked the beginning of a Soviet ‘steamroller’ advance towards Berlin, which would finally end in the ironic triumph of the subhuman Untermensch, flying his flag from Hitler’s capital. The partition of Berlin would follow, with half of Hitler’s country being left under the control of the western Allies, and half under the control of the Soviets: setting the scene for half a century more of tension and ideological struggle.
The release of this documentary series will mark the year WWII became the most catastrophic conflict in human history. From the 1920s a detestation of the Soviet Untermenschen had been a central part of Hitler’s ideology. A war with Soviet Russia was always a precondition for the success of his racial vision; for the flourishing of Aryan man. When Hitler did eventually invade Russia in 1941, it took the Soviets entirely by surprise – until this point, the two nations had been freely cooperating. What followed was a campaign of unparalleled barbarism, on a scale of destruction unmatched in history. The Red Army’s disastrous initial response would gradually be turned around through elemental spirit, enormous human sacrifice and strategic intuition. Some of the most famous battles in the history of warfare would pan out through this epochal struggle. Eventually, the Soviet ‘steamroller’ would turn things around, repelling the invaders, recapturing scarred, lost territory, and marching all the way to Berlin, where the Hammer and Sickle would fly from the Reichstag; the Untermensch now standing astride Hitler’s capital. The partition of Berlin would follow, setting the scene for the Cold War and 50 years of Communist domination in Eastern Europe.

Cast: Professor Professor Donald Rayfield Queen Mary University of London & Author, Dr Klaus Schmider, Royal Academy Sandhurst & author of “Hitler’s Fatal Miscalculation, Sir Anthony Beevor,Historian & author of ‘Stalingrad’, Professor Sir Richard Evans, Cambridge University & author of ‘The Third Reich at War’, Sir Max Hastings, Historian & author of ‘All Hell Let Loose’.
Director: Lyndy Saville

Licenced through 3DD Productions by 4Digital Media Limited

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