Newsreel of Himmler's visit (Heinrich Himmler - one of the main political and military leaders of the Third Reich, the SS Reichsfuhrer in 1929-1945) to Minsk in August 1941.

In 1939, the population of Minsk was 238.8 thousand people. In 1941 and 1944, the city was subjected to aerial bombardment (the Nazis were the first to bomb, followed by Russians).

Evening, June 24, 1941. Luftwaffe bombed Minsk. The city's on fire.

Sunday, July 16, 1944 the liberated Minsk held a partisan parade. June 26, 1974 Minsk was awarded the title of the Hero City.

After the war, there was a question of transferring the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in Mahiliou. Thanks to the enthusiasm of all the USSR citizens, the city was promptly rebuilt and continued its development. There were built Minsk motorcycle and bicycle factory (1945), Minsk Tractor Works (1946) and Minsk Automobile Plant (1947). Minsk became one of the main centers of the Soviet Union, a center of engineering and high technology with advanced culture, health, education, transport and science.

Minsk Ghetto was Second in USSR by Number of Prisoners

Minsk ghetto was one of the largest in Europe and the second in the occupied territory of the Soviet Union after the Lviv ghetto, which totaled 136 thousand people. There were 80 thousand at the beginning and then more than 100 thousand prisoners in some streets, covered with barbed wire.

Trastianets was the largest place of mass destruction on the territory of Belarus during the Nazi occupation. It was created by the occupiers in 1941 near the village of Trastianets (south-east of Minsk, near Mahiliou highway) for the mass destruction of Soviet civilians and prisoners of war. There were prisoners from Germany, Austria, Poland, France and Czechoslovakia in the camp.

The number of victims Trastianets ranks fourth after such Nazi death camps in Europe as Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka.

February 1942. Jews from Minsk ghetto in forced labor at the station.

The "activities" of the death factory in Trastianets didn't stop for a minute. On the eve of Hitler's retreat, it was operating at full power.

At the end of June 1944, just a few days before the liberation of Minsk by the Red Army, 6.5 thousand prisoners, brought from the camps in Valadarski and Shirokaya streets, were shot and then burned in the former collective farm barn of the camp. Only two of them miraculously saved.

Minsk Preparing to Celebrate its Liberation

About three thousand men and more than 130 pieces of equipment will be involved in Minsk garrison parade on July 3. As described in the Defense Ministry of Belarus, the old equipment of the Great Patriotic War, as well as modern weaponry and military equipment will be displayed. Minsk residents and guests will be able to see the main types of the Air Force aircraft in the sky.

In addition, the parade will be attended by military personnel and equipment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

June 22 marks the 70th anniversary of the start of Germany's offensive against the Soviet Union in World War II. To examine the historical significance of this, Deutsche Welle spoke with Wolfram Wette, a professor of history at the University of Freiburg.

DW: What was the objective of the military offensive "Operation Barbarossa," which began on June 22, 1941?

Wolfram Wette: The objective was to conquer the Soviet Union, to decimate its population, to exploit the land - in order to colonize the country with Germans in the distant future. So it was a war for the capture of "Lebensraum," or "living space," in the East. They wanted to colonize the Soviet Union up to the Ural Mountains in order to create an self-sufficient, strongly protected Greater German Reich from the Atlantic to the Urals.

Was it then a racially motivated campaign of annihilation?

This aspect belongs directly to that aim, and is inseparably linked with the war in Russia. Hitler was convinced that Russia was dominated by "Jewish-Bolsheviks." And of course you could conquer this area and be able to use it for German purposes once you eliminate this establishment. The plans were made based on a speech by Hitler on March 30, 1941, given before 250 generals commanding the Eastern Army.

There he said very clearly that it was a war of annihilation in which no prisoners would be taken. Hitler said the Red Army soldier should not be considered a comrade protected by the rules of war. In practice, this meant that of the 5.7 million captured Red Army soldiers, more than 3 million perished in German camps.

Was there any opposition at the time? Did the military elites express moral reservations?

There was isolated opposition. And many apologists for the armed forces say this was where the army showed its good heart in contrast with the criminal demands of Hitler. But if you look more closely, the partial opposition from the chief of the army high command, Field Marshal Keitel, was simply swept aside. He played no roll in the planning and execution of the Russian war.

The generals did not decide to protest against Hitler's ideas of annihilation, and thus made themselves into collaborators in his racial ideology that went along with the military war. They are also fully responsible for what occurred on the orders of Hitler's speech on March 30.

The German military initially experienced rapid success - in the Baltic states and in Belarus....

They had in mind the Blitzkrieg against France that came to such a quick end in 1940. And they imagined that they could conduct a comparable Blitzkrieg in the Soviet Union with fast-moving tanks. The dominant concept was that while Russia was enormous, it was a brittle colossus that would quickly be shattered by the onslaught of the German army. In fact, the first weeks of the war advanced quite rapidly.

The Baltic countries were overrun in a few weeks. The German troops were already in Belarus and Ukraine. But in winter, from December of 1941 onward, there was no passing beyond Moscow. This so-called turning point before Moscow made it clear to everyone in Germany that they had gotten themselves into a campaign whose outcome was uncertain. Perhaps some of them finally remembered what befell Napoleon, when, even with his great army, he failed and returned to the West with just a few soldiers.

The whole Russian war cost millions of lives. Three million Wehrmacht soldiers marched across Russian borders on June 22, 1941. And approximately the same number, three million, never returned from Russia. But Russia itself suffered some 10 times the casualties, around 27 million lives. Of those, it's estimated that 10 million were in the Red Army - fighting soldiers. More than three million were, as I said, Russian prisoners of war in German camps.

And then three million Russian Jews were systematically murdered by the Germans. Remaining are the six to 10 million Soviet civilians about whose fate still far too little is known, for lack of historical research in Germany and Russia. Some six million Soviet civilians fell victim in one way or another to the German annihilation policy - be it through the systematic hunger policy that was carried out by the German side, or through the burning of villages and cities and other atrocities. We have at least twice as many civilian deaths in the Soviet Union [as in Germany], which is a fact Germany must remember much more than it does. Otherwise there arises a complete imbalance in how we judge the numbers of the dead.

Even decades after the Second World War, Germany has tried very little to talk about these terrible deeds, to push them aside. Why has the invasion of the Soviet Union been such a non-issue for so long?

After 1945, the army elite very systematically spread the legend of the clean and professional Wehrmacht. And in doing that, they placed all of the responsibility for the crimes that took place in the East on the SS. They said they did the dirty work. And we conducted a war in accordance with human rights.

This legend of the clean Wehrmacht was very gladly accepted by all who served. Even the small soldier said, "I fought for a clean military, not for a band of criminals." So there was a collective exoneration, a collective excuse that carried on for decades. And it took a long time until the historical research was able to create cracks in the body of the legend.

Could one then say today that the war against the Soviet Union has a place in the collective consciousness of the Germans?

Well I would give the hopeful answer that the German war against the Soviet Union has since found a fixed place in the historical-political consciousness of Germans. I think that the field of historical studies in Germany has achieved a lot here. And also the media, which have transmitted the story to the people in an appropriate way.

All together there has been a learning process in the consciousness of the German population that astonishes people in other countries, and that's spoken of very positively. We have managed a cultural achievement that we by no means have to hide.

And how does that look on the Russian side?

Naturally very different. The Soviet Union was a victor in the Second World War. Stalin was exalted by the people at the time of capitulation as someone who mobilized the country, who held together the huge Red Army, who brought weapons production up to speed - which in the end resulted in victory. So everything concentrated positively on the personality of Stalin - with the consequence that all of the crimes of Stalin were repressed.

The victory of the Soviet Union at that time was something that welded the country together, that stabilized it and that made it possible for it to become a world power for a half century. In this respect, the German aggression against the USSR turned out to be a stabilizing factor for communist domination - even though it was intended to end Bolshevik rule.

It's quite astounding to see that Russian people today hardly feel any hate toward Germans. No one looks at the other as an enemy. The Germans could not hope for a better situation. A large learning process has taken place in the last few decades in Russia as well.

Wolfram Wette is an author and professor of history

Interview: Cornelia Rabitz / acb
Editor: Michael Lawton

A group of Russians captured by the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa: Documents from secret archives have revealed how some Soviets believed the Germans were Christian crusaders come to throw of the yoke of communism

By Allan Hall

An extraordinary secret archive has revealed for the first time how thousands of Soviet citizens collaborated with Nazi invaders during World War II.

The cache of documents, some retrieved from the files of the KGB, shows how many viewed the Germans as Christian liberators – and their own masters as godless Communists.

This view was reinforced when the soldiers of the Third Reich opened up 470 churches in north-western Russia alone and reinstated priests driven from their pulpits by Stalin.

In turn, the clergy co-operated closely with S.S. death squads in betraying Communist officials, Jews and partisan resistance groups.

Perhaps most astonishingly, the Germans even shipped numerous mayors, journalists, policeman and teachers back to the Reich to show them the ‘German way of life.’

Russia has always portrayed the war against the Germans as a historic struggle which cost 27million lives but ultimately defeated the Nazis forever.

Until now, there has been little examination of the extent of collaboration by Soviet citizens with the invaders.

And there is no doubt that there many Russians detested the Nazis who inflicted mass atrocities on the civilian population.

But the archive, assembled by Professor Boris Kovalyov of the University of Novgorod, undermines the one-dimensional nationalist view of Soviet history.

Unsurprisingly, the research has already triggered a huge debate in Russia about attitudes to the Nazis.

‘The files give an extraordinary glimpse into a country that was deeply divided and not at all as heroic as Stalin made out,’ Prof Kovalyov, who teaches historical jurisprudence, said.

‘They show how local journalists strove under S.S. supervision to present to their compatriots the Nazis as friends of the Russians.

‘There was even praise in newspapers edited by former Communists for Alfred Rosenberg, the chief racial theorist for the Nazis who had made speeches in the past talking of the “sub-humanity of the Russians.”

‘Of course these newspapers were all collected and burned, or locked away, when the tide of war turned.  And those who wrote the articles were executed.’

The Nazis marched on Russia in summer 1941 after Hitler put plans for the invasion of Britain on hold.

He had met heavy resistance and had become increasingly paranoid about the Soviets grabbing valuable natural resources as they expanded their empire.

The campaign was code-named Operation Barbarossa and plunged the Third Reich into a catastrophic situation of war on all fronts.

Troops were given stark rules of engagement. They were to press ahead with a ‘war without rules’ that would see the merciless execution of millions.

But the freshly rediscovered archives reveal a far more complex situation.

In many instances, the Nazi commanders attempted a 'hearts and minds' campaign to win over civilians already oppressed by Communist dictates which included a ban on religious worship.

The propaganda war had considerable success, with newspapers and collaborators praising the Germans.

 ‘We pray to the all-powerful that he gives Adolf Hitler further strength and power for the final victory over the Bolsheviks!’ ran one article in the newspaper 'For the Homeland!' that was printed in Pskow in December 1942.

Clandestine tours of Germany were also hugely effective for provincials who had never travelled ten miles beyond their birthplace, never seen indoor plumbing or central heating, such trips worked wonders.

When they returned to the Soviet Union, said Professor Kovalyov, they were ‘deeply impressed"’ and worked hard to undermine the stiffening Soviet resistance to the Nazi armies.

Even in January 1943, as the fate of the German Sixth Army was being sealed at Stalingrad - and with it the war - many Russians still enthused about the charms of Nazism.

Ian Borodin, a village mayor from Piskowitschi, wrote that month: ‘Germany is a country of gardens, first class steelworks and autobahns. It has exemplary order.  We should fight for it!’

In the end it was the Nazis themselves who squandered the opportunity to rally an entire people to its cause.

As news of German atrocities spread and the Soviet Red Army began pushing the invader back, the population that had been initially so enthusiastic for Hitler now began to turn against him.

The Nazis were eventually driven out of Russia and the Red Army pressed on to Berlin, routing Hitler's forces on the way.

For those tens of thousands who had shown disloyalty to Stalin during the occupation there was only death awaiting them or long years in the gulag.

Professor Kovalyov intends to publish a book based on his research next year.

Good Comment

After Hitler came to power in 1933 the order was given to demolish a rundown part of Berlin that had been notoriously 'Red' and an area the Nazis never had any serious support in. The residents thought they were being punished, but instead their flats were rebuilt with central heating and other improvements - how to win hearts and minds..... By 1939 living standards had increased to the point where Russian civilians visiting Nazi Germany would have been greatly impressed. It's said that when US troops entered Germany in 1945 towards the war's end it was the first time many of them had come across bathrooms with showers and indoor flushing toilets since leaving the USA, and yes that included those who had been stationed in 1940's England! Good article - and illustrates how the German's lost the opportunity to bring the critical mass of Soviet citizenry 'on side'. Had they done so I don't doubt they would have defeated Stalin and forced the Western powers to accept a negotiated peace.

- A Richards, London

Soviet soldiers and civilians began to listen to Stalin’s new, patriotic message and fight back. Encouraged by Stalin, more and more young men took to the woods to form partisan bands, raiding German installations and intensifying the vicious circle of violence and repression. By the end of the year, the overwhelming mass of civilians in the occupied areas had come round to supporting the Soviet regime, encouraged by Stalin’s emphasis on patriotic defence against a ruthless foreign invader. Escalating partisan resistance went along with a dramatic recovery of the fighting effectiveness of the Red Army. The cumbersome structure of the Red Army was simplified, creating flexible units that would be able to respond more rapidly to German tactical advances. Soviet commanders were ordered to concentrate their artillery in anti-tank defences where it seemed likely the German panzers would attack. Soviet rethinking continued into 1942 and 1943, but already before the end of 1941 the groundwork had been laid for a more effective response to the continuing German invasion. The State Defence Committee reorganized the mobilization system to make better use of the 14 million reservists created by a universal conscription law in 1938. More than 5 million reservists were quickly mobilized within a few weeks of the German invasion, and more followed. So hasty was this mobilization that most of the new divisions and brigades had nothing more than rifles to fight with. Part of the reason for this was that war production facilities were undergoing a relocation of huge proportions, as factories in the industrial regions of the Ukraine were dismantled and transported to safety east of the Ural mountains. A special relocation council was set up on 24 June and the operation was under way by early July. German reconnaissance aircraft reported what to them were inexplicable massings of railway wagons in the region - no fewer than 8,000 freight cars were employed on the removal of metallurgical facilities from one town in the Donbas to the recently created industrial centre of Magnitogorsk in the Urals, for example. Altogether, 1,360 arms and munitions factories were transferred eastwards between July and November 1941, using one and a half million railway wagons. The man in charge of the complex task of removal, Andrej Kosygin, won a justified reputation as a tirelessly efficient administrator that was to bring him to high office in the Soviet Union after the war. What could not be taken, such as coalmines, power stations, railway locomotive repair shops, and even a hydro-electric dam on the Dnieper river, was  sabotaged or destroyed. This scorched-earth policy deprived the invading Germans of resources on which they had been counting. But together with the evacuation, it also meant that the Red Army had to fight the war in the winter of 1941-2 largely with existing equipment, until the new or relocated production centres came on stream.

Stalin also ordered a series of massive ethnic cleansing operations to remove what he and the Soviet leadership thought of as potential by subversive elements from the theatre of war. More than 390,000 ethnic Germans in the Ukraine were forcibly deported eastwards from September 1941. Altogether there were nearly one and a half million ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union. 15,000 Soviet secret policemen descended upon the Volga to begin the expulsion of the ethnic Germans living there, removing 50,000 of them already by the middle of August 1941. Similar actions took place in the lower Volga, where a large community of German descent was living. In mid-September 1941, expulsions began from the major cities. By the end of 1942, more than 1,200,000 ethnic Germans had been deported to Siberia and other remote areas. Perhaps as many as 175,000 died as a result of police brutality, starvation and disease. Many of them spoke no German, and were German only by virtue of remote ancestry. It made no difference. Other ethnic groups were targeted too - Poles, as we have seen, were deported in large numbers from 1939, and, later in the war, up to half a million Chechens and other minorities in the Caucasus were removed for having allegedly collaborated with the Germans as well. In addition, as the German forces advanced, the Soviet secret police systematically murdered all the political prisoners in the jails that stood in their path. One hit squad arrived at a prison at Luck that had been damaged in a bombing raid, lined up the political prisoners, and machine-gunned up to 4,000 of them. In the western Ukraine and western Belarus alone, some 100,000 prisoners were shot, bayoneted, or killed by hand-grenades being thrown into their cells. Whatever their impact on the war effort, such actions stored up a bitter legacy of hatred which was to lead within a very short time to horrific acts of revenge

As the headlong advance of the German Army into the USSR continued, the Red Army collapsed in chaos all along the front. Its communications were severed, transport broke down, ammunition and equipment, fuel, spare parts and much more besides quickly ran out. Unprepared for the invasion, officers could not even guess where the Germans would strike next, and there was often no artillery available to blunt the impact of the incoming German tanks. Many of the Red Army’s own tanks, from the BT to the T-26 and 28, were obsolescent: more of the total of 23,000 tanks deployed by the Red Army in 1941 were lost through breakdowns than to enemy action. Radio communications had not been updated since the Finnish war and were coded in such a basic manner that it was all too easy for Germans listening in to decrypt them. Worst of all, perhaps, medical facilities were wholly inadequate to deal with the vast numbers of dead and treat the scores of thousands of injured. In the absence of proper military planning, officers could think of little else to do than attack the Germans head-on, with predictably disastrous results. An orderly retreat was made almost impossible by the Germans’ prior destruction of roads, railways and bridges behind the lines. Desertion rates rocketed in the Red Army as demoralized soldiers fled in confusion and despair. In a mere three days in late June 1941, the Soviet secret police caught nearly 700 deserters fleeing from the battle on the south-western front. ‘The retreat has caused blind panic,’ as the head of the Belarus Communist Party wrote to Stalin on 3 September 1941, and ‘the soldiers are tired to death, even sleeping under artillery fire . . . At the first bombardment, the formations collapse, many just run away to the woods, the whole area of woodland in the front-line region is full of refugees like this. Many throw away their weapons and go home.’

Some idea of the depth of the disaster can be gauged from the diary of Nikolai Moskvin, a Soviet political commissar, which records a rapid transition from optimism (‘we’ll win for sure,’ he wrote on 24 June 1941) to despair a few weeks later (‘what am I to say to the boys?’ he asked himself gloomily on 23 July 1941: ‘We keep retreating’). On 15 July 1941 he had already shot the first deserters from his unit, but they kept on fleeing, and at the end of the month, after being wounded, he admitted: ‘I am on the verge of a complete moral collapse.’ His unit got lost because it did not have any maps, and most of the men were killed in a German attack while Moskvin, unable to move, was hiding in the woods with two companions, waiting to be rescued. Some peasants found him, nursed him back to health, and conscripted him into helping with the harvest. As he got to know them, he discovered they had no loyalty to the Stalinist system. Their main purpose was to stay alive. After battles, they rushed on to the field to loot the corpses. What in any case would loyalty to Stalin have brought them? In August 1941, Moskvin encountered some Red Army soldiers who had escaped from a German prisoner-of-war camp. ‘They say there’s no shelter, no water, that people are dying from hunger and disease, that many are without proper clothes or shoes.’ Few, he wrote, had given a thought to what imprisonment by the Germans would mean. The reality was worse than anyone could imagine

Lieutenant-General G.P Sofronov's Coastal Army defended Odessa, which German Army Group South had bypassed and encircled during its race to the Dnepr. The German Eleventh and Rumanian Fourth Armies drove the Southern Front's 9th and 18th Armies eastward through the southern Ukraine. By 7 August the advancing Axis forces had captured, in succession, Kotovsk, Pervomaisk, Kirovograd and Vosnesensk, trying but failing to cut off the Southern Front's withdrawal. Although the 9th and 18th Armies escaped to the relative safely of the River Dnepr, beginning on 8 August, the two axis armies cut off and besieged Sofronov's Coastal Army in the port of Odessa. Supported by the Black Sea Fleet, Sofronov's force consisted of one rifle division, two naval infantry brigades, several sailors' detachments, and six destroyer detachments raised locally. Within days, Soviet forces erected three fortified defensive belts around the city and many barricades within, protected by naval gunfire.

On 19 August the Stavka organized the so-called Odessa Defensive Region made up of the Coastal Army and Odessa Naval Base under the command of Admiral G.V Zhukov. In addition to holding off the Rumanian Fourth Army for more than a month, on 22 September the defenders mounted and amphibious and airborne assault at Grigor'evka that expanded the defence perimeter 5-8km (3-4.8 miles). Nonetheless, in late September, when German Eleventh Army began an invasion of the Crimea, the Stavka ordered the Odessa garrison to evacuate and join the defence of Crimea. Subsequently, from 2-16 October the Black Sea Fleet evacuated the force fully intact to Sevastopol, although the gallant escapees were soon encircled once again, this time terminally in that famous Crimean city. Nevertheless, the defence of Odessa offered inspiration to the Soviet population and Red Army at a time when it was most needed.

The Romanians, whose army had been retrained by the Germans, made less of an impact, although they provided the manpower for a number of tasks, including the lengthy siege of Odessa (10 August–16 October), for which they provided seventeen divisions and where they suffered 90,000 casualties. The outnumbered Soviet garrison was finally evacuated to the Crimea, a step that reflected the strength of the Black Sea Fleet. The long defence of Odessa indicated the potential difficulty of capturing defended cities. Romania had entered the war in order to regain Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from the Soviet Union, and in order to help overcome Communism.

Despite the fact that their zone of operation was small, the Romanians also played a prominent role in the mass murders, although their killings resembled atrocities that got out of hand. On October 16, 1941, the 4th Romanian Army finally took Odessa after a long struggle. Before the war began, this city had a Jewish population of about 175,000—ranking it with Berlin, Lodz, Vienna, and Kiev; but more than 100,000 of them were able to flee to the east before the city fell. Six days later, a delayed action bomb exploded and destroyed the former NKVD building, which now served as the headquarters of the 10th Romanian Infantry Division. Two hundred twenty people were killed, including the port captain and several other Germans. Marshal Antonescu, the Romanian dictator, ordered 100 Jews to be killed for every soldier who died in the explosion, as well as 200 Jews for every officer. During the night of October 22–23, 19,000 Jews were driven into the harbor area and shot. Their bodies were doused with gasoline and burned. Meanwhile, another 40,000 Jews were transported to a collective farm at Dalnic and shot in anti-tank ditches. Nearly 60,000 Jews are killed in these two operations—more than twice the number called for by Antonescu’s decree.

LINK

 

by Joe Corey - June 4, 2011

Timing is everything in TV. You release a series at the right moment and it becomes a major hit. Release a great series at the wrong time and it eventually becomes a cult classic with its limited number of episodes repeated endlessly. After the success of The World At War, the Soviet Union wanted to tell more of its battles with Hitler and the Nazis. From the deep of their vaults, they found millions of feet of film to create The Unknown War. Burt Lancaster was hired to be the host and narrator. Twenty episodes were produced and offered to American TV stations that had scored high ratings with The World At War.

This is when timing failed.

When it first broadcast in late 1978, America was approaching the height of the Cold War with the Soviets. They were the enemy. The outcry from historians claiming this was more Soviet propaganda than education was heard loudly. Things would get nastier when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The documentary series vanished from the dial and didn’t have a chance of returning to American airwaves with a national impact. The Unknown War: WWII and the Epic Battles of the Russian Front brings together all the episodes without the fear of it being yanked from your DVD player.

“June 22, 1941” starts the series off with the morning that Hitler ordered his trips across the Russian border. The German army goes straight for Moscow. The sieges of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad are captured by Soviet camera crews. There’s also footage from the Nazi army. While part of the narrative is propaganda that plays up the party line, the footage is more than worth the experience. “The World’s Greatest Tank Battle” covers the Battle of Kursk. This massive armored conflict broke the back of the German army. The episode gives credit to Georgy Zhukov for coming up with the strategy that won Kursk for the Soviet. At once point the leaders of the Soviet Union wanted his contribution downplayed. The footage reveals how afterward, the land was covered in twisted metal and decaying corpses. This is not a G-rated look at war. The series doesn’t stick around after the final victories to focus on how after the Nazis. the Americans and Soviets became enemies.

The Unknown War: WWII and the Epic Battles of the Russian Front does give an insightful view of what things looked like on the Eastern front. The episodes have plenty of exciting battle footage that take you inside the gun shots and mortar rounds. The Nazi soldiers never look too happy on camera. This is why Col. Klink feared being transferred to the Russian Front on Hogan’s Heroes. The series is captivating. Burt Lancaster has a good enough touch in his voice to explain the images. This doesn’t completely play like a re-education film ordered by the communist party. Although you might want to read a more reliable book about Soviet history during World War II afterward. If you’ve already purchased The World At War, The Unknown War is a fine compliment. It does give a view of what happened on the other side on Europe while the Allies were preparing for D-Day. If this had been released today, it’d be a big hit on The Military Channel since Russia is no longer our enemy. Timing is everything in war and TV scheduling.

The Episodes
“June 22, 1941,” “The Battle for Moscow,” “The Siege of Leningrad,” “To the East,” “The Defense of Stalingrad,” “Survival at Stalingrad,” “The World’s Greatest Tank Battle,” “War in the Arctic,” “War in the Air,” “The Partisans,” “The Battle of the Seas,” “The Battle of Caucasus,” “Liberation of the Ukraine,” “The Liberation of Belorussia,” “The Balkans to Vienna,” “The Liberation of Poland,” “The Allies,” “The Battle of Berlin,” “The Last Battle of the Unknown War” and “A Soldier of the Unknown War”

The video is 1.33:1 full frame. The transfers are taken off the video masters. There’s an occasional video glitch, but nothing too distracting or annoying. The audio is mono English. Most of the sound is created in post along with Burt’s narration. The levels are fine although you might turn it down a notch to keep the bombs from destroying your woofer.

This short-lived series at least isn’t completely short-changed when it comes to extras. Up first is an Interview with Writer & Composer Rod McKuen. This 23-minute piece lets him explain the series. Turns out that an advertising firm picked up the series from the Soviets with the scheme to sell national advertising. The other featurette is Analysis By Professor Willard Sunderland (51:33). Here he picks apart the facts from the propaganda elements in two parts. Sunderland points out how the treaty between the Nazis and Soviets was a plan on how to divide up Eastern Europe. The Nazis grabbed their territory as invaders and the Soviets occupied their neighbors as protectors. This does a fine job of explaining the omissions.

The Unknown War: WWII and the Epic Battles of the Russian Front reveals the action on the other side of Europe. The Red Army fights back the Nazis over the course of 20 episodes. The series was made by the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, but shouldn’t be completely scoffed off as propaganda. The raw footage of World War II is essential viewing since it’s elements skipped by most U.S. History classes since it doesn’t involve the Americans until the end.

Shout! Factory presents The Unknown War: WWII and the Epic Battles of the Russian Front. Starring: Burt Lancaster. Boxset Contents: 20 Episodes on 5 DVDs. Released on DVD: May 24, 2011. Available at Amazon.com.

Robert Service hails Rodric Braithwaite's historical homage to the Russian capital in its darkest hour, Moscow 1941.

The Macchi C.200 Saetta (also variously identified as the MC.200) (Italian: Thunderbolt) was a World War II fighter aircraft built by Aeronautica Macchi in Italy, and used in various forms throughout the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force). The MC.200 had excellent manoeuvrability and general flying characteristics left little to be desired. Stability in a high-speed dive was exceptional, but it was underpowered and underarmed for a modern fighter.

From the time Italy entered war on 10 June 1940, until her surrender on 8 September 1943, the Macchi C. 200 flew more operational sorties than any Italian aircraft. The Saetta ranged over Greece, North Africa, Yugoslavia, across the Mediterranean and Russia (where it obtained an excellent kill to loss ratio of 88 to 15). Its very strong all-metal construction and air-cooled engine made the aircraft ideal for ground attack and several units flew it as a fighter-bomber. Over 1,000 were built by the time the war ended.

In August 1941, the Italian air force command sent one air corps, formed of 22º Gruppo Autonomo Caccia Terrestre with four squadrons and 51 C.200s to the Eastern Front with the Italian Air Force Expeditionary Corps in Russia (Corpo Italiano di Spedizione in Russia). Together with C.202s, they claimed 88 to 15 victory/loss ratio. The first Macchis arrived in Tudora, near Odessa, on 13 August 1941, commanded by Major (Maggiore) Giovanni Borzoni and deployed in 359a, 362a, 369a and 371a Flights (Squadriglias). Macchi pilots carried out their first operations from Krivoi Rog, on 27 August 1941, achieving eight aerial victories over Soviet bombers and fighters. For a short time the 22° Gruppo was subordinated to Luftwaffe V.Fliegerkorps. Subsequently, they took part in the September offensive on Dnjepr River, as the offensive went on, they operated sporadically from airstrips in Zaporozhye, Stalino, Borvenkovo, Voroshilovgrad, Makiivka, Oblivskaja, Millerovo and the most eastern location, Kantemirovka. The Italians moved to Zaporozhye late in October 1941. In December 371a Squadriglia was transferred to Stalino but replaced two days later by 359a with 11 Macchis. On 25 December, the C.200s flew low-level attacks against Soviet troops that had beleguered the Black Shirt (Camicie Nere)Legion Tagliamento, at Novo Orlowka. And on 28 December, pilots of 359a claimed nive Soviet aircraft, including six I-16 fighters, in the Timofeyevka and Polskaya area, without loss.

During February 1942, the C.200 was employed in attacking Russian airfields at Kranyi Liman, Luskotova and Leninski Bomdardir. On 4 May 1942, the 22º Gruppo Autonomo Caccia Terrestre, that had reached its operational limit, was replaced by the newly formed 21º Gruppo Autonomo Caccia Terrestre, composed of 356ma, 382ma, 361ma and 386ma Squadriglia. This unit, commanded by Maggiore (Major) Ettore Foschini, brought new C.202s and 18 new Macchi C.200 fighters. During the second Battle for Kharkov (12–30 May), the Italians flew escort for the German bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. In May, the Macchi's pilots received praise from the commander of the German 17th Army, mostly for their daring and effective attacks in the Slavyansk area.[34] During the German advance, in summer 1942, 21° Gruppo Autonomo C.T. transferred to Makeyevka airfield, and then to Voroshilovgrad and Oblivskaya. Increasingly, the Macchis were tasked to escort German aircraft and on 25 and 26 July 1942, five C.200s were lost in aerial combat.

The following winter, the Soviet counter-offensive resulted in a retreat of the Axis forces. By early-December, only 32 Saettas were still operating, along with 11 Macchi C.202s. The losses grew in the face of a more aggressive enemy flying newer aircraft. The last major action was on 17 January 1943: 25 Macchis strafed enemy troops in the Millerovo area. The aviation of the ARMIR was withdrawn on 18 January, bringing 30 Macchi C.200 and nine C.202 fighters back to Italy and leaving 15 unserviceable aircraft behind. A total of 66 Italian aircraft had been lost on Eastern Front - against, according to official figures, 88 victories claimed during 17 months of action in that theater.

The summary of Corpo Italiano di Spedizione in Russia operations included: 2,557 offensive flights (of which 511 with bombs dropping), 1.310 strafing attacks, 1.938 escort missions, 15 Saettas lost in combat. The top scoring unit was 362a Squadriglia commanded by Captain (Capitano) Germano La Ferla, that claimed 30 Soviet aircraft shot down and 13 destroyed on the ground.