Nazi Megastructures "Season - 5" (1/3) : Russia's War - Blitzkrieg In The East
For educational purposes
Artefacts left over from Hitler's invasion of Russia, from the vast weapons built for the German army to the stronghold at Sevastopol where they met their match.
Artefacts left over from Hitler's invasion of Russia, from the vast weapons built for the German army to the stronghold at Sevastopol where they met their match.
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00:01The invasion of the Soviet Union.
00:04The war Hitler had always dreamed of waging.
00:08The biggest clash of arms the world has ever seen and it is going to be a war of total annihilation.
00:15The greatest invasion force ever assembled.
00:18Essentially what you get here is the honing of the blitzkrieg military machine.
00:23Faces killer Soviet defences.
00:26Devastation.
00:28It's how the world's fallen in.
00:30That throw Hitler's plans into crisis and bring him into conflict with his most senior commanders.
00:37The proposals of the army do not accord with my intentions.
00:41And the Germans meet their match on the shores of the Black Sea.
00:46I feel like a gladiator entering the Coliseum.
00:49This thing's immense.
00:51This is the story of Hitler's Blitzkrieg in the East.
00:57The biggest construction projects of World War II ordered by Hitler and Stalin.
01:04Now they survive as dark reminders of the Fuhrer's fanatical military ambition and the Russians fight to defeat him.
01:13These are the secrets of the Nazi megastructures.
01:18June 1942. Crimea in the Soviet Union.
01:2921-year-old anti-tank gunner Gottlob Biedermann prepares to open fire along with the rest of the German front.
01:37Ready for action.
01:40Alternate armour piercing with high explosives.
01:43And keep them coming.
01:45We'll pin those Ivans down.
01:48Our infantry are depending on us.
01:53Fire! Reload! Adjusting! Fire!
02:00Their objective is to capture a stronghold Hitler believes is vital to his war in the East.
02:06The port of Sevastopol.
02:09But they're up against one of the most heavily fortified positions on the whole of the Eastern Front.
02:15Take cover!
02:22Remnants of Hitler's war against Russia still litter Eastern Europe.
02:26No more so than in Sevastopol, Crimea.
02:30Conflict archaeologist Professor Tony Pollard has travelled to the shores of the Black Sea
02:35to discover just what the German troops fighting here were up against.
02:40Take a look at that.
02:42Gun battery on a rocky outcrop overlooking Balaclava Bay.
02:47Covering the entire area, the Black Sea over there.
02:51I can see one, two, three, maybe four gun pits.
02:58Here's the first of these pits.
03:00Circular feature, chambers to the side, going underground.
03:04But look, oh this is great.
03:07Get in here.
03:09This still has a mount in it.
03:11So we've got this heavy iron ring, nuts and bolts to attach the guns to.
03:20And this gives us some idea of the adaptability of these guns.
03:24They were designed to fire out to sea to protect the harbour.
03:27But they could be turned inland.
03:29And that's what happens during World War II when the Germans are attacking Sevastopol to the north.
03:34And it's fortifications like this that will lead to one of the biggest concentrations of firepower in all of history.
03:46The story of the Nazis' blitzkrieg in the east begins two years earlier, in July 1940.
03:53Germany had already invaded Poland and their blitzkrieg had swept west,
03:57conquering France and forcing the British back across the channel at Dunkirk.
04:04Hitler wanted England next.
04:06The dogged defence in the Battle of Britain forced him to delay his invasion plans.
04:13Undaunted, Hitler gathers his senior commanders to announce his next move.
04:24The British were completely down.
04:26Now they are back on their feet.
04:28Russia needs only to hint to England that she does not wish to see Germany too strong.
04:34And the English, like a drowning man, will regain hope.
04:39Russia must be obliterated.
04:44This is a moment Hitler has dreamed of for years.
04:49He believes the Soviet Communist Party is a political arm of the Jews,
04:53who he regards as a plague, intent on world domination.
04:58He's sort of pummeled them together as one combined ill,
05:03spreading their tentacles and kind of infiltrating every part of the world.
05:07I mean, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
05:11And yet the war in the east, unlike the war in the west, is driven by this ideology.
05:17Nazi Germany has to rid the world of both communism and Judaism.
05:23That is his mission.
05:25Hitler plans to turn conquered Soviet territory into living space for his superior Aryan people,
05:32part of a vast Nazi empire.
05:36He and Soviet leader Stalin had agreed a non-aggression pact before the war,
05:41but Hitler had no intention of sticking to it.
05:45As soon as he'd invaded Poland in 1939,
05:48he ordered that it become a staging ground for future operations,
05:52a first step towards the invasion of Russia.
05:59Former army captain Dr Patrick Bury has travelled to north-east Poland
06:03to explore a place where the German army practised for the invasion of Russia.
06:09I know exactly what this is.
06:12Looks a bit like a bridge, two huge arches,
06:15but in fact this is a bullet catcher for a rifle and machine gun range.
06:21This rifle range is part of a vast, secretive Wehrmacht training ground,
06:26known as Stablak.
06:29You've got the sand here which catches the spent bullets,
06:33and all this will be clad with wood to stop the ricochet.
06:37And you can see here they clad the arch
06:40because you do not want the bullets ricocheting off that arch and down into here.
06:46Because right here is where you'd have the range wardens manning the targets,
06:51and they would have been lifting up wooden targets,
06:54and then the troops down there would be getting rounds down the range.
07:01The commander would come in, right, stop,
07:03and then the troops would run down and go and check their targeting.
07:07This range, it only goes on for about 100, 150 metres,
07:12which isn't that much actually for a proper infantry range.
07:15And so what it suggests is that this is probably a check zero range.
07:19And a check zero range is when you're checking that your weapon is firing where it's meant to be firing.
07:25It's a vital first step before the troops move on to battlefield training.
07:30Right, this looks pretty impressive.
07:33And it's obviously been blown up with TNT.
07:37And here you can see, obviously we've got about a,
07:41ooh, I don't know, 12-foot slit there,
07:44but it's wide at the front and then really slim at the back,
07:49basically to allow people a good field of vision,
07:52which would suggest that it's more of an observation than a fighting bunker.
07:56Observation bunkers are a common sight on training grounds,
07:59but the scale of this one is unprecedented.
08:03And one thing you immediately notice about this is the thickness of the concrete,
08:07which is about three and a half feet,
08:09in a training area where you wouldn't normally need thick bunkers.
08:13And that suggests that it's used,
08:17or it was built to protect the occupants from heavy artillery fire.
08:21The German army are pioneers in using ultra-realistic exercises
08:25that include heavy artillery bombardment.
08:29They even accept a 1% fatality rate,
08:32as the inevitable price of creating resilient soldiers
08:35more likely to survive on the real battlefield.
08:41You can see from up here that this bunker really commands the battlefield.
08:45It's not just a bunker.
08:48You can see from up here that this bunker really commands the whole area.
08:52And this place during the exercises would have been a hive of activity,
08:56a nerve centre.
08:58What you would have had in here was forward artillery officers
09:01directing the artillery fire down into the training areas.
09:05Generals can come and watch their troops training, honing their units,
09:09making sure they're performing up to the standard required.
09:12So essentially what you get here is the honing of the Blitzkrieg military machine.
09:16It's that sort of combined arms, concentrated attack to break through defences.
09:24The task of planning the invasion
09:26has been given to Chief of Army General Staff General Franz Halder.
09:32Franz Halder's a career staff officer, and he's meticulous.
09:35He's an incredibly good planner.
09:37You know, he's a details man.
09:40The tactics are based on the strategy that has served us so well
09:44against our enemies in the West.
09:47It will be a swift, decisive offensive.
09:52Halder's plan splits the German army into three main groups.
09:56Army Group North will advance through the Baltic states to Leningrad.
10:01The Southern Group will attack into Ukraine,
10:03to Kiev and the industrial Donetsk Basin,
10:06while the main Central Army will head straight for Moscow itself.
10:12Hitler gives the top-secret invasion plans the codename Operation Barbarossa.
10:20Massing close to the Russian border along an 1,800-mile front
10:24are almost 3,500 tanks,
10:27over 2,500 aircraft
10:30and more than 3.5 million troops.
10:34It's the largest invasion force in the history of warfare.
10:39Despite this, Russia still believes the non-aggression pact with Germany holds true.
10:46Stalin refused to read all the warnings,
10:49which are absolutely there for him to see.
10:51The truth is that Stalin and the Red Army are simply not ready
10:54to face Nazi Germany at that particular time.
10:56It's almost like, I don't want this to happen,
10:58and therefore I'm not going to believe it's going to happen.
11:02Hitler is confident his blitzkrieg will overwhelm the inferior Soviets
11:06in just ten weeks.
11:09And he's determined his generals understand
11:12there will be no mercy in the taking of the Soviet Union.
11:18The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a chivalrous fashion.
11:24The Commissars are the bearers of ideologies directly opposed to National Socialism.
11:34Therefore the Commissars will be liquidated.
11:39The Commissars are political officers who are there to ensure
11:43that the frontline troops in the Red Army remain indoctrinated with Communism
11:48and so they are to be eradicated.
11:52But Hitler won't stop at the Commissars.
11:55He sanctions the murder of anyone who shows signs of Communism.
11:59The stage is set for one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.
12:09On the 22nd of June, 1941, Operation Barbarossa begins.
12:16Part of the first wave of the attack are the Luftwaffe's bombers.
12:23Among them, Junkers 88 pilot Klaus Herbelen and his crew.
12:30Starting engines.
12:32The squadron took off with ear-splitting noise.
12:35Then we turned east and headed for our target.
12:38Full of confidence and convinced that a just war was being fought.
12:43Their mission is to hit Soviet airfields in swift surprise attacks
12:47to neutralize enemy air power.
12:50Approaching the target. Watch out for enemy fighters.
12:55I see it. Going in.
13:00Bombs away.
13:02Direct hit.
13:06We've got company.
13:09I try to shake them off.
13:16One had no feeling of time.
13:18Only the faint hope of eluding the fighters using every trick available.
13:23Hold on. Heading for close cover.
13:25Hurry, Klaus. They're closing in.
13:28Come on. Come on.
13:32They're nearly out of us.
13:38Unable to see, the fighters were no threat to us anymore.
13:42No longer filled with fear, we skipped from cloud to cloud.
13:46We had lost the attackers.
13:49Herbaland's escape is largely thanks to the speed and agility
13:53of his Junkers 88 aircraft.
13:58More than 9,000 of these bombers are built.
14:02But this one, found at the bottom of a Norwegian lake
14:05and now being restored in Oslo,
14:07is the only completely original Ju-88 bomber left in the world.
14:12Exploring this iconic aircraft is aviation historian Guttorm Fjellstad.
14:18Well, here it is, the Junkers 88, with its famous beetle-eyes nose,
14:22which has made it a very recognisable feature,
14:25and a very cramped, confined compartment for the crew.
14:29This was all because they wanted this to be a fast bomber,
14:32the Schnellbomber, to outrun the fighters of today.
14:36This resulted in this aircraft being a sleek,
14:39narrow, aluminium body.
14:41Rivets at the time usually were not flush, they just had the rivet heads.
14:45But the Germans, they polished down all the rivets,
14:48all to get this sleek body going to 360 miles per hour,
14:52which was unheard of at the time for this type of aircraft.
14:57The Junkers 88 is also extremely versatile.
15:01Different versions, including night fighters,
15:04torpedo bombers and reconnaissance aircraft, are built.
15:09While the Ju 88 can also be quickly adapted
15:11to carry all kinds of different payloads.
15:16In this area, you had the pilot sitting.
15:18And where I'm sitting, you had the bombardier.
15:21And behind the pilot, you had the rear gunner,
15:23who also operated all the radio system.
15:25Down below, you had the belly gunner.
15:28The Germans actually called that position the Totenbett, the deathbed.
15:32It was really dangerous to be laying down there,
15:35as you were really exposed for ground fire.
15:40With only three gun positions, the Junkers 88 is lightly defended,
15:45relying instead on speed, agility and a cunning invention.
15:51It has a little unique device called the Rauchgerät.
15:55It's a smoke device.
15:57And this pours oil into the engine.
15:59It makes a lot of smoke.
16:02Then the pilot puts the 88 into a dive,
16:05and it looks like they've been hit.
16:10It's a clever trick.
16:12Just one of the many innovative gadgets in the Junkers cockpit.
16:16One of them, a form of specialised autopilot,
16:19allows the Ju 88 to dive-bomb at extreme angles.
16:24So what the pilot did, he set the altitude
16:27for where he wanted the plane to level out.
16:30And when he started to dive, he pulled this lever,
16:33and the whole system of the aircraft goes into automatic mode.
16:38Beneath the wings, dive brakes extend to slow the plane's descent.
16:43The bomb bay doors open, and the engines are set to idle.
16:47As it dives, the aircraft reaches around 360 miles per hour.
16:52So the propeller blades are turned sideways,
16:55which slows them down, preventing them from spinning out of control
16:58and damaging the engines.
17:01Once the pre-set altitude is reached, the bombs are released,
17:05and the plane pulls out of the dive automatically.
17:09This system is very important for the crew,
17:12because during this deep dive,
17:14and when the plane is pulling out of the dive,
17:16you actually get so much G-forces that the crew could pass out.
17:22The Luftwaffe's attacks are devastating.
17:25In the first two days of Barbarossa,
17:28they destroy up to 2,000 Soviet aircraft, mostly on the ground.
17:33The world's largest air force is almost eradicated.
17:38At the same time, the German army tears into
17:41ill-prepared and badly coordinated Soviet forces.
17:48In the north, their tanks advance 50 miles a day,
17:52while at Minsk, the Central Army Group encircles and traps an entire Soviet army.
17:59Just a week into Barbarossa,
18:01the Germans are already a third of the way to Moscow.
18:10At the same time, more troops are being sent by rail to the southern end of the front,
18:18including anti-tank gunner Gottlob Biedermann.
18:23I passed a slice of bread to an enterprising young girl in return for a tattered newspaper.
18:30Ecstatic headlines announced that more than 2,500 Soviet aircraft
18:35and almost 1,300 Soviet tanks had been destroyed.
18:41Everyone was confident that this war against the Soviet Union,
18:45like the conflict with France and Poland, would pass quickly.
18:49But the Germans' lightning advance is about to encounter their first major setback,
18:55a deadly line of Soviet defences.
19:02July 1941.
19:04And Hitler's blitzkrieg in the east is making steady progress across most of the front.
19:11But in the south, the German army comes up against heavily fortified positions.
19:20Conflict archaeologist Tony Pollard has travelled south-west of Kiev in Ukraine
19:25to explore what remains of the Soviets' formidable Stalin Line.
19:31Nestling into the top of this ridge, using the topography perfectly,
19:35is a beautiful example of a pillbox.
19:38I can see from here it's got two embrasures for the machine guns,
19:42very low profile, difficult to hit,
19:45and this is covering this lane that I've walked up.
19:48So if the Germans get across the river and come up in that direction,
19:52this gun's going to sort them out.
19:55Let's take a look up on the top of it.
19:58And this is unusual.
20:00This is where a periscope would come up.
20:02So the commander below here operating the periscope
20:06could give orders to his gunners as to the position of the enemy.
20:10And this smaller tube is for an aerial, for a radio.
20:13So this is in contact with other positions, it's not isolated.
20:20Oh, now here is something different.
20:23There's a hole in the floor with a ladder going down
20:26and a passage running off.
20:28It's becoming quite clear that pillbox is just the tip of the iceberg.
20:34This type of structure is known in Russia as a mina, or mine.
20:40More than 1,600 feet of tunnels and chambers are spread over three floors,
20:45reaching 30 feet beneath the surface.
20:48This looks very much like a commander's office.
20:52All of the facilities would have been down here.
20:55Food stores, ammunition, and these rooms just keep appearing.
21:00The mina has a garrison of 60 men,
21:03while a further 50 infantry troops can be accommodated,
21:06hidden and ready to strike back.
21:09All of this from that initial fairly unassuming pillbox,
21:15it's a fortress.
21:18This mina is one of more than 200 bunkers set out around Kiev in a wide arc,
21:24anchored at each end on the Dnieper River,
21:27which the Soviets rely on to form the rear defences of the city.
21:31And this is just one of many fortified regions
21:34protecting key areas along the Stalin Line
21:37that stretches more than 1,000 miles from the Black Sea north to the Baltic.
21:46Construction began in 1928, but since then it had been neglected.
21:52It's not until two days after Barbarossa began
21:55that the order was given to rehabilitate Kiev's defences.
22:00The city's civilian population is mobilised,
22:04and by July 1941,
22:06160,000 people are building anti-tank ditches and new pillboxes.
22:12By the time the Germans reach the outskirts of Kiev,
22:16the Stalin Line is ready.
22:21This looks like another gun position.
22:24This is the embrasure covering the main thrust of the enemy attack from the west.
22:28Clear view out onto the flood plain on the other side,
22:31making the job of advancing in this direction very difficult for the Germans.
22:36And what I really like about this position
22:38is it's still got a remnant of the platform
22:41that would accommodate that big Maxim machine gun.
22:50Forced to tackle one bunker at a time,
22:53Hitler's blitzkrieg at the southern end of the front
22:56almost stopped in its tracks.
23:01And the heavy fighting around Kiev takes its toll,
23:04as Gottlob Biedermann witnesses on his way to the front.
23:09We soon encountered fresh mounds of earth marked by rough birch crosses,
23:14topped with unmistakable steel helmets of the German Wehrmacht.
23:19These first silent, bloody witnesses on the highway to the east
23:24were arranged in regular rows and columns.
23:31The growing casualties are worrying Chief of Staff Franz Halder.
23:36The Sixth Army is losing 1,600 men a day around Kiev.
23:41We underestimated the strength of the Russian colossus.
23:45When a dozen of their divisions are destroyed,
23:47the Russians throw in another dozen.
23:54Nevertheless, further north, the Germans are making rapid progress
23:57as they advance towards Moscow.
24:01It seems they're on the verge of an historic victory.
24:04But then, everything changes.
24:09In July 1941, Russian aircraft bomb the Nazis' main source of oil in Romania,
24:15destroying refineries and setting 11,000 tons of oil ablaze.
24:21The bombers launched their attacks from a Soviet-held stronghold,
24:25Sevastopol, in Crimea.
24:28Hitler decides this threat must be urgently addressed.
24:32Without oil, his entire war machine will grind to a halt.
24:40It's here that we must strike next, the Crimea.
24:44Soviet attacks from here must be neutralised.
24:48But, mein Führer, we are only 300 kilometres from Moscow.
24:52It is there for the taking.
24:56The proposals of the army for the continuation of the operations in the east
25:00do not accord with my intentions.
25:04The most important objective to attain before the onset of winter
25:07is not the capture of Moscow, but the taking of the Crimea.
25:18What is the point of us presenting our strategy
25:21based on extensive military experience, just to have it completely overruled?
25:29Standing between Hitler and Crimea is Kiev and its Stalin-line defences.
25:35So he sends one of his main central tank armies south.
25:39Together with his southern army group,
25:41they sweep around the fortifications in a huge pincer movement,
25:44trapping the Soviets in a pocket.
25:49On the 19th of September, Kiev falls.
25:54The encirclement of Kiev is an extraordinary operation.
25:57No less than four complete Soviet armies are captured,
26:01nearly 700,000 men.
26:03It is an astonishing victory.
26:08The fate of Soviet prisoners and civilians is very different to those of Kiev.
26:14And to those on the Western Front.
26:17The Nazis consider the Slavs to be an inferior race.
26:21And with resources scarce, millions are left to starve.
26:27The pre-invasion plan is that some 20 to 30 million Soviets
26:32will be killed by what is going to be called the Hunger Plan.
26:35The idea is that we, the Germans, take all the food
26:38and all the members of the Soviet Union die of hunger.
26:40That is the plan.
26:43And for Kiev's Jews, death comes more quickly.
26:48They are asked to gather to be deported further east,
26:51but instead they are taken to Babi Yar ravine on the outskirts of the city,
26:56where over the next two days more than 33,000 men, women and children
27:01are systematically shot.
27:05The Holocaust has begun.
27:13The 30th of September, 1941.
27:16After three and a half months of fighting,
27:18and with the city of Kiev in German hands,
27:22Hitler sends his Central Army back towards Moscow,
27:26while his Southern Army presses on to Crimea
27:29and the Soviet's heavily fortified port city of Sevastopol.
27:35Its killer defences are set out in three rings.
27:3980 tank ditches, trenches, minefields and machine gun bunkers
27:43combine with over 80 artillery emplacements
27:46and 10 sophisticated coastal gun batteries,
27:49the most lethal of which are the Maxim Gorky Forts.
27:57Tony Pollard has come to explore the Soviet's Maxim Gorky II,
28:02one of the biggest and most modern of Sevastopol's defences.
28:10Devastation.
28:12Good grief.
28:14It's as though the world's fallen in.
28:17This concrete's about ten foot thick,
28:20and it looks as though it's been thrown around like chunks of polystyrene.
28:26Something's been impressed into the concrete,
28:29probably so many times it's started to dig its way in.
28:33Ah!
28:35There we go. There's the giveaway.
28:38These are the racks on which the ammunition would sit.
28:43So this is a storage area.
28:45We've got racks.
28:47And here, look, you've got this honeycomb of framing.
28:52These racks, maybe three or four high,
28:54would have run all the way along this wall.
28:57And this is the last stop for this ammunition
29:00before it's fed through into the gun pit and the gun itself.
29:04Maxim Gorky II's armament
29:06consists of two huge naval gun turrets sunk into the rock.
29:11Today, all that remains are the giant pits in which they sat.
29:17I feel like a gladiator entering the Coliseum.
29:20This thing's immense.
29:23There's a lot of concrete here, but what you've got to imagine is steel.
29:28And it's a huge machine.
29:31There's three tiers,
29:33and all of this is just to service those two guns.
29:39This is the shell, the 12-inch shell that these guns fired.
29:45I can barely move it.
29:47And this is where the shells are delivered from the storeroom.
29:51Pushed through, and I love this,
29:54you can still see copper rollers,
29:57little wheels that guide the shell through.
30:00Onto a trolley, onto the elevator,
30:03up to the breeches, pushed in,
30:06and that thing's ready to go, ready to rain hell on the Germans.
30:13The battery's guns are capable of firing their half-ton shells
30:17a staggering 28 miles.
30:24And beneath them, like a vast buried battleship,
30:27is an underground network of tunnels and chambers.
30:31Away from the gun pits, these tunnels are really well preserved,
30:35and they go on and on and on.
30:38It's like the New York subway down here.
30:42Maxim Gorky II's tunnels are spread over three levels,
30:46penetrating more than 80 feet into the bedrock.
30:49Its twin gun turrets are operated by a central fire control room,
30:53just like on a ship,
30:55with targeting information supplied by outlying command posts.
31:01With its own power station, air ventilation plant,
31:04water reservoirs, hospital, accommodation blocks and workshops,
31:08the battery has everything it needs to keep its guns up and firing.
31:17In November 1941,
31:19German ground forces begin their first assault on Sevastopol's defences.
31:26While in the air, bomber pilots like Klaus Herberlin
31:30run the gauntlet at the port's vast number of anti-aircraft guns.
31:39You're hit!
31:41I can't move my leg or my hand.
31:44Heinz found a hole in my combination suit next to my left knee,
31:48from which blood flowed.
31:50Can you still fly?
31:52You need to strap my foot to the rudder pedal.
31:55Strap it tight.
31:57Since I could move my right leg, like this I could steer the aircraft.
32:02From their basic medical kit,
32:04Herberlin takes a painkiller and a large swig of cognac.
32:11Almost four hours later, he makes a safe landing.
32:14It's a lucky escape.
32:17EXPLOSION
32:20Despite the constant bombardment,
32:23Sevastopol's defences hold.
32:26And worse, across the entire Eastern Front,
32:29the German blitzkrieg that has reached more than 600 miles into Soviet territory
32:34is now slowing to a standstill.
32:37The Germans have completely overreached themselves.
32:40They've reached their culmination point.
32:42That is the point where they can no longer operate in the way they want to
32:46because their lines of supply have become too stretched.
32:52Hitler had expected Barbarossa to be won by winter,
32:55so his troops now face freezing conditions as low as minus 35 degrees,
33:00without winter clothing.
33:06German Army Group Centre is just 15 miles from Moscow,
33:10but it's as close as they'll get.
33:13On the 5th of December, Soviet forces break out from the Russian capital
33:17and counterattack.
33:19The blitzkrieg is over,
33:21and for the first time,
33:23the mighty German army is on the back foot.
33:30Late December, 1941.
33:33The Germans are now being forced back from the Russian capital.
33:38In frustration, Hitler sacks his commander-in-chief of the army,
33:42Halder's immediate superior, Field Marshal Brauchitsch,
33:45using his poor health as an excuse.
33:51Hitler has no doubt who should take his place,
33:54and on the 19th of December, 1941, he summons Halder.
34:00It is unfortunate that Field Marshal von Brauchitsch's ill health
34:05has led to his early retirement.
34:11But it does present a great opportunity for someone
34:15to take the reins of the entire German army at a crucial time.
34:24The task of the commander-in-chief of the army
34:27is to train the army in a national socialist way.
34:32I know of no general who could do that as I want it done.
34:37Consequently, I've decided to take over command of the army myself.
34:43This is a terrible moment for the chief of staff.
34:47Hitler's had no staff training whatsoever,
34:50has jumped ranks from being a half-corporal in the First World War
34:54to commander-in-chief.
34:56And he thinks of himself as this military genius
34:59because everyone around him tells him he is.
35:02But he just so isn't.
35:07With the end of the Blitzkrieg,
35:09the German army faces a long and drawn-out war.
35:13And they are desperately short of resources, especially oil.
35:18While many of Hitler's generals urge caution, he is determined.
35:22They must go on the offensive as soon as they can.
35:26In spring 1942, Hitler lays out his plan
35:29to capture the Soviet's main oil fields in the Caucasus.
35:32But he also insists they must first deal with Sevastopol,
35:36believing it's the thorn in the side of their southern advance
35:40and too much of a threat to leave behind them.
35:44He orders that Sevastopol be razed to the ground
35:48and the Germans have been developing the perfect weapons for the job.
35:53Weighing in at 124 tonnes is the Karl Gerät giant siege mortar,
35:59the biggest self-propelled gun ever built.
36:03This is a mortar for giants
36:06and it can lob a two-tonne shell some 2.5 miles.
36:10That's equivalent to two modern cars being hurled that distance.
36:15The destructive power of them is enormous.
36:19But even the Karl Gerät is dwarfed by the schwerer Gustav railway gun,
36:24the largest calibre rifled weapon ever used in combat.
36:30Weighing more than 1,300 tonnes,
36:33its enormous barrel, 100 feet long and over 2.5 feet wide,
36:38could fire a seven-tonne shell 29 miles.
36:44It takes 1,000 men to assemble it
36:47and another 1,500 to prepare the site
36:50and lay the tracks to move it into position.
36:54Sevastopol will be its first combat test
36:57and together with two of the giant Karl Gerät mortars,
37:01Hitler hopes they'll be the hammer to finally crack Sevastopol's defences.
37:11At the same time, the Luftwaffe steps up its efforts
37:15to cut the port city off from the outside world
37:18and soften it up, ready for the renewed offensive.
37:25Klaus Herbelen, now back to fitness,
37:28is en route to a Russian naval base in the Caucasus,
37:31full of ships supplying the Red Army at Sevastopol.
37:35Hitting small targets like ships
37:38will be a test of the Junkers' unique dive-bombing capability.
37:45Prepare to dive on my mark.
37:47Affirmative.
37:49Diving.
37:58I had a cargo ship in my sights.
38:00We could only release our bombs when the front aircraft had dropped his.
38:04In the meantime, the flak became active.
38:08Steady, steady.
38:16Bombs away.
38:18Airbrakes in.
38:19Taking back control.
38:23Good hits. Direct hits.
38:26This attack was one of our group's most successful to date.
38:31It's a textbook dive-bombing operation.
38:33As well as the cargo ship,
38:35Herbelen's squadron destroys four submarines and damages a destroyer.
38:40The German noose that aims to strangle the life from the besieged Sevastopol
38:45tightens further.
38:492nd of June, 1942.
38:52The Germans have surrounded Sevastopol for seven months,
38:55and they've been amassing the greatest array of German artillery ever assembled.
39:01They're now ready to go in for the kill.
39:11Over the next four days,
39:13the Germans fire more than 42,000 artillery shells,
39:18while the Luftwaffe drop 570 tons of bombs on the first day alone.
39:28And Professor Tony Pollard is right in the heart of one of their key targets.
39:33The formidable Soviet fortification Maxim Gorky 2.
39:38This wall's pockmarked.
39:41And that's being caused by shrapnel from a bomb.
39:44And that bomb has come right through the roof above me.
39:48And the explosion has sent slivers of metal smashing into the walls.
39:54And I'm afraid anybody that was in here at the time of that impact would be dead.
40:01But it's just one of tens of thousands of bombs
40:04that the Luftwaffe was dropping on these installations,
40:07so desperate were the Germans to knock them out.
40:12The Germans' bombardment is ferocious,
40:15but it has little effect on the Maxim Gorky fortresses.
40:22On the front line, close to Maxim Gorky 1,
40:25Gottlob Biedermann prepares to open up in unison with artillery all along the front.
40:31Ready for action.
40:33Alternate armour-piercing with high explosives.
40:36And keep them coming.
40:38We'll pin those Ivans down.
40:42Fire!
40:44Reload!
40:46Adjusting!
40:47Fire!
40:49But he's about to feel the full force of Maxim Gorky's huge guns.
40:57Take cover!
40:59An angry enemy had been awakened.
41:02We squeezed our eyes shut in vain attempts to block out the unexpected horror that had descended on us.
41:08Shrapnel filled the air, hissing and whistling overhead.
41:12I can't take any more!
41:16Stop! You'll be killed!
41:22Despite the onslaught, Biedermann and his crew keep up their bombardment.
41:27And on June the 17th,
41:29they receive news that artillery have struck and knocked out one of Maxim Gorky 1's huge gun turrets,
41:35while the other is slowing through lack of ammunition.
41:39It's the beginning of the end for the Soviet forces in Sevastopol.
41:44The very last pocket of resistance is at Maxim Gorky 2.
41:49It's like a natural cave in here.
41:52The destruction is so dramatic.
41:57Oh boy.
41:59This is undoubtedly a 12-inch shell.
42:03Now, I'm not nervous about that,
42:06because we know that before the end came,
42:09the garrison fired off every last shot.
42:13That before the end came, the garrison fired off every last round that they had.
42:20And all that was left were a few dummy shells.
42:24There's not explosive in there, there's sand.
42:27And once they got to the position where all they had left with ease,
42:33they decided to blow up the installation rather than let the Germans capture it.
42:39This is a monument to absolute desperation.
42:49The firepower unleashed on Sevastopol flattens the city.
42:55With the stronghold in German hands, they press on to the prized oilfields of the Caucasus.
43:01But when they finally arrive, it's too late.
43:04The Red Army has set them alight.
43:06The battle for Sevastopol has proved to be pointless.
43:11Gottlob Biedermann was eventually captured and spent three years in a Russian POW camp.
43:17After his release, he worked in the textiles industry.
43:21Klaus Herberlin survived the war and became a salesman.
43:27General Halder tried to warn Hitler against overreaching for the Caucasus.
43:31Branded a defeatist, he was sacked and later sent to Dachau as a traitor.
43:37After the war, he worked for the US Army, chronicling the inner workings of the Third Reich.
43:44Hitler's dream to crush the Soviet Union in a swift victory is over.
43:49The Nazis now face a long and drawn-out war of attrition.
43:53The war in the East is only just getting started.
44:01For more UN videos visit www.un.org