The World at War (TV Series) Red Star: The Soviet Union - 1941-1943 (1974) User Reviews

"It was here that Hitler was broken"

[nickenchuggets · 10/10 · 6 July 2021]

Because World at War is simply the best and most detailed documentary ever made on the second world war, it is not surprising how each and every episode manages to be incredible and present a wealth of critical information to whoever's watching. I can talk about how good they all are all day long, but one of the best of the series is probably this one. It focuses on the USSR and how Hitler's invasion of the country in summer 1941 set into action a catastrophe so apocalyptic it seemed like the country would collapse. The USSR suffered over 20 million people dead by war's end, and yet it was this country that turned the tide against the nazis. Of course, this isn't the first time in history Russia has displayed how tenacious it is when it comes to war. Napoleon managed to take Moscow and still lost. The secret to Russia's ability to break essentially any invading military force lies in its terrain and weather. It might not be this episode, but I remember they interview a german soldier who took part in Barbarossa, and his squad or whatever would get orders to seize a hill nearby. Beyond the hill, all you could see for miles in every direction was wheat fields, ravines, flat plains, more plains, more wheat fields, and it goes on and on, almost infinitely. The unimaginable vastness of the country combined with the horrible biting cold of the winter is what crippled Hitler's army. Still, Laurence Olivier explains how the germans remained convinced they could finish the job, and laid siege to the city of Leningrad for over 2 years straight. For over 24 months, the germans savagely pounded the city with heavy artillery and hardly a day went by without a visit from the luftwaffe. The soviets did what they could to keep the city alive, and in the winter, a lake froze which allowed trucks to bring in supplies. Sometimes trucks fell through the ice and it was just an all around horrible experience. Aside from Leningrad, they also cover how Stalin was responsible for one of the dumbest moves in the entire history of any nation's armed forces by killing 80% of his generals and 90% of his colonels because he didn't trust them. His brutal purges in the 1930s had seen millions of people executed for seemingly no reason. To add insult to injury, Russia's enormous military badly needed experienced leadership which they simply did not have after Stalin's killings. The episode says how this probably contributed to Russia's bad performance against the germans early on. On the very first day of Hitler's invasion, hundreds of russian planes were blown up, most before they could even get in the air. Also discussed here is the battle of Kursk in 1943, the largest tank battle ever fought. Additionally, the episode talks about the importance of the soviets relocating all their industry after the germans attacked them. In the early stages of Barbarossa, the nazis had seized an area of Russia twice the size of their own country. Many of the USSR's factories and industrial plants were in this western portion of the country, so they had to move all their industry behind the Ural mountains where the germans couldn't reach. Apart from that, there is one last thing I really like about this episode, and it involves a poem that a large number of soviet soldiers knew by memory as a reminder that they were not immune to sadness. In the episode it is read by Laurence Olivier.

Wait for me, and I'll return, Only wait very hard.

Wait when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain.

Wait when the winds sweep the snowdrifts.

Wait in the sweltering heat.

Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays.

Wait even when from afar no letters come to you. Wait even when others are tired of waiting.

Wait even when my mother and son think I am no more.

And when friends sit around the fire drinking to my memory, wait, and do not hurry to drink to my memory too.

Wait, for I'll return. Defying every dead.

And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky.

They never will understand that in the midst of death, you with your waiting saved me.

Only you and I will know how I survived.

It's because you waited as no one else did.

Broadly still accurate unsurpassed documentary

[dfddwm-106-336810 · 10/10 · 30 January 2021]

The narrative and interpretation given in this episode remains accurate and in line with the broad consensus of historical views. The "two years" of "co-operation" between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany alluded to in another review was the default result of the West, France and Britain, rejecting Russian overtures for a military alliance against Hitler immediately before 1939. In any case, this particular episode in the series covered the period of German invasiin and defeat in Russia and the costs (on both sides) involved. As such it is a thrilling, if that word can be used, gripping and statistically accurate account of what was perhaps the most crucially defining theatre in the whole war. As A J P Taylor remarked, and as the number of people surviving with authentic experience of these events dwindles, not only do bizarre conspiracy theories flourish (eg. Washington had prior knowledge and was somehow "in" on the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour) but a certain revisionist backlash moulded by political motives sets in. Fortunately, the current state of scholarship and the supremely solid foundation of research and production values for which the World At War are string enough to resist such pressures. Fantastic documentary series, unsurpassed, as valid and instructive now as then.

Not enough coverage of fact that USSR and Nazi Germany were ALLIES for nearly two years of WWII

[random-70778 · 18 April 2019]

World at War is a good series. But this episode has some serious problems, especially now since release of Soviet Archives historians have noted it fawns over the USSR though omission of some serious issues.