Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00♪♪♪
00:10♪♪♪
00:20♪♪♪
00:30♪♪♪
00:40♪♪♪
00:50♪♪♪
00:56And now, the fate of Europe.
01:04The Russian Navy, the Black Sea Fleet.
01:07After three years of defeat and defense,
01:09ships and sailors of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
01:12prepare for the offensive.
01:14In the great ports of the Black Sea,
01:16in Odessa and Sebastopol,
01:18invading Germans sit entrenched,
01:20holding the Crimea in talons of steam.
01:23But the year is 1944
01:25and the high tide of Nazi conquest is heavy.
01:28The Red Army is driving into the Crimean Peninsula
01:31from the north as the Red Navy brings in more troops
01:34to fall on the flanks of the desperate Germans.
01:37To Soviet sailors,
01:38Sebastopol with its magnificent harbor
01:40is a prize beyond price
01:43and they mean to get it back at any price.
01:46♪♪♪
02:10Red planes bomb their own city,
02:12devastate their own harbor,
02:14preparing the way for the Red Black Sea Fleet.
02:44♪♪♪
02:51The German Air Force throws all it has available
02:53against the Russian ships,
02:55but nothing stops the relentless wave of sailors,
02:57soldiers and marines into Sebastopol.
03:00♪♪♪
03:29♪♪♪
03:58♪♪♪
04:27♪♪♪
04:40Hitler has warned the Allies,
04:42where the German soldier stands,
04:44no other shall ever put his foot.
04:47But along 2,000 miles of Russian front,
04:49from the Baltic to the Crimea,
04:51the myth of Nazi invincibility crumbles.
04:54In the 18th century, it was Charles XII of Sweden.
04:58In the 19th century, it was Napoleon.
05:01In the 20th century, it is Hitler.
05:05Each of these conquests has tasted the bitterness
05:07of the Slavic wastes.
05:09Each has floundered on the vastness and desolation
05:11of the Russian steppes.
05:13♪♪♪
05:42♪♪♪
06:09♪♪♪
06:22Sebastopol, city of sieges, city of defeats,
06:27city of victories.
06:29For the Russians, Sebastopol is a vital landmark
06:32on the march to Berlin.
06:34For the Germans, the loss of Sebastopol
06:36means retreat, disaster.
06:39Landing boats originally built for the invasion of England
06:41now serve another purpose, a German evacuation,
06:45a German Dunkirk in the Black Sea.
06:48♪♪♪
06:55May 9th, 1944, Sebastopol is liberated.
06:59But for the Russian people,
07:04the aftermath of triumph is heartbreaking.
07:07Where the German army fights,
07:09there the SS murders and the Gestapo slaughters.
07:12The heaps of innocent executed hostages
07:15are monuments to man's inhumanity to man.
07:18♪♪♪
07:43The Germans came as supermen.
07:45That day is over.
07:47They leave as vanquished.
07:49That day has come.
07:51But before the German Wehrmacht is irrevocably broken,
07:54hammering in the east will find mounting echo in the west.
07:58♪♪♪
08:07And in the west, Germany begins to drown
08:10in the flood tide of Allied might.
08:12In the hard-won harbour of Naples,
08:14at Palermo, Corsica, Sardinia,
08:17the ships and men gather for the invasion of southern France.
08:20Operation Anvil.
08:22Ships by the hundreds, men by the thousands,
08:25will inundate the rear and flank of the Germans
08:27who are struggling to contain the Allies
08:29on the Normandy beachhead established two months earlier.
08:32♪♪♪
08:39And in North Africa,
08:41Moran, Algiers, Bizerte, Tunis, Alexandria,
08:46catapults for the last great seaborne invasion
08:48of the European war.
08:50♪♪♪
09:07Eight hundred ships will carry the liberators
09:09to the beaches on the far Mediterranean shore.
09:12And with them go seven French divisions
09:14carrying the Cross of Lorraine.
09:16Back to French soil under General Higard.
09:19Back to their homeland
09:20with the Committee of National Liberation.
09:22♪♪♪
09:49Secretary of the Navy Forrestal
09:50confers with Admiral Hewitt,
09:52commander of Allied naval forces,
09:54as the armada sails unhindered from Islam to Christendom
09:58toward the French Riviera, the Côte d'Azur,
10:01playground in time of peace,
10:04battleground in time of war.
10:06♪♪♪
10:35♪♪♪
10:43The plan of assault.
10:45Seize Marseille in Toulon,
10:46deep water ports which will feed the Allied armies
10:48in their sweep across France into Germany.
10:51Advance up the valley of the Rhône
10:53and join the troops from Normandy.
10:55Little opposition meets the liberators on the beaches.
10:58But inland, the Germans fight,
11:01and the Allies fight too.
11:03Inland.
11:04♪♪♪
11:17Allons enfants de la patrie.
11:20The day of glory has arrived.
11:22The French army is back again.
11:24Back to fight again.
11:26Back to liberate their brothers.
11:28Back to free their country.
11:30♪♪♪
12:00After four years in the shadow of the swastika,
12:03after four years of national eclipses,
12:06the French return to their own.
12:08Marseille is French again,
12:10and so is Toulon.
12:12The French fleet has returned.
12:14♪♪♪
12:23And Paris, city of light.
12:26August 25th, 1944.
12:29No enemy could extinguish the light,
12:31nor could he comprehend it.
12:33The light that never was on sea or land.
12:36The light that is in the hearts of only those
12:39who are truly free.
12:41♪♪♪
13:06♪♪♪
13:16Through the liberated boulevards,
13:18the tide of allied might flows toward tomorrow's fronts.
13:21Toward Germany.
13:22And history keeps cadence with the marching columns.
13:25The Battle of France is over.
13:27But many men now marching
13:29will lie still in Europe's earth
13:31before the fate of Europe is sealed.
13:34♪♪♪
14:03Europe's fate.
14:04The world's tomorrow.
14:06Both are foreshadowed in a little-known resort
14:08named Yalta in the Crimea on the Black Sea,
14:1140 miles from Sebastopol.
14:14Clothed in secrecy,
14:15the leaders of the allied coalition
14:17meet in February 1945.
14:19United States cruiser Augusta
14:21brings President Roosevelt,
14:23and Prime Minister Churchill is there to greet him.
14:26A new name is being added to the vocabulary of history.
14:29Yalta.
14:31♪♪♪♪
14:39Statesmen, soldiers, diplomats
14:42turn an obscure Crimean town
14:44into the temporary capital of the world
14:46as the war, east and west,
14:48thunders toward its climax.
14:50Rome has long since fallen.
14:53Now the world focuses its attention on Tokyo and Berlin.
14:56On all the six continents and on all the seven seas,
14:59the Allies destroy the Axis.
15:02But here at Yalta,
15:03diplomacy takes precedence over combat.
15:06♪♪♪♪
15:29♪♪♪♪
15:39♪♪♪♪
16:05Yosef Vissarionovich Djugashvili,
16:07whom the world knows as Stalin,
16:09resides over the meetings at Livania,
16:11favorite palace of his predecessor,
16:13Tsar Nicholas II.
16:15At Yalta,
16:16the Russians agree to enter the war against Japan,
16:19and the date for the first meeting of the United Nations is set.
16:22Other agreements, open and secret,
16:25sow the seeds of future controversy and contention.
16:28But on the immediate issue,
16:30the war against Germany,
16:31the conference is clear and decisive.
16:34The communique says,
16:35the timing, scope, and coordination
16:37of new and even more powerful blows
16:39by our armies and air forces
16:41into the heart of Germany have been planned in detail.
16:44Nazi Germany is doomed.
17:04♪♪♪♪♪
17:26Since the time when Roman legions
17:28stood guard along its banks,
17:30the Rhine has been a fateful river.
17:32Not since Napoleon have invading troops crossed over it.
17:36But now, in March 1945,
17:39the barrier breaks,
17:40and the heart of Germany lies open to assault.
17:43♪♪♪♪
18:10♪♪♪♪
18:31Seven Allied armies overrun the Third Reich
18:34from Switzerland to the North Sea.
18:36The Germans set out to master mankind.
18:39They carried their fight to the four corners of the earth.
18:42Victory after victory was theirs.
18:45Every victory except final victory.
18:48The sores of the winds of war in the East and in the West,
18:51in the North and in the South,
18:53reap the whirlwind of defeat at home.
18:56♪♪♪♪
19:25♪♪♪♪
19:31The mighty of the National Socialist Party
19:33consumed in their own flames
19:35and pass from the scene.
19:37It is the people who pay the price,
19:39in their persons,
19:41in their homes,
19:43in their heritage.
19:45♪♪♪♪
20:14♪♪♪♪
20:31All the symbols of might and conquest,
20:33on land and sea,
20:35lie shattered and powerless,
20:37burned and sunk,
20:39rusted and corroded.
20:41Gone are the U-boats which threaten the Allies.
20:43Gone are the armies which threatened Man.
20:46Gone are the planes which destroyed great cities.
20:49Gone are the means to enslave the helpless.
20:52And the men who set out to ravage and destroy,
20:55prisoners of war.
20:57♪♪♪♪♪
21:17It began in Warsaw, in Poland.
21:19There was Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
21:22Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece.
21:24Denmark, Norway, Finland and Russia.
21:27There was Belgrade and Rotterdam.
21:29London and Coventry and Southampton and Liverpool.
21:32Scores of unremembered towns and villages.
21:35Devastation remains but the names have changed.
21:38Cologne and Frankfurt.
21:40Dusseldorf and Mainz.
21:42Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin.
21:45♪♪♪♪♪
22:01The Volkssturm.
22:03The people's army.
22:05The last convulsive effort of a dying order to save itself.
22:08The very old.
22:10The very young.
22:11The feeble.
22:12The unfit.
22:14Paraded into tattered Amalian units and fed into the furnace of war.
22:18For the Volkssturm, it is one short march from enlistment to captivity.
22:23♪♪♪♪♪
22:53♪♪♪♪♪
23:03♪♪♪♪♪
23:23♪♪♪♪♪
23:36In May of 1945, the end comes.
23:39The death rattle of the National Socialist Third Reich.
23:42Hitler is dead.
23:44A suicide in his own underground bunker in Berlin.
23:47The new order he designed to last 1,000 years has died with him after only 12.
23:52The dictatorship that set a world on fire sputters out an unconditional surrender.
24:22♪♪♪♪♪
24:42♪♪♪♪♪
24:54♪♪♪♪♪
25:00How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished?
25:06Germany is beaten.
25:08The Axis broken.
25:11The statistics are meaningless.
25:13The catastrophe incalculable.
25:16But free men have given mankind the opportunity to be free.
25:22And that is the greatest of legacies.
25:25♪♪♪♪♪
25:54♪♪♪♪♪
26:23♪♪♪♪