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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.
Contributors include:
Sir Max Hastings, Historian & author of ‘All Hell Let Loose’.
Sir Anthony Beevor, Historian & author of ‘Stalingrad’.
Professor Sir Richard Evans, Cambridge University & author of ‘The Third Reich at War’.
Professor Richard Overy, Exeter University & author of ‘Why the Allies Won’.
Professor Nicholas O’Shaugnessy, UCL & author of ‘Selling Hitler: Propaganda and the Nazi Brand’.
