3:17 Yes, I meant NKVD not KGB, just a slip of the tongue. My bad !

A friend of mine's grandfather was a German infantryman during the Seelow Heights battle. He told us the Soviet barrage was so terrible onto the German lines that he trembled for days afterwards. Hour after hour of bombing and katushya rockets followed by waves of tanks and men. All he and his fellow lansers could do is fire everything they had continuously then turn and run. The russians never seemed to end or stop.

It’s really hard to even comprehend the losses. 28 million. It’s absurd that they were able to handle those losses

Incredible combat footage. I watch a lot of these WW2 vids and your video has quite a bit of footage that I haven't seen before. Well done.

After the German Invasion, Rokossovsky was at a STAVKA meeting and Stalin looked down the table and says - haven't seen you for a while, where've you been? In the GULAG, Comrade Stalin, was the reply. Really? - But you're back now eh? .......!!!

But man for man, the Germans of WWII are still widely considered the best.

Alot of them still would have died against the Germans.... Nikita Khrushchev said in his memoirs that Stalin told him several times and others in private conversations that they Russia couldn't beat Germany one on one without the help of the Americans (lend-lease program)

It took 4 Empires, The British, American, French and Soviet Empire 6 years to defeat Germany. Thats how good the Germans were.

I knew this was going to be good and you did not disappoint my friend !!! 👍🏼😎

Nice !!

I love your channel. I’ve been watching WW2 documentaries since I was a child. You have a lot of footage I’ve never seen before, especially the Stalingrad episode. Incredible images and footage.

It wasn't the KGB who conducted the big purge. The KGB wasn't founded untill 1954. The predecesor of the KGB was the NKVD. Thats quite the blunder in my opinion.

Another banger by @historyAtWar. Great content

Wonderful comment and so true!

I have been looking for a video about this topic. Thank you

Awesome

The videos on this channel and all your comments are always very interesting stuff.

Thank you so much for such a great video I'm Russian myself and I lost my great grandpa on the Elbe River meeting with the Americans, he endured all the battles from Moscow to Berlin and was heavily wounded in Rzhev meat grinder or as soldiers called the academy of war, his younger brother barely survived the war with over 6 surgeries returned broken at the age of 18 fought from 1943 at 16. Because of the archives now being available, I found my other 96 family members of whom only about half returned home, we will never forget the sacrifice!

Keep up the brilliant content lad

The US supplied the Soviet Union with Lend Lease materials prior to its involvement in the war and it saw rapid expansion shortly after which fueled the soviet industry significantly. Stalin also refused to allow civilians to leave resulting in them dying as they would be caught in the crossfire of battle. Many people in the Soviet Union actually welcomed the Germans as liberators because the Stalin regime was so bad and once reoccurred by soviet forces reprisals were carried out. Foreign volunteers in the German army who had experienced life under soviet control like the Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians were also known for their exceptionally hostile behavior towards Soviets. The large lack of food and medicine in POW and labor camps can be contributed heavily to allied strategic bombing of German industry and partisan activities sabotaging supply routes and trains. US and British fighters also had a habit of strafing trains unknowingly targeting train cars packed with POW’s and forced laborers.

Great song. Mournful and haunting

Thanks. The Eastern Front ww2 has so many unknowns.. and is still very unexplored and even less understood. This film helps spread light and knowledge.

The Soviet/Russian war doctrine has always been best summarized by Lenin's statement of "Quantity has a quality all it's own." Meaning wear down your opponents through sheer force of numbers rather than any sort of respect for human life.

Prison of peoples or prison of nations (Russian: тюрьма народов) is a phrase first used by Vladimir Lenin in 1914. He applied it to Russia, describing the national policy of that time. The idea of calling Russia a prison is based on Marquis de Custine's book La Russie en 1839.

Not enough historians do not bring up the most important fact. Germany was fighting all over the world strenghing their resoures as russia was just fighting the germans

i feel the lack of good NCOs was crucial,many couldnt read and so anything other than mass attacks was way beyond them tactically and led to even more casualties

Keep it up bro, love these videos

The story how it's told with all the footage, diary's and music, almost makes you feel like you are there right now. You almost can feel the waste, carnage, and vicious fighting while the story is being told.

The Red army are suffering countless losses in Ukraine so not much has changed

Thanks for the videos

Great video. Thank you.

I cant get enough of these excellent videos pleased most of it is in colour too!, @History Of War-little TIP> you spoke from begining to end, try taking a pause here and there even if for only a few seconds mate its quite exhausting tbh listning non stop.I also noticed you seem to have found some Rare footage too some ive not seen before and thats saying something!

Very In depth, good work

Refreshingly evenhanded.

Superbious video, many thanks. 🙏🏻

Great narration

It's crazy to think even before WW2 and 25+ million casualties they suffered, the Russians also had a revolution and a civil war. They experienced tremendous change and tremendous suffering, but I believe it helped make them incredibly tough.

Well made video! Really enjoyed this

Enjoyed you presentation immensely.

I´m German, born ´79. One of my Grandfathers fight from ´41- ´mid ´44 eastern in Armouref SS-Div. till he lost both legs witch hat to that time cut of more times because of no Antibiotics WITHOUT Morphine- just "Moonshine". It´s very important to different betwen SS ; Waffen-SS ; SS-Polizei ; Einsatzgruppen. He told me Bastards was most of Einsatzgruppen and ESPECIALLY "Kettenhunde" (MP) which behave like Superman but most killing helpless without Weapons in the "Etappe" (Area between Germany and HKL (Frontline) why the fighting Units call them "Etappenhengste" and ALL Fighters in Waffem-SS and Wehrmacht hated and disrespect them! But like the "Politkommisare" redside they was able to kill the Squads by will without serious Consequences by say "Feigheit vor dem Feind" In Stalingrad for Example Paulus and the Organisationmembers of that Groups had allmost till End more than enough "zum Fressen" (Food) while the Fighters Eat their died Comrades. The Kettenhunde killed till End now not anymore following Soldiers to Blackmail them running nearly without food, Weapons or Ammo into Death "obwohl" they had before heard the Speech from Germany the whole Army Already Died. Today many Germans know Adolf learns like Anjelica Kazmierski to hate the REAL Germans at Tavistock Institute and loved like many of his faqr Left Socialists till end the "Bariloche" County in Patagonia like Hotel Eden!

Love the channel 💙

Nice video

As to Tukhachevsky, just an FYI. He did make significant contributions to Deep Battle. However, the main theoretician was Vladimir Kiriakovitch Triandafillov, who published two books on the subject in the 1920s. Zhukov's victory over the Japanese in 1939 at Khalkin Gol was a small-scale application of Deep Battle. The doctrine became fully developed on a large scale with Operation Bagration and the Manchurian Startegic Offensive Operation. Mind you, Triandafillov might have also become a victim of the purge had he not died in an aircrash in 1931.

When the German army was retreating they used mine fields to slow the Russia units. So the Russians would use cattle horses and men either deserters penal units and traitors to clear the mines which amazed the Germans of the total disregard for casualties. Being sent in to battle with 3 men to one rifle and to few rounds of bullets so when the one with the gun was shot the next would pick up said gun and attack the Germans. The 3rd battle of Kharkov the stink of the dead was constant one German soldier recorded all ways in the nose.

I honestly don't know who the best soldiers were but of the hundreds of WW2 books iv.read this one called War on the Eastern Front, has a 25yo Waffen SS soldier precisely describing the wounded Russian soldiers after a battle. You wouldn't believe it if you read it yourself. This soldier who became a poet after the war couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Interesting/informative/entertaining. How many citizens were murdered between 1918 & 1941???🤔. Excellent still-motion photography pictures. Enabling viewers to better understand what the orator is describing.

TOUGH

Daniil Granin (born in 1919), who spent 3 years in the blockading (by German and Finnish troops) in Leningrad: "The Germans fought better, much better than our soldiers. Moreover - we've managed to win that war only by human flesh!" Boris Vasiljev was the Red Army battle officer during the battle: "The Nazi Germans waged war perfectly. Even when they were encircled, they fought excellently! I know it. I saw it by myself! We've managed to win the war by chance, absolutely. Ewald von Kleist simply decided to stop his tanks for several days just near Moscow. Therefore, the Soviets received some free time in order to transfer the fresh troops, which attacked the Germans very successfully." While General Andrej Andreevitch Vlasov is reputed officially in modern "free capitalist" Russia as a "vicious pro-Nazi collaborator and traitor", Vasiljev considers absolutely differently: "Vlasov was magnificent, properly Russian national military Commander! He decided to revenge himself upon Stalin, who committed terrible crimes against all peoples of Russia. Vlasov had high ideal of the Free Russia, as well as the real sense of responsibility towards his soldiers. The Red Army generals en masse were the direct opposite as compared with Vlasov, thinks Vasiljev: “There were 1.300.000. Russian soldiers killed near Rzhev - through Soviet commanders' faults only, and nobody speaks about the terrible tragedy so far in my country!" The late Viktor Astafjev was on the Soviet-German front all the war long, 1941-1945: "The Germans fought much, much better - in all respects! The Communists chose to shed rivers of the Russian blood literally in order to win the War. The Soviets won over Germany only by their extreme brutality and inhumanity!" The best WW2 Commander? "Field-Marshall Erich von Manstein, of course!, he managed to push three Bolshevik armies into the Azov and Black Seas with the help of two German corpses only! He was the great military genius - yes, really!" And Zhukov? "Honest Russian patriot? Ha! This bastard covered half-Europe by the millions of the Russian guys' corpses by his extremely sadistic personal kind of war waging! He deserves neither honor, nor respect, never!"

The numbers......

👏🏻👏🏻

True

thanks man for that 🙏🙏🙏

The losses were due to not only the 3rd reich but being treaed badly by the Stalinists NKVD. I think more died from Stalin than Hitler...

a total gem

🔥

Подобно тому как у бомжи не могут встроится в общество по причине отсутствия у них определенных социальных навыков, россияне не способны создать нормальное общество по причине исторически накопленных деффектов национального менталитета. Самым очевидным из этих дефектов есть полное недоверие друг к другу. Из века в век условные россияне живут по принципу, озвученному Солженициным : “Умри ты сегодна я я завтра”. По этой причине у обитателей этой территории начисто отсутвует способность к самоорганизации. От полной анархии россиян удерживает повсеместная покорность , из-за которой они способны терпеть любое спущенное сверху управление, каким бы преступным и некомпетентным оно бы не было

On the eastern front the German lost over 2 million soldiers with another 2 million civilians and the red army lost at least 14 million KIA and another 3 million MIA, for a total of 17 million dead soldiers. This is a low estimate, as the figure of over 20 million dead soldiers has also been proposed. Total soviet losses are probably over 40 million. On 14 February 2017 at a hearing of the Russian State Duma a presentation by legislator Nikolai Zemtsov, a member of the non-governmental organization Immortal regiment of Russia, maintained that documents of the now defunct Soviet Gosplan indicated that Soviet war dead were almost 42 million (19 million military and 23 million civilians). In 2017 the Russian historian Igor Ivlev put Soviet war dead at 42 million people (19.4 million military and 22.6 million civilians). According to Ivlev, Soviet State Planning Committee documents put the Soviet population at 205 million in June 1941 and 169.8 million for June 1945. Taking into account the 17.6 million births and 10.3 million natural deaths, leaving almost 42 million in war-related losses according to his research. The details of Ivlev's calculations were first announced at a parliamentary readings about the number of losses of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War.[78][79] Ivlev's figures are endorsed by the Russian civic organization Immortal Regiment and have been discussed in the Russian media recently.[13] Ivlev has published a summary of his arguments on the Russian website Demoscope Weekly. According to Ivlev's calculations based on the number of Soviet Communist party and Komsomol members conscripted, military dead and missing were 17.8 million. V. E. Korol-Korol estimated overall Soviet war dead at 46 million including military dead of 23 million. He claimed that the official figure of 8.7 million military dead was "groundless", based on battle accounts from across the Eastern Front. Korol held that the official figures of Krivosheev were an attempt to cover up the disregard for human life by the military leaders under Stalin. Korol cited Soviet authors writing during the Glasnost era that put wartime losses much higher than the official figures; In 1990 General I. A. Gerasimov published information from the Russian Military Archives database that put losses at 16.2 million enlisted men and 1.2 million officers. Korol also cited historian-archivist Iu. Geller who put losses at 46 million, including military dead of 23 million. and A.N. Mertsalov's estimate of 14 million military dead based on documents in the Russian Military Archives.

When you look at the way Russia is conducting war in Ukraine , they don't seem to have learned much from the mistakes of the past.

Well hell is his home now

Stalin murdered millions of Ukrainians so he had no problem wasting men of the red army. This is the guy Churchill fell in love with

It’s funny since not much has changed, we are seeing the same in Ukraine now

las vidas de ellos a cambio de tiempo

Just a comment to keep the algorithm going. 👍🏻

Great military leader Tukhachevsky ? Are you kidding ? He lost the war against Poland in 1920. His greatest achievement was the suppression of peasant revolt in Tambov area.

Without lend-lease the Soviets would have been defeated, despite their heroism. Also, the number of casualties would have been even more staggering

There were three main reasons for this colossal loss of about 27 million Soviets. 1. The the Nazis had about 220 army divisions in WW2 and 200 of them were fighting at the Eastern Front ! Only about 20 divisions were fighting at the Western Front. Stalin refused to believe (due to their Soviet-Nazi Brest-Litovsk Treaty) that the Nazis were planning to attack in 1941 despite dire warnings by Richard Sorge, their chief Soviet spy in Berlin. 2. The Red Army was also decimated by Stalin's military purges of top officers from 1931 ~ 1937 like Mikhail Tukachevsky, etc.. Even the future, superb army Marshall Konstantin Rokossovssky, was jailed and beaten in the gulags. 3. The initial incompetence and of inexperienced Soviet Red Army generals from 1941~end 1942 who were not totally prepared to fight a huge war against the German onslaught together with many early inferior weapons like planes, tanks, artillery, etc. also caused these terrible losses.

Can you imagine if Germany didn't make the mistakes they made splitting their armies up and the winter warfare and if they had a few more million troops.. They may have actually won the WW2 if everything in Russia went how they wanted it too ahead of time before the US got fully involved..

There were countless studies of this issue. In my time in the 1980s, it was 20 mil, now it is 28 million. Nobody really knows the extent, but what you fail to state is that most of these losses were civilians who perished during the German occupation. Also, 4 Soviet million POWs were murdered by Germans. Soviets had huge stockpiles of artillery, guns, and tanks, so in the end, Germans were beaten by arms, not by huge casualties. Germans Werhmatch was a superior fighting force, no army in Europe could beat them. Anthony Beevor wrote many books and article regarding this subject. PS. My maternal grandfather was a war orphan. His family were killed or starved by Germans. The paternal grandmother's family was lucky, but they did end up in a Finnish concentration camp.

It's a question of quantity versus quality. And the former won.

Every last eastern front memoir I have ever read about all hated that dreaded "ohhhh raaaah"

I could never participate in war, poor souls.

The soviets were going to invade.

Imagine only defeating your enemy through sheer numbers, begging your "capitalist enemies" to open up a second front, and THEN not even having to honor to not violate innocent women and children when you finally get into German territory? Ultimate coward army in history.

👍💯

They lost so many and still rose from the ground up and drove the Germans back to Berlin, the greatest *"they had us in the first half"* in History.

Historical notes: Stalin said “Do not tell the people how many we lost, tell them how many we killed.” Stalin convinced himself that he had literally a bottomless well of manpower to draw from. In 1937, the census bureau told him he did not. Every top and mid level manager was convicted of treason and shot. Their entire families went to the gulags never to return. It was Stalin’s No Retreat orders that, time and again, spelled doom for entire armies and army groups. If, when he ordered a retreat, it was always too late. Every photo and film clip from the Soviet Union had to be filtered by several layers of party officers, propaganda officers and NKVD intelligence officers before being released to the public. Every one. No exceptions. This is why in most, soviet troops look well fed, clean, well armed and well dressed. It presented a total reverse of reality. NKVD records show that Stalin was readying to invade Eastern Europe, especially Romania for its oil fields. That’s why the best soviet units were in their south west. Hitler caught them in preparation stages at the jumping off points. This was the reason for poor coordination between soviet armies and fronts. Today, there are well known British authors of WWII who question deeply everything on the allied side, and discover secrets and little known facts. These same authors take soviet “records” as pure fact and never question them. They turn a blind eye to the reality of soviet propaganda.

As accurate as any US history lesson - KGB 1937....................lol. Never existed then.

That's not why the germans gained so much territory during the intiital invasion. It's because they caught the soviets in a purely offensive position as the germans preemptively struck first

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You have to give the Russians alot of respect for their endurance,fortitude, & resolve!!!

Interesting set of comments that provide a different view of the war in Russia to that more usually offered. Historians will continue to debate the Soviet Union and WW2 for many years to come.

It is a very interesting question, but there is a factor which is rarely considered in the western narrative of WW2. Most respected historians and authors, including from the western allies, now consider that the military forces of Nazi Germany were responsible for the deaths of 3 to 3.5 million Soviet prisoners of war. These unarmed prisoners were deliberately murdered by the Einzatsgruppen and regular German soldiers by simply herding them into cages and starving them to death. From 1941 to 1945 approx. 10% of German soldiers who were captured by the Red Army, died in captivity of all causes. During the same time approx. 60% of Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans, died in captivity. That there is the difference.

🎉🎉

Funny how this number grows every year the further away from the war🧐

👍🏼👍🏼🤜🏼

"The German Army Was Better Than Allies" After completing an exhaustive multi-year study of archival records by the US Army War College, the United Kingdom's preeminent historian, Max Hastings, wrote in the attached Washington Post newspaper article, "On a man for man basis, German ground soldiers consistently inflicted casualties at about a 50 percent higher rate than they incurred from the opposing British and American troops under all circumstances (emphasis in original). This was true when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a local numerical superiority and when, as was usually the case, they were outnumbered, when they had air superiority and when they did not, when they won and when they lost." Against Russians it was more like: "Against Russian forces, German and allied Finnish troops inflicted a casualty rate of an almost unimaginable 1.950%. In other words, the Russians incurred on average 19.50 casualties for every one (1) German/Finnish."

Great to see the usual western Cold War tropes wheeled out again.

The purges get way too much credit for the early Soviet defeats during Barbarossa. They did play a major part but equal to them was how the Germans were able to convince Stalin and the Soviet leadership that the main objectives of Barbarossa would be in the south through Ukraine which is where the Soviets put their best troops and set their strongest defense. They were not expecting for the spearhead to be with Army Group Center and headed to Moscow. The preparations in the south forced Hitler to divert forces needed tk take Moscow to the south in order to take Kiev. The Germans did the opposite in 1942 when the Soviets expected a continued attack towards Moscow and Hitler made the south and its resources the objective. Once Stalin finally realized Moscow wasn't going to be the objective he allowed the transfer of troops which led to the German defeat in Stalingrad and pushback in Little Saturn. The Germans massively underestimated the amount of troops, tanks, and field guns the Soviets possessed. The thought the Soviets would dismantle entire factories in the west and move them past the Urals also never crossed the minds of German leadership. Had they switched to the defense in 1941 instead of attempting to take Moscow probably would have set them up for a victory in the spring of 1942. The fact they attempted to take Moscow and hopefully win the war in 1941 set the stage for their loss. After losing a million men during Barbarossa the Germans had very little chance of an all out victory.

Soviets had 6.8m KIA/DOW/MIA and about 2-3m POWs killed,Axis on the Eastern Front had about 4.7m KIA/DOW/MIA and 500k POW died or killed in captivity

Great video, but please review the prose, as there is a lot of repetition. Repetition matches the video, lots of repetition, it could succinctly be less than half the running length.

Many of the best Generals were purged during the 30's , very poor leadership.

The losses of population, civilians and soldiers, might have been above 20 mio. But these losses were not only Sovjet losses! Because at the same time anticommunist Russians and Ukrainians fought against the Red Army and Sovjet rule as did other national minorities. And all the time from 1941 to 45, the Gulag and NKWD system against their own citizens went on. Even after May 1945, partisan fighting against Sovjet rule continued in Ukraine and the Baltic countries. We have to be doubtful about the "heroic fight of the Sovjet People" since this propaganda was used to justify the territorial expansion and political claims of the Sovjet Union in central Europe and the Balkans after the war.

What I always wonder is "How did the Soviet Union win DESPITE the huge number of casualties?". They did NOT have "inexhaustible" numbers- Germany and it's allies had at least the same total population as the Soviet Union did. I believe that having the USA and British empire as allies-along with Lend Lease-was a big factor, but definitely not the only one. The strength, toughness and determination of "the Collective" (regardless of failures in leadership) was a big reason for the USSR's victory that often gets overlooked. Also, politically, strategically and logistically Germany was indeed waging a war it could not win, despite all the battlefield successes.

KGB 1954 till 1991 it didnt exist 1937

Very immensely horrifying to live as a russian soldier that time with your evil leader who doesn't live up for his armed forces

'The Allies won by British intelligent , American factories and Russian blood' - a wise man

What would have happened had Hitler not interfered with his generals?

Whether the German soldier was covering his ears or putting his head down in sorrow at 25:06, his brief image is haunting

You didnt mention that he killed those who surrendered after the war

Actually closer to 40 mill