The Unknown War: Set 1

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[edit] General Information

War Documentary hosted by Burt Lancaster, published by Sovinfilm in 1978 - English narration

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Image: The-Unknown-War-Set-1-Cover.jpg

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A landmark television series, detailing the drama of the World War II Eastern front from the Soviet perspective The Unknown War is a landmark television documentary series about the Soviet struggle against — and ultimate victory over — the Nazi war machine. Hosted and narrated by Academy Award–winner Burt Lancaster, this sprawling series features rare and stunning footage recorded by Soviet camera crews on the front lines, most of it unseen since its original broadcast 30 years ago. From the June 22, 1941, invasion of the Soviet Union to the Russians' victorious march into Berlin in 1945, the devastating battles in the air, at sea and on land are detailed with astonishing images. These stories of heroism, savagery and suffering from what the Russians call "The Great Patriotic War" will shed new light on the Red Army's massive contribution to the Allies' defeat of Hitler in World War II. A Soviet-American collaboration produced in 1978 — during the throes of the Cold War — the 20-part saga was pulled from the air in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Its reemergence should be heralded as an essential addition to the recorded history of World War II. Film footage from Soviet archives comprises a major portion of the series, supplemented by film from both the United States and British archives. Academy Award Winner Burt Lancaster spent three weeks in eight cities in Russia, for location filming. Executive producer and director Isaac Kleinerman was film editor of the classic documentary series "Victory at Sea" and producer of "The Twentieth Century" and "The 21st Century" for CBS-TV. He is an Emmy and Peabody Award winner. Script consultant Harrison Salisbury is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, historian and one of the foremost authorities on Russian affairs. Affiliated with the New York Times for almost 30 years and serving as its Moscow correspondent from 1949 to 1954. A companion book, "The Unknown War," written by Salisbury, was originally published 1978. Script adaptation: Rod McKuen and Fred Weiner ; Produced by SOVINFILM and the Central Studio of Documentary Films, Moscow for Bregin Film Corp., A.G. and Air Time International

[edit] June 22, 1941

On a pleasant June morning in 1941, nothing seemed more peaceful than Red Square and Moscow itself. It was early summer, and people were strolling along the broad streets, shopping in the big department stores or going to the country for the day. They did not know that Hitler's legions, five million strong, had crashed through a frontier 1,800 miles long at 4 a.m. that very morning. Nor did they know, until a government broadcast alerted them at noon, that the Soviet Union was at war. The Unknown War. The war that broke Hitler's back and ended his dream of a new order.

[edit] The Battle for Moscow

On October 8, 1941, Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, broadcast from Berlin that Moscow had fallen. Hitler's troops, he said, could see the Kremlin towers from their front lines; another four or five days and the Nazi flag would fly over the Kremlin. The Germans believed these reports, and so did many others — after all, Hitler had conquered western Europe, he had blitzed London. But in an area some 60 miles from the Kremlin, the Nazi blitzkrieg came to an end. In the Moscow suburbs, the Red Army and hundreds of thousands of ordinary men, women and children threw up barriers that the Nazi tanks could not crack. In early December, the Red Army counterattacked. They pushed Hitler's armies as far back as 125 miles from Moscow. It was the first time in the Second World War that the mighty Nazi Wehrmacht was halted.

[edit] The Siege of Leningrad

In the history of the Unknown War, Leningra stands out as a symbol of the courage and persistence of the Russian people. For years Leningrad resisted capture by Hitler's forces. In the aching cold of winter, with nothing to eat, hundreds of thousands of Leningraders perished from starvation or simply froze to death. Still they fought on. During the terrifying siege, which the Russians call "The 900 Days," Nazi troops encircled the city and cut off all communications — but Leningrad would not surrender.

[edit] To the East

This is the story of ordinary Russian civilians who worked to supply the military with tanks, planes, guns — whatever was necessary to win the war against the Nazis. Little is known about the planned evacuation of more than 1,500 Russian factories from out of the path of Hitler's armies. Onto flat cars, freight cars and trucks went components of factory after factory. Far to the east, beyond the Urals in Siberia and Central Asia, the factories were reassembled. There vital war materials were produced for the fighting at the front.

[edit] The Defense of Stalingrad

In 1942 some of the fiercest combat ever took place in the monumental battle between the German and Russian armies. The ground was covered with bombs and artillery shells; almost all of Stalingrad was reduced to rubble. Of some 46,000 affected homes and villages, 41,000 were totally destroyed. In Stalingrad two million soldiers fought for 200 days and nights. Many people in the West doubted that the Soviets could win against the mighty Wehrmacht, but the Red Army fought the Nazis to a standstill. From street to street, house to house, room to room, the Russians repelled attack after attack, causing Hitler's army to suffer its greatest losses to date. So much was at stake that the victory or defeat of either side might well determine the outcome of World War II.

[edit] Survival at Stalingrad

During the fighting for Stalingrad, the defenders of the city took an oath: "There is no land for us beyond the Volga." When the Nazis surrendered to the Soviet army on January 31, 1943, in the largest military action in history, Stalingrad became a source of inspiration to the Allies in their mutual struggle against Hitler. In the course of the Battle of the Volga, the Soviet armed forces destroyed five armies of Germans and their fascist allies — one-fourth of all Wehrmacht troops on the eastern front. This victory strengthened the morale of the anti-Hitler coalition at a crucial time in the war.

[edit] The World's Greatest Tank Battle

In July of 1943 the largest armored battle in history took place in Kursk. Hitler planned to annihilate the Soviet army at Kursk and make one final effort to win the war in the east. Here thousands of tanks, both Soviet and German, clashed in a battle of monumental size. After the defeat of the Nazis in this battle, Hitler’s tanks — pride of his army — would never again regain the strength that had carried them from the English Channel to the Volga. And never again would the Germans meet the Russians on even terms.

[edit] War in the Arctic

In World War II the Russians were fighting along a 2,000-mile line that extended from the Black Sea to a point beyond the Arctic Circle. Arms and supplies from the United States and Great Britain came by convoy to the ice-free seaport of Murmansk, in the northernmost part of the Soviet Union. The route of the supply ships, which cut through the Arctic Sea, was so perilous that the seamen on the convoys often called it “Death Alley.” The convoys, identified by the code initials "P.Q.," were in constant danger from Nazi submarines and planes. German forces based on the northern tip of Norway made daily attacks on the ships. One convoy in particular, the PQ-17, sustained enormous losses. Out of 37 ships, only 13 managed to reach Murmansk. Cargo totaling $700 million went down to the bottom of the Arctic Sea, but the real loss was in human lives.

[edit] War in the Air

In a surprise attack on June 22 of 1941, German forces destroyed more than two-thirds of the Soviet combat aircraft fleet while they were still stationed on the ground. Hitler and his generals felt that this devastating blow would end the war in Russia very quickly, but they were wrong. The Soviets fought back, developed new tactics, and slowly, gradually, the balance shifted.

[edit] Partisans: The Guerrilla War

When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, he captured Moscow; but Russia's men and women, banding together behind his lines, turned the French invaders' lives into a living hell. The same thing happened in 1941 when Hitler's legions smashed into the Soviet Union and vast areas of Russian land fell into their hands. Like mushrooms after a rain, a people's underground sprang up to attack Nazi formations, to blow up their ammunition dumps and wreck their trains. The partisans operated everywhere — in the marshes and deep forests of Belorussia, in Odessa, where they set up an underground command post in the city's catacombs. On the shores of the Black Sea, a group of young people carried out operations against the Nazi invaders until the last member of the partisan band had been captured or shot. Nowhere were the Germans safe from the attacks of the Soviet partisans.

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[edit] Technical Specs

Video Codec: x264 CABAC High@L4
Video Bitrate: 1 941 Kbps
Video Resolution: 700x544
Display Aspect Ratio: 1.287
Frames Per Second: 29.970 fps
Audio Codec: AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192 kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages: english
RunTime Per Part: 49 min
Number Of Parts: 10
Part Size: 749 MB - 761 MB
Source: DVD
Encoded by: DocFreak08

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