The World at War (TV Series)
Barbarossa: June-December 1941 (1973)
Laurence Olivier: Self - Narrator
Quotes
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Self - Narrator : Doubts about the Red Army's strength had been raised inside Russia. The purges of the '30s had decimated its leadership. 90% of its generals, 80% of its colonels and well over half its corps commanders had been put to death at Stalin's whim.
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Self - Narrator : Hitler, that same month, further strengthened the Axis. He signed a new military alliance with Italy and with Japan the Tripartite Pact. lt was aimed, allegedly, at only the United States and Britain. The Russians thought otherwise. They protested angrily. Hitler invited Stalin's closest adviser, Molotov, to Berlin that November 1940, to help, as he put it, "clarify the situation. lt was a disastrous visit for Soviet-German relations.
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Self - Narrator : Even while Molotov was still in Berlin Hitler ordered his generals to plan an attack on Russia for May 15, 1941 . They responded with a detailed scheme which he named "Operation Barbarossa" after the red-bearded Prussian emperor who, centuries earlier, had crusaded against the Slavs.
