The Unknown War

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.

On October 8, 1941, Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, broadcast from Berlin that Moscow had fallen. Hitler's troops could see the Kremlin towers from their front lines; another four or five days and the Nazi flag would fly over the Kremlin.

In the history of the Unknown War, Leningrad stands out as a symbol of the courage and persistence of the Russian people. For years Leningrad resisted capture by Hitler's forces.

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.

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.

During the fighting for Stalingrad, the defenders of the city took an oath: "There is no land for us beyond the Volga."

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.

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 US and Great Britain came by convoy to the ice-free seaport of Murmansk.

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.

When Napoleon captured Moscow in 1812, Russia's men and women 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.

The Russians fought Hitler at sea in the Baltic, in the Gulf of Finland, in the Black Sea, the Arctic and even on inland lakes and rivers.

In 1943 Novorossiysk, at the foothills of the Caucasus mountains, was the southernmost tip of the Soviet front. At the same time the Battle of Stalingrad was taking place, in the summer of 1942, the Battle for the Caucasus began.

In the late summer of 1941 the Soviet army was forced to retreat from Kiev in the Soviet Ukraine. For more than two years, the Nazis occupied the city and virtually destroyed it.

The Nazis occupied the northwestern part of the Soviet Union for three years during the Unknown War. In 1944 the Soviets launched a massive attack to free the area that swept through Belorussia, and the Soviet troops continued westward, across the German frontier.

After the Soviets won back their own country, they pushed westward to release other countries from German occupation. The final victory was not won until the Soviet forces freed Vienna.

Situated in central Europe, Poland was a geographical corridor for invasion and war. During World War II Poland suffered enormously; six million Poles lost their lives.

To the Soviet army, the capture of Berlin was the culmination of their drive to avenge the ravaging of their homeland. As the Soviets were fighting their way into the heart of the city, Hitler mobilized his last reserves.

The Second World War ended in Europe in May of 1945, but the war in the Far East raged on.

The Unknown War was an Allied war. For the Russians, the victory had a special meaning. This was a war in which 20 million Russians died, possibly more.