Animated maps show locations in Russia. Cold and snow force Spanish Blue Division troops under German Army (250. Infanterie-Division) use dynamite for digging defensive positions near Leningrad. They explode dynamite and make room for gun emplacements. Blue Division soldiers fashion trenches in the snow and erect crude shelters of wood. After firing artillery, an officer looks through periscopic sighting binoculars. The troops engage in battle over snow covered field, pulling artillery piece. Chimney of Soviet blockhouse is hit. Spanish troops are decorated by German officials. German cavalry General Georg Lindemann presents Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross to Spanish commander, General Agustín Muñoz Grandes. (World War II period).
German truck convoys move supplies through snow blizzard, advancing to engage Soviet Russian troops on the eastern front in World War II. German soldiers shovel snow and clear pathway through snow. A German soldier with a snow encrusted, frozen mustache. German soldiers walk through a snowy trench with snow roofed area. Wire entanglement placed across open field and a German soldier scans the horizon with binoculars. Tanks and tracked armored vehicles uncovered from barn covering camouflage. Artillery forward observer moves through field on Panzer tank. Signal man relays message. German artillery fired. Fire and smoke. Shells hit objectives. German Tanks roll on the snow covered battlefields. Scenes of destroyed Soviet tanks and dead Russian soldiers on snow covered ground.
Views about 10 months into the German siege of Leningrad in World War 2. Isaakievskiy (St. Isaac's) cathedral and other buildings on Vorovsky Square (Isaak Square) in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) as viewed from Mariinsky Palace. (They appear relatively unscathed.) The Monument to Nicholas I is in the center. Boats and ships are docked along the Neva River. Two youths stand atop a building and look at smoke rising across the river from buildings being shelled by German forces. Closeup of buildings being destroyed by German shelling. A small boy helps pick up rubble from the streets. A woman is helped to her feet by a Soviet soldier. Scenes of destruction everywhere. Broken windows, stones falling from buildings, an abandoned doll on a window sill. A dead child lying on stairs. A woman weeping. A young boy holding his hat in his hands and looking sadly in mourning. A mother with a baby. People standing about in sorrow and shock. 14-inch Soviet coastal guns firing, from under camouflage netting, at German positions.