Opening scene shows map with principal cities of Danzig, Königsberg, Warsaw, Breslau and the Vistula River and Baltic Sea (Ostsee) among other places shown. Gernan forces forming a defense against Soviets on the Vistula line in the Winter of 1945, during World War 2. German troops are seen in white winter gear manning positions in deep snow. They are seen in midst of high winds and snowstorm. Only a couple of motorcycles move through the storm. Closeups of some of the German soldiers. Scene shifts to a Baltic seaport, where German troops and war materiel are being loaded for transport to the front. Views of German supply convoy underway through ice floes in the Baltic. Glimpse of German sailors on deck in cold weather gear. View from snow covered deck of an accompanying warship of the convoy steaming ahead. At TC:01:09, the German Cruiser Prinz Eugen is seen underway in the Baltic. She carries a an observation aircraft amidship. Next, German warships are seen firing multiple salvos from their naval guns.
Sino-Soviet conflict over the Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway. Representatives of International Commission prepare to travel to the Hailar Front in China. They place the flags of United States, japan, and France on the locomomotive before passing through Chinese lines. Snow covers the ground. The representatives of America, France and Japan, which include women, leave the staff headquarters of General Hu Yu Kun, Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front.
Bomb damage at station Puhetu in Manchuria, China. The club of employees and workmen of the Chinese Eastern Railway at station Puhetu which was damaged due to aircraft bombing on November 29, 1929. A dining car destroyed by a bomb from a Soviet airplane. The remains of an apartment of a railway employee at station Puhetu robbed by Chinese troops on November 29, 1929.
The Potsdam Conference in Germany towards the end of World War II. U.S. President Harry Truman joins Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower in a review of American troops in Frankfurt am Main city along the Main River in Germany. Exterior of the Cecilienhof in Potsdam. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Clement Attlee and his Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin return to the Potsdam Conference. Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Attlee, Truman and others seated around a round table.
Soviet spy Harry Gold at the spy trials in the United States. Exterior of a building. Men stand outside the building with Harry Gold. Gold's hands tied with handcuffs. Vehicles passing on the street. The accused coming out of a vehicle. One of the accused hides his face with a book.
Legislators entering a hall in Czechoslovakia, in 1948. Inside,an image of the Small Coat of Arms of the Republic of Czechoslovakia (1920) dominates the scene. New scene shows Gustav Husak, acting Prime Minister, delivering an address urging support for the Communist Party. The next sequence shows violent Communist-led demonstrations, as armed trade unionists riot in the Prague streets, attacking the offices of the political opposition. Police attempt to restore order. On February 25, 1948, the communists achieve a Czechoslovak coup d'état. On February 27th, Czech President, Edvard Benes, receives a delegation including communist Premier Klement Gottwald and the 12 new members of the cabinet, at the Presidential Palace. He is seen signing documents accepting the communist cabinet. Change of scene shows Czech Foreign Minister, Jan Masaryk, giving a speech rejecting the change. (He remained in office, but died under suspicious circumstances on On March 10, 1948.) View of Masaryk in his casket. Mourners at his funeral.The Czech Parliament Building with flag at half staff. President Benes seen strolling, using a cane, accompanied by his wife, Hana Benes, in the garden of their summer home, Benesova vila, in Sezimovo Usti. Narrator notes that he refused to sign a new constitution drawn up by the communists. He died of natural causes at his villa on September 3, 1948. Scenes of his funeral and of him in his casket. Views of Benes' state funeral, with mourners lining the streets. View of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Narrator describes circumstances using Churchill's term "Iron Curtain." A communist parade in an Eastern European city. A person who was roughed up on the street. View of East German uprising in 1953, being suppressed with Soviet tanks. Uprising in Poland in 1955 being put down by local police and Russian soldiers. Polish musicians playing and examples of Polish political cartoons permitted under relaxed communist rule.
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