A town in the French Alps, possibly Chamonix, France. A man stands next to a car parked on a platform at edge of a river. River and mountain in the background. Two women tourists walk with a glacier behind them. A columned building is in foreground. Next scene shows a group of mountaineers or boy scouts and possibly guides with packs heading out on a hike or mountaineering trip in the Alps. Views of mountains and valleys. Women walk through forest. Farmer using horses to harvest grain in a field. (Amateur home movie.)
A Lend lease U.S. C-47 (military version of Douglas DC-3 aircraft) is seen in sky above a Soviet airfield during World War 2. It lands and taxis past a Soviet Petlyakov Pe-2 bomber, to a parking place. Marshal of Soviet Union, Georgy Zhukov, is seen beside the aircraft along with other senior Soviet military officers. Next, he leads them, walking across a cobblestone path. A factory building is seen in the background. Change of scene shows inside of a large room, with numerous chairs and tables covered with maps. Senior Soviet officers sit at these tables. Camera pans over the scene. General Aleksei Innokentievich Antonov is seen seated at one of the tables. Other Generals and Colonels are seen as the camera moves its focus. Marshal Zhukov presides over the meeting from a table at the front of the room. He is flanked by two other officers. Camera again pans over the assembled group of high ranking officers.
Soviet forces laying siege to Germany in Battle of Berlin and environs, during World War 2, are seen in positions at the front under many sets of camouflage netting. Closeup of Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov and then of Zhukov and other officers in a dugout, under camouflage netting. Camera pans downhill toward other dugouts. One contains an artillery officer looking through periscopic binoculars. Breech view of Soviet gun crew loading a shell into a heavy artillery piece. The gun fires. Numerous artillery batteries firing and explosions on the ground. Soldiers use a wheeled cart to carry a heavy shell to a gun crew. Other soldiers carry propellant charges over their shoulders and gun crew member rams them into gun breech. Gun crew officer gives signal and gun fires. Another gun crew receives shells and fires its gun. Numerous gun batteries firing and shells exploding. Marshal Zhukov and staff observing the artillery attacks. Formations of Petlyakov Pe-2 attack bombers seen inflight. Marshal Zukov and staff looking skyward at Soviet bombers overhead. Views of the Petlyakov Pe-2 attack bombers overhead. Views from a bomber dropping bombs. Extreme aerial closeup bombs-away shot of underside of Pe-2 bomber as it releases bombs. View from bomber of its bombs dropping and exploding in concentrate area below. More bombs dropping and explosions on ground. More views of artillery batteries firing. Empty artillery shells piling up near a gun crew. A flight of Ilyushin Il aircraft buzz the field where many are parked. Ilyushin II aircraft in formation and then strafing ground targets. Batteries of Katyusha multiple rocket launchers firing. More Ilyushin II planes strafing targets. One of them is struck by gunfire and explodes.
Film opens showing two German women holding a basket of flowers, and scattering them on pavement in advance of a German military parade of Panzer III tanks, through a residential area of Berlin, Germany in World War 2. German civilian spectators line both sides of the road. Women throw flowers at the passing tanks, each of which has a German soldier standing in it dressed in a special uniform with a sash, and holding a flag. Brief closeup of older man and woman standing by a German soldier in uniform. Crowd occupies a town square and watch as the tanks pass them. Closeup of an old man watching the tanks. Camera pans to an open windows of a building where many very young children watch the parade. View from high vantage point showing long line of tanks and sidewalks filled with enthusiastic spectators. Closeup of the crowd rendering the Nazi salute. Adolf Hitler seen standing hatless, with arms crossed, in an open vehicle with two guards and a flag behind him. Another closeup of arms being raised in Nazi salute by everyone in the crowd. Abrupt change of scene to Berlin after its capture by Soviet forces late in World War 2 following the Battle of Berlin. View from high above of German civilians massed in a crowd where Soviet soldiers are distributing loaves of bread to German citiznes. Closeup of German civilians struggling to get some. A Soviet woman soldier taking bread from a truck for distribution. German civilians standing on a sidewalk next to a Soviet army truck. Closeup of a Soviet army woman soldier distributing blocks of food from the truck to civilians in food relief effort. Another Soviet woman officer stands overlooking the crowd. Closeup of German woman holding a soft straw shopping bag. Soup kitchen or soup line scene where a Soviet soldier is using a large, long handled ladle to put soup from a large pail into an old woman's pot. An old woman walking slowly along a street, where fires are burning
Film begins showing German General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the Berlin Defense Area, who surrendered his forces to the soviets on May 2, 1945, during World War 2. He is describing to a Soviet officer, interogator, using a pointer and map, the defense tactics of his Berlin defense. He also describes the condition in which he found Adolf Hitler when he last visited him at his Berlin Chancery. He demonstrates the palsy-like shaking of Hitler's hand. German officer being questioned as he sits on a curb. Soviet officers examine charred bodies including a possible Hitler body double or doppelgänger, lying on the ground in courtyard of the German Chancery. The area filled with trash. View of a very tall steel tower. Closeup of the Soviet Red flag flying atop that tower. View of the damaged Quadriga statue atop the Brandenburg Gate. Soviet Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov and other Soviet officer pass under Brandenburg Gate. View of Kaiser Wilhelm monument. Marshal Zhukov and his party walking through central Berlin past various monuments and Government buildings. Several Nazi Eagle symbols are seen displayed on buildings. Crystal chandeliers inside one building. Destroyed interior of building. A cast head of Adolf Hitler in trash outside a building. Other statuary and Swastika symbols in trash. Marshal Zhukov and party stop to examine two damaged German armored cars in courtyard of a building. View of the Victory Column in Tiergarten Park adorned with a Soviet Red flag. Marshal Zhukov looking upward at it and then walking up steps toward the monument base.
At beginning, the film shows views of the smoking ruins of Berlin from an overflying aircraft. Scene shifts to illustrations of confilict in 18th Century Berlin. A sculptured bust of young Frederick the Great of Austria. Flags of various States and historic horns displayed in a museum where all the exhibits are labeled in Russian. Flash forward to the final phases of the Soviet offensive against Berlin, Germany during World War 2. Soviet soldier picks up an artillery shell and hands it to member of a gun crew who loads it into the breech of a harge gun. Another Soviet gun being loaded. Soviet artillery pieces of all sizes and kinds are seen firing into Berlin, creating explosions and smoke and demolishing buildings. A civilian man and woman run along a street carrying their belongings in a baby carriage. Other German civilian refugees fleeing the battle zones. Three Soviet officers confer looking at a map. Soviet infantry running from house to house. A woman running along a rubble strewn street. Civilians taking shelter at corner of a building. A boy holding his ears against the sounds of the artillery fire, as he joins several civilians sheltering in a doorway. Three civilian women with their belongings walk along a street but stop and turn back when a building ahead of them is struck by shellfire and partly collapses into the street. A woman running away from the battle zone trips and falls down. Soviet troops using a flame thrower that sets a building on fire. Soviet infantry scampering through damaged buildings and rubble.
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