World War II with Tom Hanks

- Since the death of Lenin in 1924,

Joseph Stalin has maintained an iron grip

on all aspects of life in the Soviet Union.

As a Soviet Premier,

Stalin agrees to the 1939 non-aggression pact

with the Nazis, extending his western border

and precluding any chance of going to war

with Hitler's Germany.

Stalin could not have been more mistaken.

All wars change the world,

but none of them changed the world

like the Second World War did.

- Japan's on the march. Germany's on the march.

No one can imagine

the nightmare they're about to unleash.

The most destructive war in human history.

- Suddenly the world is turned upside down,

and all hell is let loose.

- The West is stunned by the speed of the advance.

- You get the Allies, led by the big three:

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin.

Men who are dealing with

immensely complicated questions.

- It's the biggest military operation of human history.

-The Allies have to come together

not just militarily,

but industrial scale

it's a global perspective.

- They have to fight in every climate

- They have to fight in every climate

to the deserts of Africa and the depths of the ocean.

to the deserts of Africa and the depths of the ocean.

- But there was no certainty of victory.

- But there was no certainty of victory.

It was going to be a horrific bloodbath.

It was going to be a horrific bloodbath.

- We see humans at their absolute worst,

- We see humans at their absolute worst,

And we see them at their absolute best,

And we see them at their absolute best,

- World War II was a struggle in which there could be

- World War II was a struggle in which there could be

one victor and one vanquished.

one victor and one vanquished.

- As war between Great Britain and Germany continues,

from his offices deep within the Kremlin,

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin

is confident the non-aggression pact

he made with the Germans will hold

and that he will soon have

even more influence around the world.

- Stalin's ideal plan was that the British and French

would fight off the Germans,

and that those two sides could fight it out

as much as they liked while Stalin watched

from the sidelines as they exhausted themselves.

- Since he was a young revolutionary,

Stalin hoped that conflict in the West

would ultimately provide an opportunity

for communism to spread throughout Europe.

Vissarionovich Jughashvili,

the man that we know as Stalin,

is Georgian by birth and origin.

He comes from a particular milieu

marked by, among other things, feuding and banditry

and a certain code of honor,

a code of vengeance and vendetta.

- In the 1920s, Stalin became the leader

of the Soviet Union...

and quickly suppressed any opposition to his rule.

In 1936, he launched a purge

that became known as the Great Terror,

targeting political opponents,

then expanding it to high-level army officers.

- Stalin supervised, through the NKVD secret police,

the killing of millions of people,

the destroying of families.

Millions were deported

and sent to concentration camps known as the gulags.

He turned the country into a totalitarian police state.

A few years later in 1939,

Stalin makes a deal with Adolf Hitler.

Even though Germany and the Soviet Union are hostile,

Stalin signs an agreement

known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

with the Nazis.

As a result of the pact,

Hitler and Stalin not only carve up Eastern Europe

and together invade Poland,

Stalin also commits to supplying vast quantities

of raw materials to the German Reich.

- The Soviet Union is providing Adolf Hitler

massive amounts of natural resources,

which is funding the economic engine

to build the military machine

that Adolf Hitler is using around the rest of the world.

- By 1940, it looks as if the pact has paid off,

certainly for Stalin.

He's got this agreement with the Nazis

that he doesn't have to worry about a war

on their western front.

Then in late September,

Germany, Italy, and Japan signed a military alliance

called the Tripartite Pact.

- In Berlin, Hitler welcomed Japan to his gang,

the three-power treaty, Germany, Italy, Japan.

dictator nations falling in step for world domination.

- It was not clear what the role of the Soviet Union

might be in this new pact.

Would it become a quadruple pact

instead of simply a Tripartite Pact?

Would the Soviet Union become a full partner?

These were all still open questions in the fall of 1940.

In November,

Stalin sends one of the few people he trusts to Berlin,

his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov.

Molotov means "hammer" in Russian.

His nickname was Iron Ass

because he could sit for so long doing work.

He was intelligent, he was ruthless,

and Stalin trusted him.

Hitler receives Molotov in the chancellery.

There's an amazing scene as he enters,

huge, blond, giant SS men in their gleaming black,

death head's uniform salute.

In walks this little Russian diplomat,

and Hitler greets him warmly.

And they have two big sessions of chats.

- Hitler is at an impasse in this war,

has conquered everything within reach.

He's trying to talk to the Soviets

about some tighter level of cooperation.

Hitler wants to get the Soviets on board

for some kind of global war against the British Empire.

- The Germans propose that the Soviets join

the Tripartite Pact and offer India as a prize

for when the British are defeated.

Molotov doesn't take this seriously.

- Iron Ass is not impressed with Hitler.

And the conversations become increasingly awkward.

- German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop

is hosting a reception for Molotov

when the Royal Air Force begins a raid on Berlin.

- In the middle of the banquet...

The air raid sirens start to sound

and they have to go down into Ribbentrop's air raid shelter.

And during the air raid,

Ribbentrop starts to boast that Britain is defeated

and it's only a matter of time

before Britain surrenders and the war is won.

- Ribbentrop, trying to make the best

of an obviously embarrassing situation,

jokes that the British are complaining

that they have not been invited to the party.

Molotov, however, is not charmed

by the Germans' attempt at humor.

And he says, well, if the war is over,

then why are we in this bomb shelter

and whose bombs are falling on us?

- The next morning, Foreign Minister Molotov

returns to Moscow...

Unaware that Hitler and his military leaders

are planning a secret operation.

- Hitler is capable of, you know, shaking your hand

and looking you in the eye and saying everything is OK

while planning to stab you in the back.

And that is clearly what's going on

between Molotov and Hitler.

- One month after Molotov's Berlin visit,

on December 18th,

Hitler signs off on Fuehrer Directive Number 21...

A plan for a massive invasion of the Soviet Union

the following year.

The invasion is given a code name

after a red-bearded medieval German emperor.