大象传媒

The words of Konstantin Simonov's poem 'Wait for me and I shall return,' is an anthem of loss, courage and yearning for the terrible months that followed the outbreak of war in 1941.

Untrained volunteers fought with pikes and sticks, entire divisions were wiped out, but the Red Army did not collapse as Hitler had predicted. One General reported, "It is increasingly plain we have underestimated the Russian colossus... if we destroy a dozen, the Russians present us with a dozen more." Neither did the Soviet people welcome the Germans as saviours. Some Baltic states, where the invaders were seen as allies helping to throw off the Soviet yoke, greeted German soldiers with bread and salt, but they were repaid with brutality. Martin Sixsmith visits the suburb of Kiev that witnessed the biggest single massacre of the holocaust, immortalized in Yevgeny Yevtushenko's epic poem 'Babi Yar'. A heartrending account of one woman who survived is set against music from Shostakovich's 13th Symphony that uses the words of the poem. But German casualties were mounting. As winter approached, Hitler urged his generals to capture the major Soviet cities.

By early November the exhausted Germans were within 50 miles of Moscow. 600 miles and two fifths of the Soviet population were under enemy control, but the people's determination to fight was passionate. Stalin evoked heroes of the past to inspire new Russian heroes, but Sixsmith reflects, "their motives were not always the ones the Kremlin desired: people were fighting not for Stalin, not for the revolution or the Soviet Union, but for the Russian land." In the hit song of 1942 Napoleon speaks to Hitler from the grave saying 'I'll move over and you can join me down here." The Soviet Union had been facing annihilation, but it had survived.

Historical Consultant: Professor Geoffrey Hosking

Producers: Adam Fowler & Anna Scott-Brown
A Ladbroke production for 大象传媒 Radio 4.