The Unknown War: WWII and the Epic Battles of the Russian Front

The great value of this 20-part 1978 series on WWII's Eastern Front—following events from Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 through the fall of Berlin in May 1945—lies in the staggering amount of archival footage, mostly from Russian sources, taken not only on the battlefields (Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, and elsewhere) but also on the home front as well. The rub here is that the tone is fundamentally propagandistic: the Brezhnev regime cooperated in the making of the series in order to rectify what it perceived as a bias in Britain's The World at War for understating the importance of the Eastern Front in the Nazi defeat. As a result, The Unknown War became an unqualified celebration of Russian grit and courage in what the Soviets called “the great patriotic war,” with every negative aspect of the Stalin era—even the non-aggression pact with Germany—assiduously ignored or whitewashed away, and the Soviet forces simply described as “liberating” Eastern Europe from German control. And since this was the age of détente, Burt Lancaster's narration—delivered from various historic sites in the Soviet Union—followed the party line. Not surprisingly, the series was withdrawn after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. DVD extras include an interview with writer-composer Rod McKuen, and a historical analysis by Professor Willard Sunderland. A more balanced, judicious treatment can be found in Laurence Rees' 2001 BBC documentary The War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin, but the wealth of historical footage here makes The Unknown War a worthwhile addition for larger WWII collections. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)