Russians Stop the German Invasion
This 1941 short film – originally titled as “Soviet Fights Back! Russia Stops Hitler!” – is an amazing American newsreel about how the Russians stopped the German eastward advance, the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) during World War 2. It features Russian footage with English narration. When this film was made, the United States has not yet entered the war. (The US remained officially neutral and refused to enter the war until after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.) Despite deep-seated mistrust and hostility between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 created an instant alliance between the Soviets and the two greatest powers in what the Soviet leaders had long called the “imperialist camp”: Britain and the United States. Three months after the invasion, the United States extended assistance to the Soviet Union through its Lend-Lease Act of March 1941. Lend-Lease was the most visible sign of wartime cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Credit : The Best Film Archives