The Fall of Berlin () is a 1950 Soviet two-part epic war and propaganda film. It was produced by Mosfilm Studio and directed by Mikheil Chiaureli, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Pyotr Pavlenko, and a musical score composed by Dmitri Shostakovich. Portraying the history of the Second World War with a focus on a highly positive depiction of the role Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (portrayed by Mikheil Gelovani) played in the events, it is considered one of the most important manifestations of Stalin's cult of personality, and a noted example of Soviet realism. After De-Stalinization, the film was banned in the Eastern Bloc for several decades.
Plot
Part 1 Aleksei Ivanov, a shy steel worker, has fallen in love with Natasha, an idealistic teacher, but finds it difficult to approach her. However, he discovers that, because he has greatly surpassed his production quota, he will receive the Order of Lenin as well as a personal meeting with Joseph Stalin himself. At Stalin's estate in Moscow, Aleksei is summoned to see the leader as he enjoys and tends his garden. In the course of discussion, Stalin discovers Aleksei's problems with romance, helps him understand his emotions, and tells him to recite poetry to Natasha. After their talk, Stalin invites Aleksei to lunch with the rest of the Soviet leadership in Stalin's home. When he returns from Moscow, Aleksei confesses his love to Natasha. As they stroll happily together through a wheat field, their town is attacked by the Germans, who have just begun their invasion of the Soviet Union. Aleksei loses consciousness and sinks into a coma.
When Alexsei awakens, he finds out Natasha is missing and the Germans are at the gates of Moscow. In the capital, Stalin plans the city's defense, explaining to the demoralized Georgy Zhukov how to deploy his forces. Aleksei volunteers for the Red Army and takes part in the 1941 October Revolution Parade and the Battle of Moscow.
The film moves to Adolf Hitler's headquarters in Berlin. After receiving the blessings of his allies–Spain, Turkey, the Vatican, Romania and Japan–and watching a long column of Soviet slave-laborers (among them Natasha), Hitler is furious at the news that Moscow has not fallen. He dismisses Walther von Brauchitsch from his office and offers command of the army to Gerd von Rundstedt; the latter refuses, saying that Stalin is a great captain and Germany's defeat is certain. Hitler orders the attack of Stalingrad. In the meantime, Hermann Göring negotiates with (fictitious) British capitalist Charles Bedstone, who supplies Germany with needed materials.
After the Soviet victory in Stalingrad, Vasily Chuikov tells Aleksei that Stalin is always with the Red Army. The storyline leaps to the Yalta Conference, where Stalin and his Western Allies debate the war's future.
Part 2 Stalin asks his generals who will take Berlin, the Soviet Union or the other Western Allies. His generals answer that the city will fall to Soviet forces. Among them is Aleksei, whose Guards unit advances towards Berlin while Hitler has a nervous breakdown and demands his soldiers fight to the end. The Germans want to execute the inmates of the concentration camp holding Natasha before the Red Army arrives, but Aleksei's unit liberates it in time to save them all. Nevertheless, Natasha faints from the many ordeals of being a slave laborer, fear of the fighting happening all around them, and suspicion of the increased activity of the camp overseers; Aleksei never realizes she is there.
Hitler and the German leadership fall into despair and lose their grip on reality the closer the Soviets get to Berlin. Hitler orders the military to flood the subway stations, drowning thousands of civilians. He then marries Eva Braun and kills himself by swallowing poison. General Hans Krebs carries the news of Hitler's death to the Red Army and begs for a ceasefire. Stalin demands an unconditional surrender.
Aleksei is chosen to carry the Victory Banner alongside Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria. Their division storms the Reichstag, where the three soldiers hoist the banner atop of it. The Germans surrender, and Red Army soldiers from throughout the USSR celebrate.
Stalin arrives by plane to find an enthusiastic crowd of peoples of "all the nations" holding posters with his picture and waving dozens of nations' flags. He delivers a speech calling for world peace. Among the many listening intently are Aleksei and Natasha, though not together; they eventually recognize each other in the crowd and are finally reunited. A grateful Natasha asks Stalin if she can kiss him on the cheek, and they hug while freed prisoners praise Stalin in numerous languages. The film ends with Stalin wishing everyone peace and happiness.
Cast
Boris Andreyev as Aleksei Ivanov Mikheil Gelovani as Joseph Stalin Yury Tymoshenko as Kostya Zaichenko Marina Kovalyova as Natasha Rumyantseva Vladimir Savelyev as Adolf Hitler Vladimir Kenigson as General Hans Krebs Maksim Shtraukh as Vyacheslav Molotov Nikolay Mordvinov as Lavrentiy Beria (scenes removed in 1953) Alexey Gribov as Kliment Voroshilov Nikolai Ryzhov as Lazar Kaganovich Aleksandr Khanov as Nikolai Bulganin Gavriil Belov as Mikhail Kalinin Ruben Simonov as Anastas Mikoyan Fyodor Blazhevich as Marshal Georgy Zhukov Andrei Abrikosov as General Aleksei Antonov Konstantin Bartashevich as General Vasily Sokolovsky Sergei Blinnikov as Marshal Ivan Konev Boris Livanov as Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky Vladimir Lyubimov as Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky Boris Tenin as General Vasily Chuikov Mikhail Sidorkin as General Sergei Shtemenko Oleg Frelikh as Franklin D. Roosevelt Viktor Stanitsyn as Winston Churchill A. Urasalyev as Yusupov Marie Nováková as Eva Braun Jan Werich as Hermann Göring Nikolai Petrunkin as Joseph Goebbels Vladimir Renin as Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt Nikolai Plotnikov as Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch Vladimir Pokrovsky as General Alfred Jodl Karel Roden Jr. as Charles Bedstone Miroslav Homola as Heinz Linge Dmitry Dubov as Mikhail Yegorov Georgy Tatishvili as Meliton Kantaria Veriko Anjaparidze as mother of killed German soldier Hans Nikolay Bogolyubov as Khmelnitsky Sofya Giatsintova as Antonina Ivanovna, Ivanov's mother Yevgeniya Melnikova as Lidiya Nikolayevna, secretary Dmitry Pavlov as Tomashevich Andrei Petrov as pilot Ivan Solovyov as Johnson Tamara Nosova as Katya Leonid Pirogov as James F. Byrnes
Production
Background Stalin's cult of personality, which began to manifest itself already in the late 1930s, was marginalized during World War II; to mobilize the population against the enemy, Soviet films focused on historical heroes who defended Russia or on the feats of the people themselves. The premier's character appeared in only two pictures during the war. However, as victory seemed secure, Stalin tightened his control over every aspect of the Soviet society, including cinema. After 1945, his cult returned to the screen with greater intensity than ever before, and he was credited as the sole architect of Germany's defeat. Denise J. Youngblood wrote that shortly afterwards, there remained only three kinds of war heroes: "the dead, the maimed and Stalin."
Inception Mikheil Chiaureli, Stalin's favorite director, and writer Pyotr Pavlenko had already collaborated to create the 1946 personality cult picture The Vow. The Soviet Minister of Cinema, Ivan Bolshakov, instructed them both to begin work on The Fall of Berlin shortly after the release of The Vow in July 1946. The film was conceived as the Mosfilm studio's gift to Stalin for his official 70th birthday,Most historians believe that Stalin's date of birth was 18 December 1878, based on various documents. However, Stalin claimed to have been born on 21 December 1879. See the article Joseph Stalin for more information. which was to be held on 21 December 1949. The Fall was supposed to be part of a cycle of ten films about the premier's role in World War II, entitled Stalin's Ten Blows, though not corresponding with the eponymous series of Eastern Front campaigns. The project was only partially fulfilled until Stalin's death.
Development As with all films in which his character made an appearance, Stalin took a keen interest in the work on The Fall of Berlin. The dictator intervened in Pavlenko's writing, read the screenplay's manuscript and corrected several grammatical mistakes; he also deleted a short sequence during which a German civilian in Berlin exhorted his family to hasten and flee as the Red Army approaches. German historian Lars Karl believed this signaled his resolution to demonstrate that the civilian populace had nothing to fear from the Soviets. The picture was the first feature film about the Battle of Berlin and the events in Hitler's bunker, preceding Der letzte Akt by five years.
Edvard Radzinsky claimed his father heard from Pavlenko that Beria told him The Vow was to be a "sublime film", intended to identify Stalin with Jesus: Lenin, paralleling John the Baptist, recognized him as the Messiah; "this seminarist's language betrayed the authorship of this observation". Radzinsky added The Fall of Berlin "further developed the theme", as it ends "with an apotheosis: Stalin arrives by plane... In the white attire of an angel descending from the clouds", he "reveals himself to the expectant humans... They glorify the Messiah in all tongues." Russian historian Alexander Prokhorov believed the film was influenced by Nazi propaganda films. Author John Riley claimed the scene in which Stalin's plane arrives in Berlin – which was fictional; Stalin never flew to the German capital, let alone on the day of the capture of the Reichstag – was modeled after Hitler's landing in Nuremberg from the Triumph of the Will, and that the film's ending was inspired by a similar sequence from Kolberg; the storming of the Reichstag "parodied" the massacre on the Odessa Steps from Battleship Potemkin, a gesture intended to mock Sergei Eisenstein.
According to the memories of Svetlana Aliluyeva, Chiaureli approached her father with the idea to combine the fate of his son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, in the plot. Stalin promptly rejected this. Soviet actor Artyom Karapetian claimed Chiaureli's wife, actress Veriko Anjaparidze, told him Stalin was so outraged when he heard of this that Lavrentiy Beria – who was standing nearby – reached into his trousers' pocket, "presumably, for his gun." The director's daughter, Sofiko Chiaureli, recounted that her father "knew he was saved" when Stalin wiped tears from his eyes as he watched Gelovani descend from the plane and muttered "If only I had gone to Berlin."
Principal photography Chiaureli brought some 10,000 Soviet extras to Berlin for the filming, and also hired many local residents for the tunnel flooding sequence; he was not able to work in the Reichstag as it was located in the British Zone of West Berlin and conducted the photography mainly in the Babelsberg Studios. However, most of the episodes set in the German capital were filmed in ruined cities in the Baltic region. In addition, a scale model of Berlin, over one square kilometer in size, was built in Mosfilm's studios; this miniature was to create the urban combat scenes in the end of Part II.
The Soviet Army provided five divisions, their supporting artillery formations, four tank battalions, 193 military aircraft and 45 captured German tanks to recreate the open field battles portrayed in The Fall of Berlin. They consumed 1.5 million liters of fuel during the filming.
The Fall of Berlin was one of the first colored films made in the Soviet Union. The producers used Agfacolor reels, taken from UFA's studios in Neubabelsberg.
Music