The Story
Stalin informs his allies that a Soviet offensive will take place soon after the Normandy landings. The Stavka decides to strike in Belarus. Orlov leads his soldiers in a charge to rescue nurse Zoia, who insisted on evacuating the wounded from a battlefield.
After concluding that the Belarus marshes are passable, Rokossovsky demands that the main effort be directed towards Bobruisk and insists until Stalin approves. Panteleimon Ponomarenko orders the Belorussian partisans to attack all railways. Operation Bagration is launched.
The Soviets march on Bobruisk. Afterwards, they liberate Minsk. A group of German officers tries to assassinate Hitler and take power, but fails. Churchill is pleased to hear of this, fearing a peace would leave Europe to Stalin.
In Poland, Zawadzki and Berling watch the Bug River as the Polish 1st Army crosses it, saying they are happy to return home.
Liberation is a film series released in 1970 and 1971, directed by Yuri Ozerov and shot in wide-format NIKFI process (70 mm). The script was written by Yuri Bondarev and Oscar Kurganov. The series was a Soviet-Polish-East German-Italian-Yugoslav co-production.
The films are a dramatized account of the liberation of the Soviet Union’s territory and the subsequent defeat of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War, focusing on five major Eastern Front campaigns: the Battle of Kursk, the Lower Dnieper Offensive, Operation Bagration, the Vistula-Oder Offensive, and the Battle of Berlin.
