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From August 31st 1939, a 43-year-old
man was drugged unconscious,

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dressed in a Polish uniform and
shot dead in the control room

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00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:27,880
of a radio station outside the town
of Gliwice in Upper Silesia.

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His name was Franz Honiok and he
would be the first official

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00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:36,600
casualty of the Second World War.

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His death would spark a
war of the world

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even more horrific than the
war to end all wars

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that had rocked it 20
years earlier.

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The Second World War was the world's
first truly global war.

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It involved a hundred
million soldiers

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and was fought on every continent
on the planet.

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It wouldn't be a problem
collecting statistics,

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but in fact, it's very difficult
to get accurate figures

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of every single person
who'd been killed.

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And here is where the numbers
can help us.

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It's numbers that drive this story
because when you dig deep into them,

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it's only then that you can
look at the decisions

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that the generals, the diplomats,
the politicians were actually facing

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and then you can see the crucial
decisions that they had to take.

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Numbers can help us understand
how appeasement came about.

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Why Hitler was so obsessed with
the Russian caucuses.

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Why the Americans dropped
the atomic bomb.

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And numbers would also create the
circumstances that led

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to the conflict in the first place.

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Because the story of how the Second
World War came about

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is a story of terrible hardships
and missed opportunities

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driven by harsh economic numbers.

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It's a story of cynical promises,
made to very desperate people.

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And, of course, that's as relevant
today as it was then.

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No-one could have believed in the
last months of the First World War

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that this world would be
engulfed in a conflict

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even greater than the one
they had just endured.

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The Great War was meant to be
the war to end all wars.

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17 million people died.

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And 20 million people were wounded.

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Nobody in their right minds wanted
to go through that again.

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This was unthinkable.

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Yet, in less than a generation,
cold minds full of hatred

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regarded the post-war settlement
with envious eyes

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and slowly but surely drew their
plans against it.

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One man in particular was warped
by disillusionment.

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Adolf Hitler was a corporal
in the German army

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during the First World War.

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Like many men who fought in that
war, he was immensely traumatised

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by what he saw.

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And so, it's not entirely surprising
that somebody like Adolf Hitler,

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who had twice been wounded and
won an Iron Cross,

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he would have felt that he had done
everything that he possibly could.

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And yet, things hadn't got better
after the war - they'd got worse.

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Who was to blame for this?

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It wasn't him.

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Hitler was just one of four million
veterans who came home

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to find no jobs and no heroes'
welcome waiting for them Germany.

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They felt deeply betrayed
by the treaty

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hashed out at a six-month-long

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peace conference in the
palace of Versailles

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between January and June 1919.

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The Treaty of Versailles was
a terrible shock for the German

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Nation, and particularly for those
who had fought through

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the First World War and survived it.

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The big players there were Britain,
France and America.

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There was no doubt at all
that in their minds,

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Germany was responsible.

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And Germany was not going to be
given the chance to rise up again

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and cause any more trouble.

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Germany's massive army of
over four million men

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is reduced to a mere 100,000.

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Its Navy is limited to warships
under 10,000 tonnes.

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Its air force is
completely disbanded.

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This puts it on a par with the
peacetime French army of 106,000.

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The British have almost four
times that number,

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but they are spread all
across the globe.

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But the British Navy now dwarfs
the German fleet

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by more than five to one.

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Worse still, Germany is saddled with
a reparations bill of 132 billion

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gold marks - that's worth some
30 billion US dollars.

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It's something like two times the
amount the Germany could produce

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before the war.

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And this wasn't just about money.

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It was also about blame.

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The French had lost 20,000 factories
and more than 700,000 buildings

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in the First World War.

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They wanted Germany to admit
responsibility,

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as well as paying for the damage.

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Perhaps the most difficult thing
for the Germans to accept

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was the War Guilt Clause.

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That somehow, all this
awful, hellish war

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had been Germany's responsibility.

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And I think that's something that
the German veterans

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and the German public found almost
impossible to accept.

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This laid the foundations for the
myth of the stab in the back,

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that the German army was never
really defeated.

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But all that had happened is a load
of treacherous socialists

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and communists and Jews had
been responsible

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for forcing Germany to
give up the war.

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When actually, it wasn't beaten.

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So, the Treaty of Versailles was
massively important

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in the impact it had on
people's views.

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But that was because, to
some extent, in certain quarters,

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it was decided to make
it that important.

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For millions of unemployed veterans
like Adolf Hitler,

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this was a temptingly seductive
explanation for the dire straits

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in which they now found themselves.

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When veterans like Hitler
looked around,

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they saw people who, apparently,
were still doing well.

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So, this was the Wall Street jury,
the money men.

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But equally, the communists,
the Bolsheviks,

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the people that those like Hitler
detested on the left,

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they also were Jews who were somehow
in cahoots with the capitalists

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to do the small man down.

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The idea that the Communists
were being funded

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by Jewish money, and especially
American Jewish money,

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did have a credibility in those days
and an amazing number of people

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were willing to believe it.

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You fought in the First World War.

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You were gassed, you were injured,
you were wounded

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in the First World War.

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And who's getting the benefit...

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..of all that you put in?

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The Jew.

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Germany is a well of seething
resentment, just waiting

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for a firebrand to unleash the anger
boiling up within it.

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And the events that
follow Versailles

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will play right into the conspiracy
theorists' hands.

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1923.

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When Germany fails to pay its
reparations bill,

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the French invade Germany's
industrial heartland,

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The Ruhr, to exact payment in kind.

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The Weimar government's response
to the crisis

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spirals it into hyper-inflation.

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This is a Reichsmark from the
German Weimar republic.

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At the beginning of the Republic,
you would need nine of them

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to buy one American dollar.

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By November 1923, because
of inflation,

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you would need 4.3 trillion of them.

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That would fill this entire marquee.

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At the time, there were 300 paper
mills and 2,000 printing presses

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producing banknotes just to keep
up with the need.

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Inflation was running at such a rate
the people were being paid

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in wheelbarrows or baskets of money.

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There was a story about some women
who had just been paid.

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They went to the launderette.

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They left with their laundry, but
they left their money behind.

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They rushed back and when
they got there,

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they found the money was
on the floor...

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..but the baskets had been stolen.

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So, how is Germany going
to be saved?

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How is Germany going to be brought
back onto an even keel?

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Well, the country was bailed out by
something called the Dawes Plan...

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..by the Jewish financiers that
Hitler was railing against.

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Under the Dawes plan,

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America pumped some eight million
marks into the German economy.

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So long as the money kept coming in,
Germany could survive.

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But if anything happened in America
to prevent that flow of money

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from coming in, then Germany would
be in big, big trouble.

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Germany is being propped
up by numbers -

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massive American financial numbers -

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and those numbers will ultimately
bring its democracy crashing down.

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Because on October 24th 1929...

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..Wall Street crashes.

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There was a saying at the time
that if America sneezes,

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the world catches a cold.

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Well, actually, the world caught
more than a cold.

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$30 billion was wiped off the value
of stocks and shares

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in the American market.

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And not just that - $7.8 billion
worth of loans

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in the European markets
just disappeared.

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00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:04,880
The Wall Street crash affected
all the economies,

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but Germany crashed fastest
and furthest.

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It had been heavily reliant
on American loans.

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The economy was very fragile.

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Germany had really rallied
economically, to the point

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that it would become the number two
exporter in the entire world -

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second only to Britain.

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But now, nobody wanted those
German goods any more.

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So, the export figures went down
from 12 billion to 5 billion.

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And of course, what you get
is massive unemployment.

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In October 1929, there were 1.6
million unemployed in Germany.

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But by 1933, that had leapt
to six million.

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One in two families in Germany was
affected by unemployment.

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So, there was desperation for
an apparent saviour figure

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and Hitler appeared to
promise everything.

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One of the reasons that the Nazi
party was so successful

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is how they communicate
their message.

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They use simple posters like this

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00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:04,240
and they presented themselves
as the uber-party.

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00:11:04,240 --> 00:11:09,560
Number one - drawing people to their
membership from the German people.

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00:11:09,560 --> 00:11:11,600
But also - and this may
surprise us -

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is they also present themselves as
a party of social inclusion.

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00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:17,480
The volk - the people.

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00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:19,200
A woman in Nazi Germany

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00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:23,080
who had more than three babies
got financial rewards.

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00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:26,760
But at the same time, they presented
themselves as the party

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00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:30,800
that supported, had the back
of the workers against,

195
00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:34,000
in this case, the bankers.
and the bureaucrats

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00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:36,840
And the key thing about the bankers

197
00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:40,840
is that they were Jewish. In
the East, the Bolsheviks.

198
00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:44,280
In the West, the American Bankers.

199
00:11:44,280 --> 00:11:47,400
And the key thing now
is that the party

200
00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:51,640
was going to protect the Germans
against the Jews.

201
00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:55,440
It's all presentation of image.

202
00:11:55,440 --> 00:12:00,080
It's all presentation of massive
popularity and national support.

203
00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:03,800
And when you look behind the scenes,
it's geared towards population

204
00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:07,200
expansion, having more people
to send to war.

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00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:11,560
And the male is supposed to be the
strong male, protecting the nation.

206
00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:15,200
Something like this had already
happened in Italy

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00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:17,120
before the Wall Street crash,

208
00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:19,560
with the rise of Benito Mussolini.

209
00:12:19,560 --> 00:12:25,360
People often wonder why Hitler
admired Mussolini so much.

210
00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:28,880
I think you can look back
to these early days

211
00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:32,840
when Mussolini was the
strong man in Italy.

212
00:12:32,840 --> 00:12:37,480
In 1922, he had used his black
shirt thugs to go in

213
00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:40,120
and break up strikes by labourers.

214
00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:43,800
A lot of small farmers couldn't
afford the extra wage demands

215
00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:46,680
demanded by these strikers.

216
00:12:46,680 --> 00:12:49,560
And so, of course, when Mussolini
had his fascist break up

217
00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:52,720
all these strikes, the farmers see
fascism as their saviour.

218
00:12:54,720 --> 00:12:59,320
Hitler watched this happen and
realised that he could transfer this

219
00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:02,000
to Germany and that's what
he did in Prussia.

220
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:06,440
In 1932, the farmers of
Schleswig-Holstein in Prussia

221
00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:10,680
overwhelmingly voted Nazi in the
parliamentary elections.

222
00:13:10,680 --> 00:13:14,840
This helped give Hitler 37% of the
seats in the Reichstag.

223
00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:18,680
This was a turning point for Hitler.

224
00:13:18,680 --> 00:13:22,000
He could be electorally successful.

225
00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:26,320
The Depression is absolutely crucial
to the rise of Marxism,

226
00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:27,840
completely and totally.

227
00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:32,200
If you look at the Nazi
vote in 1928...

228
00:13:32,200 --> 00:13:34,200
..meaningless, almost.

229
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:36,400
But by the summer of 1932,

230
00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:39,680
people are flocking to the Nazis
because in those intervening

231
00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:42,600
couple of years, the implications
of the Wall Street crash

232
00:13:42,600 --> 00:13:45,040
have been horrific in Germany.

233
00:13:45,040 --> 00:13:47,280
And now, suddenly, here
comes a leader

234
00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:50,680
who makes them feel good again and
says they have rights,

235
00:13:50,680 --> 00:13:52,080
that they have a future.

236
00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:53,880
They have a greatness, a destiny.

237
00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:57,520
Hitler now has the numbers
in the Reichstag

238
00:13:57,520 --> 00:14:00,280
to dictate the balance of power.

239
00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:03,480
It proves crucial in January 1933

240
00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:06,400
when the German establishment
begins casting round

241
00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:08,120
for an alternative to socialist rule

242
00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:10,480
after the collapse of their
latest government.

243
00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:15,640
In all the negotiations that follow,

244
00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:20,280
it's the pro-Nazi, agrarian league
that persuades Hindenburg

245
00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:23,200
that Hitler is a man to be
trusted with power.

246
00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:26,120
So, it's Hitler's wooing of
that agricultural vote

247
00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:28,000
that's vital to get him into power.

248
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,200
On January 30th in 1933,

249
00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:35,440
Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor
of the German Reich.

250
00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:38,800
He has taken the economic misery
caused by the Great Depression

251
00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:42,160
and used it to get the numbers
he needed for power.

252
00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:46,120
And he's gone right to the brink
to get the top job.

253
00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:49,720
But the actions of Japan on the
other side of the world

254
00:14:49,720 --> 00:14:52,840
will convince him he can
go much further.

255
00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:56,120
And those events will push
the world to war.

256
00:15:03,520 --> 00:15:06,680
On September 1st 1923,

257
00:15:06,680 --> 00:15:10,040
the Great Kanto plain west
of Tokyo in Japan...

258
00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:13,800
..was struck by an earthquake
measuring magnitude

259
00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:15,640
7.9 on the Richter scale.

260
00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,480
140,000 people were killed.

261
00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:26,240
570,000 buildings were destroyed in
the firestorm that followed.

262
00:15:27,880 --> 00:15:32,080
The cost of the disaster
would cripple the Japanese economy.

263
00:15:32,080 --> 00:15:33,680
Before the Kanto earthquake,

264
00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:36,880
Japan was one of the great
economic success stories

265
00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:38,760
of the First World War.

266
00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:41,680
During that time, it tripled
its industrial output

267
00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:46,280
and actually made a profit
of some $400 million.

268
00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:51,080
The great Kanto earthquake wiped
all that out in just one day.

269
00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:56,360
Just like Germany, Japan rose
to the challenge

270
00:15:56,360 --> 00:15:59,240
by modernising its economy and
investing heavily

271
00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:00,640
in overseas markets.

272
00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:06,080
And then, just like Germany when the
Wall Street crash happened,

273
00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:08,200
all that industry collapsed.

274
00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:13,200
Lots of young men and women found
themselves out of work,

275
00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:16,400
including in Japan's relatively
impoverished countryside,

276
00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:21,080
where a great deal of nationalistic
politics became the result.

277
00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:23,920
This opened the door to the
enemies of progress

278
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:28,160
and drove Japan down the so-called
dark valley of imperialism.

279
00:16:30,080 --> 00:16:34,800
There is a very strong economic
argument to explain Japanese actions

280
00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:38,760
in the years leading up to World War
II and during World War II itself.

281
00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:41,600
Of course, other factors matter
greatly, as well,

282
00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:45,600
but sheer, hard numerical
calculation of Japan's interest

283
00:16:45,600 --> 00:16:49,120
was also at the heart of what that
country wanted to do.

284
00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:55,960
At the forefront of that argument
was the Japanese military.

285
00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:58,760
They saw themselves as the bearers
of the Japanese nation.

286
00:16:58,760 --> 00:17:02,520
They worried about all those liberal
politicians, or even socialists

287
00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:04,720
and so on, who were
internationalist,

288
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:07,440
who wanted to collaborate
with other states.

289
00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:10,760
Anything that took Japan away from
its proud warrior past

290
00:17:10,760 --> 00:17:12,440
was utterly dishonourable.

291
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:14,360
So, they looked to China
as a natural place

292
00:17:14,360 --> 00:17:15,840
for Japanese expansion.

293
00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:19,200
They saw it as an area where the
Japanese could really move in,

294
00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:21,280
secure their resources and interests

295
00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:23,800
and establish a
new territorial empire.

296
00:17:23,800 --> 00:17:27,480
China was the third largest
country in the world,

297
00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:30,880
with a population of almost
500 million people,

298
00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:35,120
covering a land area of about four
million square miles.

299
00:17:35,120 --> 00:17:38,720
During the 1920s, it was
hopelessly divided.

300
00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:41,840
Militarist leaders who were in
charge of their own,

301
00:17:41,840 --> 00:17:43,880
often very substantial armies,

302
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:46,480
controlled different provinces,
different parts of China,

303
00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:48,480
and were all jostling for control.

304
00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:52,840
The Japanese army felt it could
exploit these divisions

305
00:17:52,840 --> 00:17:57,280
to seize control of the Chinese
territory of Manchuria.

306
00:17:57,280 --> 00:18:03,800
By 1930, 219,000 citizens had
emigrated to Manchuria,

307
00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:06,000
guarded by more than 10,000 soldiers

308
00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:09,840
in the so-called Guangdong
or Kwantung Army.

309
00:18:11,120 --> 00:18:13,160
Quite frankly, the Kwantung army

310
00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:15,880
were a bunch of
warmongering lunatics.

311
00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:19,880
And they looked to Manchuria as
being an essential element

312
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:21,840
of Japan's imperial destiny.

313
00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:26,760
The simple numerical reason
for this is oil

314
00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:28,960
and natural resources.

315
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,240
One of the major problems
that Japan had

316
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:34,720
is we didn't have very large natural
deposits of commodities,

317
00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:38,000
which were necessary to create
the automobile

318
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:40,280
and airplane-based
modernised economies

319
00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:42,840
that marked the early 20th century.

320
00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:45,600
Japan is very poor in
oil resources.

321
00:18:45,600 --> 00:18:48,320
It imported 90% of its requirements.

322
00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:51,880
One of the advantages about
expanding into Manchuria

323
00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:54,280
was the belief that you could
somehow use the shale oil

324
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:57,280
in Manchuria and that this would
provide additional resources.

325
00:18:57,280 --> 00:19:02,680
To get it, the Kwantung army
will have to manufacture a war.

326
00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:06,760
At 10pm on September 18th 1931,

327
00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:10,240
the Japanese railway line at Mukden
in southern Manchuria

328
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:11,880
is attacked by terrorists.

329
00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:18,080
The army retaliated by opening fire
on the Chinese barracks.

330
00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:20,960
They claim that the railway line was
attacked by Chinese bandits.

331
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:24,760
But the real saboteurs are the
Kwantung troops themselves,

332
00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:27,240
who dressed up as Chinese soldiers.

333
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:32,120
This gives them all the pretext they
need to invade Manchuria.

334
00:19:32,120 --> 00:19:35,520
Within weeks of the
Mukden incident, the Kwantung army

335
00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:39,600
has occupied an area the size of
France and Germany combined,

336
00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:43,880
placing 30 million people
under their control.

337
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:46,320
They're behaving like the Nazis

338
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:49,800
two years before the Nazis
had even come to power.

339
00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:53,360
Some of Japan's actions
in the 1930s

340
00:19:53,360 --> 00:19:56,400
do seem to be a foreshadowing
of actions

341
00:19:56,400 --> 00:19:59,000
that eventually would be undertaken
by Adolf Hitler

342
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:01,480
when he became Chancellor
of Germany.

343
00:20:01,480 --> 00:20:05,720
So, think about the invasion
of Manchuria in 1931.

344
00:20:05,720 --> 00:20:08,040
One of the first reactions
of the world community

345
00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:10,480
was to send a commission from
the League of Nations

346
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:13,160
to actually look at the reality
of what had happened.

347
00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:16,240
The League of Nations is a
forerunner to the United Nations

348
00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:19,880
and it's there to try and promote
harmony amongst nations.

349
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,600
But actually, it's really,
really toothless.

350
00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:27,000
This report would give
the impression to the Chinese

351
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,360
that they had been exonerated
from all responsibility.

352
00:20:30,360 --> 00:20:33,280
Although the report condemned
the Japanese actions,

353
00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:34,880
very little was done.

354
00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,480
It eventually led to the Japanese
actually storming out

355
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:40,320
of the League of Nations in 1933,

356
00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:44,240
and essentially opened the doors
for a much more violent,

357
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:48,240
much more confrontational style
of territorial control.

358
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:53,320
By 1933, the Kwantung army has
increased from 10,000 men

359
00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:55,440
to 114,000.

360
00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:58,800
Emboldened by their success,

361
00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:03,360
its officers, now in control of
Japan, turn their sights on China.

362
00:21:13,960 --> 00:21:18,480
The seemingly innocuous spark that
ignited Japan's war with China

363
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:21,680
happened on the Marco Polo
Bridge in Beijing.

364
00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:25,920
On July 7th 1937, a Japanese
soldier goes missing.

365
00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:28,160
Immediately, the Japanese
commander on the spot

366
00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:29,720
blamed local Chinese troops.

367
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:33,440
A small scale shooting incident
between the two sides broke out.

368
00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:35,640
It turns out that the soldier
has gone AWOL

369
00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:38,000
and reappears just a few
hours later.

370
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,680
Both sides, the Chinese Nationalist
government under Chiang Kai-Shek,

371
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:43,720
and the Japanese government
in Tokyo,

372
00:21:43,720 --> 00:21:47,040
ratcheted up confrontation
with each other.

373
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:50,160
And within just a few days,
it had escalated

374
00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:54,520
to essentially, an all-out war
between two nations.

375
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:57,520
The Japanese high command is
convinced that China

376
00:21:57,520 --> 00:21:59,400
will be a walkover.

377
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:03,920
They take their invasion plan to the
Emperor Hirohito for approval.

378
00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:05,840
One general even tells Hirohito

379
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:09,120
that the war is going to be
over in three months.

380
00:22:09,120 --> 00:22:11,320
Hirohito is furious about this.

381
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:14,200
"That's what you told me at the
start of the Manchuria incident",

382
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:17,640
he shouts, "But it's not ended
for more than four years!

383
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:20,360
"The Chinese mainland is as
large as the Pacific,

384
00:22:20,360 --> 00:22:24,320
"so how can you tell me that it's
going to be over in three months?"

385
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:26,560
Hidebound by convention,

386
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:29,680
the Emperor Hirohito has no choice
but to agree the plan.

387
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:34,640
It takes the Japanese army
all of the three months

388
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:38,080
they have planned for just
to take Shanghai.

389
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:42,120
Eventually, the Japanese forces
did overwhelm the Chinese,

390
00:22:42,120 --> 00:22:43,720
but by taking three months,

391
00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:46,040
the Chinese showed that they
would not give up

392
00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:48,640
control of their own country
without a severe fight.

393
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:52,920
But Japanese brutality backfires.

394
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:56,640
The Kuomintang nationalists
of Chiang Kai-Shek are so shocked

395
00:22:56,640 --> 00:23:00,720
by the Japanese assault they form an
uneasy truce with the communists

396
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,400
of Mao Zedong against the
Japanese threat.

397
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:06,320
Chiang Kai-Shek needs the Communists

398
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:08,960
to help counter
the Japanese invasion.

399
00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:13,280
So, ironically, Mao Zedong's
Communist Party is actually saved

400
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:15,360
by the Japanese invasion.

401
00:23:15,360 --> 00:23:18,440
The United Chinese army has
over two million men

402
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:21,560
but still, the Japanese keep coming.

403
00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:23,920
They appear to be unstoppable.

404
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:27,720
It forces Chiang Kai-Shek to
do the unthinkable.

405
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:31,560
In June 1938, Chiang Kai-Shek could
see that the Japanese armies

406
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,720
were advancing swiftly across
central China.

407
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:37,640
But he had one tactic
that he could use

408
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:39,840
to try and prevent their advance.

409
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:44,640
And that was to create an artificial
flood and he would do that

410
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:48,840
by blowing apart the dykes which
held back the mighty Yellow River

411
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:50,160
at the town of Luoyang.

412
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:57,520
The resulting flood engulfs an area
of more than 20,000 square miles,

413
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,600
drowning 11 towns and over
4,000 villages.

414
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:06,640
Between 500,000 and 900,000
people were drowned.

415
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:09,640
And up to five million more
are made homeless.

416
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:11,960
So, with this one act,
Chiang Kai-Shek

417
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:14,440
has killed more Chinese civilians

418
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,600
than all the Japanese atrocities
in China combined.

419
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:21,880
It's the largest act of
environmental warfare in history.

420
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:23,680
The flooding of the Yellow River

421
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:26,760
grinds the Japanese invasion
to a halt.

422
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:31,000
Japan now has 34 divisions,
totalling 1.1 million men,

423
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,560
literally bogged down in China.

424
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:35,240
And it's not over yet.

425
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:36,720
For the Japanese military,

426
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:40,000
there's no question of withdrawing
once you've occupied an area.

427
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,480
These are not things you're
going to give up.

428
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:46,560
The Japanese honour, Japan's
imperial tradition, requires that

429
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:49,480
once you've occupied territory,
you hold on to it.

430
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:53,160
Yet, it's painfully clear that
Japan's generals have bitten off

431
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:55,080
much more than they can chew.

432
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:57,080
Traditionally, Western
historiography

433
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:58,920
dates the beginning of World War II

434
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:02,800
to the invasion of Poland
by Hitler in 1939.

435
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,760
But I think there's an argument
that the real date is 1937 -

436
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,200
the Marco Polo Bridge Incident

437
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,160
that opens the war between
China and Japan.

438
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:13,640
It's all-out war.

439
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:15,400
It becomes a total war

440
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,760
and it doesn't really end until
the atomic bombings of Japan

441
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:22,000
in 1945 bring that war to a close.

442
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,600
So, for the Chinese and
the Japanese,

443
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:30,800
World War II, it's full phase, lasts
eight years - from 1837 to 1945.

444
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:37,000
Yet, despite all of Japan's naked
aggression, the Western powers

445
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:41,440
and the League of Nations seem
unable or unwilling to stop them.

446
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,080
The League of Nations is, frankly,
an utter failure

447
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,280
and it plants one word
in Hitler's mind -

448
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:49,600
appeasement.

449
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,680
In October, 1933 Hitler follows
Japan's example

450
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,840
and publicly walks out of the
League of Nations.

451
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:06,120
At the same time, he begins secretly
rearming the nation.

452
00:26:06,120 --> 00:26:09,480
Under the West Side treaty,
Germany was disarmed.

453
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,960
Hitler not only regarded this - as
the most of the German people -

454
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:14,680
as monstrously unjust,

455
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:19,920
but in order to fulfil his belief
in Germany's military destiny,

456
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:22,440
he had to have the means
with which to do so.

457
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,360
So, right at the very start, Hitler
tells his government,

458
00:26:25,360 --> 00:26:28,480
he tells the Armed Forces to rearm
in defiance of Versailles.

459
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,960
So, we do it secretly until 35.

460
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:35,720
Then you have this accelerated
programme in to the late 1930s

461
00:26:37,120 --> 00:26:38,880
Over the next eight years,

462
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:42,800
Germany spends at least 35
billion Reichsmarks -

463
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:47,000
$14 billion - on
rebuilding the army.

464
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,880
Between 1933 and 1935,

465
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,720
spending on the military as
a percentage of total national

466
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,160
expenditure rises from 1% to 10%.

467
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,440
By 1936, Germany has revealed
it is rearming

468
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,240
to the rest of the world.

469
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,160
It is building an army of 36
infantry divisions,

470
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:13,440
aiming to increase its strength
from 100,000 to 600,000 men by 1938.

471
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:16,160
It's about twice the size
of the French army,

472
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,080
which has a paper strength
of almost 350,000 men.

473
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:25,880
The numbers are even more uneven in
other sectors of the Armed Forces.

474
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:30,160
Germany has 5,112 aircraft, compared
to France's 890.

475
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,440
Around 3,400 tanks, compared
to 1,300.

476
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,240
And though the French Navy is triple
the size of the Germans',

477
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:42,920
Hitler signs a naval accord
with Great Britain

478
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,240
that will allow him to more than
double his fleet

479
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:46,440
in the next three years.

480
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,920
But the numbers are more than
just a comparison.

481
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,480
They tell us a lot about the way
these countries are thinking.

482
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:56,400
The French really aren't
ready for war

483
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:58,480
in the same way that Germany is.

484
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:02,120
The French military is based
on a tripartite model -

485
00:28:02,120 --> 00:28:06,000
a regular army of 106,000 men,

486
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:10,560
up to 240,000 annual conscripts
doing military service

487
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,600
and around five million reservists,

488
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:15,640
who had completed military service

489
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,640
and could be called up in
time of emergency.

490
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,520
On paper, France can summon
up five million men

491
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:22,640
at a moment's notice.

492
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,120
But these are reservists.

493
00:28:24,120 --> 00:28:27,320
They're old, they're fat or they're
even working in essential jobs

494
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:29,240
that need to keep the
economy going.

495
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:31,640
And if you look at the French
economy at this time,

496
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,240
it can't afford, actually,
to put that army out

497
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,120
and it can't afford to rearm.

498
00:28:37,120 --> 00:28:40,120
You've got the workers
going on strike,

499
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,080
you've got the effects of the
Depression hitting France

500
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,520
in a kind of delayed fashion.

501
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:47,840
And so, whereas Germany's is
coming into power,

502
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,680
France actually is more
like a sick man.

503
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:57,120
Britain, on the other hand, is in
good shape economically.

504
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,800
But before 1935, the British High
Command is more focused

505
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:04,000
on maintaining the Navy and
defending the empire

506
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:05,960
than building up land
forces in Europe.

507
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:13,840
British military spending did not
rise above £140 million per year

508
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,640
until Hitler announced that he
was rearming in 1935.

509
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:22,600
The British have their work cut out
just policing their empire.

510
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:27,680
They really can't afford to build up
an effective army in Europe.

511
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,480
The people of Western Europe, the
French and the British above all,

512
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:34,360
are still totally traumatised by the
memory of the First World War.

513
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:35,960
All those ghastly casualties.

514
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:39,480
They were desperate to believe that
Hitler might be trusted,

515
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,360
to believe that a war
might be avoided.

516
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:45,240
This is what Hitler is banking on.

517
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,720
But he doesn't reveal his
thinking until 1937.

518
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:55,040
On Friday the 5th of November 1937,
Hitler convenes a meeting

519
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:59,280
of all his senior military staff,
and this meeting is recorded.

520
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:03,280
And that memorandum famously gets
called the Hossbach memorandum.

521
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:06,120
In it, Hitler outlines the
guiding philosophy

522
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,480
he has been refining since
he first wrote it down,

523
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:11,360
14 years before.

524
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:15,880
Hitler explains the necessity for
German territorial expansion.

525
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:18,200
He calls it Lebensraum,
living space,

526
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,200
and what he wants to have, like
Britain, is an empire.

527
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:24,000
He looked at Britain, he looked at
France, they've got big empires.

528
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,000
Why shouldn't Germany
have them, too?

529
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,320
He makes no bones about the fact he
wants to conquer other territories.

530
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,640
To strike East, to create a new
empire for Germany

531
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,600
in which millions of people would
just starve to death

532
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:39,000
while the food from Ukraine and the
crops from western Russia

533
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:40,480
went to feed the German people.

534
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,880
These are populated, in his eyes,
by untermenschen -

535
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,240
people who the Nazis regard as
being racially inferior.

536
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:53,560
We are going to use their land and
they can, frankly, go to hell.

537
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:56,760
Or worse.

538
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,560
The only thing that can stand
in Germany's way

539
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,520
are the Western powers
of World War I.

540
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,400
But Hitler isn't worried about them.

541
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:09,640
Hitler had seen Mussolini walk
into Ethiopia in 1935

542
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:11,640
and the British and French
did nothing

543
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:14,960
and they did nothing again
in '31 and '37

544
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,960
when the Japanese walked into China.

545
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,920
He'd done a calculation that
really, until 1943,

546
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:23,280
they wouldn't be strong
enough to stop it.

547
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:27,680
That's really his object - carve out
his version for Ethiopia

548
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:31,000
and the other powers will
not interfere.

549
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,920
Hitler had already tested the
ground one year earlier

550
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:40,280
when 10,000 German troops,
accompanied by 22,700 armed police,

551
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:44,480
marched into the Rhineland and
occupied the territory demilitarised

552
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:46,560
by the Treaty of Versailles.

553
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,480
If Germany really was going
to be a military power,

554
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:52,520
then it had to be able to
protect its factories.

555
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:56,600
He needs those factories to produce
his tanks and his planes

556
00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:59,600
and his weaponry. In order to
protect that industrial heartland,

557
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,160
Hitler needs to create
a buffer zone.

558
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,560
That buffer zone is
the demilitarised Rhineland.

559
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:08,400
In retrospect, we can see that
Hitler was bluffing.

560
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:13,080
But the French intelligence
estimates he had almost 300,000

561
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:15,440
soldiers in the Rhineland.

562
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:18,200
That would be equivalent
to the French army.

563
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,400
Quite where the French had got that
figure from is anybody's guess.

564
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,440
But the British and the French knew
that to kick Hitler out

565
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:28,000
the Rhineland, they would basically
need a war and no-one wanted that.

566
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:34,600
In 1938, Hitler followed this up
by unifying with Austria.

567
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:41,160
At the same time, Germany, Italy and
Japan form Anti-Comintern Pact,

568
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,800
which will eventually become
known as the Axis.

569
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,440
Hitler is preparing for the
conflict that's to come.

570
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,400
1938 is a key turning point.

571
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:54,800
That is the moment of
total irreversible radicalisation.

572
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,000
You see a shift in the
army leadership.

573
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:02,400
You see the Anschluss of Austria,
the so-called Kristallnacht,

574
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:08,040
November 9th, 10th 1938 is the
moment when the Holocaust starts.

575
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:12,920
That is when you use brutal physical
violence against Jews

576
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,800
and you see that other Germans are
not prepared, by and large,

577
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:21,040
to step in to help their
fellow Jewish Germans.

578
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:24,920
Hitler was riding his luck and the
next domino he would topple

579
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:26,240
would be Czechoslovakia.

580
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:32,680
But he was a gambler and sometimes
gamblers go too far.

581
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:37,160
And he would go too far in 1939.

582
00:33:44,630 --> 00:33:47,190
The Eastern European state
of Czechoslovakia

583
00:33:47,190 --> 00:33:49,390
was a completely artificial nation,

584
00:33:49,390 --> 00:33:52,230
cobbled together out of
Czechs, Slovaks

585
00:33:52,230 --> 00:33:54,550
Hungarians and Germans.

586
00:33:54,550 --> 00:33:58,150
There are various reasons why Hitler
wants to invade Czechoslovakia.

587
00:33:58,150 --> 00:34:02,990
For one thing, you have more than
three million ethnic Germans

588
00:34:02,990 --> 00:34:06,550
who you want liberate, effectively,
and the Treaty of Versailles

589
00:34:06,550 --> 00:34:08,430
has put them on the wrong
side of the border.

590
00:34:08,430 --> 00:34:10,590
But it's not just the people
that Hitler wants.

591
00:34:10,590 --> 00:34:12,550
It's also all that industry.

592
00:34:12,550 --> 00:34:16,390
The massive Skoda works in
Czechoslovakia would be fantastic

593
00:34:16,390 --> 00:34:18,550
for Hitler if he wants to rearm.

594
00:34:18,550 --> 00:34:21,110
Hitler's idea in Spring of 1938

595
00:34:21,110 --> 00:34:23,750
is that he will have a limited
war against the Czechs,

596
00:34:23,750 --> 00:34:28,390
that he would invade Czechoslovakia
and nobody will stop him.

597
00:34:28,390 --> 00:34:30,630
In September 1938,

598
00:34:30,630 --> 00:34:34,390
Hitler begins massing troops on the
frontier of Czechoslovakia.

599
00:34:34,390 --> 00:34:37,070
The world is at a tipping point.

600
00:34:37,070 --> 00:34:40,190
Britain's new Prime Minister,
Neville Chamberlain, tries to avert

601
00:34:40,190 --> 00:34:44,070
the crisis with a frantic whirlwind
of shuttle diplomacy.

602
00:34:44,070 --> 00:34:46,790
Hitler knew that Chamberlain
wanted to avoid a war.

603
00:34:46,790 --> 00:34:51,190
We regard the agreement signed last
night and the Anglo-German

604
00:34:51,190 --> 00:34:55,950
naval agreement as symbolic of the
desire of our two peoples

605
00:34:55,950 --> 00:34:58,790
never to go to war with
one another again.

606
00:34:58,790 --> 00:35:02,310
When Chamberlain notoriously
declared peace for our time,

607
00:35:02,310 --> 00:35:04,710
it was peace at the price
of Czechoslovakia.

608
00:35:06,150 --> 00:35:08,830
And Hitler got every bit
of that country

609
00:35:08,830 --> 00:35:10,430
that was more than 50% German.

610
00:35:11,830 --> 00:35:15,710
And he also got an enormous
amount of oil reserves

611
00:35:15,710 --> 00:35:19,190
and coal reserves and also
industrial output.

612
00:35:19,190 --> 00:35:21,750
It was a magnificent
coup for Hitler.

613
00:35:21,750 --> 00:35:25,230
Some people view it as a
total capitulation.

614
00:35:25,230 --> 00:35:27,950
Winston Churchill found it
demeaning, debasing.

615
00:35:27,950 --> 00:35:33,110
Britain was basically getting down
on her knees, on her belly,

616
00:35:33,110 --> 00:35:36,710
in front of Hitler, allowing him
to do whatever he wanted.

617
00:35:36,710 --> 00:35:39,470
What none of them realise is that
Chamberlain has done

618
00:35:39,470 --> 00:35:44,590
the maths and he knows the numbers
are against him in September 1938.

619
00:35:44,590 --> 00:35:47,230
He isn't just buying peace -

620
00:35:47,230 --> 00:35:49,470
he's playing for time.

621
00:35:49,470 --> 00:35:52,830
And Chamberlain isn't the only one
who has run the numbers.

622
00:35:52,830 --> 00:35:57,750
What's interesting is that
the head of MI6 in 1938,

623
00:35:57,750 --> 00:36:02,870
Hugh Sinclair, stepped in and said
to Chamberlain, "If you don't sign

624
00:36:02,870 --> 00:36:05,870
"appeasement with Hitler, we
go to war immediately

625
00:36:05,870 --> 00:36:07,910
"and we aren't ready."

626
00:36:07,910 --> 00:36:12,750
The infamous Munich Agreement is the
soft public face of a bruising

627
00:36:12,750 --> 00:36:15,630
negotiation that has been taking
place behind the scenes.

628
00:36:20,030 --> 00:36:23,550
Chamberlain realises that if he
simply caves into Hitler,

629
00:36:23,550 --> 00:36:25,910
the dictator will demand more.

630
00:36:25,910 --> 00:36:28,950
He has to make Hitler step
back from the brink

631
00:36:28,950 --> 00:36:32,390
then give him just enough
to keep him happy.

632
00:36:32,390 --> 00:36:38,070
On September 27th, Chamberlain sends
his personal emissary to Hitler

633
00:36:38,070 --> 00:36:42,150
in Berlin and says to him that
France is going to honour its pledge

634
00:36:42,150 --> 00:36:44,150
to Czechoslovakia and you
need to know

635
00:36:44,150 --> 00:36:46,670
that we will come to
the aid of France.

636
00:36:46,670 --> 00:36:50,590
When it becomes clear the British
and French are going to interfere,

637
00:36:50,590 --> 00:36:54,030
then, Hitler is forced to abandon
that little war.

638
00:36:54,030 --> 00:36:56,550
He gets a lot, of course, he
gets his German areas

639
00:36:56,550 --> 00:36:58,750
incorporated into Germany.

640
00:36:58,750 --> 00:37:03,110
But what he can't have is his little
war and he's furious.

641
00:37:03,110 --> 00:37:04,910
Chamberlain desperately hopes

642
00:37:04,910 --> 00:37:08,070
that Hitler truly is a
man of his word,

643
00:37:08,070 --> 00:37:12,270
that he will not expand beyond the
land he's been seeded.

644
00:37:12,270 --> 00:37:14,790
Chamberlain said to his sister

645
00:37:14,790 --> 00:37:17,910
that he hoped Hitler would
keep his promise.

646
00:37:17,910 --> 00:37:23,590
He's been vilified for having sold
Britain out as this weak appeaser.

647
00:37:23,590 --> 00:37:25,910
But, in fact, he was
anything but that.

648
00:37:25,910 --> 00:37:29,310
We do owe a backhanded debt to
Chamberlain because the one thing

649
00:37:29,310 --> 00:37:32,590
for sure, there are a few historians
who say Britain and France

650
00:37:32,590 --> 00:37:35,670
should have fought Hitler in 1938.

651
00:37:35,670 --> 00:37:38,270
Most of us don't buy that
idea at all.

652
00:37:38,270 --> 00:37:40,670
If you look at the figures
at this point,

653
00:37:40,670 --> 00:37:43,910
Britain really didn't
have many troops

654
00:37:43,910 --> 00:37:46,910
who were actually ready to
fight at this point.

655
00:37:46,910 --> 00:37:48,830
Britain needed more time.

656
00:37:50,110 --> 00:37:54,550
Chamberlain knows that the German
army has 600,000 men in it.

657
00:37:54,550 --> 00:37:59,510
That compares to the British with
just 100,000 men in Europe.

658
00:37:59,510 --> 00:38:01,150
That's a huge imbalance.

659
00:38:01,150 --> 00:38:04,790
And Chamberlain needs the
time to correct it.

660
00:38:04,790 --> 00:38:08,590
Time finally runs out
in March 1939

661
00:38:08,590 --> 00:38:11,190
when Hitler rips up the agreement
and marches

662
00:38:11,190 --> 00:38:13,790
into the rest of Czechoslovakia.

663
00:38:13,790 --> 00:38:17,390
It's at this point that Chamberlain
draws a line in the sand.

664
00:38:17,390 --> 00:38:20,590
The relationship between the Munich
Crisis and the outbreak of WWII

665
00:38:20,590 --> 00:38:24,230
war against Poland is a very close
one in Hitler's mind.

666
00:38:24,230 --> 00:38:25,510
He made a mistake.

667
00:38:25,510 --> 00:38:27,310
He was let down.

668
00:38:27,310 --> 00:38:29,070
This time, he can have
his little war

669
00:38:29,070 --> 00:38:31,990
but Chamberlain and the French
will do nothing.

670
00:38:31,990 --> 00:38:34,750
Chamberlain was pretty
certain that Poland

671
00:38:34,750 --> 00:38:37,670
would be next on Hitler's list and
the reason was not difficult

672
00:38:37,670 --> 00:38:40,750
to fathom - because in some ways,
Hitler was just ticking boxes.

673
00:38:40,750 --> 00:38:45,310
He was taking back what he felt was
taken from Germany at Versailles.

674
00:38:45,310 --> 00:38:47,510
And so, Danzig corridor...

675
00:38:48,630 --> 00:38:50,510
..looked like it was going
to be next.

676
00:38:52,350 --> 00:38:55,870
The Danzig corridor was a slice
of land that provided access

677
00:38:55,870 --> 00:38:59,030
to a seaport for the newly-created
Polish nation

678
00:38:59,030 --> 00:39:02,710
by driving a wedge through
western Prussia.

679
00:39:02,710 --> 00:39:05,830
This effectively removed 360,000

680
00:39:05,830 --> 00:39:09,190
Germans from their home nation
and cut off the two million

681
00:39:09,190 --> 00:39:12,510
inhabitants of East Prussia from
the rest of Germany.

682
00:39:12,510 --> 00:39:15,070
And Hitler wants them back.

683
00:39:15,070 --> 00:39:18,630
Chamberlain knows that this has got
to stop and he says to Parliament

684
00:39:18,630 --> 00:39:22,070
that Britain will defend Poland
if Germany attacks.

685
00:39:22,070 --> 00:39:23,910
Hitler hesitates.

686
00:39:23,910 --> 00:39:26,750
But it's not Chamberlain who's
holding him back.

687
00:39:26,750 --> 00:39:29,830
Hitler is basically not scared
of Britain and France.

688
00:39:29,830 --> 00:39:34,990
But there was another power
that he was nervous of.

689
00:39:34,990 --> 00:39:37,550
And that's the Soviet Union.

690
00:39:37,550 --> 00:39:41,590
As the fate of Poland hangs in the
balance, both sides frantically

691
00:39:41,590 --> 00:39:45,270
work behind the scenes to get
Stalin on their side.

692
00:39:45,270 --> 00:39:47,190
But the numbers tell for Hitler.

693
00:39:47,190 --> 00:39:49,670
During all this diplomatic
horse trading,

694
00:39:49,670 --> 00:39:54,430
Stalin said that he would commit 300
divisions to the defence of Poland.

695
00:39:54,430 --> 00:39:57,230
And he asked the British ambassador
how many the British would do.

696
00:39:57,230 --> 00:39:59,390
And the ambassador replies, "Two."

697
00:39:59,390 --> 00:40:02,150
And two later, unsurprisingly,

698
00:40:02,150 --> 00:40:03,470
Stalin chose the Germans.

699
00:40:04,950 --> 00:40:06,550
On August 23rd, 1939,

700
00:40:06,550 --> 00:40:10,430
Russia signs a non-aggression pact
with Nazi Germany,

701
00:40:10,430 --> 00:40:13,190
promising Germany
oil supplies and control

702
00:40:13,190 --> 00:40:17,910
of western Prussia in return
for all of eastern Poland.

703
00:40:17,910 --> 00:40:21,830
Stalin said that Britain and France
had wanted to use the Soviets

704
00:40:21,830 --> 00:40:24,870
as hired
men without wanting to pay for it.

705
00:40:24,870 --> 00:40:28,270
Well, from the Germans he was
going to get eastern Poland

706
00:40:28,270 --> 00:40:31,590
and the Germans were going to get
the Danzig corridor.

707
00:40:31,590 --> 00:40:35,350
Hitler is now certain
that the numbers are on his side.

708
00:40:35,350 --> 00:40:37,030
He wants his little war.

709
00:40:37,030 --> 00:40:38,510
He didn't have it with the Czechs,

710
00:40:38,510 --> 00:40:40,110
so he's going to have it with the
Poles

711
00:40:40,110 --> 00:40:41,790
and he becomes obsessed with this
idea.

712
00:40:41,790 --> 00:40:43,110
He tells the generals

713
00:40:43,110 --> 00:40:45,310
and his colleagues over
and over again,

714
00:40:45,310 --> 00:40:48,510
"Britain and France are not going to
do anything."

715
00:40:50,030 --> 00:40:52,230
And so we come to Gliwice.

716
00:40:52,230 --> 00:40:55,110
Poland's fate is sealed by the
murder of Franz Honiok

717
00:40:55,110 --> 00:41:00,790
in a nondescript radio station
on the Polish-German border.

718
00:41:00,790 --> 00:41:04,630
And it's that manufactured evidence
that the Germans show the world

719
00:41:04,630 --> 00:41:08,950
that the Poles had mounted an
attack on their territory.

720
00:41:08,950 --> 00:41:11,910
Hitler has used exactly the same
ploy that the Japanese used

721
00:41:11,910 --> 00:41:16,630
at Mukden to justify his naked
aggression against Poland.

722
00:41:16,630 --> 00:41:19,630
But he has miscalculated
the numbers.

723
00:41:19,630 --> 00:41:23,230
Four days later, on 3rd September,
1939,

724
00:41:23,230 --> 00:41:26,270
Britain and France declared
war on Germany.

725
00:41:30,030 --> 00:41:31,230
Hitler is furious.

726
00:41:31,230 --> 00:41:32,990
It wasn't what he expected.

727
00:41:32,990 --> 00:41:36,790
And the following day he's busy
working out his own theory

728
00:41:36,790 --> 00:41:39,270
of what happened and his own
theory is that actually

729
00:41:39,270 --> 00:41:43,070
it was the Jews who drove
the French and the British to war.

730
00:41:43,070 --> 00:41:46,310
And that's the only way he can
explain to himself how Britain

731
00:41:46,310 --> 00:41:49,830
or France finally decided
to go to war.

732
00:41:49,830 --> 00:41:52,710
What Hitler doesn't actually
appreciate is that appeasement

733
00:41:52,710 --> 00:41:54,470
isn't just spineless pacifism.

734
00:41:54,470 --> 00:41:57,190
This is actually the British
buying themselves time.

735
00:41:57,190 --> 00:42:01,270
More important still, it's very
doubtful indeed whether if Britain

736
00:42:01,270 --> 00:42:04,470
had chosen to go to war in 1938 over
Czechoslovakia,

737
00:42:04,470 --> 00:42:07,230
the Dominions -
Canada, Australia, New Zealand -

738
00:42:07,230 --> 00:42:08,550
would have come in too.

739
00:42:08,550 --> 00:42:11,070
What completely
changed by 1939,

740
00:42:11,070 --> 00:42:13,950
everyone understood
that Neville Chamberlain

741
00:42:13,950 --> 00:42:18,670
might be a naive man but he had been
a completely honest, honourable man

742
00:42:18,670 --> 00:42:21,350
who had striven to make
peace with Hitler

743
00:42:21,350 --> 00:42:23,830
and, by 1939, had been seen to fail.

744
00:42:23,830 --> 00:42:28,990
The British people and the Dominions
all understood by September, 1939

745
00:42:28,990 --> 00:42:30,910
that Hitler must be fought.

746
00:42:30,910 --> 00:42:32,870
Hitler could only go so far.

747
00:42:32,870 --> 00:42:36,590
When he moved into Poland,
enough was enough.

748
00:42:38,150 --> 00:42:42,150
By September '39, the British
and French had just about mustered

749
00:42:42,150 --> 00:42:46,230
the numbers to face down Hitler
and take him to war.

750
00:42:46,230 --> 00:42:49,390
They're not declaring it
as a gesture, they declare it

751
00:42:49,390 --> 00:42:50,830
because they honestly think

752
00:42:50,830 --> 00:42:53,590
they have the military capacity
to defeat Germany.

753
00:42:53,590 --> 00:42:55,830
By actually
pushing his luck too far,

754
00:42:55,830 --> 00:43:00,070
Hitler brings war upon himself
a good four years earlier

755
00:43:00,070 --> 00:43:01,470
than he had expected it.

756
00:43:01,470 --> 00:43:04,310
Hitler had come to power thanks
to the huge amount

757
00:43:04,310 --> 00:43:08,270
of economic misery caused
by the Great Depression.

758
00:43:08,270 --> 00:43:10,910
He had turned the punishing numbers
of the Versailles Treaty

759
00:43:10,910 --> 00:43:12,990
into a rallying cry for his people,

760
00:43:12,990 --> 00:43:15,750
and he had taken the Allies
to the brink of appeasement

761
00:43:15,750 --> 00:43:19,350
as they scrabbled for the numbers
to oppose him.

762
00:43:19,350 --> 00:43:21,870
In these, as in so many other ways,

763
00:43:21,870 --> 00:43:26,110
numbers lie at the heart of the
events that pushed the world to war.

764
00:43:26,110 --> 00:43:29,510
It would become another
Great War driven by numbers.

765
00:43:29,510 --> 00:43:33,750
And in the years to come,
those numbers would keep on rising.

766
00:43:35,950 --> 00:43:41,190
At half past midnight
on Saturday, 26th August, 1939,

767
00:43:41,190 --> 00:43:44,950
a small band of men sneak across the
Polish-German border

768
00:43:44,950 --> 00:43:49,030
near the town of Mosty
in the Carpathian Mountains.

769
00:43:49,030 --> 00:43:51,630
These men were a secret battalion
called

770
00:43:51,630 --> 00:43:55,150
Construction Training Company 800
for Special Duties.

771
00:43:57,590 --> 00:43:59,950
In fact, they were combat saboteurs.

772
00:43:59,950 --> 00:44:02,990
Their mission was to seize the vital
railway tunnel

773
00:44:02,990 --> 00:44:06,590
at the Jablunkov pass, which was
the shortest route to Warsaw.

774
00:44:08,510 --> 00:44:11,830
This was one of the first moves
of Plan White,

775
00:44:11,830 --> 00:44:13,950
the Nazi invasion of Poland.

776
00:44:15,750 --> 00:44:20,390
Only problem is, shortly
after the unit crosses the border,

777
00:44:20,390 --> 00:44:22,590
Hitler postpones Plan White.

778
00:44:22,590 --> 00:44:25,110
And Polish guards then confronted
them

779
00:44:25,110 --> 00:44:28,110
in the tunnel at the Jablunkov Pass.

780
00:44:29,190 --> 00:44:31,190
Then there was a gun battle.

781
00:44:32,990 --> 00:44:37,590
The Germans suffered two wounded
and then had to retreat.

782
00:44:37,590 --> 00:44:40,670
This was very embarrassing
for the Nazis.

783
00:44:40,670 --> 00:44:43,590
The German authorities explained
away the whole incident

784
00:44:43,590 --> 00:44:46,190
as simply a unit having gone rogue.

785
00:44:46,190 --> 00:44:48,350
And the Poles chose to believe it.

786
00:44:50,310 --> 00:44:55,310
Five days later, on September 1st,
Germany invades Poland.

787
00:44:58,630 --> 00:45:02,550
The Poles demolish the Jablunkov
tunnel just 75 minutes

788
00:45:02,550 --> 00:45:06,150
after the first German tanks
roll across the border.

789
00:45:08,510 --> 00:45:10,310
It does them little good.

790
00:45:14,230 --> 00:45:16,630
When the attack actually did come
in Poland,

791
00:45:16,630 --> 00:45:19,190
the Poles didn't seem to be prepared
for it.

792
00:45:19,190 --> 00:45:22,190
The speed with which they
came.

793
00:45:22,190 --> 00:45:25,950
What we had now
was lightning war.

794
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:34,560
September, 1939.

795
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,800
On Germany's frontier with Poland

796
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:41,640
are gathered 1.5 million German
troops,

797
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:45,480
200,000 military vehicles
and more than 2,000 tanks.

798
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:50,640
It's the largest show of military
force seen in Europe

799
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:52,040
since World War I.

800
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:58,400
But nobody, not even the Fuhrer,
is prepared for World War II.

801
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:05,800
Hitler increasingly convinces
himself that Britain and France

802
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:07,600
are washed up as great powers.

803
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:10,920
At this point, none
of the democracies want to fight.

804
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,120
The only people preparing
for war,

805
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,800
preparing for a fight,
are the fascists.

806
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,480
British governments have always
had a shocking weakness

807
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,000
for what I've christened
gesture strategy.

808
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,040
That's that they realise where
we may have to fight a war,

809
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:27,640
but they don't do anything
about it.

810
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,560
The Allies lose no time
demonstrating the actual strength

811
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:35,720
of their commitment to the defence
of Poland.

812
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:41,040
Hours after Britain declares war,

813
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:43,840
ten RAF Whitley bombers take off,

814
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:46,840
bound
for Germany's industrial heartland.

815
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:51,960
When they reach their targets
over the Ruhr,

816
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:56,840
these ten mighty bombers open that
bomb bay doors

817
00:46:56,840 --> 00:47:00,000
and unleash 5.4 million...

818
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:03,880
..propaganda leaflets.

819
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:06,440
What was known
as the Confetti War.

820
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,680
That is how the Royal Air Force
began the war.

821
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:13,080
On the leaflets is written,

822
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,680
"Your rulers have condemned you
to the massacres, miseries

823
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:20,240
"and privations of a war
they cannot ever hope to win."

824
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,960
Quite what the Allies are expecting
to achieve is anybody's guess.

825
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:27,720
A lot of Germans were perfectly
happy with their Fuhrer.

826
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:33,240
Five days later, the French
make their contribution

827
00:47:33,240 --> 00:47:35,000
to the defence of Poland.

828
00:47:36,240 --> 00:47:39,440
Ten French divisions advance
across a 15-mile front,

829
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:43,120
pushing into the south-western
German state of Saarland.

830
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,520
But the advance lacks purpose.

831
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,040
They go five miles.

832
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,040
They sit there for five days,

833
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:55,760
and then they turn back.

834
00:47:55,760 --> 00:48:01,640
It was a crazy, sentimental gesture
with no real strategic basis at all.

835
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:05,120
What if the French had pressed home
that attack

836
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:06,440
so early on in the war?

837
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,280
How far could they have gone?

838
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:10,440
Could they have knocked Germany
out of the war

839
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:11,800
before the war had even begun?

840
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:14,680
Well, we'll never know the answer
to that.

841
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:18,600
The Allies don't feel they have
the numbers to confront Hitler.

842
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:21,200
They need time to get their troops
in place.

843
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,280
While Hitler was busy
roasting and eating Poland,

844
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:28,040
the French army could get
ready to fight the real war.

845
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:30,240
General Gamelin actually said,

846
00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:32,640
"We have every interest
in the conflict

847
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:37,200
"beginning in the east and
generalising, little by little.

848
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,720
"That way we have time to prepare."

849
00:48:39,720 --> 00:48:43,320
The Poles were betrayed by the
British and French governments.

850
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:45,720
It's all very well for everybody
to say today,

851
00:48:45,720 --> 00:48:47,160
"Oh, well, very honourable,

852
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:49,520
"the British and French went to war
for Poland",

853
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,200
but we didn't make the smallest
attempt

854
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,960
to fulfil our earlier promises
to Poland.

855
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:59,280
The Allies expect the Poles
to keep the Germans occupied.

856
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:06,000
On paper at least, Poland
does possess the numbers.

857
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,560
At the start of the war,
the Polish Army

858
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:11,880
was the fourth largest army
in Europe.

859
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:17,240
Against approximately 1.5 million
invading Germans,

860
00:49:17,240 --> 00:49:20,800
the Poles can muster 1.3 million
troops.

861
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:24,080
On the face of it, the German
and Polish Armed Forces

862
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:26,280
are reasonably evenly matched.

863
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:29,480
But the Germans have two
significant advantages.

864
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:33,360
They have much better tanks
and much better aircraft.

865
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:36,160
The Polish air force is pretty
hapless.

866
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:40,320
Out of 900 planes,
only 36 are brand-new.

867
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:47,080
Germany's 2,000 aircraft quickly
take control of the skies.

868
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:50,280
This leaves the way open
for Germany

869
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,400
to play the ace
hiding up its sleeve.

870
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:57,240
A military strategy designed to take
ground quickly

871
00:49:57,240 --> 00:49:59,520
and avoid the punishing trench
conflict

872
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:04,000
that cost the Germans hundreds of
thousands of lives in World War I.

873
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:08,200
German Armed Forces have been
thinking about,

874
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:09,760
if there's another major war,

875
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:11,680
how are we going to be able
to achieve

876
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:13,600
what we couldn't achieve
in the First World War?

877
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:16,240
We really do need decisive battles.

878
00:50:16,240 --> 00:50:18,440
We don't want to mess around
for four years.

879
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:20,280
We want to be able to defeat the
enemy

880
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:22,160
and to defeat the enemy quickly.

881
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:25,240
When the Germans unleash
their new attack strategy,

882
00:50:25,240 --> 00:50:27,960
it will soon strike terror
around the globe.

883
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:35,160
1st September, 1939.

884
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:42,160
In Poland, Nazi Germany introduces
to an unsuspecting world

885
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,320
a whole new way of waging war.

886
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,320
They call it Blitzkrieg.

887
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:53,880
Blitzkrieg means "lightning war."

888
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:55,080
That's the translation.

889
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:56,520
And that's exactly what this was.

890
00:50:56,520 --> 00:51:00,560
Tanks and motorised infantry moving
through at enormous speed,

891
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,680
breaking through an unsuspecting
enemy line.

892
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:10,080
You punch a hole straight
through the enemy's front.

893
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:12,960
You then send your tanks
through this hole

894
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:15,600
and you then envelop
the enemy's rear,

895
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:17,720
and you therefore cut off his
supply lines.

896
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,720
This entirely new type of warfare

897
00:51:23,720 --> 00:51:26,400
requires an entirely new
type of unit -

898
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:27,480
the Panzer division.

899
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:33,960
Tanks have been around since the
First World War,

900
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:39,520
but the Germans are using them in
a very novel way as shock weapons.

901
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:42,600
They are concentrated
at a particular spot.

902
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:44,280
They breach the line.

903
00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:47,840
So the enemy doesn't really know
what's hit them.

904
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:56,640
Germany only began building
new tanks in 1933.

905
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,680
Now it has nine Panzer divisions,

906
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:03,800
each boasting 328 tanks.

907
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:07,240
Almost 3,000 in total.

908
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:18,720
This is the Panzer Mark III,

909
00:52:18,720 --> 00:52:21,360
the mainstay of Panzer forces

910
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:25,280
at the time of the invasion
of Poland in 1939.

911
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:30,240
It was developed specifications
drawn up by Heinz Guderian himself

912
00:52:30,240 --> 00:52:33,080
and it was intended to act
as a mobile anti-tank gun

913
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:36,600
in support of the lighter Mark IIs
and the infantry.

914
00:52:37,720 --> 00:52:39,640
Armed with a 50 millimetre gun
there,

915
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:42,040
and travelling at 25mph
on the road,

916
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:45,840
it was very, very capable of dealing
with any Polish opposition.

917
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:50,800
But in 1939,

918
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:54,560
the Germans don't possess motorised
armour in sufficient numbers

919
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:56,560
for a full-scale blitzkrieg.

920
00:52:58,040 --> 00:52:59,440
Their armies rely heavily

921
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:02,280
on the oldest form of military
transport,

922
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:03,280
the horse.

923
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:14,080
We tend to think about blitzkrieg
being about motorised vehicles

924
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:17,840
but in fact, in 1939, in the
invasion of Poland,

925
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:24,720
the Nazi forces had only 16 fully
mechanised divisions out of 157.

926
00:53:24,720 --> 00:53:27,320
Everything else depended
upon horses.

927
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:34,960
400,000 German soldiers rode
into Poland on saddles like this.

928
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:38,280
Ultimately, they used more horses
in World War II

929
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:41,000
than they did
in the First World War.

930
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:43,960
For every 93 German soldiers,

931
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:46,760
there was one motor vehicle.

932
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:51,520
But for every three or four German
soldiers, there was one horse,

933
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:55,680
which means that the horse
is the mainstay of blitzkrieg.

934
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:01,520
Despite isolated pockets
of spirited resistance,

935
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:03,520
the Poles inevitably cave
in

936
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:06,120
and fall back to rally
around Warsaw,

937
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:10,120
ready for the promised Allied push
on September 17th.

938
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:13,480
But it never comes.

939
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:17,800
Instead, the Poles receive
a stab in the back.

940
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:20,800
Three weeks earlier,

941
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:23,880
the Nazis sign a surprise
non-aggression pact

942
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:27,360
with Hitler's political
nemesis, Bolshevik Russia.

943
00:54:30,240 --> 00:54:32,560
The associated credit and trade
deals

944
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:36,400
mean that for as long as they are
allies the Soviet Union

945
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:40,120
will effectively fuel and feed
the German war effort.

946
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:44,800
The scum of the Earth, I believe?

947
00:54:44,800 --> 00:54:47,960
The bloody assassins
of the workers, I presume?

948
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,960
On 17th September, 1939,

949
00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:57,840
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
claims his part of the bargain -

950
00:54:57,840 --> 00:54:58,920
Eastern Poland.

951
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:04,360
Almost half a million Soviet
troops invade their neighbour.

952
00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:10,520
Within days,

953
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:14,800
the Soviets annexe 200,000 square
kilometres of Poland.

954
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:27,400
On 28th September, 1939,

955
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:29,240
Warsaw finally surrenders.

956
00:55:30,720 --> 00:55:34,000
German General Blaskowitz receives
the surrender of Warsaw

957
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:36,560
from the Polish emissary
representing the garrison.

958
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:39,040
The stern-faced commander of the
besieging army

959
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:40,120
lays down the terms.

960
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:46,400
Polish resistance lasts
barely three weeks.

961
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:52,480
Blitzkrieg has struck
like lightning.

962
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:58,720
Of 1.5 million men,
Germany loses just over 8,000 dead

963
00:55:58,720 --> 00:56:01,280
and 27,278 wounded.

964
00:56:03,840 --> 00:56:08,160
The Western powers have failed
to protect their ally.

965
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:09,920
The Allies have sat on their hands

966
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:12,880
and they let the whole
situation play out.

967
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:15,480
That will prove to be a huge
mistake.

968
00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:20,160
As early as November 1937,

969
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:23,560
Hitler outlines his master
plan for Poland

970
00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:26,920
in his notorious Hossbach
Memorandum.

971
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:28,600
The plan was very, very simple.

972
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:32,000
Capture as much territory of Eastern
Europe as you can,

973
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:34,600
kick out all the untermenschen -
the subhumans -

974
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:36,320
and replace them with your own

975
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:40,400
ubermenschen, or Aryans,
superior human beings.

976
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:43,960
To us, this sounds an incredible
concept.

977
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:47,000
The idea that Germany had a right
to expand,

978
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:51,240
that Germany had a right
to fulfil its greatness of destiny,

979
00:56:51,240 --> 00:56:53,920
it is quite extraordinary that even
German generals

980
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:56,200
should cheerfully go
along with this.

981
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:01,400
But go along with it they do.

982
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:04,160
And as Poland falls,

983
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:07,600
mobile SS killing units named
Einsatzgruppen

984
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:09,560
spearhead a Nazi policy

985
00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:14,000
given the simple code name
Schrecklichkeit,

986
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:15,920
or Frightfulness.

987
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:18,120
Their job is horrifically simple.

988
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:21,800
It's to murder as untermenschen
as possible.

989
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:25,760
Hitler made it quite clear
that the war in Poland

990
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:31,200
was going to be a war of utmost
brutality, beyond normal warfare.

991
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:34,520
And in September, 1939, when
the Germans went in

992
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:39,040
they were accompanied by the
first batch of Einsatzgruppen.

993
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:43,920
And they went in along with the army
and did horrific things.

994
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:48,600
They'd been supplied with a list
of key individuals and groups

995
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:50,120
that they were to target,

996
00:57:50,120 --> 00:57:53,520
mainly the Polish intelligentsia,
Polish political elites,

997
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:58,200
Catholic priests,
academics, people in leading roles,

998
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:00,560
but also leaders
of Jewish organisations,

999
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:03,040
Jews in prominent positions.

1000
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:05,040
By the end of October, the SS,

1001
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:09,440
together with the
active collusion of the German army,

1002
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:12,480
raze 531 towns to the ground

1003
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:15,320
and execute more than 16,000
civilians.

1004
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:19,480
By the end of the war,

1005
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,920
17% of the Polish population
has been killed.

1006
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:29,960
But the Poles refuse to be cowed.

1007
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:31,920
Up to 150,000 escape,

1008
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:36,240
and join the Free Polish forces
in Britain and France.

1009
00:58:37,520 --> 00:58:39,640
They want to take the war
to the Germans.

1010
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:45,240
But their allies remain less keen.

1011
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:49,000
Between September '39 and April
1940,

1012
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:52,200
you get this six-month period called
the Phoney War.

1013
00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:57,080
Everybody was nominally ready to go
to war,

1014
00:58:57,080 --> 00:58:59,600
but nobody really wanted
to start it.

1015
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:02,480
France, in particular,

1016
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:07,760
is terrified of becoming the
battleground in a second Great War.

1017
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:12,000
France is still totally traumatised
by the memory of the First World War

1018
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:14,360
and all those ghastly casualties.

1019
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:17,960
About four million men
had been wounded.

1020
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:21,400
They were living testament
to the horrors of war.

1021
00:59:25,120 --> 00:59:27,080
To avoid another such debacle,

1022
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:29,720
the French have built
the Maginot Line,

1023
00:59:29,720 --> 00:59:33,160
a continuous chain
of underground fortifications.

1024
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:37,560
Made up 55,000 tonnes of steel

1025
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:42,120
and 1.5 million cubic metres of
concrete,

1026
00:59:42,120 --> 00:59:45,040
the line stretches 450km

1027
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:49,360
from the Swiss frontier,
all the way north to Luxembourg.

1028
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:53,920
The idea was that the Germans

1029
00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:55,720
would not be able to get
past.

1030
00:59:55,720 --> 00:59:58,200
"Ils ne passeront pas".
They will not pass.

1031
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:02,800
But history suggests
the Maginot Line

1032
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:05,680
adversely affects
French war preparations.

1033
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:09,320
There was no sense that the French

1034
01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:12,920
were actually actively seeking
to fight the Germans.

1035
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:16,120
Instead they were passively
resisting the Germans,

1036
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:20,840
just expecting this border, this
wall to keep the Germans out.

1037
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:29,400
To the north, the French remain
vulnerable to German attack.

1038
01:00:29,400 --> 01:00:31,640
Their original plan had been to take
the Maginot Line

1039
01:00:31,640 --> 01:00:34,240
all the way up to the Channel coast,

1040
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:36,920
but that meant going along
the Belgian frontier,

1041
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:39,080
and the Belgians said that would
violate

1042
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:41,640
their neutrality so they forbid it.

1043
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:44,360
The French have got to prevent
the Germans from invading

1044
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:46,800
through Belgium as they did
in the First World War.

1045
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:48,160
So you need a mobile army

1046
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:50,720
as well as your fixed army
on the Maginot Line.

1047
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:53,240
Your mobile army is going
to move towards

1048
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:57,160
the Belgian frontier
to block the Germans from coming in.

1049
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:02,560
General Gamelin's French forces
mass on the Belgian frontier.

1050
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:06,880
But what concerns Hitler more

1051
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:09,840
is what's happening
in the English Channel.

1052
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:14,520
The Royal Navy is 1,400 ships,
including 330 warships,

1053
01:01:14,520 --> 01:01:16,400
make it the largest in the world,

1054
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:19,360
and it's blockading Germany's sea
trade routes,

1055
01:01:19,360 --> 01:01:22,600
making the Reich's raw
materials harder to come by.

1056
01:01:25,120 --> 01:01:28,440
In response to the British
blockade of its shipping lanes,

1057
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:31,320
German High Command draws up
Plan Yellow.

1058
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:36,840
Hitler wants to send his men
up towards the Channel coast

1059
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:39,640
so he can then have his U-boat bases
there.

1060
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:42,760
Unfortunately, or perhaps
rather fortunately for the Germans,

1061
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:44,480
Plan Yellow is abandoned,

1062
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:47,640
for the simple reason that a plane
carrying the plans

1063
01:01:47,640 --> 01:01:49,400
crashes in Belgian territory

1064
01:01:49,400 --> 01:01:52,080
and the Allies are able
to read Hitler's plans.

1065
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:53,680
He's absolutely furious.

1066
01:01:53,680 --> 01:01:58,040
But, as we'll see, there's actually
a lining in this very dark cloud.

1067
01:01:59,200 --> 01:02:04,080
Hitler finds an alternative place
to base his Atlantic submarines.

1068
01:02:04,080 --> 01:02:05,120
Norway.

1069
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:08,560
The Norwegian coastline
is the perfect place

1070
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:10,240
to build submarine pens.

1071
01:02:10,240 --> 01:02:12,920
It's absolutely festooned with all
these fjords

1072
01:02:12,920 --> 01:02:15,240
which just make
great hiding places.

1073
01:02:17,620 --> 01:02:20,420
On 9th April, 1940,

1074
01:02:20,420 --> 01:02:22,780
the Germans launch a
combined offensive

1075
01:02:22,780 --> 01:02:24,500
against Denmark and Norway.

1076
01:02:26,260 --> 01:02:28,500
Almost 8,000 paratroopers
are dropped

1077
01:02:28,500 --> 01:02:32,020
onto key strategic locations,

1078
01:02:32,020 --> 01:02:34,700
backed up by more than 800
warplanes.

1079
01:02:39,940 --> 01:02:44,020
The subsequent British attempt to
retake the Norwegian strong points

1080
01:02:44,020 --> 01:02:47,380
only serves to highlight
how unprepared for war they are.

1081
01:02:50,620 --> 01:02:54,140
British operations, both
at sea and on land,

1082
01:02:54,140 --> 01:02:58,100
after the Germans invaded Norway
was absolutely shambolic.

1083
01:03:03,860 --> 01:03:07,900
The British can only scrape together
a single carrier fleet

1084
01:03:07,900 --> 01:03:10,580
and 12 territorial battalions to
help them take Norway.

1085
01:03:10,580 --> 01:03:13,060
Their kit is out of date.

1086
01:03:13,060 --> 01:03:14,700
Some of its from the First World
War.

1087
01:03:14,700 --> 01:03:16,020
It's seriously old.

1088
01:03:16,020 --> 01:03:18,660
In addition, the British
only have 100 planes

1089
01:03:18,660 --> 01:03:19,820
to back them up.

1090
01:03:20,860 --> 01:03:24,060
British troops are sent to Norway
with no clear military plan.

1091
01:03:26,420 --> 01:03:29,820
A staff officer was sent back
to London to try and find out

1092
01:03:29,820 --> 01:03:31,540
from the powers that be

1093
01:03:31,540 --> 01:03:35,100
what exactly the forces in Norway
were supposed to do.

1094
01:03:35,100 --> 01:03:37,380
And he came back and told
the British senior officers

1095
01:03:37,380 --> 01:03:40,300
"You can do what you like, because
they haven't the slightest idea

1096
01:03:40,300 --> 01:03:41,980
"in London what they want you to
do."

1097
01:03:41,980 --> 01:03:44,860
It would have been kinder to
everybody to say to the Norwegians,

1098
01:03:44,860 --> 01:03:47,780
"Sorry, we can't do a thing",
than to land this token force

1099
01:03:47,780 --> 01:03:49,820
and fight these token battles

1100
01:03:49,820 --> 01:03:53,980
and then stage this pathetic,
pretty humiliating retreat.

1101
01:03:57,340 --> 01:04:00,340
The defence of Norway is such
a failure

1102
01:04:00,340 --> 01:04:02,660
that on 10th May, 1940,

1103
01:04:02,660 --> 01:04:06,260
British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain resigns.

1104
01:04:07,340 --> 01:04:10,700
Chamberlain is not cut out
to be a wartime leader.

1105
01:04:10,700 --> 01:04:13,420
What you need is a man who can unite
people behind him

1106
01:04:13,420 --> 01:04:16,340
as a very strong-willed, dogged
determination,

1107
01:04:16,340 --> 01:04:20,500
a lot of energy, and that man
is clearly Winston Churchill.

1108
01:04:23,140 --> 01:04:25,140
Churchill liked war.

1109
01:04:25,140 --> 01:04:26,980
Chamberlain hated war.

1110
01:04:26,980 --> 01:04:28,860
And if you're going to have to fight
a war,

1111
01:04:28,860 --> 01:04:31,660
you darn well better be led by
somebody

1112
01:04:31,660 --> 01:04:34,820
who relishes every second
of the struggle.

1113
01:04:34,820 --> 01:04:38,500
Churchill saw, with a blinding
clarity or stubbornness,

1114
01:04:38,500 --> 01:04:41,260
that Hitler represented something so
evil

1115
01:04:41,260 --> 01:04:44,020
that he had to be fought absolutely
to the last ditch.

1116
01:04:46,900 --> 01:04:50,380
VOICE OF CHURCHILL:
Every trace of Hitler's footsteps,

1117
01:04:50,380 --> 01:04:55,500
every stain of his infected
and corroding fingers

1118
01:04:55,500 --> 01:04:58,820
will be sponged and purged,

1119
01:04:58,820 --> 01:05:01,500
and, if need be, blasted

1120
01:05:01,500 --> 01:05:03,220
from the surface of the Earth.

1121
01:05:04,980 --> 01:05:07,300
Though not apparent at the time,

1122
01:05:07,300 --> 01:05:11,540
the loss of Norway will provide
another benefit to the Allies.

1123
01:05:11,540 --> 01:05:15,460
The blond, blue-eyed magnificent
Norwegians

1124
01:05:15,460 --> 01:05:18,380
represent Aryan perfection.

1125
01:05:18,380 --> 01:05:21,300
Norway was Hitler's zone of destiny.

1126
01:05:21,300 --> 01:05:24,380
This was the nation that he wanted
to create.

1127
01:05:24,380 --> 01:05:28,820
This is why the Germans tie
up so many men in defending Norway.

1128
01:05:30,100 --> 01:05:31,820
For the rest of the war,

1129
01:05:31,820 --> 01:05:33,860
Norway would be garrisoned

1130
01:05:33,860 --> 01:05:38,100
by 12 divisions with up to 350,000
men.

1131
01:05:38,100 --> 01:05:41,340
That's one German soldier
for every ten Norwegians.

1132
01:05:42,980 --> 01:05:45,780
This is one of those occasions
where you see the Nazis tying up

1133
01:05:45,780 --> 01:05:51,260
their soldiers for reasons
of ideology rather than strategy.

1134
01:05:51,260 --> 01:05:54,700
But Norway and the Atlantic War
are not the only reason why Hitler

1135
01:05:54,700 --> 01:05:57,940
hesitates to commit his forces
against France.

1136
01:05:59,140 --> 01:06:01,580
Hitler's prerogative, early on,

1137
01:06:01,580 --> 01:06:05,220
was very much to see where he stood
with the Soviet Union.

1138
01:06:05,220 --> 01:06:07,540
It turns out that Stalin
is not interested

1139
01:06:07,540 --> 01:06:09,900
in pushing further westward.

1140
01:06:09,900 --> 01:06:13,340
He wants to consolidate
the gains he's just made.

1141
01:06:13,340 --> 01:06:16,340
And to do that, he has to protect
Leningrad.

1142
01:06:20,860 --> 01:06:23,460
Leningrad, formerly St Petersburg,

1143
01:06:23,460 --> 01:06:25,940
is the old capital of Tsarist
Russia.

1144
01:06:27,580 --> 01:06:31,140
It sits less than 50km
from the border with Finland.

1145
01:06:31,140 --> 01:06:32,980
If Finland falls to a German
invasion,

1146
01:06:32,980 --> 01:06:35,380
that's going to make
Leningrad very vulnerable.

1147
01:06:35,380 --> 01:06:38,940
And the last thing Stalin wants
is to lose Leningrad.

1148
01:06:38,940 --> 01:06:40,020
So what does he do?

1149
01:06:40,020 --> 01:06:43,020
He decides to invade Finland
in order to create a buffer zone.

1150
01:06:49,340 --> 01:06:52,260
On 30th November, 1939,

1151
01:06:52,260 --> 01:06:55,220
more than one million Russian
troops,

1152
01:06:55,220 --> 01:06:58,460
supported by 1,500 tanks and 3,000
aircraft,

1153
01:06:58,460 --> 01:07:00,460
cross the finish border.

1154
01:07:01,580 --> 01:07:04,540
Ranged against them is a tiny
Finnish army

1155
01:07:04,540 --> 01:07:07,900
of little more than 340,000 men,

1156
01:07:07,900 --> 01:07:11,380
with just 32 tanks and 114 planes.

1157
01:07:12,980 --> 01:07:15,460
But as one Finnish commander
says,

1158
01:07:15,460 --> 01:07:18,220
this is a war of numbers
against brains.

1159
01:07:18,220 --> 01:07:21,340
And the people
with all the brains? The Finns.

1160
01:07:22,580 --> 01:07:26,260
One reason for that could be that
Stalin's most competent commanders

1161
01:07:26,260 --> 01:07:28,860
are either dead
or locked up in gulags.

1162
01:07:31,020 --> 01:07:32,820
Stalin is particularly scared

1163
01:07:32,820 --> 01:07:35,980
of some kind of Napoleon-type figure
emerging.

1164
01:07:35,980 --> 01:07:38,140
The officer corps is the obvious
place to look

1165
01:07:38,140 --> 01:07:40,980
for any other such opposition.

1166
01:07:40,980 --> 01:07:44,500
And so that's basically why
he purges the officer corps.

1167
01:07:44,500 --> 01:07:47,140
It's fear of a coup.

1168
01:07:47,140 --> 01:07:49,060
By 1939,

1169
01:07:49,060 --> 01:07:52,100
three Marshalls, 13 generals,

1170
01:07:52,100 --> 01:07:54,460
57 corps commanders,

1171
01:07:54,460 --> 01:07:57,780
and over 50%
of senior Russian army officers

1172
01:07:57,780 --> 01:08:01,180
are either imprisoned
or executed.

1173
01:08:01,180 --> 01:08:04,700
Many of its senior officers
are gone.

1174
01:08:04,700 --> 01:08:07,180
And it was poorly-led,
poorly-equipped.

1175
01:08:07,180 --> 01:08:09,820
A pretty shambolic force
at that stage.

1176
01:08:11,020 --> 01:08:14,860
By contrast, the Finns are extremely
inventive.

1177
01:08:19,140 --> 01:08:21,860
What do you do if you've got
a tiny guerrilla army

1178
01:08:21,860 --> 01:08:23,260
and no anti-tank weapons?

1179
01:08:23,260 --> 01:08:25,460
Well, the answer is you improvise.

1180
01:08:25,460 --> 01:08:27,780
And this is it, the Molotov
cocktail.

1181
01:08:27,780 --> 01:08:29,340
During the Winter War,

1182
01:08:29,340 --> 01:08:33,620
the Russians claimed they were
dropping food aid on Finland.

1183
01:08:33,620 --> 01:08:35,140
The Finns responded,

1184
01:08:35,140 --> 01:08:38,220
"Well, if Molotov,
the Russian Foreign Minister,

1185
01:08:38,220 --> 01:08:42,780
"is sending us bread baskets,
we'll send him back cocktails."

1186
01:08:42,780 --> 01:08:46,060
It was so effective that, during
that Winter War,

1187
01:08:46,060 --> 01:08:52,340
the Finns produced 450,000
of these and it worked.

1188
01:08:52,340 --> 01:08:55,860
It stopped the Russian army
in its tracks.

1189
01:08:55,860 --> 01:08:58,060
The Finns use all kinds
of innovative ways

1190
01:08:58,060 --> 01:09:00,900
to ambush
and kill the Russians.

1191
01:09:00,900 --> 01:09:04,220
And they have no shortage
of targets.

1192
01:09:04,220 --> 01:09:08,180
There are more Russians
than we have bullets said one Finn.

1193
01:09:08,180 --> 01:09:10,220
In fact, there are so many to kill

1194
01:09:10,220 --> 01:09:13,300
we have no idea where we're going
to bury them all.

1195
01:09:13,300 --> 01:09:16,380
Up to a quarter
of a million Russians die

1196
01:09:16,380 --> 01:09:18,780
for only a tenth that number of
Finns.

1197
01:09:20,860 --> 01:09:23,540
By March, 1940,
Stalin has had enough.

1198
01:09:25,060 --> 01:09:27,740
He signs a truce with Finland.

1199
01:09:27,740 --> 01:09:32,100
The fact that this mighty, huge Red
Army suffered humiliations

1200
01:09:32,100 --> 01:09:35,020
on the battlefield in these forests
and snows,

1201
01:09:35,020 --> 01:09:37,700
explains why Hitler was convinced

1202
01:09:37,700 --> 01:09:41,380
that he could just sweep across
Russia in 1941.

1203
01:09:41,380 --> 01:09:42,980
What Hitler does not realise

1204
01:09:42,980 --> 01:09:46,540
is that the Red Army has learned
a lot from the Finns,

1205
01:09:46,540 --> 01:09:48,980
not least how to fight a winter war.

1206
01:09:52,300 --> 01:09:54,820
Finns had been much better prepared
for winter,

1207
01:09:54,820 --> 01:09:56,820
not only in terms of their clothing,

1208
01:09:56,820 --> 01:09:59,060
but they had special ski
battalions,

1209
01:09:59,060 --> 01:10:01,100
they used white camouflage.

1210
01:10:01,100 --> 01:10:04,420
The Soviets thought very carefully
about how they could conduct

1211
01:10:04,420 --> 01:10:07,020
a counter-offensive in those
conditions.

1212
01:10:07,020 --> 01:10:10,580
But Hitler is not yet preparing
to attack Russia.

1213
01:10:10,580 --> 01:10:12,060
He's looking west.

1214
01:10:17,780 --> 01:10:19,260
May 10th, 1940.

1215
01:10:20,860 --> 01:10:25,180
Almost 400,000 soldiers
of the British Expeditionary Force

1216
01:10:25,180 --> 01:10:29,180
are in France and Belgium,
awaiting a German invasion.

1217
01:10:29,180 --> 01:10:30,780
It will begin today.

1218
01:10:36,820 --> 01:10:42,140
29 German divisions, supported
by more than 2,500 aircraft,

1219
01:10:42,140 --> 01:10:44,860
are storming into Belgium and the
Low Countries

1220
01:10:44,860 --> 01:10:48,020
trying to punch through
to the North Sea ports.

1221
01:10:49,620 --> 01:10:52,660
Just what the Allies
have been waiting for.

1222
01:10:54,100 --> 01:10:57,900
French commander General Gamelin
immediately orders the British

1223
01:10:57,900 --> 01:11:00,860
and French troops to advance from
their positions

1224
01:11:00,860 --> 01:11:04,620
on the Belgian frontier
and to implement Plan D -

1225
01:11:04,620 --> 01:11:07,740
General Gamelin's long-anticipated
strategy

1226
01:11:07,740 --> 01:11:09,620
to blunt the German assault.

1227
01:11:11,180 --> 01:11:15,700
94 French divisions accompanied
by nine British divisions

1228
01:11:15,700 --> 01:11:18,860
advanced to link up
with Belgium's 22,

1229
01:11:18,860 --> 01:11:21,820
along a line between Breda
and the Dyle river.

1230
01:11:24,580 --> 01:11:26,940
In all, they number more than a
million men.

1231
01:11:28,740 --> 01:11:31,900
Allied tanks outnumber Germany's
by 1,000.

1232
01:11:34,700 --> 01:11:36,700
But despite the events in Poland,

1233
01:11:36,700 --> 01:11:40,060
the Allies are not prepared
for a German blitzkrieg.

1234
01:11:41,780 --> 01:11:44,780
The British and French simply
dissipated their resources.

1235
01:11:44,780 --> 01:11:47,980
The Germans concentrated them
all in one place,

1236
01:11:47,980 --> 01:11:50,100
the place they wanted to win.

1237
01:11:51,420 --> 01:11:54,700
South of this line, the River Meuse
in the Ardennes forest

1238
01:11:54,700 --> 01:11:57,420
is guarded by just
six French divisions,

1239
01:11:57,420 --> 01:11:59,420
with another six in reserve.

1240
01:12:01,300 --> 01:12:03,700
They are weaker and less
well-prepared

1241
01:12:03,700 --> 01:12:06,780
than their northern counterparts.

1242
01:12:06,780 --> 01:12:10,540
The Meuse line didn't need to be
fed by anything stronger,

1243
01:12:10,540 --> 01:12:14,940
because this was the impenetrable
Ardennes forest.

1244
01:12:14,940 --> 01:12:17,900
So thickly forested, a lot of
streams and rivers to cross

1245
01:12:17,900 --> 01:12:21,940
and the French believed that the
Ardennes were virtually impassable

1246
01:12:21,940 --> 01:12:23,940
to an invading army.

1247
01:12:23,940 --> 01:12:27,300
So can you imagine the Allied
surprise when the Germans

1248
01:12:27,300 --> 01:12:30,020
sent their Panzer tanks through the
Ardennes?

1249
01:12:31,780 --> 01:12:35,100
There was a traffic jam all the way
back along the roads leading

1250
01:12:35,100 --> 01:12:36,180
into the Ardennes.

1251
01:12:36,180 --> 01:12:38,020
The French aircraft observed this,

1252
01:12:38,020 --> 01:12:40,260
but they were not quite sure
what to make of it,

1253
01:12:40,260 --> 01:12:41,740
and then they began to report back.

1254
01:12:41,740 --> 01:12:43,740
The reports were dismissed, of
course.

1255
01:12:43,740 --> 01:12:47,100
"Nobody's going to invade through
the Ardennes. Don't be silly."

1256
01:12:48,380 --> 01:12:50,460
Seven Panzer divisions,

1257
01:12:50,460 --> 01:12:55,340
supported by 35 infantry
and three motorised divisions

1258
01:12:55,340 --> 01:12:58,300
are painstakingly snaking
through the Ardennes.

1259
01:13:00,300 --> 01:13:02,420
On paper, their task is simple.

1260
01:13:03,660 --> 01:13:07,340
Breakthrough the Meuse line
and charge for the coast,

1261
01:13:07,340 --> 01:13:09,700
cutting off the entire northern
Allied army

1262
01:13:09,700 --> 01:13:11,420
from its supply lines in France.

1263
01:13:13,420 --> 01:13:15,220
Not as easy as it sounds.

1264
01:13:16,980 --> 01:13:24,340
You've got to imagine trying to get
134,000 men and 40,000 vehicles

1265
01:13:24,340 --> 01:13:28,980
through this kind of labyrinthine
mess of roads through the Ardennes.

1266
01:13:28,980 --> 01:13:32,820
They dressed some of their scouts up
as tourists who were actually able

1267
01:13:32,820 --> 01:13:37,900
to prepare the ground in advance
for the units coming through.

1268
01:13:37,900 --> 01:13:40,660
They're there to seize vital
junctions

1269
01:13:40,660 --> 01:13:44,540
and police the four main highways
that the Germans will need to use.

1270
01:13:44,540 --> 01:13:48,780
These vehicles were shepherded
through the Ardennes forest.

1271
01:13:48,780 --> 01:13:51,140
This is basically brilliant
traffic control.

1272
01:13:53,780 --> 01:13:56,900
Although the plan is conceived
by Erich von Manstein,

1273
01:13:56,900 --> 01:13:58,220
one of his generals,

1274
01:13:58,220 --> 01:14:02,460
Hitler claims the Ardennes strategy
as his own.

1275
01:14:02,460 --> 01:14:05,020
Hitler had a very high opinion of
himself to begin with

1276
01:14:05,020 --> 01:14:06,140
but after his success,

1277
01:14:06,140 --> 01:14:11,060
with the Ardennes attack he started
to consider himself infallible.

1278
01:14:11,060 --> 01:14:14,420
It takes General Erwin Rommel's
Panzers just two days to reach

1279
01:14:14,420 --> 01:14:15,500
the river Meuse.

1280
01:14:17,900 --> 01:14:21,540
Further south at Sedan,
General Heinz Guderian,

1281
01:14:21,540 --> 01:14:25,140
the inventor of blitzkrieg, is
stuck

1282
01:14:25,140 --> 01:14:28,780
The French were dug in on the Marfee
Heights above Sedan.

1283
01:14:28,780 --> 01:14:33,020
Now Guderian has absolutely nothing
to winkle them out with. Why?

1284
01:14:33,020 --> 01:14:36,660
Because his artillery is still stuck
at the back of that traffic jam.

1285
01:14:36,660 --> 01:14:38,540
It looks as though Guderian

1286
01:14:38,540 --> 01:14:42,500
is just going to smash himself
against the French line.

1287
01:14:42,500 --> 01:14:45,140
But the French haven't reckoned
with the blitzkrieg.

1288
01:14:54,540 --> 01:14:59,020
1,000 planes are diverted
on their missions over Belgium

1289
01:14:59,020 --> 01:15:02,860
to come along and rain down hell
on the Marfee heights.

1290
01:15:05,260 --> 01:15:08,700
The Luftwaffe launches what,
at that point in time,

1291
01:15:08,700 --> 01:15:13,140
is the heaviest and most sustained
aerial bombardment ever seen.

1292
01:15:16,100 --> 01:15:20,500
It lasts eight hours and numbers
almost 4,000 bombing sorties.

1293
01:15:27,260 --> 01:15:31,620
Among the attackers are 200
Junkers 87 Stuka dive-bombers.

1294
01:15:34,420 --> 01:15:38,140
Which unleashed their bombs and auto
cannons on the dug-in defenders atop

1295
01:15:38,140 --> 01:15:39,420
the Marfee Heights.

1296
01:15:44,660 --> 01:15:48,500
The Stuka is a seriously
scary piece of kit.

1297
01:15:48,500 --> 01:15:52,220
It can go into a vertical dive
down towards the enemy,

1298
01:15:52,220 --> 01:15:56,140
and drop a 550lb bomb right on top
of his head.

1299
01:15:58,540 --> 01:16:02,340
The Stuka's dive not only
delivers a deadly payload,

1300
01:16:02,340 --> 01:16:05,380
it is accompanied by a terrifying
sound effect.

1301
01:16:10,020 --> 01:16:13,260
It has what's known as a Trumpet of
Jericho,

1302
01:16:13,260 --> 01:16:16,660
which is a siren attached to the
undercarriage

1303
01:16:16,660 --> 01:16:19,500
and as it comes down,
that siren screams.

1304
01:16:20,540 --> 01:16:23,540
The whole effect would have been
absolutely bloodcurdling.

1305
01:16:27,900 --> 01:16:32,260
The remorseless Stuka attack
is enough to break French morale.

1306
01:16:32,260 --> 01:16:33,780
The defenders flee.

1307
01:16:37,380 --> 01:16:42,100
The way is clear for Rommel
and Guderian to race for the coast

1308
01:16:42,100 --> 01:16:46,420
and take on the 400,000-strong
British Expeditionary Force.

1309
01:16:54,580 --> 01:16:55,580
14th May, 1940.

1310
01:16:57,260 --> 01:17:00,340
Holland surrenders to the German
blitzkrieg.

1311
01:17:01,900 --> 01:17:05,380
In France, the fortresses
of the defensive Maginot Line

1312
01:17:05,380 --> 01:17:07,260
have been bypassed,

1313
01:17:07,260 --> 01:17:11,140
and northern coastal ports
are now dangerously exposed.

1314
01:17:13,060 --> 01:17:17,260
Rommel and Guderian are the two
major proponents of blitzkrieg,

1315
01:17:17,260 --> 01:17:19,940
this very fast, tank-based warfare.

1316
01:17:19,940 --> 01:17:22,500
They go in hard and they don't stop.

1317
01:17:23,900 --> 01:17:27,180
Within ten days, they've advanced
150 miles

1318
01:17:27,180 --> 01:17:29,180
all the way to the Channel.

1319
01:17:34,500 --> 01:17:38,540
The advance is so fast that Rommel's
Panzer force finds its supply

1320
01:17:38,540 --> 01:17:41,060
lines massively overextended,

1321
01:17:41,060 --> 01:17:44,420
when the Allies do finally
manage to fight back.

1322
01:17:46,940 --> 01:17:49,180
If the Allies are able
to mount a counterattack,

1323
01:17:49,180 --> 01:17:51,980
they could actually
cut off the Panzers,

1324
01:17:51,980 --> 01:17:55,620
and the Panzers would be the ones
who needed rescuing.

1325
01:17:57,540 --> 01:18:01,340
Viscount Gort, Commander-in-chief
of the British Expeditionary Force

1326
01:18:01,340 --> 01:18:03,420
in the besieged town of Arras,

1327
01:18:03,420 --> 01:18:07,820
decides on a counterattack,
codenamed Frankforce.

1328
01:18:09,860 --> 01:18:13,260
The attack force is supposed
to number 15,000 men.

1329
01:18:14,460 --> 01:18:18,260
In the confusion, just 2,000
carry it out,

1330
01:18:18,260 --> 01:18:19,820
supported by 74 tanks.

1331
01:18:23,100 --> 01:18:26,220
The battle will expose both
the weaknesses

1332
01:18:26,220 --> 01:18:29,180
and the strength
of the German blitzkrieg.

1333
01:18:32,020 --> 01:18:33,860
Due to shortages of raw materials,

1334
01:18:33,860 --> 01:18:37,740
the German Army's Ordnance
departments downgraded the weapon

1335
01:18:37,740 --> 01:18:42,740
on this tank from the 50-millimetre
that we see here to a 37-millimetre.

1336
01:18:42,740 --> 01:18:44,940
This is not what Guderian wanted,

1337
01:18:44,940 --> 01:18:48,140
and this was to prove
to be very short-sighted.

1338
01:18:49,460 --> 01:18:51,660
Operation Frankforce will test

1339
01:18:51,660 --> 01:18:54,180
the Panzer III's lacklustre
firepower.

1340
01:18:57,060 --> 01:19:00,180
Just how short-sighted it was to
downgrade the gun

1341
01:19:00,180 --> 01:19:02,460
on the Mark III tank becomes
apparent

1342
01:19:02,460 --> 01:19:06,220
when Rommel faces a British
counterattack at Arras.

1343
01:19:06,220 --> 01:19:08,180
The British are equipped
with this tank.

1344
01:19:08,180 --> 01:19:10,380
This is the Matilda II.

1345
01:19:10,380 --> 01:19:13,660
Armed with a 2-pounder
this tank can penetrate

1346
01:19:13,660 --> 01:19:16,020
any German armour
on the battlefield.

1347
01:19:16,020 --> 01:19:19,340
But, the German pop guns, the 37mm,

1348
01:19:19,340 --> 01:19:22,380
their rounds just bounce off
this thick armour.

1349
01:19:24,100 --> 01:19:26,740
At Arras, the Matildas run amok.

1350
01:19:26,740 --> 01:19:30,540
The British tanks move forward
and were able to attack and destroy

1351
01:19:30,540 --> 01:19:33,220
much of what was in front of them.

1352
01:19:33,220 --> 01:19:37,420
And they very, very nearly
overcame Rommel's force.

1353
01:19:38,780 --> 01:19:40,660
Faced with this onslaught,

1354
01:19:40,660 --> 01:19:43,660
Rommel's Panzers are thrown
back in disarray.

1355
01:19:45,860 --> 01:19:49,740
But Rommel is not hailed
as a military genius for nothing.

1356
01:19:49,740 --> 01:19:52,060
So what did Rommel do?

1357
01:19:52,060 --> 01:19:55,460
Rommel basically
lured the tanks in,

1358
01:19:55,460 --> 01:19:59,940
and then opened up with 88mm
anti-aircraft guns.

1359
01:20:01,780 --> 01:20:04,100
These weren't intended
to be used against tanks -

1360
01:20:04,100 --> 01:20:06,340
they were intended
to be used against planes.

1361
01:20:07,460 --> 01:20:10,340
But Rommel was always thinking
outside of the box -

1362
01:20:10,340 --> 01:20:13,820
he was always trying something new,
and it worked.

1363
01:20:16,660 --> 01:20:18,860
Not only did it work,
it saved the day.

1364
01:20:18,860 --> 01:20:20,980
It meant that his position
wasn't lost.

1365
01:20:27,380 --> 01:20:31,180
Rommel's reaction shows
just how versatile the combined arms

1366
01:20:31,180 --> 01:20:33,140
of his Panzer divisions could be.

1367
01:20:34,900 --> 01:20:39,820
But his recklessness spooks
an already jumpy high command.

1368
01:20:39,820 --> 01:20:42,140
Hitler has been screaming for days

1369
01:20:42,140 --> 01:20:45,340
that the Panzer groups
are hopelessly overexposed.

1370
01:20:45,340 --> 01:20:48,940
He wants them to stop and to regroup
and to protect themselves.

1371
01:20:50,020 --> 01:20:53,020
And it is at this point
when the German high command

1372
01:20:53,020 --> 01:20:55,140
starts to reassert its control.

1373
01:20:57,400 --> 01:21:01,200
Over 300,000 soldiers of the BEF

1374
01:21:01,200 --> 01:21:03,800
is gathering in the coastal port
of Dunkirk.

1375
01:21:05,520 --> 01:21:08,080
But, two days after Arras,

1376
01:21:08,080 --> 01:21:11,440
both Rommel and Gadarian are told
to halt their advance.

1377
01:21:13,200 --> 01:21:17,040
There are a number of very good
reasons why the Germans

1378
01:21:17,040 --> 01:21:19,240
issue the very famous halt order.

1379
01:21:19,240 --> 01:21:23,280
The Panzer tanks are not
ideally suited for one thing,

1380
01:21:23,280 --> 01:21:27,840
for going into Dunkirk - a town
situation - not ideal for tanks.

1381
01:21:27,840 --> 01:21:30,560
Secondly, very marshy area around.

1382
01:21:30,560 --> 01:21:33,240
People know from the
First World War it's not ideal.

1383
01:21:33,240 --> 01:21:37,880
Why commit them to a fight that
they're not actually suited for?

1384
01:21:37,880 --> 01:21:42,240
But beyond even that,
Hermann Goering gets in touch

1385
01:21:42,240 --> 01:21:44,640
with Adolf Hitler by telephone,

1386
01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:49,720
and he says we, Luftwaffe, are a
National Socialist Organisation.

1387
01:21:49,720 --> 01:21:53,560
Let us finish off the British
because we can do it,

1388
01:21:53,560 --> 01:21:56,720
and that way, you will get
the glory.

1389
01:21:56,720 --> 01:21:59,880
But the Luftwaffe fails its Fuhrer.

1390
01:22:02,600 --> 01:22:07,200
Hitler's halt order buys
the British Navy just enough time

1391
01:22:07,200 --> 01:22:10,040
to mount the most famous
rescue operation of the war.

1392
01:22:14,520 --> 01:22:18,560
Over nine long days,
often under fire from the air,

1393
01:22:18,560 --> 01:22:21,200
and at the cost of over 170 vessels,

1394
01:22:21,200 --> 01:22:25,520
a makeshift fleet of at least
800 British boats

1395
01:22:25,520 --> 01:22:30,160
traverse the English Channel and
transport over 330,000 British

1396
01:22:30,160 --> 01:22:34,680
and French soldiers
from Dunkirk to Britain.

1397
01:22:37,400 --> 01:22:40,160
In the Houses of Parliament
Winston Churchill described it

1398
01:22:40,160 --> 01:22:42,680
as the miracle of deliverance.

1399
01:22:42,680 --> 01:22:46,920
If the Germans had captured that
army, it would have been impossible

1400
01:22:46,920 --> 01:22:50,080
for Churchill to convince anybody
that we could rationally go

1401
01:22:50,080 --> 01:22:52,600
on with a war because there
wouldn't have been anybody to fight.

1402
01:22:54,200 --> 01:22:58,840
The British celebrate Dunkirk as if
it was in some sense a victory.

1403
01:22:58,840 --> 01:23:00,640
But of course, it was a defeat.

1404
01:23:02,720 --> 01:23:04,920
At a conservative estimate,

1405
01:23:04,920 --> 01:23:08,920
the British leave behind
75,000 tonnes of ammunition,

1406
01:23:08,920 --> 01:23:11,680
64,000 vehicles,

1407
01:23:11,680 --> 01:23:14,440
and almost 2,500 guns.

1408
01:23:16,360 --> 01:23:20,160
The British army wasn't properly
re-equipped until 1943, 1944,

1409
01:23:20,160 --> 01:23:21,840
not for three or four years.

1410
01:23:21,840 --> 01:23:27,120
But the fact those men got back
just enabled Winston Churchill

1411
01:23:27,120 --> 01:23:31,520
to convince his colleagues in
government, against the judgment

1412
01:23:31,520 --> 01:23:35,120
of an awful lot of other people,
that we could carry on with the war.

1413
01:23:36,280 --> 01:23:38,640
The French fare just as badly.

1414
01:23:39,800 --> 01:23:44,120
They lose 38 out of 103 divisions
to the blitzkrieg.

1415
01:23:44,120 --> 01:23:48,160
The rest now face the daunting task
of holding back the German onslaught

1416
01:23:48,160 --> 01:23:50,040
on their own.

1417
01:23:52,560 --> 01:23:55,760
There was a strong sense
in 1940 in France

1418
01:23:55,760 --> 01:23:57,440
that they'd been let down
by the British,

1419
01:23:57,440 --> 01:23:59,800
that Britain had been
the wrong ally for the French,

1420
01:23:59,800 --> 01:24:03,960
that Britain was more interested in
saving itself than in saving France.

1421
01:24:05,520 --> 01:24:08,280
But the battle for France
is not yet over.

1422
01:24:08,280 --> 01:24:12,520
As the French attempt to rally their
forces for the defence of Paris,

1423
01:24:12,520 --> 01:24:17,640
they are hampered by a civilian
tragedy unfolding all around them.

1424
01:24:19,120 --> 01:24:22,200
German bombers were absolutely
ruthless in who they targeted.

1425
01:24:22,200 --> 01:24:24,120
They didn't just aim at soldiers.

1426
01:24:24,120 --> 01:24:25,840
They also aimed at civilians.

1427
01:24:25,840 --> 01:24:30,440
And in Holland, you see the German
Luftwaffe carpet bombing Rotterdam.

1428
01:24:30,440 --> 01:24:34,640
1,000 people were killed, and
over 80,000 are forced

1429
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:36,040
to flee their homes.

1430
01:24:37,440 --> 01:24:41,120
News of the terrifying bombing raids
quickly reaches France.

1431
01:24:42,520 --> 01:24:45,760
This has a huge effect on the
French civilians,

1432
01:24:45,760 --> 01:24:48,200
who think they're going
to be bombed into submission,

1433
01:24:48,200 --> 01:24:51,360
their families will be killed and
vaporised by the Luftwaffe.

1434
01:24:51,360 --> 01:24:54,160
So ten million of them
take to the roads.

1435
01:24:54,160 --> 01:24:56,160
These are internal refugees.

1436
01:24:56,160 --> 01:24:59,320
What happens is that they clog
up the road system,

1437
01:24:59,320 --> 01:25:03,320
which means that the French army
can't get to where it's most needed.

1438
01:25:04,480 --> 01:25:07,480
Even so, some French still fight on.

1439
01:25:07,480 --> 01:25:11,560
It's a little known fact that the
Germans lost twice as many men

1440
01:25:11,560 --> 01:25:14,040
in the two weeks after
the retreat from Dunkirk

1441
01:25:14,040 --> 01:25:15,760
than the two weeks before it.

1442
01:25:18,720 --> 01:25:20,040
But, on June 10th,

1443
01:25:20,040 --> 01:25:23,160
the French government
abandons Paris and retreats.

1444
01:25:24,440 --> 01:25:27,800
Six days later, it resigns in favour
of an interim government

1445
01:25:27,800 --> 01:25:32,440
based in Vichy, led by the
First World War hero Marshal Petain.

1446
01:25:34,440 --> 01:25:38,120
Petain's government, which agrees to
collaborate with the Nazi invaders,

1447
01:25:38,120 --> 01:25:41,560
orders all French troops
to lay down their arms.

1448
01:25:43,800 --> 01:25:46,360
The French didn't just
roll over and play dead.

1449
01:25:46,360 --> 01:25:50,320
But, let's face it, they were
hopelessly outgunned and outplayed.

1450
01:25:53,600 --> 01:25:55,880
On June 22nd, 1940,

1451
01:25:55,880 --> 01:26:00,320
Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering
accept the unconditional surrender

1452
01:26:00,320 --> 01:26:02,040
of the French people.

1453
01:26:02,040 --> 01:26:04,920
In the very same carriage
of the Orient Express

1454
01:26:04,920 --> 01:26:08,160
where Marshal Foch had witnessed
the German surrender

1455
01:26:08,160 --> 01:26:09,920
in World War I.

1456
01:26:14,160 --> 01:26:16,760
If you want to get a sense
of how much

1457
01:26:16,760 --> 01:26:20,200
this victory over the French
meant to Hitler,

1458
01:26:20,200 --> 01:26:23,840
look at where he signed the treaty.

1459
01:26:23,840 --> 01:26:29,920
It was in the same train carriage,
brought out of a museum,

1460
01:26:29,920 --> 01:26:34,800
placed back at Compiegne,
and there the French surrendered.

1461
01:26:34,800 --> 01:26:38,560
I mean, just to call it symbolic
isn't even to scratch the surface.

1462
01:26:40,040 --> 01:26:43,840
It seems as if Hitler's revenge
is all but complete.

1463
01:26:43,840 --> 01:26:46,840
In the space
of less than two months,

1464
01:26:46,840 --> 01:26:50,280
the British and French have
lost more than 103,000 dead.

1465
01:26:51,400 --> 01:26:53,840
Germany just 27,000.

1466
01:26:54,920 --> 01:26:59,160
The German blitzkrieg through France
was absolutely phenomenal.

1467
01:26:59,160 --> 01:27:02,280
What the Germans achieved
in just seven weeks

1468
01:27:02,280 --> 01:27:05,280
is what they couldn't
achieve in four years

1469
01:27:05,280 --> 01:27:06,960
during the First World War.

1470
01:27:08,360 --> 01:27:11,120
The Nazi war machine
looked unstoppable.

1471
01:27:14,200 --> 01:27:16,600
The battle for France is over.

1472
01:27:17,920 --> 01:27:21,200
The Battle for Britain
is about to begin.