A Nazi rally in the heartland of Germany.
Colour film reveals the theatre of Fascism.
These vivid images capture the emotion of a people waiting to see their leader,...
..Adolf Hitler.
During these years of Nazi rule Ruth Andreas Friedrich kept a diary,...
..a witness to this adoration ofthe Führer:
Everybody was so happy and excited. Suddenly a wave of"Heils" swelled...
..and became stronger and stronger towards us. "The Führer is coming!"...
..some ecstatic bystanders yelled,...
..and a sea of raised arms swayed...
..and tried to catch a glimpse of Hitler.
(crowds chanting "Heil!")
Hitler had been in power for four years...
..and his troops were already waging war in Europe.
Civil war in Spain.
A dress rehearsal...
..for the Second World War.
A war which targeted civilians from the air.
A war oftechnology and terror,...
..mass atrocity and indiscriminate death.
German volunteer troops were fighting alongside Franco's Fascist army...
..to overthrow the elected Republican Government.
Among them was Klaus Köhler from Hamburg:
Spain, you wonderful country!
l'm proud to help you during your liberation from the Red hordes...
..so that you can fight on the side of Germany and ltaly...
..against the Bolshevism that is undermining the foundations of Europe.
People from all over the world volunteered...
..to defend the Republican Government and defeat Fascism.
Welsh Communist Bill Paynter:
lt is when you see all this...
..that you realise what war is all about.
lt is here that you can feel the terrible menace to France...
..and the people of Britain,...
..if the Fascists are not crushed at this point.
By 1939, Franco and his Fascist allies were victorious.
The democracies ofthe United States and Britain had failed to intervene.
An opportunity to challenge Fascism had been lost.
A new world order threatened.
Whilst war raged in Spain...
..Britain celebrated King, Country and Empire...
..with the coronation of George Vl.
(newsreel) Only once or twice in the life of each of us...
..comes such a day as this: watching history in the making.
People's feelings about the coronation were recorded...
..in a Mass-Observation survey:
(woman) Procession begins to pass.
Surprised to find lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.
lt was a wonderful sight to see the soldiers outside the abbey.
l've never seen anything like it before.
(newsreel) The state coach, surely the most beautiful vehicle in all the world.
100,000 faces are turned towards it...
..and 100,000 throats voice their loyalty.
(woman) l felt tearful at the sight of the mounted escorts from distant parts...
The lndians, the Australians...
lt affected me to think that England's influence reached so far.
(man) Last coronation l'll see.
l'm 77 years old.
l was 30 years under King's Colours...
..and l wouldn't change a thing. Best country in the world.
(woman) l became very irritated with the red, white and blue decorations.
But l was surprised how much l responded...
..to the atmosphere ofthe crowd, the cheering and all.
l felt a defiant pride and thrill in belonging to the Empire,...
..which, in ordinary life, with my political bias,...
..isjust the opposite of my true feeling.
One sees how very dangerous all this is.
The beliefs and convictions of a lifetime...
..can be set aside so easily. lt's too dangerous a weapon...
..to be in the hands ofthe people in power at present in this country.
#"Rule, Britannia"
Shaken by the carnage of the First World War,...
..British politicians were keen to avoid new wars,...
..keen to see ifthe German leader was someone they could do business with.
The year before the coronation, David Lloyd George, Britain's prime minister...
..during the First World War,...
..was invited to meet Adolf Hitler.
His aide, Thomas Jones, recorded the visit in his diary:
At 4.45 we left the Grand Hotel for the Führer's villa...
He received us himself, bare-headed,...
..on the top ofthe steps,...
..shaking hands with each of us.
The meeting took place at Hitler's mountaintop retreat,...
..the Berghof.
lt was probably half past five when we sat down...
..in a large circle of low and easy chairs...
..for tea and coffee, and slices of cold ham,...
..and halves of hard-boiled eggs.
The Führer himself had what looked like zwiebacks... and ate but very little.
Several members ofthe party had brought photographs with them,..
..and these Hitler signed.
Lloyd George was so taken with the German Chancellor that...
..he wrote an article for the Daily Express:
l have now seen the famous German leader...
..and also something of the great change he has effected.
He has achieved a marvellous transformation...
..in the spirit ofthe people, in their attitude towards each other,...
..and in their social and economic outlook. lt is a happier Germany.
What Hitler said at Nuremberg is true.
Germans will resist to the death every invader oftheir country.
But they have no longer the desire themselves...
..to invade any other land.
On the eve of war in Europe, the United States...
..was emerging from the Depression...
..and was reluctant to get involved in European problems.
ln June 1939...
..King George Vl and Queen Elizabeth visited Washington DC.
The Secret Diary of Harold L lckes,...
..President Roosevelt's Secretary ofthe lnterior:
The King and Queen made a very good impression.
She seemed to be quite lovely and exceptionally good-looking.
l had always thought of him as a tall man, but, in fact, he's not.
Although he's thin, the Queen is smaller.
They looked like pygmies beside the towering Roosevelts.
l don't know what impression of us the King and Queen will carry away...
..but they had a good press here.
From their own point ofview they accomplished some good,...
..although l doubt whether there'll be any relaxation of our wariness...
..with respect to possible entanglements in foreign affairs.
By 1939, Nazi Germany was strong and confident.
Hitler had annexed Austria and seized land...
..from Czechoslovakia.
Munich:
A festival to celebrate German culture,...
..filmed by amateur cameramen...
..and witnessed by 18-year-old Josefa Hammann:
lt is always a clear, beautiful day...
..on these festive occasions.
People call it "Hitler weather".
lt's unbelievable how the city glittered!
The whole city was shown off at great expense.
An expectant mother was moved to write a letter...
..to her unborn child:
This is like a second spring for Germany.
The Führer is achieving great things,...
..things no-one had dared to believe possible. The Treaty of Versailles...
..has been abolished, and Austria has come home to the Reich.
Germany's blossoming.
After years of unemployment, people are working again.
Everybody earns good money...
..and our industry is getting stronger and stronger.
These are historic times for our German Reich,...
..my son.
A 15-year-old member ofthe Hitler Youth wrote to his aunt and uncle in Britain:
Dear Olive and Alfred, l haven't written to you...
..because too many interesting things have been happening in Germany.
Two weeks ago l saw Hitler.
He has made a great impression on me.
We will struggle, and die, for him and our Germany.
Much greetings from your Hans-Ulrich, and... Heil Hitler!
(Hitler) Wenn es dem internationalen Finanzjudentum in und außerhalb...
For years the Nazis had been persecuting their enemies,...
..especially German Jews.
Werner Lehmann wrote to his friend in the United States in support of Nazi policy:
Dear Howard, how are you fighting the Jews...
..in your country? We finally got rid ofthem this year.
lt was high time, because the Jews were harming...
..and infesting our people. They have plunged our people into...
..high unemployment and financial misery.
That's why we support our Führer and how he deals...
..with the Jews. You still have too many Jews in your country.
And that's why you have so many unemployed people.
l feel sorry for you.
We have a wonderful, peaceful life now.
No Jew can agitate against our people any more.
All the best from Greater Germany.
Yours, Werner.
The annual sports parade in Moscow.
One ofthe first colour films made in the Soviet Union.
The country was completely under Stalin's control.
The diary of Andrei Arzhilovsky:
The portraits of our leaders are now displayed...
..the same way icons used to be-a round portrait, framed and attached to a pole.
Very convenient.
Hoist it on to your shoulder and you're on your way.
lt's just the same as people used to do for church holidays.
They had their activists then,...
..we have ours now.
Different paths,...
..the same old bloody nonsense.
The parades masked the reality of Soviet life.
Starvation had killed six million people.
Secret police made mass arrests, including many Red Army officers.
Railway worker Yevdokim Nikolayev was a witness:
Terror and violence are widespread.
l keep hearing about arrests and searches...
..going on everywhere around me.
The courts are overflowing with people who are being put on trial...
..for the sort ofthings that would have been encouraged before.
Everybody is too frightened to think,...
..let alone speak out about their horrendous hunger...
..and slavery.
Yevdokim Nikolayev's diary...
..was used in evidence against him.
He was executed.
During these pre-war years ofterror...
..Stalin's purges claimed the lives...
..of more than 700,000 people.
The home movies of Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun,...
..reveals the intimate circle around the Führer.
Here in the mountains Hitler would brood...
..and plot.
ln the summer of 1939 he decided to invade Poland.
But he had to make sure the Soviet Union...
..would not defend the Poles, in alliance with Britain and France.
On 23 August...
..Hitler made a deal with Stalin.
His propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels,...
..recorded the sensational news in his diary:
Yesterday: announced a non-aggression pact with Moscow.
Great world sensation.
The whole European power balance shaken.
London and Paris can't believe it.
The Führer has made...
..a clever chess move. Let's see how the world will react...
..to this smoke screen.
Hitler's pact with Stalin contained a secret clause:
An agreement to carve up Eastern Europe.
One week later, on 1 September 1939,...
..Germany invaded Poland.
Britain marched offto war.
(woman) lt is unbelievable but true.
At 11.15 Mr Chamberlain spoke.
(Chamberlain) This morning, the British ambassador in Berlin...
..handed the German Government a final note.
(woman) They'd sent Hitler an ultimatum to withdraw his troops from Poland.
There had been no reply...
..and the ultimatum had expired at 11 o'clock.
We are now at war with Germany.
(Chamberlain) This country is at war with Germany.
(woman) lt brought tears to one's eyes.
Khaki-clad boys everywhere.
The speeded-up evacuation of three million children and invalids...
..from the cities.
All these things have come to us,...
..a supposed civilised people.
Warsaw has been bombed.
German tanks and aeroplanes...
..have been shot down,...
..and war is once more striding across our world.
By 27 September, Germany had conquered Poland.
Teacher Chaim Kaplan witnessed the fall of his country:
Beautiful Warsaw has been destroyed...
..like Sodom and Gomorrah.
There are streets which have been...
..all but wiped offthe face ofthe earth.
ln the midst ofthe ruins,...
..thousands of human beings...
..lie buried.
Hitler now turned his attention...
..to the West.
(air-raid siren)
At the outbreak of war...
..Britain prepared for the worst.
(boy whistles)
An air-raid drill at a school in Hove, Sussex.
ln the months thatfollowed, it all seemed...
..a bit quietfor a war.
Miss Vivienne Hall was a shorthand typistfrom Putney:
This war seems remote from us as yet.
The quiet nights and days, in contrast to the constant air raids we expected,...
..are bewildering.
But we are certain they will come sooner or later.
We're all waiting for the heavens to throb into life with hundreds of planes...
..which will pour fire, gas and death upon us.
But fire, gas and death didn't come.
# Good night, children
# Everywhere
# Your mummy thinks of you
# Tonight
# Though you're far away
# She's with you night and day
# Good night, children, everywhere
Tired of rules, regulations and routines, people began to call it the Bore War,...
..the phony war.
(Vivienne Hall) Another month gone.
The news varies very little. We are still awaiting...
..the big things which must happen, and, incredibly, have not happened yet.
We arejust a bit weary of it after all these long months.
Life is so pointless... hardly worth making the effort to make a success of it...
..as it seems to lead you nowhere.
Then, on 10 May 1940,...
..German troops stormed into France, Belgium,...
..the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Denmark and Norway had already fallen.
British troops in France were in retreat.
Sergeant Pexton fought with the Durham Light lnfantry:
7am.
Germans came from nowhere.
Proper surprised us.
Got down to it in the open and fought for all we knew.
Gettin' wiped out this time all right.
He's sending everythin' he has at us.
French infantryman Gustave Folcher was a farmer's son from the Languedoc:
We marched for some time across the hills.
We see vehicles...
..from time to time:
Supply wagons, artillery trucks that have been bombed...
Some disembowelled horses here and there, badly hit.
Some are not yet dead and let out plaintive groans...
..as we pass by.
Blitzkrieg consumed Europe.
The diary of 22-year-old German Hans Perels:
ln the morning we searched houses. The population here is...
..very afraid of us "barbarians".
A woman was throwing herself at my feet,...
..imploring me not to kill her children.
l told her in my broken French that we were only looking for weapons.
But she didn't believe me.
She cried, and begged,...
..and cried.
As he retreated, Gustave Folcher witnessed the fall of France:
The civilians put together their meagre belongings.
lt is sad...
..and it tears me apart.
Poor people!
To abandon their houses, their cattle...
..and poultry, and everything which seemed to be...
..prospering...
..and gave them their pleasure in life.
The children look wide-eyed,...
..not yet understanding everything that is happening.
The day draws to an end, and all the time...
..the refugees pass by in every type oftransport.
lt wasn't long before Folcher was captured.
We were prisoners now...
..and a new life was going to start. For us...
..the war was over.
Around midday...
..they made us get into threes...
..and form a column and walk forward down the road.
The march was very difficult.
Suddenly we remembered that...
..we hadn't eaten for a very long time.
lf only we could have had something to drink!
But... it was impossible.
(newsreel) The British Expeditionary Force, with their French allies,...
..are fighting a desperate battle in the northern zone ofthe Western Front.
They have withdrawn some miles towards the coast...
On 20 May, Sergeant Pexton was also taken prisoner.
(newsreel) The Allied forces have not lost cohesion, and their morale is high...
(Sgt Pexton) Fed up with everythin' Wouldn't take much for me...
..to make a break for it. Be a quick way out, anyway.
So long as he shot straight away.
l suppose l mustn't think that way andjust carry on.
lt can't last for ever.
# J'attendrai
#Lejour
# Et la nuit
For the victors, the good life...
..recorded in the home movies of German officers.
Dear Freya, we are billeted like kings in the most luxurious estates...
..in the whole area. And you won't believe what l had for dinner yesterday!
Caviar and ham,...
..duck, crêpe suzette, and a wonderful Bordeaux wine...
..followed by the local Cognac.
l tried not to drink too much, but we were all in a very good mood after this meal.
When they heard that l needed a present for you...
..an officer sent for a large packet of French soap...
..and bath oils.
So, my dear, you will be smelling like roses soon.
Lots of love, Helmut.
l know now why, in times of war, sexual misconduct is so much on the increase.
You don't know whether...
..you will survive each day, so you want to enjoy life as much as you can.
l couldn't understand it at first, that ordinary women were so interested.
But they feel the same as us soldiers.
lt is an almost insatiable appetite for sex.
The war has taken away all barriers between classes, countries, and ages.
# Que dans ma porte,j'écoute en vain
# Hélas, plus rien
# Plus rien ne vient
# J'attendrai
# Lejour
# Et la nuit
# J'attendrai toujours
# Ton retour
Dear parents, yesterday l saw the Atlantic Ocean...
..for the first time in my life.
lt was a wonderful view,...
..elevating and majestic.
l thought to myself...
..how far l have travelled already...
..because ofthe war.
We have captured a number of towns along the coast.
But quite often l felt very sad when l saw how many beautiful buildings...
..have been destroyed.
Looking at all the corpses...
..you start hating this war.
Not because l'm fearful or sensitive.
ltjust seems such a waste.
By the end of May 1940 the Allies in France were beaten.
300,000 exhausted soldiers had crowded onto the beach at Dunkirk.
Among them...
..Captain Bell-Macdonald:
We sat on the beach. Organisation -there appeared to be none.
My nerves were in pieces. We were constantly bombed.
The harbour caught it. Smoke and flame shot heavenwards,...
..the smoke hanging in a huge black pall over the town.
Oh, the terror ofthose hours on the beach, lying flat on the sand,...
..listening to the shriek of bombers and crack of explosives.
l shall never forget those 15 minutes while we loaded.
lt was an eternity.
But at last we drew away.
The lines were cut, the ladders left.
So, with a huge bow wave,...
..we swept onwards to Dover.
(Churchill) What General Weygand has called the Battle of France...
..is over.
The Battle of Britain is about to begin.
Upon this battle...
..depends the survival of Christian civilisation.
As Britain stood alone,..
..Nellie Carver and Joan Wildish recorded the mood.
(Nellie Carver) 17 June.
France has asked for an armistice. So now what?
The predominant feeling is one of relief.
(Churchill) Hitler knows...
..he will have to break us in this island or lose the war...
(Nellie Carver) Now we know where we are.
l'm absolutely sure we can do better if we have nobody with us.
They've let us down...
..time and time again. Now we can really get on with thejob.
Suppose we shall be besieged on our little island.
l feel quite light-hearted after so much worry.
(Churchill) Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties...
(Joan Wildish) Now we have to put Mr Churchill's great speech into action.
Now the wolf really is at England's door and it's showing its...
..nasty swastikas.
(Churchill) ..ifthe British Empire and its Commonwealth...
..last for a thousand years,...
..men will still say...
.."This was their finest hour".
Cometh the hour...
..cometh Churchill.
This very different leader was observed at close quarters by his secretary...
..John Colville:
Went up to the PM's bedroom at about 10 o'clock.
He was lying in bed, in a red dressing gown, smoking a cigar...
..and dictating to Mrs Hill, who sat with a typewriter...
..at the foot ofthe bed.
His black cat Nelson...
..sprawled,...
..and every now and then...
..Winston would gaze at it affectionately and say: "Cat, darling".
This was a leader whose every action...
..symbolised British spirit.
The PM will give the V-sign with two fingers,...
..in spite ofthe representations repeatedly made to him...
..that this gesture has quite another significance.
To resist the expected Nazi invasion a new defence force was created.
# lt's a hap-hap-happy day
# Toodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-lay
# For you and me, for us and we
Londoner Nellie Carver was rather taken with it all:
The local Defence Volunteers is assuming large proportions now...
..and is to be seen everywhere.
The PM has renamed them...
..the Home Guard. Much nicer...
..and more appropriate.
Many ofthem are old soldiers and lookjolly tough and solid.
Brian Poole, a young man fond of stamp collecting and model aeroplanes,...
..was keen to learn about killing:
l'll be 17 on Wednesday next and old enough tojoin...
..the local Defence Volunteers.
l broke the news gradually to my mother two nights ago.
She thinks l'm too young to fight, but l don't think she'll try to stop me.
The thing l'm dreadin' is the army boots.
Big hefty things with studs in the bottom.
The first day in my army boots.
Oh, no! Each one weighs a ton, l should think!
lt's very exciting learnin' how to...
..advance in short rushes, bayonet chargin'
What we want is not to shoot the Boche...
..but to bayonet him. That which the Germans don't like-cold steel.
We've had grand instructions on bayonets from Dad:
Where to stick it-in the throat, in the lungs or in the stomach,...
..giving it a twist as you pull it out.
We're to fight guerrilla warfare: how to kill a sentry without making any noise...
..and such as that.
Oh, boy! What fun!
Things like this l would never have done before the war!
# lt's a hap-hap-hap-py day!
Less of a lark were the regulations and the busybodies.
From Ponders End, London, Maude Ceeley:
We have had a silence campaign...
..and have been threatened with such dreadful penalties for chattering...
..that we've been afraid to talk. There was a notion of muzzling the press,...
..but of course this won't do in England.
We are fighting for freedom.
And then there was the rationing,...
..the making do,...
..and the queues for absolutely everything.
Tea is rationed: two ounces per head per week.
As we are six in a family it's enough for us.
We can't get condensed milk, or eggs, now.
Golden syrup is also off.
We all had two pounds of sugar a head last week forjam-making.
l've also dug some potatoes.
They are yielding well.
# He's up each morning
# Bright and early
Women responded to the appeal of the King's mother, Queen Mary,...
..to put on a uniform.
(Queen Mary) The time has come for every woman in the country...
..to answer the call to service.
# Hear him pecking out a melody
# Peck-peck-pecking at the same old tree
# He's as happy as a bumblebee
#All day long
# Come on and try his rhythm,...
# Tick-tick
# Come on and try his rhythm
#And let your heart beat with him quick-quick
# Just listen to that tick-a-tick, tick-a-tick
# Tick-a-tick
# Happy little woodpecker's song!
Then the heavy bombing of British cities began.
The Blitz.
ln London, journalist Phyllis Warner...
..recorded her changing reaction to this war from the skies:
About one o'clock l heard the sound of an approaching bomber for the first time:
An appalling shriek like a train whistle growing nearer and nearer...
..and then a sickening crash reverberating through the earth.
At intervals through the night...
..we heard the same dreaded sound and, each time,...
..as we held our breaths in relief at our own escape,...
..we knew that somewhere else agony and horror had struck.
15 September.
The mornings are marvellous. lt's such a triumph...
..to wake up alive,...
..to find the sun shining and to have a whole day before you.
Of course, the ultimate horror is being buried alive.
People have already been dug out...
..after four days,...
..and there must be some who haven't ever been got out.
8 October.
A bad night last night.
Something dropped that rocked the ground beneath us.
lt did colossal damage.
There were arms and legs scattered all over the surrounding streets.
Sweet boys, the Nazis.
November 12. lt's pretty certain that if you can stand up to...
..the first month of bombing...
..you can stand up to it indefinitely. ln the first week l'd have run away...
..if l'd had the chance. Now l wouldn't want to be anywhere but in London.
ln the heaviest period of bombing between September 1940...
..and May 1941,...
..40,000 people were killed...
..and over two million homes destroyed.
The worst ofthe Blitz was over, but in the years ahead...
..there would still be attacks by the Luftwaffe.
This daylight raid on two buses in Bristol...
..was recorded by amateur film-maker Rai Lawrence.
But by the spring of 1941 the Battle of Britain had been won.
German plans for an invasion were postponed.
Hitler prepared for a new war:
An invasion ofthe Soviet Union.
Terror in the East.
By the spring of 1941, Hitler had decided...
..to break the pact with Stalin. Under the codename Operation Barbarossa...
..he planned the invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Führer's strategy for genocide was recorded in the diary...
..of his Chief of Staff, General Franz Halder:
Meeting with the Führer. He talks about Barbarossa.
He says we must get away from the idea of...
..soldierly comradeship.
This is a war of extermination.
The struggle will be very different from the one in the West.
ln the East, toughness now means mildness in the future.
The leaders must make sacrifices...
..and overcome their scruples.
Three million men began to move to the East.
21-year-old Adolf Görtz from Cologne wrote about the confusion:
6 June 1941.
Lots of rumours.
You can feel that something big is going to happen. For weeks now...
..military trains have been rolling day and night to the East.
Why are troops going to the East? We have a treaty with the Russians.
Shouldn't we be fighting England? Shouldn't we finish offthe Tommies?
On the eve of Operation Barbarossa...
..officers toasted the largest invasion force...
..in history.
On 22June...
..Adolf Görtz heard that German troops had crossed the border:
At first we couldn't believe it.
Heinz stormed into our room and yelled "War!"
"We have war with Russia!"
Now war has really started. But everyone thinks the war will be over in four weeks.
The Führer must know what he's doing.
ln Leningrad, student Yelena Skrjabina...
..listened to the Sovietforeign minister, Molotov, on the radio.
Molotov was talking fast, as if he was short of breath.
His encouraging appeal sounded...
..completely out of place.
l immediately felt as if a threatening slow-moving monster was approaching...
..and frightening everyone in its path.
Over 3,000 tanks attacked on three fronts, stretching nearly 1,000 miles...
..from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
On 28 June, Soviet soldier Alexander Golikov wrote to his wife:
Dear Tonechka, l don't know whether you will ever read these words.
But l know for sure that...
..this is my last letter.
A fight is on-a heated, deadly fight.
Our tank has been hit.
Fascists are all around us.
The Ostrovsky Street is filled with corpses.
They look like large motionless lizards.
lt is unbearably hot...
..and l'm thirsty.
Your portrait is lying on my knees.
l am looking at it, into your light blue eyes.
Don't cry.
You probably won't come to my grave.
Will l have a grave?
The day he wrote this letter...
..Alexander Golikov was killed.
The German advance was rapid, up to 40 miles a day,...
..capturing vast areas ofthe Soviet Union.
Arkady Perventsev,...
..Russian war correspondent:
Each day is full of human and Russian tragedy.
The war goes on, tragic and cruel.
Smolensk has fallen.
Bessarabia, Tiraspol,...
..Zhitomir, Minsk, Riga,...
..Orsha, Bobruisk, Novograd-Volynskiy,...
..Kamenets-Podolskiy,...
..and many others.
All have fallen.
The Ukraine is ablaze.
Belorussia is burning.
The fire of war is approaching central Russia.
Over three million Soviet soldiers were captured.
German Private Benno Zieser...
..witnessed the tragic procession.
We suddenly saw a broad earth-brown crocodile...
..slowly shuffling down the road towards us.
From it came a subdued hum, like that from a beehive.
Prisoners of war.
Russians.
We quickly moved away from the foul cloud that surrounded them. Then...
..what we saw transfixed us...
..and we forgot our nausea.
Were these really human beings, these grey-brown figures,...
..these shadows lurching towards us? Moving shapes...
..at their last gasp.
Creatures, which only some last flicker of will to live enabled them to march.
All the misery ofthe world...
..seemed to be concentrated here.
Battlefield brutality and years of propaganda...
..had created a hatred and a contempt...
..which made the killing of prisoners permissible.
21-year-old Hugo Lapp...
..was a gunner with Panzer Group 23:
Dear Mother, each time when l look in the faces...
..of the captured Russians,...
..and l see the scum oftheir Asian vile,...
..then l am convinced over and over again that this battle is necessary...
..to guarantee the survival of our homeland and culture.
Often we don't have time to take prisoners,...
..and, in order that they can't attack us from our backs, we bump them off...
..there and then.
All this killing requires strong nerves.
One of our lads couldn't take it any longer.
He killed himself.
He leaves a wife, parents, and two children behind.
Yours always, your youngest son.
ln six months, 600,000 Soviet prisoners of war died.
(cheering)
ln August 1941,...
..Hitler visited the Eastern Front. Euphoric from German victories,...
..the vision of a thousand-year Reich, a new world order,...
..was still clear in the mind ofthe Führer.
German tanks were approaching Moscow.
ln the Soviet capital there was panic...
..and fear oftotal collapse.
German Colonel Kress shared the Führer's confidence:
September 1941.
There is no need for us to be in a hurry for Moscow.
Russia's throwing more and more troops against us makes no difference to us.
We will take Moscow...
..when we want to.
But the Germans were beginning to respect their enemy:
The Russians are very tenacious in defence, and particularly skilful...
..in constructing fortifications. We cannot deny the Bolsheviks' courage...
..and contempt for death.
We have not been confronted by such an opponent before.
By December 1941, the Germans had still failed to take Moscow.
There would be many years of bloodshed ahead.
Then... the United States entered the war.
(Roosevelt) December 7, 1941.
A date which will live...
..in infamy.
After President Roosevelt addressed the nation,...
..George Radamaker ofthe US Navy...
..wrote in his diary:
Well, it's come at last.
Japan has bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,...
..and the city of Honolulu.
Listened to flashes over the radio.
The consensus of opinion is that the whole world...
..will be in actual conflict by this afternoon.
A European conflict...
..had become a world war.
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