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To tell the story
of the Second World War
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in 26 hours of film on television,
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each film to be an essay
on an aspect of the war,
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taking in, as well as the fighting,
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the social and political experience
of the countries involved;
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to present Britain's war
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and to compare and contrast it with the
effort and suffering of other nations;
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to appeal, if we could, to different
audiences of different age groups,
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presenting events to those
who experienced them
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in, if possible, a new light,
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and to their children,
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without the crusty covering
of another generation's nostalgia;
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to omit nothing of supreme consequence,
but to leave out a very great deal,
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rather than try to cram everything
into the limited airtime available;
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to produce programmes worth watching
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which might also help us understand
the times in which we live:
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that's what I and my colleagues
at Thames Television set out to achieve
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in The World At War.
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The series has now been sold
and seen all over the world,
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and in the U nited States,
since it was finished,
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it's never been off the screen.
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It's the making of that series
that I'm going to tell you about now.
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I was seven years old in 1939,
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and most of the people who worked
with me on The World At War
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were younger than l,
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born, like more than three-quarters of
all Germans and Japanese alive today,
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after the war began
or even since it ended.
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Not many of us knew all that much
about the war.
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Distanced by a generation,
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we were not interested
in just another telling
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of our parents' old soldiers' tales.
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Old men forget, particularly
when it hurts to remember.
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And many in Britain
had happy memories of the war.
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They remembered the excitement,
the danger, the comradeship, the fun.
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But Britain was bombed, not invaded,
not occupied, not fought over.
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Britain's war was not Poland's war
and not Russia's war.
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The Desert Rats and the Africa Corps
shared a common experience.
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Theirs was a clean war;
there were no civilians in the way.
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Theirs was a very different war
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from that of Poles or Yugoslavs
or U krainians,
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who met and suffered
under the Gestapo and the SS.
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Most of us were British
on the production team,
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but we would try to do justice
to others' grimmer experience.
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There was bravery, heroism,
glory, even, in it.
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But the Second World War
caused untold suffering
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and cost many millions of lives.
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It was important that the series
should begin as we meant it to go on,
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and The World At War began like this.
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(narrator) Down this road on
a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came.
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Nobody lives here now.
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They stayed only a few hours.
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When they had gone,
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a community which had lived
for a thousand years, was dead.
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This is Oradour-sur-Glane in France.
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The day the soldiers came
the people were gathered together.
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The men were taken
to garages and barns,
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the women and children
were led down this road,
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and they were driven into this church.
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Here, they heard the firing
as their men were shot.
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Then they were killed, too.
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A few weeks later
many of those who had done the killing
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were themselves dead in battle.
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They never rebuilt Oradour.
lts ruins are a memorial.
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lts martyrdom stands for thousand
upon thousand of other martyrdoms
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in Poland, in Russia,
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in Burma, in China,
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in a world at war.
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We started work in April 1971.
The time was right.
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Some vital witnesses were already dead
when we started
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and all were getting older.
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Often our researchers were told,
"lf only you'd called last week."
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The fellow they were looking for
had died only the other day.
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The first problem
would be what to leave out.
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There simply couldn't, wouldn't be room,
even in 26 hours of television,
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to do justice to everyone.
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I'm not a military historian.
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I asked our historical adviser,
Dr Noble Frankland,
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then director
of the lmperial War Museum,
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to write down for me
on one sheet of paper,
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he actually used an envelope,
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not more than 15 decisive campaigns
which I mustn't omit.
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I wanted each film that we made to tell
only one story, as all good films do.
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And I asked for a list
of only 15 military subjects
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because I had different plans for
the other dozen or so programmes.
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There would be one programme
on the causes of the war.
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There would be one
to deal with the results.
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There would be programmes on the war
economy, the politics, the morale
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of each of the major five combatants:
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America, Britain, Germany,
Japan, Soviet Russia.
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The Second World War was total war.
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In it, civilians were in the front line
in the factories and under the bombs.
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And they suffered as many casualties
as did the men and women in uniform.
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In the First World War,
the point is AJP Taylor's,
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the news that a relative had been killed
came in the telegram from the front,
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telling a wife that she was widowed.
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In the Second World War,
the news quite often went the other way.
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The British soldier in Africa,
in ltaly and in France,
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would learn in a letter from home
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that his parents or his wife
had been killed in the Blitz on London,
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on Coventry, on Plymouth.
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And many a German fighting man
on the Eastern Front, say,
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must have heard
that he'd lost his family
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in the fires of Hamburg,
Cologne and Dresden,
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and perhaps fought on
all the harder for it.
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There would be a programme
on occupied Europe.
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The moral choices faced by those
who live under tyranny
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have a compelling fascination for me
and I think for us all.
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"What would I have done?"
we ask ourselves.
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"Raised my voice? Acted?"
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"Risked my life?
Risked my family's life?"
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"Stayed silent? Done nothing?"
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"Collaborated, perhaps?"
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In Nazi-occupied Europe,
everyone had to choose.
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There would be a programme on what
the Nazi doctrine of racial supremacy
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did to the Jews.
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This is not a military subject, it
doesn't appear in military histories,
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but I couldn't leave it out.
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Our historical adviser made a list of
military musts on one sheet of paper.
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It read : The German attack on Poland.
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The German attack in the West,
leading to the fall of France.
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The battle for Britain.
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The German invasion of Russia.
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Pearl Harbor
and the Japanese sweep to Singapore.
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The battle of the Atlantic:
war against the U-Boat.
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The war in the western desert.
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Stalingrad :
the first massive German defeat.
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The Allied air assault on Germany.
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Russia's great victories of 1943,
particularly at Kursk,
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the biggest tank battle in history.
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It was clear, by the way,
that one object of the series
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must be to try to help people
to be aware
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of the importance of the Eastern Front.
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The vast Russian and then
the vast German losses there.
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Battles in which millions
fought on either side.
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Two-thirds of all Germans who fought
fought on the Eastern Front.
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The campaign in ltaly.
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The Allied invasion of Europe
in Normandy in June 1944.
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The land assault on Germany itself
in the battle for Berlin.
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Naval air war in the Pacific.
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American industrial might,
as well as Russian manpower,
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assured victory in both wars
in Europe and in Asia.
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The dropping of the atomic bomb.
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And each of these great themes
would have only one hour.
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Burma squeezed in
because it had been forgotten
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and because it looked different.
The film was wet with monsoon.
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But there was no room
for Abyssinia or Syria or Dakar,
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and only a mention of Dieppe
and of the Arctic convoys
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and nothing on Yugoslavia,
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where in civil war and in resistance,
1.5 million lost their lives.
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And there'd be nothing on the fate of
Europe's gypsies, all but exterminated,
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and no film on Poland,
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though according to some estimates
one in three Poles died.
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We wouldn't be able to deal
with the experiences
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of particular regiments or divisions,
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though when we'd finished,
lots of folk wrote in
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to tell us that they'd served
in the best damn flying squadron
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or fighting regiment in World War ll.
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Our style would be simple.
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No narration to camera,
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no authority to fix the viewer with
his eye, as I am looking at you now.
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You can do without the piece to camera
in handling 20th-century history
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when there are plenty of visual
documents and eye witnesses available.
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You can't deal so easily
with earlier centuries.
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Nor would we venture into the dangerous
territory of reconstruction.
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If there were no visual records of an
event, we would look for eye witnesses.
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If there were none adequate
to tell the story for television,
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or if we could find
no other honest way to tell it,
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we might have to leave
the subject matter out.
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Resistance in Europe
suffered as a subject.
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There's no film of it
and we hardly touched it.
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Sea battles suffered also.
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There's very little film
of battles at sea
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and the same goes
for battles fought at night.
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We used diagrams, therefore,
and graphics
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to show what a U-boat assault
on a convoy was like.
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But our rule was, don't invent,
don't reconstruct,
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don't use material that you know
to have been reconstructed
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unless you absolutely have to,
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and don't do so even then
without saying that you're going to.
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When the Russian army
closed the ring round Von Paulus
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and the German 6th Army at Stalingrad,
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newsreel film shows two masses of troops
advancing towards each other
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in long, long Eisensteinian lines
across the snow,
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meeting to embrace with warm bear hugs
just opposite, would you believe,
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the Soviet newsreel's camera position.
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We made the point when we used the film.
For our film on the Western Desert,
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we didn't use the bits of desert victory
that were shot at Pinewood.
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We used to look very suspiciously at,
but we sometimes did use,
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battle scenes where the camera
is suspiciously steady
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or is apparently quite safe in a
supposedly dangerously exposed position.
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We met some Sherwood Foresters
who fought from El Alamein to Tunis
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and from Anzio to Rome.
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One of their most frightening encounters
though was with Pathé Gazette.
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We got pulled out the... well,
we were out of the line at the time.
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Of course, this...
I don't know what officer it was,
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but he detailed so many of us
to go to a certain place in this truck.
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And when we got there, he gave us...
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"Right," he said, "put these on."
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German green uniforms
and Jerry helmets.
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I thought, "What the hell...?"
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"What are they going to do, drop us
back over German lines or summat?"
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Anyway, he said,
"No, you're alright," he says.
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"Here you are, take these."
He gave us a box of fireworks...
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These crackers.
Firecrackers, we used to call them.
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"Go in that wood," he says,
"and act as Germans," he says.
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"And such and such platoon
will come and capture you."
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"When you see them coming,
throw these crackers."
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So when we saw them coming, we were
throwing crackers and firing blanks.
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Of course the English platoon
came and captured us
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and we had to go out in this wood
looking frightened to death
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with our hands up.
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And this fellow was up on this truck
with his camera. Pathé Gazette.
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That was British news. That was
in the cinema, that was, at home.
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The reconstruction of history on film
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is not only, unless it's clearly
labelled, deceptive in itself,
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it also devalues authentic material
used alongside it.
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There was plenty of film.
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The lmperial War Museum told us
that they had 20 million feet.
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They hoped we'd look at it all
and tell them what was in it.
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Of course we never had time to do so.
Partly because there was so much
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and partly because viewing films
stored in vaults
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was then a slow, cumbersome,
but in the end productive, process.
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The camera cannot lie.
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But those who use film,
especially in wartime,
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are no more honest than the rest of us.
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The newsreels of the Second World War
were shot by brave cameramen
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and they used bulky equipment:
35mm cameras, often on tripods.
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Many war cameramen lost their lives,
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but it's important to remember that
the material which they bravely filmed
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was edited and censored in the editing
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to make the points
the government wanted made.
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Propaganda to cheer the home front,
seduce the neutrals, frighten the enemy.
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Look now at two examples of newsreel,
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00:17:09,276 --> 00:17:13,780
one British, one German,
in the summer of 1940.
235
00:17:13,865 --> 00:17:15,616
France has fallen.
236
00:17:15,700 --> 00:17:19,035
♪ When the soldiers
march through the city
237
00:17:19,118 --> 00:17:21,287
♪ Open the girls
238
00:17:21,370 --> 00:17:23,246
♪ The windows and the doors
239
00:17:23,331 --> 00:17:27,918
♪ Why? That's why
240
00:17:28,044 --> 00:17:31,462
♪ Just because of the Schingderassa,
Bumderassasa
241
00:17:31,546 --> 00:17:35,549
♪ Just because of the Schingderassa,
Bumderassasa...
242
00:17:35,634 --> 00:17:40,594
(newsreel) Hitler in July 1940,
returning from France in triumph,
243
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:42,932
stood at the pinnacle of his power.
244
00:17:43,015 --> 00:17:44,807
♪ The girls love it too
245
00:17:44,892 --> 00:17:49,062
♪ Why? That's why
246
00:17:49,146 --> 00:17:57,653
♪ Ei bloß wegen dem Schingderassa,
Bumderassasa
247
00:18:07,370 --> 00:18:11,747
The speed and sureness of his victories
had astonished even his generals.
248
00:18:11,831 --> 00:18:15,626
Their doubts had been answered,
their opposition could be discounted.
249
00:18:19,213 --> 00:18:24,968
It was now that Hitler confided to them
it would be the Russians' turn next.
250
00:18:32,140 --> 00:18:34,517
The British were ready for invasion.
251
00:18:37,646 --> 00:18:41,064
The one-time foot-sloggers
have turned kick-starter pushers.
252
00:18:41,149 --> 00:18:43,817
Shanks's pony has given way
to a spanking motorbike.
253
00:18:43,902 --> 00:18:48,279
The left-right, left-right blokes
have both feet off the ground.
254
00:18:48,406 --> 00:18:51,073
They're part of Britain's
mighty mobile mounties,
255
00:18:51,157 --> 00:18:55,576
all keen to welcome Adolf when he drops
in for a cup of tea and a cream bun.
256
00:18:55,662 --> 00:18:58,330
A battalion of infantry on wheels
is on exercise.
257
00:18:58,414 --> 00:19:02,917
A swift-moving striking force
that will do the enemy a bit of no good.
258
00:19:03,002 --> 00:19:05,253
They learn to take the rough
with the smooth
259
00:19:05,337 --> 00:19:08,464
under conditions they might meet with
on active service.
260
00:19:08,548 --> 00:19:12,341
U p and down they go, but unlike the Hun
they're always on the level.
261
00:19:13,261 --> 00:19:17,014
"Always on the level."
"A cup of tea and a cream bun."
262
00:19:17,097 --> 00:19:22,059
I don't know what those commentaries
did to the enemy, but they frighten me.
263
00:19:22,143 --> 00:19:24,895
Although we added a commentary
to the German film
264
00:19:25,022 --> 00:19:27,230
to integrate it into our narrative,
265
00:19:27,315 --> 00:19:31,400
you can detect very clearly, I think,
the intention of each of those.
266
00:19:31,485 --> 00:19:34,278
The Germans showing Hitler triumphant.
267
00:19:34,362 --> 00:19:38,114
The German nation,
as we know now, overconfident.
268
00:19:38,241 --> 00:19:41,909
The British whistling absurdly
to keep their courage up.
269
00:19:41,994 --> 00:19:46,497
There wasn't a tank, Anthony Eden told
us, in the southeast corner of England.
270
00:19:46,581 --> 00:19:49,833
And the contrast of style is compelling.
271
00:19:49,917 --> 00:19:54,045
Nazi Germany had perfected
the art of film as propaganda,
272
00:19:54,129 --> 00:19:58,799
as a political instrument to bind
the German people to their leader.
273
00:19:58,884 --> 00:20:02,261
All the lavish skills of camera
and of editing
274
00:20:02,345 --> 00:20:06,931
that went into Triumph of the Will
went into that.
275
00:20:07,016 --> 00:20:11,353
We would use newsreels. Without them
there'd be no television series.
276
00:20:11,436 --> 00:20:14,021
But we'd try to use them critically,
277
00:20:14,105 --> 00:20:20,276
bearing in mind that the war that the
newsreels show is an acceptable war.
278
00:20:20,361 --> 00:20:23,154
They don't show blood and wounds
279
00:20:23,238 --> 00:20:28,283
and they don't bring us the cries
of pain or the stink of corpses.
280
00:20:29,077 --> 00:20:32,912
Most newsreels are taken
by winning armies.
281
00:20:32,997 --> 00:20:36,957
They show the victories,
but they don't show the cost.
282
00:20:37,042 --> 00:20:40,586
The newsreels of the Second World War,
as a matter of fact,
283
00:20:40,670 --> 00:20:45,381
show much more preparation for battle
than actual battle.
284
00:20:45,466 --> 00:20:50,010
They show our boys in victory,
their boys in defeat.
285
00:20:50,095 --> 00:20:53,680
Lots of prisoners, very few captors.
286
00:20:53,765 --> 00:21:00,685
They show the dealing of death : guns
firing, planes diving, bombs dropping.
287
00:21:00,772 --> 00:21:04,565
Newsreels do not show
the dead or dying.
288
00:21:04,690 --> 00:21:08,652
The censors mostly cut them out.
289
00:21:08,778 --> 00:21:12,406
More honest than the cut newsreel
are the cameraman's rushes,
290
00:21:12,489 --> 00:21:14,031
if you can find them.
291
00:21:14,117 --> 00:21:17,993
These are the raw material from which
the film editor under supervision
292
00:21:18,078 --> 00:21:21,204
will hack out a short, crisp,
punchy story
293
00:21:21,288 --> 00:21:23,748
with effects, music
and commentary added,
294
00:21:23,834 --> 00:21:26,292
which will eventually
reach the screen.
295
00:21:26,378 --> 00:21:30,796
Most cameramen's rushes are destroyed,
but some survive.
296
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:33,257
After the Germans
in their years of victory,
297
00:21:33,341 --> 00:21:35,592
the best pictures
of the Second World War
298
00:21:35,676 --> 00:21:39,512
were taken by the other great nation
with an advanced film culture,
299
00:21:39,596 --> 00:21:41,139
the U nited States.
300
00:21:41,266 --> 00:21:45,601
Here are the marines
in February 1945 at lwo Jima.
301
00:21:59,113 --> 00:22:00,489
Have you noticed?
302
00:22:06,411 --> 00:22:07,620
It's silent.
303
00:22:11,709 --> 00:22:15,710
I suppose a radio journalist might have
used a microphone on this beach,
304
00:22:15,795 --> 00:22:19,630
but the cameraman
could get by perfectly without.
305
00:22:22,801 --> 00:22:26,636
Because by the time that anybody
had made any use of it,
306
00:22:26,722 --> 00:22:31,766
a commentary and music, perhaps fairly
strident music, would have been added.
307
00:22:40,192 --> 00:22:42,567
It's all a bit of a shambles, isn't it?
308
00:22:56,039 --> 00:22:57,455
It's filmed in colour.
309
00:22:57,582 --> 00:23:01,751
The Americans, particularly
in the last 18 months or so of the war,
310
00:23:01,836 --> 00:23:04,504
were filming pretty well everything
in colour.
311
00:23:42,412 --> 00:23:44,664
Look...
312
00:23:44,747 --> 00:23:47,541
Shelling there, but no bang.
313
00:23:47,626 --> 00:23:49,333
The bang goes on later.
314
00:23:50,586 --> 00:23:54,672
In our work we tried to keep something
of the roughness,
315
00:23:54,756 --> 00:23:56,966
the repetitions of this footage
316
00:23:57,050 --> 00:24:00,094
by matching it to the voices
of those that were there
317
00:24:00,178 --> 00:24:03,595
and who remembered what chaos
and what hell it had been.
318
00:24:05,140 --> 00:24:08,476
You don't see rushes on television
very often.
319
00:24:08,561 --> 00:24:10,520
Had we found more film rushes,
320
00:24:10,604 --> 00:24:14,022
we would have presented,
particularly in earlier episodes,
321
00:24:14,107 --> 00:24:15,898
a less tidy war.
322
00:24:17,402 --> 00:24:20,652
When you watch The World At War,
you're watching not my work
323
00:24:20,737 --> 00:24:24,073
but the combined skills
of many of us, about 50,
324
00:24:24,157 --> 00:24:26,449
who worked together for three years.
325
00:24:26,534 --> 00:24:29,828
Writers, producers, researchers,
graphic artists,
326
00:24:29,913 --> 00:24:33,748
film editors, sound editors
and a dubbing mixer.
327
00:24:33,833 --> 00:24:38,085
Here's what were once rushes
when that lot had finished with them.
328
00:24:38,169 --> 00:24:42,463
Any sound that you'll hear
on this next clip, we added.
329
00:24:42,549 --> 00:24:46,134
It's June 1944 in the Marianas
330
00:24:46,218 --> 00:24:50,721
and this is our version of the great
naval air battle of the Philippine Sea.
331
00:24:50,806 --> 00:24:53,015
The first shot is a phoney.
332
00:25:25,251 --> 00:25:31,089
Many Japanese pilots were comparative
novices with no battle experience.
333
00:25:33,384 --> 00:25:36,720
Their aircraft were poorly armoured.
334
00:25:39,056 --> 00:25:42,225
For the American flyers
swooping down on their opponents,
335
00:25:42,351 --> 00:25:45,311
it was as easy as shooting turkeys.
336
00:26:05,788 --> 00:26:10,415
After the first encounter, all but one
of the American planes returned.
337
00:26:36,857 --> 00:26:41,567
Rearmed and refuelled, the Americans
were ready for the next Japanese move.
338
00:26:41,652 --> 00:26:44,444
There were two more onslaughts
to be faced.
339
00:26:44,530 --> 00:26:48,323
However, the Americans
had nearly 900 carrier planes,
340
00:26:48,408 --> 00:26:51,326
twice the number of the Japanese.
341
00:26:55,456 --> 00:26:59,876
The Marianas turkey shoot
lasted just eight hours.
342
00:27:01,253 --> 00:27:06,673
In one day, Japanese naval air power
was virtually destroyed.
343
00:27:06,799 --> 00:27:11,760
The original force of 430 planes
was reduced to about 100.
344
00:27:23,272 --> 00:27:26,482
American losses
were comparatively light.
345
00:27:26,568 --> 00:27:29,777
Pilots mattered more than machines.
346
00:28:01,054 --> 00:28:05,932
I hope you can hear the contrast between
that film as it ended up on the screen
347
00:28:06,018 --> 00:28:08,101
and the rushes with which we started,
348
00:28:08,187 --> 00:28:11,937
even if we started with newsreels
from which we stripped their sound
349
00:28:12,023 --> 00:28:13,815
before we got to work again.
350
00:28:13,940 --> 00:28:19,111
Sometimes the exception : film
that needed no polishing, no cutting.
351
00:28:19,197 --> 00:28:22,655
Film that went in raw, as rushes.
352
00:28:22,742 --> 00:28:26,993
This next clip was used in a film
I made at the end of the series
353
00:28:27,078 --> 00:28:28,368
called Remember.
354
00:28:28,454 --> 00:28:31,747
Our film researcher Raye Farr
found it in some cans
355
00:28:31,832 --> 00:28:35,794
in a corner in the archive at Koblenz
that no one else had looked at.
356
00:28:35,877 --> 00:28:39,421
It's film taken by
a German cameraman in Russia
357
00:28:39,506 --> 00:28:43,841
not at the front, but filming quietly
behind the German lines.
358
00:28:43,927 --> 00:28:46,219
Again, there's no sound on it.
359
00:28:54,310 --> 00:28:56,894
We think that this remarkable cameraman
360
00:28:56,979 --> 00:29:00,523
had licence to shoot
just what interested him.
361
00:29:00,607 --> 00:29:04,400
Perhaps one day he was going to try
to make a documentary out of it.
362
00:29:11,575 --> 00:29:13,076
What seems to be happening
363
00:29:13,159 --> 00:29:16,661
is that a couple of soldiers
and a corporal in this village
364
00:29:16,746 --> 00:29:21,332
are separating men from women
and children, dividing up families.
365
00:29:34,303 --> 00:29:36,804
Either the men or perhaps the women
366
00:29:36,888 --> 00:29:41,058
are being selected
for forced labour, I think.
367
00:29:44,019 --> 00:29:46,145
Anyway, they have a pretty good idea
368
00:29:46,231 --> 00:29:48,940
that they may never
see each other again.
369
00:30:26,056 --> 00:30:29,391
If you watch carefully in a moment,
you can see a dog.
370
00:30:30,352 --> 00:30:32,896
We always used to look out for dogs
in rushes.
371
00:30:41,737 --> 00:30:45,239
There's the dog. Here it comes.
No barking.
372
00:30:49,076 --> 00:30:55,414
Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill were
dead and not available for interview.
373
00:30:55,499 --> 00:31:00,585
The field marshals had published their
memoirs and had little left to say.
374
00:31:00,670 --> 00:31:04,340
The witnesses that we sought
would be of a lower rank.
375
00:31:04,423 --> 00:31:06,341
For their personal experiences,
376
00:31:06,425 --> 00:31:10,761
we were interested in the simple serving
man and woman and in the civilian.
377
00:31:10,845 --> 00:31:14,264
They could tell us
what had happened to them.
378
00:31:14,349 --> 00:31:18,602
For our narrative,
we needed the witness to great events.
379
00:31:18,686 --> 00:31:21,187
The man at the commander's elbow,
380
00:31:21,271 --> 00:31:24,398
the fellow in the statesman's
private office.
381
00:31:24,483 --> 00:31:27,400
Our researchers turned up quite a list.
382
00:31:27,485 --> 00:31:31,947
Churchill's private secretary,
RooseveIt's and Truman's aides,
383
00:31:32,030 --> 00:31:36,241
members of Hirohito's cabinet,
Eisenhower's mistress,
384
00:31:36,368 --> 00:31:40,453
Hitler's typist, Himmler's adjutant.
385
00:31:40,538 --> 00:31:43,289
Some historians
doubt television's ability
386
00:31:43,375 --> 00:31:47,627
to handle such witnesses critically
as source material.
387
00:31:47,711 --> 00:31:49,712
Well, you have to do the best you can
388
00:31:49,797 --> 00:31:54,508
and check out what your witnesses say
against what other people have to say.
389
00:31:54,592 --> 00:31:57,844
Listen to the late John McCloy.
390
00:31:57,929 --> 00:32:00,721
America is about to defeat Japan.
391
00:32:00,807 --> 00:32:03,682
We gathered up our papers
and started to go out,
392
00:32:03,768 --> 00:32:05,725
and Mr Truman spotted me and said :
393
00:32:05,852 --> 00:32:10,855
"Mr McCloy, nobody gets out of this room
without voting or expressing himself -
394
00:32:10,982 --> 00:32:12,273
everybody else has."
395
00:32:12,358 --> 00:32:15,859
"Do you think I have
any other alternative?"
396
00:32:15,944 --> 00:32:18,946
I looked over at Colonel Stimson -
397
00:32:19,073 --> 00:32:20,614
he liked to be called Colonel,
398
00:32:20,699 --> 00:32:25,326
he'd been colonel of a regiment
in World War l, rather than Secretary.
399
00:32:25,411 --> 00:32:29,288
I looked over at Stimson
and he nodded, he said, "Go ahead."
400
00:32:29,373 --> 00:32:31,541
So I started in,
and I said that I thought
401
00:32:31,624 --> 00:32:35,085
we ought to have our heads examined
402
00:32:35,169 --> 00:32:40,715
if we didn't begin to think in terms
of a political culmination of the war
403
00:32:40,799 --> 00:32:43,009
rather than a military one.
404
00:32:43,092 --> 00:32:46,970
And I said I'd give them some terms.
405
00:32:47,054 --> 00:32:50,557
I'd send a message over to them,
I'd spell out the terms.
406
00:32:50,683 --> 00:32:54,978
And Mr Truman said, "Well, what are
your terms? What would you do?"
407
00:32:55,061 --> 00:33:00,066
I hadn't prepared for the actual
dictation of the surrender terms,
408
00:33:00,150 --> 00:33:05,194
but I said, "ln the first place,
I'd say you can have the mikado,
409
00:33:05,279 --> 00:33:07,613
but he's got to be
a constitutional monarch -
410
00:33:07,697 --> 00:33:10,825
you've got to have a representative
form of government."
411
00:33:10,951 --> 00:33:16,245
"You can have access to, but not
control over, foreign raw materials
412
00:33:16,330 --> 00:33:19,957
so you can have a viable economy."
And I spelled it out as best I could.
413
00:33:20,042 --> 00:33:23,169
And I'd say, "Besides that,
we've got a new force,
414
00:33:23,253 --> 00:33:31,217
and it's in the form of a new type of
energy that will revolutionise warfare,
415
00:33:31,343 --> 00:33:35,888
destructive beyond any contemplation."
I said I'd mention the bomb.
416
00:33:35,973 --> 00:33:40,975
Well, mentioning the bomb, even at
that late date, in that select group,
417
00:33:41,061 --> 00:33:42,853
it was like they were all shocked
418
00:33:42,936 --> 00:33:45,981
because it was such
a closely guarded secret.
419
00:33:46,065 --> 00:33:49,691
It was comparable to mentioning
Skull and Bones at Yale,
420
00:33:49,777 --> 00:33:52,652
which you're not supposed to do.
421
00:33:52,737 --> 00:33:55,529
But Mr Truman said,
"This is just the sort of thing
422
00:33:55,615 --> 00:33:59,034
I was trying to reach for -
get that all spelled out."
423
00:33:59,117 --> 00:34:03,120
At that point Stimson did come in
and joined support for my position,
424
00:34:03,205 --> 00:34:06,581
but then later on Mr Byrnes,
who was then secretary of state,
425
00:34:06,665 --> 00:34:13,254
who was not present, vetoed the idea
of offering them the mikado.
426
00:34:13,339 --> 00:34:18,342
One can only speculate
as to what would have happened
427
00:34:18,425 --> 00:34:21,845
if we had put the message
to the Japanese
428
00:34:21,930 --> 00:34:25,014
in the form that I indicated,
including the mikado.
429
00:34:25,099 --> 00:34:29,685
I always had the feeling, in view of
some of the information we've had since
430
00:34:29,770 --> 00:34:36,817
of the tendency on the part of some
of the real military hotheads in Japan,
431
00:34:36,901 --> 00:34:39,735
to think that this was perhaps
the best way out,
432
00:34:39,820 --> 00:34:44,281
that we might have been able
to avoid the dropping of the bomb.
433
00:34:44,366 --> 00:34:47,534
Mr McCloy rings true to me.
434
00:34:47,660 --> 00:34:51,371
One of our researchers, Sue McConachy,
a fluent German speaker,
435
00:34:51,455 --> 00:34:54,082
was given
the most difficult task of all,
436
00:34:54,165 --> 00:35:00,087
that of finding ex-members of the SS and
persuading them to talk to us on film.
437
00:35:00,170 --> 00:35:02,171
Her longest and hardest search
438
00:35:02,256 --> 00:35:05,091
was for Himmler's adjutant, Karl Wolff.
439
00:35:05,176 --> 00:35:09,428
This is from her account of that search,
and I'm going to quote from it.
440
00:35:09,513 --> 00:35:13,515
"Nearly a year later,
after many phone calls
441
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:18,645
and a letter through a third party,
I finally met the old man."
442
00:35:18,728 --> 00:35:21,605
"Not in his home.
I still didn't know where that was,
443
00:35:21,690 --> 00:35:24,066
but in a hotel in Berlin."
444
00:35:24,152 --> 00:35:29,445
"He was most charming, quite unlike
the fantastic figure we'd imagined."
445
00:35:29,530 --> 00:35:34,867
"Again, the long process
of establishing trust began."
446
00:35:34,952 --> 00:35:38,454
"l visited his home several times."
447
00:35:38,538 --> 00:35:40,289
"He agreed to talk about subjects
448
00:35:40,372 --> 00:35:42,999
where he claimed
he had first-hand knowledge."
449
00:35:43,084 --> 00:35:46,794
"He wanted to explain
the ideology of the SS to us."
450
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,213
"A contract was drawn up
451
00:35:49,297 --> 00:35:54,259
which gave him the option to read
a transcript of the entire interview
452
00:35:54,342 --> 00:35:58,263
to check the factually accuracy
of what he said."
453
00:35:58,346 --> 00:36:01,264
The interview was long and tricky.
454
00:36:01,349 --> 00:36:03,767
It went on all day.
455
00:36:03,893 --> 00:36:08,146
"After lunch," Sue McConachy says,
and they're filming this,
456
00:36:08,231 --> 00:36:12,066
"After lunch, I asked him to repeat
the story that he'd told me
457
00:36:12,151 --> 00:36:16,153
one evening over supper
about an incident at Minsk
458
00:36:16,238 --> 00:36:17,738
at which he'd been present,
459
00:36:17,821 --> 00:36:21,700
when a hundred people were shot
into an open grave
460
00:36:21,783 --> 00:36:27,163
as a demonstration for Himmler,
who was sick when he saw it."
461
00:36:27,289 --> 00:36:30,124
"Wolff looked a bit surprised."
462
00:36:30,208 --> 00:36:33,126
"He'd forgotten
that he'd ever mentioned that."
463
00:36:33,212 --> 00:36:36,045
"Then the film ran out."
464
00:36:36,130 --> 00:36:41,133
"l wondered if, with time to think,
he would actually tell the story again."
465
00:36:41,219 --> 00:36:42,800
"He did."
466
00:36:42,886 --> 00:36:47,931
"l was relieved," says our researcher,
"not just because I'd got the story,
467
00:36:48,015 --> 00:36:50,433
but because he'd had the time to reflect
468
00:36:50,516 --> 00:36:53,185
on what the consequences
of telling it might be
469
00:36:53,269 --> 00:36:58,523
and I could feel less responsible
if he did in fact end up in court again
470
00:36:58,608 --> 00:37:00,400
when the programme was shown."
471
00:37:01,902 --> 00:37:04,487
Every time the lie is put about
472
00:37:04,571 --> 00:37:08,407
that there was no mass slaughter
of the Jews, no Holocaust,
473
00:37:08,491 --> 00:37:12,410
I am grateful, as the world's archives
will always be,
474
00:37:12,496 --> 00:37:14,913
to Sue McConachy and her like
475
00:37:14,997 --> 00:37:20,458
for the pains that she took
to get Karl Wolff on the record.
476
00:37:20,543 --> 00:37:26,631
She spent days with ex-SS men
and nights having nightmares about them.
477
00:37:26,715 --> 00:37:31,386
She listened to them.
She didn't judge them. Nor did l.
478
00:37:31,470 --> 00:37:36,598
I decided to leave judgement on all
our witnesses to you, the viewer.
479
00:37:36,683 --> 00:37:40,060
I don't guarantee to you
that they tell the whole truth
480
00:37:40,144 --> 00:37:43,354
or even a truth that you will accept.
481
00:37:43,438 --> 00:37:46,315
Here are three very different Germans.
482
00:37:46,399 --> 00:37:51,069
One of them is Albert Speer,
Hitler's Minister for War Production,
483
00:37:51,153 --> 00:37:53,948
telling how they knew what they knew,
484
00:37:54,031 --> 00:37:58,492
what they thought they could do
to save Europe's Jews.
485
00:37:58,577 --> 00:38:03,663
Christabel Bielenberg's husband
was a conspirator against Hitler.
486
00:38:03,748 --> 00:38:07,293
He was away from home when she was
asked to give shelter to two Jews,
487
00:38:07,376 --> 00:38:09,418
and she consulted her neighbour.
488
00:38:09,503 --> 00:38:12,587
I was astonished - overcome, really -
489
00:38:12,672 --> 00:38:15,757
at the response
that I got from my neighbour
490
00:38:15,842 --> 00:38:21,430
who told me that under no circumstances
whatsoever could I house these people,
491
00:38:21,513 --> 00:38:26,642
that housing of Jews meant concentration
camp not only for me but for my husband,
492
00:38:26,726 --> 00:38:29,478
possibly also for my children.
493
00:38:30,605 --> 00:38:34,232
I can remember going through
and out into the road
494
00:38:34,317 --> 00:38:40,612
and out of the darkness came a voice -
I knew there was somebody there -
495
00:38:40,697 --> 00:38:42,781
came a voice saying :
496
00:38:42,865 --> 00:38:46,951
"Frau Doktor... Frau Bielenberg,
497
00:38:47,037 --> 00:38:49,287
haben Sie einen Schluss gefasst?"
498
00:38:49,371 --> 00:38:52,289
which means, "Have you decided?"
499
00:38:53,334 --> 00:38:57,377
And I simply couldn't say no.
500
00:38:57,461 --> 00:39:03,507
I just said, "Well, I can't
for longer than two days."
501
00:39:06,594 --> 00:39:11,848
And I let him into the cellar.
502
00:39:13,768 --> 00:39:17,896
They stayed for two days
503
00:39:17,979 --> 00:39:22,857
and on the second day
504
00:39:22,942 --> 00:39:25,568
or rather in the evening,
they must have left
505
00:39:25,652 --> 00:39:29,030
because in the morning she was gone,
506
00:39:29,114 --> 00:39:31,240
the cellar was empty,
507
00:39:31,324 --> 00:39:35,535
the little bed I'd put up
all tidily arranged
508
00:39:35,620 --> 00:39:37,912
and they had gone.
509
00:39:39,415 --> 00:39:43,459
I knew later that they were caught
510
00:39:43,543 --> 00:39:47,213
buying a ticket at a railway station
511
00:39:47,297 --> 00:39:50,423
and were transported to Auschwitz.
512
00:39:51,467 --> 00:39:55,637
And why I say this is
the most painful and terrible story
513
00:39:55,721 --> 00:39:57,429
for me to have to tell
514
00:39:57,515 --> 00:40:00,224
is because after they left,
515
00:40:00,308 --> 00:40:06,354
I realised that Hitler
had turned me into a murderer.
516
00:40:08,607 --> 00:40:11,943
One day in '44,
517
00:40:12,026 --> 00:40:16,696
Gauleiter Hanke came in my office
and told me
518
00:40:16,781 --> 00:40:22,618
that he was visiting
a concentration camp in U pper Silesia
519
00:40:22,702 --> 00:40:27,622
and warned me never to go
in a concentration camp there
520
00:40:27,707 --> 00:40:30,834
because horrible things would happen.
521
00:40:30,918 --> 00:40:35,130
This together with other hints I got
522
00:40:35,213 --> 00:40:40,801
should have made my decision
523
00:40:40,885 --> 00:40:44,053
to go to Hitler immediately
or to Himmler
524
00:40:44,139 --> 00:40:46,889
and to ask them what is going on
525
00:40:46,975 --> 00:40:50,893
and to take my own steps.
526
00:40:50,977 --> 00:40:56,648
But I didn't do it and not doing it
was, I think nowadays,
527
00:40:56,732 --> 00:40:59,985
the biggest fault in my life.
528
00:41:00,068 --> 00:41:06,449
We felt that people should know
what was going on,
529
00:41:06,533 --> 00:41:11,202
and maybe typical is this little
experience which I had one day
530
00:41:11,287 --> 00:41:15,622
standing in the line for vegetables
or something like that.
531
00:41:15,707 --> 00:41:19,001
I told my neighbours standing around me
532
00:41:19,085 --> 00:41:25,007
that now they start to kill the Jews
in the concentration camps,
533
00:41:25,090 --> 00:41:28,133
that it is not true that they
only are brought there
534
00:41:28,218 --> 00:41:32,180
and can live there as they live here,
as it was told them.
535
00:41:32,263 --> 00:41:36,265
They are killed
and they even make soap out of them.
536
00:41:36,350 --> 00:41:39,436
I know that.
537
00:41:39,519 --> 00:41:41,604
And they said, "Frau Bonhoeffer,
538
00:41:41,689 --> 00:41:44,731
if you don't stop telling
such horror stories
539
00:41:44,816 --> 00:41:48,943
you will end in a concentration camp too
and nobody of us can help you."
540
00:41:49,028 --> 00:41:55,325
"It's not true what you're telling. You
shouldn't believe foreign broadcasts."
541
00:41:55,408 --> 00:41:59,536
"They tell these things
to make enemies against Germany."
542
00:41:59,620 --> 00:42:04,499
I said, "No, that's not from broadcasts.
I know that directly from first hand."
543
00:42:04,584 --> 00:42:07,710
"You can be sure it is that way."
544
00:42:07,794 --> 00:42:11,713
And coming home
I told my husband in the evening
545
00:42:11,797 --> 00:42:16,801
and he was not at all applauding to me -
on the very contrary.
546
00:42:16,886 --> 00:42:20,513
He said, "My dear, sorry to say,
547
00:42:20,597 --> 00:42:24,517
but you are absolutely idiotic,
what you are doing."
548
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:27,186
"Please understand,
549
00:42:27,270 --> 00:42:31,814
a dictatorship is like a snake."
550
00:42:31,899 --> 00:42:34,900
"lf you put your foot on its tail,
551
00:42:34,984 --> 00:42:38,737
as you do it, it will just bite you
552
00:42:38,821 --> 00:42:41,740
and nobody will be helped."
553
00:42:41,824 --> 00:42:43,784
"You have to strike the head."
554
00:42:44,369 --> 00:42:50,830
Each of those witnesses I think reveals
there something of his or her true self.
555
00:42:50,916 --> 00:42:55,626
We didn't judge them,
but a little bit of juxtaposition helps.
556
00:42:55,711 --> 00:43:00,090
Emmi Bonhoeffer's husband Klaus
and her brother-in-law Dietrich
557
00:43:00,173 --> 00:43:02,925
were among the staunchest
of Hitler's opponents
558
00:43:03,051 --> 00:43:06,511
and both paid for their bravery
with their lives.
559
00:43:07,639 --> 00:43:10,974
What sort of history
is The World At War?
560
00:43:11,058 --> 00:43:13,935
It's television narrative history.
561
00:43:14,018 --> 00:43:18,605
It doesn't propose different
interpretations of a course of events,
562
00:43:18,690 --> 00:43:20,816
weigh the evidence for each,
563
00:43:20,899 --> 00:43:24,902
invite you to keep all of them
in your mind while we consider them
564
00:43:24,987 --> 00:43:28,573
and eventually plump for one
and put that forward.
565
00:43:28,657 --> 00:43:30,950
The writing historian does do that
566
00:43:31,033 --> 00:43:34,161
and you the reader can go back
on the printed page,
567
00:43:34,245 --> 00:43:36,580
back if you like
to the previous chapter,
568
00:43:36,664 --> 00:43:40,083
to check something
that you didn't quite understand.
569
00:43:40,167 --> 00:43:43,836
But television, like music,
occurs in time,
570
00:43:43,919 --> 00:43:47,338
and the viewer, unless
you're looking at a video recording,
571
00:43:47,423 --> 00:43:50,008
cannot normally go back.
572
00:43:50,091 --> 00:43:54,469
The programme producer, therefore,
must tell a clear story
573
00:43:54,554 --> 00:43:56,847
that you, the viewer, can follow.
574
00:43:56,932 --> 00:44:02,351
So when we tried to answer a question
that has puzzled historians of the war,
575
00:44:02,437 --> 00:44:07,648
we made up our minds what we believed
and we gave you that.
576
00:44:07,733 --> 00:44:10,942
but it's important that you
the viewers should understand
577
00:44:11,027 --> 00:44:13,946
that we the makers
have made the selection
578
00:44:14,030 --> 00:44:18,324
and that we know that the real story
is always more complex
579
00:44:18,409 --> 00:44:20,535
than we present it as being.
580
00:44:20,619 --> 00:44:25,079
There are only 2,000 words of narration
in most episodes of The World At War.
581
00:44:25,165 --> 00:44:29,876
We know and we hope that you know
how much we've had to leave out.
582
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:36,341
But if we tried to be clear,
we also tried not to be too simplistic.
583
00:44:36,425 --> 00:44:41,303
We wanted to hear different experiences,
different points of view.
584
00:44:41,387 --> 00:44:44,180
In the end, I think
The World At War works
585
00:44:44,264 --> 00:44:47,975
because interwoven
in one narrative line,
586
00:44:48,060 --> 00:44:52,896
it contains contrasts
and even contradictions.
587
00:44:52,981 --> 00:44:58,817
Those who bombed Germany and Japan,
for example, did their necessary job.
588
00:44:58,943 --> 00:45:03,906
Those they bombed,
many of whom were innocent, suffered.
589
00:45:04,032 --> 00:45:09,869
Hindsight enables both sides now
to see how others acted and suffered
590
00:45:09,954 --> 00:45:13,206
in a way that they never did
at the time.
591
00:45:13,289 --> 00:45:16,750
Some stories that we were told
we had to leave out,
592
00:45:16,835 --> 00:45:18,460
but they were too good to lose
593
00:45:18,545 --> 00:45:23,547
and so we made other, longer films
in which they find a place.
594
00:45:23,632 --> 00:45:29,345
Christabel Bielenberg remembers an eerie
incident of her life in Nazi Germany
595
00:45:29,471 --> 00:45:31,430
as the war neared its end
596
00:45:31,555 --> 00:45:35,101
and the horrors of what had been done
and what was still being done
597
00:45:35,184 --> 00:45:37,185
could no longer be suppressed.
598
00:45:37,269 --> 00:45:42,730
Near the end of the war I had to travel
from Berlin to the Black Forest...
599
00:45:43,733 --> 00:45:51,447
..and I happened to travel
in the same carriage as an SS man.
600
00:45:54,618 --> 00:45:56,785
A raid had just started
601
00:45:56,869 --> 00:46:01,915
and most of the people had left
the carriage when I heard this voice
602
00:46:02,041 --> 00:46:07,752
saying, "l think it's better we stay put
because the train will probably move out
603
00:46:07,838 --> 00:46:10,797
and we'll have the carriage
to ourselves."
604
00:46:10,882 --> 00:46:17,303
And indeed I had it to myself
with this SS officer
605
00:46:17,388 --> 00:46:20,890
for many hours on this train journey.
606
00:46:20,974 --> 00:46:25,477
He explained to me that he
was on his way to the front now.
607
00:46:25,561 --> 00:46:28,604
That all he wanted to do
was to get killed.
608
00:46:29,690 --> 00:46:33,317
And... but...
He had tried again and again,
609
00:46:33,401 --> 00:46:37,779
but always he'd seemed to survive
every battle he'd been in.
610
00:46:37,864 --> 00:46:45,368
He'd transferred to the Waffen SS,
which was the military arm of the SS,
611
00:46:45,454 --> 00:46:49,874
who were always in the thick
of the battle, but he'd survived.
612
00:46:49,958 --> 00:46:53,960
He told me that in Poland,
613
00:46:54,044 --> 00:46:55,919
they had...
614
00:46:59,216 --> 00:47:02,259
..he had belonged
to one of the commandos,
615
00:47:02,343 --> 00:47:07,263
which were called
the Extermination Commandos,
616
00:47:07,348 --> 00:47:13,478
and on one particular occasion, when the
Jews were standing round in a semicircle
617
00:47:13,561 --> 00:47:16,271
with the half-dug graves behind them...
618
00:47:18,024 --> 00:47:22,318
..that the machine guns had been set up
619
00:47:22,403 --> 00:47:30,408
and out of the ranks of the Jews
that were standing there
620
00:47:30,493 --> 00:47:32,786
a wonderful figure
had come towards him.
621
00:47:32,870 --> 00:47:37,957
He said, "He had long hair. I suppose
he was a priest of some kind."
622
00:47:38,042 --> 00:47:42,211
And he'd said,
"God is watching what you do."
623
00:47:43,504 --> 00:47:49,425
And he said, "We shot him down
before he returned to the semicircle."
624
00:47:49,509 --> 00:47:55,430
Another little boy,
before they'd set up this scene,
625
00:47:55,515 --> 00:48:01,520
had asked him,
"Am I standing straight enough, U ncle?"
626
00:48:01,603 --> 00:48:05,481
And he told me these things
he could never forget
627
00:48:05,565 --> 00:48:11,152
and that he only, as I said,
now wished to die.
628
00:48:11,862 --> 00:48:14,906
I travelled with that man
all through the night...
629
00:48:16,658 --> 00:48:21,036
..and as the carriage had no windows,
it was very cold,
630
00:48:21,119 --> 00:48:25,081
and I can remember waking in the night,
631
00:48:25,166 --> 00:48:29,961
strangely enough,
with my head resting on his shoulder.
632
00:48:30,045 --> 00:48:34,215
And he'd covered my knees
with his sheepskin coat.
633
00:48:35,341 --> 00:48:38,134
Next time I woke, he'd gone.
634
00:48:39,470 --> 00:48:43,639
Her head on his shoulder,
his coat covering her knees.
635
00:48:43,765 --> 00:48:47,642
You wouldn't find details like that
in most history books,
636
00:48:47,727 --> 00:48:52,230
but it's stories like that that make
popular television history possible.
637
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:57,151
The Second World War
cost more than 50 million lives.
638
00:48:57,236 --> 00:48:59,736
It shaped the world we live in.
639
00:48:59,821 --> 00:49:03,240
The U nited States of America
came out of isolation,
640
00:49:03,324 --> 00:49:07,369
becoming the greatest power
on the world stage.
641
00:49:07,452 --> 00:49:10,454
Soviet Russia emerged
from another isolation
642
00:49:10,538 --> 00:49:13,623
to impose her grip on half of Europe.
643
00:49:13,709 --> 00:49:15,625
Germany was divided.
644
00:49:15,711 --> 00:49:19,838
There has been peace in Europe
for more than 40 years.
645
00:49:19,922 --> 00:49:21,923
The story of the Second World War
646
00:49:22,008 --> 00:49:26,135
is a story with dark beginnings
and a happy end.
647
00:49:26,220 --> 00:49:29,679
Mussolini's fascism,
Japanese militarism,
648
00:49:29,764 --> 00:49:33,266
Hitler's Nazism, were smashed.
649
00:49:33,350 --> 00:49:35,268
The right side won.