All language subtitles for World War II With Tom Hanks S01E15 Home Front 720p NOW WEB-DL AAC2 0 H 264-RAWR.eng.sdh

By the start of 1943,

Germany and Japan have been at war
for several years.

Although the people of both nations
have endured

battlefield casualties
from the beginning,

two critical events
are about to bring the war home.

The leaders of Nazi Germany
and Imperial Japan

respond in very different ways.

- All wars change the world,

but none of them changed the world
like the Second World War did.

PHILLIPS: Japan's on the march,
Germany's on the march.

No-one can imagine the nightmare
they're about to unleash...

...the most destructive war
in human history.

- Suddenly, the world
is turned upside down,

and all hell is let loose.

- The West is stunned
by the speed of the advance.

- You get the Allies
led by the big three,

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin:

men who were dealing with
immensely complicated questions.

- It's the biggest military
operation of human history.

The Allies have to come together,

not just militarily but industrial
scale: it's a global perspective.

DOUDS: They have
to fight in every climate,

from the Arctic
to the jungles of the Pacific,

to the deserts of Africa
and the depths of the ocean.

- But there was
no certainty of victory.

It was going to be
a horrific bloodbath.

- We see humans
at their absolute worst...

how they treat other human beings.

And we see them
at their absolute best,

willing to give their lives
that others might live.

- World War II was a struggle in
which there could be one victor...

and one vanquished.

- (explosions)
- (air raid siren wails)

- (cheering and applause)

- (commentary in German)

TOM: By early 1943, the Nazi Third
Reich has absorbed much of Europe.

Great cities have been bombed.

Whole nations have been occupied.

But in Germany,
success on the battlefield

allows life to go on as before.

- Hitler wants to maintain

the semblance of normalcy
even in wartime.

So theatres remain open,
stadiums remain open,

sporting events go on as scheduled.

Germans are encouraged
to go about their daily business.

- The Germans,
from the beginning of the war,

have really been sheltered
and shielded by Hitler

because there is a belief
that Hitler has

that one of the main reasons
that Germany collapsed in 1918

was because the population
didn't have enough to eat,

their morale failed,

and all of a sudden,
they turned against the government.

CITINO: Hitler constantly tells the
German people they're a master race.

But, you know, deep down inside,
he doesn't trust them at all.

He was seared by the events
of the First World War.

Nothing could've looked stronger
than the Kaiser's government,

in 1918, and it was overthrown in
a revolution lasting a single day.

RICHIE: And so Hitler believes

that the German people are,
in a sense, fickle.

If they aren't given what they want,
if they don't have enough to eat,

if they don't have the materiel,

that they're going
to somehow turn on him.

And so he is very, very determined
to make sure that the German people

don't feel the pinch of the war.

TOM: But in early February,

Germans across the Reich are told
in a short radio broadcast...

that the 6th Army
has been destroyed at Stalingrad.

TOM: Germany suffered enormous
casualties at Stalingrad.

90,000 captured...

...and over 200,000 dead.

- Hundreds of thousands,
if not millions,

of Germans had a family member,

or a friend, or knew
someone who fought at Stalingrad.

This is the greatest catastrophe
in German history.

STARGARDT: Nobody's
been prepared for this.

For the families of people who are
serving on the Stalingrad front,

it unleashes a wave of panic.

TOM: It is the first admission
of a Wehrmacht defeat.

But Hitler and his military leaders
are busy planning a counter-attack.

RICHIE: Hitler is now up in
the Wolf's Lair, the Wolfsschanze,

his massive headquarters
up in East Prussia,

in almost complete isolation.

He rarely appears in public,
and so the task of rebuilding morale

amongst the people
is left to others.

TOM: Joseph Goebbels,

Hitler's Reich Minister
of Enlightenment and Propaganda,

has been at the centre
of the Nazi Party

since it was formed in the 1920s.

CITINO: Joseph Goebbels is one
of the most unusual Nazi officials.

And he looks like anything
but the image of the Nazi superman.

He has no military background,

but he's brilliant
about the use of propaganda.

- Goebbels decides that the time
has come to deliver a speech

exposing the German people

to the realities
of what 1943 is gonna give 'em.

- (speaks German)

CITINO: For the first time,
a Nazi Party official

stands up and says
the war isn't going well.

Only the German people
are capable of lifting Germany up

from the defeated at Stalingrad
to ultimate victory.

It's time to fight total war.

- Total war is
the commitment to a complete

and full national mobilisation,

meaning that all businesses
and then all people,

all men, all women,
absolutely everyone,

become dedicated
toward securing victory.

- (speaks German)

- (cheering)

- The 'Total War' speech is both
an attempt to rally public opinion

and an attempt to persuade Hitler
to go to total war.

MORGAN: Think of this as like
a closing argument at a trial.

Goebbels is making a case
to Adolf Hitler

that if this war
is going to prevail,

you're gonna have to accept
the commitment to total war.

- (speaking German)

- And so this hand-selected crowd
of followers and sycophants...

...they're saying 'Ja!'
to every word that he says.

- And Adolf Hitler
is saying, 'Nein.'

TOM: Hitler is reluctant.

He promised triumph, not sacrifice.

- People say Goebbels giving
that speech, that's the switch

when Germany really
goes to total war, but it isn't.

- That would, for example,
have meant mobilising women

into industrial jobs, as had
happened in the United States.

The conservative Nazi regime
wants women to stay in the home...

...so they can raise children,
care for the family.

TOM: But with so many men
serving in the Wehrmacht,

primarily on the Eastern Front...

...Germany desperately needs workers.

Albert Speer, Reich Minister
of Armament and War Production,

must find a solution.

RICHIE: Albert Speer
is a complex figure.

He begins his career
as an architect,

and he is the architect
for the Nuremberg rallies.

And these become
a huge propaganda success.

- (cheering)

RICHIE: In 1942, Hitler appoints
Speer as his new armaments minister.

Speer has absolutely no background
in armaments production at all.

But nevertheless,
he's a good organiser,

and he does quite an amazing job.

- But if you're gonna
increase production

but not tap into the German people

because we're trying to keep
everything normal back home,

well, you gotta find
that manpower somewhere.

CITINO: Albert Speer
has another strategy at hand,

and that's to use slave labourers...

recruited from the various
occupation zones.

- Massive numbers of people
were brought into the Reich

to work as slave labourers,
people from Western Europe,

from France, from the Netherlands,
but also from Poland, from Ukraine.

- In 1943, 12-15 million people were
brought in from 20 other countries

to effectively make up for
the manpower that Germany has lost.

However, it is also
at a high human and moral cost.

- They're barely fed. They're
practically chained to the machine.

Whenever we look
at the dramatic increase

in German arms productions in 1943,

we should always
look behind the gleaming weapons,

and tanks, and aircraft, to realise

that these were produced
by human skeletons banging out

parts for German weapons
until they died.

DOUDS: Production will rise 56%
in the first six months.

It is an armaments miracle.

It also gives Germany
a propaganda story to tell.

RICHIE: Look at what we've done.
We've turned armaments around.

Look how many planes,
look how many tanks we're producing.

Things are difficult,
but it's going to be OK.

TOM: But the RAF
and the American Eighth Air Force

are expanding
their relentless bombing campaign

aimed at destroying
Germany's industrial infrastructure

and German morale.

- The Germans may not yet
be fighting total war,

but the war is coming home
to Germany in 1943,

and it's the Anglo-American
round-the-clock bombing campaign.

TOM: American B-17s
flying from England

bomb the Reich's war factories
by day.

At night,
the RAF hits German cities.

Germany is forced to divert
more and more men and materiel

to defend the skies
over their cities.

CITINO: In facing
the Allied bombing campaign,

the Nazi regime does take steps.

It builds these monumental
flak towers,

which... they're almost
impossible to demolish.

MORGAN: These massive flak towers
are also air raid shelters.

They have infirmaries,
they have schools.

The German government
is saying to its people,

'These air raid shelters
are there to protect you.'

CITINO: But there's never enough
for the population.

And when the bombers come,
most Germans wind up

going into a neighbourhood cellar.

They're cramped, they're hot.

You're there all night long, and the
children are getting sick from fear.

- It was a terrifying experience
and also exhausting.

This happened night
after night after night.

DOUDS: You stay down there
for hours.

Maybe you're down there
until the next morning.

And then finally,
somebody cracks the door,

and you walk outside, and you see
your neighbourhood is gone.

- This is the first time that war

has really come home
to the German people.

And many of them are asking,
'Where is our government?'

TOM: While German cities are being
bombed by the Western Allies,

the skies over Japan remain clear.

GARON: Germany is
much more vulnerable than Japan

because it is within flying range

of the British
and the American bombers.

Bombing Japan is not possible
for the Allies in 1943

because Japan enjoyed
an enormous defence perimeter.

TOM: The Japanese have conquered
an empire that spans much of Asia.

Distance, and the capture
of several remote Pacific islands,

have created a defensive perimeter
of over three million square miles

that protects this empire.

But American victories
at Midway and Guadalcanal

have breached this defensive ring.

- Japan's home front
still has not faced daily air raids,

but military leaders know...

...the tide is shifting against them.

TOM: In June 1943,

Tokyo citizens gather to pay tribute
to a fallen war hero.

It's a solemn event.

- (speaks Japanese)

HARDING: Admiral Yamamoto
was this huge figure in Japan,

the mastermind of Pearl Harbor,

the hero of the early months
of the war, and now he's gone.

TOM: Acting on
intercepted radio messages,

the American air force shot down
Admiral Yamamoto's plane...

...over the Solomon Islands.

His body was found
and sent back to Japan.

Japan tightly censors
all news of the war.

But the death of
the navy's Supreme Commander...

cannot be hidden
from the Japanese people.

- You've got up to a million people
lining the streets

as this funeral cortege goes past,
a hugely sombre occasion.

There's a sense of a really
significant figure passing.

CARLIN: Imagine what losing
MacArthur would've done.

These figures
are seen as irreplaceable.

And so when this pierces
the news blackout for the public

on what's really going on
in the war, it's huge.

This is a real concern
in the Japanese government.

TOM: Prime Minister Hideki Tojo...

was an early advocate
for war against the United States.

- Tojo at this point
has been in power in Japan

since shortly before Pearl Harbor.

As the war situation
is going increasingly badly,

he needs a victory to be able
to continue in power in Japan.

YELLEN: Tojo is driven by honour.

He's driven by loyalty
to the Emperor.

And more than anything else,
he wants to make sure that Japan...

escapes the war
with its empire intact.

TOM: The Japanese intended
the attack on Pearl Harbor

to be a knockout blow
against the Americans.

They understood they couldn't win
a protracted war

against the economic might
of the United States.

- Even when Japan was winning
in the initial phase of the war,

Japan's wartime production capacity
is, roughly,

only one-tenth
of the United States'.

So by 1943, the government
really needs to use

whatever they can get their hands on

to keep
the wartime production going.

TOM: Oil from the East Indies,

rubber from Malaya,
iron ore from Manchuria...

...are all vital
to Japanese war industries.

- The problem is
is that you look at a map,

you can see that that has to be
transported over water.

- They have a huge merchant marine,
the third largest in the world,

to move resources
from Southeast Asia.

TOM: Now, all of it is threatened

by the tightening stranglehold
of the American navy.

- The United States'
submarine operations

have been quite successful...

...in cutting Japanese supply routes.

- Japanese natural resources

are increasingly lying
at the bottom of the ocean.

So we begin to see
critical material shortages

on the Japanese home front.

TOM: To maintain
the nation's war effort,

Prime Minister Tojo
and his government

impose severe austerity...

...on the Japanese people.

- Unlike Nazi Germany, in Japan,

there never was this phenomenon

of trying to keep the Japanese
people totally comfortable.

In general, Tojo believed that
if Japan were to be successful

against the Americans and others,
in lieu of natural resources,

it'd take the active mobilisation of
its human resources, its people.

HARDING: The message
to people is if they will make

these sacrifices at home, then
soldiers abroad will keep them safe.

They will keep the Allies at bay,
they will do their bit...

if people at home
do what they're supposed to do.

They must sacrifice everything.

TOM: The American naval blockade...

is choking the Japanese.

Food is scarce.

The everyday necessities
of modern life disappear.

But Prime Minister Tojo
demands even greater sacrifice.

HART: We certainly have rationing
going on in the United States.

This is on a national scale
that is unmatched,

really,
in a lot of the Allied nations.

HARDING: Electricity
is being rationed.

They're relying on sort of primitive
ways of even just cooking food...

...and having to burn their libraries
for fuel to try and keep warm.

No-one has enough to eat.

You've even got people going
into the countryside to forage.

HART: The Japanese
are producing cars that run on coal

rather than oil because oil is being
taken for the war effort

on such a large scale.

- You've got temple bells, railings,
pots and pans being melted down

so that they can make
bullets and armour.

- In many ways,
Japan is reverting...

to almost a pre-industrial society
as the war goes on.

- However, Japanese people
are not automatons. (chuckles)

They don't necessarily
willingly part with their food.

The police realise
there are widespread black markets

all over Japan,
so this is a real problem.

And so Japanese leaders mobilise
these neighbourhood associations:

in Japanese, called Tonarigumi.

TOM: The Tonarigumi
has been woven into Japanese culture

for over a century.

But in wartime, it becomes a tool
for the neighbours to keep an eye...

on each other.

- The Tonarigumi are groups
of five to ten households

that work as a means of mobilising
the people behind Japan's war.

GARON: They ration the food.
They carry out civil defence drills.

They do many of the things
that we would think

that government officials
would do elsewhere,

but it's done
by the people themselves.

HARDING: But really,
the key is mutual surveillance.

The idea that Japan's leaders
have is that the cheapest

and the surest way
to keep an eye on people

is to get people, essentially,
to keep an eye on each other.

Someone is always watching you.

- By the end of 1943,

this whole network
of neighbourhood associations

looks like a very well-oiled
machine, and operates like that,

collecting resources
for the home front.

But Tojo and his government,

they have an enormous problem:
labour shortages.

- (yelling)

TOM: As in Germany, because
of massive military conscription...

...Japan suffers from
the serious labour shortfall.

Women have been working in Japanese
war industries for some time.

Now...
they employ their children as well.

- They're increasingly using
very young labour, teenagers,

boys and girls who are not very
skilled, quite hungry themselves.

TATSUMI: If you're older than 12,
study days were cut short.

There is extremely limited time
in class

because most of their day
is spent in factories.

Everybody is mobilised.

TOM: Despite the American blockade,

Japanese manufacturing continues.

- Keeping the wartime production
going to some extent

is truly remarkable.

There is one motto that...

the Japanese people live by
during the war.

'Don't ask or want anything
until we win.'

So essentially, let's sacrifice
everything until we win.

TOM: But now,
in its seventh year of war,

the Japanese military
needs to replenish its ranks.

HARDING: So up until this point,

students are being kept out
of the war effort.

For the Japanese, education
is extraordinarily important.

So you can get an exemption
from conscription

if you're studying at university.

But by October 1943, things have
become so serious in Japan,

you can no longer have
that exemption.

- October 21st 1943.

25,000 university students
arrive in Tokyo Stadium.

These students are being inducted
into the Japanese armed services.

- (speaks Japanese)

HART: This is something
we see in other nations.

For instance, in the United States,
they are progressively conscripting

more and more university students
as well,

but not so much at this scale.

- I mean, this is Japan's future,

these ambitious young people,
where so much investment...

has been made
over their entire lives,

education, raising, the whole thing.

- It's the mark
of a pretty desperate war effort.

You can't think about the future
when the near future is very dire.

- (speaks Japanese)

HART: So this event is really
a giant piece of propaganda by Tojo.

These young people are being asked
to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Who's going to be next?
The inevitable message is...

everyone.

- (crowd yelling)

- (speaks Japanese)

TOM: As 1943 draws to a close,

every Japanese citizen
feels the war's impact.

But in Berlin,
stores and cinemas are still full.

Goebbels and the Nazis continue
to deceive the German people

with propaganda from the front.
- (fanfare-style music)

- (speaking German)

TOM: A rout on the Eastern Front
is called a strategic retreat.

- (air raid siren wails)

TOM: Allied bombers
are consistently shot down...

...and do little damage.

- The German people in Berlin
are being fed a pretty steady diet

of positive propaganda
about the progress of the war.

They had every reason
to remain optimistic.

And then at the end of 1943,
everything changes.

CITINO: The RAF has been
concentrating its bombing

on the Ruhr, the industrial
heartland of Germany.

But in November of 1943,

they shift their focus to an even
juicier morale target.

Berlin.

It's an incendiary raid.

That is, bombs that are meant
to start fires throughout the city.

The bombers believe that
if you break the morale of Berlin...

...you've broken the Third Reich.

- It's always important
to have somebody taking care

of the population at a time
of great trauma,

very much like Churchill
in London during the Blitz.

But Hitler's gone off
to the Wolf's Lair.

He won't have anything to do with
the population of Germany any more.

He seems to have
abandoned them almost.

And once again, the person who takes
up that gauntlet is Joseph Goebbels.

MORGAN: Goebbels
is meeting the survivors.

So he'll bring a crew with him,
they'll film.

And what he's doing
is reassuring the German people:

if bombers show up over your city,
we'll be there to help you.

- First aid stations are set up,

free food and drink
handed out to the population.

RICHIE: And a big huge show
is put up into showing

how we're going to protect
the population.

Propaganda can come back up
and say,

'Look at these terrible things
they're doing.

Look what would happen
if they win the war.'

And in some ways, the bombing raids
actually increased morale

and increased
the determination to fight on.

- (bird squawks)

- (bell clangs)

TOM: Japan remains out of range
of American bombers,

but Prime Minister Tojo,
and other Japanese leaders,

understand that it may be
only a matter of time

before the Americans
secure air bases

within flying distance
of the home islands.

- Once the military leaders...

saw that fire bombs
had been used against Germany,

they realise that this
may be in Japan's future.

- The cities that are being bombed
in Europe have big stone buildings

in a lot of places,
and it's still a nightmare.

The Japanese use a lot of wood.

These are wooden cities.

They are particularly vulnerable
to these kinds of attacks.

And you don't have to be a genius to
figure out that's gonna be an issue

if all of a sudden,
you have round-the-clock raids.

- There's a big difference
in civil defence

between Nazi Germany and Japan.

The Japanese make the decision not
to construct huge concrete bunkers,

and air raid shelters,
that could hold thousands of people,

thinking that it would be better off
devoting their scarce resources

to the military and
not spending much money on defence.

- The Japanese government
basically said, 'Look.

You have to prepare yourselves. You
want a shelter? Dig it yourself.'

- (alarm wails)

- If there was a fire,
there would be, basically,

a sand and water bucket brigade

that would try to put out
the fires this way.

And then they came up with
the strategy to tear down houses,

to isolate areas
so that the fire wouldn't spread.

- So ordinary people are given
hand tools, they're given ropes,

and in some cases, they're literally
pulling down their own homes

and carting away the pieces.

- In places like Tokyo and Osaka,

tens of thousands of houses
were torn down.

HARDING: These really cold messages
go out from the government

that essentially say, 'Ask your
family if you can stay with them.

Maybe someone will house you.'

Yet, again, there's a sense
that the government...

just consider ordinary civilians
to be expendable.

TOM: In the summer of 1944...

...Japan suffers a major defeat
in the Pacific.

A key piece of Tojo's
inner defensive ring has fallen.

After a month and a half
of heavy combat,

Japan has lost Saipan...

and the entire Mariana Island chain.

This puts the Americans
and their B-29 Superfortress

in range of Japan's major cities...

including Tokyo.

- For the Japanese,

the loss of the Marianas
is absolutely catastrophic.

Because they understand that there
is this new bomber out there,

called the B-29,
and they know that bomber

will now be within range
of almost all of Japan.

- The fall of Saipan

is a huge psychological blow
back at home in Japan.

Because there's been this pact
that if you do your bit at home,

if you sacrifice,
if you put up with rations,

if you work hard in the factories,
we will protect you.

The Allies will come nowhere
near the home islands.

- So the government has failed
at its most fundamental promise

to the Japanese people, and only one
person can take the fall for this.

Tojo.

- (speaks Japanese)

TOM: The loss of Saipan
and the Mariana Island chain

is a serious blow to the Japanese.

HART: Now Japan itself is at risk.

Now civilian populations
are potentially on the frontline

in a way they've never been before.

Now, Japan needs to reflect
on its own leadership.

- There is an undercurrent in Japan

that people are
feeling very hostile towards Tojo.

There are stories of people
phoning up Tojo's wife, saying,

'Why has your husband
not killed himself yet?'

CITINO: Now it's the government
who has to make a sacrifice.

And they choose a scapegoat.

- Emperor Hirohito
has lost confidence in Tojo,

and he steps down.

TOM: Launching from the Marianas,

hundreds of B-29s
begin bombing Japan's cities.

Osaka, Kobe,

Nagoya, Tokyo.

Hundreds of thousands
of civilians are killed.

GARON: When the serious bombing
of Japan starts,

it will be unrelenting.

The enemy is there.
They're right above you.

The cities will become
killing grounds.

TOM: Two days after Tojo's fall...

...there is an attempt
on Adolf Hitler's life.

- A real turning point in the German
home front story is July of 1944,

the assassination attempt
on Hitler's life.

RICHIE: A small group of officers
realised that...

the war was probably lost.

They believed
that if they killed Hitler,

that they would be able
to make peace

and start a new German government.

And the person that was chosen
to go and try and kill him

was Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg,

who went on the 20th July 1944
to the Wolf's Lair.

He had a meeting with Hitler.

He planted a bomb
under the conference table

where Hitler was speaking
and then took off.

- That bomb, it's positioned
underneath this heavy oak table

that absorbs a great deal
of the blast of the weapon.

RICHIE: Stauffenberg
comes back to Berlin

thinking that he'd killed Hitler:
he saw the explosion.

He believed Hitler had been killed.

But unfortunately for him,
the Fuhrer was not dead.

- At one o'clock
in the morning of the 21st,

Adolf Hitler comes on the radio.

He says there's been an attack
against his life done by traitors.

- (speaks German)

- One of the first responses
when Hitler speaks on the radio

is an outpouring of relief.

And there's spontaneous
demonstrations across Germany

by the civilian population.

DOUDS: Things are not
going well in 1944.

The Soviets are on the move
in the east.

The Allies in the west
have landed in Normandy.

But German society has
hitched its horse to Adolf Hitler.

It's good to know
his hand's still on the wheel,

and that there's
a degree of stability.

- On the radio, Hitler vows that
he's going to take revenge

on the traitors
who've tried to kill him.

- (speaks German)

TOM: Stauffenberg
and a few other conspirators

are quickly arrested and executed.

But their deaths
are only the beginning.

- Hitler had survived
assassination attempts before,

but this was something
on another level.

And the people
that were trying to kill him,

these are some of
his most important military figures.

- Hitler believes
he's been betrayed,

and he no longer trusts anyone,

not the army,
not those in his intimate circle,

not even the German people.

TOM: Hitler orders
the investigation and arrest

of anybody associated
with the July 20th plot.

- Anybody who had
anything to do with this plot,

anybody who's related
to those people,

anybody who might be a problem in
the future, he will hunt them down.

Adolf Hitler takes this
as an opportunity to clean house.

TOM: Berlin, 1944.

Hundreds of Germans arrested

after the attempt on Hitler's life
are put on trial.

It's referred to as
the People's Court.

- (speaks German)

- The defendants are brought
in front of Roland Freisler,

who's the head
of the People's Court,

who's an absolutely fanatical Nazi.

Very often, to humiliate them,

their belts have been taken away
so they have to hold their trousers.

TOM: The verdict is never in doubt.

Every defendant is guilty,

and every punishment severe.

- They're put in a place
called Plotzensee Prison,

and they're tortured,
they're beaten.

- These people are executed,

and Hitler insists that they will
be hanged from meat hooks.

And that it will be filmed.

- Hitler's vengeance
knows no bounds.

He wants to make it clear to anybody
else out there in the Reich:

if you try and kill me, this is the
kind of vengeance you can expect.

Not just for you, but for your
family and anybody who knows you.

So you're never going to be safe.

TOM: Nazi control of Germany
is now complete.

But Hitler's Thousand-Year Reich
is crumbling.

By the fall of 1944,

the Allies are on the verge of
crossing into the German Fatherland.

- Up until this point, Hitler
had resisted the call for total war.

It wasn't necessary
to enlist the entire population.

But now, if he ever cared
about the German people,

he certainly no longer does.

And so why not enlist
every last one of them

and let them
get ground up at the front?

As far as Hitler is concerned,

the entire population
is nothing but cannon fodder.

- (speaks German)

TOM: November 1944.

Tens of thousands of Germans gather

before Joseph Goebbels'
headquarters.

After swearing
a blood oath to Hitler,

they enter the ranks
of the Volkssturm.

- The Volkssturm,
literally translated,

means the people's storm
or the people's militia.

- These are young boys and old men

put together
into pseudo-military units...

...and sent off to do or die
against the Allied armies.

TOM: The Volkssturm units
are given very little training

and are supplied with
the most basic German weapons.

- An anti-tank missile known as
the Panzerfaust, the armoured fist,

it hits the side of a tank,
and with enormous force,

blasts a hole through the armour.

Now, the most important thing
we need to know about it

is that it was a single shot,
and that to use it,

you had to come very, very close
to the tank you were firing at.

So we're talking about a 65-year-old
man or a 14-year-old boy

given a single-shot weapon
and sent out as a tank destroyer.

You may destroy the tank,

but you are almost certainly
going to destroy

the person wielding the Panzerfaust.

STARGARDT: In both
the Eastern and the Western Fronts,

the Volkssturm fight and die
in their tens of thousands.

It's the Volkssturm which often goes
on fighting until the bitter end.

TOM: For five years,
the Nazis have tried

to shield Germans
from the consequences of war.

But with the Wehrmacht in retreat...

...their cities in ruin,

and hundreds of thousands
of their sons

dead or grievously wounded...

...that is no longer possible.

- That whole bubble of normalcy
is now shattered.

All the other things that were being
done in society to shield them...

...sporting events, cinemas,
all that, they all get closed down.

And the real war that they are in

is now readily apparent
to all of German society.

This now is the total war vision

that Goebbels and Speer had in '43.

They finally arrive here in 1944.

- (speaks German)

- By the close of 1944,
the people of Germany and Japan

are paying
for their country's aggression.

The price steepens
as the war heads to its conclusion.

In Nazi-occupied Europe,

where violence and terror
have become routine,

increasing numbers of people...

begin to resist.