All language subtitles for Oliver.stones.untold.history.of.the.united.states.S01E01.KiLLERS.English-WWW.MY-SUBS.CO

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Hello, I'm Oliver Stone.

When I was a young boy
growing up in New York City,

I thought I received
a good education.

I studied history extensively,
especially American history.

It made sense.
We were the center
of the world.

There was a manifest destiny.
We were the good guys.

Well, I've traveled
the world now.

I continued my education

as an infantryman in Vietnam,

made a lot of movies...
Some of them about history.

And I've learned a lot more
than I once knew.

And when I heard
from my children

what they were learning
in school,

I was perturbed
to hear that they were
not really getting

a more honest view
of the world than I did.

We live much of our lives
in a fog, all of us.

And I would like my children
to have access

to something that looks
beyond what I would call

the tyranny of now.

You watch the media
and everyone talks

about that thing...
The news of the day.

And all the subconscious,
really important stuff

that's going on
is being neglected.

Napoleon once said that

"History is a pack
of lies agreed upon."

Well, I'm not sure I agree.

I believe history
does have a meaning,
does a have a purpose,

and there is a pattern
to be found.

And I wanted,
with my colleagues,

rather than
make another feature film,

to tell the American story
in a way

that it has never
been told before.

There are many questions
that you may not find
answered here,

but you will find
questions raised

that I hope will help
make you more conscious.

We are going to propose,
among other things,

a forgotten set of heroes...

People who suffered
for their beliefs

and who have been lost
to history

because they did not conform.

And we are going to debunk
some of those heroes

that you believe in,
not with malice,

but by restating the facts.

Unless we remind ourselves
of the good that we have lost,

it's not easy to imagine
a better future.

By showing you the patterns
of behavior

which have come to be
that you perhaps have not
noticed before,

we will try to bring you back
to the meaning of this country

and what so radically changed
after World War II.

There have been
some profound mistakes,

but we still have a chance,
I strongly believe,

to correct them.

Subtitles by MemoryOnSmells
http://UKsubtitles.ru.

The Sangre de Cristo,

or "Blood of Christ"
Mountain range,

is one of the United States'
most remote

and primitive landscapes.

In an isolated ranch house,
the world's top scientists,

many of them European,

gather nervously
in the chill morning air.

Nearby in the darkness,

something hangs
atop a steel tower...

a bomb.

Today they will test it.

The test
is code-named Trinity.

The inspiration... John Donne,

Robert Oppenheimer's
favorite poet.

One of the premier scientists
of his age,

Oppenheimer loved
literature and the desert
of the Southwest.

He was a peaceful man,

who just happened to have
created and coordinated

the most destructive weapon
in all history.

Only a few miles away,

the project's
military commander,

brigadier general
Leslie Groves, is the man
responsible

for building
the war department's

gigantic new headquarters
in Virginia

known as the Pentagon.

He doesn't like
relying on unreliable
civilian scientists.

His career is on the line.

Here it is, general groves...
plutonium.

Well, that's the first time
I've seen it,

but if you don't mind,
I wish you'd hold that
under it,

because, after all,
there's about $50 million

in that test tube.

The automatic control
has got it now.

Rob, this time
the stakes are really high.

It's going to work
all right, Robert.

And I'm sure
we'll never be sorry for it.

Well, in 40 seconds,
we'll know.

In the last few minutes,
general silence is observed

as the countdown begins.

Ten, nine, eight,

seven, six, five,

four, three, two,

one.

At 5:29 and 45 seconds,
the bomb detonates.

The light is brighter
than the sun.

Observing the explosion,

Oppenheimer recalls a line
from the hindu scripture,

"Now I am become death,
the destroyer of worlds."

This terrifying weapon

would launch the United States
on a journey,

turning the refuge
of the founding fathers

into a militarized state.

Generations of Americans
have been taught

that the United States
reluctantly dropped
atomic bombs

at the end of World War II

to save the lives of
hundreds of thousands
of young men

poised to die in an invasion
of Japan.

But the story is really
more complicated,

more interesting,
and much more disturbing.

Many Americans
view World War II

nostalgically as the "good war"

in which the United States
and its allies triumphed

over German nazism,
Italian fascism,

and Japanese militarism.

Others, not so blessed,

remember World War II
as the bloodiest war
in human history.

By the time it was over,

60 to 65 million people
lay dead,

including an estimated
27 million Soviets,

between 10
and 20 million Chinese,

six million Jews,
over six million Germans,

three million
non-Jewish poles,

2.5 million Japanese,

and 1.5 million yugoslavs.

Austria, Britain,
France, Italy,

Hungary, Romania,
and the United States

each counted
between a quarter million
and a half million dead.

Unlike World War I,

World War II began slowly
and incrementally.

The opening shots were fired
in 1931 when Japan,

rapidly industrializing,
launched its Kwantung army
into Manchuria,

overwhelming Chinese forces.

In Europe,
Germany, under Nazi leader
Adolf Hitler,

seeking to avenge
its own devastating defeat
in World War I,

was building up
the German war machine.

Heil!

His ally,
Italian fascist leader
Benito Mussolini,

invaded Ethiopia
in October, 1935.

But the United States,
Britain, and France

did little to protest.

And as a result,
Hitler concluded

that the allies
had no real stomach for war.

In March 1936,

German troops occupied
the demilitarized Rhineland.

It was Hitler's biggest gamble
to date and it worked.

"The 48 hours after the March

were the most nerve-wracking
in my life," he said.

"The military resources
at our disposal

would have been
wholly inadequate for even
a moderate resistance.

If the French had marched
into the Rhineland,

we would have had to withdraw
with our tails between
our legs."

The feeble
international response
to the Spanish civil war

was even more disheartening.

Fighting erupted in July, 1936,

when general
Francisco Franco's forces

set out to topple
the elected Spanish Republic

and establish a fascist regime.

The Republic had made enemies
among U.S. officials

and corporate leaders
with its progressive policies

and tight regulation
of business.

Many American catholics
rallied to Franco's support,

as did Hitler and Mussolini,

who sent abundant aid
and thousands of troops.

Hitler supplied his feared
condor legion,

whose bombing of guernica
was depicted by Pablo Picasso

in his famous mural.

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin

sent arms and advisors
to assist the loyalists.

But neither France, England,
or the United States

did anything to help.

The U.S., under president
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

banned the shipment
of weapons to either side,

which weakened the outgunned
government forces.

But Ford, General Motors,
Firestone

and other U.S. businesses
provided the fascists

with trucks,
tires and machine tools.

Texaco Oil Company,
headed by a pro-fascist,

promised Franco all the oil
he needed on credit.

Roosevelt was furious
and threatened an oil embargo

and slapped Texaco with a fine.

But Texaco persisted,
undeterred,

and also supplied oil
to Hitler.

The fighting dragged on
for three years.

Some 2,800 brave Americans
snuck into Spain

to battle the fascists,

most joining
the communist-backed
Abraham Lincoln brigade.

Almost 1,000 did not return.

Tell us, Ingles,
why have you come so far

to fight for our Republic?

A man fights for what
he believes in, Fernando.

Well, but in his own country.

Well, maybe you feel
that I'm sticking my nose

into other people's business,

but I don't feel that way.

It's not only Spain
fighting here, is it?

It's Germany and Italy
on one side and Russia
on the other,

and the Spanish people
right in the middle of it all.

The Nazis and fascists
are just as much
against democracy

as they are
against the communists.

And they're using your country
as a proving ground

for their new war machine,
their tanks and dive bombers

and stuff like that,
so they can get the jump
on the democracies

and knock off England
and France and my country

before we get armed
and ready to fight.

But Franco triumphed
and the Republic fell

in the spring of 1939,
burying with it

not only over 100,000
republican soldiers

and 5,000 foreign volunteers,

but the hopes and dreams
of many progressives.

By 1939, Roosevelt
told his cabinet

that his policies in Spain
had been a grave mistake

and warned that they all
soon would pay the price.

But that policy
convinced Stalin
that the Western powers

had no real interest
in a collective action

to slow the Nazi advance.

For years, the Soviet dictator
had implored the West

to unite against Hitler
and Mussolini,

even joining the league
of nations in 1934.

But Soviet pleas
were repeatedly ignored.

And then, in 1937,

full-scale war erupted
in China

as the powerful Japanese army
captured city after city.

With Jiang Jieshi's nationalist
forces fleeing in retreat,

Japanese soldiers brutalized
the citizens of nanjing

in December, 1937,

killing 200,000 to 300,000
civilians

and raping tens of thousands
of women.

Japan soon controlled
the east coast of China

with its population
of 200 million.

The international situation
deteriorated further in 1938

with German annexation
of Austria

and the allies' capitulation
to Hitler at Munich,

dismembering Czechoslovakia

and giving Germany
the Czech Sudetenland.

British prime minister
Neville Chamberlain infamously
proclaimed

that the settlement had brought
"Peace in our time."

Nor did the U.S. and its allies
officially do much

to help Germany's
desperate Jewish community,

when in late 1938
an orgy of violence

was let loose
on Kristallnacht...

rape and murder of the ancient
Jewish population escalated.

- Sieg heil!
- Sieg heil!

As in Europe,
the U.S.A. did little to help,

only admitting
approximately 200,000 Jews

between 1933 and 1945.

Emboldened, Hitler struck again
in March '39,

breaking his promise
and invading the rest
of Czechoslovakia.

Stalin recognized the truth...

His country was facing
its most deadly enemy alone.

He needed to buy time,

and fearing
a German-Polish alliance

to attack the U.S.S.R.,
he shocked the West

when he signed a non-aggression
pact with Hitler,

dividing Eastern Europe
between them.

Here were the admitted
arch enemies

in a state
of apparent friendship.

Stalin's primary concern

was the security
of his own nation.

In fact, the Soviet dictator
had proposed the same alliance

with Britain and France,

but neither would accept
Stalin's demand

to place Soviet troops
on Polish soil

as a way of blocking
the Germans.

Less than two weeks
after the pact was signed,

Hitler invaded Poland
from the West.

Britain and France,
allied with Poland,

finally stood up to Hitler
and declared war.

Two weeks later,
on September 17th,

Stalin also invaded Poland.

The Soviets soon thereafter
asserted control

over the Baltic States
of Estonia, Latvia

and Lithuania,
and invaded Finland.

The world
was at war once again.

World War II has begun.

In rapid succession,
the invincible German army

conquered Denmark,
Norway, Holland, and Belgium.

The great French army
of World War I,

its younger generation
decimated in that slaughter,

collapsed after only six weeks
of fighting in June, 1940.

The bulk of its ruling class,

conservative and anti-semitic
to the core,

decided on collaboration.

Hitler now turned
his attention to England

and launched a punishing
air assault as precursor

to a cross-channel invasion.

But a new war leader,
Winston Churchill,

rallied the nation behind him.

We shall fight on the beaches,

we shall fight
on the landing grounds,

we shall fight in the fields

and in the streets.

We shall fight in the hills.

We shall never surrender.

And in what seemed a miracle,

the battered air force
held the Germans at bay

in the historic
battle of Britain.

Churchill called it
their finest hour.

Leading the British people,

Churchill became
a living legend.

Although most Americans
wanted Britain and France
to win the war,

according to a gallup poll
in October '39,

95% percent wanted the U.S.
to stay out,

fearing essentially
that Britain was again,

as in 1917,

drawing the U.S.
into a futile World War.

Another war?
Not for me.

This time America
should keep out,
and I know I will.

Let Europe fight
her own battles.

They mean nothing to us.

- By all means, no.
- No!

- No.
- No.

Roosevelt promised
in the 1940 election that

"No American boys would go
to a foreign war."

Yet he now believed that Hitler

was intent on world domination.

And with neutrality legislation
on the books

and military preparedness
at a low level,

Roosevelt nonetheless
made several bold moves.

Bending the rules,

he unilaterally sent
50 old destroyers to Britain.

And in order to drive Japan
out of China,

he imposed select embargoes
on the flow of vital
raw materials

critical to
the Japanese war machine.

In September, 1940,
Japan retaliated

and established, with Germany
and Italy and others,

the tripartite pact.

It was clear now
that the three axis countries

definitely stood against us,

organized to smash
the very principles

which made us
the people we are.

Sieg heil!

With war clouds growing darker,

Roosevelt now
made his boldest move yet.

Breaking the famous precedent
of George Washington,

he declared for a third term
in 1940.

The stakes
have rarely been higher
in a presidential election.

And Roosevelt, in this spirit,

now chose his controversial
secretary of agriculture,

Henry A. Wallace,
as his running mate.

Wallace had been
at the nerve center
of Roosevelt's successes

in stalling off the perils
of the great depression,

easing the way
with government subsidies
for farmers

to stay in business
by cutting back on production.

For the urban poor,

Wallace had provided
food stamps and school lunches.

He instituted programs
for land-use planning

and soil conservation.

Considered the scientific
community's best ally,

Wallace spoke out strongly
against the building up

of false racial theories

in rebuke of the Hitler
policies in Germany.

George Carver,
born into slavery,

now a chemist
at Tuskegee University

specializing in botany,
first introduced me

to the mysteries
of plant fertilization.

I spent a good many years
breeding corn

because this scientist
deepened my appreciation
of plants

in a way I could never forget.

Superior ability
is not the exclusive possession

of any one race
or any one class,

provided men are given
the right opportunities.

Democratic party bosses
feared Wallace's views,

and it looked
like the Wallace nomination
would go up in flames,

when Roosevelt,
angry and frustrated,

wrote a remarkable letter
to the assembled delegates

in which he flatly turned down
the presidential nomination.

The Democratic party

has failed when it has fallen
to the control

of those who think
in terms of dollars

instead of human values.

Until the Democratic party
shakes off all the shackles
of control

fastened upon it
by the forces of conservatism,

reaction, and appeasement,

it will not continue
its March to victory.

The party cannot face
in both directions
at the same time.

Therefore, I decline the honor

of the nomination
for the presidency.

His wife, Eleanor Roosevelt,
saved the day.

The first president's wife
ever to address a convention,

she told disgruntled
delegates that

"We face now
a grave situation."

The party bosses buckled
and put Wallace on the ticket.

They would, however,
come back for their vengeance.

I've just heard the news
of my nomination,

and there is just one thing
I want to say.

I am confident
that under the leadership
of president Roosevelt

we shall have
a united Democratic party,

victory in November,

and security
for the American people.

But the crisis over Wallace
never went away.

The previous vice president,
"Cactus Jack" garner,

an affable outgoing texan
had said...

This job ain't worth
a barrel of warm piss.

Nonetheless Wallace stuck out

like a sore thumb
on Capitol Hill.

He was a spiritual man,

fascinated by Navajo
tribal religion.

He studied Buddhism
and Zoroastrianism.

The Washington scene
with its cocktail dives

and smoky members' clubs
didn't suit him.

He didn't drink or smoke.

He preferred to play tennis
and box.

He liked to
spend evenings reading

and throwing boomerangs
on the potomac.

In a sign
of his great confidence,

Roosevelt made Wallace
chairman of the board
of economic warfare

in charge
of the national economy.

Wallace was at the height
of his influence in Washington.

1941 would be a year
of epic change.

The fuhrer of Germany
had fulfilled his promise

to the German people
and reversed the shame
of World War I.

The Germans
now were at their height.

Foodstuffs from France,
Holland, Denmark, Norway,

luxury goods,
industries thriving...

the thousand-year reich
of the future

looked like it might come true
after all.

But, as history
repeatedly shows,

the fatal flaw
arises not from without,

but from within.

And Hitler, at the zenith
of his arrogance,

attacked the Soviet Union.

The concept of lebensraum,
or "living space"

was described first by him

in his 1925-6 two volume
autobiography,

"Mein Kampf"...
My fight.

He stated that the future
of the German peoples

lay in the east

and would need to be carved out
of the U.S.S.R.

One-sixth of
the earth's surface,

reaching from east to west,
nearly halfway around
the world,

and Southward
from the North Pole
to the borders of India.

One country
of nine million square miles.

That's our own country
three times over,

or all of North America
and a million square miles
to boot.

Raw materials...
unlimited.

Man power...
193 million.

And it was going to be
the Slavic and Jewish peoples

who were going to be eliminated

to make room
for the ascendant German race.

The clash between Germans
and Slavs over Eastern Europe

dated back
to the Baltic Crusades
of the 13th century,

in which German knights
had fought the Russians...

And later intensified
with the rise of nation states.

Now Hitler was prepared
to finish the job,

believing that racially pure
Germany was destined

to vanquish the decadent,
racially-mixed Slavs.

Racial mixing, he reasoned,
caused the collapse
of civilization.

He had witnessed it firsthand
in his native country

in the multi-national city
of Vienna before the first
World War,

and now saw it also occurring
in a decadent Britain

and the United States.

With England no longer
a threat in the West,

Hitler was now ready
to go after the biggest
prize of all.

Less than two years
after he had signed

the peace pact with Stalin,
he attacked.

Three million men he sent in
a Blitzkrieg movement

cutting deep
into Soviet territory
along a 2,000-mile front,

from the arctic all the way
down to the Black Sea.

The Germans
quickly destroyed two-thirds
of the Soviet Air Force.

With the added loss of tanks
and artillery,

Stalin's massive post-1939
buildup had been useless.

Fearing that Britain
was planting disinformation

to incite war between Germany
and the U.S.S.R.,

Stalin disbelieved
his own intelligence reports

about the imminence
of the invasion.

In the 1930s' purges,
Stalin had killed

or imprisoned most of
the Soviet High Command...

Some 43,000 officers...

because of
their alleged loyalty

to the Red Army founder
Leon Trotsky,

whom Stalin had had
assassinated the year before

in his exile in Mexico city.

Stalin was equally paranoid,
and rightly so,

about the loyalty of
local Soviet populations

which he'd brutalized
in the pre-war years.

But Hitler,
instead of seeking the alliance

of this restive population,

was even more ruthless
than Stalin,

intending the annihilation
of the Soviets

on a scale far larger
than his war in the West

or even against the Jews.

The Ukraine fell
in the summer of 1941,

and the battle for Kiev,
the oldest major city
in the Soviet Union,

cost half a million
Soviet lives.

Civilians were either
executed or condemned
to slave labor ranks,

and with the fall
of the Ukraine came the loss

of the Soviet
industrial heartland.

The coal, the steel, the gas,
and the mineral ores

of the Soviet Union
were stolen by the Germans,

who were moving towards Moscow
in the fall of 1941.

American and British
military leaders

estimated the U.S.S.R.
Would hold on

for no more than three months

and might even fold
in four weeks.

They feared
that Stalin would conclude
a separate peace.

The prospects were
so devastating that Churchill

swallowed his longstanding
loathing of communism

and pledged support
for the Soviet Union.

Stalin begged Britain
for military material

and to land immediately
in Europe and engage Hitler
on a second front.

And for the West,
it was now crucial

to keep the Soviet Union
in the war

to absorb the main thrust
of the Nazi war machine.

In August,
Roosevelt ordered delivery

of the first 100 fighter planes
to the U.S.S.R.

But American military leaders,

intent upon building up
U.S. defenses,

impeded Roosevelt's efforts.

And the British, reinforcing
Stalin's mistrust,

also objected to diversion
of their supplies.

There were still many
in the West

who frankly were glad
to see the Soviet Union

finally on her knees.

Missouri senator Harry Truman

declared on the floor
of the senate in 1941...

If we see that Germany
is winning,

we ought to help Russia.

And if Russia is winning,
we ought to help Germany.

And that way, let them kill
as many as possible.

Ignoring such advice,
Roosevelt, in November, 1941,

announced that the U.S.
would extend aid
to the Soviets.

In March of that year,

Roosevelt had managed to get
a lend-lease act

through a reluctant congress.

He then sent
the first $7 billion

of what would eventually
become $32 billion to Britain.

The Soviets, in the end,
would receive $11 billion.

In August 1941,

Roosevelt met secretly
with Churchill in Newfoundland.

A ship came out of the mist,
mooring side by side
with the Augusta.

It was
the H.M.S. Prince of Wales.

The prime minister
had come solely

to convince the United States
to join the war now.

Elliott Roosevelt,
one of Franklin's sons

who was there
as a military attache,

described in his book
a late-night encounter

where Churchill
made a naked appeal.

It's your only chance.

You've got to come in
beside us.

Elliott later helped his father

on his leg braces
walk to his cabin.

A real old Tory, isn't he?

He's a perfect wartime
prime minister.

His one big job is to see
that Britain survives this war.

But Winston Churchill
lead England after the war?

It'd never work.

We've got to make clear
to the British

from the very outset
that we don't intend simply

to be a good-time Charlie
who can be used

to help the British Empire
out of a tight spot

and then be forgotten forever.

The British Empire
is at stake here.

It's something
that is not generally known,

but British bankers
and German bankers

have had world trade
pretty well sewn up

in their pockets
for a long time.

That night, Roosevelt
began to spell out

his vision for a new world.

I think I speak
as America's president

when I say that America
won't help England

to continue to ride roughshod
over colonial peoples.

At the heart
of Roosevelt's vision

was that political freedom
meant economic freedom,

which was in sharp contrast
to the British Empire's
rationale

that kept the colonies
poor and dependent on London.

Roosevelt's global
new deal would create
a financial credit system

that would allow
the colonies to develop.

Roosevelt reminded Churchill

that the U.S.'s
colonial relationship
with the Philippines

was to be terminated in 1946,

and urged the British
to do the same with
their empire,

which offended so many
American sensibilities.

Churchill realized
there were limits to
Roosevelt's generosity,

and that
the price of American aid

would be the world
after the peace.

We look forward to a world

founded upon four
essential human freedoms.

The first

is freedom of speech
and expression

everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom
of every person

to worship God in his own way

everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want

everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear

anywhere in the world.

These were big words,

but the Atlantic charter
was a truly visionary document

that later became
the guiding manifesto

of the united nations...

a universal statement,
not heard since the French
or Russian revolution,

on the rights of men
and women everywhere.

Fearing Roosevelt's
proposed wording,

Churchill added
a clause stipulating

that equal access
to international wealth

would be guaranteed
"only with due respect

for existing obligations."

But, as Elliott Roosevelt
wrote...

Gradually, very gradually,
and very quietly,

the mantle of leadership
was slipping

from British shoulders
to American.

The next day,

the Prince of Wales
headed "back to the wars"...

the two statesmen
parting ways for now.

Churchill later
told his cabinet

that Roosevelt
said he would wage war

but not declare it.

Everything was to be done
to force an incident.

Neither man would
have then predicted this path

to war would lead
through Japan, not Germany.

Japan had avoided the Nazi war

against their old
Russian antagonists,

and in fact had been
alienated from Berlin

by the Soviet-German alliance
of 1939.

In his arrogance, Hitler,

who considered the Japanese
racially inferior,

had made no attempt whatever
to confide his Soviet plans
to them

or offer any new territory
for their support
in the far east.

In hindsight,
this had enormous consequences

for the fate of the world.

If the Japanese had entered
the war against Stalin,

it is almost certain
the Soviet Union would have
been crushed.

But Japan wanted, like Britain,
Germany and Italy,

a colonial empire of its own.

And taking advantage
of the vacuum created

by the German conquest
of France and Holland,

and the neutralization
of British power,

it drove South into Indochina
in July, 1941,

seeking resources
and military bases.

The United States,
which now produced

half of the oil supplies
of the world,

responded by completely
embargoing all trade to Japan,

including oil.

Its supplies dwindling fast,

Japan determined
to secure its oil from
the Dutch East Indies,

but the American fleet
at Pearl Harbor

could significantly
interfere with those plans.

December 7th,

1941,

a date which
will live in infamy.

Thus, the Japanese launched
an all-out surprise attack

on the U.S. naval base
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii...

Leaving almost 2,500 dead

and disabling much
of the American fleet.

The Americans knew an attack
was coming,

but thought it would be
in the Philippines.

No matter how long
it may take us

to overcome
this premeditated invasion,

the American people
in their righteous might

will win through
to absolute victory.

The next day,
the U.S. and Britain

declared war on Japan.

Although he had not even been
told about Pearl Harbor

by his Japanese allies,

Hitler now
unnecessarily declared war
on the United States,

a mistake nearly equivalent
to invading the Soviet Union.

Roosevelt could declare
a popular war on Japan,

but was now relieved
of the enormous burden

of breaking his word
to the American electorate.

He could finally declare war
on Germany.

The chaos was now global.

The U.S. strategy
was to build up

and advance gradually
in the Pacific,

while focusing its major effort
against the Germans.

Defeating Japan,
Roosevelt argued,

would not defeat Germany,

but the defeat of Germany
would mean the defeat of Japan.

And with the U.S.
focused in Europe,

the Japanese conquest
proceeded largely unimpeded.

They captured one-sixth
of the earth's surface

in only six months...

Thailand, Malaya, Java,
Borneo, the Philippines,

Hong Kong, Indonesia, Burma.

Citizens of those countries
often greeted the Japanese

as liberators from European
colonial oppressors...

a judgment that would
prove short-lived.

President Roosevelt
said privately...

Don't think for a minute
that Americans

would be dying in the Pacific

if it hadn't been
for the short-sighted greed

of the French and the British
and the Dutch.

In another great blow
to the allied cause,

Japan stunned
the British Empire at
Singapore in early 1942.

The British had more troops
defending Singapore
than England itself.

80,000 commonwealth soldiers,

many of them Australian,
were taken prisoner.

But in a sign
of the true feelings
of colonized peoples,

of the 55,000 British
Indian troops

taken prisoner by the Japanese,

40,000 changed sides
to fight for the Japanese.

Port of Singapore
was forced to surrender

to the Japanese forces in...

If the Japanese
had attacked Eastern India

and coordinated it
with the German advances

in the middle east
before their invasion
of the Soviet Union,

the British Empire
would have been severely
threatened in India.

But Japan and Germany,
throughout the war,

never behaved
as if close allies.

Japan crucially failed
to deliver the knockout blow
at Pearl Harbor.

And the allies
began a counteroffensive

led by general
Douglas Macarthur
and admiral Chester Nimitz.

And in June, 1942,

U.S. forces defeated
the Japanese Navy at midway

and began an island-hopping
strategy

that would continue
for more than three years.

The Japanese
would fight fiercely,

ensuring that victory
would come at a great cost
to American soldiers.

But by 1943,

the U.S. was churning out
almost 100,000 planes a year,

dwarfing the 70,000
Japan produced for
the entire war.

By the summer of '44,

the U.S. had deployed
almost 100 aircraft carriers
in the Pacific,

far more than Japan's total
of 25.

Allied science
figured prominently
on every front.

Development of radar
and the proximity fuse
contributed to victory,

but it was the atomic bomb
that would change the course
of history.

In December, 1938,

two German physicists
stunned the scientific world,

splitting the uranium atom,

making development
of atomic bombs

a theoretical possibility.

Those in the U.S. most alarmed
by this development

were the scientists
who had escaped from
Nazi-occupied Europe,

many of them Jewish,
who feared the consequences

should Hitler get his hands
on such a weapon.

The emigre scientists
had tried but failed

to arouse interest on the part
of American authorities.

To the Navy department,
these laboratory experiments

seemed to be
of no immediate importance.

Very interesting, doctor.
Keep us informed.

Desperate, in July 1939,

Leo Szilard solicited the help
of Albert Einstein,

who agreed to write
to president Roosevelt

urging him to authorize
a U.S. atomic research program.

Einstein later said...

I made one great mistake
in my life

when I signed the letter
to president Roosevelt

recommending that
the atom bombs be made.

At first the project was small,

but in September, 1942,
the "Manhattan Project"

was turned over
to the military.

General groves was told
by his superiors
to get results.

Vice president Wallace,
who tracked scientific
development closely,

had a low opinion of groves,
believing him

"a slightly pathological,
anti-semitic

Roosevelt-hater
and outright fascist."

Amazingly, to head up
the project's Los Alamos lab,

the man groves chose,
Robert Oppenheimer,

was an unapologetic leftist
who admitted to being
a member

of every communist party
front organization on
the West Coast,

at one point, giving 10%
of his monthly salary

to support the republican
forces in Spain.

Though completely opposite
in temperament, groves,

with Oppenheimer's help,
assembled an incredible coterie

of international scientists,

including Enrico Fermi
and Leo Szilard,

who achieved the first
nuclear chain reaction
in an atomic pile,

constructed in a university
of Chicago squash court.

Scientists worked long hours
in the desert,

fearing a last-minute
German victory

in the atomic race.

But the truth came out
in late 1944

that Germany
had actually abandoned
the bomb research in '42,

opting instead
to throw their top scientists
and resources

into developing
V1 and V2 rocketry.

But America's scientists
continued on.

In the east, the Soviet Union

lay on the brink
of catastrophe,

the Nazis about to take Moscow.

In September, '41,
Stalin pleaded with the British

to send 25 to 30 divisions
to the motherland

and once again pressed
for a second front
in northern France.

The following may,

Roosevelt acknowledged
that "the Russian armies

are killing more axis personnel

and destroying
more axis material

than all the other
25 united nations
put together."

He publicly
announced the U.S.

Would open a second front
in Europe by the end of 1942.

And army chief of staff
George Marshall

instructed his European
commander general
Dwight eisenhower

to draw up plans
for an invasion of Europe

in the spring of '43
at the latest.

The Soviets were elated.

But Churchill was facing
a huge crisis in North Africa.

30,000 British troops had just
surrendered humiliatingly

to a Nazi force
half their size.

Fearing a bloodbath
on the shores of France,

he said the British
could not muster enough ships

to transport invading forces
across the channel,

and convinced Roosevelt
to postpone the second front

and instead mount an invasion
of North Africa.

When the U.S. agreed to this,
eisenhower predicted

that this would be
the blackest day in history.

He had said previously,
"we should not forget

that the prize we seek

is to keep eight million
Russians in the war."

To George Marshall,

who dismissed
the invasion of Africa
as "periphery pecking,"

it appeared that the British,
unlike the Soviets,

were afraid to take on
the Germans.

The shadows of World War I
still hung too heavily

over the imagination
of Churchill's government.

But the British
had a different strategy.

Relying on sea power
and attacking Hitler's

softer Southern front in Italy,

Churchill wanted
to avoid directly taking on

the German war machine,

instead seeking
to secure North Africa

and the Mediterranean
around Gibraltar,

and then the middle east,
in order to hold on

to their oil reserves,
and well as maintaining
access to India

and the rest of
their eastern empire
through the Suez Canal.

Theresulting paranoia
of the Soviets

cannot be underestimated.

Britain and Russia
had been rivals since
the 19th century.

Stalin mistrusted
especially the British,

but also the Americans,

because of their intervention
against the communists

20 years earlier
in the Russian civil war.

Churchill had then promised
to "strangle bolshevism
in its cradle."

And up until his non-aggression
pact with Hitler,

Stalin even harbored
the fear that Churchill
and the British Empire

might ally with Nazi Germany

and launch a grand crusade
against the Soviet Union.

Fighter command ready.

Bomber command ready.

Artillery in position.

Tanks manned.

Cavalry in position.

Infantry ready.

Beyond those hills
is the enemy.

Yet against all odds

and to the shock
of much of the world,

it was to be
the Red Army itself

that would reverse
the course of the war.

It would need a tolstoy
to describe the heroic
endurance

of Soviet men and women
who made this possible.

Few saw its meaning then,

but as it happened to Napoleon
in the winter of 1812
at Moscow,

the crack German
war machine was,

for the very first time,
stopped.

But because the Japanese
had marched South,

Stalin was able to bring back
Marshal Zhukov's

40 siberian
divisions to Moscow.

Zhukov made the difference.

German losses that winter
were around 400,000.

Meanwhile, at the capital
of Leningrad,

once called St. Petersburg,

the Germans besieged the city
over 900 consecutive days

that included the two winters
of '41 and '42.

The population of the city
in 1941

was 2.5 million people.

One out of three would die.

Bombs, the cold, starvation,

eating soups made of glue
from wallpaper, or rats,

or fellow human beings...

This went on
in far greater proportion

than has ever been
officially admitted.

Such was their pride

that many civilians refused
to evacuate the city

when given the chance.

Composer Dmitri Shostakovich
wrote his great
seventh symphony

in honor of this sacrifice,

the orchestra continuing
to play throughout the siege

until most of its members
had dropped from starvation.

The Germans
never took Leningrad.

Soviet losses
were over a million.

Much of the art collection
from the famous Hermitage

was shipped
to the Ural Mountains.

The Soviets
were salvaging what they could.

Much was burned to deny
the Germans anything.

Not relying on the West
to open a second front

or to send much more in aid,

Stalin now began
the greatest forced migration

in known human history...

Evacuating some
10 million people to the east

of the Ural Mountains
in central Asia and Siberia,

and to the South to Kazakhstan,

to rebuild the U.S.S.R.
in a second industrial
revolution

that matched that
of the 1920s and '30s.

To fight
the German war machine,

almost 2,000 new factories
were built.

Housing followed.

The transfer
of the greatest part
of the Soviet economy

was accomplished
in two incredible years,

and by 1943, the U.S.S.R.
Was the equal

of any industrial power
in Europe

and was now able to
out-produce Germany itself.

40,000 T-34 tanks...

Superior to the German
Panzers... were built.

50,000 Ilyushin planes,
the famous IL-2,

were superior in fact
to the German Luftwaffe.

The steel, wheat,
and ores that were lost
in the Ukraine in 1941

were gradually replaced.

An entire society made up
mostly of women and children

labored 12 to 18 hour shifts
to survive.

All was for Mother Russia.

The patriotism of the people
was extraordinary.

They gave their personal
treasures to finance the war...

Heirlooms, jewelry, anything.

An entire society facing
extermination from Hitler

had no choice but to fight
with every last drop of blood

for their own lives
and for their country.

By late 1942,

the United States was,
despite early setbacks,

coming through
with lend-lease...

Almost two million tons
of supplies...

Approximately 400,000 trucks,
52,000 jeeps,

7,000 tanks,

artillery, combat vehicles,
15,000 aircraft,

18,000 anti-aircraft guns,

and 8,000 railway cars
and food.

Behind German lines,
Russian, Ukrainian,

and Belarusian partisans
were attacking from forests

and caves, blowing up trains,

interfering
with transportation,

and in any way possible
tampering with the German
war machine

and engaging up to 10%

of the German
occupation forces.

The partisans became
an indispensable factor

in the ultimate victory
of the Soviet troops.

But the consequences
were devastating,

the Germans behaving
with more and more terrorism,

hanging partisans
and innocents alike.

No one knows how many,
but estimates range

from four to eight million
Ukrainians killed in the war.

And it is estimated
that Belorussia

lost a quarter
of its population...

at least 2.5 million dead.

Approximately 200 cities
and 9,000 villages

were burned to the ground.

It is estimated that
at least 100,000 partisans

were killed or missing.

Hitler's generals warned him
that a longer war of attrition

was now a reality.

The Soviets seemed able
to with stand huge losses.

The only victory for Hitler
lay not in wiping out

the Slavic peoples,

but in now
acquiring the resources
of the Soviet Union.

Thus, the Germans,
under general Friedrich Paulus,

now drove South toward
the oil-rich port of Baku.

The Soviets,
under Marshal Georgy Zhukov,

were determined to stop them
at all costs.

Without oil, the Soviet army
would not be able to fight.

The loss of Baku would
force Stalin to surrender.

One city barred the road
to Baku... stalingrad.

And in the winter of 1942,

the German army
finally met its match.

In the single greatest battle
in history,

the Soviets lost more men

than the British or Americans
in the entire war.

An estimated half a million men
were killed.

The Germans lost at least
200,000 of their best troops,

but likely far more.

The civilian dead, unknown.

Germans could destroy
stalingrad,

but they could never take it.

Under Stalin's strict orders,

anyone retreating
or surrendering

was to be treated as a traitor,

his family subject
to imprisonment.

It was his feared
"not one step back" policy.

At stalingrad, more than
13,000 Soviet soldiers

were shot by their own side.

During the course of the war,

135,000 were killed
in this manner.

400,000 served
in punishment battalions.

In that year,
there were still four million
prisoners in gulags.

Nonetheless, with motives
ranging from patriotism
to terror,

Soviet soldiers,
with their backs against
the Volga river,

fought from street corner
to street corner

in that cruelest of winters.

By January, 1943,

the end finally came
when general Von Paulus

surrendered the remainder
of his sixth army.

He had started
with 300,000 men,

and 91,000 now surrendered,

of whom approximately
9,000 returned alive

after the war to Germany.

Hitler is said
to have lamented...

After 162 days

of the heaviest fighting
in the history of warfare,

the last shot was fired.

Peace came to stalingrad.

And with their resources
kicking in...

New aircraft, new artillery...

The Soviets
now took the offensive.

At Kursk, the greatest tank
battle in history,

they beat the Germans again...

70,000 German dead

and several times
that number Soviet dead.

After their colossal defeat,

the German army began
a full-scale retreat
on the eastern front.

The whole legend
of Nazi invincibility

has been shattered.

German armies
could retreat too.

German armies
could be defeated.

German troops
could be captured.

Throughout these pivotal years,

the Soviets
were regularly battling

more than 200 German divisions.

In contrast,
the Americans and British

fighting in the Mediterranean

rarely confronted
more than 10 German divisions.

Germany lost
over six million men

fighting the Soviets
and approximately one million

fighting on the Western front.

Though the myth lives on
that the United States
won World War II,

serious historians agree
that it was the Soviet Union

and its entire society,

including its brutal dictator
Joseph Stalin,

who through sheer desperation
and incredibly stoic heroism

forged the great narrative
of World War II...

The defeat of the monster
German war machine.

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