July 6, 1940.
Berlin has never given a victorious leader such a warm welcome.
Adolf Hitler crushed France,
rumored to have the best army in the world.
How did our destiny change in 1940 when Hitler took on the West
and unleashed the Apocalypse?
When Hitler attacks,
setting off the biggest conflict in History,
he is 50 years old.
Hitler was a corporal in World War I,
and a violent, racist Nationalist militant in 1933
when he seized power in Germany.
Along with his accomplices,
including the renowned fighter-pilot Herman Goering,
now in charge of the county's air force, the Luftwaffe.
Hitler has the support of both the army and the German people.
Hitler prepares his great attack from his chalet
near Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps,
known as the Berghof.
Hitler lets himself be filmed by Eva Braun,
his secret mistress.
He doesn't marry her until the day before they commit suicide.
Hitler considers himself married to Germany.
Hitler spends half the year in this idyllic setting.
He is protected by the fanatical SS officers in their black uniforms,
capable of any crime.
At the Berghof,
Hitler receives his ministers,
foreign heads of state and film stars.
He also relaxes there,
listening to famous tenor Joseph Schmidt,
who is Jewish and has fled Germany.
Why? Because Hitler has built his regime on racism and anti-Semitism.
With the help of his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels,
who is a Berghof regular like all the upper echelons of his party,
the National Socialist Party, "Nazi" for short.
Nazis like Himmler and Heydrich
who, under Hitler's orders,
orchestrate the extermination of six million Jews.
Many Nazis met during World War I.
They were put in power by a multitude of other frustrated veterans.
Frustrated by four years of fighting in the trenches,
only to be defeated and humiliated
by the armistice of November 11, 1918
and the Treaty of Versailles that followed.
Hitler's entire entourage dreams of revenge.
They organize and prepare for it,
along with their families and children,
who all belong to the Hitler Youth.
1939.
Hitler decides to put an end
to what he considers to be one of the Treaty of Versailles's worst clauses.
The division of German territory by the famous Danzig corridor,
which gives Poland access to the sea.
Hitler wants to reclaim this territory and invade Poland.
But to avoid a war with Stalin,
the despotic leader of Communist Russia,
Hitler sends his foreign minister,
Joachim von Ribbentrop, to Moscow.
He signs the German-Soviet non-aggression pact
in exchange for a part of Poland.
The Soviets manage to fly an upside-down swastika flag,
found on the set of an anti-Nazi film.
MOSCOW
Stalin's signing of this treaty with his worst enemies
provokes a serious crisis of faith among Communists,
especially in France,
during those last paid holidays in the summer of 1939.
Some intellectuals leave the Party.
But the Communist workers remain loyal to Moscow.
The French government suspects they are capable of sabotage, in the event of war.
This non-aggression pact comes as a shock to the Italian fascists as well.
The Führer's closest ally and model,
Benito Mussolini, is opposed to Hitler's turnaround and writes to him...
"Russia was World Enemy No. 1.
She cannot become, and is not, Friend No. 1."
Hitler coldly replies...
"I believe the existence of a sufficiently strong German army
will allow us to deal with any eventuality in the East."
And Hitler attacks Poland on September 1, 1939.
Two days later, on September 3,
France and England, allied with Poland, enter the conflict.
FRENCH REPUBLIC WARTIME MOBILIZATION ORDER
World War II has just begun.
Barely a month later, on October 5, 1939,
Hitler, triumphantly arrives in Poland's capital city, Warsaw,
wearing his green leather coat.
The Allies have not budged.
This footage, shot and edited by Goebbels' propaganda teams,
impresses the entire world.
This is the face of German might, forged by the Nazis.
Hitler has managed to make his soldiers hold him in awe.
He says,
"Each man must feel that I have chosen him personally."
For them, for his generals
and for the whole world,
he delivers a key speech in the Reichstag,
Germany's parliament, ruled by the Nazis.
There never will be another November 1918 in German history!
It is foolish to hope for the disintegration of our nation.
Mr. Churchill may be convinced that Great Britain is going to win,
I myself do not doubt for a second that Germany will be victorious!
NARRATOR Hitler versus Churchill,
the deadly duel begins.
Churchill writes...
"A gaping void was opened...
and into that void there strode a maniac of ferocious genius,
the repository and expression of the most virulent hatreds
that have ever corroded the human breast." Corporal Hitler.
Churchill is 66 years old.
A member of the Duke of Marlborough's illustrious family,
he is raised, as is customary in these circles,
to be a cavalry officer. Instead, he becomes a journalist.
With the support of his brilliant wife Clementine,
he will go on to be a Conservative MP and a cabinet minister,
and will fight against all dictatorships.
When war breaks out,
he is First Lord of the Admiralty,
in other words, Navy Minister.
He embodies the resistance to Nazism,
which leads Goering to say...
"With Churchill now in government, we are truly at war with England."
Goering started building concentration camps,
immediately after the Nazis rose to power in 1933,
like here in Dachau.
A place to lock up the Communists, Freemasons or even Christians,
anyone opposed to the Nazi regime.
Goering made himself a willing accessory to every form of persecution.
Goering has powerful European connections.
His hunting companion is none other than the British ambassador to Germany,
Sir Nevile Henderson,
who appears here in a short film from Goering's private collection.
After the Nazis murderous outburst against the Jews in 1938,
the horrific Kristallnacht pogrom, Nevile Henderson comments...
"The persecution of German Jews should be regularized in an orderly
and systematic manner,
so as not to offend British public opinion so much!"
Sir Nevile Henderson is recalled to London when war is declared.
He writes a book with the revealing title...
The Failure of a Mission.
For him, this declaration of war is a disaster.
He had always advocated a policy of appeasement,
like many members of British high society who were Nazi sympathizers.
From aristocrat Oswald Mosley, leader of the English fascists...
to the royal family itself.
King George VI's brother, the Duke of Windsor,
had made the trip to Berghof.
Hitler dreamed of an agreement with England.
From the outset of the war,
Great Britain sent an Expeditionary Force to the North of France,
warmly praised by the propaganda machine.
MAN Britain and France stand side by side,
as they did 25 years ago,
bound by a strong friendship.
The old comradery between Tommy and the "poilu" is back.
The English are no strangers on French soil.
The land where their fathers fought before them,
and Napolean's precept,
"an army marches with its stomach," have not been forgotten.
Everywhere behind the lines, men are at work,
digging trenches, raising parapets,
and fortifying their positions.
Viscount Gort, commander-in-chief of the English troops
and a hero from the last war, is working closely with General Gamelin.
NARRATOR The French General-in-Chief, Maurice Gamelin,
he is a former senior officer from World War I.
A cautious yet indecisive man,
he is overly confident about the famous Maginot Line,
the fortifications on the German border.
Along the Rhine, for ten months,
soldiers on either side observe each other,
occasionally exchanging a few shots.
The French call this the Drôle de Guerre,
from the English term Phony War.
And the Germans call it the Sitzkrieg, the Sitting War.
But how long will it last?
The French are obsessed with the bloodbath of World War I.
There are pacifistic, even Nazi-friendly, factions within the country.
Ever since the Dreyfus Affair in the late 19th century,
anti-Semitism has been at the heart of French politics.
A specific elite fight in favor of Nazi Germany.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline,
considered one of the greatest French authors, writes...
"I feel very friendly to Hitler,
very friendly to all Germans,
I think they are brothers,
that they are right to be so racist.
It would hurt me a lot if they were beaten.
I think our real enemies are the Jews and the Freemasons.
It is a crime that we are forced to bear arms against people of our race,
who ask nothing of us."
In the early spring of 1940,
the French continue to go away on weekend excursions
and film themselves doing the Nazi salute.
Most of them live under the illusion that there will never be a real war.
Mr. Fernand Bignon, a peace-loving photographer in Gisors,
continues to shoot portraits of quiet Normans.
He also films his 10-year-old daughter Jacqueline,
who is curious about the English motorcyclists
and the many French soldiers strolling through the streets,
cluttered with military equipment.
As for the Germans,
most of them think Hitler has restored order,
chased out the Communists, and abolished unemployment.
They are indifferent to the plight of the Jews.
Hitler's popularity is immense
and for his birthday, on April 20, 1940,
crowds of Germans gather together in Munich
in front of his private home.
They come to show their admiration bearing gifts...
anything that can be melted down for cannons and planes.
Hitler prepares the Germans for the great offensive,
mobilizing them with his animal-tamer's voice
HITLER Let's make a solemn oath!
The war imposed on the Greater German Reich
by the capitalist rulers of France and England
must become the most glorious German victory of all time!
NARRATOR This scrap metal will also be used to produce
hundreds of thousands of practical,
handy containers that the British call Jerrycans,
the Kraut cans.
Thanks to them, German tanks can be fuel self-sufficient,
unlike their French counterparts.
And Stalin provides massive quantities of fuel.
The Sitzkrieg or Sitting War,
has allowed Hitler to stock up on material,
food rations, and ammunition.
Goebbels, the propaganda genius in the service of evil,
repeatedly shows off the Reich's strength and power to the German people.
But these same Germans who love Hitler,
are they ready to go to war?
Not all of them.
With the terrifying memory of World War I still in their minds,
German mothers aren't happy to see their 20-year-old sons
don the gray-green uniform again and go off to combat.
Neither are the girlfriends...
Nor the wives.
Most of these soldiers have been turned into fanatics.
To avoid any anxiety or hesitation,
thirty-five million Pervitin pills are distributed,
methamphetamine that eliminates doubt, fear, and fatigue.
NARRATOR On the evening of May 9, 1940,
the night before the attack on the West,
the Seventh Air Division paratroopers leave for battle.
Get on board!
To your planes!
The German paratroopers sing their anthem.
Red shines the sun
Who knows whether morning Will smile at us?
Throw all the engines Into full throttle
Start, and then fly!
And off they go, toward the Netherlands,
even though this country has declared its neutrality.
This is the very first time in history that a nation has invaded from the sky.
For Goebbels, every image counts,
and this is a message for the English...
"Your navy can't ensure the safety of your island."
At dawn on May 10,
a German paratrooper rushes towards the strategic Dutch bridge in Moerdijk,
to defuse any potential explosives.
The other paratroopers kill the alerted defenders...
...and the explosives are neutralized.
A German commando simultaneously attacks the Eben-Emael fort,
the key to Belgium.
The fort is armed to the teeth with machine guns,
impregnable, except from overhead!
At that very moment,
Hitler is on a train taking him to his headquarters near the fighting,
codename Felsennest,
or Rocky Eyrie,
on the border of the Netherlands and Belgium.
Early morning on May 10,1940 is the greatest moment of his life.
Hitler launches his bombers toward the Netherlands
and triggers the invasion of Luxembourg and Belgium.
Hitler has mobilized three million men for his assault.
The Allies have just as many to stop him.
CUSTOMS
Hitler declares,
"I hadn't slept a wink all night,
and at 7 a.m. I received the news...
the Eben-Emael fort had been captured!
For Hitler, this attack on Belgium will not be a repeat performance
of the 1914 offensive.
He has another plan, devised with General von Manstein.
Hitler and his Chief of Staff, Keitel,
see what they were hoping for appear on the map.
As in 1914, the French and the English rush toward Belgium,
not to rescue her,
but to prevent the great battle from taking place in France.
This is the trap--
the real German offensive must go through the Ardennes
and head towards the sea,
in a massive encircling maneuver.
Hitler says,
"When I heard that all along the front,
the enemy was advancing,
I could have cried with joy.
They had fallen into our trap."
The French entering Belgium wear the same overcoats
as the soldiers from World War I.
The same helmet, the same gun and the same courage.
They have as many tanks as the Germans.
Some of them very powerful,
but they are scattered across the entire front.
They have powerful artillery,
but their communications systems are prehistoric.
Messages are delivered by couriers...
whereas the Germans have radios everywhere,
and encryption machines like the notorious Enigma.
One of the French soldiers in Belgium,
Sergeant Henri Militon wrote to his parents on May 10, 1940...
"I'm dashing off a quick note.
Fatigue is nothing in this atrocious war.
All the villages here have been bombed, and the civilians are fleeing.
These are poignant, heartbreaking scenes.
But our morale is excellent.
We will stop them and we will win.
Courage, confidence, we will get them!
Sergeant Militon is wounded in battle.
He dies two days later, at the age of 36.
In the Netherlands, the German army continues its push towards Rotterdam,
the major port on the North Sea.
Active resistance is everywhere.
The Germans have wounded troops, but they are rarely filmed,
like this Waffen-SS unit,
making its appearance on the front lines.
After four days of unequal battle, the Dutch army surrenders.
But this doesn't stop the German air force from bombing the city,
killing 800 civilians.
Rotterdam, martyred city of the war, after Warsaw.
Also on May 10, 1940,
Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
He immediately declares...
I have nothing to offer...
but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
Churchill throws the English fascists,
their leader Oswald Mosley, and his high society cronies in jail.
On the same day in Belgium,
life has come to a halt.
Mary Jayne Gold, an American tourist stranded in France,
sees thousands of refugees on the northern roads.
She writes...
"These unwitting nomads, in the depths of distress,
remain for me the most terrible image of this war."
The Germans meet with unexpected resistance from the Belgians,
which culminates in Leuven, famous for its university
founded in 1425.
Like in 1914,
the sacrifice of these Belgian soldiers
won't prevent the destruction of the precious medieval library.
900,000 books go up in smoke.
The Germans take their time expanding their control,
to bait the Allies' best motorized divisions.
Hitler gives instructions not to bomb or fire at them,
allowing them to make their way as far as possible into Belgium.
The head of the French government, Paul Reynaud, is surprised.
He asks General Gamelin--
"Doesn't it worry you to see the English and French armies entering Belgium
without being threatened by the German Air Force?"
Gamelin is reluctant to answer,
especially since he has seen German planes bombing Belgian civilians.
Hitler saves most of his air force for the decisive fight
that he is preparing with Goering,
the head of the Luftwaffe, the aerial warfare corps.
For May 10, 1940 and the main attack against France,
Goering lines up 600 Dornier,
Heinkel and Junkers bombers,
500 Messerschmitt fighter planes,
and a multitude of Stuka dive bombers.
In total, over 1500 planes
are ready to back up the armored tanks.
The Allies in Belgium are caught in Hitler's trap.
His main assault is on the Meuse and the town of Sedan,
where the French army had already been defeated in 1870.
Since the morning of May 10, 1940,
in the Ardennes forest, a natural border,
German tanks struggle to move across the toughest terrain.
Most defenders run from these monsters,
except for a few Belgian soldiers,
the brave Ardennes "chasseurs" battalion,
who keep the tanks at bay for one precious day.
On May 11, 1940,
German tanks crossed the Ardennes and take Sedan!
The French artillerymen use their ammunition sparingly.
They anticipate a drawn-out battle,
like in Verdun.
On May 13, under fire,
German assault troops make their way across the Meuse
in their inflatable rafts!
And the pioneers build bridges for the tanks.
Goering's air force relentlessly bombs for hours,
to break the Chasseurs' morale.
In addition to their diabolical precision,
the Stukas are also equipped with a blood-curdling siren.
Lieutenant Henri Michard was on the ground.
He recalls...
"The whistle gets louder and closer.
You feel you're being personally targeted.
We wait, paralyzed,
for the explosions and the sound of thunder!"
By the morning of May 14, 1940,
the Germans have crossed the Meuse.
The French front has finally been broken through.
On May 15, five days after the German invasion began,
the head of the French government, Paul Reynaud, calls Churchill and says,
"We have been defeated.
We have lost the battle."
The German tanks seem unstoppable.
So Churchill rushes to Paris,
where General Gamelin explains what caused this disaster.
Gamelin says...
"Inferior numbers, inferior equipment,
inferior method."
Many French soldiers from the Meuse and Sedan must surrender.
The great historian Marc Bloch,
ultimately shot by the Nazis, writes...
"Our leaders didn't just let themselves be beaten.
Very early on, they felt it was normal to be beaten."
On May 16, 1940,
Paris is empty and under great threat.
Churchill sees sandbags around the monuments,
and smoke billowing from the ministries, who are burning their archives.
The next day, May 17,
Paul Reynaud sacks Gamelin
and replaces him with two World War I heroes...
General Weygand, 73, commander-in-chief,
and Marshal Pétain, the victor at Verdun, who is 84.
Weygand is very critical. He exclaims,
"We went to war with an army from 1918,
against Germany's army from 1939.
This is utter madness!"
On May 17, 1940, the Allied troops abandon Belgium
and the Germans move towards Brussels.
King Leopold III of Belgium declares his capital an open city,
so that it doesn't suffer the same fate as Rotterdam.
The weekly newsreels depicting France's power
now look to the potential savior,
the United States President, Franklin Roosevelt
who brings the North and South American leaders together in Washington.
I am a pacifist,
you,
my fellow citizens of 21 American Republics,
you are pacifists too...
But I believe,
by an overwhelming majority,
in all the Americans,
you and I, in the long run
and if it be necessary...
You and I...
will act together to protect,
to defend, by every means at our commands,
To protect and to defend our science,
our culture,
our American freedom
and our civilization.
Can Roosevelt's America
fly to the rescue of democracies,
as it did in 1917?
To raise awareness,
the news shows the horrible destruction caused by German bombers,
and the desperate flight of civilians.
And the dead soldiers, already numbering more than 20,000.
The heads of state and governments of occupied countries flee to London,
like the Dutch royal family.
The German tanks forge ahead, just like in a parade.
After barely a week's fighting,
the German general staff is concerned that they're moving too fast!
General Rommel's 7th Panzer is called The Ghost Division
because nobody knows where it is!
They are going too far, says high command.
They could be attacked on either flank.
Still far from the front,
back in Gisors, Normandy,
photographer and amateur filmmaker Fernand Bignon
is filming what is now called the Exodus.
Like the biblical event,
ten million people flee to the west and south
in the largest mass movement of the century.
In Gisors, his wife, Mrs. Bignon, a devout Catholic,
doesn't see why their daughter, Jacqueline,
shouldn't take her first communion.
At least, this event gives all the families in Gisors
an opportunity to defy their misfortune
and pray eagerly for France's salvation.
MAN At Notre Dame de Paris
Mr. Paul Reynaud, President of the Council,
surrounded by several members of the government,
attended a ceremony where Monsignor Bossard gave a powerful sermon.
"We ask God for victory", he said,
"to safeguard the spiritual values without which there is no reason to live."
NARRATOR "Protect Paris" is the order now given to all units.
Like the 4th Armored Division,
inspected several months prior by the President of the French Republic,
Albert Lebrun.
He met with Colonel de Gaulle,
who has written books on the use of armored tanks,
put into practice mainly by the Germans.
De Gaulle is ready for the attack.
He writes to his wife, Yvonne de Gaulle,
"I am confident! We will succeed in overpowering the Germans!"
De Gaulle puts his theory on the concentration of tanks into action...
sending them off on May 17, 1940,
to attack the flank of the German columns at Montcornet.
But the enemy's strength forces them to retreat.
And the German advance continues relentlessly,
towards the coasts of Northern France,
to close the circle around the Allied armies.
As they retreat, some French soldiers even get lost
amongst the Germans.
And some wander through the chaos of the Exodus,
like the sailor Pierre Paillon,
a witness to civilian tragedy.
He recalls,
"These unfortunate people, who have left everything behind,
are shot like dogs by the German Air Force,
along the road that leads them to nowhere."
This machine-gun fire kills 20,000 French,
6000 Belgians and 2000 Dutch civilians.
After two weeks of fighting,
the French and the British are overpowered by the perseverance of the Germans,
unwavering despite losses of 2500 men a day.
But the Germans have strong, aggressive leaders,
like General Guderian, Nazi determination personified.
He swore allegiance to Hitler,
as did all the other brilliant war leaders, like Rommel,
and the rest of the aristocrats at the Führer's service.
They are prepared to go to the depths of hell for Hitler,
and are complicit in all his crimes,
from the generals down to their soldiers.
And the 150,000 men from France's African colonies
are now prisoners of the worst racists in the world.
Karl Heinz Mende of the 3rd Infantry Division writes...
The image of this mixture of races
with their narrow-minded, jeering faces, is simply disgraceful.
May 24th, 1940. British, French, and Belgian soldiers,
beat a fighting retreat in formation, back to Dunkirk.
In London, a black cat walks past 10 Downing Street,
headquarters of the government.
This is a bad omen for the Minister of Defense,
Anthony Eden, and the British generals, summoned by Churchill.
They all feel that the war in France has been lost
and that British soldiers must be evacuated as a matter of urgency.
But there are those who believe they should go further.
Make peace with Hitler.
A entire group of MPs has gathered behind Lord Halifax,
Minister of Foreign Affairs, who claims...
"The country might be spared an inevitable disaster.
In these dark hours, Churchill hesitates."
A Labor MP, Harold Nicolson, wrote at the time...
"His gaze is aggressive and tragic,
and reflects both his resolve and despair."
Churchill refuses to give in. He states,
"Entering into negotiations with Hitler
would mean handing over our fleet to him,
our naval bases,
and much else.
We would become a slave state."
Churchill keeps fighting.
He rushes to greenlight Operation Dynamo.
Anything in England that floats
will sail to Dunkirk to pick up her troops.
Hundreds of tugboats, barges, pleasure crafts,
protected by fifty armed destroyers and trawlers
alongside French battleships.
Will they get there in time?
The three armies at Dunkirk--
British, French, and Belgian are now completely surrounded.
Allied navy men were counting on rescuing 40,000 men.
But there are 400,000 trapped on the beaches,
waiting for ships or a German attack.
Yet on May 24, 1940,
an order from Hitler, the Haltbefehl,
suddenly stops the German tanks in their tracks.
Many historians have wondered about this order,
a miracle for the Allies.
General Guderian is sad to see his men in the ditches,
and he writes...
"Hitler and Goering thought the Luftwaffe would be enough to prevent
the British from leaving by sea.
This idea caused them to make a fatal mistake."
The truth is that Hitler no longer has enough tanks
for the second phase of his French campaign.
A considerable number of tanks have been destroyed,
and ammunition stockpiles are at an all-time low.
The men are exhausted.
Thanks to the Pervitin,
they have been marching and fighting day and night,
for two weeks.
But if they suddenly stop taking the drug,
they crash immediately.
Hitler's order is also criticized by the officers,
who expected to consolidate their victory with a bloodbath.
Hitler claims he wanted to spare the British,
so they might come to an agreement and divide the world up between them.
Now, it is up to the Nazi pilots to exterminate the surrounded Allies.
Their target is the beaches of Dunkirk,
where these hundreds of thousands men have gathered,
and the Allied fleet that has just reached the shores.
The men have begun to board.
But do these poor souls have the slightest chance
of escaping the Stukas?
Will Dunkirk turn into the Apocalypse?
Captioned by Visual Data Media Services