Bringing History to Life

In 1933, Adolf Hitler seizes power in Germany, where he has seduced the population with golden promises of a restoration of the Great German Empire. He allies himself with Mussolini's fascist Italy, Stalin's communist Soviet Union and the military dictatorship in Japan, which has the same dreams of grandeur as Germany. In this series, you get a thorough review of World War II - from the birth of fascism through the war's many dramas to the aftermath, where the victors deal with the war's worst criminals.

WELCOME

CHURCHILL UNLEASHED ATTACK DOG • In February 1942, Arthur Harris was appointed the new head of RAF Bomber Command, armed with a brutal directive from Prime Minister Churchill. The enemy workforce was to be crushed and Germany’s cities made uninhabitable, bringing industry to a standstill. There was to be no more consideration for civilians.

HELL ON EARTH • In late July 1943, Allied bombers began the largest aerial bombardment in history. Within hours, tonnes of bombs transformed Hamburg into a blazing hell. The Germans, however, had not yet seen the worst. Over the next eight nights and seven days, the bombers returned again and again.

“Everything was burning everywhere” • Maiken Mannstaedt was a little girl when war broke out. Still, she clearly remembers the Allied aerial bombardments that forced her family to flee Frankfurt for the safety of heavily defended Berlin and then on to Denmark and peace.

ATTACK ON THE DAMS • When 19 British bombers took to the skies on a spring night in 1943, the crews faced their most demanding mission yet. Under each plane hung a bomb that had to be delivered with millimetre precision and hit the water, destroying a series of dams in the heart of the enemy’s war industry.

OILFIELDS IN FLAMES • On an early summer morning, 177 American bombers took off to attack the oilfields in Romania that supplied Nazi Germany’s armies. The plan, the brainchild of a desk general, had fatal consequences for the bomber crews, many of whom never returned from Operation Tidal Wave.

HITLER’S FLAK TOWERS • When British planes bombed Berlin in August 1940, Hitler responded by building a series of monstrous concrete fortresses. Armed with the best guns of the war, the colossal flak towers were designed to repel the attacks and turn Germany’s capital into an impregnable fortress.

DEATH FROM THE SKIES • In 1944 and 1945, the Americans’ colossal B-17 aircraft spread terror across Germany. The fearsome bombers were difficult to shoot down and their payloads were devastating. The Luftwaffe feverishly tried to develop a lightning-fast rocket plane that Hitler hoped would restore German air supremacy over their own skies.

Allies wanted to wipe out German culture • The bombing of German cities at the end of the war had no impact on the outcome of the conflict, and yet the Allies continued to fire-bomb population centres. Could the true objective have been the assassination of German culture so that they country could never rise again?

SEA OF FLAMES IN DRESDEN • On the evening of 13th February 1945, sirens began wailing in Dresden. The city’s populace assumed that it was another false alarm, but a few minutes later their illusion was shattered. Allied planes carpet-bombed the beautiful “Florence of the Elbe” across multiple waves of attacks, turning the city into hell on Earth.

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Bringing History to Life