The World at War s01e02 Episode Script

Germany attacks the Poland.
Adolf Hitler ignores Great-Britain and France, that they had promised to fight for the Poland.
Sunday, 3 of September.
The British first-minister, Neville Chamberlain, communicates: This morning, the ambassador of Great-Britain in Berlin it delivered an ultimatum to the German government, announcing that if in them it was not official notice, until the eleven hours, that Germany would remove immediately its troops of the Poland, we would enter in war with that country.
I announce now that not we receive such declaration e that, therefore, this country meets in war with Germany.
The World in War Distant war September of 1939 - May of 1940 A people, an empire, a leader! Danzig, taking of Germany after For many Germans, the taking of the city it symbolized the end of the humilhante Treated to Versailles.
Hitler was to congratulate its victorious troops.
It affirmed to have except for its people of the Polish barbarity.
The Germans had entered in the Poland for ocidente and the north.
In two weeks, the Polish army it practically left to exist.
Warsaw was one of the few places that resisted.
Russia, of common agreement with Germany, it was taken possetion of parts of the Poland that it complained its for right.
The two conquerors they had met in Brest-Litovsk, that it are the scene of the surrender Russian to Germany, in 1918.
The German official reception, in Russia, it said that the soldiers German the Russians had always respected.
The attrition between nazistas and Communists momentarily it was forgotten.
The last bombing of Warsaw it started in 23 of September.
During about 3 weeks, the radio of Warsaw it touched the hymn of the Poland.
In 27 of September, the hymn stopped.
Warsaw was reduced the rubbles.
The commander of the capital surrendered.
The Poland, engolida for Germany and for Russia, it disappeared in a new was of the darknesses.
The detentions had started, deportations and executions.
The war of Great-Britain it started with a false alarm.
In 3 of September.
I remember of when the war blew up.
We were in the room of Cabinet when the ultimatum died.
At this time, Lord Butler he was minister-aid.
We congratulated the first-minister for its declarations, when we hear a terrible howl.
It was the first buzzer of aerial attack.
Chamberlain led case very the serious one e the woman of it appeared with an enormous hamper, with things for the night.
Thermal bottles, books.
E we were all for the shelter.
I also was, after some delay in the Ministry.
The Horse Guards Parade was desert e did not see nobody in side some.
When I arrived there, it did not have furniture and I had to seat that me in the soil.
A guard said me that he would not have toxic gas.
It is clearly that, during some time, it did not have war, much less gas.
It did not have war in that day, nor during many months.
The people had calmed themselves stop to enjoy that adjournment unexpected.
It was a perfect time for ones vacation.
Or to invade the Poland.
"IT HAS CALM, IT IS TRANQUILO" "IT FORGETS HITLER.
VACATION SKIRT.
" The people had prepared themselves for a desumana war.
They had evacuated the hospitals stops to receive the victims from aerial attacks.
The specialists foresaw more than a million of wounded in two months.
Children and mothers had been evacuated of the cities.
A million and way of people.
For ones, it was a nightmare.
For others, an adventure.
We congregate in them in a patio as this.
There they were the children and the parents.
The children brought imprisoned masks of gas to the shoulder and labels they.
The women had had that to decide if they were with the children or if they left to leave.
It seems an easy decision.
Because they would not be with the children? It was most natural.
But the terrible idea pairava of that it would have poisonous gas, horrible bombings, deaths, and that the children they would be mutilated.
All cried, parents and children.
E over all when we leave, the people had burst in tears.
My mother felt itself sadder with our departure of what with the war.
My sister cried.
I not.
He was enthusiastic with the idea to leave that part of London.
It seemed that we went for the other side of the world, but we came to Denham, but the 35 quilómetros of London.
I promised to my mother who not it would separate to me of my sister.
We were for the hall of the city, with the other children, e as we did not want separating in them, we were the last ones to arrange house.
It was as if we were auctionzed.
But when we arrange a house that it received in them, was fantastic.
It was a new world that if opened.
We had tooth brushes, sheets and hot water.
Hot water! Nor we believed.
E we did not know what it was a comforter.
Of morning, we were to apanhar blackberries.
But we hear the buzzers and we come back running for the lodging.
Mrs.
who was there said that we did not worry in them.
We seat to lunch.
It was first table ece of fish that vi in the life.
E I believe that the war was declared during this exactly lunch.
It said that we did not worry in them and in them she passed the horseradish gravy.
Some children had suffered very for being far from the families.
They had suffered a feeling from rejection, e these showed many times feelings of pain and suffering through strange behaviors.
They made pee in the bed, did not eat.
with two young nurses.
They were very dirty.
Two of them apanharam scabies.
At the time, I had small children.
I took them for a great room.
I did not make idea of that that existed in England.
They had made the necessities in the carpet.
The room was a disaster.
It did not have any heroic affluence of volunteers for the army.
It was waited time to be call it military machine.
Everything without great haste.
But it had a race to the marriage.
In August and September, it was registou the biggest number of unions until then.
The white was in the order of the day.
White E for blackout, so that the drivers saw the guards.
The principle, blackout it was seen as a trick.
But the accidents had increased e blackout left to have favor.
It did not have aerial attacks, but it had thousand of victims of accidents during blackout.
E was depressing.
Without blackout, nor it seemed that one was in war.
At night, all the houses they had that to be in the darkness.
The guard of the aerial attacks passed more to be hated of what Hitler.
The Government closed the cinemas and others entertainments at the beginning of the war.
But fifteen days later, they had come back to open.
Although the war, had about a million and way of unemployeds.
John Simon, minister of the Finances, he created an emergency budget.
Daqui the three hours, all the secrets of the budget will be disclosed.
I am confident of that, whichever the pack that the British contributor he has that to support, I know that mine compatriots will load with the same determination and courage that our soldiers will show when to execute its task atrocious in the battlefield.
The budget of blackout: the tax on incomes went up Looking at it stops backwards, was not very.
But the p.
m.
conservative, Chips Channon, it considered that destruía the building of the capitalism.
Another Tory, Leo Amery, it complained a harder war.
Because not to bomb Germany? The minister of Aviation, Kingsley Wood, refused.
The German ammunition plants they were private and would have retaliações.
The initial phase of the war was of periods more amazing than I lived, therefore it was a time of euphoria for the people of this country.
During much time, it had much unemployment.
While the Germans they manufactured weapons speedily, over all in the plants of the Skoda, in the Tchecoslováquia, that they occupied at the time.
.
while the Germans walked with much haste, us we did not make nothing.
We were for the war to defend the Poland.
But nothing we made to help.
We do not move a finger.
In first the three months, the greater number of victims was in blackout.
We limit ourselves to distribute it pamphlets on the German people, saying that it was not good idea to go for the war, that it was a penalty to have done and that perhaps we could arrive at the peace.
The war of the hypocrisy.
When a German airplane it fell in the Escócia, in November, it had who walked kilometers to see.
The deceased of the Luftwaffe had been buried with military honors.
Three British divisions had left for France, at the beginning of the war.
"About 200 a thousand men", the minister of War was vangloriou.
The Frenchmen had mobilized six million men.
They had complained that Great-Britain the serious one was not taking the war.
It desires luck to me E waves good bye to me Here go I walk I it, Here I go It desires luck to me E waves good bye to me Without a tear, With fervor and joy Me A smile That I can keep In the heart while it will be it are Even finding in them of new, You and I, It desires luck to me E waves good bye to me In France, treinos for one war that finished in 1918.
The reporter of the set of documents tried arduously to become it impressive.
The force member of an expedition, in time of being sent for operations, it has perfected its trainings in similar conditions to the ones of its country.
This exercise with gas masks is our reply to the nazista propaganda, what it indicates that Germany if it prepares to use toxic gas.
The infantry battalions they train with weapons auxiliary e waits the moment using of them in war scene.
The mortar squad enters in action with a rapidity acquired with trainings.
The steel helmets are with a air more modern with the camouflage.
The French and British generals also they prepared themselves for the battle.
The English excavated in the Belgian border.
In December, it was decided that when the confrontations started, the troops would leave the shelters e would advance for Belgium.
Everything helped if to abstract from the war.
They imagine me in the Maginot Line Seated in one it mines In the Maginot Line Now that everything runs well The life in the army is good The Frenchmen make little of me I am not French, can well see But I know what they want When they say "Oui, oui" In the Maginot Line They imagine me in the Maginot Line Seated in one it mines In the Maginot Line Now that everything runs well The life in the army is good At night, I sing until adormecer Grasped to my old helmet Now, use it for everything In the Maginot Line "Winston came back", it knew the Navy, in 3 of September.
Chamberlain was reluctant in to convoke its rival greater politician, with fame of military adventurer.
But Churchill was popular.
He informs the people of whom he came a war there.
With a surprising energy to The RAF launched pamphlets, the army made trenches, but the Navy of Churchill was trunfo stronger of Great-Britain.
E the minister of the Navy appeared with frequency in the reporter.
We are in a very different position of that one of has ten weeks.
We are much more strong of what it has ten weeks.
E very we are better prepared to support the worse atrocities of Hitler and its Barbarians, of what at the beginning of September.
The notice of that a German battleship sank freight-carrying British it served of excuse for an offensive one.
Churchill concentrated great part of the Armed to find it.
One of the groups patrolled the River of the Silver, in the South America.
They were three cruisers: the Exeter, the Ajax and the Aquiles.
In the dawn of 13 of December, they had sighted a powerful German ship.
It was the great warship Admiral Graf Spee.
Although less powerful, the cruisers had collated it.
E started the Battle of the River of the Silver.
About five minutes after to sound the alarm, the Graf Spee and the Exeter they had opened fire one on the other e the Ajax and the Aquiles they had gone off on the Graf Spee, concentrating the attack.
The Exeter was soon reached and damaged.
The weapons central offices had badly gone off, until being made unusable.
The battleship only continued as it could, with the posterior tower, but the proper ship was very damaged and it lost speed.
The cruisers had turned over directly for the Graf Spee, to close the wall more quickly, e the captain of the Graf Spee it did not pursue the Exeter e was hurried stops to direct itself for Montevideu.
We did not see great damages in the German ship.
Its speed seemed not to have been affected e the heavy artillery continued going off with regularity and effectiveness.
The Graf Spee if supplied in Montevideu e left the crew of merchant ships that sink.
Langsdorff, the commander, asked for authorization to the Uruguayans to be, but they had commanded to it that it abandoned the port in 72 hours.
Thus, it embedded its deceased.
Convinced that British ships they waited more powerful it there it are, it was prepared to fulfill its last orders of Berlin.
Badly they had started to hoist the anchor, soon we were informed by the staff that we had in land.
We order to take off our airplane.
E soon to follow we receive one very pleasant message, of the airplane: "The Graf Spee if blew up.
" Two days later, Langsdorff was committed suicide.
Churchill knew to use to advantage the victory earns for the bluff and not for the force.
Two of the cruisers they had been led for house.
The crews had marched of the City of London until Guildhall e the minister of the Navy it was vangloriou with its glory.
The shining battle that they had stopped, that those that are here had stopped, it guaranteed a place in annals of the Navy and, I can add, that in a cold and shady Winter, it heated the British heart.
Helsínque, The Finlândia opposed to deliver it territories demanded for Russia.
The Russians attack.
The powerful Russian army it crosses the border, determined to an easy victory as of the Germans, in the Poland.
But the Finnish, even so in lesser number, they had retaliated.
The Finnish esquiadoras troops they knew as to use its conditions, moving itself around the Russians e cutting to them the abastecimentos.
The Russian onslaught stopped, confirming the German belief of that the Russian troop, private for Stalin of its officers, wise person not to fight.
They had been destroyed entire Russian divisions.
Those that were not made prisoners, perished in the snow.
For the Russians, it was a failure humilhante, even so temporary.
In Great-Britain also it snowed.
The censorship was strengthenn to stifle, but the people knew.
To the provações of blackout, the worse Winter of last the 45 years was joined, the lack of coal, the burst of pipes and the food rationing.
The RAF was in land.
The troops were called stop to keep the trains functioning.
For the Navy, another victory.
Refugee in a Norwegian fjord, the ship of Altmark supplying it was surrounded by the English.
Ignoring the neutrality of the Norway, the English had entered on board e, after a confrontation, had freed For Hitler, the attack to the Altmark it was a retrocession.
It hurried its plans to invade the Norway.
For Churchill, another popular triumph.
Also it had the eyes in the Norway.
It has months that the colleagues of Churchill argued its plan for the Norway.
But some, as Lord Halifax, they were difficult to convince.
Churchill joined an aid plan to the Finlândia in the operation of the Norway.
It considered to finish with the supply of ore of iron to Germany, that it went of Sweden stops the Norwegian port of Narvik e was carried to Germany, for Norwegian neutral waters.
Churchill wanted to mine waters e if Narvik were captured, it could use it as base to help the Finlândia against communist Russia.
Churchill wise person who the plan implied a retaliation of Hitler in the Norway.
E to help the Finlândia could cause a war with Russia.
Chamberlain inquietava itself with the life of the innocent Norwegians e with the American public opinion.
But it finished for if convincing.
I believe that it had hope that the confrontation biggest was prevented.
It thought that Germany he was dying of hunger e if was not, would be due to war economy.
E found that, in the deep one, the German people did not support Hitler.
It found that it was a fashion and that if we made a good propaganda, perhaps it had a revolt of generals, or of somebody, against Hitler.
Therefore, to put the commands of the RAF playing pamphlets instead of bombs, it was a good form to make the war.
Everything to prevent the great confrontation.
It is therefore that the campaign in the Norway it was acceptable for Chamberlain, therefore it kept the long-distance war e kept moved away idea of a great confrontation, of a repetition of the battles of Passchendaele or Soma.
The war would be located perhaps e happened a miracle.
Perhaps Hitler died or it was assassinated e everything finished with a minimum of spilled blood.
Today, the Finlândia, among the snow e its frozen lakes, fight against the forces of violence without escrúpulos, as us we make.
Its affliction requires ours compassion and our aid.
The British aid followed stops the Finlândia, but was little and late.
The Russians had used all its force and had dominated the defenses Finnish.
In the day where the English went to enter in the Norway, the Finlândia surrendered.
Great-Britain was gotten rid of the war with Russia and Germany.
The terms of the armistice had given to Russia almost everything what it wanted.
Hundreds of thousand of Finnish they had been defecated of its houses.
The French first-minister Daladier risks everything in the aid to the Finlândia.
It was substituted by Paul Reynaud.
Reynaud continued to pressure Churchill so that it cut the supply of iron to Germany.
A meeting of Allies, in London, it decided to mine Norwegian waters.
Churchill obtains what she wanted.
Great-Britain and France were ready to invade the Norway.
The mines had been launched in 8 of April.
Some days before, without thinking about the Norway, Chamberlain declares that Hitler loses the boat.
E General Ironside defied the Germans to make its worse.
The invading force of Hitler it weighed anchor in 6 of April.
The Luftwaffe was taken possetion of the greater part of the Norwegian air bases.
The entrance of the German column in Oslo it was led by a band.
The Norway did not have an army, but a great military service without trainings.
The Norwegians were antimilitarists for tradition e had seen sets of documents Germans of the Blitzkrieg, in the Poland.
Nobody wanted that Oslo it passed for the same that Warsaw.
It had little resistance.
The operation of the Allies in the Norway bagunça was one since the beginning.
The troops had embarked, had disembarked e had embarked of new, without the essential equipment.
A French contingent, very well equipped, it left with the English.
In contrast of the British, they were prepared for the Winter, but they did not have fasteners for the skis.
Until the objectives of expedition was confused.
Trondheim, in the center of the Norway, it had to be taken in a surgical attack leaving of Andalsnes and Namsos.
Thus, some troops they had been deviated for south.
But Churchill does not give up Narvik e was there that it occurred the first battle.
The Navy bombed Narvik e the torpedo-boat destroyers Germans had also attacked.
But it was lost advantage.
The commander of the British army he did not assault the city directly.
The British troops had arrived the Namsos and the Andalsnes.
But they did not have skis, nor maps of the Norway, nor heavy artillery.
Little had been able to make when they had faced equipped Germany well.
Captain Martin Lindsay was with the British forces in Namsos.
It did not have any hope for this operation, therefore total it was improvised in little time and to pressas.
E the force did not have support aerial, nor artillery.
More important of what this, the soil was covered of snow.
The only form to act age with esquiadoras troops and us we did not have them.
Thus, the soldiers had been confined in the road.
E whenever the Germans went up in hills, were obliged to remove.
The British had been to protect the Norwegians, but they had not been able to hinder the Luftwaffe to bomb the cities of the Norway.
The German control of the air bases Norwegians were the key of the battle.
The Germans had advanced and captured hundreds of British prisoners.
Some had been taken for Berlin e presented the Hitler.
Others, had been filmed for sets of documents German.
Well they are made use.
The Germans are not thus so bad as they waited.
Clearly that not.
I was captured in Falberg, for the Germans.
From there, I came to Lillehammer.
They had given them of supper.
Dark bread, gorgonzola, the Germans had given them wine, cigarettes e gives them a meal hot every day.
I am being treated well.
I wait that the war finishes fast, to come back toward house.
The majority returned for house ingloriamente, leaving Andalsnes and Namsos still in flames.
Pursued for the Luftwaffe, the Norwegian campaign left well clear the lesson of that a naval force without one Air Force did not gain battles.
Its only glory was the paper played in the fall of a government.
Now, the machine of the democracy it started to function.
While the troops disembarked, a irado Parliament was congregated to debate the disaster.
A feeling that it enclosed all the quadrants politicians.
Captain Lindsay, a Tory, was to speak with the leader of the working opposition.
I was the first one of this force to militate to arrive London e I was soon to speak with Mr.
Attlee, in the morning of the first day of debate.
I delivered a report to it with the problems of the Norway, therefore it believed that if we continued thus, we would lose the war.
It delivered it Herbert to it Morrison, to open the opposition, in that afternoon.
The debate on the Norway was only decisive debate that attended, in 34 years as member of the House of the Common ones, therefore one was about the only division that it provoked the fall of a government.
During about one year before the debate, it had one to accumulate of bitterness e anxiety in the people that they wanted that Great-Britain of this everything for everything and defeated Hitler.
It was a fierce debate, not only of the part of working opposition, but also of the conservatives.
They felt that all the war behavior it could not be in charge of a man that already they had attacked, aquando of Munique, e that recognized not to be a war leader by its very nature.
The temperature went going up e Herbert Morrison, of the members of labor party, it announced that we went to divide us in the end of the debate, against the government.
It had a group of action presided over for Clement Davies, leader of the liberal ones, e I age the secretary.
It was a committee with all the parties, to demand an action more decisive during the war e a position and a persecution more vigorous before the war.
We decide to convoke a meeting, after the declaration of Morrison, e we ask for the Leo Amery that presided over the meeting.
It had great affluence.
There they were much MPs conservatives e I felt that something was happening.
It had much MPs that never had been members of our group e that had appeared in the meeting.
The spirits were inflamed.
In that hour, I felt.
that many conservatives were chemical preparations to not only abstain, as to vote against the Government.
I left that meeting in a great tension.
However, Churchill the Government defended strong.
One more time he was ironic, therefore the debate was on the Norway, e the Norway is a series of disasters, of which, even so it could not to have had guilt, perhaps therefore they were inevitable, e I believe that it had been, it was directly responsible, while minister of the Navy.
Amery pronounced one formidable speech, where Cromwell cited: "Already stays have much time for the good here that you made.
For God, IDE you.
" Later, Lloyd George made the speech devastador I heard than it to pronounce, e finished, saying Chamberlain: "It asked for sacrifice to the country, but it has a sacrifice more necessary that any another one: the sacrifice of its proper Government.
" When the result was announced, the majority conservative fell for 80 e this meant the fall of the government.
I looked at for Chamberlain, he seems I am seeing that it, pale.
It asks for friendship to its friends e had not given to it.
It left the room, as a figure tapeworm.
I had much penalty of it, therefore both we knew that it was finished.
Chamberlain was for the room thinking if he would be possible to continue.
In the following day it only perceived that it arrives at the end.
In this day, the employees of the Parliament, I believe, they had explained to it that it could have been worse, but who was with it it perceived the gravity of the situation.
During days 9 and 10 of May, it had great doubts how much to the successor of Chamberlain.
The Working Party left clearly that, if it had a coalition one, that in that height all they judged necessary, they would refuse Chamberlain.
Thus, it had that to opt between Churchill and Halifax.
Halifax was the successor most obvious, the reliable man of Chamberlain.
But it has 40 years almost that none lord arrived the first-minister.
How much to its rival.
Churchill was seen with great diffidence for the instituted power.
All people, in nº10 of Downing Street and in Whitehall, members of the Cabinet and in many sectors of the party conservative, the Churchills were afraid.
They considered it an adventurer.
They remembered Gallipoli.
They did not want to see the country, at the moment more critical of all its history, it delivers somebody capable thing of the things extraordinariest e of enveredar for the adventures more surprising.
E after all, all had perceived that the Norway, that one fiasco of that we waited to recoup, or of that we are safe in the last one instant, is idea of Churchill.
It was an excellent idea, but not it resulted, as Gallipoli.
Thus, it was with a certainty distrust of Churchill that the majority of the people in the government e in Whitehall if capsized for Halifax.
Halifax was safe.
It was intelligent, frequentara the Fellow of All Souls.
It had an unquestioned charm e an absolute integrity.
Perhaps E expected that it called it to the king.
The working party approached me, Hugh Dalton and Herbert Morrison, e both had been disclosed in favor of Halifax.
They found that Halifax it had that to go up to the power.
They wanted that Churchill directed the war, under the command of Halifax.
It was an idea that it did not please the Halifax.
I remember to say me to Churchill that the critical moment arrived when Chamberlain asked for it to it e the Halifax that was to the Cabinet.
E had been the three there.
Halifax was seated to the side of Chamberlain, that one turned over for Churchill and it said: "Winston, sees some reason so that, in century XX, a first-minister cannot to be in the House of lords?" Churchill judged that if he dealt with a trap, therefore if it answered: "I do not see reason some", Chamberlain if would come back for Halifax and he would say: "In this in case that, if the king to ask for my opinion, I suggest you.
" On the other hand, it would have been very difficult Churchill to say that yes, therefore in this in case that, it would be the only one alternative.
Thus, it turned coasts, it contemplated the Horse Guards Parade e did not answer to the question.
I believe that, to a large extent, the decision was taken by Halifax, that one complained of stomach aches, one hour or two before the meeting, e that did not want to be first-minister, whereas the man who was determined to be it she was Churchill.
Of dawn, the Germans had advanced for Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg.
Finally, the war was arriving much close to Great-Britain.
While the allies if they prepared for the battle, Chamberlain was to the Palace to resign and advised the king.
.
to invite Churchill.
Churchill would be a risk e when one is at a critical moment of the life, is not good for running risks.
Thus, it was with great desperation that all we knew, in the night of 10 of May, that the king convokes Churchill.