The World Wars (2014) s01e02 Episode Script

1 Male narrator: Previously on The World Wars Incoming! Narrator: When the First World War breaks out, a new generation comes of age on the battlefield.
Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Patton, and MacArthur all see action on the front line.
Move! Move! Move! Narrator: But after the Allies and the Central Powers agree to an uneasy ceasefire and stop fighting each other, they begin to fight their own countrymen.
The National Socialist Party is taking over the government! [Gunshots.]
Narrator: And soon the men from the front lines are in charge, some with agendas of evil that will keep the epic battle raging.
[Pounding electronic music.]
[Explosion.]
And you'll be a bit bolder When the new day you make He's a Japanese sandman Trade him silver for gold Just an old secondhand man Trading new days for old [Car horns honking.]
Narrator: After a decade of post-World War I prosperity, the New York stock exchange suffers the most catastrophic crash it will ever see, losing over $14 billion in just one day.
The crash launches a heartbreaking era for America, the great depression.
The stock market crash of 1929 came as a rude awakening.
Employment fell, production fell, unemployment numbers rose, homeless numbers rose all of the negative indicators about an economy just got worse and worse, and people kept looking for the bottom, but the bottom never came, and they began to wonder, is this economy ever gonna right itself? Narrator: The fallout from the great depression quickly spreads throughout the world, toppling the economies of Europe including Great Britain, France, and Italy, but one of the countries taking the biggest hit is Germany.
The European nation is still struggling to pay over $80 billion in reparations from the war, the modern equivalent of nearly $1/2 trillion, and the depression just makes things worse.
But one man wants to use the national crisis to his advantage.
Join us! Narrator: Years earlier, Adolf Hitler attempted a violent overthrow of the German government and failed.
[Gunfire.]
Go! Narrator: After his release from prison, he spent years trying to get his movement off the ground, but his party was in disarray and his message was ignored.
But now the depression has provided Hitler with the perfect opportunity to build the Nazi party.
The stock market crash had immediate ramifications in Germany.
Unemployment increased so dramatically that it opened the door for radical movements to gain support.
It was the great depression that made Hitler possible.
Narrator: Hitler believes he can rally the desperate people around his vision of a new, powerful Germany, setting in motion a plan he first described in the manifesto he wrote in prison.
What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and the reproduction of our race and our people.
Mein Kampf is enormously significant.
It provided a kind of outline for all the things that Hitler wanted to do eventually.
Hitler clearly believed passionately from the start of his career right to the end that the Jews were the world enemy who intended to destroy Germany.
It was a paranoid fantasy of his.
He believed he was chosen by destiny to rescue Germany.
We must reverse the Treaty of Versailles that our people be set free, that these chains be burst asunder.
[Applause.]
Narrator: Hitler recruits new members to his party and tours the country giving impassioned speeches and distributing posters, fliers, and other propaganda.
What the Nazis did was to project an image of energy, vigor, youth, and determination in the service of Germany.
They're constantly marching through the streets with banners.
There is constant speeches, meetings, huge activity, and this projects this image of that they're gonna do something.
All the other parties are just wasting their time talking.
We're actually gonna do something.
If the nation does its duty, then the day will come which restores to us one Reich in honor and freedom! Hitler's speeches had some kind of unique power.
He served as a lighting rod for all the discontent in Germany.
He managed to focus it and channel it and become it.
Narrator: Within a few years the National Socialist Party is transformed from a fringe organization into a growing political movement.
[Crowd shouting.]
Now with widespread support, Hitler's dream is finally within his grasp.
It was a long and twisted path for Hitler from the Corporal of World War I to the man aspiring to the leadership of all of Germany.
He goes from being a spy to being an inspiring orator to, only in the late 1920s, beginning to aspire to the role of leader in his own right, Fuehrer of the German race-nation.
Narrator: 4,000 miles away, the American people are desperate for hope and new leadership.
And in a pivotal election year, they look to a candidate who promises to pull them from the edge of collapse, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
15 years earlier, Roosevelt served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson.
After the war, his political career looked promising Until a devastating diagnosis brought everything to a halt polio.
At age 39, Roosevelt was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Polio kind of wipes F.
D.
R.
off from the map for much of the 1920s.
They're lost years.
He's working just to be able to walk, you know, a few yards, and nobody really thought he would resurrect his political fortunes again.
Narrator: But he refuses to give in, Roosevelt slowly works his way back up the political ladder.
And during one of the darkest times in American history, Roosevelt runs for President and wins.
Those who knew him said that having polio and trying to climb his way out of that did change him, gave him a capacity to understand other people's experiences people who were suffering in a way that he never had.
Narrator: Roosevelt has pulled himself up from the depths of misfortune, and now it's up to him to do the same for America.
So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Here is a man in a wheelchair that's telling us that he's licked a physical disability, and it has a huge impact.
He was telling us we don't give in.
We never throw in the towel.
We will prevail.
We are American.
This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive, and will prosper.
He was a great, great motivator, arguably ranks amongst the very top of our Presidents that was able to speak directly to the American people.
Can I get a photo, Mr.
President? [Flashes popping.]
Narrator: The same year Roosevelt is first elected [Flashes popping.]
German leaders give Adolf Hitler a ceremonial position in the government, hoping to pacify his movement.
Little do they know they've just provided Hitler with a platform for takeover.
There is a fundamental miscalculation on the part of the conservative elite who were responsible for hoisting Hitler to power.
Every one thought that he and his movement could be controlled.
Narrator: Hitler quickly begins mobilizing his Nazi party.
He wants complete and total control of Germany.
[Peaceful classical music.]
[Opera singing.]
He who rises against Germany is a traitor to his country, and traitors to their country are suppressed in accordance with laws of iron.
I'd hoped that it might not be necessary any longer to be forced to defend this state with arms in our hands But since fate has now put us to the test, every people is itself guilty that does not find the strength to destroy such noxious creatures.
At this hour, there was no place for any clemency.
If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the normal courts of justice, then all that I can say to him is this: In this hour, I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people! When traitors in Germany arrange a meeting with a foreign statesmen, and when they give strict orders that no word of this meeting shall reach me, then I will have such men shot dead! [Gunshots.]
There is no Reich, there is no position that can protect him from his responsibility and, therefore, his punishment.
[Gunshots.]
I gave the order to shoot those who are the ringleaders of this treason.
[Gunshot.]
Everyone must know, for all future time, that if he raises his hand to strike the state, then certain death is his lot.
[Applause.]
Narrator: In what will become known as the night of the long knives, Hitler eliminates nearly 100 of his political enemies.
[Cheers and applause.]
In one move, Adolf Hitler has taken complete control of the government and is now the supreme leader of Germany.
Narrator: Following the stock market crash of 1929, the world is gripped in a great depression, and the generation bloodied from the deadliest war the world has ever seen is now coming to power.
[Flashes popping.]
In the United States, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has a plan to bring his nation out of the darkness of the depression.
Roosevelt is convinced that the best way to battle back is to focus on home.
He establishes what he calls the new deal.
When do we break ground? Within this week.
Within this week? Okay.
And for each one of these, we're talking 1,500, 2,000 people working? Yeah.
Good.
Great.
All right, this is good.
Narrator: Roosevelt's new deal is the largest public works program in American history, funding over 35,000 projects from the construction of bridges and highways to the hoover dam, the largest dam in the world.
Roosevelt hopes that the new deal can save the country from the brink of collapse, but the project comes with a massive cost, and he knows something in the American budget will have to give.
How are you doing? Of course.
Yes, well, we have to take care of the people starving on the great plains.
Yes.
We must address that.
The greatness of a President is you have to make a judgment.
You're in charge, nobody else.
The Air Force.
I understand.
You bear responsibility for whether it goes right or wrong.
It's your baby.
Narrator: To pay for his new deal, Roosevelt slashes U.
S.
Military spending by 51% the decision enrages the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General Douglas MacArthur.
Is there any way it could move a little bit faster? I guess if we well, it has to go as fast as possible.
Narrator: MacArthur is a decorated veteran from the First World War Move! Move! Move! Come on! Come on! Let's go! Let's go! Come on! Narrator: Whose experience on the front lines confirmed his belief that the survival of the nation depends on a powerful military.
MacArthur, as Chief of Staff of the Army, believed that the Army needed to be strong, and MacArthur, not for the first time, nor for the last time, took issue with the position of his Commander-in-Chief.
Mr.
President the budget discussions are over.
If you look particularly at Franklin Roosevelt and Douglas MacArthur, those are two very big egos like tectonic plates moving.
One is a hugely self-confident General trying to do what he thinks is right, and then you've got a President who has turf that he wants to protect.
There will be a next war, Mr.
President, and when we lose it and our American boys are lying in the mud with an enemy bayonet through their belly, I want the last name they curse, the last name to pass from their dying lips, to be Roosevelt.
Narrator: Across the Atlantic, America's closest ally is also struggling to pull itself out of the depression.
Great Britain launches a new deal of its own investing in a nationwide program to build millions of homes and power stations, hoping to lay the foundation for a lasting peace.
And just like in America, to pay for the program, the government is forced to gut military spending.
One man has a huge problem with that Winston Churchill.
By 1934, Churchill is back in the British Parliament, but his experiences in the trenches of the Western front have changed him.
[Gunfire.]
[Men shouting, gunfire.]
Like MacArthur, Churchill is convinced that the weakened Military will leave his country vulnerable in a still-dangerous world.
Churchill was seen pretty much as a maverick, intelligent, able, brilliant on many occasions, but a maverick who stood apart from the opinions of other people, who was thought to be too reckless.
Narrator: Churchill's greatest fear is that without a strong Military.
Great Britain will be defenseless, but for now he stands alone.
While Great Britain and the United States repair their economies by building bridges and highways, Adolf Hitler has his own version of the new deal; he's going to rebuild Germany's Military.
Our work is urgent.
Time for us is scarce.
Hitler's main aim from the very beginning was to build up Germany's Military strength.
So whereas F.
D.
R.
had civil job creation programs, Hitler had military job creation programs, and that's the real difference.
Gentlemen, this is good news, and we are grateful; Your country is Narrator: Because of the restrictions placed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler is forced to rearm in total secrecy.
[Engines rumbling.]
Hitler personally oversees the top secret program himself.
Mein Fuehrer, you honor us with your presence here today.
Will you be able to work 24 hours around the clock? Because we were going to need all of this immediately.
Ja, mein Fuehrer.
It is very important that we make sure that this becomes and remains a clandestine activity.
Are we clear on that? - Jawohl, mein Fuehrer.
- Good.
Hitler creates this massive production capability, builds factories that are turning out tanks and planes, and he does it all in secret, and he has many of the factories disguised as elementary schools.
In today's world that may seem impossible, but back in the 1930s, as logistically challenging as it was, it was not impossible.
Narrator: With the Allies completely unaware, Hitler's secret factories begin mass-producing thousands of fighter planes and tanks to be manned by 1/2 million brand-new Nazi recruits.
Hitler knows he's launched a dangerous campaign, but if he can keep it under the radar, he'll be able to make Germany the most dominant power in the world.
Narrator: In the wake of the great depression, new leaders around the world are desperately looking for ways to pull their nations out of the collapse.
[Flashes popping.]
While some are busy building bridges and dams, others are making tanks and planes as they secretly reestablish dominant fighting forces, preparing to drag the world back to war.
The tenuous peace is about to be broken, but the first move won't come from Germany.
[Cheers and applause.]
For the past decade, Benito Mussolini has ruled Italy with an iron fist.
Italy and Fascism together form a perfect, absolute, and unalterable entity! [Cheers and applause.]
Narrator: After the First World War, Italy failed to get any new territory during negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles.
There's a feeling that Italians have been cheated, and for a lot of people in Italy they come out of the war with a mentality of a defeated nation despite being a victorious one.
For Mussolini and people who thought like him, Italian democracy had failed the nation.
Narrator: Mussolini became convinced that the only way to return Italy to greatness was for the country to be led by a strong, absolute ruler himself.
And now, after years of preparation, he's finally ready to expand the Italian Empire.
His first target is Ethiopia, a key entryway into the middle east.
[Gunfire.]
Mussolini conquers the country in a matter of weeks, suddenly shattering the tentative world peace that's held since 1918.
Back in Germany, Adolf Hitler has been watching.
Mussolini's aggressive quest for power.
Hitler regarded Mussolini as the successful senior Fascist.
He had effectively established his dictatorship.
He's continuing to build it up, so Hitler looks to Mussolini as a model.
Narrator: Hitler knows if he's ever going to accomplish his own dreams of German dominance, he'll need to get Mussolini on his side.
The relationship between Mussolini and Hitler is quite a surprising story.
Hitler is after all a failed painter, and Italy to him means Florence and lovely renaissance art.
This is quite nice indeed.
Narrator: While Hitler sees an opportunity to learn from his hero, for Mussolini the meeting comes at a crucial moment.
The conquest of Ethiopia by Mussolini is regarded as an outrage.
Motions are passed against him.
He has to turn to somebody as a friend, and Hitler's the only person.
At that point then the two become closer.
This marvel of engineering that you've put together is quite astounding.
Narrator: The two leaders have a mutual understanding.
Both have spent the past few years enhancing their armies, and both are now looking to expand their power, so they form an alliance that will become the foundation of the Axis Powers.
With Mussolini on his side, Hitler feels confident he can start his own conquest of Europe.
His first target is a territory taken from Germany after the First World War the Rhineland.
The Rhineland was the industrial heart of Germany, and Germany had been deprived of all the Rhineland's manufacturing goods.
They were being exported to as part of war reparations.
Narrator: Hitler knows a potential invasion of the Rhineland is a huge risk.
It's guarded by heavily-armed British and French soldiers who have orders to enforce the Treaty of Versailles.
But it's a risk he's willing to take.
He orders 22,000 men into the Rhineland, looking to reclaim what he believes to rightfully belong to Germany.
[Radio static buzzing.]
They've crossed the border.
When the Germans entered the Rhineland in March of 1936, this was Hitler's first real, overt, in-your-face violation of the Versailles Treaty.
[Indistinct radio chatter.]
Still no signs of resistance.
Each step of the way, Hitler's Generals were terrified that somebody would retort with force.
[Indistinct radio chatter.]
All clear.
Narrator: Without a single shot fired, Hitler's Military claims its first victory as Germany once again takes control of the Rhineland.
If there had been any kind of significant resistance put up, if the British and the French had stood up to his invasion of the Rhineland, that might have changed things.
This was a really important moment for Hitler because he realizes after his invasion of the Rhineland that the British and the French will complain.
They'll send diplomatic notes, but they'll do absolutely nothing when confronted with military force.
He suddenly feels invincible.
Narrator: Meanwhile on the other side of the world, another emerging power is looking to expand its influence.
Japanese leaders have been watching Hitler and Mussolini closely, and they want that same power for their own country.
The Japanese, ever since the beginning of the century, had been trying to figure out how they could become a great power, and the Japanese started thinking in terms of an Empire.
Narrator: Japan fought for the Allies in the First World War but was shunned during the Versailles negotiations.
Just like Italy and Germany, the Japanese government has spent the years since the war pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into building a powerful modern Army.
In 1937, the Emperor of Japan approves an invasion of northeastern China.
A dedicated soldier is chosen to lead the troops.
His name is Hideki Tojo.
Tojo is fiercely loyal to the Emperor And willing to sacrifice anything to bring glory to Japan.
[Distant gunfire.]
After overseeing a series of successful battles, Tojo is named Japan's Minister of War and is now responsible for the state of the Japanese Military.
But Tojo knows that Japan will need allies if it's going to become an international power, and he urges his country's leaders to join forces with Italy and Germany.
Tojo recognized the need for Japan to build alliances.
To achieve its goal of being a major power in the Pacific, it was going to need allies, and Hitler and Mussolini seemed liked natural allies for them.
Narrator: Japanese leaders signed a pact with Hitler, solidifying the Axis Powers.
Three countries shunned in the wake of the first war have now formed an alliance to take over the world.
Narrator: In Germany, Adolf Hitler has formed an alliance with Italy and Japan, and in less than five years, he's built the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
The stage is finally set for Hitler to achieve his ultimate dream.
After a successful invasion of the Rhineland with no opposition from the allies, Hitler plans to continue reclaiming territory he believes was unjustly taken from Germany when the Allies carved up Europe.
In the spring of 1938, Hitler annexes his home country of Austria before turning his attention to a region of Czechoslovakia, home to more than 3 million Germans and a rich supply of coal, iron, and power plants, the Sudetenland.
Hitler said, "give us the land "where Germans live in Czechoslovakia.
"That's all we want.
We want our German folk in the Reich.
" Hitler was taking these steps, these military steps and threats and bluster and building up his forces in violation of every agreement.
He was testing the Western powers.
Narrator: For the first time in 20 years, the threat of a major conflict in Europe is possible.
As the European leaders begin to take notice of Hitler's bold actions, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has to make sure Great Britain doesn't get involved in another war.
Britain was tired of war after the First World War, and there was a very strong feeling that never again could Europe find itself in the pit of disaster after losing millions of people in the First World War.
Narrator: Chamberlain believes that to stop Hitler in his tracks and save Europe from another war, he'll have to exercise diplomacy.
As the world watches, Chamberlain travels to Germany to broker the peace.
This is the first and only time Hitler will grant a meeting with an Allied leader.
Did you fight in the Great War, Mr.
Prime Minister? I did not.
I was in government.
It was an honor to fight for my country.
It was an honor to serve mine.
I doubt either of us want such honors for our countries again.
Of the many wrongs of that war, this one we can right.
Let us have the territory back.
I can only agree to the areas that are more than 50% German, nothing more.
Narrator: Desperate to avoid war at all costs, Chamberlain grants Hitler the territory he wants in exchange for Hitler's word that he'll go no further.
The idea of appeasement is, somebody has an appetite, and you appease that person's hunger, and they are somehow satisfied.
The problem with the appeasement policy is that Hitler could not be appeased because he wanted world domination, and so by definition, you couldn't give him everything he wanted because the more you gave him, the more he would want.
Bloody hell.
Narrator: Since the build-up of the German Army, the occupation of the Rhineland, and now the takeover of the Sudetenland, Winston Churchill has watched Hitler gain momentum and is convinced the Fuehrer has no plans to keep the peace.
Churchill, from the beginning of the Nazi's rise to power, saw them as a destructive and dangerous force right across not just Germany, but the whole of Europe.
Churchill, throughout it all, seemed to have this kind of intuitive sense about what needed to be done and who was really our enemy.
He knew Hitler for who Hitler really was.
Narrator: Churchill urges.
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to put an end to Hitler's crusade and to hold him accountable for violating the treaty, but his pleas are disregarded.
Nobody listened because, for one reason, he was Winston Churchill, and the last time people listened, you had Gallipoli.
People accused Churchill of being a warmonger.
They didn't want to hear from the sidelines that there's going to be a war.
Narrator: With no support from the British government, all Churchill can do is watch.
After gaining the Sudetenland, Hitler's support within Germany surges.
[Cheers and applause.]
Hitler returns to Germany as the victor because he got exactly what he wanted.
He knows now that the west is weak, that they will not stand up to his aggression.
Narrator: With the Allies posing no threat, Hitler's appetite for territory in Europe grows.
Six months after he swore his conquest was over, Hitler marches his Army past the Sudetenland borders into the heart of Czechoslovakia.
And once again, without resistance from the Allies, the country is an easy win.
Hitler realized, you know, the British, they're weak.
They're very weak.
I mean, we have this conference and they delivered Czechoslovakia to us.
Britain and France always sent protests, notes, memorandums, but they never fought; they never did anything.
They wanted to stop Hitler, and Hitler had exactly the other perception.
"I can do whatever I want.
They will never fight.
" Narrator: For Winston Churchill, Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia is the final straw.
Churchill simply could not believe that Chamberlain would do nothing to try to stop Hitler's aggression and his move into Czechoslovakia.
After everything he had said, it was making no difference, so he decided it was time for him to go public.
The German dictator, instead of snatching food from the tables, has become content to have it served upon him course by course.
He starts giving these very powerful speeches attacking, criticizing the British government for its policy of appeasing Hitler.
One pound was demanded at pistol point, and when that was given, two pounds was demanded at pistol point.
He could be very vocal and could stick a verbal dagger in someone's back.
He wasn't a good man to get on the wrong side of because of his use of language.
Our ruling class takes its weekends in the country; Hitler takes countries on the weekends.
Upon it depends our British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire.
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties.
If we can stand up to him, all Europe get me Churchill.
[Crowd shouting.]
Narrator: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is feeling the heat.
For months, he and his government have been relentlessly attacked by Winston Churchill who's finally succeeded in drawing attention to Adolf Hitler's conquest of Europe.
The people of Great Britain are growing restless for action, and Chamberlain knows he has to do something to calm their fears.
So Chamberlain can no longer ignore Churchill because people are recognizing that his message is actually right, so Chamberlain appoints Churchill to the First Lord of the Admiralty.
This was the position he held before Gallipoli.
It's a remarkable turn of events for Churchill.
- Hello.
- He's waiting for you.
Thank you.
A man who had wandered in the political wilderness after Gallipoli, after World War I, has now returned to his former position in government.
It's good to have you back.
It's good to be back.
We're certainly very pleased to have you on the team.
I'm sure you are.
The last time I was here was during the Great War.
Does it bring back memories? Yes, none of them particularly fond.
Do you know why I brought you back? To shut me up, I imagine.
It will be good to have your voice inside my government.
I don't want another war.
[Sighs.]
I'm afraid it may be too late.
Churchill was virtually the only Englishman saying, "this is going to end badly.
" Hitler was testing the Western powers, testing their courage.
Chamberlain had no political choice but to bring in Winston.
Narrator: Believing Churchill will fall in line, Chamberlain sticks to his policy of doing nothing while Churchill boldly asserts himself.
I want warships with firepower.
I want submarines that are capable of firing torpedoes.
I do not want excuses.
Narrator: He may be an ocean away, but President Franklin Roosevelt is closely monitoring the situation in Europe, and like Churchill, he knows that Adolf Hitler isn't someone to be ignored.
Roosevelt gradually came to believe that Hitler was a serious danger to world peace and a danger to the United States.
Roosevelt concluded this, partly because of what Roosevelt had learned under Woodrow Wilson during World War I, but Roosevelt was not the one who at this stage was gonna go out on any political limbs trying to convince the American people of that, because Roosevelt knew that Americans had grown extremely allergic to getting involved in Europe's wars.
I think Roosevelt did everything he could.
It would have been very hard under those circumstances.
You might have said it would be a nice time to intervene, but with what? You've got the world's 17th-largest army.
There's no public support whatsoever here in the United States for the notion that we ought to be intervening in Europe when they haven't even started to shoot at each other yet.
Uh-uh.
There's no war.
Narrator: Confident that his power in Western Europe is secure, Adolf Hitler plans an even more aggressive strategy to expand the Nazi Empire to the east targeting the nation of Poland.
Hitler believes Poland rightfully belongs to Germany, having been taken by the Allies during the Versailles negotiations.
From November 1918 onwards, if Hitler has one, essential mission in politics, it is to overthrow the Versailles Treaty and not just to overthrow the Versailles Treaty but to create a new international order in which Germany cannot again be defeated.
Narrator: But Hitler knows taking Poland will provoke the only man who intimidates him, a tyrant who rules his country with an iron fist.
Joseph Stalin is one of the most violent leaders the world will ever know.
Just 20 years earlier, he seized control of the largest country in the world and created the Soviet Union using nothing more than brute force and intimidation.
[Men vocalizing.]
There's no freedom, total censorship in Russia.
It was a hellish place to be.
Stalin is a murderer.
There's nothing good to say about Stalin.
Narrator: Like Hitler, Stalin is a brutal dictator with dreams of world domination.
Both men are professed fans of the arts who rule their countries with ruthless order and efficiency.
Just like Hitler eliminated his political opponents during the night of the long knives, Stalin does the same on an even grander scale Sending his rivals to deadly work camps located in the harshest and most desolate terrain on the planet Siberia.
Stalin's purges send over 2 million people to die in siberian work camps.
It's an idea Adolf Hitler will soon adopt himself as he opens up thousands of forced labor camps throughout Germany where he banishes hundreds of thousands of Jews, political opponents, and anyone else he deems undesirable.
Hitler knows if he's going to continue his conquest of Europe, he'll need to neutralize Joseph Stalin.
He offers his rival dictator a pact, promising to avoid war between the two massive powers if Stalin uses his red army to help conquer Poland.
Everything that Hitler did in World War II was shaped by his experience in World War I, and in World War I, he knew that Germany came closest to victory when Russia withdrew from the war, so his goal the second time around was to keep Russia from entering the war.
He did not want to have a second front opened up.
He wanted to be able to maintain his focus on the west, so he creates a pact with Stalin.
Narrator: Stalin accepts Hitler's offer.
We will move swiftly, and we will spare no one.
We could move some troops but that will take weeks.
You have too little trust in their weakness.
Jahwol, mein Fuehrer.
They're there for the taking, and we will take them.
[Siren wailing.]
Narrator: On September 1, 1939, Hitler orders a million troops into Poland who fight using a new method of warfare the world has never seen before [Explosions.]
Blitzkrieg.
The Germans wanted to avoid a static war, so they had developed something which came to be called blitzkrieg or lightning war And the concept of lightening war is to take very fast moving forces [Engines rumbling.]
To punch a hole in your enemy [Explosions.]
And then get into their nervous system.
[Gunfire.]
It's like something attacking the human body.
[Explosions.]
Your arms and legs and muscles are fine, but your brain and your heart have been suddenly been assaulted, and you can't react fast enough to deal with this.
Narrator: While the Nazis attack from the west Stalin orders the Red Army to invade from the east.
Stalin was determined to give Hitler everything he needed, and thereby Germany would have no reason ever to attack the Soviet Union.
[Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake playing.]
[Peaceful classical music.]
[Intense classical music.]
Narrator: The Polish army is no match for the two-front invasion And the country falls to the new alliance of Hitler and Stalin.
Dictators feel that they are omniscient in their judgment and they know better than anyone else.
They don't keep anyone around them who will tell them otherwise.
In most of my military career I had to shake hands with a lot of pigs.
[Peaceful classical music.]
[Clapping.]
[Applause.]
Narrator: Adolf Hitler has formed alliances with Italy, Japan, and now Russia to create the world's most terrifying super power.
The day Winston Churchill has been warning the rest of the world about is finally here.
Great Britain and the Allies are in no position to ignore the threat of Hitler and Stalin.
Nobody knew the extent of what Germans' design was, and it's not until Poland falls that it becomes clear Hitler has this sort of design to control all of Europe.
Narrator: On September 3, 1939, Chamberlain finally realizes he has no other option but to sign the declaration that takes the world back to war.
Narrator: Adolf Hitler is on a march through Europe as he rapidly expands his Empire [Explosions.]
Meeting little resistance.
[Crowd shouting.]
Even after declaring war, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain still does absolutely nothing to stop Hitler for seven long months.
Hitler is on the move.
I mean, we should mobilize immediately.
Yes, but we need more time, and if there is going to be war, I want us to be ready.
[Laughs.]
War will find us whether we're ready or not.
War is not a political game.
War is everything that you can put on the line.
- We need time - Victory can never in order to achieve a result as rapidly as possible.
What's he going to have to do next? We already offered him a certain thing, and we can't do everything overnight, - and we're not ready for war right now.
- Hitler is far more dangerous than anything we've ever faced before.
No, no, no, no, no.
We need time.
Oh, I see.
That's the typical defeatism and pacifism of your government.
So where are you gonna draw the line with Hitler? Political leadership is about being able to do things that your colleagues couldn't do and for them to recognize that.
What marks our successful leaders from the unsuccessful is a decisiveness, a courage, a clarity, a strategic vision.
Hitler is burning the Treaty of Versailles as we speak, and all we do is sit idly by pissing on the ashes.
Narrator: While Chamberlain continues to do nothing, Hitler invades Denmark and Norway, tightening the noose around Great Britain's closest ally, France.
His conquest of Europe seems unstoppable.
That was it.
That was the end for Chamberlain.
His government had failed.
Narrator: The pressure Churchill puts on Chamberlain causes the British government to lose complete faith in their leader forcing him to resign.
It turns out that Churchill was right all along about Hitler and Chamberlain was wrong.
Clearly, with German Forces now amassed along the French border, that policy of appeasement had failed.
Britain needed a new leader, a leader who will understand who this enemy was.
Narrator: On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill claims his greatest personal victory [Cheers and applause.]
When he's voted in as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Churchill had total confidence in himself.
If he hadn't, he wouldn't have survived his setbacks, and that is why, from being a renegade, he was brought straight back into the government and then was Prime Minister.
He knew he was special, and he proved it.
Narrator: But Churchill is given no time to celebrate his victory.
Winston Churchill's election as Prime Minister changes Hitler's entire war plan.
He knows Churchill won't hesitate to fight back, so he decides to strike the Allies first, launching an overwhelming invasion of France.
To guarantee victory, he sends over 4 million troops directly at the French.
We'll bomb every city.
We bomb every village, every farm, every town.
Hitler came to believe that he was invincible.
Every time his Generals urged caution, he overruled them.
He believed that everything could be done if your willpower was strong enough.
We will kill every single man.
We will annihilate them.
[Engines rumbling.]
[Cannon booming, explosion.]
[Men shouting.]
[Explosions rumbling, sirens wailing.]
[Gunfire.]
Narrator: Hitler's blitzkrieg completely overpowers the French army.
The French fell prey to exactly what the Germans had hoped they would.
[Cannon booms.]
Very quickly they felt defeated.
100,000 French soldiers died during six weeks, which is a huge proportion of causalities.
Narrator: What Germany failed to do in the first war, Hitler accomplishes in just six weeks.
As he takes France, Hitler also conquers Belgium and the Netherlands.
His Empire now encompasses nearly all of Europe.
Winston Churchill has been the Prime Minister for just nine days, and already millions of Nazi troops and tanks are gathering on the coast of the English Channel, just 50 miles from Great Britain.
With all hope seemingly lost [Indistinct chatter.]
Churchill addresses his nation [Static buzzing.]
And the entire world is listening.
[Indistinct radio chatter.]
We shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France.
We shall fight on the seas and oceans.
We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.
We shall defend our Island whatever the cost may be.
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.
[Cheers and applause.]
Narrator: For the past four years, Adolf Hitler has marched the most dominant military the world has ever seen across Europe.
[Gunfire, explosion.]
And now France has fallen.
[Dramatic music.]
We shall defend our Island whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on the beaches.
But the new Prime Minister of Great Britain isn't going to let the occupation of the largest Allied nation to date go unchallenged.
- - We shall fight in the hills.
We shall never surrender.
[Cheers and applause.]
Within weeks of taking France, Hitler orders his top Military Commanders to begin preparations for his largest attack yet targeting the heart of the British Empire, London, England.
But Hitler has a problem, the British have the most dominant Navy in the world, and Churchill has fortified the coast of Great Britain with a virtual armada in anticipation of an attack.
In mid June of 1940, the British are waiting for an invasion, but Hitler thought if they couldn't beat the English militarily, they'd terrorize the country so much that the English people would demand that Churchill make peace.
Narrator: Hitler knows his Navy is no match for the British, but he's spent the last seven years creating a massive air force called the Luftwaffe [Engine rumbling.]
Which he now orders into the skies, unleashing a strategic bombing campaign to terrorize Churchill into submission.
[Engines rumbling.]
On September 7, 1940, London is the largest city in the world, home to 9 million people who have no idea what's about to hit them.
[Engines rumbling.]
[Sirens wailing.]
[Explosions rumbling.]
[Mournful music.]
Over 60% of the city is obliterated.
It was unbelievable.
With hundreds of bombers and fighter planes.
Indiscriminate bombings.
Fires broke out in the east end, in the west end.
The blitz was terror bombing, and 40,000 British civilians died during the blitz.
Narrator: 2 million homes throughout the city are destroyed.
Left with no other place to go, millions are forced to find shelter in underground subway stations Not knowing where the next bomb will strike.
[Explosions booming in distance.]
[Explosion rumbling.]
Winston Churchill is the Prime Minister for less than four months when Hitler strikes London, but the blitz only strengthens his resolve.
Churchill stood alone.
He was really all that stood between Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler and the complete conquest of Europe.
Narrator: During the London blitz, Churchill's reminded of his failed Gallipoli invasion.
Only instead of soldiers who died on his watch, now it's innocent civilians.
Churchill believed that courage and valor were prerequisite for leadership.
You can't have a cowardly leader, and Churchill showed himself almost every night of the blitz.
He was out in there in the neighborhoods and the people saw him.
Churchill embodied the bulldog spirit.
He embodied the commitment of the British people to stand up through the blitz of London, and that's a vital quality of courage that sustains a people at very perilous times.
Narrator: While Hitler continues his terror bombing, Churchill shifts his focus from the Navy to the Royal Air Force Devoting all his resources into mass-producing a new fleet of smaller and faster fighter planes [Engines rumbling.]
Catching Hitler off guard.
For the next three months, the largest air battle the world has ever known is fought over Great Britain.
The new and improved British planes shoot down nearly 3,000 Luftwaffe fighters while the British lose fewer than 600 [Engines rumbling.]
Forcing Hitler to retreat.
That was Churchill's finest hour, those months of September 1940 through early 1941.
There was no America helping us then.
There was England and England alone, and it was during those months that Churchill saved England, and I believe saved Western civilization.
Narrator: The Royal Air Force overpowers the Luftwaffe and secures Great Britain from attack.
[Engines rumbling.]
Churchill has handed Hitler his first major defeat.
Narrator: The Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan are continuing their quest for world domination.
In the Pacific, Japan has launched a bloody invasion of China, the first step in their campaign to control all of Asia.
[Men shouting, gunfire.]
[Explosion, horse neighing.]
[Gunfire.]
But Japanese leaders are convinced if they're ever going to achieve their goal of a strong and respected Japanese Empire, they'll need to be more aggressive.
China is just the beginning.
The Emperor decides he needs a new Prime Minister, someone he can trust to bring victory to Japan, so he promotes his Minister of War, Hideki Tojo.
Tojo is elevated to the position of Prime Minister.
He's there really for two reasons.
One is he fiercely loyal to the Emperor.
He also is considered a hawk, so he has a lot of credibility among the military.
Narrator: Tojo knows if Japan is going to conquer Asia, first they'll need to establish a base of operations in a critical territory strategically located in the middle of the Pacific Islands the Philippines.
The only problem is that the Philippines belongs to the United States.
After learning that Japan is moving its Navy towards the Philippines Coming this way? South? Narrator: President Franklin Roosevelt knows he needs to respond quickly.
The United States had worried that the Japanese were getting too strong.
Roosevelt watched the rising tide of violence in Asia, and it caused Roosevelt to think, "we've got to do something about this to defend the Philippines.
" Narrator: To protect the American Territory, Roosevelt sends a division of the U.
S.
Army directly to the Philippines.
To command the operation he picks a legendary General who's proven himself on the battlefield, while also proving to be a thorn in Roosevelt's side, Douglas MacArthur.
Roosevelt knew he needed a stronger military presence in the Pacific to try to deter Japan, and he chooses MacArthur.
Roosevelt didn't like MacArthur, but he respected him.
Narrator: Roosevelt is confident that despite their differences, MacArthur is the only man capable of getting the job done.
When MacArthur commanded in the Pacific, if you think of the breadth of his responsibilities and the importance of what he did and his own proclivity and personality, he became a very huge figure in that area and in his own mind.
Narrator: MacArthur immediately begins training his force, but he's been given just 22,000 men, while Japan's Army is 2 million strong.
If Japan attacks, MacArthur and his men will need to fight like hell.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world Adolf Hitler has steamrolled through Europe with minimal resistance, and after his temporary setback in London, he's convinced if he's ever going to achieve his ultimate dream of global domination, he simply has to go bigger.
Hitler believed his willpower would eventually overcome all difficulties.
It began to build up his confidence until he thought he was invincible.
With enough support for this area here Narrator: As his ego grows, Hitler begins to believe the Nazi Military is powerful enough to take on anyone, even Joseph Stalin.
Hitler's pact with Stalin was always a pact of convenience.
For some reason, Stalin believed that he was special, that even though Hitler had violated every agreement, that even though Hitler had invaded all these countries, that some how he would not have invaded the Soviet Union.
Narrator: In the summer of 1941, Hitler orders a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union, catching his ally completely off guard.
Without warning, Hitler's Forces invade the Soviet Union.
It's the largest land invasion in history.
[Engines rumbling.]
[Explosions.]
[Cannons booming.]
Narrator: Hitler's troops are advancing toward Moscow, but Joseph Stalin refuses to back down in the face of his ally's betrayal.
If Hitler wants a war, Stalin will give him one.
These are two of the most ruthless, bloodthirsty individuals who have ever lived.
At one point they're allies, and now they're enemies.
Narrator: With one move, Adolf Hitler has turned his most powerful ally against him.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has sent his best General to defend the Island Territory, but he knows the American Force has little hope against the powerful Japanese Military.
Give me an update.
We have no reason to expect them to stop their movement south.
Is there any movement towards the Philippines? Not that we can tell, but if they do attack, the best that MacArthur can do is slow them down.
There is one thing.
Japan is totally dependent on foreign oil.
We stop that; We stop the war machine.
Where do they get their oil? From us.
Narrator: Determined to avoid war at all costs, Roosevelt signs a trade embargo cutting America's supply of oil to Japan and sending the Japanese economy into free fall.
Roosevelt essentially declared economic war against Japan.
Roosevelt hoped he could sufficiently pressure the Japanese.
That they would back off.
In Tokyo, newly-appointed Prime Minister Hideki Tojo knows the oil embargo threatens to put an end to Japan's imperial ambitions.
If he's going to continue to expand the Japanese Empire, Tojo has to act quickly.
Ambassador, prepare to go to the United States immediately.
We need to negotiate the end of the oil embargo.
With the oil embargo in place, Japan develops a two-prong strategy.
On the one hand, it's trying to negotiate a diplomatic solution and sends a representative to Washington to try to find a way out of it.
The Emperor is genuinely trying to find a peaceful solution, but the Military is also planning for an attack.
Narrator: The Japanese realize they need to find other sources of oil, and the best source is in the oil-rich Islands of the South Pacific, but in order to get to that oil, first they'll have to go through the Philippines.
The problem is America has a military capability in the Philippines, under General Douglas MacArthur, so if they're going to secure the oil that they need, the first thing they have to do is knock America out of the Pacific.
Narrator: But the Japanese Military isn't going to attack the Philippines directly.
They have a bigger, more daring plan to cripple America's Naval Fleet.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Military launches a massive, preemptive strike [Engine rumbling.]
Sending hundreds of Japanese fighter planes armed with thousands of deadly explosives across the ocean.
Their target: The entire U.
S.
Pacific Fleet, currently stationed at a base on the Hawaiian Islands [Engines rumbling.]
Known as Pearl Harbor.
[Explosion.]
Coming up on The World Wars America is attacked, and once again the world is at war.
So it begins.
Narrator: The new generation of leaders now face their biggest test, and the soldiers who won the First World War now return to the battlefield in the ultimate rematch.
Nothing is more certain than our ultimate and complete liberation from the enemy.
[Gunfire.]
Narrator: As the Allies begin to push back, Adolf Hitler grows increasingly desperate for victory causing him to descend into madness.
The program is clear.
It reads total separation, total segregation.
[Explosions.]
Narrator: But if the Allies are going to win the war and put an end to over 30 years of turmoil, they'll have to resort to drastic measures that will change the world forever.
[Explosion.]
[Gunshots.]