World War II Archives - Page 6 of 8

Stalingrad: A Trilogy episode 1

History / 3 minutes of reading / December 5, 2022 / By HDclump

Stalingrad: A Trilogy episode 1 – With a force of over half a million men, the German army advanced towards the Caspian Sea and Stalingrad to capture the center of Soviet military industry. Hitler’s Sixth Army faced strong resistance from all sides and German soldiers perished in bloody battles. Yet Hitler still boasted on November 8th in Munich that Stalingrad was practically conquered and the Germans would never leave the city again. With the dimensions of Russia in mind, the rapid advance of the German army to the Volga – measured against the low population density – was not an […]

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Hitler’s Secret Weapons Manager

History / 4 minutes of reading / July 26, 2022 / By HDclump

Hitler’s Secret Weapons Manager: When SS General Hans Kammler, a key figure in the Nazis’ secret weapons programme, vanished in 1945 he was said to have taken his own life. Yet recently discovered documents cast doubt on this claim. ZDF History shows evidence of this for the first time. A US Air Force Secret Service document dated May 30, 1945 lists a number of high-ranking German prisoners of war who are available for interrogation: alongside Albert Speer and Hermann Goering, Hans Kammler is also included – three weeks after his alleged death. In November 1945, the intelligence

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Hitler Takes on the West episode 2

History / 3 minutes of reading / June 14, 2022 / By HDclump

Hitler Takes on the West episode 2: May 1940. France is in chaos. The French people take to the roads, trying to escape. The government signs an armistice as Germans take over half the country. The French and the English retreat desperately. In Dunkirk, there are more than 300,000 troops waiting to be transhipped in hundreds of ships, which perform a heroic back and forth trips to England. Thousands of men perish at the sea, struck down by German bombs. Celebrated as heroes throughout Britain, the soldiers of Dunkirk were saved by the sacrifice of French soldiers. To

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Hitler Takes on the West episode 1

History / 3 minutes of reading / June 13, 2022 / By HDclump

Hitler Takes on the West episode 1: 1940 – Nine months after the onset of World War II, Hitler attacks the West – Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain – with intense violence. The “phoney war” ends, the real war begins, in an unleashing of violence never seen before. The devastating blitzkrieg exceeds all expectations in intensity and its soldiers push back all human limits by consuming Pervitine, a synthetic drug that prevents them from sleeping. After a four-year-long First World War, Hitler’s feat was to defeat Belgium and the Netherlands in 18 days and France in barely 45

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Warsaw Ghetto – The Unfinished Film

History / 3 minutes of reading / May 31, 2022 / By HDclump

Warsaw Ghetto – The Unfinished Film: The Warsaw Ghetto housed 440,000 Polish Jews and Roma during World War II. Typhus, starvation and random murders killed over 100,000 of the ghetto’s residents even before the Nazis began the massive deportations to the Treblinka extermination camp. Yet the Nazis created a mysterious propaganda film that juxtaposed meticulously staged scenes of Jews enjoying a life of luxury in the ghetto with other, chilling images that required no staging at all. After the war, filmmakers and museums – unaware of the deception – used images from the film as objective illustrations

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Hitler’s People: A Portrait of the Third Reich part 2

History / 4 minutes of reading / April 19, 2022 / By HDclump

Hitler’s People: A Portrait of the Third Reich part 2: On 18 February 1943 Joseph Goebbels held his notorious “Total War” speech about being “faithful to the last” at the Berlin Sportpalast. But the Reich’s defeat in Stalingrad a few weeks earlier shook the faith of the Germans in the “final battle”, which saw Germany crumbling more and more every day. Hitler’s armies had sounded the retreat, and after the landing of the Allies on 8 June 1944 at the latest, the German defeat was now only a matter of time. Yet many Germans remained staunched supporters of their Fuhrer.

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Hitler’s People: A Portrait of the Third Reich part 1

History / 4 minutes of reading / April 18, 2022 / By HDclump

Hitler’s People: A Portrait of the Third Reich part 1: On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed German Reichskanzler. Theoretically, he was only one further new head of government. But in the practice of the coming months, the head of the NSDAP managed to completely reconstruct the country and center it around his person. Terror became a principle of politics, and Germany a fascist dictatorship. The “Fuhrer State” favored a new elite: adaptable government officials, jurists, artists and businessmen launched meteoric careers. How could Hitler count on the German public even in the face of unspeakable suffering

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Hermann Goering: Ambition Without Conscience

History / 3 minutes of reading / January 26, 2022 / By HDclump

Hermann Goering: Ambition Without Conscience – He was the “Number One Nazi,” one of Hitler’s oldest friends and second in command. Yet perhaps more than any other advisor, he was responsible for the collapse of the Nazi regime. Hermann Goering was a man of many contradictions; a decorated war hero whose strategic decisions proved disastrous, an elitist with a common touch, a man possessed of a brilliant mind unshackled by any conscience. Through rare photos, film footage and interviews with experts, this documentary assembles a fascinating portrait of the man who embodied the Nazi regime. Discover how his

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War of Worlds 1963-1991 – The Abyss

History / 3 minutes of reading / January 14, 2022 / By HDclump

War of Worlds 1963-1991 – The Abyss: November 22, 1963. The entire world is in shock. President Kennedy has just been assassinated during a trip to Dallas. Even Khrushchev himself seems touched by the tragic news. In a surprising coincidence, South Vietnamese president Diem was assassinated twenty days earlier, in a coup organized by his generals… The players are changing, but the Vietnam war drags on. America’s new President Johnson sinks his country further into the quagmire of war. Close to three million young Americans discover Hell – the jungle, the unbearable heat, and the Viet Cong, with its tunnels

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War of Worlds 1956-1962 – The Wall

History / 3 minutes of reading / January 8, 2022 / By HDclump

War of Worlds 1956-1962 – The Wall: February 24, 1956. During the Soviet Communist Party’s twentieth Congress, Khrushchev stuns everyone by denouncing Stalin’s crimes. Without denying the ideology, the USSR’s new leader seeks to distance himself from his predecessor and open up to the outside world. “Mister K” is full of surprises. He drinks Pepsi with Nixon and insists on spending a day at Disneyland when he visits America… But behind this clown-like character, the “executioner of the Ukraine” hasn’t gone soft. In 1956, he didn’t hesitate to crush the uprising in Budapest in bloodshed. Now, he is

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War of Worlds 1953-1955 – The Conquest

History / 3 minutes of reading / January 7, 2022 / By HDclump

War of Worlds 1953-1955 – The Conquest: March 1953. Stalin is dead. Following many long hours of agony in his dacha, the Little Father of Peoples is now no more than an embalmed corpse. His potential successors eagerly flock to pay their respects. In East Berlin, a wave of hope swept through the German workers who rise up against the Party. This hope is swiftly crushed by Soviet tanks… In Asia, the hot conflicts are coming to an end. After the Panmunjom truce, the US ingloriously leaves Korea. The few remaining troops impatiently await a visit from Marilyn Monroe. In

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War of Worlds 1950-1952 – The World Trembles

History / 6 minutes of reading / January 6, 2022 / By HDclump

War of Worlds 1950-1952 – The World Trembles: September 1950. On the banks at Incheon, 30 miles from Seoul, General MacArthur is victorious. The landing he planned, to rescue his men stuck in Pusan, was a success. But the war isn’t over. In the North, the Americans will have to face an unexpected enemy. On the other side of the frozen Yalu river, Mao, covert as always, has stationed 300,000 of his men. On Thanksgiving Day, the Chinese and North Koreans attack the US army, whose only choice is to fall back. Faced with his army’s defeat and

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