Greatest Events of World War II in Colour

In just two weeks,

the German Army storms across France and Belgium,

pushing hundreds of thousands of British and French soldiers

to the sea at Dunkirk.

They have revolutionized warfare.

They've realized that speed of movement is now the key,

so you create these armored formations that move fast.

They are harnessing new panzer techniques with radio technology,

and the support of the Luftwaffe. That's the new thing.

A brutal aerial bombardment…

fast-moving tanks…

a superhuman infantry.

This is Blitzkrieg, lightning war.

"Blitzkrieg", it means speed.

Maneuver Warfare.

A campaign which is focused on a very quick decisive battle.

Blitzkrieg is one of the most

extraordinary events of World War II.

Now, rare footage from around the world,

expertly restored in full color, tells the story

as you've never seen it before.

After their defeat in World War I, the fiercely proud German people

are utterly humiliated.

The punishing terms of the Treaty of Versailles

rub salt in the wounds.

The global industrial power

is limited to an army of only 100,000 men,

and loses territory.

The Germans feel very put-upon by the Treaty of Versailles,

because it essentially says that the Germans are guilty

of starting the war.

There's no question that most Germans felt outraged

by the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles,

the shrinking of the army to just 100,000,

and the loss of territory, and these massive reparations,

which everybody knew were gonna have serious economic consequences.

And the reason they objected was because it implied

that Germany was responsible for the First World War,

and this was their punishment.

How could their powerful nation have lost?

And why are they made to cede land to lesser nations?

The territorial losses are quite significant.

They lose territory in the East, to the Poles and the Czechs,

and they are forced to demilitarize their islands

so they can't use it as a launch pad for renewed invasion

of Belgium and France.

Feeding on the resentment, a populist rabble-rouser

taps into wounded German pride and promises to take back

what has been lost.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party start to build a mass following.

The German people see him as a savior,

a man to restore their once-great nation.

There was a feeling in Germany that most Germans felt

when the Versailles Treaty was passed,

that the provisions were unnecessarily draconian,

both the loss of territory, and also these massive war reparations.

And what the Versailles Treaty did, in effect,

is blame Germany for the First World War, whereas many Germans felt that, actually,

they were no more responsible than any of the other countries.

And so, this rankled.

Sieg Heil! Seig Heil! Sieg Heil!

Hitler correctly diagnoses that the Germans are suffering

a great deal of political and economic insecurity.

What they need most of all is a sense of unity

and a sense of economic security as kind of a floor underneath them.

And the Nazis provide this by talking about, you know,

state intervention in all sorts of areas to create employment.

Building the autobahns, things like that.

In the first years of Hitler's reign,

most Germans consider it a success.

Hitler manages to suspend

the regulations of the Versailles treaty step by step.

In violation of the treaty, Hitler builds up his army,

testing the tolerance of the Allies,

gambling that no one wants to start another war.

He introduces compulsory military service in 1935

and marches back into the Rhineland the following year

with 30,000 troops.

If you think about Hitler's long-term plan,

it's to consolidate his position on the European continent,

defeat the Western powers, France and Britain,

and then he's gonna turn his attention to the east,

which he sees as the natural field for German expansion,

a place where that he can then build out the German population,

gather in resources, and defeat the monster of Bolshevism,

which he sees as being kind of the blood enemy of fascism.

When the Nazis brazenly march into Austria

on the 12th of March 1938,

they are greeted with open arms by the Austrian people.

The Western Allies do nothing.

The Western Allies pretty much stood by and let it happen,

and one of the reasons they did that is because they felt

that the Austrians probably wanted to join with the Germans,

therefore they weren't actually being forced.

The breaches of the Versailles treaty are always grave,

but the Allied forces never react.

Many of them think that they perhaps humiliated Germany

too much with the Versailles treaty.

They can understand that Germany wants to be a major player again.

On the other hand, the Allied countries don't want to risk another war.

From the First World War, they know that a war would mean

thousands, if not millions, of casualties, and they want to prevent that.

With Austria now in German hands,

Hitler makes public his goal to incorporate areas of Czechoslovakia

into the growing German footprint.

It's a country rich in natural resources like iron.

The statements alarm the Allies, but still, they want to avoid conflict.

In September 1938,

the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

flies to Germany three times

to attempt to dissuade Hitler from invading Czechoslovakia.

I used to repeat…

"If at first you don't succeed,

try, try, try again."

That's what I'm doing.

On his third visit,

he joins French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier

and Benito Mussolini of Italy,

at what becomes known as the Munich Conference.

They agree with Hitler that Germany can annex

the German-speaking Sudetenland, but not make an attempt

to invade the rest of Czechoslovakia.

The following morning, Chamberlain signs a separate agreement with Hitler;

a peace deal between Britain and Germany.

Chamberlain is greeted as a hero.

Chamberlain returns to Heston Airport in London

and waves this piece of paper, sort of talks about peace in our time.

And this is a separate deal that he has done privately

with Hitler.

This morning…

I had another talk…

with the German chancellor, Herr Hitler.

And here is the paper…

which bears his name upon it, as well as mine.

He's averted war. There's absolutely no question

that Hitler is absolutely chomping at the bit

to go in all guns blazing into Czechoslovakia.

That has been avoided.

We regard the agreement signed last night,

and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire

of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

As Chamberlain delivers his speech,

German forces prepare to march into the Sudetenland.

March 1939, Hitler invades the rest of Czechoslovakia.

It is clear that Hitler's plan isn't just to regain territory…

but to expand Germany's borders further east.

Hitler's intention, ultimately, is to create a huge German empire

in Central and Eastern Europe.

Are they prepared to go to war? So, he's just got to keep pushing,

slowly but surely, and one after another

these crucial countries, Austria, Czechoslovakia,

slowly the dominoes will fall, and he's gonna be able

to carve out for himself this huge new empire,

this living room for the German people.

France and Britain become increasingly anxious

that Hitler's next move will be Poland.

They draw a line in the sand; if Hitler invades Poland,

they will declare war.

Hitler doesn't believe them.

The German chancellor is more worried about how his avowed enemies,

the Soviets, will react.

August 1939, Hitler declares a non-aggression pact

with his ideological enemy, Stalin,

in which they agree not to attack each other.

While the Western Allies struggle to understand this unlikely alliance,

on September the first, the two countries reveal their hands

when Hitler invades Western Poland.

The Polish army on their horses are no match for the German panzers,

but they put up a valiant fight.

Sixteen days later, the Soviet Union invade Poland

from the east.

It's a very cynical deal.

What the Russians are gonna get out of it is a free hand and a lot of the east,

including the recovery of some of the territories that they'd lost

at the end of the First World War.

And what the Germans are gonna get out of it

is a free hand to invade Poland

without worry that the Russians are gonna react against that.

In fact, they've done a deal to divide the country up between them.

True to their word, on the third of September 1939,

Britain and France declare war on Germany.

It's a move Hitler didn't see coming.

When he actually hears that the United Kingdom's

declared war on him in particular, he's horrified,

and he says to one of his advisers, "What next?"

Because all along, he hadn't believed

that they would actually go to war over an issue in Eastern Europe.

The next day,

troops from the British Expeditionary Force, the BEF,

set sail for France

to join forces with the world's most powerful army.

They move up to the Belgian border

where they prepare for any German attack.

Royal Engineers Private Percy Taylor Beaton,

who was called up in London and was soon on a boat

bound for Cherbourg in France.

People cheered, and they made a fuss and that.

There was bags of tears and things like this at people going away.

The people in the streets, you know, when they saw us and that they cheered us,

you know, when the coach left Bethnal Green,