- 6 years ago
Part 3 of the "Why We Fight" series. The World War II US Government account of the European theatre of the war from after the English and French entry to the fall of France.
Directors: Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak
Stars: General Bergeret, Karl Brandt, Winston Churchill
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:30© BF-WATCH TV 2021
01:00© BF-WATCH TV 2021
01:23Six years of training and actual battle experience in Spain and Poland
01:27have made the German army look invincible.
01:33But what about the British and French?
01:35First, let's take up the British.
01:38They started from scratch, but both at home and abroad an army was growing.
01:43For not only Britain had declared war,
01:46Canada,
01:48Australia,
01:50New Zealand,
01:52South Africa,
01:54the whole British Commonwealth of Nations was also determined on victory over Hitlerism and all it stands for.
02:01And Britain had one weapon that was ready, the Royal Navy.
02:05Shortly after war was declared, it had swept German shipping from the high seas.
02:12And units of the British fleet were deployed at Suez, Malta, Gibraltar,
02:18in the Channel, and in the North Sea, blockading Germany.
02:22World conquest was impossible without running smack up against the rock called Britain.
02:28How to strike at that little island? That was the question.
02:33Between Britain and Germany stood not only France,
02:36but the little countries of Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
02:43The people of these small neutral countries were peaceful, hardworking, and free.
02:50They knew they were in the middle and feared violation of their neutrality.
02:55Hitler knew this.
02:57He also knew that if they united with the Allies,
03:00they would form a solid democratic wall against Nazi aggression,
03:04and their conquest would be far more difficult.
03:08So before striking with his armies, he used another weapon, the propaganda barrage,
03:14to confuse, to make them lose faith,
03:17to divide and conquer.
03:20To lull the fears of the little neutrals,
03:22propaganda minister Goebbels told them Germany didn't want a war at all.
03:26It was Britain and France that caused all the trouble.
03:30Then it was Hitler's turn.
03:34In a speech on October 6, 1939, he made them all kinds of specific promises.
03:40To the Danes, he said, we have concluded a non-aggression pact with Denmark.
03:46To the Norwegians, he said,
03:49Germany never had any conflict with the northern states and has none today.
03:55To the Dutch, he said,
03:57the new Reich has endeavored to continue the traditional friendship with Holland.
04:02And to the Belgians, he announced,
04:04the Reich has put forth no claim which might in any way be regarded as a threat to Belgium.
04:10And while Hitler was making these promises,
04:13his generals were cold-bloodedly picking out the first victim, Norway.
04:19And why did they pick Norway?
04:21Its many steep inlets or fjords would make excellent U-boat bases
04:26from which raiders could prey on British supply lines.
04:30Also, it would give the Nazis vital air bases.
04:37This is Stapa Flow, British naval base,
04:40and this the blockade fleet.
04:42At this time, the German base bombers couldn't reach them.
04:46Possession of bases on Norway's western shore
04:49would bring these vital British defenses under easy bomber attack.
04:53But he couldn't take Norway without also taking tiny Denmark,
04:57the springboard for his attack.
05:00So at dawn on April 9, 1940,
05:08the German army rolled across the neutral borders of little Denmark,
05:12and in a matter of hours, it occupied the entire country.
05:17By nightfall, Denmark is erased as a nation, and the Danes go into slavery.
05:23Although only six months before Hitler had announced,
05:27we have concluded a non-aggression pact with Denmark,
05:31the Danes will not forget.
05:36Meanwhile, in Norway, peaceful-looking German merchant ships like these
05:40had sneaked inside Norway's neutral waterway
05:43and tied up at all principal ports.
05:46That is, they looked like merchant ships.
05:48But if the Norwegians had had X-ray eyes, this is what they would have seen,
05:53the Trojan horse of ancient Greece brought up to date
05:56with new and deadlier weapons.
05:59At the precise moment that the Nazis overran Denmark,
06:03quiet-looking ships sprang to life.
06:17At the same time, Nazi warships, discovered along the entire coastline,
06:22started steaming up the Norwegian fjords.
06:26Ships, transports, tanks, men, planes,
06:31all flung themselves simultaneously upon a defenseless country.
06:37Airborne infantry seized every strategic Norwegian airport.
06:41The whole job was made easier by treacherous Fifth Columnists,
06:45led by Major Quisling, who seized power and issued orders to suppress resistance.
06:51Nazi warships steamed past silent guns that could have blasted them out of the water.
06:57This was one of the most amazing acts of treachery the world has ever known.
07:02It brought Major Quisling international fame,
07:05making his very name synonymous with the word traitor.
07:10By the afternoon of April 9th, the Germans were in complete control of all seven ports
07:14where they had landed in the morning.
07:28For the first time in more than 200 years,
07:31the people of Norway saw an invading army parading through their cities.
07:36Many of these Nazi soldiers, strutting as conquerors in 1940,
07:41had last seen Norway some 20 years earlier,
07:44when, as refugee German children, they had been raised and cared for by kind Norwegians.
07:51Now these same Germans were back to repay that kindness with terror and destruction.
07:58Once they had occupied the capital, the Nazis quickly fanned out in all directions.
08:03But loyal Norwegian troops stopped one German column between Hamar and Elverum.
08:22So the Germans brought up their bombers.
08:27♪♪♪
08:32♪♪♪
08:37♪♪♪
08:42♪♪♪
08:48The Norwegians were forced to flee to the north under constant and unopposed air attack.
08:54It was here that Captain Robert Losey, an American military attaché, was killed,
08:59the first American soldier to lose his life in this war.
09:04Meanwhile, the Nazis had spread all over the country.
09:08Small patrols occupied every strategic village.
09:13Parachute troops landed high in the mountains.
09:18♪♪♪
09:23Unopposed bombing raids sent defenseless civilians fleeing in stark terror.
09:29♪♪♪
09:47They hadn't wanted war.
09:52They hadn't wanted war. They had done everything to avoid it. Hoping they could escape the
10:02Nazi scourge, they had compromised and tragically failed to unite with the other democracies.
10:08And now they faced the scourge defenseless and alone. For before the Allies could come
10:14to their aid, the Germans were in control of all principal ports. Regardless of this,
10:20British, French, and Polish contingents plunged in and made several landings along the Norwegian
10:26coast. They landed forces north and south of Trondheim and attempted an encircling
10:33movement on the city under constant, heavy, and almost entirely unopposed air attack.
10:45While the scene of action was out of range of British fighter planes,
10:48the Allies were not prepared for this. So they brought up aircraft carriers.
10:52But these are at a disadvantage when opposed by land-based planes.
10:56The Allies, therefore, were badly battered from the air. Finally, suffering heavy losses,
11:02they withdrew from a hopeless situation.
11:06Further to the north, at Narvik, they met with better success,
11:10inflicting heavy naval losses on the Nazis.
11:18They made landings and held the town for nearly two months.
11:48Incidentally, they also took their first prisoners of the present war.
11:58Again, the Nazis' overwhelming air superiority proved a deciding factor.
12:06And the Allies were forced to withdraw under terrific air bombardment.
12:18So
12:48loyal Norwegians were left with their grizzlies, their ruins, their dead.
13:02Even though six months before, Hitler had said,
13:06Germany never had any conflict with the northern states and has none today.
13:14The Norwegians will not forget.
13:18And Hitler, Hitler had another victory. He had hijacked two more countries.
13:23The world wondered and sometimes marveled at this man's efficiency.
13:30Gangster Dillinger was efficient too.
13:39When a man or a nation throws away all regard for the laws of God and man,
13:43he is bound at first to be more efficient than his victors.
13:47Society had a police force to deal with gangster Dillinger,
13:50but it had no police force to deal with gangster Hitler.
13:54So he clubbed Norway into submission and got what he wanted, bases for use against Britain.
14:00Now he had the northern claw of an enormous pincer movement.
14:03A drive through France would give him the southern claw.
14:06Blockade by Yolks, coupled with mass bombing attacks,
14:09would weaken the British for final invasion.
14:11Then with Britain gone, Germany could reach out in all directions for world conquest.
14:22His next move must obviously be through France to get his southern claw.
14:28Through France.
14:31How was she to face the onslaught?
14:33These scenes are ancient history.
14:40They occurred in 1914.
14:43The German armies, without warning, had smashed across neutral Belgium,
14:46invaded France, reached the River Marne only a few miles from Paris.
14:52Out of the French capital poured the French reserves,
14:55riding out to battle the enemy in every vehicle that could move.
14:58Famous taxicab army.
15:01Note well, it was riding out to battle.
15:05In the center of the French line stood the 9th French army,
15:08commanded by a then comparatively unknown general.
15:12On September 5th, 1914, he is reputed to have said,
15:16my right is driven in.
15:18My center is giving way.
15:20The situation is excellent.
15:22I attack.
15:30So
15:50he did attack.
15:52The German onslaught was checked and Paris was saved.
15:56That comparatively unknown general later became commander-in-chief
16:00of all the allied armies and presided the signing of the armistice
16:03with the defeated Germans on November 11th, 1918.
16:08To this general, the French people erected a monument.
16:13To Marshal Ferdinand Fauche, whose motto was attack, always attack.
16:21Still later, the war-weary French people erected another monument.
16:25This one to a minister of war, André Maginot.
16:31Between the ideas symbolized by these two statues,
16:34may well lie the military story of the fall of a great nation.
16:39In Fauche's time, the proud spirit of France demanded nothing less than victory
16:45and placed its faith in the attack.
16:51In Maginot's time, the spirit no longer proud,
16:55asked only to avoid defeat and placed its faith in concrete.
17:01So
17:07the French built the mighty chain of fortresses called the Maginot Line.
17:12These tremendous bastions were built deep into the French land.
17:17They were connected by underground passages and railways
17:20guarding France's eastern borders facing Germany.
17:24And when France was finally forced to declare war against the rising Nazi menace,
17:29the French troops, instead of attacking, were marched into their modern caves
17:34to wait for the Nazi blitz to smash itself against the Maginot Line.
17:39And their generals, headed by Marshal Pétain,
17:42proudly announced, whoever makes the first move in this war will be hurt.
17:49But Hitler didn't go near the Maginot Line.
17:52That was France's strong point.
17:55Instead, he attacked the weak point.
17:57Hitler knew that the French had tried to avoid war instead of preparing for it.
18:02That knowledge was one of his greatest weapons.
18:06He knew they had planes, but he knew they were antiquated.
18:10He knew they had tanks, but he knew they were few in number and lightly armored.
18:16But most important of all, he knew that France had become a cynical and disillusioned nation.
18:22What made this change in the French spirit?
18:24In the first place, between 1914 and 1918, the French suffered more than six million casualties
18:30in the heroic defense of their land against German invasion.
18:35The flower of an entire generation was lost,
18:38with its stimulus of new blood, new determination, new ideals.
18:44Secondly, the failure of the League of Nations,
18:47to which the French had pinned their hopes of peace,
18:50to which the French had pinned their hopes of peace,
18:53the corruption of many in high places, the greed of special interests,
18:59all had combined to shake the faith of the French people in their democratic ideals.
19:04And when a people loses its faith in its own ideals,
19:08it is ripe for the insidious words of the devil.
19:13France still looked like an imposing castle,
19:16but Hitler's political termites had so gnawed away the binding of national unity
19:21that the castle was ready to crumble.
19:23And during those months of military inactivity that we call the Pony War,
19:48a ceaseless barrage of German propaganda crossed the still waters of the Rhine
19:53to affect the soldiers in the Maginot Line.
19:58Why do you fight? asked the banners.
20:03Poems and friendly notes were sent over by balloons.
20:08French tunes were played by German bands,
20:11and German Pouille was broadcast in French.
20:19The British will fight to the last drop of French blood.
20:24You have been deceived.
20:26This is an imperialistic war for Britain.
20:29We Germans want nothing of France.
20:33What is happening to your wives back home, soldiers?
20:36The British are stationed in your villages.
20:41Yes, France was ready to be plucked.
20:44The whole force of the Nazi might was turned toward the West.
20:49How would they strike this time?
20:51Through Alsace-Lorraine as in 1870?
20:55Through the Low Countries as in 1914?
20:58What was the 1940 model conquest?
21:01The French considered the Maginot Line utterly impregnable,
21:04and therefore believed the Germans would again try a swing through the Low Countries as in 1914.
21:10But even after Hitler's rape of Scandinavia,
21:13Holland and Belgium, hoping against hope, still clung to their neutrality.
21:19So the French massed 78 divisions here along the border with Belgium.
21:2417 were in the Maginot Line.
21:2610 divisions here in case Mussolini got bold.
21:30Three and a half as a safeguard against Spain.
21:33The British had 10 divisions here.
21:36The Allied strategy in the event of an attack against the Low Countries
21:40was to swing their armies like a gate into Belgium,
21:43the hinge being the north end of the Maginot Line.
21:46This all-important hinge was protected by the Forest of the Ardennes,
21:51a hilly and thickly wooded area honeycombed with streams,
21:55its roads narrow trails, its bridges too weak for military vehicles.
22:01French strategists estimated the Forest of the Ardennes impossible for armored forces.
22:06As you will see, this was one of the costliest estimates in all military history.
22:12That was the situation on May 9, 1940.
22:16♪♪
22:26The hour of trial had come.
22:28♪♪
22:36The people of the democracies prayed for strength to meet the coming hurricane of terror.
22:40♪♪
22:52While across the Rhine...
22:53-♪♪
23:08...a delirious madness possessed the German nation.
23:11-♪♪
23:39-♪♪
23:52-♪♪
24:12The tag had come.
24:14-♪♪
24:44-♪♪
24:52Without even bothering to declare war, the German armies launched a coordinated attack
24:57across the neutral borders of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland,
25:01from the Maginot Line north to the sea.
25:04The action along the entire front was simultaneous.
25:07So for purposes of clarity, let's take up one country at a time.
25:11First, let's see what happened in Holland.
25:14-♪♪
25:31Nazi ground forces smashed through the improvised and hastily erected border defenses.
25:37But the main attack was to come from the air,
25:39far behind the defense lines.
26:09-♪♪
26:37Over 10,000 troops were landed in this manner.
26:41Before the stunned citizens of Rotterdam even knew they were at war,
26:45these troops, aided by well-trained Fifth Columnists,
26:49quickly captured the airport and outlying sections of the city.
26:52-♪♪
26:58Meantime, Nazi armored columns were racing across the country.
27:02Their progress speeded by other Fifth Columnists
27:05who prevented the destruction of vital dikes and bridges.
27:09These forces affected a meeting with the parachutists landed in Rotterdam.
27:14The Dutch were doomed to defeat.
27:16♪♪
27:22On the fourth day of the invasion, the Nazis gave the Dutch general an ultimatum.
27:26All Dutch resistance must cease or Rotterdam will be bombed flat.
27:31♪♪
27:39The Dutch general had little choice.
27:41To save the lives of innocent civilians, he accepted the German terms.
27:46But after the unconditional surrender, the Nazis bombed the city anyway.
27:50-♪♪
27:56Flights of unopposed German bombers flew low over the center of Rotterdam.
28:01And methodically bombed it into a heap of rubble.
28:03♪♪
28:13♪♪
28:23♪♪
28:33♪♪
28:43♪♪
28:53♪♪
29:03♪♪
29:13♪♪
29:23♪♪
29:33♪♪
29:43♪♪
29:49One of the most ruthless exhibitions of savagery the world has ever seen.
29:53Over 30,000 men, women, and children were killed in the space of 90 minutes.
30:01Though only six months before, Hitler had said,
30:05the new Reich has endeavored to continue the traditional friendship with Holland.
30:12The Dutch will not forget.
30:16Meantime, in Belgium, the whole force of Nazi blitzkrieg had stormed across its neutral borders.
30:22♪♪
30:29The main German attack was directed at the Albert Canal-Meuse River line,
30:33the anchor of which was Fort Ibn Amao, a modern and seemingly impregnable fortress.
30:39The Germans had secretly built a replica of the mighty fortress in Czechoslovakia
30:44and had rehearsed the attack until they knew every detail of the fort's construction and its every weakness.
30:50When the real attack came, it was foolproof.
30:53Parachute troops, dive bombers, flamethrowers, specially trained engineer battalions,
31:00all working together as a well-trained team.
31:04They knew exactly where to cross the river.
31:11♪♪
31:21♪♪
31:31♪♪
31:41♪♪
31:51♪♪
32:01♪♪
32:11♪♪
32:21♪♪
32:32You will notice that this assault engineer knows exactly where to put his high explosive charge
32:38in order to destroy the blockhouse.
32:41♪♪
32:51♪♪
32:58Fort Eben may attack exactly two days, and the German armies rolled on.
33:03♪♪
33:06Meantime, an hour and a half after the German invasion began,
33:10allied troops crossed the French and Belgian border to meet the advancing Germans.
33:15♪♪
33:27As they raced across Belgium to take up their defense positions,
33:30they met an obstacle they hadn't counted on.
33:34Refugees.
33:36♪♪
33:54And the refugee-choked roads didn't get that way by accident.
33:58The Nazis methodically bombed little towns and villages,
34:02otherwise devoid of any military value.
34:05Not so much to kill as to drive the inhabitants out onto the highways.
34:11Then by expert machine gunning,
34:14the Nazis would herd them along in terror-stricken flight
34:17and hopelessly entangle the advancing allied armies.
34:21♪♪
34:32Refugees used as a weapon of war, a new low in inhumanity.
34:38♪♪
35:05♪♪
35:12♪♪
35:25♪♪
35:40♪♪
36:00♪♪
36:10No school today, the sign says.
36:13The children are otherwise occupied.
36:16No!
36:18♪♪
36:28No, no school today.
36:31♪♪
36:52Although only six months before,
36:54Hitler had announced,
36:56the Reich has put forth no claim which might in any way
36:59be regarded as a threat to Belgium.
37:02The Belgians will not forget.
37:05♪♪
37:09And what about the Allies?
37:11They were convinced that the German attack on Belgium and Holland
37:14was the main thrust,
37:16and according to plan had swung their armies like a gate into Belgium.
37:20But the attack on Belgium and Holland was only a feint.
37:23The main German attack was to be centered
37:26where the Allies least expected it,
37:28through the Ardennes Forest.
37:30For this decisive blow,
37:32they had secretly assembled the mightiest striking force
37:35the world had ever seen,
37:37including 45,000 armored vehicles.
37:40♪♪
37:52At the same time that the Nazi armies were plunging into Holland and Belgium,
37:56this column started to move.
37:58♪♪
38:23Well-trained engineer battalions went first.
38:26♪♪
38:38They were opposed only by scattered Allied patrols.
38:41♪♪
38:59They cleared pathways for the planes to follow.
39:02♪♪
39:31♪♪
39:41In three days, the Germans' armored force reached the Meuse River,
39:46two days faster than the French thought any troops could get through.
39:50By old rules, the Germans should have paused here
39:53to bring up heavy artillery before attempting to force the river.
39:56But the Nazis had a new type of artillery,
39:59giant bombers.
40:02And then they blasted the French positions across the Meuse.
40:06♪♪
40:12With feverish haste, the Germans laid a barrage across the river
40:15with anything and everything that would shoot.
40:18♪♪
40:28♪♪
40:51This tremendous concentration of firepower continued all through the night.
40:56♪♪
41:10By the following day, shock troops were able to get across the river.
41:15♪♪
41:44♪♪
41:51These shock troops held the bridgehead
41:53until the engineers brought up pottons and built bridges.
41:57♪♪
42:20Then, without wasting a moment, across these bridges,
42:24the main armored force of the German military machine
42:27rolled through to Sedan
42:29for the all-important breakthrough into a dismayed and flat-footed France.
42:34♪♪
42:38There went the old ballgame for the Allies.
42:41From here on, it was only a matter of how long.
42:45Watch the map as one of our intelligence officers
42:48explains the details of the German breakthrough.
42:51We speak of the breakthrough at Sedan,
42:54but actually the break was along a wide front
42:57extending for 50 miles from Namur in Belgium to Sedan.
43:01Further north, the Allied armies had swung like a gate into these positions.
43:06The German armies had swept over Holland,
43:09broken the line of the Albert Canal,
43:12and, for all anyone knew, were preparing
43:15to smash against the Allied front with all their power.
43:18That was the situation, dangerous but obscure,
43:21on the evening of May 13th.
43:24On the 14th and 15th, it became clear
43:27that the German breakthrough south of Namur was in the greatest strength
43:31and that the French 9th Army,
43:34attacked while moving into position, had been shattered.
43:37Without doubt, this was the point of mortal danger,
43:40and the French high command ordered the abandonment of these positions,
43:45although they had not yet been attacked.
43:48Those positions were abandoned solely because of the situation
43:52developing along the Meuse near Sedan.
43:55In the meantime, the French 7th Army had been ordered
44:00to make its historic forced march far to the south
44:06into the area threatened by the rapidly advancing German spearheads.
44:11This army was not used to attack the German flank,
44:15but rather was used as a plug to restore the broken front.
44:19Throughout, the Allies had placed their faith
44:22not in offense but in defense,
44:25and the defense was doomed to failure
44:27because it was confronted with an entirely new technique in warfare,
44:31the plain tank infantry team in action.
44:35The world was staggered by the speed
44:38with which the German armored columns moved.
44:40What was the secret that enabled armies to move so far so rapidly?
44:45The secret lay in the organization of the striking spearhead.
44:49Armored forces came first, closely followed by motorized divisions,
44:54which peeled off, forming solid walls,
44:58and through the corridor thus formed,
45:01raced the supply trucks to feed the ever-lengthening column.
45:07It was obvious that if the Allied situation was to be restored,
45:11the German column would have to be cut.
45:15On May 17th, General de Gaulle attacked the German flank
45:19and captured a few prisoners,
45:22but his light mechanized forces were like a pin
45:25pricking the side of a rhinoceros.
45:28A subsequent attack met with even less success.
45:36The means for a really successful counterattack
45:39against the German corridor simply did not exist.
45:43Where numbers of divisions were required,
45:46only handfuls of companies and battalions were available.
45:53A valiant attempt to cut the German corridor
45:56was made by a group of slow-moving British tanks
46:00just south of Arak.
46:03But lack of sustained striking power doomed this valiant unit to destruction.
46:10On May 21st, the German spearhead reached the channel port of Abbeville.
46:16Protecting their flank along the Somme,
46:19the Germans fanned out to the north and east.
46:23This was to be the perfect battle of annihilation.
46:27On May 28th, the Belgian army compressed into a small space
46:32and, weary of battle, laid down its arms.
46:36That left the desperate French and British defenders
46:39with their backs to the sea at the small channel port of Dunkirk.
46:45One of the greatest disasters in history seemed in the making.
46:49An entire British army faced annihilation.
46:52But out of the fog and the mist shrouding the channel
46:55came a strange armada of Navy craft, fishing boats,
47:00pleasure yachts, anything that would float.
47:04The sea-going people of Britain had come to rescue their army.
47:08High overhead, British fighter planes fought the Luftwaffe to a standstill.
47:23While below, small Allied suicide units held the Germans back long enough
47:28for the miracle of Dunkirk to take place.
47:45211,500 British troops plus 112,500 French and Belgian were rescued.
47:53Over 300,000 battle-tested men,
47:56grimly determined to go back again with new tools,
47:59new weapons with which to blast the hated Nazis out of this world.
48:04For free men are like rubber balls.
48:06The harder they fall, the higher they bounce.
48:10Leading the British by this time was a man who had been bouncing all his life,
48:14Winston Churchill, who had tried for years to warn the world about Germany.
48:20Meantime, the situation that faced France was as nearly hopeless
48:24as a military situation can be.
48:26Two-fifths of the French army was lost.
48:29There were fewer than 50 divisions left to defend a front almost 200 miles long,
48:34running from the northern end of the Maginot Line to the sea.
48:38And behind that thin front line, there were no reserves.
48:42The despairing people of Paris sent their children south,
48:46praying that some miracle would keep them from harm.
49:00The hopeless men of the French army, without adequate arms or equipment,
49:03braced themselves for the coming blow.
49:06The first blow fell on June 5th.
49:09The first blow fell on June 5th.
49:12The French resistance was determined, but by June 8th,
49:15the left flank army had been shattered,
49:17and a general withdrawal was ordered to the line of the Marne and the Seine.
49:23On June 9th, the German main attack came.
49:27Within two days, the German armored and motorized divisions
49:31roared out into the open terrain.
49:33With this breakthrough, the issue of the Battle of France was decided,
49:38and from that time on, there was official talk of an armistice.
49:45Now, what about the famous Maginot Line?
49:48Let's go back and take a look.
49:50On June 14th, the Germans launched two attacks against the Maginot Line.
49:56In both cases, penetrations were affected,
49:59but we must remember that this was against fortifications
50:03defended by men devoid of hope.
50:06In the meantime, Mussolini, now thinking it safe,
50:09sent his divisions racing across the border.
50:16The hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.
50:24♪♪♪
50:33Organized resistance in France was no longer possible.
50:37The government faced two alternatives,
50:40retire to North Africa and carry on from there,
50:43or give up the struggle.
50:45France's leaders were old and tired,
50:48and the oldest and most tired was Marshal Pétain.
50:51Egged on by men like Laval,
50:54who saw in a German victory his chance for personal power,
50:58on June 16th, Pétain asked for an armistice.
51:02The news is carried to Hitler,
51:04who received this word of a great nation's fall
51:07in a characteristic manner.
51:11Also characteristic were his terms for the armistice.
51:15It must be signed in the coach where Marshal Foch
51:18met the defeated Germans in the last war.
51:21♪♪♪
51:39The French delegation arrives to pay the final price
51:43of French disunity and the treachery of some of its leaders.
51:51The final price, a price that for centuries to come
51:56the French won't forget.
52:02More than three-fifths of their country was to be blacked out
52:05by a military occupation.
52:08The remainder was to be controlled by a French government
52:11acceptable to Hitler.
52:14A tax of 400 million francs a day was to be imposed
52:17on the French people to support the German army of occupation.
52:22Nearly two million French prisoners of war
52:24were to be taken into Germany and kept there as hostages
52:29to work as slaves or rot of hunger, tuberculosis,
52:34or other diseases in concentration camps.
52:38Men deliberately and permanently separated from their families
52:42in order to decrease the French birth rate
52:45and thus eliminate France as a world power in future generations.
52:50French civilians, men, women, and children,
52:54must slave on farmer in factory for the Nazi master race or starve.
53:01There will be a class of subject alien races.
53:05We need not hesitate to call them slaves.
53:09French children were to grow up on such inadequate food
53:14that many would reach the age of 12 before they grew new teeth.
53:19And for any attempts to protest against these restrictions,
53:23thousands of innocent French civilians would be executed.
53:31This was the price the French were to pay as they signed the armistice.
53:37And the master of the master race must go to Paris
53:41to tour the streets of what was once the city of light.
53:45You notice no cheering crowds here to welcome in the new order.
53:59When the people of Paris come to the streets again,
54:02it is to hear the voice of dictators telling them what they must do,
54:08how they must live, what they must say,
54:14what they must think, telling them how to be slaves.
54:19Gone is the Republic of France.
54:22Gone is free speech and a free representative government.
54:26Gone is liberty, equality, fraternity.
54:32These are the French.
54:34With their ears, they listen.
54:36But their minds and their hearts, these are down on the Mediterranean
54:40where the battle colors of the regiments are being taken to Africa,
54:44out of the Nazi grasp.
54:46The people weep as their glory departs,
54:49for they don't as yet know that France has hope, a rallying point.
54:54Charles de Gaulle, a soldier in the great tradition of Foch,
54:58is not surrendering.
55:00He will continue to fight,
55:02gathering about him loyal Frenchmen from all over the world
55:06to become the Free French Army, the Fighting French.
55:10Yes, the people weep as they watch their colors go,
55:14not knowing that two years later,
55:17those same flags would again be unfurled in North Africa,
55:21alongside the Stars and Stripes, alongside the Union Jack.
55:27Once more, their leaders, General de Gaulle and the famous General Giraud,
55:31stand united in the common cause with the leaders of their allies.
55:36Once more, the red, white, and blue of France is raised on high.
55:42For out of the ashes of the defeat and the humiliation of France,
55:46her soul has been born again.
55:49♪
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