- 6 years ago
NR | 60 mins | Documentary, War, Drama
This documentary depicts real footage and pictures of the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and is narrated by Frank Willis, an expert war journalist. This film also has rare footage of Hitler and shows just how much power he had over the helpless.
Star: Frank Willis II
This documentary depicts real footage and pictures of the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and is narrated by Frank Willis, an expert war journalist. This film also has rare footage of Hitler and shows just how much power he had over the helpless.
Star: Frank Willis II
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00In the 20 years from VE Day, we have all seen a variety of films, both fictional and based
00:11on documented fact, showing the highlights, the Greek turning points of the Second World
00:17War. Films on Dunkirk and the fall of France, the North African, Sicilian, and Italian campaigns,
00:24the D-Day landings, the Battle of the Bulge, and so on. These films have perhaps obscured
00:30from your memory the events of 1st September 1939, when the Nazi forces let loose on Poland
00:36and its unprotected cities, the most concentrated and ferocious assault in history. This was
00:43a new concept of waging war, and gave a new word to the language, the Blitzkrieg, the
00:49lightning war. The film document that follows is a reminder of how it all began, and was
00:56made by men and women who had the unforgettable experience of having been there in the beginning.
01:04September 1939. Who then could foresee how it would end? This is how and where it ended,
01:15as April thundered to its close in 1945. The outcome has already been decided, but
01:22street by street, the Russians take the German capital, thrusting the sword of Stalingrad
01:28into the very heart of Hitler's Reich. They bring a terrible account for settlement.
01:45As on all other fronts in Europe, Polish troops fought
02:15here among the falling walls, fought with a cold fury and a burning memory of that long
02:21gone September. Remembering the six year occupation of their homeland, remembering six million
02:27Polish dead, indelible in every mind, the massacre of Bydgoszcz, the ruins of Warsaw,
02:34and in every heart a bleeding for the millions gassed and burned in concentration camps.
02:46Too long this war has lasted, far too long. Five years, eight months, and eight days.
02:58But now it can be measured in the length of city blocks, in feet and yards. The end of
03:04the Third Reich, the Reich of a thousand years, lies just down the street or around the next
03:09corner. The last few grains of sand are running out. In crushing once for all the SS, the
03:20Gestapo, and the Wehrmacht, they hope to destroy the German will to war ever again. The Reichstag
03:31is taken. The Russian flag flies over the ruined city. This is a golden moment for the
03:38Polish Legion. Polish tanks stand in the Brandenburg Gate. And over the Tiergarten station, secured
03:48by Polish troops, the flag of Poland flies.
04:09With the impartiality of the inanimate, the Berlin victory holds out her laurels to the
04:16conquerors, and they are not the SS, the Gestapo, or the Wehrmacht.
04:39This is how and where it ended. But the beginning, the start of the Second World War, was a different
04:48and a distant thing. It all began that historic span of horror on the first day of September
04:55in Poland. This is the story of that September, 1939.
05:09The Israel film survives from that last summer of Polish freedom, just before the war. For
05:18the fifth time, the Polish nation mourns the passing of its father, Józef Pilsudski, little
05:23knowing that it, too, is marked for death. In reverence, heads are bowed to a treasured
05:30memory. Flowers bespeak a people's love. The mourning banners bow in deference. And there
05:37is oratory, more moving than accurate. Let us remember the teachings of the great Marshal.
05:43The future of our country depends only on ourselves. His ghost guards the national conscience.
05:49We must leave to future generations a strong and united Poland.
05:55On the Warsaw Castle, the historic handing of the scepter to Marshal Smigływicz, the
06:00scepter of Polish kings and marshals has been passed to good hands, and has been passed
06:05on for the last time. Coincidentally, Hitler arrives at Nuremberg for the Nazi Party Congress,
06:14the inevitable cheering thousands greet de fuerte.
06:35While, to celebrate the anniversary of the Polish-German non-aggression pact, von Ribbentrop,
06:56the Third Reich's Minister of External Affairs, arrives in Warsaw. He makes all the appropriate
07:02gestures and pays lip service to the memory of Pilsudski in his speech. The historic work
07:09of your Marshal and our Fuhrer has opened a new era in Polish-German relations. A new
07:16era indeed. The Czechs, who have already read the handwriting on the wall, are transferring
07:21their cities to the protection of the Polish army. Infantry and panzer units enter the
07:26city of Czechia. The Four Nations Pact has revealed the crisis of the Czech state, and
07:31Poland moves to protect its own rights and interests, and at the same time, undo an ancient
07:37wrong. This is an excerpt from a Czech newsreel of that week. In a diplomatic ploy, backed
07:43by a thinly-veiled threat of open war, de fuerte talks with President Haha and Foreign Minister
07:49Walkowski. He agrees, without an invitation, to take the Czech peoples under the protection
07:55of the German Reich. Then come the first columns of German motorized troops and armor. Dignified,
08:24disciplined, and deadly. Above the ancient Radzin Castle, the Fuhrer's flag is raised
08:31to fly with that of the Czech President. Following close behind, the German Chancellor arrives
08:39in Prague. Posturing as a benefactor, the Fuhrer salutes the citizens of Prague. Czechoslovakia,
08:46as a nation, ceased to exist. A German newsreel, the product of Goebbels' propaganda machine,
08:55shouts to the world that Danzig was German, is German, and always will be German. The
09:01voice of Gauleiter Forster, loud and irrational, should have been a warning to Poland. We have,
09:06he said, during the last few weeks, prepared to defend Danzig from the imminent Polish attack.
09:36Then the Nazi technique of the Big Lie is put to work.
10:06Poland is mobilizing its strength to move against the German Reich. Because England
10:17desires war with Germany, Poland is basing her militant moves on guarantees received
10:22from the West. Smigwidz, the Polish head of state, has filled the streets with parades
10:28of Polish might. Is it not obvious that these preparations for war stem from the Polish
10:33dream of an expanded nation? They will increase their army to at least two million men. They
10:39are obsessed with dreams of power. Polish tanks will push their border to the River
10:44Elbe, maybe even further, to the gates of Bremen and Nuremberg. London is the real villain
10:53of the peace. There is the fountainhead of Polish belligerence. Between Downing Street
10:58and the Houses of Parliament, the British plutocrats are maneuvering their puppets.
11:03They show Polish minister back, arriving in London, and give us the reason for his
11:07visit, a seeking of British approval for an all-out attack on Germany. There is no longer
11:12doubt that Poland will attack the peace-loving German Reich. Germany has no choice but to
11:17counterattack, and then Chamberlain will have the war that he desires. Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht
11:23is prepared to fight for the beloved fatherland. How farsighted was the Führer to see that
11:29German troops should be well armed?
11:45In the Polish Parliament, the somewhat bewildered Minister of Foreign Affairs rises to say,
11:51I will not go into details, for everybody knows them. But after all the promises of
11:56the German government to respect our views, after all the declarations that this small
12:01city of Danzig shall never become a matter for misunderstanding between our countries,
12:06I now hear demands that we allow Danzig to be annexed to the German Reich. This, at a
12:12time when my proposal of bilateral guarantees to preserve the status and independence of
12:17Danzig go unanswered. Further than that, the German government declares that by making
12:23this proposal we have broken off negotiations. I begin to wonder what it's all about. Is
12:30it the freedom of the German citizen in Danzig, which nobody has tried to curb? Is it a matter
12:36of prestige? Or does Germany desire to push Poland away from the Baltic Sea? To this Poland
12:43will never agree.
12:54Strong, united and prepared, we will not be denied access to the Baltic. The government
13:11of our great Marshal and the successors to his testament have created the basis of our
13:16power and security. The population of Gdynia have demonstrated their feelings. The Polish
13:22Navy alertly patrols our shores and is able to defend them.
13:35In small towns throughout Poland, such as Szamotuly, a gesture of patriotism is made.
13:41Money is volunteered in small amounts to purchase guns and equipment for the army.
13:52The older generations fought for the freedom of Poland long ago. The youth of today will
13:57come forward as defenders of tomorrow.
14:15As the cavalry regiment in Czechoslovakia celebrates its 20th anniversary in government, Marshal
14:22takes part in the festivities. Again, the townspeople have raised the price of new arms
14:27for the regiment and proffer their gift with pride and confidence.
14:35The population of the Lublin district offer a gift of guns and planes on the occasion
14:41of the opening of a new flying school in Świdnik, and a gift of money from Lublin, realized
14:47from the sale of the city pound shops.
14:53The commander-in-chief, Marshal Smigwidz, receives a gift from 30,000 Warsaw school
14:58children, machine guns and bicycles.
15:05In his speech, the Marshal says, you youngsters are showing that you like to be good Poles,
15:17that you desire to make Poland strong and safe. The army is being trained intensively.
15:24All over Poland, vigorous exercises and maneuvers go on around the clock. The magnificent Polish
15:30army, man for man, as fine as anything in the world, is up to strength, fully trained
15:34and alerted. The Polish cavalry, admittedly the best in the world, is also the last. They
15:41present a romantic picture full of dash and color. Watching them, one marvels perhaps
15:46that the military mind learned nothing from the carnage of France and Flanders a quarter
15:51century before.
16:05This is Warsaw, as the summer of 1939 wore on to its close. All the printed pictures,
16:19the newsreels and the public speeches from that time have a different and an unaccustomed
16:24flavor. The distance of years has a way of coloring our memories, but Warsaw looked like
16:31this. Perhaps in the memory of those who saw her then, those who lived once in that city
16:37and were happy there, she was bigger and more beautiful. But Warsaw was exactly as you see
16:45it now.
17:011,300,000 people lived in Warsaw. There stood over 22,000 buildings, 31 tram lines and
17:31buses served the citizens and two bus routes. There were many coffee houses and news vendors.
17:38There were 15 theaters and two cabarets. There was a police force and even one Polish-born
17:47Negro. And as in most great cities of the world, a skyscraper had appeared, rising from
17:54what was called at that time Napoleon's Place. Those are pictures from another world, the
18:02world before the war, the war that nobody believed in. They hated the pact with Hitler,
18:07but it gave them a feeling of security. Those streets, those buildings and that life no
18:13longer exist. This city that you see here has vanished from the earth.
18:21Have one last look at Marshal Pilsudski Place. At the monument of Prince Poniatowski, a heroic
18:32equestrian bronze that stood before the tomb of the unknown soldier. Look too at what was
18:37once the Sasky Park, a gracious open reach of gardens and wine yards. This was the palace
18:45of the Polish kings. These are the last pictures of it before complete destruction.
19:04In this castle, now the official residence of the president, there should have been the
19:10knowledge that the storm was gathering, a storm which, when it struck, would prove to
19:14be a holocaust. But here dwelt false hopes. And from here came assurances that Poland
19:19was strong, its army ready to repel the most intense attack, its government fully aware
19:24of the dangers and keeping constant watch. Meanwhile, the hours of Warsaw's life were
19:30running out.
19:40For weeks past, there has been a massive buildup of German manpower and materiel along the
19:49Polish frontier. But the Polish government has fostered an amazing unconcern. They have
19:54convinced the people that not only is Poland protected by strong alliances, but its army
19:59is one of the mightiest in the world. This elite fighting force will protect the borders,
20:04will stand invincible against the most determined of invaders. But the border facing Germany
20:09to the north, the northwest, and the west stretches out for more than 1,200 miles. And
20:14along it all, the Nazi might is mustering. Even the few hundred kilometers that came
20:19with the annexation of a small part of Czechoslovakia faces the Reich and has now become a heavy
20:25added responsibility.
20:31The German propaganda machine is giving out an assurance to the world that despite all
20:36of the Polish provocations, the Reich wishes for nothing so much as the preservation of
20:40peace and the continuance of friendly relations with her neighbors.
20:51On the 1st September 1939, at 0400 hours, without any formal declaration of war or any
20:58announcement of their intent, the armies of the Third Reich launch their attack upon
21:03Poland. The Fourth Army of General von Kluge strikes at Pomorze, cutting the Polish corridor
21:09to the Baltic Sea. The German strength has reached 1,500,000 men, 3,000 tanks, and 3,300
21:17planes. Against this enormous weight, the Polish army can muster a total force of 800,000,
21:25but even at this late date, much of the reserve strength has just been called and has not
21:30yet been made active. To stem the advance of the 3,000 German tanks, they have a pitiful
21:36150. The air force with which they hope to fight the Luftwaffe has in all 400 planes,
21:43most of them obsolete.
21:56The army of General Bortnowski retreats before an overwhelming enemy force. From the first
22:13hour, German troops coming through Slovakia endangered the cities of Krakow and Katowice.
22:21The German war machine as it rolls across Poland leaves behind its utter devastation.
22:26Fire follows looting as the reign of terror spreads over the land. The German Ordnung
22:32in the east has started. Downsizing is the first objective. It falls in a matter of hours.
22:40The post office only holds out as a strong point of resistance. Here, a handful of Poles
22:45make a determined and forlorn stand against the tanks and storm troops.
22:55But inevitably, this resistance is overcome by tanks firing at point-blank range and by
23:00flamethrowers. All hope for Danzig dies within these walls.
23:08Not far from Danzig, lying in the mouth of the river Vistula, is the small fortified
23:14island of the Westerplatte.
23:31180 Polish officers and men defend it to the death.
23:37From daybreak on September 1st, the battleship Schleswig-Holstein relentlessly bombards the
23:47tiny island with all guns firing over open sites. Hour after hour, the pulverizing fire
23:53continues.
23:57After pounding the Westerplatte with high explosives from the sea, land, and air for
24:07many hours, the Germans are convinced that nothing there remains alive. They send an
24:12assault force to occupy the island. But incredibly, the Westerplatte is fighting. Out of the rubble,
24:19out of ruined cellars and the remnants of gun emplacements rises up a gallant handful
24:23of defenders who will not give up. Assault after assault is thrown back. For seven more
24:29days, the German communiques will include the sentence, heavy fighting continues on
24:34the Westerplatte.
24:38In the meantime, the face of Warsaw is changing. She begins at last to wear a worried look.
24:45But a deep concern is slow in coming. Nobody perceives the magnitude of the disaster moving
24:51closer by the hour. It is excitement rather than fear that runs like wildfire through
24:56the streets of Warsaw. The state radio announces an air raid and the citizens, who have yet
25:01to learn the most rudimentary of air raid precautions, watch the aerial combat high
25:06above as though it were a sporting event. Nobody seems to realize that Warsaw is the
25:11only city in Poland with any sort of air raid defense.
25:22Every German plane shot down is a victory to be enthusiastically applauded. Every such
25:32victory serves to confirm in the minds of the people that Poland is prepared and strong,
25:37that Poland is winning this war right before their upturned eyes.
25:44On the 3rd September, the optimism of the people is at its peak. There are cheering
25:49thousands demonstrating in the streets. After two tense days, the news has come that France
25:54and Britain have declared war on Germany. Before the British embassy, many hundreds
25:58turn out to greet their new found allies with an almost hysterical enthusiasm. Inside the
26:03embassy, the staff is packing hurriedly to leave. The scene is the same at the embassy
26:09of France. The diplomats are frightened by the utter recklessness before them. An air
26:14raid at this moment could kill thousands, and knowing the tragic situation at the fronts,
26:19they know how easily this very thing could happen.
26:26With flowers, smiles, kisses, Warsaw speeds her heroes to the front. Never did fighting
26:32men enjoy more fully the confidence of those they would protect. Now, says Warsaw, we'll
26:38teach those truculent krauts a lesson. To be sure, this war will not last long, a thought
26:44that was fathered by a wish the whole world owed. On all the sectors of that huge front,
26:49the Polish forces are retreating. Poland is landlocked. The harbour of Gdynia is burning.
27:01Hitler's Wehrmacht occupies the city, and the cameramen of the propaganda ministry are
27:06busy.
27:23This is the last day of Gdynia. As of tomorrow, it will be called Gotenhafen. Not that it
27:30matters much what it's called. The harbour is blocked and useless.
27:36By now, the Polish sky is as open as it was in creation's dawn. The Polish air force has
27:47been completely destroyed. Luftwaffe, bombs and strafes and burns and kills at will. This
27:53is part of a film made for Hermann Göring, set to the accompaniment of a marching song
27:58composed especially for the occasion. We are flying over Poland, it says. We bring her
28:04death and ruins. The voices suit the lyrics admirably, ringing with triumph, rich in the
28:11guttural lust, Troy. The whole Luftwaffe in these days of Poland is drunk with power,
28:18and what a glorious variety of targets they have from which to choose.
28:34Bombing rain from heaven. A steel hail.
29:04Highways choked with troops and refugees.
29:34Defenceless, open cities. Railways. Truck convoys.
30:04Airfields. Bridges. Hospitals.
30:35In the space of 48 hours, the German Luftwaffe has paralysed the communication systems, brought
30:45all but very local traffic to a halt, destroyed most bridges and railway junctions.
31:04Polish planes. The 400 Polish planes that could fly on September 1st were either destroyed
31:21on their airfields in the first strike or shot from the sky in the first few hours of
31:27combat. The sky over Poland is German.
31:39From the first day, Poland sees in the impassive, immobile face of the German army the eyes
31:46that show utter ruthlessness, utter evil. The reign of terror begins at once, not by
31:52accident, not by provocation, but by policy. The wholesale arrests of Polish civilians
31:59begins in Gdynia. Bydgoszcz lies in the shadow of death. Because few German spies were shot
32:06before the war, the invaders now hold dossiers on thousands of civilians, and arrests are
32:10made for the most trivial of reasons or no reasons at all. And what can these defenceless
32:15ones expect? The concentration camp, the court-martial and the firing squad? They will not be long
32:21in learning. Decent men everywhere will shrink from the knowledge or reject it in disbelief.
32:30These pictures were made by Nazi photographers as footnotes to history.
32:38The massacre of Bydgoszcz is but the first wholesale murder the Germans will commit on
32:42Polish soil. In Pomeran and Poznan, the population has moved out. This is all part of the master
32:50plan, Ein Deutscher Unk, calling for the Germanization of Western Poland. Having permanently
32:57removed the lawful owners, the land will be apportioned out to farmers of the Reich. The
33:02Luftwaffe is kept very busy. Having disposed of all legitimate military targets and having
33:07destroyed resistance in the air, they turn to making their kind of war on the civilian
33:12population. This fight is highly scientific, Germanically methodical and specialized. They
33:18study aerial photographs of roads and highways choked with pitiful refugees. They establish
33:24locations and assign targets.
33:39This is how hundreds of kilometers of Polish roads appeared in those nightmare days.
33:54At them with death and destruction.
34:04The Führer's orders are carried out to the letter.
34:17This is the Polish landscape that September. The beautiful golden Polish fall.
35:18But one week has passed since the onset of war. Already the German army has cut Poland
35:26up into separate sectors. The population is completely disorganized, hysterical and leaderless.
35:32All municipal authority has left the towns and cities, so have the police, the fire brigades.
35:38Public utilities of all kinds have ceased to function. The fear-maddened people run
35:43from one burning city to another and nowhere find refuge. Hitler's armies move relentlessly
35:49forward, virtually unopposed. The provinces of Pomeran, Silesia and Pozen are occupied.
35:57Krakow is in German hands. The hard-pressed Polish army gets orders from its GHQ, which
36:03has in the meantime moved into Romania, to retreat to the river Narew, then to the Vistula,
36:09then to the river San and then to the Buk. And suddenly there are no more orders.
36:16The German panzers are moving in on Warsaw. Finally, in the region of the river Bzura
36:23and under the command of General Kucerba, a Polish force consisting of two army groups
36:29from Poznan and Pomeran rally to mount a successful counterattack against the left wing of the
36:35German forces.
37:05But the Germans concentrate enormous armoured strength and the second phase of the Battle
37:16of Bzura begins, the biggest battle to be fought in that September. Against the mass
37:21attack of German tanks and planes, the Poles send forward the best they have, the finest
37:26cavalry in the world. This is in utter disregard of death. Desperately they try to break the
37:33encircling ring of the 16th German Panzer Corps, but flesh and blood, be it of horse
37:39or man, stand against Krupp's steel.
38:10Sound of gunfire.
38:32Sound of engine.
38:48Sound of explosion.
39:11Sound of explosion.
39:39The Battle of Bzura ended here and here the last Polish army division ceased to exist.
39:46This is not simply defeat, this is what annihilation looks like and here amid the wreckage of two
39:54army divisions lies dead the last hope of saving Warsaw.
39:59Music.
40:11Those are the arms purchased by the people of Lublin. Those are the arms bought and presented
40:19to the army with such pride by the 30,000 school children of Warsaw.
40:24Music.
40:38Arms donated by the villagers of Szamotuy.
40:42Music.
41:03Sound of engine.
41:11170,000 Polish soldiers are taken prisoner, bringing the total for the first week up to 500,000.
41:19They cannot hide their feeling of hopelessness. Look at their faces. Just yesterday they read in
41:29their papers that the Siegfried Line had been breached for the French. Berlin had been bombed.
41:34They read that help was coming by sea and air from Britain and France, but nobody forced the Siegfried
41:41Line. Nobody bombed Berlin. There will be no help for them. There will be slavery.
41:52Music.
42:11The peace-loving Chancellor of the German Reich inspects his total conquest. Ruined cities and towns
42:21everywhere. All centers of resistance smashed flat. The strength of the Polish army broken and
42:28dispersed. Roads, bridges, railways reduced to smouldering ruins. The Führer is speeding his
42:36armies toward Warsaw. There he will have his victory parade. But Warsaw is the goal, too, of the many
42:47fragments of the broken Polish army. There they hope to regroup those stragglers who escaped
42:52annihilation, rearm, and continue to resist until allied forces come to their relief.
42:58Music.
43:27The face of Warsaw has changed completely now. This is no more the carefree, happy, and deluded city.
43:35Warsaw knows now what has happened on the fighting fronts. No, not from the newspapers that for so
43:41long printed fictions, the wildly wishful thinking of their editors. Warsaw comes face-to-face with
43:47reality in her own streets. Here in aimless wanderings and a futile search for leadership are the remnants
43:54of her once proud army mingled with the thousands of refugees from the countryside occupied by the
43:59Wehrmacht. The dispossessed from the bombed and burned out towns and villages. Everybody from
44:07everywhere in Poland has tried to reach Warsaw. And through the chaos of the countryside, it's
44:13miraculous how many thousands have made it. They've left behind their burned out homes and their
44:18unburied dead. Perhaps here they can find a few hours rest. As long as Warsaw is still free, there still
44:25burns the faintly flickering flame of hope. Abandoned by the government, Warsaw refuses even to
44:32consider a surrender. Twice now it has repulsed determined German attacks, inflicted heavy losses.
44:39The stubborn defense of the city is guided by Generals Rommel and Kucewa. The civil administration,
44:45such as it is, is carried on by Meir Stasiński. Still, newspapers are publishing a constant silly stream of wild
44:53imaginings, glad tidings of great joy. They tell their beleaguered readers that Berlin has been reduced to rubble by
45:00Allied bombing, that the German army has deserted Hitler, that all the world is filled with admiration for the Polish
45:06army and are sending reinforcements. Warsaw continues to resist. From this moment, the Germans call it
45:13Festung Warschau, Fortress Warsaw. About the city, the ring of German steel grows tighter, and Hitler is waiting.
45:23For the Führer and the Fatherland!
45:38Concentrated bombardment of Warsaw begins. The infantry awaits the order to follow up. Heavy siege artillery and the
45:50Luftwaffe prepare the way. The air defenses of Warsaw have long since disappeared. No Polish fighter planes have escaped
46:10destruction. The Black Cross rules the sky. Fires are becoming impossible to control. The hospitals are bombed. There are no
46:29drugs, no medication, and few dressings.
46:58There is neither time nor a proper place to bury the dead.
47:25Attention! Attention! We are at war! Attention! Attention!
47:52Only once in all this did the guns fall silent, the shells and bombs stop bursting. The Germans held their fire for one brief period
48:01to allow the diplomatic missions to leave Warsaw. A world within a world, in the midst of all this fearful carnage, a pause for
48:11pleasantries, a little time for courtesy and smiles and greetings, the practiced insincerities that are the stock in trade of the
48:19international diplomat.
48:30In a special train near Warsaw, and the Germans must have laid new track to get it there, is the mobile headquarters of Hitler and his yes-men.
48:38Here they are together, what Churchill used to call the Nazi gang, Goering, Goebbels, Keitel, Himmler, keeping the death watch.
48:47Against any logical calculation, Warsaw is still fighting, and in spite of a much earlier Goebbels communique which told the world that the
48:54fighting in Poland was finished. This has greatly embarrassed the German staff, and Hitler especially is showing impatience. The weight of the
49:02bombardment is stepped up. The Fuhrer declares, if they don't surrender, we shall bury them. High explosive shells and bombs are poured into the
49:11defenseless city day and night in an endless, deadly stream. Luftwaffe bombs round the clock from airfields in the city's suburbs.
49:26The Fuhrer can safely watch the slaughter and at the same time have his picture taken with heroic German troops in the front line of battle. Joe Goebbels
49:35got good mileage out of that one. He gives his personal attention to the final acts in the destruction of Warsaw.
50:05The city now is everywhere on fire, and there's no water to cope with the situation.
50:34A press communique from this point gloated, the Poles are going through an inferno. That, at least, was truthful.
51:05There is no place in all the sprawling ruined city to shelter the wounded. No medicines or dressings for their wounds. No drugs to ease the suffering.
51:16And from hour to hour, from minute to minute, in the wake of each exploding shell and bomb, the horrifying count of dead and wounded rises.
51:26The hospitals are in ruins. Indistinguishable piles of broken stone. There's not even a disinfectant solution to cleanse wounds with.
51:35This is the last tragic picture of the castle of the Polish kings. Warsaw is not fighting anymore. It waits now in a state of shock for some miracle to happen.
51:45Perhaps, after all, some help will come from the world outside. But General Rommel knows there will be no help. He has counted more than 50,000 wounded.
51:55To continue the defense of Warsaw would be a useless kind of suicide. The German staff, with scarcely veiled impatience, awaits the final result.
52:04Their grisly vigil will not go on much longer. Warsaw is, even now, sending out its representatives to sign the surrender.
52:16They meet the Germans in one of the suburbs. In a staff car, the conditions are established.
52:35Negotiating on the Polish side is General Kuchawa, and for the victorious Germans, General Blazkowicz.
52:44The Poles now are attempting to bargain for honorable and humane terms with an enemy who has forgotten the meaning of honor and humanity.
52:53The Polish delegation knows too well that they cannot go on fighting. They know the city is in ruins, without food, without water, without light.
53:01There is no ammunition for the remnants of an army that would go on fighting, if they but had the means.
53:06But Festung Warschau, Fortress Warsaw, no longer exists.
53:11Surrender is the only course open to them, the only way to save the few remaining thousands that have miraculously escaped the storm of fire.
53:31The Army and civilian authorities sign the Instrument of Surrender. This is the end.
54:01At night, 29th September, all those who bore arms and wore the uniform of Poland are ordered out of Warsaw.
54:14For two weeks, they have fought against overwhelming odds, fought fiercely, day and night.
54:21Here, in their nation's capital, they repelled every attack, so long as they had a bullet for a gun.
54:28Now, over 100,000 brave men are going into the most humiliating and degrading kind of slavery.
54:35The civilians of Warsaw, the old men, the women, and the children still alive, are left to face the ruthless enemy alone.
54:46Their fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers are being marched off to oblivion.
55:00These are the last soldiers and officers of the Warsaw staff.
55:15On the 1st of October, through all the approaches to the city, the victorious German Wehrmacht is entering Warsaw.
55:22They find only empty streets, reeking with the smell of death.
55:27Finally, they see the inside of Festung Warschau, which had thrown back time after time their most relentless attacks.
55:35The Fuhrer will have his victory parade in Warsaw, a hollow gesture that will ring through history as hollow as the sound of jackboots in the empty streets.
56:05But parade he will through the first conquered capital of Europe.
56:15Yes, the Fuhrer got his victory parade through Warsaw, the first European capital to fall to the force of German arms.
56:23And here ended the first act of that horrifying drama that was to occupy the world stage for six long and bloody years, the Second World War.
56:34But these were only the curtain raiser, the prologue, if you like.
56:39Hitler's Reich march would continue to grow in strength and truculence.
56:43To the west and the east and to the north and south, there were new lands, new capitals to conquer.
57:04Drunk with success and strutting in their triumph, they will sing their Nazi marching song all over Europe in the years ahead.
57:12Heute gehört uns Deutschland, morgen die ganze Welt.
57:16Today we own Germany, tomorrow all the world.
57:21There will be no more talk of peace with Hitler's Germany.
57:25All the world now knows the Nazi regime cannot be trusted, cannot be parleyed with.
57:30Irrevocably dedicated to the belief that the world belongs to the victors, slavery to the losers,
57:35the German people, following their half-demented Fuhrer, have set their feet upon that dark road that leads down to destruction.
57:47This is how it was.
57:54They did not wake from the stupor of their early triumphs.
57:57Even when the victory march had ended in the crashing discord of defeat.
58:01They fell back on Berlin eventually, the way the Poles had fallen back on Warsaw.
58:06Still believing the Fuhrer's promise that the world would belong to them.
58:27We will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we
58:57will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will
59:27march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march on, we will march
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