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00:07when I was a kid every adult I knew shared one thing in common a gap in their lives when
00:14everything appeared uncertain and time itself seemed to stand still when they talked about
00:21it they simply called it the war for six dark years the world was on fire cities were demolished
00:29and whole populations threatened when would the war end no one knew how would it end no one knew
00:38life was in stasis the war is now a part of our culture portrayed in movies and on television
00:45and novels and history books the allies usually defeat the enemy and save the world but the grim
00:53reality of the war is almost impossible to comprehend over 65 million people are killed
01:00the majority civilians everyone fought some version of the war beginning with the mothers
01:06and fathers who sent their children overseas not knowing when or if they would ever see them again
01:12and of course the soldiers sailors airmen and Marines often just a bunch of kids who served
01:19with honor and bravery to liberate enslaved peoples and preserve human dignity in doing so they saved
01:28that which is most precious and valued by us all freedom the second world war is the largest event in
01:37human history no part of the globe is unaffected World War two changed everything for all of us
01:47all wars changed the world but none of them changed the world like the second world war did
01:54Japan's on the march Germany's on the march no one can imagine a nightmare they're about to unleash
02:01the most destructive war in human history suddenly the world is turned upside down and all hell is let
02:09loose the west is stunned by the speed of the advance you get the allies led by the big three
02:18Roosevelt Churchill Stalin men who are dealing with immensely complicated questions it's the biggest military
02:28operation of human history the allies have to come together not just militarily but industrial scale it's a
02:35global perspective they have to fight in every climate from the Arctic to the jungles of the Pacific
02:42to the deserts of Africa and the depths of the ocean
02:48but there was no certainty of victory it was going to be a horrific bloodbath we see humans at their
02:56absolute worst how they treat other human beings and we see them at their absolute best willing to give
03:02their lives that others might live world war two was a struggle in which there could be one victor
03:09and one vanquish
03:34you
03:45sometimes the most monumental events begin without fanfare
03:51before the world wakes
03:55And so it is, on the 1st of September 1939, as dawn breaks over a sleeping city on the
04:03Baltic Sea, that the bloodiest conflict in all history begins.
04:23This is the national program from London. Germany has invaded Poland.
04:28Heavy outbreaks of fighting along the German-Polish frontier.
04:32The soldiers are now fighting for the war!
04:48Als deutscher Soldat, gehe ich in diesen Kampf mit einem starken Herzen hinein!
04:55Von jetzt ab wird Bombe mit Bombe vergoldet!
05:09In just a matter of hours, a million and a half men, 1,300 planes, and 2,750 tanks cross
05:22the Polish border at lightning speed.
05:27September 1st, 1939, a storm breaks over Poland.
05:36The Germans are racing through with tanks and with artillery following up with the infantry
05:43and accompanied by the Luftwaffe.
05:50And all of a sudden, people were waking up to the sound of tanks rumbling through the
05:54town, not really knowing what was happening.
05:57You're going to see waves of trucks and mechanized and motorized vehicles.
06:01It looks a bit like a science fiction novel, like all those novels written in the 20s and
06:0530s about what the war of the future would look like.
06:08And suddenly, in 1939, the future is now.
06:19At 11 a.m., Hitler arrives at a Berlin opera house where he's gathered the Reichstag.
06:48This is the moment Hitler's been waiting for all his life.
06:52He's been the leader of the Nazi Party since 1921.
06:55He came to power in 1933.
06:57He rearms the country in 1935.
06:59And since then, it's been prepare, prepare, prepare.
07:02But Hitler wants a war.
07:04The invasion follows months of diplomatic tension over a strip of land known as the Polish Corridor,
07:23land that had once been part of Germany.
07:27But it was ceded to Poland to give her access to the sea after the First World War.
07:3620 years earlier, global leaders gathered in the French city of Versailles to sign the historic
07:43treaty ending that war.
07:45After four years of brutal fighting, an alliance led by Britain and France and supported by the United States emerged
07:53victorious.
07:56Germany, its military exhausted, and its people near starvation had lost.
08:02And now, they would pay the price of defeat.
08:06The Treaty of Versailles takes territories away from Germany.
08:10It strips Germany of populations and raw materials.
08:12It turns the entire German merchant marine over to the Allies.
08:16It imposes reparations on the Germans.
08:19The Allies were attempting to limit the future power of Germany.
08:24The effects of the First World War were so grave.
08:27They were so catastrophic that no one wanted to see a repeat of that.
08:31One young Austrian corporal fighting for the German army is Adolf Hitler.
08:37Like many, he is shocked by the way the war ends.
08:41Your average German was surprised by the news of the armistice because it happened so suddenly.
08:46The army was still in the field and there was the sense that we haven't been invaded and thoroughly beaten.
08:51It was personally a tragedy for Hitler.
08:54He heard the news of the armistice when he was still ill from injuries sustained in battle.
08:59He did not process the end of the war well.
09:04He did not accept the defeat of Germany.
09:08Surviving soldiers come home angry and confused.
09:13Frankly, the response of many of them is disillusionment.
09:16Four years at the front, I managed to dodge all those bullets and now I came home and this is
09:21what I fought for.
09:24When Hitler comes back from the war, he learns to talk to former soldiers who are now disgruntled
09:30and begins to feel the fact that he's actually quite a good speaker.
09:37He attends a meeting of a small group which will become the National Socialist German Workers or Nazi Party.
09:44He finds something attractive. This is a party of grievance talking about how Germany could be transformed and Germany could
09:50be made powerful again.
09:52In 1921, Hitler's talent for public speaking makes him the leader of this tiny party.
09:58Hitler's first move is an attempted coup against the Bavarian state government in Munich.
10:06But it fails and he's arrested for treason.
10:10At his trial, the judge allows Hitler to publicly share his movement's grievances against war guilt, reparation and communism.
10:21In jail, he publishes his memoir, Mein Kampf or My Struggle.
10:28With Hitler's notoriety, Nazi Party membership grows as Germany's Weimar Republic moves through the unstable 20s.
10:38The economy is burdened by heavy war reparations.
10:42In 1923, the cost of one loaf of bread rockets from three marks to 80 billion.
10:52The years that follow are unstable, chaotic.
10:57Hitler's Nazi Party fuels racial hatred against Jews and fears about communism.
11:04Then, just as the economy is recovering, the Great Depression throws six million Germans out of work.
11:12People in Germany are confused, bewildered, unhappy.
11:16And so there's a real opening for a leader who will speak all these lines perfectly and talk about how
11:21I'm going to bring the Germans back together.
11:22In the 1932 elections, Germany is deeply divided.
11:30But President von Hindenburg, backed by conservative businessmen, appoints Hitler chancellor to run the government at the beginning of 1933.
11:42In 1934, Hitler declares that he will now continue to be chancellor and take over the role of the president
11:50as well.
11:50He's transformed what was a democracy in Germany into a one party and a one man dictatorship.
11:58He's become the German leader, the Fuhrer.
12:04His first promise as Fuhrer is to reclaim the land Germany lost at Versailles.
12:10He seizes the Rhineland, Austria, and the Sudetenland, German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia.
12:18By 1938, just four years later, he's reshaped the map of Europe.
12:24Desperate to avoid another war, Britain and France allow Hitler to expand his empire.
12:31In 1938 at Munich, Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, and the French actually made a deal with Hitler.
12:39What he wanted was the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.
12:42The British had said, fine, we'll just dismantle an entire country to keep you happy.
12:47But when Hitler turns to Poland, the West finally takes a stand.
12:53The Poles have already endured centuries of foreign rule.
12:57The country regains its independence as part of the Versailles Treaty.
13:02But its new borders now include 20,000 square miles of what had been German land.
13:11In summer 1939, the British and the French sign a guarantee with the Poles promising military assistance if the Germans
13:21invade.
13:24Hitler, speaking to his officers, they asked him questions.
13:27Well, what is the attitude of the West going to be if you attack Poland?
13:30And he snorted, don't worry.
13:32He said, I've seen my opponents at Munich.
13:35They're little worms.
13:37Hitler doesn't believe the West has the will to go to war.
13:42So he moves across the border, ready to invade with the full force of the Nazi Wehrmacht.
13:58In the first 24 hours of the invasion, the Germans take out railroads, bridges, and airfields.
14:10The destruction paves the way for their army to advance deep into Poland.
14:17The Poles have a modern army.
14:21It's the fifth largest army in the world.
14:26And it's equipped with modern tanks with all sorts of artillery and armored trains.
14:32But Hitler has been putting almost all his resources into equipping the military.
14:39The Poles were outgunned by the Germans who had three-to-one tanks and five-to-one airplanes.
14:44So there's no question that the Germans were a superior force.
14:49Despite those odds, the Poles are determined to defend their country.
14:57Everyone had to help, and soldiers conscripted civilians on the street, putting them to work.
15:03I saw one man who was stopped six times on his way home with a loaf of bread.
15:11The Poles remain resilient.
15:16But the question is, what will Britain and France do?
15:21Here, as ever in critical days, is seen the coming and going of the leaders of the country.
15:27The British and French had an alliance with the Poles.
15:30They have to defend Poland.
15:32But they're not militarily prepared to do so, and they're not mentally prepared to do so.
15:37The home fronts in Britain and France are dead set against war.
15:43British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tells Parliament he's considering issuing an ultimatum.
15:49But many feel he's backtracking on his promise to Poland.
15:54This is a profound injury to British honor, that if we don't act and declare war,
16:01no other country will ever trust a treaty with Britain ever again.
16:06Britain delivers an ultimatum to Berlin on the morning of September 3rd, 1939.
16:13Hitler has until 11am to withdraw his forces.
16:20It's ignored.
16:23This morning, the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note.
16:31And consequently, this country is at war with Germany.
16:40In cities across Britain, air raid sirens signal a strange new era.
16:46And millions of gas masks are sent to British homes.
16:54Across the Atlantic, America is just emerging from the Great Depression and not prepared for war.
17:03The peacetime army is small.
17:07And neutrality laws make it nearly impossible to aid the Allies.
17:13In the White House, the press gathers for one of President Roosevelt's fireside chats.
17:20I have said not once but many times that I have seen war and that I hate war.
17:28I say that again and again.
17:32I hope the United States will keep out of this.
17:36And I give you assurance and reassurance that every effort of your government will be directed toward that end.
17:45Most Americans, when they're asked should the United States get involved, 90% of Americans say absolutely not.
17:55But Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he's watching what's happening in Europe very closely.
18:01The question is about freedom and democracy.
18:05He understands what is at stake.
18:08In Germany, Hitler is surprised when Britain and France declare war.
18:13When the British declaration of war is made, Hitler receives it in silence.
18:18And for a couple of moments, he stares at his foreign minister, Ribbentrop.
18:23And then with a quite vicious tone to his voice, he says, what now?
18:34Despite the British and French declaration, Hitler continues his master plan for Poland and sends in the Luftwaffe.
18:46Hitler's air force is led by a trusted member of his inner circle, Field Marshal Hermann Goering.
18:56Goering's a German celebrity.
18:59World War I, he was the head of the flying circus, the fliegenden circus, this elite group of fighter pilots.
19:05And so he's well known in Germany.
19:07He's very handsome, very charismatic guy.
19:11But there's also a very dark side to Goering.
19:13He feels deeply embittered by the way the war ended, and he falls under Hitler's spell.
19:19And he's able to get huge appropriations from Hitler for Luftwaffe procurement.
19:26Goering's elite pilots are young and have spent thousands of hours in training.
19:32From the cockpits of heavy bombers, they drop explosives.
19:37But it's the precision dive bombers that wreak the most terror.
19:43The Sturzkampfflugzeug.
19:46The Stuka, as it's usually abbreviated.
19:48You know, it's not a particularly swift craft, but they dive at an almost 90 degree angle and literally drop
19:58a bomb in your lap.
20:02And there's even a bit of psi war here as well.
20:06As they're coming down on you, there's a siren screaming.
20:12In Poland, there are pilots flying at low altitude who can see women and children fleeing the roads, who actually
20:21target them deliberately.
20:30Polish civilians experience modern war in an unbelievably horrifying way.
20:42They see people killed, they see bodies all around them.
20:46It's a nightmare.
20:50Poland is being destroyed.
20:57It is not clear when, or even if, Britain and France can send forces to help.
21:11On day three, Adolf Hitler boards his heavily armored private train, the America.
21:19He named it after his admiration for the way America settled a vast continent.
21:25Now, traveling towards Poland, he looks out on the territory he needs to conquer.
21:32Land stretching deep into Eastern Europe.
21:35Liebensraum.
21:37Living space for his new German Empire.
21:41This is his and Germany's destiny.
21:44Hitler talks about a thousand-year Reich.
21:47Its borders would stretch from the Atlantic in the west to Scandinavia in the north and the Mediterranean in the
21:53south.
21:54Poland and the lands to the east play a special role in Hitler's foreign policy plans.
21:58They're wide open spaces, farmland as far as the eye could see.
22:04In order to achieve this vast empire, Germans must clear out the people living there in a remorseless race war.
22:14Adolf Hitler's whole world view is based on a kind of neo-Darwinism in which every single act is a
22:23biological struggle, warfare between different races.
22:31He believes that the Aryan race, the Germans, is the superior race on the planet.
22:36It's destined to rule Europe and indeed the world.
22:41Until now, Hitler's main target has been Germany's Jewish population.
22:47Under his orders, they lost their status as citizens, had their wealth and property seized, and many were forced into
22:55exile.
22:56Hitler believes that humanity is locked in this existential battle between Aryans, as he describes them, and Jews.
23:03And Jews are supposedly responsible for all of society's and the world's ills.
23:10So who is responsible for the German loss in World War I?
23:14Jewish people.
23:15Who is responsible for economic inequality?
23:19Jewish people.
23:20They control media, newspapers, all the businesses.
23:24The reason you are poor is because they are hoarding money.
23:28What the Nazis are seeking to do at this stage is to make life so unpleasant, so difficult for Jewish
23:33people within the Reich that they want to leave.
23:37Hitler also wants to remove the Slavs of Eastern Europe, including the people of Poland.
23:49Day four, Hitler reaches the Polish front lines, where he holds a photo opportunity with his troops.
23:57He makes himself very visible, goes to the front, and he's greeted by these thousands and thousands of people.
24:04They're all vying with one another to get close to Adolf Hitler.
24:08He's fought in World War I. He's a battle-tested leader.
24:12He's taken back historic German territory.
24:15He's built the armed forces. They listen to him.
24:21These German soldiers marching on Poland believe in Germany's destiny.
24:26That they will be the creators of the great new Germany.
24:31This is the first action they've had militarily since the black day of the German army in 1918.
24:37And it is an average infantryman from the First World War who's leading it.
24:43So this is redemption 20 years after what never should have happened, happened.
24:53Shadowing his invading forces is another wing of the Nazi regime.
24:58The Protection Squadron.
25:00In German, the Schutzstaffel, or SS.
25:05They were Hitler's personal bodyguards as he rose to power.
25:10But under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, they become a paramilitary outfit at the heart of the regime.
25:19Himmler is somebody who has a sadistic streak.
25:24He's quite meek. He's not particularly assuming. He's certainly not very physically impressive.
25:27But he's somebody who's got a burning desire to achieve things.
25:31He gets drawn into the Nazi loop.
25:34And then over a period of time, he eventually takes control of the SS.
25:37Himmler has developed the SS from a small kind of a bodyguard unit that's supposed to really protect Hitler.
25:45Into a vast militarized force.
25:50In Poland, the SS units fan out across the newly occupied territory.
25:55As does a special wing of the SS.
25:58The Einsatzgruppen.
26:01Mobile death squads.
26:12In September 1939, during the invasion of Poland,
26:17the Nazi Einsatzgruppen are under orders to neutralize any opposition.
26:24The Einsatzgruppen are specifically set up to go into towns, villages and other areas of Poland to kill civilians.
26:33That's their only job.
26:36Professors, landowners, politicians, newspaper editors, these sorts of people.
26:41They were targeted and killed because these were the people who identified as possibly leading some sort of resistance against
26:47the German forces.
26:48And this is something that the Poles could not have known yet on those first days of the invasion.
26:54That this wasn't just going to be a military invasion.
26:56But this was also going to be a war of annihilation.
27:03For Hitler, this is a chance not just to destroy Poland, but to clear Poland.
27:08To crush the Polish people who are Slavs.
27:12And Slavs in the Nazi ideology are untermenschen, under-humans.
27:16But it's more than that, there are also Jews in Poland.
27:20For centuries, Poland has been home to millions of Europe's Jews, who fled there to avoid religious persecution.
27:28And the Jews originally settled there because it was the freest kingdom in Europe.
27:33Now they found themselves in a terrifying, murderous trap.
27:39The SS drag Orthodox Jewish men out into the streets and they desecrate their clothes and their hair.
27:45They smash up synagogues.
27:48They are seeking to amplify the terror that they've sought to develop within the Reich towards Jews within Poland.
27:56These acts of brutality escalate into public executions.
28:03In the town of Kanskiye on September 12th, German troops order local Jews to the town square.
28:10To dig the grave of a German soldier.
28:16This rather humiliating forced grave digging exercise quickly descends into a pogrom.
28:25Jews are shot.
28:26You know, they try and run away from the scene.
28:28They're quickly apprehended.
28:31And in total, 22 Jews are killed on that day.
28:36This was happening across Poland.
28:40The brutal mass murder of innocent civilians.
28:50Nine days into the invasion, Britain and France continue to mobilize their forces.
28:56Civilians are being killed in the streets, but the army isn't defeated.
29:01With their capital city, Warsaw, now the target.
29:04Two Polish armies stage a counterattack to the west of the city.
29:09Polish cavalry and reconnaissance tanks drive German forces back 12 and a half miles in the Battle of the Buzura
29:16River.
29:17You know, all too often the Polish campaign is talked about as some kind of pushover.
29:21But the Poles fought hard.
29:23The classic stereotype of the Poles is that they're all on their horses with sabers drawn,
29:27riding toward tanks.
29:29We're just shooting them down.
29:30This is absurd.
29:31The Poles were very sophisticated.
29:33Very finely trained soldiers.
29:37Extremely brave.
29:40As Poles fight under German bombardment,
29:44Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edward Deladier meet for a Supreme War Council,
29:51and reach a grave decision.
29:55Deladier and Chamberlain agree to leave Poland to its fate.
29:59They also adopt formally what they call the Long War Strategy.
30:02The idea that they have superior resources to Germany,
30:05and that over time those resources will come to bear in the Allies' favour.
30:09Although the statement that is given to the world's press is one of wholehearted support,
30:16Poland is essentially cast to the four winds.
30:20There is one British politician who has always wanted to take a more aggressive position against the Nazis.
30:28Appointed to the new war cabinet is Hitler's most vocal critic in the West,
30:32First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
30:38Throughout the 1930s, Churchill had spoken up with concern about German rearmament,
30:44about the failure to take effective measures to enforce the Versailles Treaty.
30:49It's clear now that Germany couldn't be trusted as a diplomatic partner.
31:01Two weeks into the invasion.
31:06The Poles seem abandoned, and their counteroffensive is collapsing.
31:12The German third, eighth and tenth armies encircle Warsaw.
31:22The capital is a city of palaces, churches, and opera houses.
31:27The heart of the Polish nation.
31:30But now, Warsaw is in ruins and under siege.
31:41Bombs were falling, and everybody was trying to help get people out of the rubble.
31:45When your roof is burning, when your children are in hospital because they've been bombed.
31:49I mean, these are shocking moments.
31:52American photographer and cameraman Julian Bryan is in Poland's capital,
31:57filming suffering and defiance.
32:00He pleads for Poland.
32:03President Roosevelt and the people of America, listen to my story.
32:10America must ask. It must help.
32:14As help is called for, there is an army preparing to sweep in.
32:20They're not coming from the west, but from the east.
32:34On the 17th of September, Joseph Stalin calls the German ambassador to the Kremlin and says,
32:41we're going to invade eastern Poland.
32:48Poland's fate isn't sealed just by the Nazis.
32:52The communists of Soviet Russia also sense opportunity.
32:56And so does their all-powerful master.
33:00Stalin is one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of the 20th century.
33:07From the very beginning of the Russian Revolution in 1917,
33:10he's been part of the tiny clique that's been running Russia
33:14and has emerged as the dominant leader of the whole Soviet Union.
33:19The inner circle called him Khosayan, the master, the boss.
33:23But in public, he was the Vosht, the leader.
33:27But he was a tough man, a morbid man, a mysterious man.
33:31He learned the hard way in the Russian Civil War that you operate ruthlessly.
33:37You sacrifice, you attack, you show no quarter to your enemies.
33:42Stalin saw the world in geopolitical terms.
33:46He recognized that the Soviet Union couldn't survive isolated, surrounded by adversaries.
33:52He had to play the poker game of diplomacy and war.
33:57And the players with the Western democracies led by England and France and the dictatorships,
34:03his great fear was that the two sides would gang up against him and destroy the Soviet Union.
34:09And all of his decisions came from this fear.
34:13In August 1939, just one week before Germany invades Poland,
34:19Joseph Stalin shocked the world when he signed a non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler.
34:25The revelation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact causes mayhem in the Western capitals.
34:32It changes everything. It's a complete shock.
34:36For the last sort of five years, the two dictatorships, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia,
34:42had been pouring excrement over each other in the media.
34:46They had been calling each other every name under the sun.
34:49And for each, the other was the quintessential enemy of everything they believed.
34:56And now suddenly, there's thawing. And the next thing you know, Ribbentrop is flying to Moscow.
35:04In August 1939, by signing a pact with Hitler, Stalin helps to ensure that the Second World War will break
35:12out.
35:12In fact, it makes it virtually a certainty that such a war will break out.
35:17The pact promises a decade of non-aggression between the two regimes.
35:23But there's another secret protocol, which carves up Eastern Europe, sharing the land between them.
35:31First up is Poland.
35:34Neither the Germans nor the Soviets wanted Poland to exist.
35:39They both saw it as an affront.
35:42Poland had historically been a province of the Russian Empire, and the Soviets want that back.
35:46It's a buffer against this stronger Germany that's emerging.
35:50The division of Polish territory favored the Soviets, who got more territory than the Germans did.
35:57So it's actually the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland that decides the fate of Poland.
36:12The Red Army pours into Poland's Eastern provinces.
36:16They, too, carry orders to eradicate Polish leaders and culture.
36:23When the Red Army goes into Eastern Poland, they are accompanied inevitably by the secret police, the NKVD, and they
36:30arrest all these people.
36:33Writers, diplomats, aristocrats, army officers.
36:37Some of them are killed instantly, some of them are deported, and a large number of them, between 20,000
36:43and 30,000, are stowed in camps near the Katyn woods.
36:49All of these people are to be secretly executed, shot in the back of the head.
36:59On September 22nd, 1939, in the town of Brest-Litovsk, Nazi and Soviet generals gather to watch a parade of
37:09both armies.
37:13There's this free mingling of German and Soviet forces.
37:17The two sides are sort of mixing, sharing cigarettes, sharing anecdotes, and they even develop almost a slang between them.
37:24Germanski, Bolsheviki, together strong.
37:28If you're a Polish person, to see these two people that have always been dangerous on both sides of you,
37:36working together to see that Poland once again disappears, you had to feel like there's no help close by.
37:44As Poland burns, and her enemies celebrate, one city resists, Warsaw.
38:03Despite weeks of assault, Warsaw has not yet surrendered.
38:08Surviving Polish troops rush to the capital, where 300,000 soldiers and civilians hold the city.
38:17To break the resistance, Göring orders the largest air raid ever seen.
38:36Gering levels Warsaw with no regard for civilian casualties.
38:40They screw thousands of pounds of high-explosive and incendiary bombs, firebombs, over Warsaw.
38:46And they reduce it to rubble.
38:57It is the largest incendiary bombing that the world has ever seen.
39:02Air raids last for the entirety of the day.
39:05People are trapped in their basements, they're trapped in courtyards, they're trapped in stairwells.
39:09Those who crawl out when the bombardment is over, there's no water, there's nothing to feed them.
39:1820% of the city is destroyed in one way or another, and about 18,000 people are injured or
39:24killed in these bombardments.
39:26And the city finally has to surrender.
39:38Here we go.
39:55In London, Winston Churchill warns his country that this is just the beginning.
40:02Poland had been overrun by two of the great powers which held us in bondage for 150 years,
40:10but were unable to quench the spirit of the Polish nation.
40:15The heroic defense of Warsaw shows that the soul of Poland is indestructible.
40:26The British Empire and the French Republic have been at war with Nazi Germany for a month tonight.
40:36Directions have been given by the government to prepare for a war of at least three years.
40:47But Churchill has received a signal of hope.
40:51A few weeks earlier, President Roosevelt sent him a note,
40:55congratulating him on his new role in the war cabinet and opening up a secret line of communication.
41:02Once Germany invades Poland, Roosevelt infers that this war is going to be sizable in its scope
41:09and that the United States is probably going to need to intervene at some point.
41:13Churchill has this reputation of being a fighter.
41:18It's really telling that Roosevelt seeks him out rather than Chamberlain at this critical juncture at the beginning of the
41:26Second World War.
41:27So there's this relationship that develops between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
41:34There's an understanding on the part of Roosevelt that there is someone in the leadership of Great Britain
41:40who understands what's at stake and just how dangerous this moment is.
41:47It's not simply about the German invasion of Poland.
41:53They are two men who are united in their belief that Adolf Hitler is perhaps the most dangerous man on
42:01the planet.
42:03After the surrender, Hitler travels to Warsaw to survey the ruins.
42:09He points at the utter destruction and tells the officers who are with him,
42:15this is the real meaning of war.
42:22In less than a month, a major European nation has been removed from the map.
42:27It will be engulfed in darkness for most of the next six years.
42:31And it's only the beginning, as Hitler looks to the West.
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