Der Krieg

I watched this six-part documentary series when it was first shown on British television back in November 2010. I was absolutely blown away by it.

The main draw of this French-made series is the inclusion of colour film footage. The narration doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know about the war, but the colour footage, which plays constantly throughout the six hours, is tremendous and brings the era to life like never before.

Fairly wide-ranging in scope, this one covers the Nazi invasions, the Russian front, the British perspective and the War in the Pacific. I was moved, intrigued and came away feeling like I'd attended an extremely good history class on the subject.

Maybe the story is not 100% complete, and maybe it gets a little confusing because so many things happen simultaneously throughout the world, so it's understandable that they didn't cover every single aspect and that it's a little too much "French biased", after all it is a French documentary. For example they didn't cover the Balkans at all, and there was one of the most complicated situations in the whole WW2. Maybe not the most important, but certainly interesting, especially in Yugoslavia, where there was in effect a three-way civil war under Nazi occupation, between royalists, communists and quislings going on simultaneously with the armed resistance to Nazis. So that in itself is a situation that would require it's own documentary, and I can see that the authors maybe did not wan't to get into explaining those difficult circumstances when it may take too much time. But the sheer amount of film material shown, that I've never seen before, is astonishing to say the least. I watched every episode eyes wide open. And it's that WW2 video material itself that makes this documentary worth having in one's collection.

This series followed "Apocalypse: Hitler", and explains with sometimes very crude and brutal images, the events of World War II.

Narrated by Mathieu Kassovitz in French, it truly brings the war up to its exploits and its horrors. Some excerpts were shot by American directors John Ford and John Huston, right on the spot.

Thus maybe one flaw was the fact that it showed mostly the war on the European front, Hitler's wanting to rule the world, the Soviets fighting back with strong forces. Only the fourth episode shows the Pacific War with the Japanese using "Bushido" to stand up to its enemies, mostly the Americans. It took atomic bombs to end it all...

And in Europe, the crush on three sides: the Normandy Raid, the African defeats and the Soviet eastern push did end Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy dominations.

This is a documentary not to be missed. Warning: some images can be disturbing...

The second world war ensured tons of documentaries. The information about this topic is overwhelming, but of course you don't want to watch every documentary ever made. But if you don't have a clue where to start, or if you just want a very nice summery of the second world war, then this documentary is a must see in my opinion.

The documentary shows the development of the second world war in a chronological and interesting way. It is narrated from a very objective point of view and therefore the educational level is very high. And the amount of topics is very broad, so you get introduced with every aspect of this heinous period. Due this fact you can orientate what you find interesting and you can search for more documentaries about specific topics later.

The capture my opinion in a short sentence: "Please watch this amazing documentary"!

A documentary series on World War 2, from its earliest origins to Japan's surrender and covering the major battles, events and turning points.

An excellent documentary series on WW2. At only six episodes and 4½ hours, a fairly concise telling. However, the main events and takeaways are in there, making it quite edifying for someone who knows very little about the history of WW2.

Even for us with extensive WW2 knowledge it's well worth the watch. There's some very rare footage - quite a lot of stuff I'd never seen before and in some cases so seemingly unobtainable I'm surprised it exists. All this has in many cases been colourised and the resolution sharpened, making for quite an engaging experience.

Not the best documentary on WW2 though. That honour goes to the World at War, the 1973-74 series narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. Much more detailed and complete, it covers just about every aspect of WW2, including areas that you wouldn't usually think about but that, ultimately, are no less important than the main events.

Apocalypse: WW2 suffers due to its compactness, skimming over some important events and missing some entirely. There's also an element of oversimplification and even outright inaccuracy at times to suit a narrative or to keep things quick and simple. Thankfully, cases of these are quite limited.

As an introduction to the history of WW2 though, it can't be beaten. Watch this first then move onto The World at War for the more detailed history.