OT An interesting POV of the seeds of WWII.

[Archer7seven]

This is told from the side of the Germans. As a hobby historian I find it interesting how documentaries about the same thing as told by different sides, can be so different.

[Sailor Steve]

Especially when a "history" such as this one leaves out anything it doesn't want you to hear. I'm currently listening to this "documentary" claime that Britain, France and Poland were planning to crush Germany while Hitler tried to negotiate peace with Poland.

Of course it doesn't mention the words of Karl Burckhardt, League of Nations High Commissioner to Danzig, to Lord Halifax that Hitler told him "If the slightest incident happens now, I shall crush the Poles without warning in such a way that no trace of Poland can be found afterwards. I shall strike with the full force of a mechanized army, of which the Poles have no conception."

The whole film makes all sorts of claims, while never mentioning actual official communiques between the countries involved.

No, this is an attempt by modern nazi propogandists to "prove" that Hitler was an innocent victim trying do the right thing.

[Runnybabbit]

I looked at this also, and have to agree with you Steve, this is simply propaganda which is easily disproved with a look into records and history. Unfortunately, it also has the potential to be dangerous..

Life's short enough as it is, without everyone running around killing people!

[Archer7seven]

Hitler is by no means a victim or innocent, but it's pretty apparent that the western allies left Poland to fend for itself. If the French and English would have invaded the war would have been over by Christmas.

[Sailor Steve]

Britain and France, for all their talk and agreements, were not ready for war. Eight months later they still weren't ready, and got their heads handed to them, causing the fall of France and desperate retreat of Britain at Dunkirk. How would they have helped the Poles in 1939? How and where would they have "invaded"?

But this is about the film, and its version of those events. It very carefully makes it look like Britain, France and Poland were the agressors, and Hitler had nothing to do with it until he was "forced" to take action.

[Archer7seven]

Yes, forced to take action, like a hungry a hungry man eating a steak. More than anything it shows how Stalin played the west. As for the English and the French, instead of carrying on the Sitzkrieg, they could have opened up a second front in the Saar to split the Germans and take some pressure off the Poles.