the footage is amazing. we've all seen plenty of ww2 movies, but seeing real footage is more dramatic than seeing hollywood sensationalism.

the interviews really make the series. it's utterly impressive how the production managed to secure interview with such high ranking people from all sides -- hitler's valet and hitler's secretary (who were literally in the bunker when hitler killed himself, the former who burned hitler's body), albert speer (nazi cabinet officer who was convicted at nuremburg), himler's #2, etc.

lawrence olivier is the narrator, but the interviewers really tell the story. the production really do a good job at telling the story through people who lived the war -- high ranking government people, rank and file soldiers, and civilians.

they also did a great job showing the german, russian and japanese sides of things in a fair way that made the viewer, not the production, be the judge of what's the truth so it didn't seem like pro-western propaganda.

wife's main complaint was that she didn't like how the storytelling wasn't chronological. the episodes are thematic. so the series moves back and forth in time. wife thought that harms the ability of the series to tell a coherent story from A to Z. i figured it's impossible to do a good job of covering a three-front war in strictly chronological order and didn't mind the editorial discretion to run the series topically.

all in all, everyone should watch this. i learned an absolute ton.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562716)

i previously knew almost nothing about the pacific war. i'd heard the battle names -- midway, iwo jima, saipan, etc. but i had no perspective on what they were and how they happened and the chain of events and strategies and struggles of each country. i also didn't virtually anything about all proxy wars that the japs fought the west in -- phillipines, burma, etc.

i also knew very little about the eastern front and the battles in north africa. i knew the very big stuff on the most superficial level, but didn't know the details of these struggles and how they related to the overall global war strategies of the major players. i didn't really understand what anyone was doing in north africa until now.

aside from timelines and war x's and o's, i learned a lot of the social and human perspectives on the war told through the stories of people. you don't get this kind of stuff in the movies.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562758)

The Great War from 1964 is equally good

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562741)

https://thepiratebay.org/description.php?id=78043272

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562767)

It couldn't be made today because the subjects interviewed are long dead, it covers the German perspective, and it's quite detailed and in depth.

With respect to the interviews: All history writing (and documenteries and lectures) is biased and incomlete. At least with works produced shortly after the events, like this one, we can hear directly from the sources. History content created later is largely an invention of its creator and probably laughably off the mark in most cases.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562779)

i'm no shitlib pacifist and fuck the japs, but the use of the bomb really makes you question humanity.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562831)

i know very little about ww1 other than the big hollywood movies like 1917 and all quiet on the western front. looking forward to the ww1 docu.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562902)

have you been to this memorial village in france:

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/oradour-sur-glane-martyred-village

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562922)

Okinawa is the definitive argument for the bomb.

Lemay, of course, was a psychopath

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49563256)

Eugene Sledge’s memoir, "With the Old Breed"

Richard Tregaskis, "Guadalcanal Diary"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562897)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x94t5kc

Go to 50:04 to see the genius of this production - they use the distant refrains of the "Wenn Wir Marschieren" marching song on top of videos of Germans surrendering outside Moscow to create a mood. Poignant as fuck.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49562959)

Combine with Albert Speer's postwar quote on her at Hitler's relationship. "She was for bed."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49563244)

https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/33d/projects/naziwomen/eva00000.png

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49563483)

first episode

https://youtu.be/0b4g4ZZNC1E

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5817360&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310906#49563773)