6-century
6 centur
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Part six of a 15-part series of documentaries produced by the American Broadcasting Company on the 20th century and the rise of the United States as a superpower.
World War II was a total global conflict that affected and changed not only the lives of soldiers fighting the war but also those of non-combatants living in war zones. The scale of the war encompassed three continents and millions of people. This episode analyzes the human costs of total warfare from the barbarity of Hitler's "Final Solution," to the atrocities committed by the Japanese against the Chinese people, to the devastation wreaked by the atomic bomb. At the end of the war, for the first time in history, the Axis leaders were held accountable for their "crimes against humanity," but the allied leaders were hailed as heroes whose atrocities were viewed as unfortunate but necessary.
Transcript
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London September 1940 this is Edward Murrow speaking from
lovers or German planes over the coast of
Britain today than at any time since
Adolf Hitler was determined to crush the last stronghold in Europe against Nazi Germany his strategy bomb England cities
and people
during the autumn of 1940 German bombers attacked London night after night for 76
consecutive nights it came to be known as the Blitz
20 acres of bundles on fire
it's quite a soldier a lot of people are killed lot is finished killed because the journalist
went down to bring us to our knees you see at all cost [Music]
via a night of September the 14th when my daughter was born the docks for a
light London was ablaze and in fact the Midwife opened the curtains because we
got more bright light from London burning than we got from the electric light in the middle of the room
[Music] throughout England 43,000 people died
but the British never gave him
in the Second World War this century 50 million people would die nearly half of them civilians they would die not
because they lived near military targets but because they were the target
[Music] in the First World War
in violation of a long-established principle of civilized combat allied blockades of German ports and sporadic
German bombing of Paris in London had extended the battlefront to the homefront but civilian casualties were
limited in the Second World War the distinction between soldiers and civilians would collapse now anyone who
contributed to the enemy's war making capacity would be vulnerable and entire populations would be deliberately
targeted because of their race and a religion this was total war made more
lethal by the advance of technological power and pursued ultimately by forces
on both sides
Pablo Picasso's Guernica is considered one of the masterpieces of 20th century art it portrays the horror that consumed
a Spanish town on April 26 1937 German
bombers and fighters sent by an oaf Hitler to help the fascists in the Spanish Civil War slaughtered 1600
innocent civilians there were no military targets of
significance in Guernica an outraged world condemned the attack as the
immoral act of a rearmed Germany eager to test its new power but Guernica was
only the prologue to Nazi Germany's campaign in Europe Poland September the
1st 1939 I was 10 years old I was playing with my friend in the woods were
picking mushrooms and we heard his tremendous noise and the tree started
bending and we saw these huge planes
with the black markers I knew that the war has started
in 25 days German armies over ran Poland in 9 months
virtually all of Western Europe Adolf Hitler's objective was Lebensraum living
space vast enough for a new German Empire the Third Reich we thought it was
great and something no one had really experienced before to go to an occupied
country as a soldier those amassed offset country believed
Hitler's goal was to enslave the Slovak people of Eastern Europe a people he regarded as racially inferior in Poland
his commanders ordered executions of the nobility government officials priests and teachers nobody expected that the
war would be against civilians I sought my family and my friends and on a daily
basis being murdered on the streets and shocked they made it very clear that were slaves
and we were below a human being as they call us winter mage
[Music]
at the very bottom of Hitler's racial scale were Poland's three million Jews
they used to stop elderly men who were
had beards and young the beers by the roots they made them lick their boots
and also immediately all businesses were taken away we had to wear the yellow star of david' and the front and back of
our clothing so that we would be easily recognizable [Music]
Colon's shoes were torn from their homes and banished to ghettos the largest was
in Warsaw nearly half a million people
were crammed into an area where 50,000 had once lived [Music]
and the ghetto was sealed
[Music] people were
starving and dying of hunger you also began to see a lot of orphans
bedraggled children [Music]
typhus was rampant tuberculosis was
rampant
[Music]
when people died they were put out on the street and all the identification was taken away from them because then
the family could get their ation and maybe existed a longer it was a horrible
situation [Music]
you would be surprised to what you can
get used to our human life has nothing
for them was unworthy of living
I remember German soldiers photographing himself to show look at this they are
they did the strong beautiful officers this is juice
[Music] in June 1941 Hitler launched his
ultimate battle for the vast leoben's from of the Soviet Union the tackle and soda union is a war for
territory but it is also an ideological crusade to destroy communism it is also
a racial crusade to destroy the largest demographic concentration of Jews in the
world so this war has too many temptations for Hitler
the Soviet Army was caught unprepared in only two months German forces penetrated
500 miles when they encircle the old capital Leningrad Hitler ordered his
commanders to wipe the city and its three million people off the face of the earth no surrender would be accepted
even if offered bombed and shelled daily
civilians help defend the city by digging trenches and building shelters
but they faced another enemy the coldest winter in 30 years there was no light no
heat no fuel no food we received 125 grams of bread bread
made of I don't know what but not flour it was so delicious for us so we divided
that small piece into three parts Zana general OVA was trying to keep her
three-month-old baby alive once a woman told me what are you doing your child
will die so give all the food to your husband and safe husband that winter the
people of Leningrad found a slender lifeline nearby Lake Ladoga froze
enabling convoys of food and supplies to come in across the ice on makeshift rail
lines the same route allowed people to escape Zana general ovah tried to leave
with her family my husband he was already sold below so
guru so seen so you cannot imagine that the baby did not cry did not cry and in
the force day she died in the carriage he died at the hospital
so I did not save my family and was
alone half of Leningrad population perished during the siege but the city
never surrendered the Russians held out for three winters nine hundred days
people say oh you see such terrible things are forgotten with time no that
cannot be forgotten never chairman generals have been instructed
by Hitler to wage the Soviet campaign with as he put it unmerciful unrelenting harshness
the German army became the instrument of ideological and racial warfare every Street shop and home became a
battlefield even though in some places German forces were at first welcomed by
civilians as liberators from Stalin's oppression I was billeted in a house and
also girl code I know and I was young 19 years old and I fell in love
Created on https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/free-youtube-subtitles-download but the thought was there secondly human-beings Untermenschen but to me
anna was not only beautiful she was a valuable you lost confusion utter
confusion in my mind what was going on but you know I want to destroy everything we want to be their masters
job was unconsciously as a beginning of the realization that I was involved in
something horrible the advancing armies were followed by specially trained killing squads the Einsatzgruppen as
they swept into the conquered territories their mission was extermination of communist officials and
all Jews they are given a series of speeches that
you were to move in be ruthless be tough we are the master race this is a preemptive strike that
you were to kill those who have a potential to be a danger to the German occupation the first thing they did was
to give an order that all men old Jewish men between 16 and 60 should report to
the center of town and then later on I heard shots 400 a
shot that day their job was to come in
and do what they did and go to the next town and and do the same thing [Music]
in less than six months the Einsatzgruppen systematically hunted down and murdered more than a million
Soviet Jews but shooting Jews one at a time was inefficient and psychologically
taxing for the killers in August 1941 Heinrich Himmler's senior commander of
the killing squads went to the Soviet Union and saw firsthand how seriously the executions had demoralized his men
he urged them to find a better method [Music]
January 1942 15 Nazi officials assembled at a villa in an affluent Berlin suburb
their purpose to organize what they delicately called the final solution to the Jewish problem their plan to
eliminate all European Jews eleven nitin they estimated
[Applause]
the final solution an expansion of what the Einsatzgruppen had already begun in the soviet union would now be carried
out by Heinrich Himmler's SS the SS was
ruthlessly efficient
all over occupied Europe the roundup of Jews began in July the SS turned its
attention to the Warsaw Ghetto [Music] Plato's today are taking us to the to
the east where we will be working every person which who came for the Train got
a big loaf of bread and marmalade and some people couldn't stand the hunger
anymore and went for that piece of bread
then we got suspicious because a large number of people were disappearing and nothing was heard from them and the
trains kept coming back so quickly the rumors were saying that they were going to be locked into camps and and
sometimes killed that summer 300,000
Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto [Music]
in April 1943 those left in the ghetto fought back for a few days using stolen
guns and Molotov cocktails they held off the well-armed Germans that time I
belonged to the underground it was very difficult very hard
we knew that death waited for us and every corner
I doubt that there was any place on this earth an act of heroism like we
witnessed in the ghetto bedraggled people after four years almost of occupation start people people
locked within a very very narrow perimeter and yet they went against a
German army which at that time was still very victorious and very strong he fought not because we knew that going
to to win but we also would like to make
a statement the uprising lasted a month and then the German troops burned the ghetto
block-by-block
survivors were killed on the spot or sent to concentration camps
[Music] Nazi Germany's killing machine was a
highly organized and efficient system set up with the cooperation of both government and private institutions
Jewish birth records were collected post offices deliver the deportation notices the Finance Ministry confiscated Jewish
property private companies took over Jewish businesses the foreign ministry
negotiated for the deportation of Jews outside the Reich the six largest of 30
death camps were all in Poland situated along rail lines for easy access on
Hitler's personal orders German railways gave priority to transporting Jews to
the camps even holding up military supplies badly needed on the Eastern Front from Oslo Paris Rome Amsterdam
trains 100 cars long converged on the Polish heartland
sealed into boxcars were victims by the tens of thousands known to their captors
simply as Freight were made to believe that we would be
working put into work camps so we walk to the train station and instead of in
passenger cars we realized she was cattle cars [Music]
but all the illusions passed when the
doors were shut they were locked
[Music] everybody was scared because we didn't know what's gonna happen man they take
us there was no water to wash there was no toilet facilities
[Music] we spent five days and five nights in
these catacombs then several people died right in the cattle car couldn't take it
we put them in a corner the stank was
unbelievable excrement urine death hunger the fear
the uncertainty if they treat us like this we're going to be going and then we
arrived at that place somebody thought in the slit was be a
chip ouch wits everybody loves out and the screen and they yelling mothers
looking for their children little children boys or girls separated
of mother trying to hold on to her baby and the SS men with the whips and guns
I would have never believed anything like this can happen to you of beans
there was a peculiar smell in the air
could figure out what it was sweet smell
you smelled it all over I never smelled anything like this was not labor camp
emblazoned on the gates of Auschwitz were the words Arbeit macht frei work makes you free vouch Fitz was Nazi
Germany's largest killing center built on land confiscated from Jews the huge
complex consisted of 45 satellite camps that clustered around the central core
the buildings low and nondescript housed the thousands that arrived daily
when they arrived those too weak too young or too old to be put to work went immediately to be killed sometimes to
the accompaniment of opera [Music]
the rest were deloused disinfected and
branded with serial numbers we didn't have a Navy only the number you were
called by a number you marched out by the you accounted by a number they
shaped our heads and my mother was standing next to me and when I looked at
her I didn't recognize her she she looked like an animal
and she looked at me and I could see in her eyes you know the pain seeing me and
then that's when we lost everything we applied just everything and we became
practically animals fighting for our
life the able-bodied were used as slave labor by the SS which made money by
leasing them to German companies work
began at 6:00 a.m. they received a bowl of turnip soup at noon a slice of bread
in the evening [Music] the SS said here you come in by the door
and you leave by the chimney and when you were too slow after an order they
said but don't forget that the gas is waiting for you life was so hard that
you practically forgot your family I mean things seem so far away even those
who fought to live didn't all survive
but those who gave up died we had to
carry pipes and sacks of cement and we were beaten by the SS I was down to
nineteen ninety five pounds eight if I don't know the normal food rations in
Auschwitz were such that you had half a
year approximately until your body gave out after you it figured it very
scientifically the physical deterioration of slave laborers was monitored by the camp medical staff in a
pseudo scientific study of malnutrition other prisoners were subjected to
medical experiments this involves sterilization castration freezing all
inmates were examined regularly by SS doctors to decide when they were no longer useful the camp commander decides
you should layfon who should die so you pass naked in front of those people and
sit there with polished boots hiding drop in their hand your heart so
the stops because to the light you take your number and you know you're going to die and if you go to the left you live
for another day six weeks after she got off the train at Auschwitz
Alice Sylvester was selected one day
they ordered us for showers they matched us in the room where we got
undressed completely naked then they took us in the room with the walls in the ceiling
so they told us to sit on the floor there was no window
by April 1945 the war had finally only 340 miles from the Japanese 1900 kamikaze missions were unleashed to defend the island 50 year old
students were used as human landmines what we did was to carry a small mine on
our back bigger small Hall Canfield hide and when the noise was close enough we were supposed to jump out and go under
one of the caterpillars the Battle of Okinawa lasted for nearly three months
many of the civilians hid in caves Tommy kahega was six years old she was
separated from her family and wandering alone in one cave an old couple made her
a white flag and urged the child to surrender I begged them grandpa and
please don't chase me away I want to die she had been told that American soldiers
would cut women and children into pieces so that when I came out I saw American
soldiers and one of them was standing
Austin I thought right away that they
were going to kill me with that thing my father once said to me even if you're
about to be killed by an enemy soldier
don't die crying like a baby smile for
the enemy when you die so thinking that the problem but why this the soldier looks so kind when he's about to kill
the Japanese suffered a disastrous defeat at Okinawa the Japanese High
Command then issued orders for an all-out mobilization at home a final
desperate push to save the nation sure that 100 million people being mobilized
what a terrible you know idea - asking the whole population to perish for any call you see the Japanese High Command
had planned that the Japanese army would be joined by virtually the entire civilian population to defend against
the Americans on the beaches in the event of an invasion the High Command
had not anticipated an attack by air in the course of the Second World War
all the main belligerents including the deliberately during the Blitz of 1940 and 41 even as Britain denounced German
barbarism British leaders bomb Germany at first Royal Air Force planes bombed
German military and industrial targets but when they switch to night attack so
as to avoid losses they found that the
smallest divisible target was often an in early 1942 the British Air Ministry instructed RAF Bomber Command to target
quote the morale of the enemy civil
population unquote this meant Germany's cities and Germany civilians that spring and summer the wrong Air Force launched
when he called thousand plane raids against cologne Essen Bremen the object
of tonight's operation this heart to introduce the man behind the thousand
cnc Bomber Command Harris was quite confident that he was going to be able to win the war by using the kinds of
methods that some people perhaps felt were not wholly moral because they involve such enormous casualties to
civilians Air Marshal Harris continue to have the support of his government in July 1943 Royal Air Force planes loaded
with high explosive and incendiary bombs Harris's objective total destruction shreya and Lifta gave up a piece has I
had been attacked before but this surpassed everything you could feel the impact of bombs kilometers America about
the roaring in the air was indescribable
the stars and nebulae and Street where
we lived was lined with tall linden
trees and they all been taught to south
music alley nursery they set a fire which became what is called a firestorm
and huge winds were created of hurricane
force so that giant trees were torn by
their roots and people were thrown into huge convection currents are created by
the heat which intensifies the fire itself so that temperature has reached a thousand degrees centigrade hot enough
to melt pots and pans and things like in four nights of bombing the Royal Air
Force destroyed three-quarters of the killed an estimated 45,000 civilians and left nearly a million people homeless
the United States Air Force had helped the RAF in Hamburg but had bombed only during daylight and targeted only
but on February the 3rd 1945 American commanders abandoned their long-held
policy of not targeting civilians nearly a thousand American planes attacked
twenty-five thousand Germans were killed
oh this quality in civilians in order to us it was said and the Oise quickly as
possible that really was indescribably crore we didn't direct our anger at
National Socialism which put us in this situation but rather our anger was
directed at the British and at the American author for bringing civilians
into the war like this eleven days later on February the 14th the Allies joined forces to bomb Dresden the cultural
in two days and one night they destroy the heart of the city and left 50,000
people dead it was a great embarrassment to the people who were responsible Winston Churchill altered the minutes that he was putting in the record to
make it appear that he was less responsible the Americans began to what
we call cook the books so as to make it appear that the kinds of things that
happened there had not been done with a kind of intention that indeed they had
been done with having dealt a death blow to Nazi Germany the United States now
prepared its final assault on Japan the aerial campaign began with a bomb in
the factories and military installations in March 1945 Tokyo itself was selected
we received an astounding briefing that
just took everybody by surprise I
remember distinctly that there was a loud audible gasp that went up from the
crew as they realized we're going in to
overtook you at 7,000 feet not 27,000 feet this is the most heavily defended
city of Japan we were carefully briefed
with the full knowledge that the area to
which we were assigned was in the
the plains were stripped of their guns
so that they could carry the maximum on the evening of March the night 325
Superfortresses arrived over the Japanese capital Martina all of a sudden
the blast from airplanes came over like a roar I three many laughs dear it shook
pbbbbbt or he beat the Korean unique we all ran astonishing aho from the West
came a huge blanket of black smoke Wow do you say non it Oh green this mucuna
when we penetrated that cloud we ran
into these very strong odors that seemed like it had to be associated with
terrible tragedy and I just described it
so you montagnana put her today I saw my mother trip her hair stood on end and
she screamed then she fell off the
bridge into the black smoke with my baby
brother strapped onto her back I think
she was trying to save my father but he
went down with her into the smoke someone who got the gun to show her one
not showing you for committing any after
we dropped our bombs I could look right
down upon the city burning below us it looked like a part of Tokyo had dropped
down into hell that night in one night
American fire bombs killed 80 thousand
civilians Tokyo was only the beginning
65 more Japanese cities would be warmed
Japan
was being pulverized it was only a
few years earlier that Americans had
this is barbaric coming to the position
that we must systematically bomb civilian populations to end the war and
that this is proper and appropriate and
even more is an extraordinary moral and
psychological journey and in my view a
journey toward hell on August the 6th
one plane and
one bomb over Hiroshima
the entire town
of Hiroshima was starting and you can see the famous
mushroom clouds I've seen five hundred
six hundred people burn hurt some of
them did a lot of people floating in
the river some of them so I mean some of
them did to our Main Street was
turning
into a showcase of human cruelty if the blast hits you directly
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