War

They are trying to prime the pump for another war.

WWII is like comfort history -- when we knew who the bad guys really were and were brought together in a common cause. History as escapism from our nauseating times.

They're not doing that on the PBS stations here.

Are they showing Ken Burns' multi part documentary on WWII? That's really well done.

Here PBS is going to be showing Burns' 3-part documentary on Hemmingway.

I'd rather gouge my eyes out than watch a Ken Burns' documentary. Truly the worst of the worst.

R2 It’s propaganda is what it is. Less Americans died in 4 years of WWII than one year of Covid-19. It was 80 years ago, and we can’t stop obsessing over it.

It was a time when men were men and ladies were ladies.

Tonight they have Norway being invaded on Masterpiece. A few nights ago my station aired some show about a Swedish Hungarian family escaping WW2. There’s that WW2 show World on Fire with Helen Hunt. Seaside Hotel is foreshadowing WW2 in Denmark. Helena Bonham Carter did some show about her relatives in WW2. Ruth Wilson did a show about her grandmother whose husband was supposedly a secret agent in WW2.

Episode one of Atlantic Crossing was fabulous. And I normally hate subtitles.

I finally watched HBO's Band of Brothers 20 years after everyone else and loved it. All you war bugs should give it a watch.

Baby boomer straight men tend to LOVE, I mean ADORE, WWII.

I haven't checked in years, but "The History Channel" may as well have been re-named "WWII 24/7"

For the elderstraights, generally, WWII allows them to indulge in the fantasy that the United States is the good guy superhero of the world triumphing over the bad guy supervillains. The irony is that, in the United States, eugenics was mainstream and very popular--like with regular articles with eugenics advice in Good Housekeeping magazine sort of popular.

Band of Brothers is the best WWII dramatization I have ever seen. It is fantastic.

The Pacific is also great.

Ooze really should've been an abortion.

Honestly, the preoccupation with the subject never has seemed to waned, it's always there. I'm reminded of that scene in Kath and Kim where she's planning her week of television viewing:

"Now what's on the History channel? Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, WW2, Churchill, Hitler, Hitler. Alright. Put down Hitler."

I think R2 has a good point. Most of the wars throughout history aren't as easy to put into a "goodies" and "baddies" framework.

Plus there's our morbid fascination with how truly evil humans can be, in a way almost beyond our comprehension. I imagine when people watch stuff like this they are still trying to understand it too."

Personally, I'm not that interested in it, but I can understand that people may feel about watching stuff on WW2 the way I do about watching stuff on, say, 1920s Berlin or something.

Tonight Atlantic Crossing showed how quickly the nazis invaded Norway while everyone thought “Nah, we’re probably not going to be invaded.”

World on Fire is showing how quickly Poland fell to the Nazis — immediately after the Poles in Warsaw pulled their guns out of storage and said, “We’ll keep those Nazis at bay until our allies come to help us.”

I recently saw the opening episode of an old British tv show with Kenneth Branagh & Emma Thompson that takes place in Bucharest as everyone sits around drinking & waiting for the Nazis to come.

It reminds me so much of Trump getting away with everything while everyone sits around and says “Well, whatever. We can’t do anything about it.” One day life is normal & the next day .....

R14, I watched that recently too - Fortunes of War, it was called, I think... Based on the books by Olivia Manning (who apparently was referred to as Olivia Moaning by her friends because she was always miserable).

I enjoyed the first four eps, but found it got really dull and dragged once they got to Egypt. Plus so many of the characters were awful people. I couldn't stand smug git Branagh as her husband. I think this was part of the point of Manning's books though, from what I read - the bizarre behaviour of the British was what she was commenting on.

But I am always weirdly fascinated by stories of people who have to keep on the move to get away from impending doom like that, so I'm glad I watched it.

Hitler was so jumpy and nervous about his attack of Norway it nearly killed him with a heart attack. I guess one gets better at war-machen over time, but It has also been stated by as early as the end of 1941 Hitler knew the war might be kaput. He was uniquely positioned to see the truth given the intentional, "need-to-know" compartmentalization of his government.

Where did the Germans get all the money to build their military up like that? They had airplanes bombing all over Europe & tanks invading everywhere & submarines sinking ships, yet I’m told the Germans were impoverished after WW1 due to oppressive reparations caused rampant inflation. Yet 20 years later Nazis are invading & bomb the fuck out of Europe, where they seem to be sitting around totally unaware of the German military buildup & Hitler’s threatening everyone. “Like wow, we never expected a blitzkrieg!”

Why not?

I watched a number of episodes of that World at War series from the 70s a couple of years ago. WW2 isn't a huge fascination with me as I mentioned above, so I never continued with it. But I was pretty surprised by just how terrible Hitler was at orchestrating the war after the initial good luck they had. It seems like every decision he made was the wrong one. Thankfully! The whole thing was bad enough as it was.

Tonight's debut episode of the new series, Atlantic Crossing, was amazing.

R17 build up was financed with credit. The so-called Four_year Plan would've bankrupted Germany had they not gone to war and seized wealth in the form of booty, captured gold, material, etc. Germany HAD to got to war by 1940 at the latest.

Atlantic Crossing had me on the edge of my seat and I think I peed a little when they got to the Swiss border.

Germany had remilitarised by 1934 hadn't they? If I have my dates right. They basically just said: "fuck your demilitarised Saarland" and took it back again and no one did anything about it.

Has Lucy Worsley done WW2 in an air raid warden uniform yet?

Other countries didn’t seem to beef up their militaries & get into shape even though Hitler was yelling about how he was going to take over Europe and putting everyone in uniforms.

R23 that made me choke on a chocolate egg, haha! I like Lucy Worsley (I know many here don't), but still, I can't deny that you're spot on!

About right, R22 -- though Germany wasn't really ready for war even by 1939. The French could have brought the whole German gambit to a crashing halt several times if they'd but chosen to -- French soldiers were already across the border and into Germany in 1939 after war was declared but were called back for some reason. Nobody wanted a full-blown world war.

Atlantic Crossing is really that good? I'll have to check it out.

EVERY documentary on PBS since 1999 has been by that BEARDED LADY

Ken Burns

Well it’s the 80th anniversary year of the US entry into the war, wwii docs are created largely using stock footage so they’re cheap, and there’s the additional bonus of them being inspiring to us — during this great crisis, this great trial, Americans came together and suffered hardship for the good of us all.

You know, exactly the way we’re not doing now?

Thanks R26. I can see why they wouldn't too... the horrors of the first were fresh in everybody's minds still, and on top of that there was a worldwide depression. Things must've seemed so scary going forward for people in those times. No wonder murder mysteries had their Golden Age then (the world of the novel is tipped on its head but is all made right again in the end).

I've often thought what would happen if we had WWII-style rationing in the US today. We're all so spoiled, entitled and lazy I think it would be chaos. People back then were tough as nails and just dealt with it.

There are some interesting short videos on YouTube about rationing. I was surprised by how much was still available, but it was mostly fruit and veggies and I think people then thought it wasn't a meal without meat, potatoes, that it wasn't a day without sugar, milk, tea etc. I think (correct me if I'm wrong, please) that rationing actually got worse for the few years AFTER the war.

I'm talking from a British context here, to be clear.

Another interesting thing I read about not that long ago, or maybe saw it on a video, was that as the war drew towards its commencement a sort of "Free Love" situation started up amongst people. I guess thinking they may not be around in the years to come changed their feelings on the matter. Things like wife-swapping, swinging etc started being big things in the late 30s/early 40s.

Both of my grandmothers told me that the one thing that was rationed that REALLY got people pissed off was cigarettes. They could deal with food and gas, but cigarettes being rationed got people in quite a bad state.

Hitler started national rationing in 1938 long before the war, and it highlighted Germany's weakness.

And I imagine the quality of what people could get was pretty poor. I remember watching episodes of Dad's Army as a child in the 90s with my grandparents and that show made a lot of fun of the terrible meat people would mostly get and the black market stuff going on.

Many, many stories of same-sex loving during WWII -- so much so that the 1950s may be regarded as a kind of over-correction for the excesses of fox-hole and ship-compartment cock-sucking. Homophobia may well have been a vast projection.

Pandemics have the same effect.

R37, that's always been my perception of the 50s too (from admittedly the position of someone who wasn't there to know, and has only read about it) - that it was an "overcorrection". For me personally just looking at 50s related stuff makes me feel weirdly claustrophobic and short of breath.

Speaking of same sex love, Goldfrapp wrote this beautiful song based on love letters found between two soldiers.

My own uber-straight grandfather used to pine for his special shipmate-friend he served with on an LST in the Pacific during WWII, especially if he was in his cups. I encouraged him to call him once. And he did. Long-distance to Chicago. Drunk. This was in the 1970s. Sadly for my grandfather his buddy had died, according to his widow. Pap was crushed.

Awww R40, I was hoping the end of that was them meeting again, that's really sad.

I find that kind of male friendship so beautiful though. Whether there was a sexual element to it or not - perhaps it is just living through terrible times together that made him yearn for him - it is beautiful.

r37 not too long ago I read some accounts of same-sex encounters among American, British and Australian soldiers who were stationed in the South Pacific. From what I read, it was not uncommon. Quite a bit of man-on-man action was happening down there during the war.

I have no doubt this man was my grandfather's lover. I recognize it now, R41. Yes, very sad,

Bless him R43, that is very sad. I hope that their moments together were as happy as possible.

R42, I imagine that was pretty common too, and most of the men would view it as: "well there aren't any women around and we gotta do what we gotta do."

There were no other barriers between them when it came to eating, sleeping, fighting, showering, shitting, so yeah, this wouldn't be any different I'm sure.

Lucy Worsley, is that the one with the ghastly speech impediment?

WWII is a grand case study on human nature in all its glories and horrors.

Very well said, R46. I was trying to get at that myself but couldn't do it nearly so succinctly. 👏

R21 flunked geography class.

Ha I knew a graduate student from Germany who was shocked how much WWII programming is on American television/cable. I hadn’t noticed prior to that, but after he pointed it out I see it. Propaganda is alive and well folks!

Oh it is just pbs being pbs. It’s either that or Lawrence Welk.

[quote] Ha I knew a graduate student from Germany who was shocked how much WWII programming is on American television/cable.

Most. if not all. of the war programs mentioned in the OP were produced in Britain.

It’s the only time the US were the good guys and ended the winner. It’s comforting to watch for this reason in times of stress about what the country is about.

Because of my interest in Italian history I’ve read a lot about the devastating but mostly pointless Italian campaign. This memoir in particular has stayed with me.

The pointless Italian campaign?

Everyone looks so normal. Just regular people shooting, rounding up & bombing other people who look just like us. They’re using flamethrowers to burn people alive, they’re shooting people in the head & throwing them in mass graves, they’re raping women. People who look just like us can do the most horrible, brutal things to people who look just like us.

^and the way so many people try and explain it is: "well there must've been something out THEM that makes them different, their nationality, their race, etc."

But really, the terrifying thing is, it's just humans.

I just watched the first episode of Atlantic Crossing and I'm hooked. It was great!

I'm intrigued with all these mentions of this Atlantic Crossing show. Just looked up the synopsis, is this based on a true story? Did the Norwegian royal family really live at the white house? Sounds interesting!

r58 the first episode was very good. The prince and princess barely escaped Norway in time before the Nazis got them.

Whoops, that should have been "the prince and princess escaped Norway just in the nick of time, the Nazis almost got them."

Speaking of Scandinavia, Denmark under Nazi occupation is an interesting subject. They worked hard to protect their Jewish population and were almost 100% successful.

The Danes got their Jews evacuated to Sweden in the middle of the night, just in the nick of time.

When I watched the first episode of "Atlantic Crossing", I was struck by the strong, very strong resemblance to scenes from the Norwegian film "The King's Choice".

Excellent, excellent movie.

While there were scenes with the Crown Prince and his family, including their separation, the film focused mainly on (1) the King who was being pressured to surrender to the Nazis and (2) the German diplomat who was being threatened by the Nazis to get the King to surrender.

The Crown Prince played a significant role and was against surrendering.

If you watched "Atlantic Crossing", you saw the scene where the Prince receives a phone call and shocked, tells his wife a rather vague story about ships that were sunk and drowned Germans.

But, in "The King's Choice", there was a spellbinding scene of the blacked out German ships trying to slip into Norwegian waters and the decision by the castle batteries on shore to FIRE on the German ships. Great, great scene. Not just a vague reference as in "Atlantic Crossing".

From what I understand, "Atlantic Crossing" apparently focuses on the Crown Princess and her family and their time in Washington D.C. during the war years.

r63 thanks for mentioning The King's Choice, I'm going to watch it.

Up until the scene where the Princess and her children head up the road toward Sweden, there are many scenes that a virtually identical to scenes from "The King's Choice".

The children playing in the snow. The train ride with the Parliament. The stopping at the train station, etc.

I enjoyed "The King's Choice" very much and was disconcerted by seeing so many of the same scenes played out in "Atlantic Crossing".

That's right R62, and I believe that the small handful of Jews (6?) who did end up being transported to a camp were protected as much as possible and all survived?

I'm sure I read somewhere that Bulgaria also worked hard to protect all their Jews (whether as successfully as the Danes did, I'm not sure). Stories like that give you some hope in humanity.

I can’t believe the Nazi shot the pet dog. I mean, really. How cliché.

I changed the channel as soon as the Nazi entered the house & the dog was barking. All of these shows only introduce animals in order to kill or abandon them. Dogs, kittens, caged birds ...all pets must die in WW2.

I think they've become preoccupied rather with constant monthly pledges which seem to pop up with more frequency throughout the year now--frustratingly, considering that they have increasing mentions of sponsorship in between their programs now that really boil down to actual commercial advertising, despite the station's denial. I used to also love Nova and Nature, but I think they're kind of creaky and have worn out their TV-station-broadcasting-medium welcome by this point.

Tonight’s line up on my PBS station

Holy Science - A documentary about Pope Pius X actions (inaction) during WW2

My Grandparents War - British actors goes gaga over the fact their grandparents were in WW2

Atlantic Crossing - Norwegians escaping Nazis in WW2

World on Fire - Helen Hunt scares Nazis with her face

Nobody Wants Us - documentary about people fleeing Belgium in WW2 on a ship to the US

War-o-Rama

I tried to watch World On Fire but it couldn't hold my interest.

r10

[quote] WWII is like comfort history -- when we knew who the bad guys really were

I’m sure they were fine people - on both sides!

No.

No.

[quote] Less Americans died in 4 years of WWII than one year of Covid-19.

Oh, dear!

r76 died after being set on fire for being an prisspot cunt.

So far, these British actors on the grandfathers’ war show have been upper class, well connected people. Kind of reflects what’s happened over there in the past decades. The likes of UK & UK-adjacent working class actors like Richard Harris, Sean Connery, Albert Finley, Terence Stamp haven’t got much of a chance of becoming famous these days. Will we see some actor’s Cockney grandfather who was sitting on the couch when he was called called up & sent into the infantry as a private and slogged around Europe as a common foot soldier.

Helen Hunt and her storyline were the weak spot on World on Fire. The rest of it was excellent. Slightly OT but TCM showed Hope and Glory yesterday. Hadn’t seen it in years and it really is a gem.

ahem

the squad disagrees

At.antic Crossing isn’t holding my interest. Is 5he female lead supposed to be a mute?

Atlantic Crossing says it’s based on historical events, but is being criticized for taking too much artistic license in portraying events that may have happened, but for which there’s little or no first-hand documentation, and for making other events up out of whole cloth. The IMBD user reviews by written Norwegians when it was shown there last fall are pretty scathing.

It's still entertaining so far.

Thanks very much, R83, for that link. I tend to be suspicious of these "historical dramas" as too many viewers think they have seen the truth.

I watched the first episode of AC last week and began reading up on the people and events and discovered fairly soon that for one thing, the Crown Princess' car did not plow through the barrier to get into Sweden. Very dramatic, but not true.

After watching the second episode last night, I am wondering about the portrayal of the King of Sweden and how accurate his portrayal was.

The Von Trapp family didn’t cross the Alps to get out of Austria, either, of course.

Mary Queen of Scots & Elizabeth I never met.

I didn't like Fortunes at War - it was very boring and I could never finish watching it. We should not let anyone get away producing a history documentary or movie that says "Inspired by True Events" like Atlantic Crossing is. Also, the Crown is dreadful - total distortion of true events. They should be ashamed.

The Crown is pretty accurate, according to experts.

They're probably trying to play, especially during pledge periods, to their main supporters base who are now of an age demographic where they remember being affected by or living through that war (aside from the very few who may still be alive who served in it).

People who lived through the war would be in their 80s. The pledge drives appeal to Boomers.

Did anyone like Sam Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron"? It's pretty violent, but spooky too. Maybe that's what war can really be like.

It's kind of poignant to realize that World War II is going out of living memory.

[quote]World on Fire - Helen Hunt scares Nazis with her face

I laughed so hard when I read this, and choked on my sandwich, haha.

R88, I said above that I quite liked the first four episodes of Fortunes of War and not the latter half, but you do have a point. It was kind of just 7 hours of Emma Thompson walking around looking ever so slightly perturbed.

[quote] The Crown is pretty accurate, according to experts.

“Experts”? Name one - that isn’t associated with a tabloid or whose name is Piers Morgan.

[quote]Baby boomer straight men tend to LOVE, I mean ADORE, WWII

[quote]WWII allows them to indulge in the fantasy that the United States is the good guy superhero of the world triumphing over the bad guy supervillains.

Tony Soprano was always watching the History Channel, WWII documentaries in particular, the narration would often match what he was experiencing in life.

[quote]France, 1944.

[quote]General George Patton leads his Third Army into battle.

[quote]He knows that the controversies around him have tarnished his reputation.

[quote]He desperately wants to vindicate himself in the only way he knows how:

[quote]In battle.

[quote]Major strategy is the attack.

[quote] “The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed," he said.

[quote]His hatred for the enemy...

[quote]...is matched only by his fierce concern for his men.

Remember no one wins in war.

[quote]one wonders if "War and Peace" would have been as highly acclaimed as it was if it was published under it's original name "War: What Is It Good For?"

World On Fire - British producers: “What if WW2 was fought by models?”

“Sounds good. Mind you, you’d have to put Sean Bean in their somewhere. Devil’s contract.”

“Right. So we’ll set it in Yorkshire.”

“Good. And let’s have some characters speak with plummy RP, and other actors falling over backwards to do the broadest Yorkshire accent in the history of the world.”

“Right. We’ll let a female do that. Bit of a twist in accent stereotyping.”

“Heh.”

“We need an American in order to get funding from the US.”

“Get someone who can’t act and looks a fright. Because, you know......American.”

“Good. Don’t want anyone competent. Let’s get a bunch of British & European actors to play Americans, doing the best they can with American accents. Doesn’t matter. Americans can’t tell the difference anyway. They’ll be listening to the British accents and trying to figure out what Sean Bean is saying.”

“Right. Well, let’s go round up some models, then. You know what else I’d like? An upper class character from Yorkshire who speaks Polish fluently. No reason...he just does. Then he’s walking along a dirt road, being a spy and everything.....so a German soldier asks him questions in Polish & he answers, speaking Polish with a British accent. And the German doesn’t notice because...you know...he’s not Polish. How would he know?”

“Get some Poles in there. We need as many investors as possible. And some major gay characters & don’t forget POC. “

“I’m going to make a character a nightclub singer & she’ll be from Yorkshire.”

“Stop it.”

“No, I am. And I’ll make her friend & coworker black & no one will notice because being black in Britain in WW2 was unnoticeable.”

“You will take the piss, won’t you?”

“Put Leslie in there somewhere. She’s the middle aged hottie of the British isles right now. Helen’s too old. Lindsay’s the worse for wear lately.”

“All right. I’ll get right on the National Treasure hotline.”

“Ok, so we’ve got models, gays, women doing heroic stuff, POC, a late middle-aged female. We’ll need at least one child to keep the interest of the grandma audience. Anything else?”

“Jazz music, of course. Nazis hated it.”

“Good. Let’s kill some women & children. Or at least one child. And let’s have a Nazi who feels bad about all of it. Must keep the German viewers.”

“Should we have a murder myster? I mean, it’s a war, so we are killing people. That may be enough.”

“I’ll think about it. Maybe if it gets renewed we can do a murder and have a stitched up suspect going to trial.”

“Let’s meet again in two months.”

World On Fire - "What if WW2 was fought by Helen Hunt, scaring the Nazis to death with her face?"