Original subtitles

-[Narrator] May 1940. -[tanks rumbling]

Cameras roll as the German Army storms across France.

Filming the front lines of a conflict

fought with a ferocity and speed

never before witnessed in the theater of war.

[explosion blasts]

Ruthless aerial onslaughts,

[airplane whirring]

remorseless tank attacks,

and seemingly inexhaustible stormtroopers

push hundreds of thousands of British and French troops

to the brink of annihilation on the beaches of Dunkirk.

[dramatic music]

This is blitzkrieg, lightning war,

[gun blasting]

as you've never seen it before.

Now, rare, newly colorized footage,

will take us to the heart of the action

and reveal just how close the Germans came

to winning the war and stamping Nazi rule across the planet.

[suspenseful dramatic music]

[dramatic music]

Summer. 1937.

Edwin Graf Rothkirch and his 13-year-old son, Leopold,

enjoy the International Exhibition in Paris.

The event is dominated by the Soviet and German pavilions.

The Senegalese people in the French Colonial section

catch Rothkirch's eye.

Father and son enjoy their vacation.

In three years Rothkirch will return to Paris,

under very different circumstances.

As an avid amateur movie maker,

Major General Rothkirch films every aspect of his life.

Like an SS cavalry parade through Munich.

The swastikas signal the tightening grip

the Nazis have on Germany.

-[footsteps thudding] -[crowd chattering]

By the end of the 1930s

Adolf Hitler's popularity in Germany is at an all-time high.

In Berlin, tens of thousands

crowd around the city's cathedral to hear him speak.

Hitler makes no secret of his desire

to expand the German Empire, to provide lebensraum,

greater living space for his people.

[Hitler speaks in German]

The crowds back his ambition.

[Hitler speaks in German]

[crowd chants in German]

[suspenseful music]

In March 1939, German forces sweep across Czechoslovakia.

The jubilant fuhrer

takes a victory lap through the capital, Prague.

[car engine whirring]

The Western superpowers of Britain and France

don't respond

So Hitler sets his sights on Poland.

[ominous music]

The start of the German invasion of Poland

is marked by Panzer mark I 11s rolling across the border.

[tanks rumbling]

They are filmed by special, military-trained, camera units.

The idea of embedding German film crews

with front-line soldiers in the Wehrmacht was the brainchild

of the minister of propaganda for the Third Reich,

Joseph Goebbels.

He believed in the program of manipulating societies

through propaganda

in order to further the German war effort.

[Narrator] Goebbels' carefully curated newsreels

are shown weekly in every German cinema.

They glorify Hitler

and celebrate the German military.

[tense music]

Goebbels orders German planes to be equipped

with the latest cameras.

[airplanes whirring]

Propaganda films celebrate the screaming,

near-vertical bomb runs of Junker 87 Stuka dive-bombers.

[airplane screaming]

[bomb blasting]

[guns blasting]

By filming and documenting the Wehrmacht

as it advanced across the enemy soil,

in particular by showing tanks advancing down enemy roads

and contrasting that with defeated and fleeing civilians,

it helped advance the mythos of an unstoppable German army

that swept all before it.

It was the perfect way to showcase this new bigger,

faster, and stronger revitalized German Army.

[dramatic music]

[Narrator] Poland quickly falls to the Nazis.

In Warsaw, Hitler brazenly celebrates

with yet another victory parade.

But, this time,

his belief the Western powers won't intervene is wrong.

After a hastily convened war cabinet,

Britain and France declare war on Germany.

Hitler is shocked after the invasion of Poland

when the Allies declare war.

He's provoked them over and over again,

and they haven't reacted.

He turns to an aide at the time,

and supposedly says, "What now?"

Now we think this story may be apocryphal,

but there seems to be a real sense of surprise

on Hitler's part that the Allies have finally declared war.

[Narrator] In Paris, French newsreels

show off their own military might,

parading under the Arc de Triomphe,

a symbol of past glories.

With over 2 1/2 million troops,

backed with fast and maneuverable tanks,

like the Hotchkiss H39,

France boasts the most powerful army on the planet.

Not only do the French have military superiority,

they also have a formidable defensive system,

the heavily fortified Maginot Line.

Stretching along 280-mile of the French-German border,

the Maginot Line is a state-of-the-art network

of thick concrete bunkers,

[gun blasting]

armed with guns, mortar, and anti-tank emplacements.

-[shell scraping] -[gun blasting]

With war looming, French newsreels reassure the public

that the architects of the Maginot Line

have planned everything to the last detail.

[gentle music]

Even to its restaurant standard kitchens

and underground church.

[priest speaking faintly]

[dramatic music]

The Germans also see the newsreels.

To try and even up the military balance with the French,

the Wehrmacht goes into recruitment overdrive.

[horse whinnying]

51-year-old, World War I veteran,

Edwin Graf Rothkirch is called into active duty.

[soldier shouts in German]

A showjumper in the 1932 Olympics,

Rothkirch trains rookies in the mounted 9th Reserve Company.

-[water splashing] -[horse whinnying]

A river crossing has a steep learning curve.

Warhorses may seem like a throwback to a previous era.

But the German military relies heavily on them

and will use almost three million

over the course of the war.

[tense music]

With tensions rising

and the Allies aware a German attack could come at any time,

150,000 troops of the British Expeditionary Force

arrive in Belgium to bolster French defenses.

Allied preparations for the German invasion of the West,

very much included their thinking

that there would be a re-run of the 1914 plan,

an attack through central Belgium,

this time, a mechanized version.

By putting their first-class mobile troops

in central Belgium, there was a belief

that they could be moved forward to stop the German advance,

draw the Germans into an attritional battle

they couldn't win.

[tense music]

[Narrator] Initially, the German plan

is to once again invade France through Belgium.

But a staff officer, Erich von Manstein,

is frustrated by the lack of tactical innovation

shown by Hitler's General Staff.

[Erich] I found it humiliating,

that our generation could do nothing better

than repeat an old recipe.

[Narrator] Manstein is not afraid to speak his mind.

Manstein's plan demanded that the Germans

used radical military thought,

particularly, the modern use of tank forces.

The aim was to deal the enemy a psychological blow

using the most modern techniques

that would see the Allies crumple

and wilt before their eyes.

Hitler was delighted with the plan that Manstein gave him,

it was not only a radical plan using radical methods,

it would give the Germans the opportunity

to win a huge strategic success in days and weeks,

rather than months and years.

[dramatic music]

[Narrator] Manstein's plan is for Army Group B

to attack the Netherlands and Belgium.

But this is a feint.

While the Allies are engaged in the north,

Army Group A will sweep into France,

just above the Maginot Line,

through the dense Ardennes woods.

Then head north to launch a sneak attack,

and destroy the Allied armies from behind.

[Cameron] The German high command had a huge amount

of skepticism regarding Manstein's Plan.

It required funneling large numbers of German tanks

through the densely wooded Ardennes Forest.

If anything were to go wrong,

it would strand thousands of vehicles and tanks in place.

This would make them sitting ducks for the Allied air forces

if they were to be spotted and discovered.

[Narrator] But Manstein trusts

the power of his war machines.

He promises Hitler his mechanized forces

will deliver a quick and decisive victory in France

and the complete annihilation of their enemies.

-[gun blasting] -[dramatic music]

[explosion blasts]

In the spring of 1940 the French are confident

they are ready to deal with anything

the Germans throw at them.

[upbeat bugle music]

A rarely seen documentary by French filmmaker Henry Lepage

gives a morale-boosting insight

into the French Army's readiness for war.

The troops enjoy sporting events,

-[soldiers cheering] -[soldiers applauding]

[upbeat music]

live music,

and movie nights.

[lively music]

There's even dancing in the streets,

it's all very lighthearted.

But Lepage shows almost nothing of the troops

training for war.

[tense music]

France's allies show far more concern.

On May 10th, 1940,

Winston Churchill becomes Britain's prime minister.

He counters Hitler's aggression

with his own impassioned declaration.

[Winston] You ask, what is our policy?

I will say it is to wage war by sea, land, and air,

with all our might against a monstrous tyranny,

never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalog

of human crime.

[ominous music]

[Narrator] The same day,

the Germans launch their invasion of France.

Army Group B begins its offensive in the north.

[airplanes rumbling]

[Narrator] Cameras roll as Luftwaffe Dornier 17 pilots

release their deadly payload on air bases

across the Netherlands and Belgium.

[bombs blasting]

With the threat of Allied airborne retaliation removed,

elite paratroopers of 7th Air Division

drop onto key defensive sites in Belgium.

They're carrying new ultra-destructive

hollow-tipped explosives.

The shaped charges, focus the weapons blast

to destroy even the most fortified positions.

[explosion blasts]

In response, the unsuspecting British Expeditionary Force

direct its units towards Belgium.

French camera crews film the smiling troops

as they rush headlong into the trap laid by the Germans.

With the Allies engaged in the north,

German Army Group A makes its move into France.

Manstein's plan is running like clockwork.

Until French reconnaissance pilots

report a 100-mile traffic jam of German armed vehicles

heading towards the Ardennes.

Packing so many panzers onto one road

has brought Army Group A to a grinding standstill.

The jig could be up.

Stationary German tank commanders

wait for the Allies to strike.

[Johann] Again and again, I cast a worried look

up at the bright blue sky.

My division now presents an ideal attack target.

[Narrator] An Allied airstrike on the stationary tanks

and World War II could be over.

But the airstrike never happens.

[Robert] The Allies don't bombard the Germans

in the Ardennes Forest for a simple reason,

they don't expect them to be there.

It's the whole point of the German plan.

No one would line up all your tanks in a single column

on a single road and drive them into the Ardennes.

It's the very element of surprise

the Germans are counting on.

[Narrator] The tank gridlock is finally broken

by a German officer

coordinating the traffic from the air.

[airplane whirring]

[tanks rumbling]

France's military leaders remain convinced

the Maginot Line will stop any German advance in the south.

[suspenseful music]

But by traveling just 12 miles west of where the Line ends,

Army Group A avoids the barricade altogether.

[tank whirring]

Despite the failure of the Maginot Line

to stop the German advance.

The French generals still aren't worried.

The Ardennes' 4,000 square miles of rough terrain

and dense deciduous forest

should be impassable to the Nazi's large, heavy, panzers.

But, as the Germans press on,

camera crews embedded with the 8th Panzer Regiment,

show tank commanders examining reconnaissance maps.

that show the Ardennes

isn't quite as impenetrable as the French hope.

-[dramatic music] -[tank whirring]

Following carefully planned routes,

the 8th Division's Panzer Mk IIs

break off from the main road.

The drivers expertly negotiate

the twisting turning forest paths.

[Lloyd] The French high command was driven by hope

rather than reality

and they believed that the Ardennes were impassable.

But the Germans had done their homework.

Radio assets were used to very great effect

and together with a great plan,

and also, very bold leadership,

it allowed them to pass armored vehicles

through the Ardennes, with great speed,

far more quickly than anybody had ever expected.

[Narrator] In just a matter of hours,

the panzers are through the woods.

-[tanks rumbling] -[tense music]

With the panzers now in the open,

tank commander General Heinz Guderian

orders his units to operate as fast-moving spearheads.

His motorized divisions cover

an astonishing 100 miles in a day.

German troops, following behind the tanks,

show extraordinary levels of endurance.

Some haven't slept for three days.

A feat made possible

by the use of a stimulant known as Pervitin.

An early version of crystal meth, Pervitin can numb fear

and keep a person alert for days on end.

Between April and July of 1940,

more than 35 million Pervitin tablets

are shipped to the German military.

-[dramatic music] -[soldiers yelling]

[German Crewman] Often there is euphoria,

an intensification of performance, a

I worked through the day, my depression lifted.

[gun blasting]

[Lloyd] Stimulants provided an opportunity to make the man

into a superman,

to continue his fighting actions far beyond that

that the enemy could ever perceive.

-[dramatic music] -[tanks rumbling]

[Narrator] Heinz Guderian and his Panzerkorps

arrive at the town of Sedan on the banks of the River Meuse,

just inside the French border.

The French thought it would take 10 days to get there.

The Germans do it in three.

[ominous music]

Standing in the path of the German blitzkrieg into France

is the French 2nd Army at Sedan,

16,000 troops housed in concrete blockhouses.

Expecting a World War I-style engagement,

they dig in ready to repel any frontal assault.

Guderian has other ideas.

He calls in the Luftwaffe.

[airplanes whirring]

For the next 8 hours, 12 squadrons of Stuka dive-bombers

fly more than 1,000 sorties

over the French soldiers entrenched in Sedan.

[airplanes roaring]

It's the most intense aerial bombardment

the Luftwaffe will deliver in the entire war.

-[airplanes screaming] -[bombs blasting]

[soldiers yelling]

German propaganda crews brave the aerial onslaught

to film sappers as they build

pontoon bridges across the Meuse.

[explosion blasts]

Few bunkers are hit and there are just 56 casualties.

But the bombing exceeds even the horror

of the gas attacks in the First World War.

[airplanes roaring]

[bomb blasts]

The French soldiers are psychologically devastated.

[airplanes roaring]

[David Boyer, voice-over] The attack was far worse

than my imagination could have invented.

The explosions were so frequent

you could not distinguish between individual bomb blasts.

I was deaf and could hardly breathe.

I made myself as small as possible,

my world-shaking, I sobbed.

[bomb booming]

[Lloyd] The German air attack not only fractured

the French defenses,

it also fractured the French psychologically.

Once the Germans had crossed the Meuse,

the French were in no position to offer any resistance.

[sparse solemn music]

[Narrator] Major Wilhelm Emmerling

serving with the anti-tank battery 188,

films the bomb blasted ruins of Sedan.

Empty pillboxes stand silent,

destroyed French tanks litter the roadside,

and POWs from the French 2nd Army

stare glassy-eyed at the camera,

while Wilhelm Emmerling and his crew

sit back and play cards.

Guderian commands his mechanized units

to continue the blitzkrieg,

towards the unwary Allied armies in the north.

[tanks rumbling]

The jaws of the Manstein's pincer movement

draw closer together.

Trapped in the German's grip

are 12 divisions of the British Expeditionary Force,

28 French divisions, and almost the entire Belgian Army.

Totaling over one million men.

Guderian who's really at the spearhead of this advance,

really recognized an opportunity

to capture the entire Allied army.

If Britain and France lost that many soldiers,

they wouldn't be able to recover from that

and that would effectively end the war.

[Narrator] Realizing the precarious state

of the Allied forces, Churchill asks his generals

to prepare for a worst-case scenario.

[Cameron] Churchill, for the first time,

has to confront the possibility

that he'll have to withdraw British manpower

from the continent

in order to preserve British fighting strength,

This means abandoning his ally, the French,

in their most urgent and dire time of need.

-[tense music] -[tanks rumbling]

[Narrator] Footage shot by a crewman

shows the 1st Panzer Division,

heading north towards the Allies

trapped on the French coast.

After his success in the south,

tank commander Heinz Guderian is in a relaxed mood.

It seems like nothing can stop his panzers.

Tank commanders sit drinking champagne

[soldiers laughing]

while their crews smoke celebratory cigars.

All confident the enemy is at their mercy

and a famous victory will soon be theirs.

But their leaders aren't so sure.

Hitler, having sanctioned a radical military plan,

just at the point when it was about to be successful,

got the jitters.

His fear was that the tanks had rolled too far forward

from the following infantry.

And that left his troops open

to the potential for a counterattack

from the French interior

and the jittery fuhrer loses his nerve.

[Narrator] Luftwaffe commander Herman Goering

has Hitler's confidence.

And Goering wants the glory.

He reassures the fuhrer,

his air force can destroy the enemy on its own.

[suspenseful music]

The German high command

orders its rampaging tank units to halt.

Footage from the 8th Panzerkorps show their tanks

and their crews sitting idle.

Some units appropriate furniture, food, and wine

from French locals and take the chance to relax.

Others use the delay to wash away the grime

of two weeks of unremitting warfare.

[water splashing]

But some tank officers aren't happy.

[Cameron] So Guderian and other corps and divisional commanders

were absolutely furious and gobsmacked

that right on the cusp of this glorious

unimaginable operational victory,

that had succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams,

victory was being taken away from them at the last instance.

[Heusinger voice-over] What is this order to stop

the panzer formations?

Do we want to build golden bridges for the English,

whose army is being squeezed in?

It is sheer nonsense.

[dramatic music]

[Narrator] The British Admiralty is frantically planning

an evacuation across the Channel.

They choose the northernmost town in France, Dunkirk.

It's an industrial port, flanked by wide sandy beaches,

[birds cawing]

with long moles that jut out into the sea.

French news crews record

a steady stream of Allied soldiers

retreating to Dunkirk by any means possible.

Train, horse, motorcycle.

[motorcycle revving]

Expecting the Germans to easily block the evacuation

and with few ships in the vicinity,

the British secretly fear they'll rescue

just 40,000 troops from Dunkirk,

less than a tenth of the number trapped there.

Goering does his best to fulfill his promise.

The Luftwaffe destroy Dunkirk itself.

[bombs blasting]

The beleaguered troops have nowhere to go but the beaches.

[dramatic music]

They scrabble over the sands, wade into the sea,

and pray for rescue.

With the Allies now exposed on the open dunes,

Goering orders his Luftwaffe

to wipe out their defenseless enemy.

[bombs whistling]

[bombs booming]

Almost 1/2 a million Allied troops are trapped on the docks

and beaches of Dunkirk.

Many thousands plunge into the water,

hauling themselves towards the rescue boats.

The struggling men and stationary vessels

are easy targets for the predatory Heinkel 111s

and Stuka dive bombers.

As they lay waste to the area.

[airplanes roaring]

-[bomb whistling] -[bomb blasting]

[Narrator] Running protection for the bombers

are Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter planes.

-[suspenseful music] -[airplanes rumbling]

One of the pilots is Adolf Galland.

After a near-fatal training crash,

Galland badly damages one eye,

only passing sight tests by memorizing the charts.

Despite his compromised vision,

Galland downs three Allied planes

in his first combat flight.

He'll add 100 more kills by the end of the war.

Elevating to him to Fliegerass, aka fighter ace.

Protected by flyers like Galland,

Luftwaffe bombers strike Dunkirk again and again,

their barrage bringing them to the brink

of wiping out the retreating Allies.

[Arthur Divine, voice-over] The din was infernal.

To the scream of falling bombs,

was added the angry hornet noise of dive bombers,

machine-gun fire, the snarl of falling planes.

-[airplane exploding] -[airplane chugging]

[Narrator] To try and shield the stranded troops,

the RAF deploys its latest fighter plane,

the Supermarine Spitfire.

-[airplane whirring] -[suspenseful music]

Some are fitted with cameras,

that activate when the guns fire.

[guns blasting]

They capture the Spitfire at its deadliest,

shooting down a Stuka dive bomber.

The RAF send 16 fighter squadrons

to attack the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk.

Able to bank and roll faster than the Me 109s,

the Spitfire edges it in dogfights.

In a single day, they claim over 38 kills.

As the air battles rage,

a hastily assembled evacuation fleet

with over 50 destroyers, starts its unlikely rescue mission.

Recently discovered footage

taken by Lieutenant Philip Hall,

shows one of the destroyers, HMS Whitehall,

plowing through heavy seas towards France.

[waves crashing]

Then, Dunkirk itself comes into view.

Smoke clouds from bombed oil refineries

billow 15,000 feet into the sky.

[Marceau, voice-over] Everything had been devastated,

there was smoke everywhere.

And on the sea it was horrible,

boats were sinking all around.

Some of which we could only see the mast.

It was terrible.

It was terrible.

[Narrator] Destroyed boats block the harbor.

Big ships like the Whitehall can't get close to the beaches.

The Royal Navy had ships

that required deep water in which to operate.

What they didn't have, were shallow-draft vessels

of an amphibious assault-type, that could land on beaches

and extract troops from the beaches themselves.

[Narrator] The British Admiralty issues a call to arms

for anyone who has a vessel seaworthy enough

to cross the Channel.

Over 800 civilian vessels, including merchant ships,

yachts, and fishing boats respond.

A flotilla known as the Little Ships,

sets off towards Dunkirk.

The civilian little ships were a taxi service,

if you will, from the beaches back to the larger,

Royal Naval vessels.

[Narrator] On the first day,

just 28,000 Allied troops get off the beaches.

The exhausted men scramble from little ships to big ones.

But their terror isn't over.

The Luftwaffe target the ships in the Channel.

[dramatic music]

The RAF and anti-aircraft weapons

[guns blasting]

throw up a protective wall of gunfire.

But cracks remain.

[airplanes rumbling]

[James Hill, voice-over] We were attacked relentlessly,

by Stukas. I remember seeing a paddle steamer

and I watched a Stuka dive-bombing it.

It looked like the bomb had gone down the funnel

the whole thing disintegrated.

I think they lost 2,000 chaps.

[majestic thoughtful music]

[Narrator] Overloaded ships arrive in ports

along the southeast coast of Britain.

In Dover, troops from the British Expeditionary Force

and French armies disembark and reunite with their units.

Many are scarred, mentally and physically.

The walking wounded are helped down the gangplank,

while the worst of the injured are lifted off.

For eight days, the desperate Allied evacuation continues.

The RAF fly wave after wave over Dunkirk.

Its aerial umbrella, denying Goering's Luftwaffe

its vow to annihilate the Allies.

In Dunkirk, Major Wilhelm Emmerling

reveals a scene of utter devastation.

[somber music]

His footage shows once ornate villas

reduced to burnt-out shells.

The ruined Church of Saint-Eloi gutted by incendiary bombs.

The town's rubble hiding many of the 1,000 civilians

killed by the Luftwaffe's indiscriminate bombing.

And wrecked hulls litter the beach.

A silent reminder of the 240 Allied vessels

lost in the evacuation.

[John Cameron, voice-over] Dunkirk was a graveyard.

The whole scene was filled

with a sense of finality and death.

The curtain was ringing down on a great tragedy.

[Narrator] Over 16,000 French and British troops

die during the evacuation.

The dead buried by their comrades in arms.

With the fleeing Expeditionary Force

abandoning nearly all of its tanks, vehicles, and equipment.

But thanks to the unremitting bravery

of the crews of the Navy, the Little Ships,

and the RAF, 340,000 Allied soldiers are rescued.

Many more than the 40,000 that were expected to be saved.

[soldiers cheering]

Despite the chastening defeat in France,

British newsreels headline the evacuation

as the Miracle of Dunkirk.

[crowd cheering]

[Lloyd] The evacuation from Dunkirk was superbly planned,

brilliantly executed.

We find that it's a great morale boost

for all British people.

But also, the evacuation allowed the Allies

to take off the beaches of Dunkirk,

a very important experienced cadre of troops

that provided the basis for an expansion

of the British Army.

It gives them the wherewithal psychologically,

to continue the fight, even if that meant standing alone.

[majestic music]

[Narrator] Churchill uses Dunkirk as a rallying cry

for Britain to escalate its war efforts.

[Winston Churchill] We shall fight on the beaches,

we shall fight on the landing grounds,

we shall fight in the fields and in the streets.

We shall never surrender.

[crowd cheering]

[dramatic music]

[Narrator] For the Germans,

the Battle of Dunkirk is a missed chance

to take the Western forces out of the war,

but the invasion of France stills rages.

-[ominous music] -[fire crackling]

Almost a month into its campaign,

the German Army is still on the move.

Now it launches the second phase of its conquest,

the wholesale destruction of the French military

and the capture of the nation's capital, Paris.

This phase of the offensive begins with armored units

heading into the north and west-central regions of France.

At the same time, a separate force attacks the Maginot Line

to the east, to stop French units there

reinforcing the defense of Paris.

[airplanes whirring]

[gun blasting]

It's now the heart of France that faces the blitzkrieg.

French fighters fiercely defend their homeland.

In Amiens, they repeatedly drive the German 4th Army back

with concentrated machine gun and artillery fire.

[gun blasting]

But soon, even the most dogged French units

are overwhelmed by the German onslaught.

French tanks are no match for German firepower.

Their crews pay the ultimate price.

Among the hardest hit divisions in the French Army

are Black African troops

drawn mainly from France's colonies in West Africa.

The aftermath of one bloody encounter

is filmed by Wehrmacht cavalry captain,

Harald von Vietinghoff-Riesch.

Nazi racial stereotypes and propaganda

had depicted African and colonial soldiers as a wild,

unhinged, savages almost.

This served a couple of purposes.

First, it reinforced the superiority of Aryans.

Secondly, it convinced the Wehrmacht

that African and colonial soldiers

were to be treated without quarter and without mercy.

[somber music]

[Narrator] Vietinghoff's footage

shows captured African troops

forced to drag corpses from burning buildings

and dig mass graves for their fallen comrades.

[Cameron] We see massacres propagated

against African and colonial soldiers.

When African soldiers surrender they're put in camps

and their conditions are generally worse

than with white French POWs.

And part of this comes down to the idea that

Africans are subhuman,

that they're less than the fully civilized

and fully developed Aryan race.

[Narrator] General Edwin Rothkirch

visits one such POW camp.

As he did on his trip to Paris three years earlier,

Rothkirch appears fascinated by black faces.

He films as starving POWs

fight over the raw entrails of a goat.

A sobering insight into the suffering of the 120,000

French Colonial troops captured by the Nazis.

Many of the African soldiers

are summarily killed by the Germans,

while others are used as test subjects

in degrading anthropological and medical experiments.

[dramatic music]

The Wehrmacht blazes a trail of destruction

that leaves cities in ruins

and the French Army decimated

as it advances on Paris.

Millions flee the city shock written on their faces.

[suspenseful music]

A near-deserted Paris awaits the Nazi's arrival.

U.S. ambassador, William Bullitt Junior,

is the only diplomat of a major nation left in Paris.

Fluent in French and German,

Bullitt is appointed the city's mayor,

by Prime Minster Reynaud.

After stepping in to convince the Nazis

not to bomb the city,

Bullitt negotiates the safe surrender of Paris.

Just six weeks after the start of its invasion of France,

the German Army enters the French capital unopposed.

Standing on the same street

where he'd vacationed with this son three summers earlier,

Edwin Rothkirch films a German Guard Division

as it parades from the Arc de Triomphe,

then along the Champs Elysee.

The avenue of fallen heroes.

[footsteps thudding]

Hitler demands the victory become a huge propaganda event.

[crowd chattering]

Hitler sought to obliterate the memory

of the defeat of Germany in 1918,

one that was very painful for him

and for the wider German nation.

On entering Paris, the Germans wasted no time

in branding it their own.

Monuments, particularly those that were relevant

to the French success in the First World War,

were initially draped in the swastika flag,

and then eventually, destroyed.

[tense music]

[Narrator] Prime Minister Reynaud

is replaced by World War I veteran

Field Marshall Philippe Petain.

With the Nazis now in control of much of France,

Petain negotiates an armistice with Hitler.

The Germans win the campaign quite rapidly and in style,

and Hitler rubs France's nose in their defeat.

He has the surrender ceremony take place

in the same rail car

where the Germans signed the Armistice in 1918.

[Narrator] The railway carriage

is transported from a museum to the exact location

where, 22 years earlier,

the Germans surrendered to the French

after the First World War.

Film crews capture a gloating Hitler,

strutting as he arrives to sign the Armistice papers.

The newsreels highlight every detail

of the humiliated French in their moment of defeat.

A week later, Hitler orders the railway carriage destroyed.

The blitzkrieg campaign may have been

von Manstein's brainchild,

but Hitler takes the credit and the glory.

[Cameron] In the aftermath of the Battle of France,

Hitler had a new sense of self-confidence.

He began to view himself as a military genius,

Hitler believed that he was the only one going forward

who would be able to drive the German military machine.

He begins to view the war

as a contest between him and the rest of the world.

-[dramatic music] -[crowd cheering]

[Narrator] Once again,

Hitler celebrates with a victory lap,

this time before adoring crowds in Berlin.

Emboldened by his success in France,

Hitler accelerates his campaign

to stamp Nazi authority across the globe.