Original subtitles

[soft suspenseful music]

♪

- When I was a kid,

every adult I knew shared one thing in common--

a gap in their lives when everything appeared uncertain

and time itself seemed to stand still.

When they talked about it,

they simply called it "the war."

For six dark years, the world was on fire.

Cities were demolished

and whole populations threatened.

When would the war end? No one knew.

How would it end? No one knew.

Life was in stasis.

The war is now a part of our culture,

portrayed in movies and on television

and novels and history books.

The Allies usually defeat the enemy

and save the world.

But the grim reality of the war

is almost impossible to comprehend.

Over 65 million people are killed--

the majority civilians.

Everyone fought some version of the war,

beginning with the mothers and fathers

who sent their children overseas

not knowing when or if they would ever see them again.

And, of course, the soldiers, sailors,

airmen, and marines-- often just a bunch of kids--

who served with honor and bravery

to liberate enslaved peoples and preserve human dignity.

In doing so, they saved that which is most precious

and valued by us all--

freedom.

The Second World War

is the largest event in human history.

No part of the globe is unaffected.

World War II changed everything for all of us.

[dramatic music]

- All wars change the world,

but none of them changed the world

like the Second World War did.

- Japan's on the march, Germany's on the march.

- No one can imagine

the nightmare they're about to unleash--

the most destructive war in human history.

- Suddenly the world is turned upside down,

and all hell is let loose.

♪

- The West is stunned by the speed of the advance.

- You get the Allies, led by the big three--

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin--

men who are dealing

with immensely complicated questions.

- It's the biggest military operation of human history.

- The Allies have to come together,

not just militarily,

but industrial scale

it's a global perspective.

- They have to fight in every climate,

from the Arctic to the jungles of the Pacific

to the deserts of Africa and the depths of the ocean.

♪

- But there was no certainty of victory.

It was going to be a horrific bloodbath.

- We see humans at their absolute worst,

how they treat other human beings.

And we see them at their absolute best,

willing to give their lives that others might live.

- World War II was a struggle in which there could be

one victor and one vanquished.

♪

[explosions, air raid sirens wailing]

♪

[distant bells tolling]

♪

- Sometimes the most monumental events

begin without fanfare...

before the world wakes.

♪

And so it is

on the 1st of September, 1939,

as dawn breaks over a sleeping city on the Baltic Sea,

that the bloodiest conflict in all history begins.

♪

[gunfire]

♪

- This is the national program from London.

Germany has invaded Poland.

- Heavy outbreaks of fighting

along the German-Polish frontier.

- [speaking German]

♪

- [speaking German]

♪

[air raid sirens wailing]

[people shouting]

♪

- In just a matter of hours, a million and a half men...

1,300 planes...

and 2,750 tanks

crossed the Polish border at lightning speed.

♪

- September 1, 1939--

a storm breaks over Poland.

♪

- The Germans are racing through with tanks

and with artillery, following up with the infantry

and accompanied by the Luftwaffe.

[bombs whistling]

♪

And all of a sudden, people were waking up

to the sound of tanks rumbling through the town

not really knowing what was happening.

- You're going to see waves of trucks

and mechanized and motorized vehicles.

It looks a bit like a science-fiction novel,

like all those novels written in the '20s and '30s

about what the war of the future would look like.

And, suddenly, in 1939, the future is now.

[tense orchestral music]

♪

- At 11:00 a.m.,

Hitler arrives at a Berlin opera house

where he's gathered the Reichstag.

[crowd cheering]

♪

♪

- This is the moment Hitler's been waiting for all his life.

He's been the leader of the Nazi party since 1921.

He comes to power in '33. He rearms the country in '35.

And since then, it's been prepare, prepare, prepare.

But Hitler wants a war.

[cheers and applause]

- The invasion follows months of diplomatic tension

over a strip of land known as the Polish Corridor--

land that had once been part of Germany...

but was ceded to Poland to give her access to the sea

after the First World War.

♪

20 years earlier, global leaders gathered

in the French city of Versailles

to sign the historic treaty ending that war.

After four years of brutal fighting,

an alliance led by Britain and France

and supported by the United States

emerged victorious.

♪

Germany, its military exhausted

and its people near starvation, had lost.

And now they would pay the price of defeat.

- The Treaty of Versailles

takes territories away from Germany.

It strips Germany of populations and raw materials.

It turns the entire German merchant marine

over to the Allies.

It imposes reparations on the Germans.

- The Allies were attempting to limit

the future power of Germany.

The effects of the First World War were so grave,

they were so catastrophic

that no one wanted to see a repeat of that.

- One young Austrian corporal fighting for the German army

is Adolf Hitler.

Like many, he is shocked by the way the war ends.

- Your average German was surprised by the news

of the armistice because it happened so suddenly.

The army was still in the field,

and there was the sense that we haven't been invaded

and thoroughly beaten.

- It was personally a tragedy for Hitler.

He heard the news of the armistice

when he was still ill from injuries sustained in battle.

He did not process the end of the war well.

He did not accept the defeat of Germany.

- Surviving soldiers come home angry

and confused.

- Frankly, the response of many of them

is disillusionment.

Four years at the front,

I managed to dodge all those bullets,

and now I came home and this is what I fought for?

[suspenseful music]

- When Hitler comes back from the war,

he learns to talk to former soldiers

who are now disgruntled and begins to feel the fact

that he's actually quite a good speaker.

- [speaking German]

[people cheering]

- He attends a meeting of a small group

which will become

the National Socialist German Workers,

or Nazi Party.

He finds something attractive.

This is a party of grievance

talking about how Germany could be transformed

and Germany could be made powerful again.

In 1921, Hitler's talent for public speaking

makes him the leader of this tiny party.

- Hitler's first move is an attempted coup

against the Bavarian state government in Munich.

♪

But it fails, and he's arrested for treason.

♪

At his trial, the judge allows Hitler

to publicly share his movement's grievances

against war guilt, reparations, and communism.

In jail, he publishes his memoir,

"Mein Kampf," or "My Struggle."

♪

With Hitler's notoriety, Nazi Party membership grows

as Germany's Weimar Republic

moves through the unstable '20s.

The economy is burdened by heavy war reparations.

In 1923, the cost of one loaf of bread

rockets from 3 marks to 80 billion.

♪

The years that follow are unstable, chaotic.

♪

Hitler's Nazi Party fuels racial hatred

against Jews and fears about communism.

Then, just as the economy is recovering,

the Great Depression throws 6 million Germans out of work.

- People in Germany are confused, bewildered, unhappy.

And so there's a real opening

for a leader who will speak all these lines perfectly

and talk about, how I'm going to bring the Germans

back together.

- In the 1932 elections, Germany is deeply divided.

♪

But President von Hindenburg,

backed by conservative businessmen,

appoints Hitler chancellor to run the government

at the beginning of 1933.

♪

- In 1934, Hitler declares

that he will now continue to be chancellor

and take over the role of the president as well.

He's transformed what was a democracy in Germany

into a one-party and a one-man dictatorship.

He's become the German leader, the Fuehrer.

♪

- His first promise as Fuehrer is to reclaim the land

Germany lost at Versailles.

He seizes the Rhineland,

Austria, and the Sudetenland--

German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia.

By 1938, just four years later,

he's reshaped the map of Europe.

Desperate to avoid another war,

Britain and France allow Hitler to expand his empire.

- In 1938 at Munich,

Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister,

and the French actually made a deal with Hitler.

What he wanted was the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.

The British had said, fine,

we'll just dismantle an entire country to keep you happy.

- But when Hitler turns to Poland,

the West finally takes a stand.

The Poles have already endured centuries of foreign rule.

The country regains its independence

as part of the Versailles Treaty.

But its new borders now include 20,000 square miles

of what had been German land.

♪

In summer 1939, the British and the French

sign a guarantee with the Poles

promising military assistance if the Germans invade.

♪

- Hitler, speaking to his officers--

they're asking him questions.

Well, what is the attitude of the West gonna be

if you attack Poland?

And he snorted. Don't worry, he said.

I've seen my opponents at Munich.

They're little worms.

- Hitler doesn't believe

the West has the will to go to war.

♪

So he moves across the border,

ready to invade with the full force

of the Nazi Wehrmacht.

♪

[tense music]

♪

- In the first 24 hours of the invasion...

♪

The Germans take out railroads,

bridges, and airfields.

♪

The destruction paves the way

for their army to advance deep into Poland.

♪

- The Poles have a modern army.

It's the fifth-largest army in the world.

♪

And it's equipped with modern tanks,

with all sorts of artillery and armored trains.

But Hitler has been putting almost all his resources

into equipping the military.

The Poles were outgunned by the Germans,

who had three-to-one tanks and five-to-one airplanes.

So there's no question that the Germans were a superior force.

♪

- Despite those odds,

the Poles are determined to defend their country.

♪

- Everyone had to help,

and soldiers conscripted civilians on the street,

putting them to work.

I saw one man who was stopped six times on his way home

with a loaf of bread.

♪

- The Poles remain resilient.

♪

But the question is,

what will Britain and France do?

- Here, as ever in critical days,

has seen the coming and going of the leaders of the country.

- The British and French had an alliance with the Poles.

They have to defend Poland.

But they're not militarily prepared to do so,

and they're not mentally prepared to do so.

The home fronts in Britain and France

are dead set against war.

- British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

tells Parliament he's considering

issuing an ultimatum.

But many feel he's backtracking

on his promise to Poland.

♪

- This is a profound injury to British honor,

that if we don't act and declare war,

no other country will ever trust

a treaty with Britain ever again.

- Britain delivers an ultimatum to Berlin

on the morning of September 3, 1939.

♪

Hitler has until 11:00 a.m. to withdraw his forces.

♪

[bell tolls]

It's ignored.

[bell tolling]

- This morning,

the British ambassador in Berlin

handed the German government a final note.

And, consequently,

this country is at war with Germany.

[air raid sirens wailing]

- In cities across Britain,

air raid sirens signal a strange new era,

and millions of gas masks are sent to British homes.

♪

Across the Atlantic,

America is just emerging from the Great Depression

and not prepared for war.

♪

The peacetime army is small.

♪

And neutrality laws

make it nearly impossible to aid the Allies.

♪

In the White House, the press gathers for one

of President Roosevelt's fireside chats.

- I have said, not once but many times,

that I have seen war

and that I hate war.

I say that again and again.

I hope the United States will keep out of this.

And I give you assurance and reassurance

that every effort of your government

will be directed toward that end.

- Most Americans, when they're asked,

should the United States get involved?

90% of Americans say absolutely not.

But Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

he's watching what's happening in Europe very closely.

The question is about freedom and democracy.

He understands what is at stake.

♪

- In Germany, Hitler is surprised

when Britain and France declare war.

- When the British declaration of war is made,

Hitler receives it in silence.

And for a couple of moments,

he stares at his foreign minister, Ribbentrop.

And then with a quite vicious tone to his voice,

he says, what now?

[tense music]

♪

- Despite the British and French declaration,

Hitler continues his master plan for Poland

and sends in the Luftwaffe.

♪

Hitler's air force is led by a trusted member

of his inner circle...

Field Marshal Hermann Goering.

♪

- Goering's a German celebrity.

World War I, he was the head of the Flying Circus,

the Fliegender Zirkus, this elite group of fighter pilots.

♪

And so he's well-known in Germany.

He's very handsome, very charismatic guy.

But there's also a very dark side to Goering.

He feels deeply embittered by the way the war ended,

and he falls under Hitler's spell.

And he's able to get huge appropriations from Hitler

for Luftwaffe procurement.

♪

- Goering's elite pilots are young

and have spent thousands of hours in training.

♪

From the cockpits of heavy bombers, they drop explosives.

♪

But it's the precision dive bombers

that wreak the most terror.

♪

- The Sturzkampfflugzeug,

the Stuka as it's usually abbreviated--

you know, it's not a particularly swift craft.

But they dive at an almost 90-degree angle...

♪

And literally drop a bomb in your lap.

♪

And there's even a bit of psywar here as well.

As they're coming down on you, there's a siren screaming.

[Stuka siren wailing]

- In Poland, there are pilots flying at low altitude

who can see women and children fleeing the roads

who actually target them deliberately.

[Stuka siren wailing]

[somber music]

♪

Polish civilians experience modern war

in an unbelievably horrifying way.

♪

They see people killed.

They see bodies all around them.

It's a nightmare.

♪

- Poland is being destroyed.

♪

It is not clear when

or even if Britain and France can send forces to help.

♪

[tense music]

♪

- On day three...

Adolf Hitler boards his heavily armored private train,

the "Amerika."

♪

He named it after his admiration

for the way America settled a vast continent.

Now traveling towards Poland,

he looks out on the territory he needs to conquer--

land stretching deep into Eastern Europe,

Lebensraum, living space for his new German empire.

♪

This is his and Germany's destiny.

- Hitler talks about a thousand-year Reich.

Its borders would stretch from the Atlantic in the west

to Scandinavia in the north

and the Mediterranean in the south.

Poland and the lands to the east

play a special role in Hitler's foreign-policy plans.

They're wide-open spaces,

farmland as far as the eye could see.

- In order to achieve this vast empire,

Germans must clear out the people living there

in a remorseless race war.

♪

- Adolf Hitler's whole worldview

is based on a kind of neo-Darwinism

in which every single act is a biological struggle,

warfare between different races.

♪

He believes that the Aryan race, the Germans,

is the superior race on the planet.

It's destined to rule Europe and indeed the world.

♪

- Until now, Hitler's main target

has been Germany's Jewish population.

Under his orders, they lost their status as citizens,

had their wealth and property seized,

and many were forced into exile.

- Hitler believes that humanity is locked

in this existential battle

between Aryans, as he describes them, and Jews.

And Jews are supposedly responsible

for all of society's and the world's ills.

- So who is responsible

for the German loss in World War I?

Jewish people.

Who is responsible for economic inequality?

Jewish people.

They control media, newspapers,

all the businesses.

The reason you are poor

is because they are hoarding money.

- What the Nazis are seeking to do at this stage

is to make life so unpleasant,

so difficult for Jewish people within the Reich

that they want to leave.

- Hitler also wants to remove the Slavs of Eastern Europe,

including the people of Poland.

♪

Day four--

Hitler reaches the Polish front lines,

where he holds a photo opportunity with his troops.

- He makes himself very visible,

goes to the front, and he's greeted

by these thousands and thousands of people.

They're all vying with one another

to get close to Adolf Hitler.

- He's fought in World War I. He's a battle-tested leader.

He's taken back historic German territory.

He's built the armed forces.

They listen to him.

♪

- These German soldiers marching on Poland

believe in Germany's destiny...

that they will be the creators of the great new Germany.

- This is the first action they've had militarily

since the Black Day of the German Army in 1918.

And it is an average infantryman

from the First World War who's leading it.

♪

So this is redemption

20 years after what never should have happened happened.

♪

- Shadowing his invading forces

is another wing of the Nazi regime...

♪

The Protection Squadron--

in German, the Schutzstaffel, or SS.

They were Hitler's personal bodyguards

as he rose to power.

But under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler,

they become a paramilitary outfit

at the heart of the regime.

- Himmler is somebody

who has a sadistic streak.

He's quite meek, he's not particularly assuming,

he's certainly not very physically impressive,

but he's somebody who's got a burning desire

to achieve things.

He gets drawn into the Nazi loop,

and then over a period of time,

he eventually takes control of the SS.

- Himmler has developed the SS

from a small kind of a bodyguard unit

that's supposed to really protect Hitler...

♪

Into a vast militarized force.

♪

- In Poland, the SS units fan out

across the newly occupied territory,

as does a special wing of the SS--

the Einsatzgruppen...

mobile death squads.

♪

[tense music]

♪

- In September 1939, during the invasion of Poland,

the Nazi Einsatzgruppen

are under orders to neutralize any opposition.

♪

- The Einsatzgruppen are specifically set up

to go into towns, villages,

and other areas of Poland

to kill civilians.

That's their only job.

Professors, landowners, politicians,

newspaper editors, these sorts of people--

they were targeted and killed because these were the people

who are identified as possibly leading

some sort of resistance against the German forces.

And this is something that the Poles could not have known yet

on those first days of the invasion,

that this wasn't just going to be a military invasion,

but this was also going to be a war of annihilation.

♪

- For Hitler, this is a chance not just to destroy Poland

but to clear Poland,

to crush the Polish people, who are Slavs.

And Slavs in the Nazi ideology

are Untermenschen, "underhumans."

But it's more than that. There are also Jews in Poland.

♪

- For centuries, Poland has been home

to millions of Europe's Jews,

who fled there to avoid religious persecution.

- The Jews originally settled there

because it was the freest kingdom in Europe.

Now they found themselves

in a terrifying, murderous trap.

- The SS drag Orthodox Jewish men out into the streets,

and they desecrate their clothes and their hair.

They smash up synagogues.

They are seeking to amplify the terror

that they've sought to develop within the Reich

towards Jews within Poland.

♪

- These acts of brutality

escalate into public executions.

[tense somber music]

In the town of Konskie on September 12th,

German troops order local Jews to the town square...

to dig the grave of a German soldier.

♪

- This rather humiliating forced grave-digging exercise

quickly descends into a pogrom.

♪

Jews are shot.

You know, they try and run away from the scene.

They're quickly apprehended.

♪

And in total, 22 Jews are killed on that day.

♪

This was happening across Poland...

♪

The brutal mass murder of innocent civilians.

♪

- Nine days into the invasion,

Britain and France continue to mobilize their forces.

Civilians are being killed in the streets,

but the army isn't defeated.

With their capital city, Warsaw, now the target,

two Polish armies stage a counterattack

to the west of the city.

Polish cavalry and reconnaissance tanks

drive German forces back 12 1/2 miles

in the Battle of the Bzura River.

- You know, all too often, the Polish campaign

is talked about as some kind of pushover.

But the Poles fought hard.

- The classic stereotype of the Poles

is that they're all on their horses with sabers drawn,

riding toward tanks who are just shooting them down.

This is absurd.

The Poles were very sophisticated.

- Very finely trained soldiers, extremely brave.

♪

- As Poles fight under German bombardment...

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

and French Premier Edouard Daladier meet

for a supreme war council

and reach a grave decision.

- Daladier and Chamberlain

agree to leave Poland to its fate.

They also adopt formally

what they call the long war strategy--

the idea that they have superior resources to Germany

and that, over time, those resources will come to bear

in the Allies' favor.

- Although the statement that is given

to the world's press is one of wholehearted support,

Poland is essentially cast to the four winds.

- There is one British politician

who has always wanted to take a more aggressive position

against the Nazis.

Appointed to the new war cabinet

is Hitler's most vocal critic in the West--

First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill.

♪

- Throughout the 1930s, Churchill had spoken up

with concern about German rearmament,

about the failure to take effective measures

to enforce the Versailles Treaty.

It's clear now that Germany couldn't be trusted

as a diplomatic partner.

♪

- Two weeks into the invasion...

♪

The Poles seem abandoned,

and their counteroffensive is collapsing.

♪

The German 3rd, 8th, and 10th armies encircle Warsaw.

♪

The capital is a city of palaces,

churches, and opera houses--

the heart of the Polish nation.

But now Warsaw is in ruins

and under siege.

♪

- Bombs were falling, and everybody

was trying to help get people out of the rubble.

When your roof is burning,

when your children are in hospital

because they've been bombed--

I mean, these are shocking moments.

- American photographer and cameraman Julien Bryan

is in Poland's capital

filming suffering and defiance.

♪

He pleads for Poland.

- President Roosevelt and the people of America,

listen to my story.

♪

America must act. It must help.

- As help is called for,

there is an army preparing to sweep in.

♪

They're not coming from the west...

but from the east.

♪

[tense music]

♪

- On the 17th of September,

Joseph Stalin calls the German ambassador

to the Kremlin and says,

we're going to invade Eastern Poland.

♪

- Poland's fate isn't sealed just by the Nazis.

The communists of Soviet Russia

also sense opportunity.

And so does their all-powerful master.

- Stalin is one of the most extraordinary figures

in the history of the 20th century.

From the very beginning of the Russian Revolution in 1917,

he's been part of the tiny clique

that's been running Russia and has emerged

as the dominant leader of the whole Soviet Union.

The inner circle called him [speaks Russian]--

the master, the boss.

But in public, he was the [speaks Russian]--

the leader.

But he was a tough man,

a morbid man, a mysterious man.

- He learned the hard way in the Russian Civil War

that you operate ruthlessly.

You sacrifice, you attack,

you show no quarter to your enemies.

Stalin saw the world in geopolitical terms.

He recognized that the Soviet Union

couldn't survive isolated, surrounded by adversaries.

- He had to play the poker game of diplomacy and war.

And the players were the Western democracies,

led by England and France, and the dictatorships.

His great fear was that the two sides would gang up

against him and destroy the Soviet Union.

And all of his decisions came from this fear.

- In August 1939,

just one week before Germany invades Poland,

Joseph Stalin shocked the world

when he signed a nonaggression pact with Adolf Hitler.

- The revelation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

causes mayhem in the Western capitals.

It changes everything. It's a complete shock.

♪

For the last sort of five years,

the two dictatorships--

Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia--

had been pouring excrement over each other in the media.

They had been calling each other every name under the sun.

And for each, the other was the quintessential enemy

of everything they believed.

And now, suddenly, there's a thawing,

and the next thing you know,

Ribbentrop is flying to Moscow.

♪

- In August 1939, by signing a pact with Hitler,

Stalin helps to ensure

that the Second World War will break out.

In fact, it makes it virtually a certainty

that such a war will break out.

♪

- The pact promises

a decade of nonaggression between the two regimes.

But there's another secret protocol

which carves up Eastern Europe,

sharing the land between them.

First up is Poland.

♪

- Neither the Germans nor the Soviets

wanted Poland to exist.

They both saw it as an affront.

Poland had historically been

a province of the Russian Empire,

and the Soviets want that back as a buffer

against this stronger Germany that's emerging.

- The division of Polish territory favored the Soviets,

who got more territory than the Germans did.

So it's actually the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland

that decides the fate of Poland.

♪

- The Red Army pours into Poland's eastern provinces.

♪

They, too, carry orders

to eradicate Polish leaders and culture.

- When the Red Army goes into Eastern Poland,

they are accompanied inevitably by the secret police, the NKVD,

and they arrest all these people--

writers, diplomats, aristocrats, army officers.

Some of them are killed instantly.

Some of them are deported.

And a large number of them, between 20,000 and 30,000,

are stowed in camps near the Katyn woods.

All of these people are to be secretly executed,

shot in the back of the head.

[somber music]

[wind whistling softly]

- On September 22, 1939, in the town of Brest-Litovsk,

Nazi and Soviet generals gather to watch a parade

of both armies.

[tense music]

- There's this free mingling of German and Soviet forces.

The two sides are sort of mixing,

sharing cigarettes, sharing anecdotes.

And they even develop almost a slang between them.

[speaks Russian] "Together strong."

♪

- If you're a Polish person,

to see these two people that have always been dangerous

on both sides of you

working together to see that Poland once again disappears,

you had to feel like there's no help close by.

♪

- As Poland burns and her enemies celebrate...

♪

One city resists...

♪

Warsaw.

♪

[tense music]

♪

[distant explosions]

- Despite weeks of assault,

Warsaw has not yet surrendered.

Surviving Polish troops rush to the capital,

where 300,000 soldiers and civilians hold the city.

♪

To break the resistance,

Goering orders the largest air raid ever seen.

♪

[air raid sirens wailing, people shouting]

♪

[bombs whistling]

♪

- Goering levels Warsaw

with no regard for civilian casualties.

They strew thousands of pounds of high explosive

and incendiary bombs, firebombs over Warsaw.

And they reduce it to rubble.

[fires crackling]

[somber music]

♪

- It is the largest incendiary bombing

that the world has ever seen.

Air raids last for the entirety of the day.

People are trapped in their basements,

they're trapped in courtyards, they're trapped in stairwells.

Those who crawl out when the bombardment is over--

there's no water, there's nothing to feed them.

♪

- 20% of the city is destroyed in one way or another.

And about 18,000 people are injured or killed

in these bombardments.

- And the city finally has to surrender.

♪

- [speaking Polish]

♪

- In London, Winston Churchill warns his country

that this is just the beginning.

- Poland has been overrun by two of the great powers

which held her in bondage for 150 years

but were unable to quench the spirit

of the Polish nation.

The heroic defense of Warsaw

shows that the soul of Poland

is indestructible.

♪

The British Empire and the French Republic

have been at war with Nazi Germany

for a month tonight.

♪

Directions have been given by the government

to prepare for a war of at least three years.

♪

- But Churchill has received a signal of hope.

A few weeks earlier,

President Roosevelt sent him a note congratulating him

on his new role in the war cabinet

and opening up a secret line of communication.

- Once Germany invades Poland, Roosevelt infers that this war

is going to be sizable in its scope

and that the United States

is probably going to need to intervene at some point.

Churchill has this reputation of being a fighter.

It's really telling that Roosevelt seeks him out

rather than Chamberlain at this critical juncture

at the beginning of the Second World War.

- So there's this relationship that develops

between Franklin Delano Roosevelt

and Winston Churchill.

There's an understanding on the part of Roosevelt

that there is someone in the leadership

of Great Britain who understands what's at stake

and just how dangerous this moment is.

♪

It's not simply about the German invasion of Poland.

♪

They're two men who are united

in their belief that Adolf Hitler

is perhaps the most dangerous man on the planet.

♪

- After the surrender,

Hitler travels to Warsaw to survey the ruins.

♪

He points at the utter destruction

and tells the officers who are with him...

this is the real meaning of war.

♪

In less than a month, a major European nation

has been removed from the map.

It will be engulfed in darkness for most of the next six years.

And it's only the beginning, as Hitler looks to the West.