Apocalypse: The Second World War

I watched this six-part documentary series when it was first shown on British television back in November 2010. I was absolutely blown away by it.

The main draw of this French-made series is the inclusion of colour film footage. The narration doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know about the war, but the colour footage, which plays constantly throughout the six hours, is tremendous and brings the era to life like never before.

Fairly wide-ranging in scope, this one covers the Nazi invasions, the Russian front, the British perspective and the War in the Pacific. I was moved, intrigued and came away feeling like I'd attended an extremely good history class on the subject.

This series followed "Apocalypse: Hitler", and explains with sometimes very crude and brutal images, the events of World War II.

Narrated by Mathieu Kassovitz in French, it truly brings the war up to its exploits and its horrors. Some excerpts were shot by American directors John Ford and John Huston, right on the spot.

Thus maybe one flaw was the fact that it showed mostly the war on the European front, Hitler's wanting to rule the world, the Soviets fighting back with strong forces. Only the fourth episode shows the Pacific War with the Japanese using "Bushido" to stand up to its enemies, mostly the Americans. It took atomic bombs to end it all...

And in Europe, the crush on three sides: the Normandy Raid, the African defeats and the Soviet eastern push did end Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy dominations.

This is a documentary not to be missed. Warning: some images can be disturbing...

The high resolution film scans look great. They are the main attraction here so be sure to watch it in HD. The colorizing is good too, making the footage more powerful for today's audience, although I can imagine that future improvements will eventually make it look dated.

The script repeats an old error about the Polish cavalry units in Ep. 1. A brief clip of men charging with sabers drawn is narrated "The Polish cavalry charges the German tanks, and is slaughtered." This is nonsense and insulting. World War I taught every cavalry officer that cavalry charges were a thing of the past. Polish cavalry c.1939 were not classic cavalry. The were highly mobile infantry units which used horses to move but then fought dismounted. They were highly effective in that role.

I watched this series when it came out over a decade ago and I just had an urge to watch it again. It certainly feels more chilling now than when I was a teenager and the brilliant colors of the Second World War will forever be seared on my mind.

The second world war ensured tons of documentaries. The information about this topic is overwhelming, but of course you don't want to watch every documentary ever made. But if you don't have a clue where to start, or if you just want a very nice summery of the second world war, then this documentary is a must see in my opinion.

The documentary shows the development of the second world war in a chronological and interesting way. It is narrated from a very objective point of view and therefore the educational level is very high. And the amount of topics is very broad, so you get introduced with every aspect of this heinous period. Due this fact you can orientate what you find interesting and you can search for more documentaries about specific topics later.

The capture my opinion in a short sentence: "Please watch this amazing documentary"!