World At War [A&E Video]

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World War II. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel called it "The Good War," because it was the last war that, no matter how bad things got, the people who fought and the people on the home front who worked behind the scenes to support the war—and not just by slapping yellow ribbons on the backsides of their SUVs—somehow felt good, no matter how hard the sacrifice. Rosie was riveting, children were working scrap metal and rubber drives, men served as air raid wardens, and everyone made due with gasoline and food rationing. Because they knew it was right.

It's the last time the world would feel that way about a war. The so-called limited police actions—Korea, Vietnam, and both Gulf Wars—never felt quite right to many who fought or stayed at home. World War II was the last war where "glory" could be had, where flamboyant personalities captured the headlines and people's imaginations. That's because nothing short of the world was at stake, and these were the players in a deadly, international chess match. The public couldn't get enough newsreel footage of Winston Churchill, F.D.R., Joseph Stalin, Dwight D.Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Omar Bradley, George S. Patton, "Monty" Montgomery, and fliers like those from the Flying Tigers and Black Sheep Squadron. Even the opposition was somehow just as intriguing: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo, Erwin Rommel (and his Afrika Corps), Hitler's second-in-command, Hermann Goering, and SS leader Heinrich Himmler. Or maybe it was just the last war where the public was able to appreciate charisma in personalities and see flamboyance in men engaged in killing and devastation. Whatever the case, World War II remains one of the most documented of all wars, and therefore of most interest to historians.

"The World at War" (1973) is a dream come true for military history enthusiasts. Along with the 13-hour "Victory at Sea" series, which preceded it by 20 years, it's one of the premier actual-footage documentaries on the war, and the only one to attempt to chronicle the war in detail from start to finish. You couldn't have come up with a wish-list for better vintage footage or eyewitness accounts, or a more complete, chronological, in-depth (albeit capsulate) analysis of the war. The original 26 television episodes are included (roughly 20 hours of coverage) along with an additional 12 hours of extras celebrating this 30th anniversary release. When it first ran on television, "The World at War" won an International Emmy, The National Television Critics' Award for Best Documentary, and a George Polk Memorial Award for the Most Outstanding Documentary on American Television. It also earned a knighthood for its creator, Sir Jeremy Isaacs. Sir Laurence Olivier narrates, but the script itself isn't all that great of a dramatic opportunity. What's compelling are the powerful photographic images, the rare military, home movie, and newsreel footage, and the constant parade of witnesses, many of whom were as close to the action as it gets. We're talking about people like Hitler's secretary and interpreter, Rommel's chief of staff, a U-boat captain, and a concentration camp guard.

The series is mastered on 11 discs that are housed in separate clear, slender keep-cases with a description of the episodes on the back cover. All 11 discs are housed in a sturdy, glossy cardboard box sleeve, with four discs containing extras. Here's the rundown on discs and their contents:

Disc One (one bonus feature)
"A New Germany: 1933-1939"
"Distant War: September 1939-May 1940"
"France Falls: May-June 1940"
Bonus documentary: "The Making of the Series"

Disc Two
"Alone: May 1940-May 1941"
"Barbarossa: June-December 1941"
"Banzai!: Japan 1931-1942
"On Our Way: U.S.A. 1939-1942"

Disc Three
"The Desert: North Africa 1940-1943"
"Stalingrad: June 1942-February 1943"
"Wolf Pack: U-Boats in the Atlantic 1939-1944"
"Red Star: The Soviet Union 1941-1943"

Disc Four
"Whirlwind: Bombing Germany September 1939-April 1944"
"Tough Old Gut: Italy November 1942-June 1944"
"It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow: Burma 1942-1944"
"Home Fires: Britain 1940-1944"

Disc Five
"Inside the Reich: Germany 1940-1944"
"Morning: June-August 1944"
"Occupation: Holland 1940-1944"
"Pincers: August 1944-March 1945"

Disc Six
"Genocide: 1941-1945"
"Nemesis: Germany February-May 1945"
"Japan: 1941-1945"
"Pacific: February 1942-July 1945"

Disc Seven
"The Bomb: February-September 1945"
"Reckoning: 1945 . . . and After"
"Remember"

Disc Eight (bonus features)
"Hitler's Germany: The People's Community 1933-1939"
"Hitler's Germany: Total War 1939-1945"
"The Two Deaths of Adolf Hitler"

Disc Nine (bonus features)
"Secretary to Hitler"
"Warrior"
"From War to Peace"

Disc Ten (bonus features)
"The Final Solution Part 1"
"The Final Solution Part 2"

Disc Eleven (bonus features)
"Making the Series: A 30th Anniversary Retrospective"
"Experiences of War"

There isn't space to comment on all of the episodes, and I'm unable to single out the strongest ones. This series is the kind where you start watching an episode and then think to yourself that it's dragging a bit, when all of a sudden you realize that you're so engrossed that you're unwilling to hit that "skip" or "fast forward" button after all. The reason? You never know when a clip of amazing footage will suddenly appear, and hitting those buttons may take you past moments like home movie color footage of Hitler and his top aides shot at a Bavarian castle by his famous mistress, Eva Braun, or black and white footage of a cigar-chomping Churchill in pith helmet with spring in his step, springing a surprise visit on the British soldiers in Africa, or of Londoners huddled together in the Underground during the Battle of Britain, making the best of a bad situation. The strength of this series is that in addition to stock war footage, there's also more unique and obscure footage (though some of it's staged, obviously clipped from war propaganda films) of non-battle action, including such things as Mussolini on horseback reviewing the troops, Brits engaged in tank repairs, Nazi sailors inside U-Boats, British airman at a dance, experimental bombs failing miserably, and plenty of footage obtained from enemy Axis sources—such as P.O.W. footage and graphic film of the bombing of Hamburg and the resulting firestorm that reached temperatures of 100 degrees C.

And the images are tied to some pretty specific talking heads, not the usual "general expert" or professorial sort. Following images of the Hamburg firestorm, for example, viewers hear from the Hamburg fire marshal at the time, telling how 30,000 died in the raid and speculating that just one or two more raids like that would have demoralized the German people so much that it may have brought a quick end to the war. But we're told the Allies did not have the resources to stage another raid of that magnitude, and Germany got the time it needed to regroup. The eyewitness accounts, though the men speak slowly and deliberately at times, are a strength rather than a liability, as they can be with documentaries such as this. But the constant parade of eyewitnesses so close to the actual events make this series feel like an insider's look at the war. Other talking heads include the late actor Jimmy Stewart, who at the start of the war filmed "Winning Your Wings" for the war effort—a short go-for-glory recruitment film that was shown in movie theaters across America. But there are also plenty of interviews from the opposition, and that kind of balance makes "The World at War" not just television entertainment, but an original and important contribution to history.

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