• Director(s):

    PRIEUR (Jérôme)

  • Producer(s):

    ROCHE PRODUCTIONS, HISTOIRE TV

  • Territories:

    Worldwide (except France).

  • Production year:

    2020

  • Language(s):

    English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

This film, consisting entirely of archives, tells the daily lives of both German civilians and soldiers during the six years of WWII, from its start in September 1939 up to the months following the German surrender. A deep dive into the private lives of a people on their way to self-destruction.

April 1945. The allied bombings had turned Germany into ruins. The American and Soviet forces were concentrating on Berlin. Yet even when everything was already clearly lost, the Germans continued to fight for the Nazi regime to the bitter end. However, when the Second World War happened six years earlier, the idea of war was deeply unpopular amongst the German population.
 
How can such a tremendous shift in public opinion be explained? What did the Germans believe they were fighting for? Were they aware that they were leading a genocidal war? Why did the German people continue to fight to the death, despite the bombings, hardships and deprivation, convinced that they were fighting for their survival?
 
Based on The German War. A Nation Under Arms, 1939-45 - historian Nicholas Stargardt's groundbreaking book, the product of a Herculean research effort - this film, consisting entirely of archives, will tell the daily lives of both German civilians and soldiers during the six years the Second World War lasted, from its start in September 1939 up to the months following the German surrender.
 
Made out of all the letters, diaries and eyewitness accounts that were written and told by Germans from all walks of life, the film takes us into the lives of the men and women who lived through the tornado born out of their own violence. Soldiers writing to their fiancees or their families, World War I veterans, members of the Hitler Youth, persecuted Jews, anti-Nazis activists, priests and pastors, journalists, writers... The words they left behind reveal the personal thoughts of a people at war, lifting the veil on the mechanics of the Nazi regime.
 
This is a direct dive into the tsunami of World War II, when Nazism pushed its mortal logic to the extreme.

Best French Documentary Award 2021 SFCC